"C SAX INTRANTIBUS;"-
    j' '"Peace to all who enter."
             These are the words,
           written in white letters
above the gate of the porter's lodge,
which greet the eye of the visitor to
the Abbey of Gethsemani.
  On the 26th of October, i848, a band
of monks of the Order of Our Lady of
La Trappe, left the Abbey of Melleray,
near Nantes, on the Lower Loire,
France, and turned their faces towards
the new world. This band was coin-
posed of forty religious, sixteen choir
fathers, and twenty-four lay brothers.
The crowded condition of the French
Abbey necessitated this movement, for
room was so scarce that postulants
could not be received. On May 26th
of the same year, Rev. Father D.
Maxime, Abbot of Melleray, had com-
missioned two of his
flock to go to the
United States for the
 purpose of selecting
'a site for a new mon-
astery. With the as-
sistance of Mgr.
Flaget, then Bishop
of Louisville, these
men contracted for
,i ,zoo acres of land
belonging to the Sis-
ters of Loretto, in
Nelson County, the
price paild being
20,000     francs
(5,0oo).



  Father Maria Eutropius, Prior of
the Abbey of Melleray, was given
charge over the bandl of pioneers. A
detailed account of their eventful jour-
ney wolul make a small volume. They
set sail from Havre on the second day
of November, i848,and arrived in New
Orleans on the sixteenth of December.
Proceeding by steamboat, they came
to Louisville ten days later, and the
fifty miles which yet lay before them
were accomplished in three dray
wagons. When their new home was
reached, they found nothing but a few
cabins gathered together on the de-
clivity of a hill. These they occupied
with grateful hearts, and Gethseniani
was founded.
  The growth of the order in America
was steady and rapid. One by one the
old buildings were torn down and re-



THE CIIAI'I'ER ROOM.



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