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Show 104 BY PATH AND TRAIL. Loyola for the conversion of the heathen and the sav age. The Jesuit fathers on the American missions showed to the world an example of missionary zeal, a sublime enthusiasm, a steadiness of perseverance, of suffering and of persecution heroically borne with a hope and resignation which, while memory lives, will encircle their name with a halo of glory. " No deeds," says Cicero, " are more laudable than those which are done without ostentation and far from the sight of men." Buried in the solitude of great wastes or amid the desolation of towering sierras, away from the temptations of vain glory, they become dead to the world and possessed their souls in unalterable peace. " Maligners may taunt the Jesuits if they will," writes Parkman, " with credu lity, superstition and blind enthusiasm, but slander it self cannot accuse them of hypocrisy or ambition." We have already learned something of the awful de gradation of the tribes. Allow me to anticipate the seri ous nature of the struggle the missionaries were now en gaged in by an extract from a sketch of the Sonora mis sion, written by one then laboring among the tribes. 14 The disposition of the Indians," writes the priest, " rests on four foundations, each one worse than the other, and they are ignorance, ingratitude, inconstancy and laziness. Their ignorance is appalling and causes them to act as children. Their ingratitude is such that whoever wishes to do them good, must arm himself with the firm resolution of looking to God for his reward, for should he expect gratitude from them he is sure to meet with disappointment. Their laziness and horror of all kind of work, is so great that neither exhortation, nor prayers, nor the threat of punishment are sufficient to |