Chapter LI…

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:--Return to passage

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 L100 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 L700 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 L1,666 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 L750 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 L250 each, exclusive of those employed in colleges, monasteries, and religious houses, making, he says,

The revenue of the Roman Catholic Church in Lower Canada, L100,000 per annum, a sum which represents a money capital of at least L2,000,000!

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 L700,000!" 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 L8,000 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.)Return to passage

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?

6. Into the origin and progress of the controversy connected with the clergy reserves, it is needless for me to enter. They are sufficiently stated in the Address of the Legislative Assembly of Canada to the Queen, a copy of which is herewith annexed, together with the majorities by which each of the thirty-one clauses of the Address was separately voted. It will be seen that the first twenty-three clauses of the Address were carried by a majority of 52 to 18; the 24th clause by 51 to 20; the 26th clause by 48 to 19; the 27th and 28th clauses by 47 to 20; the 29th clause by 36 to 34; the 30th clause by 40 to 28; the 31st clause, containing the prayer of the Address, by 45 to 23. The only clause of the Address, therefore, in favour of which the majority of the Assembly was not large and decided, was the 29th; and in a vote to that clause, I have shown that the smallness of the majority was occasioned by objections to different parts of the clause upon quite opposite grounds, of three classes of members--the sixteen supporters of the present pre-eminence of the Churches of England and Scotland, a section of the Roman Catholic members, and what in England would be called the extreme dissenters. In the vote referred to, I have explained the ground of the opposition to this clause by each of these three classes of members. It will be seen that the 29th clause is rather speculative than practical, and does not affect the character and completeness of the Address, every other clause of which was carried by a large majority. It is, however, curious to remark, that while the supporters of the present exclusive privileges of the Churches of England and Scotland are indebted to the assistance of Roman Catholic members for the only vote in which the minority was large; yet in England some of these same parties represent the Address as having been carried chiefly by Roman Catholic votes, with a view of destroying all Protestant institutions in Canada.

7. No enlightened and candid person can look at the religious history and social state of Canada and desire the perpetuation of the Imperial Act 3 and 4 Vic., ch. 78. It is now quite sixty years since Upper Canada 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).Return to passage

Chapter LIV

1854-1855.

Resignation on the Class-Meeting Question.--Discussion.

The last important connexional discussion in which Dr. Ryerson was engaged was on the Class-Meeting Question. For years he had objected, chiefly privately, amongst his brethren, clerical and lay, to making attendance at class-meeting a condition of membership in the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Canada. For various reasons, few members of the Conference desired to have the subject publicly discussed in Conference. They felt that a serious practical difficulty surrounded the question itself--difficulties which could not be surmounted by public discussion. Many of them also knew that in calmly discussing, without personal feeling, the abstract principle involved in the rule, it would be found that their judgment and loyal feeling to the Church would go one way, while their uniform practice in the administration of the rule would often be at variance with both, owing to peculiar circumstances. On the other hand, Dr. Ryerson thought, that not only should preaching and practice in this matter agree, but that theory and practice should also agree. And hence he felt that as his preaching and practice agreed in opposition to the rule, he was not loyal to the Church in ministering at her altars, while he was heartily and conscientiously opposed to the fundamental rule of membership prescribed by that Church. Hence, on the 2nd of January, 1854, he addressed the following letter to the Rev. Dr. Wood, President of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference (I omit extraneous matter):--

I hereby resign into your hands, my membership in the Conference, and my office as a minister of the Wesleyan Methodist Church--herewith enclosing my parchments of ordination, thus taking my place among the laity of the Church.

I have resolved to take this step after long and serious deliberation, but without consulting any human being. I take this step, not because I do not believe that the Wesleyan ministry is as fully authorized as the ministry of any other branch of the universal Church, to exercise all the functions of Christian priesthood; not because I do not as unfeignedly as ever subscribe to all the doctrines of the Wesleyan Church; not because I do not profoundly honour the integrity and devotedness of the Wesleyan ministry; not because I do not think that Christian discipline is as strictly, if not more strictly, maintained in the Wesleyan Church than in any other Christian Church in the world.

But I resign (not my connection with, but) my ministerial office in the Wesleyan Church, because I believe a condition of membership is exacted in it which has no warrant in Scripture, nor in the practice of the primitive Church, nor in the writings of Mr. Wesley; and in consequence of which condition, great numbers of exemplary heads of families and young people are excluded from all recognition and rights of membership in the Church. I refer to attendance upon class-meeting--without attendance at which no person is acknowledged as a member of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, however sincerely and cordially he may believe her doctrines, prefer her ministry, and support her institutions, and however exemplary he may be in his life.

I believe the class-meetings, as well as love-feasts, have been and are a means of immense good in the Wesleyan Church, and that both should be employed and recommended as prudential and useful, means of religious edification to all who may be willing to avail themselves of them. But attendance at love-feast is known to be voluntary and not to be a condition of membership in the Church; so I think that attendance at class-meeting should also be voluntary, and ought not to be exalted into an indispensable condition of membership in the Church; I am persuaded that every person who believes the doctrines, and observes the precepts and ordinances enjoined by our Lord and His Apostles, is eligible to membership in the Church of Christ, and cannot, on Scriptural or Wesleyan grounds, be excluded from its rights and privileges upon the mere ground of his or her being unable to reconcile it to their views to take a part in the conversations of class-meetings.

The views thus stated, I have entertained many years. After having revolved the subject in my mind for some time, I expressed my views on it in 1840 and 1841.... But since my more direct connection with the youth of the country at large, and having met with numbers of exemplary persons who prefer the Methodist Church to any other, but are excluded from it by the required condition of attending class-meeting, besides thousands of young people of Wesleyan parents and congregations, I have become more deeply than ever impressed with the importance of the question, to which I referred in remarks made at the last and preceding Conferences. I had intended until within a short time to defer any decision on the step I now take until the next annual Conference, and until after bringing the question in the form of distinct propositions before the Conference; but, after the best consideration in my power, I have thought it advisable to resign my office in the Church at the present time--fearing the revival and results of unpleasantnesses from my bringing the question formally before the Conference, ... and from a deep conviction that I should no longer delay taking the most effectual means in my power to draw the attention of the ministry and members of the Wesleyan Church to this anomaly in her Disciplinary regulations, and secure, if possible, to tens of thousands of persons the rights and privileges of membership in that branch of the Church of Christ which they prefer--rights and privileges to which I am persuaded they are justly entitled upon both Scriptural and Wesleyan grounds.

I do not think it is honest or right for a man to hold the office of a minister in a Church, all whose essential regulations, as well as doctrines, he cannot justify and recommend. I say essential regulations; for there may be many regulations and practices in a Church of which a minister may not approve, and the existence of which he may deplore, but which would not prevent him from maintaining, as usual, his relations and course of labour. An enlightened Christian mind can and will, without any compromise of principle, allow a wide latitude in modes of proceeding, and in matters of opinion, taste, and prudence. But a regulation which determines who shall and who shall not be recognized as members of the Church of Christ, involves a vital question, the importance of which cannot be overrated, and which must be determined by Divine Revelation, and not by mere conventional rules.

Now, while as an individual I may value and wish to attend, as far as possible, all prudential as well as instituted means of grace in our Church, I cannot as a teacher, by word or office, declare that all persons who will not attend class-meetings, in addition to observing all the ordinances of Christ, should be rejected and excluded from the Christian Church. I cannot say so--I cannot think so--I cannot believe it Scriptural or right, in respect to great numbers of estimable persons, and of the sons and daughters of our people, who believe Wesleyan doctrines, who respect and love the Wesleyan ministry, support Wesleyan institutions, are exemplary in their lives, and who wish to be members of the Wesleyan Church, but who, from education, or mental constitution, or other circumstances, cannot face much less enjoy, the developments and peculiarities of the class-meeting. I have met and sympathized with many who have sought to reconcile their views and feelings to the personal speakings and communications of class-meetings, but who could not succeed; and not being allowed otherwise to enjoy the privileges of membership in the Wesleyan Church, were driven to seek admission into some other Christian communion.

Our Lord and His Apostles have prescribed no form of religious communion but the Lord's Supper. The New Testament meetings of Christian fellowship, in which the early Christians edified one another, are appropriately adduced as the exemplars of Wesleyan love-feasts--that voluntary and useful means of religious edification. But it is remarkable that a person may neither attend love-feast nor the Lord's Supper, and yet retain his membership in the Wesleyan Church, while he is excluded from it if he does not attend class-meeting, though he may attend both the Lord's Supper and love-feast, as well as the preaching of the word and meetings for prayer. Nay, I find in the latter part of the section of our Discipline on "Class Meetings," that the minister in charge of a circuit is required to exclude all "those members of the Church who wilfully and repeatedly neglect to meet their class," but to state at the time of their exclusion, "that they are laid aside for a breach of our rules of Discipline, and not for immoral conduct." I know of no Scriptural authority to exclude any person from the Church of Christ on earth, except for that which would exclude him from the kingdom of glory, namely, "immoral conduct." But here is an express requirement for the exclusion of persons from the Wesleyan Church for that which it is admitted is not "immoral conduct," namely, neglect of class-meeting. This is certainly going beyond Scriptural authority and example.

I have said that I do not regard as Wesleyan, or having the sanction of Mr. Wesley, the making attendance at class-meeting an essential condition of membership in the Church of Christ. Mr. Wesley declared that the sole object of his labours was, not to form a new sect, but to revive religion in the Church and in the nation; that each class was a voluntary society in the Church, but was no more a separate Church organization than a Bible Society, or Temperance Society, or Young Men's Christian Association, is a separate Church organization. Nor did Mr. Wesley regard the admission of persons into, or exclusion from, any one of his societies as affecting, in the slightest degree, such person's Church membership. Nay, Mr. Wesley insisted that all who joined his societies, in addition to attending class-meeting, and the ministrations of his preachers, should regularly attend the services and sacraments of the Church of England. In his sermon "On Attending Church Service," Mr. Wesley says, "it was one of our original rules, that every member of our society should attend the church and sacrament, unless he had been bred among Christians of another denomination." In his Tract, entitled "Principles of a Methodist Further Explained," (written in reply to the Rev. Mr. Church,) Mr. Wesley says:--

The United Society was originally so called, because it consisted of several smaller societies united together. When any member of these, or of the United Society, are proved to live in known sin, we then mark and avoid them: we separate ourselves from every one that walks disorderly. Sometimes if the case be judged infectious (though rarely) this is decided openly; but this you style "excommunication," and say, "does not every one see a separate ecclesiastical communion?"

Mr. Wesley replies:--

No. This society does not separate from the rest of the Church of England. They continue steadfast with them both in the apostolical doctrine, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.

And in further reply to the charge, that in excluding disorderly persons from his society, he was usurping a power committed to the higher order of the clergy, Mr. Wesley says:--

No; not in the power of excluding members from a private society, unless on the supposition of some such rule as ours is, viz.: "That if a man separate from the church, he is no longer a member of our society."

These passages (from scores of similar ones in Mr. Wesley's works), are sufficient to shew what Mr. Wesley understood and intended by admission into, or exclusion from, any one of his societies--that it did not in the least affect the relations of any person to the Church of which he was a member. Now, the rule which Mr. Wesley imposed as a condition of membership in a private society in a Church, we impose as a condition of membership in the Church itself.

It is also worthy of remark, that attendance at class-meeting is not required of members in the general rules of the society--those very rules which our ministers are required to give to persons proposing to join the Wesleyan Church.

In those rules no mention is made of class-meeting, nor is it there required that each member shall meet the leader, much less meet him in a class-meeting, in the presence of many others; but that the leader shall see each person in his class, and meet the minister and stewards once a week. Yet, by constant and universal practice, we have transferred the obligation from the leader to the member, and made it the duty of the latter (on pain of excommunication), to meet the former in class-meeting; an obligation which is nowhere enjoined in the general rules. In those rules it is said:

There is only one condition previously required of those who desire admission into these societies--a desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins.

The rules then truly state, that wherever this desire is really fixed in the soul, it will be known by its fruits. These fruits are briefly but fully set forth under three heads. (1) By doing no harm. (2) By doing good. (3) "By attending all the ordinances of God: such as, the public worship of God; the ministry of the word, either read or expounded; the Supper of the Lord; family and private prayer; searching the Scriptures, and fasting or abstinence. These are the general rules of our societies, all of which we are taught of God to observe, even in His written word, which is the only rule, and the sufficient rule, both of faith and practice." Now, neither class-meeting nor love-feast is mentioned among the "ordinances of God" enumerated in the general rules of the society; nor is it mentioned in Mr. Wesley's Large Minutes of Conference among the instituted means of grace. So far as the general rules themselves are concerned, there is nothing which makes attendance at class-meeting a condition of membership, even in Mr. Wesley's societies as he originally instituted them; nor did the idea of holding class-meetings at all occur to Mr. Wesley until after the general rules were drawn up and published.[138] But what was not required by the general rules soon became a condition of membership in another way--this was by the system of giving tickets. Mr. Wesley says in his Plain Account of People called Methodists:

As the society increased, I found it required still greater care to separate the precious from the vile. In order to this, I determined, at least once in three months, to talk with every member myself, and to inquire at their own mouth, as well as of their leaders and neighbours, whether they grew in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. To each of those whose seriousness and good conversation I had no reason to doubt, I gave a testimony under my own hand, by writing their name on a ticket prepared for that purpose. Those who bore these tickets, wherever they came, were acknowledged by their brethren, and were received with all cheerfulness. These tickets also supplied us with a quiet and inoffensive method of removing any disorderly member. He has no ticket at the quarterly visitation (for so often the tickets are changed); and hereby it is immediately known that he is no longer of the community.

It was at length required by a minute of the Conference, (as our own discipline enjoins,) that a preacher should not give a ticket of membership to any person who did not meet in class. In our own Discipline, in the section on class-meetings, will also be found the following question and answer:--

Question.--What shall be done with those members of our church who wilfully and repeatedly neglect their class?

Answer.--1. Let the chairman, or one of the preachers, visit them whenever it is practicable, and explain to them the consequence if they continue to neglect, viz., exclusion.

2. If they do not attend, let him who has charge of the circuit exclude them (in the church), showing that they are laid aside for a breach of our rules of discipline, and not for immoral conduct.

By this added ministerial authority and duty, a condition of membership in the society is imposed which is not contained in the General Rules, and which subjects a member to exclusion, for that which is acknowledged to be "not immoral conduct."

This appears a strange regulation in even a private religious society within a Church; but no objection could be reasonably made to any such regulation in such a society, if its members desired it, and as it would not affect their Church membership. But the case is essentially different, when such society in a Church becomes a Church, and exercises the authority of admitting into, and excluding from the Church itself, and not merely a society in the Church.

In England, and especially in the United States and Canada, the Wesleyan Societies have become a Church. I have repeatedly shewn in past years, that they have become organized into a Church upon both Wesleyan and scriptural grounds. I believe the Wesleyan Church in Canada is second to no other in the scriptural authority of its ministry and organization. Believing this, I believe that exclusion from the Wesleyan Church (either by expulsion or refusal of admission) is exclusion from a branch of the Church of God--is an act the most solemn and eventful in the history and relations of any human being--an act which should never take place except upon the clear and express authority of the word of God.

Far be it from me to say one word other than in favour of every kind of religious exercise and communion which tends to promote the spiritual-mindedness, brotherly love, and fervent zeal of professing Christians. That class-meetings (notwithstanding occasional improprieties and abuses attending them), have been a valuable means in promoting the spirituality and usefulness of the Wesleyan Church, no one acquainted with her history can for a moment doubt; and I believe that myriads on earth and in heaven have, and will ever have, reason for devout thankfulness and praise for the benefits derived from class-meetings, as well as from love-feasts and meetings for prayer. But attendance upon the two latter is voluntary on the part of the members of the Wesleyan Church; and what authority is there for suspending their very membership in the Church of God on their attendance upon the former? The celebration of the Lord's Supper, and not class-meeting, was the binding characteristic institution upon the members of the primitive Church. So I am persuaded it should be now; and that Christian faith and practice alone (and not the addition of attendance upon class-meeting,) should be the test of worthiness for its communion and privileges. While, therefore, as an individual I seek to secure and enjoy all the benefits of the faithful ministrations and scriptural ordinances of the Wesleyan Church, I cannot occupy a position which in itself, and by its duties requires me to enforce or justify the imposition of a condition of membership in the Church of Christ, which I believe is not required by the Holy Scriptures, and the exclusion of thousands of persons from Church membership and privileges, to which I believe they have as valid a right as I have, and that upon the sole ground of their non-attendance at a meeting, the neglect of which our own Discipline admits, does not involve "immoral conduct," and which Mr. Wesley himself, in his Plain Account of the People called Methodists, has declared "to be merely prudential, not essential, not of divine institution."

It is passing strange, that while the Wesleyan Church is the avowed "friend of all and enemy of none"--is the most Catholic of any Protestant body towards other religious communions--she should close the door of admission into her own fold even to attendance upon class-meeting. I regard it as the misfortune rather than the dishonour of the Wesleyan Church, that she repels thousands that seek her communion rather than relax this term of admission. If her success has been so great under disadvantages unparalleled, I cannot but believe, that, with the same divine blessing, and upon a basis of membership less narrow and more scriptural, the Wesleyan Church, would, beyond all precedent, increase her usefulness, and enlarge her borders.

I will not permit myself to dwell upon associations and recollections which cannot be expressed in words, any more than they can be obliterated from the memory, or effaced from the heart. Though I retire from councils in the deliberations of which I have been permitted to take a part during more than twenty-five years, and relinquish all claims upon funds to which I have contributed for a like period, I should still deem it my duty and privilege to pray for the success of the former, and continue my humble contributions to the latter; while I protest in the most emphatic way in my power against shutting the doors of the church upon thousands to whom I believe they should be opened, and against making that essential and divine, which, as Mr. Wesley says, "is merely prudential, not essential, not of divine institution." I hope the day is not remote when the Wesleyan Church will be as scriptural in her every term of membership as she is in her doctrines of grace and labours of love.

To this letter of resignation, Rev. Dr. Wood, President of the Conference, replied on the 4th of January:--

To accept the enclosed documents would be assuming a responsibility at variance with my judgment and affections. If the proposal you make of withdrawing from the Methodist ministry be ever received, it must be with the concurrence of the collective Conference; or, should the question require immediate attention, that of its executive committee. I shall be glad to see the enactment of any regulation which will promote the usefulness of our Church to the benefit of a large and intelligent class of adherents now receiving no recognition beyond their contributions to our institutions; and also the adoption of practical measures by which the youth baptized by Wesleyan ministers may be more personally cared for, and affiliated to our ordinances. Your distinguished ability and matured experience eminently qualify you as a safe legislator and counsellor on such grave questions, which by some cannot be separated from ancient usages greatly blessed to the growing spirituality of true believers, without injury to the vital character of the Church. After so long and useful a career, your separation from our Conference and work would be a connexional calamity. You stand among the few in Canada to whom the present independent and legal position of the Wesleyan Church stands deeply indebted. Future generations of ministers and people will partake, imperceptibly to themselves, of the advantages a few of the more gifted and noble-minded brethren struggled and contended for against so many obstacles. You are as capable of remedying anything wrong, or supplying anything wanting within the Church, as you were many years ago, to overcome impediments to her usefulness without.

Nothing further was done in the matter until at the Belleville Conference of 1854 Dr. Ryerson moved the following resolution:--

1. That no human authority has a right to impose any condition of membership in the visible Church of Christ, which is not enjoined by, or may be concluded from the Holy Scriptures.

2. That the General Rules of the United Societies of the Wesleyan Methodist Church being formed upon the Holy Scriptures, and requiring nothing of any member which is not necessary for admission into the kingdom of grace and glory, ought to be maintained inviolate as the religious and moral standard of profession, conduct and character, in regard to all who are admitted or continued members of our church.

3. That the power, therefore, of expelling persons from the visible Church of Christ, for other than a cause sufficient to exclude a person from the kingdom of grace and glory, which the fourth question, and answers to it, contained in the second section of the second chapter of our Discipline, confer and enjoin upon our ministers, is unauthorized by the Holy Scriptures, is inconsistent with the Scriptural rights of the members of Christ's Church, and ought not to be assumed or exercised by any minister of our Church.

4. That the anomalous question and answers referred to in the foregoing resolution, be, and are hereby expunged from our Discipline and are required to be omitted in printing the next edition of it. (See page 477.)

These resolutions having been negatived by a considerable majority on the 12th June, Dr. Ryerson wrote to the President:

The decision of the Conference this afternoon on the scriptural rights of the members of our Church, and the power of our ministers in respect to them, makes it at length my painful duty to request you to lay before the Conference the letter which I addressed to you the 2nd of last January, and that you will consider that letter as now addressed to the Conference through you.

I hereby again enclose you my parchments of ordination. I propose to do all in my power to promote those important measures in regard to the college and means for the regular training of received candidates for the ministry which have been recommended by the Conference. I cannot attempt to add anything more to what is contained in my letter of the 2nd January, expressive of what I feel on the present occasion, except to say that, although I gave no intimation during the discussion of the result of the decision on this subject upon my own official relations to the Conference, I retire from it with feelings of undiminished respect and affection for my Reverend Brethren, and my earnest prayer for their welfare and usefulness.

In reply to this letter Dr. Wood said:--

The purpose you aim to accomplish can be effectually secured by a different resolution to that introduced yesterday; if you will stay and hear what the brethren may say about the appointment of a large committee to take up this subject before I lay your resignation before them, I shall feel much gratified. I again say, I look upon your proposed withdrawal with deep sorrow, and must say, I cannot bring myself to believe that on such grounds you can be justified in taking so serious a step.

Dr. Ryerson did attend the Conference as suggested, after which he wrote to Dr. Wood:--

I listened with delight and hope to the observations and recommendations which you made. I anticipated happy results from the appointment of the very large committee which you nominated, and which might be considered as representing the sentiments and feelings of the Conference. But from the lengthened meeting of that committee, in the evening, it was clear that no disposition existed to modify the power of ministers to expel persons from the Church for non-attendance at a meeting which, in the 12th section, chap. 1st, page 47, of our own Discipline, taken from the writings of Mr. Wesley, is declared to be "prudential," even among Methodists--that thus the highest and most awful penalty that the Church can inflict--a penalty analagous to capital punishment in the administration of civil law--is to be executed upon members of the Church for the omission of what our own Discipline does not exalt to the rank of a "prudential" means of grace among Christians,--only among Methodists.

It was also clear that views of baptism prevailed (I cannot say how widely) at variance with the 17th Article of Faith in our Discipline,[139] and altogether opposite to those set forth by Mr. Wesley in his sermons and in his Treatise on Baptism.

But that for which I was not prepared (which I supposed to have been settled, and which I therefore assumed), was the obviously prevalent opinion against the Church membership of children baptized by our ministry. It will be recollected that I had not proposed any other condition or mode of admitting persons into our Church from without, than that which already exists amongst us; but I urged in behalf of both parents and children, the practical recognition of the rights and claims of children who were admitted and acknowledged as members of the Church by baptism, as implied in our Form of Baptism, and according to our Catechism, and according to what the Conference unanimously declared at Hamilton, in 1853, our Church holds to be among the privileges of baptized persons,--namely, that "they are made members of the visible Church of Christ." Persons cannot, of course, be members of the "visible" Church of Christ without becoming members of some visible branch or section of it; and it is not pretended that children baptized by our ministry are members of any other visible portion of the Church of Christ than the Wesleyan. To deny, therefore, that the baptized children of our people are members of our Church, and that they should be acknowledged as such, and as such be impressed with their obligations and privileges, and as such be prepared for, and brought into, the spiritual communion and fellowship of the Church, on coming to the years of accountability, is, it appears to me, to make the Sacrament of Baptism a nullity, and to disfranchise thousands of children of divinely chartered rights and privileges. Mr. Wesley, in his Treatise on Baptism, in stating the third benefit of baptism, remarks:--

By baptism we are admitted into the Church, and consequently made members of Christ, its Head. The Jews were admitted into the Church by circumcision, so are the Christians by baptism.

Mr. Wesley, speaking of the proper subjects of baptism, says:

If infants are capable of making a covenant, and were and still are under the evangelical covenant, then they have a right to baptism, which is the entering seal thereof. But infants are capable of making a covenant, and were and still are under the evangelical covenant.

The custom of nations and common reason of mankind prove that infants may enter into a covenant, and may be obliged by compacts made by others in their name, and receive advantage by them. But we have stronger proof than this, even God's own word: "Ye stand this day all of you before the Lord,--your captains, with all the men of Israel; your little ones, your wives, and the stranger,--that thou shouldst enter into covenant with the Lord thy God."--Deut. xxix. 10-12. Now, God would never have made a covenant with little children, if they had not been capable of it. It is not said children only, but little children, the Hebrew word properly signifying infants. And these may be still, as they were of old, obliged to perform, in aftertime, what they are not capable of performing at the time of their entering into that obligation.

The infants of believers, the true children of faithful Abraham, always were under the Gospel covenant. They were included in it, they had a right to it, and to the seal of it; as an infant heir has a right to his estate, though he cannot yet have actual possession.--Vol. x., English Edition, pp. 193, 194. Vol. vi., American Edition, pp. 16, 17.

Again, Mr. Wesley's third argument on this subject is so clear, so touching, and so conclusive, that I will quote it without abridgement, as follows:--

If infants ought to come to Christ, if they are capable of admission into the Church of God, and consequently of solemn sacramental dedication to Him, then they are proper subjects of baptism. But infants are capable of coming to Christ, of admission into the Church, and solemn dedication to God.

That infants ought to come to Christ, appears from his own words: "They brought little children to Christ, and the disciples rebuked them. And Jesus said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not; for of such is the kingdom of heaven."--Matt. xix. 13, 14. St. Luke expresses it still more strongly: "They brought unto him even infants, that he might touch them."--xviii. 15. These children were so little, that they were brought to him; yet he says, "Suffer them to come unto me:" so little, that he "took them up in His arms;" yet he rebukes those who would have hindered their coming to Him. And his command respected the future as well as the present. Therefore His disciples or ministers are still to suffer infants to come, that is, to be brought, unto Christ. But they cannot now come to Him, unless by being brought into the Church; which cannot be but by baptism. Yea, and "of such," says our Lord, "is the kingdom of heaven;" not of such only as were like these infants. For if they themselves were not fit to be subjects of that kingdom, how could others be so, because they were like them? Infants, therefore, are capable of being admitted into the Church, and have a right thereto. Even under the Old Testament they were admitted into it by circumcision. And can we suppose they are in a worse condition under the Gospel, than they were under the law? and that our Lord would take away any privilege which they then enjoyed? Would He not rather make additions to them? This, then, is a third ground. Infants ought to come to Christ, and no man ought to forbid them. They are capable of admission into the Church of God. Therefore they are proper subjects of baptism.--Vol. x., English Edition, pp. 195, 196. Vol. vi., American Edition, pp. 17, 18.

Upon these Wesleyan and Scriptural grounds, I believe that the promise and privileges of membership in the Church belong to the baptized children of our people as well as to their parents; that the parents have a right to claim this relationship and its privileges for their children until such children are excluded from the Church by the lawful acts of its executive authorities. Otherwise, the youth baptized by our ministry are in the most pitiful and degrading religious position of the youth of any Church that recognizes the doctrine of infant baptism; and it appears to me that we ought rather not to baptize infants at all, or recommend their parents to take them to other churches for baptism, than thus to treat the feelings of such parents, and to regard their children as having no more membership and privileges in our Church than the rest of the youth of the land, or even the world at large.

It is happily true, that many of the children of our people, as well as those of other people, are converted and brought into the Church under the faithful ministrations of the Word; but how many ten thousand more of them would never wander from the Church, would more easily and more certainly be led to experience all the power of inward religion and the blessings of Christian fellowship, were they acknowledged in their true position and rights, and taught the significancy, and obligation, and privilege of all that the outward ordinances and their visible relations involve were intended to confer. It ought to make a Christian heart bleed to think that our largest increase of members, according to returns over which we are disposed to congratulate ourselves, falls vastly short of the natural increase of population in our own community, apart from the increase of the population of the country at large, and, therefore, that perhaps five or more persons are sent out into the world, as worldlings, from the families of our Church, while one is retained or brought into it from the world by all our ministrations and agencies. The prophets did not deny to a Jew his membership in the Jewish Church, in order to make him a Jew inwardly. Mr. Wesley did not un-church the tens of thousands of baptized members of the Church of England to whom he successfully preached salvation by faith: he made their state, and duties, and privileges, as baptized members of the Church of Christ, the grounds of his appeals; and this vantage ground was one great means of his wonderful success.

But I will not enlarge. I will only add, that as in former years, I, with others, maintained what we believed to be the rights of Canada and of our Canadian Church against pretensions which have long since been withdrawn, and the erroneous information and impressions connected with which have long since been removed; so, I now feel it my duty to do what I can to secure and maintain the Scriptural and Wesleyan rights of members of our Church against the exercise of ministerial authority which has no warrant in Scripture nor in the writings of Mr. Wesley; and I feel myself specially called upon by my position in respect to the youth of the country, as well as by my strong convictions, to claim and insist upon the Scriptural and Wesleyan rights of church membership in behalf of the many thousands of children baptized by our ministry--believing upon both Scriptural and Wesleyan grounds, it is due to such children and to their parents.

I have no object in view, beyond what is avowed in this correspondence. If I have had any personal ambition, it has been more than satisfied both in the Church and in the country at large. I have nothing more to seek or desire, than to employ the short and uncertain time that remains to me in striving to become more and more meet for the intercourse of the saints in light, to mature and promote for my native country the great educational system in which I am engaged, and to secure to all members of our Church, and to all parents and children baptized into it, what I am persuaded are their sacred rights and privileges. I am satisfied that Scriptural and Wesleyan truth will, as heretofore, prevail, and that the Conference and the Church will yet rejoice in it, however it may, for the moment, be clouded by error and misrepresentation, or impeded by personal feelings, groundless fears, or mistaken prejudice.

On the 13th June Dr. Ryerson made a request to the Conference that the documents connected with his resignation be published in the Guardian. He said:--

I wish the church to know the reasons which have influenced me on this occasion--especially as I believe them to be both Wesleyan and Scriptural. As I have for thirty years contributed to all the funds of the preachers and Church, without receiving or expecting to receive a farthing from them, and from the period and kinds of labours I have performed in the Church, and from my wish to live in connexion with it, I think my letters of resignation might at least not be withheld from the members of our Church. If any expense attend the publication of the correspondence between us, I will defray every farthing of it.

I do not think any other member of the Conference is called upon to do as I have done--my circumstances being peculiar. But I do not wish to be wronged and blackened by misrepresentations; I only desire that my brethren and old friends through the land may be permitted and enabled to read my own reasons and views on this the last occasion of my official intercourse with them.[140]

This request was denied, so that Dr. Ryerson published the documents in a pamphlet himself. In doing so he said:--

A more vitally important and deeply affecting subject can scarcely be laid before the Wesleyan community; but in order to present it to the pious judgment of that body at large, I have had no other alternative than to assume the position I now sustain--otherwise being compelled to observe, as in past years, a strict silence beyond the walls of the Conference room. But from what I have witnessed and heard in that room, I appeal to the calm consideration of the intelligent and devout members of the Wesleyan Church, either in their closets with their Bible before them, or at their firesides with their children around them. Whether I have or have not overrated the importance of the question, I leave everyone to decide after reading the following correspondence. It will be seen that the question is not one of a personal nature--is not one which ought to excite any unkind feeling between persons who may take different views of it. The question is as to whether, on the Wesleyan Conference assuming the position and functions of a distinct and independent Church, a condition of membership has not been imposed which is a departure from the principles of Mr. Wesley and the doctrine and practice of the Apostolic and Primitive Church--a condition which ignores the church relation, rights and privileges of the baptized children of the Wesleyan body, and excludes thousands from its membership upon unscriptural and un-Wesleyan grounds. It will be seen by an extract on page 20, that Mr. Wesley's disciplinary object in giving quarterly tickets was, "to separate the precious from the vile," "to remove any disorderly member;" but in vain have I sought for an instance of Mr. Wesley ever excluding, even from his private societies in a Church, an upright and orderly member for mere non-attendance at class-meeting. That, however, he might have consistently done in a society in a Church, if he had thought it expedient to do so, as it would not have affected the membership of any parties in the Church to which they belonged. The three paragraphs of our Discipline, containing three sentences against which I protest, had no place in the Minutes of Conference finally revised and printed by Mr. Wesley in the year of his death; nor do they exist in the Minutes of the British Conference to this day. From what is therefore modern and unauthorized by Scripture, by the practice of the Primitive Church, or by Mr. Wesley, I go back to first principles, and say, as did Mr. Wesley to Dr. Coke and Mr. Asbury, when he sent them to organize the Societies in America into a Church, let us "simply follow the Scriptures and the Primitive Church."

It is often said that "nobody objects to attending class-meeting except those who have no religion." Persons who thus judge of others show more of the Pharisaical, than of the Christian, spirit, and evince but little of the "wisdom that cometh from above" in thus "measuring others by themselves." The following correspondence shows that I am second to none in my appreciation of the value and usefulness of class meetings; but I have had too much experience not to know that the best talkers in a class-meeting are not always the best livers in the world; and I attach less importance to what a person may say of himself in a class-meeting, than to uprightness in his dealings, integrity in his word, meekness in his temper, charity in his spirit, liberality in his contributions, blamelessness in his life. Doings, rather than sayings, are the rule of Divine judgment....

It may not be improper for me to observe, that there are ministers who loudly advocate attendance at class-meeting as a Church-law, and yet do not observe that law themselves perhaps once a year, much less habitually, as they insist in respect to private members; and the most strenuous of such advocates pay no heed to the equally positive prohibitions and requirements of the discipline in several other respects, especially in regard to band-meetings, which were designed, as the Discipline expressly states, "to obey that command of God, 'confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that ye may be healed.'" I am far from intimating, or believing, that there are many advocates of class-meeting tests of this description. But history shows, from our Lord to the present time, that the most vehement advocates for the "mint, annise and cummin" of particular tests and forms, are not proportionably zealous for the "weightier matters of the law." It is easier for men to impose and enforce law upon others than to observe it themselves. But when a man's words and actions contradict each other, the argument of his actions is the more forcible, as well as the more honest and sincere.

It has likewise been alleged, that if attendance at class-meeting be not made a church-law, and the capital punishment of expulsion be not attached to its violation, class-meetings will fall into disuse. I answer, this is beside the question. The question is, whether there is such a law in the Bible? Has our Lord or His Apostles given authority to any conclave or conference to make such a law? Our Lord and the Apostles knew better than their followers what was essential to membership in the Christian Church, as well as what was essential to its existence and prosperity. I may also observe, that if the existence of class-meetings cannot be maintained except by the terror of the scorpion-whip, or rather executioner's sword, of expulsion from the church, it says little for them as a privilege, or place of delightful and joyous resort. My own conviction is, that if class-meetings, like love-feasts, were maintained and recommended as a privilege and useful means of religious edification, and not as a law, the observance of which is necessary to membership in the visible Church of Christ, but made voluntary, like joining the Missionary Society, class-meetings would be more efficient and useful than they are now, and attendance at them would be more cordial and profitable, if not as, or even more, general. But what might be or not be in any supposed case, is foreign to a question as to what is enjoined in the law and testimony of the Holy Scriptures as essential to discipleship with Christ.

It is well known that meeting in class, by a large portion of the members of the Wesleyan Church, is very irregular--that their absence from class-meeting is the general rule of their practice, and their attendance the exception. Yet such persons are not excluded, as it would involve the expulsion of the greater part of the members of the body, including several of its ministers. It is, therefore, so much the more objectionable, and so much the more wrong, to have a rule which ignores at one sweep the membership of all the baptized children of the body, which sends and keeps away the conscientious and straightforward, who would not think of joining a religious community without intending habitually to observe all its rules, and yet, after all, habitually disregarded by a large portion of both preachers and people, and is made, as far as my observation goes, an instrument of gratifying individual hostility, rather than a means of promoting the religious and moral ends of Christian discipline.

It is, however, the bearing of this question upon the relationship and destinies of the youth of the Wesleyan body that has most deeply impressed and affected my own mind, as may be inferred from the correspondence on the subject. It requires less scriptural zeal, and an inferior order of qualifications, and it is much more exciting and easy, to minister or attend at special meetings, and in the ordinary public services of the Church, than to pursue "in season and out of season" the less conspicuous and more detailed labour of teaching and training up children and youth in the knowledge and experience of the doctrines of Christ, and thus secure them to the Church, and to the Saviour, and secure to them the "godliness which has the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come."[141]

And what is the result of the general adoption (with a few fine exceptions), of the former in preference to the latter--instead of the union of both? It is the humiliating and most painful fact that the great majority of Methodist youth are lost to the Church, if not lost to Christ and to heaven--that in a large proportion of instances, Methodism is not perpetuated to the second generation of the same family--that in the great majority of instances it is only so perpetuated very partially, and in very few instances to all the children of Methodist parents; while there is each year the conversion of only a few hundreds, or thousands, mostly from without. The return of prodigals, and the accession of strangers and aliens to the body, are indeed causes of thankfulness and rejoicing; but prevention is better than cure--piety from childhood is better than reformation in manhood. The judgment of the Apostle upon him "who neglects to provide for his own house," even in temporal matters, is well known; and must there not be a radical defect and wrong in any religious organization which loses the great majority of its own youth, and depends largely on infusions from without for the recruit of its numbers? Such an organization may do much good, and widely extend in many places for the time being, especially in a new and unsettled state of society; but the vital element of permanent strength and lasting prosperity is wanting, where, by its repulsion or neglect, the great majority of its baptized youth are alienated from, and lost to its communion. It is not in the promise of God, or in the genius of Scriptural Christianity, that "children trained up in the way they should go," will, in many instances, much less generally, depart from it in after years....

Impressed with the magnitude of the wrongs and evils above referred to, dreading personal collision in the Conference, anticipating but little success from it, and feeling uncertain as to how few were likely to be the days of my earthly career, and believing that a special duty was imposed upon me in this respect by Providential circumstances, I addressed to the President, the 2nd of January, ... as the most likely means, without collision with any person or body, to draw practical attention to the subject, on the part of both the ministry and the laity of the Church.... I have the satisfaction of knowing that, if the first efforts of my pen, after joining the Conference in 1825, were to advocate the right of the members of the Church to hold a bit of ground in which to bury their dead, and the right of its ministers to perform the marriage service for the members of their congregations, my last efforts in connection with the Conference have been directed to obtain the rights of Christian citizenship to the baptized children and exemplary adherents of the Church. While I maintain that each child in the land has a right to such an education as will fit him for his duties as a citizen of the state, and that the obligations of the state correspond to the rights of the child, so I maintain, upon still stronger and higher grounds, that each child baptized by the Church is thereby enfranchised with the rights and privileges of citizenship in it, until he forfeits them by personal misconduct and exclusion, and that the obligations of the Church correspond to the rights of the child. I also maintain that each member of Christ's visible Church, has a scriptural right to his membership in it as long as he keeps the "commandments and ordinances of God," whether he attends or does not attend a meeting which Mr. Wesley (who instituted it), declared to be "merely prudential, not essential, not of divine institution," and for not attending which he never excluded, or presumed to authorize excluding, a person from Church membership. It is a principle of St. Paul, in the 14th chapter of Romans, of all true Protestantism, as well as of the writings of Mr. Wesley, "in necessary things unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity."

* * * * *

In a letter, written from Quebec to a dear friend in Toronto, Dr. Ryerson thus refers to his religious experience at that time of personal trial on the class-meeting question. He said:--In compliance with the entreaties of the Hon. James Ferrier and the Rev. Wm. Pollard, I preached here last Sunday evening, and perhaps seldom with so much effect--certainly, never in Lower Canada. The congregation was very large; many members of the Legislature were present; and some were much affected. I had felt condemned for not preaching in New Brunswick when solicited; and I have felt that I have done right in obeying the powers that be in this respect in Quebec. I am solicited to remain and preach here again next Sunday, as many public persons have expressed disappointment at not having heard me last Sunday evening. A leading member of the church from Montreal was so comforted and edified, that after having spent the evening in my room until after ten o'clock, he went to write out all of the discourse he could remember. The friends here seem delighted to think I will still preach, and say that I would sin against God and man if I refused. My discourse on Sunday was the result of my reflections and prayer here without books or notes; and I feel much better since I consented to do what all seemed to think I ought to do. They are quite satisfied with the course I have adopted, and think it will result in great good, if I will not refuse to preach. The words of St. Paul (1st Cor. ch. 9, verse 16), in a chapter to which I opened the other day, have affected me much; and I know not that I can otherwise do so much good during the very few years at most that now remain to me, as to preach when desired by those who have authority in the matter, in any church or place. I feel deeply humbled under a sense of my own unfaithfulness, and am amazed at the great goodness, long-suffering and compassion of God towards me.

FOOTNOTES:

[138] Mr. Wesley's own account of the origin of the office of class-leader and class-meetings, illustrates the accuracy of what I have stated. The office was first created at Bristol, 15th February, 1742, for financial purposes alone. A few weeks afterwards, it was instituted for religious purposes also; and for the twofold object of religion and finance, it was embodied in the General Rules, which were drawn up and signed by Mr. Wesley, 1st May, 1743; but in which there is no mention made of class-meeting, or of the duty of any member to meet in class. In his "Plain Account of the People called Methodists," Mr. Wesley thus states the origin of the office of class-leader and the institution of class-meetings.Return to passage

At length (says he,) while we were thinking of quite another thing, we struck upon a method for which we have had cause to bless God ever since. I was talking with several of the Society in Bristol (Feb. 15, 1742,) concerning the means of paying the debts there, when one stood up, and said, 'Let every member of the Society give a penny a week till all are paid.' Another said, 'But many of them are poor, and cannot afford to do it.' 'Then,' said the other, 'put eleven of the poorest with me, and if they can give anything, well: I will see them weekly; and if they can give nothing, I will give for them as well as for myself. And each of you will call upon eleven of your neighbours weekly, receive what they give, and make up what is wanting.' It was done. In a little while some of these informed me, they found such and such an one did not live as he ought. It struck me immediately, This is the very thing we have wanted so long. I called together the Leaders of the classes (so we used to term them and their companies,) and desired that each would make particular inquiry into the behaviour of those whom he saw weekly. They did so. Many disorderly walkers were detected. Some turned from the evil of their ways. Some were put away from us. Many saw it with fear, and rejoiced in God with reverence. As soon as possible, the same method was used in London, and in all other places. The following is Mr. Wesley's account of the first appointment of class-leaders in London, extracted from his Journal, Thursday, March 25, 1742: I appointed several earnest and sensible men to meet me, to whom I showed the great difficulty I had long found of knowing the people who desired to be under my care. After much discourse, they all agreed there could be no better way to come to a sure, thorough knowledge of each person, than to divide them into classes, like those at Bristol, under the inspection of those in whom I could confide. This was the origin of our classes at London, for which I can never sufficiently praise God; the unspeakable usefulness of the institution having ever since been more and more manifest. In his "Plain Account of the People called Methodists," Mr. Wesley says, "At first they (the Leaders) visited each person at his own house; but this was soon found not so expedient, and that on many accounts." Mr. Wesley assigns several reasons for this change, and proceeds to answer several objections to class-meetings. The following passage shows the exact ground on which Mr. Wesley based the institution of class-meetings:

Some objected, 'There were no such meetings when I came into the society first; and why should there be now? I do not understand these things, and this changing one thing after another continually.' It was easily answered: It is a pity but they had been from the first. But we knew not then either the need or the benefit of them. Why we use them, you will easily understand, if you will read over the Rules of the Society. That with regard to these little prudential helps, we are continually changing one thing after another, is not a weakness or fault as you imagine, but is a peculiar privilege which we enjoy. By this means we declare them all to be merely prudential, not essential, not of divine institution.

Now, while it is proper for each person, as far as may be consistent with his circumstances and views of duty, to use every prudential means of doing and getting good, yet the observance of nothing but what is Divinely instituted should be imposed as a condition of membership in the Church of God. To make attendance at class-meeting that condition, is to require what the Lord hath not commanded, and to change essentially the character and objects of a means of good which Mr. Wesley (with whom it originated) declared to be "merely prudential, not essential, not of divine institution."

That Mr. Wesley conceived the basis of a church should be much more comprehensive than the rules he drew up and recommended in regard to the "little prudential helps" which were suggested to him from time to time, is obvious from the eighth of his twelve reasons against organising a new church--reasons published many years after the preparation and adoption of all his society rules. His words are as follows: "Because to form the plan of a new church would require infinite time and care, with much more wisdom and greater depth and extensiveness of thought than any of us are masters of."

[139] The following is the Article of Faith referred to:--Return to passage

XVII. Of Baptism. Baptism is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference, whereby Christians are distinguished from others that are not baptized, but it is also a sign of regeneration or the new birth. The baptism of young children is to be retained in the church.

[140] I have understood, nevertheless, that a resolution was adopted expressing the sense of the Conference as to my past labours in the Church; but the publication of it has been suppressed in the official organ, as also in the printed minutes, of the Conference.Return to passage

The correspondence in the subsequent pages shows with what feelings and sentiments I retired from the councils of the Conference; and I could not have supposed that any members of that body were capable of excluding from the public records of its proceedings what the Conference had deemed a bare act of justice to an individual who had laboured nearly thirty years in connection with it, and often performed most difficult services and labours in its behalf. Such a proceeding will reflect more dishonour upon its authors than upon me, in the judgment of every honourable and Christian mind in Upper Canada, of whatever persuasion or party. I am happy to believe that this poor imitation of the system of the "Index Expurgatorius" cannot blot from the memories of an older generation in the Church recollections of labours and struggles of which the expurgators know nothing but the fruits--among which are the civil and religious privileges they enjoy.

I have also been credibly informed that, while the real grounds of my resignation and the judgment of the Conference upon my conduct and labours during many years' connection with it, are withheld from the Wesleyan public, insinuations are circulated, that my resignation has been dictated by ulterior political objects--an idea which I have never for one moment entertained, and which is foreign, as far as I know, to the thoughts of every public man in Canada.

[141] Of the utter insufficiency of public ministrations alone, even for grown up Christians, much more for children, Mr. Wesley thus speaks in his large and authorized Minutes of Conference:--"For what avails public preaching alone, though we could preach like angels? We must, yea, every travelling preacher must, instruct them from house to house. Till this is done, and that in good earnest, the Methodists will be little better than other people. Our religion is not deep, universal, uniform; but superficial, partial, uneven. It will be so, till we spend half as much time in this visiting, as we now do in talking uselessly." "For, after all our preaching, many of our people are almost as ignorant as if they had never heard the gospel. I speak as plain as I can, yet I frequently meet with those who have been my hearers many years, who know not whether Christ be God or man. And how few are there who know the nature of repentance, faith and holiness. Most of them have a sort of confidence that God will save them, while the world has their hearts. I have found by experience, that one of these has learned more from one hour's close discourse than from ten years' public preaching." "Let every preacher having a catalogue of those in each society, go to each house. Deal gently with them, that the report of it may move others to desire your coming. Give the children the instructions for children, and encourage them to get them by heart. Indeed, you will find it no easy matter to teach the ignorant the principles of religion. So true is the remark of Archbishop Usher--'Great scholars may think this work beneath them. But they should consider, the laying the foundation skilfully, as it is of the greatest importance, so it is the masterpiece of the wisest builder. And let the wisest of us all try, whenever we please, we shall find that to lay this ground-work rightly, to make the ignorant understand the grounds of religion, will put us to all our skill.'" "Unless we take care of the rising generation, the present revival will be res unius aetatis (a thing of one generation); it will last only the age of a man."Return to passage

There are several ministers who earnestly labour in the spirit of these extracts from Mr. Wesley's Minutes of Conference--printed the year of his death. But their labours are the promptings of individual zeal and intelligence, and not dictated or backed by the authoritative example of the ministry and Church at large, or the recognition of the Church relations of the interesting subjects of their instructions. The effect of the general disuse or neglect of systematic individual instruction of children, not speaking of such, instruction of adult members, and reliance upon public ministrations and meetings alone, must be instability of religious profession, want of clear and acute views of the grounds, doctrines, nature, institutions and duties of religion, indifference to all religion, or wandering from denomination to denomination according to circumstances or caprice; but in all cases the loss to the Wesleyan Church of the greater part of the harvest which she should and might gather into the garner of Christ.

Chapter LV

1855.

Dr. Ryerson Resumes his Position in the Conference.

Although the great majority of the Conference of 1854, after much conflict of feeling--in which regret and sympathy were mingled--rejected the resolutions proposed by Dr. Ryerson on the class-meeting question, yet sorrow at the loss from their councils of so distinguished a man as Dr. Ryerson prevailed amongst them. This feeling deepened as the year advanced, and much personal effort was made to induce him to consent to some honourable means by which his return to the ministerial ranks could be secured. At length, as the Conference-year neared its close, he yielded to the wishes of his friends, and, on the 26th May, 1855, addressed the following letter to Rev. Dr. Wood, President of the Conference:--

From the conversations which have taken place between you, my brother, and some others of our ministers and myself, in reference to my present and future relations to the Conference and to the Church, I think it but respectful and an act of duty to state my views in writing, that there may be no misapprehension on the subject, and that you may adopt such a course as you shall think advisable.

When I wrote my letters of resignation of office in the Church, the one dated 2nd January, 1854, and the other the 12th day of June following, I had but faint expectations of being in the land of the living at this time. In what I wrote and did, I acted under the apprehension of having no longer time for delay in attesting, in the most decisive and practical way in my power, what I believe to be the divine rights of members of the visible Church of Christ whether they are baptized children or professing Christians. Since then I have reason to be thankful that the alarming symptoms in respect to my health have in a great measure subsided, and that I have the prospect of being able to continue my labours with undiminished strength and vigor, at least for some time to come.

In my first letter to you I stated and explained at length my belief that making attendance at class-meeting an essential condition of membership in the Church of God, is not only requiring what is not enjoined in the word of God, but excluding, on other than scriptural grounds, exemplary persons from the Church of Christ, and unchurching the baptized children of our people who, as well as their parents, are scripturally entitled to membership in the Church. Having given the subject much further consideration during the last twelve months, and having examined all the works on it within my reach, I am, if possible, more fully confirmed in the views I expressed last year, as both Wesleyan and scriptural, than when I penned them. And it is not unworthy of remark, that the only two newspapers in Canada which have combatted my views have been The Church and The Catholic Citizen; and both of these papers have done so upon the ground that my views were not compatible with the due authority of the Church to decree dogmas, rites and ceremonies. I acknowledge myself a heretic according to their creed of ecclesiastical authority; and I confess that the position I have been unexpectedly compelled to assume during the last two or three years as to the right of every man to the Bible, and the rights of individuals and municipalities against compulsion in regard to taxation for the support of sectarian schools, has more deeply impressed upon my mind than ever that the Bible is the only safeguard of civil liberty, and that "the Bible only ought to be the religion of Protestants;" and especially in a matter so important as that which determines who are members and what are the conditions of membership in the Church of Christ.

I must, therefore, in all frankness and honesty, still declare my conviction that there is no scriptural authority for the power which is given to a minister, by the answers to the 4th question in the 2nd section of the 2nd chapter of our Discipline, to exclude a person from the Church of God for what is expressly stated not to be "immoral conduct," namely, not attending a meeting which is not ranked among the ordinances of the Church in the General Rules of our Societies, which the 12th section of the 1st chapter of our Discipline does not enumerate among the "prudential means of grace," even among Methodists, and which Mr. Wesley stated to be "not spiritual, not of divine institution." I would never exercise such authority myself; I never have exercised it; but I will not assume to judge those who think and act otherwise.

I beg, however, that it may not be forgotten, that while I thus speak and quote the authorities of the Church in respect to class-meeting as a test or condition of Church membership; yet as a prudential means of grace and a mode and means of Christian fellowship, I regard class-meetings (as stated in my former letters above referred to), as well as love-feasts and prayer-meetings, as of the greatest value and importance. But when I think of class-meeting being converted into a condition of membership in the Church of Christ, and thus made the occasion of excluding from its pale the whole early generation of our people and many other sincere Christians, I cannot view it as I would wish, and as I could otherwise do, with the same feelings that I view love-feasts and prayer-meetings.

In regard to the other aspect of the question, as it applies to the baptized children of our people, and in which the nature and office of Baptism are involved, I feel it to be of such vital importance that I must beg to make some observations which I hope may not be considered out of place, or prove altogether useless.

The circumstances which have caused me to feel so strongly on this point were stated in my letter to you on the 2nd January, 1854, and afterwards more fully justified in my letter of the 12th of June following; and it is with no small degree of surprise that I have found my views misapprehended and pronounced unsound. It has been alleged that they involve baptismal regeneration. Nothing can be further from the fact. What I maintain is simply what is stated in the 17th Article of Faith professed by our Church, and by the catechism used in the Methodist Church on both sides of the Atlantic, and what is set forth at large in the writings of Mr. Wesley and Mr. Watson. Baptism, like the Lord's Supper, is an outward sign; but, of course, neither can be that of which it is the sign.

Baptism (as the 17th Article of our Faith expresses it), is not only a sign of profession, and mark of difference whereby Christians are distinguished from others that are unbaptized, but it is also a sign of regeneration, or the new birth.

What I maintain is, that baptism is the outward and visible sign, while regeneration, or the new birth, is the inward spiritual grace; that by baptism we are born into the visible Church of Christ on earth, while by the Holy Ghost we are born into the spiritual or invisible Church of Christ in heaven, the same as in the Lord's Supper; there is the visible act of the Church and of the body of communicants, and the invisible act of the Saviour by the Holy Ghost and of the soul of the communicant. The two are distinct; the one may not accompany the other; but they may, and often do, accompany each other. The parent should bring his child in faith to the Lord's baptism, the same as the communicant should come in faith to the Lord's Supper. The communion of the Lord's Supper is the act of a professed member of Christ's visible Church; the receiving of the Lord's baptism, is receiving the seal of membership in Christ's visible Church, that "mark of difference whereby Christians are distinguished from others that are not baptized." Hence in the Wesleyan catechism, the question is asked,--

What are the privileges of baptized persons? The answer is,--They are made members of the visible church of Christ; their gracious relation to Him as the Second Adam, and as the Mediator of the New Covenant, is solemnly ratified by divine appointment; and they are thereby recognized as having a claim to all the spiritual blessings of which they are the proper subjects.

I maintain, therefore, that the language of our Articles of Faith and Catechism, as well as of our Baptismal Service and the writings of Mr. Wesley, explicitly declares baptism an act of the Church by which it receives the children baptized into its bosom--that all baptized children are truly members of Christ's visible Church, although they be not communicants in it until they personally profess the Faith of their Baptism, and evince their desire to flee from the wrath to come by the negative and positive proofs so briefly and fully enumerated in the General Rules of our societies.

The Church membership of baptized children is known to be the doctrine of all parties in the Church of England, as well as of Mr. Wesley. It is equally the doctrine of all sections of the Presbyterian Church, in which the baptized children are regarded as members of the Church, but not communicants until they make a personal profession of conversion, and receive a token or ticket of admission to the Lord's Supper. On this point it is sufficient to cite the following passages from the fifteenth chapter of the fourth book of Calvin's Institutes.

Baptism is a sign of initiation, by which we are admitted into the society of the Church, in order that being incorporated into Christ, we may be numbered among the children of God.... For as circumcision was a pledge to the Jews, by which they were assured of their adoption as the people and family of God, and on their parts professed their entire subjection to Him, and, therefore, was their first entrance into the Church; so now we are initiated into the Church of God by baptism, are numbered among His people, and profess to devote ourselves to his service.... How delightful is it to pious minds, not only to have verbal assurances, but even occular proof, of their standing so high in the favour of their heavenly Father, that their posterity also are the objects of his care! This is evidently the reason why Satan makes such great exertions in opposition to infant baptism: that the removal of this testimony of the grace of God may cause the promise which it exhibits before our eyes gradually to disappear, and at length to be forgotten. The consequence of this would be an impious ingratitude to the mercy of God, and negligence of the instruction of our children in the principles of piety. For it is no small stimulus to our education of them in the serious fear of God, and the observance of His law, to reflect, that they are considered and acknowledged by Him as His children as soon as they are born. Wherefore, unless we are obstinately determined to reject the goodness of God, let us present to Him our children, to whom He assigns a place in His family, that is, among the members of His church.

Richard Watson, the great expounder of Wesleyan Christian doctrine, treats this subject elaborately in the third chapter of the fourth part of his Theological Institutes. I will only quote the following sentences:--

Infant children are declared by Christ to be members of His Church. That they were members of God's Church, in the family of Abraham, and among the Jews, cannot be denied.... The membership of the Jews comprehended both children and adults; and the grafting-in of the Gentiles, so as to partake of the same "root and fatness," will, therefore, include a right to put their children also into the covenant, so that they, as well as adults, may become members of Christ's Church, have God to be their God, and be acknowledged by Him, in the special sense of the terms of the covenant, to be His people.... "Whosoever (says Christ) shall receive this child in my name, receiveth me;" but such an identity of Christ with His disciples stands wholly upon their relation to Him as members of His "mystic body, the Church." It is in this respect only that they are "one with Him;" and there can be no identity of Christ with "little children" but by virtue of the same relation, that is, as they are members of His mystical body, the Church; of which membership baptism is now, as circumcision was then, the initiatory rite.... The benefits of this Sacrament require to be briefly exhibited. Baptism introduces the adult believer into the covenant of grace and the Church of Christ; and is the seal, the pledge, to him, on the part of God, of the fulfilment of all its provisions, in time and in eternity; whilst on his part, he takes upon himself the obligation of steadfast faith and obedience. To the infant child, baptism is a visible reception into the same covenant and church, a pledge of acceptance through Christ--the bestowment of a title to all the grace of the covenant as circumstances may require, and as the mind of the child may be capable of receiving it; and as it may be sought in future life by prayer, when the period of reason and moral choice shall arrive. It conveys also the present blessing of Christ, of which we are assured by His taking children in His arms, and blessing them; which blessing cannot be merely nominal, but must be substantial and efficacious. It secures, too, the gift of the Holy Spirit in those secret spiritual influences, by which the actual regeneration of those children who die in infancy is effected; and which are a seed of life in those who are spared to prepare them for instruction in the word of God, as they are taught by parental care, to incline their will and affections to good, and to begin and maintain in them the war against inward and outward evil, so that they may be divinely assisted, as reason strengthens, to make their calling and election sure. In a word, it is, both as to infants and adults, the sign, and pledge of that inward grace, which, though modified in its operations by the difference of their circumstances, has respect to, and flows from, a covenant relation to each of the Three Persons in whose one name they are baptized,--acceptance by the Father--union with Christ as the head of His mystical body, the Church--and communion with the Holy Ghost. To these advantages must be added the respect which God bears to the believing act of the parents, and to their solemn prayers on the occasion, in both of which the child is interested; as well as in that solemn engagement of the parents which the rite necessarily implies, to bring up their child in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

To these impressive words of Richard Watson, I add the following equally impressive extract from the pastoral address of the Wesleyan Conference in England to the Societies under its charge in 1837:--

By baptism you place your children within the pale of the visible Church, and give them a right to all its privileges, the pastoral care of its ministers, and as far as their age and capacity will allow, the enjoyment of its ordinances and means of grace. These children are not offshoots of the Church, enjoying only a distant relation to it, but they are of it, as a fact; they are grafted into the body of Christ's disciples; they are partakers of an initiatory and provisional state of acceptance with God, and can forfeit their right to the fellowship of the saints only by a course of sin. Besides, when this sacred ordinance is regarded by parents in the spirit of prayer and faith, it cannot be unaccompanied by the divine blessing. Grace is connected with every institution of the Christian Church; and when children are constituted a part of the flock of Christ by being placed within the fold, they have a peculiar claim on the care of that good Shepherd who "gathereth the lambs with his arms and carries them in his bosom;" and they will receive instruction, spiritual influences, tender care, and the exercise of mercy, agreeing with the relation in which they stand to God. On these grounds we affectionately exhort you to place your beloved offspring within the "courts of the house of our God," and amongst the number of His family, by strictly attending to this divinely appointed ordinance of our Saviour.[142]

Dr. Ryerson's views were, therefore, the same in 1834 as they were in 1854--that by Baptism children stand in the relation of members of the Church, and should be enrolled in its registers, and entitled to its privileges, until they, by their own voluntary irregularity or neglect, forfeit them. The coincidence mentioned, and the consistency of the views expressed by Dr. Ryerson twenty years before, are very remarkable.

* * * * *

Now what are these solemn and affecting words of John Calvin, of Richard Watson, and of the British Conference, but a mockery and a snare, if the baptized children are not to be acknowledged and treated as members of the visible church of Christ? Ought not then children baptised by the Wesleyan ministry to be recognized and cared for as members of the Wesleyan Church? It is absurd, and leaves them in a state of religious orphanage, to say that they are members of the visible Church of Christ, but not members of any particular branch of it. As well might it be said, that the children born in Canada, are members of the Canadian family, but not members of any particular family in Canada. To be the former without being the latter, would indeed allow them a country, but would leave them without a home, without a parent, without a protector, without an inheritance--homeless, houseless, destitute orphans. Is this the relation in which the baptized children of our people are to be viewed to the Church of their parents? In doing so, are not the most powerful considerations, motives and influences brought to bear upon both parents and children? In not doing so, is not the greatest wrong inflicted upon both, the ordinance of baptism virtually ignored, and its blessings lost? But in denying that any one is or can be a member of the Church except one who meets in class, are not the baptized children of our people refused a place within its pale? deprived of their baptismal birthright, before they are old enough to forfeit it by transgression? shut out from the family of God's people, and as practically unchurched as if they had never received a Christian name, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost? I cannot reflect upon the subject or contemplate its consequences, without the deepest pain and solicitude. I will pursue it no further, but will leave it with you and those on whom the responsibility of deciding upon it devolves.

It will be remembered that I have never said anything as to the mode of receiving adult persons from without into the Church; nor as to the class of members who alone should be eligible to hold office in the Church; nor have I entertained the idea that any other than the scriptural summary of Christian morality contained in the General Rules of our Societies should be applied to all members of the Church, whether in full communion or not. Nor have I other than supposed that all persons recognized as a part of the Church, would, as far as circumstances can permit, be registered as classes, and called upon regularly by a leader or steward for their contributions in support of the ministry and other institutions of the Church, the same as persons meeting weekly in a class. What I have said applies wholly and exclusively to the Church relation and rights of the baptized children of our people, and to the rights of persons otherwise admitted into the Church, who, I believe, ought not to be excluded from it except for what would exclude them from the kingdom of grace and glory.

Anything appertaining to myself personally is unworthy of mention in such a connexion. I banish from my mind and heart the recollection and feeling of anything I consider to have been uncalled for and unjust towards myself on the part of others. Though I have resigned the ecclesiastical or outward authority to exercise the functions of the Christian ministry, I have never regarded myself as a secular man; I have felt, and do feel, and especially with improved health, the inward, and, I trust, divine conviction of duty to preach, as occasion may offer and strength permit, the unsearchable riches of Christ to dying men. And if after the past publication and foregoing statement of my convictions on the point of Church Discipline and its administration, as affecting baptized children and other scripturally blameless members of the Church, and my purpose to maintain them on such occasions, and in such manner as are sanctioned by the Discipline, the Conference thinks it proper and desirable that I should resume my former relations to it and to the Church, I am willing to cancel my resignation, and to labour, as heretofore, to preach the doctrines and promote the agencies of the Church which I have sought by every earthly means in my power, though with conscious unfaithfulness before God, to advance during the last thirty years, and which are, I believe, according to the Scriptures, and calculated to promote the present and everlasting well-being of man.

The reading of this letter at the London Conference of 1855 led to a great deal of discussion and various explanations, which unfortunately afterwards resulted in much misunderstanding and recrimination. The Conference, however, with a unanimity and heartiness which reflected great credit for its calm judgment and Christian love of unity, passed the following resolution by a nearly two-thirds majority:--

That while this Conference declares its unaltered determination to maintain inviolate the position held respecting the views contained in Dr. Ryerson's communications of last year, and upon which his resignation was tendered and accepted; yet upon the application which the latter part of Dr. Ryerson's present communication contains, this Conference restores him to his former standing and relations to the Conference and the Church.

After the resolution was passed, Dr. Ryerson went to the Conference at London, and in a letter which he wrote to me, dated January 9th, he said:--

My entrance into the Conference was cordially greeted. I was very affectionately welcomed and introduced by the President, Rev. Dr. Wood, after which I briefly addressed the Conference, and I have since taken the same part in the proceedings as heretofore.

After a long discussion yesterday, a very important change was made in the Discipline. By this change a minister may be stationed in the same circuit during five years, if requested by the quarterly meeting. A prominent member made a long and violent speech against it. I replied at length, and stated the general grounds on which I thought the change recommended by the Stationing Committee should be adopted. After the adoption of the resolution, I congratulated the Conference on this indication of progress in a direction to what was regarded as heretical when I first introduced the proposition five years ago. Some preacher said I was a little too soon. I said perhaps I had the misfortune of having been born a few years too soon. Another said that he supposed I expected that other changes would also follow. I replied, time would show. I was informed that all (even Messrs. Jeffers and Spencer) expressed a desire for my return to the Conference. The lengthened discussion was based upon certain parts of my letter to Mr. Wood, which it was held were not courteous, but a bearding of the Conference. On the other hand, it was contended that my sentiments even on the class-meeting condition of membership were the practice of those very preachers who objected to them. Examples were given, much to the surprise of certain parties, who professed to be the greatest sticklers on the subject. It was professed by all, without exception, that but for certain phrases in my letter (to the sentiments of which, it was maintained, the Conference would be committed by the resolution proposed) the vote in regard to me would have been unanimous.

* * * * *

Amongst other congratulatory letters received by Dr. Ryerson, none were more gratifying to him than the following characteristic letter from Rev. John Black, in township of Rawdon, written on the 16th of June:--

My good Mr. Lever, of Sidney, in a letter from the Conference, informs me that "Dr. Ryerson is once more among his brethren, and, as usual, taking an active part in the affairs of Conference." Although three of my children were confined to bed by sickness, yet on hearing such news I was almost ready for a shout.

Permit me to say that your departure from us at Belleville, twelve months ago, lay heavy on my heart; and now to hear the above intelligence is good to my soul. For many years I have been much attached to Mr. Egerton Ryerson. We were "taken on trial" at the same time, and together were ordained to the great work of the ministry. And although you, Mr. R., have been near the head, and I, Mr. B., near the foot, yet we are in the same ranks, fighting the battles of the Lord, and exercising our talents in behalf of truth and righteousness. I know that your time is precious, yet I believe you will spare a minute or two in reading a few lines from your affectionate, and now almost worn-out, friend and well-wisher. Long may you live for the purpose of using your talents for the benefit of Church and State! This fervent wish stands at a distance from mere compliment and from flattery, and is the free emotion of a Methodist heart.

FOOTNOTES:

[142] As early as 1834, Dr. Ryerson was deeply impressed with the correctness of these views. Having, in the Guardian of the 9th of April, 1834, called the attention of his ministerial brethren to the pressing duty of giving effect to the section of the Discipline on the "Instruction of Children," he proceeded to point out in the Guardian of the 23rd of that month, the privileges which baptism confers upon Methodist children, fortifying his views by the following quotation from Rev. R. Watson's Institutes:--Baptism introduces the adult believer into the covenant of Grace, and the Church of Christ.... To the infant child it is a visible reception into the same covenant and Church.... In a word, it is both to infants and adults a sign and pledge of that inward grace, which has respect to and flows from a covenant relation to each of the three persons, in whose one name they are baptized--acceptance with Christ as the Head of His mystical body, the Church, and of communion of the Holy Ghost.Return to passage