was made apparent, their zeal cooled. Their only amusements consisted of
feasts, dances, and games, many of which were, to a greater or less
degree, of a superstitious character; and as the Fathers could rarely
prove to their own satisfaction the absence of the diabolic element in
any one of them, they proscribed the whole indiscriminately, to the
extreme disgust of the neophyte. His countrymen, too, beset him with
dismal prognostics: as, "You will kill no more game,"--"All your hair
will come out before spring," and so forth. Various doubts also assailed
him with regard to the substantial advantages of his new profession; and
several converts were filled with anxiety in view of the probable want of
tobacco in Heaven, saying that they could not do without it. [ Lalemant,
Relation des Hurons, 1639, 80. ] Nor was it pleasant to these incipient
Christians, as they sat in class listening to the instructions of their
teacher, to find themselves and him suddenly made the targets of a shower
of sticks, snowballs, corn-cobs, and other rubbish, flung at them by a
screeching rabble of vagabond boys. [ Ibid., 78. ]

Yet, while most of the neophytes demanded an anxious and diligent
cultivation, there were a few of excellent promise; and of one or two
especially, the Fathers, in the fulness of their satisfaction, assure us
again and again "that they were savage only in name."

[ From June, 1639, to June, 1640, about a thousand persons were baptized.
Of these, two hundred and sixty were infants, and many more were
children. Very many died soon after baptism. Of the whole number,
less than twenty were baptized in health,--a number much below that of
the preceding year.

The following is a curious case of precocious piety. It is that of a
child at St. Joseph. "Elle n'a que deux ans, et fait joliment le signe