A Missionary Family.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 8, 20 February 1902, Page 13

A Missionary Family.

THE Annals of the great Paria of the Foreign Missions publish in the November number an edifying account of a true ' family oil missionaries.' These are the four sons of a pious Catholic couple of the diocese of Langres, who all joined the above-named Society and all became missionaries to the Far East. Father Joseph Biet, tha eldest, sailed in 1854 for Manchuria, to which mission he was appointed, but in the course of his long voyage was seized by pirates and thrown into the sea on June 12, 1855. The next brother, Father Alexander, went out to Thibet, in 1859, and after a long and eventful missionary career, died in the sanatorium at Hong Kong on May 29, 1891. A third brother, Felix, also weftt out to Thibet in 1864. He eventually became Bishop and Vicar Apostolic of Thibet, and has just recently died (September 9, 1901). Lastly, Father Louis Biet went out to Burma in 1868 and was assassinated at Moulmein on December 4, 1886. A unique family record. Add to this that the eldest brother of all — for there were five — became a Trappist, after having been for some time a law student, and died in the Grande Trappe of Mortagne. Out of humility, he always refused to take orders. Of two sisters, one became a Sister of Charity and was sent out to Peru. The father of this model Christian family once said to a priest, who relates the fact : ' Ah, Father, if I were but younger, I would go out to China to become my sons' catechist.'