Ŏb'lats, n. pl.

n. pl. [See OBLATE.] (Rom. Cath. Church.) A congregation of missionaries founded at Aix, in Provence, in 1815, and approved in 1826, under the title of Oblate Missionaries of Mary the Immaculate. They went to Canada in 1841, and have subsequently established themselves also in the United States. They are occupied as missionaries, chiefly among lumbermen in the forests, and settlers on the frontiers, and serve the poor, and those in prison.