1640.] MENTAL EXALTATION. 147 



horizon dark with perils yet more appaUing, 

 and saw in hope the day when they should bear 

 the cross into the blood-stained dens of the Iro- 

 quois.^ 



But, in this exaltation and tension of the powers, 

 was there no moment when the recoil of Nature 

 claimed a temporary sway 1 When, an exile from 

 his kind, alone, beneath the desolate rock and 

 the gloomy pine-trees, the priest gazed forth on the 

 pitiless wilderness and the hovels of its dark and 

 ruthless tenants, his thoughts, it may be, flew long- 

 ingly beyond those wastes of forest and sea that 

 lay between him and the home of his boyhood . 

 or rather, led by a deeper attraction, they revisited 

 the ancient centre of his faith, and he seemed to 

 stand once more in that gorgeous temple, where, 

 shrined in lazuli and gold, rest the hallowed bones 

 of Loyola. Column and arch and dome rise upon 

 his vision, radiant m painted light, and trembling 

 with celestial music. Again he kneels before the 

 altar, from whose tablature beams upon him that 

 loveliest of shapes in which the imagination of 

 man has embodied the spirit of Christianity. The 

 illusion overpowers him. A thrill shakes his frame, 

 and he bows in reverential rapture. No longer a 

 memory, no longer a dream, but a visioned pres- 

 ence, distinct and luminous in the forest shades, 

 the Virgin stands before him. Prostrate on the 

 rocky earth, he adores the benign angel of his 



1 This zeal was in no degree due to success ; for in 1641, after seven 

 years of toil, the mission counted only about fifty living converts, — a 

 falling off from former years. 



