Certain historians have regretted that the first savages encountered by the French in North America should have been Hurons; an alliance made with the Iroquois, they say, would have been a hundred times more profitable for civilization and for France.  What do we know about it?  Man imagines and arranges his plans, but above these arrangements hovers Providence—­fools say, chance—­whose foreseeing hand sets all in order for the accomplishment of His impenetrable design.  Yet, however firmly convinced the historian may be that the eye of Providence never sleeps, that the Divine Hand is never still, he must be sober in his observations; he must yield neither to his fancy nor to his imagination; but neither must he banish God from history, for then everything in it would become incomprehensible and inexplicable, absurd and barren.  It was this same God who guides events at His will that inspired and sustained the devoted missionaries in their efforts against the revenue-farmers in the matter of the sale of intoxicating liquors to the savages.  The struggle which they maintained, supported by the venerable Bishop of Petraea, is wholly to their honour; it was a question of saving even against their will the unfortunate children of the woods who were addicted to the fatal passion of intoxication.  Unhappily, the Governors d’Avaugour and de Mezy, in supporting the greed of the traders, were perhaps right from the political point of view, but certainly wrong from a philanthropic and Christian standpoint.

The colony continuing to prosper, and the growing need of a national clergy becoming more and more felt, Mgr. de Laval founded in 1663 a seminary at Quebec.  The king decided that the tithes raised from the colonists should be collected by the seminary, which was to provide for the maintenance of the priests and for divine service in the established parishes.  The Sovereign Council fixed the tithe at a twenty-sixth.

The missionaries continued, none the less, to spread the light of the gospel and Christian civilization.  It seems that the field of their labour had never been too vast for their desire.  Ever onward! was their motto.  While Fathers Garreau and Mesnard found death among the Algonquins on the coasts of Lake Superior, the Sulpicians Dollier and Gallinee were planting the cross on the shores of Lake Erie; Father Claude Allouez was preaching the gospel beyond Lake Superior; Fathers Dablon, Marquette, and Druilletes were establishing the mission of Sault Ste. Marie; Father Albanel was proceeding to explore Hudson Bay; Father Marquette, acting with Joliet, was following the course of the Mississippi as far as Arkansas; finally, later on, Father Arnaud accompanied La Verendrye as far as the Rocky Mountains.