The long and conscientious pastoral visit which he had just ended had proved to the indefatigable prelate that it would be extremely difficult to establish his parishes solidly. Instead of grouping themselves together, which would have given them the advantages of union both against the attacks of savages and for the circumstances of life in which man has need of the aid of his fellows, the colonists had built their dwellings at random, according to the inspiration of the moment, and sometimes at long distances from each other; thus there existed, as late as 1678, only twenty-five fixed livings, and it promised to be very difficult to found new ones. To give a pastor the direction of parishioners established within an enormous radius of his parish house, was to condemn his ministry in advance to inefficacy. To prove it, the Abbe Gosselin cites a striking example. Of the two missionaries who shared the southern shore, the one, M. Morel, ministered to the country between Berthier and Riviere du Loup; the other, M. Volant de Saint-Claude, from Berthier to Riviere du Chene, and each of them had only about sixty families scattered here and there. And how was one to expect that these poor farmers could maintain their pastor and build a church? Almost everywhere the chapels were of wood or clapboards, and thatched; not more than eight or nine centres of population could boast of possessing a stone church; many hamlets still lacked a chapel and imitated the Lower Town of Quebec, whose inhabitants attended service in a private house. As to priests' houses, they were a luxury that few villages could afford: the priest had to content himself with being sheltered by a respectable colonist.