I
never met with, at the same time that he was as ignorant as could be
conceived.

Such has not hitherto been the case with the Catholic priesthood of the
Canadas. The French Canadian clergy are a body of pious, exemplary men,
not perhaps shining in the galaxy of science, but unobtrusive,
gentlemanly, and an honour to the _soutane_ and _chasuble_.

The priests from Ireland are not numerous, for the Irish chapels were,
till very lately, generally presided over by Scotch missionaries; and I
can safely say that, whether Irish or Scotch, the Catholic priesthood of
Western Canada will not yield the palm to their Franco-Canadian brethren
of the cross, and that loyalty is deeply inculcated by them. I have long
and personally known and admired the late Bishop Mac Donell; a worthier
or a better man never existed. The highest and the lowest alike loved
him.

I saw him bending under the weight of years, passed in his ministry and
in the defence of his adopted country, just before he left Canada, to
lay his bones in his natal soil, preside over the ceremony of placing
the first stone of the Catholic seminary, for which he had given the
ground and funds to the utmost of his ability.

He was a large, venerable-looking man, unwieldy from the infirmities of
age and a life of toil and trouble; and the affecting and touching
portion of the scene before us was to see him supported on his right and
left by the arms of a Presbyterian colonel and a colonel of the Church
of England.

This is true Christianity, true charity--peace be to his soul!--

His successor was a Canadian, equally free from pretension and bigotry;
and he was succeeded by an Irishman, whose mission is to heal the wounds
of party and strife. He is living and in office; I cannot, therefore,
speak of him; but, differing as an Englishman so widely as I do in
religious tenets from his, I can freely assert that, if clergymen of
every denomination pursued the same course of brotherly love that he
does, we should hear no more of the fierce and undying contention about
subjects which should be covered with the veil of benevolence and
humility.

You cannot force a man to think as you do, to draw him into what you
conceive to be the true path; mildness and conciliation are much more
likely to effect your object than the Emperor of China's yellow stick.
The days of the Inquisition, of Judge Jefferies, and of Claverhouse, are
happily gone by; and the artillery of man's wrath