Third, the perfidy of the Apostate, who, contrary to his promise, and notwithstanding the offers I made him, was never willing to teach me,—his disloyalty even going so far as to purposely give me a word of one signification for another.
[32] En quatriesme lieu, la famine a esté long temps nostre hostesse, ie n'osois quasi en sa presence interroger nos Sauuages, leur estomach n'est pas de la nature des tonneaux qui resonnẽt d'autant mieux qu'ils sont vuides, il ressemble au tambour, plus il est bandé mieux il parle.
In the fourth place, famine was for a long time our guest; and I scarcely ventured in her presence to question our Savages, their stomachs not being like barrels which sound all the louder for being empty; they resemble the drum,—the tighter it is drawn, the better it talks.
En cinquiesme lieu, mes maladies m'ont fait quitter le soing des langues de la terre pour penser au langage de l'autre vie où ie pensois aller.
In the fifth place, my attacks of illness made me give up the care for the languages of earth, to think about the language of the other life whither I was expecting to go.
[184] En sixiesme lieu enfin la difficulté de ceste langue qui n'est pas petite, comme on peut coniecturer de ce que i'ay dit, n'a pas esté vn petit obstacle pour empescher vue pauure memoire comme la mienne d'aller bien loing. Ie iargonne neantmoins, & à force de crier ie me fais entendre.
[184] In the sixth place, and finally, the difficulty of this language, which is not slight, as may be guessed from what I have said, has been no small obstacle to prevent a poor memory like mine from advancing far. Still, I talk a jargon, and, by dint of shouting, can make myself understood.
Vn point me toucheroit viuement, n'estoit que i'estime qu'il ne faut pas marcher deuant Dieu, mais qu'il faut le fuiure, & se contenter de sa propre bassesse; c'est que ie ne croy quasi pas pouuoir iamais parler les langues des Sauuages auec autant de liberté qu'il seroit necessaire pour leur prescher, & répondre sur le champ sans broncher à leurs demandes & à leurs obiections, estant notamment occupé comme i'ay esté iusques à present. Vray que Dieu peut faire d'vne roche vn enfant d'Abraham. Qu'il soit beny à iamais par toutes les langues des nations de la terre.
One thing would touch me keenly, were it not that we are not expected to walk before God, but to follow him, and to be contented with our own littleness; it is that I almost fear I shall never be able to speak the Savage tongues with the fluency necessary to preach to them, and to answer at once, without stumbling, their demands and objections, being so greatly occupied as I have been up to the present. It is true that God can make from a rock a child of Abraham. May he be forever praised, in all the tongues of the nations of the earth!