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Letter 28 - To Mrs. and the Misses Chevreux
Seminary of the Foreign Missions - 24 November 1846, in the evening
My dear Ladies,
I want to be faithful to my promise, that is, to give you news about me. I have reason, therefore, to hope that on you part, you will also fulfill yours. Even if the need of fulfilling my promise did not exist, the pleasure I experience in conversing with you for a moment almost created an obligation to write to you. Yes, rest assured, my dear Ladies, even though one has said a perhaps eternal goodbye to one’s homeland, yet one still likes to remember persons who are dear; very often, their memory still brings to mind happy moments. Then again, how to break so soon the ties which bind me to you? It was in suffering that we got to know each other; friendship arising from joy can be forgotten but friendship engendered in sorrow has eternity as its end. Yes, if Providence allows me to go to a faraway shore, to shed a fewdrops of sweat, give rise to a single soul for our dear Jesus, then I will think of you. The first proof of friendship I will ask of this brother whom I will have brought to rebirth in light, will be a prayer for my friends in Europe. — a prayer also for those whom I love and who are no longer with us. Ah! How sweet it will then be for me to blend my weak prayer to the fervent orations of my brother, at the moment still an infidel. Since I have left you, very few things have changed for me. I saw Paris and a few other attractions and that is all. Here in my solitude, I await the moment when God will deign to summon me to work. I’ve been here for only a few weeks and already I had the pleasure of seeing a few of my colleagues leave for the missions. I say “pleasure” because departure is what gives joy to all of us. Oh! How I would have loved to see you at this ceremony of kissing of the feet and of the last hug. It is truly touching. We leave each other in the hope of meeting again on high, to which all our desires and efforts are to be directed. Yes, all of us have friends who await us and who help us in oursufferings. On earth, we perhaps had to leave them; now, at least, we can communicate with them continuously. Their glorious death spurs us on to obtain a similar one. Now to something else; let us talk a bit about what interests you. Let us speak a bit about Paris. You will perhaps agree with my opinion — be that as it may — I must present it to you. Well! Paris does not please me in the least. Everything I’ve seen up tonow falls short of my expectations. There is some beauty, no doubt, but it is not the ideal that I had imagined. That’s what happens when you listen to your imagination: sooner or later, we are deceived. I thought I would encounter lovely streets, very straight and lined up. Not at all; they are winding and sometimes quite dirty1. And then, an almost continuous fog which makes you lose almost all feeling and sometimes drivesyou into a quite unpleasant melancholy. Ah! Quite often, I’ve said to myself: “Long livethe pure air of Lorraine! In short, I would not enjoy myself in Paris. For all that, I am hardly speaking in my favor, and yet earlier I wanted to excite you to come see me next spring. If I paint such a sad picture of this city, this will perhaps not be very inviting to you? Ah! You see it is that I fear that your coming would be solely to see Paris and not to visit me. I am also somewhat jealous of having you undertake this voyage. See, it is such a simple matter: you leave at eight o’clock in the morning from Nancy and at 10 o’clock the following morning you are in Paris. I hardly dare to hope. Nonetheless, I cannot dispel this illusion in my mind; yet hope remains at the bottom of my heart, sometimes in spite of myself. With this letter, I am sending you — I don’t know what to call it — a gift? It’snot that. A souvenir? It’s not that either. In the end, name it whatever you wish: it’s very little but when you consider that this has touched the relics of a holy martyr of our time, your faith will make this small picture more valuable in your eyes. And you will remember that this comes from a poor candidate for the Missions; he lives from the generosity of the faithful, and strives to provide you with the best possible, as a sign of his affection. Later on, Miladies, I hope to have the pleasure of also sending you a smallreliquary and some relics of the dead of our congregation in China. This precious medallion which you kindly gave me, I dare not wear on me, for fear of breaking it, but I have placed instead near my crucifix located on my dresser.Every time I cast my eyes on my Savior, they fall also on the remains of him whom I love and will always love. I think of him and then I also think of the persons who gave me this previous memento. There follows a short prayer rising up to Jesus for each and everyone. If only this small movement of my heart be well received before the throne of the Almighty; quite often, my poor prayers are very lukewarm. I hope, however, thatGod will look favorably on my good will, and that He will listen to them with a receptive ear, despite their coldness. I also wrote a short note to my dear Alfred. I fulfilled my promise; now it’s up to him to fulfill his own. No doubt he is reasonably happy in his new position. The hope he had of obtaining it was beforehand a sureguarantee. His kind aunt should be no less unhappy that he is no longer in his previousposition because of his fears there and of his dread of ghosts. In spite of this, I am sure that she hardly spends a day without going to visit him and to tell him how much she loves him.I end, my dear Ladies, praying that heaven always bestow on you, in your sufferings and pain, that resignation to the divine will which makes you all the more admired by those who have the pleasure of knowing you. Ah! How God must be glorified with your noble sentiments, especially from yours, good Mother of my dear friend. Ah! What a beautiful crown must await you up there. Yes, you have understood that life here below is very short, and as a result, we must not become attached to it.You have understood that it is only a place of passage, lasting but a few days, after which we meet again all those we loved and who have preceded us in eternal bliss. Oh! Yes, heaven; it is there that we will find each other again. May that lovely day appear soon. Would that the separation not be too protracted, since we will undoubtedly no longer see each other on earth. I still don’t know the designs Divine Providence has for me; I am in His hands; I no longer have my own will. I don’t know if it is to be in Indiaor in China that God will call His unworthy servant who has labored so little in his vineyard. I will be comfortable everywhere, as long as I am where He has called me. Let us, my dear Ladies, pray for each other during our few days of exile, so that we may all arrive happily to the haven of salvation.
Goodbye, my dear Ladies. May the peace of Our Divine Savior be with you. Let us be united in the Hearts of Jesus and of Mary. Please accept the sentiments of a verysincere friendship from your most devoted and affectionate Schoeffler, deacon candidate for the Missions Since I expect one of your fine letters within a few days, I need to give you my address so that you will have no excuse to put off the reply so hoped for... Don’t let my dear Alfred break his promise, otherwise I will not take him as my associate: - Reverend Schoeffler, deacon at the Seminary of Foreign Missions, 120 rue du Bac, Paris.
1 Haussman has not yet plowed through the city! The Grand Boulevards do not exist.
I want to be faithful to my promise, that is, to give you news about me. I have reason, therefore, to hope that on you part, you will also fulfill yours. Even if the need of fulfilling my promise did not exist, the pleasure I experience in conversing with you for a moment almost created an obligation to write to you. Yes, rest assured, my dear Ladies, even though one has said a perhaps eternal goodbye to one’s homeland, yet one still likes to remember persons who are dear; very often, their memory still brings to mind happy moments. Then again, how to break so soon the ties which bind me to you? It was in suffering that we got to know each other; friendship arising from joy can be forgotten but friendship engendered in sorrow has eternity as its end. Yes, if Providence allows me to go to a faraway shore, to shed a fewdrops of sweat, give rise to a single soul for our dear Jesus, then I will think of you. The first proof of friendship I will ask of this brother whom I will have brought to rebirth in light, will be a prayer for my friends in Europe. — a prayer also for those whom I love and who are no longer with us. Ah! How sweet it will then be for me to blend my weak prayer to the fervent orations of my brother, at the moment still an infidel. Since I have left you, very few things have changed for me. I saw Paris and a few other attractions and that is all. Here in my solitude, I await the moment when God will deign to summon me to work. I’ve been here for only a few weeks and already I had the pleasure of seeing a few of my colleagues leave for the missions. I say “pleasure” because departure is what gives joy to all of us. Oh! How I would have loved to see you at this ceremony of kissing of the feet and of the last hug. It is truly touching. We leave each other in the hope of meeting again on high, to which all our desires and efforts are to be directed. Yes, all of us have friends who await us and who help us in oursufferings. On earth, we perhaps had to leave them; now, at least, we can communicate with them continuously. Their glorious death spurs us on to obtain a similar one. Now to something else; let us talk a bit about what interests you. Let us speak a bit about Paris. You will perhaps agree with my opinion — be that as it may — I must present it to you. Well! Paris does not please me in the least. Everything I’ve seen up tonow falls short of my expectations. There is some beauty, no doubt, but it is not the ideal that I had imagined. That’s what happens when you listen to your imagination: sooner or later, we are deceived. I thought I would encounter lovely streets, very straight and lined up. Not at all; they are winding and sometimes quite dirty1. And then, an almost continuous fog which makes you lose almost all feeling and sometimes drivesyou into a quite unpleasant melancholy. Ah! Quite often, I’ve said to myself: “Long livethe pure air of Lorraine! In short, I would not enjoy myself in Paris. For all that, I am hardly speaking in my favor, and yet earlier I wanted to excite you to come see me next spring. If I paint such a sad picture of this city, this will perhaps not be very inviting to you? Ah! You see it is that I fear that your coming would be solely to see Paris and not to visit me. I am also somewhat jealous of having you undertake this voyage. See, it is such a simple matter: you leave at eight o’clock in the morning from Nancy and at 10 o’clock the following morning you are in Paris. I hardly dare to hope. Nonetheless, I cannot dispel this illusion in my mind; yet hope remains at the bottom of my heart, sometimes in spite of myself. With this letter, I am sending you — I don’t know what to call it — a gift? It’snot that. A souvenir? It’s not that either. In the end, name it whatever you wish: it’s very little but when you consider that this has touched the relics of a holy martyr of our time, your faith will make this small picture more valuable in your eyes. And you will remember that this comes from a poor candidate for the Missions; he lives from the generosity of the faithful, and strives to provide you with the best possible, as a sign of his affection. Later on, Miladies, I hope to have the pleasure of also sending you a smallreliquary and some relics of the dead of our congregation in China. This precious medallion which you kindly gave me, I dare not wear on me, for fear of breaking it, but I have placed instead near my crucifix located on my dresser.Every time I cast my eyes on my Savior, they fall also on the remains of him whom I love and will always love. I think of him and then I also think of the persons who gave me this previous memento. There follows a short prayer rising up to Jesus for each and everyone. If only this small movement of my heart be well received before the throne of the Almighty; quite often, my poor prayers are very lukewarm. I hope, however, thatGod will look favorably on my good will, and that He will listen to them with a receptive ear, despite their coldness. I also wrote a short note to my dear Alfred. I fulfilled my promise; now it’s up to him to fulfill his own. No doubt he is reasonably happy in his new position. The hope he had of obtaining it was beforehand a sureguarantee. His kind aunt should be no less unhappy that he is no longer in his previousposition because of his fears there and of his dread of ghosts. In spite of this, I am sure that she hardly spends a day without going to visit him and to tell him how much she loves him.I end, my dear Ladies, praying that heaven always bestow on you, in your sufferings and pain, that resignation to the divine will which makes you all the more admired by those who have the pleasure of knowing you. Ah! How God must be glorified with your noble sentiments, especially from yours, good Mother of my dear friend. Ah! What a beautiful crown must await you up there. Yes, you have understood that life here below is very short, and as a result, we must not become attached to it.You have understood that it is only a place of passage, lasting but a few days, after which we meet again all those we loved and who have preceded us in eternal bliss. Oh! Yes, heaven; it is there that we will find each other again. May that lovely day appear soon. Would that the separation not be too protracted, since we will undoubtedly no longer see each other on earth. I still don’t know the designs Divine Providence has for me; I am in His hands; I no longer have my own will. I don’t know if it is to be in Indiaor in China that God will call His unworthy servant who has labored so little in his vineyard. I will be comfortable everywhere, as long as I am where He has called me. Let us, my dear Ladies, pray for each other during our few days of exile, so that we may all arrive happily to the haven of salvation.
Goodbye, my dear Ladies. May the peace of Our Divine Savior be with you. Let us be united in the Hearts of Jesus and of Mary. Please accept the sentiments of a verysincere friendship from your most devoted and affectionate Schoeffler, deacon candidate for the Missions Since I expect one of your fine letters within a few days, I need to give you my address so that you will have no excuse to put off the reply so hoped for... Don’t let my dear Alfred break his promise, otherwise I will not take him as my associate: - Reverend Schoeffler, deacon at the Seminary of Foreign Missions, 120 rue du Bac, Paris.
1 Haussman has not yet plowed through the city! The Grand Boulevards do not exist.
