All this was discouraging enough, nor was it the worst; and when Father Le Jeune, at three o'clock one April morning, knocked at the door of his humble mission-house, and was received in the arms of his brother apostles, it was with the melancholy reflection that his painful and perilous journey had been, except as a tour of observation, little more than a failure. An absolute failure, however, it certainly was not. Careful reconnoissances must always precede great campaigns. It was only by pushing out into the heart of the pagan realm which they had come to conquer, that the soldiers of Christ could determine where they might best make their main assault and in what quarter a victory ensured the most glorious results. The missionaries were but a handful; the field before them was immense; they could only cultivate such portions of it as promised the richest harvest. They had now learned that the Algonquins were comparatively few in number, and of little influence or importance among the North American tribes. Wandering to and fro as they did from year's end to year's end, it was impossible to establish among them the sort of Christian settlements or missions which the Jesuits proposed founding as centres from which the light of truth might radiate through the wilderness. But further westward, on the shores of the great lakes, dwelt numerous stationary tribes, among whom strongholds of the faith might be erected. The conversion of any considerable part of these people would affect many kindred tribes, and so it might be possible to found in the heart of the forest a great Christian empire. As the first basis for their operations, they chose the Hurons, on the lake which bears their name. These people, they learned, had populous villages, knew how to till the ground, and carried on some trade with neighboring nations. Their ferocity exceeded that of the Algonquins. A prisoner who bore the torture bravely was cooked and eaten, that his captors might increase their own courage; and the missionaries spoke of the Huron country as the chief fortress and donjon-keep of the demon, "une des principales forteresses et comme un donjon des démons." The distance to be traversed, by the only route it was possible to follow, was about nine hundred miles. The way was dangerous and painful. The goal to be reached was possibly martyrdom—certainly continuous suffering of body and mind. Three missionaries, Brébeuf, Daniel, and Davost, offered themselves for the enterprise. Le Jeune's duties as superior obliged him to confine his labors to the neighboring Algonquins. It was not easy, however, for the little band of apostles to carry their heroic purpose into execution. Every year a company of several hundred Hurons used to visit Quebec, to barter their furs and tobacco for kettles, hatchets, knives, cloth, beads, and other commodities. It was resolved that the priests should return with them when they made their next annual journey. The Hurons came in July, 1633, six or seven hundred of them, with a hundred and forty canoes. They staid four days, trading, gambling, feasting, and holding a council with the French officers at the fort. Champlain introduced the three missionaries, and commended them to the care and friendship of the Indians. They were received at first with acclamations of delight, and the chiefs of different villages disputed for the honor of entertaining them. But before the hour of departure came, they changed their minds. The Indians went away and the priests returned to the mission-house. Here they spent a year studying the Huron language. At the end of a twelvemonth, the Indians came again. A second time they were besought to take the Jesuits back with them. They consented, wavered, refused, hesitated, the missionaries begging to be received, as if the hardships they would have to suffer were the greatest of privileges. At last Father Brébeuf made a vow to St. Joseph. At once, he says, the Indians became tractable, and the whole party embarked in the frail canoes for the shores of Lake Huron. Their route was up the Ottawa river, through Lake Nipissing, down French river, and along the shores of the great Georgian Bay of Lake Huron. The voyage occupied thirty days. The three missionaries were in separate canoes, barefoot, lest their shoes should injure the vessel, toiling laboriously at the paddle, wading often through the rapids and pushing or pulling up their barks, and doing their share of the burden of transportation at the long and frequent portages. They had no food but a little corn crushed between two stones and moistened with water. The Indians treated them with great harshness, stole or threw away a part of their baggage, including most of their books and writing materials, and finally deserted Father Daniel and Father Davost on the way. When Brébeuf reached the end of the voyage, on the shores of Georgian Bay, his Indian companions threw his baggage on the ground, left him to his own resources, and trudged off to their villages, some twenty miles distant. Brébeuf, however, was not disheartened. He threw himself upon his knees and thanked God who had preserved him so far. Then he proceeded to examine the country. He knew the spot well, for before the suspension of the Canada missions which followed the capture of Quebec, he had passed three years among the Hurons of this region, at an Indian town which had since been burned. Hiding his baggage and the sacred vessels in the woods, he set off in search of the new town, which he knew had been built a few miles from the site of the old one. It was evening when he reached it. A crowd who recognized his tall, soldier-like figure and black robes ran out to meet him, shouting for joy at his return. They took him to the lodge of one Awandoay, the richest and most hospitable of the Hurons. After many days his two lost brethren rejoined him. Daniel had been picked up by another party of Indians. Davost had been left among the Algonquins on Allumette Island, and now appeared half-dead with famine and fatigue. With them came four French laymen from Quebec. Awandoay received them all, and as soon as they had determined to make this village, which the natives called Ihonatiria, the headquarters of their mission, all the inhabitants of the place, as well as the people of the neighboring town of Wenrio, fell to and built them a house. It was a structure of sapling poles and sheets of bark, thirty-six feet long, and about twenty feet wide, built after the Huron fashion; but the priests, with the aid of their tools, made several improvements of the interior, which were to the savages a never-failing source of wonder and admiration. They divided their dwelling into three rooms. The first was a store-house; the second, a sleeping chamber, kitchen, workshop, refectory, and school-room, all in one; the third was the chapel.
Thus the Huron mission, which had been founded several years previously, and broken up before it was thoroughly established, was opened anew. Other priests soon came out from France to join it. Garnier, Chaumonot, Chabanel, and the illustrious martyr Isaac Jogues were among the Jesuits who gathered around this lodge in the wilderness in the course of the next few years. In the summer-time, when most of the Indians were away on their hunting or trading excursions, and the villages were quiet, the missionaries renewed their strength for labor and suffering by the exercise of the annual retreat according to the instructions of St. Ignatius. It was in winter that their hardships were the greatest. By day they trudged long, weary miles through the snow and wet to visit neighboring villages; by night their short rest was disturbed and their ears shocked by the horrible orgies, incantations, and superstitious rites in which the Hurons used to pass their winter leisure. There were the hideous ceremonies by which their sorcerers pretended to cure the sick; the licentious practices by which they sought to propitiate the demons of pestilence and famine; sometimes the awful tortures of captives taken in war, and their agonizing deaths, in which the good fathers, though every nerve shuddered with horror at the dreadful sight, sometimes found consolation in making a convert of the dying wretch, and washing out his sins at the last moment in the saving waters of baptism. At every opportunity they collected the children of the village at their house; and Brébeuf, vested in surplice and cap, led them in chanting the Pater Noster, translated into Indian rhymes, taught them the Hail Mary, the Creed, and the Commandments, taught them to make the sign of the cross, and gave a few simple instructions. A present of two or three beads, or raisins, or prunes sent them away happy and ensured their coming again. Once in a while the adults were induced to listen to instruction, and invited to discuss the principal points of religious doctrine. They grunted "Good" or "That is true" at every proposition, but for a long, long time very few were willing to embrace the faith to which they gave so ready an assent. Like the fishes who listened to St. Anthony's sermon,
"Much delighted were they,
But preferred the old way."
Still, they were ready enough to visit the hut of the missionaries, and examine their marvels of ingenuity and skill, the fame of which had gone abroad throughout the whole Huron nation. They would sit on the ground by the hour, watching the clock and waiting for it to strike. They thought it was alive, and dignified it with the title of "Captain." "What does the Captain say?" they would often ask.
"When he strikes twelve times," the Jesuits answered, "he says, 'Hang on the kettle;' and when he strikes four times he says, 'Get up and go home.'"
So at noon visitors were never wanting to share the Captain's hospitality; but at the stroke of four they all departed, and the missionaries gathered round the fire and discussed the intricacies of the Huron language. Among the other wonders of the lodge there was a hand-mill which the savages were never tired of turning. A magnet proved a great puzzle to them; and there was a magnifying-glass which transformed a flea into a frightful monster, and, we may suppose, filled them with alarm. They conceived an overpowering respect for the wisdom and supernatural powers of the black-gowns, and had for them also, upon the whole, a genuine good will; but there were moments when their influence, and even their safety, were endangered by the violence of the Indian superstitions. Once in a season of drought a "rain-maker" persuaded the Hurons that the red color of the cross which stood before the Jesuits' dwelling frightened away the bird of thunder. It was about to be cut down. The priests begged them to paint it white, and see if the thunder would come. It was done, but rain still kept aloof.
"Your spirits cannot help you," said the fathers; "ask the aid of him who made the world, and perhaps he will hear your prayers."
The Indians were induced to promise obedience to the true God. Nine masses were offered in honor of St. Joseph, and every day there were solemn processions and prayers. In a few days there were heavy falls of rain, and the Hurons conceived an exalted idea of the power of French "medicine." But alas for their promises! They were soon forgotten.
In the autumn and winter of 1636, the Huron towns were swept by a contagious fever, accompanied by the small-pox. Three of the Jesuits—Jogues, Garnier, and Chatelain—were seized with the fever, but the protection of Providence raised them up for the relief of their poor red-skinned brethren. In the depth of winter the missionaries went from village to village, visiting every hut, tending the sick, bringing them such few delicacies as their scanty stores afforded, and pressing their religious instructions at every available occasion. But it was hard to make an impression on the stolid hearts of the savages. They comprehended the pains and fires of hell, but they could not understand the happiness of heaven. They had no wish to go after death to a place where there would be neither war nor hunting, and where, they feared, the French would give them nothing to eat. Nor, when the Huron had at last been persuaded that heaven was good for Indians as well as Frenchmen, was it easy to produce in him the proper dispositions for baptism. He felt no contrition, for he believed that he had never committed sin. "Why did you baptize that Iroquois?" asked a dying neophyte; "he will get to heaven before us, and when he sees us coming he will drive us out." This was disheartening; but once for a few days there was a gleam of consolation. The whole village of Ossossané resolved to embrace the faith of the black-robes, to give up their superstitions, and to reform their manners. One of their principal sorcerers proclaimed in a loud voice, through the streets of the town, that the God of the French was henceforth their Master. Nine days afterward a noted sorcerer came to Ossossané, and the Indians held a grand medicine feast, hoping to secure the aid of God and the devil at once. The superstitious rites were all renewed; the nights grew hideous with yells of incantation, and magic figures to drive away the demon of pestilence were put up on every house. The danger to the missionaries now became imminent. When they left their hut in the morning, it was with a well-grounded doubt whether they should ever return. The sacrament of baptism, which it was a part of their daily labor to administer to dying children, came to be looked upon as a pestiferous charm. They could only give it by stealth, sometimes letting fall a drop from a spoonful of sugared water, with which they pretended to cool the patient's parched lips, or else touching the skin with a moist finger or the corner of a wet handkerchief. The mysterious black-robed magicians were now regarded as the cause of the pestilence; and had it not been for the awe in which they were held by the savages, their lives would quickly have been at an end. As it was, they were everywhere repulsed and insulted. Children pelted them from behind huts, friends looked at them askance, and the more violent of their enemies clamored for their death. The picture of the last judgment which hung in their chapel was taken to be a charm of direful power. The litanies which they chanted together were incantations pregnant with plague and famine. The clock was a malignant demon, and the poor "Captain" had to be stopped. In August, 1637, a great council of the Hurons, including deputations from four nations, was held to deliberate upon the affairs of the confederation. The chief, whose office it was to preside over the feast of the dead, arose, and in a set speech accused the Jesuits of being the cause of the calamities that afflicted them. One accuser followed another, Brébeuf replying to their charges with ingenuity and boldness. The debate continued through the night. Many of the Indians fell asleep, and others went away. One old chief as he passed out said to Brébeuf, "If some young man should split your head open, we should have nothing to say." "What sort of men are these?" cried out another impatiently, as the Jesuit went on with his harangue; "they are always saying the same thing, and repeating the same words a hundred times." Another council was called to pronounce the sentence of death. The priests appeared before it with such unflinching courage that their judges, struck with admiration, deferred the decree. Still it seemed as if their fate could not be long deferred. They wrote a farewell letter to their superior, Father Le Jeune, and committed to the care of an Indian convert the most precious properties of the mission, the sacred furniture of the altar, and the vocabulary which they had compiled of the Huron language. Then they gave a parting feast, after the Indian custom of those who were about to die. The intrepidity manifested by this proceeding was not without its effect. The animosity of the savages became less intense, and though the persecution continued, and the lives of individual members of the little band were more than once attempted, the project of a massacre was for the present abandoned.