Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/276

Rh planted the Puritan colony on Plymouth Rock; religious enthusiasm planted the cross, together with the lilies of France, on the shores of the St. Lawrence, beside Niagara, and as far as St. Marie, among the wild Indians by Lake Superior. The noble, chivalric Champlain, full of ardour and zeal, said, “the salvation of a soul is worth more than the conquest of a kingdom.”

That was at the time when the disciples of Loyola went forth over the world to conquer it as a kingdom for the Prince of Peace, and inscribed the sign of the cross in Japan, in China, in India, in Ethiopia, among the Caffers, in California, in Paraguay. They invited the barbarian to the civilisation of Christianity. The priests who penetrated from Canada to the deserts of Western America were among the noblest of their class.

“They had the faults of ascetic superstition; but the horrors of a Canadian life in the wilderness were resisted by an invincible passive courage, and a deep internal tranquillity. Away from the amenities of life, away from the opportunities of vain-glory, they became dead to the world, and possessed their souls in unutterable peace. The few who lived to grow old, though bowed by the toils of a long mission, still kindled with the fervour of apostolic zeal. The history of their labours is connected with the origin of every celebrated town in the annals of French America: not a cape was turned, not a river entered, but a Jesuit led the way.”

The Jesuits, Bribeuf and Daniel, and the gentle Lallemand, accompanied a party of bare-footed Hurons to their country through dangerous forests. They won the regard and the love of the savages.

Bribeuf, who is said to have been the pattern of every religious virtue, lived fifteen years among the Hurons baptising them to the religion of Christ, and instructing them in the occupations of peace. Works of love, self-mortification, prayers deep into the night—such was his