Page:The Red Man and the White Man in North America.djvu/438

418 of the French. Bressani and his party returned with them to Quebec, where shortly all the missionaries left alive, with the sad remains of their flocks, gathered for an asylum. The Huron mission was ended. Many of the Fathers were sent back to Europe. Among these was Bressani. Only his vow of obedience would have reconciled him, though wrecked in health, to leave the scene of his labors and woes and his dear neophytes. He embarked for Italy, Nov. 1, 1650. His strength was renewed. He preached with great power and acceptance in the principal cities of Italy. He could say, “I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.” He retired at last to the house of the Novitiate at Florence, where he died, Sept. 9, 1672, full of years and of honors.

The series of catastrophes which thus brought a complete discomfiture upon the heroic efforts of the Jesuit Fathers marks the surrender of the Huron missions. One by one their villages, and then their places of refuge, had been desolated. The proud hopes which rested on visions and ecstasies and anticipated the crowns of martyrdom were blasted. But those in whose heroic breasts such hopes had glowed with more of just assurance than any human longings can claim, did win and now wear the martyr's crown. Such of them as returned to Europe were ready and anxious, at the word of their superior, to come back to the scene of their sacrifices. Of those who remained here, most became victims. Another company of the Fathers were yet to find the field for similar labors and woes in the far West. But of those whose way of peril and of death we have been tracking, we repeat responsively the words of Mr. Parkman, so apt and eloquent: “Their virtues shine amid the rubbish of error like diamonds and gold in the gravel of the torrent.” He bears witness to the softening influence of the Jesuits on the ferocity of the savages. He also regards the series of Iroquois onsets at this period, which nearly annihilated the Hurons and the Algonquins, as closing the missionary