In it the friar made an altar, garnished with those
indispensable decorations which he had brought with him through all the
vicissitudes of his painful journeying; and hither, night and day, came
a curious multitude to listen to his annunciation of the new doctrine.
It was a joyful hour when he saw Champlain approach his hermitage; and
the two men embraced like brothers long sundered.
The twelfth of August was a day evermore marked with white in the
friar's calendar. Arrayed in priestly vestments, he stood before his
simple altar; behind him his little band of Christians,--the twelve
Frenchmen who had attended him, and the two who had followed Champlain.
Here stood their devout and valiant chief, and, at his side, that
pioneer of pioneers, Etienne Brule the interpreter. The Host was raised
aloft; the worshippers kneeled. Then their rough voices joined in the
hymn of praise, Te Deum laudamus; and then a volley of their guns
proclaimed the triumph of the faith to the okies, the manitous, and all
the brood of anomalous devils who had reigned with undisputed sway in
these wild realms of darkness. The brave friar, a true soldier of the
Church, had led her forlorn hope into the fastnesses of hell; and now,
with contented heart, he might depart in peace, for he had said the
first mass in the country of the Hurons.
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