solace and courage in the trials which beset him, and the grace to remain faithful to the superhuman obligations which he has voluntarily taken upon him; the nun draws from this wondrous devotion grace to persevere in the life of angelic purity which she has embraced in imitation of the Immaculate Virgin; the mother rises from the recitation of the chaplet with renewed strength to carry on her unselfish and even heroic life, it may be amidst suffering and poverty, on behalf of the tender children whom God has entrusted to her; the soldier on the battlefield communes with Mary on his beads, and knows full well that the Mother of God will bless and protect him in life and in death; in fact, we cannot mention any class of persons who do not receive the most abundant graces and the sweetest consolation from this heaven-sent devotion—
“Sweet, blessed beads! I would not part
With one of you for richest gem
That gleams in kingly diadem;
Ye know the history of my heart.
“For I have told you every grief
In all the days of twenty years.
And I have moistened you with tears.
And in your decades found relief.
[5]
