[wiTHBow] JESUIT MISSIONS OF CANADA 203 



cross was a charm of evil potency, blasting the crops and affrighting 

 the thunder-bird that brought the refreshing rain. 



The missionaries walked in the shadow of a perpetual peril. Often 

 the tomahawk gleamed above their heads o'r a deadly ambush lurked 

 for their lives. But beneath the protection of St. Mary and St. Joseph, 

 as they devoutly believed, they walked unhurt. The murderous hand 

 was restrained, the death-winged arrow was turned aside; undismayed 

 by their danger, undeterred by lowering looks and muttered curses, 

 they calmly went on their way of mercy. In winter storms and sum- 

 mer heat, from plague-smitten town to to'\\'n, they journeyed through 

 the dreary forest, to administer their homely simples to the victims of 

 the loathsome small-pox, to exhort the dying, to absolve the penitent, 

 and, where possible, to hallow with Christian rites the burial of the 

 dead. The wail of a sick child, faintly heard through the bark walls 

 of an infected cabin, was an irresistible appeal to the missionaries' 

 heart. Heedless of the scowling glance or rude insult, they would enter 

 the dwelling, and, by stealth or guile, they would administer the sacred 

 rite wlhich snatched an infant soul from endless perdition, — from the 

 jaws of the " Infernal Wolf.^^ i 



They shared the privations and discomforts of savage life. They 

 endured the tonnents of filth and vermin; of stifling, acrid smoke, 

 parching the throait and inflaming the eyes till the letters of the 

 breviary seemed written in blood. Often they had no privacy for devo- 

 tion save in the dim crypts of the forest, where, carving a cross upon 

 a tree, they chanted their solemn litanies till, gnawed to the bone by 

 the piercing cold, they returned to the reeking hut and the foul orgies 

 of pagan superstition. 



Yet the hearts of the missionaries quailed not ; they were sustained 

 by a lofty enthusiasm that courted danger as a condition of success. 

 The gentle Lalemant prayed that if the blood of the martyrs were the 

 necessary seed of the Church, its effusion should not be wanting. Xor 

 did the mission lack in time that dread bap^tism. The pious Fathers 

 believed that powers supernal and infernal fought for them or against 

 them in their assault upon the kingdom oî Satan. On the side of 

 Christ, His Virgin Mother, and the blessed Gospel were legions of 

 angels and the sworded seraphim. Opposed to them were all the 

 powers of darkness, aided by those imps of the pit, tlie dreaded 

 '■ sorcerers," whom Satan clothed with vicarious skill to baffle the 

 efforts of the missionaries and the prayers of the holy saints. Foul 



^ " Ce loup infernal." Thus, as they phrased it, the dying infants were 

 changed " from little savages to little angels." Of a thousand baptisms in 

 1639, all but twenty were baptized in immediate danger of death. Two hun- 

 dred and sixty were infants, and many more quite young. 



