Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/422

402 no disguises here. The insignia of his order and profession, clung to in all extremities and hazards, were the only outward badges of his pride. His glorious privilege to the investiture, marking him as one of a pledged company who were facing the perils of all climes on their missions, was a compensation for all the inconvenience and risks of such a garb. For, indeed, alike in the wilderness tramp and in the frail canoe by lake or river, the long, closely-fitted cassock, which secured for the wearer the Indian title of the “Black Robe,” was the least convenient form of apparel. This, with the wide-brimmed, flopped hat, the cross, and the rosary, were the badges of his profession, inviting respect from friends and pledging constancy in the presence of foes. For two, three, and even more years, hundreds of leagues within wildernesses in the region between the Gulf of St. Lawrence and Lake Superior, remote from all converse or succor from European colonists, the Jesuit would wear this garb by day and night, in the wigwam and along the route, and even in its tatters he would preserve its semblance with patches of bark and skin.

The discipline of the novitiate, in the seminary and under the sway of an astute and thoroughly skilled director of conscience, had subjugated and enthralled the individual will, the conscience, the mastering motives, of the candidate for membership of the Order. Obedience, unquestioned and unreasoned, to his superior, was the complement and sum of all his virtues. To do what was assigned to him, to go where he was sent, to report himself only as in the way of his duty, to raise no alternatives of preference or prudence, never to forecast consequences, to measure risks, or turn aside from peril or death, — such were his vows. His calling was from outside of this world; and therefore the powers of this world, in motive, fear, or reward, were not to be recognized by him. His record and reckoning were for the world to come. What was signified to the Jesuit by the term faith, either as the matter or the way