Chapter XXXVI.
THE GOD OF ROME EATEN BY A RAT.
HAS God given us ears to hear, eyes to see, and intelligence
to understand? The Pope says, no! But the Son of God
says, yes. One of the most severe rebukes of our Saviour to
His disciples, was for their not paying sufficient attention to
what their eyes had seen, their ears heard, and their intelligence
perceived. "Perceive ye not yet, neither understand? Have
ye your heart yet hardened? Having eyes, see ye not, having
ears, hear ye not? and do not ye remember?"—(Mark viii: 17,
18.)
This solemn appeal of our Saviour to our common sense, is
the most complete demolition of the whole fabric of Rome. The
day that a man ceases to believe that God would give us our
senses and our intelligence to ruin and deceive us, but that they
were given to guide us, he is lost to the Church of Rome. The
Pope knows it; hence the innumerable encyclicals, laws, and
regulations by which the Roman Catholics are warned not to
trust the testimony of their ears, eyes, or intelligence.
"Shut your eyes," says the Pope to his priests and people; "I
will keep mine opened, and I will see for you. Shut your ears,
for it is most dangerous for you to hear what is said in the world.
I will keep my ears opened, and will tell you what you must
know. Remember that to trust your own intelligence, in the
research of truth, and the knowledge of the Word of God, is
sure perdition. If you want to know anything, come to me: I
am the only sure infallible fountain of truth," saith the pope.
And this stupendous imposture is accepted by the people and
the priests of Rome with a mysterious facility, and retained with
a most desolating tenacity.
It is to them what the iron ring is to the nose of the ox,
when a rope is once tied to it. The poor animal loses its self-control.
Its natural strength and energies will avail it nothing;
it must go left or right, at the will of the one who holds the end
of the rope.
Reader, please have no contempt for the unfortunate priests
and people of Rome, but pity them, when you see them walking
in the ways into which intelligent beings ought not to take a
step. They cannot help it. The ring of the ox is at their nose,
and the Pope holds the end of the rope. Had it not been for
that ring, I would not have been long at the feet of the wafer
god of the Pope. Let me tell you of one of the shining rays of
truth, which were evidently sent by our merciful God, with a
mighty power, to open my eyes. But I could not follow it; the
iron ring was at my nose; and the Pope was holding the end of
the rope.
This was after I had been put at the head of the magnificent
parish of Beauport, in the spring of 1840. There was living at
"La jeune Lorette," an old retired priest, who was blind. He
was born in France, where he had been condemned to death,
under the Reign of Terror. Escaped from the guillotine, he
had fled to Canada, where the bishop of Quebec had put him in
the elevated post of Chaplain of the Ursuline Nunnery. He
had a fine voice, was a good musician, and had some pretensions
to the title of poet. Having composed a good number of church
hymns, he had been called "Pere Cantique," but his real name
was "Pere Daule." His faith and piety were of the most
exalted character among the Roman Catholics; though these did
not prevent him from being one of the most amiable and jovial
men I ever saw. But his blue eyes, sweet as the eyes of the
dove; his fine yellow hair, falling on his shoulders as a golden
fleece; his white, rosy cheeks, and his constantly smiling lips,
had been too much for the tender hearts of the good nuns. It
was not a secret that "Pere Cantique," when young, had made
several interesting conquests in the monastery. There was no
wonder at that. Indeed, how could that young and inexperienced
butterfly escape damaging his golden wings, at the numberless
burning lamps of the fair virgins? But the mantle of charity
had been put on the wounds which the old warrior had received
on that formidable battlefield, from which even the Davids,
Samsons, Solomons, and many others, had escaped only after
being mortally wounded.
To help the poor, blind priest, the curates around Quebec
used to keep him by turn in their parsonages, and give him the
care and marks of respect due to his old age. After the Rev.
Mr. Roy, curate of Charlesbourg, had kept him five or six
weeks, I had taken him to my parsonage. It was in the month
of May—a month entirely consecrated to the worship of the
Virgin Mary, to whom Father Daule was a most devoted priest.
His zeal was really inexhaustible, when trying to prove to us
how Mary was the surest foundation of the hope and salvation
of sinners; how she was constantly appeasing the just wrath of
her son Jesus, who, were it not for his love and respect to her
would have, long since, crushed us down.
The Councils of Rome have forbidden their blind priests to
say their mass; but on account of high piety, he had got from
the Pope the privilege of celebrating the short mass of the
Virgin, which he knew perfectly by heart. One morning,
when the old priest was at the altar, saying his mass, and I was
in the vestry, hearing the confessions of the people, the young
servant boy came to me in haste, and said, "Father Daule calls
you; please come quick."
Fearing something wrong had happened to my old friend, I
lost no time, and ran to him. I found him nervously tapping the
altar with his two hands, as in an anxious search for some very
precious thing. When very near to him, I said: "What do you
want?" He answered with a shriek of distress: "The good
god has disappeared from the altar. He is lost! (J'ai perdu le
Bon Dieu. Il est disparu de dessus l'autel!") Hoping that he
was mistaken, and that he had only thrown away the good god,
"Le Bon Dieu," on the floor, by some accident, I looked on the
altar, at his feet, everywhere I could suspect that the good god
might have been moved away by some mistake of the hand.
But the most minute search was of no avail; the good god could
not be found. I really felt stunned. At first, remembering the
thousand miracles I had read of the disappearance and marvellous
changes of form of the wafer god, it came to my mind that we
were in the presence of some great miracle; and that my eyes
were to see some of these great marvels of which the books of
the Church of Rome are filled. But I had soon to change my
mind, when a thought flashed through my memory, which
chilled the blood in my veins. The church of Beauport was
inhabited by a multitude of the boldest and most insolent rats I
have ever seen. Many times, when saying my mass, I had seen
the ugly nose of several of them, who, undoubtedly attracted by
the smell of the fresh wafer, wanted to make their breakfast
with the body, blood, soul and divinity of my Christ. But, as I
was constantly in motion, or praying with a loud voice, the rats
had invariably been frightened and fled away into their secret
quarters. I felt terror-stricken at the thought that the good
god (Le Bon Dieu) had been taken away and eaten by the
rats.
Father Daule so sincerely believed what all the priests of
Rome are bound to believe, that he had the power to turn the
wafer into God, that, after he had pronounced the words by
which the great marvel was wrought, he used to pass from five
to fifteen minutes in silent adoration. He was then as motionless
as a marble statue, and his feelings were so strong that often
torrents of tears used to flow from his eyes on his cheeks.
Leaning my head toward the distressed old priest, I asked him:
"Have you not remained, as you are used, a long time motionless,
in adoring the good god, after the consecration?"
He quickly answered, "Yes, but what has this to do with the
loss of the good god?'
I replied in a low voice, but with a real accent of distress and
awe, "Some rats have dragged and eaten the good god!"
"What do you say?" replied Father Daule. "The good
god carried away and eaten by rats?"
"Yes," I replied, "I have not the least doubt about it."
"My God! my God! what a dreadful calamity upon me!"
rejoined the old man; and raising his hands and his eyes to
heaven, he cried out again, "My God! my God! Why have
you not taken away my life before such a misfortune could fall
upon me!" He could not speak any longer; his voice was
choked by his sobs
At first, I did not know what to say; a thousand thoughts
some very grave, some exceedingly ludicrous, crossed my mind
more rapidly than I can say them. I stood there, as nailed to
the floor, by the old priest, who was weeping as a child, till he
asked me, with a voice broken by his sobs, "What must I do
now?" I answered him: "The Church has foreseen occurrences
of that kind, and provided for them the remedy. The
only thing you have to do is to get a new wafer, consecrate it,
and continue your mass as if nothing strange had occurred. I
will go and get you, just now, new bread." I went, without
losing a moment, to the vestry, got and brought a new wafer,
which he consecrated and turned into a new god, and finished
his mass, as I had told him. After it was over, I took the disconsolate
old priest by the hand to my parsonage for breakfast.
But all along the way he rent the air with his cries of distress.
He would hardly taste anything, for his soul was drowned in a
sea of trouble. I vainly tried to calm his feelings, by telling him
that it was no fault of his; that this strange and sad occurrence
was not the first of that kind; that it had been calmly foreseen
by the Church, which had told us what to do in these circumstances;
that there was no neglect, no fault, no offence against
God or man on his part.
But as he would not pay the least attention to what I said, I
felt the only thing I had to do was to remain silent and respect
his grief, by letting him unburden his heart by his lamentations
and tears.
I had hoped that his good common sense would help him to
overcome his feelings, but I was mistaken; his lamentations were
as long as those of Jeremiah, and the expressions of his grief as
bitter.
At last, I lost patience, and said: "My dear Father Daule,
allow me to tell you respectfully that it is quite time to stop these
lamentations and tears. Our great and just God cannot
like such an excess of sorrow and regret about a thing which
was only, and entirely, under the control of His power and
eternal wisdom."
"What do you say there?" replied the old priest, with a
vivacity which resembled anger.
"I say that, as it was not in your power to foresee or to
avoid that occurrence, you have not the least reason to act and
speak as you do. Let us keep our regrets and our tears for our
sins; we cannot shed too many tears on them. But there is no
sin here, and there must be some reasonable limit to our sorrow.
If anybody had to weep and regret without measure what has
happened, it would be Christ. For He alone could foresee that
event, and he alone could prevent it. Had it been His will to
oppose this sad and mysterious act, it was in His, not in our
power to prevent it. He alone has suffered from it, because it
was His will to suffer it."
"Mr. Chiniquy," he replied, "you are quite a young man,
and I see you have the want of attention and experience which
are often seen among young priests. You do not pay a sufficient
attention to the awful calamity which has just occurred
in your church. If you had more faith and piety you
would weep with me instead of laughing at my grief. How
can you speak so lightly of a thing which makes the angels of
God weep? Our dear Saviour dragged and eaten by rats!
Oh! great God! does not this surpass the humiliation and horrors
of Calvary?"
"My dear Father Daule," I replied, "allow me respectfully
to tell you that I understand, as well as you do, the nature of the
deplorable event of this morning. I would have given my blood
to prevent it. But let us look at that fact in its proper light.
It is not a moral action for us; it did not depend on our will
more than the spots of the sun. The only one who is accountable
for that fact is our God! For, again, I say, that He was
the only one who could foresee and prevent it. And, to give
you plainly my own mind, I tell you here that if I were God
Almighty, and a miserable rat would come to eat me, I would
strike him dead before he could touch me."
There is no need of confessing it here; every one who reads
these pages, and pays attention to this conversation, will understand
that my former so robust faith in my priestly power of
changing the wafer into my God had melted away and evaporated
from my mind, if not entirely, at least to a great extent.
Great and new lights had flashed through my soul in that
hour; evidently my God wanted to open my eyes to the awful
absurdities and impieties of a religion whose God could be
dragged and eaten by rats. Had I been faithful to the saving
lights which were in me then, I was saved in that very hour;
and before the end of that day I would have broken the shameful
chains by which the Pope had tied my neck to his idol of
bread. In that hour it seemed to me evident that the dogma of
transubstantiation was a most most monstrous imposture, and
my priesthood an insult to God and man.
My intelligence said to me with a thundering voice: "Do
not remain any longer the priest of a God whom you make every
day, and whom the rats can eat."
Though blind, Father Daule understood very well by the
stern accents of my voice, that my faith in the god whom he
had created that morning, and whom the rats had eaten, had
been seriously modified, if not entirely crumbled down. He
remained silent for some time, after which he invited me to
sit by him; and he spoke to me with a pathos and an authority
which my youth and his old age alone could justify. He gave
me the most awful rebuke I ever had; he opened on my
poor wavering intelligence, soul and heart, all the cataracts of
heaven. He overwhelmed me with a deluge of Holy Fathers,
Councils and infallible Popes, who had believed and preached
before the whole world, in all ages, the dogma of transubstantiation.
If I had paid attention to the voice of my intelligence, and
accepted the lights which my merciful God was giving me, I
could easily have smashed the arguments of the old priest of
Rome. But what has the intelligence to do in the Church of
Rome? What could my intelligence say? I was forbidden
to hear it. What was the weight of my poor, isolated intelligence,
when put in the balance against so many learned, holy
infallible intelligences?
Alas! I was not aware, then, that the weight of the intelligence
of God, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost was on my side;
and that, weighted against the intelligence of the Popes, they
were greater than all the words against a grain of sand.
One hour after, shedding tears of regret, I was at the feet of
Father Daule, in the confessional box, confessing the great sin I
had committed by doubting, for a moment, of the power of the
priests to change a wafer into God.
The old priest, whose voice had been like a lion's voice, when
speaking to the unbelieving curate of Beauport, had become
sweet as the voice of a lamb when he had me at his feet, confessing
my unbelief. He gave me my pardon. For my penance,
he forbade me ever to say a word on the sad end of the
god he had created that morning; for, said he: "This would
destroy the faith of the most sincere Roman Catholics." For
the other part of the penance, I had to go on my knees every
day, during nine days, before the fourteen images of the way of
the cross, and say a penitential psalm before every picture, which
I did. But the sixth day the skin of my knees was pierced, and
the blood was flowing freely. I suffered real torture every time
I kneeled down, and at every step I made. But it seemed to me
that these terrible tortures were nothing compared to my great
iniquity!
I had refused, for a moment, to believe that a man can create
his God with a wafer! and I had thought that a church which
adores a god eaten by rats must be an idolatrous church!
