"At the above-mentioned place, the Rev. Fathers Hecker, Deshon, and Baker opened a mission, Sunday, February 13, which continued during a week, and closed on the evening of the Sunday following. To say that it was most successful, is too cold an expression; and to call it most impressive, beautiful, and triumphant, can give no adequate idea of its enchanting power. During the week of its continuance, the hill that is crowned by the graceful Church of St. Peter, with its tall steeple and gilded cross, marking the first of a series of eminences that rise higher and higher westward from the River Passaic, has almost realized Mount Thabor. The eager people of the country round had been beforehand preparing for the arrival of the missionaries, and no sooner did the good fathers come than the faithful people rose up in haste to meet them. Down they came, the children of old Roscommon and Mayo, from the romantic hills of Caldwell on the west, along the glades and woody slopes of Bloomfield, saluting, as they passed, their newly-built Church of 'Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.' Onward and upward, too, were hastening from the north and east, through Acquackanouck and Belleville, those who long ago left the Boyne and the Luir, the Liffey and Shannon, to cultivate the valley of the scarcely less beautiful Passaic. A thin, sparkling frost still lay upon the roads; and the crisping sounds of their hurrying feet, 'beautiful with glad tidings,' and their cheerfully ringing voices, far and near, were heard along the banks and over the drawbridge of that beautiful river--beautiful at half-past four in the balmy morning air--quivering under the hovering, waning moon, the deep-blue sky, and the twinkling stars. {182} But the people of the valley have ascended the hill from whence the loud bell of St. Peter's steeple has been awakening the country for miles around with its clear and booming sounds. They meet their brethren from Bloomfield and Caldwell, and pause for a moment before the double flight of steps leading up to the portico of the church. Every window gleams with light. The organ and choir are intoning and singing the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, 'Sancta Virgo Virginum,' Holy Virgin of Virgins, pray for us.' 'I thought I was before the bell,' exclaims a young woman, just come from several miles off, as she flits hastily through the doorway to be in time for Mass. But the priest, in his shining vestments, with his little surpliced attendants, is already at the altar; and, it being five o'clock, the first Mass of the morning has punctually begun. The weather, however, at two or three other intervals of the mission, was not quite so propitious, nor the roads so pleasant; for thaws and occasional rain had softened the latter to a disagreeable extent. But this mattered nothing to the seamless robe of the Faith, which is proof against all