whose virtues he extolled, and whose honor he defended, the Christian chevalier beheld a tracing in outline, a faint and shadowy copy, of the Lady par excellence, the incomparable sovereign of his heart's veneration-Mary, the Queen of Heaven. Nor was his prowess less mighty, his achievements less noble, nor his fame less assured, when, as frequently happened, he proffered to this heavenly Mistress the full and undivided homage of his heart-giving of his love to no earthly maiden, and wearing no colors save the Virgin's own.

Such a Knight of Mary, valiant, courteous, gentle-ever sensitive as to his Lady's honor, unwearied throughout a lengthy life in voicing her praises, and successful beyond most of his contemporaries in promoting her glory-was the veteran ecclesiastic whose devotion to the Blessed Virgin these lines are meant, lovingly if inadequately, to record-Father Edward Sorin, late Superior General of the Congregation of Holy Cross, and founder of Notre Dame University. Were any apology needed for the inclusion of such a biographical sketch in this volume, it would be found in the recent celebration of Notre Dame's Diamond Jubilee, and in the consideration-especially interesting in these days when the loyalty of citizens of alien birth is more or less generally suspectedthat this European cleric ceased to be European from the moment he landed in the United States, and for a full half century thereafter showed himself, in fullest faith and patriotic love, in eloquent word and convincing deed, American of the Americans.

Born in France, a country which through all the vicissitudes of an eventful history has ever seemed to enjoy the predilection of Mary—a land where every province is dotted with her shrines, and where for upwards of a thousand years the echoes of her pilgrims' canticles have never ceased resounding Edward Sorin imbibed at his mother's knee, in the Christian school which was the scene of his boyish studies, and in the very atmosphere of his native village, Ahuillé, an especially tender love for the Mother of God, together with an utter and absolute confidence in her protecting care. In him this love and confidence, happily not uncommon in the innocent and ingenuous hearts of the young, survived undimmed the dangerous period of adolescence; grew broader, deeper, and more firm in the busy years of youthful manhood; glowed with an ever-increasing intensity throughout a maturity of arduous labor and incessant sacrifice; and still formed the distinguishing trait of his inner life when, crowned with the halo of fourscore fruitful years, he told his beads on his bed of death, and joyed in the thought of speedily greeting at long last-his Mother.

His Mother! That phrase tells the whole story of Father Sorin's devotion to the Blessed Virginof the wealth of love he lavished upon her, the jealous care with which he guarded her interests, the magnificent enterprises which he undertook in her name and carried out to a successful issue for her greater glory. She was ever and always, in very truth, his Mother-one to whom at every stage of his earthly pilgrimage he looked for loving sym

pathy; to whom he confided all his trials, cares, griefs, and woes with the certain assurance of consequent solace; and whom on the other hand he never failed to associate with his joys, successes, and triumphs. In his eyes Mary was not only the Immaculate Virgin, incomparable in grace and dignity among all created beings; the Mother of the Incarnate Word, and as such to be reverenced with a worship inferior only to that accorded to God Himself; the Queen by a thousand valid titles of men and angels, and therefore worthy of all loyal homage: she was, moreover, his own real Mother who regarded him as a darling son, to be loved and cared for, and soothed and comforted and protected with a tenderness undreamt of by the fondest maternal heart that has ever throbbed on earth since Mary's exile ended on the day of her glorious Assumption.

In this view of the reciprocal relations between the Blessed Virgin and himself, the subject of our sketch was practically as childlike in his eightieth year as in his eighth. Neither physical development, nor intellectual growth, nor the ceaseless activities of missionary and official life, availed to modify in the slightest degree his deep-rooted convictions as to the significance of Our Lady's maternity, and the import of the duties, obligations, rights, and privileges implied in that sweet title applicable to every individual of the Church's millions, "child of Mary." The voice which, clear and strong, was wont in 1820 to repeat "Je vous salue, Marie," before the Virgin's altar in the modest chapel of Ahuillé, had grown low and feeble seven

decades later as it murmured, "Hail Mary, full of grace," in the cathedral-like church at Notre Dame; but the greeting had lost nothing of its simplicity or its candor, and the heart of the aged patriarch proffered to his heavenly Mother a love as fresh and ardent as ever thrilled that of the innocent child.

From boyhood to manhood, from manhood to old age, in brief, Edward Sorin took our Lord at His word. "Son, behold thy Mother," was to him not a mere directive counsel given to St. John, nor yet a sweet privilege restricted to that Beloved Disciple; but a statement of fact that intimately concerned himself personally, and a truth which ought materially to affect the whole course of his private life and public conduct. That he never had reason to question the correctness of this view, or regret the boundless confidence in the Blessed Virgin which it naturally engendered, needs scarcely to be stated. His career in the United States furnishes overwhelming proofs (were any such necessary to confirm a doctrine universal among Catholics) that Our Lady never fails to justify the wisdom of those who confide in her power and goodness, nor ever allows herself to be outdone in generosity.

The outlines of that career, coincident with the history of Notre Dame's humble foundation, rapid growth, and marvelous development, have been too recently sketched in the columns of the American Catholic press to need extended recapitulation here. And yet, as illustrating the filial reliance of Father Sorin on the protecting care of

the Mother whom he loved so tenderly, and as emphasizing the congruousness of unlimited trust in the Blessed Virgin on the part of every priest of God in the United States or elsewhere, the story of Notre Dame can scarcely be told too often. There is no member of the American clergy especially, from the humblest rural curate to the ranking cardinal in our country's hierarchy, who may not draw from its perusal abundant store of inspiration and hope and courage for his individual labors in the vineyard of the Lord. It is emphatically a tale of deeds performed by men of faith; an account of herculean labors undertaken with an eye single to the glory of God and His gracious Mother; a record of zeal rewarded, of sacrifices blest, of supernatural love triumphant over every obstacle.

Three-quarters of a century ago, when Father Sorin, a poor young foreign missionary priest, and half a dozen poor foreign missionary Brothers settled upon an uncultivated tract of forest land with naught but a little rude log-cabin to distinguish it from the merest sylvan wilderness, confidence in the Mother of God, supplemented by their individual labors, was the only capital they had to invest in the arduous enterprise of founding in that Western country a shrine of religious education. No princely endowment of a million dollars, or a hundred thousand, or a tithe thereof, came to accelerate their material prosperity; yet never did dollars and cents invested in a business venture yield such magnificent results as have sprung from their steadfast reliance on Our Lady's aid and their con