Arrival of Jogues and Garnier A. D. 1636-1640
Recruits—Voyage overseas—A martyr and a Mother— Brebeuf again isolated—Four auxiliaries—Arrival of Jogues— Illness in tribe and Mission—A missionary's daily routine—An Indian's cabin—Mission at Ossossane—Vacation and summer school.
Before Brebeuf's letter reached France recruits were already on the way who would soon be with him in Huronia. His dream was to come true. No doubt in that isolation and solitude, he spent long hours imagining and longing and praying for the realization of his soul's desire. The Jesuits in France had engaged to supply missionaries, and their engagement was like that of a nation pledging troops for war. The number eager to enlist in this case made it difficult for superiors to name who would be first to venture overseas. Early in 1636 they chose five among them, Jogues who was to be apostle to a new Indian nation, and martyr also, along with Gamier, another of the choice company. The others were Adam, Ragueneau and Chastellain, with a brother Cauvet. They came with the new Governor Montmagny in a fleet of eight vessels, leaving Dieppe on April 8th, arriving in Chaleurs Bay June 1st, Jogues moving up to Quebec July 2nd. Two months was the usual time for the voyage. It often took four. Lalemant spent three months on the way. Cartier made his first trip in a ship of sixty tons, in twenty days. It was always tedious, often stormy and very dangerous. The missionaries were distributed among the vessels. Jogues and Garnier were on the same ship. The crew behaved far better than the lot that went with Poutrincourt. One of them, however, was a notorious backslider, and to him the angelic Garnier paid every attention.
Before many days this man yielded to the good priest's influence and sought reconciliation with his Church. Garnier's interest in prison inmates when a student in Paris, led him to be concerned about difficult cases. This will appear frequently in his dealings with the Indians.
Our first intimate knowledge of Jogues is derived from letters to his mother, which were quite frequent. There was one before leaving Dieppe, another on reaching Quebec, and a third within another month before starting for the Huron country. To him she was, after the word of the Commandment, Honored Mother, as he addressed her. More than ever the title befits her now. The first of these messages was:
". . . Endeavor also, if you please, to contribute something by your prayers to the safety of our voyage, and chiefly by a generous resignation of your will to that of God, conforming your desires to those of the Divine goodness, which can be only most holy and honorable for us, since they spring from the heart of a Father full of love for our welfare.
"I hope, as I said on another occasion, that if you take this little affliction in a proper spirit, it will be most pleasing to God, for whose sake it would become you to give not one son only, but all the others, nay, life itself, if it were necessary. Men for a little gain cross the seas, enduring, at least, as much as we; and shall we not, for God's love, do what men do for earthly interests'?
"Good-bye, dear mother. I thank you for all the affection which you have ever shown me, and above all at our last meeting. May God unite us in His holy paradise, if we do not see each other again on earth!
"Present my most humble recommendations to my brothers and sisters, to whose prayers, as to yours, I commend myself in heart and love."
"Your most humble son and obedient servant in Our Lord, Isaac Jogues. Dieppe, April 6, 1636."(49)
He wrote to her after arriving at Quebec: "I do not know what it is to enter paradise; but this I know, that it is difficult to experience in this world a joy more excessive and more overflowing than that I felt on my setting foot in New France, and celebrating my first Mass here on the day of the Visitation. I assure you it was indeed a day of the visitation of the goodness of God and Our Lady. I felt as if it were a Christmas day for me, and that I was to be born again to a new life, and a life in God."(50)
Before leaving for the Huron mission he wrote still another letter on August 20th, as follows:
". . . My health has been so good, thank God, at sea and on land that it has been a matter of wonder to all, it being very unusual for any one to make such a long voyage without suffering a little from sea-sickness or nausea. The vestments and chapel service have been a great comfort to me, as I have offered the holy sacrifice of Mass every day the weather was favorable — a happiness I should have been deprived of, had not our family provided me with them. It was a great consolation to me, and one which our Fathers did not enjoy the preceding years. Officers and crew have profited by it; as but for that the eighty persons on board could not have been present at the Holy Sacrifice for two months, whilst, owing to the faculties I enjoyed, they all confessed and received communion at Whitsunday, Ascension, and Corpus Christi. God will reward you and Madam Houdelin for the good you have enabled me to do.
"You shall have letters of mine every year, and I shall expect yours. It will ever be a consolation for me to hear from you and our family, as I have no hope of seeing you in our lifetime. May God in His goodness unite us both in His holy abode to praise Him for all eternity!"(51)
It was not intended at first that Jogues should go immediately to the Hurons. For a time Brebeuf was there alone. He went through all the excitement of a threatened Iroquois invasion, and he had to witness the revolting scene of an Iroquois tortured unto death. He was powerless to prevent this, but as he had baptized the captive shortly before his ordeal, he was determined to stand by, console and encourage him through such hellish treatment. It was then he witnessed an exhibition of Indian character which was new to him. Their mockery of the victim was fiendish. The more they burned his flesh and crushed his bones, the more they flattered and even coddled him. It was an all-night tragedy. Brebeuf was witnessing what he himself would afterwards suffer.
Le Mercier and Pijart had gone up while Daniel and Davost were on their way down; Gamier and Chastellain went there directly, meeting Daniel on the way. Five would be enough for the time being. Providence had other designs. About August 20th, Daniel's canoe came into Three Rivers with his young charges, and Jogues was there to witness his arrival.
"Father Daniel was in this first company, Father Davost in the rear guard, which did not yet appear; and we even began to doubt whether the island savages had not made them return. At the sight of Father Daniel, our hearts melted; his face was gay and happy, but greatly emaciated; he was barefooted, had a paddle in his hand, and was clad in a wretched cassock, his Breviary suspended to his neck, his shirt rotting on his back. He saluted our captains and our French people; then we embraced him, and, having led him to our little ears of corn, which we roasted for him after the fashion of the country. But it is true that at heart, and to hear him, he never enjoyed better cheer. The happiness felt at these meetings seems to reflect in some sort the joy of the blessed on their entrance into heaven, so full of sweetness is it!"(54)
An epidemic was raging in the village and Jogues was its first victim, among the missionaries. Garnier, Adam, Ragueneau and Chastellain followed. For a while Jogues lay at death's door. As a desperate remedy bleeding was resorted to, and Jogues acted successfully as his own surgeon. He made a rapid recovery. In October he was about again. The others came round more slowly. All, even the convalescing, did what they could to minister to the afflicted Indians. Even in that time medical attention to the body was a way of approach to the soul. The Indians took what relief was afforded them, but ungratefully blamed the Fathers for having brought on their illness. The village sorcerer Tonneraouanont had offered to cure the Fathers by his incantations. He resented their declining. When he saw them grow well without his aid, he was convinced that they were greater sorcerers than himself. It was not difficult for him and others like him to spread the impression that by evil arts the priests had brought this affliction on the village. Fortunately on this occasion the missionaries could prove that the village was the source of the contagion, but they could not remove every lurking suspicion, as the sequel will show.
The new arrivals were busy with the language. In Brebeuf they had an excellent master and they all made quick progress. They made regular visits to the cabins, following as best they could the daily order detailed in a letter of Francois du Peron three years later:
"The importunity of the savages,— who are continually about us in our cabin, and who sometimes break down a door, throw stones at our cabin, and wound our people,— this importunity, I say, does not prevent our observance of our hours, as well regulated as in one of our colleges in France. At four o'clock the rising-bell rings; then follows the orison, at the end of which the Masses begin and continue until eight o'clock; during this period each one keeps silent, reads his spiritual book, and says his lesser hours. At eight o'clock, the door is left open to the savages, until four in the evening; it is permitted to talk with the savages at this time, as much to instruct them as to learn their language. In this time, also, our Fathers visit the cabins of the town, to baptize the sick and to instruct the well; as for me, my employment is the study of the language, watching the cabin, helping the Christians and catechumens pray to God, and keeping school for their children from noon until two o'clock, when the bell rings for examination of conscience. Then follows the dinner, during which is read some chapter from the Bible; and at supper Reverend Father du Barry's Philagie of Jesus is read; the Benedicite and grace is said in Huron, on account of the savages who are present. We dine around the fire, seated on a log, with our plates on the ground. At noon I open the school for the children who happen to be there up to two o'clock; sometimes I only have one, two, or three pupils. On Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays, school closes at one o'clock, when instruction is given to the most prominent people of the village, whether Christians or not; on Thursdays, to Christians and catechumens only; on Sunday morning, to Christians only.
During the parochial Mass, the sermon is preached; before the Mass, the water is blessed while they are singing; and at the offertory the bread, which the savages present in turn, is blessed. On great holy days, High Mass is celebrated. After dinner on Sundays, at one o'clock, vespers are sung; then follows the instruction of Christians and catechumens; at five o'clock complines are sung, and on Saturday evening the Salve, with the litanies of the Virgin. On this same day, at the close of school, a short catechetical instruction is given to the children; and once a month a public catechism is given to the whole village besides the daily instruction given them in their cabins. At four o'clock in the evening, the savages who are not Christians are sent away, and we quietly say, all together, our matins and lauds, at the end of which we hold mutual consultation for three-quarters of an hour about the advancement of and the hindrances to the Faith in these countries; afterwards we confer together about the language until supper, which is at half-past six; at eight o'clock, the litanies, examination of conscience, and then we retire to sleep."(55)
This is what a visit to the cabins meant:
"If you go to visit them in their cabins,—and you must go there oftener than once a day, if you would perform your duty as you ought,— you will find there a miniature picture of hell,— seeing nothing, ordinarily, but fire and smoke, and on every side naked bodies, black and half roasted, mingled pell-mell with the dogs, which are held as dear as the children of the house, and share the beds, plates, and food of their masters. Everything is in a cloud of dust, and, if you go within, you will not reach the end of the cabin before you are completely befouled with soot, filth, and dirt."(56)
A pleasanter picture is that of the missionary's mode of spending his vacation, and of his summer school:
"Summer here is a very inconvenient season for instructing the savages. Their trading expeditions and the farms take every one away, men, women, and children — almost no one remains in the villages. I will tell you how we spent last summer.
"In the first place, we all came together for the spiritual exercises, as is the custom of our Society. We had the more need of these exercises, as the high duties we are called upon to perform need more union with God, and because we are compelled to live in a continual bustle. For this reason we often acknowledge that those who come here should bring a good reserve fund of virtue, if they wish here to gather the fruits thereof. After our exercises we made a confused memorandum of the words we had learned since our arrival, and then we outlined a dictionary of the Huron language which will be very profitable. In it will be seen the various meanings; one will easily recognize in it, when the words are grouped, their differences, which consist sometimes in only a single letter, or even in an accent. Finally we busied ourselves in revising, or rather in arranging, a grammar. I fear we shall often have to make similar revisions; for every day we discover new secrets in this science, which for the present hinders us from sending anything to be printed. We know now, thank God, sufficient to understand and to be understood, but not yet to publish. It is indeed an exceedingly laborious task to endeavor to understand in all points a foreign tongue, very abundant, and as different from our European languages as heaven is from earth,— and that without master or books. I say no more about it here, as I shall write a chapter about it, further on. We all work at it diligently; it is one of our most common occupations. There is not one of us who does not already talk a jargon, and make himself understood, the newly-arrived Fathers as well as the others. I trust that Father Mercier, in particular, will soon be master of it."(57)
Brebeuf will write to the General of his Order in May, 1637:
". . . We are gladly heard, we have baptized more than two hundred this year, and there is hardly a village that has not invited us to go to it. Besides, the result of this pestilence and of these reports has been to make us better known to this people; and at last it is understood, from our actions and from our truths [of religion], that we have not come hither to buy skins or carry on any traffic, but solely to teach them and win them to Christ, and to procure for them their souls' health, and finally everlasting and immortal life. Furthermore, since some families, although not yet baptized, rested all their hope in the Lord, and therefore almost alone remained safe and unharmed, it has resulted that they believe, and eagerly ask for baptism, which, as we hope, they will receive, when they shall have been sufficiently proved. We have seen, too, no uncertain signs of present grace in many whom we have purified through baptism; and already many, both old and young, have, as we believe, soared away to heaven, blessed intercessors before God for their friends. Finally, we have come to hope that — this pestilence, which still rages, once abated in due season, and the minds of men restored to that tranquillity necessary to the hearing and understanding of the truths of the Faith — very many will be converted."(58)
Later when the contagion was at an end, in 1639 Jogues wrote to his brother: "During the epidemic the Fathers baptized more than one thousand two hundred persons. Even in the village where they were the most exposed to the perversity of the people, there were always some anxious to follow the instructions of our Fathers; about one hundred have been regenerated in the waters of baptism, amongst them twenty-two little children."69