THE GRAY GOWNS AND THE BLACK.
“My boatmen sit apart,
Wolf-eyed, wolf-sinewed, stiller than the trees.
Help me, O Lord, for very slow of heart
And hard of faith are these.
Cruel are they, yet Thy children. Foul are they,
Yet wert Thou born to save them utterly.
Then make me as I pray,
Just to their hates, kind to their sorrows, wise
After their speech, and strong before their free
Indomitable eyes.”
MARJORIE PICKTHALL.
THE GRAY GOWNS AND THE BLACK.
When Champlain on his return from New France to his native village of
Brouage told of the vast country which lay beyond the seas, with its
thousands of inhabitants who knew nothing of Christianity, the priests of
the monastery in that village were so impressed with the magnitude of the
work and the necessity for having Christianity presented to these heathen
and savages, that four volunteered to accompany him to New France. They
reached Quebec in May, 1615. They were Franciscans of the Récollet
Order, and were distinguished in dress by the gray robe girt with the
white cord. Hence they are often referred to as the priests of the Gray
Gown.
The most prominent of these was Le Caron, who joined a band of Hurons
returning after a successful sale of their winter’s hunting. Their route
was up the Ottawa, Lake Nipissing and French River to Lake Huron. This
was a memorable trip in many ways, but especially because Le Caron was
the first white man to see what we now call Lake Huron—indeed the first
of the Great Lakes to be discovered by a white man—or to sail upon its
waters. Down among the islands of what is now Georgian Bay they went
until they came near where Penetanguishene now stands, and at a large
Huron village he awaited the coming of Champlain.
On the 12th August Le Caron celebrated mass and held the first religious
service in all this territory, which afterwards was known as Upper
Canada. Three hundred years afterwards this event was remembered by mass
being celebrated as nearly as known on the same spot, and a monument
erected.
Champlain and he spent most of the winter with the Hurons and made visits
to their neighbours, the Petuns, or Tobacco Indians, along the south
shore of Nottawasaga Bay, and at the foot of the Blue Hills near where
the town of Collingwood now stands.
After returning to Quebec to consult with the other members of the Order
who had come out to reinforce the small number of missionaries, Le Caron
in 1623 returned to his Hurons with Father Viel and Brother Sagard. To
the industry of the latter we owe a dictionary of the Huron language.
They laboured on with zeal but without making much lasting impression and
they realized that the field was too large and the priests were too few.
The Récollets had been in New France for about ten years and had founded
missions in Acadia in the east, Huronia in the west, Nipissing and Upper
St. John. They now realized that the Order was not equipped with the
machinery or organization necessary to deal with so great a problem and
in their despair they sent a deputation to the Jesuits in France to state
the problem and ask their aid.
The invitation to come to their help was accepted by the Jesuits and in
1625 three of these priests of the “Black Gown” landed at Quebec. They
were met by the Récollets, who became their hosts and took care of them
until the work of organizing the mission could be undertaken. Two of
these were Brebeuf and Lalemant, the former of whom set off for Huronia
but turned back when he heard of the death of the Gray Robe, Father Viel,
who was on his way from Huronia to Quebec. He was drowned in what is
known as the Riviere des Prairies near Montreal, where the rapids are
known to this day as the Sault au Récollet—The Récollet Rapids.
Champlain granted to the Jesuits land for their headquarters, where
they might build their mission, and establish their farm in connection
therewith, for they were practical men. Indeed, so firmly did they
believe in having a definite investment in the country in which they were
labouring that by the end of the French rule in this country the Jesuits
were the largest land owners in New France. In planning their missionary
labours Brebeuf was assigned to Huronia, the field which for nearly
twenty-three years was to be his home.
When Quebec was taken by Kirke four years afterwards, the priests with
the other official inhabitants were taken away as prisoners, and when the
country was restored to France and the conduct of affairs given over to
the Company of 100 Associates, the Récollets were not allowed to return.
The excuse was that one Order was all that could be supported by the
Company, and the Jesuits were the better organized. Thus passed away the
Brethren of the Gray Robes except in some isolated cases in later days,
when as in 1669, under the Intendant Talon, some few returned.
And now commences the romantic story of the Jesuits, the priests of the
Black Robe, to whose mission journals called “Relations,” we owe most of
our information of the early history of our country. From 1632 to 1673
there appeared annually in Paris a volume called a Relation, in which the
work of the Jesuits in New France for the twelve months was described and
reports from the missionaries incorporated or quoted.
These were very popular for they were interesting, romantic, full of
information that was new and strange, and often were the means of
stimulating wealthy people to help the cause of evangelisation; in some
cases impelling persons to offer themselves as helpers in the great work,
and still others to come out to this great land for the sheer adventure.
All the work of the Jesuits was characterized by the spirit of
self-sacrifice on the part of the individual and by the efficiency of
machinery. This is noticeable in the Relation or Annual Report published
each year and which in form and method furnishes even to-day a model
for the annual report of great institutions. Another aspect of their
efficiency is seen in the way in which they prepared their missionaries
for the task before them. There was a training period of two years during
which the Jesuit studied the languages of the tribes among whom he was
likely to live and became accustomed to the methods of living and the
customs of the new country.
A striking illustration of the worldly wisdom of the superior officers of
the Order is found in a circular issued to the missionaries who were to
go up with the Indians to Huronia:
“You should love the Indians like brothers with whom you are
to spend the rest of your life. Never make them wait for you
when embarking. Take a flint and steel to light their pipes
and kindle their fires at night; for these little services win
their hearts. Try to eat their sagamité, as they cook it,—bad
and dirty as it is. Fasten up the skirts of your cassock
that you may not carry water or sand into the canoe. Wear no
shoes or stockings in the canoe, but you may put them on in
crossing the portages. Do not make yourself troublesome even
to a single Indian. Do not ask them too many questions. Bear
their faults in silence and appear always cheerful. Buy fish
for them from the tribes you will pass; and for this purpose
take with you some awls, beads, knives, and fish hooks. Be not
ceremonious with the Indians; take at once what they offer you.
Ceremony offends them. Be very careful when in the canoe that
the brim of your hat does not annoy them. Perhaps it would
be better to wear your night cap. There is no such thing as
impropriety among Indians. Remember it is Christ and His cross
that you are seeking; and if you aim at anything else you will
get nothing but affliction for body and mind.”
There were some, of course, who had not the gift of learning languages.
These returned to France or were employed in the missions in the white
settlements. It was from such training and with the motto of the Order
animating every thought and action they went forth: “Ad majorem Dei
gloriam,”—for the greater glory of God.
Naturally, the first great mission was to the Hurons, who had been the
firm friends of the French, and who had been introduced to Christianity
already by the Récollets; and who, moreover, lived in permanent
settlements, and cultivated their fields. So the Jesuits followed the
trail of Le Caron and for nearly a quarter of a century Brebeuf and his
companions worked faithfully in Huronia, that part of what is now known
as the province of Ontario called the county of Simcoe and bordering upon
the Georgian Bay. His brother priest in this great missionary enterprise
was Lalemant. Headquarters with a school were now established in a
well-planned fort, which they built on the eastern bank of the Wye and
from which missionaries were sent out to some twelve stations in Huronia,
and among the neighbouring tribes. This was really a model settlement for
the Hurons, who could see fields of corn, beans, pumpkins and wheat, with
pigs and cattle outside, and shops of useful trades inside where were the
men at the forge, the shoe shop, the laundry and the carpenter shop.
The Hurons, however, were ignorant and superstitious and the medicine men
took advantage of epidemics of sickness, which arose from the unsanitary
living, to blame the missionaries, who indeed must have been men of
infinite patience and unselfish devotion to their work.
[Illustration: THE CORN HARVEST
Among the Iroquois the cultivation of maize, beans, squashes and other
garden produce was extensive and furnished a large portion of their food
supply. The women of each village were organized in companies to plant
and harvest the grain. The men cleared the land and provided the meat
supply, but they seldom worked in the fields.
This group depicts a harvest scene in the Genesee valley on the flats
near Squakie hill at Mount Morris. The activities are gathering and
braiding corn, shelling beans, pounding corn for meal and baking corn
bread. The man has just come from his canoe and reaches the field in time
for lunch.
The figures are life casts of Seneca Indians.]
And now just when it seemed as if they might see some result of their
long and unselfish labour the Iroquois began to make raids upon this
northern country. There were constant encounters on the trading journeys
to Quebec, but in 1642 a great Huron village near where the town of
Orillia now stands was wiped out by a marauding party of Iroquois.
And yet the Hurons would not take seriously the warnings of their
missionaries and made no preparations against their unrelenting enemies.
Watching for the departure of the great canoe fleet to Quebec in 1648,
the Iroquois made a sudden attack on Huronia and Father Daniel and his
village of St. Joseph were slaughtered. Next spring they returned, put
St. Ignace to the sword, took the village of St. Louis and stripped and
bound to stakes the Fathers Brebeuf and Lalemant. The tortures to which
these good men were put before they were killed can hardly be imagined
and cannot be described, all of which they stood with amazing fortitude.
Indeed, even the Indians, stolid as they were, could not help admiring
the courage of these martyrs for they drank the blood of Brebeuf that
they might be as brave as he.
The spirit of these men can be understood in the description given us
by Marjorie Pickthall, one of our own poets, of Father Lalemant, on a
missionary journey:
“My hour of rest is done;
On the smooth ripple lifts the long canoe;
The hemlocks murmur sadly as the sun
Slants his dim arrows through.
Whither I go I know not, nor the way,
Dark with strange passions, vexed with heathen charms,
Holding I know not what of life or death;
Only be Thou beside me day by day,
Thy rod my guide and comfort, underneath
Thy everlasting arms.”
And so the Iroquois went through Huronia burning and scalping until there
was only a mass of ruins, and the remnant of the Hurons fled to St.
Joseph, on Christian Island, in Georgian Bay. Here they built a fort, but
soon realized that in such an isolated position they could be starved
out. Part of the nation went to Quebec, where they were protected and
given some land, and part went to Michillimackinac, and thence to Lake
Superior, where Father Marquette found them. Driven out by fear of the
Sioux they returned to Mackinac, and thence some of them settled near
Detroit, where under the name of Wyandots, they took part in the rising
against the English known as Pontiac’s war, just after the capture of
Quebec by Wolfe.
This story of Huronia has been told in some detail because it illustrates
the work of the men of the Black Robe who shrank from no sacrifice, who
knew no fear, and for whom there could be no earthly reward. Huronia was
the greatest of the missions of the Jesuits, for there were twenty-five
members of the Order working among these people.
But there were other missions. That among the fickle and warlike
Iroquois, with Jogues and Le Moyne, that at Ville Marie (Montreal),
afterwards given over to Sulpicians, who to this day are an extremely
powerful Order in this great city, and that at Sault Ste. Marie, where
Allouez, Dablon and Marquette had a mission which exercised a powerful
influence southwards to Michillimackinac and the country of the Illinois,
and westwards to where Fort William, Duluth, and even Winnipeg, now
stand. It was from this mission that Joliet, the Government official, and
Marquette, the Black Robe, set out on their journey to discover the great
Southern Sea, and which resulted in the discovery of the Mississippi.
And so from Nova Scotia to the southern Mississippi and northwards to
Hudsons Bay, wherever there were Indian settlements of importance there
were Black Robes ministering to the wandering tribes, teaching methods
of greater production and less waste in the more settled places, and
everywhere endeavouring to show the benefits of law, order, and settled
government. There were seven churches or missions of the Jesuits in
New France—Acadia (Maine, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Cape Breton);
Tadoussac (lower St. Lawrence and Saguenay); Quebec, Montreal and Three
Rivers as one; Huronia; to the Iroquois; the Ottawa or Sault Ste. Marie
(Ojibways, Beaver, Crees, Ottawas, Menominees, Pottawatomies, Sacs,
Foxes, Winnebagoes, Miamis, Illinois and refugee Hurons), Louisiana.
What they have left to us is not material wealth, but something
infinitely greater, the record of self devotion, self sacrifice, fearless
zeal and unflinching bravery even to a lingering death in a cause which
they put above all renown.