But when we know
under what distracting and discouraging conditions even the priest wrote,
we wonder, as Thwaites says, that anything whatever has been preserved in
writing. The "Relations" were written by the fathers, he reminds us,
[Footnote: "Jesuit Relations," 1:39, 40.] in Indian camps, the aboriginal
insects buzzing or crawling about them, in the midst of a chaos of
distractions, immersed in scenes of squalor and degradation, overcome by
fatigue and improper sustenance, suffering from wounds and disease, and
maltreated by their hosts who were often their jailers. What they wrote
under these circumstances is simple and direct. There is no florid
rhetoric; there is little self-glorification; no unnecessary dwelling on
the details of martyrdom; and there is not a line to give suspicion "that
one of this loyal band flinched or hesitated."
"I know not," says one of these apostles [Footnote: Fr. Francesco Giuseppe
Bressani, "Jesuit Relations" (Thwaites), 39:55.] in an epistle to the
Romans (for this particular letter went to Rome), "I know not whether your
Paternity will recognize the letter of a poor cripple, who formerly, when
in perfect health was well known to you.
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