It is also the great secret of their power and strength. It is this diabolical pride which nerves them with an iron will, to bring down everything to their feet; subject every human being to their will, and tie every neck to the wheels of their chariot. It is this fearful pride which so often gives them that stoical patience and indomitable courage in the midst of the most cruel pain, or in the face of the most appalling death, which so many deluded Protestants take for Christian courage and heroism. The priest of Rome believes that he is called by God Almighty to rule, subdue and govern the world. With all those prerogatives that he fancies granted him by heaven, he builds up a high pyramid, on the top of which he seats himself, and from that elevation looks down with the utmost contempt on the rest of the world.
If anyone suspects that I exaggerate in thus speaking of the pride of the priest, let him read the following haughty words which Cardinal Manning puts on the lips of the pope in one of his lectures:
“I acknowledge no civil power; I am the subject of no prince. I am more than this. I claim to be the supreme judge and director of the conscience of men: of the peasant who tills his field and of the prince who sits upon the throne; of the household that lives in the shade of privacy, and the legislator that makes laws for the kingdom. I am the sole, last, supreme judge of what is right or wrong.”
Is it not evident that the Holy Ghost speaks of this pride of the priests and of the pope—the high priest of Rome—when he says: “That man of sin, that son of perdition, who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped, so that he, as God, sits in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God.”
That caste pride which was in me, though I did not see it then, as it is in every priest of Rome, though he does not suspect it, had received a rude check, indeed, from that Protestant visitor. Yes, I must confess it, he had inflicted a deadly wound on my priestly pride; he had thrown a barbed arrow into my priestly soul which I tried many times, but always in vain, to take away. The more I attempted to get rid of this arrow, the deeper it went through my very bones and marrow. That strange visitor, who caused me to pass so many hours and days of humiliation, when forcing me to blush at the inferiority of the Christian principles of my Church compared with those of the Protestants, is well known in Canada, the United States and Great Britain, as the founder and first editor of two of the best religious papers of America, the Montreal Witness and the New York Witness. His name is John Dougall.
As he is still living, I am happy to have this opportunity of thanking and blessing him again for the visit he paid to the young curate of Beauport forty-five years ago.
I was not aware then that the wounds inflicted by that unknown but friendly hand was one of the great favors bestowed upon me by my merciful God; but I understand it now. Many rays of light have since come from the wounds which my priestly pride received that day. Those rays of light helped much to expel the darkness which surrounded me, by leading me to see, in spite of myself, that the vaunted holiness of the Church of Rome is a fraud.
Chapter XXXVIII.
ERECTION OF THE COLUMN OF TEMPERANCE—SCHOOL BUILDINGS—ADDRESSES—A NOBLE AND TOUCHING ACT OF THE PEOPLE OF BEAUPORT.
The battle fought and gained at the grand dinner of the Quebec Seminary by the society of temperance had been decisive.