INTRODUCTION.



   A word is asked of me to serve as a prelude to the story
beautiful which follows. This should be an easy task; for,
as a prelude introducing a song that is to be sung adopts
from the song itself its spirit and its motif, so in our case it
will be only necessary to point the way to "Old Kentucky,"
and tell you that there one hundred years ago the order of
the Sisters of Loretto was founded.
  There, by the running brooks, amid forest trees, with the
cedars and the stars as sentinels of their vigils, they set
up the symbol of sacrifice, rude and crude as became the
frontier; but, for those who stood beneath it, henceforth
the Holy Rood. There was formed the Society of the
"Sisters of Loretto at the Foot of the Cross."
  These were pioneer days: not as yet, though Boone had
blazed the way westward, had the fires died by the wig-
wams of the savage: not as yet were hushed the wild voices
of the forest. The log cabin was the castle where lived
the hunter's wife, while the master himself went forth to
the freedom of the forest and the limitless savannah.
  And yet the scene and times were not without their in-
spiration. It was typically American, with the flavor of
the frontier. They who came together there to chant their
Song of Faith, to form with God's benediction the first
American Sisterhood, had undoubtedly all that splendid en-
thusiasm, that self-sacrifice, that high resolve, which the
faith at the frontier is sure to inspire in noble souls. There
were united the pure Catholic strain with the generous
American spirit, which has ever since distinguished the
Order of Loretto. We of the West know what this Amer-
ican Catholicity means; we know that it stands for hatred
of sham, purity of heart, gentleness of manners, loyalty to
Church, consecration of life.
                           V