So too Brebeuf, in a letter to Vitelleschi, General of the Jesuits (see
Carayon, 163): "Ce qu'il faut demander, avant tout, des ouvriers destines
a cette mission, c'est une douceur inalterable et une patience a toute
epreuve." ]

The Fathers are well agreed that their difficulties did not arise from
any natural defect of understanding on the part of the Indians, who,
according to Chaumonot, were more intelligent than the French peasantry,
and who, in some instances, showed in their way a marked capacity.
It was the inert mass of pride, sensuality, indolence, and superstition
that opposed the march of the Faith, and in which the Devil lay
intrenched as behind impregnable breastworks.

[ In this connection, the following specimen of Indian reasoning is worth
noting. At the height of the pestilence, a Huron said to one of the
priests, "I see plainly that your God is angry with us because we will
not believe and obey him. Ihonatiria, where you first taught his word,
is entirely ruined. Then you came here to Ossossane, and we would not
listen; so Ossossane is ruined too. This year you have been all through
our country, and found scarcely any who would do what God commands;
therefore the pestilence is everywhere." After premises so hopeful,
the Fathers looked for a satisfactory conclusion; but the Indian
proceeded--"My opinion is, that we ought to shut you out from all the
houses, and stop our ears when you speak of God, so that we cannot hear.
Then we shall not be so guilty of rejecting the truth, and he will not
punish us so cruelly."--Lalemant, Relation des Hurons, 1640, 80. ]

It soon became evident that it was easier to make a convert than to keep
him. Many of the Indians clung to the idea that baptism was a safeguard
against pestilence and misfortune; and when the fallacy of this notion