burned their
villages. Well, there are beyond the seas ten thousand Onontios like
him. They are only the soldiers of this great captain, our great king,
of whom I speak to you."
Mgr. de Laval ardently desired, then, the arrival of new workers for the
gospel, and in the year 1668, the very year of the foundation of the
seminary, his desire was fulfilled, as if Providence wished to reward
His servant at once. Missionaries from France came to the aid of the
priests of the Quebec seminary, and Sulpicians, such as MM. de Queylus,
d'Urfe, Dallet and Brehan de Gallinee, arrived at Montreal; MM. Francois
de Salignac-Fenelon and Claude Trouve had already landed the year
before. "I have during the last month," wrote the prelate, "commissioned
two most good and virtuous apostles to go to an Iroquois community which
has been for some years established quite near us on the northern side
of the great Lake Ontario. One is M. de Fenelon, whose name is
well-known in Paris, and the other M. Trouve. We have not yet been able
to learn the result of their mission, but we have every reason to hope
for its complete success."
While he was enjoining upon these two missionaries, on their departure
for the mission on which he was sending them, that they should always
remain in good relations with the Jesuit Fathers, he gave them some
advice worthy of the most eminent doctors of the Church:--
"A knowledge of the language," he says, "is necessary in order to
influence the savages. It is, nevertheless, one of the smallest parts of
the equipment of a good missionary, just as in France to speak French
well is not what makes a successful preacher. The talents which make
good missionaries are:
"1. To be filled with the spirit of God; this spirit must animate our
words and our hearts: _Ex abundantia cordis os loquitur_.
"2. To have great prudence in the choice and arrangement of the things
which are necessary either to enlighten the understanding or to bend the
will; all that does not tend in this direction is labour lost.
"3. To be very assiduous, in order not to lose opportunities of
procuring the salvation of souls, and supplying the neglect which is
often manifest in neophytes; for, since the devil on his part _circuit
tanquam leo rugiens, quaerens quem devoret_, so we must be vigilant
against his efforts, with care, gentleness and love.
"4. To have nothing in our life and in our manners which may appear to
belie what we say, or which
|