Canada having occurred, Dr. Ryerson, on the 3rd September, 1849,
addressed the following letter to Hon. Robert Baldwin, urging the
appointment:--There is one subject I take the liberty of mentioning,
although it is contrary to my practice to interfere in any matter of the
kind; but the peculiarity of it may excuse me on the present occasion. I
allude to the appointment of Mr. Bidwell as one of the new judges in
Upper Canada. The recent history of Europe affords many illustrations of
circumstances being seized upon by despots to compel the departure of
valuable and dreaded men from their own country. You know that it was
under such circumstances that Mr. Bidwell was compelled to leave Canada.
You know that it was the order of the Imperial Government to elevate Mr.
Bidwell to the Bench, that prompted Sir Francis Head to adopt the
course towards him that he did. You know, likewise, how long, and
faithfully, and ably, Mr. Bidwell laboured to promote the principles of
civil and religious liberty which are now established in Upper Canada;
and that at a time when great responsibility and obloquy attached to
such advocacy. Mr. Bidwell was the author, as well as the able advocate
of the laws by which the religious denominations in Upper Canada hold
Church property, and by which their ministers solemnize matrimony. I
believe he has never altogether abandoned the hope of returning to
Canada; but I believe he has felt that he was entitled to the offer of
that position, which the Home Government contemplated conferring upon
him in 1837. I felt it too delicate a question to propose to Mr. Bidwell
when I saw him the other day; but my friend Mr. Francis Hall, of the New
York _Commercial Advertiser_ (who sees and converses with him every
week), expressed his full conviction that Mr. Bidwell would accept a
Judgeship in Upper Canada--that Mr. Bidwell had constantly taken the
Canadian Law Reports, and procured the Canadian and English Statutes,
and kept up his reading of them as carefully as if he had lived in
Canada. I believe the appointment of Mr. Bidwell would be an honour to
the Canadian Bench, and an act of moral and political gratitude most
honourable to any party, and of great value to Upper Canada. You are
aware of the reasons for which I feel a deep interest in this subject,
and which will, I trust, excuse in your mind the liberty I
take--believing, as I do, that it will be as grateful to your feelings
as it will be noble in your character, to remember a man to whom our
common country is so much indebted.
To this letter Mr. Baldwin replied, on the 20th September
With respect to the principal object of your letter, you need not,
I assure you, have made any excuse for introducing it, even
independently of the part taken by you formerly with reference to
the case of my friend Mr. Bidwell, and which alone would give you a
just claim to address me. I can never feel any suggestion, no
matter from what quarter, having his good for its object, to be an
intrusion on me, and be assured that nothing could have afforded me
greater pleasure than to have had it in my power to have advised
his appointment to the Bench. Nor have I ever ceased to do all that
I could with propriety to get him to put himself in the position
which might lead to such a result. You are aware of the steps I
took in 1843 to have his pledge to Sir Francis Head cancelled. I
sent you, I think, the correspondence respecting it. (See page
308.) On that being done, I wrote him a letter of which I preserved
a copy, from which I send you one. By this you will see how
earnestly I pressed him to return then. Had he come in, as I
suggested, it was my intention to have offered him the Crown
business on whichever of the Circuits he might have chosen. I have
subsequently, as often as I felt I dared to do so, urged his
return. But it has been felt impossible, until he had placed
himself in the position of a practitioner, as formerly, at our own,
and not at a foreign, Bar, to advise his appointment to the Bench
of the Province. For myself, although friendship might have led me
to have overlooked, or overstepped, this difficulty, my judgment,
when appealed to, forced me to admit, with my colleagues, that the
objection was insuperable.
I am not acquainted with the income he realizes from his profession
in New York, but I doubt not it is much beyond what could be
obtained in Toronto. Still, if he really does wish to return to
Canada, the time is most propitious as far as professional
prospects are concerned. Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Blake, and Mr. Esten
being taken from the Bar leaves a space to be filled that, I should
say, offers the best possible opening.
Had Mr. Bidwell been in his proper professional position here when
the Government was called upon to appoint to the places now filled,
or on the eve of being filled, by those gentlemen, there is not one
of those high judicial positions to which it would not have been at
once a pride and a pleasure both to myself and my colleagues to
have advised his appointment. Vice-Chancellor Jameson's health,
too, will probably ere long lead to his retirement. When that time
arrives, will our friend's continued absence be still a barrier to
the gratification of our wishes?
If the affairs of the Province shall be then conducted by the same
Councils as now sway them, I may say, with almost the same
confidence of that future as I do of the past, that it will be the
only obstacle to such gratification. I should add, too, that last
winter one of my colleagues who, as well as myself, has always
taken a particular interest in Mr. Bidwell's return to the
Province, wrote to him, informing him of the Judiciary measures
intended to be introduced by the Administration, and giving him to
understand as distinctly as could properly be done, that, if he had
returned to this country when those measures were to go into
operation, it would afford us and our colleagues the greatest
pleasure to have it in our power to advise his being placed in a
situation alike agreeable to his tastes, deserving of his talents,
and satisfactory to the public at large. And though, when he wrote
first, he expressed some doubt of the Bills becoming law during the
last session, yet shortly after, when it was felt expedient to
carry them through, he again wrote to inform Mr. Bidwell that this
would be done if the sanction of Parliament was obtained to the
measures. Whether, in my letters to Mr. Bidwell, on the subject of
his return, I have appeared to him not to speak with sufficient
warmth, I know not. It has, at all events, not been from
indifference to the object. I certainly have felt that, in the
uncertainty that must for the future attach to political power,
there was a great responsibility in urging one in good business
elsewhere to leave that and throw his fortunes again in with us
here. I am naturally cautious, and my caution may have led me to
speak less warmly than I felt, particularly when I found my first
appeals unsuccessful. But he ought, and I hope, does, appreciate my
motives. It is true his ear may be poisoned by having had unjust
suspicions poured into it. I know I have never afforded any just
grounds for such suspicions, and I feel confident that his generous
nature would have been far above conceiving any such, had they not
been suggested by others. I am, however, perhaps doing wrong. It
may be that none such have ever been thought of by anyone. I trust
it is so. If otherwise, it is but just to myself to say that they
are the foulest, basest and most malignant that mortal ever
breathed.
Rev. Dr. Bangs attended the Conference at Brockville in 1850, as a
delegate from the American General Conference. On his return to New York
he wrote a letter to Dr. Ryerson on the 3rd July:--
I think my trip to Canada was one of the most pleasant tours I ever
made, and shall reflect upon it with peculiar delight. I have
commenced, as you will perceive by the _Christian Advocate_, to
give the public an account of my visit to your Conference.
The pleasure we enjoyed in our visit to Canada, and especially your
hospitality at Toronto, makes us feel truly thankful to God for
such hallowed friendships, and reminds us more forcibly than ever
of that eternal union which the spirits shall enjoy in a future
world.
Dr. Ryerson made a second educational trip to Europe in October, 1850.
Writing to me from London on the 8th November, he said:--The day before
yesterday, I left Lord Elgin's note of introduction, with my card, at
the Colonial Office; the same evening I received a note, appointing
yesterday for an interview. Mr. (afterwards Sir B.) Hawes, the
Under-Secretary was present. It was most agreeable and gratifying. Lord
Grey seemed much delighted with what had been done, educationally, in
Upper Canada; and of which he was until then, entirely ignorant. Mr.
Hawes asked if I had published any report of my tour in Europe, or the
results of it; and as I happened to have a copy of each of the documents
I brought with me, I presented Lord Grey with copies of them. He seemed
surprised that he had not seen them before, and said he must write to
Lord Elgin to send him a copy of each of them for the office. The
conversation extended to the United States--our system of Government as
contrasted with theirs, etc. Lord Grey and Mr. Hawes appeared
entertained and pleased. His Lordship offered to aid me in any way, in
his power, that I might devise; and asked me to dine with him.
Last evening, I received from Lord Grey letters of introduction to the
Marquis of Lansdowne (President of the Privy Council Committee of
Education) to the Rt. Hon. T. B. Macaulay, and Mr. Lingard, successor of
Sir J. P. Kay Shuttleworth, and an unsealed letter of introduction from
Mr. Hawes, to Sir Henry Ellis, Librarian of the British Museum, in which
he said: This will be presented to you by Dr. Ryerson, of Canada, who
has rendered great services to the cause of education, not only by his
writings, but by his great exertions.
Both Lord Grey and Mr. Hawes seemed to know something about me; and the
above copy of note shows the spirit in which they are desirous of aiding
me. I shall now commence my work here in good earnest.
Lord Grey introduced the subject of the Toronto University, and of the
Bishop of Toronto's Mission to this country, and when he found that I
had a copy of the amended University Bill, and the proceedings of the
Wesleyan Conference on the subject, he requested them for perusal. In my
next interview with His Lordship I shall introduce the subject of the
clergy reserves.
I have been very cordially received at the Wesleyan Mission House. I was
affected to see Dr. Bunting's great bodily weakness, and surprised to
see his intellect clear, quick, and powerful as ever. When he walks, he
can only step about six inches at a time. I expect to hear him on Sunday
morning, in the same Chapel (Spitalfields Chapel--a once French church,
in which the eloquent Saurin has preached, and made a collection for the
refugee Huguenots to the amount of £3,000) in which I preached last
Sunday, and aided in administering the Lord's Supper.
On the 10th January, 1851, Dr. Ryerson addressed the following note to
Sir Benjamin Hawes, from Paris: I saw Cardinal Wiseman on the strength
of your kind note of introduction. He appeared to be pleased with the
compliment which my call involved--invited me to hospitalities which I
think it would not be prudent for me to accept, and promised to have a
list of popular (but not denominational) reading books prepared, and the
books selected for my inspection on my return to London.
I most fervently hope that you will be prepared to bring before
Parliament, early in the approaching session, a Bill to settle the
Canadian clergy reserve question--the only remaining obstacle to the
social harmony of Canada, and to its affectionate and permanent union
with the Mother Country.
* * * * *
In 1852, the new buildings of the Education Department and Normal
School, as shown in the accompanying engravings were completed. For Dr.
Ryerson's Office see page 422.
Being in England in 1853, Dr. Ryerson wrote to me there:--
I was glad to learn that Lord Elgin was to go in the same steamship
with you from Boston. I have no doubt it will have proved
interesting to him as well as to you, and perhaps useful to you. I
miss you very much from the office, but I do not like to employ any
more aid without sanction of the Government, though I could get no
one to take your place. I would wish you to write me what Lord
Elgin may have thought or said as to our doings and plans of
proceeding. If the Library plan succeeds, it will achieve noble
results.[134] I feel that our success and happiness in the
Department are inseparably united.
In 1854 Dr. Ryerson was appointed a member of Commission to enquire into
matters connected with King's College, Fredericton, N.B. His
fellow-commissioners were Hon. J. H. Gray, Dr. Dawson, Hon. J. S.
Saunders, and Hon. James Brown. Mr. Grey the Chairman, in transmitting
the Report of the Commission to the Provincial Secretary of New
Brunswick, said:--
I beg to express, with the full conscience of my
fellow-commissioners, our acknowledgment of the very valuable
assistance offered us by Dr. Ryerson. His great experience, and
unquestioned proficiency in all subjects connected with Education,
justly entitles his opinions to great weight.
FOOTNOTES:
[133] Being a member of the Conference Committee appointed to confer
with the Government on the establishment of Manual Labour Schools for
the Indians, Rev. Peter Jones, in writing to Dr. Ryerson from the
Credit, on the subject, in September, 1844, said:--You will be glad to
see that our Indian brethren have subscribed liberally, which shews
their ardent desire to have Manual Labour Schools established amongst
them. We forwarded a copy to the Governor-General, and His Excellency
was pleased to approve of the liberality of the Indian tribes. From the
manner in which His Excellency has always spoken of Indian Manual Labour
Schools, I am sure that he will take great pleasure in aiding their
establishment. As you have access to the ears of our Great Father at
Montreal, may I beg the favour of your explaining to him the object of
my visit to England, and the necessity of His Excellency's sanctioning
the payment of my expenses. As I intend to visit England for the purpose
of augmenting the funds of the Manual Labour Schools, I think at least
my expenses should be paid out of the Indian subscriptions of $400.
[134] Lord Elgin always referred to Dr. Ryerson's library scheme in his
educational addresses, as the "Crown and Glory of the Institutions of
the Province."
[Illustration: The Ontario Education Department, and Normal and Model
Schools, Erected 1851.]
[Illustration: Education Department, showing Dr. Ryerson's Office for 25
Years, in the S. W. Angle of the Main Building in Front.]
CHAPTER LI.
1849.
The Bible in the Ontario Public Schools.
Early in 1849 an important crisis occurred in the history of our Public
School system, the evil effects of which were only prevented by the
prompt and emphatic protest on the part of Dr. Ryerson, and the equally
prompt measures taken by Hon. Robert Baldwin in the matter. The event to
which I refer was the hurried passage of a revolutionary School Bill at
the end of a Session of Parliament by parties hostile to Dr. Ryerson--a
Bill the effect of which would have been the exclusion of the Bible and
religious teaching and influence from our Public Schools. In regard to
that calamitous event, Dr. Ryerson stated that within three hours of
learning that such a Bill was law he informed Mr. Baldwin that the
office of Chief Superintendent of Education was at his disposal.
I was absent from Toronto at this time. Dr. Ryerson therefore wrote me a
letter on the subject, dated December, 1849, in which he said:--I am
happy to say the scandalous School Bill of last session is upset. The
members of the Government (including the Governor-General) have examined
my letter to Mr. Baldwin, of July last, and have come entirely into my
views. Mr. Malcolm Cameron is also out of office, and is striving to
create opposition against his former colleagues. Some of the extreme
radical papers (_Examiner_, _Mirror_, _Canada Christian Advocate_,
_Provincialist_, &c.,) all state that I had tendered my resignation, and
had been persuaded by one or two members of the Government to withdraw
it, and they speak piteously of the Government having succumbed to me.
The _Canada Christian Advocate_ says I have watched my opportunity to
get "Mr. Baldwin and the Government under my thumb." I have been
permitted to publish the correspondence of July last, and it has placed
me in this new and proud position. I thank God for His goodness in thus
opening before me a wider field of usefulness than ever, and for sealing
at so early a period, with His approbation, adherence to great
principles of Christian truth and social advancement, irrespective of
men or parties. I shall commence the New Year with new courage and
hope, and I am anxious to see you that we may together devise and
prosecute the best means to promote our great work.
The circumstances under which this abortive School Bill, as it proved,
of 1849, was passed, is thus described by Dr. Ryerson in a letter
written ten years afterwards (in 1859):--
From 1846 to 1849 a host of scribblers and would-be school legislators
appeared, led on by the _Globe_ newspaper. It was represented that I had
plotted a Prussian school despotism for free Canada, and that I was
forcing upon the country a system in which the last spark of Canadian
liberty would be extinguished, and Canadian youth would be educated as
slaves. Hon. Malcolm Cameron, with less knowledge and less experience
than he has now, was astounded at these "awful disclosures," and was
dazzled by the theories proposed to rid the country of the enslaving
elements of my Prussian school system. Mr. Cameron was at length
appointed to office; and he thought I ought to be walked out of the
office. Messrs. Baldwin and Hincks (as I have understood), thought I
should be judged officially for my official acts, and that, thus judged,
I had done nothing worthy of evil treatment. The party hostile to me
then thought that, as I could not be turned out of office by direct
dismissal, I might be shuffled out by legislation; and a School Bill was
prepared for that purpose. That Bill contained many good, but more bad
provisions, and worse omissions, but of which only a man who had studied
the question, or rather science, of school legislation could fully
judge. Mr. Cameron was selected to submit it to his colleagues, and get
it through Parliament. He executed his task with his characteristic
adroitness and energy. Mr. Hincks never read the Bill, and had left for
England before it passed. Mr. Baldwin, amid the smoking ruins of a
Parliament House and national library, looked over it, and thought from
the representations given him of its popular objects, and a glance at
the synopsis of its provisions, that it might be an improvement on the
then existing law, while the passing of it would gratify many of his
friends. On examining the Bill, I wrote down my objections to it, and
laid them before the Government, and proceeded to Montreal to press them
in person. I left Montreal in April, 1849, with the expectation that the
Bill would be dropped, or essentially mended. Neither was done; the Bill
was passed in the ordinary manner of passing bills during the last few
hours of the Session; and within three hours of learning that the Bill
was law, I informed Mr. Baldwin that my office was at his disposal, for
I never would administer that law.
As to the effect of Mr. Cameron's Bill on Dr. Ryerson's future, he
said:--The new Bill on its coming into operation, leaves me but one
course to pursue. The character and tendency of the Bill clearly is to
compel me to relinquish office, or virtually abandon principles and
provisions [in regard to the Bible in the Schools] which I have
advocated as of great and vital importance, and become a party to my own
personal humiliation and degradation--thus justly exposing myself to the
suspicion and imputation of mean and mercenary conduct. I can readily
retire from office, and do much more if necessary, for the maintenance
of what I believe to be vital to the moral and educational interests of
my native country; but I can never knowingly be a party to my own
humiliation and debasement. I regret that an unprecedented mode of
legislation has been resorted to to gratify the feelings of personal
envy and hostility. I regard it as a virtual vindication of myself
against oft-repeated allegations, that it was felt I could not be
reached by the usual straightforward administration of Government.
Lately, in the English House of Lords, the Marquis of Lansdowne stated,
that Mr. Lafontaine had returned to Canada, and boldly challenged
inquiry into any of the allegations against him in reference to past
years. I have repeatedly done the same. No such inquiry has been granted
or instituted. Yet I am not only pursued by the base calumnies of
certain persons and papers, professing to support and enjoy the
confidence of the Government, but legislation is resorted to, and new
provisions introduced at the last hour of the Session, to deal out upon
me the long meditated blows of unscrupulous envy and animosity. But I
deeply regret that the blows, which will fall comparatively light upon
me, will fall with much greater weight, and more serious consequences,
upon the youth of the land, and its future moral and educational
interests.... Acting, as I hope I do, upon Christian and public grounds,
I should not feel myself justified in withdrawing from a work in
consequence of personal discourtesy and ill-treatment, or a reduction of
means of support and usefulness. But when I see the fruits of four
years' anxious labours, in a single blast scattered to the winds, and
have no satisfactory ground of hope that such will not be the fate of
another four years' labour; when I see the foundations of great
principles, which, after extensive enquiry and long deliberation, I have
endeavoured to lay, torn up and thrown aside as worthless rubbish; when
I see myself deprived of the protection and advantage of the application
of the principle of responsible government as applied to every other
head of a Department, and made the subordinate agent of a Board which I
have originated, and the members of which I have had the honour to
recommend for appointment; when I see myself officially severed from a
Normal School Institution which I have devised, and every feature and
detail of which are universally commended, even to the individual
capacities of the masters whom I have sought out and recommended; when I
see myself placed in a position, to an entirely novel system of
education at large, in which I can either burrow in inactivity or labour
with little hope of success; when I find myself placed in such
circumstances, I cannot hesitate as to the course of duty, as well as
the obligations of honour and self-respect.... I think it is my right,
and only frank and respectful, on the earliest occasion to state, in
respect to my own humble labours, whether I can serve on terms and
principles and conditions so different from those under which I have, up
to the present time, acted; though I cannot, without deep regret and
emotion, contemplate the loss of so much time and labour, and find
myself impelled to abandon a work on which I had set my heart, and to
qualify myself for which I have devoted four of the most matured years
of my life.
Having now fulfilled my promise--to communicate to you, in writing, my
views on this important and extensive subject--I leave the whole
question in your hands.
The result of this letter was, the suspension and abandonment of the Act
of 1849, and the preparation and passing of the Act of 1850.
Now Mr. Cameron might naturally feel deeply at the repeal of his own Act
without a trial; but after he had time for further examination and
reflection, and a more thorough knowledge of the nature and working of
the system I was endeavouring to establish, I believe no man in Canada
more sincerely rejoiced than Mr. Cameron at the repeal of the Act of
1849, and no man has more cordially supported the present system, or
more frankly and earnestly commended the course I have pursued.[135]
The letter to Mr. Baldwin was written on the 14th July, 1849. Speaking
of it, Dr. Ryerson said:--
In the former part of that letter I stated the circumstances under which
the Act of 1849 had passed, and the fact that my remonstrance against it
had not been even read. I then stated what I considered insuperable
objections to it. I will quote part of my eighth and tenth
objections:--the former relating to the exclusion of ministers as
school visitors--the latter relating to the exclusion from the schools
of the Bible and books containing religious instruction. They are as
follows:--
Another feature of the new Bill is that which precludes Ministers
of Religion, Magistrates, and Councillors, from acting as school
visitors, a provision of the present Act to which I have heard no
objection from any quarter, and from which signal benefits to the
schools have already resulted. Not only is this provision retained
in the School Act for Lower Canada, but Clergymen--and Clergymen
alone--are there authorized to select all the school books relating
to "religion and morals" for the children of their respective
persuasions. But in Upper Canada, where the great majority of the
people and Clergy are Protestant, the provision of the present Act
authorizing Clergymen to act as School Visitors (and that without
any power to interfere in school regulations or books) is repealed.
Under the new Bill, the Ministers of religion cannot, therefore,
visit the schools as a matter of right, or in their character as
Ministers, but as private individuals, and by the permission of the
teacher at his pleasure. The repeal of the provision under which
Clergymen of the several religious persuasions have acted as
visitors, is, of course, a virtual condemnation of their acting in
that capacity. When thus denuded by law of his official character
in respect to the schools, of course no Clergyman would so far
sanction his own legislative degradation as to go into a school by
suffrance in an unministerial character.... The character and
tendency of such a change in connection with the Protestant
religion of Upper Canada, in contrast with a directly opposite
provision in connection with the Roman Catholic Religion of Lower
Canada, must be obvious to every reflecting person.
To the school-visiting feature of the present system I attach great
importance as a means of ultimately concentrating in behalf of the
schools the influence and sympathies of all religious persuasions,
and the leading men of the country. The success of it, thus far,
has exceeded my most sanguine expectations; the visits of Clergy
alone during the last year being an average of more than five
visits for each Clergyman in Upper Canada. From such a beginning
what may not be anticipated in future years, when information shall
become more general, and an interest in the schools more generally
excited. And who can estimate the benefits, religiously, socially,
educationally, and even politically, of Ministers of various
religious persuasions meeting together at quarterly school
examinations, and other occasions, on common and patriotic ground,
and becoming interested and united in the great work of advancing
the education of the young.
The last feature of the new Bill on which I will remark, is that
which proscribes from the Schools all books containing
"controverted theological dogmas or doctrines." [Under a legal
provision containing these words, the Bible has been ruled out of
schools in the State of New York.] I doubt whether this provision
of the Act harmonizes with the Christian feelings of members of the
Government; but it is needless to enquire what were the intentions
which dictated this extraordinary provision, since construction of
an Act of Parliament depends upon the language of the Act itself,
and not upon the intentions of its framers. The effect of such a
provision is to exclude every kind of book containing religious
truth, even every version of the Holy Scriptures themselves; for
the Protestant version of them contains "theological doctrine"
controverted by the Roman Catholic; and the Douay version of them
contains "theological dogmas" controverted by the Protestant. The
"theological doctrine" of miracles in Paley's Evidences of
Christianity is "controverted" by the disciples of Hume. Several of
the "theological doctrines" in Paley's Moral Philosophy are also
"controverted;" and indeed there is not a single doctrine of
Christianity which is not controverted by some party or other. The
whole series of Irish National Readers must be proscribed as
containing "controverted theological doctrines;" since, as the
Commissioners state, these books are pervaded by the principles and
spirit of Christianity, though free from any tincture of
sectarianism.
I think there is too little Christianity in our schools, instead of
too much; and that the united efforts of all Christian men should
be to introduce more, instead of excluding what little there is.
I have not assumed it to be the duty, or even constitutional right
of the Government, to compel any thing in respect either to
religious books or religious instruction, but to recommend the
local Trustees to do so, and to provide powers and facilities to
enable them to do so within the wise restriction imposed by law. I
have respected the rights and scruples of the Roman Catholic as
well as those of the Protestant.
By some I have been accused of having too friendly a feeling
towards the Roman Catholics; but while I would do nothing to
infringe the rights and feelings of Roman Catholics, I cannot be a
party to depriving Protestants of the Text-book of their faith--the
choicest patrimony bequeathed by their forefathers, and the noblest
birthright of their children. It affords me pleasure to record the
fact--and the circumstance shows the care and fairness with which I
have acted on this subject--that before adopting the Section in the
printed Forms and Regulations on the "Constitution and Government
of the Schools in respect to Religious Instruction," I submitted
it, among others, to the late lamented Roman Catholic Bishop Power,
who, after examining it, said, [he could not approve of it upon
principle, but] he would not object to it, as Roman Catholics were
fully protected in their rights and views, and as he did not wish
to interfere with Protestants in the fullest exercise of their
rights and views.
It will be seen that New England or Irish National School advocates
of a system of mixed schools did not maintain that the Scriptures
and all religious instruction should be excluded from the schools,
but that the peculiarities of sectarianism were no essential part
of religious instruction in the schools, and that the essential
elements and truths and morals of Christianity could be provided
for and taught without a single bitter element of sectarianism. The
advocates of public schools meet the advocates of sectarian
schools, not by denying the connection between Christianity and
education, but by denying the connection between sectarianism--by
comprehending Christianity in the system, and only rejecting
sectarianism from it. The same, I think, is our safety and our
duty....
Dr. Ryerson concludes this part of his letter with these emphatic words:
Be assured that no system of popular education will flourish in a
country which does violence to the religious sentiments and feelings of
the Churches of that country. Be assured, that every such system will
droop and wither which does not take root in the Christian and patriotic
sympathies of the people--which does not command the respect and
confidence of the several religious persuasions, both ministers and
laity--for these in fact make up the aggregate of the Christianity of
the country. The cold calculations of unchristianized selfishness will
never sustain a school system. And if you will not embrace Christianity
in your school system, you will soon find that Christian persuasions
will soon commence establishing schools of their own; and I think they
ought to do so, and I should feel that I was performing an imperative
duty in urging them to do so. But if you wish to secure the co-operation
of the ministers and members of all religious persuasions, leave out of
your system the points wherein they differ, and boldly and avowedly
provide facilities for the inculcation of what they hold in common and
what they value most, and that is what the best interests of a country
require.
Speaking in a subsequent letter of another feature of this question of
the Bible in schools, Dr. Ryerson says: The principal opposition which,
in 1846 and for several years afterwards, I encountered was that I did
not make the use of the Bible compulsory in the schools, but simply
recognized the right of Protestants to use it in the school (not as an
ordinary reading book, as it was not given to teach us how to read, but
to teach us the way to Heaven), as a book of religious instruction,
without the right or the power of compelling any others to use it. The
recognition of the right has been maintained inviolate to the present
time; facilities for the exercise of it have been provided, and
recommendations for that purpose have been given, but no compulsory
authority assumed, or right of compulsion acknowledged; and the
religious exercises in each school have been left to the decision of the
authorities of such school, and the religious instruction of each child
has always been under the absolute authority of the parents or guardian
of each child.... Now many a parent may not exercise the right of using
the Bible as a text-book of religious instruction for his child in
school, but would even such parent (much less every Protestant parent)
be willing to be deprived of that right?
To the objection that the Bible is "often read in a formal and
perfunctory manner without any real benefit being derived from it by the
pupils," Dr. Ryerson replied: Is not the Bible often read in the family,
and even in the Church, "in a formal and perfunctory manner," without
any benefit to either reader or hearers: but should we, therefore, take
away even "the abstract right of reading the Bible" in the family and in
the Church?
To the objection urged against the reading of the Bible in the schools
because "a majority of the teachers are utterly unfit to give religious
instruction," Dr. Ryerson replied: The reading of the Bible and giving
religious instruction from it are two very different things. The
question is not the competency of teachers to give religious
instruction, but the right of a Protestant to the reading of the Bible
by his child in the school as a text-book of religious instruction. That
right I hold to be sacred and divine.
To a rejoinder that "the cry for the Bible in the schools is a sham,"
Dr. Ryerson thus replies: Apart from religious instruction, apart from
even the reading of the Bible in the schools, the right of having it
there--its very presence there--is not "a sham," but a sign, a symbol of
potent significance. The sign of the Cross ... is not a "sham," but a
symbol precious to the hearts of hundreds of thousands of our brethren;
the coat of arms which stands at the head of all royal patents, nor the
sparkling crown which encircles the brow of royalty, is not "a sham,"
but a symbol which speaks more than words to every British heart; the
standard that waves at the head of the regiment, nor the flag that
floats at the ship's masthead is not "a sham," but a symbol that nerves
the soldier and the sailor to duty and to victory. So the Bible is not
"a sham," but a symbol of right and liberty dear to the heart of every
Protestant freeman, to every lover of civil and religious liberty--a
standard of truth and morals, the foundation of Protestant faith, and
the rule of Protestant morals; and "the cry" for the Bible in the
schools is not a "sham," but a felt necessity of the religious
instructor, whether he be the teacher or a visiting superintendent or
clergyman,--is the birthright of the Protestant child, and the
inalienable right of the Protestant parent....
No man attaches more importance than I do to secular education and
knowledge, and few men have laboured more to provide for the teaching
and diffusion of every branch of it; yet, so far am I from ignoring the
Bible, even in an intellectual point of view, that I hesitate not to
say, in the language of the eloquent Melville, that--
Whilst every stripling is boasting that a great enlargement of mind
is coming on the nation, through the pouring into all its dwellings
a tide of general information, it is right to uphold the forgotten
position, that in caring for man as an immortal being, God cared
for him as an intellectual, and that if the Bible were but read by
our artizans and our peasantry, we should be surrounded by a far
more enlightened and intelligent population, than will appear to
this land, when the school-master, with his countless magazines,
shall have gone through it, in its length and its breadth.
With a view to supply an omission, and to provide a Manual on Christian
Morals for the schools, Dr. Ryerson, in 1871, prepared a little work,
entitled _First Lessons in Christian Morals_. This work was recommended
by the Council of Public Instruction for use in schools. It was objected
to by the _Globe_ newspaper on several grounds. To each of these
objections Dr. Ryerson replied. The first and second objections referred
to alleged errors and defects in style. In a letter on the subject,
written in April, 1872, Dr. Ryerson said:--
Your third objection is against any book of religious instruction being
recommended for use in the public schools. To this objection I reply,
firstly, that the want of such a book has been not only felt, but
expressed, from different quarters. Secondly, the Irish National Board
have not only books on this subject, in their authorized list of school
text books, but the Council of Public Instruction has long authorized
three of them; each of which contains more reading than any one book of
mine. Thirdly, in the Toronto University College, not only is Paley's
"Evidences of Christianity" an authorized text book, but also Dr.
Wayland's "Moral Science," of the most essential parts of which my books
are an epitome.
A fourth objection is that I have given a summary of the "Evidences of
Christianity," in respect especially to the inspiration of the
Scriptures, miracles, and mysteries. In reply, I observe, first, that if
young men, before they finish their collegiate education, should be
fortified on this ground, it is equally necessary that those youths who
finish their education in the public schools should not be left unarmed
on this point. Secondly, pupils in the public schools of the fourth and
fifth years are quite as capable of understanding the few pages in which
I have condensed and simplified the answers to the common infidel
objections, as are young men at college to master the large text books
prescribed on the subject. Thirdly, the Irish National Board has
provided a book on the subject to which I have devoted two lessons. On
the list of text books authorized by the Irish National Board is one
entitled, "Lessons on the Truth of Christianity, being an appendix to
the Fourth Book of Lessons, for the use of Schools." This book enters
far more largely into the subject of miracles than I have done, besides
the additional two lessons of answers to infidel objections.
A fifth objection is that I have pointed out the defects of the
teachings of Natural Religion, and shown the superiority of the
teachings of Revelation over those of Natural Religion. In this I have
followed the example of Rev. Dr. Wayland, President of Brown University,
R. I.
A sixth objection is, that I have not confined myself to those "laws
which regulate our natural obligations;" that I have taught the
"positive institutions" of Christianity, such as repentance, faith,
reading the Scriptures, personal devotion, family worship, attendance at
public worship. In this I have also followed Dr. Wayland. In the
conclusion of this letter Dr. Ryerson offers this "apology" for writing
his little book on "Christian Morals:" Besides desiring a small amount
of religious teaching, one hour (Monday morning) in the week, for the
senior pupils of the Public Schools, which the trustees and parents
might approve, I did desire a united testimony on the part of
Protestantism, as there is a united testimony on the part of Roman
Catholicism, as to religious teaching in the schools. One County
Inspector writes, that the Roman Catholic priest, in a separate school
which the Inspector visited, said, "Your schools are atheistic. You
don't acknowledge God." The same charge has been often repeated by the
same authority against the public schools. While I have provided and
contended for full provision by which the Roman Catholics could teach
their own children in their own books of religious instruction, I did
desire that there might be a somewhat corresponding unity of testimony
and teaching in religious principles and duties of common agreement
among Protestants, being first most strongly impressed with its
feasibility by the remarks of the late excellent Rev. A. Gale, who, when
principal of Knox's Academy, on closing a public examination of the
pupils, said that he was persuaded, from his own experience, that all
needful religious teaching could be given to pupils at schools without
infringing upon any denominational peculiarity. I had long meditated,
and at length sought to realize this grand idea in our public schools.
One discordant note has interrupted the harmony. The responsibility of
the failure, if it is to be a failure, is not with me. I hope the
Protestant Christians of Canada will yet realize it, and that my country
will yet enjoy the untold advantages of it, though I may die without the
sight.
FOOTNOTES:
[135] Mr. Cameron's avowals on the subject are frank and manly. On the
occasion of his nomination for the County of Lambton, in October, 1857,
he thus referred to the School System, and to its founder:--
On the whole, the system had worked well, the common schools of Canada
were admirable, and had attracted the commendation of the first
statesmen in the United States, and even in Great Britain they proposed
to imitate Canada. He was opposed to Dr. Ryerson's appointment
politically, but he would say, as he had said abroad, that Canada and
her children's children owed to him a debt of gratitude, as he had
raised a noble structure, and opened up the way for the elevation of the
people.
CHAPTER LII.
1850-1853.
The Clergy Reserve Question Transferred to Canada.
The re-opening of the clergy reserve question by Bishop Strachan, with a
view to obtain relief in the temporary distress mentioned in Chapter
xlviii., proved to be a fatal step, so far as his hopes for securing
"better terms" were concerned. In the next year after he had issued his
pastoral appeal for help, the clergy reserve fund yielded an increase,
"and an expectation of a gradual increase annually was officially
expressed." ("Secular State of the Church," page 11.)
The Bishop's complaint against the Provincial Government (Chapter
xlviii., page 379) was that its management of the clergy reserve lands
was wasteful and extravagant. An effort was therefore made, in 1846, to
vest these lands in the religious bodies then entitled to a share in the
income derived from their sale. Mr. Gladstone communicated with the
Governor-General on the subject, with this view, in February, 1846. The
proposal, was, however, viewed with alarm, as well as was the fact that
such efforts being made in England showed that, as in 1840, so in 1846,
the rights of the Canadian people to this patrimony could be at any time
alienated or extinguished by the Imperial Government, without the
official knowledge or consent of the Canadian Parliament.
These two facts, when they became known and appreciated by the people of
Upper Canada, led to the taking of decisive steps to prevent them from
becoming realities. The representatives in the Canadian House of
Assembly of the Bishop of Toronto sought to get an address to the Crown
passed, with a view to vesting a portion of the lands in the Church
Society of Toronto. Hon. Robert Baldwin warned the friends of the Bishop
of the impolicy and imprudence of such a proposition, and pointed out
that if the clergy reserve question was thus re-opened, the former
fierce agitation on the subject would be resumed, which might "end in
the total discomfiture of the Church." His warning was unheeded, and
although the motion for vesting the lands as proposed was rejected, by a
vote of 37 to 14, yet the Bishop in his charge, delivered the next year
(in June, 1847), said:--
After all, our great desire continues to be to acquire the
management of what is left to the Church of the reserves; and why
this reasonable desire is not complied with remains a matter of
deep regret (page 19).
The question thus brought before the Legislature, led to its being
brought before the people, until it became a subject of discussion in
political meetings and election contests. Finally, in 1850, the
Government of the day secured the passage in the House of Assembly of an
address to the Crown, praying for the repeal of the Imperial Clergy
Reserve Act of 1840. In that address it is stated that--
During a long period of years, and in nine successive sessions of
the Provincial Parliament, the representatives of the people of
Upper Canada, with an unanimity seldom exhibited in a deliberative
body, declared their opposition to religious endowments.... The
address further pointed out that the wishes of the people were
thwarted by the Legislative Council, a body containing a majority
avowedly favourable to the ascendancy of the Church of England.
That the Imperial Government, from time to time, invited the
Provincial Parliament to legislate on the subject of these
reserves, disclaiming on the part of the Crown any desire for the
superiority of one or more particular Churches; that Your Majesty's
Government, in declining to advise the Royal assent being given to
a Bill, passed by a majority of one, for investing the power of
disposing of the reserves in the Imperial Parliament, admitted that
from its inaccurate information as to the wants and general
opinions of society (in which the Imperial Parliament was
unavoidably deficient), the question would be more satisfactorily
settled by the Provincial Legislature; that subsequently to the
withholding of the Royal assent from the last-mentioned Bill, the
Imperial Parliament passed an Act disposing of the proceeds of the
clergy reserves in a manner entirely contrary to the formerly
repeatedly expressed wishes of the Upper Canadian people, as
declared through their representatives, and acknowledged as such in
a message sent to the Provincial Parliament by command of Your
Majesty's Royal predecessor.
That we are humbly of opinion that the legal or constitutional
impediments which stood in the way of provincial legislation on
this subject should have been removed by an Act of the Imperial
Parliament; but that the appropriation of revenues derived from the
investment of the proceeds of the public lands of Canada, by the
Imperial Parliament, will never cease to be a source of discontent
to Your Majesty's loyal subjects in this Province; and that when
all the circumstances connected with this question are taken into
consideration, no religious denomination can be held to have such
vested interest in the revenue derived from the proceeds of the
said clergy reserves, as should prevent further legislation with
reference to the disposal of them; but we are nevertheless of
opinion that the claims of existing incumbents should be treated in
the most liberal manner; and that the most liberal and equitable
mode of settling this long-agitated question, would be for the
Imperial Parliament to pass an Act providing that the stipends and
allowances heretofore assigned and given to the clergy of the
Church of England and Scotland, or to any other religious bodies or
denominations of Christians in Canada, and to which the faith of
the Crown is pledged, shall be secured during the natural lives or
incumbencies of the parties now receiving the same ... subject to
which provision the Provincial Parliament should be authorized to
appropriate as, in its wisdom, it may think proper, all revenues
derived from the present investments, or from those to be made
hereafter whether from the proceeds of future sales, or from
instalments on those already made.
As the agitation proceeded, Bishop Strachan and Dr. Ryerson again became
involved in it. The Bishop took the lead, and addressed a letter to Lord
John Russell on the subject. Dr. Ryerson at once joined issue with the
Bishop, and prepared the following able rejoinder in reply to the
Bishop's letter. He said:--
The statements of the Lord Bishop of Toronto, in his letter to Lord John
Russell, dated Canada, February 20th, 1851, and in his Charge delivered
to the clergy of the Diocese of Toronto, in May, 1851, relate to the
same subjects, and appear to be designed for perusal in England, rather
than in Canada. These statements, as a whole, are the most extraordinary
that I ever read from the pen of an ecclesiastic, much less from the pen
of a Bishop of the Church of England, and an old resident and prominent
actor in the affairs of the country of which he speaks. These statements
are not only incorrect, but they are, for the most part, the reverse of
the real facts to which they refer; and where they are most groundless,
they are the most positive. To discuss them _seriatim_ would occupy a
volume. I will, as briefly as possibly, notice the most important of
them under the following heads:--
1. The circumstances and objects of the original Clergy Land
Reservation.
2. The position of the Church of England in Canada, and the professed
wishes of the Lord Bishop.
3. The conduct of the Imperial and Canadian Governments towards the
Church of England.
4. The effect of the union of the two Canadas on the proceedings and
votes of the Legislative Assembly in regard to the Church of England.
5. Public grants to the Church of Rome, and the endowment of that Church
in Lower Canada.
6. The Toronto University and Public Schools.
I am to notice in the first place the statements of the Lord Bishop
respecting the circumstances and objects of the Clergy Land Reservation.
He speaks of it as having been suggested by the circumstances of the
American revolution, and as having been intended as the special reward
of those who adhered to the Crown of England during that seven years'
contest.
The Bishop says:--
At the close of the war, in 1783, which gave independence to the
United States, till then colonies of the British Crown, great
numbers of the inhabitants, anxious to preserve their allegiance,
and, in as far as they were able, the unity of the empire, sought
refuge in the western part of Canada, beyond the settlements made
before the conquest under the King of France. These loyalists, who
had for seven years perilled their lives and fortunes in defence of
the throne, the law, and the religion of England, had irresistible
claims when driven from their homes into a strange land (yet a vast
forest), to the immediate protection of government, and to enjoy
the same benefits which they had abandoned from their laudable
attachment to the parent State.
The Bishop subsequently states [See Chapter xxviii., page 219] that the
object of the Constitutional Act of 1791 was
More especially to confer upon the loyalists such a constitution as
should be as near a transcript as practicable of that of England,
that they might have no reason to regret, in as far as religion,
law, and liberty were concerned, the great sacrifices which they
had made.
Allusions of this kind pervade a considerable part of the Bishop's
letter, and furnish the first example, within my knowledge, of any
writer attempting to invest the dispute between the American colonies
and the mother country with a religious character; when every person the
least acquainted with the history of those colonies, and of that
contest, knows that the question of religion was never alluded to on the
part of the colonists--that General Washington and other principal
leaders in the revolution were professed Episcopalians--that the Church
of England did not exist as an established church in any of those
colonies, unless adopted as such by the local legislature, as in the
case of Virginia--and that in the northern and eastern parts of those
colonies, whence the first emigration to Upper Canada took place after
the peace of 1783, the Church of England never did exist as an
established church. Therefore, for the "religion of England" in that
sense, those "loyalists" never could have "perilled their lives and
fortunes;" nor could they have been influenced by any predilections for
an establishment which they had never seen. The Bishop says truly that:
The noble stand which the Province made against the United States
in the war of 1812, in which the attachment of its inhabitants to
the British empire was a second time signally displayed, brought
the country into deserved notice.
But nothing can be more fallacious than the claims he would found upon
this fact, any more than those of the American revolution of 1776, to
the clergy reserve land. For the Lord Bishop himself, when Archdeacon of
York, in a printed discourse on the death of the first Bishop of Quebec,
represents the benefits of the establishment as "little felt or known"
in Upper Canada, and states that down to the close of the American War
of 1812--namely, in 1815--there were but five clergymen of the Church of
England in that vast province. And a few years afterwards, December
22nd, 1826, the Upper Canada House of Assembly, consisting of the
representatives of the Loyalists and their sons, who had twice "signally
displayed their attachment to the British empire," adopted, by the
extraordinary majority of 30 to 3, the following remarkable and
significant resolution:--
_Resolved_, that the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Province
bears a very small proportion to the number of other Christians,
notwithstanding the pecuniary aid long and exclusively received
from the benevolent society in England by the members of that
Church, and their pretensions to a monopoly of the clergy reserves.
The original Loyalist settlers of Upper Canada, and their immediate
descendants, must be held to have understood their own feelings and
sentiments better than the Lord Bishop: and the almost unanimous
expression of such sentiments, through their representatives twenty-five
years since, together with other circumstances to which I have referred,
show how greatly mistaken is his Lordship, and how perfectly baseless
are his assumptions and frequent allusions and appeals in reference to
the hopes, wishes and sentiments of the original settlers of Upper
Canada as a ground of claim to the clergy reserves in behalf of the
Church of England.
I have next to say a few words on the Bishop's statement as to the
position of the Church of England in Canada, and the professions which
he makes in respect to her position. He says, "Our position has, for
some time, been that of a prostrate branch of the National Church;" and
that position he, in another place, calls "a condition of inferiority to
other religious denominations;" and he says, "she has been placed below
Protestant dissenters, and privileges, wrested from her, have been
conferred upon them." As to the position in which the Bishop would wish
the Church of England in Canada to be placed, he says, "We merely claim
equality, and freedom from oppression."
These expressions are deeply to be regretted, when it is perfectly
notorious that the pre-eminence and peculiar civil advantages claimed by
the Bishop for the Church of England, have been the ground of all the
disputes which have agitated the Legislature and people of Upper Canada
for more than twenty-five years; when every person of the least
intelligence in Canada knows that the Church of England, besides other
large educational and pecuniary patronage of government, enjoyed until
1840 an exclusive monopoly of the clergy lands which the Legislative
Assembly of Upper Canada long contended, and which the judges of England
have decided, extended by law to Protestants generally--that the Church
of England enjoys at this moment the greater part of the annual proceeds
of the sales of those lands, besides rectory endowments of portions of
them--that every political and religious party in Canada awards every
thing to the Church of England that they ask for themselves--"equality
and freedom from oppression." During the present session of the
Legislature, Bills have passed the Assembly giving the Church of England
in Lower Canada all the facilities of holding property and managing her
affairs which have been desired by the Bishop of the Diocese, as had
been granted a few years since in Upper Canada; and when it was objected
that privileges were given by such Bills to the Church of England not
possessed by any other religious persuasion, it was replied that others
might obtain them by asking for them, and the Bills in question were
passed with only two dissentient votes.
I repeat the expression of my regret that the Bishop should draw
entirely upon his imagination for such statements, and that his feelings
should prompt him to represent objections to his own particular views
and pretensions as oppression and persecution of the Church of England.
The next class of the Bishop's statements which I shall notice, relate
to the conduct of the Imperial and Canadian Governments towards the
Church of England. Throughout his voluminous documents the Bishop
represents the conduct of government, both Imperial and Colonial, as
hostile to the Church of England; and employs, in some instances, terms
personally offensive. The great question at issue is thus stated by the
Bishop himself in his recent charge to his clergy:--
In 1819, the law officers of the Crown gave it as their opinion
that the words Protestant clergy embraced also the ministers of the
Church of Scotland, not as entitling them to endowment in land, but
as enabling them to participate in the proceeds of the reserves,
whether sold or leased. In 1828, a select committee of the House of
Commons extended the construction of the words Protestant clergy to
the teachers of all Protestant denominations; and this
interpretation, though considered very extraordinary at the time,
was confirmed by the twelve judges in 1840.
In his letter to Lord John Russell, the Bishop alludes to two of these
decisions in terms peculiarly objectionable, while he omits all
reference to the latter. He says:--
The Established Church of Scotland claimed a share of those lands,
or the proceeds, as a National Church within the Empire; and in
1819, the Crown lawyers made the discovery that it might be
gratified, under the 37th clause of the 31st of George III., chap.
31. Next, the select committee of the House of Commons, in 1828, on
the Civil Government of Canada, influenced by the spurious
liberality of the times, extended this opinion of the Crown lawyers
to any Protestant clergy.
The Bishop thus impugns the impartiality and integrity of the opinions
expressed by the law officers of the Crown in England, and by the select
committee of the House of Commons, sarcastically calling the one a
"discovery," and ascribing the other to "spurious liberality;" while he
declares that the Act 3 and 4 Victoria, chapter 78 (which only carried
partially into effect the decision of the twelve judges, and was, as he
states, agreed to by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Bishops
in London), "deprived the Church of England in Canada of seven-twelfths
of her property."
In other documents the Bishop has designated this Act "an act of
spoliation," and "robbery" of the Church of England.
When the Bishop employs language of this kind in respect to Acts of
Parliament and the official opinions in regard to their provisions, he
cannot reasonably complain if other parties should respect them as
little as himself, much less regard them as a "final settlement" of a
question to which they have not been parties, and against which they
have always protested. Under any circumstances, it is singular language
to be employed by a person towards a government by whose fostering
patronage he has become enriched. The fact is, that the successive
Governors of Upper Canada have been members of the Church of England;
that the principal cause of their unpopularity, and the most serious
difficulties which both the Imperial and local governments have had to
encounter in the colony, have arisen from their efforts to secure as
much for the Church of England, in the face of the popular indignation
and opposition, so much inflamed and strengthened by the irritating
publications and extreme proceedings of the Bishop himself. It is
understood that the report of the committee of the House of Commons on
the civil government of Canada, in 1828, was written by Lord Stanley.
However that may be, the sentiments of that report on the clergy reserve
question were strongly expressed by his Lordship in his speech on the
subject, 2nd May, 1828; and he and the other distinguished men who
investigated the subject at that time, know whether they were
"influenced by a spurious liberality" in the conclusion at which they
arrived, or whether they were guided by a sense of justice, and yielded
to the weight of testimony. At all events, the grave decision of the
twelve judges of England to the same effect ought to have suggested to
the Bishop other terms than those of "spurious liberality,"
"spoliation," and "robbery," and to have protected not only the "powers
that be," but the great majority of the Canadian people, from the shafts
of his harsh imputations.
Here I think it proper to correct the Bishop's repeated references to
the origin and circumstances of the differences of opinion in Upper
Canada, as to the import of the words "Protestant clergy," and the
"right of dissenting denominations" to participate in the benefit of the
clergy reserves. He represents those differences as having originated
with the clergy of the Kirk of Scotland, and that the idea that any
other than the clergy of the Church of England had a right to
participate in the benefit of the reserves was never entertained in
Upper Canada until the friends of the Kirk of Scotland commenced the
agitation of the question.
So far from this representation being correct, it appears that
the first submission of the question to the law officers of the
Crown in England took place at the request of Sir P. Maitland,
in reference, not to the clergy of the Kirk of Scotland, but to
"all denominations" of Protestants--a question on which Sir P.
Maitland, then Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, states in a
despatch to Earl Bathurst, dated 17th May, 1819, that there was not
only a "difference of opinion" on the subject, but "a lively feeling
throughout the Province." It appears that certain "Presbyterian
inhabitants of the town of Niagara and its vicinity" (not at that
time in connexion with the Church of Scotland), petitioned Sir P.
Maitland for "an annual allowance of £100 to assist in the support
of a preacher," to be paid "out of funds arising from the clergy
reserves, or any other fund at His Excellency's disposal." In
transmitting a copy of this petition to Earl Bathurst, Sir P.
Maitland ("York, Upper Canada, 17th May, 1819,") remarks as
follows:--
The actual product of the clergy reserves is about £700 per annum.
This petition involves a question on which I perceive there is a
difference of opinion, viz., whether the Act intends to extend the
benefit of the reserves, for the maintenance of a Protestant
clergy, to all denominations, or only to those of the Church of
England. The law officers incline to the latter opinion. I beg
leave to observe to your Lordship, with much respect, that your
reply to this petition will decide a question of much interest, and
on which there is a lively feeling throughout the Province. [See
page 221.]
Earl Bathurst's reply to this despatch is dated "Downing Street, 6th
May, 1820," and commences as follows:--
Having requested the opinion of His Majesty's law officers as to
the right of dissenting Protestant ministers, resident in Canada,
to partake of the lands directed by the Act of the 31st George
III., c. 31, to be reserved as a provision for the support of a
Protestant clergy, I have now to state that they are of opinion
that though the provisions made by the 31st George III., c. 31, ss.
36 and 42, for the support and maintenance of a Protestant clergy,
are not confined solely to the Church of England, but may be
extended also to the clergy of the Church of Scotland, yet that
they do not extend to dissenting ministers, since the terms
Protestant clergy can apply only to the Protestant clergy
recognized and established by law.
It is thus clear that the question of the right of different Protestant
denominations to participate in the benefit of the clergy reserves did
not originate in any claims or agitation commenced by the clergy of the
Church of Scotland; that as early as the beginning of 1819, (only four
years after the close of the last American War, during which, as the
Bishop truly says, "the attachment of the inhabitants to the British
empire was a second time signally displayed,") there was "a lively
feeling throughout the Province" on the subject. The first Loyalist
settlers, and their immediate descendants, were opposed to the Bishop's
narrow construction of the Act 31st George III., chapter 31; their
representatives in the Legislative Assembly maintained invariably the
liberal construction of the Act; the select committee of the House of
Commons in 1828, on the Civil Government of Canada, after taking
evidence as to the intentions of the original framers of the law,
expressed the same opinion, and that opinion was ultimately confirmed by
the decision of the twelve judges in 1840. The Bishop is, therefore, as
much at fault in his facts on this point, as he is in the language he
employs in reference to Imperial legal opinions, and an Imperial Act of
Parliament.
It now becomes my duty to examine another large class of statements,
which I have read with great surprise and pain; and which are, if
possible, less excusable than those which I have already noticed. I
refer to the Bishop's statements in regard to the influence of the union
of the two Canadas on the votes and proceedings of the Legislative
Assembly of the united Province, on the question of the clergy reserves.
The Bishop, in his letter to Lord John Russell (referring to the Address
of the Legislative Assembly, at the session of 1850, to the Queen),
states as follows:--
Before the union of Upper and Lower Canada, such an unjust
proceeding could not have taken place, for, while separate, the
Church of England prevailed in Upper Canada, and had frequently a
commanding weight in the Legislature, and at all times an influence
sufficient to protect her from injustice. But since their union
under one Legislature, each sending an equal number of members,
matters are sadly altered.
It is found, as was anticipated, that the members returned by
dissenters uniformly join the French Roman Catholics, and thus
throw the members of the Church of England into a hopeless minority
on all questions in which the National Church is interested.
The Church of England has not only been prostrated by the union
under that of Rome, and the whole of her property made dependent on
Roman Catholic votes, but she has been placed below Protestant
dissenters, and privileges wrested from her which have been
conferred upon them.
In his recent charge to the clergy of his Diocese, the Bishop remarks
again:--
So long as this diocese remained a distinct colony, no measure
detrimental to the Church ever took effect. Even under the
management and prevailing influence of that able and unscrupulous
politician, the late Lord Sydenham, a Bill disposing of the clergy
reserves, was carried by one vote only--a result which sufficiently
proved that it was not the general wish of the people of the colony
to legislate upon the subject.
I shall first notice that part of the Bishop's statement which relates
to Upper Canada, before the union with Lower Canada. The Bishop asserts
it not to have been "the general wish of the people of the colony to
legislate upon the subject" of the clergy reserves; that the Church of
England prevailed, and had sufficient influence to maintain what he
regards as her just rights. The Bishop has resided in Upper Canada
nearly half a century, and such a statement from him, in direct
contradiction to the whole political history of the Province during more
than half that period, is difficult of solution, though perfectly easy
of refutation. I have already transcribed one of a series of
resolutions, adopted by the Legislative Assembly as early as December,
1826, by a majority of 30 to 3, objecting entirely to the exclusive
pretensions made in behalf of the Church of England. But I find that
nearly a year before this, namely, the 27th of the January preceding,
the House of Assembly of Upper Canada adopted an Address to the King on
the subject, in which it is stated, respectfully, but strongly,--
That the lands set apart in this Province for the maintenance and
support of a Protestant clergy ought not to be enjoyed by any one
denomination of Protestants to the exclusion of their Christian
brethren of other denominations, equally conscientious in their
respective modes of worshipping God, and equally entitled, as
dutiful and loyal subjects, to the protection of Your Majesty's
benign and liberal Government; we, therefore, humbly hope it will,
in Your Majesty's wisdom, be deemed expedient and just, that not
only the present reserves, but that any funds arising from the
sales thereof, should be devoted to the advancement of the
Christian religion generally, and the happiness of all Your
Majesty's subjects of whatever denomination; or if such application
or distribution should be deemed inexpedient, that the profits
arising from such appropriation should be applied to the purposes
of education and the general improvement of this Province.
The following year (January, 1827), the House of Assembly passed a Bill
(the minority being only three), providing for the sale and application
of the whole of the proceeds of the reserves for purposes of education,
and erection of places of public worship for all denominations of
Christians. And, on examining the journals, I find that from that time
down to the union of the Canadas in 1841, not a year passed over without
the passing of resolutions, or address, or bill, by the House of
Assembly of Upper Canada, for the general application of the proceeds of
the reserves, in some form or other, but always, without exception,
against what the Bishop claims as the rights of the Church of England in
respect to those lands.
It is difficult to conceive a more complete refutation than these facts
furnish of the Bishop's statement, that the Church of England prevailed
in Upper Canada, and had a commanding weight in the Legislature; nor
could a stronger proof be required of "the general wish of the people of
the colony to legislate upon the subject," than such a course of
procedure on the part of their representatives for so many years during
successive Parliaments, and amidst all the variations of party and party
politics on all other questions.
It is also incorrect to say that the Bill of Lord Sydenham in 1840 "was
carried by a majority of one vote only." A Bill did pass the Assembly of
Upper Canada the year before, by "a majority of one vote only;" but that
was a Bill to re-invest the reserves in the Imperial Parliament for
"general religious purposes,"--a Bill passed a few hours before the
close of the session, during which no less than forty-eight divisions,
with the record of yeas and nays, took place in the Assembly on the
question of the clergy reserves; and after the Assembly had passed, by
considerable majorities, both resolutions and a Bill to give the Church
of England one-fourth of the proceeds of the clergy reserves, and the
other three-fourths to other religious denominations and to educational
purposes--a Bill which, with some verbal amendments, also passed the
Legislative Council, and against which the Bishop, joined by one other
member, recorded an elaborate protest. But just at the heel of the
session, and after several members of the Assembly voting in the
majority had gone to their homes, a measure (which had been previously
negatived again and again) was passed by a "majority of one vote only"
(22 to 21), to re-invest the reserves--a measure which the law officers
in England pronounced "unconstitutional," as the manner of getting it
through the Canadian Legislature was unprecedented. [See page 249.]
But the measure of Lord Sydenham was carried in the Assembly by a
majority of 4, and in the Legislative Council (of which the Bishop was a
member and voted against the bill) by a majority of 8. A considerable
majority of the members of the Church of England of both Houses of the
Legislature voted for the bill, and were afterwards charged by the
Bishop with "defection," and "treachery" for doing so. [See page 262.]
On this point Lord Sydenham, in a despatch to Lord John Russell, dated
Toronto, 5th February, 1840, stated as follows:--
It is notorious to every one here, that of twenty-two members being
communicants of the Church of England who voted upon this Bill,
only eight recorded their opinion in favour of the views expressed
by the right reverend Prelate; whilst in the Legislative Council
the majority was still greater; and amongst those who gave it their
warmest support are to be found many gentlemen of the highest
character for independence and for attachment to the Church, and
whose views in general politics differ from those of Her Majesty's
Government.
After this epitome of references to the proceedings of the people of
Upper Canada, through their representatives, from 1825 to 1840, on what
the Bishop terms the "rights" and "patrimony" of the Church of England,
it is needless to make more than one or two remarks on his statements
as to the influence of the union of the Canadas on the proceedings and
votes of the Legislative Assembly upon the subject. My first remark is,
that the question of the clergy reserves has not been introduced into
the present Legislative Assembly by any member, or at the solicitation
of any member, from Lower Canada. I remark, secondly, that though there
is not a Roman Catholic among the forty-two members elected for Upper
Canada; yet when a resolution was introduced into the Assembly, both at
the last and during the present session, expressing a desire to maintain
the present settlement of the clergy reserves, as provided in the Act, 3
& 4 Vic., chap. 78, only sixteen in the first instance, and thirteen in
the second, voted for it--only about one-third of the members for Upper
Canada. Should, therefore, the union of the Canadas be dissolved
to-morrow, the Bishop would be in as hopeless a minority as he was
before the union. The following remarks of a recent speech of Mr.
Lafontaine (the leader of the Roman Catholic French members of the
Assembly) will show how entirely groundless are the Bishop's imputations
upon that portion of the Assembly.
He thought the clergy reserves should be fairly divided among the
Protestant denominations, and that they should be altogether taken
out of the hands of the Government, as the only way to take them
out of the reach of agitation. He thought the rectories were vested
rights, and should not be disturbed, unless by due process of law,
if, as was pretended, they were improperly obtained. If there were
any claims in the Act of 1791 which seemed to connect the Church of
England to the State, though he did not think they did, they might
be repealed, and the Bishop of Toronto seemed to be of opinion that
that might be done. Let the appointment of the incumbents to the
rectories, too, be taken from the Government, if it were thought
proper, and given to the Church for other uses. He merely suggested
that without wishing to impose it. He would conclude with one
reflection: Let his Protestant fellow-countrymen remember they
would never find opposition to their just rights from Roman
Catholics and French Canadians. The latter had repeatedly passed
Acts in Lower Canada to give equal rights to those who were called
dissenters, and Jews, which were rejected by members of the Church
of England in the Council, and it was worthy of remark that, at a
moment when in England a pretended aggression had given occasion
for persecution, the Church of England here had to rely upon
Catholics to protect it against the aggression of other Protestant
sects.
I shall now make a few observations on the Bishop's statements
respecting government grants to the Church of Rome, and the endowments
of that Church in Lower Canada. The Bishop, framing his statements with
a view to the Protestant feeling of England, inveighs in general terms
against the Government on account of its alleged patronage of the Church
of Rome; makes exaggerated statements on one side, and omits all
references to facts on the other side which would enable the Protestants
of England, to whom he appeals, to understand the part which he has
himself taken in favour of grants to the Church of Rome, the manner in
which those grants are paid at the present time, and the alliance which
he has long endeavoured, and would still wish to form with that Church
in respect to endowments. The Bishop says:--
In Upper Canada, the Roman Catholic clergy do not, at present,
exceed seventy in number, and the provision for their support is
very slender. It depends chiefly on their customary dues, and the
contributions of their respective flocks; unless, indeed, they
receive assistance from the French portion of the Province, where
the resources of the Romish Church are abundant.
Now, while the Bishop presents an overdrawn and startling picture of the
emoluments of the Church of Rome in Lower Canada, he omits all
statements of public grants and payments to the clergy of that church in
Upper Canada. The Bishop must know, that in addition to their "customary
dues, and the voluntary contributions of their flocks," the clergy of
the Church of Rome receive £1,666 per annum, and that that sum is paid
out of the clergy reserve fund under the provisions of the very Act, 3 &
4 Vic., chap. 78, for the perpetuation of which he contends. The first
instructions to support the Roman Catholic clergy in Upper Canada out of
public funds, were given by Earl Bathurst, in a despatch to Sir P.
Maitland, dated 6th October, 1826, and which commenced in the following
words:--
You will receive instructions from the Treasury for the payment,
from funds to be derived from the Canada Company, of the sum of
£750 per annum, for the salaries of the Presbyterian ministers, and
a similar sum for the support of the Roman Catholic priests.
But what is remarkable is, that this very policy of granting aid to the
Roman Catholic priests in Upper Canada, for which Government has been so
much blamed by the Bishop's friends in England, was urged by, if it did
not originate with, the Bishop himself. For, in a speech delivered by
the Bishop in the Legislative Council of Upper Canada, 6th March, 1828,
and afterwards published by himself, I find his own statement of his
proceedings in this matter, as follows:--
It has always been my wish to see a reasonable support given to the
clergy of the Church of Scotland, because they belong to a Church
which is established in one section of the empire; and to the Roman
Catholic Church because it may be considered as a concurrent church
with the establishment in the sister Province; and to this end I
have, at all times, advised the leading men of both those churches
to make respectful representations to His Majesty's Government for
assistance, leaving it to Ministers to discover the source from
which such aid might be taken.--His Excellency, the
Lieutenant-Governor of this Province (Sir P. Maitland), having
represented in the strongest manner to His Majesty's Government the
propriety of making some provision for the clergy in communion with
the kirk, and also of the Roman Catholic clergy resident in Upper
Canada, a reference was made to me on that subject, while in
London, in June, 1826. On this occasion I enforced, as well as I
could, the recommendations made by His Excellency, in respect to
both churches.
Thus four months before Earl Bathurst sent out instructions to give
salaries to Roman Catholic priests in Upper Canada, the Bishop states
that he urged it upon the favourable consideration of His Lordship. The
Bishop then significantly adds:--
I did flatter myself that they would have been satisfied, as indeed
they ought to have been, and that henceforth the clergy of the two
denominations, the Roman Catholic and Presbyterian, while
discharging their own religious duties, would cordially co-operate
with those of the establishment in promoting the general peace and
welfare of society. It is gratifying to me to state that, as far as
I know, the Roman Catholic clergy, during this contest, have
observed a strict neutrality.
However ingenious it may be, I cannot regard it as ingenuous that the
Bishop should promote the endowment of the Roman Catholic clergy in this
country in order to secure their political alliance and support against
other Protestant denominations, and then appeal to Protestants in
England against the Government and Legislature in Canada, because of the
countenance given to the Church of Rome. It is hardly fair for the
Bishop to act one part in Canada and another in England; and it is
fallacious and wrong to represent the votes of Roman Catholics as
exerting any influence whatever on the state of the question in Upper
Canada--as of the twenty-five Roman Catholics who voted on the question
last year, twelve voted on one side and thirteen on the other; and they
are known to hold the opinion declared by their leader, Mr. Lafontaine,
that the proceeds of the clergy reserves belong to the Protestants of
the country in contradistinction to Roman Catholics.
The Bishop's statements in regard to the endowments of the Roman
Catholic Church in Lower Canada are most extravagant. They cannot
affect, in the least, the merits of the question which has so long
agitated Upper Canada; and they appear to be introduced merely for
effect in England, where the social state and position of parties in
Canada are little known or understood. It is needless to examine the
Bishop's statements on this subject in detail; but I will make two or
three remarks, to show the fallacy of both his assertions and his
reasoning. He gives no data whatever for his perfectly gratuitous and
improbable assumption of four hundred parish priests in Lower Canada at
a salary of £250 each, exclusive of those employed in colleges,
monasteries, and religious houses, making, he says,
The revenue of the Roman Catholic Church in Lower Canada, £100,000
per annum, a sum which represents a money capital of at least
£2,000,000!
This imaginary estimate of the Bishop is simply absurd, and supposes in
Lower Canada ten-fold the wealth that really exists.
The Bishop also gives a return of the seignorial lands of several
religious orders of the Roman Catholic Church in Lower Canada, then
invests those lands with a fictitious value, and sets them down as
representing "a capital of £700,000!" whereas the rights to these lands
are simply seignorial, and the annual revenue arising from them does not
amount to threepence per acre. The Jesuits' estates, 891,845 acres--by
far the largest item in the Bishop's paper--are in the hands of the
Government, and not of the Roman Catholic Church at all.
The fallacy of the Bishop's reasoning on this point will appear from the
facts, that the British Crown has never made a grant or endowment to the
Roman Catholic Church in Lower Canada, or to any religious order of that
Church; that whatever lands or endowments that Church or its religious
communities may possess, were obtained either from the Crown of France,
and therefore secured by treaty, or by the legacies of individuals, or
by purchase. The island of Montreal was obtained by purchase; the rights
are merely seignorial, or feudal, and yield to the seigneurs £8,000 per
annum.
There is, therefore, no analogy whatever between endowments thus
obtained and held, and lands appropriated by the Crown for certain
general objects, which have been vested in the hands of no religious
community, and over which Parliament has expressly reserved the power of
discretionary legislation.
I shall now offer a few remarks on the Bishop's statements respecting
the Toronto University and system of public schools in Upper Canada. As
these are questions which have been set at rest by local legislation, by
and with the sanction of the Imperial Government, I need only refer to
the Bishop's statements so far as to remove the erroneous impressions
and unjust prejudices which they are calculated to produce.
In reference to the Bishop's statements, that "graduates in holy orders
are declared ineligible as members of the Senate," I remark that such
graduates are and have been members of the Senate from the commencement.
And when the Bishop pronounces the University "essentially unchristian,"
he must have known that not only a Parliamentary law, but a University
statute, exists for the religious instruction and worship of all the
students of the University; whereas, when the Bishop had the management
of it, no provision whatever existed for the religious instruction and
worship of any of the students except members of the Church of England.
The statement, therefore, of the Bishop, that--
There is at present no Seminary in Upper Canada in which the
children of conscientious churchmen can receive a Christian and
liberal education,
is contradicted by the fact that the children of many churchmen, as
"conscientious" as the Bishop himself, are receiving such an education
at a "Seminary in Upper Canada."
* * * * *
The lands out of which the University has been endowed were early set
apart by the Crown, not on the application or recommendation of any
authority or dignitary of the Church of England, but on the application
of the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada; and the cause of all the
agitation on the subject is, that the Bishop, unknown to the Canadian
people, and by representations which they, through their
representatives, declared to be incorrect and unfounded, obtained a
University Charter in England, and the application of those lands as an
endowment, which the Legislative Assembly never would recognize. And now
that that Assembly has at length got these lands restored to the objects
for which they were originally appropriated, but from which they had for
a time been alienated, the Bishop seeks, by the most unfounded
imputations and representations, to do all in his power to damage a
Seminary which he ought to be the first to countenance and support.
In his recent charge to his clergy, the Bishop has sought to damage the
public elementary schools; and here his statements are equally at fault
with those noticed in regard to the University. The Bishop says,
"Christianity is not so much as acknowledged by our School law." This
statement is contradicted by the 14th section of the School Act, and the
general regulations which are made under its authority, headed,
"Constitution and government of schools in respect to religious
instruction," and which commence with the following words:--
As Christianity is the basis of our whole system of elementary
education, that principle should pervade it throughout.
The Bishop says again:--
To take away the power of parents to judge and direct the education
of their children, which is their natural privilege from God, as
our schools virtually do, will never be allowed in Great Britain.
The Bishop makes this statement in the face of the express provision of
the 14th section of the School Act, which declares that "pupils shall be
allowed to receive such religious instruction as their parents or
guardians shall desire."
The Bishop furthermore states that "the Bible appears not among our
school books," and says also that the "system is not based on a
recognition of the Scriptures." It would be strange if the Bishop were
ignorant that in a lengthened correspondence, printed by order of the
Legislative Assembly, the Chief Superintendent of Schools objected to
any law or system which would exclude the Bible from the schools,--that
the Government sanctioned his views,--that his annual reports show that
the Bible is used in the great majority of the schools in Upper Canada.
By the returns of last year, the Bible was used in 2,067 of the 3,059
schools reported--being an increase of 231 schools over those of the
preceding year in which the Bible was used.
The Bishop likewise says:--
A belief of Christianity is not included among the qualifications
of school-masters; and I am credibly informed that there have been
instances of candidates for schools disavowing all religious
belief.
There is no law to prevent the vilest person from being "candidates" for
any office, even that of holy orders; but "candidates for schools," and
"school-masters," with legal certificates of qualification, are two very
different things. According to the school law, no person can be a
legally qualified teacher, or receive any portion of the school fund,
without appearing before a County Board of Examiners (who consist, in
all cases, more or less of clergymen), produce to them "satisfactory
evidence of good moral character," and be examined and approved by them.
Even the name of the church to which the "school-master" belongs is
specified, and the annual reports of the Chief Superintendent of Schools
include this item of information. A teacher may also, at any time, be
dismissed for intemperance or any immoral conduct. It is notorious that
the standard of qualification for teachers, both moral and intellectual,
and the provisions and regulations for religious instruction in the
schools, are much higher, and more complete and efficient, than under a
former school law which the Bishop himself introduced into the
Legislature, when he was Chairman of the Provincial Board of Education.
Again, the Bishop states that
All that is wanting is, to give power to the different boards or
authorities to grant separate schools to all localities desiring
them.
This is precisely what the school law provides; for the 24th section of
the Act expressly authorizes and empowers the Board of School Trustees
in each city or town, "to determine the number, sites, kind and
description of schools which shall be established in such city or town."
The Boards of School Trustees may therefore establish as many "separate
schools" in all the cities and towns in Upper Canada, as they shall
think proper. But they are not willing to establish such separate
schools as the Bishop desires; and when an amendment to the school law
was proposed at the last session, to compel the local "boards or
authorities" to do so, it was almost unanimously rejected. The Bishop
says, indeed, referring to this circumstance, that "when the Church of
England requested separate schools for the religious instruction of her
own children, her prayer was rejected by the votes of Romanists." The
fact is, that that proposition received the votes of but five members of
the Legislative Assembly, in which there are upwards of fifty
Protestants.
It is lamentable to see the Bishop making such statements to damage and
pull down the educational institutions of the country, merely because
they are not under his denominational control, and subservient to his
denominational purposes,--a system of schools which he has, from the
commencement, endeavoured to establish in Upper Canada, and for which he
has agitated the country these many years. That I do the Bishop no
injustice in this statement, I may remark, that in his letter to the
Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, in 1827, applying for the
so-much-agitated Charter of the Provincial University, he states his
object to be, that the clergy of the Church of England in Upper Canada
may "acquire by degrees the direction of education which the clergy of
England have always possessed." Now that the Legislative Assembly, since
the establishment of free constitutional government, have defeated the
peculiar objects of the Bishop, he labours by groundless imputations and
statements to bring the whole system of public instruction into
contempt. It is to be hoped that such efforts will be as unsuccessful in
England as they have been in Canada, where his appeals for agitation
have not been responded to by one out of ten of the congregations of the
Church of England, and are not sustained by the greater part of the
members of the Church of England in both branches of the Legislature.
Not a petition has been presented by members of the Church of England
against the present system of public schools, except one, adopted by a
meeting presided over by the Bishop, and signed by himself; and the
Legislative Council within the last few days, by a majority of more than
two to one, concurred with the Legislative Assembly and Administration
in regard to the clergy reserves and University. The Bishop's extreme
policy and proceedings have been and are a great calamity to the Church
of England in Canada--a calamity which can only be mitigated and removed
by the discountenance of such proceedings, and by the adoption of a more
Christian and judicious policy on the part of members of the Church,
both in England and in Canada.
* * * * *
In reviewing the history of this question from 1840 until its final
settlement by the Canadian Parliament, in 1854, Dr. Ryerson said:--
Messrs. William and Egerton Ryerson had been appointed
representatives of the Canadian to the British Conference in 1840.
On their arrival in England, they found Lord John Russell's Bill
for the disposal of the Canadian Clergy Reserves to the Churches of
England and Scotland before Parliament; and, as representing the
largest religious denomination in Upper Canada, they requested an
interview with Lord John Russell on the subject of His Lordship's
Bill before Parliament. In the interview granted, they pointed out
to His Lordship the injustice, impolicy, and danger of the Bill,
should it become law, and respectfully and earnestly prayed His
Lordship to withdraw the Bill; but he was inflexible, when the
Messrs. Ryerson prayed to His Lordship to assent to their being
heard at the Bar of the House of Commons against the Bill; at which
His Lordship became very angry--thinking it presumptuous that two
Canadians, however numerous and respectable their constituency,
should propose to be heard at the Bar of the British House of
Commons against a measure of Her Majesty's Government. But the
Messrs. Ryerson knew their country and their position, and
afterwards wrote a respectful but earnest letter to His Lordship
against his measure, and faithfully warned him of the consequences
of it if persevered in; they went so far as to intimate that the
measure would prove an opening wedge of separation between Great
Britain and the people of Upper Canada; and lest they should be
considered as endeavouring to fulfil their own predictions, they
did not publish their letter to Lord John Russell, or write a line
on the subject for more than ten years--knowing that a wound so
deep would, without any action or word on their part, fester and
spread so wide in the people of Upper Canada as ultimately to
compel the repeal of the Act or sever their connection with Great
Britain. The result was as they, Messrs. Ryerson, had apprehended;
for in 1853 the Act was repealed by the British Parliament.[136]
Early in 1852, the Government of which Earl Grey was Secretary of State
for the Colonies, was superseded by that of the Earl of Derby, with Sir
John Packington as Secretary of State for the Colonies, who, in a
despatch to Lord Elgin, dated April 22nd, 1852, says:--
By a despatch from my predecessor, Earl Grey, of the 11th July
last, you were informed that Her Majesty's then servants found
themselves compelled to postpone to another Session the
introduction of a Bill into Parliament giving the Canadian
Legislature authority to alter the existing arrangements with
regard to the clergy reserves.
With reference to that intimation, I have to inform you that it is
not the intention of Her Majesty's present advisers to propose such
a measure to Parliament this Session. "The result would probably be
the diversion to other purposes" of the clergy reserves than "the
support of divine worship and religious instruction in the colony."
Sir John Pakington was soon undeceived as to the continued Canadian
sentiment on the subject, for Sir Francis Hincks, then Inspector-General
and Premier of Canada, who happened to be in London on official business
on behalf of the Canadian Government, enclosed to Sir John Pakington an
extract from a report, dated 7th April, 1852, approved by His
Excellency, in which the Executive Council said:--
The assurances of Her Majesty's late Government that such action
would be taken, had prepared the people of Canada to expect that no
further delay would take place in meeting their just wishes upon a
question of such paramount importance to them; the Council,
therefore, recommend that their colleague, the Inspector-General,
be requested by the Provincial Secretary to seek an interview with
Her Majesty's Ministers, and represent to them the importance of
carrying out the pledges of their predecessors on the subject of
the clergy reserves, and thus empower the Colonial Legislature to
deal with the question in accordance with the well-understood
wishes of the people of Canada.
The Derby ministry resigned office in December, 1852, and the Duke of
Newcastle succeeded Sir John Pakington as Secretary of State for the
Colonies. On the 15th January, 1853, the Duke addressed a despatch to
the Earl of Elgin announcing the decision of the new ministry to propose
the repeal of the Imperial Act of 1840, which was successfully
accomplished.
After the passing of the Imperial Act transferring the final settlement
of the clergy reserve question to Canada, a coalition Government was
formed by the aid of Sir Allan McNab, called the Hincks-Morin Ministry.
After protracted negotiation (with the beneficiaries under the Imperial
Act) and discussion in the Legislature, a Bill was passed providing for
the interests of these claimants, but "secularizing" the remaining
proceeds of the reserves to municipal purposes. This was the last of the
Acts assented to by Lord Elgin previous to his departure from Canada.
Sir Edmund Head, his successor, speaking on this subject, said:--
An Act assented to by my predecessor has finally settled the long
pending dispute with regard to the clergy reserves, and it has done
so in such a manner as to vindicate liberal principles, whilst it
treats the rights of individuals with just and considerate regard.
Thus was a struggle of more than twenty-five years ended, equality
before the law of all religious denominations established, and
constitutional rights of the people of Upper Canada secured, to their
great joy. But the Bishop of Toronto, whose policy and measures had
caused so much agitation in Upper Canada, regarded this settlement of
the clergy reserve question as an irreparable calamity to the Church of
England in Canada. On the 16th of March, 1853, the Bishop addressed a
letter to the Duke of Newcastle, of which the following are extracts:--
Power and violence are to determine the question; vested rights and
the claims of justice are impediments to be swept away. Hence the
spoliation sought to be perpetrated by the Legislature of Canada
has no parallel in colonial history. Even in the middle of the
American Revolution, the old colonists, during the heart-burnings
and ravages of civil war, respected the ecclesiastical endowments
made by the Crown against which they were contending....
The grants made by the Crown were all held by the same tenure--whether
to individuals or corporations--not reservations for certain purposes,
with power expressly given to Colonial Assemblies to "vary or repeal"
them. The Bishop proceeded:--
I feel bitterly, my Lord Duke, on this subject. Till I heard of
your Grace's despatch, I had fondly trusted in Mr. Gladstone and
his friends, of whom you are one, notwithstanding the present
doubtful Administration; and I still argued in my heart, though not
without misgivings, that the Church was safe, I have cherished her
with my best energies for more than half a century in this distant
corner of God's dominions; and after many trials and difficulties I
was beholding her with joy, enlarging her tent, lengthening her
cords, and strengthening her stakes, but now this joy is turned
into grief and sadness, for darkness and tribulation are
approaching to arrest her onward progress. Permit me, in
conclusion, my Lord Duke, to entreat your forgiveness if, in the
anguish of my spirit, I have been too bold, for it is far from my
wish or intention to give personal offence. And of this rest
assured, that I would most willingly avert, with the sacrifice of
my life, the calamities which the passing of your Bill will bring
upon the Church in Canada.
There is a touching pathos in the close of this letter; but the Bishop
himself lived to see his apprehended calamities turned into blessings;
for the most prosperous and brightest days of the Church of England in
Upper Canada have been from 1853 to the present time.
FOOTNOTES:
[136] Earl Grey had intended to propose its repeal in 1850-51, and had
requested the writer of these papers (who was then on an educational
tour in Europe) to remain in England in order to furnish His Lordship
with data and details to enable him to answer objections which might be
made to his Bill in the House of Lords, and wrote to Lord Elgin, then
Governor-General of Canada, requesting the protracting of Mr. Ryerson's
leave of absence for two or three months. But the Bill had to be
deferred until another Session, and Mr. Ryerson returned immediately to
Canada. (See page 455.)
CHAPTER LIII.
1851.
Personal Episode in the Clergy Reserve Controversy.
Dr. Ryerson made another educational tour in Europe in 1850-51. While in
London, early in 1851, Earl Grey sought Dr. Ryerson's counsel on the
clergy reserve question, which had been lately re-opened in Canada. The
proceedings and result of the interviews which he had with Earl Grey,
are detailed in several letters which he wrote to me from London during
a period of four months. I give such extracts from these letters as will
explain the nature of Dr. Ryerson's conferences with Earl Grey on the
subject. His first letter was written on the 7th February, in which he
said:--
You will rejoice to learn that Her Majesty's Government have
adopted the prayer of the Canadian Legislature on the question of
the clergy reserves, and have determined to bring forward a measure
on the subject. Whether Lord Grey will desire me to remain longer
on account of the question I have not had time to learn. Mr.
[afterwards Sir Benjamin] Hawes says that he will procure me
admission to the speaker's gallery to tear Lord John Russell bring
forward his measure on the Papal Question.
In a letter written by Dr. Ryerson the following week, dated 14th
February, he enclosed to me a confidential letter on the clergy reserve
question, in which he explained the likelihood of his being detained in
England by Lord Grey in connection with it. He said:--
I send this to you, so that you may know all the circumstances
which are likely to protract my stay for some months in this
country; and for the same reason, and that you may co-operate with
me, I entrust you with the perusal of my confidential
letter--another proof of my unreserved confidence in your prudence
and fidelity. I think it would not be well for you to mention
anything as to my probable delay in England, and especially as to
the reasons of it, until it becomes known to the public.
My position is, indeed, a gratifying one, after so long labour and
so much abuse in connection with the great clergy reserve question,
that I should be desired to aid in its final settlement according
to the voice of the people of Canada, and should now be called upon
to aid Lord John Russell himself to undo his own measure of 1840,
against which I then protested. I am sure you will be prepared to
perform any additional labour to enable me to fulfil such a
mission. I trust that I will be enabled to confer a benefit upon
Canada. It is a gratifying position in which such a concurrence of
circumstances will place me, and my personal character and history
in regard to a question which has engaged so large a portion of my
past life--the ground of all the opposition I formerly met with
from the London Wesleyan Committee and Conference. Verily there is
a God that ruleth over all things, that makes the wrath of man to
praise Him, that rules in ways we know not of. We should indeed
fear Him, bow down in the dust before Him, but at the same time
most calmly and implicitly trust Him. Please write me as to the
effects produced by Lord Grey's despatch, the manner in which it is
received, etc.
In a letter, dated 13th March, Dr. Ryerson said:--
I have received a letter from a member of the Government in Canada,
expressing a wish that I would remain in England until after the
great Exhibition, as the Canadian Parliament would not meet until
May. This, in anticipation of what Lord Grey has desired, has quite
settled my mind on the subject of remaining until May or June.
I shall remain in Paris until I am wanted in London on the clergy
reserve question--I suppose until the middle of next month.
Listening some hours each day in Paris to some of the most learned
men in Europe, giving the results of all their researches and
reflections on various branches of literature and science, will be
of great advantage to me in my future lectures, writings and
labours, and this I shall continue until the voice of war on the
clergy reserves shall echo across the Atlantic. I suppose my
presence in England at this time will be a great annoyance to the
exclusive Church party, and it will perhaps make them more cautious
than they might otherwise be in their statements.
As the ministry in England continue firm, I hope no effort will be
wanting in Canada to sustain Lord Grey, should an opposition be
raised against his proposed bill, the bringing in of which may be
delayed some time by the late long ministerial crisis in England.
In a letter, dated 11th April, Dr. Ryerson said:--
In regard to the clergy reserves, I have been inclined to think the
Bishop of Toronto and his friends would not attempt to renew the
agitation of the clergy reserve question in Canada, but would
prepare the strongest statement of their case for the Parliament
here, in the mouths of some of their ablest friends in both the
Commons and Lords, and thus take the Government here by surprise,
and try and defeat the Bill in the Lords, after having, reduced the
majority in favour of it in the Commons as much as possible.
On the 18th April, 1851, Dr. Ryerson wrote again:--
The Scotch Presbytery of Kingston, U. C., have sent a petition to
the House of Commons against Lord Grey's Bill, or against complying
with the prayer of the address of the Canadian Assembly, and sent
to me with the request that I would prepare an answer to it. I
think of preparing my answer in the form of a communication or two
to the _Times_ newspaper, and thus bring the whole subject before
the Members of Parliament and the public. Should I succeed in this,
Lord Grey may not think my longer stay to be necessary. I am
anxious to get away as soon as possible; the season is advancing,
and I have so much to do before the close of it in the autumn.
Business and embarrassments have so accumulated in the House of
Commons that it is pretty nearly decided to bring the clergy
reserve Bill into the Lords by Lord Grey himself, and he expects to
do so about the middle of May. Should it be brought into the Lords,
of course there would not be so long delay there before deciding
the question one way or the other. But the chances are so strong
against its success if brought into the Lords first, that Lord Grey
is unwilling to adopt that course until it is seen that that is
the only alternative. If it should be lost in the Lords now, he, of
course, thinks it would soon be carried by a pressure from Canada,
such as the rejection of the Bill by the Lords would probably call
forth.
On the 25th April, Dr. Ryerson wrote:--
The late crisis has made no change in the intentions of the
Government in regard to the clergy reserve question. I send you a
copy of the _Times_ of the 23rd instant, the day before yesterday,
in which you will see the first of my papers on "The Clergy
Reserves of Canada." The second and third will occupy a column and
a half or two columns, each. I finished and handed in the remaining
papers this morning. Lord Grey spoke to me twice on the subject of
writing something for the press, and Mr. Hawes, the last time I saw
him, seemed to think the Bill would be lost in the House of Lords,
but the Government would send out a despatch to Canada saying that
the question was not abandoned, but would be brought forward again
the next Session. I have thought this was a very poor consolation
for the loss of the Bill, and that it was best to see what could be
done. I have written strongly, and with an express view to the
House of Lords--confining myself wholly to the question of the
right of the people of Canada to judge and decide in the matter.
What may be the effect of these papers, I cannot, of course, tell;
but if Lord Grey should be of opinion that the publication of them
will supersede the necessity of my longer stay for that purpose, I
will leave as soon as possible--by the third week in May.
I wrote fully to Dr. Ryerson on this subject, pointing out the relation
of parties in Canada on this subject, and deprecating his taking any
further active part in the discussion which had become so heated in this
country. On the 2nd May, Dr. Ryerson replied:--
What you have communicated on the clergy reserve question has
changed my mode of proceeding in some respects; and the second and
third articles I prepared for the _Times_ will not appear as first
intended; but I will explain by and by. I was at the great
Exhibition yesterday. It was the grandest of all grand affairs I
ever witnessed. I had a place near the centre, within a few feet of
the "Iron Duke," until he left to join the procession.
On the 9th May, Dr. Ryerson wrote his final letter:--
On reflection, and from what I found to be the relations of parties
in Canada, and the turn the clergy reserve question was likely to
take, I came to the same conclusion you have expressed in your last
letter--not to come into collision with any party on the question,
beyond what is expressed in the short article in the _Times_
newspaper--namely, that Canada should judge for itself on the
question. I have determined to furnish Lord Grey with a memorandum
of facts and principles on the question. I have seen Lord Grey and
stated my wish not to remain longer, and not to be further mixed up
with the question--that I was now on good terms with all
parties--had thus great facilities for usefulness--that party
agitation in Canada was becoming violent--two extreme parties,
uniting against the Ministerial measure. I told him that I would
furnish him with a memorandum, with all the chief points of the
question on which he was likely to be opposed. He seemed to be
disappointed, but said if I thought my Department would suffer by
my longer absence, he would not insist upon my staying. I told him
that all parties would approve of my staying for the Great
Exhibition, and that I thought a memorandum, such as I would
prepare on the question of the clergy reserves, would be as
serviceable as my presence, etc.
Memorandum on the Clergy Reserve Question.
The following is the memorandum which Dr. Ryerson prepared for Lord Grey
on the clergy reserve question, and to which he refers in his letter to
me of the 9th May, 1851:--
Fully concurring in the remark of the Bishop of London, in a late reply
to the deputation of the inhabitants of St. George's, Hanover Square,
that "there is no kind of intestine division so injurious in its
character and tendency as that which is grounded on religious
questions;" and firmly believing, as I do, that the long continuance of
Canada as a portion of the British Empire depends upon the proceedings
of the British Parliament on the question of the clergy reserves, I
desire, as a native and resident of Upper Canada, as a Protestant and
lover of British institutions, to submit the following brief
observations on that question, in order to correct erroneous impressions
in England, and to induce such a course of parliamentary proceedings as
will conduce to the honour of Great Britain, and to the peace and
welfare of Canada:--
1. My first remark is, that this is a question agitated for more than
twenty-five years, almost exclusively among Protestants in Canada, and
the agitation of which, at the present time, has not, in any way
whatever, been promoted by Roman Catholic influence. An attempt has been
made in some quarters to create a contrary impression in England; but
that I am correct in my statement will, I think, appear from the
following facts:--First, though the question of the clergy reserves
nominally relates to Lower as well as Upper Canada (since the union of
the two Canadas under one Legislature), it is historically and
practically an Upper Canadian question. The agitation of it originated
in Upper Canada; it never was agitated in Lower Canada before the union
of the two provinces; it is discussed chiefly by the Upper Canada press,
and pressed most earnestly by the Upper Canada members of the
Legislature. So strongly is it viewed as an Upper Canadian question,
that a considerable portion of the press of Upper Canada has objected to
Lower Canadian members of the Legislature interfering in its discussion
or influencing its decision by their votes. Secondly, all the Upper
Canadian members, both of the Executive Council and of the Legislative
Assembly, are Protestants. Of the forty-two members of the Legislative
Assembly elected in Upper Canada, not one of them is a Roman Catholic;
of the five Upper Canadian members of the Executive Council, all are
Protestants, and all were in favour of the late Address of the Assembly
to the Queen, praying for the repeal of the Imperial Act, 4 & 5 Vic.,
chap. 78. and for restoring to the people of Canada the constitutional
right of judging for themselves as to the disposal of the clergy reserve
lands in that country. It ought, therefore, to be remembered in England,
that this question relates chiefly to Upper Canada, which is, for the
most part, a Protestant country, and which has not a single Roman
Catholic in the Legislative Assembly.
2. I remark, in the next place, that it is not a question of Church and
State union, or whether the State shall contribute to the support of
religion in one or more forms. It is whether the Canadian people shall
judge for themselves as to the mode of supporting their religious
worship, as well as to the religious creed they shall adopt. This right
was clearly secured to them by their constitutional Act of 1791, 31st
George III., chap. 31, but was taken from them by the Imperial Act of
1840, 3 & 4 Vic., chap. 78. In what manner the people of Canada, through
their representatives, may exercise the constitutional right, the
restoration of which they claim, for the support of religion, I am not
prepared to say. But whether they shall exercise wisely or not that, or
any other right constitutionally vested in them, is a matter
appertaining to themselves, and not to parties in England. I am not to
be the less anxious for the restoration to my country of its
constitutional rights because it may not exercise them wisely, or
exercise them in a manner opposed to my personal views and wishes. The
constitutional rights of legislation in Great Britain may not have
always been exercised most judiciously, but who would adduce that as an
argument for the annihilation of those rights, or against the existence
of constitutional freedom in England? Is Canada to be made an exception
to this rule?
3. I remark, thirdly, that neither is this a question which affects the
vested rights of any parties except those of the people of Canada
generally. When one-seventh of the wild lands of Canada was reserved for
the support of a Protestant clergy, by the Act of 1791, 31st George
III., chap. 31, the Canadian Legislature, created by the same Act, was
invested with authority, under certain forms, to "vary or repeal" the
several clauses relating to that clergy land reservation. That vested
right the people of Upper Canada possessed from 1791 to 1840. All other
vested rights are subordinate to those of a whole people, and are not to
be exalted above them. The Canadian Legislative Assembly has proposed to
secure all parties who have acquired rights or interests in the revenue
arising from the sales of the clergy reserve lands during the lives of
the incumbents or recipients; but, beyond that guarantee, it claims the
right of "varying or repealing," as it shall judge expedient, the landed
reservation in question, and the application of the revenues arising
from it.
4. The real question for consideration in England being thus separated
from other questions with which it has sometimes been erroneously and
injuriously confounded, I proceed to remark that the Imperial Act 3 and
4 Vic., chap. 78, is at variance with what the Imperial Governments
without exception and without reservation, for twenty-five years, have
admitted and avowed to be the constitutional rights of the people of
Canada. It has at all times been admitted in the first place, that the
Act 31st Geo. III., ch. 31, which created a legislature in Canada, and
authorized the clergy land reservation, invested the Canadian
Legislature with authority to legislate as to its disposal, and the
application of revenues arising from it; and secondly, that whatever
legislation might take place on the subject should be in harmony with
the wishes of the Canadian people. The Imperial Act 3 and 4 Vic., ch.
78, deprives the Canadian people of that right of legislation which they
had possessed for forty years, and does violence to their wishes and
opinions in the disposal which it makes of the revenues of the lands in
question. Now the rights of the people of Canada on this subject were
explicitly stated by the late Sir George Murray in 1828, by the Earl of
Ripon in 1832, by His late Most Gracious Majesty in a message to the
Legislature of Upper Canada in 1833, and by Lord Glenelg in 1835 and
1836. I give a summary of the whole in the words of Lord Glenelg, in a
despatch to the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, dated December 5,
1835, in reply to an attempt on the part of the latter to induce
Imperial legislation on the subject. Lord Glenelg says, in behalf of the
Imperial Government, that:--
Parliamentary legislation on any subject of exclusively internal
concern, in a British colony possessing a representative assembly,
is as a general rule unconstitutional. It is a right of which the
exercise is reserved for extreme cases, in which necessity at once
creates and justifies the exception.
After showing that no necessity existed for setting aside the
constitutional rights of the Canadian people, Lord Glenelg expresses
himself in the following language of enlightened political philosophy:--
It is not difficult to perceive the reasons which induced
Parliament, in 1791, to connect with a reservation of land for
ecclesiastical purposes, the special delegation to the Council and
Assembly of the right to vary that provision by any Bill which,
being reserved for the signification of His Majesty's pleasure,
should be communicated to both Houses of Parliament for six weeks
before that decision was pronounced. Remembering, it should seem,
how fertile a source of controversy ecclesiastical endowments had
supplied throughout a large part of the Christian world, and how
impossible it was to foretell with precision what might be the
prevailing opinions and feelings of the Canadians on this subject
at a future period, Parliament at once secured the means of making
a systematic provision for a Protestant clergy, and took full
precaution against the eventual inaptitude of that system to the
more advanced stages of a society then in its infant state, and of
which no human foresight could divine the more mature and settled
judgment.
In the controversy, therefore, respecting ecclesiastical
endowments, which at present divides the Canadian Legislature, I
find no unexpected element of agitation, the discovery of which
demands a departure from the fixed principles of the constitution,
but merely the fulfilment of the anticipations of the Parliament of
1791, in the exhibition of that conflict of opinion for which the
statute of that year may be said to have made a deliberate
preparation. In referring the subject to the future Canadian
Legislature, the authors of the Constitutional Act must be supposed
to have contemplated the crisis at which we have now arrived--the
era of warm and protracted debate, which, in a free government, may
be said to be a necessary precursor to the settlement of any great
principle of national policy. We must not have recourse to an
extreme remedy, merely to avoid the embarrassment which is the
present, though temporary, result of our own legislation.
I think, therefore, that to withdraw from the Canadian to the
Imperial Legislature the question respecting the clergy reserves,
would be an infringement of that cardinal principle of colonial
government which forbids parliamentary interference, except in
submission to an evident and well-established necessity.
In January, 1840, the two branches of the Legislature of Upper Canada
passed a Bill (the Legislative Assembly by a majority of 28 to 20, and
the Legislative Council by a majority of 13 to 4) relative to the clergy
reserve--provided for the interests of their existing incumbents, and
dividing the proceeds of the sales of said lands among various religious
persuasions according to a census taken once in five years, and leaving
each religious persuasion free to expend the sum or sums to which it
should be entitled according to its pleasure, whether for the support of
its clergy, the erection of places of worship, or for purposes of
education. Though the great majority of the people of Upper Canada
desired the application of the proceeds of these lands for educational
purposes only; yet a majority of both branches of the Legislature agreed
to a compromise which could be defended as just to all parties, whatever
preferences might be entertained on the subject in the abstract. But
instead of the Royal assent being advised to be given to that Canadian
Bill on a local Canadian question, a new Bill was introduced into the
Imperial Parliament, giving about three-fourths of the proceeds of the
clergy reserves (including past and future sales) to the clergy of the
churches of England and Scotland, giving nothing to any other church,
but leaving the remaining one-fourth (or half of future sales) at the
discretionary disposal of the Executive for religious purposes. This
part of the Imperial Act has proved inoperative to this day; and should
any religious persuasion receive any portion of this comparative
pittance of the clergy land funds, it would do so not as a matter of
right (as do the Churches of England and Scotland in receiving their
lion's share), but at and during the pleasure of any party in power--a
position in which no religious community should be placed to the
Executive, and in which the Executive ought not to be placed to any
religious community. Such an Act can be justified upon no principle of
justice or sound policy, and is at variance with the almost unanimous
and often recorded wishes of the people of Upper Canada. The _Christian
Examiner_--a monthly organ of the Church of Scotland in Upper
Canada--expressed not only the general sentiments of the members of that
Church, but also of people at large, in the following words, contained
in an elaborate editorial which appeared in that publication a few
months before the passing of the Imperial Act of 1841:--
Year after year, at least during the last decade, the general
sentiment in this colony has been uttered in no unequivocal form,
that no church invested with exclusive privileges derived from the
State, is adapted to the condition of society among us. It cannot
be doubted that this is the conviction of nine-tenths of the
Colonists. Except among a few ambitious magnates of the Church of
England, we never hear a contrary sentiment breathed. Equal rights
upon equal conditions is the general cry. And although several
Assemblymen of the present House have chosen to misinterpret the
public voice, and to advocate a different principle, we doubt not
that on their next appearance before their constituents, they will
be taught that this is not the age, nor this the country, in which
the grand principle of equal rights can be departed from with
impunity.
Now, although the Imperial Act of 1840 may have induced "a few magnates"
of the Church of Scotland to unite with other "magnates," whom they once
considered "ambitious," in denying the "grand principle of equal rights"
to their more numerous Methodist brethren, and other religious
persuasions, yet the "convictions of nine-tenths" of the Canadian people
remain unchanged; nor will they, because of the changed circumstances of
a few clergymen of the Church of Scotland, suffer "the grand principle
of equal rights to be departed from with impunity."
5. I observe, likewise, that the continuance of the Imperial Act of 1840
is desired by a mere fraction of the Canadian population, while its
repeal is demanded by that country at large. The assertions of any
interested parties on a matter of this kind are of little weight against
the proceedings and statements of the representatives of the people. The
Address of the Legislative Assembly to Her Majesty must be regarded as
the authoritative and true expression of the opinions and wishes of the
Canadian people. It is true, there was diversity of opinion as to the
manner in which the incumbents on the clergy reserve fund should be
dealt with, and also as to certain other declarations contained in the
Address of the Assembly; but no member of the Canadian Legislature
ventured to justify the provisions of the Imperial Act, and very few
ventured to vote in favour of its continuance, even upon the ground of
expediency, in behalf of the "magnates" of two favourable Churches. When
the resolutions of the Address to Her Majesty were moved in the
Legislative Assembly of Canada on this subject, an amendment was moved
by the supporters of the present exclusive privileges of the Churches of
England and Scotland in Canada an amendment which contained the
following words:--
That in the opinion of this House it is inexpedient to disturb or
unsettle, by resolution or enactment, the appropriations or
endowments now existing in Upper and Lower Canada for religious
purposes; that the well-being of society and the growing wants of
the various Christian bodies in Canada demand that the several
provisions of the Imperial Act 3 and 4 Vic., cap. 78, should be
carried out to their fullest extent.
In favour of the amendment, that is, in favour of the continuance and
operations of the Imperial Act of 1840, voted sixteen; against it voted
fifty-two. Who would think of perpetuating a law in England at variance
with the sentiments of three-fourths of the members of the House of
Commons, and even of a large proportion of the constituency of Great
Britain? Could the present constitution of government in England be
maintained, could revolution be long prevented, if laws were retained on
the statute book condemned by three-fourths of the Commons, and more
than three-fourth of all classes of people in the land, and those
statutes involving religious questions? And is that to be perpetuated in
Canada which would not be retained in England for a month?