crowns the high-born prelate with a halo of fourfold saintship. “It was with good reason that Providence permitted him to be called Francis: for the virtues of all the saints of that name were combined in him; the zeal of Saint Francis Xavier, the charity of Saint Francis of Sales, the poverty of Saint Francis of Assissi, the self-mortification of Saint Francis Borgia; but poverty was the mistress of his heart, and he loved her with incontrollable transports.” The stories which Colombière proceeds to tell of Laval’s asceticism are confirmed by other evidence, and are, no doubt, true. Nor is there any reasonable doubt that, had the bishop stood in the place of Brebeuf or Charles Lalemant, he would have suffered torture and death like them. But it was his lot to strive, not against infidel savages, but against countrymen and Catholics, who had no disposition to burn him, and would rather have done him reverence than wrong. To comprehend his actions and motives, it is necessary to know his ideas in regard to the relations of church and state. They were those of the extreme ultramontanes, which a recent Jesuit preacher has expressed with tolerable distinctness. In a sermon uttered in the Church of Notre Dame, at Montreal, on the first of November, 1872, he thus announced them. “The supremacy and infallibility of the Pope; the independence and liberty of the church; _the subordination and submission of the state to the church_; in case of conflict between them, the church to decide, the state to submit: for whoever follows and defends these principles, life and a blessing; for whoever rejects and combats them, death and a curse.” * These were the principles which Laval and the Jesuits strove to make good. Christ was to rule in Canada through his deputy the bishop, and God’s law was to triumph over the laws of man. As in the halcyon days of Champlain and Montmagny, the governor was to be the right hand of the church, to wield the earthly sword at her bidding, and the council was to be the agent of her high behests. France was drifting toward the triumph of the _parti dévot_, the sinister reign of petticoat and cassock, the era of Maintenon and Tellier, and the * This sermon was preached by Father Braun, S. J., on occasion of the “Golden Wedding,” or fiftieth anniversary, of Bishop Bourget of Montreal. A large body of the Canadian clergy were present, some of whom thought his expressions too emphatic. A translation by another Jesuit is published in the “Montreal Weekly Herald” of Nov. 2, 1872; and the above extract is copied _verbatim_.