In 1634, two Jesuits, Brebeuf and Daniel, left Quebec in company with a party of Huron Indians, who inhabited the wild forest regions east of the lake which bears their name. The journey was one of “three hundred leagues, now through the wild forest, now ascending the Ottawa, the great western tributary of the St. Lawrence, an impetuous river, abounding in falls, where the canoe had to be carried for leagues on the shoulders.” Thus by day encountering the perils and hardships of a journey through this savage country, and at night sleeping on the earth, they at length reached the Manitoulin, or Georgian Bay, the eastern branch of Lake Huron. On the borders of this lake a mission was soon established, and a little chapel erected, “built by the aid of the axe,” and consecrated to St. Joseph, where mass was celebrated and matins and vespers chanted, and the host administered to the Huron converts, who, touched by the doctrine of the Saviour, promulgated by these his devoted ministers, thronged to receive the symbols of divine love. The Christian villages of St. Louis and St. Ignatius arose in the wilderness, and the praises of God and Christ resounded in the Huron tongue. For fifteen years this successful mission was continued, other missionaries being soon attracted to this field of labour; for we are told by Bancroft, from, whom we shall freely borrow in this portion of our history, that “now and then one of these fathers would make a voyage to Quebec in a canoe, with two or three savages, paddle in hand, exhausted with rowing, his feet naked, his breviary hanging about his neck, his shirt unwashed, his cassock half-torn off his lean body, but with a face full of content, charmed with the life which he led, and inspiring by his air and by his words a strong desire to join him in his mission.”
Jean de Brebeuf, the Huron missionary, was an ecstatic in his sufferings and devotions. Not satisfied with the toil and subjection of his body consequent on his arduous labours, he subjected himself to the rigours of penance and self-mortification, and was rewarded with beatific visions which exalted his pious raptures into ecstacy,—“What shall I render to thee, Jesus, my Lord, for all thy benefits? I will accept thy cup and invoke thy name!” exclaimed he, and registered a vow before God and the host of heaven, before St. Joseph and other saints, “never to shrink from martyrdom for Christ’s sake, but to receive the death-blow only with joy!”
The life of Brebeuf in the wilderness was like an unceasing hymn. Now he was instructing his youthful neophytes, who regarded him with a reverential love; now he was passing slowly through the village and the neighbouring forest, ringing a bell as the signal for older converts or inquirers to assemble for a religious conference; and so great was his influence on the minds of the sages and warriors of the forest, that he won, not only their listening ear, but inspired many of them with a profound friendship for him. Of this class was the great warrior Ahasistari, whose mind was of a singularly high character. It was thus that he acknowledged his faith in Jesus, whom, unconsciously, he had long worshipped: “Before you came,” said he, “into this country, when I have been in the greatest perils, and have alone escaped, I have said to myself, some powerful spirit has the guardianship of my days.” Ahasistari was baptized, and with a zeal kindred to that of his spiritual father and friend, exclaimed, addressing a number of other converts, “Let us strive to make the whole world embrace the faith in Jesus.”
These missionary labours being crowned with success, a central station was fixed at St. Mary’s on the Matchedash, the river which connects the Toronto and Huron lakes, and “here three thousand Indian converts received in one year a frugal welcome.”
These joyful tidings awoke an enthusiasm in France on its behalf; the king, the queen, the princesses, the very pope himself, vied in their evidence of favour. Young nobles, renouncing the pleasures of the world, joined the missionary corps and devoted their revenues to its service. Thus “was a Jesuit college and school for Indian children established at Quebec, about the time that the Puritan College of Cambridge was established in Massachusetts: thus did the niece of Cardinal Richelieu endow a public hospital open to all mankind, in which young nuns from the hospital of Dieppe were sent over: thus was an Ursuline convent for the education of girls founded by a young and wealthy widow of Alençon, who went with three nuns to Quebec for this purpose, and who, kissing the soil of their adopted country as they landed, were received by the governor and Indians shouting for joy of their welcome, whence they were escorted to the church with chanted Te Deums.
Missionary labours having now acquired a national importance, Montreal was converted, with many religious ceremonies, into the head-quarters of the Christianised Indians, intended to form a post of communication between Quebec and Lake Huron. Champlain, the governor, being now dead, was succeeded by M. de Montmagny. There were at this time upwards of fifty missionaries employed; twice or thrice a year they assembled at St. Mary’s, the rest of the time they were scattered among the Indians. These adventurous men not only carried the gospel of Christ into the wilderness, and to the hitherto unknown inhabitants on the banks of vast lakes and rivers, but every year extended the geographical knowledge of the interior.
Within very few years after the commencement of these labours, a scheme was formed to carry the gospel to the south of Lake Huron, to Lake Michigan and Green Bay, thus advancing into the immense regions of the north-west and west. Views, as it were, were opened up into the remote wilderness, by the occasional visits at some missionary outpost of Indians from remote nations, who reported of distant rivers and regions where as yet the white man was unknown. Thus came a chief from the head-waters of the Ohio, and others from the wandering Algonquins. The French had as yet been kept from the Lakes Erie and Ontario, and the more southern waters of the St. Lawrence, by the determined hostility of the Mohawks, so that their access to the west was by the river Ottawa; although Brebeuf had visited the neutral tribes about Niagara.
In 1641, Charles Raymbault and Claude Pijart appeared as missionaries among the Algonquins of Lake Nipissing. It was towards the close of summer when the Jesuits arrived, and the great festival of the dead was about to be celebrated by these wandering tribes. To this ceremony all the confederated nations assembled, their canoes covering the waters of the lake as they advanced towards a bay on the shores of which the ceremony was to take place. As the boats approached, they were received with shouts which echoed among the rocks. Beneath a long shed lay the bones of the dead in coffins of bark, incased in rich furs; all night long the mourning-song of the war-chiefs was chanted, accompanied by the wailing of the women. When these savage but mournful ceremonies were ended, the Jesuits made known their wish of penetrating the more distant wilderness, and conveying thither the light of a new and milder religion, and by their presents and gentle words so won upon the savages, that an invitation was given to visit the nation of the Chippewas below the falls of St. Mary.
The invitation was gladly accepted, and Charles Raymbault, with Isaac Jogues as his companion, set out on this long and arduous journey. After crossing Lake Huron, which occupied seventeen days, they arrived at the straits which connect it with Lake Superior, where two thousand persons were met to receive them. Making known, on their part, the religion of Christ, they heard of Indian nations eighteen days’ journey still further to the west—the far-famed Sioux—with fixed abodes, and who cultivated maize and tobacco, but whose race and language were unknown.
The chiefs of the Chippewas received the envoys of Christianity with kindness, and invited them to remain. Raymbault, after languishing a year in consumption, returned to Quebec to die. Jogues was ascending the St. Lawrence with Ahasistari and other Huron chiefs, when a war-party of Mohawks, enemies alike to the French and the Hurons, lying in wait for them, attacked them as they approached the shore to land. Jogues might have escaped, but he would not desert his companions, some of whom were unbaptized converts. The brave and noble-hearted Ahasistari had already fled to a secure covert, when seeing Jogues in the hands of the enemy, he came forth, saying, “My brother, I made an oath to thee that I would share thy fortune, whether life or death; here am I to keep my word.”