106 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 



or to simulate those of others. My information, however, all 

 comes from Catholic witnesses, ISTo others existed then and there. 



My account of the French missionaries must be the more one- 

 sided because my present purpose will not let me expatiate upon 

 their tact patience and heroic endurance amid all vexations, cul- 

 minating in martyrdom. In temptations which we cannot bear 

 to read of, their virtues found a fit emblem in that light from 

 heaven which they came to bring, — sunbeams which, descending 

 to the lowest depths of earth, and however reflected and refracted 

 in abodes of pollution, remain unsullied and continue sunbeams 

 still. 



The Jesuits are the Pope's standing army (Loyola's own name 

 for them was a battalion), and the title of their head is general. 

 At the beck of superiors subordinates plunged into the vast un- 

 known of our continent with the unquestioning alacrity of regular 



troops. 



JS'ot theirs to question why, 



Not theirs to make reply; 



Theirs but to do, or die. 



They knew no west or east, no north or south. 



But in addition to his vow of obedience, each missionary was 

 impelled by a faith which inspired him with tenfold more zeal 

 and intrepidity. That faith was this : that he bestowed a clear 

 title to heaven on all whom he baptized, unless they lived to com- 

 mit mortal sins afterward. Hence when ooe had sprinkled, a 

 couple of dying children he writes in his diary : " Two little 

 Indians changed to-day into two angels, by one drop of water. 

 O, my rapture as I saw them expire two hours after baptism." 

 No matter though the sprinkling was effected by pious fraud, 

 when Jesuits unable otherwise to approach sick infants, pretended 

 to administer a medicine of sweetened water, but spilled some 

 drops of it on their heated brows, while whispering sacramental 

 words with motionless lips. The little ones were sent to paradise 

 by these waters none the less surely because secretly. Seeing 

 that death quickly followed baptism, Indians soon inferred that it 

 was occasioned by those priestly drops. They were hence prone 

 to scalp a Father if they detected him administering the sacred 

 rite. 



