Merv: Created page with "==April and 25 July 1844 — Father Jérôme Grange to a Marist Father, Tonga== ''According to the copy, APM OC 208 (Tonga), Grange.'' ''Three sheets forming twelve pages, ten of which are written; the eleventh was left blank, and the twelfth bears only Poupinel’s annotation.'' ''Translated by Merv Duffy and ChatGPT, August 2026. '' [p. 12] ''[In Poupinel’s hand:] Letter from Reverend Father Grange to a Father of the Society — Tonga-Tabou, April 1844.''..."

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Created page with "==April and 25 July 1844 — Father Jérôme Grange to a Marist Father, Tonga== ''According to the copy, APM OC 208 (Tonga), Grange.'' ''Three sheets forming twelve pages, ten of which are written; the eleventh was left blank, and the twelfth bears only Poupinel’s annotation.'' ''Translated by Merv Duffy and ChatGPT, August 2026. '' [p. 12] ''[In Poupinel’s hand:] Letter from Reverend Father Grange to a Father of the Society — Tonga-Tabou, April 1844.''..."

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==April and 25 July 1844 — Father Jérôme Grange to a Marist Father, Tonga==

''According to the copy, [[APM]] OC 208 (Tonga), Grange.''

''Three sheets forming twelve pages, ten of which are written; the eleventh was left blank, and the twelfth bears only Poupinel’s annotation.''

''Translated by Merv Duffy and ChatGPT, August 2026. ''

[p. 12]

''[In Poupinel’s hand:] Letter from Reverend Father Grange to a Father of the Society — Tonga-Tabou, April 1844.''

''Letter from Reverend Father Grange, Apostolic Missionary of the Society of Mary, to a Father of the same Society.''

----

:Tonga-Tabou, April 1844.

:My Reverend Father,

;[1]: The news we received concerning the Society and our friends through His Lordship the Bishop of Amata last November was more welcome to my heart in this distant land, I may say, than the pure, clear water of a spring is to a man who is thirsty and exhausted by the heat: ''aqua frigida animæ sitienti, est bonus nuntius de terra longinqua'' (Proverbs 25:25).<ref>Proverbs 25:25: “Like cold water to a thirsty throat is good news received from a distant land.”</ref> Until now, letters have not reached us, but please do not grow weary of writing to us. Entrust as many letters as you can to the sea; it will not always be cruel, and sometimes a kindly wave will cast a few of them upon the shore, where I shall gather them with happiness and gratitude.

;[2]: You ask me, Father, what my occupation is here in the land of your antipodes. Oh! I do here what you do in France, except that I do it less well than you. I instruct myself and I instruct others. I teach our Kanaks the purpose for which they are on earth; I teach them to abandon falsehood and embrace the truth. I have the consolation of seeing some of them listen to me and put what I tell them into practice. Others lend a fairly attentive ear to my words but take little trouble to abandon their wicked way of life. The greater number, however, find the doctrine I preach to them too severe, and I have the sorrow of seeing them turn away from me, at least for a time. In twenty-four hours the sun circles the globe, and everywhere it finds men with the same character and the same inclinations; everywhere it finds them cold and icy when eternal truths are concerned, yet filled with fire for vanity and falsehood. I recite my breviary; I try to recollect myself in order to pray. Like you, I celebrate Holy Mass almost every day, but while you are resting, just as you perform these holy actions while I am asleep. If I discharged all these duties well, we would fulfil to the letter these words of the Psalmist: ''dies diei eructat verbum, et nox nocti indicat scientiam'';<ref>Psalm 18 (19):3: “Day pours out the story to day, and night imparts the knowledge to night.”</ref> we would thus form two choirs singing the praises of the Lord in turn, and our God would be glorified at all times as well as in all places. It is my fault alone if this devout concert does not become a reality.

;[3]: In my letters of last July, with which you are doubtless familiar, I spoke in detail about the island of Tonga and its inhabitants. Today I shall give you a few extracts from my journal so that you may become acquainted with the difficulties we encounter in preaching the Gospel and the hopes we may entertain.

;[4]: Since that time, God has allowed us to encounter many difficulties, from which His goodness has delivered us and will continue to deliver us, thanks to the fervent prayers you deign to address to Him on our behalf. The Wesleyan missionaries have redoubled [p. 2] their efforts and their slanders against us; I am not surprised. Every day they see their influence declining and ours increasing in the same proportion. They see that those among their coreligionists who are able to communicate with us always end by coming over to our side; the same is not true of those among our people who live with them. Apart from grace, the reason is that our disciples freely professed our holy faith, whereas the followers of heresy were brought to it by violence. Of our neophytes who came from Wallis, only one, who lived with the large Protestant tribe, consented after repeated solicitations to call himself a Protestant. But this apostasy, which lasted only a few days, merely brought the deceit of the heretics into the open. When the holy day of Easter arrived and he saw his Catholic brethren receiving Communion, while through his weakness he had deprived himself of that happiness, our prodigal came weeping and threw himself at our feet, begging for the grace of being admitted to the Communion of the Church. He also asked our Catholics to forgive the scandal he had caused, explaining that violence had been used against him.

;[5]: He had good reason to lament, for what an immense difference there is between receiving at Easter a piece of banana or breadfruit, as the Methodists give, and feeding upon the sacred Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ. A few days after the baptism mentioned in my previous letters, we arranged for fifteen people to make their First Communion. We gave the ceremony as much splendour as possible, for these new people are especially moved by the beauty of our ceremonies. The faithful, heretics, and unbelievers flocked to it in great numbers, and all went away filled with wonder.

;[6]: Confession, which at first sight appears so difficult a practice for our pride, has been embraced with joy on our island. I admit that the Protestant ministers have contributed somewhat to this, for those gentlemen require their followers to make public confession and perform public penance. Our islanders have no doubt keenly appreciated the gentleness of the yoke of Jesus Christ, which makes allowance for the sinner’s weakness and conceals his shame beneath the most inviolable secrecy. Moreover, before the arrival of the Europeans, our Kanaks had a kind of confession, practised especially in cases of illness. In their view, if someone suffers from a serious illness, it is always because he has offended some divinity, which is thus taking vengeance upon the guilty person. When the sick person is too weak to accuse himself, a friend who knows his fault takes his place.

;[7]: We have won one of the greatest victories that can be won over this people, whose pride equals, if it does not surpass, their extreme poverty. On this island a European occupies roughly the same position that a Negro slave occupies in Europe. Our Kanaks say quite casually, “my white man, my European,” just as our planters in the Antilles say, “my Negro, my slave.” I certainly do not approve of the European who despises his brother because he is black, although I recognise that the European is far superior to him in knowledge and civilisation. But for a poor islander of Tonga to trample upon us and despise us is altogether too ridiculous. Be that as it may, one of the principal chiefs, the one who had received us upon his lands, had been troubling us for a long time and [p. 3] even went so far as to claim the right to dictate laws to us in matters of religion. It was, he said, his religion, not the religion brought by the two old men. Fearing a complete rupture, we had offered him only slight resistance. Finally, on the occasion of a great festival, this chief issued an ordinance forbidding our neophytes to dance, while ordering everyone who was not baptised to dance under pain of a heavy fine. Perhaps you will laugh, but we considered this ordinance destructive of our mission, for the following reason. From the time of our arrival on the island, we had said that several of their dances were permissible. In fact, several of these dances are quite decent; they are performed by persons of the same sex, and when taking part they even wear clothing more modest than usual. Thus, if we now forbade our neophytes to perform them, our adversaries would be there to portray us as liars. They would not have failed to say that this was the way our religion proceeded: advancing little by little and ending by reducing men to slavery. We therefore wished to uphold to the letter what we had said at the beginning: we had permitted freedom. We did not want a chief, in the name of religion, to order or forbid anyone to dance.

;[8]: We therefore believed ourselves obliged to tell him that his ordinance was unjust. He lost his temper in front of everyone and said, “What business is this of these two white men, cast by the waves upon our lands? In whose house do these two white men live? Is it not mine?” We also answered him in front of everyone: “It is true that these two white men are lodged with you, and they thank you for it. But know that these two white men are not here to do your will. They are here to show you the way of truth, as well as all the peoples willing to listen to them. They are lodged with you, but if you are not satisfied, you need only say so and they will find lodging elsewhere. All lands do not end at the boundary of your domain, and several chiefs who are here would gladly receive them into their homes. You may command other white men, but not those sent by Jehovah. We shall fulfil our mission independently of your will. If no one is willing to receive us, we shall nevertheless have fulfilled our mission, as we have said many times. We shall depart with the blessings we came to bring you, leaving you only curses.” (We had reduced him almost to the point where he could no longer do without us.)

;[9]: At the word “curses,” he lowered his head and remained profoundly silent. (He was a catechumen.) We then withdrew from him, followed by several islanders who begged us to forgive him; it had been, they said, merely a fit of anger that would soon pass. At nightfall, he sent one of his children to ask whether we would see him. We answered that he might come, for we never bore hatred toward anyone. He came immediately, carrying a large kava root and accompanied by one of the wisest elders, who had recently made his First Communion. He sat at the door of our hut. When we renewed our entreaties for him to enter, he threw himself at our feet, bathed in tears, asking our forgiveness and kissing our hands. He then lowered his head and remained profoundly silent. After we had told him several times that we had forgotten everything, he said: “Forgive me, and forgive me a thousand times, for the offensive words I spoke to you. My house is yours, and I am only too happy that you are willing to remain in it. I ask you, as a great favour, never to leave it and to pray to the good God to make me better. Our ancestors were wicked, and we are wicked too. You who know so well how to suffer for the name of Jesus Christ, forgive me and remove from me the curses of which you spoke. Command me, and I shall carry out your orders.” Thereupon we gave him a small present, and he withdrew content. We had every reason to think matters would turn out in this way.

;[10]: For a long time we were unable to enter every part of the island because the Methodist gentlemen had taken pleasure in portraying us in highly unfavourable colours. But because truth always prevails in the end, these unfortunate impressions, the consequences of their slanders, gradually disappeared and are now found only among a few stubborn fanatics. In general, people do not hate us; indeed, I may say that they love us. Toward the end of last July, we visited an entirely Protestant tribe for the first time. The great chief and all the inhabitants gave us an excellent welcome. We even paid a short visit to the minister, our adversary, who received us politely but coldly. We had scarcely left when he mounted the pulpit and began pouring forth against us and our religion all the customary slanders. That evening we had to answer all his accusations: that we are idolaters who worship the Blessed Virgin, the saints, and the Cross; that we prohibit marriage; that we forbid the people to read the Bible; and that ours is a religion which kills men or converts them by force. You will doubtless not have anticipated this, but I had to refute for our islanders the objections concerning the St Bartholomew’s Day massacre and the Inquisition.

;[11]: They were very satisfied with our arguments. We refuted some of the objections very seriously, while against others we employed ridicule, a weapon that is sometimes very effective among our islanders. I noticed, however, that my answers concerning the Cross made little impression upon a chief who had given us a very friendly welcome. I then took my pencil and began writing a few words in my notebook. “What are you writing there?” he asked me. “I am writing about the fine welcome you gave us. I am deeply touched by your friendship, which I never wish to forget. I even want my friends in France to know of it, and they will certainly love you when they learn that you have done me good. Today I am firmly resolved always to remember your kindness, but man is weak and easily forgets things when he does not have before his eyes objects that recall them to his memory. That is why I am writing these words, so that if I should ever forget the good Nukuvakano has done me, I may recall it by looking at my book.” Immediately understanding my meaning—that the Cross was a venerable sign recalling God’s immense love for us—he said to me, “Old man, your tongue is upright, and doubtless your heart is also.”

;[12]: Concerning the accusation that we compel people to embrace our religion by violence, I was in a tribe whom the Protestants had converted by force of arms, and I answered: “Yes, we force people to turn to our religion. Our religion is a religion that kills, a religion intended for the ruin of men. Yours is a religion that brings people to itself through gentle persuasion, a religion of peace, charity, and love. Wherever your ministers have passed, one sees evidence of this persuasion and charity. I see proofs of it here, and on my way to visit you today I passed through Hule<ref>See [[Girard0261|doc. 261]], § 26, note 5.</ref>—a tribe whose entire population was massacred because it refused to become Protestant. I looked for men there and found only bones. That is love and charity, but the kind of love cats have for rats and sharks for other fish.” At this point an old man from the tribe of Hule, who had witnessed everything, interrupted me: “Your tongue is strong, but it speaks the truth. Say no more about it; spare us our regrets.”

;[13]: The Methodist was terrified by the warm reception we had received. “Those bewitched papists,” he said, “are capable of drawing everyone to themselves.” Consequently, he forbade all his people to have any dealings with us or even to receive us into their homes, saying that there was no crime comparable to communicating with a Catholic. Thus, on our second visit, we were received coldly. When we left the tribe, a native followed us to say that the chief asked us not to return to his home or his lands. We judged it appropriate to retrace our steps and speak to him as follows:

;[14]: “We have returned to learn exactly what you think and why you receive us so badly today, when on the previous occasion you gave us such a cordial welcome.” As he did nothing but stammer, we continued: “You do not wish to tell us what you think, but we understand it perfectly. Your language toward us has changed, but your heart has not; it is still the same, always inclined toward gentleness and friendship. It is a true Tongan heart. Indeed, ever since your islands became known, everyone has agreed in giving them the name Friendly Islands because of the goodness of their inhabitants. You were already friends of all men while you were still unbelievers; now that you have embraced religion, if it is good, it should have increased and perfected the goodness of your hearts. We may therefore conclude that your hostility toward us did not originate on your island; it comes from a foreign land. But what am I saying? It is not hostility, but only the appearance of it. It is indeed upon your lips, but it is far from your heart. Yes, when you were forbidden a thousand things that are forbidden neither by God nor among any people in the world, you obeyed because your hearts desire only peace. But when you are forbidden to love and an attempt is made to force you to hate, it will be impossible for you to obey. One might as well command fish to fly or the sea to abandon your shores.”

;[15]: “Besides, why should you hate us? Have we harmed anyone? We do not take up arms to force you to embrace our [p. 6] religion. We come to visit peoples in friendship, and if anyone wishes to learn our doctrine, we are always ready to teach it.” “But,” he replied, “we have our religion and our missionary.” “You have a missionary—that is, he assumes the title. But ask him where he comes from and who sent him; if he tells the truth, you will know what he is. If he refuses to tell it, we shall tell it ourselves. Why does the man you call your missionary hide when we approach and say so much evil of us after we have departed? If he is a true missionary, let him come forward, show his credentials, and defend his cause. Only those who do evil have reason to hide. As for us, who are true missionaries, we seek the light and desire everyone to see our works.”

;[16]: While we spoke in this way, the poor chief trembled in every limb. We could draw only these words from him: “I do not forbid you to come; you may do as you wish.” Nevertheless, so frightened were the people by the minister’s threats that no one dared offer us hospitality, something unheard of in Tonga. This tribe had been brought to Protestantism by force, and they feared their conqueror. It was night when we departed. Exhausted by hunger and fatigue, we were reduced to taking shelter in an abandoned hut outside the tribe. We were content, however, for as disciples of Him who had nowhere to lay His head,<ref>See Matthew 8:20: “Foxes have dens and the birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”</ref> we had more than we deserved.

;[17]: On our third visit to this tribe, we were received hardly any better because of the Wesleyan minister’s renewed diatribes. Everyone loves us, however, but they are afraid. Nevertheless, one family dared to give us an excellent welcome in defiance of the missionary’s orders. “We have seen in the Book,” the head of this family told us, “that the great commandment is to love God and all men as ourselves.<ref>See Matthew 22:37–39: Jesus said to him: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. A second is equally important: You shall love your neighbour as yourself.”</ref> We therefore do not wish to listen to the missionary who orders us to hate you. My house is yours. Come whenever you wish; come often. We shall receive you as well as we can.”

;[18]: The great chief of the tribe in which we live had recently been warned and had resolved to force the unbelievers and Protestants either to become Catholics or leave his tribe. Before undertaking anything, however, he came to consult us. We strongly exhorted him to allow everyone complete freedom of conscience. “But the Protestants,” he said, “certainly used violence.” “Yes, but they are not the envoys of Jehovah. They do not understand the spirit of the Gospel, which forbids coercion and teaches us to win over unbelievers and heretics by our good example, persuasion, and the power of truth. If Jehovah wished to employ force, who could resist His omnipotence? He wishes to leave all men free; we must do the same.” This incident became known throughout the island and caused the natives to say: “The papists are not like the others. When we desire a religion, theirs is the one we shall embrace.” [p. 7]

;[19]: Two causes, among others, greatly retard the mission’s progress here. The first arises from Protestantism and the incessant slanders of the Wesleyan ministers. “Let us always lie; let us lie boldly,” Voltaire said, “something will always remain.” If you experience the disastrous results of this detestable maxim so strongly in France, how much more harmful must its effect be upon the minds of a far more ignorant people, full of prejudices and lacking the means to uncover the deceit. Furthermore, we have the misfortune of arriving after the heretics, and the brutality they use toward their disciples makes the unbelievers fear that we will treat them in the same way later if they join us. “We fear beatings,” they say; “that is why we remain unbelievers.” It is useless for us to let them witness the happiness enjoyed by those who have been baptised; the Methodists are there to frighten them: “They appear gentle now, but wait a while and you will see the most extraordinary punishments fall upon you: red-hot irons, imprisonment, and death. They appear good, but they are wolves covered in sheepskins.”

;[20]: Party spirit is also extremely unfavourable to us. I have heard people say: “I do not wish to belong to that man’s religion because he is not of my tribe; I hate him.” A small path dividing the territories of two tribes often makes them bitter enemies who exchange the epithets “fools,” “ignorant men,” “cowards,” and “savages.” As a consequence, they come to feel genuine contempt for everything connected with their adversaries, even their religion. As you can see, we shall require time, patience, and an abundance of grace to demolish this wall of separation completely and make all the inhabitants of Tonga one people of brothers.

;[21]: Nevertheless, grace is already working in a fairly perceptible manner, as the following small incident shows. An old woman had gravely insulted the son of a great chief who, with his entire family, is Catholic. It had been decided that the guilty woman would receive forty-five blows with a stick as punishment. But the chief’s wife, our most fervent neophyte, said to her husband: “You wish to punish this woman as though you were an unbeliever. Yet before being baptised, did you not say five or six times a day, ‘Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us’? You wish to punish this woman according to the gravity of her fault, but if God treated us as we deserve, what would become of us? Since He is good enough to forgive our enormous and innumerable faults, must we not forgive the offences committed against us? That is what the two old men told us last Sunday. Send for them, and you will see what they say.” As you will anticipate, we pronounced a sentence of absolution, and the woman, who was an unbeliever, immediately converted.

;[22]: A serious cause of war arose following a theft committed in the tribe where we live. It concerned several whale teeth that were worshipped there. Through repeated approaches to both parties, we succeeded in concluding peace. The two old men have also had the happiness of bringing several other fairly serious quarrels to a successful conclusion, and this ministry of reconciliation has benefited our holy cause. Everyone [p. 8] said: “The Wesleyan missionaries made us wage war, while these missionaries restrain us when we wish to do so. Their religion is a religion of love; it is good for Tonga.”

;[23]: At the same time, the chief of the heretics visited all the unbelieving tribes. He was poorly received everywhere. Everywhere people answered that they did not yet wish to convert, that they still wished to examine matters, and that the religion they would later embrace would doubtless not be his, but the one preached by the two old men. “It is a false religion and the enemy of mankind,” the minister said. “You say so, but we do not believe you.” He proposed sending one tribe a particular missionary whom he named. This was the answer he received: “When we wish to learn debauchery, we shall ask you to send us Mr M…”<ref>Mr Miles; see [[Girard0321|doc. 321]], § 25.</ref> He is a sailor, formerly the cook aboard a whaling ship, who, after leading the dissolute life of a deserter from a ship in Tonga for six years, was accepted as a missionary by the Wesleyan Society.

;[24]: Despite everything I have just said, because of His Lordship Pompallier’s delay in visiting us, our mission had fallen into a state of languor that, humanly speaking, was bound to bring about its downfall. Suddenly, on 22 November, we were informed of the arrival of a French warship, the ''Bucéphale'', with His Lordship the Bishop of Amata aboard.<ref>See [[Girard0321|doc. 321]], § 27, note 13.</ref> I shall not speak to you about this most welcome visit, for you know the details.

;[25]: Since the departure of the ''Bucéphale'', our mission has regained its vigour. But because the work of God can never progress without hardship, a general illness came to afflict our island, and our enemies spread the rumour that the French ship had brought it. Nevertheless, their influence declines from day to day, and ours increases in the same proportion. The principal chief of their party loves and respects us. We have just held a solemn baptism of forty people, fifteen of whom had belonged to the heresy. A few days later, we arranged for twenty-four people to make their First Communion. Today we number fifty-four communicants in our small Christian community. May your prayers help us increase that number.

;[26]: A little girl, seven or eight years old and already well instructed, has shown us that intelligence and feeling are foreign to no people. Her father and mother called themselves Catholics, but took little trouble to prepare for baptism. Since we had reasons for not baptising the little girl without her parents, we told her to wait a little longer. Deeply distressed by our answer, she went to her parents and said: “You are always neglecting to prepare yourselves for baptism. You continue living in the same way; you are damning yourselves. If you were to die in this state, you would go to hell, as the two old men say. Yet you are not content merely to be unhappy yourselves; you are also the cause of my unhappiness. All my companions will be happy the day after tomorrow, while I remain in my unhappiness, and it is because of you. And yet you say that you love me.” As she was weeping profusely, her parents answered: [p. 9] “Take comfort, dear child; at the next baptism, all of us will be included.”

;[27]: Do not imagine that everything here is marvellous. Good and evil are mingled everywhere. In Tonga one encounters indifference toward religion, ingratitude, and even contempt for its ministers. But here, as elsewhere, the good God knows how to find His chosen ones, and we have several very fervent Christians. Among the first converts was a young married couple in whom we found great uprightness of mind joined to genuine piety. We asked them to live in a small unbelieving tribe, hoping that their good example would bring some people to the faith. Our hope was not disappointed. They spread the sweet fragrance of Jesus Christ so thoroughly around them that we already number more than forty people in this small settlement, all of whom appear to have been formed upon the model of those first two edifying neophytes.

;[28]: In this same tribe, I found a little prodigy whom you will have difficulty believing. He is a small child only three years old, yet already sufficiently instructed that, however I questioned him, I could not confound him with any question from his catechism. This little angel asked our permission to instruct his relatives, all of whom, except his father and mother, are still unbelievers. He is an excellent catechist, all the more because no one can refuse his innocent simplicity. He says the blessing before meals and the thanksgiving afterward for the family. He has seen Mass celebrated five or six times and already imitates all its ceremonies. A banana leaf serves him as a corporal and a seashell as a chalice, but when he grows up, he intends to celebrate it in earnest. One day he said the following to his grandfather and grandmother: “You love me very much, and I love you very much too. But you serve the devil, who is wicked, while I serve Jehovah, who is infinitely good. You are walking upon the road to hell, while I am upon the road that leads to happiness. You must join me and abandon the devil, that wicked master. I wish to go to heaven, and we must go there together; otherwise we shall be obliged to part and no longer love one another.” In another tribe, I saw a six-year-old girl who was no less interesting and possessed the same aptitude. I assure you that these consolations make me forget a thousand hardships.

;[29]: If I told you there was no suffering here, I would be deceiving you. We have hardships, and indeed many of them. If I related them all in detail, I might perhaps frighten some of those who are considering joining us. But God is powerful enough to sustain the one He sends. Therefore, do not let the thought of tribulations restrain your noble zeal for the missions; consolations are still more abundant here. Hardships! But missionaries perhaps suffer fewer than so many seafarers. The seas are traversed by countless merchants who suffer as much as, and more than, we do. Hardships! Whalers and pearl traders have them. No doubt those who, driven by the love of glory and science, travel from one pole to the other at the risk of being buried beneath mountains of ice in search of terrestrial magnetism have them too. And would we not do, to win souls for God and fish for those pearls that [p. 10] must one day adorn the heavens, what others do every day to serve vanity or enrich the domain of science? Many of those seafarers labour only for time; we labour for eternity. They place their reward here below, where at any moment it may be swallowed up with them in the depths of the sea. As for us, we can and must say: ''Scio cui credidi, et certus sum quia potens est depositum meum servare in illum diem.''<ref>2 Timothy 1:12: ''Ob quam causam etiam hæc patior, sed non confundor. Scio enim cui credidi, et certus sum quia potens est depositum meum servare in illum diem.'' (“That is why I endure these sufferings. But I am not ashamed, for I know in whom I have placed my faith, and I am certain that He has the power to guard the deposit entrusted to me until that Day.”)</ref>

;[30]: A final word about the vine I planted. After a thousand different attempts, I succeeded in restraining this exuberant power of vegetation and had the consolation of seeing it bear fruit. What do you think I did with the first grapes harvested in Tonga? Do you think I gave them away? Preserved them? No, nothing of the kind. I picked them reverently. I pressed them through a very clean cloth; then, after clarifying the juice, I used it to celebrate Holy Mass on the first of January this year. Since my confrère<ref>Joseph Chevron.</ref> was absent that day, I had no one to whom I could express my New Year’s wishes. I thus found myself alone, six thousand leagues from my homeland. I could not make you hear my most sincere wishes, yet my heart needed to pour itself out. What could I do? I celebrated for all the members of the Society of Mary and for my relatives, friends, and benefactors in France. I entrusted the One who is present in all times and all places with conveying my wishes to you. May they be fulfilled! You will be happy—happy on earth, where we probably shall not see one another again, and happier still in heaven, where I hope to precede you, never to be separated again.

;[31]: 25 July. My letter had been finished for a long time. I now have an opportunity to send it to you. His Lordship Bataillon, our new Vicar Apostolic, has come to visit our mission aboard the ''Adolphe'', a French merchant ship, and is about to leave us. May the Star of the Sea guide the ''Adolphe'' safely amid the waves; may it carry my letter to you as quickly as possible and be able to bring one back to me from you, my very dear Father. Write to me whatever you wish—only write to me—and do not forget to pray for us.

::Farewell.

:::Jérôme Grange, Apostolic Missionary
:::of the Society of Mary.

===Notes===
<references />

Girard0322 - Revision history