in the body, his heart is ever with us, we experience the effects of it in the continuity of the blessings with which God favours the labours of our missionaries.”  Accordingly, he did not lose a moment after receiving the decrees appointing him Bishop of Quebec.  On May 19th, 1675, he renewed the union of his seminary with that of the Foreign Missions in Paris.  “This union,” says the Abbe Ferland, “a union which he had effected for the first time in 1665 as apostolic bishop of New France, was of great importance to his diocese.  He found, indeed, in this institution, good recruits, who were sent to him when needed, and faithful correspondents, whom he could address with confidence, and who had sufficient influence at court to gain a hearing for their representations in favour of the Church in Canada.”  On May 29th of the same year he set sail for Canada; he was accompanied by a priest, a native of the city of Orleans, M. Glandelet, who was one of the most distinguished priests of the seminary.

To understand with what joy he was received by his parishioners on his arrival, it is enough to read what his brother, Henri de Laval, wrote to him the following year:  “I cannot express to you the satisfaction and inward joy which I have received in my soul on reading a report sent from Canada of the manner in which your clergy and all your people have received you, and that our Lord inspires them all with just and true sentiments to recognize you as their father and pastor.  They testify to having received through your beloved person as it were a new life.  I ask our Lord every day at His holy altars to preserve you some years more for the sanctification of these poor people and our own.”

FOOTNOTES: 

[6] Vie de M. Olier, par De Lanjuere.  As I wrote this life some years ago with the collaboration of a gentleman whom death has taken from us, I believe myself entitled to reproduce here and there in the present life of Mgr. de Laval extracts from this book.

CHAPTER X

FRONTENAC IS APPOINTED GOVERNOR

During the early days of the absence of its first pastor, the Church of Canada had enjoyed only days of prosperity; skilfully directed by MM. de Bernieres and de Dudouyt, who scrupulously followed the line of conduct laid down for them by Mgr. de Laval before his departure, it was pursuing its destiny peacefully.  But this calm, forerunner of the storm, could not last; it was the destiny of the Church, as it had been the lot of nations, to be tossed incessantly by the violent winds of trial and persecution.  The difficulties which arose soon reached the acute stage, and all the firmness and tact of the Bishop of Quebec were needed to meet them.  The departure of Laval for France in the autumn of 1671 had been closely followed by that of Governor de Courcelles and that of Commissioner Talon.  The latter was not replaced until three