1637.

CHARACTER OF THE CANADIAN JESUITS.


JEAN DE BREBEUF.--CHARLES GARNIER.--JOSEPH MARIE CHAUMONOT.--
NOEL CHABANEL.--ISAAC JOGUES.--OTHER JESUITS.--NATURE OF THEIR FAITH.--
SUPERNATURALISM.--VISIONS.--MIRACLES.


Before pursuing farther these obscure, but noteworthy, scenes in the
drama of human history, it will be well to indicate, so far as there are
means of doing so, the distinctive traits of some of the chief actors.
Mention has often been made of Brebeuf,--that masculine apostle of the
Faith,--the Ajax of the mission. Nature had given him all the passions
of a vigorous manhood, and religion had crushed them, curbed them,
or tamed them to do her work,--like a dammed-up torrent, sluiced and
guided to grind and saw and weave for the good of man. Beside him,
in strange contrast, stands his co-laborer, Charles Garnier. Both were
of noble birth and gentle nurture; but here the parallel ends. Garnier's
face was beardless, though he was above thirty years old. For this he
was laughed at by his friends in Paris, but admired by the Indians,
who thought him handsome. [ "C'est pourquoi j'ai bien gagne quitter la
France, ou vous me fesiez la guerre de n'avoir point de barbe; car c'est
ce qui me fait estimes beau des Sauvages."--Lettres de Garnier, MSS. ]
His constitution, bodily or mental, was by no means robust. From boyhood,
he had shown a delicate and sensitive nature, a tender conscience,
and a proneness to religious emotion. He had never gone with his
schoolmates to inns and other places of amusement, but kept his