The Jesuits were no longer supreme in Canada, or, in other words, Canada was no longer simply a mission. It had become a colony. Temporal interests and the civil power were constantly gaining ground; and the disciples of Loyola felt that relatively, if not absolutely, they were losing it. They struggled vigorously to maintain the ascendancy of their Order; or, as they would have expressed it, the ascendancy of religion: but in the older and more settled parts of the colony it was clear that the day of their undivided rule was past. Therefore, they looked with redoubled solicitude to their missions in the West. They had been among its first explorers; and they hoped that here the Catholic Faith, as represented by Jesuits, might reign with undisputed sway. In Paraguay, it was their constant aim to exclude white men from their missions. It was the same in North America. They dreaded fur-traders, partly because they interfered with their teachings and perverted their converts, and partly for other reasons. But La Salle was a fur-trader, and far worse than a fur-trader,-- he aimed at occupation, fortification, settlement. The scope and vigor of his enterprises, and the powerful influence that aided them made him a stumbling-block in their path. As they would have put the case, it was the spirit of this world opposed to the spirit of religion; but I may perhaps be pardoned if I am constrained to think that the spirit which inspired these fathers was not uniformly celestial, notwithstanding the virtues which sometimes illustrated it. Frontenac, in his letters to the Court, is continually begging that more Recollet friars may be sent to Canada. [Footnote: The Recollets, ejected from Canada on the irruption of the English in 1629 (see "Pioneers of France in the New World"), had not been allowed to return until 1669, when their missions were begun anew.] Not that he had any peculiar fondness for ecclesiastics of any kind, regular or secular, white, black, or gray; but he wanted the Recollets to oppose to the Jesuits. He had no fear of these mendicant disciples of St. Francis. Far less able and less ambitious than the Jesuits, he knew that he could manage them, because they would need his support against their formidable rivals. La Salle, too, wanted more Recollets, and for the same reason; but in one point he differed from his patron. He was a man, not only of regulated life, but of strong religious feeling, and, bating his violent prepossession against the Jesuits, he respected the Church and its ministers, as his letters and his life attest. Thus, in replying to a charge of undue severity towards some of his followers, he alleges in his justification the profane language of the men in question, and adds, "I am a Christian; I will have no blasphemers in my camp." [Footnote: Letter of La Salle in the hands of M. Margry.] CHAPTER VIII. 1678. PARTY STRIFE.