Yet the curé's position is one of great strength and authority. He has his own income uncontrolled by the fabrique, which is master of the rest of the church finances. The curé's tithe consists of one twenty-sixth of the cereals produced by the parishioners. A further tithe he has: the twenty-sixth child born to any pair of his parishioners is by custom brought to the priest and he rears it; sometimes, strange to say, this tithe is offered! From his tithe on cereals the income is not large; at Malbaie it is probably never more than from $1000 to $1200 a year; sometimes much less. The average income of a curé is not more than $600. It is the custom for the parishioner to deliver duly at the priest's house one twenty-sixth of his grain and in the autumn a great array of vehicles may be seen making their way thither. Usually there is considerable variety in the grain thus brought but sometimes the curé is almost overwhelmed by a single product such as peas; one of their number, thus paid, the neighbouring clergy christened the "curé des pois." The French Canadian farmer is often narrowly penurious and if he will not pay, as sometimes happens, the curé rarely presses him or takes steps to recover what the law would allow. In any case a bad harvest is likely to leave the curé poor. Changes in the type of farming may also curtail his income. Of the products of dairy farming he gets no share, yet it is a creditable fact that many priests have urged their people to adopt this kind of farming. Fees for weddings which, in Protestant Churches, go usually to the minister, are in the Province of Quebec handed over to the general church fund. Of course the priest has sources of income other than the tithe. He receives fees for masses but the sums chargeable for these ceremonies are determined by the bishop; the priest himself has no power of undue exaction. There is indeed no evidence of a desire for such exaction. Whatever personal differences may arise, the French Canadian curé is usually one in thought and aim with his people. Wherever he goes he is always respectfully saluted. To him the needy turn and there are heavy calls upon his charity. Few curés have any surplus income. They keep up a large house and have constant need of one or more horses. Most curés, it is said, die poor.
It is the complaint in Great Britain and the United States that, rather than enter the Christian ministry, the best intellects are seeking secular pursuits. This is not the case in the Province of Quebec. The curés watch the promising boys in the schools. The Church has many boarding schools where boys are led on step by step to the final one of entering the priesthood. A promising boy, if he needs it, is given a scholarship. When the time comes he is sent to complete his education at Rome or elsewhere. The Church has selected him, trained him in her service, and, for the rest of his life, his best powers are at her call. Every family is ambitious to have a representative in the priesthood and this becomes the most notable thing not merely in the family but also in the parish. The Province of Quebec has many parish histories. These volumes are rather dreary reading, it must be admitted, consisting chiefly of the record of the building or improvement of the church and of the coming and the going of the curés. But one chief record is always found—that of the sons of the parish who have entered the priesthood. They are its glory. Not merely pride in the success of their offspring leads parents to wish for a son in the priesthood. He may bring to them more substantial benefits. He is the interpreter of sacred mysteries, the intercessor in some respects between God and man, and he will plead for them in the court of Heaven.
This ambition to get sons into the priesthood has made it possible now for the Church to rely wholly upon priests Canadian in origin. Not always was this the case. After the British conquest it was not easy to get priests. The British government frowned upon the introduction of priests from France, still Britain's arch-enemy. Irish priests were thought of, but they could not speak French and, besides, the Bishop of Quebec did not find in them the submissive obedience of the Canadian priest. For a time it was seriously proposed to supply Canada with priests from Savoy, since of them Britain could have no political fears. But for the time the French Revolution solved the question. Emigré priests, driven from France, could be in Canada no political danger to Great Britain since, like her, they desired the overthrow of the existing French government. So a good many emigré priests were brought out, among them Mr. Le Courtois, so long the curé of Malbaie. This movement soon spent itself. In time the Church in Canada had a number of seminaries for training priests and it now levies a heavy tithe upon the best intellects of the country. Recently a new emigration of French priests to Canada has taken place. But they have not been wholly welcome; their tone is not quite that of the Canadian priesthood; sometimes they assume patronizing airs and they are felt to be foreigners. I have even heard a French Canadian priest say in broken English to a Protestant from the Province of Ontario: "I feel that I have more in common with you than I have with the French priests who are flocking into this country."
The Canadian curé is the priest always. Unlike the clergy in other parts of Canada he wears his cassock even when he goes abroad; one sees dozens of these black robes in the streets, on the steamers and trains. He does not share in the amusement of other people. In Quebec Anglican clergymen play golf and tennis; probably if a curé did so he might be called to account by the bishop. Occasionally priests ride bicycles, but even this is looked upon with some suspicion. Into general society the priests go but little. They come together in each other's presbyteries for mutual counsel and to celebrate anniversaries, such as the 25th year of the ordination of one of their number. The large presbyteries, which one sees even in remote parishes, are necessary to house the visiting clergy on such occasions. They assist each other when their parishes have special fêtes. But their social intercourse is chiefly with each other. The courtly abbé of old France, a universal guest in salons and at dinner tables, is hardly found at all in the Province of Quebec. Nor is the scholar usual. Even in small parishes there are rarely less than 500 or 600 communicants and the calls upon the curé's time are heavy. There are, of course, priests of literary tastes; as there are those with a taste for art, to whom are due the occasional good pictures found in the parish churches. Some priests interest themselves in agriculture and give wise guidance to their people. But behind everything is the solemn, severe, exacting, conception of the priest's high function as the medium of God's speech to man. He is almost sexless—a being apart consecrated to an awe-inspiring office. A mother will sometimes quiet an unruly child by threatening the portentous intervention of the curé.
Yet he is the universal friend. His relation to his people is not merely official; it is affectionate, personal. The confessional makes him familiar with the intimate details of nearly every one's life. On all the joyous and sad crises, at births, marriages, and deaths, he is at hand with sympathy, comfort and support. When he goes on a journey he looks up not merely his own but his parishioners' friends and is welcome everywhere. He is the general counsellor, the reconciler of family quarrels, the arbitrator in differences, the guardian of morals. The seigneur at Malbaie found the priest enquiring as to the manner in which the male and female servants of the Manor were lodged.
Colonel Nairne thought that the Church was too willing to see the people remain ignorant; with her the primary virtue is obedience. But it is not less true that on moral questions, such as sobriety and purity, the Church has always shown great vigilance and zeal. In the old days there was a mighty struggle between the Bishop of Quebec and the governor Frontenac as to the sale of intoxicating liquors, and the Church is still keen for temperance. It is due to her that public drinking places are unknown in most Canadian villages. At Murray Bay it happened recently that, by some lapse in vigilance, the party favourable to the granting of licenses got the upper hand. The results were immediate and deplorable. Summer visitors frequently found their drivers under the influence of liquor and the habitant, usually courteous and respectful, was now often rude and quarrelsome. The sudden fall made one realize how slight might be the strength of virtue due merely to the absence of temptation. The Church saw the danger. In the following winter she began a systematic temperance campaign. For some ten days daily services were held at which eloquent denunciations of intemperance roused the people. Every effort was made to ensure attendance at these services and the parish church, a great structure, was well filled daily. Hundreds signed the pledge and by the next summer all was changed. No one was licensed to sell liquor and the community was sober. If the relapse had been rapid it must be admitted that the recovery was not less so.
The curé and his assistants do their work with the precision and regularity of a business man in his office. They watch education, and have their own educational ideals. In the public schools of the English-speaking world in America, manners and religion receive, alas, but slight attention. But in Quebec one need only pass along a country road to see that the children are taught respect and courtesy. The chief subject of instruction is religion and to prepare the children for the first communion seems to be the main aim of education. In the parish the priest is never far away. Nearly always one or other of the clergy is at the presbytery to answer calls of urgency, and their duties begin at an early hour. "I am very busy until nine o'clock in the morning," a curé once said to me. My comment was that most of us are only beginning the serious duties of the day at that hour. "But I am tired by that time," he said, rather sadly, "for already, so early in the day, I have heard much of human sin." The people come early in the morning to confess and by nine o'clock the curé was weary of the tale of man's frailty. Thursday is his day of recreation. Only on that day usually does he leave his parish and then he always arranges that a neighbouring priest shall be within call. This oversight is not spasmodic; it is persistent, alert, universal, and hardly varies with the individual curé. In human society there is no institution more perfectly organized than the Roman Catholic Church and in Quebec her traditions have a vitality and vigour lost perhaps in communities more initiated. Of course not every one accepts or heeds the curé's ministry. Many a mauvais sujet is careless or even defiant but, when his last moments come, at his bedside stands the priest to show to the repentant sinner the path of blessedness, and, when he is gone, his wayward course will give ground to call the living to earlier obedience.
In the Canadian parishes faith is simple, with a pronounced taste for the supernatural. In the year 1907 a Jesuit priest, M. Hudon, published at Montreal the life of Marie Catherine de Saint Augustin, 1632-1668, a Quebec nun. This devout lady lived in an atmosphere charged always with the supernatural. She knew of events before they happened; with demons who tempted her she had terrific combats; she read the thoughts of others with divine insight. Perhaps the climax of her experiences is found when she has regularly, as confessor and mentor, the Jesuit father and martyr Brébœuf, dead for some years. M. Hudon declared that he had submitted the evidence for these wonders to all the tests that modern scientific canons could require and that they were undoubtedly true. The Archbishop of Quebec, Mgr. Begin, wrote a prefatory note approving of the teaching of the book, and adding that Mother Marie Catherine's life could not fail to be an inspiration to young girls to live nobly. This simple belief in the constant occurrence of the supernatural is not found only in the remoter parishes of the Province of Quebec as a French Canadian writer seems to indicate;[31] it appears everywhere. All Christians believe in a God who shapes human events and hears and answers prayer. But many, Catholic and Protestant alike, believe that the energy of God, in response to man's appeal, is applied through the ordinary machinery of nature's laws. Modern thought is pervaded with the conception of nature's rigour. I have seen good Catholics shrug their shoulders at the wonders narrated by Marie Catherine de Saint Augustin. But others, and these not only the ignorant, think that this attitude shows the lack of a deeper faith. Must God and his saints, they ask, be confined within the narrow framework of nature's laws? Cannot He do all things?
So it is not strange that the Canadian peasant dwells in a world charged with the supernatural. Night furnishes the opportunity for goblins to be abroad; the flickering lights on the marshes are goblin fires. Then, too, the vagrant dead wander about restlessly, sinful souls refused entrance to Heaven until they have sought and secured adequate prayers for their pardon and relief. To cross a cemetery at night might attract the fatal vengeance of the dead thus disturbed. The grumbling mendicant at the door may really be an evil spirit bent on mischief. With a few, magic and the gift of the evil eye are still dreaded forces and it is well to know some charm by which evil may be averted. Since night is the time of danger, if abroad then be watchful; if at home close doors and windows, ere you go to sleep. I was once on a fishing expedition with habitant guides when we had to share the same cabane. The air becoming insufferable, I got up quietly, opened the door and went back to bed. Presently I heard one of the guides steal softly to the door and close it. When I thought he was asleep I opened it again. But in vain; once more it was closed. In the morning nothing was said about it. Certainly not cold was what he feared, for the weather was hot. I do not think it was the mosquitoes. Was it the goblins?
A simpler and touching faith is common. Every one has noticed in the Province of Quebec the numerous crosses by the way side. These Calvaires are of rough wood, usually eight or ten feet high; sometimes with the cross are the dread implements of Christ's pain—the crown of thorns, the hammer and nails, the executioner's ladder, the Roman soldier's spear. Often at the foot is a box for alms to help the forgotten dead who are in purgatory. As the habitant passes them he usually lifts his hat. The Calvaires are a kind of domestic altar to which the people come. In the summer evenings one may see a family grouped about them in prayer. When there is need for special prayers, several families will come across the fields to meet at the Calvaire. Dr. Henry, of whom more later, tells how at Malbaie some eighty years ago he found in the cottages social family worship night and morning. It is to be feared that the present generation at Malbaie is less devout, corrupted it may be by the heretic visitors' bad influence and example. But still the guide with whom one goes camping rarely neglects his evening devotions. In some families prayer sanctifies all the actions of the day. There is prayer at rising, prayer at going to bed. Though here, as in France, women are spoken of as only créatures, the mother is usually better educated than the father and often leads these devotions, the others joining in the responses. Before meals is recited a prayer, usually the Benedicite. There is often a family oratory and here at the appropriate seasons, in the month consecrated to the special family saint and guardian, in May, the Virgin's month, in June, that of the Sacred Heart, in November, "the month of the dead," special prayers are said. On Sunday evenings the family chant the Canticles. The Church's feasts are marked by festal signs such as the laying of the best rugs on the floor. If there is drought groups gather frequently at the Calvaires to pray for rain. Occasionally such supplications have a curiously commercial basis in frugal minds. A habitant's wife, learning that a near neighbour had made an offering to the curé for prayers for rain, declared that she would give nothing, since if rain fell on the neighbour's farm it would not stop there: "S'il mouille chez les Pierrot Benjamin, il mouillera ben icitte."[32]