Chronicles of Notre Dame du Lac
Edward Sorin, CSC -- Translated by John M. Toohey, CSC, 1895

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1842-1843

pg 38        and sarcastic remarks against Catholicity.  There was hardly a 
             single Catholic in all the country able to defend his faith 
             against these insults, and the conduct of many often served as 
             foundations and proofs of the blasphemies of the malicious and 
             the ignorant.  All the surroundings were strongly Protestant, 
             that is to say, enemies more or less embittered against the 
             Catholics.
                  At Mishawaka as well as at South Bend and Niles, there were 
             three or four sectarian churches.  As soon as the arrival of our 
             new missionaries and their object became known, one might have 
             said that a cry of alarm was uttered, and all those pulpits of 
             falsehood resounded every Sunday with the most heated invectives 
             against the twelve Popish priests and the twenty monks of the 
             Lake--passion thus multiplying their numbers in order more 
             effectually to put everybody on his guard.  Moreover, it was 
             added that the Pope of Rome had already sent F. Sorin $90,000.00 
             and that he would send another $10,000.00 to make the even 
             number.  A little later, when the walls of the college began to 
             appear, people seemed to take a delight in saying that we might 
             go ahead with our college, but as soon as it was completed they 
             would burn it.