Mais à quoi bon m’étendre sur ce sujet ; vous niez que le clergé canadien ait exercé une action salutaire sur le développement intellectuel et moral du peuple ; laissez-moi mettre en regard de votre opinion celle d’un Anglais protestant dont le témoignage ne saurait vous être suspect.
Lord Durham, dans un rapport adressé à la reine, disait :
« It is a subject of very just congratulation, that religious differences have hardly operated as an additional cause of dissension in Lower Canada ; and that a degree of practical toleration, known in very few communities, has existed in this colony, from the period of the conquest down to the present time.
The French-Canadians are exclusively Catholics, and their Church has been left in possession of the endowments which it had at the conquest. But the Catholic priesthood of this province have to a remarkable degree,