handsome churches, and opened four colleges, one of the latter for arts and trades. They have also founded several pious associations [especially the League of the Sacred Heart, as described in our MESSENGER for March, 1887]. While in search of infidels and natives they have travelled several thousands of miles over the deserts of Patagonia, on one side as far as the Rio Colorado, and on the other as far as the mysterious Lake Nahuel-huapi and the summits of the Andes. These journeys are very costly in sacrifices, because it is very rare to find any but brackish, nauseating water, which even the horses refuse to drink. Also, these poor people are very exacting, and it requires a deal of patience to submit to their petty tyranny. But the missionaries and two catechists persevered in going from rancho to rancho, although it was seldom any place could be found in which it would be possible to celebrate Mass.

TO-DAY.

Dignare, Domine, die isto sine peccato nos custodire.

L

ORD, for to-morrow and its needs I do not pray;

Keep me, my God, from stain of sin, just for to-day.

Let me both diligently work, and duly pray;
Let me be kind in word and deed, just for to-day.

Let me be slow to do my will, prompt to obey;
Help me to mortify my flesh, just for to-day.

Let me in season, Lord, be grave, in season gay;
Let me be faithful to Thy grace, just for to-day.

And if to-day my earthly life should ebb away;
Give me Thy Sacraments divine, sweet Lord, to day.

In Purgatory's cleansing fires brief be my stay;
Oh bid me, if to-day I die, go home to-day.

Let me no wrong or idle word unthinking say;
Set Thou a seal upon my lips just for to-day.

So, for to-morrow and its needs I do not pray;

But keep me, guide me, love me, Lord, just for to-day.
-From a Catholic Reformatory School in England.

Our Lady of Martyrs.

THREE NEW YORK MARTYRS.

ET us go back two hundred years since. The Dutch burghers are living peacefully enough along the Hudson River under English government; and east of them New England Puritans are spreading their settlements. To the north are the French in Canada. But westward-along the Mohawk and south of Lake Ontario-the terrible Iroquois Indians still hold their Five Cantons in the forest primeval.

The gentle Christ has passed among them, and for twenty years the black-robed missionaries labored in their midst. But now the French and English wars have driven out the priests, and the roughly hewed log-chapels are deserted. Many and many a new Christian, but late a painted savage, has given up home and family to go and live in the distant Canadian mission, where they are free from the persecution of these native American heathens.

Father Charlevoix,' who knew many of the principal actors in these troublous times, says of the latter-"they were so exasperated at this, that they declared enemies of their country all the Christian Iroquois who had abandoned it, and this rage won for many of them the crown of martyrdom."

The death-struggle of three of these heroes of Christ we take 'from his vivid pages. They are associated with the time and place where the present shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs had its beginning, and their memory is consecrated in its veneration.

1.-STEPHEN TEGANANOKOA.

Stephen, well named from the first Christian martyr, came to Sault St. Louis (now Caughnawaga, and still a Christian Iroquois town, near Montreal, Canada), with his wife, sister-in-law and six children, being at that time thirty-five years of age. He had nothing savage in his disposition, and his sincere and tender attachment

We follow the magnificent six-volume English edition, given us with invaluable notes by Dr. Gilmary Shea: it is already scarcer than the French original.

to his wife, in a country where license reigns and men so commonly change wives, would alone stand as a proof of the innocence of his previous life. As soon as he arrived in the new town, he earnestly solicited baptism, with all his family, and they obtained it after the ordinary trials. He sent them every day to morning and evening prayers and to the instruction given to the young, himself setting them an excellent example by his regular attendance on all the exercises of religion, and his exactness in receiving the Holy Eucharist frequently.

By this pious life he seemed to be prepared to triumph over the enemy of Jesus Christ and to defend his faith amid the most cruel torments. In the month of August, 1690, he set out for the fall hunt, accompanied by his wife and one other Indian. In the month of September they were surprised by a band of fourteen Cayugas, who bound them and took them to their Canton. As soon as Stephen beheld himself in the hands of these savage men, he had no doubt but that he would be condemned to the stake. He warned his wife of this, exhorted her to persevere in the faith, and, in case she returned to Sault St. Louis, to bring up their children in the fear of the Lord.

The three prisoners were taken to Onondaga (near the present city of Syracuse); God wishing apparently that Stephen's constancy and fortitude should shine forth in a place then famous for the assemblage of a host of Indians from all the Iroquois Cantons and for the fearful licentiousness prevalent there. Although it is the custom to await prisoners at the entrance of the village, the joy felt at Onondaga on their having in their hands some of the. settlers at Sault St. Louis, made all stream out far in advance to meet them. Each had decked himself in his finest attire, as for a day of triumph; all were armed with hatchets, knives, clubs, or whatever they laid their hands on, and fury was depicted on every

countenance.

When they reached the prisoners, one of these Indians, approaching Stephen, said: "Brother, thou art dead: impute thy misfortune to thyself alone, for thou left us to go and live among those dogs of Christians at the Sault."

"I am a Christian," replied Stephen, "and I glory in being one. Do with me what you will: I fear neither your outrages nor your fires. I willingly give my life for a God Who shed all

His blood for me."

Scarcely had he ended these words when the furious savages sprang on, and gashed him deep on the arms, legs they then cut off several of his fingers and tore One of the band then cried to him: "Pray to

and whole body; out all his nails. God."

"Yes," replied Stephen, "I will pray," and raising his fettered hands, he made, as well as he could, the sign of the cross, pronouncing aloud in his own language these words: "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost."

Half his remaining fingers were immediately hacked off, and again they cried: "Now pray to your God."

Again he made the sign of the cross, and they immediately cut off all the rest of his fingers, and for the third time called on him to pray, loading him with insults. As he endeavored to make the sign of the cross with the palm of his hand, it was cut off entirely, and he was slashed wherever he had made the sign of the cross.

After this bloody prelude, the prisoners were led to the village, and near a great fire in which stones had been heated red hot. Several were placed between Stephen's thighs, which were then violently pressed together. He was next ordered to sing in the manner of the country; as he refused to do so, but began to repeat aloud the prayers which he was daily accustomed to recite, one of the savages took a burning brand and drove it far into his mouth ; then, before he had time to breathe, he was tied to the stake.

When the courageous neophyte beheld himself amid the instruments of torture and a crowd of executioners, he looked calmly on them and said: "Satiate yourselves with the pleasure of burning me; spare me not; my sins deserve even greater sufferings than you can inflict. The more you torture me, the more you increase the reward prepared for me in heaven."

These words rendered them still more furious; each seized a brand or red hot iron, with which they slowly burned the body of this holy man, who endured the cruel martyrdom without breathing a sigh; he even seemed as calm as though he suffered nothing, his eyes raised to heaven, and buried as it were in profound contemplation. At last his strength began to fail, he asked a few moments' truce, and then rallying all his fervor, he made his last prayer. He commended his soul to Christ, and implored Him to pardon his executioners. They at once resumed his torture; his

constancy did not flag, and he gave up his soul to his Creator, triumphing by his courage over all the Iroquois cruelty.

His wife's life was spared, as he had foretold her; she remained some time a prisoner in the country, where neither entreaties nor threats could shake her faith. On recovering her liberty, she proceeded to Agnier (the Mohawk country, where the shrine of Our Lady of Martyrs now is), which was the place of her birth. There she remained till her son came for her and took her back to Sault St. Louis.

The Indian who had been captured with Stephen, escaped with the loss of some fingers and a deep wound in the leg. He was taken to Cayuga, where all the means were employed to force him to marry again and plunge in all the debaucheries in which that tribe had sunk; but he constantly replied that his religion forbade both. Having at last come towards Montreal with a band of warriors of that Canton, he secretly withdrew and returned to his Mission, where he ever afterwards lived a most edifying life.

II.-FRANCES GONANNHATENHA.

Two years afterwards a woman displayed a constancy, in no wise inferior to that of the virtuous Stephen. Her name was Frances Gonannhatenha, and she had been baptized at Onondaga, her native place, whence she had taken refuge at Sault St. Louis. There she edified all by her piety, her modesty, and especially her charity; and as she was in easy circumstances, the poor always found her an assured resource in their necessities.

One day when she was three leagues from the village, engaged in fishing, she heard the enemy were making a descent on Sault St. Louis; she at once embarked in a canoe, with two of her friends, to go to the assistance of her husband. The women arrived in time to save him; he jumped into a canoe, and this little band deemed themselves safe, when the canoe was suddenly surrounded by a whole army of Iroquois about a quarter of a league from the village. The husband's head was at once cut off and the three women led to the camp.

The cruelties perpetrated on them the first night they spent there, convinced them that they were condemned to death. The savages amused themselves by plucking out their nails, and then burning