Chapter XXXI
CHAMBERS AND HIS ACCOMPLICES CONDEMNED TO DEATH—ASKED ME TO PREPARE THEM TO MEET THEIR TERRIBLE FATE—A WEEK IN THEIR DUNGEON—THEIR SENTENCE OF DEATH CHANGED INTO DEPORTATION TO BOTANY BAY—THEIR DEPARTURE FOR EXILE—I MEET ONE OF THEM, A SINCERE CONVERT, VERY RICH, IN A HIGH AND HONORABLE POSITION IN AUSTRALIA IN 1878.
A few days after the strange and providential night spent with the repentant thieves, I received the following letter signed by Chambers and his unfortunate criminal friends:
“DEAR FATHER CHINIQUY:—We are condemned to death. Please come and help us to meet our sentence as Christians.”
I will not attempt to say what I felt when I entered the damp and dark cells where the culprits were enchained. No human words can express those things. Their tears and their sobs were going through my heart as a two-edged sword. Only one of them had, at first, his eyes dried, and kept silent; Chambers, the most guilty of all.
After the others had requested me to hear the confession of their sins, and prepare them for death, Chambers said: “You know that I am a Protestant. But I am married to a Roman Catholic, who is your penitent. You have persuaded my two so dear sisters to give up their Protestantism and become Catholics. I have many times desired to follow them. My criminal life alone has prevented me from doing so. But now I am determined to do what I consider to be the will of God in this important matter. Please, tell me what I must do to become a Catholic.”
I was a sincere Roman Catholic priest, believing that out of the Church of Rome there was no salvation. The conversion of that great sinner seemed to me a miracle of the grace of God: it was for me a happy distraction in the desolation I felt in that dungeon.
I spent the next eight days, in hearing their confessions, reading the lives of some saints, with several chapters of the Bible as the Seven Penitential Psalms, the sufferings and death of Christ, the history of the Prodigal Son, etc. And I instructed Chambers, as well as the shortness of the time allowed me, in the faith of the Church of Rome. I usually entered the cells at about 9 A. M. and left them only at 9 P. M.
After I had spent much time in exhorting them, reading and praying several times, I asked them to tell me some of the details of the murders and thefts they had committed, which might be to me as a lesson of human depravity, which would help me when preaching on the natural corruption and malice of the human heart, when once the fear and the love, or even the faith in God, were completely set aside.
The facts I then heard very soon convinced me of the need we have of a religion, and what would become of the world if the atheists could succeed in sweeping away the notions of a future punishment after death, or the fear and the love of God from among men.
When absolutely left to his own depravity, without any religion to stop him on the rapid declivity of his uncontrollable passions, man is more cruel than the wild beasts. The existence of society would simply be impossible without a religion and a God to protect it.
Though I am in favor of liberty of conscience, in its highest sense, I think that the atheist ought to be punished like the murderer and the thief—for his doctrines tend to make a murderer and a thief of every man. No law, no society is possible if there is no God to sanction and protect them.
But the more we were approaching the fatal day, when I had to go on the scaffold with those unfortunate men, and to see them launched into eternity, the more I felt horrified. The tears the sobs and the cries of those unfortunate men had so melted my heart, my soul and my strong nerves, they had so subdued my unconquerable will, and that stern determination to do my duty at any cost, which had been my character till then, that I was shaking from head to feet, when thinking of that awful hour.
Besides that, my constant intercourse with those criminals, these last few days, their unbounded confidence in me, their gratitude for my devotedness to them, their desolation and their cries when speaking of their fathers or mothers, wives or children, had filled my heart with a measure of sympathy which I would vainly try to express. They were no more thieves and murderers, to me, whose bloody deeds had at first chilled the blood in my veins; they were the friends of my bosom—the beloved children whom cruel beasts had wounded. They were dearer to me than my own life—not only I felt happy to mix my tears with theirs, and unite my ardent prayers to God for mercy with them, but I would have felt happy to shed my blood in order to save their lives. As several of them belonged to the most reputable families of Quebec and vicinity, I thought I could easily interest the clergy and the most respectable citizens to sign a petition to the governor, Lord Gosford, asking him to change their sentence of death into one of perpetual exile to the distant penal colony of Botany Bay, in Australia. The governor was my friend. Colonel Vassal, who was my uncle, and the adjutant-general of the militia of the whole country, had introduced me to his Excellency, who many times had overloaded me with the marks of his interest and kindness, and my hope was that he would not refuse me the favor I was to ask him, when the petition would be signed by the Bishop, the Catholic priests, the ministers of the different Protestant denominations of the city, and hundreds of the principal citizens of Quebec. I presented the petition myself, accompanied by the secretary of the Archbishop. But to my great distress, the governor answered me that those men had committed so many murders, and kept the country in terror for so many years, that it was absolutely necessary they should be punished according to the sentence of the court. Who can tell the desolation of those unfortunate men, when, with a voice choked by my sobs and my tears, I told them that the governor had refused to grant the favor I had asked him for them. They fell on the ground and filled their cells with cries which would have broken the hardest heart. From those very cells we were hearing the noise of the men who were preparing the scaffold where they were to be hanged the next day. I tried to pray and read, but was unable to do so. My desolation was too great to utter a single word. I felt as if I were to be hanged with them—and to say the whole truth, I think I would have been glad to hear that I was to be hanged the next day to save their lives. For there was a fear in me, which was haunting me as a phantom from hell, the last three days. It seemed that, in spite of all my efforts, prayers, confessions, absolutions and sacraments, these men were not converted, and that they were to be launched into eternity with all their sins.
When I was comparing the calm and true repentance of the two thieves, with whom I spent the night a few weeks before in the carriage, with the noisy expressions of sorrow of these newly converted sinners, I could not help finding an immeasurable distance between the first and the second of those penitents. No doubt had remained in my mind about the first, but I had serious apprehensions about the last. Several circumstances, which it would be too long and useless to mention here, were depressing me by the fear that all my chaplets, indulgences, medals, scapulars, holy waters, signs of the cross, prayers to the Virgin, auricular confessions, absolutions, used in the conversion of these sinners, had not the divine and perfect power of a simple look to the dying Saviour on the cross. I was saying to myself, with anxiety: “Would it be possible that those Protestants, who were with me in the carriage, had the true ways of repentance, pardon, peace and life eternal in that simple look to the great victim, and that we Roman Catholics, with our signs of the cross and holy waters, our crucifixes and prayers to the saints, our scapulars and medals, our so humiliating auricular confession, were only distracting the mind, the soul and the heart of the sinner from the true and only source of salvation, Christ!” In the midst of those distressing thoughts, I almost regretted having helped Chambers in giving up his Protestantism for my Romanism.
At about 4 P. M. I made a supreme effort to shake off my desolation, and nerve myself for the solemn duties God had intrusted to me. I put a few questions to those desolated men, to see if they were really repentant and converted. Their answers added to my fears that I had spoken too much of the virgins and the saints, the indulgences, medals and scapulars, integrity of confession, and not enough of Christ dying on the cross for them. It is true, I had spoken of Christ and his death to them, but this had been so much mixed up with exhortation to trust in Mary, put their confidence in their medals, scapulars, confessions, etc., that it became almost evident to me that, in our religion, Christ was like a precious pearl lost in a mountain of sand and dust. This fear soon caused my distress to be unbearable.
I then went to the private, neat little room, which the gaoler had kindly allotted to me, and I fell on my knees to pray God for myself and for my poor convicts. Though this prayer brought some calm to my mind, my distress was still very great. It was then that the thought came again to my mind to go to the governor and make a new and supreme effort to have the sentence of death changed into that of perpetual exile to Botany Bay: and without a moment of delay, I went to his palace.
It was about 7 P. M. when he reluctantly admitted me to his presence, telling me, when shaking hands, “I hope, Mr. Chiniquy, you are not coming to renew your request of the morning, for I cannot grant it.”
Without a word of answer, I fell on my knees, and for more than ten minutes I spoke as I had never spoken before. I spoke as we speak when we are the ambassadors of God in a message of mercy. I spoke with my lips. I spoke with my tears. I spoke with my sobs and cries. I spoke with my supplicating hands lifted to heaven. For some time, the governor was mute, and as if stunned. He was not only a noble-minded man, but he had a most tender, affectionate and kind heart. His tears soon began to flow with mine, and his sobs mixed with my sobs; with a voice, half suffocated by his emotion, he extended his friendly hand, and said:
“Father Chiniquy, you ask me a favor which I ought not to give, but I cannot resist your arguments, when your tears, your sobs, and your cries are like arrows which pierce and break my heart. I will give you the favor you ask.”
It was nearly 10 P. M. when I knocked at the door of the gaoler, asking his permission to see my dear friends in their cells, to tell them that I had obtained their pardon, that they would not die. That gentleman could hardly believe me. It was only after reading twice the document I had in my hands that he saw that I told him the truth.
Looking at the parchment again, he said: “Have you noticed that it is covered and almost spoiled by the spots evidently made with the tears of the governor. You must be a kind of a sorcerer to have melted the heart of such a man, and have wrenched from his hands the pardon of such convicts; for I know he was absolutely unwilling to grant the pardon.”
“I am not a sorcerer,” I answered. “But you remember that our Saviour Jesus Christ had said, somewhere, that he had brought a fire from heaven—well, it is evident that he has thrown some sparks of that fire into my poor heart, for it was so fiercely burning when I was at the feet of the governor, that I think I would have died at his feet, had he not granted me that favor. No doubt that some sparks of that fire have also fallen on his soul and in his heart when I was speaking, for his cries, his tears and his sobs were filling his room, and showing that he was suffering as well as myself. It was that he might not be consumed by that fire that he granted my request. I am now the most happy man under heaven. Please, make haste. Come with me and open the cells of those unfortunate men that I may tell what our merciful God has done for them.” When entering their desolated cells I was unable to contain myself. I cried out: “Rejoice, and bless the Lord, my dear friends! You will not die to-morrow! I bring you your pardon with me!”
Two of them fainted, and came very near dying from excess of surprise and joy. The others, unable to contain their emotions, were crying and weeping for joy. They threw their arms around me to press me to their bosom, kiss my hands and cover them with their tears of joy. I knelt with them and thanked God, after which I told them how they must promise to God to serve him faithfully, after such a manifestation of his mercies. I read to them the 100th, 101st, 102d, and 103d Psalms, and I left them after twelve o’clock at night to go and take some rest. I was in need of it after a whole day of such work and emotions.
The next day, I wanted to see my dear prisoners early, and I was with them at 7 A. M. As the whole country had been glad to hear that they were to be hanged that very day, the crowds were beginning to gather at that early hour to witness the death of those great culprits. The feelings of indignation were almost unmanageable, when they heard that they were not to be hanged, but only to be exiled for their life to Botany Bay. For a time, it was feared that the mob would break the doors of the gaol and lynch the culprits. Though very few priests were more respected and loved by the people, they would have probably torn me into pieces when they heard that it was I who had deprived the gibbet of its victims, that day. The chief of police had to take extraordinary measures to prevent the wrath of the mob from doing mischief. He advised me not to show myself for a few days, in the streets.
More than a month passed before all the thieves and murderers in Canada, to the number of about seventy, who had been sentenced to be exiled to Botany Bay, could be gathered into the ship which was to take them into that distant land. I thought it was my duty, during that interval, to visit my penitents in gaol every day, and instruct them on the duties of the new life they were called upon to live. When the day of their departure arrived, I gave a Roman Catholic New Testament, translated by DeSacy, to each of them to read and meditate on their long and tedious journey, and I bade them adieu, recommending them to the mercy of God, and the protection of the Virgin Mary and all the saints. Some months, later, I heard that, on the sea, Chambers had cut loose his chains and those of some of his companions, with the intention of taking possession of the ship, and escaping on some distant shore. But he had been betrayed, and was hanged on his arrival at Liverpool.
I had almost lost sight of those emotional days of my young years of priesthood. Those facts were silently lying among the big piles of the daily records, which I had faithfully kept since the very days of my collegiate life at Nicolet, when, in 1878, the Rev. George Sutherland, Presbyterian minister, of Sydney, invited me in the name of the noble-hearted Orangemen and many other Christians of that great country, to go and lecture in Australia. They accompanied their invitation with a check of £100 for the traveling expenses from Chicago to that distant land, and I accepted their kind invitation.
Some time after my arrival, when I was lecturing in one of the young and thriving cities of that country, whose future destinies promise to be so great, a rich carross, drawn by two splendid English horses, driven by two men en livre, stopped before the house where I had put up for a few days. A venerable gentleman alighted from the carriage and knocked at the door, as I was looking at him from the window. I went to the door, to save trouble to my host, and I opened it. In saluting me, the stranger said: “Is Father Chiniquy here?”
“Yes, sir,” I answered. “Father Chiniquy is the guest of this family.”
“Could I have the honor of a few minute’s conversation with him?” replied the old gentleman.
“As I am Father Chiniquy, I can, at once, answer you that I will feel much pleasure in granting your request.”
“Oh, dear Father Chiniquy,” quickly replied the stranger, “is it possible that it is you? Can I be absolutely alone with you for half an hour, without any one to see and hear us?”
“Certainly,” I said; “my comfortable rooms are upstairs, and I am absolutely alone there. Please, sir, come and follow me.”
When alone, the stranger said: “Do you not know me?”
“How can I know you, sir,” I answered. “I do not even remember ever having seen you.”
“You have not only seen me, but you have heard the confession of my sins, many times; and you have spent many hours in the same room with me,” replied the old gentleman.
“Please tell me where and when I have seen you, and also be kind enough to give your name: for all those things have escaped from my memory.”
“Do you remember the murderer and thief, Chambers, who was condemned to death in Quebec, in 1837, with eight of his accomplices?” asked the stranger.
“Yes, sir; I remember well Chambers, and the unfortunate men he was leading in the ways of iniquity,” I replied.
“Well, dear Father Chiniquy, I am one of the criminals who filled Canada with terror, for several years, and who were caught and rightly condemned to death. When condemned, we selected you for our father confessor, with the hope that through your influence we might escape the gallows; and we were not disappointed. You obtained our pardon; the sentence of death was commuted into a life of exile to Botany Bay. My name in Canada was A——, but here they call me B——. God has blessed me since in many ways; but it is to you I owe my life, and all the privileges of my present existence. After God, you are my saviour. I come to thank and bless you for what you have done for me.”
In saying that, he threw himself into my arms, pressed me to his heart, and bathed my face and my hands with tears of joy and gratitude.
But his joy did not exceed mine, and my surprise was equal to my joy to find him apparently in such good circumstances. After I had knelt with him to thank and bless God for what I had heard, I asked him to relate to me the details of his strange and marvellous story. Here is a short resume of his answer:
“After you had given us your last benediction, when on board the ship which was to take us from Quebec to Botany Bay, the first thing I did was to open the New Testament you had given me and the other culprits, with the advice to read it with a praying heart. It was the first time in my life I had that book in my hand. You were the only priest in Canada who would put such a book in the hands of common people. But I must confess that its first reading did not do me much good, for I read it more to amuse myself and satisfy my curiosity, than through any good and Christian motive. The only good I received from that first reading, was that I clearly understood, for the first time, why the priests of Rome fear and hate that book, and why they take it out of the hands of their parishioners when they hear that they have it. It was in vain that I looked for mass, indulgence, chaplets, purgatory, auricular confession, Lent, holy waters, the worship of Mary, or prayers in an unknown tongue. I concluded from my first reading of the Gospel that our priests were very wise to prevent us from reading a book which was really demolishing our Roman Catholic Church, and felt surprised that you had put in our hands a book which seemed to me so opposed to the belief and practice of our religion as you taught it to us when in gaol, and my confidence in your good judgment was much shaken. To tell you the truth, the first reading of the Gospel went far to demolish my Roman Catholic faith, and to make a wreck of the religion taught me by my parents, and at the college, and even by you. For a few weeks, I became more of a skeptic than anything else. The only good that first reading of the Holy Book did me was to give me more serious thoughts and prevent me from uniting myself to Chambers and his conspirators in their foolish plot for taking possession of the ship and escaping to some unknown and distant shore. He had been shrewd enough to conceal a very small, but exceedingly sharp saw, between his toes before coming to the ship, with which he had already cut the chains of eighteen of the prisoners, when he was betrayed and hanged on his arrival at Liverpool.
“But if my first reading of the Gospel did not do me much good, I cannot say the same thing of the second. I remember that, when handing to us that holy book, you had told us never to read it except after a fervent prayer to God for help and light to understand it. I was really tired of my former life. In giving up the fear and the love of God, I had fallen into the deepest abyss of human depravity and misery, till I had come very near ending my life on the scaffold. I felt the need of a change. You had often repeated to us the words of our Saviour, ‘Come unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest;’ but, with all the other priests, you had always mixed those admirable and saving words with the invocation of Mary, the confidence in our medals, scapulars, signs of the cross, holy waters, indulgences, auricular confessions, that the sublime appeal of Christ had always been, as it always will be, drowned in the Church of Rome by those absurd and impious superstitions and practices.
“One morning, after I had spent a sleepless night, and feeling as pressed down under the weight of my sins, I opened my gospel book, after an ardent prayer for light and guidance, and my eyes fell on these words of John, ‘Here is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!’ These words fell upon my poor guilty soul with a divine, irresistible power. With tears and cries of an unspeakable desolation, I spent the day in crying, ‘O Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world, have mercy upon me! Take away my sins!’ The day was not over, when I felt and knew that my cries had been heard at the mercy-seat. The Lamb of God had taken away my sins! He had changed my heart and made quite a new man of me. From that day, the reading of the Gospel was to my soul what bread is to the poor, hungry man, and what pure and refreshing waters are to the thirsty traveler. My joy, my unspeakable joy, was to read the holy book, and speak with my companions in chains of the dear Saviour’s love for the poor sinners; and, thanks be to God, a good number of them have found Him altogether precious, and have been sincerely converted in the dark holds of that ship. When working hard at Sydney with the other culprits, I felt my chains to be as light as feathers when I was sure that the heavy chains of my sins were gone; and though working hard under a burning sun from morning till night, I felt happy, and my heart was full of joy when I was sure that my Saviour had prepared a throne for me in His kingdom, and that He had brought a crown of eternal glory for me by dying on the cross to redeem my guilty soul.
“I had hardly spent a year in Australia, in the midst of the convicts, when a minister of the Gospel, accompanied by another gentleman, came to me and said: ‘Your perfectly good behavior and your Christian life has attracted the attention and admiration of the authorities, and the governor sends us to hand you this document, which says you are no more a criminal before the law, but that you have your pardon, and you can live the life of an honorable citizen, by continuing to walk in the ways of God.’ After speaking so, the gentlemen put one hundred dollars in my hands, and added: ‘Go and be a faithful follower of the Lord Jesus, and God Almighty will bless you and make you prosper in all your ways.’ All this seemed to me as a dream or vision from heaven. I would hardly believe my ears and my eyes. But it was not a dream, it was a reality. My merciful Heavenly Father had again heard my humble supplications; after having taken away the heavy chains of my sins, He had mercifully taken away the chains which wounded my feet and my hands. I spent several days and nights in weeping and crying for joy, and in blessing the God of my salvation, Jesus the redeemer of my soul and my body.
“Some years after that, we heard of the discoveries of the rich gold mines in several parts of Australia.
“After having prayed God to guide me, I bought a bag of hard crackers, a ham and cheese, and started for the mines in company with several who were going, like myself, in search of gold. But I soon preferred to be alone. For I wanted to pray and to be united to my God, even when walking. After a long march, I reached a beautiful spot, between three small hills, at the foot of which a little brook was running down toward the plain below. The sun was scorching, there was no shade, and I was much tired, I sat on a flat stone to take my dinner, and quenched my thirst with the water of the brook. I was eating and blessing my God at the same time for His mercies, when suddenly my eyes fell on a stone by the brook, which was about the size of a goose egg. But the rays of the sun were dancing on the stone, as if it had been a mirror. I went and picked it up. The stone was almost all gold of the purest kind! It was almost enough to make me rich. I knelt to thank and bless God for this new token of his mercy toward me, and I began to look around to see if I could not find some new pieces of the precious metal, and you may imagine my joy, when I found that the ground was not only literally covered with pieces of gold of every size, from half an inch to the smallest dimensions, but that the very sand, in great part, was composed of gold. In a very short time, it was the will of God that I could carry to the bank particles of gold to the value of several thousand pounds. I continued to cover myself with rags and have old boots on, in order not to excite the suspicion of any one on the fortune which I was accumulating so rapidly. When I had about £80,000 deposited in the banks, a gentleman offered me £80,000 more for my claim, and I sold it. The money was invested by me on a piece of land which soon became the site of an important city, and I soon became one of the wealthy men of Australia. I then began to study hard and improve the little education I had received in Canada. I married, and my God has made me father of several children. The people where I settled with my fortune and wife, not knowing my antecedents, have raised me to the first dignities of the place. Please, dear Mr. Chiniquy, come and take dinner with me, to-morrow, that I may show you my house and some of my other properties, and also that I may introduce you to my wife and children. But let me ask the favor not to make them suspect that you have known me in Canada, for they think I am an European.” When telling me his marvellous adventures, which I am obliged to condense and abridge, his voice was, many times, choked by his emotion his tears and his sobs, and more than once he had to stop. As for me, I was absolutely beside myself with admiration at the mysterious ways through which God leads his elect, in all ages. Now, I understand why my God had given me such a marvellous power over the governor of Canada, when I wrenched your pardon from his hands almost in spite of himself, I said: “That merciful God wanted to save you, and you are saved! May his name be forever blessed.”
The next day, it was my privilege to be with his family, at dinner. And never have I seen a more happy mother, and a more interesting family. The long table was actually surrounded by them. After dinner, he showed me his beautiful garden and his rich palace, after which, throwing himself into my arms, he said: “Dear Father Chiniquy, all those things belong to you. It is to you, after God, that I owe my life, all the blessings of a large and Christian family, and the honor of the high position I have in this country. May the God of Heaven for ever bless you for what you have done for me.” I answered him: “Dear friend, you owe me nothing, I have been nothing but a feeble instrument of the mercies of God toward you. To that great and merciful God alone be the praise and the glory. Please ask your family to come here and join with us in singing to the praise of God the 103d Psalm.” And we sang together: “Praise the Lord, O my soul, and let all that is within me praise His holy name.
“He hath not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities.
“For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.
“As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us.
“Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him.”
After the singing of that hymn, I bade him adieu for the second time, never to meet him again except in that Promised Land, where we will sing the eternal Alleluia around the throne of the Lamb, who was slain for us, and who redeemed us all in His blood.
Chapter XXXII
THE MIRACLES OF ROME—ATTACK OF TYPHOID FEVER—APPARITION OF ST. ANNE AND ST. PHILOMENE—MY SUDDEN CURE—THE CURATE OF ST. ANNE DU NORD, MONS RANVOIZE, A DISGUISED PROTESTANT.
The merchant fleet of the fall of 1836 had filled the Marine Hospital of Quebec with the victims of a ship-typhoid fever of the worst kind, which soon turned into an epidemic. Within the walls of that institution Mr. Glackmeyer, the superintendent, with two of the attending doctors, and the majority of the servants, were swept away during the winter months.
I was, in the spring of 1837, almost the only one spared by that horrible pest. In order not to spread terror among the citizens of Quebec, the physicians and I had determined to keep that a secret. But, at the end of May, I was forced to reveal it to the Bishop of Quebec, My Lord Signaie; for I felt in my whole frame, the first symptoms of the merciless disease. I prepared myself to die, as very few who had been attacked by it had escaped. I went to the bishop, told him the truth about the epidemic, and requested him to appoint a priest, immediately, as chaplain in my place, for I added, I feel the poison running through my veins, and it is very probable that I have not more than ten or twelve days to live.
The young Mons D. Estimanville was chosen, and though I felt very weak, I thought it was my duty to initiate him in his new and perilous work. I took him immediately to the hospital, where he never had been before, and, when at a few feet from the door, I said: “My young friend, it is my duty to tell you that there is a dangerous epidemic raging in that house since last fall, nothing has been able to stop it. The superintendent, two physicians and most of the servants have been its victims. My escape till now is almost miraculous. But these last ten hours I feel the poison running through my whole body. You are called by God to take my place; but before you cross the threshold of that hospital, you must make the generous sacrifice of your life; for you are going on a battle-field from which only few have come out with their lives.”
The young priest turned pale and said: “Is it possible that such a deadly epidemic is raging where you are taking me?” I answered: “Yes! my dear young brother, it is a fact, and I consider it my duty to tell you not to enter that house, if you are afraid to die!”
A few minutes of silence followed, and it was a solemn silence, indeed! Did the angels of God appear to show him the crown given to those who die for their brethren? I do not know. What I do know is that, a few months later, that young priest won the glorious crown by falling at his post of duty. He then took his handkerchief and wiped away some big drops of sweat, which were rolling from his forehead on his cheeks, and said: “Is there a more holy and desirable way of dying than in ministering to the spiritual and temporal wants of my brethren? No! If it is the will of God that I should fall when fighting at this post of danger, I am ready. Let his holy will be done.”
He followed me into the pestilential house with the heroic step of the soldier who runs at the command of his general to storm an impregnable citadel, when he is sure to fall. It took me more than an hour to show him all the rooms, and introduce him to the poor, but very dear sick and dying mariners.
I felt then so exhausted that two friends had to support me on my return to the parsonage of St. Roch. My physicians were immediately called (one of them, Dr. Rousseau, is still living) and soon pronounced my case so dangerous that three other physicians were called in consultation. For nine days, I suffered the most horrible tortures in my brains and the very marrow of my bones, from the fever, which so devoured my flesh, as to seemingly leave but the skin.
On the ninth day, the physicians told the bishop, who had visited me, that there was no hope for my recovery. The last sacraments were administered to me, and I prepared myself to die, as taught by the Church of Rome. The tenth day I was absolutely motionless, and not able to utter a word. My tongue was parched like a piece of dry wood.
Through the terrible ravage on the whole system, my very eyes were so turned inside their orbits, the white part only could be seen; no food could be taken from the beginning of the sickness except a few drops of cold water, which were dropped through my teeth with much difficulty. But, though all my physical faculties seemed dead, my memory and my intelligence were full of life, and acting with more power than ever. Now and then, in the paroxysms of the fever, I used to see awful visions. At one time, suspended by a thread at the top of a high mountain, with my head down over a bottomless abyss; at another, surrounded by merciless enemies, whose daggers and swords were plunged through my body. But these were of short duration, though they have left such an impression on my mind that I still remember the minutest details. Death had at first no terrors for me. I had done, to the best of my ability, all that my church had told me to do to be saved. I had, every day, given my last cent to the poor, fasted and done penance almost enough to kill myself, made my confessions with the greatest care and sincerity, preached with such zeal and earnestness as to fill the whole city with admiration.
My pharisaical virtues and holiness, in a word, were of such a glaring and deceitful character, and my ecclesiastical superiors were so taken by them that they made the greatest efforts to persuade me to become the first Bishop of Oregon and Vancouver.
One after the other, all the saints of heaven, beginning with the Holy Virgin Mary, were invoked by me that they might pray God to look down upon me in mercy, and save my soul.
On the thirteenth night, as the doctors were retiring, they whispered to the Revs. Baillargeon and Parent, who were at my bedside: “He is dead, or if not, he has only a few minutes to live. He is already cold and breathless, and we cannot feel his pulse.” Though these words had been said in a very low tone, they fell upon my ears as a peal of thunder. The two young priests, who were my devoted friends, filled the room with such cries, that the curate and the priest, who had gone to rest, rushed to my room, and mingled their tears and cries with theirs.
The words of the doctor, “He is dead!” were ringing in my ears as the voice of a hurricane; I suddenly saw that I was in danger of being buried alive; no words can express the sense of horror I felt at that idea. A cold, icy wave began to move slowly, but it seemed to me, with irresistible force, from the extremities of my feet and hands toward the heart, as the first symptoms of approaching death. At that moment, I made a great effort to see what hope I might have of being saved, invoking the help of the blessed Virgin Mary. With lightning rapidity, a terrible vision struck my mind; I saw all my good works and penances, in which my church had told me to trust for salvation, in the balance of the justice of God. These were in one side of the scales, and my sins on the other. My good works seemed only as a grain of sand compared with the weight of my sins.[B]
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Footnote B:
In order to be understood by those of my readers who have never been deceived by the diabolical doctrines of the Church of Rome, I must say here, that when young I had learned all my Catechism, and when a priest, I had believed and preached what Rome says on that subject. Here is her doctrine as taught in her Catechism:
“Who are those who go to heaven?”
ANS. “Those only who have never offended God, or who, having offended Him, have done penance.”
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This awful vision entirely destroyed my false and pharisaical security, and filled my soul with an unspeakable terror. I could not cry to Jesus Christ, nor to God, his Father, for mercy; for I sincerely believed what my church had taught me on that subject, that they were both angry with me on account of my sins. With much anxiety, I turned my thoughts, my soul and hopes toward St. Anne and St Philomene. The first was the object of my confidences since the first time I had seen the numberless crutches and other “Ex Votos” which covered the Church of “La Bonne St. Anne du Nord,” and the second was the saint a la mode. It was said that her body had lately been miraculously discovered, and the world was filled with the noise of the miracles wrought through her intercession. Her medals were on every breast, her pictures in every house, and her name on all lips. With entire confidence in the will and power of these two saints to obtain any favor for me, I invoked them to pray God to grant me a few years more of life; and with the utmost honesty of purpose, I promised to add to my penances, and to live a more holy life, by consecrating myself with more zeal than ever, to the service of the poor and the sick. I added to my former prayer, the solemn promise to have a painting of the two saints put in St. Anne’s Church, to proclaim to the end of the world their great power in heaven, if they would obtain my cure and restore my health. Strange to say! the last words of my prayer were scarcely uttered, when I saw above my head St. Anne and St. Philomene, sitting in the midst of a great light, on a beautiful golden cloud. St. Anne was very old and grave, but St. Philomene was very young and beautiful. Both were looking at me with great kindness.
However, the kindness of St. Anne was mixed with such an air of awe and gravity, that I did not like her looks; while St. Philomene had such an expression of superhuman love and kindness, that I felt myself drawn to her by a magnetic power, when she said distinctly: “You will be cured!” and the vision disappeared.
But I was cured, perfectly cured! At the disappearance of the two saints, I felt as though an electric shock went through my whole frame; the pains were gone, the tongue was untied, the nerves were restored to their natural and easy power; my eyes were opened, the cold and icy waves which were fast going from the extremities to the regions of the heart, seemed to be changed into a most pleasant warm bath, restoring life and strength to every part of my body. I raised my head, stretched out my hands, which I had not moved for three days, and looking around, I saw the four priests. I said to them: “I am cured, please give me something to eat, I am hungry.”
Astonished beyond measure, two of them threw their arms around my shoulders to help me sit a moment, and change my pillow; when two others ran to the table which the kind nuns of Quebec had covered with delicacies in case I might want them. Their joy was mixed with fear, for they all confessed to me afterwards that they at once thought that all this was nothing but the last brilliant flash of light which the flickering lamp gives before dying away. But they soon changed their minds when they saw that I was eating ravenously, and that I was speaking to them and thanking God with a cheerful though very feeble voice. “What does this mean?” they all said. “The doctors told us last evening that you were dead; and we have passed the night not only weeping over your death, but praying for your soul, to rescue it from the flames of purgatory, and now you look so hungry, so cheerful and so well.”
I answered: “It means that I was not dead, but very near dying, and when I felt that I was to die, I prayed to St. Anne and St. Philomene to come to my help and cure me; and they have come. I have seen them both, there, above my head. Ah! if I were a painter, what a beautiful picture I could make of that dear old St. Anne and the still dearer St. Philomene! for it is St. Philomene who has spoken to me as the messenger of the mercies of God. I have promised to have their portraits painted and put into the church of The Good St. Anne du Nord.”
While I was speaking thus, the priests, filled with admiration and awe, were mute; they could not speak, except with tears of gratitude. They honestly believed with me that my cure was miraculous, and consented with pleasure to sing that beautiful hymn of gratitude, the “Te Deum.”
The next morning the news of my miraculous cure spread through the whole city with the rapidity of lightning, for besides a good number of the first citizens of Quebec who were related to me by blood, I had not less than 1,800 penitents who loved and respected me as their spiritual father.
To give an idea of the kind interest of the numberless friends whom God had given me when in Quebec, I will relate a single fact. The citizens who were near our parsonage, having been told by a physician that the inflammation of my brain was so terrible that the least noise, even the passing of carriages or the walking of horses on the streets, was causing me real torture, they immediately covered all the surrounding streets with several inches of straw to prevent the possibility of any more noise.
The physicians having heard of my sudden cure, hastened to come and see what it meant. At first, they could scarcely believe their eyes. The night before, they had given me up for dead, after thirteen days suffering with the most horrible and incurable of diseases! And there I was, the very next morning, perfectly cured! No more pain, not the least remnant of fever, all the faculties of my body and mind perfectly restored!
They minutely asked me all the circumstances connected with that strange, unexpected cure; and I told them simply but plainly, how, at the very moment I expected to die, I had fervently prayed to St. Anne and St. Philomene, and how they had come, spoken to me and cured me.
Two of my physicians were Roman Catholics, and three Protestants. They, at first, looked at each other without saying a word. It was evident that they were not all partakers of my strong faith in the power of the two saints. While the Roman Catholic doctors, Messrs. Parent and Rousseau, seemed to believe in my miraculous cure, the Protestants energetically protested against that view in the name of science and common sense.
Dr. Douglas put me the following questions, and received the following answers. He said:
“Dear Father Chiniquy, you know you have not a more devoted friend in Quebec than I, and you know me too well to suspect that I want to hurt your religious feelings when I tell you that there is not the least appearance of a miracle in your so happy and sudden cure. If you will be kind enough to answer my questions, you will see that you are mistaken in attributing to a miracle a thing which is most common and natural. Though you are perfectly cured, you are very weak; please answer only ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to my questions, in order not to exhaust yourself. Will you be so kind as to tell us if this is the first vision you have had during the period of that terrible fever?”
ANS. I have had many other visions, but I took them as being the effect of the fever.
DOCTOR. Please make your answers shorter, or else I will not ask you another question, for it would hurt you. Tell us simply, if you have not seen in those visions, at times, very frightful and terrible, and at others, very beautiful things?
ANS. Yes, sir.
DOCTOR. Have not those visions stamped themselves on your mind with such a power and vividness that you never forget them, and that you deem them more realities than mere visions of a sickly brain?
ANS. Yes, sir.
DOCTOR. Did you not feel, sometimes, much worse, and sometimes much better after those visions, according to their nature?
ANS. Yes, sir.
DOCTOR. When at ease in your mind during that disease, were you not used to pray to the saints, particularly to St. Anne and St. Philomene?
ANS. Yes, sir.
DOCTOR. When you considered that death was very near (and it was indeed) when you had heard my imprudent sentence that you had only a few minutes to live, were you not taken suddenly by such a fear of death as you never felt before?
ANS. Yes, sir.
DOCTOR. Did you not then make a great effort to repel death from you?
ANS. Yes, sir.
DOCTOR. Do you know that you are a man of an exceedingly strong will, and that very few men can resist you when you want to do something? Do you not know that your will is such an exceptional power that mountains of difficulties have disappeared before you, here in Quebec? Have you not seen even me, with many others, yielding to your will almost in spite of ourselves, to do what you wanted?
With a smile, I answered, “Yes, sir.”
DOCTOR. Do you not know that the will, or if you like it better, the soul, has a real, mysterious, and sometimes an irresistible, power over the body, to silence its passions, calm its sufferings, and really heal its diseases, particularly when they are of a nervous nature, as in all cases of fever?
ANS. Yes, sir! I know that.
DOCTOR. Do you not remember seeing, many times, people suffering dreadfully from toothache, coming to us to have their teeth extracted, who were suddenly cured at the sight of the knives and other surgical instruments we put upon the table for use?
I answered, with a laugh, “Yes, sir. I have seen that very often, and it has occurred to me once.”
DOCTOR. Do you think that there was a supernatural power, then, in the surgical implements, and that those sudden cures of toothache were miraculous?
ANS. No, sir.
DOCTOR. Have you not read the volume of the Medical Directory I lent you, on typhoid fever, where several cures exactly like yours are reported?
ANS. Yes, sir.
Then, addressing the physicians, Dr. Douglas said to them:
“We must not exhaust our dear Father Chiniquy. We are too happy to see him full of life again, but from his answers you understand that there is no miracle here. His happy and sudden cure is a very natural and common thing. The vision was what we call the turning-point of the disease, when the mind is powerfully bent on some very exciting object, when that mysterious thing of which we know so little as yet, called the will, the spirit, the soul, fights as a giant against death, in which battle, pains, diseases, and even death, are put to flight and conquered.
“My dear Father Chiniquy, from your own lips we have it; you have fought, last night, the fever and approaching death, as a giant. No wonder that you won the victory, and I confess, it is a great victory. I know it is not the first victory you have gained, and I am sure it will not be the last. It is surely God who has given you that irresistible will. In that sense only does your cure come from Him. Continue to fight and conquer as you have done last night, and you will live a long life. Death will long remember its defeat of last night, and will not dare approach you any more, except when you will be so old that you will ask it to come as a friend, and put an end to the miseries of this present life. Good-bye.”
And with friendly smiles, all the doctors pressed my hand and left me, just as the bishop and the curate of Quebec, Mons. Baillargeon, my confessor, were entering the room.
An old proverb says: “There is nothing so difficult as to persuade a man who does not want to be persuaded.” Though the reasoning and kind words of the doctor ought to have been gladly listened to by me, they had only bothered me. It was infinitely more pleasant, and it seemed then, more agreeable to God, and more according to my faith in the power of the saints in heaven, to believe that I had been miraculously cured. Of course, the bishop with his coadjutor, and my Lord Turgeon, as well as my confessor, with the numberless priests and Roman Catholics who visited me during my convalescence, confirmed me in my views.
The skillful painter, Mr. Plamondon, recently from Rome, was called, and painted at the price of $200 (£50) the tableau, I had promised to put in the church of St. Anne du Nord. It was one of the most beautiful and remarkable paintings of that artist, who had passed several years in the Capitol of Fine Arts in Italy, where he had gained a very good reputation for his ability.
Three months after my recovery, I was at the parsonage of the curate of St. Anne, the Rev. Mr. Ranvoize, a relative of mine. He was about 64 years of age, very rich, and had a magnificent library. When young he had enjoyed the reputation of being one of the best preachers in Canada.
Never had I been so saddened and scandalized as I was by him on this occasion. It was evening when I arrived with my tableau. As soon as we were left alone, the old curate said: “Is it possible, my dear young cousin, that you will make such a fool of yourself to-morrow? That so-called miraculous cure is nothing but “naturæ suprema vis,” as the learned of all ages have called it. Your so-called vision was a dream of your sickly brain, as it generally occurs at the moment of the supreme crisis of the fever. It is what is called the “turning-point” of the disease, when a desperate effort of nature kills or cures the patient. As for the vision of that beautiful girl, whom you call St. Philomene, who has done you so much good, she is not the first girl, surely, who has come to you in your dreams, and done you good!” At these words he laughed so heartily that I feared he would split his sides. Twice he repeated this unbecoming joke.
I was, at first, so shocked at this unexpected rebuke, which I considered as bordering on blasphemy, that I came very near taking my hat, without answering a word, to go and spend the night at his brother’s; but, after a moment’s reflection, I said to him:
“How can you speak with such levity on so solemn a thing? Do you not believe in the power of the saints, who, being more holy and pure than we are, see God face to face, speak to Him and obtain favors which he would refuse to us rebels? Are you not the daily witness of the miraculous cures wrought in your own church, under your own eyes? Why those thousands of crutches which literally cover the walls of your church?”
My strong faith, and the earnestness of my appeal to the daily miracles of which he was the witness, and above all, the mention of the numberless crutches suspended all over the walls of his church, brought again from him such a Homeric laugh, that I was disconcerted and saddened beyond measure. I remained absolutely mute; I wished I had never come into such company.
When he had laughed at me to his heart’s content, he said: “My dear cousin, you are the first one to whom I speak in this way. I do it because, first: I consider you a man of intelligence, and hope you will understand me. Secondly: because you are my cousin. Were you one of those idiotic priests, real blockheads, who form the clergy of to-day; or, were you a stranger to me, I would let you go your way, and believe in those ridiculous, degrading superstitions of our poor ignorant and blind people, but I know you from your infancy, and I have known your father, who was one of my dearest friends; the blood which flows in your veins, passes thousands of times every day through my heart. You are very young and I very old. It is a duty of honor and conscience in me to reveal to you a thing which I have thought better to keep till now, a secret between God and myself. I have been here more than thirty years, and though our country is constantly filled with the noise of the great and small miracles wrought in my church, every day, I am ready to swear before God, and to prove to any man of common sense, that not a single miracle has been wrought in my church since I have come here. Every one of the facts given to the Canadian people as miraculous cures, are sheer impositions, deceptions, the work of either fools, or the work of skillful impostors and hypocrites, whether priests or laymen. Believe me, my dear cousin, I have studied carefully the history of all those crutches. Ninety-nine out of a hundred have been left by poor, lazy beggars, who, at first, thought with good reason that, by walking from door to door with one or two crutches, they would create more sympathy and bring more into their purses; for how many will indignantly turn out of doors a lazy, strong and healthful beggar, who will feel great compassion, and give largely to a man who is crippled, unable to work, and forced to drag himself painfully on crutches? Those crutches are, then, passports from door to door. They are the very keys to open both the hearts and purses. But the day comes when that beggar has bought a pretty good farm with his stolen alms; or when he is really tired, disgusted with his crutches and wants to get rid of them! How can he do that without compromising himself?
“By a miracle! Then, he will sometimes travel again hundreds of miles from door to door, begging as usual, but this time, he asks the prayers of the whole family, saying, ‘I am going to the ‘good St. Anne du Nord’ to ask her to cure my leg (or legs). I hope she will cure me, as she has cured so many others, I have great confidence in her power!’”
“Each one gives twice, nay, ten times as much as before to the poor cripple, making him promise that if he is cured, he will come back and show himself, that they may bless the good St. Anne with him. When he arrives here, he gives me sometimes one, sometimes five dollars, to say mass for him. I take the money, for I would be a fool to refuse it when I know that his purse has been so well filled. During the celebration of the mass, when he receives the communion, I hear generally, a great noise, cries of joy! A miracle! A miracle!! The crutches are thrown on the floor, and the cripple walks as well as you or I! And the last act of that religious comedy is the most lucrative one, for he fulfills his promise of stopping at every house he had ever been seen with his crutches. He narrates how he was miraculously cured, how his feet and legs became suddenly all right. Tears of joy and admiration flow from every eye. The last cent of that family is generally given to the impostor, who soon grows rich at the expense of his dupes. This is the plain, but true story, of ninety-nine out of every hundred of the cures wrought in my church. The hundredth, is upon people as honest, but, pardon me the expression, as blind and superstitious as you are; they are really cured, for they were really sick. But their cures are the natural effects of the great efforts of the will. It is the result of a happy combination of natural causes which work together on the frame, and kill the pain, expel the disease and restore to health, just as I was cured of a most horrible toothache, some years ago. In the paroxysm, I went to the dentist and requested him to extract the affected tooth. Hardly had his knife and other surgical instruments come before my eyes than the pain disappeared. I quietly took my hat and left, bidding a hearty ‘good-by’ to the dentist, who laughed at me every time we met, to his heart’s content.
“One of the weakest points of our religion is in the ridiculous, I venture to say, diabolical miracles, performed and believed every day among us, with the so-called relics and bones of the saints.
“But, don’t you know that, for the most part, these relics are nothing but chickens’ or sheeps’ bones. And what could not say, were I to tell you of what I know of the daily miraculous impostures of the scapulars, holy water, chaplets and medals of every kind. Were I a pope, I would throw all these mummeries, which come from paganism, to the bottom of the sea, and would present to the eyes of the sinners, nothing but Christ and Him crucified as the object of their faith, invocation and hope, for this life and the next, just as the Apostle Paul, Peter and James do in their Epistles.”
I cannot repeat here, all that I heard, that night, from that old relative, against the miracles, relics, scapulars, purgatory, false saints and ridiculous practices of the Church of Rome. It would take too long, for he spoke three hours as a real Protestant. Sometimes what he said to me seemed according to common sense, but as it was against the practices of my church, and against my personal practices, I was exceedingly scandalized and pained, and not at all convinced. I pitied him for having lost his former faith and piety. I told him at the end, without ceremony: “I heard, long ago, that the bishops did not like you, but I knew not why. However, if they could hear what you think and say here about the miracles of St. Anne, they would surely interdict you.”
“Will you betray me?” he added, “and will you report our conversation to the bishop?”
“No, my cousin,” I replied, “I would prefer to be burned to ashes. I will not sell your kind hospitality for the traitor’s money.”
It was two o’clock in the morning when we parted to go to our sleeping rooms. But that night was again a sleepless one to me. Was it not too sad and strange for me to see that that old and learned priest was secretly a Protestant!
The next morning, the crowds began to arrive, not by hundreds, but by thousands, from the surrounding parishes. The channel between “L’Isle D’Orleans” and St. Anne, was literally covered with boats of every size, laden with men and women who wanted to hear from my own lips, the history of my miraculous cure, and see, with their own eyes, the picture of the two saints who had appeared to me. At 10 A. M., more than 10,000 people were crowded inside and outside the walls of the Church.
No words can give an idea of my emotion and of the emotion of the multitude when, after telling them in a simple and plain way, what I then considered a miraculous fact, I disclosed to their eyes, and presented it to their admiration and worship. There were tears rolling on every cheek and cries of admiration and joy from every lip.
The picture represented me dying in my bed of sufferings, and the two saints seen, at a distance, above me, and stretching their hands, as if to say: “You will be cured.” It was hung on the walls, in a conspicuous place, where thousands and thousands have come to worship it from that day to the year 1858, when the curate was ordered by the bishop to burn it, for it had pleased our merciful God, that very year, to take away the scales which were on my eyes and show me his saving light, and I had published all over Canada, my terrible, though unintentional error, in believing in that false miracle. I, however, was honest in my belief in a miraculous cure; and the apparition of the two saints had left such a deep impression on my mind, that, I confess it to my shame, the first week after my conversion, I very often said to myself: “How is it that I now believe that the Church of Rome is false, when such a miracle has been wrought on me as one of her priests?”
But, our God, whose mercies are infinite, knowing my honesty when a slave of Popery, was determined to give me the full understanding of my errors in this way.
About a month after my conversion, in 1858, I had to visit a dying Irish convert from Romanism, who had caught in Chicago, the same fever which so nearly killed me at the Marine Hospital of Quebec. I again caught the disease, and during twelve days passed through the same tortures and suffered the same agonies as in 1837. But this time, I was really happy to die; there was no fear for me to see the good works as a grain of sand in my favor, and the mountains of my iniquities in the balance of God against me. I just had given up my pharisaical holiness of old; it was no more in my good works, my alms, my penances, my personal efforts, I was trusting to be saved; it was in Jesus alone. My good works were no more put by me in the balance of the justice of God to pay my debts and to appeal for mercy. It was the blood of Jesus, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world for me, which was in the balance. It was the tears of Jesus, the nails, the crown of thorns, the heavy cross, the cruel death of Jesus only, which was there to pay my debts and to cry for mercy. I had no fear then, for I knew that I was saved by Jesus, and that that salvation was a perfect act of His love, His mercy and His power; I was glad to die.
But when the doctor had left me, the thirteenth day of my sufferings, saying the very same words of the doctors of Quebec: “He has only a few minutes to live, if he be not already dead,” the kind friends who were around my bed, filled the room with their cries! Although, for three or four days, I had not moved a finger, said a single word, or given any sign of life, I was perfectly conscious. I had heard the words of the doctor and I was glad to exchange the miseries of this short life for that eternity of glory which my Saviour had bought for me. I only regretted to die before bringing more of my dear countrymen out of the idolatrous religion of Rome, and from the lips of my soul, I said: “Dear Jesus, I am glad to go with thee just now, but if it be thy will to let me live a few years more, that I may spread the light of the gospel among my countrymen; grant me to live a few years more, and I will bless thee eternally, with my converted countrymen, for thy mercy.” This prayer had scarcely reached the mercy seat, when I saw a dozen bishops marching toward me, sword in hand, to kill me. As the first sword raised to strike was coming down to split my head, I made a desperate effort, wrenched it from the hand of my would-be murderer, and struck such a blow on his neck that the head rolled down to the floor. The second, third, fourth, and so on to the last, rushed to kill me; but I struck such terrible blows on the necks of every one of them, that twelve heads were rolling on the floor and swimming in a pool of blood. In my excitement, I cried to my friends around me: “Do you not see the heads rolling and the blood flowing on the floor?”
And suddenly I felt a kind of electric shock from head to foot. I was cured! perfectly cured!! I asked my friends for something to eat; I had not taken any food for twelve days. And with tears of joy and gratitude to God, they complied with my request.
This last cure was not only the perfect cure of the body, but it was a perfect cure of the soul. I understood then clearly that the first was not more miraculous than the second. I had a perfect understanding of the diabolical forgeries and miracles of Rome. I was not cured or saved by the saints, the bishops or the Popes, but by my God, through his son Jesus.
Chapter XXXIII
MY NOMINATION AS CURATE OF BEAUPORT—DEGRADATION AND RUIN OF THAT PLACE THROUGH DRUNKENNESS—MY OPPOSITION TO MY NOMINATION USELESS—PREPARATIONS TO ESTABLISH A TEMPERANCE SOCIETY—I WRITE TO FATHER MATHEW FOR ADVICE.
The 21st of September, 1838, was a day of desolation to me. On that day I received the letter of my bishop, appointing me curate of Beauport.
Many times, I had said to the other priests, when talking about our choice of the different parishes, that I would never consent to be curate of Beauport.
That parish, which is a kind of a suburb of Quebec, was too justly considered the very nest of the drunkards of Canada. With a soil of unsurpassed fertility, inexhaustible lime quarries, gardens covered with most precious vegetables and fruits, forests near at hand to furnish wood to the city of Quebec, at their doors, the people of Beauport were, nevertheless, classed among the poorest, most ragged and wretched people of Canada. For almost every cent they were getting at the market went into the hands of the saloon-keepers.
Hundreds of times I had seen the streets which led from St. Roch to the upper town of Quebec almost impassable, when the drunkards of Beauport were leaving the market to go home.
How many times I heard them fill the air with their cries and blasphemies; and saw the streets reddened with their blood, when fighting with one another, like mad dogs.
The Rev. Mr. Begin, who was their cure since 1825, had accepted the moral principles of the great Roman Catholic “Theologia Liguori,” which says, “that a man is not guilty of the sin of drunkenness, so long as he can distinguish between a small pin and a load of hay.” Of course the people would not find themselves guilty of sin so long as their eyes could make that distinction.
After weeping to my heart’s content at the reading of the letter from my bishop, which had come to me as a thunderbolt, my first thought was that my misfortune, though very great, was not irretrievable. I knew that there were many priests who were as anxious to become curates of Beauport as I was opposed to it.
My hope was that the bishop would be touched by my tears, if not convinced by my arguments, and that he would not persist in putting on my shoulders a burden which they could not carry.
I immediately went to the palace, and did all in my power to persuade his lordship to select another priest for Beaufort.
He listened to my arguments with a good deal of patience and kindness, and answered:
“My dear Mr. Chiniquy, you forget too often that ‘implicit and perfect obedience’ to his superiors is the virtue of a good priest? You have given me a great deal of trouble and disappointment by refusing to relieve the good Bishop Provencher of his too heavy burden. It was at my suggestion, you know very well, that he had selected you to be his co-worker along the coasts of the Pacific, by consenting to become the first Bishop of Oregon. Your obstinate resistance to your superiors in that circumstance, and in several other cases, is one of your weak points. If you continue to follow your own mind rather than obey those whom God has chosen to guide you, I really fear for your future. I have already too often yielded to your rebellious character. Through respect to myself, and for your own good, to-day I must force you to obey me. You have spoken of the drunkenness of the people of Beauport, as one of the reasons why I should not put you at the head of that parish; but this is just one of the reasons why I have chosen you. You are the only priest I know, in my diocese, able to struggle against the long-rooted and detestable evil, with a hope of success.
“‘Quod scriptum scriptum est.’ Your name is entered in our official registers as the curate of Beauport; it will remain there till I find better reasons than those you have given me to change my mind. After all, you cannot complain; Beauport is not only the most beautiful parsonage in Canada, but it is one of the most splendid spots in the world. In your beautiful parsonage, at the door of the old capital of Canada, you will have the privileges of the city, and the enjoyments of some of the most splendid scenery of this continent. If you are not satisfied with me to-day, I do not know what I can do to please you.”
Though far from being reconciled to my new position, I saw there was no help; I had to obey. As my predecessor, Mr. Begin, was to sell all his house furniture, before taking charge of his far distant parish, La Riviere Ouelle, he kindly invited me to go and buy, on long credit, what I wished for my own use, which I did.
The whole parish was on the spot long before me, partly to show their friendly sympathy for their late pastor, and partly to see their new curate. I was not long in the crowd without seeing that my small stature and my leanness were making a very bad impression on the people, who were accustomed to pay their respects to a comparatively tall man, whose large and square shoulders were putting me in the shade.
Many jovial remarks, though made in half-suppressed tones, came to my ears, to tell me that I was cutting a poor figure by the side of my jolly predecessor.
“He is hardly bigger than my tobacco-box,” said one not far from me; “I think I could put him in my vest pocket.”
“Has he not the appearance of a salted sardine!” whispered a woman to her neighbor, with a hearty laugh.
Had I been a little wiser, I could have redeemed myself by some amiable or funny words, which would have sounded pleasantly in the ears of my new parishioners.
But, unfortunately for me, that wisdom is not among the gifts I received from nature. After a couple of hours of auction, a large cloth was suddenly removed from a long table, and presented to our sight an incredible number of wine and beer-glasses, of empty decanters and bottles of all sizes and quality.
This brought a burst of laughter and clapping of hands from almost every one. All eyes were turned toward me, and I heard from hundreds of lips: “This is for you, Mr. Chiniquy.”
Without weighing my words, I instantly answered: “I do not come to Beauport to buy wine glasses and bottles, but to break them.”
These words fell upon their ears like a spark of fire on a train of powder. Nine-tenths of the multitude, without being very drunk, had emptied from four to ten glasses of beer or rum, which Rev. Mr. Begin himself was offering them in a corner of the parsonage. A real deluge of insults and cursings overwhelmed me; and I soon saw that the best thing I could do was to leave the place without noise, and by the shortest way.
I immediately went to the bishop’s palace to try again to persuade his lordship to put another curate at the head of such a people.
“You see, my lord,” I said, “that by my indiscreet and rash answer I have forever lost the respect and confidence of that people. They already hate me; their brutal cursings have fallen upon me like balls of fire. I prefer to be carried to my grave next Sabbath than have to address such a degraded people. I feel that I have neither the moral nor the physical power to do any good there.”
“I differ from you,” replied the bishop, “Evidently the people wanted to try your mettle, by inviting you to buy those glasses, and you would have lost yourself by yielding to their desire. Now they have seen that you are brave and fearless. It is just what the people of Beauport want; I have known them for a long time. It is true that they are drunkards; but, apart from that vice, there is not a nobler people under heaven. They have, literally, no education, but they possess marvellous common sense, and have many noble and redeeming qualities, which you will soon find out. You took them by surprise when you boldly said you wanted to break their glasses and decanters. Believe me, they will bless you if, by the grace of God, you fulfill your prophecy; though it will be a miracle if you succeed in making the people of Beauport sober. But you must not despair. Trust in God; fight as a good soldier, and Jesus Christ will win the victory.”
Those kind words of my bishop did me good, though I would have preferred being sent to the back woods of Canada, than to the great parish of Beauport. I felt that the only thing that I had to do was to trust in God for success, and to fight as if I were to gain the day. It came to my mind that I had committed a great sin by obstinately refusing to become bishop of Oregon, and my God, as a punishment, had given me the very parish for which I felt an almost insurmountable repugnance.
The next Sunday was a splendid day, and the church of Beauport was filled to its utmost capacity by the people, eager to see and hear, for the first time, their new pastor.
I had spent the last three days in prayers and fastings. God knows that never a priest, nor any minister of the gospel, ascended the pulpit with more exalted views of his sublime functions than I did that day, and never a messenger of the gospel had been more terrified than I was, when in that pulpit, by the consciousness of his own demerits, inability and incompetency, in the face of the tremendous responsibilities of his position. My first sermon was on the text: “Woe unto me if I preach not the gospel” (1 Cor. ix.:16). With a soul and heart filled with the profoundest emotions, a voice many times suffocated by uncontrollable sobs, I expounded to them some of the awful responsibilities of a pastor. The effect of that sermon was felt to the last day of my priestly ministry in Beauport.
After the sermon, I told them: “I have a favor to ask of you. As it is the first, I hope you will not rebuke me. I have, just now, given you some of the duties of your poor young curate toward you; I want you to come again this afternoon at half-past two o’clock, that I may give you some of your duties toward your pastor.” At the appointed hour the church was still more crowded than in the morning, and it seemed to me that my merciful God blessed still more that second address than the first.
The text was: “When he (the shepherd) putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.” (John x.:4.)
Those two sermons on the Sabbath were a startling innovation in the Roman Catholic Church of Canada, which brought upon me, at once, many bitter remarks from the bishop and surrounding curates. Their unanimous verdict was that I wanted to become a little reformer. They had not the least doubt that in my pride I wanted to show to the people “that I was the most zealous priest of the country.” This was not only whispered from ear to ear among the clergy, but several times it was thrown into my face in the most insulting manner. However, my God knew that my only motives were, first, to keep my people away from the taverns, by having them before their altars during the greatest part of the Sabbath day; second, to impress more on their minds the great saving and regenerating truths I preached, by presenting them twice on the same day under different aspects.
I found such benefits from those two sermons that I continued the practice during the four years I remained in Beauport, though I had to suffer and hear in silence, many humiliating and cutting remarks from many co-priests.
I had not been more than three months at the head of that parish, when I determined to organize a temperance society on the same principles as Father Mathew, in Ireland.
I opened my mind, at first, on that subject to the bishop, with the hope that he would throw the influence of his position in favor of the new association, but, to my great dismay and surprise, not only did he turn my project into ridicule, but absolutely forbade me to think any more of such an innovation.
“Those temperance societies are a Protestant scheme,” he said. “Preach against drunkenness, but let the respectable people who are not drunkards alone. St. Paul advised his disciple Timothy to drink wine. Do not try to be more zealous than they were in those apostolic days.”
I left the bishop much disappointed, but did not give up my plan. It seemed to me if I could gain the neighboring priests to join with me in my crusade I wanted to preach against the usage of intoxicating drinks, we might bring about a glorious reform in Canada, as Father Mathew was doing in Ireland.
But the priests, without a single exception, laughed at me, turned my plans into ridicule, and requested me in the name of common sense, never to speak any more to them of giving up their social glass of wine.
I shall never be able to give any idea of my sadness, when I saw that I was to be opposed by my bishop and the whole clergy in the reform which I considered then, more and more every day, the only plank of salvation, not only of my dear people of Beauport, but of all Canada. God alone knows the tears I shed, the long, sleepless nights I have passed in studying, praying, meditating on that great and holy work of Beauport. I had recourse to all the saints of heaven for more strength and light; for I was determined, at any cost, to try and form a temperance society.
But every time I wanted to begin, I was frightened by the idea, not only of the wrath of the whole clergy, which would hunt me down, but still more of the ridicule of the whole country, which would overwhelm me in case of a failure. In these perplexities, I thought I would do well to write to Father Mathew, and ask him his advice and the help of his prayers. That noble apostle of temperance of Ireland answered me in an eloquent letter, and pressed me to begin the work in Canada as he had done in Ireland, relying on God, without paying any attention to the opposition of man.
The wise and Christian words of that great and worthy Irish priest came to me as the voice of God; and I determined to begin the work at once, though the whole world should be against me.
I felt that if God was in my favor, I would succeed in reforming my parish and my country in spite of all the priests and bishops of the world, and I was right. Before putting the plow into the ground, I had not only prayed to God and all his saints, almost day and night, during many months, but I had studied all the best books written in England, France and the United States on the evil wrought by the use of intoxicating drinks. I had taken a pretty good course of anatomy in the Marine Hospital under the learned Dr. Douglas.
I was then well posted on the great subject I was to bring before my country. I knew the enemy I was to attack. And the weapons which would give him the death blow were in my hands. I only wanted my God to strengthen my hands and direct my blows. I prayed to Him, and in His great mercy He heard me.
Chapter XXXIV
THE HAND OF GOD IN THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TEMPERANCE SOCIETY IN BEAUPORT AND VICINITY.
“My thoughts are not your thoughts,” saith the Lord. And, we may add, His works are not like the works of man. This great truth has never been better exemplified than in the marvellous rapidity with which the great temperance reformation grew in Canada, in spite of the most formidable obstacles. To praise any man for such work seems to me a kind of blasphemy, when it is so visibly the work of the Lord.
I had hardly finished reading the letter of Ireland’s Apostle of Temperance, when I fell on my knees and said: “Thou knowest, O my God, that I am nothing but a sinner. There is no light, no strength, in thy poor, unprofitable servant. Therefore come down into my heart and soul, to direct me in that temperance reform which thou hast put into my mind to establish. Without thee, I can do nothing, but with thee, I can do all things.”
This was on Saturday night, March 20th, 1839. The next morning was the first Sabbath of Lent. I said to the people after the sermon: “I have told you, many times, that I sincerely believe it is my mission from God to put an end to the unspeakable miseries and crimes engendered every day, here and in our whole country, by the use of intoxicating drinks. Alcohol is the greatest enemy of your souls and your bodies. It is the most implacable enemy of your husbands, your wives and your children. It is the most formidable enemy of our dear country and our holy religion. I must destroy that enemy. But I cannot fight alone. I must form an army and raise a banner in your midst, around which all the soldiers of the gospel will rally. Jesus Christ himself will be our general. He will bless and sanctify us—He will lead us to victory. The next three days will be consecrated by you and by me in preparing to raise that army. Let all those who wish to fill its ranks, come and pass these three days with me in prayer and meditation at the feet of our sacred altars. Let even those who do not want to be soldiers of Christ, or to fight the great and glorious battles which are to be fought, come, through curiosity, to see a most marvellous spectacle. I invite every one of you, in the name of our Saviour, Jesus Christ, whom alcohol nails anew to the cross every day. I invite you in the name of the holy Virgin Mary, and of all the saints and angels of God, who are weeping in heaven for the crimes committed every day by the use of intoxicating drinks. I invite you in the names of the wives, whom I see here in your midst, weeping because they have drunkard husbands. I invite you to come in the names of the fathers whose hearts are broken by drunkard children. I invite you to come in the name of so many children who are starving, naked and made desolate by their drunkard parents. I invite you to come in the name of your immortal souls, which are to be eternally damned if the giant destroyer, Alcohol, be not driven from our midst.”
The next morning, at eight o’clock, my church was crammed by the people. My first address was at half-past eight o’clock, the second at 10.30 A. M., the third at 2 P. M., and the fourth at five. The intervals between the addresses were filled by beautiful hymns selected for the occasion.
Many times during my discourse, the sobs and the cries of the people were such that I had to stop speaking, to mix my sobs and my tears with those of my people. The first day seventy-five men, from among the most desperate drunkards, enrolled themselves under the banner of Temperance. The second day I gave again four addresses, the effects of which were still more blessed in their result. Two hundred of my dear parishioners were enrolled in the grand army which was to fight against their implacable enemy.
But it would require the hand of an angel to write the history of the third day, at the end of which, in the midst of tears, sobs, and cries of joy, three hundred more of that noble people swore, in the presence of their God, never to touch, taste, nor handle the cursed drinks with which Satan inundates the earth with desolation, and fills hell with eternal cries of despair.
During these three days, more than two-thirds of my people had publicly taken the pledge of temperance, and had solemnly said, in the presence of God, at the feet of their altars, “For the love of Jesus Christ, and by the grace of God, I promise that I will never take any intoxicating drink, except as a medicine. I also pledge myself to do all in my power, by my words and example, to persuade others to make the same sacrifice.”
The majority of my people, among whom we counted the most degraded drunkards, were changed and reformed, not by me surely, but by the visible, direct work of the great and merciful God, who alone can change the heart of man.
As a great number of people from the surrounding parishes, and even from Quebec, had come to hear me the third day, through curiosity, the news of that marvellous work spread very quickly throughout the whole country. The press, both French and English, were unanimous in their praises and felicitations. But when the Protestants of Quebec were blessing God for that reform, the French Canadians, at the example of their priests, denounced me as a fool and heretic.
The second day of our revival, I had sent messages to four of the neighboring curates, respectfully requesting them to come and see what the Lord was doing, and help me to bless Him. But they refused. They answered my note with their contemptuous silence. One only, the Rev. Mr. Roy, curate of Charlesbourg, deigned to write me a few words, which I copy here:
Rev. Mr. Chiniquy, Curate of Beauport.
My dear Confrere:—Please forgive me if I cannot forget the respect I owe to myself, enough to go and see your fooleries.
Truly yours,
PIERRE ROY.
Charlesbourg, March 5th, 1839.
The indignation of the bishop knew no bounds. A few days after, he ordered me to go to his palace, and give an account of what he called my “strange conduct.”
When alone with me, he said: “Is it possible, Mr. Chiniquy, that you have so soon forgotten my prohibition not to establish that ridiculous temperance society in your parish? Had you compromised yourself alone by that Protestant comedy—for it is nothing but that—I would remain silent, in my pity for you. But you have compromised our holy religion by introducing a society whose origin is clearly heretical. Last evening, the venerable Grand Vicar Demars told me that you would sooner or later become a Protestant, and that this was your first step. Do you not see that the Protestants only praise you? Do you not blush to be praised only by heretics? Without suspecting it, you are just entering a road which leads to your ruin. You have publicly covered yourself with such ridicule that I fear your usefulness is at an end, not only in Beauport, but in all my diocese. I do not conceal it from you, my first thought, when, an eye-witness told me yesterday what you had done, was to interdict you. I have been prevented from taking that step only by the hope that you will undo what you have done. I hope that you yourself will dissolve that Anti-Catholic association, and promise to put an end to these novelties, which have too strong a smell of heresy to be tolerated by your bishop.”
I answered: “My lord, your lordship has not forgotten that it was absolutely against my own will that I was appointed curate of Beauport; and God knows that you have only to say a word, and without a murmur, I will give you my resignation, that you may put a better priest at the head of that people, which I consider, and which is really, to-day, the noblest and the most sober people of Canada. But I will put a condition to the resignation of my position. It is, that I will be allowed to publish before the world, that the Rev. Mr. Begin, my predecessor, has never been troubled by his bishop for having allowed his people, during twenty-three years, to swim in the mire of drunkenness; and that I have been disgraced by my bishop, and turned out from that same parish, for having been the instrument, by the mercy of God, in making them the most sober people of Canada.”
The poor bishop felt at once that he could not stand on the ground he had taken with me. He was a few minutes without knowing what to say. He saw also that his threats had no influence over me, and that I was not ready to undo what I had done.
After a painful silence of a minute or two, he said:
“Do you not see that the solemn promises you have extorted from those poor drunkards are rash and unwise; they will break them at the first opportunity. Their future state of degradation, after such an excitement, will be worse than the first.”
I answered: “I would partake of your fears if that change were my work; but as it is the Lord’s work, we have nothing to fear. The works of men are weak and of short duration, but the works of God are solid and permanent.
“About the prophecy of the venerable Mr. Demars, that I have taken my first step towards Protestantism, by turning a drunken into a sober people, I have only to say that if that prophecy be true, it would show that Protestantism is more apt than our holy religion to work for the glory of God and the good of the people. I hope that your lordship is not ready to accept that conclusion, and that you will not then trouble yourself with the premises. The venerable Grand Vicar, with many other priests, would do better to come and see what the Lord is doing in Beauport, than to slander me and turn false prophets against its curate and people. My only answer to the remarks of your lordship, that the Protestants alone praise me, when the Roman Catholic priests and people condemn me, proves only one thing, viz.: that Protestants, on this question, understand the Word of God and have more respect for it than we Roman Catholics. It would prove also that they understand the interests of humanity better than we do, and that they have more generosity than we have, to sacrifice their selfish propensities to the good of all. I take the liberty of saying to your lordship, that in this, as in many other things, it is high time that we should open our eyes to our false position. Instead of remaining at the lowest step of the ladder of one of the most Christian virtues, temperance, we must raise ourselves to the top, where Protestants are reaping so many precious fruits. Besides, would your lordship be kind enough to tell me why I am denounced and abused here, and by my fellow-priests and my bishop, for forming a temperance society in my parish, when Father Mathew, who wrote to me lately to encourage and direct me in that work, is publicly praised by his bishops and blessed by the Pope for covering Ireland with temperance societies?
“Is your lordship ready to prove to me that Samson was a heretic in the camp of Israel, when he fulfilled the promise made by his parents, that he would never drink any wine or beer; and John, the Baptist, was he not a heretic and a Protestant as I am, when, to obey the voice of God, he did what I do to-day, with my dear people of Beauport?”
At that very moment the sub-secretary entered to tell the bishop that a gentleman wanted to see him immediately on pressing business, and the bishop abruptly dismissed me, to my great comfort; and my impression was that he was as glad to get rid of me as I was to get rid of him.
With the exception of the secretary, Mr. Cazeault, all the priests I met that day and the next month, either gave me the cold shoulder or overwhelmed me with their sarcasms. One of them who had friends in Beauport, was bold enough to try to go through the whole parish to turn me into ridicule by saying that I was half crazy, and the best thing the people could do was to drink moderately to my health when they went to town.
But at the third house, he met a woman, who, after listening to the bad advice he was giving to her husband, said to him: “I do not know if our pastor is a fool in making people sober, but I know you are a messenger of the devil, when you advise my husband to drink again. You know that he was one of the most desperate drunkards of Beauport. You personally know also what blows I have received from him when he was drunk; how poor and miserable we were; how many children had to run on the streets, half naked, and beg in order not to starve with me! Now that my husband has taken the pledge of temperance, we have every comfort; my dear children are well fed and clothed, and I find myself as in a little paradise. If you do not go out of this immediately, I will turn you out with my broomstick.”
And she would have fulfilled her promise, had not the priest had the good sense to disappear at the double-quick.
The next four months after the foundation of the society in Beauport, my position when with the other priests was very painful and humiliating. I consequently avoided their company as much as possible. And as for my bishop, I took the resolution never to go and see him, except he should order me into his presence. But my merciful God indemnified me by the unspeakable joy I had in seeing the marvellous change wrought by Him among my dear people. Their fidelity in keeping the pledge was really wonderful, and soon became the object of the admiration of the whole city of Quebec and of the surrounding country. The change was so sudden, so complete and so permanent, that the scoffing bishops and priests, with their friends, had, at last, to blush and be silent.
The public aspect of the parish was soon changed, the houses were repaired, the debts paid, the children well clad. But what spoke most eloquently about the marvellous reform, was that the seven thriving saloons of Beauport were soon closed, and their owners forced to take to other occupations. Peace, happiness, abundance and industry, everywhere took the place of the riots, fighting, blasphemies and the squalid misery which prevailed before. The gratitude and respect of that noble people for their young curate knew no bounds; as my love and admiration for them cannot be told by human words.
However, though the great majority of that good people had taken the pledge, and kept it honorably, there was a small minority, composed of the few who never had been drunkards, who had not yet enrolled themselves under our blessed banners. Though they were glad of the reform, it was very difficult to persuade them to give up their social glass! I thought it was my duty to show them in a tangible way, what I had so often proved with my words only, that the drinking of the social glass of wine, or of beer, is an act of folly, if not a crime. I asked my kind and learned Doctor Douglas to analyze, before the people, the very wine and beer used by them, to show that it was nothing else but a disgusting and deadly poison. He granted my favor. During four days that noble philanthropist extracted the alcohol, which is not only in the most common, but in the most costly and renowned wines, beer, brandy and whiskey. He gave that alcohol to several cats and dogs, which died in a few minutes in the presence of the whole people.
These learned and most interesting experiments, coupled with his eloquent and scientific remarks, made a most profound impression. It was the corner-stone of the holy edifice which our merciful God built with his own hands in Beauport. The few recalcitrants joined with the rest of their dear friends to show to our dear Canada that the temperance societies are nothing else than drops of living water which comes from the fountains of eternal life, to reform and save the world.
Chapter XXXV
FOUNDATION OF TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES IN THE NEIGHBORING PARISHES—PROVIDENTIAL ARRIVAL OF MONSIGNOR DE FORBIN JANSON, BISHOP OF NANCY—HE PUBLICLY DEFENDS ME AGAINST THE BISHOP OF QUEBEC, AND FOREVER BREAKS THE OPPOSITION OF THE CLERGY.
The people of Beauport had scarcely been a year enrolled under the banners of temperance, when the seven thriving taverns of that parish were deserted and their owners forced to try some more honorable trade for a living. This fact, published by the whole press of Quebec, more than anything forced the opponents, especially among the clergy, to silence, without absolutely reconciling them to my views. However, it was becoming every day more and more evident to all that the good done in Beauport was incalculable, both in a material and moral point of view. Several of the best thinking people of the surrounding parishes began to say to one another: “Why should we not try to bring into our midst this temperance reformation which is doing so much good in Beauport?” The wives of drunkards would say: “Why does not our curate do here, what the curate of Beauport has done there?”
On a certain day, one of those unfortunate women, who had received, with a good education, a rich inheritance, which her husband had spent in dissipation, came to tell me that she had gone to her curate to ask him to establish a temperance society in his parish, as we had done in Beauport; but he had told her “to mind her own business.” She had then respectfully requested him to invite me to come and help to do for his parishioners what I had done for mine, but she had been sternly rebuked at the mention of my name. The poor woman was weeping, when she said: “Is it possible that our priests are so indifferent to our sufferings, and that they will let the demon of drunkenness torture us as long as we live, when God gives us such an easy and honorable way to destroy his power for ever?”
My heart was touched by the tears of that lady, and I said to her: “I know a way to put an end to the opposition of your curate, and force him to bring among you the reformation you so much desire; but it is a very delicate matter for me to mention to you. I must rely upon your sacred promise of secrecy, before opening my mind to you on that subject.”
“I take my God to witness,” she answered, “that I will never reveal your secret.” “Well, madame, if I can rely upon your discretion and secrecy, I will tell you an infallible way to force your priest to do what has been done here.”
“Oh! for God’s sake,” she said, “tell me what to do.”
I replied: “The first time you go to confession, say to your priest that you have a new sin to confess which is very difficult to reveal to him. He will press you more to confess it. You will then say:
“‘Father, I confess I have lost confidence in you.’ Being asked ‘Why?’ you will tell him: ‘Father, you know the bad treatment I have received from my drunken husband, as well as hundreds of other wives in your parish from theirs; you know the tears we have shed on the ruin of our children, who are destroyed by the bad example of their drunken fathers; you know the daily crimes and unspeakable abominations caused by the use of intoxicating drinks; you could dry our tears and make us happy wives and mothers, you could convert our husbands and save our children, by establishing the society of temperance here, as it is in Beauport, and you refuse to do it. How, then, can I believe you are a good priest, and that there is any charity and compassion in you for us?’
“Listen with a respectful silence to what he will tell you; accept his penance, and when he asks you if you regret that sin, answer him that you cannot regret it till he has taken the providential means which God offers him to convert the drunkards.
“Get as many other women whom you know are suffering as you do, as you can, to go and confess to him the same thing; and you will see that his obstinancy will melt as the snow before the rays of the sun in May.”
She was a very intelligent lady: She saw at once that she had in hand an irresistible power to force her priest out of his shameful and criminal indifference to the welfare of his people. A fortnight later she came to tell me that she had done what I had advised her, and that more than fifty other respectable women had confessed to their curate that they had lost confidence in him, on account of his lack of zeal and charity for his people.
My conjectures were correct. The poor priest was beside himself, when forced, every day, to hear from the very lips of his most respectable female parishioners, that they were losing confidence in him. He feared lest he should lose his fine parish near Quebec, and be sent to some of the backwoods of Canada.
Three weeks later, he was knocking at my door, where he had not been since the establishment of the temperance society. He was very pale, and looked anxious. I could see in his countenance that I owed the honor of this visit to his fair penitents. However, I was happy to see him. He was considered a good priest, and had been one of my best friends before the formation of the temperance society. I invited him to dine with me, and made him feel at home as much as possible, for I knew by his embarrassed manner that he had a very difficult proposition to make. I was not mistaken. He at last said:
“Mr. Chiniquy, we had, at first, great prejudices against your temperance society; but we see its blessed fruits in the great transformation of Beauport. Would you be kind enough to preach a retreat of temperance, during three days, to my people, as you have done here?”
I answered: “Yes, sir; with the greatest pleasure. But it is on condition that you will yourself be an example of the sacrifice, and the first to take the solemn pledge of temperance, in the presence of your people.”
“Certainly,” he answered; “for the pastor must be an example to his people.”
Three weeks later, his parish had nobly followed the example of Beauport, and the good curate had no words to express his joy. Without losing a day, he went to the two other curates of what is called “La Cote de Beaupre,” persuaded them to do what he had done, and six weeks after, all the saloons from Beauport to St. Joachim were closed; and it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to persuade any one in that whole region to drink a glass of any intoxicating drink.
Little by little, the country priests were thus giving up their prejudices, and were bravely rallying around our glorious banners of temperance. But my bishop, though less severe, was still very cold toward me. At last, the good providence of God forced him, through a great humiliation, to count our society among the greatest spiritual and temporal blessings of the age.
At the end of August, 1840, the public press informed us that the Count de Forbin Janson, Bishop de Nancy, in France, was just leaving New York for Montreal. That bishop, who was the cousin and minister to Charles the Tenth, had been sent into exile by the French people, after the king had lost his crown in the Revolution of 1830. Father Mathew had told me, in one of his letters, that this bishop had visited him, and blessed his work in Ireland, and had also persuaded the Pope to send him his apostolical benediction.
I saw, at once, the importance of gaining the approbation of this celebrated man, before he had been prejudiced by the bishop against our temperance societies. I asked and obtained leave of absence for a few days, and went to Montreal, which I reached just an hour after the French bishop. I went immediately to pay my homage to him, told him all about our temperance work, asking him, in the name of God, to throw bravely the weight of his great name and position in the scale in favor of our temperance societies. He promised he would, adding: “I am perfectly persuaded that drunkenness is not only the great and common sin of the people, but still more of the priests in America, as well as in Ireland. The social habit of drinking the detestable and poisonous wines, brandies and beer used on this continent, and in the northern parts of Europe, where the vine cannot grow, is so general and strong, that it is almost impossible to save the people from becoming drunkards, except through an association in which the elite of society will work together to change the old and pernicious habits of common life. I have seen Father Mathew, who is doing an incalculable good in Ireland; and, be sure of it, I shall do all in my power to strengthen your hands in that great and good work. But do not say to anybody that you have seen me.”
Some days later, the Bishop of Nancy was in Quebec, the guest of the Seminary, and a grand dinner was given in his honor, to which more than one hundred priests were invited, with the Archbishop of Quebec, his coadjutor, N. G. Turgeon, and the Bishop of Montreal, M. Q. R. Bourget.
As one of the youngest curates, I had taken the last seat, which was just opposite the four bishops, from whom I was separated only by the breadth of the table. When the rich and rare viands had been well disposed of, and the most delicate fruits had replaced them, bottles of the choicest wines were brought on the table in incredible numbers. Then the superior of the college, the Rev. Mr. Demars, knocked on the table to command silence, and rising on his feet, he said at the top of his voice: “Please, my lord bishops, and all of you, reverend gentlemen, let us drink to the health of my Lord Count de Forbin Janson, Primate of Lorraine and Bishop of Nancy.”
The bottles passing around were briskly emptied into the large glasses put before every one of the guests. But when the wine was handed to me, I passed it to my neighbor without taking a drop, and filled my glass with water. My hope was that nobody had paid any attention to what I had done; but I was mistaken. The eyes of my bishop, my Lord Signaie, were upon me. With a stern voice, he said: “Mr. Chiniquy, what are you doing there? Put wine in your glass, to drink with us the health of Mgr. de Nancy.”
These unexpected words fell upon me as a thunderbolt, and paralyzed me with terror. I felt as at the approach of the most terrible tempest I had ever experienced. My blood ran cold in my veins; I could not utter a word. For what could I say, there, without compromising myself forever. To openly resist my bishop, in the presence of such an august assembly, seemed impossible. But to obey him was also impossible; for I had promised my God and my country never to drink any wine. I thought, at first, that I could disarm my superior by my modesty and my humble silence. However, I felt that all eyes were upon me. A real chill of terror and unspeakable anxiety was running through my whole frame. My heart began to beat so violently that I could not breathe. I wished, then, I had followed my first impression, which was not to come to that dinner. I think I would have suffocated, had not a few tears rolled down from my eyes, and helped the circulation of my blood. The Rev. Mr. Lafrance, who was by me, nudged me, and said: “Do you not hear the order of my Lord Signaie? Why do you not answer, by doing what you are requested to do?” I still remained mute, just as if nobody had spoken to me. My eyes were cast down; I wished then I were dead. The silence of death, reigning around the tables, told me that every one was waiting for my answer; but my lips were sealed. After a minute of that silence, which seemed as long as a whole year, the bishop, with a loud and angry voice which filled the large room, repeated: “Why do you not put wine in your glass, and drink to the health of my Lord Forbin Janson, as the rest of us are doing?”
I felt I could not be silent any longer. “My lord,” I said, with a subdued and trembling voice, “I have put in my glass what I want to drink. I have promised my God and my country that I would never drink any more wine.”
The bishop, forgetting the respect he owed to himself and to those around him, answered me in the most insulting manner: “You are nothing but a fanatic, and you want to reform us.”
These words struck me as the shock of a galvanic battery, and transformed me into a new man. It seemed as if they had added ten feet to my stature and a thousand pounds to my weight. I forgot that I was the subject of that bishop, and remembered that I was a man, in the presence of another man. I raised my head and opened my eyes; as quick as lightning I rose to my feet, and addressing the Grand Vicar Demars, superior of the seminary, I said with calmness: “Sir, was it that I might be insulted at your table that you have invited me here? Is it not your duty to defend my honor when I am here, your guest? But, as you seem to forget what you owe to your guests, I will take my own defense against my unjust aggressor.” Then, turning towards the Bishop de Nancy, I said: “My Lord de Nancy, I appeal to your lordship from the unjust sentence of my own bishop. In the name of God, and of His Son, Jesus Christ, I request you to tell us, here, if a priest cannot, for his Saviour’s sake, and for the good of his fellow-men, as well as for his own self-denial, give up forever the use of wine and other intoxicating drinks, without being abused, slandered and insulted, as I am here, in your presence?”
It was evident that my words had made a deep impression on the whole company. A solemn silence followed for a few seconds, which was interrupted only by my bishop, who said to the Bishop de Nancy: “Yes, yes, my lord; give us your sentence.”
No words can give an idea of the excitement of every one in that multitude of priests, who, accustomed from their infancy, abjectly to submit to their bishop, were, for the first time, in the presence of such a hand-to-hand conflict between a powerless, humble, unprotected young curate and his all-powerful, proud and haughty archbishop.
The Bishop of Nancy, at first, refused to grant my request. He felt the difficulty of his position; but after Bishop Signaie had united his voice to mine, to press him to give his verdict, he rose and said:
“My Lord Archbishop of Quebec, and you, Mr. Chiniquy, please withdraw your request. Do not press me to give my views on such a new, but important subject. It is only a few days since I came in your midst. It will not do that I should so soon become your judge. The responsibility of a judgment in such a momentous matter is too great. I cannot accept it.”
But when the same pressing request was repeated by nine-tenths of that vast assembly of priests; and that the archbishop pressed him more and more to pronounce his sentence, he raised his eyes and hands to heaven, and made a silent but ardent prayer to God. His countenance took an air of dignity, I might say majesty, which gave him more the appearance of an old prophet than of a man of our day. Then, casting his eyes upon his audience, he remained a considerable time, meditating. All eyes were upon him, anxiously waiting for the sentence. There was an air of grandeur in him, at that moment, which seemed to tell us that the purest blood of the great kings of France was flowing in his veins. At last, he opened his lips, but it was again pressingly to request me to settle the difficulty with the archbishop among ourselves, and to discharge him of that responsibility. But we both refused again to grant him his request, and pressed him to give his judgment. All this time, I was standing, having publicly said that I would never sit again at that table, unless that insult was wiped away.
Then he said with unspeakable dignity: “My Lord of Quebec! Here, before us, is our young priest, Mr. Chiniquy, who, once on his knees, in the presence of God and his angels, for the love of Jesus Christ, the good of his own soul and the good of his country, has promised never to drink! We are the witnesses that he is faithful to his promise, though he has been pressed to break it by your lordship.
“And because he keeps his pledge with such heroism, your lordship has called him a fanatic! Now, I am requested by every one here, to pronounce my verdict on that painful occurrence. Here it is! Mr. Chiniquy drinks no wine! But, if I look through the past ages, when God himself was ruling his own people, through his prophets, I see Samson, who, by the special order of God, never drank wine or any other intoxicating drink! If from the Old Testament, I pass to the New, I see John the Baptist, the precursor of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who to obey the command of God, never drank any wine!! When I look at Mr. Chiniquy, and see Samson at his right hand to protect him; and John the Baptist at his left to bless him, I find his position so strong and impregnable, that I would not dare attack or condemn him!”
These words were pronounced in the most eloquent and dignified manner, and were listened to with a most respectful and breathless attention.
Bishop de Nancy, keeping his gravity, sat down, emptied his wine glass into a tumbler, filled it with water, and drank to my health.
The poor archbishop was so completely confounded and humiliated, that every one felt for him. The few minutes spent at the table, after this extraordinary act of justice, seemed oppressive to every one. Scarcely any one dared to look at his neighbor, or speak, except in a low and subdued tone, as when a great calamity has just occurred.
Nobody thought of drinking his wine; and the health of the Bishop de Nancy was left undrunk. But a good number of priests filled their glasses with water, and giving me a silent sign of approbation, drank to my health.
The society of temperance had been dragged by her enemies to the battle-field, to be destroyed; but she bravely fought, and gained the victory. Now, she was called to begin her triumphant march through our dear Canada.
XXXVI. THE GOD OF ROME EATEN BY A RAT
Has God given us ears to hear, eyes to see, and intelligence to understand? The Pope says, no! But the Son of God says, yes. One of the most severe rebukes of our Saviour to His disciples, was for their not paying sufficient attention to what their eyes had seen, their ears heard, and their intelligence perceived. “Perceive ye not yet, neither understand? Have ye your heart yet hardened? Having eyes, see ye not, having ears, hear ye not? and do not ye remember?”—(Mark viii: 17, 18.)
This solemn appeal of our Saviour to our common sense, is the most complete demolition of the whole fabric of Rome. The day that a man ceases to believe that God would give us our senses and our intelligence to ruin and deceive us, but that they were given to guide us, he is lost to the Church of Rome. The Pope knows it; hence the innumerable encyclicals, laws, and regulations by which the Roman Catholics are warned not to trust the testimony of their ears, eyes, or intelligence.
“Shut your eyes,” says the Pope to his priests and people; “I will keep mine opened, and I will see for you. Shut your ears, for it is most dangerous for you to hear what is said in the world. I will keep my ears opened, and will tell you what you must know. Remember that to trust your own intelligence, in the research of truth, and the knowledge of the Word of God, is sure perdition. If you want to know anything, come to me: I am the only sure infallible fountain of truth,” saith the pope.
And this stupendous imposture is accepted by the people and the priests of Rome with a mysterious facility, and retained with a most desolating tenacity.
It is to them what the iron ring is to the nose of the ox, when a rope is once tied to it. The poor animal loses its self-control. Its natural strength and energies will avail it nothing; it must go left or right, at the will of the one who holds the end of the rope.
Reader, please have no contempt for the unfortunate priests and people of Rome, but pity them, when you see them walking in the ways into which intelligent beings ought not to take a step. They cannot help it. The ring of the ox is at their nose, and the Pope holds the end of the rope. Had it not been for that ring, I would not have been long at the feet of the wafer god of the Pope. Let me tell you of one of the shining rays of truth, which were evidently sent by our merciful God, with a mighty power, to open my eyes. But I could not follow it; the iron ring was at my nose; and the Pope was holding the end of the rope.
This was after I had been put at the head of the magnificent parish of Beauport, in the spring of 1840. There was living at “La jeune Lorette,” an old retired priest, who was blind. He was born in France, where he had been condemned to death, under the Reign of Terror. Escaped from the guillotine, he had fled to Canada, where the bishop of Quebec had put him in the elevated post of Chaplain of the Ursuline Nunnery. He had a fine voice, was a good musician, and had some pretensions to the title of poet. Having composed a good number of church hymns, he had been called “Pere Cantique,” but his real name was “Pere Daule.” His faith and piety were of the most exalted character among the Roman Catholics; though these did not prevent him from being one of the most amiable and jovial men I ever saw. But his blue eyes, sweet as the eyes of the dove; his fine yellow hair, falling on his shoulders as a golden fleece; his white, rosy cheeks, and his constantly smiling lips, had been too much for the tender hearts of the good nuns. It was not a secret that “Pere Cantique,” when young, had made several interesting conquests in the monastery. There was no wonder at that. Indeed, how could that young and inexperienced butterfly escape damaging his golden wings, at the numberless burning lamps of the fair virgins? But the mantle of charity had been put on the wounds which the old warrior had received on that formidable battlefield, from which even the Davids, Samsons, Solomons, and many others, had escaped only after being mortally wounded.
To help the poor, blind priest, the curates around Quebec used to keep him by turn in their parsonages, and give him the care and marks of respect due to his old age. After the Rev. Mr. Roy, curate of Charlesbourg, had kept him five or six weeks, I had taken him to my parsonage. It was in the month of May—a month entirely consecrated to the worship of the Virgin Mary, to whom Father Daule was a most devoted priest. His zeal was really inexhaustible, when trying to prove to us how Mary was the surest foundation of the hope and salvation of sinners; how she was constantly appeasing the just wrath of her son Jesus, who, were it not for his love and respect to her would have, long since, crushed us down.
The Councils of Rome have forbidden their blind priests to say their mass; but on account of high piety, he had got from the Pope the privilege of celebrating the short mass of the Virgin, which he knew perfectly by heart. One morning, when the old priest was at the altar, saying his mass, and I was in the vestry, hearing the confessions of the people, the young servant boy came to me in haste, and said, “Father Daule calls you; please come quick.”
Fearing something wrong had happened to my old friend, I lost no time, and ran to him. I found him nervously tapping the altar with his two hands, as in an anxious search for some very precious thing. When very near to him, I said: “What do you want?” He answered with a shriek of distress: “The good god has disappeared from the altar. He is lost! (J’ai perdu le Bon Dieu. Il est disparu de dessus l’autel!”) Hoping that he was mistaken, and that he had only thrown away the good god, “Le Bon Dieu,” on the floor, by some accident, I looked on the altar, at his feet, everywhere I could suspect that the good god might have been moved away by some mistake of the hand. But the most minute search was of no avail; the good god could not be found. I really felt stunned. At first, remembering the thousand miracles I had read of the disappearance and marvellous changes of form of the wafer god, it came to my mind that we were in the presence of some great miracle; and that my eyes were to see some of these great marvels of which the books of the Church of Rome are filled. But I had soon to change my mind, when a thought flashed through my memory, which chilled the blood in my veins. The church of Beauport was inhabited by a multitude of the boldest and most insolent rats I have ever seen. Many times, when saying my mass, I had seen the ugly nose of several of them, who, undoubtedly attracted by the smell of the fresh wafer, wanted to make their breakfast with the body, blood, soul and divinity of my Christ. But, as I was constantly in motion, or praying with a loud voice, the rats had invariably been frightened and fled away into their secret quarters. I felt terror-stricken at the thought that the good god (Le Bon Dieu) had been taken away and eaten by the rats.
Father Daule so sincerely believed what all the priests of Rome are bound to believe, that he had the power to turn the wafer into God, that, after he had pronounced the words by which the great marvel was wrought, he used to pass from five to fifteen minutes in silent adoration. He was then as motionless as a marble statue, and his feelings were so strong that often torrents of tears used to flow from his eyes on his cheeks. Leaning my head toward the distressed old priest, I asked him: “Have you not remained, as you are used, a long time motionless, in adoring the good god, after the consecration?”
He quickly answered, “Yes, but what has this to do with the loss of the good god?”
I replied in a low voice, but with a real accent of distress and awe, “Some rats have dragged and eaten the good god!”
“What do you say?” replied Father Daule. “The good god carried away and eaten by rats?”
“Yes,” I replied, “I have not the least doubt about it.”
“My God! my God! what a dreadful calamity upon me!” rejoined the old man; and raising his hands and his eyes to heaven, he cried out again, “My God! my God! Why have you not taken away my life before such a misfortune could fall upon me!” He could not speak any longer; his voice was choked by his sobs.
At first, I did not know what to say; a thousand thoughts some very grave, some exceedingly ludicrous, crossed my mind more rapidly than I can say them. I stood there, as nailed to the floor, by the old priest, who was weeping as a child, till he asked me, with a voice broken by his sobs, “What must I do now?” I answered him: “The Church has foreseen occurrences of that kind, and provided for them the remedy. The only thing you have to do is to get a new wafer, consecrate it, and continue your mass as if nothing strange had occurred. I will go and get you, just now, new bread.” I went, without losing a moment, to the vestry, got and brought a new wafer, which he consecrated and turned into a new god, and finished his mass, as I had told him. After it was over, I took the disconsolate old priest by the hand to my parsonage for breakfast. But all along the way he rent the air with his cries of distress. He would hardly taste anything, for his soul was drowned in a sea of trouble. I vainly tried to calm his feelings, by telling him that it was no fault of his; that this strange and sad occurrence was not the first of that kind; that it had been calmly foreseen by the Church, which had told us what to do in these circumstances; that there was no neglect, no fault, no offence against God or man on his part.
But as he would not pay the least attention to what I said, I felt the only thing I had to do was to remain silent and respect his grief, by letting him unburden his heart by his lamentations and tears.
I had hoped that his good common sense would help him to overcome his feelings, but I was mistaken; his lamentations were as long as those of Jeremiah, and the expressions of his grief as bitter.
At last, I lost patience and said: “My dear Father Daule, allow me to tell you respectfully that it is quite time to stop these lamentations and tears. Our great and just God cannot like such an excess of sorrow and regret about a thing which was only, and entirely, under the control of His power and eternal wisdom.”
“What do you say there?” replied the old priest, with a vivacity which resembled anger.
“I say that, as it was not in your power to foresee or to avoid that occurrence, you have not the least reason to act and speak as you do. Let us keep our regrets and our tears for our sins; we cannot shed too many tears on them. But there is no sin here, and there must be some reasonable limit to our sorrow. If anybody had to weep and regret without measure what has happened, it would be Christ. For He alone could foresee that event, and he alone could prevent it. Had it been His will to oppose this sad and mysterious act, it was in His, not in our power to prevent it. He alone has suffered from it, because it was His will to suffer it.”
“Mr. Chiniquy,” he replied, “you are quite a young man, and I see you have the want of attention and experience which are often seen among young priests. You do not pay a sufficient attention to the awful calamity which has just occurred in your church. If you had more faith and piety you would weep with me instead of laughing at my grief. How can you speak so lightly of a thing which makes the angels of God weep? Our dear Saviour dragged and eaten by rats! Oh! great God! does not this surpass the humiliation and horrors of Calvary?”
“My dear Father Daule,” I replied, “allow me respectfully to tell you that I understand, as well as you do, the nature of the deplorable event of this morning. I would have given my blood to prevent it. But let us look at that fact in its proper light. It is not a moral action for us; it did not depend on our will more than the spots of the sun. The only one who is accountable for that fact is our God! For, again, I say, that He was the only one who could foresee and prevent it. And, to give you plainly my own mind, I tell you here that if I were God Almighty, and a miserable rat would come to eat me, I would strike him dead before he could touch me.”
There is no need of confessing it here; every one who reads these pages, and pays attention to this conversation, will understand that my former so robust faith in my priestly power of changing the wafer into my God had melted away and evaporated from my mind, if not entirely, at least to a great extent.
Great and new lights had flashed through my soul in that hour; evidently my God wanted to open my eyes to the awful absurdities and impieties of a religion whose God could be dragged and eaten by rats. Had I been faithful to the saving lights which were in me then, I was saved in that very hour; and before the end of that day I would have broken the shameful chains by which the Pope had tied my neck to his idol of bread. In that hour it seemed to me evident that the dogma of transubstantiation was a sic monstrous imposture, and my priesthood an insult to God and man.
My intelligence said to me with a thundering voice: “Do not remain any longer the priest of a God whom you make every day, and whom the rats can eat.”
Though blind, Father Daule understood very well by the stern accents of my voice, that my faith in the god whom he had created that morning, and whom the rats had eaten, had been seriously modified, if not entirely crumbled down. He remained silent for some time, after which he invited me to sit by him; and he spoke to me with a pathos and an authority which my youth and his old age alone could justify. He gave me the most awful rebuke I ever had; he opened on my poor wavering intelligence, soul and heart, all the cataracts of heaven. He overwhelmed me with a deluge of Holy Fathers, Councils and infallible Popes, who had believed and preached before the whole world, in all ages, the dogma of transubstantiation.
If I had paid attention to the voice of my intelligence, and accepted the lights which my merciful God was giving me, I could easily have smashed the arguments of the old priest of Rome. But what has the intelligence to do in the Church of Rome? What could my intelligence say? I was forbidden to hear it. What was the weight of my poor, isolated intelligence, when put in the balance against so many learned, holy infallible intelligences?
Alas! I was not aware, then, that the weight of the intelligence of God, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost was on my side; and that, weighted against the intelligence of the Popes, they were greater than all the words against a grain of sand.
One hour after, shedding tears of regret, I was at the feet of Father Daule, in the confessional box, confessing the great sin I had committed by doubting, for a moment, of the power of the priests to change a wafer into God.
The old priest, whose voice had been like a lion’s voice, when speaking to the unbelieving curate of Beauport, had become sweet as the voice of a lamb when he had me at his feet, confessing my unbelief. He gave me my pardon. For my penance, he forbade me ever to say a word on the sad end of the god he had created that morning; for, said he: “This would destroy the faith of the most sincere Roman Catholics.” For the other part of the penance, I had to go on my knees every day, during nine days, before the fourteen images of the way of the cross, and say a penitential psalm before every picture, which I did. But the sixth day the skin of my knees was pierced, and the blood was flowing freely. I suffered real torture every time I kneeled down, and at every step I made. But it seemed to me that these terrible tortures were nothing compared to my great iniquity!
I had refused, for a moment, to believe that a man can create his God with a wafer! and I had thought that a church which adores a god eaten by rats must be an idolatrous church!
Chapter XXXVII
VISIT OF A PROTESTANT STRANGER—HE THROWS AN ARROW INTO MY PRIESTLY SOUL NEVER TO BE TAKEN OUT.
A few days before the arrival of Bishop de Forbin Janson, I was alone in my study, considering my false position toward my ecclesiastical superiors, on account of my establishing the temperance society against their formal protest. My heart was sad. My partial success had not blinded me to the reality of my deplorable isolation from the great mass of the clergy. With very few exceptions, they were speaking of me as a dangerous man. They had even given me the nickname of “Le reformateur au petit pied” (small-sized reformer), and were losing no opportunity of showing me their supreme contempt and indignation, for what they called my obstinacy.
In that sad hour, there were many clouds around my horizon, and my mind was filled with anxiety; when, suddenly, a stranger knocked at my door. He was a good-sized man, his smiling lips and honest face were beaming with the utmost kindness. His large and noble forehead told me, at once, that my visitor was a man of superior intellect. His whole mien was that of a true gentleman.
He pressed my hand with the cordiality of an old friend, and giving me his name, he told me at once the object of his visit, in these words.
“I do not come here only in my name; but it is in the name of many, if not of all the English-speaking people of Quebec and Canada. I want to tell you our admiration for the great reform you have accomplished in Beauport. We know the stern opposition of your superiors and fellow-priests to your efforts, and we admire you more for that.
“Go on, sir, you have on your side the great God of heaven, who has said to us all: ‘Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last, it biteth like a serpent, it stingeth like an adder.’
“Take courage, sir,” he added; “you have, on your side, the Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ himself, who has inspired his Apostle Paul to say: ‘I will not drink any wine if it can be a cause of sin to my neighbor.’ Fear not man, sir, when God the Father, and His son, Jesus Christ, are on your side. If you find any opposition from some quarter, and if deluded men turn you into ridicule when you are doing such a Christian work, bless the Lord. For Jesus Christ has said: ‘Blessed are they who do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you, falsely, for my sake.’
“I come also to tell you, sir, that if there are men who oppose you, there are many more who are praying for you day and night, asking our Heavenly Father to pour upon you His most abundant blessings.
“Intoxicating drinks are the curse of this young country. It is the most deadly foe of every father and mother, the most implacable enemy of every child in Canada. It is the ruin of our rich families, as well as the destruction of the poor.
“The use of intoxicating drinks, under any form or pretext is an act of supreme folly; for alcohol kills the body and damns the soul of its blind victim.
“You have, for the first time, raised the glorious banners of temperance among the French Canadian people; though you are alone, to-day, to lift it up, be not discouraged; for, before long, you will see your intelligent countrymen rallying around it to help you to fight and conquer.
“No doubt the seed you sow to-day is often watered with your tears; but before long you will reap the richest crop, and your heart will be filled with joy when your grateful country will bless your name.”
After a few other sentences of the same elevated sentiments, he hardly gave me time enough to express my feelings of gratitude, and said: “I know you are very busy, I do not want to trespass upon your time. Good-bye, sir; may the Lord bless you, and be your keeper in all your ways.”
He pressed my hand, and soon disappeared. I would try, in vain, to express what I felt when alone with my God, after that strange and providential visit. My first thought was to fall on my knees and thank that merciful God for having sent me such a messenger to cheer me in one of the darkest hours of my life; for every word from his lips had fallen on my wounded soul as the oil of the Good Samaritan on the bleeding wounds of the traveler to Jericho. There had been such an elevation of thought, such a ring of true, simple but sublime faith and piety; such love of man and fear of God in all that he had said. It was the first time I had heard words so conformable to my personal views and profound convictions on that subject. That stranger, whose visit had passed as quickly as the visit of an angel from God, had filled my heart with such joy and surprise at the unexpected news that all the English-speaking people of Canada were praying for me!
However, I did not fall on my knees to thank God; for my sentiments of gratitude to God were suddenly chilled by the unspeakable humiliation I felt when I considered that that stranger was a Protestant!
The comparison I was forced to make between the noble sentiments, the high philosophy, the Christian principles of that Protestant layman with the low expressions of contempt, the absolute want of generous and Christian thoughts of my bishop and my fellow-priests when they were turning into ridicule that temperance society which God was so visibly presenting to us as the best, if not the only way, to save the thousands of drunkards who were perishing around us, paralyzed my lips, bewildered my mind, and made it impossible for me to utter a word of prayer. My first sentiments of joy and of gratitude to God soon gave way to sentiments of unspeakable shame and distress.
I was forced to acknowledge that these Protestants, whom my Church had taught me, through all her councils, to anathematize and curse as the damned slaves and followers of Satan, were, in their principles of morality, higher above us than the heavens are above the earth! I had to confess to myself that those heretics, whom my Church had taught me to consider as rebels against Christ and His Church, knew the laws of God and followed them much more closely than ourselves. They had raised themselves to the highest degree of Christian temperance, when my bishops, with their priests, were swimming in the deadly waters of drunkenness!
A voice seemed crying to me: “Where is the superiority of holiness of your proud Church of Rome over those so-called heretics, who follow more closely the counsels and precepts of the gospel of Christ?”
I tried to stifle that voice, but I could not. Louder and louder it was heard asking me: “Who is nearer God—the bishop, who so obstinately opposes a reform which is so evidently according to the Divine Word, or those earnest followers of the gospel, who make the sacrifice of their old and most cherished usages with such pleasure, when they see it is for the good of their fellow-men and the glory of God?”
I wished then to be a hundred feet below the ground, in order not to hear those questions answered within my soul. But there was no help; I had to hear them, and to blush at the reality before my eyes.
Pride! yes, diabolical pride! is the vice, par excellence, of every priest of Rome. Just as he is taught to believe and say that his church is far above every other church, so he is taught to believe and say that, as a priest, he is above all the kings, emperors, governors and presidents of this world. That pride is the daily bread of the pope, the bishop, the priests, and even the lowest layman in the Church of Rome.
It is also the great secret of their power and strength. It is this diabolical pride which nerves them with an iron will, to bring down everything to their feet; subject every human being to their will, and tie every neck to the wheels of their chariot. It is this fearful pride which so often gives them that stoical patience and indomitable courage in the midst of the most cruel pain, or in the face of the most appalling death, which so many deluded Protestants take for Christian courage and heroism. The priest of Rome believes that he is called by God Almighty to rule, subdue and govern the world. With all those prerogatives that he fancies granted him by heaven, he builds up a high pyramid, on the top of which he seats himself, and from that elevation looks down with the utmost contempt on the rest of the world.
If anyone suspects that I exaggerate in thus speaking of the pride of the priest, let him read the following haughty words which Cardinal Manning puts on the lips of the pope in one of his lectures:
“I acknowledge no civil power; I am the subject of no prince. I am more than this. I claim to be the supreme judge and director of the conscience of men: of the peasant who tills his field and of the prince who sits upon the throne; of the household that lives in the shade of privacy, and the legislator that makes laws for the kingdom. I am the sole, last, supreme judge of what is right or wrong.”
Is it not evident that the Holy Ghost speaks of this pride of the priests and of the pope—the high priest of Rome—when he says: “That man of sin, that son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he, as God, sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.”
That caste pride which was in me, though I did not see it then, as it is in every priest of Rome, though he does not suspect it, had received a rude check, indeed, from that Protestant visitor. Yes, I must confess it, he had inflicted a deadly wound on my priestly pride; he had thrown a barbed arrow into my priestly soul which I tried many times, but always in vain, to take away. The more I attempted to get rid of this arrow, the deeper it went through my very bones and marrow. That strange visitor, who caused me to pass so many hours and days of humiliation, when forcing me to blush at the inferiority of the Christian principles of my Church compared with those of the Protestants, is well known in Canada, the United States and Great Britain, as the founder and first editor of two of the best religious papers of America, the Montreal Witness and the New York Witness. His name is John Dougall.
As he is still living, I am happy to have this opportunity of thanking and blessing him again for the visit he paid to the young curate of Beauport forty-five years ago.
I was not aware then that the wounds inflicted by that unknown but friendly hand was one of the great favors bestowed upon me by my merciful God; but I understand it now. Many rays of light have since come from the wounds which my priestly pride received that day. Those rays of light helped much to expel the darkness which surrounded me, by leading me to see, in spite of myself, that the vaunted holiness of the Church of Rome is a fraud.
Chapter XXXVIII
ERECTION OF THE COLUMN OF TEMPERANCE—SCHOOL BUILDINGS—ADDRESSES—A NOBLE AND TOUCHING ACT OF THE PEOPLE OF BEAUPORT.
The battle fought and gained at the grand dinner of the Quebec Seminary by the society of temperance had been decisive.
The triumph was as complete as it was glorious. Hereafter her march to the conquest of Canada was to be a triumph. Her blessed banners were soon to be planted over all the cities, towns and villages of my dear country.
To commemorate the expression of their joy and gratitude to God to the remotest generations, the people of Beauport erected the beautiful Column of Temperance, which is still seen halfway between Quebec and the Montmorency Falls. The Bishop de Nancy, my Lord Forbin Janson, blessed that first monument of temperance, September 7th, 1841, in the midst of an immense multitude of people.
The parishes of St. Peter, St. John, St. Famille (Orleans Island), with St. Michel were the first after Lange Gardien, Chateau Richer, St. Anne and St. Joachin, to request me to preach on temperance.
Soon after, the whole population of St. Roch, Quebec, took the pledge with a wonderful unanimity, and kept it long with marvellous fidelity. In order to show to the whole country their feelings of gratitude, they presented me with a fine picture of the Column of Temperance and a complimentary address, written and delivered by one of the most promising young men of Quebec, Mr. John Cauchon, who was raised some years later to the dignity of a Cabinet Minister, and who has been the worthy lieutenant-governor of Manitoba.
That address was soon followed by another from the citizens of Quebec and Beauport, presented along with my portrait, by Mr. Joseph Parent, then editor of the Canadien, and afterwards Provincial Secretary of Canada.
What a strange being man is! How fickle are his judgments! In 1842, they had no words sufficiently flattering to praise the very man in the face of whom they were spitting in 1838, for doing the very same thing! Was I better for establishing the society of temperance in 1842 than I was in establishing it in 1838? No! And was I worse when, in 1838, bishops, priests and people were abusing, slandering and giving me bad names for raising the banners of temperance over my country, than I was in continuing to lift it up in 1842? No?
The sudden and complete change of the judgment of men in such a short period of time had the good and providential effect of filling my mind with the most supreme indifference, not to say contempt, for what men thought or said of me.
Yea! this sudden passage from condemnation to that of praise, when I was doing the very same work, had the good effect to cure me of that natural pride which one is apt to feel when publicly applauded by men.
It is to that knowledge, acquired when young, that I owe the preservation of my dignity as man and priest, when all my bishops and their priests were arrayed against me at the dining table of the Seminary of Quebec. It is that knowledge, also, that taught me not to forget that I was nothing but a worm of the dust and an unprofitable servant of God, when the same men overwhelmed me with their unmerited praises.
Let not my readers think, however, that I was absolutely indifferent to this change of public feeling; for no words can tell the joy I felt at the assurance which these public manifestations afforded me that the cause of temperance was to triumph everywhere in my country.
Let me here tell a fact too honorable to the people of Beauport to be omitted. As soon as the demon of intemperance was driven from my parish, I felt that my first duty was to give my attention to education, which had been so shamefully neglected by my predecessors that there was not a single school in the parish worthy of that name. I proposed my plan to the people, asked their co-operation and set to work without delay.
I began by erecting the fine stone school house near the church, on the site of the old parsonage. The old walls were pulled down, and on the old foundation a good structure was soon erected with the free collections raised in the village. But the work was hardly half finished when I found myself without a cent to carry it on. I saw at once that, having no idea of the value of education, the people would murmur at my asking any more money. I therefore sold my horse, a fine animal given me by a rich uncle, and with the money finished the building.
My people felt humiliated and pained at seeing their pastor obliged to walk when going to Quebec or visiting the sick. They said to each other; “Is it not a burning shame for us to have forced our young curate to sell his fine horse to build our school houses, when it would have been so easy to do that work ourselves? Let us repair our faults.”
On my return from establishing the society of temperance in St. John, two weeks later, my servant man said to me:
“Please, Mr. le Cure, come to the stable and see a very curious thing.”
“What curious thing can there be?” I answered.
“Well, sir, please come and you will see.”
What was both my surprise and pleasure to find one of the most splendid Canadian horses there, as mine! For my servant said to me: “During your absence the people have raised five hundred dollars and bought this fine horse for you. They say they do not want any longer to see their curate walking in the mud. When they drove the horse here, that I might present him to you as a surprise on your arrival, I heard them saying that, with the temperance society, you have saved them more than five hundred dollars every week in money, time and health, and that it was only an act of justice to give you the savings of a week.”
The only way of expressing my gratitude to my noble people was to redouble my exertions in securing the benefits of a good education to their children. I soon proposed to the people to build another school house two miles distant from the first.
But I was not long without seeing that this new enterprise was to be still more uphill work than the first one among the people, of whom hardly one in fifty could sign his name.
“Have not our fathers done well without those costly schools?” said many. “What is the use of spending so much money for a thing that does not add a day to our existence, nor an atom to our comfort?”
I soon felt confronted by such a deadly indifference, not to say opposition, on the part of my best farmers, that I feared for a few days lest I had really gone too far. The last cent of my own revenues was not only given, but a little personal debt created to meet the payments, and a round sum of $500 had to be found to finish the work. I visited the richest man of Beauport to ask him to come to my rescue. Forty years before he had come to Beauport barefooted, without a cent, to work. He had employed his first earned dollars in purchasing some rum, with which he had doubled his money in two hours; and had continued to double his money, at that rate, in the same way, till he was worth nearly $200,000.
He had then stopped selling rum, to invest his money in city properties. He answered me: “My dear curate, I would have no objections to give you the $500 you want, if I had not met the Grand Vicar Demars yesterday, who warned me, as an old friend, against what he calls your dangerous and exaggerated views in reference to the education of the people. He advised me, for your own good, and the good of the people, to do all in my power to induce you to desist from your plan of covering our parishes with schools.”
“Will you allow me,” I answered, “to mention our conversation to Mr. Demars, and tell him what you have just said about his advising you to oppose me in my efforts to promote the interests of education?”
“Yes, sir, by all means,” answered Mr. Des Roussell. “I allow you to repeat to the venerable superior of the Seminary of Quebec what he said to me yesterday; it was not a secret, for there were several other farmers of Beauport to whom he said the very same thing. If you ignore that the priests of Quebec are opposed to your plans of educating our children you must be the only one who does not know it, for it is a public fact. Your difficulties in raising the funds you want come only from the opposition of the rest of the clergy to you in this matter; we have plenty of money in Beauport to-day, and we would feel happy to help you. But you understand that our good-will is somewhat cooled by the opposition of men whom we are accustomed to respect.”
I replied: “Do you not remember, my dear Mr. Des Roussell, that those very same priests opposed me in the same way in my very first efforts to establish the temperance society in your midst?”
“Yes, sir,” he answered with a smile, “we remember it well, but you have converted them to your views now.”
“Well, my dear sir, I hope we shall convert them also in this question of education.”
The very next morning, I was knocking at the door of the Rev. Grand Vicar Demars, after I had tied my splendid horse in the courtyard of the Seminary of Quebec. I was received with the utmost marks of courtesy. Without losing any time, I repeated to the old superior what Mr. Des Roussell had told me of his opposition to my educational plans, and respectfully asked him if it were true.
The poor Grand Vicar seemed as if thunder-struck by my abrupt, though polite question. He tried, at first, to explain what he had said, by taking a long circuit, but I mercilessly brought him to the point at issue, and forced him to say, “Yes, I said it.”
I then rejoined and said: “Mr. Grand Vicar, I am only a child before you, when comparing my age with yours; however, I have the honor to be the curate of Beauport. It is in that capacity that I respectfully ask you by what right you oppose my plans for educating our children?”
“I hope, Mr. Chiniquy,” he answered, “that you do not mean to say that I am the enemy of education; for I would answer you that this is the first house of education on this continent, and that I was at its head before you were born. I hope that I have the right to believe and say that the old Superior of the Seminary of Quebec understands as well as the young curate of Beauport the advantage of a good education. But I will repeat to you what I said to Mr. Des Roussell, that it is a great mistake to introduce such a general system of education as you want to do in Beauport. Let every parish have its well educated notary, doctor, merchants, and a few others to do the public business; that is enough. Our parishes of Canada are models of peace and harmony under the direction of their good curates, but they will become unmanageable the very day your system of education spreads abroad; for then all the bad propensities of the heart will be developed with an irresistible force. Besides, you know that since the conquest of Canada by Protestant England, the Protestants are waiting for their opportunity to spread the Bible among our people. The only barrier we can oppose to that danger is to have in the future, as in the past, only a very limited number of our people who can read or write. For as soon as the common people are able to read, they will, like Adam and Eve, taste the forbidden fruit; they will read the Bible, turn Protestant, and be lost for time and eternity.”
In my answer, among other things, I said: “Go into the country, look at the farm which is well cultivated, ploughed with attention and skill, richly manured, and sown with good seed, is it not infinitely more pleasant and beautiful to live on such a farm than on one which is neglected, unskilfully managed and covered with noxious weeds? Well, the difference between a well-educated and an uneducated people is still greater in my mind.
“I know that the priests of Canada, in general, have your views, and it is for that reason that the parish of Beauport, with its immense revenues, has been left without a school worthy the name, from its foundation till my going there. But my views are absolutely different; and as for your fear of the Bible, I confess we are antipodes to each other. I consider that one of the greatest blessings God has bestowed upon me, is that I have read the Bible when I was on my mother’s knees. I do not even conceal from you that one of my objects in giving a good education to every boy and girl of Beauport, is to put the gospel of Christ in their hands as soon as they are able to read it.”
At the end of our conversation, which was very excited on both sides, though kept in the bounds of politeness during nearly two hours, I said: “Mr. Grand Vicar, I did not come here to convert you to my views—this would have been impertinence on my part; nor can you convert me to yours, if you are trying it, for you know I have the bad reputation of being a hard case. I came to ask you, as a favor, to let me work according to my conscience in a parish which is mine and not yours. Do not interfere any more in my affairs between me and my parishioners than you would like me to interfere in the management of your seminary. As you would not like me to criticize you before your pupils and turn you into ridicule, please cease adding to my difficulties among my people, by continuing in the future what you have done in the past.
“You know, Mr. Grand Vicar, that I have always respected you as my father; you have many times been my adviser, my confessor and my friend; I hope you will grant me the favor I ask from you in the name of our common Saviour. It is for the spiritual and temporal good of the people and pastor of Beauport that I make this prayer.”
The old priest was a kind-hearted man. These last words melted his heart. He promised what I wanted, and we parted from each other on better terms than I had expected at first.
When crossing the courtyard of the seminary, I saw the Archbishop Signaie, who, coming from taking a ride, had stopped to look at my horse and admire it. When near him, I said: “My lord, this is a bishop’s horse, and ought to be in your hands.”
“It is what I was saying to my secretary,” replied the bishop. “How long is it since you got it?”
“Only a few days ago, my lord.”
“Have you any intention of selling it?”
“I would, if it would please my bishop,” I replied.
“What is the price?” asked the bishop.
“Those who gave it to me paid $500 for it,” I replied.
“Oh! oh! that is too dear,” rejoined the bishop; “with five hundred dollars we can get five good horses. Two hundred would be enough.”
“Your lordship is joking. Were I as rich as I am poor, one thousand dollars would not take that noble animal from my hands, except to have it put in the carosse of my bishop.”
“Go and make a check for two hundred dollars to the order of Mr. Chiniquy,” said the bishop to his sub-secretary, Mr. Belisle.
When the secretary had gone to make the check, the bishop being alone with me, took from his portfeuille three bank bills of one hundred dollars each, and put them into my hands, saying: “This will make up your $500, when my secretary gives you the check. But please say nothing to anybody, not even to my secretary. I do not like to have my private affairs talked of around the corners of the streets. That horse is the most splendid I ever saw, and I am much obliged to you for having sold it to me.”
I was also very glad to have $500 in hand. For with $300 I could finish my school house, and there was $200 more to begin another, three miles distant.
Just two weeks later, when I was dressing myself at sunrise, my servant came to my room and said: “There are twenty men on horseback who want to speak to you.”
“Twenty men on horseback who want to speak to me!” I answered. “Are you dreaming?”
“I do not dream,” answered my young man; “there they are at the door, on horseback, waiting for you.”
I was soon dressed and in the presence of twenty of my best farmers, on horseback, who had formed themselves in a half-circle to receive me.
“What do you want, my friends?” I asked them.
One of them, who had studied a few years in the Seminary of Quebec, answered:
“Dear pastor, we come in the name of the whole people of Beauport to ask your pardon for having saddened your heart by not coming as we ought to your help in the superhuman efforts you make to give good schools to our children. This is the result of our ignorance. Having never gone to school ourselves, the greater part of us have never known the value of education. But the heroic sacrifices you have made lately have opened our eyes. They ought to have been opened at the sale of your first horse. But we were in need of another lesson to understand our meanness. However, the selling of the second horse has done more than anything else to awaken us from our shameful lethargy. The fear of receiving a new rebuke from us, if you made another appeal to our generosity, has forced you to make that new sacrifice. The first news came to us as a thunderbolt. But there is always some light in a thunderbolt. Through that light we have seen our profound degradation, in shutting our ears to your earnest and paternal appeals in favor of our own dear children. Be sure, dear pastor, that we are ashamed of our conduct. From this day, not only our hearts but our purses are yours, in all you want to do to secure a good education for our families. However, our principal object in coming here to-day is not to say vain words, but to do an act of reparation and justice. Our first thought, when we heard that you had sold the horse we had given you, was to present you with another. We have been prevented from doing this by the certainty that you would sell it again, either to help some poor people or to build another school house. As we cannot bear to see our pastor walking in the mud when going to the city or visiting us, we have determined to put another horse into your hands, but in such a way that you will not have the right to sell it. We ask you then, as a favor, to select the best horse here among these twenty which are before you, and to keep it as long as you remain in our midst, which we hope will be very long. It will be returned to its present possessor if you leave us; and be sure, dear pastor, that the one of us who leaves his horse in your hands will be the most happy and proudest of all.”
When speaking thus, that noble-hearted man had several times been unable to conceal the tears which were rolling down his cheeks, and more than once his trembling voice had been choked by his emotion.
I tried in vain at first to speak. My feelings of gratitude and admiration could be expressed only with my tears. It took some time before I could utter a single word. At last I said: “My dear friends, this is too much for your poor pastor. I feel overwhelmed by this grand act of kindness. I do not say that I thank you—the word thank is too small, too short and insignificant to tell you what your poor unworthy pastor feels at what his eyes see and his ears hear just now. The great and merciful God, who has put those sentiments into your hearts, alone can repay you for the joy with which you fill my soul. I would hurt your feelings, I know, by not accepting your offering. I accept it. But to punish your speaker, Mr. Parent, for his complimentary address, I will take his horse for the time I am curate of Beauport, which I hope will be till I die.” And I laid my hand on the bridle of the splendid animal.
There was then a struggle which I had not expected. Every one of the nineteen whom I left with their horses began to cry: “Oh! do not take that horse; it is not worth a penny; mine is much stronger,” said one. “Mine is much faster,” cried out another. “Mine is a safe rider,” said a third. Every one wanted me to take his horse, and tried to persuade me that it was the best of all; they really felt sorry that they were not able to change my mind.
Has any one ever felt more happy than I was in the midst of these generous friends?
The memory of that happy hour will never pass away from my mind.
Chapter XXXIX
SENT TO SUCCEED REV. MR. VARIN, CURATE OF KAMOURASKA—STERN OPPOSITION OF THAT CURATE AND THE SURROUNDING PRIEST AND PEOPLE—HOURS OF DESOLATION IN KAMOURASKA—THE GOOD MASTER ALLAYS THE TEMPEST, AND BIDS THE WAVES BE STILL.
On the morning of the 25th of August, 1842, we blessed and opened the seventh school of Beauport. From that day all the children were to receive as good an education as could be given in any country place of Canada. Those schools had been raised on the ruins of the seven taverns which had so long spread ruin, shame, desolation and death over that splendid parish. My heart was filled with an unspeakable joy at the sight of the marvellous things which, by the hand of God, had been wrought in such a short time.
At about two P. M. of that never-to-be-forgotten day, after I had said my vespers, and was alone, pacing the alleys of my garden, under the shade of the old maple trees bordering the northern part of that beautiful spot, I was reviewing the struggles and the victories of these last four years. It seemed that everything around me—not only the giant trees which were protecting me from the burning sun, but even the humblest grasses and flowers of my garden—had a voice to tell me, “Bless the Lord for His mercies.”
At my feet the majestic St. Lawrence was rolling its deep waters; beyond, the old capital of Canada, Quebec, with its massive citadel, its proud towers, its bristling cannons, its numerous houses and steeples, with their tin roofs reflecting the light of the sun in myriads of rays, formed such a spectacle of fairy beauty as no pen can describe. The fresh breeze from the river, mingled with the perfume of the thousand flowers of my parterre, bathed me in an atmosphere of fragrance. Never yet had I enjoyed life as at that hour. All the sanguine desires of my heart and the holy aspirations of my soul had been more than realized. Peace, harmony, industry, abundance, happiness, religion and education had come on the heels of temperance, to gladden and cheer the families which God had entrusted to me. The former hard feelings of my ecclesiastical superiors had been changed into sentiments and acts of kindness, much above my merits. With the most sincere feelings of gratitude to God, I said with the old prophet, “Bless the Lord, O my soul.”
By the great mercy of God, that parish of Beauport, which at first had appeared to me as a bottomless abyss, in which I was to perish, had been changed for me into an earthly paradise. There was only one desire in my heart. It was that I never should be removed from it. Like Peter on Mount Tabor, I wanted to pitch my tent in Beauport to the end of my life. But the rebuke which had shamed Peter came as quickly as lightning to show me the folly and vanity of my dreams.
Suddenly the carrosse of the Bishop of Quebec came in sight, and rolled down to the door of the parsonage. The sub-secretary, the Rev. Mr. Belisle, alighting from it, directed his steps towards the garden, where he had seen me, and handed me the following letter from the Right Rev. Turgeon, Coadjutor of Quebec:
My dear Mons. Chiniquy.
His lordship Bishop Signaie and I wish to confer with you on a most important matter. We have sent our carriage to bring you to Quebec. Please come without the least delay.
Truly yours,
✠ FLAV. TURGEON.
One hour after, I was with the two bishops. My Lord Signaie said:
“Monseigneur Turgeon will tell you why we have sent for you in such haste.”
“Mons. Chiniquy,” said Bishop Turgeon, “is not Kamouraska your birthplace?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Do you like that place, and do you interest yourself much in its welfare?”
“Of course, my lord, I like Kamouraska; not only because it is my birthplace, and the most happy years of my youth were spent in it, but also because, in my humble opinion, the beauties of its scenery, the purity of its atmosphere, the fine manners and proverbial intelligence of its people, make it the very gem of Canada.”
“You know,” rejoined the bishop, “that Rev. Mons. Varin has been too infirm, these last years, to superintend the spiritual interest of that important place, it is impossible to continue putting a young vicar at the head of such a parish, where hundreds of the best families of the aristocracy of Quebec and Montreal resort every summer. We have, too long, tried that experiment of young priests in the midst of such a people. It has been a failure. Drunkenness, luxury and immoralities of the most degrading kind are eating up the very life of Kamouraska to-day. Not less than thirty illegitimate births are known and registered in different places from Kamouraska these last twelve months. It is quite time to stop that state of affairs, and you are the only one, Mons. Chiniquy, on whom we can rely for that great and difficult work.”
These words passed through my soul as a two-edged sword. My lips quivered, I felt as if I were choking, and my tongue, with difficulty muttered: “My lord, I hope it is not your intention to remove me from my dear parish of Beauport.”
“No, Mons. Chiniquy, we will not make use of our authority, to break the sacred and sweet ties which unite you to the parish of Beauport. But we will put before your conscience the reasons we have to wish you at the head of the great and important parish of Kamouraska.”
For more than an hour, the two bishops made strong appeals to my charity for the multitudes who were sunk into the abyss of drunkenness and every vice, and had no one to save them.
“See how God and men are blessing you to-day,” added the Archbishop Signaie, for what you have done in Beauport! Will they not bless you still more, if you save that great and splendid parish of Kamouraska, as you have saved Beauport? Will not a double crown be put upon your forehead by your bishops, your country and your God, if you consent to be the instrument of the mercies of God towards the people of your own birthplace, and the surrounding country, as you have just been for Beauport and its surrounding parishes? Can you rest and live in peace now in Beauport, when you hear day and night the voice of the multitudes who cry: ‘Come to our help, we are perishing?’ What will you answer to God, at the last day, when He will show you the thousands of precious souls lost at Kamouraska, because you refused to go to their rescue? As Monseigneur Turgeon has said, we will not make use of our authority to force you to leave your present position; we hope that the prayers of your bishops will be enough for you. We know what a great sacrifice it will be for you to leave Beauport to-day; but do not forget that the greater the sacrifice, the more precious will the crown be.“
My bishops had spoken to me with such kindness! Their paternal and friendly appeals had surely more power over me than orders. Not without many tears; but with a true good will, I consented to give up the prospects of peace and comfort which were in store for me in Beauport, to plunge myself again into a future of endless trouble and warfare, by going to Kamouraska.
There is no need of saying that the people of Beauport did all in their power to induce the bishops to let me remain among them some time longer. But the sacrifice had to be made. I gave my farewell address on the second Sabbath of September; in the midst of indescribable cries, sobs and tears, and on the 17th of the same month, I was on my way to Kamouraska. I had left everything behind me at Beauport, even to my books, in order to be freer in that formidable conflict which seemed to be in store for me in my new parish.
When I took leave of the bishops of Quebec, they showed me a letter just received by them from Mons. Varin, filled with the most bitter expressions of indignation on account of the choice of such a fanatic and fire-brand as Chiniquy, for a place so well known for its peaceful habits and harmony among all classes.” The last words of the letter were as follows:
“The clergy and people of Kamouraska and vicinity consider the appointment of Mons. Chiniquy to this parish as an insult, and we hope and pray that your lordship will change your mind on the subject.”
In showing me the letter, my lord Signaie and Turgeon said: “We fear that you will have more trouble than we expected with the old curate and his partisans, but we commend you to the grace of God and the protection of the Virgin Mary, remembering that our Saviour has said: ‘Fear not, I have overcome the world.’”
I arrived at Kamouraska the 21st of September, 1842, on one of the finest days of the year. But my heart was filled with an unspeakable desolation, for all along the way, the curates had told me that the people, with their old pastor, were unanimous in their opposition to my going there. It was even rumored that the doors of the church would be shut against me, the next Sunday. To this bad news were added two very strange facts. My brother Achilles, who was living at St. Michel, was to drive me from that place to St. Roch des Aulnets, whence my other brother Louis, would take me to Kamouraska. But we had not traveled more than five or six miles, when the wheel of the newly finished and beautifully painted buggy, having struck a stone, the seat was broken into fragments, and we both fell to the ground.
By chance, as my brother was blessing the man who sold him that rig for a new and first-class conveyance, a traveler going the same way passed by. I asked him for a place in his caleche, bade adieu to my brother, and consoled him by saying: “As you have lost your fine buggy in my service, I will give you a better one.”
Two days after, my second brother was driving me to my destination, and when about three or four miles from Kamouraska, his fine horse stepped on a long nail which was on the road, fell down and died in the awful convulsions of tetanus. I took leave of him, and consoled him also by promising to give him another horse.
Another carriage took me safely to the end of my journey. However, having to pass by the church, which was about 200 yards from the parsonage, I dismissed my driver at the door of the sacred edifice, and took my satchel in hand, which was my only baggage, entered the church and spent more than an hour in fervent prayers, or rather in cries and tears. I felt so heart-sick that I needed that hour of rest and prayer. The tears I shed there relieved my burdened spirit.
A few steps from me, in the cemetery, lay the sacred remains of my beloved mother, whose angelic face and memory were constantly before me. Facing me was the altar where I had made my first communion; at my left, was the pulpit which was to be the battlefield where I had to fight the enemies of my God and my people, who, I had been repeatedly told, were cursing and grinding their teeth at me. But the vision of that old curate I had soon to confront, and who had written such an impudent letter against me to the bishops, and the public opposition of the surrounding priests to my coming into their midst, were the most discouraging aspects of my new position. I felt as if my soul had been crushed. My very existence seemed an unbearable burden.
My new responsibilities came so vividly before my mind in that distressing hour, that my courage, for a moment, failed me. I reproached myself for the act of folly in yielding to the request of the bishops. It seemed evident that I had accepted a burden too heavy for me to bear. But I prayed with all the fervor of my soul to God and to the Virgin Mary, and wept to my heart’s content.
There was a marvellous power in the prayers and tears which came from my heart. I felt as a new man. I seemed to hear the trumpet of God calling me to the battlefield. My only business then was to go and fight, relying on Him alone for victory. I took my traveling bag, went out of the church, and walked slowly towards the parsonage, which has been burnt since. It was a splendid two-story building, eighty feet in length, with capacious cellars. It had been built shortly after the conquest of Canada, as a store for contraband goods; but after a few years of failure, became the parsonage of the parish.
The Rev. Mons. Varin, though infirm and sick, had watched me from his window, and felt bewildered at my entering the church and remaining so long.
I knocked the first door, but as nobody answered, I opened it, and crossed the first large room to knock at the second door; but, here also, no answer came except from two furious little dogs. I entered the room, fighting the dogs, which bit me several times. I knocked at the third and fourth doors with the same result—no one to receive me.
I knew that the next was the old curate’s sleeping-room. At my knocking, an angry voice cried out: “Walk in.”
I entered, made a step toward the old and infirm curate, who was sitting in his large arm chair. As I was about to salute him, he angrily said: “The people of Beauport have made great efforts to keep you in their midst, but the people of Kamouraska will make as great an effort to turn you out of this place.”
“Mons. le Cure,” I answered calmly, “God knoweth that I never desired to leave Beauport for this place. But I think it is that great and merciful God who has brought me here by the hand; and I hope He will help me to overcome all opposition, from whatever quarter it may come.”
He replied angrily: “Is it to insult me that you call me ‘Mons. le Cure?’ I am no more the curate of Kamouraska. You are the curate now, Mr. Chiniquy.”
“I beg your pardon, my dear Mr. Varin; you are still, I hope you will remain all your life, the honored and beloved curate of Kamouraska. The respect and gratitude I owe you have caused me to refuse the titles and honors which our bishop wanted to give me.”
“But, then, if I am the curate, what are you?” replied the old priest, with more calmness.
“I am nothing but a simple soldier of Christ, and a sower of the good seed of the gospel!” I answered. “When I fight the common enemy in the plain, as Joshua did, you, like Moses, will stand on the top of the mountain, lift up your hands to heaven, send your prayers to the mercy-seat, and we will gain the day. Then both will bless the God of our salvation for the victory.”
“Well! well! this is beautiful, grand and sublime,” said the old priest, with a voice filled with friendly emotions. “But where is your household furniture, your library?”
“My household furniture,” I answered, “is in this little bag which I hold in my hand. I do not want any of my books, as long as I have the pleasure and honor to be with the good Mons. Varin, who will allow me, I am sure of it, to ransack his splendid library, and study his rare and learned books.”
“But what rooms do you wish to occupy?” rejoined the good old curate.
“As the parsonage is yours, and not mine,” I answered, “please tell me where you want me to sleep and rest. I will accept, with gratitude, any room you will offer me, even if it were in your cellar or granary. I do not want to bother you in any way. When I was young, a poor orphan in your parish, some twenty years ago, were you not a father to me? Please continue to look upon me as your own child, for I have always loved you and considered you as a father, and still do the same. Were you not my guide and adviser, in my first steps in the ways of God? Please continue to be my friend and adviser to the end of your life. My only ambition is to be your right-hand man, and to learn from your old experience and your sincere piety, how to live and work as a good priest of Jesus Christ.”
I had not finished the last sentence, when the old man burst into tears, threw himself into my arms, pressed me to his heart, bathed me with his tears, and said, with a voice half-suffocated by his sobs: “Dear Mr. Chiniquy, forgive me the evil things I have written and said about you. You are welcome in my parsonage, and I bless God to have sent me such a young friend, who will help me to carry the burden of my old age.”
I then handed him the bishop’s letter, which had confirmed all I had said about my mission of peace towards him.
From that day to his death, which occurred six months after, I never had a more sincere friend than Mr. Varin.
I thanked God, who had enabled me at once, not only to disarm the chief of my opponents, but to transform him into my most sincere and devoted friend. My hope was that the people would soon follow their chief, and be reconciled to me, but I did not expect that this would be so soon, and from such an unforeseen and unexpected cause.
The principal reason the people had to oppose my coming to Kamouraska, was, that I was the nephew of the Hon. Amable Dionne, who had made a colossal fortune at their expense. The Rev. Mr. Varin, who was always in his debt, was also forced by the circumstances, to buy everything, both for himself and the church, from him, and had to pay, without a murmur, the most exorbitant prices for everything.
In that way, the church and the curate, though they had very large revenues, had never enough to clear their accounts. When the people heard that the nephew of Mons. Dionne was their curate, they said to each other: “Now our poor church is forever ruined, for the nephew will, still more than the curate, favor his uncle, and the uncle will be less scrupulous than ever in asking most unreasonable prices for his merchandise.”
They felt they had more than fallen from Charybdis into Scylla.
The very next day after my arrival, the beadle told me that the church needed a few yards of cotton for some repairs, and asked me if he would not go, as usual, to Mr. Dionne’s store. I told him to go there first, ask the price of that article, and then go to the other stores, ordering him to buy at the cheapest one. Thirty cents was asked at Mr. Dionne’s, and only fifteen cents at Mr. St. Pierre’s; of course we bought at the latter’s store.
The day was not over before this apparently insignificant fact was known all over the parish, and was taking the most extraordinary and unforeseen proportions.
Farmers would meet with their neighbors, and congratulate themselves that, at last, the yoke imposed upon them by the old curate and Mr. Dionne was broken; that the taxes they had to pay the store were at an end, with the monopoly which had cost them so much money. Many came to Mr. St. Pierre to hear from his own lips that their new curate had, at once, freed them from what they considered the long and ignominious bondage, against which they so often, but so vainly protested. For the rest of the week, this was the only subject of conversation. They congratulated themselves, that they had, at last, a priest, with such an independent and honest mind, that he would not do them any injustice, even to please a relative in whose house he had spent the years of his childhood.
This simple act of fair play towards that people won over their affection. Only one little dark spot remained in their minds against me. They had been told that the only subject on which I could preach was: Rum, whiskey and drunkenness. And it seemed to them exceedingly tedious to hear nothing else from the curate, particularly when they were more than ever determined to continue drinking their social glasses of brandy, rum and wine.
There was an immense crowd at church the next Sunday. My text was: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” Showing them how Jesus had proved that He was their friend.
But their sentiments of piety and pleasure at what they had heard were nothing compared to their surprise when they saw that I had preached nearly an hour without saying a word on whiskey, rum or beer.
People are often compared to the waters of the sea in the Holy Scriptures. When you see the roaring waves dashing on that rock to-day, as if they wanted to demolish it, do not fear that this fury will last long. The very next day, if the wind has changed, the same waters will leave that rock alone, to spend their fury on the opposite rock. So it was in Kamouraska. They were full of indignation and wrath when I set my feet in their midst; but a few days later, those very men would have given the last drop of their blood to protect me. The dear Saviour had evidently seen the threatening storm which was to destroy His poor unprofitable servant. He had heard the roaring waves which were dashing against me. So he came down and bid the storm “be still,” and the waves be calm.
Chapter XL
ORGANIZATION OF TEMPERANCE SOCIETIES IN KAMOURASKA AND SURROUNDING COUNTRY—THE GIRL IN THE GARB OF A MAN IN THE SERVICE OF THE CURATES OF QUEBEC AND EBOULEMENTS—FRIGHTENED BY THE SCANDALS SEEN EVERYWHERE—GIVE UP MY PARISH OF KAMOURASKA TO JOIN THE “OBLATES OF MARY IMMACULATE OF LONGGUEIL.”
Two days after my arrival at Kamouraska, I received a letter from the surrounding priests, at the head of whom was the Grand Vicar Mailloux, expressing the hope that I would not try to form any temperance society in my new parish, as I had done in Beauport; for the good reasons, they said, that drunkenness was not prevailing in that part of Canada, as it was in the city of Quebec. I answered them politely, that, so long as I should be at the head of this new parish, I would try, as I had ever done, to mind my own business, and I hoped that my neighboring friends would do the same. Not long after, I saw that the curates felt ashamed of their vain attempt to intimidate me.
The next Sabbath, the crowd was greater than at the first. Having heard that the merchants were to start the next day, with their schooners, to buy their winter provisions of rum, I said, in a very solemn way, before my sermon:
“My friends, I know that, to-morrow, the merchants leave for Quebec, to purchase their rum. Let me advise them, as their best friend, not to buy any; and as the ambassador of Christ, I forbid them to bring a single drop of those poisonous drinks here. It will surely be their ruin, if they pay no attention to this friendly advice; for they will not sell a single drop of it, after next Sabbath. That day, I will show to the intelligent people of this parish, that rum, and all the other drugs sold here, under the name of brandy, wine and beer, are nothing else than disgusting, deadly and cursed poisons.”
I then preached on the words of our Saviour: “Be always ready; for ye know neither the day nor the hour when the Son of Man cometh.” Though the people seemed much pleased and impressed by that second sermon, they felt exceedingly irritated at my few warning words to the merchants. When the service was over, they all rallied around the merchants to tell them not to mind what they had heard.
“If our young curate,” said they, “thinks he will lead us by the nose, as he has done with the drunkards of Beauport, he will soon see his mistake. Instead of one hundred tons, as you brought last fall, bring us two hundred, this year; we will drink them to his health. We have a good crop, and we want to spend a jolly winter.”
It is probable that the church of Kamouraska had never seen within its walls such a crowd as on the second Sabbath of October, 1842. It was literally crammed. Curiosity had attracted the people, who, not less eager to hear my first grand sermon against rum, than to see the failure they expected, and wished, of my first efforts to form a temperance society. Long before the public service, at the door of the church, as well as during the whole preceding week, the people had pledged themselves never to give up their strong drink, and never to join the temperance society.
But what are the resolutions of man against God? Is He not their master?
The half of that first sermon on temperance was not heard, when that whole multitude had forgotten their public promises. The hearts were not only touched—they were melted and changed by God, who wanted to show, once more, that His works of mercy were above all the works of His hands.
From the very first day of my arrival in Kamouraska, I had made a serious and exact inquiry about the untold miseries brought upon the people by intoxicating drinks.
I had found that, during the last twenty years, twelve men had been drowned, and eight had been frozen to death, who had left twenty widows and sixty orphans in the most distressing poverty. Sixty farmers had lost their lands, and had been obliged to emigrate to other places, where they were suffering all the pangs of poverty from the drunkenness of their parents; several other families had their properties mortgaged for their whole value, to the rum merchants, and were expected, every day, to be turned out from their inheritances, to pay their rum bills. Seven mothers had died in delirium tremens, one had hung herself, another drowned herself when drunk. One hundred thousand dollars had been paid to the rum merchants during the last fifteen years. Two hundred thousand more were due to the storekeeper; three-fourths of which were for strong drink. Four men had been murdered, among whom was their landlord, Achilles Tache, from their drunken habits!
When I had recapitulated all these facts, which were public and undeniable, and depicted the desolation of the ruined families, composed of their own brothers, sisters, and dear children; when I brought before their minds, the tears of the widows, the cries of the starving and naked children, the shame of the families, the red hands of the murderers, and the mangled bodies of their victims; the eternal cries of the lost from drunkenness, the broken-hearted fathers and mothers, whose children had been destroyed by strong drink; when I proved to them that there was not a single one in their midst who had not suffered, either in his own person, or in that of his father or mother, brothers, sisters or children. Yes, when I had given them the simple and awful story of the crimes committed in their midst; the ruin and deaths, the misery of thousands of precious souls for whom Christ died in vain, the church was filled with such sobs and cries that I often could not be heard. Many times my voice was drowned by the indescribable confusion and lamentation of that whole multitude. Unable to contain myself, several times I stopped and mingled my sobs and cries with those of my people.
When the sermon, which lasted two hours, was finished, I asked all those who were determined to help me in stopping the ravages of intoxicating drinks, in drying the tears which they caused to flow, and saving the precious souls they were destroying, to come forward and take the public pledge of temperance, by kissing a crucifix which I held in my hand. Thirteen hundred and ten came.
Not fifty of the people had refused to enroll themselves under the blessed and glorious banners of temperance! and these few recalcitrants came forward, with a very few exceptions, the next time I spoke on the subject.
The very same day, the wives of the merchants sent despatches to their husbands in Quebec, to tell them what had been done, and not a single barrel of intoxicating drinks was brought by them. The generous example of the admirable people of Kamouraska spoke with an irresistible eloquence to the other parishes of that district, and before long, the blessed banners of temperance floated over all the populations of St. Pascal, St. Andrew, Isle Verte, Cacouna, Riviere du Loup, Rimouski, Matane, St. Anne, St. Roch, Madawaska, St. Benoit, St. Luce, etc., on the south side of the St. Lawrence, and the Eboulements, La Malbaye, and the other parishes on the north side of the river; and the people kept their pledge with such fidelity that the trade in rum was literally killed in that part of Canada, as it had been in Beauport and its vicinity.
The blessed fruits of this reform were soon felt and seen everywhere, in the public prosperity and the spread of education. Kamouraska, which was owing $200,000, to the merchants in 1842, had not only paid its interest, but had reduced its debt to only $120,000, when I left it to go to Montreal, in 1846.
God only knows my joy at these admirable manifestations of his mercies toward my country. However, the joys of man are never without their mixture of sadness.
In the good providence of God, being invited by all the curates to establish temperance societies among their people, I had the sad opportunity, as no priest ever had in Canada, to know the secret and public scandals of each parish. When I went to the Eboulements, on the north side of the river, invited by the Rev. Noel Toussignant, I learned from the very lips of that young priest, and the ex-priest, Tetreau, the history of the most shameful scandals.
In 1830, a young priest of Quebec, called Derome, had fallen in love with one of his young female penitents of Vercheres, where he had preached a few days, and he had persuaded her to follow him to the parsonage of Quebec. The better to conceal their iniquity from the public, he persuaded his victim to dress herself as a young man, and throw her dress into the river, to make her parents and the whole parish believe that she was drowned. I had seen her many times at the parsonage of Quebec, under the name of Joseph, and had much admired her refined manners, though more than once I was very much inclined to think that the smart Joseph was no one else than a lost girl. But the respect I had for the curate of Quebec (who was the coadjutor of the bishop) and his young vicars, caused me to reject those suspicions as unfounded. However, many, even among the first citizens of the city, had the same suspicions, and they pressed me to go to the coadjutor and warn him; but I refused, and told those gentlemen to do that delicate work themselves, and they did it.
The position of that high dignitary and his vicar was not then a very agreeable one. Their bark had evidently drifted into dangerous waters. To keep Joseph among themselves was impossible, after the friendly advice from such high quarters, and to dismiss him was not less dangerous. He knew too well how the curate of Quebec, with his vicars, were keeping their vows of celibacy, to dismiss him without danger to themselves; a single word from his lips would destroy them. Happily, for them, Mr. Clement, then curate of the Eboulements, was in search of such a servant, and took him to his parsonage, after persuading the bishop-coadjutor to give Joseph a large sum of money to seal his lips.
Things went on pretty smoothly between Joseph and the priest for several years, till some suspicions arose in the minds of the sharp-sighted people of the parish, who told the curate that it would be safer and more honorable for him to get rid of his servant. In order to put an end to those suspicions, and to retain him in the parsonage, the curate persuaded him to marry the daughter of a poor neighbor.
The three bans were published, and the two girls were duly married by the curate, who continued his criminal intimacies, in the hope that no one would trouble him any more on that subject. But not long after he was removed to La Petite Riviere, and in 1838, the Rev. M. Tetreau was appointed curate of the Eboulements. This new priest, knowing nothing of the abominations which his predecessor had practiced, continued to employ Joseph. One day, when Joseph was working at the gate of the parsonage, in the presence of several people, a stranger came and asked him if Mr. Tetreau was at home.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Curate is at home,” answered Joseph; “but as you seem a stranger to the place, would you allow me to ask you from what parish you come?”
“I am not ashamed of my parish,” answered the stranger. “I come from Vercheres.”
At the word “Vercheres,” Joseph turned so pale that the stranger was puzzled. He looked carefully at him, and exclaimed:
“Oh! my God! What do I see here? Genevieve! Genevieve! over whom we have mourned so long as drowned! Here you are, disguised as a man!”
“Dear uncle” (it was her uncle); “for God’s sake, not a word more here!”
But it was too late; the people who were there had heard the uncle and the niece. Their long and secret suspicions were well-founded. One of their former priests had kept a girl, under the disguise of a man, in his house; and to blind his people more thoroughly, he had married that girl to another, in order to have them both in the house when he pleased, without awakening any suspicion!
The news went, almost as quickly as lightning, from one end to the other of the parish, and spread all over the country, on both sides of the St. Lawrence. I had heard of that horror, but I could not believe it. However, I had to believe it, when, on the spot, I heard from the lips of the ex-curate, M. Tetreau, and the new curate, M. Noel de Toussignant, and from the lips of my landlord, the Honorable Laterriere, the following details, which had come to light only a short time before.
The justice of the peace had investigated the matter, in the name of public morality. Joseph was brought before the magistrates, who decided that a physician should be charged to make, not a post mortem but an ante-mortem inquest. The Honorable Laterriere, who made the inquest, declared that Joseph was a girl, and the bonds of marriage were legally dissolved.
At the same time, the curate M. Tetreau, had sent a dispatch to the Right Rev. Bishop-coadjutor of Quebec, informing him that the young man whom he had kept in his house, several years, was legally proved a girl; a fact which, I need hardly state, was well known by the bishop and his vicars! They immediately sent a trustworthy man with £500, to induce the girl to leave the country without delay, lest she were prosecuted and sent to the penitentiary. She accepted the offer, and crossed the lines to the United States with her $2,000, where she was soon married, and where she still lives.
I wished that this story had never been told me, or at least, that I might be allowed to doubt some of its circumstances; but there was no help. I was forced to acknowledge that in my Church of Rome, there was such corruption from head to foot, which could scarcely be surpassed in Sodom. I remember what the Rev. Mr. Perras had told me of the tears and desolation of Bishop Plessis, when he had discovered that all the priests of Canada, with the exception of three, were atheists.
I would not be honest, did I not confess that the personal knowledge of that fact, which I learned in all its scandalous details from the very lips of unimpeachable witnesses, saddened me, and for a time, shook my faith in my religion, to its foundation. I felt secretly ashamed to belong to a body of men so completely lost to every sense of honesty, as the priests and bishops of Canada. I had heard of many scandals before. The infamies of the grand vicar Manceau and Quiblier of Montreal, Cadieux at Three Rivers, and Viau at Riviere Ouelle. The public acts of depravity of the priests Lelievre, Tabeau, Pouliot, Belisle, Brunet, Quevillon, Huot, Lajuste, Rabby, Crevier, Bellecourt, Valle, Mignault, Noel, Pinet, Duguez, Davely and many others, were known to me, as well as by the whole clergy. But the abominations of which Joseph was the victim seemed to overstep the conceivable limits of infamy. For the first time, I sincerely regretted that I was a priest. The priesthood of Rome seemed then, to me, the very fulfillment of the prophecy of Revelation, about the great prostitute, who makes the nations drunk with the wines of her prostitutions.
Auricular confession, which I knew to be the first, if not the only cause, of these abominations, appeared to me, what it really is, a school of perdition for the priest and his female penitents. The priest’s oath of celibacy, was to my eyes, in those hours of distress, but a shameful mask to conceal a corruption which was unknown in the most depraved days of old paganism. New and bright lights came, then, before my mind which, had I followed them, would have guided me to the truth of the gospel. But I was blind! The Good Master had not yet touched my eyes with his divine and life-giving hand. I had no idea that there could be any other church than the Church of Rome, in which I could be saved. I was, however, often saying to myself: “How can I hope to conquer on a battlefield where so many, as strong and even much stronger than I am, have perished?”
I felt no longer at peace. My soul was filled with trouble and anxiety. I not only distrusted myself, but I lost confidence in the rest of the priests and bishops. In fact, I could not see any one in whom I could trust. Though my beautiful and dear parish of Kamouraska was, more than ever, overwhelming me with tokens of its affection, gratitude and respect, it had lost its attraction for me. To whatever side I turned my eyes, I saw nothing but the most seducing examples of perversion. It seemed as if I were surrounded by numberless snares, from which it was impossible to escape. I wished to depart from this deceitful and lost world.
When my soul was as drowned under the waves of a bitter sea, the Rev. Mr. Guignes, Superior of the Monastery of the Fathers of Oblates of Mary Immaculate, at Longueuil, near Montreal, came to pass a few days with me, for the benefit of his health.
I spoke to him of that shameful scandal, and did not conceal from him that my courage failed me, when I looked at the torrent of iniquity which was sweeping everything, under our eyes, with an irresistible force.
“We are here alone, in the presence of God,” I said to him. “I confess that I feel an unspeakable horror at the moral ruin which I see everywhere in our church. My priesthood, of which I was so proud till lately, seems to me, to-day, the most ignominious yoke, when I see it dragged in the mud of the most infamous vices, not only by the immense majority of the priests, but even by our bishops. How can I hope to save myself, when I see so many stronger than I am, perishing all around me?”
The Reverend Superior, with the kindness of a father and the gravity of an apostle, answered me:
“I understand your fears perfectly. They are legitimate and too well-founded. Like you, I am a priest; and like you, if not more than you, I know the numberless and formidable dangers which surround the priest. It is because I know them too well, that I have not dared to be a secular priest, a single day. I knew the humiliating and disgraceful history of Joseph and the coadjutor bishop of Quebec. Nay! I know many things still more horrible and unspeakable which I have learned when preaching and hearing confessions in France and in Canada. My fear is that, to-day, there are not many more undefiled souls among the priests, than in Sodom, in the days of Lot. The fact is, that it is morally impossible for a secular priest to keep his vows of celibacy, except by a miracle of the grace of God. Our holy church would be a modern Sodom, long ago, had not our merciful God granted her the grace that many of our priests have always enrolled themselves among the armies of the regular priests, in the different religious orders which are, to the church, what the ark was to Noah and his children, in the days of the deluge. Only the priests whom God calls, in His mercy, to become members of any of those orders, are safe. For they are under the paternal care and surveillance of superiors whose zeal and charity are like a shield to protect them. Their holy and strict laws are like strong walls and high towers which the enemy cannot storm.”
He then spoke to me, with an irresistible eloquence, of the peace of soul which a regular priest enjoys within the walls of his monastery. He represented, in the most attractive colors, the spiritual and constant joys of the heart which one feels when living, day and night, under the eyes of a superior to whom he has vowed a perfect submission. He added: “Your providential work is finished in the diocese of Quebec. The temperance societies are established almost everywhere. We are in need of your long experience and your profound studies on that subject, in the diocese of Montreal. It is true that the good Bishop de Nancy has done what he could to support that holy cause, but, though he is working with the utmost zeal, he has not studied that subject enough to make a lasting impression on the people. Come with us. We are more than thirty priests, oblates of Mary Immaculate, who will be too happy to second your efforts in that noble work, which is too much for one man alone. Moreover, you cannot do justice to your great parish of Kamouraska and to the temperance cause together. You must give up one, to consecrate yourself to the other. Take courage, my young friend! Offer to God the sacrifice of your dear Kamouraska, as you made the sacrifice of your beautiful Beauport, some years ago, for the good of Canada and in the interest of the Church, which calls you to its help.”
It seemed to me that I could oppose no reasonable argument to these considerations. I fell on my knees, and made the sacrifice of my beautiful and precious Kamouraska. The last Sabbath of September, 1846, in the midst of tears and desolation which no words can depict, I gave my farewell address to the so dear and intelligent people of Kamouraska, to go to Longueuil and become a novice of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.