Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/197

 HISTORY OP SOUTHEAST MISSOURI 137 sured that their salaries would be paid regu- larly and without any question, they must look to the congregation which they served, and the only revenues were voluntary gifts to the church. Just as the matter worked out everywhere, however, the change was made and the work of the church carried on in spite of this change. We cannot fail to perceive that the work of the missionaries in Missouri at this early time was both arduous and dangerous. There were few roads. Those in existence were sim- ply paths through the wilderness. The de- voted priests often rode for hundreds of miles in the course of the year, traveling from one settlement to another along these paths through the woods and across the streams ; they were exposed to all the dangers of the wilderness. They were sometimes attacked by the Indians, and sometimes in peril from the wild beasts. They must have suffered great hardships from exposure to the Aveather, and from their distance from civilization. There has never been a lack, however, of men willing to endure hardships and to face dan- gers in the work of spreading the gospel. The services that these men rendered cannot be fully estimated. They helped to redeem the wilderness and to plant standards of religion and morality in communities that must other- wise have been entirely unreclaimed. Religious enterprise li.y no means ceased with the transfer of Louisiana in 1804. In the year 1815 the Reverend W. F. Dubourg, who had been an ofificer of the church at New Orleans, undertook a journey to Rome and while there was consecrated bishop of the dio- cese of New Orleans. The territory over which he was to exercise spiritual authority and .iurisdiction included all of Loiiisiana, both Upper and Lower, and stretched from the Mississippi river to the Pacific ocean. It was an enormous task to be undertaken by any man, but the new bishop was fitted for the work. He possessed industry, learning and devotion to the work. He had also, what was indispensable to him in the work of his position, an insight into human character and the ability to select those assistants who would be useful to him in his work. While he was in Rome he chose a number of men and persuaded them to return with him to Louisi- ana. He had been greatly impressed at Rome by the preaching of Father De Andreis. This priest was a most remarkable man. He was highly educated, distinguished for his abil- ity as an orator and as a teacher, and he oc- cupied a high position at Rome. Neverthe- less, he yielded to the persuasion of Bishop Dubourg and, accompanied by some others, among them Father Joseph Rosati, departed for the new scene of his labours. The bishop, himself, was detained, but Fa- ther De Andreis, with the re.st of the party, arrived in St. Louis in 1817. They had come Ijy way of Bardstown, Kentucky, the resid- ence of Bishop Flaget, who accompanied them on their trip to St. Louis. After remaining some days in St. Louis and making prepar- ation for the coming of Bishop Dubourg, the party started back down the river. They met the bishop at Ste. Genevieve. Here in 1818, the Bishop celebrated the first pontifical high mass ever celebrated in Upper Louisiana. Dubourg fixed his seat at St. Louis and en- tered on the work of his great diocese with tremenduous energy and zeal. He had from at first seen the necessity of the establishment of a school for the training of priests. One of the purposes he had in mind in persuading Father De Andreis to come with him to this country was to make use of his great learning and abilitv as a teacher in the foundation of