Reverend and Dear Sir:
I cheerfully comply with your request that I should give you a few lines in behalf of the great missionary undertaking which induces you again to seek across the ocean additional means of prosecuting it to a successful issue. Although I must say that your modesty alone could have suggested the request; as your long and perilous labors among the ferocious savages of Oregon are known to the whole Catholic world and will commend you to the veneration and charity of all who shall have the happiness of seeing you.
You can the more confidently appeal to the friends of religion and humanity; inasmuch as looking for no earthly reward yourself, save privations and hardships, your only wish is to " spend and be spent " in the service of thousands of benighted and degraded souls who demand at your hands the blessings of faith and civilization.
You have my most earnest prayers for your success in your eminently good and heroic work. And I shall be happy to avail myself of any opportunity to shew you with what sincerity, I am your faithful and affectionate servant in Christ,
SAMUEL Abp. Balt.
Reverend P. J. DE SMET, S. J.
Baltimore, March 12, 1847.