RESULTS IN THE FUTURE.
Whatever may be thought of Sir Francis B. Head's policy--whether we
prefer to call it mere foolhardiness or chivalric zeal--there can be no
doubt that he served as an effective instrument in the hands of
Providence for the building up of a "Greater Britain" on the American
continent. The success of the outbreak of 1837 could only have ended in
Canada's absorption by the United States, which must surely have proved
a lamentable finale to the grand heroic act of the loyalists of the old
colonies, who came here to preserve what they held to be their duty
alike to their God and their earthly sovereign. It is certain, I think,
that religious principle is the true basis, and the one only safeguard
of Canadian existence. It was the influence of the Anglican, and
especially of the Methodist pastors, of 1770, that led their flocks into
the wilderness to find here a congenial home. In Lower Canada, in 1837,
it was in like manner the influence of the clergy, both Roman Catholic
and Protestant, that defeated Papineau and his Republican followers. And
it is the religious and moral sentiment of Canada, in all her seven
Provinces, that now constitutes the true bond of union between us and
the parent Empire. Only a few years since, the statesmen of the old
country felt no shame in preferring United States amity to Colonial
connection. To-day a British premier openly and even ostentatiously
repudiates any such policy as suicidal.
That Canada possesses, in every sense of the word, a healthier
atmosphere than its Southern neighbour, and that it owes its continued
moral salubrity to the defeat of Mackenzie's allies in 1837-8, I for one
confidently hold--with Mackenzie himself. That this superiority is due
to the greater and more habitual respect paid to all authority--Divine
and secular--I devoutly believe. That our present and future welfare
hangs, as by a thread, upon that one inherent, all-important
characteristic, that we are a religious community, seems to me plain to
all who care to read correctly the signs of the times.
The historian of the future will find in these considerations his best
clue to our existing status in relation to our cousins to the south of
us. He will discover on the one side of the line, peaceful industry,
home affections, unaffected charity, harmless recreations, a general
desire for education, and a sincere reverence for law and authority. On
the other, he may observe a heterogeneous commixture of many races, and
notably of their worst elements; he will see the marriage-tie degraded
into a mockery, the Sabbath-day a scoffing, the house of God a rostrum
or a concert-hall, the law a screen for crime, the judicial bench a
purchasable commodity, the patrimony of the State an asylum for
Mormonism.
I am fully sensible that the United States possesses estimable citizens
in great numbers, who feel, and lament more than anybody else, the
flagrant abuses of her free institutions. But do they exercise any
controlling voice in elections? Do they even hope to influence the
popular vote? They tell us themselves that they are powerless. And
so--we have only to wish them a fairer prospect; and to pray that Canada
may escape the inevitable Nemesis that attends upon great national
faults such as theirs.