43 



IL 



Establishment op the Great Churches. 



I. Roman Catholics. — This review of the founders of Nova Scotia 

 would be very incomplete, did it not include some mention of the great 

 influence exercised on the social and moral development of the 

 people by the clergy of various denominations in the early days 

 of the province. The French missionaries to Acadia were necessarily 

 the first to enter on the field of religious eifort within the limits 

 of the present dominion of Canada. Two priests, one of whom 

 was Father Aubry, as well as two Huguenot ministers, accompanied 

 Sieur de Monts in 1604, and religious controversy is said by 

 Champlain to have raged, consequently, with much vehemence 

 at Port Eoyal. The Huguenots, however soon disappeared, and the 

 Jesuit Fathers, Pierre Biard, Ennemond Massé, and Guertin, and Brother 

 Du Thet entered into the wilds of Acadie between 1611 and 1613. The 

 first convert among the Indians, the old Micmac Sachem Membertou, a 

 steadfast friend of the French colonists, was brought into the church by 

 Father LaFlèche. The ruthless freebooter Argall, of Yirginia, in 1613 

 broke up the little mission near the mouth of the Penobscot (Pentagoët) 

 and the settlement on the western bank of the lovely basin of Port Eoyal. 

 In the course of time, as the Acadian settlements grew up in the province, 

 Eécollet and other priests were sent to the pi-ovince by the ecclesiastical 

 authorities at Quebec, and accounts have come down to us of faithful and 

 unselfish devotion to their flocks. These French inissionaries were loyal 

 to France previous to 1755, when the Acadians were expelled, but only 

 one of them, LeLoutre, appears to have forgotten the duties of their 

 peaceful office, and acted as a dangerous secret emissary of the French 

 government. One of the most notable missionaries was Antoine Maillard, 

 who was vicar-general at Louisbourg until the capture of the town by 

 the English in 1758, when he was invited to come to Halifax and assist 

 the government in the pacification of the Indians of the province. On 

 his death in 1762, he was succeeded by Father Bailly, an earnest, useful 



