e time, especially the present
time), 'all the people shall answer Amen!' for one loyal heart, just
now, is more precious than millions of fat acres. Whether Illinois could
prudently submit to this appraisal, just at the present moment, remains
to be proved; but that her heart is loyal as well as brave, there can be
no question.

Without going back, in philosophical style, to the creation of the
world, we may say that the State had a good beginning. Father Marquette
and his pious comrade Allouez, both soldiers of the Cross, explored her
northern wilds for God, and not for greed. They saw her solid and serene
beauty, and presaged her greatness, and they did all that wise and
devoted Catholic missionaries could do toward sanctifying her soil to
good ends forever. They found 'a peaceful and manly tribe' in her
interior, the name Illinois signifying 'men of men,' and the superiority
of the tribe to all the other Indians of the region justifying the
appellation. Allouez said, 'Their country is the best field for the
gospel,' and he planted it as well as he could with what he believed to
be the Tree of Life, long nourished with the prayers and tears of
himself and his successors. The Indians took kindly to the teaching of
the good and wise Frenchman, and it is said that even after troubles had
begun to arise, owing, as usual, to the misconduct of rapacious and
unprincipled white settlers, many of the Indians held fast by their
newly adopted faith, and even showed some good fruits of it in
forbearance and honesty of dealing. All this was not far from
contemporary with the period when Cotton Mather, in New England, while
teaching the principles of civil government, was persecuting Quakers and
burning witches; and in yet another part of the new country, William
Penn, neither Catholic nor Puritan, was making fair and honest treaties
with savages, and winning them, by the negative virtue of truthfulness,
to believe that white men could be friends.

The Great Colbert, minister to Louis XIV, under whose auspices the
French missionaries had been sent out, very soon came to the conclusion
that it was important to enlarge and strengthen French influence in this
great new country, particularly after he had ascertained the existence
of the 'Great River,' which Father Marquette had undertaken to explore,
and by means of which he expected to open trade with China! But the
minister of finance required rather more worldly agents than the
s