those who seemed in such helpless peril.

Then came the day that he brought home his wife, and gave to Helen as a daughter a low-bred, vulgar woman, whose bold, coarse beauty, had caught and chained his degraded fancy. People said that Mrs. Van Nyce had borne with her son quite long enough, that she did herself great wrong in taking his wife into her house, and that it would be a mercy if she could only die as the shortest way out of her great trouble. What did they know of her daily prayer that she might be suffered to outlive her boy?

"With all your love for your son," said her daughter-in-law to her one day, "you can scarcely move him at all, while I can wind him round my little finger. He daren't say me no."

And so, indeed, it seemed. For some time after his marriage Horace was the slave of his wife's slightest whim, spent largely from his diminished income in gratifying her every extravagance, and angrily supported her in her ceaseless complaints. But the supremacy of one coarse soul over another is quickly over, and before two years Horace wearied of his wife, and his shortlived affection sank into dislike and brutal ill-treatment. But the slender golden thread of his mother's influence, though hard-strained, never snapped, and she, standing between her son and his unhappy wife, proved the poor girl's only friend until she died, contrite and brokenhearted, and was followed to the grave by her infant boy. "God is merciful to take thee to him,' thought Helen, as she arranged her grandson's little figure for the tomb; and placing two rosebuds in his tiny white hands, she whispered softly, "For your father and myself. You will be sure and not forget us in heaven, my pretty one. Oh, that I had looked upon my baby lying so!" Many years had passed, and Horace Van Nyce, a man of forty-one,

lay once more at the point of death. His splendid organization had at length yielded to the prolonged strain upon it, and for the first time since babyhood his life hung in a slender balance. Long days and nights had his mother watched at his bedside, quieting his raving terrors, soothing him when all else failed, and now he was once more calm as when he lay an infant in his cradle. Tenderly she prayed, and talked to him, and like a child he listened, and clung to her with childish confidence.

"He may recover yet," said the doctor; "your skilful nursing and his own quiet state of mind are working wonders in his favor. But it is not safe to hope too much ;` a few more days will show."

Mother," said Horace, softly, after he had gone, "did the doctor say I had any chance of getting well?”

"Yes, my child," said Helen.

"I am glad," was the musing answer. "I will be, please God, so different, if I live. You would like me to get well, wouldn't you, mother," he added, wistfully, “if I make a good son after all?”

"Horace," said Helen, tenderly, "You are all I have in the world, and I love you with my whole heart; but surely, dearest, it would be better to die and go to God, now that you are sorry and he loves you, than to risk again the troubles and temptations of life. Surely, you would rather go, Horace, if God in his mercy will call you."

"Whatever God thinks best," was the quiet answer; "only you know I don't deserve heaven, mother, and I thought that if God will, perhaps but, he knows best. It's a great pity I ever lived at all, isn't it, dear?" But Helen bowed her head, and murmured, "He knows best," while in her inmost heart she prayed," Take him, O, my God! never will he be more worthy of pardon. Thou knowest how weak,

AFTER carefully examining the lives of the early Jesuit Fathers in North America, the historical student is forced to the conclusion that they were a band of almost incomparable men. The more thoroughly their history is sifted and scrutinized, the more firmly does this conviction become rooted in the mind. Though they differed in ability, physical strength, and personal character, there is one shining quality possessed in common by them all-heroism. Men more capable of compelling our admiration were not produced, even in the first ages of Christianity.

The biography of Father John De Brebeuf is not found in Butler's Lives of the Saints; but we search in vain through that excellent work for anything to surpass it in sublime interest. In his towering figure, iron frame, and supernatural gifts he resembled St. Columbkille; while his lion heart and martyr-spirit would do honor to St. Lawrence. We shall glance at the career of this il. lustrious man, who was the prince of Indian missionaries-the greatest of the American Jesuits.

John De Brebeuf was born in the diocese of Bayeux, France, on the 25th of March, 1593. He belonged to a noble family that gave Normandy many a brave soldier and fearless knight. In his twenty-fifth year the gifted young man entered the Society of Jesus, and such was his humility that he requested to be admitted as a simple lay brother. "And again," says one of the old Relations,* before he made his vows he renewed the request, think

66

That of 1649.

ing himself unworthy of the priesthood, and fit only for the most menial offices. . . Yet he was capable of the greatest things.'

One of the pioneer band of Jesuits to Canada, Father De Brebeuf landed beneath the bold cliffs of Quebec in 1625. The winter of that and the following year he spent as a sort of apprenticeship, wandering in the neighboring woods and mountains among the savages. Fatigue, disgust, hunger, thirst, and intense cold are but tame expressions when applied to what he endured.*

In the spring of 1626, in company with a few Franciscans and some Indians, Father De Brebeuf penetrated through the wilderness to the shores of Georgian Bay—a journey of over one thousand miles. Here a mission had been begun about ten years before by the "unambitious " Le Caron,† as Bancroft styles him. The work of evangelizing the Hurons progressed slowly, and the Franciscans finally retired. Father De Brebeuf was left alone. He was, perhaps, nine hundred miles from a fellow-Christian, but he toiled on as pen cannot picture. Living amongst the Indians, he became one of them. They called him Echon. In short, he was all to all that he might gain all to Christ. The good effect of his untiring toils and instructions. began to tell on the multitude of wild men, when an unhappy event occurred. England obtained temporary possession of Canada. Made prisoners, Father De Brebeuf and his religious colleagues who were

Murray, History of the Catholic Church in the United States. Le Caron was a Franciscan.

stationed at Quebec were sent to Great Britain, whence, after some time, they were allowed to proceed to France. Here, we are told, he lived among his brethren with the simplicity of a little child. The thorny way of the Indian missions had but advanced him on the royal road of the Cross.* In 1631 he wrote: "I feel that I have no talent for anything, recognizing in myself only an inclination to obey others. I believe that I am only fit to be a porter, to clean out the rooms of my brethren, and to serve in the kitchen. I mean to conduct myself in the Society as if I were a beggar, admitted into it by sufferance, and I will receive everything that is granted me as a particular favor."

The person who wrote this was, without any doubt, one of the most gifted men of his age!

In a few years France regained possession of Canada, and the cassock of the Jesuit might once more be seen on the rude streets of Quebec. Let us take a glimpse at one of the six fearless sons of Ignatius, who sit in their humble residence of Notre Dame des Anges, at Quebec, in 1633, at their evening meal. "Of the six, one was conspicuous among the rest—a tall, strong man, with features that seemed carved by nature for a soldier, but which the mental habit of years had stamped with the visible impress of the priesthood. This was John De Brebeuf." The apostle of the Hurons had again blessed the soil of Canada with his presence.

The late learned and venerable Archbishop Spalding fell into several errors in writing of Father De Brebeuf's first journey to the Huron country. "In the spring of 1626," says Dr. Spalding, Miscellanea, p. 326, revised edition, "he (De Brebeuf) penetrated into the Huron

* History of the Catholic Church in the United States.

† Relation of 1649.

wilderness alone and on foot; the first white man-certainly the first missionary-who ever entered its unexplored recesses.''

It was not so.

Father Le

Father De Brebeuf did not go alone on that occasion; neither was he the first white man, nor the first missionary who "penetrated into the Huron wilderness.” As stated above, the great Jesuit went in company with a few Franciscans and a band of Indians. Caron, O.S.F., visited the Hurons, and founded a mission among them as early as 1615, ten years before de Brebeuf came to Canada. In the same year (1615) the famous chaplain passed through the wilderness of Upper Canada and discovered Lake Ontario. These are facts which cannot be disputed.

See Bancroft's

History of the United States, vol. iii, Shea's Catholic Missions, Parkman's Jesuits in North America, and Murray's History of the Catholic Church in the United States.

In July, 1633, one hundred and forty canoes were pulled ashore at the warehouses of Quebec. Over six hundred Huron warriors and chiefs had come on their annual trading expedition. Preliminary arrangements past, a council was held in the fort. Jesuit Fathers, French officers, and dusky chiefs and warriors formed this singular assembly. Its object was to come to an understanding with the savages in relation to sending three missionaries among them. To Fathers De Brebeuf, Daniel, ånd Davost* had fallen the honors, dangers, and woes of the Huron mission. Governor Champlain introduced the three priests to the Indians. "These are our fathers," said the noble founder of Canada. "We love them more than we love ourselves. The whole French nation honors them. They do not

Archbishop Spalding in his Miscellanea, p. 312, states that only two Jesuits, De Brebeuf and Daniel, went on the first Huron mission after the French regained possession of Canada. This is another mistake. All the best authorities mention three, one of whom was Davost.

go among you for your furs. They have left their friends and their country to show you the way to heaven. If you love the French, as you say you love them, then love and honor these our fathers."

On the eve of departure, however, a misunderstanding among the Indians prevented the missionaries from proceeding on their journey, and another year passed away before the fleet of canoes came down the lordly St. Lawrence.

In the summer of 1634, the dusky traders landed their light crafts, this time at Three Rivers, and De Brebeuf and his two companions set out with them on their return trip.

"They reckoned the distance," writes Parkman, "at nine hundred miles; but distance was the least repellent feature of this most arduous journey. Barefooted, lest their shoes should injure the frail vessel, each priest crouched in his canoe, and toiled with unpracticed hand to propel it. Before him, week after week, he saw the same lank, unkempt hair, the same tawny shoulders, and long, naked arms, ceaselessly plying the paddle. The canoes were soon separated, and for more than a month the priests rarely or never met. De Brebeuf spoke a little Huron, and could converse with his escort, but Daniel and Davost were doomed to a silence unbroken save by the occasional unintelligible complaints and menaces of the Indians, of whom many were sick with the epidemic, and all were terrified, desponding, and sullen. Their only food was a pittance of Indian corn crushed between two stones and mixed with water. The toil was extreme. De Brebeuf counted five portages where their canoes were lifted from the water and carried on the shoulders of the voyagers around the rapids or cataracts. More than fifty times besides they were forced to wade in the raging current, pushing up their empty barks or dragging them with ropes. Brebeuf tried to do his part,

but the boulders and sharp rocks wounded his naked feet and compelled him to desist. He and his companions bore their share of the baggage across the portages, sometimes a distance of several miles. Four trips at least were required to convey the whole. The way was through the dense forest, incumbered with rocks and logs, tangled with roots and underbrush, damp with perpetual shade, and redolent of decayed leaves and mouldering wood. The Indians themselves were often spent with fatigue. De Brebeuf, with his iron frame and unconquerable resolution, doubted if his strength would sustain him to his journey's end.

"He complains that he had no moment to read his breviary, except by the moonlight or the fire when stretched out to sleep on a bare rock by some savage cataract of the Ottawa, or in a damp nook of the adjacent forest. Descending

French River, and following the lonely shore of the great Georgian Bay, the canoe which carried De Brebeuf at length neared its destination, thirty days after leaving Three Rivers. Before him, stretched in wild slumber, lay the forest shore of the Huron. Did his spirit sink as he approached his dreary home, oppressed with a dark foreboding of what the future should bring forth?

"De Brebeuf and his Huron companions having landed, the Indians, throwing the missionary's baggage on the ground, left him to his own resources, and, without heeding his remonstrances, set forth for their respective villages, some twenty miles distant. Thus abandoned, the priest knelt, not to implore succor in his perplexity, but to offer thanks to the Providence which had shielded him thus far. Then rising, he pondered as to what course he should take. He knew the spot well. It was on the borders of the small inlet called Thunder Bay. In the neighboring Huron town of Toan