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

---

1857

pg 312       see that we were in the most serious danger from the approach of a 
             storm which none had foreseen.  Blessed forever therefore be the 
             hand that chastises to teach us, and that leads us to the gates of 
             death and calls us back to make us wiser.
                  The effects of the financial cirsis were felt in all the 
             houses of the community in the United States; but nowhere more 
             severely than in Philadelphia and Chicago.
                  The house that had been purchases for the Sisters in West 
             Philadelphia suited well in many respects, but in contracting for 
             a property of sixteen thousand dollars without even one penny to 
             meet this expense, there had been no thought of a crisis which was 
             to be more severe in Philadelphia than in any other city of the 
             Union.  The first payment of $2000, however, was made, but there 
             seems to be no other resource for the balance except the 
             inexhaustible treasury of Providence.
                  As to the house of Chicago, far from being able to pay the 
             third instalment ($1000), it was necessary to try to escape from a 
             contract which the Bishop of that city made impossible to keep,