THE HURON AND THE JESUIT.


ENTHUSIASM FOR THE MISSION.--SICKNESS OF THE PRIESTS.--
THE PEST AMONG THE HURONS.--THE JESUIT ON HIS ROUNDS.--
EFFORTS AT CONVERSION.--PRIESTS AND SORCERERS.--THE MAN-DEVIL.--
THE MAGICIAN'S PRESCRIPTION.--INDIAN DOCTORS AND PATIENTS.--
COVERT BAPTISMS.--SELF-DEVOTION OF THE JESUITS.


Meanwhile from Old France to New came succors and reinforcements to the
missions of the forest. More Jesuits crossed the sea to urge on the work
of conversion. These were no stern exiles, seeking on barbarous shores
an asylum for a persecuted faith. Rank, wealth, power, and royalty
itself, smiled on their enterprise, and bade them God-speed. Yet, withal,
a fervor more intense, a self-abnegation more complete, a self-devotion
more constant and enduring, will scarcely find its record on the page of
human history.

Holy Mother Church, linked in sordid wedlock to governments and thrones,
numbered among her servants a host of the worldly and the proud, whose
service of God was but the service of themselves,--and many, too, who,
in the sophistry of the human heart, thought themselves true soldiers of
Heaven, while earthly pride, interest, and passion were the life-springs
of their zeal. This mighty Church of Rome, in her imposing march along
the high road of history, heralded as infallible and divine, astounds the
gazing world with prodigies of contradiction: now the protector of the
oppressed, now the right arm of tyrants; now breathing charity and love,
now dark with the passions of Hell; now beaming with celestial truth,