THOMAS. ] BURIAL CEREMONIES OF THE HURONS. 119 
only to see some one among them to be the first to take this bold step and dare to go 
contrary to the custom of the country. They are, finally, a people who have a 
permanent home (demeure arrestée), are judicious, capable of reason, and well mul- 
tiplied. 
I made mention, the past year, of twelve nations entirely sedentary and harmonious, 
who understand the language of our Hurons; and the Hurons make in, twenty villages, 
about 30,000 souls ; if the rest is in proportion, there are more than 300,000 who speak 
only the Huron language. God gives us influence among them; they esteem us, and 
we are in such favor with them, that we know not whom to listen to, so much does 
each one aspire to have us. In truth we would be very ungrateful for the goodness 
of God if we should lose courage in the midst of all this, and did not wait for Him to 
bring forth the fruit in his own time. 
It is true that I have some little apprehension for the time when it will be necessary 
to speak to them in a new way of their manners and to teach them ‘‘a clonér leur 
chairs” and restrain themselves in the honesty of marriage, breaking off their ex- 
cesses for fear of the judgment of God upon their vices. Then it will be a question of 
telling them openly, ‘ Quoniam qui talia agunt regnum Dei non possidebunt.” I fear that 
they will prove stubborn, when we speak to them of assuming Jesus Christ, wearing 
his colors, and distinguishing themselves in the quality of Christians from what 
they have been formerly, by a virtue of which they scarcely know the name; when 
we cry unto them with the Apostle: ‘‘ For this is the will of God, your sanctifica- 
tion: that you should abstain from fornication, that every one of you should know 
how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor: not in the passion of lust, like 
the gentiles that know not God.” There is, I repeat, reason to fear that they may be 
frightened with the subject of purity and chastity, and that they will be disheartened 
with the doctrine of the Son of God, saying with those of Capernaum, on another sub- 
ject, “ Durus est hic sermo et quis potest eum audire?” Nevertheless, since with the 
grace of God we have already persuaded them, by the open profession we have made 
of this virtue, neither to do or say in our presence anything which may be averse to 
it —even to threaten strangers when they forget themselves before us, warning them 
that the French and especially the ‘‘ black robes,” detest these intimacies—is it 
not credible that if the Holy Spirit touches them once, it will so impress upon them 
henceforth, in every place and at all times, the reverence which they should give to 
His divine presence and immensity, that they will be glad to bechaste in order to be 
Christians, and will desire earnestly to be Christians in order to bechaste? I believe 
that it is for this very purpose that our Lord has inspired us to put them under the 
charge of St. Joseph. This great saint, who was formerly given for a husband to 
the glorious Virgin, to conceal from the world and the devil a virginity which God 
honored with His incarnation, has so much influence over the ‘‘Sainte Dame,” in 
whose hands His Son has placed, as in deposit, all the graces which co-operate with 
this celestial virtue, that there is almost nothing to fear in the contrary vice, for those 
who are devoted to Him, as we desire our Hurons to be, as well as ourselves. It is 
for this purpose, and for the entire conversion of all these peoples, that we commend 
ourselves heartily to the prayers of all those who love or wish to love God and es- 
pecially of all our fathers and brothers. 
Your very humble and obedient servant in our Lord, 
JEAN DE BREBEUF. 
From the residence of St. Joseph, among the Hurons, at the village called Ihena- 
tiria, this 16th of July, 1636. 
