Our narrative of the warfare on the New England frontier has somewhat outrun that of events in Canada proper. The safe arrival of the canoes from the West, the consequent revival of trade, and the comparative immunity from attack enjoyed by the country towards the close of the year 1693 had, as we have seen, made the governor more popular in the country than ever before. Still there were not a few who acknowledged his merits but grudgingly, while they had much to say in regard to the defects of his administration. Charlevoix says that, could he only have added to his own high qualities the virtues of his predecessor, the pious Denonville, he would have been perfect, and the condition of the colony would have left nothing to desire. Frontenac, however, could not be a Denonville any more than Denonville could have been a Frontenac. He was a religious man in the practical, businesslike way in which men with strong political instincts and aptitudes are apt to be religious. There was nothing mystical about him, and little that was sentimental. Religion, in his opinion, was a good thing, but it had its own place; it was meant to co-operate to good ends with the state, but not to dominate the state. In France such views might have passed unchallenged, for these were the days when Gallicanism was at its height, but in Canada they met with keen opposition. There, as already remarked, the leaders of the church hoped to be able to mould a state in which the secular power should find its greatest glory in being the handmaiden of the spiritual.