The missionaries gathered the Indians for instruction on every possible occasion, teaching the children their prayers in Huron rhymes and preaching and explaining the faith to their elders. The converts, save those baptized on the point of death or in some fear of deadly peril, were few, but the worthy Fathers persisted and won the gratitude of the people by their help in time of famine and their kindly ministrations to the sick. Other Jesuits joined them and founded additional missions in neighboring villages. The Indians never understood these mysterious white men, but regarded them with superstition, holding them answerable for bad weather, famine, and the like, and on the other hand honoring them when all was prosperous. The medicine men and sorcerers were constantly against them, and in 1637 Father Isaac Jogues, one of the leading Jesuits, heard the rumor that the white men were reported to have bewitched the nation and must therefore be cut off. The assembly of Huron chiefs met, and the Jesuit fathers addressed them as usual on their unfailing topic, the joys of heaven and the fires of hell, the latter being always the only part of the instruction that seemed to make any impression on the stolid audience. For the time being the Fathers escaped; but they were still in great peril. Brébeuf wrote a letter of farewell to his superior at Quebec, and no Jesuit left the house without the expectation of having a tomahawk crash into his head before he returned. The unflinching courage of the Fathers won the Indian respect. The Jesuits even went so far as to give, according to the usual Indian custom for one on the point of death, a farewell feast to all the savages, an act which was regarded as a declaration that they knew their peril and faced it boldly. From that time forth their supporters rose in defence of them. For the moment the danger was averted and the Jesuits walked abroad once more. From now on, however, their persecution as sorcerers continued at intervals in different places, rising now and then to a storm of superstitious frenzy.