The Jesuit Missions : A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness — John Shaqi
The Jesuit Missions : A Chronicle of the Cross in the WildernessMarquis, Thomas Guthrie
History
The Jesuit Missions : A Chronicle of the Cross in the Wilderness
Marquis, Thomas Guthrie
Jesuits -- Canada
Quebec was in a sad condition. The English, knowing of
the negotiations for its return to the French, had left
the ground uncultivated and the buildings in ruins. The
missionaries found the residence of Notre-Dame-des-Anges
plundered and partly destroyed; but they went to work
cheerfully to restore it, and before autumn it was quite
habitable. Meanwhile Le Jeune had begun his labours
tentatively as a teacher. His pupils were an Indian lad
and a little negro, the latter a present from the English
to Madame Hebert. The class grew larger; during the winter
a score of children answered the call of Le Jeune's bell,
and sat at his feet learning the Credo, the Ave, and the
Paternoster, which he had translated into Algonquin
rhymes. In order to learn the Indian language Le Jeune
was himself a pupil, his teacher a Montagnais named
Pierre, a worthless wretch who had been in France and
had learned some French. Le Jeune passed the winter of
1632-33 in teaching, studying, and ministering to the
inhabitants at the trading-post. Save for a short period,
he had the companionship of Noue, a devoted missionary,
eager to play his part in the field, but, as we have
seen, without the necessary vigour of mind or body. Though
Noue had failed in Huronia, he thought he might succeed
on the St Lawrence. And in the autumn, just as the first
snows were beginning to whiten the ground, when a band
of friendly Montagnais, encamped near the residence,
invited him to their wintering grounds, he bade farewell
to Le Jeune and vanished with the Indians into the northern
forest. But the rigours of the wigwams were too much for
him, and after three weeks he returned to Notre-Dame-
des-Anges in an exhausted condition.
In the meantime the Hundred Associates were getting ready
to enter into the enjoyment of their Canadian domain,
but now without the hopeful ardour and exalted purpose
which had characterized their first ill-fated expedition.
The guiding hand in the revival of the colony, under the
feudal suzerainty of Richelieu's company, was Champlain.
He was appointed on March 1, 1633, lieutenant-general in
New France, 'with jurisdiction throughout all the extent
of the St Lawrence and other rivers.' Twenty-three days
later he sailed from Dieppe with three armed ships, the
St Pierre, the St Jean, and the Don de Dieu. These ships
carried two hundred persons, among them the Jesuit fathers
Jean de Brebeuf and Ennemond Masse. At Cape Breton they
were joined by two more Jesuits, Antoine Daniel and
Ambroise Davost, who had gone there the year before.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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