When I saw that a sufficient number of houses had been built to give shelter to every one of the first emigrants, I called a meeting and said:
“My dear friends, by the great mercy of God, and in almost a miraculous way, (thanks be to the unity and charity which have bound you to each other till now, as members of the same family,) you are in your little, but happy homes, and you have nothing to fear from the winds and snow of the winter, I think that my duty now is to direct your attention to the necessity of building a two-story house. The upper part will be used as the school-house for your children on week days, and for a chapel on Sundays, and the lower part will be my parsonage. I will furnish the money for the flooring, shingles, the nails and the windows, and you will give your work gratis to cut and draw the timber and put it up. I will also pay the architect, without asking a cent from you. It is quite time to provide a school for your children; for in this country, as in any other place, there is no possible prosperity or happiness for a people, if they neglect the education of their children. Now, we are too numerous to continue having our Sabbath worship in any private house, as we have done till now. What do you think of this?”
They unanimously answered:
“Yes! after you have worked so hard to give a home to every one of us, it is just that we should help you to make one for yourself. We are happy to hear that it is your intention to secure a good education for our children. Let us begin the work at once.”
This was the 16th of January, 1852. The sun was as warm as on a beautiful day of May in Canada. We again fell upon our knees to implore the help of God, and sang a beautiful French hymn.
The next day, we were seventy-two men in a neighboring forest, felling the great oaks; and on the 17th of April, only three months later, that fine two-story building, nearly forty feet square, was blessed by Bishop Vandeveld.
It was surmounted by a nice steeple, thirty feet high, in which we had put a bell, weighing 250 pounds, whose solemn sound was to tell our joys and sorrows over the boundless prairies.
On that day, instead of being only fifty families, as at the last census, we numbered more than one hundred, among whom more than 500 were adults. The chapel which we thought, at first, would be too large, was filled to its utmost capacity on the day of its consecration to God.
Not a month later, we had to speak of making an addition of forty feet more, which when finished, six months later, was found to be still insufficient for the accommodation of the constantly increasing flood of immigration, which came, not only from Canada, but from Belgium and France. It soon became necessary to make a new center, and expand the limits of my first colony; which I did, by planting a cross at l’Erable, about fifteen miles southwest of St. Anne, and another at a place we call St. Mary, twelve miles southeast, in the county of Iroquois. These settlements were soon filled; for that very spring, more than one thousand new families came from Canada, to join us.
No words can express the joy of my heart, when I saw with what rapidity, my (then) so dear Church of Rome was taking possession of those magnificent lands, and how soon she would be unrivaled mistress, not only of the State of Illinois, but of the whole valley of the Mississippi. But the ways of men are not the ways of God. I had been called, by the Bishops of Rome, to Illinois, to extend the power of that church. But my God had called me there, that I might give, to that church, the most deadly blow she has ever received on this Continent.