[wiTHROw] JESUIT MISSIONS OF CANADA 205 



Indeed he sought by his rigorous penances to make his life a con- 

 tinuous martyrdom. Beneath his hair-shirt he wore an iron girdle, 

 studded with sharp points. Daily, or more often still, he inflicted upon 

 himself unsparing flagellation. His fasts were frequent and austere, 

 and often in pious vigils he wore the night away. 



Such enthusiasm as that of these impassioned devotees was not 

 without its unfailing reward. Inveterate prejudice was overcome, 

 hitter hostility was changed to tender aft'cction, and the worn and 

 faded black cassock, the cross and rosary hanging from the girdle, and 

 the wide-brimmed hat of the Jesuit missionary became the objects of 

 loving regard instead of the symbols of a dreaded spiritual power. 



The Indians aband.oned their cruel and cannibal practices. 

 Many of them received Christian baptism. The little children 

 were taught to repeat the Ave, the Credo, and the Pater Noster. Rude 

 natures were touched to human tenderness and pity by the pathetic 

 story of a Saviour's love; and lawless passions were restrained by the 

 dread menace of eternal flames. Savage manners and unholy pagan 

 rites gave way to Christian decorum and pious devotion, and the im- 

 placable red men learned to pray for their enemies. 



That in some instances at least, the conversion of the Indians was 

 not a merely nominal one but a radical change of character, is evi- 

 denced by the following prayer of a Huron tribe for their hereditary 

 foes, the cruel Iroquois: — "Pardon, Lord, those who pursue us with 

 fury, who destroy us with such rage. Open their blind eyes; make 

 them to know Thee and to love Thee, and then, being Thy friends they 

 will also be ours, and we shall together be Thy children." ^ A more 

 signal triumph of grace over the implacable hate of the Indian nature 

 it is difficult to conceive. " Let us strive," exclaimed another convert, 

 " to make the whole world embrace the faith in Jesus.^-* 



The scattered missionaries were reinforced by pious recruits drawn 

 across the sea by an impassioned zeal that knew no abatement, even 

 unto death. At almost every Indian town was a mission established 

 and consecrated by some holy name. Thus in the northern half of 

 what is now the county of Simcoe, were the missions of St. Michel, St. 

 Joseph, St. Jean, St. Jean-Baptiste, Sf. Louis, St. Denys, St. Antoine, 

 St. Charles, St, IgTiace,^ St. François-Xaxier, Ste. Marie, Ste. Anne, 



^ " Seigneur pardonnez à ceux qui nous poursuivent avec tant de fureur 

 qui nous font mourir avec tant de rage, ouvrez leurs yeux, ils ne voyent 

 goutte; faites qu'ils vous connoissent et qu'ils vous ayment, et alors estans 

 vos amys ils seront les nostres, et nous serons tous vos enfans." Vincent, 

 Relation, 1645, p. 16. 



- The frequency of this dpsignation, throughout the whole of New France. 

 attests the veneration in which the founder of the Society of Jesus was held. 



