poor and painful a subject. I am weak and sensitive and have been insulted several times upon the false reports I mention. The thirty-sixth chapter of the Imitation (book 3) consoles me and I try to profit by it. As Thomas a Kempis tells us, " St. Paul sometimes justified himself, lest his silence should be a cause of scandal to the weak."
In union of your holy sacrifices, etc.
I" have read with pleasure in your number [Precis Historigtties] of September I5th the extract from the Courrier des Etats-Unis upon the death of the Omaha chief, Logan Fontenelle. At the time of my first mission at St. Mary's near the Council Bluffs among the Potawatomies, I was very intimate with his father, a fur trader among the In
dian tribes. I gave him the last sacraments at the hour of his death. In 1838 I baptized his four children together with their mother, the daughter of the chief of the Omahas, Ongpatongha, or Big Elk. Logan, the oldest of the children, was my godson. Later, in his extreme old age, I also conferred baptism on Big Elk. After this chief's death Logan succeeded his grandfather and made himself liked and respected by all his nation, both by his bravery and by his wisdom. He ardently desired to have a mission of Black-robes for the instruction of his tribe, but for lack of men his wishes were never fulfilled, and others naturally came in and settled in the field.
The chief, Ongpatongha, always deserved and kept throughout his long career the respect and esteem of the whites, of his own people and of his neighbors. He was a man of peaceable disposition, in his dealing with others of exemplary honesty and rare intelligence. He was considered the ablest speaker of all the tribes of the plains.
26 Extract from letter in French to Terwecoren, October tr, 1867.