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iii.

Interlude at Galveston

ON 8 JANUARY in the morning, she tied up at Galveston for a day’s dockside work. Lamy went ashore to find Bishop Odin.

When they met that morning, Odin saw his visitor as “ce cher Seigneur,” and was at once animated with extensions of his original advices and also with new persuasions. He listened to Lamy’s immediate plans. Lamy intended to hurry to Santa Fe, make a brief appearance there, ostensibly to secure his throne, and then leave very soon for Europe to recruit a band of clergy upon whom he could lean from the very beginning of his” mission.

Odin disagreed with this program, and could not help saying what he would do in Lamy’s place. He made a well-argued case for his differing view, and he urged it upon Lamy with all the force of experience and shrewdness. It would, he said, be a mistake to go to Santa Fe initially without the support of from six to a dozen zealous and entirely devoted newly imported priests. He explained his reasons. In New Mexico, Lamy would find scandalous native clergy, and a public, especially among the Anglo-Americans, who were waiting for reforms with the arrival of the new bishop. What could Lamy do alone and without support? If he should have occasion to banish a recalcitrant priest, without having someone to replace him, might not the people protest, and perhaps insist on keeping the excommunicated priest in defiance of their bishop? If he should succeed with God’s grace in peacefully taking possession of his see, would it not be more suitable to remain at his post, at least for a few years? A brief appearance, followed by a long absence, might do immense harm to his mission.

Therefore, continued Odin in the warmth of his conviction and the pleasure of his foresight, he must counsel Lamy to go—immediately—not to Santa Fe, but to France (as Bishop Rappe had also advised), and to bring back with him a number of priests who would absolutely be needed. Moreover, during such a journey to France, he could perfect himself in the study of Spanish, so that he could speak the language adequately upon at last entering his mission. Yet more—he could procure new vestments and the rest to replace the old rubbish which he would find in all the New Mexican churches, and he would thus instantly correct a great scandal in that country. Odin himself had been shocked, on his own journeys up the Rio Grande, on seeing the filth of the churches in which he had officiated. Time and again he had had to use his own portable vestments rather than the dirty and torn ones offered him locally. To go on, then—on arriving at Santa Fe (under the ideal plan so far proposed), Lamy would not need to take any precipitate action, but could await the moment when conscience and prudence should move him to act. If there were incorrigible priests, he would have replacements for them. In a parish—there were many such—where the congregations were too large, he could add one of his new young priests. Even if all the clergy of New Mexico were worthy of his trust, the new priests could be sent about to hold missions, which were greatly needed in that land where the word of God was never preached.

Lamy was hearing a rich account, through what was urged, of what was needed. Polite and respectful, in his usual habit, he heard Odin to the end.

Preaching, even in imperfect Spanish, on his Rio Grande travels, Odin had found that it was impossible to imagine the joy with which his little exhortations had been received. If Lamy’s new men did no more than simply teach, this would be a work which would bear fruit. He might deceive himself, but Odin would hate to see Monseigneur Lamy go west without stout reinforcements, and above all Odin could not bring himself to believe that it would not be actually imprudent to absent himself too soon from his apostolic vicariate after having merely shown himself there. No doubt the mission would briefly suffer by a delayed arrival after a trip to France, but Odin thought it better to keep the status quo for five or six months rather than to go there at once without the means to introduce necessary reforms.

The bishop of Galveston at last rested his case. In the end, the eloquent arguments made no difference—Lamy must follow his own intention, and, indeed, would not even stay out the week and take the next boat west, as Odin urged, but would reboard the Palmetto that evening and sail on for Port Lavaca and the overland trail to San Antonio and Santa Fe.

Lamy was Odin’s peer as a bishop—there was no question of orders to be given by the older man. Resignedly, Odin turned to other matters, described conditions to the west, and assigned three Mexican villages near El Paso del Norte which lay in his jurisdiction, under Lamy’s episcopal care. It was obvious that places so remote could hardly be well administered from Galveston. Lamy would see them on his westward journey. They were Socorro del Sur, Isleta del Sur, and San Elizario, on the north bank of the Rio Grande. Lamy accepted the charge. The two prelates parted as sailing time drew near.

But Odin did not give up easily. Three days after Lamy left him, he wrote to Blanc at New Orleans, having told Lamy he would do so, outlining the advices he had urged upon Lamy, and suggested that if the archbishop agreed with them, he might make this known to Lamy, who would in any case have to delay two months at San Antonio waiting for the departure of an Army supply train, and such time could be used to go to France. Ships regularly sailed for French ports from New Orleans. Moreover—Odin thought of everything—if the vicar general whom Lamy would await in Texas should call on Blanc, why not send him straight off to San Antonio, where he could remain until Lamy’s return from France, using the time himself to learn Spanish and come to know the kind of people whom he would evangelize in New Mexico?

On the evening of 8 January 1851, the Palmetto made her way out of Galveston, scheduled to arrive off the mouth of Matagorda Bay on the ninth, and once again Lamy was on board.