Ebook The Early Jesuit Missions in North America

But it was only by suffering and trial that these early laborers won their triumphs. Many of them too were men who had stood high in camps and courts, and could con trast their desolate state in the solitary Wigwam with the refinement and affluence which had waited on their early years. But now all these were gone. Home — the love of kindred — the golden ties of relationship — all were to be for gotten by these stern and high-wrought men, and they were often to go forth into the wilderness, without an ad viser on their way, save their God. Through long and sorrowful years they were obliged to sow in tears before they could reap in joy. Every self-denial gathered around them which could wear upon the Spirit and cause the heart to fail. Mighty forests were to be tln'eaded on foot, and the great lakes of the West passed in the feeble bark canoe. Hunger and pold and disease were to be en countered, until nothing but the burning zeal within could keep alive the wasted and sinking frame. But worse than all were those spiritual evils which forced them to weep and pray in darkness. They had to endure the contradic tion of those they came to save, who often after listening for months with apparent interest, so that the Jesuit began to hope they would soon be numbered with his converts, suddenly quitted him with cold and derisive words, and turned again to the superstitions of their tribe.