As regards the conversion of the savage tribes, it can hardly be claimed that any of these missions were very successful. All authorities agree that it was extremely difficult to impress the Indian mind with the truths of Christianity, or with the idea of any absolute and exclusive theology. The Indian was quite ready to accept the missionary's version of the origin of the world, provided the missionary would reciprocate and accept his decidedly different version. Each, he held, was good in its place; a little variety in these matters did no harm. He had little or no sense of sin, for he did not recognize that the things he did were wrong, and when threatened with the terrors of a future world, he simply said that he did not believe the "master of life" could hate anybody. At the same time he was quite prepared to join in religious services if requested, and seemed even to enjoy the ceremonial. He believed in unlimited charity to relatives and friends, but could not be got to admit the duty of forgiving enemies. An Indian who had been informed that in France many died of want, while others of the same nation had food and substance of all kinds in the greatest profusion, was scandalized beyond measure. He was affected much as we should be by some dark tale of cruelty and superstition from a far-off heathen land. And to think that people of whom such things could be told were sending missionaries to _him_, to enjoin upon him, among other things, the duty of charity![23] But if the missionaries made comparatively little headway in the matter of actual conversions, it is impossible to doubt that they exerted a general influence for good upon the tribes to whom they ministered. This may fairly be inferred from the moral authority they exercised and the security and respect they enjoyed. They were themselves men of pure lives and disinterested motives; and so far they personally recommended the doctrines they preached. To some extent also they taught the savages various useful arts of life. Frontenac specially commends the Montreal Seminary for their efforts to civilize the Indians of their missions who, under their instruction, had taken to raising domestic animals, swine, poultry, etc., and to cultivating wheat as well as native grains. The Abbe Verreau, on the other hand, is inclined to hold that the attempts made, at the urgent demand of the French government, to civilize as well as christianize the Indians are accountable, in part at least, for the general failure of the missions. "We all know now," he says, "what has been the result of so much effort and so much outlay of money. Two or three poor villages inhabited by unhappy creatures who have added our vices to their own deficiencies, without having adopted any of our better qualities. That is all that remains of the Abenaquis, the Hurons, and the Iroquois."[24] The reflection is a sad one, and the abbe feels it, for he speaks further of the painful mystery of the