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We shall see how the growth of the mustard seed will be a marvel until the end of time.

The constitutions and rules adopted by the infant Community were received from the Sisters of tbe Holy Names in France, The rules were revised and modified to meet the requirements of the new «isterhood ; the habit and name were also imported from France, with the approval and benediction of the Ordinary of Montreal diocese,

The Community’s life-work was now connnenced, In retrospection we see those three weak women, vessels of election, praying, toiling and suffering ; à small house, the boarding school, meagre fare for the pupils ; the economy of necessity oftentimes making the community dinner little more than herbs seasoned with divine love,

Ah! what à le Deum resounded throughout the poor and primitive chapel when two other novices made their vows : their naines in religion were Sister Theresa of Jesus and Sister Veronica of the Crucifix.

In the first decade of its existence, the Community met with a severe loss in the death of Mother Mary-Rose ; but it pleased God that the noble work she inaugurated should go on, winning new friends, new sisters, and new missions.

Laborers were called for at home, in our sister Provinces, and in the United States, On the banks of the St, Lawrence, and of the Detroit ; from the beautiful Hudson to where the waters of the Red River mingle with the Assiniboine ; from Lake Huron to the Golden Gate of the Pacific ; from the Keys of Florida to Oregon and the new State of Washington, academies are founded,

parochial schools are taught, provinces of the Community, with parent and minor houses are permanently established, In Quebec, not only at Longueuil and Belæil, but at St. Lin, St. Hilaire, St.

Timothy, Beauharnois, Verchères, and St. Roch, as well as the important historical event of removal of the Mother House from Longueuil to Hochelaga in 1860. This change was largely due to the munificence of the late Mr. Simon Valois who donated a chapel and a superb site for an academy and novitiate.

Ontario, Oregon, Washington and California, Florida and New York, Michigan and Manitoba have representatives here to-day. Yes, forty-seven houses are represented ; seven hundred and twenty-seven professed nuns and seventy-two novices. We may pause and murmur, ‘‘Requiescant in pace,”? with a benediction on their memory, for one hundred and ninety-two pure souls gone to the eternal sunshine of God’s presence.

The work of education to which the Sisters devote their lives is divided into three departements : the academy with its rudimentary and superior education ; the select school on the same lines, in school hours as the boarding-school ; the parochial school, where a broad field and varied conditions exact ability and experience from the teacher.

As the Community is the product of the country and of the age,

it is not cloistered ; it is equipped for modern competition and posses teachers with trained minds, enriched by travel, or familiar association with contemporary important events.

On entering the novitiate, the candidate for religions life commences à practical course of intellectual developement, under the guidance of teachers ; hours of study, readingand recitations are part of her daily rsutine ; her particular talent is cultivated with great care, to perfect it, as her Weapon in the battle of life.

‘The lamp of genius though by nature lit, ‘# If not protected, pruned and fed with care, ‘ Soon dies or runs to waste with fitful glare.”?

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