JL98                               THE  JOGUES  PAPEES.
ored to be ever united with God, My sufferings on the march from the intense cold were extreme; for I was nearly naked, and we generally passed the night in the open air.f My unhealed fingers were another source of misery, for the wounds were hardly closed by the middle of January. In the village, however, a thin skin was added to- my worn-out mantle, and in this wretched guise I traversed the streets of our village, begging that the Lord would one day join me to his saints, who formerly served him in " sheep-skins, in goat-skins, distressed, afflicted, of whom the world was not worthy." (Heb. xi. 37.) And I daily saw the Indians well dressed in the cloth and garments which our baggage had plentifully supplied, while I was Shivering night and day with cold ;—but this was little ; more was I moved to see these heathen men unworthily profane things dedicated to the service of God. One of them had made himself leggings of two of the veils used at Mass—
------"flon hos servatum mturas in usus."—y£n. iv. 647.
I can, in truth, say before God of all that period up to mid-January: *' Even unto this hour we both hunger and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no fixed abode. And we labor working with our hands : we are reviled and we bless ; we are persecuted and we suffer it; we are ill-spoken of and we entreat; we are made as the refuse of this world, the offscouring of all, even until now." (1 Cor. iv. 110
When in the middle of January my owners returned from the chase, they in a manner dressed me in skins, until a Lorrainese, who lived among our Dutch neighbors, hearing that I* suffered greatly from cold, sent me from his house a dress, such as they usually sell to the Indians. This brought some slight alleviation to my pains ; but I found still greater in the care of an old woman, whose only son had died not long before. A noble of high rank in the nation (for barbarism, too, has its nobles),f she took care
* He omits an act of charity which he performed on this march. A woman, heavily loaded and carrying a child, fell from a tree which formed a bridge over • deep and rapid stream, and would have perished had he not sprang into- the water and rescued her. Yet they showed no gratitude s on returning to the village, he was sent back to the hunters, and falling from exhaustion, was set to nurse one of his persecutors, then a dying mass of corruption, abandoned by all.—Buteux.
f Some of these noble matrons, under the name of Oyenders, sat in council with the Sachems.—Bruyas, Ratines Agiueren,