sober seeming of the grave historic muse with the stately tum tum of Homeric measures wherever he touches this topic.

Behold, then, the Jesuits Brebeuf and Daniel, soon to be followed by the gentler Lallemand, and many others of their order, bowing meekly in obedience to their vows, and joining a party of barefoot Hurons, who were returning from Quebec to their country. The journey, by way of the Ottawa and the rivers that interlock with it, was one of more than three hundred leagues, through a region horrible with forests. All day long, the missionaries must wade, or handle the oar. At night, there is no food for them but a scanty measure of Indian corn mixed with water; their couch is the earth or the rocks. At five and thirty waterfalls, the canoe is to be carried on the shoulders for leagues through thickest woods, or over roughest regions; fifty times it was dragged by hand through shallows and rapids, over sharpest stones; and thus, swimming, wading, paddling, or bearing the canoe across the portages, with garments torn, with feet mangled, yet with the breviary safely hung round the neck, and vows, as they advanced, to meet death twenty times over, if it were possible,for the honor of St. Joseph, the consecrated envoys made their way, by rivers, lakes and forests, from Quebec to the heart of the Huron wilderness. There, to the north-west of Lake Toronto, near the shore of Lake Iroquois, which is but a bay of Lake Huron, they raised the first humble house of the Society of Jesus among the Hurons-the cradle, it was said, of his church who dwelt at Bethlehem in a cottage. (1634.) The little chapel, built by the aid of the ax, and consecrated to St. Joseph, where, in the gaze of thronging crowds, vespers and matins began to be chanted, and the sacred bread was consecrated by solemn mass, amazed the hereditary guardians of the council-fires of the Huron tribes. Beautiful testimony to the equality of the human race! the sacred wafer, emblem of the divinity in man, all that the church offered to the princes and nobles of the European world, was shared with the humblest of the savage neophytes. The hunter, as he returned from his wide roamings, was taught to hope for eternal rest; the braves, as they came from war, were warned of the wrath which kindles against sinners a never-dying fire, fiercer far than the fires of the Mohawks; the idlers of the Indian villages were told the exciting tala

of the Savior's death for their redemption. Two new Christian villages, St. Louis and St. Ignatius, bloomed among the Huron forests. The dormant sentiment of pious veneration was awakened in many breasts, and there came to be even earnest and ascetic devotees uttering prayers and vows in the Huron tongue-while tawny skeptics inquired, if there were indeed, in the center of the earth, eternal flames for the unbelieving.

The missionaries themselves possessed the weaknesses and the virtues of their Order. For fifteen years enduring the infinite labors and perils of the Huron mission, and exhibiting, as it was said," an absolute pattern of every religious virtue," Jean de Brebeuf, respecting even the nod of his distant Superiors, bowed his mind and his judgment to obedience. Beside the assiduous fatigues of his office, each day, and sometimes twice in the day, he applied to himself the lash; beneath a bristling hair shirt he wore an iron girdle, armed on all sides with projecting points; his fasts were frequent; almost always his pious vigils continued deep into the night. In vain did Asmodeus assume for him the forms of earthly beauty; his eye rested benignantly on visions of divine things. Once, imparadised in a trance, he beheld the Mother of Him whose cross he bore, surrounded by a crowd of virgins, in the beatitudes of heaven. (1640.) Once, as he himself has recorded, while engaged in penance, he saw Christ unfold his arms to embrace him with the utmost love, promising oblivion of his sins. Once, late at night, while praying in the silence, he had a vision of an infinite number of crosses, and, with mighty heart, he strove, again and again, to grasp them all. Often he saw the shapes of foul fiends, now appearing as madmen, now as raging beasts; and often he beheld the image of death, a bloodless form, by the side of the stake, struggling with bonds, and, at last, falling, as a harmless specter, at his feet. Having vowed to seek out suffering for the greater glory of God, he renewed that vow every day, at the moment of tasting the sacred wafer; and, as his cupidity for martyrdom grew into a passion, he exclaimed, "What shall I render to thee, Jesus, my Lord, for all thy benefits? I will accept thy cup, and invoke thy name;" and, in sight of the Eternal Father and the Holy Spirit, of the most holy Mother of Christ, and St. Joseph,

before angels, apostles, and martyrs, before St. Ignatius and Francis Xavier, he made a vow never to decline the opportunity of martyrdom, and never to receive the death-blow but with joy. (1638.)

The life of a missionary on Lake Huron was simple and uniform. The earliest hours, from four to eight were absorbed in private prayer; the day was given to schools, visits, instruction in the catechism, and a service for proselytes. Sometimes, after the manner of St. Francis Xavier, Brebeuf would walk through the village and its environs, ringing a little bell, and inviting the Huron braves and counselors to a conference. There, under the shady forest, the most solemn mysteries of the Catholic faith were subjected to discussion. It was by such means that the sentiment of piety was unfolded in the breast of the great warrior Ahasistari. Nature had planted in his mind the seeds of religious faith: "Before you came to this country," he would say, "when I have incurred the greatest perils, and have alone escaped, I have said to myself, Some powerful spirit has the guardianship of my days;'" and he professed his belief in Jesus, as the good genius and protector, whom he had before unconsciously adored. After trials of his sincerity, he was baptized; and, enlisting a troop of converts, savages like himself, "Let us strive," he exclaimed, "to make the whole world embrace the faith in Jesus."

But this is too good to be all. Our quondam historian who, as may be seen from his account of Jean de Brebeuf, has studied the ecstaticism of Jesuit narrative with an earnestness strongly savoring of a conviction in faith, gives us another precious morceau from the same reliable source, which exhibits his huge relish for such spicy viands.

The Jesuits are determined to push a Mission into the country of the unwilling Mohawk.

"Each sedentary Mission was a special point of attraction to the invader, and each, therefore, was liable to the horrors of an Indian massacre. Such was the fate of the village of St. Joseph. On the morning of July 4, 1648, when the braves were absent on the chase, and none but women, children, and old men, remained at home, Father Anthony Daniel hears the cry of danger and confusion. He flies to the scene to behold his converts, in the apathy of terror, falling

victims to the fury of Mohawks. No age, however tender, excites mercy; no feebleness of sex wins compassion. A group of women and children fly to him to escape the tomahawk-as if his lips, uttering messages of love, could pronounce a spell that would curb the madness of destruction. Those who had formerly scoffed his mission, implore the benefit of baptism. He bids them ask forgiveness of God, and, dipping his handkerchief in water, baptizes the crowd of suppliants by aspersion. Just then, the palisades are forced. Should he fly? He first ran to the wigwams to baptize the sick; he next pronounced a general absolution on all who sought it, and then prepared to resign his life as a sacrifice to his vows. (1648.) The wigwams are set on fire; the Mohawks approach the chapel, and the consecrated envoy serenely advances to meet them. Astonishment seized the barbarians. At length, drawing near, they discharge at him a flight of arrows. All gashed and rent by wounds, he still continued to speak with surprising energy-now inspiring fear of the divine anger, and again, in gentle tones, yet of more piercing power than the whoops of the savages, breathing the affectionate messages of mercy and grace. Such were his actions till he received a death-blow from a halbert. The victim to the heroism of charity died, the name of Jesus on his lips; the wilderness gave him a grave; the Huron nation were his mourners. By his religious associates it was believed that he appeared twice after his death, youthfully radiant in the sweetest form of celestial glory; that, as the reward for his torments, a crowd of souls, redeemed from purgatory, were his honoring escort into heaven."

One more glimpse of these poetic pictures, and we shall turn to common sense. The prevalence of peace now favored the advance of the French, or rather Jesuit, dominion.

"For the succeeding years, the illustrious triumvirate, Alloüez, Dablon, and Marquette, were employed in confirming the influence of France in the vast regions that extend from Green Bay to the head of Lake Superior-mingling happiness with suffering, and winning enduring glory by their fearless perseverance. For to what inclemencies, from nature and from man, was each missionary among the barbarians exposed! He defies the severity of climate, wading through water or through snows, without the comfort of fire; having no bread

but pounded maize, and often no food but the unwholesome moss from the rocks; laboring incessantly; exposed to live, as it were, without nourishment, to sleep without a resting-place, to travel far, and always incurring perils-to carry his life in his hand, or rather daily, and oftener than every day, to hold it up as a target, expecting captivity, death from the tomahawk, tortures, fire. And yet the simplicity and the freedom of life in the wilderness had their charms. The heart of the missionary would swell with delight, as, under a serene sky, and with a mild temperature, and breathing a pure air, he moved over waters as transparent as the most limpid fountain. Every encampment offered his attendants the pleasures of the chase. Like a patriarch, he dwelt beneath a tent; and of the land through which he walked, he was its master, in the length of it and in the breadth of it, profiting by its productions, without the embarrassment of ownership. How often was the pillow of stones like that where Jacob felt the presence of God! How often did the ancient oak, of which the centuries were untold, seem like the tree of Mamre, beneath which Abraham broke bread with angels! Each day gave the pilgrim a new site for his dwelling, which the industry of a few moments would erect, and for which nature provided a floor of green, inlaid with flowers. On every side clustered beauties, which art had not spoiled, and could not imitate."

Now, apart from all this sky-rocketing of words, the plain historical truth concerning these so much vaunted missionary movements of the Jesuits, is clearly about this. Their sleuth-hound vengeance crossed the sea upon the track of that Protestantism which they had, as an Order, sworn to exterminate. Next to this vow, the aggrandizement of the Order, "to the greater glory of "-Loyola, was the next most vital consideration, and, in America, they only pursued the same policy in reference to this particular end which had characterized their operations in India, China, Japan, Paraguay, California, and elsewhere; their object being, clearly, in the formation of Missions, to create so many fiefs of the Order, the revenues of which would enure to the swelling its treasury.

In North America, beside the tithes, which being paid in