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Better so; better that we may without bitterness cast our glances upon the august sceptre that rules us.

The age was different from the present one, the fraternity of peoples which Christ had proclaimed was not at that period recognized all over the world; and religious intolerance was everywhere the law of rulers. Even the best were not wholly free from its influence.

Of all our enemies, those who wrought us the most evil were the Puritans of New England, the Bostonians. They hated us intensely, for love of God, because we were Catholic; and tor love of England, because we were French.

Hatred does not ordinarily engender love, unless on the heights of Calvary or in the hearts of saints; and our people did not entertain for the Bostonians any special predilection. Yet these Puritans, slandered almost as much by us as we were by them, were a great and sturdy race. Persecuted in England on account of their religious practices, they became in their turn, in America, the persecutors of those who did not pray after their fashion. Their religion was always austere, sometimes fierce, but they were profoundly religious. They believed, with the letter of the Gospel, that they were obliged to take Heaven by violence. Their laws were assuredly Draconian, but none save strong, energetic souls could have framed such a code, could above all have so vigorously carried it out in practice. The Bible—because they had no authority competent to detach the spirit that "giveth life" from the letter that "killeth"—became in their hands an instrument of ferocity. No; they are not lovable, these puritanized Pilgrims, nor sympathetic; they are even thoroughly ridiculous with their absurd observance of "blue laws" and their belief in witchcraft; but their faith was profoundly sincere, and one can but bow his head before the austerity of their life. They possessed,