PREFACE. 



Few passages of history are more striking than 

 those which record the efforts of the earher French 

 Jesuits to convert the Indians. Full as they 

 are of dramatic and philosophic interest, bearing 

 strongly on the political destinies of America, and 

 closely involved with the history of its native pop- 

 ulation, it is wonderful that they have been left 

 so long in obscurity. While the infant colonies of 

 England still clung feebly to the shores of the At- 

 lantic, events deeply ominous to their future were 

 in progress, unknown to them, m the very heart of 

 the continent. It will be seen, in the sequel of this 

 volume, that civil and rehgious Hberty found strange 

 aUies in this Western World. 



The sources of information concerning the early 

 Jesuits of New France are very copious. During 

 a period of forty years, the Superior of the Mission 



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