A young Protestant girl about twenty years of age came to the hospital, covered from head to foot with a disgusting itch, which the physician pronounced incurable. The Sister who dressed her sores, told her that the Blessed Virgin could obtain her recovery, and would do so, if she wore the medal and relied upon the Blessed Virgin's intercession. The poor girl knowing her case was deemed hopeless by the physician, answered bluntly: "I do not believe in your Blessed Virgin, and I want no medal." "Very well," replied the Sister, "then you may keep your sores." A few days after she asked for a medal herself, put it on her neck, received instruction and was baptized, and in a short time she left the hospital perfectly cured, greatly to the astonishment of the physicians, who had all pronounced her malady incurable.
An artist whose life had been far from edifying, was an inmate of our hospital. One morning the Sister was greatly surprised at his expressing a desire to confess. Perceiving her astonishment, he said: "This morning, Sister, the chapel door was slightly open, and from my bed I could see the Blessed Virgin's statue." (It was that of the Immaculate Conception.) "It appealed so strongly to my heart, that I have had no peace since. I must put my conscience in order." He did go to confession, not once, but several times, and he often expressed great regret for his past life. "Ah!" he would say, "what a life I have led, and how sad the state of my soul when Mary came to my aid." When asked what he supposed had attracted Mary's compassion, he answered: "I was merely looking at the statue, no thought of religion was in my mind; when suddenly, recollections of my past life filled me with fear, and Mary at the same time inspired me with a horror for sin." In this instance, repentance and reparation were the immediate consequences of the Immaculate Mary's merciful and maternal glance.
A Greek schismatic, attacked by a mortal malady, was brought to the hospital. He declared his intention of remaining attached to the errors in which he had been educated, and the Sisters, seeing his determination, entrusted him to the Blessed Virgin, consecrating him to her by placing under his pillow a medal, which for him proved truly miraculous. One day, a Franciscan Father visited the sick, and the young man asked the Sister to bring the good Father to see him. He conversed a long time with the latter, but manifested no intention of becoming a Catholic. Meanwhile, he grew worse, and, one day, when taken with a hemorrhage, he asked for this Father, "because," said he, "I wish to embrace the Catholic religion." The Sister was surprised, for she had said nothing to persuade him, but the Blessed Virgin had accomplished her work without earthly assistance. He confessed and made his abjuration; he even requested the Reverend Father to announce, in a loud voice, to the other patients that he entered the Church of his own free will. His attacks of vomiting made the priest hesitate to give him the Holy Viaticum, but he insisted so strongly, and had so ardent a desire to receive, that the good God permitted these spells of vomiting to become less frequent, so that he could make his first and last Communion at the same time, which he did with inexpressible fervor and consolation. Interrogated on the subject of his conversion, he answered: "For a long time I felt that everything earthly was of little value, and I sought for the true and lasting." During the delirium of his last moments, he spoke continually of a white robe. The grace of Baptism had clothed his soul in spotless raiment, and to Mary's intercession was he indebted for it.
