as exhibited in their respective relations with the savages. The French came more closely and familiarly into sympathy and intercourse with them. The English never could fraternize with them. If an Englishman of the lowest grade took a squaw for his partner, he sank to the level of barbarism himself. It was quite otherwise with the Frenchman. After the permanent occupation of Canada was secured, a race of half-breeds constituted, so to speak, a very respectable, as well as the most efficient, element in its population. It was enough if the squaw of the Frenchman had been the subject of Christian baptism. But that ordinance, however effective for the life to come, did not qualify a native woman for English wedlock. Sir William Johnson, indeed, made no disguise of his manner of life, which the complexion of the daughters who sat at his table with his most honored guests would have rendered rather difficult; but their mother—or mothers—were not presentable.

A very engaging episode in Mr. Parkman's narrative — we propose it to our artists as a subject of rare and novel interest, and rich in capacity presents us two noble specimens of Christian zeal, in the persons of a Jesuit and a Protestant missionary in amicable intercourse with each other. Would that we had a more detailed account of the interview, and of the conversation which must have given it the highest charm of courteous sympathy, though with reserve, between two men who represented the sharpest antagonisms of creed, while a common faith may have proved an inner attraction for their hearts. The Colony of Massachusetts had applied to the French at Quebec, in negotiations looking toward a reciprocity of trade. The Jesuit missionary Druilletes was sent in that behalf to Boston. His diplomatic character saved him from the penalty of the halter, which Puritan law had pronounced upon any one of his profession who should be caught in this jurisdiction. He arrived in the autumn of 1650,

and had a most hospitable and kindly reception, though he failed in his object. The scene we have proposed to a painter is that which finds Druilletes a welcome and honored guest in the humble dwelling of the apostle Eliot, at Roxbury, who invited the Jesuit to remain through the winter. We are sure they met and communed as friends,high-souled, respecting each other, recognizing in each other aims and purposes, and the experience, alike in success and failure, of the arduous nature of a work which brought into a true communion of piety the spirits consecrated by it.

from

Not quite a score of years 1634 to 1650-suffice for the dates of the chief events in the profoundly interesting and saddening story of effort and failure which Mr. Parkman rehearses with such masterly ability. Starting with the renewed occupancy of Quebec in 1634, and the accession of the Jesuits to the abortive enterprise of the Recollet Fathers, he traces out for us the history of the Mission to the Hurons, giving us the characters of all its agents, an account of the settlements established, and the methods pursued till the work was frustrated.

It is but a sad and painful story-in some of its incidents harrowing and revolting-which Mr. Parkman has to tell us. So far as strict fidelity to his subject would admit, he has had regard to the sensibilities of his readers, and where he could neither hide nor soften, he has contented himself with intimating and suggesting what it would have been simply shocking for him to follow into further details.

With an acute skill in the reading of human nature, and a cosmopolitan spirit of his own which identifies religious toleration and charity with common sense, Mr. Parkman, in a few paragraphs crowded with facts and philosophy, takes us into the inner organization of Jesuitism, indicates the spring and aliment of its vitality, and explains to us how it reconciles the abnegation of the will with the concentration of resolve in obedience. Starting from Que

bec as a centre of operation, and the place where French supplies and Indian traders were brought into contact in the spring of each year, the Fathers, following the direction of their Provincial at home, through their Superior resident, Le Jeune, radiated towards the dismal localities where each looked to live and die, as the majority of them did. We ought to have their names before us. The first six of them at Quebec were Le Jeune, Brébeuf, Masse, Daniel, Davost, and De Nouë. To these were added Buteux, Bressani, Ragueneau, Chabanel, Garreau, Garnier, Lalemant, Jogues, Chaumonot, and Vimont. Most of them were very young men, of noble lineage, and with the finest prospects of worldly success had they sought the prizes of courts and of civilized life. With few exceptions, they were not robust, but delicate. Eight of them died under Indian torture. Not one of them failed in purpose or in courage.

It is not possible for the pen of either Romanist or Protestant to make a Jesuit a lovely or attractive object to a Protestant. The flaw, if not the falsehood, in their claim to the loftiest homage, vitiates the appeal of the disciples of Loyola to the profoundest regard of the human heart, independently of the antipathies of creed. It is enough to know that their fellow-Romanists of other orders share to the full the sentiment of distrust towards them which no pleading in their defence has weakened in the common Protestant mind. Their devotion, their heroism, their stern constancy to the recognized principles of their severe discipline, does not neutralize, even if it qualifies, the persuasion, which has not lacked evidence to support it, that, in the service of God, they have been willing to learn art and subtlety from the Devil. True, we are told that a generous candor will always enable and dispose us to honor and reverence self-sacrifice with a sincere purpose, even when folly, instead of necessity, crowns it with martyrdom. The plausibility of this plea lies in a vague use of the word sincere.

The honors of martyrdom are yielded by a fine discrimination, as graduated by a scale recognizing a varying proportion of truth and value in the purpose for which the self-sacrifice is made. Every grain of superstition, duplicity, or recklessness reduces every element of loftiness, high-thinking, and wise-purposing exalts — the honors rendered to a sufferer and a victim. We think that Mr. Parkman has held a fair balance in those almost alternate sentences in which, with a terse and comprehensive way of communicating his judgment, he recognizes the personal devotion, and compassionates the puerility and aimless toil, of the Jesuit missionaries. They might be pardoned for believing that the direction which the soul of a dying Indian child would take, either for heaven or for hell, was decided by their being able to cross a moistened finger upon its face. But to turn that saving charm into an act of jugglery, deceiving or falsifying to the parents, was an act which reduced the performer of it, either in intelligence or honesty, below the level of the sor

cerer.

Mr. Parkman sets up no plea, positive or comparative, in behalf of that remarkable—we cannot say engaging -class of all-enduring men whose grim toils and sufferings he so faithfully narrates. Yet we have been spellbound, and deeply stirred, as we have slowly read and mused over his pages. So graphic and skilful is his method, so animated is his style, so vivid and real does he make the scenes, the surroundings, and the phenomena of his subject, that, while we might dispense wholly with the exercise of the imagination, we find that it has actually beguiled us into its most effective exercise by persuading us that we have seen and shared in many of the personages and incidents of the narrative.

The rules of the Order required of the missionaries something in the nature of a diary, or journal, which, passing through the hands of the local Superior, should reach the Provincial at

Paris. From these official papers, entering into the fullest minuteness of detail, confidential in their contents, and of the utmost trustworthiness, were composed "The Relations," which, annually made public, were of double service,

in reporting the hopeful labors of those already in the hard and dreary field, and in quickening the fervent zeal for new accessions to it. From these Relations, and from the voluminous and equally rich private correspondence between the missionaries and their European friends, Mr. Parkman, contributing what he has learned from other sources, is able to construct for us a continuous narrative, which anticipates every question we might ask, and informs us fully on every point of interest in his theme. He describes to us the Jesuit living on visions and dreams, reinforcing his spirit by meditations, and keeping his enthusiasm up to the needed point by assuring himself, on emergencies, of the direct interposition of the saints in his behalf. He makes us join the travelling party of the missionary as he avails himself of an Indian escort to penetrate into the wilderness, sharing its perils and its annoyances, aggravated always, even when not created, by the shiftlessness of his companions. We are initiated into all the methods and appliances of travel, of hunting, of encamping, of lodge-building, of feasting and starving, on the

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trail and in the village. of forest life as presented by Thoreau, who had houses into which he might bring up at night, the furnishings of a wardrobe, and the comfort of salt, will be found on comparison to obtrude many broad contrasts with the realities encountered by the Jesuits and their entertainers. These all-enduring, patient men, born amid the luxuries of civilized life, left all behind them when they embarked in the canoe which was itself, with its contents, to be carried as a burden over the frequent portages connecting streams or avoiding cataracts. The first care of the "Black-Robes " was to provide the vessels and materials for the mass, with paper, pen, and ink. A few trinkets, and perhaps some implements of the rudest home-use, completed their outfit. They were disgusted, all but infuriated, by the filth and vermin, the loathsome familiarities, and the blinding smoke of the wigwam. Their feelings as civilized men were outraged by the fiendish barbarities of which they were spectators. Their lives always hung on a thread, at the mercy of caprice, jealousy, superstition, and hate, which were always active in savage breasts. Yet they toiled and suffered and persevered and hoped, as men can do and will do only when they believe themselves working for heaven, — to obtain heaven for themselves and to fit others for it.

YOUNG

YOUNG America in on the anxiousseat. An imploring cry comes up from the hearts of thousands, "What shall we do to be saved from work?"

In the happy days of the Adamses, as Professor Agassiz has taught us to say, when every vine was a lodging rent-free, and the fig-trees furnished ready-made clothing, life was a pleasant pastime. But this is an age of cash or barter. The old common-law maxim concerning pains and penalties. is the rule of modern society: Qui non habet in crumena, luat in corpore, "He who cannot pay his fare must work his passage." To evade this law, to shirk the forecastle, and to devise some means of climbing into the cabin-windows, is the problem that the youth of this generation are trying to solve.

The United States offer so many unprospected or half-worked placers to sharp eyes, that we must look for a great deal of vagabondry. Gold-miners do not settle themselves down to crushing quartz, so long as there are nuggets to be picked up. Rare chances

lie hidden in the by-paths of this broad country, to tempt men to straggle from the ranks of the steady workers and turn foragers and bummers.

And in this generation money has attained an extraordinary value. Since Dr. Johnson announced, in his Tour to the Hebrides, that the feudal system was giving way to wealth, most other social distinctions have yielded to it, — particularly in America, where there were few barriers to break down, — and money has become the chief good. Our standard of position in society is financial worth. Our patents of nobility are railway bonds, stock certificates, and mortgages. The income-return list of the United States Internal Revenue Department is the Libro d'Oro of the American Venice. In this age of scepticism, the excellence of accumulated capital is the one thing no man doubts; and when I take off my hat to a rich man, which I always do when I meet him, I feel that I cannot be mistaken in paying respect to something demonstrable, tangible, real.

Money furnishes all the blessings of