4 v-v 
 
 Our Foreign Populations 
 
 Baptist Missions to tke French Canadians 
 The Grande Ligne Mission 
 
 T^HE mustard seed planted -in uncongenial Canadian 
 *- soil in 1834 has become a flourishing tree. Or, to 
 use another parable, the leaven then put into the inert 
 spiritual mass is working widely through the lump. And 
 a woman did it. In 1827, at Lausanne, Switzerland, a 
 widow at the early age of twenty-three, highly accom- 
 plished, endowed with rare personal graces, having an 
 ample fortune, and above all a deep religious spirit, pro- 
 ceeded to Canada to convert the French Canadians. Her 
 pastor and his wife, who had preceded her by a year, 
 were compelled by broken health to return, leaving her 
 alone among a strange people to face the hostile hierarchy 
 of Rome. After great trials and opposition she estab- 
 lished her work in the garret of a rude log house, at 
 Grande Ligne, near Montreal, where she opened a school 
 for the ignorant children. From 1835 to her death in 
 1863, a period of twenty-eight years, she wrought with a 
 heroic devotion seldom surpassed in missionary annals. ■ 
 This woman was Madame Henrietta Feller. She left 
 there a flourishing school, which has been greatly enlarged 
 and strengthened in recent years, and has sent forth 
 many missionaries into Canada and the United States. 
 From 1849 to i860 the American Baptist Home Missioiu— 
 Society aided in the support of missionaries to the French 
 in Canada to the extent of $28,000.* 
 
 ^ *For a fuller history of this remarkable movement, send for 
 "The Grande Ligne Mission," published by the Society 
 
Tke Home Mission Society's Efforts 
 
 The first missionary work to tlie French Canadians 
 in the United States was by this Society, in Northern 
 New York in 1853, in i860 in Sugar Creek and St. Anne, 
 111., and in 1863 in Detroit, Mich. Its work in New Eng- 
 land began in 1870, several years before any other Prot- 
 estant society entered the field. 
 
 The great migration from Canada to New England 
 began about i860, with the expansion of the cotton manu- 
 facturing interests. In 1850 the number of French Cana- 
 dian immigrants was 49,008, in 1890, including their chil- 
 dren born here, 362,396, of whom 165,325 were in Massa- 
 chusetts. Families of ten or twelve children are common. 
 About fifty years ago a French Canadian was converted, 
 and living to a good old age he left a large family. His 
 descendants number 102, all of whom are Protestants, and 
 nearly all of them Baptists. 
 
 Difficult of access were they at the first. As devoted 
 and bigoted Romanists they would not enter a Protestant 
 house of worship, nor admit the missionary to their 
 homes; while copies of Scripture were rejected and 
 burned. The priesthood endeavors to keep them solidly 
 French, and the powerful Society of St. Jean Baptiste 
 has as its motto : "Our language, our nationality, our re- 
 ligion." They have numerous costly churches, at least 
 one cathedral costing about a half million dollars, paro- 
 chial schools, convents, asylums, and are thus entrenched 
 in old Puritan New England, boasting that they will hold 
 the balance of power there soon. 
 
 Notwithstanding the great difficulties encountered, there 
 has been gratifying progress in this work. Many have 
 imbibed the liberty-loving spirit of this country. The 
 power of the priest is not so strong as formerly. The 
 people are becoming enlightened, for at first they were 
 mostly illiterate. Missionaries find a welcome in many 
 homes. Bibles and tracts are accepted and read. Large 
 numbers often attend preaching services in the open air, 
 occasionally making disturbance, but generally attentive 
 and respectful. 
 
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TKe Present Work 
 
 In 1906, under the auspices of the American Baptist 
 Home Mission Society, in co-operation with several State 
 conventions, there were fifteen missionaries among the 
 French Canadians in New England, and four in other 
 States; one in New Jersey among the silk-workers from 
 France. Since 1870 Rev. J. N. Williams, D.D., of Provi- 
 dence, R. I., has been the superintendent of the work in 
 New England. Careful and extended investigation by 
 him shows that there are about 3,500 French Canadian 
 converts and their descendants in the Baptist churches of 
 New England, a goodly number of whom have become 
 thoroughly Americanized and are prominent in church 
 activities. 
 
 For several years the Home Mission Society enabled 
 the Newton Theological Institution of Massachusetts to 
 maintain a department for the training of French mis- 
 sionaries; l)Ut this arrangement terminated several years 
 ago. Generally, the converts arc received into American 
 churches, but form branches thereof, with their own ser- 
 vices. 
 
 It is a pretty severe test of conversion for a Romanist 
 to renounce his infant baptism and be immersed. Much 
 easier is it often for him to become a member of a Pedo- 
 baptist church upon recognition by it of the validity of 
 infant baptism by the- Romish priesthood. 
 
 One of the Society's missionaries, on a small press of 
 his own, assisted by his wife, has published hundreds of 
 thousands of tracts prepared by himself, in French and 
 English, proving by the Scriptures the radical errors of 
 Romanism. Thus the light is penetrating the minds of 
 benighted multitudes. As to the influence of these tracts 
 the author says : 
 
 "A well known French Catholic funeral director paid 
 me a visit. After having made quite a long review of 
 the religious question, he told me that, the other day, 
 twelve Catholic men had gathered in his shop. All of 
 them had read some of my tracts, and, in going over 
 the ground covered by these pamphlets, they declared that 
 
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their contents were true. Only one made objections. I 
 was glad when I heard this statement. Is not this a sure 
 sign of progress? Have I not good reasons for being 
 so optimistic in my views concerning this work? We are 
 advancing. A new day is coming." 
 
 Illustrative Incidents 
 
 "Roman emissaries came to our shores with the same 
 burning zeal that carried Francis Xavier to India. Along 
 the line of the St. Lawrence, through the valley of the 
 Mississippi, in the great Northwest, and amid the savan- 
 nas of the South Rome was to plant her institutions and 
 win her converts. Thus was she to make this a Roman 
 Catholic country. The plan miscarried. But the idea of 
 capturing the United States for the Pope has not for 
 one instant been abandoned. Only the plan has been 
 changed. The immigrant now enters as a factor in the 
 case. From every Papal country on the globe, crowds of 
 Roman Catholics are flocking to our shores." — Rev. D. 
 C. Eddy, D.D. 
 
 * * * 
 
 A French Canadian missionary writes : "A young 
 French girl, eighteen years of age, in this city, accepted 
 a copy of the New Testament and decided to become a 
 Christian ; but when her brothers became acquainted 
 with the facts they took away the Testament, threatened 
 her life if she persisted to disgrace them by leaving the 
 Romish Church, and last week sent her to Canada. All 
 this was done by the order of the parish priest. But the 
 girl will never be a believer in the Romish Church. What 
 she knows of God and His Word will never be forgotten." 
 
 * % * 
 
 A converted Roman Catholic, in Connecticut, after his 
 baptism was denounced from a Roman Catholic pulpit 
 and his Roman Catholic customers were warned against 
 trading at his store, and were told that clothes purchased 
 
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of such a heretic were full of poison and would eat into 
 their very flesh. 
 
 The sequel of the foregoing appeared about a year later 
 as thus reported: "The merchant has weathered the storm, 
 thanks to new Protestant customers, and is getting back 
 his old Roman Catholic customers, now that the denounc- 
 ing priest, by a stroke of apoplexy, is in his grave." 
 
 * * * 
 
 "They have come to us from France and Belgium, with 
 the mischievous, infidel and communistic ideas of their 
 countries, and from Canada with the bigotry and unas- 
 similating notions of the medieval Romanism of the 
 Province of Quebec. To these tens of thousands the 
 gospel is not preached at all, except as we see to it that 
 the French-speaking missionary is abroad in the land." 
 
 "If you want to know Roman Catholicism in America, 
 go to Canada or Mexico. In Canada, it was originally 
 transplanted European stock. In Mexico, it was in- 
 grafted. Bitter fruit has it borne in both countries. It 
 has kept the French Canadian down; it has failed to lift 
 the Mexican up. Whether on civilized or uncivilized, its 
 influence has been to repress, suppress and oppress. In 
 the United States Protestantism has compelled it to be on 
 its good behavior." 
 
 The story of the crucified Bibles is of special interest. 
 In Connecticut some Roman Catholics procured copies 
 of the Catholic version of the Scriptures. But the Jesuit 
 priest denounced them as bad books, and some were 
 burned, while one volume, which an artist had in his 
 studio, was closed by six big nails driven through the 
 book. In another instance a missionary left a New Testa- 
 ment with a French Canadian family, who became in- 
 terested in it. The priest, learning of the fact, said to 
 the woman : "Don't you let one of those miserable venders 
 
 S ■ 
 
of Bibles cross your threshold. Go home and get your 
 husband to nail this book to the door-post; outside, mind 
 you. He can see it and take it back if he wants it." She did 
 as commanded and when the missionary, returning, asked: 
 "Is this the way you treat the Word of God?" she an- 
 swered, with the French shrug of the shoulders : "Ah, 
 monsieur, the priest told us to do it." 
 
 This series of leaflets on the Work of the Society among the For- 
 eign Peoples in America is published by The American Baptist Home 
 Mission Society, 312 Fourth Ave., New York, and can be had from the 
 Society or any District Secretary. Sample copies free; in. quantities, 
 50 cents a hundred. 
 
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