Narrative and Critical History of America (Volume 7)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 Excerpt: ...to Quebec in 1625 he was treacherously hurled from his canoe by a Huron guide, and perished in the rapid waters near Montreal that still bear the name of Sault an Rtcollet. Another Recollect, Father William Poullain, while on his way with some Frenchmen from Quebec to Sault St. Louis, fell into the hands of the Iroquois, who were about to torture him at the stake, when he was saved by an offer of an exchange made by his countrymen. The Jesuits adopted the system of the Recollects, but we have no details of their labors, --one Huron boy taken to France, where he was baptized by the name of Louis de Sainte Foy, being the result of the joint labors to which most allusion is made. The Court of France seems to have considered that both Recollect and Jesuit had failed to acquire the languages of the country sufficiently to da the work of God and of his most Christian Majesty. At all events, each order hastened to put in print evidence of its proficiency in American linguistics. The Recollect Sagard published a Huron Dictionary; the Jesuit Brebeuf, a translation of Ledesma's Catechism into Huron, with the Lord's Prayer and other devotions rendered into Montagnais by Father Enemond Masse.1 When England reluctantly yielded up her Canadian conquest, the allpowerful Cardinal Richelieu seems to have looked with no kindly eye on either of the bodies who had already labored to evangelize New France. He offered the mission to his favorite order, the Capuchins, and only when they declined it did he permit the Jesuits to return. With the restoration of Canada to France by the treaty of Saint Germain in 1632, the history of the great Jesuit missions begins. For some years the Fathers of the Society of Jesus were, almost without exception, the only clergy in the colony in char...