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

THE SPIRIT OF THE EARL Y MISSIONAR Y.
you go to church?" "No." "To what religion does your father belong?" "Don't know." "Did you ever see a minister?"
"No." "Are you baptized?" No answer. "Who made you?"
"Don't know"-with a queer smile. "Did God make you?"
"I guess he did." "Who is God?" "Don't know-never seed
him." Alas poor lads! they were twelve and nine years of age,
two of a brood of eight. Some day hunger will drive you from
these hills, either to win your way upward, or to force you
into the great stream of hundreds who toil and suffer and
die, not knowing God or the hope of happiness when the
struggle is done. And I saw you not many miles from that
placid lake which Jogues discovered on Corpus Christi day, and
named it for the feast, as he threaded his way along the
forest trail to seek the heathen Indian that he might tell him
of Christ. Perhaps he passed under the very shadow of the
mountain whereon you dwell. Perhaps he raised that holy hand,
which for faith's sake was so cruelly mutilated, and blessed those
hills; and so perhaps some day another apostle may follow in
his footsteps and thread the forest wilds anew, seeking here a
house and there a house and the isolated inmates, to tell them,
as that holy missionary told the Indian in bygone days, the
sweet story of the life and death of Christ to save all poor sinners.
Engaged in missionary work in November, I892, at the Cathedral of Vincennes, Indiana, certain things came to our notice that vividly brought to mind the heroic labors of the great
missionaries of early times in this country. First was the venerable Dean Gu6guen, the present rector of the Cathedral of
Vincennes. His name, his blood, his ancestry, his missionary
work in his diocese, his present rectorship at old Fort Vincennes, link him to that earlier day, and have brought him an inheritance of glorious memories and deeds of which he is not
unworthy. His flock, too-one-half, we should judge, of French
descent, Creole mostly in origin, their progenitors coming up
the river from New Orleans, or being descended from the early
French traders; some of them being of mixed blood, the Indian strain being plainly noticed in their features-point to the
presence of the Indian missionary, who was ever in the vanguard
of the march of civilization. Then the tombs of the venerable
and distinguished Brute, of the mild and gentle and hard-working St. Palais, of other prelates too which lie in the chapel
crypt beneath the high altar; the written records of the old
station, going back to the time when Vincennes was a French
military post nigh two hundred years ago-all these spoke, as
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[Mar.-,