THE  J0GTJK8  PAPERS.
people when He said, " that their new moons, their festivals and solemnities, should be turned into grief and sorrow," (Osee ii. 11,) as Easter, and Whitsuntide, and the nativity of St, John the Baptist, each brought new sorrows on me, to be afterwards increased to agony by the slaughter of a hundred Hurons, most of whom, racked by fearful torments, were burned to death in the neighboring cantons^ " Woe is me; wherefore was I born to see the ruin of my people.'' * (1 Mach. ii. 7.)
Verily, in these and like heart-rending cares, " my life is wasted with grief, and my years with sighs," (Pa. xxx. 11,) u for the Lord hath corrected me for mine iniquity, and hath made my soul waste away as a spider," (Ps, xxxviii. 12;) " he hath filled me with bitterness, he hath inebriated me with wormwood," (Lam. iii. 15,) " because the comforter, the relief of my soul, is far from me," (Lam. i 16;) w but in all these things we overcome," and by the favor of God will overcome, " because of Him that hath loved us," (Rom. viii, 37,) until " he come that is to -come, and will not -delay," (Heb. x. 37,) " until my day, like that of a hireling, come," (Job. vii. 1, to xiv. 14,) or my change be made.
Although I could in all probability escape either through the Europeans or the Indian nations around us, did I wish to fly, yet on this cross to which our Lord has nailed me, beside Himself, am I resolved by His grace to live and die. For who in my absence would console the French captives ? who absolve the penitent ? who remind the christened Huron of his duty ? who instruct the prisoners constantly brought in ? who baptize them dying, encourage them in their torments ? who cleanse the infants in the saving waterB ? who provide for ^he salvation of the dying adult, the instruction of those in health P Indeed I cannot but think it a pecu» liar interposition of divine goodness, that while a nation,
• About this time F. Jogues, ¦who, since the Sokoki embassy, had risen in -importance, was "taken by some Sachems about to visit a dependent tribe, about eighty leagues distant from them. Hither he was led in triumph, as a proof of the irresistible power of the Mohawk. The tribe was poor, and he suffered much by the way, bnt had the inexpressible satisfaction of finding the Indian who had cut him down, when hung up at Teonontogen, He was dying, and though Jogues could give his bodily ailments only the tears of sympathy, he carefully instructed and baptized him, repaying his act of charity by the endless joys of heaven.
On bis return to the Tillage, he was knooked down and nearly killed by & madman: his kind mistress, or aunt, fearing for his safety, urged him to escape; but the letter shows his feelings on this point.