For it is twenty-five years after that memorable day when Le Caron first
said mass on the shores of one of the Great Lakes (Champlain being
present) before the farthermost shore of the farthest lake is reached by
these patient and valorous pilgrims of the west. The story of that heroic
journey, of the consecration of those forests and waters and clearings by
suffering and unselfish ministry, fills many volumes (forty in the French
edition and seventy-two in the edition recently published in the United
States, the English translation being presented on the pages opposite the
Latin or French originals). There is material in them for many chapters of
a new-world "Odyssey." To these "Relations," as they were called, we owe
the great body of information we have concerning New France, from 1603 in
Acadia to the early part of the eighteenth century in the Mississippi and
St. Lawrence Valleys; for they who wrote them were not priests alone, they
were at the same time explorers, scientists, historical students,
ethnologists (the first and best-fitted students of the North American
Indian), physicians to the bodies as well as ministers to the souls of
those wild creatures.
Pages:
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59