Yes! let the people of Canada read the history of “La Nouvelle France,” and they will cease from presenting to us the courage of their priests as an indication of the divinity of their religion. For there they will see that the worshippers of the wooden gods of the forests have equalled, if not surpassed, in courage and self-denial in the face of death, the courage and self-denial of the priests of the wafer god of Rome.
Chapter XXIV.
I AM NAMED A VICAR OF ST. ROCH, QUEBEC CITY—THE REV. MR. TETU—TERTULLIAN—GENERAL CARGO—THE SEAL SKINS.
In the beginning of September, 1834, the Bishop Synaie gave me the enviable position of one of the vicars of St. Roch, Quebec, where the Rev. Mr. Tetu had been curate for about a year. He was one of the seventeen children of Mr. Francis Tetu, one of the most respectable and wealthy farmers of St. Thomas. Such was the amiability of character of my new curate, that I never saw him in bad humor a single time during the four years that it was my fortune to work under him in that parish. And although in my daily intercourse with him I sometimes unintentionally sorely tried his patience, I never heard an unkind word proceed from his lips.
He was a fine-looking man, tall and well-built, large forehead, blue eyes, a remarkably fine nose and rosy lips, only a little too feminine. His skin was very white for a man, but his fine short whiskers, which he knew so well how to trim, gave to his whole mien a manly and pleasant appearance.
He was the finest penman I ever saw; and by far the most skillful skater of the country. Nothing could surpass the agility and perfection with which he used to write his name on the ice with his skates. He was also fond of fast horses, and knew, to perfection, how to handle the most unmanageable steeds of Quebec. He really looked like Phaeton when, in a light and beautiful buggy, he held the reins of the fiery coursers which the rich bourgeois of the city liked to trust to him once or twice a week, that he might take a ride with one of his vicars to the surrounding country. Mr. Tetu was also fond of fine cigars and choice chewing tobacco. Like the late Pope Pius IX., he also constantly used the snuff-box. He would have been a pretty good preacher, had he not been born with a natural horror of books. I very seldom saw in his hands any other books than his breviary, and some treatises on the catechism: a book in his hands had almost the effect of opium on one’s brains, it put him to sleep. One day, when I had finished reading a volume of Tertullian, he felt much interested in what I said of the eloquence and learning of that celebrated Father of the Church, and expressed a desire to read it. I smilingly asked him if he were more than usual in need of sleep. He seriously answered me that he really wanted to read that work, and that he wished to begin its study just then. I lent him the volume, and he went immediately to his room in order to enrich his mind with the treasures of eloquence and wisdom of that celebrated writer of the primitive church. Half an hour after, suspecting what would occur, I went down to his room, and noiselessly opening the door, I found my dear Mr. Tetu sleeping on his soft sofa, and snoring to his heart’s content, while Tertullian was lying on the floor! I ran to the rooms of the other vicars, and told them: “Come and see how our good curate is studying Tertullian!”
There is no need to say that we had a hearty laugh at his expense. Unfortunately, the noise we made awoke him, and we then asked him: “What do you think of Tertullian?”
He rubbed his eyes, and answered, “Well! well! what is the matter? Are you not four very wicked men to laugh at the human frailties of your curate?” We for awhile called him Father Tertullian.
Another day he requested me to give him some English lessons. For, though my knowledge of English was then very limited, I was the only one of five priests who understood and could speak a few words of that language. I answered him that it would be as pleasant as it was easy for me to teach the little I knew of it, and I advised him to subscribe for the “Quebec Gazette,” that I might profit by the interesting matter which that paper used to give to its readers; and at the same time I should teach him to read and understand its contents.
The third time that I went to his room to give him his lesson, he gravely asked me: “Have you ever seen ‘General Cargo?’”