Louis Riel: Quotes about God

“When I see British people sitting in the court to try me, remembering that the English people are proud of that word "Fair play," I am confident that I will be blessed by God and by man also. Not only Bishop Bourget spoke to me in that way, but Father Jean-Baptiste Bruno, the priest of Worcester, who was my director of conscience, said to me: "Riel, God has put an object into your hands the cause of the triumph of religion in the world, take care, you will succeed when most believe you have lost."”

Louis Riel

I have got those words in my head, those words of J. B. Bruno and the late Archbishop Bourget.
Address to Grand Jury (1885)

God , People , World , Religion

“I am blessed by God. It is this trial that is going to show that I am going to be blessed by man during my existence, the benedictions are a guarantee that I was not wronged when by circumstance I was taken away from my adopted land to my native land.”

Louis Riel

Address to Grand Jury (1885)

God

“I know that through the grace of God I am the founder of Manitoba; I know that though I have no open road for my influence, I have big influence concentrated, as a big amount of vapour in an engine.”

Louis Riel

Address to Grand Jury (1885)
Context: I know that through the grace of God I am the founder of Manitoba; I know that though I have no open road for my influence, I have big influence concentrated, as a big amount of vapour in an engine. I believe by what I suffered for 15 years, by what I have done for Manitoba and the people of the North-West that my words are worth something, if I give offence I do not speak to insult. Yes, you are the pioneers of civilization, the Whites are the pioneers of civilization, but they bring among the Indians demoralization. Do not be offended ladies, do not be offended. Here are the men that can cure that evil, and if at times I have been strong against my true friends and Fathers, the Reverend Priests of the Saskatchewan, it is because my convictions are strong. There have been witnesses to show that immediately after great patience, I could come back to the respect I have for them.

God

“I say that, I have been blessed by God and I hope that you will not take that as a presumptuous assertion.”

Louis Riel

Address to Grand Jury (1885)
Context: I have not assumed to myself that I had a mission. I was working in Manitoba first and I did all I could to get free institutions for Manitoba. They have those institutions today in Manitoba and they try to improve them, while myself who obtained them, I am forgotten as if I was dead. But after I had obtained with the help of others a constitution for Manitoba, when the government at Ottawa was not willing to inaugurate it at the proper time, I have worked till the inauguration should take place and that is why I have been banished for five years. I had to rest five years. I was unwilling to do it. I protested. I said : Oh my God! I offer you all my existence for that cause and please to make of my weakness an instrument to help men in my country. And seeing my intentions, the late Archbishop Bourget said "Riel has no narrow views, he is a man to accomplish great things" and he wrote that letter of which I hope that the Crown has at least a copy. And in another letter when I became what Drs. believed to be, insane, Bishop Bourget wrote again and said "Ye be blessed by God and man and take patience in your evil." Am I not taking patience I Will I be blessed by man as I have been by God?
I say that, I have been blessed by God and I hope that you will not take that as a presumptuous assertion. It has been a great success for me to come through all the dangers I have in that 15 years. If I have not succeeded in wearing a fine coat myself I have at the same time the great consolation of seeing that God has maintained my views; that he has maintained my health sufficiently to go through the world and that he has kept me from bullets when bullets marked my hat.

God , Hope

“I think the verdict that has been given against me is a proof that I am more than ordinary myself, but that the circumstances and the help that is given is more than ordinary, are more than ordinary, and although I consider myself only as others, yet by the will of God, by his Providence, by the circumstances which have surrounded me for fifteen years, I think that I have been called to do something which at least in the North-West nobody has done yet, and in some way I think that to a certain number of people the verdict against me to day is a proof that maybe I am a prophet, maybe Riel is a prophet. He suffers for it.”

Louis Riel

Address on sentencing (1885)

God , People , Way , Thinking