2. The Black Robes Among the Indians. Study of the Indian Language and the First Attempt at Missionary Work. Savage Life. Hunger, Subduing Savage Nature. Stony Soil. Jesuits in the Principal Stronghold of Satan. Bloodthirsty Orgy. Success of the Mission and Alarm in Satan’s Kingdom. (Cont.)

Having secured their position and become familiar with the language, the Jesuits began their missionary work. They started with the children, as the most accessible and free. They would gather them around their dwelling, show them various interesting things, and at the same time not miss any convenient opportunity to teach them prayers and the sign of the cross. Having translated into a language intelligible to them the prayers Pater Noster, Ave, Credo, and the Ten Commandments, the Jesuits would make the children repeat them after them, and at the end of certain hours would let them go play, rewarding the best of them with pears, peas, or apples. The Jesuits knew how to set up this teaching so that it pleased the children. They took pleasure in watching the children make crosses on the ground during their games and sing the prayers they had learned. Grown Native Americans often came to these gatherings and also listened attentively and repeated the prayers after the Jesuits. The missionaries took advantage of this to explain to them the beginnings of Christian doctrine and show them pictures of paradise and hell. The Native Americans approved of the missionaries’ words with gestures, but to their exhortations to be baptized they usually replied that all this was good only for the French, but Native Americans were a completely different people. The Jesuits, however, did not insist and continued patiently to prepare the soil for the acceptance of Christianity. But they did not miss the opportunity to baptize the dying, especially children, and they overflowed with joy when they managed in this way to “convert little savages into little angels”[1]. The Jesuits made special efforts to act upon the imagination of the Native Americans, and for this purpose gave their gatherings as solemn a character as possible. When teaching the truths of religion, pictures were of extraordinary importance. With a picture in hand, the Jesuits would solemnly appear at the gatherings of the Native Americans, showing the astonished savages the torments of sinners and the bliss of the righteous, and offering them the choice[2].

The particular strength of the Jesuits as missionaries lay in their ability to adapt to any circumstances and use them to win over the Native Americans. They lived just like the Native Americans and tried to attend to all their needs, rejoiced at their joys, and shared in their sorrows. Besides missionary work, they were also engaged in charitable works and deeds of mercy on a large scale. After dividing the huts among themselves, they constantly visited them and cared for the sick. Their medical knowledge, which often enabled them to cure the sick successfully, inspired a special regard for them in the Native Americans. And when once a Jesuit predicted a solar eclipse to them and his prediction came true, the Native Americans looked upon him as an embodied spirit[3]. Amid their continuous labors, they nevertheless found time for scholarly pursuits. In the evenings, by the light of a fire, they kept their records, sometimes, lacking paper, simply on birchbark.

New Jesuits gradually arrived to the first three, settled in neighboring villages, and together they combated “the stronghold of the devil”[4]. Neither the discomfort of smoky and cold dwellings, nor hunger, which they often had to endure, nor the rudeness and savagery of the surrounding society disturbed the Jesuits or weakened their zeal. They shrank from nothing to rescue even a single soul from the power of the devil, and sometimes rescued one amid the most terrible revelry of the devil’s slaves. Bands of Hurons constantly set out toward the land of their enemies, the Iroquois, attacked their villages, burned them, and took captives. Once a captive was brought to the village where the Jesuits were. He was in terrible suffering; his hands were broken and mangled. Upon arrival in the village, he was shown remarkable kindness, offered the best food, and was given, according to Native American custom, to a warrior who had lost a nephew, so he could take his place. But the captive’s true fate was beyond doubt. The Huron received him with apparent affection and spoke to him kindly: “My nephew, when I heard you were coming to me, I was very glad, thinking you would stay with me and take the place of the one I lost. But now I see that your hands are broken and mangled so badly that you will never be able to use them, and I change my mind. Therefore, be brave and prepare yourself for death tonight as a brave man.” The captive asked coldly what kind of death it would be. “By fire,” replied the warrior. “That is good,” said the captive. The Jesuits watched in horror at the captive’s impending fate, but had no power to save him. Then they tried to save him from eternal fire. With genuine compassion and tenderness they spoke with him, and when he proved attentive to their instruction, they baptized him. Having secured his eternal salvation, they awaited with relative calm the carrying out of his execution. Meanwhile night fell, and huge crowds of Native Americans gathered from all sides. A row of fires blazed, surrounded by rows of warriors with burning brands in their hands. The captive was to be led across these fires, driven on by burning brands. The smoke, heat, the furious cries of the torturers, and the wild shrieks of the tortured captive—all of this presented a vivid picture of hell, which the Jesuits beheld with horror. But when day broke and the last spark of life was extinguished in the martyr, they breathed more freely and comforted themselves with the thought that the martyr had at last found rest in the bliss of paradise. The disfigured remains of the captive were afterward eaten by the torturers[5].

The Jesuits witnessed such and similar scenes more than once in this dark realm of wild barbarism. All their efforts and attempts to bring a ray of light into this dark environment appeared to be in vain. They still had no converts, and so far they had only succeeded in baptizing those who were passing from their deathbeds into eternity. But then suddenly an unexpected event occurred. A prominent and respected Huron adult, influential in his tribe, yielded to the Jesuits’ persuasion and agreed to be baptized. This was an event of extraordinary importance, and the Jesuits hastened to make use of it to the greatest advantage of their mission, deciding to perform the baptism with all the pomp and ceremony their means allowed. And so indeed the wild wasteland witnessed an unprecedented spectacle. Native Americans gathered in crowds around the Jesuits’ hut: young and old warriors with uncombed hair on their heads and painted faces; bedecked maidens and wrinkled old women wrapped in dirty deerskins; all watched with superstitious curiosity as the baptismal rite was performed, and at the black robes themselves, who now wore brilliant ecclesiastical vestments. Their genuflections, the mysterious ringing of a small bell, the movement of the censer spreading pleasant smoke unlike the smoke from the fires in the Native American huts, the agitated state of the one being baptized—all of this made an overwhelming impression on the savages[6]. The missionaries exulted and anticipated a great harvest. A breach had finally been made in the fortress of the devil; the darkness of paganism was finally yielding to the light of Christianity. This baptism was followed by several others, and the triumph of faith seemed certain. But the prince of darkness did not wish to yield his domain without struggle, and to keep it for himself he brought into play all the machinations of his Satanic cunning, only to avenge himself upon the black robes who had invaded his kingdom[7].