Chapter XXXVII.
VISIT OF A PROTESTANT STRANGER—HE THROWS AN ARROW
INTO MY PRIESTLY SOUL NEVER TO BE TAKEN OUT.
A FEW days before the arrival of Bishop de Forbin Janson, I
was alone in my study, considering my false position
toward my ecclesiastical superiors, on account of my establishing
the temperance society against their formal protest. My heart
was sad. My partial success had not blinded me to the reality
of my deplorable isolation from the great mass of the clergy.
With very few exceptions, they were speaking of me as a dangerous
man. They had even given me the nickname of "Le
reformateur au petit pied" (small-sized reformer), and were
losing no opportunity of showing me their supreme contempt
and indignation, for what they called my obstinacy.
In that sad hour, there were many clouds around my horizon,
and my mind was filled with anxiety; when, suddenly, a stranger
knocked at my door. He was a good-sized man, his smiling
lips and honest face were beaming with the utmost kindness.
His large and noble forehead told me, at once, that my visitor
was a man of superior intellect. His whole mien was that of a
true gentleman.
He pressed my hand with the cordiality of an old friend, and
giving me his name, he told me at once the object of his visit, in
these words.
"I do not come here only in my name; but it is in the name
of many, if not of all the English-speaking people of Quebec
and Canada. I want to tell you our admiration for the great reform
you have accomplished in Beauport. We know the stern
opposition of your superiors and fellow-priests to your efforts,
and we admire you more for that.
"Go on, sir, you have on your side the great God of heaven,
who has said to us all: `Look not thou 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, it stingeth like an
adder.'
"Take courage, sir," he added; "you have, on your side, the
Saviour of the world, Jesus Christ himself, who has inspired his
Apostle Paul to say: `I will not drink any wine if it can be a
cause of sin to my neighbor.' Fear not man, sir, when God the
Father, and His son, Jesus Christ, are on your side. If you find
any opposition from some quarter, and if deluded men turn you
into ridicule when gou are doing such a Christian work, bless the
Lord. For Jesus Christ has said: `Blessed are they who do
hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.
Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you,
and shall say all manner of evil against you, falsely, for my
sake.'
"I come also to tell you, sir, that if there are men who
oppose you, there are many more who are praying for you day
and night, asking our Heavenly Father to pour upon you His
most abundant blessings.
"Intoxicating drinks are the curse of this young country. It
is the most deadly foe of every father and mother, the most
implacable enemy of every child in Canada. It is the ruin of
our rich families, as well as the destruction of the poor.
"The use of intoxicating drinks, under any form or pretext
is an act of supreme folly; for alcohol kills the body and damns
the soul of its blind victim.
"You have, for the first time, raised the glorious banners of
temperance among the French Canadian people; though you are
alone, to-day, to lift it up, be not discouraged; for, before
long, you will see your intelligent countrymen rallying around it
to help you to fight and conquer.
"No doubt the seed you sow to-day is often watered with
your tears; but before long you will reap the richest crop,
and your heart will be filled with joy when your grateful country
will bless your name."
After a few other sentences of the same elevated sentiments,
he hardly gave me time enough to express my feelings of
gratitude, and said: "I know you are very busy, I do not want
to trespass upon your time. Good-bye, sir; may the Lord bless
you, and be your keeper in all your ways."
He pressed my hand, and soon disappeared. I would try,
in vain, to express what I felt when alone with my God, after
that strange and providential visit. My first thought was to fall
on my knees and thank that merciful God for having sent me
such a messenger to cheer me in one of the darkest hours of my
life; for every word from his lips had fallen on my wounded soul
as the oil of the Good Samaritan on the bleeding wounds of the
traveler to Jericho. There had been such an elevation of
thought, such a ring of true, simple but sublime faith and piety;
such love of man and fear of God in all that he had said. It
was the first time I had heard words so conformable to my
personal views and profound convictions on that subject. That
stranger, whose visit had passed as quickly as the visit of an
angel from God, had filled my heart with such joy and surprise
at the unexpected news that all the English-speaking people of
Canada were praying for me!
However, I did not fall on my knees to thank God; for my
sentiments of gratitude to God were suddenly chilled by the
unspeakable humiliation I felt when I considered that that
stranger was a Protestant!
The comparison I was forced to make between the noble
sentiments, the high philosophy, the Christian principles of that
Protestant layman with the low expressions of contempt, the
absolute want of generous and Christian thoughts of my bishop
and my fellow-priests when they were turning into ridicule that
temperance society which God was so visibly presenting to us as
the best, if not the only way, to save the thousands of drunkards
who were perishing around us, paralyzed my lips, bewildered
my mind, and made it impossible for me to utter a word of
prayer. My first sentiments of joy and of gratitude to God
soon gave way to sentiments of unspeakable shame and distress.
I was forced to acknowledge that these Protestants, whom
my Church had taught me, through all her councils, to anathematize
and curse as the damned slaves and followers of Satan,
were, in their principles of morality, higher above us than the
heavens are above the earth! I had to confess to myself that
those heretics, whom my Church had taught me to consider as
rebels against Christ and His Church, knew the laws of God
and followed them much more closely than ourselves. They
had raised themselves to the highest degree of Christian temperance,
when my bishops, with their priests, were swimming
in the deadly waters of drunkenness!
A voice seemed crying to me: "Where is the superiority of
holiness of your proud Church of Rome over those so-called
heretics, who follow more closely the counsels and precepts of
the gospel of Christ?"
I tried to stifle that voice, but I could not. Louder and
louder it was heard asking me: "Who is nearer God—the
bishop, who so obstinately opposes a reform which is so evidently
according to the Divine Word, or those earnest followers of the
gospel, who make the sacrifice of their old and most cherished
usages with such pleasure, when they see it is for the good of
their fellow-men and the glory of God?"
I wished then to be a hundred feet below the ground, in
order not to hear those questions answered within my soul.
But there was no help; I had to hear them, and to blush at the
reality before my eyes.
Pride! yes, diabolical pride! is the vice, par excellence, of
every priest of Rome. Just as he is taught to believe and say
that his church is far above every other church, so he is taught
to believe and say that, as a priest, he is above all the kings,
emperors, governors and presidents of this world. That pride
is the daily bread of the pope, the bishop, the priests, and even
the lowest layman in the Church of Rome.
It is also the great secret of their power and steength. It is
this diabolical pride which nerves them with an iron will, to
bring down everything to their feet; subject every human being
to their will, and tie every neck to the wheels of their chariot.
It is this fearful pride which so often gives them that stoical
patience and indomitable courage in the midst of the most cruel
pain, or in the face of the most appalling death, which so many
deluded Protestants take for Christian courage and heroism.
The priest of Rome believes that he is called by God Almighty
to rule, subdue and govern the world. With all those prerogatives
that he fancies granted him by heaven, he builds up a high
pyramid, on the top of which he seats himself, and from that
elevation looks down with the utmost contempt on the rest of
the world.
If anyone suspects that I exaggerate in thus speaking of the
pride of the priest, let him read the following haughty words
which Cardinal Manning puts on the lips of the pope in one of
his lectures:
"I acknowledge no civil power; I am the subject of no prince.
I am more than this. I claim to be the supreme judge and
director of the conscience of men: of the peasant who tills his
field and of the prince who sits upon the throne; of the household
that lives in the shade of privacy, and the legislator that
makes laws for the kingdom. I am the sole, last, supreme judge
of what is right or wrong."
Is it not evident that the Holy Ghost speaks of this pride of
the priests and of the pope—the high priest of Rome—when he
says: "That man of sin, that son of perdition, who opposeth
and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is
worshipped, so that he, as God, sits in the temple of God, showing
himself that he is God."
That caste pride which was in me, though I did not see it
then, as it is in every priest of Rome, though he does not suspect
it, had received a rude check, indeed, from that Protestant
visitor. Yes, I must confess it, he had inflicted a deadly wound
on my priestly pride; he had thrown a barbed arrow into my
priestly soul which I tried many times, but always in vain, to
take away. The more I attempted to get rid of this arrow, the
deeper it went through my very bones and marrow. That
strange visitor, who caused me to pass so many hours and days
of humiliation, when forcing me to blush at the inferiority
of the Christian principles of my Church compared with those
of the Protestants, is well known in Canada, the United States
and Great Britain, as the founder and first editor of two of the
best religious papers of America, the
Montreal Witness and the
New York Witness. His name is John Dougall.
As he is still living, I am happy to have this opportunity of
thanking and blessing him again for the visit he paid to the
young curate of Beauport forty-five years ago.
I was not aware then that the wounds inflicted by that unknown
but friendly hand was one of the great favors bestowed
upon me by my merciful God; but I understand it now. Many
rays of light have since come from the wounds which my
priestly pride received that day. Those rays of light helped
much to expel the darkness which surrounded me, by leading
me to see, in spite of myself, that the vaunted holiness of the
Church of Rome is a fraud.
