and for this purpose take with you some awls, beads, knives, and
fish-hooks.--Be not ceremonious with the Indians; take at once what they
offer you: ceremony offends them.--Be very careful, when in the canoe,
that the brim of your hat does not annoy them. Perhaps it would be
better to wear your night-cap. There is no such thing as impropriety
among Indians.--Remember that it is Christ and his cross that you are
seeking; and if you aim at anything else, you will get nothing but
affliction for body and mind. ]

Descending French River, and following the lonely shores of the great
Georgian Bay, the canoe which carried Brebeuf at length neared its
destination, thirty days after leaving Three Rivers. Before him,
stretched in savage slumber, lay the forest shore of the Hurons. Did his
spirit sink as he approached his dreary home, oppressed with a dark
foreboding of what the future should bring forth? There is some reason
to think so. Yet it was but the shadow of a moment; for his masculine
heart had lost the sense of fear, and his intrepid nature was fired with
a zeal before which doubts and uncertainties fled like the mists of the
morning. Not the grim enthusiasm of negation, tearing up the weeds of
rooted falsehood, or with bold hand felling to the earth the baneful
growth of overshadowing abuses: his was the ancient faith uncurtailed,
redeemed from the decay of centuries, kindled with a new life, and
stimulated to a preternatural growth and fruitfulness.

Brebeuf and his Huron companions having landed, the Indians, throwing the
missionary's baggage on the ground, left him to his own resources; and,
without heeding his remonstrances, set forth for their respective
villages, some twenty miles distant. Thus abandoned, the priest kneeled,
not to implore succor in his perplexity, but to offer thanks to the
Providence which had shielded him thus far. Then, rising, he pondered as