God controls the greatest as well
as the smallest of the events of this world. Our business during the few days
of our pilgrimage, then, is to know His will and do it. Our happiness here,
as in heaven, rests on this foundation, just as the success and failures of
our lives come entirely from the practical knowledge or ignorance of this simplest
and sublimest truth. I dare say that there is not a single fact of my long and
eventful life which has not taught me that there is a special providence in
our lives. Particularly was this apparent in the casting of the lots by which
I became the first chaplain of the Quebec Marine Hospital. After the other vicars
had congratulated each other for having escaped the heavy burden of work and
responsibilities connected with that chaplaincy, they kindly gave me the assurance
of their sympathies for what they called my bad luck. In thanking them for their
friendly feeling, I confessed that this occurrence appeared to me in a very
different light. I was sure that God had directed this for my good and His own
glory, and I was right. In the beginning of November, 1834, a slight indisposition
having kept me a few days at home, Mr. Glackmayer, the superintendent of the
hospital, came to tell me that there was an unusually large number of sick,
left by the Fall fleets, in danger of death, who were day and night calling
for me. He added, in a secret way, that there were several cases of small-pox
of the worst type; that several had already died, and many were dying from the
terrible cholera morbus, which was still raging among the sailors.
This sad news came to me as an order from heaven to run to the rescue of my
dear sick seamen. I left my room, despite my physician, and went to the hospital.
The first man I met was Dr. Douglas, who was waiting for me at Mr. C. Glackmayer's
room. He confirmed what I had known before of the number of sick, and added
that the prevailing diseases were of the most dangerous kind.
Dr. Douglas, who was one of the founders and governors of the hospital, had
the well-merited reputation of being one of the ablest surgeons of Quebec. Though
a staunch Protestant by birth and profession, he honoured me with his confidence
and friendship from the first day we met. I may say I have never known a nobler
heart, a larger mind and a truer philanthropist.
After thanking him for the useful though sad intelligence he had given me, I
requested Mr. Glackmayer to give me a glass of brandy, which I immediately swallowed.
"What are you doing there?" said Dr. Douglas.
"You see," I answered; "I have drunk a glass of excellent brandy."
"But please tell me why you drank that brandy."
"Because it is a good preservative against the pestilential atmosphere
I will breathe all day," I replied. "I will have to hear the confessions
of all those people dying form small-pox or cholera, and breathe the putrid
air which is around their pillows. Does not common sense warn me to take some
precautions against the contagion?"
"Is it possible," rejoined he, "that a man for whom I have such
a sincere esteem is so ignorant of the deadly workings of alcohol in the human
frame? What you have just drank is nothing but poison; and, far from protecting
yourself against the danger, you are now more exposed to it than before you
drank that beverage."
"You poor Protestants," I answered, in a jocose way, "are a band
of fanatics, with your extreme doctrines on temperance; you will never convert
me to your views on that subject. Is it for the use of the dogs that God has
created wine and brandy? No; it is for the use of men who drink them with moderation
and intelligence."
"My dear Mr. Chiniquy, you are joking; but I am in earnest when I tell
you that you have poisoned yourself with that glass of brandy," replied
Dr. Douglas. "If good wine and brandy were poisons," I answered, "you
would be long ago the only physician in Quebec, for you are the only one of
the medical body whom I know to be an abstainer. But, though I am much pleased
with your conversation, excuse me if I leave you to visit my dear sick sailors,
whose cries for spiritual help ring in my ears."
"One word more," said Dr. Douglas, "and I have done. Tomorrow
morning we will make the autopsy of a sailor who has just died suddenly here.
Have you any objection to come and see with your eyes, in the body of that man,
what your glass of brandy has done in your own body."
"No, sir; I have no objection to see that," I replied. "I have
been anxious for a long time to make a special study of anatomy. It will be
my first lesson; I cannot get it from a better master."
I then shook hands with him and went to my patients, with whom I passed the
remainder of the day and the greater part of the night. Fifty of them wanted
to make general confessions of all the sins of their whole lives; and I had
to give the last sacraments to twenty-five who were dying from small-pox or
cholera morbus. The next morning I was, at the appointed hour, by the corpse
of the dead man, when Dr. Douglas kindly gave me a very powerful microscope,
that I might more thoroughly follow the ravages of alcohol in every part of
the human body.
"I have not the least doubt," said he, "that this man has been
instantly killed by a glass of rum, which he drank one hour before he fell dead.
That rum has caused the rupture of the aorta" (the big vein which carries
the blood to the heart).
While talking thus the knife was doing its work so quickly that the horrible
spectacle of the broken artery was before our eyes almost as the last word fell
from his lips.
"Look here," said the doctor, "all along the artery, and you
will see thousands, perhaps millions, of reddish spots, which are as many holes
perforated through it by alcohol. Just as the musk rats of the Mississippi river,
almost every spring, did little holes through the dams which keep that powerful
river within its natural limits, and cause the waters to break through the little
holes, and thus carry desolation and death along its shores, so alcohol every
day causes the sudden death of thousands of victims by perforating the veins
and opening small issues through which the blood rushes out of its natural limits.
It is not only this big vein which alcohol perforates; it does the same deadly
work in the veins of the lungs and the whole body. Look at the lungs with attention,
and count, if you can, the thousands and thousands of reddish, dark and yellow
spots, and little ulcers with which they are covered. Every one of them is the
work of alcohol, which has torn and cut the veins and caused the blood to go
out of its canals, to carry corruption and death all over these marvelous organs.
Alcohol is one of the most dangerous poisons I dare say it is the most dangerous.
It has killed more men than all the other poisons together. Alcohol I cannot
be changed or assimilated to any part or tissue or our body, it cannot go to
any part of the human frame without bringing disorder and death to it. For it
cannot in any possible way unite with any part of our body. The water we drink,
and the wholesome food and bread we eat, by the laws and will of God are transformed
into different parts of the body, to which they are sent through the millions
of small canals which take them from the stomach to every part of our frame.
When the water has been drunk, or the bread we have eaten is, for instance,
sent to the lungs, to the brain, the nerves, the muscles, the bones wherever
it goes it receives, if I can so speak, letters of citizenship; it is allowed
to remain there in peace and work for the public good. But it is not so with
alcohol. The very moment it enters the stomach it more or less brings disorder,
ruin and death, according to the quantity taken. The stomach refuses to take
it, and makes a supreme effort to violently throw it out, either through the
mouth, or by indignantly pushing it to the brain or into the numberless tubes
by which it discharges its contents to the surface through all the tissues.
But will alcohol be welcome in any of these tubes or marvelous canals, or in
any part or tissue of the body it will visit on its passage to the surface?
No! Look here with your microscope, and you will see with your own eyes that
everywhere alcohol has gone in the body there has been a hand-to-hand struggle
and a bloody battle fought to get rid of it. Yes! every place where King Alcohol
has put his foot has been turned into a battlefield, spread with ruin and death,
in order to ignominiously turn it out. By a most extraordinary working of nature,
or rather by the order of God, every vein and artery through which alcohol has
to pass suddenly contracts, as if to prevent its passage or choke it as a deadly
foe. Every vein and artery has evidently heard the voice of God: "Wine
is a mocker; it bites like a serpent and stings as an adder!" Every nerve
and muscle which alcohol touched, trembled and shook as if in the presence of
an implacable and unconquerable enemy. Yes, at the presence of alcohol every
nerve and muscle loses its strength, just as the bravest man, in the presence
of a horrible monster or demon, suddenly loses his natural strength, and shakes
from head to foot."
I cannot repeat all I heard that day from the lips of Dr. Douglas, and what
I saw with my own eyes of the horrible workings of alcohol through every part
of that body. It would be too long. Suffice to say that I was struck with horror
at my own folly, and at the folly of so many people who make use of intoxicating
drinks.
What I learned that day was like the opening of a mysterious door, which allowed
me to see the untold marvels of a new and most magnificent world. But though
I was terror-stricken with the ravages of strong drink in that dead man, I was
not yet convinced of the necessity of being a total abstainer from wine and
beer, and a little brandy now and then, as a social habit. I did not like to
expose myself to ridicule by the sacrifice of habits which seemed then, more
than now, to be among the sweetest and most common links of society. But I determined
to lose no opportunity of continuing the study of the working of alcohol in
the human body. At the same time I resolved to avail myself of every opportunity
of making a complete study of anatomy under the kind and learned Dr. Douglas.
It was from the lips and works of Dr. Douglas that I learned the following startling
facts:
1st. The heart of man, which is only six inches long by four inches wide, beats
seventy times in a minute, 4,200 in one hour, 100,300 in a day, 36,792,000 in
a year. It ejects two ounces and a half of blood out of itself every time it
beats, which makes 175 ounces every minute, 656 pounds every hour, seven tons
and three-quarters of blood which goes out of the heart every day! The whole
blood of a man runs through his heart in three minutes.
2nd. The skin is composed of three parts placed over each other, whose thickness
varies from a quarter to an eighth of a line. Each square inch contains 3,500
pores, through which the sweat goes out. Every one of them is a pipe a quarter
of an inch long. All those small pipes united together would form a canal 201,166
feet long equal to forty miles, or nearly thirteen leagues!
3rd. The weight of the blood in an ordinary man is between thirty and forty
pounds. That blood runs through the body in 101 seconds, or one minute and forty-one
seconds. Eleven thousand (11,000) pints of blood pass through the lungs in twenty-four
hours.
4th. There are 246 bones in the human body; 63 of them are in the head, 24 in
the sides, 16 in the wrist, 14 in the joints, and 108 in the hands and feet!
The heart of a man who drinks nothing but pure water beats about 100,300 a day,
but will beat from 25,000 to 30,000 times more if he drinks alcoholic drinks.
Those who have not learned anatomy know little of the infinite power, wisdom,
love and mercy of God. No book except the Bible, and no science except the science
of astronomy is like the body of man to tell us what our God is, and what we
are. The body of man is a book written by the hand of God, to speak to us of
Him as no man can speak. After studying the marvelous working of the heart,
the lungs, the eyes and the brain of man, I could not speak; I remained mute,
unable to say a single word to tell my admiration and awe. I wept as overwhelmed
with my feelings. I should have like to speak of those things to the priests
with whom I lived, but I saw at first they could not understand me; they thought
I was exaggerating. How many times, when alone with God in my little closet,
when thinking of those marvels, I fell on my knees and said: "Thou are
great, O my God! The works of Thy hands are above the works of man! But the
works of Thy love and mercy are above all Thy other works!"
During the four years I was chaplain of the Marine Hospital, more than one hundred
corpses were opened before me, and almost as many outside the hospital. For
when, by the order of the jury and the coroner, an autopsy was to be made, I
seldom failed to attend. In that way I have had a providential opportunity of
acquiring the knowledge of one of the most useful and admirable sciences as
no priest or minister probably ever had on this continent. It is my conviction
that the first thing a temperance orator ought to do is to study anatomy; get
the bodies of drunkards, as well as those of so called temperate drinkers, opened
before him, and study there the working of alcohol in the different organs of
man. So long as the orators on temperance will not do that, they cannot understand
the subject on which they speak. Though I have read the best books written by
the most learned physicians of England, France, and United States on the ravages
of rum, wines and beer of every kind and name in the body of men, I have never
read anything which enlightened me so much, and brought such profound convictions
to my intelligence, as the study I have made of the brain, the lungs, the heart,
veins, arteries, nerves and muscles of a single man or woman. These bodies,
opened before me, were books written by the hand of God Himself, and they spoke
to me as no man could speak. By the mercy of God, to that study is due the irresistible
power of my humble efforts in persuading my countrymen to give up the use of
intoxicating drinks. But here is the time to tell how my merciful God forced
me, His unprofitable and rebellious servant, almost in spite of myself, to give
up the use of intoxicating drinks.
Among my penitents there was a young lady belonging to one of the most respectable
families of Quebec. She had a child, a girl, almost a year old, who was a real
beauty. Nothing this side of heaven could surpass the charms of that earthly
angel. Of course that young mother idolized her; she could hardly consent to
be without her sweet angel, even to go to church. She carried her everywhere,
to kiss her at every moment and press her to her heart. Unfortunately that lady,
as it was then and is till now often the case, even among the most refined,
had learned in her father's house, and by the example of he own mother, to drink
wine at the table, and when receiving the visits of her friends or when visiting
them herself. Little by little she began to drink, when alone, a few drops of
wine, at first by the advice of her physician, but soon only to satisfy the
craving appetite, which grew stronger day by day. I was the only one, excepting
her husband, who knew this fact. He was my intimate friend, and several times,
with tears trickling down his cheeks, he had requested me, in the name of God,
to persuade her to abstain from drinking. That young man was so happy with his
accomplished wife and his incomparably beautiful child! He was rich, had a high
position in the world, numberless friends, and a palace for his home! Every
time I had spoken to that young lady, either when alone or in the presence of
her husband, she had shed tears of regret; she had promised to reform, and take
only the few glasses prescribed by her doctor. But, alas! that fatal prescription
of the doctor was like the oil poured on burning coals; it was kindling a fire
which nothing could quench. One day, which I will never forget, a messenger
came in haste and said: "Mr. A. Wants you to come to his home immediately.
A terrible misfortune has just happened his beautiful child has just been killed.
His wife is half crazy; he fears lest she will kill herself."
I leaped into the elegant carriage drawn by two fine horses, and in a few minutes
I was in the presence of the most distressing spectacle I ever saw. The young
lady, tearing her robes into fragments, tearing her hair with her hands, and
cutting her face with the nails of her fingers, was crying, "Oh! for God's
sake, give me a knife that I may cut my throat? I have killed my child! My darling
is dead! I am the murderess of my own dear Lucy! My hands are reddened with
her blood. Oh! may I die with her!"
I was thunderstruck, and at first remained mute and motionless. The young husband,
with two other gentlemen, Dr. Blanchet and Coroner Panet, were trying to hold
the hands of his unfortunate wife. He did not dare to speak. At last the young
wife, casting her eyes upon me, said: "Oh, dear Father Chiniquy, for God's
sake give me a knife that I may cut my throat! When drunk, I took my precious
darling in my arms to kiss her; but I fell her head struck the sharp corner
of the stove. Her brain and blood are there spread on the floor! My child! my
own child is dead! I have killed her! Cursed liquor! cursed wine! My child is
dead! I am damned! Cursed drink!"
I could not speak, but I could weep and cry. I wept, and mingled my tears with
those of that unfortunate mother. Then, with an expression of desolation which
pierced my soul as with a sword, she said: "Go and see." I went to
the next room, and there I saw that once beautiful child, dead, her face covered
with her blood and brains! There was a large gap made in the right temple. The
drunken mother, falling with her child in her arms, had caused the head to strike
with such a terrible force on the stove that it upset on the floor. The burning
coals were spread on every side, and the house had been very nearly on fire.
But that very blow, with the awful death of her child, had suddenly brought
her to her senses, and put an end to her intoxication. At a glance she saw the
whole extent of her misfortune. Her first thought had been to run to the sideboard,
seize a large, sharp knife, and cut her own throat. Providentially, her husband
was on the spot. With great difficulty, and after a terrible struggle, he took
the knife out of her hands, and threw into the street through the window. It
was then about five o'clock in the afternoon. After an hour passed in indescribable
agony of mind and heart, I attempted to leave and go back to the parsonage.
But my unfortunate young friend requested me, in the name of God, to spend the
night with him. "You are the only one," he said, "who can help
us in this awful night. My misfortune is great enough, without destroying our
good name by spreading it in public. I want to keep it as secret as possible.
With our physician and coroner, you are the only many on earth whom I trust
to help me. Please pass the night with us."
I remained, but tried in vain to calm the unfortunate mother. She was constantly
breaking our hearts with her lamentations her convulsive efforts to take her
own life. Every minute she was crying, "My child! my darling Lucy! Just
when thy little arms were so gently caressing me, and thy angelic kisses were
so sweet on my lips, I have slaughtered thee! When thou wert pressing me on
thy loving heart and kissing me, I, thy drunken mother, gave thee the death-blow!
My hands are reddened with thy blood! My breast is covered with thy brains!
Oh! for God's sake, my dear husband, take my life. I cannot consent to live
a day longer! Dear Father Chiniquy, give me a knife that I may mingle my blood
with the blood of my child! Oh that I could be buried in the same grave with
her!"
In vain I tried to speak to her of the mercies of God towards sinners; she would
not listen to anything I could say; she was absolutely deaf to my voice. At
about ten o'clock she had a most terrible fit of anguish and terror. Though
we were four men to keep her quiet, she was stronger than we all. She was strong
as a giant. She slipped from our hands and ran to the room where the dear child
was lying in her cradle. Grasping the cold body in her hands, she tore the bands
of white linen which had been put round the head to cover the horrible wound,
and with cries of desolation she pressed her lips, her cheeks, her very eyes
on the horrible gap from which the brain and blood were oozing, as if wanting
to heal it and recall the poor dear one to life.
"My darling, my beloved, my own dear Lucy," she cried, "open
they eyes look again at thy mother! Give me a kiss! Press me again to thy bosom!
But thine eyes are shut! thy lips are cold! Thou dost not smile on me any longer!
Thou art dead, and I, thy mother, have slaughtered thee! Canst thou forgive
me thy death? Canst thou ask Jesus Christ, our Saviour, to forgive me? Canst
thou ask the blessed Virgin Mary to pray for me? Will I never see thee again?
Ah, no! I am lost I am damned! I am a drunken mother who has murdered her own
darling Lucy! There is no mercy for the drunken mother, the murderess of her
own child."
And when speaking thus to her child she was sometimes kneeling down, then running
around the room as if flying before a phantom.
But even then she was constantly pressing the motionless body to her bosom or
convulsively passing her lips and cheeks over the horrible wound, so that her
lips, her whole face, her breast and hands were literally besmeared with the
blood flowing from the wound. I will not say that we were all weeping and crying,
for the words "weeping and crying" cannot express the desolation the
horror we felt. At about eleven o'clock, when on her knees, clasping her child
to her bosom, she lifted her eyes towards me, and said;
"Dear Father Chiniquy, why is it that I have not followed your charitable
advice when, still more with your tears than with words, you tried so often
to persuade me to give up the use of those cursed intoxicating wines? How many
times you have given me the very words which come from heaven: 'Wine is a mocker;
it bites as a serpent, and stings as an adder!' How many times, in the name
of my dear child, in the name of my dear husband, in the name of God, you have
asked me to give up the use of those cursed drinks! But listen now to my prayer.
Go all over Canada; tell all the fathers never to put any intoxicating drink
before the eyes of their children. It was at my father's table that I first
learned to drink that wine which I will curse during all eternity! Tell all
the mothers never to taste these abominable drinks. It was my mother who first
taught me to drink that wine which I will curse as long as God is!
"Take the blood of my child, and go redden with it the top of the doors
of every house in Canada, and say to all those who dwell in those houses that
that blood was shed by the hand of a murderess mother when drunk. With that
blood write on the walls of every house in Canada that 'wine is a mocker.' Tell
the French Canadians how, on the dead body of my child, I have cursed that wine
which has made me so wretchedly miserable and guilty."
She then stopped, as if to breathe a little for a few minutes. She added:
"In the name of God, tell me, can my child forgive me her death? Can she
ask God to look upon me with mercy? Can she cause the blessed Virgin Mary to
pray for me and obtain my pardon?"
Before I could answer, she horrified us by the cries, "I am lost! When
drunk I killed my child! Cursed wine!"
And she fell a corpse on the floor. Torrents of blood were flowing from her
mouth on her dead child, which she was pressing to her bosom even after her
death!
That terrible drama was never revealed to the people of Quebec. The coroner's
verdict was that the child's death was accidental, and that the distressed mother
died from a broken heart six hours after. Two days later the unfortunate mother
was buried, with the body of her child clasped in her arms.
After such a terrible storm I was in need of solitude and rest, but above everything
I was in need of praying. I shut myself in my little room for two days, and
there, alone, in the presence of God, I meditated on the terrible justice and
retribution which He had called me to witness. That unfortunate woman had not
only been my penitent: she had been, with her husband, among my dearest and
most devoted friends. It was only lately that she had become a slave to drunkenness.
Before that, her piety and sense of honour were of the most exalted kind known
in the Church of Rome. Her last words were not the commonplace expressions which
ordinary sinners proffer at the approach of death; her words had a solemnity
for me which almost transformed them into oracles of God in my mind. Each of
them sounded in my ears as if an angel of God had touched the thousand strings
of my soul, to call my attention to a message from heaven. Sometimes they resembled
the terrible voice of thunder; and again it seemed as if a seraph, with his
golden harp, were singing them in my ears, that I might prepare to fight faithfully
for the Lord against His gigantic enemy, alcohol.
In the middle of that memorable night, when the darkness was most profound and
the stillness fearful, was I awake, was I sleeping? I do not know. But I saw
a calm, beautiful, and cherished form of my dear mother standing by me, holding
by the hand the late murderess, still covered with the blood of her child. Yes!
my beloved mother was standing before me; and she said, with power and authority
which engraved every one of her words on my soul, as if written with letters
of tears, blood, and fire: "Go all over Canada; tell every father of a
family never to put any intoxicating drink before his children. Tell all the
mothers never to take a drop of those cursed wines and drinks. Tell the whole
people of Canada never to touch nor look at the poisoned cup, filled with those
cursed intoxicating drinks. And thou, my beloved son, give up for ever the use
of those detestable beverages, which are cursed to hell, in heaven, and on earth.
It bites like a serpent; it stings like an adder."
When the sound of that voice, so sweet and powerful, was hushed, and my soul
had ceased seeing that strange vision of the night, I remained for some time
exceedingly agitated and troubled. I said to myself, "Is it possible that
the terrible things I have seen and heard these last few days will destroy my
mind, and send me to the lunatic asylum?"
I had hardly been able to take any sleep or food for the last three days and
nights, and I seriously feared lest the weakness of my body would cause me to
lose my reason. I then threw myself on my knees to weep and pray. This did me
good. I soon felt myself stronger and calmer.
Raising again my mind to God, I said: "O my God, let me know Thy holy will,
and grant me the grace to do it. Do the voices I have just heard come from Thee?
Hast Thou really sent one of the angels of Thy mercy, under the form of my beloved
mother? or is all this nothing but the vain dreams of my distressed mind?
"Is it Thy will, O my God, that I should go and tell my country what Thou
hast so providentially taught me of the horrible and unsuspected injuries which
wine and strong drink cause to the bodies as well as the souls of men? Or is
it Thy will that I should conceal from the eyes of the world the wonderful things
Thou has made known to me, and that I might bury them with me in my grave?"
As quick as lightning the answer was suggested to me. "What I have taught
thee in secret, go and tell it to the housetops!" Overwhelmed with an unspeakable
emotion, and my heart filled with a power which was not mine, I raised my hands
towards heaven and said to my God:
"For my dear Saviour Jesus' sake, and for the good of my country, O my
God, I promise that I will never make any use of intoxicating drinks; I will,
moreover, do all in my power to persuade the other priests and the people to
make the same sacrifice?"
Fifty years have passed since I took that pledge, and, thanks be to God, I have
kept it.
For the next two years I was the only priest in Canada who abstained from the
use of wine and other intoxicating drinks; and God only knows what I had to
suffer all that time what sneers, and rebukes and insults of every kind I had
silently to bear! How many times the epithets of fanatic, hypocrite, reformer,
half-heretic, have been whispered into my ear, not only by the priests, but
also by the bishops. But I was sure that my God knew the motives of my actions,
and by His grace I remained calm and patient. In His infinite mercy He has looked
down upon His unprofitable servant and has taken his part. He had Himself chosen
the day when I saw those same priests and bishops, at the head of their people,
receiving the pledge and blessing of temperance from my hands. Those very bishops
who had unanimously, at first, condemned me, soon invited the first citizens
of their cities to present me with a golden medal, as a token of their esteem,
after giving me, officially, the title of "Apostle of Temperance of Canada."
The Governor and the two Chambers of Parliament of Canada voted me public thanks
in 1851, and presented me $500 as a public testimony of their kind feeling for
what had been done in the cause of temperance. It was the will of my God that
I should see, with my own eyes, my dear Canada taking the pledge of temperance
and giving up the use of intoxicating drinks. How many tears were dried in those
days! Thousands and thousands of broken hearts were consoled and filled with
joy. Happiness and abundance reigned in many once desolate homes, and the name
of our merciful God was blessed everywhere in my beloved country. Surely this
was not the work of poor Chiniquy!
It was the Lord's work, for the Lord, who is wonderful in all His doings, had
once more chosen the weakest instrument to show His mercy towards the children
of men. He has called the most unprofitable of His servants to do the greatest
work of reform Canada has ever seen, that the praise and glory might be given
to Him, and Him alone!