QUEBEC, October 29, 1724.
MY REVEREND FATHER,
The peace of Our Lord.
In the deep grief that we are experiencing from the loss of one of our oldest Missionaries, it is a grateful consolation to us that he should have been the victim of his own love, and of his zeal to maintain the Faith in the hearts of his Neophytes. From other letters you have already learned the origin of the war which broke out between the English and the Savages: with the former, a desire to extend their rule; with the latter, a horror of all subjection, and an attachment to their Religion — these caused, in the beginning, the misunderstandings which in the end were followed by an open rupture.
Father Rasles, the Missionary of the Abnakis, had become very odious to the English. As they were convinced that his endeavors to confirm the Savages in the Faith constituted the greatest obstacle to their plan of usurping the territory of the Savages, they put a price on his head; and more than once they had attempted to abduct him, or to take his life. At last they have succeeded in gratifying their passion of hatred, and in ridding themselves of the apostolic man; but, at the same time, they have procured for him a glorious death, which was ever the [Page 231] object of his desire, — for we know that long ago he aspired to the happiness of sacrificing his life for his flock. I will describe to you in few words the circumstances of that event. After many acts of hostility had been committed on both sides by the two Nations, a little army of Englishmen and their Savage allies, numbering eleven hundred men, unexpectedly came to attack the Village of Nanrantsouak. The dense thickets with which that Village is surrounded helped them to conceal their movements; and as, besides, it was not enclosed with palisades, the Savages were taken by surprise, and became aware of the enemy’s approach only by a volley from their muskets, which riddled all the cabins. At that time there were only fifty warriors in the Village. At the first noise of the muskets, they tumultuously seized their weapons, and went out of their cabins to oppose the enemy. Their design was not rashly to meet the onset of so many combatants, but to further the flight of the women and the children, and give them time to gain the other side of the river, which was not yet occupied by the English.
Father Rasles, warned by the clamor and the tumult of the danger which was menacing his Neophytes, promptly left his house and fearlessly appeared before the enemy. He expected by his presence either to stop their first efforts, or, at least, to draw their attention to himself alone, and at the expense of his life to procure the safety of his flock.As soon as they perceived the Missionary, a general shout was raised which was followed by a storm of musket-shots that was poured upon him. He dropped dead at the foot of a large cross that he had [Page 233] erected in the midst of the Village, in order to announce the public profession that was made therein of adoring a crucified God. Seven Savages who were around him, and were exposing their lives to guard that of their father, were killed by his side.
The death of the Shepherd dismayed the flock; the Savages took to flight and crossed the river, part of them by fording, and part by swimming. They were exposed to all the fury of their enemies, until the moment when they retreated into the woods which are on the other side of the river. There they were gathered, to the number of a hundred and fifty. From more than two thousand gunshots that had been fired at them only thirty persons were killed, including the women and children; and fourteen were wounded. The English did not attempt to pursue the fugitives; they were content with pillaging and burning the Village: they set fire to the Church, after a base profanation of the sacred vessels and of the adorable Body of Jesus Christ.
The precipitate retreat of the enemy permitted the return of the Nanrantsouakians to the Village. The very next day they visited the wreck of their cabins, while the women, on their part, sought for roots and plants suitable for treating the wounded. Their first care was to weep over the body of their holy Missionary; they found it pierced by hundreds of bullets, the scalp torn off, the skull broken by blows from a hatchet, the mouth and the eyes filled with mud, the bones of the legs broken, and all the members mutilated. This sort of inhumanity, practiced on a body deprived of feeling and of life, can scarcely be attributed to any one but to the Savage allies of the English. [Page 235]After these devout Christians had washed and kissed many times the honored remains of their father, they buried him in the very place where, the night before, he had celebrated the holy Sacrifice of the Mass, — that is, in the place where the altar had stood before the burning of the Church.[32]
By such a precious death did the apostolic man finish, on the 23rd of August in this year, a course of thirty-seven years spent in the arduous labors of this Mission. He was in the sixty-seventh year of his life. His fastings and his continual hard work had, at the last, weakened his constitution; he had walked with some difficulty for about nineteen years, owing to the effects of a fall by which he broke, at the same time, the right hip and the left leg. Then it happened, since the callus was growing wrong at the place of fracture, that it became necessary to break the left leg again. At the time when it was most violently struck, he bore that painful operation with an extraordinary firmness and an admirable tranquillity. Our Physician,[33] who was present, appeared so astonished at this that he could not refrain from saying: Ah! my Father, let at Least a few groans escape; you have so much cause for them!
Father Rasles joined to the talents which make an excellent Missionary, the virtues which the evangelical Ministry demands in order that it be exercised to any profit among our Savages. He had robust health; and I do not know that, excepting the accident of which I have just spoken, he had ever had the least indisposition. We were surprised at his facility and his perseverance in learning the different Savage tongues; there was not one upon this continent of which he had not some smattering. Besides [Page 237] the Abnakis language which he had spoken longest, he also knew the Huron, the Outaouais, and the Illinois; and he had used them to advantage in the different Missions where they were spoken. From the time of his arrival in Canada his character had ever been consistent; he was always firm and resolute, severe with himself, but tender and compassionate toward others.
Three years ago, by order of Monsieur our Governor, I made a tour of Acadia. In conversing with Father Rasles, I represented to him that in case war should be declared against the Savages, he would run a risk of his life; that, as his Village was only fifteen leagues from the English forts, he would be exposed to their first forays; that his preservation was necessary to his flock; and that he must take measures for the safety of his life. My measures are taken, he replied in a firm voice: God has confided to me this flock, and I shall follow its fate, only too happy to be sacrificed for it. He often repeated the same thing to his Neophytes, that he might strengthen their constancy in the Faith. We have realized But too well, they themselves said to me, that that dear Father spoke to us out of the abundance of his heart; we saw him face death with a tranquil and serene countenance, and expose himself unassisted to the fury of the enemy, — hindering their first attempts, so that we might have time to escape from the danger and preserve our lives.
As a price had been set on his head, and various attempts had been made to abduct him, the Savages last spring proposed to take him farther into the interior, toward Quebec, where he would be secure from the dangers with which his life was menaced. [Page 139] What idea, then, have you of me? he replied with an air of indignation, do you take me for a base deserter? Alas! what would become of your Faith if I should abandon you? Your salvation is dearer to me than my life.
He was indefatigable in the exercises of his devotion; unceasingly occupied in exhorting the Savages to virtue, his only thought was to make them fervent Christians. His impassioned and pathetic manner of preaching made a deep impression upon their hearts. Some Loup families, who have very recently come from Orange, told me with tears in their eyes that they were indebted to him for their conversion to Christianity; and that the instructions which he had given them when they received Baptism from him, about 30 years ago, could not be effaced from their minds, — his words were so efficacious, and left so deep traces in the hearts of those who heard him.
He was not content with instructing the Savages almost every day in the Church; he often visited them in their cabins. His familiar conversations charmed them; he knew how to blend with them a holy cheerfulness which is much more pleasing to the Savages than a serious and melancholy manner. He had also the art of winning them to do whatever he wished; he was among them like a master in the midst of his pupils.Notwithstanding the continual occupations of his ministry, he never omitted the sacred exercises which are observed in our houses. He rose and made his Prayer at the prescribed hour. He never neglected the eight days of annual retreat; he enjoined upon himself to make it in the first days of Lent, which is the time when the Savior entered [Page 241] the desert. If a person do not fix a time in the year for these sacred exercises, said he to me one day, occupations succeed each other, and, after many delays, he runs the risk of not finding leisure to perform them.
Religious poverty appeared in his whole person, in his furniture, in his living, in his garments. In a spirit of mortification he forbade himself the use of wine, even when he was among Frenchmen; his ordinary food was porridge made of Indian corn- meal. During certain winters in which sometimes the Savages lacked everything, he was reduced to living on acorns; far from complaining at that time, he never seemed more content. For the last three years of his life, the war having prevented the Savages from free scope in hunting and from sowing their lands, their want became extreme; and the Missionary was in frightful need. Care was taken to send him from Quebec the necessary provisions for his subsistence. I am ashamed, he wrote to me, of the care that you take of me; a Missionary born to suffer ought not to be so well treated.
He did not permit any one to lend him a helping hand in his most ordinary needs; he always waited upon himself. He cultivated his own garden, he made ready his own firewood, his cabin, and his sagamité; he mended his torn garments, seeking in a spirit of poverty to make them last as long a time as was possible. The cassock which he had on when he was killed seemed so worn out and in such poor condition to those who had seized it, that they did not deign to take it for their own use as they had at first designed. They threw it again upon his body, and it was sent to us at Quebec.
In the same degree that he treated himself [Page 243] Harshly, was he compassionate and charitable toward others. He had nothing of his own, and all that he received he immediately distributed to his poor Neophytes — Consequently, the greater part of them showed at his death signs of deeper grief than if they had lost their nearest relatives.
He took extraordinary pains in decorating and beautifying his Church, believing that this outward Pomp which strikes the senses quickens the devotion of the barbarians, and inspires them with a most profound veneration for our holy Mysteries. As he knew a little of painting, and as he was quite skillful in the me of the lathe, the Church was decorated with many works which he himself had wrought.
You may well believe, my Reverend Father, that his virtues, of which new France has been for so many years witness, had won for him the respect and affection of Frenchmen and Savages.
He is, in consequence, universally regretted. No one doubts that he was sacrificed through hatred to his ministry and to his zeal in establishing the true . Faith in the hearts of the Savages. This is the opinion of Monsieur de Bellemont, Superior of the Seminary of saint Sulpice at Montreal.[34] When I asked from him the customary suffrages for the deceased, because of our interchange of prayers, he replied to me, using the well-known words of saint Augustine, that it was doing injustice to a Martyr to pray for him, — Injuriam facit Martyri qui orat pro eo.May it please the Lord that his blood, shed for such a righteous cause, may fertilize these unbelieving lands which have been so often watered with the blood of the Gospel workers who have preceded us; that it may render them fruitful in devout Christians, [Page 245] and that the zeal of Apostolic men yet to come may be stimulated to gather the abundant harvest that is being presented to them by so many peoples still buried in the shadow of death!
In the meantime, as it belongs only to the Church to declare the saints, I commend him to your holy Sacrifices and to those of all our Fathers. I hope that you will not forget in them him who is, with much respect, etc. [Page 247]
- Taken from Volume 67 of the Jesuit Relations
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