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Photogravure. Annan. Glasgow.

ELZÉAR ALEXANDRE TASCHEREAU
ARCHBISHOP OF QUEBEC AND FIRST CANADIAN CARDINAL
From a photograph by Montmigny, Quebec

Canada is still on the threshold of nationhood. She is still hardly conscious of the splendour of her inheritance or of the greatness of her strength. She has the sense of vigour which belongs to youth; but of what elements that strength is composed, or in what direction it is destined to be employed, she is yet, perhaps, not fully aware. She delights in the vastness of her possessions and takes pride in remembering the races from which she has sprung; but has she sufficiently outlined the tasks which lie before her in the future or considered the debt which she owes to the cause of civilization or of humanity? The order which her development has so far followed is, after all, the appointed one—first 'that which is natural, afterward that which is spiritual.' The giant in his youth labours at the tasks and enterprises which call for the exercise of muscle and sinew—of heart and lungs; later come those which call for deeper reflection and more matured wisdom. What Canada has attained in the physical domain has challenged not only the attention but the admiration of the world. Canada is not able to present a 'far-flung battle line,' but she is able to show far-flung lines of railway and steamship systems which older countries can hardly surpass. The physical may appear for the present to have the supremacy. Soon, it may be, the desire for something more enduring, which has always been manifest, will assert itself, and then Canada will have attained, to the full extent, national self-consciousness.

In the chapters which follow records are to be found of the religious, intellectual and artistic activities of the country. They are at least evidences of Canada's aspirations to share in the spiritual civilization of the nations. In certain spheres of intellectual activity our achievement as a people surely falls short of that degree of excellence which we could wish to be regarded as the Canadian standard. But we have set up no lofty ideals and, until we have before us constantly a standard for contemplation, our attainment will seldom rise above the commonplace.

The first group of chapters in this section is devoted to the religious history of the country. The narratives will prove to be of high interest, particularly if read as a whole, while each separate history will naturally appeal with special force to the members of the denomination with which it deals. Taken together, the histories are of wider import; they give reality and substance to the commonplace, that this is a Christian country. Canada is a Christian country in the sense that, from the beginning of her history until the present time, all her people, broadly speaking, profess adherence to one or other of the different Christian communities. As bands of settlers came to our shores, they brought with them, or found awaiting them, teachers of the Christian faith. In the ceremonies attending the foundation of our cities religious exercises formed an essential part. At Montreal, the outpost of the church in her conflict with heathendom, a granite column marks the spot where the first mass was sung. In 1758, when the New Englanders were invited to come to Nova Scotia to occupy the lands vacated by the Acadians, they demanded freedom of worship. On the assurance of liberty in the exercise of their religion they came in large numbers and laid the foundation of the Congregational, the Presbyterian, the Methodist and the Baptist denominations in the Maritime Provinces. While the fate of Canada hung in the balance after the Battle of the Plains, the Chapter of Quebec provided for the more effective administration of the church, by placing the whole country under the direction of four vicars-general. Later, when Canada passed into the hands of the British, the king gave instructions to the governor, that as lands were assigned for the use of settlers, a plot was to be reserved in each parish for a church, and four hundred acres were to be set aside for a minister. The intimate relation recognized as existing between religion and education is emphasized in all the narratives. In a clause of the instructions to Murray the king desires that two hundred acres shall be set aside for a schoolmaster. In Quebec the Catholics were continuing the work of educating students for the priesthood in the Seminary of Quebec. In Upper Canada, three years after the loyalists had settled in the vicinity of the Bay of Quinte, the Rev. John Stuart opened a school at Kingston. In the Maritime Provinces Bishop Inglis, the first Anglican bishop, was virtually the first superintendent of education as well as the official head of the church. Religion and education have walked hand in hand. The universities and colleges in Upper and Lower Canada, although some of them have now become secularized, were in their origin associated with the work of religious bodies. The story is the same in the western provinces. In the Red River Settlement Father Provencher set up his school and soon began to instruct his boys in Latin. At Pembina, still further removed from the influence of civilization, we have the pleasing picture of a group of boys studying Latin Grammar under one of Father Provencher's associates.

To the work of missions at home and abroad the churches have devoted themselves with zeal, and in this field of activity we catch glimpses of heroism and self-sacrifice which arouse our interest and compel our admiration.

Within some of the larger denominations there were in earlier days a number of independent bodies holding more or less divergent views; but success has attended the efforts which have been made to remove the causes of difference and render possible a larger consolidation.

As in most other countries, the musical development of Canada has been greatly assisted by the various churches. The different orchestras of which Canada is proud—and some have won high distinction—are all either directly associated with, or had their beginnings in, some church.

The chapters on the intellectual life of Canada and on its art and literature present at least two aspects. As part of the general history of the country they exhibit its progress under these special heads. But they have a wider scientific interest. They are the record of the achievement in the field of literature and art of a people sprung from detached fragments of the British and French peoples transplanted to Canadian soil. The chapters bear materially upon the question frequently raised as to the possibility of any considerable literary and artistic production in a colony. It is asserted from time to time that there is something in the colonial status operating as a bar to high achievement in art and literature, and Canada has been pointed at as a particular instance of the infertility due to these conditions. How far Canada has really failed in the spheres alluded to may be determined by the readers of these chapters. High genius never was common, nor has it ever been possible to foretell its coming, though attempts have been made to explain it after it came. The question is whether we are providing conditions favourable to its full expansion when it does appear among us. It is idle to assume that any connection exists between literary and artistic productiveness or unproductiveness and the political system under which Canadians work and live.

It may be admitted at once that at the outset, at least, the colonist is subject to certain disabilities. He enjoys many advantages in the country of his adoption. Comforts and luxuries of which it were vain to dream in his former home, moderate industry now places within his reach. Books, pictures, and most things in which literary and artistic activity finds concrete expression, are at his command. One thing, however, he must leave behind. The intellectual graces which manifest themselves in the lives and conversation of the highly cultivated men and women of Europe cannot be transferred. Matthew Arnold is quoted as saying that the best school for English style is good English society. But it is not the colonist alone who is deprived of this advantage.

Men of letters and artists in the United States were for a long time under a disadvantage owing to their separation from the great social and artistic centres. Canadians to a certain extent have suffered from a similar cause, and a sense of timidity, a want of confidence, has paralysed much of their effort. The chapters on literature and painting emphasize this point. In estimating the qualities which have given Haliburton the unique place he holds in our literature we must not forget his courage. Those good things of The Clockmaker which men still delight to quote were doubtless approved by his little circle in Halifax, but must he not have been in painful doubt as to how they would be received in England by that society to which he looked up, and whose amusement was being administered to at the moment by the high-bred humour of Sydney Smith? People are often more inclined to laugh at the humorist than to laugh with him. Few men in colonial society have been so greatly daring as Haliburton, and consequently we find our artists and painters adapting their conceptions to modes of expression which, having passed muster with the critical, are considered safe. Creative genius, on the other hand, struggles to give expression to its own individuality, and, undeterred by passing criticism, seeks to attain a lofty standard of excellence which is for ever eluding its grasp.

Here, then, is an important phase of the colonial problem. One cannot, however, read the chapters on literature and art without being impressed at least with the number of books and paintings that have been produced in recent years, and there seems to be an improvement in the character of the work. Canadian books and Canadian pictures are beginning to find a place in English homes. The stamp of provinciality is no longer necessarily attached to things Canadian. But here the question creeps in: Is it as a distinctive Canadian art and literature that our native production is to be regarded? The question is a nice one, which only a fine criticism can determine.

Whatever are to be the distinguishing characteristics of our work, it is desirable that our artists and our writers shall attain a greater mastery over the means of giving expression to the manifold forms and sentiments which surround them, and that they shall, moreover, become fully conscious that they are masters of those means. The atmosphere for the moment is unfavourable, and until the society of our Canadian cities is permeated by the spirit of the amateur, so happily characterized by the writer of the article in this section on 'The Higher National Life,' we shall look in vain for the creation of a distinctive art and literature, the impress of which would confer dignity on any school or on any race. It is well, however, to have the word of so competent an authority as the writer of the article referred to that our university system as a whole is lending itself to the wide cultivation of men and women of this class.

INTRODUCTORY

The fall of New France into the hands of Great Britain appeared to be the doom of the French nationality and of the Catholic faith implanted a century and a half before on the banks of the St Lawrence; but God in His Providence had designed this apparent calamity for the good of both. Less than thirty years later France was shaken to its foundations by a savage revolution which left a heritage of deep civil disorder, and whose commotions, even to our own times, have not ceased. Meanwhile Canada, politically separated and remote from the scene of that conflict and under the protection of liberal and enduring British institutions, has developed in comparative peace into a free, self-governing and prosperous dominion wherein all races have equal rights and privileges. And while the Church of France has been spoliated, its adherents imprisoned, sent into exile and dragged to the scaffold, while it has staggered under military despots or impious rulers, the Church of Canada, small in the beginning, destitute and seemingly deprived of all human support, has truly verified the parable of the mustard seed, 'which when it is sown in the earth is less than all the seeds that are in the earth, and when it is sown it groweth up and becometh greater than all herbs and shooteth out great branches, so that the birds of the air may dwell under the shadow thereof.'

The progress of the Catholic Church in the provinces east of Lake Superior is briefly and simply set forth in the following pages. This narrative has no polemical import. A clear exposition of facts, drawn from the most reliable printed and manuscript sources, is sufficient for our purpose. It has been found convenient to divide the chronicle into two parts. The first part relates the pacific struggle with the civil authorities for religious liberty, and covers the years 1760 to 1825, during which the Quebec bishops were the arbiters of church government over the whole of the possessions of Great Britain in North America. Independent dioceses began to dawn by the erection of Newfoundland (1796) and Nova Scotia (1817) into vicariates-apostolic, and by the consecration of Father^[1] Alexander Macdonell as Bishop for Upper Canada (1820), of Father Jean Jacques Lartigue for Montreal (1821), of Father Aeneas MacEacharn for Prince Edward Island (1821) and of Father Norbert Provencher for the North-West (1822). These prelates, who were at first vicars-general and auxiliaries of the Bishop of Quebec, soon became sui juris.

The second part describes the activities and development of the church in the ecclesiastical provinces of Kingston, Toronto, Ottawa, Halifax, Montreal and Quebec during the years 1825-1912. In the conclusion it will be seen that the time of weakness and uncertainty has passed away and has given place to an era of stability and promise.

I
EARLY HISTORY UNDER BRITISH RULE

Bishops Briand and Desgly

The death of Bishop Henri-Marie de Pontbriand on June 8, 1760, just three months before the capitulation of Montreal, left the Canadian Church in a most critical position.

The Catholics of French origin in Canada could not have been much more—and were very likely less—than 60,000 in number, although higher figures are sometimes given. The census under General Murray in 1765 reckons 69,275 inhabitants, exclusive of Indians; while certain trustworthy statistics, given to Sir Guy Carleton by Bishop Briand in 1777, show an increase in population of 21,592 from 1759 to 1769, that is, about two thousand a year.

That England intended to anglicize her new subjects in language and religion, not by open violence, indeed, but at least by disguised persecution, is evident. This is not to be wondered at, for all conquerors have had similar aims and have tried to achieve them by similar means. Even in the twentieth century men of sense and culture are apt to forget that human nature clings to a thing with all the greater energy as greater efforts are made to wrest it away. A tree pushes its roots the more deeply into the ground the more exposed it is to the violence of the tempest. So their faith and nationality became dearer to French Canadians in proportion to the danger by which they were menaced; and, paradoxical as it may seem, they are more indebted, for the preservation of both, to petty Neros such as Haldimand and Craig than to broad-minded rulers like Murray, Carleton or Prevost.

At the capitulation of Quebec, September 18, 1759, and of Montreal, September 8, 1760, the British conceded the free exercise of the Catholic religion, the right of priests, pastors and missionaries to discharge their duties, and the right of the chapter and grand-vicars to administer the diocese during the vacancy of the see. But the election of a bishop, either by choice of the French king, as was foolishly proposed, or by any other means, seemed altogether excluded. The female orders were granted full immunities, but the Jesuits, Récollets and Sulpicians were 'refused till the King's pleasure be known.' The Treaty of Paris (1763) states: 'His Britannick Majesty agrees to grant the liberty of the Catholick religion to the inhabitants of Canada and will in consequence give the most precise and most effectual orders that his new Roman Catholick Subjects may profess the worship of their religion according to the rites of the Romish Church as far as the laws of Great Britain permit.' It was just in these last words that the danger lay.

The Earl of Egremont wrote to General Murray on August 13, 1763:

If any doubt remained as to the intention of Great Britain, it must have vanished at the first reading of the instructions sent (December 7, 1763) to General Murray with his commission of governor-general:

Such was the situation. For the administration of the immense diocese of Quebec, the chapter, in accordance with the advice of the late Bishop de Pontbriand, elected several vicars-general in July 1760. Father Jean Olivier Briand was placed in charge of that part of Quebec already in the hands of the English; Father Joseph François Perreault, of Three Rivers and that part of Quebec still under the French; Father Étienne Montgolfier, S.S., of Montreal and the western part of Canada. Acadia was entrusted to the celebrated Father Pierre Maillard,^[1] who had been a missionary there since 1735; while Father Michel Baudoin, S.J., was appointed to administer Louisiana and the Mississippi valley. Father Pierre de la Rue, abbot of l'Isle-Dieu, who lived in Paris, was continued in the charge of vicar-general which he already possessed, for the management of Canadian religious interests in France and in Louisiana. Of Louisiana nothing more need be said here except that, after the treaty of 1763, all the chapels and missions of the Jesuits among the Illinois were destroyed and the missionaries expelled. The four missions of the Quebec Seminary among the Tamarois, on the left shore of the Mississippi, were abandoned and their valuable properties sold for next to nothing by the Abbé François Forget-Duverger, the last priest of the Seminary of the Foreign Missions in charge there. He then returned to France, while Father Sébastien Louis Meurin, S.J., in response to his pressing entreaties, was granted permission to go back to the Illinois, and became vicar-general of Quebec in that distant region.

After the capitulation of Montreal, when all the country became an English possession, the vicars-general manifested great loyalty towards the new government, and in their letters to the clergy and the faithful exhorted them all to an entire submission. Public prayers in the churches and the singing of the Te Deum were commanded for the king and whenever any happy event befell England. This was just, for George III was now, by the fate of arms, their lawful sovereign; it was also wise, for, by showing that the Catholic Church is, as Guizot declared, a veritable school for respect and authority, it powerfully helped to procure her that greater liberty for which Canadians were then soliciting the throne.

Two delegates, Étienne Charest and Jean Amiot,^[2] whose expenses were to be paid by the parishes of the diocese, had been sent to London in 1763 to entreat the king for the full exercise of the Catholic religion in accordance with the 4th article of the Treaty of Paris. In the meantime the chapter and the vicars-general, relying more on the king's kindness than on the assurances of treaties, presented to His Majesty an address asking that the see of Quebec should be filled. On September 15, 1763, two days after the sending of this petition, they elected as successor to Bishop de Pontbriand, Grand-Vicar Montgolfier, and the newly elected bishop sailed a few weeks later for London to obtain the royal assent.

Unhappily Governor Murray disliked the Abbé Montgolfier, whom he thought too rigid in the discharge of his duties. His displeasure was deepened by the fact that all knowledge of these proceedings had been kept from him. When he heard of them he wrote to the Earl of Shelburne, on September 14, 1763:

This was assuredly poor commendation. Vicar-General Montgolfier resolutely pleaded his case, but could not overcome the opposition of the English minister. Not only was he unable to cross to France to be consecrated, but he had even to renounce his vicar-generalship to obtain permission to return to Canada. In 1764 he formally resigned the rights conferred upon him by the choice of the chapter, and suggested that the Abbé Briand should be elected in his place.

Governor-General Murray favoured this nomination. At the end of the letter quoted above he said: 'I must here take the liberty to repeat what I had the Honor to inform Your Lordship of in a former one of the 22nd July, that Monsieur Bryant, Vicar-General of this Government, has constantly acted with a candour, moderation, and disinterestedness which bespeak him a worthy honest man, and that I know none of his gown in the Province so justly deserving of the Royal favour.' In the letter of July 22 alluded to, after having warned the government against the Abbé Joseph-Marie de la Corne, a Quebec canon, then in London, lest he might be appointed head of the Canadian Church, he added with regard to the Abbé Briand: 'He has acted with a candour, moderation and delicacy in such circumstances, as deserve the highest commendation, such indeed as I little expected from one of his gown.' Notwithstanding these favourable declarations Vicar-General Briand spent more than a year in London without any good result, owing to the calumnies of the notorious Roubaud, a miserable but talented apostate Jesuit priest. Finally, at the end of 1765, having had indirect notice that the government would not oppose his consecration, he went to France, obtained his Bulls in January 1766, and was consecrated the following June, at Suresnes near Paris, by the Bishop of Blois. His return gave Canadians great joy. The event was, in fact, one of great consequence.

The Bulls had been granted under special conditions imposed by Great Britain: first, 'that the Bishop would depend on no foreign power and keep no intercourse with France and Rome; secondly, that his Bulls once obtained, he would be considered as drawing his authority from his dignity and his See.' To these conditions Rome assented.

Jean Olivier Briand (1715-94) was one of the greatest Canadian bishops. In his humility he termed himself le charretier de l'épiscopat—meaning that he was only a link in the chain of the Canadian hierarchy. He was much more than this, however, for by his tact and gentleness, by his firmness and ability, by his thorough understanding of the necessities of the time, and his yielding to those necessities in so far as his conscience permitted, he became that hierarchy's saviour, and may be justly regarded as the second founder of the Catholic Church in Canada.

The Abbé Plessis, himself a man of the same cast as Briand, formed in relations of intimacy with him, and destined, in after days, to complete his work, has magnificently portrayed him in his funeral oration on June 27, 1794:

It was precisely on that account—his perfect submission to Great Britain—that Bishop Briand had to suffer from the suspicions of some of the people and even of the clergy, but he went on as his conscience indicated. Respectful towards the civil power though he was, he never forgot what he owed to God and to the Church. He refused to take the oath of allegiance until a formula acceptable to a Catholic—which Rome afterwards approved—was provided. Like his predecessors he styled himself 'Bishop of Quebec by the Mercy of God and the Grace of the Holy See.' He formed new parishes, ordained priests and appointed pastors. When the government tried to interfere in the erection of parishes and the appointment of priests, he told General Murray that, rather than allow it, he would lay his head upon the block. In 1784, at the end of his administration, he wrote to Sir Guy Carleton: 'Some have thought that I was afraid of the Governor [Haldimand]. No! I never feared man in my life, and now that I am on the brink of the grave, I reproach myself with not fearing enough my dreadful judge—God. I know how to love, not how to fear; kindness renders me weak, rigour and insult find me manly and firm.'

Such was Bishop Briand. Respectful, yet forceful, he enjoyed the confidence and respect of the new masters of Canada, and, as a consequence, freedom for his ministry.

His work for religious liberty was furthered indirectly by the agitation which, soon after the conquest of New France, began to arouse the colonists of New England. Warned by the eloquent speeches of Burke, Barré, Pitt and other great orators favourable to the liberty of the New England colonists, the British parliament, with a view to preventing Canadians from joining the American rebellion, passed the Quebec Act (1774), wherein they were guaranteed a larger share of civil and religious liberty. Strange to say, the Americans, who were taking up arms to vindicate their liberty, were incensed at the shred of freedom thus granted to others. When they invaded Canada in 1775 this fact proved a powerful argument in the bishop's pastoral letters; it did much to maintain the loyalty of his flock, and even to bring back to duty such as had been seduced by insincere promises.

His behaviour on that momentous occasion obtained for Bishop Briand the gratitude of the government and a pension of two hundred pounds. This substantial favour was all the more appreciated as his income was only a few thousand francs, derived partly from property in Paris and partly from a grant of the clergy of France in 1765—both of which sources were soon to be dried up by the French Revolution. To this must be added, however, a yearly sum of one hundred and fifty pounds paid by the government as rent for the use of the episcopal palace, which he had rebuilt but did not occupy.

In 1775 the conditions of the Canadian Church had undoubtedly much improved. It would be wrong, however, to suppose that all grievances were at an end. In that very year, Instructions, which encroached in more ways than one upon religious liberty, were sent to Governor Carleton; they were repeated to Haldimand in 1778, and again to Carleton (then Lord Dorchester) in 1786. It is necessary, to the thorough understanding of the situation, that at least some articles of these Instructions should be mentioned. We read under number 21:

By the 11th clause the Seminaries of Quebec and Montreal were left in possession of their estates, and were allowed to admit new members to educate young men for the priesthood, but they were made subject to visitation by the governor. The 12th clause declared that all other communities, although left 'upon their present establishment,' were forbidden to receive new members, except the communities of women, which might continue as before. The Jesuits were entirely suppressed and their estates forfeited to the crown.

By these last dispositions the Récollets and the Jesuits were doomed to disappear. Father Berey, the superior of the former order, who had been granted a pension of £500, died in 1800, and the last priest of the community, in 1813. Of the Jesuits only twelve remained after the Conquest. They had reopened their college in Quebec in 1761, but were obliged to close it in 1768 for lack of pupils. The few in attendance were sent to the Seminary of Quebec, which had opened classes in 1765. A grammar school was nevertheless maintained in the old college until 1776, when it was closed by the government; the rest of the building, three-fourths of which had already been made into a barrack, was transformed into military stores, courts and a prison. By some it is denied—and on good grounds—that the order was canonically notified of its suppression; but it is unquestionable that the Jesuits in Quebec were in some manner notified of their suppression by the Pope. Be this as it may, they were left in possession of their estates until the death of the last member, Father Casot, in 1800. Their seigniories, estimated at 891,845 acres, were then vested in the crown, and the revenues applied to different purposes, chiefly educational. For nearly a century these valuable estates remained a matter of dispute, until, in 1888, the case was settled, with the agreement of Rome, by the Hon. Honoré Mercier, prime minister of the Province of Quebec.

The Sulpicians were not forbidden by the Instructions of 1775 to admit new members, but as they could not receive any from France, and found but very few recruits in Canada, their number quickly decreased. From thirty in 1759, the order had dwindled down to two septuagenarians in 1793. Nor were their estates declared forfeit. The 21st article of the Instructions even guaranteed that the Seminary of Montreal, as well as that of Quebec, should continue to occupy their house 'and other properties to which they were lawfully entitled before the 18th of September 1759.' But their estates (250,191 acres), although only about one-third as large as those of the Jesuits, included the Island of Montreal; they were, therefore, considered to be of much greater value and were much more coveted. The title by which they had been conveyed by the Seminary of Paris to the Seminary of Montreal in 1764 was declared null and void by all the English legal authorities on both sides of the Atlantic, and nothing now remained to prevent the government from laying hands on this valuable property. Happily, as we shall presently see, justice and common sense were not altogether dead in England.

The extinction of the male religious orders greatly depleted the ranks of the Canadian clergy. The secular priests were not numerous. In 1758, regulars included, they numbered only 180. In 1766 the number had fallen to 138. Several of the canons had returned to France before or after the Conquest. Of the five that remained, the last, Vicar-General Saint-Onge, died in 1795, and with him the venerable institution came to an end. It was never revived.

Photogravure. Annan. Glasgow.

JEAN JOSEPH CASOT
From an engraving in the Dominion Archives

Although Bishop Briand ordained ninety priests, he could hardly fill the places made empty by death. The following figures are taken from a report sent by him to the government on the state of the clergy and religious communities in 1784:

The number of parishes was 118, among which are reckoned two Indian missions with a resident priest—that of Sault St Louis for the Iroquois, and Indian Lorette for the Hurons. The Abnakis, on the St François River, and the Mohawks, at St Regis, were served by the nearest parish priest; the mixed congregation of Oka was in charge of the Sulpicians.

Of the two bishops mentioned in the report the second was Bishop Desgly. To save Quebec from a vacancy, which was much to be dreaded at that juncture, Bishop Briand had obtained from Rome, along with his Bulls, the power to appoint, with the consent of England, a coadjutor having the right of future succession, and to consecrate him without the usual assistance of two bishops. After some hesitation London gave a verbal assent; but Sir Guy Carleton, although well disposed, feared to go beyond the instructions of the court, and therefore resisted for four years the entreaties of the bishop. In 1770, however, he himself proposed for the coadjutorship the Abbé Louis Philippe Mariauchau Desgly,^[4] parish priest of St Peter's in the Island of Orleans. He would even have had him consecrated at once, but Bishop Briand, notwithstanding the advice of several of the clergy and the murmurs of the people, would not do so until the Bulls had been obtained from Rome. Cardinal Castelli afterwards heartily thanked him for having safeguarded the rights of the Holy See. Monseigneur Desgly (1710-88) was consecrated Bishop of Dorylæum in 1772.

Of Bishop Desgly little need be said. He belonged to a distinguished Canadian family, and was the first Quebec bishop born in the country. Although he began his administration in 1784, he remained in his small parish until he died in 1788, six years before Bishop Briand. His most important act was the choice of his successor, Bishop Hubert.

Bishops Hubert and Denaut

During the administration of Bishop Hubert (1739-97), who was consecrated by Monseigneur Briand under the name of Bishop of Almyra, several noteworthy events took place. The church was then beginning to develop in the Great Lakes region and the Maritime Provinces, and it might be well here to consider the work done in those districts. Although there were so few priests in the diocese of Quebec that one pastor frequently had to serve two parishes, the distant missions, as the facts show, were not forgotten.

Detroit, which was still dependent on Quebec, was, from 1752 to 1783, served by several missionaries, among whom were the Rev. Fathers Pierre Potier, S.J., and Le Simple Bocquet, O.F.M. When the latter was recalled to Quebec in 1783, he was immediately replaced by the Abbé Louis Payet. Indeed, the latter even met him on the way. Father Jean François Hubert had himself been in that region for two years past. After having played a most patriotic part in 1775, while superior of the Seminary of Quebec, he had asked, in 1781, to be sent as a missionary to the Hurons settled near Detroit. He resided chiefly at the Mission of the Assumption, now Sandwich, on the Canadian side, and built there, almost entirely at his own expense, a church and a priest's house. In 1784, while devotedly working for the salvation of Canadians as well as of Indians, there reached him the undesired announcement of his election to the coadjutorship of Quebec. He shed tears on leaving the scene of his hard but happy labours. The Abbé François-Xavier Dufaux, a Sulpician, replaced him, while soon afterwards the Abbé Payet, owing to ill-health, left the Mission of Ste Anne's of Detroit to a young priest, the Abbé Pierre Fréchette, who served the parish until it passed under the jurisdiction of Baltimore in 1796. He was succeeded by Vicar-General Levadoux, who took charge in the name of Bishop Carroll and remained until 1798. Then came the celebrated Father Gabriel Richard who gave to Detroit such a vigorous impetus. His splendid achievements do not belong to this sketch, as Detroit was no longer in Canadian territory.

Four years before (1794) a man of some celebrity had been sent to Upper Canada by the Bishop of Quebec with the title of vicar-general. Born in Ireland in 1753, Father Edmund Burke had landed in Quebec in 1786. After some years spent as a professor of philosophy and mathematics in the Seminary of Quebec and afterwards as parish priest in the Island of Orleans, he finally expressed a desire to go to the distant missions. Great were his schemes when he went to Ontario, but they soon melted away in the presence of realities, like wax near a flame. That province, with the exception of a few settlements still in their infancy, was a wilderness covered from end to end by the primeval forest, and offered little opportunity for spectacular deeds. That his mission was not very successful clearly appears not only from the letters of his fellow-missionaries, but also from his own letters, in which a sad and discouraged tone frequently prevails. Stationed first at the Rivière-au-Raisin, on the United States side, among Indians whose language he could never master, he soon became restless. He lacked stability. In 1798 he was at Niagara, the seat of legislature, and in 1800 at York—the future Toronto—then a small muddy village. In 1801, when in Kingston, a quarrel with an officer compelled him to leave that place. Then Monseigneur Denaut, successor to Bishop Hubert, who had consoled Father Burke by his letters, and allowed, or even advised, him to change his station for any other he might judge more convenient, offered him the congregation of Halifax, which was just becoming vacant. This post he accepted, and his record there will be touched upon later.

Not long after the departure of Father Fréchette from Ste Anne's of Detroit, the Abbé Dufaux died in 1796, in his parish of the Assumption of Sandwich. He was succeeded by another Sulpician, Father Jean-Baptiste Marchand, who held the position until his death in 1825. His appointment was the result of an agreement between Bishop Hubert and the superior of the Seminary of Montreal, Father Gabriel Jean Brassier. By this agreement the Sulpicians were to serve all the missions of Upper Canada. Father Bédard had accordingly, in 1795, been appointed to Kingston, where, in 1793, the Abbé Philippe J. L. Desjardins and Chevalier La Corne de St Luc had secured ground for the building of a church and a presbytery. In the missionaries of that part of the diocese the bishop particularly required a knowledge of the English language.

The population of Ontario at that epoch is not known with any exactness, but it did not exceed 20,000, and of these the greater portion were loyalists from the United States and for the most part Protestants. Some Catholic Irish soldiers of the 5th regiment, in garrison at Fort George on the Niagara River, had for their first chaplain a French Dominican refugee named Le Dru. He was dismissed in 1794 by Lord Dorchester, and replaced, first by the Rev. Edmund Burke, and then by the Abbé Philippe Desjardins, afterwards vicar-general of Paris.

In 1798-99 some French noblemen who had been banished by the Revolution—the Count of Puisaye, the Count and the Viscount of Chalus, the Marquess of Beaupoil—with two score followers attempted settlements in the townships of Markham, near York, and of Niagara. They unhappily failed, and their dependants either joined their Canadian compatriots or went back to France.

Scottish Catholics were more successful. In 1773 a large party, on the invitation of Sir William Johnson, had settled on the banks of the Mohawk River, in the State of New York, then British territory. There, on lands granted to them, they built their homes. When the American Revolution broke out, they remained loyal to England and were denounced as friends of English tyranny and disarmed by General Schuyler. In order to escape the crusade of bigotry raised by John Jay, three hundred of them, under the guidance of their pastor, Father M^cKenna, crossed the border and, after many hardships from exposure and hunger, settled in what is now the county of Glengarry. Father M^cKenna had received powers of jurisdiction from Vicar-General Montgolfier. His successor in that part of the country was the Rev. Roderick Macdonell, who came from Scotland in 1785 with letters of commendation from the vicar-apostolic of that country. In the meanwhile he served his compatriots and the mission of St Regis.

In 1786 another clergyman of good family and highly commended by his superiors, the Rev. Alexander Macdonell—'with abilities, both natural and acquired, equal to his birth'—accompanied to this country another large colony of Catholic Highlanders, and founded in Glengarry the parish of St Raphael.

While the Catholic faith was in this manner progressing in Upper Canada, it was also, through the zeal of its missionaries, rising from the grave in the Maritime Provinces. This new life may be truly termed a resurrection, because, by the dispersion of the Acadians in 1755, and their banishment from St John's Island in 1758, after the surrender of Louisbourg, there remained in that region almost no Catholics except a few hundred Micmacs—or Abnakis—wandering in the woods. Some Acadians had also taken refuge in the forests, while others, to the no small anxiety of the usurpers of their hearths, were slowly creeping back to their former land. But in 1760 they could not yet have been very numerous, for their whole number in 1763 is estimated by Rameau at 2800, of whom 400 were on the Nova Scotian shore of the Strait of Canso and in Cape Breton.

In Halifax, which was founded by Edward Cornwallis in 1749, the inhabitants, according to the Hon. Alexander Grant, numbered 'about three thousand, one-third Irish, one-fourth German or Dutch, the most useful and industrious settlers among us, and the rest English with a very small number of Scotch.' According to the same author the morality of the place could not have been very high. 'We have,' he says, 'upwards of 100 licensed houses, and perhaps as many more retailing spirituous liquors without license, so that the business of one-half of the town is to sell rum, and the other half to drink it.' Many of the Irish, says Thomas Chandler Haliburton in his History of Nova Scotia, were Catholics. Archbishop O'Brien, commenting on this assertion, adds: 'We may be sure that the major part were Irish Catholics.'

But the laws of the province in no way encouraged the Catholic faith. The infant legislature of Halifax had in 1758 enacted exceedingly stringent laws against it. Its first act 'to confirm the titles in the land' contains this drastic clause: 'Provided that no Papist hereafter shall have any right or title to hold, possess or enjoy any land or tenements other than by virtue of any grant or grants from the Crown, but that all deeds, or wills, hereafter made, conveying lands or tenements to any Papist, shall be utterly null and void.'

It was further decreed that 'Every popish person exercising any Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction shall depart out of this Province on, or before, the 25th of March 1759'; that 'if found after that date, upon conviction, they shall be adjudged to suffer perpetual imprisonment, escape from which would be deemed felony'; and that 'all persons harbouring, relieving, concealing any popish priest, shall be fined fifty pounds, and be adjudged to be set in the pillory, and to find securities for good behaviour at the discretion of the Court.'

In 1766 an act on education was passed which cautiously provided that: 'If any popish recusant, Papist or person professing the Popish Religion shall be so presumptuous as to set up any school within the Province, and be detected therein, such offender shall, for every such offence, suffer three months imprisonment without bail or mainprize and shall pay fine to the King of £10.'

After quoting these laws, the author of the Memoirs of Rev. Edmund Burke adds: 'So far as these diabolical statutes could effect it, the Catholic was to be landless, pastorless and teacherless.'

In Newfoundland—which, with Anticosti, the Magdalen Islands and Labrador, formed a distinct administration—the laws against the Roman Church were yet more tyrannic. Priests were persecuted, hunted and imprisoned; persons who harboured them were fined and flogged; houses where mass had been said were pulled down or burned. Since that early period, it need hardly be said, there has been an enormous change. Newfoundland, being still an independent colony and not a part of the Dominion, is not included in this sketch. Let it suffice to say that it became a vicariate-apostolic in 1796, and in 1847 a bishopric, with its seat in St John's. That diocese was dependent on the Archbishop of Quebec only until 1850, and it now forms a distinct ecclesiastical province, with an archbishopric—St John's—and two bishoprics—Harbour Grace and St George. Within its jurisdiction there are nearly 80,000 Catholics with 80 priests, many religious orders, educational and charitable institutions, and, in fact, all the agencies of a perfectly organized Church.

In 1758 the only priest tolerated in Nova Scotia was Father Pierre Maillard, the Apostle of the Abnakis. As these Indians, to avenge their missionaries and their French allies, shot down every Englishman who ventured within their reach, the government appealed to this energetic churchman to use his influence on behalf of peace. Such a change immediately took place in the conduct of the savages that Maillard was invited to Halifax, granted a pension of £200, and allowed greater liberty of worship for himself and his Irish co-religionists.

Unfortunately, Father Maillard died in 1762, without any brother priest to soothe his last moments. Nova Scotia then remained without a missionary until 1767, owing partly to local circumstances, partly to the vacancy of the see of Quebec, and partly to the scarcity of the clergy. In 1767, on the demand of Lieutenant-Governor Michael Francklin, the young Abbé Charles François Bailly de Messein, recently ordained, was sent there, and he remained until 1771. The privileges he enjoyed under Francklin and his successor, Lord Campbell, excited such an outcry of fanaticism in Boston and Halifax that he had to quit the city and retire to the woods. Even after leaving the Nova Scotia missions he did not forget the scene of his first sacerdotal sacrifices and joys, for on his death-bed, in 1794, he bequeathed £1000 for the maintenance of missionaries there.

The famous Father Jean-Baptiste de la Brosse, S.J., succeeded him. In the spring of 1770 he was sent by Bishop Briand to the Maritime Provinces with most ample powers over all the missions on the south shore of the St Lawrence from Cacouna to Nova Scotia, St John's Island and Cape Breton. Of his work there nothing is known. He died at Tadoussac in 1782, while serving the Indians of the Saguenay region.

Meanwhile four Acadian boys were studying in France for the priesthood, at Bishop Briand's expense, and in his pastoral letters (1766 and 1770) he encouraged their compatriots to perseverance, expressing the hope that they would soon have priests of their own race. In fact, one of these students, Mathurin Bourg—said to be of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost—was, after Father de la Brosse, entrusted with the work among the Acadians of the Maritime Provinces, and he served them continuously from 1773 to 1795, as well as the Micmacs, whose language he perfectly understood. When he left to take a deserved rest in the parish of St Lawrence, near Montreal, where he died in 1797, many workers were in the field. Another of these Acadian boys, Father Jean Bro, was sent to his compatriots scattered in the United States, and succeeded in bringing back to Canada several families, whom he established at St Jacques-le-Majeur-de-l'Achigan. He became their first pastor.

In St John's Island and Nova Scotia the population was then rapidly increasing. The former, which had been made a separate colony under Lieutenant-Governor Walter Patterson, was divided into sixty-seven parts which were distributed by lottery. In 1772, headed by John Macdonald, the laird of Glenaladale, 210 Catholic Highlanders—almost all MacDonalds, with a few MacPhees, MacKinnons, MacPhersons, MacEacharns—landed and settled at Scotch Fort, the old St Louis of the Acadians. They had a perfect organization. Their priest, the Rev. James MacDonald, had studied in Rome, and besides Gaelic, the language of his countrymen, knew Italian, English and French. He spent his first winter, while a church with a thatched roof was being erected at Scotch Fort, with the Acadian families who had returned from the mainland and settled at Malpeque. He was a devoted and tireless missionary until the close of his life. He died in 1785, and, like Father Maillard, without the offices of a fellow-priest.

In 1790 another important contingent of Scottish Catholics landed in St John's Island, under the religious direction of the Rev. Angus MacEacharn, whose family was among the settlers in 1772. He had been a student of the Royal Scots College in Valladolid, and was very highly commended by his bishop. In addition to his native Gaelic he knew English, and soon learned enough French to be helpful to the Acadians. Of a kind and cheerful disposition, he frequently shared in the sliding, skating or snow-shoeing sports of Acadian boys, in order to become acquainted with their special forms of speech. For long years he remained the favourite of both Scottish and Acadian Catholics, not only in the island but also on the neighbouring shores.

Out of 1000 inhabitants in St John's Island nearly 600 were Catholics. Some Scottish Protestants had settled on the west shore of Richmond Bay. The Scottish Catholics formed Georgetown, Covehead, St Peter's and Cavendish. A group of loyalists were at Bedeque, while the Acadians chiefly inhabited Malpeque.

In Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Cape Breton a great number of loyalists from the United States and several groups of Acadians had begun to settle. According to a letter of Father Bourg, who had been made vicar-general, 150 Acadian families, besides numerous families established at Menoudie, Petitcodiac and Memramcook, lived in 1785 at Cape Sable and Bay Ste Marie, and 140 families, with many Irish Catholics, at Arichat in Cape Breton.

At Halifax a great proportion of the numerous loyalists who came in 1782 were Catholics. Because of their number, or because broader views began to prevail, the statutes of 1758 against popery were repealed. Vicar-General Mathurin Bourg left his first place of residence, Chaleur Bay, and came to live in the city, where Catholics were rapidly increasing in numbers and where a fine church was being erected.

Meanwhile some other priests arrived. The Quebec bishops were doing their utmost to obtain pastors for their flocks. In 1784 a petition was sent to the king entreating him to allow Canadians to bring from France, at their own expense, clergymen of their language. The petition was refused. French priests were then under such suspicion that one of them, the Abbé François Ciquard, was twice expelled from Canada by Governor Haldimand. The bishop was obliged to carry on even a simple correspondence with France under cover. Monseigneur Desgly then endeavoured to get some priests from Great Britain. Through the Rev. Father Hussey, an Irish clergyman, whom he made his vicar-general in London, he secured four missionaries for Canada: Fathers Roderick Macdonald (1784), Edmund Burke, already mentioned (1786), William Phelan (1786) and Thomas Power (1787).

In 1785 an Irish Capuchin, Father James Jones, came to Halifax, where he was to play an important part. He was made vicar-general with authority over other British missionaries. In the same year another member of the Congregation of the Holy Ghost, Father Joseph le Roux, arrived and took up his residence at Memramcook. From that point he served the neighbouring localities of Cocagne, Judaique and Petitcodiac.

But the time was not far distant when the French Revolution, while destroying religion in France, was to strengthen materially the Catholic Church in Canada, both by exiling many heroic priests to the shores of the St Lawrence, and by breaking down English religious prejudices through the admiration excited by the virtues of the exiled French clergy. From 1793 to 1798 thirty-four such refugees arrived in Canada, and among them were many distinguished men, such as the Abbé Jacques Ladislas Joseph de Calonne, brother to the minister of Finance of Louis XVI, who became a missionary in St John's Island; the Abbés Louis Joseph and Philippe J. L. Desjardins, to the former of whom Canada is indebted for a great number of oil-paintings, masterpieces of French and Italian artists, which he saved from revolutionary vandalism; the Abbé Jean Mandet Sigogne, who for nearly fifty years—he died in 1844—was to be consoler and guide of the Acadians at Bay Ste Marie and in the neighbourhood; and the Abbé Jean Auguste Roux, who became in 1798 superior of the Seminary of Montreal. Fifteen of these timely recruits entered this institution between 1793 and 1798, thereby saving it from ruin. Nine worked as missionaries in different parts of the lower provinces, four in Upper Canada, and others were employed as professors and chaplains.

While the vacancies in the ranks of his clergy were being so providentially filled and the distant parts of his diocese so happily provided for, Bishop Hubert was thinking of dividing the burden of his pastoral charge. As early as 1789 he had written to Cardinal Antonelli to obtain the consent of His Holiness Pius VI to the erection of Montreal into an independent bishopric, which would include Upper Canada. Rome was willing, and it is probable that London, through the benevolent influence of Lord Dorchester, would not have opposed. But obstacles came from unexpected quarters. The matter is worth a short study.

In 1789 the committee which had long been investigating Canadian affairs recommended in its report, among many things relating to education, the creation of a mixed university for teaching sciences and the liberal arts. It also suggested that the Jesuit estates, a portion of the crown lands, and a legacy of £1200 annual rent left by the celebrated Irish philosopher and scientist Robert Boyle, 'for the Propagation of the Protestant Religion in British Colonies,' should be devoted to its maintenance. Bishop Hubert opposed the scheme as a menace to the faith of his flock, and, with great dignity and moderation, gave his reasons in a public memoir.

Bishop Charles François Bailly de Messein (1740-94), who has been already mentioned as a successful missionary in Nova Scotia (1767-71), was then coadjutor with the right of succession. He had been a professor of theology at the Seminary of Quebec (1772-77), and was appointed (1777) pastor of Pointe-aux-Trembles, in the county of Portneuf, but in 1778 he went to London as private tutor to Lord Dorchester's children. Although he was not devoid of merits, these had less to do with his elevation to the episcopal dignity than the entreaties of the governor, who was his personal friend. Consecrated in 1789 under the title of Bishop of Capsa, his first step was to adopt views concerning the mixed university directly contrary to those of Bishop Hubert. He even went so far as to write a pamphlet ridiculing the venerable and much esteemed prelate. On another occasion he had printed in La Gazette de Québec a manifesto against a pastoral letter of his superior, because certain special powers of the clergy had been restrained and certain feasts obligatory on week days had not been suppressed.

Rome, when informed by Bishop Hubert of this state of affairs, compelled the Bishop of Capsa to apologize for his conduct, and, in view of his lack of prudence and consideration, deemed it inopportune and even dangerous to erect the contemplated diocese of Montreal, as he would naturally have become its first titular. Bishop Bailly was replaced in 1794 by the Rev. Pierre Denaut, parish priest of Longueuil, who was consecrated in Montreal in 1795 under the title of Bishop of Canatha.

In his report to the Holy See in 1794, Bishop Hubert says again that his diocese is too vast and that several bishops are necessary. His successors pleaded the same necessity until, under Bishop Plessis, the division was effected. As this report is a most interesting exposition of the state of the Canadian Church at that epoch, some figures may be quoted from it. Bishop Hubert says that there were 130 parishes with churches, of which less than twenty had been canonically erected; 160 priests and about 160,000 Catholics; 8 or 10 Indian missions, all in the hands of the secular clergy, the largest numbering no more than 500 souls. The chapter, having held its last meeting in 1773, no longer existed. One Jesuit only was left, with 8 Récollets in Quebec and 8 in Montreal, almost all lay brothers. Of the parishes some numbered 1000, some 2000 souls, the smallest 500 or 600; Montreal had 8000, Quebec 6000. Tithes were paid at the 26th bushel of grain. The diocese was divided into four parts, Montreal, Quebec, Upper Canada and the Maritime Provinces, each under a vicar-general. Priests were prepared for their work in the Seminary of Quebec. The Sulpicians, saved from destruction by the accession of twelve members of their order from the Seminary of Lyons (some others came later), had a college where rhetoric was taught from 1773 and philosophy from 1783. They had also opened an English school with so much success that the Protestant schools of Montreal had lost all their pupils. Hardly 5 Catholics could be found traitors to their religion, while at least 200 or 300 Protestants had returned to the old fold.

To complete this information it may be added that, although forbidden to receive new members, the Récollets had nevertheless admitted some novices. But in 1796, after the destruction of their convent by fire, they were secularized by the bishop, who had special powers. Their church was already used on Sundays, after high mass, for Protestant services. There, in 1793, the first Anglican bishop, Jacob Mountain, had taken possession of his see. After the fire the ground was declared forfeited, and upon it were built the present English cathedral and the residence of the lord bishop.

Bishop Hubert was accustomed to visit a part of his diocese every summer. He was welcomed everywhere. His humility and benevolence, as well as his oratory, which, while not academic, was impressive and moving, rendered him most popular. In 1795 he went to Chaleur Bay, and returned by land, travelling nearly all the distance, 450 miles, on foot. His health was so much impaired by the effort that he never rallied, and died, universally regretted, in 1797.

Although the liberty of the Catholic religion had been guaranteed in the Quebec Act of 1774 and the Constitutional Act of 1791 which divided Canada into two provinces, yet the Instructions to governors, which offered so plausible a ground for arbitrariness, were maintained. The religious freedom of previous years was due, in fact, far less to the law than to the benevolence of the governors, and chiefly of Lord Dorchester, who, between 1766 and 1796, governed the country on three different occasions for fairly long periods.

A strong party now existed which worked earnestly to deprive the French Canadians of their institutions and religion. The leaders were Chief Justice Monk, Attorney-General Sewell and Bishop Mountain, headed by Herman Witsius Ryland, who for twenty years (1793-1813) was civil secretary to the governors of Canada. The following lines from a letter of December 23, 1804, bearing his initials, will sufficiently show the ideas and feelings of that foe of the Roman Catholic Church. After speaking of the splendour he desires in the Protestant Church of Quebec, he writes:

He afterwards suggests the means to obtain

In the eyes of Chief Justice Sewell there was 'no Catholic Bishop by law'—that office had become 'extinct at the Conquest,' when all Catholic livings had devolved upon His Majesty. The English bishop wondered that any one but himself could be called Bishop of Quebec, and claimed the right of appointing pastors to parishes. He received the handsome stipend of £7000.

These influential men obtained from the legislature in 1801, at which time Bishop Mountain was a member of the legislative council, a law which established a corporation under the name of 'The Royal Institution for the Encouragement of Public Instruction.' Almost all the members, chosen by the governor, were Protestants, and Bishop Mountain was president.

Bishop Denaut (1743-1806), successor to Bishop Hubert, along with all his clergy, opposed the institution so vigorously that it was a complete failure. After becoming Bishop of Quebec, Denaut continued to live in his parish of Longueuil, where he was greatly beloved. He came to the city only on rare occasions, such as the ordination of priests or the pastoral visit of the diocese, which, after the example of his predecessors, he made every year. In 1801 he went to Detroit, on the invitation of the Bishop of Baltimore. During the winter of 1802 he visited the Scottish settlements of Glengarry and Stormont, erected into regular parishes the flourishing establishments of St Raphael and St Andrews, and appointed as their pastors the missionaries already there, Fathers Alexander and Roderick Macdonell. On these two occasions he confirmed upwards of two thousand people. In 1803 he spent five months visiting the now numerous and thriving missions of the Maritime Provinces, which, with the exception of Chaleur Bay, visited by Bishop Hubert in 1795, then saw a bishop for the first time. On that visit more than eight thousand persons were confirmed.

In 1805, on the advice of Lieutenant-Governor Sir Robert Shore Milnes, Bishop Denaut petitioned the king that he might be officially recognized as Bishop of Quebec. He failed. Success was reserved for Bishop Plessis.

Bishop Joseph Octave Plessis

Bishop Plessis (1763-1825) had been consecrated in 1801, under the title of Bishop of Canatha, Coadjutor of Quebec. He was then parish priest of Quebec. His election did not take place without opposition. Initiated into church affairs in his youth, while secretary to Bishop Briand, he was a steadfast defender of Catholic rights, and his opinion was known to prevail in ecclesiastical circles. It was not forgotten that the memoir of Bishop Hubert, in 1789, against the scheme for a mixed university was due not merely to his inspiration but to his pen. The Duke of Kent wrote to Governor Prescott (October 1797) to excite his distrust and warn him that it would not be prudent to rely on Father Plessis, that he was opposed to the royal supremacy, and that his loyalty towards England was doubtful. The instrument to remove the obstacles in the way of his elevation to the coadjutorship was none other than Ryland. Being at that time a friend of the curé of Quebec, Ryland persuaded Sir Robert Prescott to accept the man whose appointment was desired by all the clergy. His views and feelings afterwards changed, for in 1806 he did his best to prevent the administrator of the province, Thomas Dunn, from receiving the bishop's oath of allegiance.

Bishop Plessis was destined to achieve the organization of the Canadian Church. Although he never renounced a right, yet he always acted so discreetly and loyally that he never offended English feelings. Minutes have been preserved of several discussions which he had with Attorney-General Sewell and Sir James Craig. The chief matter in dispute was the appointment of parish priests. Although the governor distinguished between the temporal living and the spiritual jurisdiction, and claimed for the king only the appointment to the former, the bishop would not concede a particle of his right. Sir James having alluded in one of the conversations to the Bishop of Havana, who, for having appointed a priest notwithstanding the prohibition of the English governor, was put aboard a ship and banished to Florida, Bishop Plessis said: 'I would less fear to be a prisoner on a warship than to betray my conscience.' In their last meeting, when the prelate thanked the governor for his personal kindness, and protested his inviolable attachment and loyalty to His Britannic Majesty, Sir James answered: 'I admit that you have these sentiments: you never belied yourself.' They parted on most friendly terms, although with very different views.

Photogravure. Annan. Glasgow.

JOSEPH OCTAVE PLESSIS
From the painting in the House of the Immaculate Conception, Montreal

Ryland was then in England, where he had been sent by Sir James Craig to promote the interests of the Protestant party. He remained there nearly two years, from July 1810 to the spring of 1812. With what earnestness he discharged his mission is clearly shown by his active correspondence. He was sparing neither in actions, nor letters, nor memorials. To the ministers, verbally or in writing, he repeated over and over again his favourite projects. How important, he urged, it would be to place the 'Institution for the Advancement of Science on a sound basis'; what a horn of plenty might be found in the estates of the Jesuits and the Sulpicians; how advisable for the crown to assume the patronage of the Romish Church by granting letters patent to the superintendent thereof, and legal titles to the clergy. He also asked to 'what penalty or penalties the Rev. Joseph Octave Plessis might be subject' for having in an episcopal charge of October 25, 1810—as indeed, in all other charges—'styled himself Par la grâce du St Siège Apostolique Evêque de Québec.'

The British ministers—Robert Peel, then a very young man, and Lord Liverpool—were happily not so short-sighted nor so forgetful of justice. The zealous envoy sometimes grew impatient when he saw that his suggestions were not adopted at once. On August 4, 1810, he writes to Craig:

For once Ryland was a prophet. Thanks to the common sense of Peel, he came back empty-handed. Worse than this, Sir George Prevost, the new governor, who did not propose to tread in the footsteps of Craig, dismissed him from his position of private secretary to the governors. Soon afterwards, when the War of 1812 broke out, Bishop Plessis published such loyal and effective pastoral letters, and his flock behaved so gallantly, that anti-Catholic prejudices received a heavy, if not a fatal, blow. In July 1813 the Earl of Bathurst wrote to Sir George Prevost:

Two months later Ryland, who as clerk of the executive council had to prepare the warrant for the allowance, expressed scruples regarding the title 'Catholic Bishop of Quebec.' He had a fondness for the ancient appellation 'the Superintendent of the Romish Church' such as a knight has for his old charger. He consulted the governor, who answered—using the language of Lord Bathurst's letter from which we have just quoted—that 'he did not see any objection to a compliance to Mr De Plessis' wishes in styling him Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec,' inasmuch as the secretary of state appeared to recognize him as such.

Four years later (1817), on the suggestion of Sir John Sherbrooke, the governor-in-chief, Bishop Plessis was granted a seat in the legislative council. Until his death he regularly attended the meetings, and more than once his voice had a decisive influence on behalf of his compatriots and co-religionists.

He was a scholar and a worker. Nothing need be said here of his efforts to oppose the Royal Institution, to obtain favourable school laws and to help the Nicolet College. But we may note with what untiring labour he administered the religious interests of his immense diocese. It had increased, not only by the new missions of the Red River, opened in 1818 by the Abbés Norbert Provencher and Joseph Sévère Nicolas Dumoulin, but by the development of the Catholic settlements in Ontario and in the Maritime Provinces. To these latter a word must now be devoted.

In 1803 the Scottish Highlanders of Glengarry, who, with the French and the Wyandot Indians scattered about the county of Essex, formed the bulk of the Catholic population of Ontario, received a new contingent which deserves special notice.

Some years previously a large number of Catholic Highlanders had been evicted from their farms in Scotland and reduced to utter misery. A distinguished clergyman, Father Alexander Macdonell (1762-1840), who had studied at Douai, Paris and Valladolid, and afterwards became a missionary in the counties of Inverness and Perth, was touched by the sufferings of his countrymen. In 1792 he went to Glasgow and contrived to place seven hundred or eight hundred of them in the factories there. In spite of the penal laws he opened a chapel for them, and acted as their interpreter, since they spoke no English. He was their pastor and their best friend. The war with France brought ruin to many manufacturers, and destitution again visited the poor Highlanders. Father Macdonell was eminently a man of resource. In 1794 he undertook, with the king's sanction, to form his mountaineers into a regiment—the first Catholic military corps in the English army since the Reformation. Officially gazetted chaplain of the regiment, the Glengarry Fencibles, he accompanied them to Guernsey in 1795, and in 1798 to Ireland, where, by their endurance and bravery, they checked the rebellion of Holt and Dwyer. By restoring the chapels which had often been turned into stables for the yeomanry, and by his humanity to the wounded and his exhortations to the people, he actively contributed to the pacification of that unfortunate country. When the Fencibles were disbanded in 1802, he obtained for them lands in Upper Canada; and in 1803 many of them came with their families and settled among their compatriots in Glengarry.

In 1803 Father Macdonell was appointed pastor of St Raphael by Bishop Denaut, replacing his namesake who had just died. He was made vicar-general in 1807. In 1812 he again enlisted his veterans of 1798, and followed them to the field. As a reward for his loyalty he was granted a pension and a seat in the legislative council of Ontario. We shall deal further with this great man, the father of the church in Upper Canada, in the second part of this article.

In the Maritime Provinces, Catholics were much more numerous than in Ontario. Scottish Catholics had not settled in St John's Island only, for in 1791 a contingent in two ships landed at Pictou. Others followed almost every year, so that in 1802 there were about fifteen hundred Scottish Catholics on the shores of the Gulf of St Lawrence. In the summer of 1802 eight hundred people, accompanied by two priests, Fathers Augustine and Alexander M^cDonald, settled chiefly at Arisaig. Of these priests the former took up his residence at Tracadie, and died in 1808; the latter went to live at Bay Ste Marguerite, about one hundred miles west of Halifax, and died in 1810.

Besides the vicar-general, Father Jones, who lived in Halifax, numerous Irish, French and Canadian priests served the different settlements in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, St John's Island, Cape Breton and the Magdalen Islands. Fathers Angus MacEacharn, Thomas Power, William Phelan and the two M^cDonalds have already been mentioned. In addition to these there were: Fathers Laurentius Phelan and Thomas Grace, Capuchins; Fathers Lucy and Edmund Burke—not to be confounded with the vicar-apostolic—and the French Abbés Gabriel Champion, Jean-Baptiste Alain, François Lejamtel, J. M. Sigogne, Urbain Orfroy, J. B. Marie Castanet, Louis Joseph Desjardins, René P. Joyer, François Ciquard and Amable Pichard.

Nor were Canadian missionaries altogether wanting. It is just to mention, from 1800 to 1825, Fathers Antoine Bédard, Charles Genest, François Louis Parent, Antoine Gagnon, François Norbert Blanchet, Charles François Painchaud, Charles Joseph Primeau, Louis Brodeur, Isidore Poirier, Louis Gingras, in New Brunswick; Jean Louis Beaubien and Joseph Étienne Cécile in Prince Edward Island; and Pierre-Marie Mignault, Antoine Manseau, André Doucet, in Nova Scotia.

Vicar-General Jones bitterly complained, in some of his letters, of a few of his Irish co-operators, and also of a spirit of presbyterianism that pervaded his congregation. Some of its members, whom he ironically termed 'deacons,' aspired to nothing less than a complete control over the pastor, his nomination and his administration of church affairs. He returned to Ireland in 1800, and died there in 1805. On taking leave he wrote to Bishop Denaut: 'I have done the best I could for these missions.' He was not remembered for any unusual disinterestedness, and this, according to the saintly Abbé de Calonne, accounted, at least in part, for the presbyterian spirit of which he had complained in his congregation. The Catholics of Halifax, according to the same trustworthy witness, were ready to comply with all His Grace's ordinances. In 1803 Bishop Denaut found them in the best possible disposition. After the withdrawal of Vicar-General Jones they were served for a time by an Irish priest, Father Edmund Burke, mentioned above, and in 1801 they received as their pastor his glorious namesake, the future Bishop of Zion.

If Father Burke's missions in Ontario had not been very beneficial to the church, his work in Halifax was more successful. He found there a task better fitted to his talents, and he did excellent work both by 'tongue and pen.' He built a college, but was prevented by fanaticism from opening it, and his congregation had for long years to suffer from the want of Catholic schools. Bishop Plessis advised him to send students to Canadian colleges until Nova Scotia had a seminary, but he neglected the advice. On the other hand, the Rev. Angus MacEacharn took the bishop's counsel, and after a few years had the satisfaction of seeing some of the boys he had sent to Quebec and Nicolet become priests, and even of consecrating two of them when he became a bishop.

In his visits of 1811, 1812 and 1815 in the Maritime Provinces, Bishop Plessis observed with sorrow the poverty of the chapels in almost all the missions, and made ordinances to have them put in more decent condition and to have others erected in various places. He forbade the clergy to say mass in private houses, and ordered them to wear ecclesiastical garments.

His vast diocese was weighing heavily on his shoulders. In 1806 he had urged upon the Holy See the necessity for its division. He had done so again in 1809. But because of the dispersion of the Sacred College, and of the captivity of Pius VII (1809-14), no answer could be returned before March 1815. The prefect of the Propaganda judged that the proper time had not yet come for establishing other independent bishops in Canada, but only bishops in partibus infidelium.^[1] He asked information as to the number required, the means of providing for their sustenance; what priests deserved by their virtues to be raised to the dignity; whether the government was likely to oppose; and, if dioceses were to be created, what limits should be assigned.

In the autumn of 1815 the Rev. Edmund Burke sailed for Europe, avowedly to visit Ireland only, but in reality, without his superior's knowledge, to proceed to Rome. There, in an extensive memorial, in which more than one regrettable misstatement was made, he complained that the missions of Upper Canada and the Maritime Provinces were neglected; whereas the facts show that they had always been, and still were, as carefully attended to as the conditions of the time allowed. Among other things he stated that in the Maritime Provinces 'there was not even a Catholic school.' This was true in regard to the rich congregation of Halifax, to which he had himself, with almost episcopal powers, ministered for the previous fifteen years. But poor missionaries, such as the Abbé Antoine Manseau at Tracadie and the Abbé Jean Louis Beaubien at Rustico, had succeeded in establishing schools in their various missions. Finally he demanded the erection of Nova Scotia into a vicariate-apostolic. As he was highly recommended by the Archbishop of Dublin, and as the desire of Bishop Plessis for the division of his diocese was known, the erection of the vicariate was granted, and Father Burke was appointed to it under the name of Bishop of Zion. Bishop Plessis, whose agreement was expressly asked, gave his assent, and suggested, moreover, that Father Alexander Macdonell of St Raphael should also be made a bishop with jurisdiction over all Upper Canada. He added that his greatest wish was for a regular hierarchy, but that he did not hope to live to see it realized.

Bishop Burke was consecrated in Quebec by Bishop Plessis in 1818. In the same year he visited the south coast of Nova Scotia as far as Bay Ste Marie. In 1819 he went to the missions of the north shore—Antigonish, St Andrews, Tracadie and Arisaig. His legitimate ambition was to educate his own clergy. In 1818 he wrote: 'I have at present four young men studying theology.' He hoped in a few weeks to open his seminary. Two priests were ordained by him. He removed the old presbytery, built in 1785, to another place, and transformed it into a school for girls. The glebe-house, the old residence of the clergy, became a school for boys, with two ecclesiastics as professors, under the Rev. Father John Carroll, a nephew of the bishop. He also laid the foundations of the present beautiful St Mary's Cathedral. But he was already an old man, nearly a septuagenarian, and death soon put a stop to his undertakings. He died in November 1820, 'respected and regretted by all classes,' in the words of the Protestant historian Campbell. Despite certain common human defects he was truly a man of learning, energy and ability—one born to command.

In the preceding year (1819) Bishop Plessis had left for Europe with the intention of completing the organization of the Canadian Church. In 1816 he had sent Vicar-General Alexander Macdonell to London, in order to secure, by means of his credit with the British government, authority to create new bishoprics in Canada. This mission had been successful, and, in accordance with it, about the time when Nova Scotia became a vicariate-apostolic, Lord Castlereagh had asked the Holy See to erect two other vicariates-apostolic, one in Upper Canada and one in the Maritime Provinces, comprising New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and the Magdalen Islands.

Bishop Plessis had been in London only a few days when a letter from Canada apprised him that Quebec had been raised to the rank of an archbishopric, with two suffragan sees, New Brunswick and Upper Canada. At first he feared that the displeasure of the British ministers at this erection of an archbishopric, which they neither asked nor desired, might thwart his design of obtaining bishops for Montreal and the North-West. He nevertheless tendered to Lord Bathurst three short memorials—one requesting the division of the diocese of Quebec, another asking letters patent for the college of Nicolet, and a third on behalf of the Sulpicians. In the latter he eloquently proved that British honour and justice were committed to leaving the Seminary of Montreal in possession of its estates.

Lord Bathurst treated the bishop with marked favour, invited him to his country seat, and, after an amicable discussion, granted his requests. Even if the question of the Sulpicians' estates was not then finally settled, all proceedings in the way of confiscation were suspended. As for the new bishops, the colonial office consented to their consecration only on the express condition that they should be simply in partibus infidelium and subordinate to Quebec.

In Rome Pius VII received Bishop Plessis paternally, and made him a Roman count and assistant at the pontifical throne. He permitted him to waive the title of archbishop until England should have no objections. Bulls appointing the Abbé Provencher and the Abbé Lartigue were signed in February 1820. Those of Fathers Alexander Macdonell and Angus MacEacharn had been granted in the previous year.

Bishop Plessis returned to Canada in the summer of 1820, having achieved a greater success than he could have expected. Father Alexander Macdonell was consecrated in Quebec, on December 31, 1820, as Bishop of Resaina,^[2] for Upper Canada; Father Jean Jacques Lartigue, on January 21, 1821, as Bishop of Telmessus, for Montreal; Father Angus MacEacharn, on June 17, 1821, as Bishop of Rosea, for New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and the Magdalen Islands; Father Norbert Provencher on May 12, 1822, in Three Rivers, as Bishop of Juliopolis, for the North-West.

This was a decisive step towards a perfect hierarchy. Never afterwards did England place any obstacle in the way of its completion.

The death of Bishop Plessis in 1825 was a loss to church and state. At his princely funeral the governor-general, Lord Dalhousie, the members of the executive and legislative councils, and the judges of the King's Bench, followed the hearse. The garrison was under arms and minute-guns were fired. The man was dead, but his work lived. In the next part its wonderful progress will be described.

II
ONTARIO, THE MARITIME PROVINCES AND QUEBEC, 1825-1912

Ecclesiastical Province of Kingston

In 1826 Upper Canada was erected into an independent diocese, with Kingston as a see. The bishop, the Right Rev. Alexander Macdonell, continued to live in his old residence at St Raphael for several years longer. We have no official statistics of the exact number of Catholics at that period. In a letter to Lord Bathurst in 1817, Bishop Macdonell estimated it at 15,000 souls. In 1819 an account of the different missions of Upper Canada placed the figure at 14,915. There were only seven priests. In 1826 these were joined by the Rev. Peter William MacDonald, a student of Douai and Valladolid and a man of great ability, who afterwards became vicar-general and published for some years the first English Catholic newspaper in Canada—the Catholic.

In 1827 Bishop Macdonell began the visitation of his diocese. At Sandwich—the parish of the Assumption—where the Abbé Crevier had replaced the Abbé Marchand, he found that 'the Catholics were more numerous than in any other district west of Glengarry, and that their spiritual wants had been well looked after by a succession of zealous and devoted pastors.' He found many Catholics scattered in townships bordering on Lake Erie, and directed Father Campion,^[1] who, since 1812, had had charge of the rapidly increasing congregation of Niagara, to visit St Thomas and London twice a year. At Guelph, founded in the same year, a Protestant named John Galt, who was commissioner of the Canada Company, granted to the bishop, for religious buildings, a block of land on a beautiful hill, where the fine church of the Jesuits now stands.

In York, the 'muddy York,' which in 1834 had restored to it the ancient Indian name Toronto, Fathers Crowley and John O'Grady successively ministered to the Catholic congregation. A church—Old St Paul's—had been built, but it had a heavy debt, which Father O'Grady started a subscription to pay off. It is significant that Protestants as well as Catholics cheerfully contributed. Indeed, in the formation of the early parishes in Ontario and in the lower provinces, although bigotry sometimes prevailed, many instances of a similar toleration and brotherly feeling might be recorded.

ALEXANDER MACDONELL
From an engraving in the Dominion Archives

The years 1828 and 1829 saw the rise of the parishes of Peterborough, Belleville, Prescott and Bytown (now Ottawa). Bishop Macdonell was careful to secure, by grant of the government or by purchase, ground for chapels, churches, priests' houses, and cemeteries, in every place where he foresaw that a mission could be opened. The church was quickly growing: the influx of Irish Catholics had begun. From 1819 to 1825, 65,534 entered Canada. In a single year, 1831, the immigrants numbered 50,000. The flow continued in the following years until the famine of 1848, and afterwards slowly decreased. These newcomers sought in the New World bread and liberty. Many settled in the other provinces, but the largest proportion went to Ontario. In 1819, in a letter to the Bishop of Quebec, Bishop Macdonell estimated the Irish-Catholic population of Perth at 600 or 700 souls, and to this another contingent was added in 1822. In 1825, 400 families, numbering about 2000 souls, chiefly from the counties of Cork and Kerry, were induced to settle in the county of Peterborough. In 1831, 300 families, numbering 1700 souls, were allotted farms in the township of Dummer, in the same county, by Sir John Colborne. Such settlements were supplied with priests as soon as possible. In 1830 the clergy of Ontario numbered sixteen.

Perth, served at first (1817-20) by the Abbé Jacques de la Mothe, formerly chaplain to the Meurons, had as its pastors Father Patrick Sweeny (1820-25) and the Rev. John MacDonald (1825-32). A church was soon built on land granted by the government.

Father Crowley was the first pastor of Peterborough, and he built, on ground secured by the bishop, a church that has been transformed into the present beautiful cathedral. At Belleville the first priest was the Rev. Michael Brennan, who remained there for many years—even after the death of Bishop Macdonell.

Bytown, once considered the hell of Canada, owed its birth to Colonel By, the promoter and builder of the Rideau Canal, and partly also to the lumber trade which was inaugurated by Philemon Wright in 1801 on the north bank of the Ottawa River. Wright was not only a clear-minded and industrious business man, but had also the gift of foresight, and, in a letter still preserved, predicted that upon the hill opposite his establishment would one day stand the capital of Canada. Father Angus Macdonell, nephew of the bishop, in 1831-32 built the first church upon ground in the lower town which had been kindly granted by Colonel By. On the same site, ten years later, was erected, through the exertions of Father John Francis Cannon, a native of Quebec, a stone building, which, by successive enlargements and improvements, has become the now magnificent Basilica of the Immaculate Conception.

In St Raphael, Bishop Macdonell had built a beautiful church and also his seminary. For some years, on account of his seat in the legislative council, he lived in York, and afterwards, in 1836, in Kingston. His glory would have been incomplete had he been spared calumny. He had been obliged to silence and afterwards to depose Father John O'Grady of York, because of his ardent and untimely interference in politics. The priest, unfortunately, tried to avenge himself by accusing the bishop, before the Board of Grievances, of using for himself moneys granted by the government for churches and schools. He knew better, however, for the bishop had already written to him as follows: 'Although upwards of five thousand pounds behindhand between the new church of this parish (St Raphael) and other churches, with the expenses of supporting my ecclesiastics, and other outlays for Religion, I am unwilling to appropriate any of the small property, given for the use of the Church, as long as I can—in full reliance that his Divine Majesty, for whose honour and glory I have involved myself in difficulties, will in his gracious goodness extricate me out of them.'

The charge having been brought before the house of assembly, the bishop answered by a letter to Sir Francis Bond Head. This document will be quoted, in part at least, because it shows, better than any description could, the work of the missionary-prelate, and depicts the life of the priest and the state of the Church of Ontario in those early days; and because, as William Canniff, a Protestant historian, remarks, it was written 'under circumstances that precluded the possibility of any statement accidentally creeping in which could not be fully substantiated.'

He says, that when he arrived in Canada in 1803

About 1835 German Catholics began to settle in the county of Waterloo, and were soon followed by others of their countrymen from Baden, Würtemberg, Bavaria and the Rhine provinces. Industrious and intelligent, they prospered and formed new establishments in Bruce, Perth and Huron. At the same time Cobourg, Port Hope, Dundas, St Thomas, London and St Catharines received pastors. From 1835 to 1838 arose the parishes of Waterloo, Penetanguishene, Cornwall, and Raleigh on Lake Erie. At Penetanguishene, on the site of the famous Huron missions, where fell some of the most illustrious Jesuit martyrs, Father J. B. Proulx remained from 1835 to 1838, and, on his appointment to Manitoulin Island, was succeeded by Abbé A. Charest. No less than seven missions or parishes were formed from 1838 to 1839: L'Orignal, Amherstburg in the west, Toronto, Gore, Adjala, Lake Simcoe and Hamilton, where the first parish priest was Vicar-General W. P. MacDonald.

In 1830 Bishop Macdonell celebrated his golden jubilee. In a most moving address to his countrymen in Gaelic, which brought tears to the eyes of all hearers, according to the Reminiscences of Chevalier Macdonell, he 'recalled the hardships of years gone by, succeeded by the present spiritual and temporal advantages. In conclusion, as this might be the last opportunity he should have of appearing before them in this world, he begged forgiveness for any bad example he had given them, or for any neglect or omission of his duty during his ministry among them, trusting much to their prayers and supplications to the throne of Mercy on his behalf, to enable him to prepare his long and fearful accounts against the great and awful day of reckoning, which in the course of nature could not be far distant.'

In 1838 the foundation-stone of the Regiopolis College, Kingston, was laid on ground purchased in the preceding year. In order to raise funds for this institution Bishop Macdonell left for Europe in 1839. He unhappily fell ill in Ireland and died at Dumfries, in Scotland, on January 14, 1840. Both as patriot and churchman he was one of the greatest men that ever laboured in Canada. Men of his calibre are very scarce. It is true that unusual circumstances impelled him to action, but those circumstances were of such difficulty that, had he not been a man of exceptional powers, he would have been crushed beneath their weight.

He had been the friend of all classes—Canadians, Irish and Scots. Even to Protestants he had been kind, and his kindness had been repaid. In a pastoral letter he said: 'No man will say that in promoting temporal interests I ever made any difference between Catholic and Protestant; and indeed it would be unjust and ungrateful in me if I had, for I have found Protestants upon all occasions as ready to meet my wishes and second my efforts to promote public good as Catholics themselves.' On hearing of his death Lord Gosford, whose testimony is of especial weight, after saying that to Canada the loss was irreparable, added: 'I had the happiness and satisfaction of knowing him intimately: in honesty of purpose, in spotless integrity, manly-mindedness, and in benevolence of feeling, he was not to be surpassed.' His remains, first buried in Edinburgh, were brought back to Canada and laid to rest with becoming honours in the cathedral of Kingston in 1861.

At Bishop Macdonell's death there were thirty-four priests in Ontario and forty-eight parishes, or missions, with churches or chapels. Of the number of Catholics no official statistics exist. In 1834, however, Dr Thomas Rolph, whose friendly intercourse with Bishop Macdonell and his clergy put in an exceptional position to be well informed, states in detail, in A Brief Account ... with a Statistical Account of Upper Canada (1836), the Catholic population of each locality. His figures are too interesting to be omitted:

According to Rolph's figures there was a total of 52,428 out of an entire population of 321,145. In order not to misconstrue Dr Rolph's information, it must be remarked that each of the localities mentioned was only a centre, or a mother-mission, from which several other—sometimes several townships—were served. All these are carefully indicated by the accurate statistician, and their Catholic population is included in the main figure. Some of the missions, including the townships of Toronto, Trafalgar and Penetanguishene, had as yet no church; most had two, or even three, as Kingston; while Belleville had four.

Robert Montgomery Martin, in his extensive work The British Colonies, gives the following figures for the number of Catholics in Western Canada: 1842, 65,203; 1848, 123,702, out of a total of 723,292.

At the death of Bishop Macdonell, therefore, the number was certainly upwards of 60,000. According to the same authority the Catholic bishop received from the government £500 for himself and £1000 for his clergy. Although a reward for personal services, yet the pension was for a while continued to his successors; and we still find it mentioned in 1848, and again in 1850 during the debates on the clergy reserves, from which it was at least partly drawn and which were finally secularized in 1854. It is not likely that the pension of the Bishop of Kingston lasted longer than that granted to the Bishop of Quebec, which was suppressed at the death of Monseigneur Signay in 1850. Since that date the Catholic clergy of every province in Canada have received nothing from the government, but are sustained by their congregations: in Quebec, by the patriarchal institution of tithes, and in the other provinces, by a share of the church income or by special collections.

Bishop Macdonell had first chosen for his coadjutor the Right Rev. Thomas Weld of Lulworth, who had been consecrated in 1827 under the title of Bishop of Amycla. He never came to Canada, but made valuable donations to the Church of Ontario. He was raised to the cardinalate in 1830, and died in Rome in 1837. In his stead Father Rémi Gaulin (1787-1857) was consecrated coadjutor of Kingston in 1833 under the name of Bishop of Tabraca. He had for some time had charge of the college of St Raphael, and afterwards of the congregation of Kingston. He acceded to the see in 1840, and, as his health was failing, he immediately asked for a coadjutor and a division of his diocese. Both requests were granted. The diocese of Toronto, comprising all the western part of Ontario, was erected in 1841, and a distinguished priest was appointed to the coadjutorship.

At that time the congregation of Bytown had become quite unmanageable. After having been served for a time by the neighbouring clergy—Fathers Terence Smith of Richmond, Joseph Désautels of Aylmer, Pierre Lefaivre of L'Orignal and John Brady of Buckingham—two priests, the Abbés Rémi Neyron and Thomas Patrick Colgan, took up their residence there in 1842. They were soon obliged to give up the position. By way of fraternal assistance to the Bishop of Kingston, Bishop Bourget of Montreal sent to Bytown his vicar-general, the Rev. Patrick Phelan, who was born in Ireland in 1795. That able and saintly priest soon mastered the situation. He enlarged the church, and, with the help of his assistant, the Abbé Hippolyte Moreau, prepared for the visit that Bishop Gaulin made in 1843 to the country along the Ottawa River, where several establishments had already been formed and new ones were rising every day.

Vicar-General Phelan was elected to the coadjutorship of Kingston and consecrated Bishop of Carrha in 1843. Even after his consecration he remained for a time in Bytown, and in 1844, at the request of Bishop Bourget, he called there the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who were destined in after years to accomplish such wonderful work. Father Pierre Adrien Telmon was the first of the order in Bytown, which then contained 2362 Catholics, of whom 1298 were Irish and 1064 French Canadians.

The Bishop of Carrha had soon to assume the greater part of the administration of the diocese of Kingston. A noteworthy event, which took place in 1845, was the enactment of a statute by the house of assembly, by which civil incorporation was granted to the dioceses of Kingston and Toronto, and to all dioceses that might in future years be erected. In 1852 Bishop Gaulin retired from the ministry and took up his residence at St Philomène in the Province of Quebec, where he died in 1857. Only a month later Bishop Phelan also died.

The fourth Bishop of Kingston was the Right Rev. Edward John Horan, a native of Quebec and first president of the Laval Normal School. He was consecrated in 1858. He was a man of high culture and zeal, and enriched the diocese by several educational and charitable institutions. From 1841 the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame had two houses in Kingston, and after 1847 the Sisters of St Joseph of Montreal maintained a hospital. In 1860 Bishop Horan established the Sisters of Providence to found homes for orphans, and for infirm and destitute persons of both sexes. In 1912 they numbered 174 nuns in the city and had several houses in the diocese.

Kingston, the mother church of Ontario, had, like many mothers, to strip herself for her children. The diocese of Toronto (1841) and of Bytown (1847) took away all the western region and a large section of the eastern part of the province. In 1874, as several parishes had been formed in the northern districts, chiefly by the labours of the Abbé Jean François Jamot, vicar-general of Toronto, the Most Rev. John Lynch, who had been made archbishop in 1870, demanded the erection of the vicariate-apostolic of Northern Canada. This was formed, for the most part, of the archdiocese of Toronto, the upper part of Kingston, and a few townships of Ottawa, and Vicar-General Jamot was appointed to it with the title of Bishop of Sarepta.

Bishop Horan was succeeded by the Right Rev. John O'Brien (1832-79), whose administration lasted only four years (1875-79). The Right Rev. James Vincent Cleary, born in Ireland in 1828, who was for a time professor of theology and sacred scripture, afterwards president of St John's College at Waterford, and finally pastor of Dungarvan, his native parish, became the sixth Bishop of Kingston. In addition to the building of several churches and convents, two events deserving special attention took place under his rule of nearly twenty years—the reopening of Regiopolis College and the erection of Kingston into a metropolitan see. The college had been closed in 1869. In order to supply his diocese with a native clergy Bishop Cleary re-established the college on another site of the city—the old building having become a hospital—and liberally contributed to its now prosperous condition.

In 1889 Bishop Cleary became the first Archbishop of Kingston with two suffragans—Peterborough, a bishopric since 1882, and the see of Alexandria, which was erected in 1890. Alexandria comprised only the counties of Glengarry and Stormont, mostly peopled by the descendants of Scottish settlers. This small district then contained about 20,000 Catholics, 10 parishes, 15 churches, 12 priests, and 16 sisters in four convents. The first bishop was the Right Rev. Alexander Macdonell, born in Glengarry in 1833.

The vicariate-apostolic of Peterborough, erected, as stated above, into a bishopric in 1882, comprised, besides the counties of Durham, Northumberland and Victoria, the immense districts of Muskoka, Algoma, Parry Sound and Nipissing, with a population of about 30,000 Catholics, of whom 5000 were Indians. There were 47 churches or chapels and 25 priests, 11 of whom were Jesuits in charge of the Indian missions. The Right Rev. Jean François Jamot was replaced by the Right Rev. Thomas Joseph Dowling, a native of Limerick and vicar-general of Hamilton. Consecrated Bishop of Peterborough in 1887, he was transferred in 1889 to Hamilton, and was still titular of that diocese in 1912. He was replaced in the former see by the present bishop, the Right Rev. Richard O'Connor,^[2] born at Listowell, Ireland, in 1838, but from his early childhood a citizen of Toronto, where he was one of the first pupils of St Michael's College. He had been for many years dean of Barrie when, in 1889, he was raised to the episcopacy by Leo XIII.

During his administration a considerable number of immigrants had begun to settle in the northern part of his diocese, the region now called New Ontario. That district, with its beautiful lakes, rivers and rich soil, rapidly prospered through its agriculture, commerce and industry. In 1904 Pius X cut from Peterborough the western part of Nipissing, with the districts of Algoma and Thunder Bay, and formed the new diocese of Sault Ste Marie. The Right Rev. David Joseph Scollard, born at Ennismore, Ontario, in 1862, was appointed its bishop and consecrated in February 1905. He also is a suffragan of Kingston.

Before the division Peterborough had 49,190 Catholics, 59 priests, 39 parishes and 4 hospitals; after it there remained only 24,000 Catholics, 28 priests, 21 parishes, 41 churches and 1 hospital. In 1905 Sault Ste Marie already numbered 33,000 Catholics, 7 secular and 30 regular priests, 45 churches, 20 parishes and 25 missions, and 3 hospitals.

After the death of Archbishop Cleary in 1898 the metropolitan church of Kingston was ruled over by the Most Rev. Charles Hugh Gauthier, born at Alexandria in 1843, who was transferred to the archiepiscopal see of Ottawa in 1910. His successor was the Right Rev. Michael J. Spratt (b. 1854), consecrated in November 1911.

STATISTICS OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL PROVINCE OF KINGSTON IN 1912

1. Extent of Dioceses

2. Population and Institutions

Ecclesiastical Province of Toronto

While Kingston was so quickly developing, Toronto progressed in a still more marvellous manner. It had been erected in 1841 into an independent bishopric, and the Right Rev. Michael Power was appointed bishop. He was born in Halifax in 1804, and studied at the Seminary of Montreal, where he was ordained in 1827 by Bishop Dubois of New York. Successively a missionary at Drummondville (1827-1831), a parish priest at Montebello on the banks of the Ottawa (1831-33), at St Martine and at Laprairie, he afterwards became vicar-general of Montreal. The Jesuits were now returning to the scene of their former labours. As they were prevented from taking charge of Chambly College, for which they had been called, Bishop Power, who had been recently consecrated (May 8, 1842), persuaded Bishop Bourget to grant them the pastorship of Laprairie (1842), an action gratefully recorded by the Jesuits.

To become acquainted with his diocese and to improve its organization, the new bishop held a synod, in October 1842, after a retreat preached to the clergy by Father Chazelle, one of the newly arrived Jesuits. Toronto had then nineteen priests, and of these sixteen were present at the synod. The chief acts of the synod were the consecration of the diocese to the Sacred Heart, and a decree for the establishment of a college at Sandwich. This institution, however, was not immediately founded—not, indeed, until 1857, ten years after Bishop Power's death.

In a letter to Father Roothaan, superior-general of the Society of Jesus, written in 1842 with a view to obtaining Jesuits for his diocese, the prelate estimates the number of Catholics at 50,000, Toronto having 3000 out of a population of 13,000. Two Jesuits, Fathers Pierre Point and John Chone, took charge of the Congregation of the Assumption at Sandwich, which they kept until 1859.

Bishop Power purchased for £1800 ground for a cathedral, a convent, and a house for himself. The cathedral, begun in 1845, was finished in 1848, and was then consecrated by Bishop Bourget, assisted by Bishop Phelan of Kingston. Meanwhile the episcopal palace was erected. The Bishop of Toronto went to Europe in 1847 in order to secure more priests for his diocese, which at that time had only twenty-five, eight of whom were Jesuits. Before returning he concluded arrangements with the Sisters of Loretto, in Ireland, for an establishment in his diocese. Accordingly, in September 1847, a colony of five nuns came to Toronto. Their protector and father had died, but they were heartily welcomed and aided by the Catholics. They now have their mother-house in the city and several flourishing convents in Upper Canada and in the United States.

The saintly and fruitful career of Bishop Power had been unhappily broken in its prime. He heroically fell, in 1847, a martyr to his zeal and sympathy for the unfortunate victims of typhus.

After his death the diocese was administered, until a successor was chosen, by Vicar-General John Carroll, the nephew of the Right Rev. Edmund Burke of Halifax, who had come to Toronto in 1843, and by the Rev. John James Hay, secretary to the late bishop.

In 1850 a Sulpician, Father Armand François Marie de Charbonnel (1802-91), son of a French count, was elected second bishop of Toronto. While yet a young man he had taught theology and philosophy at Lyons, and had been almoner of the Duchess of Berry. He came to Canada in 1839. He was consecrated in Rome by Pius IX. One of his first acts as bishop was to pay off, out of his income, a mortgage of $10,000 on the cathedral. There was, besides, a debt of $60,000, which the Hon. John Elmsly, a member of the executive council and a convert to Catholicism in 1834, had temporarily assumed. To get rid of this burden the bishop, who was an eloquent preacher, visited many places in Canada and the United States soliciting alms for his large but poor diocese.

Above the financial achievements of Bishop de Charbonnel, however, must be reckoned his labours in the cause of education and charity. He founded, in 1851, the mother-house of the Sisters of St Joseph, whom he obtained from St Louis, and who now (1913) number in Toronto alone more than two hundred nuns, and have twelve schools, and homes for infants and old and destitute persons, besides having several convents in the province. Another improvement was the introduction in 1851 of the Christian Brothers, who now have a novitiate in the city and teach over one thousand boys in eight schools. St Michael's College was founded in the same year (1851), and Bishop de Charbonnel entrusted it to the Basilian Fathers, whom he brought from France. Under his administration were erected the dioceses of London (1855) and of Hamilton (1856).

As early as 1856 he thought of appointing a coadjutor who would succeed him. He had, in 1859, an opportunity of appreciating the rare merits of the Rev. John Joseph Lynch, the founder and president of the College of the Angels, on the United States side of the Niagara River, and therefore chose him for the position. Father Lynch (1816-88), a native of Clones, in Ireland, was consecrated, under the title of Bishop of Echynos, in August 1859, and in April 1860 became titular of Toronto. Bishop de Charbonnel, who for many years had longed for the silence and tranquillity of monastic life, tendered his resignation to Pius IX and entered the austere order of the Capuchins. He died, almost a nonagenarian, in 1891.

Bishop Lynch greatly developed the educational and charitable institutions founded by his predecessors. In 1859 there were in the diocese of Toronto 43 churches, with 22 secular priests and 4 Basilians. In 1861 the number of Catholics was 43,071. Of the priests, some went to labour in other fields and some died, so that after a few years only ten of the old clergy remained. Empty places were not always easily filled, for the number of candidates for priesthood was unhappily not in proportion to the needs of the ministry. The bishop keenly felt the scarcity of workmen, and addressed a stirring pastoral on the subject to his flock. To supply the need as well as he could, he took into his palace a few young men eager to enter ecclesiastical life, and, with the help of some assistants, began to teach them himself.

In 1870, while in Rome attending the Vatican Council, he was raised to the dignity of archbishop, and received the pallium at the hands of Cardinal Antonelli. Toronto, at the request of the fourth provincial council of Quebec, was made the Metropolitan See of Upper Canada, with Kingston, Hamilton and London as suffragans.

In 1875 was held the first—and as yet the only—provincial council of Toronto. In addition to several rules of discipline and liturgy, this council passed several noteworthy decrees in regard to the erection of seminaries, the creation of deans charged with supervision over a certain number of parishes, the establishment of the devotion of the Forty-Hours' adoration, the fixation of revenues for churches and priests and for bishops. The first decree renewed all such decrees of the first four councils of Quebec as were suitable for Upper Canada. Among the regulations it may be interesting to note the two by which, in Ontario, Catholics were dispensed from the tithes prevalent in Lower Canada, and the clergy from wearing their priestly garments in public when not engaged in the service of the church. Besides this council Archbishop Lynch convoked two synods, one in 1863 and one in 1882. The records of the latter show that the number of priests in the archdiocese of Toronto was at that time forty-eight.

Among other events during his administration must be mentioned the establishment in the city in 1869 of the Sisters of the Precious Blood, the erection of the beautiful Academy of Loretto, and of a Convent of Carmelite Fathers in 1875 at Falls' View, Niagara. In recent years the Carmelites have built at this spot a magnificent monastery, in which pilgrims, lay or clerical, who wish to enjoy the magnificent scenery, receive the most cordial hospitality. In 1881 the Redemptorist Fathers were called to Toronto and given charge of St Patrick's Church. The archbishop greatly promoted the cause of Catholic separate schools, so actively upheld by his predecessors, and by his liberal spirit largely helped to destroy the keen anti-Catholic feeling that had too long existed in Toronto. On the silver jubilee of his episcopacy (1884), at a banquet in which Protestants as well as Catholics took part, Lieutenant-Governor Robinson in a toast said: 'I remember that, when Bishop Jamot was installed at Peterborough some three years ago, a prominent newspaper stated that, at the banquet given on that occasion, as many Protestants were present as Catholics. The evidence of good feeling is renewed here to-night. The Archbishop of Toronto, in the discharge of his great duties, has preached the Gospel of peace and good will and mutual respect.' The death of the great archbishop in 1888 was universally regretted.

His successor, the Most Rev. John Walsh (1830-98), born at Mooncoin, Ireland, was also a man of exceptional powers. He was ordained in 1854, shortly after his arrival in Canada, and, after some years in the ministry as missionary or parish priest, became vicar-general of Toronto. In 1867 he was made second Bishop of Sandwich, succeeding Bishop Pinsonnault (1815-83), a Sulpician and a native of the Province of Quebec, who had been appointed to the new see of London in 1856. Bishop Pinsonnault, with the consent of the Holy Father, in 1859 transferred his seat from London to Sandwich, the old and prosperous French settlement on the left bank of the Detroit River. Meanwhile the Dominican Fathers had been called to serve London.

In Sandwich, from 1843, the Jesuits had ministered to the congregation, finished the church, and carried out the wish of the late saintly Bishop Power, by opening the College of the Assumption (1857). They left in 1859, amid universal regret, and Bishop Pinsonnault, with his clergy, took charge of the parish and of the college. In 1863 the Rev. Sisters of the Sacred Heart founded a convent there, but after a few years removed to London, whither the seat of the diocese had been again transferred. Bishop Pinsonnault had tendered his resignation in 1866 on account of ill-health, and his successor, Bishop Walsh, had chosen, with the permission of Rome, to return to the former see (1869). The Basilians were then charged with the parish of Sandwich and the College of the Assumption (1870), which they have retained ever since.

Endowed with talents of a high order and with remarkable administrative ability, Bishop Walsh soon made the diocese of London one of the most prosperous in Ontario. A heavy debt was paid off, a beautiful cathedral was erected, and new missions and parishes were created. The number of Catholics was 44,122 in 1861, and 62,667 in 1881, while Toronto, at these respective dates, had only 43,071 and 52,706. In 1889 Bishop Walsh was transferred to the archiepiscopal see of Toronto, in which post he worthily rivalled his distinguished predecessor.

He was succeeded in both places by the Right Rev. Dennis O'Connor, a Basilian, superior of the College of the Assumption, who was consecrated Bishop of London in 1890 and became Archbishop of Toronto in 1899. In 1908 he resigned his dignity. Archbishop O'Connor died in 1911 at the age of sixty-seven. His successor in London, the Right Rev. Patrick M^cEvay (1852-1911), formerly vicar-general of Hamilton and consecrated in 1899, succeeded him also in Toronto. His recent demise is still lamented. The see of Toronto was vacant until December 1912, when it was filled by the appointment of His Grace Neil M^cNeil, Archbishop of Vancouver.

While Toronto and London so progressed hand in hand that three times the bishop of the latter ascended the archiepiscopal cathedra of the former, the diocese of Hamilton did not remain inactive. Erected on February 17, 1856, it was entrusted to the Right Rev. John Farrell (1820-73), a native of Armagh, Ireland, who was consecrated in 1856. During his administration the Fathers of the Resurrection came to Hamilton (1857) and were encouraged in the foundation of St Jerome's College at Berlin. In 1863 Bishop Farrell placed the Basilian Fathers in charge of the Owen Sound missions, which are still in their hands. Among his other works may be mentioned the erection of St Mary's Cathedral, and the establishment in 1861 of the Sisters of Loretto and of St Joseph at Guelph. Both communities were already at Hamilton. The latter has there a mother-house founded in 1851, and several convents in the diocese. In 1871 came the Sisters of the Schools of Notre Dame, who have now several establishments in Hamilton.

The development continued under Bishop Farrell's successors, the Right Rev. P. F. Crinnon, who was born in Ireland (1818-82) and consecrated in 1873, and the Right Rev. James I. Carbery, an Irish Dominican (1823-87), who became Bishop of Hamilton in 1883.

After these two short administrations the diocese was entrusted to the Right Rev. Thomas Joseph Dowling, who was transferred from Peterborough to Hamilton in 1889.

The latter diocese had 39,565 Catholics in 1861 and 37,246 in 1881.

STATISTICS OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL PROVINCE OF TORONTO IN 1911

1. Extent of Dioceses

2. Population and Institutions

Ecclesiastical Province of Ottawa

Six years after the diocese of Toronto had been separated from Kingston, the eastern part of Ontario was in its turn cut off and, with the western portion of Quebec, erected into a separate bishopric (1847), that of Bytown, afterwards Ottawa. This, like the bishopric of Toronto, was marked out for a glorious destiny.

The counties taken from Ontario were Prescott, Russell, Carleton, the northern part of Lanark, and Renfrew, with 24,830 Catholics; from Quebec, the county of Ottawa, then including Pontiac, together with a part of what is now the county of Argenteuil. The number of Catholics taken from Quebec was 14,106: the total in the whole diocese, therefore, being 38,936. These figures are from the census of 1851, and do not give an exact idea of the Catholic population of the diocese of Ottawa at the time of its erection. A fair estimate for 1847 would be about 35,000 or 36,000. The Protestants numbered at the same census 48,699.

The early years of Bytown have already been mentioned. The first occupant of the new see was chosen from the Order of the Oblates, who had been in charge of the congregation since 1844. Their provincial superior, the Rev. Father Joseph Eugène Bruno Guigues (1805-74), was elected in 1847 and consecrated in 1848. He had judged it advisable to spend one year in the study of English, a very necessary equipment in a diocese which then numbered 23,690 Irish out of a total Catholic population of 38,936.

On the erection of a new diocese missionaries have the right to choose whether they will remain in it or return to their former diocese. In this case several of them went back to Kingston or to Montreal, to which they formerly belonged; only six remained. But Bishop Guigues, having retained his office as provincial, had other workers at his disposal. In his report of 1848 he mentions 3 stone churches, 5 frame ones, and 25 log chapels. Only one presbytery—that at Aylmer—was in proper condition. Bytown had then no more than 7760 souls, of whom about 4798 were Catholics. In 1854 the name Bytown became a thing of the past and the ancient name of the River Ottawa was given to the place. In 1858 Ottawa was selected by Queen Victoria as the capital of the United Canadas, and the prophecy of Philemon Wright in 1831 was accomplished. The population was then 14,669, of whom 8267 were Catholics.

The task that lay before Bishop Guigues was immense, but he was equal to it. Through his activity, with the hearty and unceasing help of the Oblates and the devotion of his secular clergy, flourishing institutions, convents, churches and parishes have sprung up: the cathedral, consecrated by the papal envoy, Monsignor Bedini; the seminary and the college, transformed in 1866 into the University of Ottawa; several churches in the city and suburbs; the hospital, orphanage and magnificent mother-house of the Grey Nuns. These sisters had come from Montreal to Bytown in 1845; in 1847 they had done heroic work in aiding the Oblate Fathers to care for the poor fever-stricken Irish immigrants. Under Bishop Guigues they became independent of the mother-house in Montreal (1854), and took the name of 'Grey Nuns of the Cross' (1885), approved by Rome in 1889. They numbered in 1912 nearly seven hundred sisters, distributed among seventeen dioceses of Canada and the United States.

The bishop gave a great impetus to the missions in the country north of the Ottawa. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Algonquins of Allumette and Calumet Islands, of Forts Coulonge and William, on the upper Ottawa, were still pagans. The missionaries of the Far West, following the course of the Ottawa River, used to stop at Mattawa to minister the sacraments to such of the employees of the Hudson's Bay Company—clerks, trappers and lumbermen—as belonged to the Catholic religion. Bishop Provencher, while stopping there in 1835 on his way to Rome, wrote an interesting account of the wants of the region. In 1836 Father Paschal Brunet, missionary to the Petite-Nation (now Montebello), and Father J. Francis Cannon of Bytown, were directed by the Bishop of Montreal, in whose jurisdiction those territories lay, to visit the posts on the upper Ottawa. They went as far as Fort Coulonge, where they found quite a number of families.

In the same year Father Louis Charles le Febvre de Bellefeuille, a Sulpician, whose name has remained prominent in the history of those missions, went with Father Jean-Baptiste Dupuis to preach the gospel to the Algonquins of Lake Timiskaming. He repeated his journey with success in 1837 and 1838, but died at his task at the early age of forty-three. He was replaced by Father Hippolyte Moreau, a young priest who had made a special study of Algonquin at Oka. Along with Father Charles Édouard Poiré of Quebec, formerly a missionary in the North-West, Father Moreau paid a yearly visit to these distant places until 1844. In 1845 these missions were entrusted to the Oblates. Father Laverlochère, the indefatigable missionary to the Indians, with Father Garin, began his long wanderings in the region of Lakes Timiskaming and Abitibi. In 1847 he even went as far as Hudson Bay.

In the meantime there were forming in the county of Ottawa the now flourishing parishes of Montebello, Grenville, Buckingham, Aylmer, Portage-du-Fort, Fort Coulonge, St Alphonsus of Allumette, Ste Anne and St Alexander of Calumet, St Stephen of Chelsea, St Francis of Sales on the Gatineau, and St Joseph of Farrelton. After his visit of 1843 Bishop Bourget writes: 'We have planted the cross in eight places where that sign of the Redemption had never been venerated before; solemnly blessed four chapels, erected the Stations of the Cross in seven churches, established eight new missions, and selected sites for three chapels to be built.'

In the county of Renfrew, after 1843, the Irish were settling rapidly. Father John M^cNulty erected for them the first wooden chapels of Mount St Patrick, Osceola, Douglas and Eganville, and served them all single-handed for several years.

By the zeal of Bishop Guigues missions and parishes continued to increase in number and importance. Several of the new settlements were destined to be remarkably prosperous, especially Renfrew, Arnprior and Pembroke, which is now an episcopal see. He founded a society for colonization, and encouraged the formation of new establishments on the Lièvre and Gatineau Rivers. On the latter, between the Aigle and Desert Rivers, he obtained for the Indians a reservation of 60,000 acres, and another of about 100,000 acres at the head of Lake Timiskaming. At the former place he founded, and entrusted to the Oblates, the famous Mission of Maniwaki (1851). As the Indians, being regarded by the law as minors, could not legally possess property, the bishop, in submitting their requests to Lord Elgin, suggested the very natural arrangement that the letters patent should be granted in the name of the episcopal corporation of Bytown—under the restrictions that the property was granted for the use of the Indians and that it could not be alienated. The Hon. Thomas M^cKay, formerly a member of the house for Russell, and then a legislative councillor, publicly assailed the disinterestedness of the bishop's motives while the latter was in Europe. But Bishop Guigues, on his return, in two convincing letters showed the unselfishness of his actions on behalf of the Indians.

The Oblates of Maniwaki, in addition to several settlements in the neighbourhood, served also the Indians of Great Lake, Waswanipi and Montaching, at the head of the St Maurice River. They also ministered, from 1855 to 1865, at Hudson Bay, which then fell to the lot of the Fathers of Lake Timiskaming.

As Bishop Guigues could not rely on Canadian recruits to supply all the wants of his vast diocese, he endeavoured on his several journeys to Rome to obtain priests from Europe. Forty secular priests, besides a larger number of regulars, came to him from France, chiefly from the diocese of Gap, his native place. Many also came from Ireland. In 1874, when he died, the diocese of Ottawa contained 55 parishes, 33 missions, 54 secular priests, 26 regulars, 4 religious communities and 13 convents, the Catholic population being 96,548, of whom 56,474 were French Canadians and 40,074 Irish and English. In 1871 about one-third (33,908) belonged to the Province of Quebec.

Under his successor, Bishop Joseph Thomas Duhamel (1841-1909), progress was continued. Several orders of men and women were admitted: in 1883 the Fathers of the Society of Mary, who have now houses in a few parishes of the diocese; in 1884 the Dominicans, who were in charge of St John the Baptist's Church and have now their novitiate there; in 1890 the Capuchins, who serve St Francis of Assisi in the city; in 1891 the Rev. Canons of the Immaculate Conception, who settled at Nomining; in 1892 the Brothers of the Christian Schools; the Sisters of Mercy in 1879, of the Precious Blood in 1887, of La Sagesse in 1901, and of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in 1902. The northern townships were opened up and several new parishes were formed. In 1881 the Catholic population of the diocese was 127,933, of whom 82,264 were French Canadians and 45,669 English-speaking Catholics.

A division was deemed necessary. An immense country—extending in the north to Hudson Bay, and having as its boundaries, on the east the Prefecture of the Gulf of St Lawrence, on the west the diocese of St Boniface, and on the south the dioceses of Chicoutimi, Quebec, Three Rivers, Ottawa, Kingston and Peterborough—was erected, in 1882, into the vicariate-apostolic of Pontiac. Partly in Quebec, partly in New Ontario, north of the Great Lakes, it comprised also, in the Province of Ontario, the county of Renfrew, the northern part of Frontenac, Addington and Hastings, with sixteen townships of Haliburton. Its administration was placed in charge of the Right Rev. Narcisse-Zéphyrin Lorrain (b. 1842), who was consecrated in 1882 Bishop of Cythera. Bishop Lorrain chose for his residence the thriving little city of Pembroke, at the junction of the Muskrat River with the Ottawa. The vicariate-apostolic became a bishopric in 1898. It was made a suffragan of Ottawa after 1887, when the latter see was raised to the rank of an archbishopric.

The vicariate-apostolic of Pontiac, on its erection, contained sixteen parishes and about twenty missions. There were eighteen secular priests and nine Oblate Fathers, who served not only the lumber camps, but also the Indian missions of the Bonnechère River, Fort William, Lake Abitibi, the upper Ottawa and St Maurice Rivers, and of Moose Factory and Albany on Hudson Bay. There were twenty-four Grey Nuns in the convents of Pembroke, Eganville, Mattawa and Timiskaming. The number of Catholics, including about 4000 Indians in the Hudson Bay region, was a little more than 32,000.

By 1908 a remarkable development had been achieved. The Catholics numbered 48,956, with 50 priests, 30 parishes, 31 churches and 51 chapels in the missions. Several important establishments had been formed in the rich and beautiful region of the Timiskaming. Chiefly on account of its immense territory, a division of the diocese of Pembroke was judged necessary, and the vicariate-apostolic of Timiskaming was created on September 22, 1908. It comprises the north of the county of Pontiac, above the 47th degree of latitude, and all the region between the 72nd and 91st degrees of longitude: that is to say, the northerly wilderness between the diocese of Chicoutimi, in the east, and the western limit of the district of Thunder Bay; or, in other words, the northern part of the Province of Quebec and of the districts of Nipissing and Algoma with all Thunder Bay, in Ontario. The Right Rev. Elie Anicet Latulippe was placed in charge of the new vicariate, and was consecrated Bishop of Catenna in November 1908. He selected as his seat Haileybury on Lake Timiskaming. He is also a suffragan of Ottawa.

STATISTICS OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL PROVINCE OF OTTAWA IN 1911

1. Extent of Dioceses

2. Population and Institutions

The Ecclesiastical Province of Halifax

While the development of the church in the Maritime Provinces did not equal its progress in Ontario, it was nevertheless remarkable.

The Right Rev. Edmund Burke, vicar-apostolic of Nova Scotia, had applied to the Propaganda to obtain a coadjutor, designating the Rev. Thomas Maguire of Quebec for the position. But the worthy priest felt no inclination to accept the burdensome honour, and the vicariate, after the death of the Bishop of Zion (1820), fell to the care of the Right Rev. Angus MacEacharn, Bishop of Rosea, and auxiliary of the Bishop of Quebec in Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. This zealous missionary had to struggle with many difficulties. As priests were very scarce, each had to serve several localities; and since proper roads, or roads of any sort, were lacking, the frequent journeys entailed many a heavy sacrifice. The priest had sometimes to journey through the virgin forest for whole days, in all seasons and in all kinds of weather, across icy rivers or through deep snows, or, at sea, in small and dangerous craft, in order to administer the consolations of religion to some departing soul. In an address to the Catholics of Halifax the Right Rev. Louis Thomas Connolly, who was appointed in 1852 Bishop of St John, New Brunswick, said:

Bishop MacEacharn worked as hard as any of his clergy, or even harder. One of his letters to Bishop Plessis, written in 1813, while he was still a priest, deserves quotation, for it shows better than any eulogy the simple greatness and heroic faith of the man who for upwards of twenty-two years had led the kind of life described, and was to lead it for twenty more:

In 1822 one of the young men he had sent to the Seminary of Quebec, Bernard Donald MacDonald, was ordained, and, after having for a few months ministered in Quebec to Irish immigrants stricken with the fever, returned to Prince Edward Island. He was appointed to Rustico in place of a Canadian priest, Father Joseph Étienne Cécile, who returned to Quebec. From there he served all the western settlements, Acadian as well as Scottish, the bishop keeping for himself all the eastern stations.

A priest named Father Fitzgerald came from Newfoundland to Charlottetown in 1823 and completed the building of the church there. In 1824 William MacLeod, and in 1825 John Chisholm, were ordained at Charlottetown, and the latter was sent as a missionary to Cape Breton. In 1827 the ordination took place of Sylvain Perry (or Poirier), who was placed in charge of Tignish, Cascumpeque, Mount Carmel and Egmont Bay. To supply the needs of his missions the bishop began to instruct boys in his house at St Andrews and sent some to Rome. In 1827, in the Church of St Ninian at Antigonish, he consecrated the second vicar-apostolic of Nova Scotia, the Right Rev. William Fraser.

Although at that time Catholics had increased in numbers and importance, yet their social situation, particularly in Prince Edward Island, was far from what it ought to have been. While in Upper Canada they had been admitted to prominent civil and military offices since the beginning of the century, they had not yet in Prince Edward Island even the right to vote. When the island was granted a house of assembly and a separate administration, the laird of Glenaladale, John Macdonald, would have been appointed to the lieutenant-governorship, which was offered to him, but for the odious Test Oath still in existence. In Europe, Catholic emancipation was slowly progressing through the efforts of O'Connell. In Cape Breton, in 1825, a Catholic had been elected and, by the influence of Lord Dalhousie, admitted to his seat in the legislature.

In Nova Scotia the obstructive and unjust Test Oath was abolished in 1827 after the presentation of an address to His Majesty on the subject. The vote was carried unanimously through the efforts of T. C. Haliburton, then deputy of Clare, assisted by R. J. Uniacke. A few lines from Haliburton's eloquent discourse must be quoted here. Alluding to the magnificent works of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland which had been destroyed by the Reformation, he said:

His conclusion was one of the most pathetic, in the records of eloquence. He said:

The effect was overpowering and no voice was raised against Catholic freedom in Nova Scotia.

In Prince Edward Island such broadmindedness had not yet triumphed over bigotry. In 1827 the Catholics there presented a petition to the house of assembly for the same privilege. Lieutenant-Governor Ready favoured them. The question was discussed at the beginning of 1827, and the petition was supported by Mr Cameron and Dr M^cAuley. But, in spite of an eloquent speech by the attorney-general, it was lost by the vote of the speaker. Another attempt was equally unsuccessful. Unfortunately Prince Edward Island was not ready for such an act of justice until the emancipation of the Catholics in England in 1829. Even then the legislature of the island would not admit that the law applied to colonies, until the colonial secretary, Sir G. Murray, wrote instructing Colonel Ready that the measure must be extended to the colony. This was done in 1830.

Happier days then began to dawn for Catholics. One of them, Mr MacDonald of Charlottetown, was elected to parliament without opposition, and, in the election which followed the death of George IV (1830), four Catholics entered the legislature for Kings County. The Rev. Father Donald MacDonald was appointed to the Board of Education.

In 1829 Charlottetown was erected into a bishopric which was to comprise Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and the Magdalen Islands. In the following year Bishop MacEacharn, having received the Bulls for the erection, took possession of his see with great pomp on November 11.

In 1831 he opened St Andrew's College, the presidency of which he entrusted to an Irish priest, Father Walsh, who had come to Nova Scotia in 1830 with Irish immigrants. At first it was merely a high school, but it nevertheless prepared many young men for more complete studies which opened to them a way to the priesthood. It made rapid progress, and a board of trustees was chosen and incorporated for its administration.

The building of a new church was rendered necessary by the increase of the population, and in order to raise funds for that purpose a stirring and convincing sermon was preached by Father Walsh. Governor Young and many Protestants were present and gave generous contributions. This, like many other things, proved that the former antagonism between Protestants and Catholics was more a matter of law than of popular feeling.

Bishop MacEacharn appointed two vicars-general: the Abbé Antoine Gagnon in New Brunswick, and the Rev. Donald MacDonald in Charlottetown. The bishop died soon afterwards (1835) in the midst of his benevolent activities. His successor, the Right Rev. Donald MacDonald (1797-1859) was consecrated in 1837 at Quebec. Bishop MacDonald was obliged to close St Andrew's College in 1844. Eleven years later (1855) the now prosperous St Dunstan College was opened at Charlottetown. In 1857 the bishop invited the Sisters of Notre Dame to establish a convent in the city, and later on another at Tignish.

From 1860 to 1891 the diocese of Charlottetown was ruled by the Right Rev. Peter M^cIntyre (1818-91), during whose administration five convents of the Sisters of Notre Dame were founded, as well as a hospital and orphanage in charge of the Grey Nuns of Quebec (1875). The number of priests, parishes and Catholics greatly increased. While in 1767 the island numbered barely 300 Catholics, there were 20,335 in 1841; 35,852 in 1861; and 47,837 in 1891.

The Right Rev. James Charles MacDonald (b. 1840), consecrated in 1890 Bishop of Hirina and coadjutor of Bishop M^cIntyre, succeeded to the see of Charlottetown, which he still occupies. After 1842 the diocese of Charlottetown was limited to Prince Edward Island and the Magdalen Islands, several other dioceses being formed at that time.

In 1842 Halifax was raised from a vicariate-apostolic to a bishopric, comprising Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. The first titular was the Right Rev. William Fraser, who, as mentioned above, had been consecrated in 1837 by Bishop MacEacharn under the name of Bishop of Tanes. In the same year New Brunswick had been separated from the diocese of Charlottetown and created a distinct bishopric, which is sometimes called Fredericton. The first bishop was the Right Rev. William Dollard (1789-1851), born in Ireland and ordained in Quebec by Bishop Plessis. He had been a missionary in Cape Breton and afterwards in New Brunswick, where he had served Miramichi and Fredericton, while Vicar-General Antoine Gagnon ministered to the northern stations. His zeal and devotion in ministering to the smallpox victims inspired John Francis Maguire, the author of The Irish in America, with sentiments of admiration. 'Is it to be wondered,' he says, 'that the Church should have made the progress it has done, when such was the spirit of [its] early missionaries?'

Bishop Dollard's successor was the Right Rev. Louis Thomas Connolly (1815-76), a native of Cork, in Ireland, and a member of the Capuchin Order. After being secretary (1842) and then vicar-general (1845) to Bishop Walsh of Halifax, he was elected Bishop of St John, New Brunswick. He began there the erection of the cathedral and built an orphanage, the management of which he entrusted to the Sisters of Charity. These sisters were founded by himself (1854), and they have now, besides their mother-house, several homes and convents in the city and other parts of the diocese. Transferred in 1859 to the archiepiscopal see of Halifax, Bishop Connolly was succeeded in St John by the Right Rev. John Sweeny (1821-1901), a remarkable man, born at Clones, in Ireland, who was consecrated in 1860.

New Brunswick then contained 85,000 Catholics—85,238 in 1861, to be precise. A division of the diocese of St John was deemed necessary, and all the northern part was erected into the diocese of Chatham (1860). The new bishopric had for its first titular the Right Rev. James Rogers, also a native of Ireland (1826-1903), who continued to administer it for a period of forty-two years. When he handed it over in 1902 to his coadjutor, the present bishop, the Right Rev. Thomas Barry (b. 1841), a native of New Brunswick, the diocese had attained a remarkable degree of prosperity. There were 53,000 Catholics, 45 parishes with 22 missions, 60 priests, one college at Caraquet under the Eudist Fathers, one hospital, and in different places nine convents of the Sisters of St Joseph (from Montreal), the Sisters of Charity, and the Sisters of the Congregation of Notre Dame. In the same year (1902) another college was started at Rogerville by Father Marcel Richard, the parish priest, and entrusted to the Eudist Fathers. The Cistercian Order (Trappists) also founded the monastery of Notre Dame of Calvary in the same little town.

The episcopate of Bishop Sweeny in St John, which nearly equalled that of Bishop Rogers in length (1860-1901), even surpassed it in success. Many new parishes were erected and many new churches and convents were built. In 1813 the Sisters of the Good Shepherd were called to take charge of an asylum for repentant women. The number of priests, which was 19 in 1860, had grown to 32 in 1867 and 63 in 1901. The bishop encouraged colonization and, on a concession of 10,000 acres, successively enlarged to 36,000 acres, he established the settlement of Johnville. Although begun only in 1861, it numbered upwards of 600 souls in 1866 and was in the full tide of prosperity. Acadians found in him a staunch friend, and formed in his time several successful establishments. In order to further their education the college of Memramcook was founded in 1864 by the Fathers of the Holy Cross, with Father Lefèvre as their head. The project was started by a humble curé, Father F.-X. Stanislas Lafrance, who, having bought ground for the purpose, invited the Order of the Holy Cross to carry it out. His name should not be forgotten in connection with the now famous institution, which has grown to university rank. When, in 1901, Bishop Sweeny placed the administration in the hands of the Right Rev. Timothy Casey (b. 1860), who had been his coadjutor since 1900 under the title of Bishop of Utina, the diocese of St John had 58,000 Catholics, a college, 63 priests, 38 parishes, 93 churches and chapels, and 9 convents.^[1]

Charlottetown, St John and Chatham became suffragans of Halifax in 1852, when the latter see was raised to the rank of an archbishopric. A fourth suffragan was Arichat, to which a word must now be given.

The state of ecclesiastical affairs in Halifax, when it became a bishopric in 1842, was anything but encouraging. A letter written in 1843 by the Right Rev. William Walsh, coadjutor of Bishop Fraser, to Bishop Signay of Quebec, throws some light on the subject:

Who were these disobedient priests? Was the Rev. John Carroll, previously vicar-general of Nova Scotia under his uncle, the Right Rev. Edmund Burke, one of them? It is to be feared that he was. We know, at least, from letters of Bishop MacEacharn to the Bishop of Quebec, that he greatly annoyed Bishop Fraser by his misrule in Halifax, and that the Bishop of Charlottetown himself had to depose him from his rectorship of St John, New Brunswick, for open revolt. We know, too, that he came to Toronto in the same year, 1843. He afterwards went to the United States and lived in Buffalo and then in Chicago for many years, dying in 1885, not a centenarian, but nearly a nonagenarian—at least if the date of his birth (1798) is properly given by Father Coffey in his notice on the diocese of London.^[2]

The cause of the trouble was racial prejudices, and the remedy 'under consideration of the Holy See' was the division of the diocese of Halifax. This was effected in 1844, and the diocese of Arichat erected. Bishop Fraser having chosen the new see, Bishop Walsh became titular of Halifax.

Bishop Fraser died in 1851 and was succeeded by the Right Rev. Colin Francis MacKinnon (1811-79). Under him, in 1844, the diocese was incorporated. His chief achievement, besides the formation of several new parishes, was the foundation of the College and Seminary of St Francis-Xavier in the city of Antigonish. It has now university powers. Bishop MacKinnon resigned his see in 1877, received the title of Archbishop of Amida, and died soon after. His successor was the Right Rev. John Cameron (1826-1910), a man of great ability. He had been coadjutor since 1870 and was consecrated in Rome under the title of Bishop of Titopolis. For thirty years this distinguished divine ruled the diocese of Arichat, which took the name of Antigonish in 1886, when the see was transferred to the latter city. During his long and skilful administration a high degree of prosperity was achieved. A heavy debt contracted for the construction of the cathedral was paid and extensive funds were raised, partly to improve and partly to endow St Francis-Xavier College. The Sisters of St Martha and the Sisters of Charity from Halifax, the Daughters of Jesus and the Congregation of Notre Dame have established several convents in the city and other parts of the diocese. The Congregation of Notre Dame chiefly maintains the prosperous Academy of Mount St Bernard, which is affiliated to St Francis-Xavier's College. The only order of men is the Cistercians of Tracadie. The monastery, which was twice destroyed by fire and, in 1900, temporarily abandoned, has been rebuilt and is now occupied by other members of the same order. The founder of the first convent (1825) was Father Vincent, who for several years had been a missionary in Halifax. This saintly priest died in 1855. In 1871 there were in the diocese of Antigonish 62,853 Catholics. At the death of Bishop Cameron in 1910 they numbered 80,000, the great majority being Scots and Acadians, with 108 secular and regular priests, 66 parishes with as many churches and chapels, 1 college and 19 convents. In 1912 the Right Rev. James Morrison was elected to the see of Antigonish.

Halifax became the metropolis of the Maritime Provinces in 1852 and Bishop Walsh was the first archbishop. The troubles already mentioned soon ceased, and an era of uninterrupted progress began. In 1856 a chapter was established—the first, after that of Montreal, since the Conquest. The year 1857 witnessed the first, and up to the present time the only, provincial council of the Maritime Provinces, which was held with great solemnity in St Mary's Cathedral. There were present, under the presidency of Archbishop Walsh, the Right Revs. B. Donald MacDonald of Charlottetown, C. F. MacKinnon of Arichat, and Louis Thomas Connolly of St John, New Brunswick. The bishops of Newfoundland, the Right Revs. Thomas Mullock of St John's and Joseph Dalton of Harbour Grace—a diocese erected in the preceding year—had been convoked, in accordance with the Bull of erection of the ecclesiastical province of Halifax, but could not attend. The decree passed by the council dealt chiefly with the means of preserving the faith, the administration of the sacraments, and sanctity of life in the clergy.

Archbishop Walsh (d. 1858) was succeeded by the Right Rev. Louis Thomas Connolly (d. 1876), already spoken of as Bishop of St John, New Brunswick. Apart from the discharge of his pastoral duties, his work in connection with the embellishment of St Mary's Cathedral and the improvement of educational and charitable institutions, this distinguished man did much, by his liberality of views and his demeanour, to foster the friendly feelings that now happily prevail between Catholics and Protestants in Halifax. In the Vatican Council of 1869-70 he sided with the minority who, while admitting the Pope's inerrancy in matters of faith, judged it inopportune to declare at that time the doctrine of Papal Infallibility. When it was declared, however, he loyally submitted.

After the death of the Most Rev. Michael Hannan (1820-1882), who was Archbishop of Halifax from 1877 to 1882, the see passed to a man who enriched it with several important institutions, the Most Rev. Cornelius O'Brien (1843-1906), a native of Prince Edward Island. He possessed remarkable theological and literary culture, and wrote several works—polemical, hagiographic and even romantic and historical. Among the latter must be mentioned the Memoirs of Rev. Edmund Burke. If his praise is at times exaggerated and his hero a little over-extolled at the expense of others, the fault lies in the author's pardonable filial devotion for the founder of his church, rather than in any perverse intention. The chief reasons, however, which entitle Archbishop O'Brien to grateful remembrance are his labours in the cause of charity and clerical education. On his accession there were flourishing schools for young ladies. The Sisters of the Sacred Heart, who had been in Halifax since 1849, had a successful academy, and the Sisters of Charity, besides their mother-house, had several convents, chiefly their much esteemed Academy of Mount St Vincent. But young men had to go abroad for higher education. St Mary's College, never on a very solid footing, had gradually declined, and finally shut its doors. The archbishop's aim was to have a college of his own. A bequest for this purpose had been made; but as it contained the special proviso 'for the Jesuits,' and as these fathers could not be obtained, it was rendered void by a decision of the Superior Court in 1903. Nevertheless, with the most praiseworthy perseverance, Archbishop O'Brien laid the foundation-stone of a college in 1903. He solicited contributions, and gave all he could himself to complete the building. In 1905 a large house was added and furnished for the admission of boarders. The Eudist Fathers had already been called to the diocese (1891) and placed in charge of St Anne's College, at Church Point, in the west end of Nova Scotia, for the education of Acadians, and of the theological seminary of the Sacred Heart in Halifax. Among the charitable institutions due to the zeal of Archbishop O'Brien may be mentioned a rescue home and reformatory, in the hands of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, a home for infant waifs and another for boys, and an infirmary for old women. In his time and through his efforts were built St Agnes's and St Patrick's Churches in Halifax, twelve others outside the city, and several presbyteries and schools. Such are the chief works that marked the administration of this distinguished prelate. At his death in 1906 the archdiocese contained 55,000 Catholics, 76 priests, 39 parishes with 52 missions, including two parishes in the Bermuda Islands which belong to the Church of Halifax.

Some general notes on the public position of the church in Nova Scotia are necessary. As all religions are equal before the law in the Maritime Provinces, there exists complete freedom of worship. Churches, colleges, academies and schoolhouses are exempt from taxation. In Halifax, by a special charter, charities have the same exemption. As separate Catholic schools were not expressly established at Confederation, none exist by law. In practice, however, Catholics are not deprived of all rights and favours. When they are numerous or in the majority, they are allowed to have teachers of their own faith.

The archdiocese of Halifax was granted incorporation in 1849.

STATISTICS OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL PROVINCE OF HALIFAX IN 1911

1. Extent of Dioceses

2. Population and Institutions

Ecclesiastical Province of Montreal

Let us now turn to the Province of Quebec, the stronghold of Catholicism in the Dominion of Canada. From 60,000 in 1760 the Catholic population has grown to more than 1,500,000, and only a small part of this growth is due to immigration. Of the 450,000 Irish who came to this country from 1819 to 1850—428,000 of them in the decade from 1839 to 1849—only a few thousand settled in Quebec. The extraordinary expansion of the church there is chiefly due to the natural and irresistible expansion of the French-Canadian families themselves. They have even overflowed into New Brunswick and Ontario, where they are beginning to form important groups, and into the United States, where they constitute a large portion of the population in some of the eastern cities.

The Bishop of Quebec continued to be the head of the whole Canadian Church until independent dioceses were formed: Kingston in 1826, Charlottetown in 1829, Montreal in 1836, Halifax and New Brunswick in 1842. Halifax, however, was really independent, as a vicariate-apostolic, after 1817, as was also St Boniface, for the same reason, after 1844.

Bishop Lartigue (1777-1840), consecrated Bishop of Telmessus in 1821, was a mere auxiliary of Bishop Plessis. In his pastoral letter to the Montreal clergy and people the Bishop of Quebec had explained that the present situation was independent of his own and the Holy Father's will. Had England given her assent, Bishop Lartigue would have been a bishop of Montreal instead of Telmessus. As the Holy See assented to the conditions of Great Britain, nothing was left for the Canadian Church but to do likewise. Serious difficulties, however, arose.

Montreal has never had any fondness for Quebec rule and Quebec pre-eminence, since the early days of New France when Ville Marie, founded and ruled by a private company, formed a sort of state within the state. To wonder at this would be to ignore human nature; to lament it would be to forget that emulation is often, if not always, the spur that excites indolence to effort and leads man to success. The rivalry between the two cities never brought them into the field to settle their supremacy at the point of the sword as did the ancient rivalry of Athens and Sparta, Carthage and Rome. It was carried on in the bloodless, but by no means noiseless, sphere of ideas and interests.

In 1821 Montreal was not the great city she now is, with her half-million inhabitants and her uncontested position as queen of Canadian industry and commerce. But she felt that she was born for great things and had faith in her destiny. How could such a city be satisfied with a bishop of Telmessus? Bishop Lartigue, being a native of Montreal, knew the feeling in his district so well that when he heard of the conditions of his election he would not accept the honour except at the express command of the Pope. The humble and venerable prelate had not overrated the obstacles he would have to face. Bishop Lartigue, being a Sulpician himself, expected to receive in the Seminary of St Sulpice a hospitality such as had always been graciously proffered to the Bishop of Quebec. But he was not a bishop of Quebec, and for him, therefore, there was no welcome. He was treated not so much with injustice as with lack of courtesy. He took his lodgings in the Hôtel-Dieu—the home of the good Sisters, which was always wide open to those in adversity. The worst feature of the situation was that the honours due to his rank in the church were refused. One parish priest, a man of no little literary skill and no little knowledge, the Abbé Augustin Chaboillez, curé of Longueuil, wrote pamphlets to prove that Bishop Plessis had no canonical power to transfer to another rights and honours due to himself—as if the Pope, who had approved the appointment, had no power to modify canon law! Another, the Abbé François Pigeon of St Philippe, did not hesitate to declare in the newspapers that he did not acknowledge the authority of the Bishop of Telmessus and would render him no episcopal honours. By frequent paternal letters Bishop Plessis encouraged and comforted his disappointed auxiliary. He advised him to observe the utmost patience: 'If you are repulsed, withdraw; in default of a throne, be satisfied with a stool; and in default of a stool take the end of a bench.'

In justice to the clergy of Montreal it must be said that the opposition and discourtesy were due only to a minority. But, as usual, the hot-headed made enough noise to appear to be the majority. In time the tempest subsided, but the situation remained anomalous until Montreal was erected into an independent bishopric in 1836.

Another storm was then gathering. Political agitation was at its height and threatened to carry Canadians, chiefly in the district of Montreal, into open rebellion. Bishop Lartigue published a very remarkable pastoral letter to warn his flock against the danger. After recalling the teachings of St Paul and of the Holy Fathers on the obedience due to lawful authority, he said:

The letter produced a deep impression, and, if it did not prevent all bloodshed—men's spirits being already too much excited—it stopped many from joining that ill-conceived, ill-concerted and ill-conducted affray of 1837.

Soon afterwards Bishop Lartigue resigned the entire administration to his coadjutor and successor, the Right Rev. Ignatius Bourget (1799-1885), who was to hold it with a firm hand until 1876. A native of St Joseph of Lévis, near Quebec, secretary and afterwards vicar-general to Bishop Lartigue, he was consecrated as his coadjutor in 1837 under the once unpopular name of Bishop of Telmessus. He took possession of the see in 1840. Although physically weak, he was a man of indomitable energy. It sometimes happens that the excess of a quality turns into a defect: firmness of purpose, for instance, when pushed too far, may become stubbornness. For the sake of peace, when faith or morals are not in question, to yield to the views of others is praiseworthy wisdom. One may not adopt all the ideas of Bishop Bourget, but none can deny that he was a saintly and great bishop. His diocese extended over the western portion of the Province of Quebec, where now are St Hyacinthe, Valleyfield, Joliette, and a great part of Ottawa, Pembroke and Sherbrooke. Through his unwearied energy it expanded with unparalleled rapidity and strength. Montreal already contained many rich parishes and some of the most illustrious institutions of New France—the Seminary of St Sulpice, the Congregation of Notre Dame, and the houses of the Sisters of St Joseph, of the Hôtel-Dieu and of the Grey Nuns. Under Bishop Bourget new establishments arose as if by magic. The missions along the Ottawa River have already been mentioned. There new parishes were erected and colonization societies created. The northern districts were opened up chiefly by the enterprising and fearless work of the patriotic curé Labelle. To supply the increasing needs, a number of educational and charitable institutions were founded, and communities of men and women were invited from abroad or formed on the spot. Merely to enumerate these institutions would take much space. Among the male orders that came may be mentioned the Brothers of the Christian Schools (1837), the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (1841), the Jesuits (1842), who established a novitiate in 1843 and St Mary's College in 1848, the St Viateur Fathers and the Fathers of the Holy Cross in 1847. The chief female orders brought from France were: the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, of Angers (1843), of the Holy Name of Jesus and Mary and of the Holy Cross (1847). Those founded in Montreal were: the Sisters of Providence, by Madame Gamelin, for teaching and charities (1843); the Sisters of Mercy, for repentant women (1848); the Sisters of St Anne, for the education of young ladies (1850), who, as well as the Sisters of Providence, have increased in a remarkable fashion, both in Canada and in the United States. The Grand Seminary of Montreal was opened in 1840, while colleges were established by the Fathers of St Viateur, at Joliette in 1846 and at Rigaud in 1850.

Bishop Bourget was entirely opposed to the 'spirit of the age,' which he regarded as the foe of the church, and he fought it in all its forms. One of his actions in this matter created a stir in every corner of Canada, and even abroad. The Institut Canadien was a society with literary and scientific objects. Unhappily some of its leading members were imbued with irreligious principles, which found vent in the books chosen for the library and in the Year Book of the institution. This publication for the year 1868 was condemned by the bishop, and his sentence was ratified by the Congregation of the Index. Then Bishop Bourget, in a letter written at Rome in 1869, warned his diocesans that any Catholic who should keep the condemned pamphlet and continue his connection with the Institute would be refused the sacraments of the church even at the moment of death. The Institute submitted to the sentence, but some of its members remained obstinate, and from that case sprang another, still more famous.

Joseph Guibord, a printer, died without having submitted and without reconciliation. He was accordingly denied Christian burial. And justly so; for how can one who refuses to comply with the rules of a society be considered a member thereof, and have a right to enjoy its privileges? The case was taken to court and carried from tribunal to tribunal, until the Privy Council decided that the corpse must be buried, without a funeral mass, in consecrated ground. Bishop Bourget obeyed, but immediately declared in a pastoral letter 'that the place where the body of this rebellious child of the Church had been deposited was separate from the rest of the consecrated cemetery, so that it would be only a profane ground.'

With all his occupations the Bishop of Montreal led the regular and retiring life of a seminarist and recluse. In 1876 he tendered his resignation, and, with the title of Archbishop of Marcianopolis, withdrew to Sault-au-Récollet, where he died in 1885. A handsome monument has been erected to his memory on the piazza of St James's Cathedral.

The Right Rev. Charles Édouard Fabre (1827-96), who had been elected coadjutor in 1873 under the title of Bishop of Gratianopolis, assumed the administration. The diocese of Montreal continued its forward march. In 1881 the now famous Cistercian monastery of Oka was founded, and erected into an abbey under the mitred abbot Dom Antoine. In 1890 the Franciscans, who had already settled in the diocese of London, founded a convent in Montreal. Among other noteworthy events of Bishop Fabre's administration must be mentioned the foundation, by the Sulpicians—to whom Montreal is indebted in so many ways—of a seminary of philosophy (1888) and of the Canadian College in Rome (1894). In 1896 the Loyola College, for students of the English language, was founded by the Jesuits. Finally, there took place in 1891, in accordance with the arbitration of Cardinal Taschereau and by direction of the Sovereign Pontiff, the gradual division into more than fifty parishes of the immense parish of Notre Dame. This was rendered necessary by the rapid development of Montreal. The city had 140,862 inhabitants in 1881, 267,730 in 1901, and 466,197 in 1911—an increase of nearly 200,000 in ten years. Such wonderful progress made a division of the diocese also a necessity. The bishopric of St Hyacinthe had already been created out of it in 1852, just as the bishopric of Three Rivers was created out of Quebec about the same time. In 1874 the diocese of Sherbrooke was formed, chiefly from these new bishoprics, with a few townships of Quebec. In 1892 Valleyfield, and in 1904 Joliette, were entirely erected out of Montreal territory.

Valleyfield and Joliette were in 1912 under their first titulars: the Right Rev. Joseph Médard Emard (b. 1853), and the Right Rev. Joseph Alfred Archambault (b. 1859), to whom they are indebted for their perfect organization and present prosperity.^[1]

In Sherbrooke the second bishop, Monseigneur Paul La Rocque, was preceded by Bishop Racine (1822-93), who founded the Seminary of St Charles Borromeo and established the Sisters of Charity and the Brothers of the Sacred Heart.

The first Bishop of St Hyacinthe was the Right Rev. Jean Charles Prince (1804-60), who had been appointed coadjutor of Montreal and consecrated in 1846 under the title of Bishop of Marcianopolis. During his administration a college, which had existed in St Hyacinthe since 1811, became the seminary. For the education of young ladies he brought from France the Order of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, whose mother-house was first placed at Monnoir, but was transferred to the city in 1858. Bishop Prince was succeeded by the Right Rev. Joseph La Rocque (1808-87), who resigned his see in 1865 and was afterwards known as Bishop of Germanicopolis. To his direction is due the foundation, by the Rev. Mother Catherine Aurélie of the Precious Blood, of the Order of the Precious Blood, now established in several dioceses of Canada and the United States. He was replaced by his brother, the Right Rev. Charles La Rocque (1809-75), under whom the old Order of the Dominicans entered Canada and founded, at St Hyacinthe, their first convent and novitiate. The fourth bishop, Monseigneur Zéphyrin Moreau (1824-1901), ruled the diocese from 1876 to 1901, a longer period than his three predecessors together. He created, for the education of the young and the visitation of the sick, the Order of the Sisters of St Joseph (1877), who have now several establishments in St Hyacinthe and elsewhere. The Brothers of the Sacred Heart, called in 1881, established the Girouard Academy, and in 1902, under Bishop Moreau's successor, the College of the Sacred Heart. The Marist Brothers arrived in 1892. The Right Rev. Maxime Decelles (1849-1905), coadjutor since 1893, ascended the see of St Hyacinthe in 1901 and was replaced by the Right Rev. Alexis-Xyste Bernard (b. 1847), consecrated in 1906.

St Hyacinthe, Sherbrooke, Valleyfield and Joliette, with Montreal as a metropolis, form the ecclesiastical province of Montreal, erected, at the same time as Ottawa, May 10, 1887. Bishop Fabre was made an archbishop in 1886. His last important act was the convoking of a provincial council, the only council of Montreal that has yet (1913) been called. It was held under his presidency in 1895, and the number and importance of its decrees gave it special significance. Besides formulating numerous rules which form a regular treatise of canon law on persons and things ecclesiastical, it gave special attention to education, chiefly of clerics, to the encouragement and development of Laval University in Montreal and of the Canadian College in Rome, to the improvement of charities and pious fraternities, and to the preservation of faith and morals from the evils caused by a corrupt press, licentious theatres and secret societies. To these decrees were added the Constitutions of the Vatican Council and several encyclical letters and decisions of the Congregations, of a very practical character.

The Most Rev. Paul Bruchesi succeeded Archbishop Fabre in 1897. In addition to the yearly erection of several parishes, the completion through his efforts of the vast St James's Cathedral, and the introduction of the numerous new orders by which the diocese was enriched, there took place during his administration the formation of the diocese of Joliette (1904), and in 1910 the celebrated Catholic demonstration of the international Eucharistic Congress of Montreal. A papal legate, Cardinal Vannutelli, presided over the congress. Two other cardinals, His Eminence James Gibbons of Baltimore and His Eminence Michael Logue of Armagh, were present, and there were also 120 archbishops and bishops and upwards of 3000 priests. Half a million visitors crowded into Montreal, and 800,000 people attended mass sung in the open air on a beautiful slope of Mount Royal.

In 1905 an auxiliary bishop, Monseigneur Zotique Raciot, was consecrated under the title of Bishop of Pogla, to help the Archbishop of Montreal in his many labours. On account of sickness Bishop Raciot was replaced in 1912 by the Right Rev. Georges Gauthier, consecrated Bishop of Philippopolis.

STATISTICS OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL PROVINCE OF MONTREAL IN 1911

1. Extent of Dioceses

2. Population and Institutions

Ecclesiastical Province of Quebec

All the churches whose histories have been outlined in the preceding pages were born of the old Church of Quebec and her outward development. She too, however, was making steady internal progress, although not so rapidly as some of her daughters. Here we shall record a few facts of general interest which have been omitted or only casually mentioned in the history of particular churches.

Bishop Panet (1753-1833), under the title of Bishop of Salada, was consecrated coadjutor of Bishop Plessis in 1807. During his short administration (1825-32) he laboured zealously to promote the cause of education, to obtain more favourable laws for Catholics, to maintain Nicolet College and to encourage Abbé Painchaud in the foundation of the College of Ste Anne-de-la-Pocatière.

Special mention must be made of his work in the matter of the Sulpicians' estates. Although the proceedings of confiscation had been suspended after the request of Bishop Plessis to Lord Bathurst in 1819, yet the case had not been settled. Inasmuch as their property remained under dispute, the Sulpicians sent two delegates to London with power to make an agreement with the British government. They were prepared to cede their seigniories in return for an annual payment. When this step became known, it aroused much anxiety in the Province of Quebec. It was felt that, if the compromise took place, it would be equivalent to admitting that the rights of the Sulpicians were in themselves regarded as doubtful, and that the rights of the other communities would be endangered. All the clergy, with the bishop at their head, sent a petition to the king to protest against such an arrangement. In addition to this, Bishop Panet and Bishop Plessis presented to Lord Aylmer a joint memorandum in support of the rights of the Sulpicians. On hearing of this opposition, Rome, whose consent was necessary, refused to sanction the proposed arrangement, and the British government declined to act in defiance of public feeling. An ordinance giving the Sulpicians legal possession was issued in 1840 by the governor-general, the Right Hon. Charles Edward Poulett Thomson. Thus were saved these invaluable estates, the revenues of which have since been so frequently lavished by their generous owners on princely charities or institutions for the promotion of higher education.

The delegates sent to London and Rome by Bishop Panet—Fathers Antoine Tabeau and Thomas Maguire—had also the mission of soliciting, in both places, the erection of Montreal into an independent diocese 'because the present situation was unpopular' (1832).

In 1831 Bishop Panet sold to the government the palace which Bishop de Saint-Vallier first built for himself, and which was rebuilt after the Conquest by Bishop Briand. This house, situated on the beautiful site—now a public garden—on the east side of Mountain Hill, was only for a few years the residence of the Quebec bishops. Bishop de Saint-Vallier himself, after his return in 1713, took up his lodging in the Hospital-General. Bishop Briand and his successors received the most free and cordial hospitality in the Seminary of Quebec until 1847. The palace was sold for an annual—and irredeemable—payment of £1000. This arrangement was maintained until 1888, when the buildings, which had been used as the house of assembly, no longer existed, having been destroyed by fire in 1883. The annual payment was redeemed for the sum of $74,074, paid to Cardinal Taschereau.

The last year of Bishop Panet's administration was marked by the terrible plague of cholera which, in Quebec and Montreal alone, carried to the grave nearly four thousand people in five weeks. It gave the clergy a splendid opportunity to display their zeal and charity. Without any concern for their own lives, priests devoted themselves day and night to the work of administering the consolations and the last rites of religion to their dying people. These examples of devotion were repeated when the plague broke out again in 1834, 1849 and 1854.

Bishop Signay (1778-1850) was parish priest of Quebec when he became coadjutor of Bishop Panet in 1827 under the title of Bishop of Fussola. He began his administration in 1832. Several important religious events took place in his time. In the troubles of 1837 he took the same stand as Bishop Lartigue and, in a pastoral letter, exhorted the members of his diocese to lawful submission. Another letter advised them to profit by the new law on Public Instruction (1841) for the erection of parochial schools.

In 1844 the see of Quebec was erected into a metropolis with three suffragans, Montreal, Kingston and Toronto. In 1847 three others were added, Newfoundland, Ottawa and the North-West. Monseigneur Signay was the first to be entitled Archbishop of Quebec, although Bishop Plessis, had he chosen to do so, could have taken the name in 1819. By the terms of the Bull the dioceses of the Maritime Provinces were not to form part of the ecclesiastical province of Quebec, but were to be summoned to the provincial council should one take place. The Archbishop of Quebec was granted civil incorporation by 12 Vict. cap. 26, and another paragraph of great consequence (§ 7) granted the same privilege to all dioceses then in existence or thereafter erected.

The year 1847 left in Canadian annals a mournful record. The stream of Irish immigration has already been mentioned. By this time it had become a veritable flood—106,000 arrived in that one year. They were poor tenants who had been driven from their homes by famine or heartless landlords. Crowded together by thousands on the small ships of those days, they sailed for the New World as to a land of plenty and freedom. The lack of space, air and food—for they had been deceived as to the length of the voyage—made them an easy prey to ship-fever. According to Henry Labouchere's speech in the House of Commons on February 16, 1848, 6110 persons died at sea, 4100 on their arrival, 5200 in the hospitals, and 1900 in the towns to which they repaired. Several thousands had landed at Grosse-Ile. It was a sad sight, and Canada was moved with pity. Physicians went to the rescue; their names have been cut in granite, but ought also to be written on men's hearts. No less than forty-two French and Irish priests volunteered to go to the relief of the unfortunates. Nineteen caught the disease, and of these several died martyrs to their sympathy: Fathers Hubert Robson, Édouard Montminy, Hugh Paisley, Félix Séverin Bardy and Pierre Roy. Among the others may be mentioned some names illustrious in Canadian church history: Fathers Alexander Taschereau, later a cardinal; John Horan, afterwards Bishop of Kingston; J. B. Ferland, the historian; and Bernard O'Reilly, later a protonotary-apostolic and a noted writer. It is but just to add that the Protestant clergy, chiefly of the Church of England, did not hesitate to brave the plague in order to relieve such of the sufferers—about one-tenth—as belonged to their creed. Bishop Mountain was one of the first in the field, and was soon followed by seventeen of his clergy, two of whom fell victims to the disease.

Nor was the typhus limited to Grosse-Ile. Hundreds of immigrants carried its germs to Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa, Kingston and Toronto, and died there charitably attended by priests and sisters. It is stated that eighteen sisters and twenty-five priests succumbed in the task. Among these, as already related, was the saintly Bishop Power of Toronto.

Amid these striking events spiritual life acquired much intensity in the archdiocese. In 1841 the saintly Monseigneur de Forbin Janson, Bishop of Nancy, whose eloquence stirred all Canada, preached a retreat to the clergy; it was the first since the Conquest. A society was formed in 1837 for the Propagation of the Faith and affiliated to the Association of Lyons. Another society had for its object the promotion of temperance. Its chief apostles were the Rev. Father Édouard Quertier, renowned for his powerful eloquence; Vicar-General Alexis Mailloux; and Charles Chiniquy, parish priest of Beauport, who afterwards became a traitor to his vows and created a scandal by apostasy which is still remembered after half a century. Three religious orders were called into the diocese: the Brothers of the Christian Schools in 1842; the Oblates in 1844, who were placed in charge of the Indian Missions of the Saguenay, which they served until 1911, when they were replaced by the Eudist Fathers; the Jesuits in 1849, who took charge of, and have kept ever since, the Church of the Congregation of the Blessed Virgin in the upper town.

In his report to the Holy See in 1843 Bishop Signay stated that his diocese contained 200,000 souls, 171 priests, 145 churches and chapels, 4 monasteries of cloistered nuns to nurse the poor and the infirm and educate the young, and 3 colleges or seminaries. At his death (1850), says the Abbé Ferland, Canada—outside of the Maritime Provinces—numbered: 1 archbishop; 4 bishops; 572 priests; nearly 100 theological students; 1800 young men receiving a classical education in 11 colleges; 3 religious orders for the elementary education of boys; 50 communities of Sisters for the education of girls, and the care of orphans or of sick and destitute persons; 4 houses of Jesuits; 3 houses of Oblates; 900,000 Catholics and 400,000 members of the Society of Temperance.

Bishop Signay was the last Bishop of Quebec who received the annuity of £1000 granted to Bishop Plessis. His successors got only the annual income, already noted, from the episcopal palace. In 1847 he entered the present palace, which was built from the contributions of the clergy by the instrumentality of his coadjutor and successor, the Right Rev. Pierre Flavien Turgeon, Bishop of Sidyme.

This prelate (1787-1867) accepted in 1831 the coadjutorship which he had refused in 1825, but his consecration did not take place until 1834. The delay was due to certain unhappy intrigues. One Abbé Thavenet, who afterwards declared that he had no mission from any person whatever, spared no pains to have a worthy priest of Montreal, the Rev. Abbé Jean-Baptiste St Germain, parish priest of St Lawrence, appointed to the position. Doctor (afterwards Cardinal) Wiseman, rector of the English College in Rome and agent of Bishop Signay, having notified the bishop, in a letter of April 23, 1833, of the difficulties of the situation, a delegation was sent to the Holy Father, and the choice of the Canadian clergy was confirmed.

Under Monseigneur Turgeon, after a preliminary meeting of the Canadian bishops in Montreal in 1850, the three first councils of Quebec were held in 1851, 1854 and 1863 respectively. With the establishment of the Sisters of Charity in 1849 and the foundation of the Good Shepherd in 1850, these councils were the principal events of his short administration. In 1855 ill-health deprived him of all power to work, and the government of the archdiocese fell to his coadjutor, the Right Rev. Charles François Baillargeon (1798-1870).

Bishop Baillargeon was pastor of Quebec and agent in Rome of the Canadian episcopate when he was chosen for the coadjutorship. His consecration took place in Rome in 1851 under the title of Bishop of Tlos.^[1] He was a man of learning, and while parish priest of Quebec published a valuable translation of the New Testament. He was no less remarkable for his charity and meekness, and founded in 1850 the lay Conferences of St Vincent-de-Paul, which have spread all over the country and relieved untold human miseries. In 1860, to help Pius IX, who had been deprived by Piedmont of his richest provinces, he raised in the diocese a subscription of more than $20,000, and encouraged young men to enlist in the pontifical zouaves. The yearly collection of St Peter's pence was established in 1862, and brought in, between 1864 and 1870, $36,268.

But above all other events in importance must be reckoned the third (1863) and fourth (1868) councils of Quebec, convoked and presided over by Bishop Baillargeon. These councils have had such an influence on the organization of the church in Canada that a short study of them is desirable. Three were held under Archbishop Turgeon, but he was able to preside over only two. The fourth took place after Bishop Baillargeon had ascended the archiepiscopal throne. The first (1851) was truly a national council, as all the bishops then in Canada were convoked. There were present, under Archbishop Turgeon: the Right Rev. Ignatius Bourget of Montreal, and his coadjutor, Bishop Prince; Bishop Gaulin of Kingston, and his coadjutor, Bishop Phelan; Bishops Joseph Eugène Guigues of Bytown, Armand de Charbonnel of Toronto, Donald MacDonald of Charlottetown, and Mullock of St. John's, Newfoundland. Bishops Dollard of St John, New Brunswick, and Fraser of Arichat, who died in the same year, could not attend; and Bishops Walsh of Halifax and Provencher of the North-West were also prevented from being present. Several decrees on discipline, liturgy and morals were passed, and a resolution was adopted giving expression to a desire for the establishment of a Catholic university and of a normal school for the training of Catholic teachers. From this arose Laval University in 1852 and the Laval Normal School in 1857. To the decrees was added a petition asking the Pope for the creation of the dioceses of St Hyacinthe and Three Rivers, which were accordingly erected in the following year (1852).

The second council (1854) was not of such general importance; it was chiefly concerned with the administration of sacraments and the sanctity of life in the priesthood. As the ecclesiastical province of Halifax had been erected in 1852, the bishops of the Maritime Provinces were not summoned to Quebec; but the new titulars of Three Rivers and St Hyacinthe were present.

The third council (1863) had among its members the Right Rev. Alexandre Taché of St Boniface, who could not attend the two preceding councils. Besides those decrees relating to the special condition of the clergy in Ontario, which were dealt with earlier,^[2] the fifth decree is noteworthy. By this a rule was asked from the Holy See for the election of Canadian bishops. In 1862 Monseigneur Baillargeon had already written to Rome upon that subject, and the method of episcopal elections granted by the Congregation of the Propaganda to the United States in 1861 was extended to Canada. But, at the date of the council, the answer had not yet been received. The prefect, Cardinal Barnabo, recalled in his letter upon the decrees that the matter of the fifth had already been settled. After an explanation from Monseigneur Baillargeon the new method of election was adopted. It is of interest to note its chief disposition. Bishops were to be chosen in provincial councils, if any were held within three months. Otherwise each bishop was required to enclose in two sealed letters the names of three priests whom he judged worthy of the mitre. At his death one of the letters was sent to the archbishop of the ecclesiastical province, and the other to the nearest bishop. The latter then communicated his opinion to the metropolitan, and he in his turn wrote to all his suffragans. All the archbishops and bishops then sent their observations to Rome, where the choice was finally decided. Such was the rule in 1834. In the course of years certain modifications had been made. In 1851 the preliminary proceedings were left to the archbishops. In 1856, at the request of the council of Baltimore, permission was given to discuss the choice of candidates for bishoprics at the meetings of the bishops of the ecclesiastical province concerned. In 1859 it was decreed, in regard to appointments to archbishoprics, that the opinion of all the other archbishops in the country should be consulted. A series of questions was prescribed concerning the candidate's name, health, learning, morality, ability and general standing.

As Canada and the United States, since 1908, have not been under the jurisdiction of the Propaganda, it is probable that all such exceptional regulations will cease and that episcopal elections will be held in accordance with the ordinary rules of canon law.

The fourth council of Quebec (1868) had among its members the Right Rev. Jean Langevin, bishop of the new diocese of Rimouski, erected in 1867. Bishop Taché was represented by his coadjutor, Bishop Grandin, later first Bishop of St Albert (1871). Bishop Cooke of Three Rivers was also replaced by his coadjutor, Bishop Laflèche. In addition to important decrees against usury, impious or immoral writings, and abuses in political elections, a decree was passed—the 14th—asking for the division of the ecclesiastical province of Quebec and the erection of Toronto and St Boniface into metropolitan sees. The petition was granted, and Toronto became an archbishopric in 1870 and St Boniface in 1871.

Archbishop Baillargeon went to the Vatican Council, but had no opportunity to vote on the question of the doctrine of the Infallibility of the Pope, which he entirely favoured. Ill-health forced him to return, and he died soon afterwards (1870).

He was succeeded by the Right Rev. Elzéar Alexandre Taschereau (1820-98), who was consecrated in 1871. Archbishop Taschereau's administration was a most active, fruitful and eventful period. With the aid of his clergy he saved from ruin the College of Ste Anne-de-la-Pocatière, established (1879) a classical course in the Commercial College of Lévis founded in 1853, and encouraged and substantially helped Vicar-General (late Bishop) Dominique Racine in the foundation of the Chicoutimi College. He himself instituted the grand hospital of the Sacred Heart, and entrusted it to the Sisters of the Mercy of Jesus. Several new orders were called into the diocese. In 1873 the Sisters of Jésus-Marie, who had arrived in 1855, established their novitiate in the beautiful groves of Sillery. Houses of the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, of St Viateur and of Marists were also erected. The Redemptorist Fathers took charge of St Patrick's Church in Quebec (1871), and of the famous Ste Anne's shrine at Beaupré (1878). More than fifty parishes were created with the funds of the Society of Colonization (founded in 1848) and of the Propagation of the Faith, which, after 1876, were kept for local purposes.

Archbishop Taschereau presided over the three last provincial councils of Quebec. In the fifth (1873) the decrees were principally disciplinary, and included the reservation of certain grievous sins, the prohibition of mixed marriages and the use of Protestant schools by Catholics, and certain rules for Catholic writers. A petition was added for the erection of the diocese of Sherbrooke, which took place in the following year (1874).

The sixth council (1878) chiefly treated of the rights of the church as a perfect society, of ecclesiastical tribunals, family education, the education of young girls in convents and their instruction in philosophical studies. It warned Catholics against the danger of reading books written by non-Catholics and of attending their religious ceremonies. At the end the Fathers expressed their desire for the canonization of Pius IX.

The seventh council (1886) included, besides the titulars of the ancient sees, the new Bishop of Chicoutimi (1878), Monseigneur Dominique Racine, with the titulars of the recently erected diocese of Nicolet (1885), the Right Rev. Elphège Gravel, and the new vicariate-apostolic of Pontiac (1820), Monseigneur Zéphyrin Lorrain, Bishop of Cythera. The prefect-apostolic of Gulf St Lawrence, Monsignor Bossé, was also present. The organization of ecclesiastical studies according to the doctrine of St Thomas, as directed by Leo XIII, was the principal matter of the decrees. The remainder chiefly related to the limitation of certain amusements on Sundays, the duties of physicians towards the souls of their patients, and the danger of theatres, circuses and freemasonry.

During the early years of Archbishop Taschereau's administration the minds of Canadian Catholics were exercised by several exciting questions. Some years before his accession keen interest had been aroused in ecclesiastical circles by the ideas of Monsignor Gaume, the prolific French writer who attributed the corruption of the age to the use of heathen authors in higher education. Two camps of fiery champions—for and against Gaume—had been formed in France, and Canada also had her valorous fighters. An able priest, the Rev. Alexis Pelletier, who died in 1910, raised the banner of Gaumism, and published several pamphlets under the assumed names of 'Georges St Aimé' and 'Luigi.' He was answered by another priest of great talent, the ill-fated Abbé Chandonnet. Each had his followers, and, as usually happens, the less qualified they were to judge the question, the more ardent and boisterous did they prove. The ideas of Monsignor Gaume were not entirely wrong, but they greatly exaggerated the evil. The conflict had, at least, one good result: it brought about much more careful expurgation of pagan authors, and gained a larger place for Christian writers in classical education.

This dispute was succeeded by one more serious and far-reaching in its effects. In Canada, as formerly in Great Britain, the field of politics is occupied by two parties—tories or conservatives and whigs or liberals. The latter name is an unfortunate one, because it is, and always will be, exposed to serious misconception. When liberalism is interpreted as meaning that no account is to be taken of God in human things, that church and state must be separated, and that the church must be disregarded in the direction of public affairs, it is a most condemnable doctrine. But when it is interpreted as meaning that liberty must be granted for differences of opinion and creed, in a country of mixed races and religions, it is certainly not to be condemned and will continue to live. In this sense it is a public necessity. It was by acting according to these principles that the greatest Canadian bishops—Briand, Plessis and Macdonell, MacEacharn, Lynch and Connolly, to name only a few—secured for Catholicism such a free and honourable standing in a country where Protestants are in a great majority, and brought about the friendly relations that now exist between these different creeds throughout the Dominion. Still less is liberalism to be condemned as a political party whose aim it is to promote special methods of civil government.

Canadian liberals, however, were not all above criticism. But in certain quarters, unfortunately, the eloquent philippics of Monseigneur Pie and the trenchant lectures of Louis Veuillot against French radicals were directed against them without any discrimination. Priests were known to substitute, in the pulpit, the spirit of L'Étendard or Le Nouveau-Monde—both venerable newspapers long since dead—for that of St Ambrose or St Augustine. In pastorals dated 1873 and 1875 Archbishop Taschereau, with all his colleagues, had condemned Catholic liberalism. The condemnation was by some considered as applying to the liberal party. Another pastoral, dated October 11, 1877, and signed by all the bishops of the ecclesiastical province of Quebec, said: 'Some have unhappily seen in that document [the pastoral of 1875] a desertion of the serene region of principles for the dangerous ground of personalities and political parties. ... There is no pontifical act condemning any political party.' A circular sent to the clergy at the same date, and also signed by the bishops, reminded the clergy that newspapers should not be mistaken for the word of the Gospel: 'In the reading of newspapers, remember the teaching of the Apostle St John: Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits if they be of God.' It recalled the decrees of the second council of Quebec on political elections and the circular of June 4, 1854, adding: 'The clergy must remain, in their private and public life, independent of parties in questions that have no connection with religious principles.' It recalled also the circular of September 22, 1875, which reserved to bishops the right of judging when religious interests might require the intervention of the church.

Out of this feud about liberalism sprang the university quarrel. The time has not yet come to write its complete history, but a brief statement may here be made. At the instance of the Canadian episcopate the Quebec Seminary had spent over a million dollars in establishing Laval University, upon the understanding that it should be the only Catholic university in the province. It also contributed towards its maintenance enough to cover a yearly deficit of $5000 to $10,000. As a guarantee of its orthodoxy the institution was placed under the control of the bishops. Less than twenty years after its foundation, however, Montreal demanded a university of her own. The Quebec Seminary protested, as it was its right to do, because a university in Montreal would mean the ruin of Laval, on which large sums of money had already been expended. Archbishop Taschereau espoused its cause and steadfastly upheld it. This is not surprising, for he had been a pupil of the Seminary, and afterwards a professor, director and superior there, and he was one of the founders of Laval. He was well aware that the cause of the trouble—the alleged teaching of liberalism at Laval—was merely imaginary. It is true that a professor, the late Abbé Benjamin Paquet, had given lectures on the subject; but these lectures were published, in 1877, by the Polyglotta Press of the Propaganda in Rome, and were prefaced by a laudatory brief of Pius IX. They could not, therefore, have contained very dangerous tenets. The mere suspicion, however, sufficed to arouse certain excitable spirits, as the coloured banderolas madden a bull. Memorandums, for or against Laval, were showered upon Rome and upon the Quebec parliament. Finally, a branch of Laval was established in Montreal in 1876. But this was like another 'Bishop of Telmessus': it gave no real satisfaction. A delegate, His Excellence Monseigneur Conroy, Bishop of Armagh, was sent by the Holy See (1877-78) to make a thorough inquiry, but died before his return. Another delegate, His Excellence Monsignor Smeulders, a Belgian monk, came in 1888. In 1889 was published the decree Jamdudum, by which the Montreal branch of Laval, if not utterly severed from the main trunk, was given, like a branch of the banyan tree, almost an independent life of its own.

The tempest has now abated, and a calm survey shows that the havoc has not been so terrible as might have been feared. If motives and certain regrettable excesses be disregarded, it must be admitted that the Seminary of Quebec had incontestable rights. On the other hand, it was impossible that a city like Montreal could be deprived of a Catholic university. The arrangements arrived at by the equanimity and wisdom of Rome seem the best that could have been obtained.

In 1886 Archbishop Taschereau was made a cardinal. All Canada was proud of the honour conferred upon one of her most distinguished sons, and participated in the magnificent celebrations which took place in Quebec on that occasion. In 1891 he chose for his coadjutor the Right Rev. Louis Nazaire Bégin (b. 1840), Bishop of Chicoutimi, created on the occasion Archbishop of Cyrene. Broken in health by a life of incessant labour, the cardinal resigned the administration of the diocese to him in 1894, four years before his death.

In 1888 the long-disputed question of the Jesuits' estates was settled. By authority of the Holy See the Rev. Father Turgeon, S.J., came to an agreement with the prime minister of Quebec, the Hon. Honoré Mercier. The province paid an indemnity of $400,000, which was to be divided among the Jesuits, Laval University, and the bishops for educational purposes. The Protestant Board of Education got $60,000.

His Grace Monseigneur Louis Nazaire Bégin became Archbishop of Quebec in 1898. The archdiocese has since been enriched by several new orders of men and women, chiefly after the expulsion of the religious congregations from France. Among important events the Manitoba school question deserves special mention. It does not belong to this sketch save for the intervention of the bishops of the Province of Quebec. Greatly moved by the unjust law of 1890 which deprived the Catholics of Manitoba of their schools, the bishops endeavoured in 1896 to obtain its repeal by the intervention of the federal government. As the question was of a racial and religious nature, it excited fiery passions on both sides. Ontario would not hear of Manitoba's autonomy being violated, and Manitoba scorned all remedial law on the part of the federal government. Nevertheless, a bill was passed at Ottawa in 1897 that rendered partial justice to the Catholics. It was not perfect—the French education law of 1850 was not perfect either—but it would be rash to assert that all was not done that could have been done in the circumstances. As the agitation continued, His Excellence Monsignor Merry Del Val, now secretary of state to His Holiness Pius X, and a cardinal, was sent as a delegate to make an inquiry on the burning subject. He carefully gathered all possible information about the question and the popular feeling regarding it (1897). After his report Leo XIII sent to Archbishop Bégin (1898), to be communicated to his colleagues, the celebrated encyclical Affari vos. In it he praised the Canadian bishops for their zeal in defending the true principles of education, acknowledged that a willingness to mitigate the evil effects of the law of 1890 had been shown, and advised charity and union in the pursuance of more complete justice.

Much still remains to be done. A perfect cure is to be expected through time, the great healer of all evils. Darker days have grieved Nova Scotia and even Quebec, and have afterwards turned into sunshine. Manitoba too may hope for brighter times. Premier Greenway of Manitoba chose to associate his name with bigotry and tyranny, and to rank with the Rylands and the Marriotts. Other politicians will undoubtedly prefer before long to be remembered for their spirit of toleration and liberty, and to be ranked with the Burkes and the Haliburtons.

In 1908 an auxiliary, the Right Rev. Paul Eugène Roy (b. 1859), under the title of Bishop of Eleutheropolis, was given to the Archbishop of Quebec. He has devoted his energy to the organization of social activities and of a Catholic press to counteract the influence of impious newspapers which here and there, even in this Catholic province, have begun to undermine the bases of religion and society.

The year 1908 also witnessed the religious celebration of the tercentenary of Quebec and the erection of a fine monument to the memory of the apostle-bishop of Canada, Monseigneur de Laval. The solemn procession of Corpus Christi, the unveiling of the statue of the first Bishop of Quebec (1908), and the chief festivities in 1909, so much enhanced by the presence of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, now His Majesty King George V, made the celebration unparalleled in the annals of Canada for the picturesqueness of the scenes, the distinction, if not numbers, of the audience, the splendour of the decorations, the harmony of the organization, and the perfection of the whole function.

Since 1887 the boundaries of the Metropolitan Church of Quebec have been greatly limited. On May 10, 1887, Ottawa and Montreal, as stated above, were erected into independent metropolitan sees, and the old archbishopric had only four suffragans left—Three Rivers, Rimouski, Chicoutimi and Nicolet. In 1906 the vicariate-apostolic of Gulf St Lawrence was added.

In Three Rivers the first bishop, the Right Rev. Thomas Cooke (1792-1870), founded the seminary (1860). His successor was the Right Rev. Louis François Laflèche (1818-98), formerly a missionary in the North-West, a man of great piety and indomitable energy. A fluent writer and powerful orator, he aided Bishop Bourget in the religious difficulties above mentioned, and played a leading part. He was succeeded by the Right Rev. François-Xavier Cloutier, (b. 1848).

The diocese of Nicolet was severed from Three Rivers in 1885, with the Right Rev. Elphège Gravel (1838-1904) as its first titular. In 1904 the see fell to the Right Rev. Simon Hermann Brunault (b. 1859). These two dioceses are in a most flourishing condition, with several communities of men and women, prosperous seminaries and other educational institutions.

The diocese of Rimouski in the eastern part of the Province of Quebec was formed in 1867, when colonization there had sufficiently advanced. The first bishop was the Right Rev. Jean Langevin (1821-92), who had been second president of the Laval Normal School. To him the diocese is indebted for its organization, its seminary, its chapter, and the establishment of the Sisters of Charity (1871). He resigned his see in 1891 with the title of Archbishop of Leontopolis, and was succeeded by the Right Rev. André Albert Blais (b. 1842).

The diocese of Chicoutimi was erected in 1878. For a long time the Saguenay region had been simply a country of missions. The Jesuits had built a wooden chapel at Chicoutimi in 1670, and this was replaced in 1726 by another that remained until 1849. The last Jesuit missionary in these quarters was the celebrated Father J. B. de la Brosse, already mentioned, who died at Tadoussac in 1782. After him a secular priest used to pay a yearly visit, until the missions were entrusted to the Oblates in 1844. Colonization did not begin to set in towards that immense and fertile country, now covered with flourishing parishes, until about 1842, when it ceased to be held by the Hudson's Bay Company as a fur territory. Settlements rapidly formed and grew. In 1862 the Rev. Dominique Racine (1828-88) was appointed parish priest of Chicoutimi. He has been justly called the 'Apostle of Saguenay.' Through his efforts a convent of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd was founded (1864), and afterwards a college (1873), which has now become a seminary. He also began the erection of a church, which by successive improvements became a handsome cathedral, which was unhappily destroyed by fire in 1912. On the erection of the see he was naturally made its first bishop. Under his paternal and skilful direction the diocese soon acquired remarkable prosperity. His successor (1888-91), the Right Rev. Louis Nazaire Bégin, was transferred to Quebec, and was replaced, in 1891, by the Right Rev. Thomas Michel Labrèque (b. 1849), who was consecrated in 1892. In 1901 the Marist Brothers founded a school in Chicoutimi. The Eudist Fathers took charge of the new parish of the Sacred Heart, their flock being composed, for the most part, of the labourers of the Chicoutimi pulp-mills. Several orders of nuns, also, have convents in the thriving little town, among whom must be mentioned the Sisters of the Mercy of Jesus, who keep the Hôtel-Dieu.

In 1906 a large portion of Chicoutimi was erected into the vicariate-apostolic of Gulf St Lawrence and entrusted to the Eudist Fathers, who serve all the missions of that barren northern district. The Right Rev. Father Gustave Blanche, consecrated as Bishop of Sicca, supervises that region, in which, in spite of its desolation, there are some thousands of souls.

Many of the churches formed from the bishopric of Quebec have surpassed her in numbers and riches, but none in glory. After the death of Cardinal Taschereau, His Eminence Cardinal Gibbons, in an after-dinner speech at the Quebec Seminary, happily and gracefully applied to her the words of the Holy Book: 'Many daughters have gathered together riches; but thou hast surpassed them all.'

STATISTICS OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL PROVINCE OF QUEBEC IN 1911

1. Extent of Dioceses

2. Population and Institutions

The Growth of the Catholic Church in Canada

The Catholic hierarchy of Canada was completed in 1899 by the establishment of a regular apostolic delegate. The first in charge was His Excellence Monseigneur Diomède Falconio, Archbishop of Acerenza, who afterwards became delegate to the United States and was raised to the cardinalate in 1911. He was succeeded in 1902 by His Excellence Monseigneur Donato Sbarretti, Archbishop of Ephesus, who returned to Rome in 1910 and became secretary of the Congregation of Regulars. His Excellence Monsignor Pellegrino Francesco Stagni, Archbishop of Aquila, was appointed his successor.

Under the presidency of His Excellence Archbishop Sbarretti a plenary council of the Church of Canada was held in Quebec in 1909. To show the progress achieved in one hundred and fifty years, it may suffice to quote a few lines from the pastoral letter of Archbishop Bégin in 1909 with reference to the council: 'Religious authority is now in the hands of 34 Archbishops and Bishops, Vicars and Prefects Apostolic. There are 8 Ecclesiastical Provinces, 29 dioceses regularly established, 3 Vicariates and 2 Prefectures Apostolic. The Canadian Church extends over an immense territory where live nearly three millions of Catholics of different races and languages.'

To these figures must now be added the vicariate-apostolic of Keewatin, founded in 1910, and the diocese of Regina, erected in 1911.

Thirty-two archbishops and bishops, one prefect-apostolic, one mitred abbot and five proxies of dead or absent bishops, formed, under the apostolic delegate, the solemn assizes of the Church of Canada. As the decrees of the venerable assembly were not published when this sketch was written (April 1912), a glimpse of the plenary council may be gained from these words of Monseigneur Langevin, Archbishop of St Boniface: 'The Council of Quebec has once more proclaimed the truth, asserted the general principles of faith and morals, reaffirmed the fundamental teachings of the Catholic religion, and given general directions to the Catholics of Canada.'

When Bishop Briand took charge of the long-widowed Church of Quebec in 1766 there were in all Canada about 70,000 Catholics, 138 priests and 100 parishes. To-day there are 2,833,041 Catholics, 3600 priests, 2070 parishes and missions, 1965 churches and chapels. It may be added that there is no country in the world where religion is freer and more respected.

I
BEGINNINGS

The Catholic Church, as the pioneer in missionary work between Lake Superior and the Pacific coast of Canada, had, as a matter of course, to give the first-fruits of her zeal to the aboriginal inhabitants throughout this vast region. These were wild tribes of Indians, nomadic on the western prairies and semi-sedentary along the streams and coast-line of what is now British Columbia. From Sault Ste Marie to the Lake of the Woods the Chippewas, or Saulteux, a tribe of Algonquin origin, numbering at least 35,000, held sway before the advent of the whites. They had as neighbours on the adjoining plains the Crees, a tribe of similar stock, who then numbered some 20,000 souls. Still further west, just east of the Rocky Mountains, a third tribe, the Blackfeet, lived. These savages, although related by blood to the Chippewas and the Crees, were the hereditary foes of the latter and subsisted partially by plundering their fellow plain-rangers.

There was a fourth group, a heterogeneous aboriginal division, the Assiniboins, 'those that cook by means of stones,' a branch of the great Sioux family which had separated from the parent stock and moved north, where it had become the ally of the Crees against its own congeners within the United States. This tribe may have numbered 15,000 souls.

West of the Rocky Mountains, no less than six entirely distinct and unrelated stocks of Indians were, in course of time, to claim the attention of the missionaries. These were: the Kootenays, in the south-east corner of British Columbia; the Salish, divided into several important branches on the mainland and part of Vancouver Island; the Kwakwiutl, a dissolute set of people on the coast and the other half of the island; the Haidas, mostly on Queen Charlotte Islands; the Tsimpsians on the Skeena and Nasse Rivers and on the intervening coast; and the Dénés, a vast family of rather timid, religiously inclined tribes, who occupied the whole remaining portion of Northern Canada, with the exception of its coasts, from the Pacific to Hudson Bay and from the boundaries of the Eskimos in the north to the prairies of the Crees and the Blackfeet in the south.

The first representatives of the white race to come in contact with the southernmost of these tribes were two Frenchmen, Pierre Esprit Radisson and Médard Chouart, Sieur des Groseilliers, who visited the land of the Crees in 1659-60, but accomplished little of a missionary character except showing religious pictures to the natives and baptizing children. A more lasting achievement of theirs, the effect of which is felt to the present day, was the founding of the Hudson's Bay Company.

The charter which this celebrated body obtained from the court of England gave its members the commercial monopoly over the whole region drained by the streams emptying into the bay from which the company took its name. But this claim was never acknowledged by the fur traders from Eastern Canada, who soon began moving towards the West in their search for pelts and what was then called the Western Sea, the Pacific Ocean of to-day. The French colonial authorities were eager for the discovery of that great body of water, which they supposed to be much nearer to Lake Superior than it is. They were also moved by a religious purpose. Charles de Beauharnois, governor of New France (1726-47), writing to the French minister at Paris to urge the encouragement of Western exploration, said:

For these reasons, after a trading-post had been established at Kaministikwia, now Fort William, the governor of Canada entrusted the discovery of the Western Sea to a Canadian named Pierre Gaultier de Varennes de la Vérendrye.^[2] With conscientious zeal and in the face of serious obstacles La Vérendrye proceeded to carry out his mission. At the head of fifty men he left Montreal for the unknown West on June 8, 1731. On the way Father Charles Mesaiger, a Jesuit priest, joined the expedition. In the autumn of that year La Vérendrye founded Fort St Pierre on Rainy Lake; and on June 8 of the following year, with the missionary and a small party, he pushed on as far as the Lake of the Woods, on the west shore of which he erected Fort St Charles.

In the year 1733 Father Mesaiger, whose health was unsatisfactory, returned east. Two years later he was replaced by Father Aulneau de la Touche—likewise a Jesuit—a holy man, filled with zeal for his mission. Father Aulneau left Montreal for Fort St Charles on June 13, 1735, with the intention of ultimately devoting himself to the Mandans of the upper Missouri. After doing some evangelical work among the surrounding aborigines, who were none too eager for the light of the Gospel, Father Aulneau, with La Vérendrye's eldest son and nineteen Frenchmen, set out for Michilimackinac on June 8, 1736—the priest intending to pay a visit to his confrères, and the trader to get provisions for the famished members of his establishment. But, on an island some twenty-one miles away, the whole party was murdered by a band of Sioux, who had been led to believe that the French favoured their traditional enemies, the Crees.

Father Aulneau's successor in the West was the Rev. Claude G. Cocquart, S.J., the first minister of religion to reach the site of the present city of Winnipeg. This was in the summer of 1743. He went even farther, and stayed eight or nine months at a post which the elder La Vérendrye had established on the Assiniboine under the name of Fort la Reine, at the spot where Portage la Prairie now stands.

Cares, debts and lack of appreciation forced La Vérendrye to retire from his position in the fall of 1744, after having established no less than six trading-posts, which he regarded as so many stepping-stones towards the fulfilment of the task with which he had been entrusted. He was succeeded by de Noyelle, who accomplished little else than the erection, through one of the La Vérendryes, of Fort Bourbon on Lake Winnipegosis, and Fort Paskoyac near the forks of the Saskatchewan. De Noyelle was succeeded in 1749 by a soldier named Jacques Repentigny Legardeur de Saint-Pierre, a man of fiery character, whose reign, though resulting in the establishment by proxy of Fort la Jonquière, on the site of the present city of Calgary, ended in the burning of Fort la Reine by Indians who were displeased at not finding in him the conciliating ways of the great La Vérendrye. Even the missionary Jean-Baptiste de la Morinie, who arrived at Fort la Reine as the successor to Father Cocquart in the summer of 1750, does not seem to have found life pleasant with Saint-Pierre, for he returned east on June 22, 1751. His place in the West was not to be filled for some sixty-five years.

For a long period after the close of the momentous struggle resulting in the cession of Canada to Great Britain, the Catholic Church was represented on the great plains only by her lay children, many of whom threw in their lot with the aborigines, and thus founded that wonderful race of French half-breeds destined to play so great a rôle in the history of the Canadian West. By preserving the traditions of religion and civilization left by the early explorers, the half-breeds helped to prepare the aborigines for the work of the clergy who in course of time settled where the first missionaries had paid but a fleeting visit.

Our next step brings us to the advent of Lord Selkirk's colonists on the banks of Hudson Bay in 1811 and at the Red River in 1812. These settlers, Scottish Presbyterians and Irish Catholics, were under the care of a Catholic of strong convictions, Captain Miles Macdonell, who could not think of leading men into the far-off wilderness of North America without the all-powerful assistance of religion. He had received the promise of a minister for the Protestants in his colony, but at the last moment the man chosen had declined to join the expedition. For his co-religionists he had secured the services of an Irish priest, the Rev. Charles Bourke, but unfortunately Father Bourke did not give satisfaction, and returned to Europe without having gone farther than York Factory on Hudson Bay.

This failure to secure any minister of religion for his people seriously affected Macdonell. He was compelled to act as a clergyman himself, even having to perform marriage and baptismal ceremonies. He sent urgent requests for a priest to bishop after bishop in Ireland, but his appeals were not heeded. Then, remembering that the unorganized district in which his colony lay must be under the Right Rev. Joseph Octave Plessis, then Bishop of Quebec and the only Ordinary within what is now Canada, he applied to him for help.

Just then events practically necessitated the intervention of the French-Canadian clergy from Eastern Canada. The North-West Company, which previously to the advent of the British colonists in 1812 had been the reigning power in the West, was almost entirely composed of French, and therefore Catholic, traders and servants. With those who were then roaming over the plains under the name of 'freemen,' the few who had enlisted under the ægis of the rival corporation (the Hudson's Bay Company) and the Irish and Scottish settlers, the 'Nor'westers' made up altogether a Catholic population of fully seven hundred and fifty within the valleys of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers. The very strained relations, quarrels and struggles which culminated in the tragic affair of Seven Oaks proved the determining cause in the establishment of the first permanent Catholic mission on the banks of the Red River. It was believed by everybody concerned that the strong arm of religion alone could bring peace and concord to that much disturbed land. No one felt so strongly as Macdonell on this point. Writing to the Bishop of Quebec on April 4, 1816, he says:

The sorrowing governor then represents to the bishop the great numbers of the Catholics and the needs of the aborigines who ought to be under his jurisdiction, and pleads for at least one missionary. Lord Selkirk himself seconded these Christian-like sentiments, declaring that it would give him very great satisfaction to co-operate to the utmost of his power in so good a work. Moreover, when Selkirk went to Red River in 1817, he caused a formal petition to the same effect to be signed by the most prominent among the settlers, traders and 'freemen' in the settlement.

The Bishop of Quebec could not remain deaf to such entreaties. He had already commissioned the Rev. P. A. Tabeau to go to the North-West and to report as to whether it would be more advisable to establish a permanent mission, or merely to have missionary visits paid to the Red River Catholics. But, having learned at Rainy Lake of the disorders and bloodshed in the settlement, Tabeau had deemed it useless to go any farther, and advised against the setting up of a permanent post. Nevertheless, disregarding Tabeau's objections, Bishop Plessis yielded to the prayers of Captain Macdonell, Lord Selkirk and the twenty-three French and Scottish petitioners of the Red River, and appointed for the delicate task of the foundation the Rev. Joseph Norbert Provencher, to whom he gave as a companion the Rev. Sévère Dumoulin.

II
ESTABLISHMENT OF THE CHURCH

Father Provencher was soon to show the wisdom of the prelate's choice by the successful pursuit of his mission. Born at Nicolet, Lower Canada, on February 12, 1787, he had been ordained to the priesthood on December 21, 1811, and had filled various positions of trust in the vicinity of Montreal. At the time of his appointment he was pastor of the prosperous parish of Kamouraska, but generously relinquished it for the hardships of the wild West. Father Dumoulin was six years his junior.

Bishop Plessis drew up for his envoys a series of instructions, wherein they were directed to catechize and watch over the morals of the whites, to strive to convert the natives, to erect schools in as many places as possible, and to remind all 'of the advantages they enjoy in living under the government of His Britannic Majesty, teaching them by word and deed the respect and fidelity they owe to the Sovereign.'

Sir John Coape Sherbrooke, then 'governor-in-chief in and over the Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada,' granted them an escort and a passport in English and French; while Lord Selkirk, not content with giving a large grant of land for the mission, did all he possibly could to facilitate the journey of the two churchmen. In all this work he was generously assisted by Lady Selkirk.

Armed with the powers of a vicar-general, and accompanied by the younger priest and an ecclesiastical student named Guillaume Edge, Father Provencher set out from Montreal for the West on May 19, 1818, and reached Fort Douglas, the headquarters of the Hudson's Bay Company, on July 16.

The missionaries were enthusiastically welcomed. Immediately on their arrival they began their appointed work. If ever a field was barren and crying for the labours of the husbandman it was that of the Red River Settlement. The grossest vices, such as intemperance, immorality and contempt for human life, reigned supreme among all classes, and even the naturally religious French Canadians who had settled there, or were serving the two trading companies, had been brutalized by strife and bloodshed to such an extent that Lord Selkirk, writing on April 4, 1816, was constrained to declare that they seemed to have lost all sense of religion. The situation of the natives was no better. From Fort Douglas, September 13, 1818, Father Provencher wrote:

But the two priests sent by Bishop Plessis were just the men to cope with such a situation. Their first care was to build a modest residence of aspen logs. Using part of it as a chapel, they conducted daily catechizing for the adults as well as for their numerous children, of whom they had baptized no fewer than seventy-two within two months after their arrival.

JOSEPH NORBERT PROVENCHER
From a portrait in the Château de Ramezay

At that time the 'Forks,' as the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers was called, offered but a very poor home to such as did not till the soil. Outside of the forts the Catholic population was then made up for the most part of half-breeds with a few French 'freemen.' Pembina, a great buffalo resort just on the international line, offered a favourable opportunity for the establishment of an important mission. Father Dumoulin, accompanied by the young ecclesiastic, Edge, was sent there. A school was forthwith established under the management of Edge, and soon boasted some sixty pupils, while an educated French Canadian named Legacé was persuaded to give his services as a school-teacher to the children of the plain-rangers, whom the movements of the buffalo forced to spend much of their time remote from the influence of the new church at Pembina.

Father Provencher himself was, if possible, even more zealous on behalf of education. He had erected his humble dwelling opposite Fort Douglas, not far from a small stream which was beginning to be known as German Creek, from the nationality of the soldier-colonists whom Lord Selkirk had left there about a year before. The vicar-general called the spot where he located St Boniface, after the patron saint of their fatherland. There he not only taught the rudiments of secular knowledge, but, as soon as some of his pupils were sufficiently far advanced in their studies, he initiated them into the mysteries of Latin, thus commencing a classical course which was ultimately to expand into what is now the flourishing College of St Boniface. That this enthusiasm for higher education was not limited to the vicar-general may be seen from the fact that, as early as May 25, 1821, Sauvé, an unordained ecclesiastic then residing at Pembina, had six scholars studying Latin grammar.

It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that the Catholic mission seemed to give satisfaction to all parties. 'The Protestants of this place are extremely pleased with our mission,' wrote Father Dumoulin to Bishop Plessis on January 6, 1821. 'They seem to take the keenest interest in it, especially Colonel Dickson. He professes to be delighted with our labours and writes often to England about them.'

Meanwhile the vicar-general had found it necessary to go to Quebec to report upon the state of things in his distant mission. He did not leave, however, before he had received a new co-worker in the person of the Rev. Thomas Destroismaisons to fill his place at St Boniface during his absence.

The church authorities in Quebec took advantage of the presence of the Red River missionary to impress upon him the necessity of accepting the episcopal office. His field of action was so isolated, and recourse to the bishop was consequently so difficult, that it was not deemed advisable to leave the church in the West without one invested with the plenitude of the priesthood. With great reluctance, and after a protracted struggle, Provencher consented to be consecrated Bishop of Juliopolis in partibus infidelium. His consecration took place on May 12, 1822. He received at the same time the title of coadjutor to the Bishop of Quebec for the North-West.

On August 7 he was again at St Boniface. He had with him a young cleric, Jean Harper, who, unlike his two predecessors of the same rank, was to be elevated to the priesthood and to give several years of his life to the Red River missions.

On his return to the West the new bishop found a letter from John Halkett, a brother-in-law of Lord Selkirk, then deceased, in which the writer rather bitterly complained of the importance assumed by the Pembina settlement, recently found to be within American territory, and demanded the return of the French Catholics there to the 'Forks,' or St Boniface. Through the intervention of the bishop a few of them came to his settlement, in spite of the fact that life there was very precarious for people of their class. Others went up the Assiniboine and, on the White Horse Plain some twenty miles above the 'Forks,' formed the nucleus of what was to become the important parish of St François-Xavier. Others, again, looked towards Lake Manitoba for a home, while thirty-five asked to be taken under the protection of the United States. This last step occasioned complaints on the part of certain officials of the Hudson's Bay Company, who wished to hold Bishop Provencher responsible for the disloyalty of the thirty-five, though, as a matter of fact, all his efforts had been directed towards keeping his people in British territory. An official correspondence ensued, and the Catholic priests were completely absolved from all suspicion of disloyalty.

An unfortunate result of this incident was the return to Quebec on July 16, 1823, of Father Dumoulin, who had grown so attached to the Pembina mission, where he had laboured for five years, that he could not reconcile himself to remaining in the West after his flock was scattered. Prior to the breaking up of the southern settlement, which took place in August 1821, there were 800 practising Catholics in the mission, of whom 450, with 50 catechumens, lived at Pembina.

While building a larger church of oak logs, Bishop Provencher turned his attention towards higher education, in the hope that some of his students might feel called to the ecclesiastical vocation, but his hope was not realized during his lifetime. Then he looked for teachers for the girls of the settlement, and, after much discussion, was able to open at St Boniface the first school for girls in the colony, under the management of a well-educated woman, Angélique Nolin, the half-breed daughter of an old trader. This was in 1829, three years after the devastation wrought by the great flood of 1826.

The distress caused by the dispersion of the buffalo, consequent on the great flood, brought home to the wanderers the advisability of attempting to cultivate their fields on the Red River. Bishop Provencher was not slow in impressing on his people the necessity of leading a less nomadic life. He taught them agriculture, and, disregarding his rank, put his own hand to the plough. He had already persuaded the Saulteux to sow wheat in four different localities. He then planted various kinds of fruit-bearing trees, but with little success; and, in order to prevent idleness, which is the source of so many vices among the half-breeds, he cultivated hemp, had weaving taught to the girls of the St Boniface school, and ordered cards for combing wool.

For these services official encomiums were paid him by the annual council of the Hudson's Bay Company held at York Factory on July 2, 1825. The council recognized 'the great benefit being experienced from the benevolent and indefatigable exertions of the Catholic mission at Red River on the welfare and moral and religious instruction of its numerous followers, and it observed with much satisfaction that the influence of the mission under the Right Reverend Bishop of Juliopolis has been uniformly directed to the best interests of the Settlement and of the country at large.'

III
THE FIRST MISSIONS AMONG THE INDIANS

Bishop Provencher, who had gone to Canada in search of men for his missions and of funds for his proposed stone cathedral, brought back with him a man who was to play a most important part in the West—the Rev. Georges Antoine Belcourt. He had previously been parish priest of Ste Martine, but left it to consecrate his energies to the cause of the Indians of the great plains.

Since the inception of the Red River mission spasmodic efforts had been made to bring the natives to a knowledge of the true God and to make them accept the restraints imposed by His law; but these efforts met with little encouragement. On one occasion Father Dumoulin had even been shot at and wounded by one of the Indians. The truth was that the missionaries were too few to attempt any far-reaching work among the red men. Father Belcourt was the first priest to give himself up entirely to the cause of their evangelization. It is impossible to exaggerate the difficulties of this task. Owing to the conflicts between opposing commercial factions the natives were encouraged to drink the vilest intoxicants, and whenever they repaired to any trading-post the wildest orgies, followed by murders and an immorality too gross even to be hinted at, reigned until all their resources were exhausted. Add to this a pronounced antipathy to any religious system except their own, and one will have an idea of the odds Father Belcourt had to struggle against.

It was to the Saulteux, who were least responsive to Christianity, that Belcourt first addressed himself. In 1833 he established on the banks of the Assiniboine, thirty miles from its mouth, a small Indian settlement which he intended as a model village. For some time it met with a measure of success. Belcourt was an able man, quick at learning languages, and indefatigable in his efforts to promote the welfare, material as well as spiritual, of his charge. In many respects he seemed to strive more after the former than the latter. For this reason, perhaps, St Paul's Mission, as his post was called, soon enjoyed considerable popularity among the Red River settlers and even among the distant Indians. Bishop Provencher would have preferred a little more catechizing and less ploughing at the mission on the Assiniboine. But the missionary was a favourite among all classes, and his natural ability and devotion to the cause of the lowly made him the idol of the half-breeds, who soon had occasion to give a public proof of their appreciation of his services.

Shortly before Christmas 1834 one of the half-breeds was ill-treated in a Hudson's Bay Company's fort by a clerk named Thomas Simpson. When he rushed out of the fort to his compatriots, the sight of his bleeding head so enraged the Métis that they vowed vengeance against the quick-tempered clerk, and it looked for a moment as if even the stone walls of new Fort Garry would not protect Simpson against their resentment. The authorities spared no entreaties or promises in order to pacify them, but all was useless. As a last resort they crossed over to St Boniface to beg Father Belcourt, who was temporarily residing there, to come and intervene on behalf of the hapless Simpson. The priest addressed the crowd and succeeded in persuading them to desist from any attempt at violence. The guilty party had merely to give pecuniary compensation to the family of his victim.

Meanwhile Bishop Provencher was busying himself with a most important task—the building of his new cathedral, which was to replace the oak building, now too small for the needs of his growing congregation. The foundations of the new edifice were laid in June 1833. The building was 100 feet long by 45 feet wide, and was built of stone gathered along the banks of the Red River. It was not finished until 1837, and even then there was some work still to be done on the porch. The new temple became the pride of the settlement and was afterwards immortalized by the poet Whittier as the church with the 'turrets twain.'

While Provencher was thus erecting the material edifice, new workers were coming to help him to raise the spiritual temple of the Catholic mission in the Red River valley. The Rev. Charles E. Poiré, who had been ordained at St Boniface in 1833, was entrusted with the care of the half-breed mission of St François-Xavier. A new assistant came from Lévis, Quebec, in the summer of the same year. Like too many of Bishop Provencher's priests, Father Poiré returned to Quebec after only a few years' service. This took place in 1838. His successor, the Rev. Jean Baptiste Thibault, was more persevering. Less brilliant than Belcourt, but more attentive to the wishes of his bishop, he performed, during his long sojourn in the West, a work of more lasting good to the cause of the Indians and half-breeds.

Not long after the arrival of this able recruit the Bishop of Juliopolis received a petition for missionaries from the settlers of far-off Oregon. For this new mission he secured in Canada the services of two sterling priests, the Revs. Norbert F. Blanchet and Modeste Demers. Only the latter could reach Red River in 1837. There he helped Bishop Provencher until the arrival of Father Blanchet in the following year. It was Father Demers who in the course of time became the apostle of British Columbia. Pending the time when Demers was to exercise his apostolate within Canadian territory, he and Blanchet, on their way to the Pacific coast, evangelized the tribes encountered on Lake Winnipeg and along the Saskatchewan River. They were the first missionaries to preach to these Indians.

With Father Blanchet, but intended for work on the Red River, came the Rev. Arsène Mayrand, a good priest whose delicate health prevented him from becoming a great missionary. He was to stay seven years in the settlement. In spite of this addition to the ranks of his clergy Bishop Provencher possessed as yet only four priests; two others, Fathers Harper and Boucher, had previously returned to Canada.

During the same year Father Belcourt founded at the junction of the English and Winnipeg Rivers a second Indian mission which, under the name of Wabassimong, became in later years even more famous, but scarcely more lasting, than that of St Paul's. Alexander Ross, the author of The Red River Settlement, calls it 'a considerable establishment.' It consisted of a church, a number of houses for the Indians clustered around the church, and the customary small fields with cattle supplied from St Boniface.

Two years later the same indefatigable missionary established a similar post for the benefit of the more or less depraved aborigines of Rainy Lake. The two chief obstacles in the way of their conversion to Christianity were intemperance and superstition. As Bishop Provencher put it, these Indians 'preferred the bottle to the Gospel'; and immorality and intemperance are twin sisters. Their superstitions were legion. The following story gives a specimen of them: At the time of the establishment of the Rainy Lake mission it began to be noised about the native wigwams that a Lake Superior Indian, who had died shortly after his baptism, claimed a place in the after-life abode of the Christians, but was repulsed therefrom on the plea that this was made for the whites. He then went to the place assigned for his own people, but was refused admittance there because of the baptism he had received. As there was no room for him anywhere in the land of the departed, he came back to life and preached against the new religion.

In a very different field Bishop Provencher was doing noble missionary work. On February 12, 1835, he had been appointed to the ruling body of the colony, the council of Assiniboia, and as a member of this body he constantly exerted himself on behalf of temperance and education. He had already established a regular school system, comprising teachers of both sexes, one of whom taught English as early as the summer of 1834.

In the course of 1840 Belcourt visited Duck Bay, on Lake Winnipegosis, and inaugurated a missionary post by planting a large cross in a conspicuous place, as he had done at Rainy Lake. The Rev. Jean E. Darveau, a young priest full of zeal and energy, arrived in 1841. After learning the Saulteux language under the tuition of Belcourt, he was sent to the Indians of Lake Winnipegosis in May 1842 in order to prosecute among them the work that Belcourt had begun. There he found that a Protestant catechist was at work. With an embarrassing lack of funds and a rival on the spot Darveau's prospects were certainly not brilliant, but he persevered in his mission. Speaking of him and of the other Catholic missionaries, Alexander Begg, in his History of the North-West, says: 'They experienced many difficulties, and, being poor, had not the same opportunity to extend their labours as rapidly as the Protestant missionaries. What they lacked in means, however, they made up by zealous perseverance, and gradually they made their way midst drawbacks and disappointments.'

Meanwhile, other fields were being opened to the Catholic priests. At the invitation of John Rowand, a Catholic of a rather militant type, who was then commander at Fort Edmonton and the governor of the westernmost trading-posts, Father Thibault left St Boniface on May 20, 1842, and on June 19 of the same year reached his destination, after a journey that was to bring salvation to many a poor soul. The missionary was well received by the Blackfeet and Crees whom he met, and he inaugurated, by the baptism of 353 children, the work which was afterwards to be so zealously continued by the Oblate Fathers. Then, turning his attention to the numerous Catholic servants of the traders at Fort Edmonton, Fort Pitt and Fort Carlton, he repeated on their behalf the ministrations whereby Provencher had wrought such a marvellous change at the Red River Settlement.

Still further west, on the pine-covered shores of what is now British Columbia, the dawn of evangelical light was just appearing through the instrumentality of Father Demers. Journeying from his place of residence on the Columbia River, he arrived in August 1841 at Fort Langley, on the lower Fraser. There he preached the Gospel to some 3000 aborigines, and in the course of four days admitted no fewer than 362 children into the church, while his efforts on behalf of Christian morality were no less fruitful among the adults. By September 7 as many as 758 little ones had been regenerated in the waters of baptism. Meanwhile the celebrated Father de Smet, S.J., was announcing the glad tidings to the Kutenai and Okinagan Indians.

Demers's successes among the barbarous tribes of the Fraser and the coast had whetted his appetite for still more victories over vice and superstition. On June 29, 1842, he began an important missionary journey, accompanying Peter Skene Ogden, a Hudson's Bay Company bourgeois, who, with a numerous caravan of pack-horses, was taking the annual outfitting to the northern posts. He visited in succession Okanagan Forks, Kamloops, and Forts Alexander, George and St James—the last named situated on Stuart Lake. Everywhere he found Indians sunk in the mire of immorality, yet ready to rise at the voice of the man of God. During this long and tedious journey he sowed in ground that was eventually to make the good seed germinate, grow and fructify. It is worthy of remark that to this day the descendants of the natives among whom he laboured remain faithful to the Word then delivered.

The following year another Oregon missionary, the Rev. Jean-Baptiste Bolduc, accompanied James (afterwards Sir James) Douglas to the place which was in course of time to become the city of Victoria, and worked successfully among the Indians who were to be served commercially by the new post.

In the summer of 1845 a Jesuit, Father John Nobili, followed in the footsteps of Demers, and went even as far as Lake Babine. Here crowds of Indians received him as the special envoy of the Deity, although, through the lack of continued effort, the effect of his preaching on their morals was only transitory. Two years later he also visited the Chilcotins, a rather troublesome Déné tribe roaming on the plateaus immediately west of the Fraser River, in the centre of British Columbia.

But we must not anticipate. We have already chronicled the arrival and the early labours of Father Darveau. That devoted priest met with special opposition in his attempt to carry the faith to Le Pas—a locality somewhat below the junction of the Carrot River with the Saskatchewan—visited in 1838 by Blanchet and Demers. Here a native catechist was upholding the religious interests of the Anglicans of Red River. The little priest was represented as a dangerous windigo^[1] not to be tolerated, and every effort was made to frighten him away. Darveau, however, was not daunted by this opposition, and in 1843 promised his neophytes that he would return in the following year and establish a mission among them. Before departing he planted a large cross to mark the site on which the mission-house was to be built. True to his word, he attempted to fulfil his promise; but on the way thither he was foully done to death, along with his half-breed canoe-man, by two Muskegong Indians who had been made to believe that the French priest carried disease along with him. One of them^[2] had also a personal grievance against him.

This was a sad blow for Bishop Provencher. It was in a measure compensated for by the arrival in the same year of four Sisters of Charity of the order of the Grey Nuns (so called from the colour of their habit), to begin at St Boniface the noble Christian work which has since rendered them dear to Protestant and Catholic alike. Their first exertions were on behalf of the young of their own sex, but they soon added to this the care of the sick, the old and the infirm, and became in course of time the mothers of the motherless and the natural refuge of the poor.

IV
NEW MISSIONARIES

While the good sisters were making for the promised land of self-immolation, two young priests, the Revs. L. F. Richer-Laflèche and Joseph Bourassa, offered their services to the lonely bishop by the banks of the Red River. These he deemed all the more precious as all his former coadjutors, save Belcourt and Thibault, had one after the other left him and returned to the land of their birth.

These repeated defections had so far been the greatest cross the prelate had had to bear. Indeed, he could hardly count on the lifelong services of any of his priests. In this sad emergency he bethought himself of the religious orders, in which discipline is stricter and whose very constitutions guarantee a permanence in their activity which cannot be found elsewhere.

Bishop Provencher had at first thought of the Jesuits, but a much younger order was destined to become God's instrument in saving the situation on the plains of the West. This was the congregation of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (O.M.I.), founded at Aix, France, in 1816, the year of the bloody conflict of Seven Oaks. Some of its members had penetrated Eastern Canada in 1841, and were already working wonders there. Provencher applied for help to their founder, Monseigneur Charles J. E. de Mazenod, Bishop of Marseilles, and his request was generously granted.

Father Pierre Aubert, O.M.I., was sent to the Red River accompanied by a youthful-looking novice, Brother Alexandre A. Taché. This humble vanguard of the phalanxes of heroes who were thenceforth to undertake the spiritual conquest of the northern wilds arrived at St Boniface in August 1845. Provencher had expected a band of priests ready to take up the work of the field. Consequently, when he first beheld the boyish face of Father Aubert's companion he was somewhat disappointed.

'I asked for men, and behold, they send me a child!' he exclaimed.

He soon realized that this 'child'—who was to become his successor and the greatest man in the Canadian West—was no ordinary one, and only a few weeks later he was asking for many more of his kind.

Brother Taché was born on July 23, 1823, of one of the best Canadian families. He was ordained deacon on August 31, 1845, by Bishop Provencher, and elevated to the priesthood by the same bishop on October 22 of the same year. On the morrow he pronounced the final vows which made him a full-fledged Oblate Father.

As an offset to this double acquisition Father Mayrand had left on the preceding August 29. But courageous Father Thibault was then at far-off Ile à la Crosse in the north, to which he had penetrated for the first time in 1844, after visiting the intervening posts of Cold Lake and Lac la Biche. The Chipewyan (Déné) Indians whom he met there had received him with open arms. During the expedition in 1844 he had baptized no fewer than five hundred children, and in the course of 1845 he wrote: 'It is impossible that any native nation should ever be better disposed to embrace our faith than are the Montagnais' (Chipewyans).

On January 3, 1846, he returned to Edmonton, and there met Father de Smet, who had been looking for the Blackfeet in order to persuade them to consent to a treaty of peace with their inveterate enemies, the Flatheads.

Father Aubert, one of the new Oblates, was stationed at Wabassimong, while the other, Father Taché, accompanied Father Laflèche to Ile à la Crosse to found a permanent mission, which event took place on July 5, 1846. On September 5 there arrived a third Oblate, Father Bermond, a man of great ability, and, two months later, a scholastic brother, Henri Faraud, who was destined to occupy a high place in the northern missions. Along with Faraud came a lay brother, Louis Dubé, the forerunner of that little band of humble workers who have done so much to render the labours of the missionaries possible.

While Bermond was proceeding to ill-starred Duck Bay, on Lake Winnipegosis, Father Taché was engaged on a long and trying journey on snow-shoes, first to Green Lake and then to Lake Caribou, which he reached on March 25, 1847. Thence he directed his course for Lake Athabaska, which he was the first missionary to see, and where he was exceedingly well received by the natives of Déné descent—the Chipewyans—and by other tribes.

While his missionaries were thus exerting themselves on behalf of savages who had never heard of Christ or His divine message, Bishop Provencher was winning golden opinions at home by his zeal in the public service and his efforts in the interest of agriculture and industry—efforts which, in 1845, had again been acknowledged by the council of Assiniboia—as well as by the care he took of the education of his children. Poor though he was, he had already five schools in 1845, and intended establishing two more.

The fortune of Father Belcourt was not so favourable. It seemed to be his destiny to be mixed up with the political life of the little Red River world. The half-breed population, both French and English, had long been complaining bitterly of the commercial monopoly of the Hudson's Bay Company. The discontent came to a climax early in 1847, when the people of both races petitioned the throne for redress. Belcourt wrote out the text of the French memorial, dated February 17, 1845, which, it must be said, was couched in most loyal language, since the petitioners were declared to 'admire the wisdom of the British constitution and wish to share in its privileges.'

Because of the part that the missionary took in this affair Sir George Simpson, the governor of the company, sometimes called the Emperor of British North America, insisted that he should not be allowed to stay in the settlement. Belcourt, therefore, went to Canada, and when he returned west shortly afterwards it was to exercise his ministry at Pembina, on the outskirts of the colony.

Bishop Provencher had been appointed vicar-apostolic of the North-West in the course of 1844. Three years later, on June 4, 1847, he was made a titular bishop; and this circumstance, together with his inability to travel and fulfil the duties of his charge among his ever-increasing children of the north, made him think seriously of getting a coadjutor. He at first approached Father Laflèche, a very deserving priest, but Laflèche was then labouring under premature infirmities which caused him to reject the proffered honour.

Then he thought of Father Taché, whose only defect was his extreme youth—he was then barely twenty-seven years of age. But the very fact that the young priest belonged to a religious order seemed to the venerable prelate an immense advantage. Experience had made it painfully clear that he could not count on the secular priests of the East to recruit his clergy. He saw that, once made a bishop, Taché would certainly not be left unaided by his order. Hence, without consulting the youthful missionary, then fifteen hundred miles away, Provencher obtained for him Bulls naming him Bishop of Arath in partibus infidelium and coadjutor to the pastor of the Red River.

While these arrangements were being made, the person they affected was pursuing his apostolic labours with unflagging zeal. In 1849 he and his new companion, Father Faraud, had learned that, owing to the revolution of the preceding year in France, there was every likelihood that their resources would be cut off and their mission abandoned. In the first moment of consternation the two missionaries wrote to their superior a joint letter in which they earnestly begged to be left among their neophytes. 'The fish of the lake,' they declared, 'will suffice for our subsistence, and the spoils of the wild beasts for our clothing. For mercy's sake,' they urged, 'do not recall us.'

The zealous priests were allowed to continue their good work, and Father Faraud improved his opportunity by founding, on September 8, 1849, the permanent mission of the Nativity on Lake Athabaska. In the following spring his place was taken at Ile à la Crosse by newly arrived priests from France, Fathers Maisonneuve and Tissot, who remained the regular incumbents of that mission. In February 1851 Father Taché learned—with what surprise it is easy to guess—of his promotion to the episcopate. His bishop at Red River ordered him home, and his superior as an Oblate, Monseigneur de Mazenod, bade him come to Marseilles to be consecrated by his own father in God. The ceremony took place on November 23, 1851, and, in a visit which the new prelate soon afterwards paid to the Pope, he requested that the title of his immediate superior at Red River be changed to that of Bishop of St Boniface. His request was granted.

During the preceding year two sisters of charity who had been sent to St François-Xavier established a school for the children of that locality. On May 1, 1851, a Protestant minister, the Rev. William Cochrane, moved in the colonial council, and Father Laflèche seconded the motion, 'that £100 be granted from the public funds to be divided annually between the Bishop of Rupert's Land and the Bishop of the North-West, to be applied by them at their discretion for the purposes of education.' Although carried unanimously, this motion was nevertheless disallowed by the London Committee of the Hudson's Bay Company as 'a misappropriation of the public funds.' Before he had learned of this Father Laflèche in 1852 seconded a proposal by Dr Bunn, of the same legislative body, to the effect that £15 should be granted for identical purposes to the Rev. John Black, the newly arrived Presbyterian minister of the settlement. This, of course, met with the same fate at the hands of the London magnates.

June 27, 1852, saw Bishop Provencher's coadjutor back at St Boniface. He was accompanied by an Oblate Father, the Rev. Henri Grollier, in after years the great missionary of the Arctic Circle, and by a young secular priest who later became famous as an Oblate missionary under the name of Father Lacombe. Father Thibault had then made up his mind to return east. Lacombe was sent to take his place at Edmonton, while Thibault, having consented to stay longer, was appointed to St François-Xavier, a post previously presided over by Father Laflèche, who now resided at St Boniface with the title of vicar-general.

Bishop Taché immediately returned north, but was not long left a simple coadjutor. Bishop Provencher's health had long been failing. He died within sight of his cathedral on June 7, 1853, carrying to the grave the esteem and regrets of both sections of the population. He had been a true father and a faithful pastor to the Catholics, and a public-spirited man and prudent legislator.

V
TACHÉ SUCCEEDS PROVENCHER

Bishop Taché was then barely thirty years of age, and his see was still but a small village, though as a parish it numbered some 1100 souls. On the Assiniboine there was St François-Xavier, which boasted a large log-church and a convent with two nuns for a population of about 900. It had as an annex a mission—the future parish of St Charles—between St François and Fort Garry, while, some nine miles above St Boniface, on the Red River, a group of French half-breeds, forming the mission of St Norbert, were visited from the episcopal mansion.

The Indian missions with resident priests were Ste Anne, forty-five miles west of Edmonton, St John the Baptist, at Ile à la Crosse, and the Nativity, on Lake Athabaska, each of which had a number of dependencies which were periodically visited by the incumbents of the main stations.

When Bishop Taché assumed charge of the Catholic West he had four secular priests, Thibault, Bourassa, Laflèche and Lacombe, and seven Oblates, namely, Bermond, Faraud, Grollier, Tissot, Maisonneuve, Végreville and Rémas—the last two new arrivals in the country.

ALEXANDRE ANTONIN TACHÉ
From a photograph

On Bishop Taché's accession Father Bermond was made vicar-general, with orders to direct the southern establishments. The prelate set out for Lake Athabaska, and on reaching his destination sent Father Grollier to found a mission at the eastern end of the lake, which became known as Fond du Lac. Then, in the fall of 1853, still another mission station—Lac la Biche—was established by Father Rémas, in the midst of extreme poverty. This post was destined to attain the greatest importance from a material standpoint. In February 1854 Taché left his palace at Ile à la Crosse for a round of visitations to the northern missions and aborigines. The missionary bishop has given a description of that 'palace' which will bear reproduction:

In August 1854 Bishop Taché received a priest lately ordained, who, in spite of his frail health, was to become a great figure in the annals of the Canadian North-West. This was the Rev. Vital J. Grandin, O.M.I., who brought with him to St Boniface Christian Brothers whose sojourn there was to be but too short. To install them, and himself to take formal possession of his see, Bishop Taché returned to St Boniface. In May 1855 was commenced the construction of a college building measuring 60 feet by 34 feet, which was soon to shelter fifty-eight pupils.

Meanwhile Father Grandin was sent to Lake Athabaska to allow Father Faraud time to spy out the land on behalf of the missions, while Father Lacombe, on the eve of becoming an Oblate, was visiting Lesser Slave Lake and Peace River. A new recruit, Father J. M. Lestanc, who arrived on October 19, 1855, brought the number of Oblate priests in the diocese of St Boniface up to ten; but the secular priests therein decreased in number, and by the end of 1856 only one, Father Thibault, remained in the country.

Bishop Taché seemed to be attracted by the North as the needle is by the magnetic pole. In 1855-56 we see him again going from mission to mission, and comforting the priests, whose extreme penury and consequent sufferings he was only too pleased to share. As an instance of the practical results of their common exertions we may mention that at that time the mission of Ile à la Crosse was composed of 534 excellent Christians, with 53 catechumens, out of a total population of 735.

That enthusiasm of the Catholic Church for education which had prompted Provencher and his co-workers to found schools everywhere, and even to provide a classical course for mere plain-rangers, was displayed even on the icy wastes of the North. In the fall of 1856 Bishop Taché crossed over to France in the interests of his immense diocese, and while there he had Cree primers and other books printed in Roman type, as well as Chipewyan booklets in syllabic characters. The results of the education imparted on the banks of the Red River were, even at this early period, beginning to be seen. Since 1855 François Bruneau, one of Provencher's Latin scholars, had sat in the council of Assiniboia, and, in September 1857, three more French half-breeds were admitted into that select circle.

Taché was himself received into the council on June 3 of the following year. There he relentlessly fought the battle of temperance, and was no doubt instrumental in preventing much evil. Then, as his diocese was becoming much too large for any one man to administer, he obtained from Rome a coadjutor in the person of the Rev. V. J. Grandin, O.M.I., who was appointed Bishop of Satala in partibus infidelium and was consecrated at Marseilles in November 1859.

This promotion and the extension of the church of which it was the harbinger were all the more welcomed by Bishop Taché and his auxiliaries as, in the course of 1858, the first Protestant minister had gone north with the intention of winning over the natives to his denomination. Thenceforth the Catholic priests deemed it their duty to follow this missionary and his successors into the valley of the Mackenzie in order to protect the faith of their own converts.

In the south new labourers in the Lord's vineyard were coming to swell the ranks of the earlier missionaries. Of these Fathers Moulin and Gascon were dispatched north, while, nearer St Boniface, Fathers Lestanc and others were laying the foundations of the now prosperous parishes of Ste Anne des Chênes and St Norbert. Meanwhile, Father Grollier was journeying from his headquarters at Fort Resolution, on Great Slave Lake, towards Forts Norman and Good Hope, just within the Arctic Circle. There he spent the winter of 1859-60, and founded the now important mission of Our Lady of Good Hope. Father Végreville—after whom the rising town of that name in Alberta is called—had then charge of Ile à la Crosse, while in August 1859 Father Rémas was conducting from St Boniface the first three nuns who were afterwards to establish a convent in the Far West. This convent was located at Ste Anne, but later was transferred to St Albert.

At the same time the Earl of Southesk was making that journey to the source of the Saskatchewan of which he has since published the journal. In this journal we read, with regard to his stay at the first-named mission, that he had the pleasure of dining at the mission-house with Fathers Lacombe and Le Frain, whom he found 'agreeable men and perfect gentlemen.'

Culture and wealth, however, are by no means convertible terms, and it must be noted that the persons thus characterized by Southesk, and, to a still greater extent, their confrères in the north, were very far indeed from living in opulence. Flour was then, and remained for many years afterwards, a veritable luxury for them, and many Catholic missionaries passed several years without tasting bread. Fish and dried meat, together with more or less rancid pemmican, were their staple food, and water, or sometimes sugarless tea, their beverage.

On July 10, 1860, Bishop Grandin returned from France, where he had been consecrated, with a valiant body of future co-workers—Fathers Séguin, Caer and Gasté, and Brother Boisramé. Father Séguin and Brother Boisramé left for Ile à la Crosse with the new prelate, whose health was not of the best. Other precious recruits were three nuns who were on their way to that remote post, where, on October 4, 1860, they established a convent.

Still farther north the intrepid Father Grollier was continuing his peaceful course of conquest, which was to take him 'unto the ends of the earth,' to win most of the Indians to Catholic truth in spite of the scarcely veiled opposition of the traders, who naturally sided with their co-religionists, the Protestant ministers. Bishop Taché himself shared in the hardships of those perilous journeys, preaching in succession at Ile à la Crosse, Lac la Biche, Ste Anne and Edmonton.

It was during this apostolic expedition that the prelate heard of the greatest misfortune that ever befell the Catholic missions in Western Canada—the destruction by fire of his residence and all he possessed, as well as of his magnificent cathedral with its famous bells, of which Whittier has sung:

This disaster took place on December 14, 1860, at the very moment when, tired out, cold and famished after a long tramp over the northern snow, Bishop Taché was instinctively yearning for the sweets of home.

Then, as if the prelate had not been sufficiently tried, the spring of 1861 brought to the Red River Settlement an inundation; and in the midst of this trouble were laid to rest the remains of Mother Valade, the nun who, in 1844, had established the first convent of the West.

Undaunted by this desolation the missionaries went on with their good works, establishing in 1861 the posts of St Laurent, on Lake Manitoba, St Albert, near Edmonton, and St Peter, on Lake Caribou, north-east of Ile à la Crosse. Fathers Gasté and Végreville were the founders of the last-named post, and it remained for years the icy home of the former priest.

The life of the northern missionaries was for the most part of necessity spent in travelling, sometimes following up the Métis and Indians in their buffalo hunts, but more often going from fort to fort in order to meet the natives who congregated there to exchange their furs for supplies, as well as to hear the Word of God and approach the sacraments. So poor were the missionaries in the Far North that during the winter they had to adopt the costume of their flocks. This consisted of long trousers of moose skin, a shirt of caribou skin with the hair inside, over which hung a large blouse of moose-skin leather. Two small bags of bear or other skin hung from either shoulder. These were their mittens, in which they had constantly to keep their hands or pay the penalty of having them immediately frozen. Over their heads they wore skin hoods enclosing fur caps. In spite of all these precautions many were the cheeks and noses that became the prey of the biting cold.

It was under such winter conditions as these that Bishop Grandin made to the northern missions an apostolic visit that lasted over three years (1861-64). Everywhere he was struck by the extreme poverty of the missionaries and the marked improvement in the lives of their converts. This improvement was all the more noticeable as it contrasted with the morals of those tribes which had but lately accepted their ministrations, and which still abandoned the old and infirm, and occasionally practised cannibalism in times of famine. In addition to their sacred duties his priests had generally to stoop to the most menial occupations and live in the greatest penury. Thus, at Good Hope, to mention only one station, Father Séguin was the regular hunter and purveyor of the mission, Brother Kearney was the carpenter and mason, while the travelling bishop constituted himself the woodman of the establishment until the weather became mild enough for him to go on with his visitations. At the same mission Father Grollier was dying in his prime, and completing by his sufferings the conversion of the natives to whom his life had been consecrated.

It is impossible to follow the prelate in all his journeyings. Only one incident of these travels shall we relate, in order to give the reader an idea of the dangers which beset the lives of the northern missionaries. This occurred on December 14, 1863. Bishop Grandin was travelling over the ice of the inland sea called Great Slave Lake, closely preceded by some traders connected with the Hudson's Bay Company. The party were not far from their destination, namely, St Joseph's Mission, when suddenly they were struck by a squall of wind which in a few moments increased to a fierce gale. At the same time a fine snow fell, which whipped the faces of the wayfarers and soon concealed everything from view. Yet the ice was left quite bare by the fierceness of the wind, so that the bishop and his guide Baptiste, a child of thirteen, could not see the tracks of their companions, and lost their way. The Indian guide of the traders, who knew that the prelate was doomed if left alone, begged his party to wait for him; but the bitter cold and their inexperience of northern blizzards caused them to pay no heed to his remonstrances. Bishop and child were now walking about at random, simply to keep themselves from freezing. Both were soon exhausted. They knew the consequences of inaction in the midst of such a storm, but human endurance has its limits. Lying down to leeward of his sledge and pressing the child to his bosom, the bishop gave his life up for lost, and begged for God's mercy. Then he heard the confession of little Baptiste, while the child wept in spite of himself, and the dogs howled under the sting of the bitter cold. Humanly speaking, they were doomed. Once asleep, they would have awakened only to appear before God's tribunal. Yet, through a truly Providential protection, they both saw the light of the morrow. Early in the morning they were rescued by a party sent from the mission and the fort, and Bishop Grandin entered the mission chapel as Father Petitot, a new arrival who was destined to become the great scientist of the Arctic, was saying mass for him, and wondering whether it was not a requiem mass that he ought to be celebrating.

VI
BRITISH COLUMBIA

We have witnessed the first tottering steps of the church in what is to-day British Columbia, and the first triumphs over barbarism of its chief apostle, the Rev. Modeste Demers. On November 30, 1847, this missionary had been consecrated Bishop of Vancouver Island, then a separate colony, and given as a suffragan to his former companion-in-arms, the Most Rev. N. F. Blanchet, Archbishop of Oregon City.

Bishop Demers had passed the years 1848-50 for the most part travelling in Canada and Europe in the interests of his poor diocese, which suffered as much from the lack of men as from that of material resources. As he could not get priests among the secular clergy, he did what Bishop Provencher had done: he begged the assistance of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, who had been settled in Oregon since the year of his consecration. It was not until 1857, however, that their first station within what is now the Pacific province of Canada could be established at Esquimalt, the port of Victoria. Here they attended to the spiritual wants of the seamen and the few Catholics living in the neighbourhood, as well as of such Indians as they could reach.

On June 5, 1859, Bishop Demers brought back with him from Canada, whither he had again gone, the first four Sisters of St Anne to visit the Pacific coast. These sisters immediately established a school at Victoria. With the prelate came also a kindly priest, the Rev. Pierre Rondeau, who was to spend over forty years of his life as a faithful minister of Christ in the land of his adoption. At the same time Father Casimir Chirouse, O.M.I., made the first serious effort to convert the natives of the island. He baptized over 400 children and induced more than 2000 adults publicly to renounce gambling, conjuring and murdering. He returned home with his canoe full of paraphernalia of the medicine man, or conjurer, as well as of knives, gambling disks, and other accessories of sin.

In spite of the scarcity of missionaries a new station was established on October 8, 1859, on the east shore of Lake Okanagan, under the vocable of the Immaculate Conception, by Fathers Pandosy and Richard. This was the first mission attempted on the mainland. On December 12 of the same year two valuable recruits arrived, in the persons of the Oblate Fathers Pierre P. Durieu and Léon Fouquet, who at once began their work among the Indians of the island. On September 13, 1860, the latter founded St Charles Mission in the now prosperous city of New Westminster, then a mere village consisting of a few houses surrounded by stumps. Early in 1861 another newcomer, Father Charles Grandidier, was sent to Fort Hope, on the lower Fraser. He battled valiantly, in the teeth of much opposition from the whites, against intemperance among the natives, many of whom he induced to take the pledge and, in the majority of cases, to keep it.

This campaign against vice was so general and successful that, on March 26, 1861, a Protestant correspondent of the British Colonist, the Victoria paper, wrote as follows:

The series of religious foundations in 1861 ended by the establishment of the now famous St Mary's Mission, thirty-five miles above New Westminster, on the Fraser. This mission was founded by Father Fouquet, who was then making a tour of the northern interior of the mainland colony in the interests of whites and reds alike. On this tour he got as far as the Caribou mines.

These various works were undertaken under the general supervision of the Superior of the Oblates, Father Louis J. d'Herbomez, who had reached the Far West as early as 1850.

In the course of 1863 there was established at St Mary's Mission the first industrial school for the children of the natives on the Pacific coast. A new arrival, the genial Father Florimond Gendre, O.M.I., was entrusted with this foundation, while Bishop Demers was again visiting the interior of the colony and the miners of the Caribou district.

Among other foundations to the credit of the year 1863 we have to mention that of St Louis College in Victoria, and of St Michael's Mission in the vicinity of Fort Rupert, at the opposite end of the island. The latter, in spite of the superhuman efforts of Fathers Fouquet, Durieu and Le Jacq, incontestably the best missionaries on the North Pacific, never gave satisfactory results, and had to be abandoned after a few years.

The whites themselves were responsible for another evil. Smallpox raged for a time among the aborigines, carrying off thousands of them in a few months. To save the others and stay the march of the dread invader, the missionaries had to turn surgeons and physicians. Father Pandosy vaccinated several thousand Indians, Father Fouquet rendered the same service to at least eight thousand, while Fathers Chirouse and Durieu operated similarly on as many more.

On November 19, 1863, there arrived at Victoria a young priest, delicate in health but strong in mind, who was to become illustrious on the shores of the Pacific, the Rev. Charles J. Seghers, a Belgian. To him was assigned as his first work the superintendence of the diocesan finances.

But an event of far greater moment took place on December 20, the preconization of Father d'Herbomez as Bishop of Miletopolis and vicar-apostolic of British Columbia, as the mainland alone of the present province of that name was then called. To this territory was added the Queen Charlotte Islands. The first titular of this new ecclesiastical division was consecrated on October 9, 1864. As a consequence of this measure the Oblates gradually withdrew from the older but smaller diocese of Vancouver Island.

Crossing over the Rocky Mountains and returning to more familiar ground we find that, in July 1862, Fathers Gascon and Petitot, aided by Brother Boisramé, made the first clearing in the sub-arctic forest near Grand Rapid, on the Mackenzie, where the now important mission of Providence stands, while in the south Bishop Taché was laying the foundations of a new cathedral, with funds collected by him in Eastern Canada. Then, on November 30, 1862, Father Faraud was consecrated Bishop of Anemour and appointed head of a suffragan vicariate-apostolic just established in the Far North under the name of Athabaska-Mackenzie.

Between the summer of 1862 and that of 1863 Father Séguin made an apostolic visitation to the Yukon, going as far west as the trading-post of that name. But, owing to the open hostility of the traders and the superstitious fear of the priests in the hearts of the natives, he could accomplish nothing. A still sadder event in the same part of Canada was the demise, on June 4, 1864, at Fort Good Hope, of Father Grollier, at the age of thirty-eight. He was the first missionary to die a natural death in the Canadian North-West.

Of quite a different nature was the official visit to the St Boniface and other missions of the Very Rev. Father Vandenberghe, delegated by the general of the Oblates to report on their progress and needs. Bishop Taché accompanied the visitor as far as Ile à la Crosse. This visitation was scarcely over when Bishop Faraud arrived from France, on May 24, 1865, with three Oblate Fathers—one of whom was Father Leduc, to-day (1913) one of the most meritorious priests of the West—and three lay brothers. As the new prelate was afflicted with premature infirmities due to his past labours, Father Isidore Clut, O.M.I., on January 3, 1866, was appointed his coadjutor under the title of Bishop of Erindel.

The inroads made by the now numerous Protestant missionaries helped to make this appointment opportune. The result of their efforts among the natives was negative rather than positive, but it none the less necessitated increased exertions on the part of their predecessors in the field.

Meanwhile the vicar-apostolic of distant British Columbia, Bishop d'Herbomez, was paying a visit to his scattered missions along the pine-clad plateaus of the interior. Everywhere he witnessed the consoling results of his priests' devotion. He himself gave evidence of his zeal for higher education by establishing a college at his headquarters, New Westminster.

We have already mentioned Father le Jacq as one of Bishop d'Herbomez's best missionaries. On April 18, 1868, this devoted priest accompanied the vicar-apostolic in a five months' journey which was to take the two travellers to the northern posts visited by Demers and Nobili twenty years before, posts which, for lack of evangelical labourers, had perforce been neglected ever since. Preaching and administering the sacraments at Fraser Lake, Stony Creek, Stuart Lake and Babine Lake in succession, bishop and priest did a vast amount of good to the natives of Déné descent. They rekindled the torch of faith among them, and repressed the disorders which usually follow in the wake of paganism. On his way back the prelate paid a visit to the gold-miners of Caribou, and was received with open arms.

An idea of his own activity and that of his priests may be gathered from the fact that an edifice which Bishop d'Herbomez blessed in the course of this missionary journey was the fifty-fifth to be dedicated by him within the four years of his episcopate. In 1867 had been founded, near the gate of Golden Caribou, as it was called, the important mission of William's Lake, from which the tribes of the northern interior, the Shushwaps, Chilcotins, Carriers, Babines and Sekani, were first evangelized.

Reverting now to the Middle West, we have to chronicle the destruction by fire of the entire establishment of Ile à la Crosse on March 1, 1867; the consecration of Bishop Clut on August 15 of the same year; the appointment, in the same month and year, of Bishop Grandin, still coadjutor to Bishop Taché, to the special superintendence of the Saskatchewan missions; and the arrival at St Boniface, in July 1868, of five Oblate priests, the Revs. Légeard, Dupin, Fourmond, Doucet and Blanchet, who had been preceded in the West by Father Camper, in October 1865, and by Fathers Laity and de Kérangué and Brother Mulvihil in December 1867.

In 1869 an event of great importance to the Catholic world at large took place—the Œcumenical Council of the Vatican, which drew to Rome Bishops Taché, Demers, Clut and d'Herbomez. Very serious events soon recalled the first-named prelate to his remote see by the banks of the Red River, events which, although essentially of a secular character, we must none the less briefly review, because most of those concerned in them were Catholics. In our recital of these events we shall rely chiefly on the sworn testimony of non-Catholics on the spot, and on the accounts of such Protestant historians as have not allowed the bitterness caused by failure to blind them to the truth.

VII
THE RED RIVER TROUBLES AND THEIR AFTERMATH^[1]

In 1869 the Red River population was 11,500, sharply divided into two sections—French or Catholic, and English, generally Protestant, the former slightly preponderating in numbers. The people were mostly half-breeds and, owing to their close relationship through their mothers, lived in the greatest harmony under the patriarchal rule of the Hudson's Bay Company, now divested of all monopolistic pretensions. But the newly created Dominion of Canada coveted their country, and it will ever be a matter of regret that it did not take the proper means to acquire it.

Politically speaking, Canada and Assiniboia were then on exactly the same footing. Both were colonies of the British Empire. Desirous of extending its frontier westward, the former colony sent men into the latter to prepare the way, to make a trunk road through Assiniboia, and to survey the whole country in anticipation of a large influx of settlers from the East. Meanwhile negotiations were being actively carried on, and ultimately an agreement was made whereby the Hudson's Bay authorities in London were to relinquish their chartered rights to the western plains to the new Dominion for a consideration of £300,000, whether the people of Assiniboia were willing or not, and without any guarantee of their fair treatment by the Dominion authorities. These proceedings were naturally resented. William M^cTavish, the governor of Assiniboia, protested against the construction of the road as an intrusion by a sister colony which had as yet no right to his territory, and the people made ready to protect themselves against the encroachments of the surveyors from the East, whose actions were calculated to wound the susceptibilities even of the most patient community. Disregarding the long-acquired rights of the French Métis, or half-breeds, the surveyors set out to 'divide and subdivide the land into sections, as they saw fit.' Then they staked out for themselves and their friends in Ontario what they pleased of the best lands, and their leader, Colonel John S. Dennis, appropriated enough 'to make him one of the largest land proprietors in the Dominion,' had he been allowed to take possession. Finally, it began to look as if no man's property were safe, and, as the secretary of the council of Assiniboia remarked on oath, 'it was generally believed ... that the whole country would be appropriated by the newcomers.' The worst of it was that these surveys affected 'estates already occupied' by the half-breeds. If we take into consideration that the surveyors showed themselves the 'arrogant exponents of Canadian policy,' and freely predicted a forced expropriation and servitude for the French half-breeds, we shall understand why the latter deemed it necessary to put a stop to such proceedings and get guarantees of fair treatment before they entered the Confederation.

With this end in view, on October 11, 1869, the surveyors were stopped in their work by Louis Riel, then a young man of twenty-five, the son of Louis Riel the elder who had acted in 1849 as the spokesman of his compatriots in their demands on behalf of free trade. Against his obstruction recourse was had to two magistrates, to whom the younger Riel declared that 'the Canadian Government had no right to make surveys in the territory without the express permission of the people.' The representatives of the Canadian party, as the newcomers were then called, took their appeal to the administrator of the diocese, Father Lestanc. But the priest declined to interfere, because, as he said, he 'had heard too much concerning the surveyors, who treated the half-breeds like dogs, did not respect their rights, destroyed their property, and threatened them.' Then, as it was understood that William M^cDougall, who had been appointed by the Canadian government to assume the powers of lieutenant-governor in Assiniboia as soon as it should be transferred to Canada (the transfer was to take place on December 1, 1869), was nearing the American frontier, preceded by cases of rifles and ammunition for his partisans, Riel erected a barricade on the highway over which the would-be official had to pass, and caused it to be guarded by armed men, while he warned M^cDougall not to cross the boundary-line without the authorization of the National Committee, which he had formed in accordance with the immemorial custom of the Métis when in difficulties. Moreover, it was learned not only that arms were being introduced into the colony for use against those who stood for the rights of the old settlers, but also that many of the Easterners were soldiers in disguise and were now being urged by Colonel Dennis to rise in support of William M^cDougall. Riel therefore occupied Fort Garry, on November 2, with a number of men to prevent it from falling into the hands of his opponents. As M^cDougall himself afterwards declared, the government of the Hudson's Bay Company was then moribund, and quite unable to cope with the situation, especially as its chief magistrate, Governor M^cTavish, was dangerously ill.

At the same time Riel and his men affirmed their unshaken loyalty to the throne. The prime minister of Canada himself, after the receipt of advices from high officials on the spot, acknowledged this fidelity of the Catholic half-breeds when he wrote in his Report to a Committee of the Privy Council that their resistance was 'evidently not against the sovereignty of Her Majesty or the government of the Hudson's Bay Company, but to the assumption of the government by Canada.' This was also admitted by William M^cDougall himself on two occasions, and on another the governor-general of Canada telegraphed to Lord Granville that 'Riel opened the proceedings with a loyal speech.' Later on a Protestant citizen, A. G. B. Bannatyne, testified on oath to the same effect, and no one enjoyed better opportunities of judging Riel's real sentiments.

On the other hand, although less affected by the threats and encroachments of the Canadian newcomers, the English half-breeds felt indignant when these strangers tried to represent them as favourable to their unwarrantable proceedings, and published a protest wherein they declared that they felt it 'very keenly that strangers, after having endeavoured to bring ruin on [their] country, should try to blacken [their] character before the public by attributing to [them] acts and intentions of which they themselves alone [were] guilty.'

As to those in arms in Fort Garry, M^cTavish reported on November 16 that 'the men generally are quiet and orderly,' while a newspaper correspondent on the spot wrote that 'they scrupulously respect property, and have forcibly stopped the sale of liquor both in the fort and at the village of Winnipeg.' Another writes that 'they take an oath to abstain from intoxicating liquors until they have this matter settled, and so far have strictly abided by it.' The same correspondent asserted that 'they are anxious that it should be clearly understood that their actions have been solely directed against the Canadian, and not at all the imperial, government.' Still another declared that their 'government so far is generally acknowledged to be an improvement upon that of the Company.'

Riel's only aim was to unite the two sections of the population in a concerted attempt to secure from Ottawa guarantees embodied in a bill of rights to be adopted by the English as well as by the French. But M^cDougall, fretting under the humiliating situation he was in, and misled by his informants as to the real aim of those who had temporarily assumed power in the colony, unceasingly strove to incite one section of the population against the other. Canada refused to accept the territory while its people remained disaffected, and the transfer from the Hudson's Bay Company to the Dominion was therefore postponed, and did not take effect on the date fixed.

Nevertheless, in spite of instructions to the contrary, M^cDougall on that date (December 1, 1869) issued a proclamation whereby the queen was declared to have appointed him lieutenant-governor of the North-West Territories, and soon afterwards he publicly commissioned Colonel Dennis to raise a sufficient force to oust from Fort Garry those who wanted terms under the federal government. When shown a copy of this document, the former governor of Assiniboia declared his own authority at an end. Riel, who shortly afterwards ascertained its spuriousness, considered that no legitimate power now remained in the colony but his own, which temporarily represented the great majority of the people. He therefore published on December 8, 1869, a proclamation wherein he formally assumed the reins of power, while he held himself 'in readiness to enter into such negotiations with the Canadian government as may be favourable to the good government and prosperity of this people.' The heads of the Canadian party had assembled in the house of Dr John C. Schultz, from which the provisions sent out for the labourers on the Dawson Road were being gradually removed, apparently with a view to their being used by Colonel Dennis's possible recruits. As this action pointed towards civil war, Riel demanded the surrender of Schultz and his followers, and on being refused made them prisoners, to the number of forty-five.

On Christmas Day Riel received a visit from Vicar-General Thibault, the former missionary of the Saskatchewan plains, and Colonel Charles de Salaberry, deputed by Ottawa to treat with the representatives of the people of Assiniboia. But as they had not been given power to offer the people terms, their mission was doomed to failure. Two days later Donald A. Smith (now Lord Strathcona) arrived at Fort Garry, armed with documents whose consideration occupied a meeting of the people for two days (January 19 and 20, 1870). The official Blue Book which details the events of that troubled period bears witness to the fact that Father Lestanc used his influence in the interests of peace and mutual amity. Father Ritchot, another prominent clergyman of the time, said that, in common with the Protestant ministers at the meeting, he had come to help to maintain order and good feeling and to influence the people as much as he could in the direction of what was right.

As an outcome of Smith's intervention a new convention was convoked to 'decide what would be best for the welfare of the country.' To further this object Smith 'went around to induce the people to elect representatives to the council of February.' This council first met on January 25, 1870, and 'was composed of men of good standing in the community, especially the English members.' After the English members had satisfied themselves of M^cTavish's abdication, the delegates to this convention, who fully represented both sections of the population, formed a provisional government with Louis Riel as president. Thomas Bunn was its secretary; W. B. O'Donoghue its treasurer; James Ross, chief justice; A. G. B. Bannatyne, postmaster-general; and Ambrose D. Lépine, chief of the Militia—four English and two French members.

By the end of February 1870 no other government existed in Assiniboia. It had been formed by the representatives of all classes, with the approval of the Canadian commissioner, at the bidding of M^cTavish, the ex-governor of the colony. Moreover, this was the only government possible under the circumstances. Even William M^cDougall afterwards admitted in parliament that it was 'absurd to say that the Hudson's Bay Company should have maintained order, as they were in a moribund state of existence.' The provisional government was, therefore, legitimately constituted, so far as circumstances permitted, and, this being so, it had a right to take the necessary steps to ensure its own preservation. This government being now recognized by all the Assiniboians, the convention framed a bill of rights, setting forth the conditions on which the people were willing to be annexed to Canada, and appointed three delegates—Father Ritchot, Judge Black and Alfred Scott—to take it to Ottawa and negotiate its acceptance.

Riel next liberated sixteen prisoners, and promised to set the others free in the near future. All difficulties seemed at an end when, on the morning of February 15, Major Boulton with a troop of Canadian malcontents from Portage la Prairie passed by Fort Garry fully armed and prepared to attack the half-breeds who guarded it. Yielding to the exhortations of Father Lestanc, Riel with difficulty kept his men from breaking out and attacking Boulton's men. These insurgents, after forming a junction with Schultz's recruits in the lower settlement, numbered between six and seven hundred. The pretext for their revolt against the authority which they had themselves constituted through their representatives was the detention of twenty-four prisoners held by Riel because they had refused to sign an agreement to desist from further hostility to the provisional government. These prisoners were now set free, and the English insurgents were notified of the fact. But in reply they wrote to the president that they would not recognize his government; they would attempt to overthrow it. The recruits from the neighbouring settlement, however, gradually returned to their homes; consequently the Canadians from Portage la Prairie were unable to carry out their designs and had no choice but to return west. On the morning of the 17th a party of them passed in sight of Fort Garry. Riel could no longer restrain his men. Furious at the thought of the vigils they had gone through because of the interference of these strangers, they sallied out and captured forty-eight of them. Among the prisoners were Major Boulton and Thomas Scott.

Riel and his advisers now determined that no peace could be secured until the ringleaders were convinced that the government was determined to defend itself against their intrigues. Boulton was condemned to death on the charge of treason, but, on the intercession of Father Lestanc and others, his life was spared. Donald A. Smith undertook to pacify the malcontents in order that he might obtain the release of all the prisoners. But the prisoner Thomas Scott proved to be quite unmanageable and a thorn in the side of the president. By his violence he incited the other prisoners to insubordination, and irritated the prison guards to such an extent that Riel feared that they might retaliate on the prisoners. Riel remonstrated with Scott, advising him to be peaceful, but in spite of these entreaties the prisoner renewed and continued his acts of violence. Finally, the guards clamoured for a court-martial, and even threatened Riel, who hesitated to grant their demand. After temporizing with them for several days Riel determined that the interests of peace, if not his own personal safety, required that an example should be made. Scott was summoned before the council of war, tried and condemned to be shot. Father Lestanc, Donald A. Smith and others endeavoured to save his life, but in vain; on March 4, the day after the court-martial, he was executed.

Five days later Bishop Taché returned from the Vatican Council, whence he had been called by the Canadian government to help it out of its difficulty. His presence completely restored peace and order in the valley of the Red River, and the promise of a full amnesty, of which he was the bearer, induced Riel not to oppose the military expedition which had for some time been in preparation in the East, and which was on its way to Fort Garry under the leadership of Colonel Wolseley. The three delegates chosen by the convention then proceeded to Ottawa. They reached their destination on April 11 and submitted the claims of the people to the federal authorities. Practically all these claims were embodied in the Manitoba Act, which became the constitution of a new Canadian province formed by the admission of the colony of Assiniboia into the Confederation of Canada.

The rights of the original population of the Red River were thus secured by the firm stand taken by the French and English half-breeds, aided by not a few English-speaking whites. Riel was directed by Sir Georges É. Cartier, minister of Militia and Defence, who was at that time acting-premier, to remain at the head of the government until the arrival of Adams G. Archibald, the new lieutenant-governor. Riel hoped to have the privilege of welcoming Archibald at Fort Garry; but as Wolseley's troops appeared before Archibald, and as Riel was assured that his life would not be safe if he fell into their hands, he left hurriedly for the United States on the morning of August 24, 1870, accompanied by Lépine and O'Donoghue, the two other Catholics who had been members of the provisional government.

All those who had sided with the half-breeds and other representatives of the original Assiniboians were then considered as rebels by the soldiers from the East. They were subjected to a series of petty persecutions and 'so beaten and outraged that they [felt] as if they were living in a state of slavery,' according to Governor Archibald, a just and moderate man, whose presence and kind offices prevented a formal rising of the downtrodden population. On the other hand, such promising young Catholics as Joseph Dubuc, Marc A. Girard, and Joseph Royal, whom Bishop Taché had brought to the new province, contributed not a little to secure some measure of justice for those who had merely resisted the pretensions of Canada at a time when it had absolutely no jurisdiction over them.

The Americans had long been coveting what is now Western Canada. The Fenians among them thought the time opportune for an attempt on Manitoba, which was the key to the whole country. Success seemed all the more certain as they felt sure that the French, trampled underfoot by the new settlers—one of them had been stoned to death as he swam across the Red River to escape the violence of the soldiery—would fly to their standard in a body. There were now only eighty soldiers left at Fort Garry 'to preserve the peace of half a continent,' as Governor Archibald put it; and the historian Tuttle asserts that 'it was doubtful whether the English half-breeds were so much in love with Canada as to fight on her behalf.'

This was at the end of September 1871. What made the situation still more serious was the report, freely circulated, that Riel, now practically in hiding among his Manitoba friends, was fretting under the failure of the federal government to grant the promised amnesty and secretly corresponding with the leaders of the proposed raid. On the other hand, convinced that 'the country would be lost' to the British Empire if even a part of the French turned against the provincial authorities, Governor Archibald had an interview with Father Ritchot, after Bishop Taché, then in the East, had cautioned Riel against aiding the Fenians. This intervention was all the more opportune because, as some claim, Riel had promised the Fenians to meet them at the frontier with hundreds of French horsemen, and was soon to be secretly advised by the prospective invaders that 'they could introduce five men into the country as against Canada's one.' But the Métis chiefs in convention assembled, owing to the advice of the Catholic prelate and his representative, Father Ritchot, unanimously rallied to the support of the constituted authority. Not only did they fail to help the Fenians, but they actually offered their services against them to Archibald through their intermediary, Riel. These were gratefully accepted by the governor, and, instead of finding at the frontier the corps of Métis on whose co-operation they had counted, O'Donoghue and four of his 'generals' were captured on October 5, 1871.

Thus was Western Canada saved to the British crown, as was publicly acknowledged under oath by no less a personage than Lieutenant-Governor Archibald himself, when he declared that 'if the half-breeds had taken a different course,' he did 'not believe the province would now be in our possession.' This all-important assertion was made in 1874, when Riel was sentenced to five years' exile, and A. D. Lépine was condemned to death for the part he had taken in the execution of Scott, a sentence which was ultimately commuted to two years' imprisonment.

VIII
MISSIONARY ACTIVITY

While these events were disturbing the usually clear atmosphere of the Red River valley, Catholic missionaries were pursuing their labours, generally with encouraging success, under less troubled skies. In 1870 Leduc was erecting at St Albert a cathedral, and Father Lacombe, the idol of the aborigines of the plains, was leading among them the life of an Indian, that he might the better win them over to Christ. In the Far North Father Petitot crossed the Rocky Mountains into the Yukon, but could do little owing to the undisguised hostility of the Protestant traders and their employees.

In the course of the same year a terrible epidemic of smallpox broke out in the neighbourhood of St Albert, which called into service all the zeal and self-denial for which the Catholic priesthood and sisterhoods are known the world over. As a result of their exertions among their stricken flocks Fathers Leduc, Bourgine, Doucet and Blanchet caught the dread disease, but their lives were spared. So untiring was Father Fourmond in his ministrations to the sick that, in the space of two months, he did not once undress to sleep. Half-breeds and Indians were decimated, and before long St Albert's orphanage was filled to overflowing by the little ones who had lost their parents and were bequeathed as a precious legacy to the Catholic mission.

On September 22, 1871, the episcopal see of St Boniface was raised to the rank of an archdiocese with three suffragans, namely, the Bishop of St Albert, a new see created at the same time on behalf of Bishop Grandin, and the vicars-apostolic of Athabaska-Mackenzie (Bishop Faraud) and of British Columbia (Bishop d'Herbomez).

The following year, 1872, was marked by still another missionary journey to the callous Loucheux of the Yukon and Alaska. This time it was Bishop Faraud's coadjutor, Bishop Clut, who, accompanied by a young priest, Father August Lecorre, endeavoured to disabuse the benighted Indians of the foolish misapprehensions regarding Catholicism spread abroad by interested parties. All through that territory the natives had been assured that the Catholic priests had put Jesus Christ to death, and that their fondness for the crucifix was derived from that circumstance. Although one of the ministers, the Rev. W. C. Bompas, denied in the presence of the bishop and the priest the paternity of this accusation, he refused to inform the Indians that those who were levelling it at the priests were not telling the truth.

The work of Archbishop Taché had now become more stationary. Instead of having to undertake long expeditions to reach a few hundred souls, he now saw people coming to him by the thousand. As most of these were Protestants, the guardian of Catholic interests by the banks of the Red River bethought himself of inviting to the fertile plains of Manitoba the French-Canadian emigrants to the United States, who were liable to lose their faith in the same way as their children had already forfeited their Canadian nationality. The immigration which ensued enabled him to lay the foundations of such parishes as Ste Agathe and Lorette, while nearer home Father J. B. Baudin, O.M.I., who had succeeded Father M^cCarthy in the charge of the Winnipeg Catholics, erected for them a church edifice which was blessed by Archbishop Taché on May 3, 1874. This was the first St Mary's church.

In the meantime other Oblate missionaries were winning laurels of a different kind. Father Lacombe published a Cree grammar and dictionary of about nine hundred pages, and in far-off France Father Petitot, who had crossed the ocean to issue a number of ethnological, geographical and philological works which did him great honour, made his mark at the International Congress of Americanists held at Nancy in the autumn of 1875.

These two missionaries were thus giving to the scientific world the results of years of patient study on the icy wastes of the North and the wind-swept plains of the West. After a General Chapter of the Oblates in 1873, younger priests sought the honour of following in their footsteps. We may mention among them Father Joseph Hugonard, who was to become the great educator of the native youth in the Qu'Appelle valley; Father Étienne Bonnald, in after years a zealous worker among the eastern Crees; and Fathers Henri Grandin and L. J. Dauphin—the former a nephew of the worthy Bishop of St Albert.

This was in 1874, east of the Rocky Mountains. West of that range the labourers already in the field were far from idle. Not only had their influence lessened the prevalence of immorality, intemperance and superstition, but from the lately founded mission of William's Lake energetic missionaries—Father Le Jacq in 1869, Father M^cGuckin in 1870, and the former again in 1872—had been sallying out towards the former missions of Bishop Demers, who died on July 21, 1871, in his episcopal city of Victoria. Forts Alexander, George, Fraser, St James and Babine, and even the Ackwilgate village, near the present Hazelton, were thus visited, and a stronger Christianity planted among the Déné tribes of the Chilcotins, Carriers, Babines and Sekani. The Carriers especially showed a great avidity for the Word of God, and deserved to have a missionary establishment in their midst. This was founded in the spring of 1873 by Fathers Le Jacq and Blanchet. The former attended exclusively to the 'delivering of the Word,' while the latter had charge of the temporal concerns of the mission. This was in course of years prolific of good, and soon the north of British Columbia vied with the south as to which should exhibit the more exemplary conduct and Christian virtues among the tribes redeemed from abject savagery.

So far no successor to Bishop Demers had been appointed to the island see. After an interim of nearly two years the Rev. Charles J. Seghers, the able priest already mentioned, succeeded him, being consecrated on June 29, 1873. One of his first cares was to visit the poor headquarters of a courageous missionary, the Rev. A. J. Brabant. This brave priest worked alone at Hesquiat, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, and although it was reputed to be the home of the most unmitigated heathenism, by dint of patience, devotion, industry and suffering he gradually transformed its hordes of barbarians into gentle children of the church. But this was not accomplished without suffering and personal danger. To mention but one of his experiences, he was, on October 28, 1875, twice shot at and grievously wounded by a chief who accused him of causing an epidemic which had taken away most of his relatives.

Four days before Seghers's visit to Brabant's mission the banks of the lower Fraser witnessed an event of a quite different character. Father Durieu, by far the greatest Indian missionary the North Pacific coast has ever seen, was then consecrated Bishop of Marcopolis and coadjutor of Bishop d'Herbomez.

Meanwhile the hand of death had been unusually busy on the east side of the Rockies, and its blows were all the more painful as they fell suddenly. On August 6, 1873, a kind and devoted priest, who had been a government official in France, Father Eynard, was found under six feet of water near the shore of Lake Athabaska, where he had been taking a bath previous to saying mass. In the middle of November of the following year a devoted lay servant of the St Albert mission, named Louis Dazé, was found frozen to death while in the active service of the priests.

More tragic still was the end of another good labourer in a similar field. Brother Alexis had proved a valuable helper to the missionaries of Lake Athabaska and other northern posts. Having been sent to Lac la Biche with a party of half-breeds in order to meet Bishop Faraud, who was then expected from France with a band of prospective missionaries, he found that the summer freshets had rendered progress up the river impossible. Unwilling to lose time in waiting for the water to subside, this humble religious, with no thought for anything but his orders, set out through the forest with an Iroquois and an orphan girl, whom he was taking to the nuns at Lac la Biche. The little party had before them a trip of twenty days' duration, but could take provisions for only four days. They were never seen again. From subsequent discoveries it was ascertained that, in spite of the brother's protestations, the Iroquois had appropriated the girl, and, as he could not endure Alexis's reproaches, had shot him dead and afterwards eaten him. His bones were found buried in the sand and bared of flesh, evidently by artificial means. It was afterwards learned that the cannibal had daily carried along with him the fleshy parts of the body as a hunter is wont to do with venison! That humble martyr fell in the first days of July 1875.

In the course of the following year the half-breeds of St Charles, on the Assiniboine, a few miles from St Boniface, received as parish priest Father Damase Dandurand, the first Canadian to become an Oblate. St Boniface itself had since 1870 been under the special care of the Rev. George Dugas. Soon other secular priests were needed for St Pierre and St Jean-Baptiste, new centres of population which had grown out of Father Lacombe's exertions on behalf of healthy immigration to the Manitoba plains. Even the obdurate Saulteux, or at least their half-caste children, were becoming submissive to the yoke of Christ through the efforts of Father Camper and other missionaries of St Laurent, while at far-off St Peter's, on Lake Caribou, Fathers Gasté and Moulin were doing their utmost to keep their Caribou-Easters in the path of rectitude.

Just in the opposite corner of the Middle West a post that was destined to a brilliant future was in the first stages of its formation. This was Calgary, Saint-Pierre's erstwhile Fort la Jonquière, which had but lately become known as Fort Brisebois, from its French-Canadian commandant. The soldiers stationed there gave some importance to the place, and it soon boasted quite a number of half-breeds and whites within the shadow of its palisades. This resulted in the foundation of the mission of Our Lady of Peace. With the advent of the Canadian Pacific Railway line the wave of immigration rolled on as far as the Rocky Mountains, and even Bishop Grandin's distant diocese had to open its gates to a new class of men, the salvation of whose souls his missionaries would now have to seek.

This influx of strangers had another result. As whites and reds could not live together promiscuously, since the chief avocation of the former barred the presence of the latter, the Indians were penned up in large reservations after solemn powwows, in the course of which (as in September 1877) the Catholic missionaries rendered valuable services to the civil authorities.

This immigration resulted also in the creation of new parishes in Manitoba, which, from its geographical position, was the first territory to profit by the immigrants. It is also in 1877 that we must date the inception of St Boniface Hospital under the Grey Nuns, who had previously nursed the sick in their own convent.

In the year 1878 there arrived in the West the Rev. A. A. Cherrier, a man who from the first occupied a prominent place in the public life of Winnipeg. The following year saw the advent of two other devoted priests, Fathers Lecocq and J. A. Rapet, while in British Columbia Fathers E. C. Chirouse and J. M. le Jeune, steadfast friends of the Indian, first made the acquaintance of the dusky denizens of the woods who were to become their charges. A few months later the Revs. N. Coccola, J. D. Chiappini and A. G. Morice followed in their footsteps, and reached New Westminster, then the only town on the mainland, by the end of July 1880. These were as yet but O.M.I. scholastic brothers; the first two were ordained in the summer of 1881, and A. G. Morice just one year later. When they first appeared in the Fraser valley they met Father Le Jacq, who had just arrived from his now flourishing mission of Stuart Lake to take the direction of St Louis Mission, a post on the Thompson River, established in 1878 at a place called Kamloops.

On the Saskatchewan plains the new order of things introduced by white colonization imposed upon Bishop Grandin endless travel, visitations and foundations, which it would be tedious to relate in detail. In the course of his journeyings the prelate reached Prince Albert, a small town where a modest church and priest's house had been erected in 1879, and where the jovial Father André was then fulfilling the duties of parish priest. At Battleford, the capital of the North-West Territories, things were even less bright from a material standpoint: a humble thatched roof covered the building that was used as a church. The congregation was at that time under the direction of Father Lestanc.

At St Boniface the corner-stone of a new college edifice was laid in May 1880, and the building was ready for occupancy in September of the following year. As the Canadian Pacific Railway was being built through the West, several priests were appointed to attend to the spiritual wants of the workmen both east and west of the Rocky Mountains. The parish of St Pierre had received in 1880 its first resident pastor in the person of the Rev. J. M. A. Jolys. Two years later a new parish was organized in Winnipeg, and was entrusted to the care of Father Cherrier. In the course of the same year Father Ritchot built for his parishioners at St Norbert a brick church, and in 1884 better church edifices were also provided for St Jean-Baptiste, St Pierre and Qu'Appelle.

In the Far North Bishop Faraud was extending the work of the church he represented to the Peace River valley, which, though often visited by passing missionaries, had so far been perforce more or less neglected. The nomadic Sekani Indians who claimed it as their hereditary habitat were well enough disposed, yet real religious progress was always slow among them because it was difficult to keep them long enough in one place to instruct them.

In British Columbia the little diocese of Vancouver Island had again lost its chief pastor, Bishop Seghers, through the transference of that prelate to the archiepiscopal see of Oregon City. The Rev. J. B. Brondel was appointed to the former post on December 14, 1879. In the spring of 1884 the Oblates of the mainland were delighted to receive the official visitation of the Very Rev. Father A. Martinet, representing the general of their order, and his wise advice and regulations did much to consolidate their work. In 1883 the missions of William's Lake and Stuart Lake enthusiastically greeted Bishop Durieu. He visited the chief centres of population and endeavoured to reconcile the affectionate Indians of Stuart Lake to their loss of Father Le Jacq. Then, after two years and a half of missionary labours among the Chilcotins, Father Morice, in August 1885, was appointed to the Stuart Lake post, where he was to pass the best nineteen years of his life, working among its Indians as a priest, student, explorer and printer.

IX
THE SASKATCHEWAN REBELLION

The immigration which we have repeatedly mentioned was to have far-reaching effects on the population already settled on the western plains. In order to get rid of the intolerable oppression they suffered at the hands of the newcomers from the East, oppression to which we have seen no less a personage than Governor Archibald testifying, quite a number of the French half-breeds had left Manitoba for the valley of the Saskatchewan, where they had taken up land on both sides of the two branches of that river—narrow but very long strips like those they had left along the Red River and the Assiniboine. In that secluded region the Métis had formed peaceful communities, and lived a life which all the old missionaries agree in describing as truly patriarchal in manners and customs. They were hospitable, generous and kind among themselves, respectful and obedient to the priests who visited them—in short, they had a sort of Utopia realized. But this beautiful dream was to end in a terrible nightmare.

The wave of hated white immigration was now at their doors. Were their sad experiences in the land of their birth to be gone through again? They were in the eyes of the law nothing but squatters, with no better rights to their new lands than those of the first occupant; if driven again from their valley homes, whither should they go? As these questions pressed upon them their peace and contentment of mind gradually gave way to restiveness, anxiety and discontent.

As was natural, they turned in their troubles to their religious guides, and these certainly spared no pains in trying to bring before the Ottawa authorities the seriousness of the situation. They repeatedly begged for some measure which would prevent their people from being again dispossessed of their holdings, and appealed for a regularization of their position and such minor concessions as would render it secure and bearable. As early as 1878 petitions on their behalf began to reach Ottawa from all sides. These were repeated in one form or another as often as four times that year, and at least once a year—sometimes oftener—in the course of 1879, 1880 and 1881. The federal authorities seemed to take no notice of these appeals.

In 1882 and 1883 Bishop Grandin went in person to Ottawa and strove to impress upon the government the necessity of doing something to alleviate the mental suffering of his people, and prevent a repetition of the troubles which had accompanied the birth of the Province of Manitoba. He pointed out that, owing to their insecure position, the Saskatchewan Métis were becoming restless at the sight of the numbers of immigrants who were establishing themselves in their vicinity.

The Canadian ministers promised to grant the request of the first settlers in the valley, but did nothing in that direction. Land surveyors were even sent west, and began to draw their lines across the farms of the half-breeds—a repetition of the mistake of 1869. Trouble now seemed imminent, inasmuch as the Métis knew of the building of the transcontinental railway, which was represented to them as being sure ultimately to flood their territory with the dregs of European, American and Eastern Canadian communities. Two official delegates, Father Leduc and B. Maloney, were then dispatched to the capital with a list of grievances and a petition for their redress. As a result new promises were made, but they were not kept.

The settlers, both French and English half-breeds, were now getting impatient, and as no petition or deputation had so far availed anything, they thought of the man who had procured for Manitoba the recognition of practically all the rights of the original population. This was Louis Riel; but he was a changed man from the Riel of 1870. After having been tracked like a wild beast for the sake of the $5000 offered for his arrest by the government of Ontario—which had no jurisdiction over Manitoba or its doings—he had suffered, through the strain on his always excitable mind, a mental collapse and had been treated in two Quebec asylums. The settlers sent four representatives seven hundred miles to ask for Riel's services. The deputation found him teaching in a Jesuit school in Montana, U.S.A., and by the end of July 1884 the Saskatchewan Métis greeted him as a saviour.

His first counsels were marked by great moderation; but his mind was not equal to the task of leading a second agitation to a successful issue. Moreover, he does not seem to have grasped the essential difference between the position of his compatriots in 1884 and their position in 1869. He overlooked the fact that the Saskatchewan Métis had at Ottawa a regularly established government to which they owed allegiance, and which, in spite of its remissness in the fulfilment of its duty towards them, was none the less the only legitimate authority in the land. As the priests wanted to keep him within the bounds of legality, Riel gradually grew restive. He fretted under their restraints, argued and became violent. To escape from the control of the clergy he held secret meetings with his friends, and did his utmost to undermine the influence of the priests over their flocks.

The result can easily be foreseen. The Canadian government would not heed his representations any more than those of the persons who had worked for the Métis ever since 1878. Consequently Riel, urged on (as was locally well known) by unprincipled whites who expected to profit by open hostilities, broke away from all restraints, and on March 18, 1885, raised the standard of revolt, forming a provisional government with himself as president, Gabriel Dumont, a brave and honest buffalo-hunter, as military leader, and a council of twelve men as advisers.

It is not our intention to enter into the details of this ill-advised rebellion and the military operations which ensued. The particular circumstances on which we must lay stress are the uncompromising opposition of the Catholic priesthood to the entire movement and the extent of the losses and personal sufferings that its members had to undergo as a consequence. As the rebellion proceeded the mind of the Métis leader became more and more clouded, until his doings and sayings became such as to excite the pity of any sane man. He seized the church at Batoche, and converted it into a barrack despite Father Moulin's protests. At the same time, to counteract the opposition of the clergy and to secure the complete adhesion of his compatriots who were wavering because of that opposition, he led a life of great asceticism and assumed the rôle of a prophet. He changed the religious tenets of his adherents, promised to dethrone Leo XIII and put the Archbishop of Montreal in his place, derided the Catholic Church, which he called the Old Roman Woman, condemned to death priests who opposed him (contenting himself, however, with making them prisoners), promised his followers immunity from bullets and claimed the gift of prophecy.

The reader knows the results of the military campaign which followed.^[1] The Métis were not prepared for it, and Riel seems to have expected success even without attending to the most elementary rules of warfare. With the appropriated crucifix of Father Touze in his hands he assisted at the fight at Duck Lake, in which the representatives of the government lost twelve men as against four on the side of the half-breeds, and were compelled to flee to Prince Albert, after having burned their own fort.

Riel then ruined his cause by sending couriers to the various Indian tribes to incite them to rise and join him. The saddest outcome of this ill-advised step was the Frog Lake massacre. On Holy Thursday, April 2, 1885, pagan Crees slew Fathers Fafard and Marchand, the former a French Canadian, the latter a native of France, as they were being taken to the camp of Big Bear, just after the morning office proper to that day. With them fell seven other white men, among them being Tom Quinn, the Indian agent, and Delaney, the farm instructor, while a few women were made prisoners.

Then came the fight of Fish Creek on April 24, in which the Métis under Gabriel Dumont managed to inflict serious losses on a Canadian force almost three times superior in numbers to his, and of course much better armed. The troops had ten killed or mortally wounded, while Dumont lost two half-breeds and two Indians. Two other Métis subsequently died of the wounds they had received in that affray.

Meanwhile Father Cochin had been taken prisoner by the Indian chief Poundmaker, whose band did as much damage to property as Big Bear's had done to persons. On May 2 Poundmaker's braves gave battle to Colonel Otter's force at Cut Knife Creek. The Indians had the advantage; but, through the influence of Father Cochin, Poundmaker prevented them from following up their success and pursuing the soldiers, who left eight men on the battlefield (apart from those wounded), while the Indians had but five men killed.

The campaign practically ended with the taking of Batoche after four days of more or less desultory fighting. Naturally the losses of the half-breeds were then proportionately heavy, yet they had only eleven killed, not sixteen, as is usually stated, while the Canadian troops lost eight men, of whom four were officers. The Métis stronghold was captured on May 12, 1885. Four days later Riel, who had been aimlessly wandering about in a distracted state of mind, gave himself up to General Middleton, the commander-in-chief of the Canadian forces, who sent him to Regina, the new capital of the North-West Territories. There he was tried for treason, found guilty, with a recommendation to mercy, and hanged on November 16, 1885.

Even his enemies admit that Louis Riel marched to death like a man. After having abjured errors due to his overworked brain and an abnormal constitution, he died like a saint. Nothing more touching can be imagined than his testament and last recommendations to his children and relatives. When we remember that the alienists who examined him declared him of unsound mind, we are bound to agree with Dr C. K. Clarke, now of Toronto General Hospital, and call his execution a 'political murder, due to the inflamed passions of the time.' Chief among the causes of this pathological condition of public opinion at the end of 1885 must be put several scurrilous pamphlets, and even books, which dealt for the most part with the rôle taken by the Métis leader in 1869-70, and contained the most shocking falsehoods mingled with a few truths.

The Catholic missions in the Saskatchewan suffered heavily by this rebellion, which a little attention paid to the grievances of the half-breed population might easily have prevented. Two priests thereby lost their lives; Father Moulin was seriously wounded by a bullet; Father Paquette was in constant danger of death; Fathers Cochin and Legoff were dragged from place to place by the natives, who constantly threatened their lives for their opposition to the movement; Father Scollen incurred what almost amounted to a sentence of death, though he managed to save the life of a government courier; Fathers Végreville, Moulin, Fourmond and Touze were kept prisoners at Batoche, and deprived even of the liberty of exercising their sacred ministry among the people who surrounded them. Finally, seven of the Catholic churches and adjoining missionary establishments were utterly destroyed and had their valuables stolen.

Bishop Grandin undertook the task of repairing, to a certain extent, the ruins, moral as well as material, left by this ill-considered rebellion. He made a visitation of the missions most affected by it, ordered public reparation for the sacrilegious conduct of the native rebels, and did his best to console the poor women and children whom the conflict had made widows and orphans. Eight Indians were hanged on November 27, after having prepared themselves for death by embracing Catholicism, and, after some months' detention, eleven half-breeds, who before the troubles had enjoyed an excellent reputation, were returned to their families through the intervention of Archbishop Taché.

Even the missionaries of the Far North at that time had their difficulties. From the lack of means they could not establish missions where they were required, and thus lost some of their converts, although the great majority remained faithful to them.

At St Boniface an event of some importance took place in the course of that blood-stained year (1885), namely, the transfer of the college to the care of the Jesuits, who have since made it such a success. In 1887 took place the consecration of St Boniface Cathedral, and of two churches—St Norbert's, some distance out in the country, and St Mary's in Winnipeg. In the same year work was begun on the stately pile of St Boniface Hospital, and the foundations were laid of the first stone church of Calgary, the young Alberta city which was just entering upon its period of wonderful development.

As the increase in the population consequent on immigration had created new duties and raised some difficulties, the Archbishop of St Boniface convoked a provincial council. This was held in his own cathedral and was composed of: Bishop Grandin of St Albert; Bishop Faraud, vicar-apostolic of Athabaska-Mackenzie; Bishop Clut, his coadjutor; and Bishop Durieu, auxiliary to Bishop d'Herbomez—in addition to the archbishop himself. As the state of d'Herbomez's health did not allow him to attend the sessions of the council, his place was filled by the Very Rev. Father Cél. Augier, the Oblate provincial of Eastern Canada. The sessions of the council opened on July 16, 1889, that is, on the seventy-first anniversary of the arrival of Fathers Provencher and Dumoulin in the country. They lasted nine days. Among the measures adopted by the venerable assembly may be mentioned its decision to ask for the erection of the vicariate-apostolic of British Columbia into a regular diocese, and for the division of the diocese of St Albert into two ecclesiastical districts, one of which should consist of the territory to the east of the 109th degree of longitude transformed into a separate vicariate-apostolic. A number of regulations were also passed which concerned both pastors and their flocks.

X
THE SCHOOL QUESTION

During the Saskatchewan rebellion Father Lacombe had rendered the greatest possible services to the Canadian government by securing the neutrality of the Blackfeet, a still numerous and naturally warlike Indian nation, whose remarkable chief, Crowfoot, was a great admirer of that veteran missionary. Father E. Legal had now succeeded Father Lacombe in the supervision of the Blackfeet missions, and had established a new mission among the Blood Indians, a related tribe.

This was in 1889. During the same year another priest, Father Legoff, left the Far West for Eastern Canada, where he published six portly tomes, mostly in Chipewyan—'a gigantic production,' according to an Eastern periodical. In the Far North a fourth labourer among the natives, Father Grouard, undertook a formal visitation of the chief missionary stations in the name of Bishop Faraud, whose unsatisfactory health had kept him at St Boniface ever since the council. That prelate had long been warned of the approach of death by his painful infirmities. The grim Reaper laid him low on the morning of September 26, 1890. The death of the pioneer missionary-prelate naturally created quite a stir in the usually quiet town of St Boniface.

Early in the same year another event, pregnant with much more far-reaching consequences, had caused an even greater commotion. The shock of it continued to be felt not only in that little centre of population, but throughout Manitoba and the whole North-West of Canada. The cause of education had ever been paramount in the councils of the Roman Catholic Church in the Middle West of Canada. For over fifty years the schools of the colony which ultimately developed into the Province of Manitoba had been denominational, the Roman Catholic Church devoting the moneys she received from the council of Assiniboia as much to the upkeep of her schools as to the maintenance of her purely ecclesiastical institutions. Moreover, when in 1869 the Canadian government wished to reassure the Catholics of Assiniboia, its secretary of state, Joseph Howe, expressly wrote to them through Bishop Taché that the federal authorities 'would deeply regret if the civil and religious liberty of the whole population were not adequately protected.'

Now it is well known that the Roman Catholic Church has always insisted that one of the first requisites to 'religious liberty' is the right to educate the young upon religious lines. Hence one of the clauses of the bill of rights, presented for the acceptance of the Ottawa government in 1870, demanded separate schools for the Catholics of the future Province of Manitoba. Their request had been granted by means of a provision in the act that created the province. By this provision the new province was forbidden to legislate against 'any right or privilege with respect to denominational schools which any class of persons have by law or practice in the province at the union.' That Catholics then had this right or privilege 'by practice' no sane man can deny. Hence, when this act became the constitution of Manitoba, they felt secure in the possession of their schools for ever.

Clause XXIII of the same act furthermore directed, in accordance with an article of the famous Bill of Rights, that the French language might be used in the debates of the legislature and in any court of the province.

In spite of these assurances, however, both of these constitutional rights were made light of by the politicians. On December 26, 1887, Dr D. H. Harrison became premier of Manitoba; but, owing to some railway matters which caused great excitement there, it was felt that his administration could not remain in power unless it were endorsed in the St François-Xavier electoral district, where the Hon. James Burke, the provincial secretary, presented himself for election. Burke's opponent was a Protestant and a liberal, and it was widely stated that his party and religious denomination were averse to the use of French as an official language and to the Catholic schools throughout the province. As the constituency was largely French and Catholic, the liberal candidate, aided by Joseph Martin, who was for some years the stormy petrel of Canadian political life, 'with great earnestness repelled the charge, asserted that they were entirely in sympathy with the French Catholics, and distinctly promised that their language and institutions should be conserved.'

By means of this promise the liberals carried the election, and their leader, Thomas Greenway, was called upon to form the first liberal administration of Manitoba. To make a further bid for the support of the French Catholics the new premier proposed to Archbishop Taché that one of their representatives should become a colleague in his cabinet, assuring him at the same time that 'he was in entire sympathy with him [Archbishop Taché] upon the two questions of Catholic schools and French language; that it would be the policy of his government to maintain them inviolate. ... He was thus enabled to meet the general election with Mr Prendergast as a colleague in his cabinet and several French Catholic candidates in his ranks. After the election he had as supporters five out of six [French] members.'

The Greenway government began its campaign by confiscating a sum of $13,879·47 which the Catholic section of the Board of Education had saved by strict economy and even personal sacrifices. During the following month (August 1889) a firebrand, in the person of D'Alton M^cCarthy, was sent west to inflame popular passion against the Catholic schools. Joseph Martin not only listened to his tirades without a word of protest, but actually endorsed them, though he acknowledged that 'the Constitution may be against us.' After a bitter agitation the government, on its own authority, ceased to publish the French version of the official Gazette prescribed by the constitution. Finally, legislation abolishing the Catholic schools was passed on March 19, 1890, and three days later a bill doing away with the official use of French in the legislature and the courts was adopted by a vote of 25 to 11.

Commenting on these measures, the Protestant historian Alexander Begg pertinently asks: 'Is a promise once given now to be broken? Is the mandate of the Imperial Government to respect the rights and privileges of the people at the time of union to be now set at naught?'

The Catholics throughout Manitoba loudly protested, and none of them more forcibly than Archbishop Taché, who took the matter so much to heart that his health suffered seriously by the blow. In the course of August 1890 a petition asking for redress was sent to the governor-general. It was signed by such prominent laymen as: the late T. A. Bernier, who afterwards became a senator; Joseph Dubuc, who retired from the bench after having filled creditably the post of chief justice of Manitoba; L. A. Prud'homme, the learned judge and historian; M. A. Girard, afterwards a Dominion senator; A. A. Larivière, then a member of parliament, afterwards a senator; James E. Prendergast, M.P.P., later a judge of the King's Bench; Roger Marion, M.P.P., and 4257 others.

Application was then made to a local court by a Winnipeg ratepayer against two by-laws enacted by that city to raise funds for school purposes. This was dismissed by Justice Killam. On appeal, this judgment was sustained by two of the three judges who sat on the case. The matter was then taken to the Supreme Court of Canada, whose members unanimously declared the new school laws of Manitoba to be ultra vires, and therefore null and void. Thenceforth the controversies in the press and elsewhere became more acrimonious. The Hon. Thomas Greenway so far forgot himself as to deny that he had made any promises to the Archbishop of St Boniface; whereupon Father Allard, V.G., and W. F. Alloway asserted in an affidavit that the promises had been made in their hearing, and that they had been entirely spontaneous on the part of the politician.

Meanwhile the city of Winnipeg had taken the case to the imperial Privy Council, and that court annulled the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada by declaring that the Manitoba school legislation was intra vires. The Dominion government was next appealed to. It submitted the case to the Supreme Court of Canada, which, deeming itself bound by the London decision, now decided against the claims of the Catholic minority. The matter having finally been presented under a new light, the Privy Council ultimately decided that the Catholics had a real grievance, and that they were entitled to redress by the parliament of Canada.

XI
MISSIONS IN THE FAR WEST

We have already seen Bishop Seghers promoted to the archbishopric of Oregon City. His successor, Bishop Brondel, did not remain long at Victoria. In 1884 he was transferred to the new diocese of Helena, Montana, and Archbishop Seghers then generously volunteered to return to his former island see. His main object in taking this course was to devote himself to the Indian missions of Alaska. Unfortunately this self-denial became the occasion of his undoing. He had set out for that vast peninsula accompanied by an American named Francis Fuller. But the hardships of the way and the malicious representations of a local enemy of the Catholic missions told so much on Fuller's mind that a catastrophe ensued which, when made known early in 1887, took the world by surprise. In the morning of November 28, 1886, the missionary bishop was rudely awakened by his companion. As he raised himself on his humble couch Fuller pointed a gun at him and instantly shot him dead.

It took almost two years for the Roman authorities to find a successor to Bishop Seghers. Then the Rev. John N. Lemmens, a native of Holland, who in spite of delicate health had for several years been labouring among the natives of Vancouver Island, was consecrated in his stead on August 5, 1888.

On the mainland of the Pacific province the Catholic missions were then growing into the prosperous retreats of peace and industry which have been admired by all travellers. Under the skilful direction of that prince of missionaries, Bishop Durieu, the maritime tribes—the Sishelh, the Tlayamins and others—were not only being transformed into fervent Christians, whose beautiful ceremonies and annual celebrations were rapturously described in books and newspapers, but had been segregated from the few hardened pagans who stuck to their old ways, and transferred to model villages with fine churches, neat houses, regular waterworks, street lights, brass bands, and all the other appurtenances of a civilized community. At the same time schools had been opened in their midst. The oldest of these was established at St Mary's, on the lower Fraser, in 1863, and now received an annual grant from the federal government. Similar institutions were placed at William's Lake, Kamloops, Kootenay and Skwamish (to-day North Vancouver), and still another was, in course of time, to be granted to that excellent example of a progressive tribe, the Sishelh.

Father Morice's distant mission of Stuart Lake was not so fortunate. Unable to get a school for his wards, its director had invented in 1885 a system of writing which was to a great extent to take the place of a school. Based on the syllabic principle first adopted by the Rev. James Evans, a Protestant clergyman, it materially differed therefrom. While expressing faithfully the sounds of the Dénés' very complex language—which are more than three times as numerous as those of the Cree dialect for which Evans's syllabary was devised—its component parts were modelled and grouped in such a way that their value was easily identified. In fact, Indians are known to have learned to read in two evenings by the use of this system. After a few lessons from the missionary the new system of writing spread throughout his district, and wonderfully simplified his labours, since those who had learned it from the inventor soon taught it to others. At the present time the natives teach each other without any difficulty, and thus a sort of popular school has been established throughout the north of British Columbia. In 1886 type was cast, and books—even a monthly review—were printed, which brought within the reach of every one secular as well as sacred knowledge.

In the south of the same province Father le Jeune applied the French system of stenography to the Chinook jargon, and taught it to the Indians with the very best results.

On June 5, 1890, the veteran Bishop d'Herbomez breathed his last at New Westminster. Bishop Durieu then became vicar-apostolic of British Columbia, and, pursuant to the request of the St Boniface council, was promoted on September 2 of the same year to the bishopric of New Westminster. On May 23, 1890, that prelate had welcomed three professed nuns of the Institute of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge, commonly called Sisters of the Good Shepherd. These nuns afterwards established an orphanage and a refuge for girls in a suburb of New Westminster.

This was a period not only of religious foundations, but also of episcopal promotions, in Western Canada. On October 18, 1890, Father Grouard was named Bishop of Ibora in partibus infidelium, to succeed Bishop Faraud as vicar-apostolic of Athabaska-Mackenzie. In the same consistory in which the appointment of the new prelate was proclaimed (June 4, 1891), Father A. Pascal was given the title of Bishop of Mosynopolis and made vicar-apostolic of the Saskatchewan, a new ecclesiastical division created in accordance with the wishes of the provincial council of St Boniface.

Other tokens of progress in the Far West were: the consolidation of the mission of Fort Edmonton, then in a fair way to drop the first part of its name and become a prosperous centre of population, through the building in 1891 of the Calgary-Edmonton railway line; the foundation of Morinville, named after its founder, the Rev. J. B. Morin, a French-Canadian priest; and the establishment of such other posts, in the same northern country, as Beaumont, Végreville, Legal, and St Edmond, or Rivière-qui-Barre. We should not forget two other places which are to this day silent witnesses to the esteem felt for the ministers of the Catholic Church in that part of Canada, namely, the towns of Lacombe and Leduc, on the Calgary-Edmonton railway line. Végreville also is named after one of the pioneer missionary priests.

Similar foundations were being established for the white population of Manitoba, and to some extent were compensating for the unfortunate religious situation created there by the opponents of separate schools. Among these we may mention the parishes of Our Lady of Lourdes and St Claude, established by the Regular Canons of the Immaculate Conception, a new order in the archdiocese, and Regina, whose first resident priest, the Rev. D. Graton, was frozen to death in March 1891 on the neighbouring plain.

One of the reasons for the morality and orderliness which are so characteristic of the British Columbia native communities is the organization that prevails in all the Catholic villages. Under the head chief is a 'captain,' with a number of watchmen, who report all delinquencies, and a number of 'soldiers,' who, under the authority of the headman, punish culprits. The punishments are submitted to by the wrongdoers in a Christian spirit, and recall the public penances of the early Christians. They vary according to the nature and gravity of the fault; but a breach of morals usually calls for the whip.

In later years these public penances excited the wrath of the unscrupulous whites, who could not but see in them an implicit condemnation of their own conduct and an effective barrier against misdemeanour with the native women. It so happened that, in March 1892, a certain dissolute character among the Lillooet Indians was punished by her chief for a grave offence against morals. Father Chirouse was then preaching a retreat in the neighbourhood. A bigoted representative of the British Columbia government had the priest arrested, together with the chief and four of his officers. Accused in New Westminster of an 'assault,' Chirouse was condemned to one year's imprisonment—just the term predicted for him by the constable who had arrested him—while the principal party received a sentence of six months.

In answer to numerous newspaper articles, petitions and letters from the two Catholic bishops of the province, the prisoners were almost immediately set free; but it cannot be denied that this interference of the Lillooet bigots was a serious blow to discipline, good morals and order among the native tribes of British Columbia, especially those of the south.

Still more melancholy, however, was another event which some time afterwards saddened the Catholic missions of the West. It deprived Canada of a great prelate, missionary, statesman and writer—for Archbishop Taché had the best possible right to each of these titles. Early in 1894 he had greeted in his palace the Right Rev. Louis Soullier, the first Oblate General to cross the Atlantic. This visit of the head of his beloved order was his last earthly consolation. Constantly smarting under the pain inflicted by the abolition of his schools, and suffering from a malady the nature of which he realized too late, the Archbishop of St Boniface sank under his distresses and passed to a better world on June 22, 1894, admired and regretted by friends and foes alike. In spite of past differences the local press was unanimous in recognizing his ability, his learning, and especially his great kindness of heart and his devotion to the cause of his church.

When Archbishop Taché was ordained priest in 1845 he was the sixth Catholic clergyman to begin work in the British possessions between Lake Superior and the Rocky Mountains, and the Catholic Church of British Columbia was then very far from being organized. At the time of his death there were in the same territory no fewer than 5 bishops and nearly 175 priests. In the ecclesiastical province of St Boniface alone, where 4 nuns had settled the year before his own arrival there, there were now at least 150.

XII
LATER EVENTS

Such was the eminence of the departed archbishop that it was more than doubtful if anybody could be found to fill his place. Owing to the prestige accruing from long services, as well as to the excellence of his qualities of mind and heart, the task of choosing his successor would have been, for the central authorities of the Catholic Church, a very difficult one indeed, had not Archbishop Taché himself long before his death practically chosen as his successor the Rev. Adélard L. P. Langevin, O.M.I., who for several years had been occupying the post of superior to all the Oblate establishments within Manitoba and the northern half of what is now the Province of Saskatchewan. That big-hearted and exceedingly active priest was appointed Archbishop of St Boniface on January 8, 1895, and consecrated on March 19 of the same year.

The Manitoba School Question was then the all-absorbing topic of the public press and of private conversation. The new prelate had chosen for his motto St Paul's advice to his disciple, 'Keep thou the deposit,' and thus at the beginning of his reign gave promise of an unyielding resistance on his part to secular encroachments in matters of education. His determination was fully justified by subsequent events. Archbishop Langevin at once proceeded to devote all his energies to the recovery of the lost rights. In so doing he scarcely considered the social or political standing of the party he had to fight, but was entirely guided by the excellence and justice of the aim he was pursuing. He thus drew on himself for a time the general hostility of the partisans of non-denominational schools, but their hostility was gradually relaxed as they came to recognize the manifest purity of his intentions. But this campaign soon told upon his apparently vigorous constitution, and he fell seriously ill.

Meanwhile the highest tribunal in the Empire had recognized that the Catholic minority in Manitoba had a right to have its grievances redressed by the parliament of Canada. When application was made for this redress, the conservative government then in power presented to parliament a remedial bill; but the bill was defeated, after deliberate obstruction by the opposition under Wilfrid Laurier, in spite of the personal appeals of Father Lacombe to the latter. Laurier promised a more satisfactory solution of the difficulty, and on becoming prime minister of Canada that brilliant politician effected what he called a settlement of the question. But this settlement was only a compromise which fell quite short of the Catholic aspirations, was never accepted by the Canadian hierarchy, and was subsequently declared inadequate even by the Pope himself.

The attention of the great pontiff Leo XIII was not always engrossed by such weighty and contentious questions. At that time he stooped from his lofty throne to exalt one of the western clergy who, by long and faithful service, had deserved the thanks of the country and especially of his protégés, the Métis. Through the considerate intervention of his archbishop, the Rev. Father Ritchot, still at his post as priest of the parish of St Norbert, was created a protonotary-apostolic, thereby becoming a member of the pontifical court and acquiring the right to be addressed as Monsignor. This recognition of the worthy priest's honourable career took place on November 28, 1896.

Even Bishop Grandin in his remote field had his educational troubles, due to the encroachments of the civil authorities. Owing to the infirmities of advanced age he could not, unaided, cope with the situation. He therefore applied for a coadjutor, and on May 13, 1897, Father Legal was appointed to lighten his burden, and on June 17, 1898, was consecrated Bishop of Pogla in partibus infidelium.

The next cause for anxiety in the western diocese was one which, though apparently of a temporary nature, might none the less have had serious consequences, not only for the St Albert territory, but even for the vicariate-apostolic of Athabaska-Mackenzie. This was the famous Klondike rush, which for a time enlivened both sides of the northern Rocky Mountains, and in too many cases resulted in untold misery and even ruin.

East of the mountains that movement had another outcome. As it was feared that trouble might arise if some of the whites should insist on throwing in their lot with the northern aborigines as trappers or land-squatters, a commission was appointed to visit and make a treaty with the natives of the district of Athabaska. As it was apprehended that mere laymen might have some difficulty in dealing with people accustomed only to priests and traders, Father Lacombe was officially attached to the commission in an advisory capacity. The commission was composed of the Hon. David Laird, president, the Hon. Jas. Ross and J. A. M^cKenna. Besides this commission there was a Half-breed Scrip Commission, whose duties began where the treaty work ended. This was composed of Major Walker and H. A. Côté, a French Canadian from Ottawa. Accompanied by a number of mounted policemen, secretaries and other employees, the party left Edmonton on May 29, 1900, and was joined by Bishop Grouard at Athabaska Landing. On June 19 it reached Lesser Slave Lake, and the expectant Indians of that quarter agreed to the treaty without much difficulty. The Métis had next to be dealt with, but proved more refractory, as they strongly objected to the nature of the scrip which was intended for them. The commission had finally to yield the point.

British Columbia had already (January 23, 1899) lost a valuable missionary in the person of Father Le Jacq. On June 1, 1899, a much greater loss was suffered by the death of the Right Rev. P. P. Durieu. Bishop A. Dontenwill, who had been two years his coadjutor, succeeded him in the see of New Westminster. On June 10 of the following year the Rev. Bertrand Orth, a priest of German origin who had long laboured in the North-Western States, became Bishop of Victoria. As that diocese had practically no means of recruiting its clergy, the new prelate gladly welcomed the advent of the Benedictine Fathers on the Pacific coast. The Benedictines reached Victoria in the course of 1900, and three years later the community commonly known as the Marists likewise offered its services to the island diocese. Its first members were stationed at Cowichan.

Returning to the great plains east of the Rockies, we are startled by the immense proportions of the new immigration. Of course, many of the colonists were not of the Catholic faith; but ever since 1898, when, it is estimated, nearly twenty thousand Ruthenians had arrived, a resistless stream had come from the same source, and this created immense responsibilities for the chief pastors at St Boniface, St Albert and Prince Albert. With them came also large numbers of Poles and Germans, whose spiritual needs had to be looked after. The Congregation of the Oblates, being more or less cosmopolitan in its membership, easily furnished Polish and German priests for the last two nationalities. In 1898 one of the three Kulavy brothers who ranged themselves under the banner of Mary Immaculate came to Winnipeg and organized a church for the Poles. This edifice, which was opened on Pentecost Day, 1900, was necessarily very humble, but it provided temporary accommodation for the Germans and even the Ruthenians, two distinct services being provided in the same building.

The Ruthenians, who are members of the great Slav family, left their native province of Galicia, in Austria, to try their fortunes on the great Canadian plains. They are a simple, honest, frugal, believing people. They follow the Greek rite, to which they are much attached, but belong to the great Catholic fold. Being separated by language and customs from their neighbours in the Canadian West, they looked askance at the Latin priests and their ministrations. Four of their clergy had migrated with them, but none of these could be relied upon to stay in the country. The bishops therefore felt that others, belonging if possible to some religious order of their own rite, must at all costs be procured for them if they were not to be lost to the Catholic faith.

With this end in view Father Lacombe, ever ready to further a good cause, sailed from Halifax for Rome and Austria on March 20, 1900. The veteran pilgrim interviewed several cardinals, the Emperor Francis Joseph, some of his ministers and other eminent persons, and their own metropolitan on behalf of the Ruthenian people. If his journey was not quite so successful as might have been expected, it nevertheless served to bring home to those in power the needs of a much neglected people, and rendered subsequent correspondence more fruitful.

First of all, in order fully to ascertain the needs of his compatriots, the devoted metropolitan of Lemberg—head of the Ruthenian rite—sent to the Canadian West his own secretary, Father Zoldak, in the same year in which he had been visited by the old Canadian priest. Father Zoldak found at Winnipeg the beginnings of a parish under the care of a Basilian Father named John Damascene Poliwka. That congregation had been formed in the preceding year. Poliwka soon afterwards returned home; Father Zoldak remained at Winnipeg to replace him until a permanent clergyman could be found for his compatriots, and for several years filled the double position of parish priest to the Winnipeg Ruthenians and of missionary to the thousands scattered throughout the country. The year 1900 also saw the erection of the first Ruthenian church in the capital of Manitoba. Two years later some Basilian Fathers arrived, and definitely assumed the direction of the parish and outposts, though Father Zoldak remained two years longer in the West.

Not long after Father Lacombe's return to the Canadian plains he was grieved to lose one of his best friends, the kindly, humble and saintly Bishop Grandin, whose death took place at sunrise on June 3, 1902. Bishop Legal, who succeeded Bishop Grandin, found the diocese endowed with a lesser seminary for clerical students, which had been opened on January 25, 1900, and a cathedral which was becoming too small for the increasing population, and could no longer compare favourably with some of the other churches of the West.

One of the first tasks to which the new titular applied himself, therefore, was the erection of a cathedral more adequate to the needs of the growing congregation.

The Klondike rush and the Treaty Commission which grew out of it had turned the attention of the Catholic authorities to the immense Mackenzie valley and the Yukon. These two northern territories were separated from the long-existing vicariate-apostolic of Athabaska-Mackenzie, and were formed into a separate ecclesiastical division under a young superior, Father Gabriel Breynat, O.M.I., who was named Bishop of Adramyte and Vicar-Apostolic of the Mackenzie on July 22, 1901, and consecrated on April 6, 1902.

While this step was being taken in the interest of the northernmost missions the Archbishop of St Boniface was valiantly battling on behalf of Catholic education. As his words and intentions were more than once misrepresented by the public press, he deemed it advisable to have his own organ. He therefore instituted the fortnightly publication called Les Cloches de St Boniface, which was destined not only to serve his immediate purpose, but also to further the cause of religion, union and patriotism among his diocesans and those of his suffragan bishops. Although a small publication, it is authoritative and influential.

This little review was published in French. The English-speaking Catholics had for many years had their own paper, the North-West Review. Under the able editorship of Father Cherrier and Dr J. K. Barrett it had done yeoman service in their cause, and was still helping powerfully in their fight for educational liberty.

The Germans were not then numerically as strong in the West as they have since become. But a movement for immigration on a larger scale was started, and in 1903 brought the first settlers to a large tract of land in the present Province of Saskatchewan, which had been secured for them by the German-American Benedictines under the lead of the Rev. (now the Right Rev. Abbot) Bruno Doerfler. Soon other German Catholics followed in large numbers, and in time developed into the now compact and flourishing colony of which Muenster is the centre. Father Bruno, its enterprising promoter, was fully up to date in his methods, and achieved this satisfactory result with the aid of the press. In February 1904 he founded a periodical which he called St Peters Bote, and which he at first edited from Rosthern, a Saskatchewan town where he had been stationed in the preceding year pending the organization of his settlement. This weekly newspaper was then printed at Winnipeg, and sent broadcast to the German Americans of the St Paul (Minnesota) region, upon whom it exercised a powerful influence, causing many of them to emigrate to the Canadian plains. A printing plant was afterwards installed at Muenster, and ever since September 1905 the paper has been printed and published there. St Peter's colony now numbers about a dozen parishes.

Another Saskatchewan centre of population not very far from the German settlement was then beginning to take form. This was Saskatoon, now a very progressive city. Land had been bought there in 1901, and the first local church, a frame building of no great architectural pretensions, was built on it in the following year. Several Oblate Fathers had been in charge of the infant congregation when, in the course of 1906, Father H. Vachon, O.M.I., organized it into what might almost be called a model parish.

In Winnipeg, as we have seen, the Germans at first worshipped in the same edifice as the Poles. They were now numerous enough to get a separate building, and on October 9, 1904, St Joseph's Church was opened for their benefit. Connected with this, and with the Polish and the two English Catholic churches, were schools, entirely supported by the parishioners, but these same people were none the less forced by the law to contribute towards the maintenance of the public schools, which were to them little short of Protestant establishments.

Two events of some importance to the church of St Boniface marked the year 1905. These were the death of Monsignor Ritchot, on March 16, 1905, and the nomination, in August, of another protonotary-apostolic in the person of Monsignor Azarie Dugas, who had been Archbishop Langevin's vicar-general since June 3, 1899.

But the all-important event of 1905, even from a religious standpoint, was the formation of the new provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. There had been much dissatisfaction for many years with the administration of the region which was then called the North-West Territories. The first draft of the bill which was to become the constitution of the two new provinces was quite satisfactory to the Catholics. Under that form it practically gave them the same educational rights as the Protestant minority enjoys in Quebec. But against this the anti-Catholic faction in the East raised a perfect hue and cry, before which the government of Sir Wilfrid Laurier withdrew the clause guaranteeing separate schools, and replaced it by one which, while it confers undeniable advantages on the Catholic minority, is far from being satisfactory.

These educational drawbacks did not prevent Catholicism from growing apace. On December 17, 1905, we see Archbishop Langevin at Regina blessing a new church which had been erected there by Father Suffa, O.M.I. Five days later, at St Charles on the outskirts of Winnipeg, the same prelate was likewise opening to public worship a more modest brick edifice, whose construction was due to the exertions of Father Thibaudeau, O.M.I. On March 15 an 'apostolic school' destined to form future missionaries was blessed by Monsignor Dugas. This had been built at St Adolph, by the Sons of Mary Immaculate, or Fathers of Chavagnes, a new order from France. Not long after a violent fire was unfortunately to destroy the whole establishment, which was, however, soon to rise again from its ashes.

Then, as if to be reminded of the polyglot character of his flock, Archbishop Langevin was blessing (July 21, 1906) a church put up by the Poles of Otthon, a village in Saskatchewan distant twelve miles from Yorkton. Three miles farther a chapel belonging to the Hungarians was also dedicated by His Grace, and on the morrow the prelate celebrated at Yorkton a high mass at which Catholics of many tongues assisted—Polish, Galician, Hungarian, English, German and French. This colony, which was administered to by the Redemptorist Fathers, counted at least one thousand families.

We have just mentioned the Galicians. These Catholics being much attached to their ancient rite and no priests coming from their country to attend to their spiritual needs, some Latin priests generously changed, with Rome's approval, their own rite for that of the newcomers. These were Father Delaere, the superior of the Yorkton Redemptorists, Father Boëls, one of his confrères, and Father Sabourin, whose example was soon to be imitated by other French-Canadian priests. Father Sabourin showed himself especially zealous in his endeavours to direct public sympathy towards the Ruthenian Catholics, and by means of pamphlets and lectures he contributed not a little to enlist precious help to their cause.

Other missionaries, among whom were the Rev. Fathers Gerristma and Pirot, manifested their zeal for the religious welfare of the medley colonists from Europe by learning their languages and consecrating their energies towards keeping them within the fold. At the same time education was far from neglected, and less than one year after the erection of the Saskatchewan and Alberta provinces these territories contained no less than forty-one Catholic public schools and ten Catholic separate schools, while several others were on the eve of being opened.

On the other hand, to keep up the standard of their morals and mentality, a newspaper, whose first number appeared on September 4, 1907, was founded in Winnipeg for the Germans of the West. A little later a similar boon was conferred on the Poles of the same territory by the publication of a weekly paper in their own language.

In the course of the same year the Catholics of Manitoba were grieved to learn of the death of a Protestant, William Fisher Luxton, the first lay schoolmaster in Manitoba, having begun teaching in the province in 1871. A sense of justice and fair play had caused Luxton to espouse the cause of the Catholic minority, ruthlessly despoiled of its rights by the abolition of its schools. With great ability and indomitable perseverance he had opposed this spoliation, until forced to retire from the paper which he had directed with remarkable success, the Manitoba Free Press. His name has remained dear to the oppressed, whose cause he advocated, and even his fellow-Protestants have since perpetuated his memory by naming one of their public schools in Winnipeg after him.

Saskatoon had, in 1907, seen the inception of a hospital under the care of the Grey Nuns. On December 22 of the same year Monseigneur Langevin blessed at Winnipeg a much larger institution established by a new order of nuns—the maternity hospital which stands on Sherbrooke Street and which cost $200,000.

Even the supreme Pastor was then thinking of the Canadian West. The north of the Saskatchewan was blessed with a number of regularly organized parishes, mostly made up of French Canadians or half-breeds. Prince Albert itself had become a city. It was thought that the time had arrived when the territory, which had so far been but a vicariate-apostolic, should be raised to the rank of a full-fledged diocese. This was done on December 3, 1907. By the same Bull Monseigneur Albert Pascal became the first bishop of the new see of Prince Albert.

Meanwhile efforts were being made by the opponents of Catholicism in the West to detach from their obedience to Rome the more or less ignorant Ruthenians who had flocked to Winnipeg and the western plains in general. A pseudo-bishop named Seraphim, who had been cast away from the Russian Church, ordained no less than sixty-five priests in the course of 1908. Each of these so-called ordinations had netted him the sum of fifty dollars, and the newly ordained were sent forth throughout the dioceses of St Boniface, of Prince Albert and of St Albert. However, most of these pretended priests ultimately returned to private life.

More serious were the effects of the Protestant propaganda, and scarcely more honest the means taken to succeed among the same Ruthenians. The Presbyterians launched into the country some ten young Galicians, to whom they guaranteed a monthly salary of $40 to entice their compatriots from the faith of their fathers, while the seducers kept up in their services all the old forms of worship so dear to them. Some of them even went about dressed in the costume of a priest, and professed to say mass according to the Ruthenian rite, while they gradually sapped the faith of their unsuspecting fellow-countrymen. Nay, some Presbyterian ministers have been known to stoop to such tactics, and in excuse therefor one of the officials of their 'Church Extension Committee' but lately admitted them when he publicly wrote: 'We had to tolerate some of the practices of their old Church while we were leading them into Presbyterianism.'^[1]

Other troubles in the Western Church came from a few restless minds among the Poles of Winnipeg and Gimli, who started independent congregations presided over by apostate or suspended priests; but in no case were these disorders permanent.

The Catholic Church found greater stability among the French Canadians; hence she encouraged their settling in the West, especially to the south of Moose Jaw, where prosperous settlements were soon in existence through the exertions of the Rev. Fathers P. Gravel, A. Royer and others. Thus were started the colonies of Gravelbourg, Notre-Dame, d'Auvergne, Lac Pelletier and a dozen others in the same district.

Nor was the extreme North-West forgotten. On March 9, 1908, all that part of the Mackenzie vicariate-apostolic that lay west of the Rocky Mountains as far south as the 54th degree of latitude (comprising Father Morice's old mission of Stuart Lake) was constituted a distinct religious district under the official title of Prefecture Apostolic of the Yukon, and entrusted to the care of the Rev. E. Bunoz, O.M.I. By the same Roman decree the vicariate-apostolic of the Mackenzie was detached from the ecclesiastical province of Victoria, and its titular again made a suffragan of St Boniface.

But in a sense more important than these changes was the opening of the new cathedral at St Boniface, now a full-fledged city. This was due to the zeal of Archbishop Langevin. The successive cathedrals of St Boniface have ever been famous in history and song; but the last one built by Monseigneur Taché was not large enough for the needs of the rapidly growing congregation. Archbishop Langevin, therefore, built one of monumental proportions, all of stone, just in the rear of the humble edifice it was destined to replace. Together with the sacristy it was 312 feet long, 80 feet wide, and cost about $325,000. Its dedication on October 4, 1908, was the occasion of great festivities, in which thirteen archbishops and bishops took part. Besides the members of the Catholic parishes of Winnipeg (including that of St Nicholas, of the Ruthenian rite), delegates of some twenty-five Catholic centres in the country marched in a grand procession through the streets of Winnipeg to the new cathedral.

Illustrative of the good results of the Lebret Industrial School directed by Father Hugonard, we might put to the credit of 1908 the fact that, in spite of destructive early frosts, in the absence of which the crops would have probably been four times as plentiful, the old pupils whom Hugonard had established in the valley of the Qu'Appelle raised no less than 44,000 bushels of wheat on their farms. Their morals and their attendance at church, even in the absence of their spiritual guides, were satisfactory.

More troublesome were the Winnipeg Ruthenians. Some of them seemed doomed to become the prey of any adventurer who was bold enough to don flowing robes or parade any high-sounding title. One of these adventurers was a Parisian named Vilatte, an impostor of buffoonish character, a religious chameleon, who, after having been a servant in a Catholic college, a lay novice in some religious order, and a Protestant of various sects, had travelled over the world moved by a genuine craze for notoriety. He was now posing as a Greek archbishop and pompously called himself Mar Timotheus. With the help of three interdicted Ruthenian priests he worked hard, and not entirely without success, to create a schism among the simple folks from Galicia.

In far-off British Columbia, 1908 saw the resignation of Archbishop Orth, whom the Right Rev. Alexander M^cDonald was to succeed on October 1. Prior to this nomination the see of Victoria had reverted to the rank of the capital of a simple diocese, while that of New Westminster was abolished in favour of the newly created see of Vancouver, which was given archiepiscopal status. But a few days after this promotion the titular of the latter was elected Superior-General of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, and, having in consequence resigned his see, was later on succeeded by the Most Rev. Neil M^cNeil, who had previously been Bishop of St George, Newfoundland.

Leaving the commercial metropolis of British Columbia for the capital of Saskatchewan, we find the city council of Regina offering, in the spring of 1909, to the Grey Nuns two blocks of land whereon to erect a Catholic hospital, an offer which, after being ratified by a vote of the citizens, was gratefully accepted by the good sisters, who forthwith established one of those well-conducted institutions of which they have made a speciality.

For the purpose of providing a constant supply of priests to his diocese Archbishop Langevin founded a lesser seminary, which was opened at St Boniface in September 1909. The Rev. Jos. Joubert, a native-born Manitoban, was made its first director. Of its thirty-three first students 19 were French Canadians, 8 Galicians and 2 Germans, while France, Switzerland, Belgium and Latin Slavonia each had one representative.

The great event of 1910 in the Canadian West was the visit to St Boniface of Cardinal Vannutelli, the representative of the Pope at the Montreal Eucharistic Congress. The cardinal-legate reached Monseigneur Langevin's archiepiscopal city on September 18, accompanied by a numerous retinue, after having travelled in a private car graciously put at his disposal by the Canadian Pacific authorities, who had also delegated one of their representatives to do him the honours of their line through the 1400 miles that separate Winnipeg from Montreal. His Eminence then blessed the corner-stone of the new and magnificent pile which was destined to be the permanent home of his seminary. Protestants and Catholics, government officials and private persons vied with each other in doing honour to the representative of the Pope.

Three weeks later another ecclesiastical personage in a high station visited not only Winnipeg and St Boniface, but the whole West as far as the Rocky Mountains. His passage was no less appreciated, and it was productive of even greater good to the souls of the Catholics of a different rite. This was Monseigneur Andrew Szeptycki, the Archbishop of Lemberg in Austria, and primate of all the Ruthenians in the world. His Grace not only visited his compatriots, but, with true apostolic zeal, he insisted on preaching to them, catechizing their children, and hearing the confessions of all.

Prior to these visits, on August 8, 1910, Father Ovide Charlebois, an Oblate priest, had been appointed the first vicar-apostolic of Keewatin. On November 30 the new prelate was consecrated Bishop of Berenice by Monseigneur Langevin, and soon afterwards repaired to his ecclesiastical district, with which long missionary labours had already made him familiar.

The year 1910 closed, and 1911 opened, in Manitoba with a public discussion which for a time was to keep up the ferment of unrest within the educational circles of the capital and the archiepiscopal city. Seventeen Irish Catholics desired the establishment of an English Catholic college in connection with the provincial university. St Boniface College they accused of being partial to the French language. It soon became evident, however, that their accusations were based on an imperfect knowledge of the facts, and the controversy had scarcely any result except to show the affection of the great Catholic body for its archbishop, whose name unfortunately had been brought into the discussion.

On April 20, 1911, a new and much needed Catholic institution was added to those already flourishing in Winnipeg. This was the refuge of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, which was at first opened in a private house on William Avenue. Its work was at first greatly hampered by lack of funds.

Other events to the credit of 1911 may briefly be told. The first issue of a Ruthenian paper appeared in Winnipeg on May 27. A new church erected by Father Vachon was opened to public worship at Saskatoon in August, and in October the Right Rev. Bruno Doerfler, O.S.B., hitherto Prior of the Muenster Monastery in Saskatchewan, was blessed and enthroned as the first Abbot of the West by his bishop, Monseigneur Pascal. Finally, we have to mention the appointment of the Right Rev. Olivier Elzéar Mathieu, C.M.G., as first bishop of the new see of Regina—an event which caused great satisfaction among the French-Canadian settlers of the West.

I
PRELIMINARY

In studying the history of the Church of England in Canada four fundamental considerations have to be constantly borne in mind.

1. In the motherland the church is an established church. This is not an artificial condition, but the growth of ages, and represents an ideal that seems to be foreign to Canada. The theory is that the good order of a country embraces its moral and spiritual as well as its material interests, and that, while the government represents the one, the church represents the other. Thus in the early days of colonization the government and the church went hand in hand. The government gave material aid to the clergy, and they in return ministered to the moral and spiritual needs of the people. The advantage to the church was great, both in prestige and material strength, but it was only temporary, and was more than counter-balanced by the fact that the church was held responsible, in part, at least, for the policy of the state, and suffered from its mistakes, while irreparable injury was inflicted upon it through the weakening of the essential forces of self-government and self-support.

2. In the motherland the church is an endowed church. This is not, as is often supposed, the result of government aid, but the outcome of the gifts of devoted members in bygone ages. While it gives the clergy a certain degree of freedom and independence, it leaves the membership of the church without a due sense of responsibility for its support, and untrained in general and systematic giving. Recruited from such a membership the Church of England in Canada has been prone to rely too much upon external aid and to neglect its main source of material strength, the self-sacrifice and loyal support of its members.

3. The Church of England is an ancient, historic church, owing its origin not to the Reformation of the sixteenth century, but to the missions of the primitive, if not the apostolic, age. It derives stability, strength and inspiration from its long and glorious past. On the other hand, it has been too much inclined to continue the methods of bygone ages, and too slow to adapt itself to the requirements of the present and the claims of the future.

4. The missionary societies of the mother church—the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge—have given invaluable aid in the establishment of the church throughout the Dominion. Without the help of these societies the planting of the church in many places would have been impossible. On the other hand, they have led both clergy and people in Canada to rely too much upon their fostering care, and to neglect the development of their own native life.

The results of all these causes are only too apparent along the whole course of the church's history. No church in Canada can boast of an abler or more devoted body of clergy and laity, and yet no church has been slower in the development of its own native institutions. In the end the drawbacks may have more than outweighed the advantages. Now, however, after one hundred and fifty years of struggle, the Church of England in Canada may be said to have reached a position of entire self-consciousness and self-reliance. No church confronts the future with higher hopes for service to the Canadian people, to the British Empire and to the world.

II
HISTORICAL

Nova Scotia

Halifax.—It was the custom of British seamen to hold religious services on board ship. It is therefore extremely likely that Church of England services were held in Nova Scotian waters in connection with the various expeditions that were sent forth for purposes of war or exploration; but of this we have no record. The first service on land was held in the chapel of the French fort at Port Royal, now Annapolis, on Tuesday, October 10, 1710, which was solemnized as a day of thanksgiving for the success of the British arms in reducing the fortress. The Rev. John Harrison, chaplain to Commander Martin, read the services, and the Rev. Samuel Hesker, chaplain to Colonel Reading's marines, preached the sermon. On the bicentenary of this event, in September 1910, a magnificent cathedral was opened with great pomp, on a commanding site in the city of Halifax. From 1728 to 1739 the Rev. Richard Watts, chaplain to the forces, conducted a school at Annapolis, in which he taught fifty children. From 1736 to 1743 the Rev. James Peden did a similar work at Canso for the children of fishermen, soldiers and labourers. Nothing, however, of importance was done by way of regular administration till the year 1749, when the city of Halifax was founded.

In that year the Lords of Trade and Plantations sent out 2476 persons, discharged soldiers and others, with whom were also sent two clergymen, William Tutty and William Anwyl. The first service was held in the open air, on June 21, the day on which the city was founded. Subsequently services were held in the governor's drawing-room till St Paul's was opened for public worship, on September 2, 1750. The frame of this church, built to seat nine hundred people and costing £1000, was of oak and pine brought from Boston. That the colony sorely needed the influences of religion may be seen from the first report of the missionaries, who said that of the new settlers the lower sort was a set of abandoned wretches, so deeply sunk into almost all kinds of immorality as to scarce retain a shadow of religion; and that those influences were effective may be seen from subsequent reports, which mention a striking and acknowledged reformation of manners.

The policy of the government was twofold—to provide clergy to minister to the spiritual and moral needs of the people, and schoolmasters to educate their children. To carry out this policy it planned to set apart in every township a particular spot for a church, four hundred acres of land for the minister and two hundred acres for the schoolmaster; the salary of the minister was to be £70 and that of the schoolmaster £15. From 1749 to 1774 the teachers were Halhead, Hubly, Sharrock, Lynch, Jones, Broadfield and Peters.

JOHN BREYNTON
From the J. Ross Robertson Collection in the Toronto Public Library

In 1751 Halifax contained about six thousand inhabitants, three thousand of whom claimed allegiance to the Church of England; of dissenters of all sorts there were about two thousand; and of Irish Roman Catholics and Jews, about one thousand; and it is said that the greatest harmony prevailed among them. These were gradually increased by a constant stream of German and other foreign Protestants. In 1752 the Rev. William Anwyl was succeeded by the Rev. John Breynton, who had been chaplain of one of the British ships at the siege of Louisbourg; and in 1753 the Rev. Thomas Wood was appointed as his assistant. In 1754 Breynton established an orphanage, in which there were forty children. In 1755 the construction of St Paul's Church was completed, and the first vestry meeting was held on October 10, the Hon. Richard Bulkeley being the first churchwarden and the first organist. In 1758 an act was passed by the assembly of the province making the Church of England the established religion, but granting toleration to all dissenters except Roman Catholics; and another law was passed restricting the performance of marriage by licence to the clergy of the established church. Between 1763 and 1765 an organ was installed in St Paul's. About this time a surplice was stolen from the church, for which offence the culprit barely escaped the sentence of death for what was termed a felonious and sacrilegious act. In 1768 Father Baillie was sent by the governor of Quebec at the request of the government of Nova Scotia to take charge of the Roman Catholic Acadians and Indians, and was placed under Breynton's supervision. In 1773 an act was passed to assess the parishioners to provide for the needs of the church. Till 1798 St Paul's was heated only by footwarmers. These were iron boxes filled with charcoal, or wooden ones filled with hot bricks. In 1773 Lord William Campbell presented the congregation with two new stoves. These were not put up till 1778, and then they smoked so much that they were of no service. It was only in 1798 that two common stoves, borrowed from the garrison, solved the difficulty of heating the church. In 1783 a great impetus was given to the work of the settlement by the arrival in the province of eighteen thousand loyalists, and St Paul's, Halifax, greatly benefited by this influx of population, and has retained its premier position in Nova Scotia in all departments of active and aggressive work.

Annapolis.—In 1753 the Rev. Thomas Wood was appointed to Annapolis, but did not reside there permanently till 1764. One of the few clergymen who took an active interest in the Indians, he learned their language and ministered to them whenever he had an opportunity. In 1768 the population was only 513. In 1775 the inhabitants subscribed £160 towards the building of a church, which was still incomplete in 1783, though supplied with steeple and bell; it was opened for divine service in 1784 and consecrated in 1791. In 1780 the Rev. Jacob Bailey became the incumbent. His life-story, which is known in minute detail from his own graphic pen, is an admirable illustration of the trials and consistency of the loyalist clergy, and of the conditions under which the church was planted in Nova Scotia. He paid great attention to catechizing and to the musical part of the service. Sermons were expected to last at least thirty minutes. Marriage fees averaged from two shillings and sixpence to ten shillings. The first contribution Bailey received from the people was twenty cords of wood. A glebe lot of five hundred acres was let for £6 per annum. The best house in Annapolis with two acres of garden and orchard cost £20. The population in some places consisted of tavern-keepers, disbanded sergeants, Scottish pedlars, mechanics, farmers and negroes; in others, of husbandmen and labourers, with miserable habitations. Many families lived in dwellings having but a single apartment, built with sods, where 'men, women, children, pigs, mosquitoes and other domestic insects mingled in society.' Travelling was done partly on foot, partly on horseback, by land and by water, through deep morasses, muddy roads and unbroken forests. 'The traveller was often exposed to violent storms with mire to the horse's belly; wet to the skin and with his clothes rent in climbing over windfalls, he had often to dismount and lead his horse. When he rested for the night it was often in houses that leaked so badly that he was wet to the skin at the tea-table; and he frequently slept with a dozen companions in a room about sixteen feet square, amid intolerable heat and incredible swarms of mosquitoes and sand-flies.' The days of palace hotels and pullman cars had not yet come.

Lunenburg.—In 1753 some sixteen hundred persons, mainly French and German, left Halifax and settled in Lunenburg, under the charge of the Rev. J. B. Moreau, who had been a priest of the Roman Catholic Church in France, and who had gone to Halifax as a missionary to the French and Swiss, to whom he first preached on September 9, 1749. The French were mostly of the Confession of Augsburg and there were three different persuasions among the Germans. The first service in Lunenburg was held in the open air, on the parade. St John's Church was erected in 1754 at the expense of the government and at a cost of £76, 16s. 6½d. It was thus the second Anglican church erected in Nova Scotia. It was sixty feet by forty; the frame was of oak brought from Boston in a man-of-war. In 1760 there were in Lunenburg about 300 families with 596 children under twelve years of age; to these the Rev. Robert Vincent was sent as minister and schoolmaster. On the death of Vincent in 1766, the Rev. Paulus Bryzelius was appointed to his position with a special view to ministering to the Germans, while Moreau devoted himself more especially to the French. On the death of Bryzelius in 1773 the services of a separate missionary were discontinued, and eventually the whole congregation was united in the communion of the Church of England.

Windsor.—The first settlers came to the county of Hants after the deportation of the Acadians in 1755, and settled in Windsor and neighbourhood. They were without regular ministrations for about eight years, though occasionally visited by the clergy of St Paul's, Halifax. In 1763 the Rev. Joseph Bennet was placed in charge of Horton, Falmouth, Newport and Windsor. In Falmouth there were 278 inhabitants, of whom 146 were children; and in Newport 251 adults and 11 children. Services were held in private houses and sometimes in the tavern kitchen. In 1767 Mr Watts was appointed schoolmaster and was replaced in 1769 by Mr Haliburton, brother of William Haliburton, grandfather of the celebrated author of Sam Slick. In 1771 a small chapel was used for a church and a meeting-house on Sundays, and for a schoolhouse on week days. In 1775 Bennet was succeeded by the Rev. William Ellis. In 1782 Falmouth decided to build a church, which was completed in 1786. In the years 1788-90 the parish church at Windsor was erected; this till 1875 was used as a university church, the professors and students attending every Sunday in their academicals. The pew-rent system was then in vogue, and men were liable to be fined if they neglected public worship to the 'evil example of society.' In 1792 a reading society was formed to encourage a taste for literature, and in 1793 a temperance society to enforce the duty of sobriety on the poorer classes. In 1797 the Rev. William Colsel King was appointed missionary to Douglas and Rawdon. The township of Rawdon was about fifteen miles square, and had in the centre a neat little church erected by the government. The first inhabitants were forty-five families of disbanded soldiers who had served under Lord Rawdon in the War of Independence. In 1800 the people of Windsor erected a parsonage at a cost of £500 for the Rev. Mr Willoughby, who had succeeded Ellis in 1795.

Cape Breton.—The first clergyman appointed to Cape Breton was the Rev. Benjamin Lovell, garrison chaplain, who in 1785 took charge of the loyalists who had recently settled in Louisbourg and at Spanish River. In June 1786 the Rev. Ranna Cossit became incumbent of the district and parish of Sydney, and in October wardens and a vestry were chosen. The building of St George's Church was soon begun, the imperial parliament voting £500 towards it, in return for which a large space was reserved in the church for the troops. In 1791 the whole island, by order of the governor in council, was erected into a parish, named St George's, and in April the first meeting of the parish took place. In 1805 Bishop Inglis made his first visitation to the island. In 1806 the Rev. William Twining was appointed incumbent, and he was succeeded in 1816 by the Rev. Hibbert Binney, the father of the Hibbert Binney who became, in 1851, fourth Bishop of Nova Scotia.

Prince Edward Island.—The Island of St John was ceded to England in 1763. In 1764 only thirty French families remained after the deportation of the Acadians; and though loyalists and disbanded soldiers gradually came in, there were only one hundred and fifty families on the island in 1769. The first clergyman to visit the island was John Eagleson, who came in 1773-74 from Fort Cumberland, Nova Scotia. The first resident clergyman, the Rev. Theophilus DesBrisaye, was appointed by royal warrant in 1774. On his arrival in 1775 he found no church, no provision for food and shelter and no prospect of stipend. At first he acted as chaplain on His Majesty's ships, and took up his residence on the island in 1779. The parish of St Paul's was established by statute in 1781, when a vestry and wardens were appointed. In 1790 dissenters were exempted from rates and taxes for the support of the established church, and in 1802 they were granted liberty of conscience and permission to erect churches for themselves. In 1795 a grant was made for a site for a church building, and in 1797 one, capable of seating four hundred people, was erected on the site of the present Dominion buildings.

The establishment of the church in these various centres has been related in some detail in order to give a picture of the conditions under which the people lived and the mode of action under which the church grew during the period of the union of church and state. We must now proceed to give a more rapid survey of the work as a whole.

The first Bishop of Nova Scotia, the Right Rev. Charles Inglis, was appointed in 1787. His diocese comprised practically the whole of British North America. At his appointment he found 11 clergymen and 6 schoolmasters in Nova Scotia, 6 clergymen and 7 schoolmasters in New Brunswick, and 6 clergymen in the rest of his diocese. In 1912 there were 110 clergymen in Nova Scotia alone. There were but few churches; in 1912 there were 250 in Nova Scotia. There were 12 missions; in 1912 there were 103 parishes and missions in Nova Scotia. There were no institutions of higher education; in 1912 there were three: the university of King's College, Windsor; a collegiate school at Windsor; and the Edgehill Girls' School, also at Windsor. In 1793 this huge diocese was divided by the erection of the see of Quebec. After an episcopate of twenty-nine years Bishop Inglis died and was buried under the chancel of St Paul's Church, Halifax.

Bishop Stanser succeeded to the see in 1816, but, on account of ill-health, he lived in England, and the diocese was practically without a head for eight years. John Inglis, son of the first bishop, was appointed to the see in 1825. He had been educated at the collegiate school and at King's College, Windsor, and had obtained wide experience as a country missionary and as a city rector. He was thus admirably fitted for his work, and was in the fullest sympathy with the life and manners of Nova Scotia. During his first visitation he travelled over 5000 miles by sea and land, confirmed 4367 persons and consecrated 44 churches. Previous to his consecration twenty years had elapsed since New Brunswick had been visited by a bishop.

In 1829 there were twenty clergymen in the diocese and fifty-two schoolmasters and catechists. In 1837 a diocesan church society was formed to promote generally the welfare of the church. In 1845 New Brunswick was erected into a separate see. In 1846 there were 58 clergy and 3238 communicants. In 1851 Bishop John Inglis was succeeded by Bishop Binney, who gave special attention to the financial condition of the diocese, and who was the means of raising $150,000 as a Church Endowment Fund to support the clergy of the poorer parishes. In 1865 a cathedral chapter was constituted. In 1872 a lay association was formed; this grew into the Church of England Institute, which has played an important part in the life of the city of Halifax and of the diocese of Nova Scotia. It was during Bishop Binney's episcopate that the diocesan synod was organized and nursed into vigorous life. Under the succeeding episcopates of Bishop Courtney, 1888-1904, and Bishop Worrell, the progress of the church has been steady and substantial. A beautiful cathedral has been erected in Halifax; parishes and missions have been strengthened throughout the diocese; the missionary offerings have greatly increased; a spirit of harmony and zeal pervades both clergy and laity; and there is every promise of an abundant spiritual harvest from the toils and privations of the early settlers and missionaries.

CHARLES INGLIS
From the painting in the National Portrait Gallery

New Brunswick

In the summer of 1769 the Rev. Thomas Wood,^[1] incumbent of Annapolis, visited the settlements on the St John River. He reached the harbour of St John on July 1. On the following Sunday he conducted divine service, preaching in the morning in English, in the afternoon in Indian and in the evening in French, many of the French inhabitants being present. At Maugerville he had an audience of more than two hundred persons, most of them dissenters. At Gagetown he baptized the twins, Joseph and Mary Kenderick, 'who had been born in an open canoe on the river two leagues from any house.' His tour extended to the Indian village of Aukpaque a few miles above the present city of Fredericton.

Nothing further was done on behalf of the Anglican Church till 1783, when the Rev. John Sayre came, in the month of August, with a band of loyalist refugees and stationed himself at Maugerville, where he officiated in the meeting-house of the Congregationalists to a very numerous gathering, 'in general Independents, on the plan of New England.' Meanwhile another band of refugees, in the same year, built more than five hundred houses, mostly frame buildings, within ten weeks, on the point of land in St John Harbour, and the Rev. John Beardsley began to minister to the new settlers. In 1785 Beardsley was transferred to Maugerville, and the Rev. S. Cooke, D.D., went to St John, where he was the means of fitting out a house, thirty-six feet by twenty-eight, for a church. In 1786 the Rev. George Bissett, from New England, was appointed to St John, on the removal of Cooke to Fredericton; by his efforts the church was enlarged, £500 having been allotted by the government for this purpose.

In 1786, also, the Rev. S. Andrews took charge of St Andrew's, where previously the civil magistrate had read the church liturgy and sermons to the people, many of whom were Presbyterians. A church, built chiefly with the government allowance, was opened on St Andrew's Day, 1788. Prior to the arrival of Andrews, Cooke had extended his ministrations to many towns in the neighbourhood. Upon his removal to Fredericton, formerly called St Anne's, he preached to sixty or seventy people in the king's provision store. By the efforts of Beardsley in 1788 a new church was built at Maugerville, with government aid, and this was deemed to be an elegant structure. This year also the Bishop of Nova Scotia visited St John and Fredericton and renewed his visitation of the province in 1792 and 1798. The Rev. Dr Cooke was appointed ecclesiastical commissary of New Brunswick in 1790 and retained the office until his death. From 1786 to 1808 the Rev. James Scovil ministered in Kingston and was succeeded by first his son and then his grandson. For one hundred and thirty years the Scovils were in the ministry and for ninety years they laboured in Kingston. The Rev. Richard Clarke began work in Gagetown in 1786, and in 1791 the Rev. Frederick Dibblee and the Rev. Oliver Arnold were appointed respectively to Woodstock and Sussex Vale. Thus the ministrations of the church were gradually carried to all the settlements.

Trinity Church, St John, one of the most beautiful and graceful structures in the Dominion, stands as a monument to the United Empire Loyalists who settled in the city of St John and in the Province of New Brunswick. The first congregation met for worship in 1783 and its first clergyman was the Rev. John Beardsley, who reached St John in July of that year. The corner-stone of the first permanent structure was laid in 1788 by the Bishop of Nova Scotia, himself a distinguished loyalist. The clock and chime of bells were given in memory of the loyalists. The communion plate was sent out to the church by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1790. The royal coat of arms on the west wall was displayed for many years in the council-chamber of the State House at Boston. On the evacuation of that city by the British troops in 1776 it was taken to New York and thence to Halifax, and in 1785 found its resting-place in St John. The first seven rectors, commemorated in seven mural brasses, were: George Bissett, 1786-88; Mather Byles, 1788-1814; George Pidgeon, 1814-18; Robert Willis, 1818-1825; Benjamin Gerrish Gray, 1825-40; J. W. D. Gray, 1840-68; James Hill, 1868-73. These have been followed by the Venerable Archdeacon Brigstocke, Canon J. A. Richardson—subsequently Bishop of Fredericton—and the Rev. R. A. Armstrong.

JOHN MEDLEY
From the J. Ross Robertson Collection in the Toronto Public Library

In 1815 Fredericton had a fine large church with eight hundred church members and one hundred regular communicants. In 1817, under the auspices of the church, a national system of education was introduced into New Brunswick by the formation of a central training-school at St John, though the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel mission schools had been carried on since 1786. As evidence of the spiritual destitution that still widely prevailed, it may be said that from Woodstock to Grand Falls, nearly eighty miles, a district inhabited chiefly by disbanded soldiers, there was no minister of any denomination and no outward profession of religion whatsoever. With difficulty could a Bible be found with which to administer an oath. Many other districts were in a similar condition.

In 1825 the population of the province was nearly 75,000, and there were only sixteen resident clergymen, scattered over an area of 27,000 square miles, and twenty-six churches, some of which were still unfinished. Sir Howard Douglas, the governor, anxious to extend the blessings of religion throughout the remote districts, set a movement on foot for the training of a native clergy and for the erection of churches. As a result King's College at Fredericton was established in 1828.^[2] Church-building was exceedingly active; the Rev. C. Milner alone causing to be erected churches at Sackville, Amherst, Shediac and Westmorland. In 1826 Bishop John Inglis visited New Brunswick and consecrated nineteen churches and confirmed 1720 persons. On a second visit, which he made in 1835, he was welcomed in the wilderness at Stanley with torches and bonfires, and a congregation of sixty persons assembled in a wooden shed for divine service. The bishop delivered the first sermon at this spot where only a few months before the untamed beasts of the forest were the only occupants. There were only twenty-eight clergymen to serve eighty parishes, and more than half these parishes were without a church building. With a view to meeting these needs and ultimately providing for the entire support of the church from local sources, a church society was formed in 1836, the first of its kind in the colonies. One of the earliest members of the society was Chief Justice Chipman, who bequeathed to it, at his death in 1852, £10,000. At that time by its means twenty-seven churches and stations were being served, which otherwise would have been left unoccupied. The general progress may be gauged by a concrete example. In the county of Charlotte there was only one church building in 1821; in 1861 there were nine parish churches and three chapels. These new churches were handsome and convenient buildings and were filled with devout, worshipping congregations; and all through the county heartfelt religion had sensibly increased and many of the besetting sins of new countries had greatly diminished.

But even so recently as 1845 there were still mournful evidences of spiritual destitution, in the form of separate and lonely graves, scattered about on farms and by the wayside, without any mark of Christian burial. A great impetus was given to the work of the church in that year by the erection of the province into a separate diocese and by the appointment of the Right Rev. John Medley as bishop. Apart from the general extension and consolidation of the church in the outlying districts, the chief events of Bishop Medley's episcopate were the erection of a beautiful cathedral at Fredericton, consecrated in 1853, and the formation of a diocesan synod in 1871. His wise guidance and strong personal influence had a deep and lasting effect in ameliorating the spiritual and temporal condition of the province. Within two years of his appointment the number of the clergy had risen from thirty to forty-seven.

In 1881 a coadjutor was appointed in the person of the Right Rev. H. Tully Kingdon, who, on the death of Bishop Medley in 1892 at the advanced age of eighty-seven, succeeded to the see, and he in turn was succeeded in 1906 by the Right Rev. J. A. Richardson. The clergy in 1912 numbered about seventy-five, and there is scarcely a place of any importance in the province that does not feel the influence of the Church of England.

Quebec

Until the Conquest in 1759 there had not been one English resident in Canada proper; that is, in what is now known as the Provinces of Quebec and Ontario. The first settlers were camp-followers, a mixed multitude, who came in the wake of the armies. General Murray speaks of them as the most immoral class of men he ever knew. They had nothing to lose and everything to gain from the development of the new country. They settled especially in Quebec, Three Rivers, Sorel and Montreal. These were soon followed by a more substantial class of men. The first clergy came in with the navy and the first services were held on the fleet, in the summer of 1759, at Lévis, and at the Island of Orleans. Among the number was the Rev. Michael Houdin, formerly a Roman Catholic priest and Superior of the Récollet Convent in Canada, who had been duly received into the ministry of the Church of England in 1747. His knowledge of the country and people proved to be of the greatest assistance to the English, and he remained in Canada till 1761. Dr John Brooke came immediately after the Conquest and was the first clergyman to officiate in Quebec. He held regular services in the summer of 1760 and was the means of establishing the first school for the education of the children of both soldiers and civilians. With the army of General Amherst and its Mohawk allies came Dr John Ogilvie, chaplain to the troops, who was present at the siege and capture of Fort Niagara in 1759, after which he accompanied the commander to Quebec. In 1760, at the express command of General Amherst, Dr Ogilvie assumed the charge of the congregation at Montreal, after the capitulation on September 8 of that year. He was commissioned to officiate as first incumbent of the parish of Montreal and chaplain of the troops. The services were held in a Roman Catholic chapel in which the British merchants and the garrison formed a considerable congregation. At the close of the military rule in 1764 two parishes were virtually established—that of Quebec from 1760 under Dr Brooke, and that of Montreal from 1763 under Dr Ogilvie. At Quebec the services were held in the Récollet chapel, and at Montreal in the chapel of the Ursulines. At Three Rivers the services were held in 1763 in the Récollet church, which has continued to be used as a Church of England place of worship to the present day. This state of things continued till the close of the American Revolutionary War, when we find some twenty thousand loyalists settled in the country.

The Rev. John Doty, who had been rector at Schenectady, New York, took charge of Sorel on July 1, 1784, and celebrated divine service for the first time on July 4. The services were held for a month in the Roman Catholic church and then in the barracks, in which a congregation of 150 assembled every Lord's Day. In 1785 Doty purchased one of the best houses in the town, part of a bankrupt's effects, for £15, and fitted it up as a church to accommodate 130 persons. This was opened for worship on Christmas Day, 1785. A steeple was added in 1786, and in it was placed a bell, the gift of Captain Barnes of the Royal Artillery. This was the first church opened for worship in what was called Canada. There were about seventy families in the town. Doty resigned the parish of Sorel in 1803.

The Rev. John Bryan went to St John's in 1780 with seventy other refugees. He was supplied with provisions for his family till 1783, when he was appointed pastor at Prescott and later incumbent of Cornwall. The Rev. John Stuart arrived in Canada in 1781 and opened a public school at Montreal. This was the first successful attempt to provide the English youth of Montreal with a liberal education. He also assisted the Rev. David Chabrand Delisle, who had succeeded Dr Ogilvie in ministering to the English residents. In 1784 he was appointed to Kingston, from which place he visited all the settlements from Côteau du Lac to Niagara. In 1785 he settled with his family at Kingston, and the following year he established, and maintained successfully for many years, the first English school in Upper Canada.

In 1787 the Rev. James Marmaduke Tunstall and the Rev. John Langhorne went to Canada from England. The former was appointed to St Armand and the latter was given charge of the Bay of Quinte district, with headquarters at Ernestown, now Bath.

In 1789 the Bishop of Nova Scotia paid a visit to the western part of his vast diocese, spending some time and conducting services at Quebec, Three Rivers and Montreal. At Quebec he held a visitation at which eight clergymen were present. He set many things in order that needed correction, and left the affairs of the church in a much more satisfactory condition than that in which he had found them. Among other things he appointed the Rev. Philip Toosey at Quebec and the Rev. J. M. Tunstall at Montreal to minister to the English-speaking population. But the chief result of his visit was that the necessity of dividing his huge jurisdiction was urged on the British government. This division was made in 1793, when Dr Jacob Mountain was appointed Bishop of Quebec.

On his arrival Bishop Mountain found the affairs of the church in a very unsatisfactory condition. There were still only six clergy in Quebec and three in Ontario, five of these being missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and the remaining four were paid by the government. The English were as yet few in number, and were to be found chiefly in the cities of Quebec, Three Rivers, Sorel and Montreal. The English-speaking settlements had scarcely begun and the Eastern Townships were an unbroken wilderness. There was no parsonage, no episcopal residence, and only one ecclesiastical building in the diocese—the house converted into a church at Sorel.

The bishop addressed himself vigorously to the task that lay before him. By his efforts the cathedral at Quebec was erected in 1804, mainly through the bounty of King George III. Every three years he visited his vast diocese, penetrating into every spot where a mission had been opened, confirming the young, encouraging the clergy and promoting the building of churches and schools. He advocated a scheme of superior education for the whole country, and procured a royal charter for M^cGill College. The difficulty of providing suitable clergymen led him to take steps for the proper training of a native ministry.

About the beginning of the nineteenth century settlers began to pour into the Eastern Townships, and the need at once arose of sending to them the ministrations of the church. The need was fortunately met by a man singularly gifted for the work, the Hon. and Rev. Charles James Stewart, fifth son of the Earl of Galloway. In 1807 Stewart took up his abode at Frelighsburg, and from this centre, for a period of ten years, he extended his activities throughout the region west of Lake Memphremagog. In 1809 he opened a church at Frelighsburg. In 1817, leaving Dr James Reid in charge of his work, he began to explore the counties of Stanstead and Compton, and finally settled in Hatley, where his labours met with their wonted success. He estimated that there were 8000 people on the east side of the lake and 7000 on the west side. He has been justly called 'the Apostle of the Eastern Townships,' for he completely won the confidence and affection of the people, and his work was deep and permanent. In 1820 he left Hatley to take up the post of visiting missionary for the whole of Upper and Lower Canada. In this connection he visited the settlements of St Andrews and Hawkesbury on the Ottawa, Cornwall, Mille Roches and Prescott on the St Lawrence, Port Hope and Hamilton, York, now Toronto, the Indian settlements on the Grand River, the Talbot settlement on Lake Erie, and as far west as Chatham, Sandwich and Amherstburg.

Meanwhile Bishop Mountain continued his apostolic labours. Eight times did he go over his vast diocese, each time compassing a distance of three thousand miles. He was a man of princely bearing and sparkling conversation, of noble figure and sonorous voice, and competent judges pronounced him to be one of the greatest preachers of the age. He was called to his rest on June 18, 1825.

The simple character, wonderful success and wide experience of Dr Stewart marked him out as suited to fill the vacant see. During the first six years of his episcopate he went over the country from end to end as he had done while still a simple missionary. The country, and with it the church, was advancing by leaps and bounds. In 1826 the population of Upper Canada was 164,000; in 1835 it had increased to 337,000. The bishop had to cope with a hopeless lack of money and of men. He had created a fund called the Stewart Mission Fund by which he was enabled to maintain travelling missionaries, but the lack of men he found more difficult to supply. Churchmen in Canada were slow to adopt methods of self-support. A beginning, however, was made through the formation of the Upper Canada Travelling Missionary Fund. This was the first organized attempt at self-help on the part of the Church of England in Canada.

JACOB MOUNTAIN
From an engraving in the Dominion Archives

Bishop Stewart found a tower of strength in the person of Archdeacon Mountain, the son of the late bishop. He had been admitted to the diaconate in 1812 and to priest's orders in 1814. After a short period of service as lecturer in the cathedral at Quebec, he was appointed rector of Fredericton by the Bishop of Nova Scotia. After a three years' residence at Fredericton, he returned to Quebec when he was appointed 'Bishop's Official.' In this capacity he accompanied his father in a visitation of Upper Canada, during which he found new churches at Amherstburg, Sandwich and Queenston; a church in process of erection at Fort George, to replace the one burned down during the war; a church not yet finished at Grimsby; a union building at Barton; churches in process of erection at Cobourg, Belleville and Prescott, but no church at Brockville or Perth. Fifteen clergymen were present at the visitation at York and fourteen at Montreal, where he found a large and handsome church which had cost $100,000, with an organ which cost $8500. In 1822 he made a thorough visitation of the Eastern Townships and found churches in the course of erection at Sherbrooke and Lennoxville; but many of the other places were still destitute of the means of grace. In 1824 there were two clergymen on the Gaspe coast, and small churches either recently built or being erected at Paspebiac, Carlisle, St George's Cove and Gaspe Basin. In 1829 he paid an official visit to M^cGill College, of which he was principal; preached in schoolhouses in Waterloo and Granby; formed churches at West Shefford, Yamasca Mountain, which at his suggestion was called Abbotsford, Dunham, Clarenceville, St Johns and Chambly. There was then only one clergyman on the east side of the Ottawa—at St Andrews. In 1832 he visited the new mission at Grenville, to which a large number of people had been attracted by the construction of the canal; preached in an unfinished Methodist church in Bytown; licensed a catechist for Terrebonne and parts adjacent; found a small congregation at Vaudreuil and forty-five unbaptized children at Ormstown; and licensed a catechist for Châteauguay.

In 1836 he was appointed coadjutor to Bishop Stewart, with the title of Bishop of Montreal, and on the death of the bishop shortly afterwards he succeeded to the still undivided see of Quebec. There were then eighty-five clergymen in his diocese; of these fifty-one were in Upper Canada and thirty-four in Lower Canada, equally divided between the present dioceses of Quebec and Montreal. There were five resident clergymen at Quebec, three at Montreal, and one travelling missionary. In the present diocese of Quebec there was one clergyman at each of the following places: Leeds, Three Rivers, Drummondville, Melbourne, Lennoxville, Eaton, Hatley, Gaspe Basin and Carlisle; and in that of Montreal, one at Sorel, Abbotsford, Chambly, St Johns, Clarenceville, Frelighsburg, Philipsburg, Stanbridge, Dunham, Shefford, Rawdon, St Andrews, Grenville, Hull and Côteau du Lac. To these Châteauguay, Nicolet, Percé and Frampton were added shortly afterwards. There was then only one church in Montreal, served by two clergymen, John Bethune, who was also chaplain to the troops, and David Robertson, who also served Lachine. In 1838 there were forty-four clergymen in Lower Canada and fifty-two churches built or in the course of construction; and one hundred clergymen were needed for Upper Canada. In 1840 Trinity Church was built in Montreal by Major Christie and placed under the charge of the Rev. M. Willoughby. In 1838 missionaries were placed at the Gore, on the Ottawa, and at Stanbridge. Steps were also taken to erect Granby into a separate charge, and a missionary was placed over the settlements of the North with headquarters at Mascouche, where a church had been built by the Hon. Peter Pangman.

In 1840 the mission of Port Daniel in Gaspe was opened, and St Thomas's Church, Montreal, was built. In 1842 the foundation-stone of St George's, Montreal, was laid. In 1843 a temporary chapel was erected in Griffintown, Montreal, and another small chapel in the east end of the city, making in all six places of worship in Montreal; a church and parsonage had been erected in Christieville by Major Christie; a mission was established at Clarendon, where there were over one thousand souls; steps were being taken towards the erection of a church at Aylmer, and a new church was consecrated at Sorel.

FRANCIS FULFORD
From the portrait in the Château de Ramezay

Relieved of the supervision of the church in Upper Canada by the appointment of Dr John Strachan as Bishop of Toronto in 1839, Bishop Mountain redoubled his efforts to meet the needs of the church in Lower Canada. A bird's-eye view of the diocese at this time presents a small stone church at Nicolet; a diminutive stone church at Rivière-du-Loup-en-haut; a church, newly built of wood and roughly fitted up, at Kildare; a good church at Rawdon; a small, wooden, unpainted building with square-topped windows at Kilkenny; a little church and parsonage at Mascouche; a newly consecrated church at New Glasgow; a small building fitted up for a church at Côteau du Lac; churches at Huntingdon and Ormstown; a church commenced but at a standstill at Hemmingford; a stone church far from finished and roughly fitted for present use at Sherrington; a small church recently finished at Laprairie; a church room to be completed at Longueuil; an ordinary building fitted out as a church at L'Acadie; commodious churches at St Johns, Christieville and Chambly; a stone church not yet completed at Lacolle; a church being built at Henryville; churches at Philipsburg, Bedford, Stanbridge-East and Frelighsburg; a church in contemplation at Sutton; a church and parsonage in progress at Knowlton; the beginnings of things at Frost Village, Granby and Waterloo; at West Shefford, so rude were the conditions that at religious meetings the people sat on sap pails with pieces of board laid from one to the other; no church at Stukeley; encouraging progress at Hatley and Compton; steps being taken for the erection of a college at Lennoxville; no church at Richmond or at Danville; a new church and parsonage, both unfinished, at Kingsey; and only the frame of a church at Lower Durham. There were clear marks of progress on all sides. In Upper and Lower Canada there were then two bishops and one hundred and sixty clergymen, many of whom were leading lives of toil and hardship, living with their families in unpainted rooms and on uncarpeted floors; yet, under the providence of God, they were the dispensers of present, and the founders of future, blessing in the land.

In 1844 Bishop Mountain made his memorable visit to the Red River, compassing many thousands of miles in a bark canoe. In 1850 his vast jurisdiction was reduced in size by the formation of the see of Montreal. The chief events of his episcopate, apart from his incessant toils and travels, were: the establishment of the Church Society in 1842; the founding of Bishop's College, Lennoxville, in 1845; the conference of the bishops in 1851; the awful visitation of ship-fever in 1847; the formation of a diocesan synod in 1859; and the holding of the first provincial synod in 1861.

The pioneer work so laboriously inaugurated by the first three Bishops of Quebec has been consolidated with equal zeal and wisdom by their two successors, Bishop Williams and Bishop Dunn. The lives and teaching of these able and devoted men have had a lasting influence on the character of the people among whom they ministered, and profoundly affected the character of the church itself. The unity of spirit that prevails everywhere, the earnest unostentatious work of the clergy and the splendid efforts in the direction of self-support on the part of the laity have made the diocese of Quebec a recognized model to the rest of the Anglican communion.

Montreal.—The distinctive life of the diocese of Montreal begins with the episcopate of Bishop Fulford in 1850. Till then its history was merged in that of the diocese of Quebec. Since that time, however, it has played an important part in the work of the Church of England in Canada. The commercial metropolis of the Dominion has often been the meeting-place of the most important synods of the church, and has given added weight to the prestige of its representatives. Its first two bishops, Dr Fulford and Dr Oxenden, as metropolitans of the Province of Canada, took a leading part in the development of the corporate life of the church; as did also Archbishop Bond in his still loftier position of Primate of all Canada. The singular gifts of Bishop Carmichael made him through life a leader of men and gave him a premier place in the councils of the church. The unrivalled eloquence of many of its preachers and the equally unrivalled devotion of many of its missionaries have given it a good report to them that are without as well as to them that are within. And the presence in overwhelming numbers of French and Roman Catholic neighbours has imparted to its members a clearness and force of conviction in their allegiance to their own church, and a spirit of charity and toleration towards all who are not of her fold, which are marked features of the churchmanship of the Province of Quebec.

Ontario

The Province of Ontario, owing to its rapid growth and the number and wealth of its population, has naturally been the centre of the church's work and the scene of its greatest successes.

At the capture of Niagara in 1759 the Rev. John Ogilvie, who accompanied the expedition of General Amherst, conducted divine service in the chapel of the fort every day during his stay there. The services were discontinued after his departure.

At the outbreak of the American War in 1775 the Indians left their home at Fort Hunter, in the State of New York. A majority of them settled at Niagara, under the celebrated Joseph Brant, while the remainder went to Lachine under Captain John Deserontya. After a stay of six years at Lachine, most of these settled, in 1784, on the Bay of Quinte, where their descendants are still to be found. Those who had located at Niagara moved to the Grand River near Brantford in 1784, where they had the honour of erecting in 1785 the first Protestant church in Canada after the Conquest. In 1783 some ten thousand loyalists found refuge in Upper Canada. In June 1784 the Rev. J. Stuart set out from Montreal to visit the settlements on the St Lawrence and the Lakes. He reached Niagara on the 18th, and preached on the following Sunday to the garrison in the morning and to the Indians in the afternoon. On the return journey he visited Kingston, the scene of his future labours. In July 1785 he took up his abode in Kingston, where at the outset he officiated in a large room in the garrison. He at once proceeded to visit the neighbouring townships, in some of which the people regularly assembled in private houses on Sundays, and had the liturgy and a sermon read to them by serious and devout laymen.

In 1787 the Rev. John Langhorne took charge of the Bay of Quinte district, with headquarters at Ernestown. He had fifteen hundred souls under his charge, and within five years he succeeded in opening eight places of worship. In 1792 the Rev. R. Addison took up his residence at Niagara. In 1794 St George's, Kingston, was finished 'with a pulpit, desk, communion table, pews, a cupola and bells,' and in August of that year enjoyed the honour of a visit from the recently appointed Bishop of Quebec. There were then six clergymen in Lower Canada and three in Upper Canada.

About 1814 the Lutheran congregation at Williamsburg, with its pastor, John Weagant, joined the Church of England. In 1814 John Bethune was appointed missionary at Elizabethtown and Augusta. The 10,000 settlers had become 95,000, and now the province began to fill up with settlers from the old country, so that in 1825 the population had risen to 157,923. Yet in the previous ten years only four new parishes were established in Eastern Ontario, viz. Adolphustown, Belleville, Perth and Prescott. In 1816 the Rev. R. Leeming was appointed to Barton and services were begun at Hogg's Hollow, which became in due course the parish of York's Mills. In 1817 the Rev. W. Sampson was appointed to Grimsby and in 1818 the Rev. W. Macaulay to Cobourg. In 1819 three new parishes were formed when the Rev. M. Harris was appointed to Perth, R. Leeming to Chippawa, and the Rev. J. Thompson to Port Hope and Cavan. This was the beginning of an effort to plant the church in the vast interior now rapidly filling up with a population coming mainly from Great Britain. In 1820 the Rev. C. J. Stewart was appointed visiting missionary for Upper and Lower Canada. This appointment did much to foster Christianity among the settlers and to form new parishes. Many of the newer settlements were found to be in a deplorable state in regard to religion and morality. Sunday was given over to indolence and intemperance. The children were left without religious instruction and the entire population left to follow their own heedless imaginations.

In 1819-20 the government divided the country into parishes, and this greatly facilitated the work of church extension. In 1820 the Bishop of Quebec held his first visitation at York, the Rev. Frederick Myers was appointed to Matilda and the Rev. B. B. Stevens to Queenston. In 1821 the Rev. Robert Blakey was appointed to Prescott and the Rev. Thomas Campbell to Belleville. In 1822 the inhabitants of Simcoe, who had built a meeting-house, agreed to make it an Episcopal place of worship. In 1823 the Upper Canada Travelling Mission Fund was founded, which created and maintained the 'Stewart Missions.' In 1824 the Rev. Amos Ansley was appointed to March, the Rev. John Grier to Carrying Place, the Rev. Alexander Mackenzie to Port Talbot and the Rev. Robert Short to Sandwich. In 1825 Bishop Stewart succeeded Bishop Jacob Mountain, at whose death there were sixty-one clergymen where he had found nine in 1793, and sixty churches built or under construction where there had been only one. The total population was estimated to be 158,331, of which Kingston had 2329 and York 1677.

In 1826 the Rev. John Wenham was appointed to Brockville, the Rev. Rossington Elms to Beverley and the Rev. James M^cGrath to Credit. In 1827 the Rev. S. Armour was appointed to Peterborough; and in 1828 the Rev. John Anderson to Fort Erie, the Rev. F. Evans to Woodhouse, the Rev. Edward Parkin to St Catharines, and the Rev. George Archbold began his two years of labour among the Indians north of Lake Huron. In 1829 St Thomas was formed into a parish under the Rev. Mark Burnham; Markham under the Rev. V. P. Mayerhoffer; Brantford under the Rev. Abram Nelles; and Oxford under the Rev. Henry Patton; and the opening of Upper Canada College, with five clerical masters, added greatly to the strength of the York clergy. In 1830 a society was formed at York for converting and civilizing the Indians and for propagating the gospel among the destitute settlers. As an immediate result of this an Indian mission was opened at Sault Ste Marie under J. D. Cameron, a lay worker who took over George Archbold's work, and who was succeeded in 1832 by the Rev. William M^cMurray, later Archdeacon of Niagara. The church was reported to be spreading over the whole land, and so great was the respect in which her services were held that, when Bishop Stewart was announced to preach in the new court-house at Hamilton on a week-day, 'although the election for the county was going on at the time, the candidates unanimously consented to close the polls for two hours, that no impediment to divine service might be offered, and the congregation was numerous and attentive.'

In 1832 the Rev. Benjamin Cronyn was appointed to London, the Rev. Arthur Palmer to Guelph, and the Rev. Adam Elliott as travelling missionary among destitute settlers. The years 1832-34 were noted for the visitation of cholera, when the clergy did noble work for the sufferers and for the widows and orphaned children. The year 1837 is memorable for the establishment by Sir John Colborne of fifty-seven crown rectories. In that year the Rev. F. L. Osler was appointed to serve the township of Tecumseh. In 1838 the cry of spiritual destitution went up from all parts of the province; there were said to be, out of a population of 500,000, 100,000 who were without the ministrations of the church. This led to the division of the diocese of Quebec in 1839 by the formation of the see of Toronto and the appointment of Bishop Strachan, with jurisdiction over the whole of Upper Canada. In this year, also, the Rev. William Morse was appointed to Paris. Meanwhile work had been begun in Camden East, Kemptville, Franktown, Carleton Place, Richmond, Ottawa and March. In 1840 Bishop Strachan made his first visitation of his diocese and at Picton consecrated a church erected at the sole expense of the Rev. W. Macaulay. In 1841 a divinity school was established in Cobourg under the Rev. A. N. Bethune, and the first steps were taken towards bringing the university into existence, a charter for which had been obtained in 1828. In 1842 the erection of the college building proceeded rapidly. In 1843 King's College was opened as a Church of England university, under the Rev. Dr M^cCaul as president. At this period the movement of church extension spread rapidly over all parts of the province, and nearly all the larger towns of Ontario were supplied with clergymen and churches. In 1849 King's College was secularized, and the bishop set to work vigorously, and by appeals for help in Canada and in England succeeded in establishing Trinity College, Toronto, in 1852. In 1851 for the first time the laity met in conference with the clergy, and in 1857 a synod was held under the authority of an act of parliament. In 1854 the clergy reserves were finally secularized and a long and bitter struggle was brought to a close.

In 1857 the see of Huron was established, and Dr Cronyn was appointed bishop in the first episcopal election held in Canada. Since that time the region contiguous to Lake Erie and Lake Huron has been administered as a separate jurisdiction, under a line of able and devoted prelates, Bishop Cronyn, Bishop Hellmuth, Bishop Baldwin and Bishop Williams. During that period the Church of England has lengthened her cords and strengthened her stakes in every part of the diocese. At the formation of the diocese there were 43 clergymen, 46 parishes and missions, and 59 churches. There are now about 150 clergymen, 250 parishes and missions, and 275 churches. The value of the churches is approximately $1,000,000, and of the parsonages $200,000. The clergy are mainly composed of men born in the country and educated in the local divinity school, known as Huron College, and many of them have risen to the highest positions in the church.

In 1861 the diocese of Toronto was further divided by the formation of the see of Ontario. The eastern part of Ontario had enjoyed its full share of the remarkable development that had taken place throughout the province, and the church had struggled vigorously to keep pace with the progress of the country. Besides the clergy stationed in the most important centres, travelling missionaries had been appointed to the frontier districts. At the formation of the diocese there were 48 clergymen, 46 parishes and missions, and 70 churches—many of which were of a temporary character, rude in style and cheap in material—and 19 parsonages. In less than thirty years, i.e. by 1889, these had grown to 128 clergymen, 110 parishes and missions, 209 churches and 79 parsonages; and the means of grace have been supplied to at least 30,000 more people than in 1861.

In 1873 the vast and then wild and barren region east of Georgian Bay and north of Lake Huron and Lake Superior was set apart as the missionary diocese of Algoma. Under the wise and able administration of Bishop Fauquier, Bishop Sullivan and Bishop Thornloe the desert has blossomed as the rose. From the strong centres of North Bay, Sudbury, Sault Ste Marie, Port Arthur and Fort William the work of the church is being vigorously carried on in Muskoka, Cobalt and all parts of the diocese. The progress here has been little less than phenomenal. At the formation of this diocese there were no roads, no railways, no see-house, no parsonage, no endowments—only nine small frame churches, seven clergymen and a population of a few hundred souls. Railways and highways now cover the land as with a network, there are 40 parsonages, 100 churches, some of which are beautiful and substantial structures, a commodious see-house, 40 ordained clergymen, 20 paid lay readers, 12 self-supporting churches, nearly 150 congregations, and diocesan endowments amounting to at least $150,000.

In 1875 the six counties of Lincoln, Welland, Haldimand, Wentworth, Halton and Wellington were formed into the diocese of Niagara, under the Right Rev. T. B. Fuller as bishop. It had a population of about 250,000, of whom 40,000 were members of the Church of England. There were within its bounds forty-six parishes and fifty ordained clergymen. These numbers have been greatly increased and a satisfactory work of extension and consolidation has been carried on throughout the diocese under the wise guidance of Bishop Hamilton, Bishop du Moulin and Bishop Clark.

In 1896 the diocese of Ontario was divided by the formation of the see of Ottawa. Marked progress has been made since then in the city of Ottawa, in the older districts of Eastern Ontario and in the newer districts of the Ottawa valley, through the wisdom and zeal of Archbishop Hamilton, aided by the laborious efforts of a united and devoted body of clergy.

By these numerous subdivisions the diocese of Toronto retains only a small portion of its original territory, but it still remains the centre of the life and energy of the Church of England in Canada. Bishop Strachan commenced his labours in 1839 with a staff of 75 clergymen; there are now over 500 ministering in the five dioceses, of whom over 160 are attached to the diocese of Toronto. In the decade between 1880 and 1890 no fewer than seventy-five churches were built in the diocese, and similar progress has been maintained in all departments of the church's work. With the advent of the missionary society and of the Laymen's Missionary Movement, a marvellous expansion in missionary giving has taken place. Church-building, too, is progressing on a colossal scale: St Paul's Church is being erected at a cost of $250,000, and $300,000 is being raised to complete St Alban's Cathedral. And the vigorous life of the church in Toronto is being felt throughout the Church of England in Canada.

The North-West

For one hundred and fifty years—from 1670 to 1820—the Hudson's Bay Company were the virtual rulers of the Great Lone Land. They treated the Indians with justice and kindness, but made little or no effort to give them the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The first white settlers had come into the country under the auspices of Lord Selkirk in 1811, but no effort was made to minister even to them till 1820. In that year, under the combined agency of the company and the Church Missionary Society, the Rev. John West came as a missionary to both whites and Indians. In 1823 he opened a small wooden church on the site of the present cathedral of St John's, Winnipeg, and established a school which paved the way for St John's College. On his journey from York Factory he had brought with him two Indian boys, whom he instructed in the Christian faith and in due course baptized; both later became clergymen—the Rev. Henry Budd was the first native clergyman and a most successful missionary; and the Rev. James Settee spent a long and useful life in the service of his own people. On his return to England in 1823 John West was succeeded by the Rev. David Jones. The first really aggressive and constructive work, however, was done by the Rev. W. (afterwards Archdeacon) Cochran, who formed an industrial settlement in 1832 near the mouth of the Red River, and who succeeded to a remarkable degree in civilizing as well as christianizing the Indians. When Bishop Mountain visited the North-West in 1844 he found a Protestant population of 2345 out of a total of 5143; he also found four churches attended by 1007 persons, nine schools with 485 scholars, and 454 communicants; and he confirmed 846 persons.

The first Indian mission in the interior was established at The Pas in 1840 by Henry Budd. Here eighty-five converts were baptized in 1842. One of the most important of those missions was that established at Fairford by Archdeacon Cowley, who lived to see almost the whole heathen population brought to a profession of Christianity. The first Bishop of Rupert's Land was appointed in 1849 in the person of the Right Rev. David Anderson. In 1850 W. H. Taylor joined the clerical staff of the diocese, and was appointed in 1851 to the district of Assiniboia, with his centre about three miles above Fort Garry. Here he built a church in 1852 'within sight of the scalps suspended over the graves of poor dark departed ones, on the spot where for years heathen revels had been performed.' This mission in due time became the organized parish of St James's. In 1854 a mission was established at York Factory on Hudson Bay. In 1862 services were opened at Fort Ellice among a people 'in the lowest condition' who were seven hundred miles from the nearest market; and from Fort Ellice visits were paid to Fort Pelly, Touchwood Hills, Qu'Appelle Lake and other places.

When Bishop Machray succeeded Bishop Anderson in 1865 he was struck by the difference between the Indians who were in a heathen state and those who had come under the softening and elevating influences of the Gospel. There were eighteen clergymen in this vast diocese: one in the Yukon, two in the Mackenzie River district, three on Hudson Bay, four in what is now Saskatchewan, and eight in Manitoba. There was not a baker, a butcher, a tailor or shoemaker in the whole land. No collection was taken up in any of the churches. The population of the Red River Settlement had reached twelve thousand, mostly French Canadians.

In 1866 the bishop called together a conference of clergy and lay delegates, which ten clergymen and eighteen laymen attended. This was the first step towards the formation of a synod, which was regularly organized in 1867. At this conference he propounded a policy that he steadily tried to carry out throughout his episcopate. He soon realized that if the church was to succeed it would have to become self-supporting; and even in the almost complete dearth of population and material wealth he set on foot a scheme of systematic giving. He saw that, as a necessary consequence of self-support, the church must be self-governing; and he therefore established a synod and exerted all his energies to make it efficient. He saw that the strength of self-government lay in the intelligence of the people; and he set to work to establish a system of common schools. Anticipating the evils inherent in a purely secular education, he made provision for religious instruction in the common schools and in Sunday schools. Knowing that the pivot of the whole educational system lay in the teachers, he established centres where an efficient teaching staff could be trained. Applying the same principles to the church, he founded a divinity school, which to the end of his episcopate he cherished as the keystone of his policy. Coming from one of the greatest seats of learning in Europe, he did not fail to realize that theological training needs the broadening influence of classics and mathematics, science and art; and he sowed the seeds whose ripened harvest was seen a few years later in the University of Manitoba. Never once losing touch with fact and life and nature, his keen eye saw that behind every system and organization there must be a living man to give it vigour and efficiency; and he instituted a staff consisting of a dean and canons to conduct services in the cathedral, to act as professors of theology in the college, and to hold missionary services in the outlying portions of the diocese.

Bishop Machray had the good fortune to see the full fruition of his plans and of his toils. He saw Fort Garry with a population of three hundred souls expand into the city of Winnipeg with a population of nearly one hundred thousand; he saw the inauguration and successful working of the provincial university; he saw eighteen clergy grow into two hundred, and scores of thousands of dollars contributed where offertories had been non-existent; and he saw St John's College become a true seminary of the church whose graduates went forth to the Peace River and the Athabaska, the Saskatchewan and the Mackenzie.

Meanwhile he was actively engaged in doing the work of a pioneer missionary bishop. In 1866 he reopened St John's College, which had been closed for some time, and he visited missions in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. In 1868 he went to Rupert's House, Albany and Moose Forts on James's Bay, and in 1869 he visited Grand Rapids, Devon and Cumberland on the Saskatchewan River. In one of these journeys he travelled one thousand miles in a dog-sled and slept seventeen nights by the camp-fire in the open air with the thermometer forty degrees below zero.

The year 1870 brought a great change in the prospects of the West. Till then the missions were carried on in 'hopeless isolation,' when but a small increase in the white population could be expected. Direct intercourse with England was maintained by way of Hudson Bay, which was navigable for only three or four months of the year, and goods had to be carried inland eight hundred or a thousand miles. But in 1870 a movement for railways was on foot, for the North-West then became part of the Dominion of Canada, and settlers began to flock in in ever-increasing numbers. In 1879 a line in the United States reached the British frontier and was met by a short line of sixty miles from St Boniface. In 1880 it was carried across the river to Winnipeg. Soon the Canadian Pacific Railway was built north of the Great Lakes and across the prairies and mountains to the Pacific Ocean. A remarkable development followed. Population began to pour into Manitoba and beyond into Saskatchewan and Alberta, and the resources of the church were strained to the utmost to meet these remarkable developments.

It soon became evident that real episcopal supervision and control over so wide an area was beyond the power of any one man. Hence in 1872 the diocese of Moosonee, which included the regions along the shores of Hudson Bay, was organized under Bishop Horden, and in 1874 the diocese of Saskatchewan under Bishop M^cLean, and of Athabaska under Bishop Bompas.

In the far northern dioceses the population, mainly composed of Indians, has not perceptibly increased, but it has practically all been brought to the knowledge of Christianity. In the dioceses of Qu'Appelle, Saskatchewan and Calgary the progress of the church has been phenomenal. As the railways have overrun the country carrying in thousands of settlers, the missionaries have sought to keep pace with the progress of settlement: churches and parsonages have been erected by the score; the whole region has been dotted with parishes and missions; and for the above purposes large sums of money have been raised in Eastern Canada and in Great Britain. From Old Canada and Great Britain scores of missionaries, both clerical and lay, have gone to the West. Theological colleges have been established in Saskatoon, Regina and Calgary for the training of an indigenous ministry; a mission has been established with headquarters at Regina, in which large use is made of the railways in reaching the incoming settlers; a similar mission has been established with headquarters at Edmonton, to cover the vast country that extends northward and westward to Athabaska Landing and the Yellowhead Pass; and another with headquarters at Lethbridge, to do a similar work in Southern Alberta; while no means are neglected that are calculated to elicit the support of the people in the building of churches and the maintenance of the clergy.

A passing notice at least must be given to the remarkable work of Bishop Bompas, who for forty years laboured on the Athabaska, the Mackenzie and the Yukon; to that of Bishop Stringer, whose lot was at first cast among the Eskimos of Herschell Island, and then among the miners of Carcross, Dawson and the Klondike; to that of Bishop Holmes, whose death occurred on the eve of the entrance of thousands of white settlers into the promised land of Grand Prairie and the Peace River district; and to that of many other devoted missionaries who have carried the message of the Gospel to all the scattered tribes in the desolate regions of the North and within the Arctic Circle.

British Columbia

This region has long been known to the adventurous race of explorers. It was visited by Captain Cook in 1779, when he spent a winter at Nootka Sound, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, and cultivated the acquaintance of the Indians. The indented coast of the mainland was explored by Captain Vancouver in 1792 from Puget Sound to Alaska. The regions at the mouths and along the courses of the Columbia, the Fraser, the Thompson, the Skeena, the Stikine and the Naas Rivers were familiar to the Hudson's Bay Company's traders. Alexander Mackenzie reached the Pacific in 1793 in a memorable overland journey from Fort Chipewyan on Lake Athabaska to Bella Coola; and about the same time Simon Fraser descended the Fraser River in a canoe from its source to its mouth. In 1843 the whole country was leased by the crown to the Hudson's Bay Company, and in 1849 it became a crown colony. In 1852 Victoria was chosen by the Hudson's Bay Company as the site of its chief trading-post on the Pacific coast, and the Rev. C. H. Cridge was sent out as one of its chaplains in 1856. In 1859 the colony was erected into a bishopric under Dr Hills; and an endowment was provided for the see and for two archdeaconries by the Baroness Burdett Coutts. In 1860 Bishop Hills took his first journey to the mainland and consecrated the church, now the cathedral, of Holy Trinity, New Westminster. The church of St John, Victoria, also consecrated in 1860, and the bishop's residence were originally iron mission rooms in England.

GEORGE HILLS
From the J. Ross Robertson Collection in the Toronto Public Library

The rush for gold to the Cariboo in 1859 had attracted many thousands of people to Victoria and the Fraser River. In consequence of this a church was built at Hope, the centre of the mining population, and was consecrated in 1862, and shortly after a church was built in Barkerville. In 1863 churches were built at Saanich and Nanaimo. In 1866 a church was built at Esquimalt, which ministered for many years to the sailors of the North Pacific squadron of the British fleet stationed there. In 1874 a diocesan synod was established. In 1879 the mainland became the seat of two bishops, the Right Rev. A. W. Sillitoe, with headquarters at New Westminster, and the Right Rev. W. Ridley, with headquarters at Metlakatla.

But eight clergymen were left on Vancouver Island in 1879, and these had increased to only ten in 1889, while two new churches had been built at Cedar Hill and Comox. On the resignation of Bishop Hills in 1892 the number of clergymen had risen to twenty-two. Under his successors, Bishop Perrin and Bishop Roper, the progress of the church has been slow, but substantial; new churches have been built at Wellington, Sandwich, Cedar District, Cumberland, Alberni, Salt Spring Island, Ladysmith, French Creek, Duncans, Cowichan and Mayne Island. The old church in Nanaimo has been replaced by a larger and more beautiful structure, and steps are being taken for the erection of a stately cathedral in Victoria. A mission has been carried on for many years among the Chinese in Victoria, and a remarkably successful work among the Indians at Alert Bay. Since April 1905 a mission boat has been plying among the logging camps of the Gulf of Georgia; this, combining the offices of a floating church, post office, library and hospital, and supplemented by stationary hospitals at Van Anda, Rock Bay and Alert Bay, is calculated to do an important work among five thousand men who are engaged in felling and sending to the mills the big trees of British Columbia. The beauty of the scenery, the mildness of the climate, the presence of abundant minerals and the prospect of great railway development are attracting large numbers of settlers of the well-to-do class to Vancouver Island, and assure a great future to the church.

In the southern part of the mainland the work of the church was for many years confined to New Westminster and two or three stations on the coast, to the Indians in and around Lytton, and to the ever-moving mining population of the interior. With the advent of the Canadian Pacific Railway, however, a new era dawned on the country and on the church. Vancouver has had a phenomenal growth, and a dozen churches are now to be found where there was only one in 1886. The work in the old mining regions of Hope and Cariboo has languished, but remarkable developments have taken place in the new mining regions of Kootenay. In 1892 services were opened at Golden, on the Columbia. In the same year services were begun in Kelowna, where a church was built in 1895 and a parsonage in 1897. In 1893 regular services were opened at Nelson, where a beautiful church and parish room have been built. In 1894 services were opened at Kaslo, where a church was built in 1895 and a parsonage in 1899. In 1895 services were opened at Revelstoke and Trail, where churches were built respectively in 1898 and 1899. In 1895 gold was discovered in Rossland, and the Rev. H. Irwin, familiarly known as 'Father Pat,' held the first Church of England services there in 1896. A beautiful church has recently been erected in Rossland to the memory of this devoted missionary. In almost every successive year services have been begun and churches built in some new place—Greenwood, Fort Steele, Cranbrook, Grand Forks, New Denver, Trout Lake, Salmon Arm and Summerland—till the whole of the Kootenay and Okanagan regions have been compassed by the ministrations of the Church of England. In 1899 this district was erected into a separate jurisdiction to be known as the diocese of Kootenay and to be administered temporarily by the Bishop of New Westminster. The endowment of the see was completed in 1912, leaving the way open for the appointment of a bishop of Kootenay.

The development of the northern part of the mainland has been much more tardy: the work of the church began at the mouth of the Skeena River with the advent of William Duncan in 1858. Duncan met with remarkable success among the Indians whom he was largely instrumental in civilizing and christianizing after the formation of the Christian settlement of Metlakatla. In 1887 he removed with many of the Christian Indians into Alaska. Not less remarkable has been the success of Bishop Ridley, who, with a band of able and devoted missionaries, has established centres of church work among all the Indian tribes of the Skeena, the Stikine and the Naas; so that it may now be said that scarcely a heathen Indian is to be found in those regions. With the advent of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway vigorous work has been carried on in Prince Rupert and the Bulkeley Valley; and the successful work in Vancouver, Okanagan and Kootenay is being reproduced in the northern part of the province of British Columbia, under the able leadership of Bishop Du Vernet.

III
CONSTITUTIONAL

Owing to the relation that existed between church and state in England, the government in Canada from the beginning took an active part in the work of the Church of England. The crown delegated to the governors—usually described in their commissions as ordinaries—the power of nominating the clergy, but allowed to the bishops the power of institution belonging to their office. Moreover, in accordance with this arrangement the government gave substantial financial aid to the church.

There can be no doubt that it was the intention of the government to place the Church of England in Canada on the same footing as the church in the motherland. It was to be recognized as the established church of the land, its income to be largely provided from national sources. Accordingly, in the Quebec Act of 1774, the Church of Rome was allowed the use of all its accustomed revenues, and special provision was to be made for the support of the 'Protestant' clergy, the word 'Protestant,' in the intention of the government, meaning the Church of England. Effect was given to this provision in the Constitutional Act of 1791, by which rectories were to be established throughout the country, on the same legal footing as the rectories in England, except that, in lieu of endowments and tithes, a special grant of one-seventh of the lands in Upper Canada and of one-seventh of all such lands in Lower Canada as were not already occupied by the French inhabitants was made for the support of the clergy, all of whom were under canonical obedience to the Bishop of Nova Scotia. It is clear that no clergymen except those of the Church of England could satisfy the various clauses of the act, and none other would submit to the spiritual jurisdiction of the Anglican bishops. Soon after the passing of the act the Presbyterian clergy, as representing the Established Church of Scotland, claimed a share in the provision made for the 'Protestant' clergy; and this claim, notwithstanding the original intention of the government, could not be long resisted. Nor could the claim of the 'Dissenting' bodies as 'Protestant' churches to a share in the clergy reserves be permanently ignored. Accordingly, after thirty years of strife and contention, the question was finally settled in 1854, when the Canadian legislature passed an act which alienated the property from the sacred purposes to which it had been hitherto devoted, and transferred it to the several municipalities within the boundaries of which the lands were situated. But the life-interest of the existing clergy was secured, and this the clergy, with one consent, commuted for a capital fund of about one million dollars to be invested for the permanent endowment of the church.

During this long period the government gave liberal financial aid to the maintenance of religious services, more especially of those of the Church of England. At its expense were built such churches as St Paul's, Halifax, St John's, Lunenburg, and the cathedral at Quebec. The stipends, of many of the clergy were provided by the government, £200 each being allowed to the early incumbents of Quebec, Montreal and Three Rivers, and £100 each to the Rev. J. Stuart of Kingston and the Rev. J. Langhorne of Ernestown. In 1793 a grant of £50 a year was made to the Presbyterian ministers of Quebec and Montreal. In 1813 the government voted an annual grant of £16,000 to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel for the support of the Canadian clergy. A careful statement prepared for the year 1836 contains the following items: Erection of parsonage houses, £367; missionaries of Church of England, £4500; ministers of Church of England, £7065; ministers of Church of Scotland, £1541; ministers of Protestant synod of Upper Canada, £699; Roman Catholic clergy, £1000—amounting, with other items of like character, to a total of £17,873 for Upper Canada. For Lower Canada there were such items as the following: Bishop of Quebec, £3000; archdeacon, £500; rector, £490; minister of Trinity Chapel, £200; Montreal rector, £300; Three Rivers, £200; William Henry (Sorel), £150; Quebec Presbyterian minister, £50; Montreal Presbyterian minister, £50; Argenteuil Presbyterian minister, £100; Roman Catholic Bishop of Quebec, £1000; which, together with other items, make a total of £10,090.

With the secularization of the clergy reserves came the complete separation of church and state. Previously the government had been the agent of the church in all legislative matters. Now the church was left without any means of legislative action save only in the episcopal authority which each bishop exercised over his own diocese. In anticipation of this anomalous state of things a meeting of the Bishops of Quebec, Toronto, Newfoundland, Fredericton and Montreal was held in Quebec in 1851, at which was drawn up a solemn declaration of principles and administration. This declaration expressed the desirability that the bishops, clergy and laity in each diocese should meet together in synod, both diocesan and provincial; that church membership requires conformity to the rules and ordinances of the church and the obligation of all its members to contribute to its support; the acceptance of the Holy Scriptures as the rule of faith and the Book of Common Prayer as the best help to the understanding of the Scriptures; the necessity of keeping accurate registers of baptisms, marriages and burials; the importance of teaching religion in the public schools; and the necessity of special training-schools for the ministry. Effect was given to this declaration by the successive formation of synods in the various dioceses, beginning with Toronto in 1857; and by the formation of a provincial synod, whose first session was held in Montreal in 1861. To this ecclesiastical province was given the name of 'Canada,' and the dioceses that combined to form it were Quebec, Montreal, Toronto and Huron. Nova Scotia and Fredericton joined at a later date. The jurisdiction of diocesan synods was strictly limited to temporal affairs; the provincial synod had authority to deal with all matters relating to the material and spiritual welfare of the church.

Similar action was taken by the church in the North-West. Shortly after his appointment to the see of Rupert's Land in 1865 Bishop Machray took steps towards the formation of a synod in which he could secure the counsel and co-operation of his clergy and faithful laity. His vast diocese was divided in 1872 by the formation of the see of Moosonee, and further in 1874 by the formation of the sees of Saskatchewan and Athabaska. Concurrently with the formation of these new dioceses was the establishment of the ecclesiastical province and synod of Rupert's Land. Under the action of this provincial synod a further subdivision of the territory was made in 1884 by the creation of the sees of Qu'Appelle and Mackenzie River; in 1887, that of Calgary; in 1891, that of Selkirk, now Yukon; and in 1899, that of Keewatin.

While the successful operation of these provincial synods had the effect of consolidating the forces of the church within their own bounds, as being separate jurisdictions, dealing with very diverse problems and conditions, they had a tendency to produce co-ordinate and independent, rather than united, action. To effect in the church as a whole the consolidation and unity of action that each provincial synod produced within its own bounds, steps were taken towards the formation of a general synod. To this end a conference was held in Winnipeg in 1890 which elaborated a constitution on which the whole church could unite. This constitution was formally adopted by duly accredited representatives from all the dioceses in Canada except the northern part of British Columbia, known as the diocese of Caledonia, and the first general synod was held in Toronto in 1893. In 1905 Caledonia threw in its lot with the rest, and the whole church, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, became one in legislative action, as it has been one from the beginning in the unity of spirit and the bond of peace. In order to give legal validity to the corporate action of the church the Church Temporalities Act was passed by the legislature of Canada in 1841.

The Church of England in Canada now stands as a completely independent and self-governing branch of the Anglican Communion under a primate of all Canada and a general synod, two archbishops or metropolitans and their provincial synods, and a bishop and diocesan synod, in esse or in posse, for each diocese. In 1912 an important step was taken towards the formation of the dioceses within the civil province of British Columbia, under their own metropolitan, into a third provincial synod.

In October 1912 the ecclesiastical province of Canada was divided. The dioceses in the civil province of Ontario now constitute the ecclesiastical province of Ontario, the remaining eastern dioceses forming the ecclesiastical province of Canada.

IV
EDUCATIONAL

It has always been the policy of the Church of England to combine educational and religious work, to make the school go hand in hand with the church. In pursuance of this policy primary schools were established in Nova Scotia at Annapolis in 1728, in Upper Canada for the Mohawk Indians in 1784, in New Brunswick in 1786 and in Lower Canada in 1807. A central school under the Madras system was established in Halifax in 1816, and several local schoolmasters and schoolmistresses were sent to it for training. The movement spread to New Brunswick and to the other provinces. These schools proved to be an important influence in the improvement of the moral and religious character of the people. But the system was necessarily incomplete till higher schools of learning were added.

King's College, Windsor, N.S.—King's College, Windsor, N.S., was founded by an act of the provincial legislature in 1789, and it became a university by royal charter in 1802. It was endowed with a grant of £400 a year by the province until 1853 and of £1000 by the British parliament from 1802 to 1835. In 1849 a provincial act was passed by which religious instruction was excluded from the university and the theological faculty was suppressed. The members of the Church of England forthwith subscribed the sum of $100,000 towards its re-endowment. Supplemented by aid from England the college was re-established as a Church of England institution. Nearly three hundred of its students have been ordained to the ministry, and it has supplied a large proportion of the clergy of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. It is open to students of all creeds, and imposes no religious tests in any faculty except divinity. In 1883 it was recognized as the theological institution for the diocese of Fredericton.

Supplementary to the work of the university there is an excellent school for boys at Windsor and an equally efficient school for girls at Edgehill.

King's College, Fredericton, N.B.—The 'College of New Brunswick' was founded by provincial charter in 1800. This was succeeded by King's College, which was established by royal charter in 1828, under the management of a president, vice-president and council, members of the Church of England. It received an endowment of six thousand acres of land and £2000 a year from the crown and from the provincial legislature, besides divinity exhibitions from the church. In 1860 it was reorganized by an amended charter and denominated the University of New Brunswick. Since that date it has existed as a purely secular institution.

The Rothesay church school for boys, situated nine miles from the city of St John, is an excellent and popular school. It is controlled by the diocesan synod.

Bishop's College, Lennoxville, P.Q.—Divinity studentships had been provided for the Province of Quebec since 1824 and had been utilized for theological training at Three Rivers and Chambly; but till 1845 there was no institution where aspirants for the ministry could be regularly trained. About 1836 a school was opened at Lennoxville, which met with remarkable success. This paved the way for the establishment of Bishop's College, which received its charter as a college in 1843 and as a university in 1852. It occupies an ideal site at the junction of the Massawippi and St Francis Rivers. It is the Church of England university of the Province of Quebec, and has furnished most of the clergy for the diocese of Quebec and many for the diocese of Montreal. About two hundred and fifty of its graduates have entered the ministry of the church. Adjoining the college is a large school in which the boys of the province and more especially of the Eastern Townships may be educated with a view to the university or to business life. For the Province of Quebec there have also been, for more than a quarter of a century, two excellent Church of England boarding-schools for girls—one at Compton and the other at Dunham.

M^cGill College, Montreal.—This institution was originally established under Church of England auspices, and Archdeacon G. J. Mountain (afterwards Bishop Mountain) was its first principal; but it early passed out of the hands of the church, and in this connection deserves no more than a passing notice.

Montreal Diocesan Theological College.—In 1874 a theological college was established in Montreal mainly for the purpose of supplying clergy for the diocese of Montreal. A prominent thought in the minds of its founders was to place theological training within the reach of young men in business in the city. Through the munificence of Montreal churchmen it has greatly prospered and has become the main source of supply for the clergy of the diocese. It occupies a commanding site on the slope of the mountain, and is affiliated with M^cGill University. Its equipment is most complete, and, under an able staff, is doing very effective work.^[1]

Trinity College, Toronto.—In 1843 the University of King's College was founded in Toronto by royal charter as a Church of England college, with a faculty of divinity. This was the fulfilment of a long-cherished wish on the part of the rulers of the church. In 1849, however, it was secularized and all religious teaching was prohibited. Mainly through the exertions of Bishop Strachan, Trinity College was established. It was incorporated in 1851 and opened in 1852. The theological college which had existed in Cobourg since 1842 was merged in Trinity in 1852. It has recently been federated with the University of Toronto, and through the munificence of its friends has been placed in a condition of thorough efficiency. It has conferred over three thousand degrees, and over three hundred of its students have joined the ranks of the ministry. In connection with the university there is a department for girls, known as St Hilda's, and a large school for boys at Port Hope.

Wycliffe College, Toronto.—In 1877 a special effort was set on foot to establish a theological college in Toronto. The special feature of Wycliffe College is that it is unofficial, i.e. not connected with any of the synods or governing bodies of the church, and that its students are trained for no one diocese or province, but go wherever they may be needed. It is supported entirely by private effort. It occupies a central site in Queen's Park, and is affiliated with the University of Toronto. It is the largest theological college of the church in Canada, having over one hundred students in residence. It has become noted for its ardent missionary spirit, and has sent its alumni in large numbers into all parts of the Dominion and of the foreign field. Arising largely from the same source may be mentioned Ridley College, a school for boys in St Catharines, Havergal College, for girls in Toronto, and the Toronto Church of England Deaconess's Home.

Other excellent Church of England institutions that should be mentioned are Bishop Strachan School for Girls in Toronto and Bishop Bethune School for Girls in Oshawa.

Huron College, London, Ont.—To supply the needs of the church in Western Ontario, Huron College was established in London in 1863. Around it at one time were grouped a flourishing school for boys and another for girls, but these have not survived. For many years its fate was closely bound up with the Western University, a Church of England institution whose existence was somewhat weak and precarious. The basis of the university having been enlarged and its position having been vastly improved through the liberality of the citizens of London and a grant from the Ontario government, Huron College is now looking forward to widely increased usefulness. Even under existing circumstances two-thirds of the clergy of the diocese of Huron are from the ranks of its alumni.

St John's College, Winnipeg, Man.—St John's is the Church of England college in connection with the provincial University of Manitoba, with which it was affiliated in 1877. It is the outcome of an educational effort as old as the church itself in the Red River Settlement. Revived and enlarged in 1866, it educates students in arts and theology, and associated with it are efficient schools for boys and for girls. In the early days many of the most distinguished men of the West were trained within its walls. It was originally intended to be the educational centre for the church throughout Rupert's Land, and its students have gone forth to many of the more western and far northern dioceses. It is unique in Canada as forming part of a cathedral system that has sought to combine educational training and missionary activity, the dean and canons of the cathedral being its teaching staff.

Emmanuel College, Saskatoon, Sask.—This institution was established by Bishop MacLean at Prince Albert in 1879 for the training of natives of the country to be schoolmasters, catechists and pastors. For some years, however, it only trained Indian boys and girls for the teaching profession. To meet the rapid development of the country and of the church in the valley of the Saskatchewan, it has recently been removed to Saskatoon and converted into a theological college. It occupies a commanding site on the banks of the Saskatchewan, and is affiliated with the provincial university recently established at Saskatoon. An excellent boarding-school for girls has also been established at Prince Albert.

St Chad's Hostel, Regina, Sask.—With the extraordinary rush of settlers into the southern part of Saskatchewan, the difficulty of providing a sufficient supply of suitable clergymen has pressed heavily on the minds of the Bishops of Qu'Appelle. Most of the clergy now at work in the diocese are from Great Britain. To aid in meeting this need St Chad's Hostel has been established at Regina. The effort, though recently set on foot, has met with encouraging success.

Bishop Pinkham College, Calgary, Alta.—For the diocese of Calgary a girls' school has been in successful operation for some years in the city of Calgary, and a beginning has been made towards the establishment of a theological college to be known as the Bishop Pinkham College.

Latimer Hall and St Mark's Hall, Vancouver, B.C.—The Pacific coast is a little world in itself and must aim at providing its own educational institutions. After many years of delay the government of British Columbia has decided to establish a provincial university in Vancouver, and the church has decided to establish two theological halls in affiliation with it. Latimer Hall and St Mark's Hall are now in active operation; and when the whole scheme has been completed ample provision will have been made for the training of clergy for the whole Pacific coast. There is also an excellent school for girls at Yale.

V
MISSIONARY

In its early history the Church of England in Canada was so completely absorbed in its own local problems that it could give but little thought to the subject of foreign missions. Its own territory was a most fruitful and needy missionary field, and it had not the machinery by which it could call forth or distribute missionary funds. Even under these adverse conditions funds were raised by voluntary effort, and were sent to swell the income of the missionary societies of the mother church.

As soon, however, as the synod of the ecclesiastical province of Canada was formed, efforts were set on foot to organize a missionary society, and the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society was instituted in 1882, having for its special fields the vast region contiguous to the Great Lakes known as the diocese of Algoma and the dioceses of the North-West. Nor was the foreign field entirely overlooked. Apart from the contributions made to the funds of the English societies, a voluntary organization was formed in connection with Wycliffe College which sent out its first foreign missionary to Japan in 1888; and the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society sent out its first missionary, also to Japan, in 1890. But missionary work, as well as all the other corporate work of the church, was sorely impeded, not to say paralysed, by the absence of united action. It was not until 1902, when the unification of the church decided on in 1893 became effective, and the missionary society of the Church of England in Canada was created, that the church was enabled to grapple successfully with the great problem of missions. Since the former date the offerings of the church to missionary purposes have been multiplied four or five-fold; substantial aid has been given to meet the extraordinary demands of the West: and a new era has dawned on the church's foreign missionary work. Apart from the missionary force scattered in various fields—in South America, in Palestine, in Persia, in German and British East Africa and in Egypt—the Church of England in Canada has adopted a field in India to be administered by one of the neighbouring bishops of the Anglican communion. It has created a diocese in China coterminous with the Province of Honan, whose capital, Kai Feng Fu, has been made the see city. It has appointed a bishop to preside over the diocese and has given him a strong force of helpers, both men and women, and enabled him to equip the mission thoroughly with an episcopal residence, a residence for missionaries, a hospital, schools for boys and for girls, a training-school for native workers, with the prospect of the further establishment of a provincial university; and it has given a measure of completeness to its foreign missionary work by the formation of a diocese, presided over by a bishop, in Mid-Japan, which was its first, and which has always been considered its most important, missionary field.

Shortly after the formation of the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society in 1883, a few earnest churchwomen asked to be allowed to form themselves into an auxiliary of the society. Thus in 1885 a small but energetic organization of women was instituted. Its field of operations is both Canadian and foreign. It spends annually nearly $20,000 on Canadian missions; $15,000 on foreign missions; $12,000 on various missionary objects; and over $20,000 on articles of clothing and equipment for hospitals and churches. It has assumed, as its special work, the support of the women missionaries in the church's fields in India, China and Japan.

More than two centuries ago two kindred societies were formed in England to minister to the needs of church members both at home and abroad, the one under the name of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and the other under that of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. From the conquest of Canada in 1759 to the present they have been the foster parents of the Church of England in Canada.

At the beginning of the nineteenth century the Church Missionary Society was formed to carry the gospel to the heathen world. The society was still in its infancy when its interest was aroused in the Indians of the North-West, and in 1820 it sent the Rev. John West to the Red River Settlement. From this centre the work radiated till it reached the most widely scattered tribes of heathen Indians, along the rivers of the North-West and British Columbia, and the Eskimos on Hudson Bay and the Arctic Ocean.

The work of the Colonial and Continental Church Society, though on a less extensive scale than that of the other English societies, has, nevertheless, helped to provide clergymen for needy missions in all parts of the Dominion.

Presbyterianism: Its Polity and Doctrine

Presbyterianism is a branch of the Christian church differentiated from other branches both in polity and in doctrine. It derives its name from the characteristic feature of its polity, which is government by presbyters. Of the three main forms of church government Presbyterianism occupies the middle position between prelacy or episcopacy on the one hand, which recognizes the superiority in government of the prelate or bishop, and Congregationalism or Independency on the other, which recognizes the supremacy in government of the individual congregation.

In Presbyterianism the authority lies in the presbytery, a court composed of ordained ruling elders and ordained teaching elders in equal numbers. As distinguished from episcopacy Presbyterianism recognizes only one order of spiritual rulers and maintains the absolute parity of these in all matters pertaining to church government. As distinguished from Congregationalism, it asserts the organic unity of the church, denies the right of government to the congregation alone, the unit of government being the presbytery.

The presbytery is composed of the representative elders chosen by congregations and the ministers of these congregations within a certain district. It follows, therefore, that the right of ordination in Presbyterianism lies with the body of presbyters and not with the bishop on the one hand, or with the congregation on the other. The Presbyterian form of government will therefore be seen to correspond to a constitutional or representative democracy in civic affairs.

While making no claim to an absolute scriptural basis for its particular form of church government as above all other forms, Presbyterianism does maintain that its polity is in accord with the teachings of the New Testament and that it resembles more closely than any other the form of government observed in the early Christian church. The presence of ordained elders in the churches established by the apostles is distinctly evident from the scriptural record. In early discussions between the champions of Episcopacy and Presbyterianism on this point attempts were made by representatives of the former to establish a distinction between the office of the elder and that of the bishop, but ever since the publication of his Commentary on the Philippians by the scholarly Bishop Lightfoot it is frankly conceded that in the New Testament the words 'bishop,' 'elder,' 'presbyter' are terms practically synonymous and are applicable to the same person and to the same office.

In Canada, however, the differences between these three forms of church government are in practice tending to disappear. As a matter of fact, the bishop associates with him his clergy, both in ordination and in government. The tendency in Congregationalism is more and more to vest authority in the Union, while Presbyterianism is discovering a place for the office and function of the bishop in the powers and duties assigned to the superintendents.

The Presbyterian polity is completed in a series of church courts, each of which contains a large element of popular representation. Closest to the people is the session, composed of men elected by the people, ordained to the office of elder by the authority of presbytery and charged with the oversight of the congregation. The next higher court is the presbytery, composed of the representative elders and the ministers, in equal numbers, of the congregations within a certain locality and with full control of matters ecclesiastical in this district. The synod, which is the next higher court, is composed of the members of various presbyteries. The supreme court is the general assembly, which is a body consisting of representative elders and ministers chosen by the presbyteries of the whole church. From each court there lies appeal to the next higher and to each court the humblest member of the church has a right of direct approach.

In doctrine Presbyterianism is in accord with the reformed churches of the Calvinistic type; indeed, Calvinism finds its most complete and most logical expression in the doctrines of the Presbyterian Church. Calvinism is at once a school of philosophy and a type of religion as well as a system of doctrine, and though much maligned and misunderstood by its foes, it holds to-day in its essential positions the allegiance of practically the whole body of the reformed churches. This system of doctrine, however, is by no means the product of the genius of the great Genevan theologian from whom it derives its name, but is the historic heritor of the Augustinian system. It finds its most complete and most formal expression in the great historic documents formulated by the Westminster Assembly of Divines, that famous body of theologians consisting of one hundred and twenty-one ministers and thirty laymen from England and four ministers and three laymen, delegates from Scotland, which, created by the Long Parliament and continuing in existence from 1643 to 1652, produced those great instruments which have become the doctrinal standards of Presbyterianism the world over—the directory of worship, the confession of faith, the shorter and the larger catechism.

The architectonic doctrine of the system is that of the absolute sovereignty of God, from which emerge what are called the five points of Calvinism—unconditional election, original sin, a definite atonement, irresistible grace, the perseverance of the saints. These five points Calvinism maintains against the opposing school of Arminianism, and though the system has been bitterly assailed by its opponents and misinterpreted and misunderstood by minds of inferior mould, it remains to-day as solidly based and as widely accepted as ever in the history of the Christian church. It has played no ignoble part in determining the character and history of men and of nations. Says the historian Froude:

Says the great preacher Henry Ward Beecher:

In great crises of the world's history it was Calvinism that infused into the blood of men the iron of courage and endurance and made them the invincible champions of human liberty and the irresistible foes of tyranny and oppression. It was Calvinism that inspired the sturdy Hollanders with that dauntless courage which held in check the disciplined chivalry of Spain led by the bloodthirsty Alva. It was Calvinism that taught the Huguenots of France and the martyrs of the Vaudois and the Waldenses to face without shrinking the horrid cruelties of the mad fanaticism of the Roman Church and the ruthless ambitions of the Bourbons. It was Calvinism that breathed into the Covenanters of Scotland that invincible spirit of endurance that neither the tortures of the stake nor the fury of the bloody Claverhouse could wear out or break. It was Calvinism in the blood of the English Puritans that nerved Hampden, Pym and their like to challenge the scorn and rage of kings and cavaliers in the cause of English liberty. It was Calvinism that lit the sacred fires of heroic patriotism in the hearts of Cromwell and his Ironsides and gave them power to hurl back in broken fragments the impetuous valour of Prince Rupert and his gallant cavaliers. It was Calvinism that taught the peasant colonists of New England, descendants of Dutch and English Puritans, how to shake from their shoulders the yoke of English tyranny and to lay, broad-based on righteousness and freedom, the foundations of the American Republic. It is Calvinism that still gives to Presbyterianism that strength of character and that stability of faith that are its distinguishing characteristics the world over.

The Huguenots in New France

In Canada the first to represent the doctrines of the reformed churches were the Huguenots. Under Chauvin they made their first attempt at colonizing, founding Tadoussac in 1598. That colony after three years of privation and suffering was abandoned in 1601. Then came the gallant de Monts, who as governor set up his court at St Croix and later at Port Royal, Acadia, with Pont-Gravé and Poutrincourt, confrères in faith, serving under him. With these names is associated in this adventure a name greater than any other in the days of the French régime—Champlain, a co-worker with de Monts, but by no means a co-religionist. The assassination of Henry IV brought about de Monts' recall.

Under Champlain, the next governor of New France, two distinguished Huguenots held a monopoly of trade in the New World—the de Caens, uncle and nephew. But the iron and far-reaching hand of the great Cardinal Richelieu which was now felt in the colony well-nigh rooted up from New France, as it had from Old France, the Huguenot religion. The de Caens lost their charter, which was handed over to the Company of One Hundred Associates, founded and controlled by Richelieu. Under this company the Huguenots were deprived of all rights in trade and in religion. Jesuit rule in church and state became for the meantime supreme.

Upon the outbreak of war, however, between Charles I of England and his brother-in-law Louis XIII of France, the Huguenots took swift and complete revenge. Three brothers of this faith, Sir David, Louis and Thomas Kirke, were placed in charge of an expedition against the French possessions in North America. Many of the sailors and soldiers under Sir David Kirke were Huguenot refugees. This expedition swept Acadia, with its fortress at Port Royal, and Canada, with its capital Quebec, into the hands of the English and sent back to England the French governor, Champlain, with some of his most distinguished officers. Peace, however, restored to the French Acadia and Canada, with its governor Champlain. Among the Huguenot names of this party are those two gallant soldiers, the La Tours: the father who, marrying an English lady of high rank while a prisoner with Champlain in England, transferred to the English government his allegiance, while the son remained loyal to France, in later years apostatizing from his own and his father's faith.

Through all this period a very considerable number of Huguenots were to be found among the sailors and soldiers of the colony, as also among the merchants and traders, but owing to the relentless and far-reaching fanaticism of the Jesuits they were subjected to all kinds of harassment and oppression. At length the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 deprived them of the meagre rights they still possessed. Thus New France, as previously Old France, was drained of much of its noblest and best blood. As Parkman significantly says:

Thus the earliest representatives of the reformed faith were driven out of the colony and Calvinism disappeared from the life of Canada.

Presbyterianism in the Maritime Provinces

The history of Presbyterianism proper in the Dominion of Canada begins in Nova Scotia. This colony, which included at that time New Brunswick, was by the Treaty of Utrecht, 1713, ceded to Britain, Cape Breton and Prince Edward Island remaining till 1758 in the hands of the French.

The inhabitants of Nova Scotia, the Acadians as they were called, were Roman Catholic in faith and French in language and in sympathy. Consequently they were naturally enough hostile to British rule and were continually found to be fomenting sedition in the province and inciting their Indian allies to marauding incursions upon the loyal settlers and garrisons. Thereupon the British proceeded to colonize the country with English settlers under Governor Cornwallis. Grants of land were offered to prospective colonists, with the result that a large number of disbanded soldiers and sailors settled on the Atlantic shore of the province and founded the city of Halifax. From Holland also and from Germany and Switzerland came Lutherans and members of the reformed churches in large numbers and settled near Lunenburg, south-west of Halifax.

As the Protestant settlers grew in number and in influence the Acadians, under the unwise guidance of their priesthood, became increasingly hostile and irreconcilable, refusing absolutely the oath of allegiance and adding sensibly to the difficulties of the British authorities in administering the government. The result was in 1755 the great expulsion of the Acadians immortalized in Longfellow's poem Evangeline. To take up the land thus vacated there came at the governor's earnest solicitation between six thousand and seven thousand New England planters, one condition guaranteed being that of perfect religious equality with the members of the established Church of England. They were a mixed people, in race and in religion, but among them were many Presbyterians who, after much solicitation, induced the presbytery of New Brunswick in New Jersey to send the Rev. James Lyon to be their minister. Thus, though Scotland was the home of Presbyterianism, the first ordained minister of that church came to Canada in 1764 not from Scotland, but from the New England colonies. For many years the Presbyterian colonists in Nova Scotia could elicit little response to their appeals for ministers from their fellow church members in the old land. The reasons are not far to seek. Nova Scotia in those days was a land remote from civilization and associated in men's minds with the grimmest of nature's terrors. But the indifference of the Presbyterians of Scotland to the appeals of their brethren in Nova Scotia for help was due chiefly to the fact that the Scottish church herself was preoccupied with the fierce dissensions which rent her asunder into various factions and exhausted her resources both in money and in men.

The history of the rise of the various branches within the Presbyterian Church in Scotland is full of interest to the student of matters of creed and conscience. As Scotland is the homeland of Presbyterianism, so the Church of Scotland, the original and ancient church established by law, is the mother of practically all Presbyterian churches. From its inception this church had maintained as one of its cardinal and vital principles its spiritual independence of the state and of all authorities whatsoever other than that of the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ. In the church, however, there came to be a custom by which wealthy patrons were accorded the right to present or name their protégés to the congregations of which they were the main financial support. This abuse passed into legislation, with the result that there began a series of secessions from the Church of Scotland, in all of which this principle of spiritual independence played a part.

The first secession was that under the Rev. Ebenezer Erskine in 1733, who with three others protested against the action of presbytery in depriving a congregation of its right to call its minister. These seceders were finally deposed and formed the Associate Presbytery, and later in 1745 the Associate Synod. In 1747, over the question as to whether its members could lawfully take the burgess oath, this Associate Synod was divided into two factions—the Burgher faction asserting that the matter of taking the oath should not be a term of communion, and the Antiburgher holding the opposite view. In each of these subdivisions again there was a further division upon the question of the relation of the civil magistrate to church authority.

In 1752 the Rev. Thomas Gillespie made protest against patronage and the tyranny of church courts, and with others who adhered to his protest broke away from the Church of Scotland and formed the Relief Presbyterian Church, which rapidly grew in numbers and in influence, till in 1773 it became the Relief Synod.

In 1820, on the other hand, began the first of the series of unions by which the various branches of the Presbyterian Church have been drawn together. In that year the sections of the Associate Synod, Burgher and Antiburgher, united to form one church under the name of the United Secession Church of Scotland.

In 1843 occurred the greatest and most important of all the secessions from the Established Church of Scotland known as the Disruption, as a result of which 474 ministers and professors left the Established Church, surrendering their rights in all benefices to the amount of over $500,000 annually, and formed the Free Church of Scotland.

Four years later the United Secession and the Relief Churches drew together and formed the United Presbyterian Synod, but more than half a century had to elapse before the breaches in Scottish Presbyterianism could be further healed by the union of two churches which had grown to magnificent proportions in numbers, in financial strength and in missionary enterprise—the United Presbyterian and the Free Church. In 1900 these two became the United Free Church of Scotland.

From these various branches of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland there was a continuous flow of members to the North American colonies, who brought with them to their new country their religious affinities and prejudices, but under the stress of their sore need of gospel ordinances they from time to time were able to forget their private differences and their personal prejudices and unite in appeals for aid now to one body and again to another.

At length, fifty years after the cession of Acadia to the British and fifteen years after the founding of Halifax and the organizing of the Protestant Dissenters' Church, the Presbyterians of the province were successful in securing an ordained minister, the first in the province, the Rev. James Lyon. Two years later a preacher, licensed but not ordained, was sent by the Burgher Synod. Both these ministers laboured with great acceptance in Halifax and the surrounding country, but only for a few years. The first Presbyterian minister to make his home in Nova Scotia, though not the first to settle in Canada, was the Rev. James Murdoch, sent out by the Antiburgher Synod of Scotland in 1766, at first as minister of the Protestant Dissenters' congregation in Halifax and afterwards as minister of Horton and the surrounding district. Murdoch laboured with untiring fidelity till his death in 1799.

The Protestant Dissenters' congregation was favoured with a succession of able men as ministers, among whom were the Rev. Thomas Russell (1783), the Rev. Andrew Brown (1786), both from the Church of Scotland, and the Rev. Andrew Gray (1796).

In other parts of the province the Presbyterian population continued to make unsuccessful efforts to secure ministers for their struggling congregations, but the honour of blazing the trail to independence in the business of establishing a permanent ministry in the Presbyterian Church in Nova Scotia fell, not to Presbyterians of Scottish ancestry, but to the members of the Dutch Reformed Church who settled near Lunenburg. After sixteen years of unsuccessful effort to secure a minister from their own land or from the Dutch Reformed Church in Philadelphia, their nearest presbytery, they solved the difficulty by selecting for ordination one of their own church members, Bruin Romcas Comingoe, whose native talents, Bible knowledge and godly life had won the confidence and respect of his fellow-members. It was an audacious and difficult business they had taken in hand. Their candidate did not possess the qualifications recognized as necessary to ordination, and besides there was no presbytery in existence in the province. But these Dutch reformers, with a fine sense of discrimination, ignored the purely technical and formal in the matter of qualification for ordination, and, finding no presbytery in existence, proceeded forthwith to create one. There was the Rev. James Lyon from New Jersey, as also the Rev. James Murdoch, the Antiburgher, at hand to begin with. Then there were two Congregational ministers, Seccombe and Phelps, who might be utilized. So in the old Protestant Dissenters' church, in the presence of the governor, Lord William Campbell, members of His Majesty's council, and other distinguished citizens, on July 3, 1770, was constituted the first presbytery to convene on Canadian soil; and by this presbytery, consisting of a minister from New Jersey, an Antiburgher and two Congregational ministers, the first Presbyterian ordination service was conducted, the candidate being a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, innocent of a single formal qualification necessary to ordination in the Presbyterian Church. This function was at once a tribute to the courage of the Dutchmen, to the adaptability of the Presbyterian system and to the sturdy common sense of the colonial people. It is gratifying to know that Comingoe for fifty years made full proof of his ministry in faithful, diligent and ardent devotion to the spiritual needs of the people among whom he dwelt.

The presbytery that ordained Comingoe was of course not a permanent organization, but, having performed the one important function for which it was constituted, it ceased to be. For sixteen years there was no other presbytery in the province, although to different congregations in different parts of the country ministers were being sent out by the churches in Scotland. At length in 1786 Daniel Cock of Truro, David Smith of St Andrew's, Hugh Graham of Cornwallis and later of Stewiacke, all of the Burgher Synod, and James M^cGregor, sent out by the Antiburgher Synod of Scotland, ministers, and James Johnson and John Barmhill, elders, came together and constituted the Associate or Burgher Presbytery of Truro, the first permanent presbytery in Canada. We shall hear again of this man, the Rev. James M^cGregor, and of his work, for he looms large in the history of Presbyterianism in this province.

Nine years later three ministers of Antiburgher training and antecedents, this same Rev. James M^cGregor who helped to organize the presbytery of Truro, Duncan Ross and John Brown, met and constituted the Antiburgher Presbytery of Pictou, and for twenty years, although the question of patronage and of the relation between church and state had absolutely no existence in the new land, so deep-seated and so deadly are the prejudices and passions associated with religion, these two churches were unable to agree upon a basis of union. In 1817, however, these presbyteries, together with some ministers of the Church of Scotland, united in erecting the Synod of the Presbyterian Church in Nova Scotia, containing three presbyteries—Halifax, Truro and Pictou—with nineteen hundred members on their rolls.

During these first hundred years of the colony's history the population of the eastern provinces had grown to 160,000, the Presbyterians numbering some 42,000 with twenty-six ministers, the Episcopalians 32,000 with twenty-six ministers, the Baptists 26,000 and the Methodists 13,000. Those early pioneers were a hardy breed, courageous, patient of trials and loyal to their faith, in support of which they were ready to make large and willing sacrifices. Their ministers were men of heroic type. They endured toils, faced dangers, suffered privations not only without complaint, but with an eager willingness born of a lofty purpose to carry to their co-religionists scattered far and wide in lonely hamlets, amid dense forests and on isolated farms remote from civilization, the Gospel which had become to them at once their chief good in this life and the ground of their immortal hope.

The history of the Presbyterian Church of those early days is the story of the lives of a few of these truly great men. Among these names none holds a higher place than that of Dr James M^cGregor, who, after graduating from the University of Edinburgh and studying theology under the Antiburgher professor of divinity, was selected by his synod to inaugurate a mission in Nova Scotia. Arriving in the province in 1786, he was in time to take part, staunch Antiburgher though he was, in the founding of the Burgher Presbytery of Truro, and later was chiefly instrumental in organizing the Antiburgher Presbytery of Pictou in 1795. James M^cGregor was a man singularly fitted for his work in the colony. He possessed great physical strength, extraordinary powers of endurance, an indomitable spirit and unshakable courage. Nothing could tire him nor terrify him. In addition to this he was a man of rare intellectual gifts, of fine culture, of poetic temper, of sound learning, and withal a preacher of passionate fervour and power. While his own congregation was in Pictou his ministry was exercised not only over all Nova Scotia, but extended to Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton and New Brunswick as well. Summer and winter for forty-four years he made periodical journeys through the provinces, gathering the people into congregations, confirming their faith, perfecting their organization, and exerting a mighty influence upon the intellectual and moral life of the whole country. His was a heroic soul, untiring in labour, undaunted in the face of difficulties, unfaltering in his steady devotion to his great mission. He loved his people, sharing their hardships and their poverty and pouring forth without stint in their behalf the rich treasures of his mind and heart. His memory is still green among Nova Scotians and his name appropriately holds its place in history as the 'Father' of Presbyterianism in the province.

Two important and pressing duties confronted the newly organized synod of Nova Scotia, namely, the organizing of congregations throughout the settlements and the finding of ministers for these congregations. The experience of the past years gradually made it clear that the policy of looking to the old land and to the United States for ministers must be abandoned. For, in the first place, a sufficient number could never be obtained from these sources, and, again, those who did come could not be counted upon to remain. There was but one thing for the synod to do, and that was to breed and train an indigenous ministry. Hence the necessity of an institution of higher learning. The need of such an institution was more acutely pressed upon the hearts of the Presbyterian people by the illiberal policy of King's College, the Anglican institution at Windsor. The terms of the statutes governing this institution make strange reading to-day. For instance, no degree could be conferred on a candidate who had not subscribed to the Thirty-nine Articles. Further:

The grim humour of classifying congregations of 'dissenters' with 'seditious or rebellious meetings' would hardly be apparent to the Presbyterians of that day, but the injustice of these statutes bit sufficiently deep into the hearts of those who suffered by it. One could imagine the indignation of Scottish Presbyterians, whose fathers had bundled prelacy with its arrogant assumptions out of Scotland more than one hundred years ago, on being called upon in this new land to suffer injustice at the hands of those whom they had been accustomed to regard in the old land as unhappy and benighted dissenters from the Established Church of Scotland. The intolerance of these regulations is the more extraordinary when one remembers that large numbers of colonists came to the province upon the distinct guarantee that there should be perfect equality among members of all churches in matters religious.

The outcome of the King's College policy was the establishment of Pictou Academy, an institution which has wrought for Nova Scotia and her sons incalculable good. Associated with the establishment of this academy is the name of the Rev. Dr M^cCulloch, who added to his duties as minister at 'The Harbor,' Pictou, those of professor in Greek, logic, moral and natural philosophy, and later, at the invitation of the synod, filled up his leisure hours with lectures to candidates for the ministry in Hebrew and systematic theology. These labours, with great efficiency and cheerfulness, he continued for twenty years and more, till he was called upon to be president of the newly established Dalhousie College in Halifax, another most beneficial result of the illiberal Anglican education policy of the day, which position he held till his death in 1843. Certainly 'there were giants in those days,' and in the front rank of these Dr M^cCulloch held his place.

The fight for equal rights in educational and in other matters the synod continued to press with vigour. A memorial to His Majesty through the governor of the province, setting forth the injustice of the special privileges accorded to the Episcopal Church and praying for a fair measure of support for the Presbyterian Church of Nova Scotia, brought no relief. The synod thereupon proceeded to unite all other 'dissenting' bodies in the fight for equal rights. The Nova Scotia Board of Dissenters was formed and in 1826 set forth in a formal document these demands:

But for many years no redress was obtained. Meantime, however, the work of the church went steadily forward, and the roll of the synod in 1845 shows that in twenty-seven years the number of churches had increased from nineteen to twenty-nine and that the communicants in the various congregations amounted to about five thousand.

It will be remembered that the synod of Nova Scotia was composed for the most part of ministers from the Secession churches in Scotland. In the year 1825 the Church of Scotland woke to a sense of her responsibility towards her children who were finding a home in Nova Scotia, and at a public meeting in Glasgow was organized the Glasgow Colonial Society, which for fifteen years exerted a profound influence upon the religious life of the province. Of this society the Earl of Dalhousie, the liberal-minded governor-general of British North America, was elected patron, and Dr Robert Burns of Paisley, afterwards known and greatly loved throughout Canada, became the chief secretary. During its existence the society sent to the British American colonies nearly fifty ministers. The synod of Nova Scotia, however, viewed with a certain degree of anxiety the operations of the Glasgow Colonial Society, and, fearing the organization of a rival Presbyterian Church in the province, memorialized the society suggesting co-operation. The society, however, preferred to pursue its own way, and as a matter of fact, as the result of the vigorous prosecution of its work, there was organized in 1833 the synod of Nova Scotia in connection with the Church of Scotland, with the three presbyteries of Halifax, Pictou and Prince Edward Island. This synod with great vigour prosecuted the work of home missions, establishing churches not only in Nova Scotia, but also in Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton, Newfoundland, and even in Bermuda. The new synod, with commendable enterprise and generosity, at its very first meeting proceeded to negotiate union with the Church of Scotland presbytery of New Brunswick, and three years later extended its negotiations to cover all the presbyteries in the eastern provinces. These negotiations proceeded hopefully for some years, when they were rudely interrupted by an event which, in 1843, rent the old Church of Scotland at home asunder, and which is known in church history as the Disruption. The causes of this great cleavage have already been referred to. The effect upon the Presbyterian churches in the colonies was a similar cleavage in almost every synod and presbytery of the church.

Presbyterianism in the Canadas

At the time of the Conquest, Canada consisted of a line of parishes along the lower St Lawrence, with two principal towns, Quebec and Montreal, inhabited by Roman Catholic French Canadians numbering about seventy thousand, a few hamlets strewn along the Ottawa River, and a fringe of settled country upon the banks of the upper St Lawrence and upon the northern shore of Lake Ontario, with two lonely outpost villages, Kingston and Newark (Niagara), where after the War of the Revolution large numbers of United Empire Loyalists found homes. In the French part, that which lay east of the Ottawa River, only very few Protestants were to be found, and these, if we may trust the records, were but the riff-raff of society.

The first Presbyterian congregation in Canada was organized in the city of Quebec in 1765 by a military chaplain, the Rev. N. Henry, a minister of the Church of Scotland. The congregation at first worshipped in a room in the Jesuit College, placed by the government at their disposal, but under Henry's successor, the Rev. Dr Alexander Spark, a church was built in 1810 and called St Andrew's.

The next Presbyterian congregation to be established in the colony was in the city of Montreal. In 1786 the Rev. John Bethune, also a minister of the Church of Scotland, who, serving as a military chaplain in the American Revolutionary War, had been imprisoned, and after suffering great hardship had been released, came to Montreal and settled there as minister of the congregation which he himself organized. His pastorate, however, lasted but a year, after which he left for the upper Ottawa country and settled among United Empire Loyalists of Glengarry County, where for twenty-eight years he ministered with great acceptance. Bethune's influence in the life of the colony was widespread and great. He left behind his two sons, who rose to eminence in the Anglican Church, one of them becoming the Dean of Montreal and the other the distinguished Bishop of Toronto.

In 1791, owing to political exigencies, the country was divided into two provinces, Lower and Upper Canada, the population of the latter having grown to be about twenty thousand, the great majority of whom were United Empire Loyalists. The Presbyterians of the colony began to make urgent appeals to the Scottish churches and to their fellow Presbyterians in the United States for ministers. In this year the Rev. John Young was sent by the presbytery of Albany, New York, as a missionary to Montreal to succeed Bethune, who had been removed to the upper Ottawa. The following year, under Young's ministry, was built the church, afterwards known as St Gabriel Street Church, which has the distinction of being the first Presbyterian church in Canada. Up to this time there was no organization of the Presbyterian body in the colony, but in 1793 Bethune from Glengarry, Spark from Quebec, and Young from Montreal met in Montreal and organized the presbytery of Montreal, the first presbytery in Canada, but owing to the practically insurmountable difficulties attendant upon the meetings of presbytery, this organization was allowed to lapse.

In the same year from New Jersey, at the request of Governor Simcoe, came the Rev. Jabez Collver to join Bethune of Glengarry, the only minister then in Upper Canada. Collver settled in Norfolk County, where he organized a group of congregations, to which he ministered for the next fifteen years. About this time the Dutch Reformed Church of the United States, always distinguished for its missionary spirit, sent the Rev. John Ludwig Broeffle to minister to the German settlers of Dundas and Stormont, and later the Rev. Robert M^cDowall, whose parish extended along Lake Ontario from Elizabethtown (Brockville) to York (Toronto), in which he laboured for forty years, teaching, preaching, organizing congregations, dispensing sacraments. From the United States also came the Rev. Daniel W. Eastman in 1802, a great and good man who for fifty years, till blindness fell upon him, toured the Niagara district abundant in labours and in sacrifices, and who after his death was remembered with grateful affection by succeeding generations. In 1804 Robert Easton settled in Montreal, and seven years later these lonely workers were greatly encouraged by the addition to their number of three ministers—the Rev. William Smart, who settled at Brockville, sent by the London Missionary Society; the Rev. William Bell, who went up the Ottawa and settled at Perth; and the Rev. William Taylor, who made his headquarters at Osnabruck, the two latter sent out by the Associate Presbytery of Edinburgh.

In 1818 these four men, Easton, Smart, Bell and Taylor, bethought them that it was high time that a presbytery should be formed in Canada, and so made application to the Burgher Presbytery of Edinburgh. While the answer tarried, a bolder spirit seized them. They determined upon an independent organization. Besides, there was an Irish licentiate, the Rev. Joseph Johnston, teaching school in Cornwall, who desired ordination. So to Cornwall they repaired, organized themselves into a presbytery, which they modestly named as 'The Presbytery of the Canadas,' and duly ordained the Rev. Joseph Johnston. Then, lest any of the Presbyterian brethren scattered throughout the provinces might feel themselves to have been slighted, they issued a call to all those whose 'character and academical education entitled them to respect' to meet in Montreal on July 9, 1818. At this meeting, however, of the sixteen Presbyterian ministers then in Canada only the same five assembled, but these proceeded more formally to organize the first permanent presbytery in Canada under the title 'The Presbytery of the Canadas.'

With these pioneer Presbyterian missionaries, as with those of the eastern provinces, life was full of toil and trials, of perils and of poverty. While we read of stipends to a few chaplains from the British government of £50 per annum, and one indeed of £100, a greater number of these ministers were forced to subsist upon the meagre gifts of the people, themselves struggling with poverty. A most valuable means of grace it must have proved to them to see their Episcopalian brethren drawing their comfortable salaries of £200 per annum, and the Bishop of Quebec his £3500, but in spite of this unequal treatment by the government of the day their patience and their courage never flagged. Their devotion never wearied, their sympathy with the people among whom they lived and for whom they toiled never failed, and to them came a reward in a reverence and an affection beyond price. The difficulty of distance militated against frequent meetings of the Presbytery of the Canadas. It was resolved that the brethren of Lower Canada should retain the name, while those of Upper Canada should be organized into a synod with three presbyteries. This arrangement, however, proved unsatisfactory, and finally these three presbyteries, in conjunction with other ministers who had come to the province, were organized into what came to be known as the United Presbytery of Upper Canada, with sixteen ministers, and covering the territory from the Ottawa River to Lake St Clair. With great zeal and with truly splendid courage this presbytery faced the problem of supplying missionaries for their scattered congregations, and the further problem of training their own men for the ministry. The only institution for higher learning in the province was King's College, York, an institution founded and maintained by the government, but under the control of the Anglican Church. Indeed, there is every evidence that at this time it was the policy of both the home and colonial governments that the Anglican should become the established form of Protestant religion in the colony. Again and again the united presbytery made appeal to the home government through the colonial authorities for the appointment of a professor of their own choosing with equal rights and standing in the college, but as often as made the appeal was rejected. Not only were the rights of the non-Anglican Protestants in King's College denied, and not only were their appeals for aid in the establishment of institutions of higher learning neglected, but their claim upon the financial support of the government for the maintenance of ordinances among their people was ignored. In the year 1826, however, the home government took the step of recognizing the claims of ministers of the Church of Scotland, who were as yet unorganized, making them a grant of £750. The united presbytery immediately applied for a like grant, but in 1830 a reply came suggesting a union of all Presbyterians in the colony, with the promise that grants would then be made upon the recommendation of a single responsible body. The immediate effect of this reply was not that expected by the government. Instead of union, there sprang into existence two synods: first, the unorganized ministers of the Church of Scotland erected themselves into the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland, with four presbyteries, Quebec, Glengarry, Bathurst and York, showing a roll of nineteen ministers; and, secondly, the members of the united presbytery organized themselves into the United Synod of Upper Canada with two presbyteries, Brockville and York, until 1833, in which year, in answer to a memorial, a grant of £700 was made to the United Synod with the renewed suggestion of union. The wisdom of this suggestion so commended itself to the bodies that negotiations were begun without delay. This movement towards union was greatly accelerated by the fact that the Presbyterians with other non-Anglican Protestants found themselves engaged in a life-and-death struggle for religious equality. A common foe, arrogant, heavily endowed and strongly entrenched behind government patronage and social prestige, forced them to close up their ranks. It was that ancient and eternal struggle for the rights of the common people against the special privileges of a class. The strife raged chiefly about the question of the clergy reserves.

By the act of 1791, by which Canada was divided into upper and lower provinces, one-seventh of the ungranted public lands were 'reserved' for 'the maintenance and support of a Protestant clergy.' To this reserve the Anglican Church, though numbering less than a third of the population, calmly proceeded to assert the sole rights. The Presbyterians vigorously protested and appealed to the law-officers of the crown, who after consideration decided the appeal in their favour. But the lieutenant-governor, the legislative council, and the high tory party united with the bishops and clergy of the Anglican Church in ignoring the decision of the law lords and the claim of the Presbyterians and other non-Anglican Protestants. The question of equal rights in the clergy reserves, however, was but a part of the larger and more fundamental question of representative government for Canada. There is no doubt that the attitude of religious intolerance assumed by the Anglican Church and by the oligarchy associated with it imported into the struggle an element of intense bitterness. It was an age of intolerance. Most persons had not yet learned to recognize the inherent rights of mankind to liberty, justice and equal treatment. In those days, as ever, privilege died hard.

There is also no doubt that the secret action of Lieutenant-Governor Sir John Colborne in erecting and endowing fifty-seven Anglican rectories out of the reserve lands against the announced policy of the home government and in the teeth of the large majority of the legislative assembly, did much to precipitate the Rebellion of 1837.

Out of the rebellion the party contending for equal rights and responsible government emerged defeated, it is true, but with the justice of their cause so clearly demonstrated that its final victory was assured. The principles of responsible government and of religious equality were recognized and, after some delay, became effective in the government of the country. The clergy reserves were sold and the greater portion of the proceeds devoted to education. The remainder was distributed to the various Protestant denominations, the Anglicans, as indeed might have been expected, receiving two-thirds of the amount. During the turmoil of rebellion the cause of union made rapid progress and in 1840 the negotiations reached a successful issue, the United Synod and the Synod of the Presbyterian Church in Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland being united in a single church, which carried the name of the latter of these uniting bodies.

For some years before the union the churches had been engaged in a determined effort to obtain entrance into King's College, Toronto, but without effect. The illiberal policy pursued by the government and by the authorities of King's College produced one most important result to the Presbyterian Church. The Church of Scotland synod, being denied any rights in the educational institution at Toronto, determined to establish one of its own. An appeal was made to the home church for aid, a charter was sought from the imperial government, and throughout the length and breadth of Upper Canada the scattered congregations of Presbyterians were invited to co-operate in this educational movement. The consummation of the union greatly aided the scheme, and in 1842, such was the enthusiastic response of the people to the appeals of the united church, that the University of Queen's College was founded and opened. It was at once a triumph for the cause of liberal education in the province and a tribute to the loyalty and generosity of the Presbyterian people. Though founded by the Presbyterian Church, the University of Queen's College entered upon, and has ever since steadily pursued, a most liberal educational policy, and from the first has held a high place in the confidence and the esteem of the Canadian people of all denominations.

The Great Disruption

We have now arrived at a point where it is well to note the various Presbyterian churches that had come into existence throughout the whole of Canada both east and west. In the eastern provinces before the year 1843 there were four distinct bodies of Presbyterians. First, the Synod of Nova Scotia which, as will be remembered, was constituted in 1817 by the union of the Burgher Presbytery of Truro and the Antiburgher Presbytery of Pictou. Second, the Synod of Nova Scotia in connection with the Church of Scotland, which owed its existence largely to the vigorous efforts of the Colonial Society of Glasgow and which embraced the three presbyteries of Halifax, Pictou and Prince Edward Island, with branches in Newfoundland and Bermuda. Third, the Synod of New Brunswick in connection with the Church of Scotland, which in 1835 was developed out of the original presbytery of New Brunswick and which consisted of the two presbyteries of St John and Miramichi, with a roll of ten ministers. And fourth, the Presbytery of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, which was organized in 1832 out of the ministers originally from the covenanting Presbyterians of Scotland.

In Upper Canada there were four branches of the Presbyterian Church, each distinct from the others. First, the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland, which, as we have seen, was formed in 1840 by the union of the United Synod of Upper Canada, the older body in the province, and the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland, which gave its name to the united body. Second, there was organized what was called the Missionary Synod of Canada, in connection with the United Associate Secession Church in Scotland, the raison d'être of which apparently was its unswerving allegiance to the extreme voluntary principle, the principle, namely, that forbade any connection between church and state and declined either to apply for or to receive any state aid for religious purposes. Third, the Presbytery of Niagara, a body which was organized in 1833 and was composed of ministers who had come across from the United States to engage in missionary work in the Niagara peninsula. This presbytery developed great activity and grew rapidly in numbers until broken up by the Rebellion of 1837. Reorganized in 1842, it maintained a more or less spasmodic existence until in 1850 it finally disbanded. And fourth, the Presbytery of Stamford, which in 1836 was organized in connection with the American Associate Reformed Church, and which carried on its work for a few years with varying success and finally disappeared, its congregations merging into the larger Presbyterian bodies.

Thus it will be seen that before the year 1843 there were in Canada, even after various unions had been consummated, eight distinct branches of the Presbyterian Church. In both the eastern provinces and in Upper Canada a steady movement looking towards union was maintained with more or less persistence in all these bodies, but in 1843 this movement towards union received a rude set-back as a result of the great Disruption of the Church of Scotland in that year. That Disruption, as we have seen, was due to the protest of some 474 ministers and professors of the Church of Scotland against the 'intrusion' of the civil authority upon the spiritual independence of the church. In the earlier stages of the conflict the struggle of the Church of Scotland for spiritual independence awakened universal sympathy throughout the Canadian churches both east and west, but when the struggle issued in the great Disruption those branches of the church affiliated with the Church of Scotland were torn asunder in bitter controversy. The disruption of those branches in Canada claiming affiliation with the Church of Scotland might almost be considered analogous to what is called in the labour world a 'sympathetic strike,' and yet this designation hardly does justice to the facts. For the cleavage in the Canadian churches was not, after all, upon the question of spiritual independence. There was never any difference of opinion upon that point among the churches in Canada—but with unanimous and unequivocal voice they ranged themselves on the side of those who stood for spiritual freedom, and, even after the Disruption in Scotland, the sympathy of the Canadian churches with the Free Church of Scotland was almost universal. The point at issue, which was debated with great ability and dialectic skill, was mainly—what relation should the Canadian churches hold toward the old mother Church of Scotland? Was any intercourse possible on the part of those holding firmly to the doctrine of spiritual independence with a church which was supposed to have surrendered the 'Crown Rights of the Redeemer as the only King and Head of the Church'? Could the ministers of such a church be received into full communion? One party declared emphatically 'No.' The other maintained the position that, though the Church of Scotland might have erred, she was still a branch of the Church of Christ. And further, whatever might be their opinion on this principle of spiritual independence, the question was not up in Canada, nor ever could be, and the Canadian churches owing no allegiance to the mother church, but being absolutely independent of her, it was in no sense demanded of them to separate themselves from her. Deputies from both the new Free Church and from the old Established Church visited Canada and set forth before the Canadian people their respective claims with passionate fervour. The strife of opinion raged with a violence almost unbelievable in these days. The result was that in every church affiliated with the Church of Scotland disruption occurred.

The Synod of Nova Scotia in connection with the Church of Scotland in sympathy with the Free Church passed a series of resolutions repudiating all connection with the mother church, signalizing this repudiation by changing its name to the 'Synod of Nova Scotia adhering to the Westminster Standards.' From these resolutions four ministers dissented, retaining connection with the Church of Scotland. In the Synod of New Brunswick a similar cleavage took place, with this difference, that the great majority, ten, of the ministers remained in connection with the Church of Scotland, while three who dissented separated themselves under the name of the 'Synod of New Brunswick adhering to the Standards of the Westminster Confession.'

In Upper Canada, in the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada formed three years before by the union of the United Synod of Canada and the Synod of the Church of Scotland, the disruption was equally pronounced, and as a result some twenty-three ministers withdrew from the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland and organized themselves into the 'Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada,' which became popularly known as the 'Synod of the Free Presbyterian Church of Canada.' Thus, in the place of eight distinct Presbyterian churches in Canada there came to be eleven.

The Presbyterian population in Canada in 1884 is set down as 110,000 for the eastern provinces and 155,000 for the western, a total of 265,000, with a roll of sixty ministers for the eastern provinces and one hundred and twenty-five for the west.

To the superficial observer this tendency to division may seem to be due largely to factious spirit or to personal prejudices. This is, however, not the case. At bottom the controversies were due to the depth of religious conviction and the intensity of personal interest in the matter of religious faith and practice that were characteristic not merely of great leaders, or even of the ministers of the church alone, but also of the rank and file of the men and women, old and young, who constituted the body of the membership of the Presbyterian Church. It is also to be remembered that the great principles of religious liberty and of the supremacy of conscience in spiritual matters around which the conflict raged, as well as the relative limitations of church and state, were not as yet clearly defined or understood. Nor was the warfare which was carried on between contending Presbyterian churches a purely denominational strife. It was to a great extent vicarious. On the Presbyterian arena the battle was being fought for principles of vital importance to other Christian bodies, and the victories there won became the heritage of all the Protestant churches of Canada.

Training a Native Ministry

The thirty years following the Disruption were marked by great activity on the part of every branch of the Presbyterian Church and in every department of their life and work. With Presbyterians a primary consideration has ever been the production of an educated ministry. The main source of supply of men for the Canadian ministry during these early years continued to be the home church in Scotland, but these churches were quite unable to supply a sufficient number of men for the ever-expanding mission fields. Besides this the men supplied from this source could not always be relied upon as permanent workers in the colony. It early became evident that the only solution of the problem lay in a native-bred and home-trained ministry. This meant colleges, and to the work of establishing colleges the various branches of the Presbyterian Church addressed themselves.

We have already seen how the Synod of Nova Scotia with superb faith and courage led the way in the business of training an indigenous ministry in the establishing of Pictou Academy, an institution which, during its long and distinguished history, has rendered such valuable service to the cause of education in Nova Scotia and especially in the Presbyterian Church. Later on, in 1848, the synod established the Seminary of West River, and for ten years this institution gave good service in the preparing of men for their theological course. The synod also gave an active support to Dalhousie College, Halifax, and later assisted in establishing professorial chairs in that college.

The Free Church Synod, at its very first meeting after the Disruption, made plans to establish a theological college of its own. These plans resulted in the founding of Halifax College and Academy in 1848. Later on the synod took its full share in the endowing of chairs in Dalhousie College.

The Synod of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island in connection with the Church of Scotland, reduced by the Disruption to four ministers, remained in a condition of suspended animation for about ten years, when it was revived, and though unable to equip educational institutions of its own, it used its resources in the securing and supporting of young men for the ministry, who were trained either in Scotland or at Queen's University, Kingston.

In Upper Canada the Free Church, in abandoning the Church of Scotland, left behind not only churches, manses and glebes, but Queen's College and its professors as well. She took with her, however, most of the students of the college, and with undaunted courage set about the work of supplying these men with the training necessary for the ministry of the Gospel. In 1844 the synod established a theological seminary in Toronto, which in 1846 was given the name of Knox's College, afterwards changed to Knox College, the annual cost of which for the first few years amounted to about $2500. To this expense, which was a heavy charge upon the slender resources of the synod, the Free Church of Scotland contributed a little more than half.

The Missionary Synod of Canada also, not to be left behind in the work of training men for the ministry, organized in London a Divinity Hall, which, though never housed in a building of its own, continued for some years to train and equip a body of men thoroughly fit for the work of the church in the new land.

The Synod of the Church of Scotland, it will be remembered, two years before the Disruption had opened the University of Queen's College in Kingston. The history of Queen's College is one continued series of triumphs over threatened disasters. When but two years old, by the Disruption it lost nearly all its students, and in the following year two of its three professors resigned their chairs. But its supporters were men of heroic faith and, undaunted by these calamities, immediately set about the work of repairing the fallen fortunes of their college. A full staff of professors was appointed, a vigorous campaign for students was initiated, and through many vicissitudes the college steadily pursued its way, gradually extending its curriculum to include not only theology, but arts and later the sciences as well, and with every graduating class adding to the number of its devoted friends.

Thus in almost every branch of the Presbyterian Church in Canada the all-important matter of education received immediate and earnest attention.

Missionary Activity

Not only in their educational work was the vigorous life of the various branches of the church displayed, but in their missionary activity as well. With great zeal they set themselves to meet the needs of their people in the different provinces by the building of churches and manses, the establishing of missions and congregations and the supplying of ministers. And though so heavily burdened with the duty of meeting the needs of their own home field, they initiated and carried on with extraordinary energy and success missions in foreign lands as well.

The church to show the way in this new department of work was the Synod of Nova Scotia, composed for the most part, as will be remembered, of ministers from the Secession Churches of Scotland. In 1846 there was initiated the mission to the cannibal aborigines of the New Hebrides, the marvellous success of which has excited the wonder and the enthusiastic admiration of Protestant Christianity the world over. With this mission during its history have been associated such honoured names as those of Geddie, the martyr brothers Gordon, Matheson, Johnston, Robertson, Paton, Annand and others. As a testimony to the wonderful success attending the labours of those missionaries there is to be seen to-day in the Rev. John Geddie's church in Aneiteum, where for twenty-four years he laboured as missionary, a memorial slab upon which are engraved in the native language these words: 'When he landed in 1848 there were no Christians here, and when he left in 1872 there were no heathen.' It is at once a tribute to the personal worth and the splendid missionary work of the first missionary, John Geddie, as also to the fine Christian spirit of the churches of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick that in the prosecution of this mission they all cordially and heartily joined, forgetting for a time the minor differences that had resulted in their separation from each other.

The Synod of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island in connection with the Church of Scotland, besides aiding in this New Hebrides Mission, undertook on its own account a mission to the Jews, and initiated also the India Orphan Mission. In the support of these missions the sister Synod of New Brunswick also took a part.

In Upper Canada, in addition to the Home Mission work, always extensive and pressing, the Free Church Synod began in 1848 an interesting mission to the negro colony of Buxton in the western peninsula of the province, which was formed of refugee slaves from the Southern States. Three years later, in 1851, a mission, destined to become the most important of all the missions undertaken by the Presbyterian Church, was begun among the long-neglected and long-forgotten settlers in the far-away valley of the Red River of the North. It is interesting to note that both the Buxton and the Red River Missions were undertaken by the Foreign Mission Board of the Church.

Ten years later, and immediately after the union between the United Presbyterian and the Free Synods in Upper Canada, a mission was established in British Columbia, this also under the Foreign Mission Board.

The energies of the churches not only in Upper Canada but in Quebec as well were also directed toward the evangelization of the Roman Catholic French Canadians of the latter province. At first the interest of these churches in this work was expressed by aid given to the French-Canadian Missionary Society, an inter-denominational organization which had operated in the Province of Quebec, and more particularly in Montreal, since the year 1839. Immediately after the union of the United Presbyterian and the Free Synods already referred to this work took on a new phase. There appeared before the synod of the united church in 1862 a French Canadian, the Rev. Charles Chiniquy, formerly a priest of the Roman Catholic Church, but now a Protestant minister, asking admission for himself and for his congregation of Roman Catholic converts in the village of Kankakee in the State of Illinois. Chiniquy had won fame while a priest as a temperance crusader, and had been sent by the bishop to Montreal to establish a colony for Roman Catholics in the upper valley of the Mississippi, but after establishing his colony he found it impossible to remain in communion with the Roman Catholic Church, and with his whole congregation sought and obtained entrance to the Presbyterian Church of the United States in connection with the presbytery of Chicago. Owing to some difficulties which had arisen between himself and this presbytery, and with a desire of maintaining a closer connection with his fellow-countrymen in Lower Canada, Chiniquy made application to be received by the Synod of the Canada Presbyterian Church. In the year 1863, after careful investigation, his request was granted. Eleven years later Chiniquy was transferred from his congregation at Kankakee to the Presbytery of Montreal in order to superintend the work of French evangelization in Lower Canada.

In all this missionary activity the various branches of the Presbyterian Church were brought into sympathetic and close touch with each other, and this in no small degree prepared the way for the unification of these different branches of the one church in Canada.

A United Church

This movement towards union forms one of the most interesting chapters in the history of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. The movement, proceeding along the line of least resistance, was begun in Nova Scotia between those branches which held the same views upon the all-important question of the relation between church and state. But religious prejudices, especially when associated with history made glorious by sacrifice and achievement, die hard, and it took twenty years of effort to effect union even between those bodies most closely affiliated to each other and animated by a common devotion to the principle of spiritual independence and by a common horror of 'intrusion' by the state upon this independence.

But in 1860 the old Synod of Nova Scotia (Secession) and the Synod of the Free Church of Nova Scotia were united and became the Synod of the Lower Provinces of British North America, with eighty-two ministers upon the roll of the united church. Six years later this synod was united with the sister church of New Brunswick (Free), thus making a comparatively strong church by the unifying of those bodies of Presbyterians repudiating fellowship with the old mother Church of Scotland.

In Upper Canada the same branches, namely, the Missionary Synod (Secession), which in 1847, under influence of the example of its mother church, had changed its name to the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church in Canada, and the Synod of the Presbyterian Church in Canada (Free) came together in 1861 as the Canada Presbyterian Church, with two hundred and twenty-six ministers on its roll. The large and vigorous body thus formed organized itself some nine years later into the General Assembly of the Canada Presbyterian Church, with four synods, Montreal, Toronto, Hamilton and London, containing some seventeen presbyteries and showing a roll of two hundred and ninety-two ministers.

We may interrupt at this point the history of the union movement to note some special features of activity in this newly constituted church. Conscious of its new strength and under the spiritual impulse of the union, the Canada Presbyterian Church entered upon a period of brilliant activity in every department of its life and work. In educational matters the church took a decided step forward. The United Presbyterian Divinity Hall in London was merged in Knox College, Toronto, which was equipped with a full staff of professors and was finally housed in a splendid new building completed in the year 1875 at a cost of $120,000. In addition to this college there was opened in Montreal a theological college in the year 1867, not only to supply the educational needs of the Presbyterian young men of Eastern Ontario and Quebec, but also to train workers from among the French-speaking people for service among the French Protestants as well as for service in connection with the work of French evangelization.

The Home Mission work, too, of the church responded to the quickened life of the united church in a remarkable advance. A central fund was created and the work of supplying mission stations and weak congregations with preachers was vigorously taken up. This fund rose at once from an annual average of about $7000 to one of $14,000, and in 1875, ten years later, the amount contributed for home missions was nearly $25,000. This home mission work was extended to include not only the Buxton Mission, the French-Canadian Mission at Kankakee in Illinois under Father Chiniquy, and the Red River Mission, all of which have been already referred to, but also a mission to British Columbia which was opened in 1861. Of the Red River Mission and the British Columbia Mission more will be said later.

In addition to all this home mission activity the church determined to enter upon the foreign mission field, and in 1871 a mission was opened in the Island of Formosa, to which island was sent the Rev. George L. Mackay as its first missionary to the Far East. The record of the marvellous successes achieved by this great missionary in that island of Formosa forms one of the most brilliant passages in the missionary annals of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. The year following the foreign missionary work of the church was still further extended by the opening up of a mission in India, to which country two young ladies, Miss Rodger and Miss Fairweather, were sent to labour, in the meantime under the charge of the Presbyterian Church of the United States, which was carrying on a mission in that land.

Resuming the consideration of the union movement, we notice among those branches adhering to the Church of Scotland a drawing together of the sister churches in the provinces by the sea. The Synod of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, which for ten years after the Disruption had remained practically defunct, was in 1854 revived and for fourteen years pursued a course of strenuous activity, and in the face of serious difficulties this church provided for the education of its ministers, extended its missionary operations at home and, as we have seen, took up with great vigour mission work among the orphans of India and in the New Hebrides. In 1868 this revived synod was united with the sister Synod of New Brunswick to form the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of the Maritime Provinces in connection with the Church of Scotland.

Thus, instead of eleven Presbyterian bodies which existed in British North America in the year 1844, we have in 1870 only four, representative of the two great branches of Presbyterianism, the Church of Scotland and the Free Church, namely: first, the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces of British North America (Free); second, the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of the Maritime Provinces in connection with the Church of Scotland; third, in Upper Canada, the General Assembly of the Canada Presbyterian Church; and fourth, the Synod of the Canada Presbyterian Church in connection with the Church of Scotland.

The cleavage between these two sections was very clearly defined and was, moreover, accentuated by the continued existence of the same cleavage between these churches in the homeland, where the antagonism aroused at the time of the Disruption even after the lapse of twenty-seven years still lingered. The accessions to the ministry of the colonial churches of ministers from the home churches did much also to perpetuate this unhappy spirit of antagonism.

But there were at work in the colonies potent forces making for union. There began to dawn upon Presbyterians of all shades of opinion in the colonies the absurdity and the wickedness of perpetuating a division in their common church upon a matter that had long ceased to be a live issue, if indeed the issue had ever existed in the new land.

Photogravure. Annan. Glasgow.

GEORGE L. MACKAY
From a photograph by Galbraith, Toronto

Then, too, association in educational and missionary activity had engendered feelings of mutual respect and regard among the churches. Furthermore, a growing sense of responsibility for the expanding work of the church both at home and abroad, and a growing satisfaction with the results attendant upon the smaller unions effected, began to press hard upon the conscience of the people the duty of union. There was also the sudden rise of a new national spirit consequent upon the confederation of the various provinces into the Dominion of Canada which was effected in 1867. These and other influences prepared the way for the completion of a movement which had been in progress among the churches for the last quarter of a century. At length in 1870 negotiations in regard to 'The Incorporation of all the Presbyterian Churches in the Dominion under one General Assembly' were inaugurated by a letter from the Rev. Dr Ormiston, retiring moderator of the Synod of the Canada Presbyterian Church, addressed to the moderators of the other synods in Canada, and setting forth the desirability and the wisdom of such an incorporation, and asking that committees be appointed to confer in regard to this matter. The response in every case was immediate and cordial. For five years these negotiations were conducted, with the result that in 1875 the four great branches of the Presbyterian Church, themselves the result of a long series of unions, were merged into one great Presbyterian body known as the Presbyterian Church in Canada.

The new united church, representing the Presbyterianism of the new Dominion from ocean to ocean, at once took on the likeness of a truly national church in her outlook and in her plans. A new note was struck in her supreme court, the note of national responsibility. Presbyterianism ceased to be a mere denomination or group of denominations; it became a constituent element in the life of the Canadian people and a force in the shaping of Canadian national destiny. This does not mean that the Presbyterian Church in Canada became so engrossed with her mission to her own country as to be oblivious to the demands or to the claims of the rest of the world.

As witness of this in 1876 a mission was established in Central India, and in that year a notable departure in mission work is recorded in the formation of the Woman's Foreign Missionary Society, organized for the purpose of carrying on work in India and other foreign fields among women and children. The influence of this society upon the life of the church from the very date of its organization would be difficult to overestimate.

But the church's chief concern was for the spiritual well-being of the people of Canada. In 1876 the new General Assembly entered upon a general French evangelization scheme behind which it was determined to place the whole weight of the church. But it was in that vast and as yet little known North-West land, stretching from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Ocean, that the church gave the most signal manifestation of her new national spirit. The history of mission work carried on in that land of great spaces and of magnificent distances is full of thrilling romance. Far away on the Western Pacific coast, in the few small settlements that were to be found on Vancouver Island, on the mainland coast and along the rivers, the Presbyterian Church of Canada had not a single missionary until the year 1862, when the Canada Presbyterian Church sent out the Rev. Robert Jamieson as her first missionary to British Columbia. On arriving at Victoria he was surprised to find that post occupied by the Rev. John Hall, who had been sent out the year before by the Irish Presbyterian Church. Jamieson went to New Westminster, then the capital of the province, and there for twenty-two years he rendered splendid service to the church and the cause of religion in British Columbia. Two other men from the Canada Presbyterian Church joined him—Duff in 1864 and Aitken in 1869. It is, however, to the Church of Scotland that the chief credit is due for the early prosecution of Presbyterian missions in British Columbia. Up to the year 1887 work was carried on by that church at some nine or ten points upon both island and mainland by such men as Nimmo, Somerville and M^cGregor. Indeed, the first presbytery of British Columbia was one formed in connection with the Church of Scotland. In 1887 that Church withdrew, handing over all its work to the Canada Presbyterian Church. It will thus be seen that in the planting of Presbyterianism in the Pacific province of British Columbia, Canadian Presbyterians can hardly claim a creditable part.

But the story of missions in the prairie provinces is something quite different. We have already referred to the opening of the Red River Mission. The story, further, of the early settlement of that valley and of the planting of the Presbyterian Church among the people who formed the settlement is a tale of which no people need be ashamed. From the Highlands of Scotland they came in various detachments between the years 1812 and 1815 under the auspices of Lord Selkirk, and settled on the tract of land secured for them by purchase from the Hudson's Bay Company that lay in the valley of the Red River, reaching northward from the fort that stood at the junction of the Red River and the Assiniboine. They were a very small company, in all under three hundred souls, and never at any one time many more than half that number. But they clung to the banks of the Red River, and though harried by a hostile fur-trading company and driven off once and again from their homes, they returned to their place, exhibiting during those first terrible years of the existence of the colony a patience and an endurance and a courage that few would fail to call heroic. But none will be found to refuse the claim to heroism of those who, through all trials and discouragements, in unceasing struggle with the rigours of climate and stubbornness of soil, their lands devastated by fire and flood, their homes swept by plague, maintained their faith in God and held to their church with a tenacity and loyalty that could not be shaken. It had been one of the conditions attached by Lord Selkirk to the founding of his colony that with the Scottish immigrants should be sent a minister of their own church. For a variety of reasons, some less creditable than others to those concerned with the administration of the colony's affairs, this promise of Lord Selkirk's was never kept. Again and again, in one form and then in another, petition was made to the representatives of Lord Selkirk, to the noble earl himself, to the Honourable the Hudson's Bay Company, to the Church of Scotland, but without result. True, for some three years after the colony was founded a worthy elder of the Church of Scotland with special ordination, James Sutherland, ministered to the spiritual wants of the settlers. But by the machinations of the North-West Company he was removed to Eastern Canada. Thus for nearly forty years these sturdy Presbyterians waited for a 'minister of their own,' keeping alive the holy flame of true piety by the daily sacrifice of morning and evening worship upon the family altar, the head of each family being priest in his own house.

At length the petition of the Selkirk settlers reached the ears of the Free Church of Scotland. By that church it was passed on to the Free Church in Canada. Thereupon the Rev. Dr Burns, Professor in Knox College, acting for the foreign mission committee, laid hands upon a young man who had shown vigour and sense in mission work among the French Canadians, and thrust him forth to be the first Presbyterian missionary to Western Canada. And so one bright September Sabbath morning the forty years of faith-keeping by these Red River Presbyterians were rewarded when three hundred of them gathered to hear the Rev. John Black from Canada preach the first Presbyterian sermon delivered in that new land. This was in the year 1851, and for ten years John Black stood alone representing his church in that far-away outpost of the Empire.

In 1862 a second missionary, the Rev. James Nisbet, was sent out to stand by Black's side, and together these two laboured among the growing settlements that were springing up along the Red River and beside the Hudson's Bay Company's post of Fort Garry.

In 1864 John Black wrote to the Synod of the Canada Presbyterian Church his famous letter making appeal on behalf of the roaming Indian tribes of North-Western Canada. 'I am not satisfied,' he writes in noble complaint, 'with our Church's position in regard to missions. We are doing nothing directly to spread the Gospel among those that are without. ... Let this be the distinction of the Synod of 1864, let it begin the work of Heathen missions, and first of all let it acknowledge the claims of the heathen of our own country of British North America.' His appeal was heard, and two years later, in 1866, the Canada Presbyterian Church inaugurated its first mission to the North-West Indians by sending Nisbet to a point five hundred miles north-west of Fort Garry, where he planted the first Presbyterian mission to the Indians of the North-West, and where for eight years, till his death, he gave himself with unwearied diligence to this service.

In 1870 a change took place not only in the mission work of the West but in the history of the country. The year 1870 was undoubtedly the annus mirabilis in the history of Western Canada. It was the year of the First Riel Rebellion, the year when the change of rule from that of the Hudson's Bay Company to that of the Dominion government went into practical effect. It was the year, too, that saw the birth of the Province of Manitoba; it was the year when Canadians discovered their great West. By Presbyterians it is remembered as the year in which Manitoba came near enough to the eastern church to be considered a home mission rather than a foreign mission field, and the year also in which the presbytery of Manitoba was erected.

The new presbytery thus organized displayed truly western optimism and courage. It organized a full-fledged congregation in the village that had grown up beside the Hudson's Bay post of Fort Garry, called Winnipeg, and named it Knox Church, the first Presbyterian congregation to be established upon the prairies. It appointed at once a home mission committee and outlined a home mission campaign. But, more than that, it took the courageous step of overturning the General Assembly of the Canada Presbyterian Church to establish an institution for higher learning for themselves. The General Assembly granted the prayer and duly established Manitoba College upon the distant banks of the Red River. Next year, in 1871, the Rev. George Bryce was sent to be the first professor in Manitoba College, and a few months later, in the following year, the Church of Scotland synod, eager to co-operate with her sister church, sent out by arrangement the Rev. Thomas Hart as a second professor for the new college.

We are approaching now an event whose influence in shaping the future of western Presbyterianism the succeeding years of history will only more clearly reveal. The new Knox Church, Winnipeg, ambitious, vigorous, self-confident, determined to have a minister of its own, and in 1873 appealed to the East for one of its most distinguished pastors, setting their hearts upon the convener of the home mission committee, the Rev. William Cochrane, as their first choice. In this choice they were disappointed, but before the close of the year the convener's presbytery of Paris, Ontario, selected one of their number to proceed to the West to look into the situation and to report. And thus it came about that the Rev. James Robertson, formerly minister of the little congregation of Norwich, became identified with that mighty enterprise which has made his own name famous in the annals of the Canadian Presbyterian Church and which is associated with achievements perhaps unparalleled, certainly unsurpassed, in the history of Christian missions of any land and of any age.

In 1874 Robertson arrived in Winnipeg on his exploring tour. The result was a call from Knox Church, Winnipeg—a call which he dared not refuse. In the following year the Great Union was consummated, and six years later, in 1881, the united church, under the dawning vision of the magnitude of the new western land and of the splendid possibilities for missionary enterprise there, took the remarkable forward step of appointing a superintendent of missions for Manitoba and the North-West. The man chosen for this new office was the minister of Winnipeg, the Rev. James Robertson, and the history of Presbyterianism for the next twenty years in the new land is the story of Robertson's life. Three years before Winnipeg was joined to the outer world by a railroad entering from the United States to the south, and in that year the new West was brought close to the imagination of not only Eastern Canada but of the United States and the homeland across the sea as well by the extraordinary development of land speculation known in history as 'The Boom.' Settlers continued to pour into the great vacant spaces of the West from all parts of the world, railroads began to push across the prairies, south, west and north, and every railroad was a river-bed for the flowing tide of immigration. Statistics give but a faint picture of the enormous rapidity with which settlement was extended, and the records of the home mission committee altogether fail to tell the story, the splendid, heroic and romantic story, of the mission enterprise carried on in the new land by the Canadian Presbyterian Church.

JAMES ROBERTSON
From a photograph by Galbraith, Toronto

The growth of missions created the necessity of increased plant. Congregations needed churches, ministers needed manses. To meet this need the new superintendent, with true, statesmanlike vision, carried to the General Assembly of 1881, which appointed him superintendent, an overture from the presbytery of Manitoba craving permission to create a fund to be known as the Church and Manse Building Fund. The assembly gave cautious permission. The home mission committee, under which the superintendent was to work, gave very qualified support to the undertaking, but, nothing daunted, the superintendent went at the business and next year was able to report to the General Assembly that, of the $100,000 which he proposed to raise, he had within the year raised from the few and scattered settlements in Western Canada $36,000 and from Eastern Canada $28,000, a total, with promises, of $66,626. The effect upon the assembly and upon the mission work of the church was stimulating to the highest degree.

After five years' experience the superintendent was able to report as follows: 'During the eight years between 1874 and 1882 there were fifteen churches built in the North-West, an average of two per year, but in the five years after the creation of the Fund there were built eighty-six churches and seventeen manses, one hundred and three buildings in all, an average of twenty-one per year.' And twenty years later, when the summary of the superintendent's work was presented to the church, the report showed that during that time some 419 churches, 90 manses and 4 schoolhouses, 513 buildings in all, worth $605,835, had been erected in Western Canada. It is no wonder that we find in the report these words: 'It would be impossible to estimate the value of the aid given by the Fund to our whole work by the erection of church buildings during the past twenty years.'

The effect of the appointment of a superintendent to have charge of the mission work of Western Canada can be seen in one direction by a single quotation from the home mission report: 'Whereas in 1882 there was reported a gain of forty missions, this year, 1883, the gain is fifty-one.' And so on from year to year, the number of mission stations, the number of communicants, the number of church buildings kept rolling up in geometrical progression.

In 1883 the presbytery of Manitoba was divided into three, to be called Winnipeg, Rock Lake and Brandon, and these presbyteries were erected into the first western synod under the name of 'The Synod of Manitoba and the North-West Territories.' The description of the boundaries of the presbytery of Brandon, the most western of the three, forms an interesting commentary upon the sublime faith and optimistic courage of those who were in charge of the missionary operations of that wonderful land. A list of forty-seven fields forms the presbytery roster, extending over a country some eight hundred miles from east to west and four hundred from north to south. Steadily the empire of the church moved westward, and in 1887, the year in which the General Assembly met in the city of Winnipeg, another presbytery, that of Regina, was erected, the limits of which are thus described: 'The eastern limit the 109th degree of longitude, the southern limit the 49th parallel of latitude, the western limit a line passing north and south through the western crossing of the Columbia River by the Canadian Pacific Railway, the northern limit the Arctic Sea.' In such magnificent terms did these men conceive their work.

In that year the story is told by the following eloquent statistics: the 129 stations of the year 1882 had grown to 389, 52 per year, one for every week of that period. The communicant-roll rose from 1355 to 5623.

And so the marvellous story of the conquest of an empire goes on. Following the railroad, and even before the railroad, the little settlements of hardy pioneers gallantly push their way ever over the horizon, and with eager invincible spirit the superintendent and his missionaries follow up, so that 'there is no considerable settlement between the Great Lakes and the Mountains in which there is not a representative of the Presbyterian Church in Canada.'

But meantime, and pari passu with the ever-expanding work of home missions, that of foreign missions advanced as well. In that year, 1887, the church took a forward step in her foreign mission enterprise and sent out to Honan, China, the Rev. Jonathan Goforth—a missionary worthy to be named with Geddie and the Gordons and Mackay—who, chosen and financially backed by his college class, established in that far field a mission which has become one of the foreign mission gems of the church.

The demands upon the resources of the church by this advanced movement abroad, and especially by the extraordinary development of the missions in Western Canada, became increasingly heavy, and from year to year the committees, both foreign and home, were forced to report deficits in their funds. For a time it looked as if the church would have to call a halt, for these were difficult years in Canada. At this critical moment unexpected help arrived. In 1893-94 the present writer, fresh from his mission field in the Rocky Mountains and visiting the old land for a period of rest and study, was, at the request of the superintendent, appointed by the home mission committee a special commissioner to the churches of Great Britain and Ireland to plead the cause of the missions in the Canadian West, into which by the thousand the children of these churches were pouring. It is a tribute at once to the generous spirit of the home churches and also to their awakening sense of responsibility for the new empire being founded across the sea that on his return he was able to report to the General Assembly of 1894 that the churches of Great Britain had undertaken to support for five years some forty missions, afterwards increased to sixty, at the cost of $250 each. As it turned out, the period of this generosity was extended in many cases far beyond the five years, and thus at a critical period in the development of her western work the mother churches came to the help of their daughter across the sea and saved her from the humiliation and the loss of a retrograde movement.

During the closing years of the nineteenth century the attention of Central and Southern Europe began to be directed with increasing urgency towards the far-reaching and fertile farm-lands of Western Canada, with the result that a steady stream of non-English-speaking immigrants began to pour into the country. These were allowed by the government to settle in colonies throughout Manitoba and the North-West Territories. The great majority of them were from the various provinces of the empire of Austria-Hungary. In 1898 it was reported that some thirty thousand Galicians had found their homes in Western Canada. These were almost evenly divided between the Greek, the Roman Catholic and the Greek Catholic churches.

In 1898 two Galicians called one night at the home of the present writer in Winnipeg, asking that something might be done for the education and the religious care of their people. The momentous character of the appeal was at once recognized. The two young men were brought to the notice of Dr King, principal of Manitoba College, and of Dr Robertson, superintendent of missions. The result was that the two young men were placed in classes in Manitoba College, their board and lodging being provided by the superintendent, their education undertaken by Principal King. Efforts were immediately made to enlist the sympathies of the Manitoba government in the work of establishing schools among the Galician people, but without result. Thereupon the Presbyterian Church itself undertook to supply this need. In 1900 a school and hospital were opened under the charge of Dr J. T. Reid of Montreal, at Sifton, Manitoba, and in the same year J. A. Cormie, a student of Manitoba College, was appointed to organize school districts and to establish schools throughout the Galician colonies of the province. During that year three schools were begun. These later were increased to six. But such was the interest aroused by this educational work of the Presbyterian Church among the foreign-born people of Manitoba that the government initiated a more vigorous educational policy among them, and the Presbyterian Church cheerfully handed over its educational work and its buildings to the government.

The following year the present writer was approached by a deputation of Galicians with the request that he should organize for them a church of their own. By this time the number of the Galicians in North-Western Canada had increased to between 50,000 and 60,000, all of whom were practically totally neglected by their own churches. In response to this extraordinary request a committee, consisting of the Rev. Dr Bryce, the Rev. Professor Kilpatrick of Manitoba College, and the present writer, to which later on was added the Rev. Principal Patrick of Manitoba College, entered into conference with these Galician representatives, with the result that after much deliberation there was organized the Independent Greek Church of Canada upon the doctrinal basis of the three great creeds, the Apostles', the Athanasian and the Nicene, and with a polity practically Presbyterian. The growth of this church was immediate and rapid. While maintaining their independence, they continued to look to the Presbyterian Church for guidance and for support. Their young men were educated in Manitoba College. Their ministers were supported as colporteurs by the Presbyterian Church. Rapidly the membership of the new church increased. Congregations were formed in all the colonies until some thirty were reported, with about twenty-five ministers in charge. After maintaining, however, for a number of years a separate existence, the Independent Greek Church ministers began to petition for entrance to the Presbyterian Church. For some years this request was denied and this movement was discouraged. Finally, however, the religious interests of these people, who had now increased to about 200,000, appeared to demand that a more vigorous policy should be adopted, and hence in 1912, largely under the guidance of the newly appointed general superintendent of missions, Dr A. S. Grant, of Yukon fame, the ministers of the Independent Greek Church were received into the membership and employment of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. The results of this change are still in the future, but there is every indication that it will do much not only to care for the religious interests of these people, but to enable them to become more rapidly and more completely a homogeneous element in the Canadian nation.

The year 1896 witnessed a still further development of missionary activity. In that year began that mad and phenomenal rush for gold into the far frozen regions of the Yukon. From all parts of Canada and the United States, from Europe and from the Orient, men by hundreds and by thousands crowded the north-bound steamers and crushed in a stampede over the dread and deadly White Horse Pass seeking for gold. That with these gold-seekers should be found not a single missionary of the Cross challenged the courage and loyalty of the Christian churches of Canada. The superintendent of Presbyterian missions was the first to heed the challenge and to accept it; and, without awaiting the authority even of his committee, he laid hands upon an undergraduate of Manitoba College, R. M. Dickie, ordained him and sent him forth in October 1897, the first missionary of any church to that distant and dangerous field. In December Dickie was followed by the Rev. A. S. Grant, M.D., and in the following year by the Rev. John Pringle, the Rev. J. A. Sinclair and the Rev. A. G. Sinclair. The committee, with the conservatism of responsibility, was somewhat slow to follow the forward policy of the impetuous superintendent, but the church was with him, and the mission to the Yukon, in the hands of men whose courage and resourcefulness abundantly justified the wisdom of their choice, not only brought untold blessing to the hardy and hard-pressed miners of that frozen land, but won for the church high distinction and honour. Missions were established at Skagway, Dawson City, Bennett and White Horse; and at Dawson City, under Dr Grant, a hospital, to which in 1900 two nurses, the Misses Mitchell and Bone, were sent forth. Later on, the mission was further strengthened by the appointment of the Rev. D. G. Cock and George Pringle.

In 1899 the Canadian church suffered a severe loss in the death of the Rev. Dr King, the first principal of Manitoba College. As head of the most western and the distinctively missionary college of the church his scholarship, his indefatigable labours and his personal influence did much to shape the policy and direct the life of the Presbyterian Church in Western Canada.

In 1901 the Rev. Dr G. L. Mackay, the veteran missionary of Formosa, was removed by death, leaving behind him a record of missionary work of unique and extraordinary success. The Foreign Mission Report of 1901 contains the following sentence: 'As the result of God's blessing on his labours he left sixty Christian congregations, fifty-four native preachers and eighteen hundred and ninety-one communicants in the field in which he had laboured.'

In 1902, after twenty-one years of toil unsurpassed in the history of Christian missions, the great superintendent of home missions, Dr James Robertson, laid down his work. The passing years will only emphasize the truth of the words carved upon the memorial stone beneath which he sleeps in the Kildonan churchyard: 'The story of his work is the history of the Presbyterian Church in Western Canada, and while Western Canada endures that work will abide.' The assembly of 1902 that received the news of his death appointed as general secretary the Rev. E. D. Maclaren, D.D., and as superintendents of missions the Rev. J. A. Carmichael, for the synod of Manitoba and the North-West Territories, and the Rev. J. C. Herdman, D.D., for the synod of British Columbia, to take up the work of supervision laid down by the great superintendent. The number of superintendents has been steadily increased until in the year 1912 the work of supervising the rapidly growing home mission work in Canada was given into the hands of one general superintendent and twelve superintendents.

In the meantime the mad scramble for gold in the Yukon has settled down into a steady industry, and among the gold-seekers the Presbyterian Church has established itself in the full confidence and growing esteem of the people to whom she has undertaken to minister.

In 1903 the women of the church were organized into the Woman's Home Missionary Society to aid in the work of home missions, to carry on the work in hospital and among the lumbermen and the non-Anglo-Saxons throughout Canada. The society is the youngest of the women's societies in Canada, but it has already developed a vigour of life proportionate to the sphere and the opportunity of its operations.

Moral and Social Reform

While the church was caring for the expansion of its operations in the homeland and in foreign fields during the early years of the twentieth century, a growing sentiment became apparent in favour of a more intensive spiritual culture of the home field, and more especially the urban section of it. In 1907 a special committee was appointed to deal with all matters related to moral and social reform, and the following year the department of temperance was handed over to this committee, with the Rev. G. C. Pidgeon, D.D., as convener and as secretary the Rev. J. G. Shearer, D.D., who had won distinction as secretary of the Dominion Lord's Day Alliance in his fight for a national day of rest. In the same year, 1908, the General Assembly appointed a committee on evangelism, which began at once an educative series of experiments in different forms of evangelistic work. Two years later these departments were united under the title 'Moral and Social Reform and Evangelism,' with the present writer and Dr Pidgeon as joint conveners and Dr Shearer as secretary. The following year the name was changed to the more euphonious and more accurately descriptive title 'Social Service and Evangelism.' The work under this committee has developed enormous vitality and aggressiveness. It has with earnest and serious purpose taken up the study of problems too long neglected by the church. It has sought to bring the church face to face with great national questions such as temperance, social vice, industrial and labour problems, and the problem of the city. With such vigour has the board of Social Service and Evangelism conducted its operations that its annual expenditure has risen in four years from $5000 to nearly $50,000, and, while in 1910 there existed in Canada not one institution devoted to the cause of social service, in 1912 there had been established six social service houses connected with the work of social redemption and three social settlements, holding property worth about $150,000 and necessitating the employment of some thirty expert workers with a host of volunteer assistants. The significance of the establishment and rapid development of this department of the church's work lies in the quickened conscience of the church in regard to the responsibility and the opportunity for ministry not only in word and doctrine, but in matters that have an immediate bearing upon the material, social and religious well-being of the people, and there is no doubt that by a return to the methods and ideals of the apostolic church the modern church will discover unsuspected powers of service and will recover apostolic power to serve and bless the people of the land in which she is established.

The Movement toward Church Union

We have briefly traced the history of the Presbyterian Church from its earliest days to the beginning of the twentieth century. It remains to notice the rise of a movement which it is believed may issue in the disappearance from the roll of Christian churches in Canada the name and outward form of the Presbyterian Church, and by union with the Methodist and Congregational churches may establish a greater church which will embody in itself all that has made the history of Presbyterianism in Canada radiant with the glory of heroic courage and adventurous faith.

In 1899, at the request of its home mission committee, the General Assembly appointed a small committee 'To meet and confer with representatives from other evangelical Churches having power to enter into any arrangement with them that will tend to bring about a more satisfactory state of things in our Home Mission fields, so that the overlapping now complained of may be prevented.' The authorities of the Methodist Church in the autumn of 1902 appointed a similar committee, and by these committees a modus vivendi in regard to home mission work was established.

But the movement towards union could not rest at this point. At the quadrennial meeting of the General Conference of the Methodist Church held at Winnipeg in 1902, the Rev. Principal Patrick of Manitoba College and the present writer, in conveying the fraternal greetings of the Presbyterian Church, expressed themselves strongly in favour of organic union between the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches. The suggestion was received with great enthusiasm, and at that same conference a resolution was passed declaring that the Methodist Church would regard with great satisfaction a movement towards organic union between the Presbyterian, Congregational and Methodist Churches, and appointing a committee to meet with similar committees of these churches to discuss the question of organic union. The resolution was submitted to the General Assembly in 1903, a committee on union was appointed, which met with similar committees from the Methodist and Congregational bodies on April 21, 1904. From year to year this union committee presented reports to the supreme courts of the negotiating churches, till finally in 1910 the General Assembly expressed its approval of the basis of union prepared by the joint committee, and directed that this basis, in accordance with constitutional usage, be sent down to the presbyteries of the church for judgment thereupon. The vote of presbyteries reported at the next General Assembly of 1911 was sufficiently strong in favour of union to warrant the further step of sending the basis down to congregations, sessions, members and adherents of the church, with the result that to the General Assembly which met in the far western city of Edmonton in 1912 the following result was reported:

Out of a total eldership of 9675—

Out of a total membership of 287,944—

The combined total of elders, members and adherents was 150,175 or 69¾ per cent in favour of union and 64,924 or 30¼ per cent against.

The assembly expressed its great satisfaction at the substantial majority in favour of union, continued its committee on negotiations, expressing the hope that ultimate union might speedily be accomplished.

Meantime both Methodist and Congregational Churches have by almost unanimous votes expressed themselves in favour of union. It is therefore altogether probable that, unless some untoward and unexpected events take place, organic union will be consummated between the three negotiating churches before many years have passed.

In regard to the growth of the Presbyterian Church consequent upon the union of its various branches into one body, the following statistics give eloquent testimony:

In moneys contributed for church work at home and abroad there has been corresponding gain, as witness:

After one hundred and fifty years of existence in Canada the Presbyterian Church continues to occupy a leading position in numbers and in influence in the Canadian nation. Out of a population of 7,204,527, as shown in the census of 1911, the Presbyterian Church claims a constituency of 1,115,325, being 15·48 per cent of the total population, the largest of the Protestant denominations. She is seeking to fulfil her responsibility to Canada by maintaining Gospel ordinances at 4349 points, reaching from Halifax to Vancouver and from the American boundary to the Arctic Circle. She is also seeking to recognize her duty to non-Christian lands, having assumed responsibility for the evangelization of fourteen millions of heathen people—the proportion which was assigned to her by the great Missionary Council of the World—among whom she is conducting missions in two hundred and sixty-eight fields.

She holds property to the value of $22,333,834 and her missionary budget for 1912 was $1,000,000.

The history of these one hundred and fifty years fairly justifies the conviction that, whether the Presbyterian Church be maintained in separate existence or whether it be merged in the greater church constituted by the union of the Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian bodies, those great principles and ideals for which throughout its history the Presbyterian Church has ever stood, integrity of character, lofty patriotism, spiritual independence, loyalty to scriptural truth and devotion to the onward march of the kingdom of God in the world,—these shall continue to mould the character and guide the destiny of the people of Canada for all the coming years.

I
PIONEER DAYS

Before dealing directly with the missions and institutions of the Methodist Church in Canada a brief review of the history of that church is essential. The geographical boundaries of Canadian Methodism outrun those of the Dominion. Where statesmen have hitherto failed the church has succeeded, and Newfoundland is Methodistically, though not politically, federated with Canada. Bermuda, as a mission field, is also under the direction of the Canadian Church.

In 1765 Lawrence Caughlan introduced Methodism into Newfoundland. The ancient colony seems to have been in sad need of the restraint and purifying influence of Christianity, if Caughlan's estimate is correct. 'As to the Gospel,' he writes, 'they had not the least notion of it. Drinking, dancing, and gaming they were taught by the Europeans who came to fish.' Caughlan's faithful services were reinforced by the self-denying labours of other lay preachers; worthy of special mention is John M^cGeary, who, twelve years after Caughlan's withdrawal, was appointed by John Wesley as the representative of Methodism in the island.

Through the conversion of William Black in 1779 Methodism was established in Nova Scotia. Prior to that date there had been Methodists in the province—Yorkshire families, who brought with them into the new land the fervour so characteristic of Wesleyanism in the shire whence they came. It was through association with these faithful Christians and the study of Wesley's sermons that Black became a Methodist, and afterwards the recognized apostle and founder of the denomination in the Maritime Provinces. He was so successful a leader and evangelist, and the advance of the cause under his direction was so rapid, that it became necessary to appeal to the Methodist Church of the United States for assistance. This was granted, and in 1791 Black was appointed superintendent of the Methodist Church in the province. From Nova Scotia Methodism spread to New Brunswick.

Travelling westward we note the beginnings of Methodism in Lower Canada in 1780, under the inspiring labours of a local preacher named Tuffey, who was also a commissary of the 44th regiment, then stationed in Quebec. The religious destitution of the Protestants was ample reason for Tuffey's zeal. An Episcopalian minister at Quebec and another at Montreal, with probably a regimental chaplain, seem to have comprised the Protestant clerical force of the province. Tuffey was recalled to England upon the declaration of peace in 1783, but not until he had opened the way for the establishment of the Methodist Church upon a substantial foundation.

The first foothold obtained by Methodism in Upper Canada was in a settlement in the township of Augusta, near the site of the present town of Prescott, Ontario. Persecuted Protestants from the Rhine Valley, who sought religious freedom in Ireland, became converts to Wesleyanism. In 1760 they emigrated to New York, where they were influential in founding the first Methodist society in America. Loyalty to Britain impelled them to remove to Canada at the time of the Revolution. Their first home was near Montreal, but in 1778 they went to Upper Canada and settled in Augusta township, where they formed a small religious society of which a son of Philip Embury, the apostle of Methodism in New York, was leader. Paul Heck, his wife Barbara and their three sons, were of this number: the old 'Blue Church' yard on the St Lawrence—the burial-place of Paul and Barbara Heck—remains as one of the sacred shrines of Canadian Methodism to this day.

What Tuffey did for Lower Canada was repeated in some of its features in Upper Canada by Major George Neal, who served in a British cavalry regiment during the Revolutionary War. Arriving in Canada in 1786, he took up a grant of land in the Niagara district. His religious zeal, inflamed by a remarkable dream, found expression in earnest and fruit-bearing toil, still gratefully remembered; in his labours he was nobly assisted by other lay workers.

In 1790 the first Methodist missionary visited Canada. Before that time, as we have seen, the honour of introducing the doctrines and practices of Methodism into many of the colonies of America belonged to laymen, whose labours were undertaken from no obligation save that which conscience and opportunity laid upon them. William Lossee, however, was set apart by the New York Conference of 1790 as a preacher at large. He was not yet ordained, neither is it certain that he was under any definite instructions to prosecute work in Canada. His visit to United Empire Loyalist acquaintances and relatives living on the Bay of Quinte was probably prompted by natural friendship. Evidently, however, the missionary fire burned within him, and he preached wherever opportunity offered. So welcome and effective were his evangelistic labours that a petition for his appointment as a regular missionary was sent to his conference, with the result that Lossee became the superintendent of a field from Cornwall to Cobourg. Under his guidance Methodism was organized, the first 'class'—'the unit and germ of Methodism the world over'—being formed at Hay Bay, near Napanee, on Sunday, February 20, 1791. In 1799 a flourishing 'District,' under the charge of a 'Presiding Elder,' was established. It will thus be seen that Canadian Methodism derived its organic form from the Methodism of the United States. Its first preachers were appointed by the conference of the American Church, and the episcopal form of government obtained. This relation was maintained until 1828. Prior to this, in 1824, in the village of Hallowell, Upper Canada, Methodism was organized into a separate annual conference, with thirty-five ministers and preachers, and a church membership of 6150. The reasons for the formation of Canadian Methodism into an independent denomination, under the superintendency of the Rev. William Case, will be given presently.

It would be a congenial task to dwell at length upon the formative period of the Methodist Church in Canada, to which such necessarily scanty reference has thus far been made. What noble names belong to that period! To discuss it with any approach to adequacy the labours of men like Dr Coke, Bishop Asbury, Freeborn Garretson, Lawrence Caughlan, William Black, Joshua Marsden, Lorenzo Dow, Nathan Bangs, and others not less worthy, should be recounted at length. Nor is less honour due to the faithful men and women who never thought of fame, but, equally with their better known leaders, laid deep and strong the foundations whereon the Methodist Church in Canada has risen to imposing proportions. We may say of them in the glowing words of one of their discriminating eulogists—the late Rev. Dr Alexander Sutherland:

II
CONSOLIDATION: DIVISION: UNION: GROWTH

Having thus rapidly reviewed the story of the beginnings of Methodism in Canada, it is important to trace briefly the effect of certain special movements upon the subsequent development and present condition of the church. The consolidation and growth of Methodism in Canada have been affected by processes which at the time may have seemed unfavourable to the church's best interests. The story is a stirring one, linking itself intimately to the national life of the Dominion.

It has already been noted that Canadian Methodism was organically derived from the United States, and that in 1824 the first conference met. Four years later, in 1828, the American Church relinquished its rights over Canadian Methodism, which then organized as an independent church under an episcopal form of government, the Rev. William Case—of whom more hereafter—being its general superintendent. The causes leading to this grave and far-reaching step must be outlined.

One of these was the bitterness of feeling created by the War of 1812. Political animosity strained ecclesiastical friendship to the breaking-point. The loyalty of Canadian Methodists, whose preachers were appointed and whose discipline was imposed by a church the headquarters of which were in a country frankly antagonistic to Britain, was often called in question, much to the distress of men and women, many of whom, because of their devotion to the British throne, had suffered the loss of their earthly possessions. To add to the unhappiness of the situation, Methodists in Montreal wrote to the Missionary Society in England requesting the appointment of missionaries to Lower Canada. This request, which came from individuals acting on their own initiative and without any authority from the church, was favourably received; and, without consultation with the American bishops, Wesleyan missionaries were appointed to Lower Canada. After much correspondence and not a little bitterness a compromise was effected whereby in 1820 Upper Canada remained part of the Genesee Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and Lower Canada (now the Province of Quebec) was placed under the care of the British Wesleyan Conference. Meanwhile, however, the Methodists of Upper Canada continued to suffer from the cry of disloyalty and foreign ecclesiastical control. This cry was taken up by men of eminence, and used to the serious disadvantage of the denomination. What vigorous measures were necessary to clear the reputation of the Methodists from this unjust suspicion will be noted further on; but it was doubtless in part to silence those who made the charge that the separation from the American Church, already referred to, was effected in 1828.

The independent church was not permitted, however, to pursue its way in peace. In 1829 the Rev. David Ryan, formerly a presiding elder, organized a new denomination, vulgarly called the 'Ryanites.' The seceding body found affiliation finally (1841) with the Methodist New Connection Church of England. What proved a matter of far greater moment was the relation of the Canadian Church, now entering upon its independent career, to British Wesleyanism. The Wesleyan Church seemed to regard the agreement of 1820, whereby its jurisdiction was restricted to Lower Canada, as dissolved by the separation of 1828, and, in harmony with this opinion, the Missionary Society sent its representatives into Upper Canada as well, and increased their number elsewhere. Thoughtful men soon saw the possibility of serious collision between branches of the same church, and wise approaches, in which Egerton Ryerson took a prominent part, to the British conference, resulted in the finding of a satisfactory basis whereby the British and Canadian churches were united in 1833. The united church abandoned the episcopacy—a notable sacrifice of opinion and preference on the part of many for the sake of a greater good—and the Wesleyan form of administration was adopted. At the time of this union the Canadian Church had nearly 200 effective preachers and a membership of 25,000.

It may be remarked in passing that the union of 1833 was dissolved in 1840, re-established in 1846, and finally dissolved under exceedingly happy conditions in 1873.

Though the union of 1833 was satisfactory to the great majority of the Canadian Methodist Church, there were some to whom it was objectionable. The flame of dissent was fanned into a somewhat lively blaze at the conference of 1834 by amendments to previous legislation respecting local preachers. These changes intensified the dissatisfaction which had already risen in some quarters from the feeling that the union had been effected without due reference to the laity. The outcome was the formation, by the disaffected, of the Canadian Methodist Episcopal Church. Thus regrettable divisions were perpetuated for nearly half a century.

In 1854 the Canadian Annual Conference of the Primitive Methodist Church of England, which had had its representative in Canada since 1829, was convened. One year later the Bible Christians, whose first missionaries to the British dominions in America had arrived in 1831, were organized into a conference. The Methodist New Connection of England established its first Canadian mission in 1837, and several years later was formally incorporated under the title of the 'Canadian New Connection.'

All these branches of the one Methodist family continued for some time to give expression, in their denominational life, to the distinctive views and practices of which they felt themselves the peculiar guardians and exponents. All met with varying though generally gratifying degrees of success, and doubtless each contributed its quota to the well-being of the country. But at last the common sense of the church was seized with the conviction that the day of separation ought to end, and that division, whatever value it might have had in the past, was no longer necessary. Accordingly the leaders of Methodism began to come together in prayer and conference, with the result that the greatest epoch which has thus far marked the life of the Canadian Methodist Church occurred—the union of 1883.

It was in the early seventies of the last century that the desire for the union of the different denominations of Canadian Methodism took definite shape. Prior to this, as early indeed as 1866, the Wesleyan Church of Ontario and Quebec passed a strong resolution looking to the unification of Methodism; but it was not until 1871 that a committee, representative of the different branches of the church, met in Toronto to find, if possible, a basis on which they might come together. The movement gathered strength somewhat slowly, the first actual realization of the desired unification being the union of the Wesleyan bodies of the Maritime Provinces with those of Quebec and Ontario, together with the union of all these with the Methodist New Connection Church. This led to the final dissolution of the tender and strong—though from a practical point of view not very essential—ties binding the Wesleyanism of Britain to that of Canada. The British Wesleyan Church had long ceased to interfere very authoritatively with the affairs of her children in the New World. The Western Church stood toward mother-Methodism in the relation set forth, in another connection, in Kipling's lines:

These uniting churches adopted the broad name, prophetic of unions yet to be, of the Methodist Church of Canada, and embraced 1031 ministers and 101,946 members. Two universities, three theological schools and several secondary schools formed its educational equipment. Its church property was valuable, and the number of its non-communicant adherents, particularly in Ontario, very large. The manifest benefits of this union could not but impress the minds of the leaders of the other bodies of Methodists. Meanwhile, the Presbyterianism of Canada also became a united church, thus strengthening the sentiment of the country in favour of the nearer approach of Christian bodies of similar aims and methods of work. Accordingly, in 1883, after much inquiry, many conferences and long and sometimes heated discussion, the union of Canadian Methodism was effected under the one inclusive title of the Methodist Church. The bodies uniting were the church formed by the union of 1874, the Methodist Episcopal Church, the Primitive Methodist and the Bible Christian Churches. This union was determined on at the general conference of the contracting churches held in Belleville, Ontario, in the early autumn of 1883. The Rev. Dr John A. Williams was chosen president of this first united conference, and later, on the seventh day of its sessions, the Rev. Dr Samuel D. Rice and the Rev. Dr Albert Carman were elected general superintendents. Some idea of the strength of the denomination thus formed may be gathered from the fact that it was in the possession of seven colleges having 100 professors and over 5000 students. Its communicants numbered nearly 170,000 and its adherents perhaps five times as many. To this imposing total the Methodist Church of Canada contributed 128,337 members; the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada, 25,678; the Primitive Methodists, 8000; and the Bible Christians, about 7000. The government of the church was vested in a general conference, the highest legislative court of the denomination; annual conferences, charged with administrative functions of varied and important kinds; and district meetings, having the administrative powers virtually of smaller and more local conferences. The local congregation is governed by its quarterly board, and its property is held by its trustee boards for the Methodist Church at large.

There can be no doubt in the minds of any who are seized with the facts that the union of 1883 was a distinctly wise step not only in the interests of Methodism itself, but in the interests of the progress of religion in the Dominion; indeed, it is possible that the example of this union has borne fruit both in the closer approach of Methodist bodies in other parts of the world, and in preparing the way for a larger degree of organic union in Canada.

The real advancement of a society whose proper aims and work are so distinctly spiritual as those of the Christian Church can only approximately be inferred from statistics. So far, however, as these are a guide, they tell eloquently in favour of the union of 1883. Some hint at the church's progress may be gathered from the following figures, taken from the 1911 census, the latest available ecclesiastical census of the denomination. The church membership has risen from somewhat less than 170,000 in 1883 to over 345,000 in 1911; the Sunday school enrolment now exceeds 391,000; the young people's societies have a membership of over 82,000; the ministry of the church numbers fully 2600, exclusive of a missionary force of gratifying proportions; property worth nearly, if not quite, $29,000,000 is held by the denomination; and the aggregate annual contributions for connectional and local purposes may be put at about $6,000,000; while the adherents of the denomination, together with the regularly recognized membership, may be estimated at more than one million.

III
THE MISSIONS OF METHODISM

It must be obvious to the reader that the foregoing outline of Canadian Methodism has been in reality a record of missionary toil and progress. The Canadian Church was planted by missionaries of Great Britain and the United States. Its pioneer preachers were all missionaries in spirit and service. We must not think of them as surrounded by the prosperity and comfort amid which their successors now labour. The physical hardships under which the early itinerants pursued their daily round, laying the foundations of the godly structure of Methodism in Canada, have been graphically described by the pen of one of the church's most honoured sons, the late Rev. Dr W. H. Withrow:

If a church so founded had not been from the beginning a missionary church, ever reaching out with its activities to the places and people still without the evangel of Christ, it would have been unworthy of its parentage and have doomed itself to early death. Methodism was born of missionary zeal, and lives to give practical expression to the spirit which gave her being; loss of the evangelistic fervour, which finds manifestation not simply in the effort to rescue the individual but also in the purpose to redeem society, must mean decay and ultimately well-deserved extinction. Thus far the church has measurably escaped this reproach, and, though less enthusiastically than might be desired, has lived and laboured with the ideal of John Wesley in mind: 'I look upon the world as my parish.'

Organized missionary effort dates back to 1824. That date is synchronous with the first Canadian conference, when the desire for an independent church in Canada took shape in the form of a memorial resulting, in 1828, in a separation from the Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States. The fact that a church so scattered and with a small membership, composed chiefly of poor people with no social prestige, undertook the establishment of a society the aims of which were so unselfish, is convincing proof of the faith and piety of the men who laid the foundations of Canadian Methodism. The agents of the society probably did not number more than three; its income for the first year was less than $150; and its field of operations was limited to scattered bands of Indians in Upper Canada. But this little society was the germ from which sprang the present missionary organization, with its many labourers, generous income, and wide area of service.

There are few more interesting or vital chapters in ecclesiastical history than the story of Canadian missions. Whether we think of the unsurpassed courage and self-sacrifice of the Jesuit Fathers, with their apostolic contempt for ease and even life itself, if they might but save the souls of the people who so often proved unresponsive to their appeals to abandon their idols and turn to the living God; or of the patience and heroism of the cultured representatives of Anglicanism, who cheerfully turned their backs upon the civilization of the land of their fathers to proclaim the evangel of Jesus Christ to the settlers and aborigines of the new land; or of the pioneer Methodists, whose untiring and holy zeal made possible the repetition, on no unworthy scale, of the missionary successes of the early Christian Church—we must confess that history has no more thrilling or elevating story to tell of obedience to the spirit of the Cross of Christ. The splendid example which they gave of consecration to heroic and heaven-inspired ideals is largely lost to us, except as it can be inferred from the fruit of the seed which they planted in faith and with many tears.

In dealing with the missions of Methodism in Canada the most satisfactory method will be to study them from the point of view of the present, and try, so far as we may, to rescue from the imperfect records of the past some traces of the sacred romance which has marked the rise and progress of the missionary enterprises of the church.

The missions of the Methodist Church are under the general control of one board and are maintained by one fund; but the management of these missions has, for purposes of convenience and efficiency, been departmentalized. These departments are: Home Missions, Foreign Missions, and the Young People's Forward Movement. Apart from the operations of the General Board, the Woman's Missionary Society carries on a work of large and growing proportions and encouraging results. Of each of these departments, or methods, of missionary endeavour separate mention must be made.

The Home Missionary Department

The first missionary effort of the young church was directed to the Indians, who, though now under the oversight of the foreign department, are on home territory and may be dealt with under home missions.

In 1828, as already stated, when a friendly official separation was effected between the Methodism of the United States and that of Canada, William Case was appointed general superintendent of the church in this country. His name merits prominent recognition, because he soon came to be known, and is still remembered, as the 'Father of Canadian Missions.' Born in the town of Swansea, New England, on August 27, 1780, he served the church in Canada almost continuously from the beginning of his ministry. It was he who originated the plan of the evangelization of the Indians of Upper Canada, and it was to this work that he gave himself, with passionate earnestness, for the greater part of his public life. Had a Canadian been elected bishop in 1828, Case would have been chosen for that office; as a matter of fact, he practically held that relation to the church for five years—up to the time when union with British Methodism occurred and the episcopal form of government came to an end. Subsequent to 1833 he made the missionary work of the church the chief business of his life. He lived to see the consolidation, in 1854, of Wesleyanism in the two Canadas and Hudson Bay territory under the care of one conference, and a year later he entered into rest. He is described by one who knew him as 'a man of commanding personal appearance, dignified, intelligent in conversation, fair preaching ability, calm, self-possessed, urbane, amiable, very generally respected and beloved, and possessed of good administrative talents.'

It is noteworthy that the needs of the North American Indians have appealed very strongly to the sympathies of the most gifted and consecrated workers of the church. The honour-roll of those who have counted it a privilege to care for the neglected aborigines contains names revered beyond the bounds of their own denomination. It is enough to mention in this connection Egerton Ryerson, William Case, Peter Jones, James Evans, the M^cDougalls (father and son), Henry Steinhauer (himself a product of missionary activity), Samuel Rose and Thomas Crosby. These, with others no less worthy, gave their early youth, and in some instances their lives, that they might win the red man to the Cross. And though the discouragements and disappointments have been many and the personal sacrifices costly, the labour expended and money given have proved a good investment.

As an evidence of the public utility of Christian missions it may be pointed out that the government of the native tribes of Canada has been rendered comparatively easy by reason of the loyalty to the crown which the Methodist missionary has taught the Indian to recognize as part of his obligation to the Christian faith. Ignorance, immorality and disease have been checked, and the lives of thousands of the original occupants of the plains and forests—a despised and much misunderstood people—have been brightened and beautified by the self-denying toil of the men and women who have followed them into the haunts whither advancing civilization has banished them.

The Indian population of the Dominion was in 1911 over 111,000. Of these about 25,000 were in British Columbia, 24,000 in Ontario, 22,000 in the newer provinces of the North-West, and the rest were scattered throughout the other provinces of Canada. The popular impression that the Indians are rapidly disappearing does not seem to be borne out by facts. There are some 10,000 pagans, more than 40,000 Roman Catholics, while the Methodist Church has about 17,000 under its care. The aim has been to reach this scattered and difficult constituency, first of all, by direct evangelistic effort. Those who serve as evangelists on Indian missions merit the sympathy and admiration of all who hold praiseworthy patient, heroic toil—prosecuted amid many discouragements, under conditions of social and family isolation, and wholly without the small satisfaction which a generous financial reward might bring. Besides the directly evangelistic work, much is accomplished through industrial, boarding and day schools, which are partly supported by governmental grants. There are three hundred institutions of this kind in the Dominion, and of these between forty and fifty are under the direction of Methodism. Nearly one-fifth of the income of the Missionary Board is expended in the Indian work.

Domestic Missions

Very little romance gathers to-day around what are technically known as 'domestic missions.' They are really appointments and 'circuits' ('circuits' are constituted by the grouping of two or more congregations under the pastoral charge of one minister, who may or may not have an assistant) so situated, geographically or numerically or both, as to be incapable of self-support. In newer parts of the country, chiefly settled by immigrants, or in older sections, as in Quebec, where the Methodist population is necessarily small, such missions are common. They are not regarded as a permanency: as soon as possible they are put upon a self-supporting basis. That they are essential to the growth of the church and the religious welfare of the people admits of no question. They are the germ out of which the self-supporting appointment takes its rise. They are often the feeders of city congregations. The pulpits of Canadian Methodism are more often reinforced from the domestic mission than from the city church. The contributions of the members of the domestic missions to the funds of the connection are characterized by liberality. As a spiritual force they are of great value to a young country like Canada. If those who labour on them as pastors miss the glamour and enthusiasm attaching to toil upon foreign fields, they find abundant scope for patient and sometimes even heroic endeavour, and the response which they give to the call of duty is almost invariably such as to merit the approbation of the church. Few greater errors could be cherished than the idea that the story of these domestic missions is uninviting. As a matter of fact, it contains chapters of thrilling adventure and is the record of much splendid self-sacrifice. When we remember that under this division must be placed the founding of Methodism in British Columbia and in the territories of the North-West; when we recall the names of the ecclesiastical pathfinders, who, 'unmoved by any thought of gain or temporal reward,' endured all kinds of hardship for the sake of the cause they loved so well; when we reflect upon the almost magical rise and development of the church in localities where, until the missionaries came, civilization was almost unknown—we shall surely conclude that no truer missionary work has ever been accomplished than that form of it now under review. Nor are the days of heroism at an end. In our own time, particularly in Northern and Western Canada, many are proving themselves worthy successors of such brave men as Dr George Young, the pioneer missionary of Manitoba, and Dr Robson, of British Columbia. No less faithful are the patient missionaries who, in parts of Canada whence the tide of immigration has receded, are quietly, but with heroism, doing what they can to conserve the interests of the church.

That the 'domestic mission' of to-day may be and sometimes is the scene of as real heroism as ever characterized the days of the fathers is graphically illustrated in the following excerpts from an unpublished letter, a letter not written with any thought that it would be read by any one except the members of the family to which it was addressed. The writer is a young man, the son of a Methodist minister in a Canadian city. In order that he might get the means to take him to his distant field in Alberta, this brave lad—he was a mere boy—carried the hod for one whole summer, earning thereby $100. The letters are permitted to tell their own story.

This young hero was not always superior to the depressing effects of solitude and toil under exceptionally trying conditions, and no wonder, for his labours were of no trifling sort; but his faith and courage speedily won a victory over any passing mood of doubt.

The strength and value of domestic missions may be inferred from the fact that in 1911 there were 680 mission fields with a staff of over 670 missionaries. These are scattered throughout every part of the Dominion, the largest number being in the Provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta. During the year 1910-11, $240,056 were appropriated towards the salaries of domestic missionaries; $5500 to provide parsonages; and special loans and grants were made, amounting to $8700. It will thus be seen that through this form of missionary endeavour the church reaches a very large constituency, many of whom otherwise would be without the privileges of church life. Under this department immigration chaplains have been stationed at Halifax, St John, Quebec, Montreal, Toronto and Winnipeg, to meet Methodist immigrants and put them in touch with pastors where they mean to reside. Nearly 11,000 were thus met during the year ending August 31, 1911.

Work among the French in Quebec

This is perhaps the least encouraging of all the fields of activity in which the missionary zeal of Canadian Methodism finds expression. It is undoubtedly the feature of the church's enterprise which awakens least enthusiasm. The situation may be most clearly stated in the words of the late Dr Alexander Sutherland:

City Missions, and Missions to the Foreign Born

The rapid increase of the foreign population of Canada during the past two decades has brought the church, as well as the state, face to face with vital and pressing problems. Through the wise discernment of a prominent layman, the late John Dillon of Montreal, Methodism was awakened to, and in some measure seized upon, its opportunity when the tide of foreign immigration was low. As early as 1885 a mission to the Chinese in British Columbia was established and was followed speedily by a mission to the Japanese in the same province. Later, missions of a similar character were founded in all the large centres, such as Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Winnipeg, Toronto, Montreal and elsewhere. Increased emphasis has been placed, and rightly so, upon this feature of the church's missionary obligation. The need became more apparent in the light of the growth of city population at the expense, too often, of the rural districts. The trend in this direction maybe judged from the fact that whereas in the United States, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, only four per cent of the population dwelt in cities of 8000 and over, in Canada, at the beginning of the present century, with a population almost identically the same as that of the republic one hundred years ago, forty per cent of the people resided in towns of 8000 and over. This is not the place to discuss the perils of city life arising from overcrowding and the hundred and one disadvantages attaching to the unwholesome increase of urban centres, further than to say that the influx of a foreign-born population, with heredity, habits and ideals so different from those of the Canadian-born, is a clarion-call to the Church of Christ to evangelize the city, and particularly to care for the temporal, moral and spiritual welfare of the not too promising raw material which immigration brings. This foreign-born population must be transformed, or it will wreck many of the hopes that patriotic Canadians legitimately cherish regarding the future of the Dominion; and the power whereby this transformation will be effected is the power of applied Christianity.

Canadian Methodism is seized of this conviction. Interesting examples are found in Winnipeg, where the All-Peoples' Mission is doing a work of very great value; in Toronto, where the Fred Victor Mission (now uniting its forces with those of the Social Union) is reaching out its hand in helpful service, not only to the unchurched and the 'down-and-out,' but likewise to the Italian population; in Montreal, where the problem is acute and pressing; and in a few more of the larger towns. And yet only a beginning has been made.

Of near kin to the city mission, though ministering to a somewhat different need, are societies whose object is the extension of church accommodation, particularly in those sections of a rapidly growing community where as yet the immediate residents are unable to erect places of worship, but where there is good reason to look for a permanent growth in the near future. This work may at the first partake somewhat of the nature of 'missions'; but the idea is not to establish congregations that shall long remain a burden on the liberality of their richer neighbours. What is chiefly designed is to give the stimulus of financial help and counsel during the period of infancy; in a word, to do for the new congregation in the city what the Home Missionary Society seeks to do for the new settlement in the growing West. Easily the most outstanding example of this sort of work is the 'Methodist Social Union' of Toronto. The name, recently abandoned, of this society very insufficiently defined its purpose and service. While the wise thought of promoting a spirit of fellowship among the different congregations of the city is present, the much more serious business ever kept in mind is the extension of Methodism in Toronto. This organization has jurisdiction over the erection of new places of worship. It carefully reviews the entire situation, gives advice to trustee boards, lends money and makes grants to new and approved undertakings, seeks to prevent overlapping and unhappy rivalries between congregations, and in various ways tries to advance the interests of the denomination throughout the city. The importance of the work which the union desires to do has been greatly intensified of late by what is known as the 'down-town problem.' Congregations which a few years ago were strong family churches have, in consequence of removal to the fast-growing suburbs, been bereft of their old and substantial supporters. At the same time the need of active Christian ministry in the localities where these depleted churches are has become greater rather than less. Obviously the situation demands wise treatment. It is often too serious and hard a problem for the local congregation to handle successfully, and therefore it is handed over to the union. Thus, though not technically a missionary organization, the union does its share in solving the problem of the evangelizing of the city, and is entitled to mention among the missionary forces of the church, and should prove even more useful in union with the Fred Victor Mission.

Foreign Missions

The year 1873 is to be remembered in the annals of Canadian Methodism as the date of the establishment of its first foreign mission. During the last few years, particularly since the birth of the Laymen's Missionary Movement, and more recently by reason of the impulse and inspiration of the World's Missionary Conference in Edinburgh in 1910, foreign missions have become so popular that it is hard to appreciate the doubts, forebodings, even hostile criticisms which greeted the dawn of the foreign missionary activity of the Methodism of Canada.

It was a picturesque and notable event—the public launching of the first foreign mission of the Methodist Church in Canada. It took place on an evening in January in the Metropolitan Church in Toronto. The new missionary departure was advocated, and the appeal for funds made, by William Morley Punshon. It is difficult, at this distance of time, to give a new generation any adequate idea of Dr Punshon's marvellous power over an audience. His published sermons and lectures do him no manner of justice. He was an orator, and true oratory defies capture by the printer's art. More than ordinary interest attached to his address on this occasion, because Dr Punshon was soon to return to England, and this, therefore, would be one of his last appearances before a Toronto audience. It was obvious that he was himself deeply conscious of the gravity of his task. He had won his case with the Mission Board; the great object was to win the intelligent consent of the people to the principle of a mission to a Christless nation. The test of their consent or approbation was to be their response to the appeal for financial support. All Dr Punshon or the friends of the mission dared to ask for was $1000. Even this seemed a large demand, but there are certain facts to be taken into account which will check any disposition to despise the day of small things. In addition to the doubt in many minds as to the wisdom of venturing upon a foreign mission at all, it must be remembered that it was not the united Methodism of to-day which proposed to project its energies so far afield as Japan. The Canadian Wesleyan Church faced this great undertaking alone.

The next step was to find the missionaries. Here the church was very happily guided. Dr Cochran and the Rev. Davidson M^cDonald, M.D., were chosen as the first representatives of Canadian Methodism in Japan. A better choice could not have been made. Dr Cochran, by his own persistent effort, had attained to no mean rank as a scholar. He was an excellent expositor, a man of deep, unostentatious piety, sound judgment and broad sympathies. He won a gratifying success on the mission field. Men of light and leading were attracted to him, and it is quite impossible to estimate the widespread and abiding value of his services, not to his church alone, but to Japan, to whose development, directly and indirectly, missionaries of the Cross have made a priceless contribution. Of Dr M^cDonald we cannot write too cordially. He was Dr Cochran's junior by some years. Without intention, perhaps, he had prepared himself, in a peculiarly helpful way, for the mission field by graduating in medicine at Toronto University some years after his ordination and while he was doing pastoral work near the city. By his medical skill he was able to reach and proclaim the evangel of Jesus Christ to many whom otherwise he could never have helped. The labours and successes of these two men were truly apostolic.

Photogravure. Annan. Glasgow.

WILLIAM MORLEY PUNSHON
From a wood engraving

It was not long before the fears of some excellent Methodists regarding a foreign mission gave place to thankfulness and their criticism to applause. By 1889 the work in Japan reached such proportions as to demand the establishment of an annual conference there. Since then a union with other branches of the Christian Church has been effected, whereby Japan has practically become independent of the home churches, so far as administration is concerned, though still receiving from them substantial help in the way of men and money. Canadian Methodism is represented by missionaries, engaged in evangelistic and educational work, in co-operation with the Church of Japan. Liberal grants are given for the maintenance of the missionaries and other activities of the church in its first foreign field.

The success of the first foreign mission was so gratifying, and resulted in such marked advantage to the church at home, that in 1890 steps were taken to carry the evangel elsewhere. Accordingly, in 1892, the West China Mission was established. The man to whom this new movement was entrusted was the Rev. V. C. Hart, D.D., who brought to his task the immense advantage of twenty years' experience in missionary work in West China, under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The Rev. George E. Hartwell, B.A., B.D., and Drs O. L. Kilborn and D. W. Stevenson—medical missionaries—were Dr Hart's associates. Synchronously with this action of the General Board of Missions, the Woman's Missionary Society appointed as its representatives Dr Retta Gifford and Miss Brackbill. The romance of missions has few more interesting chapters than the story of the Canadian Methodist missions in West China. Their lives frequently in danger, compelled more than once temporarily to abandon their stations, the noble heralds of the Cross in this attractive though difficult field have been gladdened by apostolic successes. Revivals of religion, challenging comparison with the outpouring of the Divine Spirit in the days immediately following Pentecost, have alternated with seasons of persecution. Christianity has not lacked for martyrs amongst the native converts, whose devotion to the Christ, whose leadership they had accepted, parallels that of any period of the history of the church.^[1] By agreement with other churches the evangelization of a district of West China, having Chentu as its capital and containing a population of ten millions, has been entrusted to the Methodist Church of Canada—an immense responsibility, surely. The strategic value of the field is obvious. It is situated very nearly in the heart of Asia, and must, in the nature of things, affect for good or evil, not China alone, but the continent as well. It is pleasant to learn, from those who are well qualified to pronounce a judgment, that this mission is one of the most thoroughly organized in the world. It has four branches or departments: evangelistic, educational, medical and publishing. The Canadian Methodist Church co-operates with three other denominations in the support of the West China Union University, situated just outside the city of Chentu, a seat of learning which must prove of immense help in the uplifting and upbuilding of the people who come under its influence.

We cannot close our sketch of the foreign work of the church without a reference, however brief and inadequate, to the memory and labours of the Rev. Alexander Sutherland, who became one of the secretaries of the society in the year following the founding, by the Wesleyan Church in Canada, of a mission to Japan. It must have been at the sacrifice of some natural ambition and personal preference that Dr Sutherland turned his back upon the congenial work of the pastorate. It involved, to begin with, a very considerable reduction in stipend, for Dr Sutherland was the minister of St James's Church, Montreal, and was in line for the chief appointments of the pastorate. But that was not a consideration to weigh heavily with him. There were other considerations, however, which he must have seriously pondered. For him to become a busy departmental officer was to abandon a pulpit career of unusual promise. But Dr Sutherland's contribution to the church in the consolidation of its missionary policy was priceless and was worth the loss which it may have occasioned in other directions. Nor should the service he was able to give to the church by virtue of his position as a connectional officer set free from the ties of the pastorate be overlooked. He was, if not the chief leader, at least an important leader in the movement which united the Methodism of Canada in 1883 into one denomination. The bearing of this upon the missionary enterprises of the church may be easily inferred. For thirty-five years Dr Sutherland served as a missionary secretary. They were years of stress and strain—his policy and methods of administration were often under fire, and smaller men may have thought they could do the work as well as or better than he—but they were years of real progress; and that they led the church so far in advance of the position to which it had hitherto attained is largely because the masterful, statesmanlike brain of Alexander Sutherland was in control of its missionary affairs.

The Young People's Forward Movement

Any sketch of the missionary work of Canadian Methodism which omitted appreciative mention of the forward movement of the young people would be seriously defective. This movement is largely the resultant of two other movements, which were the expression of the practical consecration and energy of the young life of the church. In 1889 the desire of young Methodism for fellowship and organized, united service found manifestation in the Epworth League and kindred societies. At first these societies, pulsating with abundant life, gave promise of almost exhaustless possibilities; but their appeal was not sufficiently heroic and difficult finally to capture and hold the best and most virile of the youth of Methodism. While the leagues, with their fine organization, were suffering for want of a task hard and enticing enough to preserve their vitality, the Student Missionary Volunteer Movement, begun in 1886, had been capturing the hearts of students in the colleges of North America and leading them in large numbers to offer themselves for the foreign field. These volunteers soon exceeded the financial resources of mission boards to employ them. The Board of Missions of the Canadian Methodist Church, like other boards, was brought face to face with a grave crisis. Yonder in the foreign field was a vast, unoccupied territory, demanding the services of the Christian sower and reaper; here, in goodly numbers, were the husbandmen for whom the church had been praying. But the money wherewith to send the toilers to the field was not available; indeed, the missionary society was embarrassed by reason of a falling income. What was to be done? The employment of the energy and resources of the young people's societies solved the problem. In 1896 the first missionary went to West China, as the representative of the young people of Methodism. Since then the movement has reached out in various directions. Its educational work, whereby missionary zeal is intelligently informed and directed, has been and is of great value. Study classes, summer schools, lectures and other agencies are used for this purpose. Not only through the leagues, but also through the Sunday schools, the aggressive work of the movement is carried on. A goodly number of missionaries are supported by the Young People's Forward Movement, and are located in various fields, particularly in West China and Japan.

The Laymen's Missionary Movement

Though in no sense peculiar to Methodism, the Laymen's Missionary Movement has been so cordially welcomed by Methodist laymen that a passing reference to it is in place. It is 'not a new organization to collect money or to send missionaries to the foreign field. It is an educative and inspirational movement among the men of the churches and operates through existing denominational agencies. It does not collect money, appoint missionaries, or in any way interfere with the business of missionary boards. Its aim is to enlist the men of the churches in a supreme effort to evangelize the world in this generation.' The Board of the Methodist Church has been so impressed with its value that it has set apart a representative and secretary of the movement in Canadian Methodism.

The Woman's Missionary Society

One of the most encouraging developments of missionary activity of the past half-century has been the founding of the Woman's Missionary Societies of the different Christian bodies.

The occasion of the formation of the Woman's Missionary Society of Canadian Methodism was the urgent request for women workers in Japan and among the Indian girls of the Dominion. To these calls the Mission Board was unable to respond. Dr Sutherland accordingly obtained permission from the board in 1878 to organize a Woman's Missionary Society as soon as feasible. On June 27, 1880, in the Centenary Church, Hamilton, Ontario, it was resolved to form such a society. Its first objects were work among the French in Montreal, at the Girls' Home at Port Simpson, B.C., and at the M^cDougall Orphanage. It also determined, as soon as possible, to send a woman missionary to Japan. It was upon Miss Martha J. Cartmell of Hamilton that the honour and responsibility fell of being the first woman foreign missionary of the Methodist Church of Canada. Miss Cartmell went to Japan in 1882. It was an epochal moment, not for herself alone, but for the church and for the regions beyond, when this excellent Christian woman went forth as a herald of the Cross.

In 1912 the Woman's Missionary Society had a membership (including auxiliaries, circles and bands) of nearly 60,000 and an income of about $170,000. Its missionaries and associate missionaries (teachers, evangelists and nurses) on the home field numbered 63, and were distributed thus: Indian work, 23; French, 12; Italian, 4; foreigners in the North-West, 11; Chinese and Japanese in British Columbia, 7; on furlough, 6. In the Japan work there were 37, of whom five were on furlough. In China the missionaries numbered 32.

IV
INSTITUTIONS OF CANADIAN METHODISM

The institutions of Canadian Methodism may be roughly classified as literary, educational and spiritual. For convenience sake we will follow this order of treatment, though it must be confessed that it will occasionally prove somewhat arbitrary, as the work of the church, which may be described as institutional, is, in its various departments, many-sided, and not strictly confined to one class of operations.

Literary

It has been written of John Wesley by one of his worthiest successors—William Morley Punshon: 'You talk of a cheap press and its blessings. John Wesley was the first man to write for the million, and that not for gain but for the people's benefit. His were the first dictionaries, histories, compendiums, and they were issued not in learned leisure, but in intervals of the busiest life of the age.' This is true testimony, and it must be added that he required his preachers, 'not for gain but for the people's benefit,' to supply the homes of their congregations with suitable literature. To this tradition the pioneer preacher of Canada was loyal, and as a result he was diligent in ascertaining what the people read, and in putting at their disposal literature of a helpful kind. As early as 1829, but one year after the severing of the Canadian from the American Church, the Christian Guardian was founded. However, the launching of this notable enterprise was not primarily to meet the needs of the Methodist people for good literature, but was due to civil and religious conditions now happily at an end, never to return, but which, for the proper understanding of Canadian history in general and Methodist history in particular, must be frankly recorded.

The story of the genesis and growth of the government of Canada is told in other articles in this work. It will be enough to say here that the effort to give the Church of England the status of the Established Church of Canada met with strenuous opposition. The good faith and absolute sincerity of those who believed that in seeking this pre-eminence for the Anglican Church they were promoting the best interests of the new land may be cheerfully conceded; but, unfortunately for the cause they desired to advance and for the growth of goodwill among the people, the attempt to secure this favour for one church was accompanied by attacks upon other churches. Methodism was made the object of vigorous criticism. Its ministers were represented as 'American in their origin and feelings, ignorant, forsaking their proper employments to preach what they did not understand, and what, from their pride, they disdained to learn; and who were spreading disaffection to the civil and religious institutions of Great Britain.' Charges so grave, made as they seemed to be in all honesty, emanating as they did from a man who was an eminent leader in the ecclesiastical world and influential in the world of politics as well, could not be received in silence. A young man, scarcely more than a stripling, but with a man's capacity for difficult and delicate tasks, was chosen to reply to these attacks upon the loyalty and ability of the preachers of Methodism. This young man was Egerton Ryerson. His reply precipitated an inevitable conflict. The claim of the Church of England to be an established church in every part of the British Empire, and therefore in this new land, and to have exclusive control of the clergy reserves, was finally disallowed by action, in the first place, of the parliament of Canada, and ultimately of the proper authorities of Great Britain itself. The battle which Egerton Ryerson led was really one for the life of Nonconformity in British North America; and that all churches are now equal in the eyes of the law in Canada is due very largely to the attitude of early Methodism, and in a pre-eminent degree to the efforts of the man who led and inspired his denomination to continue a struggle which to most of them was distasteful, interfering with what they regarded as their supreme task, the conversion of men.

It was out of the conditions thus indicated, and to meet other needs of the times, that the Christian Guardian was established. The motives inspiring its publication found expression in the declaration of principles accompanying its initial, number: 'Defence of Methodist institutions and character, civil rights, temperance principles, educational progress, and missionary operations.' The history of the Christian Guardian forms an important chapter in the story of Canadian journalism. The other publications of the church must be dismissed with the briefest mention. Under the skilful editorial direction of the Rev. W. H. Withrow, D.D., the Methodist Magazine for many years rendered fine service in developing the taste and stimulating the literary activities of the church. Unhappily, for financial reasons, its publication has been abandoned, and it has left no successor. Dr Withrow also did excellent work in building up a creditable type of periodical for young people.

Dr Withrow was a man of fine gifts, which were cultivated to their utmost by tireless industry. An omnivorous reader, an extensive traveller, possessed of the nice discrimination necessary to the true student of books, he laboured unselfishly and continuously to encourage and produce a wholesome Canadian literature, adapted particularly to the needs of a young country and of young people. The verdict of his church in regard to his services in this direction was expressed in the following words, which occur in the official resolution adopted at the General Conference immediately after his death: 'There can be no doubt that the present generation of Methodists of senior youth, and of mature middle life, within the bounds of the General Conference territory, has been touched and influenced to a greater degree by him than perhaps by any other personality.' He was a singularly winsome man; strong and even pronounced in his convictions, yet uniformly considerate in their expression, and always prompt to make amends for any unintentional misrepresentation of an opponent's views. The young literary aspirant found in him a friend and wise adviser. While he has not left behind him any supremely great work by reason of which his fame as an author and journalist will be preserved, the influence of his life-work cannot perish, inasmuch as it has become part of the national inheritance. He strove for the development of the life of the land he loved with the passionate devotion of the true patriot, and so it may come to pass that thousands who never heard his name will live better lives because William H. Withrow toiled and served and prayed.

What Dr Withrow began and carried forward for a long period of time has expanded to still larger proportions. The Epworth League work has its organ in the Epworth Era. The Wesleyan, of Halifax, on a necessarily smaller scale because of its more limited constituency, has done for eastern British America what the Guardian has accomplished in the Provinces of Ontario and Quebec. It can point back with pride to a history of nearly three-quarters of a century.

Almost at the beginning of Methodism John Wesley perceived that the effective circulation of Methodist literature necessitated the establishment of a distributing centre, where the books and magazines intended for the members of his societies might be obtained. To provide for this need a Book Room was founded. Methodism in the United States in due time followed this precedent; and Canadian Methodism, true to the example of mother and sister, opened up a small depot of books in Toronto in 1829, coincidently with the publication of the Christian Guardian. At first, probably from motives of economy, the editor was also book-steward—an unwise arrangement which was abandoned with the growth of the church. The occupants of the office of book-steward from the beginning have been Egerton Ryerson, James Richardson, Matthew Lang, Alexander M^cNab, G. R. Sanderson, Anson Green and Samuel Rose. The incumbent at the time of writing is the Rev. William Briggs, D.D., under whose outstanding business ability the book and publishing house of Canadian Methodism has become one of the powerful institutions of the church. In the evolution of events the first purpose of its foundation has been transcended. It is no longer a mere depot or distributing centre for the circulation of Methodist literature; it has grown to enormous proportions, publishing many books which no effort of the imagination can characterize as purely denominational in spirit and purpose. It ministers to the need of the book-lover, however catholic his taste may be. It serves many interests which are far wider than those of the denomination. It is the property of the entire church, and its yearly contribution to the superannuation fund (a fund intended to provide annuities for retired ministers and also for the widows and families of deceased ministers) is large, and advancing with the prosperity of the Book Room. During the quadrennium ending March 31, 1910, the Toronto Book Room reported transactions amounting to $2,353,265, and net profits of nearly $132,000; and at that date there was a net surplus over all liabilities of considerably more than half a million dollars. It conducts also a prosperous branch business in Montreal. The Halifax Book Room is naturally a smaller enterprise. One of the pleasing by-products of the publishing work of the church has been the opportunity and encouragement offered to Canadian authorship.

Educational

Methodism has never wholly forgotten that the movement which gave her birth had its genesis in a university. It is not surprising, therefore, that the fathers of Canadian Methodism should perceive the value of uniting a piety which was in many cases of a pronouncedly emotional type with a properly developed intellectual life. They keenly realized the peril of an emotional experience ungoverned by the discipline of reason. Steps were therefore taken, immediately after the independent organization of Canadian Methodism, to provide for the higher education of the young people of the denomination. This action was rendered necessary, apart from other considerations, by the fact that the only existing academic charters were controlled by a religious body unfriendly to Methodism. Few more heroic battles for higher education were ever fought than the one out of which Victoria University emerged. A denomination with almost no men and women of wealth in its ranks, and in a new country where the struggle for existence was severe, had a seemingly superhuman task to raise $50,000 to build and equip a seminary. It is estimated that to parallel that undertaking to-day the present generation of Methodists in Canada would have to undertake to raise at least $2,000,000, and even then their task would hardly bear comparison with that which their fathers successfully carried to completion. But as the men who launched the educational policy of Methodism in 1829 saw the situation, the call to action was imperative and failure was not to be thought of as even remotely possible.

Seven years after the first steps were taken to found an institution for higher education under the control of the Methodist denomination, despite opposition and many other discouragements from political and social leaders in Upper Canada, an academy was opened with the Rev. Matthew Richey as principal. This was in 1836. Five years later the Upper Canada Academy, the first Nonconformist institution in the British colonies to receive a royal charter and a royal grant, was endowed, under an extended charter, with university powers, to be known thereafter as Victoria College. It thus antedated Queen's and King's Colleges, and led the way in university work in what was then Western Canada. Egerton Ryerson, whose statesmanship and persistent endeavour had done so much to make the undertaking possible, was the first principal. Upon his appointment as chief superintendent of education for the province, the Rev. Dr Alexander M^cNab became principal. In 1849 Dr M^cNab resigned, and was succeeded by the Rev. Samuel S. Nelles, M.A., one of the first undergraduates of Victoria. Under Dr Nelles's brilliant administration Victoria attained enviable distinction as a seat of learning, and sent from its halls graduates who have risen to eminence in various callings in life. Subsequently, faculties in medicine, science and theology were added. In 1892 Victoria became one of the federated colleges of the University of Toronto and moved from Cobourg to Toronto. Upon the death of Dr Nelles in October 1887 the Rev. Dr N. Burwash became the principal. Since federation the college has suspended, although not finally abandoned, its university privileges. It still pursues its arts work in co-operation with the University of Toronto, and gives particular attention to the training of candidates for the ministry. It has steadily advanced in the favour and confidence of the church and the country and in the excellence of its work. Judged by its aims, its facilities and the character of its achievements, the claim of Victoria College to be recognized as one of the important centres in the higher education of the province is beyond question. After having served the college for more than fifty years Dr Burwash retired from the office of chancellor and president early in 1913. To no living man is Victoria more indebted. It is almost impossible to overstate the extent of his influence upon its policy and efficiency during the past half-century. His sober and wise scholarship, his eminent piety, his devotion to the best interests of the university have created for him an enduring monument in the hearts of thousands of students, and have made him a very large creditor of Canadian Methodism. His successor is the Rev. Dr Bowles, a graduate and former professor of the college.

The University of Mount Allison College, Sackville, N.B., dates from 1862. It is really a group of educational institutions controlled by one corporation. There is first of all the university itself, with its faculties in arts, theology and applied science. The university is affiliated with Oxford and M^cGill, and with the Law School of Dalhousie University, N.S. Then there is Mount Allison Ladies' College, established in 1854. The Mount Allison Wesleyan Academy, founded in 1843, is the third member of this interesting group. The history of the university reflects great credit upon the courage and foresight of the men and women who have worked so diligently to maintain its efficiency.

Photogravure. Annan. Glasgow.

GEORGE DOUGLAS
Reproduced by permission from Hurst's 'History of Methodism'

The Wesleyan Theological College, in affiliation with M^cGill University, is, as its name intimates, a divinity school. It was founded in 1872 and began its work in 1873 with a staff of two members, the Rev. George Douglas, D.D., LL.D., principal, and the Rev. William I. Shaw, M.A., LL.B., registrar. From these modest beginnings the college has grown in effectiveness and numbers. Its graduates have given a good account of themselves, reflecting credit upon their instructors. Dr Douglas remained principal until his death in 1894, when Dr Shaw became his successor, and—with the exception of a few years, when the Rev. Dr Maggs, an eminent minister of the British Wesleyan Church, was head of the college—continued in the office until his death in 1910. The Rev. Dr Smythe, a fine scholar, is the present principal. The Wesleyan is now sharing with the other Protestant theological colleges in Montreal in an interesting experiment which promises much for the future unity of the churches in Canada. The four colleges (Church of England, Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational) are practically affiliated so far as their teaching staffs are concerned. As a consequence, students no longer attend lectures exclusively in their own college, but enjoy the benefit of the lectures which are given in all the colleges, so far as these treat topics common to the training of the ministers of the different denominations. This new departure will be watched with sympathetic interest and with hopeful anticipation of fine results.

Wesley College, Winnipeg, incorporated in 1877 and affiliated with the University of Manitoba in 1888—from which later date its actual work of teaching must be reckoned—occupies a position of strength and efficiency. The death in June 1912 of the distinguished principal, the Rev. Dr J. W. Sparling, has left a vacancy which cannot be readily filled. Dr Sparling's contribution to the higher education and general welfare of Manitoba was very great. Alberta College, Edmonton (the Rev. J. H. Riddell, M.A., principal), in affiliation with Alberta University, is at once a theological college and a progressive school, carrying its pupils forward to higher university work. Other colleges, one at Calgary (the Rev. George W. Kerby, B.A., principal), and another at Regina, intended to do theological work and to furnish preparatory and business training, are in their infancy, but are rich in promise. In British Columbia, at New Westminster, the Columbian College (the Rev. J. W. Sipprell, B.A., principal) is doing for the Far West what the other colleges are accomplishing in their various localities.

Albert College, Belleville, which before the union of the Methodist bodies in 1883 was a university, is now incorporated with Victoria College and does superior preparatory work. Stanstead Wesleyan College is rendering good service, of a preparatory and practical character, to the Eastern Townships of Quebec. Alma Ladies' College, St Thomas, and Ontario Ladies' College, Whitby, are Methodist, but in no sense sectarian, schools.

All these institutions, with the exception of one or two minor colleges, which are proprietary schools, are under the direction of the Educational Society of the Church. This society is governed by a board known as the Board of Education, appointed by the General Conference. Its first permanent secretary was the Rev. John Potts, D.D., LL.D., whose contribution to the consolidation of the work of education in Canadian Methodism, to say nothing of his distinguished career, forbids dismissal with a mere passing reference. When Dr Potts yielded to the strongly expressed wish that he should become secretary to the newly formed society, charged with the oversight of the educational institutions of the church, he was very reluctant to turn his back upon the pastorate wherein he had achieved such remarkable distinction. Above all else he was a preacher and pastor. He was extremely happy in that work, and accepted the new and untried responsibility, from which he did not dare to turn away, with great regret. Very often, in conversation with intimate friends, he expressed a longing for the former life. For, excellent and abiding as were his services as educational secretary, his final reputation will be that of the preacher. To that he was born. His winsomeness did not lie in scholarly exposition nor in flights of fancy. He never cultivated the graces of the rhetorician, and he despised whatever savoured of sensationalism. He was a natural homilist, and had a close acquaintance with the Book he sought to interpret and with the theology of evangelical Christianity. His pulpit manner was singularly excellent, and his voice was of a rarely fine quality. He preached, moreover, out of a wealth of personal experience of the truth he proclaimed, and to this experimental knowledge of the doctrines he taught with conviction he added insight into the needs and life of his hearers. He won for himself the distinction which belonged to his Master: 'The common people heard him gladly.' But men of scholarship listened with a delight not less keen. When, therefore, Dr Potts became secretary to the Educational Society, his own misgivings as to the wisdom of the appointment were shared by some of his friends. Events showed, however, that the choice was a wise one. It may very reasonably be questioned if any one else could have done what Dr Potts accomplished. The church was fortunate in his successor. Dr J. W. Graham is carrying forward the task brought to a high degree of advancement by his predecessor with a tact and courage which command the applause of all interested in it and lead them to look towards the future with confidence.

Social and Religious

The activities of Methodism find expression in institutions which, while in a way both missionary and educational, do not, properly speaking, fall under either of these divisions. It will be most convenient and correct to treat them under the head of social and religious.

Temperance and Moral Reform.—Methodism has always been identified with temperance and moral reform. It has been said of John Wesley: 'He was a temperance advocate when total abstinence societies were not. ... When the nation was only half alive to the evils of slavery—when Lady Huntingdon trafficked in human nature, when George Whitefield held slaves—John Wesley roused himself in behalf of the poor trampled bondsmen; denounced slavery as the sum of all villainies, and American slavery in particular as "the vilest that ever saw the sun."'^[1]

To give greater unity and more permanent effect to the activities of the church in the direction indicated, the General Conference of 1902 founded a department charged with the special obligation of crystallizing and voicing the church's convictions on questions of social and national righteousness. The aims and methods of this department may be inferred from the following quotation from the last quadrennial report:

A singularly fortunate choice was made in the selection of the first superintendent, or secretary, of this department—the Rev. S. D. Chown, D.D., who, during the eight years of his official relation to it, proved himself a man of superior judgment, tireless energy and inspiring leadership, well earning his promotion to the position of a general superintendent of the church, an elevation which took place in August 1910. Some idea of the manifold activities of the department may be gathered from a brief reference to its work during the four years preceding the conference of 1910. Earnest support was given to temperance reform, which was marked by cheering advance. A sentiment favourable to better methods of dealing with the criminal classes, with a view not only to the punishment of crime but likewise to the reform of the criminal, was heartily applauded and wisely guided. The evils of race-track gambling were vigorously opposed. The white-slave traffic found in Dr Chown and his associates sturdy and relentless foes. Looking towards the future, the principles which governed past action were reaffirmed: e.g. unresting hostility to the drink traffic and a renewed demand for civic righteousness. Questions relating to immigration, the ballot, the housing of the poor, indeed everything belonging to the establishment of the kingdom of heaven on earth, receive the helpful attention of the department. The Rev. T. Albert Moore, D.D., is now secretary, and under his leadership a general advance may be confidently anticipated.

Young People's Societies.—These are, generally speaking, under the control of a board, of which the Rev. S. T. Bartlett is secretary. Chief amongst them is the Epworth League, an organization of over twenty years' official standing. Its purpose is to promote intelligent and vital piety among the young people of the church: 'training them in active Christian work, promoting the study of the Bible and Christian literature.' Its motto is, 'Look up, lift up; for Christ and the Church.' Its activities are organized under five departments: Christian Endeavour, which is charged with the more definitely spiritual side of the society's work; missionary; literary and social; citizenship; junior. So far as possible it is intended that there shall be a local society in each congregation, a society for each district, and, where desired, in every conference. The affiliation of local societies with the inter-denominational movement known as the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavour is encouraged. The league has accomplished much in the past, particularly in stimulating and unifying the missionary zeal of young Methodism. It has also been a wholesome force in the social life of the local congregation, bringing together and attaching to the church many who otherwise might have lost interest in religious matters. If the department of citizenship—the latest expression of the league's activity—is successfully organized, a more intelligent type of voter should arise and a better day dawn for the civic life of the country. According to late reports there are 1308 local societies with a total membership of nearly 53,000.

Apart from the league there are young men's societies, or brotherhoods, with a total membership of nearly 5000. There are 427 other societies, more or less kindred in spirit and aims with the league, which have an aggregate membership of over 19,000. The total enrolment of young Methodists in various organizations aiming at mutual improvement and social service exceeds 82,000. Though the members of these societies are for the most part far from rich in this world's goods, their givings are marked by commendable generosity, reaching annually to more than $125,000, of which some $80,000 is for missionary and other philanthropic purposes.

The Deaconess Work.—This is one of the latest expressions of the Christian zeal of the denomination, and, though apparently well established both in British and American Methodism, has yet to win its way to enthusiastic and unqualified acceptance and approval throughout the entire Canadian Methodist Church. This is simply saying that the movement is not yet practically known in many places, and that more time is needed to bring its activities to such a degree of maturity and excellence as to transform criticism and indifference into admiration and co-operation. It began its operations in Toronto in October 1897, the first lectures being given in the Carlton Street Church. Its first home was at 28 M^cGill Street. The generous gift of a home in Jarvis Street for a time met the necessities of the work and made expansion possible; but it was not long before these premises proved too small. Accordingly, very largely, if not chiefly, by reason of the munificent givings and inspiring leadership of the representatives of the Massey Estate—to whom all Canadian Methodism is a great debtor—a building of fine proportions and excellent equipment was erected on St Clair Avenue. It is known as the Deaconess National Training School of the Methodist Church. The old quarters were turned into a home for young women of small income who are earning their own livelihood.

The training-school has for its objective, first of all, the preparation of suitable young women for the office of deaconess. A generous course of instruction, covering a somewhat extended study of Holy Scripture, of Christian doctrine and evidence, Church history and missions, sociology and applied Christianity, English literature, composition, general history, æsthetics and practical work, is provided for the students. College professors, and pastors who have specialized in certain subjects, eminent physicians and resident teachers form the tutorial staff. The sisterhood is a purely voluntary organization, demanding no vows inconsistent with withdrawal at will, or in answer to the conviction that work lies elsewhere. The training-school is open, moreover, to others besides those who desire to become deaconesses. Any young woman who seeks to prepare herself for effective Christian service may take advantage of the school. The Woman's Missionary Society sends prospective candidates for the mission field to the training-school. During the past fifteen years over 350 students have registered, of whom fully 250 have proceeded to graduation.

Origin and Tenets

The name under which Baptists are known to the world was given to them by others rather than chosen by themselves. This is, of course, no unusual thing in the history of religious terminology, and it is, indeed, exactly what occurred in the origin of the term 'Christian' itself. The names at first applied to this sect were 'Anabaptist' and 'Katabaptist,' i.e. 're-baptizers' and 'perverters of baptism,' and were evidently coined as epithets of reproach. In the course of time the prefix was dropped and the name 'Baptist' came to be accepted by the Baptists themselves. But the name thus appropriated has tended to lead the general public to suppose that the Baptists attach a special saving value to baptism, and that their whole contention centres round a discussion of larger or smaller quantities of water. This is very far from the truth. There underlies the Baptist position, when properly understood, a clearly defined philosophy that relates to questions at the very centre of Christianity itself. Baptist leaders keep constantly asserting that, amongst those who retain baptism at all, no Christian attaches less saving and sacramental efficacy to baptism than they do. The Baptist people seek to found all their doctrine and procedure on Biblical teaching and practice, and they refuse to bind or be bound by creeds; they make the individual local church self-governing and independent; they insist on credible evidence of regeneration as a prerequisite to church membership; they have two kinds of church officers—pastors and deacons; they have always stood for the separation of church and state, believing in a free church in a free state; they believe in government, and teach the duties of loyalty and good citizenship; they have always opposed persecution by the state for religious beliefs; they do not believe in state support for religious work; they hold that the ordinances should be 'outward and visible signs of an inward and spiritual grace,' which grace can reside only in those who have intelligently and personally received it; and they maintain that baptism should be by immersion. This general outline of the Baptist position is necessary, because the aims and ideals of a religious denomination must be understood to enable the reader to estimate properly its contribution to the public life of a country or to understand its spirit and tendency.

The origin of the Anabaptists in continental Europe in the sixteenth century, and their relation to the Protestant revolution, are subjects which scholars are still investigating. Only comparatively recently, indeed, has this question been studied in a scientific way. In Germany the term 'Anabaptist' has implied fanaticism and unreasonableness, and this conception still widely prevails. But the diligent work of scholars of undoubted standing, and the discovery, in certain European libraries, of important documents bearing on the question, are working a change, and are pointing to the conclusion that the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century represented a stream of tendency which was in many respects independent of the reformation led by Luther, and which might have produced better results than that reformation if it had been allowed more fully to assert itself. However, that story is a long one, and it has for our present subject only the interest that attaches to religious ancestry.

In England the Baptist movement in its definite organized form dates from the early part of the seventeenth century, and was at the beginning influenced from continental Europe—notably from Holland. In Scotland the Baptists have never been numerous, although the quality of their life and service has been high. As a matter of fact, however, Scottish Baptist life has had a profound influence on Baptist history in some parts of Canada. Irish Baptists have a history of their own, but their share in the making of the denomination in Canada, while in some directions quite important, is not widely distributed. The Baptist denomination in the United States has developed great importance in numbers and in influence, and from this quarter, as well as from across the Atlantic, came strong currents that have influenced the stream now being traced.

It must be admitted that in Canada Baptists began their history under many heavy handicaps, arising from many causes, not the least of which was that created by prejudices due to a misunderstanding of their real position. These handicaps, however, give all the greater significance to the standing that the denomination has secured in the life and thought of the Dominion. But, apart from these external difficulties, we can see, looking at the problem of propagation, that they were confronted by a difficulty arising out of their own polity when applied to a country of scattered population and of wide areas. In polity the Baptists hold to independence and voluntaryism, so that any encroachment on the autonomy of the individual church is met with prompt and decisive opposition. Now, the question was how this fundamental self-government of the churches could be guarded, while at the same time there was made possible that organization and co-operation which are always necessary for any effective extension.

Organization

To make this point clear and to render more intelligible the course of development, it will perhaps be wisest to describe in broad outline the conditions at present existing in respect to Baptist organization in Canada. From the Atlantic to the Pacific there exists a chain of groups of churches, called associations in the East and conventions in the four western provinces. Naturally there are stretches of country where but few of these churches exist—notably in the Province of Quebec. Nevertheless the whole Dominion is marked out, geographically at least. These groups vary in superficial area and in the number of churches comprised, but their organization and purpose are the same. Representatives of the churches meet to promote Christian fellowship, to give advice when asked, to stir up missionary enthusiasm and to see that no openings for new work are neglected. No legislative powers are lodged in these organizations, but, as a medium for the expression of opinion and for the undertaking of work requiring the co-operation of all the churches, they have stood the test of experience, and have proved most valuable and helpful in securing the object for which the churches exist. At the present time (1913) there are three associations in Nova Scotia, one in New Brunswick and one in Prince Edward Island, and, in addition, one for the churches of the negroes in Nova Scotia. In Ontario and Quebec there are seventeen, including that of the French churches. In the West there are no associations, strictly speaking, but the six conventions—one for each of the western provinces and one each for the Germans and the Swedes—answer the same purpose. In order to group the churches in a still more comprehensive form, there is what is termed a convention for the Maritime Provinces and another for Ontario and Quebec. The four western provinces are united in what is called the Baptist Union of Western Canada, in which the organization is a little more elaborate than anything in the five eastern provinces. There are, therefore, three large self-contained organizations dividing between them the whole Dominion—one for the Maritime Provinces, one for Ontario and Quebec, and one for the West. But there is now emerging a tendency towards a larger co-operation. This showed itself in the year 1911, when a union of the whole Canadian Baptist force, in so far as foreign missions are concerned, was completed. The Canadian Baptist Foreign Mission Board, formed for this purpose, now has the supervision of all the foreign mission work done by the Baptists throughout the whole Dominion. It is too early yet to discover how this will affect the present conventions.

In order to make clear just what are the functions of these conventions, it would perhaps be best to describe one of them in brief detail. The convention of Ontario and Quebec comprises the two provinces named in its title. To its meetings, regular or special, each one of the five hundred or more churches included in it is entitled to send delegates in numbers proportionate to its membership. The convention thus constituted proceeds to do its business, electing its officers annually. By an unwritten law ministers and laymen usually alternate in filling the president's chair. The convention appoints boards to administer the various departments of work undertaken. These boards report yearly, and, since a certain number of the members retire each year, the convention, in the elections to fill the vacancies, has an opportunity to express its views on any matter of policy or administration involved. The phases of work thus provided for include home and foreign missions, the higher education, Sunday school and young people's work, and other similar enterprises. The result is that the meetings of the convention are purely missionary gatherings, since general questions of expansion and conservation are alone dealt with. This is due to the fact that the Baptist polity throws upon the individual church the whole responsibility for its own management, and thus leaves the convention free to deal entirely with missions. As the business of the boards grew, it was found impossible for any man in the regular pastorate to adequately supervise the work. To meet this situation superintendents or secretaries have been appointed. While these men have large powers within prescribed limits, they are in no sense diocesan bishops, for they have the same standing as the pastors, and possess no powers except in the matters entrusted to them, for which, moreover, they are responsible to the convention through the boards. This arrangement works well and guards the congregational polity already referred to. The organization in the Maritime Provinces and in the West differs in some details from that of Ontario and Quebec, but in the main lines and principles all the conventions agree. By keeping in mind this organization now in force, we shall be the better able to understand the evolution of Baptist missions and institutions from their feeble and scattered beginnings.

The way is now clear to examine the history of the Baptist Denomination in Canada, and for this purpose it will be best to consider the course of events in the Dominion part by part. We shall divide the whole area into four sections, each of which is sufficiently homogeneous to be treated as a unit. We shall begin with the Maritime Provinces, and then pass to Ontario and Quebec, and to the work among the French, called the Grande Ligne Mission, and finally to the West. We shall see that the development in these sections has been quite similar, although for the most part each section has worked out its own problems for itself. From the time when the zealous pioneers preached in the log-churches or in the sweet-smelling forests or by the cabin fires of the settlers, the Baptist workers will be seen to have adapted themselves to each new era in Canada's history, while at the same time maintaining unchanged the Gospel message.

The Maritime Provinces

In the Maritime Provinces, with their fertile lands and their rocky, sea-washed coasts, many different nationalities are represented. By the action of church life and other forces the most striking national characteristics have now disappeared, but even yet it is not difficult to detect them in the Cornwallis and Annapolis valleys, in the fishing regions of the west and south of Nova Scotia, in French districts and in German districts and in the Scottish counties. In Southern New Brunswick and among the streams and woods of the north of the same province we have still other types. In fertile Prince Edward Island, the 'Garden of the Gulf,' we can detect evident characteristics of the Highlands of Scotland, which gave an important element to Canadian life. All these things must be clearly kept in mind in trying to estimate the work that we are seeking to describe. The Baptists laboured in all these districts, and the differences of type influenced their efforts to establish an effective brotherhood. Besides this fusing of nationalities, we must also bear in mind the union of the Baptists with the Free Baptists, which took place in 1906. This presents another line of development for explanation, and hence we shall have to make clear the reasons for the separate existence of these two Baptist bodies at the beginning, and set forth also the reasons for their ultimate happy union.

The headquarters, so to speak, of the Maritime Province Baptists is at Acadia College. The site of this institution was chosen in the romantic land of Evangeline, where the rich dike-lands of Grand Pré still present their sea-girt charms to the Baptist hosts who thankfully and devoutly go up each year to spend Commencement week at the college that means so much to their spiritual life. The Baptists of the Maritime Provinces own and control Acadia College, which has high standing as a university, and presents courses and grants degrees in arts, science and theology. With Acadia are associated two schools of academic grade, one for young men and one for young women. At St John, N.B., is edited the Maritime Baptist, a denominational paper of large circulation and marked influence. The home mission work is looked after with vigour by boards reporting to the convention, while the foreign mission board, responsible in a similar way, unites with the Baptists of all the rest of Canada in supporting in India and in Bolivia eighty-three missionaries. Besides this, provision is made for the intelligent encouragement of Sunday schools and for the training of young people. Funds are also provided for the care of aged and infirm ministers, as well as of the widows and children of ministers.

In tracing the origins of Baptist work in these provinces we must turn to the English 'Evangelical Revival' of the eighteenth century under Whitefield and the Wesleys, which produced very unexpected effects on religious life, on theological thought and even on political conditions, not only in the British Isles, but even in continental Europe. The influence of this revival crossed the Atlantic, and, in what came to be called the 'Great Awakening,' made itself powerfully felt on its Calvinistic side throughout the New England States. There Whitefield himself laboured, and the movement enlisted the co-operation of Jonathan Edwards, one of the world's greatest theologians. This 'Great Awakening' passed up the Atlantic coast and reached Nova Scotia. The influence of the 'Great Awakening' showed itself in two ways. It stirred among the Baptist churches of New England missionary zeal with regard to Nova Scotia and other lands, and it raised up the 'New Light' preachers, who went everywhere teaching the Gospel, and in their work visited Nova Scotia. The 'New Light' preachers were not Baptists but Congregationalists, although they were regarded by the Congregationalists of the 'Standing Order' as over-zealous and lacking in good taste.

The first known mention of Baptists in Nova Scotia is that contained in a report of the Rev. J. B. Moreau, the Anglican representative of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, who, in giving an account of his labours in Lunenburg in 1752, reports the presence of some Anabaptists in the community. But no organization among these Lunenburg Baptists is known to have existed, the honour of founding the pioneer Baptist Church in Nova Scotia belonging to the Rev. Ebenezer Moulton, who came from Massachusetts to Yarmouth County in 1761, and in 1763 visited Horton and Cornwallis, where his zeal and eloquence stirred the hearts of the people. A church was formed, which included some who were not Baptists, but within fifteen years this church had gone out of existence. Another pioneering effort was the formation at Swansea, Massachusetts, in 1763, of a church, which was transferred in a body to the place now called Sackville, New Brunswick. This church also disappeared like a snowflake in the river. It must not be supposed, however, that these three vanishing brooks made no contribution to the stream whose course is being followed: efforts of this kind always leave some influence behind them, even if no record survives. The permanent springs of Maritime Baptist history must, however, be sought in other quarters.

It is to the 'New Light' preachers from New England that our story must now direct itself, although these preachers were not at first Baptists, and indeed some of them—as, for example, Henry Alline—never became Baptists. These men touched the hearts of the settlers, many of whom broke away from the churches in the 'Standing Order' and finally adopted the Baptist position. In this transition they were helped by Baptist influences from the New England States, because the intercourse between the two sections was quite active.

Henry Alline played an all-important part in this early religious movement in the Maritime Provinces. Born in New England, Alline, when twelve years old, was brought by his family to Nova Scotia. When nearly twenty-seven he passed through a deep religious experience, and in the next year, 1776, began a fervent ministry which lasted only about eight years. He founded a 'New Light' church at Cornwallis, but his activities were extended over very wide areas of the province. He laboured assiduously, and touched many hearts by his zealous preaching. But he was not an ecclesiastical organizer, and he never became a Baptist. His significance for Baptist history is, however, very great, because he started lines of thought that subsequently led many able men to become Baptists, and because, further, he gave to 'revivalism' in the Baptist life which he thus indirectly helped to create, a place and a prominence that were maintained for many years. Another 'New Light' Congregationalist, whose relation to the early history of the Baptist Church in Nova Scotia was somewhat similar, was John Payzant, whose descendants have achieved distinction, not only among Maritime Province Baptists, but also in the political and commercial history of Nova Scotia.

The next stage is marked by the influence of such men as T. H. Chipman, Harris Harding, Joseph Dimock, Edward Manning, James Manning and T. S. Harding, who came to accept Baptist views and became pastors of Baptist churches. In a number of instances, indeed, they brought with them into the Baptist faith the 'New Light' churches over which they were pastors. On June 23-24, 1800, representatives of nine distinctly Baptist churches met at Lower Granville, Nova Scotia, and organized what was called the Nova Scotia Baptist Association. One of these nine churches was situated in New Brunswick, in which part of the country developments similar to those in the Annapolis and Cornwallis valleys had been taking place, under such able leaders as Joseph Crandall and Elijah Estabrooks. It is unnecessary to go into minute detail regarding the further founding of particular churches, but it is worthy of special mention that the oldest existing Baptist Church in the Maritime Provinces is that founded in the township of Horton in 1778, and now known as the Wolfville Baptist Church. It consisted of ten persons and was organized by Nicolas Pierson, who had come from England, where he had been a local preacher. T. S. Harding subsequently became pastor of this church, and to it he ministered for sixty years.

The formation of the Nova Scotia Association in 1800 is an important event in the history of Baptist institutions in the Maritime Provinces. It was the first step in the development that was to make co-operation possible, and at the same time guard the independence of the individual churches. There were many subsequent readjustments of this associational organization which may seem confusing at the first glance, and the exact course of which may be difficult to remember. The fundamental principle, however, was accepted by this meeting in 1800, and all the later rearrangements were only efforts to adjust the organized work of the churches to what were deemed to be the needs of the changing circumstances. The object of this association was primarily the carrying on of home mission work, and it is out of it that the present home mission organization has grown. The principle that has always guided Baptists in their domestic missions has been that which was acted on at the meeting of the Nova Scotia Association ten years after its organization when, in 1810, Joseph Crandall and Samuel Bancroft were sent to preach the Gospel to the people eastward of Chester; each was to receive for his services the modest allowance of five shillings a day during three months. This undertaking may seem small when judged by modern standards, but it is memorable as the first systematic and organized effort at home missions on the part of the Baptists of Canada. It will be noted that the plan adopted was not that of a banding together of a certain number of particularly enthusiastic individuals who would carry on this work as a personal undertaking, but that it committed the churches themselves, through their delegates, to discharge this duty, the association being made the clearing-house for the practical adjustments necessary. In all the subsequent rearrangements which were after all only matters of convenience between provinces or parts of provinces, this principle has never been departed from.

THEODORE SETH HARDING
From a photograph by J. D. Smith, Halifax

Turning to another branch at the head-waters of the Baptist stream, we find that the origin of the Free Baptist work in the Maritime Provinces is not easy to trace, because early historical sources are lacking. It seems, however, to be agreed that the Barrington Church was the pioneer. This church was organized some time before 1795. On Skerow's Island was another early church, and the outstanding leader in those days was Elder Thomas Crowell. This movement appears to have been indigenous and not directly inspired from the United States, although influences from that quarter fed the Maritime Province stream when once well started on its course. The differentiating factors in the views of the Free Baptists were Arminianism and open communion. It will be remembered that the 'New Light' preachers had derived their impulse from the 'Great Awakening,' which was Calvinistic in doctrine. This type of teaching was regarded by the Free Baptists as rather too sombre to be sound, and they preferred the Arminian side of the English 'Evangelical Revival.' Again, the 'Regular' Baptists, who formed the Nova Scotia Association, had adopted the practice of not inviting to the Lord's Table any but those who had been baptized on a profession of their faith, as in their judgment a sound New Testament exegesis required this. The Free Baptists took other ground on this also, and declined to place any such bar at the communion table. The differences that divided these two bodies of Baptists have now been adjusted, as the union of 1906 shows; but in the early days there was deemed to be sufficient divergence between Arminianism and Calvinism, and between 'open communion' and 'close communion,' to keep the Free Baptists and the 'Regular' Baptists apart. The truth seems to be that since 1800 both bodies have modified their views, and that the centre of gravity has shifted to other areas of doctrine and practice, so that the present union has been made possible. The Free Baptist pioneers were men of zeal and devotion, and they also, like the 'Regular' Baptists, found one of their best legacies in the influence of Henry Alline, who had journeyed from settlement to settlement during his brief ministry. The Free Baptists did not organize into an association till 1834, and three years later this organization was modified to embrace also the 'Christians' who, under Elder Norton and others, had made a deep impression on the community. The name given to this organization of 1837 was the Free Christian Baptist Conference. It should be added that the polity of the Free Christian Baptists, while separately organized, always tended to be more connectional than that of the 'Regular' Baptists.

Let us now turn to the history of educational work in the Baptist missions and institutions in the Maritime Provinces. In entering this field a new era in the life of the denomination is reached. Before the formation, in 1828, of the Nova Scotia Baptist Education Society, which resulted in the opening of Horton Academy at Wolfville in the following year, the Baptist leaders—men like Edward Manning and T. S. Harding—while preachers of great ability and resource, had not had the privilege of college training for their work. These men, however, were among the most enthusiastic supporters of the new plans for education. They saw that with new conditions there came a demand for better-trained workers in order to maintain the rate of advance already achieved. From this time a new element and a new rallying-centre appear in the history of the Maritime Baptists. This departure, however, was to a large extent due to a factor that had, from another quarter, entered into Baptist life.

EDMUND ALBERN CRAWLEY
From a photograph

The new factor was the Granville Street Baptist Church, organized in Halifax in 1827. The members of this church were men who had left the Church of England and had accepted Baptist views; among them were Dr E. A. Crawley, a man of culture and wide learning, who at that time was a lawyer, but subsequently became a pastor and a professor, and J. W. Johnstone, a leader of men, who eventually became prime minister of Nova Scotia, and later on lieutenant-governor of the province. These men were convinced that the next important move for Baptists was the securing of educational advantages for their people, and more especially for their ministers. They moreover threw themselves without reserve and with great enthusiasm into the life of the denomination. It is greatly to the credit both of the old leaders and of the new recruits that unity of policy and harmony of procedure were never endangered by the mingling of these two elements in the denominational life. For the historian the accession involved in the formation of the Granville Street Church is of very great importance in accounting for the subsequent course of events, since it was this that led to the opening of Horton Academy in 1829. Horton Academy became important, not only for what it actually accomplished, but also for what it represented—a new standard of intelligence for the Baptist people.

In 1839 Acadia College, with university powers, was also opened at Wolfville. The origin of this institution is interesting, as is the story of its struggle and achievement. More than once it has arisen from blows that have stunned and prostrated it, but its life has been continuous and it has proved itself a power in the educational growth of the Maritime Provinces and far beyond. Acadia College was in the first place a venture of faith, encouraged by men of wide experience in public affairs. It early worked its way so deeply into the affections of its supporters that the eloquent Joseph Howe, speaking in the Nova Scotia legislature in 1847, said facetiously: 'Destroy Acadia College, and what have you done? There will be more socks knit, more fat calves killed on the Wilmot Mountain and in the valley, and Acadia College will still continue to exist.' By 1847 the Baptists of the Maritime Provinces had accepted Acadia as their child.

In 1851 Dr J. M. Cramp, then of Montreal, and an Englishman by birth, was called to the presidency of Acadia College when its fortunes were low. He thus earned the title of its second founder. Dr Cramp was a man of wide reading, who threw himself most enthusiastically into the life of the churches. He was succeeded by Dr A. W. Sawyer, who already held a distinguished place on the staff. Dr Sawyer's influence was unique in developing the thinking powers and the character of the students. After Dr Sawyer came Dr Thomas Trotter, an Englishman by birth, who had spent much of his earlier life in Ontario. Dr Trotter faced the financial burdens and gave to this side of the work a quite new aspect during the ten years of his incumbency. Dr W. B. Hutchinson was president for two years, and was succeeded in 1910 by Dr G. B. Cutten. It would be difficult to state adequately the influence exerted by Acadia College on the Maritime Baptists, but the faith and courage of those who founded it and who have stood by it have been amply justified.

An example of the type of minister brought forward by the new era created by Horton Academy was the Rev. Charles Tupper, D.D., father of Sir Charles Tupper. Dr Tupper was a studious man who at the same time gave himself to the people. His versatility in many departments made him not a recluse, but a man of practical affairs. It is evident that his taste for public life and his grasp of public questions had a determining influence upon his distinguished son. It may, moreover, be said that this interest in public matters came to Dr Tupper as part of his Maritime Baptist inheritance, since the Baptists of that part of Canada have always evinced deep and intelligent interest in public affairs, and have contributed a remarkably large number of men to the public life of the country.

It does not fall to the nature of our subject to deal fully with Baptist foreign missions, but this question must at least be mentioned. It had been to Baptists that the present form of organized Protestant foreign mission effort was due in England, and it was therefore natural that the Maritime Baptists should turn early to this duty. In 1838, after some years of preparation, this responsibility was definitely assumed and R. E. Burpee was chosen to represent all three provinces. After ordination he left for Burma in 1845. The work subsequently lapsed, but it was resumed in 1870. In 1875 it was decided to abandon Burma and cross to the Telegu country, where the Baptists of Ontario and Quebec were already working. In 1911, as has already been indicated, the administration of foreign mission work for all the Baptists of Canada was concentrated under one board.

JOHN M. CRAMP
From a photograph

In the sphere of journalism the first Maritime Baptist venture was the Missionary Magazine, a monthly paper which began its career in 1828 as the organ of the denomination in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. In 1839 this paper was superseded by the Christian Messenger, published weekly. In this sphere the Baptists led the other denominations, and the effort involved yielded most happy results in the increased intelligence and fuller unification of the people. In 1849 the New Brunswick Baptists founded the Christian Visitor, which in 1884 was united with its contemporary under the title of the Messenger and Visitor. Worthy of special mention in connection with this paper was Dr S. M. Black, who filled the editor's chair from 1890 until his death in 1909. Dr Black's literary taste, wide theological learning and sound judgment were of great value to the Baptist cause. In the meantime the Free Baptists had since 1853 been publishing the Religious Intelligencer. In 1905 all the Maritime Baptist newspaper interests were consolidated in the Maritime Baptist.

The encouragement given to Sunday school and to young people's work has assumed the form of organizations for collecting the results of experience and stimulating interest in these phases of religious education. These organizations do not interfere with local autonomy. Maritime Baptists have also laboured among their French fellow-citizens, among the negroes, where the history has been interesting, and among the Indians. To the last mentioned the Rev. Silas T. Rand, a linguist of unusual eminence, gave the benefit of his talents and religious zeal.

According to Dr E. M. Saunders, who is eminently qualified to speak of such matters, the Maritime Baptists have had a leading place, and in some cases the leading place, in softening the roughness of pioneer days by evangelization that sought out the people, in advocating temperance, in establishing foreign missions, and in higher education, popular education and the education of women. Dr Saunders also holds that they have played a most important part in training the people in popular government.

The statistics of the denomination show how eminently successful have been the efforts of the Baptists in the Maritime Provinces. In 1911 there were within the bounds of the Maritime Province Baptist Convention 574 churches, 315 ministers, and 64,865 church members. These figures include only actual communicants, so that the number of Baptist adherents will be very much larger.

Ontario and Quebec

As we move westward, the work among the French Canadians would naturally come next. In the interests of clearness, however, we shall pass immediately to the convention of Ontario and Quebec and return later to the Grande Ligne Mission.

The first great impulse in English settlement in the Great Lakes region and in the Eastern Townships came from the United Empire Loyalists. Among these, however, there were comparatively few Baptists, although these few prepared the way for those later immigrations that meant more for the Baptist cause. In what is now Ontario and Quebec three churches, still in existence, stand out as pioneers—that at Beamsville in the Niagara peninsula, that in Haldimand township in the county of Northumberland, and that at Abbot's Corner in the Eastern Townships in Quebec. All of these places were near the United States border, but they were widely separated. The Beamsville Church is supposed by some to have been organized as early as 1776, but its existence before 1796 cannot be proved. It is also held by some that this church was suspended for a short time. Being situated in the township of Clinton, it was at first known by that name. Jacob Beam, whose family name has been given to Beamsville, was in the early days a prominent member. The Clinton Church made itself felt in the organization of other churches even as far as the Lake Erie district. The Haldimand Church, already mentioned, owed its origin to Reuben Crandall, who came from the United States to Prince Edward County in 1794. During this period several churches sprang up in this vicinity.

Photogravure. Annan. Glasgow.

EDWARD MANNING SAUNDERS
From a photograph

The Abbot's Corner Church in the township of St Armand is the oldest surviving Baptist church in the Eastern Townships. In 1799 it was organized under the name of the St Armand Baptist Church. It was not, however, really the pioneer, because in the same county at Caldwell's Manor, now known as Freleighsburg, Baptist work had already begun, and William Marsh had been ordained in 1796. Marsh was a native of Vermont, and his father was a staunch loyalist, a magistrate and a man of influence. As a pioneer minister Marsh used to work with his hands—tilling the soil in the summer and working as a shoemaker in the winter. In this respect he was like all the 'farmer ministers' of that era. Not long after his ordination he moved to Sutton Flats in the county of Brome, and in 1798 the Hatley and Stanstead Baptist Church was organized. This church, now extinct, has been called 'the foster-mother of the Association.' The story of Baptist life in the Eastern Townships is of deep interest, although that life does not enter as fully into the main current as that of some other sections of Ontario and Quebec. Cut off by the French parishes between them and Montreal, these churches have been thrown into very close contact with Baptists across the international boundary, especially with those in Vermont, with whom for some years, indeed, they were actually associated in the Danville Association.

That, however, is anticipating, and we must proceed to note the other early developments in Upper and Lower Canada. At Harlem, in the township of Bastard in the county of Leeds, a new section for Baptists was touched by the organization of a church there about 1803, through the labours of Joseph Cornell, a missionary from the United States. Further west again, at Charlotteville in the county of Norfolk, another church was founded about 1804, and shortly afterwards still another in the township of Townsend. These churches are now known as the Vittoria and the Boston Church respectively. They were situated close to each other, due west of the Niagara peninsula, and were thus in a position to co-operate in due time with the Clinton Church and its offshoots. The founders and leaders of these two churches came from the United States and from the Maritime Provinces. In the five widely separated centres which we have mentioned—Clinton, Charlotteville and Townsend, Haldimand, Harlem and the Eastern Townships—the impulse had come largely from the United States. What is involved in this must be kept in mind in order to understand the subsequent parts of our story.

We must now turn to the Ottawa valley. Here a new element enters which is significant for what it was in itself, for what it represented in subsequent similar settlements and for its influence on the life of Ontario and Quebec Baptists in general. The early history of Upper Canada was affected by a series of immigrations from different parts of the British Isles. Some of these were to what is called the Ottawa valley—a somewhat elastic term, designating the banks of the Ottawa River and an indefinite region surrounding it. To what is now known as Breadalbane there came in 1816 a number of settlers from the Highlands of Scotland. Many of these had been influenced in Scotland by the Haldanes, who were then conspicuous in Scottish Baptist life, and whose name is still honourably borne in public life by the present Viscount Haldane of Cloan. These Scottish settlers brought with them the traditions and the ways of the land of the heather, and a point of view different from that of the immigrants from the United States. This must be kept in mind if we are to understand the difficulties of subsequent Baptist co-operation. It is worthy of mention here that William Fraser, at the close of a pastorate of nineteen years in Breadalbane, said that he 'had never heard an oath nor seen a glass of liquor drunk in Breadalbane.' The Ottawa region was in 1819 further enriched by the coming of John Edwards, whose descendants to-day hold a conspicuous place there. Edwards had been converted under the influence of James Haldane. He settled in Clarence in 1822 and at once began religious meetings. We cannot, however, pause to chronicle the other arrivals, which soon spread through this region a sturdy type of Baptist life.

We have thus traced the rise of six churches which pierced the new country in six different parts, and from which other churches also soon sprang. These groups, except those of the Ottawa region, whose movement we shall trace later, quickly organized themselves into associations; with the names of which we shall not, however, burden our narrative here, for it was not in the formation of associations that the Baptists encountered their real difficulties in seeking to co-operate in Upper and Lower Canada, but rather in the larger groupings by conventions.

In the meantime these multiplying churches of the early nineteenth century continued to encourage their members in godly living at home and in secular life. On Sundays and at 'Covenant meetings' (a type of meeting now almost extinct) the members met to worship God, to enjoy Christian fellowship and to receive instruction in the Scriptures. Where more elaborate means failed, they went to church in summer in rude ox-carts, whose wheels were slices cut from large maple trees, or in winter they journeyed over the snow in the moonlight on their homely ox-sleds. In some places, again, they walked to church barefooted, and sat down on a log near the 'meeting-house' to put on the boots which they had carried over their shoulders. But these meetings in the churches built of logs or of rough stone made the most important kind of contribution to the life of the new country that was to grow into the great Dominion of Canada.

Efforts at co-operation were beset with many difficulties. There were the great distances in days when there were no railways, and there were the differences in point of view between those recently arrived from Britain and those influenced by the religious life of the United States. To this was added divergence between the 'open communionists' of the East and the 'close communionists' of the West, complicated still further by the fact that in the West itself, in the Woodstock and London district, there came to be a considerable number who in this matter held with the men of the East. We need not wonder, therefore, that it was only by slow degrees that complete co-operation was attained. The first difficulty was that of distance: co-operation was possible only for those who were geographically near one another. In the West, about 1816, there was formed what was called the Clinton Conference, embracing the Niagara peninsula and part of the Lake Erie district. This conference formed the Upper Canada Domestic Missionary Society, which unfortunately had but a short life. The impulse towards co-operation had, however, become so powerful by 1833 that the Baptist Missionary Convention of Upper Canada was organized in that year by representatives from the churches of the Eastern, the Western and the Haldimand Associations, situated respectively in the Niagara peninsula, in the Lake Erie district, and in Northumberland County and other parts of Central Upper Canada. The basis of missionary organization was the payment annually of one dollar or more by individuals interested, whose membership in the convention was thus secured. Schemes were adopted for mission work, for educational work and for the launching of a paper, none of which, however, proved permanently successful, although ground was gained in the way of experience.

Returning to the East, we have to note that John Edwards had become so impressed with the need of new workers for Canada that he visited Great Britain in 1829 at his own expense, and while in Scotland succeeded in inducing John Gilmour and William Fraser to go to Canada. The arrival of these two men is regarded as highly important. Professor A. H. Newman speaks of Gilmour as 'a man of excellent culture, sound judgment, and truly apostolic spirit who was to be instrumental in lifting the denomination to a higher plane.' Fraser was a powerful evangelist and a capable controversialist, able to place his views very convincingly before a popular audience. In 1830 Gilmour settled in Montreal, where the first Baptist church was soon organized. Fraser went to Breadalbane. The founding of a Baptist church in Montreal proved highly important. It rallied to it men who were capable of leadership. Montreal, moreover, became an important link between the Eastern Townships and the Ottawa valley, where Baptist churches had for some years been established, but where men were looking for that larger leadership which the element provided by Montreal was now ready to supply. The result was the organization in 1836 of the Ottawa Association, which included Montreal as well as the region named in its title. This association at once bravely assumed heavy and important responsibilities, involving the launching of a comprehensive scheme for the evangelization of Canada, including the founding of a college to train Canadian men for Canadian work. Gilmour was sent to Great Britain, where he succeeded in arousing sufficient interest to justify the opening of a college in Montreal and the undertaking of more extended plans for evangelization.

The Montreal Baptist College did good work in a great many directions. It had as its head successively two men as distinguished as Dr Benjamin Davies, an eminent Hebrew scholar, and Dr J. M. Cramp. This college had to be closed in 1849: the two chief causes were the great distance separating Montreal from the churches of Western Upper Canada, and the suspicions of the western churches regarding the Montreal views on the communion question.

The movement that gave rise to the college also brought into existence at Montreal in 1838 a paper entitled the Canada Baptist Magazine and Missionary Register. This paper ceased publication in 1849 from causes similar to those leading to the collapse of the college, but during its career it enlisted the pens of such men as Dr Davies; the Rev. Newton Bosworth, John Gilmour's successor in the pastorate of the church at St Helen Street and the author of Hochelaga Depicta, a most charming and valuable English history of early Montreal; and Dr Cramp, who, besides being a scholar and a teacher, was also distinguished as a journalist. After the college closed and before he removed to Wolfville Dr Cramp edited the Pilot, a paper established by Francis Hincks. Competent authorities say that at that period there was probably no paper in Canada equal to the Register, but it was not a pecuniary success, and was discontinued. This paper and all the other early Baptist journals were privately owned, and not, like the Canadian Baptist of to-day, the property of the convention.

Returning to Upper Canada, we come back to the short-lived convention organized in 1833. When this convention collapsed, the active missionary work initiated by it was carried on by what was then called the Eastern Association until 1836, when a new organization was formed under the title of the Upper Canada Missionary Society. The desire to unite the Baptists of the two provinces took form in 1843 in the founding of the Canada Baptist Union, which was supported by some of the most intelligent men in the denomination. But suspicions as to the communion views of several of its strongest supporters led to its collapse in 1847. This union, however, during its short career effectively expressed Baptist opinion regarding the clergy reserves and the attempt to keep under Anglican control M^cGill College, Montreal, and King's College, Toronto. The failure of the union led the supporters of close communion to form in 1848 the Regular Baptist Union of Canada. This, however, had a still shorter career than its predecessor, although in its basis of organization it embodied many features that are now incorporated in the present convention of Ontario and Quebec. For the sake of clearness it should be explained that regarding the terms of admission to the Lord's Table the close-communion Baptists of these two provinces differed from the open communionists as the Regular Baptists of the Maritime Provinces differed from the Free Baptists. The other side of the Maritime Province problem, however, did not emerge here, because both parties in the two upper provinces were alike in holding to a moderate Calvinism, which is the position generally taken by the Baptists of Ontario and Quebec, although there have always been Baptists with a tendency towards Arminianism. So far as the communion question is concerned, the flight of time has softened the asperities of this controversy which once played so conspicuous a part, and the Baptists of Ontario and Quebec, while organized on the 'Regular' basis, are now less rigid than formerly, and in actual practice measurably approach the present position of the United Baptists of the Maritime Provinces.

To complete our survey of Upper Canada down to 1850 it is necessary to add that from 1836 to 1838 there was published at Toronto, with the Rev. J. E. Maxwell as editor, the Upper Canada Missionary Magazine. This paper, however, gave way in 1838 in favour of its Montreal contemporary. The Evangelical Pioneer was subsequently launched as the organ of the close communionists, and was under the able editorship of the Rev. John Inglis of London, Ontario. But by 1850 it too had expired. Schemes for a college were also projected in Upper Canada at this time, but nothing came of these.

Thus it came about that by the middle of the nineteenth century the Baptists of Upper and Lower Canada had no missionary society, no college and no paper. It must, however, be remembered that, by the very failure of all these schemes, lessons had been learned which were to prove of great value in the subsequent efforts to solve more successfully problems that seemed so obstinate.

Undaunted by all these failures, and believing that the discovery of a defect in the working of an organization is a great help if one is able to discover the reason, A. T. M^cCord, at that time chamberlain of the city of Toronto, after careful consultation issued a circular requesting the churches to send delegates to meet at Hamilton. The response was encouraging, and the conference held in October 1851 resulted in the formation of the Regular Baptist Missionary Convention of Canada West. The lessons of the past had been so well learned, and the constitution of this convention was so carefully framed, that it continued until the union of the East and the West in 1888, when it passed into the present convention and gave to it many of its best features. The convention of 1851 was home missionary in its primary aim, but its plan was so elastic that it proved able to adjust itself to the subsequent efforts on behalf of education, the superannuation of ministers, church edifice work and foreign missions, besides relating itself in a more general way to the Grande Ligne Mission. The Superannuated Ministers' Society was organized in 1864, with William M^cMaster as its first president and William Craig of Port Hope as its secretary. The Church Edifice Society was formed in 1867, having as its first president Alexander Mackenzie, afterwards prime minister of Canada, and as its solicitor John (afterwards Sir John) Boyd. Foreign mission contributions had for some years been going from individual churches to the American Baptist Missionary Union, but in 1866 steps were taken to organize a Canadian auxiliary. The success of this venture led in 1874 to the organization of a missionary society independent of the United States. The work then begun and still carried on is among the Telegus, north of Madras. In 1897 a mission was opened in Bolivia. The turn of the tide in 1851 gave a new impulse to journalism also, and in 1854 William Winter founded the Christian Messenger in Brantford. Five years afterwards Dr R. A. Fyfe bought this paper, and, transferring it to Toronto, changed its name to the Canadian Baptist. This paper has since 1882 been the property of the denomination. The work among the French Canadians in the West, originated or carried on during this period, will be dealt with presently.

The efforts in the sphere of higher education that have developed into M^cMaster University make a story of very great interest. Dr R. A. Fyfe, the real projector of the whole scheme, was born near Laprairie, not far from Montreal. His Canadian birth gave him an advantage over the leaders in the Montreal College, because he thus knew Canada as one born in it. He studied in Canada and in the United States, and in his earlier years had experience in both countries. In 1860 a college was opened at Woodstock with Dr Fyfe as principal, but within six months the new building was burned to the ground. Out of the ruins, however, a second and a better building soon rose. It is worthy of remark that the town of Woodstock, moved by feelings of generosity, offered to help the Baptists in their misfortune. This offer was respectfully declined, because the Baptists would not accept for their work moneys that had been raised by public taxation. Dr Fyfe was a man of good judgment and had great power with people, and probably no one in the two provinces has done more than he to unite the Baptists in the pursuit of lofty aims. The college at Woodstock developed academic, business and theological departments, and a separate department for girls. The fire of 1861 gave to William M^cMaster of Toronto a new interest in the work of the college, and step by step his interest increased until, at his death, he bequeathed practically his whole fortune to the work of education, and made the denomination his trustees. In 1881 M^cMaster Hall was opened at Toronto, and became the home of Toronto Baptist College, to which the work in theology hitherto done at Woodstock was transferred. In 1887 a university charter was secured and the first class in arts was graduated in 1894. In a remarkably short time M^cMaster University has come to take a high place in the educational life of the country. Woodstock College for boys, and Moulton College, Toronto, for girls, are affiliated with M^cMaster University. Moulton College owes its existence to Mrs M^cMaster. In the matter of large gifts for higher education William M^cMaster was the pioneer in Ontario, and it may perhaps be claimed that he still holds in that province the leading place in this enlightened policy.

Photogravure. Annan. Glasgow.

ROBERT ALEXANDER FYFE
From a lithograph after a photograph by Hunter, Toronto

In order to gather up the threads of our story we must turn again to the East. In 1858, after seeing the success following the Hamilton meetings of 1851, the Baptists of Quebec and of Eastern Ontario determined to organize in a similar way. The name chosen was the Canada Baptist Missionary Convention East, and the object was declared to be 'to promote the gospel in central and eastern Canada by employing evangelists, aiding feeble churches, circulating religious publications, and by other suitable means.' The communion question was no longer a source of contention between the East and the West. The relations between these two conventions was fraternal, and, indeed, in the work of the Superannuated Ministers' Society and of the Foreign Mission Society, as well as in that of the college, they were actually united. The Baptist Union formed in 1881 was another step in the unification of the East and the West. The union brought together the Baptists of both provinces for the discussion of topics of common interest; and in leading up to the present convention it was of great service, although when that was accomplished it lapsed. In 1888 the convention of Ontario and Quebec was called into existence. The first meeting was held in Ottawa the following year, and the first moderator was D. E. Thomson, LL.D., of Toronto. Dr Thomson's election at that time was a recognition of his distinguished services in projecting the convention organization. Thus, what the fathers in 1843 had sought to do, by the forming of the short-lived Baptist Union, was at last achieved in this happy union of Baptist activities in these two central provinces. The effectiveness of this convention proves that it was worth working and waiting for.

The ladies' organizations are still divided into East and West, each section having its home mission and its foreign mission department, reporting to its convention. The foreign missionary societies both began their career in 1876, while the home missionary society for the West was organized in 1884, and that for the East in 1889. Under these auspices are published the Missionary Link for foreign missions and the Baptist Visitor for home missions. The young people's work began to assume its present form in 1890, and this department is now responsible to the convention through a board. Sunday schools had always secured the attention of the fathers, but in 1905 a new departure was made in the appointment of a general superintendent to give his whole time to this work. The first occupant of this office was the Rev. S. Sheldom. The Sunday school committee was made a board in 1907. The negro Baptists of Upper and Lower Canada have had a long and honourable history. Among the Indians, Baptists as individuals have done much valuable work, but there are only a few Indian Baptist churches. The German Baptists of Western Ontario have had wide influence. They have joined with the Germans of the United States in their associational affiliations, and have looked to the German department of the Theological Seminary in Rochester, New York, for their leading in theological training. There is a perceptible tendency in these churches towards the dropping of German and the adoption of English.

The statistics for the two provinces for the year 1911 gave 53,723 church members, 511 churches and 111 missions. There were 304 ordained and 23 unordained pastors. There are about 100 ministers not in the pastorate, many of whom, however, are engaged in the oversight of mission work, or are teaching in the colleges or discharging some other similar duty. It must be remembered that these statistics refer only to communicants; the number of people under Baptist influence is, as in the case of the Maritime Provinces, therefore much larger.

In closing the survey of the Baptist Church in Ontario and Quebec, it may be said that three convention meetings stand out with special prominence—two before the union of the East and the West, and one since. At the convention held at Ingersoll, Ontario, in 1867, the central theme was foreign missions, and it was then that the first missionary was designated. This convention proved the power of the people to respond to a new appeal, and it showed that the convention was elastic enough to admit this new work and still keep the churches together in a comprehensive way in all phases of their mission effort. The second outstanding convention was that held at Guelph, Ontario, in 1888, which decided that M^cMaster University should have its seat in Toronto and should be permanently independent. The subject was vigorously debated, but the decision was loyally accepted. This test was valuable as again revealing the strength of the convention organization. The third of these conventions was that in Toronto in 1910. The question in this case had to do with the attitude of M^cMaster University to what is called 'Higher Criticism.' This important matter was dealt with in a broad Christian spirit, and the convention, in considering the case of the professor whose teachings had been questioned, demonstrated its ability to solve its own problems, and proved that it was possible to maintain the independence of the churches and at the same time to make united action possible.

The Grande Ligne Mission

Returning now to the Grande Ligne Mission, we come to ground that is full of tender associations for the Baptist people. This is due partly to the romance that attaches to the history of the French in Canada, but chiefly to the spirit of devotion and of self-sacrifice evinced by the workers in this mission from its beginning. The Baptist people live on terms of goodwill with Roman Catholics, but they have never regarded it as an evidence of bad taste to distribute the Scriptures or to preach anywhere when proper openings occur. It was not, therefore, any doubt on this matter, but rather the existence of two serious obstacles, that deferred the beginning of work among the French. For one thing, very few British people knew French, and for another, the conquerors on the Plains of Abraham could hardly yet expect a very hearty hearing. But the door was opened in a very interesting way. In the French-speaking part of Switzerland Henrietta Feller, through some Swiss friends who had recently visited Montreal, heard of the people in Canada who spoke her language. To these she decided to devote her life. Accordingly, in October 1835, she landed at New York in company with Louis Roussy, a school-teacher eight years her junior. By way of the Hudson and of the Richelieu she reached Canada, and sought to begin work in the larger centres, but in this she failed. Finally she found herself living and teaching in the upper part of the log-house of a friendly farmer, about six miles from St Johns, on a road called la grande ligne, a name quite common in that part of Canada for a main country road. Thus it happens that the flourishing work that has grown out of this small beginning is still called La Mission de la Grande Ligne. The log-house still exists, but the school that began in it is now housed in a large handsome stone building which accommodates about two hundred pupils. Gazing on the picture of the sweet and refined face of Madame Feller one comes to realize what it meant for this cultivated woman to spend her life as she did, and one understands why her name is reverently remembered. Roussy was able to open a school close to Madame Feller's. The work begun by these two noble souls has during its history shown quite remarkable vitality, has drawn to itself by the charm of its task great numbers of workers of unusual endowments, and has exerted, and still exerts, an influence far greater than statistics can show. While the people of Montreal did not initiate this work, they were quick to appreciate it. Grateful recollections are still cherished of the visits and the help of Gilmour, whose influence was thrown into the scale without reserve, as was that of Dr Fyfe at a later time. Friends were also found in the United States and in Britain, and the work prospered in spite of many difficulties. With the growth of Canada, however, the responsibility for this work is more and more falling on Canadians. At first various religious bodies joined with the Baptists in the support and control of this mission, but as the other Protestant denominations came to have work, of their own in this sphere, the Grande Ligne Mission came to depend entirely on the Baptists for its support. Since the Baptists of Britain and of the United States as well as of all parts of Canada are represented in the contributions to this work, it is under no one Canadian convention, but reports to them all. The directors and the officers are elected at the annual meeting held each October in Montreal. The French work in the Maritime Provinces, in Ontario and in the West is now, wherever undertaken, under the direction of this mission. While the work is carried on in French, there is a growing need for the use of English as well, and there is therefore a tendency to provide some services in the English language also in a number of the churches connected with the mission. Education, church support and colportage are provided for. Feller Institute at Grande Ligne, about thirty-five miles south of Montreal, is an efficient school leading to matriculation. The churches are distributed somewhat widely, but the most fruitful ground up to the present has been that south of the St Lawrence and west of Point Lévis. The colportage work takes the Scriptures in French to the homes of the people. Workers in the Grande Ligne Mission have in the past sometimes edited papers of their own. There is to-day in Quebec no French paper entirely Baptist, but the French Baptists do their full share in contributing to L'Aurore, which is under inter-denominational control. This mission, by helping the men of the English and French races to understand each other better, is rendering a great public service. An instance of this was the election in 1911 of Dr A. L. Therrien as president of the convention of Ontario and Quebec. The election was a recognition of the esteem and affection with which Dr Therrien was personally regarded, and an indication of the place of honour given by the English-speaking Baptists to their fellow-Canadians who speak French. It has always been the policy of the Grande Ligne Mission to avoid offensive attacks and to give itself to constructive work in education and in evangelization.

The Prairie Provinces and British Columbia

The call of the Far West came to the Baptists of Ontario in 1869. John Morton, indeed, as early as 1862 had made his influence as a Baptist felt in British Columbia, but his work did not assume any permanent form. In 1869 the Ontario convention sent the Rev. T. L. Davidson, D.D., and the Rev. T. Baldwin to visit the North-West and advise regarding the opening of the work there. Their report being favourable, the Rev. Alexander M^cDonald was sent out as the pioneer in 1873. In Fort Garry, now Winnipeg, he settled and was heartily supported by W. R. Dick. A building was erected in 1874 and a church of ten members organized in 1875. This church became self-supporting in 1879. A further sign of rapid development was the organization in 1881 of the Red River Association of Baptist Churches, which in 1882 was merged into the Missionary Convention of Manitoba, and was in 1884 enlarged into the Baptist Convention of Manitoba and the North-West Territories. In 1887 a superintendent of missions was appointed, a test having been made five years before by the appointment of M^cDonald for one year as missionary at large. These rapid adjustments indicate that the men of the North-West of Canada were ready to profit by eastern experience. To enlist the support of Old Canada a Dominion board of home missions was organized to comprise all Canada, but this was found too complicated, and it was decided to work through the existing conventions by means of committees or boards, which scatter information and gather funds. The support of this work has increased from year to year.

Prairie College was opened in 1880 at Rapid City, but after three years it transferred its interest to the Toronto Baptist College. Dr Crawford, the principal, was a man of ability and experience. In 1899 Brandon College was opened at Brandon, with the Rev. A. P. M^cDiarmid, D.D., as principal. This college was built upon academic work already begun by Professor S. J. M^cKee, LL.D. Brandon College, now (1913) presided over by the Rev. H. P. Whidden, D.D., has academic and arts departments, and is affiliated with M^cMaster University, which grants degrees to its students after examination. Okanagan College in Summerland, British Columbia, was opened in 1906, and provides teaching in academic grades and in arts work as far as the end of the second year. The present principal is Dr E. W. Sawyer, formerly of Acadia College, Wolfville.

The beginning of organized work in British Columbia dates from 1876, when a Baptist church was formed in Victoria with the Rev. William Carnes as pastor and Alexander Clyde as chief member. The Baptists of the United States gave assistance to the work in British Columbia in the early days, but this was withdrawn in 1897. This action led to the organization of the Baptist Convention of British Columbia, and there were thus two conventions west of Lake Superior. In 1900 a general fraternal meeting of Baptists from all parts of Canada was held in Winnipeg, and this was later on followed by a movement for an organic union of the Baptists of all Canada. The movement had strong support from the West and from some influential men in the East, but in 1907 the convention of Ontario and Quebec decided not to enter into the scheme proposed. The Western Baptists, however, resolved to apply the idea to the West, and therefore in 1909 the present Baptist Union of Western Canada was organized. This organization is rather more elaborate than those examined, but the fundamental autonomy of the individual church is fully protected. All these rapid and comprehensive changes go to show that the new circumstances that the West presented were creating new difficulties, but that the Baptist polity was elastic enough to meet the situation.

In journalism the two sections of the West began separately, but have now consolidated their interests. The North-West Baptist was founded in Winnipeg in 1885 and the Western Baptist at Vancouver in 1899. These two papers were in 1908 amalgamated as the Western Outlook, published in Winnipeg. The women's organization has borne an honourable part in the work of the West, and dates back to 1883. It is now united with the Baptist Union of Western Canada. One of the characteristic features of Baptist work in Western Canada is its vigour in dealing with the foreign population. The work among the Germans, the Scandinavians and the Ruthenians, as well as among the Indians, has been marked by distinguished ability, and in this 'melting-pot of the nations' such efforts mean much for the general life of the country. The statistics for 1911 showed in the four western provinces 228 churches, 14,200 church members, and 143 ministers, not including unordained workers.

In summing up our whole story we may state again that the Baptists, who began in Canada in a small way and under many disadvantages, have on the basis of the figures of 1911 about 133,000 communicants, and a much larger number of people under Baptist influence—the last Dominion census returning 382,666. This makes the Baptists the fourth in strength among the Protestant communions. In public life the Baptist people, while believing in the separation of church and state, have taken their full share and have provided able leaders in federal and in provincial affairs. In the general culture of the Dominion the Baptists have contributed at least their proper proportion, and for the fusing of races into an effective unity few institutions in the whole public life of Canada are more effective than the Baptist churches, associations and conventions.

I
CONGREGATIONALISM

No religious movement has made a deeper impression on the Protestant population of the English-speaking world than that which is now known as Congregationalism. It had its origin in England in the period of religious ferment that began about the middle of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. At that time there were in England, apart from the Roman Catholics, three distinct religious bodies—the Anglicans, who defended episcopacy and approved of the queen's ecclesiastical system in all its main features; the Presbyterians, who, like the Anglicans, believed in a national church, but contended that its creed, ritual and discipline should be prescribed and controlled, not by the edicts of the queen and the parliament, but by ecclesiastical assemblies, whose regulations were to be supported and enforced by the civil authority; and, in striking contrast to these two bodies, a third, composed of people who sympathized in their theology with the Presbyterians, but were altogether opposed to national churches. A church, they held, was a local body of Christian believers, united in fellowship by a covenant, electing its own ministers and administering its own discipline by popular vote, with no interference, except in the way of fraternal counsel, from any other ecclesiastical body. As asserting the independence of the individual congregation they were called 'Independents,' and as distinguished from Episcopalians and Presbyterians they were designated 'Separatists.'

The principles of this sect were destined to a great career, both in England and America. The fact that Cromwell and Milton and most of the men who inspired and carried out the Puritan revolution were Independents shows how closely religious independency and political democracy were related in England. In America at the same time the principles of religious independency were no less triumphant. It was to found a civilization embracing these principles that the Pilgrim Fathers crossed the Atlantic in the Mayflower and established themselves at Plymouth in 1620. The Puritans who settled in Massachusetts in 1630 had not been 'Separatists' before leaving England, but their first parish at Salem was formed after the model of the Independents; the Prayer Book was dropped, and they immediately entered into fellowship with the independent church at Plymouth. Nor was religious independency in America less associated with political democracy than in England. The parishes of New England were seed-plots for those political ideas that issued, in a later century, in the War of Independence and the American Republic.

Congregationalism in Canada is rooted in both the English and American movements. It began in Nova Scotia about the year 1760. In 1755 the British authorities had expelled from Acadia (Nova Scotia) about six thousand descendants of the early French settlers. Three years afterwards Governor Lawrence publicly invited New Englanders to come to Nova Scotia and settle on the vacant lands. Many of them consented to do so on condition that they should be allowed freedom of worship, and when this freedom was guaranteed by Governor Lawrence and his council in a statute which Judge Haliburton calls the Magna Charta of Nova Scotia, they came in large numbers and settled on the lands of the expatriated Acadians, especially around Minas Basin and Chignecto Bay. As was natural, they brought with them their own religious institutions and in many cases their own ministers. Thus within a few years well-organized Congregational churches were established in most of the communities where New Englanders had settled—in Chebogue, Kingsport, Liverpool, Cumberland, Onslow, Falmouth and Chester, in Nova Scotia; and in Sheffield, New Brunswick.

The prosperity of these churches, however, was short-lived. The revolt of the American colonies from the British crown severed the connection between the churches in Nova Scotia and the mother churches in New England. Many of the pastors and people returned to their old homes. Financial assistance formerly received from the New England churches was cut off. Educated ministers could no longer be secured from the old source. In addition to this, the churches in Nova Scotia were discouraged and weakened by the New Light revival under the Rev. Henry Alline,^[1] whose converts ultimately became close-communion Baptists, although he himself had been a Congregationalist. All in all, the year 1776 was a disastrous one in the history of Nova Scotian Congregationalism. Of the many churches founded after the settlement of the New Englanders in Nova Scotia only four now remain—Chebogue, Kingsport and Liverpool, in Nova Scotia; and Sheffield in New Brunswick. Fourteen other Congregational churches have been established since that time and have been held together in a union which was organized by the Rev. J. G. Galloway in 1846, but there are probably fewer Congregationalists in Nova Scotia now than there were in 1776. The Year Book for 1911 reported only eighteen churches with 2800 people under pastoral care.

In the Province of Quebec Congregationalism has had a somewhat more successful career than in the Maritime Provinces, although the religious conditions there were at first most hostile to the Congregational propaganda. Religious independency, it was supposed, would interfere with the established rights of the Church of England. The first attempt of Congregationalism to establish itself in the province was made in the city of Quebec in 1801 by the Rev. Mr Benton. For two years all went well, but the success of Benton's work stirred up opposition, and the civil authorities deprived him of the right of making official registration of births, marriages and deaths. On his protesting in a pamphlet against this treatment he was arrested for libel, tried and sentenced to six months' imprisonment and a fine of £50. His followers eventually joined with the Presbyterians.

In the Eastern Townships, which had been settled largely by New England people, conditions were more favourable. Much self-sacrificing pioneer work was done in these townships by the Rev. John Jackson, who came to Canada in 1811, by the Rev. T. Osgoode, by the Rev. A. J. Parker, by the Rev. E. J. Sherrill and by the Rev. James Robertson. With one exception, that of Zion Church, Montreal, all the older Congregational churches in Quebec had their origin in the devoted labours of these pioneers.

The stronghold of Congregationalism in Quebec is Montreal. Zion Church, the oldest of its seven churches in that city, was established in 1832 by the Rev. Richard Miles, an Englishman. In 1836 the Rev. Henry Wilkes, probably the greatest personality in Canadian Congregationalism, became its pastor, and so untiring were his labours, not only as a pastor, but also as a citizen and an educationalist, that when he died in 1886 the original Zion Church had become three churches and a Congregational college had been established. Wilkes has justly had bestowed on him the title of 'the patriarch and apostle of Congregationalism.' The Province of Quebec in 1912 had some twenty Congregational churches with about 7000 people under pastoral care.

A study of the Congregational Year Book for 1911 shows that of the fifty-eight churches in Ontario reporting, fully one-half were established before 1860 and only two since 1900. Evidently the impulse that gave birth to Congregationalism is dying out or is expressing itself through other churches. One of the oldest of the churches in Ontario—Zion Church, Toronto, founded in 1834 by the Rev. John Roaf, who achieved considerable eminence as an advocate of reform in the stormy period of Canadian politics—passed into the hands of the Christian Scientists in 1910. With this exception and a few others less notable, all the well-known churches, founded in times when Congregational principles were less recognized by other religious bodies than they are now, continue their activity. They are to be found in the cities and small towns, and very rarely have a constituency among the farming population. The Year Book for 1911 reports the number of churches and preaching-stations in Ontario as 58, of preachers as 34, and of people under pastoral care as 15,000 in round numbers.

The future of Congregationalism west of Ontario is still uncertain. The first church was founded in Winnipeg in 1879 by the Rev. Wm. Ewing, who was succeeded by the Rev. J. B. Silcox. Since that time a church has been established in Brandon by the Rev. H. C. Mason, another in Vancouver by the Rev. J. W. Pedley, another in Victoria, B.C., and a second one in Winnipeg. Many preaching-stations have also been opened up, so that the Year Book reports 35 churches and preaching-stations in all, with about 5000 people under pastoral care; but inasmuch as Congregational principles are now pretty thoroughly recognized by the larger evangelical churches, it remains uncertain to what extent Congregationalism can establish itself in Western Canada. In the Dominion there are about one hundred Congregational pastors at work, and these have under their care about 31,000 people.

Of the institutions of Congregationalism in Canada the first and most important is the Congregational Union of Canada, in which were merged in 1906 the organization existing for fifty-three years as the Congregational Union of Ontario and Quebec, and the organization existing for sixty years as the Congregational Union of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Its officers are a chairman, general secretary, recording secretary, treasurer and statistical secretary, and the superintendents of departments appointed by the union. It meets annually and performs all such functions, in the interests of the Congregational denomination, as may be performed by a body that is not legislative, but only fraternal and advisory.

The missionary work of the Congregational body in Canada is conducted by two organizations—the Canada Congregational Missionary Society and the Canada Congregational Foreign Missionary Society. The first of these organizations confines itself to home missions and undertakes to found new churches and to help such others as are too weak for self-support. The latter, which is more recent in origin, has maintained for some time a very successful mission in West Central Africa, under the able leadership of the Rev. Dr Walter Currie and Mrs Currie, assisted by several women missionaries and many native teachers and workers.

The educational activities of the Congregationalists in Canada, apart from their weekly organ, the Canadian Congregationalist, are carried on in the Congregational College of Canada, situated since 1864 in Montreal. In the course of its history it has trained for the ministry over one hundred and fifty men, many of whom have achieved eminence both in Canada and other parts of the world.

Congregationalism has not had as brilliant a career in Canada as in England or in the United States, but wherever its churches have been at work the religious spirit of the community has become more tolerant, and the emphasis has been withdrawn from creed and church and placed on deed and character.

II
THE LUTHERANS

In America as well as in Europe the Lutheran Church is probably the most conservative of all the Reformation churches—in this respect a notable contrast to the Congregational body. Lutheranism had in it from the start a certain spirit of compromise. Its attitude, both on questions of doctrine and of constitution, has always been mediate and mediating. From the beginning it opposed the Reformed churches on the ground that they were unnecessarily hostile to the old Roman Church. Its position is about midway between the objective tendency of Roman Catholicism and the subjective tendency of extreme Protestantism. It holds to Scripture and tradition; to the doctrine of the real Presence and the necessity for spiritual discernment on the part of the communicant; to the literal word of Scripture and the hidden spirit; to the importance of the visible church and the reality of the invisible; to candles, crucifixes, images, a ritual modelled on the Roman ritual of the mass and to the evangelical preaching of the Word; to God's foreknowledge and man's self-determination. This mediating position has involved it in endless controversies, both concerning its doctrine and its organization, and the events of the last half-century of Lutheranism in America show that the ashes of the old controversies are still hot.

Nevertheless, Lutheranism has made great progress in North America during the last fifty years, in spite of its endless theological and ecclesiastical controversies. In 1860 it had 1193 ministers with 232,780 members; in 1910 it had 8558 ministers with 2,204,811 members.

Canada's share in this progress, however, has been comparatively small. At the present time there are in the Dominion in all about 200 Lutheran ministers with probably twice that number of congregations—in other words, there is one Lutheran minister in Canada for every forty in the United States, although the populations of the two countries are related as about one to twelve. This disparity is accounted for by the fact that German immigrants and their descendants constitute a very large section of the total population of the United States, whereas in Canada their numbers are as yet unimportant. Indeed, many of the Lutherans in Canada came, not from Germany, but from the United States.

As early as the middle of the eighteenth century the immigration of German Lutherans into Canada began. The first Lutheran church of which we have any record was established in Halifax in 1761. The first one in Ontario was founded near Williamsburg, Dundas County, in 1775. Both of these churches met the same fate—they were merged in the Anglican Church, with which church Lutheranism has much in common. Not until 1850 was the work of the Lutheran Church in Canada established on a solid basis. At that date the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Pittsburg, United States, began a regular Canada mission. So successful were its efforts that in 1861 the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Canada was organized in Vaughan township, York County, and this synod, which is the most important one in Ontario, has now thirty-eight ministers and eighty congregations. The largest group of churches in this synod is in Waterloo County, the best-known German settlement and one of the most progressive communities in Canada. There are also, for those who cannot speak German, fourteen English Lutheran churches with thirteen ministers, and these are organized into the English Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Central Canada. Nova Scotia has a synod with seven ministers and twenty-six congregations, and Manitoba has another with twenty-five ministers and forty-three congregations. In the prairie provinces there are some thirty-eight Norwegian Lutheran ministers. Fifty-three Lutheran ministers, working in various parts of Canada, belong to the Missouri Synod, the largest Lutheran synod on the continent. The rest of the churches and ministers are affiliated with about a dozen synods in the United States.

Lutheranism in Canada has not yet assumed as national a character as it is likely to assume in the future. It has been dependent for its ministers, for the most part, on sources outside Canada; it has been lacking in the unity which has been so great a source of strength to Presbyterianism and Methodism; it has been interested, not only in preaching its religious message, but also in maintaining the German language among its children through its church schools; and all these things have prevented it from acquiring a national character. But the formation of four Canadian synods in recent years and the contemplated establishment of a seminary at Waterloo are both prophetic of a more national Lutheranism in years to come.

III
JUDAISM

The story of the Synagogue in Canada may be conveniently divided into two periods: from 1760 to 1890 and from 1890 to 1910. At the end of the first period there were only 6414 Jews in Canada, according to the census of 1891. At the end of the second period there were 70,000 Jews in Canada, according to the Jewish Year Book. This division marks a great difference, not only in the numbers, but also in the character of the Jewish population. The first Jewish people to settle in Canada were of Spanish and Portuguese origin and had many years of culture behind them; the Jewish immigrants of the second period have been for the most part refugees from Russia, Poland and Roumania.

The earliest Jewish immigration into Canada took place shortly after the British conquest in 1760. Many of the families were of considerable mark and means and soon became prominent, not only in public and civil affairs, but also in the Canadian militia. In 1768 these early settlers in Montreal organized themselves into a congregation, and in 1777 built the first synagogue on Canadian soil—'Shearith Israel.' The constitution of this congregation—unlike those of most synagogues, which are extremely democratic—was pronouncedly autocratic and aristocratic, befitting the Castilian exclusiveness of the chief families composing it. The officers sat apart from the congregation on raised seats, and were empowered not only to reprimand but even to fine those who violated the articles or absented themselves from worship. From 1846 to 1882 this synagogue was presided over by the most distinguished rabbi that Canada has yet known—the Rev. Abram de Sola, LL.D. In 1858 a second synagogue was established in Montreal by German and Polish Jews, and in 1882 'Temple Emmanuel'—the only Reform synagogue in Canada—was built.

In Toronto, Judaism is much more recent than in Montreal. In the early sixties there were only five or six Jewish families in the former city. These organized themselves into a congregation, and with the coming of more Jewish people to the city their efforts were so successful that they were able in 1897 to erect the splendid Holy Blossom synagogue, and to make themselves a power for good not only among their own race, but in the benevolent and social work of the community. Synagogues were also erected in Hamilton and Vancouver during this early period.

The religious needs of the Jewish population in Canada are ministered to by about fifty synagogues. Most of these synagogues, however, are of recent origin, and little more can be chronicled concerning them than the fact of their establishment. They are scattered all over Canada, from Halifax and St John to Victoria and Dawson. The tendency of the Jewish people, however, in Canada as elsewhere, is to mass in the larger cities, and consequently their main centres are: Montreal, where they have sixteen synagogues; Toronto, five synagogues; Winnipeg, seven synagogues; Vancouver, one temple; Ottawa, two synagogues; and Hamilton, one synagogue.

The large majority of the Jewish immigrants of the second period came to Canada to escape the persecution of despotic government. Like all persecuted people they cling to their religion tenaciously and hold it in its most rigid and orthodox form. They bitterly resent any attempt to convert them to Christianity and throw themselves eagerly into any controversy that grows out of the life of the synagogue. Few of the adult Jews in Canada speak the English language or have close relations with the Canadian people. They have not yet become responsive to the broadening influences of the national life. But the Jewish children are learning to speak English in the public schools, and in time the orthodox, controversial Judaism of Canada will approximate to that Reform type which has become, under men like Rabbi Hirsch of Chicago, Rabbi Wise of New York and many others, so great a moral power in the United States.

IV
THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

To understand the full spiritual significance of the religion of the Friends it will be helpful to recall the main features of Lutheranism sketched above. While Lutheranism illustrates the extreme objective tendency of Protestantism, Quakerism illustrates its extreme subjective tendency. Lutheranism clings to the doctrine of the real Presence, to the visible church, to the letter of Scripture, to tradition, to the written creed, to the liturgy, to candles, crucifixes and images, to all that is objective in the Christian church. Quakerism, on the other hand, has no formulated creed, no liturgy, no priesthood, no outward sacraments, no hymn-book, no state connection, and believes that the Spirit, which gave forth the Scriptures, has authority over the Scriptures themselves.

Beginning with the preaching of George Fox in England in 1647, at a time when contemporary Christianity was formal and controversial, Quakerism was soon intensified into a passionate and tenacious conviction by the persecutions it experienced before the passing of the Toleration Act in 1689. In its case, as in so many others, the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church, and it soon spread over England and made many converts, among whom Robert Barclay and William Penn were the most conspicuous. The founding of the State of Pennsylvania by Penn in 1682 began the long and noble career of Quakerism in North America. By its treatment of the Indians, by its opposition to war, by the spirituality of its worship and the simplicity of its daily life, by its business integrity, by its opposition to slavery expressed as early as 1688 in Germantown, by its religious toleration and its deep interest in education, it has been, in both the United States and Canada, one of the great moral and spiritual forces of the last two centuries.

For a long time Quakerism made no effort to formulate a creed and in England has never divided on theological questions. But in the United States it has not been so fortunate. In 1827-28 Elias Hicks, who for fifty years had been a popular preacher among the Friends, was the innocent cause of a division among them. Whether the division was caused by an attempt on the part of Hicks and his followers to liberalize Quakerism, or by an attempt on the part of the orthodox members to introduce dogmatic theology into Quakerism, need not be discussed here. But a division between liberal and orthodox Friends took place, and led to somewhat bitter controversy, and the division prevails in the Quakerism of Canada.

The first large settlement of Friends in Canada took place in 1800, when Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe granted eight thousand acres in York County to Timothy Rogers and some forty other members of the sect. These formed themselves into a group for worship known as the Yonge Street Meeting. At first they were connected with the New York Yearly Meeting, but in 1867 a Yearly Meeting was established in Canada comprising the Quarterly Meetings of Pelham, Yonge Street and West Lake. This New Canada Yearly Meeting adopted the book of discipline in force in the New York Yearly Meeting; but in 1877 the latter Yearly Meeting revised its book of discipline, and when an attempt was made in Canada to adopt the New York revision, trouble arose. Some wanted the revision, others did not. Disputes regarding property soon sprang up and were carried from one court to another until the Supreme Court decided in favour of the revisionists or progressives. Thus orthodox Quakerism in Canada was divided into two parties, the conservatives and the progressives, and the latter party, in the course of time, has approached pretty closely to the ordinary evangelical church, having adopted the pastorate and laying stress on the evangelical theology. Their constituency in Canada is gradually decreasing.

The Hicksite or liberal group of Friends in Canada belongs to the Genesee Yearly Meeting, part of whose constituency lies also in New York. They are organized likewise into two Half-Yearly Meetings—Canada Half-Yearly Meeting, including West Lake Monthly Meeting, Yonge Street Monthly Meeting and Pickering Executive Meeting, and Pelham Half-Yearly Meeting, including Pelham Monthly Meeting and Lobo Monthly Meeting. This group still clings to the early traditions of Quakerism, consistently refusing to adopt the pastorate or to formulate an evangelical creed. Their numbers are steadily declining. There were less than 800 in 1912, but, through the uniqueness of their position, they have an influence on public life far greater than their numbers would indicate or warrant.

V
COMMUNAL RELIGIONS

The communal character of their life and circumstances connected with their settlement in Canada give a peculiar significance to two religious groups—the Mennonites and the Doukhobors.

The Mennonites

The Mennonites^[1] are the descendants of a people who have seen many vicissitudes in the course of the last two centuries. Their history is one long story of persecution. Their founder, Menno Simons, a native of Holland, was contemporaneous with Luther, and, like him, was a priest of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1537 he left the Roman priesthood and began preaching on his own authority. He was not as learned or eloquent as Luther. His character was simple, deep and tenacious, and his creed was more radical in its social significance than that of his great contemporary. He denounced infant baptism, the taking of oaths, war, revenge, divorce, and the holding of civil offices. His aim was not to permeate all secular society with his principles, but to separate from the world and pursue holiness in a small society protected by a strict discipline—an idea that has always had a great attraction for one class of earnest minds. He was not interested in intellectual education, but ordained men to his unpaid ministry solely on the grounds of character and good living.

With this simple but radical religious programme Menno made numerous converts among his own countrymen. But so subversive of the foundations of society did the new religion seem that it brought down upon its adherents bitter persecution. In 1683 Menno's followers were compelled to leave Holland. Large numbers emigrated to Penn's colony in America, while the majority moved into North Prussia. About one hundred years after their settlement in Prussia their refusal to render military service once more brought persecution. But they refused to yield, and on being offered a home with religious liberty and exemption from military service on the shores of the Black Sea by the Russian government, they accepted, and migrated in a body to this region.^[2] For another hundred years they enjoyed peace and prosperity, but in 1870 the Russian government demanded military service of the Mennonites. This they again refused to render, and although, after much negotiation, exemption from military service for another twenty-five years was granted them, their old sense of security was gone. Through the English consul at Berdiansk their attention was turned towards Canada as a possible home. A delegation of inspection visited the Dominion in 1872. The Canadian government gave the Mennonites a grant of seven hundred and twenty square miles in Manitoba along the international boundary, and guaranteed to them exemption from military service and such other conditions as their religious tenets demanded, and soon Southern Manitoba was dotted with their villages. There they have lived and flourished for over forty years.

Their main religious peculiarities are those of Menno Simons already described. Their ministers have no special education for their office and receive no salary. The Bible is highly prized and a simple, fraternal manner of living commended. They look upon all politics as evil, and it is with difficulty that they are persuaded to vote or take any part in public life. In course of time trouble arose with the government over the school question, but that was happily settled, largely through the agency of the Rev. Dr George Bryce, and now they have satisfactory schools in which both English and German are taught. Like the Friends, their early religious unity has been broken up by divisions, but these are not deep enough to entirely divorce any of the parties from the fundamental teachings of the founder. The old communal system still prevails to a considerable degree and protects their religion from the subversive influences of the surrounding communities.

The Doukhobors^[1]

The Doukhobors are a community of nonconformist Russian peasants now living in the Province of Saskatchewan. Their religious belief bears a very striking resemblance to that of the Friends, the foundation article of both being the conviction that the Spirit of God is present in the soul of man and directs him by its word within him. Like the Friends they worship God in the spirit, and affirm that the church, with its sacraments, priests, liturgy and organization, has no value for them. They understand the work, teachings and sufferings of Christ in a spiritual sense, laying special stress on the ethical and non-military aspects of His message. Love they regard as the organizing principle of Christianity and aim at basing on it their attitude towards men and animals. For this reason they are opposed to the killing of animals for food, and sometimes even to the use of them for industrial purposes. They are a peaceful, industrious and abstemious people.

Originating in Russia about the middle of the eighteenth century, little is recorded of the Doukhobors for about one hundred years. In 1840-50, however, they suddenly became prominent because of their refusal to give military service. After many severe persecutions they were banished to the Caucasus in the expectation that the wild men of the hills and the rigorous and unhealthy character of their new environment would soon cure them of their religious mania. But, in spite of severe hardships, they succeeded in building up flourishing colonies and living on friendly terms with the surrounding people.

At the beginning of the reign of Czar Nicholas II, in 1895, persecutions began again. But this time the Doukhobors found a powerful friend in the novelist Tolstoi. Through his influence and that of the Society of Friends in England and America the Russian government was persuaded to grant the Doukhobors permission to migrate. The first colony, numbering over 1000, was planted on the Island of Cyprus. Negotiations were entered into with the Canadian government for a tract of land in the North-West Territories, and when arrangements were completed a second colony left Russia for Canada. These were soon followed by those who had previously located in Cyprus. In 1899 and 1900 no fewer than 7500 Doukhobors came to Canada and took up their residence around Yorkton and Prince Albert in the present Province of Saskatchewan. Since that time a few of the more visionary and suggestible among them have brought the whole community into undue prominence by their fanatical attempt at living out the very letter of their creed, but the large majority, under the leadership of Peter Veregin, have proved themselves industrious, peaceable and worthy citizens, and will doubtless add a unique spiritual element to the new civilization of the West, as the Quakers, in spite of similar early extravagances, have done in the East.

VI
TWO RECENT POPULAR MOVEMENTS

In the world of science personality counts for little; in the world of religion it is of vast importance. This truth is well illustrated in the two most popular religious movements of the English-speaking world in modern times, namely, Christian Science and the Salvation Army. Both have worthy principles at their foundations, but those principles would never have appealed to the people as they have done apart from the picturesque personalities of their founders, Mrs Mary Baker Eddy and William Booth. These movements did not originate in Canada, but they have become important parts of its religious life, and must not be passed over.

Christian Science

Christian Science is the only great religious movement that had a woman for its founder. It was begun in 1866 by Mrs Eddy in New England, a part of the New World that for a long time has been peculiarly responsive to new ideas and new experiments of all kinds. Whether Mrs Eddy was the sole originator of the principles underlying Christian Science, as her followers claim, or whether they were drawn by Mrs Eddy from her teacher, Dr Quimby, as many writers seem to believe, at least it was the genius of Mrs Eddy and the power of her personality which brought those principles into vogue and organized the movement that has done most to make them effective. Philosophically her ideas are not new, except in the strange and uncompromising way in which she states them and the practical use she makes of them. Her point of view may be described as a spiritualistic monism. While the most up-to-date philosophy and psychology of the present time—for example, that of Külpe and Bergson—are dualistic in tendency and insist that we know nothing that justifies us in taking matter up into mind or mind up into matter, Mrs Eddy boldly declares that there is nothing real but mind. Matter, sickness, evil are subjective states of error, delusions that can be dispelled by the mental process of a true knowledge of God and Christ or Christian Science. This being so, the use of drugs in the treatment of sickness is irrelevant; spiritual treatment is the only cure for what is really mental error. Jesus Himself healed by these means, says Christian Science, and promised that those who believed in Him should have the power to do similar curative work.

It is not the business of the historian to approve or disapprove of the movements whose history he records. But whether true philosophically or not, it is plain to the impartial observer that Christian Science, through its reinstatements of the concepts of God, spirit, mind, love, good, etc., in our modern materialistic and sceptical world, has produced a great emotional and spiritual awakening in a multitude of lives. In 1889, twenty-three years after it was founded, it claimed only 450 members. In 1906, when the last available figures were collected, it had 72,000 members, and there is no doubt that the number is now well over 100,000. Of Mrs Eddy's book, Science and Health with a Key to the Scriptures, 390 editions have been published and 500,000 copies sold; and even though several successive copies of the book may be owned by most Christian Scientists, still the number of people in whose libraries it is found must be very large. As an organization the operations of Christian Science are now almost world-wide. It has, all told, 743 branches, 441 societies, not yet organized into churches, and 889 reading-rooms. It was first introduced into Canada in 1887, and centres were formed in Halifax, Montreal and Toronto. Later on societies were started in Belleville, Berlin, Collingwood, Hamilton, Kingston, London, Ottawa, Thorold, Truro, Tweed and Winnipeg. The movement continues to grow, and now has in Canada 23 churches, 13 societies, and 28 reading-rooms. Besides the text-book by Mrs Eddy, Christian Science expresses itself through the following publications: the Christian Science Journal, the Christian Science Sentinel, the Christian Science Quarterly and the Christian Science Monitor. The movement is organized on both autocratic and democratic lines. Each congregation appoints its own officers and conducts its own local affairs, but the pastoral office, through which individuality in religion expresses itself, does not exist. There is no sermon in a Christian Science service, and its place is taken by the reading, from Mrs Eddy's text-book, of passages selected by a committee of the mother church in Boston.

The Salvation Army

The Salvation Army offers many points that contrast with and resemble phases of the religious movement just described. Both owe their origin to a unique personality; both are highly centralized in their organization; both have made their way against great opposition from the older churches; both claim to demonstrate the truth of their religion in actual experience. But the contrast is probably greater than the resemblance. Christian Science awakens the speculative faculty and claims to offer the community a metaphysical truth not found in other churches; the Salvation Army eschews all metaphysics, and only claims to apply, by new and more thorough methods, the evangelical Christianity of Wesley and Chalmers. Christian Science does not proselytize in the ordinary sense of the term; it offers no free literature or free therapeutic treatment; it does not go out into the highways and byways and compel the people to come in; its members belong, for the most part, to the prosperous classes; it has no social programme apart from the sweetening of individual life. On the other hand, the Salvation Army goes down to the masses wherever they may be found; its constituency is made up, for the most part, of the vicious, drunken and under-employed classes, and the hundreds of thousands whom it has saved from the underworld; it has a social programme which aims at benefiting, the people with whom it deals at every point of pressing need.

Born in 1829, William Booth entered the ministry of the Methodist Church in 1852. Thirteen years later he began a Christian mission in Whitechapel, London, and achieved extraordinary success as an evangelist. For several years he carried on this work under the auspices of the Methodist Church, and when he began his labours, like Wesley himself, had no thought of breaking from the parent church. Events, however, rendered a new organization necessary, and in 1878, on Christmas Day, he established one which he called the 'Salvation Army.' His first work was evangelistic, but he soon saw that inward renewal must go hand in hand with the betterment of outward conditions. In 1890 the publication of Darkest England and the Way Out secured public interest in his social programme, and since that time the Army has added department after department to its social work. Its operations are now practically world-wide. They are carried on in 56 countries, at 8574 posts, by 16,244 officers and cadets, 56,587 local officers and 21,681 bandsmen. It has 904 social-relief institutions under the charge of 2520 officers and cadets; 118 rescue homes; and 73 periodicals with a circulation of over 1,000,000.

The work of the Salvation Army in Canada had a very humble origin. It began in London, Ontario, in 1883, five years after the formation of the Army by General Booth. Two young Salvationists, who had only recently left England, met at a church prayer-meeting. 'As iron sharpeneth iron, so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.' The zeal of each was rekindled by the presence of the other. They proceeded to hold meetings in the market square, and attracted large crowds by their novel methods. Their first convert, who had been a debased drunkard, gave them added courage and zeal. In spite of considerable persecution they persevered in their services, and when they were visited by an Army commissioner some months afterwards had gathered about them a hundred converts. Their work was organized into a branch of the Salvation Army, and the young men themselves were raised to the rank of officers and in time left London for a larger field.

The work of the Salvation Army, which began in this humble way in Canada, has expanded until now it reaches from Newfoundland to Alaska. London's small corps has increased to 465 corps and outposts, and the work is carried on by 950 officers and cadets and 15,968 soldiers. Open-air meetings to the number of 3862 a month with an average monthly attendance of 62,496 are held, as well as 5927 monthly indoor meetings, with an attendance of 233,853 on Sundays and 105,803 during the week.

In addition to these distinctively religious meetings the Salvation Army carries on social work in 52 institutions. It has 11 rescue homes, 2 maternity homes, 11 salvages, 9 metropoles, 4 shelters, 3 children's homes, 4 farm colonies—situated respectively near Toronto, Clarkson, Tisdale and Vancouver—and 8 other social institutions. In Newfoundland, which is included by the Army in the Canadian division, it has over 50 schools, for which it receives a grant from the Educational department of nearly $6000 annually. The regard in which these social activities are held is shown by the fact that the Provinces of Ontario and Manitoba, the city of Toronto and fifteen counties make grants to the prison work. Railway companies in Montreal, Ottawa, Winnipeg and Vancouver, and the Dominion government itself, evince their goodwill towards the Army's operations by pecuniary support.

The Canadian edition of the War Cry, the official organ of the Salvation Army, has a weekly circulation of 32,000, and the Young Soldier a circulation of 1300.

When General Booth died in 1912, Canada with the whole Christian world did honour to his memory. He had won recognition as one of the greatest moral reformers of modern times. His work is so strongly established and in the hands of such able officers, who adhere to his methods, that his death has in no way weakened the Army's force.

VII
MISCELLANEOUS GROUPS

It is unnecessary to describe in detail the characteristics and history of all the small religious bodies in Canada. It may be said that they owe their origin to some one of three motives. First, their founders wish to conserve some element in worship or spiritual experience or doctrine which they think is being neglected by the church from which they secede. For example, the Reformed Episcopal Church, an offshoot of the Church of England, aims at maintaining episcopal worship free from sacerdotal and sacramental ideas and practices: the Hornerite and Holiness movements have broken away from the Methodist Church in order to emphasize the idea of perfect holiness, which they accuse the parent church of neglecting; the Adventists cling to the belief in the second coming of Christ in its literal form; and the Reformed Presbyterian Church is a protest against the use of hymns and organs in worship and the toning down of Calvinistic theology with Arminianism and Liberalism. These sects may be called the rearguard of the Christian army.

A second motive for the formation of separate religious organizations is the desire of the founders to promote what they believe to be a unique type of religious experience. Illustrations of this motive may be seen in the United Brethren in Christ, a small body in Canada having its origin in a German sect of the same name in the United States and founded by Otterbein and Boehm in 1767; in the Evangelical Association, founded by a German named Jacob Albright in 1807 in Pennsylvania; in the Latter-Day Saints,^[1] who claim to be the original body founded by Joseph Smith, to whom, according to his own testimony, the so-called Book of Mormon was revealed by God; and in the New Jerusalem Church, which bases itself on the teaching of Swedenborg and strives to reproduce his type of experience.

A third motive which leads men to create separate religious organizations is the desire to rationalize the teachings of Christianity and bring the churches into line with the most recent modern thought. This work is being done, for the most part, by the Unitarians and the Universalists. The Universalists, while blessed with a broader name, have not been as progressive theologically as the Unitarians, and are decreasing in numbers in Canada. Their most influential church is in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Unitarian body has been fortunate in including within its membership many of the most famous names in American history. Its stronghold is New England, particularly Boston, and for half a century it dominated the literary, educational and philanthropic activities of that section of the country. The progress of Unitarianism in Canada has been very slow, considering that its two oldest congregations—those at Montreal and Toronto—date back to 1845, but in the last decade its influence has been rapidly growing. New churches have been established in Ottawa, Hamilton, Winnipeg, Calgary, Vancouver and Victoria. Through these new churches and an increased distribution of free literature Unitarianism is now reaching thousands of people who before were strangers to its message, and the persistency with which the leaders of orthodoxy warn their hearers against it shows, better than anything else could, how its influence is permeating Canada. These two groups of people—the Unitarians and the Universalists—have been the scouts of the Christian army of Protestant churches, and many positions which they first reconnoitred are now being occupied by the main body. They have had and still have a vast influence in transforming and spiritualizing popular religious thought on all great religious themes, and particularly in exalting character and deed over creed and profession.

Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been silently corrected.

The style of the decimal point has been made consistent, as a raised dot (e.g., 123·45).

Illustrations and footnotes have been relocated due to using a non-page layout.

[The end of Canada and its Provinces Vol 11 of 23 edited by Adam Shortt and Arthur Doughty]