him at every turn of the shortness of life and the tremendous rigor
of judgment. The time-table for summer varies in some minor practices
and observances, while, according to that of Sundays and holidays,
those religious in the latter case rise at midnight, and in the
former at 1 a. m., and busy themselves till 7 o'clock, p. m. during
winter, and 8 o'clock during summer in the praises of the Lord.

James Merle was born at Lyons, France, the 29th October, 1768. His
father was a much respected physician in that city. On the 7th of
April, 1798, while the godless Revolution was carrying resistless
devastation over the country, he privately received the holy order of
priesthood at the hands of Mgr. C. F. D. Dubois de Sanzay, Archbishop
of Vienne, and seven years afterwards he entered the Trappist Order,
taking the name of Father Vincent de Paul, by which he has always
since been known.

In his memoir Father Vincent speaks of having bought a large tract
of land near the sea in Nova Scotia, and of having built a house
thereon. This was in Tracadie, where he resided for some years
previous to his return to France in 1823. In 1824 he came again to
Tracadie with another worthy priest of his Order, Father Francis, a
native of Freiburg, together with three lay brothers, and the house
above referred to became thenceforth the monastery of Petit
Clairvaux. A few years later three other lay brothers were admitted,
two of them from Halifax, and one from the United States.

Until the Rev. John Quinn was appointed parish priest of Tracadie,
(1837) Father Vincent had pastoral charge of the three missions of
Tracadie, Havre au Boucher, and Pomquet, and the old people of the
place still recount his innumerable acts of extraordinary zeal and