40 



Inasmuch 



April 24th, 



Apri 

 1615 



The Jesuit 

 Missions 



June 19th, 

 1625 



waited upon Bernard du Verger, the superior of 

 the Recollets, and asked for missionaries for the 

 roving hordes of savages that filled the forests 

 of Canada from Quebec to the shores of the 

 Chinese Sea. &quot; 



Four members of the Order accompanied 

 Champlain on his return to New France. Of 

 these, two, Fathers Le Caron and D olbeau set 

 out on the journey &quot;of seven hundred miles to the 

 shores of the Great Lake of the Hurons.&quot; The 

 Recollect Fathers continued, intermittently, 

 their efforts for about nine years, when Le Caron 

 returned to France. 



The work was then taken up by the Jesuits, 

 the first arrivals including the famous Jean de 

 Brebeuf and Charles Lalemant. Of these Bre- 

 beuf was selected for the Huron Mission. Of the 

 perils and hardships of the journey one of the 

 Fathers wrote: &quot;Easy as the journey may appear, 

 it will, however, present difficulties of a formid 

 able nature to the heart that is not strengthened 

 by self-denial and mortification. The activity of 

 his Indian companions will neither shorten the 

 portages, make smooth the rocks, nor banish 

 danger. The voyage will take at least three or 

 four weeks, with companions whom he perhaps 

 never before met; he will be confined within the 

 limit of a bark canoe, and in a position so painful 

 and inconvenient that he will not be free to change 

 it without exposing the canoe to the danger of 

 being capsized, or injured on the rocks. During 

 the day the sun will scorch him, and at night the 



