the various tribes of the Upper Missouri, including, if I can, the warlike Sioux, to promote among all, religion and friendly dispositions toward the Government and its white travelers through their countries. I shall be happy indeed if I can effect any good by my humble endeavors. My adopted country, for these forty years I have lived in it, has been always truly dear to me. Its welfare has been the constant and uppermost wish of my heart and the end of my poor prayers. I have sworn obedience to it and from this sacred duty I have never and shall never swerve. If I take the liberty to address you, it is owing to the great kindness I have always received at your hands, and because I have the full conviction that I can do it with all openness of heart and mind, and the firm persuasion, that if it be in your power, I shall receive comfort from you, and shall go on my long trip rejoicing and consoled.
There is an important matter on which I must beg leave to ask your counsel. You are aware that the Jesuits are a body of priests and brothers, devoted, by solemn vows, exclusively to the service of God and the spirtual good of their fellow-men. In the West here we number about 200 members, some of whom would fall within the limits of the conscription law lately passed by Congress. Our members are stationed in various cities - Cincinnati, Chicago, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Bardstown, Ky., and in other places - all laboring in one way or in another for the good of souls. We have been here for nearly forty years, devoting ourselves entirely to the education of youth, thousands of whom have been trained in our schools and colleges, or attending the numerous churches intrusted to our care, or laboring for the civilization of Indian tribes in the Far West. And we have thus labored purely for the good of our fellow-men, without ever having received any aid from State or General Government, satisfied with that support which the liberality of our patrons has prompted them to afford us.
As I have stated, we are bound to God by solemn vows, which our conscience forbids us to violate. These vows,