pecially, are the great instigators and promoters of all sorts of outrages and of an open persecution of the Catholics. Your devoted brother, etc.
St. Louis University, July Io, 1855
CONWAY:
Most Honorable Sir.- Owing to my long absence from St. Louis I have delayed answering your very kind favor for which indeed I feel very grateful and thank you sincerely. I learned with the greatest pleasure, that both you and your lady are in the enjoyment of good health, and am happy to know that the maps of the United States, etc., have reached you. It would afford me at all times the greatest satisfaction to render you any service in my power, either in the transmission of information or otherwise, as may be most acceptable to you. Command me, I shall consider it as a great honor and a very agreeable task.
A few passing reflections on America, by one who has been an inhabitant of it since 182 1, and a quiet observer of passing events, who never meddled, but with his poor little missions and their cares around him, may perhaps afford you a moment's pleasure; and with this alone in view, though grieved myself at the actual aspect of affairs in this country-for we live in a state of uneasiness, hanging between hope and fear - I send them to you.
Nowhere on the globe is the spirit of progress so rife; the go-ahead, railroad, and lightning principle in such full operation, and popular opinion so omnipotent as in this country. Nowhere else on earth are to be found, in the same community, so many elements of discord, so many isms; and ultraism is the culmination of all other isms, and the besetting evil of the day. In politics, morals, social intercourse, religion, everything, the tendency is to extremes. The United States would truly be the wonder of the world, if the moral condition of the country were to