The Father of Thérèse, after the death of his wife, likewise made
his home in the delightful town which lies amid the beautiful
apple orchards of the valley of the Touques. Lisieux is deeply
interesting by reason of its fine old churches of St. Jacques and
St. Pierre, and its wonderful specimens of quaint houses, some of
which date from the twelfth century. In matters of faith it is
neither fervent nor hostile, and in 1877 its inhabitants little
thought that through their new citizen, Marie Françoise Thérèse
Martin, their town would be rendered immortal.

* * * * * *

"The cell at Lisieux reminds us of the cell of the Blessed Gabriel
at Isola. There is the same even tenor of way, the same
magnificant fidelity in little things, the same flames of divine
charity, consuming but concealed. Nazareth, with the simplicity of
its Child, and the calm abysmal love of Mary and Joseph--Nazareth,
adorable but imitable, gives the key to her spirit, and her
Autobiography does but repeat the lessons of the thirty hidden
years."[2]

And it repeats them with an unrivalled charm. "This master of
asceticism," writes a biographer[3] of St. Ignatius Loyola, "loved
the garden and loved the flowers. In the balcony of his study he
sat gazing on the stars: it was then Lainez heard him say: 'Oh,
how earth grows base to me when I look on Heaven!' . . . The like
imaginative strain, so scorned of our petty day, inhered in all
the lofty souls of that age. Even the Saints of our day speak a
less radiant language: and sanctity shows 'shorn of its rays'