Note 24 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
Mère de l'Incarnation remarked even in her day the decrease of the native population. "When we arrived in this country," she says, "the Indians were so numerous that it seemed as if they were going to grow into a vast population; but after they were baptized God called them to Himself either by disease or by the hands of the Iroquois. It was perhaps His wise design to permit their death lest their hearts should turn to wickedness."—Lettres Spirituelles, edition of 1681, p. 230.