We hope that other evangelical laborers will soon go to assist Father Hoeken. The savages request missionaries. We shall perceive that this mission and that of the Pend d'Oreilles continue to flourish.
" Flathead Camp in the Blackfeet Country, Oct. 18, 1855.
Reverend and Dear Father:
" You will thank God with me for the consoling increase he has given, through the intercession of Mary, to the missions which you began in those remote parts. During the many years that I have passed among the Kalispels, though my labors have not been light and my trials have been numerous enough, God has given me in abundance the consolations of the missionary, in the lively faith and sincere piety of our neophytes. We have found means to build a beautiful church, which has excited the admiration of even Lieu
tenant Mullan, of the United States army. This church is sufficiently large to contain the whole tribe, and on Sundays and festival days, when our Indians have adorned it with what ornaments of green boughs and wild flowers the woods and prairies supply; when they sing in it their devout hymns with fervor during the holy sacrifice, it might serve as a subject of edification and an example to quicken the zeal of many an old Christian congregation. There is among our converts a universal and very tender devotion to the Blessed Virgin, a most evident mark that the faith has taken deep root in their souls. Every day, morning and evening, the families assemble in their lodges to recite the rosary in common, and daily they beg of Mary to thank God for them for having called them from the wild life of the forest, spent as it is in ignorance, rapine and bloodshed, to the blessings of the true religion and its immortal hopes.
" The Kalispels have sustained a great loss in the death of their pious chief, Loyola, with whose euphonious Indian name, Etsowish-simm~gee-itshin, " Standing Grizzly," you