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CHAPTER II....concluded
The sums mentioned as the results of honest industry, and self-reliance of the most elevated character, though respectable in amount, by no means indicate the position obtained by many Irishmen in the colony. There are instances of success in trade to which the possession of a couple of thousand pounds would be but a small affair indeed. However, the moderate success and modest independence of a considerable number in a community is far more indicative of general prosperity than the extraordinary success and the large possessions of a few; and it is satisfactory to know that the generally good position of the Irish in this small colony is not only a fact well established, but that it is admitted to be the result of integrity, intelligence, and good conduct.
The testimony of their Scotch Bishop is not to be overlooked; it is honouring to them and to him:
'They, the Irish, are a thrifty, industrious, energetic class of people, of a perseverance that would be worthy of imitation. They keep pace in all respects--in intelligence and education, in comfort and independence--with all other settlers.
As for the Irish girls, there could not be a more modest, chaste, and well-conducted class than the Catholics of the town and country. A cause of scandal is of the very rarest occurrence among them.
The Irish are economical when they settle down on the land. They live poorly at first, then save money, and acquire property where they can.
What they are they have made themselves. For one who came out with a dollar, ten have come out with a shilling.'
And testimony such as the foregoing is, to my knowledge, not without the highest official sanction in the colony.
The spiritual provision for the Catholic population of the island, now estimated at 40,000--French, Scotch, and Irish--is steadily on the increase. There are 42 churches and 18 priests, besides three convents of nuns, having the care of academies and schools, in which the children are carefully instructed in their faith.
Two buildings in Charlottetown attest more eloquently than words the history and progress of the Catholic Church in the colony. The one, now used as a school, denotes, by certain lines on its roof, that it had been more than once enlarged while used as the only church for Catholic worship in the capital--in fact, the cathedral. The other is the existing cathedral, a handsome and imposing structure, furnished with a valuable organ, and capable of accommodating the Catholics of the town, in number about 2,500, who, with but a few exceptions, are Irish, or their descendants of the first generation.
To the French, of whom some were the Acadians who had been so ruthlessly banished from their home in Nova Scotia, was the gift of the faith due in Prince Edward Island. Then came the Highland Scotch, strong in their fidelity to the religion of their gallant forefathers; and lastly the Irish, who brought their numbers and their zeal to swell the ranks of the Church and add to its importance and influence in the colony. The first missionary was Dr. McEachern, a Scotch priest, educated at Valadolid in Spain, who came to the island after the first Highland immigration. His was an extensive sheep-fold, and many aweary journey he had to make in looking after his widely-scattered flock. New Brunswick and Cape Breton were included within his jurisdiction, and frequently the faithful from Nova Scotia crossed the sea to seek religious consolation at his hands.
This first Bishop of Charlottetown was a man of energy and resources; for without any aid, save that which the zeal and piety of a small and much discouraged community supplied, he established a school, in which he educated two priests, who formed the nucleus of the future ecclesiastical establishment of the island, which gave eighteen priests and two bishops to the church. It having accomplished its great work, the Seminary of St. Andrews was closed; and in its place there is now an admirable institution, St. Dunstan's College, which was erected by Dr. McDonald, who devoted all his means to that praiseworthy object. This college is supplied with every modern requirement and appliance, and is under the able presidency of the Rev. Angus McDonald, a man well qualified for his important task, and whose title of 'Father Angus' is as affectionately pronounced by the most Irish of the Irish as if it were 'Father Larry' or 'Father Pat.' The Irish love their own priests; but let the priest of any nationality--English, Scotch, French, Belgian, or American--only exhibit sympathy with them, or treat them with kindness and affection, and at once he is as thoroughly 'their priest' as if he had been born on the banks of the Boyne or the Shannon. 'Father Dan' McDonald, the Vicar-General, is a striking instance of the attachment borne by an Irish congregation to a good and kindly priest; and I now the more dwell on this thorough fusion of priest and people in love and sympathy, because of having witnessed with pain and sorrow the injurious results, alike to my countrymen and to the Church, of forcing upon almost exclusively Irish congregations clergymen who, from their imperfect knowledge of the English tongue, could not for a long time make themselves understood by those over whom it was essential they should acquire a beneficial influence. This was glaringly the case in one Western diocese of the United States, where its existence was deplored to me by good men deeply devoted to their faith. But sympathy soon renders the most imperfect English intelligible to the affectionate Irish heart, and binds the priest to the congregation in those sacred relations which constitute the strength of the Church, and secure the safety of the flock.
A fact of which I heard, and an incident which I witnessed, will afford an idea of the vitality of the Catholic Church in Prince Edward Island, and exhibit the affectionate respect in which Irishmen in that distant colony hold those religious ladies who devote their lives to the education of the young.
At Tignish, where the Catholic element is very strong, and the Irish are in the proportion of one-third to the French, there is a beautiful church, of stone and brick, which would do credit to any city in the world; and this church was erected, at a cost of 12,000l., in the space of fourteen months! This church, as the bishop stated with just pride, 'was the spontaneous and voluntary offering of the people.' This was not the only effort recently made by the high-spirited citizens of Tignish; for in 1865 a spacious convent, 75 feet in length by 40 in depth, and three stories high, the material of brick, was erected in the same place.
Among the other conventual establishments of Prince Edward Island is a branch of the famous Congregation of Notre Dame. Besides a boarding school and day school for paying pupils, these Sisters also conduct a free school, which is at some distance from the house in which they reside. I here remarked with surprise, from its novelty to one who had just left a country in which religious distinctions are so strongly marked, that Protestants of various denominations, including those most prominent in their hostility to the Catholic Church, send their children to be instructed by the Sisters. As I passed through America, I found that this custom was almost universal. There are very grave reasons which induce parents to obtain for their children the watchful care and salutary influence of religious women, themselves models of gentleness and refinement; and whatever the natural prejudices of the parents, the desire to see their children refined, cultivated, and good, is still stronger. In some communities the motives which impel parents to prefer the teaching of 'the Sisters' are more pressing and powerful than in others; but though the most violent opposition is offered to the practice in many instances, it would appear to be generally on the increase, and even regarded as a matter of legitimate precaution on the part of those who adopt it. In Charlottetown there is no school which can in any way approach in excellence the academy of the Ladies of Notre Dame; which fact is of itself sufficient explanation of what would at first excite some surprise. The Ladies of Notre Dame are not cloistered nuns. Round for life by their vows, like other Orders, they can go about, visit, and teach in schools not under the roof of their convent.
The Sisters in Charlottetown, as I have said, teach in a free school which is not attached to their residence; and when the hard winter sets in, and the snow lies deep on the ground for months, the journey to and from the external school is not a little trying to delicate women. To provide against this inconvenience, and enable the Sisters to visit the sick, and transact their business with greater expedition and safety, the Catholics of the town presented them with an elegant close carriage and harness, all finished in the most admirable style of local workmanship; and this thoughtful present was accompanied with an address, which, written and read by an excellent Irishman (the Hon. Edward Wheelan), was a model of simplicity and brevity. The gift was received in a corresponding spirit to that in which it had its origin, and was acknowledged with graceful warmth on behalf of the gratified community. Among the deputation were such genuine Irish names as Brennan, Reddin, Connolly, Murphy, McCarron, McKenna, Wheelan, Riley, McQuaid, and Gaffney--all 'racy of the soil.'
A poor man might do much worse than turn his face to Prince Edward Island, where land can be had cheap, and where, to use the emphatic words of the Governor, 'the farmers clamour for help.' Here, however, as throughout the British provinces, I found the tendency of the young of both sexes was towards the United States, which offered the resistless attraction of higher wages and a wider field for individual enterprise.
END OF CHAPTER II.
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