Letter 73

From Quebec. To her son. 30 September 1643.
Foundation of Church of Miscou. Progress of those in Tadoussac and among the Hurons. Conversion of a leading sorcerer. Iroquois persecution: torments of Fr. Jogues. French put to death.

My dearly loved son,

May the love and life of the King of Nations consume your heart with the ardour with which He ravishes the hearts of our neophytes. By now you must have got the letters I sent you last July in which I gave you a short account of this year’s happenings in New France, and in the New Church of Jesus Christ. I got none of your letters yet, but Mother St. Bernard sent me one in which you complained to her that you got no letter from me last year. I wrote plenty to you, but transport by sea is hazardous. You must expect that, but to remedy the situation I have decided, as long as I live, to send you a letter by two different ships. If one is lost or taken by pirates, the other may bring you news of me. You do the same, if obedience permits; you can judge how much it will content us both.

But let us not waste time; let us talk about our neophytes. The foundations of the Church were laid this year at Miscou, a fur trading station belonging to the French. Ten leagues further away, they have built a Chapel and a Mission station for the Indians from the north, who have been attached to the Faith by the Montagnais of Tadoussac. This new place is a hundred and fifty leagues from here. A hundred leagues nearer is the Tadoussac Mission where marvels have happened this year. A great number of Indians travelled overland for more than twenty days to be instructed and baptised. Their dispositions are so religious and their behaviour so Christian that they put us to shame and surpass us in piety. They are the fruit of the zeal of our good settled Christians who go from place to place to gain souls for Jesus Christ. These nations are all in the North. Tadoussac, where they assemble is about forty leagues from here, on the way to Miscou. Sillery is a league from Quebec. Some of the settled Indians are there, some at Quebec, where they trade their furs.

Last year the Attikamek Nation came here to be instructed and more than half of them were baptised. The first baptism took place in our Church, as also the first marriage, for when a man and woman are baptised, their marriage is regularised. After that many were baptised and married in the parish Church. I must tell you that the joy in my heart at seeing a soul being washed in the Blood of Christ is inexplicable.

These good people had been instructed daily in our Chapel. After Mass, we had a feast for them of peas or Indian corn segments with prunes. They spent the rest of the day at our grille, seeking instruction on some point or to learn some prayer. Their promptitude and facility in learning what they are taught is astounding. A poor woman who was a slower learner than the others, got angry with herself; and said, prostrating on the floor: “I won’t get out of this today till I know my prayers.” She remained prostrate all day. God blessed her fervour and when she got up, she knew all she wanted to learn. Such fervour is universal among them and we are delighted to see big men hastening to us to be taught to make interior acts or ejaculatory prayers, for use at their meetings.

The leader of that nation was a great sorcerer and the most superstitious in the world. I heard him declaiming the power of his charms and superstitions, and shortly after he came to see the Father with whom he had been debating and handed over his lucky charms and the drum he used in incantation, protesting that he would never use them again. I am sending you the drum to let you see the child’s toy the devil uses to amuse and seduce these poor people. The sorcerer used it to cure maladies, to foretell the future, and work wonders. Following this, all the drums belonging to the nation were sacrificed to God. They returned to their own country for the Spring hunting. Because they were newly instructed, a Christian woman from Sillery went with them in frightfully cold snow, to get them to repeat their prayers every day, for fear they would forget them. We heard that they are living admirable lives.

Our neophytes are wonderfully fervent; for them it is not enough to believe in Jesus, their zeal makes them think they only half-believe if everybody does not believe too. The Abnakiouois Chief has left his own country and his people and has come to settle here to be instructed and then win his own country and his people if Jesus Christ wishes. He was baptised yesterday and married to Angela, one of our seminarians. Last year’s Relation gave her great praise. His zeal is driving him far. He is determined to bring the Gospel to other nations. “I will not be content”, he told me “with bringing my people and the young to the Faith and to prayer, but as I have been with several nations and know their languages, I shall visit them and bring them to believe in God”.

Not only the men are on fire with zeal. A Christian woman travelled to a distant nation to catechise them. She succeeded so well that she brought them all here to be baptised. Her journey and its attendant dangers required the courage of the apostles. We often see such fervour in the service of Our Lord among our converts, who indeed shame those born of Christian parents. All the leaders among the Hurons want to be Christians. Four chapels have been built here. This year, up to this there was difficulty in filling one.
Yet the Iroquois persistently persecute this poor nation. Over the past two years they have taken and killed a great number. A fortnight ago they destroyed the Huron flotilla. You know that last year they took Fr. Jogues, some Frenchmen and Hurons with one of our Seminarians. They killed the elderly and kept the others in custody. By the time he reached their country, Fr. Jogues was ground with blows, stripped naked, his thumb sawn off, his index finger chewed to the joint, the tops of the other fingers burned, and he was subjected to a thousand ignominies. They did the same to his French servant. Another Frenchman travelling with them had his head split with a hatchet. [This was St. Rene Goupil, a volunteer lay missionary. He made his vows as a Jesuit and a few days later became the first martyr of Canada]. Fr. Jogues expected the same fate; knelt to receive the blow and offer the sacrifice of his life, but they desisted. The majority of the captives were similarly treated and their life spared. They did nothing to Teresa, our Seminarian, who continues to proclaim the Gospel, and say her prayers in public. Fr. Jogues is preaching the Gospel, the first to preach it in the Iroquois land. God is blessing the work and still a captive, he has baptised more than sixty persons.

I must speak of our resident Seminarians who give us such joy. One of them said to me lately “I often talk to God in my heart. I love to say the names of Jesus and Mary. What lovely names!” Sometimes we hear them talking about God. One day they were asking one another what they were most grateful to God for. One said. “That He became man for me and suffered death to save me from He!”. Another answered. A nine year old who made her first communion a year and a half ago raised her voice and said: “That Jesus gives Himself to us as Food in the sacrament of the Altar”. Isn’t that delightful from girls born in barbarism? They never fail to examine their conscience, and accuse each other with incomparable ingeniousness. Sometimes they ask for corporal punishment to make up to God for their sins. One having been thus corrected was asked what she thought of her chastisement. She said: “I thought that I was loved and chastised to let the spirit come to me, for I have not the Spirit. I am much more culpable, than my companion is. I was instructed, she was not”.

You see what we are doing. I beg you to take great care of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. Through your prayers obtain the conversion of the Iroquois who are doing so much to prevent its coming. They close the routes to keep distant nations from coming to be instructed. An Algonquin nation tried to cross their territory and were met by a discharge of more than a hundred gunshots, but God protected them so well that not even one was wounded. I am writing this at night as there are so many letters to be written, and the ships are going to leave. My hand is so tired that I can hardly guide the pen. That is why I end, asking you to excuse me if I do not re-read my letter.

From Quebec. 30 September 1643.
Kelly, Sr M. St. Dominic, O.S.U. Marie of the Incarnation 1599 - 1672 Correspondence, (translated from the French edition by Dom Guy Oury Monk of Solesmes), Irish Ursuline Union, 2000, p. 72 - 74.