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My dear children, I order you to speak Kabyle and Arabic but never French; likewise, to avoid using interpreters with the local people, even if you have to endure embarrassments in the beginning.

In this way, everything would be conducted in an orderly and methodical manner, and in a spirit of obedience which would surely attract abundant blessings on the missionaries and their work.

You are in danger of going astray if you do not take as your top priority among all your preoccupations the practical means of maintaining and fostering the spiritual life within you. My dear Sons, if you are not men of God you will be men of the devil; and you will not be men of God if you forget your personal obligations, those imposed on you by your Rule, to Him.

To these prayers, which I shall renew and have renewed for you, daily, I wish to add some special recommendations that seem to me necessary to guide your inexperience. I wish also to give you a new indication of the interest, which I have in the success of such an important Mission, along with the Holy Apostolic See and the entire Catholic Church.

Please take over immediately the handling of this most serious matter and ask for the immediate release of this young doctor. Answer me by telegram, because I am determined to take this matter to Paris, if justice is not done in Algiers.