IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) 7a 1.0 I.! 1.25 \^m m •^ 1^ 1 2.2 - itf lllllio 1.4 1.6 \ V A" O ^ / ^ On All Saints' Day, November 1, 1867, died at his see, the Hon. and Right. Rev. John Strachan, D.D. LL.IJ., iiist Lord Bishop of Toronto. The Canadian correspondent of the Churchman gives a sketch of the biography of the lamented prelate, from whica we subjoin some para- graphs : — *' The venerable prelate was in his 90th year, and died from the decay of nature rather than from acute disease, though it was only within a very short period, a week or two, that any serious fears were entertained that his singularly vigorous constitution was about to give way. He retained his faculties to the last, and received the Holy Communion at his own vigorous request, on Thursday evening. Bishop Strachan was edu- cated at Aberdeen, and, after taking his degree, removed to the vicinity of St. Andrews, Avhere he formed friendship with Dr. Chalmers and other celebrated Scotchmen, with wliom he kept up a correspondence until their deaths. One of his first engagements was the Parochial School of Kettle, in the county of Fife, which he took for the sake of supporting his mother and sisters. While there, one of his pupils was the afterwards celebrated painter. Sir David Wilkie ; and it is an interesting fact, and one gratefully acknowledged by Sir David in after life, that it was to the future Bishop's appreciation of his promising talent, and his consequent persuasion of his uncle to send him to the celebrated Raeburn, that the painter owed his future prosperous careei. " In 1799, Mr. Strachan came to Canada, at the invitation of the then Governor-General, to take the superintendence of a proposed University ; but on arriving here he found the Governor gone, the University for the present abandoned, and no provision made for him. Consequently, as he often stated, he would have returned back to Scotland, had he possessed the means of doing so. As it was, he took pupils, and became eminently successful, numbering amongst his pupils many of those who were after- wards amongst the chief men of the province ; prominent amongst whom, was, perhaps, his after dearest friend through life, the late Sir JohnRobinson/ , •; Bart., Chief Justice of the province. " It is understood, that though brought up himself as a Presbyterian, the Bishop's mother was an Episcopalian, and not only had him^baptized by a Scotch Episcopalian clergyman, but gave him such a bias in flavour of the Church, that it is not surprising that in a few years after hi3«arrival in Canada he should have taken holy Orders, being ordained Dea>?§n by the first Bishop Mountain on the iid of May, 1803, and Pi'iest on the • 3d of June in the following year. He became Rector of Cornwall, ija tb - eastern part of Upper Canada, and Master of its Grammar School, where he remained about ni'ie years, being made Rector of York (now Toronto) in 1812. By this t'.me his influence in the province had become so con- siderable that he was made an Executive Councillor by Royal Warrant in 1818. From this period he may be said to have be^n, for many years, the ruling mind in whatever concerned the province in either Church or State. In 1825 Dr. Strachan was constituted Archdeacon of York, in ■W i^. ' * ' "'Hg ^ \ 1" > j it 28 The late Bukop Sirachan of Toronto. Def which office the management of the Church in the Upper Province was almost entirely in his hands, owing to the vast size of the then Diocese of Quebec, and the great distance of the Episcopal residence, which was, of course, in Quebec. In 1839 the Upper Province was ecclesiastically separated from that of Quebec, and erected into a new Diocese under the name of 'Toronto,' of which Dr. Strachan was appointed by Royal Patent (of course without a Diocesan election) the first Bishop, and went to England for consecration, at the hands of Archbishop Howley. " When Dr. Strachan became the Bishop of Upper Canada, there wore, I believe, within its entire bounds less than fifty clergy, while before he died it had been divided into three dioceses, comprising three Bishops besides himself, and upwards of 180 clergymen. " For a large portion of the late prelate's career, especially before his consecration, his history was that of the province ; his clear intellect and decision of purpose carried all before it, at a time when educated men, and men of any large experience, were necessarily scarce in this young province. With the Bishop, the interests of the Church of God were wisely supposed to be necessarily those of the State also." We continue our account in the words of a correspondent of the John Bull .— " His name, as regards his political life, wIM always be chiefly con- ^ neeted with the well known Clergy Reserve queuMon — that bitter struggle between the Church and Dissent, which, thanks to the cowardly and igno- rant policy of the Government at home, ended in the spoliation of the Church's fair heritage, and the sacrilegious transfer of the endowments to the municipalities of the province. This robbery of God, in taking away what was intended for the maintenance of His worship, and employ- ing it for entirely secular purposes, has turned out, as many predicted, a curse, and riot a blessing ; the proceeds have been frittered away on nobody can tell what, and have ever been a bone of contention or an apple of discord among all the municipal bodies into whose hands the management of them has come. The Bishop's indomitable energy and perseverance, the steady and miflinching maintenance of the Church's , ,: •.'. .'jights, his commanding will and thorough honesty and singleness of pur- ,'.•.*• " ' pose,'&y through this sad contest, while they provoked the bitter opposition, even vyori, the respect and admiration, of his enemies. He fought without yielding, ,>yithout wavering, to the end, and nothing could ever cause him to let go one iota of principle. No fears, no threats, no ill-success, no ^eats, po worldly policy, or hope of advantage, would ever induce him to cQ >" — .v'iiii'.S^i£^^JniA*'i--- -« •tr ^•AA 111 tfliV lAJUi«/Vl : S-^S*,;.' [lost prelate of the ! Bishop of Exeter, f events of his life, its in his character, th strongly marked [e possessed a most e of fatigue ; and, ly illness. He was veiling, tasted any rm, resolute, deter- bat he undertook, duty, he yet was he had a pleasant yful repartees, are fact has some story 3m which a volume igious principles he 1 his views, but with ugh holding strong differed fro.n him, 2hman to offices of beloved by all who all, of every class. 1.,%** Ill VllV llJUiirVA u t -. H: