(1863), and received a welcome such as only a bishop who has a vast field with a multitude of souls to be saved, and but few laborers, can give to a new apostle. The venerable Modeste Demers saw in Fr. Seghers a man after his own apostolic heart, and felt that he could lay upon these young and willing shoulders a portion of the burden that was crushing him. Of the early years of Fr. Seghers' priestly life no better account can be given than the words of his bishop, spoken in the American College at Louvain : "There may be an equally good priest on earth, but I do not believe there is a better one." What sacrifice, devotion, and zeal underlie these few but pregnant words! When Fr. Seghers came to Vancouver Island the diocese was in disorder; even the Sisters wanted to leave. For the Oblate Fathers, who had hitherto assisted the Bishop and cared for the Sisters, had been called away to labor in the newly-established vicariate apostolic of British Columbia, lately committed to their congregation. Bishop Demers appointed the new-comer chaplain to the Sisters, and under his care they soon became a model religious community, who for contentment, regularity and observance could not be surpassed. Such love of rule and religious life did their new spiritual director instil into their hearts. Fr. Seghers was stationed at St. Andrew's Cathedral, in Victoria, first as assistant and afterwards as rector. He remained in active charge until December, 1867, when he began to spit blood.. He always administered the temporalities of the diocese in the absence of the Bishop, while Fr. Joseph Mandart held the office of Vicar-General. It was Fr. Seghers that established the first missions on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The occasion was the alleged murder of a shipwrecked crew. In consequence of this, a gunboat went in the year 1869 to a place called Hasquiat, to hang two Indians. The young missionary, who had instructed them in prison and baptized them, went with them to the scaffold. There he saw thousands of Indians plunged in utter barbarism, without ever having seen a priest, though living within a few hundred miles of Victoria. This was too much for his zeal, and he determined to help these benighted people. But a severe hæmorrhage prevented the immediate carrying out of this missionary enterprise. The critical state of Fr. Seghers' health filled Bishop Demers with alarm. By what means could he prolong so valuable a life? A summons to assist at the Vatican Council suggested the idea of giving the frail young priest the benefit of a visit to the Eternal City. The change of scene and climate might restore his shattered health. So the Bishop and Fr. Seghers set out for Rome. At a private audience in the Vatican Mgr. Demers presented the invalid to Pius IX., and begged a very special blessing for him, telling his Holiness that the poor diocese of Vancouver could ill afford VOL. XIII.-7

to lose so valuable a priest. The Holy Father gave the blessing most heartily, and assured the anxious prelate that the life of his protégé would be spared, for the Church had need of his services. He then alluded to a saying, common among Italian ecclesiastics, that a cleric who spits blood has already the Cardinal's red, by saying, jestingly, "You must not encroach on my privilege of making Cardinals."

After this Father Seghers seemed to recover strength for a while. This visit to Rome as secretary to Bishop Demers brings out the young missionary's capacity for study. Before he went to the Vatican Council he scarcely knew of the existence of the Corpus Juris Canonici; when he returned home he had acquired a thorough knowledge of Canon Law. On December 31st, 1870, Bishop Demers had a stroke of apoplexy which incapacitated him for any active work. This increased the responsibility and labor of the already overburdened Father Seghers. This strain brought on in the following spring a severer hæmorrhage than ever before. That he might be better cared for he was sent to the convent, as there was no hospital. There, however, he got worse, so that the doctor declared that his lungs were in such an alarming state that his death was only a matter of time. The naval doctors gave the same decision. Indeed, his appearance showed that his life was in imminent danger. On the 28th of July, 1871, Bishop Demers went to his rest after thirty-three years of missionary labors and after an episcopate of twenty-four years. When the sad news was cautiously broken to the invalid a pint of blood poured from his lips whilst tears streamed from his eyes. What a situation! The Bishop dead and the newly appointed administrator liable to

smother in his own blood! All human remedies seemed powerless to aid him, yet he could not fail to see in what a sad state the diocese was about to be left. Some time before he had dictated a letter to Cardinal Barnabo asking him to obtain the Pope's blessing for him. From it he expected his cure. The Pope, he said, cured him once, he can finish the cure. The event warranted the confidence. For, as far as can be ascertained, Father Seghers ceased to spit blood about the very day of the audience in which the Cardinal asked the blessing. The petition was written and sent the 24th of July, 1871, four days before the Bishop's death. The following extract is translated from the Latin answer of Cardinal Barnabo to the Very Rev. J. J. Jonckau, in whose name the letter had been sent: "I hasten to notify your Reverence that our Most Holy Father, in an audience on the 27th of last August, willingly acceding to the request contained in your letter to me dated the 24th of July, deigned to impart the Apostolic blessing to the Rev. Charles Seghers with all his heart." Father Seghers,

who had such faith in that blessing, attributed his recovery to it. The doctors were nonplussed. They knew that it was attributed to prayers, but dared not say much about it, as they had openly spoken of his speedy death as certain. Overflowing with gratitude, Father Seghers wrote a letter of thanks to the Cardinal to be sent in the name of Father Jonckau, his faithful friend and now the administrator of the widowed diocese. The translation runs as follows: "I have received with a joyful and grateful heart your Eminence's letter of the 2d of September, in which you informed me that the Holy Father had bestowed the Apostolic blessing on the Rev. Charles Seghers, and the more so as it appears that the blessing of his Holiness has restored to health my beloved friend and fellow-laborer. I should have acknowledged your Eminence's letter before this, but I deferred doing so that I might judge more certainly whether or not my friend had recovered. I beg your Eminence to pardon this delay." This letter was dated December 18th, 1871.

Father Seghers' lungs were permanently healed, and never again did he spit blood, in spite of the severe strain to which he often subjected them. For instance, when he was collecting alms for the diocese in 1884-85 he sometimes lectured as often as six times in one day, the lectures lasting over an hour, some even an hour and three-quarters. Still his lungs held out. The blessing of Pius IX. had a lasting effect. That blood was reserved to fertilize Alaska! Having so marvellously recovered his strength, the young administrator devoted himself to his responsible office, and displayed in it such zeal and prudence that at a solemn consistory held in Rome, March 23d, 1873, he was appointed to fill the vacant See. Pius IX. had not forgotten the protégé of Bishop Demers. Charles John Seghers was at this time only thirty-four years old, and thus became the youngest of the American bishops. His episcopal consecration took place on the 29th of June, 1873, in the Cathedral of St. Andrew at Victoria. Now that the full responsibility of the diocese was on his shoulders, he began to organize it thoroughly. New missions were started, new churches and schools built, and the fine building known as St. Joseph's Hospital erected. On Easter Sunday, April 5th, 1874, he consecrated his diocese to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, the solemn ceremony being performed in the Cathedral, Victoria, and in all the residences of the mission. Alaska was under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Bishop of Vancouver Island, but as yet no missionary of that diocese had visited the numerous Indian tribes in that almost unknown region. The youthful Bishop determined to be the pioneer of the Cross in Alaska. In the very year of his consecration he travelled to Sitka, the capital, and thence 1120 miles west as far as the Islands

of Kodiac and Unalaska, one of the Aleutian Isles. It so happened that while Bishop Seghers was journeying through the lower portion of the territory, Right Rev. Bishop Clut and Father Lecorre, O.M.I., were traversing the northern portion, not knowing to whose jurisdiction it belonged.

Though five years had passed since Father Seghers had visited the west coast of Vancouver Island in 1869, he had not forgotten the destitute condition of the poor aborigines. But ill health and over-work had hitherto prevented him from advancing their evangelization. Now as their chief pastor he hastened to supply their great need, and in 1874, accompanied by Father Augustus Brabant, he journeyed through the twenty-one villages into which the four thousand Indians were divided. In each village they preached the word of God and taught them the Catholic prayers in their own language, as well as several religious canticles. They also baptized 960 children under seven years of age.

The following year, with the same companion, he paid another visit to the west coast. To have an idea of what this implied, hear an extract from one of Mgr. Seghers' letters. "In passing from the camp of the Clayoquots to that of Iouclouliet we spent three days and two nights. We had to walk by day and sleep by night under a pelting rain. We had to clear ourselves a path through the brushwood, climb along cliffs, and jump from rock to rock. Our provisions were exhausted, and we were forced to pick up some mussels and eat them raw. Towards the close of the third day we reached Iouclouliet. It was time. Our shoes and clothes were in tatters, and we were nearly dead from hunger and fatigue." Yet he could see the humorous side of things, for he tells how an old man of the Machelat tribe had made himself a vest of an old flour sack, and bore on his back, in big letters, " Imperial Mill.” In this tribe he had the consolation of having the Indians ask permission to say the prayers they had already learned, and with one accord they made the sign of the cross, and recited, without missing a word, the Lord's Prayer and the Hail, Mary! Truly a good soil, in which they sowed more of the good seed by teaching them the Creed, the Commandments of God and of the Church. Such happy dispositions determined the Bishop to establish a permanent mission at Hasquiat on the west coast, and the missionary he selected was the one who had twice been his companion-Fr. Aug. Brabant. On May 11, 1875, this young priest took possession of a modest church and presbytery there. The whole tribe had been converted except the chief, Mat-la-how, who only simulated conversion. Small-pox, that dreaded scourge of savage tribes, broke out. By the precautions and care of their missionary, the deaths at Hasquiat were comparatively few, but among the victims were

the wife and the sister of the chief. The zealous priest tended them. in their sickness, and after death buried them with his own hands. Mat-la-how feigned illness, and sent for the Father. Not suspecting any evil, he answered the summons. The treacherous chief, armed with a rifle, awaited his victim. To the inquiry," what ailed him?" the answer came," memeloast," meaning equally "I die" and "thou shalt die," at the same time raising the gun. Fr. Brabant turned aside his head, and stretched out his hand to seize the weapon, and received a charge of a dozen shot in his right hand. Distracted with pain, he rushed from the lodge to a stream to bathe the wound. The chief pursued and fired again; twenty-six shot lodged in the missionary's loins. The guilty chief fled to the woods. All the Indians of the camp rushed to aid the wounded priest. Fr. Brabant wrote the name Mat-la-how on a slip of paper, and sent it by ten young men to the Bishop. Twelve days later, Mgr. Seghers reached Hasquiat. To the intense grief of the Indians he bore away the wounded missionary to Victoria, promising, however, as speedy a return as possible. Mat-la-how could not be discovered by the officers who had come to arrest him. Seven years later, Fr. Brabant found the would-be assassin's bones, together with the rifle, in the woods to which he had fled after the dastardly deed. The good priest has revenged himself by educating Mat-la-how's little. son with the intention of making him a chief when he becomes of age. This incident illustrates the truly fatherly care Mgr. Seghers had for his priests, going, as he did, himself to bring home the injured missionary.

Having established missions on Vancouver Island, the zealous Bishop once more set his face towards Alaska, for which he seems to have always had a predilection. In June, 1877, he started with Fr. Joseph Mandart, by steamer, for St. Michael's Redoubt, on an exploring expedition to plant the cross in the heart of Alaska. They selected the region of the upper Yukon River. The reason for the choice was that the Indians on the lower Yukon live in the neighborhood of the Russian mission. The Indians on the coast are said by the whites to be spoiled by their intercourse with whalers and given to the use of intoxicating drink. "Therefore," he says, "our field of labor will be confined to the interior of Alaska, particularly that portion watered by the grand and noble Yukon. What a magnificent river it is! Here at Nulato, 600 miles from its mouth, it is no less than three miles wide. Its length is estimated at 2000 miles. Having made up our minds to go to Nulato, and to push our way through the interior, the question arosehow shall we get there? The little stern-wheel steamer, which every year sails up the Yukon, had left a few days before our arrival at St. Michael's. The traders that get their provisions there