Towards the close of summer, these wandering tribes prepared to celebrate "their festival of the dead," - to gather up the bones of their deceased friends, and give them jointly an honorable sepulchre. To this ceremony all the confederate nations were invited; and, as they approach the shore, on a deep bay in Lake Iroquois, their canoes advance in regular array, and the representatives of nations leap on shore, uttering exclamations and cries of joy, which the rocks echo. The long cabin for the dead had been prepared; their bones are nicely disposed in coffins of bark, and wrapped in such furs as the wealth of Europe would have coveted; the mourning-song of the war-chiefs had been chanted, all night long, to the responsive wails of the women. farewell to the dead, the dances, the councils, the presents, all were finished. But, before the assembly dispersed, the Jesuits, by their presents and their festivals, had won new affection, and an invitation was given to visit the nation of Chippewas at Sault Ste. Marie.

The

For the leader of this first invasion of the soil of our republic in the west, Charles Raymbault was selected; and, as Hurons were his attendants, Isaac Jogues was given him as a companion.

It was on the seventeenth day of September, 1641, that the birch-bark canoe, freighted with the first envoys from Christendom, left the Bay of Penetangushene for the Falls of St. Mary. Passing to the north, they floated over a wonted track till beyond the French River; then they passed onward over the beautifully clear waters and between the thickly clustering archipelagoes of Lake Huron, beyond the Manitoulins and other isles along the shore, to the straits that form the outlet of Lake Superior. There, at the falls, after a navigation of seventeen days, they found an assembly of many hundred souls. They made inquiries respecting many nations, who had never known Europeans, and had never heard of the one God. Among other nations, they heard of the Nadowessies, the famed

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Sioux, who dwelt eighteen days' journey farther to the west, beyond the Great Lake, then still without a name warlike tribes, with fixed abodes, cultivators of maize and tobacco, of an unknown race and language. Thus did the religious zeal of the French bear the cross to the banks of the St. Mary and the confines of Lake Superior, and look wistfully towards the homes of the Sioux in the valley of the Mississippi, five years before the New England Eliot had addressed the tribe of Indians that dwelt within six miles of Boston harbor.

The chieftains of the Chippewas invited the Jesuits to dwell among them, and hopes were inspired of a permanent mission. A council was held. "We will embrace you," said they, as brothers; we will derive profit from your words."

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After this excursion of discovery, Raymbault designed to rejoin the Algonquins of Nipissing, but the climate forbade; and, late in the season, he returned to the harbor of the Huron missions, wasting away with consumption. In midsummer of the next year, he descended to Quebec. After languishing till October, the self-denying man, who had glowed with the hope of bearing the gospel across the continent, through all the American Barbary, even to the ocean that divides America from China, ceased to live; and the body of this first apostle of Christianity to the tribes of Michigan was buried in "the particular sepulchre" which the justice of that age had "erected expressly to honor the memory of the illustrious" Champlain.

Thus the climate made one martyr ; the companion of Raymbault was destined to encounter a far more dreaded foe. From the Falls of St. Mary, Jogues had repaired to the Huron missions, and thence, in June, 1642, with the escort of Ahasistari and other Huron braves, he descended by the Ottawa and St. Lawrence to Quebec. On the first of August, on his return with a larger fleet of canoes, a band of Mohawks lay in wait for the pilgrims, as they ascended the St. Lawrence.

"There can be but three canoes of them," said Ahasistari, as, at daybreak, he examined their trail on the shore: "there is nothing to fear," added this bravest of the braves. Unhappy confidence! The Mohawks, from their ambush, attacked the canoes, as they neared the land the thin bark is perforated of the Hurons and the few Frenchmen, some make for the shore, to find security in the forests. Jogues might have escaped also; but there were with him converts, who had not yet been baptized, and when did a Jesuit missionary seek to save his own life at what he believed the risk of soul? Ahasistari had gained a hiding-place: observing Jogues to be a captive, he returned to him, saying, "My brother, I made oath to thee that I would share thy fortune, whether death or life; here am I to keep my vow."

The horrible inflictions of savage cruelty ensued, and were continued all the way from the St. Lawrence to the Mohawk. There, for days and nights, they were abandoned to hunger and every torment which petulant youth could devise. Three Hurons were condemned to the flames. The brave Ahasistari, having received absolution, met his end with the enthusiasm of a convert and the pride of the most gallant war-chief of his tribe. Sad was the fate of the captive novice, René Goupil. He had been seen to make the sign of the cross on an infant's brow. "He will destroy the village by his charms," said his master; and, summoned while reciting, alternately with Jogues, the rosary of the Virgin, a blow with the tomahawk laid him lifeless.

Father Jogues had expected the same fate; but his life was spared, and his liberty enlarged. On a hill apart, he carved a long cross on a tree, and there, in the solitude, meditated the imitation of Christ, and soothed his griefs by reflecting that he alone, in that vast region, adored the true God of earth and heaven. Roaming through the stately forests of the Mohawk valley, he wrote the name of Jesus on the bark of trees, graved the cross, and entered into possession of

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1644, 1645.] these countries in the name of God, often lifting up his voice in a solitary chant. Thus did France bring its banner and its faith to the confines of Albany. The missionary himself was humanely ransomed from captivity by the Dutch, and, sailing for France, soon returned to Canada.

Similar was the fate of Father Bressani. In May, 1644, taken prisoner by the Mohawks, while on his way to the Hurons; beaten, mangled, mutilated; driven barefoot over rough paths, through briers and thickets; scourged by a whole village; burned, tortured, wounded, and scarred, · he was eye-witness to the fate of one of his companions, who was boiled and eaten. Yet some mysterious awe protected his life, and he, too, was, at last, humanely rescued by the Dutch.

It

Meantime, to make good the possession of the country, a treaty of peace is sought by the French with the Five Nations, and, in 1645, a great meeting is held at Three Rivers. There are the French officers in their magnificence; there the five Iroquois deputies, couched upon mats, bearing strings of wampum. was agreed to smooth the forest-path, to calm the river, to hide the tomahawk. "Let the clouds be dispersed," said the Iroquois; "let the sun shine on all the land between us.' The Algonquins joined in the peace. "Here is a skin of a moose," said Negabamat, chief of the Montagnez; "make moccasins for the Mohawk deputies, lest they wound their feet on their way home." "We have thrown the hatchet," said the Mohawks, "so high into the air, and beyond the skies, that no arm on earth can reach to bring it down. The French shall sleep on our softest blankets, by the warm fire, that shall be kept blazing all the night long. The shades of our braves that have fallen in war, have gone so deep into the earth, that they never can be heard calling for revenge." "I place a stone on their grave," said Pieskaret, "that no one may move their bones."

With greater sincerity, the Abenakis of Maine,

touched by the charities of Silleri, had solicited missionaries. Conversion to Catholic Christianity would establish their warlike tribes as a wakeful barrier against New England; and, in August, 1646, Father Gabriel Dreuillettes, first of Europeans, made the long and painful journey from the St. Lawrence to the sources of the Kennebec, and, descending that stream to its mouth, in a bark canoe continued his roamings on the open sea along the coast. The cross was already planted there, raised by the disciples of St. Francis of Assisi over their humble lodge near the mouth of the Penobscot. After a short welcome, the earnest apostle returned to the wilderness; and, a few miles above the mouth of the Kennebec, the Indians, in large numbers, gathered about him, building a rude chapel. In the winter, he was their companion in their long excursions in quest of game. Who can tell all the hazards that were encountered? The sharp rocks in the channel of the river were full of perils for the frail canoe; winter turned the solitudes into a wilderness of snow; the rover, Christian or pagan, must carry about with him his house, his furniture, and his food. But the Jesuit succeeded in winning the affections of the savages; and, in June, 1647, after a pilgrimage of ten months, an escort of thirty conducted him to Quebec, full of health and joy.

Thus, in September, 1646, within fourteen years from the restoration of Quebec, France, advancing rapidly towards a widely-extended dominion in North America, had its outposts on the Kennebec, and on the shores of Lake Huron, and had approached the settlements round Albany. The missionaries, exalted by zeal, enjoyed a fearless tranquillity, and were pledged to obedience unto death.

After the treaty of peace of 1645, for one winter, Algonquins, Wyandots, and Iroquois, joined in the chase. The wilderness seemed hushed into repose. Negotiations also were continued. In May, 1646, Father Jogues, commissioned as an envoy, was hospita