nture to write down on paper, and many I can communicate to no one
else but you. How great is my desire to see you!--it seems that I
have no other.

"I have taken passage for Marseilles on Tuesday after Easter, the 6th
of April, and intend to take passage on the _Vanderbilt,_ which
leaves Havre on the 28th. . . . I saw the General on Tuesday of this
week, to take leave of him. After some conversation we left in good
feeling, promising to pray _pro invicem._ God bless him!"

Before leaving Paris Father Hecker received extremely affectionate
letters of congratulation from his old friends, Fathers de Held and
de Buggenoms.

The following is the decree of the Congregation of Bishops and
Regulars:

"Certain priests of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer in the
United States of North America recently presented their most humble
petition to our Most Holy Lord Pope Pius IX., that in view of certain
special reasons he would grant that they might be withdrawn from the
authority and jurisdiction of the Rector Major and be governed by a
superior of their own, immediately subject to the Apostolic See, and
according to the [Redemptorist] Rule approved by Benedict XIV., of
holy memory. If, however, this should not be granted to them, they
most humbly asked for dispensation from their vows in the said
Congregation. After having carefully considered the matter, it
appeared to his Holiness that a separation of this kind would be
prejudicial to the unity of the Congregation and by no means accord
with the Institute of St. Alphonsus, and therefore should not be
permitted. Since, however, it was represented to his Holiness that
the petitioners spare no labor in the prosecution of the holy
missions, in the conversion of souls, and in the dissemination of
Christian doctrine, and are for this reason commended by many
bishops, it seemed more expedient to his Holiness to withdraw them
from the said Congregation, that they might apply themselves to the
prosecution of the works of the sacred ministry under the direction
of the local bishops. Wherefore his Holiness by the tenor of this
decree, and by his Apostolic authority, does dispense from their
simple vows and from that of permanence in the Congregation the said
priests, viz.: Clarence Walworth, Augustine Hewit, George Deshon, and
Francis Baker, together with the priest Isaac Hecker, who has joined
himself to their petition in respect to dispensation from the vows,
and declares th