s the work of the missions
began. My principal duties on these were to give public instructions
and hear confessions, and up to this time (1858) these missionary
labors have occupied me almost exclusively.

"The blessings of God upon our missions were most evident and most
abundant and my share in them most consoling, as usually the most
abandoned sinners fell to my lot. But holy and important as the
exercises of the missions among Catholics are, still this work did
not correspond to my interior attrait, and though exhausted and
frequently made ill from excessive fatigue in these duties, yet my
ardent and constant desire to do something for my non-Catholic
countrymen led me to take up my pen. That took place as follows: One
day alone in my cell the thought suddenly struck me how great were my
privileges and my joy since my becoming a Catholic, and how great
were my troubles and agony of soul before this event! Alas! how many
of my former friends and acquaintances, how many of the great body of
the American people were in the same most painful position. Cannot
something be done to lead them to the knowledge of the truth? Perhaps
if the way that divine Providence had led me to the church was shown
to them many of them might in this way be led also to see the truth.
This thought, and with it the hope of inducing young men to enter
into religious orders, produced in a few months from my pen a book
entitled _Questions of the Soul._ The main features of this book are
the proofs that the Sacraments of the Catholic Church satisfy fully
all the wants of the heart. . . .

"But the head was left to be yet converted; this thought led me to
write a second book, called _Aspirations of Nature;_ and which has
for its aim to show that the truths of the Catholic faith answer
completely to the demands of reason. My purpose in these two books
was to explain the Catholic religion in such a manner as to reach and
attract the minds of the non-Catholics of the American people. These
books were regarded in my own secret thoughts as the test whether God
had really given to me the grace and vocation to labor in a special
manner for the conversion of these people. The first book, with God's
grace, has been the means of many and signal conversions in the
United States and England, and in a short period passed through three
editions. The second has been published since my arrival in Rome. . .

"On an occasion of a public conference (discourse) gi