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Methodism in Canada

ITS WORK AND ITS STORY

BEING THE THIRTY-THIRD FERNLEY LECTURE

DELIVERED IN PENZANCE, 31st JULY 1908

BY

ALEXANDER SUTHERLAND, D.D.

London
CHARLES H. KELLY

2, ‘CASTLE ST., CITY RD., AND 26, PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.

1903
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CONTENTS

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PROLOGUE . : :

I. Tok METHODIST CHURCH IN CANADA .

see

II. PronzerR Days J E 4 ; ig

Ret
II. Toe First Union wita THE BritTIsH CoxFERENCE,
ie

   

AND THE CAUSES WHICH LED TO IT. whe,
IV. Tue StruGGLE FoR Crvin anp ReLicious LiBErty
VY. Union with THE British ConFrEerENce DIssoLveD
AND RESTORED
VI. Founpina and DEVELOPMENT oF MIssIons

VII. Tae Unirication or CanapIan METHODISM

iii

PAGE

24

142

180

225

314
METHODISM IN CANADA

PROLOGUE

For more than a hundred years the Methodist Church in
Canada has been so busy making history that no one has
had leisure to write it. In fact, the time for such an
undertaking had not fully come. The period was too
short, the events too recent. They might be recorded
separately in private or public annals, but could scarcely be
combined into history. Within the past few years, however,
there has been a growing conviction that Canadian Method-
ism had reached a stage in its development when the story
of its first hundred years should be written; and just at
the very time when this conviction began to voice itself,
accompanied by some gentle hints as to who ought to
undertake the task, the Board of the Fernley Lectureship
saw fit to honour me with an invitation to deliver the
lecture for 1903, and accompanied that invitation with
a request that the theme of the lecture should be the
work of the Methodist Church in Canada.

When considering how I might best fulfil the task
assigned me, the thought occurred of giving, first of all, a
brief statement of what the Methodist Church in Canada

is at the present time, and then so much of its story as
I
2 Methodism in Canada

would show how it came to be what it is. In doing this
it will not be necessary to follow the minute details of a
continuous history, but only to present the salient features
of certain distinctive epochs when the inner life of the
movement gradually took form in visible institutions, and
the nebulous materials produced by an aggressive evangel-
ism resolved themselves into a compact and thoroughly
organised Church. For be it understood that what I
have to relate is not the method whereby men of mingled
passions like ourselves planned and reared a Babel-tower
to their own ambition, but it is thé process of a divine
evolution whereby God made them to be a people that
were not a people, and raised up the weak things of the
world to confound the mighty. To change the figure, I
have to tell something of the story of how a grain of
mustard seed was planted in unpromising soil, but how
in the space of one hundred years it grew into so stately
a tree that to-day one million of people, or nearly 20 per
cent. of the whole population of the Canadian Dominion,
gather under its shadow and are called by its name.

To compress a detailed account of Canadian Methodism
into the limits of a Fernley Lecture would be impossible,
and it is not necessary to attempt it; but there are, as
already intimated, certain well defined epochs in the growth
of the denomination which will not be devoid of interest
to British Methodists, and some of these I will endeavour
to describe. Taken as a whole, it is a story of heroic
endeavour inspired by a lofty. purpose, with many a
romantic incident and a pathos peculiarly its own. It
is the story of an intense and aggressive evangelism,
seeking the lost sheep in the wilderness and bringing
Prologue 3

 

wandering prodigals home to God; the story of Christ’s
redeeming love constraining men and women to lives of
self-sacrificing devotion unsurpassed in the history of the
Church; of marvellous triumphs of divine grace in the
transformation of notorious sinners into rejoicing saints,
and of happy and useful lives ending on triumphant
deathbeds. More than that, it forms an integral part of
the story of the spirit of freedom, inspired by the gospel,
contending against irresponsible autocracy in civil govern-
ment and the assumptions of a tyrannical ecclesiasticism
in the Church, until the great principles of civil liberty
and religious equality were universally conceded and in-
corporated in the laws of the State; the story of intellectual
emancipation, wrought by the gospel, finding its legitimate
outlet in the establishment of schools, the founding of
colleges, the dissemination of literature, the fostering of
intellectual pursuits. Last, but not least, it is the story
of a God-inspired movement for the unification of Method-
ism, prophetic, it may be, of a coming day when throughout
Christendom there shall be “ one flock, one Shepherd.”

I could honestly wish that the task now before me had
fallen into other hands; for, altogether apart from that
sincerely modest estimate of one’s own powers which is
proper and becoming, there are other reasons which, in
my case, make the undertaking one of no small difficulty.
Not. only has a very busy life afforded little time for
historical or philosophical studies, but for the third part
of a century I have been in the thick of the events
which make up the later history of Canadian Methodism,
and by force ‘of circumstances, more than from choice,
have been compelled to share largely in the discussions
4 Methodism in Canada

out of which grew the present condition and polity of
the Church. Such an experience is not the best prepara-
tion for the historian. A soldier, it is true, may relate
in the most graphic manner certain incidents of a battle
as they fell under his observation, yet be poorly qualified
to outline the plan of campaign or describe the complicated
movement of the entire army. As a war correspondent
secures if possible some point of vantage from which he
can survey the entire field, so the historian of Church or
State must be far enough removed from the events which
he describes to be able to survey them as a whole, and to
‘weigh with impartial mind and unbiassed judgment the
motives and actions of men. Conscious of my limitations
in these respects, I can only attempt my little best, trusting
to the interest of my theme and the kindness of my hearers
to secure a lenient judgment.
THE METHODIST CHURCH IN CANADA

THE word “Church” is here used deliberately and with
emphasis. Methodism in Canada is a Church in all things
that the word properly implies. It is a body of Christian
believers united by a common name, a common faith, a
common history. It accepts the Holy Scriptures as the
only authoritative rule of faith, and steadily aims to conform
its teaching and practice to the doctrine of Christ. Its
symbols of doctrine embrace the fundamental truths held
by the Church universal. Its forms of worship are in
harmony with New Testament teaching and the practice
of the primitive Church. It has a valid ministry, called of
God and ordained, by whom the ordinances of the Church
of Christ are duly administered. Should anyone demand
other evidence of the validity of the claim to be a true
Church of Christ, let him find the attesting seal in the
mighty works wrought by the Holy Spirit through its
instrumentality for more than a hundred years.

In giving an account of this Church and its work
some regard must be paid to the theatre of its operations.
Geographically considered, the field to be covered is one of
vast extent. A Dominion that stretches literally “from
sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth,”

5
6 Methodism in Canada

 

is no “ pent-up Utica” whose story might be sketched in a
score of pages; and as the theatre of the Church’s history
is conterminous with so vast an empire, the foundations of
the story should be laid on similarly majestic lines. The
time limits, it is true, are not far apart—only one hundred
years—but into that brief period events of no ordinary
importance have been compressed; for the history of
Methodism in Canada is, in a very important sense, an
integral part of the history of the Dominion, and its annals
chronicle a movement which has left an indelible impres-
sion upon the people and their institutions. Every careful
observer will admit that Methodism has been one of the
most potent factors in moulding the character of the
people in the English-speaking provinces of the Dominion,
and in shaping the destinies of the infant nation.

It will be seen, therefore, that he who would tell the
story of Methodism in Canada must not, if true to his
vocation, trace the history of a denomination cast in a
narrow groove, intent upon its own sectarian theology and
usages, indifferent to wider human interests and questions
of civic duty and responsibility, but the history of a great
evangelistic movement that in the sweep of its far-reaching
influence has regenerated individuals, purified homes, trans-
formed communities, moulded institutions, fought and won
the battle of civil and religious liberty, shaped the
educational policy of whole provinces, founded institutions
of higher learning, created a clean and wholesome literature,
left the impress of its thought upon the very speech of the
people, leavened the theology and stimulated the evangel-
istic zeal of sister churches, and in the brief space of one
hundred years gathered around its standard a million of
The Methodist Church in Canada ”

 

adherents, or nearly one fifth of the population of the
Dominion.

As already intimated, the field covered by the work of
the Methodist Church in Canada is of vast extent. It
comprises the settled portions of the Dominion, the island
of Newfoundland, the Bermudas, and two strictly foreign
missions, one in Japan and one in West China. But
these are only vague general statements which convey no
distinct meaning, and some comparisons must be instituted
if the facts are to be made clear. In attempting a brief
description of the field we will begin at the Atlantic
seaboard and follow the course of the sun westward to the
great Pacific.

Lying off the south-eastern coast of the province of
Quebec and the southern extremity of Labrador (from
which it is separated by a narrow strait about 15 miles
in width) lies the island of Newfoundland, the ancient
colony, with an area of 162,200 square miles, which
means a territory more than twice the size of England and
Scotland put together, and nearly as large as Sweden.
Rugged, storm-beaten, much of it rocky and sterile, its
aspect is not particularly inviting: but there is vast
mineral wealth among the hills; magnificent bays, in
any-one of which the combined fleets of the world might
ride at anchor without fear of overcrowding, indent its
shore-line; while off the coast and out on the banks are
teeming fisheries, prolific enough to supply the markets of
the world. Outside of the city of St. John’s the settle-
ments for the most part are not much more than fishing
villages around the rugged coast; but in most of them the
gospel is preached with true Methodist fervour, and a
8 Methodism in Canada

 

joyous experience is voiced in grand old Wesleyan hymns.
Within the bounds of the Conference there are 5 districts,
64 circuits and stations, 52 ordained ministers, 16 proba-
tioners for the ministry, 11,851 communicants, and 15,209
scholars in the Sunday schools.

Turning now to the Dominion of Canada (for although
Newfoundland, Methodistically, is included in its boundaries,
politically it is separate), we have to do with an immensely
vaster territory, though some of the provinces composing
it are but small. South-westward from Newfoundland we
touch the coast of Cape Breton, an island which forms
part of the province of Nova Scotia, the Acadie of the
old French régime. From north-east to south-west the
province has a length of 350 miles, with an average
breadth of 90 miles or thereabout; but Nova Scotia being
almost an island, connected with the mainland by a very
narrow isthmus, and Cape Breton being an island in
reality, the coastline is of enormous extent. The whole
province comprises an area of 20,550 square miles, nearly
equal to the combined area of the States of New Hampshire,
Rhode Island, and Vermont. The population is nearly
460,000, and for the most part they are a law-abiding
and God-fearing people. Methodistically, an Annual
Conference has jurisdiction throughout the province.
This Conference comprises 10 districts, 110 circuits and
stations, 124 ordained ministers, 12 probationers for
the ministry, 16,067 communicants, and 15,535
scholars in the Sunday schools) Communicants and
adherents combined number 57,500, or about 124 per
cent. of the entire population.

To the north-west of Nova Scotia, across the Bay of
The Methodist Church in Canada 9

 

Fundy, lies the province of New Brunswick. It has an
area of 28,200 square miles, nearly as large as Bavaria,
and about 1,600 square miles less than Scotland. Its
population exceeds 321,000, and in their characteristics
the people are not unlike those of Nova Scotia. The
Annual Conference embraces 8 districts, 92 circuits and
stations, 104 ordained ministers, 10 probationers for
the ministry, 13,792 communicants, 13,593 scholars in
the Sunday schools. Communicants and adherents together
number 35,973, or 84 per cent. of the population, includ-
ing Prince Edward Island, which is separated from New
Brunswick and Nova Scotia by Northumberland Strait,
and is included in the territory of the New Brunswick
Conference. It has an area of only 2,133 square miles,
slightly larger than the State of Delaware, and a popula-
tion of a little over 109,000, but maintains its own
provincial autonomy.

North of New Brunswick, we touch the easterly part
of that narrow strip of the province of Quebec which lies
south of the St. Lawrence River. At a point approximately
east from the city of Quebec the strip begins to widen,
following the north-western boundary of the State of Maine
and the northern boundaries of the States of New Hamp-
shire, Vermont, and New York, till it strikes the St.
Lawrence River at an acute angle at the upper end of
Lake St. Francis. On the north shore of the lake the
province line between Quebec and Ontario starts near the
village of St. Louis de Gonzague, following an irregular
course until it reaches the Ottawa River, near Carillon.
Thence the boundary between the two provinces follows
the course of the Ottawa to a point at the north end
10 Methodism in Canada

 

of Lake Temiscamingue; thence it runs due north to a
point on James Bay. To the north the boundary of
Quebec is the East Main River, which flows westward
into James Bay, and the Hamilton or Grand River flowing
eastward into the Atlantic Ocean; while to the east the
boundary is the narrow strip of .the coast of Labrador,
which is under the jurisdiction of Newfoundland.

Having entered this immense province, we have now
to deal with the territory of an empire—for Quebec has
an area of 347,350 square miles, which is 22,600 square
miles larger than the German and Austrian empires put
together, more than seven times the size of the State of
New York, and more than equals the combined areas of
the States of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana,
Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Within this province
lies the head of navigation for ocean ships coming in from
the Atlantic, and through the gateways of its cities will
pour, through the coming years, the fabulous wealth of
the great’ North-West. Within this province there is a
population of 1,648,898, and there is room for millions
more. Its land fit for agriculture is not all occupied, its
forests are by no means exhausted, its minerals scarcely
touched. But of the 1,648,898 people above mentioned,
1,322,000 are of French descent, speak the French
language, are imbued with French traditions, and the bulk
of them are devoted adherents of the most pronounced,
aggressive, and thoroughly organised type of Roman
Catholicism to be found in the world.

In this province the work of Methodism is confined
almost entirely to the English-speaking portions, and to
towns, cities, and rural sections where the population is
The Methodist Church in Canada tt

 

mixed. Among the other race the work is represented by
a few scattered and somewhat feeble missions, where a
handful of French Protestants bravely strive to hold their
own against the overshadowing power of Rome. The
Annual Conference, called Montreal, embraces the English-
speaking portion of the province already referred to,
beginning at Gaspé on the Atlantic seaboard, and extend-
ing in the other direction some distance west of the city of
Kingston, far beyond the Ontario province line. The Con-
ference embraces 11 districts, 219 circuits and stations,
240 ordained ministers, 29 probationers for the ministry,
36,209 communicants, 32,110 scholars in the Sunday
schools. Communicants and adherents within the province
of Quebec number 42,014.

At the eastern angle formed by the junction of the
St. Lawrence and the Ottawa there are two counties which
belong to the province of Quebec. All west of this to
the Detroit River, and thence along the shores of Lakes
Huron and Superior to Fort William, and extending north-
ward approximately to the 47th parallel, is included in
what is now called Old Ontario; but within a few years a
vast territory to the north and west, popularly called New
Ontario, has been added. Its northern boundary is the
shore of James Bay as far as the Albany River, thence
ascending the course of that stream westward till the
eastern boundary of Manitoba is reached at the Lake of
the Woods. The area of the whole province of Ontario is
222,000 square miles, a territory larger than France,
nearly as large as Spain and Portugal combined, and
nearly twice the size of Great Britain and Ireland. From
the Quebec boundary to the Detroit River the distance,
12 Methodism in Canada

as the crow flies, is approximately 500 miles; from the
shore of Lake Erie to the Albany River the distance is
about 750 miles; while the distance from Ottawa to the
Manitoba province line is approximately 1,000 miles.
The resources of this vast region in agriculture, timber,
and especially minerals, are practically boundless, and
manufactures are developing at a rate undreamed of a
generation ago. The population at the last census
numbered 2,167,978. As already intimated, the Montreal
Conference extends a considerable distance into Ontario;
but west of that, and still within the province, there
are four other Annual Conferences, named respectively
Bay of Quinte, Toronto, Hamilton, and London. Taken
together, these Conferences embrace 53 districts, 739
circuits and stations, 978 ordained ministers, 102 pro-
bationers for the ministry, 182,739 communicants,
166,634 scholars in Sunday schools. Communicants and
adherents taken together number 666,360.

The province of Manitoba constitutes the first political
division of the almost illimitable prairie region of the
West. Scarcely more than a generation has passed since
this vast country came under the control of the Canadian
Government, and it was almost at the end of the sixties
when the first missionaries of the Methodist Church were
sent to the English-speaking settlers who were beginning
to enter the country. Previous to this the Methodist
Church had a few missionaries among the Indians of the
farther north; but the Scotch settlers on the Red River
of the North were cared for by Presbyterian clergymen,
while the mixed bloods, scattered over an enormous
territory, were dependent for the most part upon the
The Methodist Church in Canada 1

 

ministrations of the Roman Catholic and Anglican
Churches.

When the North-West was ceded to Canada, conditions
underwent a rapid change. Farmers and others from the
older provinces began to turn their faces toward the new
land of promise, and the Churches saw the necessity of
providing for the religious needs of those who were
seeking homes on the Western prairies. In 1868 the
Methodist Church sent out the Rev. George Young, D.D.,
to plant the standard at Fort Garry on the Red River.
At first he preached to a handful of people in his own
dwelling; but he laid foundations broad and deep, and
where in 1868 there was only the naked prairie sur-
rounding the walls of the H.B. Company’s Fort, there
now stands a handsome city of 50,000 inhabitants, with
all the appliances of modern civilisation, while Methodism
is represented in the same city by more than half a
dozen churches with flourishing congregations, and a large
and handsome college building filled with students.

The province of Manitoba is one of the smaller
divisions of the North-West, having an area of only 73,956
square miles; but even this is no petty State, as it in-
cludes a territory nearly 6,000 square miles larger than
Great Britain. This, however, is only the gateway to
the greater West. Beyond Manitoba, to the west, north,
and north-west, are the vast territories of Assinaboia,
Saskatchewan, Alberta, Athabasca, Keewatin, Mackenzie,
and Yukon. In Keewatin Methodism is represented by
two or three Indian missions ; in Athabasca and Mackenzie
it has no work at all; in the Yukon there are but three
ministers of the denomination; but there is a vast net-
14 Methodism in Canada

work of agencies covering the province of Manitoba and
much of the territories of Assinaboia, Saskatchewan,
and Alberta, known as the Manitoba and North-West
Conference. The divisions just named cover the follow-
ing areas in square miles: Manitoba, 73,936; Assinaboia,
90,340; Saskatchewan, 114,000; Alberta, 100,000.
Taken together, the area is 378,276 square miles, which
is equal in extent to France and Sweden combined, and
almost every square mile is rich agricultural soil. The
same may be said of the western half of Athabasca,
which, with the outlying territories of Keewatin, Mac-
kenzie, and Yukon, represents an area of 1,768,800 square
miles, a region so vast that the whole of Europe, excluding
Russia, does not equal it by nearly 250,000 square miles.
If now we add together Manitoba and the two groups of
territories above named, we have a total of 2,147,096
square miles, which is larger than the whole of Russia
in Europe, including Poland and Finland.

In the Manitoba and North-West Conference there
are 15 districts, 251 circuits and stations, 241 ordained
ministers, 28 probationers for the ministry, 22,392
communicants, 20,355 scholars in the Sunday schools.
Communicants and adherents together, 72,117.

We have now reached British Columbia, the most
westerly province of the Canadian Dominion. Large in
area, it comprises 383,300 square miles, or over 18,000
square miles more than the combined States of California,
Nevada, and Oregon. The mountainous character of the
whole country does not permit of agriculture on a large
scale; but land in the valleys is very fertile, timber
resources are immense, the fisheries, especially of salmon,
The Methodist Church in Canada 15

 

are prolific almost beyond belief, while the supply of
minerals—coal, iron, copper, silver, gold, etc.—are
practicably inexhaustible. The Methodist Church in the
province comprises 1 Annual Conference, 8 districts,
81 circuits and stations, 69 ordained ministers, 11
probationers for the ministry, 6,116 communicants,
7,088 scholars in the Sunday schools. Communicants
and adherents together, 25,021.

Outside of the territory occupied in the Dominion of
Canada, Newfoundland, and Bermuda, the Methodist Church
has two foreign missions—one in Japan, the other in West
China. The former was begun in 1873 by the Rev. George
Cochran, D.D., and .the Rev. Davidson Macdonald, M.D.
There is now an Annual Conference embracing 5 districts,
with 27 circuits and stations, 8 foreign missionaries,
26 ordained native pastors, 7 unordained preachers,
2,675 communicants, 2,236 scholars in the Sunday
schools. The West China Mission in the province of Sz’
Chuan was begun in 1891 by the Rev. V. C. Hart, D.D.,
O. L. Kilborn, M.A., M.D., and Rev. George E. Hartwell,
B.A., B.D. On two separate occasions the mission has
been broken up by the Boxer insurrection, and the
missionaries were compelled to leave the province for a
time. This greatly retarded the work; but a brighter day
seems to be dawning, and the missionaries are again on
the ground, labouring with good prospects of success.

Turning back over ground already traversed and
summing up results, we find in the Dominion of Canada
territory organised and under Government amounting to
3,170,629 square miles, and there is unorganised _terri-
tory to the north amounting approximately to 500,000
16 Methodism in Canada

 

square miles more, or say 3,670,000 square miles in all,
which is almost equal to the whole continent of Europe.
Of this enormous region a large portion is still unoccupied
save by the wandering Indian and the adventurous fur-
trader. According to the census of 1901, the population
of the Dominion was less than 6,000,000; but with a
soil capable of sustaining countless millions more, and
undeveloped resources of other kinds enough to enrich
the whole world, the filling up of all the country fit for
settlement with a prosperous population is only.a matter
of time, and it is this tide of incoming population that
will constitute the great problem of all the Churches for
years and years to come.

In the early days Methodism in Canada, so far as its
government was concerned, took on the Methodist
Episcopal form. This was perfectly natural, for its
preachers were commissioned by the American Bishops, and
until 1832 were under his jurisdiction. But when, in
the year just named, a union was formed between the
Canadian Conference and the British Wesleyan Confer-
ence, Episcopacy was superseded by an annual Presidency,
and the government of the Church was modelled after
the Wesleyan type. When a union was formed between
the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada, the Methodist
New Connexion, and the Conference of Eastern British
America, some modifications were introduced, and the
united body took the name of the Methodist Church of
Canada, Nine years later another union was formed,
embracing the Methodist Church of Canada, the Methodist
Episcopal Church in Canada, the Primitive Methodist
Church in Canada, and the Bible Christian Church of
The Methodist Church in Canada is

 

Canada, and the legal designation adopted was The
Methodist Church. At the time of this union the
constitution which still exists was adopted, and some of
its features may be briefly described.

In some respects the polity of the Canadian Church
holds a middle position between British Wesleyan
Methodism and the Episcopal Methodism of the United
States. It maintains the ministerial equality of the one,
and, in a modified form, the general superintendency of
the other. There is one Quadrennial General Conference,
composed of ministers and laymen in equal numbers, to
which is committed authority to make rules and regula-
tions for the whole Church under certain restrictions.
The ministerial members are elected by the ministers
in the Annual Conferences, and the laymen by the lay
members of the same bodies. The General Conference has
authority to elect one or more general superintendents,
who hold office for eight years and are eligible for re-
election. It also decides the number and boundaries of
the Annual Conferences, but does not interfere in their
internal administration. At the present time there is
one Annual Conference in Newfoundland, nine in the
Dominion of Canada, and one in Japan. The Annual
Conferences are composed of ministers and laymen in
equal numbers, the former holding their position ex
officio, the latter elected by the laymen in the annual
district meetings. Each Annual Conference elects its
own president and secretary. If a general superintendent
is present at the beginning of a session, he opens the
proceedings, presides during the first day, and afterwards

alternately with the president-elect. He also conducts
2
18 Methodism in Canada

 

the ordination service, when present, and in his absence
the president officiates. All questions pertaining to
ministerial standing and conduct are decided by the
ministerial members of the Annual Conference, and the
preachers are stationed by a committee composed of the
chairmen of districts and one ministerial representative
elected by each district meeting, the president of
Conference being chairman. During the intervals
between sessions of the General Conference, connexional
interests—such as missions, education, publishing, ete.—
are controlled by boards or committees, and in these
the principle of equality in numbers as between ministers
and laymen prevails. Other church courts, such as
quarterly official meetings, leaders’ meetings, etc., are
patterned after the British Wesleyan type. There is
one court in the Canadian Church which, as far as I am
aware, is unique in Methodism. This is known as the
Court of Appeal, and is constituted for the purpose of
hearing and deciding appeals from the decisions of lower
courts, or officers of the same, on questions of law. This
includes appeals from decisions of presidents or presiding
officers of Annual Conferences on questions of law; from
the decision of Annual Conferences when they have
exceeded their jurisdiction; from decisions of general
superintendents on questions of law in the committees
and boards over which they preside; and from decisions
of committees and boards of the General Conference when
they have exceeded their jurisdiction.

Among the various departments of work in the
Methodist Church that of missions holds foremost place.
As far back as 1824, while the Church was yet in its
The Methodist Church in Canada 19

infancy, a Missionary Society was organised. Its income
the first year was only about $144, and the field of
operation was correspondingly limited. At that time
a foreign mission was undreamed of, but it was thought
that something might be done for the scattered bands of
Indians in the central and western parts of Upper Canada
(now Ontario), whose condition was most deplorable, and
ultimately to afford a little aid to those who were carrying
the gospel to the remoter settlements. From the time the
society was organised until now no division has been made
as between the home and foreign work. One fund covers
both, and is controlled and administered by one board.
This board is composed of the general superintendent,
the officers of the Missionary Society, and 384 other
members, ministers and laymen in equal numbers, 14
of whom are elected by the General Conference for a four
years’ term. The board meets annually, reviews the whole
mission work of the Church at home and abroad, and
apportions the funds at its disposal according to the needs
of the various fields. In the intervals of the sessions of
the board the business of the society is administered by
an executive committee composed of the general super-
intendent, the officers of the society, and 18 other
members, ministers and laymen in equal numbers,
appointed by the board.

The Women’s Missionary Society of the Methodist
Church was organised in the autumn of 1881. The
income for the first year was $2,916; but the annual
receipts increased steadily, until in 1902 they reached
$49,776. This society has its own board and manages
its own affairs, but works in harmony and loyal co-operation
20 Methodism in Canada

with the board of the General Missionary Society. It has
more than 40 agents in its employ—all women—and these
include evangelists, teachers, physicians, trained nurses,
Bible-women, etc. The property held by the Women’s
Society exceeds in value $56,000. Besides its direct work
in the mission field, the society has rendered invaluable
service in the home churches in fostering the missionary
spirit, spreading information, cultivating systematic giving,
and furnishing an outlet for the zeal of consecrated women,
who on many different fields are proving their fitness for
every form of Christian service. Another branch of
missionary effort, and one of growing importance, is what
is known as the Young People’s Forward Movement for
Missions. It is carried on through the agency of the
Epworth Leagues, under the direction of the General
Board of Missions. The motto of the movement is “ Pray,
Study, Give,” and from this may be inferred the character
and spirit of its work. By its campaign methods, diligence
in circulating missionary literature, careful study of
missionary problems, and plan of systematic giving, this
organisation has done much to develop the missionary
spirit in the churches. Although but a few years have
passed since the movement began, the annual income has
reached about $25,000, and 46 missionaries in the Indian
and foreign fields are supported, in whole or in part,
from this source.

In the councils and work of the Church an important
place is assigned to educational interests. The Methodist
Church does not concern itself with primary education
(except in its Indian and foreign work) as that is amply
provided for by a State system of common schools; but at

 
The Methodist Church in Canada 21

 

an early period it led the way in higher education, having
established in Upper Canada the first college with
university powers. Since that time Canadian Methodism
has established and maintained 13 additional educational
institutions, 1 of which ranks as a university, 11 as colleges,
and 1 as an academy. All this is exclusive of the
educational work carried on by the Missionary Society,
which includes 19 day schools, 4 boarding schools, and
4 industrial institutes among the Indians, under the joint
supervision of the Methodist Church and the Indian
department of the Canadian Government, a French in-
stitute in the city of Montreal, and sundry schools in the
foreign field. The total value of all college and school
property owned by the denomination in 1902 was over
$2,000,000 ; and this does not include the school property
of the Women’s Missionary Society, which aggregates
$56,000 more.

The publishing interests of Canadian Methodism have
grown steadily from the beginning, and have now attained
large proportions. The quadrennial report for 1902 shows
total assets amounting to over $640,000, a working
capital of $423,000, and net profits for the quadrennium
amounting to $85,000. A portion of the profits—about
$12,000 annually —is donated to the Superannuated
Ministers’ Fund, and the remainder goes to increase working
capital. The various publications—weekly, monthly, etc.—
ageregate nearly 350,000 for a single issue.
22 Methodism in Canada

 

STATISTICS OF THE METHODIST CHURCH
IN CANADA.

A brief résumé of the preceding facts, so far.as they
can be tabulated, may be useful for purposes of reference:

General Conference . ; : : é 1
Annual Conferences . : ‘ ; j 11
Ministers, including punbetiacers . ‘ 2,030
Local preachers : : : ; é é 2,248
Exhorters. : é : : i 5 ‘ 1,119
Class-leaders  . ; : 6,791
Church members, ciclading thoaa on 1 ital i 291,895

$3 and adherents, as per census. 935,000!
Number of churches : ‘ j : ‘ 3,413
Seating capacity . ‘ : ; 865,500
Value of churches and Himnishitape . ‘ . $11,836,410
Number of parsonages. : F 3 : 1,208
Value of parsonages . i 3 . $1,875,853

Universities, colleges, and other pélioals in-
cluding those maintained by the Missionary

Society and the Women’s Missionary Society 27
Value of college and school ea ‘ - $2,056,000
Sunday schools 5 3,425
Officers and teachers : ‘ ‘ d 33,396
Scholars . ‘ : 276,566
Epworth Leagues aati other young people 8

societies ‘ é 1,523
Active members at, , ; 27,309
Associate members . ‘ : 20,952
Raised by Church for connexional funds, 1902 $461,943

3 9 circuit purposes. - $1,459,448
3 55 ministerial support : $854,432
Grand total raised for all purposes . é - $2,775,823

Such, in brief, is the standing and strength of the
Methodist Church in Canada at the present time. With
no cause for boasting, but much for gratitude, she faces the

1 Approximate,
The Methodist Church in Canada 23

 

responsibilities of the coming century, strong in faith and
in the confident expectation that at the end of another
hundred years she will be able to say with undiminished
emphasis, “ The best of all is,God is with us.” Meanwhile
Jet us recall some historical epochs that may serve as
milestones to mark the route and the distance travelled.
Il
PIONEER DAYS

As a skilled biographer attaches a good deal of importance
to heredity, and sometimes begins by describing the
characteristics of his hero’s ancestry, so he who would tell
the story of Methodism in Canada should keep in mind
the source from which it sprang. For he is not like a
traveller in some unexplored region who suddenly finds
himself upon the banks of an unknown stream, and
straightway follows whithersoever it may lead until its
tributary waters join some vaster flood. Rather does he
resemble one afloat upon a stream that has been diverged
from its parent river and is flowing onward in a channel
of its own toward the distant sea. He must breast this
diverging current upward to the point of separation from
the larger stream, and then in turn trace that larger stream
upward to the distant springs where it has its birth.

The true starting-point, then, for the story of Canadian
Methodism is not at Adolphustown, where the first class-
meeting in Canada was regularly organised, neither is it
the site of the old sail-loft in John Street, New York, nor
the spot where stood the homes of the Hecks and the
Emburys. The historian must go farther afield. The
Meccas of his pilgrimage (there are more than one) will be

24
Pioneer Days 25

 

the rectory at Epworth where a devoted mother in Israel
lends her son to God, as did Hannah, that he may be
“established to be a prophet of the Lord”; the room of
the Holy Club at Oxford, where a few young men, singular
enough in their habits to be known even then as
Methodists, spend their evenings in studying the Greek
New Testament, and such spare time as they can command
in visiting those that are sick or in prison; the place of a
society meeting in Aldersgate Street where one who has
sought in vain to be justified by the deeds of the law
suddenly feels his heart “strangely warmed ” by a heavenly
fire; the Foundery, Moorfield, or Gwennap Pit, where
“a man sent from God whose name was John ” proclaims
the rediscovered evangel “that a man is justified by faith
without the deeds of the law,” and that “ being justified by
faith we have peace with God”; the church at Madeley
where the seraphic Fletcher both preached and lived the
higher life of faith, and the rectory where he wrote his
famous “ Checks,” which stemmed the flood of Antinom-
ianism that threatened to submerge the infant Church.
These be some of the places where we must search for the
hidden springs of that mighty river the streams whereof
have made glad many a barren wilderness.

Having discovered the source of the great movement,
one is tempted to dwell on the salient features of its
development for the first fifty years: its mission to the
highways and hedges; the beginning of its restless it-
inerancy ; the origin of its class-meetings ; the crystallizing
of its theology; the founding of its educational work ; the
planting of the seed from which has grown the stately tree
of its literature; the methods by which it solved the
26 Methodism in Canada

 

problem—which to-day seems to be insoluble—how to
reach the masses; and last, but by no means least, the
beginnings of its far-reaching missionary plans, conceived
in the very spirit of the famous dictum, “The world is my
parish.” Following this, some reference to the rise and
growth of Methodism in the American colonies would be
in place: the arrival of the Palatine emigrants, and their
endeavours to rekindle a fire that was wellnigh quenched ;
the appeal to Wesley; the coming of Boardman and
Pilmoor ; the ordination of Thomas Coke; the itinerating
labours of Francis Asbury, rivalling in extent and zeal
those of Wesley himself; the story of the Christmas
Conference, where the polity of the Methodist Episcopal
Church assumed form and substance; the adoption of
Episcopacy as the type of American Methodism; the
founding of a publishing-house ; the rapid development of
the itinerant system, leading up to the time when a branch
of the goodly tree “ran over the wall” and took root in
that wilderness which was destined to become in the
fulness of time the Dominion of Canada. But all this
by the way, as its only object would be to show that
Canadian Methodism, in its spirit and aims, in its
doctrines, methods, and usages, is a legitimate descendant
of British Wesleyan Methodism.

To fix the exact date when Methodism had _ its
beginning in any locality is almost as difficult as to fix
the moment when a seed begins to germinate, or the new
life begins to dawn in the soul. Speaking broadly,
however, Methodism may be said to have begun in
Newfoundland with the advent of Lawrence Coughlan
in 1765 ; in Nova Scotia with the coming of the Yorkshire
Pioneer Days ao

 

emigrants in 1772; in Lower Canada with the preaching
of Tuffey, a commissary of the 44th Regiment, in 1780;
and in Upper Canada with the coming of the Hecks and
others to the banks of the St. Lawrence in 1778 (some
accounts say 1774). Years elapsed before regularly
appointed preachers took up the work; but it is more
than likely that, in some cases, especially in Nova Scotia
and Upper Canada, neighbourhood exhortations and
prayer-meetings prepared the way for the coming of the
itinerants.

1. PionzER Days IN THE CANADAS

The conquest of French Canada by British forces may
be said to date from the capture of Quebec by General
Wolfe in 1759. It is true that one hundred and thirty
‘years earlier Champlain had surrendered Quebec to
“ Admiral” David Kirke, and the city, together with the
vast but scarcely explored country of which it was the key,
passed into English hands; but three years later it was
restored again to France. For a long time it was a mystery
why this was done, but subsequently the mystery was
solved by the discovery of a letter from King Charles of
England to Sir Isaac Wake, his Ambassador at Paris.
The dowry promised to Queen Henrietta Maria, amounting
to 800,000 crowns, had been but half paid, and Charles,
who was at strife with his Parliament, and in sore need
of money, instructed his Ambassador that when he received
the balance of the dowry, and not till then, he was to
restore to France Quebec and Port Royal, both of which
had been captured by Kirke. Thus for a sum equal to
28 Methodism in Canada

about $240,000, Charles entailed on Great Britain and
her Colonies a century of bloody wars. But although
Quebec had fallen, England’s conquest was not completed,
and it was not until 1763 that Canada was formally
ceded to England by the Treaty of Paris, and the French
flag disappeared from a country it had held for more than
two hundred years.

On the conquest of Canada, George II. appointed
General Murray to be the first Governor, and with him
was associated a council of eight to advise in the affairs of
Government. The second Governor was Sir Guy Carleton,
appointed in 1768. In1773 the population was estimated
at 100,000 French Roman Catholics and 400 Protestants,
the latter consisting chiefly of English merchants, officers
and disbanded soldiers, residing for the most part in
Quebec and Montreal. Free grants of land were offered
by the Government to officers and soldiers who had served
under Wolfe, but few availed themselves of the privilege.
In the rural parishes there were but nineteen Protestants,
and the soldiers preferred to keep public-houses or follow
some handicraft rather than clear forests and cultivate
the soil. For eleven years Quebec continued under the
system of Government established by the proclamation of
George 111; and although it provided for the summoning
of general assemblies, no such assembly was ever called,
as the French-Canadian population were unwilling to
subscribe to the test oath. In 1774 the Parliament of
England interfered for the first time in Canadian affairs,
and by the passage of the Quebec Act modified con-

1 Parkman’s Pioneers of France in the New World, ‘‘Champlain,” ch,
xvi, xvij.
Pioneer Days 29

siderably the system of government and greatly extended
the boundaries of the province.

In 1775 the revolutionary war was in actual progress,
and Canada was invaded by troops from the revolting
American colonies under Generals Schuyler, Arnold, and
Montgomery. For a time a series of successes encouraged
the invaders. Fort St. John fell, Chambly was captured,
Montreal surrendered, Sorel was occupied, and before the
year Quebec was invested. But here the tide turned.
Desperate efforts to take the city by assault were repulsed.
Arnold failed to reach the lower town, and a sortie of the
defenders cut off nearly the whole of his column, he himself
escaping in a wounded condition. Montgomery was killed
at the second entrenchment of the lower town, and his
troops retired in confusion. In the following May relief
came from England, and the Americans withdrew to Sorel,
followed by British troops. Subsequently they abandoned
all the posts down to Lake Champlain, leaving Canada as
it had been before the invasion.t In 1783 the revolu-
tionary war came to an end, but during its progress, and
immediately after, a great many sympathisers with the
British cause found their way to Nova Scotia and to
Canada. Many had to sacrifice nearly all their possessions,
and reached their new home at the cost of great priva-
tion. Some came by way of the sea and up the St.
Lawrence, some through the unbroken forests between
the settled parts of New York State and the province
ine. Six weeks were consumed in the voyage to Quebec.
In proceeding up the river supplies were hauled against
the current in boats, by sheer strength of muscle. To

1G. Bryce, Short History of Canadian People, ch. vi.
30 Methodism in C: anata

accommodate these srahibed the Government : yeaslived to
open up the western part of Canada, then an almost
unbroken wilderness. A few emigrants had settled on
the banks of the St. Lawrence from Cornwall to Brock-
ville, along the Bay of Quinte from Kingston to Bath,
and some French near the Detroit River. The work of
surveying was pushed forward, and to encourage further
immigration from the United States the Government
offered liberal gifts of land. It is estimated that during
the period referred to not less than ten thousand loyalists
came into Canada from the United States, while an equal
number found their way to different parts of Nova Scotia
and New Brunswick.

It was not till 1791 that Quebec was divided into
two provinces, designated respectively Upper and Lower
Canada. The Bill for this purpose was introduced into the
English Parliament by Pitt, and after its adoption became
known as the Constitutional Act of 1791. It provided
that in each province there should be a Governor, a
Legislative Council, and Legislative Assembly. In Upper
Canada the Legislative Council was to consist of not less
than seven, and in Lower Canada not less than fifteen
members, chosen by the King for life, while the Speaker
was appointed by the Governor-General. In the Legis-
lative Assembly Upper Canada had sixteen members, and
Lower Canada fifty. The new Constitution was a step
—a short one, it may be—in the direction of popular
government, but it did not prove a success. Between a
popular Assembly and an irresponsible Council there was
sure to be conflict, and in Lower Canada this was aggra-
vated by race antagonism between French and English.
Pioneer Days 31

 

Discontent increased from time to time till it culminated
in the rebellion of 1837.1

In 1784 the population for both provinces was .about
120,000, an increase of 20,000 in ten years. Of the
whole, about 10,000 were in Upper Canada, scattered in
small settlements along the St. Lawrence and the Niagara
frontier. Taking the various colonies together—New-
foundland, Nova Scotia, Upper and Lower Canada—the
population, though sparse, was somewhat heterogeneous
in its character: hardy fishermen from the coasts of
Treland, Cornwall, and Devon; crofters from Scottish isles ;
farm labourers from English dales; small farmers from
half the counties of Great Britain; toilers from the cities,
and many who knew not the meaning of toil, but were
compelled by declining fortunes to seek for new chances
in a new world; prodigal sons hasting to a far country,
glad to get away from home restraints, and from the
unspoken reproaches of sorrowful fathers and mothers.
But among these were to be found immigrants of a
different type: scholars from famous universities; retired
officers from the army and navy; soldiers from disbanded
regiments; sturdy yeomen and hard-handed mechanics ;
men of brawn and brain, and women of culture and
refinement and clean moral fibre. All these braved the
dangers of wind and wave and the perils of an unknown
wilderness, resolute in their purpose to find a home where
they need call no man master, and where they might
bequeath to their children a heritage of freedom and
hope, of intelligence and comfort, beyond what would
have been possible in the land from which they came.

1 Munro’s Constitution of Canada, ch. ii.
32 Mathoasy in Comaae

 

One canuot fail to recognise the guiding hand of
God in timing the advent of the Methodist itinerants to
the condition and needs of the people. Not only were
the latter few in number, but they were scattered over
a vast territory in lonely cabins and isolated settlements,
often connected by no better highway than a cattle track
or a blazed trail through miles of lonely forest. Of mail
communication there was little, and it required almost
the proceeds of a day’s labour to pay the postage on a
letter from a distant place. The press had scarce begun
the work of diffusing universal information, and its feeble
incipient attempts failed to reach the dwellers in the
remoter wildernesses. As yet the schoolmaster was not
abroad, and “the sound of the church-going bell” was
never heard in the forest solitudes. A people so cir-
cumstanced were sure to retrograde unless reached by
some counteracting influence. They were in danger of
relapsing into semi-barbarism and becoming utterly godless.
And such would have been the fate of many but for the
advent of the Methodist itinerant. To him it was given
to reach the scattered and lonely settlers, as no other
agency could have reached them; to arouse the conscience
of the careless and cheer the soul of the distressed; to
“convince . . . of sin, of righteousness, and of judg-
ment,” and to point the sin-burdened to “the Lamb of
God that taketh away the sin of the world.” For the
most part the men of the old “saddle-bag brigade” could
boast of but little culture. They were not learned in
the wisdom of the schools; what they knew, however,
they knew thoroughly, and their knowledge embraced the
essentials. Their theology was not broad, but it was deep
Pioneer Days 33

 

and high—deep as the ruin into which man had fallen,
high as the heaven to which he might ascend; and every
truth they taught was a direct spiritual force for the
conversion of men and their upbuilding in holiness of life.
What marvel, then, if the man who sought “these few
sheep in the wilderness” with such a message was wel-
comed by many as an angel from heaven ?

To laymen belongs the honour of introducing for the
first time the doctrines and usages of Methodism into
many of the colonies of the New World. Embury in New
York, Strawbridge in Maryland, Coughlan in Newfoundland,
Black in Nova Scotia, Tuffey and Neal in Canada, are all
illustrations in point. Coughlan, it is true, was one of
Wesley’s itinerants, but at the time of his first visit to
Newfoundland he was only a lay preacher. Tuffey was a
commissary of the 44th Regiment, which was stationed at
Quebec in 1780, and was also a Methodist local preacher.
That his heart should have been stirred by the religious
destitution of the people need excite no surprise. The
French, it is true, had their priests and their parish
churches, which they faithfully attended, but the Pro-
testant population was poorly cared for. An Episcopal
clergyman resided in Quebec and one in Montreal, but
other ministers there were none, except, perhaps, a chaplain
connected with a regiment. Tuffey, perceiving the state
of the soldiery and the Protestant immigrants, began preach-
ing soon after his arrival, but no society seems to have
been formed. When peace was proclaimed in 1783, some
regiments were disbanded, among others the 44th, and
Tuffey returned home ; but of the seed he had sown some
fell on good ground and ultimately brought forth fruit:

3
34 Methodism in Canada

 

Those who had listened to his preaching, and were after-
wards scattered through various settlements, were pre-
pared to listen to similar preaching from. others in after-
years, to whom it was given to reap where Tuffey had
sowed.

The work done by Tuffey at Quebec was duplicated on
the Niagara frontier by Major George Neal. He was an
Irishman, as were many of the pioneer preachers in the
New World, and an officer in a British cavalry regiment
that had served during the revolutionary war. In 1786
he came to Canada, crossing the Niagara River at Queenston,
and took possession of an officer’s grant of land. At that
early day religious privileges were almost unknown, the
scattered settlers gave scant heed to spiritual things, and
Major Neal might easily have settled down into a similar
indifference, devoting all his time and attention to his
temporal concerns. But he was a good man and zealous
for the gospel, and was no sooner settled in his new
possessions than he began to preach to his neighbours.
Some received the word with gladness, others with the
dislike so characteristic of the unregenerate heart; but he
persevered, and had the satisfaction of knowing that his
labours were not altogether in vain.

Two years after Major Neal began preaching on the
Niagara frontier, two lay workers appeared among the Bay
of Quinte settlements. The first was a young man named .
Lyons, an exhorter in the Methodist Episcopal Church of
the United States, who came to Canada and taught a
school in the township of Adolphustown. He saw that
the people were as sheep without a shepherd, and his
compassion was stirred by their spiritual destitution. He
Pioneer Days a5

 

collected the people in different neighbourhoods, and on
the Lord’s day sang and prayed and exhorted; he also
visited the people in their homes, and prayed with them
when opportunity was given. These efforts were not
without effect, and some were turned from sin to God. In
the same year (1788) James M‘Carty (another Irishman)
came to Canada from the United States by way of Kings-
ton. At Ernestown he found a few Methodists, who
encouraged him to hold meetings in their houses. M‘Carty
had been converted under the preaching of Whitefield
during his last visit to America, and seemed to have caught
something of the spirit of the great evangelist. His speech
and manner were attractive, and considerable numbers
attended his preaching; but here, as elsewhere, Methodism
had to fight its way to victory. There was resolute
opposition to M‘Carty’s preaching, and that not only from
“the baser sort”; men of position and influence were the
most pronounced in their antagonism.

The fact is, the loyalists, as they were termed, while
possessing many admirable qualities, were by no means
advanced in their notions of either civil or religious liberty.
Most of them were nominally adherents of the Church of
England, and very bigoted at that; hence for a layman
and a Methodist to preach the gospel was an innovation
not to be endured. Better, they seemed to think, that the
people should be without preaching altogether than obtain
it from such a source. Prominent among the opponents
were three men—a sheriff, a captain of militia, and an
engineer — who resolved to get rid of the obnoxious
preacher in some way. One Sunday while M‘Carty was
preaching in the house of Robert Perry, four armed men
36 Methodism in Canada

 

came up and rushed ‘into the house to seize the preacher
and carry him to Kingston Jail; but the congregation
would not allow this, and as Perry agreed to give bail for
M‘Carty’s appearance the men went away. The next day
Perry conveyed the preacher to the sheriff at Kingston,
but he refused to have anything to do with him. Under
some false plea, however, M‘Carty was arrested and im-
prisoned, but was soon liberated again under bail and
returned home. When the bail expired M‘Carty returned
to Kingston. In the meantime, it would seem, his enemies
had matured their plans. Instead of being tried before a
proper tribunal, he was seized by a band of ruffians, thrown
into a boat in charge of four Frenchmen, who conveyed
their prisoner through the Lake of the Thousand Islands to
the vicinity of the first rapid. At that part of the river
are many islands, at that time densely wooded and unin-
habited. On one of these M‘Carty was left by his captors,
and was never seen again. It is but right to say that
there is another version of the latter part of this tragic
story. It is conceded that the four Frenchmen took
M‘Carty down the St. Lawrence, and endeavoured to leave
him on a desolate island; but owing to his resistance they
were induced to leave him on the main shore, whence
he made his way to his family and friends. It is also
affirmed that he had secured the goodwill of Sir John
Johnson, who furnished him with the money to prosecute
those who had persecuted him, and a lawyer at Montreal
assured him of a successful suit. But while on his way to
Montreal, or returning (it is uncertain which), he suddenly
disappeared, and was seen no more. The last place where
he was seen was near the Long Sault, and the cause of his
Pioneer Days a7

 

disappearance is shrouded in mystery. I incline to the
belief that this latter account is the correct one.

But what of those who had persecuted this man for no
other cause than that he had preached the gospel to those
for whose souls no man cared? The engineer who ordered
the Frenchmen to leave M‘Carty on a desolate island
survived the outrage for only eight or ten days; Sheriff
L:—to whom Mr. Perry said at the time of the commit-
ment, “You may kill M‘Carty, but a hundred more will
rise at his burial whom you or’ your party cannot kill”—
died suddenly in the course of two or three weeks;
Captain C., who was most active in M‘Carty’s persecution,
afterwards wrote a confession stating that he had wrongfully
aud wickedly persecuted an innocent man, and requested
Mr. Perry to present the confession to the judge; but the
judge replied, “It is a concern of his own, and he alone
must see to it.” This Captain C. afterwards fell into a
state of insanity which continued until his death.’ A
series of occurrences so remarkable cannot be classed under
the head of “accidents,” and taken in connexion with
M‘Carty’s disappearance when on a journey to seek for
legal redress, afford a suggestive commentary on the
words, “ Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, saith the
Lord.”

Some time during the seventies several of the Palatine
families who had been identified with the first Methodist
society in New York came to Canada, and ultimately
settled in the township of Augusta, west of where the
town of Prescott now stands. They had removed from
New York City to Camden, N.Y., in 1770; but their

1 Meacham’s Rise and Progress of the Methodist Church, pp. 448, 449.

.
38 Methodism in Canada

 

strong loyalist proclivities led them to seek a home in
Canada, where they arrived in 1774, and located near
Montreal. In 1778 they came to Upper Canada, as
above stated. Among these Palatine immigrants were
Paul Heck, his wife Barbara (whose earnest remonstrances
fired the flagging zeal of Philip Embury, and led to the
foundation of the first Methodist society in America), and
their three sons; John Lawrence, who had married the
widow of Philip Embury; David Embury, brother of
Philip; and others. These formed a class among them-
selves, of which a son of Philip Embury became the
leader. Paul Heck died in 1792, and Barbara Heck in
1804, and they lie side by side in the burying-ground
of the “Old Blue Church” in the front of Augusta
township.

The religious condition of the whole country at this
time was simply deplorable. There were but three or
four Presbyterian ministers in the whole of Canada, and
possibly about as many ministers of the Anglican Church ;
and if contemporary testimony is to be trusted, the example
and influence of some of the clergy did not conduce to
vital godliness. It is related that a godly man, who
opposed vain and sinful amusements, happened to meet
the clergyman of his vicinity, who abruptly accosted him
with the words, “You are going to hell.” “And how do
you know that?” mildly inquired the other. “Ah, I’m
sure of it,” was the reply, “for you run out against
dancing, card-playing, and horse-racing, and you'll go to
hell for it.” If the adage “like priest like people” be
true, it need not surprise us to hear Sheriff L., who was
concerned in the M‘Carty affair, declare that “there
Pioneer Days 39

 

should be no religious worship established but that of
the Church of England.”! No wonder that one of the
old settlers should have said in after-years, “For some
years together it appeared as though there were neither
law nor religion in all the country.”

The need of a vital gospel among a people so circum-
stanced cannot be gainsaid, and this want it now pleased
God to supply through the coming of the Methodist
itinerants. The first to enter Upper Canada was William
Lossee. Of his younger days nothing definite is known,
but in 1789 he was received on trial for the itinerant
work, enrolled in Freeborn Garrettson’s pioneer band, and
sent to Lake Champlain under a superintendent. His
work does not appear to have been successful, as next
year his name does not appear in connexion with any circuit.
Possibly the fact that he had been known as a loyalist
had something to do with it. At the Conference of 1790
he was allowed to “range at large,” and it was then that
he decided to visit Canada. Crossing the St. Lawrence,
probably at St. Regis, he proceeded up the north bank,
preaching on the way at points in Matilda, Augusta, and
Elizabethtown ; then up to Kingston and on to Adolphus-
town, where his friends and acquaintances lived. Having
preached a few times along the Bay of Quinte, he spoke
of returning to the United States; but the people having
again heard a gospel to which they had long been strangers,
were anxious for the continuation of such ministrations.
Accordingly a petition was drawn up and numerously
signed praying the New York Conference to appoint a
missionary to these new townships. Lossee carried the

1 Meacham’s History, pp. 445-47.
40 Methodism in Canada

 

petition to the Conference, and volunteered for service in
Canada. Bishop Asbury concurred, and Lossee was sent
with instructions to form a circuit. Delaying until the
ice was strong enough on the river to allow a horse to
cross, Lossee set out on his journey, following the course
of the loyalist emigrants through the wilderness of western
New York. For weeks he rode in the cold winter weather
“ through a country almost without roads and nearly without
inhabitants, crossed the frontier at Kingston, and appears
to have been safely in Adolphustown again in the month
of February.” +

At that time Lossee was about twenty-seven years of
age, tall and active, and, despite a shrivelled arm, a fearless
horseman. As a preacher he belonged to the exhorting
dispensation, fluent, impassioned, fearless, denunciatory—
a veritable “son of thunder.” His sermons were searching
and awakening to the last degree, sweeping away the
“refuge of lies” behind which sinners tried to hide, and
bringing them face to face with the realities of death and
the judgment. Such gifts were eminently necessary among
a careless and godless people, and the awakening which
followed Lossee’s preaching was deep and widespread.
The circuit which he formed extended along the Bay of
Quinte to its uppermost settlements, and embraced the
settléd parts of Ernestown, Fredericksburg, and Adolphus-
town. Societies were formed in various places, and
together with the erection of several churches (chapels
they were called in those days) gave the work an aspect
of permanence. Crossing the Bay of Quinte, Lossee
preached the gospel in the townships of Marysburg and

1 Playter’s History of Methodism in Canada, p. 23.
Pioneer Days 41

 

Sophiasburg, in what is now Prince Edward County, and
laid the foundation upon which future labourers might
build.

The first Methodist church erected in this region, or
indeed in Canada, was on the farm of Paul Huff, on the
shore of Hay Bay. Two miles west lived a widow lady
named Roblin, with her family of four sons and four
daughters, and there Lossee made his home. Returning
from a meeting at Paul Huffs the preacher asked one of
the Roblin young men how he felt. “Oh,” was the
flippant reply, “what I heard was only as the tinkling of
a bell; it went in at one ear and out of the other.”
“But I know something,” said the preacher, “ which is not
like a bell and will make you feel” “What is that?”
said young Roblin. “ Death,” answered Lossee in his most
‘solemn tone. The reproof struck home. The next Sunday
the youth was found at-the meeting, burdened with a sense
of sin and fears of death and the judgment; but from the
meeting he went home rejoicing in the pardoning mercy
of God. Going to his room he returned with a frilled
shirt—an article: of adornment much affected by gay
young men who could afford it—and said to his mother,
in the presence of the rest of the family, “ Mother, as soon
as you can, take off these frills from my shirts. I shall
wear such no more. Mother, the Lord has converted my
soul this morning. Oh, let us all kneel down and pray!”
Afterwards he went to William Moore’s, a mile distant,
and exhorted and prayed with the family, leaving an
impression that resulted in the conversion of Moore, who
subsequently became a class-leader. The incident of the
shirt-frill may appear amusing or even grotesque; but
42 Methodism in Canada

remembering that young Roblin was a leader in dancing
and other frivolities of the times, thé discarding of the
shirt-frill simply meant cutting loose from all his sinful
associations, in which view the grotesqueness disappears.
And after all, “frills” of any kind, whether literal or
metaphorical, do not comport very well with vital
godliness.

At the meeting of the New York Conference in 1792,
Lossee reported 165 as having been received into church
fellowship, and pleadéd so earnestly for an ordained
minister on the circuit that Darius Dunham was ap-
pointed, and the name changed from Kingston to Cataraqui.
Lossee was appointed to a new circuit, to which was
given the Indian name of Oswegotchie. This field was
on the north bank of the St. Lawrence, beginning at
a point about 50 miles east of Kingston, and extending
all the way to Cornwall, a distance of 60 or 70 miles, and
embraced the settled portions of the townships of Eliza-
bethtown, Augusta, Edwardsburg, Matilda, Williamsburg,
Osnabruck, and Cornwall. The two preachers came together
from the Conference, and before parting arranged to hold a
Quarterly Conference on the Cataraqui circuit, according
to the practice elsewhere. The news soon spread over
the entire circuit, and on Sunday, 15th September 1792,
the first quarterly meeting that ever took place in Canada
was held in Mr. Parrot’s barn in the township of Ernestown.
It was to all an occasion of profound interest and deep
solemnity. For the first time the converts received the
sacramental bread and wine from the hands of their own
pastors, and great was their rejoicing! Though they

1 Playter’s History, p. 35.
Pioneer Days 43

 

knew it not, that first quarterly meeting was an epoch
hour of great significance in the history of Canadian
Methodism.

Within the bounds of Lossee’s new circuit were
some German settlements, with a Lutheran pastor of
their own. Among them was a good woman whose
children were converted and joined the Methodist Church.
The mother thought because she had been baptized and
had received the sacrament she was a Christian; but
her children, in the zeal of their new-found experience, told
her that unless she was born again and knew her sins for-
given she would be lost. In great indignation, and perhaps
with some alarm, she betook herself to her pastor: “Mr.
Schwartzfayer, my childern says dot I must be porn akain,
and know my sins forgifen.” To which the pastor replied,
«What now, mother, have I been preaching to you so
long and you have not found that out yet?” From
which it may be inferred that this good German pastor
knew something of the new birth if his parishioner did
not.

In 1791, as previously stated, an Act of the Imperial
Parliament divided Canada into two provinces—U pper
and Lower Canada. This division was made partly to
prevent dissensions between French and English, and
each province was to have its own Legislature. In
many respects the new arrangement was an advantage ;
but the Imperial Act contained at least one provision
that became a source of strife and contention for many
a long day. An allotment of one-seventh of the Crown
Lands (afterwards called the Clery Reserves) was made
for the support of the Protestant religion: Provision
44 Methodism in Canada

 

was also made for a rectory in every township. At this
time the population of Upper Canada was about 20,000,
“ scattered along the St. Lawrence from Lake St. Francis
to Kingston, thence around the Bay of Quinte, along the
Niagara frontier, at Amherstburg on the Detroit River,in the
French settlement on the Thames, and in the Iroquois or
Six Nations settlement on the Grand River.”+ When
Governor Simcoe arrived in 1792, there was no town in
the whole province; a small village at Kingston and
another at the mouth of the Niagara River were all.
At the latter place, called Newark (afterwards Niagara,
and now Niagara-on-the-Lake), Simcoe fixed his
residence, and here the first Parliament of Upper Canada
assembled on 17th September 1792. The house con-
sisted of sixteen members, farmers and traders for
the most part. A number of useful Acts were passed,
and after a five weeks’ session the Governor prorogued
the House, saying in his closing address, “I cannot
dismiss you without earnestly desiring you to promote,
by precept and example, among your respective counties,
the regular habits of ‘piety and morality, the surest
foundations of all private and public felicity.”

The second session of this Parliament was convened
in May of the following year. Among a number of useful
Acts adopted there are two that call for a passing notice;
the one because it throws light upon the circumstances
of the country in regard to religious ordinances, the other
because it shows that the principles of civil liberty were
even then taking deep root in the hearts of the people.
“Marriages publicly contracted before any magistrate, or

1 Playter’s History, p. 29.
Pioneer Days AS

 

commanding officer of a fort, or adjutant, or major of a
regiment acting as chaplain, or any other person in any
other public office or employment,” were declared valid,
while for the future a magistrate was authorised to per-
form marriages if there were less than five ministers in
the district, or none living within eighteen miles of the
persons to be married. The second Act referred to set
out with the unanswerable preamble, “ Whereas it is
unjust that a people who enjoy freedom by law should
encourage the introduction of slaves,” and went on to
enact that hereafter no negro should be imported as
a slave. To provide for the gradual emancipation of
others, it was enacted that all children hereafter born
of negro women were to remain in possession of their
owners until twenty-five years of age, when they were to be
discharged. Thus “ten years before slavery was abolished
in Lower Canada, and forty years before the British
Parliament abolished it in the West Indies, the farmer
legislation of Upper Canada had struck a deathblow to
the great oppression.” +

When the Rev. Dr. Mountain, the first Anglican
Bishop of Quebec, reached his extensive diocese, which
then comprised the whole of Canada, he found only five
Episcopalian congregations throughout the whole extent.
To care for a scattered population of 20,000 souls or
more in Upper Canada there were but three or four
Episcopalian ministers, two or three Lutheran, and two
Methodist. In 1825 the Rev. John Strachan, D.D., first
Anglican Bishop of Toronto, referring to that early period,
said that among the Protestants of Lower Canada “some

? Playter.
46 Methodism in Canada

 

congregations might be found, but the western part of the
diocese, in regard to religion and education, presented a
dreary waste. The people were scattered over a vast
surface, and had the means been furnished of building
churches and schoolhouses, which ought always to go
together, there was little or no chance of their being
supported. Nor did this arise so much from any dis-
inclination on the part of the people as from their in-
ability. In new settlements families live of necessity far
apart; they are for some years so wretchedly poor that
they cannot dispense with the services of their children
who are able to work; and if a church is erected, the
families are for a long time too remote and the roads too
bad to attend. Settlers in a wilderness are often found
greatly changed in a few years. At first they lament
their distance from churches and schools, but by degrees
such lamentations die away, as well as the generous and
noble disposition from which they emanated; and when
the accommodations for public worship are provided, bad
weather, bad roads, or any other trifling cause, prevents
anything like a regular attendance. Living without
restraint, and without the eye of those whom they respect,
a sense of decency and religion frequently disappear.
Here the disinclination to holy things presents itself in
all its deformity, a distaste for divine worship and neglect
of everything sacred, and a total estrangement from God;
and although, from their situation, crimes against society
are few, the heart becomes entirely dead to true piety
and virtue. Wereit not for the mothers, nothing engaging
or amiable would remain in many of the back settlements;
but they, lamenting their separation from civilised society,
Pioneer Days Ay

 

are still anxious to cherish and inculcate some of the
principles of social life.” ?

It does not seem to have occurred to the good Bishop
that conditions so unusual demanded unusual methods,
and that the Methodist itinerancy supplied the very
agency that was needed. When tidings reached. Bishop
Asbury that settlements were extending in the remoter
wilderness of the United States or Canada, he simply
appointed a man to the unknown region with instructions
to “go ‘and form a circuit.” There was no promise of
salary, or any provision for it; but every man so appointed
went forth without a moment’s hesitation, trusting in Him
who feeds the ravens to supply food to eat and raiment to
put on, and more they did not ask. True, the raiment
was often of the coarsest, and food was sometimes scant,
yet these heroic souls were seldom if ever known to
murmur, but rejoiced in tribulation if only they might win
souls to Christ. The discipline of the period allowed a
preacher the munificent salary of $64 a year, and the
second General Conference ordained that the preacher's
wife should be entitled to a similar amount — provided
they could get so much, which they seldom did. Add to
this the long, toilsome, and often dangerous journeys, the
hardships and exposure, the frequent and protracted
separations from home and family, the opposition of the
godless, the indifference of many, the impossibility of
making any provision for old age, should they be spared
so long, and the only wonder is that men could be found
willing to devote themselves to‘such a calling under such
conditions. Many of the pioneer preachers could have

1 Sermon on the death of the Rev. Dr. Mountain, Bishop of Quebec.
48 Methodism in G anada

 

duplicated the experience of Asbury, who about this time.
was obliged, in consequence of illness, to give up his
journeyings to what was then the far west, and wrote as
follows: “The American Alps (Alleghany Mountains,
just beyond which the preachers are now gone), the deep
snows, the great rains, swimming the creeks and rivers,
riding in the night, sleeping on the earthen floors, more
or less of which I must experience if I go to the western
country at this time, might cost me my life.”

We have seen how Lossee, accompanied by Darius
Dunham, returned from Conference of 1792 to work in
Canada, the latter taking charge of the Cataraqui circuit,
while the former proceeded to organise the work on the
Oswegotchie field. Both seem to have laboured successfully,
and each returned an increase of ninety members at
the end of the year. Neither of these men attended the
Conference of 1793, and for some unexplained reason no
appointments to Canada appear in the Minutes. At this
time the name of William Lossee disappears from the
Minutes, and is never restored:;. The cause has a touch of
pathos. When on the Cataraqui circuit Lossee formed
the acquaintance of a young lady of admirable character
and rare personal attractions, for whom he formed a strong
attachment. How far the young lady may have returned
his affection we have no means of knowing, but when
Lossee left the neighbourhood to go to the Oswegotchie
circuit he doubtless cherished bright hopes. In the
meantime Dunham formed the acquaintance of the same
lady, and he also was powerfully attracted. Suffice it to
say, his suit proved successful, and the young lady
subsequently became his wife. Tidings of what had
Pioneer Days 49

 

occurred came to Lossee with a shock that so far overset
his mental balance as to render him entirely unfit for his
work, and the Bishop quietly dropped him from the list
of itinerants. When his mental health was somewhat
restored, Lossee returned to the United States, engaged in
business in New York, served as a local preacher, and
after an interval of years revisited his friends in the Bay
of Quinte country. It is probable he never married.

For a time the work in Canada was almost stationary,
but in 1796 two young men were sent into the country,
under whom it pleased God greatly to revive His work.
And not in Canada only, for the sacred fire spread to
various parts of the United States. Hezekiah Calvin
Wooster was received on trial in 1793, and Daniel Coote
in 1794. These two offered their services for Canada and
were accepted, Wooster being stationed on the Oswegotchie
and Coote on the Bay of Quinte (formerly Cataraqui)
circuit, with Darius Dunham as presiding elder. Their
journey to Canada was slow and tedious. Twenty-one
nights were spent in the rude cabins of dwellers in the
New York wilderness before they reached their destination.
But once in Canada they entered upon their work in the
spirit of men who had much to do and little time in
which to do it, and it was not long before fruit appeared.
Calvin Wooster, as he was commonly called, was a man of
mighty faith and prayer. Often at houses where he
lodged his voice would be heard in the night season
pleading with God for the salvation of men. Wherever
he went he preached holiness, and he lived it. Such was
the fervency of his spirit and the pungency of his appeals
that sinners would escape if possible from the house, or,

4
50 Methodism in Canada

 

overwhelmed with conviction, would fall down and cry
aloud for mercy. The other preachers caught the flame,
and were swept along under its impulse.

The way in which divine power often manifested itself
under Wooster’s preaching was very remarkable. Once
at a quarterly meeting on the Bay of Quinte circuit, just
as Wooster began his sermon, a man in the front of the
gallery began to swear profanely, and otherwise to
disturb the congregation. The preacher appeared to take
no notice until he was in the midst of his sermon, when
suddenly fixing his eyes on the profane man, he pointed
his finger at him, and stamping with his foot cried with
great energy, “My God, smite him!” Instantly the man
fell as if shot through the heart, and such a sense of God’s
presence and power came down upon the congregation
-that on every hand sinners cried for mercy, while the
saints shouted for joy. On another occasion, as Nathan
Bangs relates, “ A stout opposer of the Methodists, hearing
that his wife was in a prayer-meeting, rushed violently
into the room, seized his wife and dragged her to the door,
when, attempting to open it, he himself was seized with
trembling, his knees failed him, he fell helpless upon the
floor, and was fain to beg an interest in the prayers of
those very people whom he had so much despised and
persecuted. . . . This man afterwards became an itinerant
minister.” One more incident may be related. At a
quarterly meeting, while Dunham was meeting the
official brethren, Wooster remained in another meeting to
pray with some who were awakened and others who were
seeking full redemption. Suddenly a power from on high
came upon the congregation. Many shouted the praises
Pioneer Days 51

 

of God, while others in silent awe lay prostrate on the
floor. At this juncture Dunham came in and, seeing
what was going on, kneeled down and began praying to
God to stop the “raging of the wildfire.” Meanwhile
Wooster kneeled beside his troubled brother and _ softly
whispered the prayer, “Lord, bless Brother Dunham!
Lord, bless Brother Dunham!” The prayer of faith
prevailed. Dunham fell prostrate on the floor, and ere
he arose received a baptism of the very “fire” he had
deprecated. A ministry so intense and burning as
Wooster’s could not be expected to continue long. After
two years he returned to the United States, a victim of
consumption, and died in holy triumph, at his father’s
residence, on 6th November 1798.

A different type of man in some respects, yet equally
devoted, was Samuel Coote. Exceedingly handsome and
graceful in person,—as was his wife,—affable and polite in
manner, he attracted immediate attention wherever he went.
In natural eloquence he far excelled any who went before
him in that part of the country, and long years afterward it
was doubted by those who had heard him if his equal was
to be found among those who succeeded him. Mis oratory -
was smooth and flowing, and graceful like his person, and
being entirely different from anything to which the
primitive congregations in Canada had ever listened, it
attracted people in large numbers and held them spell-
bound while he talked. But far better than admiration
and applause, his preaching led men to Christ, and
hundreds were converted under his ministry. His methods
in pastoral work were sometimes singular. He would ride
up to a friend’s house, alight from his horse, and | take off
52 Methodism in Canada

\

 

the saddle-bags. When the door was opened for him he
would enter, but before shaking hands or speaking with
anyone he would kneel down by a chair, spend a few
moments in silent prayer, then arise and greet each
member of the family with his accustomed affability and
affection. There was one circumstance, however, which
indicated that Coote was not altogether free from that
vanity which sometimes finds a lodgment in the most in-
genuous minds. Like Absalom, he had beautiful hair, and
he wore it long, falling down over his shoulders and
turning up in graceful curls. On retiring at night he
would tie up his flowing locks, and in the morning comb
them out and arrange them with scrupulous care. It must
have seemed rather strange, at a period when the sharpest
rebukes from the pulpit were often levelled at extrava-
gance in dress or any form of personal ornament. But
after all, one spot on the sun—and that a small one—is
scarcely noticeable against the brightness of the whole
disc.

In the closing year of the century Samuel Coote
returned to the United States; but some time before his
departure a circumstance occurred that is worth recording,
as it throws some light on the attitude of the denomina-
tions toward each other in those early days, and the extent
to which religious controversy sometimes prevailed. A
Presbyterian minister in the Bay of Quinte country, named
M‘Dowell, was a rigid Calvinist, who carried his doctrines
to their logical conclusions. When preaching at Adolphus-
town on one occasion, and enlarging upon his favourite
theme of unconditional election, he offered to publicly argue
the point with anyone who held a contrary belief. Coote
Pioneer Days 53

 

heard of the challengg, and, although modest in regard to
his own scholastic attainments, resolved to accept it. The
place appointed was a Presbyterian church in Ernestown,
large for the times; but the congregation was larger still,
and the discussion was held in the open air. The Presby-
terian, mounting a waggon, occupied the first half of the
day; then the Methodist preacher began, but after he had
been speaking about two hours, the Presbyterians, headed by
their minister, left the meeting, refusing to listen any
longer; which might mean either that they felt their
champion was defeated, or that their righteous indignation
was stirred by the attacks of the other speaker on their
favourite doctrine. Coote continued his discourse until
the shadows began to fall, and it was generally allowed that
he had the better of the argument. Be that as it may,
the discussion resulted in some modification of Calvinistic
preaching, and the “decrees” did not play so prominent a
part in pulpit discourse as they had done aforetime.

In the same year that Coote returned to the United
States Darius Dunham retired from the ranks of the
itinerant ministry and “ located,” fixing his residence in the
township of Fredericksburg, near the village of Napanee.
During his twelve years in the ministry he had rendered
much useful service to the infant church. He cared
nothing for public opinion, and feared not the face of man.
Utterly fearless in rebuking sin, and denunciatory in his
style of preaching, he obtained the sobriquet of “scolding
Dunham,” which was not altogether undeserved. He was
aware of the appellation given him, and would often begin
a discourse by saying, “Well, scolding Dunham is come
again, and probably some of you would not have come to
54 Methodism in Canada

 

hear if you had known who was going to preach.” Such
a style might sometimes arouse, but it was not calculated
to attract. In building up the Church he was more con-
cerned about quality than numbers. On one occasion,
when giving an opportunity to any who might desire to
unite with the Church, a young woman who was present
seemed very wishful, and said in an audible tone to another
young woman who sat beside her, “ Won’t you join too?”
“ Oh,” said the other, in an indifferent tone, “I don’t care
if Ido.” “Better wait until you do care,” was Dunham’s
grim response; and wait she did. After Dunham located,
he continued to serve God and the Church as a minister
in that capacity to the close of his life.

The first regular missionary in Lower Canada was the
eccentric but devoted Lorenzo Dow. Converted at the age
of fifteen, he soon became exercised about preaching the
gospel. Two years later he began to pray in public
and sometimes to exhort. But his parents repressed
what they considered his premature zeal. No man ever
triumphed over so many obstacles. When eighteen years
of age he attended some appointments with several circuit
preachers, but they all discouraged his attempts. He tried
again, but was told he had better go home. Three months
were spent on a circuit on Rhode Island, and the Quarterly
Board discharged him. At the Conference of 1797 he
was proposed, rejected, and sent home. Yet, impelled by
a strong sense of duty, he went about preaching from ten
to fifteen times a week, and in eight months travelled
over 8,000 miles, chiefly where there were no other
preachers. At the Conference of 1798 he was again
proposed ; such, however, were the accounts of his strange
Pioneer Days 55

 

eccentricities, that the Conference, after a debate of three
hours, declined to receive him, but left him in the hands
of the presiding elder. These repeated rejections filled
Lorenzo Dow with unspeakable grief, and he remarks, “I
was afraid I should become insane.” Still, he received
‘an appointment, and went to work in his accustomed
manner, preaching and visiting from house to house. But
his eccentricities went with him, and he was called “ crazy
Dow.” In the following year, 1799, he was sent to
“Essex,” but this simply meant that he was to go and
form a circuit where none existed before. Dow fulfilled
his commission, and formed a circuit which lay partly in
Vermont and partly in the townships of Dunham and
Sutton in Lower Canada. That his labours were success-
ful may be inferred from the fact that at the next
Conference the circuit was returned as having 274
members. But however devoted he may have been, and
blameless in his personal religious character, Lorenzo could
never be a good Methodist. That is to say, he never could
work by rule and method, but must do good, if at all, in a
fashion of his own. He was something like a comet with
a very eccentric orbit, coming no one knew whence and
going no one could tell whither. The next year, in obedi-
ence to one of his strange impulses, he took passage in a
ship for Ireland, believing that the Lord had a work for
him to do there.!

In 1795 the seat of the Provincial Government was
transferred from Newark, at the mouth of the Niagara
River, to a point on the north shore of Lake Ontario,
about 40 miles from its western extremity. The land

1 Playter’s History.
56 Methodism in Canada

 

was cleared and surveyed, government buildings, barracks,
and a few private houses erected, and the place received
the name of York, destined to become, in after-years, under
the name of Toronto, the second commercial city in the
Dominion of Canada. At the second session of the second
Parliament an Act was passed the purport of which sounds
‘strangely in these modern days. Hitherto matrimony
could be solemnised only by the clergy of the Church of
England, though civil marriages solemnised before a
magistrate or other official were valid. But now the right
was to be extended to ministers of the Church of Scotland,
to Lutherans and Calvinists, whatever the latter phrase
may mean. Methodist ministers were entirely excluded,
and even in the case of others the privilege was hampered
with conditions that in these days would be regarded as
positively insulting. A Presbyterian minister, for example,
must take with him seven respectable members of his
congregation to testify his calling. He must produce
proofs of his ordination, take the oath of allegiance, and
pay five shillings to the clerk for a certificate of authority
from the court. But before doing all this the minister
must give notice of application at the previous session of
the court, and pay one dollar, the notice to be read in the
open court and posted in the clerk’s office. These circum-
stances are referred to here because of their bearing upon
the struggle in after-years for religious liberty.

Turning now from the region of the St. Lawrence and
the Bay of Quinte, where Dunham and Coote had been
succeeded by four new men,—Joseph Jewell, Sylvanus
Keeler, William Anson, and James Herron,—we proceed
to inquire how it fared with those who had crossed the
Pioneer Days 57

 

Niagara River and formed settlements in the wilderness of
the Niagara peninsula. We have seen how the work of
Methodism in that region began under the preaching of
Major George Neal, but several years elapsed before a
travelling preacher was secured. In 1795 Niagara appears
on the list of circuits, with Darius Dunham in charge,
and a membership of 65. As no travelling preacher
had hitherto visited this region, we may infer that those
who had been influenced by Neal’s preaching had been
enrolled as willing to unite with the Methodist Church on
the arrival of a regular itinerant. It appears that Neal
entered the travelling ranks in the United States after the
close of the war, but soon retired on account of impaired
health. His call to the ministry was peculiar. In those
days dreams and “ visions,” so called, were- not uncommon,
and were treated with great deference. Neal dreamt that
a glittering sword was given him, having two edges, and
with the name of Wesley emblazoned thereon. He began
preaching again soon after his arrival in Canada, and bore
down so hard on the prevailing vices of the country that
the exasperated rabble pelted him with stones on one
occasion until the blood flowed down his face. Souls not
a few were converted under his ministry, among others
Christian Warner, who became leader of the first class in
the Niagara country, and near whose farm the first church
was built. “The Rev. George Ferguson, while yet a
preaching soldier during the war of 1812, found many of
Neal’s converts in various places on the frontier, and still
more of them when he came to travel the Niagara circuit
in 1817.”1 The Rev. Robert Corson, who preached Neal’s ,

1 Carroll, Case and his Contemporaries, vol. i. p. 89.
58 Methodism in Canada

 

funeral sermon, described him as follows to the Rev. Dr.
Carroll: “Neal was possessed of a good English education.
His preaching abilities were above mediocrity, very zealous,
and rising sometimes to eloquence. He was tall and erect
in person, retaining somewhat of his military bearing to
the last. Religious truth from his lips sometimes was
expressed in military phrase; he was wont to call the
gospel a genuine Jerusalem blade, two-edged, cutting both
ways.”? Far on in life he became blind, but still quoted
the Scriptures with correctness. He lived to the age of
ninety-one, and died in peace.

Respecting the work in the Niagara country, for the
first few years after the advent of the itinerants, the
records are very scant. As we have seen, Darius Dunham
was appointed to that field in 1795, and was succeeded
the following year by James Coleman. In 1798 Michael
Coote (brother of Samuel) is associated with Coleman, but
in 1799 the latter is again alone on the field. This faith-
ful itinerant calls for at least a passing remark. In his
early years James Coleman grew up in ignorance and sin;
about the close of the revolutionary war, however, Methodist
itinerants reached the neighbourhood, and young Coleman
“received the word with joy,” but having no root in him-
self, when persecution arose because of the word he was
offended, and fell away. After a severe illness he earnestly
sought and obtained pardon, united with the Methodist
Episcopal Church, and not long after received a licence
to exhort, and subsequently a licence to preach. Being
drafted to serve in the war against the Indians, he refused
to comply, informing the captain that he would not serve.

* Carroll, Case and his Contemporaries, vol. i. p. 90.
Pioneer Days 59

 

“If you want to preach,” said the captain, “you may go
and preach in the army,” and sent an officer with two or
three men to seize him. When the posse arrived they
found Coleman preaching, listened to ‘the end, and then
went away, troubling him no more. In 1791 he entered
the itinerant ranks, and in 1794 was sent to Canada.
On the route, in company with another volunteer and a
young Canadian who was returning to the United States,
they spent fifteen successive nights in the woods, building
fires to scare away wild beasts. Before the journey was
ended food supplies gave out, and they were reduced to
one cracker each per day. Two years were spent in the
Bay of Quinte country and on the St. Lawrence, after
which he was sent to the Niagara circuit. Here he seems
to have laboured for three years, and then returned to the
United States, where he served in the itinerant work
until 1824, when he became superannuated. He died
in 1842. During his last year on the Niagara circuit
his ministrations were made a great blessing to one who
was destined to become one of the most noted personalities
in American Methodism during the first half of the nine-
teenth century—the revered Nathan Bangs.

In the year 1800 the name of Joseph Sawyer appears
in connexion with Niagara circuit. Joseph Jewell is
presiding elder of the Canada district. There are six
itinerants in all, and the membership of the church
amounts to 936. In 1801 Niagara is divided, and the
Long Point circuit is formed, with Joseph Sawyer and Seth
Crowell as circuit preachers. The number of preachers in
Canada is now 10, and the membership has increased to
1,159. About this time a train of providences raised up
60 Methodism in Canada

a labourer in the Canadian field destined to fill a large
space in the history of American Methodism, and of him
we must give some account.

Nathan Bangs was born in New England, where he
received as good a common school education as the country
afforded at that time. Subsequently his father taught him
the art of surveying. When he was about thirteen years
of age, the family removed to the wilderness part of New
York State, and located on the east branch of the Delaware
River. To this remote settlement the Methodist itinerants
made their way, and under their faithful preaching nearly
all of the Bangs family were converted, and united with
the Methodist Church. Four of the brothers ultimately
became preachers; but at the time of which we speak,
Nathan fought against conviction and levelled his shafts
of sarcasm at the humble itirerants. When twenty years
of age, impelled by the restless pioneer spirit, he set out
for the wilds of Canada, in company with a devoted sister
and her husband. Their way lay through dense forests,
and the only mode of conveyance for the lady and their
few effects was an ox-sled. With such a vehicle progress
must have been painfully slow. Passing over the ground
where the city of Buffalo now stands, where they found
only two or three log huts, they crossed the Niagara at
Fort Erie, and followed the course of the river downward
to the neighbourhood of its mighty cataract. Nathan
Bangs had journeyed far from home, but was unable to
get away from himself or the stings of an accusing con-
science. His most serious impressions were deepened by
his very surroundings. “The mournful thoughts,” he
writes, “which passed through my mind while wandering
Pioneer Days 61

 

alone in the forests of this strange country I cannot well
express. Sometimes I would seat myself in the solitary
woods and bewail my condition till my heaving heart
found relief in floods of tears. The best satisfaction I
could find was in being alone, reading, praying, and medi-
tating. On one thing I resolved: being now separated
from my former associates, I determined not to entangle
myself again in the vain pleasures of the world.”

Tt had been young Bangs’ intention to support himself
as a land surveyor, but not finding employment in that
work he took a school in what was afterwards known as
the Warner neighbourhood. His success as a teacher and
his general demeanour won the respect of the people; but
having accumulated some funds he was in danger of re-
lapsing into religious indifference. Still his mind remained
susceptible to serious impressions and slight occurrences
were sufficient to recall them. For months he was passing
through a series of mental struggles that racked his tender
conscience, but he found not the way of peace. His in-
veterate prejudice would not allow him to hear the few
Methodists with whom he occasionally came in contact;
indeed, he shunned them as dangerous fanatics. A certain
clergyman, so called, came into the neighbourhood, but
being a card-player and a drunkard he had no medicine for
a soul distressed. A Calvinistic preacher came, and young
Bangs talked much with him, seeking relief in the dogmas
of election and final perseverance. A devoted Methodist
crossed his path, and, the troubled youth must needs assail
his views; the Arminian, however, spoke of personal re-
ligion, and “his words,” says Bangs, “came like a dagger
to my heart, and I could make no reply, but turned from
62 Methodism in Canada

 

him, begging him to pray for me.” But as yet he could
not receive the Methodist doctrine. “I supposed,” he
writes, “that a people about whom so much evil was said
must be under a fatal delusion. Thus I went stumbling
over the truth and warring against my conscience.”

About this time James Coleman, a Methodist itinerant,
reached the neighbourhood, and lodged with the family
where Bangs made his home. Coleman’s abilities were not
great, but he was singularly devoted, and the unction that °
attended his prayers was most unusual. His conversation,
preaching, and prayers produced a deep impression upon
the mind of Nathan Bangs, but he did not open his mind
to the sympathetic itinerant, and his distress continued.
But a day or two later, while walking in the forest and
meditating over what Coleman had said, he was constrained
to kneel in prayer, and then resumed his walk, looking for
light and comfort. Suddenly, like John Wesley, he “ felt
his heart strangely warmed.” “What is this?” was his
instinctive thought; and the answer seemed to be, “It is
the love of God.” His new-found peace and joy continued
for several days; but failing to confess Christ before men,
doubt and darkness returned. Hearing that two Methodist
preachers had arrived, and that a love-feast was to be held
at the house of Christian Warner, he went with gladness,
resolved to receive the truth from whatever source it might
come. The itinerants were Joseph Sawyer and Joseph
Jewell, men of power in their day. Sawyer was the
preacher; his theme was the Beatitudes, and as he dis-
coursed on “Blessed are they that mourn,” etc, “he
unfolded,” says Bangs, “all the enigmas of my heart more
fully than I could myself.” Further conversation with the
Pioneer Days 63

 

itinerant was very helpful. From this time forward he
took a decided stand, and daily opened his school with
prayer. This raised a storm of opposition, and some even
threatened personal violence. The result was, he collected
what was owing to him and left the school.

“T had now,” he remarked, “ taken a stand from which
I could not well recede. I felt much inward peace, and
the Holy Scriptures were indescribably precious to me.”
Having joined the Methodist society, it never occurred to
him to do other than conform to the rules. He had
formerly dressed in the fashion of the times, with ruffled
shirts and long hair tied in a queue; but now the ruffles
were discarded, and the long hair shared the same fate.
“When I became acquainted with the general rules,” he
remarks, “I was struck with their scriptural character, and
could not but remark the truth of Wesley’s saying, * All:
these we know the Spirit of God writes on truly awakened
hearts.’ Before I knew these rules as in the Methodist
discipline, the Holy Spirit had written most of them on
my heart.” It was not long after this that he entered
into the rest of faith, The Holy Spirit revealed to him at
once his own utter sinfulness, the righteousness of the
divine law, and the method whereby Christ had “ fulfilled
the law and made it honourable.” “ At the same time,” he
tells us, “I felt a gracious power to rely upon His atoning
merits by simple faith. Instantly I felt that my sins were
cancelled for Christ’s sake, and the Spirit of God bore
witness with mine that I was adopted into the family of
His people.” Having received this grace, he must needs
turn it to account. “I went from house to house,” he
says, “declaring what God had done for my soul, exhorting
64 Methodism in Canada

 

the people to seek His mercy, and praying with those who
would permit me. Some mocked, some wept, and some
received the word with joy.”

Having obtained another school in a Methodist neigh-
bourhood, young Bangs set himself to a careful reading of
the works of Wesley and Fletcher, meanwhile exercising
his gifts in a somewhat private way. A constitutional
timidity was a great hindrance to public effort. When
leading in prayer he “ trembled like a leaf,” and an attempt
to lead a class “was an entire failure.” About this time
he became an inmate of the home of Christian Warner, a
devoted Christian and useful class-leader, through whose
teaching and example, joined to the reading of Wesley’s
works, he was led to a clear apprehension of the believer’s
privilege to be sanctified wholly, and became an earnest
seeker of this grace also. To one so thoroughly in earnest,
hungering and thirsting after righteousness, the result
could not be doubtful. Shortly after, when uniting in
prayer with a few Christian friends, the grace of supplication
was vouchsafed in unusual measure. “My supplications,”
he writes, “ were importunate, so that I know not how long
T continued to pray. When I ceased I sank down into an
inexpressible calmness, as lying passive at the feet of God.
I felt relieved and comforted, as though I had been cleansed
from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit... . All my
inward distress was gone. I could look up with a child-
like composure and trust, and behold God as my heavenly
Father. . . . I certainly was filled at that time with the
‘perfect love which casteth out fear’ for I had no fear of
death or judgment. . . . Such a sense of God’s ineffable
goodness pervaded my soul that I seemed to sink, con-
Pioneer Days 65

 

founded by His love, into very nothingness before Him. I
felt that I was the least of all saints, but had an evidence
bright as the noonday sun that all my sins were taken
away, and without fear I could depart and be with Christ
at any moment He should see fit to call me. I here
simply relate the facts as they occurred. The change in
my nature was as evident to me as had been my justifi-
cation. Whatever name others may attach to this gracious
experience, I believe I was then sanctified by the Spirit
of God mercifully givén unto me.”

We have dwelt somewhat fully on the spiritual struggles
of Nathan Bangs, not only because the record is intensely
interesting in itself, but because it indicates the prominence
given in those pioneer days to the doctrine and experience
of entire sanctification, and explains the secret of the
spiritual power wielded by men like Bangs and Wooster,
and their phenomenal success in winning souls. They
realised the truth of what Wesley wrote in 1776: “ When
Christian perfection is not strongly and explicitly preached,
there is seldom any remarkable blessing from God; and,
consequently, little addition to the society, and little life
in the members of it. . . . Till you press the believers to
expect full salvation now, you must not look for any
revival.” The words are as true to-day as when first they
were uttered, and it is because ministers and people give
so little heed to them that a paralysis of worldliness and
formality has fallen upon the Church. Only let the old
testimony be revived, and the old power will return.

With such an experience it is not surprising that a
strong conviction came to the mind of Nathan Bangs that
he must preach the gospel; but his deep sense of in-

5
66 Methodism in Canada

 

sufticiency for so great a work held him back, and he did
not open his mind to anyone. He prayed much, however,
and “one day,” he writes, “as I was walking the road in
deep meditation upon this subject, a sudden ray of divine
illumination struck my mind like a flash of lightning,
accompanied with the words, ‘I have anointed thee to
preach the gospel.’ I sank to the ground and cried out,
‘Here am I.’” The work was done, the struggle ended.
From this time forward: Nathan Bangs never wavered or
looked backward. To say that he had no temptations, or
even times of depression from the sense of his insufficiency,
would be equivalent to saying that he was not human;
but none of these things moved him, and throughout a
ministry extending over half a century he could say, “ One
thing I do.”

Joseph Sawyer, like most of the preachers of his time,
was a quick and accurate reader of human character, and
he discovered in Nathan Bangs the qualities requisite for
a successful preacher of the gospel. The itinerancy at
that period was under an almost military discipline, which
explains in part its phenomenal success. Instead of being
trained for the ministry they were trained in it, as became
members of the legio tonans, or thundering legion.1 When
the call came for men for the firing-line, there was little
disposition to confer with flesh and blood, and indeed there
was not time for it. The call was too urgent, and the .
King’s business required haste. Strongly pressed by
Sawyer to preach the gospel, the young convert yielded

1In Christian tradition this name was given to a legion of Christians in
the army of Marcus Aurelius, in battle with the Quadi, whose prayers for
rain were answered by a thunder shower, which refreshed the thirsty
Romans, while it destroyed numbers of the enemy by lightning,
Pioneer Days 67

 

so far as to consent to take an appointment fifteen
miles away. On Sunday morning he was on the ground,
earnestly praying for divine aid; but, like many another
new recruit on the eve of battle, he was full of fears, and
wished he had not undertaken the task. But when the
time came, “I had no sooner opened my mouth,” he writes,
“than the Lord filled it with words and arguments; the
Scriptures seemed like a fruitful field before me. The
word of God was like fire in my bones, and its utterance
was attended ‘with the Holy Ghost and with power.”
Soon after he made a second venture in the neighbourhood
where his sister resided, but was unable to fix his mind on
a suitable text, and abandoned the thought of preaching,
purposing to exhort instead. When the moment came, he
opened his Bible, read the first words he saw, which
happened to be Luke xx. 14: “But when the husband-
men saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying,
This is the heir: come, let us kill him, that the inheritance
may be ours.” Then for three quarters of an hour he
spoke with such readiness and power that the people
appeared as if thunder-struck, and the effect was
remarkable.

Another forward step was now taken. Sawyer took
the promising neophyte with him “ around the circuit,”
telling him, “ You must exhort after I preach,” a common
practice in those days. “When I rose to follow him,”
writes Bangs, “I shook in every limb, my lips stiffened,
and I could hardly speak; but soon they were loosed, and
the power of the Spirit descended on the assembly in such
a manner that some sobbed aloud, some praised God
audibly, and others fell to the floor as if shot dead.” No
68 Methodism in Canada

 

wonder the young exhorter “ felt unusually comforted and
encouraged.” More than that, however, he felt elated.
The adversary was not slow in perceiving the “joint in
the harness,” and suggested, “See what you have done:
you have excelled even the preacher.” Bangs strove hard
to repel the temptation, but it followed him all that day
and the next. At the next appointment he was taught
a needed lesson. “ When I rose to exhort,” he says, “my
mind was barren: I could only stammer out a few words,
and at last sat down, utterly confounded and mortified.”
Other varying experiences he had, sometimes speaking
with liberty and sometimes with none. But he had
learned his lesson. His sufficiency was of God. Hence-
forth his trust would be alone in the Almighty arm. He
was now fully committed to the calling and work of an
itinerant, wherein we must follow him a little further, as
it belongs to the story of pioneer days.

Methodism in America at this period might be justly
termed the Church militant, and its itinerants were leaders
of what must have seemed, from the human standpoint,
a forlorn hope. And yet in its victorious march it carried
many thousands captive, and on its famous battlefields
“the slain of the Lord were many.” This was due, in
large measure, to “the singular devotion of the preachers.
Asbury’s rule was absolute, and might appear arbitrary ;
but he never sent his preachers on a campaign where he
was unwilling to lead the way, or expose them to toil and
suffering that he did not fully share. His example was
itself an inspiration. The preachers caught his spirit and
went courageously wherever he sent them, esteeming the
post of danger and hardship the post of honour, And
Pioneer Days 69

 

among these devoted men no one rendered a more ready
obedience or more heroic service than did Nathan Bangs.
His first circuit as a travelling preacher was Niagara. “It
extended,” he tells us, “from the head of Lake Ontario
over the Grand River, and comprehended all that part of
the country known as Long Point, which juts into Lake
Erie.” But this is a very inadequate description. The
fact is, the circuit included the whole of the Niagara
peninsula, wherever there were settlements, from Lake
Erie to Lake Ontario, and from the Niagara River westward
to the township of Oxford, and required a tour of six weeks,
and preaching almost daily, to complete a single round.
Roughly stated, the circuit embraced a territory about
30 by 80 miles in extent, or approximately 2,400 square
miles. “The settlements in this country,” Bangs writes,
“were new, the roads bad, and the fare very hard; but God
was with us in much mercy, awakening and converting
sinners, and this was abundant compensation for all our
toils.” When filling some appointments in the town-
ship of Burford, word reached him of another settlement,
twenty-five miles farther west, where they were anxious
for the gospel, and he set out to visit them. “It being
the beginning of winter,” he remarked, “the ground partly
frozen, the mud deep, and the road, if such it could be
called, running through a wilderness, though I made all
the speed I could I travelled only about fourteen miles
that day. I put up at a small log hut with a family
that had been educated as Baptists. I was treated with
hospitality, but they seemed to have little sense of religion.”
The next day’s experience was more encouraging. Reach-
ing the settlement for which he was bound, he lodged with
70 Methodism in Canada

 

a Major Ingersoll, to whom he had a letter of introduction.
“T was received,” he says, “with cordiality and treated
with respect. I preached here three times, and under the
last two sermons many were awakened to a sense of their
lost condition, and afterwards converted.”

Shortly before receiving this encouragement the young
evangelist had been so sorely discouraged that he resolved
to return home. On reaching the Grand River a thaw
had broken up the ice, and it was impossible to cross, and
he was compelled to retrace his steps. Dreams were not
lightly esteemed in those days, and Bangs had a dream
which was, to say the least, remarkable. He thought he
was working with a pickaxe on the top of a rock for
hours without making any impression. Quite discouraged,
he said to himself at last, “It is useless; I will pick no
more.” Suddenly a stranger of dignified aspect stood
beside him. “ You will pick no more?” asked the stranger.
“No,” said the dreamer. “Were you not set to the
task?” “Yes.” “And why abandon it?” “My work is
vain; I make no impression on the rock.” Solemnly the
stranger answered, “ What is that to you? Your duty is
to pick whether the rock yields or not. The work is in
your own hands, the result is not. Work on.” Resuming
his task, the sleeper struck a mighty blow, and the rock
flew into a thousand pieces. A glorious revival that came
soon after was regarded as the fulfilment of his dream.
And why not? If it please God to instruct and encourage
His children “in thoughts from the visions of the night,
when deep sleep falleth on men,” what do we gain by
doubting it? Visions and dreams, whereby God “ sealéth
instruction,” were common in a simpler age than ours;
Pioneer Days vt

 

but in the gross materialism of later times it would seem
as though the vision had departed, and that our dreams
seldom rise above the dignity of a nightmare.

Many pages might be filled with spiritual experiences
of varying character; my object, however, is not to write a
spiritual biography, but to present a picture of social and
religious conditions in those pioneer days; and incidents
in the career of Nathan Bangs are so typical of the period
that I use them freely. The following brief quotation
aptly describes the circumstances of many of ‘the early
itinerants: “One cold day, while riding through the woods,
I was deeply disturbed with the thoughts of my loneliness
and destitution; for my pecuniary means were about ex-
hausted. My salary was next to nothing. I could see
no means for my future wants; I lived from house to
house, from settlement to settlement, and the future seemed
dreary and forlorn. Here was another temptation by
which my mind was greatly perplexed, when taking out
my hymn-book from my pocket my eyes fell upon these
words :

Peace, troubled soul, thou need’st not fear,
Thy great Provider still is near;

Who fed thee last will feed thee still ;
Be calm, and sink into His will. !

As I read them such a sudden glow of joy filled and over-
flowed my soul that I praised God aloud, and I rode on
triumphing in His goodness to me and to all men.”
The faithful preaching of the gospel, while it brought
many to Christ, stirred the hatred of opposers in no
ordinary degree. The following incidents were related
many years afterwards by one who had personal know-
72 Methodism in Canada

 

ledge of the facts. Bangs was the first minister of any
denomination to visit the settlement of Colchester. A
man named W., though not a Christian, opened his house
for preaching. Bangs was unsparing in his denunciations
of sin of every kind, especially such as was common
among the people. Some of W.’s godless companions
resolved to put a stop to this, and it was finally decided
that they would meet at the next preaching-service, when
W., who was privy to the scheme, should turn the preacher
out of his house and forbid him to return. Somehow
the scheme got noised abroad, a crowd assembled, and
the nefarious plan was carried out to the letter. Where-
upon the preacher literally “shook the dust off his feet”
as a testimony against them for refusing the message of
salvation. He then departed amid the jeers of the crowd.
Now for the sequel. From that time peace and prosperity
began to forsake W.’s home. He became a wreck, morally,
mentally, socially. His wife was seduced from her home,
and never returned. In a few years all his property
was lost or squandered, and he became dependent on
charity for his daily bread. Years afterward this same
W., now old and decrepit, sickened and died. The Rev.
Horace Dean, then stationed in that region, called on the
wretched man, to impart, if possible, counsel and consola-
tion; but no impression could be produced on his heart,
and he died in a state of stolid indifference.

The work of Bangs in the Niagara peninsula was now
ended, and he prepared to depart for another field, in
company with Joseph Jewell. Their destination was the
Bay of Quinte country, but a series of unforeseen cir-
cumstances induced Bangs to tarry for a time at Little
Pioneer Days 73

 

York (now Toronto). On Yonge Street there were settle-
ments extending northward from Little York for a distance
of thirty miles, and among these Bangs exercised his
ministry. “The settlements in this part of the country,”
he writes, “were all new, the roads extremely bad, and
the people generally poor and demoralised. Our occasional
preachers were exposed to many privations, and often to
much suffering from poor fare and violent opposition.”
Dr. Abel Stevens, the talented historian of American
Methodism, to whose Life and Times of Nathan Bangs,
D.D., T am indebted for many of these incidents, presents
a graphic picture of the conditions prevailing in those
pioneer days. Commenting on an observation of Bangs
concerning the people, that “all showed openly what they
were by their words and actions, and either accepted
religion heartily or opposed it violently,” Dr. Stevens
observes, “Such is the character of frontier communities.
Moral restraints are feeble among them, conventional
restraints are few; the freedom of their simple wilderness
life characterises all their actions; they have their own
code of decorum, and sometimes of law itself. They are
frank, hospitable, fond of excitement and of hearty
if not reckless amusements. The primitive Methodist
preachers knew well tiow to accommodate themselves to
the habits and also to the fare of such a people; hence
their extraordinary success along the whole American
frontier. Their simple and familiar methods of worship,
in cabins and barns or under trees, suited the rude settlers.
Their meetings were without the stiff order and cere-
monious formality of older communities. They were often
scenes of free debate, of interpellations and interlocutions
74 Methodism in Canada

 

—a hearer at the door-post or the window responding
to, questioning, or defying the preacher, who ‘held forth’
from a chair, a bench, or a barrel, at the other end of
the building. This popular freedom was not without its
advantages. It authorised equal freedom on the part of
the preacher; it allowed great plainness of speech and
directness of appeal. The early memoranda before me
afford not a few glimpses of this primitive life of the
frontier: crowded congregations in log huts or barns—
some of the hearers seated; some standing, some filling the
unglazed casements, some thronging the overhanging trees ;
startling interjections thrown into the sermon by eccentric
listeners; violent polemics between the preacher and
headstrong sectarists, the whole assembly sometimes in-
volved in the earnest debate, some for, some against him,
and ending in general confusion. A lively Methodist hymn
was generally the best means of restoring order in such
cases.” ;

Bangs continued to labour on the Yonge Street field till
the close of the Conference year, and was then appointed
to the Bay of Quinte circuit with Joseph Sawyer and
Peter Vannest. After the toils and privations of the two
preceding years, this must have been a delightful change.
“Here,” he writes, “I found myself agreeably situated
among a people deeply experienced in religion, remarkably
kind, and attentive to all my wants; and, in addition to
all my other comforts, I had the satisfaction of being
under the oversight of my spiritual father, Joseph Sawyer,
whom I loved and venerated as one of the best of men.”
Of other noted workers in those pioneer days we get
occasional glimpses: Hezekiah Calvin Wooster, full of
Pioneer Days ee

 

faith and of the Holy Ghost, preaching the doctrine and
exemplifying the experience of full salvation; Lorenzo
Dow, eccentric to the verge of insanity, permeated with a
droll, quaint humour, yet ever hungering and thirsting
after God; Darius Dunham, an arousing preacher, sharp in
rebuke and fearing not the face of clay, mightily baptized
in one of Wooster’s prayer -meetings, and afterwards
spreading the holy fire wherever he went; Elijah Woolsey,
a man of sweet spirit and greatly blessed in his labours,—
these were some of the men who preached Christ wherever
they went in demonstration of the Spirit and with power,
until it became a tradition in the settlements, from the
Canadian frontier to the seat of Conference (commonly
New York), that the northern preachers had brought the
Canada fire with them. This was none other than the fire
of holiness, which at the beginning of the nineteenth
century spread like a prairie fire over the circuits in
Canada.

In the autunin of this year an epidemic of typhus
fever swept the settlements of the Bay of Quinte country,
and Nathan Bangs was stricken. For six weeks he
hovered between life and death, and on three occasions
friends were called in to see him die. Ultimately,
through the goodness of God, he was raised up again ;
but he carried the effects of that terrible sickness with
him to the close of his life. In other respects the
year was a glorious success. More than a hundred
members had been added to the societies, and the large
cireuit had peace in all its borders. One can scarcely
repress a smile to hear Bangs relate with evident satisfac-
tion the full payment of his “ quarterage” at the end of
76 Methodism in Canada

 

the year, which meant the munificent sum of eighty dollars
for the entire year. And this suggests some remarks about
the sufferings of the itinerants of those days, in consequence
of deficits in such payments, and the loss to the Church by
the unavoidable “location” of many and the premature
death of many more, caused by their excessive labours and
wretchedly deficient support. This was felt in England
as well as America in the early days. One historian of
Methodism has affirmed that of two hundred and eighteen
whom he denominates the “first race of Methodist
preachers” in England, more than half retired from the
itinerancy, nearly all of them for these reasons. In
America the effect was still more marked. Of six hundred
and fifty whose names had appeared in the Minutes, about
five hundred died “located,” and nearly half of those who
fell in the ranks died before they were thirty years of age,
and about two thirds after twelve years of service. And
what marvel? Not only were their labours excessive and
their support of the scantiest; but, as Dr. Abel Stevens
remarks, they suffered from “the exposures incident to a
new country and the severities of a variable climate,
wilting under the heats of the south or the wintry storms
of the north, swimming streams, braving snows, sleeping
but partially sheltered in frontier cabins or under the trees
of the forest.” These were the common, everyday
experiences of the pioneer preachers in the United States
and Canada a hundred years ago. And it is equally true,
though not so well understood, that “pioneer days” in the
Dominion of Canada are not entirely a thing of the past.
At this very day, on the coast of Labrador and even New-
foundland, on the frontiers of “New Ontario,” on lonely
Pioneer Days 77

 

prairies of the great North-West, on isolated Indian
stations of the farther North, and in the mining-camps
of British Columbia, Methodist itinerants are rendering
just as heroic service as did their fathers; and although
receiving rather better support, are nevertheless familiar
with the exposures, the hardships, and privations which
were the common lot of the Methodist preachers at the
beginning of the last century.

Though Bangs had been greatly weakened by chills and
fever while in the Long Point country, aggravated by his
serious illness on the Bay of Quinte circuit, he did not go
to the Conference to ask for an easier field until he might
recruit his strength; on the contrary, he made request to
be sent to what was then the extreme west of Upper
Canada, lying between the Long Point circuit, which he
had formerly organised, and the Detroit River. Asbury’s
eye kindled as he surveyed the wasted form of the young
itinerant, and recognising in him a man after his own
heart, answered with his usual prompt decision, “ You shall
go, my son.” A bit of history lies back of this. During
the first year of his itinerancy in the Niagara country
Bangs received a letter from a Baptist of German descent,
named Messmore, who lived on the river Thames, about
sixty miles east of Detroit, urging him to come and preach
the gospel in that spiritually destitute region. To the
ardent itinerant it seemed like a Macedonian call that
must be obeyed, and he repeatedly offered his services for
the new field; but his presiding elder refused to send him,
deeming his health too feeble and the needs of other fields
too urgent to permit of this new venture, and he was sent
to Bay of Quinte. During his severe illness the vision of
78 Methodism in Canada

 

the destitute western field was often before him, and
believing that his end was near he bequeathed his horse
and watch, all he possessed, to any preacher who would
respond to the call. Now that he had obtained the
desire of his heart, hindrances seemed to multiply. He
was greatly troubled with thoughts of his youth, want
of health, lack of money (he had but $15), the distance
(about six hundred miles), and many other things. But,
nothing daunted, he set out with two others, traversed the
wilderness of New York, entered Canada by way of Kings-
ton, then up the north shore of Lake Ontario, preaching at
the settlements on the way, till he reached his old ground
on the Niagara circuit. By this time “my money,” he
writes, “was all expended, and I had about eighty miles
still to travel . . . and I knew not how I could advance
any farther.” What could he do? Just what many
another had to do in similar straits: “I went into the
woods, kneeled down before God, and wept and prayed.
Finally the words came forcibly to mind, ‘ The earth is the
Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.’ I arose with renewed
courage, saying, ‘I will go in the name of the Lord, for He
has the hearts of all men, and He can turn them which way
soever He will.’ Before I left these parts one friend and
another put into my hands money amounting to eleven
dollars, enough for my journey.”

Spending a day or two with his sister and her family,
Bangs resumed his journey, accompanied by a young man
who had volunteered for the trip. In Oxford township
he spent a day or two among those who had been the
first-fruits of his ministry. Departing thence, they
journeyed thirty miles to Delaware township, “where,”
Pioneer Days 79

 

he remarks, “I preached and lodged in the last house
in the settlement. My bed was a bundle of straw, and
my supper mush and milk.” Next morning at daybreak
the travellers started for a ride through a wilderness
forty-five miles in extent, with no road, only a blazed
trail, often at a loss to know whether they were
going right or wrong. For themselves the only refresh-
ment was a little Indian bread and dried beef, and
for the horses what they could nibble up as they passed

along. “ We arrived,” says Bangs, “about sunset, weary,
hungry, and thirsty, at a small log hut, inhabited by a
Frenchman. ...I1 asked the woman of the cabin if

she could give me a drink of tea, but she had none.
Being almost famished, I requested the man to procure
us some water, which we sipped, a little at a time, as
if it were nectar; we then ate some Indian pudding and
milk, the best food we could obtain. After praying
with the family ”—a practice those early itinerants never
omitted—‘* we lay down on a bundle of straw, slept
sweetly, and rose in the morning much refreshed and
invigorated in body and mind. The poor woman was 80
kind as to send early to a distant neighbour to beg some
tea for us, but she had neither tea-kettle, teapot, nor
teacup; she therefore boiled it in a dish-kettle, and then
poured it into a tin cup, from which we drank it with
more relish than ever a king drank wine from a golden
goblet.”

Spending an hour or two with the Moravian mission-
aries on an Indian reserve on the river Thames, the
travellers pushed on to the house of the first white
settler, which they reached early in the afternoon. The
80 Methodism in Canada

 

interview illustrates the direct methods of these pioneer
preachers. A man stood before the door, and after
the customary salutations Bangs inquired, “ Do you want
the gospel preached here?” After looking at him with
curious earnestness, the man replied, “ Yes, that we do:
do you preach the gospel?” “Yes,” said Bangs. “ Well,
then, get down and come in.” But something else must
first be done before the mind of the evangelist could
be at rest. “I have ridden a great distance,” he said,
“to preach in this region. It is now Saturday afternoon ;
to-morrow being the Sabbath, I] must have a place to
preach in before I alight from my horse.” Deliberating
a few moments, the man said, “I have a house for you
to preach in, victuals and lodging for yourself, and
provender for your horse, and you shall be welcome to
them all if you will come in.” With such a reception no -
wonder the itinerant breaks out, “God has made my
way plain thus far, and therefore I will praise Him.”
Next day the house was crowded, and with great freedom
he proclaimed the message, “Repent ye, therefore, and
be converted, that your sins may be blotted out when
the times of refreshing shall come from the presence
of the Lord.” “I believe,” he says, “I preached with
the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.” At the close
of the service a stranger introduced himself. He was
from New Jersey, had been a member of the Methodist
Church there, and often entertained the preachers, among
others Bishop Asbury. or seven years he had lived in
the Canadian wilderness, totally destitute of religious
ordinances, there being no minister in all that region.
Ascertaining that he lived ten miles farther down the
Pioneer Days 81

 

river, a messenger was dispatched to inform the scattered
settlers that there would be preaching in that neighbour-
hood at three o’clock the same afternoon. “When I
arrived,” says Bangs, “the house and yard were full
of people, to whom I preached with lively satisfaction.”
In the congregation was a venerable-looking man with
a long beard, who was subsequently introduced as Mr.
Messmore, the same person who two years before had
written so earnestly to Mr. Bangs to “come over and
help them.” The next day the preacher was at
Messmore’s house, twenty-one miles distant. Another
ten miles next day, and he preaches in the house of an
Indian woman, the widow of a French-Canadian, who had
left her in comfortable circumstances for that period.
She proved a veritable Shunammite, for she prepared for
the weary itinerant in an upper room, “a bed, a table,
a chair, and a candlestick, and no one was allowed to
enter that room in his absence except to keep it in
order.”

The western extremity of this new field was reached
at Detroit. On the first occasion the people turned out
well, though most of them were French Roman Catholics ;
but on the Sabbath only a few children appeared, and
the disappointed evangelist “shook the dust off his feet
as a testimony against them,” and departed. About four
weeks later the whole town was destroyed by fire. Bangs
proceeded down the river to Fort Malden, then eastward
along the shore of Lake Erie, preaching in “ settlements
of American, English, Scotch, Irish, and Dutch emigrants,”
and thus completed a circuit which he travelled for about

three months. The moral and spiritual destitution of the
6

o
82 Methodism in Canada

 

whole region was extreme, and yet, adds the preacher,
“they seemed ripe for the gospel, and received and treated
God’s messenger with great attention and kindness.”
Besides the moral destitution, that country had another
drawback. Much of it was a land of marshes, swamps,
and stagnant pools, where rotting vegetation made the
water very unwholesome, inducing fever and ague of the
most virulent type. Bangs himself was stricken, but the
attack was light; he was kindly nursed, and was soon at
his work again. Everywhere the settlers were despond-
ent, and many were leaving the country in hope of
finding new homes in a healthier region. In one instance
a party of Scotchmen and their families were met in
haste to get away, no less than twenty-one of their
original number having died within a few days. Strange
to say, many of the men were uproariously drunk.
Faithful admonition produced such an effect that they
asked him to preach and pray with them, and next day
they parted from him with their hearty blessings.

Winter was now approaching, and he saw the im-
possibility of travelling such a region in the ensuing
months. Finally, he determined to go to the Niagara
circuit and return in the spring. About the middle
of November he set out, and in due time reached the
last house in the settlement—a log hut—beyond which
lay forty miles of unbroken forest. Here he was joined
by another solitary traveller, and in the early morning
they set out. The snow was several inches deep, the
streams high and still open and the mud deep. Night
overtook the wayfarers on the bank of a stream, and
as it was impossible to proceed after dark there was no
Pioneer Days 83

 

alternative but to camp where they were. Fortunately
they had carried with them some food for themselves and
their horses, and they succeeded after much difficulty in
kindling a fire, without which they must have perished.
“We tied our horses to the trees,” is the record, “ gave
them some oats, ate some food ourselves, went to the
creek and drank, and then, having prayed, lay down to

sleep in our booth”—constructed of branches—“ the
stars shining brightly above us, and the winds moaning
through the solemn trees. . . . At the break of day

we mounted our horses and went onward. We arrived
at the first house about three o’clock in the afternoon,
hungry, thirsty, and exhausted. . . . After supper I
prayed with the family and went to bed, truly thankful
that the Lord had preserved my life and health through
all these fatigues and dangers.” Reaching his old Niagara
circuit, Bangs laboured for the rest of the year in
association with David Pickett, and their labours were
greatly blessed. At one appointment, which he describes
as a “very hardened place,” an extensive revival occurred
and a vigorous society was organised. Among the con-
verts was a young lady whom Bangs subsequently married
—-the sharer of his toils and successes to the end of his
life.

It is unnecessary to follow any further the labours
and experiences of this typical Methodist preacher of the
olden time. Enough has been said to show the conditions
of society in the wilderness of Canada a hundred years
ago, and what manner of men they were who laid the
foundations of what has since become the largest
Protestant Church in the Canadian Dominion. As we
84 Methodism in Canada

 

survey the hardships, labours, and triumphs of these in-
domitable itinerants—men “of whom the world was not
worthy ”—we can but say, that “there were giants in the
earth in those days.” Perhaps the very circumstances of
the time gave them a prominence that they might not
otherwise have gained. They were few in number, and
for the most part lived and laboured alone, and there were
no others with whom to compare them. They came and
went “like angels’ visits, few and far between,” and the
message they brought to lonely dwellings, their personal
devotion and rude but impassioned eloquence, invested
them with a dignity and importance in the eyes of the
scattered dwellers in the wilderness that might not be
accorded to them to-day. But let not this detract from
the love and reverence which are their due. They were
men called and qualified by the Holy Spirit for a special
work, and with rare devotion their work was done. To
these men sin and salvation, death and judgment, were
tremendous realities, and they lived and laboured as in the
immediate presence of God. To some of them life was
one long martyrdom. “In journeyings often, in perils of
rivers, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in
perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils
among false brethren ; in labours and travail, in watchings
often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and
nakedness,’—these were things which made up much of
their daily experience. Now “they rest from their
labours, and their works do follow them.” Peace to their
ashes. Their record is on high.
Pioneer Days 85

 

A TYPICAL CAMP-MEETING.

One cannot well close this imperfectly told story of
pioneer days in the Canadas without reference to a
characteristic feature of a somewhat later time, namely,
the camp-meeting. Many persons have been under the
impression that camp - meetings originated with the
Methodists, but this is a mistake; they originated with
the Presbyterians in the Western States of America,
where religious conditions justified extraordinary methods.
The Methodist itinerants were not slow to perceive the
value of such an agency, and being unhampered by con-
ventional rules of order and decorum, such as prevail in
long - established communities, they quickly adopted the
camp-meeting as a means of deepening religious interest
and reaching a class of persons who could not be reached
except by some unusual method. At the time of which
we speak, population was sparse and settlements were few
and far between. There were no “centres of population ”
where the people might gather for social intercourse; in
fact, about the only thing that broke the monotony of their
daily existence was the flying visits of the Methodist
itinerant, who came and preached in wayside cabin or log
schoolhouse, and then hurried on to his next appointment.
Among a people so circumstanced the announcement that
a camp-meeting, to last for a week, would be held at a
certain time and place, created quite a flutter of excite-
ment. Preparations would at once begin, and as the time
drew near the event was looked forward to with eager
anticipation. To some it came as a welcome respite from
the toil and sordid cares of their daily life; to others it
86 Methodism in Canada

 

afforded an opportunity for social intercourse which human
nature so strongly craves; while others were attracted
solely by the novelty of the occasion and its unknown
possibilities of adventure, excitement, or amusement. But
there were others who were moved by deeper feelings—
godly men and women who found it not easy, in the
absence of Christian intercourse and the means of grace,
to maintain a steady soul-growth and a daily fellowship
with God. These looked forward to the camp-meeting as
an opportunity for spiritual quickening that was sorely
needed, and also a time when unconverted children and
neighbours might be brought into the fold of God.

A spot was usually selected in the wooded portion
of the farm of a staunch Methodist, and in a Methodist
neighbourhood, near to a good supply of pure water. Ifa
piece of ground could be discovered sloping gently in one
direction, so much the better. Some days in advance of
the camp-meeting a group of sturdy axe-men would put
in an appearance, and proceed, under the direction of a
senior itinerant, to prepare the ground. The smaller trees
and underbrush are carefully removed, and afterward
utilised in building a brush fence or stockade around the:
camp-ground, leaving an opening at one side only, usually
in the direction of the nearest highway. Inequalities in
the surface of the ground are levelled as much as possible,
and all roots and rubbish cleared away. Then a “ preach-
ing-stand ” is erected at the foot of the slope, constructed
—both walls and roof—of rough deal boards, and divided
into two parts, the front part having a long seat for the
preachers and a sloping desk for Bible and hymn-book,
the rear part a smal] room where the preacher who is to
Pioneer Days 87

 

officiate can retire for meditation and prayer, unless he
prefers a dim forest aisle, which is sometimes the case.
Large trees are cut down and the stems dragged to the
spot to serve as supports for seats. If it be a neighbour-
hood where lumber is easily obtainable, perhaps a tabernacle
of good size is erected, in which services may be held in
case of rain. In front of the preachers’ stand a long pole
is stretched on short supports—a convenient place for
penitents to kneel at when the battle is fairly begun and
“the slain of the Lord are many.” Several waggon-loads
of straw are brought from neighbouring farms and strewed
liberally over the ground, contributing to cleanliness and
affording protection from damp. Lastly, several light-
stands are erected at convenient points. These are con-
structed of four upright poles, with cross pieces at the top,
on which other poles are laid side by side, making a
foundation on which earth is piled to the depth of a foot
or more. On this is placed a quantity of fuel—pine
roots if possible, as these burn freely and give excellent
light.

Preparations, so far as the ground is concerned, may
now be regarded as complete. Families in the neigh-
bourhood, and some from adjacent neighbourhoods, have
already prepared their rough board or cotton tents, and
are in a position to extend hospitality to wayfarers from
distant places until these also have their temporary
shelters in order. Among the earlier arrivals are the
itinerants from various fields, who have come praying for
and expecting glorious displays of saving power. On the
first day of the meeting the tide fairly sets in, and the
people begin to arrive in considerable numbers, some of
88 Methodism in Canada

 

them from a distance of thirty, fifty, or even a hundred
miles. They come in waggons, on horseback, on foot, some
in the earlier days even on ox-sleds, bringing such store of
provisions, bedding, and cooking utensils as might suffice
for their simple wants during the ensuing week. As they
meet on the outskirts of the camp-ground tongues are
loosed. There are hearty greetings between friends who
have not met for years, kind inquiries after children and
neighbours, and hopes expressed for a “good time” during
the meeting. Then the bustle of preparation goes on,
erecting temporary shelters and stowing away food and
other supplies.

The noonday meal is quickly dispatched, and not
long after a rousing blast from the preachers’ stand
on a tin horn in the hands of a stalwart itinerant
goes echoing through the forest glades, notifying the
people that the time has come for the first service to
begin. They assemble quickly, for this is a summons
that must not be neglected, and the service opens with
a stirring Methodist hymn. It is sung to an old-fashioned
tune, sometimes in a minor key, but it bears on its wings
the pleading of earnest hearts. The object, at this stage
of the service, is to quicken the faith and zeal of God’s
children and draw out their sympathy for the unconverted.
Then follows an earnest, heartfelt prayer, to which there
are a few timid responses (they will be more frequent
and much heartier by-and-by). Another hymn is sung,
and the preacher takes the stand for the opening sermon
or exhortation as the case may be. The text is brief and
pointed, and the sermon equally so. Without preliminary
the opening words ring out distinct and clear, “ Brethren,
Pioneer Days 89

 

pray.” “Wilt Thou not revive us again?” or the like.
No time this for learned exposition, but a splendid op-
portunity for exhortation, of which the speaker avails
himself to the fullest extent. The praying brethren and
sisters understand him perfectly. It is a trumpet-call to
form the “far flung battle line,” for well they know “ the
day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.” A
prayer-meeting follows, in which earnest though uncultured
men and women tell out in homely phrase their longing
for a baptism of the Holy Spirit, or plead for the conver-
sion of children and neighbours. The prayer - meeting
ended, an intermission follows till the time of the evening
service, which resembles that of the-afternoon.

On the following day the people assemble in larger
numbers and the interest deepens. In the early morning
the voice of family devotion is heard in the tents. After
breakfast a prayer-meeting is held in front of the stand,
and some present themselves as seekers of full salvation.
At ten o’clock there is preaching, again at two, and in the
evening after the fires are lighted, each sermon followed
by a lively exhortation and a prayer-meeting. The
number of “seekers” has increased, and among them are
some awakened sinners pleading for pardon. But these
services are only preliminary skirmishes, preparatory to
the decisive battle which is yet to come. By the ertd of
the week (such meetings usually begin on Wednesday)
the few hundreds present on the first day have increased to
thousands it may be, and with anxious hearts the preachers
and praying helpers survey the multitudes, hoping for
a general “breaking down” before the Lord’s day dawns.
For the first two or three days the tide of battle ebbs and

1
z
90 Methodism in Canada

 

flows, but victory always turns on Israel’s side. As the
decisive hour draws near interest is intensified. No one
can tell when the culminating point will be reached, but
come it will. Perhaps it is during an evening service.
A multitude is there. Every seat is occupied, and on the
outer circle hundreds are standing, most of them careless,
unawakened people, some of them scoffers, and some of
the rowdy type, it may be, bent on mischief. A chosen
band of reliable men patrol the outskirts of the crowd,
ready to check the first symptoms of disorder. On the
stand all the preachers are seated, save the brother who is
to officiate, and he is in the inner room, prostrate on the
floor, his face resting on his open Bible, pleading with God
“with groanings which cannot be uttered,” for “grace to
help in” this “time of need.” Fires have been kindled
on the light-stands, and the resinous pine roots send up
shoots of flame that light up the whole encampment with
a lurid glow and penetrate the gloom of the surrounding
forest. Whata scene for the pencil of a Rembrandt or the
pen of a Dante! Nay, rather what a scene for the pen of
inspiration ; for these earthly lights and shadows are but
tame, neutral tints compared with the stronger lights
and shadows which sin and salvation cast athwart the
human soul.

But now it is time for the service to begin. A hymn is
sung, something to stir the martial ardour of every soldier
of the cross, and hundreds of praying hearts respond to the

challenge :
Hark, how the watchmen cry,
Attend the trumpet’s sound !
Stand to your arms, the foe is nigh,
The powers of hell surround ,
Pioneer Days gI

 

Who bow to Christ’s command,

Your arms and hearts prepare!
The day of battle is at hand!

Go forth to glorious war !

Prayer follows, earnest, pleading, tender, and importunate
by turns, as if the suppliant would storm the very mercy-
seat and compel the blessing he so much desires. A
portion of Scripture is read, something which bears upon
the theme of the coming discourse, and then another
hymn—a hymn of invitation, instinct with the gospel

message :
Come, sinners, to the gospel feast,
Let every soul be Jesu’s guest ;
Ye need not one be left behind,
For God hath-bidden all mankind.

Very plaintive and entreating it sounds, as some tune in
a minor key carries the words across the encampment and
upward toward the listening stars.

And now the congregation settles down, and with faces
turned toward the stand, where the preacher has just
arisen to announce his text, await the message that
is coming. The theme is in keeping with the circum-
stances of the hour: “ Repent ye, therefore, and be con-
verted, that your sins may be blotted out when times
of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.”
There is no display of learning, no graces of artificial
oratory, but an intense earnestness that carries conviction
to every heart. As the preacher proceeds, his soul kindles
with an intense fervour which quickly reacts upon his
susceptible audience, and the saints begin to respond with
fervent “ Amens,” or to shout aloud for joy. And then,
suddenly it may be, the grace of exhortation descends
92 Methodism tn Canada

 

upon the preacher; the repressed feelings of his soul
overleap all barriers, and a torrent of expostulation, warn-
ing, entreaty, and appeal beats like a tempest in the
faces of the spellbound multitude, who listen as if an
angel spake to them. Pausing for a moment, as though
to gather strength for a fresh effort, the silence is broken
by the bitter cry of someone whom the Spirit’s sword has
wounded, quickly answered by another and yet another
from different parts of the ground. A wave of deep
emotion sweeps over the congregation, for they know the
crisis of the battle has come; and the feeling is intensified
when some careless onlookers, perhaps a scoffer at holy
things, is seized with pungent conviction and falls to the
earth with a loud cry as though stricken suddenly in
battle. Before the bystanders have recovered from their
amazement another and yet another is similarly affected,
and in a short time a score, it may be, who up to that
time were careless and unconcerned are now prostrate on
the ground, some still and silent as if already dead,
others convulsed with agony and crying aloud to God for
mercy.

During this critical time the preachers have not been
idle. Descending swiftly from the stand they make their
way through the congregation, exhorting, instructing,
praying, and pointing sinners to the Lamb of God. Ina
short time perhaps half a score of praying circles have
been formed around the awakened ones, where parents are
praying for their children, wives for their husbands, and
neighbour for neighbour. In a church such a scene would
be dire confusion; but out in the open air beneath the
lofty dome of God’s leafy temple, where each Christian
Pioneer Days 93

 

heart is intent upon the one thing of leading troubled
souls to the source of peace, the confusion is scarcely
noticed. Perhaps there comes a lull in the concert of
prayer and a voice is lifted up in song. For the moment
Charles Wesley’s stately measures are laid aside and
feeling finds expression in a homely camp-meeting melody
with many repetitions. Such a stanza as

Venture on Him,
Venture on Him,
Venture on Him just now,

may be very poor poetry, but it supplies just the direction
and encouragement that the penitent seeker needs, and
under its inspiration some do venture; they “step on
the seeming void, and find the rock beneath.” Then the
shouts of victory begin to resound. Charles Wesley is
recalled, and the woods re-echo the strains of his grand

salvation hymn: .

My God is reconciled,
His pardoning voice I hear,
He owns me for His child,
I can no longer fear,
With confidence I now draw nigh,
And Father, Abba, Father, cry!

The hours have passed almost unheeded, and there is
regret when the service is brought to a close. Many find
it hard to leave the sacred spot, and sometimes the
midnight hour will pass ere sleep and silence settle down
upon the scene.

The Sabbath is in some respects a great day. In the
early morning prayer-meetings are going on in many of
94 Methodism in Canada

 

the tents; at nine o’clock a fellowship-meeting begins, and
many joyous testimonies are borne to Christ’s saving power.
The congregation is largely increased by people from the
surrounding neighbourhoods who come in for the day.
Sermons calculated to deepen the impression already made
are delivered, followed by exhortation and prayer. And
so the time passes until Tuesday or Wednesday, which is
not only the last, but is also the great day of the feast.
The morning prayer-meetings are unusually tender, for the
time of parting is near. At nine o’clock or thereabout
the love-feast begins, and for an hour and a half testi-
monies follow in rapid succession, mingled with strains
of triumphant song. Perhaps there is a short discourse
from an experienced preacher—words of counsel and
encouragement that will be helpful alike to new convert
and mature Christian as they return to their homes to
face the toils and temptations of daily life. After this the
sacramental bread is broken and the wine is poured, and
preachers and people together commemorate, in that
leafy temple, the dying love of their divine Redeemer,
and anticipate the day when they shall sit’down at the
marriage supper of the Lamb. But one thing more
remains to be done, and this is never omitted. After a
short interval the preachers take their places in front of
the stand, while the people, starting from the upper part
of the ground, pass them in single file, receiving from each
a cordial hand-shake and a word of counsel or of prayer.
What marvel if every face is bathed in tears; for they
have fought and triumphed together, and now they are
about to part, some of them to meet no more till they
pass beyond the river. But even in this solemn hour
Pioneer Days 95

 

faith triumphs over doubt and fear, and they lift their
voices in victorious song:

And let our bodies part,
To different climes repair !
Inseparably joined in heart
The friends of Jesus are !
Jesus, the corner-stone,
Did first our hearts unite,
And still He keeps our spirits one,
Who walk with Him in white.

O let us still proceed
In Jesu’s work below ;

And, following our triumphant Head,
To farther conquests go! ,
The vineyard of the Lord
Before His labourers lies ;

And lo! we see the vast reward
Which waits us in the skies.

O let our heart and mind
Continually ascend,

That haven of repose to find
Where all our labours end ;
Where all our toils are o’er,
Our suffering and our pain!

Who meet on that eternal shore
Shall never part again.

The service is over, and now begins the preparation
for departure. Tents are struck, household effects placed
in vehicles ready to receive them, and soon the faithful
few who have remained to the last are wending their way
to their various homes. Meanwhile the itinerants have
mounted their horses and turned their faces toward their
distant fields of labour. For a few days they have enjoyed
sweet communion and have been sitting “in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus”; now they go back to solitary
96 Methodism in Canada

 

journeys, to hardship and privation, to loneliness and
poverty; but their hearts are strong in the Lord, and no
murmuring thought has place. For a time, perhaps, they
ride together; but soon their ways diverge, and each rides
forward alone, meditating on the goodness and faithful-
ness of God and planning fresh campaigns for the truth.
Noble and heroic men, may your memories be ever kept
green! Meanwhile, to us who linger a few moments
by the deserted camp-ground there comes, mellowed by
distance, the strains of a familiar hymn sung by a group
of rejoicing converts as they wend their homeward way.
Gradually this also melts into silence. The feast of taber-
nacles is ended.

2. PioneER Days IN NEWFOUNDLAND

The first to proclaim the saving truths of the gospel,
as understood by Methodists, to the hardy and neglected
fishermen around the rugged coasts of Newfoundland,
was Lawrence Coughlan, a warm-hearted Irishman, con-
verted to God in the early days of Methodism in his
native country, and received into the itinerant ranks by
Wesley in 1755. Being both zealous and diligent, he
built up the societies where he laboured, especially by his
fidelity in visiting from house to house; but he seems to
have been deficient in staying power, which may account
for some of his erratic movements. In the early sixties
he embraced some novel views, as did Mr. Maxfield,
respecting Christian perfection, and when convinced of

1 The foregoing may be accepted as a fairly accurate sketch of a typical
camp-niecting in the middle of the nineteenth century,
Pioneer Days 97

 

his mistake threw the blame on Wesley. This led to
strained relations for a time, but in the following year
the two seem to have been in full accord. Another step
of Wesley’s led to more serious results. In 1763, feel-
ing the urgent need of ordained helpers, and knowing that
he could not obtain the necessary (as he then thought)
ordination from bishops of the Church of England, Wesley
applied to Erasmus, a bishop of the Greek Church, who
was visiting in England at the time, to ordain one of
his lay itinerants. The bishop consented, but on the fact
becoming known several other itinerants — Coughlan
among the number—sought and obtained the same favour.
This brought forth indignant remonstrance and _. protest
from Charles Wesley, and the parties who had been
ordained were offered the alternative of refraining from
the exercise of their ministerial functions or removal from
the Methodist Connexion. Coughlan, it would seem, was
unwilling to submit, and withdrew from the itinerant
ranks. But that his friendship with Wesley continued
unbroken may be inferred from the correspondence of
future years.

In 1765 Lawrence Coughlan is in Newfoundland.
Under what auspices or impulse he was led to those
rugged shores there are no contemporary records to tell,
but read in the light of subsequent history we can ascribe
his movements only to the guiding hand of God. He was
not commissioned by any church nor appointed by any
human authority, and we can only surmise that he heard,
as did Paul, a divine mandate, “I will send thee far hence
unto the Gentiles.” Certain it is he could not have found
a more needy field. The moral and religious condition

7
98 Methodism in Canada

 

of the people was simply deplorable. Two clergymen of
the Church of England were the only religious teachers
on the island, one at St. John’s and one at Trinity Bay;
but around the shores of Conception Bay there was a
population of more than five thousand souls utterly uncared
for. About 80 per cent. of these were English or of
English descent, chiefly from Dorsetshire; the rest were
Trish Roman Catholics. So far as can be learned, no
minister had ever visited these settlements up to the time
of Coughlan’s arrival, and it need not surprise us to learn
that “the Sabbath was unknown; there was no person
to celebrate marriage, and marriage was lightly regarded,
while oppression, violence, profanity, and licentiousness
were practised without any check.”? In after-days an old
Methodist, speaking of this period, said, “ Imagine any sin
you will, and you cannot think of anything too bad.”
Coughlan’s testimony is equally emphatic: “As to the
gospel, they had not the least notion of it. Drinking
dancing, and gaming they were acquainted with; these
they were taught by the Europeans who came annually
to fish.” ?

Such was the unpromising material among which
Lawrence Coughlan began his ministry. For more than
a year he preached without apparent results, and yet he
must have impressed the people, for they united in a
request to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel
that Mr. Coughlan might be appointed as missionary
among them. The request was complied with, and
Coughlan immediately went to England to receive

1 Smith’s History of Methodism in Newfoundland, p. 46.
? Wilson’s Newfoundland, its Missionaries.
Pioneer Days 99

 

Episcopal ordination, from which we may infer that the
English bishops did not recognise the validity of the
ordination by Erasmus, or else that Coughlan kept that
circumstance secret. In the autumn of 1767 he returned
to Newfoundland and resumed his labours, teaching the
people “ publicly and from house to house.” To the Irish
he was able to preach in their native Celtic; and although
they were Roman Catholics, numbers of them attended
his ministry. But although Lawrence Coughlan was
“instant in season, out of season,” and longed with desire
unspeakable for the salvation of souls, three long years
passed without any visible results. Disheartened and
discouraged, he prepared to leave the country, being
determined—so he writes—that he would not stay in
such a poor desolate land and spend his strength for
nought. But in this, as in many another case, the time
of man’s extremity was God’s opportunity. The Lord,
whose presence the discouraged missionary had often
invoked in vain, came suddenly to His temple, and the
settlements around Conception Bay were swept by a
mighty revival. The old indifference disappeared, and
many, as Coughlan relates, “were pricked to the heart,
and cried, ‘What must we do to be saved?’ Some
prayed aloud, othere shouted for joy, telling what God
had done for their souls. . . . Under almost every
sermon and exhortation some were cut to the heart, and
others rejoiced in loud songs of praise.” ?

In the midst of these exciting scenes Coughlan’s
Wesleyan training was apparent, not only in the methods
he employed but in the way in which he regarded the

1 Coughlan’s Account of the Work of God in Newfoundland,
100 Methodism in Canada

 

outward manifestations of the Spirit’s working. He had
mourned over the absence of results, and now he was
deeply concerned, as Wesley had been in England, lest
the noisy demonstrations might redound to the injury of
the work. As a true son of Wesley, Coughlan wrote re-
garding the crying out, “I never encouraged it, nor dare
I speak directly against it.” As he feared, the report
did go abroad that the inhabitants of Harbour Grace and
Carbonear had gone mad; but this only had the effect of
bringing people from a distance of many miles to see and
hear for themselves, and not a few “who came to scoff
remained to pray.” Thus the work spread around Con-
ception Bay, and a marked change took place in the
habits of the people. “Hours that had been wasted in
Sabbath-breaking, drinking, gaming, and other prevalent
vices, were now spent in praise, prayer, and the reading
of the Scriptures.”' At Black Head, about eighteen miles
from Carbonear, the people were so desirous of having
a place of worship that they went into the woods, cut
down and prepared the necessary timber, and in less than
fourteen days erected and covered in a building large
enough to accommodate four hundred people. It is
worthy of note that through all this period Coughlan,
though an ordained clergyman of the Church of England,
was a pronounced Methodist in experience, teaching, and
plans of work. Writing to Wesley shortly before leaving
Newfoundland, he affirms, “I am and do confess myself
to be a Methodist. The name I love, and hope I
ever shall. The plan which you first taught me I have
followed, both as to doctrine and discipline. Our married
1 Smith’s History, p. 50.
Pioneer Days ol

 

men meet apart once a week, and our married women do
the same. This has given great offence, so that repeated
complaints have been made to the Governor. But truth
is mighty, and will prevail. In the winter I go from
house to house, and expound some part of God’s word.
This has also given great offence. “But God is above
men, devils, and sin.” ?

Mission work in Newfoundland at the present time,
though a railway spans the island and commodious steam-
ships ply between distant ports, is no child’s play; but in
the old pioneer days it involved hardships of no ordinary
kind. Coughlan had an unconquerable dread of the sea
when sailing in small boats, which made his life “one
continued martyrdom.” In many houses which he visited
the accommodation was very poor, and on a winter's
morning it was no uncommon thing to find a covering
of snow upon the bed, and his shoes so frozen that they
must be thawed before they were put on. But trials of
this description were by no means the worst. His plain,
faithful preaching stirred the enmity of the carnal mind.
Some who had supported the missionary denounced his
preaching as madness, and threatened to withdraw their
aid. But Coughlan was not a man to be cowed in that
fashion. On the very next Sunday he took his text from
the words of Paul to Festus, “I am not mad,” and pro-
ceeded to show that while drunkards, swearers, and such-
like might justly be called mad, the term could not fairly
be applied to those who feared God and wrought righteous-
ness. Failing to intimidate the preacher by the threat of
withdrawing support, a petition was sent to the Governor,

1 Published in the Arminian Magazine, 1785.
102 Methodism in Canada

 

containing slanderous statements, and asking that Coughlan
be silenced or banished. But when brought up for exami-
nation, his innocence was completely established. Exas-
perated by their failure, Coughlan’s enemies even conspired
to take his life, but were foiled by the doctor, who dis-
covered the plot and put him on his guard.

Hardship, exposure, and opposition were telling upon
Coughlan’s body and mind, and he resolved to return to
England, which he did in the latter part of 1773. His
connexion with the S.P.G. seems to have ceased at the
same time, probably by mutual consent. To have served
in the Church of England would have been impracticable
for a man of his temperament and habits; for in writing
to Wesley shortly before his return, he says, “To be shut
up in a little parish church, and to conform in every little
thing for sixty or a hundred pounds a year, I would not;
no, not for even a thousand.” In 1776 we find him
ministering in a chapel in Cumberland Street, London ; but
under what auspices does not appear. Application was
made to Wesley for a circuit, but Coughlan’s work was
done. While conversing with Wesley in his study he
was seized with paralysis. How long he lingered we do
not know; but Wesley was with him shortly before his
departure, as appears from a letter to John Stretton, of
Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, in which the writer says,
“The last time I saw Mr. Coughlan he was ill in body,
but in a blessed state of mind. He was utterly broken
in pieces, full of tears and contrition for his past un-
faithfulness. Not long after I went out of town God
removed him ‘to a better place.”! So ended the life and

' Wesley’s Works, American edition, xii. 226.
Pioneer Days 103

 

labours of Lawrence Coughlan, a veritable pioneer of
Methodism in a hard field, possessing many of the
sterling qualities which distinguished the workers of that
early day, and some of the infirmities which detracted
from the value of a useful career.

When Coughlan left Newfoundland. the societies at
Carbonear and Harbour Grace were for a time as sheep
without a shepherd. But in these societies were some
devoted laymen upon whose hearts the burden of souls
was laid, and these began to stir up the gift that was in
them, and by exhortation and prayer strove to edify the
faithful and lead sinners to Christ. The names of very
few of these men have come down to us, but by common
consent the foremost place is given to John Stretton of
Harbour Grace. Like Coughlan, he was an Irishman, a
native of Limerick, where his father and mother were
among the early friends of Wesley. The son removed
to Waterford, where he engaged in a branch of the
Newfoundland trade. With the view of increasing his
business, he resolved to remove to that colony; but
shortly before his departure he was led to a saving
knowledge of Christ, chiefly through the efforts of Mrs.
Eliza Bennis, a devoted Methodist at Limerick. On
reaching Newfoundland he immediately connected himself
withthe Methodist Society,and remained steadfast to the end.

The action of the magistrates at Harbour Grace gave
cause for anxiety. They “took possession of the church,
read prayers and preached on alternate Sabbaths, with
the intention of holding the building until the arrival of
Coughlan’s successor.”! For this action of the magistrates

1 Smith’s History, p. 62.
104 Methodism in Canada

 

there was some show of justification. Coughlan, though
an avowed Methodist, was an ordained clergyman of the
Church of England, and in the employ of the Society for
the Propagation of the Gospel. It was not surprising,
therefore, that the magistrates regarded the church as
belonging to that communion. Their further action in
refusing to allow the Methodist class to meet in the
church on Sunday evenings, as had been the custom,
was less kind, and savoured of persecution; but even
this hardly justifies the strong language of Stretton that
“Mr. Arthur Thorney and I .. . resolved to oppose the
torrent of iniquity.” Be that as it may, it was evident
something must be done. for the scattered society. Says
Stretton, “We gathered a few together who loved the
Lord Jesus, and found among them a poor. fisherman who
was not ashamed of his heavenly Master, but boldly stood
up and spoke in His name.” Not the first time that a
“poor fisherman” has been a faithful witness for Christ.
In providing the necessary discipline for the society,
which numbered about thirty, “we drew up the rules,”
says Stretton, “as like Wesley’s as we could, consistently
with local circumstances”; which probably would have
drawn from Wesley the comment, had he been aware of
the action, “ Don’t mend our rules, but keep them.”

These Newfoundland Methodists were no laggards in
religious duties. Arthur Thorney, writing to Coughlan,
tells how Christmas Day was spent: “We assembled at
J. P’s at five in the morning, sang praises, and prayed
and exhorted, and every heart rejoiced in our Christ.
We continued thus till eight o’clock, had prayers at
ten, and again at three in the afternoon, and our dear
Pioneer Days 105

 

Lord continued present all the day. At night. we had
a love-feast at S.’s (formerly your house), and such a
blessed meeting we never saw.” It was about this time
that Stretton began to speak in public, “in great fear of
being one of those who run before they are sent.”
Prompted by the constraining love of Christ, Stretton and
Thorney began to extend their labours to other settlements
around Conception Bay, and across the country to Heart’s
Content on Trinity Bay. In some places their efforts were
crowned with marked success. At St. John’s they had
pleasant fellowship with a little group of Congregationalists,
who, in the face of strong opposition, had erected a neat
little meeting-house; while at Old Perlican they found
that the gospel message had already been carried there
by another faithful though unlikely messenger.

An Englishman, John Hoskins by name, first heard
Methodist preaching in 1746, and, as he tells us, “ the
word fell on my soul as dew on the tender herb.” At
the age of fifty-six he decided to go to New England,
purposing to keep school and do what he could for the
salvation of men; but means were scant, and he took
passage for Newfoundland, intending to work there for
money to pay the further passage of himself and son.
On reaching Trinity Bay five weeks later he found him-
self without friends and money, but rejoicing exceedingly
that he was “under the care and protection of an al-
mighty and all-gracious God.” By the advice of Mr.
Balfour, the Episcopal missionary, he crossed the bay to
Perlican, seven leagues distant. The people, who had
mostly come from rural districts in England, seemed
glad at his coming, as they had no one to teach their
106 Methodism in Canada

 

children. Though without any missionary or any religious
ordinances, they seemed to have some concern for spiritual
things, for they invited Hoskins to read prayers and a
sermon on the Lord’s day, an invitation which he gladly
accepted. Writing to Wesley, he says, “I read the
church prayers and some of your sermons, and sung
your hymns by myself alone, for many weeks. For my
congregation did not know how to behave in divine
service, not even to kneel in prayer, or sing at all, but
would stand at a distance and look at me as if I had
been a monster.” And yet these people were not in-
sensible to the truth. Some became thoughtful and
knelt during prayer, and before long six or seven were
found seeking salvation. These were formed into a class,
and the number increased. In the winter of 1778 there
was a sudden work of awakening, and several found
peace with God. When Hoskins visited England in the
winter of 1778-79 the people of Old Perlican applied
through Wesley to the Bishop of London, Dr. Lowth,
to ordain him as their minister; but their request was
refused. This drew from Wesley a letter that for
Christian fidelity and plainness of speech, but without
tincture of animosity, has rarely if ever been equalled.
I quote the letter at large, not for the reason just men-
tioned, however, but because it turns a searchlight of
unusual intensity upon the religious conditions of the
time:
10th August 1780.

“My Lorp,—Some time since I received your lord-
ship’s favour, for which I return your lordship my sincere
thanks. Those persons (at Old Perlican) did not apply
Pioneer Days 107

 

to the society (the S.P.G.) because they had nothing to
ask them. They wanted no salary for their minister ;
they were themselves able and willing to maintain him.
They therefore applied by me to your lordship, as members
of the Church of England, and desirous so to continue,
begging the favour of your lordship, after your lordship
had examined him, to ordain a pious man who might
officiate as their minister.

“But your lordship observes, ‘There are three
ministers in that country already.’ True, my lord; but
what are three to watch over all the souls in that exten-
sive country? Will your lordship permit me to speak
freely 2 I dare not do otherwise. JI am on the verge of
the grave, and know not the hour when I shall drop into
it. Suppose there were threescore of those missionaries
in the country, could I in conscience recommend these
souls to their care? Do they take any care of their
own souls? If they do (I speak it with concern), I fear
they are almost the only missionaries in America that
do. My lord, I do not speak rashly. I have been in
America, and so have several with whom I have lately
conversed; and both I and they know what manner of
men the far greater part of these are. They are men
who have neither the power of religion nor the form;
men that can lay no claim to piety, nor even decency.

“Give me leave, my lord, to speak more freely still:
perhaps it is the last time I shall trouble your lordship.
I know your lordship’s abilities and extensive learning ;
I believe, what is far more, that your lordship fears
God. I have heard that your lordship is unfashionably
diligent in examining the candidates for holy orders;
yea, that your lordship is generally at the pains of ex-
amining them yourself. Examining them. In what
respect? Why, whether they understand a little Latin
and Greek, and can answer a few trite questions in the
science of divinity. Alas, how little does this avail! Does
108 Methodism in Canada

 

your lordship examine whether they serve Christ or
Belial? Whether they love God or the world? Whether
they ever had any serious thoughts about heaven or hell ?
Whether they have any real desire to save their own
souls, or the souls of others? If not, what have they
to do with holy orders? and what will become of the
souls committed to their care?

“ My lord, I do by no means despise learning: I know
the value of it too well. But what is this, particularly in
a Christian minister, compared to piety? What is it in a
man that has no religion ?—‘ As a jewel in a swine’s snout.’

“Some time ago I recommended to your lordship a plain
man, whom I had known above twenty years, as a person
of deep, genuine piety, and of unblamable conversation.
But he neither understood Greek nor Latin; and he
affirmed, in so many words, that he believed it was his

Aluty to preach, whether he was ordained or no. I believe

so too. What became of him since, I know not; but I
suppose he received Presbyterian ordination; and I can-
not blame him if he did. He might think any ordination
better than none.

“T do not know that Mr. Hoskins has any favour to
ask of the society (the S.P.G.). He asked the favour of
your lordship to ordain him, that he might minister to a
little flock in America. But your lordship did not see good
to ordain him; but your lordship did see good to ordain,
and send into America, other persons who knew something
of Greek and Latin, but who knew no more of saving souls
than of catching whales.

“Tn this respect also I mourn for poor America, for
the sheep scattered up and down therein. Part of them
have no shepherd at all, especially in the northern
colonies; and the case of the rest is little better, for
their own shepherds pity them not. They cannot, for
they have no pity on themselves. They take no thought
or care about their own souls.
Pioneer Days 109

 

“ Wishing your lordship every blessing from the great
Shepherd and Bishop of souls, I remain, my lord, your
lordship’s dutiful son and servant,

“JouN WESLEY.” !

But although Episcopal sanction of Hoskins’ work was
denied, the Holy Spirit’s influence was not withheld!
While the worker was yet in England the work revived,
and Old Perlican had a day of gracious visitation. Num-
bers were awakened and converted, among them Hoskins’
own son. Thorney went over from Harbour Grace to
render what assistance he could. But, as might have
been expected, the spirit of opposition was aroused in its
most savage form. Men armed with clubs went to the
room where Thorney was preaching, and swore they would
kill him; but several persons interfered, and the disturb-
ance was quelled. Meanwhile Hoskins returned to New-
foundland and resolved to extend his labours to Triuity ;
but the influential men of the place were bitterly hostile,
and no one dared open his house for preaching. After
several days of apparently fruitless effort, Hoskins went on
board a vessel to ask passage from a merchant on a boat
that was to sail for Old Perlican. No sooner had he
stepped on board than a sailor rudely asked, “ Will you
preach us a sermon?” and immediately struck him in the
face with a brush filled with tar; whereupon some sailors
seized and held him, while others nearly covered him with
tar. The merchant and captain, so far from rebuking the
sailors, encouraged them in their brutality, and as Hoskins
left the ship a piece of wood was flung at him. Strange
results followed this outrage. I quote from Smith’s

1 Wesley’s Works, American edition, vol. vii. p. 230,
IIo Methodism in Canada

 

History, pp. 74,75: “The captain and the merchant soon
became ashamed of the transaction to which they had
given their approval, and the immediate actors in it were
visited with speedy retribution. In the course of a month
one fell overboard and was drowned in the harbour;
another on the passage to England was killed by a fall;
and the man who administered the tar received a death-
wound from an accident on board the vessel, and died in
great agony of mind on account of the share he had taken
in the guilty deed. Certain appearances connected with
the retribution, which may have been the results of an
accusing conscience, but which he believed to be real, made
such an impression upon the captain’s mind that, on his
return to Newfoundland, he boldly assured the merchants
of Trinity that he would not for all the world abuse
Hoskins, or any other preacher of the gospel.”

In 1785 Newfoundland appeared in the English
Minutes for the first time, and appended thereto is the
name of John M‘Geary, whom Stretton speaks of as “a
good man and a good preacher.” He had travelled among
the American itinerants for a time, but returned to Eng-
land in 1784. He may have been “a good man,” as
Stretton observes, and also a “good preacher,” but seems
to have been flighty and unstable to a degree; a proof
that even Wesley, with his remarkable penetration, did
not always “size up” his men correctly. Before he had
been a month at Carbonear, Stretton wrote, “ Everything
here appears so disagreeable to Mr. M‘Geary that I fear
he will not abide long.” He did remain for some time,
however, but failed to adapt himself to surrounding con-
ditions, and was soon out of harmony with both Stretton
Pioneer Days Ir

 

and Hoskins) He must have complained bitterly to
Wesley, for the latter wrote to William Black of Nova
Scotia, when M‘Geary had been about sixteen months in
Newfoundland, saying, “Poor John M‘Geary appears to
be utterly discouraged, not only through want of success,
but through want of the conveniences, yea, necessaries of
life. Truly, if I could have supposed a preacher to want
bread, I should have sent him into other parts where he
would have wanted nothing.” The difficulties of the situa-
tion were further emphasised by disagreement between
Hoskins and Stretton, and at times Wesley was sorely
perplexed. He admits that M‘Geary was “naturally of
a bold, forward temper,” and in a letter to Stretton, written
in 1789, he laments that he “cannot find any union
between you northern preachers,” for “each seems to be
afraid of the other.” M‘Geary put the finishing touch on
his imprudent course by marrying the daughter of a planter,
without her father’s consent. This ended his influence,
which was not great at any time, and in the autumn of
1788 he returned to England, leaving little or no fruit
of his labours behind him, save dissensions and _ heart-
burnings. In the same year Stretton began the erection
of a church at Harbour Grace at his own expense, and it
was opened for worship in August. “This,” he writes,
“ig the only thing at present that keeps up the Protestant
name in the place. The Protestant minister is worse than
none, and few go to church; while popery, like a deluge,
sweeps away all the rest.” At the end of 1790 the
report was no better. “ This place,” he writes, “is like
Sodom in everything but fulness of bread, and I am here
alone, with not one family heartily religious that I can
112 Methodism in Canada

 

associate with, or hold any profitable converse with, all
this dreary winter.”

In 1791 William Black visited Newfoundland, and
this may be said to mark a new era in the progress of
Methodism in the island. By this time few traces of
Coughlan’s work at Carbonear and Harbour Grace re-
mained; but under Black’s first sermon at the former
place many were deeply affected. On the following
Sunday the impressions were greatly deepened. On
Tuesday evening, during the sermon, “some began to cry
out,” says Black. “TI stopped preaching, and began to
pray. My voice was soon drowned. I left the pulpit
and went up and down the church, exhorting those that
were wounded and crying for mercy to look unto Jesus
as their only Redeemer. ... About thirty were under
deep distress. . . . I requested those who were in distress
to withdraw to Brother M‘Geary’s house} but they would
not: leave the church.” The foregoing is a fair sample
of the entries in Black’s journal during his sojourn in
Newfoundland. Not less than two hundred souls were
converted in the settlements around Conception Bay
during these services, and the work was permanent.
Before his departure Black administered the communion
to about one hundred and thirty persons, and “an awful
sense of the divine presence seemed to pervade every
heart.” The love-feast that followed was simply in-

1 This was the same M‘Geary of whom so much has been said; but
there is a discrepancy in dates which it is difficult to reconcile, Smith’s
History, p. 279, informs us that M‘Geary returned to England in 1788, but
when Black reached Carbonear in 1791 he found M‘Geary there. Smith
further says, p. 281, that ‘‘during the preceding year M‘Geary had returned
to that station.” This may be correct, although I have been unable to
verify the fact from any other source.

‘
Pioneer Days 113

s

describable. “It was hard work to tear away from them,”
writes Black. “I was nearly an hour shaking hands with
them, some twice and thrice over, and even then we
hardly knew how to part; but I at last rushed from
among them, and left them weeping as for an only son.”
It appears that M‘Geary remained but a short time after
Black’s departure. He returned to England, and at the
Conference of 1792 was appointed to a circuit; but in
the following year withdrew from the ministry—a final
proof of his unstable character.

There is much more which belongs to the early
period of Methodism in this interesting field, but enough
has been written to give an idea of “pioneer days in
Newfoundland.”

3. PIonEER Days IN THE MARITIME PROVINCES

Nova Scotia is supposed by some to be identical with
the Markland of the Norse sagas; and if this is correct, it
gives it priority, in point of discovery, over the discoveries of
Columbusand Americus Vespuccius,of more than fivehundred
years. Of these early days it is not necessary.to speak,
nor of the period of French occupation down to the time,
1710, when Acadia was conquered by an army from the
New England colonies, and the French flag disappeared
from that part of the New World, though it was not till
nearly half a century later that it finally disappeared from
Cape Breton by the capture and destruction of Louisburg.
By the Peace of Utrecht various places and territories—
the long -disputed province of Nova Scotia among the

number—were recognised as dependencies of the British
8
114 Methodism in Canada :

 

Crown. But the recognition of England’s supremacy in
Nova Scotia did not secure her in peaceable possession of
the coveted territory. The French settlers, or Acadians
as they were called, refused to take the oath of allegiance
to the British monarch, and being stimulated to at least
passive resistance by their priests, who were in constant
communication with the French of Cape Breton and Canada,
they became a dangerous menace to the stable government
of the country. After persistent efforts by successive
Governors, extending over a period of nearly forty years,
to secure their peaceable submission, the English Govern-
ment resolved upon the unprecedented step of removing the
Acadians by force from their settlements and dispersing
them among the New England and other colonies. What-
ever may be said in vindication of this harsh measure, it is
impossible to reconcile it with modern ideas of justice or
humanity, and it is referred to here only because of its
bearing upon the future settlement of the country.

The expulsion of this irreconcilably disloyal element
from the population left some of the richest agricultural
districts in Nova Scotia unoccupied and untilled, and s0
they remained for several years. But in 1758 Lieutenant-
Governor Lawrence issued a proclamation with the view
of inducing people from the New England colonies to come
to Nova Scotia and take possession of the vacant lands.
As the proclamation made no reference to freedom of
conscience and of religious worship, the New England
colonists, imbued with the spirit of their Puritan ancestry,
hesitated to accept the Governor’s invitation, fearing a
course similar to that pursued by the authorities of New
York and Virginia. This induced Governor Lawrence to
Pioneer Days 115

 

issue a second proclamation, in which full religious liberty
was guaranteed to all Protestants; and on the strength of
this assurance a large number of settlers came from New
England, and were subsequently followed by others from
across the sea.

A still more marked effect on the religious future of
the country was produced by the ‘arrival, in 1772, under
the influence of Lieutenant-Governor Franklin, of a party
of emigrants from Yorkshire, who settled in Cumberland
county. They were followed by other detachments in
each of the three succeeding years, constituting altogether
a considerable number. These settlers were thoroughly
British in sentiment, and not a few of them were Methodists
of the true Yorkshire type. Their influence on the eve of
the revolutionary war was, from a political point of view,
most salutary, and their religious fervour was no less
salutary in other directions. An Episcopal clergyman who
resided at Cumberland spoke of these Yorkshire emigrants,
when reporting to the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel, as “a peaceable, industrious people, and lovers of
the constitution under which they were born.”

It would be a pleasant task to give some account of these
pioneer Methodists in the maritime provinces, but space
forbids. I cannot refrain, however, from calling attention
to two families,—one because of its connexion with the
past, the other because of its influence upon the future.
William Wells senior was among the first Methodists who
came to Nova Scotia. His former home appears to have
been at Thirsk in Yorkshire, and he was the builder of
the Wesleyan chapel in that place, concerning which
the following characteristic entry appears in Wesley’s
116 Methodism in Canada

 

Journal, under date of 29th April 1766: “I preached at
noon in the new house at Thirsk, almost equal to that at
Yarm: and why not quite, seeing they had the model
‘before their eyes, and had nothing to do but to copy after
it? Is it not an amazing weakness that when they have
the most beautiful pattern before them all builders will
affect to mend: something? . .. and the second building
scarce ever equals the first.” ‘Concerning the wife of
William Wells, and the coming of the family to Nova
Scotia, we have the following: “Margaret, the wife of
William Wells, was a native of Sowerby, near Thirsk, and
was converted in youth. Wesley and John Nelson made
their home at her father’s house, when in that part of
Yorkshire. She had spent some time under John Nelson’s
roof, and had heard both Wesley and Nelson preach at
Thirsk Cross, when they were pelted with stones and
rotten eggs, and such other offensive things as came to
hand. Previous to their departure for America, Wesley
knelt in prayer with Mr. and Mrs. Wells, and with a hand
on the head of each commended them to the divine
protection.” In his new home Wells led a class in his
own house, and frequently conducted public services.
A variety of circumstances conspired to render the
new home of the Yorkshire Methodists unfavourable to
religious growth. There was but one minister in the
country—the Rev. John Eagleson ; distance from any place
of worship and bad roads made attendance at religious
services difficult; while the unsettled state of the country,
owing to the revolt of the American colonies, and religious

1Smith’s History of Methodism in Eastern: British America, vol. i.
pp. 85, 86.
Pioneer Days iT?

 

divisions among the people, tended still further to demoralise
the settlers. But God did not forget them. In 1779 the
Divine Spirit, which like the wind “bloweth where it
listeth,” began to breathe over Cumberland. The spirit of
prayer revived. Meetings for prayer and exhortation
increased in frequency. Not a few persons became the
subjects of deep religious convictions, and some entered
upon the conscious experience of sins forgiven. Among
those thus graciously visited was the family of William
Black, whose former home was Huddersfield, Yorkshire.
The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Black, four sons, and
one daughter. The death of the mother in 1775, a year
after the arrival of the family at Amherst, was an irreparable
loss, as she seems to have been a godly woman whose
example and influence could ill be spared by her children
in a land where religious opportunities were few and tempta-
tions to sin were many. At the time when the revival
began, the spiritual declension of the whole family seems to
have been complete. In the strong language of one of the
sons, “ Nothing but discord, jealousy, and ill-will were there.
Peace had for some time left our dwelling, and we, hurried’
on by devilish passions, were urging fast to ruin.”

But God had a purpose of mercy concerning this
family, especially one member thereof, which He alone
could foresee. All the members of the household seem to
have come under the Holy Spirit’s influence, and one of
the first to emerge from the darkness of condemnation
into the light of conscious pardon and the favour of God
was the second son, William, then in his nineteenth year.
Like many another “ chosen vessel,” William had been the
subject of deep religious impressions from his earliest
118 Methodism in Canada

 

years. He tells how, in his fifth and sixth years, he had
serious impressions, sometimes so pungent that he wished
he were anything but what he was. Repeatedly his godly
mother besought him with tears to yield to God; but,
though deeply affected, he did not then find the way of
peace, and in his new home he sought in simple pleasures
an opiate for a troubled conscience. When the Holy
Spirit began to work among the people, William Black’s
convictions returned with redoubled force. For weeks he
walked in darkness and had no light, weeping, fasting,
praying with others till midnight or dawn of morning;
conviction of sin grew only the deeper, until in utter
despair he was tempted to rush into eternity that he might
know the worst. But, as in many another case, the
darkest hour was just before the dawn. While attending
a neighbourhood prayer-meeting, and while friends around
him were singing, with true Yorkshire fervour,
My pardon I claim,
For a sinner I an,
A sinner believing in Jesus’s name,

the Lord revealed Himself to the soul of William Black as
the “mighty to save,” and in an instant the burden was
gone, the darkness vanished, and “ the peace of God, which
passeth all understanding,” took possession of his heart.
The conversion of any soul, no matter how humble, is an
event in the history of the universe whose value no human
arithmetic can compute; but there are some conversions
that mark distinct turning-points in the growth of the
divine kingdom, and reveal in clearest light the guiding
Providence of God. Such was the conversion of Saul of
Tarsus, of Martin Luther, of John Wesley, and many
Pioneer Days 119

 

others; and such, though in a narrower sphere, was the
conversion of William Black. He was not destined to
attain a world-wide celebrity like the others just mentioned ;
but his conversion was the beginning of an epoch in the
religious history of Nova Scotia, and out of it came divine
influences that have not yet ceased to operate.

Those whom God calls to a great work must learn to
“endure hardness as good soldiers of Jesus Christ,” and
William Black was no exception to the rule. The sharp
conflicts through which he passed in his earlier religious
experience were a needed part of the discipline by which
he was trained for future usefulness. His deep depression
when under conviction of sin qualified him to guide and
sympathise with those who were struggling in the “ horrible
pit and the miry clay,” and his after-conflicts with fierce
temptations qualified him no less to be a wise counsellor
of perplexed Christians. There were times when he was
sorely tempted to doubt the reality of his own conversion,
and even to doubt the existence of God; and then came the
tormenting doubt that he could not be a Christian, or
such wicked thoughts could never arise. All attempts to
overcome his doubts by argument resulted in failure, but
when he cried to God in earnest prayer the victory was
won and the temptations vanished as suddenly as they
came. Concerning his spiritual state at this time, Mr.
Black writes in a strain to make one long for a return to
the Church of these old-time experiences: “My days did
glide swiftly away. I could eat my bread in singleness of
heart, praising God. I went up to His house with glad-
ness, and entered His courts with praise. His people were
my dearest companions. My Sabbaths became the most
120° Methodism in Canada

 

delightful days in all the year. They were market-days to
my soul: I fed on marrow and fat things. ‘Time, I saw,
was exceedingly precious, and I desired to improve every
moment. I could not bear that a single moment should
pass without being filled up for God.”

Another evidence of the genuineness of the change
wrought in William Black is found in the fact that his first
efforts to do good were among those of his own household.
Within a very few days his father, two brothers, and a
sister were led into the light. Thus encouraged, his labours
extended. In co-operation with three other young men of
like mind, he visited three outlying settlements and was
cheered by tokens of good. But the good work was not
unopposed. “ Hard names were plentifully bestowed upon
them, but in one instance only did hostility assume a violent
form. On that occasion the officer in command at Fort
Cumberland, in consequence of representations made to
him by the Episcopal minister of the district, deemed it
his duty to suppress the meetings, and for that purpose sent
a party of soldiers, who made prisoners of more than twenty
of the congregation, and carried them to the fort, where
they were detained for two hours. The officer, who soon
learned his mistake, was glad to dismiss his prisoners with
soft words,” +

Concurrently with these labours, the conviction grew in
the heart of William Black that God was calling him to a
wider field. As yet he had not attempted to preach, in the
sense of announcing and expounding a passage of Scripture,
but contented himself with earnest exhortations to men to
“repent and believe the gospel,” and it was not until he

1 Smith’s History of Methodism, pp. 96, 97.
Pioneer Days 121

 

began to itinerate at large that his practice in this respect
was changed. On attaining his majority in 1781 he pre-
pared to go forth, as did Abraham, “not knowing whither
he went.” With no church or society behind him to
assure him of support, or any pledge from those to whom
he went, he cast himself upon the promise that his bread
should be given and his water sure. The prospect, from a
worldly point of view, was not alluring, and would have
daunted a less devoted man. SBefore him lay a territory
which now constitutes the three provinces of Nova Scotia,
New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island, aggregating
over 50,000 square miles in extent; and although much of
it was yet unoccupied, there were numerous small settle-
ments at points widely separated, from Yarmouth to Cape
North and from Halifax to Baie Chaleur, not to speak of
the settlements forming on Prince Edward Island, then
known as the Island of St. John. To reach these isolated
communities required long, wearisome, and sometimes
dangerous journeys, and the heroic itinerant knew, like
Paul, what it was to be “in labour and travail, in watchings
often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and
nakedness.” But again, like Paul, he could say, “ None of
these things move me.”

The somewhat heterogeneous character of the popula-
tion, their religious prejudices, and the social and political
conditions of the times, were all factors in the problem,
and added to its difficulty. In some places remnants of
the Acadian settlers still lingered; groups of Germans
from Pennsylvania or the Fatherland had formed small
settlements; New England families moved in and took
possession of the farms from which the Acadians had
122 Methodism in Canada

 

been forcibly removed; fishermen from Nantucket and
around Cape Cod located where Liverpool, Barrington, and
Yarmouth now stand, while others from the “west
country” began a settlement at St. Margaret’s Bay.
English, Scotch, and Irish emigrants were well repre-
sented at many points, while Huguenots and others from
Switzerland found homes at Tatmagouche. These varied
elements were reinforced a little later by the bands of U.E.
Loyalists who, during or after the revolutionary struggle,
left the American colonies and sought refuge under the
old flag they loved so well.

Excluding the Indians and Acadians, the population
of Nova Scotia was almost entirely Protestant, but in Cape
Breton perhaps two thirds were Roman Catholics. At
this period four points in the province were occupied by
Episcopal clergymen—namely, Halifax, Lunenburg, Fort
Cumberland, and Windsor—and one clergyman of the same
order laboured in Prince Edward Island. The immigrants
from New England were, for the most part, Congrega-
tionalists, and the churches they established were of that
order. But being dependent upon New England for
pastors, and the churches there being characterised by
the absence of spiritual life, it was not to be expected
that the stream would rise higher than its source. More-
over, the revolutionary war had a disastrous effect on
these churches. Not a few of the members, being in
sympathy with their old friends and neighbours, returned
to New England, and the “New Light” movement (of
which more anon) completed the disintegration which the
revolution began. There was but one Baptist Church in
the province, based on open communion principles, and
Pioneer Days 123

 

three or four Presbyterian clergymen ministered to con-
gregations at various points ; but Presbyterianism at that
period was not distinguished by the evangelical and ag-
gressive spirit which is its chief glory to-day. Indeed, with
every disposition to be charitable, it may be doubted if at
that time among the Protestant clergy of Nova Scotia there
was one who could be classed as evangelical, in the present-
day sense of that term, or who was competent to instruct
a sin-burdened soul in the way of life and salvation.

This was the condition of affairs at the time when
William Black was about to begin his itinerating ministry,
and it was at the same time that the New Light move-
ment was in progress in Nova Scotia under the labours
of Henry Alline. The latter belonged to a type not
uncommon in times of great spiritual declension, whose
teaching, spirit, and aims are in marked contrast with the
lifeless orthodoxy, or equally lifeless heterodoxy, of the
_ churches of their day. He had passed through spiritual
exercises almost rivalling in their intensity those of John
Bunyan. His conscience was never at rest, and the
terrors of death and judgment haunted him by night
and day for twenty years. When deliverance came it
was like noonday breaking suddenly through the gloom
of midnight, and profound depression gave place to the
most rapturous joy. That such an experience should be
followed by a desire to proclaim the gospel to others was
natural, but, conscious of educational deficiencies, Alline
endeavoured to reach New England that the lack might
be supplied. Failing to obtain a passage, he returned
and began to proclaim his message, first among his friends
and neighbours, and afterwards among the English-speaking
124 Methodism in Canada

 

settlements throughout the province. Alline’s preaching
was intensely emotional, and this being in marked con-
trast with the ordinary preaching of the time, it powerfully
affected the people. Though the period of his ministry
was short (he was converted at twenty-seven years of
age and died at thirty-six), other preachers from among
his converts were raised up, men of the same fervid and
zealous type as himself, and as these passed from settle-
ment to settlement, there was a veritable shaking among
the dry bones. “Families were divided; neighbours
became opposed to each other ; pastors preached and pub-
lished in vain endeavour to stem the tide, and, failing,
submitted to the inevitable; old church organisations
were broken down and new organisations set up in their
places.” The effect of the whole movement cannot be
better described than in the words of: the Rev. J. Davis,
in his Memoirs of Harris Harding: “It happened in
Nova Scotia as in New England. First there was torpor.
Then the shock of newly discovered truth. Then agita-
tion and alarm. Then separations, with dislike and heart-
burnings. Then a rushing into extremes, on this side and
that. Then reconsideration. The whole resulting in the
restored recognition of the vital elements of the gospel,
with a return to the decency and order of gospel institu-
tions.” Of the sincerity of Alline, his devotion and godly
zeal, there can be no doubt; but like many another poorly
instructed scribe, his views were narrow and rigid, with
a strong tincture of mysticism, and his theology, if he
could be credited with such a possession, was a strange
jumble of incongruous elements, in which Christian per-
Smith’s History, p. 107,
Pioneer Days 125

 

fection and antinomian licence, human freedom and the
final perseverance of the saints were “unequally yoked
together.” Of the organisations he formed nothing is left.
Some of his converts subsequently found their way into
Methodist churches, but the bulk of them, together with
his successors in the ministry, gradually embraced the
views of the close communion Baptists.

While this movement was in progress, William Black
left his home in the autumn of 1781, and began those
remarkable itinerating labours that were. to end only with
his life. Of systematic theology he knew but little, and
this is no cause for regret in view of the work to which
he was called. The Nova Scotia churches of that day
had been fed on the dry husks of a lifeless orthodoxy,
and the average conception of Christian living was a cold
morality divorced from vital godliness. The preaching of
Alline had rudely shaken the confidence of many, and in
the revulsion of feeling which followed it is not surprising
that they often rushed to the opposite extreme, and were
governed more by “ frames and feelings” than by Scripture
and common sense. William Black was mercifully guided
in a different path. From the time of his conversion he
was a diligent student of the Holy Scriptures, and his
association in class-meetings and prayer-meetings with
Methodists of the Yorkshire type had rendered him familiar
not only with their phraseology, but also with their in-
tellectual conception of evangelical Christianity as taught
by Wesley and his itinerants. This conception was
deepened and intensified by the spiritual exercises pre-
ceding and accompanying his own conversion. While
his theological system, if such it might be called, was
126 Methodism in Canada

 

by no means elaborate, it embraced the essentials,
and the “three R’s”—Ruin by sin, Redemption by
Christ, Regeneration by the Holy Spirit—were enforced
everywhere with all earnestness and fidelity. The
marked difference between the two men and the work
they accomplished is seen in the results. The White-
fieldian appeals of Alline were mighty to arouse the
careless and the formal, and by them many were turned
from sin to righteousness; but of the fruit of his labours
no organised trace now remains, and his brief but fiery
ministry is a dim tradition that grows fainter as the
years go by. If the preaching of William Black did not
arouse such a tempest of emotion, the feeling was deeper
and more abiding; his converts were gathered into classes
where provision was made for their Christian nurture,
and by wisely administered discipline, after the Wesleyan
pattern, the permanence of the work was assured. Not
only are the name and memory of William Black enshrined
in multitudes of grateful hearts, but the work he did
underlies to this day all that is best and purest in the
Methodism of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

In the early days Methodist preachers were men of one
aim—the salvation of souls. For this they preached and
prayed and suffered. Their theology was not broad,
perhaps, but it was deep and high; deep as the ruin into
which men had fallen, high as the heaven to which they
might ascend. Their “arrows” were not highly polished,
but they were “sharp in the hearts of the King’s enemies.”
Aiming always at direct. and immediate results, they could
not fail to achieve them. Among the leaders of the soul-
saving brigade William Black holds an honoured place.
Pioneer Days 127

 

The end and aim of his preaching was to bring lost sinners
to God, and his expectations were not disappointed. In
the record of his first evangelistic tours it is instructive
and interesting to note entries like the following: “Many
were deeply affected.” One “ sturdy servant of the devil ”
cried aloud for mercy. Perceived that the word had
“taken root in many minds.” Many “ were much affected,
and wept most of the time.” “Jesus was in the midst
both to wound and to comfort.” “Others who came with
heavy hearts returned home greatly rejoiced.” No cooked-
up reports these, but veritable bulletins from the field of
battle. When shall we listen to their like again ?

After a journey which occupied eighteen days, during
which he preached twenty-four times, Black returned to
Amherst. Here he found the antinomian leaven of
Alline’s teaching beginning to work with disastrous effect,
and he sorrowfully records that “many sucked in the
poison as if it had been the marrow of the gospel.” For
about six weeks he confined his labours to contiguous
settlements,— Amherst, Fort Lawrence, Point de Bute, and
Sackville,—and in January 1782 set off with a friend on
snowshoes to visit outlying settlements. It could hardly
be called a pleasure trip. At the French village “a little
straw for a bed and two yards of wrapper to cover them”
was a poor protection from the severe cold; but to find, a
little later, one “set at liberty,’ another rejoicing in
deliverance from guilt, and yet another receiving “the
spirit of adoption,” more than compensated for the hard-
ships of the journey. On his return to Cumberland, Black
found not a few causes of anxiety. Religious strife had
not only divided some of the societies, but had lowered the
128 Methodism in Canada

 

spiritual tone of many more. Persons suitable to lead
classes or conduct public services were hard to find, and
without such services vital godliness was not likely to
flourish. At this time Black was little more than a boy,
with scant experience and no training for his work. The
wonder is that he accomplished so much and made so few
mistakes; and it can be accounted for only on the ground
of his singleness of aim and entire dependence upon God.
Black’s next journey was in a new direction, and he
entered upon it, as he tells us, “deeply dejected.” But it
was not long before the sun broke through the gathering
clouds and cheered him with the promise of brighter days.
He preached whenever opportunity offered, sometimes in
Baptist churches of the open communion order, sometimes
in private houses, and nearly always with a sense of God’s
presence and with many tokens of His favour. The character
of his preaching may be inferred from the texts of his
sermons. Now it was, “I determined not to know any-
thing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified ” ;
again, “God so loved the world, that He gave His only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not
perish, but have everlasting life” ; and yet again, “ Fight the
good fight of faith.” At Cornwallis “a spirit of tenderness
pervaded the assembly,” while at Horton many “ cried for
mercy, while others shouted hosannahs to the Son of David.” !
At Windsor the itinerant found a few Methodists whom
he formed into a class under the leadership of John Smith,
formerly of Yarm, Yorkshire, who on occasion had acted as
precentor when Wesley preached in the market-place of
that town. On the 5th of June 1782 Black preached
1} Richey’s Memoirs of William Black.
Pioneer Days 129

 

the first Methodist sermon ever heard in Windsor. It
was delivered in the house of Mrs. Scott, with “much
liberty,” and “ many were in tears.” A week later we find
him in Halifax, where he preached “to a stupid set of
people.” At that time religion and morality in Halifax
were both at a low ebb. In 1760 a resident of the town
wrote to the Rev. Dr. Stiles of Boston as follows: “The
business of one half of the town is to sell rum; the other
half to drink it. You may from this simple circumstance
judge of our morals, and infer that we are not enthusiasts
in religion.” Concurrent testimony seems to show that
“religion was treated with indifference by the many, with
scorn by some, and with reverence by but few.”! Under
such circumstances it is not surprising that Black’s preach-
ing awakened opposition, so much so that some “lewd
fellows of the baser sort” greatly disturbed the meetings.
But noisy demonstrations of this sort soon subsided, and
subsequently “the utmost decorum was maintained.” The
name and fame of William Black had now extended beyond
the limits of his early journeys, and earnest requests to
visit other places began to reach him. He revisited
Horton, Cornwallis, Granville, and preached for the first
time at Annapolis, and at each place the word was with
power. But the condition of affairs in the Cumberland
societies recalled him again to Amherst. During Black’s
absence Alline had been busy, and “had persuaded nearly
seventy members of the Methodist societies to withdraw
from them.”? Consultation was had with some of the
faithful ones, classes were reorganised, and new leaders
appointed.
1 §mith’s History, p. 119. 2 Ibid. p. 123.
9
130 Methodism in Canada

 

The extension of the work, and the calls reaching him
from new places, impressed the mind of Black with the
need of more labourers. In the spring of 1781 he had
written to Wesley, giving an account of his conversion
and of the work of God so auspiciously begun in his
father’s household. This letter Wesley transcribed in his
Journal under date of 15th April 1782.1 Toward the
close of that year ‘Black wrote a second etter request-
ing Wesley to send out missionaries to Nova Scotia, to
which the latter replied as follows: “Our next Conference
will begin in July, and I have great hopes we shall be
able to send you assistance. One of our preachers informs
me that he is willing to go to any part of Africa or
America. He does not regard danger nor toil; neither
does he count his life dear unto him, so that he may testify
the gospel of the grace of God, and win sinners to Christ.
But I cannot advise any person to go alone. Our Lord
sent out His disciples two and two, and I do not despair of
finding another young man as much devoted to God as he.”
In the following year the need of additional labourers was
emphasised by the coming in of more than twenty thousand
British loyalists from the revolted American colonies. On
the 19th of October 1781 Lord Cornwallis surrendered
his army and artillery to Washington at Yorktown,
Virginia. This disaster to the British army virtually
settled the question of American independence, creating
enthusiastic joy among the revolutionists, and correspond-
ing alarm among the friends of England. For years the
latter had found an asylum in New York, but they knew
that the defeated party in the struggle could expect scant

} Wesley's Works, American edition, vol. iv. p. 558.
Pioneer Days cei

 

mercy from the victors, and when, in 1782, an Act was
passed by the British Parliament authorising the conclusion
of peace with the American colonies, the loyalists foresaw
that this would mean speedy banishment for them, and
they resolved to anticipate the course of events by seeking
refuge elsewhere. Before the summer was quite ended
thousands of men, women, and children had gone on board
ship and sailed for Nova Scotia, where they were joined
later in the season by thousands more. On their arrival
the refugees scattered in various directions, some to different
parts of Nova Scotia, some to what afterwards became the
province of New Brunswick, and some to the shores of
Prince Edward Island. Perhaps the most important
settlement formed in Nova Scotia at this time was at
Point Razoir. Here in the spring and autumn of 1783
about ten thousand loyalists and disbanded troops con-
gregated and began to build a town to which they gave the
name of Shelburne. But its early history was one of
disaster. Business failures and disappointments followed
each other, until ultimately nearly all the original settlers
were scattered and scarce one remained to tell the tale.
Among those who came to Shelburne with the loyalist
exiles was Robert Barry, who had been connected with the
Methodist Society in New York. One month later he was
visited by William Black, who, on the following Sabbath
morning, “ from a table placed among the stumps,” preached
the first sermon ever delivered in Shelburne. At the
afternoon -service there was serious disturbance. A
commissariat officer with two companions, all under the
influence of liquor, threatened the preacher with grievous
bodily harm; but the congregation interfered, and the
132 Methodism in Canada

 

disturbance ceased. Notwithstanding the opposition of
some and the indifference of others, a class was formed,
of which Robert Barry became the leader, and he was
shortly cheered by the arrival of one or two others whom
he had known in New York. In the meantime, Black was
pursuing his labours in other directions, extending his
journey as far as Prince Edward Island, where, however,
he found little encouragement. Returning to the main-
land, the winter of 1783—84 was spent at the scene of his
earlier labours in Cumberland county; but in the following
spring his journeys were resumed. Windsor, Halifax, and
Shelburne were visited, and Burchtown, a negro settlement,
six miles from Shelburne, afforded the itinerant peculiar
satisfaction. “It is indeed wonderful,’ he writes, “to see
what a blessed work the Lord has been carrying on among
these poor creatures. Within seven or eight months past
sixty of them profess to have found peace with God. And
what is further remarkable is that the principal instrument
God has employed in this work is a poor negro who can
neither walk nor stand. He is usually carried by another
man to the place of worship, where he sits and speaks to
the people, or kneels and prays with them.”

Every day the need of labourers for Nova Scotia was
more deeply felt. To supervise effectively so vast a field
was far beyond the ability of any one man, and Wesley
was again appealed to for assistance. From his reply it
appeared he was under the impression that one or two had
been sent from the United States, but of this arrangement
the Methodists of Nova Scotia knew nothing. About the
middle of September Black went to the United States to
plead in person for reinforcements. There he met Richard
Pioneer Days 133

 

Whatcoat, and later, Dr. Coke. In the month of December
the Christmas Conference assembled, and Black was much
impressed with the character of the gathering: “ Perhaps
such a number of godly men”—about sixty—“ never
before met in Maryland, perhaps not on the continent of
America.” Dr. Coke presided; and while he impressed
everyone with his greatness of soul and fervent spirit, it
is worthy of note that at this Conference he himself
received his chief missionary inspiration. Abel Stevens,
in his History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, relates
that “at the Baltimore Conference Dr. Coke heard the
appeal of Black for Nova Scotia. He responded to it with
his whole heart, begging money for a mission to that
province, ordaining preachers for it, and especially
commissioning Garrettson for it.” With Garrettson was
associated James Oliver Cromwell, who had already had
several years’ experience in the itinerant ranks. The two
sailed from New York in the following February, and after
being tossed about by a severe storm for fourteen days
landed at Halifax. Black had thus obtained the desire of
his heart—he had secured co-labourers for the Nova Scotia
field. Tarrying some time to visit friends in Boston, he
did not reach home till the following May, but soon
set out again to meet Garrettson, whom he found at
Falmouth.

Garrettson began his ministry in Halifax; but while
he received encouragement and sympathy from some in
prominent positions—notably the Rev. Dr. Breynton, rector
of St. Paul’s, and Governor Parr—he did not escape the
enmity of the baser sort. “For two nights we had a little
disturbance. One night the stones flew, and one nearly a
134 Methodism in Canada

 

pound weight was levelled at me, but missed its aim, and
struck out two panes of glass near my head. . . . This is
but trifling if I can win souls to Jesus.” Toward the end
of winter Garrettson made a tour in the country, and in the
space of a fortnight travelled three hundred miles through
deep snow, and preached twenty times. A second tour
took him to Windsor, Cornwallis, Wilmot, Granville,
Annapolis, and Digby, the last place, as he remarks,
being “ entirely destitute of a minister, and I fear of religion
too.” Nevertheless he formed a society at Digby, during
the following summer, of sixty members, nearly all of whom
were coloured people.1 Through the Annapolis valley he
came into frequent contact with Alline’s followers, “as
deluded a people as I ever saw,” he remarks. The extent
to which the antinomian poison had infected these people
may be inferred from the following typical case. “I was
conversing,” writes Garrettson, “ with one who seems to be
a principal person among them. She said she believed
death would slay more sins for her than ever were destroyed
before. ‘As for sin,’ said she, ‘it cannot hurt me;
not even adultery, murder, swearing, drunkenness, nor
any other sin can break the union between me and
Christ.’ ”

During the summer a month was spent at Liverpool,
where the New Light movement seemed to have rent every-
thing in pieces; yet Garrettson found a people “ willing to
hear the word.” During his stay the little Methodist
society increased from twenty members to forty. In
August and September six weeks were spent at Shel-
burne and adjoining settlements, which resulted in

1 Smith’s History, p. 157.
Proneer Days 135

 

adding one hundred and fifty persons to the societies.
“A work so successful,” says Smith, “was not carried
on without serious opposition. Sometimes stones were
thrown at him (Garrettson), at other times rotten eggs.
The preaching - house, hastily constructed, stood on posts
on the brow of a hill. One evening when Garrettson was
preaching to nearly four hundred persons, a mob en-
deavoured to remove the posts, intending to push the
building down the hill, During the sermon the preacher,
ignorant of their intention, quoted in a loud tone, ‘ Without
are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers,
and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie.’
Some of the mob, supposing the discovery of their design,
gave the alarm, when the whole party ran off with hideous
yells, and left the congregation to conclude the service in
peace.”

During Garrettson’s sojourn at Liverpool and Shelburne,
Black had been prosecuting the work at Halifax and out-
lying towns with fidelity and success. In the meantime,
John Mann of Shelburne had become an itinerant, and was
preaching with tokens of divine approval. Leaving him
in temporary charge at Halifax, Black visited Liverpool
and Shelburne, and in the following winter (1785-86)
returned to his old ground in Cumberland county. At :
this time Cromwell was stationed at Shelburne, Mann at
Liverpool, and Garrettson at Halifax. Black’s labours at
this period were not followed by the results to which he
had been accustomed. The divisions and heart-burnings
in the societies were not entirely healed, and this was a
serious hindrance to the work. Garrettson’s work, though

1 History, p. 160.
136 Methodism in Canada

 

not uniformly successful, was more encouraging. If
diligence counted for anything, his labours should have
been very fruitful. When in Halifax he was accustomed
to conduct five preaching-services on the Lord’s day. At
some of the country places on his extensive field the work
prospered. At Windsor he found “a loving society,” at
Liverpool “a lively society.” “Alline’s small party,” he
writes, “oppose us warmly. The greater part of the town
attend our ministry, and the first people have joined our
society.” Arrangements for church building were inaugu-
rated at Windsor, Annapolis, and Cornwallis, and altogether
the external circumstances of the Methodist congregations
showed great improvement.

At Barrington an unpromising beginning resulted in a
successful ending. The place was reached under difticulties,
the route along the coast being only a narrow path through
miles of lonely forest. Literally through mud and water
Garrettson and a travelling companion reached Barrington ;
but there seemed to be no one to receive them, perhaps for
the reason that the people had been warned against the
Methodist itinerant, first by a New Light preacher, who
represented Garrettson as “legal and destitute of faith,”
and also by a Calvinist minister, who denounced him as a
“dangerous Arminian.” There was a imeeting-house,
however, that had been built by the Congregationalists ; and
although it had neither doors nor windows, notice was
given that a stranger would preach there “an hour before
sunset.” About twenty people came, listened in silence,
and went away; but one woman, touched with compassion,
returned and invited the weary travellers to her home.
This woman was subsequently converted under Garrettson’s
Pioneer Days 137

 

preaching, lived a consistent Christian, and died at the age
of ninety-six. On the Sunday the congregation increased
to one hundred; but still regarded the preacher with cold-
ness and suspicion. During the week several islands were
visited, and on the following Sunday Garrettson returned
to Barrington. At first the outlook was darker than ever,
for when he reached the meeting-house at the appointed
time no one was there to meet him. Like many another
discouraged preacher, Garrettson betook himself to prayer.
“T retired into a wood,” he says, “ about a quarter of a mile
from the place, and entreated the Lord to send out the
people and bless His word. Upon returning to the meet-
ing-house I saw the people assembling from every part of
the town, and in a little while we had a large company.
The cloud that had oppressed my mind instantly vanished,
the Scriptures opened to me, and the word of the Lord
reached the hearts of the hearers. Between two or three
hundred were awakened in a greater or less degree. After
the meeting it appeared that their shyness and their pre-
judices were all removed, and they came around me on
every side, with tears inviting me to their homes.” Re-
turning again to Barrington some days later, Garrettson
found that the work of the Holy Spirit had been so general
that nearly all the families had been influenced. He
visited diligently from house to house, and succeeded in
forming a society of fifty members, with four leaders and
two stewards.

In the spring of 1786 William Black transferred his
headquarters to Halifax. Speaking of the religious
divisions of the people, he says, “There is one large
English church, one small Dutch church, one Presbyterian
138 Methodism in Canada

 

meeting-house, one Roman Catholic chapel, besides a small
society of Quakers, one of Sandemanians, and one of the
followers of Swedenborg, together with a few of Lady
Huntingdon’s society, and a great swarm of infidels.”
Methodist preaching had been heard but seldom, and the
little society was scattered ; but Black succeeded in forming
another, and some time subsequently reported “ thirty-two
in society.”

The fewness of the labourers and the largeness of the
field, the irregular mode of working, and the fact that New
Brunswick, with a population of many thousands, was yet
untouched, led to arrangements for a Conference in the
autumn of 1786. Dr. Coke expected to be present, but
failed to appear, and no explanation of his absence was
received.! Nevertheless the Conference was held, and six
preachers were stationed as follows: Garrettson and Black
at Halifax, a circuit extending all the way to Digby; John
Mann at Liverpool; Cromwell and James Mann (brother
of John) at Shelburne and Barrington; Grandon (a new
recruit) at Cumberland. The number of members reported
was five hundred and ten.

Tt had been Wesley’s desire that Freeborn Garrettson
should be appointed superintendent of the work in the
British American provinces and in the West Indies, and in

1 Subsequently the cause was ascertained. Dr. Coke, with three
missionaries (two intended for Newfoundland), embarked at Gravesend,
24th September, but head winds and stormy weather delayed them many
days. The voyage was a succession of tempests of unusual violence, and at
last the captain, in despair of reaching Halifax, resolved to run for the
West Indies. No sooner was the course changed than the weather changed
also, until, as Dr. Coke said, ‘‘it seemed as if angels blew the gale.” On
the morning of Christmas Day the battered, leaking ship reached Antigua.
The rest of the story is well known.
Ptoneer Days 139

 

this wish both Coke and Asbury concurred. At first
Garrettson was very averse to the proposal. He seemed
to feel that he had a wider commission, and could not
think of confining himself to Nova Scotia; but at the
Baltimore Conference of 1789 he gave a qualified assent,
provided he found, during the next year, that the ministers
and people among whom he was expected to labour would
give their approval. Much to his surprise, however, when
the stations were read he found his name announced as
presiding elder of a district in his own country. He was
never informed of the reason for this change of policy ;
and as those were the days when men took the work
assigned them, without any thought of choosing for them-
selves, he asked no questions. This was a matter of great
regret alike to Wesley and to the preachers in Nova
Scotia, where Garrettson, by his devotion, abundant labours,
and success in winning souls, had endeared himself to all.
His biographer, the Rev. Nathan Bangs, D.D., tells how
this devoted itinerant “travelled mountains and valleys,
frequently on foot, with his knapsack at his back; up and
down the Indian paths in the wilderness, where it was
inexpedient to take a horse; had often to wade through
the mud and water of the morasses, and frequently to
satisfy his hunger from his knapsack, to quench his thirst
from a brook, and to rest his weary limbs on the leaves of
trees.” Once he nearly lost his life in a snowstorm; at
another time, when crossing a river which flows into the
Bay.of Fundy, he barely escaped a tidal wave which swept
over his horse’s back as the animal sprang up the river-
bank. But not alone for the perils and hardships he en-
dured do we honour the memory of this great and good
140 Methodism in Canada

 

man, but for the work he accomplished in extending the
Master’s kingdom. “It may be fairly questioned,” says
Dr. Bangs, “whether any one minister in the Methodist
Episcopal Church, or indeed in any other church, has been
instrumental in the awakening and conversion of more
sinners than Garrettson.”

In 1788 James Wray, an English preacher, was
appointed by Wesley to superintend the work in the
maritime provinces. At this time not one of the Nova
Scotia preachers was ordained, a circumstance which
militated somewhat against their usefulness, or at all
events their influence, and three of the number—William
Black, John Mann, and James Mann—resolved to attend
the Conference at Philadelphia to obtain ordination there,
which was readily accorded them. Wray attended the
same Conference, and after its conclusion the four returned
to Nova Scotia and resumed their labours. Wray’s
administration does not appear to have been very success-
ful, and differences arose between him and two of the
brethren. Friendly consultation at a later date restored
harmony; but Wray was convinced, it would seem, that
he could not bring the irregular methods of the New World
under subordination to the rigid military discipline to
which he had been accustomed, and he requested Dr. Coke
to relieve him from the responsibilities of his office. Coke
consented, and William Black was appointed superin-
tendent of the work in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick,
and Newfoundland. For many succeeding years the
work continued to be of the same arduous and self-~
denying character that I have endeavoured to describe;
but as the appointment of William Black to the super-
Pioneer Days 141
intendency marks the beginning of a new era in the
development of Methodism in Eastern British America,
so it affords a convenient point at which to break off

this brief and imperfect sketch of “ pioneer days in the
maritime provinces.”
Il

THE FIRST UNION WITH THE BRITISH
CONFERENCE, AND THE CAUSES WHICH
LED TO IT

Wuat we have written respecting pioneer days by no
means exhausts the theme. Volumes might easily be filled
with records of the heroic deeds of those men “of whom
the world was not worthy,” who in the face of obloquy,
persecution, and poverty carried the banner of Methodism
all over the North American continent, and vindicated
her theology against a world in arms. But enough has
been said to show what were the social and religious
conditions of the country when Methodism was introduced
into the British provinces, and the difficulties which the
preachers had to encounter in the prosecution of their
work. The story thus far told covers the last quarter of
the eighteenth century and the opening years of the
nineteenth. In 1808 there were two Methodist districts
in the Canadas: the Lower Canada District, comprising
three circuits—Quebec, Montreal, and Ottawa; and the
Upper Canada District, with nine circuits—Cornwall, St.
Lawrence, Augusta, Bay of Quinte, Smith’s Creek, Yonge
Street, Niagara, Ancaster, and Long Point. Besides these

there were parts of two circuits in Lower Canada extend-
142
The First Union with the British Conference 143

 

ing beyond the American boundary: Dunham, connected
with the New York Conference; and Standstead, connected
with the New England Conference. On the whole ground
there were nineteen preachers, including two presiding
elders, and a membership of about three thousand. Be-
tween the date just referred to and the first union with
the British Conference in 1833 there intervenes a period
of nearly a quarter of a century. The latter date may be
regarded as an epoch year, when a new trend was given to
the work of Methodism in the Canadas; but there were
some occurrences in the preceding twenty years that call
for mention because of their connexion with the subse-
quent history of the Methodist Church.

The first of these was the disastrous and altogether
unnecessary war of 1812 between the United States and
Great Britain. For some years preceding public feeling,
especially in the Middle and Western States, had become
increasingly hostile to England. The ostensible reasons
for this resentment were of the flimsiest kind, and as a
justification of war were utterly untenable. This was
keenly felt by large numbers of intelligent Americans,
who endeavoured in all constitutional ways to avert the
threatened calamity. The whole Federalist party stood
opposed, and its leaders in Congress and out of it did not
fail to utter their protest against the war measure as
impolitic, unnecessary, and unjust. Nor was this opposition
confined to Federalists alone. Nota few Republicans were
equally opposed, as the vote in Congress plainly showed.
“In the House, Pennsylvania and the States south and
west of it gave 62 votes for the war and 32 against
it; the States north and east of Pennsylvania gave
144 Methodism in Canada

 

17 yeas and 32 nays—in all 79 for and 64 against
war.”! In the Senate the vote was 19 for and 13
against. The alleged grounds of complaint against Great
Britain were three in number, or, to speak with strict
accuracy, two. In the first place, seamen had deserted
from the Royal Navy and were sailing under the American
flag: England claimed the right to search for these and
take them as deserters, though found jon American ships.
The exercise of this right was highly irritating to American
pride; and as it was sometimes exercised in a very high-
handed and dictatorial way, and at times was extended to
include the impressment of American seamen, it was no
wonder that feeling ran high. Still, it was a matter to be
settled by diplomacy and treaty, and not by the stern
arbitrament of the sword. The second grievance was the
blockade of the ports of France and her allies. Napoleon
by his “Berlin Decree,” issued on the 1st of November
1806, declared a blockade of the entire British coast, and
let loose French privateers against her shipping, and that
of all nations trading with her. Great Britain retaliated
by “Order in Council,” proclaiming a blockade of all
French ports, and declared all vessels engaged in traffic
with that country, with their cargoes, liable to seizure.
At this time much of the world’s commerce was carried in
American bottoms, and the action of the two European
powers was a disastrous blow to American maritime trade,
though not so intended. Napoleon sought only to cripple
England, and England sought to checkmate N apoleon, and
the injury inflicted on American shipping was an incidental
result, not the object really aimed at. There was a bitter
1C, Schurz, Life of Henry Clay, vol. i. chap. v.
The First Union with the British Conference 145

 

outcry in the United States against England’s action, and
the politicians, except those who opposed the war, found
it convenient to ignore the fact that Napoleon’s Berlin
Decree was responsible for the whole trouble, and that
England’s action was inevitable under the circumstances.
Strange to say, however, the final blow to American
shipping was dealt by the American Government. In the
autumn of 1807 a special session of Congress was sum-
moned, and President Jefferson sent a message to the
Senate recommending an embargo on all shipping in -
American ports. An Act to this effect was immediately
passed, and the ruin of the American navy was complete.
“ As the order was carried along the seacoast, every artisan
dropped his tools, every merchant closed his doors, every
ship was dismantled. _American produce—wheat, timber,
cotton, tobacco, rice—dropped in value or became unsale-
able; every imported article rose in price, wages stopped,
swarms of debtors became bankrupt; thousands of sailors
hung idle round the wharves, trying to find employment on
coasters, and escape to the West Indies or Nova Scotia. A
reign of idleness began, and the men who were not already
ruined felt that their ruin was only a matter of time.”?}
In New England the embargo came like a thunderbolt
from a clear sky. As it became apparent that the utter
paralysis of trade would be a matter not of months but
of years, bitter passions were aroused. It was confidently
believed by many that Jefferson had sold himself to France,
that his object was to ruin American commerce and strike
a deadly blow at England at the same time. The mis-
1H, Adams, History of the United States, Second Administration of

Jefferson, vol. ii. chap. xii.
Io
146 Methodism in Canada

 

chievous effects of the embargo measure led to its repeal
the following year, and the substitution of a Non-inter-
course Bill, which “excluded all public and private vessels
of France and England from American waters, forbade
under severe penalties the importation of British or French
goods ... and gave the President authority to reopen
by proclamation the trade with France or England in case
either of those countries should cease to violate neutral
rights.” Shortly afterward a satisfactory arrangement
was reached between the United States Government and
Mr. Erskine, the British Minister at Washington, and the
Non-intercourse Act was suspended so far as Great Britain
was concerned; but it soon transpired that Erskine had
acted in utter disregard of the instructions of his Govern-
ment. He was promptly recalled, and the Non-intercourse
Act was restored by proclamation of the President in
August 1809. France continued hostile. American
ships found lying at Amsterdam were seized, and subse-
quently, by the decree of Rambouillet, every American ship
found in any French port was confiscated and ordered to
be sold. This high-handed proceeding, by alienating the
sympathy of the United States, seemed to open the way
for more friendly relations between the latter power and
Great Britain. Napoleon was not slow to perceive this,
and in the following year (August 1810) he suddenly
changed the whole situation by revoking the decrees of
Berlin and Milan, “such revocation to take place on the
first day of the following November, provided the British
Government revoked their Orders in Council, or (and this
was the important provision) the United States caused
1H. Adams, History of the United States, vol. ii. p. 445.
The First Union with the British Conference 147

 

their rights to be respected.” Such an announcement,
which committed Napoleon to nothing, carried duplicity
upon its very face; but the American Government was so
completely deceived by the crafty appeal to the national
vanity that commercial intercourse with England, which
had been resumed the preceding May, was again suspended ;
and this was supposed to be “causing American rights to
be respected.”

At the election of 1808 Jefferson was succeeded by
Madison in the presidential chair, and it was under
Madison’s administration that events drifted. rapidly
toward a conflict with England. It is doubtful if
Madison himself really desired war; but a number of hot-
headed young Republicans had recently come to the front,
and Madison was swept along in the tide of a new national
spirit and expectation. These fiery spirits were convinced
that the only way to maintain the dignity of the Republic
and make the nation respected was to fight somebody,
and they preferred to fight the English, whom they cordially
hated, rather than the French, for whom they had a kindly
regard, although beyond all question the French under.
Napoleon had been the worst transgressors. Besides this,
a spirit of cupidity had been aroused. Canada lay
conveniently near, and was almost entirely defenceless.”
True, it had not been a factor in the grievances of which
the American Government complained ; but to capture it

1G. L. Rives, Selections from the Correspondence of Thomas Barclay,
chap. vi.

2The New York Tribune, in 1861, made the following remarkable
admission respecting the war of 1812: ‘‘That war, as everybody knows,
was pre-eminently a Southern measure, of which the great object and
leading end and aim, by which it was alone justified as an expedicnt under-
taking, was the conquest and annexation of Canada.”
148 Methodism in Canada

 

would extend enormously the jurisdiction of the United
States, inflict a wound upon a nation of which the American
politicians were extremely jealous, and above all would
bring great renown to the administration under which all
this had been accomplished. Moreover, it looked like a
very safe undertaking. The white population of the
United States amounted to nearly six millions, that of
Canada to three hundred thousand, There was a frontier
of a thousand miles to be defended, and England, hampered
and weakened by her long continental wars, could not be
expected to render much assistance. Besides, England
was far away, and in those days of sailing ships it took
a long time to transport troops and stores across a
thousand leagues of sea. Then why not make an
immediate descent on Canada? It may be captured
before England can strike a blow. Yes, it looked easy ;
but there was one factor in the problem with which the
American politicians forgot to reckon, namely, the
Canadian people. They were under a delusion from which
many Americans have not escaped to this day, that
Canadians were longing for an opportunity to throw off the
British yoke and find freedom under the Stars and Stripes ;
and it required three years of disastrous war, with many
reverses and ultimate defeat, to convince them that they
were mistaken. The Republic that began the war without
just cause, continued it with few and indecisive victories,
and was compelled to retire in the end shorn of much of
its prestige, and, but for the (perhaps unwise) magnanimity
of Great Britain, denuded of much of its territory. The
verdict of history justifies, to some extent at least,
the revolt of the American colonies in 1776, but has
The First Union with the British Conference 149

 

scarcely: a word of apology to offer for the cruel war
of 18123

It was impossible that a conflict of such duration and
bitterness could be waged between the two countries
without affecting the work of the Methodist Church,
especially in Canada. With the exception of two circuits
in Lower Canada, close to the American border, the whole
of the Canadian work was connected with the Genesee
Conference. On the 23rd of July 1812, about a month
after the declaration of war, this Conference met not far
from the Niagara frontier. None of the Canadian
preachers was in attendance ; but the bishop, with sublime
faith in God, calmly proceeded to arrange the work and
station the preachers as if no conflict was at hand.
Preachers of British or Canadian birth were allowed to
remain in Canada, and only two or three Americans were
appointed, among whom was Nathan Bangs. He relin-
quished his charge, however (Montreal), with the consent
of the bishop, and another—Josiah F. Chamberlain—did
not go to his field. It was just as well, for when news of
the declaration of war arrived at Quebec, the Government
issued a proclamation commanding all American citizens
to leave the province by the 3rd of July. As in 1812,
none of the Canadian preachers attended the Genesee
Conference of 1813, but in each year of the war they met
together and made their own arrangements for the work.

1In the American Congress on the 2nd of January 1813 Mr. Quincy
denounced the war in no measured terms. ‘‘ We seized,” he exclaimed, ‘‘ the
first opportunity to carry the war among the harmless colonists, It was not
owing to our Government that the bones of the Canadians were not mixed
with the ashes of their habitations. Since the invasion of the buccaneers
there is nothing in history more disgraceful than this war.”
150 Methodism in Canada

 

This year no appointments were made by the bishop.
Although the war had not yet touched Quebec, Montreai,
Ottawa, or the St. Francis River, yet these circuits are
vacant; but in Upper Canada the preachers seem to have
remained at their posts, caring for their disturbed and
scattered flocks, although some of the circuits had been
scenes of strife and bloodshed. During this and the
following year many of the preachers located, and their
names disappear from the Minutes. In fact, only seven
remained in active service during the entire period of the
war—four in the Niagara country and three on the Bay
of Quinte and the St. Lawrence River.

During the interregnum caused by the war, some
correspondence took place between members of the
Methodist society in Montreal and the authorities of the
British Wesleyan Missionary Committee, requesting and
recommending the appointment of missionaries to Lower
Canada. The request met with a favourable response, and
in 1814 John Strong was sent to Quebec and Samuel
Leigh to Montreal. Not only was this done without
communication with the American bishops, which was
perhaps impracticable during the war, but it was done at
the request of certain individuals in Montreal, and not of
the society as a whole; and in this lay the germs of
future trouble. At the close of the war in 1815, the
Genesee Conference resumed its control of the work in
Canada ; but, recognising the difficulties of the situation, the
bishop exercised unusual care in the selection of men, so
that no offence might be given to a people whose feelings
had been rendered very sensitive by the three years’
struggle. Quebec and Montreal were left to be supplied,
The First Union with the British Conference 151

but the British Conference appointed Richard Williams to
the former place and John Strong to the latter. When
Strong reached Montreal, he desired to use the chapel

 

already erected, but was opposed by Henry Ryan, the
presiding elder of the Lower Canada district. Ryan
belonged to the Church militant—he was a natural
fighter; but in this instance he simply discharged a duty
which devolved upon him as the official representative of
the Church under whose labours the Montreal society had
been gathered and the chapel erected. But as once it
happened at Iconium, where “the multitude of the city
was divided, and part held with the Jews and part with
the apostles,” so now it happened in Montreal—the
society “ was divided, and part held with” Mr. Strong “ and
part with” Elder Ryan. The latter wrote to Bishop
Asbury, rehearsing the facts; and the bishop, in turn,
wrote to the Wesleyan Missionary Committee in London.
The committee replied at length, the part of the letter
referring to the Montreal difficulty being as follows:

“To preserve the mutual good understanding, and the
unity of the spirit, and as far as possible a co-operation in
promoting the good work of the Lord, we feel it our duty
to state to you a subject of local difference which to us
has been painful, and which we feel a delicacy in stating,
but to which we are compelled from the necessities of the
case, that the work of the Lord be not hindered. In conse-
quence of applications being made to the British Confer-
ence from the society of Montreal, a missionary was sent
to that place, and received as a messenger of the gospel of
peace; but we are sorry to learn that some misunder-
standing has taken place between Brothers Strong and
152 Methodism in Canada

 

Williams, our missionaries, and Brother Ryan, your presid-
ing elder for Lower Canada. From the former we have
received a statement of their proceedings, and from the
latter a letter of complaint. We have also received a letter
from Brother Bennett, the chairman of the Nova Scotia
district, who has visited Montreal, etc., and reported to us
his proceedings. Upon a review of the whole, and from
the most serious and deliberate consideration, we are led
to conclude that, considering the relative situation of the
inhabitants of Montreal and of Canada to this country,
and particularly as the principal part of the people appear
to be in favour of our missionaries, it would be for peace
and comfort, and the furtherance of. the gospel, for our
brethren to occupy those stations, especially the former ;
and to which we conceive we have a claim, as a considerable
part of the money for building the chapel and house was
raised in this country. We trust our American brethren
will see the propriety of complying with our wishes with
respect to those places, not to mention their political
relation to this country, which, however, is not of little
importance, for we are conscious that their general habits
and prejudices are in favour of English preachers, being
more congenial to their views and feelings, which should
certainly be consulted, and will tend to facilitate the
success of the gospel and their spiritual prosperity. As
your and our object is mutually to diffuse the knowledge
of Him whose kingdom is not of this world, and by every
possible means to promote the immortal interests of men,
let us not contend—we have one Master, even Christ—
but give place to each other, that the word.of the Lord
may have free course, run, and be glorified. We cannot
The First Union with the British Conference 153

 

but hope that, from the contiguity of the labours of the
brethren belonging to the Conferences, the spirit of unity
and love will be promoted, and by this measure a more
perfect reciprocal intercourse established. As you have
kindly invited our esteemed brethren, Messrs. Black and
Bennett, to take a seat in your Conference, we have
directed them to pay you a visit at Baltimore for this
purpose, and to amicably arrange and settle this business,
whom we trust you will receive as our representatives and
as brethren.”

When the General Conference assembled in Baltimore
in the month of May 1816, the recent death of Bishop
Asbury cast a shadow over its sessions. Bishop M‘Kendree
presided; Messrs. Black and Bennett were present to
represent the British Conference, and William Case and
Henry Ryan were there as delegates from the Genesee
Conference; hence there was no danger that Canadian
affairs would be overlooked. Statements were presented,
the letter to Bishop Asbury was read, and the whole sub-
ject referred to a committee. Ata subsequent stage the
committee presented a report in which they recognise “an
earnest desire to have all existing difficulties terminated ” ;
deprecate the unhappy dissensions in Montreal; claim that
the circuits in Canada had been supplied during the war
as regularly as circumstances would permit; also “that it
is the desire of the great majority of the people in Upper
and Lower Canada to be supplied as heretofore with
preachers from the United States”; and concluded by sub-
mitting the following resolutions, which were adopted by
the Conference:

“1, That we cannot, consistently with our duty to
154 Methodism in Canada

 

the societies of our charge in the Canadas, give up any
part of them, or any of our chapels in those provinces, to
the superintendence of the British Connexion.

«2. That a respectful letter be addressed to the London
Methodist Missionary Society, explaining the reasons for
the above resolution.”

The letter was written, but no good came of it, and
the unhappy divisions continued. Instead of withdrawing
their missionaries, the Wesleyan Missionary Committee
increased them, and even sent some into Upper Canada.
There can be no doubt that some of the people—immigrants
from Great Britain chiefly—desired English preachers ; but
there is reason to believe that the bulk of the Methodist
congregations were quite content with the ministrations to
which they had been accustomed, and desired no change.
The argument that Canada was a British colony and should
have British preachers was not without weight, but was
scarcely sufficient to justify the establishment of rival con-
gregations under the Methodist name.

In 1817 the Upper Canada House of Assembly pro-
posed to consider grievances connected with lands reserved
for the Crown and the Clergy. In laying out a township
of about twelve miles square for settlement, it was first
divided into concessions, and these into lots of two hundred
acres each; but in each township seven lots were reserved
' for the Crown and seven for the Clergy, or two sevenths of
the entire area. From a purely business point of view this
was a grievance, for these reserved lands paid no taxes,
bore no part. of the public burdens, although their value .
was steadily advanced by the improvements made by
adjacent settlers. Moreover, so much uncleared and un-
The First Union with the British Conference 155

 

cultivated land in a township was a hindrance to local
improvements, such as roads and other conveniences, and
some began to agitate fora change. But above and beyond
all this, many were conscientiously opposed to the endow-
ment of any religious denomination out of the public domain,
and began to affirm their convictions with some degree of
boldness. When it became apparent that the House of
Assembly was disposed to deal with this question, the
Governor, whose irresponsible Council was entirely opposed
to an investigation, cut short the proceedings by proroguing
the House. This was the beginning of the Clergy Reserves
agitation within the walls of the Provincial Parliament, and
it continued to be one of the absorbing questions in the
country’s politics for many years.

In the same year the first Methodist Conference ever
held in Canada assembled in a chapel in the township of
Elizabethtown on the Augusta circuit. It is memorable
chiefly as marking the beginning of the most extensive
revival of religion that had ever occurred in the country,
and it may be questioned if it has ever been exceeded to
this day. It is believed that during the sessions of the
Conference more than one hundred persons were awakened,
of whom the greater part found peace in believing. The
revival extended to all parts of the Augusta circuit, and
then through the fields westward. In fourteen months
more than three hundred persons in the Bay of Quinte
region professed conversion, many of whom were heads of
families. From the Bay of Quinte the work spread to
Niagara, where about four hundred were converted in one
year. The total ingathering from the revival which
began at the Elizabethtown Conference was about fourteen
156 Methodism in Canada

 

hundred. There would be nothing remarkable about all
this in some crowded centre of population where people
could be reached in large masses, but in a population as
sparse as that of Canada at the time the results were
really wonderful. In this respect that first Conference in
Canada stands without a parallel, as far as I know, among
Methodist Conferences throughout the world.

It would be pleasant to record that the revival put
an end to divisions and estrangements in the Methodist
societies, but this was not the case. In the year of which
we speak, nine English preachers were stationed in the
two provinces, of whom five were in Upper Canada.
There might be some grounds for the action of the
Wesleyan Conference in such places as Quebec, St.
Armands, and Melbourne, since these places were not
supplied by the Genesee Conference; but these grounds
did not exist in places like Montreal, Augusta, Kingston,
Bay of Quinte, and York. There can be no doubt that the
authorities in England acted in perfect good faith; but they
were misled by the partial and one-sided statements of
persons in Canada who, while speaking for themselves,
were assumed to be speaking for the bulk of the Methodist
people. The contentions arising from the presence of two
Methodist bodies on the same ground were much deplored,
and led Bishops M‘Kendree and George to remonstrate
with the British Missionary Committee, and to lay before
them a full statement respecting the situation in Canada.
The reply of the Secretaries—Rev. Jabez Bunting, Richard
Watson, and Joseph Taylor—indicated clearly their desire
to promote the most amicable relations between their
missionaries and the Canadian preachers; but circum-
The First Union with the British Conference 157

 

stances seemed to render this impossible. The Canadian
preachers claimed that the country belonged, Method-
istically, to those who first supplied the religious needs
of the people, and were still able to do so; and they
were disposed to regard the English missionaries as so
many Jacobs, or supplanters, who had come to take away,
or at least to divide, the inheritance. The divisions con-
tinued, and the irenical resolutions of the Wesleyan
Missionary Committee seemed like water spilt upon the
ground.

The General Conference which met in Baltimore in the
month of May 1820 gave careful consideration to the
condition of affairs in Canada. Numerous petitions and
memorials were received from the Canadian societies,
protesting against the interference of the English preachers,
and praying for a continuance of ministerial service from
the United States. The letter from the secretaries of the
British Missionary Committee was also read, after which
it was “ Resolved, . . . that it is the duty of the bishops
of the Methodist Episcopal Church to continue their
episcopal charge over our societies in the Canadas, all
except Quebec.” At a subsequent stage this resolution
was so far modified as to authorise the delegate who might
be sent to England to consent to the transfer of the whole
of the Lower Canada district to the jurisdiction of the
British Wesleyan Conference. Another resolution
authorised the episcopate, with the consent of the
Genesee Conference, to establish an Annual Conference in
Canada, should they deem such a step expedient. The
Rev. John Emory was chosen delegate to England. He
was cordially received by the English brethren, and the
158 Methodism in Canada

 

address of the General Conference, as well as Mr. Emory’s
representations of what he regarded as the true state of
affairs in Canada, received careful consideration, and elicited
a most friendly response. After reciprocating the kindly
sentiments of the American brethren, providing for the
appointment of a fraternal delegate to the next General
Conference, an exchange of books, periodicals, etc., the
Wesleyan Conference adopted the following:

“1, That as the American Methodists and ourselves
are but one body, it would be inconsistent with our unity,
and dangerous to that affection which ought to characterise
us in every place, to have different societies and congrega-
tions in the same towns and villages, or to allow of any
intrusion on either side into each other’s labours.

“2. That this principle shall be the rule by which
the disputes now existing in the Canadas between our
missionaries and the American preachers shall be ter-
minated.

“3. That the simplest and most effectual manner of
carrying this rule into effect appears to us to be to accede
to the suggestion of the American Conference, that the
American brethren shall have the occupation of Upper
Canada, and the British missionaries that of Lower Canada,
allowing sufficient time for carrying this arrangement into
effect, with all possible tenderness to existing prejudices
and conflicting interests on both sides.”

Thus the dispute which had continued for years was
happily terminated, peace and goodwill were restored, and
the preachers of the two Connexions pursued their work
in separate provinces without interfering with each other’s
fields. When brethren cannot “dwell together in unity,”
The First Union with the British Conference 159

 

it is better to dwell apart; and there seems to have been
enough human nature in both the American and English
preachers to render this course desirable.

Previous to the General Conference of 1824, the
question of admitting laymen to the Annual and General
Conferences had been the subject of a good deal of discus-
sion; so much so that the Conferences seem to have
elected their delegates largely on that issue. The Genesee
Conference, with which the two districts in Upper Canada
were connected, was generally favourable to the change;
for instead of sending the presiding elders to the General
Conference, as was the usual practice, on this occasion they
were passed by. This gave great offence to Henry Ryan,
the presiding elder of the Bay of Quinte district, and he
immediately began an agitation all over his district by
violent appeals against the “reformers,” as they were
termed. Although Ryan was never a favourite among the
preachers he was very popular among the people, and his
appeals to the latter to seek a separation from the juris-
diction of the Church in the United States made some
impression. He was joined in the crusade by a local
preacher named: Breakenridge, and together they called
conventions and harangued the people. These conventions
delegated Ryan and Breakenridge to attend the General
Conference and effect a separation; but when they pre-
sented themselves at Baltimore they were refused a seat,
which gave further offence to the Canadian elder. Under
the then existing law, Breakenridge, being a layman, could
not be admitted, and neither could Ryan unless duly
elected by his Conference. Both of them must have been
aware of this, and their attempt to override the discipline did
160 Methodism in Canada

 

not have a good effect. Moreover, the Conference was not
slow to perceive Ryan’s inconsistency; although he had
violently opposed lay delegation, he was now endeavouring
to secure a place for a lay delegate in the General Confer-
ence. The question of lay delegation, and all the petitions
and memorials relating thereto, was referred to a committee,
which after full discussion adopted a report to the effect
that the proposed change was inexpedient; and the report
was confirmed by the Conference. The further question
of the formation of an independent Methodist Church for
Canada, with a resident bishop, was next taken up, and
the two delegates from that country, though not favourable
personally to the proposed change, advocated some con-
cessions for the sake of peace. It was finally decided that
there should be a separate Conference in Upper Canada
but under the superintendency of the American bishops.
When Ryan and Breakenridge returned from Baltimore,
the agitation for entire separation was resumed. A large
meeting was held in the Elizabethtown chapel, and it was
resolved that as the General Conference had not allowed
the independence of the Canadian body, they would break
off from the American Church without permission. A
constitution and rules were adopted, also a letter to the
Canadian societies. This high-handed proceeding was
received with general favour on the Bay of Quinte district,
and efforts were at once made to extend the agitation to
the district farther west. Ryan, with characteristic energy,
threw himself into the struggle, and during the summer of
1824 the societies were much disturbed. Tidings of the
state of affairs having reached the bishops, steps were at
once taken to allay the agitation. Bishop George, who
The First Union with the British Conference 161

 

was known and beloved in Canada, and whose instru-
mentality in promoting the great revival was still grate-
fully remembered, came into the country and passed
through the circuits of the Bay of Quinte district, preach-
ing to the congregations, explaining the true state of affairs,
and assuring them that if they really desired separation
the next General Conference would doubtless grant it.
Elijah Hedding, one of the new bishops, accompanied by
Nathan Bangs, entered the country by way of Niagara, and
travelled slowly through the principal circuits, preaching,
exhorting, and advising the people, until they reached
Hallowell (now Picton), where the Annual Conference was
to meet. The efforts of the two bishops and Nathan
Bangs had a most salutary effect, and by the time the
Conference met the agitation had subsided, and affairs had
resumed their normal calm.

The first Conference of the Canadian preachers met in the
village of Hallowell, 25th August 1824. Bishops George
and Hedding presided, and William Case, who had entered
the itinerant ranks nineteen years before, was chosen
Secretary. Thirty preachers composed the entire Confer-
ence. Peace and harmony reigned during the session,
but it was evident there existed a general desire that
Methodism in Upper Canada should become an inde-
pendent body not later than the General Conference of
1828. To prepare the way, a memorial to the several
Annual Conferences was adopted, setting forth the reasons
for the proposed change. It was pointed out (1) That
the prejudices of the early settlers, who had been com-
pelled to leave their homes in the American colonies at

the time of the revolutionary war, because of their devotion
It
162 Methodism in Canada

 

to the British Government, had been revived and inten-
sified by the unjust war of 1812, but that these prejudices
would subside if the preachers became permanent residents
of the country. (2) That the difficulties in the way of
episcopal supervision were so great as to be almost
insurmountable, resulting in many inconveniences to the
Canadian societies. (3) That jealousies had been awakened
in political circles because a number of the Methodist
ministers in Upper Canada were from the United States,
and the circumstance was used to the detriment of the
Canadian Church. (4) That in the event of another war
between the two countries, the difficulties of intercourse
would make it impracticable for the bishops to discharge
their duties in Canada. (5) That under present circum-
stances Methodist preachers were not permitted to
solemnise matrimony, nor could titles to chapel property
be secured.

The formation of an Annual Conference in Canada
caused only slight changes in the personnel of the ministry.
One preacher located and two remained with the Genesee
Conference ; but six new men were received as probationers
for the ministry, and three others were taken out under
the presiding elders. At this Conference Henry Ryan ‘was
relieved of official responsibility, and Thomas Madden was
appointed to succeed him. This was inevitable. Ryan
had plainly violated the rules of the Church by “ sowing
dissention in the societies,” and to retain him in office
would be to put a premium on disloyalty. But he was
not dealt with harshly. A new mission was created called
“Chippawa and Grand River Falls, and new settlements
near”; and as Ryan owned a farm and other property at
The First Union with the British Conference 163

 

the first-named place, the arrangement was a convenient
one for himself and his family. Still, to be “reduced to
the ranks,” so to speak, was irritating to a man of his
temperament; and although at the Conference he seemed
to be satisfied with the decision reached in regard to
separation from the Church in the United States, dis-
satisfaction soon returned and influenced his future
conduct. In the following year, 1825, he was super-
annuated.

At the same Conference the educational status of the
younger ministers came under review, and the “ presiding
elder and others of our senior brethren” were “requested
to pay special attention to this matter, taking the oversight
thereof, and affording to our young men all the aid in
their power for the attainment of the object.” It is true
the young men had not been left entirely without a course
of study. In order to be received into full connexion it
was indispensably necessary to be well acquainted with
Wesley’s Sermons, Fletcher's .Checks, Clarke’s and Benson’s
Commentaries, Watts’ Logic, Mosheim’s and Milner’s
Church Histories, Murray’s English Grammar, and Morse’s
Geography. But now they were recommended to study in
addition such books as the following: Wesley’s Natural
Philosophy, Goldsmith’s Histories of Greece, Rome, and
England; Rollin’s Ancient History; Prideaux and Shuck-
ford’s Connections of the Old and New Testaments ; Clarke’s
Chronological Tables; British Nepos ; Milton’s Paradise
Lost; Young’s Night Thoughts; Cowper's Poems; and
biographies of Wesley, Fletcher, Coke, Bramwell, and
Francis Xavier. Taken in connexion with the “Confer-
ence course,” this was not a bad regimen on which to rear
164 Methodism in Canada

 

devout and aggressive evangelists, and to promote ac-
quaintance with such literature as was available at the
time. That such a course should be mapped out for young
men who were almost constantly in the saddle, and who,
in addition to pastoral work, had to preach from twenty to
thirty times in the month, indicated unbounded confidence
in their zeal and devotion, and gave assurance that they
were giving good heed to Wesley’s counsel: “Never be
unemployed ; never be triflingly employed.”

As the General Conference was to assemble in May
1828, the Canadian Conference of the preceding year chose
its allotted number of delegates. They were instructed to
present the memorial drawn up in 1824, and to use all
proper means to secure independence for the Canadian
Conference. The arguments in favour of separation in
1824 were increasingly cogent in 1828. Everywhere the
Methodists were maligned for being subject to the juris-
diction of the American bishops, and their loyalty was
constantly called in question, so that the position of the
preachers was becoming altogether unbearable. To add to
the tension, Henry Ryan, though a superannuated preacher,
resumed his former agitation. He knew that the Canada
Conference desired independence, that the Methodist people
in’general were favourable to that policy, and that it would
doubtless be granted at the approaching General Con-
ference; but he professed to believe that it would not be
granted, and so continued his agitation. As the Conference
would not follow his lead, he determined to separate from
the Methodist Episcopal Church, with as many as could
be persuaded to join him, and form a new connexion under
a new name, It is usually the case that when men
The First Union with the British Conference 165

 

inaugurate separations in the Church they attempt to
justify their action by bitter attacks upon those from whom
they separate; and so it was with Henry Ryan. He
assailed the preachers as ambitious, proud, foppish,
covetous, and persecuting; the members and all who
adhered to the Conference as dupes and slaves; while all
that the bishops were doing for the independence of the
Church was merely hypocrisy and pretence, as they had
no desire to lessen their own power and jurisdiction. One
of the preachers, David Breakenridge junior, son of the
local preacher who took part in the first agitation, sided
with Ryan now; but all the rest stood firm, while of the
members less than two hundred could be persuaded to
secede. It was very significant that Ryan’s strongest
supporters were found among the haters and foes of
Methodism. Wordy “ loyalists,” government officials, even
the Speaker of the House of Assembly gave his encourage-
ment; while the Rev. Dr. Strachan, first bishop of Toronto,
and a life member of the Legislative Council, rendered
still more substantial aid by sending Ryan fifty pounds.
Napoleon’s favourite motto in warfare was, “Divide and
conquer”; the foes of Methodism were now pursuing the
same tactics, and, it is to be feared, with the same object
in view. Ryan and Breakenridge with their followers,
having cut loose from the Church, proceeded to form a new
organisation under the name of the “Canadian Wesleyan
Church.”

The General Conference of 1828 convened in the city
of Pittsburg, the first time that body had assembled west of
the Alleghanies. Five bishops were present and delegates

1 Playter’s History, pp. 297-99.
166 Methodism in Canada

 

from sixteen Annual Conferences, including five from
Canada. The request of the preachers and people in
Canada for a separation from the jurisdiction of the
Church in the United States was one of the chief subjects
of discussion, and occupied considerable time. It was first
considered in a committee, which reported, in the first
instance, that the Conference had no constitutional right
to set off the brethren in Upper Canada as an independent
body. Their duty was to preserve the integrity of the
Church, not to break it up into fragments; hence to grant
the prayer of the memorial would set a precedent of a
dangerous character, and would contravene the very
purpose for which they were constituted a delegated
Conference. This view, which was generally accepted,
threatened to block further proceedings, until John Emory
(afterward bishop) suggested “that the preachers who
went to Canada from the United States went in the first
instance as missionaries, and that ever afterward, whenever
additional help was needed, Bishop Asbury and his successors
asked for volunteers, not claiming the right to send them
in the same authoritative manner in which they were sent to
the different parts of the United States and the territories;
hence it followed that the compact between us and our
brethren in Canada was altogether of a voluntary character
——we had offered them our services, and they had accepted
them—and therefore, as the time had arrived when they
were no longer willing to receive or accept of our labours
and superintendence, they had a perfect right to request
us to withdraw our services, and we the same right to
withhold them.”* This was regarded as both clear and
) Bangs’ History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, vol. iii. p, 391.
The First Union with the British Conference 167

 

convincing, and it was on this understanding that the
consent of the Conference was obtained. The answer of
the General Conference to the request from Canada was
couched in the following terms:

“Resolved by the delegates of the Annual Conference,
in General Conference assembled—

“That whereas the jurisdiction of the Methodist Episcopal
Church in the United States of America has heretofore
been extended over the ministers and members in connex-
ion with the said Church in the province of Upper Canada,
by mutual agreement, and by consent of our brethren in
that province; and whereas this General Conference is
satisfactorily assured that our brethren in the said
province, under peculiar and pressing circumstances, do
now desire to organise themselves into a distinct Methodist
Episcopal Church, in friendly relation with the Methodist
Episcopal Church in the United States—

“ Therefore be it resolved, and it is hereby resolved, by
the delegates of the Annual Conferences in General Con-
ference assembled :

“If the Annual Conference in Upper Canada in its
ensuing session, or any succeeding session previous to the
next General Conference, shall . definitely determine, on
this course, and elect a general superintendent of the
Methodist Episcopal Church in that province, this General
Conference do hereby authorise any one or more of the
general superintendents of the Methodist Episcopal Church
in the United States, with the assistance of any two or
more elders, to ordain such general superintendent for
the said Church in Upper Canada:

“Provided always, that nothing herein contained is
168 Methodism in Canada

 

contrary to, or inconsistent with, the laws existing in
the said province; and provided that no such general
superintendent of the Methodist Episcopal Church in
Upper Canada, or any of his successors in office, shall at
any time exercise any ecclesiastical jurisdiction whatever
in any part of the United States, or of the territories
thereof; and provided also that this article shall be
expressly ratified and agreed to by the said Canada Annual
Conference before any such ordination shall take place.”
Thus the separation of Methodism in Canada from the
jurisdiction of the Church in the United States was
sanctioned, or at least permitted. To some it must have
been a painful moment. The work in Canada began and
continued under the labours of preachers from the United
States. Its development under the fostering care of the
American Church had been watched with the keenest
interest, and ‘the prospect of separation must have caused
feelings of deep regret. But believing such action to be
in the order of divine providence, the General Conference
yielded up its oversight in a calm and -dignified- manner,
“and in a spirit becoming bishops and elders in the
Church of God.” This was a great surprise to Mr. Ryan
and his friends. When the delegates returned from the
General Conference, Ryan was informed of the action that
had taken place. It was afterward reported that “he
looked astonished, trembled, and could scarcely utter a
word.” It is believed that he would have retraced his
steps but for the influence of the Government and the party
supporting him. But perhaps he felt that he had gone too
far to recede, although the ground on which he had based
his action had been taken completely from under his feet.
The First Union with the British Conference 169

 

The General Conference having relinquished its jurisdic-
tion over the Conference in Canada, it became necessary for
the latter body to adopt measures for its own government
and that of the societies under its care. Accordingly,
when, in October of the same year, the Conference
assembled in Switzer’s chapel in the township of Ernes-
town, under the presidency of Bishop Hedding, this
subject engaged attention during the greater part of the
session. The first step was to organise into a distinct and
independent church, taking the name of the Methodist
Episcopal Church in Canada. This being done, Bishop
Hedding announced to the Conference that he had now
no further jurisdiction over them, and that it would be
necessary, before proceeding further, to appoint a presid-
ing officer. The Conference immediately requested Bishop
Hedding to act in that capacity, which he consented to
do, and accordingly presided over the deliberations till the
close of the session. It was resolved to adopt the discipline
hitherto in use, with such changes and additions as local
circumstances might require. Provision was also made for
a General Conference, to be composed of all travelling
elders who had travelled the four years immediately
preceding, and been received into full connexion. As the
Conference had decided to adopt the Episcopal form of
government, it became necessary to elect a bishop. Over-
tures had been made to the Rev. Nathan Bangs and the
Rev. Wilbor Fisk, but they both declined the appointment.
It was determined, therefore, to elect a general super-
intendent, pro tempore, and the Rev. William Case was
unanimously chosen to that office. The Conference also
appointed a committee of three to correspond with the
170 Methodism in Canada

 

British Wesleyan Conference, with a view of establishing
friendly relations with that body.

In the transactions of this Conference three facts
deserve especial notice: (1) An entire separation from
the jurisdiction of the Church in the United States
had taken place. (2) A new name had been adopted.
(3) Extensive alterations had been made in the discipline.
And yet no one thought, even for a moment, that the
identity of the Church had been impaired, much less
destroyed, or that the Conference had exceeded the powers
which, by the very constitution of Methodism, it possessed.
If proof upon this point were needed, it might be found
in the words of Bishop Hedding at the Conference of
1830. He had come to visit the Conference, and was
requested to preside at the Sunday services, and ordain
the preachers who had been received into full connexion.
At the administration of the Lord’s Supper he remarked,
“It had frequently been said that the Wesleyan Methodists
were one in every part of the world. By the Wesleyan
Methodists, he understood, first, the Mother Church, or
Wesleyan Connexion in Europe; secondly, the elder sister
in the United States, called the Methodist Episcopal
Church in America; thirdly, the younger sister in this
country, distinguished by the name of the Methodist
Episcopal Church in Canada. These bodies, though they
are perfectly independent of each other in all their
ecclesiastical relations, are one in all the prominent
features of their discipline, perfectly one in doctrine, one
in name, one in spirit, and one in aim; they are indeed
one great family.” Thus the changes that had been
made, being perfectly constitutional, had not impaired
The First Union with the British Conference 171

 

the identity of the Church, and the chain of Methodistic
unity continued unbroken.

We have thus traced the progress of Methodism in
Canada down to the time when it became a distinct and
independent Church. It now remains to state the causes
which led that Church to unite itself in filial bonds with
the parent body of England. It will be remembered that,
in 1820, the American and British Conferences had
agreed to divide their jurisdiction in the Canadas, the
latter body confining its labours to the lower, and the
former to the upper province. But when, in 1828, the
societies in Upper Canada became a separate and in-
dependent Church, the British Conference considered the
former agreement as no longer binding, and that they
were at liberty to send their missionaries into any part
of the province where their services might be desired by
the people. In accordance with this view, the British
Committee decided upon an immediate increase of their
labourers in the Canadas. It was doubted by many
whether the view referred to could be justified. <A
bargain is a bargain, and all the rights, privileges, and
responsibilities descend to “heirs, executors, and assigns ”
with undiminished force, unless the terms of the compact
contain a proviso that under certain conditions the agree-
ment shall lapse. Some of the reasons assigned by the
British secretaries were not without weight. It was
affirmed that within a few years a large number of
Methodist emigrants from Great Britain had settled in
Upper Canada, and these had strongly urged the British
Committee to send missionaries among them. Moreover,
the Canada Conference was entirely unable to meet the
172 Methodism in Canada

 

spiritual wants of the people. The population of the
province at this time was about 175,000, while the
number of Methodist preachers was only 43; and the
Missionary Society in Canada, yet in its infancy, was
able to afford but little aid. Put supposing all this to
be true, brotherly courtesy, if nothing more, demanded
that the Canada Conference be consulted before the
compact was broken; and this was not done.

The action of the British Missionary Committee was
regarded by many in Canada ‘with grave apprehension.
They foresaw that collisions would inevitably occur
between the Canadian preachers and the English mission-
aries, and the respective societies under their care, which
would result in heart-burning and estrangements among
brethren, while it would put a. reproach into the mouths
of enemies and rob the Church of her hereditary boast,
“The Methodists are one all over the world.” Under
these circumstances it is not surprising that the question
arose in many. thoughtful and pious minds, “ Would it
not be for the interests of religion and of Methodism in
these provinces if a union were effected between the two
bodies? We are one in faith and one in usage, while the
differences between our respective forms of government
are not of a character that need keep us still apart.”
This question soon became an engrossing topic in
Methodist circles. It was informally discussed at official
meetings, as well as among the people at large; and
although many were of opinion that the action of the
missionary authorities in England had been hasty and
inconsiderate, it was better to sacrifice something than
allow rival altars to be established.
The First Union with the British Conference 173

 

Although the Conference of 1828 had appointed a
committee to correspond with the British Conference,
nothing was done till 1831, when the action taken by
the British Missionary Committee induced the Rev.
Egerton Ryerson to address a letter to the principal
Secretary, the Rev. Richard Watson, giving a full state-
ment of the case as it then stood, and also of the views
of the Canadian preachers in reference to the matter.
In the following year the committee sent out the Rev.
Robert Alder as their agent and representative, and with
him communications to the Mission Board of the Canada
Conference at York (Toronto). Mr. Alder delivered the
communications and stated the object of his mission,
which was to prepare the way for the appointment of a
number of British Wesleyan missionaries among the
British emigrants in various parts of the province. The
board admitted that it was unable to supply the religious
needs of the population, but informed Mr. Alder, and also
the British Committee, of the evils likely to arise from
the establishment of two bodies of Methodists in the
province, and suggested the propriety of uniting the means
and energies of the two Connexions for the evangelization
of the Indian tribes and the new settlers of the country.
The board also invited Mr. Alder to attend the session
of Conference to be held in about six weeks from that
time.

Some account of these preliminary steps having been
published in the Christian Guardian, interest in the
question was increased throughout the whole Connexion ;
consequently, when the Conference assembled at Hallowell
on the 8th of August, all the preachers who had been
174 Methodism in Canada

 

received into full connexion (except one or two detained
by sickness) were in attendance. A number of leading
laymen also had come to the seat of Conference,
attracted by a desire to hear the discussions; and such
was the anxiety of the Conference that all things should
be done openly, and that the members of the Church
should be fully informed of all points in the scheme, that
the laymen were freely admitted into the chapel where
the Conference was held (which was contrary to the
usual practice) during the whole time in which the
question of union was under discussion. On the first
day of the session the President of the Missionary Board
laid before the Conference the correspondence which had
taken place between the Board and the British Missionary
Committee. It was read and referred to a committee of
nine, chosen by ballot. After a consideration which
continued till the fourth day, the committee presented a
report in the form of a preamble and resolutions, recom-
mending a union, on certain terms, with the British
Conference. The Conference took up the report, and
after a full discussion of all the points involved, the
resolutions were adopted by a very large majority. There
was one resolution which, as it involved the relinquishing
of Episcopacy, required the sanction of the General
Conference before it could become law. The president
was requested, therefore, to call a special session of the
General Conference, which he did, naming six o'clock of
the following Monday morning as the time of meeting.

? This was quite regular, because the discipline of the Church provided
that the General Superintendent might call a meeting of the General
Conference at any time at the request of the Annual Conference,
The First Union with the British Conference 175

 

It may be necessary here to explain the difference
between the Annual and the General Conference. The
Annual Conference was composed of all travelling preachers
who had travelled two years, and had been received into
full connexion; the General. Conference was composed of
all travelling preachers who had travelled four years, and
been ordained elders. There were present, however, at
the Hallowell Conference no less than seventeen travelling
preachers who had been received into full connexion and
elected to elder’s orders, but not ordained, because there
was no bishop to ordain them, and the discipline, at that
time, did not admit of ordination in any other way. It
was felt to be a manifest injustice that these brethren
‘should be excluded from the General Conference on the
sole ground that the ceremony of ordination had not been
performed ; hence, when the General Conference assembled
on Monday morning, its first act was to pass the following:
“ Resolved, that the first answer to the second question of
the third section of the discipline be expunged, and the
following inserted in its place: ‘The General Conference
shall be composed of all the elders and elders-elect who are

29)

members of the Annual Conference. The admission of
the seventeen elders-elect on this occasion did not alter
the final vote, for one of the number was absent through
sickness, and of the remaining sixteen, eight were known
to be opposed to the contemplated union. The resolution
to supersede Episcopacy by an Annual Presidency was
then taken up, and adopted by a majority of more than
three fourths. After which the Conference adjourned.
The Annual Conference then reassembled, and ap-

pointed the Rev. Egerton Ryerson as its representative,
176 Methodism in Canada

 

with instructions to proceed to England and confer with
the British Conference on the subject of the proposed
union. The overtures of the Canadian Conference were
received by the parent body with lively satisfaction, and
warmly supported by leading members of the Conference.
The Rev. Mr. Beecham, at the conclusion of an able speech
reviewing the principal facts bearing upon the question,
read the address of the Canada Conference proposing a
union with the British body. He was followed by the
Rev. Jabez Bunting, who strongly advocated the proposed
union as desirable for the interests of our common
Methodism, our common Christianity, our common Empire.
The proposals for union were then carefully considered, and
the views of the Conference embodied in a series of resolu-
tions differing but slightly from those adopted in Canada,
the Rev. George Marsden and Joseph Stinson being
appointed representatives, with authority to perfect the
arrangement so happily inaugurated. The delegates
reached Canada a few days before the assembling of the
Conference, which met at York on the 2nd of October
1833. After preliminary business, the address and
resolutions of the British Conference were read, and the
Rev. Mr. Marsden gave an account of what had taken
place in England on the subject of union, and assured the
Conference of the deep interest in the question felt by the
English preachers. Mr. Ryerson also presented and read
the report of his mission to England. The articles of
union, as agreed to by the British Conference, were then
taken up seriatim, and after a careful examination it was
unanimously “resolved that this Conference cordially
concurs in the adoption of the resolutions agreed to by the
The First Union with the British Conference 177

 

British Conference, dated Manchester, 7th August 1833,
as the basis of union between the two Conferences.” A
session of the General Conference was then called to con-
sider certain changes in the discipline rendered necessary
by the union measure. These having been ratified by the
requisite constitutional majorities, the Annual Conference
resumed ; whereupon the Secretary reported the action of
the General Conference, and the union, so earnestly desired
by the great body of preachers and people, was an accom-
plished fact.

In consummating the union, no principle essential to
Methodism was abolished or changed. The doctrines were
untouched, and from every Methodist pulpit in the land
sounded forth, after the union, the same glorious truths as
before. Nor was there any change in the distinctive usages
of Methodism. The weekly prayer-meeting still sent up its
cloud of incense; in the class-meeting the faithful still
“spake one to another”; while in the quarterly love-feast,
these scattered lights of individual experience were gathered
into an intenser focus, showing “how good and how
pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.”
Nor yet was anything done whereby the rights and
privileges of the membership of the Church were invaded
in the slightest degree. All that they enjoyed before the
union they enjoyed equally after. They heard the same
doctrines, candidates were received into the Church in the
same way, held their membership by the same tenure, and
could be excluded only by the same disciplinary process.
Nor could any change be made in the temporal economy
of the Church without the consent of two thirds of the

quarterly official meetings of the Connexion. In no
12
178 Methodism in Canada

 

other branch of the Methodist Church at that day was an
equal influence wielded by the laity.

The sentiment enunciated by the Rev. Jabez Bunting,
that the proposed union was in the interests of our common
Empire, is deserving of especial emphasis. At that time
those political agitations which culminated in the rebellion
of 1837 were already in progress. It does not fall within
my province to express any opinion as to the causes which
led to that unhappy strife, nor to decide whether armed
resistance to the Government was in any degree justifiable.
I merely express the conviction of all thoughtful men that
the separation of Canada from the British Empire in 1837
would have been a calamity of no ordinary magnitude.
This was perceived by many persons years before the
rebellion actually took place, and they felt that it was the
part of loyal and patriotic men to do everything in their
power to strengthen those filial ties which united Canada
to the Mother Country. That a union of the Canadian
with the British Conference would have this tendency, no
one could fail to see ; and this was one reason why the
union was, in some quarters, so strongly opposed. No
reflection whatever is intended upon those who on purely
ecclesiastical or denominational grounds opposed the
union ; their loyalty and devotion to the Empire was
beyond question; but it is an undeniable fact that some
of the strongest opponents of the measure were persons
not connected with the Methodist Church, foremost among
whom was the late William Lyon Mackenzie, the leader of
the rebellion, and others who sympathised with his views.
I do not for one moment argue that any religious principle
should ever be sacrificed to mere expediency, or that the
The First Union with the British Conference 179

 

Church should ever be employed for political ends; but I
do say that the men who in 1833 waived all personal
considerations in order to consummate a union which,
without sacrificing any principle of Christianity or of
Methodism, aided the work of God and strengthened the
connexion existing between Canada and Great Britain,
were men who deserved well of their Church and their
country, and are fairly entitled to be remembered both as
Christians and as patriots.

Certain events which occurred in the next fourteen
years—the Episcopal Methodist separation, the dissolution
of the union in 1840 and its restoration in 1847—are
reserved for consideration in another connexion. Although
they are things of the past, they all had an important
bearing on the development of Canadian Methodism, and
are entitled to a place in its annals. But for the present
I turn to a series of events in which Methodism became
unexpectedly a powerful factor in shaping public opinion,
and in securing for all creeds and classes both civil and
religious rights and privileges which to some of them had
long been denied.
1V

THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL AND
RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

To understand the nature of this energetic and protracted
struggle, as well as the relation of Methodism thereto, it
is necessary to recall the civil conditions of the period
and the character of the Government that had been
established in both Upper and-Lower Canada. As yet
the principles of representative and especially of re-
sponsible government were imperfectly understood, and
in official circles were not recognised at all. Even the
tremendous object-lesson of the American Revolution had
failed to teach English statesmen that a period had been
reached when “government from Downing Street” had
become impracticable among Anglo-Saxon colonists, how-
ever well it might answer among “lesser breeds without
the law”; and it was only when a second revolution had
almost succeeded on Canadian soil that they awoke to
the full significance of the situation, and recognised the
principle of responsible self-government as the indispensable
basis of an intelligent and enduring loyalty to the Crown.
All impartial students of Canadian history are glad that
the rebellion of 1837 did not succeed. Had it been

otherwise, it would have meant the absorption of British
180
The Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 181

 

America by the American Republic, which would not have
been a good thing for the Republic nor for us, and would
have rendered impossible the establishment of a system of
government having all the stability of English political
institutions, affording the fullest measure of civil and.
religious liberty, but with checks and safeguards that
would prevent liberty from degenerating into licence, and
ensure a reign of law and order instead of virtual mob
control. ‘
Attention has already been called to the fact that in
1791 the province of Quebec was divided into two, named
respectively Upper and Lower Canada. This was accom-
plished under Mr. Pitt’s administration, and is known as
the Constitutional Act of 1791. Whatever may have
been the ostensible reasons for this legislation, it was, in
effect, less a geographical than a race division, and for
this reason was strongly opposed by Mr. Fox, who con-
tended that the separation of the English from the French
inhabitants was most undesirable. Mr. Fox was right in
theory, but it seemed to the statesmen of the period that
his views were sentimental rather than practical, and
did not meet existing conditions. Fox contended for a
principle; Pitt’s measure was a mere expedient, and,
like expedients in general, proved defective when exposed
to the strain of conflicting interests. In fact, it was the
deliberate intention of the law-makers that Lower Canada
should be French and Roman Catholic, and that Upper
Canada should be English and Protestant, and Mr. Pitt’s
legislation was shaped with that end in view. To suppose
that this could be effected by an imaginary line laid out
by surveyors and drawn to a scale upon a map, seems
182 Methodism in Canada

 

almost ludicrous. Race instincts and human enterprise
pay small heed to legislative enactments, and so, spite
of the good intentions of the politicians, thousands of
English-speaking Protestants mingled with the business
and political life of Lower Canada, while tens of thousands
of French Canadians swarmed across the Ottawa and filled
up whole counties on its south-western banks.

The system of government instituted by Mr. Pitt’s
legislation held within it elements of conflict and disaster.
Each province was to have a Legislative Assembly, elected
by British subjects possessing certain property qualifications,
and a Legislative Council, whose members were appointed
by the Crown. Two such chambers—the one elective
and responsible, the other non-elective and irresponsible—
could not long exist side by side without conflict, and in
the long-run the one must dominate the other. In both
provinces there was a steady effort to establish and
maintain the supremacy of the Legislative Council, and
to make the popular Assembly the servant of its will.
For a time this policy succeeded only too well. In Upper
Canada all administration and patronage was in the hands
of the Legislative Council, and that body secured the
election to the Assembly of many of its servants—post-
masters, sheriffs, registrars, revenue officers, and the like
——who conceived it to be their chief duty to support the
Government from which they had received their appoint-
ments, irrespective of the rights and wishes of the people.
The ruling faction in the Council became known as the
“Family Compact,” not because its members were united
by family ties, but because their close association and
resolute purpose to control the affairs of Government
The Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 183

 

recalled the Pacte de Famille of the Bourbons of France,
Spain, and Italy in 1761, in their combination against
Great Britain. This junto had imported from Europe
the tradition of a “ruling class,” and the twin doctrines
of its political creed were loyalty—as they understood
it—to the British sovereign and a bigoted attachment to
the Church of England. It must not be supposed that
the opposing party, in Parliament or out of it, were one
whit less loyal to the Crown, but their loyalty was of a
different type, for they held tenaciously by the dictum
of Burke, that “the subject who is truly loyal to the
chief magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary
measures.” The abuses which had grown up under the
reign of the Family Compact were tersely described by
the Earl of Durham in 1838, in his Report on the Affairs
of British North America:

“For a long time this body of men, receiving at times
accessions to its members, possessed almost all the highest
public offices, by means of which, and of its influence
in the Executive Council, it wielded all the powers of
government. It maintained influence in the Legislature
by means of its predominance in the Legislative Council,
and it disposed of a large number of petty posts which
are in the patronage of the Government all over the
province. Successive Governors, as they came in their
turn, are said to have either submitted quietly to its
influence, or, after a short and unavailing struggle, to
have yielded to this well organised party the real conduct
of affairs. The Bench, the magistracy, the high offices
of the Episcopal Church, and a great part of the legal
profession, are filled by the adherents of this party. By
184 Methodism in Canada

 

grant or purchase they have acquired nearly the whole
of the waste lands of the province; they are all-powerful
in the chartered banks, and, till lately, shared among
themselves, almost exclusively, all offices of trust and
profit... . The principal members of it belong to the
Church of England, and the maintenance of the claims of
that Church has always been one of its distinguishing
characteristics.” 1

The Act of 1791 not only provided for the government
of the provinces it had created, but also for the maintenance
and support of a Protestant clergy. To accomplish this
end, one seventh of all the public lands in Upper Canada
opened for settlement, and one seventh of all that should
be opened in future in Lower Canada for a similar purpose,
were set apart and became known as the “ Clergy Reserves,”
and authority was given for the erection of “ parsonages or
rectories, according to the establishment of the Church of
England,” to be endowed out of the lands so reserved.
At the conquest of Canada the right of the French Roman
Catholic inhabitants to the enjoyment of their language
and religion was guaranteed by the Treaty of Paris (1763),
and in the following year an Act of the British Parliament
secured to the clergy of that Church the right to their
accustomed tithes and dues. The same Act made provision
for the encouragement of the Protestant religion and the
support of a Protestant clergy by other tithes and dues,
and these continued to be collected for nearly forty years ;
but in 1821 a declaratory Act was passed by the Legislature
of Upper Canada, and sanctioned by the Crown, providing
that hereafter “no tithes shall be claimed, demanded, or

1 Report, p. 105.
The Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 185

 

received by any ecclesiastical parson, rector, or vicar of the
Protestant Church within this province.”

In the struggle for religious equality the Legislation of
1764 was not a very important factor, and the real battle
was waged around the Clergy Reserves and the Legislation
of 1791. The tithe system, so far as Protestantism was
concerned, found few defenders, and was bound, soon or
later, to go to the wall; but the Clergy Reserves rested
upon a somewhat different footing, and not a few doughty
champions were found to defend the wisdom and righteous-
ness of the arrangement. Foremost among these was the
Rev. John Strachan, D.D., Archdeacon of York, and
afterwards the first Anglican bishop of Toronto. Like
many another man who has made his mark in the world,
the archdeacon was the son of humble Scottish parents,
staunch adherents of the Kirk of Scotland. With that
thirst for knowledge which is characteristic of his country-
men, young Strachan obtained some classical training, and
served as a tutor, first in Scotland and afterwards at
Kingston in Upper Canada. Subsequently he taught a
grammar school at Cornwall, where he had under his
tuition a number of lads who afterwards became men of
note in the history of the province. Here he united with
the Church of England, and when he entered its ministry
became, in rapid succession, Rector and Archdeacon of York,
chaplain to the Legislative Assembly, a member of the
Legislative Council, and in 1839 was raised to the
episcopal dignity as the first bishop of Toronto. Small
in stature, by no means impressive in appearance, but
resolute, energetic, untiring, an astute politician by nature,
an ecclesiastic from choice, and a bigoted Churchman
186 Methodism in Canada

 

withal, he was for many years a power in the religious
and political life of the country.

About this time there appeared upon the stage another
man who was destined to play a very important part in
the religious, educational, and political development of
Upper Canada; a man who for years fought, sometimes
almost single-handed, the battle of civil and religious
liberty, and proved himself the only competent and
successful antagonist of the astute and able Anglican
bishop in the latter’s lifelong attempt to make the Church
of England the dominating power in the religious, social,
and even political life of the province. Egerton Ryerson
was the son of a U.E. Loyalist, who held a commission in
the Prince of Wales’ Regiment of New Jersey, of which
place he was a native. At the close of the revolutionary
war he emigrated to New Brunswick, where he married, and
toward the end of the century removed with his family to
Upper Canada, and settled on a farm in the Long Point
country, on the northern shore of Lake Erie. Egerton was
the youngest of four brothers, the three older being named
respectively George, William, and John. All four became
deeply religious, all four joined the Methodist Church, and
all four became Methodist preachers, much against the
will of their father, who was a staunch, not to say bigoted,
Churchman. So strong was his opposition that he gave
Egerton the choice to leave the Methodists or to leave his
father’s house. It was a most painful alternative, but the
young convert did not hesitate. The next day he left
home and became an usher in a district grammar school.

Of the four Ryersons who entered the Methodist
ministry, the eldest brother served for only three years,
The Struggle for Civil and Religtous Liberty 187

 

when he located. Subsequently his views of divine truth
and church order underwent considerable change, and he
undertook to found a new church on what’ he conceived to
be the apostolic model, naming it the “ Catholic Apostolic
Church.” The term “Catholic” proved almost a grim
satire, as only a very few congregations were ever gathered,
and I know only one which exists to-day. The remaining
three brothers, especially the youngest, all became men of
mark in Canadian Methodism, and for many years exerted
a controlling influence in the councils of the Church.
John had the characteristics of an ecclesiastical legislator,
and had much to do with shaping the discipline of the
Methodist body; William was the popular orator, mighty
in exhortation, and his pulpit appeals are still a tradition
in the land; Egerton was a born statesman, far-seeing and
sagacious, and as a controversialist had no peer in his day.
In him was illustrated the saying that “the child is father
of the man.” From the time of his conversion he became
a diligent student. While serving as usher in a grammar
school, at eighteen years of age, he read with avidity such
books as were available, taking “great delight in Locke
On the Human Understanding, Paley’s Moral and Political
Philosophy, and Blackstone’s Commentaries, especially the
sections of the latter on the Prerogatives of the Crown,
the Rights of the Subject, and the Province of Parlia-
ment.”! All this was an unconscious preparation for
providential tasks that awaited him in future years, and
stood him in good stead when fighting the battle of civil
and religious equality. In 1824, at the request of the
presiding elder, Mr. Ryerson consented to supply a circuit
1 Ryerson’s Story of My Life, p. 27.
188 Methodism in Canada

 

left. vacant by the illness of one of the preachers. The
following year he was received on trial for the ministry,
ordained a deacon in 1827, and an elder in 1829. The
same year it was decided to begin the publication of a
weekly newspaper—a most courageous venture in those
early days. Mr. Ryerson was chosen as the future editor,
and was instructed to proceed to New York to procure the
necessary plant. There were very few newspapers in the
country at the time, and the Christian Guardian—so the
new paper was named—came at once to the front as a
powerful organ of public opinion. Its objects were
“defence of Methodist institutions and character, civil
rights, temperance principles, educational progress, and
missionary operations.”! And it was conducted with such
vigour that it soon became recognised as the champion of
equal rights and privileges for all creeds and classes, and
a fearless opponent of a dominant church establishment
in Upper Canada. It should be understood that up to
this time the Methodist and other denominations had no
right to hold land for places of worship or for the burial
of their dead, nor had the Methodist ministers the right to
solemnise matrimony even among their own people.

In 1825 Egerton Ryerson had been stationed at York,
and it was during this year that he was unwillingly drawn
into the great controversy. At that time the York circuit
comprised the town of York (now Toronto) and ten town-
ships to the east, west, and north, and over these the
itinerants travelled, preaching from twenty-five to thirty
sermons every four weeks, besides meeting numerous classes
and visiting from house to house. “The roads (if in any

1 Ryerson’s Story of My Life, p. 98.
The Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 189

 

sense they could be called roads) were bad beyond descrip-
tion, could be travelled only on horseback and on foot, the
labours hard, and the accommodations of the most primitive
kind ; but we were received as angels of God by the people,
our ministrations being almost the only supply of religious
instruction to them; and nothing they valued more than
to have the preacher partake of their humble and best
hospitality.” Such conditions were by no means favourable
to those habits of wide reading, close thinking, and careful
writing which would seem to be indispensable in a con-
troversy involving in the long-run great constitutional
principles, and covering much historical ground both
ecclesiastical and civil. That the task should have been
undertaken by a youth not long out of his teens, and
entirely untrained in controversy, would seem to indicate
extraordinary temerity, or else such an overwhelming. sense
of duty as rendered him insensible to all personal considera-
tions. That the latter consideration was the dominant
factor there can be no doubt; and now that we look back
upon the period, over the lapse of three quarters of a
century, the conviction deepens that in the Methodist
stripling we behold the divinely anointed David whose
providential call it was to smite the Goliath of civil
oppression and religious intolerance who had defied the
armies of the living God. Features and physique were
alike striking. Of medium size, or a little over, well
proportioned and firmly knit, fair complexion, large speak-
ing blue eyes, firm lips, well defined eyebrows, a head
unusually large but well balanced, and a height, breadth,
and fulness of forehead that attracted instant attention,
1 Ryerson’s Story of My Life, p. 47.
190 Methodism in Canada

 

Egerton Ryerson impressed himself, even upon casual
acquaintances, as a man of no ordinary powers. In middle
and later life his was one of those lion-like faces that
recalled William Ewart Gladstone and Daniel Webster,
but with a far more benevolent expression than Webster’s
face revealed. Such, in outward appearance, was the
youthful champion who, at the call of duty, boldly crossed
swords with the most skilful controversialists of his
time.

The immediate cause of his first controversy may now
be stated. In April 1826 a pamphlet appeared
entitled, Sermon Preached and Published by the
Venerable Archdeacon of York, on the Death of the
late Bishop of Quebec. This publication contained a
sketch of the rise and progress of the Church of England
in the Canadas, and an appeal on behalf of that Church
to the British Government and Parliament. Had the
archdeacon stopped at that point it is doubtful if the
sermon would have attracted much atténtion, but he
proceeded to attack the character and standing of other
religious communions, especially the Methodists, “ whose
ministers were represented as American in their origin and
feelings, ignorant, forsaking their proper employments to
preach what they did not understand, and which, from
their pride, they disdained to learn; and who were
spreading disaffection to the civil and religious institutions
of Great Britain.”1 It was claimed that the Church of
England was the Established Church not only of Great
Britain but of the whole Empire, and as such was
exclusively entitled to the Clergy Reserves of Upper

1 Ryerson’s Story of My Life, p. 48.
The Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 191

 

Canada. Besides this, an appeal was made to the British
Government for an annual grant of $300,000 to enable
the Church of England in Upper Canada to maintain the
loyalty of the people of that province to the English
Crown. The utterly undeserved character of the as-
persions thus cast upon the Methodist Church aroused
feelings of strong indignation. Scarcely more than a
decade had passed since the close of the unprovoked war
of 1812-15 with the United States, at which time the
Methodists, both ministers and people, had been con-
spicuous for devotion to their country and Government.
But let the circumstances be as they might, the arch-
deacon did not seem to be aware how he was degrading
his own Church by seeking to have it endowed as a police
institution to dragoon the people of Upper Canada in the
knowledge and practice of “loyalty,” which, from his point
of view, meant not so much intelligent devotion to the
Crown and Constitution, as entire subservience to the
Church of England.

There was consternation in the little Methodist camp in
York, which at that time numbered only about fifty persons,
though the entire membership for the province was seven
thousand five hundred. It was felt that something must
be done, and by tacit consent they turned to the “ Boy
Preacher,’ as Ryerson was then called, on account of his
youthful appearance, as the one who should undertake the
task. He strongly objected, on the grounds of his youth
and incompetency, but finally suggested that on their next
country tour the superintendent of the circuit (Rev.
James Richardson) and himself should each write on the
subject, and on their return something might be compiled
192 Methodism in Canada

 

from the two documents that would meet the case. On
the return of the preachers they met the leading members
of the society, when it was found that young Ryerson had
written something, but his superintendent had not. Those
present insisted that the paper should be read, and when
this was done they insisted, with equal earnestness, that it
be printed. Finding remonstrance in vain, the author
offered to rewrite the article more carefully, and then
return it to the brethren to do what they pleased with it.
This was agreed to, and when the manuscript was finished
it was taken to the printer and promptly issued. It was
entitled a “ Review of the Sermon published by Archdeacon
Strachan,” and appeared in the Colonial Advocate over the
signature of “A Methodist Preacher.” The immediate
effect of the “review” was remarkable, for it was not only
a defence of the Methodists against unjust aspersions, but
a vindication of the civil rights of all religious persuasions,
and a protest on legal and constitutional grounds against
the erection in Canada of a dominant Church. The
archdeacon’s sermon was the third formal attack by
Church of England clergy upon the Methodist Church and
its ministers, but thus far no line had been written or
word spoken in public in their defence. When the
“review” appeared great was the excitement. It was
read as eagerly as a bulletin from the field of battle would
be read to-day. The Methodists were jubilant. They
felt that at last a champion had appeared capable not only
of defending their Church from unjust assaults, but of
advocating with convincing force the great constitutional
principles of civil and religious equality so imperfectly
understood at the time. The interest was all the greater

’
The Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 193

 

because, outside of a very narrow circle, no one knew who
the new champion might be.

In the opposing camp there was positive consternation.
Feelings of astonishment, of dismay, of anger, followed
each other in rapid succession; astonishment that anyone
could be found to defend the despised sect of Methodists,
dismay because their own stronghold was so fearlessly
assailed, and anger that anyone should have the temerity
to attack existing civil conditions or to question the
right of the Church of England to lord it over God’s
heritage. The battle was fairly on. Within two weeks
four answers appeared in the newspapers, three by
clergymen and one by a layman of the Church of England.
But in these answers epithets were more plentiful than
arguments. The writers were all agreed that the author
of the “review” could not be a Methodist preacher: he
was “an American,” “a rebel,” “a traitor,’ and the
pamphlet was “the prodigious effort of a party.” It would
be idle to pretend that Mr. Ryerson was not’ affected
by the storm he had raised; it affected him very keenly.
There were days when he could not eat and nights when
he could not sleep. But he felt that the battle was not of
his seeking—the attack had come from the other side—and
that either he must continue the conflict or acknowledge
defeat. Those who knew the man in after-years would
not be surprised to learn that he decided to fight. Asa
characteristic preparation he devoted a day to fasting and
prayer, and then having drawn the sword in what he felt
to be a righteous cause, he flung away the scabbard and
went at his adversaries in dead earnest. To follow the
details is not necessary. Suffice it to say that in less than

13
194 Methodism in Canada

 

four years from the commencement of the controversy laws
were passed authorising the various religious bodies to hold
land for churches, parsonages, and burial - grounds, and
empowering their ministers to solemnise marriages. At
this time there were members of the Legislature not a few
who were in favour of reform, and without their aid the
desired enactments could not have been secured; but
beyond question Mr. Ryerson’s advocacy did more than all
other agencies combined to arouse public opinion and
bring pressure to bear upon the law-makers of the day.
His “ review” was first published in the Colonial Advocate,
a paper established by William Lyon Mackenzie, and we
obtain a glimpse of its effect in some directions in the
following extract: “The sermon was ably reviewed in the
columns of the Colonial Advocate in a communication over
the signature of ‘A Methodist Preacher. Mr. Metcalf
and I took the paper into a field, where we sat down on
the grass to read. As we read we admired; and as we
admired we rejoiced ; then thanked God and speculated as
to its author, little suspecting that it was a young man
who had been received on trial at the late Conference
(1825). We read again, and then devoutly thanked God
for having put into the heart of someone to defend the
Church publicly against such mischievous statements, and
give the world the benefit of the facts in the case... .
This was the commencement of the war for religious
liberty.” Quite different, however, was the effect in
another direction, When visiting his parents a few
months after the controversy began, Mr. Ryerson found
that his father’s conversation turned constantly to the
» Life and Times of} Anson Green, D.D., pp. 83,' 84,
The Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 195

 

subject that was agitating the country, though he did not
know as yet who was the author of the letters. Something
must have aroused his suspicion, however, for one day he
turned abruptly to his son and said, “ Egerton, they say
that you are the author of these papers which are con-
vulsing the whole country. I want to know whether you
are or not?” Egerton admitted that he was; whereupon
his father lifted his hands with a despairing gesture and
exclaimed, “ My God, we are all ruined!”

The people of Canada have long been so accustomed to
the fullest measure of civil liberty and religious equality
that they fail to appreciate the importance of the interests
involved in the controversy of 1826 and succeeding years,
or the bitter and unscrupulous opposition with which the
champion of popular rights had ‘to contend. Perhaps the
situation cannot be better described than in the language
of J. George Hodgins, LL.D., the lifelong friend of Dr.
Ryerson, his associate for many years in the Education
Department of Ontario, and editor of Dr. Ryerson’s Story
of My Life:

“Few in the present day can realise the magnitude
of the task thus undertaken. Nor do we sufficiently
estimate the significance of the issues involved in that
contest—a contest waged for the recognition of equal
denominational rights and the supremacy of religious
liberty. All these questions are now happily settled upon
the best and surest foundation. But it might have been
far otherwise had not such men as Dr. Ryerson stepped
into the breach at a critical time in our early history, and
had not the battle been fought and won before the dis-

1 Ryerson’s Story of My Life, p. 51.
196 Methodism in Canada

 

tasteful yoke of an ‘establishment’ had been imposed
upon the young country, and burdensome vested interests
had been thereby created, which would have taken years
of serious and protracted strife to have extinguished.

“To those who have given any attention to this
subject, it is well known that the maintenance of the
views put forth by Dr. Ryerson in this controversy
involved personal odium and the certainty of social
ostracism. It also involved, what is often more fatal to a
man’s courage and constancy, the sneer and personal
animosity, as well as ridicule, of a powerful party whose
right to supremacy is questioned, and whose monopoly of
what is common property is in danger of being destroyed.
Although Dr. Ryerson was a gentleman by birth, and the
son of a British officer and U.E. Loyalist, yet the fact
that, as one of the ‘despised sect’ of Methodists, he dared
to question the right of ‘the Church’ to superiority over
the ‘Sectaries,’ subjected him to a system of petty and
bitter persecution which few men of less fortitude and
nerve could have borne. As it was, there were times
when the tender sensibilities of his noble nature were so
deeply wounded by this injustice, and the scorn and
contumely of his opponents, that were it not that his
intrepid courage was of the finest type, and without the
alloy of rancour or bravado in it, it would have failed him.
But he never flinched. And when the odds seemed to be
most against him he would, with humble dependence upon
divine help, put forth even greater effort; and, with his
courage thus reanimated, would unexpectedly turn the
flank of his enemy; or by concentrating all his forces on
The Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 197

 

the vulnerable points of his adversaries’ case, completely
neutralise the force of his attack.

“Those who had the courage, and who ventured to
oppose the church claims put forth by the clerical and
other leaders of the dominant party of that time, were
sure to be singled out for personal attack. They were
also made to feel the chilling effect of social exclusiveness.
The cry against them was that of ignorance, irreverence,
irreligion, republicanism, disloyalty, etc. These charges
were repeated in every form, and that, too, by a section
both of the official and religious press, a portion of which
was edited with singular ability; a press which prided
itself on its intelligence, its unquestioned churchmanship
and exalted respect for sacred things, its firm devotion to
the principle of Church and State, the maintenance of
which was held to be the only safeguard for society, if not
its invincible bulwark. An illustration of the profession
of this exclusive loyalty is given by Dr. Ryerson in these
pages (Zhe Story of My Life). He mentions the fact that
the plea to the British Government put forth by the
leaders of the dominant party as a reason why the Church
of England in this province should be made supreme and
subsidised, was that she might be enabled ‘to preserve the
principles of loyalty to England from being overwhelmed
and destroyed’ by the ‘ Yankee Methodists’ as represented
by the Ryersons and their friends.” *

In the troublous times of which I now speak the only
possible way of obtaining redress of grievances was to

1 Ryerson’s Story of My Life. Editorial comment by J. George Hodgins,
LL.D., pp. 95-98. :
198 Methodism in Canada

 

 

appeal to the British Government; but it was by no
means certain that such an appeal would be successful.
The dominant faction in the Legislative Council was
resolutely opposed to everything in the shape of reform in
Church or State, and as official etiquette required that
memorials or petitions to the Crown should pass through
the medium of the King’s representative, there was
abundant opportunity for the opponents of reform to
acquaint themselves with the contents of any document
_ intended for transmission to England, and to take steps to
counteract its influence. In 1830 attention was called,
through the Christian Guardian, of which Egerton Ryerson
was then the editor, to a case of this kind. Referring to
the Religious Societies Relief Bill of that period, the editor
remarked that “His Majesty's royal assent would have
been given to that Bill had it not unfortunately fallen in
company with some ruthless vagrant (in the shape of a
communication from our enemies in Canada) who had
slandered, abused, and tomahawked it at the foot of the
throne.”

The extent to which the spirit of religious intolerance
and contempt for Methodism had permeated the highest
official circles may be inferred from the following incident.
In 1831 the Conference presented a respectful address to
the Governor, Sir John Colborne, remonstrating against the
establishment of a State Church in Canada, the exclusive
control of the Clergy Reserves by that Church, and the
endowment of a university under the same control. In
the present day such an address would be regarded as
quite within the rights of any body of men, but not so in
1831. In his reply the Governor said:
The Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 199

 

“Your dislike to any church establishment, or to the
particular form of Christianity which is denominated the
Church of England, may be the natural consequence of the
constant success of your own efficacious and organised
system. The small number of our Church is to be
regretted, as well as that the organisation of its ministry
is not adapted to supply the present wants of the dispersed
population in this new country; but you will readily admit
that the sober-minded of the province are disgusted with
the accounts of the disgraceful dissensions of the Methodist
Episcopal Church in its separatists, recriminating memorials,
and the warfare of one church with another. The utility
of an establishment depends entirely on the piety,
assiduity, and devoted zeal of its ministers, and on their
abstaining from a secular interference which may involve
them in political disputes.

“The labours of the clergy of established churches in
defence of moral and religious truth will always be
remembered by you who have access to their writings, and
benefited by them in common with other Christian societies.
You will allow, I have no doubt, on reflection, that it would
indeed be imprudent to admit the right of societies to
dictate, on account of their numerical strength, in what
way the land set apart for the clergy shall be disposed of.

“The system of education which has produced the best
and ablest men in the United Kingdom will not be
abandoned here to suit the limited views of the leaders
of societies who, perhaps, have neither experience nor
judgment to appreciate the value or advantage of a liberal

education.”
The most charitable construction which can be put upon
200 Methodism in Canada

 

this extraordinary document is to suppose that it was
written by some prejudiced private secretary or member
of the Council, and read by the Governor without being
revised. Not content with informing the deputation, in
effect, that they were only a parcel of ignorant boors, who
had neither experience nor judgment “to appreciate the
value or advantage of a liberal education,” his Excellency
proceeded to administer a sharp rebuke on “the absurd
advice offered by your missionaries to the Indians, and
their officious interference.” It appears that in some cases
at least the Indian agents were men who cared nothing
for the moral and social elevation of the Indians, but
exploited them for their own profit, and were bitter against
the Methodist missionaries who opposed their designs.
The “absurd advice” was to the effect that the Indians
should apply to their great Father to remove such agents
from among them. Very sound advice, one would think,
but not so thought the agents, who sought to prejudice the
Governor and his Council—all too willing to listen—
against the Methodist missionaries who had the courage to
bring the abuses to light. The matter was fully investigated
by a representative of the Methodist Church (the Rev.
James Richardson) and thoroughly ventilated through the
columns of the Christian Guardian, leading to the conclusion
expressed by the editor “that the advice given to the
Indians was both prudent and loudly called for, and
perfectly respectful to his Excellency.” The result of it
all was that the Governor reconsidered the case, reproved
the officers of the Indian Department, and gave suitable
instruction as to their treatment of the Methodist
missionaries.
The Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 201

 

The attitude and claims of the Church of England at
this period involved two vital issues. The first was the
inherent right of the Church of England to be an
established church in every part of the British Empire,
and therefore in Upper Canada; and this carried with it
the right of that Church to the exclusive control of the
Clergy Reserves. The second issue was the undoubted
fact that the admission of this inherent right would
extinguish the claim of each of the Nonconformist bodies
to the status of a Church. It will be seen, therefore, that
these bodies were fighting for their very existence, and
that in the struggle no quarter could be asked or granted.
It was literally a battle to the death. As an evidence
that the dominant party contemplated nothing short of the
extinction of Methodism in Upper Canada, I may refer
to the fact that in 1831 Donald Bethune of Kingston,
and certain others, petitioned the House of Assembly “to
prohibit any exercise of the function of a priest, or ex-
horter, or elder of any denomination in the province,
except by British subjects ; second, to prevent any religious
society connected with any foreign religious body to
assemble in Conference; third, to prevent the raising of
money by any religious person or, body for objects which
are not strictly British,” etc. The petition was clearly
aimed at the Methodists, but the petitioners did not seem
to be aware of the fact that all official connexion with the
Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States had been
severed more than two years before. The House, after
referring the matter to a committee, and calling a number
of witnesses, expressed the judgment “that it was incon-
sistent with the benign and tolerant principles of the
202 Methodism in Canada

 

British Constitution to restrain by penal enactment any
denomination of Christians, whether subjects or foreigners,”
from the exercise of their worship or duties.

In the sermon by Archdeacon Strachan, already referred
to, aid was sought from the Imperial Parliament on this
ground, among others, that unless the Church of England
was greatly strengthened there was danger that republican
principles would be instilled into the minds of the people
by the religious teachers of other denominations, who, he
affirmed, “ come almost universally from the United States
of America.” Combating this statement, the reviewer
boldly affirms, “The assertion is not true. They are not
Republicans, neither are they infected with republican
principles, nor have they come almost exclusively from
the republican States of America. Seven eighths of the
teachers among dissenters are British-born subjects. And
out of the whole body of Methodist itinerant preachers,
who seem to be the principal butt of the Doctor’s hatred,
there are only eight who have not been born and educated
in the British dominions. And of those eight, all except two
have been naturalised British .subjects according to the
statute of the province.” Continuing his defence of his
brethren the reviewer inquires, “Have the dissenters in
this country ever shown a disposition in any way hostile
to the true interests of the colony? Have they not been
quiet in time of peace and bold in time of war? Answer,
ye parents who mourn the loss of patriotic sons who
yielded up the ghost on the field of battle. Speak, ye
fatherless children, the dying groans of whose dissenting
fathers proclaimed that they could die in defence of the
British Constitution and yet be unconnected with a
Lhe Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 203

 

religious establishment. Bear witness, ye disconsolate
widows, whose dissenting husbands’ loyalty has doomed
you to perpetual melancholy. Lift up your voices, ye un-
fortunate invalids, whose lacerated limbs speak more than
volumes that they are slanderers and liars who say that the
religious any more than the political dissenters in Canada
are not true to the ‘ political institutions of England.’ ”

It should.be distinctly understood that in this bitter
controversy, which disturbed the whole country for years,
the Methodists were not the aggressors. Though repeatedly
assailed and maligned, in public and in private, they
kept silent until forbearance ceased to be a virtue. When
forced at last into controversy, they stood on the defensive,
and it was only when driven by continued injustice into
aggressive action that they “carried the war into Africa,”
and assailed those who had assailed them, and that to
such good purpose that in a few years the original ag-
gressors were driven from every stronghold, and the claim
of all denominations to a status of religious equality was
universally recognised. As early as 1820 the clergy of
the Church of Scotland in Upper Canada, though very
few in number, began to assert their claim to a share of
the Clergy Reserves. The question came before the
House of Assembly in 1824, and in that and the three
succeeding years resolutions were passed remonstrating
against the exclusive claims of the Church of England.
For five or six years there was much controversy, but the
Methodists took no part in it, although they suffered more
than others from malicious attacks and civil disabilities.
The first public defence of the Methodists, and incidentally
of other denominations, appeared in the review of Arch-
204 Methodism in Canada

 

deacon Strachan’s sermon already referred to, and even
then the Church question was but lightly touched.

As the archdeacon’s extraordinary sermon on the
death of Bishop Mountain precipitated the first battle
of the war for civil and religious liberty, so his still more
extraordinary chart and accompanying letter precipitated
the second. The object of the chart and letter, and of
Dr. Strachan’s visit to England in 182°, was to procure
additional grants for the support of the Church of England
in Canada, and a charter and endowment for a university.
In the letter, which was intended for the information of
Lord Goderich, Principal Secretary of State for the
Colonies, it is affirmed that “the teachers of the different
denominations, with the exception of two ministers of the
Church of Scotland, four Congregational ministers, and
a respectable English missionary who presided over a
Wesleyan Methodist meeting in Kingston, are for the
most part from the United States, where they gather
their knowledge and form their sentiments. Indeed,
the Methodist teachers are subject to the orders of the
United States of America, and it is manifest that the
Colonial Government neither has nor can have any other
control over them, or prevent them from gradually render-
ing a large portion of the population, by their influence
and instructions, hostile to our institutions, civil and
religious, than by increasing the number of the established
clergy. . . . Two or three hundred clergymen living in
Upper Canada, in the midst of their congregations, and
receiving the greater portion of their income from funds
deposited in this country (England), must attach still
more intimately the population of the colony to the
The Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 205

 

parent State. Their influence would gradually spread ;
they would infuse into the inhabitants a tone of feeling
entirely English, and acquiring by degrees the direction
of education, which the clergy of England have always
possessed, the very first feelings, sentiments, and opinions
of the youth must become British.”

There could be no mistaking the objects which lay
behind so remarkable a document. They were three in
number. (1) The complete recognition of the Church of
England in Upper Canada as the State Church and its
endowment out of Imperial revenues and the Clergy
Reserves. (2) The extirpation of various sects, especially
the Methodists. (3) The absolute control of education
throughout the province. A more complete scheme of
ecclesiastical domination it would be difficult to imagine,
and had it succeeded neither civil nor religious freedom
would have been possible for generations. It is not sur-
prising, therefore, that when the chart and letter found
their way into the provincial newspapers, public feeling rose
to fever heat. The slanderous attack upon the Methodist
ministers, and the appeal to the Home Government to
aid in exterminating heresy (for that is what it amounted
to) excited widespread indignation and sympathy. Peti-
tions were circulated in various parts of the province, and
signed by nearly 5,700 persons, asking for a full in-
vestigation. In March 1828 these petitions were laid
before the House of Assembly, and referred to a committee
of five, who conducted a searching investigation, examining
no less than fifty-two witnesses from various parts of the
province and from various walks in life—clergymen, doctors,
thirty members of Parliament, several members of the
206 Methodism in Canada

 

‘Legislative Council (including Archdeacon Strachan), the
Speaker of the House, two Indians, etc. The petition,
on the basis of which the investigation was ordered,
read in part as follows:

“JIn this communication (Dr. Strachan’s letter) his
Majesty is informed that the ministers of the different
churches in this province, unconnected with the Protes-
tant Episcopal Church, ‘are for the most part from the
United States, where they gather their knowledge and
form their sentiments.’ The Methodist preachers are
particularly stigmatised with the charge of mixing up
sedition with the word of God; and ‘the other denomi-
nations’ are represented as having few teachers, and those
seemingly very ignorant.

“Could it be true that the Methodist preachers were
rendering, by their influence and instructions, a large
portion of the population hostile to our institutions, both
civil and religious, the evil would be most alarming; and
if the charge be credited in any degree by our gracious
Sovereign, we feel with deep regret how low we must
sink in his estimation, and how hopeless is our expectation
of enjoying his royal confidence. Your petitioners know
no difference between those who preach disaffection and
those who habitually hear it. We notice with much
anxiety in the same document a disposition expressed
and recommended to pursue a policy which shall augment
the number of the clergymen of the Protestant Episcopal
Church from three hundred to two thousand; and by
the addition of wealth, to be shared by no other
denomination of Christians, gradually to acquire to
themselves exclusively the superintendence of the
The Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 207

 

education of our children in the public schools. The end
of such a system must be ecclesiastical dominion. It is
asserted with much confidence by this sworn adviser of
the representative of his Majesty, that ‘the tendency of
the population is toward the Church of England, and
that ‘ nothing but the want of moderate support prevents
her from spreading over the whole province.’

“We have ascertained that a Royal Charter has been
granted for the establishment of a university amongst us,
the principle of which, we have good reason to fear, will be
found inconsistent with the unimpaired preservation and
maintenance of our civil and religious rights and privileges.

“We humbly pray that your honourable House would
inquire into the principle upon which a university is to
be established amongst us, so that »o power to hold
lands or other property be granted to, nor any addition
to the number of members composing the House of
Assembly made from or out of any ecclesiastical or
literary body corporate, at whose hands danger could or
might be apprehended to the Constitution, or to our
religious liberties: and also that your honourable House
would inquire into the truth of the above recited cruel
charges and statements against the ministers and the
people, and further to take such steps upon the premises
to preserve us and our children from ecclesiastical domi-
nation, as to your wisdom shall seem fit.”

In accordance with the inquiry the committee
formulated a series of fourteen questions, out of which
grew a few others, covering the main points raised by the
archdeacon’s chart and letter. These questions were
printed, and the witnesses were asked to hand in written
208 Methodism in Canada

 

answers. Most of the answers displayed remarkable
unanimity of opinion. While occasionally differing upon
‘minor points, or on what were purely matters of opinion,
the witnesses, with few exceptions, wére entirely in accord
in their answers to the main questions. They were con-
clusive that, in the judgment of the witnesses, the
ministers of denominations unconnected with the Church
of England were not, for the most part, from the United
States, and did not gather their knowledge or form their
sentiments from that source; that the influence and
instruction of the Methodist preachers had no tendency to
render the people hostile to British institutions ;1 that an
increase in the number of missionaries of the Church of
England would not render our people more attached to
our civil and religious institutions; that the tendency of
the population in the province at this time was not toward
the Church of England, nor was it spreading to the extent
that had been claimed; that the people of the province
were not in favour of having one or more churches or
denominations established by law with exclusive rights,
privileges, or endowments; that they did not wish the
proceeds of the Clergy Reserves to be given to clergymen
of the Church of England, but that they be devoted to
general education and internal improvements. Replying
to a question concerning the relative strength of other
denominations compared with the Church of England, the
witnesses concur in giving the Methodists foremost place.
The Speaker of the House thought “they might, in regard

1 Tt was clearly shown that in the war of 1812 the Methodists were as
zealous as any in defence of the province ; that several ministers voluntarily
served in flank companies, and were in several engagements, in which two
of them were wounded.
The Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 209

 

to numbers, be arranged thus: 1st, Methodists; 2nd,
Presbyterians (including Scotch Kirk, Seceders, Inde-
pendents, Congregationalists, etc.); 3rd, Catholics; 4th,
Baptists; 5th, Church of England.” Questioned about
the ecclesiastical chart, the witnesses were agreed that it
was nota fair representation of the standing and character
of the various denominations in Upper Canada. As to
the relation of Methodist preachers in Upper Canada to
the Conference in the United States, the Rev. William Case
gave the following evidence:

“The Methodist preachers who came into this province
were from the Methodist Conference in the State of New
York, about the year 1790. They continued to be
accountable to that Conference for their moral deportment,
and their characters were carefully examined, till August
1824, since which time the affairs of the Methodist Church
in Canada have been transacted by the Canada Conference.
At no time did the Methodist Conference in the United
States exercise or claim any control of a temporal nature
over the Methodists in Canada. Their services were
purely of a spiritual nature. To supply the wants of a
destitute country they laboured freely and for many years
at considerable sacrifice of property and even. of health
and life; and some of their ministers, by excessive toil in
anew country, expended both. The Colonial Government,
I conceive, has the same control over the Methodists in
this country that the British Government has over others
of its subjects both in Europe and America.”

The select committee having concluded its labours,
the chairman, Marshall 8. Bidwell, informed the House
that a report had been adopted, and an address to his

14
210 Methodism in Canada

 

Majesty founded thereon. On the following day the
House went into committee of the whole, and, on the
question of receiving the report, divided with the following
result—yeas 22, nays 8. This was virtually a test vote,
and indicated how the whole subject would be dealt with.
The report was received and adopted; the address to the
King was read a second time, adopted, and ordered to be
read a third time on the following Thursday. ‘On that
day the address was passed by a vote of 21 to 9,
and signed by the Speaker. The report and address were
both remarkable documents. Calm, dignified, and explicit,
they stated the results of the committee’s deliberations
with clearness and precision, and made request in a spirit
befitting a grave, deliberative body. The parts of the
report bearing more directly on the questions at issue are
as follows: i

“The committee have examined all the members of:
the House of Assembly whose testimony they could
obtain; some members of the Honourable the Legislative
Council, of long residence, high standing, and large
possessions in the province; various clergymen of different
denominations in York and its vicinity, and a few other
individuals.

“ From the evidence it will be perceived that the letter
and chart were calculated to produce in many respects
erroneous impressions respecting the religious state of this
province and the sentiments of-the inhabitants. As it
seems from Dr. Strachan’s evidence that they were drawn
up suddenly from memory, and. without the means of
reference to sources of. authentic information, it is much
to be regretted that these circumstances had not been at
The Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 211

 

least hinted in the letter itself, and the more so when it is
considered that, as he stated to the committee, he had
never known the number of the Church of England in
this province. The assertions in the letter, ‘ the people are
coming forward in all directions offering to assist in
building churches, and soliciting with the greatest anxiety
the establishment of a settled minister; and that the
tendency of the population is toward the Church of
England, and nothing but the want of moderate support
prevents her from spreading over the whole province, are
completely contradicted by the evidence.

“ The insinuation against the Methodist clergymen the
committee have noticed with peculiar regret. To the
disinterested and indefatigable exertions of these pious
men this province owes much. At an early period in
its history, when it was thinly settled and its inhabitants
were scattered through the wilderness and destitute of all
other means of religious instruction, these ministers of the
gospel, animated by Christian zeal and benevolence, at the
sacrifice of health and interest and comfort, carried among
the people the blessings and consolations and sanctions of
our holy religion. Their influence and instruction, far
from having (as is represented in the letter) a tendency
hostile to our institutions, have been conducive, in a.degree
that cannot be easily estimated, to the reformation of their
hearers from licentiousness, and the diffusion of correct
morals, the foundation of all sound loyalty and social order.
There is no reason to believe that, as a body, they have
failed to inculcate, by precept and example, as a Christian
duty, an attachment to the Sovereign and a cheerful and
212 Methodism in Canada

 

conscientious obedience to the laws of the country. More
than thirty-five years have elapsed since they commenced
their labours in the colonies. In that time the province
has passed through a war which put to the proof their
loyalty. If their influence and instructions have the
tendency mentioned, the effects by this time must be
manifest; yet no one doubts that the Methodists are as
loyal as any of his Majesty’s subjects. And the very fact
that while their clergymen are dependent for their support
upon the voluntary contributions of the people, the
number of their members has increased so as to now, in
the opinion of almost all the witnesses, be greater than
that of the members of any other denomination in this
province, is a complete refutation of any suspicion that
their influence and instructions have such a tendency;
for it would bea gross slander on the loyalty of the people
to suppose that they would countenance and listen with
complacency to those whose influence was exerted for such
base purposes.”

Referring to the question of a State Church, the
committee pointed out that besides the Methodists there
were other denominations more numerous than.the Church
of England, and that the latter constituted but a small
part of the population of the whole province; “hence it
would be unjust and impolitic to exalt” that “Church, by
exclusive and peculiar rights, above all others of his
Majesty’s subjects who are equally loyal, conscientious, and
deserving.” It was further pointed out that there existed
in the minds of the people generally “a strong and settled
aversion to anything like an Established Church, and that
an attempt to incorporate the Church of England, or any
The Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 213

 

other church, in such a capacity would excite alarm
throughout the country, and the actual execution of such
a measure would produce the most general and lasting
discontent.” There was no necessity for such an
establishment, either for the ends of loyalty or religion.
Moreover, were such a church established, men who were
conscientiously opposed to its doctrines or form of worship
would be compelled, in the very nature of the case, “to
oppose one of the civil institutions of the country, a part
of the Government itself,” which would render them objects
of jealousy and suspicion, until “ their very conscientious-
ness comes by degrees to be regarded and treated as a
crime.” The next paragraph of the committee’s report,
dealing with a different matter, deserves to be transcribed
at length:

“In the course of their inquiries, the committee
obtained information which, to their surprise and regret,
gave them reason to believe that, to create in the minds
of the Indians recently converted, under the divine
blessing, to the Christian religion an influence unfavour-
able to their present religious teachers, through whose
exertions this change has taken place, the name of his
Majesty's Government had been used; and even that
intimation had been made of an intention to compel them
to come under the Church of England. The great and
surprising changes which have occurred within a short
period of time in the character and condition of large
bodies of the Mississagua Indians is well known. From a
state of vice and ignorance, wretchedness and degradation
almost brutal, they have been brought to habits of industry,
order, and temperance, a thirst for instruction and know-
214 : Methodism in Canada

 

ledge, a profession of the Christian religion, and apparently
a cordial and humble belief of its truths and enjoyment
of its blessings. In this change the Methodists have been
chiefly instrumental. They have manifested the most
‘benevolent zeal in accomplishing it; they have sent
missionaries and established schools among them which
aré supported by voluntary contributions, and they are
still labouring among them with the same disinterested
spirit and the same surprising encouragement and
success,”

‘The report of the committee then deals with the
question of the Clergy Reserves. A statute had recently
been passed by the Imperial Parliament authorising the
sale of a part of the reserves, but it was not yet known
how the proceeds would be applied. The Upper Canada
‘House of Assembly had already expressed its opinion
against devoting the proceeds to the purposes originally
intended, and in favour of devoting them to purposes of
education. The committee now advanced the further opinion
that the fund should be placed at the disposal of the
Provincial Legislature for the purpose last mentioned. .

The Charter of the University of King’s College next
engaged the attention of the’ committee. In the report
the main provisions of the charter are recited, -and
attention is called to the sectarian. character and tendency
of the institution. In a pamphlet. published, in London
by Dr. Strachan, entitled An Appeal to the Friends
of Religion and Literature, in behalf of the University
of Upper Canada, he states distinctly that it would be
essentially .a missionary college, “for the education of
missionaries of the Church of England,” and “as an
The Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 215

 

argument,” says the report, “to obtain from the members
of the Church contributions towards the funds of the
college, maintains that the effect of establishing this
university will be ultimately to make the greater portion
of the population of the province members of the Church
of England.” It was clearly recognised .by the committee
that a university adapted to the character and circum-
stances of the people would confer untold benefits upon
the province; “but,” it is added, “ to be of real service, the
principles upon which it is established must be in unison
with the general sentiments of the people. It should not
be a school of politics or of sectarian views. It should
have about it no appearance of a spirit of partiality or
exclusiveness. Its portals should be thrown open to all,
and upon none who enter should any influence be exerted

to attach them to a particular creed or church. .. . Such
an institution would be a blessing to the country, its pride
and glory.” ,

The report having been adopted by the House by a
majority of more than two to one, an address to the King,
based upon the report, was submitted, and adopted by
a similar majority. After referring to Dr. Strachan’s
ecclesiastical chart and letter, the address proceeds:

“We beg leave to inform your Majesty that of your
Majesty’s subjects in -this province only a small proportion
are members of the Church of England ; that there is not
any peculiar tendency to that Church among the people,
and that nothing could cause more alarm and grief in their
minds than the apprehension that there was a design on
the part of your Majesty's Government to establish, as a
part of the State, one or more church or denomination of
216 Methodism in Canada

 

Christians in this province, with rights and endowments
not granted to your Majesty’s subjects in general of other
denominations, who are equally conscientious and deserving,
and equally loyal and attached to your Majesty’s person
and Government. In following honestly the dictates of
their conscience, as regards the great and important subject
of religion, the latter have never been conscious that they
have violated any law or any obligation of a good subject,
or done anything to forfeit your Majesty’s favour and
protection, or to exclude’ themselves from a participation
in the rights and privileges enjoyed by your Majesty’s
other subjects.

“We humbly beg leave to assure your Majesty that
the insinuations against the Methodist preachers in this
province do much injustice to a body of pious and de-
serving men, who justly enjoy the confidence and are the
spiritual instructors of a large portion of your Majesty’s
subjects in this province. We are convinced that the
tendency of their influence and instruction is not hostile
to our institutions, but, on the contrary, is eminently
favourable to religion and morality; that their labours
are calculated to make the people better men and better
subjects, and have already produced in the province the
happiest results.”

The remainder of the address refers to the Clergy
Reserves, and the application of the proceeds arising from
their sale.

Of the immediate effect of the report and address upon
the British Government it is unnecessary to speak at present.
It may be mentioned, however, that in the British House
of Commons in 1831, in answer to a question put by
The Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 217

 

Mr. Labouchere (afterwards Lord Taunton) whether
ministers intended to.continue parliamentary grants to
support Episcopal clergy in Canada, and whether they
intended to apply themselves to the subject of the Clergy
Reserves, the Chancellor of the Exchequer observed that
“ ministers did not defend this vote upon principle. The
point, the committee was aware, was one of considerable
difficulty, as it involved the whole question of the church
establishment in Canada; it was therefore impossible to
take any step rapidly; but it did appear to him that it
was not fitting that the people of England should be called
upon to provide funds for the support of the clergy and
church establishment of Canada. It was the intention of
ministers gradually to reduce the grant, and to abolish it
as soon as possible. The Clergy Reserves were highly
detrimental to the prosperity of the colony, but he could
give no pledge on the subject, which was one of great
difficulty.” From all this it may be inferred that the
Home Government saw that the whole question of Church
Establishment and Clergy Reserves must be dealt with in
the not distant future, and desired to find some way of
retiring with dignity from a position that was no longer
tenable. In Upper Canada the effect of the report and
address were far more marked and decisive. The contro-
versy was by no means settled, it was only fully opened;
but the whole question was brought within the sphere of
practical politics, and the people had taken a step through
their Legislature from which they would never recede. In
successive Parliaments,resolutions,addresses,and Acts against
the sectarian character of King’s College Charter were
passed ; but the will of the Popular Assembly was thwarted
218 Methodism in Canada

 

by the Legislative Council, and fifteen years elapsed before
King’s College was transformed into a provincial institution
under the title of Toronto University.

The controversy respecting the Clergy Reserves was
much more protracted, and nearly a quarter of a century
elapsed before the last vestiges of ‘State - Churchism
disappeared from the Statute Book. In 1835 public
feeling was intensified by one of the last official acts of
Sir John Colborne, who, before leaving Canada, “ erected
Jifty-seven rectories of the Church of England, and endowed
them with glebe lands out of the Clergy Reserves.” It
should be clearly understood, however, that this was not
a controversy between Methodists on the one hand and the
Church of England on the other. It was a struggle in
which the whole population was engaged, and the
prominence which Methodism obtained was due to the
fact that from the ranks of its ministry came by far the
blest champion of the rights of the people. and the
equality of the churches. At the same time, it was well
known that the Methodists, ministers and people, were
‘almost a unit in their opposition to an endowed State
Church, and this identified them, in popular estimation,
with the Reform party that was battling for responsible
government, and incidentally. against State - Churchism
and the Clergy Reserves as obstacles which lay in its
way.

So long as the Reform party pursued its ends by
constitutional means, it carried with it the sympathy of
a large proportion of the population; and had it not been
for the persistent obstruction of the Legislative Council,

1 Epochs of Methodism, p. 220.
The Struggle for Crvil and Religious Liberty 219

 

the House of Assembly would have brought about the
desired changes in a peaceable and orderly manner. But
the stubborn resistance offered by the irresponsible branch
of the Legislature to necessary reforms exasperated the
temper of the people, and gave an opportunity to a few
rash, hot-headed men to precipitate a struggle with the
Executive in a mad endeavour to secure by revolution
what they had failed to accomplish by milder methods.
Foremost among these was William Lyon Mackenzie, a
Scotchman, who came to Upper Canada in his twenty-
fifth year, and after a varied experience as a storekeeper
in several places, came to York, where he seemed to find
his true vocation as a journalist. In 1826 he established
the Colonial Advocate, and for more than a decade was the
“ stormy petrel ” of Canadian politics. Wherever he went
a storm was sure to follow. For ferreting out abuses he
had no equal; and this, coupled with his pungent and
irritating style of editorial criticism, made him the déte
noire of the Government and its supporters. As a
champion of popular rights he obtained wide influence,
and was soon returned.to the Assembly as Reform member
for the county of York; but as a leader he was rash,
impulsive, and unsafe. In the House he was continually
unearthing abuses, while outside of it “he traversed the
country, held public meetings, and circulated petitions to the
throne, which were signed by more than twenty thousand
persons, praying for the secularisation of the Clergy
Reserves, for law reform, for the exclusion of judges and
the clergy from Parliament, for the abolition of primo-
geniture, for the legislative control of public moneys, and
for other reforms which have long since become the law
220 Methodism in Canada

 

of the land.”! Again and again Mackenzie was expelled
from the House for assumed breach of parliamentary
privilege, and as often was triumphantly returned again
by his constituents.

When Egerton Ryerson visited England in 1833 as
representative of the Canadian Conference, he was the
bearer of a petition to the King, signed by upwards of
twenty thousand persons, against the Clergy Reserve mono-
poly and the establishment of a dominant church in Upper
Canada. He visited England again in 1836-37 seeking
aid and a Royal Charter for Victoria University. On
this occasion he was astounded by a prevalent impression
among public men that the people of Canada were going
to set up a republican government and separate from
England. He indignantly denied the statement, but
further inquiry revealed the. fact that for some time
correspondence had been proceeding between William
Lyon Mackenzie and Joseph Papineau of Canada, and
Messrs. Hume and Roebuck, of the British Parliament,
with this very end in view. Mr. Ryerson at once
addressed six letters to Hume and Roebuck, through the
Times newspaper, over the signature of “A Canadian,”
showing that they were the originators and advisers of
the change from reform to revolution in Canada, and for
throwing off what Mr. Hume called “the baneful
domination of the Mother Country,” and for establishing
a republic in Canada.

After his return to Canada in 1833, Mr. Ryerson
published in the Christian Guardian, of which he had
again been elected editor, a series of articles giving his

) Withrow’s Abridged History of Canada, p. 107.
The Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 221

 

impressions in regard to public men, religious bodies,
and the general state of the nation. These “impressions ”
gave huge offence to the Mackenzie-Papineau section of
the Reform party. The former clearly perceived what
would be the probable effect on the public mind of such
outspoken criticisms, and he proceeded to attack the
writer with that unscrupulous and bitter invective in the
use of which he was a past master. Other papers of the
extreme radical type took up the cry, until the whole
vocabulary of abuse seemed to be exhausted in denouncing
a man who sought to give a faithful picture of men and
parties as he saw them in England. The sting of the
“impressions” was in this, that if the author was right,
then the revolutionary wing of the Reform party in Upper
Canada was wrong, and would have to retrace its steps,
or else incur a tremendous responsibility. For a time
these attacks had their effect. Feelings of deep resent-
ment were excited in many quarters, and some who had
been Mr. Ryerson’s warmest friends turned against him.
Even his own brothers seemed to think he had made a
mistake. The Rev. John Ryerson, in a letter written about
this time, said :

“What will be the result of your remarks in the
Guardian on political parties in England, I cannot say.
They will occasion much speculation, some jealousy, and
bad feeling, I have sometimes thought you had
better not have written them, particularly at this time,
yet I have long been of the opinion (both with regard to
measures and men) that we leaned too much toward
radicalism, and that it would be absolutely necessary to
disengage ourselves from them entirely. You can see
222 Methodism tn Canada

 

plainly it is.not reform but revolution they are after. . .
There are some things in your remarks I don’t like; but,
on the whole, I am glad of their appearance, and I hope,
whenever you have occasion to speak of the Government,
you will do. it in terms of respect. I am anxious that
we should obtain the confidence of the Government,
and entirely .disconnect: ourselves from that tribe of
levellers with whom we have been too intimate, and who
are, at any time, ready to turn around and sell us when
we fail to please them.”

As time went on it became apparent there would be a
division in the Reform party, and this increased the rage
of the revolutionary element. The controversy developed
their plans. perhaps more rapidly than they intended, and
Mackenzie began to utter sentiments which could only be
interpreted as encouraging armed resistance to the Govern-
ment. The object, doubtless, was so to commit the Reform
party to his revolutionary policy that they would find it
impossible. to recede. The only thing to be regretted is
that the more moderate leaders did not at once repudiate
Mackenzie’s treasonable sentiments and cut loose from his
dangerous designs. Perhaps they thought his violent
utterances were but the outcome of temporary excitement,
and would not lead to any overt act; but Egerton Ryerson
clearly perceived that the trend of events, unless promptly
checked, must inevitably end in revolution, whether so
intended or not, and lifted up his voice in timely warning
against the mad attempt. For this he was assailed with
torrents of abuse. He was denounced as traitor, renegade,
and arch-apostate, as one who had abandoned friends and
principles and gone over to the camp of the enemy.
The Struggle for Civil and Religious Liberty 223

 

Nothing could be more unjust. The fact is, that from
first to last Egerton Ryerson was the uncompromising
advocate of great principles, but never the slave of a party ;
and hence he did not hesitate to oppose those with whom
he had formerly co-operated when convinced that they had
adopted an unwise policy, or had abandoned principle for
expediency. The storm which had been raised by the
“ impressions ” gradually: subsided. Before the crisis came
the Methodist people and many others saw that Ryerson
was right, and it was subsequently his proud boast that not
a single member of the Methodist Church was implicated in
the rebellion of 1837-38.

It is unnecessary to follow in detail the history of the
next few years. The ill-starred rebellion was quickly sup-~
pressed. Some of the leaders escaped; and some were sent
to the gallows—a most impolitic act, but not suprising in
view of the excited state of public feeling. Only a small
section of the Reform party actually participated in the
uprising; but all had to bear the odium caused by the
rashness of a few, and for a time the party was practically
extinct. It was only after the coming of Lord Durham,
and the publication of his masterly and statesman-like
report on Canadian affairs, that the tide of feeling fairly.
turned. The cause of popular rights had been retarded,
but could not be permanently turned back—it was too
deeply imbedded in the convictions and aspirations of the
people to admit of that; but years elapsed before the
controversy was fully ended, and it could be affirmed, with-
out a shadow of reservation, that the great battle of civil
and religious liberty had been fought and won.

Calmly surveying, after the lapse of more than half
224 Methodism in Canada

 

a century, the events of those troublous times, Methodism
has no occasion to blush for the part she played. While
her ministers carefully abstained from interference in party
politics, and never alluded to such questions in public
address or sermon, they were known, for the most part, as
staunch adherents of the demand for responsible govern-
ment, and uncompromising opponents of a dominant State
Church. The membership, as a rule, co-operated, in public
affairs, with the Reform party, for that was the party which
championed the popular cause; but when they saw that a
section of the party were abandoning reform for revolution,
they did not hesitate to oppose their former associates, and
even to take up arms in defence of law and order. And
when strife subsided, and the smoke of battle cleared away,
it was clearly seen by all reasonable men that, alike by its
spiritual ministrations and its attitude on great public’
questions, Methodism had rendered service of unspeakable
value, and had fairly earned the respect and gratitude of
the whole country. No longer treated as a despised ‘sect,
no longer overshadowed and brow-beaten by a haughty
ecclesiastical establishment, Methodism took its stand on
terms of equality with other denominations, and by virtue,
of its numbers, intelligence, and active support of whatever
made for the weal of the people, it was henceforth regarded
as a force to be reckoned with in the conduct of public
affairs.
Vv

UNION WITH THE BRITISH CONFERENCE
DISSOLVED AND RESTORED

HAVING given some account of the causes which led to the
union between the British and Canadian Conferences in
1833 (pp. 142-179), it now becomes necessary to recall
the circumstances which led to a dissolution of that union
in 1840, and to its restoration in 1847; for these occur-
rences were not unimportant links in the chain of events
which combined to make the Methodist Church in Canada
what it is to-day. Previous to 1833 the trend of affairs
was such as necessitated a union of forces if Methodism
was to be saved from complications that would have retarded
its progress for years. Two Methodist bodies—the British
Wesleyan missionaries and the Methodist Episcopal Church
—were working in the same field among a sparse popula-
tion. For a time the understanding formerly reached with
the General Conference in the United States, that the
British Wesleyan Committee should confine its labours to
Lower Canada, was observed; but when the Methodist
Episcopal Church in Canada became an independent. body,
free from the control of the American General Conference,
the British brethren considered that the original compact
was no longer binding, and that they were now at liberty
15
226 Methodism in Canada

 

to send missionaries into any part of the country where
their services might be desired. As a result of this,
missionaries of the British Conference were sent into Upper
Canada. In some cases preachers of both Connexions were
appointed to the same stations, and thus altar was set up
against altar, societies were divided, and the preachers were
placed, by force of circumstances, in a position of antagonism
to each other which could not fail to be prejudicial to the
interests of true religion. .

When the union was consummated the whole situation
seemed to be changed for the better. It would be incorrect
to say that everybody was pleased; but those who would
have preferred to maintain their former connexion with
the British Missionary Committee were willing, for the
sake of peace, and in the interests of the work, to -accept
the new arrangement; and those who were strongly
attached to the Methodist Episcopal Church, under whose
ministry they had been converted and in connexion with
which they had laboured, resolved to forego their prefer-
ences for the sake of what seemed a greater good. It may
be that even the leaders in the movement did not realise
how diverse and conflicting were some of the elements they
were trying to unite. At that time so little was known
about Canada in the Mother Country that it was practically
impossible for Englishmen to see questions from a Canadian
point of view, and it was just as impossible for those who
had grown up in the unconventional atmosphere of a new
colony, where everything, from the rights of the humblest
subject to the prerogatives of the Crown, was discussed
with the utmost freedom, to understand the conservatism
of English opinion or its-deference to prerogative and
Union with the British Conference Dissolved 227

 

vested rights. Years of misunderstanding and conflict
elapsed before these initial difficulties were surmounted,
and the two parties learned to adjust themselves to each
other and to existing conditions.

In effecting the union certain changes in the discipline
of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada were rendéred
necessary to meet the new order of things. There was,
first of all, a partial change of name. That which had
been known as “The Zpiscopal Methodist Church in Canada,”
now became “The Wesleyan Methodist Church in British
North America.” Then the designation of the presiding
officer was changed from “bishop” to “ president,” and the
office, instead of being for life, was made annual; but no
change was made in the functions of the officer referred
to. In the ministry the term “elder” was changed to
“superintendent,” and the ordination of deacons was
dispensed with. It was also understood that, from the
time of the union, the practice of ordaining local preachers
should be discontinued. In regard to this latter point it
should be observed that in 1834 the new rules respecting
local preachers were submitted to the whole Church and
ratified by more than three fourths of the quarterly
official meetings of the Connexion. At the Hallowell
Conference in 1832, when a union with the English
Conference was proposed, and at the York Conferénce in
1833, where it was ratified, there were some ministers who,
on various grounds, were opposed to the scheme, but when
it was carried by the requisite constitutional majorities
they readily acquiesced, and gave their best aid to make
the union a success. Among the membership of the
Church there seemed to be almost entire unanimity, and
228 Methodism in Canada

 

with one exception no memorial or protest against the
union was heard from any quarter. The exception con-
sisted of a few local preachers who. assembled in the
Trafalgar meeting-house, 6th July 1832, and adopted the
following resolution: “ Resolved—That as it appears from
the Christian Guardian that a union between the missionaries
from Britain and our Church is contemplated, we address
our Annual Conference on the subject of our privileges as
local preachers, and that Brothers Picket, Culp, and Brown
be the committee to draft such address and forward it for
presentation.” At the Conference of 1834, a year after
the union was consummated, some amendments to the
regulations respecting local preachers were adopted. By
these amendments local preachers’ Conferences were dis-
continued, and also the practice of ordaining local preachers.
These two changes caused some alarm and even resentment.
A convention was called at Belleville late in the autumn
of 1834, which is said to have been attended by twelve or
fifteen persons, when resolutions were adopted condemning
the “ local preachers’ resolutions,” and also disapproving
of the union with the British Conference. During the
following spring or early summer a few persons met to
reorganise on the old Episcopal plan, and to form a General
Conference. This action was greatly to be deplored, for it
resulted in a “schism in the body” that was not healed for
nearly fifty years. The conflict that followed developed
all the bitterness of a family quarrel, which grew more
intense as the years went by, and was eagerly seized upon
by politicians as a means of discrediting and weakening
the Methodist Church. Certain political papers teemed
with hitter articles on the tyranny, despotism, politica]
Union with the British Conference Dissolved 229

 

depravity, and religious apostasy of Wesleyan Methodism:
But, happily, all this belongs to a bygone day. The breach
which began in the division of 1834 was healed by the
union of 1883, and there we leave the story of the
unhappy strife. Peace and brotherhood are reigning now.
“Let the dead past bury its dead.”

It would have been a happy thing for Methodism had
the division just referred to been the only one; but another
was to follow in the course of a few years which was in
some respects more deplorable than the first. Besides
the ostensible causes of the rupture, there were other
influences equally potent though less manifest. The union
which had been effected in 1833 was distasteful to various
party politicians. The dominant party in the Legislative
Council may have favoured it, for although their favourite
policy was to foment discord and disunion in the Methodist
Church, they may have seen in this union something which
they fondly hoped would neutralise the efforts of the
Canada Conference for the secularisation of the Clergy
Reserves and to prevent the recognition of a State Church ;
but the radical element in the Liberal party disliked a
union which meant resolute opposition to revolutionary
schemes; while even the constitutional Reformers regarded
it with some degree of suspicion. Moreover, the union
held within itself elements that were not easily fused into
one. The English missionaries had been brought up under
conditions very different from those in which the Canadian
preachers had received their training. They were more
conservative in their methods, more disposed to defer to
“the powers that be,’ whether right or wrong, and
perhaps were not altogether free from that spirit of lofty
230 Methodism in Canada

 

condescension with which Englishmen of that period—and
some later periods—were wont to regard “mere colonials.”
The Canadian preachers, on the other hand, had grown up
with the country from its very beginning. They were of the
people and knew the people, had shared their struggles and
sympathised with their aspirations, and in common with the
people were imbued with an intense dislike of irresponsible
or autocratic authority in Church or State. All this may
have rendered them impatient of anything that savoured
of dictation, and almost too ready to assert the right of
self-government. But it should be remembered that all
they possessed of civil or religious liberty had been won
after bitter and protracted struggles, and was prized
accordingly. Above all, it should be remembered that at
the time of which we. speak public opinion on many
questions,, civil and religious, was at fever heat; men’s
minds were so sensitive that grievances which in a time of
profound peace would have seemed very trifling loomed up
in large proportions in the heated atmosphere of political
excitement and controversy.

The events which led ultimately to a dissolution of the
union between the British and Canadian Conferences had
their origin in the revival of the Clergy Reserves dispute.
For some years after the union the British Conference and
English missionaries co-operated with the Canadian Con-
ference and the Christian Guardian in the demand for
equal rights before the law for all creeds and classes, and
the secularisation of the Clergy Reserves; but the insurrec-
tion of 1837, and the bitter agitation which preceded and
grew out of it, resulted in a change of attitude. The
Family Compact (which really meant Archdeacon Strachan
4

Union with the British Conference Dissolved 231

 

and his supporters in the Legislative Council) made all
possible capital out of the rebellion, by affirming that the
whole trouble had grown out of the gpposition of the
pretended advocates of equal rights and privileges to the
British Constitution and Government. In these efforts the
dominant party was seconded by the new Governor, Sir
George Arthur, and it is not surprising that their
representations had considerable effect, especially in
England. The Wesleyan Missionary Committee in
' London, looking on from a great distance, and receiving
their impressions, to a large extent, from the communica-
tions of bitter enemies of reform, could hardly be expected
to understand the situation or to comprehend the intense
desire of the victims of oppression and misrule for deliver-
ance from the burdens under which they were groaning.
It might have been supposed that the English missionaries
in Canada would have understood the true position of
affairs; but these men had been spectators of a battle
rather than participants in it; their courage had not been
tested or their muscles hardened on the field of conflict,
and when the rebellion was suppressed they may have
thought that the cause of reform was hopelessly lost, and
that there was no use in contending against fate. Be that
as it may, signs began to appear which indicated that the
bond of union between the two Connexions was weakening,
and that at no distant day the old line of cleavage would
reappear.

When the editor of the Guardian perceived that the
policy of William Lyon Mackenzie and his followers meant
sedition, he unhesitatingly took his stand on the side of
law and order—of constitutional reforms by constitutional
230 Methodism in Canada

 

means—and against the schemes of the revolutionists.
By this change of attitude (for so it seemed to the
extremists) he incurred the bitter hostility of the radical
element, lost for a time the confidence and friendship of
many of the more moderate reformers, and did not lessen
by one jot the rancour and bitterness of the Government
and their friends. Any man of less nerve and tenacity
of purpose in pursuing what he believed to be the right
would have quailed before the storm he had raised; but
not so Egerton Ryerson. Though his life was in danger,
he steadily held on his way, and was most courageous in
darkest days. When the heat of the rebellion had cooled
a little, the Guardian, of which Mr. Ryerson had again
been elected editor, resumed the discussion of the Clergy
Reserves question, as though the rebellion had only been a
trifling incident which had temporarily delayed but could
not prevent a final settlement. This, to the opponents
of popular rights, was utterly beyond endurance. The
furnace of their indignation was heated seven times hotter
than its wont, and the editor of the Guardian was
threatened with personal violence, with persecution, with
banishment. But, undeterred by threats, as at other times
he had been undeterred by flattery, Egerton Ryerson
stood firm, and redoubled his exertions to defeat the
monopolists. Finding other means ineffectual, Sir George
Arthur wrote to the Wesleyan Missionary Committee in
London, complaining of the course of the Guardian and
calling upon the committee to interpose. Such a com-
munication, virtually asking the committee to undertake
something which the Canadian Government were unable
to accomplish, could not be otherwise than flattering ; and
Union with the British Conference Dissolved 233

 

as there was a perfectly natural wish to stand well with
the Government, the committee sent what was regarded
as a complimentary and encouraging reply. They also
wrote to the Rev. William M. Harvard, President of
Conference, Joseph Stinson, Superintendent of Missions,
and Matthew Richey, Principal of Upper Canada Academy,
to interfere in arresting what was regarded as the unjustifi-
able course of the Guardian and its editor. The three
brethren referred to were men of high repute and con-
spicuous ability, but, with the exception of Mr. Stinson,
they were new in the province, and hardly capable, on
such short acquaintance, of taking in all the bearings of
the case. The alleged ground of complaint was not that
the Guardian discussed the Clergy Reserves question, but
that it had become a political paper, discussing party
questions and committing itself to party issues. That
there were some grounds for this view cannot be denied.
Both John and Egerton Ryerson have admitted that the
Guardian, at this period, was intensely political for a
religious paper, and many of its best friends thought it
ought to modify its course in that respect.1_ But was there
not a cause? The reform party had been utterly crushed
by the rebellion, and the reform press was silenced. The
dominant party now considered themselves secure in the
possession of unquestioned irresponsible power, and how
they would use it there was only too much reason to fear.
At this crisis Egerton Ryerson was practically the one
surviving champion of civil liberty and religious equality
in Upper Canada, and knowing that he was backed by
all his Canadian brethren who had re-elected him to the
1 Epochs of Methodism, p. 314 and footnote.
234 Methodism in Canada

 

editorial chair of the Guardian on this very issue, “he
determined to defend to the last the citadel of Canadian
liberty, by whomsoever or from whatsoever quarter
assailed.” He contended “that all political questions
then pending had a direct or indirect bearing on the great
question ; that in warfare belligerents were not expected
to be exceedingly nice in regard to the instruments they
employed in making a breach into the enemy’s camp and
pulling down his bulwarks; that he employed no illegiti-
mate means, but that he would not be turned aside from
the great object until it was attained; that the real object
of the Government and the London Missionary Committee
was not so much to prevent the introduction of politics
into the Guardian as the discussion of the Clergy Reserves
question itself, and the equal religious rights of the people
altogether, so that the High Church party might be left in
peaceable possession of their exclusive privileges, and their
unjust and immense monopolies, without molestation or
dispute.”? It is probable that in this matter Mr. Ryerson
judged too harshly. Doubtless the object of the Church
party was correctly stated; but it is not at all likely that
the Missionary Committee, as a whole, was swayed by any
such considerations, whatever may have been true of one
or two individual members. All that can be said is that
the committee were not cognisant of the real facts in the
case; they relied upon ex parte statements, and were
misled accordingly.

Further, letters and verbal communications between
the Government and the London Committee did not serve

1 Hpochs of Methodism, p. 314, footnote.
2 Ibid. pp. 315, 316.
Union with the British Conference Dissolved 235

 

to lessen the tension but rather increased it, and in 1839
the Rev. Robert Alder was sent to Canada, ostensibly to
ascertain the state of affairs and parties and if possible
adjust matters upon a satisfactory basis. Shortly after
his arrival a strong pamphlet appeared over the signatures
of Rev. J. Stinson and M. Richey, giving a statement,
from their point of view, of the facts in the case. To this
pamphlet the editor of the Guardian prepared a reply, and
also to a letter from the Rev. Dr. Alder, which was
published when the Conference assembled. Another
element in the controversy was ‘introduced by a letter
brought by Dr. Alder from the British Secretaries to Sir
George Arthur, eulogising his Government and condemning
the editor of the Guardian. The letter was promptly
published in the Patriot, the organ of the Government, and
was as promptly copied into the Guardian and replied to
by the editor. This led to further letters from Dr. Alder
in defence of the committee, and further replies from Mr.
Ryerson. The Conference assembled at Hamilton under
the presidency of the Rev. Joseph Stinson. Dr. Alder
was present and introduced resolutions supposed to express
the views of the British Missionary Committee, which
were discussed for the greater part of three days. After
Mr. Ryerson had been heard in reply a vote was taken,
and the resolutions were rejected by fifty-five to five.
Subsequently Mr. Ryerson was re-elected editor of the
Guardian by an almost unanimous vote.

At the same Conference Dr. Alder represented that
certain resolutions adopted by the Conference in June
1837, on the subject of certain grants made by his late
Majesty to the Wesleyan Missionary Committee out of
236 Methodism in Canada

 

the Casual and Territorial Revenue, especially the second,
fifth, and sixth, interfered with the usages of the English
brethren and materially retarded their interests. The Con-
ference agreed, in the interests of peace, and to avoid
disturbing the union, to rescind the objectionable clauses.
The rescinding of these resolutions had no particular effect
upon the general question one way or the other, but as it
was desired by Dr. Alder, and was understood to remove
some embarrassments out of the way of the Missionary
Committee in London, it was done. Another resolution of
the series, still remaining on the Journals of the Conference,
shows conclusively that the opinion of the Connexion in
regard to the Clergy Reserves remained unchanged. It
reads as follows :

“7. That it is the strong conviction and deliberate
judgment of this Conference that the interests of religion,
the stability of the Government, and the welfare of the
province requires the earliest possible settlement of the
long-agitated Clergy Reserves question, in accordance with
the wishes and circumstances of the inhabitants; and that
those interests have been very seriously sacrificed by the
delays which have attended the proposed adjustment of
that question, so frequently urged upon the attention of
the Provincial Legislature by the Imperial Government.”

In a conversation with Dr. Alder, after the close of
the Conference, the editor of the Guardian pointed out
that he (Dr. Alder) had entirely mistaken the state of
Canadian feeling and the views of the Methodist Con-
nexion; but in order to avoid even the appearance of
discounting the British representative, an editorial would
be published in the Guardian to the effect that the
Union with the British Conference Dissolved 237

i

 

differences and misunderstandings which had arisen
between the London Wesleyan Committee and the
Canadian Conference had been adjusted in an amicable
spirit, and the unity of the Church maintained inviolate.
Dr. Alder gladly accepted the suggestion; but on his
return to England, he used the editorial in his report as a
proof that the Canadian Conference and the editor of the
Guardian had acceded to all his demands, and that his
mission had been entirely successful, when in point of fact
nothing had been conceded save the rescinding of three
out of eleven resolutions adopted in 1837, which did not
affect the main question. Dr. Alder’s resolutions, as
before pointed out, were sustained by only five votes in a
Conference of sixty members.

In the meantime, .a new element had been introduced
into public affairs by the appointment of the Earl of
Durham as Governor-General of the two Canadas and High
Commissioner for the settlement of public affairs, and by
the superseding of Sir George Arthur and the appointment
of the Right Hon. Poulett Thompson (afterwards Lord
Sydenham) as Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada.
The Constitution of Lower Canada had been suspended by
the Home Government, and the Governor and his Council
were supreme; but Lord Durham was a nobleman of
exceptional character and ability, educated in a liberal
school, and one who could be trusted to deal with public
affairs in a just and impartial manner. On assuming
office he announced himself as the friend and arbitrator
of the people without distinction of party, race, or creed,
and nobly did he fulfil his pledge. He appointed a com-
mission to inquire into the state of the country, and many
238 Methodism in Canada

 

grievances were redressed. An amnesty was granted to
most of the rebel prisoners, and proclaimed on the day of
the Coronation of Queen Victoria. Unwilling to appeal to
the decision of a court-martial, whose sentences would
doubtless have been very severe, the Governor banished
Wolfred Nelson and eight other leading insurgents to
Bermuda, and forbade Papineau and other fugitives to
return to the country under penalty of death. The Home
Government annulled this action as ultra vires, whereupon
the Governor at once resigned his commission and returned
to England, discouraged and dispirited, with broken health.
The loss to the country was irreparable. His quick
comprehension of the real situation and his far-seeing
statesmanship, both of which were clearly indicated in his
elaborate and impartial report on Canadian affairs, would
have enabled him to deal wisely and effectively with grave
complications, and would have saved the country years of
political turmoil and acrimonious debate.

Although the English missionaries were not favourable
to a policy that turned the Christian Guardian into a
political sheet rather than a religious newspaper, they
seem to have held pronounced views on the Clergy
Reserves question and the claims of the Church of
England. I infer this from a letter addressed by the Rev.
Joseph Stinson to the Rev. John Ryerson in April 1838,
shortly before the Conference at which Egerton Ryerson
was re-elected editor. That letter contained the following
passage :

“I am quite of your opinion that Brother Egerton
(Ryerson) ought to take the Guardian next year. There

 Withrow’s Abridged History of Canada, pp. 110, 111,
f

Union with the British Conference Dissolved 239

 

is a crisis approaching ‘in our affairs which will require
a vigorous hand to wield the defensive weapon of our
Conference. There can be no two opinions as to whom
to give that weapon. We now stand on fair grounds
to maintain our own against the encroachments of the
oligarchy, and we must do it or sink into a comparatively
uninfluential body. This must not be.”

It seems to be clearly established that in 1838 Messrs.
Stinson and Richey both voted for Mr. Ryerson as editor ;
nor can it be said they did so in ignorance of the latter’s
views or his intentions for the future. Previous to his
election, Mr. Ryerson clearly stated the course he intended
to pursue in regard to both civil and religious affairs, and
subsequently embodied his remarks in an editorial pros-
pectus, to which neither the Church in Canada nor the
committee in London took any exception. But when the
policy thus enunciated began to develop, and the domi-
nant party felt the force of the Gwardian’s onslaught,
strong pressure was brought to bear, first upon the com-
mittee in London, and subsequently upon the English
missionaries in Canada. It was then that the letter of
the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir George Arthur, was sent to
the Wesleyan Missionary Committee, complaining of Mr.
Ryerson’s course and requesting their interference, and it
was then that the views of the English’missionaries under-
went a change. It is true that in the preceding January
(1838) a meeting of several leading ministers was held (at
the call and under the presidency of the Rev. William M.
Harvard, at that: time President of the Conference), and
that meeting pronounced in favour of a distribution of
the proceeds of the Clergy Reserves among the different.
240 Methodism in Canada

 

Protestant denominations; but the Conference had pro-
nounced in favour of the appropriation of the Reserves to
educational purposes, and for that the Guardian contended.
But should the other course be taken, it was argued that
the share that might fall to the Methodist Church should
be utilised in two ways: (1) For educational purposes ; and
(2) to assist in the erection of churches and parsonages ;
but not a penny to be for the endowment of the clergy in
any way.

In the editorial prospectus already referred to, a
paragraph occurs which so clearly defines Mr. Ryerson’s
attitude, and the attitude of the entire body of Canadian
preachers, that I quote it in full:

“The present is an epoch in the affairs of this province
in which no man of intelligence or consideration can be
safely or justifiably neutral. The foundation of our
government is being laid anew; the future character and
relations and destinies of the country are involved in
pending deliberations; the last whisper of rebellion is to
be silenced in the land. My decision, however, is not one
of party, but of principle; not one of passion, but one of
conviction; not of partial prescription, but of equitable
comprehensiveness. To be explicit as well as brief, I am
opposed to the introduction of any new and untried theories
of government. As the organ of the Methodist Church, I
assume that the doctrines and discipline are true and right.
I take them for granted, as far as the members of that
Church are concerned, and expound and recommend and
act upon them accordingly. So in civil affairs I assume
that this country is to remain a portion of the British
Empire, and view every measure not in reference to any
Union with the British Conference Dissolved 241

 

abstract political theory, however plausible that theory
may be, but in reference to the well-being of the country
in connexion with Great Britain. As in church affairs I
take my stand upon the constitution of the Church, in its
doctrines and rules, as expounded by its fathers and ablest
theologians and illustrated by general usage, so in civil
affairs I take my stand upon the established constitution
of the country, as expounded by royal despatches and
illustrated by the usages of the British Parliament,
British Courts of Justice, and the common law of
England.”

In 1838, as already noted, the Rev. Joseph Stinson
strongly supported the election of the Rev. Egerton
Ryerson as editor of the Guardian, under the conviction
that he was the only man available who could successfully
oppose the “ oligarchy” and defend the character and just
claims of the Methodist Church. But after the visit of
Dr. Alder to Canada in 1839, and as a result of corre-
spondence with the Wesleyan Missionary Committee in
London, Mr. Stinson assumed a different attitude toward
Mr. Ryerson and the great questions on which the
Canadian preachers were practically a unit. In a letter
addressed to the Governor-General, the Right Hon. Poulett
Thompson, in January 1840, and signed by “J. Stinson,
President of the Conference, and M. Richey, Superintendent
of Toronto City,” the following passages occur :

“The Church of England being, in our estimation,
the Established Church of all the British Colonies, we
entertain no objection to the distinct recognition of her
as such; and had the Reserves been exclusively

appropriated to her, according to the original intention of
16
242 Methodism in Canada

 

his gracious Majesty George Third, we should not have
interfered with this matter; but as the disposition of them
has been referred to the Colonial Legislature, we confess
we are at a loss to conceive any just reason why the
Wesleyan Methodist Church should be placed in a position
in any degree inferior to the Church of Scotland... .
In any settlement of this important question that may
be made, we regard it as of vital importance to the
permanent peace and prosperity of the province, as a
British colony, that the sum to be appropriated to us be
given to the Wesleyan Methodists who are now, or who
may be hereafter, connected with the British Wesleyan
Conference.”

That Mr. Stinson, in his private capacity, had, a perfect
right to his opinions on the Clergy Reserves, or any other
question, no one will dispute; but that, in his official
capacity, he should have expressed sentiments so utterly
at variance with those of the Conference of which he was
the head, seems to indicate an imperfect conception of
official responsibility and duty. At this time the dissolu-
tion of the union with the British Conference was almost a
foregone conclusion in the minds of the London Committee,
whose representatives were preparing to assert their claim
not only to the annual grant from Casual and Territorial
Revenue, but also to that share of the Clergy Reserves that
might fall to the Methodist Church, should the Govern-
ment decide to divide the proceeds among the denomina-
tions. It is much to be regretted that the money question
should have formed so important a factor in the discussions
of the period, and that the great principles involved in the
Clergy Reserves question, and the recognition of a dominant
Onion with the British Conference Dissolved 243

 

State Church, should have been almost lost sight of in the
scramble for the loaves and fishes.

When ‘the Conference of 1839 adjourned, the members
were full of hope that peace would now reign between the
Conference and the British Committee; but their hopes
were doomed to disappointment. Signs of division began
to appear. Some were strong in the opinion that the
question of the Clergy Reserves should no longer be
discussed in the Guardian, while others were equally
pronounced in affirming that it ought to be discussed until
a righteous settlement was reached. This continued, more
or less, until the Conference of 1840, when a communica-
tion from England was read containing serioys charges
against the Rev. Egerton Ryerson. These charges may be
summarised as follows: (1) That he had practically
superseded the Rev. Joseph Stinson, representative of the
Wesleyan body, in communicating with the Governor-
General. (2) That he had shown a want of integrity and
ingenuousness in attempting to gain possession, on behalf
of the Canadian Conference, of the grant made by the
Crown to the Wesleyan Missionary Society. (3) That the
Christian Guardian, instead of being conducted as a
religious paper, had become more than ever a political and
party organ. (4) The committee express the hope that the
Canada Conference will utterly repudiate Mr. Ryerson’s
unjustifiable proceedings at their next annual sitting, and
that the Guardian, if continued at all, shall be exclusively
a religious publication. (5) But if this reasonable
expectation should be disappointed, the committee will
“yecommend to the next British Conference to dissolve
the union which at present subsists between the two
244 Methodism in Canada

 

Connexions, and to adopt such measures for the main-
tenance and extension of the Indian missions in Upper -
Canada as may appear to be necessary.” .

The issue thus raised was sufficiently distinct, and
was further emphasised, after the Conference assembled,
by the following resolution, moved by the Rev. Matthew
Richey, who prosecuted the charges on behalf of the
British Committee, and seconded by the Rev. Ephraim
Evans :

“ Resolved—tThat this Conference has heard, with great
surprise and regret, of brother Egerton Ryerson’s attempt
to deprive the British Wesleyan Committee of the annual
grant received by them from the Imperial Government, to
enable them to extend their missions in this province;
and that they utterly repudiate such proceedings on the
part of Mr. Ryerson, not only as irregular and un-
authorised, but directly opposed to a resolution adopted by
this Conference at its last session, rescinding the second,
fifth, and sixth passed by this Conference in June 1837, on
the subject of the grants in question, because those
resolutions were represented by Mr. Alder as interfering
with the usages of the British brethren, and calculated
materially to retard their interests.”

Before beginning his defence, Mr. Ryerson insisted that
the memorial of Rev. Messrs. Stinson and Richey to the
Governor-General be read, as the Conference, up to that
moment, were not aware of its existence. At the
conclusion of Mr. Ryerson’s address considerable discussion
followed, after which a vote was taken on Mr. Richey’s
resolution, and it was negatived by a majority of fifty-one
in a Conference of sixty members. Without advancing
Union with the British Conference Dissolved 245

 

any opinion on the merits of the dispute, one cannot
but feel surprised that, in view of the well understood
opinions and feelings of the Conference, such a resolution
should have been proposed at all, and that some more
pacific method of settling the dispute had not been
attempted. But probably the English missionaries felt
that they were under obligation to carry out the instruc-
tions of the London Committee, and that failure to do
so would be interpreted as disloyalty to the parent
Connexion.

The vote of censure having thus been disposed of, the
Conference proceeded to deal with the resolutions of the
British Missionary Committee, and reached conclusions
which may be summarised as follows: (1) That we cannot
recognise the right of the committee to interfere with
the Canada Conference in the management of its own
affairs, except as provided for by the Articles of Union.
(2) That as these articles expressly secure to the Canadian
preachers all their rights and privileges inviolate, it is an
alarming precedent for a committee in London to accuse
and condemn a member of the Conference and to enjoin
upon it to carry their sentence into execution on pain
of a dissolution of the union. (3) That we decline to
recognise the President appointed in England as the
representative of the Wesleyan body in Upper Canada
in the transaction of our affairs with the Government,
having always a committee or representative of our own
for that purpose; and this Conference at its last session
appointed the Rev. Egerton Ryerson to confer with the
Government on matters affecting its civil and religious
rights. (4) That it was the imperative duty of the Rev.
246 Methodism in Canada

 

Egerton Ryerson to confer with the Governor-General on
the financial affairs of the Conference, and we fully concur
in the exposition given in his letter to the Governor-
General dated 17th January 1840. (5) That as the Indian
missions in Upper Canada, with two or three exceptions,
were established prior to the union, and sustained chiefly
by funds raised in this province, we cannot, under any
circumstances, relinquish our pastoral connexion with
these missions.

While thus expressing, with plainness and force, its
attitude on the points in dispute, the spirit of the Con-
ference may be understood from the last resolution of
the series, which I append in full:

“(6) That firmly believing, as we do, that the resolu-
tions of the committee in London have been adopted upon
erroneous impressions ; and being satisfied that our fathers
and brethren in England could not have intended, nor
would intend, anything unkind toward the members of
this Connexion, or unjust to its interests; and deeply
anxious a8 we are to maintain inviolate and unimpaired
the principles of the Articles of Union between the
British and Canadian Conferences; and being disposed’
to do all in our power to prevent the dissolution of the
union; therefore, resolved, that a delegation be sent to
the Wesleyan Conference in England to lay all the
matters of these resolutions before that honourable body,
and to use all proper means to prevent collision between
the two Connexions.”

In accordance with the foregoing resolution the Rev.
Egerton and William Ryerson were chosen delegates, and
by unanimous request of the Conference, the President,
Union with the British Conference Dissolved 247

 

Rev. Joseph Stinson, accompanied them on their fraternal
mission. As a further evidence of the desire of the
Canada Conference to promote the most amicable relations,
and remove all causes of offence, the following resolution
respecting the Guardian was adopted: “ Resolved—That
in order to prevent all disagreeable and unnecessary
discussions in future on the general course of the
Christian Guardian, the paper be confined to purely
religious and literary subjects, and items of general
intelligence; the Clergy Reserves question being con-
sidered a religious question as a matter of course.” But
however well intentioned the last two resolutions may
have been, they were not sufficient to counteract the
effect’ of the belligerent resolutions that preceded them.
In the estimation of the British Conference the red flag
was more in evidence than the olive branch, and when the
Canadian delegates arrived in England they found them-
selves in a decidedly frigid atmosphere. From a few
members — pre-eminently Mr. Lord, who had been
President of the Canadian Conference in 1835 and
1836—they received kind attention, but by the officials
and other leading members they were treated at first with
studied coldness. This was all the more to be regretted
in view of the fact that the Canadian Conference had been
assured that its representative would, be received with
cordial affection by the British Conference, and that
every attention would be paid to his statements and
representations. That this pledge was not fulfilled was
due chiefly, if not solely, to the appointment of Egerton
Ryerson as representative of the Canada Conference.
Whether justly or unjustly, he was regarded by “the
248 Methodism in Canada

 

English brethren as the chief cause of the whole difficulty,
and his appointment was construed as an open defiance of
their.views and wishes. This explains, though it does not
justify, the attitude of the Conference officials.

At this distance of time it would be unwise to revive
unpleasant memories, and I shall not further refer to
the details of proceedings, first before a committee, and
afterward before the Conference just previous to its
adjournment. Suffice it to say that the Conference re-
affirmed in the most positive manner the resolutions of
the committee of 1839, embodying charges against the
Rev. Egerton Ryerson, declaring that these’ had been fully
and conclusively proved. A series of resolutions were
adopted, endorsing the action of the committee of 1839;
expressing distrust and disapprobation of the resolution
of the Canada Conference respecting the Christian
Guardian, recognising the existence of “a decided
difference between the two Conferences on the con-
struction of the Articles of Union in reference to the
fundamental principles essential to the working of the
union”; endorsing the action of Rev. Messrs. Stinson
and Richey; admitting the desirableness of “ maintaining
the existing union between the two bodies for reasons
which relate to the general interests of our. common
Christianity, and to the continued connexion of the
province with the Mother Cointry”; yet affirming that
the union could not be advantageously maintained except
by strict adherence on the part of the Canadian Conference
to certain principles and regulations. These regulations
embodied the following: (1) That the continuance of
Government grant be cordially assented to by the Canadian
Union with the British Conference Dissolved 249

 

Conference, even if the payment should be transferred
from the Casual and Territorial Revenue to the Clergy”
Reserve fund, and that “the Rev. Egerton Ryerson shall
address a letter to Lord John Russell, disclaiming any
intention or wish to deprive the Wesleyan Missionary
Society of the grant of £700 per annum, secured as a
fixed charge for missionary purposes in Upper Canada,
requesting that its regular payment be continued, and
assuring his lordship that any other construction which
may have been put upon his letter to the Governor-
General was founded in a misapprehension of his mean-
ing.” (2) That the Christian Guardian, or other official
organ of the Canada Conference, should “abstain from all
party political reasonings and discussions.” (3) That such
organ should “admit and maintain all the acknowledged
principles of the Wesleyan Connexion.” On this point
the committee who framed the resolution had “special
reference to that principle of our body which asserts it
to be the duty of civil government to employ their
influence and a portion of their resources for the support
of the Christian religion.”

Such resolutions, couched in language so peremptory
and dictatorial, could have but one fate. On hearing the
report read, the Canadian representatives gave it as their
opinion “that the Canada Conference could never be in-
duced to listen to the views therein contained, and the
maintenance of such views by the British Conference
would be regarded by the Canada Conference as a virtual
dissolution of the union.” Upon hearing this, the Con-
ference was reluctantly led to the conviction “that a
continuance of the more intimate connexion established
250 Methodism.in Canada

 

by the Articles of 1833 is quite impracticable.” And
thus the union, which began under such favourable
auspices, and from which so much was hoped, was broken,
and an era of “civil war” introduced into the societies in
Canada that wrought untold evil.

On the return of the Canadian representatives a
special session of the Conference was summoned to meet
in Toronto on the 22nd of October 1840. This was
rendered necessary by the altered circumstances caused by
the dissolution of the union. Eleven preachers withdrew
from the Conference and cast in their lot with the
English missionaries, and this made it necessary to
rearrange the work so far as the stations were concerned.
The prospects were far from encouraging. There was a
searcity both of ministers and resources, and the defection
of eleven itinerants, increased to fifteen at the Conference
of June 1841, was a serious blow. At this time there
were nine Indian missions, six of which remained with the
Conference, while three went with the British Missionary
district. The Canada Conference had no missionary fund
of its own, and had to face the support of six Indian and.
eight domestic missions without a penny in the treasury.
But the issue was met with undaunted courage. Shortly
after the Conference adjourned a few ministers and
laymen met to consider what could be done. It was
finally concluded to begin a subscription among them-
selves, and then to send forth the Rev. John Ryerson and
Peter Jones to hold missionary meetings throughout the

1 Proceedings and Decisions of the (English) Conference on matters relating
to the Union between the British Conference and the Upper Canada Conference,
¢e, pp. 75-79. .
Union with the British Conference Dissolved 251

 

Connexion. About four months were employed in this
work, and at the end of the year it was found that
upwards of one third more had been contributed for
missionary purposes than had ever been contributed in the
province in any previous year. .

But the embarrassment of insufficient resources was as
nothing compared with the pain caused by depleted ranks,
divided societies, and the conflict of altar against altar.
The British Missionary Committee had both men and
money, and proceeded to strengthen its forces in Upper
Canada. Every year the number was increased, and in
Kingston, Belleville, Peterboro, Toronto, Barrie, Hamilton,
Brantford, London, Goderich, Guelph, and other places the
societies were divided. Add to this the fact that in its
struggle for religious equality and the just settlement of
the Clergy Reserves question the-Canada Conference must
now reckon the British Committee and missionaries
among its foes, and it will be seen that the Church was
passing through the darkest period of its history.

At this juncture (1841) an important change took
place in the civil affairs of the Canadas. The Home
Government had determined on a legislative union of the
two provinces, and in the new constitution the principle
of responsible government was recognised. The Bill
passed the Legislatures of the two provinces, was ratified
by the Imperial Government, and went into operation on
the 10th of February 1841. The Act provided for a
Legislative Council of not less than .twenty life members
appointed by the Crown, and an Assembly of eighty-four
members elected by the people, each province being equally
represented. This was a great advance over former
252 Methodism in Canada

 

conditions, for now responsibility was placed where it
properly belonged, and the control of all the public
revenues passed into the hands of the people’s repre-
sentatives.

But let changes in the political or ecclesiastical
sphere be what they might, the storm-centre of Canadian
politics was still the Clergy Reserves. It is true that
behind this was the broader question of responsible
government, but when that was conceded it only opened
the way to deal effectively with the other question. For
twenty years irresponsible government had been the
bulwark of the Clergy Reserves monopoly and the State
Church pretensions which it involved; and now that the
bulwark was removed, it seemed reasonable to hope that
the standing grievance would follow. But in this the
friends of equal rights reckoned without their host.
Monopolies die-hard; and of all human passions, religious
exclusiveness, backed by cupidity, is the least likely to
surrender what it regards as vested rights without a
determined struggle. Gladly would the politicians have
seen this troublesome question banished to “the tomb of
all the Capulets,” or some other limbo from which it
would never return; but nothing save a righteous settle-
ment could drive it from the field. Like an unquiet
ghost, it “ would not down,” and how to exorcise it was
the perplexing question. For twenty years it had agitated
the whole country, and was one of the main grievances
that provoked the ill-advised rebellion of 1837. During
the same period the Methodist Church had steadily and
unitedly opposed the claims of the monopolists, and the
history of the Clergy Reserves and the Methodist Church
Unton with the British Conference Dissolved 253

 

touch each other at so many points that a knowledge of
the one is necessary to a right understanding of the other.
It may be serviceable, therefore, at this point, to recall
briefly the chief features of the case.

In 1791, when the province of Quebec was divided
into Upper and Lower Canada, one seventh of the public
lands was set apart for the support of the Protestant
clergy. Down till 1819 the lands so reserved were in
the hands of the Government and managed by it alone,
but for years they yielded scarcely enough to defray the
expenses of management. In 1817 the Upper Canada
House of Assembly objected to the provision as “ beyond
all precedent lavish,’ and complained that the Reserves
were an obstacle to improvement and settlement. In
1819 the right of the Presbyterians (Kirk of Scotland) to
share in the Reserves was first mooted, and one congrega-
tion petitioned the Government for an annual grant of
£100 out of the Clergy Reserves. At this time the
actual product was about £700 per annum. The matter
was referred to Lord Bathurst, the Secretary for the
Colonies, who stated that in the opinion of the law officers
of the Crown the provisions of 1791 were not confined
solely to the clergy of the Church of England, but might
be extended also to the clergy of the Church of Scotland,
but not to dissenting ministers. In 1819, on the applica-
tion of Bishop Mountain of Quebec, the clergy in each
province were incorporated for the purpose of managing
the Reserves, the proceeds to be paid over to the Govern-
ment. The following year the clergy of the Church of
Scotland memorialised the King for a share in the Reserves.
In 1823 the House of Assembly passed resolutions
254 Methodism in Canada

 

affirming the right of the Church of Scotland to share
in the Reserves, but the Legislative Council rejected the
resolution by a vote of six to five.

In 1824 Archdeacon Strachan was deputed by the
Governor, Sir Peregrine Maitland, and the Bishop of
Quebec to go to England and get authority from the
Colonial Secretary to sell portions of the Reserves,
Meanwhile the Canada Company offered to purchase all
the Crown and Clergy Reserve lands at a valuation. Some
misunderstanding having arisen between Lord Bathurst,
the archdeacon, and the Canada Company, Dr. Strachan
went again to England in 1826, and was deputed by
Lord Bathurst to arrange the differences with the
commissioner of the company. The original plan was
altered, and the lands were exchanged for one million
acres in what was known as the Huron Tract. Out of
the moneys received from the Canada Company the Home
Government appropriated £700 a year to the clergy of
the Kirk of Scotland and the same amount to the clergy
of the Church of Rome. At a later date (1830)
Presbyterian ministers of other bodies were put on the
same footing as those belonging to the Kirk. In January
1826 the House of Assembly memorialised the King to
distribute the proceeds of the Reserves for the benefit of
all denominations, or else apply them to the purposes of
education and the general improvement of the province.
The reply was so unsatisfactory that in the following
December the House of Assembly adopted a series of
resolutions deprecating the appropriation of the Reserves
to the clergy of thé- Church of England, to the exclusion
of other denominations, and praying that the proceeds be
Onion with the British Conference Dissolved 255

 

applied to the support of schools, a provincial academy,
and aiding in the erecting of places of worship for all
denominations. These resolutions passed almost unani-
mously, but the Bill founded upon them was negatived
in the Legislative Council.

In 1827 a Bill was introduced into the British
Parliament to provide for the sale of the Reserves as asked
for by the Bishop of Quebec. In. the debate which
followed information was asked for concerning the state
of the English and Scotch Churches in Upper Canada.
Archdeacon Strachan undertook to furnish this information
by means of his famous letter and chart, dated 16th May
1827. Objections being made to giving the clergy

‘corporation power to sell, the Bill was withdrawn, and a
new one introduced and passed confining the selling
power to the Executive Government. In 1828 the
House of Assembly memorialised the King to place the
proceeds of the Reserves at the disposal of the House for
the purposes of education and internal improvement. In
1829 two despatches on the Clergy Reserves question
were sent to the Colonial Secretary by Sir John Colborne.
An extract from one of these will be interesting as
showing not only the attitude of the highest official in
the province, but throwing light upon the influences that
were at work to checkmate the Methodists in their
stubborn resistance to a dominant State Church and the

. Clergy Reserves monopoly. In his despatch dated 11th

April 1829 Sir John Colborne observed :

“Tf a more ardent zeal be not shown by the

Established Church, and a very different kind of minister
than that which is generally to be found in this province
256 Methodism in Canada

 

sent out from England, it is obvious that the members of
the Established Church will be inconsiderable, and that
it will continue to lose ground. The Methodists, ap-
parently, exceed the number of the Churches of England
and Scotland. . . . If the Wesleyan Methodists in England
could be prevailed on to supply this province with
preachers, the Methodists of the country would become,
as a political body, of less importance than they are at
present.”
In this same year (1829) the House of Assembly passed
a Bill similar to that of 1828, and again in 1830, but
both were rejected by the Legislative Council. In 1834
a Bill to revest the Clergy Reserves in the Crown was
finally passed, but was rejected by the Legislative Council.
In 1835 a Bill to sell the Reserves and apply the proceeds
to educational purposes passed the Assembly by a vote
of forty to four, but was rejected as usual by the Council.
The latter body then proposed that both the Houses should
request the Imperial Parliament to legislate on the subject.
The Assembly peremptorily refused to concur, and re-
monstrated with the Council on its refusal to pass the
measure or originate one of its own. In 1836 the Bill
of the previous year was passed by a vote of thirty-five to
five. The Legislative Council amended it so as to leave
the matter with the British Parliament; but the amend-
ment was negatived by the House by a vote of twenty-
seven to one. This ended the matter for a time, and the
rebellion of 1837-38 held the question in abeyance for
several years.
In 1836 Sir John Colborne was succeeded by Sir
1 J. George Hodgins, LL,D., in Ryerson’s Story of My Life, pp. 220-224.
Onion with the British Conference Dissolved 257

 

Francis Bond Head as Lieutenant-Governor of Upper
Canada. A general election was pending, and the new
Governor, with more adroitness than candour, made the
issue turn on the question of loyalty to the Crown, and
the real issues were kept out of sight. This so far turned
the scale that the new Assembly had a majority of members
whose views were in harmony with the dominant party
in the Legislative Council. Advantage was taken of this
circumstance to remove the Clergy Reserves question to
the British Parliament, where sympathy with the Church
of England could be relied upon to shape the legislation.
At the third session of the Upper Canada Assembly in
1838 a Bill was introduced to“ revest the Clergy Reserves
in her Majesty.” The moment the fact became known,
the Rev. Egerton Ryerson, who was stationed at Kingston,
wrote a letter to the Guardian in which he denounced the
Bill in vigorous terms. “The measure itself,” he said,
“containing the provision it does, is a shameful deception
upon the Canadian public—is a wanton betrayal of
Canadian rights—is a disgraceful sacrifice of Canadian
to selfish party interests ——is a covert assassination of a
vital principle of Canadian constitutional and free govern-
ment—is a base political and religious fraud, which ought
to excite the deep concern and rouse the indignation and
vigorous exertion of every friend of justice and freedom
and good government in the country.”

In 1837 the Hon. William Morris, on behalf of the
Church of Scotland, and the Hon. W. H. Draper, on
behalf of the Church of England, were sent to England
to interview the Colonial Secretary, Lord Elgin, on the
subject. In the same year Mr. Ryerson was requested

17
258 Methodism in Canada

 

to draw up a paper setting forth the views of leading
members of the Conference. The paper was signed by
Rev. Messrs. Harvard, Evans, Jones, Wilkinson, Beatty,
and Wright, and was published in the Guardian of
17th January 1838. When recalled to the editorship
of the Guardian at the Conference of the same year,
Mr. Ryerson published a series of powerful articles on
“The Clergy Reserve Question, as a Matter of History,
a Question of Law, and the Subject of Legislation,”
addressed to the Hon. W. H. Draper, Solicitor-General. He
also prepared and circulated extensively a petition to the
House of Assembly on the Clergy Reserves and kindred
topics. A counter petition was issued by the Government
party asking the Assembly to recognise the principle of
an Established Church. In those days the Guardian did
not merely speak on these absorbing public questions,
it thundered, and when its “thunders uttered their
voices” it was as a mighty trumpet peal, summoning the
hosts of freedom.to battle. The effect was tremendous.
If former discussions provoked a storm this one raised
a hurricane, and for months its fury beat upon the head
of Egerton Ryerson. So intense was the feeling in the
latter part of 1838 that the promoters of the Ryerson
petition were threatened with personal violence and even
with death.

In the face of widespread and determined opposition,
and especially in the face of the declaration of the
Colonial Secretary, the dominant party did not venture
in 1839 to bring in a Bill to revest the Clergy Reserves
in the Crown. In a despatch to Sir F. B, Head, Lord
Glenelg had said, “Imperial Parliament legislation on
Union with the British Conference Dissolved 259

 

any subject of exclusively internal concern, in any British
colony possessing a representative assembly, is, as a
general rule, unconstitutional. It was a right of which
the exercise is reserved for extreme cases, in which
necessity at once creates and justifies the exception.”
To get around this decision, an entirely different Bill
was prepared for each House. In the Assembly, after
a very protracted debate, the Bill was carried and sent
to the Legislative Council for concurrence. The Council
struck out all after the word “ whereas,” and substituted
its own Bill. This in turn was rejected by the Assembly
and an entirely new Bill substituted, which concluded
as follows: “The moneys to arise and to be procured and
henceforth received for any sale or sales shall be paid
into the hands of her Majesty’s Receiver-General of this
province, to be appropriated by the Provincial Legislature
for religion and education.” Now the Council had its
opportunity. The last words of the clause were amended
so as to read, “ Imperial Parliament for religious purposes,”
and then by adroit manceuvring they succeeded in carrying
the Bill through the Assembly, on the last night of the
session, by a majority of one. The Home Government,
however, disallowed the Bill on technical grounds.

In 1840 the Governor, Mr. Poulett Thompson, sent a
message to the House outlining the provisions of a Bill
which Solicitor -General Draper submitted with the
Governor’s sanction. It provided that the annual proceeds
of the whole fund realised from the sale of the Clergy
Reserves should be divided (one half to the Episcopal
and Presbyterian Churches, and the other half among other
religious bodies desiring to share it) for the support of

5
260 Methodism in Ci “idea

 

religious instruction within the province. The Bill was
fiercely assailed by Dr. Strachan, recently appointed
Bishop of Toronto, but he thought the Church need be
under no apprehension that the Bill would pass. “If any
of her children inclined to despondency, let them turn
their eyes to England, where we have protectors both
numerous and powerful, watching the struggle, and holding
out the hand of fellowship and assistance.” Of course Mr.
Ryerson (he was not yet “ Doctor”) took up the gage of
battle, and pointed out that “the Provincial Legislatures
have nothing to do, either directly or indirectly, with the
Romish Church; but the same Legislature may repeal or
modify the 31st Geo. III. cap. 31, as far as it respects
the Church of England.” The Bill passed the House of
Assembly by a vote of 31 to 7, and the Legislative Council
by 13 to 4, in spite of a most vigorous protest by the
Bishop of Toronto. It was sent to England accompanied
by a despatch from the Governor imploring the Home
Government to sanction it. In the House of Lords the
Bishop of Exeter moved that the question of the right of
the clergy to reserve property in Canada should be referred
to the twelve Judges of England ; but their decision proved
adverse to the claims of the monopolists. A conference
was then had with Lord John Russell in order to set aside
the Canadian Bill and introduce one into the Imperial
Parliament which would accomplish what the Church of
England was aiming at. Lord John Russell became a
consenting party, and it was against this Bill that Messrs.
W. and E. Ryerson (then in England) so strongly re-
monstrated on behalf of the Wesleyan Church in Canada,
in an elaborate letter to Lord John Russell. The
Union with the British Conference Dissolved 261

 

measure was far more sweeping than anything proposed
by the High Church party in Upper Canada, and was a
most disheartening blow to the friends of equal rights for
all under equal conditions. At the session of the Con-
ference held in Toronto in 1841 the following resolutions
concerning it were adopted :

“What are the sentiments of the Conference on the
measure which had been adopted by the Imperial Parlia-
ment on the question of the Clergy Reserves in Upper
Canada ?

“1, That we feel deeply aggrieved that unmerited
injustice has been done to the Wesleyan Methodist Church
in Canada, as well as to several other legally recognised
denominations of Christians in Upper Canada, by the
unequal and unjust provisions of that Act, so different
from every expression of opinion and feeling which has
ever been made by the inhabitants of Upper Canada, so
opposed to the recorded opinion of both branches of the
Provincial Legislature, and the strong and reiterated
opinion of his Excellency the Governor-General of
Canada.

“92. That notwithstanding we feel ourselves, as a body,
injured and aggrieved by the invidious and partial
provisions of this Act, we recommend, in the present
circumstances of the country, an abstinence from any
re-agitation of the question. We submit to it as a law
for conscience’ sake, whilst our representatives properly
remonstrated against it as a Bill.”

It might be supposed that this vexed and vexing
question was disposed of for all time, but, strange to say, it
was reopened three years later by the very party in whose
262 Methodism in Canada

 

interests the measure had been adopted. In 1843 the
Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General of Canada
reported that having attentively examined the Act it was
their opinion that the proper construction of the law
threw upon the revenues of Canada the burden of making
up any deficiency in the Clergy Reserve fund in paying the
usual allowances to the ministers, and while that deficiency
lasted the Imperial Treasury could not be called upon to
make any payments to the two churches. This resulted
in an agitation for “ better terms.” No relief was afforded,
however, and the Act remained unrepealed until 1853. In
that year an Act was passed which, after providing for a
commutation’ of existing claims, devoted the balance of
the Reserves fund to purposes of education. And thus
at last that for which the Methodist Church had con-
tended for more than thirty years was conceded, and
the great controversy was ended.

Meanwhile, the controversy between the Canada
Conference and the British Wesleyan Committee, and
between the agents of the two bodies in Canada, continued,
to the disadvantage of both and to the cause of God in
general, The enemies of Methodism, who had been active
in fomenting the misunderstanding, rejoiced; but every
friend of true religion mourned. At one stage of the
controversy Mr. Ryerson offered to refer the points in the
dispute to an impartial tribunal for arbitration, but the
offer was declined. It had been intimated more than once
that he was the Jonah in the ship, and that if he were
thrown overboard the storm would quickly subside; but
the crew (the Canada Conference) showed no disposition
to resort to so drastic a measure. In 1840 Mr. Ryerson
Onion with the British Conference Restored 263

 

retired, finally and absolutely, from the editorship of the
Guardian, and was succeeded by the Rev. Jonathan Scott,
a brother who had taken no prominent part in any of the
disputes. But in the Guardian or out of it, the former
editor was still a force to be reckoned with, and was
universally regarded as the champion of Conference rights.
At the Conference of 1842 he sought to relieve the
situation by resigning his seat. in the Conference, and
voluntarily relinquishing any participation in its legislative
and executive councils; but the Conference utterly refused
to entertain the proposal.

While this controversy was going on, the possibility of
a reunion was privately discussed between leading men
in both Conferences. In the autumn of 1843 the Rev.
Joseph Stinson, then in England, wrote to Mr. Ryerson
stating that there was a strong desire on the part of many
influential ministers that the work in Canada might be
consolidated. In December of the same year he. wrote
again in still stronger terms: “ Let us still labour and pray
for the great object of union. Every day, and every aspect
which the Church and the world presents, deepens the
conviction in my mind of its necessity, and I hope we
shall live to see a united and prosperous Church in Canada, -
against which the gates of hell cannot prevail.” When
Mr. Ryerson visited England in 1844, after his appoint-
ment as chief Superintendent of Education, he wrote to
the Rev. Joseph Stinson and the Rev. G. Marsden on the
union question, and from both of them received encouraging
and sympathetic replies. At the Canada Conference of
1845 a note was received from the sub-secretary of the
British Conference, enclosing resolutions passed two years
264 Methodism in Canada

 

before, appointing a committee to settle matters with the
Canada Conference. The latter body appointed a similar
committee, but, if one may judge from some of the
correspondence of that period, with faint hopes of
accomplishing anything. In fact nothing did result from
the correspondence ; but when Mr. Ryerson returned to
Canada he wrote to the Rev. Peter Jones, who was then
in England, requesting him, on behalf of the committee,
to see the Rev. James Dixon, and urge him to come to
Canada. Mr. Dixon was favourably impressed with the
invitation, and wrote to Dr. Ryerson in March 1846 on
the subject. There is one part of his letter which displays
such far-seeing statesmanship that I reproduce an extract:

“The time must come when the North American pro-
vinces will be united, ecclesiastically, by having a General
Conference of their own, in connexion with the Provincial
or District Conferences, after the manner of the United
States. Things must come to this at no remote period;
and this being the case, it seems reasonable to consider
such scheme in connexion with the measure now under
review. . . . I am deeply convinced myself that the organ-
isation of such a body as I refer to must, in the nature
of things, develop the energies of Methodism in the
provinces infinitely more vigorously than can be secured
by the action of a distant Government.”

There were not only “giants in the earth in those
days,” there were prophets also—men who could forecast
the future—* men that had understanding of the times,
to know what Israel ought to do.” Nearly thirty years
elapsed before what James Dixon foresaw came to pass,
but events have justified the wisdom of his thought.
Union with the British Conference Restored 265

 

At the Kingston Conference of 1846 the division
in Canadian Methodism was the subject of anxious and
prayerful deliberation, and it was decided “to send a
deputation from this Conference to the British Conference
at its next annual session, with proposals to settle the
differences between us on the plan of North American
Conferences.” In accordance with this resolution, the
Rev. John Ryerson and Anson Green were chosen
delegates, and in the address to the British Conference the
scope of their mission and the spirit of those who sent
them were indicated in the following words:

“The unhappy divisions which have for several years
existed in this country between the two legitimate
branches of the Wesleyan family have again engaged
our Conference deliberations; and in reply to the
resolution of your last Conference, we have determined
to send a deputation to you, with a view to the
termination of these unmethodistic and unchristian
differences, and in the hope of consolidating Wesleyan
Methodism in British North America in one great religious
community. . . . We deeply regret the discussion of former
differences between the two bodies which has arisen in
this country during the last few months. Such discussions
cannot be more strongly disapproved of by you than they
are deprecated by us and our people generally. It is our
earnest desire and determination to put an end to such
unseemly and injurious discussions, and to cultivate a
spirit of Christian forbearance and brotherly kindness.”

When the delegation from Canada reached England
they put themselves in communication with the authorities
of the Conference, but at first their reception was any-
266 Methodism in Canada

 

thing but encouraging. The Rev. John Ryerson, writing
to his brother Egerton, declares, “The difficulties in the
way of any proper adjustment of our differences seem to
be almost insurmountable... . Our situation is any-
thing but pleasant; it is even distressing and painful.”
The only alleviation was found in the cordial and affec-
tionate attention of the Rev. Joseph Stinson and William
Lord, both of whom had been in Canada and knew much
about the circumstances and temper of the Canadian
Conference. The reception of the Canadian delegates
and address. was now moved by Dr. Bunting and seconded
by Dr. Alder, but the great influence of these men did
not prevent a somewhat warm debate, in which some
contended that the union had been only a source of
trouble and injury to their work, and as it had been
dissolved they had better keep aloof from all further
intercourse with the Canada Conference. However, the
resolution received warm support not only from the mover
and seconder, but also from Drs. Beaumont and Dixon,
and Messrs. Lord and Stinson, and was passed by a vast
majority. But the troubles of the delegates were not yet
over, and at the end of a week John Ryerson wrote to his
brother, “ Were I to follow the strong impulse of my
mind, I should leave at once and return to America.”
But, as. so often happens, the darkest hour was just
before the dawn. The whole matter was referred to a
committee which met in London, and then light began to
break. “There was,” says the Rev. John Ryerson, in a
letter under date of 16th September, “a most full, frank,
and undisguised explanation of many missionary and
domestic matters. ... After this full unburdening of
Onion with the British Conference Restored 267

 

ourselves, the one to the other, a totally different
feeling seemed to come over Drs. Bunting, Alder, and the
whole committee, which consisted of about thirty leading
members of the British Conference. . . . More kindness,
more nobleness of sentiments and feeling, I never wit-
nessed than was manifested toward us after we had
succeeded in removing suspicion and allaying fears.” The
basis of the new agreement cannot be better summarised
than by an extract from the same letter from which I
have just quoted :

“The plan of settlement to which I have agreed is
a union with the British Conference on a basis similar
to that by which the British and Irish* Conferences are
united. The British Conference appoints our President
and the Superintendent of Missions, as in the former
union ; all of our missions become missions of the Wesleyan
Missionary Society ; our Missionary Society is auxiliary to
their Society. The £700 grant to be placed under the
Missionary Committee to be appropriated for missionary
purposes in Canada. On the other hand, all the regular
British missionary circuits in Canada are to be placed
under the Canada Conference, the same as any other
circuits; and there are to be no missionary districts, but
the missionaries are to be members of the different dis-
tricts in the bounds of which their missions are situated. The
missionaries are to be stationed by our Stationing Committee
the same as other ministers. The British Conference is to
appropriate £600 sterling annually to our Contingent Fund,
and the Missionary Committee is to place £400 at the
disposal of our Conference for contingent purposes.”

Dr. Alder was sent out as President of the Conference

\
268 Methodism in Canada

 

of 1847, which assembled at Toronto on the 8th day of
June, with the Rev. Matthew Richey, M.A., as co-delegate,
and the Rev. Enoch Wood Superintendent of Missions,
The new basis of union was discussed in all its bearings,
and adopted by an almost unanimous vote. The breach
was healed; the strife and discord of seven long years
was ended, and Methodist unity was restored. Dr. Dixon’s
splendid vision of a wider federation was not realised ;
but that could afford to wait—the time was not ripe.
But the union that had been accomplished had within
it the promise and potency of greater things to come.
With grateful hearts and tear-dimmed eyes the brethren
“thanked God and took courage.” Misunderstandings
had been removed; estrangements were a thing of the
past. And as the war-worn itinerants separated to
return to their distant fields of toil, words written long
afterwards, and referring to another union, would have
aptly expressed the feelings of their hearts:

Let us then, uniting, bury
All our idle feuds in dust,
And to future conflicts carry
Mutual faith and common trust ;
Always he who most forgiveth
To his brother is most just.}

Thank God that from the day on which that second union
was consummated—a union founded on mutual confidence
and esteem—Canadian Methodism entered upon a career
of growth and development that has continued with un-
abated force to this day.

l'W. H. Withrow, D.D.
VI

FOUNDING AND DEVELOPMENT OF
MISSIONS?

Ir is often said that the Church of Christ is essentially
missionary. The saying is trite but true. The great
purpose for which the Church is organised is to “ preach
the gospel to the whole creation,” and its mission is ful-
filled only in so far as this is done. But the saying, as
commonly used, is the recognition of a principle rather
than the statement of a fact. It is clearly perceived that
the Church ought to be intensely missionary in its spirit
and practice, and this view is often pressed as an argument
to quicken flagging zeal, and to revive, if possible, the
apostolic spirit in the Church of to-day. Compared with
apostolic times, missionary zeal and enterprise is yet below
high-water mark ; but compared with the state of affairs one
hundred years ago, it’ cannot be affirmed that the former
times were better than these. Within the past century—
indeed, within the last few decades—there has been a marked
revival of the missionary spirit. The sleep of the Church
has been broken. Her dormant energies have been aroused

1 This section is in part a transcription of an article contributed to the
Centennial Volume of Canadian Methodism in 1891, with such changes and

additions as present conditions require.
269
270 Methodism in Canada

 

and an aggressive policy initiated. Responsibility, even to
the measure of a world-wide evangelism, is freely ac-
knowledged, and the disposition to consecrate money and
service on the altar of missionary sactifice grows apace.
All this gives token of a coming day when it may be
affirmed without qualification that the Church—in fact as
well as in profession—is essentially missionary.

Tt may be claimed, without boasting or exaggeration,
that Methodism has not only contributed somewhat to the
revival of the missionary spirit, but has been, under God,
a chief factor in promoting it. The place of her nativity
was hard by the missionary altar, and a spirit of intense
evangelism gave the first impulse to her work. Born anew
amid the fervours of a second Pentecost, her first preachers
were men baptized with the tongues of flame, symbol of a
comprehensive evangelism that found expression in the
saying of her human leader, “I look upon all the world as my
parish.” In the spirit of that saying Methodism has lived
and laboured, and after the lapse of more than a hundred
and fifty years the primitive impulse is yet unspent.
Wherever the banner of the cross is unfurled Methodist
missionaries are found, and this is the battle-cry of the
legions, “ Christ for the world, and the world for Christ.”

As we have already seen, the beginnings of Methodism
in Canada reveal the same providential features that
marked its rise in other lands. No elaborate plans were
formulated in advance, no forecastings of human wisdom
marked out the lines of development. But men who had
felt the constraining power of the love of Christ, and to
whom the injunction to disciple all nations came with the
force of a personal mandate, went forth at the call of God,
Founding and Development of Missions 271

 

exhorting men everywhere to repent and believe the
gospel. Out of that flame of missionary zeal sprang the
Methodist Church in Canada; and if the missionary cause
is still dear to the hearts of her people, it is but the
legitimate outcome of the circumstances in which she had
her birth. Methodism is a missionary Church, or she is
nothing. To lose her missionary spirit is to be recreant
to the great purpose for which God raised her up. Nor
can she give to missions a secondary place in her system
of operations without being false to her traditions and to
her heaven-appointed work.

While Methodism in Canada was, from the very first,
missionary in spirit and aims, organised missionary effort
did not begin till 1824. In that year a Conference
Missionary Society was formed. It was a bold movement,
such as could have been inaugurated only by heaven-
inspired men. Upper Canada (at that time ecclesiastic-
ally distinct from Lower Canada) was just beginning to
emerge from its wilderness condition. Settlements were
few and, for the most part, wide asunder. Population was
sparse and the people were poor. Moreover, Methodism
had not yet emerged from the position of a despised sect,
and prejudice was increased by the fact that it was under
foreign jurisdiction. Such a combination of unfavourable
circumstances might well have daunted ordinary men, and
led to a postponement of any effort to organise for
ageressive missionary work. But “there were giants in
the earth in those days,’ whose faith and courage were
equal to any emergency; men who could read history in
the germ and forecast results when “the wilderness and
the solitary place” should become “ glad,” and “ the desert ”
292 Methodism in Canada

 

should “ rejoice and blossom as the rose.” As yet it was
early spring-time and sowing had just begun; but from
freshly opened furrows and newly scattered seed those men
were able to foretell both the kind and the measure of the
harvest when falling showers and shining suns should ripen
and mature the grain. In that faith they planned and
laboured. They did not despise the day of small things,
but with faith in the “incorruptible seed,” they planted
and watered, leaving it to God to give the increase. In
this, as in other cases, wisdom was justified of her children.
When the Missionary Society was organised in 1824, two
or three men were trying to reach some of the scattered
bands of Indians; the income of the society the first year
was only about $144, and the whole field of operation was
a small section of Upper Canada. To-day the missionary
force at home and abroad is a little army of over one
thousand persons (including the wives of missionaries) ;
the income exceeds $300,000, while the field covers half
a continent and extends far into “the regions beyond.”
The development of the missionary idea in the
Methodist Church in Canada has been influenced by epochs
in her history, marking changes in her ecclesiastical polity.
In 1828 the Canadian societies were severed from the
jurisdiction of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the
United States, and formed into an independent branch of
Methodism, with its own Conference and government. In
1833 a union was formed with the British Wesleyan
Conference, whereby the field of operation was extended.
In 1840 that union was dissolved, and for seven years the
two societies waged a rival warfare, which was by no means
favourable to the growth of a true missionary spirit. In
Founding and Development of Missions 273

 

1847 the breach was healed, and from that time onward
the missionary work of the Church >steadily developed,
embracing the Wesleyan Indian missions’ in the far north,
and extending the work in all directions throughout Upper
and Lower Canada.

The year 1873 marks a distinct epoch in the history
of missions in connexion with Canadian Methodism. In
that year the bold step, as some considered it, was taken
of founding a distinctively foreign mission, and many indi-
cations pointed to Japan asa promising field. The wisdom
of the step was doubted by some who thought the home
work was sufficiently extensive to absorb the energies and
liberality of the entire Church. Viewed from the stand-
point of mere human prudence, the objectors were right.
The home missionaries were struggling along on very
inadequate stipends; many Indian bands were still un-
reached; the calls from new settlements were loud and
frequent, and the vast French population of the province
of Quebec was scarcely touched by Methodistic agencies.
It is not to be wondered at that, under such circumstances,
some were inclined to say, “ We have here only five barley
loaves and two small fishes, and what are these among so
many?”! But there were others who remembered the
lesson of the “twelve baskets of fragments” taken up after
five thousand men,-besides women and children, had been
fed. Conspicuous among these were the late Dr. Punshon,
and the late Senator Macdonald, at that time lay treasurer
of the society; and these said to the doubting ones in
effect, “ Let us have faith in God; let us bring our little
at Christ’s command, and His blessing will cause our little

1 The income of the society at this time was only $108,869.
18
274 Methodism in Canada

 

to multiply until there will be enough to feed the hungry
multitude, and the Church shall be recompensed far beyond
the measure of what it gives away.” Thus in prayer and
faith the forward movement was inaugurated, and a mission
planted in Japan which, from the very beginning, has
shared largely in blessings from on high. Nor did the
home missions suffer because of this new departure, for
the missionary spirit thus revived in the Church was
followed by a corresponding liberality, and the increased
contributions more than sufficed to meet the increased
expenditure.

The next development affecting the polity and work
of the Church occurred in the following year, 1874, when
the Wesleyan Methodist Church, the Methodist New
Connexion Church, and the Wesleyan Church of Eastern
British America united in one body under the name of the
Methodist Church in Canada. This union extended the
home missions of the Church by consolidating the forces
east and west, thus covering the whole extent of the
Canadian Dominion, and embracing, in addition, Newfound-
land and the Bermudas. This arrangement involved the
peaceful separation of the three churches named from the
jurisdiction of the parent bodies in England, and the
relinquishment, after a few years, of certain missionary
subsidies which two of them had been receiving from the
parent treasuries. The loss of these subsidies, and the
increased expenditure in consequence of unavoidable
readjustments of the work, caused temporary embarrass-
ment, and the accumulation of a somewhat serious debt;
but an appeal to the Church met with so liberal a response
that the debt was extinguished without reducing the
Founding and Development of Missions 275

 

regular income, and the work went on as before. It was
felt, however, that, for a time at least, the duty of the
Church would lie in the direction of consolidation rather
than expansion; and hence for several years no new
movement was made beyond the prudent enlargement of
fields already occupied.

The missionary spirit, which for years had been
growing in the Methodist Church, found a new outlet in
1880 in the organisation of the Women’s Missionary
Society. In June of that year a number of ladies met
in the parlours of the Centenary Church in the city of
Hamilton, on the invitation of the General Missionary
Secretary, when the project of a Women’s Missionary
Society was carefully considered, and the conclusion
reached to organise forthwith. That afternoon meeting
marks the beginning of what has become one of the most
potent forces in connexion with the mission work of the
Methodist Church. Nor can a thoughtful observer fail to
see how divine Providence controlled the time as well
as the circumstances. The .union movement which
culminated in 1883 was just beginning to be discussed.
Four distinct churches were looking forward to union as at
least. a possibility ; but whether it would be possible so to
amalgamate their varied interests as to make of the four
one new Church, was a problem that remained to be solved.
In the accomplishment of this difficult task the mission
work of the Church was a prime factor, for it served by
its magnitude and importance to turn the attention of
ministers and people from old differences, and even
antagonisms, and to fix it upon a common object. What
the work of the General Missionary Society did for one
276 Methodism in Canada

part of the Church, the Women’s movement did for
another. Just at the right moment Providence gave
the signal, and the godly and devoted women of Methodism
in all the uniting churches joined hands in an earnest
effort to carry the gospel to the women and children of
heathendom, and in that effort they mightily aided to
consolidate the work at home. A constitution for the
society was not adopted till 1881, but since then the
income has steadily risen from $2,916 in 1881-82 to
$49,776 in 1901-2. At the present time the society
has under its control “eight boarding schools or homes,
besides a share in two institutes, eight day schools, two
night and two industrial schools, four kindergartens, three
orphanages, one hospital and dispensary, fifteen Bible-
women, seven nurses, making forty-five missionaries. .. .
Property is now owned by the society to the value of
$56,383.”!

Another movement, destined to exert a far-reaching
influence on Methodist missionary enterprise, had its
beginning in 1896. Some years before this the Christian
Endeavour movement swept over the churches of the
United States and Canada, and tens of thousands—yea,
hundreds of thousands—of young people were enrolled in
the organisation, It was to be non-denominational, or
rather inter-denominational, in its character, and it sought
to unite the young people of all denominations ‘for Christian
work. The aim was good, the intentions were of the
best, and the results in many directions have been helpful ;
but in the phenomenally rapid growth of the society the
problem of utilising the newly developed force so as to

1 Report for 1901-2,
Founding and Development of Missions 277

 

prevent it from evaporating in mere convention talk that
meant nothing, had to be faced. As an organisation the
society had nothing before it sufficiently definite and
comprehensive to give scope for its energies, and the
leaders advised, among other things, that the members
co-operate with the boards of their respective denominations
in missionary work. How far this may have answered in
other churches I am not prepared to say, as the facts are
not in my possession; but im the Methodist Church it did
not answer at all. Whatever be the cause, young people’s
societies in the Methodist Church, organised on the
Christian Endeavour plan, have very rarely manifested
any interest in Methodist missions, and their contributions,
for the most part, have either gone to other denominations
or to independent missionary organisations.

In 1890, following the example of the Methodist
Episcopal Church in the United States, provision was made
to organise the young people of the Methodist Church in
Canada in a society to be called the Epworth League.
The object defined in the society’s constitution, as
enlarged in 1894, is “to unite” the “young people in
Christian fellowship and service; increase their spirituality
by edification in Scripture truth and by prayer; instruct
them in Methodist doctrine and church history; enlist
their co-operation in missionary activities through existing
denominational organisations, and stimulate and interest
them in the formation and development of leagues.” The
growth of the Epworth League, like that of the Christian
, Endeavour Society, was phenomenally rapid, although in a
great many congregations the ground was preoccupied by a
‘Young People’s Society on the Christian Endeavour plan,
278 Methodism in Canada

 

But when a few years had passed some began to inquire,
“Well, what next? We are well organised, but what is
to be the outcome of it all? We have our meetings for
prayer and testimony and Scripture study, and these are
good and profitable; but what shall the young people do?
Where is there a safe outlet for the zeal that has been
awakened? Is there not a danger that the organisation
will degenerate into a mere social club, with an occasional
literary entertainment as the sum of its endeavours?
True, we have a missionary department; but the young
people know next to nothing about the mission work of
our own Church, and there is a tendency to divert their
missionary givings into some other channel than our own.”

It was just at this juncture that some of the young
men in the Methodist colleges — probationers for the
ministry, medical students, and others—felt the claims of
the missionary enterprise resting with unusual weight upon
their hearts. They knew how the Board of Missions was
hampered in its operations by an insufficient income; they
were convinced that important sources of revenue were as
yet almost untouched ; and it occurred to them that the
Epworth Leagues would supply an agency ready made,
through which an educational campaign might be conducted
that would turn the interest and sympathies of the young
people into line with the general missionary policy of the
Church. As loyal sons of Methodism, these young men
first put themselves into communication with the Board of
Missions, soliciting permission, with the consent of the
Annual Conference authorities, to visit the various Epworth
Leagues with the view of organising them on missionary
lines. The desired permission was given, and in the autumn
Founding and Development of Missions 279

 

of 1896 a number of students inaugurated the “ Students’
Campaign for Missions.” In the course of a single year
good results were so apparent that the board was encouraged
to proceed. The young men readily responded to the appeal,
and on district after district, in all the Conferences, the
leagues fell into line. The organisation is now known as
the “ Young People’s Forward Movement for Missions,” and
has assumed such proportions that the General Conference
of 1902 authorised the Board of Missions to appoint a
secretary to give undivided attention to this department.
The young people have adopted the principle of systematic
giving—two cents per week or upwards—for missions and
the income from this source has now reached about $25,000
per annum, with a prospect of steady increase for many
years to come. The leagues on various districts are con-
tributing, with the consent of the board, for the support of
particular missionaries; and at the present time forty
missionaries in the French, Indian, and foreign work
are supported, in whole or in part, from this source.
On many districts summer or winter schools are held “ for
the study of the Bible and missions,” and missionary
literature is extensively circulated. As educating agencies
both the Women’s Missionary Society and the Young
People’s Forward Movement for Missions have rendered
valuable service.

As at present organised, the mission work of the Metho-
dist Church embraces a number of distinct departments.
All are under the supervision of one board and are sup-
ported by one fund. Each department, in view of its
importance, claims separate mention.

1. The domestic or home work includes aj] the missions
280 Methodism in Canada

 

to English-speaking people throughout the Dominion and
in Newfoundland and the Bermudas. From the very first
inception of missionary operations the duty of carrying the
gospel and its ordinances to the new settlers in every part
of the country has been fully recognised and faithfully
performed. This was the work to which the Church set
herself before the beginning of the last century, at a time
when missions, in the more extended sense, had not been
thought of. At that period the population was sparse, as
in some parts of the country it still is. Of home comforts
there were little, and of wealth there was none; but the
tireless itinerant, unmoved by any thought of gain or
temporal reward, traversed the wilderness of Upper Canada
and the maritime provinces, often guided only by a “ blaze”
on the trees or the sound of a solitary woodman’s axe;
sometimes compelled to sleep on the bare ground in the
forest, where fitful dreams were broken by the fierce cry of
the catamount or the long-drawn howl of the wolf. But
in rough log schoolhouses, in the cabins of frontier
settlers, or beneath shady trees on an improvised camp-
ground they proclaimed the message of reconciling mercy,
bringing peace and hope to troubled hearts. No wonder
that their message was listened to with eagerness, and often
embraced with rapture. Many of the settlers had enjoyed, in
early years, religious privileges in lands far away, and these
welcomed again the glad sound when heard in their new
homes; while others, who under more favourable circum-
stances had turned a deaf ear-to the gospel message, were
touched ‘with unwonted tenderness as they listened to the
fervid appeals of an itinerant preacher amid the forest
solitudes, Thus by night and day was the seed scattered
Founding and Development of Missions 281

 

which since has ripened into a golden harvest. And if a
time shall ever come when a truthful history of the
English-speaking provinces of the Canadian Dominion shall
be written, the historian, as he analyses the various forces
that have helped to make the inhabitants of these provinces
the most intelligent, moral, prosperous, and contented people
beneath the sun, will give foremost place to the work of
the saddle-bag itinerants who traversed the country when
it was a wilderness, educating the people in that reverence
for the word and worship of God which is alike the founda-
tion of a pure morality and the safeguard of human
freedom.

While steady enlargement had characterised the growth
of home missionary enterprise, it was not till 1858 that
the society in Upper Canada inaugurated a forward move-
ment that reached out to “the regions beyond.” For some
time the thought of connexional leaders had been exercised
respecting the spiritual needs of the scattered dwellers in
British Columbia, at that time a region better known to
intelligent Englishmen than to the inhabitants of Upper
Canada. In fact, to the latter it was almost a ¢erra incog-
nita ; for between them and it lay the breadth of more than
half a continent, unspanned by railway, telegraph, or
travelled highway, its streams unbridged, its prairies and
mountains unexplored, its solitudes untenanted save by vast
herds of buffalo on the plains and bands of nomadic Indians
or solitary hunters and trappers. A voyage to England
was a much less arduous undertaking than to journey to
the distant Pacific colony. In the fifties, and for more than
a generation later, the route was vid New York and the
isthmus of Panama, involving a journey of. more than six
282 Methodism in Canada

 

thousand miles. In the days of the Cariboo gold excitement
there were some adventurous spirits who essayed the over-
land journey, and I have repeatedly seen and conversed
with one who, starting from near Toronto, made the whole
journey on foot, finding his way as best he might from post
to post of the Hudson’s Bay Company, often hundreds of
miles apart; subsisting on what food he could carry and
on what his gun supplied; sleeping where night overtook
him; wandering amid mountain fastnesses, repeatedly on
the verge of starvation; fording unbridged and dangerous
streams, but finding his way at last in safety to the shores
of the Gulf of Georgia. Some who tried the same route
were not so fortunate. Unable to sustain the rigours and
hardships of the journey, they fell on the way, leaving
their bones to bleach in a desolate mountain canyon or
beneath the waters of a mountain torrent which they
tried in vain to cross.

_ In April of 1858 the Rev. Dr. Wood, General Super-
intendent of Missions, addressed a letter to the General
Secretaries of the Wesleyan Missionary Society in London
respecting the establishment of additional missions west-
ward toward the Rocky Mountains. Later in the same
year the spiritual needs of British Columbia were brought
before the General Secretaries, but without making any
formal application for aid. Promptly and generously the
British Committee took the initiative, and a grant of £500
sterling was sent for the immediate opening of a mission
in British Columbia. As soon as it became known that
this distant field was to be occupied, more than a dozen
ministers, among whom were several chairmen of districts,
volunteered their services, and after much solicitude and
Founding and Development of Missions 283

 

prayer the Rev. Ephraim Evans, D,D., Edward White,
Ebenezer Robson, and Arthur Browning were selected. Of
the four beloved brethren the first two have long since
passed to their reward; but Edward White lives again in
the person of his son James, who is now Superintendent
of Missions in British Columbia. Ebenezer Robson—now
Dr. Robson—still survives, hale and vigorous. Arthur
Browning is in quiet retirement near Toronto, but delights
in revival work when the way opens, and preaches with
much of his old-time fire. In British Columbia, owing to
the sparseness of the population and other circumstances,
the growth of the Church was slow; but growing out of
the seed planted by the pioneers of more than forty years
ago, and their successors, there is now a Conference of 80
ministers and probationers, 7 districts, 77 circuits and
stations, 6,116 members, and 7,088 scholars in the
Sunday schools. These statistics include missions to the
Indians, Japanese, and Chinese; but the story of that work
will be referred to in another connexion.

In 1868 another forward movement took place when
the Board of Missions resolved to open work at Fort Garry,
in what had been known till then as the Hudson’s Bay
Territory. Of this enormous region the outside world had
only the vaguest notion. Men spoke of it as the Great
Lone Land, and pictured it as a sterile, inhospitable region
which even on its southern boundary was scarcely touched
by the advancing frontiers of civilisation, while northward
its gusty leagues of prairie, swamp and arctic forest
stretched into the darkness and rigour of the Polar night.
But the federation of the British American Colonies in
1867, when provision was made for the incorporation of
284 Methodism in Canada

 

the Hudson’s Bay Territory in the Dominion, had turned
attention toward the hitherto unknown region, and
emigrants from the older provinces began to set their faces
toward the West. It was felt that something should be
done to meet the spiritual needs of these new settlers, and
the Board of Missions took action accordingly. Much
would depend upon the selection made for this important
mission, and the thoughts of many turned toward the Rev.
George Young, D.D., an able and trusted minister, who
had served in succession some of the most important circuits
in the Connexion, and was at this time Chairman of the
Toronto district and Superintendent of the Toronto West
circuit, which included the largest church and congregation
with one exception in Canadian Methodism. To sever the
endearing associations of years, relinquish the conveniences
and privileges of city life, and return in his forty-eighth
year to the arduous toil and meagre pay of a pioneer
missionary, was no small sacrifice; but it was cheerfully
made, and in company with the Rev. Egerton R. Young and
the Rev. Peter Campbell, who were sent to reinforce the
Indian work, Dr. Young set out for his distant field. The
party were able to proceed by rail and steamer as far as
St. Paul, in the State of Minnesota, from which point a
further journey of between six and seven hundred miles
had to be made by horses and waggons over prairie trails
before reaching Fort Garry. As the party proceeded
northward they passed at intervals the blackened ruins of
deserted homesteads, sad mementoes of a terrible massacre
by the Sioux Indians that had occurred a year or two
before. Then for a week together no sign of human
habitation appeared 3; but at length, after a toilsome
Founding and Development of Missions 285

 

Journey of over a month from St. Paul, the party reached
Fort Garry on the Red River of the North.

The little village beginning to spring up in the vicinity
of the fort had been named Winnipeg, but in 1868 it was
a sorry affair. “A mass of soft, black, slippery and sticky
Red River mud,” says Dr. Young, “ was everywhere spread
out before us. Streets with neither sidewalks nor cross-
ings, with now and then a good-sized pit for the traveller
to avoid or flounder through as best he could; a few small
stores with poor goods and high prices; one little tavern
where ‘ Dutch George’ was ‘monarch of all he surveyed ’.;
a few passable dwellings, with no rooms to let nor space
for boarders; neither church nor school in sight or in
prospect; population about one hundred, instead of one
thousand as we expected—such was Winnipeg on 4th July
1868.” But these were not the only discouragements. A
plague of locusts was in the land, and fields that a little
while before bore promise of a bountiful harvest were now
bare as if swept by a devouring fire. Flour was selling,
even at that time, at from twenty-five to thirty shillings
sterling per hundred pounds, and oats at eight shillings a
bushel. Besides this, the buffalo hunters had met with
very poor success, and there was the prospect of a positive
famine.

Having secured, with very great difficulty, a place in
which to live, and in which to conduct religious services,
Dr. Young set himself to the laborious but very necessary
task of laying foundations. Even at that early period he
foresaw something of the possibilities of the future. “I
am not a prophet,’ he wrote to the Mission Rooms in
December 1868, “but I will predict for this mission,
286 Methodism in Canada

 

whose foundations I am now trying to lay, a glorious
future.” How abundantly the prediction has been verified
is well known to all who have visited the beautiful city
of Winnipeg in recent years. In the true spirit of a
Methodist itinerant Dr. Young extended his labours to the
west beyond Portage la Prairie, a distance of seventy-five
or eighty miles, and down Red River to lower Fort Garry,
about twenty miles or more, visiting the scattered settlers
on the way, conversing on matters pertaining to personal
religion, reading from the Scriptures when opportunity
offered, and praying with those who were willing he should
do so. Keeping steadily in mind the establishment of a
permanent circuit, Dr. Young was diligent in securing
permission to preach regularly in private houses, the only
places available at the time, as there were no public build-
ings as yet in the settlements. As a rule the desired
permission was cheerfully given, and in many of those
neighbourhoods there are to-day commodious churches, good
congregations, and flourishing societies.

The ordinary difficulties incident to the founding of a
mission in a new country, where everything has to be
created from the beginning, are serious enough; but in
Manitoba these were greatly augmented during the
troublous times of 1869-70 by the revolt of the French
half-breeds under Louis Riel. This bold, able, but
thoroughly selfish and unscrupulous man had succeeded in
ingratiating himself with his compatriots and co-religionists,
and by impassioned appeals aroused their fears in regard
to what he affirmed would take place when government
from Ottawa would once be established. The French half-
breeds were not only extremely ignorant (few of them
Founding and Development of Missions 287

 

could either read or write), but they possessed in a large
degree the excitable Gallic temperament, combined with
the fighting instincts of their Indian ancestry, the very
kind of people who could easily be roused to desperate
undertakings by any unscrupulous demagogue who possessed
—as Riel undoubtedly did—the gift of popular oratory.
When once their prejudices were excited and their
religious fanaticism aroused, such a man could lead them
whithersoever he would. It is significant that, as the
agitation went on, Riel was in the habit of delivering his
inflammable harangues at the church doors on Sundays
after the celebration of Mass. It is not too much to
say that at any time a word from the Roman Catholic
hierarchy could have stopped the whole agitation. But
that word was never uttered, and by ominous silence the
revolt was tacitly if not openly encouraged.?

The Government of the province or territory of
Assiniboia, of which the Red River settlements were at
this time a part, consisted of an elective Council, presided
over by Governor M‘Tavish of the Hon. Hudson’s Bay
Company, and this was recognised by both the Imperial
and Canadian Governments. In due time this was to be
superseded by a Government fashioned after those of the
other provinces of the Dominion. During this interval
Riel and his fellow-conspirators were busy circulating
alarming rumours among the people. For some time the
signs of discontent were small, and little heed was paid to
them. In this, as in many another case, “the beginning

1Jt is but just to say that during this period the Roman Catholic
Archbishop, Monsignor Taché, was absent in Rome. It is the belief of Dr.
Young and others that had he been in his diocese the designs of Riel
would have been checked.
288 Methodism in Canada

 

of strife” was “as when one letteth out water,” and when
the flood came it could not be stayed. Soon the agitation
took the form of drilled and officered military companies,
consisting exclusively of Riel’s co-religionists and almost
exclusively of French half-breeds. When word came that
the newly appointed Lieutenant-Governor, the Hon. Wm.
M‘Dougall, and a party of officials were en. route for Fort
Garry by way of Pembina, a detachment of armed men
took possession of the highway at a point where the
Governor's party must necessarily pass, and erected a huge
cross and a barricade to stop all travellers. In some cases
trains of freighting carts were allowed to pass, while others
were stopped and their contents confiscated. This occurred
on the 21st of October 1869. On the 25th the Council
of Assiniboia met and urged the leaders of the insurrection
to cease their opposition, but without effect. A document
was sent to Lieutenant-Governor M‘Dougall at Pembina,
forbidding him to enter the country. He did enter, how-
ever; but soon after was met by an armed force, under
command of one Lepine, and threatened with dire conse-
quences if he and his party did not leave by nine o’clock
the next morning. Being entirely defenceless, Mr.
M‘Dougall retraced his steps across the boundary to await
further instructions from Ottawa.

On 3rd November 1869 Riel, with a hundred and
twenty-five armed followers, marched through the gates of
Fort Garry and took possession of the fort: with its immense
stores. This gave the command of thirteen six-pounders
and four hundred Enfield rifles, with abundance of
ammunition and food supplies, and here for ten long
months the petty tyrant lived in luxury and lorded it over
Founding and Development of Missions 289

 

the surrounding country. A month after the capture of
Fort Garry, Lieuteriant-Governor M‘Dougall (who still
remained at Pembina), having been assured that the transfer
of the territories would take place on 1st December, issued
on that day a Queen’s Proclamation, and also commissioned
Colonel Dennis as his Lieutenant and Conservator of the
Peace for the North-West Territories, with authority to
appoint officers and organise and equip companies of
loyalists for service in suppressing the rebellion. In a
short time four hundred men were enrolled, but finding
no sufficient supply of munitions of war, and no competent
leadership, they fell away, until only about fifty were
left to guard the lower fort, while fifty more, poorly
equipped and officered, were sent to guard some govern-
ment stores in Dr. Schultz’s buildings in Winnipeg. As
these buildings were within range of the guns of Fort
Garry, and could be easily surrounded and cut off from
supplies of wood and water, the impossibility of holding
the position became at once apparent. Preparations were
made by Riel for an assault on the buildings, and this
induced Dr. Young (whose son was among the volunteers)
to interview the self-styled “President” to try to dis-
suade him from an act that would result in much blood-
shed and misery, but was insulted and brow-beaten in true
half-breed style. On nearing the building, however, Dr.
Young succeeded in getting his son away. He then
pleaded for others of the volunteers, whose families needed
their help, that they also be allowed to depart, but was
indignantly dismissed. At this juncture a merchant of
the town approached Riel to negotiate for a surrender on
terms that might be agreed upon. After some délay these
19
290 Methodism in Canada

 

were made known and assented to, and were to the effect
that the surrendering party should “leave guns, ammuni-
tion, etc., in the buildings, and be marched to the fort, and
then allowed to go where they pleased.” Some doubted the
sincerity of the promise, but the merchant—NMr. Bannatyne
—-assured them the agreement would be faithfully kept,
and he would personally guarantee all private property ;
and on this assurance the surrender was made. Then
followed an act of treachery which, apart from his other
crimes, should suffice to hand down the name of Louis
Riel to deserved infamy. About fifty disarmed loyalists,
with three ladies (Mrs. Dr. Schultz, Mrs. Dr. O’Donnell,
and Mrs. Mair, who accompanied their husbands), were
surrounded by Riel’s guards, marched to the fort, the gates
of which closed upon them as soon as they entered, and
they were prisoners without hope of escape, at the mercy
of a man who was alike without honour and without
humanity.

The indignities, privations, and sufferings endured by
these betrayed people almost surpass belief. They were
first located in the upper flat of a two-storey building,
containing five or six small rooms opening into a central
corridor. The latter was used as “ guardroom,” while the
small rooms, without stoves, beds, or chairs, were packed
with prisoners, so crowded that, to prevent suffocation, a
pane of glass in each window had to be broken, and
through these openings the biting frosts and piercing
winds of a Manitoba winter had free entrance. The food
supplied was the poorest quality of pemmican and tea;
and when a number of kind-hearted women in the town
prepared and sent baskets of bread, biscuits, cooked potatoes,
Founding and Development of Missions 291

 

etc., these luxuries (for such they were under the circum-
stances) were often snatched and appropriated by the
rapacious guards. But why go into such harrowing
details? I speak of these things merely to show how
Methodism, through its representatives, faithfully did its
duty, as often before, in a crisis of the country’s history,
and vindicated its true character as “the friend of all—
the enemy of none.”

On the morning following the surrender Dr. Young
went to Riel and solicited permission to hold service with
the prisoners on the Lord’s day; but the request met with
this curt response: “No, you cannot meet them all
together, nor speak to them; but you may go and pray
with them only, for they much need to be prayed for.”
The faithful minister availed himself of the grudging
permission, and thenceforward, twice during the week and
once on Sabbath morning, held brief service in the different
rooms. But this was always in the presence of an armed
guard. And even when visiting the invalid wife of one of,
the prisoners in her own home, a rough fellow invariably
entered the room at the same time, and seating himself on
the side of the sufferer’s bed, remained there while the
minister prayed. And yet who can tell when and where
and how a good seed may fall? Years afterward a
surveyor from a remote settlement met Dr. Young and,
in the course of conversation, said to him, “I feel that
you should know a fact that came to my knowledge not
long ago. The half-breed who used to stand guard over
you during your services in the prisons in 1869 and 1870,
and who recently died, when urged in his last illness to
have the priest brought, said to his friends, ‘If you can

¥
292 Methodism in Canada

 

bring Mr. Young, I should like him to come and pray for
me as I used to hear him pray with the prisoners in Fort
Garry.”

About the middle of February another movement for
the release of the prisoners took place. A number of
loyalists from Portage la Prairie, and other places west,
proceeded to Kildonan, east of Winnipeg, where they were
joined by others, and from there sent a demand to Riel to
release the prisoners. This was followed by an interchange
of further messages, which resulted in an agreement that
the prisoners would be discharged, while the relieving force
would disband and return to their homes. At Riel’s
request they agreed to diverge from the regular trail so
as not to pass near the fort; but while struggling through
deep snowdrifts on the untracked prairie they were
suddenly surrounded by an armed force from the fort, and
informed that Riel desired them to call and see him before
they returned home. Though feeling tolerably certain
that they were betrayed, resistance was useless. As soon
as they entered the fort the gates were closed as before,
and they were declared prisoners and thrust into the very
same rooms from which their friends had been released
only a day or two before. A reign of tyranny and cruelty
far worse than the past now seemed to be established,
and no one could foresee whence deliverance would come.
Some of the prisoners were known as leaders, and were
regarded by Riel with especial enmity. Among these
were Major Boulton, who had commanded the relieving
party, Scott, Powers, M‘Leod, and Parker. No sooner were
the prisoners secured in the fort than a “council of war”
was called, when it was decided that Boulton was guilty of
Founding and Development of Missions 293

 

“treason,” and Riel sentenced him to be shot at noon the
next day. Through the earnest intercessions of Arch-
deacon M‘Leod and Commissioner Smith (now Lord
Strathcona) the execution was postponed, but only on the
promise that they would proceed that very night to the
lower settlement and persuade the people to elect repre-
sentatives to an “ Assembly” that Riel desired to see
established. The efforts of the archdeacon and the
commissioner were successful, and Major Boulton was
spared.

It would be pleasant to relate that this was the end
of Riel’s barbarity, but worse was yet to come. A loyal
young Irishman, Thomas Scott by mame, had been
treacherously arrested at the time of the attack on Dr.
Schultz’s building, but with some others he effected his
escape on the 9th of December 1869. He subsequently
volunteered with Major Boulton’s company, and was a
second time taken -prisoner. For reasons never clearly
understood, Riel cherished—or seemed to cherish—feelings
of intense enmity to Scott; or possibly it may have been
that the murderous instincts of his Indian nature had been
aroused, and could be satisfied only with cruelty and
bloodshed. Be that as it may, Scott’s death was decreed.
At his trial by the so-called “council of war” Riel was
prosecutor, witness, and judge, and when Scott pleaded
that he did not know of what crime he was accused, as he
did not understand the language used, he was told that he
was “a very bad man and must die.” Returning from an
appointment in the country, Dr. Young received a message
from the fort that Scott was to be shot at noon on the
morrow, and desired to see him. Fearing the worst,
204 Methodism in Canada

everything possible was done to administer spiritual
consolation to the doomed man. Dr. Young also sought
an interview with Riel, and interceded with all the
earnestness and pathos he could command on behalf of
the prisoner, and was faithfully seconded by Commissioner
Smith; but all to no avail. On the morrow Scott was
led out to die. To the last Dr. Young continued to plead,
but with no effect. A few moments later poor Thomas
Scott fell, pierced by rebel bullets, and his heart’s blood
crimsoned the snow where he knelt. While his body lay
quivering in death a half-drunken guard approached and
fired a revolver at the victim’s head. A fouler murder
was never committed, and covers the name of Riel and of
his Lieutenant O’Donohue with endless infamy.

It is not necessary to follow further the course of
public events—the arrival of the expedition under Colonel
Wolseley, the precipitate flight of the rebels, and the
collapse of the bubble confederacy. What has been
written has simply been to show in what troublous times
the foundations of Methodist missions in the North-West
were laid, and how much the courage and fidelity of the
Rev. Dr. Young had to do with the hold which the work
subsequently gained upon the people. With the sub-
jugation of the incipient rebellion the dark .days passed
away. Lawful authority was soon established; the
machinery of government and the law courts was set
in motion, and business, freed from the dangers of revolt,
began to prosper and extend. Additional missionaries
were sent out to assist Dr. Young, and the work took
definite shape. In 1872 a cheering impulse was given
by the visit of a deputation from the Board of Missions,
Founding and Development of Missions 298

 

consisting of the Rev. Dr. Punshon, President of
Conference, Rev. Dr. Wood, Superintendent of Missions,
and John Macdonald, Esq., Lay Treasurer of the Society.
The missionaries had been summoned six months in
advance, and arrived from far-distant Indian fields in
time for the first Missionary Conference ever held in
the North-West. The days spent in consultation, fellow-
ship, and prayer were times of refreshing to the isolated
and sometimes discouraged labourers, and they returned
to their fields of toil with renewed courage and zeal.
As the population increased, additional missionaries were
sent, though for a length of time progress in both respects
was comparatively slow. But in the later eighties, when
the Canadian Pacific Railway spanned the continent and
millions of fertile acres were thrown open for settlement,
the whole situation was changed, and development in all
directions became phenomenally rapid. Instead of the
little handful of missionaries, most of them from Indian
stations, that greeted the deputation in Winnipeg in 1872,
there is now a Conference covering a territory fifteen
hundred miles in length by from one hundred to three.
hundred miles in width, with two hundred and fifty
ministers and probationers, and over twenty-two thousand
members; and by far the greater part of this growth
dates within the past fifteen years. Every year the
momentum is increasing, and from the older provinces of
the Dominion, from the United States, and from lands
across the sea, population is rushing in at a rate that is
simply bewildering. It is not too much to say that the
home mission problem is to-day the all-absorbing topic
in the Councils of Canadian Methodism, and the conviction
296 Methodism in Canada

 

grows that nothing less than Pauline faith and consecration
can meet the responsibilities of the hour.

2. Those who are familiar with the story of Canadian
Methodism know how strongly the evangelization of the
Indian tribes has appealed to the sympathies and zeal of
the Church. At an early period attention was turned to the
needs of these neglected and degraded people, and some of
the noblest workers the Methodist Church ever produced
cheerfully gave many of their best days to the Christlike
task of seeking these lost sheep in the wilderness. The
names of Egerton Ryerson, William Case, Peter Jones, the
M'‘Dougalls (father and son), James Evans, Henry Stein-
hauer, Thomas Crosby, and many more, will ever be
associated, in grateful remembrance, with the work of
Indian evangelization. At the close of the revolutionary
war there was a large emigration of Indians of the Six
Nations from the Mohawk valley to the banks of the
Grand River in Upper Canada, where a tract of land,
sixty miles from north to south and twelve miles from
east to west, was set apart by the British Government for
their use. Within this tract, beginning at the river's
mouth, were located the Cayugas, Delawares, Senecas,
Tuscaroras, Onondagas, and Mohawks. These Indians,
under a celebrated chief named Tyendenaga, commonly
known among the whites as Captain Joseph Brant (after
whom the city of Brantford is named), rendered substantial
aid to the British forces in the revolutionary war, and it
was as a reward for services, and to compensate for losses
sustained, that the reservation was set aside. They
numbered about two thousand and were all pagans except
the Mohawks, who were nominally adherents of the
Founding and Development of Missions 297

 

Church of England, but bore the reputation of being
rather worse in their morals than the pagan tribes.
An Anglo-Saxon may be moral after a fashion without
religion; but not so an Indian, especially if he has come
into contact with white civilisation. He must be converted
through and through if he is to make any headway
against temptation.

In 1823 Alvin Torry was appointed by the Methodist
bishop to the Grand River Mission. His commission was
to the white settlers on his extensive field, but his route
led him through parts of the reservation, and his heart was
stirred by the spiritual destitution of the Indians. He
held services at intervals among the Delawares, with
encouraging results. He also preached to the Tuscaroras
and Mohawks, who seemed pleased with his visits. But
even before the advent of the missionary a little had
been done. A pious shoemaker named Edmund Stoney,
a Methodist local preacher, held prayer-meetings in the
house of Chief Thomas Davis, who was in the habit of
reading portions of the Scriptures to his neighbours and
the Church prayers in the Mohawk tongue. Stoney
also preached occasionally, and a few Indians were
awakened. The second labourer was Seth Crawford, a
pious young man from the eastern States. When converted,
a conviction took hold upon him that he ought to devote
his life to the evangelizing of the Indians. Unexpected
providences led him to the Mohawks on the Grand River.
He told them he came to learn their language and
teach their children, and they consented that he might live
with them and fare as they did. It was after his coming
that the first awakening occurred. A marked event
298 Methodism in Canada

 

about this time was the conversion of Peter Jones, a
young mixed-blood, son of a white father and an Indian
mother. The father, after hearing the Methodist preachers,
was converted, and sent his son to school, where he
mastered the usual rudiments of an English education.
In 1823 he became acquainted with Seth Crawford, and
heard Edmund Stoney preach on the subject of the new
birth. Later he went with his sister to a camp-meeting
on the Ancaster circuit, and while listening to the sermons,
“] began,” he said, “to feel very sick in my heart... . I
thought the blackcoats knew all that was in my heart,
and that I was the person addressed... . In spite of
my Indian heart, tears flowed down my cheeks at the
remembrance of my sins.” At midnight he went to: his
tent and fell asleep; but soon two of the preachers came
and awoke him, saying his sister was converted, and he
must return to the.prayer-meeting. Here he found his
sister rejoicing in the Lord. Continuing in prayer till
day-dawn he was enabled to trust in the mercy of God
revealed in Christ Jesus. “That very instant,” said
‘Peter, “my burden was removed; joy unspeakable filled
my heart, and I could say, Abba, Father. . . . Everything
now appeared in a new light, and all the works of God
seemed to unite with me in uttering the praises of the
Lord.” Soon after a little class was formed by Alvin
Torry, at. the house of Chief Davis, among whom were
Peter Jones and his sister, and put in charge of Seth
Crawford, and some wonderful displays of saving power
occurred. On Torry’s return from Conference in June,
twenty were admitted as members of the society. A
gracious work began on another part of the reservation,
Founding and Development of Missions 299

 

where both whites and Indians were converted and a
society formed. No wonder that Torry writes: “In
weariness my mind is comforted and my soul is delighted
in feeding these hungry natives with the provisions of the
gospel. Oh, I could endure hunger, or sit down thankfully
to their humble fare, or lie down in Indian wigwams all
my life, to be employed in such a work as this, and
especially if favoured with such consolations as at times
I have enjoyed since I commenced my labours on this
mission.” :

In 1825 a camp-meeting was held at Mount Pleasant,
a few miles from where the city of Brantford now stands,
and was especially noteworthy for a number of conversions
among the Mississaguas. These Indians were notoriously
the most drunken and filthy in the country, the very lowest
of the low, and yet they received the gospel more readily
than others, and its transforming power among them was
wonderful. Up to this time they had depended upon
hunting and fishing for their precarious livelihood; now
they began to clear and cultivate the soil, and to live in
settled homes in a Christian fashion. In the summer
of 1825 the Mississaguas were notified by the Indian
agent to assemble at the river Credit, about thirteen
miles west of York, to receive their customary annual
presents and payments for the surrender of their lands.
On the Sunday following their arrival Peter Jones
preached to an audience of three hundred, whites and
Indians, first in Ojibway and then in English. The power
of God came down upon some of the Indians, and they
fell to the ground, some crying for pardon, and others
rejoicing in the Lord. Next day the Indians repaired to
300 Methodism tn Canada

 

the Humber River, twelve miles nearer York. Many
heathen were assembled, besides the Christians from the
Grand River, and were met by the Indian agent, Col.
Givens. Archdeacon Strachan, who had come out to see
the Christian Indians, heard the children sing some hymns,
and afterwards heard two read from the New Testament
and others from a schoolbook. He spoke to them kindly, |
advising them to settle on their lands at the Credit,
promised them assistance from the Government, and then
prayed with them. The Indians agreed, and this was the
origin of the Indian settlement on the Credit, which
became a noted Methodist mission, and so continued
till the Indians moved to the New Credit on the Six
Nations’ Reserve.

When the Christian Indians returned to the Grand
River they were accompanied by a large number of pagans,
some of whom were already awakened. On the following
Sunday Alvin Torry preached, with Peter Jones as
interpreter, and the word of the Lord was with power.
As the result of that day’s services forty-five were publicly
baptized. Torry was much impressed with the spirit and
ability of Peter Jones. “He.is a youth,” he said, “ of much
promise to his nation and the Church, and his labours are
a continual blessing to his people.” Knowing that there
were bands of Indians on the river Thames who had not
heard the gospel, Torry and Jones agreed to visit them.
‘One band was known as Moravians, because a Moravian
missionary resided among them, and a few scattered ones
were remnants of the Delawares who had been taught by
David Brainerd and some Moravian missionaries in the
United States. The rest were pagans. The first to show
Founding and Development of Missions 301

 

an interest in these neglected Indians was John Carey, a
pious school teacher, and it was at his request that Alvin
Torry and Peter Jones came to visit them. On this first
visit the missionary and his interpreter spent five days,
with scant food and sleep, and travelled sixty miles on foot
through the wilderness. Subsequent visits were made, and
by degrees the gospel was introduced among the Indians of
the Thames. At the Conference of 1825 the first Annual
Report of the Missionary Society was presented. The
meeting was addressed by Chief Thomas Davis and Peter
Jones, and there was much joy among the brethren because
a great and effectual door unto the heathen had been
opened. At the same Conference Elder Case, who was
deeply interested in the evangelization of the Indian tribes,
was transferred to the Bay of Quinte district. In the
following winter he requested Peter Jones and Chief John
Crane to visit the Indians in the vicinity of Belleville and
back of Kingston. In the spring Peter Jones repeated his
visit, and as a result of services held Case baptized twenty-
two Indian converts, while perhaps fifty more were
earnestly seeking the Lord. Among the converts was John
Sunday, who became a faithful and useful missionary among
his people.

Space will not admit of further details of this most
interesting work. Suffice it to say that after the- first
union with the British Conference in 1833 the work was
extended and strengthened; and when the second union
was consummated in 1847 a real forward movement
began. Missions were opened in the Hudson’s Bay
Territory at Norway House, Oxford House, and other
points. James Evans, of precious memory, was stationed
302 Methodism in Canada

 

at Norway House, where he founded one of the most
successful missions in the whole field. To him belongs
the distinguished honour of having invented and perfected
a system of syllabic characters, so simple and yet so
comprehensive that an Indian of ordinary intelligence can
begin, after two weeks’ teaching, to read the Scriptures in
his own tongue. In succeeding years grand work was
done in those distant regions by Charles Stringfellow, Henry
Steinhauer (a converted Indian, two of whose sons are now
missionaries to their people), Robert Brooking, George
M‘Dougall (whose son John is now Superintendent of
Indian Missions in the North-West), Egerton R. Young,
John Semmens, and others. In the far West, near the
Rocky Mountains, Robert Rundle introduced the gospel
among the Mountain Stonies with blessed effect ; Thomas
Wooley and Henry Steinhauer were sent to labour among
the Crees; and soon the M‘Dougalls, father and son,
entered the same field. In early days of mission work in
British Columbia the Indians were not entirely neglected.
White, Robson, Browning, and Pollard did what they could ;
but they were so occupied with the work among the
whites that they had scant time to spare for anything
else. Some pious laymen in Victoria interested themselves
in the degraded tribes, and a few were won to a better
life.

At this time a letter from Edward White was
published in the Christian Guardian, telling of the destitute
condition of the Indians and pleading for someone to go
and teach them. The letter came under the eye of an
ardent young Methodist in Ontario, Thomas Crosby by
name, and his heart was fired to respond to the call. He
Founding and Development of Missions 303

 

borrowed from a friend enough money to pay the expenses
of the long journey, and went forth trusting in God. Near
the coal-mining town of Nanaimo was a band of Flathead
Indians, and among these he began his work, gathering the
children in a school and speaking to the adults when he
had opportunity. The Chinook—a jargon used by the
tribes for trading purposes—was easily acquired, but it
was a wretchedly poor vehicle for c nveying religious
truth. A knowledge of the Flathead to:igue, which Crosby
laboured diligently to master, enabled him to work to
better advantage, and by his efforts, in association with
others, some of the Indians were savingly converted.
Among these was a lad named David Sallasselton, who
early displayed such burning zeal for the salvation of his
people, and such wonderful gifts as a speaker, that the
missionaries encouraged him in every way. Though
perhaps not more than sixteen years of age when con-
verted, his natural gifts of oratory were such that his
fame spread all over the adjacent country, and he became
known among the white people as the Morley Punshon of
the Pacific coast. His zeal was equal to his gifts, and
finally carried him beyond his strength. No labours were
too great, no journeys too difficult, if only he could reach
his people with the message of salvation. In his zeal to
reach an appointment he crossed a stream amid floating
ice, and though wet and chilled conducted a service. A
severe cold followed, which settled on his lungs and
ultimately terminated his life. But he died in holy
triumph.

Every year large numbers of Indians came down from
the North to catch salmon in the Fraser River or pick
304 Methodism in Canada

 

hops in the fields of Oregon, and Victoria was a common
stopping-place both going and returning. Here some
Indians from Port Simpson found their way to a building
where some pious laymen were holding meetings, and two
or three were converted. These at once ‘began to plead
for a missionary. After some negotiation, and a visit to
the place by the chairman of the district, Thomas Crosby
volunteered for the service, and was sent accordingly. On
reaching his distant field, seven hundred miles north
of Victoria, he called the people together, told them who
he was and why he had come. Then he told them they
must have a house built in which to worship the Great
Spirit, and learn about His Son Jesus Christ, and asked
them to give whatever they could to help build the house.
With strange readiness they responded to the call, and in
the shape of guns, blankets, silver ornaments, and money,
that assemblage of heathen contributed to. the value
of over $400 to aid in‘ building a house for the worship
of One who to them was as yet “the unknown God.”
Surely, thought the missionary, these people are ripe for
the gospel; and so it proved. A commodious church was
built with aid’ from the Mission Rooms, and a revival
followed, in which scores were converted. Quickly the
news spread in all directions, and this was the form in
which the message went from village to village up and
down the coast and away into the far interior: “A great
light has come to Port Simpson, and they have built a
wonderful house for God.” Large numbers of Indians
came from all directions to see and hear for themselves,
and these in turn carried back the tidings to distant
villages, saying that the. half had not been told them,
Founding and Development of Missions 305

Nor was this the only gracious visitation that Port
Simpson enjoyed. On one occasion a remarkable revival
broke out apparently without any human agency. Mr.
Crosby had gone to visit outlying villages on a tour that
would last several weeks. After his departure the Holy
Spirit began to work mightily among the people. In the
middle of the night several Indians went to the mission
house, awoke the inmates, and asked Mrs. Crosby to give
them the key of the church. Thinking it best to manifest
no surprise, she gave them the key and they went away.
Mrs. Crosby then lit a lantern and asked the lady who
taught the school to accompany her to the church, that
they might see what the Indians were doing. Softly
opening the door, they saw by the light of the lantern
some scores of Indians kneeling on the floor in the dark,
and with sighs and tears pleading with God for salvation.
For many days and nights in succession did those faithful
women carry on the services, and by the time Mr. Crosby
returned it seemed as though the whole village had been
profoundly moved. During and after some of these
wonderful outpourings, bands of young men would take
canoes and start off, in some cases scores of miles, to tell
the people of other villages of the good news of salvation,
and in this way the gospel was carried to many who other-
wise would never have heard it. Since then permanent
missions have been established at many points and are
still in successful operation. As the direct result of
missionary effort among the Indians of British Columbia
tribal wars have entirely ceased, heathen villages have been
transformed into Christian communities, and the gross

immoralities of the dance and the “ potlatch” have given
20
306 Methodism in Canada

place to assemblies for Christian instruction and sacred
song. In the North-West similar results have been
achieved, and it has been demonstrated that the advance-
ment of the native tribes in intelligence, in morality, in
loyalty, and in the arts of civilised life, keeps even step
with the progress of Christian missions. Very significant
is the fact that during the second revolt among certain
Indians and half-breeds in 1885, led by Louis Riel and
Chief Big Bear, not ‘one Indian member or adherent of
the Methodist Church was implicated in the disturb-
ance, and it is a well known fact that the unswerving
loyalty of the Christian Indians—notably Chief Pakan and
his people at Whitefish Lake—contributed more than any
other circumstance to prevent a general uprising of the
Cree nation. At the present time there are 61 Indian
missions under the jurisdiction of the Methodist Church,
with 43 missionaries, 14 assistants, 28 teachers, and
7 interpreters—a total of 92. Besides the ordinary
day schools there are 6 industrial institutes and boarding
schools, with accommodation for about 500 pupils. The
membership returns from the Indian missions for 1901—2
show an aggregate of 5,286.

8. An interesting though not remarkably successful
department of the Church’s work is that among the
French in the province of Quebec. In that province
there is a French-speaking population of over a million
and a quarter, and these, with the exception of a few
thousands, are adherents of the most solid, thoroughly
organised, and aggressive type of Romanism to be found
in the world. The church is virtually endowed, can
collect its tithes and levy its church-building rates by
Founding and Development of Missions 307

 

law. Education is controlled by. the bishops, and the
whole machinery is used to maintain the use of the
French language and inculcate a French national spirit.
As regards religion, evangelical truth is a thing almost
unknown. Such a population, under such control, con-
stitutes a serious problem, and it has led the various
Protestant Churches to make some effort to spread the
gospel among them. So far as Methodist missions are con-
cerned, numerical results have been small; but it should
be borne in mind that the difficulties to be surmounted
are greater than in any other field, and that there are
causes for the comparatively small numerical increase
which do not exist elsewhere. Neither in the home,
the Indian, nor even in the foreign field, do civil or
social disabilities follow to the same extent a profession
of faith in Christ; but in the province of Quebec a
renunciation of Romanism is the signal for a series of
petty persecutions and a degree of civil and social
ostracism which many have not sufficient nerve to endure,
and which usually results in their emigration from the
province. The difficulty of reaching the people by direct
evangelistic effort has led the Board of Missions to give
increased attention to educational work. In pursuance
of this policy, a commodious building has been erected in
a western suburb of Montreal, capable of accommodating
one hundred resident pupils. Over seventy pupils of
both sexes are now in attendance, and the future of the
institute is promising.

4, During the past thirty years large numbers of
Chinese have landed on the Pacific coast of the American
continent, and some thousands have found temporary
308 Methodism in Canada

 

homes in British Columbia. In 1884 Mr. John Dillon,
a merchant of Montreal, visited the Pacific coast on
business, and his heart was stirred by the spiritually
destitute condition of the Chinese, especially in Victoria.
He wrote to a member of the Board of Missions inquiring
if something could not be done. The matter was con-
sidered at the next board meeting, and it was decided
to open a mission in Victoria as soon as a suitable agent.
could be found. In the following spring, by a remarkable
chain of providences, the way was fully opened, and a
mission begun which has since extended to other places
in the province, and has been fruitful of good results.
Commodious mission buildings have been erected in
Victoria, Vancouver, New Westminster, and Nanaimo,
and schools established in all these cities; many converts
have been received by baptism, and the foundation of a
spiritual church laid among these strangers “from the
land of Sinim” which gives promise of permanence and
growth. Work has also been established among the
Japanese in the Pacific province, and native workers
have been raised up who are rendering faithful and
efficient service. Throughout British Columbia there is
a strong prejudice against both Chinese and Japanese,
and this is diligently fostered by the labour organisations ;
but it is none the less the duty of the Church to seek
the evangelization of these outsiders who by the providence
of God have been brought to our shores. If these people
are a menace to our civilisation, the danger is enormously
lessened by their conversion to Christianity ; and when truly
converted, as many of them are, they are not behind their
white neighbours in showing forth the fruits of the Spirit.
Founding and Development of Missions 309

 

5. While giving careful attention to the religious
needs of the home population, the Indian tribes of Ontario,
the North-West, and British Columbia, it was not until
1873 that Canadian Methodism decided to enter the
foreign field. Dr. Punshon had repeatedly pressed upon
the attention of the board the great value of foreign
missions in quickening the missionary zeal and deepening
the spiritual life of the Church at home, and there were
others who shared his convictions on that point. The
project was new, the claims of the home work were
urgent, but the faith and courage of those who urged
the venture—if venture it was—have been fully vindi-
cated by the results. After much anxious consultation
and prayer it was decided to begin a mission in Japan.
This most interesting nation, which for centuries - had
been hermetically sealed against the world, had suddenly
opened its gates, and missionaries from various churches
were already entering the field. It is true the former
edicts against Christianity had not been withdrawn ;
popular prejudice against everything foreign was still
very strong, and those who volunteered for missionary
service took their lives*in their hands. But the old
heroic spirit was not dead in the Church, and when the
call came for men to enter an open but dangerous door,
there were no signs of hesitation. From a number of
available men the choice fell upon the Rev. George
Cochran, D.D., and the Rev. Davidson Macdonald, M.D.,
and they were sent forth with earnest prayers to found
the first foreign mission of Canadian Methodism. The
results proved the wisdom of the choice. The difficulties
encountered were many and great, and ‘the missionaries
310 Methodism in Canada

 

had to proceed with the utmost caution; but in the end
faith and patience had their reward. Difficulties were
surmounted ; prejudice and suspicion were allayed; and
the two missionaries gained a hold upon the confidence
and sympathy of the people that has not been shaken to
this day. In after-years, when the mission was in full
operation, a volunteer from another church was on his
way to begin work in Japan. On board the steamship
he met a missionary of the Protestant Episcopal Church
of the United States who was returning after a year's
furlough. Naturally the new recruit was anxious to profit
by the experience of his fellow-passenger, and asked many
questions about the country and the people, and the best
methods of carrying on missionary work. In one of
their ‘conversations, when touching on the latter point,
the Episcopal missionary said in substance, “I do not
think I can give you better advice than to study the
work and methods of the Canada Methodist Mission.
Their work has been conducted with singular tact and
skill.”

In 1889 it was found that the growth of the work
in Japan had been such as to justify reorganisation and
an increased measure of autonomy. Accordingly an Annual
Conference was formed which now embraces 5 districts,
25 circuits, with many out-stations, and a membership
of 2,636. This is altogether apart from the work of
the Women’s Missionary Society, which is a very im-
portant factor. The two brethren who founded the
mission are no longer connected with it. Dr. Cochran,
after many years of valuable service, returned home in
failing health, and since then has passed to his eternal
Founding and Development of Missions 311

 

rest; but in Japan, among the native Christians, the
students he trained, the converts he won, his name is
“as ointment poured forth.” Dr. Macdonald, the “ beloved
physician,” still resides in Tokyo, honoured by natives and
foreigners alike, and trusted by the Japanese to a degree
to which a foreigner seldom atitains.

For several years previous to 1900, leading men in
the Church were asking if the time had not come when
the Methodist Church should survey the vast field of
unevangelized heathendom with the view of extending the
foreign work. The suggestion took practical shape at the
General Conference of 1890, when the project of a new
foreign mission was commended to the General Board of
Missions, with authority to take such action as might seem
to be desirable. When the question came up in the
General’ Board it became evident that the suggestion was
not premature. With practical unanimity the board
affirmed the desirableness of at once occupying new
ground, and as concurring providences seemed to point to
China, the Executive Committee was authorised to take all
necessary steps to give effect to the decision of the board.
After careful consideration, the province of Sz’ Chuan in
West China was selected as a promising field. The Rev.
V. C. Hart, D.D., who for twenty years had superintended
the missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Central
China, was secured as leader of the new enterprise, and
with him was associated the Rev. George E. Hartwell,
B.A., B.D., with O. L. Kilborn, M.A., M.D., and D. W.
Stevenson, M.D., as medical missionaries. The Women’s
Missionary Society also decided to enter the field, and two
lady missionaries—Dr. Retta Gifford and Miss Brackbil]—.
312 Methodism in Canada

 

were appointed. In the spring of 1892 the missionaries
reached their distant field, and for three years pursued
their work with faith and patience, chiefly in the cities of
Chentu and Kiating. Then came the riots, during which
all the mission property was destroyed, and the missionaries
barely escaped with their lives. For a time the mission
was completely broken up, but ultimately the missionaries
returned and resumed their interrupted work. Everything
continued peaceful till the time of the Boxer uprising,
when circumstances became so threatening that the
missionaries were strongly urged by the British Consul
at Chungking to leave the province and make their way
to the coast, which they succeeded in doing. After an
interval of. a year and a half the missionaries again
returned, found the premises intact, and once more
resumed their work. As this is written there are rumours
of fresh disturbances in many parts of the empire, and no
one can predict what a day in China may bring forth;
but our missionaries are in God’s keeping, and living or
dying they are the Lord’s.

There are eight missionaries of the Methodist Church
in Canada now labouring in West China, and an equal
number under the control of the Women’s Missionary
Society. Beside the directly evangelistic work, there are
three hospitals and a printing and publishing house, which
is taxed to its utmost resources to supply the demand.
There is a widespread and urgent call, chiefly among the.
student class, for instruction in the English language and
in Western science, and the number who ask instruction
from our missionaries is far greater than they are able to
accommodate. Jf only the Church were able to send the
Founding and Development of Missions 313

 

needed reinforcements, a great harvest might be reaped in
West China.

Such is, in brief, an outline of the story of mission
work connected with the Methodist Church in Canada; a
story abounding in thrilling. incidents and wonderful
triumphs of redeeming grace, which there is not space to
record. But perhaps enough has been written to show
that the Methodist Church, in its origin, history, and
traditions, is “essentially missionary,” and that its
providential mission, in co-operation with other branches
of Methodism, is to spread scriptural holiness all over the
world. If the spirit of this mission is maintained, her
career will be one of ever-spreading conquest. If it is
suffered to decline, Ichabod will be written upon her
ruined walls.
VII
THE UNIFICATION OF CANADIAN
> METHODISM

In the early sixties there was a complete dead-lock in
Canadian politics. For this the system which gave equal
representation to Upper and Lower Canada in the Parlia-
ment of the two provinces was in part responsible, and the
system of party government was responsible for the rest.
A general election took place in 1861, and when Parliament
met in the following March party strife was renewed with
vigour. The American Civil War was now in progress, and
the position of the Canadian Government was critical
owing to complications between Great Britain and the
United States growing out of the Trent imbroglio. The
British Government, besides sending some of its choice
regiments and large munitions of war to Canada, undertook
extensive military works at Quebec, with the understanding
that the cost of works at Montreal and places west would
be defrayed from the provincial treasury. There was a
somewhat general feeling that the cost would be beyond
the ability of the provinces to sustain, while many regarded
the whole thing as a war-scare, for which there was not
sufficient justification. In the Legislature a Government

Militia Bill was introduced, which was vigorously opposed,
344 :
The Unification of Canadian Methodism 315

 

resulting in an adverse vote, whereupon the Cartier-
Macdonald ministry resigned. Mr. John Sandfield
Macdonald was called to form a new cabinet, which he
succeeded in doing, and announced as leading features
of his policy the double majority principle in all
matters affecting locally either province, a readjustment
of representation, and an increase of revenue and
protection of manufacturers by a revised customs tariff.
When Parliament assembled, agitation for the increased
representation of Upper Canada was renewed, but was
defeated by the Lower Canada vote. Afterward the
Government was defeated on a straight vote of want of
confidence, and at once appealed to the country. In the
new Parliament the Government had a majority of only -
three, and in 1864, finding themselves without a working
majority, resigned. Sir E. P. Taché succeeded in forming
a new cabinet, but within three months it also was
defeated.

The dead-lock was now at its worst. Parties were so
evenly balanced that neither of them could carry on the
Government alone, and a dissolution of the House and
change of ministry failed to improve the situation. At
this juncture a federation of all the British American
provinces, as a solution of existing difficulties, began to
assume form and ‘substance. The Government leaders
approached the Opposition leaders with proposals for a
coalition ministry to carry out the scheme, and this was .
hailed with general satisfaction, as the people were weary
of bitter and fruitless party strife. Conferences were held
with representatives of the maritime provinces, and in
1865 the Canadian Parliament adopted the Confederation
316 Methodism in Canada

 

scheme. At first there was intense opposition in the Kast.
At a general election in New Brunswick not one of those
who had been delegated to the inter-provincial Conference
at Quebec was re-elected. The opposition in Nova Scotia
was equally strong; but the Imperial Government favoured
the measure, and ultimately the tide of popular feeling
in the maritime provinces turned in favour of federation.
On the 1st of July 1867 the Confederation Act, known as
the British North American Act, which had been passed
by the Imperial Parliament, went into effect, and the
confederated provinces assumed a position among the
nations as the Dominion of Canada. The Dominion
comprised the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada
(now designated respectively Ontario and Quebec), New
Brunswick, and Nova Scotia; and provision was made
for the future admission of Prince Edward Island, the
-Hudson’s Bay Territory, British Columbia, and New-
foundland. With the exception of the last-named colony,
all the outlying territories have been admitted, and the
Dominion extends, without a break, from ocean to
ocean and from the American boundary to the Arctic.
Sea.

The spirit of consolidation was now in the air, and the
example set in the political realm may have influenced the
churches. It is true that in one instance action in the
churches antedated any similar movement in the field
of politics, for in 1861 a union was effected between the
United Presbyterian and Free Churches ; but this embraced
only two branches of the same denomination, and its
scope in other respects was confined to Upper and Lower
Canada, Fourteen years later a far more comprehensive
The Unification of Canadian Methodism 317

 

measure was successfully carried through, which united
all the Presbyterian forces, with the exception of a very
few isolated congregations, throughout the whole Dominion:
Since then the growth of the Presbyterian Church has
been one of the marked religious features in the country’s
history, and to-day it stands, in point of numbers, foremost
among the Protestant Churches of the Dominion, Methodism
alone excepted.

Some years before the second union in the Presbyterian
ranks took place, the question of the unification of
Canadian Methodism began to attract attention; but
before this certain events took place which, as far as the
Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada was concerned,
helped to pave the way for a scheme of unification, though
not so understood at the time save by a few. The
-Canada Conference having requested the appointment of
the Rev. William Morley Punshon, M.A., as its President,
the British Conference of 1867 concurred, and the
appointment was made. During the spring and early
summer of that year Dr. Ryerson was in England, and
was so impressed with the benefits that might accrue to
Canadian Methodism from a visit of Mr. Punshon that he
wrote him on the subject, and solicited the influence of
others to the same end. When news of the invitation
and appointment received confirmation, Mr. Punshon
wrote to Dr. Ryerson as follows : “ All our affairs are
in higher hands than ours; and if by God’s over-ruling
providence I shall be assured of welcome in Canada, and
enabled to work for Christ on that continent, which I
have so often longed to see, I shall regard the disruption
of all older ties, and the sacrifice of personal position in
318 Methodism in Canada

 

this country, as a small price to pay; the more if I can
aid in the establishment of a grand Methodist confederacy
which shall be one of the great spiritual powers in the
New World.” The last sentence indicates very clearly
that as early as 1867 the thought of a united Methodism
for Canada was taking shape in leading minds on both
sides of the Atlantic. In fact, the Canadian Conference
had adopted a resolution in favour of union as early as
1866, and repeated the same in 1870 in the following
terms :

“1, That this Conference cordially reiterates the
expression of its conviction as to the desirableness and
importance of a union of all the Methodist bodies in
Canada who believe in the same doctrines, sing the same
hymns, have the same form of worship, the same love-
feasts, the same prayer and class meetings, and the same
general rules of society.

“2. That the Conference reappoint a committee,
consisting of an equal number of ministers and laymen,
to confer with any similar committee or committees
appointed by other Methodist bodies on the subject of
union, and report to the next Conference.”

Dr. Punshon returned to England before the dream
of union was fulfilled, but during a stay of six years in
Canada his noble Catholic spirit, unrivalled pulpit oratory,
comprehensive grasp of affairs, and skill in guiding
important connexional interests, not only conspired to
secure for Methodism a degree of social influence beyond
anythingit had previously enjoyed, but were importantfactors
in creating a spirit and temper through the whole Con-
nexion that prepared the way for a calm and sympathetic
The Unification of Canadian Methodism 319

 

consideration of the union question when it came within
the sphere of practical church politics.

While most of the Methodist bodies in Canada had for
several years given more or less attention to the subject of
union, to the Episcopal Methodist Church belongs the honour
of being the first to show its faith by its works. As early
as 1833, as we have already seen, a union was effected
with the missionaries of the British Wesleyan Conference
in Upper Canada; and although this was dissolved in 1840,
it was resumed again in 1847, and from that time con-
tinued unbroken. The Methodist New Connexion was
the next to put its theory into practice. Its missions
had been established for some time in the lower province,
and in 1837 the Rev. John Addyman was sent from
England to establish a mission in Upper Canada. While
prosecuting researches with this end in view, he repeatedly
met with ministers and members of what was known as
the Canadian Wesleyan Methodist Church. This was
a body formed by Elder Henry Ryan, who seceded from
the Episcop4l Methodist Church in Canada in 1829, the
year after the latter body had been constituted an
independent church, separate from the jurisdiction of the
bishops in the United States. Mr. Addyman found
that the principles and polity of the two churches closely
resembled each other, and a union was proposed. A basis
was adopted and sent to the quarterly official boards
in Canada, and also of the Executive of the Methodist
New Connexion in England. After negotiations extending
over several years, the desired union was effected in 1847,
and the united body adopted the name of “The Canadian
Wesleyan Methodist New Connexion.” Three years
320 Methodism in Canada

 

later another union was formed with the Protestant
Methodists, a small community in Eastern Canada of whom
history gives no account, numbering, it was said, about five
hundred and fifty members. ll this indicates that from
1837 the Methodist New Connexion Church had favoured
the policy of consolidation. The same might be said of
other Methodist bodies; but down to 1870, or thereabout,
the policy had been theoretical rather than practical. At
that period it began to assume more tangible form. Com-
mittees were appointed by all the Methodist churches,
and a meeting was held in Toronto in March 1871.
A series of resolutions were adopted, affirming the desir-
ability of union, and recommending a basis covering the
main points that had been discussed in the joint com-
mittee. When the report came before the Conference
of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, in June 1871, the
following items were adopted :

“That this meeting deems a union of the different
Methodist bodies in this country, upon such principles
ag may be agreed upon by the said bodies, highly
desirable.

“That in the opinion of this meeting a scheme of
union to be generally accepted should embrace the
following points :

“1, That a General Conference should be formed, to
meet say once in four years, having power to make rules
and regulations for the whole Church, subject to such
restrictions as may be mutually agreed upon by the
several uniting Methodist churches, acting according to
the provisions of their own constitutions.

“2. That if on an appeal to the quarterly meetings
The Unification of Canadian Methodism 321

 

of the Connexion—which shall take place before next
Conference—it shall appear that there is a strong wish
on the part of our people for direct legislative repre-
sentation in a General Conference, rather than to retain
the indirect but ultimate and decisive veto power on
legislation which they now possess, this Conference, in
view—and in view only—of the proposed union, will not
let this question, stand in bar; provided always that there’
be no interference with the recognition of the ministerial
order and office, with the ministerial power of stationing
ministers, and with the ministerial privilege of trial. by
their own peers.”

Consideration of the remaining portion of the report of
the Union Committee was postponed, and. the following
resolution was adopted :

“That the Conference has heard with pleasure the
report of the united committees appointed on the
practicability of a union of the various Methodist bodies
in this province, and rejoices in the manifestation of a
growing desire for combined effort and united brotherly
ministerial influence, for the more speedy and effectual
diffusion of the blessings of our common Christianity.
As this movement is intimately connected with the
sympathies and privileges of the laity of our Church,
and especially with the members of the quarterly meetings,
therefore be it resolved, in order wisely to accomplish an
object so desirable, which involves such grave and
important subjects, the proposal be again remitted to the
consideration of a committee to be appointed for the
purpose.”

The desirability of uniting the Methodism of Eastern

21
322 Methodism in Canada

 

British America with that of Ontario and Quebec
having received more or less consideration, it was
resolved :

“That the Conference of Eastern British America be
invited to appoint a deputation to meet with the committee
appointed by this Conference, with a view to the union or
confederation of the whole Wesleyan Methodist work in
British America.”

It will be seen that the proposed basis received only
a qualified approval from the Conference of the Wesleyan
Methodist Church, and the same may be affirmed
respecting the action of the Methodist New Connexion.
At the Conference of 1871 the basis was accepted “in
the main. . . as moderate and fair to all branches of the
Methodist churches”; but exception was taken to one
clause, and it was recommended that it “be so altered as
to make no distinction in the class of business to be taken
up by district meetings, composed, as laid down, of equal
numbers of ministers and laymen.”

It would appear, however, that the resolutions adopted
by the Union Committees in 1871 were not satisfactory to
some of the bodies concerned, and from that time forward
the joint committee was composed exclusively of re-
presentatives from the Wesleyan Methodist and New Con-
nexion Conferences. During the Conference year ending
1872 no meetings of the committee were held, but the
question of lay representation in the proposed General
Conference was submitted to the quarterly meetings, and
their action was now reported. Inthe Wesleyan Methodist
Church the total number of quarterly meetings voting was
three hundred and sixty-four, and as these gave a con-
The Unification of Canadian Methodism 323

 

siderable majority in favour of the basis beyond the two
thirds required, the question of union, so far as the laity
was concerned, was practically settled. A resolution
adopted by the Methodist New Connexion Conference was
also reported as follows:

“That having considered the subject of Methodist
union, this Conference would renew its expression as to
the desirableness of an organic union of the various
Methodist bodies of Canada; and while adhering to the
action of our last Conference in regard to the basis
recommended by the united committee, this Conference
feels bound to say that we could not accept any scheme
of union by which restrictions would be imposed upon the
legislative powers of a General Conference, or upon the
right of the laity to co-operate with the ministry in such
Conference in all acts of legislation and discipline.”

In reference to this deliverance the committee of the
Wesleyan Methodist Conference reported as follows:

“Tt is the opinion of your committee that the course
taken by the Wesleyan Conference on the subject of union
affords to other Methodist bodies evidence of its sincere
desire to lead the pending negotiations to a practicable
scheme of union; and your committee recommend the
Conference to reaffirm its resolution of last year on
the desirability of union, and to appoint a committee to
confer with representatives of the Methodist New
Connexion, and with any committee or committees
appointed by any of the Methodist bodies who accept
the general basis laid down by the united committee, and
to report to the ensuing Conference.”

As there was a measure of uncertainty respecting
324 Methodism in Canada

 

the final action of the New Connexion Conference in
regard to union, the committee of the Wesleyan Conference
deemed it desirable to communicate separately with the
representatives of the Conference of Eastern British
America. This was done during 1871, and at the
Conference of 1872 the following resolutions were reported
and adopted :

“1. That we have heard with great satisfaction the
statements of the Rev. Humphrey Pickard, D.D., and the
Rey, Duncan D. Currie, in reference to the practicability
of a union between the Canadian and Eastern British
American Conferences, and we rejoice to find that the
hindrances in the way are comparatively slight, and
are of such a nature that they may be easily over-
come,

“2. That this committee recommends to the Conference
the propriety of taking immediate steps to consummate
a federal union with the brethren in Eastern British
America, being convinced that such a step would tend to
strengthen and consolidate Methodism, and promote the
work of God through the whole of British America.”

During the following year decided progress was made,
and when the Conference of the Wesleyan Methodist
Church assembled in London in 1873, the report of the
committee on the division of the Conference and a federal
union with the Wesleyan Methodist Church in British
America was ready for discussion. The report, as amended
and adopted by the Conference, made provision for a
General Conference, with lay representation if desired by
the quarterly meetings of the two bodies; the division
of the work in Ontario and Quebec into three Annual
The Unification of Canadian Methodism 325

 

Conferences ; the transfer of ministers, and various matters
pertaining to the temporal economy of the Church. At
the same Conference the report of the Union Committees
appointed by the Wesleyan Methodist and New Connexion
Conferences was received and carefully considered. It
indicated that meetings of the joint committee had been
held on 1st and 2nd days of October 1872, on the 30th
and 31st days of January 1873, and on the 9th and 10th
days of April 1873, and that a basis had been reached,
embodied in certain declarations of agreement, covering
substantially the same ground as the agreement with the
Conference of Eastern British America. Some modifica-
tions in matters of detail were adopted, but nothing
affecting fundamental principles, and the way now seemed
to be clear for giving effect to the union measure. It.was
seen, however, that the action taken must inevitably
change the relation of the Wesleyan Methodist Church to
the parent body in England, and the following resolution
was unanimously adopted :

“This Conference, having considered the reports of
the joint committee appointed by this Conference and the
Conference of Eastern British America to prepare a basis
of union of these Conferences into one Connexion or
Church, and having nearly brought its labours to a close,
thereby initiating a movement which may somewhat alter
the relations we have hitherto sustained to the British
Conference, cannot allow the inauguration of the measure
proposed without expressing our deep and grateful sense
of indebtedness for the liberal support and paternal
care shown toward us by the parent body during the many
years of our past history. We devoutly pray that upon
326 Methodism in Canada

 

our fathers and brethren of the British Connexion and
upon ourselves may continue to rest the peculiar favour of
the Great Head of the Church, and that the strongest ties
which should exist between the different branches of the
same. great Christian family may continue to unite us in
uninterrupted harmony until the whole design of the
mediatorial reign of Christ shall have been accomplished
to the glory of His holy name.”

The action of the Canadian churches having been
reported to the parent bodies in England, and duly
sanctioned by their respective Conferences, the way was
now ‘open for the formal consummation of the proposed
union. In accordance with the provisions of the basis
that had been adopted, a delegated General Conference, con-
sisting of ninety-eight ministers and ninety-four laymen,
assembled in the Metropolitan Church, Toronto, on the
16th day of September 1874, and was organised by the
election of the Rev. Egerton Ryerson, D.D., LL.D., as
President; the Rev. George Douglas, LL.D., Vice-Presi-
dent; and the Rev. Duncan D. Currie, Secretary. The
spirit that animated the Conference throughout was all
that could be desired, and the proceedings, from first to
last, were characterised by harmony and brotherly love.
On the second day of the session, a special committee
appointed to consider documents referring to the union,
and certain resolutions that had been adopted in relation
thereto, presented a report. This report embodied the
basis of union, as adopted by the joint committee and
confirmed by the Annual Conferences of the uniting bodies,
to which was added the resolutions of the British
Wesleyan Conference and the Methodist New Connexion
The Unification of Canadian Methodism 327

 

Conference in England giving formal sanction to the pro-
posed union. The report having been read, the following
resolution, after referring to the successive steps that
had been taken, was adopted by a unanimous vote:

“ Resolved—tThat this General Conference do now pro-
ceed to deliberate upon and adopt such measures as may
best conduce to the interests and good government of the
Methodist Church of Canada, and to the advancement of
the Redeemer's kingdom.”

Thus the union which had been the subject of prolonged
discussion, and the occasion of no small anxiety and many
prayers, was happily consummated, and when the Con-
ference adjourned there was a prevailing spirit of hopeful-
ness throughout the Church ‘that augured well for the
future. If any forebodings were felt they were soon
allayed, for there was no friction anywhere, and before
long there were reports of blessed revivals in many parts
of the Connexion. At the end of the first quadrennium,
the six Annual Conferences, into which the Church has
been divided, were able to report a net increase of
134 ministers, 20,659 members, 221 Sunday schools,
and 19,754 scholars.

During the quadrennium which intervened between
the General Conference of 1874 and 1878 no action was
taken in regard to union with those Methodist bodies
that still maintained a separate organisation, and at the
Conference of 1878 there was no formal deliverance on
the subject; but in replying to the fraternal address from
the. General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church

1 This was the official designation of the united Church as adopted by the
Conference.
328 Methodism in Canada

 

in Canada there were utterances which indicated that the
General Conference of the recently united bodies had not
abandoned the hope of a wider federation among those who
agreed in so many things and differed in so few; as
witness the following from the reply referred to:

“ Though our external organisation as a church differs
slightly from yours, there is much that we have in common.
We are subjects of the same noble Queen, sharers of the
same constitutional rights and privileges which all good
citizens in our free and glorious country enjoy, heirs of a
heritage secured to us by the sturdy independence, unceas-
ing industry, indomitable courage, and high-principled
piety of our forefathers. Before us lies a future as full of
reward as the present is of promise. As fellow-Christians
and members of the great family of Methodism we have a
moral’ heritage, and work committed to us which angels
might covet. Nor should it be forgotten that our doctrines
are the same wherever Methodism exists. No differences
of organisation, no readjustments of modern thought, have
led to a single modification of our creed. The articles of
faith taught in our homes, our Sabbath schools, our theo-
logical halls, are such as we can proclaim without reserva-
tion before the world. May it be our glory to believe and
preach them fully and freely.”

It is more than probable that the marked results
following the union of 1874, and the rapid growth of the
united Church during the first quadrennium, revived in
many minds a desire that a union might be brought about
embracing all the branches of Canadian Methodism; but
before tracing the growth of this sentiment there is one
subject which engaged the attention of the Conference of
The Unification of Canadian Methodism 329

 

1878 which claims more than a passing reference. At the
Conference of 1874 a committee of eighteen members was
appointed “to revise and prepare the materials for a new
hymn-book, to be submitted for consideration on the open-
ing of the next General Conference.” The committee
held its first meeting in the city of Quebec on the 17th
day of July 1878, and continued in session until the 23rd
of the same month. Of the eighteen members appointed
only ten were present, and these were exclusively ministers.
Before proceeding to the actual work of revision, certain

. principles were adopted that might guide the committee in
their difficult task. To revise a hymn-book, a large part
of which had been compiled by Wesley himself, and
around which clustered the sacred associations of a
hundred years, was felt to be a delicate undertaking. It
was agreed, therefore, that each hymn should be read aloud
verse by verse; that no hymn should be omitted,
abridged, or changed in any way by less than a two thirds
vote of the committee; and that no change. whatever
should be made in the hymns which, by long and frequent
use, had endeared themselves to the Methodist people. It
was also agreed that, in the selection of new hymns,
particular attention should be given to increase the number
suitable for public worship and for special occasions, and
that in such selections regard should be had to doctrinal
soundness and lyrical harmony.

A careful examination of the existing hymn-book
revealed the fact that a considerable number of the hymns
were rarely or never sung in any of the congregations—
some because they were unsuitable for public worship, and
some because of their great length; and it was concluded
330 Methodism in Canada

 

that any hymn which after a test of one hundred years
had proved itself unsuitable for use in public worship, had
thereby forfeited its claim to a place in the psalmody of
the Church, and might very safely be omitted. In regard
to hymns good in themselves, but too long for use in
public worship, a remedy was sought in one of three ways:
By omitting one or more of the weaker or less used verses
where this could be done without breaking the connexion ;
by dividing the hymn into two when the sentiment would
admit of it; by arranging in first and second parts without
separate numbers.

It was also found that there were verses, and occasion-
ally entire hymns, referring to the crucifixion of our
Saviour that were objectionable on account of their
extreme literalness, undue and therefore misleading promi-
nence being given to the physical sufferings of the Lord
—to the scourging, the piercing nail, the crown of thorns
—as though these constituted the main aspects of the
atonement. It was deemed advisable that such hymns or
verses should be omitted. Again, in not a few hymns
expressions were found that had become obsolete, or at
least were not used in the same sense as formerly. Where
these expressions could not be replaced by suitable words
the verse was omitted. A very few hymns were found to
be objectionable on doctrinal grounds. This may excite
surprise, but an explanation is found in the fact that at
one period the Wesleys, in the plenitude of their charity
and for the sake of peace, made large concessions to those
who differed from them in regard to unconditional election
and the extent of the atonement, concessions which after-
wards led John Wesley to ask in Conference, “ Have we
The Unification of Canadian Methodism 331

 

not leaned too much to Calvinism?” Traces of this
excessive charity still lingered in a few hymns, even in
Wesley’s collection, while one or two had crept into
the supplement in which some of the most dangerous
errors of Plymouthism were expressed or implied. It was
felt that in a hymn-book which claimed to be a “body of
experimental and practical divinity,” it was needful to
exercise great care in the matter of doctrinal teaching, and
that the wiser course was to omit such hymns and stanzas
as gave even an uncertain sound on the cardinal doctrines
of Holy Scripture.

As a result of very careful revision, the committee
decided to recommend the omission from the existing hymn-
book of about one hundred and thirty entire hymns, and of
verses equalling in the aggregate about seventy-five more.
This made it possible to select over two hundred new hymns
from the best available. sources; and when the whole was
properly arranged and classified, a hymn-book was produced
which, for purposes of public and social worship and private:
devotion, is believed to be excelled by no other collection,
and equalled by very few. In 1878 the work was not
quite completed, but the Conference was so well satisfied
with what had been done that a resolution was unanimously
adopted reappointing the committee and authorising it to-
complete and publish the hymn-book within two years.

About this time the union sentiment, which had
slumbered since the first General Conference in 1874,
began to show signs of returning animation, and the
sentiment was further quickened by the Methodist
(Ecumenical Conference which met in London in 1881.
In that Conference universal Methodism was represented,
%

39 Methodism in Canada

 

and the undisturbed harmony of the proceedings proclaimed
the essential oneness of all who bore the Methodist name.
Still there were some—perhaps many—who felt that so
long as Methodists were divided into many bodies for no
better reason, for the most part, than some slight difference
in church government and administration, the affirmation
that “the Methodists are one people in all the world, and
that it is their full determination to remain so,” was but
an empty boast, and these returned from the Conference
prepared to sympathise with any effort toward unification.
In connexion with each of the Canadian Methodist
churches there were standing Union Committees, but for
several years no meetings had been held. In the mean-
time, however, the interchange of fraternal addresses and
the visits of fraternal delegations did much to strengthen
sentiments of amity and prepare the way for definite action
when the proper time should arrive.

By the beginning of 1882 a spirit was abroad in the
churches which made it impossible to longer ignore the
union question. But between the former movement and
this there was'one point of difference. Proposals for the
first union originated with the ministers, and it was chiefly
on their initiative and by their advocacy that it was
carried through; but in regard to the later movement a
strong desire for an undivided Methodism seemed to spring
up spontaneously among the people, while its staunchest
opponents were to be found in the ranks of the ministry.
At this time laymen had not yet been admitted to member-
ship in the Annual Conferences, and in the Conference
debates the mirfisterial element alone appeared. This of
itself is sufficient to account for the fact that when the
The Unification of Canadian Methodism 333

second basis was under discussion it was defeated by a
small majority in one Annual Conference, and carried by
only a small majority in another, When it came before
the courts of the Church in which the laity predominated
(quarterly meetings) and in district meetings and General
Conference where they were present in equal numbers
with the ministers, a different result was obtained. To the
credit of the opposing ministers be it said, that when union
was carried they loyally accepted the situation, and co-
operated most heartily in the future work of the Church,
In 1882 a number of resolutions and memorials on
the subject of union were sent up to the General Conference
of the Methodist Church and referred toa committee. At
a subsequent stage the committee reported that resolutions
had been received from eleven district meetings, from the
tenor of which it appeared that there was a very general
desire on the part of both ministers and laymen “to see
the several bodies of Methodists in this country brought
into more intimate and friendly relationship with one
another ; and that they would be glad, if it could be effected
without the sacrifice of anything essential to the integrity
and efficiency of Methodism as a whole, that they should
be brought into organic union.” The committee was also
gratified to learn that the feeling in favour of union was
“very generally shared by the other Methodist churches
of the country,” as evidenced by the fact that resolutions
expressive of an earnest desire for union had been “ passed
by fourteen Quarterly Conferences and by the three
Annual Conferences of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
and by at least one quarterly board and by two district
meetings of the Primitive Methodist body.” Besides this,
334 ‘Methodism in Canada

 

two mixed conventions had been held in the interests of
Methodist union. In view of all these circumstances, and
the prospect of a speedy opening of the great North-West,
the committee considered the time opportune for the con-
sideration of the union question, and summed up their
judgment in the following deliverance : ‘i

“Your committee therefore commend the matter of
Methodist union to the sympathetic and prayerful attention
of our ministers and people. We believe the frank and
courteous discussion of it can scarcely fail to be attended
with beneficial results; and although we do not close our
eyes to the practical difficulties which lie in the way of the
consummation of such a union as is desired—a union which
will make the Methodism of Canada one in form, as we
believe it to be one in spirit—we do know that, in answer
to our united prayers, wisdom will be given by which these
difficulties will be overcome, and a consummation so de-
voutly to be wished will be secured.” The report con-
cluded by recommending the question to the favourable
consideration of the approaching General Conference. It
is noteworthy that the London and Montreal Conferences
gave no deliverance on the subject. This may have been
due to a conviction that the time had not come for express-
ing a decided opinion, but it was an open secret that in
these two Conferences the feeling in favour of union was
far less decided than in the Toronto Conference; and this
probably accounts for the fact that no action was taken in
the district meetings.

The General Conference of the Methodist Church of
Canada met in the city of Hamilton on the 6th of September
1882, and the General Conference of the Methodist
The Unification of Canadian Methodism 335

 

Episcopal Church met in the same city at the same time.
It was ascertained, also, that arrangements had been made
for the Union Committees of the Primitive Methodist and
Bible Christian Churches to assemble in Hamilton at the
same date for conference with other bodies in the interest
of union. It was evident, therefore, that this was now a
live question that could not be ignored, nor could it be
settled by vague resolutions that meant nothing. A time
had arrived when a simple yes or no would be demanded,
for there was a general conviction that union must be now
or never. At an early period in the sessions of the
Conference of the Methodist Church a large committee
was appointed to which all matters pertaining to union
were referred. This committee met the committees of
the other churches, and by a unanimous vote the discipline
of the Methodist Church of Canada was accepted as a basis
of negotiation. In reporting back to the Conference, the
committee stated that in regard to doctrines, general
rules, usages, and constitution of the lower courts, no
difference of opinion was expressed, but that on some
other points mutual concessions would be necessary,
especially in regard to general superintendency and lay
representation in the Annual Conferences. The repre-
sentatives of the Methodist Episcopal Church attached
great importance to the principle of superintendency, but
not necessarily in the form to which they had been
accustomed. The representatives of the Primitive and
Bible Christian Churches, while not advocating the prin-
ciple, were willing to concede it, provided the other bodies
would concede the principle of lay representation in the
Annual Conferences in some form. The General Con-
336 Methodism in Canada

 

ference accepted the principle of lay representation,
“ provided no change is made in regard to the examination
of ministerial character or the composition of the Station-
ing Committee”; also the principle of an itinerant general
superintendency, “ provided the duties and powers of the
office are so defined as to prevent interference with the
duties and powers of Annual Conference officers or of
church courts.” The next step was the appointment of
a large committee of forty-two members “to meet the
committees of the other churches in the city of Toronto
on the last Tuesday in November.” The last two recom-
mendations of the committee’s report, as adopted by the
_ Conference, indicate that the union of the various bodies
was regarded as a foregone conclusion :

“That should the present committee agree as to the
details of a basis of union, the plan agreed upon shall be
submitted to the quarterly boards for approval or other-
wise, at the next February quarterly meetings, and also to
the next ensuing Annual Conferences.

“Tt is further recommended that the superintendents
ef circuits be required to report immediately to the
Secretary of the General Conference the vote of the
quarterly meetings, and should it be found that two thirds
of the quarterly meetings, and also a majority of the
Annual Conferences voting thereon, have declared in favour
of the plan of union proposed by the joint committee, the
President of the General Conference shall convene the
General Conference in order to give effect to the proposed
union; said meeting of the General Conference to be held
subsequently to the meeting of the Annual Conferences,”

In accordance with the understanding arrived at
The Unification of Canadian Methodism 337

 

between the representatives of the various Methodist
bodies, the joint Committee on Union assembled in the
Carlton Street Primitive Methodist Church, Toronto, at the
date agreed upon, and organised by appointing Bishop
Carman, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Chairman, and
the Rev. A. Sutherland, of the Methodist Church of
Canada, Secretary. It is not necessary to follow in detail
the work of the committee. Suffice it to say that the
sessions from first to last were characterised by harmony
and brotherly love. Differences of opinion there were on
some points, but they were treated with mutual respect,
and the spirit of conciliation which seemed to animate all
the members enabled the committee to reach unanimous
conclusions on all important points. The decisions of the
committee were then formulated in a distinct basis of
union, covering doctrine, general rules, ordinances,
church government, church property, church funds,- book
and publishing interests, educational interests, and sundry
miscellaneous recommendations. The basis thus adopted
was printed and published throughout the several Con-
nexions. In due time it was laid before the quarterly
meetings, not for revision or amendment, but for an answer
to the question, Are you willing, for the sake of union, to
accept the basis agreed upon by the joint committee? It
was also sent forward to the various Annual Conferences, so
that there might be the fullest possible discussion of every
point before a final decision was reached. The answer
from the quarterly meetings, which was given in February
1883, was overwhelmingly in favour of the measure,
making it clear that the laity desired union, and were

willing to make all needful concessions in order to secure it.
22
338 Methodism in Canada

 

The basis of union was now the absorbing topic of
conversation in Methodist circles, and the approaching
sessions of the Annual Conferences were looked forward to
with intense interest. The laity had spoken with no un-
certain sound, but it was known that strong prejudices
existed among the ministers, and while some were en-
thusiastically in favour of the measure, others were just as
strongly opposed. If the Annual Conferences should assume
a hostile attitude, the scheme would be imperilled, and the
good ship Union, that had been launched under favourable
auspices and steered safely thus far past rocks and shoals,
might after all be wrecked at the harbour’s mouth. The
bare possibility of such a contingency gave rise to feelings
of deep concern in many minds, for it was clearly seen
that a collision between ministers and people on so im-
portant a question would be a great calamity, and many
earnest prayers went up to God that He would rule and
overrule in the whole matter.

The Annual Conferences of the Methodist Church of
Canada were accustomed to meet, as regards time, in the
following order: Montreal, London, Toronto, Nova Scotia,
New Brunswick, Newfoundland. In the first instance,
therefore, attention was turned to the Montreal Conference,
which assembled in the city of Ottawa on the 30th of
May 1883. Day by day the papers were eagerly scanned
for accounts of the proceedings, and when the debate on
union closed, and it was announced that the basis had
been adopted by a majority of only fifteen votes out of
a total of one hundred and seventeen, any feeling of relief
that was experienced was not very profound. Next in
order came the London Conference, which assembled in the
The Unification of Canadian Methodism 339

 

city of St. Catharines on the 6th of June, and continued
in session for nine days. Here, as at Ottawa, the absorb-
ing topic was the basis of union, and in this Conference
some of the staunchest opponents of the measure were to
be found. As the debate proceeded it became evident the
vote would be a very close one, and it was doubtful which
way the scale would turn. On the eighth day the dis-
cussion closed, and when it was announced that the basis
had been rejected by a majority of thirteen out of a total
vote of one hundred and eighty-nine little surprise was
felt or expressed.

When the action of the London Conference became
known, public attention at once centred on Peterborough,
where the Toronto Conference had assembled on the 13th
of June, the day before the vote in London Conference was
taken. The situation as regarded union was now felt to
be not only serious but extremely critical, and it is not
surprising that many were saying, “As goes Toronto Con-
ference, so goes the Connexion.” Those who spoke in this
way did not forget that the Maritime Conferences were yet
to be heard from; but it was understood that they were
less deeply concerned in the union movement than were
the Conferences farther west, because they had not experi-
enced the evil effects of a divided Methodism. It was
probable, therefore, that their action would be determined,
to some extent, by the attitude of the Conferences in
Ontario and Quebec; and as the basis had been carried
_ in one Conference by the slender majority of fifteen, and
defeated by an almost similar majority in another, unless
Toronto Conference gave a much larger majority in favour
than many expected, and larger than some thought possible,
340 Methodism in Canada

the union might be regarded as effectually buried, never
to rise again. Under these circumstances the debate in
the Toronto Conference began and was continued from day
to day by men who spoke under a sense of deep responsi-
bility. At first it was not easy to tell to which side the
feeling of the Conference inclined, for every speaker re-
ceived an attentive hearing, and every good point, on either
side, received a generous meed of applause. But as time
weut on it became manifest that the arguments for union
were beginning to tell, for the applause which had greeted
opponents of the measure gradually ebbed away until it
seemed to be confined to a group of stalwarts who sur-
rounded their leader in one corner of the church, while
enthusiasm on the other side gathered strength with every
passing hour, and culminated on the evening when the
debate closed.

When the theme had been pretty well exhausted, and
nearly all had spoken who desired to do so, an under-
standing was reached that on a given evening the debate
on the floor of the Conference should cease, after which:
those who had moved or seconded resolutions or amend-
ments might be heard if they so desired, the discussion to
be closed by the mover of the main resolution for the
adoption of the basis, and then the’ vote should be taken.
When the evening arrived the profound interest felt in the
union question was evidenced by the immense audience,
representing all denominations, which packed the large
‘George Street Church “from floor to ceiling,” most of
whom listened with unabated attention until the vote was
called at one o'clock in the morning. While the utmost
freedom had been allowed during the debate it was tacitly
The Unification of Canadian Methodism 341

 

ae that when the vote was taken there should be no
demonstration, but that the announcement should be
received by the Conference in solemn silence and with
heads bowed in prayer. At length the roll was called
and the yeas and nays recorded, when it was found that
the vote stood one hundred and thirty-seven to thirty-seven,
or one hundred of a majority in favour of adopting the
union basis. Twenty years have passed away since that
memorable evening, but there are persons not a few among
the older generation of Methodists in and around Peter-
borough whose manner grows animated and whose eyes
kindle as they recall “ that wonderful debate on the union
question.”

It was now generally conceded that the Toronto
Conference had “saved the day,” and that the basis was
safe. This hopeful feeling was strengthened when it
became known that the Conferences of other uniting bodies
had adopted the basis, and that their quarterly meetings had
given large majorities in its favour. Still later the Nova
Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland Conferences
put themselves on record in favour of union, thus increasing
considerably the majority vote. Last of all, the Manitoba
Conference, which had just been organised and held its
first session in August of that year, adopted the basis by
a unanimous vote. Still, it could not be said that the
measure was entirely safe. It had yet to pass the ordeal
of a special session of the General Conference ; for although
that session had been authorised for the sole purpose of

“giving effect to the union,” it was anticipated that the
opponents of the measure would insist upon another
discussion of the whole question, and would be prepared,
342 Methodism in Canada

 

if they could rally a sufficient minority, to block the whole
movement at the eleventh hour. When the Conference
assembled this anticipation was fully realised, and it was
evident that the subject that had already been threshed
out to the last straw would have to be gone over again,
and subjected to the test of another vote. Further dis-
cussion might properly have been resisted on technical
grounds, and there were some who thought that further
discussion was out of order, as the Conference had been
called together “to give effect to the union”; but the
union leaders judged it best to concede the demand for
free discussion, so that no possible ground of complaint
might remain.

In accordance with the decision of the General Con-
ference of 1882, the special session was held in the
Bridge Street Church in the city of Belleville, and began
on the 5th of September 1883. As the basis of union
was the only subject that could be discussed, it was
thought that preliminaries could be quickly disposed of ;
but quite a number of technical objections were raised,
and discussion on these occupied the whole of the first day.
During these discussions a resolution was adopted that the
basis of union be the order of the day at ten o’clock the
following morning, and notice was given that at that time
a resolution would be moved to accept and ratify the said
basis. When the Conference assembled on Thursday 6th
September, the President—Rev. Dr. Rice—made a general
statement respecting apprehended legal difficulties, and
the steps which he had taken to secure competent legal
advice. The Secretary of the Conference then read the
opinion of Mr. John E. Rose, Q.C. After further dis-
The Unification of Canadian Methodism 343

 

cussion, the opinion of Mr. James Bethune, Q.C., based
upon a case submitted by a private member of the Con-
ference, was also read. Preliminaries being thus disposed
of, the way was open for the main question, and the battle
was fairly joined. It was not to be expected that any-
thing new in the way of argument would be advanced.
In newspaper controversy and Conference debates every
phase of the question had been gone over many times ;
but the interest felt in the measure was so great that old
arguments were listened to as eagerly as if heard for the
first time, and sentiments that had been worn threadbare
by frequent repetition received generous recognition.

The order of the day having been called, the Rev. A.
Sutherland, Secretary of the Joint Committee on Union,
arose amid profound silence and strained attention to
move the adoption of the basis. The motion, which was
seconded by Rev. E. B. Ryckman, M.A., was as follows:

“Whereas this Conference, at its session in the city
of Hamilton in September 1882, adopted certain resolu-
tions affirming the desirableness of an organic union of
the various Methodist churches in the Dominion, and did
appoint a committee to meet in joint session with similar
committees appointed by the Conferences of the Methodist
Episcopal, Primitive Methodist, and Bible Christian
Churches, for the purpose of preparing, if possible, a basis
of union to be afterwards submitted to the quarterly
boards and Conferences of the negotiating churches for
approval or otherwise :

“ And whereas this Conference agreed to meet at the
call of the President, if there were received from two
thirds of the quarterly meetings and a majority of the
344 Methodism in Canada

 

Annual Conferences voting upon it declarations in favour
of the plan of union, and declared that the President
should convene the General Conference at Belleville in
order to give effect to the proposed union:

“And whereas the official returns show that six
hundred and forty quarterly boards out of seven hundred
and forty-nine, and six out of seven Annual Conferences
have declared in favour of the plan of union submitted ;

“Therefore this General Conference, recognising the
guiding hand of God in the movement, and feeling its
obligation to give effect to the wish of the Church as
expressed through the quarterly meetings and Annual
Conferences, hereby accepts and ratifies the basis recom-
mended by the joint committee as a basis of union with
the Methodist Episcopal, Primitive Methodist, and Bible
Christian Churches,”

The mover having spoken briefly in support of the
resolution, the Rev. John A. Williams, D.D., moved the
following amendment, which was seconded by the Rev.
William Williams :

“That we hail with great satisfaction and pleasure the
tendency and desire of the several Methodist churches of
this country to form one organic body if a basis can be
found that will carry a majority of the ministers and
members of said churches. In relation to the basis of .
union now presented to this Conference, we express our
deep regret that it contains certain provisions which we
cannot see our way clear to accept, and in addition to
these we fear that certain complications in relation to
at least one of the churches proposing to unite make
it extremely hazardous to consummate the union until
The Unification of Canadian Methodism 345

 

further information has been obtained as to the effect of
the action of the parent body of said church in England
upon titles to property involved. With respect to the
general superintendency, we declare our willingness to
accept it in harmony with the principles laid down by the
General Conference in the amendment to the report of the
Union Committee; with the understanding, furthermore,
that the restrictive rules shall not be omitted from the
constitution of the united Church, that grave legal questions
shall be settled prior to the consummation of the union,
and that the principle of the amendment above referred to
affecting the general superintendency shall be adopted, we
heartily express our readiness to enter into union with
other Methodist bodies at as early a date as may be
found practicable.”

On the submission of the eaclotion and amendment
there followed a debate never excelled and but rarely
equalled in any ecclesiastical assembly. It was a veritable
“battle of the giants,” where “Greek met Greek” in high
debate on a question that vitally affected the future of
Methodism in the Dominion of Canada, and perhaps
throughout the world. For the most part the spirit of the
debate was admirable ; and if there were moments when it
grew somewhat acrimonious, the heat could be excused on
the ground of the interests at stake, and the fact that each
member of the Conference felt personally interested in the
issue. They were not contending in academic debate for
or against abstract propositions; they were dealing with
questions that touched the fundamentals of church
organisation and invaded that region. of sentiment and
historic association that is so potent a force in determin-
346 Methodism in Canada

 

ing great issues. By tacit consent it devolved upon the Rev.
A. Sutherland, as Secretary of the Union Committee, to
move the adoption of the basis, and as he had been from
the first a pronounced advocate of union he had to bear
the brunt of assaults from the other side. The phrase
“by tacit consent” is strictly correct, for no plans were
laid by the advocates of union as to how the debate
should be conducted. They were so deeply convinced
that the union movement was under divine guidance that
they feared to mar it by plans of worldly wisdom. So
tenaciously was this thought adhered to that five minutes
before the Secretary rose to move the adoption of the
basis he did not know by whom his motion would be
seconded, The opposition to the basis was led by the
Rev, Dr. John A. Williams, and right ably and manfully
did he discharge what he felt to be a duty. But it
was uphill work, for from the first it was evident he was
fighting a losing battle, and that union was a foregone
conclusion.

The debate continued for five days, and the interest
grew as the days went by; but it culminated on the last
evening, when, in accordance with previous agreement, the
debate on the floor of the Conference was to close at a
given hour, after which Dr. Williams and Mr. Sutherland
were to be heard, and then the vote would be taken. At
an early hour representatives from all denominations in
the city, and others from great distances in the country
round about, began to assemble, and long before the time
for opening the last stage of the debate arrived, the
spacious church was crowded to its utmost capacity by
the most deeply interested audience that ever assembled
The Unification of Canadian Methodism 347

 

within its walls. The devotional services were solemn
and impressive, for everyone seemed to feel that the
occasion was one of no ordinary kind, and that momentous
issues were at stake. The debate which ensued was fully
up to the level of the previous discussions, and maintained
the high reputation of the Conference as a deliberative
assembly; but when the debate on the floor closed, and
Dr. Williams arose to speak, the strained attention of the
vast audience grew almost painful in its intensity. In an
able address of nearly an hour’s duration, Dr. Williams
recapitulated the arguments against the basis of union,
and made an earnest appeal in favour of delay, and when
he finished it was felt that the last word on that side had
been spoken.

At this juncture, however, a somewhat dramatic
incident occurred. As already stated, it had been agreed
that an address from Dr. Williams and one from Mr.
Sutherland should close the debate; but as soon as the
former ceased speaking there were calls from various parts
of the Conference for Dr. Douglas. The Doctor was
known to be a pronounced opponent of union, and it was
understood that his room at the hotel was the regular
meeting-place of those who sympathised with his views
when discussing their plans for carrying on the debate.
As a minister honoured and beloved his influence was
great, and it was felt by some that to call upon him at
this critical stage in the discussion, in face of the agree-
ment that had been reached, was tantamount to a breach
of faith. But the unionists sat.in silence, making no
sign, and, though evidently averse to speaking, Dr.
Douglas at length arose. In breathless attention the
348 Methodism in Canada

 

audience waited, and at first could hardly believe their
ears. “Mr. President,” said the Doctor,—and his massive
voice and impressive manner carried his words to the
remotest corner of the building,—“ the solemnities of this
hour, the tremendous responsibilities of the undying future,
alike call upon the Church to—ADVANCE!” Under
other circumstances the effect would have been electrical,
and the friends of union would have been elated beyond
measure ; but such a sense of a divine Presence overruling
and directing in the matter pervaded the assembly, that
no demonstrations of applause greeted the announcement,
though from more than one delegate came a subdued but
fervent “Thank God!” After this it was with a sense of
relief that the audience settled back in their seats while
the mover of the main resolution recapitulated the argu-
ments in favour of union, answered the more prominent
objections, and made his final appeal for the ratification of
the basis.

Then came the voting. Those in favour of the basis
first arose and remained standing while the Secretary from
the platform called their names and they were checked
off on the Conference Roll, when each delegate in turn
resumed his seat. The opposing vote was taken in the
same way, and all in solemn silence, the only sound being
the voice of the Secretary calling the names. A few
moments sufficed to tabulate the result, after which it was
announced that the vote stood 123 to 38; or, in other
words, that the basis had been ratified by a three-fourths
majority, with several votes to spare. Even then no
applause was indulged in, for the unionists felt it would
be unbrotherly to triumph over opponents who had only
Ti he Unification of Canadian Methodism 349

 

followed their convictions of duty. But when the doxology
had been sung and the benediction pronounced, the tension
relaxed. The audience broke up into groups, tongues
were loosed, and congratulations, thanksgivings, and hearty
hand-shakes (some of the most cordial being between
those who but a little while before had been ranged on
opposite sides) became the order of the hour. No wonder
there was a profound sense of relief. The long and
exciting struggle was over. The era of division and
estrangement was ended, and the era of union had come.
Nothing now remained but for the United General
Conference to assemble and adopt a constitution and
formulate a discipline for the United Church. And this
would be done on the day after the morrow.

Wednesday morning, 5th September 1883, dawned.
bright and fair, and the very skies seemed to smile
upon the assembled delegates as they wended their
way to the Methodist Episcopal Tabernacle, where the
first United Conference was to be held. The hymn
beginning,

O for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer’s praise,

was sung with subdued and tender feeling, a portion of
Scripture was read, and the Rev. Dr. John A. Williams led
the Conference in prayer. At once a divine influence
came down upon that good man, and out of the fulness of
his heart came forth a prayer that is treasured in the
memory of those who heard it to this day. If misgivings
yet lingered in any minds, they vanished in the hallowed
atmosphere of the mercy-seat, and few, if any, could resist
350 Methodism in Canada

 

the conclusion that the union which had been ratified on
earth was also ratified in heaven.

The devotional service being ended, the delegates
proceeded to organise, and by a unanimous vote Dr.
John A. Williams was chosen President of the first
United General Conference. The remaining sessions,
extending over fifteen days, were occupied in formulating
a discipline for the united body. On the seventh day the
election of permanent officers took place, when the Rev.
S. D. Rice, D.D., and the Rev. A. Carman, D.D., were
chosen General Superintendents, the first for eight years,
the second for four. On Wednesday afternoon, 19th
September, this historic General Conference—the most
important yet held in the history of the United Church
—was brought to a close. Since that day Canadian
Methodism has been one from ocean to ocean, and one it
is destined, I think, to remain. Strife and division are
things of the past that have almost entirely faded out of
memory, and a new generation has come up to whom the
distinctive names of the former time are unmeaning words.
There is peace within our walls and prosperity within our
palaces. Upon all our assemblies may the Shekinah
evermore abide.

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