PRO GLORIA DEI.
A vast region--First spiritual adviser--A _locum tenens_--Two
French Canadian priests--St. Boniface founded--Missionary
zeal in Mackenzie River district--Red River parishes--The
great Archbishop Taché--John West--Archdeacon Cochrane, the
founder--John McCallum--Bishop Anderson--English Missionary
Societies--Archbishop Machray--Indian Missions--John Black, the
Presbyterian apostle--Methodist Missions on Lake Winnipeg--The
Cree syllabic--Chaplain Staines--Bishop Cridge--Missionary
Duncan--Metlakahtla--Roman Catholic coast missions--Church of
England bishop--Diocese of New Westminster--Dr. Evans--Robert
Jamieson--Education.
Wherever British influence has gone throughout the world the Christian
faith of the British people has followed. It is true, for one hundred
and fifty years the ships to Hudson Bay crossed regularly to the
forts on the Bay, and beyond certain suggestions as to service to the
employés, no recognition of religion took place on Hudson Bay, and no
Christian clergyman or missionary visitor found his way thither. The
Company was primarily a trading company, its forts were far apart, and
there were few men at any one point.
The first heralds of the Cross, indeed, to reach Rupert's Land were the
French priests who accompanied Verendrye, though they seem to have made
no settlements in the territory. It is said that after the conquest
of Canada, when the French traders had withdrawn from the North-West,
except a few traditions in one of the tribes, no trace of Christianity
was left behind.
The first clergyman to arrive in Rupert's Land was in connection with
Lord Selkirk's colony in 1811. A party of Lord Selkirk's first colonists
having come from Sligo, the founder sent one Father Bourke to accompany
the party to Red River. The wintering at York Factory seems to have
developed some unsatisfactory traits in the spiritual adviser, and he
did not proceed further than the shore of the Bay, but returned to his
native land.
The necessity of providing certain spiritual oversight for his Scottish
colonists occupied Lord Selkirk's mind. In 1815 James Sutherland, an
elder authorized by the Church of Scotland to baptize and marry, arrived
with one of the bands of colonists at Red River. The first point in
the agreement between Lord Selkirk and his colonists was "to have the
services of a minister of their own church." This was Lord Selkirk's
wish, and Mr. Sutherland was sent as _locum tenens_. For three years
this devout man performed the duties of his sacred office, until in
the conflict between the rival Companies he was forcibly taken away to
Canada by the North-West Company.
Lord Selkirk entered into correspondence with the Roman Catholic
authorities in Lower Canada as to their appointing priests to take
charge of the French and De Meurons of his colony. We have already seen
in the sketch of John McLeod that two French priests, Joseph Norbert
Provencher and Sévère Dumoulin, proceeded to the North-West and took
up a position on the east side of Red River nearly opposite the site
of the demolished Fort Gibraltar. On account of the preponderance of
the German-speaking De Meurons, the settlement was called St. Boniface,
after the German patron saint. Though these pioneer priests endured
hardships and poverty, they energetically undertook their work, and
maintained a school in which, shortly after, we are told, there were
scholars in the "Humanities."
With great zeal the Roman Catholic Church has carried its missions to
the Indians, even to distant Athabasca and Mackenzie River. In 1822
the Priest Provencher was made a bishop under the title of Bishop
of Juliopolis (_in partibus infidelium_). His jurisdiction included
Rupert's Land and the North-West or Indian territories. Besides the work
among the Indians, the Bishop organized the French settlements along the
Red and Assiniboine Rivers into parishes. In addition to St. Boniface,
some of these were St. Norbert, St. François Xavier, St. Charles, St.
Vital, and the like, until, at the close of the Hudson's Bay Company's
rule in 1869, there were nine French parishes.
The Indian missions have been largely carried on by a Society of the
Roman Catholic Church known as the Oblate Fathers. A sisterhood of the
Grey Nuns have also taken a strong hold of the North-West.
In the year 1844 a young French priest named Alexandre Antonin Taché
came to the North-West and led the way in carrying the faith among
the Indians of the Mackenzie River. A most interesting work of Father
Taché, called "Vingt Années de Missions," gives the life and trials of
this devoted missionary. In a few years the young priest was appointed
coadjutor of Bishop Provencher, and on the death of that prelate in
1853, young Monseigneur Taché succeeded to the see under the name of
the Bishop of St. Boniface. Bishop Taché became a notable man of the
Red River settlement. He was a man of much breadth of view, kindliness
of manner, and of great religious zeal. As an educational and public
man, he wielded, during the whole time of the Hudson's Bay Company's
later régime, a potent influence. A year or two after the elevation of
Bishop Taché to the vacant place of Bishop Provencher, Bishop Grandin
was appointed a bishop of the interior and took up his abode at Ile à la
Crosse. The Roman Catholic Church has done much in bringing many wild
tribes under the civilizing influence of Christianity.
Though Lord Selkirk was compelled to betake himself to France in 1820
in search of health, he did not forget his promise to his Scottish
colonists on Red River. He entrusted the task of procuring a clergyman
for them to Mr. John Pritchard, who, we have seen, had entered the
service of his Lordship. Pritchard, acting under the direction of the
committee of the Hudson's Bay Company, seems to have taken a course that
Lord Selkirk would hardly have approved. To some extent disregarding the
promise made to the Scottish settlers, either the agent or the committee
applied to the Church Missionary Society to appoint a chaplain for the
Hudson's Bay Company at Red River.
The choice made was a most judicious one, being that of Rev. John
West, who wrote a very readable book on his experiences, in which the
condition of the settlement, along with an account of his missionary
labours, are described. A little volume, written by Miss Tucker, under
the name of "The Rainbow of the North," also gives an interesting
account of the founding of the Protestant faith in the settlement.
Mr. West arrived in Red River settlement in October, 1820, and at once
began his labours by holding services in Fort Garry. For a time he was
fully occupied in marrying many who had formerly lived as man and wife,
though already married after the Indian fashion, and in baptizing the
children. He at once opened a school. Mr. West made an exploratory
journey five or six hundred miles westward, visiting Indian tribes. In
1823 he erected the first Protestant place of worship on the Red River,
and in the same year was joined by Rev. David Jones, who was left in
charge when Mr. West returned to England.
Two years afterwards Rev. William Cochrane and his wife arrived at
Red River. Mr. Cochrane, afterward Archdeacon Cochrane, was a man of
striking personality, and to him has been given the credit of laying
the foundation of the Church of England in the Red River settlement.
The Indians to the north of the settlement on Red River were visited
and yielded readily to the solicitations of the missionaries. Early
among these self-denying Indian missionaries was the Rev. A., afterwards
Archdeacon, Cowley. Churches were erected in the parishes that were set
apart in the same way as the French parishes; St. John's, St. Paul's,
St. Andrew's, St. Clement's, St. James, Headingly, and the like, to the
number of ten, were each provided with church and school.
Rev. Mr. Jones did not neglect the educational interests of his wide
charge. Having become convinced of the necessity of establishing a
boarding-school to meet the wants of the scattered families of Rupert's
Land, Mr. Jones brought out Mr. John McCallum, a student of King's
College, Aberdeen, who had found his way to London. Coming to Red River
in 1833, McCallum began the school which has since become St. John's
College. At first this school was under the Church Missionary Society,
but a decade after its founding it was conducted by McCallum himself,
with an allowance from the Company.
In 1844 an episcopal visit was made to Red River by the first Protestant
Bishop who could reach the remote spot. This was Dr. Mountain, Bishop
of Montreal. He published a small work giving an account of his visit.
Many confirmations took place by the Bishop, and Mr. Cowley was made a
priest. John McCallum had taken such a hold upon the Selkirk settlers
that it was deemed advisable to ordain him, and for several years he
carried on the school along with the incumbency of the parish church.
McCallum only lived for five years after the Bishop's visit.
In 1838 James Leith, a wealthy chief factor of the Hudson's Bay Company,
bequeathed in his will twelve thousand pounds to be expended for the
benefit of the Indian missions in Rupert's Land. Leith's family bitterly
opposed this disposition of their patrimony, but the Master of the
Rolls, hearing that the Hudson's Bay Company was willing to add three
hundred pounds annually to the interest accruing from the Leith bequest,
gave the decision against them, and thus secured an income to the see of
seven hundred pounds a year. In 1849 the diocese of Rupert's Land was
established by the Crown, and Rev. David Anderson, of Oxford University,
was consecrated first Bishop of Rupert's Land. In the autumn of the same
year Bishop Anderson arrived at Red River, by way of York Factory, and
his first public duty was to conduct the funeral of the lamented John
McCallum. After an incumbency of fifteen years Bishop Anderson returned
to England and resigned the bishopric.
In 1865 Dr. Robert Machray arrived at Red River, having been consecrated
Bishop by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Under Bishop Anderson the
college successfully begun by McCallum languished, for the Bishop seemed
more intent on mission work than education. In the year after his
arrival, Bishop Machray revived the institution under the name of St.
John's College. It was of much service to the colony.
By the time of the passing away of the power of the Hudson's Bay
Company, four years after the arrival of Bishop Machray, substantial
stone churches and school-houses had been erected in almost all of
the parishes mentioned as organized by the Church of England. To the
Church of England belonged nearly all the English-speaking half-breed
population of the colony, as well as a large number of the Hudson's Bay
Company officers.
Bishop Machray's diocese covered a vast area. From Hudson Bay to the
Rocky Mountains was under his jurisdiction. Much work was done amongst
the Indian tribes. At Moose Factory on the Bay, another devoted labourer
was working diligently. It is true the missions were widely scattered,
but of the twenty-four clergymen belonging to the diocese of Rupert's
Land, fifteen were among the Indians at the time of the cessation of the
Hudson's Bay Company's rule. The remainder were in the parishes of Red
River such as St. John's, St. Andrew's, St. Paul's, Headingly, Poplar
Point, and Portage la Prairie.
The assistance rendered not only by the Church Missionary Society, but
also by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts,
the Colonial and Continental Church Society, and the Society for the
Promotion of Christian Knowledge, was very great, and future generations
will be indebted to the benevolence and liberality of the English people
in sending spiritual assistance to Rupert's Land.
A perusal of the work, "Red River Settlement," by Alexander Ross, shows
that a long and somewhat disappointing struggle was maintained by the
Selkirk settlers to obtain the fulfilment of Lord Selkirk's promise to
send them a minister of their own faith. Scottish governors came and
departed, but no Scottish minister came. Sir George Simpson arrived
on his yearly visits at Fort Garry, and was often interviewed by the
settlers of Kildonan, but the Governor, though pleasant and plausible
enough, was impenetrable as the sphinx. Petitions were sent to the
Hudson's Bay Company and to the Scottish General Assembly, but they
seldom reached their destination and effected nothing.
The people conformed to the service of the Church of England in the
vicinity of their parish. They were treated by the Episcopal clergy with
much consideration. Their own psalter was used in their worship, the
service was made as simple as they could well desire, but the people,
with Highland tenacity, held to their own tenets for forty years, and
maintained among themselves regular cottage meetings for prayer and
praise.
At length the question arose as to the possession of the church property
and the right of burial in St. John's burial-ground. The Scottish
settlers maintained their right to the church and churchyard. A very
acrimonious discussion arose. In the end the matter was referred to
Mr. Eden Colville, a Company director, who was in the settlement on
business. Mr. Colville informed the writer that he claimed the credit
of settling the dispute. Another site on the river bank two or three
miles to the north of St. John's, called La Grenouillère, or Frog Plain,
consisting of several hundred acres, was handed over to the Scottish
settlers for church, manse, and glebe. This was in 1851, and though the
Kildonan people were still given the right to bury their dead in St.
John's, in the future their chief interest centred in the new plot.
The presence in Red River of Mr. Ballenden, a countryman of the
Kildonan people, as Hudson's Bay Company Governor of Fort Garry, led
to an application being made to their friends in Scotland to send
them a minister. Indeed, the call had been made again and again for a
generation. This request was transmitted to Canada to Dr. Robert Burns,
a man of warm missionary zeal and great wisdom. Sir George Simpson
had been communicated with, and deemed it wise to reverse his former
policy of inaction and promised certain aid and countenance, should a
Presbyterian minister be found to care for the parish of Kildonan.
Dr. Burns had among his acquaintances a recent graduate of Knox
College, Toronto, named John Black. Him the zealous doctor urged, if
not commanded, to go to Red River. This trust was accepted, and after
a tedious and uncertain journey Rev. John Black arrived at Red River,
September, 1851. The Kildonan people immediately rallied around their
new clergyman, who, though not able to speak Gaelic as they desired, yet
became an idol to his people. In 1853 a church was erected, with the aid
of a small grant from the Hudson's Bay Company, and the foundations of
Presbyterianism were laid.
In 1865 Rev. James Nisbet, who had come a few years before to assist Mr.
Black, organized a mission to the Cree Indians, and named his mission
church on the banks of the Saskatchewan, Prince Albert. Growing by slow
degrees, the Presbyterian interest increased and was represented at
the end of the Hudson's Bay Company's rule by four or five clergymen.
Schools as maintained by voluntary contributions were erected in the
Presbyterian parishes of Kildonan and Little Britain.
Manitoba College was planned and arranged for in the closing year of the
Hudson's Bay Company's régime.
The Methodists, with the fervour and missionary zeal which has always
characterized them, determined to aid in evangelizing the Indians
of Rupert's Land. It was the English Methodists who first showed a
desire in this direction. They agreed to send the Indians a clergyman
suited for the work, if the Canadian Methodist Church would send a few
labourers trained in Indian work in Canada.
James Evans, an Englishman who had been long in Canada, and had
laboured for years among the Indians of Upper Canada, consented to go
to Rupert's Land and take the superintendence of the others sent out.
Leaving Montreal with the three English missionaries and two educated
young Ojibways, Peter Jacobs and Henry B. Steinhauser, the party went
by canoes up the lakes and then along the old fur traders' route,
and arrived at Norway House, at the foot of Lake Winnipeg, in 1840.
Evans made Norway House his headquarters, George Barnley went to Moose
Factory, William Mason to Rainy Lake and River Winnipeg, and Robert T.
Rundle to Edmonton.
The missions to the Hudson Bay and Rainy Lake were soon given up, but
Rossville and Oxford House, on Lake Winnipeg, and several points near
Edmonton, are the evidence to-day of the faithful self-denying work done
by these early Methodist pioneers. Having no whites in the country, the
operations of the Methodist Church in Rupert's Land were, up to the
time of the Hudson's Bay Company's transfer, confined to the Indians of
Rupert's Land.
Mr. Evans, the superintendent of these missions, became very celebrated
by the invention of a syllabic system of writing introduced among the
Crees. The plan is simple, and an intelligent Indian who has never seen
the system[5] can in a short time learn to read and write the syllabic.
The syllabic has spread widely over Rupert's Land, and the different
Churches use, especially among the Crees, this ingenious invention in
printing the Bible and service books. When Lord Dufferin, a number of
years ago, visited the North-West as Governor-General of Canada, on
hearing of Evans' invention he remarked, "The nation has given many a
man a title and a pension and a resting-place in Westminster Abbey who
never did half so much for his fellow-creatures."
Some claim has been made for Mason as being the inventor of this
character, but there seems to be no ground for the claim.
John Ryerson, a Canadian Methodist divine, in 1854 visited Rupert's Land
from Canada, and after seeing the missions on Lake Winnipeg, went from
York Factory to England. The taking over of the mission by the Canadian
Methodist Church resulted from this visit.
These are the main movements of a religious kind that took place within
the borders of Rupert's Land and the territories east of the Rocky
Mountains up to the end of the Hudson's Bay Company's régime. A great
service was rendered to the whites and Indians alike, to the Hudson's
Bay Company, to the Kildonan settlers, and all the native people by the
patient work of the four churches named. The best feeling, and in many
cases active co-operation, were given by these churches to each other.
The work done by these churches laid the foundation for the general
morality and advanced social life which prevailed in Red River and in
the regions beyond.
On the Pacific slope the Hudson's Bay Company took an immediate control
of the religious and educational instruction of the people, upon the
organization of Vancouver Island as a colony (1849). The Rev. Robert
Staines was sent as chaplain and teacher to Fort Victoria, and was given
a salary and an allowance for carrying on a boarding-school in which he
was assisted by his wife. Mr. Staines did not agree with the Company,
went to Britain as a delegate from the dissatisfied employés, but died
of injuries received on his homeward voyage.
Mr. Staines' successor was the Rev. Edward Cridge. The new chaplain was
well provided for by the Company, being secured a parsonage and glebe of
one hundred acres, and three hundred pounds a year, one hundred pounds
annually being as chaplain of the Company. Mr. Cridge became a prominent
clergyman of the colony, but in later years left his mother Church to
become bishop of the Reformed Episcopal Church. In 1859 Bishop Hills
was made first bishop of the united colonies of Vancouver Island and
British Columbia. Twenty years afterward the diocese was divided into
(1) Vancouver Island and the islands, as _Diocese of Columbia_, (2) the
southern mainland as _Diocese of New Westminster_, and (3) the northern
mainland as _Diocese of New Caledonia_. The Church of England in British
Columbia has enjoyed large gifts from the Baroness Burdett-Coutts.
One of the most remarkable missions of modern times is that of
Metlakahtla, begun under the auspices of the Church of England by
William Duncan. The village he founded became an example of civilization
among the Indians, as well as a handmaid to the Christian work done.
Unfortunately, the model Indian village has been largely broken up by a
misunderstanding between Mr. Duncan and his bishop.
The first missionary of note of the Roman Catholic Church on the
coast was Father Demers, who became Bishop of Vancouver Island and
New Caledonia. The Oblate Fathers were early on the ground in British
Columbia, the first of the Order having baptized upwards of three
thousand men, women, and children of Indian tribes, the Songhies,
Saanechs, and Cowichins, near Victoria. Many churches, schools, and
hospitals have been founded by the energetic and self-denying Roman
Catholics who have made British Columbia their home. Bishop Seghers
succeeded the venerable Bishop Demers in his diocese.
Ten years after the formation of Vancouver Island as a Crown colony,
Revs. Dr. Evans, L. Robson, and two other ministers undertook work for
the Methodist Church on the coast. Good foundations were laid by the
clergymen named, and still better by Rev. Thomas Crosby, who joined
them after a few years' service, and entered heartily into efforts to
evangelize the Indians. He had great success among the Flathead Indians.
In 1861 the first Presbyterian minister arrived--Rev. John Hall, from
Ireland, and he undertook work in Victoria. In the year following, Rev.
Robert Jamieson came from Canada as a representative of the Canadian
Presbyterian Church and settled at New Westminster. Churches were soon
built in Victoria, Nanaimo, and New Westminster, that now contain strong
and vigorous congregations.
All of the churches were under deep obligations to the Hudson's Bay
Company for protection, assistance, and sympathy in their undertakings
on the coast. The inrush of gold seekers threw a great responsibility
upon all the churches, and it was well that the Company, merely
for motives of self-interest, should regard the influence of the
missionaries among the fierce tribes of the mountains, of both island
and mainland, as of the greatest importance. The record of self-denying
missionaries of the churches has justified all the patronage and favour
rendered them by the Hudson's Bay Company.
FOOTNOTE:
[5] See Appendix F.