But Columbus Hospital was only the beginning. Mother Cabrini's great work of schools for Italian children of the poorer and better classes, was not neglected, but it was now evident that hospitals offered the best chance to win back adult Italians who had abandoned their faith and to influence deeply those who could be brought in no other way under Christian influences. After an Italian had been under the care of these devoted Italian Sisters, it was, indeed, hard for him to neglect his religion as before, and many a family returned to the devout practice of the Faith when the father had had his eyes opened to the practical virtues of religion by his stay in the hospital. Hence, in 1905, Columbus Hospital, Chicago, was founded under extremely difficult conditions. For some time the failure of this enterprise seemed almost inevitable, and Reverend Mother Cabrini's heart was heavy at the prospect of her beloved poor deprived of skilled care. She did not lose courage, however, and she was rewarded, after a particularly trying time in which her greatest consolation and help was prayer, the assured future of the hospital.

A little later, a branch hospital known as Columbus Extension Hospital, was established for the very poor in the heart of an Italian district in Chicago, at Lytle and Polk Streets. Five years later, Columbus Hospital and Sanitarium in Denver was founded and a few years later Columbus Hospital, Seattle. All of these were in excellent condition, with abundant promise of future usefulness, and healthy development at the time of Mother Cabrini's death. This holy woman brought to the service of her zeal for religion such good sound common sense and business acumen and efficiency, as to call forth the admiration of all who knew her and who realized what she was accomplishing in the face of unlooked-for and almost insurmountable difficulties.

Municipal and state officials were often staggered at the projects she undertook with apparently utterly inadequate means at her command, but after a struggle and hard work, the abundant success she realized, opened their eyes to the fact that here was not merely an ordinary activity but something so extraordinary as to suggest the assistance of a supernatural agency.

Prominent officials in this country and in Europe, not only in Italy but in France and Spain and England, had learned to admire unstintedly the humble, simple, little Mother of the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart who at first appeared a hopeless enthusiast, yet proved on comparatively short acquaintance to be the most practical of women. In explaining how she succeeded in doing things that seemed hopeless to others, she was in the habit of saying: "What do you wish? you men who look at these problems have too much to do, and then you want to do too much all at once. For instance, there is no need of lengthy discussion as to the necessity for protection for immigrants, but what is needed is to put protection for the immigrant into effect. You see I do not discuss, I find that there is a good thing that ought to be done. I set myself and my little institute at work at it at once. I do not despair of finding the means with which to do it. I always feel confident that somehow or other I shall always find them. I do not know quite how it is that I find these, and others do not, but perhaps that is because I am only a little nun whom nobody minds, and therefore perhaps I meet with less opposition and people are

ready to help me." That was all that she was in her own estimation, just "a little nun," but under the modest habit of a nun she possessed a soul constantly open to aspirations and ideals, tenacious of purpose and ready to do anything once she was sure that it would redound to the glory of God by benefiting mankind.

A favorite expression of hers, often repeated to her Sisters and often uttered even in her dealings with secular people, was: "I can do all things in Him that strengthens me." Her entire confidence in God, her utter lack of self-sufficiency, her constant confession that she was but "a poor little nun," bore her triumphantly over all difficulties. Her foundations remind one of St. Teresa's journeys to make her foundations, and of her character and simple-hearted confidence in tackling the most difficult problems under conditions that seemed most forbidding. One recalls the Spanish Saint's reply when told that she was assuming a preposterous task in setting out to found a house of her order with only three ducats at her disposal. The words are famous in the history of religious endeavor: "Teresa and three ducats, can do nothing, but Teresa and three ducats and God can accomplish anything."

Poor St. Teresa made her long journeys either on foot or in an ox-cart. Mother Cabrini's journeys were made under less difficult circumstances, but the length of them probably made them at least as tiresome and trying as those of the Saint three centuries and a half ago. Nothing could give a better idea of the extraordinary vigor and marvelous power of action of the little nun than an account given to one who knew her well: "I came a month ago from South America. I am just setting out for Chicago. After a fortnight there, I expect to go to Los Angeles and probably not long after, I return to the East, from there I shall have to set out for Italy. In the meantime (Carroccio, January, 1918.), however, I must try to make it clear to the Commissioner of Immigration that our Columbus Hospital is giving aid directly to the Italians." At that time the statistics of the hospital showed that over 100,000 Italians had been discharged from it cured.

In the midst of her activities in North America she did not forget that the Pope's recommendation had included all the Americas, and so she voyaged to South America in order to lay foundations there. Schools were founded in Argentina, in Brazil and then in Chile and Peru. Once she made the journey over the mountains from one side of the South American Continent to the other-and it must not be forgotten that the Cordilleras are even higher than the Alps-on mule back, running all the risks of that old-fashioned mode of travel. Many a precipice's edge had to be passed on her sure-footed little beast, and once Providence seemed almost to have abandoned her. The animal disappeared with her over a precipice and she was saved, apparently only by a miraculous intervention. Nothing could diminish her zeal, nor quench her enthusiasm for her work. Dangers and trials might come, her one idea was to accomplish as much as possible before the end came, and the darkness set in and no man could labor.

Her South American missionary labors were successful, and she founded houses at Buenos Ayres, Mercedes and Rosario in Argentina, at Rio de Janeiro and San Paolo of Brazil. On her return to the United States there came the call for her Sisters to go to Central America. They tell the story of her sending to New York for one of her Sisters whom she had chosen to be the head of the foundations in Central America, to come to her in Los Angeles. The good Sister's train was delayed and Mother met her almost at the door telling her that she was sorry for the delay of her train, but now no time was to be lost. She must set out at once for Nicaragua.