passed next to the joys of Heaven and the pains of Hell, which he set
forth with his best rhetoric. His pictures of infernal fires and
torturing devils were readily comprehended, if the listener had
consciousness enough to comprehend anything; but with respect to the
advantages of the French Paradise, he was slow of conviction. "I wish to
go where my relations and ancestors have gone," was a common reply.
"Heaven is a good place for Frenchmen," said another; "but I wish to be
among Indians, for the French will give me nothing to eat when I get
there." [ It was scarcely possible to convince the Indians, that there
was but one God for themselves and the whites. The proposition was met
by such arguments as this: "If we had been of one father, we should know
how to make knives and coats as well as you."--Le Mercier, Relation des
Hurons, 1637, 147. ] Often the patient was stolidly silent; sometimes he
was hopelessly perverse and contradictory. Again, Nature triumphed over
Grace. "Which will you choose," demanded the priest of a dying woman,
"Heaven or Hell?" "Hell, if my children are there, as you say," returned
the mother. "Do they hunt in Heaven, or make war, or go to feasts?"
asked an anxious inquirer. "Oh, no!" replied the Father. "Then,"
returned the querist, "I will not go. It is not good to be lazy."
But above all other obstacles was the dread of starvation in the regions
of the blest. Nor, when the dying Indian had been induced at last to
express a desire for Paradise, was it an easy matter to bring him to a
due contrition for his sins; for he would deny with indignation that he
had ever committed any. When at length, as sometimes happened, all these
difficulties gave way, and the patient had been brought to what seemed to
his instructor a fitting frame for baptism, the priest, with contentment
at his heart, brought water in a cup or in the hollow of his hand,
touched his forehead with the mystic drop, and snatched him from an
eternity of woe. But the convert, even after his baptism, did not always
manifest a satisfactory spiritual condition. "Why did you baptize that