Biography

Saints, More Exciting Than Tom Mix
Saint Among Savages. By Francis Talbot, S.J. (Harper. 12s. 6d.) Reviewed by DOUGLAS NEWTON Fr. Talbot, S.J., is one of the new band of Catholic writers who are actively and brilliantly demonstrating that, properly handled, the lives of the saints are more stirring than the biographies of Empire builders, more exciting than any novel.
The tragedy-for our age, anyhow-is that the careers of these, the noblest and most heroic of earth's citizens, have too often been at the mercy of pious amateurs who, well-intentioned as they were, were frequently quite astonishingly devoid Of literary equipment.
Fr. Talbot is of the school that is changing all that. He brings a trained, professional accomplishment to the handling of a great theme. He has seen that the passage of Fr. Isaac Jorgues from the solid comfort and rich culture of Cardinal Richelieu's France, to the barbarism and mystery of unknown Red Indian wilds, provides the opportunity for a magnificent panorama of one of the most dramatic phases of history, and quite magnificently he rises to the occasion.
Isaac Jorgue, devout, cultivated and humbly audacious, was born of a rich family in Orleans. He joined the Society of Jesus and almost forced his way into the mission to the Americas. He sailed on one of the incredible voyages of those days to Quebec, travelled by canoe with Indians through vast and little-known wildernesses to join the missionary settlement among the Hurons. There, in a life of heroic savagery. when death seemed to hang on a whim or a whisper, he worked, witnessed horrors of superstition and torture, tended the sick, baptised and fought the witch doctors.
Fr. Talbot's story is not merely the exposition of a sublime yet eminently human and lovable soul, but a pageant of the primitive life of the red men. He makes you live intimately in their huts, share their customs, habits, stoic courage and cruelty, join in their councils and their great peace talks, and he quickens you with the terror of their barbarity. It is true, as someone has said, that the Faith has all the best stories. Here is one of them-far more thrilling than any " redskin and cowboy " adventure yarn, and written in masterly fashion into the bargain.