missions incessantly occupy our Fathers among more than twenty diverse
nations; and the chapels erected in the districts most remote from here
are almost every day filled with these poor barbarians, and in some of
them there have been consummated sometimes ten, twenty, and even thirty
baptisms on a single occasion." And, ever faithful to the established
power, the missionaries taught their neophytes not only religion, but
also the respect due to the king. Let us hearken to Father Allouez
speaking to the mission of Sault Ste. Marie: "Cast your eyes," says he,
"upon the cross raised so high above your heads. It was upon that cross
that Jesus Christ, the son of God, become a man by reason of His love
for men, consented to be bound and to die, in order to satisfy His
Eternal Father for our sins. He is the master of our life, the master of
Heaven, earth and hell. It is He of whom I speak to you without ceasing,
and whose name and word I have borne into all these countries. But
behold at the same time this other stake, on which are hung the arms of
the great captain of France, whom we call the king. This great leader
lives beyond the seas; he is the captain of the greatest captains, and
has not his peer in the world. All the captains that you have ever seen,
and of whom you have heard speak, are only children beside him. He is
like a great tree; the rest are only little plants crushed under men's
footsteps as they walk. You know Onontio, the famous chieftain of
Quebec; you know that he is the terror of the Iroquois, his mere name
makes them tremble since he has desolated their country and burned their
villages. Well, there are beyond the seas ten thousand Onontios like
him. They are only the soldiers of this great captain, our great king,
of whom I speak to you."

Mgr. de Laval ardently desired, then, the arrival of new workers for the
gospel, and in the year 1668, the very year of the foundation of the
seminary, his desire was fulfilled, as if Providence wished to reward