To convert a race of suspicious savages is no easy task. The priests carried their lives in their hands. They were pitted against native sorcerers, they were called upon to give {88} rain, they were held responsible for small-pox. Yet year by year, by genuine goodness and by pious fraud, they made headway, until some eleven mission posts were in existence among the Hurons and the neighbouring tribes, the most remote station being at the outlet of Lake Superior. The promise was good. Money was forthcoming from France. There were eighteen priests at work, there were lay assistants, there was a handful of French soldiers. Earthly as well as spiritual wants were supplied at St. Marie, and far off in safety at Quebec was a seminary for Huron children. It seemed as though on the far western horizon of discovery and colonization, the Roman Catholic Church was achieving a signal triumph, its agents being Frenchmen, and its political work being credited to France. Yet after fifteen years all was over, and the land was left desolate without inhabitants. The heathen learnt from their Christian teachers to obey and to suffer, but in learning they lost the spirit of resistance and of savage manhood. As in Paraguay, a more submissive race, under Jesuit influence, dwindled in numbers, so even the Hurons, after the French priests came among them, seem to have become an easier prey than before to their hereditary foes. [Sidenote: _Destruction of the missions by the Iroquois._] [Sidenote: _Dispersion of the Hurons._]