Almost to a man, the Canadians who settled in Vermont were devout Catholics when they came; but after they had been scattered for a few years among such a preponderant Protestant community, most of them were held very loosely by the bonds of mother church. Except they were residents of the larger towns they seldom saw a priest, and enjoyed a comfortable immunity from fasting, penance, and all ecclesiastic exactions on stomach or purse. On New Year's Day, perhaps the members of the family confessed to the venerable grandsire, but after that suffered no religious inconvenience until the close of the year. Now and then one strayed quite out of the fold and took his place boldly among the heretics, and apparently did not thereby forfeit the fellowship of his more faithful compatriots. But when the flock had become large enough to pay for the shearing, shepherds of the true faith were not wanting. With that steadfast devotion to the interests of their church which has always characterized the Catholic priesthood, these men began their work without ostentation, and have succeeded in drawing into the domination of their church a large majority of the Canadian-born inhabitants of Vermont and of their descendants, as completely as if they were yet citizens of the province, which Parkman truly says, is "one of the most priest-ridden communities of the modern world." What this leaven may finally work in the Protestant mass with which it has become incorporated is a question that demands more attention than it has yet received. The character of these people is not such as to inspire the highest hope for the future of Vermont, if they should become the most numerous of its population. The affiliation with Anglo-Americans of a race so different in traits, in traditions, and in religion must necessarily be slow, and may never be complete. No great love for their adopted country can be expected of a people that evinces so little for that of its origin as lightly to cast aside names that proudly blazon the pages of French history for poor translations or weak imitations of them in English, nor can broad enlightenment be hoped for of a race so dominated by its priesthood. Vermont, as may be seen, has given of her best for the building of new commonwealths, to her own loss of such material as has made her all that her sons, wherever found, are so proud of,--material whose place no alien drift from northward or over seas can ever fill. FOOTNOTES: [106] "The first president of this association was Guerdon S. Hubbard, a Vermonter, who was instrumental in founding and establishing the city of Chicago, who went there in 1819, and later, ten years afterwards, when Chicago only had a fort and one house."--George Edmund Foss. [107] S. E. Howard. CHAPTER XXIII. "THE STAR THAT NEVER SETS."