Voyages of Samuel De Champlain — Volume 03Champlain, Samuel de
History
Voyages of Samuel De Champlain — Volume 03
Champlain, Samuel de
America -- Discovery and exploration -- French; Indians of North America -- Canada; New France -- Discovery and exploration
To continue my narrative: We met Father Joseph, who was returning to Quebec
in order to make preparations, and take what he needed for wintering in
their country. This I did not think advisable at this season, but
counselled him rather to spend the winter at our settlement as being more
for his comfort, and undertake the journey when spring came or at least in
summer, offering to accompany him, and adding that by doing so he would not
fail to see what he might have seen by going, and that by returning and
spending the winter at Quebec he would have the society of his brothers and
others who remained at the settlement, by which he would be more profited
than by staying alone among these people, with whom he could not, in my
opinion, have much satisfaction. Nevertheless, in spite of all that could
be said to him and all representations, he would not change his purpose,
being urged by a godly zeal and love for this people, and hoping to make
known to them their salvation.
His motive in undertaking this enterprise, as he stated to us, was that he
thought it was necessary for him to go there not only in order to become
better acquainted with the characteristics of the people, but also to learn
more easily their language. In regard to the difficulties which it was
represented to him that he would have to encounter in his intercourse with
them, he felt assured that he could bear and overcome them, and that he
could adapt himself very well and cheerfully to the manner of living and
the inconveniences he would find, through the grace of God, of whose
goodness and help he felt clearly assured, being convinced that, since he
went on His service, and since it was for the glory of His name and the
preaching of His holy gospel that he undertook freely this journey, He
would never abandon him in his undertaking. And in regard to temporal
provisions very little was needed to satisfy a man who demands nothing but
perpetual poverty, and who seeks for nothing but heaven, not only for
himself but also for his brethren, it not being consistent with his rule of
life to have any other ambition than the glory of God, and it being his
purpose to endure to this end all the hardships, sufferings, and labors
which might offer.
Seeing him impelled by so holy a zeal and so ardent a charity, I was
unwilling to try any more to restrain him. Thus he set out with the purpose
of being the first to announce through His holy favor to this people the
name of God, having the great satisfaction that an opportunity presented
itself for suffering something for the name and glory of our Saviour Jesus
Christ.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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