HOLY
404
HOLY
scriptions have been adopted by the authorities of the
congregation and form the normal practice of its mem-
bers. Once a month, there is a retreat of one day
with spiritual direction; and, once a year, a retreat
of a week's duration.
In the earlier decade of the congregation's history, its members were recruited principally from the ranks of the students attending the colleges and schools con- ducted by the fathers and brothers, with occasional vocations discovered in the course of missions, tri- duums, and retreats preached by members of the congregation. Later on, each province was supplied with a "little seminary", or house of preparatory studies, specifically designed for the education of boys or young men manifesting an inclination for the religious life. Holy Cross Seminary and Dujarid Institute at Notre Dame, Indiana, are examples of such establishments for the preliminary training of prospective fathers and brothers. The novitiate lasts two years. In so far as ecclesiastical recruits are concerned, they enter upon their novitiate only on the completion of their collegiate course and their attain- ment of the baccalaureate degree. Their secular studies are then intermitted until they have made their religious profession, when they begin a four years' course in theology and the other branches of ecclesiastical science proper to a regular seminary. Save by exception, becoming more and more rare, they do no professorial work until after their orflina- tion to the priesthood. Similar precautions are taken with the formation of the novice brothers prior to entrusting them with the function of teaching.
Mention must I)e ma.de of the mission in Algeria, which was one of the (,'ongregation's earliest estab- lishments. The work to be accomplished for the Church in the French possessions of Northern Africa, about the middle of the nineteenth century, included the huinljle but essential task of furnishing primary education to the young. During a third of a century, the brothers of the congregation devoted themselves to this work in different portions of Algeria with an ardour and success that won for them the afTection and esteem of the people, and the generous praise of their ecclesiastical superiors. These latter desired the permanent residence of one of the fathers in each of the houses confided to the congregation, but the home government repeatedly refused to sanction such a proceeding, alleging that " the Algerian budget did not provide for the additional expense". The bro- thers were obliged to leave the African mission, shortly after the close of the Franco-Prussian war, in conse- quence of the policy, even then inaugurated in some of France's colonies, of laicizing the schools. Regrettable as this abandonment of their colonial mission was felt to be, it was of minor importance when compared with the trial to which the congregation was subjected a quarter of a century later in the home country, France itself. The activities of Holy Cross in the land of its birth had, in the course of half a dozen decades, become practically restricted to educational work, primary and secondary. When the Law of Associa- tions was passed in 1901, the fathers and brothers were conducting a number of flourishing colleges, academies, and schools in different departments of France. The College of Notre Dame de Ste Croix, at Neuilly-sur-Seine, alone had an average attendance of from six to eight hundred students, and the ex- cellence of its courses was attested by the uniform success of its graduates in passing the governmental examinations for degrees. On the passage of the law in question, application was at once made to the French government for the "authorization" of the congregation; but, as had been feared and foreseen, the application was unsuccessful. Schools and colleges were closed, the buildings and properties were "liquidated", liquidation in this case meaning con- fiscation; and, in 1003, the French province of Holy
Cross had been reduced to a handful of aged and toil- .
worn brothers leading, with one of the fathers as their
chaplain, a precarious existence at Angers. Fortu-
nately the Religious of Holy Cross, when expelled from
France, had other provinces of their order in which
they could lead, though in exile, the eonimimity life
denied them at home. .Accordingly, numbers of
them went cheerfully to Bengal. Canada, and the
United States. The Province of Eastern Bengal, co-
extensive with the Diocese of Dacca, is the special
field of foreign missions confided by the Holy See to
the Congregation of Holy Cross. The field is a large
one, the area of the diocese being more than 50,000
square miles, with a population of 17,000,000, the over-
whelming majority of the people Ijeing Hindus and
Mussulmans. The connection of Holy Cross with this
portion of the missionary field dates back to 18.52,
some forty years before Dacca was made an episcopal
see. In 1009, Bengal received its fourth bishop from
the ranks of the congregation. In the city of Dacca
the fathers are devoting part of their time to the work
of secondary education; in the country districts, the
usual routine of foreign missionary life is followed:
travelling from point to point, catechizing, baptizing,
preaching, instructing converts, building modest
chapels, and serving on occasion as medical doctor,
judge, and peacemaker. The establishment by the
congregation, in Rome, of an Apostolic college spe-
cially designed for the needs of the mission gave, in
1000, bright promise for its future prosperity.
The Canadian province of the congregation owes its origin to the reiteratecl requests made to-Father Mo- reau by the saintly Bishop Bourget, of Montreal, in 1841 and the .several years following. The first band of fathers and brothers reached St. Laurent, near Montreal, in lS-17. The early years in Canada were marked by sacrifice and hardship, but the growth of the congregation was encouragingly steady. In the latter half of the nineteenth century, and the first de- cade of the twentieth, St. Laurent College was habit- ually attended by from two to four hundred students, many of them from the New England States and New York. Of these American students very many en- tereci the priesthood. In addition to the college, the parish, and the parochial schools at St. Lavirent, the congregation has, in the geographical province of Quebec, colleges at Cote des Neiges, Farnham, St. Cesaire, Sorel, and St. Aim6; large schools at Hoche- laga. Cote des Neiges, Ste. Genevic^ve, and Pointe Claire; a novitiate at Ste. Genevieve; and a house of studies for professed ecclesiastics attending Laval University in (}uel:iec city. The most notably effec- tive workof Holy Cross in Canada, however, has been accomplished in' New Brunswick, where St. Joseph's College, established at Memamcook in 1804, by Father Camille Lefebvre, has been the principal agency in raising the French Acadians from the condi- tion of " hewers of wood and drawers of water" to oiic of professional, industrial, and social equality with their fellow-citizens of other nationalities. English- speaking Catholics in New Brunswick are scarcely less indebted to St. Joseph's.
The oldest, most extensive, and most important existing province of the congregation is the United States. Its story is largely that of Notre Dame, Indi- ana, of which the other es'tablishments of Holy Cross throughout the province are offshoots. Such estab- lishments are colleges in Oregon, Wisconsin, Ohio, Louisiana, and Texas; schools, high and primary, in Fort Wayne (Indiana), Chicago (Illinois), and Austin (Texas), parishes in Chicago, Portland (Oregon), Watertown (Wisconsin), New Orleans (Louisiana), Austin (Texas), and South Bend (Indiana) ; and Holy Cross College, Washington, D. C, the house of studies for the young clerics of the congregation attending the Catholic University. As for Notre Dame, Indiana, widely known as the home of the "Ave Maria", Notre
