Mr. Tetu was anxious to buy his skins; his only difficulty was the high price asked by the merchant. For nearly an hour he had turned over and over again the beautiful skins, and had spent all his eloquence on trying to bring down their price, when the sexton arrived, and told him, respectfully: “Mr. le Cure, there are a couple of people waiting for you with a child to be baptized.” “Very well,” said the curate, “I will go immediately;” and addressing the merchant, he said: “Please wait a moment; I will not be long absent.”
In two minutes after, the curate had donned the surplice, and was going at full speed through the prayers and ceremonies of Baptism. For, to be fair and true towards Mr. Tetu (and I might say the same thing of the greatest part of the priests I have known), it must be acknowledged that he was very exact in all his ministerial duties; yet he was in this case going through them by steam, if not by electricity. He was soon at the end. But, after the sacrament was administered, we were enjoined, then, to repeat an exhortation to the godfathers and godmothers, from the ritual which we all knew by heart, and which began with these words: “Godfather and godmothers: you have brought a sinner to the church, but you will take back a saint!”
As the vestry was full of people who had come to confess, Mr. Tetu thought that it was his duty to speak with more emphasis than usual in order to have his instructions heard and felt by everyone. But instead of saying, “Godfather and godmother, you have brought a sinner to the church, you will take back a saint!” he, with great force and unction, said: “Godfather and godmother, you have brought a sinner to the church, you will take back a seal skin!”
No words can describe the uncontrollable burst and roar of laughter among the crowd, when they heard that the baptized child was just changed into a “seal skin.” Unable to contain themselves, or do any serious thing, they left the vestry to go home and laugh to their heart’s content.
But the most comic part of this blunder was the sang froid and the calmness with which Mr. Tetu, turning towards me, said: “Will you be kind enough to tell me the cause of that indecent and universal laughing in the midst of such a solemn action as the baptism of this child?”
I tried to tell him his blunder; but for some time it was impossible to express myself. My laughing propensities were so much excited, and the convulsive laughter of the whole multitude made such a noise, that he would not have heard me had I been able to answer him. It was only when the greatest part of the crowd had left that I could reveal to Mr. Tetu that he had changed the baptized baby into a “seal skin!” He heartily laughed at his own blunder, and calmly went back to buy his seal skins. The next day the story went from house to house in Quebec, and caused everywhere such a laugh as they had not had since the birth of “General Cargo.”
That priest was a good type of the greatest part of the priests of Canada: Fine fellows—social and jovial gentlemen—as fond of smoking their cigars as of chewing their tobacco and using their snuff; fond of fast horses; repeating the prayers of their breviary and going through the performance of their ministerial duties with as much speed as possible. With a good number of books in their libraries, but knowing nothing of them but the titles; possessing the Bible, but ignorant of its contents; believing that they had the light, when they were in awful darkness; preaching the most monstrous doctrines as the gospel of truth; considering themselves the only true Christians in the world, when they worshipped the most contemptible idols made with hands. Absolutely ignorant of the Word of God, while they proclaimed and believed themselves to be the lights of the world. Unfortunate, blind men, leading the blind into the ditch!
Chapter XXV.
SIMONY—STRANGE AND SACRILEGIOUS TRAFFIC IN THE SO-CALLED BODY AND BLOOD OF CHRIST—ENORMOUS SUMS OF MONEY MADE BY THE SALE OF MASSES—THE SOCIETY OF THREE MASSES ABOLISHED AND THE SOCIETY OF ONE MASS ESTABLISHED.
In one of the pleasant hours which we used invariably to pass after dinner, in the comfortable parlor of our parsonage, one of the vicars, Mr. Louis Parent, said to the Rev. Mr. Tetu: “I have handed this morning more than one hundred dollars to the bishop, as the price of the masses which my pious penitents have requested me to celebrate, the greatest part of them for the souls in purgatory. Every week I have to do the same thing, just as each of you, and every one of the hundreds of priests in Canada have to do. Now, I would like to know how the bishops can dispose of all these masses, and what they do with the large sums of money which go into their hands from every part of the country to have masses said. This question vexes me, and I would like to know your mind about it.”