University of Virginia Library

Chapter XXII.

I AM APPOINTED VICAR OF THE CURATE OF CHARLESBOURGH
—THE PIETY, LIVES AND DEATHS OF FATHERS BEDARD AND
PERRAS.

THE grand dinner previously described had its natural results.
Several of the guests were hardly at home, when they
complained of various kinds of sickness, and none was so severely
punished as my friend Paquette, the curate of St. Gervais. He
came very near dying, and for several weeks was unable to work.
He requested the bishop of Quebec to allow me to go to his
help, which I did to the end of May, when I received the following
letter:

My Dear Sir: My Lord Panet has again chosen me, this year, to accompany
him in his episcopal visit. I have consented, with the condition
that you should take my place, at the head of my dear parish, during my
absence. For I will have no anxiety when I know that my people are in
the hands of a priest who, though so young, has raised himself so high in
the esteem of all those who know him.

Please come as soon as possible to meet me here, that I may tell you
many things which will make your ministry more easy and blessed in
Charlesbourgh.

His Lordship has promised me that when you pass through Quebec, he
will give you all the powers you want to administer my parish, as if you
were its curate during my absence.

I felt absolutely confounded by that letter. I was so young
and so deficient in the qualities required for the high position to

which I was so unexpectedly called. I know it was against the
usages to put a young and untried priest in such a responsible
post. It seemed evident to me that my friends and my superiors
had strangely exaggerated to themselves my feeble capacity.

In my answer to the Rev. Mr. Bedard, I respectfully remonstrated
against such a choice. But a letter received from the
bishop himself, ordering me to go to Charlesbourgh, without delay,
to administer that parish during the absence of its pastor,
soon forced me to consider that sudden and unmerited elevation
as a most dangerous, though providential trial, of my young
ministry. Nothing remained to be done by me but to accept
the task in trembling, and with a desire to do my duty. My
heart, however, fainted within me, and I shed bitter tears of
anxiety. When entering into that parish for the first time, I
saw its magnitude and importance. It seemed, then, more than
ever evident to me that the good Mr. Bedard, and my venerable
superiors, had made a sad mistake in putting such a heavy burden
on my young and feeble shoulders. I was hardly twenty-four
years old, and had not more than nine months' experience
of the ministry.

Charlesbourgh is one of the most ancient and important
parishes of Canada. Its position, so near Quebec, at the feet of
the Laurentide Mountains, is peculiarly beautiful. It has an almost
complete command of the city, and of its magnificent port,
where not less than 900 ships then received their precious cargoes
of lumber. On our left, numberless ranges of white houses extended
as far as the Falls of Montmorency. At our feet the
majestic St. Lawrence, dashing its rapid waters on the beautiful
"Isle d'Orleans." To the right the parishes of Lorette, St. Foy,
St. Roch, etc., with their high church steeples, reflected the sun's
glorious beams: and beyond, the impregnable citadel of Quebec,
with its tortuous ranges of black walls, its numerous cannon and
its high towers, like fearless sentinels, presented a spectacle of
remarkable grandeur.

The Rev. Mr. Bedard welcomed me on my arrival with
words of such kindness that my heart was melted and my mind
confounded. He was a man about sixty-five years of age, short

in stature, with a well-formed breast, large shoulders, bright eyes,
and a face where the traits of indomitable energy were coupled
with an expression of unsurpassed kindness.

One could not look on that honest face without saying to
himself: "I am with a really good and upright man!" Mr.
Bedard is one of the few priests in whom I have found a true
honest faith in the Church of Rome. With an irreproachable
character, he believed with a child's faith all the absurdities
which the Church of Rome teaches, and he lived according to
his honest and sincere faith.

Though the actions of our daily lives were not subjected to
a regular and inexorable rule in Charlesbourgh's as in St.
Charles' parsonage, there was yet far more life and earnestness
in the performance of our ministerial duties.

There was less reading of learned, theological, philosophical
and historical books, but much more real labor in Mr.
Bedard's than in Mr. Perras' parish: there was more of the old
French aristocracy in the latter priest, and more of the good
religious Canadian habitant in the former. Though both could
be considered as men of the most exalted faith and piety in the
Church of Rome, their piety was of a different character. In
Mr. Perras' religion there was real calmness and serenity, while
the religion of Mr. Bedard had more of a flash of lightning
and the noise of thunder. The private religious conversations
with the curate of St. Charles were admirable, but he could not
speak common sense for ten minutes when preaching from his
pulpit. Only once did he preach while I was his vicar, and then
he was not half through his sermon before the greater part of
his auditors were soundly sleeping. But who could hear the
sermons of Rev. Mr. Bedard without feeling his heart moved
and his soul filled with terror? I never heard anything more
thrilling than his words when speaking of the judgments of God
and the punishment of the wicked. Mr. Perras never fasted,
except on the days appointed by the church: Mr. Bedard condemned
himself to fast besides twice every week. The former
never drank, to my knowledge, a single glass of rum or any
other strong drink, except his two glasses of wine at dinner; but

the latter never failed to drink full glasses of rum three times a
day, beside two or three glasses of wine at dinner. Mr. Perras
slept the whole night as a guiltless child; Mr. Bedard, almost
every night when I was with him, rose up, and lashed himself
in the most merciless manner with leather thongs, at the end of
which were small pieces of lead. When inflicting upon himself
those terrible punishments, he used to recite, by heart, the fifty-first
Psalm, in Latin, "Miserere mihi Deus secundam magnam
misericordiam tuam" (Have mercy upon me, O, Lord, according
to thy loving kindness); and though he seemed to be unconscious
of it, he prayed with such a loud voice, that I heard every word
he uttered; he also struck his flesh with such violence, that I
could count all the blows he administered.

One day I respectfully remonstated against such a cruel
self-infliction as ruining his health and breaking his constitution.
"Cher petit Frere" (dear little brother), he answered, "Our
health and constitution cannot be impaired by such penances,
but they are easily and commonly ruined by our sins. I am one
of the healthiest men of my parish, though I have inflicted upon
myself those salutary and too well-merited chastisements for
many years. Though I am old, I am still a great sinner. I
have an implacable and indomitable enemy in my depraved
heart, which I cannot subdue except by punishing my flesh.
If I do not do those penances for my numberless transgressions,
who will do them for me? If I do not pay the debts I owe to
the justice of God, who will pay them for me?"

"But," I answered, "Has not our Saviour, Jesus Christ, paid
our debts on Calvary? Has he not saved and redeemed us all
by his death on the cross? Why, then, should you or I pay
again to the justice of God that which has been so perfectly and
absolutely paid by our Saviour?"

"Ah! my dear young friend," quickly replied Mr. Bedard,
"that doctrine you hold is Protestant, which has been condemned
by the Holy Council of Trent. Christ has paid our debts, certainly;
but not in such an absolute way that there is nothing
more to be paid by us. Have you never paid attention to what
St. Paul says, in his Epistle to the Colossians. I fill up that

which is behind of the sufferings of Christ in the flesh for his
body's sake, which is the Church. Though Christ could have
entirely and absolutely paid our debts, if it had been his will, it
is evident that such was not his holy will—he left something
behind, which Paul, you, I, and every one of his disciples, should
take and suffer in our flesh for his Church. When we have
taken and accomplished in our flesh what Christ has left behind,
then the surplus of our merits goes to the treasury of the Church.
For instance, when a saint has accomplished in his flesh what
Christ has left behind for his perfect sanctification, if he accomplishes
more than the justice of God requires, that surplus of
merits not being any use to him, is put by God into the grand
and common treasure, where it makes a fund of merits of infinite
value, from which the Pope and the bishops draw the indulgences
which they scatter all over the world as the dew from
heaven. By the mercy of God, the penances which I impose
upon myself, and the pains I suffer from these flagellations,
purify my guilty soul, and raising me up from this polluting
world, they bring me nearer and nearer to my God every day.
I am not yet a saint, unfortunately, but if by the mercy of God,
and my penances united to the sufferings of Christ, I arrive at
the happy day when all my debts shall be paid, and my sins
cleansed away, then if I continue those penances and acquire
new merits, more than I need, and if I pay more debts than I
owe to the justice of God, this surplus of merits which I shall
have acquired will go to the rich treasure of the Church, from
which she will draw merits to enrich the multitude of good souls
who cannot do enough for themselves to pay their own debts,
and to reach that point of holiness which will deserve a crown in
heaven. Then, the more we do penance and inflict pains on our
bodies, by our fastings and floggings, the more we feel happy in
the assurance of thus raising ourselves more and more above the
dust of this sinful world, of approaching more and more to that
state of holiness of which our Saviour spoke when he said:
`Be holy as I am holy myself.' We feel an unspeakable joy
when we know that by those self-inflicted punishments we
acquire incalculable merits, which enrich not only ourselves, but
onr holy Church, by filling her treasures for the benefit and salvation
of the souls for which Christ died on Calvary."

When Mr. Bedard was feeding my soul with these husks, he
was speaking with great animation and sincerity. Like myself,
he was far away from the Good Father's house. He had never
tasted of the bread of the children. Neither of us knew anything
of the sweetness of that bread. We had to accept those husks
as our only food, though it did not remove our hunger.

I answered him: "What you tell me here is what I find in
all our ascetic books and theological treatises, and in the lives of
all our saints. I can hardly reconcile that doctrine with what I
read this morning in the 2d chapter of Ephesians. Here is the
verse in my New Testament: `But God, who is rich in mercy,
for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were
dead in sins, he has quickened us together with Christ. By grace
ye are saved; for by grace ye are saved, through faith, and not
of ourselves, it is this gift of God; not of works, lest any man
should boast.'

"Now, my dear and venerable Mr. Bedard, allow me respectfully
to ask, how it is possible that your salvation is only by
grace, if you have to purchase it every day by tearing your flesh
and lashing your body in such a fearful manner? Is it not a
strange favor—a very singular grace—which reddens your skin
with your blood, and bruises your flesh every night?"

"Dear little brother," answered Mr. Bedard, "when Mr. Perras
spoke to me, in the presence of the bishop, with such deserved
eulogium of your piety, he did not conceal that you had
a very dangerous defect, which was to spend too much time in
reading the Bible, in preference to every other of our holy books.
He told us more than this. He said that you had a fatal tendency
to interpret the Holy Scriptures too much according to
your own mind, and in a sense which is rather more Protestant
than Catholic. I am sorry to see that the curate of St. Charles
was but too correct in what he told us of you. But, as he added
that, though your reading too much the Holy Scriptures brought
some clouds in your mind, yet when you were with him, you
always ended by yielding to the sense given by our holy Church.

This did not prevent me from desiring to have you in my place
during my absence, and I hope we will not regret it, for we are
sure that our dear young Chiniquy will never be a traitor to our
holy Church."

These words, which were given with a great solemnity,
mixed with the good manners of the most sincere kindness,
went through my soul as a two-edged sword. I felt an inexpressible
confusion and regret, and, biting my lips, I said: "I
have sworn never to interpret the Holy Scriptures except
according to the unanimous consent of the Holy Fathers, and
with the help of God, I will fulfil my promise. I regret exceedingly
to have differed for a moment from you. You are
my superior by your age, your science and your piety. Please
pardon me that momentary deviation from my duty, and pray
that I may be as you are—a faithful and a fearless soldier of our
holy Church to the end."

At that moment the niece of the curate came to tell us that
the dinner was ready. We went to the modest, though exceedingly
well-spread table, and to my great pleasure, that painful
conversation was dropped. We had not sat at the table five
minutes, when a poor man knocked at the door and asked a
piece of bread for the sake of Jesus and Mary. Mr. Bedard
rose from the table, went to the poor stranger, and said: "Come,
my friend, sit between me and our dear little Father Chiniquy.
Our Saviour was the friend of the poor: he was the father of
the widow and the orphan, and we, his priests, must walk after
him. Be not troubled; make yourself at home. Though I am
the curate of Charlesbourgh, I am your brother. It may be
that in heaven you will sit on a higher throne than mine, if you
love our Saviour, Jesus Christ, and his holy mother, Mary, more
than I do."

With these words, the best things that were on the table
were put by the good old priest on the plate of the poor stranger,
who, with some hesitation, finished by doing honor to the excellent
viands.

After this, I need not say that Mr. Bedard was charitable to
the poor; he always treated them as his best friends. So also

was my former curate of St. Charles; and, though his charity
was not so demonstrative and fraternal as that of Mr. Bedard, I
had never yet seen a poor man go out of the parsonage of St.
Charles whose breast ought not to have been filled with gratitude
and joy.

Mr. Bedard was as exact as Mr. Perras in confessing once,
and sometimes twice, every week; and, rather than fail in that
humiliating act, they both, in the absence of their common confessors,
and much against my feelings, several times humbly
knelt at my youthful feet to confess to me.

These two remarkable men had the same views about the
immorality and the want of religion of the greater part of the
priests. Both have told me, in their confidential conversations,
things about the secret lives of the clergy which would not be
believed were I to publish them; and both repeatedly said that
auricular confession was the daily source of unspeakable depravities
between the confessors and their female, as well as male
penitents; but neither of them had sufficient light to conclude
from those deeds of depravity that auricular confession was a
diabolical institution. They both sincerely believed, as I did then,
that the institution was good, necessary and divine, and that it
was a source of perdition to so many priests only on account of
their want of faith and piety; and principally from their neglect
of prayers to the Virgin Mary.

They did not give me those terrible details with a spirit of
criticism against our weak brethren. Their intention was to
warn me against the dangers, which were as great for me as for
others. They both invariably finished those confidences by inviting
me more and more to pray constantly to the mother of
God, the blessed Virgin Mary, and to watch over myself, and
avoid remaining alone with a female penitent, advising me
also to treat my own body as my most dangerous enemy, by
reducing it into subjection to the law, and crucifying it day and
night.

Mr. Bedard had accompanied the Bishop of Quebec in his
episcopal visits during many years, and had seen with his eyes
the un plague, which was then, as it is now, devouring

the very vitals of the Church of Rome. He very seldom
spoke to me of those things without shedding tears of compassion
over the guilty priests. My heart and my soul were
also filled with an unspeakable sadness when hearing the details
of such iniquities. I also felt struck with terror lest I might
perish myself, and fall into the same bottomless abyss.

One day I told him what Mr. Perras had revealed to me
about the distress of Bishop Plessis, when he had found that
only three priests besides Mr. Perras believed in God, in his
immense diocese. I asked him if there was not some exaggeration
in this report. He answered, after a profound sigh: "My
dear young friend, the angel could not find ten just men in
Sodom—my fear is that they would not find more among the
priests! The more you advance in age, the more you will see
that awful truth—Ah! let those who stand, fear, lest they fall!"

After these last words he burst into tears, and went to church
to pray at the feet of his wafer god!

The revelations which I received from those worthy priests
did not in any way shake my faith in my Church. She even
became dearer to me; just as a dear mother gains in the affection
and devotedness of a dutiful son as her trials and affliction increase.
It seemed to me that after this knowledge it was my
duty to do more than I had ever done to show my unreserved
devotedness, respect and love to my holy and dear mother, the
Church of Rome, out of which (I sincerely believed then) there
was no salvation. These revelations became to me, in the
good providence of God, like the light-houses raised on the hidden
and dreadful rocks of the sea, to warn the pilot during the
dark hours of the night to keep at a distance, if he does not want
to perish.

Though these two priests professed to have a most profound
love and respect for the Holy Scriptures, they gave very little
time to their study, and both several times rebuked me for passing
too many hours in their perusal; and repeatedly warned me
against the habit of constantly appealing to them against certain
practices and teachings of our theologians. As good Roman
Catholic priests, they had no right to go to the Holy Scriptures

alone to know what "the Lord saith!" The traditions of the
Church were the fountains of science and light! Both of them
often distressed me with the facility with which they buried out
of view, under the dark clouds of their traditions, the clearest
texts of Holy Scripture which I used to quote in defence of my
positions in our conversations and debates.

They both, with an equal zeal, and unfortunately with too
much success, persuaded me that it was right for the Church to
ask me to swear that I would never interpret the Holy Scriptures,
except according to the unanimous consent of the Holy
Fathers. But when I showed them that the Holy Fathers had
never been unanimous in anything except in differing from one
another on almost every subject they had treated; when I demomstrated
by our Church historians that some Holy Fathers had
very different views from ours on many subjects, they never
answered my questions, except by silencing me by the text: "If
he does not hear the Church let him be as a heathen or a publican,"
and by giving me long lectures on the danger of pride and
self-confidence.

Mr. Bedard had many opportunities of giving me his views
about the submission which an inferior owes to his superiors.
He was of one mind with Mr. Perras and all the theologians
who had treated that subject. They both taught me that the
inferior must blindly obey his superior, just as the stick must
obey the hand that holds it; assuring me at the same time that
the inferior was not responsible for the errors he commits when
obeying his legitimate superior.

Mr. Bedard and Mr. Perras had a great love for their
Saviour, Jesus; but the Jesus Christ whom they loved and
respected and adored was not the Christ of the Gospel, but the
Christ of the Church of Rome.

Mr. Perras and Mr. Bedard had a great fear, as well as a
sincere love for their God, while yet they professed to make
him every morning by the act of consecration. They also most
sincerely believed and preached that idolatry was one of the
greatest crimes a man could commit, but they themselves were
every day worshipping an idol of their own creating. They

were forced by their Church to renew the awful iniquity of
Aaron, with this difference only, that while Aaron made his
gods of melted gold, and molded them into a figure of a calf
they made theirs of flour, baked between two heated and well
polished irons, and in the form of a crucified man.

When Aaron spoke of his golden calf to the people, he said:
"These are thy gods, O, Israel, which brought thee out of the
land of Egypt." So, likewise, Mr. Bedard and Mr. Perras,
showing the wafer to the deluded people, said: "Ecce agnus
Die qui tollit peccata mundi!" ("Behold the Lamb of God
which taketh away the sins of the world!"

These two sincere and honest priests placed the utmost confidence
also in relics and scapularies. I have heard both say that
no fatal accident could happen to one who had a scapulary on
his breast—no sudden death would overtake a man who was
faithful about keeping those blessed scapularies about his person.
Both of them, nevertheless, died suddenly, and that too of the
saddest of deaths. Mr. Bedard dropped dead on the 19th of
May, 1837, at a great dinner given to his friends. He was in the
act of swallowing a glass of that drink of which God says:
"Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its
color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it
biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder."

The Rev. Mr. Perras, sad to say, became a lunatic in 1845,
and died the 29th of July, 1847, in a fit of delirium.