still standing, after the lapse of years, where
Allouez had raised it, covered with the offerings of the simple natives
to an unknown God. He is the same, too, who founded Kaskaskia, probably
the earliest settlement in the great valley, and whose history ends
(significant fact!) with the record of his usefulness. To Father Pinet,
who founded Cahokia, and was so successful in the conversion of the
natives, that his little chapel could not contain the numbers who
resorted to his ministrations: to Father Marest, the first preacher
against intemperance; and, finally, to Marquette, the best and bravest
of them all, the most single-hearted and unpretending!

Enthusiasm is a characteristic of the French nation; a trait in some
individuals elevated to a sublime self-devotion, and in others degraded
to mere excitability. The vivacity, gesticulation, and grimace, which
characterize most of them, are the external signs of this nature; the
calm heroism of the seventeenth century, and the insane devotion of the
nineteenth, were alike its fruits. The _voyageur_ possessed it, in
common with all his countrymen. But in him it was not noisy, turbulent,
or egotistical; military glory had "neither part nor lot" in his
schemes; the conquests he desired to make were the conquests of faith;
the dominion he wished to establish was the dominion of Jesus.

In the pursuit of these objects, or rather of this single object, I have
said he manifested the enthusiasm of his race; but it was the noblest
form of that characteristic. The fire that burned in his bosom was fed
by no selfish purpose. To have thought of himself, or of his own
comforts, or glory, to the detriment of any Christian enterprise,
however dangerous or unpromising, would, in his eyes, have been a deadly
sin.

At Sault de Ste. Marie, Father Marquette heard of many savages (whom he
calls "God's children") living in barbarism, far to the west. With five
boatmen and one companion, he at once set out for an unexplored, even
unvisited wilderness. He had what they had not--the gospel; and his
heart yearned toward them, as the heart of a mother toward an afflicted
child. He went to them, and bound them to him "in the bond of peace." If
they received him kindly--as they usually did, for even a savage
recognises and respects genuine devotion--he preached to them, mediated
among them, softened their hearts, and gathered them into the fold of
God. If they met him with arms in their hands-