IIRSITLINES, a religious order of females in the Roman Catholic church, taking their name from the saint and martyr who forms the subject of the above article. They take their origin from Angela Merici, a saint of the modern church, b. according to the more received account, at Desenzano, in the latter part of the 15th century. She formed at Brescia an association of young females who bound themselves by a vow to labor for the tending of the sick, the instruction of children, the relief of poverty, and other such works of charity. After a time, a rule, in twenty-five chapters. was projected by .A.ngela..- and finally approved by the bishop of Brescia, cardinal Francis Camaro.m An gela was herself chosen as the first superior, in the year 1537, the community even at that time numbering as many as 76 sister's. During the lifetime of Angela, and for more than twenty years after her death, which occurred in 1540, the congregation was confined to the diocese of Brescia; hut in the year 1565, a house was opened at Cremona; and with the approval of popes Gregory XIII. and Clement VIII., it was spread over many dioceses of Italy. It was warmly encouraged by St. Charles Borro ineo, and at his death there were no fewer than 28 convents of the order in his diocese, comprising above GOO nuns. Soon afterward, it was established in France, where one of its most distinguished members was the celebrated sister, Madeleine de St. Beuve. It
was in France that the sisters, although from the beginning they had been engaged in teaching, first formally added to their religious vows that fourth vow to devote them selves to the instruction of female children, which has since formed the great character istic of the order. They were introduced into Savoy by St. Francis de Sales in 1635; and in 1639, a convent was opened in Quebec, in Canada. About the same time, they were introduced into Germany—at Vienna in 1660, and at Freiburg, Kitzingen, and Prague soon afterward—where they have continued to teach with great success; and their convents in various parts of Germany, but especially in Austria, at present num ber 35. The Ursuline sisters have several educational establishments in Ireland, in Eng land, and in the United States, and may fairly claim the merit of having been mainly instrumental in maintaining among Catholics the education of female youth of the higher order through the 17th and 18th centuries. They have found many competitors among the younger sisterhoods of modern times.—See Journal des Rlustres Religieuses de l' Ord re des de Ste. Ursule, 4 vols. 4to (1690); Chronigues de l' Ordre des Ursulines, 2 vols. (Paris, 1676).