Chapter III: The Jesuits in Canada

The Reformation had made so large progress in France that at the beginning of the seventeenth century the Protestants were able to regard themselves as forming one-half of the nation. They had accomplished this progress in the face of terrible difficulties. The false maxim prevailed in France, as in other countries, that as there was but one king and one government, there should be but one faith. Vast efforts were made to regain this lost uniformity. The vain pursuit cost France thirty-five years of civil war, and two million French lives. At its close half her towns were in ashes; her industries had perished; her fields were desolated. The law gave no protection to Protestants: a Catholic noble riding with his followers past a Protestant meeting-place occasionally paused to slaughter the little congregation, and then resumed his journey, not doubting that he had done to God and to the State an acceptable service. The Protestants undertook their own armed defence; made laws for themselves; maintained in so far as it was possible a government distinct from that of their persecutors. There were two nations of not extremely unequal strength living on the soil of France, with fierce mutual hatred raging in their hearts, and finding expression in incessant war, assassination, massacre. [Sidenote: 1598 A.D.] At length these horrors were allayed by the Edict of Nantes, which conceded full liberty of conscience. The Pope cursed this hateful concession; but the strong arm of Henry IV. maintained it. For a time the ferocity of religious strife was mitigated, and the adherents of the new faith enjoyed unwonted calm.

The sword was no longer a weapon of theological war; the deep and irrepressible antagonism of the old and the new beliefs found now its inadequate expression by pen and by speech. The interest which prevailed regarding disputed ecclesiastical questions became exceptionally strong. Theological dogmas filled an influential place in the politics of the time. The Protestant Synod adopted in its Confession of Faith an article which charged the Pope with being Antichrist. His Holiness manifested “a grand irritation;” the King declared that this article threatened to destroy the peace of the kingdom. For four years a fierce contest raged, till another Synod withdrew the offending article by express order of the King, after having with unanimous voice declared that the charge was true. Philippe de Mornay, one of the King’s most trusted advisers, and a devoted adherent of Protestantism, had written a treatise against the Real Presence, supporting his argument by five or six thousand quotations, which he had laboriously gathered from the writings of the early Fathers. One of the bishops impugned his accuracy, and Mornay challenged him to a public discussion. The meeting-place was the grand hall of the palace of Fontainebleau. The combatants debated in presence of the King, before a brilliant audience of great officers of State, of lords and ladies who formed the royal court, of all great dignitaries of the kingdom. So effectively, for the time, had the Reformation and its consequences dispelled the religious apathy of France.

It had, indeed, left unaffected the manners of a large portion of French society. The great lords retained professional assassins among their followers. It was as easy then to get the address of a stabber or a poisoner as it is now to get that of a hotel. In the highest places licentiousness was unconcealed and unrebuked. Crime associated itself with superstition, and the courtiers made wax figures of their enemies, which they transfixed with pins, hoping thus to destroy those whom the figures represented. The religious zeal which burned in every heart and retained its vigour amidst this enormous wickedness was nowhere stronger than among the members of the Society of Jesus. It moulded into very dissimilar forms, and guided into widely different lines of action, those sworn servants of the Church. For the most part it revealed itself in nothing higher than a readiness to serve the purposes of the Church, however unworthy, by any conduct, however criminal. But among the Jesuits too there were men of pure and noble nature, whose religious zeal found its sole gratification in toil and danger and self-sacrifice to promote the glory of God and save perishing heathen souls.

Champlain had never ceased to press upon the spiritual chiefs of France the claims of those savages for whose welfare he himself cared so deeply. For many years he spoke almost in vain, and his toilsome and frustrated career had nearly reached its close before the Jesuits entered in good earnest upon the work of Indian conversion. [Sidenote: 1632 A.D.] Six priests and two lay-brothers, sworn to have no will but that of their superiors, laid the foundation of the great enterprise. Under the shadow of the rock on which Quebec stands arose a one-story building of planks and mud, thatched with grass, and affording but poor shelter from rain and wind. This was the residence of Our Lady of the Angels--the cradle of the influence which was to change the savage red men of Canada into followers of the Cross. The Father Superior of the Mission was Paul le Jeune, a man devoted in every fibre of mind and heart to the work on which he had come. He utterly scorned difficulty and pain. He had received the order to depart for Canada “with inexpressible joy at the prospect of a living or dying martyrdom.” Among his companions was Jean de Brébœuf, a man noble in birth and aspect, of strong intellect and will, of zeal which knew no limit, and recognized no obstacle in the path of duty.

The winter was unusually severe. The snow-drift stood higher than the roof of the humble Residence; the fathers, sitting by their log-fire, heard the forest trees crack with loud report under the power of intense frost. Le Jeune’s earliest care was to gain some knowledge of the savage tongue spoken by the tribes around him. He was commended, for the prosecution of that design, to a withered old squaw, who regaled him with smoked eels while they conversed. After a time, he obtained the services of an interpreter, a young Indian known as Pierre, who could speak both languages. Pierre had been converted and baptized; but the power of good influences within him was not abiding, and his frequent backslidings grieved the Father Superior. A band of savages invited Le Jeune to accompany them on a winter hunting expedition; and he did so, moved by the hope that he might gain their hearts as well as acquire their language. Among the supplies which his friends persuaded him to carry, was a small keg of wine. Scarcely had the expedition set out when the apostate Pierre found opportunity to tap the keg, and appeared in the camp hopelessly and furiously intoxicated. The sufferings of the good father from hunger and from cold were excessive.[13] His success in instructing the savages was not considerable. He endured much from Pierre’s brother, who followed the occupation of sorcerer. This deceptive person, being employed to assist Le Jeune in preparing addresses, constantly palmed off upon him very foul words, which provoked the noisy mirth of the assembled wigwam and grievously diminished the efficacy of his teaching. The missionary regained his home at Quebec after five months of painful wandering. He had accomplished little; but he had learned to believe that his labour was wasted among these scanty wandering tribes, and that it was necessary to find access to one of the larger and more stable communities into which the Indians were divided.

Far in the west, beside a great lake of which the Jesuits had vaguely heard, dwelt the Hurons, a powerful nation with many kindred tribes over which they exercised influence. The Jesuits resolved to found a mission among the Hurons. Once in every year a fleet of canoes came down the great river, bearing six or seven hundred Huron warriors, who visited Quebec to dispose of their furs, to gamble and to steal. [Sidenote: 1634 A.D.] Brébœuf and two companions took passage with the returning fleet, and set out for the dreary scene of their new apostolate. The way was very long--scarcely less than a thousand miles; it occupied thirty toilsome days. The priests journeyed separately, and were able to hold no conversation with one another or with their Indian companions. They were barefooted, as the use of shoes would have endangered the frail bark canoe. Their food was a little Indian corn crushed between two stones and mixed with water. At each of the numerous rapids or falls which stopped their way, the voyagers shouldered the canoe and the baggage and marched painfully through the forest till they had passed the obstacle. The Indians were often spent with fatigue, and Brébœuf feared that his strong frame would sink under the excessive toil.

The Hurons received with hospitable welcome the black-robed strangers. The priests were able to repay the kindness with services of high value. They taught more effective methods of fortifying the town in which they lived. They promised the help of a few French musketeers against an impending attack by the Iroquois. They cured diseases; they bound up wounds. They gave simple instruction to the young, and gained the hearts of their pupils by gifts of beads and raisins. The elders of the people came to have the faith explained to them: they readily owned that it was a good faith for the French, but they could not be persuaded that it was suitable for the red man. The fathers laboured in hope, and the savages learned to love them. Their gentleness, their courage, their disinterestedness, won respect and confidence, and they had many invitations from chiefs of distant villages to come and live with them. It was feared that the savages regarded them merely as sorcerers of unusual power; and they were constantly applied to for spells, now to give victory in battle, now to destroy grasshoppers. They were held answerable for the weather; they had the credit or the blame of what good or evil fortune befell the tribe. They laboured in deep earnestness; for to them heaven and hell were very real, and very near. The unseen world lay close around them, mingling at every point with the affairs of earth. They were visited by angels; they were withstood by manifest troops of demons. St. Joseph, their patron, held occasional communication with them; even the Virgin herself did not disdain to visit and cheer her servants. Once, as Brébœuf walked cast down in spirit by threatened war, he saw in the sky, slowly advancing towards the Huron territory, a huge cross, which told him of coming and inevitable doom.

Some of their methods of conversion were exceedingly rude. A letter from Father Garnier has been preserved in which pictures are ordered from France for the spiritual improvement of the Indians. Many representations of souls in perdition are required, with appropriate accompaniment of flames and triumphant demons tearing them with pincers. One picture of saved souls would suffice, and “a picture of Christ without beard.”[14] They were consumed by a zeal for the baptism of little children. At the outset the Indians welcomed this ceremonial, believing that it was a charm to avert sickness and death. But when epidemics wasted them they charged the calamity against the mysterious operations of the fathers, and refused now to permit baptism. The fathers recognized the hand of Satan in this prohibition, and refused to submit to it. They baptized by stealth. A priest visited the hut where a sick child lay--the mother watching lest he should perform the fatal rite. He would give the child a little sugared water. Slyly and unseen he dips his finger in the water, touches the poor wasted face, mutters the sacramental words, and soon “the little savage is changed into a little angel.”

The missionaries were subjected to hardship such as the human frame could not long endure. They were men accustomed to the comforts and refinements of civilized life; they had tasted the charms of French society in its highest forms. Their associations now were with men sunk till humanity could fall no lower. They followed the tribes in their long winter wanderings in quest of food. They were in perils, often from hunger, from cold, from sudden attack of enemies, from the superstitious fears of those whom they sought to save. They slept on the frozen ground, or, still worse, in a crowded tent, half suffocated by smoke, deafened by noise, sickened by filth. Self-sacrifice more absolute the world has never seen. A love of perishing heathen souls was the impulse which animated them; a deep and solemn enthusiasm upheld them under trials as great as humanity has ever endured. That they were themselves the victims of erring religious belief is most certain; but none the less do their sublime faith, their noble devotedness, and patience and gentleness claim our admiration and our love.

[Sidenote: 1640 A.D.] The Huron Mission had now been established for five years. During those painful years the missionaries had laboured with burning zeal and absolute forgetfulness of self; but they had not achieved any considerable success. The children whom they baptized either died or they grew up in heathenism. There were some adult converts, one or two of whom were of high promise; but the majority were eminently disappointing. Once the infant church suffered a grievous rent by the withdrawal of converts who feared a heaven in which, as they were informed, tobacco would be denied to them. The manners of the nation had experienced no amelioration. No limitation in the number of wives had been conceded to the earnest remonstrances of the missionaries. Captive enemies were still tortured and eaten by the assembled nation. In time, the patient, self-denying labour of the fathers might have won those discouraging savages to the Cross; but a fatal interruption was at hand. A powerful and relentless enemy, bent on extermination, was about to sweep over the Huron territory, involving the savages and their teachers in one common ruin.

Thirty-two years had passed since those ill-judged expeditions in which Champlain had given help to the Hurons against the Iroquois. The unforgiving savages had never forgotten the wrong. A new generation inherited the feud, and was at length prepared to exact the fitting vengeance. The Iroquois had trading relations with the Dutchmen of Albany on the Hudson, who had supplied them with fire-arms. About one-half of their warriors were now armed with muskets, and were able to use them. [Sidenote: 1642 A.D.] They overran the country of the Hurons; they infested the neighbourhood of the French settlements. Boundless forests stretched all around; on the great river forest trees on both sides dipped their branches in the stream. When Frenchmen travelled in the woods for a little distance from their homes, they were set upon by the lurking savages and often slain; when they sailed on the river, hostile canoes shot out from ambush. No man now could safely hunt or fish or till his ground. The Iroquois attacked in overwhelming force the towns of their Huron enemies; forced the inadequate defences; burned the palisades and wooden huts; slaughtered with indescribable tortures the wretched inhabitants. In one of these towns they found Brébœuf and one of his companions. They bound the ill-fated missionaries to stakes; they hung around their necks collars of red-hot iron; they poured boiling water on their heads; they cut stripes of flesh from their quivering limbs and ate them in their sight. To the last Brébœuf cheered with hopes of heaven the native converts who shared his agony. And thus was gained the crown of martyrdom for which, in the fervour of their enthusiasm, these good men had long yearned.

In a few years the Huron nation was extinct; famine and small-pox swept off those whom the Iroquois spared. The Huron Mission was closed by the extirpation of the race for whom it was founded. Many of the missionaries perished; some returned to France. Their labour seemed to have been in vain; their years of toil and suffering had left no trace. It was their design to change the savages of Canada into good Catholics, industrious farmers, loyal subjects of France. If they had been successful, Canada would have attracted a more copious immigration, and a New France might have been solidly established on the American continent. The feudal system would have cumbered the earth for generations longer; Catholicism, the irreconcilable enemy to freedom of thought and to human progress, would have overspread and blighted the valley of the St. Lawrence. For once the fierce Iroquois were the allies and vindicators of liberty. Their cruel arms gave a new course to Canadian history. They frustrated plans whose success would have wedded Northern America to despotism in Church and in State. They prepared a way for the conquest of New France by the English, and thus helped, influentially, to establish free institutions over those vast regions which lie to the northward of the Great Lakes.