1649.] DANIEL. 371 



mind. The enthusiasm which with many is fitful 

 and spasmodic was with him the current of his life, 

 — solemn and deep as the tide of destiny. The 

 Divine Trinity, the Virgin, the Saints, Heaven and 

 Hell, Angels and Fiends, — to him, these alone 

 were real, and all things else were nought. Gabriel 

 Lalemant, nephew of Jerome Lalemant, Superior 

 at Quebec, was Brebeuf 's colleague at the mission 

 of St. Ignace. His slender frame and delicate 

 features gave him an appearance of youth, though 

 he had reached middle life ; and, as in the case 

 of Garnier, the fervor of his mind sustained him 

 through exertions of which he seemed physi- 

 cally incapable. Of the rest of that company 

 little has come down to us but the bare record 

 of their missionary toils ; and we may ask in vain 

 what youthful enthusiasm, what broken hope or 

 faded dream, turned the current of their lives, 

 and sent them from the heart of civilization to 

 this savage outpost of the world. 



No element was wanting in them for the achieve- 

 ment of such a success as that to which they 

 aspired, — neither a transcendent zeal, nor a match- 

 less discipline, nor a practical sagacity very seldom 

 surpassed in the pursuits where men strive for 

 wealth and place ; and if they were destined to 

 disappointment, it was the result of external causes, 

 against which no power of theirs could have in- 

 sured them. 



There was a gap in their number. The place 

 of Antoine Daniel was empty, and never more to 

 be filled by him, — never at least in the flesh* 



