"The purpose would be lost--lost to my eyes and lost to his--the
purpose for which I have lived and for which he shall live. When I
first saw him he was a child, a baby, but he came to me and took one
finger of my hand in his small fist and looked up to me. Ah,
Gabrielle, the smile of an infant goes to the heart swifter than the
thrust of a knife! I looked down upon him and I knew that I was chosen
to teach the child. There was a voice that spoke in me. You will
smile, but even now I think I can hear it."

"I swear to you that I believe," said Father Anthony.

"Another man would have given Pierre a Bible and a Latin grammar and a
cell. I gave him the testament and the grammar; I gave him also the
wild north country to say his prayers in and patter his Latin. I
taught his mind, but I did not forget his body.

"He is to go out among wild men. He must have strength of the spirit.
He must also have a strength of the body that they will understand and
respect. He can ride a horse standing; he can run a hundred miles in a
day behind a dog-team. He can wrestle and fight with his hands, for
skilled men have taught him. I have made him a thunderbolt to hurl
among the ignorant and the unenlightened; and this is the hand which
shall wield it. Ha!

"It is now hardly a six month since he saved a trapper from a bobcat
and killed the animal with a knife. It must have been my prayers which
saved him from the teeth and the claws."

Good Father Anthony rose.