chapter.] Had they led him to the Mississippi, it is reasonably certain
that she would have made it known in her memorial. La Salle discovered
the Ohio, and in all probability the Illinois also; but that he discovered
the Mississippi has not been proved, nor, in the light of the evidence we
have, is it likely.




CHAPTER III.
1670-1672.
THE JESUITS ON THE LAKES.

THE OLD MISSIONS AND THE NEW.--A CHANGE OF SPIRIT.--LAKE SUPERIOR
AND THE COPPER-MINES.--STE. MARIE.--LA POINTE.--MICHILLIMACKINAC.
--JESUITS ON LAKE MICHIGAN.--ALLOUEZ AND DABLON.--THE JESUIT FUR-TRADE.


What were the Jesuits doing? Since the ruin of their great mission of the
Hurons, a perceptible change had taken place in them. They had put forth
exertions almost superhuman, set at naught famine, disease, and death,
lived with the self-abnegation of saints and died with the devotion of
martyrs; and the result of all had been a disastrous failure. From no
short-coming on their part, but from the force of events beyond the sphere
of their influence, a very demon of havoc had crushed their incipient
churches, slaughtered their converts, uprooted the populous communities on
which their hopes had rested, and scattered them in bands of wretched
fugitives far and wide through the wilderness. [Footnote: See "The Jesuits
in North America."] They had devoted themselves in the fulness of faith to
the building up of a Christian and Jesuit empire on the conversion of the