Loyola College - Review Yearbook (Montreal, Quebec Canada)

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14 LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW — occasions captured and tortured by the Iroquois and finally killed by them, is on Fr. Bréboeuf's left. His hands are mangled and two of the fingers have been torn off by the Mohawks; but his body, scarred by the knives and burnt by the brands of these same savages, you do not see. Robed in his surplice and stole, Blessed Anthony Daniel stands to the left of Fr. Jogues, while, kneeling, from left to right of the picture, are Blessed John de La Lande, a humble lay assist- ant to the missionaries, Blessed Charles Garnier, and Blessed René Goupil, all brave and earnest men following their divine calling in the face of every hard- ship and peril. Every one of the eight we have just enumerated was martyred, slain in cold blood by the Indians whom they had come to save, and in our illustra- tion, directly under the large figure of each one, we see portrayed the manner of his death. Thus, beneath the large figures of Frs. Bréboeuf and Lalement, we see the methods used by the fiendish Iroquois to put these priests to death. They are bound to stakes; red-hot hatchet blades are hung around their necks. Their flesh is cruelly torn by hooks; their tongues have been cut out and the nails of their fingers torn off by inhuman wretches. In mockery of the Sacrament of Baptism Indian boys pour boiling water over their lacerated bodies while the flames of the fire leap ever higher and new ways of torture are continually forthcoming. Below the large figure of Fr. Jogues is depicted the manner in which he met his death— a glib Mohawk invites him to enter an Indian long-house while a skulking confederate steals upon him from behind with uplifted tomahawk. One blow suffices to dispatch the martyr and thus he. dies—another witness to the faith of Christ. Next, Blessed René Goupil is being struck down by a fanatic brave after — having made the sign of the cross over a little Indian child. Beyond, on the other side of the river, is the figure of Blessed Anthony Daniel who died at the threshold of his humble church. His village having been attacked by the Iroquois, he calmly went about his duties, consoling and shriving his Huron charges. When the enemy finally broke through the palisades and into the village the last of . the Hurons, panic-stricken, crowded into the little Christian chapel in abject terror. Fr. Daniel, however, remained calm. Standing before the church he opposed the further advance of the Iroquois, becoming at once the target of a hail of bullets and arrows. Thus he fell mortally wounded while the savages rushed over his prostrate form to raze his church and to slaughter the remainder of his flock. Turning to the lower left background of the picture. we see how Fr. Noel Chabanel, bent on an errand of mercy, has met death at the hands of a treacherous, apostate Huron. For a long time it was not known that Fr. Chabanel had died thus, for the Indian, returning to the mission after the murder, reported having seen Fr. Chabanel and even having aided him on his journey. Long years afterwards, however, the renegade confessed that he had killed the priest out of hatred for the doctrines which he taught. In the lower left corner are depicted the deaths of the layman John de La Lande, who was martyred in the Iro- quois country, and of Fr. Charles Garnier. The latter perished at the hands of a band of marauding savages who attacked the small Huron village of Etharita. Instead of fleeing, Fr. Garnier remained steadfast to aid his: little band of converts and to prepare them for death. While thus engaged he was wounded by a bullet; nothing daunted, however, he continued to console the dying and stricken Hurons, and, as is shown in the picture, it was while performing this work of mercy

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LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW 13 + status and, practical detail, we тау invoke their intercession in our needs. Let us ask them to impart to us some of their zeal and strength of will to remain steadfast in the Faith. Very probably we shall never be called upon to imitate them in their sacrifices. But it is well to know that there is another form of martyrdom, bloodless and less brilliant in the eyes of men, but a martyrdom all the same. Brebeuf and 4— his companions suffered only a short while. The blow of a tomahawk and all was over. But the martyrdom of years, the slow martyrdom of trials and tears which is the lot of millions here on earth, has its price in eternity. When the Recording Angel unfolds the scroll on the Day of Judgment, the cumulative values of life will play an important part in the verdicts rendered. E. J. DEVINE, S. J. Our Frontispiece N June the 21st, the vast basilica of St. Peter’s at Rome, crowded with pil- grims from a hundred different lands to the Me chair of the Holy Father, witnessed a ceremony which elevated the eight Canadian Jesuit martyrs to the ranks of the Beatified. And now, the whole world over, men are honoring these heroic apostles of the faith who gave up their lives, true to the old Jesuit motto, ‘‘For the Greater Glory of God. Іп all manner of ways Catholic America is paying tribute to these, the first beatified martyrs of the New World. And not the least of these tributes is the beauti- ful picture of the missionaries, repro- duced as the frontispiece of this Review, but to be seen itself in all its quiet beauty at the Convent of the Sacred Heart at the Sault-au-Recollet. The original, an oil-painting, eight by ten feet in size, is the work of Rev. Mother Neilis, of the Ladies of the Sacred Heart, and it is truly an honor to the martyrs to whom it is dedicated and a credit to the devoted nun from whose skillful hand it came. Perhaps a short explanation of the picture and of the symbolic devices used to indicate the exact manner in which the holy men met their deaths might not be inappropriate at this point. The central figure in the glorified group of martyrs is, Blessed John de Bréboeuf, the great and justly famous apostle to the Hurons. In his hand he holds an open book, the Bible, signi- fying that he and the rest of the heroic band died at the hands of the Indians, as priests and disciples of Christ, and not as Frenchmen or subjects of an enemy power. They were martyred for their religion and not for their nationality. Then we see Blessed Gabriel Lalement holding aloft the image of our Crucified Redeemer. This is also a symbol that these men were killed for their faith and died faithful to it. Next to Fr. Lalement stands Blessed Noel Chabanel, the gentle and delicate priest who was filled with a zeal for mission-work and its hardships and yet had the frailest of bodies; who fervently desired to be among and to save the barbarous savages, yet shrank in his inmost nature from the filth and corruption of their habits. He holds a closed book, reminding us of one of the crosses which he had to bear, in that he found it almost impossible to master the guttural and varied dialects of the savage beings whom he came to convert. Blessed Isaac Jogues, the fearless missionary who was on two separate

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LOYOLA COLLEGE REVIEW 15 -к that he was struck down by the in- vaders. Thus we see that the eight who are to be beatified all perished at the hands of Savage pagans, and all remained true, even to the bitter end, to the faith which was theirs then and is ours to- day. Two of the martyrs were slain by the Mohawks in what is now the northern part of the State of New York. The scene of their death was near the modern town of Auriesville and here in commemoration of the event a monu- ment has been raised in their honor. The remaining six died in Huronia, the — country which borders on Georgian Bay and is now comprised in the north- western part of Old Ontario. At Wau- baushene, overlooking the blue waters of Lake Huron and the verdant woods of the surrounding country, a shrine is dedicated to their memory; thither pilgrims go each year in ever-increasing numbers to honor these devoted men. May the perils and torments which they underwent in upholding their faith ever be an example to us, and may the Church ever have in her midst priests and workers as devoted to the service of God as these men were! J. DENT McCrea, '26. AGE TO YOUTH A drop of water lost on desert sand, A flash of lightning 'cross a troubled sky, Has longer durance than life’s pendency; A thread no sooner spun than Death's gaunt hand With strength remorseless cuts the vital strand. Above her lifeless child a Mother's cry Has more avail than has the useless try Of Life's frail self to 'scape Time's iron band. O! Be not eager thus your thread to spin, And think that yours will stretch beyond Time's grasp. O! Come not yet into the battle's din, For all too soon we'll hear your last long gasp. So rest the while stern Duty grants delay, For when she calls, then Youth has had his day. JOHN SHERIDAN, '28. a