On one of the beautiful spring days of 1818, my father was writing in his office, and my mother was working with her needle, singing one of her favorite hymns, and I was at the door, playing and talking to a fine robin which I had so perfectly trained that he followed me wherever I went. All of a sudden I saw the priest coming near the gate. The sight of him sent a thrill of uneasiness through my whole frame. It was his first visit to our home.
The priest was a person below the common stature, and had an unpleasant appearance—his shoulders were large and he was very corpulent; his hair was long and uncombed, and his double chin seemed to groan under the weight of his flabby cheeks.
I hastily ran to the door, and whispered to my parents, “M. le cure arrive” (“Mr. Curate is coming”). The last sound was hardly out of my lips, when the Rev. Mr. Courtois was at the door, and my father, shaking hands with him, gave him a welcome.
That priest was born in France, where he had a narrow escape, having been condemned to death under the bloody administration of Robespierre. He had found a refuge, with many other French priests in England, whence he came to Quebec, and the bishop of that place had given him the charge of the parish of Murray Bay.
His conversation was animated and interesting for the first quarter of an hour. It was a real pleasure to hear him. But of a sudden his countenance changed as if a dark cloud had come over his mind, and he stopped talking. My parents had kept themselves on a respectful reserve with the priest. They seemed to have no other mind than to listen to him. The silence which followed was exceedingly unpleasant for all the parties. It looked like the heavy hour which precedes a storm. At length the priest, addressing my father, said, “Mr. Chiniquy, is it true that you and your child read the Bible?”
“Yes, sir,” was the quick reply, “my little boy and I read the Bible, and what is still better, he has learned by heart a great number of its most interesting chapters. If you will allow it, Mr. Curate, he will give you some of them.”
“I did not come for that purpose,” abruptly replied the priest; “but do you not know that you are forbidden by the holy Council of Trent to read the Bible in French?”
“It makes very little difference to me whether I read the Bible in French, Greek or Latin,” answered my father, “for I understand these languages equally well.”
“But are you ignorant of the fact that you cannot allow your child to read the Bible?” replied the priest.
“My wife directs her own child in the reading of the Bible, and I cannot see that we commit any sin by continuing to do in future what we have done till now in that matter.”