people have commenced appreciating the value of such establishments. You are well convinced that nothing but the propagation of the principles of the Christian religion, and motives of charity toward the aborigines could induce us to embark in such undertakings. Dear Sir, I have not lost sight of this object, and I am allowed to state that we have it in contemplation, and that great hopes are entertained that before long a mission will be established within, or in the vicinity of, your district. Should such a task devolve on me I shall certainly look out for a spot sufficiently convenient [for us] to meet occasionally, where we might quietly and pleasantly pass a few hours in friendly discourse on religious topics, on politics, on socialism, red republicanism and Kossuth, and the manners and customs of the Indians. Let me here express my gratitude for the manuscript you have had the great kindness to prepare for me, and which I shall be most glad to receive and to peruse.
I see you are still perusing Mochler's Symbolism and you look upon him as an able writer. The book is calculated to be the instrument of much good, particularly at the time like the present when men's minds are turned to the consideration of religious controversy with an earnestness and activity unexampled at any other period. Cardinal Wiseman, whose very name is an authority, calls it " the most profound work upon the Philosophy of Divinity which our time has produced."
I send you by the steamer another book, in reading which I will venture to say that you will think some of your leisure hours well spent, so various are its topics, so rich are its views and suggestions. Balmes is a Spanish priest, but one of the best known and most influential of the contemporary political and philosophical writers of his country, enjoying a high European reputation, and deservedly ranking among the first authors of our times. He is at once learned and philosophical, profound and popular, a man of the nineteenth century and a rigidly orthodox pious Catho lic. You will pronounce him, I know, not the worse for it.