The Makers of Canada: Bishop Laval Part 3

The country would soon have been self-supporting if similar energy had been continuously employed in its development. It is a miracle that a handful of emigrants, cast almost without resources upon the northern sh.o.r.e of America, should have been able to maintain themselves so long, in spite of continual alarms, in spite of the deprivation of all comfort, and in spite of the rigour of the climate. With wonderful courage and patience they conquered a vast territory, peopled it, cultivated its soil, and defended it by prodigies of valour against the forays of the Indians.

The colony, happily, was to keep its bishop, the worthy Governor de Courcelles, and the best administrator it ever had, the Commissioner Talon. But it was to lose a lofty intellect: the Marquis de Tracy, his mission ended to the satisfaction of all, set sail again for France.

From the moment of his arrival in Canada the latter had inspired the greatest confidence. "These three gentlemen," say the annals of the hospital, speaking of the viceroy, of M. de Courcelles and M. Talon, "were endowed with all desirable qualities. They added to an attractive exterior much wit, gentleness and prudence, and were admirably adapted to instil a high idea of the royal majesty and power; they sought all means proper for moulding the country and laboured at this task with great application. This colony, under their wise leaders.h.i.+p, expanded wonderfully, and according to all appearances gave hope of becoming most flouris.h.i.+ng." Mgr. de Laval held the Marquis de Tracy in high esteem.

"He is a man powerful in word and deed," he wrote to Pope Alexander VII, "a practising Christian, and the right arm of religion." The viceroy did not fear, indeed, to show that one may be at once an excellent Christian and a brave officer, whether he accompanied the Bishop of Petraea on the pilgrimage to good Ste. Anne, or whether he honoured himself in the religious processions by carrying a corner of the dais with the governor, the intendant and the agent of the West India Company. He was seen also at the laying of the foundation stone of the church of the Jesuits, at the transfer of the relics of the holy martyrs Flavian and Felicitas, at the consecration of the cathedral of Quebec and at that of the chief altar of the church of the Ursulines, in fact, everywhere where he might set before the faithful the good example of piety and of the respect due to religion.

The eighteen years of peace with the Iroquois, obtained by the expedition of the Marquis de Tracy, allowed the intendant to encourage the development of the St. Maurice mines, to send the traveller Nicolas Perrot to visit all the tribes of the north and west, in order to establish or cement with them relations of trade or friends.h.i.+p, and to entrust Father Marquette and M. Joliet with the mission of exploring the course of the Mississippi. The two travellers carried their exploration as far as the junction of this river with the Arkansas, but their provisions failing them, they had to retrace their steps.

This state of peace came near being disturbed by the gross cupidity of some wretched soldiers. In the spring of 1669 three soldiers of the garrison of Ville-Marie, intoxicated and a.s.sa.s.sinated an Iroquois chief who was bringing back from his hunting some magnificent furs. M. de Courcelles betook himself at once to Montreal, but, during the process of this trial, it was learned that several months before three other Frenchmen had killed six Mohegan Indians with the same purpose of plunder. The excitement aroused by these two murders was such that a general uprising of the savage nations was feared; already they had banded together for vengeance, and only the energy of the governor saved the colony from the horrors of another war. In the presence of all the Indians then quartered at Ville-Marie, he had the three a.s.sa.s.sins of the Iroquois chief brought before him, and caused them to be shot. He pledged himself at the same time to do like justice to the murderers of the Mohegans, as soon as they should be discovered. He caused, moreover, to be restored to the widow of the chief all the furs which had been stolen from him, and indemnified the two tribes, and thus by his firmness induced the restless nations to remain at peace. His vigilance did not stop at this. The Iroquois and the Ottawas being on the point of recommencing their feud, he warned them that he would not allow them to disturb the general order and tranquillity. He commanded them to send to him delegates to present the question of their mutual grievances.

Receiving an arrogant reply from the Iroquois, who thought their country inaccessible to the French, he himself set out from Montreal on June 2nd, 1671, with fifty-six soldiers, in a specially constructed boat and thirteen bark canoes. He reached the entrance to Lake Ontario, and so daunted the Iroquois by his audacity that the Ottawas sued for peace.

Profiting by the alarm with which he had just inspired them, M. de Courcelles gave orders to the princ.i.p.al chiefs to go and await him at Cataraqui, there to treat with him on an important matter. They obeyed, and the governor declared to them his plan of constructing at this very place a fort where they might more easily arrange their exchanges. Not suspecting that the French had any other purpose than that of protecting themselves against inroads, they approved this plan; and so Fort Cataraqui, to-day the city of Kingston, was erected by Count de Frontenac, and called after this governor, who was to succeed M. de Courcelles.

Their transitory apprehensions did not interrupt the construction of the two churches of Quebec and Montreal, for they were built almost at the same time; the first was dedicated on July 11th, 1666, the second, begun in 1672, was finished only in 1678. The church of the old city of Champlain was of stone, in the form of a Roman cross; its length was one hundred feet, its width thirty-eight. It contained, besides the princ.i.p.al altar, a chapel dedicated to St. Joseph, another to Ste. Anne, and the chapel of the Holy Scapulary. Thrice enlarged, it gave place in 1755 to the present cathedral, for which the foundations of the older church were used. When the prelate arrived in 1659, the holy offices were already celebrated there, but the bishop hastened to end the work which it still required. "There is here," he wrote to the Common Father of the faithful, "a cathedral made of stone; it is large and splendid.

The divine service is celebrated in it according to the ceremony of bishops; our priests, our seminarists, as well as ten or twelve choir-boys, are regularly present there. On great festivals, the ma.s.s, vespers and evensong are sung to music, with orchestral accompaniment, and our organs mingle their harmonious voices with those of the chanters. There are in the sacristy some very fine ornaments, eight silver chandeliers, and all the chalices, pyxes, vases and censers are either gilt or pure silver."

The Sulpicians as well as the Jesuits have always professed a peculiar devotion to the Virgin Mary. It was the pious founder of St. Sulpice, M.

Olier, who suggested to the Company of Notre-Dame the idea of consecrating to Mary the establishment of the Island of Montreal in order that she might defend it as her property, and increase it as her domain. They gladly yielded to this desire, and even adopted as the seal of the company the figure of Our Lady; in addition they confirmed the name of Ville-Marie, so happily given to this chosen soil.

It was the Jesuits who placed the church of Quebec under the patronage of the Immaculate Conception, and gave it as second patron St. Louis, King of France. This double choice could not but be agreeable to the pious Bishop of Petraea. Learning, moreover, that the members of the Society of Jesus renewed each year in Canada their vow to fast on the eve of the festival of the Immaculate Conception, and to add to this mortification several pious practices, with the view of obtaining from Heaven the conversion of the savages, he approved this devotion, and ordered that in future it should likewise be observed in his seminary.

He sanctioned other works of piety inspired or established by the Jesuit Fathers; the _novena_, which has remained so popular with the French-Canadians, at St. Francois-Xavier, the Brotherhoods of the Holy Rosary and of the Scapulary of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. He encouraged, above all, devotion to the Holy Family, and prescribed wise regulations for this wors.h.i.+p. The Pope deigned to enrich by numerous indulgences the brotherhoods to which it gave birth, and in recent years Leo XIII inst.i.tuted throughout the Church the celebration of the Festival of the Holy Family. "The wors.h.i.+p of the Holy Family," the ill.u.s.trious pontiff proclaims in a recent bull, "was established in America, in the region of Canada, where it became most flouris.h.i.+ng, thanks chiefly to the solicitude and activity of the venerable servant of G.o.d, Francois de Montmorency Laval, first Bishop of Quebec, and of G.o.d's worthy handmaiden, Marguerite Bourgeoys." According to Cardinal Taschereau, it was Father Pijard who established the first Brotherhood of the Holy Family in 1650 in the Island of Montreal, but the real promoter of this cult was another Father of the Company of Jesus, Father Chaumonot, whom Mgr. de Laval brought specially to Quebec to set at the head of the brotherhood which he had decided to found.

It was the custom, in these periods of fervent faith, to place buildings, cities and even countries under the aegis of a great saint, and Louis XIII had done himself the honour of dedicating France to the Virgin Mary. People did not then blush to practise and profess their beliefs, nor to proclaim them aloud. On the proposal of the Recollets in a general a.s.sembly, St. Joseph was chosen as the first patron saint of Canada; later, St. Francois-Xavier was adopted as the second special protector of the colony.

Montreal, which in the early days of its existence maintained with its rival of Cape Diamond a strife of emulation in the path of good as well as in that of progress, could no longer do without a religious edifice worthy of its already considerable importance. Mgr. de Laval was at this time on a round of pastoral visits, for, in spite of the fatigue attaching to such a journey, at a time when there was not yet even a carriage-road between the two towns, and when, braving contrary winds, storms and the snares of the Iroquois, one had to ascend the St.

Lawrence in a bark canoe, the worthy prelate made at least eight visits to Montreal during the period of his administration. In a general a.s.sembly of May 12th, 1669, presided over by him, it was decided to establish the church on ground which had belonged to Jean de Saint-Pere, but since this site had not the elevation on which the Sulpicians desired to see the new temple erected, the work was suspended for two years more. The ecclesiastics of the seminary offered on this very height (for M. Dollier had given to the main street the name of Notre-Dame, which was that of the future church) some lots bought by them from Nicolas G.o.de and from Mme. Jacques Lemoyne, and situated behind their house; they offered besides in the name of M. de Bretonvilliers the sum of a thousand _livres tournois_ for three years, to begin the work. These offers were accepted in an a.s.sembly of all the inhabitants, on June 10th, 1672; Francois Bailly, master mason, directed the building, and on the thirtieth of the same month, before the deeply moved and pious population, there were laid, immediately after high ma.s.s, the first five stones. There had been chosen the name of the Purification, because this day was the anniversary of that on which MM.

Olier and de la Dauversiere had caught the first glimpses of their vocation to work at the establishment of Ville-Marie, and because this festival had always remained in high honour among the Montrealers. The foundation was laid by M. de Courcelles, governor-general; the second stone had been reserved for M. Talon, but, as he could not accept the invitation, his place was taken by M. Philippe de Carion, representative of M. de la Motte Saint-Paul. The remaining stones were laid by M.

Perrot, governor of the island, by M. Dollier de Ca.s.son, representing M.

de Bretonvilliers, and by Mlle. Mance, foundress of the Montreal hospital. The sight of this ceremony was one of the last joys of this good woman; she died on June 18th of the following year.

Meanwhile, all desired to contribute to the continuation of the work; some offered money, others materials, still others their labour. In their ardour the priests of the seminary had the old fort, which was falling into ruins, demolished in order to use the wood and stone for the new building. As lords of the island, they seemed to have the incontestable right to dispose of an edifice which was their private property. But M. de Bretonvilliers, to whom they referred the matter, took them to task for their haste, and according to his instructions the work of demolition was stopped, not to be resumed until ten years later.

The colonists had an ardent desire to see their church finished, but they were poor, and, though a collection had brought in, in 1676, the sum of two thousand seven hundred francs, the work dragged along for two years more, and was finished only in 1678. "The church had," says M.

Morin, "the form of a Roman cross, with the lower sides ending in a circular apse; its portal, built of hewn stone, was composed of two designs, one Tuscan, the other Doric; the latter was surmounted by a triangular pediment. This beautiful entrance, erected in 1722, according to the plans of Chaussegros de Lery, royal engineer, was flanked on the right side by a square tower crowned by a campanile, from the summit of which rose a beautiful cross with _fleur-de-lis_ twenty-four feet high.

This church was built in the axis of Notre-Dame Street, and a portion of it on the Place d'Armes; it measured, in the clear, one hundred and forty feet long, and ninety-six feet wide, and the tower one hundred and forty-four feet high. It was razed in 1830, and the tower demolished in 1843."

Montreal continued to progress, and therefore to build. The Sulpicians, finding themselves cramped in their old abode, began in 1684 the construction of a new seigniorial and chapter house, of one hundred and seventy-eight feet frontage by eighty-four feet deep. These vast buildings, whose main facade faces on Notre-Dame Street, in front of the Place d'Armes, still exist. They deserve the attention of the tourist, if only by reason of their antiquity, and on account of the old clock which surmounts them, for though it is the most ancient of all in North America, this clock still marks the hours with average exactness. Behind these old walls extends a magnificent garden.

The spectacle presented by Ville-Marie at this time was most edifying.

This great village was the school of martyrdom, and all aspired thereto, from the most humble artisan and the meanest soldier to the brigadier, the commandant, the governor, the priests and the nuns, and they found in this aspiration, this faith and this hope, a strength and happiness known only to the chosen. From the bosom of this city had sprung the seventeen heroes who gave to the world, at the foot of the Long Sault, a magnificent example of what the spirit of Christian sacrifice can do; to a population which gave of its own free will its time and its labour to the building of a temple for the Lord, G.o.d had a.s.signed a leader, who took upon his shoulders a heavy wooden cross, and bore it for the distance of a league up the steep flanks of Mount Royal, to plant it solemnly upon the summit; within the walls of the seminary lived men like M. Souart, physician of hearts and bodies, or like MM. Lemaitre and Vignal, who were destined to martyrdom; in the halls of the hospital Mlle. Mance vied with Sisters de Bresoles, Maillet and de Mace, in attending to the most repugnant infirmities or healing the most tedious maladies; last but not least, Sister Bourgeoys and her pious comrades, Sisters Aimee Chatel, Catherine Crolo, and Marie Raisin, who formed the nucleus of the Congregation, devoted themselves with unremitting zeal to the arduous task of instruction.

Another favour was about to be vouchsafed to Canada in the birth of Mlle. Leber. M. de Maisonneuve and Mlle. Mance were her G.o.dparents, and the latter gave her her baptismal name. Jeanne Leber reproduced all the virtues of her G.o.dmother, and gave to Canada an example worthy of the primitive Church, and such as finds small favour in the practical world of to-day. She lived a recluse for twenty years with the Sisters of the Congregation, and practised, till death relieved her, mortifications most terrifying to the physical nature.

At Quebec, the barometer of piety, if I may be excused so bold a metaphor, held at the same level as that of Montreal, and he would be greatly deceived who, having read only the history of the early years of the latter city, should despair of finding in the centre of edification founded by Champlain, men worthy to rank with Queylus and Lemaitre, with Souart and Vignal, with Closse and Maisonneuve, and women who might vie with Marguerite Bourgeoys, with Jeanne Mance or with Jeanne Leber. To the piety of the Sulpicians of the colony planted at the foot of Mount Royal corresponded the fervour both of the priests who lived under the same roof as Mgr. de Laval, and of the sons of Loyola, who awaited in their house at Quebec their chance of martyrdom; the edifying examples given by the military chiefs of Montreal were equalled by those set by governors like de Mezy and de Courcelles; finally the virtues bordering on perfection of women like Mlle. Leber and the foundresses of the hospital and the Congregation found their equivalents in those of the pious Bishop of Petraea, of Mme. de la Peltrie and those of Mothers Mary of the Incarnation and Andree Duplessis de Sainte-Helene.

The Church will one day, perhaps, set upon her altars Mother Mary of the Incarnation, the first superior of the Ursulines at Quebec. The Theresa of New France, as she has been called, was endowed with a calm courage, an incredible patience, and a superior intellect, especially in spiritual matters; we find the proof of this in her letters and meditations which her son published in France. "At the head," says the Abbe Ferland, "of a community of weak women, devoid of resources, she managed to inspire her companions with the strength of soul and the trust in G.o.d which animated herself. In spite of the unteachableness and the fickleness of the Algonquin maidens, the troublesome curiosity of their parents, the thousand trials of a new and poor establishment, Mother Incarnation preserved an evenness of temper which inspired her comrades in toil with courage. Did some sudden misfortune appear, she arose with all the greatness of a Christian of the primitive Church to meet it with steadfastness. If her son spoke to her of the ill-treatment to which she was exposed on the part of the Iroquois, at a time when the affairs of the French seemed desperate, she replied calmly: 'Have no anxiety for me. I do not speak as to martyrdom, for your affection for me would incline you to desire it for me, but I mean as to other outrages. I see no reason for apprehension; all that I hear does not dismay me.' When she was cast out upon the snow, together with her sisters, in the middle of a winter's night, by reason of a conflagration which devoured her convent, her first act was to prevail upon her companions to kneel with her to thank G.o.d for having preserved their lives, though He despoiled them of all that they possessed in the world. Her strong and n.o.ble soul seemed to rise naturally above the misfortunes which a.s.sailed the growing colony. Trusting fully to G.o.d through the most violent storms, she continued to busy herself calmly with her work, as if nothing in the world had been able to move her. At a moment when many feared that the French would be forced to leave the country, Mother of the Incarnation, in spite of her advanced age, began to study the language of the Hurons in order to make herself useful to the young girls of this tribe. Ever tranquil, she did not allow herself to be carried away by enthusiasm or stayed by fear. 'We imagine sometimes,' she wrote to her former superior at Tours, 'that a certain pa.s.sing inclination is a vocation; no, events show the contrary. In our momentary enthusiasms we think more of ourselves than of the object we face, and so we see that when this enthusiasm is once past, our tendencies and inclinations remain on the ordinary plane of life.' Built on such a foundation, her piety was solid, sincere and truly enlightened. In perusing her writings, we are astonished at finding in them a clearness of thought, a correctness of style, and a firmness of judgment which give us a lofty idea of this really superior woman.

Clever in handling the brush as well as the pen, capable of directing the work of building as well as domestic labour, she combined, according to the opinion of her contemporaries, all the qualities of the strong woman of whom the Holy Scriptures give us so fine a portrait. She was entrusted with all the business of the convent. She wrote a prodigious number of letters, she learned the two mother tongues of the country, the Algonquin and the Huron, and composed for the use of her sisters, a sacred history in Algonquin, a catechism in Huron, an Iroquois catechism and dictionary, and a dictionary, catechism and collection of prayers in the Algonquin language."

CHAPTER VII

THE SMALLER SEMINARY

The smaller seminary, founded by the Bishop of Petraea in 1668, for youths destined to the ecclesiastical life, justified the expectations of its founder, and witnessed an ever increasing influx of students. On the day of its inauguration, October 9th, there were only as yet eight French pupils and six Huron children. For lack of teachers the young neophytes, placed under the guidance of directors connected with the seminary, attended during the first years the cla.s.ses of the Jesuit Fathers. Their special costume was a blue cloak, confined by a belt. At this period the College of the Jesuits contained already some sixty resident scholars, and what proves to us that serious studies were here pursued is that several scholars are quoted in the memoirs as having successfully defended in the presence of the highest authorities of the colony theses on physics and philosophy.

If the first bishop of New France had confined himself to creating one large seminary, it is certain that his chosen work, which was the preparation for the Church of a nursery of scholars and priests, the apostles of the future, would not have been complete.

For many young people, indeed, who lead a worldly existence, and find themselves all at once transferred to the serious, religious life of the seminary, the surprise, and sometimes the discomfort, may be great. One must adapt oneself to this atmosphere of prayer, meditation and study.

The rules of prayer are certainly not beyond the limits of an ordinary mind, but the practice is more difficult than the theory. Not without effort can a youthful imagination, a mind ardent and consumed by its own fervour, relinquish all the memories of family and social occupations, in order to withdraw into silence, inward peace, and the mortification of the senses. To the devoutly-minded our worldly life may well seem petty in comparison with the more spiritual existence, and in the religious life, for the priest especially, lies the sole source and the indispensable condition of happiness. But one must learn to be thus happy by humility, study and prayer, as one learns to be a soldier by obedience, discipline and exercise, and in nothing did Laval more reveal his discernment than in the recognition of the fact that the transition from one life to the other must be effected only after careful instruction and wisely-guided deliberation.

The aim of the smaller seminary is to guide, by insensible gradations towards the great duties and the great responsibilities of the priesthood, young men upon whom the spirit of G.o.d seems to have rested.

There were in Israel schools of prophets; this does not mean that their training ended in the diploma of a seer or an oracle, but that this novitiate was favourable to the action of G.o.d upon their souls, and inclined them thereto. A smaller seminary possesses also the hope of the harvest. It is there that the minds of the students, by exercises proportionate to their age, become adapted unconstrainedly to pious reading, to the meditation and the grave studies in whose cycle the life of the priest must pa.s.s.

We shall not be surprised if the prelate's followers recognized in the works of faith which sprang up in his footsteps and progressed on all hands at Ville-Marie and at Quebec s.h.i.+ning evidences of the protection of Mary to whose tutelage they had dedicated their establishments. This protection indeed has never been withheld, since to-day the fame of the university which sprang from the seminary, as a fruit develops from a bud, has crossed the seas. Father Monsabre, the eloquent preacher of Notre-Dame in Paris, speaking of the union of science and faith, exclaimed: "There exists, in the field of the New World, an inst.i.tution which has religiously preserved this holy alliance and the traditions of the older universities, the Laval University of Quebec."

Mgr. de Laval, while busying himself with the training of his clergy, watched over the instruction of youth. He protected his schools and his dioceses; at Quebec the Jesuits, and later the seminary, maintained even elementary schools. If we must believe the Abbe de Latour and other writers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the children of the early colonists, skilful in manual labour, showed, nevertheless, great indolence of mind. "In general," writes Latour, "Canadian children have intelligence, memory and facility, and they make rapid progress, but the fickleness of their character, a dominant taste for liberty, and their hereditary and natural inclination for physical exercise do not permit them to apply themselves with sufficient perseverance and a.s.siduity to become learned men; satisfied with a certain measure of knowledge sufficient for the ordinary purposes of their occupations (and this is, indeed, usually possessed), we see no people deeply learned in any branch of science. We must further admit that there are few resources, few books, and little emulation. No doubt the resources will be multiplied, and clever persons will appear in proportion as the colony increases." Always eager to develop all that might serve for the propagation of the faith or the progress of the colony, the devoted prelate eagerly fostered this natural apt.i.tude of the Canadians for the arts and trades, and he established at St. Joachim a boarding-school for country children; this offered, besides a solid primary education, lessons in agriculture and some training for different trades.

Mgr. de Laval gave many other proofs of his enlightened charity for the poor and the waifs of fortune; he approved and encouraged among other works the Brotherhood of Saint Anne at Quebec. This a.s.sociation of prayer and spiritual aid had been established but three years before his arrival; it was directed by a chaplain and two directors, the latter elected annually by secret ballot. He had wished to offer in 1660 a more striking proof of his devotion to the Mother of the Holy Virgin, and had caused to be built on the sh.o.r.e of Beaupre the first sanctuary of Saint Anne. This temple arose not far from a chapel begun two years before, under the care of the Abbe de Queylus. The origin of this place of devotion, it appears, was a great peril to which certain Breton sailors were exposed: a.s.sailed by a tempest in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, about the beginning of the seventeenth century, they made a vow to erect, if they escaped death, a chapel to good Saint Anne on the spot where they should land. Heaven heard their prayers, and they kept their word. The chapel erected by Mgr. de Laval was a very modest one, but the zealous missionary of Beaupre, the Abbe Morel, then chaplain, was the witness of many acts of ardent faith and sincere piety; the Bishop of Petraea himself made several pilgrimages to the place. "We confess," says he, "that nothing has aided us more efficaciously to support the burden of the pastoral charge of this growing church than the special devotion which all the inhabitants of this country dedicate to Saint Anne, a devotion which, we affirm it with certainty, distinguishes them from all other peoples." The poor little chapel, built of uprights, gave place in 1675 to a stone church erected by the efforts of M. Filion, proctor of the seminary, and it was noted for an admirable picture given by the viceroy, de Tracy, who did not disdain to make his pilgrimage like the rest, and to set thus an example which the great ones of the earth should more frequently give. This church lasted only a few years; Mgr. de Laval was still living when a third temple was built upon its site. This was enlarged in 1787, and gave place only in 1878 to the magnificent cathedral which we admire to-day. The faith which raised this sanctuary to consecrate it to Saint Anne did not die with its pious founder; it is still lively in our hearts, since in 1898 a hundred and twenty thousand pilgrims went to pray before the relic of Saint Anne, the precious gift of Mgr. de Laval.

In our days, hardly has the sun melted the thick mantle of snow which covers during six months the Canadian soil, hardly has the majestic St.

Lawrence carried its last blocks of ice down to the ocean, when caravans of pious pilgrims from all quarters of the country wend their way towards the sanctuary raised upon the sh.o.r.es of Beaupre. Whole families fill the cars; the boats of the Richelieu Company stop to receive pa.s.sengers at all the charming villages strewn along the banks of the river, and the cathedral which raises in the air its slender spires on either side of the immense statue of Saint Anne does not suffice to contain the ever renewed throng of the faithful.

Even in the time of Mgr. de Laval, pilgrimages to Saint Anne's were frequent, and it was not only French people but also savages who addressed to the Mother of the Virgin Mary fervent, and often very artless, prayers. The harvest became, in fact, more abundant in the missions, and

"Les pretres ne pouvaient suffire aux sacrifices."[4]

From the banks of the Saguenay at Tadousac, or from the sh.o.r.e of Hudson Bay, where Father Albanel was evangelizing the Indians, to the recesses of the Iroquois country, a Black Robe taught from interval to interval in a humble chapel the truths of the Christian religion. "We may say,"

wrote Father Dablon in 1671, "that the torch of the faith now illumines the four quarters of this New World. More than seven hundred baptisms have this year consecrated all our forests; more than twenty different missions incessantly occupy our Fathers among more than twenty diverse nations; and the chapels erected in the districts most remote from here are almost every day filled with these poor barbarians, and in some of them there have been consummated sometimes ten, twenty, and even thirty baptisms on a single occasion." And, ever faithful to the established power, the missionaries taught their neophytes not only religion, but also the respect due to the king. Let us hearken to Father Allouez speaking to the mission of Sault Ste. Marie: "Cast your eyes," says he, "upon the cross raised so high above your heads. It was upon that cross that Jesus Christ, the son of G.o.d, become a man by reason of His love for men, consented to be bound and to die, in order to satisfy His Eternal Father for our sins. He is the master of our life, the master of Heaven, earth and h.e.l.l. It is He of whom I speak to you without ceasing, and whose name and word I have borne into all these countries. But behold at the same time this other stake, on which are hung the arms of the great captain of France, whom we call the king. This great leader lives beyond the seas; he is the captain of the greatest captains, and has not his peer in the world. All the captains that you have ever seen, and of whom you have heard speak, are only children beside him. He is like a great tree; the rest are only little plants crushed under men's footsteps as they walk. You know Onontio, the famous chieftain of Quebec; you know that he is the terror of the Iroquois, his mere name makes them tremble since he has desolated their country and burned their villages. Well, there are beyond the seas ten thousand Onontios like him. They are only the soldiers of this great captain, our great king, of whom I speak to you."

Mgr. de Laval ardently desired, then, the arrival of new workers for the gospel, and in the year 1668, the very year of the foundation of the seminary, his desire was fulfilled, as if Providence wished to reward His servant at once. Missionaries from France came to the aid of the priests of the Quebec seminary, and Sulpicians, such as MM. de Queylus, d'Urfe, Dallet and Brehan de Gallinee, arrived at Montreal; MM. Francois de Salignac-Fenelon and Claude Trouve had already landed the year before. "I have during the last month," wrote the prelate, "commissioned two most good and virtuous apostles to go to an Iroquois community which has been for some years established quite near us on the northern side of the great Lake Ontario. One is M. de Fenelon, whose name is well-known in Paris, and the other M. Trouve. We have not yet been able to learn the result of their mission, but we have every reason to hope for its complete success."

While he was enjoining upon these two missionaries, on their departure for the mission on which he was sending them, that they should always remain in good relations with the Jesuit Fathers, he gave them some advice worthy of the most eminent doctors of the Church:--

"A knowledge of the language," he says, "is necessary in order to influence the savages. It is, nevertheless, one of the smallest parts of the equipment of a good missionary, just as in France to speak French well is not what makes a successful preacher. The talents which make good missionaries are:

"1. To be filled with the spirit of G.o.d; this spirit must animate our words and our hearts: _Ex abundantia cordis os loquitur_.

"2. To have great prudence in the choice and arrangement of the things which are necessary either to enlighten the understanding or to bend the will; all that does not tend in this direction is labour lost.

"3. To be very a.s.siduous, in order not to lose opportunities of procuring the salvation of souls, and supplying the neglect which is often manifest in neophytes; for, since the devil on his part _circuit tanquam leo rugiens, quaerens quem devoret_, so we must be vigilant against his efforts, with care, gentleness and love.

"4. To have nothing in our life and in our manners which may appear to belie what we say, or which may estrange the minds and hearts of those whom we wish to win to G.o.d.

"5. We must make ourselves beloved by our gentleness, patience and charity, and win men's minds and hearts to incline them to G.o.d. Often a bitter word, an impatient act or a frowning countenance destroys in a moment what has taken a long time to produce.

"6. The spirit of G.o.d demands a peaceful and pious heart, not a restless and dissipated one; one should have a joyous and modest countenance; one should avoid jesting and immoderate laughter, and in general all that is contrary to a holy and joyful modesty: _Modestia vestra nota sit omnibus hominibus_."

The new Sulpicians had been most favourably received by Mgr. de Laval, and the more so since almost all of them belonged to great families and had renounced, like himself, ease and honour, to devote themselves to the rude apostles.h.i.+p of the Canadian missions.