ne, cultivated and high-minded, exiling
himself from his white brethren for a whole season, which he spent with a
band of Algonquins, roaming the wintry forests with them, sharing their
hunger and cold and filth, sometimes on the verge of perishing from sheer
starvation, at other times, when game chanced to be plentiful, revolted
by the gorging of his companions, at all times disgusted by their
nastiness. "I told them again and again," he writes, "that if dogs and
swine could talk, they would use just such speech;" a remark which shows,
by the way, that the good friar did not think so highly of dumb animals
as we do in these more enlightened days.

But he had abundant charity, and he noted that underneath all this coarse
rudeness there was genuine fellowship among these savages; that they
cheerfully helped one another, and when food was scarce, fairly
distributed the smallest portion among all. Such observations helped him
to endure his lot with serenity, even when he was himself made the butt
of the coarsest jokes. He survived his hard experiences and, after five
months of roaming, exhausted and worn to a shadow, rejoined the brethren
in the rude convent at Quebec.

{151}

There was much of this fine spirit about the best of the Jesuits. But,
besides this individual devotion, there was another important
circumstance: they were only private soldiers in a great army. They had
no will of their own, for one of the first principles of the Order was
absolute obedience. Wherever their superiors might send them they must
go without a question. Whatever they might be ordered to do, they must
do it without a murmur.

It became the policy of the leading men of the Order in Canada to
establish missionary posts among the Hurons who, living in fixed
habitations, were more hopeful subjects than the roving Algonquins of the
St. Lawrence region. It would be a great gain, they reasoned, if these
people could be brought within the pale of the Church. At the same time
that so many souls would be saved from everlasting flames, the immensely
lucrative fur-trade of a vast region would be secured to the French, and
the King would gain thousands of dusky subjects. Canada would flourish,
the fur-traders would grow richer than ever, and France would be in the
way of extending her rule ever farther and further over the western
forests and waters--all through the {152} exertions of a few faithful and
single-hearted men who went to pr