Indian language, a knowledge of which was essential to
the work they hoped to accomplish amidst the forests of Acadia.
Inspired by their motto "ad majoram Dei gloriam," they shrank from no
toil or privation. Father Masse passed the winter of 1611-12 with
Louis Membertou and his family at the River St. John with only a
French boy as his companion, his object being to increase his
knowledge of the Indian language. He suffered many hardships, was at
one time seriously ill, but eventually returned in safety to Port
Royal. He describes the winter's experience with the savages as "a
life without order and without daily fare, without bread, without
salt, often without anything; always moving on and changing, * * for
roof a wretched cabin, for couch the earth, for rest and quiet odious
cries and songs, for medicine hunger and hard work."

The missionaries found immense difficulty in acquiring the language of
the natives. The task was not so difficult so long as they sought to
learn the names of objects that might be touched or seen, but when it
came to such abstract words as virtue, vice, reason, justice, or to
such terms as to believe, to doubt or to hope, "for these," said
Biard, "we had to labor and sweat; in these were the pains of
travail." They were compelled to make a thousand gesticulations and
signs that greatly amused their savage instructors who sometimes
palmed off on them words that were ridiculous and even obscene, so
that the Jesuits labored with indifferent success in the preparation
of their catechism. Their work was still in the experimental stage
when the destruction of Port Royal by Argal in 1613, and the capture
and removal of the missionaries brought everything to a stand and put
an end to all attempts at colonization in Acadia for some years.

The Indians, however, were not forgotten; the Jesuits had failed, but
in 1619 a party of Recollet missionaries from Aquitaine began a
mission on the St. John. These humble missionary laborers had no
historian to record their toils and privations, and unlike the Jesuits
they did not become their own annalists. We know, however, that one of
their number, Father Barnardin, while returning from Miscou to the
River St. John, in the year 1623, died of hunger and fatigue in the
midst of the woods, a martyr to his charity and zeal. Five years
afterwards, the Recollets were compelled to abandon their mission
which, however, was reoccupied by them before many years had passe