He applied himself to these studies with the greatest zeal, since they constituted the last probation and delay preceding his elevation to the sacred ministry, and the realization of his fondest hope—a foreign mission. He seems not to have discovered his future plans to his family, to whom he was, however, most tenderly attached. Writing to them in April, 1635, on receiving their complaint at his not having joined them in one of their family festivals, he says: “The prayers which I offer up, as well afar off as near you, are the most affectionate marks I can give of my interest in you all.”
When the time for the reception of holy orders drew near, he prepared himself by a spiritual retreat, and was ordained in February, 1636. His family, who were extremely devoted to him, were not present at his ordination; but his fond mother obtained from his superior a promise that he might say his first Mass in his native city. He accordingly went to Orleans, and offered up the holy sacrifice for the first time in the church of the Holy Cross. Then, tearing himself away from his mother and sisters, never to see them again, he went to Rouen, and entered upon what is called the second novitiate in the Society of Jesus. But a fleet was soon ready to sail from Dieppe for Canada, and the young missionary must hasten to his chosen field of labor and love.
He was accompanied on the voyage by the Jesuit Fathers Garnier and Chatelain, and by M. de Chanflour, afterwards governor at Three Rivers. The vessel in which they sailed being leaky, the pumps were kept in constant motion, and the labor thus imposed upon the crew gave rise to a mutiny, which Father Jogues alone was able to quell. M. de Chanflour ever afterwards, in speaking of the voyage, attributed his safety to the influence of Father Jogues' prayers with God, and of his persuasion with the men.
After words of pious affection and encouragement which this exemplary son knew well how to address to that excellent mother, he proceeds in one of his letters addressed to her:
“I write this more than three thousand miles away from you, and I may perhaps this year be sent to a nation called the Huron, distant nearly a thousand miles more from here. It shows great dispositions for embracing the faith. It matters not where we are, provided we are ever in the arms of Providence and in his holy grace. This I beg for you and all our family daily at the altar.”
By his short stay at Miscou he missed the Indian flotilla, and Fathers Garnier and Chatelain embarked without him; but, some canoes having come in later, the Indians, when about to return, asked, as if reproachfully, why there was no black-gown to be carried by them. Father Jogues, being then at Three Rivers, [pg 107] was summoned to embark, and at once joyfully entered the canoes.
We would gladly reproduce, did our space allow, a letter addressed to his mother, under date June 5, 1637, giving an account of this voyage. Suffice it to say that in nineteen days he accomplished what usually took twenty-five or thirty; joining Fathers Garnier and Chatelain, who had preceded him but a month, and three other missionaries who had been five or six years in the country.
Supported by his zeal, he accomplished his arduous and laborious passage, but no sooner arrived at Ihonitiria than his exhausted nature sank under a dreadful malady, which for more than a month threatened to terminate his existence. With four others he lay during all this time in a cabin, without medicines or food, except such food as was an aggravation to the disease. By the middle of October Father Jogues was so far recovered as to be able to take the ordinary food of the country, the sagamity.
In November he set out from Ihonitiria to join Father Brebeuf at the great town of Ossossané, where for a time they were companions on earth who were destined to be companions in heaven, in the enjoyment of the glorious crown of martyrdom. Sickness was raging over the land, and the missionaries hastened from town to town, and from cabin to cabin, baptizing the dying infants, and such of the adults as were willing to receive the words of eternal life. They even extended their visits to the neighboring Nipissings, who had been terribly afflicted with the prevailing maladies. The poor Indians, in most cases, would not listen to the voice of the fathers, because they could not promise, as their own sorcerers pretended, to cure their bodily afflictions. The horrid orgies of the medicine-men were consequently in great requisition, and one of them, a little deformed creature, offered his services to one of the fathers in his sickness.
There was another medicine-man, Tehoronhaegnon, who filled the land with dances and orgies of the most wicked and revolting character. The missionaries labored to banish these abominations from the country, and to introduce in their place the pure and holy rites of the Christian religion. Unacquainted with their language, Father Jogues labored under the greatest disadvantages, but by zealous and persevering application he was soon able to make himself well understood; and in a few years he was master of the Huron, the key-tongue to so many others. Remaining at Ossossané as his place of residence, he was incessant in his visits and ministrations in the cabins of the people, preaching the faith to all, and at the same time rapidly acquiring their language. Late in 1637 he returned to labor in the same way at Ihonitiria. On the ruin of this town and its mission, he went again to join his superior, Father Brebeuf, at Teananstayae.