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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.

I can thus say, without fear of contradiction from anyone who knows him, that Reverend Father Toulotte is a model not only of virtue and therefore of zeal, but also of the love of study and of knowledge of all that pertains to ancient Christian Africa.

After mature reflection before God on the circumstances of such an important matter I have come to the opinion that, with all the responsibilities that burden me already, I could not reserve to my own person the administration of the Apostolic Vicariate without doing harm to its future development.