Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 8.djvu/319

 DEDICATION OF THE MCL/OUGHLIN INSTITUTE. 311 And his reliance was well placed. That ''some day" came long ago. Today is a "some day" spoken of by him. Justice has been done, and is now being done to Dr. McLoughlin. It was not done until after his death. He does not know, unless the dead know. To do justice to the dead is a noble act. In some cases it is a duty, in others it is the inspiration to do right because it is right and because the dead has rested under an imputation which the living alone can rectify. But whether it be duty or inspiration, or both, the good pioneers of Oregon, and their descendants, have seen to it that justice is done to his memory. DR. M'LOUGHLIN'S RELIGION. Dr. McLoughlin was always the friend and supporter of the Christian religion, without regard to sects or denominations, as well as of schools. Out of his land claim in Oregon City, lie gave lots to the Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregational- ists, and Catholics. He gave eight lots to a Catholic Sister- hood and eight lots to the Clackamas Female Protesant Seminary. Rev. Francis Norbert Blanchet, afterwards the first Arch- bishop of the diocese of Oregon City, was one of the first two atholic priests who came to Oregon. In his book, ' ' Historical Sketches of the Catholic Church in Oregon," Archbishop Blanchet says : "It is but just to make special mention of the important services which Dr. John McLoughlin though not a Catholic has rendered to the French Canadians and their families, during the fourteen years he was governor of Fort Vancouver. He it was who read to them the prayers on Sunday. Besides the English school kept for the children of the bourgeois, he had a separate one maintained at his own expense, in which prayers and the catechism were taught in French to the Catholic women and children on Sundays and week days, by his orders. He also encouraged the chant of the canticles, in which he was assisted by his wife and daughter, who took much pleasure in this exercise. He visited and examined his school once a week. * * * He it was who saved the Catho- lics of the Fort and their children from the dangers of perver- sion, and who, finding the log church the Canadians had built,