the Dakotas. The missionary embarked with the en- tire tribe and followed the Indians back to their an- cient abode on the north-west shore of the Straits of Mackinac. Here a rude chapel was built and the work of instructing the Indians went on. There is extant a long letter from his pen in which Marquette gives some interesting accounts of the piety and habits of the converted Hurons (Jesuit Relations, LVII, 249). But Marquette was yearn- ing for other conquests among the tribes which in- habited the banks of the Mississippi. He concluded this letter with the joyful information that he had been chosen by his superiors to set out from Mackinac for the exploration which he had so long desired. In the meanwhile accounts of the Mississippi had reached Quebec, and while Marquette was preparing for the voyage and awaiting the season of navigation, Joliet came to join the expedition. On 17 May, 1673, with five other Frenchmen, in two canoes, Marquette and Joliet set forth on their voyage of discovery. Skirting along the northern shore of Lake Michigan and enter- ing Green Bay, pushing up the twisting current of the Fox River, and crossing a short portage, the party reached the Wisconsin. This river, they were told, flowed into the great stream which they were seeking. The report proved true, and on the 17 June their canoes glided out into the broad, swift current of the Mississippi. Marquette drew a map of the country through which they passed and kept a diary of the voyage; this diary with its clear, concise style is one of the most important and interesting documents of American History (Jesuit Relations, LIX, 86, 164). He describes the villages and customs of the different tribes, the topography of the country, the tides of the lakes, the future commercial value of navigable streams, the nature and variety of the flowers and trees, of birds and animals. Down the river the party sailed, passing the mouth of the muddy Missouri and the Ohio until they reached the mouth of the Ar- kansas, and learned with certainty from the Indians that the river upon which they were navigating flowed into the Gulf of Mexico.
This was the information which they sought; and fearing danger from the Spaniards if they went further, they turned the prows of their canoes northward. "We considered ", writes Marquette in his diary, "that we would expose ourselves to the risk of losing the fruits of the voyage if we were captured by the Span- iards, who would at least hold us captives; besides we were not prepared to resist the Indian allies of the Europeans, for these savages were expert in the use of fire-arms; lastly we had gathered all the information that could be desired from the expedition. After weighing all these reasons we resolved to return." On coming to the mouth of the Illinois they left the Mississippi and took what they learned from the In- dians was a shorter route. Near the present city of Utica they came to a very large village of the Illinois who requested the missionary to return and instruct them. Reaching Lake Michigan (where Chicago now stands), and paddling along the western shore they came to the mission of Saint Francis Xavier at the head of Green Bay. Here Marquette remained while Joliet went on to Quebec to announce the tidings of the discovery. The results of this expedition were threefold: (1) it gave to Canada and Europe historical, ethnological, and geographical knowledge hitherto un- known; (2) it opened vast fields for missionary zeal and added impulse to colonization; (3) it determined the policy of France in fortifying the Mississippi and its eastern tributaries, thus placing an effective barrier to the further extension of the English colonies. A year later (1675) Marquette started for the village of the Illinois Indians whom he had met on his return voyage, but was overtaken by the cold and forced to spend the winter near the lake (Chicago). The follow- ing spring he reached the village and said Mass just opposite to the place later known to history as Starved Rock. Since the missionary's strength had been exhaused by his labours and travels, he felt that his end was fast approaching; he, therefore, left the Illinois after three weeks, being anxious to pass his remaining days at the mission at Mackinac. Coasting along the eastern shore of Lake Michigan, he reached the mouth of a small stream near the present city of Ludington, where he told his two companions, who had been with him throughout his entire trip, to carry him ashore. There he died at the age of thirty-nine. Two years later the Indians carried his bones to the Mission at Mackinac. In 1887 a bill was passed by the Assembly at Madison, Wisconsin, authorizing the state to place a statue of Marquette in the Hall of Fame at Washington. This statue of Marquette from the chisel of the Italian sculptor, S. Tretanove, is conceded to be one of the most artistic in the Capitol. Bronze replicas of this work have been erected at Marquette, Michigan, and at Mackinac Island. Thus have been verified the prophetic words of Bancroft, who wrote of Marquette: "The people of the West will build his monument."
The Marquette, Jesuit Missionary and Explorer (New York, THWAITES, Father Marquette (New York, 1904); HEDGES, 1903): The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents (Cleveland, 1904), LII, 207; LVII, 249; LIX, 86, 164, 184; BANCROFT, His tory of the U. S., III (Boston, 1870), 109; PARKMAN, La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West (Boston, 1899), 48; SHEA, Discovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley (New York, 1854). For grave of Marquette, see Catholic World, XXVI (New York), 267; statues of Marquette, cf. Woodstock Letters Woodstock, Maryland), VI, 159, 171; XXV, 302, 467; XXVII, 387; De Soto and Marquette, cf. SPALDING, Messenger of the Sacred Heart, XXXV, 669; XXXVIII, 271; SPALDING, U. S. Cath. Historical Records and Studies, III (New York, 1904), 381.
HENRY S. SPALDING.
Marquette League, a society founded in New York, in May, 1904, by Rev. H. G. Ganss, of Lancas- ter, Pa., with a directorate of twenty-five members chosen at first from the councils of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, as a layman's movement to co-operate with the ecclesiastical authorities in helping to preserve the Faith among the Catholic Indians of the United States and convert those still living in paganism; to assist in the support of the mission schools; to supply funds for establishing new missions, building chapels and maintaining trained catechists; and to endeavour in every legitimate way to improve the condition, spir- the first six years of the League's existence (to 1910) itual and material, of the American Indian. During it established mission chapels at Holy Rosary and St. Francis missions, South Dakota; for the Moquis In- dians of Northern Arizona; for the Winnebagoes of Nebraska; and two chapels on the Fort Berthold Reservation, North Dakota. Several catechists were kept in the mission field, and many gifts of clothing and money were sent each year to the mission schools and almost daily offerings for Masses to the missionary priests, together with vestments and chalices for the works in harmony with the Bureau of Catholic Indian different chapels built by the League. The League Missions, Washington, and its work extends into al- most every state in the union. The League is governed by a president and a board of directors, consisting of twenty-five men of New York and Brooklyn, member- ship in a St. Vincent de Paul Society being no longer a necessary qualification. The principal office is in New York, with organizations in Brooklyn, Washing- ton, Philadelphia, and Worcester. York), files; Indian Sentinel (Washington), files. Annual Reports, Marquette League; Catholic News (New
THOMAS F. MEEHAN.
Marriage, CIVIL.-"Marriage", says Bishop, "as distinguished from the agreement to marry and from the act of becoming married, is the civil status of one man and one woman legally united for life, with the rights and duties which, for the establishment of fam- ilies and the multiplication and education of the
