“They accordingly set out from Akensea, on the 17th of July, to return. Passing the Missouri again, they entered the Illinois, and, meeting the friendly Kaskaskias at its upper portage, were led by them in a kind of triumph to Lake Michigan; for Marquette had promised to return and instruct them in the faith. Sailing along the lake, they crossed the outer peninsula of Green Bay, and reached the mission of S. Francis Xavier just four months after their departure from it.
“Thus had the missionaries achieved their long-projected work. The triumph of the age was thus completed in the discovery and exploration of the Mississippi, which threw open to France the richest, most fertile and accessible territory of the New World. Marquette, whose health had been severely tried in this voyage, remained at St. Francis to recruit his strength before resuming his wonted missionary labors; for he sought no laurels, he aspired to no tinsel praise.
“The distance passed over by F. Marquette on this great expedition, in his little bark canoe, was two thousand seven hundred and sixty-seven miles. The feelings with which he regarded an enterprise having so grave a bearing on the future history and development of mankind may be appreciated from the following closing passage of the ninth section of his Voyages and Discoveries:
“ ‘Had all this voyage caused but the salvation of a single soul, I should deem all my fatigue well repaid. And this I have reason to think; for, when I was returning, I passed by the Indians at Peoria. I was three days announcing the faith in all their cabins, after which, as we were embarking, they brought me to the water's edge a dying child, which I baptized a little before it expired, by an admirable Providence, for the salvation of that innocent soul.’ ”
F. Marquette prepared a narrative of his voyage down the Mississippi (from which the foregoing quotation is taken), and a map of that river; and on his return transmitted copies to his superior, by the Ottawa flotilla of that year. It is also probable that Frontenac, the Governor of New France, as he had promised, sent a copy of them to the French government. The loss of Jolliet's narrative and map gave an inestimable value to those of Marquette. Yet the French government did not publish them, probably in consequence of the discontinuance of the publication of the Jesuit Relations about this time; and thus the great interests involved in the discovery were neglected. Fortunately, F. Marquette's narrative fell into the hands of [pg 697] Thevenot, who had just published a collection of travels, and such was his appreciation of it that he issued a new volume, entitled Recueil de Voyages, in 1681, containing the narrative and map of the Mississippi.[226] Mr. Sparks, in his life of F. Marquette, speaks thus of the narrative:
“It is written in a terse, simple, and unpretending style. The author relates what occurs, and describes what he sees, without embellishment or display. He writes as a scholar and as a man of careful observation and practical sense. There is no tendency to exaggerate, nor any attempt to magnify the difficulties he had to encounter, or the importance of his discovery. In every point of view, this tract is one of the most interesting of those which illustrate the early history of America.”
Having reached Green Bay, the exhausted voyager sank down under the effects of his recent travels and exposures. His disease was so obstinate and protracted that he suffered during the entire winter, though with patience and resignation, and did not recover before the end of the following summer. Having received from his superior the necessary orders for the establishment of the Illinois mission, he started on the 25th of October, 1674, for Kaskaskia. He was accompanied and assisted by two faithful and devoted Frenchmen, and by a number of Pottawattomies and Illinois Indians. They coasted along the mouth of Fox River, and then, advancing up as far as the small bay breaking into the peninsula, they reached the portage leading to the lake. As the canoes proceeded along the lake shore, the missionary walked upon the beach, returning to the canoes whenever the beach was broken by a river or stream; and their provisions were obtained from the abundant yield of the chase. On the 23d of November, the courageous missionary found his malady returning, but pushed on, amid cold and snow, until, on the 4th of December, he reached the Chicago River, which was closed with ice. Here again the unpropitious elements and his own infirmities compelled him to stop and spend the winter. But his time was not idly spent during this detention, for his missionary zeal found occupation in the spiritual care of his Indian companions, whom he instructed as well as he could, and sent them forward on their journey. His faithful Frenchmen remained now alone with him; but at a distance of fifty miles was an Illinois village, where there were two Frenchmen, traders and trappers; and these, hearing of the forlorn condition of the missionary, arranged that one of them should go and visit him. They had prepared a cabin for him, and the Indians, alarmed for his safety, were also anxious to send some of their tribe to convey their father and his effects to their village. Touched by their attentions, he sent them every assurance of his visiting them, intimating, however, the uncertainty of his doing so in the spring, in consequence of his continued illness. These messages only added to the alarm of the Indians, and the sachems assembled and sent a deputation to the black-gown. The presents they bore were three sacks of corn, dried meat, and pumpkins, and twelve beaver skins. The objects of their visits were, first, to make him a mat to sit on; second, to ask him for powder; third, supply him with food; fourth, to get some merchandise. The good father made answer in characteristic terms, as follows: “First, that I came to instruct them by speaking of the prayer; second, that I would not give them powder, as we endeavor to make peace everywhere, and because I did [pg 698] not wish them to begin a war against the Miamis; third, that we did not fear famine; fourth, that I would encourage the French to bring them merchandise, and that they must make reparation to the traders there for the beads taken from them while the surgeon was with me.” Presenting them with some axes, knives, and trinkets, he dismissed them with a promise to make every effort to visit them in a few days. Bidding their good father to “take heart,” and beseeching him to “stay and die in their country,” the deputation “returned to their winter camps.”
The ensuing winter months, though marked by every bodily suffering and privation, were replete with religious consolation. His whole time was spent in prayer. Admonished by his disease that his last end could not be far off, he offered his remaining days entirely to God. He lost sight of the sufferings of his body in the overflow of heavenly consolations with which his soul was ravished. Still the recollection that he had been appointed missionary of the Illinois, and the duty this seemed to impose upon him of laboring for the conversion of those noble but benighted souls, filled his heart with the desire of visiting them, if it should be the will of God, and the establishment of the Illinois mission became the absorbing thought of his mind and the burden of the prayers which he addressed to the throne of heaven. His sufferings he bore not only with patience, but with joy; if he prayed for their cessation, it was only with the view that he might thus be enabled to encounter the new sufferings, labors, and hardships of his mission, and that he might devote his remaining days to the salvation of his beloved Illinois. To obtain this privilege from heaven, he induced his companions to unite with him in a novena of prayers in honor of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Some time after Christmas, 1675, his Patroness in heaven obtained the desired boon of health for her devoted client; for he soon began to recover from his disease, and, though still feeble, was enabled by the 29th of March, when the snow and ice began to melt, and the inundations compelled them to move, to set out for Kaskaskia, in the Upper Illinois. He arrived at that Illinois town on the 8th of April, but his journal was discontinued from the 6th of April, and we have no record of his movements from that time. He was received by his children as an angel from heaven, for they scarcely supposed he had escaped alive the rigors of the winter. It was Monday in Holy Week, and the good man immediately commenced his work. He visited the chiefs and ancients of the town, and gave them and the crowds who assembled in the cabins he visited the first necessary instructions in the Gospel. So great were the throngs that assembled to hear him preach that the narrow accommodations of the cabins could not hold them. On Maundy Thursday he called a general assembly of the people in the open field, a beautiful prairie near the town, which was decorated after the fashion of the country, and spread with mats and bear skins. He formed a little rustic altar by suspending some pieces of Indian taffety on cords, to which were attached, so as to be seen on all four sides, four large pictures of the Blessed Virgin, under whose invocation the mission was placed. The assembly was immense; composed of five hundred chiefs and ancients seated in a circle around the missionary, and around these stood fifteen hundred young men. Besides these, great numbers of women and children [pg 699] attended. He addressed his congregation with ten words or presents, according to the Indian fashion, associating each word or present, which represented some great truth or mystery, with one of the ten beads on the belt of the prayer which he held in his hand. He explained the object of his visit to them, preached Christ crucified—for it was the eve of Good Friday—and explained to them the principal mysteries of the Christian religion. The Holy Mass was then celebrated for the first time in this new mission. On each of the following days he continued his instructions, and on Easter Sunday he celebrated the great Feast of the Resurrection, offering up Mass for the second time. He took possession of the land in the name of his risen Lord, and bestowed upon the mission the name of the Immaculate Virgin Mary.
His former malady now returned with renewed violence. His strength was wasting away. To remain would accomplish no good for his children, for he was unable to discharge the duties of the missionary, and no alternative was left but to make an effort to reach his former mission, Mackinaw, where he hoped to die in the midst of his fellow-members of the Society of Jesus. He was the more willing now to seek rest in the bosom of his Redeemer and in the Society of his Blessed Mother in Heaven, because he had performed his promise, the mission of the Illinois had been founded, his words had been lovingly received by his people, the good seed had been sown in their hearts, the Holy Sacrifice had been offered up in their presence and for their salvation, and future missionaries might now advance to cultivate the field and reap the harvest he had prepared. His docile Indians, with the devotion of children, begged him to return to them as soon as his health should permit. He repeatedly promised them that he or some other missionary would come to continue the good work amongst them. The people followed him on his journey, escorted him thirty leagues on his way with great pomp, showing him every mark of friendship and affection, and many contended among themselves for the honor of carrying the scanty baggage he possessed. Taking the way of the St. Joseph's River and the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, along which he had yet to travel over a hundred leagues through an unknown route, his strength soon began to fail entirely. He could no longer help himself; his two faithful French companions had to lift him in and out of his canoe when they landed at night; and so exhausted had he become under his wasting disease that they had to handle and carry him like a child. In the midst of his sufferings and the hardships of such a journey in his enfeebled health, his characteristic equanimity, joy, and gentleness never for a moment left him. He could even forget his own sufferings to console his companions. He encouraged them to sustain the fatigues of the way, assuring them that God would protect and defend them. His native mirthfulness was even in this extreme crisis conspicuous in his conversations. He now calmly saw the approach of death, and joyfully and heroically welcome it as the reward of his toils and sacrifices. He had some time before prepared a meditation on death, to serve him in these last hours of his life, which he now used with great consolation. He said his office to his last day. His devotions frequently assumed the shape of colloquies with his merciful Lord, with his Holy Mother, with his angel guardian, [pg 700] and with all heaven. He repeatedly pronounced with fervor the sublime words, “I believe that my Redeemer liveth”; and again, “Mary, Mother of grace, Mother of God, remember me.” Perceiving a river on whose banks loomed up a prominent eminence, he ordered his companions to stop, that he might die and be buried there. He pointed out the spot on this eminence in which he desired them to inter his remains. This river, until recent years, bore his name. His companions still desired to press forward, in the hope of reaching Mackinaw; but they were driven back by the wind, and, entering the River Marquette by its former channel, they erected a bark cabin, under which Marquette, like his great model, S. Francis Xavier, was stretched upon the shore, and, like him, sighed only to be dissolved and to be with Christ. So cheerfully did he realize his approaching dissolution that he gave all the necessary directions to his companions touching his burial. He had a week before blessed some water, which he instructed them how to use on the occasion, how to arrange his hands, feet, and head, with what religious ceremonies to bury him, even telling them that they should take his little altar bell, and ring it as they carried him to the grave. On the eve of his death, he told them with a countenance radiant with joy that the morrow would be his last day on earth. Still mindful of his sacred ministry, and anxious to be doing good, he administered the sacrament of penance to his two companions for the last time. He thanked them for their charity to him during this arduous and eventful voyage, begged their pardon for the trouble he had given them, and directed them to ask pardon for him and in his name of all the Fathers and Brothers of the Society of Jesus in the Ottawa country; he also gave them a paper in which he had written all his faults since his last confession, which he begged them to give to his superior, that he might pray the more earnestly for him. He promised not to forget them in heaven. Ever mindful of others in this trying moment, and overflowing with charity for his neighbor, he insisted upon his companions taking some rest, leaving him to commune with heaven, assuring them that his hour was not yet at hand, and that he would call them in due time. This he did; summoning them to his side, just as his agony was approaching. Hastening to him, they fell melting into tears at his feet. He embraced them for the last time, called for the holy water he had blessed and his reliquary, and, taking his crucifix from around his neck, and handing it to one of them, he requested him to hold it up before him, so that he could behold it every moment he had yet to live. Clasping his hands, and fixing his eyes affectionately on the image of his expiring Saviour, he pronounced aloud his profession of faith, and thanked God for the favor he enjoyed in dying a Jesuit, a missionary of the cross, and, above all, in dying in a miserable cabin, amid forests, and destitute of all human consolation and assistance. He then communed secretly for some time with his Creator, but his devotion from time to time found vent in the ejaculations, “Sustinuit anima mea in verba ejus,” and “Mater Dei, memento mei.” These were his last words before he was taken with the agony of death. His companions frequently pronounced the names of Jesus and Mary, as he had previously requested them to do, and, when they saw he was about to expire, they called out “Jesus, Maria,” whereupon he repeated those enrapturing [pg 701] names several times with distinctness, and then suddenly, as if his Saviour and Mother had appeared to him, he raised his eyes above the crucifix, gazing with a countenance lit up with pleasure at those blissful apparitions. He expired as peacefully and gently as a child sinking into its evening slumber.
“Thus he died, the great apostle,