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 CISTERCIANS

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CISTERCIANS

iory of the Lake of the Two Mountains. At the same time the provincial Government of Quebec promised to encourage the foundation and to come to its aid. On his return to France the Rev. Father AliUit s'^iit to Canada four of his religious, so thai the infant colony comprised live members, including liis companion who remained. Father William was the superior. They installed themselves for the time as well as they could in a little wooden house that belonged to the Mill of the Bay, as it was called, in the territory of Oka. This temporary installation lasted until the month of September. The religious then took possession of a monastery which, without being a permanent abode, gave them room enough for faithfully carrying out the Cistercian observances and receiving new recruits. This first monastery was blessed, 8 September, 1881. It has since been transformed into an agricultural school.

The grain of mustard seed promised to become a great tnc. Xovices presented themselves, and at the same time the grounds, until then uncultivated, ro\ ered with brush and forests and filled with rocks, were cleared and tilled. After this a permanent monastery was planned. In the autumn of 1889, thanks to a generous benefactor, M. Devine, work was commenced upon it. In the month of May, 1890, the corner-stone was laid, and on the 28th of August, 1891, Mgr. Fabre solemnly blessed the first two wings which had been completed. This same day, by a decree of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, the priory of Our Lady of the Lake was erected into an abbey. On the 26th of March the community chose as abbot the Very Rev. Father Anthony '( iger, who, on the 29th of the following June, received the abbatial blessing from the hands of Mgr. Fabre in the cathedral of Montreal. Finally, in 1897, by the aid of a benefactor as modest as he generous, M. Rousseau, priest of St. Sulpice, the monastery and the abbatial church were entirely completed, and on the 7th of November Archbishop Bruchesi solemnly consecrated the church. Thence- forth the monks could give themselves fully to their lives of labour and prayer, without fearing any incon- venience in the fulfilment of their regular exercises. But on the 2.'id of July, 1902, a fire destroyed the monastery, and the community was obliged to take shelter in the agricultural school. While waiting for sufficient means to rebuild their monastery, tin' monks constructed a temporary wooden shelter, and on Holy Thursday, 1903, were able to leave the school. The aid rendered by the different houses of the order and the traditional generosity of the Canadian people and the people of the United States, without distinction of creed, soon enabled them to commence the building of a new monastery upon the site of the former, ami on the 21st of August, 1906, Mgr. Bruchesi, Archbishop of Montreal, surrounded by several archbishops and bishops, consecrated the abbatial church.

The Abbey of Our Lady of the Lake had in 1908, according to statistics, 120 inmates, including the oblates. This name is given to boys of eleven to fifteen years who are entrusted to the monks by their parents to be brought up according to the Rule of St. Benedict. bo that later, if the superiors judge them to be called to the religious life, they may become monks. The rule is mitigated for them in consideration of their tender age. This is a revival of the monastic- school of the Middle Ages and of the first centuries of religious life. The principal industries of Our Lady of the Lake are the manufacture of cheese and of a medicinal wine. The monastery possesses also an important creamery for the manufacture of butter. But that which contributes most of all to the renown of La Trappe of Oka is its agricultural school. In this matter the Reformed Cistercians (Trappi Our Lady of the Lake follow the glorious traditions of their ancestors. From their very installation in

the country, their skill in deriving profit from lands previously sterile was noticed by the farmers of the neighbourhood. Bersons of every age and condition asked to be permitted to work with them, so as to leant their methods. This was the beginning of the agricultural school which the Government was in a short time to recognize officially, and which, reorgan- ized since the burning of the former monastery, gives instruction in agricultural science every year to 80 or 100 students. To-day the building devoted to this school is a large modern construction delightfully situated in a picturesque location, and commands a beautiful view of the Lake of the Two Mountains. This agricultural school has been affiliated with the University of Laval.

Monastery of Lake St. John. — For a long time the Honourable Honored Mercier, Prime Minister of the Province of Quebec, bad, at the request of the coloni- zation agent of the province, been earnestly entreat- ing the Abbot of Bellefontaine and Dom Anthony of Our Lady of the Lake to send some religious into the country of Lake St. John, recently opened to colonization. He had offered to the Trappist Fathers 6000 acres of land and a considerable sum of money. In the year 1891 he charged the Rev. Th. Greg. Rou- leau, principal of the Laval Normal School, who ac- companied Mgr. Begin on his visit ad limina, to urge this request of the Government upon the Abbot of Bellefontaine. When the abbot, with the necessary authorization from his order, arrived in Quebec to set- tle the matter, M. de Boucherville had succeeded M. Mercier as prime minister. M. Pelletier, Secretary of the Province, and the Honourable Louis Beaubien, Minister of Agriculture, were exceedingly happy to continue the work of the preceding ministry. They favoured with all their power the establishment of the Trappists at Lake St. John. Mgr. Labreeque, who had succeeded Mgr. Begin in the See of Chicoutimi, made the foundation the particular object of his per- sonal care and attention. In 1892 Dom Anthony sent a little colony to Lake St. John. Thus was founded the prosperous and beneficent monastery of Our Lady of Mistassini at Lake St. John in the Diocese of Chi- coutimi. In January, 1906, it was erected into a priory, and the Rev. Dom Pacomius Gaboury was elected prior. The monastery in 1907 had twenty inmates.

.1/ unastery of Our Lady of the Prairies, Manitoba. — Archbishop Tache of St. Boniface had long desired to enrich his diocese with an institution of this kind. I le wrote about it several times to the Abbot of Belle- fontaine, and in the spring of 1892 the latter came to an understanding with the archbishop, and his co- labourer, M. Ritchot, pastor of St. Norbert. The prelates gave the Rev. Father Abbot 1.500 acres of good land in the parish of St. Norbert, and imme- diately sent thither a little colony under the direction of Father Louis de Bourmont. The work of construc- tion was carried on with vigour and rapidity, and on the 18th of October in the same year, Archbishop Tache' blessed the monastery' and named it Our Lady of the Prairies. St. Norbert is situated on the west bank of the Red River, about nine miles south of Win- nipeg, the great metropolis of Western Canada. It is exclusively an agricultural colonv, and farming is carried on there on an extensive scale by means of the latest improved machinery. In 1893 the harvest was remunerative. In 1897 there were more than five hundred acres of first-class land under cultivation. The monastery of Our Lady of the Prairies had forty inmates in the year 1908. By this date a new build- ing had been erected.

Monastery of Our Ixidy of the Valley, Lonsdale, Rhode Island, V. S. — This monastery is no other than the former Little Clairvaux transferred. After the disastrous events which made it impossible for the community of Little Clairvaux to continue its work