Secretary.
No words from my pen can give an idea of the distress and shame I felt when these unmerited praises and public honors began to flow upon me. For, when the siren voice of my natural pride was near to deceive me, there was the noise of a sudden storm in my conscience, crying with a louder voice: “Chiniquy, thou art a sinner, unworthy of such honors.”
This conflict made me very miserable. I said to myself. “Are those great successes due to my merits, my virtues and my eloquence? No! Surely No! They are due to the great mercy of God for my dear country. Will I not forever be put to shame if I consent to these flattering voices which come to me from morning till night, to make me forget that to my God alone, and not to me, must be given the praise and glory of that marvellous reform?”
These praises were coming every day, thicker and thicker, through the thousand trumpets of the press, as well as through the addresses daily presented to me from the places which had been so thoroughly reformed.
Those unmerited honors were bestowed on me by multitudes who came in carriages and on horseback, bearing flags, with bands of music, to receive me on the borders of their parishes, where the last parishes had just brought me with the same kind of ovations.
Sometimes, the roads were lined on both sides, by thousands and thousands of maple, pine or spruce trees, which they had carried from distant forests, in spite of all my protests.
How many times the curates, who were sitting by me in the best carriages, drawn by the most splendid horses, asked me: “Why do you look so sad, when you see all these faces beaming with joy?” I answered, “I am sad, because these unmerited honors these good people do me, seems to be the shortest way the Devil has found to destroy me.”
“But the reform you have brought about is so admirable and so complete—the good which is done to the individuals, as well as to the whole country, is so great and universal, that the people want to show you their gratitude.”
“Do you know, my dear friends,” I answered, “that that marvellous change is too great to be the work of man? Is it not evidently the work of God? To Him, and Him alone, then we ought to give the praise and the glory.”
My constant habit, after these days of ovation, was to pass a part of the night in prayer to God, to the Virgin Mary, and to all the saints in heaven, to prevent me from being hurt by these worldly honors. It was my custom then to read the passion of Jesus Christ, from his triumphant entry into Jerusalem to his death on the cross, in order to prevent this shining dust from adhering to my soul. There was a verse of the gospel, which I used to repeat very often in the midst of those exhibitions of the vanities of this world: “What is a man profited if he should gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” (Matt. 16:26).