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

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1854

pg 211       us pass!  Only some weeks before a bishop had departed from Notre 
             Dame enchanted, like ourselves, by the beautiful future awaiting 
             our little family, and he made public his favorable impressions of 
             our Society in the United States.  And behold us suddenly plunged 
             in darkness deeper than ever, in the very shadow of death.  We 
             were certainly like those destined to death.  Our enemies had 
             encompassed us on all sides, and there was no escape for us and 
             this at a time when we seemed to be entering on an era of success 
             and prosperity.
                  Happily, O my God! this state of affairs did not last long.
             Everybody had learned the lesson that there was no hope but in the 
             mercy of heaven, and that unless Providence intervened, the knell 
             of the mission of the Lake had sounded.  Prayers, sighs, and tears 
             were day and night appealing to the throne of mercy.  Heaven was 
             doubtless touched, and some rays of hope began to scatter the dark 
             clouds in which Notre Dame had been enveloped.
                  The very day after the funeral of the pious Brother John of 
             the Cross, the proprietor of the farm in question came of his own 
             accord to offer his land on terms that surprised us all so much as