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Today it is your feet that I wish to kiss, despite my religious rank and my age. It is not simply an act of paternal love that wish to accomplish, but rather an act of faith in the very words of our Holy Books « Quam pulchri pedes evangelizantium pacem, evangelizantium bona ». You will do as I do, my dear Brethren, and through this act of religious respect you will acquire a right to the merit of the apostles and martyrs.

Abandon our neophytes, our catechumens, our ransomed slaves, to save a life for one day? Never! My dear brethren, never! I love my sons, I have consecrated the best part of my life in forming their little Society which has been visibly blessed by God; I love them even to giving my life for them if necessary.

It will be the fulfilment of the saying of Saint Paul: « Momentaneum et leve tribulationis nostrae, aeternum gloriae pondus operatur in nobis. » Yes, if you are departing in the fullness of vigour, of youth, of hope, and if you are leaving everything behind, it is because your faith gives you the assurance of the reward to come, and this reward deserves to be bought by the pains of a day.

The first among the Catholic apostles of this time, they have arrived on the shores of the Great Lakes in the interior [of the African Continent] from which the Nile and the Congo take their source. They had already shown their courage by inundating with their blood the arid sands of the Sahara.