"
The missionary was a poor young man from the village
of Aradon, in Brittany, in the Morbihan country. His
earliest instincts had drawn him toward an ecclesiastical
career, but to this life of self-sacrifice he was also desirous
of joining a life of danger, by entering the mission of the
order of priesthood of which St. Vincent de Paul was the
founder, and, at twenty, he quitted his country for the
inhospitable shores of Africa. From the sea-coast, overcoming
obstacles, little by little, braving all privations,
pushing onward, afoot, and praying, he had advanced to
the very centre of those tribes that dwell among the tributary
streams of the Upper Nile. For two years his faith
was spurned, his zeal denied recognition, his charities
taken in ill part, and he remained a prisoner to one of the
cruelest tribes of the Nyambarra, the object of every
species of maltreatment. But still he went on teaching,
instructing, and praying. The tribe having been dispersed
and he left for dead, in one of those combats which
are so frequent between the tribes, instead of retracing his
steps, he persisted in his evangelical mission. His most
tranquil time was when he was taken for a madman.
Meanwhile, he had made himself familiar with the idioms
of the country, and he catechised in them.
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