1684.] PBIESTS OF THE MISSION. 7 



trolled not alone the body and the will, but the 

 intellect, the heart, the soul, and the inmost con- 

 sciousness. The lives of these early Canadian 

 Jesuits attest the earnestness of their faith and 

 the intensity of their zeal ; but it was a zeal 

 bridled, curbed, and ruled by a guiding hand. 

 Their marvellous training in equal measure kin- 

 dled enthusiasm and controlled it, roused into ac- 

 tion a mighty power, and made it as subservient as 

 those great material forces which modem science 

 has learned to awaken and to govern, ^hey were 

 drilled to a factitious humility, prone to find utter- 

 ance in expressions of self-depreciation and self- 

 scorn, which one may often judge unwisely, when 

 he condemns them as insincereJ They were de- 

 voted believers, not only in the fundamental dog- 

 mas of Rome, but in those lesser matters of faith 

 which heresy despises as idle and puerile supersti- 

 tions. One great aim engrossed their lives. " For 

 the greater glory of God " — ad majorem Dei glo- 

 riam — they would act or wait, dare, suffer, or 

 die, yet all in unquestioning subjection to the 

 authority of the Superiors, in whom they recog- 

 nized the agents of Divine authority itself. 



