From the banks of the Saguenay at Tadousac, or from the shore of Hudson Bay, where Father Albanel was evangelizing the Indians, to the recesses of the Iroquois country, a Black Robe taught from interval to interval in a humble chapel the truths of the Christian religion. "We may say," wrote Father Dablon in 1671, "that the torch of the faith now illumines the four quarters of this New World. More than seven hundred baptisms have this year consecrated all our forests; more than twenty different missions incessantly occupy our Fathers among more than twenty diverse nations; and the chapels erected in the districts most remote from here are almost every day filled with these poor barbarians, and in some of them there have been consummated sometimes ten, twenty, and even thirty baptisms on a single occasion." And, ever faithful to the established power, the missionaries taught their neophytes not only religion, but also the respect due to the king. Let us hearken to Father Allouez speaking to the mission of Sault Ste. Marie: "Cast your eyes," says he, "upon the cross raised so high above your heads. It was upon that cross that Jesus Christ, the son of God, become a man by reason of His love for men, consented to be bound and to die, in order to satisfy His Eternal Father for our sins. He is the master of our life, the master of Heaven, earth and hell. It is He of whom I speak to you without ceasing, and whose name and word I have borne into all these countries. But behold at the same time this other stake, on which are hung the arms of the great captain of France, whom we call the king. This great leader lives beyond the seas; he is the captain of the greatest captains, and has not his peer in the world. All the captains that you have ever seen, and of whom you have heard speak, are only children beside him. He is like a great tree; the rest are only little plants crushed under men's footsteps as they walk. You know Onontio, the famous chieftain of Quebec; you know that he is the terror of the Iroquois, his mere name makes them tremble since he has desolated their country and burned their villages. Well, there are beyond the seas ten thousand Onontios like him. They are only the soldiers of this great captain, our great king, of whom I speak to you."
Mgr. de Laval ardently desired, then, the arrival of new workers for the gospel, and in the year 1668, the very year of the foundation of the seminary, his desire was fulfilled, as if Providence wished to reward His servant at once. Missionaries from France came to the aid of the priests of the Quebec seminary, and Sulpicians, such as MM. de Queylus, d'Urfé, Dallet and Brehan de Gallinée, arrived at Montreal; MM. François de Salignac-Fénelon and Claude Trouvé had already landed the year before. "I have during the last month," wrote the prelate, "commissioned two most good and virtuous apostles to go to an Iroquois community which has been for some years established quite near us on the northern side of the great Lake Ontario. One is M. de Fénelon, whose name is well-known in Paris, and the other M. Trouvé. We have not yet been able to learn the result of their mission, but we have every reason to hope for its complete success."
While he was enjoining upon these two missionaries, on their departure for the mission on which he was sending them, that they should always remain in good relations with the Jesuit Fathers, he gave them some advice worthy of the most eminent doctors of the Church:—
"A knowledge of the language," he says, "is necessary in order to influence the savages. It is, nevertheless, one of the smallest parts of the equipment of a good missionary, just as in France to speak French well is not what makes a successful preacher. The talents which make good missionaries are:
"1. To be filled with the spirit of God; this spirit must animate our words and our hearts: Ex abundantia cordis os loquitur.
"2. To have great prudence in the choice and arrangement of the things which are necessary either to enlighten the understanding or to bend the will; all that does not tend in this direction is labour lost.
"3. To be very assiduous, in order not to lose opportunities of procuring the salvation of souls, and supplying the neglect which is often manifest in neophytes; for, since the devil on his part circuit tanquam leo rugiens, quærens quem devoret, so we must be vigilant against his efforts, with care, gentleness and love.
"4. To have nothing in our life and in our manners which may appear to belie what we say, or which may estrange the minds and hearts of those whom we wish to win to God.
"5. We must make ourselves beloved by our gentleness, patience and charity, and win men's minds and hearts to incline them to God. Often a bitter word, an impatient act or a frowning countenance destroys in a moment what has taken a long time to produce.
"6. The spirit of God demands a peaceful and pious heart, not a restless and dissipated one; one should have a joyous and modest countenance; one should avoid jesting and immoderate laughter, and in general all that is contrary to a holy and joyful modesty: Modestia vestra nota sit omnibus hominibus."