PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND. 281 death of their last missionary. Immediately upon his arrival he wrote to the bishop of Quebec and having obtained the necessary faculties, he began the arduous,work of at¬ tending to the spiritual wants of all the Cath¬ olics in the colony. His labours were by no means confined to his fellow emigrants. The Acadians also received his best attention. He passed a considerable portion of his time with them at Malpeque , the only Acadian settlement which had escaped the Boscawen devastation of 1758. A number of Acad ¬ ians had by this time settled at Rustico , and to these also he was untiring in his ministra¬ tions. In 1773, the year after his arrival, he superintended the building of the first church at Rustico , wherein the settlers for some years attended divine worship and re¬ ceived the sacraments. Many Acadians came over from the mainland to re¬ ceive the sacraments at his hands and thus silently and alone he carried on the good work of a zealous missionary in his chosen field of labour. As might have been expected, the arduous toil of missionary life and the exposure to the severe winter told upon his health and after thirteen years of incessant labour, during which he bore alone the heavy burden of priestly duty, without any as¬ sistance whatever, he yielded up his spirit to his Maker to receive the reward of a life of sacrifice in behalf of his fellow man. His death occurred in 1785. His remains were interred in the small cemetery at Scotch Fort, where he founded a parish and built a church suitable for the immediate require¬ ments of the Scottish emigrants. It may be said that the labours of Father James in the Island of St. John saved Catholicity from utter extinction in the colony and for the coK onists it was a sad day when they gathered around the mortal remains of their beloved priest to reverently lay them in their last resting place. Once more the Island was left without a priest. There was nothing those good colo¬ nists felt more keenly than to be deprived of religious consolation and when death had claimed the only priest they had during the last thirteen years, they felt in its direst form the deepest sense of desolation.. They sent appeals to Quebec for ministerial assistance, but that colony was also passing through a crisis in its religious history and was unable to render them any assistance. For five years were the Scotch and Acadian settlers on the Island destined to wait until religious succor should arrive, when in 1790 their hearts were again gladdened by the arrival from Scotland of Rev. Angus Bernard Mac - Eachern , the most renowned historical figure in the religious history of Prince Edward Island . Immediately on his arrival in the colony he took up the work which fdr so many years had been practically abandoned. That such an undertaking involved much hardship must be evident to any one who has studied the condition of the colony as it was at that time. While the various ar¬ rivals of emigrants had settled in different parts of the colony, there were no means of communication between these several settle¬ ments save by following the river courses or blazing one's way through the trackless forest. While the settlers could eke out an existence in their respective localities without travelling from one place to another, Father MacEachern's vocation would not permit him to remain in any one place, and thus he was obliged in the performance of his ministerial duties to traverse the whole colony by such primitive methods as would astound one who is accustomed to modern methods of travel.