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with Bishop Bourget to defeat Sir George Cartier. I therefore withheld this correspondence from publication.
The legislation of last session at Quebec, on the School question, placing that of Roman Catholics wholly under the control of the Clergy, was not re-assuring,—but the repeated and arrogant interference of Bishops and Clergy in elections has seemed to me to threaten the civil rights of all, both Catholic and Protestant, and to require united and vigorous efforts to repress it. There is no question of religious faith involved—let any one worship God as his conscience dictates, but the Clergy, whether Protestant or Catholic, must be forbidden to interfere with secular affairs in any other character than as ordinary citizens. It is repugnant to all proper feeling that the tremendous weapons of religious anathema should be lightly used in mere secular warfare, or that the hold over the human conscience entrusted to the Minister of God, should be exercised for any other purposes than those of piety and moral purity. Nor can it be believed that such a severe and cruel pressure is put upon the consciences of our Roman Catholic fellow subjects for the paltry object of securing the ephemeral triumph of a temporary political party. The conclusion is inevitable, from the nature of the means employed, that a deep laid plan exists for the complete subjugation of Lower Canada to Ecclesiastical rule, with the view of extending the same baneful influence, hereafter, to the whole Dominion. In this view the importance of early and stern opposition to the schemes now being gradually
