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Yet in another way than in the English colonies religion was destined to provide the impelling force. There were among the Catholics of France men and women of burning zeal, who felt a call to bring the Indians to Christ. While English settlers with their families were flocking to New England and Virginia, seeking to better themselves both here and hereafter, in New France martyr priests and devoted nuns were facing endless perils and privations in the hope of winning savage souls. There are no more glorious pages in the annals of missions than those which record the womanly tenderness and practical efficiency of Jeanne Mance and Marguerite Bourgeoys and Mère Marie de l'Incarnation, or the devotion of Franciscan and Jesuit fathers, Le Caron and Dablon, Lalemant and Brébeuf, Le Jeune and Massé and Jogues, following the shifting, shiftless Montagnais through filth and famine, labouring patient years in the great Huron villages of what is now western Ontario, or braving the Iroquois in their innermost strongholds, only too often crowning a life of service by martyrdom under the scalping-knife or at the stake.