1636-46.] THE PRIEST AS A RULER. 159 



and less prone to political encroachment.^ No fa- 

 vorable resnlt followed ; and the colony remained 

 as before, in a pitiful state of cramping and dwarf- 

 ing vassalage. 



This is the view of a heretic. It was the aim 

 of the founders of New France to build on a 

 foundation purely and supremely Catholic. What 

 this involved is plain; for no degree of personal 

 virtue is a guaranty against the evils which attach 

 to the temporal rule of ecclesiastics. Burning with 

 love and devotion to Christ and his immaculate 

 Mother, the fervent and conscientious priest re- 

 gards with mixed pity and indignation those who 

 fail in this supreme allegiance. Piety and charity 

 alike demand that he should bring back the rash 

 wanderer to the fold of his divine Master, and 

 snatch him from the perdition into which his guilt 

 must otherwise plunge him. And while he, the 

 priest, himself yields reverence and obedience to 

 the Superior, in whom he sees the representative 

 of Deity, it behooves him, in his degree, to require 

 obedience from those whom he imagines that God 

 has conlided to his guidance. His conscience, then, 

 acts in perfect accord with the love of power 

 innate in the human heart. • These allied forces 

 mingle with a perplexing subtlety ; pride, dis- 

 guised even from itself, walks in the likeness of 

 love and duty ; and a thousand times on the pages 



1 Declaration de Pierre Breant, par devant les Notaires du Roy, MS. The 

 Order was that of the Capuchins, who, like the R^collets, are a branch of 

 the Franciscans. Their introduction into Canada was prevented; but 

 they estabhshed themselves in Maine. 



