286

estate. Miscouche, and in order that those settlers

should not be without a church it was de- cided to remove into the settlement the church formerly built at Malpeque, which at this time was of very little use, as most of the Catholic people had removed from that locality. The residents of Launching, in the eastern part of the province, received also their due measure of attention. These set- tlers had emigrated to the Island as early as I789, but had lived in other parts of the country for a few years before settling at Launching. There they erected a small church where they could meet for divine worship on the occasional visits of the priest. In 1820, under the direction of Fa— ther MacEachem, they undertook the erec- tion of a larger church, which was soon com- pleted. In the same year a church was built at Fifteen Point in the western part of the Island. The people of this locality had hith- erto attended the church of Egmont Bay, but as they had by this time increased in numbers they considered themselves in a position to provide a place of worship of their own. Services were then held in this church by Father Cecile.

While the Catholics were thus being pro- vided with churches in the several districts referred to in the foregoing chapters, the want of priests was severely felt by the peo- ple and by no one more so than Father Mac- Eachem.

The expense of educating young men for the priesthood at the time of which we are writing, was practically prohibitive for the people. Many were the efforts made by Father MacEachem to educate some promis- ing young men, and thus provide the vari- ous rising parish good and zealous missionaries. He felt that e was now grow-

Thus was formed the settlement of .

PAST AND PRESENT OF

ing old, and that unless heroic efforts were made to provide these missions with priests, all his long years of labour would be gone for naught as far as the coming generations

were concerned. The year 1821 was made memorable in

the history of the Catholic Church in Prince Edward Island by the consecration of Father MacEachem as Bishop of Rosen. The Is- land. however, was not made a diocese until some years later, and although it had now a resident bishop, its progress was still ham- pered by the want of priests. New duties were added to the many already borne by the bishop without being relieved of any of his former obligations. He was therefore obliged to continue the arduous work of travelling, in season and out of season, to the many missions he had found- ed, performing the duties of priest in all these places, and also attending to all the duties of a bishop throughout the Island, as well as in Cape Breton, Magdalen Islands and New Brunswick. Some faint idea may thus be had of the amount of labour per- formed by this great servant of God.

The year 1822 saw the first ordination of an Islander to the holy priesthood. Rev. Bernard Donald Macdonald had been sent to the Seminary some years before this date and at great sacrifice was maintained there till, on the completion of his studies he was ordained to the priesthood. Returning im- mediately to the Island where so much work was awaiting him, he was at once sent to take charge of the Acadian missions. The following year saw another priest come t) the Island to take part in the work of min- istering to the faithful. This was Father Fitzgerald, who came from Newfoundland, where he had spent some time in missionarr labour. He was given charge of Charlotte-