he result was, that large
numbers of the Catholic working population resisted and even threatened
bloodshed. The clergy at first tolerated and even encouraged this
conduct: the Abbe Filiatrault, priest of St. James's Church, declared in
a sermon that, "if we are afflicted with smallpox, it is because we had
a carnival last winter, feasting the flesh, which has offended the Lord;
it is to punish our pride that God has sent us smallpox." The clerical
press went further: the Etendard exhorted the faithful to take up arms
rather than submit to vaccination, and at least one of the secular
papers was forced to pander to the same sentiment. The Board of Health
struggled against this superstition, and addressed a circular to the
Catholic clergy, imploring them to recommend vaccination; but, though
two or three complied with this request, the great majority were either
silent or openly hostile. The Oblate Fathers, whose church was situated
in the very heart of the infected district, continued to denounce
vaccination; the faithful were exhorted to rely on devotional exercises
of various sorts; under the sanction of the hierarchy a great procession
was ordered with a solemn appeal to the Virgin, and the use of the
rosary was carefully specified.

Meantime, the disease, which had nearly died out among the Protestants,
raged with ever-increasing virulence among the Catholics; and, the truth
becoming more and more clear, even to the most devout, proper measures
were at last enforced and the plague was stayed, though not until there
had been a fearful waste of life among these simple-hearted believers,
and germs of scepticism planted in the hearts of their children which
will bear fruit for generations to come.(325)

(325) For the opposition of concientious men to vaccination in England,
see Baron, Life of Jenner, as above; also vol. ii, p. 43; also Dun's
Life of Simpson, London, 1873, pp. 248, 249; also Works of Sir J. Y.
Simpson, vol. ii. For a multitude of statistics ahowing the diminution
of smallpox after the introduction of vaccination, see Russell, p.
380. For the striking record in London for 1890, see an article in the
Edinburgh review for January, 1891. The general statement referred to
was made in a speech some years since by Sir Spencer Wells. For recent
scattered cases of feeble opposition to vaccination by Protestant
ministers, see William White, The Great Delusion, London, 1885, passim.
For opposition of the Rom