guileless expressions of desire for a greater knowledge of the white men’s ways.
When that saintly old bigot, Father Hennepin, sailed up the Illinois River, in 1680, carrying his “portable chapel,” chalice, and chasuble, and a few holy wafers “in a steel box, shut very close,” going to teach the savages “the knowledge of the Captain of Heaven and Earth, and to use fire-arms, and several other things relating to their advantage,” the Illinois were so terrified that, although they were several thousand strong, they took to flight “with horrid cries and howlings.” On being reassured by signs and words of friendliness, they slowly returned—some, however, not until three or four days had passed. Then they listened to the good man’s discourses with “great attention; afterward gave a great shout for joy,” and “expressed a great gratitude;” and, the missionaries being footsore from long travel, the kindly creatures fell to rubbing their legs and feet “with oil of bears, and grease of wild oxen, which after much travel is an incomparable refreshment; and presented us some flesh to eat, putting the three first morsels into our mouths with great ceremonies.”
It was a pity that Father Hennepin had no more tangible benefit than the doctrine of the “efficacy of the Sacraments” to communicate to the hospitable Illinois in return for their healing ointments. Naturally they did not appreciate this, and he proceeded on his way disheartened by their “brutish stupidity,” but consoling himself, however, with the thought of the infants he had baptized. Hearing of the death of one of them, he says he is “glad it had pleased God to take this little Christian out of the world,” and he attributed his own “preservation amidst the greatest dangers” afterward to “the care he took for its baptism.” Those dangers were, indeed, by no means inconsiderable, as he and his party were taken prisoners by a roaming party of these Indians, called in the Father's quaint old book “Nadouwessians.” He was forced to accompany
