Very Reverend Father Provincial:

It is always with the greatest joy that I receive news from Belgium, and above all from your reverence. I received your last letter in August, on my return from the long journey I had made to Baltimore to regulate affairs with Father Alexander concerning our new French foundation. I am glad to hear that you approve of my enterprise, and I count on your reverence to support it; for it must contribute greatly to the glory of God in a country where are found so many abandoned souls, deprived of all the aids of religion.

In selecting the little city of Monroe for our establishment I had in view to make it the center of the mission, from whence our fathers can go to different parts of the large State of Michigan, and even beyond it, to give regular missions and to repeat those already given. We have been more than a year at Monroe. My companions at present are Father Poilvache, two candidate lay brothers, and an Irish student of theology. Our church, which is Gothic, is 100 feet long and 50 feet wide, with a tower 100 feet high; but as it is too small to accomodate the faithful, we have commenced the work of adding a sanctuary of twenty-eight feet. At the back of the church I have laid the foundation of a brick convent, which will be thirty-five feet wide and seventy long. I hope to complete the work this year.

Our parish at Monroe is composed of French Canadians. Irish and Germans. Besides the parish, properly so called, nine stations, constituting part of the parish, are attended by us, seven of which are composed entirely of Irish. Judge by this whether I stand in need of a fast horse. I will soon have served an apprenticeship in the art of riding. Being forced to speak English, I have succeeded pretty well, so that I now frequently preach in that language. Father Poilvache usually attends the parish and the French missions.

As to missions which are called for from all parts, I have been obliged to refuse them until the arrival of our fathers. My furthest station from here is about sixty miles. We therefore carry the Holy Viaticum to the sick to the distance of sixty miles from Monroe. An immense field is open in this country to the sons of St. Alphonsus. The good that already has been performed by the grace of God is incalculable; but who can measure all that is yet to be done? How many missions demanded! How many French congregations yet deprived of priests, and for how long a time! I desire to be everywhere when I think of so many needs. Often, in casting my eyes on Europe, and particularly on Belgium, I cannot but be astonished to see among so many priests so few who dream of the vast field that lies open here to their zeal.

The Catholic religion has spread particularly in Monroe; many Protestants have already made their abjuration, and I have about a dozen more who are under instruction! Catholics by becoming temperate have at the same time become fervent. To renounce spirituous liquors is the chief point; thus I insist upon it, and unceasingly preach temperance from a conviction that it is the first step for a Canadian towards becoming a good Catholic. During the past year and a half I have given the pledge -- that is to say, received the promise of temperence -- to four thousand Canadians, who are divided into seven societies. That of Monroe numbers one thousand two hundred members. This society is established in the manner of a confraternity, have monthly meetings and a rule approved by Mgr. Lefevre, Bishop of Detroit.

Such, Very Rev. Father, in a few words, is the result of our labors. God has blessed them, and has made use of weak instruments like ourselves to recall so many abandoned souls to the practice of their religion. All bless our Lord for the happy change effected among the French. Even the Protestants are astonished, and more than once they have borne witness to the truth in their journals, and acknowledged their inability to effect like results. I alone complain in seeing fall upon me the cares of this new foundation, the fatigues of so many stations, and, above all, those for the Irish. I am always sustained by the hope that you will not abandon me, and that you will lighten the burden that has been laid upon my shoulders in placing me at the head of this mission.

Send me, if you please, a good father to take charge of the mission, and above all, some zealous missionaries. As for health, there is nothing to fear; no one was more feeble than myself in this respect, and now, with the Canadian fare, frugal as it is, I am able to sustain alone the fatigues of an entire mission, preaching two or three times a day. Why have I not here some confreres from Liege? Have the goodness to thank M. K. for me for his goodness in sending me his journal which I receive regularly.

My regards to all my confreres at Liege, etc.

Father Louis Gillet, C.SS.R.