Mr. Parkman sets up no plea, positive or comparative, in behalf of that remarkable—we cannot say engaging—class of all-enduring men whose grim toils and sufferings he so faithfully narrates. Yet we have been spellbound, and deeply stirred, as we have slowly read and mused over his pages. So graphic and skilful is his method, so animated is his style, so vivid and real does he make the scenes, the surroundings, and the phenomena of his subject, that, while we might dispense wholly with the exercise of the imagination, we find that it has actually beguiled us into its most effective exercise by persuading us that we have seen and shared in many of the personages and incidents of the narrative.

The rules of the Order required of the missionaries something in the nature of a diary, or journal, which, passing through the hands of the local Superior, should reach the Provincial at Paris. From these official papers, entering into the fullest minuteness of detail, confidential in their contents, and of the utmost trustworthiness, were composed "The Relations," which, annually made public, were of double service,—in reporting the hopeful labors of those already in the hard and dreary field, and in quickening the fervent zeal for new accessions to it. From these Relations, and from the voluminous and equally rich private correspondence between the missionaries and their European friends, Mr. Parkman, contributing what he has learned from other sources, is able to construct for us a continuous narrative, which anticipates every question we might ask, and informs us fully on every point of interest in his theme. He describes to us the Jesuit living on visions and dreams, reinforcing his spirit by meditations, and keeping his enthusiasm up to the needed point by assuring himself, on emergencies, of the direct interposition of the saints in his behalf. He makes us join the travelling party of the missionary as he avails himself of an Indian escort to penetrate into the wilderness, sharing its perils and its annoyances, aggravated always, even when not created, by the shiftlessness of his companions. We are initiated into all the methods and appliances of travel, of hunting, of encamping, of lodge-building, of feasting and starving, on the trail and in the village. The resources of forest life as presented by Thoreau, who had houses into which he might bring up at night, the furnishings of a wardrobe, and the comfort of salt, will be found on comparison to obtrude many broad contrasts with the realities encountered by the Jesuits and their entertainers. These all-enduring, patient men, born amid the luxuries of civilized life, left all behind them when they embarked in the canoe which was itself, with its contents, to be carried as a burden over the frequent portages connecting streams or avoiding cataracts. The first care of the "Black-Robes" was to provide the vessels and materials for the mass, with paper, pen, and ink. A few trinkets, and perhaps some implements of the rudest home-use, completed their outfit. They were disgusted, all but infuriated, by the filth and vermin, the loathsome familiarities, and the blinding smoke of the wigwam. Their feelings as civilized men were outraged by the fiendish barbarities of which they were spectators. Their lives always hung on a thread, at the mercy of caprice, jealousy, superstition, and hate, which were always active in savage breasts. Yet they toiled and suffered and persevered and hoped, as men can do and will do only when they believe themselves working for heaven,—to obtain heaven for themselves and to fit others for it.

FOOTNOTES:

[103] The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century. By Francis Parkman. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co.

THE BLUE AND THE GRAY.

"The women of Columbus, Mississippi, animated by nobler sentiments than are many of their sisters, have shown themselves impartial in their offerings made to the memory of the dead. They strewed flowers alike on the graves of the Confederate and of the National soldiers."—New York Tribune.

By the flow of the inland river,
Whence the fleets of iron have fled,
Where the blades of the grave-grass quiver,
Asleep are the ranks of the dead;—
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;—
Under the one, the Blue;
Under the other, the Gray.

These in the robings of glory,
Those in the gloom of defeat,
All with the battle-blood gory,
In the dusk of eternity meet;—
Under the sod and the dew,
Waiting the judgment day;—
Under the laurel, the Blue;
Under the willow, the Gray.