Letter 97

From Quebec to her son. 29 August - 10 September 1646.
Progress of the Faith in Canada, confirmation of the peace treaty. Precious deaths of Frs. Noue and Masse. S. J. Virtues of some particular Indians.

My very dear and well-beloved son,

I beg the King of Saints to be the only object of your love for time and eternity. My desire that you pray, and get good people to pray, for this new Church causes me to give you a little account of the blessings God continues to pour on our Indians. That will re-animate you to praise your benefactor and to ask Him for perseverance for the Baptised and the grace of a true conversion for the others. That does not seem too far away as every day to our great consolation we see new nations coming here drawn by the peace which leaves the way safe. Their desire for instruction and salvation makes them ask for Fathers to return with them to their country, to bring them the rich treasures of Faith and the Gospel and by Baptism to add them to the number of the Children of God.

Those who seem most zealous are the Indians from the North. The Mission headquarters for them is at Tadoussac, I told you about them last year and how the Nations that live in lands between frightening mountains and inaccessible rocks, come there every spring. The Fathers take good care to be at Tadoussac to instruct them during the three or four months of more temperate weather, for the rest of the year the cold is unparalleled with snow and ice in June. A few days ago I asked the Father in charge of that Mission for news, as this year I am spiritually associated with him for the conversion of these people. Though we reach out to all nations and their Creator yet to stir up our zeal, we draw lots each year, each one drawing a particular Mission. The Northern Nations fell to my lot, and I wanted to know what blessings God was pouring on them so as to thank Him. This is the priest’s answer: “The best news from these parts is the spreading of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. In one day I baptised 30 Betsiamites and heard the confessions of sixty Christians. I am about to solemnise six marriages in front of the Church. The day before yesterday I took all the paraphernalia of the sorcerers, stones, tambours, and such rubbish; I boiled them to let them see how unimportant they were, so that the evil spirit would no longer stalk the land of these poor people. The Indians at Tadoussac give talks, which are invaluable, both for their own people and for foreign nations, encouraging them to believe and embrace the Faith. Hearing them is more effective than seeing”.

Thank the great Master for giving the Light to all the Nations of the North, for there are more than ten different nations here and all have come more than twelve days journey to Tadoussac. I do not know if the end of the world is near, but the faith is spreading rapidly. My only regret is that I am such a poor instrument in the hands of God, but pray His goodness I beg you, to have mercy and make me more worthy. The devotions of our parishioners are well regulated. About sixty of them have been to confession two or three times, and as they are preparing for Holy Communion they fast on Saturday. Thirty have made their first Holy Communion, the others will in time. It has been a great consolation to me to see them receiving the Holy Sacrament with such devotion and fervour that the French who arrived in two boats and were present at Mass, including the blessing of Holy Water and the Instruction, were lost in admiration. The officials obey with exactitude. They have First, Second and Third Table. The important persons eat at the First, the officers serving them at the Second, the women and children at the Third. They have made an alley to walk after their meal, to discuss their affairs and to pray while walking. They long to have a little house, French type, to live in summer and to lock their belongings in during the winter hunting.

It is delightful to see our good Indians at Sillery and the care they take that God is properly served in their settlement, that the laws of the Church are kept inviolable, and that faults are punished to appease God. The captains take special care to obviate anything that might be an occasion of sin, in particular or in general. You never go into the Chapel without seeing some Indian praying so devoutly that it is really touching. If some one is unmindful of his Christian Faith or morals, he goes away of his own accord, knowing that willy-nilly be will have to do penance or be disgraced or expelled from the settlement. A few days ago a young man had a quarrel with his wife. They were brought before the captains. The man was sentenced to be chained for three days in the cellar of the Fort, fasting on bread and water. The wife got the same, the three days to be spent in our Monastery. These poor people performed their penance with such devotion that I believe they were forgiven the moment their sentence was pronounced. The woman did not want even a handful of straw to lie on. She wanted to make reparation to God whom she had offended.

The Attikamek also from the North, are converted and live a life of extraordinary innocence. Four years ago about thirty of them came down here and were instructed and baptised. They returned to their own country and with the fervour of the Apostles, told their people the Good News they had encountered. They explained to them the teachings of the Faith as they had learned them, and converted a great number. These they brought to Three Rivers for Baptism. Since that their lives are as well regulated as if they were resident priests. They come from time to time, although they live so far away, to give an account of their Faith and to get new Lights. They are most zealous, even the children.

The peace that was made last year has opened the way for distant nations. They can come in safety for trade and instruction and are delighted. They are begging the Fathers to go with them to their countries. Already they are setting out for the inaccessible Abenakis. Others are going to the Iroquois, the cherished Mission of Fr. Jogues, where he first shed his blood to moisten that land, but he has it sanctified still more by his heroic virtues, which will not be properly known until the day of Judgment, as this great servant of God hides them in humble silence. The little that appears has won the admiration of even his tyrannical captors, who seeing him back from France and returning to their country have welcomed him as an Angel from Heaven and treat him as their Father.

But I must tell you about the Ambassadors who promised to return in spring As soon as they arrived m their home country, they met the captains and delivered their message from M. de Montmagny, the Governor, and the French, the Hurons, the Algonquins and the other nations involved m the Peace negotiations This is how the meeting was conducted. Three days after their arrival m the first village the people assembled to hear the Governor’s offer from M. Couture. Before the Ambassadors could begin they were given a present to grease their throats and remove the dust of the journey so that they could speak more easily. When Couture and the others had made their speeches and offered their gifts the Iroquois offered their six gifts.

The first was to ease their feet, bleeding from the briars and thorns and difficulties of the journey. The second to say that hatchets, formerly used against the French, the Algonquins, the Hurons and their allies were thrown far away and would do no more harm. The third to evince their regret for the misbehaviour of the bad bold daughter who disobeyed her mother who had told her to listen to the voice of her Father, the Governor, and consider his goodness. Instead she came brazenly to Montreal in the autumn, raising the hatchet. This was an apology for the Oneidas, a small Iroquois nation. Not accepting the truce and unknown to the Iroquois Chiefs, seven of their braves went on the warpath and slew some Algonquins. The fourth marked the joy of the whole country that Montmagny, the Governor, had united all the peoples and leveled all the land. The fifth thanked their common father, the incomparable Governor, for giving spirit to the Algonquins, when everything else failed to do so.The sixth for welcoming them to their houses and being able to speak freely to them.

The gifts given and the business concluded, Couture set out with his Algonquin companions ten days after their arrival. They had gone a long way when they were obliged to retrace their steps. Their canoes were gone from where they left them to proceed on foot. God permitted it to assure them of the sincerity of the Iroquois. Some time after their arrival at the village they had set out from, the braves who had killed the Algonquins near Montreal came seeking an audience, which was granted. The spokesman displayed the scalps of the victims saying, “Here is one of those you hate, I have heard you say that far from seeking reconciliation with them, if your souls met theirs in the next world, you would still persecute them. I say the same and to encourage you to hold firm, here are their heads and two cords to bind them (a very big collar of beads, fifty hand breaths). The heads were those of several of our good Christians of Sillery, encamped near Montreal and treacherously slain by these wretches.
The Iroquois replied that they were astounded at the effrontery of bringing them these heads, they regard it as a deliberate insult. Did they think the Governor was a child? What will he say when he hears this news? Will he not say: Typical of the Iroquois! They will not strike the blows themselves, but gave the hatchet to these others to scalp our friends. But that is not all. Not only is our honour at stake, but our very lives. Our relatives are living among the Algonquins, as if in their land, now are they not in danger of losing their lives? Will they not be treated as responsible for these murders? Go away with your gifts, none of us will touch them.

All this showed us that the Iroquois, though barbarous, were sincerely seeking peace. Besides, during the winter according to Couture, there was no talk of war. They were happy to be able to hunt without fear of attack and they had a most successful season. They slaughtered more than two thousand deer. They charged Couture to tell the Algonguins and Hurons that they were coming for their daughters and relatives who were captives among them for a long time.

Couture returned in Spring with the Iroquois ambassadors, and brought many presents under different designations, but all to confirm the peace. The Governor gave them presents in return as a sign that he accepted their terms and would do all in his power to maintain the peace, that henceforth he would love and accept them as his children, they would be welcome in the houses of the French, they would always find the fire burning and the pot boiling as a mark of pleasure with the alliance and to give them proof of all that, as well as his affection for them, not only was he letting them hear it from his own lips in the present council, but he was sending one of the Fathers with a very important French man to bring the news to the whole country and to reassure all the Iroquois of his good will. For this embassy he had selected Father Jogues, whom he loved as himself and respected as his father, and the assurances of friendship and the welcome accorded to the Father he would regard as offered to himself. The Iroquois were highly pleased and manifested their appreciation and gratitude.

May16, Fr. Jogues set out with the Iroquois and Monsieur, one of the principal French settlers. [He had gone to Canada in 1634 with his friend, the first secular priest to go to Canada. He married and reared a family of seven or eight. Four of his daughters became nuns, two of them Ursulines.] The journey was difficult and demanding with rapids entailing long portages where canoes and baggage had to be shouldered, and no traveler is exempt from carrying his share of the load. They came to a place where several Iroquois were fishing, among them our Teresa of the Hurons. The Father spoke to her in private, questioned her, instructed and exhorted her to have courage, that the time of her deliverance was near. He had her ransom which he had sent, not as a price, for the terms of the peace obliged them to return captives, but to repay those who had supported her. She assured him she had remained firm in the Faith and prayed to God every day, that she would be delighted to return to us to renew her impressions of piety and the things of God. She was only thirteen or fourteen when she was captured; yet she kept the Faith in the midst of barbarity and diabolical superstition.

The Father having arrived in the land of the Iroquois was well received. He made his speeches and presented his gifts on the part of the Governor according to the customary formalities of the country. The Iroquois responded with enthusiastic applause. The details would take too long to relate. The Father had no brief to preach the Faith, just to introduce himself and let them see that he bore them no ill-will for the way they had treated him, that on the contrary he loved them as his brothers and nephews, and hoped to come to live with them when he had brought the news to the Governor that they had accepted the Treaty and were ready to unite with him and his allies.

I must tell you now of the precious deaths of Fathers de Noue and Masse, SJ. The former seems to have died on the Feast of the Purification, in the exercise of obedience and charity. He exposed himself to danger going from Three Rivers to Fort Richelieu on the frozen ice-bound Great River to hear confessions of the soldiers of the garrison who were left without a priest. On January 30 he set out from Three Rivers accompanied by a Huron and two Frenchmen. Their first stop was eighteen miles from Three Rivers, at Lake St. Peter on the northern side. Having taken a short rest he set out at about two o’clock in the morning intending to go on ahead of his party to tell others at the settlement they were coming, and to go to meet them to relieve them of the load of provisions they were dragging along on the ice from Three Rivers. The good Father’s ardent charity and courage caused him to be concerned more for others than for himself. He refused the drop of wine and a bit of cooked bacon they were offering, taking only a piece of bread and a few prunes for the journey. He left his gun to light their fire and the blanket the Fathers use as a cloak when they go the Mission in winter in the woods and snows. He travelled on the frozen river in extreme cold wearing only a light soutane over his shirt. He walked by the light of the moon, going north from one headland to the next, when the sky darkened and the snow began to fall and he could no longer see the island. The two soldiers set out three hours later than the priest and walked for two hours in the dark in fear and with difficulty. They were new in the country and could not walk in snowshoes, and they could not see Father’s footprints. One of them had travelled to Richelieu before. He thought of using a compass to get to the middle of the lake and make straight for the islands. Weariness overcame them and the two soldiers lay down to sleep at the extremity of St. Ignatius Island opposite Fort Richelieu. The Huron, stronger and more accustomed to hardship, went on to the Fort and asked for the Father. He had not come. The Captain and garrison spent the night in consternation. When daylight came they went to meet the soldiers and found them half-dead, not having a fire during the night. They were brought to the Fort, where they were surprised not to find the priest. A search party was sent out. All day and a good part of the night they searched, they shouted, they called, they fired shouts but no response. Next day, a soldier decided to go to the place where Father had spent the first night and from there trace his footprints. Two Hurons went with him, glad to go, as Father always wore Huron snowshoes. They recognised the trail and followed it going directly North through the lake and its islands. They came to a place between one of the islands and the mainland where there were several sets of tracks as if he had lost his way and was trying to recover his sense of direction. Following the tracks they found where he had rested on a few pine branches, after he had cleared the snow from under them. They followed the trail for another league past fort Richelieu. He had failed to see the Fort because it was snowing or because he was too weak. They saw a place where he had rested and three miles further up river they found his body, kneeling on the ground in a ditch surrounded by snow which had supported him. He had probably to give up his life and the dead weight had taken that position. His snowshoes and cap were beside him, and the bread he had taken for the journey was still in his pocket. The good soldier prayed and made a cross on the nearby tree, wrapt the body in a blanket and placed the body on a sled in the posture in which he had found it. They brought it to Three Rivers where all were filled with sadness and consolation, sadness because the good Father’s care was to be of use to everybody and now he was dead deprived of all human help and consolation; seeing the body in this posture in which St. Francis Xavier is normally represented, the hands crossed on his chest, the eyes opened and fixed on Heaven, which had been the sole witness of his agony and from which he expected the crown of his labours. His face was more like a man in contemplation than one dead; the devout spectacle brought tears to all eyes. The Fathers who were at Three Rivers at the time having brought the body to the fire to defrost it, the colour of health and life returned and looked so beautiful that they could not refrain from embracing him. The good Father was 66 (58). He had been from an early age in this country where he endured great fatigues while he and Fr. Masse laid the foundations of this Church. Fr. Masse also died in this same year aged over 70. Besides the famine, they endured the shipwrecks on sea and being taken by the English. They laid the foundation of this Church where they met crosses greater than can be imagined. And yet neither the troubles nor the labours nor the persecutions made them give in or lose courage. A French nobleman wanting to get Fr. de Noue by repeated requests to his superiors and even writing to himself last year so insistently that he was sure he had him won, got a rather dry answer that his constant prayer to God was to take him out of this world altogether rather than take him from his Mission.

And to win the heart of God and get Him to give that grace he was constantly doing heroic deeds which everybody admired. It was believed that God had heard his prayer by this precious death. To die alone and abandoned, while exercising charity and obedience, is it not to resemble Jesus Christ? Fr. Masse died a natural death while praying. His life was holy, he even worked miracles. As I knew very intimately these great servants of God, I was much affected by their deaths, but the thought was so sweet that I seemed to feel something of their glory, just as I was aware of their holiness while they were alive.

I have just said good-bye to the Rev. Fathers who are going to open the Mission of St. Ignatius among the Abenakis, accompanied only by Indians of that nation, who have come here to ask for Missionaries. It is a very vast territory, not yet penetrated. They have come by a special grace of God. One or two of our good Christians went to see them in recent years to speak to them of God but they wouldn’t even listen. However the seed was blessed and God’s hour seems to have come and we hope it will bear fruit. Near them are a number of English in different settlements occupying 600 miles of seacoast. They trade in furs as the French do here. When they heard the Indians were coming to ask for Missionaries they encouraged them, telling them they couldn’t do better. They say there are great numbers of Catholics (in secret) among them and the Mission will bear double fruit.

Letters from the Hurons tell us that a new country has been discovered and that they have found an entry to it. It is the nation of the Winnipegs. It will be a great Mission with hopes of expansion because these people are numerous and settled. By their means it is hoped to reach other tribes to bring them Jesus Christ. The Missionaries will work hard. They are going to explore a great sea beyond the Hurons, by which they hope to find the route to China. By means of this same sea they hope to discover many tribes near the shore and inland. If God prospers this enterprise and God preserves my life, I’ll share my joy with you for my one wish is the progress and fulfillment of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ. I’ll tell you what I know about it, so that you will join me in this design for the Greater Glory of God, in the salvation of souls ransomed by the Precious Blood of His Only Son. I beg you to pray ceaselessly for this intention. How happy I should be if I heard you had given your life for this great cause! As for me, I’d be happy to be cut to pieces for this Mission! Pray for your unworthy mother that she may not hinder God’s plan. In practical terms I must tell you something of our work in the parlours and in the boarding school. The Hurons down here are almost continually in our parlour seeking instruction. That is Sr. St. Joseph’s mission. She knows the language and the good neophytes and catechumens regard her as their mother. Last year a captain called, John Baptist came with his whole family to be present at the treaty with the Iroquois. All winter he gave us the means of exercising the spiritual and corporal works of mercy, for though he is a captain and an important person among the Indians, being out of his country he was in need of everything because these people bring nothing with them except the furs they sell, on account of the difficulty of the journey. I can’t tell you their zeal for the Faith and their practices of devotion. But what we most admire is their delicacy of conscience and their care to avoid even the slightest faults and to confess them immediately. One time the simplicity of John Baptist consoled and made us smile. Being on the point of going to the hunt some persons who had promised to give him the necessities of his journey which would last several days, failed to keep their promise. This made him utter a few impatient words. Recovering himself he was filled with remorse and wanted to confess his sin at once but there was no priest available so he told his sin to Sr. St. Joseph asking her to tell the Confessor when he returned and assure him of his sorrow and that he asked pardon of God and would try to be better in future. She got him to make acts of contrition and he set out in peace. When he had gone about six miles he heard the priest was back. He left the hunt and returned to tell his sin, saying he could not go in peace without confessing his impatience.

Another Huron not yet instructed, but desiring it ardently, was given to Sr. St. Joseph. From that out he regarded her as his mother, obeying punctually, doing exactly what she said and nobody could get him to do anything that would interfere with the instruction time. Once for some important reason he had to go hunting with Algonquins but wouldn’t go without her permission. Having got it he left immediately. No day passed while he was away without his saying the Rosary and his other prayers. He was continually going over what he had learned of the Mysteries of Religion fearing to forget them and so delay his baptism. He had no sooner stepped out of the canoe on his return than he was at the convent grille asking to be made a child of God “Mother” he said to his instructors. “I have sinned much since I saw you. In my desire for instruction and Baptism I often asked to return and being refused, I was sad and didn’t suffer the delay in peace”. Hurons at another time wanted him to go to hunt beavers. They were insistent and promised great profit. He asked leave from his teacher. She said he could go if he didn’t want to be baptised soon, but if he desired Baptism as much as he said she didn’t think it a good preparation for this grace to go travelling for gain He answered resolutely: “I have decided not to go nothing is more important than my salvation and my Baptism. I don’t want to bring home any riches other than the Faith and the honour of being a child of God”. No day passed that he didn’t come for instruction. Our Lord blest his good will and gave him such a retentive memory that he learned quickly. He was baptised on Whit-Monday, overcome with joy. His happiness was obvious in his words actions and in his whole bearing. Since then he has been to Confession twice a week. Now he is being prepared for First Holy Communion which will be celebrated with solemnity in his own country. Our little Seminary has been used to the full this year as well as other years. Winter is our harvest time, for the Indians away on the hunt for six months leave us their daughters to be instructed. It is a precious time for us as during the summer the children can’t leave their mothers because they help in the maize fields and in curing the beaver skins. Our numbers are low then but we always have enough to keep us occupied.

The head girl of our neophytes is the granddaughter of the first Christian in this new Church. Her parents vowed her to God at birth. She was given to us at the age of two as her mother had died and for three years we educated her with a view to religious life on account of her parents vow if she so willed. She was the best and brightest at school since we came to Canada. As soon as she was able to speak she was saying her Indian prayers from memory and even those we taught to the French girls. What she heard sung in Choir she knew almost at once and sang with us without any hesitation. Outsiders wanted to hear her singing and were delighted with her rendering of whole psalms. Her catechism answers were perfect and she taught her companions even though she was only five and a half, her leadership was accepted. She decided which prayers were to be said and led the group with wonderful grace and fervour. Our joy was short-lived - a lung infection caused her to lose her voice and her life. Her illness lasted six to seven months during which she was so patient, so obedient, so good that it was scarcely credible. She asked for a priest to hear her Confession and he was amazed at her attention, devotion and maturity. No matter how weak she was, she never failed to say her prayers. An hour or so before the end she was very weak and distressed. She was told it was the devil tempting her so she would not obey. Immediately she joined her hands and did what was asked of her. When we visited she showed her love for us and told us what she would ask of God for us when she went to heaven. On the point of death she was asked if she loved God, “Yes “, she said, “I love Him with my whole heart”. These were her last words. Her father, treacherously wounded by a stranger, had died a little before, the death of a saint. When somebody spoke to her about her relatives, she said, she had no relatives - “the nuns in black are my mothers. My father told me so before he died and told me to obey them and that he had given me to them”. When she had some little difference with her companions she used to tell them. “My father is in Heaven, but yours is not”. That was her way of getting even with them. Though we believe in Heaven we have been deeply moved by the death of this little innocent one and so have all our friends. French and Indians regarded her as a little Ursuline, doing the work of one though only a child. Our Lord gives us this grace that our Seminary is the refuge of the afflicted and the oppressed. If any girl is in danger of losing her life or her honour or the good graces of her relatives or no matter what the trouble, the leading women see to it that they all live as good Christians. They bring the troubled ones to us to be protected and instructed. Bless this Sovereign Goodness and for all His benefits and intercede with me for the cause of Jesus Christ and the spread of His Kingdom. Let us live and die for this.

From Quebec, 10 September 1646.
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. 104 -111.