CHRISTIANIZING THE INDIANS.                117
would assume the form of a man, enter lodges while all were asleep, and breath poison into the nostrils of the sleepers, causing many to sicken and die. Sometimes he would steal unborn infants from the mother's womb, and by him young maidens were robbed of their virtue.
CHRISTIANIZING THE INDIANS.
The Jesuits of North America, whose headquarters was at Quebec, made great efforts to Christianize the Illinois Indians, and for that purpose many missionaries were sent west, carrying with them gold and silver emblems of their religion. These missionaries abandoned all the comforts of civilization and spent their days in wigwams with the wild sons of the forest, all for the glory of the Holy Virgin. But all their labors availed nothing, the Indians conforming to the modes of Christian worship only for the gifts they expected to receive. Many made an open confession of Christianity, but in fact still retained their own principles of religion. The Jesuits were very zealous in their work of proselyting, impressing on the minds of the Indians that without Christian baptism they would be cast into a lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.   But