Canada -- History -- To 1763 (New France); Laval, François de, 1623-1708
of October, 1705," relate the annals of the Ursulines, "the priests of
the seminary were afflicted by a second fire through the fault of a
carpenter who was preparing some boards in one end of the new building.
While smoking he let fall in a room full of shavings some sparks from
his pipe. The fire being kindled, it consumed in less than an hour all
the upper storeys. Only those which were vaulted were preserved. The
priests estimate that they have lost more in this second fire than in
the first. They are lodged below, waiting till Providence furnishes them
with the means to restore their building. The Jesuit Fathers have acted
this time with the same charity and cordiality as on the former
occasion. Mgr. L'Ancien[10] and M. Petit have lived nearly two months in
their infirmary. This rest has been very profitable to Monseigneur, for
he has come forth from it quite rejuvenated. May the Lord grant that he
be preserved a long time yet for the glory of God and the good of
Canada!"
When Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem to raise it from its ruins, a great
grief seized upon him at the sight of the roofs destroyed, the broken
doors, the shattered ramparts of the city of David. In the middle of
the night he made the circuit of these ruins, and on the morrow he
sought the magistrates and said to them: "You see the distress that we
are in? Come, and let us build up the wall of Jerusalem." The same
feelings no doubt oppressed the soul of the octogenarian prelate when he
saw the walls cracked and blackened, the heaps of ruins, sole remnants
of his beloved house. But like Nehemiah he had the support of a great
King, and the confidence of succeeding. He set to work at once, and
found in the generosity of his flock the means to raise the seminary
from its ruins. While he found provisional lodgings for his seminarists,
he himself took up quarters in a part of the seminary which had been
spared by the flames; he arranged, adjoining his room, a little oratory
where he kept the Holy Sacrament, and celebrated mass. There he passed
his last days and gave up his fair soul to God.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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