been selected for a convent and two schools. A Catholic church has been erected at Vancouver.
The Convent of the Sisters of Notre Dame is fast progressing, and it will be the finest building of Willamette. The church is eighty feet long, and proportionably wide; it is under the invocation of the Blessed Virgin. The religious have already fifty boarders. The Bishop's College, under the management of the Very Rev. Mr. Bolduc, is very prosperous. The number of pupils has augmented; forty young men, chiefly Metis, are receiving a Christian education. Some years ago, a church was erected at Cowlitz, and the inhabitants are now preparing to construct a convent under the direction of Rev. Mr. Langlois.
[99] Our residence of St. Francis Xavier is completed; it will hereafter serve for a novitiate and seminary, to prepare young men for the missions.
Measures, which I trust will be realized, have been taken by our fathers for visiting, during this year, the numerous tribes inhabiting the Pacific coast north and south of the Columbia; where, already, the visits of the bishop and his grand vicar have been so productive of favorable results. The 17th Feb., 1842, Bishop Blanchet thus wrote to the Bishop of Quebec: "God has deigned to bless our labors, and to fructify the divine word. The adorable name of Jesus has been announced to new nations of the north. Mr. Demers bent his steps to Fort Langley on Frazer's River, in which place he administered baptism to upwards of 700 children. Many of them already enjoy the precious fruits of regenerating grace.
In my preceding letters, I gave you the details of our missions among the mountains of the higher Oregon; of the conversion of two tribes, the Flatheads and the Cœurs-d'Alèneurs d'Alène?] or Pointed Hearts; of the first communion of the latter, and conversion of several Kalispels of the Bay,
