\n-\n
\nAs for the savages, they are not forgotten, but before coming to the point of undertaking a formal mission in their favor, it is worthwhile to prepare the ways, analyze their dispositions, study their nature and character, learn their languages, ready the most appropriate means for succeeding in an enterprise thorny beyond belief, since one is attempting to cultivate a portion of the human race that seems rather to belong to a third species halfway between man and beast; as much as they are known as crude, uncouth, ferocious, inconstant savages, who are little susceptible to abstract, speculative, and spiritual notions, having one day found several of them in the company of some white man who knew their language and served as interpreter, I took to speaking to them about God, the Religion, the soul, and salvation; they then asked me if I was one of those fur traders who travels around Missouri to stock up on pelts. I replied to them that I traded in nobler things, which is to say that I was the agent of the master of life who saved souls (as it was necessary to speak thusly to make them understand); I added several other things concerning the soul and salvation, and in the end the result of my discourse was that since I was the agent of the master of life, I ought to at least give them some money to go and buy Wiskey [sic], which is a liquor for which they are extremely greedy, and on which they get drink, and therefore kill each other like dogs. They go about almost completely nude and abhor as slavery every form of culture; even so, we have baptized several of them, and some others are disposed to being baptized; I have two female penitents who are native savages who show great simplicity, innocence, fervor; this leads me to believe that the nature of the savage nations would be well suited to Christianity. We wait for Providence to open the way for us.
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\nAnd yet, I must confess that God in his goodness gives me such esteem and affection for this mission, for which I see myself employed, so to speak, to cultivate the refuse of the human race and the least laudable and most abandoned portion of Jesus Christ’s flock that I would not change my state with anybody. In the eyes of the faithful it is certainly the happiest state, though, in the prejudiced eyes of the world, it may seem the unhappiest. I never want for opportunities to die to myself, to suffer poverty, discomforts, privations, humiliations, temptations, and tribulations of every kind; so that I knew how to benefit by always joining myself through such means to him alone who is capable of completely satisfying a heart that he made for his own. I see through experience how useful it is to leave patria, relatives, friends, etc. behind to detach yourself from the earth and obtain true liberty of spirit, which is only found in the true lovers of God.\n
\n-\n
\nWe have erected here an assembly of men who are, for the most part, good English Catholics, under the invocation of the Holy Virgin, which we use for the conversion of heretics and other good works, to which it is not suitable to personally attach ourselves; they are tasked…
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\nI have written this confusedly several times because I do not have time and I need to run here and there, now to baptise, now to assist the dying, now to catechize, now to preach, now to conduct funerals and marriages, etc., and it would be useful if I could multiply myself; the confessional especially is an every day and every hour ministry, it is necessary to be ready night and day, to leave meals and rush now by land, now by water atop pirogues (which is what they call certain trunks of trees with their insides carved out, above which they hazard to cross frightening rivers more than a mile wide and against the speed of the current). These people are accustomed to a savage life, and the missionary has not a little to do by first overcoming his natural repugnance and adapting to their ways. Sometimes one is so dead tired that one can no longer stand it. If we had money to build establishments for charity and instruction, these would facilitate the ministry and render it more fruitful.\n
\n-\n
\nAs the Roman Seat presides over all the seats of the Catholic world as the primate of dignity and jurisdiction, so the Roman people should preside over all peoples as the primate of fervor and edification, just as much as St. Paul once wrote to the faithful of still pagan Rome, c. xvi, 19: Vestra enim obedientia in omnem locum divulgata est; as the most central parts of the human body, which, receiving nourishment in excess, share it even with its external members in great abundance, so it seems to me that the faithful of Rome should do as the said apostle writes…
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\nI am in the love of G. C. N. S., most cordially,\n
\nYour most humble, devoted, and obedient servant, \n
\nFr. De Andreis.
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