of Mgr. de Laval to Canada.  The venerable bishop, whatever it must have cost him, adhered to this decision with a wholly Christian resignation.  “You will know by the enclosed letters,” he writes to the priests of the Seminary of Quebec, “what compels me to stay in France.  I had no sooner received my sentence than our Lord granted me the favour of inspiring me to go before the most Holy Sacrament and make a sacrifice of all my desires and of that which is the dearest to me in the world.  I began by making the amende honorable to the justice of God, who deigned to extend to me the mercy of recognizing that it was in just punishment of my sins and lack of faith that His providence deprived me of the blessing of returning to a place where I had so greatly offended; and I told Him, I think with a cheerful heart and a spirit of humility, what the high priest Eli said when Samuel declared to him from God what was to happen to him:  ’Dominus est:  quod bonum est in oculis suis faciat.’  But since the will of our Lord does not reject a contrite and humble heart, and since He both abases and exalts, He gave me to know that the greatest favour He could grant me was to give me a share in the trials which He deigned to bear in His life and death for love of us; in thanksgiving for which I said a Te Deum with a heart filled with joy and consolation in my soul:  for, as to the lower nature, it is left in the bitterness which it must bear.  It is a hurt and a wound which will be difficult to heal and which apparently will last until my death, unless it please Divine Providence, which disposes of men’s hearts as it pleases, to bring about some change in the condition of affairs.  This will be when it pleases God, and as it may please Him, without His creatures being able to oppose it.”

In Canada the return of the revered Mgr. de Laval was impatiently expected, and the governor, M. de Denonville, himself wrote that “in the present state of public affairs it was necessary that the former bishop should return, in order to influence men’s minds, over which he had a great ascendency by reason of his character and his reputation for sanctity.”  Some persons wrongfully attributed to the influence of Saint-Vallier the order which detained the worthy bishop in France; on the contrary, Saint-Vallier had said one day to the minister, “It would be very hard for a bishop who has founded this church and who desires to go and die in its midst, to see himself detained in France.  If Mgr. de Laval should stay here the blame would be cast upon his successor, against whom for this reason many people would be ill disposed.”