more patient thinking of England. But it has been her privilege to teach to England and the world one of the grandest of lessons. She has asserted the political rights of the masses. She has proved to us that it is safe and wise to trust the people. She has taught that the government of the people should be "by the people and for the people.' Let our last word here be a thankful acknowledgment of the inestimable service which she has thus rendered to mankind.

POSTSCRIPT.*

PRESIDENT GARFIELD.

THE reconstruction of the Union was completed during General Grant's term of office. The presidentship of his successor, Mr. Rutherford B. Hayes, was uneventful. It was not on that account the less fruitful in good results. The complete amalgamation of the North and the South could only be the work of time. President Hayes helped forward this useful work. He visited the South in his first year of office, and was everywhere well received.

The census of 1880 showed the population of the United States to be upward of fifty million. The increase during the previous ten years had been eleven million and a half, or at the extraordinary rate of more than a million a year.

During Mr. Hayes's presidentship two questions became prominent, and sharply divided political parties. These were the resumption of cash payments and the reform of the Civil Service.

The currency controversy is remarkable for having brought the President into conflict with Congress. The Bland Silver Bill, making the silver dollar a legal tender, was passed by large majorities both in the House of Representatives and in the Senate. President Hayes had no faith in the doctrine of bi-metallism, and he vetoed the bill. The bill was repassed in both Houses by a two-thirds majority, and became law in spite of the presidential veto. The conflict subjected the Constitution to a severe strain. But the crisis passed quietly, showing how well-grounded is the faith of the Americans in the fitness of their Constitution to meet all exigencies. The demand for a reform in the Civil Service had been growing for years. The revelations of electoral corruption filled men of independent spirit with shame and confusion. The evil practices were not confined to a particular party. Republicans and Democrats were equally unscrupulous. It was proved by strict inquiry that in two States the majority for President Hayes himself had been obtained by fraudulent means. The constitutional custom which makes every office in the Civil Service, from the highest to the lowest, change hands whenever power is transferred from one party to another, was felt to be the root of the evil.

When President James Garfield assumed office in March, 1881, he announced his intention of dealing firmly and earnestly with the question of administrative reform. Garfield's election to the dignity of President was unexpected. The chief Republican candidates were General Grant, who had previously held the office for two terms, Secretary Sherman, and Senator Blaine. In the Republican convention held at Chicago for the selection of a candidate, General Garfield acted as manager of the party which supported Sherman. When he was first proposed he declined to become a candidate. It was only when Sherman's success was seen to be impossible, and when all the parties opposed to Grant coalesced in favor of Garfield, that his name came to the front. He was ultimately chosen unanimously as the Republican candidate, on the ground that he divided the party the least. In the election itself, which was mainly determined by the vote of New York State, Garfield defeated his Democratic opponent, General Hancock, by 219 votes to 185.

Comparatively little was known about the new President before he was elected. Even in America his selection was a surprise. The chief fact that was known about him was that he had risen, like Abraham Lincoln, from the humblest origin. He had been born in a log-hut in a forest of Ohio. He had begun life on the tow-path as a driver of mules which dragged a canal-boat between Cleveland and Pittsburg. By his own energy alone he had risen. He had been a professor, a preacher, a successful soldier, a practical lawyer, a bold and ready party leader. Throughout life he had been noted for fearless honesty. In his public career no taint of corruption was found attaching to any part of his conduct. The man who should undertake to reform the abuses in the official system of America must himself have clean hands, and Garfield's hands were clean.

General Garfield's election was held to be a great triumph for the Republican party, but especially for that section of it which advocated Civil Service reform. He had made no secret of his opinions on that subject. In the outline of his political creed, which he issued soon after his selection as Republican candidate, he expressed his agreement with those who urged the necessity of "placing the Civil Service on a better basis." The remedy to which he pointed was that Congress should devise a method that will determine the tenure of office." In his inaugural address on assuming office, he intimated his intention of taking steps to apply this remedy. Two objects, he said, must be aimed at. The one was to protect the executive against the waste of time and the obstruction to public business caused by the inordinate pressure for place." The other was to protect the holders of office "against intrigue and wrong.' To effect both objects, he would "at the proper time ask Congress

* This short chapter has been added, since the author's death, by another hand.

to fix the tenure of the minor offices of several executive departments, and prescribe grounds upon which removals shall be made." Farther, he announced his purpose "to demand rigid economy in all expenditures of the Government, and to require honest and faithful service of all the executive officers, remembering that their offices were created, not for the benefit of the incumbents or their suppor ers, but for the service of the Government.

These declarations did not give unmixed satisfaction to the Fe publican party. The anti-reform section of it, which still holds by President Jackson's maxim, "The spoils to the victors," regardel them as in some sense a declaration of war. It is certain that to the hopes of place-hunters they were a serious blow. For his hones desire to rid the public offices of these pests, and at the same time t purify the Government, the President was made to pay a terrible penalty. Within the railway-station at Washington he was shot in the back by a man named Charles Guiteau, who for several days had been importuning the authorities at the White House for place. The useless and utterly wanton crime sent a thrill of horror through America, through England, through the civilized world. The shot did not at once prove fatal; but that only made the cruelty of the deed the more intense. For eleven weeks through the heat of summer (July 2 till September 19) the President's life trembled in the balance. He bore his sufferings with marvellous patience and fortitude. The calamity brought out the manly strength and the simple beauty of his character with the brilliancy of sunset.

"In the reproof of chance Lies the true proof of men."

Seldom if ever before has there been so striking an instance of misfortune raising a good man to world-wide renown. Hardly less beautiful than the President's cheerful endurance was the heroic devotion of his wife. "It is no exaggeration to say," said Mr. James Russell Lowell, the American Minister in London, "that the recent profoundly-touching spectacle of womanly devotedness, in its simplicity, its constancy, and its dignity, has moved the heart of mankind in a manner without any precedent in living memory. During the whole of these "eleven agonizing weeks" the bed of the dying President was the centre of interest to men and women of all ranks in both hemispheres. "The whole civilized world," said Mr. Lowell, "gathered about it; and in the breathless suspense of anxious solicitude listened to the difficult breathing, counted the fluttering pulse, was cheered by the momentary rally, and saddened by the inevitable relapse."

At length the end came with startling suddenness. It was followed by a universal wail. All humanity mourned as if it had lost a brother. The sentiment pervaded all classes, from crowned heads to humble peasants. The Queen of England was foremost in her offers of sympathy, not only with the sorrowing widow and mother, but also with the bereaved nation; and staunch Republicans were fain to acknowledge "how true a woman's heart may beat under the royal purple.' The English Court was ordered to go into mourning, as for one of royal blood and ancient lineage. The act was as graceful and as wise as it was unprecedented. The head of the young Republic was, by the spontaneous act of the head of the ancient Kingdom, recognized in his due place as one of the community of monarchs and princes. A hundred years ago, who could have anticipated such an event?

It would be a mistake to suppose that the death of President Garfield created the warm feelings of sympathy between England and America which the event revealed. It is true, however, that the event opened at once the hearts and the eyes of both peoples, and brought to light the depth and the strength of their brotherhood, in a way that nothing else could have done. The brotherly feelings on the part of England were heartily and even touchingly reciprocated in America. After the coffin of the deceased President had been closed only one wreath was allowed to rest on it, and that was the wreath sent by the Queen of England. To the world this was a token of peace and good-will firmly established between England and America-of the oneness of the English-speaking race in their common homage to President and to Queen. If the result shall be to strengthen permanently the bond between the kindred peoplesto root out jealousies and smooth over asperities, to produce generosity in the midst of rivalry and co-operation in good works-President Garfield will not have died in vain.

"He was no common man," said Mr. Lowell, in his graceful and eloquent panegyric, “who could call forth, and justly call forth, an emotion so universal, an interest so sincere and so human.” And that is no common country which can produce such a man, and give him the opportunity of achieving greatness. Garfield's career teaches many lessons; but it shows nothing more clearly than the great possibilities which his country opens up to honesty and persevering labor. "The poor lad who at thirteen could not read, dies at fifty the tenant of an office second in dignity to none on earth; and the world mourns his loss as that of a personal relative."

"The soil out of which such men as he were made is good to be born on, good to live on, good to die for and to be buried in."

The peace and naturalness with which Vice-president Arthur at once succeeded to the presidential functions, without shock to the political system and without detriment to the national honor, justifies the pride of the Americans in the stability of their institutions.

surrender. Champlain, powerless to resist, yielded to fate and gave up his capital. When the conquerors landed to seek the plunder for which they had come, they found a few old muskets and cannor and fifty poorly-fed men. The growth of twenty years had done no more for Quebec than this.

This man was the founder of Canada. During thirty years he toiled incessantly to plant and foster settlements, to send out missionaries, to repel the inroads of the English, to protect the rights of France in the fur-trade and in the fisheries of Newfoundland. The immediate success which attended his labors was inconsiderable. His settlements refused to make progress; the savage tribes for whose souls he cared were extirpated by enemies whose hostility he had helped to incur; the English destroyed ships which were bringing him supplies; they besieged and captured Quebec itself. He died without seeing the greatness of the colony which he loved, but which, nevertheless, owed the beginnings of its greatness to him. One of the earliest concerns of Champlain was to choose a site for the capital of the French empire in the West. As Cartier had done three-quarters of a century before, he chose the magnificent headland of Quebec. At the foot of the rock he erected a square of buildings enclosing a court, surrounded by a wall and a moat, and defended by a few pieces of cannon. This rude fort became the centre of French influence in Canada during the next hundred and fifty years, till the English relieved France of responsibility and influence on the American continent.

Champlain received cordial welcome from the Huron Indians, who were his neighbors. These savages were overmatched by their ancient enemies the Iroquois, and they besought the Frenchmen to lend them the help of their formidable arms. Champlain consented -moved in part by his love of battle, in part by his desire to explore an unknown country. He and some of his men accompanied his new allies on their march. The Iroquois warriors met them confidently, expecting the customary victory. They were received with a volley of musketry, which stretched some on the ground, and caused panic and flight of the whole force. But Champlain had reason to regret the foreign policy which he had adopted. The Hurons took many prisoners, whom, as their practice was, they proceeded to torture to death. In a subsequent expedition the allies were defeated, and Champlain himself was wounded-circumstances which, for a time, sensibly diminished his authority. And the hostility of the Iroquois, thus unwisely provoked, resulted in the utter destruction of the Hurons, and involved the yet unstable colony in serious jeopardy.

Champlain enjoyed the support of King Henry IV., who listened to his glowing accounts of the country in which he was so profoundly interested, who praised the wisdom of his government, and encouraged him to persevere. But, despite of royal favor, his task was a heavy one. There were in his company both Romanists and Calvinists, who bore with them into the forest the discords which then made France miserable. Champlain tells that he has seen a Protestant minister and a curé attempting to settle with blows of the fist their controversial differences. Such occurrences, he points out, were not likely to yield fruit to the glory of God among the infidels whom he desired to convert. At home his prerogatives were the playthings of political parties. To-day he obtained vast powers and rich grants of land; to-morrow some court intrigue swept these all away. There was an "Association of Merchants" who had received a valuable trading monopoly under pledge that they would send out men to colonize and priests to instruct. But the faithless merchants sought only to purchase furs at low prices from the Indians. It was to their advantage that the Indian, and the wild creatures which he pursued, should continue to occupy the continent, undisturbed by the coming in of strangers. And thus they thwarted to the utmost all Champlain's efforts. In defiance of authority, they paid in fire-arms and brandy for the furs which were brought to them; and the red men, whose souls Champlain so earnestly desired to save, were being corrupted and destroyed by the greed of his countrymen.

Some years after Champlain's first expedition a few Englishmen landed in mid-winter on the coast of Massachusetts, and, without help of kings or nobles, began to grow strong by their own inherent energy and the constant accession to their number of persons dissatisfied at home. It was not so with the French settlements on the St. Lawrence. Champlain was continually returning to France to entreat the King for help; to seek a new patron among the nobles; to compel the merchants to fulfil their compact by sending out a few colonists. No Frenchman was desirous to find a home beyond the sea; all bore in quietness a despotism worse than that from which the more impatient Englishmen had fled. The natural inap titude of France for the work of colonizing was vividly illustrated in the early history of Canada.

Near the close of Champlain's life the capital of the State which he had founded was torn away from him. An English ship, commissioned by Charles I. and commanded by a piratical Scotchman,

The loss of Canada caused no regret in France. There were pub lic men who regarded that loss as in reality a gain, and advised tha France should make no effort to regain her troublesome dependency. But Champlain urged upon the government the great value of the fur trade and fisheries; he showed that the difficulties of the settle ment were now overcome, and that progress in the future must be more rapid than in the past; he pleaded that the savages who wer beginning to receive the light of the true faith should not be given over to heretics. His urgency prevailed; and England, not more solicitous to keep than France was to regain this unappreciated con tinent, readily consented that it should be restored to its former

owners.

Three years afterward Champlain died. He saw nothing of the greatness for which he had prepared the way. The colonists numbered yet only a few hundreds. The feeble existence of the settlement depended upon the good-will of the Englishmen who were their neighbors on the south, and of the fierce savages who lived in the forests around them. But Champlain was able to estimate, in some measure, the results of the work which he had done. He sustained himself to the end with the hope that the Canada which he loved would one day be prosperous and strong-peopled by good Catholics from France, and by savages rescued from destruction by baptism and the exhibition of the Cross.

The Canada of Champlain's day was a region stretching thirteen hundred miles northward from the frontier line of the New Eng land settlements, and seven hundred miles westward from the mouth of the St. Lawrence. Besides Canada, France possessed Newfoundland and Nova Scotia; and she claimed all the unknown territory to the north, the character and extent of which were veiled from human knowledge by cold so intense that men had not yet dared to encounter it. The great river, with its tributaries, and the vast lakes out of which it flows, opened convenient access into the heart of the country, and made commerce easy. On the high lands were dense forests of oak and pine and maple, beech, chestnut, and elm In the plains were great areas of rich agricultural land capable of supporting a large population, but useless as yet; for the Indians deemed agriculture effeminate, and chose to live mainly by the chase. The climate is severe and the winter long, especially toward the mouth of the St. Lawrence, where at certain seasons the cold be comes greater than the human frame can endure. Everywhere the heat of summer is great, and the transition from the fierce extreme of cold to the warmth of the delightful Canadian spring is sudden. The desolate woods burst into rich green foliage; the valleys clothe themselves as by magic with grass and flowers. The great heat of summer follows with equal suddenness, and the harvest of grain or of fruits ripens as quickly as it sprung.

The cold of the Canadian winter was greatly more influential than the heat of the Canadian summer in fixing the character and pursuits of the savages who occupied the country. In a climate where frost rends asunder rocks and trees, and gives to iron power to burn as if it were red-hot, life could not be sustained without a special defence against the intolerable severity. Nature had amply provided for the welfare of the wild creatures which she had called into being. The buffalo and musk-ox which wandered over the plains were endowed with masses of shaggy hair which defied the cold even of a Canadian winter. The bear which prepared for himself a restingplace in the hollow trunk of an old tree, where he could sleep out the tedious months of frost, was clothed suitably to his circumstances. The beaver which built his house in the centre of Canadian streams was wrapped in rich, warm, glossy fur. The fox, the wolverene, the squirrel, and many others, enjoyed the same effective protection. The Indians needed the skins of these creatures for clothing, their flesh for food. And thus it came to pass that the French found in Canada only wild things, which walked the forests in coverings of beautiful and valuable fur; and human beings, but one degree higher in intelligence, who lived by slaying them. One of the strongest impulses which drew Europeans to Canada was not her rich soil, nor the timber of her inexhaustible forests, nor her treasures of copper and of iron, but the skins of the beasts which frequented her valleys and her woods.

Numerous tribes of savages inhabited the Canadian wilderness. They ordinarily lived in villages built of logs, and strongly palisaded to resist the attack of enemies. They were robust and enduring, as the climate required; daring in war, friendly and docile in peace. The torture of an enemy was their highest form of enjoyment: when the victim bore his sufferings bravely the youth of the village ate his heart in order that they might become possessed of his virtues. They had orators, politicians, chiefs skilled to lead in their rude wars. Most of their weapons were of flint. They felled the great pines of their forests with stone axes, supplemented by the use of fire. Their canoes were made of the bark of birch or elm. They wore breastplates of twigs. It was their habit to occupy large houses, in some of which as many as twenty families lived together without any separation. Licentiousness was universal and exces

sive. Their religion was a series of grovelling superstitions. There was not in any Indian language a word to express the idea of God: their heaven was one vast banqueting-hall where men feasted perpetually. The origin of the American savage awakened at one time much controversy among the learned. Had there been a plurality of creative acts? Had Europeans at some remote period been driven by contrary winds across the great sea? If not, where did the red man arise, and by what means did he reach the continent where white men found him? When these questions were debated, it was not known how closely Asia and America approach each other at the extreme north. A narrow strait divides the two continents, and the Asiatic savage of the far north-east crosses it easily. The red men are Asiatics, who, by a short voyage without terrors to them, reached the north-western coast of America, and gradually pushed their way over the continent. The great secret which Columbus revealed to Europe had been for ages known to the Asiatic tribes of the extreme north.

CHAPTER III.

THE JESUITS IN CANADA.

THE Reformation had made so large progress in France that at the beginning of the seventeenth century the Protestants were able to regard themselves as forming one-half of the nation. They had accomplished this progress in the face of terrible difficulties. The false maxim prevailed in France, as in other countries, that as there was but one king and one government, there should be but one faith. Vast efforts were made to regain this lost uniformity. The vain pursuit cost France thirty-five years of civil war, and two million French lives. At its close half her towns were in ashes; her industries had perished; her fields were desolated. The law gave no protection to Protestants: a Catholic noble riding with his followers past a Protestant meeting-place occasionally paused to slaughter the little congregation, and then resumed his journey, not doubting that he had done to God and to the State an acceptable service. The Protestants undertook their own armed defence; made laws for themselves; maintained, in so far as it was possible, a government distinct from that of their persecutors. There were two nations of not extremely unequal strength living on the soil of France, with fierce mutual hatred raging in their hearts, and finding expression in in cessant war, assassination, massacre. At length these horrors were allayed by the Edict of Nantes, which conceded full liberty of conscience. The Pope cursed this hateful concession; but the strong arm of Henry IV. maintained it. For a time the ferocity of religious strife was mitigated, and the adherents of the new faith enjoyed unwonted calm.

The sword was no longer a weapon of theological war; the deep and irrepressible antagonism of the old and the new beliefs found now its inadequate expression by pen and by speech. The interest which prevailed regarding disputed ecclesiastical questions became exceptionally strong. Theological dogmas filled an influential place in the politics of the time. The Protestant Synod adopted in its Confession of Faith an article which charged the Pope with being Antichrist. His Holiness manifested a grand irritation;" the King declared that this article threatened to destroy the peace of the kingdom. For four years a fierce contest raged, till another Synod withdrew the offending article by express order of the King, after having with unanimous voice declared that the charge was true. Philippe de Mornay, one of the King's most trusted advisers, and a devoted adherent of Protestantism, had written a treatise against the Real Presence, supporting his argument by five or six thousand quotations, which he had laboriously gathered from the writings of the early Fathers. One of the bishops impugned his accuracy, and Mornay challenged him to & public discussion. The meeting-place was the grand hall of the palace of Fontainebleau. The combatants debated in presence of the King, before a brilliant audience of great officers of state, of lords and ladies who formed the royal court, of all great dignitaries of the kingdom. So effectively, for the time, had the Reformation and its consequences dispelled the religious apathy of France.

It had, indeed, left unaffected the manners of a large portion of French society. The great lords retained professional assassins among their followers. It was as easy then to get the address of a stabber or a poisoner as it is now to get that of a hotel. In the highest places licentiousness was unconcealed and unrebuked. Crime associated itself with superstition, and the courtiers made wax figures of their enemies, which they transfixed with pins, hoping thus to destroy those whom the figures represented. The religious zeal which burnt in every heart, and retained its vigor amid this enormous wickedness, was nowhere stronger than among the members of the Society of Jesus. It moulded into very dissimilar forms, and guided into widely different lines of action, those sworn servants of the Church. For the most part it revealed itself in nothing higher than a readiness to serve the purposes of the Church, however unworthy, by any conduct, however criminal. But among the Jesuits, too, there were men of pure and noble nature, whose religious zeal found its sole gratification in toil and danger and self-sacrifice to promote the glory of God and save perishing heathen souls.

Champlain had never ceased to press upon the spiritual chiefs of France the claims of those savages for whose welfare he himself cared so deeply. For many years he spoke almost in vain, and his toilsome and frustrated career had nearly reached its close before the

Jesuits entered in good earnest upon the work of Indian conversion. Six priests and two lay brothers, sworn to have no will but that of their superiors, laid the foundation of the great enterprise. Under the shadow of the rock on which Quebec stands arose a one-story building of planks and mud, thatched with grass, and affording but poor shelter from rain and wind. This was the residence of Our Lady of the Angels-the cradle of the influence which was to change the savage red men of Canada into followers of the Cross. The Father Superior of the Mission was Paul le Jeune, a man devoted in every fibre of mind and heart to the work on which he had come. He utterly scorned difficulty and pain. He had received the order to depart for Canada "with inexpressible joy at the prospect of a living or dying martyrdom." Among his companions was Jean de Brébeuf, a man noble in birth and aspect, of strong intellect and will, of zeal which knew no limit, and recognized no obstacle in the path of duty. The winter was unusually severe. The snow-drift stood higher than the roof of the humble residence; the fathers, sitting by their log-fire, heard the forest-trees crack with loud report under the power of intense frost. Le Jeune's earliest care was to gain some knowledge of the savage tongue spoken by the tribes around him. He was commended, for the prosecution of that design, to a withered old squaw, who regaled him with smoked eels while they conversed. After a time he obtained the services of an interpreter-a young Indian known as Pierre, who could speak both languages. Pierre had been converted and baptized; but the power of good influences within him was not abiding, and his frequent backslidings grieved the Father Superior. A band of savages invited Le Jeune to accompany them on a winter hunting expedition; and he did so, moved by the hope that he might gain their hearts as well as acquire their language. Among the supplies which his friends persuaded him to carry was a small keg of wine. Scarcely had the expedition set out when the apostate Pierre found opportunity to tap the keg, and appeared in the camp hopelessly and furiously intoxicated. The sufferings of the good father from hunger and from cold were excessive. His success in instructing the savages was not considerable. He endured much from Pierre's brother, who followed the occupation of sorcerer. This deceptive person, being employed to assist Le Jeune in preparing addresses, constantly palmed off upon him very foul words, which provoked the noisy mirth of the assembled wigwam, and grievously diminished the efficacy of his teaching. The missionary regained his home at Quebec after five months of painful wandering. He had accomplished little; but he had learned to believe that his labor was wasted among these scanty wandering tribes, and that it was necessary to find access to one of the larger and more stable communities into which the Indians were divided.

Far in the west, beside a great lake of which the Jesuits had vaguely heard, dwelt the Hurons, a powerful nation, with_many kindred tribes, over which they exercised influence. The Jesuits resolved to found a mission among the Hurons. Once in every year a fleet of canoes came down the great river, bearing six or seven hundred Huron warriors, who visited Quebec to dispose of their furs, to gamble, and to steal. Brébeuf and two companions took passage with the returning fleet, and set out for the dreary scene of their new apostolate. The way was very long-scarcely less than a thousand miles; it occupied thirty toilsome days. The priests journeyed separately, and were able to hold no conversation with one another or with their Indian companions. They were barefooted, as the use of shoes would have endangered the frail bark canoe. Their food was a little Indian corn crushed between two stones and mixed with water. At each of the numerous rapids or falls which stopped their way the voyagers shouldered the canoe and the baggage, and marched painfully through the forest till they had passed the obstacle. The Indians were often spent with fatigue, and Brébeuf feared that his strong frame would sink under the excessive toil.

The Hurons received with hospitable welcome the black-robed strangers. The priests were able to repay the kindness with services of high value. They taught more effective methods of fortifying the town in which they lived. They promised the help of a few French musketeers against an impending attack by the Iroquois. They cured diseases; they bound up wounds. They gave simple instruction to the young, and gained the hearts of their pupils by gifts of beads and raisins. The elders of the people came to have the faith explained to them: they readily owned that it was a good faith for the French, but they could not be persuaded that it was suitable for the red man. The fathers labored in hope, and the savages learned to love them. Their gentleness, their courage, their disinterestedness won respect and confidence; and they had many invitations from chiefs of distant villages to come and live with them. It was feared that the savages regarded them merely as sorcerers of unusual power; and they were constantly applied to for spells, now to give victory in battle, now to destroy grasshoppers. They were held answerable for the weather; they had the credit or the blame of what good or evil fortune befell the tribe. They labored in deep earnestness, for to them heaven and hell were very real and very near. The unseen world lay close around them, mingling at every point with the affairs of earth. They were visited

"One must be ready," wrote this devout priest, full of faith, "to abandon life and all he has, contenting himself, as his only riches, with a cross-very large and very heavy."

by angels; they were withstood by manifest troops of demons. St. Joseph, their patron, held occasional communication with them; even the Virgin herself did not disdain to visit and cheer her servants. Once, as Brébeuf walked cast down in spirit by threatened war, he saw in the sky, slowly advancing toward the Huron territory, a huge cross, which told him of coming and inevitable doom. Some of their methods of conversion were exceedingly rude. A letter from Father Garnier has been preserved, in which pictures are ordered from France for the spiritual improvement of the Indians. Many representations of souls in perdition are required, with appropriate accompaniment of flames and triumphant demons tearing them with pincers. One picture of saved souls would suffice, and "a picture of Christ without beard."* They were consumed by a zeal for the baptism of little children. At the outset the Indians welcomed this ceremonial, believing that it was a charm to avert sickness and death. But when epidemics wasted them they charged the calamity against the mysterious operations of the fathers, and refused now to permit baptism. The fathers recognized the hand of Satan in this prohibition, and refused to submit to it. They baptized by stealth. A priest visited the hut where a sick child laythe mother watching lest he should perform the fatal rite. He would give the child a little sugared water. Slyly and unseen he dips his finger in the water, touches the poor wasted face, mutters the sacramental words, and soon "the little savage is changed into a little angel."

The missionaries were subjected to hardship such as the human frame could not long endure. They were men accustomed to the comforts and refinements of civilized life; they had tasted the charms of French society in its highest forms. Their associations now were with men sunk till humanity could fall no lower. They followed the tribes in their long winter wanderings in quest of food. They were in perils often from hunger, from cold, from sudden attack of enemies, from the superstitious fears of those whom they sought to save. They slept on the frozen ground, or, still worse, in a crowded tent, half suffocated by smoke, deafened by noise, sickened by filth. Self-sacrifice more absolute the world has never seen. A love of perishing heathen souls was the impulse which animated them; a deep and solemn enthusiasm upheld them under trials as great as humanity has ever endured. That they were themselves the victims of erring religious belief is most certain; but none the less do their sublime faith, their noble devotedness and patience and gentleness claim our admiration and our love.

The Huron Mission had now been established for five years. During those painful years the missionaries had labored with burning zeal and absolute forgetfulness of self; but they had not achieved any considerable success. The children whom they had baptized either died or they grew up in heathenism. There were some adult converts, one or two of whom were of high promise; but the majority were eminently disappointing. Once the infant church suffered a grievous rent by the withdrawal of converts who feared a heaven in which, as they were informed, tobacco would be denied to them. The manners of the nation had experienced no amelioration. No limitation in the number of wives had been conceded to the earnest remonstrances of the missionaries. Captive enemies were still tortured and eaten by the assembled nation. In time, the patient, self-denying labor of the fathers might have won those discouraging savages to the Cross; but a fatal interruption was at hand. A powerful and relentless enemy, bent on extermination, was about to sweep over the Huron territory, involving the savages and their teachers in one common ruin.

Thirty-two years had passed since those ill-judged expeditions in which Champlain had given help to the Hurons against the Iroquois. The unforgiving savages had never forgotten the wrong. A new generation inherited the feud, and was at length prepared to exact the fitting vengeance. The Iroquois had trading relations with the Dutchmen of Albany on the Hudson, who had supplied them with fire-arms. About one-half of their warriors were now armed with muskets, and were able to use them. They overran the country of the Hurons; they infested the neighborhood of the French settlements. Boundless forests stretched all around; on the great river forest trees on both sides dipped their branches in the stream. When Frenchmen travelled in the woods for a little distance from their homes, they were set upon by the lurking savages and often slain; when they sailed on the river, hostile canoes shot out from ambush. No man now could safely hunt or fish or till his ground. The Iroquois attacked in overwhelming force the towns of their Huron enemies; forced the inadequate defences; burnt the palisades and wooden huts; slaughtered with indescribable tortures the wretched inhabitants. In one of these towns they found Brébeuf and one of his companions. They bound the ill-fated missionaries to stakes; they hung around their necks collars of red-hot iron; they poured boiling water on their heads; they cut stripes of flesh from their quivering limbs and ate them in their sight. To the last Brébeuf cheered with hopes of heaven the native converts who shared his agony. And thus was gained the crown of martyrdom for which, in the fervor of their enthusiasm, these good men had long yearned. In a few years the Huron nation was extinct; famine and smallpox swept off those whom the Iroquois spared. The Huron MisThe fathers were wise in their generation. The Indians hated beards, and sacred representations.

extirpated their own. It was judicious to omit this distasteful feature from all

sion was closed by the extirpation of the race for whom it was founded. Many of the missionaries perished; some returned to France. Their labor seemed to have been in vain; their years of toil and suffering had left no trace. It was their design to change the savages of Canada into good Catholics, industrious farmers, ley al subjects of France. If they had been successful, Canada would have attracted a more copious immigration, and a New France might have been solidly established on the American contineat. The feudal system would have cumbered the earth for generations longer; Catholicism, the irreconcilable enemy to freedom of thought and to human progress, would have overspread and blighted the valley of the St. Lawrence. For once the fierce Iroquois were the allies and vindicators of liberty. Their cruel arms gave a new course to Canadian history. They frustrated plans whose succes would have wedded Northern America to despotism in Church and in State. They prepared a way for the conquest of New France by the English, and thus helped, influentially, to establish free institu tions over those vast regions which lie to the northward of the Great Lakes. CHAPTER IV.

THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

THE discovery of the Mississippi by Ferdinand de Soto was not immediately productive of benefit. For nearly a century and a half after this ill-fated explorer slept beneath the waters which he had been the first to cross, the "Father of Rivers" continued to flow through unpeopled solitudes, unvisited by civilized men. The French possessed the valley of the St. Lawrence. The English had thriving settlements on the Atlantic seaboard; but the Alleghany Mountains, which shut them in on the west, allowed room for the growth of many years, and there was yet, therefore, no reason to seek wider limits. The valley of the Mississippi remained a hunting-ground for the savages who had long possessed it. In course of years it became evident that England and France must settle by conflict their claims upon the American continent The English still maintained their right, originating in discovery, to all the territory occupied by the French; and from time to time they sent out expeditions to re-assert by invasion the dormant claim. To the French magnificent possibilities offered themselves. The whole enormous line of the Mississippi and its tributaries, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, could be seized and held; a military settlement could secure the mouth of the river; the English could be hemmed in between the Alleghanies and the ocean, and the increase of their settlements frustrated.

Nicholas Perrot, a French officer, met, on the King's business, a gathering of Indian delegates, at a point near the northern extremity of Lake Michigan. There he was told of a vast river, called by some Mechase pé, by others Mississippi. In what direction it flowed the savages could not tell, but they were sure it did not flow either to the north or to the east. The acute Frenchman readily perceived that this mysterious stream must discharge its waters into the Pacific or into the Gulf of Mexico, and that in either case its control must be of high value to France.

An exploring party composed of six men, and furnished with two slight bark canoes, undertook the search. They ascended the Fox River from the point where it enters Lake Michigan; they crossed a narrow isthmus; and launching upon the river Wisconsin, they floated easily downward till they came out upon the magnificent waters of the Mississippi. Their joy was great the banks of the river seemed to their gladdened eyes rich and beautiful; the trees were taller than they had ever seen before; wild cattle in vast herds roamed over the flowery meadows of this romantic land. For many days the adventurers followed the course of the river. They came where the Missouri joins its waters to those of the Mississippi. They passed the Ohio and the Arkansas, and looked with wonder upon the vast torrents which re-enforced the mighty river. They satisfied themselves that the Mississippi fell into the Gulf of Mexico; and then, mistrusting the good-will of the Spaniards, they turned back and toilsomely re-ascended the stream,

Some years later a young and energetic Frenchman-Sieur de la Salle-completed the work which these explorers had begun. The hope entertained by Columbus, that he would discover a better route to the East, had only now, after two hundred years of disappointment, begun to fade out of the hearts of his followers, and it was still eagerly cherished by La Salle. He traversed the Mississippi from the mouth of the Illinois River to the Gulf. He saw the vast and dreary swamps which lie around the outlet of the Mississippi. He erected a shield bearing the arms of France; he claimed the enormous region from the Alleghany Mountains to the Pacific, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, as the possession of the French King.

For a full half-century France took no action to secure the vast possession which she claimed. The later years of Louis XIV. were full of disaster. England, persuaded by King William that French ambition was a standing menace to Europe, waged wars which brought France to the verge of ruin. Her colonial possessions could receive little care when France was fighting for existence in Europe. A wise Governor of Canada - the Comte de la Galissonnière-perceived the rapid growth of the English settlements, and the growing danger to France which their superior strength involved. He pro posed that the line of the Mississippi should be fortified, and that ten