These two young men were John Baptist Hogan, the late honored superior of St. John's Seminary in Boston, and Jean Theophane Venard, now Blessed, the subject of these letters. To Father Hogan, his early guide in the spiritual life, the editor of this volume is indebted for a first acquaintance with the story of Theophane Venard, whose letters, read in Seminary days at Brighton, have always been a treasured memory. In the summer of 1903, while at the Paris Seminary for Foreign Missions, he learned that Theophane's youngest brother, Eusebius, was still living, and at once arranged to visit him.