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 THE FIRST BISHOP OF TORONTO : 
 
 A KEVIRW AN1> A STUDY 
 
 BY 
 
 IIKNIJY SCADDLXC, |>.l>., i'axtaij. 
 
 T R N T 
 \V, C CJIKWETT A Co. FvlXCi STF EKT KAST. 
 
 I s r, 8 . 
 
 I I 
 

THE FIRST BISHOP OF TORONTO 
 
 A REVIEW AND A STUDY. 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY SCABBING, D.D., Cantab. 
 
 TORONTO: 
 
 AV. C. CHEWETT A CO., KING STREET EAST. 
 
 1868. 
 
 tl 
 
VltlXTEI) AT Tin: STEAM PRESS KSTAnLISHMENT OF W. C. CIIEWKTT & CO., 
 RING STREET EAST, TORONTO. 
 
 LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA 
 
INSCRIBED 
 
 WITH REAL HESPECT 
 TO 
 
 TITE RIGHT REV. ARTHUR CLEVELAND COXE, D.D., 
 
 BISHOP OF WESTERN NEW YORK, 
 
 WHO, IN Hia "CRITERION," HAS MARKED OUT AFRESH. 
 
 SHARPLY AND FIRMLY, 
 
 FOR THE EXISTING GENERATION, 
 
 THE LINE WHICH, WITH THE WELL-INSTRUCTED AND DISCERNING, 
 
 DIVIDES TRUTH FROM ERROR IN ECCLESIASTICAL QUESTIONS ; 
 
 WHO, IN THE ACCOMPANYING PORTRAITURE, 
 
 WILL RECOGNIZE ONE THAT, AGAIN AND AGAIN, 
 
 FOR THE PEOPLE COMMITTED TO HIS SPIRITUAL OVERSIGHT, 
 
 VIRTUALLY PERFORMED THE SAME OFFICE, 
 
 ILLUSTRATING HIS WORDS OF WISE COUNSEL 
 
 BY THE CONSISTENT PRACTICE OF A LONG LIFE, 
 
 AND (LIKE A DELANCEY, LAMENTED AND BELOVED 
 
 «)N BOTH SIDES OF THE UPPER WATERS OF THE ST. LAWRENCE) 
 
 PROVING HIMSELF TO BE ONE OF THE NOT MJNV 7ATIIEHS 
 
 WHOM CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES ARE PERMITTED TO II.WE, 
 
 AND WHOSE MEMORY THEY HAVE LEARNED TO HOLD 
 
 IN ESPECIAL HONOUR. 
 
 2369740 
 
) 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Having been plij'sically unable at the time of tbe decease 
 
 of the late venerated Bishop of Toronto to do honour to his 
 
 ineuiory in my place, and in the usual way, I have ventured 
 
 to throw such thoughts as have occurred to me in connexion 
 
 with that event into the shape of a historical Eeview and 
 
 Study, which I here present to the reader in independent 
 
 pamphlet form, there being amongst us no Periodical suited 
 
 to receive papers of this description. 
 
 II. S. 
 
 10 Tkinity Square, Toronto, 
 Jan. 28, 1868. 
 
Si 
 
 w 
 
 I 
 
 
TABLE OF PRINCIPAL MASTERS. 
 
 PAOK 
 
 Arrival at Kingston 18 
 
 Removal to Cornwall 15 
 
 Theological system adopted 17 
 
 School system pursued 21 
 
 Removal to York 20 
 
 Ecclesiastical lands in Canada, history of 2i( 
 
 Educational question in Canada, history of 4ft 
 
 Visit to England for University Charter 4S 
 
 Visit to England for Consecration 52 
 
 Institution of Diocesan Society DJl 
 
 Building and rebuilding the Cathedrtn Church 55 
 
 Visit to England on extinction of King's College 56 
 
 Founding of Trinity College 57 
 
 Institution of a Representative Synod 01 
 
 Charges and printed Remains 70 
 
 Results S3 
 
¥ 
 
 
 'I .« 
 
 
THE FIUST BISHOP OF TOEOIJTTO. 
 
 A REVIEW AND A STUDY.* 
 
 Modern liistorians have discovered the utility of the chance 
 literature of particular periods. The freshness and life which 
 constitute the charm of Macaulay and Froude, as distinguished 
 from their predecessors, arise in a great degree from their not 
 having disdained the pamphlets and popular literature, the 
 autobiographies, diaries, private correspondence and floating 
 discourse of the times in which their heroes and heroines lived. 
 The graphic touches which reader so fascinating their word- 
 portraitures of "William and Mary, for example, of Mary Tudor, 
 Mary Stuart, and of Elizabetii, with the dramatis personse 
 attendant upon each, have been derived from sources such as 
 these. 
 
 In the United States, the fugitive productions, political and 
 literary, of the Colonial period, are eagerly sought after as 
 materials for history ; and, in many cases, have been reprinted 
 under the auspices of societies expressly foimed for the preser- 
 vation of such papers. Almost every State and large town 
 has a collection of local documents, possessing at once a sort of 
 family interest, and occasionally considerable importance in 
 relation to public affairs. The vast chaos of printed matter 
 every year accumulating in London, from the sale and disper- 
 sion of libraries in England, Scotland and Ireland, is annually 
 ransacked for American pamphlets, which are set apart by 
 dealers in books as having a spec .il value for the United States 
 market. 
 
 In Canada a similar minute interest in the past is felt. It 
 
 •Chrutian Riearder, Vols. 1. & II. Svo. York ; Printed at the U. C. OazetU Office ; 1819, 1820. 
 
10 
 
 1* 
 
 !' 
 
 has been long strongly manifest among the educated Lower 
 Canadian French. It has extended itself to the descendants 
 of other nationalities. In both divisions of the late Province 
 of Canada, Historical Societies have been instituted. The 
 Government of Canada has authorized from time to time the 
 collection of historical documents in Great Britain and on the 
 continent of Europe, and the results in manuscript and other- 
 wise are preserved for the use of persons interested in such 
 matters, in the parliamentary libraries at Ottawa, Quebec and 
 Toronto. 
 
 In the Eastern division of Canada the local materials for the 
 historian are more abundant than in the Western. Tracts, 
 magazines and ne vspapers have all along there been preserved 
 with some care and interest. In AVestern Canada, when wish- 
 ing to verify a fact or a date, it is curious to discover how all 
 but impossible it is to find files of the Papers of thirty or forty 
 years since, or sets of the periodicals that from time to time 
 have had a brief existence. It is thus by no moans easy to 
 recover minute particulars in relation to events, discussions 
 and persons, that at particular times made a considerable 
 noise. The difliculty is, in some instances, perhaps a happy 
 one. But for the future, the existence of libraries, public and 
 private, where the productions of the local press are deposited 
 and valued, will render impossible a deartli of historical data. 
 
 We are so fortunate as to have at hand a collection of early 
 Canadian works ; and among them, a copy of The Christian 
 Recorder^ a magazine printed partly at Kingston and partly at 
 York, in 1819 and 1820. The numbers issued at Kingston 
 were printed at the Chronicle oftice, by S. Miles ; those appear- 
 ing at York were printed at the Upper Canada Gazette ofiice, 
 '' for the Editor and R. C. Home." After two years, the peri- 
 odical ceased to exist. The volumes consist respectively of 482 
 and 448 pages. The size is large octavo ; the type is a bold 
 ]>ica, the lines running across the whole page ; the paper 
 is stout, and the ink remarkably good. At the end of each 
 number, a portion of the matter is in double columns, and in 
 smaller type. 
 
 These volumes possess an interest, a? having been edited and 
 in great part written by the late Bishop of Toronto, while .a 
 
11 
 
 presbyter doing duty at York. They treat of matters con- 
 nected principally with the Anglican Church in Great Britain 
 and Ireland and Ca^^ada, and other dependencies of the 
 Empire. 
 
 Had the Christian Recorder chanced to have been a general 
 magazine, like the old standard periodicals of the last century, 
 the value of the work would have been greater as a source of 
 minute information, in relation to the civil and domestic history 
 of Canada during the brief term of its existence. As it is, 
 the work is chiefly to be prized as furnishing an insight into 
 the early opinions and views of one who became locally very 
 eminent. It will be of some public interest, probably, to 
 mention that heavy mourning lines surround all the pages of 
 the number for September, 1819, out of respect to the memory 
 of the Governor-in-Chief, the Duke of Richmond, then recently 
 deceased. In the same number is a funeral oration on the 
 occasion of the death of that personage. The number for 
 March, 1820, is draped in like manner for George III., and 
 contfuns also a funeral oration on the death of that monarch. 
 In the iirst volume there is a memoir of the Indian chief, 
 Jose])h Brant; and in the second volume, a discourse by 
 Samuel Farmer Jarvis, on the Religion of the Indians of North 
 America, delivered before the New York Historical Society. 
 There are papers also on the History and State of Education 
 in Upper and Lower Canada. 
 
 We intend to make our notice of this early production of the 
 Upper Canadian press the occasion of a rapid review of the 
 public life and times of the first Bishop of Toronto, delineating 
 his career and recording its results with as much brevity as 
 shall be possible. The history of Dr. Strachan will hereafter 
 form a portion of the history of Canada in general, and of the 
 Anglican Church in Canada in particular. Meanwhile, a 
 review of the kind we have proposed will not be unacceptable 
 to tlie reader of to-day, who, while absorbed, along with his 
 contemporaries, in things of immediate moment, is apt to 
 remain ignorant of matters that stirred the iiearts of the gene- 
 ration passing away, however necessary, in some instances, a 
 knowledge of those matters may be to a right understanding 
 of the existing situation of affairs. 
 
^ 
 
 I 
 
 12 
 
 The question of Public Eclucation in Upper Canad.a was the 
 remote occasion of Mr. Strachan's emigration from Scotland. 
 
 Among the wealthier families of Western Canada, the 
 necessity began soon to be felt of securing for their growing 
 sons the intellectual and moral training customary in old 
 countries. In the polity designed for the recently organized 
 Province of Upper Canada, a University was from the begin- 
 ning included. It was, of course, long before the means and 
 numbers of a young community justified the actual commence- 
 ment of such an institution ; but its existence in the future 
 was kept in view. 
 
 About tlie year 1 798 or 1799, certain families in Kingston 
 and the neighbourhood appear to have resolved on opening a 
 correspondence with friends in Scotland, with a view of obtain- 
 ing from them a tutor for their sons, alluding at the same time 
 to the wider and higher sphere which in due time might be 
 open to the per on sent out, so soon as the country should be 
 ripe for a High School or University. 
 
 The families referred to — Ilamiltons, Stuarts and Cart- 
 wrights — when casting about for the education of their sons, 
 appear to have looked towards Scotland rather than England, 
 partly perhaps from national predilection, and partly from a 
 reasonable impression that the economic and primitive Univer- 
 sity system of Scotland was better adapted to a community 
 constituted as that of Upper Canada then was, than the more 
 costly and more complicated systems of Oxford and Cambridge, 
 
 The first Governor of Upper Canada, in a letter to the 
 Bishop of Quebec in 1795, had given it as his opinion, that 
 " the clergy requisite for oflices in the University in the first 
 instance, should be Englishmen, if possible ; " which was also 
 the opinion, he adds, of Mr. Secretary Dundas. But at the 
 same timeJie cautiously refere to "the habits and mannere of 
 the American settlers;" and expresses his apprehensions in 
 respect to the adaptodness to the community of Upper Canada 
 of " clergymen educated in England, with English families and 
 propensities, habituated in every situation to a greater degree 
 of refinement and comfort than can be found in a new country, 
 or possibly anywhere without the precincts of Great Britain." 
 And in regard to the bishopric which he desired to see at once 
 
 
 fll 
 
 
 . 
 
13 
 
 established at liis seat of Government, he had strongly recom- 
 mended the consecration f^^ « oi*esbyter long familiar with the 
 New England colonies, a Mr. Peters, as likely to bo more ac- 
 ceptable and nseful in a new community, than one wholly 
 unused to a population such as that of U])per Canada was ex- 
 pected to bo. In the case of Nova Scotia, a clergyman, 
 Dr. Inglis, trained in the colonial service, had already been 
 appointed bishop. In looking to Scotland, then, rather than to 
 England, for an instructor for their sons, the families at Kings- 
 ton, in 1709, may have been moved also by some of the general 
 convictions which were evidently strong in the mind of the 
 first Governor of Upper Canada. 
 
 The educational opening in Canada was duly made known 
 to several young Scottish scholars just starting in life. The 
 one, amongst them, that at length decided to accept, cuurage- 
 ously verituring to try his future in the distant and wholly new 
 field of action, was Mr. John Strachan, master at the time, of 
 the Parochial school of Kettle in the county of Fife, and of 
 the age of about nineteen years. 
 
 On the last day of the year 1799, he reached Kingston, hav- 
 ing sailed from Greenock at the close of the preceding August. 
 
 The work of private tuition was immediately begun. The 
 prospect of employment ia connection with a government 
 scheme of education, was found to be more remote than had 
 been imagined. 
 
 Public Instruction was to be maintained by the proceeds of 
 crown lands ; but these were as yet in a state of nature. Some 
 years must elapse before revenues could accrue from that quarter. 
 
 Notwithstanding a momentary disappointment, the resolution 
 was formed to test the new conditions into which his emigra- 
 tion had brought hiwi. It would naturally strike him that the 
 experienced friends by whom he was surrounded, had not 
 themselves decided, without good reasons, on identifying their 
 fortunes witli those of tlie newly organized community of 
 Upper Canada. He would not be long in discovering that 
 they had sketched out a future for themselves and their child- 
 ren. Tlie minute information gathered from them, would fur- 
 nish plentiful materials for decision in regard to his own case. 
 
14 
 
 It is little to be wondered at, that at the time now spoken 
 of, Mr. Strachan, as a young man educated and trained in Scot- 
 land, did not consider himself, in any very strict sense, a nism- 
 ber of the Anglican communion. It appears that his parents 
 were of different pevsuasions. Ilis father belonged to the Non- 
 jnrants, that is, to the adherents of that succession of bishops 
 who continued to refuse the oaths of allegiance to the House of 
 Brunswick. Of these, Jacobites as they were termed politi- 
 cally, the stronghold in the Lowlands was Aberdeen, where Mr. 
 Strachan was born. His mother belonged to the Ilelief Kirk, 
 a communion resemblinj; the modern Free Kirk and based on 
 the rejection of lay-patronage. It is now merged in the United 
 Presbyterian body. He was familiarized in his childhood with 
 the Episcopal forms of worship, by frequently attending, in 
 company with his father, the ministrations of Bishop Skinner 
 of Aberdeen, the Primus of Scotland from 1789 to 1810 ; but 
 on being deprived of his father, while still quite young, he was 
 afterwards usually taken to the religious services preferred by 
 his mother. But while thus grounded in the principles of the 
 Christian faith, the historic question in relation to the Chris- 
 tian church had not, in any practical way, been brought before 
 him, up to the time of his emigration. 
 
 At Kingston he is brought into intimate relations with the 
 Rev. Dr. Stuart, who, although now the official representative 
 of the Anglican Church in that place and bishop's commissary 
 for Upper Canada, was himself the son of a Scottish presbyte- 
 rian. Dr. Stuart had migrated to Canada from Virginia, and 
 was one of the large group of persons who in the United States 
 and Canada have deemed it a duty for reasons satisfactory to 
 their intelligence, to leave the religious communion in which 
 they were born, and unite themselvoi, some as clergy, some as 
 laity, to the Anglican communion — a result promoted, inde- 
 pendently of the historic argument, by the fact that the offshoots 
 of the Anglican Chu»'ch in the dependencies of the Empire are 
 necessarily divested of the secular trappings which are urged as 
 grounds of separation in the mother-country. 
 
 Doubtless the influence of the Ilev. Dr. Stuart with the newly- 
 arrived young Scot, and probably his example also, had much 
 
 I 1 
 
15 
 
 weight ; and we speedily find a resolution formed on the part 
 of Mr. Strachan to take orders in the Anglican Church. 
 
 After fulfilling a three years' engagement as preceptor at 
 Kingston, and going at the same time through a course of 
 theological reading, he is accordingly ordained in the year 
 1803, a deacon, and in the following year, a presbyter, in the 
 Anglican church, by Dr. Mountain, the then bishop of Quebec. 
 
 His mission was Cornwall ; but he continued to unite with 
 the clerical profession, the office likewise of an instructor of 
 youth in general learning. 
 
 We thus see him fairly started in the double 3areer, in both 
 lines of which he was afterwards to be conspicuous. In accor- 
 dance with a natural law, the strong aptitudes that were in 
 him had sought a place for development, and now in some 
 sort, an approximation to a such place was found. V'hile 
 there is in such cases of course no special forecast of the forms 
 in wliich the future is to be worked out, there is a powerful 
 consciousness of sure rewards in some sha])e for vigilance and a 
 strong will. Amonf; the earliest determiaations of the future 
 bishop, we liappen to know, thore was one to be found ever 
 with the foremost in whatevei profession he should adopt. 
 This amount of clear purpose at all events on his part, we 
 have learned from one to whom as an incentive to exertion in 
 his youth, the avowal was made by the bishop himself. — Ileed- 
 fully and successfully, tln'ough every phase of his eventful his- 
 tory— 
 
 " He heard the constant Voice its charge repeat 
 Which out of his young heart's oracular seat 
 First roused him." 
 
 Men bearing the good lowland name of Strachan, had already 
 been distinguished in ecclesiastical annals ; and they wore all 
 very staunch non-jurants. From 1062 to 1671, Dr. David 
 Strachan was bishop of Brechin. In 1G89, Dr. John Strachan 
 was deprived of the incumbency of the Tron church in Edin- 
 burgli, for not reading on the day appointed a proclamation 
 fi'om the Estates of Scotland " certifying the lieges that none 
 presume to own or acknowledge the late King James VII. for 
 their King, nor ol)oy, accept or assist any commissions or or- 
 
sll 
 
 16 
 
 I, 
 
 I 
 
 ■ t 
 
 ders that may be emitted by him ; and that none prcaume, upon 
 their highest peril, by word, writing, or sermons, or any other 
 manner of way, to impugn or disown the royal authority of 
 "William and Mary, King and Queen of Scotland." — Stephens's 
 IIiHtory of the Church of Scotland, ill. 4:08. And in IGOO, he 
 is deprived of his theological professorijhip in the l^niversity of 
 Edinburgh, for refusing the following test : " I, A. B., do in 
 the sincerity of my heart acknowledge and declare that their 
 majesties, William and Queen Mary are the only lawful and 
 undoubted sovereigns, Kii>g and (iucen of Scotland, as well 
 de jure as de facto, ^^ tfce. That the refusal of this test might , 
 not be understood in any doubtful manner, the inquisitom 
 who administered it had taken the precaution to allege of the 
 tame Dr. John Strachan " that in a sermon before the diocesan 
 synud he reconmiended a reconciliation with the Church of 
 Home; that he was an Arminian, a Pelngiun, and innovated the 
 worship of God in setting up the English service,'' &c. Again, 
 in 1787, " the clergy of the bishopric of Brechin elected Dr. 
 Abernethy Drummond, one of the clergy of Edinburgh, to be 
 their bishop ; and at the same time they elected Mr, John 
 Strachan, ju'iest, at Dundee, to be his coadjutor in that bishop- 
 ric." — Stephen, iv. -111. This bishop Strachan, who survived 
 until 1810, consented, with the rest of his brethren, to read the 
 prayer for King George III., when the death of the Pretender 
 was announced. " Well do I remember," says an old Jacobite 
 of that time, " the day on which the name of George was men- 
 tioned in the morning service for the first time. Such blowing 
 of noses, such significant hums, such half-suppressed sighs, such 
 smothered gi'oans and universal confusion, can hardly be con- 
 ceived." — Stephen, iv. ■ili. 
 
 But of all who, in the ecclesiastical annals, have won honour 
 for the name of Strachan, it happened that there was no one 
 destined to higher distinction than he whom we have just seen 
 beginning a career in Canada, at the opening of the present 
 century. It was during Dr. Strachan's ten years' residence in 
 Cornwall, and his thirteen years' continuance in the same 
 united occupations subsequently at York, that many of the 
 young men of Canada, who became afterwards distinguished 
 
 !« 
 
 M 
 
vt 
 
 
 in life, received under bis direction their early training. The 
 phalanx of warm friends who in later days stood so staunchly 
 by him, was recruited in great measure out of these grateful 
 pupils. 
 
 The theological view; o which, as a young student at King- 
 ston, he had been led, may be described in general terms as 
 those of the Bishop Ilobart school in the United States ; views 
 reflecting, in the main, the principles of the Scottish Episcopal 
 Church. Among English divines, Bishop Jeremy Taylor per- 
 haps (provided the Liberty of Prophesying be not excluded) 
 may be tajcen as an exponent of them. But in no portion of 
 his teaching, tliroughout the whole of his career, is there any 
 tid.ce of Leaderism, that bane of theology, which renders the 
 voice of every modern school more or less hollow and unreal. 
 In the great Oxford movement, he instantly discerned the gold 
 from the dross, the truthful from the fantastic. Newman, 
 whom he had personally known, was, on his defection, to him 
 " as a stone cast into the sea " — to use an expression of his own 
 in relation to that occuiTence. 
 
 The general contents of the Christian liecorder are an index 
 to the topics that had engaged the mind of its editor. In vol. 
 I. we have discussions on Amusements of the Clergy ; British 
 Islands, first introduction of Gospel into ; History and present 
 state of Religion in Canada; "Catholic" wrongly used; on 
 the Uses of Learning in Religion; a Series, entitled, "The 
 Confessor," in which difficulties are proposed by correspon- 
 dents and solved ; Family Worship ; Dr. Chalmers on Uuiver- 
 sal Peace ; Bible and Prayer-Book Society ; History of Bene- 
 volent Societies ; on Forms of Prayer, &c. In vol. II., Laud's 
 Speech on the Scaffold ; Infant Baptism ; Analysis of Bishop 
 Bull's Sermons; Writings of the Fathers; on Groaning in 
 Churches ; Ilorsley on the Sabbath ; Southey's Life of Wesley '; 
 Moral Philosophy and Christian Revelation ; Duties of Parish 
 Priest ; Last hours of Melancthon ; Regeneration ; Religious 
 Establishments ; Waterland's Sermons ; Barrow's Sermons ; 
 Frequent Communion, &c. 
 
 The passages which we are about to give at length are selected 
 as being illustrative of the opinions held by the editor on the 
 2 
 
n 
 
 V 
 
 
 ^h \ 
 
 ■^',1 
 
 18 
 
 enbject of tlie Anglican Church in tlio year 1820. Quails db 
 incepto the reader of to-day will be inclined to append to the 
 well-kr>own Caveo sed non timeo — " Fearlesa but Prudent" — of 
 his soul, a legend never borne with greater fitness by any pos- 
 sessor of his name. 
 
 " It is from not attending to the relation of the several dis- 
 pensations of religion to each other, and to the sense of the 
 phrases which have been brought from the synagogue into the 
 Church, that we are now disturbed by useless if not pernicious 
 controversies concerning original sin, regeneration, conversion, 
 election, justification and the perseverance of the saints ; and 
 until the disputants shall agree to trace the great progressive 
 scheme of revelation from its commencement, it will be impos- 
 sible to put an end to these controversies." — Vol. ii. 410. 
 
 " The sectaries of former times and of the present day are 
 astonished and indignant that our English Reformers did not 
 see the Truth immediately as they see it now, and they lament 
 they ultimately stopped short of the point which they have 
 attained, and that they have retained any portion, however 
 purified, of the ancient system. Now, we consider the gradual 
 progress of the Reformation in England, as a fact of the utmost 
 j)ossible importance to the Church of Christ at large. Nothing 
 was done rashly; not a step was taken without suflicient 
 grounds; and the progress of change so natural to the human 
 mind in such circumstances, and so unlimited and momentous 
 in its possible conserpiences, was hai)pily checked at that point 
 which has rendered the Church of England the bulwark of the 
 Reformation, as opposed to the superstitions of Rome on the 
 one hand, and to the heresies of many reformed churches and 
 sects on the other ; a point so happily fixed, both as to faith 
 and discipline, as to render it ultimately perhaps a rallying 
 ground to those who now on either side most vigorously assail 
 it."— Vol. ii. 412. 
 
 At page 82 of the same volume is a striking reference to the 
 Scottish Episcopal Church, showing the deep impression which 
 a study of its case and position had made. " It is a matter of 
 surprise," he says, "to those who are acquainted with the 
 purity and simplicity of the Episcopal Church of Scotland, and 
 
10 
 
 ualis cih 
 d to the 
 mt"— of 
 any pos- 
 
 'oral dis- 
 !e of the 
 into the 
 3rniciou8 
 1 version, 
 its ; and 
 jffressive 
 e inipos- 
 10. 
 
 ; day are 
 s did not 
 y lament 
 ley have 
 however 
 5 gradual 
 e utmost 
 Nothing 
 sufficient 
 e human 
 mientous 
 lat point 
 rk ot the 
 e on the 
 ehcs and 
 to faith 
 rallying 
 sly assail 
 
 ice to the 
 on which 
 matter of 
 with the 
 land, and 
 
 the many intrepid examples of patience, of perseverance and 
 piety which she has exhibited, that more notice is not taken ot 
 her in the religious publications of the day, and that while the 
 obscurest of sects are held up to public attention, and very 
 ordinary characters dragged from their privacy and decked 
 with the trappings of a partial biography and held up to admi- 
 ration, the primitive models of Christian simplicity, self-denial 
 and devotion afforded by this branch of the Catholic Church, 
 are passed over without notice or regard. * * * It is of 
 great importance to the cause of Episcopacy to behold a society 
 of well-informed Christians adhering to its principles, under 
 circumatauces peculiarly disadvantageous, from a deep convic- 
 tion of their truth. Such a spectacle puts to confusion the 
 assertions of those who have said that this mode of Christian 
 worship could not exist separate from pomp and power, and 
 manifestly proves that, without external dignity, splendor < r 
 even protection, it preserves bey end all others its primitive 
 purity, and continues from age to age, without any var'-^^inn. 
 to keep its adherents fixed in the truth as it was delivered to 
 the saints. In such a state of things, the clergy can have no 
 secular views in entering into its ministry; for their salaries 
 are by no means adequate to their comfortable subsistence : it 
 can therefore only be a desire to be useful, proceeding from the 
 most disinterested motives, that could induce men of learning 
 and talents to devote themselves in such a church to the service 
 of the sanctuary. Let those who pretend that the sister church 
 established in England, so interesting to its friends and so im- 
 portant to the constitution, derives her chief support from her 
 connexion with the state, her legal support, her dignity and 
 splendour ; look to Scotland, where the same church, deprived 
 of all those advantages, maintains in everything the same 
 principles, and is held together by the force of opinion, and 
 preserved, though in a state of humiliation, by a strong and 
 imiform consent in the doctrine and discipline of the primitive 
 Church. In the Episcopal Church of Scotland we behold that 
 of England divested of everything foreign and adventitious, 
 as a society entirely spiritual, and yet maintaining the same 
 constitution, the same worship, faith and discipline, not by 
 
I ill 
 
 i! 
 
 
 ! i 
 
 h 
 
 ! t 
 
 
 20 
 
 tlio sanction of laws, statutes and acts of parliament, but by 
 motives of conscience, and by sanctions which arc considered 
 as divine." 
 
 In the Farewell Address to the reader in Vol. II., are some 
 very characteristic passages. Their tone, it will bo observed, 
 combining charity and dogma, was calculated to impress if not 
 to conciliate. " The Christfan Recorder has treated with kind- 
 ness and respect all denominations of Christians ; but in doing 
 this, the editor has neither compromised nor concealed his own 
 opinions on any subject he was called upon to discuss ; and if 
 he has occasionally indulged in encomiums of that Church to 
 which he belongs and to which he is firmly attached by reason 
 and affection, it arises from a deep conviction that she is the only 
 Church that unites in herselfthe true requisites for propagating 
 the Gospel and retaining it pure when once established. * * * 
 Wherever any feeling prevails against the Church of England 
 it proceeds from ignorance ; for were the most violent of her 
 opponents to examine with impartiality her Articles of Faith, 
 her order and discipline, and to read with candour her admir- 
 able liturgy, — if he did not feel himself constrained to join 
 her communion, he would be at least convinced that she i)oss- 
 esses all the mar';s of a true Church, and that to be conscien- 
 tiously united with her, is to be in the way of salvation. In 
 most places of worship out of this Church the congregations 
 are hearers only; the members of them, properly speaking, 
 cannot be said to offer up any religious worship for themselves. 
 The one mind and the one mouth with which Christians are 
 directed by the Apostle to glorify God being in this case, 
 generally speaking, the mind and mouth of the officiating 
 minister, not, as it ought to be, the one mind and one mouth of 
 the congregation assembled." 
 
 At p. 355, Vol. I., there is a characteristic remark on the 
 policy of "Wesley. Wesley had admonished some of his fol- 
 lowers at Brentford that from the hour they took up a position 
 antagonistic to the mother-church " they would see his face no 
 more." " It ia to be remembered," the editor of the Christian 
 Recorder remarks, " that though he resisted in this particular 
 instance and though he said the practice was inexpedient, and 
 
 I 
 
21 
 
 li to 
 
 * * * 
 
 }OUth of 
 
 even unlawful, ho w(\3 yet constrained to yield when the con- 
 gregation proved obstinate. Ilia consummate skill in govern- 
 ment told him how far he might go ; and when courage and 
 decision M'oidd no longer avail he always secured a safe 
 retreat." 
 
 The system pursued in the School at Cornwall, and after- 
 wards at York, exhibited features that would have gratified the 
 advanced educationists of the present age. In that system the 
 practical and the useful were by no means sacrificed to the 
 ornamental and theoretical or the merely conventional. Things 
 were regarded as well as words. In respect to the latter, we 
 have taken the trouble to look lately into our copy of Ruddi- 
 num's Kudiments of the Latin Tongue. It is a relic of youth- 
 ful days, bearing the marks of our own devotion to its contents 
 which -yet occupying a seat on the benches of the School at 
 York; and wo aro glad to acknowledge what a good and 
 sensible book of its kind it is: superior in a rational point of 
 view to the Eton manual, unannotated and unimproved, which 
 afterwards took its place. Through tho medium of this 
 Kuddiman we received our first initiation into the Latin tongue, 
 giving to vowels and diphthongs a fine North British breadth 
 and <le])th, unconsciously reproducing tones and sounds 
 familiar probably to lilui'tian or Oscan of old — 
 
 " Mouthing out hollow oes ami uis — 
 Deep-chested music." 
 
 Well do we remember the day of our enrolment ; and hearing 
 on that occasion one, afterwards a friend during manv vcars, 
 but now departed, repeating with great earnestness to himself 
 again and again some mystic statement ahontjilia, nata, dea, 
 anuna, making ahis in the plural. Then in regard to things 
 — the science of common objects — we doubt if in the most 
 conn)lete of our modern schools there was ever awakened a 
 greater interest or intelligence in relation to such matters. 
 Who that had once participated in the excitement of the 
 Natural History class, ever forgot it ? Or in that of the 
 Historical and Geographical exercises ? We venture to think 
 that in many an instance, the fullest experiences of after life 
 in travel or otherwise had often their associations with ideas 
 
MiUWi It ', S 
 
 -■sbshbb; 
 
 nt' 
 
 4i!J 
 
 h 
 
 il 
 
 r^ 
 
 Si 
 
 ": I' 
 
 22 
 
 awakened then ; and often compared, satisfactorily and pleasur- 
 ably, with the pictures of places, animals and persons given 
 rudely it may be, but effectively, in text-books, ransacked and 
 oonncd in a fervour of emulation, then. The manner of study 
 in these subjects was this : each lad w.as required to prepare a 
 set of questions, to be put by himself to his fellows in the class. 
 If a reply was not forthcoming, and the information furnished 
 by Hie questioner was judged correct, the latter "went np,'* 
 and took the place of the other. This process, besides being 
 instructive and stimulating to the pupils, possessed the advan- 
 tage of being, as it often proved, highly diverting to the teacher. 
 Ill an address delivered by the editor of the Christian Recorder 
 at a distribution of rewards in his Sunday school, wo have a 
 similar process recommended for adoption in institutions of that 
 description. We give first his remarks on the advantages of the 
 catechetical system : " The method of instruction by question 
 and answer possesses many advantages over any other, and is 
 not only the shortest .and simplest, but the most satisfactory. 
 In preaching, for example, the speaker proceeds with liis dis- 
 course without the certainty that he is followed by his audience ; 
 but in catechising, the deficiencies of eacii scholar soon become 
 manifest, and the teacher knows to what particular points he 
 must direct his explanations. There is no time for inattention 
 or wandering ; the question and necessity of reply, compel 
 attention and recollection. The children, if the teacher pro- 
 ceed with a conciliatory firmness, acquire a lively interest in 
 the lesson, for each is particularly addressed and brought for- 
 ward into action." — Vol. i. p. 182. 
 
 We next give the editoi''s method in the management of his 
 Sunday school, with a vigorous sketch, which, changing the 
 scene, describes equally well his pupils engaged on secular sub- 
 jects. " The boys' class" the editor says, " have four questions 
 to answer in writing every Sunday morning. Aftei liie names 
 of the class are called, and those absent marked, each produces 
 his paper of questions. The answers are carefully examined, 
 and Hkewise the writing and spelling, and the best goes to the 
 head of the class, and all take their places according to their 
 merit. Permission is then given to ask questions formed out 
 
23 
 
 of the four questions which they have ah'eady answered on 
 paper, or out of subjects connected with them. Questions may 
 likewise be asked about the sermon, the te\t, the lessons and 
 gospel of the day, the collect, and every pi,rt of the preceding 
 service. Now begins the anxiety, the mental exertion, tiiC 
 continued attention, the rapidity of answer, and acnteness of 
 distinction : but it is imnossible to describe the full effect of 
 such an examination without beholding it." — Ibid. p. 183. 
 
 Then there were the ever-memorable " Parliamentary 
 debates." The leading speeches of tlie great statesmen of 
 England on special questi(ms were learned, and delivei*ed 
 memoriter in proper order. Both sides in the discussion of 
 interesting subjects in politics became tiius to some extent 
 ftimiliar. The speakers on the occasion of '' debates" were 
 seated on benches set out for the purpose opposite to each other. 
 It was with scenes such as these that the first mention of the 
 historic names of Pih;, Fox, PuHenoy, Wyndham, Lyttelton, 
 "Walpole (Sir Robert and Horace) was associated in the minds 
 of many of the public men of Tipper Canada. These debates, 
 too, formed a part of the grand demonstration on prize-days, 
 before t!iG summer-vacation. A drama, generally one of Han- 
 nah More's, used also to be given on those daj's. Xot a little 
 were we ourselves elated at being assigned, on one of these 
 occasions, a part in Milman's Martyr of Antioe/i — at the time 
 a recent publication. 
 
 In recording these personal reminiscences here, we depart a 
 little from our plan. But having referred to them, we venture 
 to add one or two more of a kindred nature. A vivid recollec- 
 tion still exists of the salutary awe inspired by the approach 
 even at a distance, of the never-to-be-fogotten head-master. In 
 our time it was the practice of the assistant master, Rosington 
 Elms, or whoever else it might be, to open the school at nine. 
 Tiien at ab'^ut ten a look-out was established in a south westerly 
 direction towards a certain corner in the distance, round which in 
 his daily walk from his residence on Front Street the well-known 
 figure of the master would appear, distinguished then, as for 
 nearly half a century later, by the antique ecclesiastical cos- 
 tume of a past age. A sign would make known the expecte<'. 
 
24 
 
 ii I' 
 
 ^r 
 
 Hi 
 
 '111 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 M i 
 
 apparition, when a hushed silence would pervade the building, 
 growing in intensity as he himself entered, and continuing un- 
 broken so long as it pleased him to pace the apartment, toying 
 with the gold seals attached to his watch, and indulging in a 
 subdued, continuous whistle, for which he was noted else- 
 where also, which seemed to keep time with the motion of some 
 busy thought going on within. 
 
 To the close of his long life his great interest in children never 
 flagged. lie never let slip an opportunity of having something 
 to say to young people. It v/as a delight to him to draw them 
 out in some way by a little Soci atic chat. Nor in this respect 
 did he confine himself to the young. Character was quickly 
 discerned and enjoyed by him in persons of every ago. The 
 originals, male and female, of most of our western towns and 
 villages, and of many an isolated farm-house and country -stop- 
 ping place, were curiously known to him, and remembered by 
 some noted anecdote or saying of theire. And many a one 
 among such as were thus remembered, in their turn remembered 
 hnn also by virtue of some passage of spriglitly talk that had 
 happened between them. — After a somewliat cognate sort, a 
 great dog presenting himself anywhere would attract his good- 
 humoured regard ; while with visitors to his library in later 
 years, the cat that was usually to be seen coiled on a com- 
 fortable fauteuil there, will be as memorable and as suggestive 
 perhaps as Mon*' .ignc's. 
 
 Dr. Fuller, in some reminiscences in the Journal of Educa- 
 tion (vol. XX. p. 182), speaks of the regret of the scliool on the 
 resignation of their distinguished master — an occasion which 
 we ourselves also remember. In his testimony to the impar- 
 tiality of the regime then closed, the venerable archdeacon does 
 not hesitate to renew the infandum dolorem of his own experi^ 
 ence. " All knew," lie says, " that we would receive jierfect 
 justice at his hands; that if we deserved credit and rewards, we 
 would obtain them ; and that if we deserved punishment, we 
 would be pretty certain to get it, too." 
 
 To the judges and other magnates, all quondam pupils of 
 his, assembled to partake of a dinner given them by him on 
 their presenting to him a costly token of their esteem, the sud- 
 
25 
 
 he building, 
 itinuing un- 
 fient, toying 
 ulsing in a 
 noted else- 
 tion of some 
 
 ildren never 
 g something 
 
 draw thera 
 this respect 
 
 was quickly 
 
 1 age. The 
 I towns and 
 ountry-stop- 
 embercd bv 
 many a one 
 remembered 
 tlk that had 
 nate sort, a 
 let his good- 
 iiry in later 
 
 on a com- 
 suggostive 
 
 of Educa- 
 ool on the 
 asion which 
 the im par- 
 deacon does 
 own experi. 
 eive i>erfect 
 rewards, we 
 shment, we 
 
 n pupils of 
 by him on 
 m, the sud- 
 
 den address, in the old well known familiar authoritative tone, 
 humorously was — " Boys, take your places ! " And in good 
 earnest to the last, many very mature men were regarded by 
 him as boys. A middle-aged divine, rather out in his theology, 
 would often be excused by the considerate observation, " He's 
 a young man : he will get right in time." It was moreover 
 amusing in public assemblies, to remark how venerable person- 
 ages, lay as well as clerical, bold enough in any other presence, 
 would cower under the rasp of a brief stricture from the chair. 
 His own peculiar history combined with his personal character, 
 secured for him this unquestioning kind of deference. Of course 
 no successor, without similar claims, will ever be in the exercise 
 of an authority as arbitrary as his at certain times seemed to be. 
 His demise, like i\\GMorte (T Arthur, was the dissolution of the 
 last link of a new with an old era — of the present with the 
 past — with an ecclesiastical past, at all events, which had begun 
 already to look quaint and antiquated, which in the future will 
 look heroic, perhaps mythic. 
 
 "The old order changeth, yielding place to new, 
 And God fulfils Himself in many ways, 
 Lest one good custom should corrupt the world." 
 
 In connexion with what has been said of the encouragement 
 given in his educational system to a knowledge of things as 
 well as of words, we may add, that to the last he proved himself 
 one who did not desire to restrict the regards of the studious 
 man to narrow limits. To extreme old age he cxhil ited a keen 
 interest in all matters of inodorn invention and science. To 
 the setting in motion of enterprizes likely to give useful em- 
 ployment to large numbers, as also to the re-establishment of 
 Manufactories, when checked by sudden disaster, he was always 
 to be relied on for liberal material aid. His familiar form, full 
 of a vigorous activity, even when somewhat bowed with yeara, 
 was often to be seen venturing among the bewilderments of the 
 railway tracks, entering with zest into the movements of the 
 impatient yet tractible machines. Also when buildings on a 
 large scale where going on, or any other considerable engineer- 
 ing operation, he was at some time or another there among the 
 workmen. He had alv'a3S been in his day a general reader. 
 
lu 
 
 ! 
 
 m n 
 
 
 V 
 
 ^ifii 
 
 ; iii il 
 
 i|!!t \\ 
 
 We remember once feeling ourselves carried back very far .by 
 being referred to the philosophic essays of Ilelvetius, as contain- 
 ing matter with which reading men might be supposed familiar. 
 In interviews with ourselves, frequent and favourite topics were 
 the matters discussed before the Canadian Institute, the meet- 
 ings of which, of late years, from the great distance of the 
 Rooms, he regretted his inability to attend. lie made it a 
 point, however, even at a late period of liis life, to sliow him- 
 self occasionally at public meetings relating to the general 
 interests of the community, claiming to be heard " as an old 
 residenter." 
 
 From sojne remarks of his in the Christian J?ecorder, on a 
 scheme for a University course, we find that he desired the 
 young student in theology to be a lover of general knowledge. 
 " In a large seminary," he says, " these [that is, purely tlieo- 
 logical studios] may be relieved by turning to ^lie book of 
 nature, and reading the perfections of the Divinity in the 
 beauty and sublimity of His works. For these purposes the 
 young divine may examine the heavenly bodies, their astonish- 
 ing regularity and order ; and, admiring the perfection of 
 astronomy, which, in as far as it regards the solar system, may 
 now be said to be complete, as there is not a single motion that 
 has not been accounted for and found necessary to preserve the 
 wonderful harmony of the whole, he may draw the most com- 
 fortable proofs of the wisdom, power and goodness of God. 
 Here, likewise, the student of nature might make liiniself 
 master of chemistry, of botany and anatomy ; all of which he 
 would afterwards find useful in liis profession, not only in con- 
 firming liis faith, but in the variety of ilhistration which they 
 aflbrd him in preaching to the people." — Vol. i. p. 178. 
 
 On the death of Dr. Stuart, at Kingston, in 1S12, his son, 
 who had now also become a clergyman of the Church of 
 England, and was stationed at York, succeeded to his father's 
 ministerial charge ; and Dr. Strachan removed from Cornwall 
 to assume the post thus vacated. York was then a small 
 wooden town, of 1,400 inhabitants, by some years the junior 
 of Kingston. The latter place had sprung up round the 
 Btockado of Cataraqui (a fort begun in 1G72, in the time of the 
 
27 
 
 J very far .by 
 IS, as contain- 
 osed familiar, 
 te topics were 
 ite, the meet- 
 itance of the 
 [e made it a 
 to show him- 
 I tlie general 
 d " as an old 
 
 Recorder, on a 
 
 e desired the 
 
 ill knowledge. 
 
 , purely theo- 
 
 ) ^he book of 
 
 vinity in the 
 
 purposes the 
 
 ^heir astonish- 
 
 perfection of 
 
 • system, may 
 
 e motion that 
 
 ) preserve the 
 
 he most com- 
 
 Incss of God. 
 
 nake himself 
 
 1 of which he 
 
 t only in con- 
 
 ti which they 
 
 X 178. 
 
 hi 2, his son, 
 e Cliurch of 
 ;o his father's 
 om Cornwall 
 then a small 
 rs the junior 
 p round the 
 e time of the 
 
 French rule), and at an earlier period had borne the naine of 
 the Governor-in-Chief, Fronton ac. York had been laid out in 
 1792, by Governor Simcoe, and had, like New York and 
 Albany, been so called from a Duke of York, — in the present 
 instance from the King's second son, actively engaged at the 
 moment as commander of the British troops on the European 
 continent, in the war against the French Convention. 
 
 In his new post an occasion soon occurred that brought out 
 several of the traits of character, which helped throughout his 
 life to render Dr. Strachan a man of mark 
 
 The measures of Napoleon, in 1S07, for the destruction of 
 the commerce of England, had occasioned, on the part of the 
 Britisli Privy Council, certain retaliatory orders, which affected 
 the shipping of maritime nations, and especially that of the 
 United States, who, consequently, in 1812, agreeably to the 
 subtle calculation of the Emperor, declared war against Great 
 Britain. Canada, although clear of culpability in the premises, 
 was doomed to the devastation and carufjge which, in this 
 peculiar mode of settling disputes, are inevitable. Moreover, 
 it was expected on the part of the United States, that the 
 struggle would issue in the loss to Great Britain of the residue 
 of her dominions in Northern America. 
 
 The invading force occupied the town of York, and set fire 
 to its public buildings. At this critical moment in the annals 
 of the infant capital, we find Dr. Strachan brought, alike by 
 his office and his personal character, into the exact position of 
 a leading ecclesiastic in one of the cities of Western Europe, 
 at the time of the irruption of the barbarians in the fifth cen- 
 tury, lie is put forward as a mouth-piece by the poorly 
 defended inhabitants, to plead with the exasperated chief of 
 the enemy in possession ; and to his vigorous remonstrances is 
 due the escape of York proper from complete destruction. 
 
 To the terrified families of the town and neighbourhood, 
 whoso natural guardians were for the most part absent on 
 military duty in various parts of the invaded Province, the 
 undaunted bearing of their chief spiritual pastor was a stay 
 and consolation. Amongst them, and in the hospitals by the 
 

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 ^ 
 
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 V" ■ i: 
 
 
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 28 
 
 bedside of the sick and wounded, he was ever to be met witli, 
 addiniij words of hoiteful cheer to deeds of friendly kindliness, 
 althougli exposed, in the duties which he undertook, to immi- 
 nent p'jrsonal risk, from the irresponsibh; violcnco of stray sol- 
 diers Ji.nd sailors belonginp; to the forces of the hostile intruders. 
 
 In 1818 he was appointed by the Crown a member of the 
 Legislative Council of Upper Canada. Already, in Lower 
 Canada, the Anglican bishop was, from his otlice, a member of 
 the Upper House. As occupying, in the capital of the Upper 
 Province, the most conspicuous ecclesiastical position, he was 
 by a kind of analogy held eligible to a scat in the Legislative 
 Council. The api>ointment of a person in holy orders, under 
 the E[>ir-:copal rank, to such a position, would scarcely have 
 happened, had there not been a scarcity of men in the country 
 qualified to fill such a station. The discernment and deci,sion 
 of mind evinced by Dr. Strachan in regard to secular as well 
 as ecclesiastical mutters, stamped him as one that might be 
 thus distinguished by the Crown, Li England, to this day we 
 see men in holy orders sitting on the magistrate's bench. It is 
 a relic of the policy of by -gone ages, wIkmi ecclesiastics were 
 chosen to be keepers of the Great Seal, because they, beyond 
 the gciHM'ality of their contemporaries, were fitted for the office. 
 The jxtlicy of the present day, although it has not yet wholly 
 discarded the usage of the past in this resjxH-t, is in its tendency 
 opposed to, and will ultimately exclude such appointments, the 
 reason arising from the paucity of (pialified men outside the 
 ecclesiastical ranks, having hmg since been cancelled by facts. 
 
 Up to the time of the reunion of the Canailas, Dr. Strachan 
 took part in the legislation of the Upper Province. During a 
 portion of this period (1818-18+1), he was also an ICxecutivo 
 Councillor; and upon him, in this capacity, as a confidential 
 adviser of the Crown's representative for the time being, the 
 malcontents sought to fasten, justly or unjustly, the odium of 
 unpopular measures. 
 
 It was during this interval that the country was agitated by 
 the Ecclesiastical question ; and in addition to that source of 
 disquietude, and wrapped up to some extent in it, there was the 
 Educational question also, which, as the community had now 
 
 I 
 
 ig 
 
1 
 
 be met with, 
 ly kindliness, 
 »ok, to ininii- 
 ' of stray sol- 
 tile intruders, 
 ember of the 
 ly, in Lower 
 
 a member of 
 of the Upper 
 ^ition, he was 
 \c Lej^islntivc 
 orders, under 
 scarcely have 
 n the country 
 
 and decifsion 
 3cular as well 
 hat mij^ht be 
 o this day we 
 i bench. It is 
 lesiastics were 
 
 they, beyond 
 
 for the office. 
 
 >t yet wholly 
 its tendency 
 
 ntnients, the 
 
 1 outside the 
 
 l(>d by facts. 
 
 Dr. Strachan 
 l)urin;i|; a 
 
 m Ivvccntive 
 (•((ulideiitial 
 
 lie being, the 
 he odium of 
 
 agitatod by 
 I at source of 
 here was the 
 ity had now 
 
 ■i 
 
 29 
 
 extended itself, and was becoming more and more mixed in 
 character, excited much discussion. 
 
 As years rolled on, both questions assumed shapes that took 
 by sur^trise those persons who had failed to notice the great 
 social revolutions which liad long been in progress in the 
 British Islands ; or who, if they happened to be confronted by 
 the symptoms of such latent changes, had learned to denounce 
 them as wholly deplorable. But all those who had chanced to 
 read aright the lessons of modern English history, discerning, 
 60 tar as practicable, the providential drift of events, could 
 have had no doubt as to what the issue of the contest in both 
 cases would be, sooner or later. 
 
 In order that we may understand the Ecclesiastical and 
 Educational questions as they came to be regarded in the 
 Canadian Provinces, and as they were finally settled, it will bo 
 nseful to take a review of the origin of both of them. 
 
 After a retrospect of this kind, too, we shall be better able 
 to do justice to the champions on the losing as well as the 
 winning side in the contest. To judge fairly of the men of 
 by-gone generations, wo ought to place ourselves in their posi- 
 tion as nearly as p»j6sible, realizing their surroundings as fully 
 sis we nuiy ; analyzing the mental atmosphere which they 
 breathed, and the moral sunlight that fell on their spiritual 
 vision, noticing the mediums through which it had previously 
 passed, the refractions, diminutions and colorings which it had 
 conse(piently undergone. We should then probably discover 
 that our forefathers were logical, even when their calculations 
 proved vain : the fault was in the data which formed the 
 groundwork of their reasonings. It is not imj)robable that 
 even the present generation will be found to have erred in 
 some of its theoretical hopes. It is well to be reminded by 
 conspicuous examples that we are fallible men, even when 
 exercising the utmost shrewdness and circumspection. Let no 
 man pronounce rashly on the powers of forecast of his prede- 
 cessors, simply because his knowledge of the event enables him 
 to see that they were mistaken. 
 
 AVe shall glance first at the origin, progress and settlement 
 of the Canadian Ecclesiastical question. 
 
I 
 
 M'l 
 
 x- ' \ 
 
 ■'! Ifl 
 
 30 
 
 On taking possession of her new domain on the continent 
 of North America, England found, in the parts that had been 
 to some extent reclaimed from the wilderness, a branch of the 
 Church of France established and endowed. Many of the 
 first colonists of these regions having been emigrants from 
 Normandy, Quebec was for a time held to be a trans-marine 
 outpost of the see of Rouen. 
 
 In the early Christian times, before the complications of the 
 Koman ecclesiastical system had been introduced, these outly- 
 ing districts of the Church of France would have been held to 
 pass, on the settlement after the conquest, into the area of the 
 English Church, and to come under the care of its spiritual 
 overseers. Large ecclesiastical districts have thus frequently 
 been transferred and retransferred from one jurisdiction tu 
 another, in the fluctuations of kingdoms and empires, it being 
 a principle in the early Christian organizution of governments, 
 that civil and ecclesiastical boundaries should coincide. 
 
 Hopes, visionary enough as they now seem to us, were 
 entertained in some quarters that the French ecclesiastical 
 establishment in Canada would gradually be transmuted into 
 an English one. To understand the ground of such an expec- 
 tation, it must be remembered that in the times of Louis XIV., 
 XV., XVL, Gallicanism in France was not the eclipsed and 
 slighted thing which it has since become ; that its principles 
 were a part of the public policy, and associated with a sense of 
 the national honour ; and that consequently, in Canada also, 
 the same principles would have weight in the minds of the 
 educated f»nd intelligent portion of the population. Anglican- 
 ism and Gallicanism, on their political side, were known to be 
 in the main identical. In both, " the king's pleasure,'' • '^ 
 royal prerogative, was invested with a great sacredness. The 
 royal will, promulgated from London, would gradually obtain 
 an acquiescence as real as that given to the word of the great 
 monarch at Paris. 
 
 Mr. Maseres, Attorney-General at Quebec in 1766, believed 
 that immediately after the conquest, the Galilean parishes 
 might have been converted, as vacancies occurred, into Angli- 
 can ones, by the induction into the living at the will of the 
 
31 
 
 e continent 
 at had been 
 •ancU of the 
 [any of the 
 grants from 
 -rans-marlne 
 
 itions of the 
 these ontly- 
 been held to 
 ; area of the 
 its spiritual 
 s frequently 
 risdiction to 
 ires, it being 
 governments, 
 icide. 
 to us, were 
 ecclesiastical 
 psmuted into 
 ch an expec- 
 Louis XIV., 
 eclipsed and 
 Its principles 
 th a sense of 
 Canada also, 
 ninds of the 
 Anglican- 
 known to be 
 easure,'' ^■'^ 
 idness. The 
 ually obtain 
 of the great 
 
 766, believed 
 can parishes 
 into Angli- 
 will of the 
 
 Enfflish King, of Anglican instead of Gallican presbyters. 
 " I really believe," he says in his evidence before the House of 
 Commons in 1774, "if it had been done at first, it might have 
 created some immediate inconvenience ; but that would have 
 worn out a long time ago. They are a submissive, quiet peo- 
 ple. I believe in many places, if a Protestant minister had 
 been put in upon the vacancy of a priest, a very little pains 
 taken by a Protestant minister would have brought over many 
 to the Protestant religion." — Cavendish: Delates on the 
 Qucheo BUI,, p. 137. With like ease, we may suppose, on the 
 principles of Gallicanlsm, the see of Quebec, when void, might 
 have been filled up by the appointment of an Anglican blt^hop. 
 
 But the very unsophisticated condition of Canadian society 
 which furnished ground for opinions such as these, soon came 
 to an end. The transfer of civil allegiance had taken place 
 without difficulty; the transfer of spiritual allegiance was a 
 different matter. 
 
 At the capitulation of Montreal, In 1760, the free exercise of 
 the " Catholic Apostolic Roman Religion" was guaranteed. 
 In other words, the tenets and practices of the Gallican Church 
 already established in the country were to continue as before, 
 only subject to the supremacy of the English King. 
 
 By the year 17T4, when the Act for the better government 
 of the Province of Quebec was passed, the idea of superseding 
 Gallican functionaries by Anglicans could no longer be enter- 
 tained. The Parliament guaranteed afresh the Gallican rights. 
 But it was necessary now to consider the spiritual necessities of 
 colonists of British birth who had begun to take no their 
 abode In Canada. According to this Act, viz., 14 Geo. III. 
 c. So, the tithe enjoined under the Gallican system was to con- 
 tinue to be paid by all the inhabitants ; but it was provided 
 that only the tithes paid by the members of the Gallican com- 
 munion should go to the support of the Galilean clergy. Out 
 of the rest it would be lawful for " his Majesty, his heirs and 
 successors, to provide for the maintenance and support of a 
 protestant clergy, as from time to time should be necessary 
 and convenient." 
 
 To explain this reference to tithes, we must remember that 
 
M 
 
 fill II 
 
 'f 
 
 I 
 
 ,ii I 
 
 ii' 
 
 I! 
 
 t i 
 
 8S 
 
 the fendal system of Europe had been transplanted to French 
 Canada, and with it the institution of tithes for the mainte- 
 nance of the public functionaries of religion. To continue such 
 an arrangement seemed natural enough to English statesmen 
 in the last century, for tithes were still a part of the English 
 system of government. From the time of the Anglo-Saxon 
 kings, a tenth of the produce of the ground had been set apart 
 for the maintenance of public worship. According to the 
 Anglo-Saxon theory, all the estate of the country was vested in 
 the King. Under him the liand was divided amongst a few, 
 who held their possessions subject to conditions. Those who 
 tilled the soil under the great land-owners had simply to dis- 
 charge that function. In communities thus constituted, it was 
 easy to establish the usage of tithes. All that was required on 
 the part of the class thereby to be provided for, was to convince 
 the kings of a supposed bounden duty.. The feat was then 
 achieved. 
 
 As long as the feudal system continued, or a system tanta- 
 mount to it, without challenge from any quarter, such a mode 
 of supporting public religious woi'ship, shared in by all, would 
 be likely to go on without dispute, and with no sense of injus- 
 tice on the part of any. 
 
 But let the system, for some reason, begin to be broken up, 
 and, at the same time, along with the creation of a numerous 
 class of land-owners in fee simple, let there arise, from some 
 cause, individual thinking on religious subjects ; — let the plea 
 of authority on such points begin to be questioned, — then we 
 should expect to hear of a demur to tithes. We should expect 
 to hear a demand for a change in their appropriation, if not 
 for their abolition. We shoidd expect, under the supposed 
 altered circumstances, to hear demands of a similar character 
 made in relation to other provisions for public worship, if de- 
 rived from land. We should expect this, because we can with- 
 out difficulty conceive of cases where the forced continuance of 
 the feudal use and tradition, would seem a violation of the sense 
 of right which is innate in every man. 
 
 It consequently strikes us as singular now, that it was so 
 readily taken for granted that tithes would be a perpetual in- 
 
^ 
 
 to French 
 he mainte- 
 ntinne auch 
 
 statesmen 
 he English 
 iiglo-Saxon 
 ;n set apart 
 iing to the 
 as vested in 
 iigst a few, 
 
 Those who 
 nply to dis- 
 tnted, it was 
 
 rcqnired on 
 i to convince 
 at was then 
 
 rstem tanta- 
 mch a mode 
 )y all, wonld 
 use of injus- 
 
 jroken up, 
 numerous 
 from some 
 et the plea 
 — then we 
 lould expect 
 ation, if not 
 le supposed 
 ar character 
 (rship, if de- 
 ve can with- 
 ntinuance of 
 of the sense 
 
 ,t it was so 
 )erpetual in- 
 
 i 
 
 33 
 
 stitution amonjr the inhahitants of Canada. It is one more 
 evidence to be added to the many observable in the debates on 
 American affairs, of an almost Bourbonic want of political fore- 
 cast in Parliamentary majorities at the close of the last cen- 
 tury. Tiiey did not comprehend the times in which they were, 
 or the races at homo and abroad for whom they legislated. 
 
 In the debates of 1774, no member of the House offered a 
 definition of the term, "protestant clergy." IlinG jprima 
 mali lobes. At that period the religious communities developed 
 and developing from the Anglican Church had not acquired 
 the status which they afterwards attained. But they existed ; 
 unwotted of or ignored by the statesmen in power and their 
 unquestioning followers ; taken into account, however, incon- 
 siderable as they might seem to others, by the thoughtful and 
 very intelligent men that constituted the minority in the 
 English House of Commons. 
 
 The officials of these new religious communities had not yet 
 been classed in public documents with those of the Anglican 
 Church ; but the minority, in all probability, foresaw that a 
 recognition of them was inevitable in the future. To the 
 influence of this minority is, we think, due the undefined term, 
 " protestant clergy." It is clear, from the debates, that when 
 there was a necessity of refemng expressly to the Anglican 
 Church and its functionaries, the mode of speaking was dis- 
 tinct enough on both sides of the House. 
 
 Tlie Solicitor-General "VVedderburn could use in serious ear- 
 nest such language as the following: — "When we tell the 
 Roman Catholics of Canada that we will not oppress them, we 
 at the same time tell the followers of the Church of England 
 that whenever their faith shall prevail, it shall have a right to 
 its establishment. As soon as the majority of a parish shall 
 be Protestant inhabitants, then I think the ministers of the 
 Crown are bound to make the minister of that parish a Pro- 
 testant clergyman ; then, I think, it could not be felt by any 
 man an act of injustice to say, that the whole revenue of that 
 parish shall be paid to the l*rotestant clergyman." — Cavendish^ 
 Delates, p. 219. 
 
 Mr. Dunning's views were more in accordance with what 
 8 
 
i|; 
 
 tl' 
 
 i 
 
 *ll 
 
 I! 
 
 t 
 
 84 
 
 has proved tlio inevitable policy : — " My opinion of religious 
 toleration," ho said, " goes to all who stand in need of it, in 
 all parts of the globe. It is a natural right of mankind, that 
 men should judge for themselves, and offer up to the Creator 
 that worship whioh they conceive likely to be most luceptable 
 to Ilim. It is neither competent, wise nor just, for society to 
 restrain them further than is necessary." — Hid, p. 220. 
 
 In like strain, but, as it would seem in the sequel, with eome- 
 wliat less breadth, Ednmnd Burke, in the same debate, declared 
 that the recognition of religious tolerance, as a principle of 
 government, was wanted, not only in the colonies, but nearer 
 hojne : — " The thirsty earth of our own country," he eloquently 
 exclaimed, " is gasping and crying out for the healing shower 
 from heaven. The noble lord [North] hps told you of the 
 right of these people [the Canadian Gallicans] by treaty ; but 
 I consider the right of conquest bo little, and the right of 
 human nature so much, that the former has very little consi- 
 deration with mo." He did not approve of the application of 
 the term "established" to the Galilean Church in Canada, 
 oven when all its rights, according to the treaty, were acknow- 
 ledged. If that term were to be used at all, it sl-ould be in 
 reference, he said, to " that approved religion which wo call 
 the religion of the Church of England ; " that is, he indulged 
 the hypothesis for a moment, that there was going to be an 
 establishment, but he does not advocate it ; for all, ho conti- 
 nued, " ought to contribute to the support of some religion or 
 other " (p. 233). Ilia proposition was, that the custom of tithes 
 should continue throughout Canada, but that the tithes of the 
 non-Gallicans should be handed over in trust to the Society for 
 the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts ; a proposition 
 at which the Attorney-General Thurlow expressed his indigna- 
 tion, as being tantamount to- saying that " it is a fitter thing 
 to place greater confidence in the wisdom and discretion of a 
 religious corporation, than the King," i. c, the Executive 
 (p. 223). Mr. Burke also threw out the suggestion, that several 
 Christian communities might make use, at different times, of 
 the same public place of worship : — " When the people become 
 divided in their religion, why not follow the generous example 
 
 .■^' 
 
of religioii» 
 iced of it, in 
 iankind, that 
 ) the Creator 
 st acceptable 
 for society to 
 \ 220. 
 
 el, witli eome- 
 bate, declared 
 I principl«j of 
 69, Lut nearer 
 he eloquently 
 ealing shower 
 Id you of the 
 jy treaty ; hut 
 i the right of 
 jry little consi- 
 application of 
 ch in Canada, 
 I, were acknow- 
 it should be in 
 which wo call 
 is, he indulged 
 going to be an 
 •r all, ho conti- 
 ome religion or 
 :u8tom of tithea 
 le tithes of the 
 the Society for 
 ; a proposition 
 led his indigna- 
 is a fitter thing 
 discretion of a 
 the Executive 
 ion, that several 
 fferent tlines, of 
 I people become 
 nerous example 
 
 35 
 
 set by the treaty of "Westphalia, by which the duties ot two or 
 three establishments were discharged in the same church on 
 the same day, the Roman Catholic, the Lutheran, and the 
 Reformed Religion ? It is an example," ho thinks, " worthy 
 of a Christian church ^ it is a happy union, which has fixed 
 peace forever in those provinces." (p. 224). 
 
 The Act of 1774 finally passed, with the proviso that " It 
 shall be lawful for His Majesty, his heirs or successor^, to make 
 such provision out of the rest of the said accustomed dues end 
 rights [that is, after paying the Gallican clergy] for the encou- 
 ragement of the protestaut religion, and for the maintenance 
 and support of a protestant clergy within the said province, as 
 he or they shall from time to time think necessary and expe- 
 dient " (p. 216). 
 
 Prior to the conquest of Canada, the whole of Nova Scotia, 
 otherwise called Acadia, had been ceded, by the treaty of 
 Utrecht, to the crown of Great Britain ; and in view of the 
 obligations which, in consequence of this cession, had fallen 
 upon the ecclesiastical authorities of England, a spiritual 
 superintendent, with the title of Bishop of Nova Scotia, had 
 been sent out to establish for the people of the recent acquisi- 
 tion, with such speed and permanence as should be possible, 
 the ministrations and institutions of the Anglican Church. 
 
 In like manner, the possession of Canada, another immense 
 section of the late French domain in North America, now called 
 for attention on the part of the Anglican spiritual authorities. 
 " I look upon the people of Canada," said Edmund Burke, 
 in the debate on the Quebec Bill, already referred to, " as 
 coming by the dispensation of God under the British Govern- 
 ment." Tlie authorities of the Anglican Church in England 
 could look at the matter in no inferior light. Accordingly, the 
 area that had hitherto been occupied by the Gallican Church 
 in Canada was regarded by them as having passed, according 
 to ancient usage, by virtue of the civil conquest, ipso facto, 
 into the area over which henceforth the Anglican Church must 
 exercise jurisdiction ; and in the early state of the Christian 
 body, before the prevalence of the Roman theories, the Angli- 
 
; 1) i 1 
 
 ! '{ 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 1 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 -; 
 
 
 i 1 
 
 \h II i 
 
 i 'P^i! 
 
 M ! 
 
 !! 
 
 36 
 
 ean branch of the Universal Church would have been every- 
 where sustained in its judgment and action. 
 
 The persons most interested in this transfer of spiritual and 
 ecclesiastic authority, are of course the laity and clergy of the 
 Galilean Church in Canada. With them it took place without 
 recognition ; perhaps without their consciousness. Had it 
 happily been otherwise, as, at one time, there was some chance 
 of its being, the semblance of schism which unfortunately exists, 
 would have been wholly avoided. What we desire to be 
 pointedly taken notice of, is this — that the course to be pur 
 sued by the Anglican Churcb under the circumstances in which 
 it found itself was plain — according to the principles of tlie 
 ancient canons and use ; and it was this : that it must occupy 
 the area which had fallen under its jurisdiction : that in resolv- 
 ing on this step, it simply performed a duty, and could not be 
 charged with the promotion of schism. 
 
 The establishment of an Anglican see at Quebec in 1793 was 
 connected also with the civil policy which two years previously 
 had led to the division of Canada into two provinces with dis- 
 tinct governments. 
 
 The continued increase of the population of British origin 
 suggested the setting apart of a large section of the country for 
 their occupancy under a constitution after the English plan, 
 while public faith was kept with the descendants of the original 
 French inhabitants, still securing to them in the area occupied 
 by them, their peculiar usages and laws. 
 
 The same change in the character of the population rendered 
 advisable the appointment of an Anglican bishop for the pro- 
 motion of the interests of the Anglican Church. And although 
 the bulk of the members of that communion would be found 
 in the later western settlements, it was in accordance with 
 ancient ecclesiastical custom to establish the see of the bishop, 
 in the first instance, in the metropolis of the whole country, 
 leaving to posterity the duty of erecting from time to time ad- 
 ditional sees in the other large cities as they should spring up. 
 
 The first bishop sent out to the new see by the Anglican 
 Church in England was Dr. Jacob Mountain. An incident 
 
been every- 
 
 spiritual and 
 jlergy of the 
 )lace without 
 ;s8. Had it 
 Bome chance 
 inatcly exists, 
 desire to be 
 3e to be pur 
 nces in which 
 iciples of the 
 i must occupy 
 that in resolv- 
 l could not be 
 
 Bc in 1793 was 
 jars previously 
 nces with dis- 
 
 British origin 
 
 he country for 
 
 nglish plan, 
 
 of the original 
 
 area occupied 
 
 ation rendered 
 p for the pro- 
 And although 
 ould be found 
 cordance with 
 of the bishop, 
 hole country, 
 ne to time ad- 
 Lild spring up. 
 
 the Anglican 
 An incident 
 
 37 
 
 occurred on his arrival at Quebec which is illustrative of the 
 temperate Gallicanism of the day, to which allusion has been 
 made. As the English functionary stepped ashore from the 
 ship, he is saluted on both cheeks by the venerable Gallican 
 bishop of the city. Accustomed as we moderns are to the 
 affected superciliousness of Ultramontanism, we are somewhat 
 startled by an occurrence that seems to remit us back to the 
 early days of Christianity. Bishop Briand who thus so beauti- 
 fully exemplified the simplicity of his character as a Gallican 
 ecclesiastic, was at the time a very aged man. For fifty-three 
 years he had ministerially served the Gallican Church in 
 Canada. The duties of his charge were at this moment in the 
 hands of a coadjutor and he died in the following year. It will 
 throw light on the state of feeling in relation to England and 
 its policy on the part of ecclesiastics in Canada thirty years 
 after the conquest, if we mention further in regard to this 
 Christian-tempered man, that it was from the conversations 
 held with him, that the Gallican bishop Joseph Octave Plessis, 
 of Quebec, subsequently so distinguished, derived his know- 
 ledge of the causes that had brought about the fall of the French 
 Government in Canada and of the character of the men who 
 directed the affairs of the colony before it had been ceded to 
 Eiii'land, These conversations, we are assured bv the Abbo 
 Ferland, in his Biographical Notice of Bishop Plessis, had their 
 intluence on tlie opinions which the latter formed in relation 
 to the two ffoverinnents. "In considerinjx the svstem," the 
 Al)b(? says, "of vexatious trickery organized against the Church 
 and the people of the country, by some of the chiefs and sub- 
 ordinate employ(?s who .vcre sent by the court of Louis XV., at 
 that time under the sceptre of Madame Pompadour, he could 
 not but admit that under the English government the [Gallican] 
 clergy and rural population enjoyed more liberty than was 
 accorded to them before the conquest." — Biog. JVotiec, p. 14, 
 From the moment of the conquest Bishop Briand was willing to 
 accept the situation of affairs, lie may have be3n one of the 
 enlightened Galileans on whose sentiments Mr Maseres and 
 othevi based the opinion that the gradual transformation of the 
 Gallican establishment in Canada into an An<ilican one had 
 
m\ 
 
 "1 
 
 Ik. 
 
 38 
 
 been at one time a possible thing. " lie had scarcely seen the- 
 British arms placed over the gates of our city," says M. Plessia 
 in the oration at his funeral, " when he concoived in an instant 
 that God had transferred to England, the dominion over thi* 
 country ; that with the change of profession, our duties had 
 changed their object ; that the ties that had till then united 
 us to France, had been broken asunder ; that our capitulations, 
 as well as the treaty of peace in 17G3, were so many new ties 
 that attached us to Great Britain, in submitting us to her sove- 
 reign ; he perceived that which nobody else seemed to suspect, 
 that religion herself would gain by V'.o change of domination."^ 
 Ibid p. 24. 
 
 At the risk perhaps of prolonging this digression to too great 
 an extent, we subjoin two other examples of a practically libe- 
 ral Gallicanism occurring in the period and region on which 
 our attention is now fixed. In 1752, M. Moreau, a presbyter 
 of the Gallican church, and formerly Prior of the Abbey of St, 
 Matthew, near Brest, in France, conformed to the Anglican 
 church and officiated in the communion of that Church at 
 Halifax and Lunenburg in Nova Scotia, ministering in three 
 languages to a very mixed population. And in 17G2, M. 
 Maillard, a presbyter of the Gallican Church and Vicar-General 
 in Nova Scotia of the Gallican Bishop of Quebec, was, at his 
 own request, ministerially attended in his lis;, .siekness by Mr. 
 Wood, an Anglican presbyter, and was bur " y iiim with the 
 ceremonies of the Anglican ritual. {Iluwi ..'■■i' \fissions^ p. 
 360.) — The intelligent convictions in regard to ihn Anglican 
 Church entertained by learned divines in France itself, in the 
 early part of the last century are well known. Archbishop 
 AVake's correspondence with Dupin and others of the Sorbonne 
 took place in 171S, It can be seen at the end of Maclaine's 
 Mosheim. The work of Peter Francis Courayer, presbyter of 
 the Gallican Church, proving the valid'^y of Anglican orders, 
 appeared in 1723. 
 
 The Act of Parliament which divide^ ; '::nada into two dis- 
 tinct Governments exhibits the same ecclesiastical phraseology 
 that characterized the Act of 177-1 for the better government 
 of the Province of Quebec. The expression "proteatant clergy" 
 
3ely seen tlie- 
 ^8 M. Plessis 
 in an instant 
 ion over thifr 
 r duties had 
 then united 
 capitulations, 
 lany new ties 
 19 to her sove- 
 ed to suspect, 
 domination."^ 
 
 •n to too great 
 •actically libe- 
 ('ion on which 
 lu, a presbyter 
 3 Abbey of St, 
 the Anglican 
 lat Church at 
 tering in three 
 \ in 1702, M. 
 Vicar-General 
 )ec, was, at his 
 kness by Mr. 
 hiui with the 
 \fissions, p. 
 ; ilio, Anglican 
 ce itself, in the 
 Archbishop 
 )f the Sorbonne 
 I of Machiine's 
 er, presbyter of 
 nglican orders, 
 
 ia into two dis- 
 eal phraseology 
 tcr government 
 otestant clergy" 
 
 39 
 
 reappeai's ; but along with it there are directions sufficiently 
 explicit for the establishment of parsonages or rectories with 
 incumbents or ministers of the Church of England in every 
 township. But there now appears an im{)ortant clause to the 
 effect that any of the enactments in relation to the maintenance 
 of Public Worship may be varied or repealed by the local 
 parliament of either of the new provinces ; but yet the royal 
 assent was not to be given to any such Act of the local legis- 
 lature without a notice of thirty days to the Imperial Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 Between 1774 and 1791, the date of the Act to which refer- 
 ence is now made, the older colonies of Great Britain on the 
 American continent had declared themselves independent. To 
 be legislated for by a Body in which they were not represented 
 was one of the grounds of complaint. In the provision for 
 future variation and repeal in the Canada Act of 1791 we can 
 see that the lesson in Colonial policy derivable from the events 
 of the years just preceding had not been thrown away ; although 
 at the same time in the guarded manner in which the provision 
 is made, we can also see an effort to save the dignity of the 
 Imperial Parliament. 
 
 In 1774 Lord North and his party had supposed that public 
 affairs at home and in the colonies were about to be conducted 
 for ever just as he and they were then endeavouring to conduct 
 them. The French Government had established permanently 
 in Canada the unreformed religion. The British Government 
 could with equal facility establish permanently the reformed 
 religion. But a wiser minority knew that this could not be. 
 In regard to the measures proposed for the better government 
 of the Province of Quebec, Mr. William Burke declared that 
 "the gentlemen who opposed the bill, knowing that it was 
 impossible to defeat it, had almost worked themselves to death, 
 to make it as far as they could, consonant to English liberty, 
 and the principles of the English constitution." Cavendish, p. 
 252. It was this minority or the representatives of this mino- 
 rity that were the authors of the provision for future variation 
 and repeal in the Act of 1791. They knew the growing 
 strength of the parties at home that were demanding not simply 
 
*■ ■;. 
 
 flii 
 
 m 
 
 %: 
 
 WA 
 
 i 
 
 * : ) 
 
 § 
 
 I 
 
 i 
 
 40 
 
 religious toleration, but equality in the eye of the law for all 
 religious opinions and forms. They were persuaded that such 
 a claim having its root in the nature of things would never be 
 relinquished, would of a certainty in another day and generation 
 be recognised by governments. Foreseeing that Canada, like 
 the more southern portions of the North American continent, 
 was destined to be tilled with colonists from the mixed popula- 
 hitions of the British Islands, they perceived that the English 
 constitution with its theory of amalgamation with the historic 
 Anglican Church could not be introduced there with any 
 chance of permanency. The settlers from the old countries of 
 Europe would be actuated by the different and even opposite 
 systems of thought and belief prevalent in the community just 
 left : amongst these, imity of sentiment in regard to matters 
 either civil or religious, was not to be expected ; and certainly 
 could not in any arbitrary way be enforced. 
 
 To these conflicting elements, it was also well known, another 
 had recently been added. The newly opened country of Wes- 
 tern Canada had become an asylum for refugees from the late 
 colonies to the south of the St. Lawrence and its lakes. These 
 emigrants, although likely, from the fact of their flight from a 
 revolution, to "oc generally of an unprogressive disposition, would 
 yet bring with them a sharpened intelligence in regard to mat 
 tere connected with civil and religious rights. It might well 
 be argued by far-seeing persons that a conuannity thus com- 
 posed could not long exist without manifesting the usual British 
 North American temper, and putting in a protest against every 
 semblance of arbitrary power. 
 
 Hence it happened that while in the Act for the division of 
 the Province of Quebec into the new governments of Upper 
 and Lower Canada, there was a show of doing much for the 
 maintenance of the reformed religion as a set-off" to the strongly 
 entrenched position guaranteed by treaty to the unreformed 
 religion, the same document contained within itself a provision 
 by the operation of which the proposed safeguards for the 
 reformed religion might be, according to circumstances, either 
 wholly altered in character or wholly abolished. Both sides of 
 the House were probably for the moment gratified ; but on the 
 
 ..,!*»'■ 
 
41 
 
 law for all 
 ed that such 
 iild never be 
 d generation 
 Canada, like 
 in continent, 
 ixed popula- 
 
 the English 
 
 1 the historic 
 re with any 
 I countries of 
 ven opposite 
 nmunity just 
 [I to matters 
 vnd certsvinly 
 
 own, another 
 ntry of Wes- 
 froni the late 
 akes. These 
 flight from a 
 )sition, would 
 egard to mat 
 't might well 
 ty thus corn- 
 usual IJritish 
 against every 
 
 le division of 
 nts of Upper 
 luich for the 
 ) the strongly 
 unreformed 
 ilf a provision 
 lards for the 
 tanccs, either 
 Both sides of 
 1 ; but on the 
 
 'IS 
 
 I 
 
 # 
 
 people of Canada of British descent there was entailed for a 
 series of years a distressing controversy. 
 
 In less than one generation the measure of 1791, in as far 
 as it related to a "protestant clergy," began to produce its 
 natural fruit. By the year 1818 the population of Upper 
 Canada had considerably increased, principally by immigra- 
 tion ; and the diflerenccs of religious persuasion which must 
 always exist in communities drafted from the British Islands 
 were of course developed. The newly arrived emigrant, in 
 search of a " location," found in each township every seventh 
 two-hundred-acre lot unpurchasable. This, he is told, is a 
 clergy reserve. The attention of numerous shrewd, practical 
 men is tlius pointedly drawn to the existence of clergy reserves ; 
 first, as obstructions to settlement ; but, secondly, as to their 
 object and significance. In answer to his inquiries on the latter 
 point, the sensitive covenanter of North Britain, or the stub- 
 born non-conformist of Lancashire or York, is informed that 
 by moans of these reserved lands, in the new community to 
 whicli he is about to transplant his family, the Anglican system 
 of faith and worship is ensured to the people forever — the very 
 system of faith and worship which from his childhood he had 
 been taught heartily to abjure. 
 
 It is ex{)lained to him that " the Crown" had taken charge 
 of the spiritual interests of the general public. There had 
 been a military conquest. The former sovereign had decreed 
 a provision for his national religion ; tlie incoming lord of the 
 soil could do no less in regard to the approved faith of his own 
 nation. 
 
 This did not exclude, he might be told, special religious 
 interests. It was open to the partizans of every phase of belief 
 to obtain lands for their own particular purposes. Land to any 
 extent was still at the public disposal, and might be had for the 
 asking. 
 
 Placing ourselves in the position of newly arrived emigrants 
 in 1818, much of all this would seem like the revelation of a 
 new idea ; and we need not wonder that with many, occasion 
 would be given for a great diversity of thought. 
 
r '• \ 
 
 42 
 
 Some, as members of the great commonwealth of Britain, 
 would not bo well pleased to find themselves shut out from an 
 advantage which had emanated from the Crown, the action of 
 which, it must be taken for granted, was for the benefit of all. 
 The landed endowments of the parent state for the purposes of 
 Public Worship, may have been set apart by individuals. To 
 forfeit a claim upon them was an intelligible matter; but here 
 was an endowment confessedly decreed by the Crown, the 
 representative of the whole state. What was it that could 
 induce forfeiture of a share in it? 
 
 Others would foresee the embarrassments likely to afilict 
 posterity, were all schools of belief to acquire roots literally in 
 land. Would it not come to pass ultimately that field would 
 be added to field for tlio spiritual husbandman until scant place 
 would be left for the secular ? 
 
 Otiiers again would entertain doubts as to the reiisonable- 
 ness of propagating the faith by land at all. 
 
 We are not surprised to find that this conflict of opinion 
 among the practical colonizers of Upper Canada resulted at 
 length, in 1819, in a reference to the law-officers of the Crown 
 in England, for some definite interpretation of the Imperial 
 Act, so far as it related to lands set apart for Public Worship. 
 
 Tlie decision obtained was — that the ministers of the Kirk 
 of Scotland were included in the term " protestant clergy ; " 
 but that no part of the rents and profits of the lands reserved 
 for the purposes of Public Worship might go to the support or 
 maintenance of ministers of dissenting protestant congrega- 
 tions, "these not being included in the 'protestant clergy' 
 recognized and established by law." 
 
 To quiet some further apprehensions in connexion with the 
 ecclesiastical question it was deemed expedient by the parlia- 
 ment of Upper Canada in 1823 to pass an Act declaring it to 
 be unlawful to claim or receive tithes within tluit province. 
 It had not before been expressly declared that the setting apart 
 of every seventh two-hundred-acre lot in each surveyed town- 
 ship was in lieu of the tithe of the products of that township. 
 In Lower Canada the custom of tithe had continued. At first, 
 during the continuance of the French rule, it was decreed that 
 
of Britain, 
 )ut from an 
 lie action of 
 nefit of all. 
 purposes of 
 iduals. To 
 ir ; but here 
 Crown, the 
 that could 
 
 ly to afilicl 
 
 d literally in 
 
 iieUl would 
 
 il scant place 
 
 } reason able- 
 
 ;t of opinion 
 I resulted at 
 Df the Crown 
 the Imperial 
 >lie Worship, 
 of the Kirk 
 ant clerixy ; " 
 inds reserved 
 ;he 8upp«>rt or 
 uit conj^rega- 
 •stant clergy' 
 
 xion with the 
 >y the parlia- 
 leclaring it to 
 that province. 
 iB setting apart 
 irveyed town- 
 liat township, 
 ued. At first, 
 ,3 decreed that 
 
 
 43 
 
 every thirteenth sheaf should go to the Crown for the main- 
 tenance of rublic "Worship. Afterwards, a complaint being 
 made to the intendant, it was decided tliat only every twenty 
 sixth sheaf should be reserved ; but that tlie farmer must thresh 
 it out. It was urged by some, that in the absence of a legal 
 declaration to the contrary, this custom guaranteed at the con- 
 quest was binding in Upper Canada. 
 
 The public mind failing still to be tranquilized by the modi- 
 fications thus far made in ecclesiastical matters, we find in 1827 
 a select committee of the English House of Commons appointed 
 to consider the civil government of Canada. In their report 
 they interpret the Act of 1791 more liberally than the law 
 officers of the Crown had done in 1819. "Doubts have 
 arisen," they say, " whether the Act [of 1791] requires the 
 Government to confine [the profits arising from the lands set 
 apart for Public Worship] to the use of the Church of England 
 only, or to allow the Church of Scotland to participate in them. 
 The law officers of the Crown have given an opinion in favor 
 of the right of the Church of Scotland to such participation, 
 in which j'our committee entirely concur. But the question 
 has also been raised, whether the clergy of every denomination 
 of Christians, except Roman Catholics, may not be included. 
 * * vf They entertain no doubt, however, that the intention 
 of those persons who brought forward the measure in Parlia- 
 ment, was to endow with parsonage houses and glebe lands the 
 clergy of the Church of England, at the discretion of the local 
 Government ; but with respect to the distribution of the pro- 
 coeds of the reserved lands generally, they are of opinion that 
 they sought to reserve to the Government the right to apply 
 the money, if they so saw fit, to any protestant clergy." 
 
 In the same year an Imperial act was passed, authorizing 
 the sale of a portion of the ecclesiastical lands in Canada, in 
 order that with the proceeds the remainder might be improved. 
 Nothing, however, was said in this document of any change in 
 the assignment of those lands ; but, moved by the continued 
 disputations on the question, the Crown, in 1832, invited the 
 Parliament of Upper Canada to act upon the power which they 
 possessed, to vary or repeal the provisions of the original statute. 
 
u 
 
 V 
 
 
 ■^ 'f 
 
 
 '1' 
 
 I 
 
 : -M 
 
 
 ]■ 
 
 ki 
 
 i 1 ■ 
 
 ill m 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
 In 1833, there was accordingly a proposal in the Lower 
 House, to re-invest the ecclesiastical lands in the Crown, 
 for such re-distribution as might be decided on in England. 
 I3nt the Hill did not pass. In 1835, a measure did pass the 
 Lower House, but failed in the Upper, docriding to soil the 
 whole of them within four years, and to devote the proceeds 
 to Public Education. It is said that measures proposed by the 
 popular branch of the parliauient of L^pper Canada, for the 
 settlement of the question, were sixteen times rejected by the 
 other House, whose members M'ero appointed irrespective of 
 the popular will. 
 
 In ISJrO, an Act w.as passed by both branches of the Upper 
 Canadian Legislature, by which it was determined to sell the 
 residue of the ecclesiastical lands, and to distribute the pro- 
 ceeils in the proportion of half to the Anglican Church and 
 Scottish Kirk ; and half to purposes of " Public Worship and 
 religious instruction, among the remaining denominations, ac- 
 cording to the discretion of the Governor in Council." The 
 proceeds of the lands that had been sold under the statute of 
 1827, were to be divided between the two first named bodies 
 solely. 
 
 In 1853, this arrangement was again distm-bed; but a deci- 
 sion was arrived at that was final. Tlie Imperial Parliament 
 authorized the Local Legislature, to sell the whole, biit to se- 
 cure to all ecclesiastical persons for their natural lives or 
 incumbencies, the stipends which, at the passing of the Act, 
 they were deriving from the reserve funds. 
 
 In the long war waged on the subject of the ecclesiastical 
 lands in Canada, Dr. Strachan was the most distinguished 
 chieftain and combatant. Campaign after campaign was plan- 
 ned and conducted by him ; but he found himself steadily 
 opi)osed by a force that could neither be resisted nor eluded ; 
 a force that slowly but with certainty drove him in from the 
 open field to the lines ; from the lines to the works ; and from 
 the works to the citadel's inmost retreats, while along every inch 
 of the way, he covered his position and his men with consummate 
 skill and unflinching energy and courage. He had accepted 
 the declarations of the third and fourth Georges, in regard to 
 
45 
 
 the Lower 
 the Crown, 
 in En<;land. 
 lid pass the 
 
 to poll the 
 he pi'ocei'ds 
 )0sed by the 
 iula, for the 
 ;cte(l by the 
 espective of 
 
 f the Upper 
 1 to sell the 
 lite the pro- 
 Chnrch and 
 V^orship and 
 linations, ac- 
 incii;' The 
 lie statute of 
 lined bodies 
 
 ; but a dcci- 
 
 Parliainoiit 
 
 0, but to rtc- 
 
 ral livos or 
 
 of the Ac-t, 
 
 3ccle!iiiisti('al 
 Istinicnished 
 'j^n was plan- 
 self steadily 
 nor eluded ; 
 in from the 
 ; and from 
 g every inch 
 consummate 
 ad accepted 
 in regard to 
 
 i 
 
 
 VJ#- 
 
 the perpetual establishment of the Anglican church in (^anada, 
 in the true spirit of chivalry. The word of a king in 1774 or 
 1818, was received as the word of a Tudor or a Bourbon wonld 
 have been by the average Englishman or Frenchman in bj-- 
 gone years. The royal will was, with him, in accordance with 
 feudal tradition, endued with u sanctity that was inviolable. 
 The public statute that professed to embody and put in force 
 that will was as a Magna Cliarta from which in all future time 
 there could be no swerving. 
 
 Fifty years ago it was not extensively discerned in Canada 
 that the Act of 1791 was in some of its provisions antagonistic 
 to a principle which had been long struggling for a wider and 
 wider recognition in government, namely, the supremacy of 
 the will of a nation over all individual w-ill. This principle 
 had indeed been saved in the casual but important clause pro- 
 viding for future variation and repeal, should the new commu- 
 nity through its representatives so decree when organized and 
 mature. But tlie tone of the Act in respect to ecclesiastical 
 arrangements, if we leave out of consideration this clause, was 
 calculated to mislead ; to mislead at all events those minds that 
 did not recognize or else regarded with no satisfaction, the course 
 which constitutionalism had taken in Great Britain and its de- 
 pendencies for a century past or more. That Act, as we have 
 already seen, took its tone in a great degree from the policy of 
 the French Crown in relation to Canada while yet a French 
 colony. It was thus, to some «^xtent an exceptional measure 
 in British policy. It created for a moment in a remote nook 
 of the empire a state of things approximating to that against 
 which a great deal of English history is a protest. Calculations 
 based upon the irrevocableness of such a statute could not help 
 coming out wrong. 
 
 Furthermore it is to be considered that the interests over 
 which the struggle in Canada took place were those of a sepa- 
 rate class. Even within the pale of the communion for whose 
 benefit exclusively or principally the lands for Public Worship 
 were originally set apart, there are misgivings as to the expe- 
 diency of isolating clergy by means of landed endowments. It 
 is known that in old communities such endowments have' a 
 
—I' ' ■ 
 
 ill 'f 
 
 i It 
 
 It 
 
 m 
 
 t SI; 
 
 
 46 
 
 tcndenoy to render clergy and laity indifferent to each other. 
 With minds hiased to some extent by the working of this ten- 
 dencty large numbers of lay people had emigrated. A proba- 
 bility therefore existed beforehand that in an ecclesiastical 
 question such as that which agitated Canada for bo many years, 
 the bulk of the Anglican communion would be lukewarm ; as 
 in fact they as ;i people proved themselves to be : while mem- 
 bers of other ommunions acting under the direction of their 
 of!i(riiil instructors, and all having much to gain, were steadily 
 and unitedly on the alert. 
 
 That the Anglican communion came out of the struggle with 
 any relics at all of the possessions contended for, was wholly 
 duo to the fact that its champion was a resolute member of 
 the order most deeply interested in the question. 
 
 Wo have next to glance briefly at the Canadian educational 
 question. 
 
 When the schetno of Public Instruction for Upper Canada 
 came to receive its crowning institution, a University, it was 
 discovered that here again was involved the same element that 
 had occasioned the trouble in the matter of tlie lands for Public 
 Woi*ship. So long ago as 1797 a movement, as we have already 
 noticed, began for the securing of an endowment for Grammar 
 Schools and a University ; and live hundred thousand acres of 
 the }>iiblic domain were set apart for that purpose. Ten years 
 later tlirco Grammar Schools are sustained out of the proceeds 
 of these lands, one at Cornwall, one at Kingston, one at Niagara. 
 Subsequently, from time to time, others are established else- 
 where. And no complaint is heard as to exclusiveness in their 
 niaiuigemcnt. Put in 1827 a royal charter is promulgated, 
 instituting a Univci'sity for Upper Canada under the title of 
 King's College. The terms of the charter showed that the 
 advisers of the Crown in England had not at that time realized 
 the principles which were destined to govern modern colonial 
 policy in regard to religion and representative government. 
 It was still supposed that by virtue of a royal declaration a 
 distinction in favour of the Anglican communion could be 
 arbitrarily made and maintained without gainsa}'ing or demur 
 in the midst of a composite British colonial community. 
 
 .1^ i 
 
47 
 
 each other. 
 
 g of this ten- 
 
 d. A proba- 
 
 ecclesiastical 
 
 many yeare, 
 ukewarm ; as 
 ; while mem- 
 ction of their 
 were steadily 
 
 1 struggle with 
 ►r, was wholly 
 ite member of 
 
 m educational 
 
 Jpper Canada 
 iversity, it was 
 e element that 
 mds for Public 
 e have already 
 : for Grammar 
 usand acres of 
 je. Ten years 
 )f the proceeds 
 )ne at Niagara, 
 itablished else- 
 veness in their 
 
 promulgated, 
 er the title of 
 owed that the 
 X time realized 
 lodern colonial 
 e government. 
 
 declaration a 
 nion could be 
 ,ying or demur 
 imunitv. 
 
 w 
 
 According to the letter of the charter the new tJniversity 
 was, in its government, strictly an institution appertaining to 
 the Anglican Church in Upper Canada. There were to be 
 seven professors in the Arts and Faculties who, the charter 
 declares, " shall be members of the Established United Church 
 of England and Ireland and shall severally sign and subscribe 
 the Tliirty-nine Articles." The Anglican bishop for the time 
 being of the diocese in which the University was situate, was 
 to be the visitor ; the Governor or Lieutenant-Government for 
 the time being, was to be Chancellor; the President was to be 
 a clergyman in holy orders of the United Church of England 
 and Ireland; and more particularly still, "the Archdeacon of 
 York, in our said Province, for the time being shall, by virtue 
 of such his office, be at all times the President of the said Col- 
 lege." But at the same time it is directed that no religious 
 test should be applied to any persons admitted as students or as 
 graduates in the said College, excepting only to graduates in 
 Divinity, who were to be subject to the conditions enjoined for 
 degrees in that faculty at Oxford. The proposed institution 
 was rendered capable of holding lands in the Province of Up- 
 per Canada to the value of £15,000 sterling per annum above 
 all charges and to enjoy the proceeds of subsequent purchases 
 and benefactions, without restriction. All these arrangements 
 were to continue for ever. The particular lands that were to 
 yield the £15,000 per annum are not named. But as it was 
 understood that one half of the school-property, reserved for a 
 Provincial University, was to constitute the messuages, tene- 
 ments and hereditaments spoken of in the chartei", the House 
 of Assembly of Upper Canada very soon demurred. They had 
 even been so cautious, prior to the announcement of particu- 
 lars, as to express gratitude to the Crown for the institution of 
 a University only on conditions, one of which was, "if the 
 principles on which it has been founded shall, upon inquiry, 
 prove to be friendly to the civil and religious liberty of the 
 l)eople." 
 
 After ten years of natural but wearisome dispute, the charter 
 is modified, not, however, by the Crown, but by the local Par- 
 liament, as if to leave on record instructive evidence of the 
 
mm 
 
 Ml' 
 
 |:; 
 
 
 fi 
 
 ii.i' ' \ 
 
 I'll 
 
 i 
 
 !ii 
 
 i ^i ! 
 
 li 
 
 1 
 
 ilj^; 
 
 f <» 
 
 
 i fi- ! 
 
 j 
 
 *^l 
 
 I 
 
 48 
 
 Biicccsslvc stops which circumstances rendered inevitable in the 
 march of modern English colonial policy. 
 
 Now it was decided that the visitors of the institution shoidd 
 bo the Judges of the King's Bench ; that in future the Presi- 
 dent need not bo the incumbent of any ecclesiastical office ; 
 that the professors and other members of the governing Board 
 should not necessarily be members of the Anglican Church. 
 
 Our purpose does not require of us to pursue the history of 
 the provincial University any farther. It is sufficient to have 
 set forth the character and the fate of its original cliarter, as 
 constructed under the eye of Dr. Strachan, during a visit to 
 England in 1827. 
 
 The adoption of the particular iblic policy thus far followed 
 in the career now under revit ^ceives perhaps additional 
 
 elucidation when we recal the era in which the early youth of 
 Dr. Strachan was passed. The stirring events of the French 
 Ilevolution, at the close of the last century, had upon different 
 classes of minds in the British Islands very opposite effects. 
 Men in advanced life were rendered more stubborn than ever 
 in their resistance to change in English law and custom. Their 
 zeal for feudal institutions, atid the traditional feudal ideas, 
 became extravagant. A large proportion of the rising youth 
 of tiie land were also indoctrinated by them with maxims fated 
 afterwards to be painfully unlearned. On the other hand, 
 persons in every stage and grade of life, disposed previously by 
 temj)erament and other casual circumstances to ameliorations 
 in aftairs, became unduly excited, and, failing the check inter- 
 posed by calmer and wiser minds, were prepared to hurry the 
 nation into a chaos of anarchy. Instances of this sanguine, 
 imaginative class were Southey, Coleridge and Wordsworth, 
 who all lived to be sounder judges of the exigencies of the 
 British people. Of the other class who were quickened in 
 their hostility to the modifications which were needed, and 
 which huve since been steadily adopted or kept in view, the 
 King himself, George III., was a conspicuous type — a type 
 repeated in the persons of his favorite political advisers. 
 
 Of an intermediate and more salutary effect of the momen- 
 tous crisis in France, Edmund Burke was an illustration. A 
 
 m 
 
49 
 
 Itiil/lo in tlio 
 
 ition should 
 •c the Presi- 
 itical office; 
 rning Board 
 n Church, 
 lie history of 
 ;ient to have 
 i\ cliarter, as 
 iir a visit to 
 
 I far foHowed 
 18 additional 
 [irly youth of 
 :' the French 
 pon different 
 losite effects. 
 )rn than ever 
 istom. Their 
 feudal ideas, 
 rising youth 
 maxims fated 
 other hand, 
 >reviously by 
 inieliorations 
 check inter- 
 to hurry the 
 lis sanguine, 
 Wordsworth, 
 encies of the 
 quickened in 
 needed, and 
 in view, the 
 type— a type 
 visers. 
 the momen- 
 istration. A 
 
 M 
 
 man of wide views and profound intelligence, lio had long f^ecn 
 the social and political needs of the British empire, and had long 
 striven to satisfy thein. The frenzy of the French people did 
 not alter his opinions on these subjects : it simply made him 
 more measured, more cautious and safe in the methods to be 
 applied in the case of his fellow-countrymen. 
 
 At this period of sifUng conflict were formed the convictions 
 which guided Dr. Straehan throughout his public career. 
 Endmved not largely with the gifts of imagination and fancy, 
 ho was not tempted, with the poets and visionaries, to indulge 
 in social experiment and innovation. His natural tcnjperament 
 and the surrounding conditions of his early manhood, placed 
 him by a kind of ntccssity among the strongly conservative, 
 iris great self-reliance and unblenching courage made him bold 
 in liis aims and confident as to their attainment. His unsur- 
 passed firmness secured an unrelenting tenacity of will, and an 
 unwavering perseverance in a line of action once adopt(Kl. 
 
 Tiie view which ho himself took at a later period, of liis own 
 general course of proceeding, is set forth in a Circular Address 
 to the Clergy and Laity of Upper Canada, in 1837. " I have 
 laboured earnestly," he says, " for nearly forty years, througli 
 good report ajid bad report, in promoting the peace and happi- 
 ness of this Province, and its attachment to the parent state. 
 During more than thirty-four years of that period, 1 have been 
 Kealously and, I trust, successfully employed in promoting the 
 cause of true religion, and in the discharge of the sacred duties 
 of a clergyman, and have uniformly acted towards all otiier 
 denominations with a Christian spirit, which the respectable 
 portion of them will readily acknowledge. I atn now approach- 
 iuiz; the evening of my life, and assuredly I shall never incur 
 tho reproach of having sacrificed any portion of the interests 
 of the Church to which I have the happiness to belong, in the 
 wild hope of conciiliating her enemies, or from the culpable 
 desire of avoiding the unpopularity which, it seems to be feared, 
 must attach to those who fairly maintain the religion of our 
 Sovereign and of the British empire." He had just before 
 been speaking of a hint thrown out by the Colonial Secretary 
 of the day, in respect to tho relinquishment of certain Church 
 4 
 
T 
 
 ' I'll 
 
 50 
 
 laiuls, Tho following passage is very characteristic : " I observe 
 that the letter of Lord Glenelg suggests the possibility, though 
 it by no means expresses an expectation or desire, that I may 
 be found willing to surrender, or to concur in surrendering, 
 voluntarily, the endowments which the King has annexed to 
 the rectories. Happily, the provident caution of Parliament 
 has not left it in the power of any individual to be the instru- 
 ment of so much injustice. It is not in my discretion to make 
 any surrender of the kind. If it were, I believe it would not 
 be necessary to assure any one who is pereonally acquainted 
 with me, that I would as readily surrender my life." 
 
 In this vigorous and very real " non possumus,''^ we have 
 tlie key note of his life. Nevertheless, it would be wrong to 
 deny that there was largeness in his views. Occasionally a 
 policy was lu-oaclicd by iiim almost as elastic as that of Burke; 
 and ideas are promulgated greatly surpassing in liberality those 
 of Ids schotd within the four seas at home. Unluckily for him, 
 it, happened that the >;rowth of constitutional liberty in the 
 British Islands and abroad — a growih to this day as irrepressi- 
 ble in depth and height and breadth as that of the roots and 
 branches of a forest tree — demanded social readjustments to an 
 extent unforeseen by him, and in directions not contemplated 
 in his 6ch' inos. 
 
 In the Christian lieconler, now before us, no protest is 
 entered by the e'Jitor against the resolutions of the Canadian 
 Council on the subject of education, presented to Lord 
 Dorc'liester in 17Sl>. The fifth and sixth of the resolutions 
 r'.in thus : " Fifth, That it is expedient to erect a colle- 
 giate institution for cultivating the liberal arts and sciences 
 usually taught in the European univei-sities, the theology of 
 Christians excepted, on account of the mixture of the two 
 connnunions [Clallican and Anglican], whose joint aid is desi- 
 rable, as tar as they agree, and who ought to be left to find a 
 separate provision for the candidates in the ministry of their 
 respective cliurches. Sixth, That it is essential to the origin 
 and success of such an institution, I at a society be incorpora- 
 ted for the purpose, and that the charter wisely provide against 
 the perversion of the institution to any sectarian peculiarities, 
 
51 
 
 leaving free scope for cultivating the circle of the sciences." — 
 Vol. i. p. 448. 
 
 Again, in the same work, the sentiments expressed in 1819 
 are in harmony with these resolutions. " I hope," the editor 
 says, "that it [the university] will be founded upon a very 
 liberal scale, so that all denominations of Christians may be 
 enabled, without any sacrifice of conscience or of feeling, to 
 attend the prelections of the different professors." — Ihid, vol. i. 
 p. 176. At page 368, a correspondent, in a tone of complaint, 
 remarks: "I should not have known, Mr. Editor, by the 
 Recorder, whether you belong to the Church of England or 
 not, you have cultivated so carefully the candour of modern 
 times Perhaps you consider this a praise, but I, who am old- 
 fixshioned, think," &c. 
 
 And again, in the speech delivered by Dr. Strachan, at the 
 opening of King's College, in 1844, it is held that the original 
 charter was singularly liberal : " It was considered," ho says, 
 *' not only the most open charter for a university that had ever 
 been granted, but the most liberal that could be framed on 
 constitutional principles ; and His Majesty's Government de- 
 clared that in passing it, they .had gone to the utmost liinit of 
 conncmxon.''''— Proceedings at the Ceremony of Laying the Foun- 
 dation stone, cfec, p. 30. As we have seen already, however, 
 assent was given, in 1342, to a charter of a very different tone, 
 under which the institution was now opening. This again is 
 concurred in as an inevitable concession. It is at the same 
 moment frankly, declared that "parents not of the Church of 
 England have the right to expect that theii c; lldrcn who come 
 for instruction at this institution shall not be tampered with. 
 Such a right, accordingly," it is promised, " will be conscien- 
 tiously respected ; and dispensations will be given from attend- 
 ing chapel, to those pupils whoso parents and guardians require 
 them (p. 51) ; and when students have finished their regular 
 univei*sity course, and proceeded to their degree, such as design 
 to stud} for the ministry of the Church of England will place 
 themselves more especially under the professor of theology, 
 while the youth of other denominations will depart to prepare 
 for their respective professions" (p. 52). 
 
II 
 
 62 
 
 I'llii^ 
 
 )' II 
 
 i'<\ 
 
 
 
 The process suggested is simple ; but it will be seen that the 
 fundamental gravamen is not removed. The genius of modern 
 complex British society everywhere is not recognized in one of 
 its most ineradicable traits. Its component subdivisions, like 
 individual men in a free commonwealth, will not receive even 
 gifts at each others' hands, if they wear the guise of condescen- 
 sions or favours. This fact, which is essential, is either ignored 
 or not grasped. 
 
 "We now approach that portion of the career of Dr. Strachan 
 which commanded the admiration of opponents as well as 
 friends, and from which in history the chief lustre of his name 
 will be reflected. 
 
 In 1825, he had been appoir.tcd Archdeacon of York. In 
 1S39, he became Bishop of Toronto ; not elected by the suf- 
 frages of the clergy and laity, as is the custom now, but nomi- 
 nated to the office by the Crown, and consecrated in England 
 by the Archbishop of Canterbury. His administrative and 
 executive talent now found a wide and appropriate field of 
 action. Tlie Anglican Church in AV^estcrn Canada, then wholly 
 embraced in his diocese, soon began to ftel the vigour of tlie 
 hand at the helm. His first measure was the institution of a 
 Church Society, coextensive with his diocese, which, in the 
 absence of legitimate synodical machinery, nut then in exis- 
 tence, might serve to give unity, in some degree, to the elForts 
 of clergy and laity. According to iiis Pastoral on the subject, 
 issued in 1842, each congregation was to regard itself as a dis- 
 tinct missionary society, its pastor and churchwardens and 
 more zealous members forming a local association, exerting all 
 their influence to bring within the pale of tlie general Society 
 every baptised person in their bounds. " The Society will in 
 this way embnace within its bosom every grown-up son and 
 daughter of the Church throughout the whole diocese, and give 
 utterance to her voice on ail necessary occasions. Its members 
 will henceforth feel that tliey belong not merely to a small, 
 remote and perhaps insulated congregation, but that they are 
 intimately connected with all the congregations of the diocese, 
 and not of this diocese alone, but of all the dioceses which com- 
 prise the Church of England throughout the world." All were 
 
53 
 
 to contribute, through the Society, to the maintenance of mis- 
 sionaries in new settl-r^ments and among tlie Indians ; to the 
 circulation of the Scriptures, and Common Prayer Book, and 
 approved theological works ; to the support of Sunday and 
 parochial schools, the succour of the widows and orphans of the 
 clergy, and to the assistance of students in divinity. Moreover, 
 landed endowments were to be secured and held, through this 
 association, for the support of their bishop and his cathedral ; 
 for archdeacons and other clergy now employed or to be em- 
 ployed ; for the building of churches and parsonage-houses of 
 durable materials, and for the insurance of the same. " The 
 diocese of Toronto," thus runs the Pastoral, " will very soon 
 contain four hundred townships, each of which may average 
 one hundred square miles — an extent equal to nearly twenty 
 ordinary parishes in England. 13ut such a minute division it 
 would be in vain to attempt ; nor will it for many ages be 
 required by the population. Limiting, then, our contemi)lated 
 division, for the present, to two parishes in each townsliip, the 
 difficulty of endowing them does Jiot seem particularly ardu- 
 ous. A townshi[» contains about sixty-six tliousand acres, or 
 tin'ce hundred and thirty 1 or farms of two hundred .'icres 
 each. Now, fur the endowment of two parishes, six lots, (m- 
 twelve hundred acres, will be rcipiircil. allowing eafli three 
 lots, or six hundred acres. Is it not pi'ob;il)l('," the siiiguino 
 bisiiop asks, " thtit in almost every town.-iii[) r^ix or eight lots 
 or farms, whieli is scarcely a fiftieth part of the whole, wil' ho 
 granted by piuus individuals for a purpose so lilessed^ Jn 
 many townships much more will doubtless be g en, and this 
 will make up for deticiencies in others, where less liberality 
 prevails, or perhaps wliere we have fewer people." 
 
 Had it been possible to breathe into the mass of th( ^ aglican 
 laity the earnest spirit of their ecclesiastical chief, the recent 
 frustration of the will of kings and princes would have proved 
 but a slight injury. Tlio Anglican laity, however, in a new 
 community are not very impressilde ; they are not quick to be 
 enthusiastic in respect to their own ecclesiastical interests. The 
 battle for the reserve-lands had really not interested the mtdti- 
 tude. So far as they were concerned, it was left to be fought 
 
T 
 
 TSEB 
 
 BBi 
 
 Hi 
 
 li ' 
 
 I-;* 
 
 r 
 
 
 64 
 
 out by tUeir champion in single-handed fashion, assisted by a 
 few acting under his special direction. The mass dumbl}-- 
 looked on, comprehending perhaps but vaguely the points at 
 issue. In the parent state the Anglican laity are accustomed 
 to have every requisite supplied to them without effort or 
 thought on their part. They have only of late yeai-s heard 
 tiuit the proceeds of rates and endovvnionts do ^'.zt absolve 
 individuals from a religious concern in the fabric and multipli- 
 cation of churches and schools. Adult njcn and women of the 
 Anglican communion, emigrating from the British Islands, are 
 consequently often taken by surprise when they are informed 
 in their new home of the multiplicity of ecclesiastical cares that 
 appertain to them. It is a novelty with the bulk of them Uy 
 be called on to take part in the building and rei)air of churches ; 
 in the encouragement of candidates for Holy Orders ; in the 
 maintenance of clergy, superior and inferior, with their orphans 
 and widows. 
 
 Xeverthelcss the appeal of the bishop was responded to by 
 many gifts. Wherever he presented himself in his tours 
 throughout the diocese the eifect of his own personal intluence 
 and example was felt, especially among the older colonists who 
 would in some instances devote as a tribute to the dauntlesa 
 energy of their spiritual chief offerings which the cause in the 
 abstract might not have Sufficed to draw forth. Col. Burwell of 
 Port Burwell founded a Living with church and parsonage cojn- 
 plete, at that place ; and presented in addition more than a thou- 
 sand acres as glebes to various clnu-ches. At the close of the 
 iirst year of the Society's existence we find j)resonted to it in the 
 Niagara district, for example, two thousand three hundred and 
 twelve acres ; in the Midland district, two thousand two hun- 
 dred and twenty -one acres ; in the London, Brock, Talbot and 
 Ilnrou district, one thousand eight hundred and seventy-seven 
 acres; in tiie Newcastle district, one thousand acres; in the 
 IFonie district, two thousand six hundred and thirty-four acres. 
 In addition lo these donatio is in land, which are selected as 
 examples, considerable sums of money as annual subscriptions 
 were giuvrunteed. The bishop himself gave one thousand acres 
 towards an endowment for the see and cathedral. 
 
55 
 
 In 1839, the year of his consecration, but a few ^eeks prior 
 to that event, a trying disaster occurred. This was tlie destruc- 
 tion by lire of the church which was about to become the 
 cathedral of tlie diocese. It was a large structure of stone, 
 built and arranged after the model of the English cathedral at 
 Quebec, and the old Ciu'ist Church of Montreal, when situate in 
 Notre Dame street. The wooden church that liad preceded it, 
 moTe fortunate in its liistory than its less combustible successor, 
 had been erected in jiart in 1803, enlarged and completed in 
 1818, and then quietly taken to pieces and removed in 1833, 
 M'hen the stone edifice was finished. The sudden destruction 
 of the new building after an existence of only six years, vvas 
 I'ust one of those discouraffinu blows that served to draw out 
 the energies of Dr. Strachan, and to disclose the wealth of 
 resource that was in him to M'hich the Anglican communion 
 in Canada was so often indebted. Within two days after the 
 fire wo find it recorded that, at a public meeting at the City 
 TIall, "the Venerable the Archdeacon, with a spirit bowed but 
 not broken by this great calamity, presented a luminous report 
 embracing a plan for the restoration of the sacred edifice to its 
 former commodiousness and beauty.''' 
 
 On his return the following November after his consecration 
 at Lambeth, the siglit that greeted him as he entered the 
 harbour of his episcopal city, was his cathedral restored, more 
 complete than ever, fur appended to it now was a conspicuous 
 tower and spire, at its apex a golden cross glittering against 
 the sky. 
 
 Ten years later this renovated and finished building ])ccame 
 an irretrievable ruin in a terrible conflagration which consume d 
 a large portion of Toronto. 
 
 Again, with singular promptness was the loss repaired through 
 the unity and decision gcnerateii in a large congregation by 
 the bishop's force of character. And on this occasi(»n a great 
 advance was made in dignity of architecture, increasing projior- 
 tionably tlie magnitude of the undertaking. The preceding 
 edifices had been oblong rectangular blocks pierced withronnd- 
 headed windows, convenient and spacious, but without appro- 
 priateness of expression. Xow, an edifice was put up in accord- 
 
w 
 
 -n 
 
 56 
 
 ance with later and juster ideas, fine in outline, capable of being 
 adapted to English cathedral customs ; an edifice destined, as 
 it has happened in a manner wholly unforeseen, to be regarded 
 in future ages with a religious reverence as the mausoleum of 
 its founder, — the founder, it may be said, of two, if not three 
 costly predecessors on the same site. Tiiough no other memo- 
 rial should mark his resting-place before the altar of St. James's, 
 Toronto, St. James's itself would suffice — 
 
 Si monujnikntum bequikis, cikcl'mspioe. 
 
 But here we are again anticipating. One other instance of 
 recuperative power in the first bishop of Toronto remains to be 
 referred to ; the crowning instance which will inspire posterity, 
 as it inspired cotemporaries, with unfeigned respect. . 
 
 In 1850 the great educational institution called into visible 
 being tlirough the instrumentality of Dr. Strachan underwent 
 the final cliange which the public policy of the modern empire of 
 (ireut Britain rendered inevitable. King's College was convert- 
 ed into the University of Toronto, and became an institution 
 accommodated in the only practicable way to the educational 
 wants of a community like that of Western Canada. 
 
 The last semblance of connexion between the provincial 
 university and the Anglican Church, as such, having been 
 removed, the bishoj» conceived the bold idea of establishing a 
 new university in relation to which tiieresliould be no (juostion 
 in the future as to the supremacy of the Anglican Church with- 
 in its walls. 
 
 "An old man broken with the storms of state" was not to 
 be said of him. lie had now indeed passed considerably beyond 
 the normal three sore years and ten ; but his strength of will 
 and vigour of mind and body were unabated. The Itlade was 
 metal to the back. 
 
 After a stirring appeal to the laity of his own dii>ccsc, res- 
 [>ouded to by gifts and promises of money or lands to the 
 amount of some thirty thousand pounds, he embarks for Kng- 
 land, lays his case before the two great religious societies there, 
 before the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, before many 
 of the bisliops and clergy, and those members of the laity that 
 
6r 
 
 are wont to interest themselves in matters connected with 
 "churcli-edneation." He at the same time makes application 
 through the Colonial Secretary, Lord Grey, for a Royal Charter 
 for the proposed institution. 
 
 He left Toronto in April. He is home again on tlio second 
 day of the following Novemher. The immediate }iold of the 
 excursion was about sixteen thousand pounds sterling ; and 
 " had I been able " the bishop himself declared in a sjjcech 
 shortly after his return — " had I been able to remain six or 
 eight months longer in England, to preach and hold n^eetings 
 in tlie large towns, and make my object more generally known, 
 I verily believe that I should have realized more than double 
 the amount received." 
 
 The circular to the English public, issued on this occasion, 
 by a committee of friends, among whose names that of ' W. E. 
 Gladstone ' is to ho seen, contains the following paragraph : — 
 " Tiie aged bishop of the diocese, having to begin anew the 
 work whicli has occupied a half a century of his life, has come 
 to Eiighmd to obtain assistance from his brethren in the faith. 
 Among other distinguished persons from whom he has already 
 met with the most marked sympathy and encouragement, l^e 
 has a melancholy satislaction in referring to the ilhistrious 
 statesman whom Providence has so recently removed from the 
 scene of his labours and his usefulness [Sir Kobert Peel], as 
 well as to his Grace the Duke of Wellington, who has iiromised 
 to become u liberal benefactor to the Fund he proposes to raise." 
 
 On the 17th of March, TS51, the excavations for the founda- 
 tion of the new institution began. On the oOth of April its 
 corner-stone was laid. On the loth of January 1852, the 
 building was sufficientlly completed to bo occu])ied. On that 
 day the institution opened. It bore the name of Trinity Col- 
 lege- A provost and two professors, members of the English 
 Universities, had arrived to mould ami inaugurate a svstem of 
 instruction. In 1853 a Royal Charter was issued incorporating 
 the College and declaring that it "shall bo deemed and taken 
 to be a University; and shall have and enjoy all such and the 
 like jirivilegcs as are enji^ved by our universities of our llnited 
 Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, as far a? the same are 
 
'ill 
 
 I! 
 
 m 
 
 in\ 
 
 '!> 
 
 It is! 
 If ^ ' 
 
 ^■4 
 
 58 
 
 capable of being had or enjoyed bj virtue of these onr Letters 
 Patent." 
 
 Tlie Anglican communion in Western Canada was thus, 
 through the persistent energy of its resolute bishop, put in 
 possession of an institution for the training of its clergy, and 
 for the higher education of such of its members as were or should 
 be willing to place themselves under a discipline of the antique 
 type. The institution was, as we liave seen, endowed by the joint 
 offerings of individuals and corporations in the mt)ther country 
 and in Canada; contributions to the same object ilowing in 
 also from the sister Church in the United States, at the instance 
 of a Canadian presbyter thither despatched, whoso advocacy of 
 the new College in that country, a-i sul)se(piently in England 
 also, elicited considerable sums of money for the augmentation 
 of its funds. 
 
 With an educational endowment so procured, there will of 
 course never be any thought of interference on tlio part of 
 statesmen. It is morally certain there would never have been 
 an interference with a modest endowment even from the waste 
 lands of the Crown, when such lands were abundant in Canada, 
 had it been competent, which it may not have been, except on 
 the ground of expediency, for the representatives of the Angli- 
 can Church, at the time of the organization of Upper Canada, 
 to have assumed for that Church simply the status which it at 
 present occupies. 
 
 It should be added that the subject of Schools, to be under 
 the exclusive control of the iV^glitJan clergy in Canada, was 
 also mooted from time to time in charges and synodal addresses; 
 but as this was a project in which it was found impossible to 
 inspire an interest to any influential degree among the Angli- 
 can laity, its discussion was permitted to drop. Tlie establish- 
 ment of such schools by authority of Parliament is of necessity 
 out of the question, now that the political theories of which 
 such schools were a consistent part are, as we have again and 
 again seen, given up. Unless, therefore, the Anglican clergy 
 can carry with them the bulk of the Anglican laity, inducing 
 them to tax themselves liberally and systematically in addition 
 to the rates paid by them already for the erection and main- 
 
69 
 
 tenance of schools, it is sitnply a social irritation to keep up 
 reclamations on the sulvjcct. The bulk of the Aii*;lican laity 
 in Canada have somewhere learnt to be peaceable citizens, and 
 knowing that the present system of Public Education is in its 
 general plan the only one pi'acticablo under the circumstances, 
 they show that in the main they are satisfied with it. In the 
 matter of a distinctive Anglican training — in addition to the 
 careful working of Sunday schools — much could be fairly done 
 by rendering discourses in the pulpit and lecture-desk interest- 
 ing and instructive to the young. Such discourses, well studied 
 out and managed with tact, do not fail to interest and instruct 
 men aiul women of all ages. And this is a part of the conuuis- 
 sion " to disciple," which perhaps it may not be right to dele- 
 gate to schools. 
 
 There remained one great project more still to be accom- 
 plished: this was the establishment of a systematic organiza- 
 tion for the ecclesiastical body over which he presided. 
 
 The diocesan society which had already been instituted, did 
 not, as a nuitter of conscience, endjrace every member of the 
 clergy and laity of the Anglican communion. It was a volun- 
 tary society, which any one might or might not support. An 
 authoritative institution for the whole Church was wanting, 
 such as the early Christian societies in Asia and Europe pos- 
 sessed. " When the lay members of the Church in any colonial 
 diocese number more than two hundred thousand, and the 
 clergy one hundred and fifty, scattered over a vast region, and 
 thus much separated from one another, it must needs be that 
 dillicnlties and oifonces will arise ; and how are they to be dealt 
 with V This is the question asked by the Bishop of Toronto, 
 in his charge of ISoI. "The bishop is in most cases power- 
 less," he continues, " having indeed jurisdiction by his royal 
 appointment and divine commission, but he has no tribunals 
 to try cases, and to acquit or punish, as the case may be. lie 
 therefore feels himself frequently weak, and unable to correct 
 reckless insubordination and sullen opposition, even in matters 
 spiritual. At one time he may be accused of feebleness and 
 irresolution ; at another, when acting with some vigour, he may 
 be denounced as tyranni'-.! and despotic. On such occasions, 
 
 1^ 
 
S&i 
 
 h 
 
 '% 
 
 I 
 
 
 60 
 
 lie requires the support and refreshing counsel of his hrethreii, 
 and their constitutional co-operation, in devising and maturing 
 i<uch measures as may be thought necessary to adopt for the 
 welfare of the Church." 
 
 Still adhering to the old political theories ul' En;;;l!in;], it \v;is 
 imaii'ined by some tliat the Anglican Church in a Canadian 
 diocese might not assemble itself together for the purpose of 
 determining regulations for its own internal government, with- 
 out permission obtained from the supreme head of the mother 
 Ciiurch. 
 
 To be certain on this point, an Act of the Provincial Parlia- 
 ment was procured, declaring it to be lawful for "the bishops, 
 cleri>;y and laity, members of the United Church of England 
 and Ireland, in the Province of Canada, to meet in their 
 several dioceses, which are now or may be hereafter constituted 
 in this Province, and in such manner and by such proceedings 
 as they shall adopt, frame constitutions and make regulations 
 for enforcing discipline in the Church ; for the appointment, 
 deposition, deprivation or removal of any person bearing office 
 therein, of whatever order or degree, any rights of the Crown 
 to the contrary notwithstanding ; and for the convenient and 
 orderly management of tlie property, atialrs and interests of 
 the Church In matters relating to and affecting only the said 
 Church and tiie olKcers and members thereof, and not in any 
 manner interfering with the rights, privileges or interests of 
 otiier religi(»us coimnunities, or of any jierson or persons not 
 being a member or members of the said United Church of 
 iMiglaiul and Ireland : provided always, that such constitutions 
 and regulations sljall apply only to the diocese or dioceses 
 a(U)ptlng the same."— 19, 20 Vic. c. 121. 
 
 P>efore the passing of this Act, however, the triennial visita- 
 tions of the bishop had assumed the form of convocations or 
 synods, including lay-representatves elected by the several con- 
 gregations. In the first meeting of this kind, resolutions had 
 been adopted rcttive to the residue of the lands for Public 
 "Worship, relative to the legalizing of synodical meetings, and 
 relative to the establishment of separate schools when possible. 
 In the second, it was decided to adopt the style and title of 
 
Gl 
 
 Synod, as a matter of inherent right ; and steps were taken to 
 prepare the way for the division of the diocese of Toronto into 
 two or three bishoprics, and for the setting-off of parishes in the 
 respective dioceses : tlie synod was declared to be perpetual, 
 and a standing-committee of twenty-four, half cleric and half 
 laic, was appointed to act in concert with the Bishop while the 
 Synod was not in session. 
 
 To the Bishop of Toronto the honour thus belongs of being 
 the first practically to solve the difficulty which in theory besets 
 the admission of lay members into Anglican synods. His ex- 
 ample has been widely followed in diiferent quarters of the 
 empire ; and it is probable that the custom thus inaugurated 
 in a colony will one day prevail within the dioceses of the 
 mother-church. Of course, there, great prejudices have to bo 
 surmounted. AVe happen ourselves to have been present in 
 the Jerusalem Chamber at Westminster, when such an inno- 
 vation was mooted : to r owing as we did, what a reasonable 
 thing in practice the ci. van seemed, it was curious to hear the 
 consecpiences which imagination conjured up as objections to 
 its adoi)tion in England. The modern church-congresses of 
 England have also grown out of the successful colonial experi- 
 ment and aro pointing the same way, namely, to lay represen- 
 tation in the councils of the Anglican Church. 
 
 And who can doubt but that a Convocation reformed and 
 made real, and diocesan synods reformed and made real, with 
 tlie lay element judiciously but frankly admitted, would bring- 
 back a fresh youth to the ancient Mother at home ? "What is 
 the secret of the anarchy of late yeai's in the ancient historic 
 Anglican church, in respect to doctrine and practice? Is it 
 not the absence of constitutional government ? It is obvious 
 to the casual visitor, there is no system observed in the work- 
 ing of that body as a whole, binding its parts together. Each 
 beneficed presbyter nuay do as he wills. He feels himself 
 amenable to no central delegation representing the body of 
 which he is a local functionary. In every denomination but 
 that /which takes its name from an episcopate, there is a real 
 episcopacy, an episcopacy without mystery. We mean that 
 every Non-conformist body exercises over its members, official 
 
 II 
 
62 
 
 p4* 
 
 \m 
 
 If i> 
 
 I 
 
 4L 
 
 
 and non-official, a superintendence that may be felt. Whilst 
 in the ancient Anglican communion, there is at present vir- 
 tually no government. What, again, has led to the alienation 
 of large masses of the people from the historic church, not- 
 •withstanding its powerful prescriptive claims ? Has it not been 
 the absence, now for a long series of years, of a representative 
 assembly, sympathizing with the people, and having the power 
 and will to deal from time to time, frankly and considerately, 
 with grievances as they have arisen ? Without a parliament 
 really legislating for the people generation ailer generation, 
 rationally and justly, in what condition would bo the civil 
 aftairs of the parent state ? AVith the Anglican communion 
 in Canada and the other dependencies of England, it rests, to 
 aid or hinder, as the years roll on, the renovation of the 
 parent-communion at home : to aid, if by a steady and careful 
 acquisition of intelligence on the part of clergy and laity, 
 synods, general and particular, be rendered fair representative 
 bodies : to hinder, if by the repression of intelligence and the 
 inculcation of theories that are impracticable, they beconii; in 
 their proceedings visibly one-sided. 
 
 During the brief residue of his lifetime, the Bishop of 
 Toronto saw two additional dioceses set off from his own ; one 
 consisting of its western extremity, the other of its eastern ; 
 each organized from its commencement with a synod similar to 
 that which had been inaugurated by himself. 
 
 Moi'eover, he lived to see these three, together with the 
 dioceses of Quebec and Montreal, combined together into an 
 Ecclesiastical Province, with a metropolitan at their head, 
 nominated by the Crown, and all empowered to meet in a 
 Provincial Synod, clergy and laity by representation, for the 
 consideration of matters relating to the Provincial Church as 
 a whole ; and on two occasions it was granted him to take an 
 active part in the deliberations of this Provincial Council. 
 
 And further, he lived to see carried into eft'ect, a wider 
 combination still, which he had himself suggested and sketched 
 some seven years before. In his Charge for 1860, after speak- 
 ing of the " proper alterations and modifications" which were 
 needed in the ancient constitution of the Convocation of the 
 
\ 
 
 63 
 
 Anglican Clmrch, in order " to meet the improved knowledge 
 and civilization of the present times," and that it might be 
 brought into working order, ho adds : " The assembling of such 
 a Convocation, representing the United Church of England 
 and Ireland, would offer a splendid spectacle ; and if occasional 
 access in the way of deputation from our colonies and the 
 Church of the tJuitcd States were encouraged, it would present 
 the most august legislature that the Christian world has ever 
 yet beheld ; and although much will require to bo -'one before 
 this sublime convocation can be brought to bear, yet there are 
 no insurmountable obstacles in the waj." 
 
 A convocation, less comprehensive, indeed, than the one of 
 which an outline is here drawn, but approximating to it, was 
 actually to be seen in the Conference of Bishops of the Angli- 
 can conmiuuion at Laml)eth, in 18fi7, when, out of sovcnt}'- 
 eight prelates assembled, forty-four were from dioceses exterior 
 to the British empire. 
 
 There was a peculiar fitness in the fact that, of the scries of 
 projects for the well-being of the Anglican Church, which had 
 engaged the bisliop's mind throughout a long life, the remark- 
 able Conference at Lambeth should have been the last. 
 
 The interest which he took in the proceedings of this council 
 was very great. It was deeply touching to witness the reluc- 
 tance with which he brought himself to believe that the infir- 
 mities incident to an age now extending beyond ninety-one 
 years, forbade his being present at it. With the instinctive 
 consciousness of one formed to be a legislator and judge, he 
 was profoundly convinced that in such an assembly his ideas 
 would have been of weiijht and value. 
 
 It happened to oui-selves to be fully cognizant of his lively 
 interest In this as in other things, persons and places, to within 
 a very few days of his departure hence. 
 
 AVith the curiosity of a youthful student, he entered into 
 the details of tiie great Exhibition at Paris, and other varied 
 particulars of a jirolonged visit to the mother country, Swit- 
 zerland and Germany, with accounts of conversations had 
 with distinguished persons to whom he had himself furnished 
 letters ; all of whom, it may be added, were found to keep in 
 
 •I 
 
I 
 
 # 
 
 Ti' 
 
 . 04 
 
 memory very distinctly and affectionately the impression made 
 on tliemselvos by his own strong character, years ago. 
 
 The appointment of a coadjutor had been long resisted, as 
 an expedient naturally repugnant to his temperament and 
 mould of mind. It was only just before the last year of his 
 life tliat such assistance was accepted ; and at the moment of 
 his decease, the colleague elected by his Synod had not yet 
 retur.ied from the Conference at Lambeth. So that after all, 
 the great bishop died as he had preferred to do, with his hand 
 solely on the hcua. In this last brief interval of his episcopate, 
 +lie nyoasures adopted and pastorals issued were stamped with 
 the vigour and decision of his best days. Of the former, one 
 was for the establishment of an Infirmary ; of the latter, one 
 was for the observance of a Public Day of Thanksgiving. It 
 has been somewhere said, *■' Stantevi mori Ducevi oj>ortef, 
 E2)isco2)(tm co7ielo?ianti'my Both conditions were satisfied in 
 the i^'uniise of the first Bishop of Toronto. As a leader of his 
 division, he was found at its head, with his iirmour on ; and to 
 the last, his voice was to be heard, not seldom, in the pul[)it of 
 one or other of tho churches of his ciithedral city, or addressing 
 large companies of the newly confirmed. 
 
 It has often been afKrmed that every worthy human life is a 
 drama — a poc.i; and that "every man truly lives so hmg as 
 he acts his nature, and some way malces good the faculties of 
 himself We have been reviewing a career of the kind here 
 described ; a life unusually complete, with strongly marked 
 beginning, middle and close, earnestly occupied throughout 
 with the most important hunuxn affairs. We have seen an 
 early unfolding of special powers and aptitudes, and a grand 
 ambitiou awakened by the consciousness of their possession ; 
 aspirations, as they proved themselves to be in the event, based 
 on the nature of things. "VVe have seen a discipline undergone ; 
 a discipline of long delays, of disappointment upon disappoint- 
 ment ; each issuing in a clearer demonstration of the virtue of 
 the man ; of the genuineness of his faith, his hope, his self- 
 control, his fortitude. Finally, we have seen tho experience 
 gained in the school of adversity practically applied in the 
 period of prosperity, and every successive elevation- in position, 
 
1 
 
 as 
 
 r<fone ; 
 )p()int- 
 i-tuo of 
 IS self- 
 }rience 
 m the 
 iBitioii, 
 
 65 
 
 and every additional honor attained, used, not for the further- 
 ance of petty or personal ends, but as a new vantage-ground 
 for securing good to men on the widest scale and for the longest 
 possible period. 
 
 We have not touched upon private sorrows, all along min- 
 gling plentifully with the stream of outward, visible history ; 
 bereavements severing at last almost every earthly tie, and 
 leaving their subject, in respect to blood-relationship, all but 
 alone ; although in other respects s iriuunded by 
 
 " that which should accompany old age, 
 
 As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends." 
 
 Hear, however, the noble bishop himself speak: "My life," 
 he says, in 18G0, " has doubtless been laborious, and, I believe, 
 intcrspread by a larger number of vicissitudes than usually 
 hapi)cn to individuals; but it has on the whole been happy. 
 And now, when near the close, I can look back without any 
 startling convictions, and forward with increasing hope." — 
 Chai-gc, 1800, p. 4. 
 
 To the student of humanity, and of diviiuty too, how beau- 
 tiful and how consolatory is such a declaration ! To the prime 
 blessing of an organization of the best cpiality, was added 
 uninterrupted health, and a constitutional imperturbability. 
 His was one of tiiose strongly-braced intellects that can rise 
 superior to troubles which crush the hearts of ordinary men. 
 As often as the emergency presented itself, he could summon 
 to his aid the reflection — 
 
 '"Tis but the fate of place, and the rough brake 
 That virtue must go through. "We must not stint 
 Our necessary actions, in the fear 
 To cope malicious censurers, which ever, 
 As ravenous fishes, do a vessel follow 
 That is new-trimm'd, but benefit no farther 
 Than vainly longing." 
 
 He had the power to pass at will from one train of thought to 
 another, and so divest himself of a mental burden. "What a 
 sense was there of cerebral cobwebs shaken otf, for others as 
 as well as himself, in the sound of his brief, explosive, hearty 
 laugh, suddenly heard above the murmur of conversation in 
 5 
 
!B!^"W^^^.-^iHWillllPlB*IPB» 
 
 66 
 
 I 
 
 m^ 
 
 intervals of business at synodal or eociety meetings, after 
 dreary discnssions, threatening at times to be interminable. 
 It was this superiority to the tnals common to men that made 
 him the stay he was found to be by many, when involved in 
 serious perplexity and distress. Courageous himself, he inspired 
 courage in others. Of the griefs laid before him, he discovered 
 some view that was hopeful. He often saw something in rela- 
 tion to them, which the immediate suiferer did not. He thus 
 often sent away from him with a lightened heart, those that 
 had come to him desponding. The burden that had bowed 
 them seemed half removed by being disclosed to him. For 
 one, we huppen to know that the illustrious Bishop Doane, of 
 New Jersey, wlien hunted down so unrelentingly towards the 
 close of liio life, expressed the deepest thankfulness for an 
 interview with tlie Bishop of Toronto, who suggested to him 
 considerations of great moment as well as comfort, in the ordeal 
 through which he was passing. 
 
 It was words of cheer like these, widely scattered, added to 
 deeds unnumbered of a kindred nature, throughout a long life, 
 that caused the decease of the first Bishop of Toronto to be 
 mourned with a real grief. His loss was felt by very many to 
 be like that which Boswell describes the friends of Dr. Johnson 
 as experiencing, when that sturdy character was taken away 
 from amongst them : " He has made a chasm which not only 
 nothing can till up, but which nothing has a tendency to fill 
 up. Johnson is dead. Let us go to the uext best : there is 
 nobody. Xo man can be said to put the world in mind of 
 Johnson." — Life, iv. 284. 
 
 For several years before his departure hence, his well-known 
 form, caught sight of in thti streets or at public gatherings 
 for patriotic or benevolent purposes, had been regarded and 
 saluted with the same kind of universal interest that used to 
 accompany the great Duke towards the end of his career, in 
 the parks and squares of London. 
 
 The brave part he had taken in the past history of Canada 
 was remembered, and this spontaneously begat the esteem 
 even of those whose politics and theology were different from 
 his. There was an unaffected appreciation of liis presence 
 
67 
 
 erings 
 
 3(1 U!ld 
 
 isod to 
 •CLT, in 
 
 an ad a 
 esteem 
 it from 
 
 cscnce 
 
 wherever he chose to show himself. His real kindliness and 
 breadth of character were discerned. His many acts and words 
 of good will and good humour, as known either by experience 
 or tradition, were parts of the common stock from whicli much 
 of Canadian conversation was supplied. All this will account 
 for the vast multitude that sought to do honour to his obsequies ; 
 will account for the marked and peculiar reverence then mani- 
 fested on the part of the whole city that had grown up around 
 his home, and the three dioceses which his own hand had 
 shaped ; as well as for the real love and affection, as of sons for a 
 father, evinced by individuals on that ever-memorable occasion. 
 
 His eyesight to the last was wonderfully unimpaired. The 
 principal aid that it required was manuscript in large charac- 
 ters. " Mark ye with what large letters I have written to you 
 in my own hand," one greater than a bishop once had occasion 
 to say to his people. Many of the later documents, whose 
 contents were reverently listened to and marked by the clergy 
 and laity of the diocese of Toronto, were thus patiently pre- 
 pared in a bold legible text by their chief pastor's hand. But 
 ordinarily his writing was unusually minute, densely filling 
 folio pages of record and report. 
 
 Thoughtful and cultivated minds were always arrested by 
 his sermons. In their conception and utterance, it was imme- 
 diately evident that the ardour of the divine was chastened by 
 the candour of the philosopher, and regulated by the method 
 of the mathematiciaii. Their matter was invariably solid, and 
 pregnant with meaning, and never insipid. If not marked by 
 the brilliancy of genius, or any elaborate artifices of rhetoric, 
 their language was always vigorous and directly to the point. 
 
 Of his pulpit stylo, as formed half-a-century ago, we have 
 several examples in the Christian Recorder. We transcribe 
 one, which sounds like himself at any period of his career: — 
 " In human affairs, do wo not consider the acts of the repre- 
 sentative as performed by the person he represents? "Without 
 this, the attairs of society, and on many occasions the affaire 
 even of individuals, could never be carried on. But, further 
 than this, even in the administration of justice, if one peraon 
 represent and act for another, why may he not likewise suffer 
 
( 
 
 68 
 
 Nti 
 
 \n 
 
 ■i 
 
 for him, particularly when he consents to do so, and the admin- 
 istration of justice is willing to accept him ? Have M'e reason 
 to infer, that if a representative, abler than the sinner or person 
 represented, was to offer himself, and who is not only willing 
 to suffer the penalty threatened by the divine law ; have we 
 not reason, I say, to infer that such a representative would be 
 graciously admitted, and that the merited punishment would 
 be transferred to him, and even the impending >vrath of heaven 
 would be averted, and the joyful tidings of pardon and eternal 
 hope proclaimed to every sincere penitent ? In fine, the trans- 
 lation of punishment, so far from being contradictory, is entirely 
 agreeable to reason, and the guilty person may escai)e by the 
 sufferings of another substituted in his room. To apply this 
 reasoning more particularly, we have to remark that the condi- 
 tion of our blessed Lord was such as rendered the sufferings 
 which he sustained for us fully answerable to all tlie punish- 
 ments that would have been inflicted on sinners. By his 
 feulTerings, every end was accomplished that could have been 
 promoted by the ]>ersonal sufferings of the offenders. He was 
 a blessed person, of infinite dignity and excellence, and might 
 not only bo jus^tly accepted on our behalf, but by this oblation 
 satisfaction for the guilt was fully obtained, and the forgiveness 
 of sins and the hopes of a blessed immortality extended ; and 
 all this perfectly consistent with the divine perfections, and 
 with the order and dignity of God's moral government." — 
 Christiaii Recorder^ vol. i. pp. 175-0. 
 
 In the same tone and strain we find him discoursing in ISGO: 
 " Without entering further into the distinction between natu- 
 ral and revealed religion, which I believe will gradually disap- 
 pear as we advance in knowledge, I will merely observe that 
 the moat mysterious parts of the gospel will be found essen- 
 tially connected vith the nature and government of God. 
 Hence it is no mark of wisdom to desjjise the resources of 
 human reason, and still less to slight the light of the revelation 
 which can alone conduct our reason to just and profitable con- 
 clusions, lloason is the compass by which we steer our course, 
 and revelation the polar sr^ir by wliich we correct its variations. 
 The Scriptures, generally speaking, do not reason, but exhort 
 
69 
 
 and remonstrate. Nor do they attempt to fetter the judgment 
 by the subtleties of argument, but to raise the feelings by 
 appealing to plain matters of fact. Now this is what might 
 have been expected from teachers acting under a commission, 
 and armed by undeniable facts to enforce their admonitions. 
 But though there is no regular treatise in the holy Scriptures 
 on any one branch of religious doctrine, yet all the materials 
 of a regular system are to be found there. The word of God 
 contains the doctrines of religion in the same way as the system 
 of nature contains the elements of physical science. In both 
 cases the doctrines are deduced from the facts, which arc not 
 presented to us in any regular order, and must bo classified 
 before wc can arrive at first principles. TIence those who 
 Avould teach natural religion with profit, must arrang. ihe facts 
 which it offers into a system ; and they who would explain 
 the wavs of God must arrancre the materials which are so 
 aiiiidy furnished in the Bible, but which are presented a[)pa- 
 rently without [tlan or order. I would therefore consider all 
 objections to systems of divinity to be as unreasonable as it 
 would be to object to the philosophy of Newton, for having 
 elucidated tiie laws uf nature and arranged the phenomena of 
 the heavens. The ways of God are very complicated, as we all 
 foci, and the manifestations of His will so infinitely diversified 
 as at times to app(>ar opposed to each other. Hence it is oidy 
 by an eidarged view of His ])rovidence, that wc can see the 
 beautif^s and esfiinate the value of that revelation whicli He 
 has given us. It is a gre/it mistal.e to suppose that revelation 
 has been givcMi to save us the trouble of thinking. Its object 
 is to teach us to think aright; to prevent the waste and misap- 
 jilication of our faculties, but not to supersede their exercise. 
 And though I am persuailed that no degree of study would 
 ever have enabled man to arrive at accurate conceptions of 
 God and His government without the aid of revelation, 1 am 
 no less certain that revelation itself will not endue men with 
 religious knowledge without study, meditation and reflection." 
 —ifinnje, ISr.O, pp. 20-22. 
 
 The scene in the cathedral-church, on the delivery of a triennial 
 Cliarge in former days, while yet the whole of Western Canada 
 
TO 
 
 formed tlie diocese of Toronto, will never be forgotten by per- 
 sons present at it. It was as nearly as possible a reproduction 
 of what we can conceive to have been the spectacle at a basilica 
 of the old imperial days on a corresponding occasion. There 
 was the episcopal chair, placed for the time being in the midst 
 of the chancel, with its venerable and venerated occupant, tho 
 centre of all regards ; before him a throng of presbyters, many 
 of them literally as well as officially seniors, scarred and fur- 
 rov.'cd by toil and time, with a younger brother here and there, 
 and deacons, interspersed, all solemnly habited, and gathered 
 up in a mass to the chancel steps, and all standing, waiting for 
 the words of one felt to be, in no mere formal sense, a father- 
 in-God ; of one to whom, it was on all hands believed, there 
 could bo no successor like or equal ; listening to his grave and 
 well-weighed counsels, on a witle range of subjects, with an 
 unfeigned attention, sheet after sheet of closely written maim- 
 script falliijg confusedly on the floor beside the chair for long 
 hours together: outside the assembled band of clerical auditors 
 was the adstans 2>opulus, the general laity, crowded up from 
 the body of tho building, or else looking down with interested 
 gaze from the galleries on the right and left. 
 
 From his Cliarges to the clergy could be gathered a code of 
 Anglican divinity, and a manual of canonical life. But while 
 his statements of dogma and rules for clerical ])ractice are 
 definite and precise, he makes them with consideration, as 
 knowing that the persons addressed were accustomed to great 
 liberty of thought and action. So far as related to himself, 
 the theological convictions formed at the student period of ids 
 life, having been happily arrived at under a wise direction, 
 received only more and more confirmation as years rolled on. 
 lie was in this maimer enabled, as he himself testified towards 
 tiie close of his career, to speak at all times with boldness on 
 the special topics connected with his ollice, and " with an 
 inward satisfaction and firmness of puri>osc whi(;h, under the 
 Divine blessing, has never changed." " I have always been 
 aware," he tells his clergy in ISOO, " that the best endeavour 
 I could make to promote unity in the Church, was to seek after 
 inward unity and peace in my own breast ; because it is only 
 
71 
 
 by cherishing such graoes tliat I can give consistency to my 
 religious character, and cause ita influence to pervade and 
 penetrate the diocese, and shed abroad in it the power of faith 
 and charity." A profound remark, reminding ns of Lord 
 Bacon's words : " No pleasure is comparable to the standing 
 upon the vantage-ground of truth, a hill not to be commanded, 
 and where the air is always clear and serene ; and to see the 
 errors, and wanderings, and mists, and tempests in the vale 
 below ; so also tliat this prospect be with pity, and not with 
 swelling or pride. Certainly it is heaven upon earth to have a 
 man's mind move in charity, rest in Providence, and turn upon 
 the poles of Truth." 
 
 There was a peculiar freshness and naturalness about his 
 l)ublished Journals of Visitation. In tliem, without losing 
 anything of dignity, he enlivens details which miglit be deemed 
 merely technical and professional, by notices of matters con- 
 nected with the i)hysical aspect and jirogress of the country. 
 His Journal of the year 181:2 was published in London, by the 
 Society for Propagating the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and has 
 l)assed tlu'ougli several editions. The same features character- 
 ized his narratives of tlie acts of the year delivered in Synod. 
 Li the accoutit of his voyage to England in 1850, given in a 
 Pastoral, tlie toiu^liing story of " Poor Thomas " will be remem- 
 bered : a sailor on board the ship, who had been deprived of 
 both his legs by frost-bite. After describing with minuteness 
 the case, " His tine spirit endeared him," the bishop says, " to 
 all the passengers, and, wlien made accpiainted with liis simple 
 plans, a subscription of fifty pounds was raised for his benefit ; 
 and two gentlemen belonging to Liverpool, with true Christian 
 charity, engaged to see it appropriated in su'.'h a manner as to 
 ensure the completion of his wishes, and if necessary to supply 
 what might be wanting. The matter being thus satisfactorily 
 arranged, Thomas was made quite ha]t[)y." This combination 
 of a genial concern in homely, liuinan matters, and a readiness 
 and a[)titude for high and complicated occupations, made him 
 equally at his ease, wluitiier conversing witii Chinquaconse in 
 an Indian hut at Garden lliver, crooning to himself some old 
 Scottish air in the back seat of an uncouth sta^je-coach on tho 
 
!i 
 
 Ijll 
 
 m 
 
 I i 
 
 72 
 
 Penetangniahino road, or excliangiiig courtesies with Albert 
 Edward, Prince of "Wales, and the gentlemen of his suite, in 
 the salons of Government House at Toronto. And herein he 
 exemplified in himself what his well-known views were, in 
 regard to the kind of men fitted to be " spiritual pastors and 
 masters" among the people of Western Canada. "It should 
 make no difference whether it is a log or a sofa that you sit 
 on," Ave once heard him say, referring to emergencies that con- 
 stantly occur where things are in the rough. " I know how to 
 content myself with earthen vessels, as my fiither did," said an 
 old bishop of Chichester, in 1245, when Henry III. was with- 
 holding the revenues of his see: "let eveiything be sold, even 
 to my horse, if there be need." This was the spirit of the first 
 Bishop of Toronto. It was this singleness of view in regard 
 to duty under all circumstances, that made him intrepid in the 
 midst of peril. The times of contagious sickness, in 1S32 and 
 1847, found him unflinching in his ministrations. In the keep- 
 ing of ajipointments, too, the same fearlessness was sure to bo 
 seen. We ourselves well remember an instance of this, Avhcn, 
 night and rough weatiier rendering a long pull in an open boat 
 on tlie river at the Sault Ste. Marie by no means a trifling 
 matter, the stand taken in respect to a distant engagement 
 rt as in almost the identical terms used by the Roman general 
 of old: "It is not necessary for me to live, but it is nccesffary 
 for me to go." 
 
 In the printed remains to which reference has been made, it 
 is curious to observe, also, with what a well sustained interest 
 the vigour and earnestness of the writer or speaker always 
 eiuvbled h'un to invest the history of the lands set apart for 
 Public Worship atid Public Education in Canada. There is 
 Wonderfully little self-repetition in the multiplied statements 
 of his case in speeches, reports, pastorals and petitions. Of a 
 spirit which ever led him to "rank himself with princes," he 
 addressed, besides these, several characteristic letters from time 
 to tiiue to prominent personages at home and on this conti- 
 nent, on public occasions. In 1815, there was one to Jefterson ; 
 in 1810, one to the Earl of Selkirk; in 1832, one to Dr. 
 Chalmers; in 1851, to Lord John Russell. In these, as also 
 
\ 
 
 73 
 
 in his controversial correspondence with statesmen and others 
 on great questions of the day, lie wiekled ar^ pen which coukl 
 prove itself sufficiently trenchant whenever there was a neccs 
 sity. On the perusal of these production^, the reader familiar 
 with Plutarch will be reminded not unfrerjuently of the policy 
 of the elder Cato, who, wo are told, " in engagements would 
 strike boldly, Avithout flinching j stand firm to his ground; flx 
 a bold countenance upon his enemies, and with a harsh, tlirc{\- 
 tening voice accost them; justly thiidving himself, and telling 
 others, that such a rugged kind of behaviour sometimes terrifies 
 the enemy more than the sword itself." Doubtless on other 
 occasions also, the same old Roman character will again and 
 again have been recalled ; " for with reason," the world-famous 
 biographer declares, '- everybody admired Cato, Avhcn tlicy saw 
 others sink under labours, and grow cfi'eminate by pleasures, 
 and yet beheld him unconquered by either; and that not only 
 when he was young and desirous of honor, but also when old 
 and grey-headed, after a consulship and ti'ium[»h ; like some 
 ftimous victor in the games, persevering in his exercise and 
 maintaining his character to the very last." — CloiKjh's Plu- 
 tarch, vol. ii. pp. .317, 321. 
 
 As a specimen in this connexion, we give an extract from a 
 communication to the London Tli/u's,ui 1841, wliicli appended 
 to it an editorial commendatory of its contents. Mr, llawos 
 and Mr. Joseph Hume had attempted, in their i)laces in the 
 House of Commons, to neutrali/e his influence by some ground- 
 less allegations. '' I am not aware," tho bishop observes, 
 '• what degree of iniluencc may be exercised i)y ^Ir. ilawes over 
 public opinion in England ; and I cannot, therefore, estimate 
 the force of the blow which ho allowed himself to aim at the 
 character of an absent man. This cannot be said of Mr. 1 lume ; 
 for, from my knowledge of his public career, I derive the con- 
 solation that no man's good name is likely to suffer much from 
 any attack which he may be pleased to make upon it. They 
 both, however, professed to speak only in reference to a des- 
 patch which His Excellency the Governor-General [Poulett 
 Thomson] had written to the Secretary of State for the Colo- 
 nies, on the 2nd of May, IS-tO, which, with the inclosures it 
 
74 
 
 I 
 
 M. 
 
 t 
 
 '111 
 
 refoiTcd to, had been published among the Parliamentary docu- 
 ments. No man on w hose good opinion I should bo inclined 
 to set much value, would be likely, I think, to have formed his 
 judgment upon the comments of Mr. Ilawes and Mr. Ilnme, 
 without referriug to tho correspondence itself; and I am con- 
 tent to abide by tho judgment which may have been formed 
 upon a deliberate ''•-onsideration of the correspondence by men 
 of candid minds, having no desire to destroy my reputation for 
 political purposes, and having no otlier sinister object in view," 
 Upon the reply of the bishop, the Thn^s of the day, manifestly 
 at the moment in opposition, was pleased to remark, " We have 
 dwelt on the gross aspersions and bitter malevolence directed 
 against this respectable gyman, because such injuries are 
 systematic; because they are characteristic of the unj)rincipled 
 and shameful warfare carried on by the mend)ers of the execu- 
 tive government, and by the faction upon whose i)atr()iiage 
 they hang for support, against the most sacred institution of 
 the monarchy, the whole frame of the Church of England and 
 its most blameless functionaries." 
 
 As being among the most remarkable of his public efforts, 
 his extemporaneous Confirmation-addresses ought also to bo 
 mentioned. Genuinely paternal in tone, and really valuable 
 as i)ractical guides in the conduct of life, they were vividly 
 remembered by those who heard them. Ilis strong sympathy 
 with the young has already been adverted to: liis interest in 
 their fears, their hopes, their trials, their plans, was hearty and 
 never- failing. What we once happened casually to witness, in 
 the case of a young friend about to try his fortunes in a distant 
 part of the globe, we shall not readily forget, namely, a parting 
 benediction, given in the primitive way, and unaffectedly 
 received on bended knee, the suddenness and spontaneity of 
 the act on both sides rendering the scene a memorable and 
 touching one. There were not a few vouni; men who were 
 indebted to him, virtually, for their first introduction in life. 
 
 From his remains which may be found in print, from his 
 Charges and Synodal Addresses, his Letters to public Charac- 
 ters, his Speeches and Keports, as also from the records of his 
 acts and works, an exact moral portrait of the iirst Bishop of 
 
\ 
 
 75 
 
 Toronto may, as we can see, be obtained, and will be convoyed 
 to posterity. 
 
 As to the literal presentments of his person, of liia physique 
 and its expression, that exist on canvas or otlicrwise, the noblest 
 and the best is that taken in London just after his consecration. 
 In that portrait the artist has, with the tact of a Sir Thomas 
 Lawrence, caught and fixed the image of the bishop at a happy 
 moment, idealizing grandly the whole figure Mith great skill. 
 The portraits at Trinity College, in the Vc.»trv-rooni of St. 
 James', and in the Board-room of the Church Society, are all 
 too realistic to bo pleasing. A water-colour likeness of him m 
 Archdeacon Strachan, taken many years ago by Iloppner 
 Meyer, was good, the negligent air of the suri)lice being 
 especially indicative of character. A later engraving by the 
 same artist, from a photograph, was not so successful. An oil- 
 painting by Gush, in the posses;^ion of Dr. Fuller, is somewhat 
 like, but is not satisfactory. The bust, which is to be seen in 
 some places, preserves the features, but it is altogether destitute 
 of the nobleness which an artist would have thrown into a pro- 
 duction of that kind. As to the numerous photographs, they 
 arc generally good ; but, as was to bo expected, they reflect 
 too much of that side of the outward asj)ect which gives the 
 impression of one — Tmj)i(je)', iracvndun, incxorahilis^ acer. 
 Beneath them all might be inscribed — • 
 
 " In his royrlty of nature 
 Rcif^ns that which would be feared ; 'tis much ho dared ; 
 And to that dauntless temper of his mind, 
 He hath a wisdom that dotii guide his valour 
 To act in safety." 
 
 One photograph, full length, of cabinet size, liy Carswell, gives 
 very accurately the figure, somewhat short and firmly built, 
 but restini; litrhtlv on the ground: the fine countenance, of 
 anti(pie mould, full <>f serious thought and active intelligence; 
 the well-balanced head, aiid the hair, whicli extreme age bad 
 only partially blanched. Many years ago, his head and coun- 
 tenance bore a considerable resemblance to those of Milton, as 
 pourtrayed in Faiihorne's well-known picture commonly given 
 
70 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 in tlie old edition!?. At sv later period, the current portrait of 
 I3isliop Jewel conveys some idea of his face. 
 
 It U interesting to notice how at early formative periods in 
 linnian societies in all parts of the world, there haw hern a 
 development of men peculiarly adapted to their day and 
 fjeneration. From some points of view, indeed, it might seem 
 as if the existence of the men created also the occasion of their 
 becoming eminent ; hut on examining further, it will generally 
 be found that a variety of antecedent circumstances liad been, 
 perhaps for a long while, prejjaring a crisis, when the opportune 
 appearance of a man competent to conceive a happy mode of 
 cond)ining them, and capable of discerning the happy moment 
 for doing so, was the means of bringing the crisis to a head ; 
 and thus a particular name became so intimately associated 
 with a particular movement, that after-generations would be 
 inclined to attribute the whole glory of the transaction to the 
 posses^'r of that name. 
 
 Posterity, gratefully and with justice, calls the men thus 
 rendered eminent, heroes and benefactors. At maTiy another 
 period there have lived, it is not improbable, men of equal 
 capacity and force; but the peculiar surroundings that in the 
 one case made greatness of character conspicuous, have been 
 wanting in the other. Tn addition to clear heads, high aims 
 and strong wills, the fortunate few to whom reference has been 
 made, had spheres of action peculiar to themselves. In the 
 early civil history of the United States, there is "Washington. 
 How happily adapted the man to the emergency, atul the 
 eiriergency to the man! And in the ecclesiastical affairs of 
 that country, at least so far as that communion is concerned 
 which would at the outset be the most disorganized by a se])a- 
 ration from the mother country, how admirably suited to the 
 occasion \yas Bishop White! Here in our own Canada, when 
 we turn our regards to its early French day, what figure more 
 appropriate could present itself to the eye, in the group of its 
 first occupants, than that of Champlain ? What character 
 couhl have been better adapted to further and protect the civil 
 interests of the country as it then was ? While in regard to 
 Gallicanism, the principal form of religious belief and worship 
 
\ 
 
 < i 
 
 in tlio country ns it tlion was, and the education involved 
 therein, who could have lieen betttr fitted to mould and guide 
 aft'fiirs than a Laval^ or, later, a Plcssis? 
 
 Then, advancinj^ westward, to the regions first settled and 
 organized under IJritish influences, who is there that appears 
 to have been better fitted in mind and spirit to be the founder 
 and legislator of a new State, the originator of its Institutions 
 and customs, than John Graves Sinicoc, first Governor of 
 Upper Canada ? And that the analogy between the two old 
 Canadian provinces might be complete, ecclesiastically as well 
 as civilly, a name presents itself in relation to matters con- 
 nected with Public AVorship and Public Instruction, as contem- 
 plated in the theory of government then in vogue, that will bo 
 mentioned in future times with great cmphiisis and respect — 
 the name of the great bishop whose career we have been 
 
 reviewing. 
 
 Prought prominently into view by the times in which he 
 lived, and by the circumstances of the country in which his lot 
 was cast, he was a(la[)ted in a i>articular manner to those times 
 and circumstances. Jlad he been of an organization less rigid, 
 or had he happened to have taken more of the artificial shape 
 which the conventional culture of old communities is apt to 
 give : or had he chanced to adopt a principle of puldic action 
 dill'erent from that which he did adopt, neither his defivats nor 
 his successes would have been so imj)ressive as they arc. Pos- 
 terity would not have been forced to notice so pointedly as it 
 is now, the lesson taught by both — that portion of i)osterity, of 
 course wo mean, which is immediately concerned with ecclesi- 
 astical and educational questions in Canada. 
 
 Inasmuch as there really were so many things to be said in 
 favour of the claim of the Anglican Church to " establishment" 
 in Canada (the Educational claim included), according to the 
 theory governing the framers of the Imperial Act of 1701, it is 
 well that there appeared on the scene one who was ready and 
 able to do battle to the death in behalf of that claim. Had 
 the Anglican interests in respect to Public AVorship and Public 
 Education been represented by a man of faint heart or weak 
 powers at the critical moments, and those interests gone to the 
 
h 
 
 n 
 
 Mi 
 
 ;li4 
 
 78 
 
 wall, as under any circumstances they would have done, the 
 visionary of after-times, looking back over the past of Canada, 
 would have maintained a never-ending lament. As matters 
 stand now, posterity (limited as before) accepts the verdict 
 given after a protracted discussion, with all the more compo- 
 sure, because an advocate very able and very much in earnest 
 was heard on that which proved to be the losing side : and the 
 fact is grasped, that the prevalence or non-prevalence of systems 
 of Public Worship and Public Education must henceforward 
 depend, not upon lands, but upon intrinsic desert. In other 
 words, the Anglican communion has been taught that its real 
 strength lies in its own historic character and descent ; and 
 that any peculiar method of training which it may adopt for 
 the benefit of its youth, must flourish or not, in proportion 
 solely to the degree of countenance given to it by itself. 
 
 Tlie ancient theory was, that the people of a country and 
 the church of a country are identical. It is a theory tliat sim- 
 plifies government, when generally acknowledged, and removes 
 all difficulty in regard to endowments for Public Worship and 
 Public Instruction. But, except 
 
 " In Utopia, subterranean fields, 
 Or some secreted island, Heaven knows where," 
 
 we are no lonjxer to expect that such a theorv will ever ajjain 
 be realized in fact. The Refunnation, the Cominonwcaltli, the 
 Eevolution of 1688, were all admonitions that the details of the 
 policy of Great Britain must be more and more modified, if the 
 wants of modern men were to be met and satisfied. The Aboli- 
 tion of Tests, the Koman Catholic Emancipation, the Tithe 
 Commutation, the Reform measure of 18.")2, tlic mitigations in 
 Criminal law, the Reform moas^ure of 18C7 — all point the same 
 way; to be followed, there ia reason to believe, from time To 
 time, by many an additional indication to the same eifect. All 
 this may seem very undesirable to many persons ; all this may 
 serve only a.> an incentive to zeal for the pre-Reforination 
 condition of things in Great Britain and Ireland; zeal for tlie 
 restoration of the constitution in its pristine integrity. But is 
 it not worth while to consider whether the history of the huaan 
 
 ii 
 
79 
 
 race justifies a reasonable man in believing that anj coTidltion 
 of things, at any given time, is the one wlii<*ii must necessarily 
 be the best adapted to men at all subsequent period* .' It maj 
 turn out, by-and-bye, that the only principle of government 
 practicable, even in the mother country, in relation to Public 
 Worship and Public Instruction, i* tiiat enunciated by Crom- 
 well himself years ago : " Love all, tf-rider all," cried he to his 
 Parliament in 1653 ; " cherish and countenance all in all tilings 
 that are good ; and if the j-'i »rest Christian, the most mistaken 
 Christian shall desire to live peaceably and quietly under you — 
 if any shall desire but to lead a life of godliness and honesty, 
 let him be protected. "^ — Wiltion^s Cromwell and the Protecto- 
 rate, p. 204. Statesmen are being compelled, by the stubborn- 
 ness of eveuta, to allow that '* they be two things," as Bacon 
 Bpoaks, "unity and uniformity." They have discovered that 
 the enforcement of the latter docs not secure the former ; while 
 the former may be presumed to exist when the latter is given 
 np. Some even go so far as to hold that " the sort of variation 
 resulting from independence and freedom, so far from breaking 
 the bond, is the best preservation of it." A number of neigh- 
 bouring families, to use Arcnbishop AV^hately's illustration of 
 this proposition, living in perfect unity, will be thrown into 
 discord as soon as you compel them to form one family, and to 
 observe in things intr'.isically indifferent, the same rules. One, 
 for instance, likes early hours, and another late ; one likes the 
 M'indows open, and another shut ; and thus, by being brought 
 too close together, they are drawn into ill-will, by one being 
 perpetually forced to give way to another. 
 
 From the (hivs of Elizabeth down to the opening of the 
 Royal Commission recently aj)pointe(l by the present Queen, 
 there have been occasions prevented when the theory of the 
 identity of the people of England and of the Anglicaa Church 
 could have had a wide realization. At the Hampton Court 
 Conference, the liect(»ring spirit of James '• T. and VI.," was of 
 course fatal to any such ihcory, although in his blind misread- 
 ing of the British jieoplc, he supposed such a spirit nitt incom- 
 patible with it. " Well, doctor, have ycm anything more to 
 say ? " asked James of one of the dissentients on that occasion, 
 
80 
 
 I 
 
 after listening to the objections urged. "Xo more, if it please 
 your Miijesty," was the reply. "Then," said the King, "if 
 this is all your party hath to say, I will make them conform, 
 or harrie them out of the land : or else do worse ! " — Southey-s 
 Booh of the C/nirch, p. 429. There have been, all along, too 
 many Jameses. In a recent visit to the mother country, we 
 found men of this type existinaj still, in the lay ranks as well 
 as in the clerical ; persons, we mean, who seemed to us to mis- 
 read the real temper of the bulk of their fellow-countrymen ; 
 and we were led by a study of their doings and writings to the 
 conviction that the day is near at hand when the theory of 
 identity between the historic Chuich and the population in the 
 midst of Aviiich it is placed, will, even in law, be relinquished 
 there, as it is already in Canada. 
 
 The lesson taught to the Anjijlican Church in Canada bv the 
 local events which Ave have been reviewing, is not yet learnt 
 in the mother country; but its inculcation is agitating society 
 there at the present moment. Tlie issue will be, there can be 
 little doubt, in harmony with tlie issue of other movements in 
 the direction of civil and religious liberty in the Ihntisli Islands, 
 resultinij!: iinallv in the very condition of thinc-s which we sec 
 about us here. 
 
 Is it not well that it should b'> f-eon, at home and hero, that 
 endowments, l^owevei* convenient wiien possessed, are not of 
 ^\^ Gssbiicc df the Anglican Church ? Is it not well that in 
 some manner the fact should be made plain, that in societies, 
 ecclesiastical as Avell as civil, individuals cannot be absolved 
 from the duties of succour and maintenance which they owe 
 to the body of which they are a part?— duties which become 
 obscure when the work of succour and maintcmince is for a 
 series of ages carried on by the inaninuito agency of the 
 produce of land. In the history of man, there can be little 
 doubt but that endowments, for one thing, have led succes- 
 sively to indifference to truth, to a conseipient corruption of 
 truth, and then to a perpetuation of that corruption. 
 
 " Ah ! Constantinc ! to how much ill gave birth, 
 Not thy conversion, but that plenteous ilowcr 
 Which the first wealthy Father gained from thee ! " 
 
 Dante, Inf., xix. 
 
 
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 81 
 
 We are not vouching for the dower in queatiou ; we merely 
 adopt the poet's words to give a hint of what we mean. Now, 
 may not the stri])ping away of such adventitious helps in one 
 quarter, and the prceariousness which has come over sucli 
 helps, we may perhaps say, in all quarters, be a premonitory 
 symptom of the coming day whicli we are hopefu]ly taught to 
 exj)ect, when Truth, ])urc and simple, will very widely prevail, 
 by virtue of its own divine, intrinsic nature? 
 
 The defeats of the gn at bishop, then, have their moral. At 
 the same time, tho.'^e de'eacs in no way detract fro'm his repu- 
 tation. In considering them, we have again and again been 
 reminded of what IMonjaigne says in a well-known i)assage, 
 which we arc tempted to give at length, so happily and cha- 
 racteristically docs ho therein put one or two parallel cases : 
 
 "The estimation and value of a man," he says, "consist in 
 the heart and in the will: there his true honour lives. Yalour 
 is Etability, not of logs and arms, but of the courage and the 
 soul. It does not lie in the got dness of our horse, or of our 
 arms, but in ourselves. lie that falls, firm in his courage, — Si 
 sucolderit, <le genu 'pxujnat ', " If his legs fail him, fights upon 
 his knees ; " he wlio, dos})ite the danger of death near at hand, 
 abates nothintj: of his assurance ; who, dvinj;, does vet dart at 
 his enemy a fierce and disdainfid look, is overcome, not by us, 
 but by fortune; he is killed, not conquered; the most valiant 
 are sometimes the mo.st unfortunate. There are some defeats 
 more triumphant than victories. Those four sister-victories, 
 the fairest the sun ever bc'lield, of Salamis, Tlatfea, Mycale anil 
 Sicily, never o})posed all their united glories to the single glory 
 of the discoiiititure of King Leonidas and his heroes at the 
 I'ass of Theruiopyhe, Who ever ran with a more glorious 
 <lcsire and greater ambition to the winning, than the captain 
 Ischolas to the cerlaln loss of a bat'le? lie was ordered to 
 defend a certain ])ass (if i*eloponnesus against the Arcadians, 
 which, from the natnre of the place and the inequality of forces, 
 findin<r it utterlv imiK)ssible ftu- him to do, and seeing clearlv 
 that all who prc:;onte(l themselves to the enemy must certainly 
 be left upon the place ; and, on the other hand, reputing it 
 unworthy of his own virtue and magnanimity, and of the 
 
ll'jil 
 
 ! ; 
 
 
 li'i 
 
 m 
 
 Lacednomonian name, to fail in his duty, he chose a mean 
 betwixt these two extremes, after this manner: the youngest 
 and most active of his men he preserved for the service and 
 defence of their country, and therefore sent them back ; and 
 wi'Ji the rest, wlioso loss would be of less consideration, he 
 resob'ed to make good the pass, and, witli the death of them, 
 to make the enemy buy their entry as dear as possibly he could. 
 And so it fell out; for, being presently encompassed on all 
 sides by the Arcadians, after Ijaving made a great slaughter of 
 the enoiiiy, lie sni4 tri'>. men M'ere all cut to pieces. Is there any 
 Iin|tliy rlndi('(if»'d to conquerers which is not much more due to 
 tht)se wlio wiii'Li till/a nvuri'ome'i The part that true conquer- 
 hig lias to j)lay lies in the utti'tntiitor, li"t in the coming off; 
 tllM IlilDmir of valour consists in fighting, ////f |// pubdiiiiig." — 
 M(mtai\iui\e(l. Iladlft, [}, ]\9i. ^^ 
 
 Ecpially Instriictive with the dofeafp, are the successes of ttie 
 first Bishop of Toronto. Their monil, especially for the Com- 
 munion which he ruled, and for individuals composing it, is 
 this : llecognize facts ; aim at the practical. Wo need not 
 describe again the determined way in which he endeavoured 
 to make good the disasters entailed by the irresistible march of 
 events. The time loft him was short. lie girded himself with 
 desperate energy to his work ; and takin|); an entirely new basis 
 of operations, he realized after all his ideal, on a scale indeed 
 below what his first conception had pictured, but still on a scale 
 (it sufticiently good dimensions ; actually creating for himself, 
 by this second development of force, a spiritual realm over 
 which, amidst the acclaims of all, ho reigned as the visible 
 head, and informing genius, to the moment of his decease ; and 
 tlien, leaving it to his successors, furnished with means and 
 appliances of his own institution, for self-regulation, self- 
 support, and self-perpetuation, in all future time. 
 
 Moralists who take a morbid view of human life are ready 
 to exclaim, — AYhat shadows we are and what shadows wo 
 pursue ! Which may be true of numbers, bur. need not be true 
 of any, provided only they have been put in possession of sound 
 minds and sound bodies, and have been disciplined in both 
 with the discipline provided for them. 
 

 83 
 
 Such a man as the great Bishop wliose career we have been 
 studying, is no shadow. Neither are the things wliieh such 
 men pursue, sliadows. The results of tlie h'fe of the first 
 Bishop of Toronto are tangible realities. They may be sensibly 
 participated in by all of the Canadian people that choose, or in 
 the future shall choose, to avail themselves of them. And he 
 liimself is a reality. His example, his written and spoken 
 words, his works and deeds, will together constitute a standard 
 and type to which, in the fluctuations of the future, there will 
 be a recurrence. His name will be one of the things which 
 the generations following will not willingly let die. His spirit 
 will be still palpably marching on. 
 
 lie built the principal church-edifice ai»pcrfaining to his own 
 coniniiiniou four Mines in succession; twice uh a cathedral 
 church fur his dh/ccHo ( and on each successive occasion with 
 IlK'R'Ufloil ((I'dndour and curfUI/io,-!*, "Tv'^s of Learning" wit- 
 ness for him : lie iuDodcd two Univorsh in succession, both 
 invested with the character borne by si/cli institutions as origin- 
 ally instituted, by Royal Cluirtcr, — procured in l)oth instances 
 by his own pc'rsonal travail ; the later of the two l)y an indi- 
 viduid and solitary eftbrt, to which it is not easy to find a 
 parallel, lie saw theiu both in operation, investigating, con- 
 serving, and propagating truth, on somewhat diiferent lines 
 indeed, but probably with co-ordinate utility, as things are. 
 The veiy Park, with its widely-renowned Avenue, the Champs 
 Elyb<?cs of Toronto, in which the bourgeoit^ic of the place love 
 to take their pastime, are a provision of his, that property 
 having boon specially selected by him as President of King's 
 College, with the same judiciousness and the same careful 
 prescience (»f the need of amplitude for such purposes v.'hich 
 guided hiin also in choosing the fine site and grounds of 
 Trinity College. 
 
 The Anglican residue rescued by his prowess in the final 
 disposition of the endowments for Public Worship, he so wisely 
 husbanded by a scheme of commutation, that funds which in 
 due course were intended to be extinguished were transformed 
 into a permanence, applicable in all time to the aid and main- 
 tenance of Any-lican interests. 
 
84 
 
 To give unity to the action of the Anglican coniniunion in 
 the furtherance of essential objects, he organized, first, tempora- 
 rily and tentatively, a working Association aniongits members, 
 witli a complete machinery for effecting its purpose : — and then, 
 secondly, as a more comprehensive measure, as a final and 
 permanent institution, he revived in his own diocese, and 
 through the example of that, in nearly all colonial dioceses, 
 tlie assembling of synods; and that too, with representatives 
 duly chosen from the laity, lie thus inaugurated for the 
 dependencies of Great Britain, what they had not before, a 
 constitutional Episcopacy, preventing for the future a pernici- 
 ous isolation of the clerical order, securing a community of 
 interest and feeling between congregations and their pastors, 
 introducing in fact the germ of a healthy, vigorous and con- 
 sistent life for the Am;;lican communion in Canada. 
 
 The chancel-apso that shelters the grave of the first Bishop 
 of Toronto has acquired a double sacrediiess. St. James's, 
 Toronto, will be eiupiired for and visited hereafter by one and 
 another from dillerent parts of this continent and the mother 
 country, somewhat as certain veneral)le })ile3 are iiupiired for 
 and visited at St. Albans and Winchester, at Ilheims and 
 Mayence, for the sake of historic dust therein enshrined. 
 
 The originators of sees, the founders of cathedrals and 
 colleges in Europe, when as yet the British Ilumber and the 
 Gernum Rhine flowed between banks as si^arinirlv cidtivatcd 
 as tlioso of the St. Lawrence were fifty years ago, — the Chads, 
 the Cuthberts, the Aidans, the Winifrieds, — were placed by the 
 gratitude of a later generation, tinctured by its superstition, on 
 the roll of the canonized, whatever that may imply. » 
 
 It may reasoiuibly be doubted whether as men these person- 
 ages were exceedingly different from the ever-memorable proto- 
 bisliop whose career we have traced, or whether as ecclesiastics 
 their fixity of idea and persistence of purpose surpassed lils. 
 
 At a later period, in the days of a Wykeham or a AVaynfiete, 
 a Cliichelc or a Wheathampstoad, the elllgy of such an one 
 would, witliout question, have been seen lying in ])er])etual 
 state in some grand structure of his own foundation, extended 
 on altar lomb, with cope and mitre and pastoral staff"; palms 
 
«p 
 
 85 
 
 joiiied as in prayer ; eyes open towards heaven, as in sure con- 
 fidence of the things hoped for; at his head or feet the 
 miniature model of church or college upborne by the hands of 
 jingels. 
 
 Such a memorial of the great Canadian Blsliop in the midst 
 of the people amongst whom he dwelt, is hardly to be expected; 
 although within the cathedral-church of Canterbury, as wo 
 ourselves lately beheld, prelates so recently deceased us a 
 irowley and a Sumner, are on this wise commemorated, with 
 becoming modifications. 
 
 But even without accesrsories of any kind, without the nivs- 
 tic prefix with wliich the ages of credulity would have markcil 
 his name; without the symljol ism, sensuous and florid jis of an 
 unintelligent period, or spiritual and delicate as of an intelli- 
 gent one, the mortal resting-place of the first Bishop of Toronto 
 will liave jjower to fascinate the imagination. As though there 
 burned within it an undying lamp, a steady beam oi" light will 
 be seen to issue from that sepulchral vault, streaming down 
 the future of the Anglican Church in Canada, drawing mid 
 reclaiming, cheering ;uul directing, nutny faltering steo.;. 
 
 nUNTED DT W. C. ( UEWETT A CO., KING STRKKT EAST, TOllONTO.