that all on board had conceived for him. I could see him sinking. As I was myself in so alarming a state, and fearing that I might be taken away at any moment, and thus share his last abode in this land of pilgrimage and exile, I besought him to hear my confession, if he were yet capable of listening to me. I knelt, bathed in tears, by the dying couch of my brother in Christ -of my faithful friend - of my sole companion in the lonely desert. To him in his agony, I, sick and almost dying, made my confession. Strength forsook him: soon also he lost the power of speech, although he remained sensible to what was passing around him. Resigning myself to God's holy will, I recited the prayers of the agonizing with the formula of the plenary indulgence, which the Church grants at the hour of death. Father Hoeken, ripe for heaven, surrendered his pure soul into the hands of his Divine Redeemer on the 19th of June, 1851, twelve days after our departure from St. Louis. Who would then have foretold it? So ardent were his desires to labor for the glory of God, that he sighed for the wilderness -he thirsted for the salvation of souls! Alas! how many projects annihilated! In any other enterprise it would have proved sufficient motive for discontinuing a perilous journey; but the desire of procuring God's glory endows man with strength that nature denies him.
Father Christian Hoeken was born in Upper Brabant. He was only forty-three years old at his death. The last fifteen years of his life were passed among the Indians, who had conceived the most profound veneration for him. He was all to them -their father in Christ, their physician in illness, their counsel in difficulties, their sincere and faithful friend. When he could share anything with his poor neophytes, he rejoiced with all the simplicity of a child. His only consolation was to be among them. He was an active instrument in the hands of God to announce his holy word to thousands of pagans. The churches that he built and the fervent congregations of Indians that he collected and formed, attest his fervor and the apostolic zeal which