118 PERSECUTION. [1637. 



coursed to the crowd of chiefs on the wonders of 

 the yisible heavens, — the sun, the moon, the stars, 

 and the planets. They were inclined to believe 

 what he told them; for he had lately, to their 

 great amazement, accurately predicted an eclipse. 

 From the fires above he passed to the fires be- 

 neath, till the listeners stood aghast at his hideous 

 pictures of the flames of perdition, — the only spe- 

 cies of Christian instruction which produced any 

 perceptible efi'ect on this unpromising auditory. 



The council opened on the evening of the fourth 

 of August, with all the usual ceremonies ; and the 

 night was spent m discussing questions of treaties 

 and alliances, with a deliberation and good sense 

 which the Jesuits could not help admirmg.^ A 

 few days after, the assembly took up the more 

 exciting question of the epidemic and its causes. 

 Deputies from three of the four Huron nations 

 were present, each deputation sitting apart. The 

 Jesuits were seated with the Nation of the Bear, 

 in whose towns their missions were established. 

 Like all important councils, the session was held 

 at night. It was a strange scene. The light of 

 the fii*es flickered aloft into the smoky vault and 

 among the soot-begrimed rafters of the great coun- 

 cil-house,^ and cast an uncertain gleam on the wild 

 and dejected throng that filled the platforms and 

 the floor. " I think I never saw anything more 

 lugubrious," writes Le Mercier : " they looked at 



1 Le iNIercier, Relation des Hurons, 1638, 38. 



2 It must have been the house of a chief. The Hurons, unlike some 

 other tribes, liad no houses set apart for public occasions. 



