The Story of My Life Part 65

3. The conduct of the Imperial and Canadian Governments towards the Church of England.

4. The effect of the union of the two Canadas on the proceedings and votes of the Legislative a.s.sembly in regard to the Church of England.

5. Public grants to the Church of Rome, and the endowment of that Church in Lower Canada.

6. The Toronto University and Public Schools.

I am to notice in the first place the statements of the Lord Bishop respecting the circ.u.mstances and objects of the Clergy Land Reservation.

He speaks of it as having been suggested by the circ.u.mstances of the American revolution, and as having been intended as the special reward of those who adhered to the Crown of England during that seven years'

contest.

The Bishop says:--

At the close of the war, in 1783, which gave independence to the United States, till then colonies of the British Crown, great numbers of the inhabitants, anxious to preserve their allegiance, and, in as far as they were able, the unity of the empire, sought refuge in the western part of Canada, beyond the settlements made before the conquest under the King of France. These loyalists, who had for seven years perilled their lives and fortunes in defence of the throne, the law, and the religion of England, had irresistible claims when driven from their homes into a strange land (yet a vast forest), to the immediate protection of government, and to enjoy the same benefits which they had abandoned from their laudable attachment to the parent State.

The Bishop subsequently states [See Chapter xxviii., page 219] that the object of the Const.i.tutional Act of 1791 was

More especially to confer upon the loyalists such a const.i.tution as should be as near a transcript as practicable of that of England, that they might have no reason to regret, in as far as religion, law, and liberty were concerned, the great sacrifices which they had made.

Allusions of this kind pervade a considerable part of the Bishop's letter, and furnish the first example, within my knowledge, of any writer attempting to invest the dispute between the American colonies and the mother country with a religious character; when every person the least acquainted with the history of those colonies, and of that contest, knows that the question of religion was never alluded to on the part of the colonists--that General Washington and other princ.i.p.al leaders in the revolution were professed Episcopalians--that the Church of England did not exist as an established church in any of those colonies, unless adopted as such by the local legislature, as in the case of Virginia--and that in the northern and eastern parts of those colonies, whence the first emigration to Upper Canada took place after the peace of 1783, the Church of England never did exist as an established church. Therefore, for the "religion of England" in that sense, those "loyalists" never could have "perilled their lives and fortunes;" nor could they have been influenced by any predilections for an establishment which they had never seen. The Bishop says truly that:

The n.o.ble stand which the Province made against the United States in the war of 1812, in which the attachment of its inhabitants to the British empire was a second time signally displayed, brought the country into deserved notice.

But nothing can be more fallacious than the claims he would found upon this fact, any more than those of the American revolution of 1776, to the clergy reserve land. For the Lord Bishop himself, when Archdeacon of York, in a printed discourse on the death of the first Bishop of Quebec, represents the benefits of the establishment as "little felt or known"

in Upper Canada, and states that down to the close of the American War of 1812--namely, in 1815--there were but five clergymen of the Church of England in that vast province. And a few years afterwards, December 22nd, 1826, the Upper Canada House of a.s.sembly, consisting of the representatives of the Loyalists and their sons, who had twice "signally displayed their attachment to the British empire," adopted, by the extraordinary majority of 30 to 3, the following remarkable and significant resolution:--

_Resolved_, that the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Province bears a very small proportion to the number of other Christians, notwithstanding the pecuniary aid long and exclusively received from the benevolent society in England by the members of that Church, and their pretensions to a monopoly of the clergy reserves.

The original Loyalist settlers of Upper Canada, and their immediate descendants, must be held to have understood their own feelings and sentiments better than the Lord Bishop: and the almost unanimous expression of such sentiments, through their representatives twenty-five years since, together with other circ.u.mstances to which I have referred, show how greatly mistaken is his Lordship, and how perfectly baseless are his a.s.sumptions and frequent allusions and appeals in reference to the hopes, wishes and sentiments of the original settlers of Upper Canada as a ground of claim to the clergy reserves in behalf of the Church of England.

I have next to say a few words on the Bishop's statement as to the position of the Church of England in Canada, and the professions which he makes in respect to her position. He says, "Our position has, for some time, been that of a prostrate branch of the National Church;" and that position he, in another place, calls "a condition of inferiority to other religious denominations;" and he says, "she has been placed below Protestant dissenters, and privileges, wrested from her, have been conferred upon them." As to the position in which the Bishop would wish the Church of England in Canada to be placed, he says, "We merely claim equality, and freedom from oppression."

These expressions are deeply to be regretted, when it is perfectly notorious that the pre-eminence and peculiar civil advantages claimed by the Bishop for the Church of England, have been the ground of all the disputes which have agitated the Legislature and people of Upper Canada for more than twenty-five years; when every person of the least intelligence in Canada knows that the Church of England, besides other large educational and pecuniary patronage of government, enjoyed until 1840 an exclusive monopoly of the clergy lands which the Legislative a.s.sembly of Upper Canada long contended, and which the judges of England have decided, extended by law to Protestants generally--that the Church of England enjoys at this moment the greater part of the annual proceeds of the sales of those lands, besides rectory endowments of portions of them--that every political and religious party in Canada awards every thing to the Church of England that they ask for themselves--"equality and freedom from oppression." During the present session of the Legislature, Bills have pa.s.sed the a.s.sembly giving the Church of England in Lower Canada all the facilities of holding property and managing her affairs which have been desired by the Bishop of the Diocese, as had been granted a few years since in Upper Canada; and when it was objected that privileges were given by such Bills to the Church of England not possessed by any other religious persuasion, it was replied that others might obtain them by asking for them, and the Bills in question were pa.s.sed with only two dissentient votes.

I repeat the expression of my regret that the Bishop should draw entirely upon his imagination for such statements, and that his feelings should prompt him to represent objections to his own particular views and pretensions as oppression and persecution of the Church of England.

The next cla.s.s of the Bishop's statements which I shall notice, relate to the conduct of the Imperial and Canadian Governments towards the Church of England. Throughout his voluminous doc.u.ments the Bishop represents the conduct of government, both Imperial and Colonial, as hostile to the Church of England; and employs, in some instances, terms personally offensive. The great question at issue is thus stated by the Bishop himself in his recent charge to his clergy:--

In 1819, the law officers of the Crown gave it as their opinion that the words Protestant clergy embraced also the ministers of the Church of Scotland, not as ent.i.tling them to endowment in land, but as enabling them to partic.i.p.ate in the proceeds of the reserves, whether sold or leased. In 1828, a select committee of the House of Commons extended the construction of the words Protestant clergy to the teachers of all Protestant denominations; and this interpretation, though considered very extraordinary at the time, was confirmed by the twelve judges in 1840.

In his letter to Lord John Russell, the Bishop alludes to two of these decisions in terms peculiarly objectionable, while he omits all reference to the latter. He says:--

The Established Church of Scotland claimed a share of those lands, or the proceeds, as a National Church within the Empire; and in 1819, the Crown lawyers made the discovery that it might be gratified, under the 37th clause of the 31st of George III., chap.

31. Next, the select committee of the House of Commons, in 1828, on the Civil Government of Canada, influenced by the spurious liberality of the times, extended this opinion of the Crown lawyers to any Protestant clergy.

The Bishop thus impugns the impartiality and integrity of the opinions expressed by the law officers of the Crown in England, and by the select committee of the House of Commons, sarcastically calling the one a "discovery," and ascribing the other to "spurious liberality;" while he declares that the Act 3 and 4 Victoria, chapter 78 (which only carried partially into effect the decision of the twelve judges, and was, as he states, agreed to by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other Bishops in London), "deprived the Church of England in Canada of seven-twelfths of her property."

In other doc.u.ments the Bishop has designated this Act "an act of spoliation," and "robbery" of the Church of England.

When the Bishop employs language of this kind in respect to Acts of Parliament and the official opinions in regard to their provisions, he cannot reasonably complain if other parties should respect them as little as himself, much less regard them as a "final settlement" of a question to which they have not been parties, and against which they have always protested. Under any circ.u.mstances, it is singular language to be employed by a person towards a government by whose fostering patronage he has become enriched. The fact is, that the successive Governors of Upper Canada have been members of the Church of England; that the princ.i.p.al cause of their unpopularity, and the most serious difficulties which both the Imperial and local governments have had to encounter in the colony, have arisen from their efforts to secure as much for the Church of England, in the face of the popular indignation and opposition, so much inflamed and strengthened by the irritating publications and extreme proceedings of the Bishop himself. It is understood that the report of the committee of the House of Commons on the civil government of Canada, in 1828, was written by Lord Stanley.

However that may be, the sentiments of that report on the clergy reserve question were strongly expressed by his Lordship in his speech on the subject, 2nd May, 1828; and he and the other distinguished men who investigated the subject at that time, know whether they were "influenced by a spurious liberality" in the conclusion at which they arrived, or whether they were guided by a sense of justice, and yielded to the weight of testimony. At all events, the grave decision of the twelve judges of England to the same effect ought to have suggested to the Bishop other terms than those of "spurious liberality,"

"spoliation," and "robbery," and to have protected not only the "powers that be," but the great majority of the Canadian people, from the shafts of his harsh imputations.

Here I think it proper to correct the Bishop's repeated references to the origin and circ.u.mstances of the differences of opinion in Upper Canada, as to the import of the words "Protestant clergy," and the "right of dissenting denominations" to partic.i.p.ate in the benefit of the clergy reserves. He represents those differences as having originated with the clergy of the Kirk of Scotland, and that the idea that any other than the clergy of the Church of England had a right to partic.i.p.ate in the benefit of the reserves was never entertained in Upper Canada until the friends of the Kirk of Scotland commenced the agitation of the question.

So far from this representation being correct, it appears that the first submission of the question to the law officers of the Crown in England took place at the request of Sir P. Maitland, in reference, not to the clergy of the Kirk of Scotland, but to "all denominations" of Protestants--a question on which Sir P.

Maitland, then Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, states in a despatch to Earl Bathurst, dated 17th May, 1819, that there was not only a "difference of opinion" on the subject, but "a lively feeling throughout the Province." It appears that certain "Presbyterian inhabitants of the town of Niagara and its vicinity" (not at that time in connexion with the Church of Scotland), pet.i.tioned Sir P.

Maitland for "an annual allowance of 100 to a.s.sist in the support of a preacher," to be paid "out of funds arising from the clergy reserves, or any other fund at His Excellency's disposal." In transmitting a copy of this pet.i.tion to Earl Bathurst, Sir P.

Maitland ("York, Upper Canada, 17th May, 1819,") remarks as follows:--

The actual product of the clergy reserves is about 700 per annum.

This pet.i.tion involves a question on which I perceive there is a difference of opinion, viz., whether the Act intends to extend the benefit of the reserves, for the maintenance of a Protestant clergy, to all denominations, or only to those of the Church of England. The law officers incline to the latter opinion. I beg leave to observe to your Lordship, with much respect, that your reply to this pet.i.tion will decide a question of much interest, and on which there is a lively feeling throughout the Province. [See page 221.]

Earl Bathurst's reply to this despatch is dated "Downing Street, 6th May, 1820," and commences as follows:--

Having requested the opinion of His Majesty's law officers as to the right of dissenting Protestant ministers, resident in Canada, to partake of the lands directed by the Act of the 31st George III., c. 31, to be reserved as a provision for the support of a Protestant clergy, I have now to state that they are of opinion that though the provisions made by the 31st George III., c. 31, ss.

36 and 42, for the support and maintenance of a Protestant clergy, are not confined solely to the Church of England, but may be extended also to the clergy of the Church of Scotland, yet that they do not extend to dissenting ministers, since the terms Protestant clergy can apply only to the Protestant clergy recognized and established by law.

It is thus clear that the question of the right of different Protestant denominations to partic.i.p.ate in the benefit of the clergy reserves did not originate in any claims or agitation commenced by the clergy of the Church of Scotland; that as early as the beginning of 1819, (only four years after the close of the last American War, during which, as the Bishop truly says, "the attachment of the inhabitants to the British empire was a second time signally displayed,") there was "a lively feeling throughout the Province" on the subject. The first Loyalist settlers, and their immediate descendants, were opposed to the Bishop's narrow construction of the Act 31st George III., chapter 31; their representatives in the Legislative a.s.sembly maintained invariably the liberal construction of the Act; the select committee of the House of Commons in 1828, on the Civil Government of Canada, after taking evidence as to the intentions of the original framers of the law, expressed the same opinion, and that opinion was ultimately confirmed by the decision of the twelve judges in 1840. The Bishop is, therefore, as much at fault in his facts on this point, as he is in the language he employs in reference to Imperial legal opinions, and an Imperial Act of Parliament.

It now becomes my duty to examine another large cla.s.s of statements, which I have read with great surprise and pain; and which are, if possible, less excusable than those which I have already noticed. I refer to the Bishop's statements in regard to the influence of the union of the two Canadas on the votes and proceedings of the Legislative a.s.sembly of the united Province, on the question of the clergy reserves.

The Bishop, in his letter to Lord John Russell (referring to the Address of the Legislative a.s.sembly, at the session of 1850, to the Queen), states as follows:--

Before the union of Upper and Lower Canada, such an unjust proceeding could not have taken place, for, while separate, the Church of England prevailed in Upper Canada, and had frequently a commanding weight in the Legislature, and at all times an influence sufficient to protect her from injustice. But since their union under one Legislature, each sending an equal number of members, matters are sadly altered.

It is found, as was antic.i.p.ated, that the members returned by dissenters uniformly join the French Roman Catholics, and thus throw the members of the Church of England into a hopeless minority on all questions in which the National Church is interested.

The Church of England has not only been prostrated by the union under that of Rome, and the whole of her property made dependent on Roman Catholic votes, but she has been placed below Protestant dissenters, and privileges wrested from her which have been conferred upon them.

In his recent charge to the clergy of his Diocese, the Bishop remarks again:--

So long as this diocese remained a distinct colony, no measure detrimental to the Church ever took effect. Even under the management and prevailing influence of that able and unscrupulous politician, the late Lord Sydenham, a Bill disposing of the clergy reserves, was carried by one vote only--a result which sufficiently proved that it was not the general wish of the people of the colony to legislate upon the subject.

I shall first notice that part of the Bishop's statement which relates to Upper Canada, before the union with Lower Canada. The Bishop a.s.serts it not to have been "the general wish of the people of the colony to legislate upon the subject" of the clergy reserves; that the Church of England prevailed, and had sufficient influence to maintain what he regards as her just rights. The Bishop has resided in Upper Canada nearly half a century, and such a statement from him, in direct contradiction to the whole political history of the Province during more than half that period, is difficult of solution, though perfectly easy of refutation. I have already transcribed one of a series of resolutions, adopted by the Legislative a.s.sembly as early as December, 1826, by a majority of 30 to 3, objecting entirely to the exclusive pretensions made in behalf of the Church of England. But I find that nearly a year before this, namely, the 27th of the January preceding, the House of a.s.sembly of Upper Canada adopted an Address to the King on the subject, in which it is stated, respectfully, but strongly,--

That the lands set apart in this Province for the maintenance and support of a Protestant clergy ought not to be enjoyed by any one denomination of Protestants to the exclusion of their Christian brethren of other denominations, equally conscientious in their respective modes of worshipping G.o.d, and equally ent.i.tled, as dutiful and loyal subjects, to the protection of Your Majesty's benign and liberal Government; we, therefore, humbly hope it will, in Your Majesty's wisdom, be deemed expedient and just, that not only the present reserves, but that any funds arising from the sales thereof, should be devoted to the advancement of the Christian religion generally, and the happiness of all Your Majesty's subjects of whatever denomination; or if such application or distribution should be deemed inexpedient, that the profits arising from such appropriation should be applied to the purposes of education and the general improvement of this Province.

The following year (January, 1827), the House of a.s.sembly pa.s.sed a Bill (the minority being only three), providing for the sale and application of the whole of the proceeds of the reserves for purposes of education, and erection of places of public worship for all denominations of Christians. And, on examining the journals, I find that from that time down to the union of the Canadas in 1841, not a year pa.s.sed over without the pa.s.sing of resolutions, or address, or bill, by the House of a.s.sembly of Upper Canada, for the general application of the proceeds of the reserves, in some form or other, but always, without exception, against what the Bishop claims as the rights of the Church of England in respect to those lands.

It is difficult to conceive a more complete refutation than these facts furnish of the Bishop's statement, that the Church of England prevailed in Upper Canada, and had a commanding weight in the Legislature; nor could a stronger proof be required of "the general wish of the people of the colony to legislate upon the subject," than such a course of procedure on the part of their representatives for so many years during successive Parliaments, and amidst all the variations of party and party politics on all other questions.

It is also incorrect to say that the Bill of Lord Sydenham in 1840 "was carried by a majority of one vote only." A Bill did pa.s.s the a.s.sembly of Upper Canada the year before, by "a majority of one vote only;" but that was a Bill to re-invest the reserves in the Imperial Parliament for "general religious purposes,"--a Bill pa.s.sed a few hours before the close of the session, during which no less than forty-eight divisions, with the record of yeas and nays, took place in the a.s.sembly on the question of the clergy reserves; and after the a.s.sembly had pa.s.sed, by considerable majorities, both resolutions and a Bill to give the Church of England one-fourth of the proceeds of the clergy reserves, and the other three-fourths to other religious denominations and to educational purposes--a Bill which, with some verbal amendments, also pa.s.sed the Legislative Council, and against which the Bishop, joined by one other member, recorded an elaborate protest. But just at the heel of the session, and after several members of the a.s.sembly voting in the majority had gone to their homes, a measure (which had been previously negatived again and again) was pa.s.sed by a "majority of one vote only"

(22 to 21), to re-invest the reserves--a measure which the law officers in England p.r.o.nounced "unconst.i.tutional," as the manner of getting it through the Canadian Legislature was unprecedented. [See page 249.]

But the measure of Lord Sydenham was carried in the a.s.sembly by a majority of 4, and in the Legislative Council (of which the Bishop was a member and voted against the bill) by a majority of 8. A considerable majority of the members of the Church of England of both Houses of the Legislature voted for the bill, and were afterwards charged by the Bishop with "defection," and "treachery" for doing so. [See page 262.]

On this point Lord Sydenham, in a despatch to Lord John Russell, dated Toronto, 5th February, 1840, stated as follows:--

It is notorious to every one here, that of twenty-two members being communicants of the Church of England who voted upon this Bill, only eight recorded their opinion in favour of the views expressed by the right reverend Prelate; whilst in the Legislative Council the majority was still greater; and amongst those who gave it their warmest support are to be found many gentlemen of the highest character for independence and for attachment to the Church, and whose views in general politics differ from those of Her Majesty's Government.