Three years before Missouri became a state, Bishop Dubourg wrote from St. Louis, "Turn your eys on hudreds of Indian tribes that seem but to wait for instruction in order to embrace the faith. How touched you would be if you could see the frequent deputations which I receive from them, the religious respect which they testify to me, and the urgent prayers which they address to me, to their father, to visit them, and to give them men of God. In the midst of great sadness which the view of so many of my neglected children casues me, I am beginning to experience the consolation of seeing the seed of the word bear fruit."
Three years later the hopes of the Bishop and the hopes of the Indians were answered with a history making institution. But it became a matter of broken or unrealized promises.
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