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Imagination reverting to the days of missionary zeal 

 and religions fervour, long, long ago, readily conjures a, 

 striking picture of this touching old custom. 



History tells of that noble type of a Christian gentle- 

 man, Pierre Boucher, Governor of Three-Kivers in 

 1653, the father of a worthy family of fifteen children— 

 (he died in 1717, at the age of ninety-five) — blessing 

 on New Year's Day the kneeling group of sons and- 

 daughters, listening, all in rapt silence, to the words 

 of wisdom and kindness falling from the venerable 

 man. 



History also connects his name with another prac- 

 tice, observed annually, on the anniversary of the old 

 patriarch's death, — the reading, in the presence of the 

 assembled family, all kneeling, of his last will, styled, 

 " The Legacy of Grand-Father Boucher." We shall, we 

 hope, be forgiven for giving a few lines of this beauti- 

 ful, spiritual Testament ; each member of the noble (1) 

 patriarch's family is addressed in turn, whilst the wisest 

 counsels mingle with the effusions of paternal affection. 

 Like another Tobias, giving his dying blessing, he con- 

 cludes, saying to all : "Love one another sincerely for 

 the love of God ; remember that you will one day be 

 called, like me, to appear before God to render an 

 account of your actions ; hence, do nothing of which 

 you will later have to repent." 



" I do not leave you great riches, but what I leave 

 has been honestly acquired. I would willingly have 

 left you more, but God is the master of all things. 



" I have no enemy to my knowledge. 



(1) Governor Pierre Boucher, seigneur de Boucherville, 

 near Montreal, the ancsetor of our late Premier Hon. M. de 

 Boucherville, had been ennobled by the King of France for 

 his bravery and for the services he had rendered in Canada, 

 He is known to science by an interesting work published in 

 1663, on the natural history and natural resources of 

 Canada. 



