Dear Brother,
I begin to be very uneasy about you, having sent you three or
four letters since I heard from you last. I therefore hope you will
answer this as soon as you possibly can. As to myself, I am often
best of indifferent health as when I wrote to you last but I still
keep agoing. We are all well and I hope your country has escaped the
Cholera, with us it followed the river. Be so kind as to give my
best respects to Mrs. Charles Smith. Tell her that I intend to pay a
visit to Opelousas next fall, if possible, to have the pleasure off
seeing you all, & I would not but that it will restore my
health. I am tired of our cold winters and changeable weather, &
I shall have a favourable opportunity. Tell her that according to
her recent request I am still bent in engaging some of our community
to go & see your country & I am in great hopes of
succeeding, but our Dominicans not knowing your country have a great
idea of going to Texas, where the greatest offers are made to
Catholics & where there is the greatest want of priests to where
they can get any quantity of land merely by surveying it. Nothing
will give me more satisfaction than to hear from you immediately.
Our good Dominicans are highly respected here & they will be a
blessing to whatever country they go, but all agree that they never
can thrive here, as the country is too poor for them to form a large
establishment or maintain many subjects. There is a college of
Secular Priests and another of Jesuits near them and I think you may
[stop (?)] some of them.
My Dear Sister I must now beg pray that in case my Dear Brother
has departed this life you would let me know immediately that I may
know whether to set out for Opelousas or not. I assure you that I
should have set out long ago had it not been for want of a proper
opportunity. Our Dear Niece, Mary Ann Hendrix, is well and still a
most valuable sister at the Monastery of Bethania. I am still at St.
Rose. Tell me if I ought to try to engage some of our Dominicans for
Opelousas & with what prospect & be so good as to send me
your address and at what place I had better land. How I had best
travel on to you. My great reason for establishing a convent of
Dominicans among you is that they may also restore their College as
nothing promotes the happiness of a country so much as a solid
Christian education which I am persuaded is your best inheritance
you can leave your children. The Dominicans only want the means
other colleges get assistance from Europe. I beg therefore an
immediate answer.
