so W. H. WITHROW: 



soul." ' He asked time for consideration. He spent the night in prayer, imploring that God 

 would not leave him to chose for himself, bvit that He would give him light to know His 

 most holy will, which above all things, he wished to follow, even to be burned at the stake." 

 After much deliberation he resolved to embrace the offered deliverance. He was to escape 

 in the night, when a boat would be left for him on the shore. He slept in a barn with 

 his Iroquois masters. Stealing out to reconnoitre, he was attacked and severely bitten by 

 a savage dog. Suspicion was excited and increased vigilance observed by the Indians. He 

 lay among his savage captors, tossing in an agony of pain and mental disquiet. God had 

 shut up all his ways, he thought, Concluserat vias meas. Later in the night he escaped. 

 But, alas ! the boat was left by the ebbing tide high and dry on the shore. The dawn 

 threatened to discover to the Irocjuois what with somewhat bitter humour he calls his in- 

 nocent larceny of himself.'* He succeeded in launching the boat and escaping to the sloop. 

 He lay hid for two days half stifled in the hold. He prayed that he might not, like 

 Jonah, fly from the face of the Lord, but that, on the contrary, God would confound all 

 his counsels which were not for His glory.^ 



The second night of his imprisonment the Dutch pastor, Megapolensis, came on board 

 to say that the Iroquois, enraged at his escape, threatened to burn the village. " If 

 because of me this tempest is arisen," said the priest in the words of the Hebrew prophet, 

 " take me up and cast me forth into the sea." He would not save himself to the prejudice 

 of the humblest man in the settlement.' He was i^ut on shore again, and the vessel 

 sailed without him. He knew that, if retaken, his death would be one of no ordinary 

 torture. But, "Blessed be God for ever," he exclaims, " we are continually in the arms of 

 His divine and ever adorable providence." 



He was put in charge of a miserly old man, who purloined half the food provided 

 for his prisoner, so that the good priest was nearly starved. He was hidden in a garret, 

 part of which was used for storing goods for barter with the savages. Thither the old 

 Dutchman incessantly brought his Indian customers, and through the gaping joints of 

 the partition they might easily have discovered Jogues a thousand times if God had not, 

 as he piously remarks, turned away their eyes." To escape discovery he used to crouch 

 for hours at a time in a constrained posture, Avhich caused an agony of pain, behind some 

 barrels. He was parched with thirst, well nigh suffocated with heat, and faint Avith himger. 



After six weeks of irksome confinement, an order came from the Governor of Manhat- 

 tan — or Manate, as the good father writes it, now New York- — to send him thither. His 

 Iroc^uois captors received goods to the amount of about 300 livres by way of ransom. At 

 Manhattan, Jogues was treated with the utmost respect and was provided by the Governor 

 with new clothing. The straggling town of a few hundred houses, with its garrison of 

 sixty soldiers, was even then a type of what it afterwards became. No less than sixteen 

 different languages were spoken in the little metropolis. 



' Vimont, Relations, 1643, p. 76. 



- le passay la nuict en prières, suppliante beaucoup nostre Seigneur, qu'il ne me laissast point prendre de con- 

 clusion de moy-mesme, qu'il me donnast lumière pour cognoistre sa (res-saincte volonté, qu'en tout et par tout ie la 

 voulois suiure, iusques à estre bruslé à petit feu. Vimont. Ibid., 1643, p. 76. 



■' Le larcin que ie faisois de moy-mesme, ie craignois qu'il ne me surprisent dans ce délit innocent. Ibid., p. 78. 



' Ivfaiuaret omniii consUin qxis non e.ssent ad mum glnrimii. Vimont, Ibid., 1643, \i. 78. 



'" le n'avois iamais eu de volonté de me sauuer au preiudice du moindre homme de leur habitation. Ibid. 



^ Si Dieu n'eust détourné leurs yeux, ils m'auroient mille fois ajipcrcu. Lalemant, Ibid., 1647, p. 33. 



