108 CHARACTER OF THE CANADIAN JESUITS. [1637. 



influence the mastery of that language which he 

 afterwards acquired. 



The efforts of the missionaries for the conversion 

 of the savages were powerfully seconded from the 

 other world, and the refractory subject who was 

 deaf to human persuasions softened before the 

 superhuman agencies which the priest invoked to 

 his aid.^ 



It is scarcely necessary to add, that signs and 

 voices from another world, visitations from Hell 

 and visions from Heaven, were incidents of no rare 

 occurrence in the lives of these ardent apostles. 

 To Brebeuf, whose deep nature, like a furnace 

 white hot, glowed with the still intensity of his en- 

 thusiasm, they were especially frequent. Demons 

 in troops appeared before him, sometimes in the 

 guise of men, sometimes as bears, wolves, or wild- 

 cats. He called on God, and the apparitions van- 

 ished. Death, like a skeleton, sometimes menaced 

 him, and once, as he faced it with an unquailing 

 eye, it fell powerless at his feet. A demon, in the 

 form of a woman, assailed him with the temptation 

 which beset St. Benedict among the rocks of 

 Subiaco ; but Brebeuf signed the cross, and the 

 infernal siren melted into au\ He saw the vision 



1 As these may be supposed to be exploded ideas of the past, the 

 writer may recall an incident of his youth, while spending a few days 

 in the convent of the Passionists, near the Cohseum at Rome. These 

 worthy monks, after using a variety of arguments for his conversion, 

 expressed the hope that a miraculous interposition would be vouchsafed to 

 that end, and that the Virgin would manifest herself to him in a nocturnal 

 vision. To this end they gave him a small brass medal, stamped with 

 her image, to be worn at his neck, while they were to repeat a certain 

 number of Aves and Paters, in which he was urgently invited to join ; 

 as the result of which, it was hoped the Virgin would appear on the same 

 night. No vision, however, occurred. 



