The Spirit of the Early Missionary [pp. 794-802]

I894.] THE SPIRIT OF THE EARL Y MISSIONAR Y.
of these heroic men so much as offer discouragement. They
labored amidst the wilds of the forest for the souls of the
Indian. The Indian is gone, and we know him only br the
name of his tribe or his chief preserved to us in the name of
river, hill, or plain, or town. So, too, the missionary. There
may be a city in the West called Marquette, or a hamlet in
the glades of Florida'named Velascola. This were lamentable
were it all. Shea, commenting on the results of the prodigious
labors of the early missionary, says: "One fact will at all events
appear, that the tribes evangelized by the French and Spanish
subsist to this day, except when brought in contact with the
colonists of England and their allies or descendants."
The existence to-day of a miserable remnant of half-civilized
people were a pitiable showing as the result of years of labor
and life and treasure were it all. Why these efforts came to
naught in the civilization and permanent establishment of the
Indian tribes is the historian's field of research. What their labors were, what their sacrifices, what their zeal, what their hope
and consolation; who were the men, and whence came they,
and whither did they go, and how did they work, and what
did they glean from those accessible fields for the granaries
of God-these and the like are the questions that interest the
missionary of to-day, who labors among the fair cities that now
stand where the forest stood when Marquette and Roger came
to these shores to engage in the self-same work. And so we
come to the men and their labors. Let us take one at random,
and not the most distinguished-Father Louis Cancer de Barbastro. Apostolic zeal for the missionary life led him to Mexico in I514. There he labored for the conversion of souls for
thirty years. What a marvellous record does not this short
biographical notice given by Shea in a book note afford:
"Father Louis Cancer de Barbastro was a native of Saragossa,
and had at an early age entered the Dominican order. He
came to America in I514 as superior of a band of missionaries.
His labors were at first almost unsuccessful; his companions
died around him of want, disease, and violence, and at the
expiration of nearly thirty years he stood alone. He then,
with Fathers Rincon and Las Casas, undertook to evangelize
the district called Tierra de Guerra-Land of War; but having
converted and gained all the native tribes, the missionaries gave
it the name of Vera Paz-True Peace-which it still bears."
After so long and so arduous, and finally successful, term of
labor, one would naturally think him inclined to rest and enjoy
795