Would that all might taste this means of salvation! the dismal shades of voluntary death would soon cease to terrify our cities and rural districts. Yes, the short prayer, "O Mary! conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee!" made with faith, would, even amidst the violent agitation of a homicidal thought, banish the tempter; a simple glance at the medal of the Immaculate Mary would dissipate despair. "No one commits suicide under the eyes of a mother," said very truly, His Eminence, the Cardinal Archbishop of Rouen. And the same might be said of many other crimes of daily occurrence. Oh! you whose souls are cruelly afflicted night and day, virtuous wives, who shed burning tears over the irreligion of a tenderly-loved husband; sorrowful mothers, bitterly deploring the wanderings of a child reared in the bosom of an eminently Christian family, but drawn into the vortex of bad example; pious sisters, praying fervently and incessantly for the conversion of a brother, who once, like yourselves, enjoyed the sweet consolations of religion; Christian children, secretly bewailing the indifference of a father who seems to have lost, long since, the precious gift of Faith, console yourselves; a new hope is offered you, and it comes to you through the beneficent hands of Mary; offer, give the image of this tender Mother to the dear objects of your solicitude; the thought of this precious medal or a glance at it, will banish many a temptation, for we may say with truth of the soul as well as of the body, "no one commits suicide under the eyes of a mother." If they refuse your offer do not despair; Mary will find her way to these hardened hearts, and in spite of themselves, she will take them under her protection; imitate the pious ruse of many others, who in a like extremity, have stealthily slipped the precious medal under the pillow of the impenitent sick on the verge of death; imitate those mothers, those wives, those Christian daughters, who carefully concealed in the clothing of that child, that spouse, that father, the medal they had refused to wear, do this, and one day they will appreciate the pledge of your piety and tenderness. No, no, never does any one wear in vain, the medal of her to whom the Church applies these words of Scripture. "He who finds me, will find life, and will obtain salvation from the Lord."[17] [Footnote 17: Prov. viii.]