touching interest in his condition, and his employees all came to see him. The throng around the dying man was renewed every quarter of an hour, and we recited the _Chaplet_ aloud, a most appropriate devotion for this occasion, the last moments of one whom the Blessed Virgin had snatched from eternal misery. Amidst this concert of praises to Mary, he expired. The Christian Brothers, to whom he had been very hostile, willingly aided us in rendering to him the last duties of religion." CHAPTER VII. PROGRESS OF THE DEVOTION TO MARY CROWNED BY THE DEFINITION OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION.--I. OUR LADY OF LA SALETTE.--II. THE CHILDREN OF MARY.--III. THE DEFINITION OF THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION. _I.--Our Lady of La Salette.--1846._ In her first manifestation to Sister Catherine, July 19, 1830, the Immaculate Virgin announced the disasters which threatened France; grief was depicted upon her countenance, tears stifled her voice, she earnestly recommended prayer to appease the wrath of God. Sixteen years later, this Mother of mercy, appearing to two little shepherd children upon one of the summits of the Alps, repeated, in a most solemn manner, the same warnings and the same counsels. The first apparition remains in obscurity, but a knowledge of the second has been spread throughout the world, and with most consoling results. The miracle of La Salette has greatly increased devotion to the Blessed Virgin, and given Christians a clearer idea of the important duties of penance and prayer, which, in reality, are the embodiment of all practical piety. We quote the best authenticated account of La Salette, that of the Abbé Rousselot, who himself received it from the mouths of the children. "Two peasant children, Mélanie Mathieu, aged fourteen years, and Maximin Giraud, aged eleven, both simple and ignorant, as might naturally be expected of their age and condition, were together upon the mountain of La Salette, which overlooks a village where they were at service under different masters. Their acquaintance was very slight, their first meeting having been only the day before the occurrence we are about to relate. When the _Angelus_ announced the hour of noon, they went to soak their hard bread in the water of a spring. After this rural repast, they descended a little farther, and laying down their crooks beside another spring, then dry, they seated themselves a slight distance apart, upon a few stones which had been piled up there, and went to sleep. "It was Saturday, September 19th, 1846, and eve of the day on which fell the Feast of Our Lady's Seven Dolors.