dropped into the position of a novice and a student so easily, and with such a perfectness of humility, that it seemed his natural and obvious place to be among the youths and young men who were with him. He was the favorite and companion of the youngest among them, and, it is needless to say, the delight and consolation of his superiors. After one year of novitiate and his profession, he continued for two years more studying dogmatic and moral theology, with the other accessories usually taught to candidates for orders. During this time he lost his amiable and excellent sister, Elizabeth Baker, to his great sorrow. Although his ordination was postponed much longer than is usually the case with men in his position, already so well prepared by their previous intellectual and moral training for the priesthood, he was not in the least impatient at the delay, and his long preparation gave him the advantage that he was ready at once to undertake all the most difficult and responsible duties of a matured and experienced priest. Besides this, he acquired that thorough and minute theoretical and practical knowledge of the ceremonies of the Church, and of every thing relating to the divine service of the altar and the sanctuary, for which he was afterward distinguished. He came out of his long retirement a workman thoroughly and completely furnished for his task, and imbued through and through with the spirit of the Catholic Church. I seldom saw him, and never exchanged letters with him, during all this period, each of us being absorbed in his own particular duties and occupations, at a distance from the other. As the time of his ordination approached, we were both of us, however, again in the same House, that of St. Alphonsus, in Baltimore. {115} It was in the summer of 1856 that he finished his studies, and, having some time before received the minor orders, began his retreat preparatory to being admitted to the three holy orders. During the retreat, his companion, F. Vogien, an amiable and holy young religious--with him and the saintly prelate who ordained them, now, I trust, in heaven--was full of dread and apprehension, often weeping, and even entreating his superior to postpone his ordination. With Father Baker it was otherwise. While I was in the church, during the evening, employed in the exercises of my own retreat, I often heard him singing the most joyful of the ecclesiastical chants in the garden, and his placid, pale face was lighted up with the radiant joy of a Soul approaching to the consummation of its holiest and most cherished wishes. He was ordained sub-deacon and deacon in St. Mary's Chapel during the week before the Sunday fixed for his ordination to the priesthood. On Sunday, September 21, 1856, he was ordained priest by Archbishop Kenrick, in the Cathedral. The Archbishop celebrated Pontifical Mass, the reverend gentlemen and seminarists from St. Sulpice assisted, and the clergy were