MEMOIR OF FATHER JOHN DE BRÉBEUF, S.J.[130]
Among the foremost and most distinguished of the Catholic missionaries of America stands the name of Father John de Brébeuf, the founder of the Huron Mission. Normandy has the honor of giving him birth, and Canada was the field of his splendid and heroic labors; yet the mission of which he was the great promoter was the prelude to, and was intimately connected with, subsequent missions in our own country; and at the time of his glorious death, his heaven-directed gaze was eagerly and zealously turned towards the country of our own fierce Iroquois, the inhabitants of Northern New York, amongst whom he ardently longed to plant the cross of the Christian missions. His labors and those of his companions opened the northwestern portions of our country, and the great Valley of the Mississippi, to Christianity and civilization, and the discoveries and explorations which followed were partly the fruits of his and their exalted ministry and enlightened enterprise; for, as Bancroft says, "the history of their labors is connected with the origin of every celebrated town in the annals of French America; not a cape was turned, not a river entered, but a Jesuit led the way." His fame and achievements belong to all America, indeed, more truly, to all Christendom. Saint, hero, and martyr as he was, his merits are a part of the heritage of the universal church; and while his relics are venerated on earth, and even the enemies of our religion accord to him the most exalted praise, Catholics may, with the eye of faith, behold him in that glorious and noble band of martyrs in heaven, decked in resplendent garments of red, dyed in their own blood, passing and repassing eternally, in adoration and thanksgiving, before the throne of him who was the Prince of Martyrs.
"It hath not perished from the earth, that spirit brave and high,
That nerved the martyr saints of old with dauntless love to die.
In the far West, where, in his pride, the stoic Indian dies;
Where Afric's dark-skinned children dwell, 'neath burning tropic skies;
'Mid Northern snows, and wheresoe'er yet Christian feet have trod,
Brave men have suffered unto death, as witnesses for God."
While historians outside of the Catholic Church have marvelled at such extraordinary virtues and unparalleled achievements as have been displayed, not alone by a Xavier, but by the missionaries of our own land, and have extolled them as an honor to human nature, Catholics may be excused for regarding them as miracles of the faith, triumphs of the church, and martyrs of religion. It seems strange that the general historians of the church have bestowed so little notice upon the planting and propagation of the faith in America. The history of these events presents to our admiration characters the most noble, deeds the most heroic, virtues the most saintly, lives the most admirable, and deaths the most glorious. While the church of America, in our day, counts her children by millions, what more inspiring lesson could she place before their eyes than the history of her early days, when her priests and missionaries were confessors and martyrs? Of these was the subject of the present memoir.
John de Brébeuf was born in the diocese of Bayeux, in Normandy, March 25, 1593, of a noble family, said to be the same that gave origin to the illustrious and truly Catholic house of the English Arundels. He resolved to dedicate himself to the service of God in the holy ministry, and, with this view, entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus, at Rouen, October 5, 1617. Having completed his noviceship, he entered upon his theological studies. He received subdeacon's orders at Lisseux, and those of deacon at Bayeux, in September, 1621; was ordained a priest during the Lent of 1622, and offered up the holy sacrifice of the Mass for the first time on Lady-day of the same year. He was, though of the youngest, one of the most zealous and devoted priests of his order, and, from the time that he consecrated himself to religion, was given to daily austerities and rigorous self-mortifications.
Catching the spirit of his divine Master, Father Brébeuf conceived an ardent thirst for the salvation of souls, and the foreign missions became the object of his most fervent desire. This chosen field was soon opened to his intrepid and heroic labors. When Father Le Caron, the Recollect missionary in Canada, asked for the assistance of the Jesuits in his arduous undertaking of conquering to Christ the savage tribes of North America, Fathers John de Brébeuf, Charles Lallemant, and Evremond Massé, themselves all eager for the task, were selected by their superiors for the mission. These apostolic men sailed from Dieppe, April 26, 1625, and reached Quebec after a prosperous voyage. The reception they at first met was enough to have appalled any hearts less resolute and inspired from above than were the hearts of Father Brébeuf and his companions. The Recollects, a branch of the Franciscan Order, who, through Father Le Caron, had invited them over, had received at their convent on the river St. Charles no tidings of their arrival; Champlain, ever friendly to the missionaries of the faith, was absent; Caen, the Calvinist, then at the head of the fur-trading monopoly of New France, refused them shelter in the fort; and the private traders at Quebec closed their doors against them. To perish in the wilderness, or to return to France from the inhospitable shores of the New World, was the only alternative before them. At this juncture the good Recollects, hearing of their arrival and destitution, hastened from their convent in their boat, and received the outcast sons of Loyola with every demonstration of joy and hospitality, and carried them to the convent. It is unaccountable how Parkman, in his Pioneers of France in the New World, in the face of these facts, related by himself in common with historians generally, should charge against the Recollects that they "entertained a lurking jealousy of these formidable fellow-laborers," as he calls the Jesuits; who, on the contrary, were the chosen companions of the Recollects, were invited to share their labors, and with whom they prosecuted with "one heart and one mind" the glorious work of the missions. The sons of St. Francis and St. Ignatius united at once in administering to the spiritual necessities of the French at Quebec, and the latter, by their heroic labors and sacrifices, soon overcame the prejudice of their enemies.
From his transient home at Quebec, Father Brébeuf watched for an opportunity of advancing to the field of his mission among the Indians. The first opportunity that presented itself was the proposed descent of Father Viel to Three Rivers, in order to make a retreat, and attend to some necessary business of the mission. Father Brébeuf, accompanied by the Recollect Joseph de la Roche Dallion, lost no time in repairing to the trading post to meet the father, return with him and the expected annual flotilla of trading canoes from the Huron country, and commence his coveted work among the Wyandots. But he arrived only to hear that Father Viel had gained the crown of martyrdom, together with a little Christian boy, whom their Indian conductor, as his canoe shot across the last dangerous rapids in the river Des Prairies, behind Montreal, seized and threw into the foaming torrent together, by which they were swept immediately into the seething gulf below, never to rise again. Neither the death of Father Viel, nor his own ignorance of the Huron language, appalled the brave heart of Father Brébeuf, who, when the flotilla came down, begged to be taken back as a passenger to the Huron country; but the refusal of the Indians to receive him compelled him to return to Quebec. On the twentieth of July, 1625, he went among the Montagnais, with whom he wintered, and, for five months, suffered all the rigors of the climate, in a mere bark-cabin, in which he had to endure both smoke and filth, the inevitable penalties of accepting savage hospitality. Besides this, his encampment was shifted with the ever-varying chase, and it was only his zeal that enabled him, amid incessant changes and distractions, to learn much of the Indian language, for the acquisition of the various dialects of which, as well as for his aptitude in accommodating himself to Indian life and manners, he was singularly gifted. On the twenty-seventh of March following, he returned to Quebec, and resumed, in union with the Recollects, the care of the French settlers. The Jesuits and Recollects, moving together in perfect unison, went alternately from Quebec to the Recollect convent and Jesuit residence, on a small river called St. Charles, not far from the city.
The colony of the Jesuit fathers was soon increased by the arrival of Fathers Noirot and De la Nouë, with twenty laborers, and they were thus enabled to build a residence for themselves—the mother house and headquarters of these valiant soldiers of the cross in their long and eventful struggle with paganism and superstition among the Indians. Father Brébeuf and his companions now devoted their labors to the French at Quebec, then numbering only forty-three, hearing confessions, preaching, and studying the Indian languages. They also bestowed considerable attention on the cultivation of the soil. But these labors were but preparatory for others more arduous, but more attractive to them.