The remnant of his Huron flock had gathered beneath the fort of Quebec, but before he returned permanently to them he was sent as chaplain to Fort Richelieu, at the mouth of the Sorel. Adapting himself to any life, he labored among those committed to him with his habitual zeal. He soon gained the hearts, not only of the private soldiers, but of the officers; and established among them regular practices of piety. One officer, touched by his words and example, hung up his sword at the altar, and, receiving in due time holy orders, was for many years a devoted missionary in Nova Scotia; while a soldier, formed by Father Chaumonot, devoted himself to the service of the missionaries, and became an excellent teacher.
At last he is with his Hurons, never to leave them. He reared for them the Chapel of Notre Dame de Foye, so called after a celebrated shrine of Mary near Dinan. A copy of the miraculous statue there venerated excited the devotion of his flock, and was the instrument of God’s blessings and favors. To commemorate these, the Hurons, through Father Chaumonot, sent to the Old World shrine a wampum belt with the inscription, “Beata quæ credidisti,” and this token of Indian homage was laid before the altar of Our Lady with the offerings of kings and princes. Others followed the example, and to this day celebrated shrines in Belgium, France, and Italy preserve the wampum belts sent from the depths of our forests by the converts of our early missionaries.
Six years later, the wants of the Indians compelled them to select a new site, where unbroken land and fuel were abundant. When it was chosen, Father Chaumonot carried out a long-cherished design, and with the alms of the Children of Mary in Europe and America erected a brick chapel of the exact dimensions and arrangement of the Santa Casa of Loretto. It soon became a renowned pilgrimage for the supernatural favors obtained there. And here in this favored sanctuary the servant of Mary spent nearly a quarter of a century, giving his time to God and his neighbor. He rose at two, spent four or five hours in prayer or contemplation, recited his office, said Mass, preaching almost daily, then attended to the affairs of the mission, instructing some of his colleagues in Huron, catechising children; after a slight repast at noon, he again spent some time in prayer, and visited some cabins to give special instructions. At nightfall, his chapel was filled for evening prayer, and with his private devotions he closed his day.
In 1689, he celebrated at the Cathedral of Quebec the fiftieth anniversary of his first Mass, being the first one who had ever there attained such years of ministry. The Governor and Intendant, with many other persons of distinction, sought the privilege of receiving at the hands of the venerable priest on this day.
At the close of the year 1692, he began to sink under a complication of disorders, and was conveyed to Quebec. He rallied for a time, but after suffering intense pains, which he bore with unshaken patience and admirable piety, he died the death of a saint. As such, his austerities, his mortifications, his uninterrupted union with God, his zeal and love for his neighbor, had long caused him to be regarded. All gathered around his venerated remains seeking some relic, and many afflicted in soul or body sought his intercession—as documents show, not without effect. His funeral was the most imposing yet seen in Canada. Such was the repute of his sanctity that even Frontenac, the Governor-General, bitter and fanatical in his hostility to the Jesuits, attended, as well as the Bishop of Quebec, who had long revered the aged missionary.
None who beheld his unpromising start in life could have dreamed of such a career or of such a close.
PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN INDIA. [190]
The contents of this book, put forward with all the apparent sanction possible of the sect that employs Mr. Butler, may be looked upon as the quintessence of all that has been or can be said on the subject of missions in Hindostan, by a writer who feels that he has a claim to challenge our attention and command our belief. That it is orthodox in character, according to the notions of his class, cannot be doubted in view of the official position of the author, and the innumerable extracts from the Old and New Testaments, particularly the former, with which its pages are interspersed; quotations the frequency of which, if not reflecting much credit on the reverend doctor by their charity or appositeness, give to the work an air of ponderous learning and holiness that must be highly relished by his brother Methodists. But in justice to the author, it must be said that he does not altogether confine himself to the sacred writers. When the grandeur of the pagan temples or the horrors of Mohammedanism become too great even for his descriptive powers, he freely draws on that profane child of the muses, Tom Moore, whose merits, however, he is careful, in his clerical capacity, to depreciate by assuring us that the author of Lalla Rookh “was for a good part of his life a Romanist”; an objection which he seems to forget might be urged with equal truthfulness against the majority of the gifted minds of the past eighteen centuries, and even against the inspired penmen of the New Testament and the fathers of the church.