also distributed the remainder of my stock of Bibles and prayer-books. There was only one house, I believe, without a Bible. It was within an hour, or less, of midnight when all was closed. It was past midnight when, having retired to my little apartment, I heard through the partition a young child whom the parents had taken over with them to the service, answering a string of short, plain, elementary questions upon scriptural truths, and then saying the Lord's prayer. Friday, 12th July. I breakfasted with the family at whose house I had slept, and had morning prayers with them, with some exposition of part of a chapter, which I rather lengthened for the sake of an aged woman, the great-grandmother of the children, who had not been over to the service of the night before, and who was extremely deaf. I placed her close to myself, and raised my voice so that she distinctly heard me. An infant child was brought to me here for baptism by its parents, who had been unable to attend the public service."

From Entry Island the Bishop went to Amherst Harbour, to make arrangements for crossing to the main land of Gaspé. This was no easy matter, but he at last succeeded in chartering a schooner, in which, on Sunday morning, 14th July, he sailed back to Entry Island, where he held service and preached twice, and baptized one child, being the sixteenth whom he had baptized in the islands. The mothers were all churched, after receiving an explanation of the meaning and object of the observance. He completed here an exact list of all the protestant families in the islands.

No having foreseen his detention in the islands, the Bishop had made appointments on the Gaspé coast which made it necessary for him to endeavour to reach it without loss of time, and he embarked therefore in his schooner after the second service. The owner of the vessel had laid in his sea-stock, but some of the women of Entry Island insisted on contributing loaves, home-made cheese, etc., and the farmer at whose house the services were held could hardly be prevented, though he avowed a scruple himself on account of the Sunday which he could only overcome for the special occasion, from killing a lamb to add to the store. Nothing could possibly exceed the civility and attention of the master of the schooner, but nothing certainly could have been more miser

able than the voyage. The vessel was an old one, just about to be replaced by another which was on the stocks. It rained the whole night, and the Bishop was soaked through as he lay sick in his berth. The voyage, however, was not of long duration, for the mainland was reached on the forenoon of Tuesday, the 16th.

I have given many little details of this visit, as exhibiting, not only some characteristic features of the work of a Bishop in a diocese like that of Quebec, but also some incidental proofs of the manner in which that work was performed,— the carefulness in attending to little points which might serve to make his ministrations effectual, and the considerate kindness shewn towards those with whom he came in contact, and which would not suffer him to overlook the wants or infirmities

of any.

Having visited all the missions on the Gaspé coast, and held confirmations in them (at one station for the first time) the Bishop returned to Quebec by land, travelling up the Bay of Chaleurs, and by the Kempt road to Metis, and thence along the shore of the St. Lawrence to Quebec. It was six hard days', and a good part of six nights', work to accomplish this journey, which is performed by the mail in nine. The Kempt road was scarcely ever used, and the trees had so much grown up on its borders that a horseman was wet through to his hips by the dew which he brushed from them in passing between them in the early morning. There were no houses on this part of the route, except one or two where men were paid by the Government for remaining to afford shelter to travellers at the end of a day's journey. One night the Bishop and his companions slept on straw in a ruined log hut by the road-side.

Three weeks after his return to Quebec, the triennial circuit was completed by a visit to the missions of East and West Frampton, where fifty-seven persons were confirmed. One hundred and eleven had received the ordinance in Gaspé,

and the whole number in the diocese was one thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight, of whom eight hundred and ninetythree were confirmed at forty confirmations in the diocese of Quebec, and nine hundred and forty-five at thirty-seven in that of Montreal.*

At this marked period in the history of the diocese of Quebec, which from this date comprised only the districts of Quebec, Three Rivers, St. Francis and Gaspé, it may be interesting to give a summary of the increase of the Church in Lower Canada, during the fourteen years which had elapsed since the Bishop's consecration. It is taken from the Canadian Ecclesiastical Gazette, which was first published in this year at Quebec, having been prepared for that paper by the Bishop himself.

1836-1850. Clergymen ordained for Lower Canada, seventy

seven.

Clergymen adopted or introduced, ten.

Number of clergy in new diocese of Montreal: Seventeen in 1836; forty-eight in 1850.

Number of clergy in new diocese of Quebec: Seventeen in 1836; thirty-eight in 1850.

Increase in Lower Canada, fifty-two.

Number of churches in new diocese of Quebec 1836,

twenty-one; 1850, fifty-six.

Number of churches in new diocese of Montreal: 1836, twenty-one; 1850, sixty.

Increase, eighty-three, of which nine were built to replace old ones.

Number of places at which confirmations were held in 1836,

thirty-six, of which nineteen were in the new diocese of Quebec In 1850, ninety-five, of which forty-seven were in the new diocese of Quebec. Increase, fifty-nine.

The numbers confirmed at two different places are omitted, but were probably rather more than thirty, making the total about nine hundred and eighty.

Thirty-four students had been admitted to Bishop's College since its opening in September, 1845, of whom eighteen had been ordained.

Two new sees had been erected in Canada since 1836, and one in Rupert's Land, to which Bishop Mountain carried the first episcopal ministrations.

In transmitting a statement of this increase to the S. P. G., he said: "The praise be to God above, whatever is done ;` and may His grace and blessing go with us, and the light of His countenance be manifested to us in all the difficult work which is before us still, and amidst all the discouragements by which, for the trial of our faith, we are beset. Amen."

CHAPTER XIX.

Fifth visitation of the Clergy-Meeting of Clergy and Lay delegatesConference of Bishops at Quebec.

IN the summer of 1851 the Bishop had the happiness of opening a mission at the Magdalen Islands, and in July of the same year the triennial visitation of the clergy was held at the cathedral. Thirty-six were present, out of forty then serving in the diocese. After the visitation, a meeting of clergy and of lay delegates, whom the Bishop had invited the different congregations of the diocese to send, was held to consider the steps necessary to be taken with reference to the threatened spoliation of the Clergy Reserves. All the parishes and missions of the diocese had elected delegates, except the distant places in the district of Gaspé, and three others; and forty-one delegates were present out of fiftyseven who had been chosen, many of whom attended at great inconvenience to themselves. The proceedings were unanimous and conducted with great spirit, and it was resolved that petitions should he presented to the Imperial and local legislatures, which were afterwards most numerously signed throughout the diocese.

In his charge delivered on this occasion, the Bishop again adverted to the injustice done to the Church by

"The State still pertinaciously refusing, after nearly a century and a half for which this grievance has galled the neck of the Church, to permit to her the exercise of her inherent privilege, indulged to every other religious body under the whole circle of the heavens, of holding her own formal