Fifty Years in the Church of Rome

by Charles Paschal Telesphore Chiniquy

I immediately sent that letter to the bishop, asking his advice. In his answer he told me that he thought that Mr. Courjeault was wicked enough to fulfill his threats. He added: “Though I have not yet clear evidence of it, it is my fear that Mr. Lebel is united with Mr. Courjeault in the diabolical plot of burning your church of Bourbonnais. Several people have reported to me that he says that your presence there will be the ruin of that people, and the destruction of their church. Oh! to what extremities bad priests can go, when once they have given themselves to their unbridled passions! The first thing I would advise you, my dear Mr. Chiniquy, in the presence of such a terrible calamity, is to insure that church without delay. I have tried to do it here, but they have refused, under the pretext that it is an unfinished, frame building, and there are too many dangers of fire when people are still working at it.

“My impression is that Mr. Lebel is on intimate terms with some insurance gentlemen, and has frightened them by speaking of that rumor of danger, of which he is probably the father, with that miserable Courjeault. Perhaps you may have a better chance, by addressing yourself to some insurance company which you might find at Joliet or at Springfield.”

After vain efforts to insure the church, I wrote to the bishop: “The only way to escape the impending danger is to finish the church at once, and insure it after. I have just made a collection of $400 among the people of Bourbonnais, to which I added $300 from my own private resources, and will go to work immediately if your lordship has no objections.”

Having got the approbation of my superior, on the 1st of March I began to put the last hand to that building.

We worked almost day and night, till the 1st of May, when it was all finished. I dare affirm, that for a country place, that church was unsurpassed in beauty. The inside frame-work was all made of the splendid black oak of Bourbonnais, polished and varnished by most skillful men, and it looked like a mirror. Very seldom have I seen anything more grand and beautiful than the altar, made also of that precious black oak. It was late at night when, with my fellow-laborers, covered with dust and sweat, we could say with joy the solemn words, “It is finished!” Afterwards we sung the Te Deum.

Had I had any opportunity, at that late hour, it was my thought and desire to insure it. But I was forced to postpone this till the next Monday.

The next day (the first Sabbath of May, 1853), the sun seemed to come out from the horizon and rise above our heads with more than usual magnificence.

The air was calm and pure, and the numberless spring flowers of our gardens mingling their perfumes with the fragrant leaves of the splendid forest at the front of the village, the balmy atmosphere, the songs of the birds, seemed to tell us that this Sabbath day was to be the most happy one for me and my dear people of Bourbonnais. The church had never been so crowded. The hymns we sung had never been so melodious, and the words of gratitude which I addressed to my God, when I thanked him for the church he had given us, in which to adore and bless him, had never been so sincere and earnest: never had our tears of joy flowed so profusely as on that splendid and never-to-be-forgotten Sabbath.

Alas! who would suspect that, six hours later, the same people, gathered around the smoking ruins of their church, would rend the air with their cries of desolation! Such, however, was the case.

While taking my dinner, after the public service, two little boys, who had remained in the church to wait for the hour of the Catechism, ran to the parsonage, crying: “Fire! Fire!! Fire!!!”