th America should have been Hurons; an alliance made
with the Iroquois, they say, would have been a hundred times more
profitable for civilization and for France. What do we know about it?
Man imagines and arranges his plans, but above these arrangements hovers
Providence--fools say, chance--whose foreseeing hand sets all in order
for the accomplishment of His impenetrable design. Yet, however firmly
convinced the historian may be that the eye of Providence never sleeps,
that the Divine Hand is never still, he must be sober in his
observations; he must yield neither to his fancy nor to his imagination;
but neither must he banish God from history, for then everything in it
would become incomprehensible and inexplicable, absurd and barren. It
was this same God who guides events at His will that inspired and
sustained the devoted missionaries in their efforts against the
revenue-farmers in the matter of the sale of intoxicating liquors to the
savages. The struggle which they maintained, supported by the venerable
Bishop of Petraea, is wholly to their honour; it was a question of saving
even against their will the unfortunate children of the woods who were
addicted to the fatal passion of intoxication. Unhappily, the Governors
d'Avaugour and de Mezy, in supporting the greed of the traders, were
perhaps right from the political point of view, but certainly wrong from
a philanthropic and Christian standpoint.

The colony continuing to prosper, and the growing need of a national
clergy becoming more and more felt, Mgr. de Laval founded in 1663 a
seminary at Quebec. The king decided that the tithes raised from the
colonists should be collected by the seminary, which was to provide for
the maintenance of the priests and for divine service in the established
parishes. The Sovereign Council fixed the tithe at a twenty-sixth.

The missionaries continued, none the less, to spread the light of the
gospel and Christian civilization. It seems that the field of their
labour had never been too vast for their desire. Ever onward! was their
motto. While Fathers Garreau and Mesnard found death among the
Algonquins on the coasts of Lake Superior, the Sulpicians Dollier and
Gallinee were planting the cross on the shores of Lake Erie; Father
Claude Allouez was preaching the gospel beyond Lake Superior; Fathers
Dablon, Marquette, and Druilletes were establishing the mission of Sault
Ste. Marie; Father Albanel was proceeding to explore Hudson Ba