Libr@rsi

1656-58] RELA TION OF 1637-58 235
[70] CHAPTER V.
DIFFERENT ROUTES FROM CANADAS TO THE NORTH
SEA. THE NAMES OF MANY RECENTLY-
DISCOVERED NATIONS.
PROPTER
verba labiorum tuorum ego custodivi vias
duras. St. Paul could well appropriate this
passage to himself; for verily the words of
Jesus Christ consigned him to paths that were
indeed rough and toilsome. As soon as he began to
preach the Gospel, plant the Church, and win salvation
for mankind, he found only crosses everywhere,—
in Judea, in Greece, in Italy. He met with naught
but calumny and persecution, perils and dangers, on
land and sea, from Jews and Gentiles— periculis
fluminumj periculis latronum, periculis ex genere^ periculis
ex gentibus, periculis in civitate, periculis in solitudine^
periculis in mari, periculis in falsis fratribus. [71] In
such wise did the Apostles preach the faith in Asia
and in Europe, and so must it be preached in
America.
Our Fathers have tried to follow in these footsteps,
so far as lay in their slender power ; they perish at
sea, are killed on land, are burned, eaten, slandered,
and persecuted everywhere,—
quasi morientesy et ecce
vivimuSj— like men who are put to death every day,
and yet live. When one door is closed to them, they
enter by another. They entrust themselves to the
river Sagne, ascend it despite its swift current, pene-
trate the gloom of the thickest forests, and go every-