t day their venerable bishop informed them that Our Lady had
appeared to him and said that this house had been carried by angels from
Nazareth, and was the same in which she had lived; that the altar had
been erected by the apostles, and the statue sculptured in cedar wood
had been made by St. Luke. Three years afterwards it again disappeared,
its luminous journey being witnessed by some Italian shepherds.

Its present position is about a mile from the Adriatic, at Loretto, just
as the angels placed it six hundred years ago. Millions of pilgrims
visit it from all parts of the world."

For the aerial chapel of _Bonsecours_, a fac-simile has been obtained.
To render it more sacred it was placed for a period within the holy
house, it touched its walls, and was blessed with holy water in the
vessel from which our Lord drank. Such is the alleged history of this
shrine, and the peculiar sanctity attached to it.

The extensive convent buildings of the Grey Nuns and other sisterhoods
are as numerous as the churches. As the _matin_ bell falls on the ear in
the early morning hours, calling to prayers those who have chosen the
austerities and serenities of convent life, it recalls to memory the
noble band of ladies of the old aristocracy who left chateaux hoary with
the traditions of a chivalrous ancestry, and dear with the memories of
home, in the company of rough seamen to brave the untried perils of the
ocean, a hostile country, homesickness and death, to carry spiritual and
bodily healing to the savages. Their followers keep the same vigils now
among the sins and sorrows of the bustling city. They glide through the
streets with downcast eyes, in sombre robes, wimple and linen coif, bent
on missions of church service and errands of mercy, tending the sick
and suffering, and striving to win back human wrecks to a better life.

The various sisterhoods differ in degrees of austerity, the Grey Nuns
being one of the least exacting. Their Foundling Hospital, it is said,
had its origin in a most touching circumstance. One of the original
members of the Order, Madame d'Youville, on leaving the convent gates in
the middle of winter, found frozen in the ice of a little stream that
then flowed near what is called Foundling street, an infant with a
poignard in its heart. Since then tens of thousands of these small
outcasts have found sanctuary and tender care within the cloister walls.

The daughter of Ethan Allan, the founder of Vermon