Whence comes this change? and what the date of so consoling a resurrection? Beyond a doubt, it owes its origin to God's infinite bounty--but the instrument, can it be ignored or contemned? Is it not the Blessed Virgin Mary? Has not her mediation been visible for forty years? Yes; it is Mary who has wrought this astonishing transformation, and through the medal styled miraculous has this series of wonders been inaugurated. In 1830, does Mary for the first time, after an interval of a century and a half, manifest her desire of a reconciliation with earth. It is the first sign of pardon she accords man, after her long silence. It is the announcement of a new era which is about to commence. * * * * * The apparition of November 27th, in the chapel of the Mother House of the Daughters of Charity, Paris, appears, at first, to be of little importance, yet it was destined to have an immense bearing upon the future and its consequences were to be incalculable. Like a stream whose source is concealed at the foot of a mountain, but which receives as it advances numberless tributaries, and finally becomes a majestic river, fertilizing the provinces and kingdoms through which it flows; so the vision of the medal has been the initiatory step in a religious movement, which, to-day, extends throughout the world, sitting in justice upon old errors, superannuated prejudices; systems inimical to truth, and fully revealing the true Church and true sanctity, rendering to Mary Immaculate, Mother of God and Mother of men, such tributes of veneration, love and devotion, as she has never received since the preaching of the Gospel. The reader is already acquainted with Sister Catherine, the humble daughter whom Mary deigned to select for her confidante. The following chapter gives a detailed account of the apparitions. We have said that this event was the dawn of a new era, the signal of renewed devotion to Mary throughout the world. It seemed as if this tender Mother wished, by lavishing extraordinary graces upon her children, to make them forget the severity with which she had punished their offences. A rapid glance at the development of devotion to Mary, during half a century, will suffice to show the truth of this affirmation. The medal, scarcely struck, is circulated by millions; it immediately becomes the instrument of so many cures and conversions, that it is universally styled the Miraculous Medal, a name which clung to it, and which is justified by the constant working of new miracles, as the second part of this book will show. But this medal was destined not only to work miracles, it had an object still higher, it had a dogmatical signification, it was to popularize the belief in the Immaculate Conception of Mary.