As soon as my arrival was known, the people collected on all sides, in order to secure to their children the grace of baptism. You can easily imagine what a consolation it was
to me after the fatigues of the late journey. On examining the state of things, I found that those people needed instruction in regard to the sacrament of marriage. They listened to me with profound attention, and followed my advice on this point. I baptized sixteen persons, among whom was one converted from Mormonism and one Sioux squaw. I gave the nuptial benediction to three couples. In the midst of a meeting held in a private house, the conversation fell on the construction of a village church; each one offered his services, and promised to approach the sac raments. How great and plentiful is the harvest, but alas, how few are the reapers! We must, in truth, but in sadness, repeat with the prophet Jeremiah : " The children ask bread and there is no one to break it to them." What a vast field for them of whom the scripture says: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the footsteps of those who proclaim the glad tidings of peace and salvation."
A month's traveling in the desert through which these people are wandering deprived of instruction, would bestow on our missionaries greater experience of the evils of ignorance and of superstition, than many years passed in studying them in books and writings, and one hour of conversation would inspire Christian hearts with sentiments of more real compassion, than all the discourses of rhetoric and all the artifices of eloquence could ever produce. If the Catholics of civilized countries, and provided with all the advantages that civilization offers for the soul and for the body, could, during one single week, experience what is endured in the midst of the ravages and violence of this poor Indian country, their hearts would open to the sentiments of a truly active compassion, and they would extend a charitable hand to relieve the misery and mitigate the bitterness of their wretched and afflicting condition.