202 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



miles up the Ott-awa, and throug-h Lake Nipissing, Frendh Eiver, and 

 the Georgian Bay, they reached the Bay of Penetangiiishene. Over 

 five-and-thirty portages, sometimes several miles long, often steep and 

 rugged, through tangled forests and over sharp rocks that lacerated 

 their naked feet, the missionary pioneers helped to bear their bark 

 canoes and their contents. Fifty times they had to plunge into rapids, 

 and, wading or stumbling over boulders in the rocky channel, to drag 

 the laden boats against an arrowy stream. With drenched and tattered 

 garments, with weary and fasting frames, with bruised and mangled 

 feet, stung by mosquitoes and venomous insects, they had to sleep on 

 the damp earth or naked rock. " But amid it all,'' writes Brébeuf , 

 " my soul enjoyed a sublime contentment, knowing that all I suffered 

 was for God.'' ^ 



Separated from his companions and abandoned by his perfidioiis 

 escort, Brébeuf offered himself and all his labours to God for the salva- 

 tion of these poor savageis,^ and pressed through the woods to the scene 

 of his former toil. He found that Brule, a fellow-countryman, had 

 been cruelly murdered in his absence, and, with prophetic instinct, 

 anticipated the same fate for himself, but desired only that it might 

 be met in advancing the glory of God. Davost and Daniel soon after 

 arrived, a mission house and chapel were built, and the latter decorated 

 with a few pictures, images, and sacred vessels, brought with much 

 toil over the long and difficult route from Quebec. Here the Christian 

 altar was reared, surplieed priests chanted the ancient litanies of the 

 Church, whose unwonted sounds awoke strange echoes in the forest 

 aisles. 



But, by weary years of hope deferred, the missionaries' faith was 

 sorely tried. They preached and prayed and fast§d^ without any ap- 

 parent reward of their labour. The ramparts of error seemed impreg- 

 nable. The hosts of hell seemed leagued against them. The Indian 

 " sorcerers," as tfie Jesuits called the medicine men, wihom they be- 

 lieved to be the imps of Satan, ii not, indeed, his human impersonation, 

 stirred up the passions of their tribes against the mystic medicine men 

 of the pale-faces. These were the cause, they alleged, of the fearful 

 drought that parched the land, of the dread pestilence that consumed 

 the people; the malign spell of their presence neutralized the skill oi 

 the hunter and the valour of the bravest warrior. The chanting of 

 their sacred litanies was mistaken for a magic incantation, and the 

 mysterious ceremonies of the mass for a malignant conjur3\ The 



^ "Mon âme ressentoit de très-grands contentmens, considérant que je 

 suffrois pour Dieu." — Brébeuf, Relation des Hurons, 1635, p. 26. 



- " M'offris ù nostre Seigneur, avec tous nos petits travaux, pour le salut 

 de ces pauvres peuples." — Brébeuf, RcJation des Ihn-ons, 1635, p. 28. 



