sion. It will suffice to say that the unexpected quickness of my return to St. Louis, the excellent health I enjoyed, even though it was the midst of winter, and the consoling accounts I had to give of my reception by the Flatheads, etc., etc., all contributed to make the most lively impression on the hearts of our brethren. Almost every one thought himself called to share the labors of a mission
which offered so many attractions to their zeal. After due deliberation, the fellow-laborers allotted me were five in number, namely, two Fathers, Reverend Nicolas Point` of La Vendee, as zealous and courageous for the salvation of souls as his compatriot, La Roche Jacquelin, was in the service of his lawful sovereign. Reverend Gregory Mengarini,6 recently from Rome, specially selected by the Father General himself for this mission, on account of his age, his virtues, his great facility for languages and his knowledge of medicine and music; and three lay-brothers, two Belgians, William Claessense and Charles Huet, and one German, Joseph Specht,7 of whom the first is a blacksmith, the second a carpenter, and the third a tinner, or a sort of factotum; all three industrious, devoted to the missions and full of good will. They had long ardently desired to be employed on these missions and I thank God
Father Point remained among the Blackfeet until the spring of 1847, when an order from his superiors in France, which had, according to Palladino, been three years on the road, recalled him to the missions of Upper Canada. It was his desire, as appears from letters in Father De Smet's correspondence, in later years to return to the Northwest. He died at Quebec, July 4, 1868, A volume of Indian drawings, apparently his work, is preserved at the University of St. Louis. '
a Father Mengarini was transferred to California in 1850 and died at Santa Clara September 23, 1866. i a Brother Claessens remained among the Indians until 1891, when. he was ordered to California. He died at Santa Clara on the 11th of October of that year at the age of eighty.
7 Brother Specht died at St. Ignatius Mission June 17, 1884, aged seventy-six.