what the reverend Fathers must have accomplished who were day and night in the confessional.  I do not think that in the whole country there is a single inhabitant who has not made a general confession.  There have been inveterate sinners, who, to set their consciences at rest, have repeated their confession more than three times.  We have seen admirable reconciliations, enemies falling on their knees before each other to ask each other’s forgiveness, in so much sorrow that it was easy to see that these changes were the results of grace and of the mercy of God rather than of His justice.”

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] The Old Regime in Canada, p. 110.

[2] Joseph Sere de la Colombiere, vicar-general and archdeacon of Quebec, pronounced Mgr. de Laval’s funeral oration.

CHAPTER IV

ESTABLISHMENT OF THE SEMINARY

No sooner had he returned, than the Bishop of Petraea devoted all the strength of his intellect to the execution of a plan which he had long meditated, namely, the foundation of a seminary.  In order to explain what he understood by this word we cannot do better than to quote his own ordinance relating to this matter:  “There shall be educated and trained such young clerics as may appear fit for the service of God, and they shall be taught for this purpose the proper manner of administering the sacraments, the methods of apostolic catechism and preaching, moral theology, the ceremonies of the Church, the Gregorian chant, and other things belonging to the duties of a good ecclesiastic; and besides, in order that there may be formed in the said seminary and among its clergy a chapter composed of ecclesiastics belonging thereto and chosen from among us and the bishops of the said country, our successors, when the king shall have seen fit to found the seminary, or from those whom the said seminary may be able of itself to furnish to this institution through the blessing of God.  We desire it to be a perpetual school of virtue, and a place of training whence we may derive pious and capable recruits, in order to send them on all occasions, and whenever there may be need, into the parishes and other places in the said country, in order to exercise therein priestly and other duties to which they may have been destined, and to withdraw them from the same parishes and duties when it may be judged fitting, reserving to ourselves always, and to the bishops, our successors in the said country, as well as to the said seminary, by our orders and those of the said lords bishops, the power of recalling all the ecclesiastics who may have gone forth as delegates into the parishes and other places, whenever it may be deemed necessary, without their having title or right of particular attachment to a parish, it being our desire, on the contrary, that they should be rightfully removable, and subject to dismissal and displacement at the will of the bishops and of the said seminary, by the orders of the same, in accordance with the sacred practice of the early ages of the Church, which is followed and preserved still at the present day in many dioceses of this kingdom.”