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CHAPTER IV....concluded
That the Irish Catholic has had the hardest battle to fight, not only in New Brunswick, or the other British Provinces, but throughout the States, must be obvious to anyone who considers the circumstances under which he left his own country, and the prejudices, national and religious, which beset his path in the country of his adoption. An Irishman and a Catholic, poor, and perhaps illiterate--the latter the result of vicious laws rather than of any indifference on his part to learning--he had little in his favour, and almost everything against him. Many of the older settlers were the descendants of the Puritans of New England, and the sectarian prejudices of their fathers still survived in the breasts of their children. Indeed, it would be difficult to decide whether the feeling against the Irish Catholics was stronger when they were few in number, and their strength was altogether insignificant, or when they grew into an important section of the population, and their influence became perceptible in the politics as in the trade and commerce of the Province.
The prejudice which they had to encounter was neither latent nor slumbering--it was open and active; it met the Catholic Irishman in every rank of life and in every branch of industry, and nothing short of the indomitable energy which, throughout the American continent, the race have shown themselves to possess, could have raised so large a number of them in New Brunswick above the rudest . employment or the humblest fortune. And yet, while labour, rude or skilled, is the lot of the majority of the Irish in St. John, and throughout the province generally, a considerable proportion are to be found in every department of business, and enjoy, as merchants, traders, and manufacturers, the highest position which character and wealth can secure to their possessor. And not only is it true that the mercantile and trading class among the Irish Catholics are equal in enterprise, and even `go-aheadishness,' to the most advanced of those who have caught the right spirit from their neighbours of the States, but there is a large amount of property held by the working classes. And this applies with equal accuracy to Frederickton, Woodstock, Chatham, Chediac,--wherever the Irish have established themselves in numbers, or had a fair opening for the exercise of industry, intelligence, and thrift. The Irish Protestant had fewer difficulties to encounter than his Catholic countrymen, and he is generally to be found in flourishing circumstances. Similarity of religion with that of the wealthier portion of the mass of the population was always of great assistance to the Protestant emigrant to America.
The history of the Catholic Church throughout America is also the history of the Irish race in the New World. This is as true of the British Provinces, with the exception of Lower Canada, as of the United States. From this point of view it may prove interesting to describe briefly the growth and progress of the Church in New Brunswick.
It is little more than fifty years since a Kilkenny collegian was ordained in Quebec by the Bishop of that city, whose spiritual jurisdiction then extended over New Brunswick and other maritime provinces of North America. Father Dollard--for that was the young priest's name--was sent to Cape Breton as a missionary among the Indians, who, having been originally converted by the Jesuits, those faithful and fearless soldiers of the Cross, adhered with remarkable fidelity to the religion taught them by the 'black gowns.' While with this simple flock the young Irish missionary led a life of the severest hardship. Living with them in their camps, he shared with them all the privations to which they were peculiarly exposed. Many years after, when Bishop of Frederickton, the venerable priest would take delight in narrating anecdotes of his mission among the `Red Skins.'
Father Dollard was summoned on one occasion to visit an Indian who lay at the point of death far away in the forest--a distance of twenty-seven miles. It was midwinter, and the ground was everywhere covered with deep snow. Accompanied by his guide, armed with a stout staff, and his feet protected by snow shoes, the priest was soon on his way. Before starting he shared his breakfast with his companion, who, with commendable forethought, but much to the disgust of his reverend friend, coolly took from the table the remnant of the meat, rolled it in a rag of most uninviting appearance, and placed it in his pouch, which he hid away in his breast. When the travellers had accomplished ten miles of their arduous journey, they sat down on a fallen tree to rest. Here the Indian drew forth his treasure from its hiding-place, unrolled the unpleasant-looking rag with much solemnity, and, cutting off a portion of the meat, politely handed it to the missionary, saying, 'Father, you take bit of this?' The young priest shuddered at the proffered dainty, but quietly declined the courteous invitation, on the plea of not being hungry. 'Then me eat it, Father,' said the Indian, who devoured the morsel with every appearance of the most intense relish.
At the end of five miles more of weary trudging through the snow, the pair again rested, the priest feeling faint as well as tired. Again the Indian drew forth his treasure, which the priest now viewed with somewhat different feelings to what he had beheld it on previous occasions, and not with the same involuntary rising of the gorge. Cutting off a liberal portion, the Red Skin, with an insinuating manner, and in the softest voice, said, `Father, maybe you take some now?' `Yes, my child, I think I will,' replied the priest. `And, my dear sir,' said the Bishop of Frederickton, `I can assure you I never ate anything sweeter in all my life.'
While still among the Indians of Cape Breton, Father Dollard had to remain for the night in a strange wigwam, and there being no kind of bed in the miserable dwelling, a couch, formed of fresh green boughs, torn from a neighbouring tree, was constructed for his use. On this he lay down to rest, but he was awakened in the middle of the night by excruciating pains in his back and shoulders, and in the morning he was throwing up blood. Compelled to return to Montreal, where he could obtain medical assistance, he was for two years an invalid, half the time being spent in the hospital. Restored at length to health--so fervently prayed for by the zealous missionary--he was sent to Miramichi, in New Brunswick, this new field of his labours extending over an immense tract of uninhabited country, his flock consisting of tribes of Indians, and a few scattered French, Scotch, and Irish. When on sick or missionary duty, he travelled along the river and its tributaries in a canoe, always accompanied by an Indian; and many a time, when neither wigwam nor log-hut was within possible reach, the priest and his faithful guide had to pass the night on the bare ground, under the welcome shelter of their upturned canoe.
From Miramichi Father Dollard was transferred to Frederickton, the capital of New Brunswick. While here the smallpox, that awful scourge of the uncivilised races of man, made its dreaded appearance among the neighbouring Indians in whose camps it committed deplorable ravages. It was at such a moment that the Irish priest displayed the courage and self-devotion which formed so noble a feature in his character. When the timid savages fled in horror from the mysterious enemy that was hourly striking down their stoutest braves, and making desolate their wigwams, Father Dollard knelt by the rude couch of the sufferer, nursed him, and prayed with him, and consoled him; and when death released the soul of the poor Indian from its swollen and ghastly tenement of clay, the dauntless priest took that festering body in his arms or on his back, and with his own hands placed it in the grave which he had previously dug for its reception. Is it to be wondered at that the Church should have made the progress it has done, when such was the spirit of its early missionaries?
Father Dollard remained at Frederickton until 1842, when he was consecrated Bishop of New Brunswick. At the time he commenced his mission there were not more than four or five priests in the entire province.
Father Gagnon, a French Canadian, was one of these spiritual pioneers, and his duty took him along that portion of the northern shore of which Shediac may be described as the centre. And rough times they were with the missionary, who had to encounter the wild blast and the perilous wave, as he skirted the dangerous shore in an open boat, which he was himself often obliged to row. Not unfrequently did he experience the inconvenience of being wrecked; and more than once had the tall gaunt priest to wade to land, some cherished article of property or provision held high above the raging waters, to save it from destruction. Depending a good deal on this uncertain means of communication, Father Gagnon paid irregular visits to the widely scattered settlements of his extensive mission. In the same district in which the Canadian priest thus pursued his sacred calling, there were in 1866 six large and populous parishes, with good churches and resident clergymen.
We now turn to St. John, the centre of a great and growing diocese. There are men still living--I have spoken with some of them--who remember the time when they could name every Catholic then in that city. One of these, a Catholic magistrate, informed me that when he arrived from Ireland, in the year 1818, there was but 'a mere handful' of the faithful in the town; and he well remembered how 'one Andy Sullivan, a tailor from Bandon,' had to read prayers for them in the church of St. Malachy--a little timber structure, which the poor congregation were years trying to cover in from the rain and the wind, and had no means of warming for fourteen bitter winters, until their numbers and their resources were increased. There was another reader besides the worthy tailor from Bandon--'one Flanagan, a college-bred man;' and the visits of a priest being then of only occasional occurrence, the congregation were glad of the services of one who could read with befitting impressiveness the Epistle and Gospel of the day, such prayers as were suitable to the occasion, with perhaps a chapter from the work of some pious divine, or a sermon from one of the lights of the Church. From a dozen, or at most twenty Catholic families, the number gradually increased, though to a still scanty congregation and feeble community; but from the year 1820 the tide of emigration commenced to flow in, slowly at first, eventually with greater strength and a fuller current, until, in a few years after, Catholics began to feel themselves to be an important portion of the population.
Slowly, laboriously, and amidst much difficulty and marked discouragement, the Irish Catholics grew year by year into a position both prominent and influential. The early Catholic settlers carried with them the impress of their civil and religious degradation; and even for a considerable time after the passing of the Emancipation Act the newcomers were regarded with aversion and mistrust by the old colonists, who likewise, and not unnaturally, looked upon them as interlopers and intruders. But, manfully and steadily, the Irish Catholics won their way, though not without many a hard fight and many a keenly-felt mortification, to political influence and social consideration. Now they kneel beneath the lofty roof of their magnificent cathedral, 200 feet in length, of solid stone, and built at a cost of 30,000l.; and among them, white-haired and venerable, a few of those who, in the wind-scourged shanty of 'the church of St. Malachy'--for which a stove could not be procured for fourteen long North American winters --listened with devout attention to the voice of Andy Sullivan, the tailor from Bandon, and to the more skilful elocution of `one Flanagan, the college-bred man.' Forty years since, an ordinary room would have afforded sufficient accommodation to the Catholic worshippers of that day: now congregations of 2,000 or 3,000 pour out on Sundays and holidays through the sculptured portals of the Church of the Immaculate Conception. On All Saints' Day I beheld such a congregation issuing from an early Mass, filling the street in front of the splendid building; and from the appearance of the thousands of well-dressed, respectable-looking people, who passed before me, I could appreciate not only the material progress of the Irish in St. John, but the marvellous development of the Catholic Church in that city.
On a plot of land, four acres in extent, and right in the heart of the town, are clustered the Cathedral, the Palace of the Bishop--of cut stone, and one of the finest structures of the kind in the British Provinces, indeed in America--the Convent of Charity, the Convent of the Sacred Heart, an Asylum for Orphans, and a Classical and Commercial Academy under the patronage of the Bishop. There are other churches, convents, and schools in the city, including the admirable schools of the Christian Brothers.
When the present estimable prelate first came on the mission in 1844, he had to travel distances of from sixty to eighty miles to attend 'sick calls,' and was frequently absent for more than six weeks at a time, travelling from mission to mission, saying Mass in log huts, and administering the sacrament to flocks scattered throughout a wide and thinly-populated district. There are now several resident clergymen in that district--outside St. John: and instead of the rude log hut of the past, there are now sixteen good churches, with large congregations. And all this change in the comparatively short space of two-and-twenty years.
There are two dioceses in the same province in which, fifty years since, there were but four missionaries. That of Chatham is presided over by Dr. Rogers, that of St. John by Dr. Sweeny. In the two dioceses there were in 1860 ninety churches and forty-five priests; and as rapidly as priests can be ordained, or obtained from the colleges in Ireland, there are missions awaiting their labours. When Dr. Sweeny was consecrated, in 1860, he had but nineteen priests in his diocese, whereas in 1866 the number had increased to thirty, and two young candidates for the ministry were to be ordained before the spring of 1867.
'Bishop, when we were boys, and when the old church of St. Malachy took so long in building, and when it was so many years before it could be closed in, little did the Catholics of that day think of building cathedrals and palaces for their bishops, and schools and convents.' This was the remark made in 1866 by an Episcopalian clergyman to Dr. Sweeny, as they stood near the group of buildings that present the most eloquent evidences of the numerical strength, material progress, and devoted zeal of the Irish Catholics of St. John. Little did those who listened to the Sunday readings of Andy Sullivan, the tailor from Bandon, or of `one Flanagan, the college-bred man,' dream of the possibility of a revolution so miraculous. And yet it has come to pass.
END OF CHAPTER IV.
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