REVIEWS THE GREAT DESERTS OF NORTH AMERICA. 65 



It is worthy of consideration whether the protestant missionary might 

 not learn a useful lesson from the catholic, and apply the system of 

 "object lessons " to the perceptive faculties of the rude Indian, with- 

 out making such the mere source of an external conformity to super- 

 stitious observances. The Roman Catholic missionary identifies him- 

 self with his converts. The festivals of Easter and Christmas, the 

 fasts of passion week, and other commemorative services come in the 

 place of pagan spring and harvest festivals, and sacred commemora- 

 tions of their dead. The priest among the half-breed Buffalo hunters 

 of the Red River, accompanies the band to the open prairie, and cele- 

 brates mass, before they start in pursuit of the herd ; as on the Ottawa 

 the trappers long attended mass at St. Marie's altar, before setting out 

 on their adventurous chase. We fear that too many of our protestant 

 missionaries would think it savoured of paganism to ask a blessing 

 on the forthcoming Buffalo hunt, or the fishing at the Salmon-leap, > 

 though the very existence of the tribe during the winter depends 

 on their success. But when such feelings are carried to excess, we 

 cannot wonder at the greater favour entertained for the priest, who 

 identifies himself thus with the daily life of the people, and " becomes 

 all things to all men," after the fashion of his church in every age. 

 The paganism of ancient Rome has transmitted relics of its popular 

 festivals in not a few picturesque rites surviving in modern Italy, as 

 in the annual service of St. Anthony's day, when all the cattle 

 present themselves to receive the papal blessing. 



Yet, while thus indicating how the heart of the poor pagan 

 is won, in a way that the less pliant exactions of protestantism are 

 incapable of; let us not do injustice to the self-denying labours and 

 fearless enterprise of the old Jesuit Missionary Fathers. In 1632, 

 Paul le Jeune, " the father of Jesuit Missions," set out with another 

 missionary, in a ship of their own, to the work of evangelizing Canada ; 

 but already the Recollet fathers had been before them to Lake Nipis- 

 sing and Huron itself ; and long before the adventurous hunter had 

 penetrated the western wilds, Father Hennepin had listened to the 

 roar of Niagara, and Marquette had sailed on the bosom of the 

 Mississippi. Nor were those fearless pioneers unmindful of their 

 sacred mission. Before the middle of the seventeenth century they had 

 baptized thousands of the fierce Hurons, gathering their converts into 

 villages, instructing them in agriculture and other civilizing arts, and 

 weaning them from their savage atrocities. In ,1648, the good father 



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