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 the existing French government.  So a good many emigre priests were brought out, among them Mr. Le Courtois, so long the cure of Malbaie.  This movement soon spent itself.  In time the Church in Canada had a number of seminaries for training priests and it now levies a heavy tithe upon the best intellects of the country.  Recently a new emigration of French priests to Canada has taken place.  But they have not been wholly welcome; their tone is not quite that of the Canadian priesthood; sometimes they assume patronizing airs and they are felt to be foreigners.  I have even heard a French Canadian priest say in broken English to a Protestant from the Province of Ontario:  “I feel that I have more in common with you than I have with the French priests who are flocking into this country.”

The Canadian cure is the priest always.  Unlike the clergy in other parts of Canada he wears his cassock even when he goes abroad; one sees dozens of these black robes in the streets, on the steamers and trains.  He does not share in the amusement of other people.  In Quebec Anglican clergymen play golf and tennis; probably if a cure did so he might be called to account by the bishop.  Occasionally priests ride bicycles, but even this is looked upon with some suspicion.  Into general society the priests go but little.  They come together in each other’s presbyteries for mutual counsel and to celebrate anniversaries, such as the 25th year of the ordination of one of their number.  The large presbyteries, which one sees even in remote parishes, are necessary to house the visiting clergy on such occasions.  They assist each other when their parishes have special fetes.  But their social intercourse is chiefly with each other.  The courtly abbe of old France, a universal guest in salons and at dinner tables, is hardly found at all in the Province of Quebec.  Nor is the scholar usual.  Even in small parishes there are rarely less than 500 or 600 communicants and the calls upon the cure’s time are heavy.  There are, of course, priests of literary tastes; as there are those with a taste for art, to whom are due the occasional good pictures found in the parish churches.  Some priests interest themselves in agriculture and give wise guidance to their people.  But behind everything is the solemn, severe, exacting, conception of the priest’s high function as the medium of God’s speech to man.  He is almost sexless—­a being apart consecrated to an awe-inspiring office.  A mother will sometimes quiet an unruly child by threatening the portentous intervention of the cure.