ELECTRIFIED  AND   STIFLED.                       187
been a family festival ; and my imagination bore me back
to other times when friends and parental caresses were
not absent at this holy season. Alas ! life seems to be
but a perpetual farewell to men and things.
I shook off these obtrusive thoughts as a cum-
brous garment, and proceeded to the church, where I
had prepared a treat for my parishioners. While
dressing, and without being seen by any one, I lighted
a flame of red Bengal fire, which was concealed behind
a basket of flowers. I had on a vestment of cloth of
gold, and at the moment when I gave out the Te
Deum the flame suddenly illuminated the church like
an Aurora Borealis ; the gold, the crystals, the chan-
deliers, the hangings, the flowers, Avere all dazzling. The
congregation seemed electrified ; the sacred hymn was
chaunted with redoubled zeal and energy; but the
proverb says, " there's no fire without smoke," and that
had not entered into my calculation. With the flame
rose clouds of smoke, which soon nearly suffocated us,
and the whole congregation coughed in a frightful
manner for nearly five minutes ; fortunately our church
had openings in all directions and the smoke cleared off
easily. After the festival of Christmas, we were able to
commence the foundations of our new church. The
architecture was to be in the Gothic style, and the build-
ing large enough to accommodate the entire population.
But our means were much more circumscribed than
our projects ; we were in want of machinery ; it was
impossible to find a single pulley in the whole colony ;
hence we were compelled to lift stones and beams of tim-
ber with the sole force of our arms. Against the wages
of masons and carpenters, we had not two thousand
francs ; and not being able to surmount this obstacle, we