are fallible; even the greatest saints have erred. In this connection
the remark of St. Bernardin of Siena presents itself naturally to the
religious mind: "Each time," says he, "that God grants to a creature a
marked and particular favour, and when divine grace summons him to a
special task and to some sublime position, it is a rule of Providence
to furnish that creature with all the means necessary to fulfil the
mission which is entrusted to him, and to bring it to a happy
conclusion. Providence prepares his birth, directs his education,
produces the environment in which he is to live; even his faults
Providence will use in the accomplishment of its purposes."

Difficulties of another sort fixed between the spiritual and the
temporal chiefs of the colony a still deeper gulf; they arose from the
trade in brandy with the savages. It had been formerly forbidden by the
Sovereign Council, and this measure, urged by the clergy and the
missionaries, put a stop to crimes and disorders. However, for the
purpose of gain, certain men infringed this wise prohibition, and Mgr.
de Laval, aware of the extensive harm caused by the fatal passion of the
Indians for intoxicating liquors, hurled excommunication against all who
should carry on the traffic in brandy with the savages. "It would be
very difficult," writes M. de Latour, "to realize to what an excess
these barbarians are carried by drunkenness. There is no species of
madness, of crime or inhumanity to which they do not descend. The
savage, for a glass of brandy, will give even his clothes, his cabin,
his wife, his children; a squaw when made drunk--and this is often done
purposely--will abandon herself to the first comer. They will tear each
other to pieces. If one enters a cabin whose inmates have just drunk
brandy, one will behold with astonishment and horror the father cutting
the throat of his son, the son threatening his father; the husband and
wife, the best of friends, inflicting murderous blows upon each other,