So palpable was this impress of sanctity in his every-day-life, that
no one could come in contact with him without perceiving it and
feeling its inherent power. Such being the rare effulgence of Father
Vincent's sanctity as seen amid the dust and darkness of the world,
one can more readily realize the transcendent perfection and purity
of his soul as nurtured and revealed in his divine communing in his
own beloved cloister. No wonder, then, that when this admirable
servant of God, fall of days and merits, was called away to his
reward on the morning of New Year's Day, 1853, all felt that they had
one intercessor more in heaven. No wonder that miraculous cures
wrought through his mediation began soon to multiply. Nor was Father
Vincent's reputation for sanctity confined to Catholics. Even
Protestants not only acknowledged the heroism of his virtues, but
also sought to possess some earth from his grave, and one of them, J.
H., still living, was restored to health and usefulness by the
application of this relic to his diseased and disabled limbs.

The next Prior of Petit Clairvaux was the dauntless and holy Father
Francis, whose advanced age obliged him in 1858 to resign his office
into the hands of the sweet Father James, a native of Belgium, and a
religious eminently qualified for the position. Such was the success
of his administration that in 1876 the community was raised by Pius
IX of blessed memory to the dignity of an abbey--an abbey, which,
with its forty-one fervent religious, now wisely governed by the
worthy Abbot Dominic, presents an example of heroic abstinence,
mortification and prayer, well calculated to put the characteristic
dissipation, effeminacy and dissoluteness of the age to blush, and to
bring home to our minds that "the wisdom of this world is foolishness
with God." (I Co. 3,19).