Think of the suffering endured, in order to save a soul, by men who for this sublime purpose renounced all that constitutes the charm of life! Not only did the Jesuits, in the early days of the colony, brave horrible dangers with invincible steadfastness, but they even consented to imitate the savages, to live their life, to learn their difficult idioms. Let us listen to this magnificent testimony of the Protestant historian Bancroft:—
"The horrors of a Canadian life in the wilderness were resisted by an invincible, passive courage, and a deep, internal tranquillity. Away from the amenities of life, away from the opportunities of vain-glory, they became dead to the world, and possessed their souls in unalterable peace. The few who lived to grow old, though bowed by the toils of a long mission, still kindled with the fervour of apostolic zeal. The history of their labours is connected with the origin of every celebrated town in the annals of French Canada; not a cape was turned nor a river entered but a Jesuit led the way."
Must we now recall the edifying deaths of the sons of Loyola, who brought the glad tidings of the gospel to the Hurons?—Father Jogues, who returned from the banks of the Niagara with a broken shoulder and mutilated hands, and went back, with sublime persistence, to his barbarous persecutors, to pluck from their midst the palm of martyrdom; Father Daniel, wounded by a spear while he was absolving the dying in the village of St. Joseph; Father Brébeuf, refusing to escape with the women and children of the hamlet of St. Louis, and expiring, together with Father Gabriel Lalemant, in the most frightful tortures that Satan could suggest to the imagination of a savage; Father Charles Garnier pierced with three bullets, and giving up the ghost while blessing his converts; Father de Noue dying on his knees in the snow!
These missions had succumbed in 1648 and 1649 under the attacks of the Iroquois. The venerable founder of St. Sulpice, M. Olier, had foreseen this misfortune; he had always doubted the success of missions so extended and so widely scattered without a centre of support sufficiently strong to resist a systematic and concerted attack of all their enemies at once. Without disapproving the despatch of these flying columns of missionaries which visited tribe after tribe (perhaps the only possible method in a country governed by pagan chiefs), he believed that another system of preaching the gospel would produce, perhaps with less danger, a more durable effect in the regions protected by the flag of France. Taking up again the thought of the Benedictine monks, who have succeeded so well in other countries, M. Olier and the other founders of Montreal wished to establish a centre of fervent piety which should accomplish still more by example than by preaching. The development and progress of religious work must increase with the material importance of this centre of proselytism. In consequence, success would be slow, less brilliant, but surer than that ordinarily obtained by separate missions. This was, at least, the hope of our fathers, and we of Quebec would seem unjust towards Providence and towards them if, beholding the present condition of the two seminaries of this city, of our Catholic colleges, of our institutions of every kind, and of our religious orders, we did not recognize that their thought was wise, and their enterprise one of prudence and blessed by God.
Up to 1658 New France belonged to the jurisdiction of the Bishops of St. Malo and of Rouen. At the time of the second voyage of Cartier, in 1535, his whole crew, with their officers at their head, confessed and received communion from the hands of the Bishop of St. Malo. This jurisdiction lasted until the appointment of the first Bishop of New France. The creation of a diocese came in due time; the need of an ecclesiastical superior, of a character capable of imposing his authority made itself felt more and more. Disorders of all kinds crept into the colony, and our fathers felt the necessity of a firm and vigorous arm to remedy this alarming state of affairs. The love of lucre, of gain easily acquired by the sale of spirituous liquors to the savages, brought with it evils against which the missionaries endeavoured to react.
François de Laval-Montmorency, who was called in his youth the Abbé de Montigny, was, on the recommendation of the Jesuits, appointed apostolic vicar by Pope Alexander VII, who conferred upon him the title of Bishop of Petræa in partibus. The Church in Canada was then directly connected with the Holy See, and the sovereign pontiff abandoned to the king of France the right of appointment and presentation of bishops having the authority of apostolic vicars.
The difficulties which arose between Mgr. de Laval and the Abbé de Queylus, Grand Vicar of Rouen for Canada, were regrettable, but, thanks to the truly apostolic zeal and the purity of intention of these two men of God, these difficulties were not long in giving place to a noble rivalry for good, fostered by a perfect harmony. The Abbé de Queylus had come to take possession of the Island of Montreal for the company of St. Sulpice, and to establish there a seminary on the model of that in Paris. This creation, with that of the hospital established by Mlle. Mance, gave a great impetus to the young city of Montreal. Moreover, religion was so truly the motive of the foundation of the colony by M. Olier and his associates, that the latter had placed the Island of Montreal under the protection of the Holy Virgin. The priests of St. Sulpice, who had become the lords of the island, had already given an earnest of their labours; they too aspired to venerate martyrs chosen from their ranks, and in the same year MM. Lemaître and Vignal perished at the hands of the wild Iroquois.
Meanwhile, under the paternal direction of Mgr. de Laval, and the thoroughly Christian administration of governors like Champlain, de Montmagny, d'Ailleboust, or of leaders like Maisonneuve and Major Closse, Heaven was pleased to spread its blessings upon the rising colony; a number of savages asked and received baptism, and the fervour of the colonists endured. The men were not the only ones to spread the good word; holy maidens worked on their part for the glory of God, whether in the hospitals of Quebec and Montreal, or in the institution of the Ursulines in the heart of the city of Champlain, or, finally, in the modest school founded at Ville-Marie by Sister Marguerite Bourgeoys. It is true that the blood of the Indians and of their missionaries had been shed in floods, that the Huron missions had been exterminated, and that, moreover, two camps of Algonquins had been destroyed and swept away; but nations as well as individuals may promise themselves the greater progress in the spiritual life according as they commence it with a more abundant and a richer record; and the greatest treasure of a nation is the blood of the martyrs who have founded it. Moreover, the fugitive Hurons went to convert their enemies, and even from the funeral pyres of the priests was to spring the spark of faith for all these peoples. Two hamlets were founded for the converted Iroquois, those of the Sault St. Louis (Caughnawaga) and of La Montagne at Montreal, and fervent neophytes gathered there.
Certain historians have regretted that the first savages encountered by the French in North America should have been Hurons; an alliance made with the Iroquois, they say, would have been a hundred times more profitable for civilization and for France. What do we know about it? Man imagines and arranges his plans, but above these arrangements hovers Providence—fools say, chance—whose foreseeing hand sets all in order for the accomplishment of His impenetrable design. Yet, however firmly convinced the historian may be that the eye of Providence never sleeps, that the Divine Hand is never still, he must be sober in his observations; he must yield neither to his fancy nor to his imagination; but neither must he banish God from history, for then everything in it would become incomprehensible and inexplicable, absurd and barren. It was this same God who guides events at His will that inspired and sustained the devoted missionaries in their efforts against the revenue-farmers in the matter of the sale of intoxicating liquors to the savages. The struggle which they maintained, supported by the venerable Bishop of Petræa, is wholly to their honour; it was a question of saving even against their will the unfortunate children of the woods who were addicted to the fatal passion of intoxication. Unhappily, the Governors d'Avaugour and de Mézy, in supporting the greed of the traders, were perhaps right from the political point of view, but certainly wrong from a philanthropic and Christian standpoint.
The colony continuing to prosper, and the growing need of a national clergy becoming more and more felt, Mgr. de Laval founded in 1663 a seminary at Quebec. The king decided that the tithes raised from the colonists should be collected by the seminary, which was to provide for the maintenance of the priests and for divine service in the established parishes. The Sovereign Council fixed the tithe at a twenty-sixth.