temptations against his vocation, and to abandon the religious state from weariness, tepidity, or any unworthy motive, think to find any encouragement in the example of F. Baker; for his austere, self-denying, and arduous life will give him only rebuke, and not encouragement. {172} During the entire autumn and winter of this year, F. Baker and his companions were occupied in a continuous course of large and successful missions, in the parishes of St. James, Newark; Cold Spring and Poughkeepsie, on the Hudson; St. John's, Utica, N. Y.; Brandywine, Del.; Trenton, N. J.; Burlington, Brandon, East and West Rutland, Vt.; Plattsburg, Saratoga, and Little Falls, New York. With loyal hearts we continued to obey our superiors, and fulfil our obligations as Redemptorists, until the supreme authority in the Church released us by his decree. This decree was issued on the 6th of March, 1858, and received by us on the 6th of April. After the Mission of Little Falls, F. Baker was directed by the Provincial to return to Annapolis, and although fatigued by the missions, and aware that his dispensation was on the way, yet, true to the letter to his principle of obedience, he obeyed at once. The other three missionaries passed the Holy Week and Easter in the convent of New York, in Third street, and, after receiving the official copy of the Papal decree, bade farewell to the congregation where we had passed so many happy years, and witnessed so many edifying examples of high virtue and devoted zeal, to enter upon a new and untried undertaking.