rn and there are heavy calls
upon his charity. Few cures have any surplus income. They keep up a
large house and have constant need of one or more horses. Most cures, 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
cures 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 cures. 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. Emigre
priests, driven from France, could be in Canada no political danger to
Great Britain since, like her, they desired the overthrow of