ate, one of
the highest import to our salvation and sanctification, and must
depend on God and our individual conscience.

"Even before making this proposition to you I asked advice from my
spiritual director, and he approved of it. You may be confident that
in every step which I take I endeavor to be actuated by the spirit of
God, and take every means to assure myself of it, so that hereafter
no scruple may trouble my conscience, and God's blessing be with me
and you also."

He writes thus towards the end of September: "The more I think of our
difficulties the more I am inclined to believe that they may have
been permitted by a good God for the very purpose of a work of this
kind. If wise and holy men say so, and we have the approbation of the
Holy See, is it not a mission offered to us by Divine Providence, and
ought we not cheerfully to embrace it?"

And on October 5: "I hope God has inspired you with some means of
coming to my help. Indeed, it is a difficult position, and the best I
can do is to throw myself constantly on Divine Providence and be
guided by Him. You will remember, and I hope, before this reaches
you, will have answered my proposition in my last note, whether or
not you would be willing to form an independent band of missionaries
to be devoted to the great wants of the country. I have considered
and reconsidered, and prayed and prayed, and in spite of my fears
this seems to me the direction in which _Divine Providence calls us_.
. . . With all the difficulties, dangers, and struggles that another
[community] movement presents before me, I feel more and more
convinced that it _is this that Divine Providence asks of us._ If we
should act in concert its success cannot be doubted--success not only
as regards our present kind of labors, but in a variety of other ways
which are open to us in our new country. . . . If you are prepared to
move in this direction it would be best, and indeed necessary, not
only to write to me your assent, but also a memorial to the
Propaganda--to Cardinal Barnabo--stating the interests and wants of
religion and of the country, and then petition to be permitted to
turn your labors in this direction. . . .

"Such a course involves the release of your obligations to the
[Redemptorist] Congregation, and this would have to be expressed
distinctly in your petition, and motived by good reasons there given."

Further on in the same letter he adds: "Since writing the above I
have