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

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1855

pg 219            What caused us to carry the history of 1854 as far as the end 
             of April of this year cannot have escaped any one that followed 
             the sad history.  There was one whole which could hardly admit of 
             division; and as the long trials of the Hebrews in Egypt ended 
             only on the passage of the angel, so also this long series of 
             crosses and sufferings of all kinds extended over the family of 
             Holy Cross in America until the new Passover, the day for eating 
             the paschal lamb.  On that day there came a change almost 
             miraculous, a passage from the deepest sorrow to rejoicing; it 
             might almost be said, from death to life.
                  The purchase of the 185 acres from Rush secured to Notre Dame 
             advantages whose value the future alone will make known and 
             appreciated.  The health of the Congregation, the cultivation of 
             some thirty of the richest areas around the college, the monopoly 
             of the chalk and marl, a most valuable water privilege, and 
             finally a beautiful site for the Society of the Marianites, with 
             novitiate, academy, workshop, etc, with all desirable conveniences 
             and with hardly any drawbacks for the Congregation itself.  One of