the seas to plant the faith among the hordes of barbarians who inhabited
the immense regions to-day known as the Dominion of Canada.

And what daring was necessary, in the early days of the colony, to
plunge into the vast forests of North America! Incessant toil,
sacrifice, pain and death in its most terrible forms were the price that
was gladly paid in the service of God by men who turned their backs upon
the comforts of civilized France to carry the faith into the unknown
wilderness.

Think of what Canada was at the beginning of the seventeenth century!
Instead of these fertile provinces, covered to-day by luxuriant
harvests, man's gaze met everywhere only impenetrable forests in which
the woodsman's axe had not yet permitted the plough to cleave and
fertilize the soil; instead of our rich and populous cities, of our
innumerable villages daintily perched on the brinks of streams, or
rising here and there in the midst of verdant plains, the eye perceived
only puny wigwams isolated and lost upon the banks of the great river,
or perhaps a few agglomerations of smoky huts, such as Hochelaga or
Stadaconé; instead of our iron rails, penetrating in all directions,
instead of our peaceful fields over which trains hasten at marvellous
speed from ocean to ocean, there were but narrow trails winding through
a jungle of primeval trees, behind which hid in turn the Iroquois, the
Huron or the Algonquin, awaiting the propitious moment to let fly the
fatal arrow; instead of the numerous vessels bearing over the waves of
the St. Lawrence, at a distance of more than six hundred leagues from
the sea, the products of the five continents; instead of yonder
floating palaces, thronged with travellers from the four corners of the
earth, then only an occasional bark canoe came gliding slyly along by
the reeds of the shore, scarcely stopping except to permit its crew to