With hands uplifted and eyes raised to heaven, he
bade them welcome to the new asylum of the faithful; then launched into
a long harangue full of zeal and unction. His discourse finished, he led
the way to the dining-hall. If the redundancy of spiritual aliment had
surpassed their expectations, the ministers were little prepared for the
meagre provision which awaited their temporal cravings; for, with
appetites whetted by the sea, they found themselves seated at a board
whereof, as one of them complains the choicest dish was a dried fish,
and the only beverage rain-water. They found their consolation in the
inward graces of the commandant, whom they likened to the Apostle Paul.
For a time all was ardor and hope. Men of birth and station, and the
ministers themselves, labored with pick and shovel to finish the fort.
Every day exhortations, sermons, prayers, followed in close succession,
and Villegagnon was always present, kneeling on a velvet cushion brought
after him by a page. Soon, however, he fell into sharp controversy with
the ministers upon points of faith. Among the emigrants was a student of
the Sorbonne, one Cointac, between whom and the ministers arose a fierce
and unintermitted war of words. Is it lawful to mix water with the wine
of the Eucharist? May the sacramental bread be made of meal of Indian
corn? These and similar points of dispute filled the fort with
wranglings, begetting cliques, factions, and feuds without number.
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