Protestants are necessarily in a majority, since the Protestants are in a majority in the country.

I must repeat to you also what I have said already, that while disapproving the conduct of members of the episcopacy, to which I have just referred, it is not the intention of any of us to expose them to the slightest humiliation. If you consider it advisable that a delegate should be appointed for Canada, you will please inform me. I need not say to you that the selection of such a delegate would be of very great importance.

Accept my best wishes for your voyage.

The two envoys made their way to Rome, finding "half ecclesiastical Canada there before us or on the way." In Rome, progress was slow. The affairs of all the ends of the earth met there; rules of etiquette and audience were stiff; there were so many personages to see. "The impossibility of making rapid progress,' writes Mr. Drolet, "often the necessity of making no progress at all, with the Congregations, with this Black monde, jealous, oh so jealous, meddling, old, old above all." In moments of despair he was prepared to believe Zola's "Rome" not wholly false. It was not easy to convince Rome that Bishops were in error and laymen right. The bishops had long had the ear of Cardinal and Congregation. Had not the Queen in Council commanded that separate schools be restored? Had not Protestant Tupper tried to restore them and had not Catholic Laurier resisted? Was not this Laurier a bad Catholic, a Free Mason?1 And perhaps the

1 Replying to a letter of Mr. Drolet, recounting on unimpeachable authority a statement to this effect made in high places by one of the Canadian

good Mr. Drolet was not the most tactful of envoys, unduly suspicious and belligerent, laying emphasis on his long dossier containing two hundred charges of intimidation against this bishop and that curé, rather than on the danger of the recoil to the Church itself. "The old gentleman is rather a light weight," wrote a critic, "a kind of Monsieur Tartaran, who got on the wrong track from the first and among the wrong set."

bishops then in Rome, Mr. Laurier made this unusually full confession of faith:

"Ottawa, 15 December, 1896. "... The settlement which we have obtained from the government of Manitoba satisfies every sensible man in Canada, but the clergy of the province of Quebec will not pardon us for what it calls their check of last summer. They want revenge at all costs, and unless the Holy See intervenes in time, we are threatened with a religious war whose consequences alarm me. But we cannot draw back. Certain members of the clergy are blind: if their way of thinking is to prevail, not only will we have a war of religion, but thousands upon thousands of good Catholics will be brought to hold religion responsible for the faults and excesses of its ministers. That must be avoided at all costs..

...

"I have read with regret the remarks which Mgr. N. made about me, in the Vatican itself. I am astonished, even though I have come to expect all manner of attacks. However, I would never have believed there was so much malice in the heart of a certain set. My dear Drolet, you have known me for well on to forty years; you know that I have never paraded my religious convictions, but that they exist; I can appreciate to-day how much influence they have over me, when I say that they have not been shaken by the attacks of those whose mission it is to preach Christian charity.

"Whatever comes. 'il faut marcher droit son chemin.' That was your old Pontifical Zouave motto; it is mine to-day. We must keep the straight road. I see clearly and distinctly the goal. I do not know whether we can reach it, but I am full of hope and courage.

"It is a singular thing, that these violent acts, this ignorance of conditions in our own country, this war to which we are going to be exposed, far from estranging me from the Church, draws me closer to it. I feel how superior religion is to all that often is done in the name of religion.

"W. L"

It is conceivable that, knowing the chevalier's impulsive diplomacy, Mr. Laurier was not altogether surprised to hear that he had read this letter to all the high ecclesiastical authorities he met, one of whom declared in ecstasy, “Why, your Mr. Laurier is the only Christian in Canada!”

He fared somewhat better when he turned from Cardinal Ledochowski, head of the Propaganda, and thus the champion of the bishops under his charge, to the Secretary of State, Cardinal Rampolla.

Whatever the reason, progress was slow. It became necessary to take more direct and more effective steps. It was decided to make a formal and collective statement of the case, to send other representatives to Rome, and to press for the appointment of an apostolic delegate. These conclusions were not reached without debate. Tarte opposed Laurier's suggestion of a joint petition to his Holiness, as likely to be twisted or misconstrued by Protestants, but when Laurier made it clear that it was not the political question, not the settlement of the school issue, but the conflict within the Catholic Church in Canada that the Pope was to be asked to consider, he became an ardent supporter of the plan. Forty-five members of the Commons and the Senate, Wilfrid Laurier's name leading, signed a petiton and protest.' There was also some question as

1TO HIS HOLINESS LEO XIII:

"Most Holy Father,-We, the undersigned, members of the Senate and members of the House of Commons of Canada, and representing therein the Liberal party, present ourselves before your Holiness as respectful and devoted children of Holy Church, to complain of the existence of a state of things which, if allowed to continue, might be extrêmely dangerous to the constitutional liberties of this country, as well as to the interests of the Church itself.

"Your Holiness has already been made aware of the conduct and attitude of certain prelates and of certain members of the secular clergy who, during the general elections in this country; in the month of June last, intervened in a violent manner in restraint of electoral freedom, taking sides openly for the Conservative party against the Liberal party, and going so far as to declare guilty of grievous sin those of the electors who would vote for the candidates of the Liberal party.

1

"Sincerely attached to the institutions of our country, which insure to us Catholics the most complete liberty, we respectfully represent to your Holiness that these democratic institutions under which we live and for which your Holiness has many times expressed sentiments of admiration and confidence, can only exist under perfect electoral freedom.

"Far be it from us to refuse to the clergy the plenitude of civil and political rights. The priest is a citizen, and we would not, for a single instant, deprive him of the right of expressing his opinion on any matter submitted to the electorate; but when the exercise of that right develops into violence, and when that violence, in the name of religion, goes to the extent of making a grievous sin out of a purely political act, there is an abuse of authority of which the consequences cannot but be fatal, not only to constitutional liberty, but to religion itself.

"If, in a country such as ours, with a population consisting of persons of various creeds and wherein the Protestant denominations are in the majority, Catholics did not enjoy, in all matters relating to legislation, the same political freedom as their Protestant fellow-countrymen, they would ipso facto be placed in a position of inferiority, which would prevent them from taking the legitimate part which they are entitled to take in the government of the country, with the possibility, moreover, of conflicts between the various groups of the population which history shows to be very fraught with danger.

"Then again, an active and violent intervention of the clergy in the domain of political questions submitted to the people must, of necessity, produce against the great mass of the Catholic population a degree of irritation manifestly prejudicial to that respect which religion and its ministers should ever inspire and command.

"Some twenty years ago, his Holiness Pius the IX, your illustrious and lamented predecessor on the Pontifical Throne, acting through the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda, deemed it his duty to put a stop to certain abuses of a similar character, and forbade the intervention of the clergy in politics. This prohibition was generally respected so long as his Eminence Cardinal Taschereau was able to guide the Church in Canada, but since old age and infirmities have paralyzed his guiding hand, the abuses to which your illustrious predecessor had put a stop, have begun again, and threaten once more to create trouble among us and to compromise, not only Catholic interests in this country, but the peace and harmony which should exist between the various elements of our population. "Again affirming our absolute devotion to the faith of our fathers and to the Church of which you are the Supreme Head; affirming our respect and attachment for the person of your Holiness, our attachment to the interests of our country and to the Crown of Great Britain, its ægis and protector, we beg that your Holiness will renew in our behalf the most wise prescriptions and prohibitions of your predecessor; protect the consciences of the Catholic electors, and thus secure peace in our country by the union of religion and liberty,-a union which your Holiness has many times extolled in those immortal encyclicals whose precious teachings we desire in all things to follow; and, lastly, grant to the children of the Church, now addressing your Holiness, the Apostolic Benediction. "Ottawa, October, 1896."

to the coming of a papal legate. True, the visit of Cardinal Satolli to the United States in 1892, and the visit of Mgr. Conroy to Canada in 1876 had brought peace and liberty, but much depended on the man. An Ontario bishop foresaw Protestant denunciations of Papal interference, and feared "that a delegate sent from Rome or France who, being prepossessed, as all Continental ecclesiastics are, with the idea that Liberalism in politics is synonymous with infidelity, could not grasp the idea that Liberalism here bore no relation to what is known by that name on the Continent." Yet the risk seemed worth running. The new envoys were Charles Fitzpatrick and Charles Russell, son of Lord Russell of Killowen, whose family spent the winters in Rome. Fortified by a strong statement from Edward Blake, counsel for the minority, that the Judicial Committee could not, and did not, command the restoration of the schools as they were before 1890, and that the terms of the Laurier-Greenway settlement were more advantageous to the Catholic minority than any remedial bill which it was in the power of the parliament of Canada to force on the province of Manitoba, and with letters from Cardinal Vaughan and the Duke of Norfolk, the envoys went to Rome. At once progress was rapid. Mr. Russell's wit and knowledge of AngloRoman politics opened many doors. Mr. Fitzpatrick's piety was "the wonder and the awe of Rome." With the Secretary of State, Cardinal Rampolla, with all the other cardinals who were likely to be consulted, Cardinals Vannutelli, Vicenti, Jacobini, Ferratta,