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Title: The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois
Author: Anon.
Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6883]

[This file was first posted on February 6, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SISTER MARGARET BOURGEOIS ***

Produced by D. Garcia, Juliet Sutherland, Charles Franks,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.
This file was produced from images generously made available
by the Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions.

[Illustration: SISTER MARGARET BOURGEOIS
Foundress of the Congregation of Notre Dame
ESTABLISHED IN MONTREAL. CANADA. 1659.]

CONGREGATION OF NOTRE DAME.
_ESTABLISHED AT MONTREAL, CANADA, 1659_.
_TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH_
BY A RELIGIEUSE,

Having read a French edition of the Life of Venerable Sister Bourgeois,
published in 1818, the translator of the present work was so charmed by
its perusal that she resolved on rendering it into English for the
spiritual edification of others.

Many years ago the work of translation was commenced, but from some
preventing cause or other, was as often laid aside. Yet the idea of
presenting it to the public remained, as no _English_ Version of Sister
Bourgeois' life exists, at least in the United States.

Therefore determining at last to obey an impulse of long standing, the scattered translation sheets have been prepared for publication, with the humble hope that the reader may derive as much benefit from their perusal as did the writer.

In this age of miscellaneous and corrupt literature, when people of
every condition of life are literally devouring irreligious magazines
and serials, it surely cannot be amiss to add another volume to the
already rich store of our libraries in order to help roll back the
torrent of universal depravity that threatens the rain of our beloved
country, and also to place before the minds of the young, the glorious
example of one of God's heroines.

The _Second Centennial_ of Sister Bourgeois' advent to America is
already past, and more than a hundred years before the _Declaration of
Independence_, was she laboring in the cause of humanity for the glory
of God in the New World.

If reading the lives of such women as Mrs. Seton--a Protestant American
lady, who after her conversion to the Catholic Church in Italy so burned
with the love of God, as to return to her native land in her early
widowhood to form a flourishing religious sisterhood in New York; of
Nano Nagle, an Irish aristocrat, who turned from a useless fashionable
life to the lowly spirit of the gospel on seeing the poor artizans of

Paris crowding to early Mass in the Church of Notre Dame before
beginning their daily toil, while she lolled weariedly in her carriage
after a midnight ball; heroically putting her hand to the plough, she
never turned back, and left behind her another religious Sisterhood in
Ireland to perpetuate her philanthropic sanctity: of Catharine McAuley,
who receiving from her adopted Protestant parents a princely fortune,
expended every shilling of it in building up the Order of Mercy, one of
the latest and most flourishing outposts of the Church of God; of St.
Jane de Chantal, who after having been tried in the fire of affliction
for years--founded in her advanced widowhood the Order of the
Visitation, under the direction of St. Francis de Sales--and who
attained such an extraordinary degree of perfection as to be seen
ascending to heaven like a luminous meteor after her happy death.

If the perusal of the lives of these, and a host of other sainted women,
such as the Catholic Church alone can produce, has filled many a young
heart with high and holy aspirations--perhaps the contents of this
little volume will not be less efficacious for the glory of God, the
interests of religion, and the salvation of souls.

A literal translation has been adhered to as far as possible--one or two
remarks at the close being the only additions. So if any defects exist
in the work they belong solely to the translator, whose aim has not been
rhetorical composition, but the greater glory of God. And if but one
heart be won more closely to the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ by
its perusal, she will be amply repaid, and prays that the blessing of
the Sacred Heart of Jesus may be given to her humble effort to advance
His honor and glory.

CHAPTER I.
THE DISCOVERY OF CANADA AND COLONIZATION OF MONTREAL.
CHAPTER II.
MESSRS. DAUVERSIERE AND DE MAISONNEUVE VISIT MONTREAL
CHAPTER III.
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE HOTEL DIEU--ECCLESIASTICAL APPOINTMENTS

FOR CANADA, ETC.
CHAPTER IV.
EARLY YEARS OF MARGARET BOURGEOIS AND HER VOCATION FOR THE