Chapter XXIII.
THE CHOLERA MORBUS OF 1834—ADMIRABLE COURAGE AND
SELF-DENIAL OF THE PRIESTS OF ROME DURING THAT
EPIDEMIC.
I HAD not been more than three weeks the administrator of
the parish of Charlesbourgh, when the terrible words, "The
cholera morbus is in Quebec!" sent a thrill of terror from one
end to the other of Canada.
The cities of Quebec and Montreal, with many surrounding
country places, had been decimated in 1832 by the same terrible
scourge. Thousands upon thousands had fallen its victims;
families in every rank of society had disappeared; for the most
skillful physicians of both Europe and America had been unable
to stop its march and ravages. But the year 1833 had passed
without hearing almost of a single case of that fatal disease: we
had all the hope that the justice of God was satisfied, and that
He would no more visit us with that horrible plague. In this,
however, we were to be sadly disappointed.
Charlesbourgh is a kind of suburb of Quebec, the greatest
part of its inhabitants had to go within its walls to sell their
goods several times every week. It was evident that we were
to be among the first visited by that messenger of a just, but
angry God. I will never forget the hour after I had heard:
"The cholera is in Quebec!" It was, indeed, a most solemn
hour to me. At a glance, I measured the bottomless abyss which
was dug under my feet. We had no physicians, and there was
no possibility of having any one—for they were to have more
work than they could do in Quebec. I saw that I would have
to be both the body and the soul-physician of the numberless
victims of this terrible disease.
The tortures of the dying, the cries of the widows and of the
orphans, the almost unbearable stench of the houses attacked by
the scourge, the desolation and the paralyzing fears of the whole
people, the fatherless and motherless orphans by whom I was
to be surrounded, the starving poor for whom I would have to
provide food and clothing when every kind or work and industry
was stopped; but above all, the crowds of penitents whom
the terrors of an impending death would drag to my feet to
make their confessions, that I might forgive their sins, passed
through my mind as so many spectres. I fell on my knees,
with a heart beating with emotions that no pen can describe,
and prostrating myself before my too justly angry God, I cried
for mercy; with torrents of tears I asked Him to take away my
life as a sacrifice for my people, but to spare them: raising my
eyes towards a beautiful statue of Mary, whom I believed to be
then the Mother of God, I supplicated her to appease the wrath
of her Son.
I was still on my knees, when several knocks at the door
told me that some one wanted to speak to me—a young woman
was there, bathed in tears and pale as death, who said to me:
"My father has just returned from Quebec, and is dying from
the cholera—please come quick to hear his confession before he
expires!"
No tongue will ever be able to tell half of the horrors which
strike the eyes and the mind the first time one enters the house
of a man struggling in the agonies of death from cholera. The
other diseases seem to attack only one part of the body at once,
but the cholera is like a furious tiger, whose sharp teeth and nails
tear his victim from head to feet without sparing any part. The
hands and the feet, the legs and the arms, the stomach, the
breast and the bowels are at once tortured. I had never seen
anything so terrific as the fixed eyes of that first victim whom I
had to prepare for death. He was already almost as cold as a
piece of ice. He was vomiting and ejecting an incredible
quantity of a watery and blackish matter, which filled the house
with an unbearable smell. With a feeble voice he requested
me to hear the confession of his sins, and I ordered the family
to withdraw and leave me alone, that they might not hear the
sad story of his transgressions. But he had not said five words
before he cried out: "Oh my God! what horrible cramps in my
leg! For God's sake, rub it." And when I had given up hearing
his confession to rub the leg, he cried out again: "Oh! what
horrible cramps in my arms!—in my feet!—in my shoulders!—
in my stomach!" And to the utmost of my capacity and my
strength, I rubbed his arms, his feet, his shoulders, his breast,
till I felt so exhausted and covered with perspiration, that I
feared I should faint. During that time the fetid matter ejected
from his stomach, besmeared me almost from head to foot. I
called for help, and two strong men continued with me to rub
the poor dying man.
It seemed evident that he could not live very long; his sufferings
looked so horrible and unbearable! I administered him
the sacrament of extreme-unction. But I did not leave the house
after that ceremony, as it is the custom of the priests. It was
the first time that I had met face to face with that giant which
had covered so many nations with desolation and ruin, caused so
many torrents of tears to flow. I had heard so much of him!
I knew that, till then, nothing had been able to stop his forward
march! He had scornfully gone through the obstacles which
the most powerful nations had placed before him to retard his
progress. He had mocked the art and the science of the most
skillful physicians all over the world! In a single step, he had
gone from Moscow to Paris!—and in another step he had
crossed the bottomless seas which the hands of the Almighty
have spread between Europe and America! That king of
terrors, after piling in their graves, by millions, the rich and the
poor, the old and the young, whom he had met on his march
through Asia, Africa, Europe and America, was now before
me! Nay, he was torturing, before my eyes, the first victim he
had chosen among my people! But the more I felt powerless
in the presence of that mighty giant, the more I wanted to see
him face to face. I had as a secret pleasure, a holy pride, in
daring him. I wanted to tell him: "I do not fear you! You
mercilessly attack my people, but with the help of God, in the
strength of the One who died on Calvary for me, and who told
me that nothing was more sweet and glorious than to give my
life for my friends, I will meet and fight you everywhere when
you attack any one of those sheep who are dearer to to me than
my own life!"
Standing by the bedside of the dying man, whilst I rubbed
his limbs to alleviate his tortures, I exhorted him to repent. But
I closely watched that hand to hand battle—that merciless and
unequal struggle between the giant and his poor victim. His
agony was long and terrible, for he was a man of great bodily.
strength. But after several hours of the most frightful pains,
he quietly breathed his last. The house was crowded with the
neighbors and relations, who, forgetful of the danger of catching
the disease, had come to see him. We all knelt and prayed for
the departed soul, after which I gave them a few words about
the necessity of giving up their sins and keeping themselves ready
to die and go at the Master's call.
I then left that desolated house with feelings of distress which
no pen can portray. When I got back to the parsonage, after
praying and weeping alone in my closet, I took a bath, and
washed myself with vinegar and a mixture of camphor, as a preventive
against the epidemic. The rest of the day, till ten at
night, was spent in hearing the confessions of a great number of
people whom the fear of death had dragged around my confessional
box that I might forgive their sins. This hearing of confession
was interrupted only at ten o'clock at night, when I was
called to the cemetery to bury the first victim of the cholera in
Charlesbourgh. A great number of people had accompanied
the corpse to his last resting-place: the night was beautiful, the
atmosphere balmy, and the moon and stars had never appeared
to me so bright. The stillness of the night was broken only by
the sobs of the relations and friends of the deceased. It was one
of the best opportunities God had ever given me of exhorting
the people to repentance. I took for my text: "Therefore, be
ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of
Man cometh." The spectacle of that grave, filled by a man who
twenty-four hours before, was full of health and life in the
midst of his happy family, was speaking more eloquently than
the words of my lips, to show that we must be always ready.
And never any people entered the threshold of their homes with
more solemn thoughts than those to whom I spoke, that night,
in the midst of the graveyard.
The history of that day is the history of the forty days which
followed—for not a single one of them passed without my being
called to visit a victim of the cholera—more than one hundred
people were attacked by the terrible disease, nearly forty of
whom died!
I cannot sufficiently thank my merciful God for having protected
me in such a marvelous way that I had not a single hour
of disease during those two months of hard labors and sore trials.
I had to visit the sick not only as a priest, but as physician also;
for seeing, at first, the absolute impossibility of persuading any
physician from Quebec to give up their rich city patients for our
more humble farmers, I felt it was my duty to make myself as
expert as I could in the art of helping the victims of that cruel
and loathsome disease: I studied the best authors on that subject,
consulted the most skillful physicians, got a little pharmacy which
would have done honor to an old physician, and I gave my care
and my medicine gratis. Very soon the good people of Charlesbourgh
put as much, if not more confidence, in my medical care,
as in any other of the best physicians of the country. More than
once, I had to rub the limbs of so many patients in the same day,
that the skin of my hands was taken away, and several times the
blood come out from the wounds. Dr. Painchaud, one of the
ablest physicians of Quebec, who was my personal friend, told
me after, that it was a most extraordinary thing that I had not
fallen a victim to that disease.
I would never have mentioned what I did, in those never-to
be-forgotten days of the cholera of 1834, when one of the most
horrible epidemics which the world has ever seen spread desolation
and death almost all over Canada, if I had been alone to
work as I did; but I am happy and proud to say that, without a
single exception, the French Canadian priests, whose parishes
were attacked by that pestilence, did the same. I could name
hundreds of them who, during several months, also, day after
day and night after night, bravely met and fought the enemy,
and fearlessly presented their breasts to its blows. I could even
name scores of them who heroically fell and died when facing
the foe on that battlefield!
We must be honest and true towards the Roman Catholic
priests of Canada. Few men, if even any, have shown more
courage and self-denial in the hour of danger than they did. I
have seen them at work during the two memorable years of
1832 and 1834, with a courage and self-denial worthy of the admiration
of heaven and earth. Though they knew well that the
most horrible tortures and death might be the price of their devotedness,
I have not known a single one of them who ever
shrank before the danger. At the first appeal, in the midst of
the darkest and stormiest nights, as well as in the light of the
brightest days, they were always ready to leave their warm and
comfortable beds to run to the rescue of the sick and dying.
But, shall we conclude from that, as the priests of Rome
want us to do, that their religion is the true and divine religion
of Christ? Must we believe that because the priests are brave,
admirably brave, and die the death of heroes on the battlefields, they are the true, the only priests of Christ, the successors of the
apostles—the ministers of the religion out of which there is no
salvation? No!
Was it because his religion was the divine and only true one
that the millionaire Stephen Gerard, when in 1793 Philadelphia
was decimated by a most frightful epidemic, went from house to
house, visiting the sick, serving, washing them with his own
hands, and even helping to put them into their coffins? I ask it
again, is it because his religion was the divine religion of Jesus
that that remarkable man, during several months, lived among
the dying and the dead, to help them, when his immense fortune
allowed him to put a whole world between him and the danger?
No; for every one knows that Stephen Gerard was a deist, who
did not believe in Christ.
Was it because they followed the true religion that, in the
last war between Russia and Turkey, a whole regiment of
Turks heroically ran to a sure death to obey the order of their
general, who commanded them to charge bayonets on a Russian
battery, which was pouring upon them a real hail of bullets and
canisters? No! surely no!
These Turks were brave, fearless, heroic soldiers, but nothing
more. So the priests of the Pope, who expose themselves
in the hour of danger, are brave, fearless, heroic soldiers of the
Pope—but they are nothing more.
Was it because they were good Christians that the soldiers
of a French regiment, at Austerlitz, consented to be slaughtered
to the last, at the head of a bridge where Napoleon had ordered
them to remain, with these celebrated words: "Soldiers! stand
there and fight to the last; you will all be killed; but you will
save the army, and we will gain the day!"
Those soldiers were admirably well disciplined—they loved
their flag more than their lives—they knew only one thing in the
world: "Obey the command of Napoleon!" They fought like
giants and died like heroes. So the priests are a well-disciplined
band of soldiers; they are trained to love their church more
than their own life; they also know only one thing: "Obey
your superior, the Pope!" they fight the battle of their church
like giants, and they die like heroes!
Who has not read the history of the renowned French man-of-war,
the "Tonnant?" When she had lost her masts, and was
so crippled by the red bullets of the English fleet that there was
no possibility of escape, what did the soldiers and mariners of
that ship answer to the cries of "Surrender!" which came from
the English admiral? "We die, but do not surrender!"
They all went to the bottom of the sea, and perished rather
than see their proud banners fall into the hands of the foe!
Is it because those French warriors were good Christians
that they preferred to die rather than give up their flag? No!
But they knew that the eyes of their country, the eyes of the
whole world were upon them. Life became to them a trifle: it
became nothing when placed in the balance against what they
considered their honor, and the honor of their fair and noble
country;—nay, life became an undesirable thing, when it was
weighted against the glory of dying at the post of duty and
honor.
So it is with the priest of Rome. He knows that the eyes
of his people, and of his superiors—the eyes of his whole church
are upon him. He knows that if he shrinks in the hour of
danger, he will forever lose their confidence and their esteem;
that he will lose his position and live the life of a degraded man!
Death seems preferable to such a life.
Besides, it is not only in the gospel of Christ that we read:
"This is my commandment, that ye love one another, as I have
loved you." "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man
lay down his life for his friends." Our great God has written
these words in the hearts of all the children of Adam. He has
written them in the very heart of humanity. These words are
engraven in the hearts of the Turks of Canstantinople, as well
as in the hearts of the priests of Canada. They are engraven in
the hearts of the Esquimaux of the icy regions of Greenland, as
well as in the hearts of the refined citizens of Paris.
Hence, in the midst of the wreck of almost all the other
virtues, we find a spark of that sacred fire, kept alive, everywhere.
For again, God Almighty himself has breathed that spark of fire
and life into the heart of man when he made him in his own
image. We find that spark of holy and inextinguishable fire of
love and life even among the most depraved nations. For that
nation must infallibly perish and disappear the day it has lost it
entirely. This is the reason why, even among the degraded
idolaters of ancient and modern times, we find acts of admirable
devotedness and self-sacrifice. Read the history of the Iroquois,
written by the Jesuit Father, Charlevoix, and you will see how
the savages of our forests often raised themselves to the very
stature of giants at the approach of death, when the honor of
their nations, or the interests of their friends, or their own
reputation was at stake. No men have ever carried the contempt
of pain and death so far, perhaps, as the heathen Iroquois
of this continent.
Yes! let the people of Canada read the history of "La
Nouvelle France," and they will cease from presenting to us the
courage of their priests as an indication of the divinity of their
religion. For there they will see that the worshippers of the
wooden gods of the forests have equalled, if not surpassed, in
courage and self-denial in the face of death, the courage and
self-denial of the priests of the wafer god of Rome.
