During our visit there, we were accompanied by two of the holy Maison Mere (Mother House) nuns to an iron vault, to gaze upon and venerate the fleshy heart of the Bishop Founder of the order, Monseigneur Ignase Bourget, which was there preserved in about two quarts of alcohol. We were told by the accompanying sisters that every year on Monseigneur Bourget's feast day, this heart turned to its natural blood-color. This Bishop was the Christ representative who said to the five foundress sisters who first came to the Northwest to build prison convents here: "Go, my daughters! Fear nothing--I send you in the name of the Sovereign Pontiff. Multiply yourselves to the greater glory of God." (Nov. 1st, 1856.) We also had the privilege and honor of joining in a novena prayer for the cure of a crippled girl. This novena was offered to Mother Gamelin, a sister foundress of the order, who had been dead since September 23d, 1851, and who was now working miracles which was a final test to prove she was worthy of canonization by the Mother Church. It being time for our annual retreat, we were obliged to listen to eight days of French preaching, confession, prayer and silence in the Mother House. A large portion of the city of Montreal is now in the hands of the Roman Catholic system--churches, convents, parochial schools or other Roman institutions facing the streets every few blocks. These portions of the city are inhabited by the French Canadians mostly, and as a general thing they have very large families and are poor, almost to a degree of poverty. The church bleeds them of their scanty earnings, then in the winter open soup houses in the name of Charity. One of the sisters at the Mother House told me that she had seen some of these people walk in their bare feet in the snow to some of these "charitable soup houses" to partake of the little bowl of soup that body and soul might be kept together. The children in these families are nearly all raised in the parochial schools and churches and know nothing but the Romish teaching and that is the reason there are so many French Canadian priests and sisters. The home and family life of the people are so closely related to monastic life that it cannot be called taking a step in life when the boys and girls enter the convent, it is just continuing from babyhood to the end of life in the drudgery of the nunneries. While at the Mother House, I was told that the French Canadian people were fast loosing their faith and becoming infidels, leading a life of worldliness and degradation. Who is to blame for this condition? Surely not the poor people who have been priest-ridden all these years. It is just the same story you hear of every country where Rome has had the control for any length of time.