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Archives EditioJt CANADA AND ITS PROVINCES IN TWENTY-TWO VOLUMES AND INDEX (Vois. I and 2) SECTION I NE\V FRANCE, 1534- 1 7 60 (V ois. 3 and 4) SECTION II BRITISH DOMINION, 1700- 18 4 0 (Vol. 5) SECTION III UNITED CANADA, 1840-1 86 7 (V ois. 6, 7, and 8) SECTION IV THE DOMINION: POLITICAL EVOLUTION (Vois. 9 and 10) SECTION V THE DOMINION: INDUSTRIAL EXPANSION (V ois. II and 12) SECTION VI THE DOMINION: MISSIONS; ARTS AND LETTERS (Vois. 13 and 14) SECTION VII THE ATLANTIC PROVINCES (Vois. 15 and 16) SECTION VIII THE PROVINCE OF QUEBEC (Vois. 17 and 18) SECTION IX THE PROVINCE OF ONTARIO (Vois. 19 and 20) SECTION X THE PRAIRIE PROVINCES (Vois. 21 and 22) SECTION XI THE PACIFIC PROVINCE (Vol. 23) SECTION XII DOCUMENTARY NOTES GENERAL INDEX GENERAL EDITORS ADAM SHORTT ARTHUR G. DOUGHTY ASSOCIATE EDITORS THOMAS CHAPAIS ALFRED D. DECELLES F. P. WALTON GEORGE 1\1. WRONG \VILLIAM L GRANT ANDREW MACPHAIL JAMES BONAR A. H. U. COLQUHOUN D. M. DUNCAN ROBERT KILPATRICK THOMAS GUTHRIE MARQUIS VOL. 11 SECTION VI THE DOMINION MISSIONS; ARTS AND LETTERS PART I ....... \ "', " , , ', \ . _ ì... .' -+ \ I CANADA AND ITS PROVINCES A HISTORY OF THE CANADIAN PEOPLE AND THEIR INSTITUTIONS BY ONE HUNDRED ASSOCIATES ADAM SHORTT ARTHUR G. DOUGHTY GENERAL EDITORS VOLUME XI t: I' ( r-J I I \ PRINTED BY T. & A. CONSTABLE AT THE EDINBURGH UNIVERSITY PRESS FOR THE PUBLISHERS' ASSOCIATION OF CANADA LI11ITED TORONTO GLASGOW, BROOK & COMPANY 1914 ST. JOHN FISHER COLLEGE lIBRARY Vlll THE DOMINION: MISSIONS THE ANGLICAN CHURCH AND ITS MISSIONS. By L. N ORMAN TUCKER I. PRELIMINARY 199 II. HISTORICAL . 20 I N ova Scotia - New Brunswick - Quebec - Ontario - The North-Vvest-British CoIumbia III. CONSTITUTIONAL 235 IV. EDUCATIONAL 239 v. MISSIONARY. 244 THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH AND ITS MISSIONS. By CHARLES \V. GORDON PRESBYTERIANISM: ITS POLITY AND DOCTRINE THE HUGUENOTS IN NEW FRANCE . PRESBYTERIANISM IN THE MARITIME PROVINCES. PRESBYTERIANISM IN THE CANADAS THE GREAT DISRUPTION TRAINING A NATIVE MINISTRY MISSIONARY ACTIVITY A UNITED CHURCH MORAL AND SOCIAL REFORM THE MOVE 1ENT TOWARD CHURCH UNION. THE METHODIST CHURCH: ITS MISSIONS AND INSTITU- TIONS. By S. P. ROSE I. PIONEER DAYS II. CONSOLIDATION: DIVISION: UNION: GROWTH III. THE MISSIONS OF METHODISM The Home ?Æssionary Department-Domestic Missions- Work among the French in Quebec-City Missions, and Missions to the Foreign Born-Foreign Missions-The Young PeopIe's Forward Movement - The Laymen's Missionary Movement-The \Voman's Missionary Society IV. INSTITUTIONS OF CANADIAN METHODISM Literary-Educational-Sociai and ReIigious THE BAPTISTS IN CANADA. By J. L. GIL!\IOUR ORIGIN AND TENETS ORGANIZATION. PAGE 249 253 255 264 27 1 275 277 279 29 6 297 3 0 3 3 06 3 12 3 2 9 345 347 CONTENTS IX THE MARITIME PROVINCES . ONTARIO AND QUEBEC THE GRANDE LIGNE MISSION THE PRAIRIE PROVINCES AND BRITISH COLUMBIA PACK 35 0 3 60 37 1 374 MISCELLANEOUS RELIGIOUS BODIES IN CANADA. By R. J. HUTCHEON I. CONGREGATIONALISM II. THE LUTHERANS III. JUDAISM IV. THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS. V. COMMUNAL RELIGIONS The Mennonites-The Doukhobors VI. TWO RECENT POPULAR MOVEMENTS Christian Science-The Saivation Army VII. MISCELLANEOUS GROUPS . 379 3 8 4 3 86 3 88 390 394 39 8 xu THE DOMINION: MISSIONS FRANCIS FULFORD From the þortrait in the Château de Ramezay GEORGE HILLS From the J. Ross Robertson Collection Í11, the Toronto Public Library JAMES ROBERTSON . From a photograph by Galbraith, Toronto THEODORE SETH HARDING From a photograph by J. D. Smith, Halifax ED::VIUND ALBERN CRAWLEY From a phøtoçraplz JOHN M. CRAMP From a photograph . Facing þage 218 " 23 2 " 288 " 354 " 356 " 358 IviISSIONS; ARTS AND LETTERS INTRODUCTION VOL, XI & MISSIONS; ARTS AND LETTERS INTRODUCTION C ANADA is still on the threshold of nationhood. She is still hardly conscious of the splendour of her in- heri tance or of the greatness of her strength. She has the sense of vigour which belongs to youth; but of what elements that strength is composed, or in what direction it is destined to be employed, she is yet, perhaps, not fully aware. She delights in the vastness of her possessions and takes pride in remembering the races from which she has sprung ; but has she sufficiently outlined the tasks which lie before her in the future or considered the debt which she owes to the cause of civilization or of humanity? The order which her development has so far followed is, after all, the appointed one-first 'that which is natural, afterward that which is spiritual.' The giant in his youth labours at the tasks and enterprises which call for the exercise of muscle and sinew- of heart and lungs; later come those which call for deeper reflection and more matured wisdom. What Canada has attained in the physical domain has challenged not only the attention but the admiration of the world. Canada is not able to present a ' far-flung battle line,' but she is able to show far-flung lines of railway and steamship systems which older countries can hardly surpass. The physical may appear for the present to have the supremacy. Soon, it may be, the desire for something more enduring, which has always been manifest, will assert itself, and then Canada will have attained, to the full extent, national self-consciousness. In the chapters which follow records are to be found of the religious, intellectual and artistic activities of the country. 3 4 MISSIONS; ARTS AND LETTERS They are at least evidences of Canada's aspirations to share in the spiritual civilization of the nations. In certain spheres of intellectual activity our achievement as a people surely falls short of that degree of excellence which we could wish to be regarded as the Canadian standard. But we have set up no lofty ideals and, until we have before us constantly a standard for contemplation, our attainment will seldom rise above the commonplace. The first group of chapters in this section is devoted to the religious history of the country. The narratives will prove to be of high interest, particularly if read as a whole, while each separate history will naturally appeal with special force to the members of the denomination with which it deals. Taken together, the histories are of wider import; they give reality and substance to the commonplace, that this is a Christian country. Canada is a Christian country in the sense tha t, from the beginning of her history until the present time, all her people, broadly speaking, profess adherence to one or other of the different Christian communities. As bands of settlers came to our shores, they brought with them, or found awaiting them, teachers of the Christian faith. In the cere- monies attending the foundation of our cities religious exer- cises formed an essential part. At Montreal, the outpost of the church in her conflict with heathendom, a granite column marks the spot where the first mass was sung. In 1758, when the New Englanders were invited to come to Nova Scotia to occupy the lands vacated by the Acadians, they demanded freedom of worship. On the assurance of liberty in the exer- cise of their religion they came in large numbers and laid the foundation of the Congregational, the Presbyterian, the Metho- dist and the Baptist denominations in the Maritime Provinces. While the fate of Canada hung in the balance after the Battle of the Plains, the Chapter of Quebec provided for the more effective administration of the church, by placing the whole coun try under the direction of four vicars-general. La ter, when Canada. passed into the hands of the British, the king gave instructions to the governor, that as lands were assigned for the use of settlers, a plot was to be reserved in each parish for a church, and four hundred acres were to be set aside INTRODUCTION 5 for a minister. The intimate relation recognized as existing between religion and education is emphasized in all the narratives. In a clause of the instructions to Murray the king desires that two hundred acres shall be set aside for a schoolmaster. In Quebec the Catholics were continuing the work of educating students for the priesthood in the Seminary of Quebec. In Upper Canada, three years after the loyalists had settled in the vicinity of the Bay of Quinte, the Rev. John Stuart opened a school at Kingston. In the Maritime Provinces Bishop Inglis, the first Anglican bishop, was virtually the first superintendent of education as well as the official head of the church. Religion and education have walked hand in hand. The universities and colleges in Upper and Lower Canada, although some of them have now become secularized, were in their origin as- sociated with the work of religious bodies. The story is the same in the western provinces. In the Red River Settle- ment Father Provencher set up his school and soon began to instruct his boys in Latin. At Pembina, still further removed from the influence of civilization, we have the pleasing picture of a group of boys studying Latin Grammar under one of Father Provencher's associates. To the work of missions at home and abroad the churches have devoted themselves with zeal, and in this field of ac- tivity we catch glimpses of heroism and self-sacrifice which arouse our interest and compel our admiration. Wi thin some of the larger denominations there were in earlier days a number of independent bodies holding more or less divergent views; but success has attended the efforts which have been made to remove the causes of difference and render possible a larger consolidation. As in most other countries, the musical development of Canada has been greatly assisted by the various churches. The different orchestras of which Canada is proud-and some have won high distinction-are all either directly associated with, or had th ir beginnings in, some church. The chapters on the intellectual life of Canada and on its art and literature present at least two aspects. As part of the general history of the country they exhibit its progress 6 MISSIONS; ARTS AND LETTERS under these special heads. But they have a wider scientific interest. They are the record of the achievement in the field of literature and art of a people sprung from detached fragments of the British and French peoples transplanted to Canadian soil. The chapters bear materially upon the question frequently raised as to the possibility of any con- siderable literary and artistic production in a colony. I t is asserted from time to time that there is something in the colonial status operating as a bar to high achievement in art and literature, and Canada has been pointed at as a particular instance of the infertility due to these conditions. How far Canada has really failed in the spheres alluded to may be determined by the readers of these chapters. High genius never was common, nor has it ever been possible to foretell its coming, though attempts have been made to explain it after it came. The question is whether we are providing conditions favourable to its full expansion when it does appear among us. I t is idle to assume that any connection exists between literary and artistic productiveness or un productiveness and the political system under which Canadians work and live. It may be admitted at once that at the outset, at least, the colonist is subject to certain disabilities. He enjoys many advantages in the country of his adoption. Comforts and luxuries of which it were vain to dream in his former home, moderate industry now places within his reach. Books, pictures, and most things in which literary and artistic activity finds concrete expression, are at his command. One thing, however, he must leave behind. The intellectual graces which manifest themselves in the lives and conversation of the highly cultivated men and women of Europe cannot be transferred. Matthew Arnold is quoted as saying that the best school for English style is good English society. But it is not the colonist alone who is deprived of this advantage. Men of letters and artists in the United States were for a long time under a disadvantage owing to their separation from the great social and artistic centres. Canadians to a certain extent have suffered from a similar cause, and a sense of timidity, a want of confidence, has paralysed much of their INTRODUCTION 7 effort. The chapters on literature and painting emphasize this point. In estimating the qualities which have given Haliburton the unique place he holds in our literature we must not forget his courage. Those good things of The Clock- l1zaker which men still delight to quote were doubtless ap- proved by his little circle in Halifax, but must he not have been in painful doubt as to how they would be received in England by that society to which he looked up, and whose amusement was being administered to at the moment by the high-bred humour of Sydney Smith? People are often more inclined to laugh at the humorist than to laugh with him. Few men in colonial society have been so greatly daring as Haliburton, and consequently we find our artists and painters adapting their conceptions to modes of expression which, having passed muster with the critical, are considered safe. Creative genius, on the other hand, struggles to give expression to its own individuality, and, undeterred by passing criticism, seeks to attain a lofty standard of excellence which is for ever eluding its grasp. Here, then, is an important phase of the colonial problem.. One cannot, however, read the chapters on literature and art without being impressed at least with the number of books and paintings that have been produced in recent years, and there seems to be an improvement in the character of the work. Canadian books and Canadian pictures are beginning to find a place in English homes. The stamp of provinciality is no longer necessarily attached to things Canadian. But here the question creeps in: Is it as a distinctive Canadian art and literature that our native production is to be regarded? The question is a nice one, which only a fine criticism can determine. Whatever are to be the distinguishing characteristics of our work, it is desirable that our artists and our writers shall attain a greater mastery over the means of giving expression to the manifold forms and sentiments which surround them, and that they shall, moreover, become fully conscious that they are masters of those means. The atmosphere for the moment is unfavourable, and until the society of our Canadian cities is permeated by the spirit of the amateur, so happily 8 MISSIONS; ARTS AND LETTERS characterized by the writer of the article in this section on 'The Higher National Life,' we shall look in vain for the creation of a distinctive art and literature, the impress of which would confer dignity on any school or on any race. It is well, however, to have the word of so competent an authority as the writer of the article referred to that our university system as a whole is lending itself to the wide cultivation of men and women of this class. THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH EAST OF THE GREAT LAKES 1760-1912 THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH EAST OF THE GREAT LAKES 1760-1912 INTRODUCTORY T HE fall of New France into the hands of Great Britain appeared to be the doom of the French nationality and of the Catholic faith implanted a century and a half before on the banks of the St Lawrence; but God in His Providence had designed this apparent calamity for the good of both. Less than thirty years later France was shaken to its foundations by a savage revolution which left a heritage of deep civil disorder, and whose commotions, even to our own times, have not ceased. Meanwhile Canada, politically separa ted and remote from the scene of that conflict and under the protection of liberal and enduring British institutions, has developed in comparative peace into a free, self-governing and prosperous dominion wherein all races have equal rights and privileges. And while the Church of France has been spoliated, its adherents imprisoned, sent into exile and dragged to the scaffold, while it has staggered under military despots or impious rulers, the Church of Canada, small in the begin- ning, destitute and seemingly deprived of all human support, has truly verified the parable of the mustard seed, 'which when it is sown in the earth is less than all the seeds that are in the earth, and when it is sown it groweth up and becometh grea ter than all herbs and shooteth ou t great branches, so that the birds of the air may dwell under the shadow thereof.' The progress of the Catholic Church in the provinces east of Lake Superior is briefly and simply set forth in the follow- ing pages. This narrative has no polemical import. A clear 11 12 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST exposition of facts, drawn from the most reliable printed and manuscript sources, is sufficient for our purpose. It has been found convenient to divide the chronicle into two parts. The first part relates the pacific struggle with the civil authorities for religious liberty, and covers the years 1760 to 1825, during which the Quebec bishops were the arbiters of church govern- ment over the whole of the possessions of Great Britain in North America. Independent dioceses began to dawn by the erection of Newfoundland (1796) and Nova Scotia (1817) into vicariates-apostolic, and by the consecration of Father 1 Alexander Macdonell as Bishop for Upper Canada (1820), of Father Jean Jacques Lartigue for Montreal (1821), of Father Aeneas MacEacharn for Prince Edward Island (1821) and of Father Norbert Provencher for the North-West (1822). These prelates, who were at first vicars-general and auxiliaries of the Bishop of Quebec, soon became sui juris. The second part describes the activities and development of the church in the ecclesiastical provinces of Kingston, Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax, Montreal and Quebec during the years 1825-1912. In the conclusion it will be seen that the time of weakness and uncertainty has passed away and has given place to an era of stability and promise. I EARLY HISTORY UNDER BRITISH RULE BISHOPS BRIAND AND DESGL Y T HE death of Bishop Henri-Marie de Pontbriand on June 8, 1760, just three months before the capitula- tion of Montreal, left the Canadian Church in a most critical position. The Catholics of French origin in Canada could not have been much more-and were very likely less-than 60,000 in 1 In this article the word r Abbé' is applied to secuiar priests, and the quali- fication . Father' is employed for aU Roman Catholic clergymen, secular or regular. For regulars, that is. for the members of religious orders, some initials are added to indicate the order, e.g. S.J. for Jesuit, O.M.1. for Oblate of Mary Immaculate, S.S. for Sulpician. The qualification r Monseigneur · is used for a bishop, when this Iatter title is not added. EARLY HISTORY UNDER BRITISH RULE 13 number, although higher figures are sometimes given. The census under General Murray in 1765 reckons 69,275 inhabi- tants, exclusive of Indians; while certain trustworthy statis- tics, given to Sir Guy Carleton by Bishop Briand in 1777, show an increase in population of 21,592 from 1759 to 1769, that is, about two thousand a year. That England intended to anglicize her new subjects in language and religion, not by open violence, indeed, but at least by disguised persecution, is evident. This is not to be wondered at, for all conquerors have had similar aims and have tried to achieve them by similar means. Even in the twen- tieth century men of sense and culture are apt to forget that human nature clings to a thing with all the greater energy as greater efforts are made to wrest it away. A tree pushes its roots the more deeply in to the ground the more exposed it is to the violence of the tempest. So their faith and nationality became dearer to French Canadians in proportion to the danger by which they were menaced; and, paradoxical as it may seem, they are more indebted, for the preservation of both, to petty Neros such as Haldimand and Craig than to broad-minded rulers like Murray, Carleton or Prevost. At the capitulation of Quebec, September IS, 1759, and of Mon treal, September S, 1760, the British conceded the free exercise of the Catholic religion, the right of priests, pastors and missionaries to discharge their duties, and the right of the chapter and grand-vicars to administer the diocese during the vacancy of the see. But the election of a bishop, either by choice of the French king, as was foolishly proposed, or by any other means, seemed altogether excluded. The female orders were granted full immunities, but the Jesuits, Récollets and Sulpicians were' refused till the King's pleasure be known.' The Treaty of Paris (1763) states: 'His Britan- nick Majesty agrees to grant the liberty of the Catholick religion to the inhabitants of Canada and will in consequence give the most precise and most effectual orders that his new Roman Catholick Subjects may profess the worship of their religion according to the rites of the Romish Church as far as the laws of Great Britain permit.' It was just in these last words that the danger lay. 14 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST The Earl of Egremont wrote to General Murray on August 13, 1763 : Tho' His Majesty is far from entertaining the most distant thought of restraining his new R0111an Catholick Subjects from professing the worship of their religion according to the rites of the Romish Church; yet the condition expressed in the same article must always be remembered, viz. As far as the laws of Great Britain per- mit, which laws prohibit absolutely all Popish Hierarchy in any of the Dominions belonging to the Crown of Great Britain, and can only admit of a toleration of the exer- cise of that Religion: this matter was clearly understood in the negotiation of the definitive Treaty: the French Ministers proposed to insert the words comme ci-devant, in order that the Romish Religion should continue to be exercised in the same manner as under their government ; and they did not give up the point until they were told that it would be deceiving them to admit those words, for the King had not the power to tolerate that Religion in any other manner than as far as the laws of Great Britain permit. If any doubt remained as to the intention of Great Britain, it must have vanished at the first reading of the instructions sent (December 7, 1763) to General Murray with his com- mission of governor-general : You are not to admit of any Ecclesiastical J uris- diction of the See of Rome or any other Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction whatsoever in the Province under your government. . . . To the end that the Church of Eng- land may be established both in Principles and Prac- tice, and that the said inhabitants may by degrees be induced to embrace the Protestant Religion, and their children be brought up in the Principles of it: We do hereby declare it to be Our Intention, when the said Province shall have been divided into townships. . . [that] all possible encouragement shall be given to the erecting [of] Protestant schools in the said District, Townships and Parishes. . . and you are to report to Us . . . by what other means the Protestant Religion may be promoted, established and encouraged in Our Province under your Government. EARLY HISTORY UNDER BRITISH RULE IS Such was the situation. For the administration of the immense diocese of Quebec, the chapter, in accordance with the advice of the late Bishop de Pontbriand, elected several vicars-general in July 1760. Father Jean Olivier Briand was placed in charge of that part of Quebec already in the hands of the English; Father Joseph François Perreault, of Three Rivers and that part of Quebec still under the French; Father Étienne Montgolfier, 5.5., of Montreal and the western part of Canada. Acadia was entrusted to the celebrated Father Pierre Maillard,1 who had been a missionary there since 1735; while Father l\Iichel Baudoin, S.J., was appointed to administer Louisiana and the Mississippi valley. Father Pierre de la Rue, abbot of 1'Isle-Dieu, who lived in Paris, was continued in the charge of vicar-general which he already possessed, for the management of Canadian religious interests in France and in Louisiana. Of Louisiana nothing more need be said here except that, after the treaty of 1763, all the chapels and missions of the Jesuits among the Illinois were destroyed and the missionaries expelled. The four missions of the Quebec Seminary among the Tamarois, on the left shore of the Mississippi, were abandoned and their valuable properties sold for next to nothing by the Abbé François Forget-Duverger, the last priest of the Seminary of the Foreign Missions in charge there. He then returned to France, while Father Sébastien Louis Meurin, S.J., in re- sponse to his pressing entreaties, was granted permission to go back to the Illinois, and became vicar-general of Quebec in that .distant region. After the capitulation of Montreal, when all the country became an English possession, the vicars-general manifested great loyalty towards the new government, and in their letters to the clergy and the faithful exhorted them all to an entire submission. Public prayers in the churches and the singing of the Te Deum were commanded for the king and whenever any happy event befell England. This was just, 1 This is according to his own signature, although he is everywhere named Antoine-Simon. He had studied in the seminary of the Holy Ghost, and is said by some to have belonged to the Congregation of the Holy Ghost. In reality he was a member of the Seminary of Quebec. 16 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST for George III was now, by the fate of arms, their lawful sovereign; it was also wise, for, by showing that the Catholic Church is, as Guizot declared, a veritable school for respect and authority, it powerfully helped to procure her that greater liberty for which Canadians were then soliciting the throne. Two delegates, Étienne Charest and Jean Amiot,1 whose expenses were to be paid by the parishes of the diocese, had been sent to London in 1763 to entreat the king for the full exercise of the Catholic religion in accordance with the 4th article of the Treaty of Paris. In the meantime the chapter and the vicars-general, relying more on the king's kindness than on the assurances of treaties, presented to His Majesty an address asking that the see of Quebec should be filled. On September 15, 1763, two days after the sending of this petition, they elected as successor to Bishop de Pont- briand, Grand-Vicar Montgolfier, and the newly elected bishop sailed a few weeks later for London to obtain the royal assent. Unhappily Governor Murray disliked the Abbé Mont- golfier, whom he thought too rigid in the discharge of his duties. His displeasure was deepened by the fact that all knowledge of these proceedings had been kept from him. When he heard of them he wrote to the Earl of Shelburne, on September 14, 17 6 3: My LORD, -On this Errand, the Vicar General of Montreal, Monsieur Montgolfier sets out very shortly for Britain; what his schemes are I do not thoroughly understand, as he has never communicated them to me ; that he aims at the mitre is certainly very probable. How unfit he is for that Station, Your Lordship may easily judge by the enclosed copy of a letter he had the assurance to write to a Monsieur Houdin, at that time Chaplain to His Majesty's 48th Regiment, formerly a Recollet in this country. He pushed matters so far as to have the Dead Bodies of some Soldiers taken up, because Heretics should not be interred in Consecrated Ground. Such behaviour could not fail of giving great 1 The family name is written also · Amiote' and · Amyot.' The Christian name is not given in the documents, in accordance with a prevalent and stupid custom of the time. The man was very likely Jean Amiot, a merchant and churchwarden of Quebec, who died in 1769. EARLY HISTORY UNDER BRITISH RULE 17 disgust to the King's British Subjects in these parts. If so Haughty and imperious a Priest, well related in France, is placed at the head of the Church of this country he may hereafter occasion much mischief. This was assuredly poor commendation. Vicar-General l\Iontgolfier resolutely pleaded his case, but could not over- come the opposition of the English minister. Not only was he unable to cross to France to be consecrated, but he had even to renounce his vicar-generalship to obtain permission to return to Canada. In 1764 he formally resigned the rights conferred upon him by the choice of the chapter, and suggested that the Abbé Briand should be elected in his place. Governor-General Murray favoured this nomination. At the end of the letter quoted above he said: 'I must here take the liberty to repeat what I had the Honor to inform Your Lordship of in a former one of the 22nd July, that Monsieur Bryant, Vicar-General of this Government, has con- stantly acted with a candour, moderation, and disinterested- ness which bespeak him a worthy honest man, and that I know none of his gown in the Province so justly deserving of the Royal favour.' In the letter of July 22 alluded to, after having warned the government against the Abbé Joseph- Marie de la Come, a Quebec canon, then in London, lest he might be appointed head of the Canadian Church, he added with regard to the Abbé Briand: 'He has acted with a can- dour, moderation and delicacy in such circumstances, as deserve the highest commendation, such indeed as I little expected from one of his gown.' Notwithstanding these favourable declarations Vicar-General Briand spent more than a year in London without any good result, owing to the calumnies of the notorious Roubaud, a miserable but talented apostate Jesuit priest. Finally, at the end of 1765, having had indirect notice that the government would not oppose his consecration, he went to France, obtained his Bulls in January 1766, and was consecrated the following June, at Suresnes near Paris, by the Bishop of Blois. His return gave Canadians great joy. The event was, in fact, one of great consequence. VOL. XI B 18 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST The Bulls had been granted under special conditions im- posed by Great Britain: first, ' that the Bishop would depend on no foreign power and keep no intercourse with France and Rome; secondly, that his Bulls once obtained, he would be considered as drawing his authority from his dignity and his See.' To these conditions Rome assented. Jean Olivier Briand (1715-94) was one of the greatest Canadian bishops. In his humility he termed himself Ie charretier de l'épiscopat-meaning that he was only a link in the chain of the Canadian hierarchy. He was much more than this, however, for by his tact and gentleness, by his firmness and ability, by his thorough understanding of the necessi ties of the time, and his yielding to those necessi ties in so far as his conscience permitted, he became that hierarchy's saviour, and may be justly regarded as the second founder of the Catholic Church in Canada. The Abbé Plessis, himself a man of the same cast as Briand, formed in relations of intimacy with him, and destined, in after days, to complete his work, has magnificently portrayed him in his funeral oration on June 27, 1794 : Monseigneur Briand had hardly seen the British arms placed over the gates of our city before he perceived that God had transferred to England the dominion of the country; that with the change of possessors our duties had changed their directions; that the ties that heretofore bound us to France were broken; that our capitulations and the Treaty of Cession in 1763 were so many engagements which bound us to Great Britain and to submission to her Sovereign. He perceived what none had comprehended, that religion itself might gain by the change of government. . . he had for a maxim that there are no true Canadians but such as submit to their lawful Sovereign. He had heard from Jesus Christ that we must 'render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's ' ; from St Paul, that every soul must submit to the established authorities, that those who resist the powers that be, resist God Himself and that resistance incurs damnation. . . . Such, Christians, arc, in this matter, the principles of our holy Religion; principles that we cannot too earnestly inculcate, nor submit too frequently to your consideration, since they form part of that EARLY HISTORY UNDER BRITISH RULE 19 Evangelical morality in conformity to which depends your salvation. It was precisely on that account-his perfect submission to Great Britain-that Bishop Briand had to suffer from the suspicions of some of the people and even of the clergy, but he went on as his conscience indicated. Respectful towards the civil power though he was, he never forgot what he owed to God and to the Church. He refused to take the oath of allegiance until a formula acceptable to a Catholic-which Rome afterwards approved-was provided. Like his pre- decessors he styled himself ' Bishop of Quebec by the Mercy of God and the Grace of the Holy See.' He formed new parishes, ordained priests and appointed pastors. When the governmen t tried to interfere in the erection of parishes and the appointment of priests, he told General Murray that, rather than allow it, he would lay his head upon the block. In 1784, at the end of his administration, he wrote to Sir Guy Carleton: 'Some have thought that I was afraid of the Governor [Haldimand]. No! I never feared man in my life, and now that I am on the brink of the grave, I reproach myself with not fearing enough my dreadful judge-God. I know how to love, not how to fear; kindness renders me weak, rigour and insult find me manly and firm.' Such was Bishop Briand. Respectful, yet forceful, he enjoyed the confidence and respect of the new masters of Canada, and, as a consequence, freedom for his ministry. His work for religious liberty was furthered indirectly by the agitation which, soon after the conquest of New France, began to arouse the colonists of New England. Warned by the eloquent speeches of Burke, Barré, Pitt and other great orators favourable to the liberty of the New England colonists, the British parliament, with a view to preventing Canadians from joining the American rebellion, passed the Quebec Act (1774), wherein they were guaranteed a larger share of civil and religious liberty. Strange to say, the Americans, who were taking up arms to vindicate their liberty, were incensed at the shred of freedom thus granted to others. When they invaded Canada in 1775 this fact 20 RO:\IAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST proved a powerful argument in the bishop's pastoral letters ; it did much to maintain the loyalty of his flock, and even to bring back to duty such as had been seduced by insincere promises. His behaviour on that momentous occasion obtained for Bishop Briand the gratitude of the government and a pension of two hundred pounds. This substantial favour was all the lllore appreciated as his income was only a few thousand francs, derived partly from property in Paris and partly from a grant of the clergy of France in 1765-both of which sources were soon to be dried up by the French Revolution. To this must be added, however, a yearly sum of one hundred and fifty pounds paid by the government as rent for the use of the episcopal palace, which he had rebuilt but did not occupy. In 1775 the conditions of the Canadian Church had un- doubtedly much improved. It would be wrong, however, to suppose that all grievances were at an end. In that very year, Instructions, which encroached in more ways than one upon religious liberty, were sent to Governor Carleton; they were repeated to Haldimand in 1778, and again to Carleton (then Lord Dorchester) in 1786. It is necessary, to the thorough understanding of the si tua tion, that at least some articles of these Instructions should be mentioned. We read under number 21 : I. That all appeals to, or correspondence with, any foreign ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, of what nature or . kind soever, be absolutely forbidden under very severe penalties; 2. That. . . no one be admitted to Holy Orders or invested with the cure of souls-without a licence or permission of the Governor ; s. That no Catholic priest be appointed to a parish in which the majority ask for a Protestant minister. And then shall Catholics be admitted to the use of the Church for their worshipping and obliged to pay tythes to said Minister; and Protestants in a parish where the majority are Catholics shall have the use of the Church but shall not pay tythes to the Priest; 1 1 Italics are used here to point out the difference of treatment. The articles are abridged, but the terms are preserved. EARLY HISTORY UNDER BRITISH RULE 21 6, 7. That all present and future parish-priests . shall hold their benefices during good behaviour, but be subject to be deprived of them by the Governor in cases of criminal offences or seditious attempts; 8. That such priests as may think fit to enter the holy state of matrimony, be free of all ecclesiastical penalties; 9. That urial grounds be indiscriminately open to any persuasion. . By the 11th clause the Seminaries of Quebec and Montreal were left in possession of their estates, and were allowed to admit new members to educate young men for the priest- hood, but they were made subject to visitation by the governor. The 12th clause declared that all other com- munities, although left' upon their present establishment,' were forbidden to receive new members, except the com- munities of women, which might continue as before. The Jesuits were entirely suppressed and their estates forfeited to the crown. By these last dispositions the Récollets and the Jesuits were doomed to disappear. Father Berey, the superior of the former order, who had been granted a pension of k500, died in 1800, and the last priest of the community, in 1813. Of the J esui ts only twelve remained after the Conquest. They had reopened their college in Quebec in 1761, but were obliged to close it in 1768 for lack of pupils. The few in attendance were sent to the Seminary of Quebec, which had opened classes in 1765. A grammar school was nevertheless maintained in the old college until 1776, when it was closed by the govern- ment; the rest of the building, three-fourths of which had already been made into a barrack, was transformed into military stores, courts and a prison. By some it is denied -and on good grounds-that the order was canonically notified of its suppression; but it is unquestionable that the Jesuits in Quebec were in some manner notified of their sup- pression by the Pope. Be this as it may, they were left in possession of their estates until the death of the last mem- ber, Father Casot, in 1800. Their seigniories, estimated at 891,845 acres, were then vested in the crown, and the revenues applied to different purposes, chiefly educational. 22 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST For nearly a century these valuable estates remained a matter of dispute, until, in 1888, the case was settled, with the agree- ment of Rome, by the Hon. Honoré Mercier, prime minister of the Province of Quebec. The Sulpicians were not forbidden by the Instructions of 1775 to admit new members, but as they could not receive any from France, and found but very few recruits in Canada, their number quickly decreased. From thirty in 1759, the order had dwindled down to two septuagenarians in 1793. Nor were their estates declared forfeit. The 21st article of the Instructions even guaranteed that the Seminary of Mon- treal, as well as that of Quebec, should continue to occupy their house' and other properties to which they were law- fully entitled before the 18th of September 1759.' But their estates (250,191 acres), although only about one-third as large as those of the Jesuits, included the Island of Montreal; they were, therefore, considered to be of much greater value and were much more coveted. The title by which they had been conveyed by the Seminary of Paris to the Seminary of Mon- treal in 1764 was declared null and void by all the English legal authorities on both sides of the Atlantic, and nothing now remained to prevent the government from laying hands on this valuable property. Happily, as we shall presently see, justice and common sense were not altogether dead in England. The extinction of the male religious orders greatly depleted the ranks of the Canadian clergy. The secular priests were not numerous. In 1758, regulars included, they numbered only 180. In 1766 the number had fallen to 138. Several of the canons had returned to France before or after the Conquest. Of the five that remained, the last, Vicar-General Saint-Onge, died in 1795, and with him the venerable insti- tution came to an end. I t was never revived. Although Bishop Briand ordained ninety priests, he could hardly fill the places made empty by death. The following figur s are taken from a report sent by him to the govern- Inent on the state of the clergy and religious communities in 178.J. : EARLY HISTORY UNDER BRITISH RULE 23 Scminnries ] u"'1 R,,,,n.,, I Pan.h . I Congre- Hôtel Hûpital gation ,. ... I Priests U rsuhnes Dir:u G",néral of Notre Bishops Priests Fathers Fathers Brothers I Dame f-- -1---- -- Quebec 2 6 3 6 5 46 39 3 2 33 12 Three Rivers . .. .. . ... ... ... 13 21 . .. ... ... MontreaI . . .. 10 I I 2 4 0 ... 3 2 17 48 - - - - - -- - - - 2 16 4 7 7 99 I 60 64 50 60 I The number of parishes was 118, among which are reckoned two Indian missions with a resident priest-that of Sault St Louis for the Iroquois, and Indian Lorette for the Hurons. The Abnakis, on the St François River, and the Mohawks, at St Regis, were served by the nearest parish priest; the mixed congregation of Oka was in charge of the Sulpicians. Of the two bishops mentioned in the report the second was Bishop Desgly. To save Quebec from a vacancy, which was much to be dreaded at that juncture, Bishop Briand had obtained from Rome, along with his Bulls, the power to appoint, with the consent of England, a coadjutor having the right of future succession, and to consecrate him wi thou t the usual assistance of two bishops. After some hesi ta tion London gave a verbal assent; but Sir Guy Carleton, although well disposed, feared to go beyond the instructions of the court, and therefore resisted for four years the entreaties of the bishop. In 1770, however, he himself proposed for the coadjutorship the Abbé Louis Philippe Mariauchau Desgly,l parish priest of St Peter's in the Island of Orleans. He would even have had him consecrated at once, but Bishop Briand, notwithstanding the advice of several of the clergy and the murmurs of the people, would not do so until the Bulls had been obtained from Rome. Cardinal Castelli after- wards heartily thanked him for having safeguarded the rights of the Holy See. Monseigneur Desgly (1710-88) was conse- crated Bishop of Dorylæum in 177 2 . Of Bishop Desgly Ii ttle need be said. He belonged to a distinguished Canadian family, and was the first Quebec bishop born in the country. Although he began his ad- 1 This is his own signature. not' D'Esglis ' or . d'Esglis,' as commonly written. 24 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST ministration in 1784, he remained in his small parish until he died in 1788, six years before Bishop Briand. His most important act was the choice of his successor, Bishop Hubert. BISHOPS HUBERT AND DENAUT During the administration of Bishop Hubert (1739-97), who was consecrated by Monseigneur Briand under the name of Bishop of Almyra, several noteworthy events took place. The church was then beginning to develop in the Great Lakes region and the Maritime Provinces, and it might be well here to consider the work done in those districts. Al- though there were so few priests in the diocese of Quebec that one pastor frequently had to serve two parishes, the distan t missions, as the facts show, were not forgotten. Detroit, which was still dependent on Quebec, was, from 1752 to 1783, served by several missionaries, among whom were the Rev. Fathers Pierre Potier, S.J., and Le Simple Bocquet, O.F.M. When the latter was recalled to Quebec in 1783, he was immediately replaced by the Abbé Louis Payet. Indeed, the latter even met him on the way. Father Jean François Hubert had himself been in that region for two years past. After having played a most patriotic part in 1775, while superior of the Seminary of Quebec, he had asked, in 1781, to be sent as a missionary to the Hurons settled near Detroit. He resided chiefly at the Mission of the Assumption, now Sandwich, on the Canadian side, and built there, almost entirely at his own expense, a church and a priest's house. In 1784, while devotedly working for the salvation of Canadians as well as of Indians, there reached him the undesired announcement of his election to the coad- jutorship of Quebec. He shed tears on leaving the scene of his hard but happy labours. The Abbé François-Xavier Dufaux, a Sulpician, replaced him, while soon afterwards the Abbé Payet, owing to ill-health, left the l\lission of Ste Anne's of Detroit to a young priest, the Abbé Pierre Fréchette, who served the parish until it passed under the jurisdiction of Baltimore in 1796. He was succeeded by Vicar-General Levadoux, who took charge in the name of Bishop Carroll . EARLY HISTORY UNDER BRITISH RULE 25 and remained until 1798. Then came the celebrated Father Gabriel Richard who gave to Detroit such a vigorous impetus. His splendid achievements do not belong to this sketch, as Detroit was no longer in Canadian territory. Four years before (1794) a man of some celebrity had been sent to Upper Canada by the Bishop of Quebec with the title of vicar-general. Born in Ireland in 1753, Father Edmund Burke had landed in Quebec in 1786. After some years spent as a professor of philosophy and mathematics in the Seminary of Quebec and afterwards as parish priest in the Island of Orleans, he finally expressed a desire to go to the distant missions. Great were his schemes when he went to Ontario, but they soon melted away in the presence of realities, like wax near a flame. That province, with the exception of a few settlements still in their infancy, was a wilderness covered from end to end by the primeval forest, and offered little opportunity for spectacular deeds. That his mission was not very successful clearly appears not only from the letters of his fellow-missionaries, but also from his own letters, in which a sad and discouraged tone frequently prevails. Stationed first at the Rivière-au-Raisin, on the United States side, among Indians whose language he could never master, he soon became restless. He lacked stability. In 1798 he was at Niagara, the seat of legislature, and in 1800 at York -the future Toronto-then a small muddy village. In 1801, when in Kingston, a quarrel with an officer compelled him to leave that place. Then Monseigneur Denaut, suc- cessor to Bishop Hubert, who had consoled Father Burke by his letters, and allowed, or even advised, him to change his station for any other he might judge more convenient, offered him the congregation of Halifax, which was just becoming vacan t. This post he accepted, and his record there will be touched upon later. Not long after the departure of Father Fréchette from Ste Anne's of Detroit, the Abbé Dufaux died in 1796, in his parish of the Assumption of Sandwich. He was succeeded by another Sulpician, Father Jean-Baptiste Marchand, who held the position until his death in 1825. His appointment was the result of an agreement between Bishop Hubert 26 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST and the superior of the Seminary of Montreal, Father Gabriel Jean Brassier. By this agreement the Sulpicians were to serve all the missions of Upper Canada. Father Bédard had accordingly, in 1795, been appointed to Kingston, where, in 1793, the Abbé Philippe J. L. Desjardins and Chevalier La Corne de St Luc had secured ground for the building of a church and a presbytery. In the missionaries of that part of the diocese the bishop particularly required a knowledge of the English language. The population of Ontario at that epoch is not known with any exactness, but it did not exceed 20,000, and of these the' greater portion were loyalists from the United States and for the most part Protestants. Some Catholic Irish soldiers of the 5th regiment, in garrison at Fort George on the Niagara River, had for their first chaplain a French Dominican refugee named Le Dru. He was dismissed in 1794 by Lord Dorchester, and replaced, first by the Rev. Edmund Burke, and then by the Abbé Philippe Desjardins, afterwards vicar-general of Paris. In 1798-99 some French noblemen who had been banished by the Revolution-the Count of Puisaye, the Count and the Viscount of Chalus, the Marquess of Beaupoil-with two score followers attempted settlements in the townships of l\JIarkham, near York, and of Niagara. Tè.ey unhappily failed, and their dependants either joined their Canadian compatriots or went back to France. Scottish Catholics were more successful. In 1773 a large party, on the invitation of Sir \Villiam Johnson, had settled on the banks of the Mohawk River, in the State of New York, then British territory. There, on lands granted to them, they built their homes. When the American Revolution broke out, they remained loyal to England and were denounced as friends of English tyranny and disarmed by General Schuyler. In order to escape the crusade of bigotry raised by John Jay, three hundred of them, under the guidance of their pastor, Father McKerlna, crossed the border and, after Inany hard- ships from exposure and hunger, settled in what is now the county of Glengarry. Father McKenna had received powers of jurisdiction from Vicar-General Montgolfier. His suc- EARLY HISTORY UNDER BRITISH RULE 27 cessor in that part of the country was the Rev. Roderick Macdonell, who came from Scotland in 1785 with letters of commendation from the vicar-apostolic of that country. In the meanwhile he served his compatriots and the mission of St Regis. In 1786 another clergyman of good family and highly commended by his superiors, the Rev. Alexander Macdonell -' with abilities, both natural and acquired, equal to his birth' -accompanied to this country another large colony of Catholic Highlanders, and founded in Glengarry the parish of St Raphael. While the Catholic faith was in this manner progressing in Upper Canada, it was also, through the zeal of its mis- sionaries, rising from the grave in the Maritime Provinces. This new life may be truly termed a resurrection, because, by the dispersion of the Acadians in 1755, and their banish- ment from St John's Island in 1758, after the surrender of Louisbourg, there remained in that region almost no Catholics except a few hundred Micmacs--or Abnakis-wandering in the woods. Some Acadians had also taken refuge in the forests, while others, to the no small anxiety of the usurpers of their hearths, were slowly creeping back to their former land. But in 1760 they could not yet have been very numerous, for their whole number in 1763 is estimated by Rameau at 2800, of whom 400 were on the Nova Scotian shore of the Strait of Canso and in Cape Breton. In Halifax, which was founded by Edward Cornwallis in 1749, the inhabitants, according to the Hon. Alexander Grant, numbered' about three thousand, one-third Irish, one-fourth German or Dutch, the most useful and industrious settlers among us, and the rest English with a very small number of Scotch.' According to the same author the morality of the place could not have been very high. '\Ve have,' he says, , upwards of 100 licensed houses, and perhaps as many more retailing spirituous liquors without license, so that the business of one-half of the town is to sell rum, and the other half to drink it.' Many of the Irish, says Thomas Chandler Haliburton in his History of Nova Scotia, were Catholics. Archbishop O'Brien, commenting on this asser- 28 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST tion, adds: 'We may be sure that the major part were Irish Catholics.' But the laws of the province in no way encouraged the Catholic faith. The infant legislature of Halifax had in 1758 enacted exceedingly stringent laws against it. Its first act 'to confirm the titles in the land' contains this drastic clause: 'Provided that no Papist hereafter shall have any right or title to hold, possess or enjoy any land or tenements other than by virtue of any grant or grants from the Crown, but that all deeds, or wills, hereafter made, conveying lands or tenements to any Papist, shall be utterly null and void.' It was further decreed that' Every popish person exer- cising any Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction shall depart out of this Province on, or before, the 25th of March 1759'; that' if found after that date, upon conviction, they shall be adjudged to suffer perpetual imprisonment, escape from which would be deemed felony'; and that' all persons harbouring, re- lieving, concealing any popish priest, shall be fined fifty pounds, and be adjudged to be set in the pillory, and to find securities for good behaviour at the discretion of the Court. ' In 1766 an act on education was passed which cautiously provided that: 'If any popish recusant, Papist or person #professing the Popish Religion shall be so presumptuous as to set up any school within the Province, and be detected therein, such offender shall, for every such offence, suffer three months imprisonment without bailor mainprize and shall pay fine to the King of k 1 o. ' After quoting these laws, the author of the Memoirs of Rev. Edmund Burke adds: 'So far as these diabolical statutes could effect it, the Catholic was to be landless, pastorless and teacherless. ' In Newfoundland-which, with Anticosti, the Magdalen Islands and Labrador, fonned a distinct administration-the laws against the Roman Church were yet more tyrannic. Priests were persecuted, hunted and imprisoned; persons who harboured them were fined and flogged; houses where mass had been said were pulled down or burned. Since that EARLY HISTORY UNDER BRITISH RULE 29 early period, it need hardly be said, there has been an enor- mous change. Newfoundland, being still an independent colony and not a part of the Dominion, is not included in this sketch. Let it suffice to say that it became a vicariate- apostolic in 1796, and in 1847 a bishopric, with its seat in St John's. That diocese was dependent on the Archbishop of Quebec only until 1850, and it now forms a distinct ec- clesiastical province, with an archbishopric-St John's-and two bishoprics-Harbour Grace and St George. \Vithin its jurisdiction there are nearly 80,000 Catholics with 80 priests, many religious orders, educational and charitable institutions, and, in fact, all the agencies of a perfectly organized Church. In 1758 the only priest tolerated in Nova Scotia was Father Pierre Maillard, the Apostle of the Abnakis. As these Indians, to avenge their missionaries and their French allies, shot down every Englishman who ventured within their reach, the government appealed to this energetic churchman to use his influence on behalf of peace. Such a change immediately took place in the conduct of the savages that Maillard was invited to Halifax, granted a pension of f200, and allowed greater liberty of worship for himself and his Irish co-religionists. Unfortunately, Father Maillard died in 1762, without any brother priest to soothe his last moments. Nova Scotia then remained without a missionary until 1767, owing partly to local circumstances, partly to the vacancy of the see of Quebec, and partly to the scarcity of the clergy. In 1767, on the demand of Lieutenant-Governor Michael Francklin, the young Abbé Charles François Bailly de Messein, recently ordained, was sent there, and he relnained until 1771. The privileges he enjoyed under Francklin and his successor, : Lord Campbell, excited such an outcry of fanaticism in Boston and Halifax that he had to quit the city and retire to the woods. Even after leaving the Nova Scotia missions he did not forget the scene of his first sacerdotal sacrifices and joys, for on his death-bed, in 1794, he bequeathed flooo for the maintenance of missionaries there. The famous Father Jean-Baptiste de la Brosse, 5.]., succeeded him. In the spring of 1770 he was sent by Bishop 30 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST Briand to the l\laritime Provinces with most ample powers over all the missions on the south shore of the St Lawrence from Cacouna to Nova Scotia, St John's Island and Cape Breton. Of his work there nothing is known. He died at Tadoussac in 1782, while serving the Indians of the Saguenay region. Meanwhile four Acadian boys were studying in France for the priesthood, at Bishop Briand's expense, and in his pastoral letters (1766 and 1770) he encouraged their com- patriots to perseverance, expressing the hope that they would soon have priests of their own race. In fact, one of these students, Mathurin Bourg-said to be of the Con- gregation of the Holy Ghost-was, after Father de la Brosse, entrusted with the work among the Acadians of the Maritime Provinces, and he served them continuously from 1773 to 1795, as well as the Micmacs, whose language he perfectly understood. \Vhen he left to take a deserved rest in the parish of St Lawrence, near Montreal, where he died in 1797, many workers were in the field. Another of these Aca- dian boys, Father Jean Bro, was sent to his compatriots scattered in the United States, and succeeded in bringing back to Canada several families, whom he established at St J acques-Ie-Majeur-de-I' Achigan. He became their first pastor. In St John's Island and Nova Scotia the population was then rapidly increasing. The former, which had been made a separate colony under Lieutenant-Governor \Valter Patter- son, was divided into sixty-seven parts which were distributed by lottery. In 1772, h aded by John l\lacdonald, the laird of Glenaladale, 210 Catholic Highlanders-almost all Mac- Donalds, with a few MacPhees, MacKinnons, l\1acPhersons, MacEacharns-landed and settled at Scotch Fort, the old St Louis of the Acadians. They had a perfect organization. Their priest, the Rev. James MacDonald, had studied in Rome, and besides Gaelic, the language of his countrymen, knew Italian, English and French. He spent his first winter, while a church with a thatched roof was being erected at Scotch Fort, with the Acadian families who had returned from the mainland and settled at Malpeque. He was a de- EARLY HISTORY UNDER BRITISH RULE 31 voted and tireless missionary until the close of his life. He died in 1785, and, like Father Maillard, without the offices of a fellow-priest. In 1790 another important contingent of Scottish Catholics landed in St John's Island, under the religious direction of the Rev. Angus MacEacharn, whose family was among the settlers in 1772. He had been a student of the Royal Scots College in Valladolid, and was very highly commended by his bishop. In addition to his native Gaelic he knew English, and soon learned enough French to be helpful to the Acadians. Of a kind and cheerful disposition, he frequently shared in the sliding, skating or snow-shoeing sports of Acadian boys, in order to become acquainted with their special forms of speech. For long years he remained the favourite of both Scottish and Acadian Catholics, not only in the island but also on the neighbouring shores. Out of 1000 inhabitants in St John's Island nearly 600 were Catholics. Some Scottish Protestants had settled on the west shore of Richmond Bay. The Scottish Catholics formed Georgetown, Covehead, St Peter's and Cavendish. A group of loyalists were at Bedeque, while the Acadians chiefly inhabited Malpeque. In Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Cape Breton a great number of loyalists from the United States and several groups of Acadians had begun to settle. According to a letter of Father Bourg, who had been made vicar-general, 150 Acadian families, besides numerous families established at l\1:enoudie, Petitcodiac and Memramcook, lived in 1785 at Cape Sable and Bay Ste Marie, and 140 families, with many Irish Catho- lics, at Arichat in Cape Breton. At Halifax a great proportion of the numerous loyalists who came in 1782 were Catholics. Because of their number, or because broader views began to prevail, the statutes of 1758 against popery were repealed. Vicar-General Mathurin Bourg left his first place of residence, Chaleur Bay, and came to live in the city, where Catholics were rapidly increasing in numbers and where a fine church was being erected. Meanwhile some other priests arrived. The Quebec bishops were doing their utmost to obtain pastors for their 32 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST flocks. In 1784 a petition was sent to the king entreating him to allow Canadians to bring from France, at their own expense, clergymen of their language. The petition was refused. French priests were then under such suspicion that one of them, the Abbé François Ciquard, was twice expelled from Canada by Governor Haldimand. The bishop was obliged to carry on even a simple correspondence with France under cover. l\tlonseigneur Desgly then endeavoured to get some priests from Great Britain. Through the Rev. Father Hussey, an Irish clergyman, whom he made his vicar-general in London, he secured four missionaries for Canada: Fathers Roderick l\lacdonald (1784), Edmund Burke, already men- tioned (1786), vVilliam Phelan (1786) and Thomas Power (17 8 7). In 1785 an Irish Capuchin, Father James Jones, canIe to Halifax, where he was to play an important part. He was made vicar-general with authority over other British mis- sionaries. In the same year another member of the Con- gregation of the Holy Ghost, Father Joseph Ie Roux, arrived and took up his residence at Memramcook. From that point he served the neighbouring localities of Cocagne, J udaique and Petitcodiac. But the time was not far distant when the French Revo- lution, while destroying religion in France, was to strengthen materially the Catholic Church in Canada, both by exiling many heroic priests to the shores of the St Lawrence, and by breaking down English religious prejudices through the admiration excited by the virtues of the exiled French clergy. From 1793 to 1798 thirty-four such refugees arrived in Canada, and among them were many distinguished men, such as the Abbé Jacques Ladislas Joseph de Calonne, brother to the n1inister of Finance of Louis XVI, who became a missionary in St John's Island; the Abbés Louis Joseph and Philippe J. L. Desjardins, to the former of whom Canada is indebted for a great number of oil-paintings, masterpieces of French and Italian artists, which he saved from revolutionary van- dalism; the Abbé Jean Mandet Sigogne, who for nearly fifty years-he died in 1844-was to be consoler and guide of the Acadians at Bay Ste Marie and in the neighbourhood; and EARLY HISTORY UNDER BRITISH RULE 33 the Abbé Jean Auguste Roux, who became in 1798 superior of the Seminary of Montreal. Fifteen of these timely recruits entered this institution between 1793 and 1798, thereby saving it from ruin. Nine worked as missionaries in different parts of the lower provinces, four in Upper Canada, and others were employed as professors and chaplains. \Vhile the vacancies in the ranks of his clergy were being so providentially filled and the distant parts of his diocese so happily provided for, Bishop Hubert was thinking of divid- ing the burden of his pastoral charge. As early as 1789 he had written to Cardinal Antonelli to obtain the consent of His Holiness Pius VI to the erection of Montreal into an independent bishopric, which would include Upper Canada. Rome was willing, and it is probable that London, through the benevolent influence of Lord Dorchester, would not have opposed. But obstacles came from unexpected quarters. The matter is worth a short study. In 1789 the committee which had long been investigating Canadian affairs recommended in its report, among many things relating to education, the creation of a mixed univer- sity for teaching sciences and the liberal arts. It also sug- gested that the Jesuit estates, a portion of the crown lands, and a legacy of .f1200 annual rent left by the celebrated Irish philosopher and scientist Robert Boyle, , for the Propagation of the Protestant Religion in British Colonies,' should be devoted to its maintenance. Bishop Hubert opposed the scheme as a menace to the faith of his flock, and, with great dignity and moderation, gave his reasons in a public memoir. Bishop Charles François Bailly de Messein (1740-94), who has been already mentioned as a successful missionary in Nova Scotia (1767-71), was then coadjutor with the right of succession. He had been a professor of theology at the Seminary of Quebec (1772-77), and was appointed (1777) pastor of Pointe-aux-Trembles, in the county of Portneuf, but in 1778 he went to London as private tutor to Lord Dor- chester's children. Although he was not devoid of merits, these had less to do with his elevation to the episcopal dignity than the en trea ties of the governor, who was his personal friend. Consecrated in 1789 under the title of Bishop of VOL. XI C 34 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST Capsa, his first step was to adopt views concerning the mixed university directly contrary to those of Bishop Hubert. He even went so far as to write a pamphlet ridiculing the vener- able and much esteemed prelate. On another occasion he had printed in La Gazette de Québec a manifesto against a pastoral letter of his superior, because certain special powers of the clergy had been restrained and certain feasts obligatory on week days had not been suppressed. Rome, when informed by Bishop Hubert of this state of affairs, compelled the Bishop of Capsa to apologize for his conduct, and, in view of his lack of prudence and consideration, deemed it inopportune and even dangerous to erect the con- templated diocese of l\lontreal, as he would naturally have become its first titular. Bishop Bailly was replaced in 1794 by the Rev. Pierre Denaut, parish priest of Longueuil, who was consecrated in Montreal in 1795 under the title of Bishop of Cana tha. In his report to the Holy See in 1794, Bishop Hubert says again that his diocese is too vast and that several bishops are necessary. His successors pleaded the same necessity un til, under Bishop Plessis, the division was effected. As this report is a most interesting exposition of the state of the Canadian Church at that epoch, some figures may be quoted from it. Bishop Hubert says that there were 130 parishes with churches, of which less than twenty had been canonically erected; 160 priests and about 160,000 Catholics; 8 or 10 Indian missions, all in the hands of the secular clergy, the largest numbering no more than 500 souls. The chapter, having held its last meeting in 1773, no longer existed. Oce Jesuit only was left, with 8 Récollets in Quebec and 8 in Mon treal, almost all lay brothers. Of the parishes some numbered 1000, some 2000 souls, the smallest 500 or 600 ; Montreal had 8000, Quebec 6000. Tithes were paid at the 26th bushel of grain. The diocese was divided in to four parts, Montreal, Quebec, Upper Canada and the Maritime Provinces, each under a vicar-general. Priests were prepared for their work in the Seminary of Quebec. The Sulpicians, saved from destruction by the accession of twelve members of their order from the Seminary of Lyons (some others came EARLY HISTORY UNDER BRITISH RULE 3S later), had a college where rhetoric was taught from 1773 and philosophy from 1783. They had also opened an English school with so much success that the Protestant schools of Montreal had lost all their pupils. Hardly S Catholics could be found traitors to their religion, while at least 200 or 3 00 Protestan ts had returned to the old fold. To complete this information it may be added that, although forbidden to receive new members, the Récollets had nevertheless admitted some novices. But in 1796, after the destruction of their convent by fire, they were secularized by the bishop, who had special powers. Their church was already used on Sundays, after high mass, for Protestant services. There, in 1793, the first Anglican bishop, Jacob Mountain, had taken possession of his see. After the fire the ground was declared forfeited, and upon it were built the present English cathedral and the residence of the lord bishop. Bishop Hubert was accustomed to visit a part of his diocese every summer. He was welcomed everywhere. His humility and benevolence, as well as his oratory, which, while not academic, was impressive and moving, rendered him most popular. In 1795 he went to Chaleur Bay, and returned by land, travelling nearly all the distance, 450 miles, on foot. His health was so much impaired by the effort that he never rallied, and died, universally regretted, in 1797. Although the liberty of the Catholic religion had been guaranteed in the Quebec Act of 1774 and the Constitutional Act of 1791 which divided Canada into two provinces, yet the Instructions to governors, which offered so plausible a ground for arbitrariness, were maintained. The religious freedom of previous years was due, in fact, far less to the law than to the benevolence of the governors, and chiefly of Lord Dorchester, who, between 1766 and 1796, governed the country on three different occasions for fairly long periods. A strong party now existed which worked earnestly to deprive the French Canadians of their institutions and re- ligion. The leaders were Chief Justice Monk, Attorney- General Sewell and Bishop Mountain, headed by Herman Witsius Ryland, who for twenty years (1793-1813) was civil secretary to the governors of Canada. The followin lines ST. JOHN FISHER COllEGE liBRARY 36 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST from a letter of December 23, 1804, bearing his initials, will sufficiently show the ideas and feelings of that foe of the Roman Catholic Church. After speaking of the splendour he desires in the Protestant Church of Quebec, he writes: I come now to what you mention concerning the Popish clergy in this Province; I call them Popish to distinguish them from the Clergy of the Established Church and to express my contempt and detestation of a religion which sinks and debases the human mind and which is a curse to every country where it prevails. This being my opinion I have long since laid it down as a principle (which in my judgment no Governor of this Province ought to lose sight of for a moment) by every possible means which prudence can suggest, gradually to undermine the authority and influence of the Roman Catholic Priests. He afterwards suggests the means to obtain this highest object that a Governor here can have, viz. : A corporation for public Education vested with the Semi- nary and some other estates; the appointment by the King, with handsome stipend, of the Superintendent and Deputy-Superintendent of the Romish Church ; the neces- sity, for being invested with the cure of souls, of a license from the Governor, according to His Majesty's instructions. And these instructions once followed up, the King's supremacy would be established, the authority of the Pope would be abolished, the country would become Protestant. In the eyes of Chief Justice Sewell there was' no Catholic Bishop by law'-that office had become I extinct at the Conquest,' when all Catholic livings had devolved upon His Majesty. The English bishop wondered that anyone but himself could be called Bishop of Quebec, and claimed the ri t of appointing pastors to parishes. He received the handsome stipend of -Â70oo. These influential men obtained from the legislature in 1801, at which time Bishop Mountain was a member of the legislative council, a law which established a corporation under the name of 'The Royal Institution for the Encourage- ment of Public Instruction.' Almost all the members, chosen EARLY HISTORY UNDER BRITISH RULE 37 by the governor, were Protestants, and Bishop Mountain was president. Bishop Denaut (1743-1806), successor to Bishop Hubert, along with all his clergy, opposed the institution so vigorously that it was a complete failure. After becoming Bishop of Quebec, Denaut continued to live in his parish of Longueuil, where he was greatly beloved. He came to the city only on rare occasions, such as the ordination of priests or the pastoral visi t of the diocese, which, after the example of his pre- decessors, he made every year. In 1801 he went to Detroit, on the invitation of the Bishop of Baltimore. During the winter of 1802 he visited the Scottish settlements of Glen- garry and Stormont, erected into regular parishes the flour- ishing establishments of St Raphael and St Andrews, and appointed as their pastors the missionaries already there, Fathers Alexander and Roderick Macdonell. On these two occasions he confirmed upwards of two thousand people. In 1803 he spent five months visiting the now numerous and thriving missions of the Maritime Provinces, which, with the exception of Chaleur Bay, visited by Bishop Hubert in 1795, then saw a bishop for the first time. On that visit more than eight thousand persons were confirmed. In 1805, on the advice of Lieutenant-Governor Sir Robert Shore Milnes, Bishop Denaut petitioned the king that he might be officially recognized as Bishop of Quebec. He failed. Success was reserved for Bishop Plessis. BISHOP JOSEPH OCTAVE PLESSIS Bishop Plessis (1763-1825) had been consecrated in 1801, under the title of Bishop of Canatha, Coadjutor of Quebec. He was then parish priest of Quebec. His election did not take place without opposition. Initiated into church affairs in his youth, while secretary to Bishop Briand, he was a stead- fast defender of Catholic rights, and his opinion was known to prevail in ecclesiastical circles. I t was not forgotten that the memoir of Bishop Hubert, in 1789, against the scheme for a mixed university was due not merely to his inspiration but to his pen. The Duke of Kent wrote to Governor Prescott 38 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST (October 1797) to excite his distrust and warn him that it would not be prudent to rely on Father Plessis, that he was opposed to the royal supremacy, and that his loyalty towards England was doubtful. The instrument to remove the ob- stacles in the way of his elevation to the coadjutorship was none other than Ryland. Being at that time a friend of the curé of Quebec, Ryland persuaded Sir Robert Prescott to accept the man whose appointment was desired by all the clergy. His views and feelings afterwards changed, for in 1806 he did his best to prevent the administrator of the province, Thomas Dunn, from receiving the bishop's oath of allegiance. Bishop Plessis was destined to achieve the organization of the Canadian Church. .Although he never renounced a right, yet he always acted so discreetly and loyally that he never offended English feelings. Minutes have been pre- served of several discussions which he had with Attorney- General Sewell and Sir James Craig. The chief matter in dispute was the appointment of parish priests. Although the governor distinguished between the temporal living and the spiritual jurisdiction, and claimed for the king only the appointment to the former, the bishop would not concede a particle of his right. Sir James having alluded in one of the conversations to the Bishop of Havana, who, for having appointed a priest notwithstanding the prohibition of the English governor, was put aboard a ship and banished to Florida, Bishop Plessis said: I I would less fear to be a prisoner on a warship than to betray my conscience.' In their last meeting, when the prelate thanked the governor for his personal kindness, and protested his inviolable attach- ment and loyalty to His Britannic Majesty, Sir James answered: 'I admit that you have these sentiments: you never belied yourself.' They parted on most friendly terms, al though with very different views. Ryland was then in England, where he had been sent by Sir James Craig to promote the interests of the Protestant party. He remained there nearly two years, from July 1810 to the spring of 1812. \Vith what earnestness he discharged his mission is clearly shown by his active correspondence. , JOSEPH uCT.-\YE PLESSIS ,From llll cll/{ra'i!Ï11!{ ill the Domillion Archi'l!e.r EARLY HISTORY UNDER BRITISH RULE 39 He was sparing neither in actions, nor letters, nor memorials. To the ministers, verbally or in writing, he repeated over and over again his favourite projects. How important, he urged, it would be to place the' Institution for the Advance- ment of Science on a sound basis'; what a horn of plenty might be found in the estates of the Jesuits and the Sui pi- cians; how advisable for the crown to assume the patronage of the Romish Church by granting letters patent to the super- intendent thereof, and legal titles to the clergy. He also asked to ' what penalty or penalties the Rev. Joseph Octave Plessis might be subject' for having in an episcopal charge of October 25, 1810-as indeed, in all other charges-' styled himself Par la grâce du St Siège A postolique Evêque de Québec. ' The British ministers-Robert Peel, then a very young man, and Lord Liverpool-were happily not so short-sighted nor so forgetful of justice. The zealous envoy sometimes grew impatient when he saw that his suggestions were not adopted at once. On August 4, 1810, he writes to Craig: One particular, however, in the course of our Conver- sation struck me, and I think it deserving of notice; it is that when I observed to Mr Peel' that you had with you all the English inhabitants, and consequently all the commercial interests of the country,' he remarked that the Canadians were much more nU1JlerOUS, and he repeated the same remark more than once in a way that indicated a fear of doing anything that might clash with the pre- judices of the more numerous part of the community, and this, if my apprehensions are well founded, will be the great difficulty in the way of decided and effectual measures. For once Ryland was a prophet. Thanks to the common sense of Peel, he came back empty-handed. Worse than this, Sir George Prevost, the new governor, who did not propose to tread in the footsteps of Craig, dismissed him from his position of private secretary to the governors. Soon after- wards, when the War of 1812 broke out, Bishop Plessis pub- lished such loyal and effective pastoral letters, and his flock behaved so gallantly, that anti-Catholic prejudices received 40 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST a heavy, if not a fatal, blow. In July 1813 the Earl of Bathurst wrote to Sir George Prevost : I have to express my entire concurrence in the opinion which you have expressed to the merits of Mr De Plessis and the inadequacy of his present allowance. I have had therefore the greater pleasure in submitting to His Royal Highness the Prince Regent your recommendation for the increase of his salary and have to signify to you His Royal Highness' commands in the name and on the behalf of His Majesty, that the salary of the Catholic Bishop of Quebec should be henceforth increased to the sum recommended by you of f 1000 per annum as a testimony of the sense which His Royal Highness enter- tains of the loyalty and good conduct of the gentleman that now fills that station, and of the other Catholic clergy of the Province. Two months later Ryland, who as clerk of the execu- tive council had to prepare the warrant for the allowance, expressed scruples regarding the title' Catholic Bishop of Quebec.' He had a fondness for the ancient appellation' the Superintendent of the Romish Church' such as a knight has for his old charger. He consulted the governor, who answered -using the language of Lord Bathurst's letter from which we have just quoted-that' he did not see any objection to a compliance to Mr De Plessis' wishes in styling him Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec,' inasmuch as the secretary of state appeared to recognize him as such. Four years later (1817), on the suggestion of Sir John Sherbrooke, the governor-in-chief, Bishop Plessis was granted a seat in the legislative council. Until his death he regularly attended the meetings, and more than once his voice had a decisive influence on behalf of his compatriots and co- religionists. He was a scholar and a worker. Nothing need be said here of his efforts to oppose the Royal Institution, to obtain favourable school laws and to help the Nicolet College. But we may note with what untiring labour he administered the religious interests of his immense diocese. It had increased, not only by the new missions of the Red River, opened in 1818 by the Abbés Norbert Provencher and Joseph Sévère EARLY HISTORY UNDER BRITISH RULE 4 1 Nicolas Dumoulin, but by the development of the Catholic settlements in Ontario and in the Maritime Provinces. To these latter a word must now be devoted. In 1803 the Scottish Highlanders of Glengarry, who, with the French and the Wyandot Indians scattered about the county of Essex, formed the bulk of the Catholic population of Ontario, received a new contingent which deserves special notice. Some years previously a large number of Catholic High- landers had been evicted from their farms in Scotland and reduced to utter misery. A distinguished clergyman, Father Alexander Macdonell (1762-1840), who had studied at Douai, Paris and Valladolid, and afterwards became a missionary in the counties of Inverness and Perth, was touched by the sufferings of his countrymen. In 1792 he went to Glasgow and contrived to place seven hundred or eight hundred of them in the factories there. In spite of the penal laws he opened a chapel for them, and acted as their interpreter, since they spoke no English. He was their pastor and their best friend. The war with France brought ruin to many manu- facturers, and destitution again visited the poor Highlanders. Father Macdonell was eminently a man of resource. In 1794 he undertook, with the king's sanction, to form his moun- taineers into a regiment-the first Catholic military corps in the English army since the Reformation. Officially gazetted chaplain of the regiment, the Glengarry Fencibles, he accom- panied them to Guernsey in 1795, and in 1798 to Ireland, where, by their endurance and bravery, they checked the rebellion of Holt and Dwyer. By restoring the chapels which had often been turned in to stables for the yeomanry, and by his h umani ty to the wounded and his exhortations to the people, he actively contributed to the pacification of that unfortunate country. When the Fencibles were disbanded in 1802, he obtained for them lands in Upper Canada; and in 1803 many of them came with their families and settled among their compatriots in Glengarry. In 1803 Father Macdonell was appointed pastor of St Raphael by Bishop Denaut, replacing his namesake who had just died. He was made vicar-general in 1807. In 1812 he 42 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST again enlisted his veterans of 1798, and followed them to the field. As a reward for his loyalty he was granted a pension and a seat in the legislative council of Ontario. We shall deal further with this great man, the father of the church in Upper Canada, in the second part of this article. In the Maritime Provinces, Catholics were much more numerous than in Ontario. Scottish Catholics had not settled in St John's Island only, for in 1791 a contingent in two ships landed at Pictou. Others followed almost every year, so that in 1802 there were about fifteen hundred Scottish Catholics on the shores of the Gulf of St Lawrence. In the summer of 1802 eight hundred people, accompanied by two priests, Fathers Augustine and Alexander MCDonald, settled chiefly at Arisaig. Of these priests the former took up his residence at Tracadie, and died in 1808; the latter went to live at Bay Ste Marguerite, about one hundred miles west of Halifax, and died in 1810. Besides the vicar-general, Father Jones, who lived in Halifax, numerous Irish, French and Canadian priests served the different settlements in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, St John's Island, Cape Breton and the Magdalen Islands. Fathers Angus MacEacharn, Thomas Power, William Phelan and the two McDonalds have already been mentioned. In addition to these there were: Fathers Laurentius Phelan and Thomas Grace, Capuchins; Fathers Lucy and Edmund Burke-not to be confounded with the vicar-apostolic-and the French Abbés Gabriel Champion, Jean-Baptiste Alain, François Lejamtel, J. M. Sigogne, Urbain Orfroy, J. B. Marie Castanet, Louis Joseph Desjardins, René P. Joyer, François Ciquard and Amable Pichardo Nor were Canadian missionaries altogether wanting. It is just to mention, from 1800 to 1825, Fathers Antoine Bédard, Charles Genest, François Louis Parent, Antoine Gagnon, François Norbert Blanchet, Charles François Painchaud, Charles Joseph Primeau, Louis Brodeur, Isidore Poirier, Louis Gingras, in New Brunswick; Jean Louis Beaubien and Joseph Étienne Cécile in Prince Edward Island; and Pierre-Marie Mignault, Antoine Manseau, André Doucet, in Nova Scotia. EARLY HISTORY UNDER BRITISH RULE 43 Vicar-General Jones bitterly complained, in some of his letters, of a few of his Irish co-operators, and also of a spirit of presbyterianism that pervaded his congregation. Some of its members, whom he ironically termed 'deacons,' aspired to nothing less than a complete control over the pastor, his nomination and his administration of church affairs. He returned to Ireland in 1800, and died there in 1805. On taking leave he wrote to Bishop Denaut: 'I have done the best I could for these missions.' He was not remembered for any unusual disinterestedness, and this, according to the saintly Abbé de Calonne, accounted, at least in part, for the presby- terian spirit of which he had complained in his congregation. The Catholics of Halifax, according to the same trustworthy witness, were ready to comply with all His Grace's ordinances. In 1803 Bishop Denau t found them in the best possible dis- position. After the withdrawal of Vicar-General Jones they were served for a time by an Irish priest, Father Edmund Burke, mentioned above, and in 1801 they received as their pastor his glorious namesake, the future Bishop of Zion. If Father Burke's missions in Ontario had not been very beneficial to the church, his work in Halifax was more suc- cessful. He found there a task better fitted to his talents, and he did excellent work both by 'tongue and pen.' He built a college, but was prevented by fanaticism from opening it, and his congregation had for long years to suffer from the want of Catholic schools. Bishop Plessis advised him to send students to Canadian colleges until N ova Scotia had a seminary, but he neglected the advice. On the other hand, the Rev. Angus MacEacharn took the bishop's counsel, and after a few years had the satisfaction of seeing some of the boys he had sent to Quebec and Nicolet become priests, and even of consecrating two of them when he became a bishop. In his visits of 181 I, 1812 and 1815 in the Maritime Provinces, Bishop Plessis observed with sorrow the poverty of the chapels in almost all the missions, and made ordinances to have them put in more decent condition and to have others erected in various places. He forbade the clergy to say mass in private houses, and ordered them to wear ecclesiastical garmen ts. 44 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST His vast diocese was weighing heavily on his shoulders. In 1806 he had urged upon the Holy See the necessity for its division. He had done so again in 1809. But because of the dispersion of the Sacred College, and of the captivity of Pius VII (1809-14), no answer could be returned before March 1815. The prefect of the Propaganda judged that the proper time had not yet come for establishing other inde- pendent bishops in Canada, but only bishops in partibus infidelium. 1 He asked information as to the number required, the means of providing for their sustenance; what priests deserved by their virtues to be raised to the dignity; whether the government was likely to oppose; and, if dioceses were to be created, what limits should be assigned. In the autumn of 1815 the Rev. Edmund Burke sailed for Europe, avowedly to visit Ireland only, but in reality, with- out his superior's knowledge, to proceed to Rome. There, in an extensive memorial, in which more than one regrettable misstatement was made, he complained that the missions of Upper Canada and the Maritime Provinces were neglected; whereas the facts show that they had always been, and still were, as carefully attended to as the conditions of the time allowed. Among other things he stated that in the Mari- time Provinces' there was not even a Catholic schoo1.' This was true in regard to the rich congregation of Halifax, to which he had himself, with almost episcopal powers, ministered for the previous fifteen years. But poor missionaries, such as the Abbé Antoine Manseau at Tracadie and the Abbé Jean Louis Beaubien at Rustico, had succeeded in establish- ing schools in their various missions. Finally he demanded the erection of Nova Scotia into a vicariate-apostolic. As he was highly recommended by the Archbishop of Dublin, 1 These words mean C in the land of the infidels.' They are no longer in use, but are replaced by the expression C titular bishop.' They meant that the prelate consecrated with that qualification had no subjects and no territorial jurisdiction, his see being C in the hands of the infidels,' or even no longer existing, as in such cases as Almyra, Telmessus, ]uliopolis, Cyrene, etc. All the coadjutors of Quebec were in that situation, and had no authority but such as was granted by the bishop in charge. 'When the bishop in partibus infidelium was at the same time a vicar-apostolic, then he had authority on a certain territory by delegation of the Pope, as the Right Rev. Edmund Burke, Bishop of Zion, had in Nova Scotia. EARLY HISTORY UNDER BRITISH RULE 45 and as the desire of Bishop Plessis for the division of his diocese was known, the erection of the vicariate was granted, and Father Burke was appointed to it under the name of Bishop of Zion. Bishop Plessis, whose agreement was ex- pressly asked, gave his assent, and suggested, moreover, that Father Alexander Macdonell of St Raphael should also be made a bishop with jurisdiction over all Upper Canada. He added that his greatest wish was for a regular hierarchy, but that he did not hope to live to see it realized. Bishop Burke was consecrated in Quebec by Bishop Plessis in 1818. In the same year he visited the south coast of Nova Scotia as far as Bay Ste Marie. In 1819 he went to the missions of the north shore-Antigonish, St Andrews, Tracadie and Arisaig. His legitimate ambition was to educate his own clergy. In 1818 he wrote: 'I have at present four young men studying theology.' He hoped in a few weeks to open his seminary. Two priests were ordained by him. He removed the old presbytery, built in 1785, to another place, and transformed it in to a school for girls. The glebe-house, the old residence of the clergy, became a school for boys, with two ecclesiastics as professors, under the Rev . Father John Carroll, a nephew of the bishop. He also laid the foundations of the present beautiful St Mary's Cathedral. But he was already an old man, nearly a septua- genarian, and death soon put a stop to his undertakings. He died in November 1820, 'respected and regretted by all classes,' in the words of the Protestant historian Campbell. Despi te certain common human defects he was truly a man of learning, energy and abili ty-one born to command. In the preceding year (1819) Bishop Plessis had left for Europe with the intention of completing the organization of the Canadian Church. In 1816 he had sent Vicar-General Alexander Macdonell to London, in order to secure, by means of his credit with the British government, authority to create new bishoprics in Canada. This mission had been successful, and, in accordance with it, about the time when Nova Scotia became a vicariate-apostolic, Lord Castlereagh had asked the Holy See to erect two other vicariates-apostolic, one in Upper Canada and one in the Maritime Provinces, compris- 46 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST ing New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and the Magdalen Islands. Bishop Plessis had been in London only a few days when a Jetter from Canada apprised him that Quebec had been raised to the rank of an archbishopric, with two suffragan sees, New Brunswick and Upper Canada. At first he feared that the displeasure of the British ministers at this erection of an archbishopric, which they neither asked nor desired, might thwart his design of obtaining bishops for Montreal and the North-West. He nevertheless tendered to Lord Bathurst three short memorials-one requesting the division of the diocese of Quebec, another asking letters patent for the college of Nicolet, and a third on behalf of the Sulpicians. In the latter he eloquently proved that British honour and justice were committed to leaving the Seminary of Montreal in possession of its estates. Lord Bathurst treated the bishop with marked favour, invited him to his country seat, and, after an amicable dis- cussion, granted his requests. Even if the question of the Sulpicians' estates was not then finally settled, all proceed- ings in the way of confiscation were suspended. As for the new bishops, the colonial office consented to their conse- cration only on the express condition that they should be simply in partibus infidelium and subordinate to Quebec. In Rome Pius VII received Bishop Plessis paternally, and made him a Roman count and assistant at the pontifical throne. He permitted him to waive the title of archbishop until England should have no objections. Bulls appointing the Abbé Provencher and the Abbé Lartigue were signed in February 1820. Those of Fathers Alexander Macdonell and Angus MacEacharn had been granted in the previous year. Bishop Plessis returned to Canada in the summer of 1820, having achieved a greater success than he could have ex- pected. Father Alexander Macdonell was consecrated in Quebec, on December 31, 1820, as Bishop of Resaina, l for Upper Canada; Father Jean Jacques Lartigue, on January 21, 1821, as Bishop of Telmessus, for Montreal; Father Angus . Commonly written (Rhæsina: Now, Ras-el-Ain in Mesopotamia. ONTARIO 47 MacEacharn, on June 17, 1821, as Bishop of Rosea, for New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and the Magdalen Islands ; Father Norbert Provencher on May 12, 1822, in Three Rivers, as Bishop of Juliopolis, for the North-West. This was a decisive step towards a perfect hierarchy. Never afterwards did England place any obstacle in the way of its completion. The death of Bishop Plessis in 1825 was a loss to church and state. At his princely funeral the governor-general, Lord Dalhousie, the members of the executive and legislative councils, and the judges of the King's Bench, followed the hearse. The garrison was under arms and minute-guns were fired. The man was dead, but his work lived. In the next part its wonderful progress will be described. II ONTARIO, THE MARITIME PROVINCES AND QUEBEC, 1825-1912 ECCLESIASTICAL PROVINCE OF KINGSTON I N 1 826 Upper Canada was erected in to an independent diocese, with Kingston as a see. The bishop, the Right Rev. Alexander Macdonell, continued to live in his old residence at St Raphael for several years longer. We have no official statistics of the exact number of Catholics at that period. In a letter to Lord Bathurst in 1817, Bishop Mac- donell estimated it at 15,000 souls. In 1819 an account of the different missions of Upper Canada placed the figure at 14,9 1 5. There were only seven priests. In 1826 these were joined by the Rev. Peter William MacDonald, a student of Douai and Valladolid and a man of great ability, who after- wards became vicar-general and published for some years the first English Catholic newspaper in Canada-the Catholic. In 1827 Bishop Macdonell began the visitation of his diocese. At Sandwich - the parish of the Assumption- where the Abbé Crevier had replaced the Abbé Marchand, he found that' the Catholics were more numerous than in any 48 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST other district west of Glengarry, and that their spiritual wants had been well looked after by a succession of zealous and devoted pastors.' He found many Catholics scattered in townships bordering on Lake Erie, and directed Father Campion,l who, since 1812, had had charge of the rapidly increasing congregation of Niagara, to visit St Thomas and London twice a year. At Guelph, founded in the same year, a Protestant named John Galt, who was commissioner of the Canada Company, granted to the bishop, for religious build- ings, a block of land on a beautiful hill, where the fine church of the Jesuits now stands. In York, the ' muddy York,' which in 1834 had restored to it the ancient Indian name Toronto, Fathers Crowley and John O'Grady successively ministered to the Catholic con- gregation. A church-Old St Paul's-had been built, but it had a heavy debt, which Father O'Grady started a sub- scription to payoff. It is significant that Protestants as well as Catholics cheerfully contributed. Indeed, in the forma- tion of the early parishes in Ontario and in the lower pro- vinces, although bigotry sometimes prevailed, many instances of a similar toleration and brotherly feeling might be recorded. The years 1828 and 1829 saw the rise of the parishes of Peterborough, Belleville, Prescott and By town (now Ottawa). Bishop lVlacdoneIl was careful to secure, by grant of the government or by purchase, ground for chapels, churches, priests' houses, and cemeteries, in every place where he fore- saw that a mission could be opened. The church was quickly growing: the influx of Irish Catholics had begun. From 1819 to 1825, 65,534 entered Canada. In a single year, 1831, the immigrants numbered 50,000. The flow continued in the following years until the famine of 1848, and afterwards slowly decreased. These newcomers sought in the New World bread and liberty. Many settled in the other pro- vinces, but the largest proportion went to Ontario. In 181 9, in a letter to the Bishop of Quebec, Bishop lVlacdonell esti- mated the Irish-Catholic population of Perth at 600 or 7 00 1 Dr Rolph, in his list of the Catholic clergy for 1834, mentions Father James Champion, then at Prescott, where he had erected a fine stone building for a college. ,\ ), "" , , l w. J .1 \ , ..., ALEXANDER IACDONELL Fr01ll a o , olgra'i''''l,![ ill the j)omillioll .-/rchi'i'es - ONTARIO 49 souls, and to this another con tingen t was added in 1822. In 1825, 400 families, numbering about 2000 souls, chiefly from the counties of Cork and Kerry, were induced to settle in the county of Peterborough. In 1831, 300 families, numbering 1700 souls, were allotted farms in the township of Dummer, in the same county, by Sir John Colborne. Such settlements were supplied with priests as soon as possible. In 1830 the clergy of Ontario numbered sixteen. Perth, served at first (1817-20) by the Abbé Jacques de la Mothe, formerly chaplain to the Meurons, had as its pastors Father Patrick Sweeny (1820-25) and the Rev. John MacDonald (1825-32). A church was soon built on land gran ted by the government. Father Crowley was the first pastor of Peterborough, and he built, on ground secured by the bishop, a church that has been transformed into the present beautiful cathedral. At Belleville the first priest was the Rev. Michael Brennan, who remained there for many years--even after the death of Bishop Macdonell. By town, once considered the hell of Canada, owed its birth to Colonel By, the promoter and builder of the Rideau Canal, and partly also to the lumber trade which was in- augurated by Philemon Wright in 1801 on the north bank of the Ottawa River. Wright was not only a clear-minded and industrious business man, but had also the gift of fore- sight, and, in a letter still preserved, predicted that upon the hill opposite his establishment would one day stand the capital of Canada. Father Angus Macdonell, nephew of the bishop, in 1831-32 built the first church upon ground in the lower town which had been kindly granted by Colonel By. On the same site, ten years later, was erected, through the exertions of Father John Francis Cannon, a native of Quebec, a stone building, which, by successive enlargements and improvements, has become the now magnificent Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. In St Raphael, Bishop Macdonell had built a beautiful church and also his seminary. For some years, on account of his seat in the legislative council, he lived in York, and afterwards, in 1836, in Kingston. His glory would have been VOL. XI D 50 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST incomplete had he been spared calumny. He had been obliged to silence and afterwards to depose Father John O'Grady of York, because of his ardent and untimely inter- ference in politics. The priest, unfortunately, tried to avenge himself by accusing the bishop, before the Board of Griev- ances, of using for himself moneys granted by the govern- ment for churches and schools. He knew better, however, for the bishop had already written to him as follows: , Al though upwards of five thousand pounds behindhand between the new church of this parish (St Raphael) and other churches, with the expenses of supporting my ecclesi- astics, and other outlays for Religion, I am unwilling to appropriate any of the small property, given for the use of the Church, as long as I can-in full reliance that his Divine Majesty, for whose honour and glory I have involved myself in difficulties, will in his gracious goodness extricate me out of them.' The charge having been brought before the house of assembly, the bishop answered by a letter to Sir Francis Bond Head. This document will be quoted, in part at least, because it shows, better than any description could, the work of the missionary-prelate, and depicts the life of the priest and the state of the Church of Ontario in those early days; and because, as William Canniff, a Protestant historian, remarks, it was written' under circumstances that precluded the possibility of any statement accidentally creeping in which could not be fully substantiated.' He says, that when he arrived in Canada in 1803 there were but two Catholic clergymen in the whole of Upper Canada. One of these soon deserted his post and the other resided in the township of Sandwich, in the Western district and never went beyond the limits of his Mission; so that upon entering my pastoral duties I had the whole of the Province besides in charge, and without any assistance for the space of ten years. During that period I had to travel over the country, from Lake Superior to the Province line of Lower Canada, to the discharge of my pastoral functions, carrying the sacred vestments sometimes on horse-back, sometimes on my back, and sometimes in Indian birch canoes, living with ONTARIO 51 savages, without any other shelter and comfort, but what their fires and their fare and the branches of the trees afforded, crossing the great lakes and rivers and even descending the rapids of the St Lawrence in their dangerous and wretched crafts. Nor were the hardships and privations I endured, among the new settlers and immigrants, less than what I had to encounter among the savages themselves, in their miserable shanties, exposed on all sides to the weather and destitute of every comfort. In this way I have been spending my time and my health year after year since I have been in Upper Canada. . . . Theerection of five and thirty Churches and Chapels, great and small, although many of them are in an unfinished state, built by my exertion, and the zealous services of two and twenty clergymen, the major part of whom have been educated at my expense, afford a substantial proof that I have not neglected my spiritual functions or the care of the souls under my charge; and if that be not sufficient, I can produce satisfactory documents to prove that I have expended, since I am in this Province, no less than thirteen thousand pounds, of my own private means, besides what I have received from other quarters, in building Churches, Chapels, Presbyteries and School- houses, in rearing young men for the Church and in promoting General Education. About 1835 German Catholics began to settle in the county of Waterloo, and were soon followed by others of their countrymen from Baden, \Vürtemberg, Bavaria and the Rhine provinces. Industrious and intelligent, they pros- pered and formed new establishments in Bruce, Perth and Huron. At the same time Cobourg, Port Hope, Dundas, St Thomas, London and St Catharines received pastors. From 1835 to 1838 arose the parishes of Waterloo, Pene- tanguishene, Cornwall, and Raleigh on Lake ErÍe. At Pene- tanguishene, on the site of the famous Huron missions, where fell some of the most illustrious Jesuit martyrs, Father J. B. Proulx remained from 1835 to 1838, and, on his appoint- ment to Manitoulin Island, was succeeded by Abbé A. Charest. No less than seven missions or parishes were formed from 1838 to 1839: L'Orignal, Amherstburg in the west, Toronto, Gore, Adjala, Lake Simcoe and Hamilton, 52 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST where the first parish priest was Vicar-General W. P. MacDonald. In 1830 Bishop Macdonell celebrated his golden jubilee. In a most moving address to his countrymen in Gaelic, which brought tears to the eyes of all hearers, according to the Reminiscences of Chevalier Macdonell, he ' recalled the hard- ships of years gone by, succeeded by the present spiritual and temporal advantages. In conclusion, as this might be the last opportunity he should have of appearing before them in this world, he begged forgiveness for any bad example he had given them, or for any neglect or omission of his duty during his ministry among them, trusting much to their prayers and supplications to the throne of Mercy on his behalf, to enable him to prepare his long and fearful accounts against the great and awful day of reckoning, which in the course of nature could not be far distant.' In 1838 the foundation-stone of the Regiopolis College, Kingston, was laid on ground purchased in the preceding year. In order to raise funds for this institution Bishop Macdonell left for Europe in 1839. He unhappily fell ill in Ireland and died at Dumfries, in Scotland, on January 14, 1840. Both as patriot and churchman he was one of the greatest men that ever laboured in Canada. Men of his calibre are very scarce. It is true that unusual circum- stances impelled him to action, but those circumstances were of such difficulty that, had he not been a man of exceptional powers, he would have been crushed beneath their weight. He had been the friend of all classes-Canadians, Irish and Scots. Even to Protestants he had been kind, and his kindness had been repaid. In a pastoral letter he said: , No man will say that in promoting temporal interests I ever made any difference between Catholic and Protestant; and indeed it would be unjust and ungrateful in me if I had, for I have found Protestants upon all occasions as ready to meet my wishes and second my efforts to promote public good as Catholics themselves.' On hearing of his death Lord Gosford, whose testimony is of especial weight, after saying that to Canada the loss was irreparable, added: 'I had the happiness ONTARIO S3 and satisfaction of knowing him intimately: in honesty of purpose, in spotless integrity, manly-mindedness, and in benevolence of feeling, he was not to be surpassed.' His remains, first buried in Edinburgh, were brought back to Canada and laid to rest with becoming honours in the cathe- dral of Kingston in 1861. At Bishop Macdonell's death there were thirty-four priests in Ontario and forty-eight parishes, or missions, with churches or chapels. Of the number of Catholics no official statistics exist. In 1834, however, Dr Thomas Rolph, whose friendly intercourse with Bishop Macdonell and his clergy put in an exceptional position to be well informed, states in detail, in A Brief Account. . . 'With a Statistical Account of Upper Canada (1836), the Catholic population of each locality. His figures are too interesting to be omitted: St Raphael . 47 6 5 Sand wich . . 47 2 4 St Andrews . . 35 8 7 Peterborough . . 35 8 4 Longueuil (Ottawa) . 2554 T oron to . 3 2 4 0 Prescott and Brock- Adjala . 235 6 ville 15 22 Townships of Toronto By town . 3 221 and Trafalgar . 7 8 5 Perth . 3 6 43 Penetanguishene 85 6 Kingston . . 4 16 3 Guel ph and Dundas . 1537 Belleville . 1135 Niagto c en . ., S ; g ê . . g'ã -= : g. .5 ] g ] -: -ð > d > 1\1 Æ ., E ð p. . ;;:: 'ë 15 õ OJ E :5 u B P:: 8 ..ã ::; "'" .:( 'ë ..Q P:: 0 u I 300 1 1:7 ' 162 3S :2 :6 --; : 2: I 36,000 4 1 68 2 68 4 22,584 18 13 38 3 38 6 1 226,884 !(}6- 175 1--;-1 241 1--;;-1 242* 1-;-1-;- 26 23 Ottawa . . Pembroke . Timiskaming * Of the parbhes and mission!', 117 belong to Ontario, 118 to Quebec, and the rest to the northern territories. 72 ROlVIA-N CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST THE ECCLESIASTICAL PROVINCE OF HALIFAX While the development of the church in the Maritime Provinces did not equal its progress in Ontario, it was never- theless remarkable. The Right Rev. Edmund Burke, vicar-apostolic of Nova Scotia, had applied to the Propaganda to obtain a coadjutor, designating the Rev. Thomas Maguire of Quebec for the position. But the worthy priest felt no inclination to accept the burdensome honour, and the vicariate, after the death of the Bishop of Zion (1820), fell to the care of the Right Rev. Angus MacEacharn, Bishop of Rosea, and auxiliary of the Bishop of Quebec in Prince Edward Island and New Bruns- wick. This zealous missionary had to struggle with many difficulties. As priests were very scarce, each had to serve several localities; and since proper roads, or roads of any sort, were lacking, the frequent journeys entailed many a heavy sacrifice. The priest had sometimes to journey through the virgin forest for whole days, in all seasons and in all kinds of weather, across icy rivers or through deep snows, or, at sea, in small and dangerous craft, in order to administer the consolations of religion to some departing soul. In an address to the Catholics of Halifax the Right Rev. Louis Thomas Connolly, who was appointed in 1852 Bishop of St John, New Brunswick, said: In reference to my attendance on the sick, and dangers to which my life has been exposed, the Catholics need scarcely be reminded that, when the general welfare or the cause of suffering humanity, or the still more im- portant concern of man's salvation is at stake, for the Catholic priest, no labour or danger-not even the certain prospect of death itself--can be said to be a sacrifice. The right of self-preservation, under such circumstances, is forsworn in the very act of assuming the ministry of that first High Priest, who laid down his life for his flock, and, by example and by word, has proclaimed the uni- versallaw that every good shepherd must do the same. Bishop MacEacharn worked as hard as any of his clergy, or even harder. One of his letters to Bishop Plessis, written in 1813, while he was still a priest, deserves quotation, for THE lVIARITIl\IE PROVINCES 73 it shows better than any eulogy the simple greatness and heroic faith of the man who for upwards of twenty-two years had led the kind of life described, and was to lead it for twenty more: On the 7th of January, I went to visit a sick man from this town (Charlottetown) through the woods in one day. .A few days after I was called to Egmont Bay, returned then to Malpeque, and after having confessed such of our people as live round the Bay, I returned to Mr Beau- bien's château at 5t Augustine (Rustico) in the month of February. From that time until the middle of June, I seldom slept two nights in the same bed. A raging fever, resembling a pleurisy, carried off many of our people. I went eight times to Three Rivers (P.E.I.), always in the winter and along the bays. The snow was never known so deep and the weather so severe. There was not a settlement to the east of Rustico where the sickness did not spread. I t is a good thing in such distress to be descended of the sons of Fingal. In 1822 one of the young men he had sent to the Semi- nary of Quebec, Bernard Donald MacDonald, was ordained, and, after having for a few months ministered in Quebec to Irish immigrants stricken with the fever, returned to Prince Edward Island. He was appointed to Rustico in place of a Canadian priest, Father Joseph Étienne Cécile, ,vho returned to Quebec. From there he served all the western settlemen ts, Acadian as well as Scottish, the bishop keeping for himself all the eastern stations. A priest named Father Fitzgerald came from Newfound- land to Charlottetown in 1823 and completed the building of the church there. In 1824 William MacLeod, and in 1825 John Chisholm, were ordained at Charlottetown, and the latter was sent as a missionary to Cape Breton. In 1827 the ordination took place of Sylvain Perry (or Poirier), who was placed in charge of Tignish, Cascumpeque, Mount Carmel and Egmont Bay. To supply the needs of his missions the bishop began to instruct boys in his house at St Andrews and sent some to Rome. In 1827, in the Church of St Ninian at Antigonish, he consecrated the second vicar- apostolic of Nova. Scotia, the Right Rev. \Villiam Fraser. 7-1- ROl\IAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST Although at that time Catholics had increased in numbers and importance, yet their social situation, particularly in Prince Edward Island, was far from what it ought to have been. \Vhile in Upper Canada they had been admitted to prominen t civil and military offices since the beginning of the century, they had not yet in Prince Edward Island even the right to vote. When the island was granted a house of assembly and a separate administration, the laird of Glenala- dale, John Macdonald, would have been appointed to the lieutenant-governorship, which was offered to him, but for the odious Test Oath still in existence. In Europe, Catholic emancipation was slowly progressing through the efforts of O'Connell. In Cape Breton, in 1825, a Catholic had been elected and, by the influence of Lord Dalhousie, admitted to his seat in the legislature. In Nova Scotia the obstructive and unjust Test Oath was abolished in 1827 after the presentation of an address to His Majesty on the subject. The vote was carried unanimously through the efforts of T. C. Haliburton, then deputy of Clare, assisted by R. J.' Uniacke. A few lines from Haliburton's eloquent discourse must be quoted here. Alluding to the magnificent works of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland which had been destroyed by the Reformation, he said: The property of the Catholic Church had passed into the hands of the Protestant clergy-the glebes, the tithes, the domains of the monasteries :-who could behold those monasteries, still venerable in their ruins, without re- gret? The abodes of science, of charity and hospital- ity, where the waywom pilgrim and the weary traveller reposed their limbs, and partook of a hospitable cheer; where the poor received their daily food, and in the gratitude of their hearts implored blessings on the good and pious men who fed them; where learning held its court, and science waved its torch amid the gloom of barbarity and ignorance. Allow me, Mr Speaker, to stray, as I have often done, in years gone by, for hours and for days amidst those ruins, and tell me (for you, too, have paused to view the desolate scene), did you not, as you passed through those tessellated courts and grass- grown pavements, catch the faint sounds of the slow and THE lVIARITIlVIE PROVINCES 75 solemn march of the holy procession? Did you not seem to hear the evening chime fling its soft and melancholy music o'er the still sequestered vale, or hear the seraph choir pour its full tide of song through the long pro- tracted aisle, or along the high and arched roof ? . . . It was said that Catholics were unfriendly to civil liberty; but that, like many other aspersions, was false. \Vho created the Magna Charta? \Vho established judges, trial by jury, magistrates, sheriffs ?-Catholics. To that calumniated people we were indebted for all that we most boasted of. \Vere they not brave and loyal? Ask the verdant sods of Chrystler's farm, ask Chateauguay, ask Queenston Heights, and they will tell you they cover Catholic valour and Catholic loyalty-the heroes who fell in the cause of their country ! His conclusion was one of the most pathetic. in the records of eloquence. He said : Every man who lays his hand on the New Testament, and says that is his book of Faith, whether he be Catho- lic or Protestant, churchman or dissenter, Baptist or Methodist, however much we may differ in doctrinal points, he is my brother and I embrace him. \Ve all travel by different roads to the same God. In that faith which I pursue, should I meet a Catholic, I salute him, I journey with him; and when we shall arrive at the flammantia limina 11Zundi-when that time shall come, as it must come-when the tongue that now speaks shall moulder and decay-when the lungs that now breathe the genial air of Heaven shall refuse me their office- when these earthly vestments shall sink into the bosom of their mother earth and be ready to mingle with the clods of the valley, I will, with that Catholic, take a longing, lingering, retrospective view. I will kneel with him; and, instead of saying, in the words of the pre- sum ptuous Pharisee: 'Thank God I am not like that Papist,' I will pray that, as kindred, we may be equally forgiven; that, as brothers, we may both be received. The effect was overpowering and no voice was raised against Catholic freedom in Nova Scotia. In Prince Edward Island such broadmindedness had not yet triumphed over bigotry. In 1827 the Catholics there presented a petition to the house of assembly for the same 76 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST privilege. Lieutenant-Governor Ready favoured them. The question was discussed at the beginning of 1827, and the peti tion was supported by Mr Cameron and Dr MCAuley. But, in spite of an eloquent speech by the attorney-general, it was lost by the vote of the speaker. Another attempt was equally unsuccessful. Unfortunately Prince Edward Island was not ready for such an act of justice until the emancipation of the Catholics in England in 1829. Even then the legislature of the island would not admit that the law applied to colonies, until the colonial secretary, Sir G. Murray, wrote instructing Colonel Ready that the measure must be extended to the colony. This was done in 1830. Happier days then began to dawn for Catholics. One of them, Mr MacDonald of Charlottetown, was elected to parliament without opposition, and, in the election which followed the death of George IV (1830), four Catholics entered the legislature for Kings County. The Rev. Father Donald MacDonald was appointed to the Board of Education. In 1829 Charlottetown was erected into a bishopric which was to comprise Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and the Magdalen Islands. In the following year Bishop Mac- Eacharn, having received the Bulls for the erection, took possession of his see with great pomp on November II. In 1831 he opened St Andrew's College, the presidency of which he entrusted to an Irish priest, Father Walsh, who had come to Nova Scotia in 1830 with Irish immigrants. At first it was merely a high school, but it nevertheless prepared many young men for more complete studies which opened to them a way to the priesthood. It made rapid progress, and a board of trustees was chosen and incorporated for its administra tion. The building of a new church was rendered necessary by the increase of the population, and in order to raise funds for that purpose a stirring and convincing sermon was preached by Father Walsh. Governor Young and many Protestants were present and gave generous contributions. This, like many other things, proved that the former anta- gonism between Protestants and Catholics was more a matter of law than of popular feeling. THE MARITIlVIE PROVINCES 77 Bishop l\IacEacharn appointed two vicars-general: the Abbé Antoine Gagnon in New Brunswick, and the Rev. Donald MacDonald in Charlottetown. The bishop died soon after- wards (1835) in the midst of his benevolent activities. His successor, the Right Rev. Donald MacDonald (1797- 18 59) was consecrated in 1837 at Quebec. Bishop l'vlacDonald was obliged to close St Andrew's College in 1844. Eleven years later (1855) the now prosperous St Dunstan College was opened at Charlottetown. In 1857 the bishop invited the Sisters of Notre Dame to establish a convent in the city, and later on another at Tignish. From 1860 to 1891 the diocese of Charlottetown was ruled by the Right Rev. Peter MCIntyre (1818-91), during -whose administration five convents of the Sisters of Notre Dame were founded, as well as a hospital and orphanage in charge of the Grey Nuns of Quebec (1875). The number of priests, parishes and Catholics greatly increased. While in 1767 the island numbered barely 300 Catholics, there were 20,335 in 1841 ; 35,85 2 in 1861 ; and 47,837 in 189I. The Right Rev. James Charles MacDonald (b. 18 4 0 ), consecrated in 1890 Bishop of Hirina and coadjutor of Bishop l\1 c Intyre, succeeded to the see of Charlottetown, which he still occupies. After 1842 the diocese of Charlottetown was limited to Prince Edward Island and the Magdalen Islands, several other dioceses being formed at that time. In 18.-1-2 Halifax was raised from a vicariate-apostolic to a bishopric, comprising Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. The first titular was the Right Rev. \Villiam Fraser, who, as mentioned above, had been consecrated in 1837 by Bishop l\1acEacharn under the name of Bishop of Tanes. In the same year New Brunswick had been separated from the diocese of Charlottetown and created a distinct bishopric, which is sometimes called Fredericton. The first bishop was the Right Rev. \Villiam Dollard (1789-1851), born in Ireland and ordained in Quebec by Bishop Plessis. He had been a missionary in Cape Breton and afterwards in New Brunswick, where he had served Miramichi and Fredericton, while Vicar-General Antoine Gagnon ministered to the northern stations. His zeal and devotion in ministering to 78 ROlVIAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST the smallpox victims inspired John Francis Maguire, the author of The Irish in America, with sentiments of admiration. , Is it to be wondered,' he says, 'that the Church should have made the progress it has done, when such was the spirit of [its] early missionaries? ' Bishop Dollard's successor was the Right Rev. Louis Thomas Connolly (1815-76), a native of Cork, in Ireland, and a member of the Capuchin Order. After being secretary (1842) and then vicar-general (1845) to Bishop \Valsh of Halifax, he was elected Bishop of St John, New Brunswick. He began there the erection of the cathedral and built an orphanage, the management of which he entrusted to the Sisters of Charity. These sisters were founded by him- self (1854), and they have now, besides their mother-house, several homes and convents in the city and other parts of the diocese. Transferred in 1859 to the archiepiscopal see of Halifax, Bishop Connolly was succeeded in St John by the Right Rev. John Sweeny (1821-1901), a remarkable man, born at Clones, in Ireland, who was consecrated in 1860. New Brunswick then contained 85,000 Catholics-8S,238 in 1861, to be precise. A division of the diocese of St John was deemed necessary, and all the northern part was erected into the diocese of Chatham (1860). The new bishopric had for its first titular the Right Rev. J atTIes Rogers, also a native of Ireland (1826-1903), who continued to administer it for a period of forty-two years. \Vhen he handed it over in 1902 to his coadjutor, the present bishop, the Right Rev. Thomas Barry (b. 1841), a native of New Brunswick, the diocese had attained a remarkable degree of prosperity. There were 53,000 Catholics, 45 parishes with 22 missions, 60 priests, one college at Caraquet under the Eudist Fathers, one hospital, and in different places nine convents of the Sisters of St Joseph (from Montreal), the Sisters of Charity, and the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame. In the same year (1902) another college was started at Rogerville by Father Marcel Richard, the parish priest, and entrusted to the Eudist Fathers. The Cistercian Order (Trappists) also founded the monastery of Notre Dame of Calvary in the same little town. THE l\IARITL\IE PROVINCES 79 The episcopate of Bishop Sweeny in St John, which nearly equalled that of Bishop Rogers in length (1860-1901), even surpassed it in success. Many new parishes were erected and many new churches and convents were built. In 1813 the Sisters of the Good Shepherd were called to take charge of an asylum for repentant women. The number of priests, which was 19 in 1860, had grown to 32 in 1867 and 63 in 190I. The bishop encouraged colonization and, on a concession of 10,000 acres, successively enlarged to 36,000 acres, he estab- lished the settlement of Johnville. Although begun only in 1861, it numbered upwards of 600 souls in 1866 and was in the full tide of prosperity. Acadians found in him a staunch friend, and formed in his time several successful establish- ments. In order to further their education the college of 1\1emramcook was founded in 1864 by the Fathers of the Holy Cross, with Father Lefèvre as their head. The project was started by a humble curé, Father F.-X. Stanislas La- france, who, having bought ground for the purpose, invited the Order of the Holy Cross to carry it out. His name should not be forgotten in connection with the now famous insti- tution, which has grown to university rank. When, in 1901, Bishop Sweeny placed the administration in the hands of the Right Rev. Timothy Casey (b. 1860), who had been his coad- jutor since 1900 under the title of Bishop of Utina, the diocese of St John had 58,000 Catholics, a college, 63 priests, 38 parishes, 93 churches and chapels, and 9 conven ts. 1 Charlottetown, St John and Chatham became suffragans of Halifax in 1852, when the latter see was raised to the rank of an archbishopric. A fourth suffragan was Arichat, to ,vhich a word must now be given. The state of ecclesiastical affairs in Halifax, when it became a bishopric in 1842, was anything but encouraging. A letter written in 1843 by the Right Rev. \Villiam \Valsh, coadjutor of Bishop Fraser, to Bishop Signay of Quebec, throws some light on the subject: From the" truly deplorable state of affairs in this un- fortunate diocese, and the very painful termination of 1 In 19U Bishop Casey was promoted to the archiepiscopal see of Vancouver. 80 ROl\IAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST l\fgr Fraser's visit to Halifax, I was for many reasons unwilling to make him the medium of any communica- tion to your Lordship. I have endured eight months of continued deceptions, oppositions and insults-insults, thank God, to which the Episcopal dignity is seldom, if ever, exposed, and to which I have hitherto opposed nothing but forgiveness and silence. Wicked and dis- obedient priests have thwarted all my efforts for the restoration of peace in this distracted city, the history of whose petty annoyances, as well as open disobedience and public insults, would if detailed appear incredible to your Lordship. I have thought proper to say thus much on the present occasion that your Lordship may not be wholly ignorant of the state of religion in Nova Scotia. The question of a suitable remedy is now under the consideration of the Holy See. \Vho were these disobedient priests? Was the Rev. John Carroll, previously vicar-general of Nova Scotia under his uncle, the Right Rev. Edmund Burke, one of them? It is to be feared that he was. We know, at least, from letters of Bishop MacEacharn to the Bishop of Quebec, that he greatly annoyed Bishop Fraser by his misrule in Halifax, and that the Bishop of Charlottetown himself had to depose him from his rectorship of St John, New Brunswick, for open revolt. We know, too, that he came to Toronto in the same year, 18 43. He afterwards went to the United States and lived in Buffalo and then in Chicago for many years, dying in 1885, not a centenarian, but nearly a nonagenarian-at least if the date of his birth (1798) is properly given by Father Coffey in his notice on the diocese of London. l The cause of the trouble was racial prejudices, and the remedy' under consideration of the Holy See' was the division of the diocese of Halifax. This was effected in 1844, and the diocese of Arichat erected. Bishop Fraser having chosen the new see, Bishop Walsh became titular of Halifax. Bishop Fraser died in 1851 and was succeeded by the Right Rev. Colin Francis 1\1acKinnon (1811-79). Under 1 The date is very likely wrong, as John Carroll became a priest in 1818 or 181 9 (see It.lemoirs of Rev. Edmund Burke, p. 118). Even a great scarcity of priests would hardly justify such an early consecration. The age for priesthood is twenty-Jour. THE MARITIME PROVINCES 81 him, in 1844, the diocese was incorporated. His chief achieve- men t, besides the formation of several new parishes, was the foundation of the College and Seminary of St F rancis- Xavier in the city of Antigonish. It has now university powers. Bishop MacKinnon resigned his see in 1877, re- ceived the title of Archbishop of Amida, and died soon after. His successor was the Right Rev. John Cameron (1826-1910), a man of great ability. He had been coadjutor since 1870 and was consecrated in Rome under the title of Bishop of Tito- polis. For thirty years this distinguished divine ruled the diocese of Arichat, which took the name of Antigonish in 1886, when the see was transferred to the latter city. During his long and skilful administration a high degree of prosperity was achieved. A heavy debt contracted for the construction of the cathedral was paid and extensive funds were raised, partly to improve and partly to endow St Francis-Xavier College. The Sisters of St Martha and the Sisters of Charity from Halifax, the Daughters of Jesus and the Congregation of Notre Dame have established several convents in the city and other parts of the diocese. The Congregation of Notre Dame chiefly maintains the prosperous Academy of Mount St Bernard, which is affiliated to St Francis-Xavier's College. The only order of men is the Cistercians of Tracadie. The monastery, which was twice destroyed by fire and, in 1900, temporarily abandoned, has been rebuilt and is now occupied by other members of the same order. The founder of the first convent (1825) was Father Vincent, who for several years had been a missionary in Halifax. This saintly priest died in 1855. In 1871 there were in the diocese of Antigonish 62,853 Catholics. At the death of Bishop Cameron in 1910 they numbered 80,000, the great majority being Scots and Acadians, with 108 secular and regular priests, 66 parishes with as many churches and chapels, I college and 19 convents. In 1912 the Right Rev. James Morrison was elected to the see of Antigonish. Halifax became the metropolis of the Maritime Provinces in 1852 and Bishop Walsh was the first archbishop. The troubles already mentioned soon ceased, and an era of un- interrupted progress began. In 1856 a chapter was estab- VOL. XI F 82 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST lished-the first, after that of Montreal, since the Conquest. The year 1857 witnessed the first, and up to the present time the only, provincial council of the Maritime Provinces, which was held with great solemnity in St Mary's Cathedral. There were present, under the presidency of Archbishop Walsh, the Right Revs. B. Donald MacDonald of Charlottetown, C. F. MacKinnon of Arichat, and Louis Thomas Connolly of St John, New Brunswick. The bishops of Newfoundland, the Right Revs. Thomas Mullock of St John's and Joseph Dalton of Harbour Grace--a diocese erected in the preceding year-had been convoked, in accordance with the Bull of erection of the ecclesiastical province of Halifax, but could not attend. The decree passed by the council dealt chiefly wi th the means of preserving the faith, the administration of the sacraments, and sanctity of life in the clergy. Archbishop Walsh (d. 1858) was succeeded by the Right Rev. Louis Thomas Connolly (d. 1876), already spoken of as Bishop of St John, New Brunswick. Apart from the discharge of his pastoral duties, his work in connection with the embellishment of St Mary's Cathedral and the improve- ment of educational and charitable institutions, this distin- guished man did much, by his liberality of views and his demeanour, to foster the friendly feelings that now happily prevail between Catholics and Protestants in Halifax. In the Vatican Council of 1869-70 he sided with the minority who, while admitting the Pope's inerrancy in matters of faith, judged it inopportune to declare at that time the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. When it was declared, however, he loyally submitted. After the death of the Most Rev. Michael Hannan (1820- 1882), who was Archbishop of Halifax from 1877 to 1882, the see passed to a man who enriched it with several important institutions, the Most Rev. Cornelius O'Brien (1843-1906), a native of Prince Edward Island. He possessed remarkable theological and literary culture, and wrote several works- polemical, hagiographic and even roman tic and historical. Among the latter must be mentioned the Memoirs of Rev. Edmund Burke. If his praise is at times exaggerated and his hero a little over-extolled at the expense of others, the THE MARITIME PROVINCES 83 fault lies in the author's pardonable filial devotion for the founder of his church, rather than in any perverse intention. The chief reasons, however, which entitle Archbishop O'Brien to grateful remembrance are his labours in the cause of charity and clerical education. On his accession there were flour- ishing schools for young ladies. The Sisters of the Sacred Heart, who had been in Halifax since 1849, had a successful academy, and the Sisters of Charity, besides their mother- house, had several convents, chiefly their much esteemed Academy of Mount St Vincent. But young men had to go abroad for higher education. St Mary's College, never on a very solid footing, had gradually declined, and finally shut its doors. The archbishop's aim was to have a college of his own. A bequest for this purpose had been made; but as it contained the special proviso ' for the J esui ts,' and as these fathers could not be obtained, it was rendered void by a decision of the Superior Court in 1903. Nevertheless, with the most praiseworthy perseverance, Archbishop O'Brien laid the foundation-stone of a college in 1903. He solicited con- tributions, and gave all he could himself to complete the building. In 1905 a large house was added and furnished for the admission of boarders. The Eudist Fathers had already been called to the diocese (1891) and placed in charge of St Anne's College, at Church Point, in the west end of Nova Scotia, for the education of Acadians, and of the theo- logical seminary of the Sacred Heart in Halifax. Among the charitable institutions due to the zeal of Archbishop O'Brien may be mentioned a rescue home and reformatory, in the hands of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, a home for infant waifs and another for boys, and an infirmary for old women. In his time and through his efforts were built St Agnes's and St Patrick's Churches in Halifax, twelve others outside the city, and several presbyteries and schools. Such are the chief works that marked the administration of this distin- guished prelate. At his death in 1906 the archdiocese con- tained 55,000 Catholics, 76 priests, 39 parishes with 52 missions, including two parishes in the Bermuda Islands which belong to the Church of Halifax. Some general notes on the public position of the church 84 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST in Nova Scotia are necessary. As all religions are equal before the law in the Maritime Provinces, there exists com- plete freedom of worship. Churches, colleges, academies and school-houses are exempt from taxation. In Halifax, by a special charter, charities have the same exemption. As separate Catholic schools were not expressly established at Confederation, none exist by law. In practice, however, Catholics are not deprived of all rights and favours. When they are numerous or in the majority, they are allowed to have teachers of their own faith. The archdiocese of Halifax was granted incorporation in 18 49. STATISTICS OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL PROVINCE OF HALIFAX IN 191 I I. Extent of Dioceses Charlottetown: Prince Edward Island and the Magdalen Islands. St John, New Brunswick: Counties of Albert, Carleton, Charlotte, Kent (south of Richibucto River), Kings, Queens, Westmorland and York. Chatham: Counties of Gloucester, Kent (north), Mada- waska, Northumberland, Restigouche, Victoria. Antigonish: Cape Breton and counties of Antigonish, Guysborough and Pictou in Nova Scotia. Halifax: All the rest of Nova Scotia and Bermuda Islands. 2 . Population and Institutions 1 t'"ì" I """00' Churches I CoIl"9"' Homes Catholics ecu ar and and Convents an and R an Parishes Chapels Seminaries Hospitals egu ar -- I Chariottetown 5 0 ,000 52 I 50 45 8 I 2 St John, N.B. 58,000 63 58 93 9 I 3 Chatham 73, I 55 101 85 85 12 2 6 Antigonish 80,000 108 106 106 19 I . .. Halifax 55,000 74 I 16 3 4 I 3 16 ,155 39 8 I 39<> I 4 1 5 64 8 15 i I I QUEBEC 85 ECCLESIASTICAL PROVINCE OF MONTREAL Let us now turn to the Province of Quebec, the stronghold of Catholicism in the Dominion of Canada. From 60,000 in 1760 the Catholic population has grown to more than 1,500,000, and only a small part of this growth is due to immigration. Of the 450,000 Irish who came to this country from 1819 to 1850-428,000 of them in the decade from 1839 to 1849-only a few thousand settled in Quebec. The extra- ordinary expansion of the church there is chiefly due to the natural and irresistible expansion of the French-Canadian families themselves. They have even overflowed into New Brunswick and Ontario, where they are beginning to form important groups, and into the United States, where they constitute a large portion of the population in some of the eastern cities. The Bishop of Quebec continued to be the head of the whole Canadian Church until independent dioceses were formed : Kingston in 1826, Charlottetown in 1829, Montreal in 1836, Halifax and New Brunswick in 1842. Halifax, however, was really independent, as a vicariate-apostolic, after 1817, as was also St Boniface, for the same reason, after 1844. Bishop Lartigue (1777-1840), consecrated Bishop of Tel- messus in 182 I, was a mere auxiliary of Bishop Plessis. In his pastoral letter to the Montreal clergy and people the Bishop of Quebec had explained that the present situation was independent of his own and the Holy Father's will. Had England given her assent, Bishop Lartigue would have been a bishop of Montreal instead of Telmessus. As the Holy See assented to the conditions of Great Britain, nothing was left for the Canadian Church but to do likewise. Serious diffi- culties, however, arose. Montreal has never had any fondness for Quebec rule and Quebec pre-eminence, since the early days of New France when ViIle Marie, founded and ruled by a private company, formed a sort of state within the state. To wonder at this would be to ignore human nature; to lament it would be to forget that emulation is often, if not always, the spur that excites indolence to effort and leads man to success. The 86 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST rivalry between the two cities never brought them into the field to settle their supremacy at the point of the sword as did the ancient rivalry of Athens and Sparta, Carthage and Rome. It was carried on in the bloodless, but by no means noiseless, sphere of ideas and interests. In 1821 Montreal was not the great city she now is, with her half-million inhabitants and her uncontested position as queen of Canadian industry and commerce. But she felt that she was born for great things and had faith in her destiny. How could such a city be satisfied with a bishop of Telmessus ? Bishop Lartigue, being a native of Montreal, knew the feeling in his district so well that when he heard of the conditions of his election he would not accept the honour except at the express command of the Pope. The humble and venerable prelate had not overrated the obstacles he would have to face. Bishop Lartigue, being a Sulpician himself, expected to receive in the Seminary of St Sulpice a hospitality such as had always been graciously proffered to the Bishop of Quebec. But he was not a bishop of Quebec, and for him, therefore, there was no welcome. He was treated not so much with injustice as with lack of courtesy. He took his lodgings in the Hôtel-Dieu-the home of the good Sisters, which was always wide open to those in adversity. The worst feature of the situation was that the honours due to his rank in the church were refused. One parish priest, a man of no little literary skill and no little knowledge, the Abbé Augustin Chaboillez, curé of Longueuil, wrote pamphlets to prove that Bishop Plessis had no canonical power to transfer to another rights and honours due to himself-as if the Pope, who had approved the appointment, had no power to modify canon law! Another, the Abbé François Pigeon of St Philippe, did not hesi ta te to declare in the newspapers that he did not acknowledge the authority of the Bishop of Telmessus and would render him no episcopal honours. By frequent paternal letters Bishop Plessis encouraged and comforted his disappoin ted auxiliary. He advised him to observe the utmost patience: 'If you are repulsed, withdraw; in default of a throne, be satisfied with a stool; and in default of a stool take the end of a bench.' QUEBEC 87 In justice to the clergy of Montreal it must be said that the opposition and discourtesy were due only to a minority. But, as usual, the hot-headed made enough noise to appear to be the majority. In time the tempest subsided, but the si tua tion remained anomalous until Montreal was erected into an independent bishopric in 1836. Another storm was then gathering. Political agitation was at its height and threatened to carry Canadians, chiefly in the district of Montreal, into open rebellion. Bishop Lartigue published a very remarkable pastoral letter to warn his flock against the danger. After recalling the teachings of St Paul and of the Holy Fathers on the obedience due to lawful authority, he said: We conclude, dear brethren, by appealing to your noble and generous hearts. Did you ever seriously reflect on the horrors of a civil war? Did you ever represent to yourselves your town and your hamlets deluged with blood, the innocent and the guilty carried off by the same tide of calamity and woe? Did you ever reflect on what experience teaches, that almost without exception, every popular revolution is a work of blood? . . . \Ve leave these important reflections to your feelings of humanity, and to your sentiments as Christians. The letter produced a deep impression, and, if it did not prevent all bloodshed-men's spirits being already too much excited-it stopped many from joining that ill-conceived, ill-concerted and ill-conducted affray of 1837. Soon afterwards Bishop Lartigue resigned the en tire administration to his coadjutor and successor, the Right Rev. Ignatius Bourget (1799-1885), who was to hold it with a firm hand until 1876. A native of St Joseph of Lévis, near Quebec, secretary and afterwards vicar-general to Bishop Lartigue, he was consecrated as his coadjutor in 1837 under the once unpopular name of Bishop of Telmessus. He took possession of the see in 1840. Although physically weak, he was a man of indomitable energy. It sometimes happens that the excess of a quality turns into a defect: firmness of purpose, for instance, when pushed too far, may 88 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST become stubbornness. For the sake of peace, when faith or morals are not in question, to yield to the views of others is praiseworthy wisdom. One may not adopt all the ideas of Bishop Bourget, but none can deny that he was a saintly and great bishop. His diocese extended over the western portion of the Province of Quebec, where now are St H ya- cinthe, Valleyfield, Joliette, and a great part of Ottawa, Pembroke and Sherbrooke. Through his unwearied energy it expanded with unparalleled rapidity and strength. Mon- treal already contained many rich parishes and some of the most illustrious institutions of New France-the Seminary of St Sulpice, the Congregation of Notre Dame, and the houses of the Sisters of St Joseph, of the Hôtel-Dieu and of the Grey Nuns. Under Bishop Bourget new establishments arose as if by magic. The missions along the Ottawa River have already been mentioned. There new parishes were erected and colonization societies created. The northern districts were opened up chiefly by the enterprising and fearless work of the patriotic curé Labelle. To supply the increasing needs, a number of educational and charitable institutions were founded, and communities of men and women were invited from abroad or formed on the spot. Merely to enumerate these institutions would take much space. Among the male orders that came may be mentioned the Brothers of the Christian Schools (1837), the Oblates of l\1ary Immaculate (1841), the Jesuits (1842), who estab- lished a novitiate in 1843 and St Mary's College in 1848, the St Viateur Fathers and the Fathers of the Holy Cross in 1847. The chief female orders brought from France were: the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, of Angers (1843), of the Holy Name of Jesus and Mary and of the Holy Cross (1847). Those founded in Montreal were: the Sisters of Providence, by Madame Gamelin, for teaching and chari ties (1843); the Sisters of Mercy, for repentant women (1848) ; the Sisters of St Anne, for the education of young ladies (1850), who, as well as the Sisters of Providence, have increased in a remarkable fashion, both in Canada and in the United States. The Grand Seminary of Montreal was opened in 1840, while colleges were established by the QUEBEC 89 Fathers of St Viateur, at Joliette In 1846 and at Rigaud in 1850. Bishop Bourget was entirely opposed to the C spirit of the age,' which he regarded as the foe of the church, and he fough tit in all its forms. One of his actions in this matter created a stir in every corner of Canada, and even abroad. The Institut Canadien was a society with literary and scientific objects. Unhappily some of its leading members were imbued with irreligious principles, which found vent in the books chosen for the library and in the Year Book of the institution. This publication for the year 1868 was condemned by the bishop, and his sentence was ratified by the Congregation of the Index. Then Bishop Bourget, in a letter written at Rome in 1869, warned his diocesans that any Catholic who should keep the condemned pamphlet and continue his connection with the Institute would be refused the sacraments of the church even at the moment of death. The Institute submitted to the sentence, but some of its members remained obstinate, and from that case sprang another, still more famous. Joseph Guibord, a printer, died without having submitted and without reconciliation. He was accordingly denied Chris- tian burial. And justly so; for how can one who refuses to comply with the rules of a society be considered a mem- ber thereof, and have a right to enjoy its privileges? The case was taken to court and carried from tribunal to tri- bunal, until the Privy Council decided that the corpse must be buried, wi thou t a funeral mass, in consecrated ground. Bishop Bourget obeyed, but immediately declared in a pas- toral letter C that the place where the body of this rebellious child of the Church had been deposited was separate from the rest of the consecrated cemetery, so that it would be only a profane ground.' With all his occupations the Bishop of Montreal led the regular and retiring life of a seminarist and recluse. In 1876 he tendered his resignation, and, with the title of Archbishop of Marcianopolis, withdrew to Sault-au-Récollet, where he died in 1885. A handsome monument has been erected to his memory on the piazza of St James's Cathedral. 90 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST The Right Rev. Charles Édouard Fabre (1827-96), who had been elected coadjutor in 1873 under the title of Bishop of Gratianopolis, assumed the administration. The diocese of Montreal continued its forward march. In 1881 the now famous Cistercian monastery of Oka was founded, and erected into an abbey under the mitred abbot Dom Antoine. In 1890 the Franciscans, who had already settled in the diocese of London, founded a convent in Montreal. Among other noteworthy events of Bishop Fabre's administration must be mentioned the foundation, by the Sulpicians-to whom Montreal is indebted in so many ways-of a seminary of philosophy (1888) and of the Canadian College in Rome (1894). In 1896 the Loyola College, for students of the English language, was founded by the Jesuits. Finally, there took place in 1891, in accord- ance with the arbitration of Cardinal Taschereau and by direction of the Sovereign Pontiff, the gradual division into more than fifty parishes of the immense parish of Notre Dame. This was rendered necessary by the rapid develop- ment of Montreal. The city had 140,862 inhabitants in 1881, 267,730 in 1901, and 466,197 in 191 I-an increase of nearly 200,000 in ten years. Such wonderful progress made a division of the diocese also a necessity. The bishopric of St Hyacinthe had already been created out of it in 1852, just as the bishopric of Three Rivers was created out of Quebec about the same time. In 1874 the diocese of Sher- brooke was formed, chiefly from these new bishoprics, with a few townships of Quebec. In 1892 Valleyfield, and in 19 0 4 Joliette, were entirely erected out of Montreal territory. Valleyfielà and Joliette were in 1912 under their first titulars: the Right Rev. Joseph Médard Emard (b. 18 53), and the Right Rev. Joseph Alfred Archambault (b. 18 59), to whom they are indebted for their perfect organization and present prosperity.! In Sherbrooke the second bishop, Monseigneur Paul La Rocque, was preceded by Bishop Racine (1822-93), who founded the Seminary of St Charles Borromeo and established the Sisters of Charity and the Brothers of the Sacred Heart. J Monseigneur Archambault died on April 25, 1913. QUEBEC 9 1 The first Bishop of St Hyacinthe was the Right Rev. Jean Charles Prince (1804-60), who had been appointed coadjutor of Montreal and consecrated in 1846 under the title of Bishop of Marcianopolis. During his administration a college, which had existed in St H yacin the since 181 I, became the seminary. For the education of young ladies he brought from France the Order of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose mother-house was first placed at Monnoir, but was transferred to the city in 1858. Bishop Prince was succeeded by the Right Rev. Joseph La Rocque (1808-87), who resigned his see in 1865 and was afterwards known as Bishop of Germanicopolis. To his direction is due the foundation, by the Rev. Mother Catherine Aurélie of the Precious Blood, of the Order of the Precious Blood, now established in several dioceses of Canada and the U ni ted States. He was replaced by his brother, the Right Rev. Charles La Rocque (1809-75), under whom the old Order of the Dominicans entered Canada and founded, at St Hyacinthe, their first convent and novitiate. The fourth bishop, Monseigneur Zéphyrin Moreau (1824-1901), ruled the diocese from 1876 to 1901, a longer period than his three predecessors together. He created, for the education of the young and the visitation of the sick, the Order of the Sisters of St Joseph (1877), who have now several establishments in St Hyacinthe and elsewhere. The Brothers of the Sacred Heart, called in 188 I, established the Girouard Academy, and in 1902, under Bishop Moreau's successor, the College of the Sacred Heart. The Marist Brothers arrived in 1892. The Right Rev. Maxime Decelles (1849-1905), coadjutor since 1893, ascended the see of St Hyacinthe in 1901 and was replaced by the Right Rev. Alexis-Xyste Bernard (b. 1847), consecrated in 1906. St Hyacinthe, Sherbrooke, Valleyfield and Joliette, with Montreal as a metropolis, form the ecclesiastical province of l\10ntreal, erected, at the same time as Ottawa, May 10, 1887. Bishop Fabre was made an archbishop in 1886. His last important act was the convoking of a provincial council, the only council of Montreal that has yet (1913) been called. I t was held under his presidency in 1895, and the number and 9 2 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST importance of its decrees gave it special significance. Besides formulating numerous rules which form a regular treatise of canon law on persons and things ecclesiastical, it gave special attention to education, chiefly of clerics, to the encouragement and development of Laval University in Montreal and of the Canadian College in Rome, to the improvement of charities and pious fraternities, and to the preservation of faith and morals from the evils caused by a corrupt press, licentious theatres and secret societies. To these decrees were added the Constitutions of the Vatican Council and several ency- clical letters and decisions of the Congregations, of a very practical character. The Most Rev. Paul Bruchesi succeeded Archbishop Fabre in 1897. In addition to the yearly erection of several parishes, the completion through his efforts of the vast St James's Cathedral, and the introduction of the numerous new orders by which the diocese was enriched, there took place during his administration the formation of the diocese of Joliette (1904), and in 1910 the celebrated Catholic demonstration of the international Eucharistic Congress of Montreal. A papal legate, Cardinal Vannutelli, presided over the congress. Two other cardinals, His Eminence James Gibbons of Balti- more and His Eminence Michael Logue of Armagh, were present, and there were also 120 archbishops and bishops and upwards of 3000 priests. Half a million visitors crowded into Montreal, and 800,000 people attended mass sung in the open air on a beautiful slope of Mount Royal. In 1905 an auxiliary bishop, Monseigneur Zotique Raciot, was consecrated under the title of Bishop of Pogla, to help the Archbishop of Montreal in his many labours. On account of sickness Bishop Raciot was replaced in 1912 by the Right Rev. Georges Gauthier, consecrated Bishop of Philippopolis. STATISTICS OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL PROVINCE OF MONTREAL IN 1911 I. Extent of Dioceses 5t Hyacinthe: Counties of Bagot, Brome (part), Iber- ville, Mississquoi, Richelieu, Rouville, St Hyacinthe, Shefford (part) and Verchères (part). QUEBEC 93 Sherbrooke: Counties of Brome (part), Compton, Rich- mond, Shefford (part), Sherbrooke, vVoIfe, Stanstead. Valleyfield: Beauharnois, Chateauguay, Huntingdon, Soulanges, Vaudreuil. Joliette: Joliette, Berthier, L'Assomption (part), Mont- calm. Àfontreal: Besides the city, counties of Argenteuil (part), Chambly, Deux- Montagnes, Hochelaga, Jacques-Cartier, Laprairie, L'Assomption (part), Laval, Napierville, St Jean, Terrebonne (part), Verchères (part). 2. Population and Institutions I '" "1:1 "1:1 '" '" c '" "1:1", . II) ... cI '" ... '" c_ :; u ::I p; .. '" 0 ..."ii .. ... c< " 0 :ï c "'0. " " "'.c .c .. ::I .c" c c'" ... " boll z ð . 0 Eo . . > "ë u ] u :t:I: . p., ..c tn tn U - 1- - - - - - - - St Hyacinthe 110,000 187 18 861 23 0 75 2 6 10 75 ... Sherbrooke 85,000 115 .. . 47 0 65 83 I I I 7'!. ... Valleyfield . 5 6 ,44 8 101 '" 18 5 44 4 0 ... 2 4 40 ... Joliette 63,7 6 4 106 12 3 6 5 102 49 I 2 14 41 ... Montreal 47 2 ,000 4 2 9 3 1 9 37 00 1500 164 2 8 7 2 159 I - - - - - - - - - 7 8 7,212 93 8 349 55 81 194 I 4 11 6 19 101 3 8 7 I ECCLESIASTICAL PROVINCE OF QUEBEC All the churches whose histories have been outlined in the preceding pages were born of the old Church of Quebec and her outward development. She too, however, was making steady internal progress, although not so rapidly as some of her daughters. Here we shall record a few facts of general interest which have been omitted or only casually mentioned in the history of particular churches. Bishop Panet (1753-1833), under the title of Bishop of Salada, was consecrated coadjutor of Bishop Plessis in 1807. During his short administration (1825-32) he laboured zeal- ously to promote the cause of education, to obtain more favourable laws for Catholics, to maintain Nicolet College 94 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST and to encourage Abbé Painchaud in the foundation of the College of Ste Anne-de-Ia-Pocatière. Special mention must be made of his work in the matter of the Sulpicians' estates. Although the proceedings of confiscation had been suspended after the request of Bishop Plessis to Lord Bathurst in 1819, yet the case had not been settled. Inasmuch as their property remained under dispute, the Sulpicians sent two delegates to London with power to make an agreement with the British government. They were prepared to cede their seigniories in return for an annual paymen t. When this step became known, it aroused much anxiety in the Province of Quebec. It was felt that, if the compromise took place, it would be equivalent to admitting that the rights of the Sulpicians were in themselves regarded as doubtful, and that the rights of the other communities would be endangered. All the clergy, with the bishop at their head, sent a petition to the king to protest against such an arrangement. In addition to this, Bishop Panet and Bishop Plessis presented to Lord Aylmer a joint memorandum in support of the rights of the Sulpicians. On hearing of this opposition, Rome, whose consent was necessary, refused to sanction the proposed arrangement, and the British govern- ment declined to act in defiance of public feeling. An ordinance giving the Sulpicians legal possession was issued in 1840 by the governor-general, the Right Hon. Charles Edward Poulett Thomson. Thus were saved these in- valuable estates, the revenues of which have since been so frequently lavished by their generous owners on princely charities or institutions for the promotion of higher education. The delegates sent to London and Rome by Bishop Panet-Fathers Antoine Tabeau and Thomas Maguire-had also the mission of soliciting, in both places, the erection of Montreal into an independent diocese 'because the present situation was unpopular' (1832). In 1831 Bishop Panet sold to the government the palace which Bishop de Saint-Vallier first built for himself, and which was rebuilt after the Conquest by Bishop Briand. This house, situated on the beautiful site-now a public garden-on the east side of Mountain Hill, was only for a few years the resid- QUEBEC 9S ence of the Quebec bishops. Bishop de Saint-Vallier himself, after his return in 1713, took up his lodging in the HospitaI- General. Bishop Briand and his successors received the most free and cordial hospi tali ty in the Seminary of Quebec until 1847. The palace was sold for an annual-and irredeemable -payment of flooo. This arrangement was maintained until 1888, when the buildings, which had been used as the house of assembly, no longer existed, having been destroyed by fire in 1883. The annual payment was redeemed for the sum of $74,074, paid to Cardinal Taschereau. The last year of Bishop Panet's administration was marked by the terrible plague of cholera which, in Quebec and Montreal alone, carried to the grave nearly four thou- sand people in five weeks. It gave the clergy a splendid opportunity to display their zeal and charity. Without any concern for their own lives, priests devoted themselves day and night to the work of administering the consolations and the last rites of religion to their dying people. These examples of devotion were repeated when the plague broke out again in 1834, 1849 and 1854. Bishop Signay (1778-1850) was parish priest of Quebec when he became coadjutor of Bishop Panet in 1827 under the title of Bi hop of Fussola. He began his administration in 1832. Several important religious events took place in his time. In the troubles of 1837 he took the same stand as Bishop Lartigue and, in a pastoral letter, exhorted the members of his diocese to lawful submission. Another letter advised them to profit by the new law on Public Instruction (184 I) for the erection of parochial schools. In 1844 the see of Quebec was erected into a metropolis with three suffragans, Montreal, Kingston and Toronto. In 1847 three others were added, Newfoundland, Ottawa and the North-\Vest. IVlonseigneur Signay was the first to be entitled Archbishop of Quebec, although Bishop Pless is, had he chosen to do so, could have taken the name in 1819. By the terms of the Bull the dioceses of the Maritime Provinces were not to form part of the ecclesiastical province of Quebec, but were to be summoned to the provincial council should one take place. The Archbishop of Quebec was granted civil 96 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST incorporation by 12 Vict. cap. 26, and another paragraph of great consequence (9 7) granted the same privilege to all dioceses then in existence or thereafter erected. The year 1847 left in Canadian annals a mournful record. The stream of Irish immigration has already been mentioned. By this time it had become a veritable flood-Io6,ooo arrived in that one year. They were poor tenants who had been driven from their homes by famine or heartless landlords. Crowded together by thousands on the small ships of those days, they sailed for the New World as to a land of plenty and freedom. The lack of space, air and food-for they had been deceived as to the length of the voyage-made them an easy prey to ship-fever. According to Henry Labouchere's speech in the House of Commons on February 16, 1848, 6110 persons died at sea, 4100 on their arrival, 5200 in the hospitals, and 1900 in the towns to which they repaired. Several thousands had landed at Grosse-lIe. It was a sad sight, and Canada was moved with pity. Physicians went to the rescue; their names have been cut in granite, but ought also to be written on men's hearts. No less than forty-two French and Irish priests volunteered to go to the relief of the unfortunates. Nineteen caught the disease, and of these several died martyrs to their sympathy: Fathers Hubert Robson, Édouard Montminy, Hugh Paisley, Félix Séverin Bardy and Pierre Roy. Among the others may be mentioned some names illustrious in Canadian church history: Fathers Alexander Taschereau, later a cardinal; John Horan, afterwards Bishop of Kingston; J. B. Ferland, the historian; and Bernard O'Reilly, later a protonotary-apostolic and a noted writer. It is but just to add that the Protestant clergy, chiefly of the Church of England, did not hesitate to brave the plague in order to relieve such of the sufferers-about one-tenth- as belonged to their creed. Bishop Mountain was one of the first in the field, and was soon followed by seven teen of his clergy, two of whom fell victims to the disease. Nor was the typhus limited to Grosse-lIe. Hundreds of in1migrants carried its germs to Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa, Kingston and Toronto, and died there charitably attended by priests and sisters. I t is stated that eighteen sisters and QUEBEC 97 twenty-five priests succumbed in the task. Among these, as already related, was the saintly Bishop Power of Toronto. Amid these striking events spiritual life acquired much in- tensity in the archdiocese. In 1841 the saintly Monseigneur de Forbin Janson, Bishop of Nancy, whose eloquence stirred all Canada, preached a retreat to the clergy; it was the first since the Conquest. A society was formed in 1837 for the Propagation of the Faith and affiliated to the Association of Lyons. Another society had for its object the promotion of temperance. Its chief apostles were the Rev. Father Édouard Quertier, renowned for his powerful eloquence; Vicar-General Alexis Mailloux; and Charles Chiniquy, parish priest of Beauport, who afterwards became a traitor to his vows and created a scandal by apostasy which is still remembered after half a cen tury. Three religious orders were called into the diocese: the Brothers of the Christian Schools in 1842; the Oblates in 1844, who were placed in charge of the Indian Missions of the Saguenay, which they served until 191 I, when they were replaced by the Eudist Fathers; the Jesuits in 1849, who took charge of, and have kept ever since, the Church of the Congregation of the Blessed Virgin in the upper town. In his report to the Holy See in 1843 Bishop Signay stated that his diocese contained 200,000 souls, 171 priests, 145 churches and chapels, 4 monasteries of cloistered nuns to nurse the poor and the infirm and educate the young, and 3 colleges or seminaries. At his death (1850), says the Abbé Ferland, Canada--outside of the Maritime Provinces -numbered: I archbishop; 4 bishops; 572 priests; nearly 100 theological students; 1800 young men receiving a classi- cal education in II colleges; 3 religious orders for the ele- mentary education of boys; So communities of Sisters for the education of girls, and the care of orphans or of sick and destitute persons; 4 houses of Jesuits; 3 houses of Oblates; 9 00 ,000 Catholics and 400,000 members of the Society of Temperance. Bishop Signay was the last Bishop of Quebec who received the annuity of 1)000 granted to Bishop Plessis. His succes- sors got only the annual income, already noted, from the VOL. XI G 98 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST episcopal palace. In 1847 he entered the present palace, which was built from the contributions of the clergy by the instrumentality of his coadjutor and successor, the Right Rev. Pierre Flavien Turgeon, Bishop of Sidyme. This prelate (1787-1867) accepted in 1831 the coadjutor- ship which he had refused in 1825, but his consecration did not take place until 1834. The delay was due to certain unhappy intrigues. One Abbé Thavenet, who afterwards declared that he had no mission from any person whatever, spared no pains to have a worthy priest of Montreal, the Rev. Abbé Jean-Baptiste St Germain, parish priest of St Lawrence, appointed to the position. Doctor (afterwards Cardinal) Wiseman, rector of the English College in Rome and agent of Bishop Signay, having notified the bishop, in a letter of April 23, 1833, of the difficulties of the situation, a delegation was sent to the Holy Father, and the choice of the Canadian clergy was confirmed. Under Monseigneur Turgeon, after a preliminary meeting of the Canadian bishops in Montreal in 1850, the three first councils of Quebec were held in 1851, 1854 and 1863 respec- tively. With the establishment of the Sisters of Charity in 1849 and the foundation of the Good Shepherd in 1850, these councils were the principal events of his short administration. In 1855 ill-health deprived him of all power to work, and the government of the archdiocese fell to his coadjutor, the Right Rev. Charles François Baillargeon (1798-1870). Bishop Baillargeon was pastor of Quebec and agent in Rome of the Canadian episcopate when he was chosen for the coad j u torshi p. His consecration took place in Rome in 1851 under the title of Bishop of Tlos.! He was a man of learning, and while parish priest of Quebec published a valuable translation of the New Testament. He was no less remarkable for his charity and meekness, and founded in 1850 the lay Conferences of St Vincent-de-Paul, which have spread all over the country and relieved un told human miseries. In 1860, to help Pius IX, who had been deprived by Piedmont of his richest provinces, he raised in the diocese 1 . TIoa. in Latin, which form is to be found everywhere in printed French documents. QUEBEC 99 a subscription of more than $20,000, and encouraged young men to enlist in the pontifical zouaves. The yearly collection of St Peter's pence was t.stablished in 1862, and brought in, between 1864 and 1870, $36,268. But above all other events in importance must be reckoned the third (1863) and fourth (1868) councils of Quebec, con- voked and presided over by Bishop Baillargeon. These councils have had such an influence on the organization of the church in Canada that a short study of them is desir- able. Three were held under Archbishop Turgeon, but he was able to preside over only two. The fourth took place after Bishop Baillargeon had ascended the archiepiscopal throne. The first (1851) was truly a national council, as all the bishops then in Canada were convoked. There were present, under Archbishop Turgeon: the Right Rev. Ignatius Bourget of Montreal, and his coadjutor, Bishop Prince; Bishop Gaulin of Kingston, and his coadjutor, Bishop Phelan; Bishops Joseph Eugène Guigues of By town, Armand de Charbonnel of Toronto, Donald MacDonald of Charlottetown, and Mullock of St. John's, Newfoundland. Bishops Dollard of St John, New Brunswick, and Fraser of Arichat, who died in the same year, could not attend; and Bishops Walsh of Halifax and Provencher of the North-\Vest were also pre- vented from being present. Several decrees on discipline, liturgy and morals were passed, and a resolution was adopted giving expression to a desire for the establishment of a Catholic university and of a nonnal school for the training of Catholic teachers. From this arose Laval University in 1852 and the Laval Nonnal School in 1857. To the decrees was added a petition asking the Pope for the creation of the dioceses of St Hyacinthe and Three Rivers, which were accordingly erected in the following year (1852). The second council (1854) was not of such general impor- tance; it was chiefly concerned with the' administration of sacraments and the sanctity of life in the priesthood. As the ecclesiastical province of Halifax had been erected in 1852, the bishops of the Maritime Provinces were not sum- moned to Quebec; but the new titulars of Three Rivers and St Hyacinthe were present. 100 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST The third council (1863) had among its members the Right Rev. Alexandre Taché of St Boniface, who could not attend the two preceding councils. Besides those decrees relating to the special condition of the clergy in Ontario, which were dealt with earlier,! the fifth decree is noteworthy. By this a rule was asked from the Holy See for the election of Canadian bishops. In 1862 Monseigneur Baillargeon had already written to Rome upon that subject, and the method of episcopal elections granted by the Congregation of the Propaganda to the United States in 1861 was extended to Canada. But, at the date of the council, the answer had not yet been received. The prefect, Cardinal Barnabo, recalled in his letter upon the decrees that the matter of the fifth had already been settled. After an explanation from Mon- seigneur Baillargeon the new method of election was adopted. It is of interest to note its chief disposition. Bishops were to be chosen in provincial councils, if any were held wi thin three months. Otherwise each bishop was required to enclose in two sealed letters the names of three priests whom he judged worthy of the mitre. At his death one of the letters was sent to the archbishop of the ecclesiastical province, and the other to the nearest bishop. The latter then communicated his opinion to the metropolitan, and he in his turn wrote to all his suffragans. All the archbishops and bishops then sent their observations to Rome, where the choice was finally decided. Such was the rule in 1834. In the course of years certain modifications had been made. In 1851 the pre- liminary proceedings were left to the archbishops. In 1856, at the request of the council of Baltimore, permission was given to discuss the choice of candidates for bishoprics at the meetings of the bishops of the ecclesiastical province concerned. In 1859 it was decreed, in regard to appoint- ments to archbishoprics, that the opinion of all the other archbishops in the country should be consulted. A series of questions was prescribed concerning the candidate's name, health, learning, morality, ability and general standing. As Canada and the United States, since 1908, have not been under the jurisdiction of the Propaganda, it is probable 1 See pp. 61-2. QUEBEC IOI that all such exceptional regulations will cease and that episcopal elections will be held in accordance with the ordinary rules of canon law. The fourth council of Quebec (1868) had among its mem- bers the Right Rev. Jean Langevin, bishop of the new diocese of Rimouski, erected in 1867. Bishop Taché was represented by his coadjutor, Bishop Grandin, later first Bishop of St Albert (1871). Bishop Cooke of Three Rivers was also replaced by his coadjutor, Bishop Laflèche. In addition to important decrees against usury, impious or immoral writings, and abuses in political elections, a decree was passed-the 14th-asking for the division of the ec- clesiastical province of Quebec and the erection of Toronto and St Boniface in to metropolitan sees. The petition was granted, and Toronto became an archbishopric in 1870 and St Boniface in 1871. Archbishop Baillargeon went to the Vatican Council, but had no opportunity to vote on the question of the doctrine of the Infallibility of the Pope, which he entirely favoured. Ill-health forced him to return, and he died soon afterwards ( 18 7 0 ). He was succeeded by the Right Rev. Elzéar Alexandre Taschereau (1820-98), who was consecrated in 1871. Arch- bishop Taschereau's administration was a most active, fruit- ful and eventful period. \Vith the aid of his clergy he saved from ruin the College of Ste Anne-de-Ia-Pocatière, estab- lished (1879) a classical course in the Commercial College of Lévis founded in 1853, and encouraged and substanti- ally helped Vicar-General (late Bishop) Dominique Racine in the foundation of the Chicoutimi College. He himself instituted the grand hospital of the Sacred Heart, and en- trusted it to the Sisters of the Mercy of Jesus. Several new orders were called into the diocese. In 1873 the Sisters of Jésus-Marie, who had arrived in 1855, established their novitiate in the beautiful groves of Sillery. Houses of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, of St Viateur and of Marists were also erected. The Redemptorist Fathers took charge of St Patrick's Church in Quebec (1871), and of the famous Ste Anne's shrine at Beaupré (1878). More than fifty parishes 102 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST were created with the funds of the Society of Colonization (founded in 1848) and of the Propagation of the Faith, which, after 1876, were kept for local purposes. Archbishop Taschereau presided over the three last pro- vincial councils of Quebec. In the fifth (1873) the decrees were principally disciplinary, and included the reservation of certain grievous sins, the prohibition of mixed marriages and the use of Protestant schools by Catholics, and certain rules for Catholic writers. A petition was added for the erection of the diocese of Sherbrooke, which took place in the following year (1874). The sixth council (1878) chiefly treated of the rights of the church as a perfect society, of ecclesiastical tribunals, family education, the education of young girls in convents and their instruction in philosophical studies. I t warned Catholics against the danger of reading books written by non -Ca tholics and of attending their religious ceremonies. At the end the Fathers expressed their desire for the canon- ization of Pius IX. The seventh council (1886) included, besides the titulars of the ancient sees, the new Bishop of Chicoutimi (1878), Monseigneur Dominique Racine, with the titulars of the recently erected diocese of Nicolet (1885), the Right Rev. Elphège Gravel, and the new vicariate-apostolic of Pontiac (1820), Monseigneur Zéphyrin Lorrain, Bishop of Cythera. The prefect-apostolic of Gulf St Lawrence, Monsignor Bossé, was also present. The organization of ecclesiastical studies according to the doctrine of St Thomas, as directed by Leo XIII, was the principal matter of the decrees. The remainder chiefly related to the limitation of certain amuse- ments on Sundays, the duties of physicians towards the souls of their patients, and the danger of theatres, circuses and freemasonry . During the early years of Archbishop Taschereau's administration the minds of Canadian Catholics were exer- cised by several exciting questions. Some years before his accession keen interest had been aroused in ecclesiastical circles by the ideas of Monsignor Gaume, the prolific French writer who attributed the corruption of the age to the use of QUEBEC I heathen authors in higher education. Two camps of fiery champions-for and against Gaume--had been formed in France, and Canada also had her valorous fighters. An able priest, the Rev. Alexis Pelletier, who died in 1910, raised the banner of Gaumism, and published several pamphlets under the assumed names of ' Georges St Aimé ' and ' Luigi.' He was answered by another priest of great talent, the ill-fated Abbé Chandonnet. Each had his followers, and, as usually happens, the less qualified they were to judge the question, the more ardent and boisterous did they prove. The ideas of Monsignor Gaume were not entirely wrong, but they grea tly exaggerated the evil. The conflict had, at least, one good result: it brought about much more careful expurgation of pagan authors, and gained a larger place for Christian writers in classical education. This dispute was succeeded by one more serious and far- reaching in its effects. In Canada, as formerly in Great Britain, the field of politics is occupied by two parties- tories or conservatives and whigs or liberals. The latter name is an unfortunate one, because it is, and always will be, exposed to serious misconception. When liberalism is in ter- preted as meaning that no account is to be taken of God in human things, that church and state must be separated, and that the church must be disregarded in the direction of public affairs, it is a most condemnable doctrine. But when it is interpreted as meaning that liberty must be granted for differences of opinion and creed, in a country of mixed races and religions, it is certainly not to be condemned and will continue to live. In this sense it is a public necessity. It was by acting according to these principles that the greatest Canadian bishops-Briand, Plessis and Macdonell, Mac- Eacharn, Lynch and Connolly, to name only a few-secured for Catholicism such a free and honourable standing in a country where Protestants are in a great majority, and brought about the friendly relations that now exist between these different creeds throughout the Dominion. Still less is liberalism to be condemned as a political party whose aim it is to promote special methods of civil government. Canadian liberals, however, were not all above criticism. 104 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST But in certain quarters, unfortunately, the eloquent philip- pics of Monseigneur Pie and the trenchant lectures of Louis Veuillot against French radicals were directed against them without any discrimination. Priests were known to substi- tute, in the pulpit, the spirit of L' Étendard or Le Nouveau- M onde-both venerable newspapers long since dead-for that of St Ambrose or St Augustine. In pastorals dated 1873 and 1875 Archbishop Taschereau, with all his colleagues, had condemned Catholic liberalism. The condemnation was by some considered as applying to the liberal party. Another pastoral, dated October II, 1877, and signed by all the bishops of the ecclesiastical province of Quebec, said: 'Some have unhappily seen in that document [the pastoral of 1875] a deser- tion of the serene region of principles for the dangerous ground of personalities and political parties. . . . There is no ponti- fical act condemning any political party.' A circular sent to the clergy at the same date, and also signed by the bishops, reminded the clergy that newspapers should not be mistaken for the word of the Gospel: 'In the reading of newspapers, remember the teaching of the Apostle St John: Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits if they be of God.' It recalled the decrees of the second council of Quebec on political elections and the circular of June 4, 1854, adding: 'The clergy must remain, in their private and public life, inde- pendent of parties in questions that have no connection with religious principles.' It recalled also the circular of Septem- ber 22, 1875, which reserved to bishops the right of judging when religious interests might require the intervention of the church. Out of this feud about liberalism sprang the university quarrel. The time has not yet come to write its complete history, but a brief statement may here be made. At the instance of the Canadian episcopate the Quebec Seminary had spent over a million dollars in establishing Laval Uni- versity, upon the understanding that it should be the only Catholic university in the province. It also contributed towards its maintenance enough to cover a yearly deficit of $5000 to $10,000. As a guarantee of its orthodoxy the institution was placed under the control of the bishops. QUEBEC 10 5 Less than twenty years after its foundation, however, Mon- treal demanded a university of her own. The Quebec Seminary protested, as it was its right to do, because a uni- versity in Montreal would mean the ruin of Laval, on which large sums of money had already been expended. Arch- bishop Taschereau espoused its cause and steadfastly upheld it. This is not surprising, for he had been a pupil of the Seminary, and afterwards a professor, director and superior there, and he was one of the founders of Laval. He was well aware that the cause of the trouble-the alleged teaching of liberalism at Laval-was merely imaginary. It is true that a professor, the late Abbé Benjamin Paquet, had given lectures on the subject; but these lectures were published, in 1877, by the Polyglotta Press of the Pt:opaganda in Rome, and were prefaced by a laudatory brief of Pius IX. They could not, therefore, have contained very dangerous tenets. The mere suspicion, however, s'ufficed to arouse certain excitable spirits, as the coloured banderolas madden a bull. Memorandums, for or against Laval, were showered upon Rome and upon the Quebec parliament. Finally, a branch of Laval was established in Montreal in 1876. But this was like another' Bishop of Telmessus': it gave no real satis- faction. A delegate, His Excellence Monseigneur Conroy, Bishop of Armagh, was sent by the Holy See (1877-78) to make a thorough inquiry, but died before his return. Another delegate, His Excellence Monsignor Smeulders, a Belgian monk, came in 1888. In 1889 was published the decree Jamdudum, by which the Montreal branch of Laval, if not utterly severed from the main trunk, was given, like a branch of the banyan tree, almost an independent life of its own. The tempest has now abated, and a calm survey shows that the havoc has not been so terrible as might have been feared. If motives and certain regrettable excesses be dis- regarded, it must be admitted that the Seminary of "Quebec had incontestable rights. On the other hand, it was impos- sible that a city like Montreal could be deprived of a Catholic university. The arrangemèÎ1ts arrived at by the equanimity and wisdom of Rome seem the best that could have been obtained. ./ 106 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST In 1886 Archbishop Taschereau was made a cardinal. All Canada was proud of the honour conferred upon one of her most distinguished sons, and participated in the magnificent celebrations which took place in Quebec on that occasion. In 1891 he chose for his coadjutor the Right Rev. Louis N azaire Bégin (b. 1840), Bishop of Chicou timi, created on the occasion Archbishop of Cyrene. Broken in health by a life of incessant labour, the cardinal resigned the administration of the diocese to him in 1894, four years before his death. In 1888 the long-disputed question of the Jesuits' estates was settled. By authority of the Holy See the Rev. Father Turgeon, S.J., came to an agreement with the prime minister of Quebec, the Hon. Honoré Mercier. The province paid an indemnity of $400,000, which was to be divided among the Jesuits, Laval University, and the bishops for educational purposes. The Protestant Board of Education got $60,000. His Grace Monseigneur Louis N azaire Bégin became Archbishop of Quebec in 1898. The archdiocese has since been enriched by several new orders of men and women, chiefly after the expulsion of the religious congregations from France. Among important events the Manitoba school question deserves special mention. It does not belong to this sketch save for the intervention of the bishops of the Province of Quebec. Greatly moved by the unjust law of 1890 which deprived the Catholics of Manitoba of their schools, the bishops endeavoured in 1896 to obtain its repeal by the intervention of the federal government. As the ques- tion was of a racial and religious nature, it excited fiery pas- sions on both sides. Ontario would not hear of Manitoba's autonomy being violated, and Manitoba scorned all remedial law on the part of the federal government. Nevertheless, a bill was passed at Ottawa in 1897 that rendered partial justice to the Catholics It was not perfect-the French education law of 1850 was not perfect either-but it would be rash to assert that all was not done that could have been done in the circumstances. As the agitation continued, His Excel- lence Monsignor Merry Del Val, now secretary of state to His Holiness Pius x, and a cardinal, was sent as a delegate QUEBEC 107 to make an inquiry on the burning subject. He carefully gathered all possible information about the question and the popular feeling regarding it (1897). After his report Leo XIII sent to Archbishop Bégin (1898), to be communicated to his colleagues, the celebrated encyclical Affari vos. In it he praised the Canadian bishops for their zeal in defending the true principles of education, acknowledged that a willing- ness to mitigate the evil effects of the law of 1890 had been shown, and advised charity and union in the pursuance of more complete justice. Much still remains to be done. A perfect cure is to be expected through time, the great healer of all evils. Darker days have grieved Nova Scotia and even Quebec, and have afterwards turned into sunshine. Manitoba too may hope for brighter times. Premier Greenway of Manitoba chose to associate his name with bigotry and tyranny, and to rank with the Rylands and the Marriotts. Other politicians will undoubtedly prefer before long to be remembered for their spirit of toleration and liberty, and to be ranked with the Burkes and the Haliburtons. In 1908 an auxiliary, the Right Rev. Paul Eugène Roy (b. 1859), under the title of Bishop of Eleutheropolis, was given to the Archbishop of Quebec. He has devoted his energy to the organization of social activities and of a Catholic press to counteract the influence of impious newspapers which here and there, even in this Catholic province, have begun to undermine the bases of religion and society. The year 1908 also witnessed the religious celebration of the tercentenary of Quebec and the erection of a fine monu- ment to the memory of the apostle-bishop of Canada, Mon- seigneur de Laval. The solemn procession of Corpus Christi, the unveiling of the statue of the first Bishop of Quebec (19 08 ), and the chief festivities in 1909, so much enhanced by the presence of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, now His Majesty King George v, made the celebration un- paralleled in the annals of Canada for the picturesqueness of the scenes, the distinction, if not numbers, of the audience, the splendour of the decorations, the harmony of the organization, and the perfection of the whole function. 108 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST Since 1887 the boundaries of the Metropolitan Church of Quebec have been greatly limited. On May 10, 1887, Ottawa and Montreal, as stated above, were erected into independent metropoli tan sees, and the old archbishopric had only four suffragans left-Three Rivers, Rimouski, Chicoutimi and Nicolet. In 1906 the vicariate-apostolic of Gulf St Lawrence was added. In Three Rivers the first bishop, the Right Rev. Thomas Cooke (1792-1870), founded the seminary (1860). His suc- cessor was the Right Rev. Louis François Laflèche (1818-98), formerly a missionary in the North-West, a man of great piety and indomitable energy. A fluent writer and power- ful orator, he aided Bishop Bourget in the religious diffi- culties above mentioned, and played a leading part. He was succeeded by the Right Rev. François-Xavier Cloutier, (b. 1848). The diocese of Nicolet was severed from Three Rivers in 1885, with the Right Rev. Elphège Gravel (1838-1904) as its first titular. In 1904 the see fell to the Right Rev. Simon Hermann Brunault (b. 1859). These two dioceses are in a most flourishing condition, with several communities of men and women, prosperous seminaries and other educational institutions. The diocese of Rimouski in the eastern part of the Province of Quebec was formed in 1867, when colonization there had sufficiently advanced. The first bishop was the Right Rev. Jean Langevin (182 1-92), who had been second president of the Laval Normal School. To him the diocese is indebted for its organization, its seminary, its chapter, and the estab- lishment of the Sisters of Charity (1871). He resigned his see in 1891 with the title of Archbishop of Leontopolis, and was succeeded by the Right Rev. André Albert Blais (b. 18 4 2 ) . The diocese of Chicoutimi was erected in 1878. For a long time the Saguenay region had been simply a country of missions. The Jesuits had built a wooden chapel at Chicoutimi in 1670, and this was replaced in 1726 by another that remained until 1849. The last Jesuit missionary in these quarters was the celebrated Father J. B. de Ia Brosse, QUEBEC log already mentioned, who died at Tadoussac in 1782. After him a secular priest used to pay a yearly visit, until the missions were entrusted to the Oblates in 1844. Colonization did not begin to set in towards that immense and fertile country, now covered with flourishing parishes, until about 1842, when it ceased to be held by the Hudson's Bay Com- pany as a fur territory. Settlements rapidly formed and grew. In 1862 the Rev. Dominique Racine (1828-88) was appointed parish priest of Chicoutimi. He has been justly called the 'Apostle of Saguenay.' Through his efforts a convent of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd was founded (1864), and afterwards a college (1873), which has now become a seminary. He also began the erection of a church, which by successive improvements became a handsome cathedral, which was unhappily destroyed by fire in 1912. On the erection of the see he was naturally made its first bishop. Under his paternal and skilful direction the diocese soon acquired remarkable prosperity. His successor (1888-91), the Right Rev. Louis N azaire Bégin, was transferred to Quebec, and was replaced, in 1891, by the Righ t Rev. Thomas Michel Labrèque {b. 1849), who was consecrated in 1892. In 1901 the Marist Brothers founded a school in Chicoutimi. The Eudist Fathers took charge of the new parish of the Sacred Heart, their flock being composed, for the most part, of the labourers of the Chicoutimi pulp-mills. Several orders of nuns, also, have convents in the thriving little town, among whom must be mentioned the Sisters of the Mercy of Jesus, who keep the HôteI-Dieu. In 1906 a large portion of Chicoutimi was erected into the vicariate-apostolic of Gulf St Lawrence and entrusted to the Eudist Fathers, who serve all the missions of that barren northern district. The Right Rev. Father Gustave Blanche, consecrated as Bishop of Sicca, supervises that region, in which, in spite of its desolation, there are some thousands of souls. Many of the churches formed from the bishopric of Quebec have surpassed her in numbers and riches, but none in glory. After the death of Cardinal Taschereau, His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons, in an after-dinner speech at the Quebec ..;T, JOHN FISHER COLLEGE LIBRARY 110 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST Seminary, happily and gracefully applied to her the words of the Holy Book: 'Many daughters have gathered together riches; but thou hast surpassed them all.' STATISTICS OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL PROVINCE OF QUEBEC IN 1911 I. Extent of Dioceses Three Rivers: Counties of Champlain, Maskinongé and St Maurice. Rimouski: Counties of Bonaventure, Gaspe (less Mag- dalen Islands), Rimouski, and the greater part of Temiscouata. Nicolet: Coun ties of Nicolet, Arthabaska, Yamaska, Drummond, a comer of Bagot and Shefford. Vicariate-Apostolic of Gulf St Lawrence: Eastern part of Saguenay County, from River Portneuf, Anticosti Island and Ungava. Quebec: Counties of Beauce, Bellechasse, Dorchester, Kamouraska, Lévis, L'Islet, Lotbinière, Mégantic, Montmagny, Montmorency, Portneuf, Quebec, T emiscoua ta (part). 2. Population and Institutions I "C "'C "'C .. C "C C 'f on ;:a u on OIl '" c., : .!:! .. u c: t:e 6 100 õ .! . up. c ..c c > .::: 0 : ..c > ::I u .. . õ c: u..c ..c z;p::ø. 0 'S "1 u p. 'ë u en U U 0 A Õ Þ en :r: p. c.; - - Three Rivers 89,000 I"''' I 8 16 4 48 74 1 J- ... Rimouski . 124,3 1 9 147 I ... 3 0 I 12 5 120 2 ... Chicoutimi 7 2 ,3 2 5 139 I ... 12 2 70 64 . .. ... Nicolet . 90,000 15 0 I 3 29 6 66 66 ... ... V.-Ap.5t Lawrence 9,65 0 19 ... ... I . .. 40 3 8 ... ... Quebec 359,000 61 4 2 2 13 8 16 237 266 7 I - 1 586 744, 2 94 1,201 6 13 226 29 628 10 1 QUEBEC III THE GROWTH OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IN CANADA The Catholic hierarchy of Canada was completed in 18g9 by the establishment of a regular apostolic delegate. The first in charge was His Excellence Monseigneur Diomède Falconio, Archbishop of Acerenza, who afterwards became delegate to the United States and was raised to the cardinal- ate in 191 I. He was succeeded in Ig02 by His Excellence Monseigneur Donato Sbarretti, Archbishop of Ephesus, who returned to Rome in 1910 and became secretary of the Congregation of Regulars. His Excellence Monsignor Pelle- grino Francesco Stagni, Archbishop of Aquila, was appointed his successor. Under the presidency of His Excellence Archbishop Sbarretti a plenary council of the Church of Canada was held in Quebec in Igog. To show the progress achieved in one hundred and fifty years, it may suffice to quote a few lines from the pastoral letter of Archbishop Bégin in I gog with reference to the council: (Religious authority is now in the hands of 34 Archbishops and Bishops, Vicars and Prefects Apostolic. There are 8 Ecclesiastical Pro- vinces, 2g dioceses regularly established, 3 Vicariates and 2 Prefectures Apostolic. The Canadian Church extends over an immense territory where live nearly three millions of Catholics of different races and languages.' To these figures must now be added the vicariate-apostolic of Keewatin, founded in IgIO, and the diocese of Regina, erected in Igl I. Thirty-two archbishops and bishops, one prefect-apostolic, one mitred abbot and five proxies of dead or absent bishops, formed, under the apostolic delegate, the solemn assizes of the Church of Canada. As the decrees of the venerable assembly were not published when this sketch was written (April IgI2), a glimpse of the plenary council may be gained from these words of Monseigneur Langevin, Archbishop of St Boniface: · The Council of Quebec has once more proclaimed the truth, asserted the general principles of faith and morals, reaffirmed 112 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE EAST the fundamental teachings of the Catholic religion, and given general directions to the Catholics of Canada.' When Bishop Briand took charge of the long-widowed Church of Quebec in 1766 there were in all Canada about 70,000 Catholics, 138 priests and 100 parishes. To-day there are 2,833,041 Catholics, 3600 priests, 2070 parishes and missions, 1965 churches and chapels. It may be added that there is no country in the world where religion is freer and more respected. /0/ , THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH WEST OF THE GREAT LAKES VOL. XI H THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH WEST OF THE GREAT LAKESl I BEGINNINGS T HE Catholic Church, as the pioneer in missionary work between Lake Superior and the Pacific coast of Canada, had, as a matter of course, to give the first-fruits of her zeal to the aboriginal inhabitants throughout this vast region. These were wild tribes of Indians, nomadic on the western prairies and semi-sedentary along the streams and coast-line of what is now British Columbia. From Sault Ste Marie to the Lake of the Woods the Chippewas, or Saulteux, a tribe of Algonquin origin, numbering at least 35,000, held sway before the advent of the whites. They had as neighbours on the adjoining plains the Crees, a tribe of similar stock, who then numbered some 20,000 souls. Still further west, just east of the Rocky Mountains, a third tribe, the Blackfeet, lived. These savages, although related by blood to the Chippewas and the Crees, were the heredi- tary foes of the latter and subsisted partially by plundering their fellow plain-rangers. There was a fourth group, a heterogeneous aboriginal division, the Assiniboins, 'those that cook by means of stones,' a branch of the great Sioux family which had separ- ated from the parent stock and moved north, where it had become the ally of the Crees against its own congeners within 1 For a detailed and circumstantial account of events touched upon in this narrative, with elaborate footnotes and citations, see A. G. Morice, History of the Catholic Chut'ch in lVestct'n Canada (2 vols., Toronto, I9IO), and his later work of the same character in French (3 vois., \Vinnipeg, I9I2). 115 116 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE WEST the United States. This tribe may have numbered 15,000 souls. West of the Rocky Mountains, no less than six entirely distinct and unrelated stocks of Indians were, in course of time, to claim the attention of the missionaries. These were: the Kootenays, in the south-east corner of British Columbia; the Salish, divided into several important branches on the mainland and part of Vancouver Island; the Kwakwiutl, a dissolute set of people on the coast and the other half of the island; the Haidas, mostly on Queen Charlotte Islands; the Tsimpsians on the Skeena and Nasse Rivers and on the inter- vening coast; and the Dénés, a vast family of rather timid, religiously inclined tribes, who occupied the whole remaining portion of Northern Canada, with the exception of its coasts, from the Pacific to Hudson Bay and from the boundaries of the Eskimos in the north to the prairies of the Crees and the Blackfeet in the south. The first representatives of the white race to come in contact with the southernmost of these tribes were two Frenchmen, Pierre Esprit Radisson and Médard Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers, who visited the land of the Crees in 1659-60, but accomplished little of a missionary character except showing religious pictures to the natives and baptizing children. A more lasting achievement of theirs, the effect of which is felt to the present day, was the founding of the Hudson's Bay Company. The charter which this celebrated body obtained from the court of England gave its members the commercial monopoly over the whole region drained by the streams emptying into the bay from which the company took its name. But this claim was never acknowledged by the fur traders from Eastern Canada, who soon began moving towards the West in their search for pelts and what was then called the Western Sea, the Pacific Ocean of to-day. The French colonial authorities were eager for the discovery of that great body of water, which they supposed to be much nearer to Lake Superior than it is. They were also moved by a religious purpose. Charles de Beauharnois, governor of New France (1726-47), writing to the French minister at BEGINNINGS 117 Paris to urge the encouragement of Western exploration, said : To these considerations I add one which will no doubt be of great weight with a minister who has, like you, so much at heart the preaching of the Gospel to numerous nations which have not yet heard of Jesus Christ. I t is that, on the way, it shall be possible to take measures to prepare throughout these vast regions establishments equally useful to religion and to the state. Nay, it would be difficult for a friar to pass three or four years travelling through these countries without finding occa- sions of procuring by baptism an entrance into heaven to several children in danger of death. For these reasons, after a trading-post had been estab- lished at Kaministikwia, now Fort \Villiam, the governor of Canada entrusted the discovery of the Western Sea to a Canadian named Pierre Gaultier de Varennes de la Vérendrye. 1 With conscientious zeal and in the face of serious obstacles La Vérendrye proceeded to carry out his mission. At the head of fifty men he left Montreal for the unknown \Vest on June 8, 1731. On the way Father Charles Mesaiger, a Jesuit priest, joined the expedition. In the autumn of that year La V érendrye founded Fort St Pierre on Rainy Lake; and on June 8 of the following year, with the missionary and a small party, he pushed on as far as the Lake of the Woods, on the west shore of which he erected Fort St Charles. In the year 1733 Father l\Iesaiger, whose health was unsatisfactory, returned east. Two years later he was re- placed by Father Aulneau de la Touche-likewise a Jesuit- a holy man, filled with zeal for his mission. Father Aulneau left Montreal for Fort St Charles on June 13, 1735, with the intention of ultimately devoting himself to the Mandans of the upper Missouri. After doing some evangelical work among the surrounding aborigines, who were none too eager for the light of the Gospel, Father Aulneau, with La Véren- drye's eldest son and nineteen Frenchmen, set out for Michili- mackinac on June 8, 1736-the priest intending to pay a visit 1 See (The Pathfinders of the Great '\Yest' in section I. lIB ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE WEST to his confrères, and the trader to get provisions for the famished members of his establishment. But, on an island some twenty-one miles away, the whole party was murdered by a band of Sioux, who had been led to believe that the French favoured their traditional enemies, the Crees. Father Aulneau's successor in the West was the Rev. Claude G. Cocquart, S.J., the first minister of religion to reach the site of the present city of Winnipeg. This was in the summer of 1743. He went even farther, and stayed eight or nine months at a post which the elder La V érendrye had established on the Assiniboine under the name of Fort la Reine, at the spot where Portage la Prairie now stands. Cares, debts and lack of appreciation forced La Véren- drye to retire from his position in the fall of 1744, after having established no less than six trading-posts, which he regarded as so many stepping-stones towards the fulfilment of the task with which he had been en trusted. He was suc- ceeded by de N oyelle, who accomplished little else than the erection, through one of the La Vérendryes, of Fort Bourbon on Lake vVinnipegosis, and Fort Paskoyac near the forks of the Saskatchewan. De Noyelle was succeeded in 1749 by a soldier named Jacques Repentigny Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, a man of fiery character, whose reign, though resulting in the establishment by proxy of Fort Ia Jonquière, on the site of the present city of Calgary, ended in the burning of Fort la Reine by Indians who were displeased at not finding in him the conciliating ways of the great La Vérendrye. Even the missionary Jean-Baptiste de la Morinie, who arrived at Fort la Reine as the successor to Father Cocquart in the summer of 1750, does not seem to have found life pleasant with Saint-Pierre, for he returned east on June 22, 1751. His place in the West was not to be filled for some sixty-five years. For a long period after the close of the momentous struggle resulting in the cession of Canada to Great Britain, the Catholic Church was represented on the great plains only by her lay children, many of whom threw in their lot with the aborigines, and thus founded that wonderful race of French half-breeds destined to play so great a rôle in the BEGINNINGS 119 history of the Canadian West. By preserving the traditions of religion and civilization left by the early explorers, the half-breeds helped to prepare the aborigines for the work of the clergy who in course of time settled where the first missionaries had paid but a fleeting visit. Our next step brings us to the ad ven t of Lord Selkirk's colonists on the banks of Hudson Bay in 181 I and at the Red River in 1812. These settlers, Scottish Presbyterians and Irish Catholics, were under the care of a Catholic of strong convictions, Captain Miles Macdonell, who could not think of leading men into the far-off wilderness of North America without the all-powerful assistance of religion. He had received the promise of a minister for the Protestants in his colony, but at the last moment the man chosen had declined to join the expedition. For his co-religionists he had secured the services of an Irish priest, the Rev. Charles Bourke, but unfortunately Father Bourke did not give satisfaction, and returned to Europe without having gone farther than York Factory on Hudson Bay. This failure to secure any minister of religion for his people seriously affected Macdonell. He was compelled to act as a clergyman himself, even having to perform marriage and baptismal ceremonies. He sent urgent requests for a priest to bishop after bishop in Ireland, but his appeals wer not heeded. Then, remembering that the unorganized district in which his colony lay must be under the Right Rev. Joseph Octave Plessis, then Bishop of Quebec and the only Ordinary within what is now Canada, he applied to him for help. Just then events practically necessitated the intervention of the French-Canadian clergy from Eastern Canada. The North-\Vest Company, which previously to the advent of the British colonists in 1812 had been the reigning power in the West, was almost entirely composed of French, and therefore Catholic, traders and servants. With those who were then roaming over the plains under the name of ' free- men,' the few who had enlisted under the ægis of the rival corporation (the Hudson's Bay Company) and the Irish and Scottish settlers, the 'Nor'westers' made up altogether a Catholic population of fully seven hundred and fifty within 120 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE WEST the valleys of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. The very strained relations, quarrels and struggles which culminated in the tragic affair of Seven Oaks proved the determining cause in the establishment of the first permanent Catholic mission on the banks of the Red River. I t was believed by everybody concerned that the strong arm of religion alone could bring peace and concord to that much disturbed land. No one felt so strongly as Macdonell on this point. Writing to the Bishop of Quebec on April 4, 1816, he says: You know, Monseigneur, that there can be no stability in the government of states or kingdoms unless religion is made the corner-stone. The leading motive of my first undertaking the management of that arduous, tho' laudable, enterprise, was to have made the Catholic religion the prevailing faith of the establishment, should divine Providence think me a worthy instrument to for- ward the design. The Earl of Selkirk's liberal mind readily acquiesced in bringing out along with me the first year a priest from Ireland. Your Lordship already knows the unfortunate result of that first attempt. The sorrowing governor then represents to the bishop the great numbers of the Catholics and the needs of the aborigines who ought to be under his jurisdiction, and pleads for at least one missionary. Lord Selkirk himself seconded these Christian-like sentiments, declaring that it would give him very great satisfaction to co-operate to the utmost of his power in so good a work. Moreover, when Selkirk went to Red River in 1817, he caused a formal petition to the same effect to be signed by the most prominent among the settlers, traders and' freemen' in the settlement. The Bishop of Quebec could not remain deaf to such entreaties. He had already commissioned the Rev. P. A. Tabeau to go to the North-West and to report as to whether it would be more advisable to establish a permanent mission, or merely to have missionary visits paid to the Red River Catholics. But, having learned at Rainy Lake of the dis- orders and bloodshed in the settlement, Tabeau had deemed it useless to go any farther, and advised against the setting up of a permanent post. Nevertheless, disregarding Tabeau's ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH 121 objections, Bishop Plessis yielded to the prayers of Captain Macdonell, Lord Selkirk and the twenty-three French and Scottish petitioners of the Red River, and appointed for the delicate task of the foundation the Rev. Joseph Norbert Provencher, to whom he gave as a companion the Rev. Sévère Dumoulin. II ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH F ATHER PROVENCHER was soon to show the wisdom of the prelate's choice by the successful pursuit of his mission. Born at Nicolet, Lower Canada, on Feb- ruary 12, 1787, he had been ordained to the priesthood on December 2 I, 181 I, and had filled various positions of trust in the vicinity of Montreal. At the time of his appointment he was pastor of the prosperous parish of Kamouraska, but generously relinquished it for the hardships of the wild West. Father Dumoulin was six years his junior. Bishop Plessis drew up for his envoys a series of instruc- tions, wherein they were directed to catechize and watch over the morals of the whites, to strive to convert the natives, to erect schools in as many places as possible, and to remind all ' of the advantages they enjoy in living under the government of His Britannic Majesty, teaching them by word and deed the respect and fidelity they owe to the Sovereign. ' Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, then 'governor-in-chief in and over the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada,' granted them an escort and a passport in English and French; while Lord Selkirk, not content with giving a large grant of land for the mission, did all he possibly could to facilitate the journey of the two churchmen. In all this work he was generously assisted by Lady Selkirk. Armed with the powers of a vicar-general, and accom- panied by the younger priest and an ecclesiastical student named Guillaume Edge, Father Provencher set out from l\lontreal for the West on May 19, 1818, and reached Fort 122 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE WEST Douglas, the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company, on July 16. The missionaries were enthusiastically welcomed. Im- mediately on their arrival they began their appointed work. If ever a field was barren and crying for the labours of the husbandman it was that of the Red River Settlement. The grossest vices, such as in temperance, immorality and con- tempt for human life, reigned supreme among all classes, and even the naturally religious French Canadians who had settled there, or were serving the two trading companies, had been brutalized by strife and bloodshed to such an extent that Lord Selkirk, writing on April 4, 1816, was constrained to declare that they seemed to have lost all sense of religion. The situation of the natives was no better. From Fort Douglas, September 13, 1818, Father Provencher wrote: It can be said without hesitation that their commerce with the whites, instead of advancing them towards civilization, has served only to drive them away there- from, because the whites have spoiled their morals by the strong drink of which the natives are extraordinarily fond, and they have taught them debauchery by their bad example. Most of the employees have children by women whom they afterwards send away to the first new- comer. . . . All the clerks and bourgeois likewise have squaws, and, what is worse, no more care is taken of the children born of these so-called marriages than if they had no souls. But the two priests sent by Bishop Plessis were just the men to cope with such a si tua tion. Their first care was to build a modest residence of aspen logs. Using part of it as a chapel, they conducted daily catechizing for the adults as well as for their numerous children, of whom they had baptized no fewer than seventy-two within two months after their arrival. At that time the' Forks,' as the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers was called, offered but a very poor home to such as did not till the soil. Outside of the forts the Catholic population was then made up for the most part of half-breeds with a few French' freemen.' Pembina, a great IÞ' ( ..... . . ,/ ;, , - . ; ,.... \ \ . .... \' .: I "'" .\ \' , \ .. ... - "" .. \ . . . , .I \" . :'.. .. ". ". . ......... ) 1\\ JOSEPH ORBERT PROVENCHER From a þortrait ill tIle Château de Rall/eza)' ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH 123 buffalo resort just on the intemationalline, offered a favour- able opportunity for the establishment of an important mission. Father Dumoulin, accompanied by the young ecclesiastic, Edge, was sent there. A school was forthwith established under the management of Edge, and soon boasted some sixty pupils, while an educated French Canadian named Legacé was persuaded to give his services as a school-teacher to the children of the plain-rangers, whom the movements of the buffalo forced to spend much of their time remote from the influence of the new church at Pembina. Father Provencher himself was, if possible, even more zealous on behalf of education. He had erected his humble dwelling opposite Fort Douglas, not far from a small stream which was beginning to be known as German Creek, from the na tionali ty of the soldier-colonists whom Lord Selkirk had left there about a year before. The vicar-general called the spot where he located St Boniface, after the patron saint of their fatherland. There he not only taught the rudiments of secular knowledge, but, as soon as some of his pupils were sufficiently far advanced in their studies, he initiated them into the mysteries of Latin, thus commencing a classical course which was ultimately to expand into what is now the flourishing College of St Boniface. That this enthusiasm for higher education was not limited to the vicar-general may be seen from the fact that, as early as May 25, 1821, Sauvé, an unordained ecclesiastic then residing at Pembina, had six scholars studying Latin grammar. I t is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the Catholic mission seemed to give satisfaction to all parties. 'The Protestants of this place are extremely pleased with our mission,' wrote Father Dumoulin to Bishop Plessis on January 6, 1821. 'They seem to take the keenest interest in it, especially Colonel Dickson. He professes to be de- lighted with our labours and writes often to England about them.' Meanwhile the vicar-general had found it necessary to go to Quebec to report upon the state of things in his distant mission. He did not leave, however, before he had 124 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE WEST received a new co-worker in the person of the Rev. Thomas Destroismaisons to fill his place at St Boniface during his absence. The church authorities in Quebec took advantage of the presence of the Red River missionary to impress upon him the necessity of accepting the episcopal office. His field of action was so isolated, and recourse to the bishop was conse- quently so difficult, that it was not deemed advisable to leave the church in the West without one invested with the plenitude of the priesthood. With great reluctance, and after a protracted struggle, Provencher consented to be consecrated Bishop of Juliopolis in partibus infideIÙt1n. His consecration took place on May 12, 1822. He received at the same time the title of coadjutor to the Bishop of Quebec for the North-West. On August 7 he was again at St Boniface. He had with him a young cleric, Jean Harper, who, unlike his two pre- decessors of the same rank, was to be elevated to the priest- hood and to give several years of his life to the Red River missions. On his return to the \Vest the new bishop found a letter from John Halkett, a brother-in-law of Lord Selkirk, then deceased, in which the writer rather bitterly complained of the importance assumed by the Pembina settlement, recently found to be within American territory, and demanded the return of the French Catholics there to the' Forks,' or St, Boniface. Through the intervention of the bishop a few of them came to his settlement, in spite of the fact that life there was very precarious for people of their class. Others went up the Assiniboine and, on the White Horse Plain some twenty miles above the C Forks,' formed the nucleus of what was to become the important parish of St François-Xavier. Others, again, looked towards Lake Manitoba for a home, while thirty-five asked to be taken under the protection of the United States. This last step occasioned complaints on the part of certain officials of the Hudson's Bay Company, who wished to hold Bishop Provencher responsible for the disloyalty of the thirty-five, though, as a matter of fact, all his efforts had been directed towards keeping his people in ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH 125 British territory. An official correspondence ensued, and the Catholic priests were completely absolved from all suspicion of disloyalty. An unfortunate result of this incident was the return to Quebec on July 16,1823, of Father Dumoulin, who had grown so attached to the Pembina mission, where he had laboured for five years, that he could not reconcile himself to re- maining in the West after his flock was sca ttered. Prior to the breaking up of the southern settlement, which took place in August 1821, there were 800 practising Catholics in the mission, of whom 450, with 50 catechumens, lived at Pembina. \Vhile building a larger church of oak logs, Bishop Provencher turned his attention towards higher education, in the hope that some of his students might feel called to the ecclesiastical vocation, but his hope was not realized during his lifetime. Then he looked for teachers for the girls of the settlement, and, after much discussion, was able to open at St Boniface the first school for girls in the colony, under the management of a well-educated woman, Angélique Nolin, the half-breed daughter of an old trader. This was in 1829, three years after the devastation wrought by the great flood of 1826. The distress caused by the dispersion of the buffalo, consequent on the great flood, brought home to the wanderers the advisability of attempting to cultivate their fields on the Red River. Bishop Provencher was not slow in impressing on his people the necessity of leading a less nomadic life. He taught them agriculture, and, disregarding his rank, put his own hand to the plough. He had already persuaded the Saulteux to sow wheat in four different localities. He then planted various kinds of fruit-bearing trees, but with little success; and, in order to prevent idleness, which is the source of so many vices among the half-breeds, he cultivated hemp, had weaving taught to the girls of the St Boniface school, and ordered cards for combing wool. For these services official encomiums were paid him by the annual council of the Hudson's Bay Company held at York Factory on July 2, 1825. The council recognized' the 126 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE WEST great benefit being experienced from the benevolent and indefa tigable exertions of the Catholic mission at Red River on the welfare and moral and religious instruction of its numerous followers, and it observed with much satisfaction that the influence of the mission under the Right Reverend Bishop of J uliopolis has been uniformly directed to the best interests of the Settlement and of the country at large.' III THE FIRST MISSIONS AMONG THE INDIANS B ISHOP PROVENCHER, who had gone to Canada in search of men for his missions and of funds for his proposed stone cathedral, brought back with him a man who was to playa most important part in the West- the Rev. Georges Antoine Belcourt. He had previously been parish priest of Ste Martine, but left it to consecrate his energies to the cause of the Indians of the great plains. Since the inception of the Red River mission spasmodic efforts had been made to bring the natives to a knowledge of the true God and to make them accept the restraints imposed by His law; but these efforts met with little encouragement. On one occasion Father Dumoulin had even been shot at and wounded by one of the Indians. The truth was that the missionaries were too few to attempt any far-reaching work among the red men. Father Belcourt was the first priest to give himself up entirely to the cause of their evangelization. It is impossible to exaggerate the difficulties of this task. Owing to the conflicts between opposing commercial factions the natives were encouraged to drink the vilest intoxicants, and whenever they repaired to any trading-post the wildest orgies, followed by murders and an immorality too gross even to be hinted at, reigned un til all their resources were exhausted. Add to this a pro- nounced antipathy to any religious system except their own, and one will have an idea of the odds Father Belcourt had to struggle against. THE FIRST MISSIONS AMONG THE INDIANS 127 I t was to the Saulteux, who were least responsive to Chris- tianity, that Belcourt first addressed himself. In 1833 he established on the banks of the Assiniboine, thirty miles from its mouth, a small Indian settlement which he intended as a model village. For some time it met with a measure of success. Belcourt was an able man, quick at learning lan- guages, and indefatigable in his efforts to promote the wel- fare, material as well as spiritual, of his charge. I n many respects he seemed to strive more after the former than the latter. For this reason, perhaps, St Paul's Mission, as his post was called, soon enjoyed considerable popularity among the Red River settlers and even among the distant Indians. Bishop Provencher would have preferred a little more catechizing and less ploughing at the mission on the Assiniboine. But the missionary was a favourite among all classes, and his natural ability and devotion to the cause of the lowly made him the idol of the half-breeds, who soon had occasion to give a public proof of their appreciation of his services. Shortly before Christmas 1834 one of the half-breeds was ill-treated in a Hudson's Bay Company's fort by a clerk named Thomas Simpson. When he rushed out of the fort to his compatriots, the sight of his bleeding head so enraged the Métis that they vowed vengeance against the quick- tempered clerk, and it looked for a moment as if even the stone walls of new Fort Garry would not protect Simpson against their resen tmen t. The au thori ties spared no en trea ties or promises in order to pacify them, but all was useless. As a last resort they crossed over to St Boniface to beg Father Belcourt, who was temporarily residing there, to come and intervene on behalf of the hapless Simpson. The priest addressed the crowd and succeeded in persuading them to desist from any attempt at violence. The guilty party had merely to give pecuniary compensation to the family of his victim. l\1eanwhile Bishop Provencher was busying himself with a most important task-the building of his new cathedral, which was to replace the oak building, now too small for the needs of his growing congregation. The foundations of the 128 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE \VEST new edifice were laid in June 1833. The building was 100 feet long by 45 feet wide, and was built of stone gathered along the banks of the Red River. It was not finished until 1837, and even then there was some work still to be done on the porch. The new temple became the pride of the settlement and was afterwards immortalized by the poet Whittier as the church with the' turrets twain.' \Vhile Provencher was thus erecting the material edifice, new workers were coming to help him to raise the spiritual temple of the Catholic mission in the Red River valley. The Rev. Charles E. Poiré, who had been ordained at St Boniface in 1833, was entrusted with the care of the half- breed mission of St François-Xavier. A new assistant came from Lévis, Quebec, in the summer of the same year. Like too many of Bishop Provencher's priests, Father Poiré returned to Quebec after only a few years' service. This took place in 1838. l-lis successor, the Rev. Jean Bap- tiste Thibault, was more persevering. Less brilliant than Belcourt, but more attentive to the wishes of his bishop, he performed, during his long sojourn in the West, a work of more lasting good to the cause of the Indians and half- breeds. Not long after the arrival of this able recruit the Bishop of ]uliopolis received a petition for missionaries from the settlers of far-off Oregon. For this new mission he secured in Canada the services of two sterling priests, the Revs. Norbert F. Blanchet and Modeste Demers. Only the latter could reach Red River in 1837. There he helped Bishop Provencher until the arrival of Father Blanchet in the following year. It was Father Demers who in the course of time became the apostle of British Columbia. Pending the time when Demers was to exercise his aposto- late within Canadian territory, he and Blanchet, on their way to the Pacific coast, evangelized the tribes encoun- tered on Lake Winnipeg and along the Saskatchewan River. They were the first missionaries to preach to these Indians. With Father Blanchet, but intended for work on the Red River, came the Rev. Arsène Mayrand, a good priest THE FIRST MISSIONS AMONG THE INDIANS 129 whose delicate health prevented him from becoming a great missionary. He was to stay seven years in the settlement. In spite of this addition to the ranks of his clergy Bishop Provencher possessed as yet only four priests; two others, Fathers Harper and Boucher, had previously returned to Canada. During the same year Father Belcourt founded at the junction of the English and \Vinnipeg Rivers a second Indian mission which, under the name of Wabassimong, became in later years even more famous, but scarcely more lasting, than that of St Paul's. Alexander Ross, the author of The Red River Settlement, calls it ' a considerable establishment.' I t consisted of a church, a number of houses for the Indians clustered around the church, and the customary small fields váth cattle supplied from St Boniface. Two years later the same indefatigable missionary estab- lished a similar post for the benefit of the more or less depraved aborigines of Rainy Lake. The two chief obstacles in the way of their conversion to Christianity were intemper- ance and superstition. As Bishop Provencher put it, these Indians' preferred the bottle to the Gospel'; and immorality and intemperance are twin sisters. Their superstitions were legion. The following story gives a specimen of them: At the time of the establish men t of the Rainy Lake mission it began to be noised about the native wigwams that a Lake Superior Indian, who had died shortly after his baptism, claimed a place in the after-life abode of the Christians, but was repulsed therefrom on the plea that this was made for the whites. He then went to the place assigned for his own people, but was refused admittance there because of the baptism he had received. As there was no room for him anywhere in the land of the departed, he came back to life and preached against the new religion. In a very different field Bishop Provencher was doing noble missionary work. On February 12, 1835, he had been appoin ted to the ruling body of the colony, the council of Assiniboia, and as a member of this body he constantly exerted himself on behalf of temperance and education. He had already established a regular school system, com- VOL. XI I 130 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE \VEST prising teachers of both sexes, one of whom taught English as early as the summer of 1834. In the course of 1840 Belcourt visited Duck Bay, on Lake \Vinnipegosis, and inaugurated a missionary post by plan ting a large cross in a conspicuous place, as he had done at Rainy Lake. The Rev. Jean E. Darveau, a young priest full of zeal and energy, arrived in 1841. After learning the Saulteux language under the tuition of Belcourt, he was sent to the Indians of Lake Winnipegosis in May 1842 in order to prosecute among them the work that Belcourt had begun. There he found that a Protestant catechist was at work. With an embarrassing lack of funds and a rival on the spot Darveau's prospects were certainly not brilliant, but he persevered in his mission. Speaking of him and of the other Ca tholic missionaries, Alexander Begg, in his History of the North- West, says: 'They experienced many difficulties, and, being poor, had not the same opportunity to extend their labours as rapidly as the Protestant missionaries. What they lacked in means, however, they made up by zealous persever- ance, and gradually they made their way midst drawbacks and disappointments.' Meanwhile, other fields were being opened to the Catholic priests. At the invitation of John Rowand, a Catholic of a rather militant type, who was then cOlnmander at Fort Edmon ton and the governor of the westernmost trading- posts, Father Thibault left St Boniface on May 20, 1842, and on June 19 of the saine year reached his destination, after a journey that was to bring salvation to many a poor soul. The missionary was well received by the Blackfeet and Crees whom he met, and he inaugurated, by the baptism of 353 children, the work which was afterwards to be so zeal- ously continued by the Oblate Fathers. Then, turning his attention to the numerous Catholic servants of the traders at Fort Edmonton, Fort Pitt and Fort Carlton, he repeated on their behaIf the ministrations whereby Provencher had wrought such a marvellous change at the Red River Settle- men t. Still further west, on the pine-covered shores of what is now British Columbia, the dawn of evangelical light was THE FIRST MISSIONS Al\10NG THE INDIANS 131 just appearing through the instrumen tali ty of Father Demers. Journeying from his place of residence on the Columbia River, he arrived in August 1841 at Fort Langley, on the lower Fraser. There he preached the Gospel to some 3000 aborigines, and in the course of four days admitted no fewer than 362 children into the church, while his efforts on behalf of Christian morality were no less fruitful among the adults. By September 7 as many as 758 little ones had been regenerated in the waters of baptism. Meanwhile the celebrated Father de Smet, S.J., was announcing the glad tidings to the Kutenai and Okinagan Indians. Demers's successes among the barbarous tribes of the Fraser and the coast had whetted his appetite for still more victories over vice and superstition. On June 29, 1842, he began an important missionary journey, accompanying Peter Skene Ogden, a Hudson's Bay Company bourgeois, who, with a numerous caravan of pack-horses, was taking the annual out- fitting to the northern posts. He visited in succession Oka- nagan Forks, Kamloops, and Forts Alexander, George and St James-the last named situated on Stuart Lake. Every- where he found Indians sunk in the mire of immorality, yet ready to rise at the voice of the man of God. During this long and tedious journey he sowed in ground that was even- tually to make the good seed germinate, grow and fructify. I t is worthy of remark that to this day the descendants of the natives among whom he laboured remain faithful to the Word then delivered. The following year another Oregon missionary, the Rev. Jean-Baptiste Bolduc, accompanied James (afterwards Sir James) Douglas to the place which was in course of time to become the city of Victoria, and worked successfully among the Indians who were to be served commercially by the new post. In the summer of 1845 a Jesuit, Father John Nobili, fol- lowed in the footsteps of Demers, and went even as far as Lake Babine. Here crowds of Indians received him as the special envoy of the Deity, although, through the lack of continued effort, the effect of his preaching on their morals was only transitory. Two years later he also visited the 132 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE \VEST Chilcotins, a rather troublesome Déné tribe roaming on the plateaus immediately west of the Fraser River, in the centre of British Columbia. But we must not anticipate. \Ve have already chronicled the arrival and the early labours of Father Darveau. That devoted priest met with special opposition in his attempt to carry the faith to Le Pas-a locality somewhat below the junction of the Carrot River with the Saskatchewan-visited in 1838 by Blanchet and Demers. Here a native catechist was upholding the religious interests of the Anglicans of Red River. The little priest was represented as a dangerous windigo 1 not to be tolerated, and every effort was made to frighten him away. Darveau, however, was not daunted by this opposition, and in 1843 promised his neophytes that he would return in the following year and establish a mission among them. Before departing he planted a large cross to mark the site on which the mission-house was to be built. True to his word, he attempted to fulfil his promise; but on the way thither he was foully done to death, along with his half-breed canoe-man, by two !vluskegong Indians who had been made to believe that the French priest carried disease along with him. One of them 2 had also a personal grievance against him. This was a sad blow for Bishop Provencher. It was in a measure compensated for by the arrival in the same year of four Sisters of Charity of the order of the Grey Nuns (so called from the colour of their habit), to begin at 5t Boniface the noble Christian work which has since rendered them dear to Protestant and Catholic alike. Their first exertions were on behalf of the young of their own sex, but they soon added to this the care of the sick, the old and the infirm, and became in course of time the mothers of the motherless and the natural refuge of the poor. 1 A windigo is, in the eyes of the Indians, a person possessed of some evil spirit, whom it is customary to slay on the first opportunity. It is not long since the murder of such a man-regarded as a good action by his compatriots--occurred north of Edmonton. II Shetakon, a former servant of Father Darveau, who had proved dishonest and unfaithful. NE\V l\IISSIONARIES 133 IV NEW :MISSIONARIES W HILE the good sisters were making for the promised land of self-immolation, two young priests, the Revs. L. F. Richer-Laflèche and Joseph Bourassa, offered their services to the lonely bishop by the banks of the Red River. These he deemed all the more precious as all his former coadjutors, save Belcourt and Thibault, had one after the other left him and returned to the land of their birth. These repeated defections had so far been the greatest cross the prelate had had to bear. Indeed, he could hardly count on the lifelong services of any of his priests. In this sad emergency he bethought himself of the religious orders, in which discipline is stricter and whose very constitutions guarantee a permanence in their activity which cannot be found elsewhere. Bishop Provencher had at first thought of the Jesuits, but a much younger order was destined to become God's instrument in saving the situation on the plains of the West. This was the congregation of the Oblates of Mary Immacu- late (O.M.I.), founded at Aix, France, in 1816, the year of the bloody conflict of Seven Oaks. Some of its members had penetrated Eastern Canada in 1841, and were already working wonders there. Provencher applied for help to their founder, 1Ionseigneur Charles J. E. de Mazenod, Bishop of Marseilles, and his request was generously granted. Father Pierre Aubert, O.lVLI., was sent to the Red River accompanied by a youthful-looking novice, Brother Alex- andre A. Taché. This humble vanguard of the phalanxes of heroes who were thenceforth to undertake the spiritual conquest of the northern wilds arrived at St Boniface in August 1845. Provencher had expected a band of priests ready to take up the work of the field. Consequently, when he first beheld the boyish face of Father Aubert's companion he was somewhat disappointed. 134 RO:\IAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE WEST C I asked for Inen, and behold, they send me a child ! ' he exclaimed. He soon realized that this C child '-who was to become his successor and the greatest man in the Canadian West -was no ordinary one, and only a few weeks later he was asking for many more of his kind. Brother Taché was born on July 23, 1823, of one of the best Canadian families. He was ordained deacon on August 3 1 , 1845, by Bishop Provencher, and elevated to the priest- hood by the same bishop on October 22 of the same year. On the morrow he pronounced the final vows which made him a full-fledged Oblate Father. As an offset to this double acquisition Father Mayrand had left on the preceding August 29. But courageous Father Thibault was then at far-off lie å la Crosse in the north, to which he had penetrated for the first time in 1844, after visiting the intervening posts of Cold Lake and Lac la Biche. The Chipewyan (Déné) Indians whom he met there had received him with open arms. During the expedition in 1844 he had baptized no fewer than five hundred children, and in the course of 1845 he wrote: C It is impossible that any native nation should ever be better disposed to embrace our faith than are the 1Ylontagnais' (Chipewyans). On January 3, 1846, he returned to Edmonton, and there met Father de Smet, who had been looking for the Blackfeet in order to persuade them to consell t to a treaty of peace with their inveterate enemies, the Flatheads. Father Aubert, one of the new Oblates, was stationed at \VabassiI11ong, while the other, Father Taché, accompanied Father Laflèche to lIe à fa Crosse to found a permanent mission, which event took place on July 5, 1846. On Sep- tember 5 there arrived a third Oblate, Father Bermond, a man of great ability, and, two months later, a scholastic brother, Henri Faraud, who was destined to occupy a high place in the northern missions. Along with Faraud came a lay brother, Louis Dubé, the forenlnner of that little band of humble workers who have done so much to render the labours of the missionaries possible. \Vhile Bermond was proceeding to ill-starred Duck Bay, NEW MISSIONARIES 135 on Lake Winnipegosis, Father Taché was engaged on a long and trying journey on snow-shoes, first to Green Lake and then to Lake Caribou, which he reached on March 25, 1847. Thence he directed his course for Lake Athabaska, which he was the first missionary to see, and where he was exceedingly well received by the natives of Déné descent-the Chipe- wyans-and by other tribes. While his missionaries were thus exerting themselves on behalf of savages who had never heard of Christ or His divine message, Bishop Provencher was winning golden opinions at home by his zeal in the public service and his efforts in the interest of agriculture and industry--efforts which, in 1845, had again been acknowledged by the council of Assiniboia-as well as by the care he took of the education of his children. Poor though he was, he had already five schools in 1845, and intended establishing two more. The fortune of Father Belcourt was not so favourable. I t seemed to be his destiny to be mixed up with the political life of the little Red River world. The half-breed population, both French and English, had long been complaining bitterly of the commercial monopoly of the Hudson's Bay Company. The discontent came to a climax early in 1847, when the people of both races petitioned the throne for redress. Bel- court wrote out the text of the French memorial, dated February 17, 1845, which, it must be said, was couched in most loyal language, since the petitioners were declared to , admire the wisdom of the British constitution and wish to share in its privileges.' Because of the part that the 111issionary took in this affair Sir George Simpson, the governor of the company, sometimes called the Emperor of British North America, insisted that he should not be allowed to stay in the settlement. Belcourt, therefore, went to Canada, and when he returned west shortly afterwards it was to exercise his ministry at Pembina, On the outskirts of the colony. Bishop Provencher had been appointed vicar-apostolic of the North-West in the course of 1844. Three years later, on June 4, 18 47, he was made a titular bishop; and this circumstance, together with his inability to travel and fulfil 136 ROlVIAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE \VEST the duties of his charge among his ever-increasing children of the north, made him think seriously of getting a coadjutor. He at first approached Father Laflèche, a very deserving priest, but Laflèche was then labouring under premature infirmities which caused him to reject the proffered honour. Then he thought of Father Taché, whose only defect was his extreme youth-he was then barely twenty-seven years of age. But the very fact that the young priest belonged to a religious order seemed to the venerable prelate an immense advantage. Experience had made it painfully clear that he could not count on the secular priests of the East to recruit his clergy. He saw that, once made a bishop, Taché would certainly not be left unaided by his order. Hence, without consulting the youthful missionary, then fifteen hundred miles away, Provencher obtained for him Bulls naming him Bishop of Arath in partibus infidelium and coadjutor to the pastor of the Red River. While these arrangements were being made. the person they affected was pursuing his apostolic labours with un- flagging zeal. In 1849 he and his new companion, Father Faraud, had learned that, owing to the revolution of the pre- ceding year in France, there was every likelihood that their resources would be cut off and their mission abandoned. In the first moment of consternation the two missionaries wrote to their superior a joint letter in which they earnestly begged to be left among their neophytes. 'The fish of the lake.' they declared, ' will suffice for our subsistence, and the spoils of the wild beasts for our clothing. For mercy's sake,' they urged, ' do not recall us.' The zealous priests were allowed to continue their good work, and Father Faraud improved his opportunity by founding, on September 8, 1849, the permanent mission of the Nativity on Lake Athabaska. In the following spring his place was taken at lie à la Crosse by newly arrived priests from France, Fathers Maisonneuve and Tissot, who remained the regular incumbents of that mission. In February 18 5 1 Father Taché learned-with what surprise it is easy to guess -of his promotion to the episcopate. His bishop a tRed River ordered him home, and his superior as an Oblate, NEW MISSIONARIES 137 :}Ionseigneur de Mazenod, bade him come to Marseilles to be consecrated by his own father in God. The ceremony took place on November 23, 1851, and, in a visit which the new prelate soon afterwards paid to the Pope, he requested that the title of his immediate superior at Red River be changed to that of Bishop of St Boniface. His request was granted. During the preceding year two sisters of charity who had been sent to St François-Xavier established a school for the children of that locality. On May I, 1851, a Protestant minister, the Rev. \Villiam Cochrane, moved in the colonial council, and Father Laflèche seconded the motion, C that !IOO be granted from the public funds to be divided annually between the Bishop of Rupert's Land and the Bishop of the North-\Vest, to be applied by them at their discretion for the purposes of education.' Although carried unanimously, this motion was nevertheless disallowed b the London Committee of the Hudson's Bay Company as C a misappropria- tion of the public funds.' Before he had learned of this Father Laflèche in 1852 seconded a proposal by Dr Bunn, of the same legislative body, to the effect that 15 should be granted for identical purposes to the Rev. John Black, the newly arrived Presbyterian minister of the settlement. This, of course, met with the same fate at the hands of the London magnates. June 27, 1852, saw Bishop Provencher's coadjutor back at St Boniface. He was accompanied by an Oblate Father, the Rev. Henri Gronier, in after years the great missionary of the Arctic Circle, and by a young secular priest who later became famous as an Oblate missionary under the name of Father Lacombe. Father Thibault had then made up his mind to return east. Lacombe was sent to take his place at Edmonton, while Thibault, having consented to stay longer, was appointed to St François-Xavier, a post pre- viously presided over by Father Laflèche, who now resided at St Boniface with the title of vicar-general. Bishop Taché immediately returned north, but was not long left a simple coadjutor. Bishop Provencher's health had long been failing. He died within sight of his cathedral on June 7, 1853, carrying to the grave the esteem and regrets 138 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE WEST of both sections of the popula tion. He had been a true father and a faithful pastor to the Catholics, and a public- spirited man and prudent legislator. v TACHÉ SUCCEEDS PROVENCHER B ISHOP T ACH was then barely thirty years of age, and his see was still but a small village, though as a, parish it numbered some 1100 souls. On the Assini- boine there was 5t François-Xavier, which boasted a large log-church and a convent with two nuns for a population of about 900. It had as an annex a mission-the future parish of 5t Charles-between 5t François and Fort Garry, while, sonIC nine miles above 5t Boniface, on the Red River, a group of French half-breeds, forming the mission of St Norbert, were visited from the episcopal mansion. The Indian missions with resident priests were Ste Anne, forty-five miles west of Edmonton, 5t John the Baptist, at lIe à Ia Crosse, and the Nativity, on Lake Athabaska, each of which had a number of dependencies which were periodi- cally visited by the incumbents of the main stations. When Bishop Taché assumed charge of the Catholic West he had four secular priests, Thibault, Bourassa, Laflèche and Lacombe, and seven Oblates, namely, Bermond, Faraud, Grollier, Tissot, Maisonneuve, Végreville and Rémas-the last two new arrivals in the country. On Bishop Taché's accession Father Bermond was made vicar-general, with orders to direct the southern establish- ments. The prelate set out for Lake Athabaska, and on reaching his destination sent Father Grollier to found a mission at the eastern end of the lake, which became known as Fond du Lac. Then, in the fall of 1853, still another mission station-Lac la Biche--was established by Father Rémas, in the midst of extreme poverty. This post was destined to attain the greatest importance from a material standpoint. In February 1854 Taché left his palace at lIe à la Crosse for a round of visitations to the northern ALEXANDH.E ANTONIX TACHÉ j'ì-olll a þhoto.1;1"ilph TACHÉ SUCCEEDS PROVENCHER 139 missions and aborigines. The missionary bishop has given a description of that' palace' which will bear reproduction: It is twenty feet by twenty, and seven feet high, and smeared over with mud. This mud is not impermeable, so that rain, wind and other atmospheric elements have free access thereto. Two window sashes comprising six panes light the main apartment; two pieces of parch- ment serve for the remainder of the lighting system. In this palace, where everything seems smaIl, everything is on the contrary stamped with a character of greatness. For instance, my secretary is a bishop; my chamberlain is a bishop, and at times even my cook is a bishop. These illustrious employees have all numerous defects; nevertheless their attachment to my person renders thenl dear to me. In August 1854 Bishop Taché received a priest lately ordained, who, in spite of his frail health, was to become a great figure in the annals of the Canadian North-West. This \vas the Rev. Vital J. Grandin, 0.1.\1.1., who brought with him to St Boniface Christian Brothers whose sojourn there was to be but too short. To install them, and himself to take fonnal possession of his see, Bishop Taché returned to St Boniface. In May 1855 was commenced the construction of a college building measuring 60 feet by 3 feet, which was soon to shelter fifty-eight pupils. lVleanwhile Father Grandin was sent to Lake Athabaska to allow Father Faraud time to spy out the land on behalf of the missions, while Father Lacombe, on the eve of becoming an Oblate, was visiting Lesser Slave Lake and Peace River. A new recruit, Father J. IV1. Lestanc, who arrived on October 19, 18 55, brought the number of Oblate priests in the diocese of 5t Boniface up to ten; but the secular priests therein decreased in number, and by the end of 1856 only one, Father Thibault, remained in the country. Bishop Taché seemed to be attracted by the North as the needle is by the magnetic pole. In 1855-56 we see him again going from mission to mission, and comforting the priests, whose extreme penury and consequent sufferings he was only too pleased to share. As an instance of the practical results of their common exertions we ,may mention 14 0 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE WEST that at that time the mission of Ile à la Crosse was com- posed of 534 excellent Christians, with 53 catechumens, out of a total population of 735. That enthusiasm of the Catholic Church for education which had prompted Provencher and his co-workers to found schools everywhere, and even to provide a classical course for mere plain-rangers, was displayed even on the icy wastes of the North. In the fall of 1856 Bishop Taché crossed over to France in the interests of his immense diocese, and while there he had Cree primers and other books printed in Roman type, as well as Chipewyan booklets in syllabic characters. The results of the education imparted on the banks of the Red River were, even at this early period, beginning to be seen. Since 1855 François Bruneau, one of Provencher's Latin scholars, had sat in the council of Assiniboia, and, in September 1857, three more French half-breeds were admitted in to tha t select circle. Taché was himself receiyed into the council on June 3 of the following year. There he relentlessly fought the battle of temperance, and was no doubt instrumental in preven ting much evil. Then, as his diocese was becoming much too large for anyone man to administer, he obtained from Rome a coad j u tor in the person of the Rev. V. J. Grandin, O.M.L, who was appointed Bishop of Satala in þartibus infidelium and was consecrated at Marseilles in November 1859. This promotion and the extension of the church of which it was the harbinger were all the more welcomed by Bishop Taché and his auxiliaries as, in the course of 1858, the first Protestant minister had gone north with the intention of winning over the natives to his denomination. Thenceforth the Catholic priests deemed it their duty to follow this missionary and his successors into the valley of the Mac- kenzie in order to protect the faith of their own converts. In the south new labourers in the Lord's vineyard were coming to swell the ranks of the earlier missionaries. Of these Fathers Moulin and Gascon were dispatched north, while, nearer St Boniface, Fathers Lestanc and others were laying the foundations of the now prosperous parishes of TACHÉ SUCCEEDS PROVENCHER 141 Ste Anne des Chênes and St Norbert. Meanwhile, Father Grollier was journeying from his headquarters at Fort Resolution, on Great Slave Lake, towards Forts Norman and Good Hope, j list wi thin the Arctic Circle. There he spent the winter of 1859-60, and founded the now important mission of Our Lady of Good Hope. Father Végreville- after whom the rising town of that name in Alberta is called -had then charge of lie à la Crosse, while in August 1859 Father Rémas was conducting from St Boniface the first three nuns who were afterwards to establish a convent in the Far \Vest. This convent was located at Ste Anne, but later was transferred to St Albert. At the same time the Earl of Southesk was making that journey to the source of the Saskatchewan of which he has since published the journal. In this journal we read, with regard to his stay at the first-named mission, that he had the pleasure of dining at the mission-house with Fathers Lacombe and Le Frain, whom he found ' agreeable men and perfect gentlemen.' Culture and wealth, however, are by no means convertible terms, and it must be noted that the persons thus character- ized by Southesk, and, to a still greater extent, their confrères in the north, were very far indeed from living in opulence. Flour was then, and remained for many years afterwards, a yeritable luxury for them, and many Catholic missionaries passed several years wi thou t tasting bread. Fish and dried mea t, together with more or less rancid pemmican, were their staple food, and water, or sometimes sugarless tea, their beverage. On July 10, 1860, Bishop Grandin returned from France, where he had been consecrated, with a valiant body of future co-workers-Fathers Séguin, Caer and Gasté, and Brother Boisramé. Father Séguin and Brother Boisramé left for I Ie à la Crosse with the new prelate, whose health was not of the best. Other precious recruits were three nuns who were on their way to that remote post, where, on October 4, 1860, they established a convent. Still farther north the intrepid Father Grollier was con- tinuing his peaceful course of conquest, which was to take 142 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE WEST him I unto the ends of the earth,' to win most of the Indians to Catholic truth in spite of the scarcely veiled opposition of the traders, who naturally sided with their co-religionists, the Protestant ministers. Bishop Taché himself shared in the hardships of those perilous journeys, preaching in suc- cession at lie à la Crosse, Lac la Biche, Ste Anne and Edmon ton. I t was during this apostolic expedition that the prelate heard of the greatest misfortune that ever befell the Catholic missions in \Vestern Canada-the destruction by fire of his residence and all he possessed, as well as of his magnificent cathedral with its famous bells, of which Whittier has sung: The bells of the Roman Mission That call from their turrets twain To the boatman on the river, To the hunter on the plain. This disaster took place on December 14, 1860, at the very momen t when, tired out, cold and famished after a long tramp over the northern snow, Bishop Taché was instinctively yearning for the sweets of home. Then, as if the prelate had not been sufficiently tried, the spring of 1861 brought to the Red River Settlement an inundation; and in the midst of this trouble were laid to rest the remains of Mother Valade, the nun who, in 1844, had established the first convent of the \Vest. Undaunted by this desolation the missionaries went on with their good works, establishing in 1861 the posts of St Lauren t, on Lake Manitoba, St Albert, near Edmonton, and St Peter, on Lake Caribou, north-east of lIe à la Crosse. Fathers Gasté and Végreville were the founders of the last- named post, and it remained for years the icy home of the former priest. The life of the northern missionaries was for the most part of necessity spent in travelling, sometimes following up the Métis and Indians in their buffalo hunts, but more often going from fort to fort in order to meet the natives who congregated there to exchange their furs for supplies, as well as to hear the \Vord of God and approach the sacra- TACHÉ SUCCEEDS PROVENCHER 143 men ts. So poor were the missionaries in the Far North that during the winter they had to adopt the costume of their flocks. This consisted of long trousers of moose skin, a shirt of caribou skin with the hair inside, over which hung a large blouse of moose-skin leather. Two small bags of bear or other skin hung from either shoulder. These were their mittens, in which they had constantly to keep their hands or pay the penalty of having them immediately frozen. Over their heads they wore skin hoods enclosing fur caps. In spite of all these precautions many were the cheeks and noses that became the prey of the bi ting cold. It was under such winter conditions as these that Bishop Grandin made to the northern missions an apostolic visi t that lasted over three years (1861-64). Everywhere he was struck by the extreme poverty of the missionaries and the marked improvement in the lives of their converts. This improvement was all the more noticeable as it contrasted \vith the morals of those tribes which had but lately accepted their ministrations, and which still abandoned the old and infirm, and occasionally practised cannibalism in times of famine. In addition to their sacred duties his priests had generally to stoop to the most menial occupations and live in the greatest penury. Thus, at Good Hope, to mention only one station, Father Séguin was the regular hunter and purveyor of the mission, Brother Kearney was the carpenter and mason, while the travelling bishop constituted himself the woodman of the establishment until the weather became mild enough for him to go on with his visitations. At the same mission Father Grollier was dying in his prime, and completing by his sufferings the conversion of the natives to whom his life had been consecrated. I t is impossible to follow the prelate in all his journeyings. Only one incident of these travels shall we relate, in order to give the reader an idea of the dangers which beset the lives of the northern missionaries. This occurred on December 14, 18 6 3. Bishop Grandin was travelling over the ice of the inland sea called Great Slave Lake, closely preceded by some traders connected with the Hudson's Bay Company. The party were not far from their destination, namely, St Joseph's 144 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE WEST Mission, when suddenly they were struck by a squall of wind which in a few moments increased to a fierce gale. At the same time a fine snow fell, which whipped the faces of the wayfarers and soon concealed everything from view . Yet the ice was left quite bare by the fierceness of the wind, so tha t the bishop and his guide Baptiste, a child of thirteen, could not see the tracks of their companions, and lost their way. The Indian guide of the traders, who knew that the prelate was doomed if left alone, begged his party to wait for him; but the bitter cold and their inexperience of northern blizzards caused them to pay no heed to his remonstrances. Bishop and child were now walking about at random, simply to keep themselves from freezing. Both were soon exhausted. They knew the consequences of inaction in the midst of such a storm, but human endurance has its limits. Lying down to leeward of his sledge and pressing the child to his bosom, the bishop gave his life up for lost, and begged for God's mercy. Then he heard the confession of little Baptiste, while the child wept in spite of himself, and the dogs howled under the sting of the bitter cold. Humanly speaking, they were doomed. Once asleep, they would have awakened only to appear before God's tribunal. Yet, through a truly Pro- vidential protection, they both saw the light of the morrow. Early in the morning they were rescued by a party sent from the mission and the fort, and Bishop Grandin entered the mission chapel as Father Petitot, a new arrival who was destined to become the great scientist of the Arctic, was saying mass for him, and wondering whether it was not a requiem mass that he ought to be celebrating. VI BRITISH COLUMBIA W E have witnessed the first tottering steps of the church in what is to-day British Columbia, and the first triumphs over barbarism of its chief apostle, the Rev. Modeste Demers. On November 3 0 , 1847, this missionary had been consecrated Bishop of Vancouver Island, BRITISH COLUMBIA 145 then a separate colony, and given as a suffragan to his former companion-in-arms, the Most Rev. N. F. Blanchet, Archbishop of Oregon City. Bishop Demers had passed the years 1848-50 for the most part travelling in Canada and Europe in the interests of his poor diocese, which suffered as much from the lack of men as from that of material resources. As he could not get priests among the secular clergy, he did what Bishop Provencher had done: he begged the assistance of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who had been settled in Oregon since the year of his consecration. I t was not un til 1857, however, that their first station within what is now the Pacific province of Canada could be established at Esquimalt, the port of Victoria. Here they attended to the spiritual wants of the seamen and the few Catholics living in the neighbourhood, as well as of such Indians as they could reach. On June 5, 1859, Bishop Demers brought back with him from Canada, whither he had again gone, the first four Sisters of St Anne to visit the Pacific coast. These sisters immediately established a school at Victoria. vVith the prela te came also a kindly priest, the Rev. Pierre Rondeau, who was to spend over forty years of his life as a faithful minister of Christ in the land of his adoption. At the same time Father Casimir Chirouse, O.M.L, made the first serious effort to convert the natives of the island. He baptized over 400 children and induced more than 2000 adults publicly to renounce gambling, conjuring and murdering. He returned home with his canoe full of paraphernalia of the medicine- man, or conjurer, as well as of knives, gambling disks, and other accessories of sin. In spite of the scarcity of missionaries a new station was established on October 8, 1859, on the east shore of Lake Okanagan, under the vocable of the Immaculate Conception, by Fathers Pandosy and Richard. This was the first mission attempted on the mainland. On December 12 of the same year two valuable recruits arrived, in the persons of the Oblate Fathers Pierre P. Durieu and Léon Fouquet, who at once began their work among the Indians of the island. VOL. XI K 146 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE WEST On September 13, 1860, the latter founded St Charles Mission in the now prosperous city of New \Vestminster, then a mere village consisting of a few houses surrounded by stumps. Early in 1861 another newcomer, Father Charles Grandidier, was sent to Fort Hope, on the lower Fraser. He battled valiantly, in the teeth of much opposition from the whites, against intemperance among the natives, many of whom he induced to take the pledge and, in the majority of cases, to keep it. This campaign against vice was so general and successful that, on March 26, 1861, a Protestant correspondent of the British Colonist, the Victoria paper, wrote as follows: I reside . . . in the midst of about 2000 Indians who, eighteen months ago, carried on a system of drunkenness and murder too horrible to relate. At this date they may be said to be a reclaimed people. Drink is for- bidden by them, and a penalty attached to drunkenness by order of their chiefs. Consequently, other crimes are of rare occurrence. And to what is all this owing? To the honest and persevering labours of a poor Catholic priest who receives no salary, and is fed by the Indians as far as their means will enable them. The series of religious foundations in 186 I ended by the establishment of the now famous 5t Mary's Mission, thirty- five miles above New vVestminster, on the Fraser. This mission was founded by Father Fouquet, who was then making a tour of the northern interior of the mainland colony in the interests of whites and reds alike. On this tour he got as far as the Caribou mines. These various works were undertaken under the general supervision of the Superior of the Oblates, Father Louis J. d'Herbomez, who had reached the Far West as early as 18 5 0 . In the course of 1863 there was established at St Mary's Mission the first industrial school for the children of the natives on the Pacific coast. A new arrival, the genial Father Florimond Gendre, 0.1\1.1., was entrusted with this foundation, while Bishop Demers was again visiting the interior of the colony and the miners of the Caribou district. BRITISH COLUMBIA 147 Among other foundations to the credit of the year 1863 we have to mention that of 5t Louis College in Victoria, and of 5t Michael's Mission in the vicinity of Fort Rupert, at the opposite end of the island. The latter, in spite of the superhuman efforts of Fathers Fouquet, Durieu and Le Jacq, incontestably the best missionaries on the North Pacific, never gave satisfactory results, and had to be aban- doned after a few years. The whites themselves were responsible for another evil. Smallpox raged for a time among the aborigines, carrying off thousands of them in a few months. To save the others and stay the march of the dread invader, the missionaries had to turn surgeons and physicians. Father Pandosy vac- cinated several thousand Indians, Father Fouquet rendered the same service to at least eight thousand, while Fathers Chirouse and Durieu operated similarly on as many more. On November 19, 1863, there arrived at Victoria a young priest, delicate in health but strong in mind, who was to become illustrious on the shores of the Pacific, the Rev. Charles J. 5eghers, a Belgian. To him was assigned as his first work the superintendence of the diocesan finances. But an event of far greater moment took place on December 20, the preconization of Father d'Herbomez as Bishop of Miletopolis and vicar-apostolic of British Columbia, as the mainland alone of the present province of that name was then called. To this territory was added the Queen Charlotte Islands. The first titular of this new ecclesiastical division was consecrated on October 9, 1864. As a conse- quence of this measure the Oblates gradually withdrew from the older but smaller diocese of Vancouver Island. Crossing over the Rocky Mountains and returning to more familiar ground we find that, in July 1862, Fathers Gascon and Petitot, aided by Brother Boisramé, made the first clearing in the sub-arctic forest near Grand Rapid, on the Mackenzie, where the now important mission of Provi- dence stands, while in the south Bishop Taché was lay- ing the foundations of a new cathedral, with funds collected by him in Eastern Canada. Then, on November 30, 1862, Father Faraud was consecrated Bishop of Anemour and 148 ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH IN THE WEST appointed head of a suffragan vicariate-apostolic just estab- lished in the Far North under the name of Athabaska- Mackenzie. Between the summer of 1862 and that of 1863 Father Séguin made an apostolic visitation to the Yukon, going as far west as the trading-post of that name. But, owing to the open hostility of the traders and the superstitious fear of the priests in the hearts of the natives, he could accomplish nothing. A still sadder event in the same part of Canada was the demise, on June 4, 1864, at Fort Good Hope, of Father Grollier, at the age of thirty-eight. He was the first missionary to die a natural death in the Canadian N orth- West. Of quite a different nature was the official visit to the St Boniface and other missions of the Very Rev. Father Vandenberghe, delegated by the general of the Oblates to report on their progress and needs. Bishop Taché accom- panied the visitor as far as lIe à la Crosse. This visitation was scarcely over when Bishop Faraud arrived from France, on May 24, 1865, with three Oblate Fathers-one of whom was Father Leduc, to-day (1913) one of the most meritorious priests of the West-and three lay brothers. As the new prelate was afflicted with premature infirmities due to his past labours, Father Isidore Clut, O.M,!., on January 3, 1866, was appointed his coadjutor under the title of Bishop of Erindcl. The inroads made by the now numerous Protestant missionaries helped to make this appointment opportune. The result of their efforts among the natives was negative rather than positive, but it none the less necessitated increased exertions on the part of their predecessors in the field. Meanwhile the vicar-apostolic of distant British Columbia, Bishop d'Herbomez, was paying a visit to his scattered missions along the pine-clad plateaus of the interior. Every- where he witnessed the consoling results of his priests'devo- tion. He himself gave evidence of his zeal for higher edu- cation by establishing a college at his headquarters, New \V estminster. We have already mentioned Father Ie J acq as one of BRITISH COLUMBIA 149 Bishop d'Herbomez's best missionaries. On April 18, 1868, this devoted priest accompanied the vicar-apostolic in a five months' journey which was to take the two travellers to the northern posts visited by Demers and N obili twenty years before, posts which, for lack of evangelical labourers, had perforce been neglected ever since. Preaching and administering the sacraments at Fraser Lake, Stony Creek, Stuart Lake and Babine Lake in succession, bishop and priest did a vast amount of good to the na ti ves of Déné descent. They rekindled the torch of faith among them, and repressed the disorders which usually follow in the wake of paganism. On his way back the prelate paid a visit to the gold-miners of Caribou, and was received with open arms. An idea of his own activity and that of his priests may be gathered from the fact that an edifice which Bishop d'Herbomez blessed in the course of this missionary journey was the fifty-fifth to be dedicated by him within the four years of his episcopate. In 1867 had been founded, near the gate of Golden Caribou, as it was called, the important mission of vVilliam's Lake, from which the tribes of the northern interior, the Shushwaps, Chilcotins, Carriers, Ba- bines and Sekani, were first evangelized. Reverting now to the l\'liddle \Vest, we have to chronicle the destruction by fire of the entire establishment of Ile à la Crosse on March I, 1867; the consecration of Bishop Clut on August IS of the same year; the appointment, in the same month and year, of Bishop Grandin, still coadjutor to Bishop Taché, to the special superintendence of the Saskatchewan missions; and the arrival at St Boniface, in July 1868, of five Oblate priests, the Revs. Légeard, Dupin, Fourmond, Doucet and Blanchet, who had been preceded in the West by Father Camper, in October 1865, and by Fathers Laity and de Kérangué and Brother l\1ulvihil in December 1867. In 1869 an event of great importance to the Catholic world at large took place-the