imself with but one wife, hardly
a superlative merit in a centenarian. Biard taught him to say the Lord's
Prayer, though at the petition, "Give us this clay our daily bread," the
chief remonstrated, saying, "If I ask for nothing but bread, I shall
get no fish or moose meat." His protracted career was now drawing to
a close, and, being brought to the settlement in a dying state, he
was placed in Biard's bed and attended by the two Jesuits. He was
as remarkable in person as in character, for he was bearded like a
Frenchman. Though, alone among La Fleche's converts, the Faith seemed to
have left some impression upon him, he insisted on being buried with
his heathen forefathers, but was persuaded to forego a wish fatal to his
salvation, and slept at last in consecrated ground.

Another of the scanty fruits of the mission was a little girl on
the point of death, whom Biard had asked her parents to give him for
baptism. "Take her and keep her, if you like," was the reply, "for she
is no better than a dead dog." "We accepted the offer," says Biard,
"in order to show them the difference between Christianity and their
impiety; and after giving her what care we could, together with some
instruction, we baptized her. We named her after Madame the Marquise de
Guercheville, in gratitude for the benefits we have received from that
lady, who can now rejoice that her name is already in heaven; for, a few
days after baptism, the chosen soul flew to that place of glory."

Biard's greatest difficulty was with the Micmac language. Young
Biencourt was his best interpreter, and on common occasions served him
well; but the moment that religion was in question he was, as it were,
stricken dumb,--the reason being that the language was totally without
abstract terms. Biard resolutely set himself to the study of it,--a hard
and thorny path, on which he made small progress, and often went astray.
Seated, pencil in hand, before some Indian squatting on the floor, whom
with the bribe of a mouldy biscuit he had lured into the hut, he plied
him with questions which he often neither would nor could answer.
What was the Indian word for Faith, Hope, Charity, Sacrament, Baptism,
Eucharist, Trinity, Incarnation? The perplexed savage, willing to
amuse himself, and impelled, as Biard thinks, by the Devil, gave him
scurrilous and unseemly phrases as the equivalent of things holy, which,
studiously incorporated into the father's Indian catechism, produced on