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

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1858

pg 332            Nothing was therefore done, and, what is worse, there was 
             nothing to be done for the present, considering the small number 
             of Catholics at each settlement, and the scarcity of money amongst 
             them.  The only thing to do was to visit, as often as possible, 
             those poor fragments of Catholicity, to gather them together in 
             some private house, and to try to save them from entire shipwreck 
             of the faith.
                  It need hardly be stated that the care of such a mission took 
             up all the attention of the poor missioner of South Bend for the 
             first year.  He was almost always travelling, either on his 
             regular rounds or to visit the sick and the dying.
                  He knew very well that this community was suffering from this 
             divided attention, or rather that attention of the community had 
             to be indefinitely postponed until he should receive some 
             assistance; for, since neither the Bishop of Vincennes nor of 
             Detroit could do better for those poor missions and they had 
             charged him with them, it was his first duty to watch over them.