with joy, that it would take place on the morrow. During the whole day
he conversed with them about the manner of his burial, the way in
which he should be laid out, the place to be selected for his
interment; he told them how to arrange his hands, feet, and face, and
directed them to raise a cross over his grave. He even went so far as
to enjoin them, only three hours before he expired, to take his
chapel-bell, as soon as he was dead, and ring it while they carried
him to the grave. Of all this he spoke so calmly and collectedly that
you would have thought that he spoke of the death and burial of
another, and not of his own.

Thus did he speak with them as they sailed along the lake, till,
perceiving the mouth of a river with an eminence on the bank which he
thought suited for his burial, he told them that it was the place of
his last repose. They wished, however, to pass on, as the weather
permitted it and the day was not far advanced; but God raised a
contrary wind which obliged them to return and enter the river pointed
out by Father Marquette. They then carried him ashore, kindled a
little fire, and raised for him a wretched bark cabin, where they laid
him as little uncomfortably as they could; but they were so overcome
by sadness that, as they afterward said, they did not know what they
were doing.

The father being thus stretched on the shore, like Saint Francis
Xavier, as he had always so ardently desired, and left alone amid
those forests,--for his companions were engaged in unloading,--he had
leisure to repeat all the acts in which he had been employed during
the preceding days....

He had prayed his companions to remind him, when they saw him about to