The Story of My Life Part 58

In 1876, however, Dr. Ryerson was permitted to retire on full salary from the responsible post which for nearly thirty-two years he had so worthily and honourably filled.

CHAPTER XLVII.

1845-1846.

Illness and Final Retirement of Lord Metcalfe.

In a letter to Dr. Ryerson from Mr. Higginson, dated 27th May, 1845, he thus refers to Lord Metcalfe's increasing illness:--

I wish that I could answer your inquiries about Lord Metcalfe's health in a satisfactory manner. The torturing malady with which he is afflicted is no better; and although there is no decided change for the worse, yet there is in my mind too much reason to apprehend that the disease, though slow in its progress, keeps constantly advancing and threatens farther ravages. The pain is incessant and unabated. The resignation with which he suffers, and his unyielding determination to remain at his post as long as his presence can serve Canada, inspires a feeling of veneration which I will not attempt to describe. He seems to be quite prepared to realize, if necessary, that n.o.ble sentiment--

"Dulce et decorum est pro Patria mori."

Mr. Higginson again wrote to Dr. Ryerson, from Montreal, on the 28th of October, as follows:--

As bad news travels fast, you will probably have heard before this reaches you of the aggravation of the painful malady from which Lord Metcalfe has so long suffered. No other man, in his present lamentable condition, would think of administering the Government. He seems quite ready to die in harness, if necessary, but is determined not to leave here as long as he can, at any sacrifice of personal considerations, continue to discharge the duties. I hope and believe that Her Majesty's Government will not hesitate to relieve him as soon as a successor can be found--it would be inhuman to delay any longer. How much of Canada's weal or woe depends upon the selection? It is far easier to mar than to mend the triumph my inestimable friend has achieved--to weaken than to strengthen its effects.

Mr. Higginson wrote to Dr. Ryerson on the 18th December:--

I, two days ago, had the pleasure to receive your kind and feeling letter of the 11th. It will afford me great satisfaction to communicate to my suffering friend the grateful sentiments to which you give expression.

Lord Metcalfe's retirement was, as you justly observe, strictly a providential dispensation. He remained at his post until it pleased the Almighty to render him physically incapable of discharging all its duties; and he was quite prepared to die at it, in the service of his country. The terms in which the Queen's permission to return home was acceded are, beyond measure, gratifying and complimentary. I shall have much pleasure in reading the despatch to you the first time we meet. Of the fearful malady, I can only say that its onward progress seems to be beyond human control, and that I entertain no hope of its being arrested. But the surgical skill of Europe may, and I earnestly pray to G.o.d will, alleviate the intensity of the blessed man's sufferings.

After Lord Metcalfe had returned to England, the Hon. D. Daly, Secretary of the Province, wrote to Dr. Ryerson, who had returned to Canada, on the 20th December, as follows:--

Your disappointment was naturally great at missing the only opportunity that, in all human probability, can be afforded you in this world of seeing our lamented and excellent Governor. In his late and most severe suffering, the greatness of that most inestimable man's character was, if possible, more resplendent than under the trials to which you saw him subjected. May he enjoy a peaceful termination to his useful existence!

We can know nothing certain of his successor until the news of which he is the bearer has reached England, his relinquishment of the Government having been left entirely to his own free will. He had the comfort of knowing how fully his services were appreciated by his Sovereign; and his removal was effected in the most gratifying way by Her Majesty's command.

On the 9th May Dr. Ryerson wrote a farewell letter to Lord Metcalfe, from which I make the following extract:--

Having pa.s.sed Your Lordship on the ocean, and being disappointed of the privilege of ever seeing you again in this world, I wrote by the first packet after my arrival to Mr. C. Trevelyan, requesting him to have the goodness to convey to Your Lordship the expression of those sentiments of grat.i.tude and affectionate respect which I can never fail to cherish while memory remains....

In Your Lordship's retirement and suffering, ... I think it wrong to intrude further than to state my deep sympathy in your sufferings, and that my supplications are offered up daily to the G.o.d of all consolation, that He would grant you patience, resignation, and a "sure and certain hope of a glorious resurrection to everlasting life;" and to a.s.sure Your Lordship that my life shall be sacredly devoted to the work in behalf of the youthful and future generations of Canada, for which Your Lordship's kindness has done so much, to enable me to qualify myself. With, these the strongest feelings of my heart, I have, etc.

The final letter received from Mr. Higginson was dated Montreal, June 10th, 1840:--

I beg you to accept my cordial thanks for your very kind communication of the 30th ult. I am not insensible to the high honour that has been conferred upon me by our Sovereign--far beyond my humble merits; but I have great satisfaction in feeling that I won it fighting shoulder to shoulder with you and the other advocates of those great British Const.i.tutional principles of Government, for which we contended, and which were so fiercely a.s.sailed by the British Democratic party, who, I earnestly trust may never again be able to make head in Canada. That I, in the slightest degree contributed to the victory will be to me a source of pride. To the eminent Pilot who directed us no one knows better than yourself how much is due. Would that he had been spared to perfect the good work. My latest account of his health encourages the hope that I may yet be permitted to see him again.

We closed the session yesterday, which was got through with success, and I hope with some advantage to the public interests.

I regret very much that I have not had the pleasure of seeing you since your return from Europe. Farewell!

J. M. H.

The appointment which Mr. Higginson received from the Queen was that of Governor of Antigua. In his reply to an address from the Wesleyan missionaries of that island, on his arrival, he thus referred to his experience of that body in Canada:--

I have had frequent opportunities of witnessing in various quarters of the globe the untiring exertions of your brethren in the sacred cause of religion and humanity, and whether in the sultry heat of Asia, ... or struggling against the rigours of a Canadian winter, I have always found the Wesleyan missionaries animated by the same benevolent and philanthropic spirit, and undaunted by obstacles, however appalling, manifesting the same discreet zeal to spread far and wide the healing influence of the holy Gospel of Christ.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

1843-1844.

Clergy Reserve Question Re-opened.--Disappointments.

Extraordinary efforts were put forth (as shown in Chapter x.x.xiii., page 263) by the leaders of the Church of England party in Upper Canada to prevent the Royal a.s.sent being given to Lord Sydenham's Clergy Reserve compromise Bill of 1841. Equally strenuous efforts were successfully made to ensure the fulfilment of Bishop Strachan's prediction that the rejected Bill of Lord Sydenham would form the basis of an Imperial Act, which would secure to the national Churches of England and Scotland, for all time, the lion's share of the proceeds of George the Third's ill-fated gift to Canada of the clergy reserves. Lord John Russell, the pretentious and vacillating Secretary of State for the Colonies at the time, proved himself to be, in this matter, a pliant instrument in the hands of Henry of Exeter. This prelate endorsed, _con amore_, all the extreme views of the Bishop of Toronto; and with the aid of Lord Seaton (Sir John Colborne) and the Bench and Bishops in the House of Lords, compelled the Government to perpetuate an act of legislative usurpation and injustice, which even the tyros in const.i.tutional law, as applied to the Colonies, were wont at the time to instance in the press as examples of history repeating itself--quoting, as an ill.u.s.tration, the ill-advised Imperial legislation in the case of the Stamp Act, etc.

By a singular fatality, which often attends arbitrary and unjust proceedings, the success of the scheme, which had been so carefully prepared, and carried through the British Parliament in the interests of the Church of England, was destined to become a source of weakness to that Church, and a foreboding of financial disaster. On the 29th December, 1843, the Attorney and the Solicitor-General of Canada (as stated by the Bishop of Toronto in his pastoral letter of the 10th of December, 1844) reported that having attentively examined the provisions of the acts for this subject, it was their opinion that the proper construction of the law threw upon the revenues of Canada the burthen of making up any deficiency in the clergy reserve fund, in paying the usual and accustomed allowances and stipends to the Ministers, ... and, while that deficiency lasted, the Imperial Treasury could not be called upon to make any payments to the two Churches. (See page 4 of Pastoral.)

The Bishop then charges the Provincial Government with being the cause of this financial difficulty, and accounts for the deficiency in the fund by the mismanagement of that Government. He adds further on:--

But, alas! the mismanagement has increased, pending these difficulties; and while my clergy are left in a state of dest.i.tution, large sums continue to be wasted in remunerating services which are really worse than useless, and this to such an extent as to render hopeless the expectation that the clergy reserve fund will ever answer the wise and holy purpose for which it was established.

In this dilemma the Bishop states what he had done to extricate the Church out of its difficulty. In doing so, he uses language which partakes more of the character of a wail than of a simple statement of facts. He also draws a most gloomy picture of the prospective religious state of Upper Canada, should the dearly prized, and as dearly bought, Imperial Clergy Reserve Act prove, after all, to be an apple of Sodom.

It is curious to notice how the Bishop, in his despairing outburst, studiously ignores the active and successful labours of the several voluntary churches--whose claims to a share in the reserves he had so strongly and selfishly opposed--churches which were even then actively engaged in "spreading scriptural holiness throughout the land," without the aid of a penny from the State. In his Pastoral, the Bishop says:--

I applied to the venerable [Propagation Society] in England to advance, in the meantime, the salaries (only 100 per annum each) to my five suffering clergy,--a.s.suring the Society that I had the fullest conviction it would be repaid as soon as it was decided which Government was liable.... The Society paid the stipends for the year ending 30th June, 1843, but have declined since that time to continue the advance.... In consequence, my five clergymen have been left without their stipends since June, 1843 [to December, 1844], ... and this large and increasing Diocese [then the whole of Upper Canada], already so dest.i.tute of the means of public worship (if the statute be allowed to operate as it has done for the last four years), will, in a spiritual sense, become, through half its extent, a wilderness. Not only are five clergymen in a state of want, but two parishes are left vacant, and the process is unhappily going on.... I have brought this disheartening and deplorable state of things under the notice of the Provincial Government.... I have pressed [the matter] upon His Excellency the Governor-General.... But all that was in my power to do has been without avail (page 6).

I also quote the foregoing pa.s.sages from this noted Pastoral, as they throw a vivid side-light upon the course of the Bishop in so vehemently pursuing the shadow of a state endowment for the Church of England in Upper Canada. The subsequent utterances of the Pastoral show how persistently the otherwise clear-headed and practical chief ruler of that Church shut his eyes to the remarkable success and vitality of the non-endowed Churches in the Province, and how much he deplored the necessity of adopting their successful voluntary system in his own church.[128] He says:--

I represented to His Excellency, in May last, that, "on a review of this unfortunate subject ... the distress of my five clergymen, and the desolation with which it menaces the Church, it involves consequences so calamitous and imminent as to justify the representative of the sovereign in a.s.suming more than ordinary responsibility in arresting their progress...."

On the 31st October, I again brought this painful subject at great length before the Provincial Government, and stated that, having failed to receive relief, I could only see one way left of mitigating the evil, and that is by an appeal to my people on the present critical situation of the Church, and in behalf of my dest.i.tute clergymen. It is indeed a step which I take with extreme reluctance, and which, were it possible, I would most willingly avoid.... (page 6.)

In a remarkable doc.u.ment, which the Bishop published in 1849, on "_The Secular State of the Church in the Diocese of Toronto_," he furnishes a painful and striking commentary on the effect of his own teaching: that it was the duty of the State to support the Church, and thus relieve the people of the chief obligation of supporting the Gospel amongst them.

Speaking of "contributions to the Church within the Province," he says:

Till lately we have done little or nothing towards the support of public worship. We have depended so long upon the Government and the [Propagation] Society, that many of us forget that it is our bounden duty. Instead of coming forward manfully to devote a portion of our temporal substance to the service of G.o.d, we turn away with indifference, or we sit down to count the cost, and measure the salvation of our souls by pounds, shillings, and pence.... While we are bountifully a.s.sisted, and seldom required to do more than half; yet we are seen to fail on every side (page 19).[129]

On pages 34-40 of this pamphlet, Bishop Strachan is very severe on the clergy to whom Bishop Fuller refers, whom he accuses of putting forth efforts "to disturb the peace of the diocese--efforts which were rapidly being organized into something of a regular system of agitation, so common ... among the traders in politics" (page 34).

An agitation having been commenced by the Bishop and clergy in Western Canada, in 1843, for "better terms" and an amendment to the Imperial Clergy Reserve Act of 1840, the question was re-opened. The effect of this re-opening of the question was deprecated by Dr. Ryerson and others. Early in January, 1844, Mr. Surveyor-General Parke sent to Dr.

Ryerson the copy of a letter written by Rev. Prof. Campbell, of Queen's College, Kingston, in which Mr. Campbell sets up the claim of the Kirk of Scotland, having a branch in Canada, as such, to a portion of the Canadian clergy reserves. Mr. Parke says:--

The writer of the letter arrives at two other conclusions, which, I think, are based on error, and calculated to interfere materially with the rights of the other bodies of Protestant Christians: namely, that the Kirk in Canada partic.i.p.ate in the clergy reserves, solely by the right it has as a branch of the Kirk in Scotland; and that other bodies of Christians partic.i.p.ate in them merely as an act of favour. To the first of these conclusions I entirely object, on the ground that the Act confers the reserves, purely and solely, on Canada, and for the benefit of interests and persons, absolutely within Canada. To the second conclusion or statement of the Professor, that is, that other bodies partic.i.p.ate as a matter of favour, I object on every ground on which it is possible for equity to place the subject. What! shall the unexampled toils, and incessant labours of the early and later Methodists, and other pioneers of the christianizing of Canada, have doled out to them, as a matter of simple grace, and a body in Scotland, who never knew nor partic.i.p.ated in the labour of sowing the seeds of the Gospel through the length and breadth of the land, claim as a matter of absolute right, for one of its branches, a partic.i.p.ation in lands, purely Canadian in fact and law? This I can never a.s.sent to; it was the question on which, as a Methodist, I first became a Canadian politician, and it is the question on which I yet feel the keenest.

I desire to call your attention to the matter, and solicit a correction from you of errors which, I think, are insidiously calculated to mislead the public mind, and make uphill work in combating other questions which may arise in unfortunate Canada, bye-and-bye. Some of the Kirk folks would monopolize for themselves, as far as they dare, and the Church of England too; but the general community, who have borne the burden and heat of the day--fought and won the battle--should not in any way have their interests and feelings trifled with by the unreasonable claims of a few, who at comparatively a late day entered the field.