Venerable Marcellin Champagnat was born on May 20 in the year 1789, near the village of Marlhes, in the Cepartment of Loire, France. After a careful upbringing as a country boy, and a help to his father on his small farm, Marcellin felt the call to the priesthood in his sixteenth year.
He was ordained priest in 1816 and appointed curate in the village of Lavalle; there, in 1817, he founded an Institute of Brothers whose members vere to devote their lives to the Christian education of youth.
A few years later he gave the whole of his time to the formation of the members of this new Institute and moved with them to the property known since as "Our Lady's Her-mirage" on the outskirts of St. Chamond. After a life of heroic virtue, arduous labours and many sacrifices he died there on June 6, 1840.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.