The missionaries continued, none the less, to spread the light of the
gospel and Christian civilization. It seems that the field of their
labour had never been too vast for their desire. Ever onward! was their
motto. While Fathers Garreau and Mesnard found death among the
Algonquins on the coasts of Lake Superior, the Sulpicians Dollier and
Gallinée were planting the cross on the shores of Lake Erie; Father
Claude Allouez was preaching the gospel beyond Lake Superior; Fathers
Dablon, Marquette, and Druillètes were establishing the mission of Sault
Ste. Marie; Father Albanel was proceeding to explore Hudson Bay; Father
Marquette, acting with Joliet, was following the course of the
Mississippi as far as Arkansas; finally, later on, Father Arnaud
accompanied La Vérendrye as far as the Rocky Mountains.

The establishment of the Catholic religion in Canada had now witnessed
its darkest days; its history becomes intimately interwoven with that of
the country. Up to the English conquest, the clergy and the different
religious congregations, as faithful to France as to the Holy See,
encouraged the Canadians in their struggles against the invaders.
Accordingly, at the time of the invasion of the colony by Phipps, the
Americans of Boston declared that they would spare neither monks nor
missionaries if they succeeded in seizing Quebec; they bore a particular
grudge against the priests of the seminary, to whom they ascribed the
ravages committed shortly before in New England by the Abenaquis. They
were punished for their boasting; forty seminarists assembled at St.
Joachim, the country house of the seminary, joined the volunteers who
fought at Beauport, and contributed so much to the victory that
Frontenac, to recompense their bravery, presented them with a cannon
captured by themselves.

The Church of Rome had been able to continue in peace its mission in