MEMOIR OF FATHER JOHN DE BRÉBEUF, S.J.
Well acquainted as was Father Brébeuf, from long study and intelligent observation, with the character and customs of the Hurons, he knew thoroughly how to propitiate their favor and regain their respect. His manly and courageous bearing during the prevalence of the fever, and his undaunted coolness and fearlessness of death in the midst of the late persecution, had won for him the admiration of all the nobler spirits in the tribe. In December, 1637, he gave a grand banquet, to which were invited the chiefs and warriors of the country. He there addressed his assembled guests on the necessity of embracing the true faith. In January of the next year, the head chief of the Hurons, or Aondecho, as he was called, returned the compliment by giving a similar banquet, to which Father Brébeuf was invited; when he came to the banquet, the chief presented him to the assembly, not as a guest, but as the host of the occasion, addressing them thus:
"Not I, but Echon, assembled you; the object of the deliberation I know not; but be it what it may, it must, I am convinced, be of great moment Let all then hearken attentively." The ever-ready and zealous missionary then addressed the assembly on the same subject—the true faith. He followed this up with another banquet in February, where his address was followed by the evident but silent conviction of his hearers. At its close, the Aondecho arose, and exhorted his warriors and subjects to yield themselves to the counsels of the fathers. The deep guttural expression of approval, ho! ho! ho! resounded on all sides, and the grateful missionaries made their joyful thanksgiving by chanting the hymn of the Holy Ghost. Then, with one acclaim, the chiefs and warriors adopted Father Brébeuf into their tribe, and created him one of the chiefs of the land—a dignity which invested him with the power of summoning assemblies of the people in his own cabin.
In the spring of 1638, the fever began to disappear from the country. Now, too, the first Christian marriage was solemnized. The wife of Joseph Chiwattenwha had been baptized in March, and the two were united together in holy matrimony by Father Brébeuf on St. Joseph's Day. Peter Tsiwendaentaha united with them in approaching the holy communion.
The public duties of the mission occupied the entire time of Father Brébeuf. The abandonment of Ihonitiria, in consequence of the recent scourge, caused Fathers le Mercier, Ragueneau, Garnier, Jogues, Pijart, and Chatelain to remove that mission to Teananstayaé, the residence of Louis de Sainte Foi. But they felt great fears about that place, since its chief had shortly before instigated the warriors to canvass the murder of the missionaries at Ossossané. But Father Brébeuf, with characteristic courage and zeal, went to the village, and as a chief of the nation summoned a council of the chiefs and warriors. The mission was formally announced on the spot, and we shall soon see the fathers offering up the Holy Mass at Teananstayaé. The year before, an Iroquois prisoner had received baptism there from the hands of Father Brébeuf; and now nearly a hundred prisoners, condemned to death, were instructed and baptized by the missionaries on the eve of their execution. About this time an entire tribe, the Wenrohronons, abandoned by their allies, the Neutrals, came and threw themselves upon the hospitality of the Hurons. They were wasting away from the effects of the recent plague, and the fathers at Ossossané rushed to their relief. They nursed their sick, instructed and baptized their dying, many of whom expired with the waters of baptism fresh upon their brows. The Hurons themselves were moved in favor of a religion capable of producing such heroic examples; and on the 11th of November, St. Martin's Day, one entire family, and the heads of two others, were baptized in health. On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, others were converted and baptized, numbering in all thirty; so that at Christmas there was assembled, around that rude but holy altar in the wilderness, a sincere and fervent little congregation of Christians, adoring and offering their gifts to the infant Saviour.
The missionaries were now distributed in sets of four, consisting of three of the earlier and one of the recently arrived fathers, at the various points through the country where missions were located. Many new missions were opened, and the flying visits to villages whose missions had been broken up by the persecution were renewed. Among the new missions now opened was the one already alluded to at Teananstayaé, or St. Joseph's, whose commencement on New Year's Day was cheered with fifty baptisms. The indefatigable Brébeuf was its founder, and with him were associated Father Jogues, whose Indian name was Ondesson, and Father Ragueneau. The most perfect system, both as regards the internal regulation of the affairs of the mission-house and its inmates, and the external labors of the fathers, was introduced by Father Brébeuf, which enabled them to perform an almost incredible amount of missionary labor. Among the natives, an aged chief named Ondehorrea, who was now a Christian, was of great assistance to them in their labors. He had once repulsed the fathers from his bed of illness, and, having called in the sorcerers, he then rejected them, and recalled the fathers, who were at once at his side. He was soon sufficiently instructed to be baptized, and at the moment that the saving waters touched his forehead, he arose suddenly in perfect health, to the amazement of all. He ever afterwards showed his sincerity as a Christian, and his gratitude to the fathers, by remaining their constant friend and faithful assistant.
A curious affair now arose, which will convey to us some idea of the trials with which those devoted missionaries had to contend. A woman living in a little village near Ossossané, as she was passing along one night, saw the moon fall upon her head, and immediately change into a beautiful female, holding a child in her arms. The apparition declared herself to be the sovereign of that country and all the nations dwelling therein, and required that her sovereign power should be acknowledged by each nation's making a present or offering. The apparition designated the offering which each nation should bring, not omitting the French, who were required to present blue blankets. The woman was taken ill, and demanded that the order of the divinity should be complied with for her recovery. A council was accordingly held at Ossossané, to which the missionaries were invited. They attended, and were bold enough to oppose so wicked a homage to a false deity. But all was in vain, for the whole country was in a ferment of excitement. The most abominable orgies known to savage life were celebrated in honor of this new goddess, and men were hurrying in all directions to procure the required presents. Soon all the offerings were collected together, except the blue blankets of the French, and the missionaries were called upon to do homage in the manner required of them. They resolutely refused compliance with such a requisition, and, as may be well imagined, they immediately became the objects of general indignation. Amid threats and imprecations, and the glare of the uplifted tomahawk, those courageous priests refused to let a blanket go from their cabin, except upon condition of the immediate cessation of all that was going on, and the dismissal of the woman. These terms were rejected, the orgies were continued, and peril surrounded the fathers at every step; still they could not be induced to yield the points. Fortunately for the missionaries, however, the apparition paid the woman another visit, and released the French from the unholy tribute.
In September, 1639, new missionaries arrived. Unfortunately, an Indian in one of the canoes of their flotilla was infected with the small-pox, and that disease was thus introduced into the country. The malady began to spread with fearful rapidity, and, as usual, the origin of this evil, as of all others, was attributed to the missionaries. Persecution was at once renewed, the cross was violently dragged down from their houses, their cabins were invaded, their crucifixes torn from their persons, one of them was cruelly beaten, and all were threatened with death. So great was their peril at one time that they calmly prepared themselves for martyrdom. They were finally ordered peremptorily from the town. In the midst of these persecutions, the heart of Father Brébeuf was consoled with a vision: the Blessed Virgin, as the Mother of Sorrows, came to console her son and to confirm his courage; she appeared to him with her heart transfixed with swords. At once his resolution was taken; he remained at his post of danger and of care, and continued his missionary labors.
In consequence of these repeated persecutions, and the constant exposure of the fathers to the renewal of them by the malice of the medicine-men, it was determined to erect a missionary residence apart from the villages and their vicious population, which might prove a safe retreat for the fathers in time of trouble, and a convenient place for instructing the catechumens and others well disposed to receive the faith. During the years that Father Brébeuf was at Ossossané, displaying the most heroic zeal and disinterested charity, he had met with the blackest ingratitude from the persons whom he had fed by depriving himself of nourishment, and on one occasion he was ignominiously beaten in public. The other fathers had suffered similar indignities and maltreatment. While glorying, like the saints, in these sufferings for the sake of God and his church, he yet saw the necessity, for the sake of the mission, of a separate residence. It was this necessity that originated St. Mary's on the river Wye.
In the various missions whose establishments we have mentioned, there had been baptized up to the summer of 1640 about one thousand persons: of these two hundred and sixty were infants, and though some of them were restored to health, by means apparently miraculous, most of them went in baptismal purity to swell the ranks of the church triumphant in heaven. It was about this time that Father Brébeuf ceased to be superior of the mission, and was succeeded by Father Jerome Lalemant. The Jesuit, ever true to his institute, passed from command to obedience with the gladness and alacrity known only to the humble soldiers of the cross. His career as superior, arduous and glorious, was also abundant in fruit to the church. He was indeed the father of the Huron mission. Our eloquent Bancroft, in speaking of his and his companions' labors to introduce Christianity among the aborigines of our continent, says that St. Joseph's chapel, wherein, "in the gaze of thronging crowds, vespers and matins began to be chanted, and the sacred bread was consecrated by solemn Mass, amazed the hereditary guardians of the council-fires of the Huron tribes. Beautiful testimony of the equality of the human race! the sacred wafer, emblem of the divinity in man, all that the church offered to the princes and nobles of the European world, was shared with the humblest of the savage neophytes. The hunter, as he returned from his wild roamings, was taught to hope for eternal rest; the braves, as they came from war, were warned of the wrath that kindles against sinners a never-dying fire, fiercer far than the fires of the Mohawks; and the idlers of the Indian villages were told the exciting tale of the Saviour's death for their redemption."
Father Brébeuf, already the founder of so many missions, now starts out with unabated ardor to open others. Accompanied by Father Chaumonot, he advanced into the country of the Neutrals, naming the first town he entered "All Saints." He pushed onward to the Niagara, to the residence of Tsoharissen, the chief whom all the Neuter towns obeyed. Hither the calumnies of some hostile Hurons had preceded him, and represented Echon as the most terrible of sorcerers. The two missionaries were repulsed on all sides, and in their retreat from place to place were pursued by the arrows of their enemies. Still they persevered, and they succeeded in visiting eighteen towns, preached the Gospel in ten of them, and announced for the first time the words of truth to at least three thousand souls. During these labors, the keen eye of Brébeuf saw the importance to New France of an occupation of the Niagara by missions and trading posts; the travels of the missionaries would be greatly shortened, the warlike Iroquois restrained, the Hurons saved from a war of extermination, and the whole interior continent opened to European civilization and the faith of Christ. The plan of Father Brébeuf received little attention at court: a neglect which decided the fate of empires. We cannot determine precisely how far Father Brébeuf advanced into the country; only one town received the missionaries, which they called St. Michael's. They, however, approached as far into the Iroquois country as was possible; still Bancroft says it is uncertain that he ever stood upon the territory of our republic.
But the hostile Hurons, not contented with the furious persecution they had raised against the fathers in their own country, pursued them into their new mission. Two Huron deputies soon arrived, and proclaimed a tempting reward for such as would deliver the country from those devoted men. While the council was engaged in debating the question of his expulsion or death, Father Brébeuf was making his examen of conscience in the cabin where he lodged, and suddenly he beheld a fearful spectre: the figure held three darts, which were successively hurled against him and his companion, but were averted by an unseen hand. Presaging evil from the vision, the two fathers made their confessions to each other, and, thus prepared to die, they went to rest. They afterward learned from their post, who returned to the cabin late at night, that the session of the council was long and stormy; three times the young braves had insisted on butchering them on the spot, but were restrained by the sachems. But now, such was the state of the feeling aroused against them, that they could not advance a step in safety. Turned from every shelter, and encountering death at every step, they wandered as outcasts over the country. Believing that their longer continuance was only calculated to increase the savage hatred of the people against them, and retard the introduction of the faith, the fathers retreated to the Neuter town which they had named All Saints. Here they wintered and spent the time in instructing the people. In the spring, they advanced as far as Teotongniatou, or St. Williams, where a charitable woman gave them a shelter. While thus lingering, Father Brébeuf arranged his Huron dictionary to the Neuter dialect, in which he had made considerable progress in four months. No sooner had the ameliorating influences of spring rendered travelling just possible, even to such travellers as those who had been accustomed for years to brave every hardship, than Father Brébeuf and his companions started on one of the most extraordinary journeys on record. Already spent with fatigues and privations, and pursued by danger, Father Brébeuf had to remain six days in the woods, sleeping on the snow, and without a covering or shed over his head. The cold was so intense that the trees themselves did split with a noise like the crack of a rifle. A special Providence protected him, for he exhibited no evidence that he had been cold or exposed. Loaded with the provisions which he was compelled to carry, as there were no relays on the way, he travelled two days across a lake of ice; and while thus struggling onward, his heart and eyes lifted up to heaven, he fell upon the ice. His portly frame gave such violence to his fall that he was unable to rise from the ice. After a long time he was lifted up by one of his companions, and then found that his extremities were palsied, and he could not lift his feet from the ground. Besides, his collar-bone was broken. He bore the last in silence, as it was not apparent. This fact was only discovered two years later by the surgeon who attended him at Quebec. In vain his companions begged the privilege of drawing him the remaining thirty-six miles of the journey in a sled, and at other times to assist him on the way; he declined all their generous offers, and labored onward, scarcely able to drag one foot after the other. It was thus he crossed the level country, and when he came to the mountains, he crept up on his hands and feet, and allowed himself to slide down on the opposite side, retarding his too rapid descent with his bruised and aching hands. Thus he completed his journey, which for love of suffering, patience, and humility compares with some of the most heroic achievements recorded of the saints. His companions went forward on other labors, but Father Brébeuf, while waiting for the next flotilla bound for Quebec, determined to take what he styled his "repose"—a repose busily spent in making important arrangements for the missions, which his superior knowledge of everything relating to them enabled him alone to effect.
On the passage to Three Rivers, Father Brébeuf was accompanied by Sondatsaa, an exemplary catechumen, and a party chiefly Christians or catechumens. They arrived at Three Rivers after a narrow escape from the murderous blades of the Mohawks, who were lying in wait for them. Finding it impossible for Fathers Ragueneau and Menard to reach their missions in Huronia without a strong guard, Father Brébeuf proceeded with Father Ragueneau and Sondatsaa to Sillery, in order to obtain succor for them. Here, moved by the entreaties of all, and especially of Sondatsaa himself, and having completed his instruction, Father Brébeuf consented to baptize that zealous convert. The ceremony was performed at Sillery, on the 27th of June, with great pomp, and in the presence of a concourse of Indians. The Chevalier de Montmagny was godfather to the convert, who received the Christian name of Charles. He now returned, a Christian, to his own country, bearing in his little flotilla the two fathers destined for the Huron mission. While Father Brébeuf was dwelling at Sillery, the next flotilla of Hurons that came bore its usual freight of calumnies against Echon. They now accused him of being colleagued with the Iroquois for the destruction of the Hurons. This renewal of calumny checked, for a time, his success; but he continued his preparations and arrangements for the Neuter mission and his endeavors to convert his persecutors to the faith. He endeavored to persuade some of these Hurons to remain and winter with him, in order to receive instructions. Two of them, who were left behind in the chase, were induced to remain, and Father Brébeuf, after the usual instruction and probation, had the consolation of receiving these into the one fold of the One Shepherd. He also succeeded in gaining a number of other Huron converts. Father Nimont, struck with the happy results of his labors, resolved to detain him another winter at Sillery. It was during this summer that Father Jogues came to Sillery for supplies. Here these future martyrs met in the prosecution of their noble labors; but soon the unconquerable Brébeuf saw his saintly companion set forth on his perilous mission over the country infested by the Iroquois, to carry relief to the Huron missionaries. Himself was soon to follow.
In the spring of 1643, Father Brébeuf proceeded to Three Rivers, where he was cheered by tidings of Father Jogues. That holy missionary, in returning from Sillery to bring succor to his companions in Huronia, had fallen a captive into the hands of the fierce Iroquois, and his fate was the object of intense anxiety. Father Brébeuf now learned that he was still living. The bold and generous Brébeuf arranged with a Huron, who was going out, to wait for letters to Father Jogues at Fort Richelieu; the father, bearing the letters, penetrated as far as the fort, but the courage of the Huron messenger failed; he had passed and was afraid to return, and the Jesuit was compelled to retrace his steps without succeeding in conveying a word of comfort and encouragement to his captive brother. In the spring of 1644, Father Bressani also, in endeavoring to reach Huronia, fell into the hands of the Iroquois. But the Huron missionaries must be succored at every hazard, and Father Brébeuf was now chosen for this perilous enterprise. Setting out in the summer, with an escort of twenty soldiers given to him by the governor, he reached the Huron missions in safety on the 7th of September. The Huron mission had ever been the dearest object of Father Brébeuf's heart. Restored now to his chosen vineyard, he devoted himself to the task of converting those tribes with a zeal and an energy worthy of his former glorious career. Year after year he continued his heroic labors; and, though our pen cannot follow him, step by step, through the trials, sacrifices, and exertions which his seraphic love inspired him to encounter, they were recorded in minutest detail by angelic pens in heaven. Success crowned the efforts of Father Brébeuf and his companions. Persecution ceased, and the whole country was becoming conquered to the faith. In August, 1646, Father Gabriel Lalemant, full of zeal and courage, was joined with Father Brébeuf in the mission of St. Ignatius, which embraced the town of St. Louis and some smaller villages. By this time, the horrid superstitions of the country had given way to the pure and holy rites of Catholic worship, and the cross, so lately despised, feared, and hated, had now become the object of love and veneration. Father Bressani writes: "The faith had now made the conquest of the entire country." "We might say they were now ripe for heaven; that naught was needed but the reaping-hook of death to lay the harvest up in the safe garner-house of paradise." "Religion seemed at last the peaceful mistress of the land."
Allusion has several times been made to the visions from on high which were mercifully sent to warn Father Brébeuf of danger impending, or to sustain him under the extraordinary afflictions, persecutions, and sufferings which at times seemed to exceed even his remarkable powers of endurance. Some of these have already been described. To the Protestant and non-Catholic mind, these miraculous communications to the saints are but the imaginings of morbid and diseased intellects. Parkman, in his Jesuits in North America, relates the following visions of Father Brébeuf only to classify them as psychological phenomena: "It is," he says, "scarcely necessary to add that signs and voices from another world, visitations from hell and visions from heaven, were incidents of no rare occurrence in the lives of these ardent apostles. To Brébeuf, whose deep nature, like a furnace white-hot, glowed with the still intensity of his enthusiasm, they were especially frequent. Demons, in troops, appeared before him, sometimes in the guise of men, sometimes as bears, wolves, or wild-cats. He called on God, and the apparitions vanished. Death, like a skeleton, sometimes menaced him; and once, as he faced it with an unquailing eye, it fell powerless at his feet. A demon, in the form of a woman, assailed him with the temptation which beset St. Benedict among the rocks of Subiaco; but Brébeuf signed the cross, and the infernal siren melted into air. He saw the vision of a vast and gorgeous palace, and a miraculous voice assured him that such was to be the reward of those who dwelt in savage hovels for the cause of God. Angels appeared to him, and more than once St. Joseph and the Virgin were visibly present before his sight. Once, when he was among the Neutral nation, in the winter of 1640, he beheld the ominous apparition of a great cross slowly approaching from the quarter where lay the country of the Iroquois. He told the vision to his companions.
"'What was it like? how large was it?' they eagerly demanded.
"'Large enough,' replied the priest, 'to crucify us all.'
"To explain such phenomena is the province of psychology and not of history. Their occurrence is no matter of surprise, and it would be superfluous to doubt that they were recounted in good faith and with a full belief in their reality. In these enthusiasts we find striking examples of one of the morbid forces of human nature; yet, in candor, let us do honor to what was genuine in them—that principle of self-abnegation which is the life of true religion, and which is vital no less to the highest forms of heroism."
Bancroft, alluding to the same subject, and to the life, austerities, and self-sacrifice of Father Brébeuf, says: "The missionaries themselves possessed the weaknesses and the virtues of their order. For fifteen years enduring the infinite labors and perils of the Huron mission, and exhibiting, as it was said, 'an absolute pattern of every religious virtue,' Jean de Brébeuf, respecting even the nod of his distant superiors, bowed his mind and his judgment to obedience. Besides the assiduous fatigues of his office, each day, and sometimes twice in the day, he applied to himself the lash; beneath a bristling hair-shirt he wore an iron girdle, armed on all sides with projecting points; his fasts were frequent; almost always his pious vigils continued deep into the night. In vain did Asmodeus assume for him the forms of earthly beauty; his eye rested benignantly on visions of divine things. Once, imparadised in a trance, he beheld the Mother of him whose cross he bore, surrounded by a crowd of virgins, in the beatitudes of heaven. Once, as he himself has recorded, while engaged in penance, he saw Christ unfold his arms to embrace him with the utmost love, promising oblivion of his sins. Once, late at night, while praying in the silence, he had a vision of an infinite number of crosses, and, with mighty heart, he strove, again and again, to grasp them all. Often he saw the shapes of foul fiends, now appearing as madmen, now as raging beasts; and often he beheld the image of death, a bloodless form, by the side of the stake, struggling with bonds, and at last falling, as a harmless spectre, at his feet. Having vowed to seek out suffering for the greater glory of God, he renewed that vow every day, at the moment of tasting the sacred wafer; and as his cupidity for martyrdom grew into a passion, he exclaimed, 'What shall I render to thee, Jesus my Lord, for all thy benefits? I will accept thy cup, and invoke thy name: and in sight of the Eternal Father and the Holy Spirit, of the most holy Mother of Christ and St. Joseph, before angels, apostles, and martyrs, before St. Ignatius and Francis Xavier, he made a vow never to decline an opportunity of martyrdom, and never to receive the death-blow but with joy."
In the eye of Catholic faith, these visions and special revelations are but the fruits and blessings of a revealed and supernatural religion. While they do not fall to the lot of us ordinary Christians, nor are they necessary helps in the little we accomplish for God and his church, it is difficult to conceive how the saints and martyrs could have performed their sublime actions, or met their cruel and unjust deaths for God's sake with a smile—sacrifices so far above and even repugnant to our nature—without the aid of these supernatural supports. The dedication of himself to martyrdom, and the heroic courage and joy with which he met his appalling fate, could only be achieved in the bosom of a church believing in miracles, and presenting to her children the crown of martyrdom as the highest reward attainable by man. The visions of Father Brébeuf, like other miracles, depend wholly upon the evidence and circumstances by which they are supported to entitle them to belief. It was not his habit to disclose them; it was only when commanded by his superiors that he committed them to writing. They thus rest upon his solemn written words, and upon their perfect agreement in many instances with contemporaneous facts transpiring beyond his sight and knowledge. To suppose him to have been deluded would be to contradict every quality of mind and character so universally attributed to him by all Protestant historians.
Father Brébeuf's aspirations for the crown of martyrdom were prophetic of his appointed and glorious end. But to him all historians have attributed the most practical views in relation to the Indian missions, and the coolest and wisest manner of dealing with them. There was no mere sentimentality in his nature. He addressed his powerful energies and resources to the actual conversion of the Indians to Christianity, and we have seen how great were the results he achieved. But now, alas! a dark cloud was seen gathering over the happy Christian republic of the Hurons. Already, during the winter of 1649, the fierce Iroquois hordes, numbering upwards of one thousand, had secretly passed over a space of six hundred miles of Huron forests, and on the sixteenth of March they appeared suddenly before the town of St. Ignatius, while the chiefs and warriors were absent on the chase, and the old men, women, and children were buried in sleep. Strongly as the place was fortified, this overwhelming force carried it by storm, and murdered its unsuspecting inhabitants. Three only escaped, half-naked, from the slaughter, and gave the alarm to the village of St. Louis, where the fathers were then laboring. Here preparations were at once made to offer a gallant but unequal resistance. The women and children were sent over forty miles of ice and snow to seek a shelter in the cabins of the Petuns. The chiefs exhorted the fathers also to fly, since they could not go to the war. But Father Brébeuf, with all the heroism of his great soul, answered that there was something more necessary than fire and steel in such a crisis; it was to have recourse to God and the sacraments, which none could administer but they—that he and his companion, the gentle Lalemant, would abandon them only in death. The two fathers, says Father Bressani, "now hurried from place to place, exhorting all to prayer, administering the sacraments of penance and baptism to the sick and the catechumens, in a word, confirming all in our holy faith. The enemy in fact remained at the first fork only long enough to provide for the safe keeping of the prisoners and the safety of those left as a garrison to guard them. After this they marched, or rather rushed, directly upon St. Louis. Here none were now left but the old and sick, the missionaries, and about a hundred braves to defend the place. They held out for some time, and even repulsed the enemy at the first assault, with the loss of about thirty killed, but the number of the assailants being incomparably greater, they overcame all resistance, and, cutting down with their axes the palisades which defended the besieged, were soon in possession of the town. Then putting all to fire and steel, they consumed in their very town, in their very cabins, all the old, sick, and infirm who had been unable to save themselves by flight."
What contrasts the events of history present! While this relentless slaughter was at its height, and the worst passions of the fiercest of heathens were let loose, the scene of blood, fire, and death was relieved by the presence of Christian heroes the most gentle, merciful, and self-sacrificing. They stood in the breach to the last stroke of the enemy, encouraging the dying Christians to fortitude and hope, the wounded to patience, and the prisoners to courage and perseverance in the faith. The palisades of St. Louis finally were cut away. The infuriate Iroquois swept in, and the whole surviving garrison, warriors and priests, were all made prisoners together. The savages rejoiced especially at the capture of such a prisoner as Father Brébeuf, whom they immediately showed signs of torturing, when a generous Oneida chief, more magnanimous than the rest, purchased him from his captors for a large price in wampum. It seemed as though he was about to be deprived of his coveted crown; but no! the victors retracted their bargain, and Father Brébeuf was again seized by his enemies. He and Father Lalemant were stripped, bound fast, and cruelly beaten, and their nails were torn out. But lest some change in the tide of war should deprive them of their prisoners, the latter were all sent, closely bound and tightly secured, to St. Ignatius. Here, as they entered the town, they were beaten and bruised by the rabble with sticks and clubs. The large and conspicuous frame of Father Brébeuf attracted a double share of blows on his already bruised and lacerated head and body. In the midst of these cruelties, he was forgetful of himself, and anxious only that his Christian Hurons, who were now his fellow-prisoners, should be encouraged and consoled in their extreme danger. From the stake to which he had been tied, beholding them assembled for the torture, he lost sight completely of his own greater calamities and sufferings, and thus he addressed them: "My children, let us lift up our eyes to heaven in the worst of our torments; let us remember that God beholdeth all we suffer, and will soon be our reward exceeding great. Let us die in this faith, and hope from his goodness the accomplishment of his promises. I pity you more than myself, but support manfully the little torment that yet remains. It will end with our lives; the glory which follows will have no end." How great must have been his consolation when he heard their heroic answer, a convincing proof that Indians may be truly converted to Christianity, and possess the constancy to die in the faith. "'Tis well, Echon," they cried, "our souls will be in heaven, while our bodies suffer on earth; entreat God to show us mercy; we shall invoke him to our latest breath." Enraged at his exhortations and unflinching zeal, even in death, some Hurons adopted by the Iroquois rushed upon him and burned his flesh with a fire which they kindled near him, they cut off his hands, and while Father Lalemant's flesh was cut and punctured with awls and other sharp instruments, and hot irons placed under his armpits, they led him forth to torture and death before the eyes of Father Brébeuf, in order to add to the agonies of the latter. As Father Brébeuf continued to speak and to exhort his Christians, and to threaten the vengeance of heaven upon their persecutors, they cut off his lower lip and nose, and thrust a red-hot iron down his throat. Even after this, when he saw his superior, the gentle Lalemant, led out to death, he called out to him with a broken voice in the words of St. Paul, "We are made a spectacle to the world, to angels, and to men." Throwing himself at Father Brébeuf's feet, Father Lalemant was ruthlessly torn away, and in a few moments he was enveloped in flames at the stake, and his gentle soul preceded that of the intrepid Brébeuf to heaven. Turning next upon Father Brébeuf, they threw a collar of red-hot axes around his neck, which seethed and burned their way into his flesh; he stood, in the midst of such agonies, erect and motionless, apparently insensible to pain, intent only on vindicating the faith he had so long and faithfully announced. His tormentors were awed by his constancy, which seemed to them a proof that he was more than man. But they again taxed their ingenuity for new tortures. An apostate Huron, who had been a convert of Father Brébeuf in the Huron mission, and had since been adopted by the Iroquois, was the first to signalize the zeal of the renegade. He proposed to pour hot water on the head of Father Brébeuf, in return for the quantities of cold water he had poured on the heads of others in baptism. The suggestion was received with fiendish joy, and soon the kettle was swung. While the water was boiling, they added fresh cruelties to their victim's sufferings. They crushed his mouth and jaw with huge stones, thrust heated iron and stones into his wounds, and with his own eyes he beheld them devour the slices of flesh which they cut from his legs and arms. Let us not cut short the appalling story; for surely, what a martyr bore a Christian may have courage to Three.'and bringing the scalding water from the caldron, they poured it over his bruised head and lacerated body amidst shouts and imprecations, and, as they did so, the high-priests of the occasion mockingly said to him: "We baptize you that you may be happy in heaven; for nobody can be saved without a good baptism." By this time Father Brébeuf's mouth and tongue could no longer articulate, but even yet by his erect posture, the struggling and brave expression of his almost expiring eye, and even by his half-formed words, he encouraged the Christian captives to perseverance, and endeavored to deter the savages from torturing them by threats of heaven's vengeance. Again cutting slices from his body and devouring them before his eyes, they told him that his flesh was good. Some of the renegade Hurons, more fiendish than even the Iroquois, again mocked him by saying: "You told us that the more one suffers on earth, the happier he is in heaven. We wish to make you happy; we torment you, because we love you; and you ought to thank us for it." They next scalped him, and even after this they poured the boiling water over his head, repeating the torture three times; they cut off his feet, and splitting open his stalworth and generous chest, they crowded around and drank with exultation the warm blood of the expiring hero. His eye, firm and expressive to the last, was now dimmed in death, and at last a chief tore out his noble and brave heart, cut it into a thousand pieces, and distributed it to the savage cannibals that crowded around to receive a share of so exalted and unconquerable a victim. Thus perished of earth, while crowned of heaven, the illustrious Brébeuf, "the founder of the Huron mission—its truest hero, its greatest martyr."
The Iroquois, now glutted with carnage, and apprehensive of the approach of a superior force, retired to their own country. The fathers from St. Mary's came to St. Ignatius to bestow the last honors upon the earthly remains of their martyred companions. It was with difficulty they discovered their burned and mangled bodies among the mass of slain the victorious Iroquois had left. Their precious remains were solemnly and sorrowfully carried to St. Mary's, and affectionately and religiously interred. A portion of Father Brébeuf's relics were subsequently carried to Quebec. A silver bust, containing the head of the martyr, was presented by his family to the Canadian mission, and is still reverently preserved by the convent of hospital nuns in that city. So great was his reputation for sanctity that it became a familiar and pious practice in Canada to invoke his intercession. There are well-attested cases recorded of the wonderful intervention of heaven in favor of those who invoked his aid as a saint in heaven.
Among the many virtues which adorned the life and character of Father Brébeuf may be particularly mentioned his ardent love of holy poverty and suffering, his purity of soul, his singleness of purpose, his profound obedience and humility, his zeal and courage, his love of prayer and penitential austerities, and his generous longing for the salvation of souls. "The character of Brébeuf," says Bancroft, "was firm beyond every trial: his virtue had been nursed in the familiar sight of death. Disciplined by twenty years' service in the wilderness work, he wept bitterly for the sufferings of his converts, but for himself he exulted in the prospect of martyrdom." "Thus," writes Mr. J. G. Shea in his History of the Catholic Missions, "about four o'clock in the afternoon, after three hours of frightful torture, expired John de Brébeuf, the real founder of the [Huron] mission, a man such as the Catholic Church alone can produce; as a missionary, unequalled for his zeal, ability, untiring exertion, and steady perseverance; as a servant of God, one whose virtues the Rota would pronounce heroic; patient in toil, hardship, suffering, and privation; a man of prayer, of deep and tender piety, of inflamed love of God, in whom and for whom he did and suffered all; as a martyr, one of the most glorious in our annals for the variety and atrocity of his torments." "He came of a noble race," says Parkman, "the same, it is said, from which sprang the English Earls of Arundel; but never had the mailed barons of his line confronted a fate so appalling with so prodigious a constancy. To the last he refused to flinch, and his death was the astonishment of his murderers."
Praise has become exhausted on such a subject. Would that we might hope for some national good from the sublime lesson he has taught us! The red men are our brothers. The most precious blood of a God-man was poured out for them as for us; and God's martyrs have joyfully given their noble lives for their salvation. Might not a Christian nation, in its power and goodness, yea, in its justice, save at least the poor remnant of them from further slaughter; and say to the ever-ready and zealous missionaries of the Catholic Church: "Go, christianize and save our brothers; we will not slay them more; there is land enough for us and for them; we confide them to your heroic charity. We will protect you and them in the peace and good-will of the Gospel. Go, save our brothers"?