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

---

1858

pg 331       of envying it.  It was poor in all ways, with a poverty to make 
             the heart bleed.  There was a flock of three hundred families, 
             dispersed, disunited, dissolute, with hardly a sentiment of 
             Catholicity remaining.
                  Fortunately F. Sorin was yet fresh from his beloved France, 
             rich in zeal and devotedness, and with a boundless confidence in 
             the protection of the Queen of heaven.  His most ardent desires 
             were gratified; he was at last a missioner, as he had so earnestly 
             longed to be; and what is still more, half of his mission was 
             composed of savages, and the other half of Catholics who could 
             almost be placed in the same category.  He set to work with all 
             his heart, and day and night were consecrated to his beloved 
             mission.
                  There was not a single church or chapel finished, except 
             amongst the Indians at Pokagan.  There the Rev. Mr. Deseille had 
             succeeded, ten years before, in building a log chapel.  Bertrand 
             also possessed a little chapel which was not finished, and in 
             Michigan City was a store to be transformed into a church.