University of Virginia Library

Chapter XXVIII.

DR. DOUGLAS—MY FIRST LESSON IN TEMPERANCE—STUDY
OF ANATOMY—WORKING OF ALCOHOL IN THE HUMAN
FRAME — THE MURDERESS OF HER OWN CHILD—I FOREVER
GIVE UP THE USE OF INTOXICATING DRINKS.

GOD controls the greatest as well as the smallest of the events
of this world. Our business during the few days of our
pilgrimage, then, is to know His will and do it. Our happiness
here, as in heaven, rests on this foundation, just as the success
and failures of our lives come entirely from the practical knowledge
or ignorance of this simplest and sublimest truth. I dare
say that there is not a single fact of my long and eventful life
which has not taught me that there is a special providence in
our lives. Particularly was this apparent in the casting of the
lots by which I became the first chaplain of the Quebec Marine
Hospital. After the other vicars had congratulated each other
for having escaped the heavy burden of work and responsibilities
connected with that chaplaincy, they kindly gave me the
assurance of their sympathies for what they called my bad luck.
In thanking them for their kindly feelings, I confessed that
this occurrence appeared to me in a very different light. I was
sure that God had directed this for my good and His own glory,
and I was right. In the beginning of November, 1834, a slight
indisposition having kept me for a few days at home, Mr. Glackmayer,
the superintendent of the hospital, came to tell me that
there was an unusually large number of sick, left by the Fall
fleets, in danger of death, who were day and night calling for
me. He added in a secret way, that there were several cases of
small-pox of the worst type; that several had already died and
many were dying from the terrible cholera morbus, which was
still raging among the sailors.

This sad news came to me as an order from heaven to run to
the rescue of my dear sick seamen. I left my room, despite
my physician, and went to the hospital.

The first man I met was Dr. Douglas, who was waiting for
me at Mr. C. Glackmayer's room. He confirmed what I had
known before of the number of sick, and added that the prevailing
diseases were of the most dangerous kind.

Dr. Douglas, who was one of the founders and governors of
the hospital, had the well-merited reputation of being one of
the ablest surgeons of Quebec. Though a staunch Protestant
by birth and profession, he honored me with his confidence
and friendship from the first day we met. I may say I have
never known a nobler heart, a larger mind and a truer philanthropist.

After thanking him for the useful though sad intelligence
he had given me, I requested Mr. Glackmayer to give me a
glass of brandy, which I immediately swallowed.

"What are you doing there?" said Dr. Douglas.

"You see," I answered; "I have drank a glass of excellent
brandy.,"

"But please tell me why you drank that brandy."

"Because it is a good preservative against the pestilential
atmosphere I will breathe all day," I replied. "I will have to
hear the confessions of all those people dying from small-pox or
cholera, and breathe the putrid air which is around their pillows.
Does not common sense warn me to take some precautions
against the contagion?"

"Is it possible," rejoined he, "that a man for whom I have
such a sincere esteem is so ignorant of the deadly workings of
alcohol in the human frame? What you have just drank is
nothing but poison; and, far from protecting yourself against
the danger, you are now much more exposed to it than before
you drank that beverage."

"You poor Protestants," I answered, in a jocose way, "are
a band of fanatics, with your extreme doctrines on temperance;
you will never convert me to your views on that subject. Is it
for the use of the dogs that God has created wine and brandy?

No; it is for the use of men who drink them with moderation
and inteligence."

"My dear Mr. Chiniquy, you are joking; but I am in
earnest when I tell you that you have poisoned yourself with
that glass of brandy," replied Dr Douglas.

"If good wine and brandy were poisons," I answered, "you
would be long ago the only physician in Quebec, for you are the
only one of the medical body whom I know to be an abstainer.
But, though I am much pleased with your conversation, excuse
me if I leave you to visit my dear sick sailors, whose cries for
spiritual help ring in my ears."

"One word more," said Dr. Douglas, "and I have done.
To-morrow morning we will make the autopsy of a sailor who
has just died suddenly here. Have you any objections to come
and see with your eyes, in the body of that man, what your
glass of brandy has done in your own body?"

"No, sir; I have no objection to see that," I replied. "I
have been anxious for a long time to make a special study of
anatomy. It will be my first lesson; I cannot get it from a
better master."

I then shook hands with him and went to my patients, with
whom I passed the remainder of the day and the better part of
the night. Fifty of them wanted to make general confessions
of all the sins of their whole lives; and I had to give the last
sacraments to twenty-five who were dying from small-pox or
cholera morbus. The next morning I was, at the appointed
hour, by the corpse of the dead man, when Dr. Douglas kindly
gave me a very powerful microscope, that I might more
thoroughly follow the ravages of alcohol in every part of the
human body.

"I have not the least doubt," said he, "that this man has
been instantly killed by a glass of rum, which he drank one
hour before he fell dead. That rum has caused the rupture of
the aorta" (the big vein which carries the blood from the heart).

While talking thus, the knife was doing its work so quickly,
that the horrible spectacle of the broken artery was before our
eyes almost as the last word fell from his lips.

"Look here," said the doctor, "all along the artery, and
you will see thousands, perhaps millions of reddish spots, which
are as many holes perforated through it by alcohol. Just as the
musk rats of the Mississippi river, almost every spring, dig little
holes through the dams which keeps the powerful river within
its natural limits, and cause the waters to break through the
little holes, and thus carry desolation and death along its shores,
so alcohol every day causes the sudden death of thousands of
victims, by perforating the veins and opening small issues
through which the blood rushes out of its natural limits. It is
not only this big vein which alcohol perforates; it does the same
deadly work in the veins of the lungs and the whole body.
Look at the lungs with attention, and count, if you can, the
thousands and thousands of reddish, dark and yellow spots, and
little ulcers with which they are covered. Every one of them
is the work of alcohol, which has torn and cut the veins and
caused the blood to go out of its canals, to carry corruption and
death all over these marvelous organs. Alcohol is one of the
most dangerous poisons—I dare say it is the most dangerous.
It has killed more men than all the other poisons together.
Alcohol cannot be changed or assimilated to any part or tissue
of our body, it cannot go to any part of the human frame
without bringing disorder and death to it. For it cannot in any
possible way unite with any part of our body. The water we
drink, the wholesome food and bread we eat, by the laws and
will of God are transformed into the different parts of the body,
to which they are sent through the millions of small canals
which take them from the stomach to every part of our frame.
When the water has been drunk, or the bread we have eaten is,
for instance, sent to the lungs, to the brain, the nerves, the
muscles, the bones—wherever it goes it receives, if I can so
speak, letters of citizenship; it is allowed to remain there in
peace and to work for the public good. But it is not so with
alcohol. The very moment it enters the stomach it more or less
brings disorder, ruin and death, according to the quantity taken.
The stomach refuses to take it, and makes a supreme effort to
violently throw it out, either through the mouth, or by indignantly

pushing it to the brain or into the numberless tubes by
which it discharges its contents to the surface through all the
tissues. But will alcohol be welcome in any of these tubes and
marvellous canals, or in any part or tissue of the body it will
visit on its passage to the surface? No! Look here with your
miscroscope, and yo will see with your own eyes that everywhere
alcohol has gone into the body there has been a hand-to-hand
struggle and a bloody battle fought to get rid of it. Yes!
every place where King Alcohol has put his foot has been
turned into a battlefield, spread with ruin and death, in order to
ignominiously turn in out. By a most extraordinary working of
nature, or rather by the order of God, every vein and artery
through which alcohol has to pass suddenly contracts, as if to
prevent its passage or choke it as a deadly foe. Every vein and
artery has evidently heard the voice of God: `Wine is a mocker:
it bites like a serpent and stings like an adder!' Every nerve
and muscle which alcohol touched trembled and shook as if in
the presence of an implacable and unconquerable enemy. Yes,
at the presence of alcohol every nerve and muscle loses its strength,
just as the bravest man, in the presence of a horrible monster or
demon, suddenly loses his natural strength, and shakes from head
to foot."

I cannot repeat all I heard that day from the lips of Dr.
Douglas, and what I saw with my own eyes of the horrible
workings of alcohol through every part of the body. It would
be too long. Snffice to say that I was struck with horror at my
own folly, and at the folly of so many people who make use of
intoxicating drinks.

What I learned that day was like the opening of a mysterious
door, which allowed me to see the untold marvels of a new
and most magnificent world. But though I was terror-stricken
with the ravages of strong drink in that dead man, I was not yet
convinced of the necessity of being a total abstainer from wine
and beer, and a little brandy now and then, as a social habit.
I did not like to expose myself to ridicule by the sacrifice
of habits which seemed then, more than now, to be among
the sweetest and most common links of society. But I determined

to lose no opportunity of continuing the study of the
working of alcohol in the human body. At the same time I resolved
to avail myself of every opportunity of making a complete
study of anatomy under the kind and learned Dr. Douglas.

It is from the lips and works of Dr. Douglas that I learned
the following startling facts:

1st. The heart of man, which is only six inches long by four
inches wide, beats seventy times in a minute, 4,200 in one hour,
100,300 in a day, 36,792,000 in a year. It ejects two ounces
and a half of blood out of itself every time it beats, which
makes 175 ounces every minute, 656 pounds every hour, seven
tons and three-quarters of blood which goes out of the heart
every day! The whole blood of a man runs through his heart
in three minutes.

2d. The skin is composed of three parts placed over each
other, whose thickness varies from a quarter to an eighth of a
line. Each square inch contains 3,500 pores, through which the
sweat goes out. Every one of them is a pipe a quarter of an
inch long. All those small pipes united together would form a
canal 201,166 feet long—equal to forty miles, or nearly thirteen
leagues!

3rd. The weight of the blood in a common man is between
thirty and forty pounds. The blood runs through the body in
100 seconds, or one minute and forty-one seconds. Eleven
thousand (11,000) pints of blood pass through the lungs in
twenty-four hours.

4th. There are 246 bones in the human body; 63 of them
are in the head, 24 in the sides, 16 in the wrist, 14 in the joints,
and 108 in the hands and feet.

The heart of a man who drinks nothing but pure water
beats about 100,300 a day, but will beat from 25,000 to 30,000
times more if he drinks alcoholic drinks. Those who have not
learned anatomy know little of the infinite power, wisdom, love
and mercy of God. No book except the Bible, and no science
except the science of astronomy, is like the body of man, to tell
us what our God is, and what we are. The body of man is a
book written by the hand of God, to speak to us of Him as no

man can speak. After studying the marvellous working of the
heart, the lungs, the eyes and the brain of man, I could not
speak; I remained mute, unable to say a single word to tell my
admiration and awe. I wept, as overwhelmed with my feelings,
I should have liked to speak of those things to the priests with
whom I lived, but I saw at first they could not understand me;
they thought I was exaggerating. How many times, when
alone with God in my little closet, when thinking of those
marvels, I fell on my knees, and said: "Thou art great, O my
God! The works of thy hands are above the works of man!
But the works of thy love and mercy are above all thy other
works!"

During the four years I was chaplain of the Marine Hospital,
more than one hundred corpses were opened before me, and
almost as many outside the hospital. For when, by the order
of the jury and the coroner, an autopsy was to be made, I seldom
failed to attend. In that way, I have had a providential opportunity
of acquiring the knowledge of one of the most useful and
admirable sciences, as no priest or minister probably ever had on
this continent. It is my conviction that the first thing a temperance
orator ought to do is to study anatomy; get the bodies of
drunkards, as well as those of so-called temperate drinkers,
opened before him, and study there the workings of alcohol in
the different organs of man. So long as the orators on temperance
will not do that, they cannot understand the subject on
which they speak. Though I have read the best books written
by the most learned physicians of England, France and the United
States, on the ravages of rum, wine and beer, of every kind and
name, in the body of men, I have never read anything which
enlightened me so much, and brought such profound convictions
to my intelligence, as the study I have made of the brain, the
lungs, the heart, veins, arteries, nerves and muscles of a single
man or woman. These bodies, opened before me, were books
written by the hand of God himself, and they spoke to me as no
man could speak. By the mercy of God, to that study is due
the irresistible power of my humble efforts in persuading my
countrymen to give up the use of intoxicating drinks. But here

is the time to tell how my merciful God forced me, His unprofitable
and rebellious servant, almost in spite of myself, to give up
the use of intoxicating drinks.

Among my penitents there was a young lady belonging to
one of the most respectable families in Quebec. She had a
child, a girl, almost a year old, who was a real beauty. Nothing
this side of heaven could surpass the charms of that earthly
angel. Of course that young mother idolized her; she could
hardly consent to be without her sweet angel, even to go to
church. She carried her everywhere, to kiss her at every
moment and press her to her heart. Unfortunately that lady, as
it was then, and is still now too often the case, even among the
most refined, had learned in her father's house, and by the
example of her own mother, to drink wine at table, and when
receiving the visits of her friends or when visiting them herself.
Little by little she began to drink, when alone, a few drops of
wine, at first by the advice of her physician, but soon only to
satisfy the craving appetite, which grew stronger day by day.
I was the only one, excepting her husband, who knew this fact
He was my intimate friend, and several times, with tears trickling
down his cheeks, he had requested me, in the name of God,
to persuade her to abstain from drinking. That young man
was so happy with his accomplished wife and his incomparably
beautiful child! He was rich, had a high position in the world,
numberless friends, and a palace for his home! Every time I
had spoken to that young lady, either when alone or in the
presence of her husband, she had shed tears of regret; she had
promised to reform, and take only the few glasses prescribed by
her doctor. But, alas! that fatal prescription of the doctor was
like the oil poured on the burning coals; it was kindling a fire
that nothing could quench. One day, which I will never forget,
a messenger came in haste and said: "Mr. A. wants you to come
to his home immediately. A terrible misfortune has just happened—his
beautiful child has just been killed. His wife is half
crazy; he fears lest she will kill herself."

I leaped into the elegant carriage, drawn by two fine horses,
and in a few minutes I was in the presence of the most distressing

spectacle I ever saw. The young lady, tearing her robes
into fragments, tearing her hair with her hands and cutting her
face with the nails of her fingers, was crying, "Oh! for God's
sake, give me a knife that I may cut my throat? I have killed
my child! My darling is dead! I am the murderess of my
own dear Lucy! My hands are reddened with her blood. Oh!
may I die with her!"

I was thunderstruck, and at first remained mute and motionless.
The young husband, with two other gentlemen, Dr.
Blanchet and Coroner Panet, were trying to hold the hands of
his unfortunate wife. He did not dare to speak. At last the
young wife, casting her eyes upon me, said: "Oh, dear Father
Chiniquy, for God's sake give me a knife that I may cut my
throat! When drunk, I took my precious darling in my arms
to kiss her; but I fell—her head struck the sharp corner of the
stove. Her brain and blood are there spread on the floor! My
child! my own child is dead! I have killed her! Cursed liquor!
Cursed wine! My child is dead! I am damned! Cursed
drink!"

I could not speak, but I could weep and cry. I wept, and
mingled my tears with those of that unfortunate mother. Then,
with an expression of desolation which pierced my soul as with
a sword, she said: "Go and see." I went to the next room, and
there I saw that once beautiful child, dead, her face covered with
her blood and brains! There was a large gap made in the right
temple. The drunken mother, by falling with her child in her
arms, had caused the head to strike with such a terrible force on
the stove that it upset on the floor. The burning coals were
spread on every side, and the house had been very nearly on fire.
But that very blow, with the awful death of her child, had
suddenly brought her to her senses, and put an end to her intoxication.
At a glance she saw the whole extent of her misfortune.
Her first thought had been to run to the sideboard, seize a large,
sharp knife, and cut her own throat. Providentially, her husband
was on the spot. With great difficulty, and after a terrible
struggle, he took the knife out of her hands and threw it into
the street through the window. It was then about five o'clock

in the afternoon. After an hour passed in indescribable agony
of mind and heart, I attempted to leave and go back to the
parsonage. But my unfortunate young friend requested me, in
the name of God, to spend the night with him. "You are the
only one," he said, "who can help us in this awful night. My
misfortune is great enough, without destroying our good name
by spreading it in public. I want to keep it as secret as possible.
With our physician and coroner, you are the only man on earth
whom I trust to help me. Please pass the night with us."

I remained, but tried in vain to calm the unfortunate mother.
She was constantly breaking our hearts with her lamentations—
her convulsive efforts to take her own life. Every minute she
was crying, "My child! my darling Lucy! Just when thy little
arms were so gently caressing me, and thy angelic kisses were
so sweet on my lips, I have slaughtered thee! When thou wert
pressing me on thy loving heart and kissing me, I, thy drunken
mother, gave thee the death blow! My hands are reddened
with thy blood! My breast is covered with thy brains! Oh!
for God's sake, my dear husband, take my life. I cannot consent
to live a day longer! My dear Father Chiniquy, give me a
knife, that I may mingle my blood with the blood of my child!
O that I could be buried in the same grave with her!"

In vain I tried to speak to her of the mercies of God towards
sinners; she would not listen to anything I could say; she was
absolutely deaf to my voice. At about ten o'clock, she had a
most terrible fit of anguish and terror. Though we were four
men to keep her quiet, she was stronger than we all. She was
stronger than a giant. She slipped from our hands and ran to
the room where the dead child was lying in her cradle. Grasping
the cold body in her hands, she tore the bands of white linen
which had been put round the head to cover the horrible wound,
and with cries of desolation she pressed her lips, her cheeks, her
very eyes, on the horrible gap from which the brain and blood
were oozing, as if wanting to heal it and recall the poor dear
one to life.

"My darling, my beloved, my own dear Lucy," she cried,
"open thy eyes—look again at thy mother! Give me a kiss!

Press me again to thy bosom! But thine eyes are shut! Thy
lips are cold! Thou dost not smile on me any longer! Thou
art dead, and I, thy mother, have slaughtered thee! Canst thou
forgive me thy death? Canst thou ask Jesus Christ, our
Saviour, to forgive me? Canst thou ask the blessed Virgin
Mary to pray for me? Will I never see thee again? Ah, no!
I am lost—I am damned! I am a drunken mother who has
murdered her own darling Lucy! There is no mercy for the
drunken mother, the murderess of her own child."

And when speaking thus to her child, she was sometimes
kneeling down, then running around the room as if flying before
a phantom.

But even then, she was constantly pressing the motionless
body to her bosom, or convulsively passing her lips and cheeks
over the horrible wound, so that her lips, her whole face, her
breast and hands, were literally besmeared with the blood flowing
from the wound. I will not say that we were all weeping and
crying, for the words "weeping and crying" cannot express
the desolation—the horror we felt. At about eleven o'clock,
when on her knees, clasping her child to her bosom, she lifted
her eyes towards me, and said:

"Dear Father Chiniquy, why is it that I have not followed
your charitable advice when, still more with your tears than
with words, you tried so often to persuade me to give up the use
of those cursed intoxicating wines? How many times you have
given me the very words which come from heaven: `Wine is a
mocker; it bites as a serpent, and stings as an adder!' How
many times, in the name of my dear child, in the name of my
dear husband, in the name of God, you have asked me to give
up the use of those cursed drinks! But listen now to my prayer.
Go all over Canada; tell all the fathers never to put any intoxicating
drink before the eyes of their children. It was at my
father's table that I first learned to drink that wine which I will
curse during all eternity! Tell all the mothers never to taste
these abominable drinks. It was my mother who first taught
me to drink that wine which I will curse as long as God is!

"Take the blood of my child, and go redden with it the top

of the doors of every house in Canada, and say to all those who
dwell in those houses that that blood was shed by the hand of a
murderess mother when drunk. With that blood write on the
walls of every house in Canada that `wine is a mocker.' Tell
the French Canadians how, on the dead body of my child, I
have cursed that wine which has made me so wretchedly miserable
aud guilty."

She then stopped, as if to breathe a little for a few minutes
She added:

"In the name of God, tell me, can my child forgive me her
death? Can she ask God to look upon me with mercy? Can
she cause the blessed Virgin Mary to pray for me and obtain
my pardon?"

But before I could answer, she horrified us by the cries, "I
am lost! When drunk I killed my child! Cursed wine!"

And she fell a corpse on the floor. Torrents of blood were
flowing from her mouth on her dead child, which she was pressing
to her bosom even after her death!

That terrible drama was never revealed to the people of
Quebec. The coroner's inquest was that the child's death was
accidental, and that the distressed mother died from a broken
heart six hours after.

Two days later the unfortunate mother was buried, with the
body of her child clasped in her arms. Many tears were shed
on that tomb, and this dear little child's guardian angel must
have written with its blood on that tomb: "Wine is a mocker;
look not at it. It biteth like a serpent, and stings like an adder."
However, what I had just seen and heard could not be buried
and forgotten in the grave.

After such a terrible storm, I was in need of solitude and rest,
but above everything I was in need of praying. I shut myself
in my little room for two days, and there, alone, in the presence
of God, I meditated on the terrible justice and retribution which
He had called me to witness. The unfortunate woman had not
only been my penitent: she had been, with her husband, among
my dearest and most devoted friends. It was only lately that
she had become a slave to drunkenness. Before that, her piety

and sense of honor were of the most exalted kind known in the
Church of Rome. Her last words were not the commonplace
expressions which ordinary sinners proffer at the approach of
death; her words had a solemnity for me which almost transformed
them into oracles of God in my mind. Each of them
sounded in my ears as if an angel of God had touched the thousand
strings of my soul, to call my attention to a message from
heaven. Sometimes they resembled the terrible voice of thunder;
and again it seemed as if a seraph, with his golden harp,
were singing them in my ears, that I might prepare to fight
faithfully for the Lord against His gigantic enemy, alcohol.

In the middle of that horrible night, when the darkness
was most profound and the stillness fearful, was I awake, was I
sleeping? I do not know. But I saw the calm, beautiful and
cherished form of my dear mother standing by me, holding by
the hand the late murderess, still covered with the blood of her
child. Yes! my beloved mother was there standing before me;
and she said, with power and authority which engraved every
one of her words on my soul, as if written with letters of tears,
blood and fire: "Go all over Canada; tell every father of a
family never to put any intoxicating drink before his children.
Tell all the mothers never to take a drop of those cursed wines
and drinks. Tell the whole people of Canada never to touch
nor look at the poisoned cup, filled with those cursed intoxicating
drinks. And thou, my beloved son, give up forever the use
of those detestable beverages, which are cursed in hell, in
heaven and on earth. It bites like a serpent; it stings like an
adder."

When the sound of that voice, so sweet and powerful, was
hushed, and my soul had ceased seeing that strange vision of the
night, I remained for some time exceedingly agitated and
troubled. I said to myself, "Is it possible that the terrible
things I have seen and heard these last few days will destroy my
mind, and send me to the lunatic asylum?"

I had hardly been able to take any sleep or food for the last
three days and nights, and I seriously feared lest the weakness
of my body would cause me to lose my reason. I then threw

myself on my knees to weep and pray. This did me good. I
soon felt myself stronger and calmer.

Raising again my mind to God, I said: "O my God, let
me know thy holy will, and grant me the grace to do it. Do
the voices I have just heard come from thee? Hast thou really
sent one of the angels of thy mercy, under the form of my beloved
mother? or is all this nothing but the vain dreams of my
distressed mind?

"Is it thy will, O my God, that I should go and tell my
country what thou hast so providentially taught me of the horrible
and unsuspected injuries which wine and strong drink cause
to the bodies as well as to the souls of men? Or is it thy will
that I should conceal from the eyes of the world the wonderful
things thou hast made known to me, and that I might bury them
with me in my grave?"

As quick as lightning the answer was suggested to me.
"What I have taught thee in secret, go and tell it on the housetops!"
Overwhelmed with an unspeakable emotion, and my
heart filled with a power which was not mine, I raised my hands
toward heaven, and said to my God:

"For my dear Saviour Jesus' sake, and for the good of my
country, O my God, I promise that I will never make any use
of intoxicating drinks; I will, moreover, do all in my power to
persuade the other priests and the people to make the same
sacrifice!"

Fifty years have passed since I took that pledge, and,
thanks be to God, I have kept it.

For the next two years, I was the only priest in Canada who
abstained from the use of wine and other intoxicating drinks;
and God only knows what I had to suffer all that time—what
sneers, and rebukes and insults, of every kind, I had silently to
bear! How many times the epithets of fanatic, hypocrite, reformer,
half-heretic, have been whispered into my ear, not only
by the priests, but also by the bishops.

But I was sure that my God knew the motives of my actions,
and, by His grace, I remained calm and patient. In His infinite
mercy, He has looked down upon His unprofitable servant and

has taken his part. He had himself chosen the day when my
humiliations were to be turned into great joy. The day came
when I saw those same priests and bishops, at the head of their
people, receiving the pledge and blessing of temperance from
my hands. Those very bishops who had unanimously, at first,
condemned me, soon invited the first citizens of their cities to
present me with a golden medal, as a token of their esteem, after
giving me, officially, the title of "Apostle of Temperance of
Canada." The Governor and the two Chambers of Parliament
of Canada voted me public thanks in 1851, and presented me
£500 as a public testimony of their kind feelings for what had
been done in the cause of temperance. It was the will of my
God, that I should see, with my own eyes, my dear Canada taking
the pledge of temperance and giving up the use of intoxicating
drinks. How many tears were dried in those days!
Thousands and thousands of broken hearts were consoled and
filled with joy. Happiness and abundance reigned in many once
desolate homes, and the name of our merciful God was blessed
everywhere in my beloved country. Surely this was not the
work of poor Chiniquy!

It was the Lord's work, for the Lord, who is wonderful in
all His doings, had once more chosen the weakest instrument
to show His mercy towards the children of men. He had called
the most unprofitable of His servants to do the greatest work of
reform, Canada has ever seen, that the praise and glory might be
given to Him, and Him alone!