faute signalée, & sans rien pretendre en son seruice que son honneur & sa gloire: qui est tout ce qu'on peut souhaitter de fidelité en vne ame, pour le bon vsage & sainct employ des faueurs du Ciel. As regards morals, the Hurons are lascivious, although in two leading points less so than many Christians, who will blush [176] some day in their presence. You will see no kissing nor immodest caressing; and in marriage a man will remain two or three years apart from his wife, while she is nursing. They are gluttons, even to disgorging; it is true, that does not happen often, but only in some superstitious feasts,--these, however, they do not attend willingly. Besides, they endure hunger much better than we,--so well that after having fasted two or three entire days you will see them still paddling, carrying loads, singing, laughing, bantering, as if they had dined well. They are very lazy, are liars, thieves, pertinacious beggars. Some consider them vindictive; but, in my opinion, this vice is more noticeable elsewhere than here. We see shining among them some rather noble moral [177] virtues. You note, in the first place, a great love and union, which they are careful to cultivate by means of their marriages, of their presents, of their feasts, and of their frequent visits. On returning from their fishing, their hunting, and their trading, they exchange many gifts; if they have thus obtained something unusually good, even if they have bought it, or if it has been given to them, they make a feast to the whole village with it. Their hospitality towards all sorts of strangers is remarkable; they present to them in their feasts the best of what they have prepared, and, as I have already said, I do not know if anything similar, in this regard, is to be found elsewhere. I think I have read, in the lives of the Fathers, that a Pagan army was converted on seeing the charity and hospitality of a Christian town, the inhabitants of which vied with each other in [178] caressing and feasting the Strangers,--judging well that those must profess the true Religion and worship the true God, the common Father of all, who had hearts so benign and who did so much good to all sorts of persons, without distinction. We have also hope that our Lord will give at last the light of his knowledge, and will communicate the fire of his graces, to this Nation, which he seems to have disposed thereto by the practice of this noble virtue. They never close the door upon a Stranger, and, once having received him into their houses, they share with him the best they have; they never send him away, and, when he goes away of his own accord, he repays them by a simple "thank you." This makes me hope that, if once it pleases God to illumine them, they will respond perfectly [179] to the grace and inspiration of his Son.