La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

;104 LA SALLE AND FRONTENAC. [1675.jdifferent, was no less strong than the self-devotedpatriotism of Sparta or the early Roman Republic.The Jesuits were no longer supreme in Canada;or, in other words, Canada was no longer simply amission. It had become a colony. Temporal interestsand the civilpower were constantly gaining groundand the disciples of Loyola felt that relatively, if notabsolutely, they were losing it. They struggledvigorously to maintain the ascendency of their Order,or, as they would have expressed it, the ascendencyof religion; but in the older and more settled partsof the colony it was clear that the day oftheir undividedrule was past. Therefore, they looked withredoubled solicitude to their missions in the West.They had been among its first explorers; and theyhoped that here the Catholic Faith, as representedby Jesuits, might reign with undisputed sway. InParaguay, it was their constant aim to exclude whitemen from their missions. It was the same in NorthAmerica. They dreaded fur-traders, partly becausethey interfered with their teachings and pervertedtheir converts, and partly for other reasons. But LaSalle was a fur-trader, and far worse than a furtrader:he aimed at occupation, fortification, andsettlement. The scope and vigor of his enterprises,and the powerful influence that aided them, madehim a stumbling-block in their path. He was theirmost dangerous rival for the control of the West,and from first to last they set themselves againsthim.