Page:Church and State.djvu/47

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to unite with those, both Catholic and Protestant in Quebec, who deplore and resent the attitude of the Hierarchy.

Let not our sister Provinces wrap themselves up in indifference—they will soon learn that what injures Quebec, injures them,—and that agitation and discord here, means trouble and disturbance at their own doors. It would ill become a man of my years and experience, even if it suited my taste, to use the language of menace, but I may fittingly employ words of entreaty and warning,—and I therefore do in the most earnest manner, pray for such sympathy and help as will arrest the designs of those who are now troubling us. Let the Roman Catholics (I speak wholly without reference to party terms) in Ontario and the Maritime Provinces, assure those of their own faith here, that they may rely on their aid,—and we shall soon see such a phalanx drawn from both political parties, and united with the Protestants, as will make the Hierarchy pause, and return to their proper sphere of teaching piety and morality to their people while living, and supporting them in death with the comforting assurance of happiness hereafter.

Permit me to recall a page from the past history of our noble Province. In 1836 the French Canadians, in the pursuit of many laudable reforms, mixed, unfortunately, with much that was national and sectional, allowed themselves to become involved in open contest with the supreme power, and with their English-speaking fellow-subjects. The issue was most disastrous, and for the time not only deprived them of all civil rights, but so seriously alarmed the minority, that, though possessing the control of the Government, the latter sought and obtained safety through union with Upper Canada. Should the encroachments of the Hierarchy,