The Spirit of the Early Missionary [pp. 794-802]

I894.] THE SPIRIT OF THE EARLY MISSIONARY.
and broader life, where men are less hindered by custom
and tradition, where they dare greater and nobler things,
where failure once is but an incentive to greater effort, will
come the first organized band of missions of the word of
God to all non-Catholics. And I deem it true that this
shall especially be the apostolate of the secular priesthood.
The absorbing work of money-getting, building churches, schools,
asylums, hospitals is past, and year by year growing less, so
that the secular priest begins at last to have leisure for other
works, to heed those words of our Lord, "for other sheep I
have." The regular clergy are but their auxiliaries in this as
in other great works of the priesthood. Dominicans, Jesuits,
Redemptorists, Benedictines, Paulists will hasten at their call
to render what aid is in their power. Significant is the fact
that among the first missions to the land not a few were of the
secular clergy. As the settlement of the country nears its completion, as the number of clergy increases, more and more will
opportunity be afforded for work in this apostolate.
Were there need of further example of zeal and work in the
mission life, we might turn to Maine and follow the life of the
saintly Rasle, or to the English missions in Maryland, where
Father Andrew White and Father Roger so wonderfully illustrated the missionary apostolate, or to that inexhaustible storehouse of faith, martyrdom, love, zeal, suffering, and death, and
where, amidst all these, astounding success crowned the labors of
the missionary-California.
Some time ago one of our popular magazines published an
article from the pen of a non-Catholic lady on one of the more
illustrious missions of California, and illustrated it with drawings of some of the old mission stations in their present condition. It is worthy of note how very extensively that article was
read by Catholic readers everywhere. And yet it was but a
passing glimpse of the picture, and the subject but one of
many whose names are high in the wonderful annals of that
great missionary work. Somewhere about the year I679 at In golstadt, in Germany, a distinguished professor of mathematics,
a man accounted the best astronomer of his day in Germany,
was ill unto death. He made a vow that should he recover he
would devote his life to missionary labor. On the advent of
his return to health he fulfilled his vow by coming to America,
where he devoted his life to the Pimos Indians in California,
learning several languages, writing catechisms in these new
tongues, composing vocabularies and grammatical treatises for
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