Mr. Maguire commences his American tour at Halifax, which, he says, "an enthusiastic Hibernian once described as 'the wharf of the Atlantic.'" He finds that, in that city, and indeed, throughout the provinces generally, the Irish form an important and influential element in the population. Of Halifax he says in particular:
"This Irish element is everywhere discernible; in every description of business and in all branches of industry, in every class and in every condition of life, from the highest to the lowest. There are in other cities larger masses of Irish, some in which they are five times and even ten times as numerous as the whole population of Halifax; but it may be doubted if there are many cities of the entire continent of America in which they afford themselves fuller play for the exercise of their higher qualities than in the capital of Nova Scotia, where their moral worth keeps pace with their material prosperity."—P. 3.
Speaking of the progress of the faith in Nova Scotia, and of the arduous labors of the devoted missionaries of years past and present, our author relates some facts that will no doubt astonish his European readers. In America they are neither new nor strange; for what is told of Nova Scotia either applies, or has applied, within the memory of some living, in a greater or less degree, to every part of the new world.
"Within the last ten years a Nova Scotia priest has discharged the duties of a district extending considerably over one hundred miles in length; and while I was in Halifax, the archbishop appointed a clergyman to the charge of a mission which would necessitate his making journeys of more than that many miles in extent. And when a missionary priest, in 1842, the archbishop would make a three months' tour from Halifax to Dartmouth, a distance, going and returning, of 450 miles; and would frequently diverge ten or even twenty miles from the main line into the bush on either side, thus doing duty for a population of 10,000 Catholics who had no spiritual resource save in him and a decrepit fellow-laborer on the brink of the grave.
"It is not three years since a young Irish priest, then in the first year of his mission, received what, to him, was literally a death-summons. He was lying ill in bed when the 'sick call' reached his house, the pastor of the district being absent. The poor young man did not hesitate a moment; no matter what the consequence to himself, the dying Catholic should not be without the consolations of religion. To the dismay of those who knew of his intention, and who remonstrated in vain against what to them appeared to be an act of insanity, he started on his journey, a distance of thirty-six miles, which he accomplished on foot, in the midst of incessant rain. It is not possible to tell how often he paused involuntarily on that terrible march, or how he reeled and staggered as he approached its termination; but this much is well ascertained— that scarcely had he reached the sick man's bed, and performed the functions of his ministry, when he was conscious of his own approaching dissolution; and there being no brother priest to minister to him in his last hour, he administered the viaticum to himself, and died on the floor of what was then, indeed, a chamber of death. Here was a glorious ending of a life only well begun.
"Bermuda is included within the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Halifax, and to this fact is owing one of the most extraordinary instances of a 'sick call' on record. A Catholic lady in Bermuda was dying of a lingering disease, and knowing that further delay might be attended with consequences which she regarded as worse than death, she availed herself of the opportunity of a vessel then about to sail for Halifax to send for a clergyman of that city. The day the message was delivered to the clergyman, a vessel was to sail from Halifax to Bermuda, and he went on board at once, arrived in due course at the latter place, found the dying lady still alive, administered to her the rites of the church, and returned as soon as possible to his duties in Halifax; having, in obedience to this remarkable 'sick call, 'accomplished a journey of 1600 miles."—P. 16.
Not quite so interesting as this is the somewhat prolix account Mr. Maguire gives of his visit to Pictou, N. S., where he took passage for Prince Edward's Island. We do not think his readers would have sustained any loss by his omission of several pages in which a certain "Peter," resident in those parts, acted as his cicerone. "Peter" may have interested Mr. Maguire, but he will not interest his readers. There is one paragraph, however, in connection with the visit to Prince Edward's Island that we may not pass over here, for the reason that it, too, is of general application. Mr. Maguire is speaking of St. Dunstan's College in Charlottetown:
"This college is supplied with every modern requirement and appliance, and is under the able presidency of the Rev. Angus McDonald, a man well qualified for his important task, and whose title of 'Father Angus' is as affectionately pronounced by the most Irish of the Irish as if it were 'Father Larry,' or 'Father Pat.' The Irish love their own priests; but let the priest of any other nationality—English, Scotch, French, Belgian, or American—only exhibit sympathy with them, or treat them with kindness and affection, and at once he is as thoroughly 'their priest' as if he had been born on the banks of the Boyne or the Shannon. 'Father Dan' McDonald, the vicar-general, is a striking instance of the attachment borne by an Irish congregation to a good and kindly priest; and I now the more dwell on this thorough fusion of priest and people in love and sympathy, because of having witnessed with pain and sorrow the injurious results, alike to my countrymen and to the church, of forcing upon almost exclusively Irish congregations clergymen who, from their imperfect knowledge of the Irish tongue, could not for a long time make themselves understood by those over whom it was essential they should acquire a beneficial influence."—Pp. 46, 47.
Very interesting is our author's account of the Irish settlements in Prince Edward's Island and New Brunswick; one of the latter, Johnville, commenced within a few years, under the auspices of Right Rev. Dr. Sweeny, Bishop of New Brunswick, furnishes a striking proof of the advantages to be gained by settling on the land, instead of congregating in the over-crowded cities. The beneficent effect on their morals, the cultivation of kind feeling and fraternal charity amongst the settlers by the formation of these rural colonies is happily described in the following passage:
"The settlers of Johnville are invariably kind to each other, freely lending to a neighbor the aid which they may have the next day to solicit for themselves. By this mutual and ungrudging assistance, the construction of a dwelling, or the rolling of logs and piling them in a heap for future burning, has been quickly and easily accomplished; and crops have been cut and gathered in safety, which, without such neighborly aid, might have been irrecoverably lost. This necessary dependence on each other for mutual help in the hour of difficulty draws the scattered settlers together by ties of sympathy and friendship; and while none envy the progress of a neighbor, whose success is rather a subject for general congratulation, the affliction of one of these humble families brings a common sorrow to every home. I witnessed a touching illustration of this fraternal and Christian sympathy. Even in the heart of the primitive forest we have sickness, and death, and frenzied grief, just as in cities with histories that go back a thousand years. A few days previous to my visit a poor fellow had become mad, his insanity being attributed to the loss of his young wife, whose death left him a despairing widower with four infant children. He had just been conveyed to the lunatic asylum, and his orphans were already taken by the neighbors, and made part of their families."—P. 68.