St. John were expected to aid in opposing a living
barrier to English intrusion. Missionaries were stationed among all
these Indians to keep them true to Church and King. The most important
station, that of the Norridgewocks, was in charge of Father Sebastien
Rale, the most conspicuous and interesting figure among the later
French-American Jesuits.

Since the middle of the seventeenth century a change had come over the
Jesuit missions of New France. Nothing is more striking or more
admirable than the self-devoted apostleship of the earlier period.[229]
The movement in Western Europe known as the Renaissance was far more
than a revival of arts and letters,--it was an awakening of
intellectual, moral, and religious life; the offspring of causes long in
action, and the parent of other movements in action to this day. The
Protestant Reformation was a part of it. That revolt against Rome
produced a counter Renaissance in the bosom of the ancient Church
herself. In presence of that peril she woke from sloth and corruption,
and girded herself to beat back the invading heresies, by force or by
craft, by inquisitorial fires, by the arms of princely and imperial
allies, and by the self-sacrificing enthusiasm of her saints and
martyrs. That time of danger produced the exalted zeal of Xavier and the
intense, thoughtful, organizing zeal of Loyola. After a century had
passed, the flame still burned, and it never shone with a purer or
brighter radiance than in the early missions of New France.

Such ardors cannot be permanent; they must subside, from the law of
their nature. If the great Western mission had been a success, the
enthusiasm of its founders might have maintained itself for some time
longer; but that mission was extinguished in blood. Its martyrs died in
vain, and the burning faith that had created it was rudely tried. Canada
ceased to be a mission. The civil and military powers grew strong, and
the Church no longer ruled with undivided sway. The times changed, and
the men changed with them. It is a characteristic of the Jesuit Order,
and one of the sources of its strength, that it chooses the workman for
his work, studies the qualities of its members, and gives to each the
task for which he is fitted best. When its aim was to convert savage
hordes and build up another Paraguay in the Northern wilderness, it sent
a Jogues, a Brebeuf, a Charles Garnier, and a Gabriel Lalemant, like a
forlorn hope, to storm the stronghold o