in especial my benefactors. I thank God, my jqurney in Europe has been blessed; I leave content, and go home happy. All the persons who have taken an interest in my mission will learn with pleasure that I am taking with me thirteen young men and one of our Fathers. They are going to devote themselves to the great work of civilization by means of the gospel, the only one that is possible, as I have satisfied myself in many places in well nigh forty-five years of continual missionary labor. Together with these companions, I am taking to America four Sisters of Saint Mary, of those whose mother-house is at Namur. You will observe that the mission to the Rocky Mountains is in some sort a Belgian work, like that of Calcutta.
On Wednesday, the 7th of this month, with the grace of God, we shall embark at liverpool for New York, on the steamer City o f New York. We hope to arrive for the feast of Saint Louis Gonsaguez.
Now I have only to request your prayers and masses for a fortunate voyage. This will be the ninth time that I have crossed the great ocean, under the protection of heaven, with an entire and filial confidence in the Star of the Sea, Stella marls, the kind Mother of us all. I shall pray for all the persons with whom I have come in contact, and will have the Indians pray for them. May we, some day, meet again in paradise! On earth, everything is vanity, nothing entirely satisfies the heart; I have had many opportunities of convincing myself of this, having traveled and talked with men of all religions, all opinions and all classes of society: believers, that is, children of the Church, are the happiest; and it is among them also that those are found who make others happy; they have not their personal interests in view, but act out of pure devotion and charity.
Adieu! I shall continue to send you accounts of my travels. The journal of the present voyage begins to-day with our departure from Ostende.
Instead of waiting to send it from New York, if kind Providence should permit us to reach that place, I will add