Having spent a part of the night praying God to change the heart of my bishop, and keep me in the midst of my people, who were becoming dearer and dearer to me, in proportion to the efforts of the enemy to drive me away from them, I addressed the following letter to the bishop:
To the Rt. Rev. O’Regan, Bishop of Chicago.
My Lord:—The more I consider your design to turn me out of the colony which I have founded and of which I am the pastor, the more I believe it a duty which I owe to myself, my friends and to my countrymen, to protest before God and man against what you intend to do.
Not a single one of your priests stands higher than I do in the public mind, neither is more loved and respected by his people than I am. I defy my bitterest enemies to prove the contrary. And that character which is my most precious treasure you intend to despoil me of by ignominiously sending me away from among my people! Certainly, I have enemies, and I am proud of it. The chief ones are well known in this country as the most depraved of men. The cordial reception they say they have received from you, has not taken away the stains they have on their foreheads.
By this letter, I again request you to make a public and most minute inquest into my conduct. My conscience tells me that nothing can be found against me. Such a public and fair dealing with me would confound my accusers. But I speak of accusers, when I do not really know if I have any. Where are they? What are their names? Of what sin do they accuse me? All these questions, which I put to you last Tuesday, were left unanswered! and would to God that you would answer them to-day, by giving me their names. I am ready to meet them before any tribunal. Before you strike the last blow on the victim of the most hellish plot, I request you, in the name of God, to give a moment’s attention to the following consequences of my removal from this place at present.
You know I have a suit with Mr. Spink at the Urbana Court, for the beginning of October. My lawyers and witnesses are all in Kankakee and Iroquois counties; and in the very time I want most to be here to prove my innocence and guard my honor, you order me to go to a place more than 300 miles distant? Did you ever realize that by that strange conduct you help Spink against your own priest? When at Kahokia, I will have to bear the heavy expenses of traveling more than 300 miles, many times, to consult my friends, or, be deprived of their valuable help! Is it possible that you thus try to tie my hands and feet, and deliver me into the hands of my remorseless enemies? Since the beginning of that suit, Mr. Spink proclaims that you help him, and that, with the perjured priests, you have promised to do all in your power to crush me down! For the sake of the sacred character you bear, do not show so publicly that Mr. Spink’s boastings are true. For the sake of your high position in the church, do not so publicly lend a helping hand to the heartless land speculator of L’Erable. He has already betrayed his Protestant friends to get a wife; he will, ere long, betray you for less. Let me then live in peace here, till that suit is over.
By turning me away from my settlement, you destroy it. More than nine-tenths of the emigrants came here to live near me; by striking me you strike them all.
Where will you find a priest who will love that people so much as to give them, every year, from one to two thousand dollars, as I have invariably done. It is at the price of those sacrifices that, with the poorest class of emigrants from Canada, I have founded here in four years a settlement which cannot be surpassed, or even equaled, in the United States, for its progress. And now that I have spent my last cent to form this colony, you turn me out of it. Our college, where 150 boys are receiving such a good education, will be closed the very day I leave. For, you know very well the teachers I got from Montreal will leave as soon as I will.
Ah! if you are merciless towards the priest of St. Anne, have pity on these poor children. I would rather be condemned to death than to see them destroy their intelligence by running in the streets. Let me then finish my work here, and give me time to strengthen these young institutions, which would fall to the ground with me.
If you turn me out or interdict me, as you say you will do, if I disobey your orders, my enemies will proclaim that you treat me with that rigor because you have found me guilty of some great iniquity, and this necessarily will prejudice my judges against me. They will consider me as a vile criminal. For who will suppose, in this free country, that there is a class of men who can judge a man and condemn him as our Bishop of Chicago is doing to-day, without giving him the names of his accusers or telling him of what crimes he is accused.