Bless the Lord, O my soul;
And all that is within me, bless his holy name.
Bless the Lord, O my soul,
And forget not all his benefits:
Who forgiveth all thine iniquities;
Who healeth all thy diseases;
Who redeemeth thy life from destruction;
Who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercies:
Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things;
So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle.
The Lord executeth righteous acts,
And judgments for all that are oppressed.
He made known his ways unto Moses,
His doings unto the children of Israel.
The Lord is full of compassion and gracious,
Slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.
He will not always chide;
Neither will he keep his anger forever.
He hath not dealt with us after our sins,
Nor rewarded us after our iniquities.
For as the heaven is high above the earth,
So great is his mercy towards them that fear him.
As far as the east is from the west,
So far hath he removed our transgressions from us.
Like as a father pitieth his children,
So the Lord pitieth them that fear him.
For he knoweth our frame;
He remembereth that we are dust.
As for man, his days are as grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone;
And the place thereof shall know it no more.
But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him,
And his righteousness unto children’s children,
To such as keep his covenant,
And to those that remember his precepts to do them.
The Lord hath established his throne in the heavens;
And his kingdom ruleth over all.
Bless the Lord, ye angels of his,
Ye mighty in strength;
That fulfil his word,
Hearkening unto the voice of his word.
Bless the Lord, all ye his hosts;
Ye ministers of his, that do his pleasure.
Bless the Lord, all ye his works,
In all places of his dominion.
—From the Book of Psalms.
THE HEROES OF THE LONG SAULT
In April, 1660, a young officer named Daulac, commandant of the garrison at Montreal, asked leave of Maisonneuve, the governor, to lead a party of volunteers against the Iroquois. His plan was bold to desperation. It was known that Iroquois warriors, in great numbers, had wintered among the forests of the Ottawa. Daulac proposed to waylay them on their descent of the river, and fight them without regard to disparity of force; and Maisonneuve, judging that a display of enterprise and boldness might act as a check on the audacity of the enemy, at last gave his consent.
Adam Daulac was a young man of good family, who had come to the colony three years before, at the age of twenty-two. He had held some military command in France, though in what rank does not appear. He had been busy for some time among the young men of Montreal, inviting them to join him in the enterprise he meditated. Sixteen of them caught his spirit. They bound themselves by oath to accept no quarter; and, having gained Maisonneuve’s consent, they made their wills, confessed, and received the sacraments.
After a solemn farewell they embarked in several canoes, well supplied with arms and ammunition. They were very indifferent canoe-men, and it is said that they lost a week in vain attempts to pass the swift current of Ste. Anne, at the head of the Island of Montreal. At length they were successful, and entering the mouth of the Ottawa, crossed the Lake of Two Mountains, and slowly advanced against the current.
About the first of May they reached the foot of the formidable rapid called the Long Sault, where a tumult of waters, foaming among ledges and boulders, barred the onward way. It was needless to go farther. The Iroquois were sure to pass the Sault, and could be fought here as well as elsewhere. Just below the rapid, where the forests sloped gently to the shore, among the bushes and stumps of a rough clearing made in constructing it, stood a palisade fort, the work of an Algonquin war-party in the past autumn. It was a mere enclosure of trunks of small trees planted in a circle, and was already in ruins. Such as it was, the Frenchmen took possession of it. They made their fires and slung their kettles, on the neighboring shore; and here they were soon joined by forty Hurons and four Algonquins. Daulac, it seems, made no objection to their company, and they all bivouacked together. Morning, noon, and night, they prayed in three different tongues; and when at sunset the long reach of forest on the farther shore basked peacefully in the level rays, the rapids joined their hoarse music to the notes of their evening hymn.