The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-05-20
THE LAST SERMON.
BY Helen Hughes Hielscher.


Oh Time, how quickly your floods
roll and how completely you blot out
the weak traces that we poor human
children make in our passage!
Here was a noble forest trailing
down to the sedgy banks of swift
river; here log cabin in the shelter
of the friendly hemlocks; here a rude
chapel on the rising hill, where priest
and people prayed in the Gaelic
tongue.
What is left today?-hardly a name
of the old Scottish clan, hardly a
river is the same and the faith of the
people,
And as an heirloom or keepsake
from one generation to another a
quiet old graveyard lies on the hill
1t was once laid out in clearing
from whence the timber was taken
to build the chapel but is now cor.
ner in field of waving wheat. Here
the first pastor lies with his flock, a
tall spruce tree keeping watch over
his grave now level with the ground.
This was all nearly hundred and
fifty years ago. George the Third
was still king, and Plus the Sixth
ruled from the chair of Peter. Liberty
had found nursing mother in the
young republic of the United States;
and Canada, deserted by the mother
country, was in the grip of its natural
enemy.
ST. Johns Island-of so little i'm
portance as to attract the attention
of neither friend nor enemy-lay ice
bound and white-robed in its winter
sleep. Great stretches of black
forests enclosed snowy plains or
frozen lakes; groves of white birch
stood CHASTITY in the stiffness; the
rivers flowed under their coat of ice.
The few inhabitants were scattered
in settlements in different quarters;
some sAcadians from the desolated
village of Grand Pre- were seeking
an asylum in the deep woods around
MalpeqUe and Rustico The abort
gines, who were of the Micmac tribe
of Indians, were wintering in the
heavy timber of Lennox Island; Port
La Joie had a number of mixed in
habitants, and was the principal post;
and at Scotch Fort was settled band
Of Highlanders, who had been virtual
ly driven from. their own land for
conscience sake.
They were the former tenants of
Mcdonald, Laird of BoisdaIe A
renegade Catholic himself, he tried
to force his tenantry into apostasy,
even going to such lengths as to
stand at the cross roads of Sunday
morning, with his yellow walking
stick in his hand, pointing, skirmish-
ing and waving to the people on their
way to Mass, in his attempt to direct
them to the Kirk which he attended
himself. His tenantry with naive
Scottish wit referred to his theologi-
cal convictions as the religion of the
yellow staff"
At last the strain between landlord
and tenant became unbearable. He
called meeting and laid two courses
before them--a fair deal in the mat
ter of rent if they would in a body
attach themselves to his favorite sect,
or terms that practically made it i'm
possible for them to keep body and
soul together if they still adhered to
their religious convictions. The brave
Highlanders never wavered, at worst
it only meant death.
They went to their comfortless
homes and after the first shock was
over, they began to talk about the
future. One made this suggestion
another that. until at last>the various
waves of thought crystalized into one
grand plan. Across the ocean they
| heard there was new land, smiling
and fertile, where men might plant
and SOW and enjoy the fruits of his
toll and be free to worship God; and
all at once the whole talk Of the
countryside was of the land beyond
the tossing, hoary sea that stretched
away to the sunset; even the little
children who listened wide-eyed with
establishment to their elders talked
of nothing else and played that they
were living in a rich land where
every one was free and there we're nc
landlords, introducing into Their
play at the same time as much tyran
ny as their little hearts and minds
were capable Of
But how were they to reach this
land of promise. They could MOI
walk across the waters, and they haC
no means. At last Providence appear
ed in the form of a Mcdonald. LairC
of Glennaladale. Perhaps not without
selfish motives he chartered a ship
and Scotland sent forth quota o
that mass of people who were t