The Story of My Life Part 16

Establishment of the "Christian Guardian"--Church claims resisted.

Dr. Ryerson takes up the Story of his Life at the period of the Conference of 1829. He says that;--

At this Conference it was determined to establish the _Christian Guardian_ newspaper. The Conference elected me as Editor, with instructions to go to New York to procure the types and apparatus necessary for its establishment.[24] In this I was greatly a.s.sisted by the late Rev. Dr. Bangs, and the Rev. Mr. Collard, of the New York Methodist Book Concern.

The hardships and difficulties of establishing and conducting the _Christian Guardian_ for the first year, without a clerk, in the midst of our poverty, can hardly be realized and need not be detailed. The first number was issued on the 22nd November, 1829. The list of subscribers at the commencement was less than 500. Three years afterwards (in 1832), when the first Editor was appointed as the representative of the Canadian Conference to England, the subscription list was reported as nearly 3,000.

The characteristics of the _Christian Guardian_ during these three eventful years (it being then regarded as the leading newspaper of Upper Canada) were defence of Methodist inst.i.tutions and character, civil rights, temperance principles, educational progress, and missionary operations. It was during this period that the Methodist and other denominations obtained the right to hold land for places of worship, and for the burial of their dead, and the right of their ministers to solemnize matrimony, as also their rights to equal civil and religious liberty, against a dominant church establishment in Upper Canada, as I have detailed in the "Epochs of Canadian Methodism," pp. 129-246.

The foregoing is the only reference to this period of his life which Dr.

Ryerson has left. I have, therefore, availed myself of his letters and papers to continue the narrative.

_June--August, 1830._--With a view to correct the misstatements made in regard to the Methodists in Canada, and to set forth their just rights, Dr. Ryerson devoted a considerable s.p.a.ce in the _Christian Guardian_ of the 26th June; and 3rd, 10th, 24th, and 31st July, and 14th August, 1830, to a concise history of that body in this country, in which he maintained its right to the privileges proposed to be granted to it under the Religious Societies Relief Bill of that time.[25] He pointed out, as he expressed it, that--

His Majesty's Royal a.s.sent would have been given to that bill had it not unfortunately fallen in company with some ruthless vagrant (in the shape of a secret communication from our enemies in Canada) who had slandered, abused, and tomahawked it at the foot of the throne.

_Oct. 11th._--Being desirous of availing himself of his brother George's educational advantages and ability in his editorial labours, Dr.

Ryerson, under this date, wrote to him in his new charge at the Grand River. He said:--

I am glad to hear that you enjoy peace of mind, and feel an increasing attachment to your charge. It is more than I do as Editor. I am scarcely free from interruption long enough to settle my mind on any one thing, and sometimes I am almost distracted. On questions of right, and liberty, as well as on other subjects, I am resolved to pursue a most decided course. Your retired situation will afford you a good opportunity for writing useful articles on various subjects. I hope you will write often and freely.

_Nov. 1st._--Another reason, which apparently prompted Dr. Ryerson to appeal to his brother George for editorial help, was the fear that the increasing efforts of the influential leaders of the Church of England to secure a recognition of her claims to be an established church in Upper Canada might be crowned with success. He, therefore, at this date wrote to him again on the subject, and said.--

The posture of affairs in England appears, upon the whole, more favourable to reform than in Upper Canada. We are resolved to double our diligence; to have general pet.i.tions in favour of the abolition of every kind of religious domination, circulated throughout the Province, addressed to the Provincial and Imperial Parliaments, and take up the whole question--decidedly, fully, and warmly. We must be up and doing while it is called to-day. It is the right time. There is a new and Whig Parliament in England, and I am sure our own House of a.s.sembly dare not deny the pet.i.tions of the people on this subject.

Nature of the Struggle for Religious Equality.

During this and many succeeding years the chief efforts of Dr. Ryerson and those who acted with him were directed, as intimated before, against the efforts put forth to establish a "dominant church" in Upper Canada.

A brief _resume_ of the question will put the reader in possession of the facts of the case:--

The late Bishop Strachan, in his speech delivered in the Legislative Council, March 6th, 1828, devoted several pages of that speech (as printed) to prove that "the Church of England is by law the Established Church of this Province." This statement in some form he put forth in every discussion on the subject.

The grounds upon which this claim was founded were also fully stated by Rev. Wm Betteridge, B.D. (of Woodstock), who was sent to England to represent the claims of the Church of England in this controversy. These claims he put forward in his "Brief History of the Church in Upper Canada," published in England in 1838. He rests those claims upon what he considers to have been the intention of the Imperial Parliament in pa.s.sing the Clergy Reserve sections of the Act (31 Geo III., c. 31) in 1791, and also on the "King's Instructions" to the Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada in 1818. He further contended that the "Extinction of the t.i.thes Act," pa.s.sed by the Upper Canada Legislature in 1823, inferentially recognized the dominancy of the Church of England in Canada as a Church of the Empire. Beyond this alleged inferential right to be an Established Church in Upper Canada, none in reality existed. It was, therefore, to prevent this inference,--which was insisted upon as perfectly clear and irresistible,--from receiving Imperial or Provincial recognition as an admitted or legal fact, that the persistent efforts of Dr. Ryerson and others were unceasingly directed during all of those years.

Few in the present day can realize the magnitude of the task thus undertaken. Nor do we sufficiently estimate the significance of the issues involved in that contest--a contest waged for the recognition of equal denominational rights and the supremacy of religious liberty. All of these questions are now happily settled "upon the best and surest foundation." But it might have been far otherwise had not such men as Dr. Ryerson stepped into the breach at a critical time in our early history; and if the battle had not been fought and won before the distasteful yoke of an "establishment" had been imposed upon this young country, and burdensome vested interests been thereby created, which it would have taken years of serious and protracted strife to extinguish.

As the fruits of that protracted struggle for religious equality have been long quietly enjoyed in this province, there is a disposition in many quarters to undervalue the importance of the contest itself, and even to question the propriety of reviving the recollection of such early conflicts. In so far as we may adopt such views we must necessarily fail to do justice to the heroism and self-sacrifice of those who, like Dr. Ryerson, encountered the prolonged and determined opposition, as well as the contemptuous scorn of the dominant party while battling for the rights which he and others ultimately secured for us. Those amongst us who would seek to depreciate the importance of that struggle for civil and religious freedom, must fail also to realize the importance of the real issues of that contest.

To those who have given any attention to this subject, it is well known that the maintenance of the views put forth by Dr. Ryerson in this controversy involved personal odium and the certainty of social ostracism. It also involved, what is often more fatal to a man's courage and constancy, the sneer and the personal animosity, as well as ridicule, of a powerful party whose right to supremacy is questioned, and whose monopoly of what is common property is in danger of being destroyed. Although Dr. Ryerson was a gentleman by birth, and the son of a British officer and U. E. Loyalist, yet the fact that, as one of the "despised sect" of Methodists, he dared to question the right of "the Church" to superiority over the "Sectaries," subjected him to a system of petty and bitter persecution which few men of less nerve and fort.i.tude could have borne. As it was, there were times when the tender sensibilities of his n.o.ble nature were so deeply wounded by this injustice, and the scorn and contumely of his opponents, that were it not that his intrepid courage was of the finest type, and without the alloy of rancour or bravado in it, it would have failed him. But he never flinched. And when the odds seemed to be most against him, he would, with humble dependence upon Divine help, put forth even greater effort; and, with his courage thus reanimated, would unexpectedly turn the flank of his enemy; or, by concentrating all his forces on the vulnerable points of his adversary's case, completely neutralize the force of his attack.

It must not be understood from this that Dr. Ryerson cherished any personal animosity to the Church of England as a Divine and Spiritual power in the land. Far from it. In his first "campaign" against the Venerable Archdeacon of York (Dr. Strachan), he took care to point out the difference between the principles maintained by the aggressors in that contest and the principles of the Church itself. He said:--

Whatever remarks the Doctor's discourse may require me to make, I wish it to be distinctly understood that I mean no reflection on the doctrines, liturgy, or discipline of the Church of which he has the honour to be a minister. Be a.s.sured I mean no such thing. I firmly believe in her doctrines, I admire her liturgy, and I heartily rejoice in the success of those principles which are therein continued, and it is for the prosperity of the truths which they unfold that I shall ever pray and contend. And, with respect to Church government, I heartily adopt the sentiments of the pious and the learned Bishop Burnet, that "that form of Church government is the best which is most suitable to the customs and circ.u.mstances of the people among whom it is established."[26]

Such was Dr. Ryerson's tribute to the Church of England in, 1826. His disclaimer of personal hostility to that Church (near the close of the protracted denominational contest in regard to the Clergy Reserves), will be found in an interesting personal correspondence, in a subsequent part of this book, with John Kent, Esq., Editor of _The Church_ newspaper in 1841-2.

With a view to enable Canadians of the present day more clearly to understand the pressing nature of the difficulties with which Dr.

Ryerson had to contend, almost single-handed, fifty years ago, I shall briefly enumerate the princ.i.p.al ones:--

1. The whole of the official community of those days, which had grown up as a united and powerful cla.s.s, were bound together by more than official ties, and hence, as a "family compact," they were enabled to act together as one man. This cla.s.s, with few exceptions, were members of the Church of England. They regarded her--apart from her inimitable liturgy and scriptural standards of faith--with the respect and love which her historical prestige and a.s.sured status naturally inspired them. They maintained, without question, the traditional right of the Church of England to supremacy everywhere in the Empire. They, therefore, instinctively repelled all attempts to deprive that Church of what they believed to be her inalienable right to dominancy in this Province.

2. Those who had the courage, and who ventured to oppose the Church claims put forth by the clerical and other leaders of the dominant party of that time, were sure to be singled out for personal attack.

They were also made to feel the chilling effects of social exclusiveness. The cry against them was that of ignorance, irreverence, irreligion, republicanism, disloyalty, etc. These charges were repeated in every form; and that, too, by a section both of the official and religious press, a portion of which was edited with singular ability; a press which prided itself on its intelligence, its unquestioned churchmanship and exalted respect for sacred things, its firm devotion to the principle of "Church and State"--the maintenance of which was held to be the only safeguard for society, if not its invincible bulwark. An ill.u.s.tration of the profession of this exclusive loyalty is given by Dr. Ryerson in these pages. He mentions the fact that the plea to the British Government put forth by the leaders of the dominant party, as a reason why the Church of England in this Province should be made supreme and be subsidized, was that she might then be enabled "to preserve the principles of loyalty to England from being overwhelmed and destroyed" by the "Yankee Methodists," as represented by the Ryersons and their friends!

3. The two branches of the Legislature were divided on this subject. The House of a.s.sembly represented the popular side, as advocated by Dr.

Ryerson and other denominational leaders. The Legislative Council (of which the Ven. Archdeacon Strachan was an influential member,) maintained the clerical views so ably put forth by this reverend leader on the other side.

4. Except by personal visits to England--where grievances could alone be fully redressed in those days--little hope was entertained by the non-Episcopal party that their side of the question would (if stated through official channels), be fairly or fully represented. Even were their case presented through these channels they were not sure but that (as strikingly and quaintly put by Dr. Ryerson, on page 94).

In company with some ruthless vagrant--in the shape of a secret communication from enemies in Canada--it would be slandered, abused, and tomahawked at the foot of the throne.

As an ill.u.s.tration also of the spirit of the Chief Executive in Upper Canada in dealing with the questions in dispute, I quote the following extract from the reply of Sir John Colborne to an address from the Methodist Conference in 1831.[27] He said:

Your dislike to any church establishment, or to the particular form of Christianity which is denominated the Church, of England, may be the natural consequence of the constant success of your own efficacious and organized system. The small number of our Church[28] is to be regretted, as well as that the organization of its ministry is not adapted to supply the present wants of the dispersed population in this new country; but you will readily admit that the sober-minded of the province are disgusted with the accounts of the disgraceful dissensions of the Episcopal Methodist Church and its separatists, recriminating memorials, and the warfare of one Church with another. The utility of an Establishment depends entirely on the piety, a.s.siduity, and devoted zeal of its ministers, and on their abstaining from a secular interference which may involve them in political disputes.

The labours of the clergy of established churches in defence of moral and religious truth will always be remembered by you, who have access to their writings, and benefit by them in common with other Christian Societies. You will allow, I have no doubt, on reflection that it would indeed be imprudent to admit the right of societies to dictate, on account of their present numerical strength, in what way the lands set apart as a provision for the clergy shall be disposed of.

The system of [University] Education which has produced the best and ablest men in the United Kingdom will not be abandoned here to suit the limited views of the leaders of Societies who, perhaps, have neither experience nor judgment to appreciate the value or advantages of a liberal education....

Such was the spirit in which the Governor in those days replied to the respectful address of a large and influential body of Christians. He even went further in another part of his reply, and referred to "the absurd advice offered by your missionaries to the Indians, and their officious interference."[29] Such language from the lips of Her Majesty's Representative, if at all possible in these days, would provoke a burst of indignation from those to whom it might be addressed, but it had to be endured fifty years ago, when to question the prerogative of the Crown, or the policy of the Executive, was taken as _prima facie_ evidence of disloyalty, and republicanism.

5. Into the discussion of the claims of the Church of England in Upper Canada, two questions entered, which were important factors in the case.

Both sides thoroughly understood the significance of either question as an issue in the discussion; and both sides were, therefore, equally on the alert--the one to maintain the affirmative, and the other the negative, side of these questions. The first was the claim that it was the inherent right of the Church of England to be an established church in every part of the empire, and, therefore, in Upper Canada. Both sides knew that the admission of such a claim, would be to admit the exclusive right of that Church to the Clergy Reserves as her heritage. It was argued, as an unquestionable fact, that the exclusive right of the Church of England in Upper Canada to such reserves must have been uppermost in the mind of the royal donor of these lands, when the grant was first made. The second point was, that the admission of this inherent right of the Church of England to be an established church in Upper Canada, would extinguish the right of each one of the nonconformist bodies to the status of a Church. It can well be understood that in a contest which involved vital questions like these (that is, of the exclusive endowment of one Church, and its consequent superior status as a dominant Church), the struggle would be a protracted and bitter one. And so it proved to be. But justice and right at length prevailed. A portion of the Reserves was impartially distributed, on a common basis among the denominations which desired to share in them, and the long-contested claims of the Church of England to the exclusive status of an established church were at length emphatically repudiated by the Legislature; and, in 1854, the last semblance of a union between Church and State vanished from our Statute Book.[30]--J. G. H.

_Dec. 18th, 1830._--In the _Guardian_ of this day, Dr. Ryerson published a pet.i.tion to the Imperial Parliament, prepared by a large Committee, of which he was a member, and of which Dr. W. W. Baldwin was Chairman. In that pet.i.tion the writer referred to the historical fact, that, had the inhabitants of this Province been dependent upon the Church of England or of Scotland for religious instruction, they would have remained dest.i.tute of it for some years, and also that the pioneer non-Episcopal ministers were not dissenters, because of the priority of their existence and labours in Upper Canada. The pet.i.tion, having pointed out that there were only five Episcopal clergy in Canada during the war of 1812, and that only one Presbyterian minister was settled in the Province in 1818, declared that:

The ministers of several other denominations accompanied the first influx of emigration into Upper Canada, (1783-1790,) and have shared the hardships, privations, and sufferings incident to missionaries in a new country. And it is through their unwearied labours, that the ma.s.s of the population have been mainly supplied with religious instruction. They, therefore, do not stand in the relation, of Dissenters from either the Church of England or of Scotland, but are the ministers of distinct and independent Churches, who had numerous congregations in various parts of the Province, before the ministerial labours of any ecclesiastical establishment were, to any considerable extent, known or felt.

_Jan. 20th, 1831._--As an evidence that the views put forth by Dr.

Ryerson, in the _Guardian_, against an established Church in Upper Canada, were acceptable outside of his own denomination, I give the following letter, addressed to him at this date from Perth, by the Rev.

Wm. Bell, Presbyterian:

Though differing from you in many particulars, yet in some we agree. Your endeavours to advance the cause of civil and religious liberty have generally met my approbation. Some of your writings that I have seen discover both good sense and Christian feeling.

The liberality, too, you have discovered, both in regard to myself and in regard of my brethren, has not escaped my observation. Be not discouraged by the malice of the enemies of religion. Your _Guardian_ I have seldom seen, but from this time I intend to take it regularly. Consider me one of your "constant readers." The matters in which we differ are nothing in comparison of those in which we agree.

_Feb. 9th._--Some members of the Church of England in the Province evinced a good deal of hostility to the Methodists of this period, chiefly from the fact that they had been connected with the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, and that the Canada Conference had formed one of the Annual Conferences of that Church, presided over by an American Bishop. As an evidence of this hostility, Dr. Ryerson stated in the _Guardian_ of this date, that Donald Bethune, Esq., and others, of Kingston, had pet.i.tioned the House of a.s.sembly:--

To prohibit any exercise of the functions of a priest, or exhorter, or elder of any denomination in the Province except by British subjects; 2nd, to prevent any religious society connected with any foreign religious body to a.s.semble in Conference; 3rd, to prevent the raising of money by any religious person or body for objects which are not strictly British, etc.

The Legislature appointed a Committee on the subject, and Dr. Ryerson, as representing the Methodists, Rev. Mr Harris the Presbyterians, and Rev. Mr. Stewart the Baptists, were summoned to attend this Committee with a view to give evidence on the subject. This Dr. Ryerson did at length, (as did also these gentlemen). Dr. Ryerson traced the history of the Methodist body in Canada, and showed that, three years before this time, the Canada Conference had taken steps to sever its connection with the American General Conference, and had done so in a friendly manner.[31]

The pet.i.tion was aimed at the Methodists, as they alone answered the description of the parties referred to by the pet.i.tioners. The pet.i.tion was also a covert re-statement of the often disproved charge of disloyalty, etc., on the part of the Methodists. The House very properly came to the conclusion--

"That it was inconsistent with the benign and tolerant principles of the British Const.i.tution to restrain by penal enactment any denomination of Christians, whether subjects or foreigners," etc.

This, however, was a sample of the favourite mode of attack, and the system of persecution to which the early Methodists were exposed in this Province. At the same session of Parliament in 1831, the Marriage Bill, which had been before the House each year for six successive years, was finally pa.s.sed. This Bill gave to the Methodists and to other non-Episcopal ministers the right for the first time to solemnize matrimony in Upper Canada.