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

1670-72.] REPORTS OF THE JESUITS. 37of a Christian and Jesuit empire on the conversion ofthe great stationary tribes of the lakes ; and of thesenone remained but the Iroquois, the destroyers of therest, — among whom, indeed, was a field which mightstimulate their zeal by an abundant promise of sufferingsand martyrdoms, but which, from its geographi- .cal position, was too much exposed to Dutch and *English influence to promise great and decisiveresults. Their best hopes were now in the Northand the West; and thither, in great part, they hadturned their energies.We find them on Lake Huron, Lake Superior, andLake Michigan, laboring vigorously as of old, but ina spirit not quite the same. Now, as before, twoobjects inspired their zeal, — the " greater glory ofGod," and the influence and credit of the Order ofJesus. If the one motive had somewhat lost inpower, the other had gained. The epoch of thesaints and martyrs was passing away ;and henceforthwe find the Canadian Jesuit less and less an apostle,Jmore and more an explorer, a man of science, and a vpolitician. The yearly reports of the missions arestill, for the edification of the pious reader, filledwith intolerably tedious stories of baptisms, conversions,and the exemplary deportment of neophytes,— for these have become a part of the formula ; butthey are relieved abundantly by more mundanetopics. One finds observations on the winds, currents,and tides of the Great Lakes ; speculations ona subterranean outlet of Lake Superior; accounts of