So far from instigating or countenancing acts of cruelty or blood on the part of his flock, his office and his labors were those of peace and charity. His mission was to announce the glad tidings of the Gospel: "Glory to God on high, and peace on earth to men of good-will." And we have authority, not prejudiced in favor of his cause, for the assertion that he was not faithless to his sacred duty. Thus Gov. Lincoln says: "His followers were not only the bravest, but the most sparing, of the fierce race to which they belonged; and though spoil and havoc were their element, they could sometimes be generous and forbearing. But when the old man expired by the side of the altar he had reared, the barbarism he had only in a measure controlled, broke loose with a ferocity not softened by the dogmas he had taught."[167]
The village of Narrantsouac, on the Kennebec, still called Indian Old Point, became the residence of F. Rale. Here he found, on his arrival, a little church and a flock of converted Indians remarkable for their devotion and sincerity. They entertained a profound attachment to the Prayer, and great veneration for him who was its minister. Besides this, they soon learned to love and esteem F. Rale as their best friend; he was their arbitrator in all disputes, their physician in sickness, and their consoler in all their distresses. Religion was the reigning sentiment in this truly Christian community, and the little chapel, erected by the hands of the neophytes, became at once the object of their love and the scene of their unalloyed devotion.
As game was scarce, the Abnakis bestowed much care and labor in the cultivation of their fields. After planting the seed in the spring, they sallied forth on fishing parties to the sea-shore, accompanied by F. Rale. In these expeditions, a rustic altar, covered with an ornamental cloth, was carried along, and the chapel-tent was pitched every evening for prayer, and struck in the morning after Mass. On reaching the sea-shore a large bark cabin was erected for the church, and the wigwams of the Indians were arranged around it. Thus arose, as by the magic power of religion, a beautiful village on the distant sea-shore, with its chapel, priest, and flock, and there were heard the pious chant and fervent prayer, there the mysteries of the faith were taught to docile hearers, there devout confessions heard, and there the bread of life distributed. The priest was truly the father of the faithful. He was also their companion and sympathetic friend. Hunger, thirst, and fatigue he bore with them, and their sorrows, as their joys, were common. Yet in this rude and simple mode of life the faithful Jesuit conformed himself to the strictest rules of his order. His hours of rising and retiring, his Office, meditations, and all his spiritual exercises were as regular as those of his brethren in the colleges of Europe. In order to avoid interruptions while saying his Office or performing his other devotions, he would refrain from all conversation, except in cases of necessity, from evening prayers till after Mass. His annual retreat was observed at the beginning of Lent with the same scrupulous exactness. The pension which he was allowed by the French government he distributed among the more needy of his spiritual children.
In 1697, F. Rale heard, with solicitude for his flock, that a strange and unconverted tribe—the Amalingans—were coming to settle near to Narrantsouac. He feared for the faith and morals of his neophytes when exposed to the tricks of the medicine-men and the seductive games and dances of such superstitious neighbors. He was engaged in the confessional all the evening before Corpus Christi and during the morning of the festival till near noon. In the meantime, deputies from the newly arrived Amalingans came, bearing presents, according to the Indian custom, for the relatives of some Abnakis recently destroyed by the English. Towards noon the procession of the blessed sacrament began to move with a degree of magnificence that astonished those natives of the wilderness. Struck as were the Amalingan deputies with the solemnity, the earnestness, and the majesty of the scene, they listened with conviction to the fervent and eloquent words of the father, who seized upon so favorable an occasion to acquaint them with the existence and attributes of the Deity, whose worship they then beheld. How sublime and beautiful must have been the appeal which the zealous missionary made to those astonished warriors! The deputies were convinced, but they could not accept the prayer before laying the words of the Black Gown before the assembled sachems of their tribe, who were expected to arrive in the autumn. During the summer, the father sent them a message, reminding them of his words and their promise. In due time the answer was returned, that they desired to embrace the Prayer, and they invited the Black Gown chief to come among them, and bring the wampum of the faith. It happened that Narrantsouac was then deserted by its inhabitants, who were on one of their excursions; and F. Rale set out in his canoe for the village of the Amalingans, who received him with every honor, and welcomed him with a salute of musketry. Soon a cross was raised in the centre of the village and a bark chapel was erected. The missionary visited the cabins and instructed the catechumens. After Mass every day, three public instructions were given; between these they received private instructions in their cabins. Four chiefs and two matrons were first baptized; then followed two bands of twenty each, and finally the entire tribe publicly received the Prayer and were baptized. A public assembly was then held, and the missionary received the simple but touching tokens of their gratitude and love, and then he returned in his canoe to Narrantsouac, while the Christian Amalingans departed for the sea-shore. F. Rale found no difficulty afterwards in uniting in one nation the two tribes that were now members of the one fold of Christ.
In 1698, F. Rale, by the aid of means and skilful labor sent from Quebec, succeeded in erecting a neat but simple chapel at his village of Narrantsouac, or Norridgewock. In this their new chapel the Abnaki Christians assembled to unite with the universal church in the solemn rites of the Catholic worship. It was there in their own native wilderness that those Men-of-the-East were contented to worship God in security and peace. But, strange as it may appear, the New England settlers, themselves professing Christianity, saw with jealousy and dislike a Christian temple erected by the Abnakis for Christian worship, while all the heathen tribes of New England were left free and uncared for in their horrid superstitions and brutal sacrifices. This feeling on their part appears the more extraordinary, since at that time Acadia had been restored to France by the treaty of Ryswick, in 1697; that the Catholic faith had been professed by the Abnakis for half a century; and the Jesuit missionaries had been their pastors during all that period.
The interval of peace now enjoyed seems not to have resulted in strengthening the friendship nor in conciliating the good-will and confidence of the Indians. Fresh aggressions were from time to time committed upon them by their white neighbors. But a blow was struck at their chosen and beloved pastors which exhibits the true sentiments entertained on the one side and the grievances endured on the other. On the 15th of June, 1700, a law was passed, which recited: "Whereas, divers Jesuit priests and Popish missionaries, by their subtile insinuations, industriously labor to debauch, seduce, and withdraw the Indians from their due obedience unto his majesty, and to excite and stir them up to sedition, rebellion, and open hostility against his majesty's government," and then proceeded to enact, in reference to the same priests and missionaries, that "they shall depart from and out of the same province on or before the 10th day of September, 1700." In case any one of them should be found in the province after that time, it was provided that he "shall be deemed and accounted an incendiary and disturber of the public peace and safety, and an enemy to the Christian religion, and shall be adjudged to suffer perpetual imprisonment. And if any person, being so sentenced and actually imprisoned, shall break prison and actually escape, and be afterwards retaken, he shall be punished with death."[168] Gov. Bellamont, by his influence, secured in New York also the passage of a law "for hanging every Popish priest that came voluntarily into the province, which was occasioned by the great number of French Jesuits who were continually practising upon our Indians."[169]
Upon the accession of Gov. Dudley to office, in 1692, he solicited a conference with the Abnakis, and accordingly a conference was held on an island in Casco Bay. The object of the governor was to secure the neutrality of the Indians, in case the French and English went to war. Penhallow and such as follow him contend that the governor succeeded in his purpose, and secured a promise from the Indians not to join their allies, the French, in case of war. But treaties had been imposed upon those unlettered warriors which they never understood, and, consequently, never entered into. Besides, F. Rale, who had the advantage over Penhallow of having been present at the conference, gives quite a different statement of the affair. F. Rale, at the request of the Indians, accompanied them to the conference. "Thus," he relates himself, "I found myself where neither I nor the governor wished me to be." The governor and the missionary exchanged the usual civilities, and then the former, stepping back among his people, made his propositions to the Indians in an address, which he concluded with an offer to supply their wants, take their furs, and supply them with merchandise in return "at a moderate price." An English minister accompanied the governor, whose presence could have had no other object in view than a tender of his services to the Abnakis in lieu of those of F. Rale; but the latter supposes that his own presence disconcerted that portion of the plan. When the Indians retired to consult together, Gov. Dudley approached F. Rale, and said: "I beg you, sir, not to induce your Indians to make war upon us." "No, sir, my religion and my sacred calling require me to give them only counsels of peace," was the prompt and appropriate reply. The Indians soon returned and gave the following answer through their orator: "Great chief, you have told us not to unite with the Frenchman if you declare war against him. Know that the Frenchman is my brother; we have but the same Prayer, we dwell in the same cabin—he at one fire, I at the other. If I see you enter towards the fire where my brother, the Frenchman, is seated, I watch you from my mat at the other. If I see a tomahawk in your hand, I say, What will the Englishman do with that hatchet? and I would rise to see. If he raise it to strike my brother, I grasp mine, and rush upon him. Could I sit still and see my brother struck? No! no! I love my brother, the Frenchman, too well not to defend him. I therefore tell thee, great chief, do no harm to my brother, and I will do none to thee. Remain quiet on thy mat; I will remain so on mine." "Thus," says F. Rale, "the conference ended."
Peace was soon interrupted. War broke out between England and France in 1703, and involved their respective colonies on this continent in the contest. The Abnakis of Maine joined their French allies, and both sides felt the ravages of war to a fearful degree. The Indians, who had long been impatient under the encroaching policy of their white neighbors, carried on the war with destructive fury. Casco was taken, the New England villages, forts, and farms were pillaged, and six hundred of the inhabitants led away captives. As a minister of peace and mercy, F. Rale endeavored to subdue the wild passions of his injured and infuriated Indians, as has been seen above by the testimony of Gov. Lincoln; but the people of New England visited upon him all the blame for the calamities which their own wrong policy had occasioned.
Among the hostile movements of the English during the war was an expedition against Norridgewock, the residence of F. Rale. In the winter of 1705, "when the snow lay four feet deep," and "the country looked like a frozen field," Col. Hilton led an expedition of two hundred and seventy men against Norridgewock. The village, all deserted as it was by its inhabitants, was easily taken. The intended victim, however, was not there; for the missionary was absent with the tribe, as it was his habit to accompany them to the sea-shore. But the cabins and the chapel were there; the torch was applied, and soon one blaze enveloped the church and the village. When the missionary returned, he shuddered at the sacrilege he saw, and wept over the calamities of his people. A bark chapel soon rose from the ashes of the church which had been destroyed, and in it he dispensed the consolations of religion to his flock for several years.
During this year, F. Rale had the misfortune to sustain a fall of such violence as to break his right thigh and left leg, and in this condition he was compelled to make the painful journey to Quebec for surgical aid. The fractured parts were so imperfectly cemented together that he had to submit to the severe operation of having his leg broken again and reset. During his sufferings, not a groan escaped him; and the surgeon who attended him has expressed his wonder at such an exhibition of Christian patience and love of suffering. As soon as his wounds permitted him to return, he was again at his post in his little sanctuary in the wilderness, where, amid personal dangers the most appalling, he continued calmly and without fear the discharge of his sacred duties.