The flourishing village of Tracadie, in the county of Antigonish, Eastern Nova Scotia, well sustains for its French inhabitants, the prestige, as industrious husbandmen, which their ancestors' contemporaries established in Western Nova Scotia—the land sung of by Longfellow in his "Evangeline;" and the much-vaunted superiority of the Anglo-Saxon, reads like a melancholy sarcasm, in the face of the fact that the lands from which the inoffensive Acadians were mercilessly hunted, are, to-day, far, very far, removed from the teeming fertility, which charmed the land-pirates in the last century. Simple-minded folks are wont to say, that the lands of the dispersed Acadians, languish under a curse, nor need we, of necessity, dissent from this theory, if we consider the manifestation of the curse to be shown, in a lack of skill, or industry—or mayhap both—in the descendants of those who profited by that infamous transaction. Certain it is, that these lands are now much less fertile than of yore.

Arriving at Tracadie, as we drive from the Eastern Extension Railway Station, we notice as a curious coincidence of alliteration, the sign,—

HALF-WAY HOUSE.
H. H. HARRINGTON.

and remark that with the super-addition of "Halt Here," the signboard would be an unique curiosity.

Leaving the hospitable farmhouse of Mr. DeLorey, on a bright October Sunday, after hearing Mass in the neat and commodious parish church dedicated to St. Peter, a pleasant drive of three miles, bring us to the Trappist Monastery of Our Lady of Petit Clairvaux, the buildings of which are of brick, and form a quadrangle, of which one side has yet to be erected.

Ringing the porter's bell we are admitted and handed over to Brother Richard, the genial and amiable guest master, who is most assiduous in his attentions to us.

The monastery was founded as a Priory, early in the present century by Father Vincent, a native of France, and was raised to the dignity of an abbey nine years ago, when the present Abbot, Father Dominic, was consecrated. The community at present number thirty-seven, of whom sixteen are priests and choir-religious, the remaining twenty-one being lay brothers; the monks being chiefly Belgians, with a few from Montreal, and a few from this vicinity.

The abbey is surrounded by four hundred acres of land, tolerably fertile, though rough in part, and has excellent limestone quarries—the monks burning as much as one hundred barrels of lime at once in their kiln; they also manufacture all the bricks required for the multifarious works which are incessantly in progress. Their domain is well watered by a stream upon which the indefatigable monks have had a mill erected. At the date of our visit, they had just finished a new dam composed of immense blocks of limestone, and had almost completed a new and larger mill—to supersede the old one—and which in addition to the ordinary grist grinding will also be utilized, simultaneously, for carding, sawing boards, and sawing shingles. The new mill has dimensions of 150 x 40 ft., and the main barn 220 x 40 ft. The latter building now accommodates fifty heads of horned cattle, including some Jersey thoroughbreds and Durhams and six horses. We were also shown some Berkshire thoroughbred pigs, enormous, unwieldy brutes, one rather youthful porker being estimated to weigh nearly six hundred pounds.

The monks make a large quantity of butter, all the year round, the sale of which forms an important item of their revenue. The abbey has made its repute all through the surrounding country, and it is scarcely possible to over-estimate the benefit of this model farm to the inhabitants of adjacent lands; combining as it does the latest improvements in agriculture with the untiring industry of the Trappist Monk. For several years, their grist-mill was the only one for a great distance, and even now wheat is brought in, for grinding, from a radius of fifteen miles.

The monks contain among themselves all the trades necessary to their well-ordered community, ex-gr two blacksmiths, two tailors, two millers, a baker, shoemaker, and doctor, not forgetting the wonderful Brother Benedict, who is at once architect, carpenter, mason and clockmaker. In the last-mentioned capacity his ingenuity is shown by a clock which has four faces; one visible from the road approaching the abbey, the second from the chapel, the third from the infirmary, and the fourth from the refectory, where the modest table service of tin plates and wooden spoons and forks, offer but few attractions to those who overlooking the final end of all created things, look at life from the animal point of view.

We are also taken to the dormitory, and look into the narrow compartments, where the good brothers sleep, with easy consciences, upon their hard beds; and are also shown the discipline, which, though no doubt a wholesome instrument of penance, does not in any way resemble the article of torture under which guise it masquerades in the average anti-Jesuit novel.

Descending again we are taken to the neat cemetery where the brothers are deposited in peace after life's course is run, covered only by their coarse serge habits, and without coffins. Every grave has painted in white letters, on the black ground of a plain, wooden cross, the name in religion once borne by him, whose mortal remains rest below.

In the centre of this final resting-place stands a tall cross, and near by we observe a bare skull, whose mute lips powerfully preach the folly of worldliness, and like an accusing spirit warns all beholders of the dread day when every wasted minute, as well as every useless word, must be strictly accounted for.

The costume of the monks, in its coarseness and simplicity, would not commend itself to our modern dudes; but, then, life is a terrible reality to these brothers, who, hearing the voice of God, have hastened to follow his call, fully realizing, that without the one thing necessary, all else is vanity.

These reflections are interrupted by the abbey bell, calling us to Vespers, which are chanted by the monks (the music being supplied by the organist Father Bernard), upon the conclusion of which, we take our departure, deeply and favorably impressed with our visit to this monastery, which stands alone, in the Maritime Provinces of the Canadian Dominion, and sincerely grateful, for being enabled to see with our own eyes the works of those much-abused monks, who in general are so frequently defamed by the thoughtless boys who write for the secular press, and by the equally empty-headed old women—of both sexes—who write for that class of periodical which by a curious misnomer is designated religious. These are the people, who, it is to be feared, shut their eyes to the truth, lest they should be compelled to acknowledge it.

In the face of so much prejudice, it is pleasant to be able to record that quite recently some Protestant clergymen visited the monastery, and did not refrain from expressing their honest and undisguised admiration for what they beheld.

J. W. O'Ryan.