non of moral mechanism? Who
can define the Jesuits? The story of their missions is marvellous as a
tale of chivalry, or legends of the lives of saints. For many years, it
was the history of New France and of the wild communities of her desert
empire.

Two years passed. The mission of the Hurons was established, and here
the indomitable Breheuf, with a band worthy of him, toiled amid
miseries and perils as fearful as ever shook the constancy of man; while
Champlain at Quebec, in a life uneventful, yet harassing and laborious,
was busied in the round of cares which his post involved.

Christmas day, 1635, was a dark day in the annals of New France. In a
chamber of the fort, breathless and cold, lay the hardy frame which
war, the wilderness, and the sea had buffeted so long in vain. After two
months and a half of illness, Champlain, stricken with paralysis, at the
age of sixty-eight, was dead. His last cares were for his colony and the
succor of its suffering families. Jesuits, officers, soldiers, traders,
and the few settlers of Quebec followed his remains to the church; Le
Jeune pronounced his eulogy, and the feeble community built a tomb to
his honor.

The colony could ill spare him. For twenty-seven years he had labored
hard and ceaselessly for its welfare, sacrificing fortune, repose, and
domestic peace to a cause embraced with enthusiasm and pursued with
intrepid persistency. His character belonged partly to the past, partly
to the present. The preux chevalier, the crusader, the romance-loving
explorer, the curious, knowledge-seeking traveler, the practical
navigator, all claimed their share in him. His views, though far beyond
those of the mean spirits around him, belonged to his age and his creed.
He was less statesman than soldier. He leaned to the most direct and
boldest policy, and one of his last acts was to petition Richelieu for
men and munitions for repressing that standing menace to the colony, the
Iroquois. His dauntless courage was matched by an unwearied patience,
proved by life-long vexations, and not wholly subdued even by the
saintly follies of his wife. He is charged with credulity, from which
few of his age were free, and which in all ages has been the foible of
earnest and generous natures, too ardent to criticise, and too honorable
to doubt the honor of others. Perhaps the heretic might have liked him
more if the Jesuit had liked him less. The adventurous explorer of Lake
Huron, the bold invade