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 you 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 strength. 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.