Page:History of the United States of America, Spencer, v1.djvu/161

 his shirt unwashed, his cassock half-torn from his lean body, but with a face full of content, charmed with the life he led, and inspiring by his air and his words a strong desire to join him in the mission." The news of these remarkable successes being transmitted to France created great excitement, and led to many efforts in behalf of the Roman Catholic religion in Canada. A Jesuit college was established at Quebec, as was soon after a hospital for the benefit of both French and Indians, and a convent of Ursuline nuns.

Montreal, which was in the highway to the newly established missions, was solemnly consecrated to the Virgin Mary, grew up into a religious station, and became the nucleus of a future city. Fresh bodies of Jesuit missionaries continued to arrive, and emulate the zeal of their predecessors. Among these Raymbault, and his companion Jogues, coasting the shore of Lake Huron, reached the distant country of the Chippewas, at the foot of the falls of St. Mary. Worn out with hardships, Raymbault again reached Quebec, but only to die; while his companion, descending the St. Lawrence with his Huron converts, was beset by a party of the hostile Mohawks, and forced to run the gauntlet three successive times, between rows of tormentors, his Indian companions perishing in his sight by the tomahawk or the flames. Jogues, having escaped, made his way to the Mohawk valley, where he was hospitably received by the Dutch commandant at Rensselacrwyck. Similar sufferings were inflicted upon such of the missionaries as fell into the power of this savage tribe. A like success attended the missionary efforts toward the east, where, at a very early period, before the landing of the pilgrim fathers, the French had labored to convert the natives to Christianity. Dreuillettes, the missionary explorer, having reported favorably, measures were taken by the Jesuits to establish a permanent mission.

"It is certain," says Charlevoix—as quoted by Hildreth—in speaking on this subject, "as well from the annual relations of those happy times, as from the constant tradition of that country, that a peculiar unction attached to this savage mission, giving it a preference over many others far more brilliant and more fruitful. The reason no doubt was, that nature, finding nothing there to gratify the senses or to flatter vanity—stumbling blocks too common even to the holiest—grace worked without obstacle. The Lord, who never allows himself to be outdone, communicates himself without measure to those who sacrifice themselves without reserve; who, dead to all, detached entirely from themselves and the world, possess their souls in unalterable peace, perfectly established in that child-like spirituality which Jesus Christ has recommended to his disciples as that which ought to be the most marked trait of their character." "Such is the portrait," adds Charlevoix, "drawn of the missionaries of New France by those who knew them best. I myself knew some of them in my youth, and I found them such as I have painted them, bending under the labor of a long apostleship,