We next visited the asylums, admiring the clean, airy rooms, the intelligent, happy faces of the orphans, and the graceful cordiality of the sister who was at the head of the establishment--a lady of fortune who has devoted her all to the work.
At length we came to the cottage--the door of the true hero to which our path had led. The broad, one-story house in which S. Vincent was born is now a mere skeleton within, the framework of the partitions alone remaining, so one can take in the whole at a glance. There is the kitchen, with the huge, old-fashioned chimney, around which the family used to gather--so enormous that in looking up one sees a vast extent of blue sky. Saint’s house though it was, we could not help thinking--Heaven forgive us the profane thought!--it must have been very much like the squire’s chimney in _Tylney Hall_, the draught of which, like the Polish game of draughts, was apt to take backwards and discharge all the smoke into his sitting-room! The second room at the left, where the saint was born, is an oratory containing an altar, the crucifix he used to pray before, some of the garments he wore, shoes broad and much-enduring as his own nature, and many other precious relics. Not only this, but every room has an altar. We counted seven, all of the simplest construction, for the convenience of the pilgrims who come here with their _curés_ at certain seasons of the year to honor their sainted countryman who in his youth here led a simple, laborious life like themselves. We found several persons at prayer in the various compartments, all of which showed the primitive habits and limited resources of the family, though not absolute poverty. The floor was of earth, the walls and great rafters only polished with time and the kisses of the pilgrims, and above the rude stairway, a mere loft where perchance the saint slept in his boyhood. Everything in this cottage, where a great heart was cradled, was from its very simplicity extremely touching. It seemed the very place to meditate on the mysterious ways of divine Providence--mysterious as the wind that bloweth where it listeth--the very place to chant the _Suscitans à terrâ inopem: et de stercore erigens pauperem; ut collocet eum cum principibus, cum principibus populi sui_.