were marvellously filthy in their habits; others, that they were prodigiously keen in their bargains; a third class, that the younger members were not so obdurate towards the gentler part of creation as they _might have been_; while the whole community round about, _una voce_, chimed in, and solemnly declared that men who neither might, could, would, or should speak, were a little worse than dumb brutes, and ought to be treated accordingly. However this may have been, it is pretty certain, as is usually the case with our dear fellow-creatures where they are permitted to know nothing at all about a particular matter, the good people, in the overflowings of worldly charity, imagined all manner of evil against the poor Trappist, and seemed to think they had a perfect right to violate his property and insult his person whenever they, in their wisdom and kind feeling, thought proper to do so. But this was soon at an end. In 1813 the monks disposed of their personal property, and leaving fever and ague to their persecutors, and the old mounds to their primitive solitude, forsook the country and sailed for France. {173} Though it is not easy to palliate the unceremonious welcome with which the unfortunate Trappist was favoured at the hand of our people, yet we can readily appreciate the feelings which prompted their ungenerous conduct. How strange, how exceedingly strange must it have seemed to behold these men, in the garb and guise of a distant land, uttering, when their lips broke the silence in which they were locked, the unknown syllables of a foreign tongue; professing an austere, an ancient, and remarkable faith; denying themselves, with the sternest severity, the simplest of Nature's bounties; how strange must it have seemed to behold these men establishing themselves in the depths of this Western wilderness, and, by a fortuitous concurrence of events, planting their altars and hearths upon the very tombs of a race whose fate is veiled in mystery, and practising their austerities at the forsaken temple of a forgotten worship! How strange to behold the devotees of a faith, the most artificial in its ceremonies among men, bowing themselves upon the high places reared up by the hands of those who worshipped the Great Spirit after the simplest form of Nature's adoration! For centuries this singular order of men had figured upon the iron page of history; their legends had shadowed with mystery the bright leaf of poetry and romance, and with them were associated many a wild vision of fancy. And here they were, mysterious as ever, with cowl, and crucifix, and shaven head, and the hairy "crown of thorns" encircling; ecclesiastics the most severe of all the orders of monarchism. How strange must it all {174} have seemed! and it is hardly to be wondered at, unpopular as such institutions undoubtedly were and ever have been in this blessed land of ours, that a feeling of intolerance, and suspicion, and prejudice should have existed. It