Oh, dark deserted dwelling,
Where hope like a lamb was slain,
No voice from thy lone wails welling,
No light in thy window-pane!
Pathos is the very soul of poetry, and here we have it in abundance. Who that has watched, night after night, when home returning, for the “Light in the Window-pane?”, who will not feel its power when he realizes, without any strain of imagination that the hand that placed it there is cold and dead? All is dark in the window-pane, and the darkness of desolation reigns in the heart of him who returns nightly to that doubly-desolate home. We cannot realize this and not feel that Mr. Sangster’s verse is well worthy of the place in Canadian literature that it has already won.
de La Bruère, Hon. Pierre Boucher, St. Hyacinthe, Speaker of the Legislative Council of the Province of Quebec, was born in St. Hyacinthe, on the 5th of July, 1837. His father, Pierre Boucher de La Bruère, a physician, was a descendant of Pierre Boucher, at one time governor of Three Rivers under the French domination; and his mother was a descendant of an old French family of noble extraction, H. Boucher de La Broquerie. The ancestors of Hon. Mr. de La Bruère distinguished themselves during the war of 1812-13 between England and the United States, and the latter has still in his possession two flags presented to the battalion his grandfather, René B. de La Bruère, commanded, by Princess Charlotte of England, and the medal of Châteauguay, presented also to his grandfather by Queen Victoria. Mr. de La Bruère received his education at the College of St. Hyacinthe. In 1870 he was appointed prothonotary of the Superior Court for the district of St. Hyacinthe, and held the position until 1875, when he resigned to take the editorial chair of the Courier de St. Hyacinthe. He was one of the chief promoters of the Dairymen’s Association of the province of Quebec, and has been its president since its formation. The efforts he made to advance the interests of this industry in his province have been crowned with success, as it was amply proved when the association met in annual meeting at St. Hyacinthe, when the delegates received a right royal reception at the hands of their president. He was also one of the chief factors in the establishment of beet root sugar factories in Canada. In 1877 he was called to the Legislative Council of the province of Quebec; in March, 1882, Hon. Mr. Chapleau made him a member of his cabinet, and he was appointed Speaker, to which position he was re-appointed in January, 1887. Hon. Mr. de La Bruère is a lifelong Conservative, and has never flinched from his allegiance to the party. In his younger days he belonged to the active militia of Canada, and was lieutenant in the volunteer corps of St. Hyacinthe. He has written several historical and political pamphlets, among which may be mentioned “Le Canada sous le Domination Anglaise,” “Le Saguenay,” “De l’Education,” “L’Existence de l’homme,” “Le droit de tester,” and “L’Histoire de Saint Hyacinthe.” In January, 1861, he married Marie Victorine Leclère, daughter of the late Pierre Edouard Leclère, notary public.
Fulford, Francis, D.D., Lord Bishop of Montreal and Metropolitan of Canada, was born at Sidmouth on the 3rd of June, 1803. He was the second son of Baldwin Fulford, of Great Fulford, and came of an old English family who trace back their ancestry for more than six hundred years. He received the rudiments of his education at Tiverton, and entered Exeter College, Oxford, in 1821, and in 1824 took his degree of B.A., and was elected a fellow of his college in the following year. In 1826, at Norwich cathedral, he was ordained deacon, and priest at Exeter cathedral on the 22nd of June, 1828. In 1830 he married Mary, daughter of Andrew Berkeley Drummond, of Cadland, Hants, and the lady Mary, daughter of John, second earl of Egmont, and sister of the Right Honorable Spencer Percival, first lord of the treasury, and prime minister of England, who was murdered by Bellingham in the lobby of the House of Commons. After filling successive curacies in two parishes, Francis Fulford became rector of Trowbridge, in Wiltshire, and there resided from 1832 to 1842, and at the request of the government acted, for several years, as a magistrate. In 1838 he received his degree of M.A., and was appointed chaplain to her Royal Highness the late Duchess of Gloucester. In 1842 he resigned the position of rector of Trowbridge, and accepted that of Croydon, in Cambridgeshire, where he remained until 1845, when he removed to Mayfair as minister of Curzon chapel. This appointment he held until selected by Her Majesty as the first bishop of the new diocese of Montreal. The honorary degree of D.D. was conferred on him by the University of Oxford, and he was consecrated at Westminster Abbey on the 25th of July, 1850. On the 12th of September of the same year he, with his wife, and their son and daughter, arrived in Canada. At St. John’s he was met by the bishop of Quebec, and a number of the clergy and laity of Montreal. After divine service had been held in the parish church at St. Johns, an address of congratulation was presented by the clergy and churchwardens of the Richelieu district, and the whole party were hospitably entertained by a prominent layman of the place. On his arrival at Montreal he was warmly received by the clergy and laity, who presented several addresses of welcome expressive of an earnest desire to co-operate with him in his labors for the spread of the Gospel. On the following Sunday, the 15th September, 1850, the ceremony of the bishop’s enthronement took place at Christ church, which thenceforward became the Anglican cathedral of the diocese. On this occasion the bishop preached a sermon from the text: “Lord, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest.” It was remarkable for felicity of language and reverence of style; but especially, says a writer, “for the preacher’s modest and clear appreciation of the difficult duties of his office.” On the 11th of October, 1850, the Church Society of the diocese of Montreal was organized, and on the 10th of October, 1851, an auxiliary branch of the “Colonial Church and School Society,” of London, was formed for the district of Montreal, with his lordship as president. In 1860 he was promoted to the office of Metropolitan of Canada, which office he filled, with honor to himself and the cause of Christ, until his death. Bishop Fulford was one of the most self-denying, large-hearted, broad-minded Christians the record of whose life it has been our privilege to read. True to the Church of England, he was, nevertheless, anxious to promote good feeling amongst all denominations. On his first landing in Montreal, in answer to an address, he made the following remarks:—“While we are bound to seek, to provide for the wants of our own people, and I must ever remember my duty to the church of which I have been appointed a chief pastor and overseer, yet still I hope to cultivate a spirit of charity to all around me.” With this end in view he accepted the suggestion that denominational distinctions should not be perpetuated in the grave, and consecrated the cemetery of Montreal that was free to all who wished for a resting-place therein. There came a time when Christ Church, the cathedral church of his diocese, was so completely demolished by fire that it became necessary to build a new one, and of this building Bishop Fulford laid the corner stone on the 21st of May, 1857, and on Advent Sunday, 1859, he preached the opening sermon. The new cathedral, which those engaged in its construction had wished “should be beautiful exceedingly,” was, through the death of the architect and other unforeseen circumstances, burthened with an oppressive debt, which weighed heavily on the mind of the bishop, who, in his straightforward old world style, knew of but one way of liquidating—a way which bishops, clergy and laymen, under similar circumstances, might adopt to their credit. He moved to a small dwelling, and laid aside, not only every indulgence, but almost every convenience. “His new mansion was modest enough, for it was built for the official residence of the parish school master, and the school rooms became his salons for the reception of guests,” the whitewashed walls being decorated with maps, instead of pictures and statuary. Here the heir presumptive of Great Fulford, and Metropolitan of Canada, with his delicate, high-bred wife, lived for years, and practised economy so patiently and self-sacrificingly in order to attain the darling wish of his heart, namely, to see the cathedral free from debt, that his heroic example stands forth as a shining light to “lighten the darkness,” not only of those who give grudgingly but of those who fancy that social status depends upon the size of the domicile, the costliness of its decorations, and the silks, satins, and velvets with which they adorn their bodies, regardless of the fact that nobility is to be found in the heart and soul of the individual, not in the outside covering. It is believed he lived to know the pleasure of having the debt liquidated, and it was from this humble home, prepared for the parish schoolmaster, that the great and good Bishop Fulford, Metropolitan of Canada, passed to his eternal rest on the 9th of September, 1868. His remains were interred in Mount Royal cemetery, Montreal. Near to him lies a member of the Church of Scotland, and one of the most eminent and highly esteemed citizens of Montreal, the Honorable Peter McGill, “who loved the English prelate as one friend loves another,” and was happy to know that in death he would rest beside him.