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Updated: June 1, 2025
They seized and dragged him to their town. Here he was savagely attacked and beaten with fists and clubs. In vain he reminded them that he had come on an errand of peace. They tortured him cruelly. The Wolf and Tortoise clans protested against this violation of the peace, but the others carried everything before them. The next day Jogues was bidden to a feast. He did not dare refuse to go.
But they had a grand scheme of founding a mission among the Iroquois. They knew its perils and called it "The Mission of Martyrs." To this post of danger Jogues was sent. The devoted man went without a murmur. On the way he met Indians who warned him of danger, and his Huron companions turned back, but he went on. Arrived among the Mohawks, he found a strong tide of feeling running against him.
The prisoners were taken by the Richelieu to the Mohawk country and Father Jogues was the first Frenchman to pass through Lake George with its picturesque hills and islets which in a subsequent journey he named Lac du Saint-Sacrament, because he reached it on the eve of Corpus Christi.
He told them of Isaac Jogues, the Jesuit; how he was the most timid of men, and how for his love of Christ he became brave. He told them of his capture, on the second day of August, 1642, by the Iroquois, and the patience with which his sufferings were endured.
Father Jogues' perplexed brows drew together. Wanderings, hunger, and imprisonment he could bear serenely as incidents of his journey. But to have his flock scattered before he could reach it was real calamity. "We must make shift to follow them," he said. "How will you follow them without supplies, and without knowing where they may turn in the woods?"
The missions of Canada were at this time an object of primal interest to the Jesuits, and above all to the Jesuits of France. A letter from Jogues, written during his captivity, had already reached France, as had also the Jesuit Relation of 1643, which contained a long account of his capture; and he had no doubt been an engrossing theme of conversation in every house of the French Jesuits.
Their inhabitants, about a hundred in number, were for the most part rude Dutch farmers, tenants of Van Rensselaer, the patroon, or lord of the manor. They raised wheat, of which they made beer, and oats, with which they fed their numerous horses. At Fort Orange Jogues heard startling news.
By signs and words, he was warned that his hour was near; but, as he never shunned his fate, it fled from him, and each day, with renewed astonishment, he found himself still among the living. Late in the autumn, a party of the Indians set forth on their yearly deer-hunt, and Jogues was ordered to go with them.
In his confusion and excitement, Couture fired his own piece, and laid the savage dead. The remaining four sprang upon him, stripped off all his clothing, tore away his finger-nails with their teeth, gnawed his fingers with the fury of famished dogs, and thrust a sword through one of his hands. Jogues broke from his guards, and, rushing to his friend, threw his arms about his neck.
The Touching Story of Isaac Jogues. Ferocity of the Five Nations. Ruin of the Hurons and of the Jesuit Missions among them. A class of men whose aims were singularly unselfish were the missionaries of the Roman Catholic Church, mostly Jesuits, that is, members of the Society of Jesus.
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