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i
A RETROSPECT
OF THE SUMMEEt AND AUTUMN OF 1832;
BEING
A SERMON
DELIVERED IN THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH
OP
QUEBEC,
ON SUNDAY, THE SOtli DECEMBER, IN THAT YEAR,
BY THE VENERABLE G. J^MOUNTAIN, D. D. ARCHDEACON OF QUEBEC,
RECTOR OF THE PARISH o"f QUEBEC AND EXAMINING
CHAPLAIN TO THE LORD BISHOP
OF QUEBEC.
With an Appendix containing a selection of some fciv facts and
particulars of interest connected ivitk the late awful visitation of
the Cholera Morbus.
QUEBEC :
PRINTED BY THOMAS GARY & CO. FREEMASON^ MALL, BUADE STREET.
1833.
/^5,
n\
(V
TO HIS EXCELLENCY,
LIEUTENANT GENERAL LORD AYLMER, K.C.B.
COVERNatt IN CHIEF,
THE FOLLOWING SERMON,
PUBLISHED
m conse,™kce or the »ks«e whkh he was p«ase» to expeess
TO THAT EFFECT
IS, BY PERMISSION, INSCRIBED,
WITH SENTIMENTS OF SINCERE RESPECT,
BY HIS excellency's OBLIGED,
AND
MOST OBEDIENT HUMBLE SERVANT
THE AUTHOR.
ACKNOWLEDGEMRNT.
*:5t* Subsequently to the communications witli vvhicli the
Author was honored from the Governor in Chief, in reUition
to the publication of this Sermon and after it was actually in
the press, he received a letter, signed by a number of persons
of the first respectability in his Congregation, conveying their
expression of the same desire. He has only, therefore, to
assure them that his deference to their wishes would have
induced his ready compliance with that desire, had it not
been anticipated as is seen in the preceding page. Fully
sensible that it is to the particular nature of the subject,
rather than to any skill or success in treating it, that he is to
attribute the interest excited by this Sermon, he yet feels
grateful for the manner in which his humble endeavours have
been appreciated ; and happy above all, that such a dispo^
sition is seen to exist to unite with him in a religious con»
templation of the late awful calamity,
Quebec, 2nd Jany. 1833.
S E R ]M O N.
I) vvliicli ihe
, in relation
s actually in
31' of persons
iveying their
herefore, to
would have
, had it not
t)age. Fully
le subject,
that he is to
he yet feels
lavours have
!ch a dispo-'
igious con-*
Ezra ix, 15. — O Lord God of Israel, thou art righteous : for we remain
yet escaped, as it U this day : behold vie arc before tiieo in our
trespasses.
The year is fast going from us. Another link will soon
have dropped from the length of that fragile chain which
holds us to life, and which incn/ at any moment be snapped
asunder, — must within a short time, be expended. Another
division will have been told off, of the little day which we
have to run, before the night cometh when no man can work.
Another portion will have been measured of the space which
lies between our entrance upon the stage of life, and our
disappearance from i(, to be gathered to our fathers. — Our
fathers where are they ?+ — Theyai'e gone, one geoeration after
another," and their place is no where found". — We shall go
to them, but they shall not return to us.* Onv fathers ? —
Alas! where are many of our children, our brothers, our
sisters, our companions, who at the ,^ »mmencement of the
year now closing, were living beings upon the earth, and
as little expecting death as any of us, even of us, who
through the mercy of God, "are all of us here alive this
day ?" — Where are they ? — Nowhere above ground,
nowhere. — They lie in the cold grave. — They sleep the
sleep of death. — Never indeed can we review a departing
year without some such melancholy although instructive
remembrances : the retrospect of time escaped from us
presents always the images of change and uncertainty
t Zecli. i« 5,
* 2 Sam, xii. 23,
6
attaching to all below ; is always of a serious, and at least
partakes of a sorrowful character; — but when did we ever
know such a year as this ? — when did this city, since its foun-
dation, witness such scenes ? — pestilence and horror stalking
abroad in her streets — dismay in every countenance — death
knocking at every door — none knowing who might next be
the victim, — "one taken and another left," often without
any discriminative prognostics, — " O, and is all forgot?" —
Can it be forgotten by the most thoughtless among us ? —
and, because the hand of our God is no longer stretched
forth in judgment, can we plunge as deeply as before into
the world, its business and iis vanities, and with all imagi-
nable gaiety of heart suffer ourselves to be carried away by
the stream, without reflecting in what abyss it may
terminate ?
€1
We read with wonder, and some of us almost with incre-
dulity, the account of Pharaoh, who in the successive visita-
tions which fell upon his kingdom, was sometimes humbled
for the moment under the actual infliction of the plague,
but was no sooner relieved from its pressure than he relapsed
into his former state of pride, refused to make the surrender
required of him, and rudely resisted the messengers of God :
** When Pharaoh saw that there was respite, he hardened
his heart, and hearkened not unto them." — We regard this
as an astonishing and unaccountable degree of perverseness ;
and no doubt it is an extreme case and referable in part to
the hardening influences to which he was, in a special manner,
judicially abandoned by God, who thus made him,
at the same time, instrumental in the display of Almighty
power for the instruction of others. But, after all, we only
read in this narrative of the book of God, a lesson to be read
also in the book of human nature, — a truth constantly
exemplified by our experience of the world. How many, in
the late awful visitation, alarmed for themselves, — perhaps
him,
|igbiy
only
read
mtly
haps
*< whci'c no feu«' was" beyond the danger in which all niioht
be said to stand, — would send for their Minister and say,
** I have sinned against the I^ortl my God — intreat the Lord
that he would take from me this death only," — and yet npon
the disappearance of danger, all tlieir penitence, their prayers
for a new heart, their solemn vows of amendment, disap-
peared like the early dew, — vanished as the morning vapour
which passelh away. — How many in their very humiliation,
would attach like Pharaoh, conditions to their submission,
and stipulate for reservations in their promised obedience ! —
How many more, who began in that time of consternation,
to ponder upon their ways, to remember that they had im-
mortal souls, to regard their salvation as a concern too long
neglected, to put this question to their own breasts, — Ami,
if my turn should come, in a prepared condition to face my
God, — are now only busy in repairing the interruption of
their worldly pleasures and pursuits, — eating and drinking,
building and projecting, marrying and giving in marriage,
Ciil thought being dismissed of the coming of the Son of
Man* — and all the forced suspension of indulgence being
considered as t«ken off! Their consciences, (if I may so
express it,) have undergone a kind of quarantine, and they
have passed through some formalities of purification, which
now leave them at liberty to return with redoubled alacrity
to all which engaged before their undivided care. How
many who have worn an unwilling seriousness communicated
to them by the society in which they mixed, and secretly felt it
to bean irksome restraint, have hastened to throw it off", as
they would discard "the inky cloak," "and all the forms,
modes, shews of grief," and rushed back with sharpened
appetite to partake of the banquet which the world spreads be-
fore them, and to drink more deeply of her intoxicating cup !
* tVJalUicw, xxiv. 38-0.
8
There are many, indeed, blessed be God, of whom ^* we
hope better things and things that accompany salvation,
although we ihus speak." There are many, it is consolatory
to indulge a belief, who have received these warnings from
their God, not into a stony soil where the blade quickly
springs up but perishes because there is " no deepness of
earth," but into "an honest and good heart," wheve/niit
is brought forth " with patience." But to all it must be
useful to take a solemn review of the events which have marked
the year now closing, and made it for ever sadly memorable
in the annals of the country.
Let us then, call back to our minds, — and we must not
shrink from the contemplation nor refuse to dwell upon the
picture, — the scenes which our city exhibited a few short
months ago. Remember the evening on which we were
called together by our Bishop, when first the malady began
to rage, for an express service of humiliation before our
God and of supplication for ourselves and the inhabitants of
the land :f — Remember the Sabbath which followed, —
although many indeed who are now present, had then fled
from the plague-smitten gates, — and suffer me to retrace the
impressions which I then made it my endeavour to commu-
nicate to your minds, fresh as they were from the scenes in
in which the Ministers of Religion, in particular, were called
upon to take their part. The hurry of such duties had left
me no possible leisure to prepare any train of written reflec-
tions, — and I was very little accustomed to address this
Congregation in another way ; but it was not a time to fear
the exercise of a fastidious criti'^ism, and with the word of
God in my hands, I threw myself freely upon your indulgence
+ This service would have been repeated at stated intervals, but f.ir aa
objection made, on the part ot'the Board ot'Healtb, to any unusual meetings
during the prevalence of the disorder.
9
for all the imperfections of the performance and entreated
you to consider with me, some passages which I had roughly
noted as suited to our case. Let us consider them again.
It is well known that the scourge of pestilence is one ot ihe
direct judgments of God, often recorded in Scripture to
have been inflicted in order to teach men the fear of his name
and to awaken them to repentance for their sins ; " to humble
them, to prove them, to do them good at their latter end.'*—
And in the various examples of such infliction in its different
shapes, there are often circumstances in which they coincide
not only with each other, but with the visitations of chas-
tisement which fall upon the children of men, in other times —
times in which all miraculous intervention is unknown, but
in which " the Lord the everlasting God,*' who " fainteth
not, neither is weary," and whose " arm is not shortened,"
has not resigned the reigns of his Government over us, does
not cease to dispense the events of this lower world. In the
judgment now under our consideration, which has so widely
ravaged the earth, it has been remarked by all serious
observers that the hand of God was the more strikingly to be
discerned, because ail human sagacity and calculation are
so utterly baffled by the disease: — Men can neither trace it
in its course, — pronounce upon the manner of its propaga-
tion, provide against it by preventive measures, nor do more
than allay its intenseness by the remedies of art ; neither
with respect to place nor with respect to persons, can they
augur where it is likely to declare itself: at one time indeed^
it seems to travel continuously along a line of communication,
but at another to drop, as it were, straight down from Heaven
upon a detached population, or upon the devoted head of an
individual who has been scrupulously guarded from all con-
tact with the apparent causes of danger : Seemingly capricious
in its movenoients, and sudden, most awfully sudden, in its
10
operation, it puts to flight all the wisdom of men ; and those
who have the highest skill in the diseases of this mortal body,
either profess the most discordant opinions, or frankly own
their accumulated knowledge and their recent melancholy
experience, to be equally at a fault.
Comparing, then, this acknowledged Judgment of God
with those of which the notices are scattered through the
Bible, we find many points of correspondence, some of which
are indeed common to all marked public afflictions, others are
more peculiar in their character; but combining both, we
can descry every feature of the late visitation in the scriptural
delineations ofplagues executed, or foretold. And certainly
we cannot be wrong in making appropriate applications of
scripture to the prominent points of our own case.
We turn there, it is true, to pictures, many of which are
far more aggravated in their horrors, than the scenes through
which we have passed. Our chastisement has been severe,
but wrath did not " come upon us to the uttermost." Yet
there was a great cry in the Icmd ;* and, although it can-
not be said that "there was not an house where there was not
one dead," there was assuredly not a house where death was
not apprehended ; and, in the whole number of deaths there
was, I believe, more than one for every house there was
scarcely a family who had not to mourn some relative or
beloved friend, or at least some familiar acquaintance. —
And as a prelude and accompaniment to the visitation which
fell upon man, an extensive mortality, sudden in its cha-
racter, prevailed among cattle, the effects of which upon
the market are felt at this moment, — corresponding to the
circumstances of a judgment threatened in Jeremiah, " 1 will
* Exod. xii, 30.
n
smile the inhabitants of tliis city both man and beast ; they
shall die of a great pestilence;" while, in another and a
distinct department of creation, the plague was evidently
felt, and it is attested by mariners who visit our port that a
"^^ar^" allhongh we know not what part, "of the creatures
which were in the sen and had life, died,"* the gulph of
our mighty river presenting the unusual spectacle of the
hug^e carcase of the porpoise, and even the whale, afloat here
and there upon its surface. But when we read in different
parts of Scripture, such descriptions as those which follow :
'' I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of
gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the
bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the
candle :" *^ Every house is shut up that no man may come
in :" — '' And it shall be, as with the people so with the
priest; as with the servant so with his master; as with the
maid so with her mistress ; as with the buyer so with the
seller; as with the lender so with the borrower ; as with the
taker of usury so with the giver of usury to him :" — "the
mirth of tabrets ceaseth, the noise of them that rejoice endeth,
the joy of the harp ceaseth, — there is a crying for wine in
the streets ; all joy is darkened, the mirth of the land is
gone ; they shall not drink wine with a song, strong drink
shall be bitter to them that drink it :'* — " they shall bury in
Tophet till there be no place," do we not recognise in
each particular, a resemblance to what we have witnessed, —
the general alarm and consternation which prevailed — the
gloom of sudden bereavement thrown over the smiling enjoy-
nientsof many domestic circles; the stillness which reigned
in scenes of traffic and places of concourse ; the suspension
* Rev. viii. 9. The author has also been informed from a source so
highly respectable that he is sure of being sustained in the mention of the
fact, that in the River Ottawa the fish were for a considerable time untit
and even dangerous for food.
t SeeJer. xxi, 6, XXV. 10. \U.32, Is, xxiv. paspim.
13
of business, — the interruption oflabour, — the closingof houses
whose inhabitants fled to tlie country ; of shops from the
death ofthe dealer, or the cessation of all demand for his
articles of trade : — the undiscriminating strokes of death,
which although they fell more thickly in some classes of
society, found victims in all, and reached those who,
according at least to their local title in the Colony, were
numbered among" the ^oworOii/e ofthe earth :" — no prudence
could oppose a shield to them, no comforts at command, no
habits of life, no temperament of body. — And did we not see
strong drink to be bitter to them that drank it — the pota-
tations of the intemperate to be pregnant with a horrible
death ? — and yet with all this, a crying for wine in the
streets^ a heedless, hardened abandonment, in many in-
stances, to a repetition of the same destructive indulgence,
— men smitten, — I have witnessed it myself— smitten by the
avenging Angel in an actual slate of staggering drunkenness
in the street, and carried to hospital only to die, — yet the com-
panions of such men, desperately regardless of the warning,
seeking their comfort in fresh excesses, and resisting or
evading all the restrictions of public authority which stood in
their way ? — and, lastly, did we not see new places of
interment opened to receive the aggregations of the dead ;
needy labourers who had been bribed high to dig their
graves, sometimes abandoning the task in terror; and the
weary Clergy attending at one stated hour, to afford the
christian decencies of burial collectively, unwitnessed for
the most part by surviving friends, over all the sad deposits
of the day — amounting upon two consecutive occasions,
when it fell to my own turn to officiate, to seventy and
upwards in a day, ofthe Church of England alone ?
Yes we saw, within our city, all this and more : We saw
in our desjerted streets, more signs of death than life— hearses
&
13
^1;
Heir
Lhe
ibe
[for
iitB
ins,
nd
carrying their load, or hurrying back to answer fresh demands
— cart after cart piled up wiiii bodies from the hospitals, met
by some vehicle conveying ghastly figures to take their places
destined soon to return, as corpses, in the same way — the con-
stituted authorities who watched for the public safety, unceas-
ingly upon the alert, in token of danger ; engaged day after day
and hour after hour, in active measures and anxious delibera-
tions, doing all that man could do to stay in part the evils of the
time, and to infuse confidence into the breasts of their fellow-
citizens,* — Physiciansand Ministers of Religion traversing the
streets night and day with a hurried pace, and unequal to
meet their multiplied calls — the few stragglers besides, who
appeared abroad, pressing to their nostrils, as they walked,
some corrective of the air which they feared to breathe : —
fires before every house, loading the atmosphere with
vapour from prepared materials supposed of purifying
power — or the oflicial guardians of health \vith their badges
profusely scattering lime along the range of the more sus-
pected habitations — these were the spectacles exhibited in
our city — and images of deeper horror might be added were
I to carry you into the precincts of the hospital in the
first burst of the calamity, when its suddenness and over-
powering magnitude, far surpassing all previous calcula-
tion, could not be met by any existing provisions uor at
once mastered by any possible exertions.
At last, however, it pleased the Lord to say to the destroy-
* His Excellency Lord Alymer, (in whose own household three <leaths by
Cholera occurred,) abstained from his usual practice of talking the family at
the Castle to pass the summer in the country, and was in constant commu-
nication with the Board of Health at Quebec. He also visited the Hospitals
and the quarantme establishment himself. The President of the Board and
such of the Members as could give their time to its affairs, both professional
and private gentLmen, both natives of the country and others, were indefati-
gable in their labours. There were indeed some Members and voluntary
officers of the Board, who may really be said to have " jeoparded their lives"
by extraordinary exertion and fatigue, which brought on symptoms of the
prevailing disease.
14
ing* Angel, " It is cnoiigli : stay now tliine hand." The
disease abated, and after some fluctuations, has, for two
months past, disappeared. And here we are alive.—
Although "thousands" have fallen *^ beside us," — (the
deaths in this city have reached to thousands,) ** the pesti-
lence that walketh in darkness" has not been suffered to
'* come nigh us" — or, if " the Lord hath chastened and
corrected us, he hath not given us over unto death."-—
What then, in these circumstances, what are our reflections,
what are our feelings, what are our purposes of heart and
plans for future life ? Are we losing already the impres-
sions which have been made upon us, and verging to a
forgetfulnes? of all that has befallen ?— If we forget the
dead, let us look at the living monuments of the calamity —
let us count the widowed and bereaved — the fatherless and
the orphans who surround us and are dependent upon our
charity. — Why are we spared ? — is it for our deserts — for
our righteousness — our holiness before the Lord ? — Had we
no sins to be repented of, when death was busy among us f
— Had we been then cut off*, like others, — dead, coflSned,
sealed up under the earth, against the day of judgment,
all within a few hours after the first sense of illness, — were
we then ready to face our God ? — And if not, have we
poured out our souls in thankfulness before him, and so
used his mercy, so profited by his long-suffering, that we
are ready now? — Whatever other plague we may have
escaped, we have not escaped the plague of sin : we have
been bitten by the old serpent and received of his deadly
venom into our system — have we, then, looked with an
eyeof faith to HIM who, as Moses lifted up the serpent of
brass, was lifted up to heal the sting of death ?* — " After
all that is come upon us," says the inspired historian in the
* Num. xxi. 8, 9. John iii« 14, 15. i. Cor* X7. 56.
15
verses preceding our text, — " for our evil deeds and for
our great trespass, seeing that thou our God hast punished
us less than our iniquities deserve — and hast given us such
a deliverance as this ; should we again break thy command-
ments, wouldst thou not be angry with us till thou hadst
consumed us that there should be no remnant nor es-
caping?" — Must we not, must we not make our confession
in the words of the text itself: "O Lord God of Israel,
thou art righteous : for we remain yet escaped as it is this
day : behold we are before thee in our trespasses : for we
cannot stand before thee because of this."
Among those who have been swept off, there were many
drunkards — many evil-livers — there were profane persons
— profane, in one or two known instances, even in their
last hour, and to be resembled to those who blasphemed
the God of Heaven because of their pains and their sores
and repented not of their deeds — there were jesters upon
all that is serious, some of them struck by the disease in
the midst of their very jests upon it. But, "suppose ye that
these Galileans, were sinners above all Galileans, because
they suffered such things?" "1 tell you nay," says the
Saviour of the world, " but except ye repent ye shall
all likewise perish." " Repent" then, " and be converted
that your sins may be blotted out." It is not only to drunk-
ards, to dissolute livers, to profane scoffers, to men hack-
neyed in iniquitous practices, that this language is ad-
dresed. Enough, indeed, survive of such as these ; but
all of us, all of us have committed sins which, in the sight
of God, can only be blotted out in the blood of Christ.
They are not blotted out if they are not repented of.
They are not removed from our door, if we are not touch-
ed inwardly with any sense of them. We are before God
IN OUR TRESPASSES, " Wc are yet in our sins."
16
Have, then, the great truths of Revehition, have the late
warning dispensations from the hand of our God, viewed by
the light of those truth?, taken a true and deep effect upon
our hearts ? Are we the better for these dispensations, —
more humble, more holy, more heavenly-minded, more
earnest and constant in prayer, — prayer for the influence
of the HoLv SpiiuT, — more prepared in all points for our
account ? Have we a more serious sense of the purposes
of our existence, — of the condition and the destiny of man ?
— have we an awakened perception of the sinfulness and
danger of wasting in frivolous dissipation that time which
is given us to ** work out our salvation with fear and
trembling ?" O if any of you, in an hour of alarm, or
solemn thought " when the mourners go about the streets,"
have been brought, to grieve for the vain, light, worldly,
unprofitable part which perhaps you filled before, — never,
never return to '
agt
conji
let this winter at least, be a winter of dissipation. It
■would be flying in the face of God.
\U
It is difficult to be precise and minute in laying down
some of the rules which should regulate, generally, our
intercourse with the world ; and there are things which
must be left to the conscience of the individual as he finds
that they afl'ect the state of his soul : things to which the
maxim must be applied, " Let every man be fully persuaded
in his own mind :" — points in which a Christian Minister
■will not attempt to dictate to his hearers, or to establish
one rule for all, which \vould abridge their Christian li-
berty and discretion in matters left open in the word of
God, and tend to the introduction of tests, uncharitable
towards others, and dangerous to those who adopt them :
Cases indeed will occur in which his anxiety for his own
usefulness will render him afraid, on the one hand, of
1
\
ir
Wn\g austere, and on the otlier, of appearing too easy, re-
membering that the same dispositions exist in the world
whicli prompted the Jews to say that John had a devil
because he practised a marked abstemiousness and seclu-
sion, and of Christ that he was gluttonous and a wine-
bibber, because he mixed without constraint in social in-
tercourse, at the tables of those who might benefit by his
ministry.
But of whatever varieties these questions may be suscep-
tible, there are two points which may be safely laid down :
lursi, that if any Christian feels it safe and right for him-
self to withdraw whollv from what is called the world, we
have no right to blame him, nor reason to urge and press
him to a diiferent course : \\\^sccQndhj, that Christians
who mix at all in the world, should keep at a distance
from the dreadful danger of being lovers of 'pleasures more,
than lovers of God; should put the question home to
to their own breasts and clearly resolve themselves in it,
which they actually love best ; should tremble at the idea
of resembling those of whom it is said that the harp and
the violy the tahret, and pipe , and wine are in tlieir feasts, hut
they regard not the ivor'c of the JLord^ neither consider the
operation of His liands ; should enquire within themselves
whether they would preserve an undismayed conscience, if
in the midst of the banquet, they saw fingers of a man's
hand put forth, and the writing of God's sentence upon the
wall ; should bear it unceasingly in mind that they are
strangers and sojourners ttpon earth as all their fathers were
and seek a better country, that is an heavenly ; should keep
it, upon all occasions, in view that they are to be doing the
work of their Lord, till his return to take account of his
servants, and that if, year after year they arc unfruitful, —
c
18
especially aficr being seriously u'anied, — their day of
grace will be speedily gone by and tlieir doom once for all
decided, Cut it dowUf whij citmhercth it the ground i—^
should so walk in short, that they can be said to walk
WITH Goi), and if they should wal/c in the valleij of the
shadow of death, can say to 'he Uedeemer of their souls,
/ tv ill fear no evil for 'i'nou art with me.
You believe, I am sure, that if preparation has not been
made before that hour, there is little, in most cases, (for
1 do not say in all) to be ho|)ed for when it comes : little
efficacy, little use, in the visits of the Clergy ; little pro-
priety above all, in the administration of what are some-
times called the rites of the Church, It was with shame
and sorrow that in the trying times which we have now
been engaged in reviewing, I found to exist among Pro-
testants, more extensively, I will confess, thanlhadsup-
j)0sed, a delusive altho' indistinct kind of reliance upon
the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, as if it could operate
like a charm to the benefit of souls in an unprepared state ;
or as if it were one of a series oi forms to be gone through,
as necessary to complete the proprieties of the occasion, as
the rites of sepulture after the decease. And although I
never can agree with those who think that the Clergy can
be justified, upon the plea of more profitably employing
their time, in declining to answer any calls among the
dying, which at least afford opportunity of improving to
the by-standcrs, the scene of death ] nor yet with those who
would deny to true believers, in dangerous sickness or long-
continued infirmity, the comfort and refreshment which I
have often jvnown to be conveyed to them by the private
julministration of this ordinance, — it is rarely, very rarely
indeed, that it ought to be administered in the dying hour^
to those who have never received it iu the days of thcij,*
19
of
hotiltli. UiHiuestionably if we hiwc part inXhrlst, we ought
to break tluit bread and dritik of that blessed cup whlcli
the Apos^tlc telid us arc tl»e coinuiuniou of his body and
blood. JJiit thi'^ bread and this cup will not give us part
in Christ, if we have it not without them — although they
will confirm it, if we have.— That is, Indeed, ihv good part
which if we have choHcn it, shall not he taken from ?<,y.—
God grant us the wisdom to regard it as the one thing
7iec(lfut, the one pearl of great price. God grant us — it is?
the sum of a Christian's prayer — in this world knowledge
of his truth, and in the world to come, life everlasting !''
ipon
;ratc
as
* Prayor of St. Clnysostom in llio Liturgy;
can
.«•
^yin
the
|ig to
who
long-
lich I
livatc
n-ely
hour,
thei}.-
APPENDIX.
/(/ quoque quod vkam munus habere Dei,
The design of ihis Appendix is to record in a familiar
manner, without much regard to method or connection, some
few circumstances more or less striking or instructive in
their character, which could not well be embodied in the
Sermon, and would, perhaps, if they had been committed to
the form of notes, have loaded it too much with such
appendages.
According to the census taken in pursuance of the Pro-
\incial Act in 1831, the population of the City and Banlieue
of Quebec amounted then, in round numbers, to something
more than 28,000, of whom nearly 21,000 were Roman Ca-
tholics, very nearly 5000 of the Church of England, and the ,
remainder (approaching towards 2,500,) of other Protestant
denominations. As far as has been hitherto ascertained, the
whole number of deaths by Cholera in the year following, has
amounted to about 2,800. From these data it would appear
that the whole population has been decimated by the pesti-
lence ; but besides some increase of the resident population,
on the one hand, it is to be taken into the account, on the
other, that the transient population of the summer, (what-
ever proportion it may have borne to the whole,) furnished
many subjects for the melancholy Jist — the disease having
prevailed among such of the Emigrants as landed and among
the sailors also in the port.
The number of interments by the Ministers of the Church
of England during ihe whole of the year 1831, was dS2. —
In 1832, it was not far short of that number in the month of
June alone, and in the whole year has amounted to 975. —
The total of interments from Cholera among the whole
Protestant population is estimated at 785. Upon the two
consecutive days, however, mentioned in the Sermon, (the
15th and 16th of June,) upon each of which upwards of 70
were interred by mysell) it appears probable that among the
00
bodies sent from the hospital to tho Church of England
fJiirial-«Tronn(l in the distrnctinir confusion which then pre-
vailed, there wasa considerable proportion of Roman Catholics
and very possibly were some Protestants ofother communions.
And there is no doubt that some persons have been buried
without iis being known wliere ; and without any registration
o particulars.*
Never can the scene be forgotten by those who witnessed
it, which was exhibited in the dusk of one evening, at the
Emigrant Hospital, before the forced exertions of some mem-
bers and agents of the Board of Heallh had provided another
building in the Lower Town exclusively for the reception of
Cholera j)a.ient9. A house opposite to the hospital had been
engaged toaftbrd additional, accommodation, but the unfor-
tunate subjects for admission came pouring in before any
arrangements at all siiflicient could be completed, and the
desertion, in one afternoon, of part of the servants who had
been hired, rendered the attendance, before most inadequate,
so miserably inefficient, that the passages and floors were
strewed with dying persons, writhing under wants to which
it was impossible to minister, some of whom, t believe,
actually died before they could be got to a bed. The Heallh
Commissioners, the head of the Medical Staff, and the
first Medical practitioners of the city were upon
the spot together, and doing all they could, but how
couldj their skill or judgment meet all the exigencies
of such a moment ? Women were met at the doors bevvailino;
their aflliclion, who had come too late to take a hist look at
their husbands while alive : parents or children were sur-
rounding the death-beds of those dear to them : patients were,
some clamouring in vain for assistance, some moaning
in the extremity of langour, some shrieking or shout-
ing under the sharp action of the crampst ; friends of
* The rule uniformly acted upon when it became practicable to observe
more order and method, was that acard was placed at the head of each bed, spe
cifying the name, country, religion, &c. of the patient, and the date of his
admission. This card after death, was nailed upon the coffin, before the
body was sent away for interment.
f The delineations of poetry in representing cither affliction or diseaser
were, in many points completely realized in the scene here pourtrayed ; and
in retleeting upon it since, the expressive description of Virgil has come
into my niind : —
Lamontis, gemituquc ot fonuneo ululatu
Tecta sonant —
^23
the sulVercrs were contending angrily with the bewildered
assistants; a voice of authority was occasioiKilly heard
enforcing needful directions, but quickly required insomeolht'i-
quarter of the establishment — a voice of prayer was also heard,
and the words interchanged between the dying and their
pastors were mingled wiih the confused tumult of the hour.
The Clergy in passing through some quarters of the town
to visit the sick, were assailed sometimes by importunate
competitors for their services, — persons rushing out of the
doors or calling to diem from windows to implore their atten-
dance upon their respective friends, and each insisting upon the
more imperative urgency of the case for which he pleaded.
I have no reserve whatever, in nicntioning my own pan in
these occurrences, because to suppose that the Clergy are
entitled to any extraordina>y credit for not flinching from
their plain and proper duty in such cases, seems to involve
a supposition that men whose whole employment relates to
the business of preparation for eternity, and who preach
CIIUIST as the resurrection and the life, are /e^.v expected
to be armed against the fear of death than all the other persons
who are engaged in visiting and tending the sick, and perform-
ing the various oflices successively recpiired after death. A
medical man might argue in the same words, although not
throughout used precisely in the same sense, as those which
I have heard suggested for the use of a Clergyman : These are
cases in which 1 can do much less good than in other labours
of my profession : many of them are almost hopeless, with
respect to my doing any good at all : is it riglu that 1 should
consume my time and expose my life for the sake of such
cases, when if it is prolonged, 1 may be an instrument of
Lsaving many oi my fellow-creatures ? — There is indeed a
iis well as parts of the passage in Milton whicli depictures a scene exbibitcd
In vision to Adam : —
» * * * Ininiediately a pbice
* Before his eyrs appe^ared, sad, noisome, ('ark ;
A lazar-house it seemed, vvliorein were laid
Nunibcis of all diseased ; all m.iladies
Of ghastly s])asm or racking torture, qualms
Of licart sick agony. *****
*** * «***
*
«
Dire was the tossingr, deep the groans : despair
Tended the sick busiest from couch to coueii.
Despair was to be seen every win re, as far as concerned i\ip recovery o(
the sutierers. And sometimes despair of tli(?ir souh. It is loo late, they
;vould sometimes say to the Minister, themselves.
S4
Canon which directs the Clergy to visit their parishioners in
sickness, if it be not known or probably suspected to be
infectious. But the rubric of tlie prayer-book was framed in
belter days, which provides for the case "where none of the
parish or neiirhbours can begotten to communicate with the
sick in their houses for fear of the infection," and assumes it
as a matter of course, that their Minister will visit them under
those circumstances.
With respect, however, to the much agitated question of the
contagious or infectious nature of the Cholera Morbus, the ob-
scurity of the disease iiuhisand in all respectshas beenthesub-
ject of remarkin theSermon; and lam far from offering to lifi a
presumptuous Imnd to cut the entanglements of this Gordian
knot, nor am I qualified to set the subject in a scientific light,
but as it regards simply the courage called into action, in
visiting the sick, it does not seem necessarily of a very high
order, when it is recollected that the medical gentlemen who
areconstantly busy incontact with the patients ; the Clergy
who, to talk witli them to any purpose must, in many
instances touch them and receive their breath clf3se to their
own ;* — the friends and attendants about them night and
day, who relieve them by friction of the hand till they are
themselves perspiring with open pores, — and others who
handle their clothing and bedding before and after death,
remained quite as exempt as any other classes of persons^
from the di sense, f
That this disease may be propagated and made to adhere,
in a manner, to particular places by causes which tend to
generate diseases at large, appears sufficiently natural and
is supported by a variety of instances which are known to
have occurred.
* Upon occasions such as these, whatever constitutional repugnance may
exist to things apt to create disgust, or wliatever of that refinement may,
more or less, be found, vvhicli is engendered by education and habit, are,
(even it not mastered by some previous experience,) overcome by the
necessity of the case and lost before long, in the absorbing nature of tiie
occupation. All studiedprecautions are at the same time almost necessarily
discarded. I sometimes administered the Sacrament, by means of a portable
ai)paratus, to dit!"ereiit Cholera patients successively in a very short time,
in the hospital, or in pas?«ing from house to house, and of course used the
same cup myself which was used by them all. The only protective that I ever
adopted was the suspension of a small bag of camphire round the neck, and
this was forgotten after two or three days. The same was the case with
junior Clergymon wlio were full as much engaged in the same general way
and much more < onstantly in the hospitals.
t One physician died of the Cholera in Quebec. — I believe that no Clergy-
man or Minister of any denomination, exercising any charge in the Province,
fell a victim to it. An Irish Roman Catholic I'riest who died of it in Quft-
iuH'. htui 111 wlv iinived and had not assumed any ecclesiastical duties.
25
The Roman Catholic Clergy connectetl with the estab-
lishment of the Seminary, gave public notice of the closing
of that Institution in order to enable them to assist in the
task of attending the sick, in which the whole body were
unceasingly engaged. One after another, indeed, all the
schools of the city were closed.
The conveyance of bodies to the burial-grounds in open
carts piled up with coffins, continued after the Board
of Health had provided covered vehicles for this pur-
pose, (attached to the hospitals, but disposable for the same
service elsewhere,)from the unavoidable insufhciency of the
])rovision. I saw upon one occasion twelve bodies thus con-
veyed from one hospital and at one time to the Roman Ca-
tholic place of interment alone. Many fables were abroad
among the lower orders, respecting persons said to have
been buried alive in consequence of the order for their in-
terment within a certain number of hours. It is a fact,
however, that the hospital-servants were in the act of taking
an old Englishman from his bed to the dead-house, when
some sign of life appearing, they brought him back, and he
ultimately recovered. This I had from his own lips. One
of the Roman Catholic Clergy also informed me that a
person whom he had visited was found to be alive, after
being laid in his coffin, but died shortly afterwards.
The symptoms, in general, were much less horrible, al-
though the disease, 1 believe, was equally fatal, among
children. 1 do not remember to have seen an instance in
which they were affected by the cramps. 1 saw two little
things of the same family, lying, one day, in the same bed,
at the hospital, to die quietly together like the babes in the
wood.
In some instances the hand of death produced very little
immediate change of appearance. I recognised a man one
day in hospital, whom I had visited the day before at his
lodging ; and upon my going up to speak to him, the
apothecary said to me, " Sir, that man is dead." His eyes
were quite open.
It was one of the characteristic occurrences of the time,
that boards were put out in various quarters of the town
with the inscription COFFINS MADE HERE.
I remember seeing one day at the foot of Mountain-treet,
a coffin containing a body, let down from a high garret, on
26
tlio ouUidt' of tlie house, by ropes. It had never [)assed pro-
bably in the mind of the unfortunate lodger, that the ntairs
by which he gained his lodging, would not afford passage
to him for his leaving it, in case of death. 1 was informed
of a similar occurrence at another liouse^ where the coffin
burst open.
1 have mentioned in the Sermon the case of a drunkard
smitten in the street in a state of drunkenness. 1 saw lijin
seized by the cramps, and with the assistance of a couple of
health-wardens, got him conveyed to the Emigrants' Hospi-
tal. His wife, who was also intoxicated, made violent re-
sistance to his removal. It was, I think, a day or two after
this, that the Cholera Hospital was opened. Upon my
going there, the first person to whom my attention was
directed, was this woman. She was then dying. They
left two orphans who were afterwards received into the
Female Orphan Asylum.
I was once attending to bury a young man who had died
of cholera after having just obtained a decent situation in
a mercantile house, and while I was still over his grave, an
affectionate letter from » is sister in Europe was put into
my bands, which bad arrived too late for him to read it.
She reminded bim that perhaps before that letter could reach
hiniy himself or some of the persons interested about him
might be mingling with the clods of the valley* She ear-
nestly conjured him to abstain from the seductive poison
which it appeared that he had used imprudently before.
— I believe that he had not been guilty of intemperance in
Quebec.
1 have been assured that some men were brought into
hospital, having been picked up in the streets under the
supposition of being affected by cholera, but found to be
only what is vulgarly called dead drunk ; and that the same
individuals, having been discharged as soon as sobered,
again gave themselves up to drinking and were brought
in under no false alarm, a second time, but actually sick
and that unto death, of the disease.
In the early part of August, when the pestilence had
much abated, the Bishop held a Visitation of the Clergy at
Montreal, which, in the earlier stage of the calamity, had
been postponed. I was appointed to preach the Visitation
Sermon, and of course left Quebec for that purpose. Upon
my return, I was in company in the steamboat, with an un-
i
87
t
[I
11
fui'tuuate gentleman who had lost himself by habitual ex-
cess. He was at tlic breakfast-table with the other pas-
sengers, on the morning of the second day. A few hours
afterwards, on tliat same day, hi3 corpse was sewetl up in
sacking, and thrown overboard with weights attached to it,
in conformity with the orders of the Board of Healtli. 1
rer.d over the body, part of the burial service aj)pointed to
be used at sea, with some slight adaj)tation to the case. I
had been with him in Ids dying liour, and it was one of the
worst cases that I witnessed. He could scarcely articulate ;
but, in broken iialf-sentences or single words, was every
instant importunately crying for soniething to assuage his
tliirst, tossing and turning at the same time without the
respite of a moment. A kind of half mucilaginous drivel
streamed profusely from his mouth. His countenance was
ghastly and his skin clammy in the extreme ; and the short
work of this wonderful disease was exemplified (as in other
cases,) by his having the ai)pearance of a person reduced
and worn down by the severe action of some long-continued
illness. After his death, the Captain of the boat proceeded
to take a kind of inventory of such effects as he liad on
board. Among these was a snufF-box with a representa-
tion upon the lid, of some figures carousing at a table, and
a stanza from a drinking-song beneath : Ah ! said the Cap-
tain, that is the soMg that he ivas singing when he came on
board yesterday.
It was a horrid death. 1 cannot say that the unhappy
man could be called impenitent — if the tern» penitence can
be applied to the distress of mind under which he laboured.
He seemed alarmed about himself, and very anxious that
something or other should be tried in behalf of his perishing
soul. When I first went in, he was able to say, 1 am a
dead man. He afterwards put his finger to his open mouth,
as a *=ign, and uttered the single word Sacramenty the ad-
ministration of which was, of course, utterly out of the
question, and 1 believe that I succeeded in turning him from
such an idea.* A minister can hardly be placed in a more
painful situation. He can hardly pray with hope; and
without Iiope he can hardly pray with faith.
* It was impossible to suppose that his desire for the Sacrament, was prompt-
ed by his having in that moment clearly apprehended a proper interest in the
sacrifice which it represents.
28
Slioukl this publication fall into the hands of any person
upon whom a habit of undue indulg^ence in liquor, is gra-
dually stealiner, let liim be warned by these fearful exam|)les.
And oh ! let those who live by selling what so often caries
ruin to soul and body, consider well their own case.
There was another case of cholera among the female pas-
sengers in the steerage, but the woman recovered and is
now living.
The unfortunate gentleman mentioned above did not be-
long to the Province.
It is a common idea, and to be found sometimes in the writ-
ings of divines, that the dtafh-bed of an evil liver will be
sure to afford a warning spectacle of remorse. A familiar
experience of such scenes will completely contradict this
notion. Such cases do, indeed, occur ; but men who have
led a godless life, very frequently die either in a stupid or
else in a deceived state, saying to their consciences;
"peace, when there is no peace," and clinging, like drown-
ing men to straws, to any delusive expedient which will
" promise life to the wicked.'* It is thus that they will
sometimes demand the s^^rament as a kind of passport to
the other world ; and it is thus that when they are past all
possible capacity of judging of controverted points, or
Ivnowing what the Religion is which they emorace, there
are instances of their abjuring Protestantism, if the occa-
sion chances opportunely to offer for settling their account
by a nominal transfer of their faith. 1 am impelled to a
notice of this subject because a statement, which 1 cannot
avoid thinking to be enormously exaggerated, of such con-
versions in this Province during the cholera, has been pro-
claimed as a matter of triumph in one of the Provincial
nevA'Spapers. I shall content myself with observing, for the
comfort of my Protestant brethren, and injustice to our
cause, that, according to the views which ivemust entertain
upon the subject, the loss of credit in such cases has cer-
tainly uot been on the side of the Church so deserted ; and
the more the circumstances are known, the more strikingly
will this truth appear. I believe, however,| that the exam-
ples in Quebec were extremely few indeed ; and among
them, w^ere persons who after recovery renounced w'hat
they had done.
2{)
No person into wliose hands tlirsc hIh.* ts nmy . ill, wli ♦-
ever may l)e his creed, outfiit to tal\e utnlnat^e at vvli»t (
liave iiei'e said. We mai/, indeed, be called upon to ly
more.
There are other exemplifications of this propensity to
self-deception in death as well as in life, of which one
or two which occurred durini,^ the late visitation, may here
be added.
It may well be snppose<l that the pestilence made fearful
ravaijes among the unfortunate pensioners from the army
under the system of comnnitinf^^ which has inundated this
City with one of the worst descriptions of beggars. All the
predisposing causes were here commonly combined. 1 was
attending one of these persons who confessedly had been
addicted to drinking, and had brought on the attack by a
debauch the very night before, and who told me, (although
without any marks whatever of deep contrition,) that he
had committed every crime except murder, — yet this man,
— it is awful to associate the words with such an account, —
this man said in the midst of it, sweet Jesus is my bosom
frioid-
Another person of the same habits, standing in a state of
intoxication at his own door, told me that he found comfort
in going to some place of worship which he asked me if 1
disapproved of his doing ; but said he / ivant lo feci the
Hnlif Ghost, i. e, it may be presumed, in a way apj)roaching
to animal sensation.
An unestablished and confessedly hnchsliding Christian
whom I visited in the hospital, — unprofitable in life and un-
settled in devotion, when I asked him if he iiad |)rayed for
himself, replied with great appearance of unconcern, Yes,
but I have not got an ansiver yet.
Another whose attention I had at first very great difficulty
in rousing, and who could hardly speak, began to argue at
last about the resurrection of the body, which as far as I
could make him out, he conceived would not be real, but
something like a phantom or appearance.
I am writing inthe hope of benefiting the living, and I have
recorded these instances that they may make their own use
of them, and seek by God's grace, to be established and
settled in clear and correct views of the Gospel, and to
rest prepared upon solid grouiuls of confidence before their
last sickness, instead of resorting to unsound expedients ;
i
30
Indulging in moibici or in prc^iuniptuous iniuginatiuns ; ol'
vuinly looking for sensible intinmtions front Heaven, in
such an hour as that, or when they judge it near. We must
never say that tlie door of mercy is shut against others ; but
let us not run all the dangers of loitering without, while
it stands freely open to ourselves. For we know that it
will be shut against some who will knoek too late.
Jt must not be su|)posed that the Ministers of the Gospel
had no comfort in their late duties to indemnify them for
the painful trials whieh have been here described. We
may warrantably hope well of every person who dies calmly,
after a life apparently influenced by religion, and expresses
liis reliance to be upon the great and sole foundation of ac-
ceptance. We may hope well also of persons different from
these, who render evidence of sincere penitence and faith.
And there were not a few deaths of which it might be pro-
nounced that the sting was thoroughly drawn out. I must,
however, confine myself now to a slight notice of two cases
only.
A very few words, or even the manner of uttering them,
will sometimes convey the most consoling assurance. The
voice of the bride is mentioned in a text cited in the Sermon,
as being made to cease by the visitation of calamity. The
voice of a very youthful and amiable person, newly and
advantageously married, was made to cease in death, during
the late prevalence of the cholera, which carried her oft" in
a few liours. It was so enfeebled when I saw her, that
when she voluntarily repeated after me, the clauses of the
Lord's Prayer, the effort was too exliausting and 1 stopped
her before the conclusion ; but I shall never lose the im-
pression produced upon my mind by the marked appearance
of resigned and devout feeling with which she said the words,
Thj/ ivill be done! and from all that passed, I have no doubt
of her hope having been laid up in Christ. Her spirit was
truly humble and her self-abasement of the deepest kind.
The other instance which I propose to notice was that of
a young child who had attended one of the Church of Eng-
land Sunday-Schools in this Parish. When she felt herself
dying, she expressed a desire to see the young lady who had
acted as her voluntary teacher. This desire being com-
plied with, she said that she wished to kiss her before she
died : and in the best manner of which she was capable, de-
pressed her deep thankfulness for having learnt from hei,
those truths regarding her salvation ol which bhc had been
very ignorant before.
ai
Rut it U the life and not the death wliicli in general, must
uft'oni us grounds of hope. Even in deatli there may be.a trl»
iimphant excitement which there iit too much reason to feai*
to be tiiliacious.
Among the awful examples of levity and even merriment
upon the subject of the Cholera, followed by the stroke of
judgin«;'nt, we cannot avoid reverting to the accounts re-
ceiver' * of a kind of masquerading performance or drama-
tic exhibition in a festival-time at Paris, in whicii the Cho-
lera is said to have been personated, with a train of figures
representing in a ludicrous manner, the contortions of
persons suffering from that disorder. This is said to have
immediately prece<led the infliction of the pestilence upon
that City, with a severity unknown in other parts of Euroj)e.
Several cases of a similar kind, where individuals were
concerned, fell within my own knowledge in Quebec.
A young man who was mimicking the writhiiigs of the
patients, was suftering from the reality not many hours
afterwards, soon succeeded by the sad realities of deatli.
A girl near the burial-ground who said in a jesting man-
ner to the sexton, If^ell, Mr. Sexton, it unit be my turn 7iext !
had hardly spoken the words before she was seized in a
manner which obliged her to go into a house, from which
she was conveyed home in the first cart that could be pro-
cured. 1 have never been able to trace the account of her
any farther.
A carpenter who pressed an acquaintance to drink, and
offered to treat him, saying that he was making his fortune
by coffins, was, in a few hours more, in a coffin himself.
I told one man who was on his death-bed, of a story which
I had heard that one of the first victims had tossed off a
glass, on the morning of the day of his death, to the health
of the Cholera ! Ah ! said he, that is like me — God has
served me right, for I ivas making a joke of this
Cholera f
The inhabitants of Qu *bec of all denominations united
in forming an Association, under the name of the Beneficent
* I have not meand of turninff to any recorded account of the occurrence.
I repeat it from memory as it was told to me.
+ The natural propensity of the human mind to delight in the mar-
vcUouSt and to prefer occurrences of a striifing nature to tiie plain history
of common life, develops itself, no doubt, very frequently in religion u»
32
Society, for the relief of suftbrers hy tlie Cholera, within the
City and Banlieue of Quehec. Tiiis Society will of course
publish a Report at the close of its operations in the ensuing
Spring-. The subscrii)tions amounted to J^'IJbO, The So-
ciety comj)rises a Female Branch in which great exertions
have been made in the distribution of clothing and bedding.
The Establishment of the Female Orphan Asylum over
the National Schools in this City, has been doubled in con-
sequence of the calamity, — the Ladies whoconductit having
cansed the additional rooms to be fitted up out of their
existing funds raised by the annual Bazar.
The commencement of a Male Orphan Asylum has been
formed under simiUu* auspices.
Much valuable private charity has also been called forth
among all classes from the heads ot the community down-
wards ; and many orphans have been adopted. In.
that part of the City in particular, which constitutes the
Roman Catholic Parish of St. Roch, where the disease
raged with great violence, every individual orphan of that
communion, was disposed of in this manner among the
Canadians.
It was a remark that I often made during the continu-
ance of the Cholera, how little the face of Nature betrayed
the sadness of the time, or showed any symptoms of that
in otlier thing's, and prompts vocn to deal in representations respecting^ the
evidence of (lie hand of God, (he sudden conversion of sinners, and a
multitude of other points in wliich the imac^inntion is apt unwarrantably to
mix itself, and the reiig^ious appetite is fed with stimulants which render
*' the words of truth and soberness" insipid or unpalatable. I am
sensible, therefore, tliat all statements of very remarkable incidents, or
visible warnings, !>honld be received at first with caution, if not with dis-
trust. But care must be taken at the same time, that we do not push the
rule so far as to reject any well-supported testimony of the marked power
of God's word and grace, or overlook any awful lesson by which he in-
, tends that we should profit.
There are, I believe, various inslances satisfactorily attested, of facts
closely similxtr to that which is selected in the following? extract from
Pinnock's County Histories as havinir occurred at the town of Devizes, in
"Wiltsiiire :—
'* In the market-place is a monumental stone, on which is recorded a
most awful instance of Divine vengeance, almost immediately inflicted on
nn unhappy wretch, who had repeatedly called God to witness the truth
ofs what she advanced, although it was a falseliood. She solemnly
affirmed that she had paid the money for some corn she had bought, and
wished God would strike hp"- d'^ad if she had not. She died, and the
munej was found in her liaiid." — From the Christian Sentinel.
OJ
principle of death which was in such fearful activity among
the delegated lords of creation. I was particuhu'ly im-
pressed with this kind of feeling upon some of the lovely
summer evenings, on which 1 officiated at the burial-
ground, then still unenclosed. The open green, skirted by
the remains of a tall avenue of trees, and contiguous to the
serpentine windings of the River St. Charles, beyond which
you looked across meadows, woods, and fields dotted with
rural habitations, to the mountains which bound the pros-
pect, the whole gleaming in the exquisite and varied lights
of a Canadian sunset, formed altogether a beautiful and
peaceful landscape and seemed a " fit haunt of gods."
How melancholy and striking the contrast with all that had
been deposited, and which it remained to deposit, in the
spot upon which I stood ! How full of deep reflection upon
the ravages of Sin ! How coupled with deep thankfulness
to Him who came to repair those ravages in the end, and
to *' make all things new !'*
The materials composing this Appendix have been has-
tily thrown together from very rough and very slight notes
taken at the first opportunity after the occurrence of each
separate incident that was noted ; and the sheets have been
successively furnished for the press as they were ready, so
as to render impossible any attention to nicety of arrange-
ment, or any revision of the whole together, in which it
might have occurred to make alterations or retrenchments.
With this apology I send them forth, and trust that they
will find the indulgence which they require. I believe
that between my notes and my memory refreshed by their
aid, I have made no statement of facts which is not perfectly
correct in all material points.
DA VENIAM SCRIPTIS QUORUM NON GLORIA NOBIS
CAUSA, SED UTILITAS OFFICIUMQUE FUIT.
%* Shortly will be Published by the same Author, and in a
manner uniform with the foregoing; Sermon, TWO
SERMONS on some prevailing notions respecting thr
Millennium or Reign of Saints.