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Printed for private Circulation, ^i»''*'^'''^'*»<'^'^*''^»^'*^'*^^^^»»A»V»JSi»<.^S.S«»VS<^^ '^ww»^^*^ QUEBEC: PRINTED AT THK MERCURY OFFICE. 1859. POSTSCRIPT. *^* Since 1 printed this explanation, 1 have recei- ved a letter from the Secretary in London, of the Colonial Church and School Society, acknowledging my own of August, 1858, with a reply to which I have stated, at the top of page 9, that 1 had not been furnished, and enclosing the copy of a former letter from the same quarter, dated in January last, which appears to have miscarried. These communications, however, pass without notice the particular subject of my reference to the Society. Sept. 1859. 4 A SHORT EXPLANATION, &o, ^«^^«>^WV>^VVWN^^M^^^^WW% » V^^^^^ It is sometimes made a matter of enquiry on the part of friends of the Church who are also friends of my own, why I do not unite with the Colonial Church and School Society. Reasons which are chielly of a personal nature have thus far withheld me fiom giving any public explanations upon this point. It would have been better if I had not allowed those reasons to weigh ; and there are new grounds which make it better now, though it is rather after date> that I should render whatever satisfaction upon the subject, the following statements may be found to afford. I might have recourse to documentary information,, whether in print or in manuscript, extending over a considerable series of years, which is, at any time> available for my purpose, if I should see cause to make use of it before the public, and which I am ready now to make accessible to any friend who may desire such satisfaction. But my object at present^ is to exhibit a more condensed view of the case. My relations, then, with the Colonial Church and School Society, have latterly been these : Without feeling myself tree to unite with the So- ciety, I have been careful to explain to the Clcit^y that I should use no manner of interference nor offer the slightest objection, if any of them should see good i to apply to this Society for aid to provide the means of education in their missions. I have quarrelled with nobody for joining or supporting the Society : and of course 1 cannot be surprised that some of my personal friends who belong to it, entertain the wish that I should belong to it also. And in one instance, although not a member, myself, I consented to the establishment of a Mission, under its auspices, in the Eastern Townships of the Province.(*) The field which was there unoccupied was very important : — the reasons for occupying it were very pressing : I had no other means actually at command to supply it : and I felt assured that I might [/lace great reliance upon the Society's Superintendent in the North American Colonies, to take care that the person to be selected should not be a man of extreme party views. If it be now asked why, being persuaded to go this length, I could not be persuaded to go any farther, I shall proceed to give my reasons for so qualified a sanction to the introduction of the Society's ope^-ations within my Diocese ; and as I have said that 1 have not quarrelled with my friends for supporting it, and have never made any effort to detach them for it, so I hope that none of them will quarrel with their Bishop for acting according to his own convictions in the matter, notwithstanding the fact that the Society is affected by the question of my belonging or not belonging to it, in a manner which does not follow in the case of any other individual within the Diocese. (•) The introduction of a Misslona-y to officiate in French and German in Quebec wa* effecied, tlirouj;!' some misapprehension of nny meaning on the pari of the Society's Siiperiniendent. nfter i had signified my desire thit thu p ojeci should not at j)resent be pro>'ee 'ed wi h, as il appeared to me, upon lefiection, that matfeis Were not fully ripe fjr it. The German depirlment of this Mission, however, has p.oceeded very encouiasingly, and the rupture dI the connection bet «veen the Commi tee and the Mission ry is much lo he regretted. Thj att. mpt am)iig the Fren h, miy be Sdid to have provtd a failure. In order to exhibit these particulars in a clear point of view, I must go back to occurrences which look place several years ago. In the time of the late Rev, Mr. Willoughby, agent of the JVewfoundland and British JVurth .American School Society, which has since merged in the Colo- nial Church and School Society, —Y went hand in hand with that gentleman, who commenced his work in the Diocese about the year 1838, and united myself with the institution committed, locally, to his manage- ment. Some proceedings in another Diocese, on the part of certain agents of the Society, which were open to very strong reprehension, (^but the details of which I forbear from giving here,) together with an alteration made in the rules of the Society, taking away from the Bishop a power which it had before been provided that he should exercise, — and the animus of the Society was thus more strongly marked than if the power had never been given at all, — brought me to the conclusion that I ought to loilhdraw from it ; and, not without much pain to my own feel- ings, I did so. This was in the year 1850. This was the position of affairs when the Society was introduced under its new name and in its enlarg- ed character into this Diocese. I always saw objec- tions attaching to this reconstituted body carrying under its new aspects, the title of the Colonial Church and School Societ'/, I could not, however desirous o/ doing so, overcome certain misgivings as to its claim to be regarded as a thorough and genuine Church of Englani Society, free from any marked party character. And yet, as there must be imper- fections found in all human institutions and blemishes in the Church herself, and as I can never, without a pang, though I may be compelled, upon principle, to take stich a course, stand dissociated from endeavors KB 6 in the Church, of which the declareJ object is *' to testify the Gospel of the Grace of Gotl/* I was often disposed to sink my scruples and engage in connection with it, as I had before done with one of its branches subsequently incorporated together. -I had conversa- tions, more or less tending that way, with the Rev. gen- tlemen who were its agents in Lower Canada ; and some correspondence upon the subject with a friend at a distance, occupying an eminent position in the Church. (This correspondence, however, took place at a later period.) Matters standing thus, some leading members of the Society procured a Resolution to be passed by the Central Board of the Diocesan Church Society, to the effect of its being desirable, that any existing obstacles to the full establishment of the Colonial Church and School Society within the Diocese, should be removed. Whether it was not, among other causes, which might be indicated, by the accidental absence of certain members of the Board, that a majority was obtained in favor of this Resolution, I shall not here stay to enquire ; but I have not the shadow of a doubt, in my own mind, that if I had before distinctly and publicly stated in full, any strong objections to the Society, or even if I had done so at the time, this Resolution would not have passed. I forbore from doing this— partly from certain motives of personal feeling ; partly from a natural, — perhaps a morbid — unwillingness to put prominently forward any division of sentiment within the Church. The Resolution did pass : and I was then placed in a false position. The manifest impropriety (as it seems to me, and will probably seem, upon reflection, to others, even among those who supported the Resolu- tion,) of seeking to bring a coercive pressure of this kind to bear upon the Bishop, in order to gain the •> 4 t object of his junction with the Society, had an cfCcct the opposite to that which was in the contemplation of the movers. It settled the question the other way. It put such a junction wholly out of my power,— at least till after a lapse of time sufficient to disconnect such a proceeding on my part from such a Resolution as its cause. Different occurrences succeeded at intervals which were by no means calculated to draw me nearer to the mark desired. And more recently the interference of the press,* put forward (at the dictation or suggestion, it may be presumed, of parties desirous of advancing a particular ii.i^rest,) without either sufficient connaissance de cause or just calculation of consequences, has increased the im- pediments to any coalition, on my part, with the Society in question. My objections to the Society, apart from any such particular occurrences as I have just above described, have been these : 1. That the Rule of the Society No. iii, that « the selection, appcAntment, removal and field of labor of all the agents shall rest enlirely with the Committee of the Society," appears to me, without asserting any exorbitant pretensions for the Episcopal Office, to trench upon the special province of the Bishop. It has sometimes been attempted to shew that the powers here claimed for the Committee are no greater than those cf Lay-patrons in England, and that it is ungenerous to refuse to them the appointment of Missionaries whom they pay. The right of making the appointment (supposing it to be guarded against • I do not here advert to cerlain attacks, in different fornns, through a parii- cular channel of ibe press, which I never notice, and do not read becnu?e I just know enough of them to know (using a gentle teroi) their discreditable character, but which 7»ay, for what I can tell, have comprehended some notice, in the same strain, of my declining to join the Colcniat Churcn and School Society. 4 8 the exercise of parly spirit in Religion) is what I should be prepared freely to accord to them. But when, in addition to this right, they claim that of the removal of the Missionary and the selection of his field of labour, dispensing, in either case, with any necessity for the concurrence of Ecclesiastical autho- rity, I do conceive that a bishop who comes into these terms, surrenders more of the prerogatives of his office than he is justified in doing. Without discussing the system of private patronage in Kngland, which confessedly is open to much abuse, it is to be observed that a private patron, when he has once presented an incumbent to the Bishop, has no further control over him whatever. No parallel therefore can be maintained between the two cases. Nor can I be brought to regard the kind of superin- tendence to be exercised over Missionaries by local Committees, as consistent either with the proper independence of every clergyman licensed to a charge, or with the hope, as it respects the labours of the Society, of a happy and prosperous result. To claim for an irresponsible and self-constituted Asso- ciation, the power of removing a clergyman who holds the Bishop's license and has been guilty of no Eccle- siastical offence (*)or that ofdistributing service over a Diocese by selecting fields of labour independently uf the episcopal concurrence, appears to me, I con- fess, not easily reconcileable with any just idea of government in the Church. It was only last year that (•) Attempts have been often made to make out a case of exorbitant power over Missionaries of the Society lor the Propagation of the Gospel, ■s held between that Society which can discharge them from its service, and the Bishops whu have the issue and revocation of licence* in their hinds. Lei a single instance be produced of a clergymau turned adrift by the Society, or of the arbitrary withdrawal of ft licence by the epiacopsl authority. rW i r*> I became acquainted, through the published (f) Report of the Society, with its purpose of sending a clergyman not only into my Diocese, but into my own parish, but upon my venturing to make a com- munication upon this subject to the Secretary in London, I was left without the favor of any reply. 2. That this Society has a strong appearance, heightened by some individual examples of a very pointed character at home, of being antagonistic to the noble and ancient Society for the Propagation of the Gospel^ which has everywhere been the instrument of planting, nurturing and extending the Church of England in the Colonies, and that it has a decided savor of party from which that Society is exempt. That this characteristic attaches to it, and that persons who decline to join it may be withheld from doing so, simply from a dislike to parly proceedings m the Church, I think hardly admits of dispute. The selec- tion of its Missionaries is made by a Committee in London who are responsible to the subscribers to the Society, and in no other quarter. And it is quite natural that they should take care to select exclusively such persons as are known to hold their own peculiar views. The choice, on the coiiir ry, of the Missiona- ries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (of which all the Archbishops and Bishops of the Church are members) depends upon the result of an examination, — the examiners being appointed by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and the Bishop of London for the time being. The effect of this (t) III the '*' Record " New-paper of May 10, of which a copy was sent to me, if 1 am not mistaken, by the publisher, k have observed, however, since I wrote these remajks, I'.iat in the Report as published in a pamphlet fornti, Quebec i'' omilted in the list of places intended to be supplied and in the nume- rical stalemeni of those places a corre8pi>nding alteration has been made, conse- quent , ii may be presumed, upoi) the reception of my letter between the dates of publishing the newspaper and the pamphlet Report. B 10 rule, as I have pointed out upon a former occasion,* is that men holding very different views (within the limits permissible to those who minister in the Angli- can Communion,) are to be found everywhere in the service of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the rules of which do not prevent its co- operating harmoniously with any Colonial Bishop, whatever may be his theological tone. No party tests are imposed bv that body : but I believe there would be little difliouity in shewing that the propagation of the views held by a peculiar school is, with the Co- lonial Church and School Society, all in all. 3. That proceedings which I regard as very highly exceptionable, have been chargeable upon some of the agents of the Colonial Church and School Society in the North American Colonies. (I do not lay ^reat stress upon this objection, although it is not familiar to my experience in the case of the old Socie- ties, because I would not hold the Society answerable for everything which may happen to be done by those who represent its interests at a distance.) 4. That the organisation of the Society for collect- ing funds wiilii the Diocese, appears directly to interfere with the objects and operations of the Diocesan Church Society, which is incorporated, among other purposes, for the support of Missions and the promotion of education, A Society assuming a control which appears in the above-cited rule, and at the same time levying the means of its support upon the spot, side by side with the anterior local institution which had been established for the same objects, pre- ♦ In the pamphlet which I printed last year after the occurrences of St. John the Baptisi's day. I have there shewn that the Missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in this Diocese, have compreiieiided genile- men whose views are very differently shaded, nnd thai the two gentlemen who now manage the affairs of the Colonial Church and School Soriety in ths Lower Canadian Dioceses, were themselves uf the number. ^4» t ^ II ^I^F <* sents an example of the imperium in imperio which must infallibly create ajar in the machinery of eccle- siastical government. It has the appearance of aiming to sweep gradually into the hands of a party, both the administration and the resources of the Church. 5. The new troubles which have arisen in this hitherto peaceful Diocese, are seen to synchronize very remarkably with the establishment upon its pre- sent footing, of the Colonial Church and School Society. And what direction its sympathies may appear to take in the present crisis and struggle of the Church in the Diocese, is a matter which consis- tent Churchmen may be pardoned for watching with a not ungodly jealousy. Under all these circumstances, I have signified to the Society that my convictions do not permit my be- coming a consenting or assisting party in the en- largement of its Missionary operations within the Diocese. I do not wish to interfere with what has already been provided in this department : let those Missions be continued and may God use them for good I — but independently of the foregoing consi- derations, there is a more crying need at this moment for schools than for Missions in the Diocese, and it t&as an argument used some years ago by champions of the Society, before it had entered upon the Missionary field, that it icas to no purpose to place Clergymen among the people unless provision were first made for educating the rising generation^*) The Church bad long looked for some more equitable distribution of the Provincial Grants for this object than can be Act and attained under the working of the existmg (*) I have to acknowledge with abundant willingness, the usefulness, the good character and unexceptionable deportment of two Schoolmasters of the Colo- nial Church and School Society, in charge of Schooli rather above the fcale of the common rural Schools. f 12 had used her endeavors for this end. But that hope is gone. Finally, let it be fairly con idered what is the real truth and force of the cry which ii is attempted to raise that the old Society is withdrawing its aid, and the aid of the new Society, which offers to take its place, is refused. The old Society, which by a large expenditure for a series of years, has planted the Church over the whole Diocese and fostered its insti- tutions, in some instances making permanent endow- ments, contributes at this moment about jt'3,000 cur- rency towards the maintenance of the Church in this Diocese, of which £2,051 10s. stg. are appropriated towards the payment of the salaries of twenty-five clergymen. The whole of this sum comes directly from the home funds of the Society — the balance being available for a Catechist, Divinity students and pensions. The case of the Colonial Church and School Society exhibits a remarkable contrast to this statement. It appears from its last published Report that the whole amount of its regular expenditure for this Diocese was .£794 for the support of two clergy- men (exclusive of the Superintendent) and five male and six female school teachers. (*) Of this amount the sum of .£12 16s. 5d is stated to have been drawn upon England, and the balance of c£7Sl jiave been " raised and expended in the Colony " Thus the whole annual outlay of the new Society for the Diocese, may be said to be raised within the (•) In the Repori for 1857-8. the sum of £143 is set down as having been f aid Hot ihe outfit and passage of the jlgents ; but this, of course, is no part of the siaiidinj; expenditure, andthe Society for th<: Propigation of iheGuspel, provides for outfii and passage on tite way, which is not included in ihe state- ment here given of its annual outlay on our behalf. The numbei of schools under the auspices of this Society, has, within a few years, been diminished, and the support of some of those which remain in connection with it, is shared, in sonue instances by the DiocesanChurch Society, and bythe Go?ernment,. ! i 13 T J Diocese itself — and would be just as well, or in my own judgment far better, raised for the work of the Diocesan Church Society which suffers from the operations of its rival. The grounds, then, upon which the Committee in London of the Colonial Church and School Society, would found their claim to so much obligation to be felt in the Diocese, do appear to be a little unduly magnified. And only let the Diocesan Church Society be once adequately supported, it will supply what is found to run s.hort in the provision made by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel : and the department of education may then be taken up by the new institution, the resources of which, so far as they are applicable for the benefit of this Diocese, (its two Missions being still continued; will suffice for this object. The patronage extended by Bishops and other eminent persons to the Society in question, although it may serve to dazzle the eyes of men, does not, in fact, afford any argument whatever. Bishops differ upon these questions. An array of episcopal names may be paraded on either side upon all questions which divide the Church. There are even Bishops to be found who take part in the proceedings of such a body as the " Evangelical Alliance." I have passed my ecclesiastical life under three successive Arch- bishops, two of whom have declined patronising semi-irregular Societies, and one has taken the oppo- site course. (*) There are some patrons of public institutions who sit a great deal too high to see the under-working of their machinery in its details, and cannot enter into the difficulties experienced by those (*) See statement f further particulars in page 16, whe e it will appear that not one>third of the Anglican Biahops support the Culonial Church and School Society. 14 whose own work brings them into contact with the movements of that machinery. And there are a vast many other patrons who do not sift very closely what they consent to patronize. A faciWy in patroniz- ing may well be called one of the vices of the age. It is incomparably easier and more tempting to accept anything and patronize everything than to resist importunity or to examine the weight and worth of well-sounding pretensions j and if it be a test of what is right in the ministers of Christ's reli- gion, that they should do what will make all men speak well of them, {Luke vi. 26,) they have then a very inviting and easy course. They will take the side which has a popular and catching aspect : — they will be set down as liberals, the cheapest of all possible praise, and in that praise they will have their reward, I do not mean, however, — God forbid ! — to compre- hend in this category all who may adopt a line of proceeding different from my own. But as there are here and there, persons professing membership with our own Church, very prominent in religious doings whose " conscientious convictions" forbid their unit- . ing with any of our institutions, carrying the unequi- vocal stamp of Church principles and connected directly with Church authority, I suppose that " con- scientious convictions" on the other side, may put in a claim to the same measure of indulgence. It would, indeed, be a great point gained, if the indulgence shewn in the Church to the " conscientious convic- tions" of open and avowed dissenters, could be extended to Churchmen who really love and appre- ciate their Church. In the year 1835, upon the cessation of the Parlia- mentary grants to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, that body withdrew from Upper Canada, the government undertaking to " preserve existing «» - 15 "• interests," i. e. to continue paying the actual incum- bents of Missions in that part of Canada, during the continuance of their incumbency. In this exigency, a new Society was formed in England, under the title of the Upper Canada Clergy Society ^ in order to meet such fresh demands as might,from time to time, arise ; and the late Bishop Stewart commissioned me, (being then Archdeacon of Quebec,) to take occasion in a visit which I paid to England, to assist in organizing this Society and putting it into activity, which, according to the best of my ability, I accordingly did. This new Society, however, ultimately merged in the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel as an Upper Canada Committee, If a similar course were now adopted by the Colonial Church and School Society, there would be an end ot all differences. Or if the Society would consent to a revision of its rules in order to their modification in any point which is conceived to involve an objectionable principle, the way might be opened for negotiation between the parties concerned on t.;her side, and if a satisfactory adjustment were to ensue, all differences would then be forgotten. Or if this young Society would take^ the course which has been proposed by the Society' for the Propagation of the Gospel, to transfer to the Diocesan Synod, when duly organised, the powers at present exercised by itself, it might be anticipated that a good understanding upon the subject would be fully established. If I had been permitted to hold my own course in peace, I should never have come forward as I have here done. I cannot see why I should not have been left unmolested. There are a great many other Bishops — four besides myself in these North Ameri- can Colonies, who have either declined in tolo to recognise ihe Society, or have afforded their counten- 16 arice to it in ?^ qualified form. Has any man the right to say that these Bi.'^hops are all bigots guided by unfounded prejudice ? Of the twenty-eight Bishops in England, only 7iine are found among the sup- porters of this new Society — and it may very well be understood that an accession, in such cases, of numerical strength on one side of a question, may now and then be accounted for by a combination of political and religious influences, each of a particular cast, concurring with an unusu- ally quick succession of vacancies in the episcopal bei>ch. Of the twelve Bishops of Ireland one only is found in the list. Of Colonial Bishops, there are found fifteen, which is considerably under one half of the Colonial Episcopate. Of the whole Anglican Episcopate amounting to about seventy-four persons ^ (for fresh accessions to the Colonial Episcopate pre- vent our being minutely exact,) twenty-three are supporters of this Society. It is worthy of remark that several Bishops who did support the Newfound- land and British North American School Society, are not connected with the Society here in question, which has absorbed into itself that other institution. ^ I have been forced into the arena of polemical discussion, and I hope I may here take leave of it. If I am forced farther, I am, by the help of God, fur- ther prepared. And if either of the questions should be raised, 1, Whether the old Society has effectually done the work of Religion, and the Church has pros- pered under its auspices ; and 2, Whether the netv Society is distinctively and in contrast with the older insthution, the channel of conveying over the Colonial dependencies of the Empire, the vital realities and renovating influences of the Gospel, I am there also, in the same reliance, prepared. June, 1859.