One of our number was at that time in Rome, for the purpose of obtaining from the chief authority a settlement of certain difficulties which had arisen, and which impeded the successful and harmonious prosecution of the missions. The question was finally settled by a separation of five American Redemptorists, by a brief of the Holy Father, from their former congregation, and the formation of the new Congregation of St. Paul, under episcopal authority. F. Baker was for the first time informed of the reasons for appealing to the decision of the Holy Father, at the mission of St. James's Church, Newark, which commenced on the 26th of September, 1857. I have no intention of exposing the history of the difference which arose between us and our former religious superiors, or of making a criticism upon their conduct. If the providence of God ordered events in such a way that a new congregation should be formed for a special purpose, it is nothing new or strange that men, having a different vocation, and whose views and aims were cast in a different mould, should with the most conscientious intentions, be unable to coincide in judgment or act in concert. There is room in the Catholic Church for every kind of religious organization, suiting all the varieties of mind and character and circumstance. {171} If collisions and misunderstandings often come between those who have the same great end in view, this is the result of human infirmity, and only shows how imperfect and partial are human wisdom and human virtue. All that I am concerned to show is, that F. Baker did not swerve from his original purpose in choosing the religious state. He had never been discontented with his state, or with his superiors. He was still in the first fervor of his vocation, and had just made a strict and exact retreat. He deliberated for some weeks within his own mind, without saying or doing any thing to commit himself to any particular line of conduct. When he finally made up his mind to cast in his lot with his missionary companions, and to abide with them the decision of the Holy Father, it was solely in view of serving God and his fellow-men in the most perfect manner. For the congregation where he was trained to the religious and ecclesiastical state, he always retained a sincere esteem and affection. He did not ask the Pope for a dispensation from his vows in order to be relieved from a burdensome obligation, but only on the condition that it seemed best to him to terminate the difficulty which had arisen in that way. When the dispensation was granted, he did not change his life for a more easy one. He resisted a pressing solicitation to return to Baltimore as a secular priest, and continued until his death to labor in a missionary life, and to practise the poverty, the obedience, the assiduity in prayer and meditation, and the seclusion from the world, which belong to the religious state. Let no one, therefore, who is disposed to yield to