Kategoria: CML200

For a long time now, I have not found an occasion to renew with your Eminence the relations which have remained particularly dear to me and which, at the time of my journey to London in 1888, thanks to your Eminence, has such a happy result for the resolution of the question of slavery according to the desire of the Holy Father.

However, for this, Gentlemen, funds are needed, and you alone can provide me with them; I am already committed for a quite considerable sum. The rent of the house that serves as the Seminary costs three thousand francs. The upkeep of the pupils and their teachers costs eight thousand five hundred francs.

Do excuse me, Most Reverend Father, if I do not write to you with my own hand. I am prevented by an eye inflammation. Nevertheless, if the eyes of the body are sick, those of the heart will not be so to follow, from a distance, in gratitude, the progress of your holy works, which I earnestly urge Our Lord to bless with even greater abundance.

“What do we ask for?” said the eminent prelate. “Only what is necessary, a roof for shelter, clothes to wear and daily bread. What is one going to say to me? That it is humiliating to beg? Ah! How sweet is this humiliation when one bears it for those one loves!

You remark, among other things, that it would be opportune to send to the mission of Upper Congo as many missionaries of Belgian origin as possible, following the arrangement made from the beginning with King Leopold.