Chapter 69
was formed into a province with a representative government. Its population was then 7,000 souls; it is now about 700,000. During the first and most eventful half of that sixty years, the ministrations of the Churches of England and Scotland can scarcely be said to have had an existence there. The present Bishop of Toronto, in a discourse published on the occasion of the death of the first Canadian Bishop of the Church of England, states that down to the close of the war between Great Britain and the United States in 1815, there were but four resident clergymen or missionaries of the Church of England in all Upper Canada--a statement which is confirmed by the annual reports of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts; and the same reports will show how few were the clergy of the Church of England in that province down to a recent period. We learn from the same authority, that till 1818 there was but one clergyman of the Church of Scotland in Upper Canada, and that in 1827 there were but two. It is, therefore, clear that during the first half of its sixty years' existence as a province, Upper Canada must have been indebted almost entirely to other than clergy of the Churches of England and Scotland for religious instruction; yet during that thirty years, it is admitted that the people of Upper Canada were a religious, an intelligent, and loyal people. To whom the people of that province were mainly indebted for their religious instruction, and for the formation and development of their religious character, appears in a report of a Select Committee of the Upper Canada House of Assembly, appointed in 1828, on the religious condition of the country, and before which fifty witnesses, chiefly members of the Church of England, were examined. I quote the following words from the report of that Committee, (which was adopted by the Assembly by a majority of 22 to 8), a report which was partly prepared in reference to a letter addressed by the present Bishop of Toronto to His Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1827:--
The insinuations (says the report) in the letter against the Methodist clergymen, the committee have noticed with peculiar regret. To the disinterested and indefatigable exertions of these pious men this province owes much. At an early period of its history, when it was thinly settled, and destitute of all other means of religious instruction, these ministers of the Gospel, animated by Christian zeal and benevolence, at the sacrifice of health, and interest, and comfort, carried among the people the blessings, and consolations, and sanctions of our holy religion. Their influence and instruction have been conducive in a degree which cannot be easily estimated, to the reformation of the vicious and to the diffusion of correct morals, the foundation of all sound loyalty and social order.
This religious body has now 180 regular ministers in Upper Canada, about 1,100 churches and preaching places, and embraces in its congregations one-seventh of the population.[137] Yet this oldest religious community in Upper Canada, together with the Free Presbyterian Church of Canada, the United Presbyterian Church, the Baptists and Congregationalists, are treated as nobody by the Imperial Act, while the more modern Churches of England and Scotland are exclusively endowed, and that by setting aside legislative rights which the Constitution of 1791 had conferred upon the people of Upper Canada! In Great Britain the Established Churches are associated with the early and brightest periods of British history, and are blended with all the influences which distinguish and exalt British character; but the feelings and predilections arising from such reminiscences and associations are not the proper rule of judgment as to the feelings, predilections and institutions of Canadian society. As Englishmen best know their own feelings and wants, and claim and exercise the sole right of judging and legislating for themselves; so do the people of Canada best know their own wishes and interests, and ought to judge and legislate for themselves in all local matters which do not infringe any imperial prerogative. No Englishman can refuse this who wishes to do to others as he would have others do to him.
8. But it should also be observed, that down to the passing of the Imperial Act of 1840, the influence of the Church of Scotland itself was adverse to any such act of partiality and injustice, and in favour of applying the proceeds of the clergy reserves even to educational as well as religious purposes. The discussion of this question was first introduced into the Legislative Assembly of Upper Canada in 1823, by the Hon. William Morris--a gentleman of great respectability, and who has always been regarded and acknowledged as the guardian of the interests, and representative of the sentiments, of the Church of Scotland. December 22nd, 1826, Mr. Morris moved a series of resolutions on this subject, of which the following are the 9th and 10th:--
9. _Resolved_,--That it is the opinion of a great proportion of the people of this Province that the clergy lands, in place of being enjoyed by the clergy of an inconsiderable part of the population, ought to be disposed of, and the proceeds of their sale applied to increase the provincial allowance for the support of district and common schools, and the endowment of a provincial seminary for learning, and in aid of erecting places of public worship for all denominations of Christians. [Carried by a majority of 31 to 2.]
10. _Resolved_, That it is expedient to pass a Bill, authorizing the sale of the clergy lands within this Province, for the purposes set forth in the foregoing resolution; and to address His Majesty, humbly soliciting that he will be graciously pleased to give the royal assent to said Bill. [Carried by a majority of 30 to 3.]
On the 28th of the same month, Mr. Morris reported a draft of Bill for the sale of the clergy reserves, pursuant to the foregoing resolutions. The Bill passed the Assembly by a majority of 20 to 3; was sent to the Legislative Council, and was rejected. Similar attempts to legislate having in like manner and from the same cause proved abortive, another address to the King on this subject was adopted by the Assembly in March, 1831, and supported, if not introduced, by Mr. Morris. That address, which was adopted by a majority of 30 to 7, contains the following words:--
That a large majority of the inhabitants of this Province are sincerely attached to your Majesty's person and government, but are averse to any exclusive or dominant Church. That this House feels confident that, to promote the prosperity of this portion of your Majesty's dominions, and to satisfy the earnest desire of the people of this Province, your Majesty will be graciously pleased to give the most favourable consideration to the wishes of your faithful subjects. That, to terminate the jealousy and dissension which have hitherto existed on the subject of the said clergy reserves--to remove a barrier to the settlement of the country, and to provide a fund available for the promotion of education, and in aid of erecting places of worship for various denominations of Christians: it is extremely desirable that the said land reserved should be sold, and the proceeds arising from the sale of the same placed at the disposal of the Provincial Legislature, to be applied exclusively for those purposes.
This address was replied to the January following, 1832, by a formal message from the King, from which I extract the following sentences:--
The representations which have at different times been made to His Majesty and his Royal predecessors of the prejudice sustained by his faithful subjects in Upper Canada, from the appropriation of the clergy reserves, have engaged His Majesty's most attentive consideration.... It has, therefore, been with peculiar satisfaction that, in his inquiries into this subject, His Majesty has found that the changes sought for by so large a portion of the inhabitants of Upper Canada, may be carried into effect without sacrificing the just claims of the established Churches of England and Scotland.... His Majesty, therefore, invites the House of Assembly of Upper Canada to consider how the powers given the Provincial Legislature by the Constitutional Act to vary or repeal this part of its provisions, can be called into exercise most advantageously, for the spiritual and temporal interests of His Majesty's faithful subjects in the Province.
It will be seen that the Address to the Crown and reply, above quoted, contemplated the application of no part of the proceeds of the clergy lands for the support of the clergy of any religious persuasion, but the application of the whole to the promotion of education, and in aid of erecting places of worship. I do not make these references to advocate this view of the question, but to show that the Crown has long since assented to the alienation of the whole of the proceeds of the reserves from the support of the clergy of any Church, should the Canadian Legislature think proper to do so, and that the Church of Scotland in Upper Canada agreed with the other religious persuasions, and the great majority of the Canadian people, in the advocacy of such an alienation of said reserves. The same parties cannot now object on constitutional and moral grounds to what they heretofore advocated on those same grounds.
9. It has, however, been alleged that the people of Canada have acquiesced in the provisions of the Imperial Act, and are satisfied with it. At the time of passing the Imperial Act, in 1840, and down to within the last two years, the discussion of questions relating to the organization and system of government itself occupied the attention of the public mind in Canada; but no sooner was the public mind set at rest on those paramount and fundamental questions, than the Canadian people demanded the restoration of their rights on the question of the clergy reserves. What they have felt for two years, and often and strongly spoken, through the local press and at the hustings, they now speak in the ears of the Sovereign of the Imperial Parliament. That there must be deep and general dissatisfaction in Canada on this subject, will appear from the following circumstances: (1) The Imperial Act infringes the rights, and contravenes the wishes of the Canadian people; (2) It inflicts an injustice and wrong upon the great majority of the religious persuasions in that country, where the "convictions of nine-tenths" or rather ninety-nine one-hundredths, of the inhabitants are in favour of "equal rights upon equal conditions," among all classes and persuasions; (3) The Legislative Assembly, by a majority of 51 to 20, declare that the Imperial Act, "so far from settling this long agitated question, has left it to be the subject of renewed and increased public discontent;" (4) The comparative silence of the Wesleyan body--the oldest, the most numerous, and the most unjustly treated, of all the excluded denominations--is expressive and ominous. Its representatives, having proceeded to England in 1840, remonstrated against this Bill, then before Parliament; they sought the assent of Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies to be heard at the Bar of the House of Commons against it, and having been refused, they presented to him, July 27th, 1840, a most earnest remonstrance against the Bill. On the Bill becoming law, they silently submitted, and on grounds which were explained, a few months since, by the official organ of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada, in the following words:--
On Lord John Russell's Bill becoming a law, the question was changed from a denominational to a Provincial one--from an ecclesiastical to a constitutional one. It was no longer a question between one denomination and another, but a question between Upper Canada and the Imperial Parliament. As Canadians, and acting in behalf of a large section of the Canadian community, the representatives of the Wesleyan Methodist Church expressed their convictions, their feelings, and their apprehensions to Her Majesty's Government while the question was pending before Parliament; but when the execrable Bill became an Imperial Law, it was as much out of place for them as clergymen, or of any religious persuasion to strive to fulfil their own predictions, or set on foot a Colonial civil contest, as it would have been pusillanimous in them not to have remonstrated before the consummation of such an act of wrong against the people of Upper Canada. The question is now being taken up in the right place, and, we trust, in the right spirit.
10. Under such circumstances it is impossible that the question can long remain in its present state, and it is for the Imperial Parliament to say what shall be done. It is admitted upon all hands that the members of the Churches of England and Scotland in Canada are more wealthy in proportion to their numbers, and, therefore, less needful of extraneous aid than the members of any other religious persuasion; and in proportion to their numbers and wealth will be their comparative influence and advantages in the proceedings of their own Legislature. It is a grave question, whether the Imperial Parliament will place itself in an attitude of hostility to the Legislative Assembly and people of Canada for the sake of conferring questionable pecuniary distinctions upon the clergy of the two most wealthy denominations in that country? Should any members of Parliament be disposed to pursue this course, and hazard this experiment, I beg them to pause and consider the following questions:--
(1) Can the real interests of the Churches of England and Scotland themselves be advanced by occupying a position of antagonism to the acknowledged equal rights of the great majority of the people of Canada? And is it desirable that these Churches should be the instruments and emblems of wrong to a country, rather than natural and powerful agencies of its unity, advancement, and happiness? Interested parties in Canada may not be able to see this, but British and Christian statesmen ought not to overlook it.
(2) Ought the members of the Churches of England and Scotland, who take a part in public affairs in Canada, and who may be candidates for popular power, to be placed in circumstances in which they must either war against the position and authorities of their own Church, or war against all other religious persuasions, or retire from public life altogether?
(3) What will be the natural, or apparently inevitable, result of thus singling out two classes of Canadian people, and distinguishing them from all others by pecuniary endowments, and sustaining them in that position, not by the free Legislature of their own country--not by the original principles of their constitution of government to which Canada may have pledged itself--but by a recent Imperial Act, to the preparing or provisions of which the Canadians were no parties, and against which they protest? Is it likely that the will or predilections of a transatlantic House of Lords, so largely composed of and influenced by one class of ecclesiastical dignitaries, can long determine the mutual relations of religious persuasions in a country constituted as Canada is, and bordering on the northern free Anglo-States of America? What the Canadians ask they ask on grounds originally guaranteed to them by their constitution; and if they are compelled to make a choice between British connection and British constitutional rights, it is natural that they should prefer the latter to the former? It is also to be noted that the Imperial Act in question has to be administered through the local Canadian administration. Such is the machinery of the Act. The revenue that it appropriates is Canadian, and it is worked through Canadian agency--through Canadian heads of departments, responsible to the representatives of the people of Canada. Should the Canadian people, then, find that their respectful and earnest appeal to the Imperial Parliament, through the Sovereign, is in vain, they will naturally look to their own resources and elect representatives at the ensuing general elections who will pledge themselves to oppose the administration of the Imperial Act--representatives who will support no Inspector or Receiver-General that will be responsible for the payment of even any warrant for moneys under such Act. The consequence must soon be, not only injury to existing incumbents whom the Canadian Assembly now propose to secure, but collision between the Government and the Legislative Assembly, and ultimately between the latter and the Imperial authorities; and finally, either the establishment of military government in Canada (an impossibility), or the severance of that great country from Great Britain. On the other hand, if the reasonable demand and constitutional rights of the people of Canada be regarded in this question, I believe Canada will remain freely and cordially connected with the Mother Country for many years, if not generations, to come. I will conclude these observations in the expressive words of Lord Stanley, to the spirit of which I hope every British statesman will respond. On the 2nd of May, 1828, in a speech on this subject, Lord Stanley expressed himself in the following terms:--
That if any exclusive privileges be given to the Church of England, not only will the measure be repugnant to every principle of sound legislation, but contrary to the spirit and intention of the Act of 1791, under which the reserves were made for the Protestant clergy. I will not enter further into it at present, except to express my hope that the House will guard Canada against the evils which religious dissensions have already produced in this country and in Ireland, where we have examples to teach us what to shun. We have seen the evil consequences of this system at home. God forbid we should not profit by experience; and more especially in legislating for a people bordering on a country where religious intolerance and religious exclusions are unknown--a country to which Parliament looked in passing the Act of 1791, as all the great men who argued the question then expressly declared. It is important that His Majesty's Canadian subjects should not have occasion to look across the narrow boundary that separates them from the United States, to see anything there to envy.
FOOTNOTES:
[137] Since the foregoing was written, it has been ascertained that the Wesleyan Methodists number 142,000, or more than one-fifth of the entire population (1850).