52 FIFTY YEARS IN WESTERN CANADA

D’Herbomez, tired of seeing his representative practi-
cally derided by people who wanted to serve two
masters, and were unprofitably appropriating to
themselves a precious time which could have been
bestowed on better disposed tribes, instructed Father
Morice to give them a last trial, failing which they
were to be left to themselves.

Therefore, one day in July, when he knew that they
had prepared a potlatch to be given immediately after
his departure, the priest communicated the serious
episcopal ultimatum to the Babines gathered for the
bi-annual retreat, or mission.

“Tt is up to you to show whether you want to be
real Christians or remain practically pagans, as you are
despite my efforts to set you right in the eyes of God,”
he declared. ‘‘I am going to ascertain this by passing
on and going to the Rocher Déboulé.° If, when I come
back, you have abstained from potlatching, I shall
stay with you and give you the usual retreat exercises.
If not, I shall then return home and leave you to your
deviltries.”’

These words, uttered as solemnly as possible, made
a mighty impression on the natives, yet not mighty
enough to deter them from indulging in the contem-
plated potlatch. Of this their pastor was soon
informed by his friends and secret agents, and on his
way back he told them that, since they did not want to
become real Christians, he was going home and would
return to them only when they were determined to
serve only one master, the One-who-sits-in-the-Sky.

Dumbfounded at first, yet kept silent by the sanc-
tity of the place where that declaration was made, the
Indians had no sooner gone out of the church than
they broke out into a torrent of vituperation and

6 Sixty miles west, and beyond the Babine mountains.

——EEe