Mais ils n'ont pas encore la prattique pour les former & assembler promptement; quoy que le Pere Daniel s'explique desia passablement. Pour moy qui y fais leçon à nos François, si Dieu ne m'assiste extraordinairement, encor me faudra-il aller long temps à l'escole des Sauuages, telle est la fecondité [183] de leur langue. Cela n'empesche pas que ie n'entende quasi tout ce qu'ils disent, & que ie ne leur face assez comprendre mes conceptions, mesmes dans l'explication de nos plus ineffables mystres. Apres cela, nous nous sommes employez à la visite, sollicitation & instruction des malades, qui ont esté comme i'ay dit en tres-grand nombre; ç'a esté dãs ce pieux exercice que nous auons acquis des ames à nostre Seigneur, iusques au nombre de treize. La premiere fut vne petite fil[l]ette de ce village aagée seulement de quatre ou cinq mois, elle mourut vn quart d'heure après son baptesme, auquel elle fut nõmée Iosephe, pour accomplir vn vœu que i'auois faict de donner ce nom au premier que nous regenererions des sainctes eaux, en recognoissance de tant de faueurs que nous auons receu & receuons [184] par l'entremise de ce grand Sainct. Ce fut le sixiesme Septembre 1634. La deuxiesme, fut vne autre petite fille d'enuirõ deux ans, que nous baptisames le lendemain; elle mourut l'onziesme du mesme mois & an, ayant esté nommée Marie. What shall I say of their strange patience in their poverty, famine, and sickness? We have seen this year whole villages prostrated, their food a little insipid sagamité; and yet not a word of complaint, not a movement [180] of impatience. They receive indeed the news of death with more constancy than those Christian Gentlemen and Ladies to whom one would not dare to mention it. Our Savages hear of it not only without despair, but without troubling themselves, without the slightest pallor or change of countenance. We have especially admired the constancy of our new Christians. The next to the last one who died, named Joseph _Oatij_, lay on the bare ground during four or five months, not only before but after his Baptism,--so thin that he was nothing but bones; in a lodge so wretched that the winds blew in on all sides; covered during the cold of winter with a very light skin of some black animals, perhaps black squirrels, and very poorly nourished. He was never heard to make a complaint, however. May our Lord Jesus Christ be ever [181] praised. It is on such dispositions and foundations that we hope, with the grace of God, to build the edifice of the Christian Religion among these people, who, besides, are already affectionately inclined toward us and have a great opinion of us. It is now our part to correspond to our vocation, and to the voice of Our Savior, who says to us, _videte regiones, quoniam albæ sunt iam ad messem_. It is true, my Reverend Father, that _messis multa, operarii pauci_, and, besides, we are very