These remarks may appear silly to such as attribute everything to chance or necessity, but to such as believe in the wise dispensations of the Providence of God, by which all things are governed and directed, all these circumstances, together with the wonderful manner in which we have been called, sent and led to this new mission; and still more the good dispositions manifested by the Indians, will appear very proper motives to inspire us with fresh courage, and with the hope of establishing here, on a small scale, the order and regularity which once distinguished our missions in Paraguay. This hope is not founded on imagination, for whilst I am writing these lines, I hear the joyful voices of the carpenters, re-echoing to the blows on the smith's anvil, and I see them engaged in raising the house of prayer. Besides, three Indians, belonging to the tribe called Cceur d'Alènes, having been informed of our arrival among the Flatheads, have just come to entreat us to have pity on them. "Father," said one of them to me, " we are truly deserving your pity. We wish to serve the Great Spirit, but we know not how. We want some one to teach us. For this reason we make application to you." Oh, had some of my brethren, now so far distant from us, been present here last Sunday, when toward night we raised the august sign of salvation, the standard of the cross, in this small but zealous tribe; how their hearts would have been moved on seeing the pious
the mission for a long time, and in the interval many changes had taken place, among the Indians and in their country. In 1862, Father Giorda succeeded Father Congiato as Superior of the Rocky Mountain Missions, and by 1866 he saw his way clear to the re-establishment of the old mission on the Bitter Root. This was accomplished in September of that year, and among the missionaries who were assigned to the post was Father Ravalli, who was one of the staff who had quitted it sixteen years earlier, and who resided there thenceforth until his death in 1884. The mission was finally closed in 1891, upon the removal to the Jocko reservation of the remnant of the Flatheads, under the chief Charlot.-Father Ravalli's church still stands, and services are occasionally held by a visiting priest from Missoula.