I then asked you to give me some other tangible token of
your esteem, which I might show everywhere I should go.
You answered that you would be happy to give me one, and
you said: "What do you wish?" "I wish," I said, "to have a
chalice from your hands to offer the holy sacrifice of the mass
the rest of my life."
You answered: "I will do that with pleasure," and you gave an
order to one of your priests to bring you a chalice, that you might
give it to me. But that priest had not the key of the box containing
the sacred vases; that key was in the hands of another
priest, who was absent for a few hours.
I had not the time to wait; the hour of the departure of the
trains had come; I told you: "Please, my lord, send that chalice
to Rev. Mr. Brassard, of Longueuil, who will forward it to me
in a few days, to Chicago." And the next day, one of your secretaries
went to Rev. Mr. Brassard, and gave him the chalice you
had promised me, which is still in my hands. And the Rev. Mr.
Brassard is there still living, to be the witness of what I say, and
to bring that fact to your memory, if you have forgotten it.
Well, my lord, I do believe that a bishop will never give a
chalice to a priest to say mass, when he knows that that priest
is interdicted. And the best proof that you know very well that
I was not interdicted by your rash and unjust sentence, is that
you gave me that chalice as a token of your esteem and of my
honesty, etc.
Respectfully,
C. CHINIQUY.
