CHAPTER VIII. 



1636, 1637. 

 THE HURON AND THE JESUIT. 



Enthusiasm for the Mission. — Sickness of the Priests. — The 

 Pest among the Hurons. — The Jesuit on his Rounds. — 

 Efforts at Conversion. — Priests and Sorcerers. — The 

 Man-Devil. — The Magician's Prescription. — Indian Doc- 

 tors AND Patients. — Covert Baptisms. — Self-Devotion op 

 the Jesuits. 



Meanwhile from Old France to New came suc- 

 cors and reinforcements to the missions of the 

 forest. More Jesuits crossed the sea to lu'ge on 

 the work of conversion. These were no stern 

 exiles, seeking on barbarous shores an asylum for 

 a persecuted faith. E-ank, wealth, power, and 

 royalty itself, smiled on their enterprise, and bade 

 them God-speed. Yet, withal, a fervor more 

 intense, a self-abnegation more complete, a self- 

 devotion more constant and enduring, will scarcely 

 find its record on the page of human history. 



Holy Mother Church, linked in sordid wedlock 



to governments and thrones, numbered among her 



servants a host of the worldly and the proud, 



whose service of God was but the service of them 



[831 



