Voyages of Samuel De Champlain — Volume 01

by Samuel de Champlain

CHAMPLAIN'S RELIGION.—HIS WAR POLICY.—HIS DOMESTIC AND SOCIAL LIFE.— CHAMPLAIN AS AN EXPLORER.—HIS LITERARY LABORS.—THE RESULTS OF HIS CAREER.

As Champlain had lived, so he died, a firm and consistent member of the Roman church. In harmony with his general character, his religious views were always moderate, never betraying him into excesses, or into any merely partisan zeal. Born during the profligate, cruel, and perfidious reign of Charles IX., he was, perhaps, too young to be greatly affected by the evils characteristic of that period, the massacre of St. Bartholomew's and the numberless vices that swept along in its train. His youth and early manhood, covering the plastic and formative period, stretched through the reign of Henry III., in which the standards of virtue and religion were little if in any degree improved. Early in the reign of Henry IV., when he had fairly entered upon his manhood, we find him closely associated with the moderate party, which encouraged and sustained the broad, generous, and catholic principles of that distinguished sovereign.

When Champlain became lieutenant-governor of New France, his attention was naturally turned to the religious wants of his distant domain. Proceeding cautiously, after patient and prolonged inquiry, he selected missionaries who were earnest, zealous, and fully consecrated to their work. And all whom he subsequently invited into the field were men of character and learning, whose brave endurance of hardship, and manly courage amid numberless perils, shed glory and lustre upon their holy calling.

Champlain's sympathies were always with his missionaries in their pious labors. Whether the enterprise were the establishment of a mission among the distant Hurons, among the Algonquins on the upper St. Lawrence, or for the enlargement of their accommodations at Quebec, the printing of a catechism in the language of the aborigines, or if the foundations of a college were to be laid for the education of the savages, his heart and hand were ready for the work.

On the establishment of the Company of New France, or the Hundred Associates, Protestants were entirely excluded. By its constitution no Huguenots were allowed to settle within the domain of the company. If this rule was not suggested by Champlain, it undoubtedly existed by his decided and hearty concurrence. The mingling of Catholics and Huguenots in the early history of the colony had brought with it numberless annoyances. By sifting the wheat before it was sown, it was hoped to get rid of an otherwise inevitable cause of irritation and trouble. The correctness of the principle of Christian toleration was not admitted by the Roman church then any more than it is now. Nor did the Protestants of that period believe in it, or practise it, whenever they possessed the power to do otherwise. Even the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay held that their charter conferred upon them the right and power of exclusion. It was not easy, it is true, to carry out this view by square legal enactment without coming into conflict with the laws of England; but they were adroit and skilful, endowed with a marvellous talent for finding some indirect method of laying a heavy hand upon Friend or Churchman, or the more independent thinkers among their own numbers, who desired to make their abode within the precincts of the bay. In the earlier years of the colony at Quebec, when Protestant and Catholic were there on equal terms, Champlain's religious associations led him to swerve neither to the right hand nor to the left. His administration was characterized by justice, firmness, and gentleness, and was deservedly satisfactory to all parties.

In his later years, the little colony upon whose welfare and Christian culture he had bestowed so much cheerful labor and anxious thought, became every day more and more dear to his heart. Within the ample folds of his charity were likewise encircled the numerous tribes of savages, spread over the vast domains of New France. He earnestly desired that all of them, far and near, friend and foe, might be instructed in the doctrines of the Christian faith, and brought into willing and loving obedience to the cross.

In its personal application to his own heart, the religion of Champlain was distinguished by a natural and gradual progress. His warmth, tenderness, and zeal grew deeper and stronger with advancing years. In his religious life there was a clearly marked seed-time, growth, and ripening for the harvest. After his return to Quebec, during the last three years of his life, his time was especially systematized and appropriated for intellectual and spiritual improvement. Some portion was given every morning by himself and those who constituted his family to a course of historical reading, and in the evening to the memoirs of the saintly dead whose lives he regarded as suitable for the imitation of the living, and each night for himself he devoted more or less time to private meditation and prayer.

Such were the devout habits of Champlain's life in his later years. We are not, therefore, surprised that the historian of Canada, twenty-five years after his death, should place upon record the following concise but comprehensive eulogy:—

"His surpassing love of justice, piety, fidelity to God, his king, and the Society of New France, had always been conspicuous. But in his death he gave such illustrious proofs of his goodness as to fill every one with admiration." [117]

The reader of these memoirs has doubtless observed with surprise and perhaps with disappointment, the readiness with which Champlain took part in the wars of the savages. On his first visit to the valley of the St Lawrence, he found the Indians dwelling on the northern shores of the river and the lakes engaged in a deadly warfare with those on the southern, the Iroquois tribes occupying the northern limits of the present State of New York, generally known as the Five Nations. The hostile relations between these savages were not of recent date. They reached back to a very early but indefinite period. They may have existed for several centuries. When Champlain planted his colony at Quebec, in 1608, he at once entered into friendly relations with all the tribes which were his immediate neighbors. This was eminently a suitable thing to do, and was, moreover, necessary for his safety and protection.