prepared to witness in a girl so gentle and beautiful. When her father had
ended his account, she seized his hand passionately, pressed it warmly
between her own hands, and kissed the chain.

"Father, dear father," she exclaimed in a burst of feeling, "I thank you
from my heart for acting as you did! Those wretches were scoffing at our
holy religion, but you behaved bravely in defence of the faith. For this
they put chains on you, as the heathen did to S. Peter and S. Paul."

Once more she kissed the chain, then, turning quickly, hastened across the
yard to the house.

"Mechtild isn't like the rest of us," said Holt, smiling. "There's a great
deal of spirit in her. I have often noticed it. But I am not astonished at
her being roused at the mock procession--I was roused myself. I declare,
Mr. Seraphin, it is a shame, a crying shame, that persons are permitted to
rail at doctrines and things which we revere as holy. One would almost
believe Satan himself was in some people, they take so fanatical a delight
in scoffing at a religion which is holy and enjoins nothing but what is
good."

"It is incontestable that infidelity hates and opposes God and religion,"
replied Gerlach. "The boasted culture of those who find a pleasure in
grossly wounding the most sacred feelings of their neighbors, is wicked
and stupid."

Mechtild returned with a file in her hand.

"Right, my child! I was just thinking of the file myself. Here, cut the
catches of the lock."

He laid his arm across the table. A few strokes of the file caused the
lock and remnant of chain to fall from his wrist.

"We will keep this as a precious memento," said she. "Only think, father,
that wicked official ordered you to be manacled, and he is the
representative of authority. How can one respect or even pray for
authorities when they allow religion to be ridiculed?"

"Pray for your enemies," answered the countryman gravely.

"I will do so because God commands me; but I shall never again be able to
respect the official!"

Her anger had fled; she appeared again all light and loveliness. He did
not fail to observe a searching look which she directed upon him, but its
meaning became clear to him only when, as he was taking leave, she said in
a tone of humility: "Pardon my vehemence, Mr. Seraphin! Don't think me a
bad girl."

"There is nothing to be forgiven, Mechtild. You were indignant against
godless wretches, and they who are not indignant against evil cannot
themselves be good."

"We are most heartily thankful for this visit," spoke Holt. "I need not
say that we will consider it a great happiness as often as you will be
pleased to come."

"Good-night!" returned the young man, and he walked away.

Deeply immersed in his thoughts, Seraphin went back to town. What he was
thinking about, his diary does not record. But the excitement under which
he had rushed forth was gone--dispelled by the magic of a rural sorceress.
He walked on quietly like a man who seems filled with confidence in his
own future. The recent painful impressions seemed to his mind to lie far
back in the past; their place was taken up by beautiful anticipations
which, like the aurora, shed soft and pleasing light upon his path. He
halted frequently in a dream-like reverie to indulge the happiness with
which his soul was flooded. The full moon, just peering over the hills,
shed around him a mystic brightness that harmonized perfectly with the
indefinable contentment of his heart, and seemed to be gazing quizzingly
into the countenance of the young man, who almost feared to confess to
himself that he had found an invaluable treasure.

As he stopped before the Palais Greifmann, all the bright spirits that had
hovered round about him on the way back from the little whitewashed
cottage, fled. He awoke from his dream, and, ascending the stairs with a
feeling of discomfort, he entered his apartment, where his father sat
awaiting him.

"At last," spoke Mr. Conrad, looking up from a book. "You have kept me
waiting a long time, my son."

"I was in need of a good long walk, father, to get over what I witnessed
this morning. The country air has dispelled all those horrible
impressions. There is only one thing more required to make me feel
perfectly well, dear father, which is that you will not insist on my
allying myself to people who are utterly opposed to my way of thinking and
feeling."

"I understand and approve of your request, Seraphin. The impressions made
on me, too, are exceedingly disagreeable. The advancement of which this
town boasts is stupid, immoral, detestable. How this state of society has
come about, is inexplicable to me who live secluded in the country.
Society is diseased, fatally diseased. Many of the new views professed are
sheer superstition, and their morality is a mere cloak for their
corruption and wickedness. All the powers of progress so-called are
actively at work to subvert all the safeguards of society. And what your
diary reports of Louise, I have found fully confirmed. Though it cost the
sacrifice of a long cherished plan, a son of mine shall never become the
husband of a progressionist woman."

"O father! how deeply do I thank you!" cried the youth, carried away by
his feelings.

"I must decline being thanked, for I have not merited it," spoke Mr.
Conrad earnestly. "A father's duty determines very clearly what my
decision upon the matter of your marriage with Louise, ought to be. But I
am under obligations to you, my son, which justice compels me to
acknowledge. Your discernment and moral sense have prevented a great deal
of discord and unhappiness in our family. Continue good and true, my
Seraphin!"

He pressed his son to his bosom and imprinted a kiss on his forehead.

"To-morrow we shall start for home by the first train. Fortunately your
prudent behavior makes it easy for us to get away, and the final breaking
off of this engagement I will myself arrange with Louise's father."

    Seraphin Gerlach To The Author.

    DEAR SIR: Two years ago, I took the liberty of sending you my
    diary, with the request that you would be pleased to publish such
    portions of its contents as might be useful, in the form of a tale
    illustrative of the times. I made the request because I consider
    it the duty of a writer who delineates the condition of society,
    to transmit to posterity a faithful picture of the present social
    status, and I am vain enough to believe that my jottings will be a
    modest contribution towards such a tableau.

    The meagre account given by the diary of my intercourse with
    Mechtild, will probably have enabled you to perceive the germ of a
    pure and true relation likely to develop itself further. I shall
    add but a few items to complete the account of the diary, knowing
    that poets, painters, and artists have rigorously determined
    bounds, and that a twilight cannot be represented when the sun is
    at the zenith. I am emboldened to use this illustration because
    your unbounded admiration of pure womanhood is well known to me,
    and because the brightness of Mechtild's character, were it
    further described, would no more be compatible with the sombre
    colorings in which a true picture of modern progress would have to
    be exhibited, than the noonday sun with the shadows of evening.

    My memoranda concerning Mechtild, which, despite studied
    soberness, betrayed a considerable degree of admiration, made
    known to my parents, naturally enough, the secret of my heart.
    Hence it came that a quiet smile passed over my father's face
    every time I commenced to speak of Mechtild. Holt's manly deed at
    the mock procession had already gained for him my father's esteem,
    and, as I spoke a great deal about Holt's thoroughness as a
    cultivator, my father began to look upon him as a very desirable
    man to employ.

    "We want an experienced man on the 'green farm,' " said father,
    one day. "Offer the situation to Holt, and tell him to come to see
    me about it. I want to talk with him."

    "Give the good man my compliments," said mother; "tell him I would
    be much pleased to become acquainted with Mechtild, who
    sympathized with you so kindly on that memorable day!"

    I wrote without delay. Holt came, and so did Mechtild. But few
    moments were necessary to enable mother to detect the girl's fine
    qualities. Father, too, was delightfully surprised at her modesty,
    the beauty of her form, and grace of her manner. He visited the
    farm accompanied by Holt. The cultivator's extraordinary
    knowledge, his practical manner of viewing things, and the
    shrewdness of his counsels in regard to the improvement of worn-
    out land and the cultivation of poor soil, completely charmed my
    father. A contract containing very favorable conditions for Holt
    was entered into, and three weeks later the family took charge of
    the "green farm."

    Upon mother's suggestion, Mechtild was sent to an educational
    institution, where she acquired in ten months' time the learning
    and culture necessary for associating with cultivated people.

    Father and mother had received her on her return like a daughter.
    This reception was given her not only in consideration of Holt's
    skilful and faithful management of business, but also on account
    of Mechtild's own splendid womanly character--perhaps, too, partly
    on account of my unbounded admiration for the rare girl.

    "The girl is an ornament to her sex," lauded my father. "Her
    polished manner and ease in company do not suffer one to suspect
    ever so remotely that she at any time plied the reaping-hook, and
    came out of a stubblefield to regale a weary wanderer with brown
    bread and bonny-clabber. I am quite in harmony with your secret
    wishes, my dear Seraphin! At the same time, I am of opinion that a
    step promising so much happiness ought not to be longer deferred.
    I think, then, you should ask the father for his daughter without
    delay, so that I may soon have the pleasure of giving you my
    blessing."

    From my father's arms, into which I had thrown myself in
    thankfulness, I hastened away to the "green farm," where Mechtild
    with maidenly blushes, and Holt in speechless astonishment, heard
    and granted my petition.

    I am now four months married. I am the blest husband of a wife
    whose lovely qualities are daily showing themselves to greater
    advantage. Mechtild presides over Chateau Hallberg like an angel
    of peace. Towards my father and mother she conducts herself with
    filial reverence and never-ceasing delicate attentions. Mother
    loves her unspeakably, and no access of ill humor in father can
    withstand her charming smile and prudent mirth. Concerning the
    banking-house of Greifmann, I have only sad things to tell. Carl's
    father had entered into very considerable speculations which
    failed and drove him into bankruptcy. Carl saw the blow coming,
    and saved himself in a disgraceful manner. There was a savings
    institution connected with the bank in which poor people and
    servants deposited the savings of their hard labor. Carl
    appropriated this fund and made off a short time before the
    failure of the house. Thousands of poor persons were robbed of the
    little sums which they were saving for old age, by denying
    themselves many even of the necessaries of life.

    The maledictions and curses of these unfortunate people followed
    across the ocean the thief whose modern culture and progressive
    humanity did not hinder him from committing a crime which no
    Christian can be guilty of without losing his claim to the title.
    Carl, however, still continues to pass for a man of culture and
    humanity notwithstanding his deed. And why should he not, since
    without faith in the Deity moral obligations do not exist, and
    consequently every species of crime is allowable? The old
    gentleman Greifmann died shortly after his ruin; Louise lost her
    mind.

    My father felt the misfortune of the Greifmanns deeply, without,
    however, regretting in the smallest degree the wise determination
    which their godless principles and actions had driven him to.
    Formerly he could never find time to take part in the elections.
    But now he is constantly speaking about the duty of every
    respectable man to oppose the infernal machinations and plans of
    would-be progress. He intends at the next election to use all his
    influence for the election of conscientious deputies, so that the
    evil may be put an end to which consists in trying to undermine
    the foundations of society.

    Accept, dear sir, the assurance of the esteem with which I have
    the honor to be

    our most obedient servant,

    SERAPHIN GERLACH.

    CHATEAU HALLBERG, Jan. 4, 1872.

[Two chapters have been omitted in this translation of "The
Progressionists."--ED. C. W.]

F. James Marquette, S.J.

Among the names that have become immortalized in the history of our
country, there are few more certainly destined for perpetual fame than
those connected with the discovery and exploration of that mighty river
which courses so boldly and majestically through this vast continent. Thus
it is probable that there never will be a time when even children at
school will not be familiar with such names as De Soto, Marquette, and La
Salle.

James Marquette was born in the city of Laon, near a small branch of the
Oise, in the department of Aisne, France, in the year 1637. His family was
the most ancient of that ancient city, and had, during many generations,
filled high offices and rendered valuable services to their country, both
in civil and military life. We have accounts of eminent services rendered
to his sovereign by one of his ancestors as early as 1360. The usefulness
and public spirit of the family, we may well suppose, did not expire with
the distinguished subject of this memoir; for we find that, in the French
army that aided our fathers in the achievement of American Independence,
there were no less than three Marquettes who laid down their lives in the
cause of liberty. His maternal name was no less distinguished in the
annals of the church. On the side of his mother, Rose de la Salle, he was
connected with the good and venerable John Baptist de la Salle, founder of
the Brothers of the Christian Schools, so distinguished for their
successful services in the cause of popular religious education. It was
this pious mother that instilled into her illustrious son that tender and
fervid devotion to the Blessed Virgin which so ravished his soul and
adorned his whole life. In 1654, when but seventeen years old, he entered
the Society of Jesus, in which the time of his novitiate, the terms of
teaching and of his own theological studies, consumed twelve years. He had
chosen for his model S. Francis Xavier, and in studying his patron's life,
and meditating on his virtues, the young priest conceived a holy longing
to enter the field of missionary toil. He was enrolled in the province of
Champagne; but, as this had no foreign missions, he caused himself to be
transferred to the province of France. His cherished object was soon
attained. In 1666, he was sent out to Canada, and arrived at Quebec on the
20th of September of that year.

F. Marquette was at first destined for the Montagnais mission, whose
central station was at Tadousal, and on the 10th of October he started for
Three Rivers, in order to study the Montagnais language, a key to many
neighboring Indian tongues, under that celebrated philologist as well as
renowned missionary, F. Gabriel Druilletes. His intervals of leisure were
here employed in the offices of the holy ministry. F. Marquette was thus
occupied till April, 1668, when his destination was changed, and he
received orders to prepare for the mission on Lake Superior, known as the
Ottawa mission. He accordingly returned to Quebec, and thence set out for
Montreal on the 21st of April, with Brother Le Boesme and two other
companions; and from the latter place he embarked on the Ottawa flotilla.
He was accompanied by other missionaries on this toilsome and dangerous
voyage up the Ottawa, through French River, to and across Lake Huron, and
to the Sault St. Mary. This region had long before been dedicated to God
by the erection of the cross by Fathers Jogues and Raymbault, and twenty
years later, 1660, F. Ménard became the founder of the Ottawa mission; and
when F. Marquette arrived in Canada, F. Allouez was then pushing his
spiritual conquests beyond any points reached by his zealous predecessors.
On the advent of F. Marquette to the shores of Lake Superior, it was found
expedient to establish two missions, one of which should be located at the
Sault St. Mary, and the other at Green Bay. Erecting his cabin at the foot
of the rapids on the American side, F. Marquette opened his mission at the
Sault, where he was joined the following year by F. Dablon, Superior of
the Ottawa mission. These two zealous missionaries soon gathered a
Christian flock around them, and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was now
offered up in that wild region in "a sanctuary worthy of the faith." "It
is," says Bancroft, "the oldest settlement begun by Europeans within the
present limits of the commonwealth of Michigan." So rich was the harvest
which the enthusiastic and apostolical Marquette saw before him that he
writes in one of his letters: "Two thousand souls were ready to embrace
the faith, if the missionary were faithful to his task." Yet knowing the
uncertainty of the Indian character, he proceeded cautiously and prudently
in his undertakings. Though his ardent hopes were not fully realized, the
harvest was not a fruitless one; and Fathers Dablon and Marquette labored
on with undaunted courage and undiminished zeal, instructing the people,
baptizing such as were in danger of death, and laying the solid
foundations of a future Christian commonwealth.

In August of 1669, F. Marquette was transferred from the Sault to
Lapointe, to conduct the missions of the Holy Ghost among the Ottawas, and
to fill the place recently occupied by F. Allouez, who had gone to Green
Bay. After a perilous and exhausting navigation, amid snow and ice, of a
month's duration, he reached Lapointe in safety, and full of ardor for the
work before him. A few extracts from the account of this mission, which F.
Marquette gave to his superior in his letter of the following year, will
be more acceptable to the reader than any synopsis we could prepare from
it:

    "Divine Providence having destined me to continue the mission of
    the Holy Ghost begun by Allouez, who had baptized the chiefs of
    the Kiskakonk, I arrived there on the thirteenth of September, and
    went to visit the Indians who were in the clearings, which are
    divided into five towns. The Hurons, to the number of about four
    or five hundred, almost all baptized, still preserve some little
    Christianity. A number of the chiefs assembled in council were at
    first well pleased to see me; but I explained that I did not yet
    know their language perfectly, and that no other missionary was
    coming, both because all had gone to the Iroquois, and because F.
    Allouez, who understood them perfectly, did not wish to return
    that winter, as they did not love the prayer enough. They
    acknowledged that it was a just punishment, and during the winter
    held talks about it, and resolved to amend, as they tell me.

    "The nation of the Outaouaks Sinagaux is far from the kingdom of
    God, and being above all other nations addicted to lewdness,
    sacrifices, and juggleries. They ridicule the prayer, and will
    scarcely hear us speak of Christianity. They are proud and
    undeveloped, and I think that so little can be done with this
    tribe that I have not baptized healthy infants who seem likely to
    live, watching only for such as are sick. The Indians of the
    Kinouché tribe declare openly that it is not yet time. There are,
    however, two men among them formerly baptized. One, now rather
    old, is looked upon as a kind of miracle among the Indians, having
    always refused to marry, persisting in this resolution in spite of
    all that had been said. He has suffered much, even from his
    relatives, but he is as little affected by this as by the loss of
    all the goods which he brought last year from the settlement, not
    having even enough left to cover him. These are hard trials for
    Indians, who generally seek only to possess much in this world.
    The other, a new-married young man, seems of another nature than
    the rest. The Indians, extremely attached to their reveries, had
    resolved that a certain number of young women should prostitute
    themselves, each to choose such partner as she liked. No one in
    these cases ever refused, as the lives of men are supposed to
    depend on it. This young Christian was called; on entering the
    cabin, he saw the orgies that were about to begin, and, feigning
    illness, immediately left, and, though they came to call him back,
    he refused to go. His confession was as prudent as it could be,
    and I wondered that an Indian could live so innocently, and so
    nobly profess himself a Christian. His mother and some of his
    sisters are also good Christians. The Ottawas, extremely
    superstitious in their feasts and juggleries, seem hardened to the
    instructions given them, yet they like to have their children
    baptized. God permitted a woman to die this winter in her sin; her
    illness had been concealed from me, and I heard it only by the
    report that she had asked a very improper dance for her cure. I
    immediately went to a cabin where all the chiefs were at a feast,
    and some Kiskakonk Christians among them. To these I exposed the
    impiety of the woman and her medicine men, and gave them proper
    instructions. I then spoke to all present, and God permitted that
    an old Ottawa rose to advise granting what I asked, as it made no
    matter, he said, if the woman did die. An old Christian then rose
    and told the nation that they must stop the licentiousness of
    their youth, and not permit Christian girls to take part in such
    dances. To satisfy the woman, some child's play was substituted
    for the dance; but this did not prevent her dying before morning.
    The dangerous state of a sick man caused the medicine men to
    proclaim that the devil must be invoked by extraordinary
    superstitions. The Christians took no part. The actors were these
    jugglers and the sick man, who was passed over great fires lighted
    in every cabin. It was said that he did not feel the heat,
    although his body had been greased with oil for five or six days.
    Men, women, and children ran through the cabins, asking, as a
    riddle, to divine their thoughts, and the successful guesser was
    glad to give the object named. I prevented the abominable lewdness
    so common at the end of these diabolical rites. I do not think
    that they will recur, as the sick man died soon after.

    "The nation of Kiskakous, which for three years refused to receive
    the Gospel preached them by F. Allouez, resolved in the fall of
    1668 to obey God. This resolution was adopted in full council, and
    announced to that father, who spent four winter months instructing
    them. The chiefs of the nation became Christians, and, as F.
    Allouez was called to another mission, he gave it to my charge to
    cultivate, and I entered on it in September, 1669.

    "All the Christians were then in the fields harvesting their
    Indian corn; they listened with pleasure when I told them that I
    came to Lapointe for their sake and that of the Hurons; that they
    never should be abandoned, but be beloved above all other nations;
    and that they and the French were one. I had the consolation of
    seeing their love for the prayer and their pride in being
    Christians. I baptized the new-born infants, and instructed the
    chiefs whom I found well disposed. The head chief having allowed a
    dog to be hung on a pole near his cabin, which is a kind of
    sacrifice the Indians make to the sun, I told him that this was
    wrong, and he went and threw it down.

    "Having invited the Kiskakous to come and winter near the chapel,
    they left all the other tribes, to gather around us so as to be
    able to pray to God, be instructed, and have their children
    baptized. They all call themselves Christians; hence in all
    councils and important affairs I address them, and, when I wish to
    show them that I really wish what I ask, I need only address them
    as Christians; they told me even that they obeyed me for that
    reason. They have taken the upper hand, and control the three
    other tribes. It is a great consolation to a missionary to see
    such pliancy in savages, and to live in such peace with the
    Indians, spending the whole day in instructing them in our
    mysteries, and teaching them the prayers. Neither the rigor of the
    winter nor the state of the weather prevents their coming to the
    chapel; many never let a day pass, and I was thus busily employed
    from morning till night, preparing some for baptism, some for
    confession, disabusing others of their reveries. The old men told
    me that the young men had lost their senses, and that I must stop
    their excesses. I often spoke to them of their daughters, urging
    them to prevent their being visited at night. I knew almost all
    that passed in two tribes near us; but, though others were spoken
    of, I never heard anything against the Christian women, and when I
    spoke to the old men about their daughters, they told me that they
    prayed to God. I often inculcated this, knowing the importunities
    to which they are constantly exposed, and the courage they need to
    resist. They have learned to be modest, and the French who have
    seen them perceive how little they resemble the others from whom
    they are thus distinguished.

    "After Easter, all the Indians dispersed to seek subsistence; they
    promised me that they would not forget the prayer, and earnestly
    begged that a father should come in the fall when they assemble
    again. This will be granted, and, if it please God to send some
    father, he will take my place, while I, to execute the orders of
    my father-superior, will go and begin my Illinois mission.

    "The Illinois are thirty days' journey by land from Lapointe by a
    difficult road; they lie south-southwest of it. On the way you
    pass the nation of the Ketchigamins, who live in more than twenty
    large cabins; they are inland, and seek to have intercourse with
    the French, from whom they hope to get axes, knives, and ironware.
    So much do they fear them that they unbound from the stake two
    Indian captives, who said, when about to be burned, that the
    Frenchman had declared that they wished peace all over the world.
    You pass then to the Miamiwek, and by great deserts reach the
    Illinois, who are assembled chiefly in two towns containing more
    than eight or nine thousand souls. These people are well enough
    disposed to receive Christianity. Since F. Allouez spoke to them
    at Lapointe to adore one God, they have begun to abandon their
    false worship; for they adored the sun and thunder. Those seen by
    me are apparently of good disposition, and they are not night-
    runners, like the other Indians. A man kills his wife if he finds
    her unfaithful. They are less prodigal in sacrifices, and promise
    me to embrace Christianity, and do all I require in their country.
    In this view, the Ottawas gave me a young man recently come from
    their country, who initiated me to some extent in their language
    during the leisure given me in the winter by the Indians at
    Lapointe. I could scarcely understand it, though there is
    something of the Algonquin in it; yet I hope, by the help of God's
    grace, to understand and be understood if God by his goodness
    leads me to that country.

    "No one must hope to escape crosses in our missions, and the best
    means to live happily is not to fear them, but, in the enjoyment
    of little crosses, hope for others still greater. The Illinois
    desire us, like Indians, to share their miseries and suffer all
    that can be imagined in barbarism. They are lost sheep, to be
    sought amid woods and thorns, especially when they call so
    piteously to be rescued from the jaws of the wolf. Such, really,
    can I call their entreaties to me this winter. They have actually
    gone this spring to notify the old men to come for me in the fall.

    "The Illinois always come by land. They sow maize, which they have
    in great plenty; they have pumpkins as large as those of France,
    and plenty of roots and fruit. The chase is very abundant in wild
    cattle, bears, stags, turkeys, duck, bustard, wild pigeon, and
    cranes. They leave their towns at certain times every year to go
    to their hunting-grounds together, so as to be better able to
    resist if attacked. They believe that I will spread peace
    everywhere if I go, and then only the young will go to hunt.

    "When the Illinois come to Lapointe, they pass a large river
    almost a league wide. It runs north and south, and so far that the
    Illinois, who do not know what canoes are, have never yet heard of
    its mouth; they only know that there are very great nations below
    them, some of whom raise two crops of maize a year. East-southeast
    of the country is a nation they call Chawawon, which came to visit
    them last summer. They wear beards, which shows intercourse with
    Europeans; they had come thirty days across land before reaching
    their country. This great river can hardly empty in Virginia, and
    we rather believe its mouth is in California. If the Indians, who
    promise to make me a canoe, do not fail to keep their word, we
    shall go into this river as soon as we can, with a Frenchman and
    this young man given me, who knows some of these languages, and
    has a readiness for learning others; we shall visit the nations
    which inhabit it, in order to open the way to so many of our
    fathers who have long awaited this happiness. This discovery will
    give us a complete knowledge of the southern or western sea.

    "The Illinois are warriors; they make many slaves, whom they sell
    to the Ottawas for guns, powder, kettles, axes, and knives. They
    were formerly at war with the Nadouessi, but, having made peace
    some years since, I confirmed it, to facilitate their coming to
    Lapointe, where I am going to await them, in order to accompany
    them to their country."

Much as he loved his children at Lapointe, and faithfully as he had served
them, the voice of his superior had ordered him to this new, vaster, and
more laborious field, which to his true Jesuit obedience was a task of
love. The Illinois at once become dear to his heart as his future
children; he studies their language, loses no opportunity of learning all
about their country, its tribes and their customs, sends them presents of
pious pictures and the loving messages of a father, welcomes every member
of their nation who might visit Lapointe with open arms, and presses him
to his heart, and devotes every moment of leisure afforded him from his
labors to sedulous preparation for the contemplated mission of the
Immaculate Conception. His intelligent mind fully comprehended the vast
importance of the undertaking in its relations to the church and the
civilized world, and conceived at once the bold and daring project of a
thorough exploration of the great river around which so much mystery,
intermingled with romantic fables and dim traditions, still hung. It is
with equal truth and justice that Bancroft writes: "The purpose of
discovering the Mississippi, of which the tales of the natives had
published the magnificence, sprang from Marquette himself."

It has already been stated that F. Marquette had sent some pious pictures
to the Illinois, and by the same messenger to the Sioux, whom he expected
to be embraced in his intended mission. The messenger who carried the
father's presents also bore his request for protection and a safe-conduct
to such European missionaries as might visit or pass through their
country, and a message, "That the black-gown wished to pass to the country
of the Assinipoils and Kilistinons; that he was already among the
Outagamis; and that he himself was going in the fall to the Illinois."

Sad indeed must have been the feelings of the good father, when, early in
the winter, the Sioux returned to him the pious pictures he had sent them,
in which he saw an ominous forerunner of impending war. The Ottawas and
Hurons had by their insolence aroused the indignation of the Sioux, and
the latter had seized the tomahawk and prepared for the bloody and
revengeful strife. His hopes of reaching the cabins of the Sioux by an
overland route now vanished before the approaching storm. The Indians at
Lapointe could not withstand the fierce onsets of the Dakotah war-parties,
and first the Ottawas, abandoning their village, launched their canoes
upon the lake, and were soon gathered in Ekaentoulon Island. The Hurons
remained alone at Lapointe, and F. Marquette remained in the midst of them
to minister to their spiritual wants, share their dangers, and uphold
their faith and courage. And when they too were forced to depart, the good
father, ever true to his spiritual flock, was content to "turn his back on
his beloved Illinois to accompany his Hurons in their wanderings and
hardships." The Hurons settled at Mackinaw, a bleak and desolate spot, but
the abundance of fish the neighboring waters afforded was certain to
secure the fugitives from starvation, while the very desolation of the
scene seemed a protection from hostile bands. Scarcely had the Hurons
thrown up their cabins on this dreary shore, when a rude sylvan chapel,
surmounted by a cross, graced and cheered the scene, and became the cradle
of religion at the mission of S. Ignatius. Such was the early origin of
Michilimackinac. Beside the enclosure of cabins and chapel arose a
palisade fort for defence. For several years F. Marquette labored in this
remote and arduous station, cheered only by the consolations which spring
from faith and by the bountiful harvests of souls he reaped.

Though longing to proceed on his mission to the Illinois, as all his
letters so earnestly manifest, F. Marquette found ample work both for his
mind and hands in arranging matters at Lapointe, so that his departure
should cause as little damage as possible to that mission, to which he had
been so faithful and devoted, and which he was now about to confide to the
care of another, and in making the necessary preparations for his
departure; for his time seemed now near at hand. The dreary days of winter
were enlivened by recounting the projected plans of the coming spring, and
in gathering all the information within his reach concerning the
Mississippi and the nations inhabiting its banks. Most of the actual
knowledge then possessed on the subject was derived from the accounts and
relations of the Jesuit missionaries of the Northwest, and from the
reports of the Canadian traders among the Indians. His inquiries of the
more northern tribes were eagerly answered by startling fables of various
hues and contradictory generalities, but nothing definite could be learned
from them as to the course of the great river, its direction or outlet, or
of the natives along its course. All was conjecture and theory. As early
as 1639 the Sieur Nicolet, who was the interpreter of the French colony of
New France, had penetrated westward to the furthest grounds of the
Algonquins, and had encountered the Winnebagoes, "a people called so
because they came from a distant sea, but whom the French erroneously
called Puents." And we learn from F. Vimont that "the Sieur Nicolet, who
had penetrated furthest into those distant countries, avers that, had he
sailed three days more on a great river which flows from that lake (Green
Bay), he would have found the sea." And although the Indians called the
Mississippi itself "the sea," and the Sieur Nicolet may have fallen into
the same error, in either case it seems quite certain that he was the
first to reach the waters of that river. In 1641, Fathers Isaac Jogues and
Charles Raymbaut carried their missionary labors to the Sault St. Mary,
and received distinct accounts of the Sioux, and of the great river on
whose banks they lived. In 1658, after F. Garreau had suffered martyrdom
on the St. Lawrence on his way to renew the Western missions destroyed by
the recent Iroquois war, De Groseilles and another Frenchman penetrated to
Lake Superior, and passed the winter on its shores. They visited the
Sioux, learned with greater clearness and particularity of the course of
the great river on whose banks they stood. Their annalist writes: "It was
a beautiful river, large, broad, and deep, which would bear comparison,
they say, with the St. Lawrence." The missionaries of the Saguenay had
also "heard of the Winnipegouek, and their bay whence three seas could be
reached." And war parties of the Iroquois told the missionaries of New
York of their wars with the Ontoagannha, "whose towns lay on a beautiful
river (Ohio), which leads to the great lake, as they called the sea, where
they traded with Europeans who pray to God as we (the French) do, and have
rosaries and bells to call men to prayer."(225) F. Ménard, the founder of
the Ottawa mission, also heard, in 1660, of the Mississippi and the
nations on its banks, and was only prevented from visiting them by meeting
with a martyr's death while prosecuting his work. F. Allouez, his
successor, also writes of the great river, "which empties, as far as I can
conjecture, into the sea of Virginia," and was the first to reveal to
Europeans its Indian name; for, in speaking of one of its tribes, he says:
"They live on a great river called Messipi." At the time that F. Dablon
was appointed Superior of the Ottawa missions, and F. Marquette appointed
to establish the intended Illinois mission, and the exploration of the
river was about to be undertaken, the latter, as already stated, was for
some time engaged in gathering information concerning its course and
outlet. Three principal conjectures prevailed at this time: first, that it
ran towards the southwest, and entered the Gulf of California; second,
that it flowed into the Gulf of Mexico; third, that it took a more
easterly direction, and discharged itself into the Atlantic Ocean,
somewhere on the coast of Virginia. To F. Marquette belonged the glory of
solving the problem, and thus of opening the interior of the continent to
Christianity and civilization.

The war which was raging in the country rendered it impossible for the
missionaries of themselves to undertake the opening of the long-desired
mission of the Illinois, and they had accordingly applied for assistance
to the French government to further this great enterprise. F. Marquette,
as we have seen from his letters, remained ever ready at a moment's notice
from his superiors to advance into this dangerous field. He was not
deterred by a consciousness of his own declining health, already enfeebled
by labors and exposures, nor by the hostile character of the nations
through whose country he would have to pass, nor by the danger of a cruel
death at the hands of the fierce Dakotah. This last only made the prospect
more enticing to one whose highest ambition was to win the glorious crown
of martyrdom in opening the way for his brother Jesuits to follow in the
battle of the faith. The same flotilla that carried his letter to F.
Dablon to Quebec in the summer of 1672, on its return conveyed to him the
joyous news that the petition of the missionaries had found favor with the
government; that the Sieur Jolliet was designated to undertake the
exploration of the Mississippi; and that F. Marquette was chosen the
missionary of the expedition. It was the Blessed Virgin whom, F. Marquette
says, "I had always invoked, since my coming to the Ottawa country, in
order to obtain of God the favor of being able to visit the nations on the
Mississippi River." It was on the feast of the Immaculate Conception of
the same Blessed Virgin Mary that he received the glorious tidings that
the realization of his hopes and prayers was at hand. He bestowed upon the
great river the name of the Immaculate Conception, which, however, as well
as its earlier Spanish name of River of the Holy Ghost, has since yielded
to its original Indian appellation.

The exploring party, consisting of "the meek, single-hearted,
unpretending, illustrious Marquette, with Jolliet for his associate, five
Frenchmen for his companions, and two Algonquins as guides, lifting their
canoes on their backs, and walking across the narrow portage that divides
the Fox River from the Wisconsin," set out upon their glorious expedition.
Mr. J. G. Shea, to whom we are so much indebted for his researches into
this interesting part of the history of our country, describes the voyage
in the following graphic and eloquent manner:

    "In the spring they embarked at Mackinaw in two frail bark canoes;
    each with his paddle in hand, and full of hope, they soon plied
    them merrily over the crystal waters of the lake. All was new to
    Marquette, and he describes as he went along the Menonomies, Green
    Bay, and Maskoutens, which he reached on the 7th of June, 1673. He
    had now attained the limit of former discoveries; the new world
    was before them; they looked back a last adieu to the waters
    which, great as the distance was, connected them with Quebec and
    their countrymen; they knelt on the shore to offer, by a new
    devotion, their lives, their honor, and their undertakings to
    their beloved Mother, the Virgin Mary Immaculate; then, launching
    on the broad Wisconsin, sailed slowly down its current, amid its
    vine-clad isles and its countless sand-bars. No sound broke the
    stillness, no human form appeared, and at last, after sailing
    seven days, on the 17th of June they happily glided into the great
    river. Joy that could find no utterance in words filled the
    grateful heart of Marquette.

    "The broad river of the Conception, as he named it, now lay before
    them, stretching away hundreds of miles to an unknown sea. Soon
    all was new; mountain and forest had glided away; the islands,
    with their groves of cottonwood, became more frequent, and moose
    and deer browzed on the plains; strange animals were seen
    traversing the river, and monstrous fish appeared in its waters.
    But they proceeded on their way amid this solitude, frightful by
    its utter absence of man. Descending still further, they came to
    the land of the bison, or pisikiou, which, with the turkey, became
    sole tenants of the wilderness; all other game had disappeared. At
    last, on the 25th of June, they descried footprints on the shore.
    They now took heart again, and Jolliet and the missionary, leaving
    their five men in the canoes, followed a little beaten path to
    discover who the tribe might be. They travelled on in silence
    almost to the cabin-doors, when they halted, and with a loud
    halloa proclaimed their coming. Three villages lay before them;
    the first, roused by the cry, poured forth its motley group, which
    halted at the sight of the new-comers and the well-known dress of
    the missionary. Old men came slowly on, step by measured step,
    bearing aloft the all-mysterious calumet. All was silence; they
    stood at last before the two Europeans, and Marquette asked, 'Who
    are you?' 'We are Illinois,' was the answer, which dispelled all
    anxiety from the explorers, and sent a thrill to the heart of
    Marquette; the Illinois missionary was at last amid the children
    of that tribe which he had so long, so tenderly yearned to see.

    "After friendly greetings at this town of Pewaria, and the
    neighboring one of Moing-wena, they returned to their canoes,
    escorted by the wondering tribe, who gave their hardy visitants a
    calumet, the safeguard of the West. With renewed courage and
    lighter hearts, they sailed in, and, passing a high rock with
    strange and monstrous forms depicted on its rugged surface, heard
    in the distance the roaring of a mighty cataract, and soon beheld
    Pekitanoui, or the Muddy River, as the Algonquins call the
    Missouri, rushing like some untamed monster into the calm and
    clear Mississippi, and hurrying in with its muddy waters the trees
    which it had rooted up in its impetuous course. Already had the
    missionaries heard of the river running to the western sea, to be
    reached by the branches of the Mississippi, and Marquette, now
    better informed, fondly hoped to reach it one day by the Missouri.
    But now their course lay south, and, passing a dangerous eddy, the
    demon of the Western Indians, they reached the Waboukigou, or
    Ohio, the river of the Shawnees, and, still holding on their way,
    came to the warm land of the cane, and the country which the
    mosquitoes might call their own. While enveloped in their sails as
    a shelter from them, they came upon a tribe who invited them to
    the shore. They were wild wanderers, for they had guns bought of
    Catholic Europeans at the East.

    "Thus, after all had been friendly, and encouraged by this second
    meeting, they plied their oars anew, and, amid groves of
    cottonwood on either side, descended to the 33d degree, when, for
    the first time, a hostile reception was promised by the excited
    Metchigameas. Too few to resist, their only hope on earth was the
    mysterious calumet, and in heaven the protection of Mary, to whom
    they sent up fervent prayers. At last the storm subsided, and they
    were received in peace; their language formed an obstacle, but an
    interpreter was found, and after explaining the object of their
    coming, and announcing the great truths of Christianity, they
    embarked for Akamsea, a village thirty miles below on the eastern
    shore.

    "Here they were well received, and learned that the mouth of the
    river was but ten days' sail from this village; but they heard,
    too, of nations there trading with Europeans, and of wars between
    the tribes, and the two explorers spent a night in consultation.
    The Mississippi, they now saw, emptied into the Gulf of Mexico,
    between Florida and Tampico, two Spanish points; they might, by
    proceeding, fall into their hands. Thus far only Marquette traced
    the map, and he put down the names of other tribes of which they
    heard. Of these, in the Atotchasi, Matora, and Papihaka, we
    recognize Arkansas tribes; and the Akoroas and Tanikwas, Pawnees
    and Omahas, Kansas and Apiches, are well known in after-days.

    "They accordingly set out from Akensea, on the 17th of July, to
    return. Passing the Missouri again, they entered the Illinois,
    and, meeting the friendly Kaskaskias at its upper portage, were
    led by them in a kind of triumph to Lake Michigan; for Marquette
    had promised to return and instruct them in the faith. Sailing
    along the lake, they crossed the outer peninsula of Green Bay, and
    reached the mission of S. Francis Xavier just four months after
    their departure from it.

    "Thus had the missionaries achieved their long-projected work. The
    triumph of the age was thus completed in the discovery and
    exploration of the Mississippi, which threw open to France the
    richest, most fertile and accessible territory of the New World.
    Marquette, whose health had been severely tried in this voyage,
    remained at St. Francis to recruit his strength before resuming
    his wonted missionary labors; for he sought no laurels, he aspired
    to no tinsel praise.

    "The distance passed over by F. Marquette on this great
    expedition, in his little bark canoe, was two thousand seven
    hundred and sixty-seven miles. The feelings with which he regarded
    an enterprise having so grave a bearing on the future history and
    development of mankind may be appreciated from the following
    closing passage of the ninth section of his _Voyages and
    Discoveries_:

    " 'Had all this voyage caused but the salvation of a single soul,
    I should deem all my fatigue well repaid. And this I have reason
    to think; for, when I was returning, I passed by the Indians at
    Peoria. I was three days announcing the faith in all their cabins,
    after which, as we were embarking, they brought me to the water's
    edge a dying child, which I baptized a little before it expired,
    by an admirable Providence, for the salvation of that innocent
    soul.' "

F. Marquette prepared a narrative of his voyage down the Mississippi (from
which the foregoing quotation is taken), and a map of that river; and on
his return transmitted copies to his superior, by the Ottawa flotilla of
that year. It is also probable that Frontenac, the Governor of New France,
as he had promised, sent a copy of them to the French government. The loss
of Jolliet's narrative and map gave an inestimable value to those of
Marquette. Yet the French government did not publish them, probably in
consequence of the discontinuance of the publication of the Jesuit
_Relations_ about this time; and thus the great interests involved in the
discovery were neglected. Fortunately, F. Marquette's narrative fell into
the hands of Thevenot, who had just published a collection of travels, and
such was his appreciation of it that he issued a new volume, entitled
_Recueil de Voyages_, in 1681, containing the narrative and map of the
Mississippi.(226) Mr. Sparks, in his life of F. Marquette, speaks thus of
the narrative:

    "It is written in a terse, simple, and unpretending style. The
    author relates what occurs, and describes what he sees, without
    embellishment or display. He writes as a scholar and as a man of
    careful observation and practical sense. There is no tendency to
    exaggerate, nor any attempt to magnify the difficulties he had to
    encounter, or the importance of his discovery. In every point of
    view, this tract is one of the most interesting of those which
    illustrate the early history of America."

Having reached Green Bay, the exhausted voyager sank down under the
effects of his recent travels and exposures. His disease was so obstinate
and protracted that he suffered during the entire winter, though with
patience and resignation, and did not recover before the end of the
following summer. Having received from his superior the necessary orders
for the establishment of the Illinois mission, he started on the 25th of
October, 1674, for Kaskaskia. He was accompanied and assisted by two
faithful and devoted Frenchmen, and by a number of Pottawattomies and
Illinois Indians. They coasted along the mouth of Fox River, and then,
advancing up as far as the small bay breaking into the peninsula, they
reached the portage leading to the lake. As the canoes proceeded along the
lake shore, the missionary walked upon the beach, returning to the canoes
whenever the beach was broken by a river or stream; and their provisions
were obtained from the abundant yield of the chase. On the 23d of
November, the courageous missionary found his malady returning, but pushed
on, amid cold and snow, until, on the 4th of December, he reached the
Chicago River, which was closed with ice. Here again the unpropitious
elements and his own infirmities compelled him to stop and spend the
winter. But his time was not idly spent during this detention, for his
missionary zeal found occupation in the spiritual care of his Indian
companions, whom he instructed as well as he could, and sent them forward
on their journey. His faithful Frenchmen remained now alone with him; but
at a distance of fifty miles was an Illinois village, where there were two
Frenchmen, traders and trappers; and these, hearing of the forlorn
condition of the missionary, arranged that one of them should go and visit
him. They had prepared a cabin for him, and the Indians, alarmed for his
safety, were also anxious to send some of their tribe to convey their
father and his effects to their village. Touched by their attentions, he
sent them every assurance of his visiting them, intimating, however, the
uncertainty of his doing so in the spring, in consequence of his continued
illness. These messages only added to the alarm of the Indians, and the
sachems assembled and sent a deputation to the black-gown. The presents
they bore were three sacks of corn, dried meat, and pumpkins, and twelve
beaver skins. The objects of their visits were, first, to make him a mat
to sit on; second, to ask him for powder; third, supply him with food;
fourth, to get some merchandise. The good father made answer in
characteristic terms, as follows: "First, that I came to instruct them by
speaking of the prayer; second, that I would not give them powder, as we
endeavor to make peace everywhere, and because I did not wish them to
begin a war against the Miamis; third, that we did not fear famine;
fourth, that I would encourage the French to bring them merchandise, and
that they must make reparation to the traders there for the beads taken
from them while the surgeon was with me." Presenting them with some axes,
knives, and trinkets, he dismissed them with a promise to make every
effort to visit them in a few days. Bidding their good father to "take
heart," and beseeching him to "stay and die in their country," the
deputation "returned to their winter camps."

The ensuing winter months, though marked by every bodily suffering and
privation, were replete with religious consolation. His whole time was
spent in prayer. Admonished by his disease that his last end could not be
far off, he offered his remaining days entirely to God. He lost sight of
the sufferings of his body in the overflow of heavenly consolations with
which his soul was ravished. Still the recollection that he had been
appointed missionary of the Illinois, and the duty this seemed to impose
upon him of laboring for the conversion of those noble but benighted
souls, filled his heart with the desire of visiting them, if it should be
the will of God, and the establishment of the Illinois mission became the
absorbing thought of his mind and the burden of the prayers which he
addressed to the throne of heaven. His sufferings he bore not only with
patience, but with joy; if he prayed for their cessation, it was only with
the view that he might thus be enabled to encounter the new sufferings,
labors, and hardships of his mission, and that he might devote his
remaining days to the salvation of his beloved Illinois. To obtain this
privilege from heaven, he induced his companions to unite with him in a
novena of prayers in honor of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed
Virgin Mary. Some time after Christmas, 1675, his Patroness in heaven
obtained the desired boon of health for her devoted client; for he soon
began to recover from his disease, and, though still feeble, was enabled
by the 29th of March, when the snow and ice began to melt, and the
inundations compelled them to move, to set out for Kaskaskia, in the Upper
Illinois. He arrived at that Illinois town on the 8th of April, but his
journal was discontinued from the 6th of April, and we have no record of
his movements from that time. He was received by his children as an angel
from heaven, for they scarcely supposed he had escaped alive the rigors of
the winter. It was Monday in Holy Week, and the good man immediately
commenced his work. He visited the chiefs and ancients of the town, and
gave them and the crowds who assembled in the cabins he visited the first
necessary instructions in the Gospel. So great were the throngs that
assembled to hear him preach that the narrow accommodations of the cabins
could not hold them. On Maundy Thursday he called a general assembly of
the people in the open field, a beautiful prairie near the town, which was
decorated after the fashion of the country, and spread with mats and bear
skins. He formed a little rustic altar by suspending some pieces of Indian
taffety on cords, to which were attached, so as to be seen on all four
sides, four large pictures of the Blessed Virgin, under whose invocation
the mission was placed. The assembly was immense; composed of five hundred
chiefs and ancients seated in a circle around the missionary, and around
these stood fifteen hundred young men. Besides these, great numbers of
women and children attended. He addressed his congregation with ten words
or presents, according to the Indian fashion, associating each word or
present, which represented some great truth or mystery, with one of the
ten beads on the belt of the prayer which he held in his hand. He
explained the object of his visit to them, preached Christ crucified--for
it was the eve of Good Friday--and explained to them the principal
mysteries of the Christian religion. The Holy Mass was then celebrated for
the first time in this new mission. On each of the following days he
continued his instructions, and on Easter Sunday he celebrated the great
Feast of the Resurrection, offering up Mass for the second time. He took
possession of the land in the name of his risen Lord, and bestowed upon
the mission the name of the Immaculate Virgin Mary.

His former malady now returned with renewed violence. His strength was
wasting away. To remain would accomplish no good for his children, for he
was unable to discharge the duties of the missionary, and no alternative
was left but to make an effort to reach his former mission, Mackinaw,
where he hoped to die in the midst of his fellow-members of the Society of
Jesus. He was the more willing now to seek rest in the bosom of his
Redeemer and in the Society of his Blessed Mother in Heaven, because he
had performed his promise, the mission of the Illinois had been founded,
his words had been lovingly received by his people, the good seed had been
sown in their hearts, the Holy Sacrifice had been offered up in their
presence and for their salvation, and future missionaries might now
advance to cultivate the field and reap the harvest he had prepared. His
docile Indians, with the devotion of children, begged him to return to
them as soon as his health should permit. He repeatedly promised them that
he or some other missionary would come to continue the good work amongst
them. The people followed him on his journey, escorted him thirty leagues
on his way with great pomp, showing him every mark of friendship and
affection, and many contended among themselves for the honor of carrying
the scanty baggage he possessed. Taking the way of the St. Joseph's River
and the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, along which he had yet to travel
over a hundred leagues through an unknown route, his strength soon began
to fail entirely. He could no longer help himself; his two faithful French
companions had to lift him in and out of his canoe when they landed at
night; and so exhausted had he become under his wasting disease that they
had to handle and carry him like a child. In the midst of his sufferings
and the hardships of such a journey in his enfeebled health, his
characteristic equanimity, joy, and gentleness never for a moment left
him. He could even forget his own sufferings to console his companions. He
encouraged them to sustain the fatigues of the way, assuring them that God
would protect and defend them. His native mirthfulness was even in this
extreme crisis conspicuous in his conversations. He now calmly saw the
approach of death, and joyfully and heroically welcome it as the reward of
his toils and sacrifices. He had some time before prepared a meditation on
death, to serve him in these last hours of his life, which he now used
with great consolation. He said his office to his last day. His devotions
frequently assumed the shape of colloquies with his merciful Lord, with
his Holy Mother, with his angel guardian, and with all heaven. He
repeatedly pronounced with fervor the sublime words, "I believe that my
Redeemer liveth"; and again, "Mary, Mother of grace, Mother of God,
remember me." Perceiving a river on whose banks loomed up a prominent
eminence, he ordered his companions to stop, that he might die and be
buried there. He pointed out the spot on this eminence in which he desired
them to inter his remains. This river, until recent years, bore his name.
His companions still desired to press forward, in the hope of reaching
Mackinaw; but they were driven back by the wind, and, entering the River
Marquette by its former channel, they erected a bark cabin, under which
Marquette, like his great model, S. Francis Xavier, was stretched upon the
shore, and, like him, sighed only to be dissolved and to be with Christ.
So cheerfully did he realize his approaching dissolution that he gave all
the necessary directions to his companions touching his burial. He had a
week before blessed some water, which he instructed them how to use on the
occasion, how to arrange his hands, feet, and head, with what religious
ceremonies to bury him, even telling them that they should take his little
altar bell, and ring it as they carried him to the grave. On the eve of
his death, he told them with a countenance radiant with joy that the
morrow would be his last day on earth. Still mindful of his sacred
ministry, and anxious to be doing good, he administered the sacrament of
penance to his two companions for the last time. He thanked them for their
charity to him during this arduous and eventful voyage, begged their
pardon for the trouble he had given them, and directed them to ask pardon
for him and in his name of all the Fathers and Brothers of the Society of
Jesus in the Ottawa country; he also gave them a paper in which he had
written all his faults since his last confession, which he begged them to
give to his superior, that he might pray the more earnestly for him. He
promised not to forget them in heaven. Ever mindful of others in this
trying moment, and overflowing with charity for his neighbor, he insisted
upon his companions taking some rest, leaving him to commune with heaven,
assuring them that his hour was not yet at hand, and that he would call
them in due time. This he did; summoning them to his side, just as his
agony was approaching. Hastening to him, they fell melting into tears at
his feet. He embraced them for the last time, called for the holy water he
had blessed and his reliquary, and, taking his crucifix from around his
neck, and handing it to one of them, he requested him to hold it up before
him, so that he could behold it every moment he had yet to live. Clasping
his hands, and fixing his eyes affectionately on the image of his expiring
Saviour, he pronounced aloud his profession of faith, and thanked God for
the favor he enjoyed in dying a Jesuit, a missionary of the cross, and,
above all, in dying in a miserable cabin, amid forests, and destitute of
all human consolation and assistance. He then communed secretly for some
time with his Creator, but his devotion from time to time found vent in
the ejaculations, "Sustinuit anima mea in verba ejus," and "Mater Dei,
memento mei." These were his last words before he was taken with the agony
of death. His companions frequently pronounced the names of Jesus and
Mary, as he had previously requested them to do, and, when they saw he was
about to expire, they called out "Jesus, Maria," whereupon he repeated
those enrapturing names several times with distinctness, and then
suddenly, as if his Saviour and Mother had appeared to him, he raised his
eyes above the crucifix, gazing with a countenance lit up with pleasure at
those blissful apparitions. He expired as peacefully and gently as a child
sinking into its evening slumber.

    "Thus he died, the great apostle,
      Far away in regions West;
    By the Lake of the Algonquins
      Peacefully his ashes rest;
    But his spirit still regards us
      From his home among the blest."

The devoted companions of the illustrious missionary, happy, in the midst
of their bereavement, in the privilege of witnessing one of the most
heroic and saintly deaths recorded in the history of our race, carried out
every injunction of their departed father, and added every act that love
and veneration could suggest, and that their impoverished condition in the
wilderness could afford. They laid out his remains as he had directed,
rang the little altar bell as they carried him with profound respect to
the mound of earth selected by himself, interred him there, and raised a
large cross to mark the sacred spot.

The surviving companions of the deceased now prepared to embark. One of
them had been ill for some time, suffering with such depression of spirits
and feebleness of body that he could neither eat nor sleep. Just before
embarking he knelt at the grave of his saintly friend, and begged him to
intercede for him in heaven as he had promised, and, taking some earth
from the breast of the departed, and placing it upon his own breast, it is
related that he felt his sadness and bodily infirmity immediately depart,
and he resumed his voyage in health and gladness. Many are the pious
traditions of miraculous results attributed to the sanctity of F.
Marquette; many of them are still handed down among the Western
missionaries, and some of them have found a place in the pages of serious
history.

The remains of the saintly Jesuit were, two years afterwards, disinterred
by his own flock, the Kiskakons, while returning from their hunting-
grounds, placed in a neat box of bark, and reverently carried to their
mission. The flotilla of canoes, as it passed along in funeral solemnity,
was joined by a party of the Iroquois, and, as they approached Mackinaw,
many other canoes, including those of the two missionaries of the place,
united in the imposing convoy, and the deep, reverential chant, _De
Profundis_, arose heavenward from the bosom of the lake until the body
reached the shore. It was carried in procession with cross, burning
tapers, and fragrant incense to the church, where every possible
preparation had been made for so interesting and affecting a ceremony;
and, after the Requiem service, the precious relics were deposited in a
vault prepared for them in the middle of the church, "where he reposes,"
says the pious chronicler, "as the guardian angel of our Ottawa missions."
"Ever after," says Bancroft, "the forest rangers, if in danger on Lake
Michigan, would invoke his name. The people of the West will build his
monument."

The following notice of the character of F. Marquette is from the gifted
pen of Mr. Shea:

    "Such was the edifying and holy death of the illustrious explorer
    of the Mississippi, on Saturday, the 18th of May, 1675. He was of
    a cheerful, joyous disposition, playful even in his manner, and
    universally beloved. His letters show him to us as a man of
    education, close observation, sound sense, strict integrity, a
    freedom from exaggeration, and yet a vein of humor which here and
    there breaks out in spite of all his self-command.

    "But all these qualities are little compared to his zeal as a
    missionary, to his sanctity as a man. His holiness drew on him in
    life the veneration of all around him, and the lapse of years has
    not even now destroyed it in the descendants of those who knew
    him. In one of his sanctity we naturally find an all-absorbing
    devotion to the Mother of the Saviour, with its constant
    attendants, an angelical love of purity, and a close union of the
    heart with God. It is, indeed, characteristic with him. The
    privilege which the Church honors under the title of the
    Immaculate Conception was the constant object of his thoughts;
    from his early youth he daily recited the little offices of the
    Immaculate Conception and fasted every Saturday in her honor. As a
    missionary, a variety of devotions directed to the same end still
    show his devotions, and to her he turned in all his trials. When
    he discovered the great river, when he founded his new mission, he
    gave it the name of the Conception, and no letter, it is said,
    ever came from his hand that did not contain the words, 'Blessed
    Virgin Immaculate'; and the smile that lighted up his dying face
    induced his poor companions to believe that she had appeared
    before the eyes of her devoted client.

    "Like S. Francis Xavier, whom he especially chose as the model of
    his missionary career, he labored nine years for the moral and
    social improvement of nations sunk in paganism and vice, and, as
    he was alternately with tribes of varied tongues, found it was
    necessary to acquire knowledge of many American languages: six he
    certainly spoke with ease; many more he is known to have
    understood less perfectly. His death, however, was, as he had
    always desired, more like that of the apostle of the Indies; there
    is, indeed, a striking resemblance between their last moments; and
    the wretched cabin, the desert shore, the few destitute
    companions, the lonely grave, all harmonize in Michigan and
    Sancian."

Prayer Of Custance, The Persecuted Queen Of Alla Of Northumberland.

    Mother, quod she, and maiden bright, Mary!
    Soth is that through womanne's eggement
    Mankind was lorn, and damned aye to die,
    For which thy Child was on a cross yrent:
    Thy blissful eyen saw all his torment;
    Then is there no comparison between
    Thy woe and any woe man may sustain.
        Thou saw'st thy Child yslain before thine eyen,
    And yet now liveth my little child parfay,
    Now, lady bright! to whom all woful crien,
    Thou glory of womanhood, thou faire May,
    Thou haven of refute, bright star of the day!
    Rue on my child, that of thy gentleness
    Ruest on every rueful in distress.

    --_Chaucer._

Acoma.

"Mr. S----, would you like to visit Acoma?" asked the commandant.

"Most assuredly," I replied; "I came out here to see all I could see. But
what or who is Acoma?"(227)

"A town built on the top of a rock rising from a level plain to a height
of over two hundred feet is Acoma--the home of the Acoma Indians, a tribe
of the great Pueblo family. I am ordered thither to have a talk with the
principal men, and induce them to give up some Navajo
children--captives--they are said to have taken in a recent skirmish."

I had been enjoying the hospitality of the commandant for some days at old
Fort Wingate, near the Ojo del Gallo, in the northwestern part of New
Mexico. Acoma lies about fifty miles to the southeast of the fort, by a
very rough trail across the mountains. It was somewhat further by the
regular trail.

As we started, the sun was creeping over the brow of lofty San Mateo. The
party consisted of the commandant, Don Juan Brown, a Castilianized
American, who speaks Spanish like a native, and went with us as volunteer
interpreter; Messrs. Jim Durden and Joe Smithers, gentlemen loafers; a
sergeant and twenty cavalry as escort in case of unexpected and undesired
rencounters with hostile Apaches or Navajoes; last, the writer, a denizen
of the city of Gotham, general tourist, grand scribe and chronicler.

We all rode on horseback, except Don Juan Brown, who, being a trifle over
225 lbs., divided his weight between a pair of good horses attached to a
light buggy. The order of march was: two cavalrymen five hundred yards in
advance; the commandant, with Jim and Joe and the writer; the main body of
the escort; Don Juan Brown with his buggy, and a rear guard of two
cavalrymen five hundred yards behind.

A brisk trot of three miles brought us to the Puertocito, or Little Door,
which leads from the Valley of the Gallo into the Mal Païs, a petrified
sea of lava, which lies between the Puertocito and the mountains. The lava
stream seems to have been suddenly turned to stone by a wave of some
enchanter's wand while it was a raging, seething torrent.

We halted and dismounted, tightened girths, etc. Jim and Joe, unused to
the equitating mood, and evidently disliking particularly the trotting
tense, had fallen back to the rear guard, and looked somewhat shaken. The
relief of a walk of some miles was in store for them, as the trail through
the Mal Païs admitted only of that gait and of single file.

The Puertocito is formed by two rocks about twenty feet high. We wound our
way through tortuous passages, through lava spires, at a slow walk. We
could not see more than a few yards ahead. It was a dreary pathway. The
knowledge that it was a haunt for Indians bound on robbery or revenge gave
imagination an opportunity to put her darkest colors on the natural gloom.
An hour's slow walking brings us to the Bajada, or Descent, where our path
is up and down the steep sides of a lava rock thirty feet high. We
dismount and lead our horses carefully down. Half a dozen men holding on
to the buggy behind make sufficient drag to let it down in safety, though
with some wrenching of the wheels in the channelled surface of the rock.

Thence our way lies on the eastern skirt of the lava, which runs along
with the stream known as the San José through a deep and winding gorge
named Los Rémanzos. I have seen some wild scenery in my time, but never
before nor since so savage a piece of landscape as Los Rémanzos. The
mountains rise perpendicularly on either hand--their barren sides dotted
with huge boulders which seem ready to fall instantly on the traveller
beneath. You wonder why they do not fall. The winding cañon shuts out all
view beyond twenty yards in advance. A trail barely wide enough for one
vehicle to pass creeps between the San José and the mountains on one side;
and from the stream to the mountains on the other the lava piles up its
grim and threatening forms.

We halted at the picket to wait for the escort, the buggy, and Jim and
Joe, beguiling the time by a comforting draught of hot coffee from a
military quart cup which the commander of the picket hospitably offered
us. The laggards soon arrived. Jim and Joe took advantage of the pause
before starting again to enter a solemn protest against trotting:

"For heaven's sake, commandant!" said they with one voice and in a tone
that showed acute feeling, "either walk or lope; we cannot endure that
confounded trot. We shall be as raw as uncooked beefsteaks."

A bright thought struck them both simultaneously, and, without any further
ceremony, they rushed to the buggy, leaving their horses to take care of
themselves or be taken care of by some good-natured dragoon.

Another mile brought us to the crossing of the San José. Here was a check
to our proceedings: the crossing was not fordable. The stream, usually
about two feet wide and three inches deep at the crossing, had in
consequence of recent heavy rains and the melting of snows filled its
steep bed and overflowed its banks for fifty yards on either side. A
powerful eddy made it impossible for a horse to strike ground on the other
side. A dragoon dashed in and tried it, but it was with great difficulty
we saved him and his horse from being carried down the swollen stream, and
got them safe on our side again.

"That settles it, gentlemen," said the commandant; "we shall have to cross
the mountains--a rough trail, but we have no choice."

It was now proposed to leave the buggy behind, but Joe would not hear of
it. The commandant was too polite to insist, as he ought to have done.

Crossing a narrow but steep cut, however, the buggy went over, spilling
Don Juan and Jim over the mountain-side. The buggy stood on its top--wheels
in the air. The horses--good and gentle animals--came to a full stop and
stood perfectly quiet. Otherwise, there would have been as little left of
the buggy as of Dr. Holmes' one-horse shay, the last time the deacon rode
in it. Neither the Don nor Jim was hurt, though the latter was somewhat
frightened. Don Juan took the matter with the coolness of an old hand. The
buggy was uninjured; it had merely met with a reverse. It was soon put
upon its legs--or, rather, its wheels--again. Its progress was so
aggravatingly slow when even our fastest possible gait was a walk, that,
dividing the escort, we went on, leaving it to proceed at its leisure.

It was about nightfall when we reached the edge of a precipitous descent
where all marks of a trail disappeared. The descent was probably two
hundred feet in perpendicular height, and alarmingly steep.

"The buggy can never go down there," was the general remark.

"Confound the buggy, we shall have to sleep out in the cold all night with
nothing but a saddle-blanket, on account of it," also translates a very
general sentiment.

"We cannot desert them, however," said the commandant; "as the buggy has
come with us we must stand by it. We shall wait here until it comes up."

We had a long and weary wait for that anathematized buggy. At length, as
the shades of night were falling, the long-looked-for buggy was seen, its
top bumping up and down like a buffalo with a broken foreleg. The don
walked on one side of the vehicle holding the reins; Joe walked on the
other side as gloomily as a chief mourner. The remainder of the escort
with dismal visages followed behind.

A glance over the steep brink did not give any radiance to their gloomy
countenances. Don Juan expressed his regrets that we should have been
detained by the slow and difficult progress of the buggy. Joe said
nothing, but evidently felt ashamed of himself.

We were still twenty miles from Acoma. Within about five miles, the
commandant said there was a little Indian hut--a sort of outpost of the
Pueblo--the owner of which, old Salvador, was one of the notables of the
Pueblo. The commandant had notified Salvador by courier some days before
of our intended visit. He had proposed to meet us at the ranchito and
guide us over the remainder of the mountain trail. Here we could pass the
night under cover at least, though we should be pretty closely packed.

Joe had resumed the saddle after the steep descent had been accomplished.
He and Jim now led the party, and, as the rest of us stayed with Don Juan
and the buggy, they got considerably in advance. Thus they had reached the
ranchito some twenty minutes before we did. We found them knocking at the
door and calling loudly and indignantly on the inmates to open.

"We have been knocking and shouting here for half an hour, and the
confounded old Indian has not taken the slightest notice of us. I believe
he would let us freeze."

"Salvador does not know you," said the commandant. "He is too wise an
Indian to open his doors to strangers in this country after nightfall.
Salvador is reputed wealthy, and it behooves him to be careful what
nocturnal visitors he receives. I think I can get Salvador to open. Is
Señor Don Salvador within?" asked the commandant, in Spanish.

"Is it the Señor Comandante who is without?" asked Don Salvador, in the
same language, with the usual Pueblo peculiarities of pronunciation--the
use of _l_ for _r_, etc.

Being satisfied on this point, Salvador opened the door to receive us.

Salvador was a stout, middle-sized, gray-headed Indian of the Pueblo type.
The presence of the commandant being a voucher for the rest, Salvador now
proceeded to shake hands with the whole party--in the order of rank, as he
understood it--taking first the commandant, next the bugler, then the
sergeant and the men of the escort, and then the civilians, Don Brown and
the writer, and lastly Jim and Joe; conscientiously repeating in each
individual case, "_Como le va!_" and "_Bueno!_" Indians believe in
uniforms and brass buttons. They don't understand official dignity without
outward and visible signs.

The ranchito was a little structure of _tierrones_, or sods, roofed with
poles laid across from wall to wall, and covered with brush and earth.
There were no windows. The door was the only aperture, I think. I am not
quite sure whether there was a hole in the roof to let out a little of the
smoke; there may have been. The edifice was about large enough for a fair-
sized poultry-house. It was perched on the steep mountainside, the earth
being cut away on the upper side to give an approach to a level
foundation. There was a small shed for animals, the fodder for whose use
being piled on top of it. There was the usual corn-crib. Our best horses
were honored with the hospitality of the shed, Salvador's pony and burros
being turned out to make room for them. The other animals were tied to
logs in front of the ranchito, and a guard placed over them.

It required some stooping to enter Salvador's residence. This was very
hard on the stout Don, who had not seen his own knee for a number of
years, but he accomplished it as if he had been in the daily habit of
touching his toes without bending his knees. But a further trial still
awaited him. The hut was divided into two rooms. The passage between the
two rooms was a blighted door, cut short in its youth to the proportions
of a small fireplace. We had to come down to all-fours to get into the
inner chamber. When the commandant, the staunch Don, and the writer had
entered, the place seemed full. But Salvador, on hospitable thoughts
intent, insisted on Jim and Joe entering. Then Salvador wriggled in. The
room was replete.

After a meagre supper and a quiet smoke, we arranged the details of the
morrow's trip. With our saddles for pillows, and our saddle-blankets and
overcoats for beds and bed-covering, we lay down to sleep. Brown, with Jim
and Joe, in the inner room; the commandant, the old Pueblo, and myself in
the outer. Jim and Joe lay perpendicularly to Brown, and Salvador
described a horizontal to the commandant and myself. I slept well,
considering, though I was waked two or three times by a roaring noise,
which seemed to me to be that of the house falling, as I was endeavoring
to force myself through the passage between the two apartments, in which,
more than once during the night, I dreamt that I was stuck fast. On
waking, I discovered that the sound proceeded from the resounding Aztec
nose of our host, Salvador.

We were roused before day by the old Indian. Dressing took no time, as we
had not undressed the night before--a great saving of time, labor, and
discomfort. Breakfast was to be got ready, however. Salvador made the
fire. The commandant detailed himself and myself as cooks for the morning.
At supper-time, Don Juan, assisted by Jim and Joe, would officiate
culinarily. Slices from a haunch of bacon we had brought with us, cooked
on the end of a stick, with "hard tack" and coffee, made in a camp kettle,
furnished a delicious breakfast. What is there in the odor of unctuous
bacon that makes it so pleasant to the nostrils when one is camping out or
"roughing it"? There are people who cannot abide the smell of bacon within
the confines of civilization. But put them on the Plains, or in the field,
and a daily dose of the appetizing grease is necessary to "settle their
stomachs." I have known men who, in long trips in the wilds, forsook
chickens and returned to first principles and bacon.

We made an early start. The buggy was left behind. Don Juan saddled one of
his horses. He borrowed from the old Indian a saddle, so angular and so
full of sharp points that it must have been hard even for an Indian's
seat. But Brown, though heavy, was a good horseman, and he bore the
infliction like a hero.

Salvador was our guide. When we were all mounted, and ready to start, we
looked around for him. After some hunting we saw him above us, mounted,
and seemingly emerging from the roof of the ranchito. He went straight up
the side of the mountain, beckoning to us to come on, and shouting
"_Caballeros! por aquí!_"(228)

An Indian does not understand flank movements. He does not go around
obstacles. He goes straight over them on the direct line of his objective.
We followed our guide, dismounting, however, leading our horses, and
zigzagging up the steep ascent like Christians and white men.

Our course was over mountain and across ravine on a bee-line of ascent or
descent for Acoma. There was some growling by Jim and Joe, but as our
general gait was a slow walk, and they made much of their progress on
foot, they did not grumble much.

I noticed moccasin tracks in several places where the ground was soft. The
distance between the foot-prints was very great. It astonished me. I rode
to the commandant's side, and called his attention to the wonderful
tracks. He pointed them out to Salvador, who said they were the tracks of
a _muchacho_ he had sent to the Pueblo last night with the news of our
arrival at the ranchito. What a stepper that _muchacho_ must have been!
His average bound must have been at least ten feet.

"How long will it take him to go to the Pueblo, Salvador?" asked the
commandant.

"Oh! not long," replied Salvador, "long as a good horse."

_Experientia docet._ Before I saw those tracks I used to set down the
accounts I read in my Grecian history of wonderful time made by messengers
to Athens and other classic centres as antique yarns. I now believe in the
fastest Grecian time reported. Thus, the torch of faith is often lit by
the merest straying spark--a lesson to us not to limit our belief to what
is within the scope of our knowledge. We know so little.

Jim and Joe had begun to growl over the continual ups and downs of the
journey when we saw Salvador, who was some three or four hundred yards
ahead, dismount at the foot of what seemed to be the steepest ascent yet.

"This must be a stiff one," said the commandant. "I see Salvador has
dismounted. It takes a pretty steep ascent to make an Indian or a Mexican
dismount. They hold to the saddle until the animal begins to bend
backward."

It was a steep and toilsome ascent, winding in and out through huge
boulders just wide enough apart to let a horse squeeze through. It was not
always easy to convince the horses that there was room enough for them to
pass. They would refuse to be convinced, and obstinately draw back, to the
discomfort and danger of those leading them, and more so of those
following.

At last we reached the top of the ascent. The descent on the other side
was a worthy pendant to it. We halted on the crest to enjoy the landscape
before us. From the base of the height a level plain spread away for
miles, unbroken save by a cluster of lofty perpendicular white rocks, each
rising independently from the level plain. On the top of the highest of
these rocks stood a little town, the smoke from its chimneys mingling with
the clouds. This was Acoma.

We descended slowly and carefully. A brisk trot of about two miles brought
us to two lofty natural columns, through which the trail passed. They
seemed the pillars of a gigantic portal--a resemblance which had struck the
Indians, for they named it El Puerto: The Gate. We had now reached the
base of the inhabited rock. An excavation near the base was pointed out to
us by Salvador as the trace of an attempt to mine the position by the
Spanish invaders! I think the story rather a doubtful one.

I judged the rock to be about two hundred and fifty feet in height. The
path up the rocky side to the village was steep and narrow. No wheeled
vehicle has ever entered the Pueblo. The primitive _carreta_, with its
clumsy wheels of solid disks cut from the trunk of some gigantic cotton-
wood, stopped short at the base--going thus far and no further. Provisions
and other necessaries are packed up on the backs of surefooted donkeys.
Water for drinking purposes is carried up on the heads of the Indians in
large earthen vessels named _tinajas_; for other uses rain-water is
carefully gathered in natural tanks or hollows in the summit of the rock.
There is a bypath or short-cut up to the Pueblo which the Acomas generally
use when unburdened or in a hurry. A glance showed us that it was only
practicable for Acoma Indians. This short-cut is in the most nearly
perpendicular of any of the rocky sides. It consists of holes in the
smooth and vertical side of the rock, in which the Indians place their
hands and feet, and climb up after the fashion of sailors clambering up
rigging, and with no less rapidity.

We returned to the common highway, which now seemed by comparison a
flowery path of dalliance. It was slow and tiresome work, however. After a
rest or two, to breathe our animals and ourselves, we finally reached the
comparatively level space, some acres in area, on the summit of the rock.

Here we were met by Francisco, our guide's son, the governor, matadores,
alguazils, and other functionaries of the Pueblo. This is as good a place
as any other to say that the governor and all other officials are elected
annually. They were dressed in the usual Pueblo fashion. Their heads were
uncovered. They were draped in large blankets, which gave them a very
dignified appearance.

We received a most cordial reception. The commandant had been a good
friend to the Acomas--had protected them in their little trading
operations, and helped them in the long, hard winters when their granaries
were empty. The entire male population was assembled in the Plaza or
central square. The squaws and children were at their front doors, that is
to say, on the roofs, for the entrance to a Pueblo's dwelling is from
above.

A fire for the dragoons to cook their rations by was made in the centre of
the Plaza. The horses were picketed around. A contribution of corn and
firewood was levied by the governor for the use of the escort. The Indians
came in cheerful, laughing groups, bearing their _costals_ of corn or
their bundles of wood. The escort being provided for, we went to the house
of Francisco, the most comfortable house in the Pueblo; for Francisco was
the wealthiest member of the little community. The governor's dwelling was
a poor one, and himself a poor man who was unable to entertain us as
comfortably as Francisco could. He accompanied us thither.

Francisco's dwelling, like most of the others in the Pueblo, was a two-
storied adobe building, whitewashed inside and out. The mode of access was
a ladder placed against the outer wall of the lower story. Having reached
the top of this, you walk across the roof and enter the house by a door on
the second story, the façade of which is somewhat retired from the front
line of the first.

Here we found some rosy, apple-faced squaws, engaged in culinary and other
domestic operations. One was kneeling grinding corn with the primitive
_matata_. They smiled with all their countenances on us; and a half-dozen
of the whitest sets of teeth, that dentist or dentifrice never touched,
gleamed a bright welcome to us. They wore the usual dark woollen robe,
made of two pieces, about five feet long and three broad, sewed together
at one of the narrow ends, but with an aperture for the head to pass
through. The robe is then gathered round the waist and tied with a string.
Their nut-brown arms were bare, and encircled at the wrist by from one to
a dozen brass rings; their feet were bare. The thick swathing of buckskin,
with which they wrap their lower limbs when journeying, and which gives
them the appearance of being terribly swollen, were laid aside, much to
the furthering of a graceful effect.

We were invited to descend to the sitting-room, situated beneath, through
a very narrow trap-door. Don Juan walked fearlessly toward the aperture.
We begged him to pause before he rushed into a place whence he could never
hope to return. The Indians understood the joke, and enjoyed it hugely.

So the Don entered the aperture, and by judicious squeezing actually
succeeded in passing. His coat-tails got through about the same time as
his head. The others, being of the lean and hungry-looking kind, had no
difficulty in descending.

From the room into which we had descended ventilation was completely
excluded. Light was only admitted through one or two small panes of glass
in apertures like port-holes in the walls.

We took seats on sheep-skins spread in a circle around the floor. The
commandant made known his business in passable Spanish; the governor
replied, through Francisco, as interpreter. The worthy Don intervened,
from time to time, between the high contracting parties, when there was a
lack of language or danger of misunderstanding. The business was completed
satisfactorily and in short order.

While the floor was being set for dinner--tables not being in vogue here--we
endeavored to obtain the Acoma's idea of the antiquity of the Pueblo.
Francisco, though he had learned to read and write, had not got beyond the
Indian idea of time, space, or number. There is no medium between "many"
and "few"--very far, _muy lejos_; and near, _cerca_.

"How many years old is the Pueblo?"

"_Muchos años._--Many years."

"About how many?"

"Who knows, señor?" with a shrug. "A great many."

"Who is the oldest man in the Pueblo?"

"The cacique."

The cacique, we were informed, is the official historian of the Pueblo.
His records consist only in oral traditions, which he teaches to a youth
selected for the purpose, who is to succeed him in his office when he
dies.

"Is the cacique very old?"

"Si, señor! Very old."

It is useless to ask an Indian how old he or any other Indian is, as he
never knows. So we did not ask how old the cacique was.

"Was the cacique he succeeded very old?"

"Yes, sir; very old."

"Was the Pueblo in existence as long as he can remember?"

"Yes, sir; and as long as the cacique before him and the cacique before
him could remember. But we shall have the cacique here shortly, and then
after dinner we'll have a good big talk about the many years ago."

Francisco, the governor, and his father now engaged in an earnest
conversation in their Indian tongue, the result of which was that
Francisco unlocked a vast trunk, of antique form and solidity, and took
therefrom a pile of manuscript, which he handed us with great solemnity.
The Indians looked upon this venerable pile with great reverence. It was
probably the first time it had been touched by "outsiders." We owed the
permission to examine it to the many kind acts the commandant had
performed for the Acomas.

The first portion of the manuscript examined was a Missal. The Office of
the Mass was copied in Latin in a fair plain hand, the work of some
Spanish missionary. The ink had turned yellow, but the text was clear and
legible throughout. Nothing in the MS. Missal indicated the date of its
writing. A further examination of the venerable pages furnished us some
information. Besides the Missal, they comprised a register in Spanish of
births, marriages, and deaths. The earliest written record of the Pueblo
which we found is the record of a baptism, 1725.

Having gleaned what knowledge we could from the precious manuscripts, they
were carefully and reverently put away in the ponderous chest, and secured
by a padlock nearly as large as a travelling satchel.

Dinner was now served. It was very good. It consisted of a chicken stew,
good white bread, and very passable tea. The stew was made so intensely
hot, however, by _chile colorado_,(229) that I did not enjoy it as much as
I might have done had it been less fiery. I never could relish _chile_
either _colorado_ or _verde_. But on this occasion, I determined to eat it
if it burned me to a shell to show my appreciation of Acoma hospitality!

The cacique--an old, white-haired, blear-eyed Indian, at least ninety--came
in toward the close of the meal, accompanied by the youth whom he was
instructing in the historical and legendary lore of the Pueblo. He evinced
no inclination to be communicative, but showed a determination to make a
rousing meal--something to which he was evidently not accustomed. After
dinner he devoted himself to smoking our cigars; but not a word could we
get out of him about the history of Acoma. Joe said that as a story-teller
he considered the cacique a decided failure.

The governor signified that he was now ready to show us the church. So
thither we proceeded.

The church is, of course, of adobe. It was unused at the time we visited
it. No priest had been attached to the Pueblo for some years. But it was
not suffered to fall into decay. On one side of the altar was a painting
of the Virgin and Child; on the other, one of S. Joseph. On the ceiling
above the altar were large paintings of the sun and moon. Here we got
another chronological glimmer--the last we found. It was an inscription
which stated that the church had been renovated in 1802. The Indians told
us it was done by some artist-priest who came from far away--probably Spain
or Italy. There are a pair of bells in the belfry. The Acoma tradition is
that these bells were a gift to the Pueblo from a Queen of Spain. Of
course they do not know the date of their reception. They say, however,
that it was some time before the renovation of the church.

We next went to the southern edge of the rock to look at the "short cut"
from above. This was not easy or pleasant pedestrianism. The rock here
ceased to be level, throwing up sharp craggy points. The Indians stepped
from point to point, erect and graceful and without difficulty. The pale
faces were compelled by a due discretion to abandon erect attitudes, and
proceed bending down, and using hands as well as feet. A look down the
rocky side was sufficient. The commandant shook his head, and said in
Spanish:

"That is no way for a white man to come up"--a remark which the Indians
seemed to consider remarkably humorous. They laughed and "how-how"-ed
vehemently.

As we returned, we remarked that on one side of the rock it was bevelled
down from the summit about forty or fifty feet, and then resumed its
general steep and vertical character. Some houses were situated near the
superior edge of this bend. A thrill ran through me from head to foot as I
saw a child roll from the front of one of the houses down the incline.

"He will be dashed to atoms!" I cried in horror.

The Indians looked in the direction to which I frantically pointed, and
then united in a good-humored laugh.

Soon another urchin, and another, and another followed the first, who
picked himself up just at the deadly brink, and mounted the incline, to
roll down again and again, as we used to on a hillside in snow with our
sleds, in our younger days. This was play for the infantine Acomas. They
were "keeping the pot a-bilin'."

The Indians told us that no fatal accident had ever happened to any Acoma
either while rolling down the dread incline "in pretty, pleasant play," or
climbing the steep path the mere sight of which had made us dizzy.
Tradition records that only one Indian ever "went over the side." He was
saved by a projecting stump catching him by the breech-clout and holding
him suspended until he was rescued--unhurt.

Our next visit was the _Estufa_. Here the sacred fire was burning. The
_Estufa_ was an underground apartment. We descended through a trap-door,
which also served as a chimney, and down a smoke-begrimed ladder. The
chamber was some thirty feet in length and perhaps fifteen in width. We
were informed that it was the general place of meeting--the public hall--the
club-room of the Pueblo. It was pretty hot and not very sweet down there.
We found four Indians seated around the fire, each with a loom in front of
him, weaving a blanket. Their only covering was the breech-clout. The
Indians told us, through Don Juan, that these men watched the fire, which
was always kept burning--waiting for the coming of Montezuma. They were
relieved by four others at stated times. We shook hands with the naked
watchers, and "how-how"-ed with them in the usual way.

"Do you think Montezuma will come?" asked Joe, through Don Juan, of one of
the vigilants.

The worthy, shrugging his naked shoulders, looked up sidewise at Joseph,
and replied:

"_Quizas? Quien sabe?_--May be! Who knows?"

Joe withdrew. We all followed him. We had now seen all the lions of the
Pueblo of Acoma. "Boots and saddles" and "to horse" were sounded, and with
many hand-shakes, some embraces, and general "how-hows," we bade adieu to
the hospitable Acomas and their rocky home, and began our return march.

New Publications.

    THE LIFE OF DEMETRIUS AUGUSTIN GALLITZIN, PRINCE AND PRIEST. By
    Sarah M. Brownson. With an Introduction by O. A. Brownson, LL.D.
    New York: Pustet. 1872.

Women of talent and cultivation make admirable biographers. In religious
biography we know of nothing more charming than the lives written by Mère
Chauguy. In recent English literature, the Lives of Mother Margaret Mary
O'Halloran, by a lady whose name is unknown to us, and of S. Jane Frances
de Chantal, by Miss Emily Bowles, are among the most perfect specimens of
this very agreeable species of writing which we have met with in any
language. This new and carefully prepared biography of a priest who was
illustrious both by birth and Christian virtue, by a lady already known as
the author of several works of fiction, well deserves to be classed with
the best of its kind in English Catholic literature. It is a work of
thorough, patient, and conscientious labor, and for the first time
adequately presents the history and character of Prince Gallitzin in their
true light. Certainly, we never knew before how truly heroic and admirable
a man was this Russian prince who came to pass his life as a missionary in
the forests which crowned in his day the summit of the Alleghanies in
Pennsylvania. The charm of a biography is found in a certain fulness and
sprightliness of style and manner, a picturesqueness and ideality of
ornament and coloring, a warmth and glow of sentiment, which give life and
reality to the narrative. Miss Brownson still possesses the juvenile
_élan_ which naturally finds its expression in the style we have
indicated, and has also attained that sobriety and maturity of judgment
which give it the rightly subdued tone and finish. In several matters of
considerable delicacy which she has been obliged to handle, we think she
has shown tact and discretion, while at the same time using enough of the
freedom of a historian to bring out the truth of facts and events which
needed to be told in order to make a veritable record and picture of the
life of her subject. The prince is fortunate in his biographer. Would it
were the lot of every great man in the church to find a similar one! Miss
Brownson's book seems to us the best religious biography which has been
written by anyone of our American Catholic authors. We would like to see
more works of this sort from feminine writers, to whom we are already so
much indebted for works both of the graver and the lighter kind, and
particularly from Miss Brownson, who has fully proved her ability in the
volume before us.

    BIBLIOGRAPHIA CATHOLICA AMERICANA. A list of works written by
    Catholic authors and published in the United States. By Rev.
    Joseph M. Finotti. Part I., 1784 to 1820 inclusive. New York: The
    Catholic Publication Society. 1872. 8vo. pp. 319.

It was said of Bartlett's _Dictionary of Americanisms_ that it was the
first dictionary that a man could read through with pleasure. The same in
the way of bibliography may be said of this; for, if any of our readers
supposes that the title tells the truth, he is mistaken. It is not a mere
_list_, as the author modestly calls it. Some twelve years ago, Mr. Shea
published in one of our Catholic papers a list of titles of "The First
Catholic Books printed in this County," coming down to the same date and
including the same period as our author, and giving sixty-eight titles.
This meagre beginning of American Catholic bibliography has in F.
Finotti's hands grown to nearly five hundred titles, including some few
imprints later than 1820.

It is not merely a collection of titles of Catholic works, but of all
works by Catholic authors printed in the country, with notes of the
highest interest to Catholics who care at all for what was done by our
fathers in the faith in this republic. Biographical notices, notices of
celebrated books, accounts of controversies of the time, anecdotes
illustrative of Catholic life in the earlier days, notes of Catholic
printers and journalists, all find their place in these notes, in which
the abundant knowledge of our earlier men and times, and things acquired
by the patient and loving research of years, fairly bubble out
spontaneously. It is not a history indeed, but to the historian will be
invaluable as an authority and a guide.

On some points this work is absolutely exhaustive. The collection of
pamphlets and works growing out of the Hogan affair in Philadelphia,
considering their perishable nature, is perfectly wonderful, and his
library alone can enable any one to go thoroughly into the history of that
unhappy matter which was destructive to so many souls.

Of the writings and publications of the celebrated Mathew Carey, we have
also here by far the most accurate and comprehensive account ever drawn
up, comprising nearly twenty-five pages.

Many will be amazed to see how many sterling Catholic books were issued
early in the century, and thus be able to judge of the zeal and true
religious feeling of the little body of Catholics who so generously
sustained the publishers, as well as of the public spirit of a man like
Bernard Dornin--in our mind, as in F. Finotti's, the type of what a
Catholic publisher should be. Of him as of many other Catholics our author
gives biographical notices that we should look for in vain in all the
cyclopædias and biographical dictionaries. Book notices often end with the
assertion that the book should be in every family; we hardly suppose the
publishers ready to supply every Catholic family in the country with a
copy, for the edition is small, and must be taken up at once. It is by no
means merely a book for the Dryasdust collector or antiquarian. It must
find its place in the libraries of many of our gentlemen who love their
religion and love books, as well as in our college libraries. We trust
that it will impel all to endeavor to have some of the early printed
Catholic books, as matters of laudable pride. If they can even find some
that have escaped the Argus eyes of the reverend collector and his
associate book-hunters, they will, we trust, be good enough Christians to
bear with equanimity even that severe trial to a bibliographer.

This _Bibliography_ commends itself to those interested in the
bibliography of the country or the history of printing in the United
States.

In the _Historical Magazine_ some months since there was a Bibliography of
works on Unitarianism, but it was silent as to Father Kohlmann's work, and
to a sermon by a Catholic clergyman of Pittsburg. So, too, Sabin's
_Bibliopolist_ recently gave a list of books printed in Brooklyn, but was
silent as to a _Catholic Doctrine_ printed there in 1817, as well as of
Coate's very curious _Reply_ to Rev. F. Richards' supposed reasons for
becoming a Catholic.

There is one strange point about American bibliography, and that is that
the laborers in it have been almost exclusively from Europe. Ludewig gave
the _Bibliography of Indian Languages_ and that of Local History;
O'Callaghan, that of American Bibles; Harisse, that of the earliest
American; Rich was a pioneer in the same field; and now Finotti gives us
the Catholic element. Where are our native bibliographers?

    LE LIBERALISME. LECONS DONNEES A L'UNIVERSITE LAVAL. Par l'Abbé
    Benjamin Paquet, Docteur en Theologie, et Professeur à la Faculté
    de Theologie. Quebec: De l'Imprimerie du _Canadien_. Brochure, pp.
    100. 1872.

Lower Canada, considered both in respect to the condition of the Catholic
Church therein, and to the political well-being of its people, is an
eminently fortunate region, despite the rigor of its climate. It is
especially pre-eminent in respect to the Catholic education given to young
men of the leisured classes, and others who go through the intermediate
and higher courses. Laval University is truly a splendid institution among
many others which make Quebec an _unique_ city in Northern America. These
remarks are suggested by the pamphlet before us, which is a specimen of
the sound and opportune instruction given at the Laval University. The
Lectures contained in it give an exposition which is both learned and
clear of that most important portion of the Syllabus which relates to the
errors of modern liberalism condemned in the Pontifical Acts of Pius IX.
When will the Catholics of the United States enjoy privileges similar to
those which are the portion of the Catholics of Lower Canada? The Abbé
Paquet's Lectures were delivered as a part of his course on the law of
nature and of nations, and were attended not only by his pupils, but by a
numerous and select audience, several of whom requested their publication.
We have already sufficiently expressed our approbation of their doctrine
and style, and they have been favorably noticed in Europe. We are
confident that a considerable number of our readers will hasten to procure
them, and receive great profit from their perusal.

    CARDINAL WISEMAN'S WORKS. New Edition, first 3 vols. New York: P.
    O'Shea.

This is a reissue of a new London edition which we most cordially commend.
The first two volumes, containing the _Lectures on the Connection between
Science and Revealed Religion_, have already been noticed in these pages.
The third volume contains the splendid treatise on the Holy Eucharist.
Cardinal Wiseman was a great writer, a great prelate, and a remarkably
devout and holy man. His works are among our choicest treasures, and as
such ought to be everywhere circulated and continually perused by those
who wish to imbue their minds with the purest doctrine and the most
valuable knowledge.

    THE LIFE OF S. AUGUSTINE, BISHOP, CONFESSOR, AND DOCTOR OF THE
    CHURCH. By P. E. Moriarty, D.D. Ex-Assistant General O.S.A.
    Philadelphia: Cunningham. 1873.

This is a popular biography, though proceeding from the pen of a learned
man, and showing marks of erudition. The sketch is a complete one, and
shows great power of generalization and condensation in the writer, with
vigor and impetus of style. It is not, however, minute in respect to the
saint's public life, or his great work as a philosopher and doctor of the
church. This could not be expected in a work of moderate size adapted for
popular reading. There is, however, a brief summary of the saint's
writings, with a synopsis, and an account of the Augustinian Order, all of
which are of interest and value to the general reader.

    PHOTOGRAPHIC VIEWS; OR, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL TRUTHS REFLECTED IN
    THE UNIVERSE. By F. X. Weninger, D.D., S.J. New York: P. O'Shea.
    1873.

A handsomely printed volume, with a very ornamental title-page quite
appropriate to the nature of the book. The views of truth presented in
this book are expressed in aphorisms. Good taste, poetic sensibility,
spiritual wisdom, and the purest Christian feeling are their chief
characteristics. We are disposed to think this the best of F. Weninger's
works. There are many persons who take great delight in aphorisms of this
kind, and we think all such readers will like this book. It is good also
as a help to meditation, and a treasury of short spiritual readings for
those who have not time for long ones; and will be useful to those who
like to stop occasionally in more laborious occupations of the mind, and
gather a little spiritual nosegay.

    MEMOIRS OF MADAME DESBORDES-VALMORE. By the late C. A. Sainte-
    Beuve. With a Selection from her Poems. Translated by Harriet W.
    Preston. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1873.

Madame Valmore was one of those poets of the affections who

    "Learn in suffering what they teach in song."

No one can look for a moment at her portrait as depicted in this touching
book without feeling that the thorn is continually pressing against her
gentle breast. Her poetry and her letters are the very outcry of
impassioned love and grief. "I am like the Indian that sings at the
stake," she says. One of her volumes is entitled _Tears_, every line of
which is a pensive sigh. Her poems are full of "the charm of that
melancholy which M. de Segur calls _the luxury of grief_." M. Michelet
says: "She alone among us had the _gift of tears_--that gift which smites
the rock and assuages the thirst of the soul!" M. Sainte-Beuve calls her
"the _Mater Dolorosa_ of poetry," but that title, consecrated to a higher,
diviner type of sorrow, is one that most of us would shrink from applying
to ordinary mortals.

It would almost seem as if the highest, purest notes--"half ecstasy, half
pain"--only spring from the soul overshadowed by sorrow, as the eyes of
some birds are darkened when they are taught to sing. Mme. Valmore
herself, in allusion to a brother poet, wonders "if actual misery were
requisite for the production of notes that so haunt one's memory."

The tombs among which she used to play as a child in the old churchyard at
Douai seem to have cast their funereal shadows over her whole life--shadows
that lend to her sad muse so attractive a charm. One of her poems thus
begins:

    "Do not write. I am sad and would my life were o'er.
      A summer without thee?--Oh! night of starless gloom!--
    I fold the idle arms that cannot clasp thee more--
      To knock at my heart's door, were like knocking at a tomb.
                Do not write."

Mme. Valmore's nature was eminently feminine. Her heart was her guide. She
was a being of impulse and sympathy. But her instincts were so delicate
and true that they were to her what reason and philosophy are to colder
natures. Her imagination was thoroughly Catholic. It is only Catholicity
that develops souls of such tender grace and beauty, and she was brought
up under its influences. A cheerful piety, Catholic in tone, seems to have
pervaded her life, and consoled and sustained her in its many dark hours.
She loved to pray in the deserted aisle of some shadowy church full of
mystery and peace. "She had her Christ--the Christ of the poor and
forsaken, the prisoner and the slave, the Christ of the Magdalen and the
good Samaritan, a Christ of the future of whom she herself has sung in one
of her sweetest strains:

    'He whose pierced hands have broken so many chains,' "

--a line that appeals to all who have sinned and been forgiven!

In her last years she thus writes: "I see at an immense distance the
Christ who shall come again. His breath is moving over the crowd. He opens
his arms wide, but there are no more nails--no more for ever!"

Her devotion to Mary is constantly peeping out in her letters. After
visiting a church at Brussels, she writes thus to her daughter: "To-day we
saw the black Virgin with the Child Jesus also black like his mother.
These Madonnas wring my heart with a thousand reminiscences. They are
nothing in the way of art, but they are so associated with my earliest and
sweetest faiths that I positively adore those stiff pink-lined veils and
wreaths of perennial flowers made of cambric so stout that all the winds
of heaven could never cause a leaf to flutter."

She writes her brother: "Lift up your hat when you pass the Church of
Notre Dame, and lay upon its threshold the first spring flowers you find."

One of the most touching features of her life is her devotedness to this
brother, an old soldier and pensioner in the hospital at Douai, whom she
aided out of her own scanty purse, and still more by the moral support she
was continually giving him in the most delicate manner; trying to ennoble
his unfortunate past so as to give him dignity in his own eyes--a thing so
often forgotten in our intercourse with those who are in danger of losing
their self-respect.

Mme. Valmore's charity and sympathies were not confined to her own
kindred. They responded to every appeal. The condemned criminal and
prisoners of every degree excited the compassion of her heart. At a time
of great distress at Lyons, she says she is "ashamed to have food and fire
and two garments when so many poor creatures have none." And yet she seems
not to have had too many of the comforts of life herself. One Christmas
eve she speaks of kneeling on her humble hearth--"a hearth where there is
not much fire save that of her own loving, anxious heart--" to pray.

It is sad to see a woman with such a refined, poetical nature, and a heart
sensitive to the last degree, condemned to a fate so chilling and unkind.
But she never lost courage. Living in narrow lodgings, and on limited
means, she contrived to give a certain artistic air to everything around
her, and received her visitors with polished ease and self-possession,
hiding her griefs under the grace of her manner and the vivacity of her
conversation. Her courage and fortitude were admirable under adverse
circumstances and such afflictions as the loss of her daughters. No book
not strictly religious could teach a more forcible lesson of patient,
cheerful endurance--how "to suffer and be strong." The work is elegantly
translated, and is a welcome addition to the lives of celebrated French
ladies already issued by the same publishers.

    THE ENGLISH IN IRELAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. By James Anthony
    Froude, M.A. In 2 vols. Vol. I. New York: Scribner, Armstrong &
    Co. 1873.

We have here the first volume of a new and very elaborate work by the
adventurous historian of England, and chivalrous champion of Henry VIII.
and his daughter Elizabeth. It might perhaps have been hoped that enough
had been said of Mr. Froude in these columns, and that our readers had
done with him. His reputation as a faithful historian had been sorely
damaged, and indeed irretrievably ruined, by several indignant critics in
England, in Scotland, and in Ireland, as well as in the United States (by
the short, sharp and decisive onslaught of Mr. Meline); so that it has
been an actual surprise to the literary world to find him once more
tempting Providence in a new book, heralded and advertised by a course of
lectures in New York. But this is the nature of the man: he must surprise
and startle, or he dies; he must provoke the most wondering and angry
contradiction and comment, and gratify the small feminine spite that
possesses him, provided he can sting and wound like a hornet. For him, to
scold is to live.

The present volume, although entitled _The English in Ireland in the
Eighteenth Century_, is in fact occupied, for more than two hundred pages,
with an account of the dealings of his country with Ireland during the
XVIIth century, and presents his views of Irish history at the notable
periods of the insurrection--or alleged "massacre"--in 1641, as well as the
short reign of James II. The narrative ends at the time of the small
French invasion under Thurot, shortly after the middle of the XVIIIth
century; leaving Still to be treated the whole era of the Volunteering,
the Insurrection of '98, and the Union, so-called. Indeed, if the author
carry forward his subject into the present century, as he has carried it
backward into the one before the last, he will have the great famines to
deal with, and the multitudinous emigration; so that we may expect a vast
picture, covering the whole canvas, portraying from the strictly English
point of view that ghastly history in its full perspective. The Froude
theory is, on the whole, quite simple; nothing can be more easily
understood. It is, in few words, that the English nation having been
"forced by situation and circumstances" to take charge of Ireland and its
people, when it suited the English to change their religion, or to come
back to it, or to change it again, they were bound in duty to compel the
Irish to change along with them each time, by means of pains and
penalties, from heavy fines to transportation and death on the gallows;
also that the English having a strong wish to possess themselves of all
the lands of Ireland, everything was lawful and right to effect that
object. The reader will remark, with surprise (and the more surprise, the
better for Froude), that in his lectures lately delivered in New York,
which were a kind of abstract of the work then in press, he did not
venture _to say_ before an intelligent audience of freemen some of the
things which he has dared to print in the book then just ready to burst
upon the world. For example, he did not say, even before the "Christian
young men," such words as these which are found in the book (p. 609):

"The consent of man was not asked when he was born into the world: his
consent will not be asked when his time comes to die. _As little_ has his
consent to do with the laws which, while he lives, he is bound to obey."

This sentiment he perhaps thought it unnecessary to enunciate here;
because, in fact, he intended it solely for the Irish, not by any means
for the Americans, although it reads like a universal maxim for the human
race. Again, he did not think it necessary to say in so plain words what
he has laid down clearly enough in this passage (p. 213):

"No government need _keep terms_ with such a creed [meaning the Catholic
Church] when there is power to abolish it. To call the repression of
opinions which had issued so many times in blood and revolt _by the name
of religions persecution_ is mere abuse of words."

    ELEVATIONS POÉTIQUES ET RELIGIEUSES. Par Marie Jenna. Deuxième
    Edit. 2 vols. Paris: Adrien le Clerc et Cie. 1872.

As the eye lingers upon a beautiful landscape, spring clad and fair in the
clear light of the new-risen sun; as the ear loiters unwilling to lose the
last echoed link of some simple melting melody; as the hand tarries loth
to quit the gentle grasp that speaks unspoken sympathy, so have
we--reluctant to lose such fair pictures, such moving lays, such deep and
tender feeling--lingered and loitered and tarried with Marie Jenna, "the
Poet of the Vosges." Gifted with the nice perception of a true poet, Marie
Jenna clothes the simplest ideas in language of such rare delicacy, so
fresh, tender, vivid, and withal so musical, that mind, heart, eye, and
ear, all are at once engaged. A bird, a butterfly, a flower, gains new
interest in her hands; she flings a grace around it, she vests it with a
dignity it never had before; she makes it live again. Take, for instance,
the opening stanzas of "Le Papillon":

    "Pourquoi t'approcher en silence
      Et menacer mon vol joyeux?
    Par quelle involontaire offense
      Ai-je pu déplaire à tes yeux?

    "Je suis la vivante étincelle
      Qui monte et descend tour à tour;
    La fleur à qui Dieu donne une aile,
      Un souffle, un regard, un amour.

    "Je suis le frère de la rose;
      Elle me cache aux importuns,
    Puis sur son coeur je me repose
      Et je m'enivre de parfums.

    "Ma vie est tout heureuse et pure,
      Pourquoi désires-tu ma mort?
    Oh! dis-moi, roi de la nature,
      Serais-tu jaloux de mon sort?

    "Va, je sais bien que tu t'inclines
      Souvent pour essuyer des pleurs,
    Que tes yeux comptent les épines
      Où je ne vois rien que des fleurs.

    "Je sais que parfois ton visage
      Se trouble et s'assombrit soudain,
    Lorsqu'en vain je cherche un nuage
      Au fond de l'horizon serein.

    "Mais Celui dont la main divine
      A daigné nous former tous deux,
    Pour moi parfuma la colline,
      Et de loin te montra les cieux.

    "Il me fit deux ailes de flamme,
      A moi, feu follet du printemps;
    Pour toi, son fils, il fit une âme
      Plus grande que le firmament.

    "Ecoute ma voix qui t'implore,
      Loin de moi détourne tes pas...
    Laisse moi vivre un jour encore,
      O toi qui ne finiras pas!

    "Mon bonheur à moi, c'est la vie,
      La liberté sous le ciel bleu,
    Le ruisseau, l'amour sans envie:
      Le tien ... c'est le secret de Dieu."

What can be fresher or more charming than this naïve, earnest appeal for
life and liberty? And again, in "Pour un Oiseau," beginning with:

    "Il est à toi, c'est vrai ... Frère, veux tu qu'il meure?
      Sa beauté, sa chanson, tout est là ... dans ta main;
    Et l'arbuste où sa voix gazouillait tout à l'heure
      Au bosquet, si tu veux, sera muet demain.

    "Tu le tiens: sa faiblesse à ta force le livre;
      Mais aussi ta pitié peut le laisser aller;
    Ne le fais pas mourir! il est si bon de vivre
      Lorsque l'été commence et qu'on peut s'envoler,"

we find the same delicacy of thought, the same rippling, flowing language;
and what joyousness and how cheery it sounds: _il est si bon de vivre_.

But Marie Jenna strikes deeper chords, awakes more solemn strains, than
these; and through them all, the graver as the lighter, binding them in
one harmonious whole, there sings out the same clear note of firm,
enlightened faith that never wavers; it penetrates each thing she handles,
giving that breadth and largeness to her field of view that it alone can
give. In some beautiful stanzas, "Beati qui lugeant," she draws near to
one bowed down with sorrow, and fearlessly, yet oh! how tenderly touching
the wound because she knows its cure, she speaks:

    "Va, ton sein cache en vain le glaive qui le blesse:
    J'ai compris ton silence et j'ai prié pour toi.
    Laisse aller ta fierté comme un poids qui t'oppresse,
                Et pleure devant moi.

    "Il est, je le sais bien, des jours où la souffrance
    Trouve en sa solitude une âpre volupté;
    Et le monde léger voit passer en silence
                Sa pâle majesté.

    "Et la main d'un ami s'arrètant incertaine,
    N'ose écarter les plis de son voile de deuil.
    Il est des maux si grands, que la parole humaine
                Expire sur le seuil.

    "Mais deux jours sont passés; il est temps que je vienne;
    Oh! laisse un front d'ami penché sur ta douleur!
    Ne te détourne pas: Mets ta main dans la mienne,
                Ton âme sur mon coeur.

    "Si je ne t'apportais qu'une amitié fidèle,
    Mes pas avec respect s'éloigneraient d'ici.
    J'attendrais que la tienne enfin se souvint d'elle,
                Mais j'ai souffert aussi...

    "Je ne te dirai point cette vaine parole
    Que la douleur accueille en son muet dédain.
    Non, ce que j'ai pour toi, c'est un mot qui console,
                C'est un secret divin."

Already we seem to see awaked attention, a gleam of hope flit across the
stern, wan face that marks such helpless, hopeless misery; now softening
the hard, cold look that bid defiance to all sorrow, repelled all
sympathy; now changing it to one of anxious longing and of mute entreaty
for the proffered gift, _le mot qui console_. And see, or is it fancy
only, or are there really tears now falling, "gemlike, the last drops of
the exhausted storm"? Space forbids us to give it in its fulness, this
_secret divin_, to curtail it would spoil it: so we send the reader to the
original, and would ask him only if in the last stanza he does not hear
two voices singing:

    "Heureux les affligés! dit la Vérité même.
    Heureux, c'est vrai, mon Dieu! quand vous avez parlé.
    Nous voulons bien souffrir si le bonheur suprême,
                Est d'être consolé."