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Rh familiar voice of their pastor, they cherished in their hearts that strong attachment to the religion of their fathers which is one of the most marked characteristics of their race. As an illustration of this steadfastness in the faith, it may be mentioned that the present Archbishop, when a missionary priest, on one occasion baptised eight children of an Irish family in the midst of the woods. The father had not seen a priest more than twice in twenty years; and what rendered his fidelity the more remarkable was the fact that he had married a Baptist, who did not regard with much favour the creed of her Catholic husband. This was as late as 1842, when there were but five priests in Halifax, and fourteen or fifteen in the entire diocese. The necessary intermarriage of Irish Catholics with members of various Protestant sects caused many of the former to lose the faith. No chapel, no priest, no mass, no administration of sacraments; nor, from the special circumstances of a country in which education had only ceased to be penal, were the Irish emigrants of the early part of this century remarkable for their literary acquirements—hence what could be more natural than that, while the parent clung passionately to the faith for which, perhaps, he had suffered at home, his children, whom he might not be able to instruct or control, should adopt the religion of their Protestant relatives? Such, at any rate, has been the case in numerous instances; and though these instances are fewer than they have been represented to be, they are sufficiently numerous to exhibit many a strange contrast between the old Catholic patronymic and the modern creed. The same circumstances produced the same result in many parts of America.

In 1820 there were but few priests in the province. The first Bishop of Halifax was consecrated in Rome in 1816, and died in 1820. A little wooden church, dignified by the lofty name of St. Peter's, was his cathedral. On its site a building more suited to the increasing wants and