QUEBEC MARINE HOSPITAL—THE FIRST TIME I CARRIED THE “BON DIEU” (THE
WAFER GOD) IN MY VEST POCKET—THE GRAND OYSTER SOIREE AT MR.
BUTEAU’S—THE REV. L. PARENT AND THE “BON DIEU” AT THE OYSTER SOIREE.
One of the first things done by the curate Tetu, after his new vicars
had been chosen, was to divide, by casting lots, his large parish into
four parts, that there might be more regularity in our ministerial
labors, and my lot gave me the northeast of the parish which contained
the Quebec Marine Hospital.
The number of sick sailors I had to visit almost every day in that noble
institution, was between twenty-five and a hundred. The Roman Catholic
chapel, with its beautiful altar was not yet completed. It was only in
1837 that I could persuade the hospital authorities to fix it as it is
to-day. Having no place there to celebrate mass and keep the Holy
Sacrament, I soon found myself in presence of a difficulty which, at
first, seemed to me of a grave character. I had to administer the
viaticum (holy communion) to a dying sailor. As every one knows, all
Roman Catholics are bound to believe that by the consecration, the wafer
is transformed into the body, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ. Hence,
they call that ceremony: “Porter le bon dieu au malade” (carry the good
God to the sick.) Till then, when in Charlesborough or St. Charles, I,
with the rest of Roman Catholic priests, always made use of pomp and
exterior marks of supreme respect for the Almighty God I was carrying in
my hands to the dying.
I had never carried the good God without being accompanied by several
people, walking or riding on horseback. I then wore a white surplice
over my long black robe (soutane) to strike the people with awe. There
was also a man ringing a bell before me, all along the way, to announce
to the people that the great God, who had not only created them, but had
made himself man to save them, by dying on Calvary, was passing by; that
they had to fall on their knees in their houses, or along the public
roads or in their fields, and prostrate themselves and adore him.
But could I do that in Quebec, where so many miserable heretics were
more disposed to laugh at my God than to adore him?
In my zeal and sincere faith, I was, however, determined to dare the
heretics of the whole world, and to expose myself to their insults,
rather than give up the exterior marks of supreme respect and adoration
which were due to my God everywhere; and twice I carried Him to the
hospital with the usual solemnity.
In vain my curate tried to persuade me to change my mind. I closed my
ears to his arguments. He then kindly invited me to go with him to the
bishop’s palace, in order to confer with him on that grave subject. How
can I express my dismay when the bishop told me, with a levity which I
had not yet observed in him, “that on account of the Protestants whom we
had to meet everywhere, it was better to make our ‘God’ travel
_incognito_ in the streets of Quebec.” He added in a high and jocose
tone: “Put Him in your vest pocket, as do the rest of the city priests.
Carry Him to your dying patients without any scruples. Never aim at
being a reformer and doing better than your venerable brethren in the
priesthood. We must not forget that we are a conquered people. If we
were masters, we would carry Him to the dying with the public honors we
used to give Him before the conquest; but the Protestants are the
stronger. Our governor is a Protestant, as well as our Queen. The
garrison which is inside the walls of their impregnable citadel, is
composed chiefly of Protestants. According to the laws of our holy
church, we have the right to punish, even by death, the miserable people
who turn into ridicule the mysteries of our holy religion: But though we
have that right, we are not strong enough to enforce it. We must, then,
bear the yoke in silence. After all, it is our God himself, who in his
inscrutable judgment, has deprived us of the power of honoring Him as He
deserves, and to tell you my whole mind as plainly as possible, it is
not our fault, but His own doing, so to speak, if we are forced to make
Him travel _incognito_ through our streets. It is one of the sad results
of the victory which the God of battles gave to the Heretics over us on
the plains of Abraham. If, in His good providence, we could break our
fetters, and become free to pass again the laws which regulated Canada
before the conquest, to prevent the heretics from settling among us,
then we would carry Him as we used to do in those happy days.”
“But,” said I, “when I walk in the streets with my good God in my vest
pocket, what will I do if I meet any friend who wants to shake hands and
have a joke with me?”
The bishop laughed and answered: “Tell your friend you are in a hurry,
and go your way as quickly as possible; but if there is no help, have
your talk and your joke with him, without any scruple of conscience. The
important point in this delicate matter is that the people should not
know that we are carrying our God through the streets _incognito_; for
this knowledge would surely shake and weaken their faith. The common
people are, more than we think, kept in our holy church, by the
impressing ceremonies of our processions and public marks of respect we
give to Jesus Christ, when we carry Him to the sick; for the people are
more easily persuaded by what they see with their eyes and touch with
their hands, than by what they hear with their ears.”
I submitted to the order of my ecclesiastical superior; but I would not
be honest, were I not to confess that I lost much of my spiritual joy
for some time in the administration of the viaticum. I continued to
believe as sincerely as I could, but the laughing words and light tone
of my bishop had fallen upon my soul as an icy cloud. The jocose way in
which he had spoken of what I had been taught to consider as the most
awful and adorable mystery of the church, left the impression on my mind
that he did not believe one iota of the dogma of transubstantiation. And
in spite of all my honest efforts to get rid of that suspicion, it grew
in my mind every time I met him to talk on any ministerial subject.
It took several years before I could accustom myself to carry my God in
my vest pocket as the other priests did, without any more ceremony than
with a piece of tobacco. So long as I was walking alone I felt happy. I
could then silently converse with my Saviour, and give Him all the
expressions of my love and adoration. It was my custom, then, to repeat
the 103d or 50th psalm of David,—or the Te Deum, or some other beautiful
hymn, or the _Pange Langua_, which I knew by heart. But no words can
express my sadness when, as it was very often the case, I met some
friends forcing me to shake hands with them, and began one of those idle
and common-place talks, so common everywhere.
With the utmost efforts, I had then to put a smiling mask on my face, in
order to conceal the expression of faith which are infallibly seen, in
spite of one’s self, if one is in the very act of adoration.
How, then, I earnestly cursed the day when my country had fallen under
the yoke of Protestants, whose presence in Quebec prevented me from
following the dictates of my conscience! How many times did I pray my
wafer god, whom I was personally pressing on my heart, to grant us an
opportunity to break those fetters, and destroy forever the power of
Protestant England over us! Then we should be free again, to give our
Saviour all the public honors which were to due his majesty. Then we
should put in force the laws by which no heretic had any right to settle
and live in Canada.
Not long after that conversation with the bishop, I found myself in a
circumstance which added much to my trouble and confusion of conscience
on that matter.
There was then, in Quebec, a merchant who had honorably raised himself
from a state of poverty, to the first rank among the wealthy merchants
of Canada. Though, a few years after, he was ruined by a series of most
terrible disasters, his name is still honored in Canada, as one of the
most industrious and honest merchants of our young country. His name was
James Buteau. He had built a magnificent house and furnished it in a
princely style.
In order to celebrate his “house warming” in a becoming style, he
invited a hundred guests from the elite of the city, among whom were all
the priests of the parishes. But in order not to frighten their prudery,
though the party was to be more of the nature of a ball than anything
else, Mr. Buteau had given it the modest name of an Oyster Soiree.
Just as the good curate Tetu, with his cheerful vicars was starting, a
messenger met us at the door, to say that Mr. Parent, the youngest
vicar, had called to carry the “Good God” to a dying woman.
Mr. Parent was born, and had passed his whole life in Quebec, in whose
seminary he had gone through a complete and brilliant course of study. I
think there was scarcely a funny song in the French language which he
could not sing. With a cheerful nature, he was the delight of the Quebec
society, by almost every member of which he was personally known.
His hair was constantly perfumed with the richest pomade, and the most
precious eaux de cologne surrounded him with an atmosphere of the
sweetest odors. With all these qualities and privileges, it is no wonder
that he was the confessor “_a la mode_” of the young ladies of Quebec.
The bright luminaries which hover around Jupiter are not more exact in
converging toward the brilliant star, than those pious young ladies were
in gathering around the confessional box of Mr. Parent every week or
fortnight.
The unexpected announcement of a call to the deathbed of one of his
poorest penitents, was not quite the most desirable thing for our dear
young friend, at such an hour. But he knew too well his duty to grumble.
He said to us: “Go before me and tell Mrs. Buteau that I will be in time
to get my share of the oysters.”
By chance, the sick house was on the way and not far from Mr. Buteau’s
splendid mansion. He left us to run to the altar and take the “Good God”
with him. We started for the soiree, but not without sympathizing with
our dear Mr. Parent, who would lose the most interesting part, for the
administration of the viaticum. The extreme unction, with the giving of
indulgences, _in articulo mortis_, and the exhortation to the dying, and
the people gathered from the neighborhood to witness those solemn rites,
could not take much less than three quarters, or even an hour of his
time. But, to my great surprise, we had not yet been ten minutes in the
magnificent parlor of our host, when I saw Mr. Parent, who like a
newborn butterfly, flying from flower to flower, was running from lady
to lady, joking, laughing, surpassing himself with his inimitable,
lovely and refined manners. I said to myself, how is it possible that he
has so quickly got rid of his unpalatable task with his dying penitent!
and I wanted an opportunity of being alone with him, to satisfy my
curiosity on that point. But it was pretty late in the evening, when I
had a chance to say to him; “We all feared lest your dying patient might
deprive us of the pleasure of your company the greater part of the
soiree!”
“Oh! Oh!” answered he, with a hearty laugh, “that intelligent woman had
the good common sense to die just two minutes before I entered her
house. I suppose that her guardian angel, knowing all about this
incomparable party, had dispatched the good soul to heaven a little
sooner than she expected, in my behalf.” I could not but smile at his
answer, which was given in a manner to make a stone laugh. “But,” said
I, “what have you done with the ‘Good God’ you carried with you?”
“Ah! ah! the Good God,” he replied in a jocose and subdued tone. “Well,
well! the ‘Good God’? He stands very still in my vest pocket. And if he
enjoys this princely festivity as well as we all do, he will surely
thank me for having brought him here, even _en survenant_. But do not
say a word of his presence here; it would spoil everything.”
That priest, who was only one year younger than myself, was one of my
dearest friends. Though his words rather smelt of the unbeliever and
blasphemer, I preferred to attribute them to the sweet champagne he had
drunk than to a real want of faith.
But I must confess that, though I had laughed very heartily at first,
his last utterance pained me so much that, from that moment to the end
of the soiree, I felt uneasy and confounded. My firm belief that my
Saviour Jesus Christ was there in person, kept a prisoner in my young
friend’s vest pocket, going to and fro from one young lady to the other,
witnessing the constant laughing, hearing the idle words, the light and
funny songs, made my whole soul shudder, and my heart sunk within me. By
times I wished I could fall on my knees to adore my Saviour, whom I
believed to be there. However, a mysterious voice was whispering in my
ear: “Are you not a fool to believe that you can make a God with a
wafer; and that Jesus Christ your Saviour and your God, can be kept a
prisoner, in spite of himself, in the vest pocket of a man? Do you not
see that your friend Parent, who has much more brains and intelligence
than you, does not believe a word of that dogma of transubstantiation?
Have you forgotten the unbeliever’s smile which you saw on the lips of
the bishop himself only a few days ago? Was not that laugh the
infallible proof that he also does not believe a particle of that
ridiculous dogma?”
With superhuman effort I tried, and succeeded partly, to stifle that
voice. But that struggle could not last long within my soul without
leaving its exterior marks on my face. Evidently a sad cloud was over my
eyes, for several of my most respectable friends, with Mr. and Mrs.
Buteau, kindly asked if I were sick.
At last I felt so confused at the repetition of the same suggestion by
so many, that I felt that I was only making a fool of myself by
remaining any longer in their midst. Angry with myself for my want of
moral strength in this hour of trial, I respectfully asked pardon from
my kind host for leaving their party before the end, on account of a
sudden indisposition.
The next day there was only one voice in Quebec, saying that young
Parent had been the lion of that brilliant soiree, and that the poor
young priest Chiniquy had been its fool.