Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/421

Rh any circumstances admit. Of course the vow of obedience, the rigid bond of discipline, the subjection to directions from a superior, the bounden duty of self-reckoning and of detailed reports, and the animating soul of the company which enthralled all separate, abnegated wills, as if unified by one inspiring and directing volition, — these were ties and sentient chords which distance and loneliness only quickened and intensified. Martyrdom, uninvited, but ventured and longed for, if it could be met in the path of patient, courageous duty, was the all-coveted reward; but it could crown the sacrifice only of a consecrated and pledged life. But early in the mission life in Canada we begin to meet interminglings of motive for the extended dominion of France, for anticipated collisions with heretics, and for the gains of trade and power. Still, allowing for all these limitations and qualifications of the perfect zeal exclusively and thoroughly religious, coming later into the mixed motives of the missionaries, the palm of pre-eminent self-consecration in a service than which none more severely exacting was performed on this earth by man for man, was nobly won by them. Whatever repelling and odious associations of subtle intrigue, sinuous policy, and artful casuistry the word Jesuit has gathered around it, from courts, confessionals, and the directorship of female consciences, it surely parted with them in the depths of the Huron wilderness. There was no occasion or material for such things there. Had the Jesuits not entered upon their work with a single consecrated aim, they would have been held to its sole regard in the American forests.

In our European histories, biographies, and court and police records we meet with the wily and plotting Jesuit disguised as soldier, sailor, courtier, travelling merchant, day-laborer, Protestant preacher even. It may be that as in the case of many who have achieved an ill repute, including even the Evil One himself, they have incurred the odium of mischief which they never did. But the Jesuit put on