Priest and Curate.
H. Hicks, Vicar.
AND 300 OTHERS.
I ANSWERED:
Gentlemen:—I thank you for the honor you do me by your address. But allow me to tell you, that the more I look upon the incalculable good resulting from the Temperance Reform I have established, nearly from one end of Canada to the other, the more I would deceive myself, were I to attribute to myself the whole merit of that blessed work.
If our God has chosen me, his so feeble servant, as the instrument of his infinite mercies towards our dear country; it is because he wanted us to understand that He alone could make the marvellous change we see everywhere, and that we shall give all the glory to Him.
It is more to the fervent prayers, and to the good examples of our venerable bishops and curates, than to my feeble efforts, that we owe the triumph of temperance in Canada; and it is my firm conviction that that holy cause will lose nothing by my absence.
Our merciful God has called me to another field. I have heard his voice. Though it is a great sacrifice for me to leave my own beloved country, I must go to work in the midst of a new people, in the distant lands of Illinois.
From many parts of Europe and Canada, multitudes are rushing towards the western territories of the United States, to secure to their families, the incalculable treasures which the good providence of God has scattered over those broad prairies.
Those emigrants are in need of priests. They are like those little ones of whom God speaks in his Word, who wanted bread and had nobody to give them any: “I have heard their cries, I have seen their wants.” And in spite of the great sacrifice I am called upon to make, I must bless the Good Master, who calls me to work in that vineyard, planted by his own hands, in those distant lands.