Chapter XLVIII

1843-1844.

Clergy Reserve Question Re-opened.--Disappointments.

Extraordinary efforts were put forth (as shown in Chapter xxxiii., page 263) by the leaders of the Church of England party in Upper Canada to prevent the Royal assent being given to Lord Sydenham's Clergy Reserve compromise Bill of 1841. Equally strenuous efforts were successfully made to ensure the fulfilment of Bishop Strachan's prediction that the rejected Bill of Lord Sydenham would form the basis of an Imperial Act, which would secure to the national Churches of England and Scotland, for all time, the lion's share of the proceeds of George the Third's ill-fated gift to Canada of the clergy reserves. Lord John Russell, the pretentious and vacillating Secretary of State for the Colonies at the time, proved himself to be, in this matter, a pliant instrument in the hands of Henry of Exeter. This prelate endorsed, _con amore_, all the extreme views of the Bishop of Toronto; and with the aid of Lord Seaton (Sir John Colborne) and the Bench and Bishops in the House of Lords, compelled the Government to perpetuate an act of legislative usurpation and injustice, which even the tyros in constitutional law, as applied to the Colonies, were wont at the time to instance in the press as examples of history repeating itself--quoting, as an illustration, the ill-advised Imperial legislation in the case of the Stamp Act, etc.

By a singular fatality, which often attends arbitrary and unjust proceedings, the success of the scheme, which had been so carefully prepared, and carried through the British Parliament in the interests of the Church of England, was destined to become a source of weakness to that Church, and a foreboding of financial disaster. On the 29th December, 1843, the Attorney and the Solicitor-General of Canada (as stated by the Bishop of Toronto in his pastoral letter of the 10th of December, 1844) reported that having attentively examined the provisions of the acts for this subject, it was their opinion that the proper construction of the law threw upon the revenues of Canada the burthen of making up any deficiency in the clergy reserve fund, in paying the usual and accustomed allowances and stipends to the Ministers, ... and, while that deficiency lasted, the Imperial Treasury could not be called upon to make any payments to the two Churches. (See page 4 of Pastoral.)

The Bishop then charges the Provincial Government with being the cause of this financial difficulty, and accounts for the deficiency in the fund by the mismanagement of that Government. He adds further on:--

But, alas! the mismanagement has increased, pending these
difficulties; and while my clergy are left in a state of
destitution, large sums continue to be wasted in remunerating
services which are really worse than useless, and this to such an
extent as to render hopeless the expectation that the clergy
reserve fund will ever answer the wise and holy purpose for which
it was established.

In this dilemma the Bishop states what he had done to extricate the Church out of its difficulty. In doing so, he uses language which partakes more of the character of a wail than of a simple statement of facts. He also draws a most gloomy picture of the prospective religious state of Upper Canada, should the dearly prized, and as dearly bought, Imperial Clergy Reserve Act prove, after all, to be an apple of Sodom.

It is curious to notice how the Bishop, in his despairing outburst, studiously ignores the active and successful labours of the several voluntary churches--whose claims to a share in the reserves he had so strongly and selfishly opposed--churches which were even then actively engaged in "spreading scriptural holiness throughout the land," without the aid of a penny from the State. In his Pastoral, the Bishop says:--

I applied to the venerable [Propagation Society] in England to
advance, in the meantime, the salaries (only £100 per annum each)
to my five suffering clergy,--assuring the Society that I had the
fullest conviction it would be repaid as soon as it was decided
which Government was liable.... The Society paid the stipends for
the year ending 30th June, 1843, but have declined since that time
to continue the advance.... In consequence, my five clergymen have
been left without their stipends since June, 1843 [to December,
1844], ... and this large and increasing Diocese [then the whole of
Upper Canada], already so destitute of the means of public worship
(if the statute be allowed to operate as it has done for the last
four years), will, in a spiritual sense, become, through half its
extent, a wilderness. Not only are five clergymen in a state of
want, but two parishes are left vacant, and the process is
unhappily going on.... I have brought this disheartening and
deplorable state of things under the notice of the Provincial
Government.... I have pressed [the matter] upon His Excellency the
Governor-General.... But all that was in my power to do has been
without avail (page 6).

I also quote the foregoing passages from this noted Pastoral, as they throw a vivid side-light upon the course of the Bishop in so vehemently pursuing the shadow of a state endowment for the Church of England in Upper Canada. The subsequent utterances of the Pastoral show how persistently the otherwise clear-headed and practical chief ruler of that Church shut his eyes to the remarkable success and vitality of the non-endowed Churches in the Province, and how much he deplored the necessity of adopting their successful voluntary system in his own church.[128] He says:--

I represented to His Excellency, in May last, that, "on a review of
this unfortunate subject ... the distress of my five clergymen, and
the desolation with which it menaces the Church, it involves
consequences so calamitous and imminent as to justify the
representative of the sovereign in assuming more than ordinary
responsibility in arresting their progress...."

On the 31st October, I again brought this painful subject at great
length before the Provincial Government, and stated that, having
failed to receive relief, I could only see one way left of
mitigating the evil, and that is by an appeal to my people on the
present critical situation of the Church, and in behalf of my
destitute clergymen. It is indeed a step which I take with extreme
reluctance, and which, were it possible, I would most willingly
avoid.... (page 6.)

In a remarkable document, which the Bishop published in 1849, on "_The Secular State of the Church in the Diocese of Toronto_," he furnishes a painful and striking commentary on the effect of his own teaching: that it was the duty of the State to support the Church, and thus relieve the people of the chief obligation of supporting the Gospel amongst them. Speaking of "contributions to the Church within the Province," he says:

Till lately we have done little or nothing towards the support of
public worship. We have depended so long upon the Government and
the [Propagation] Society, that many of us forget that it is our
bounden duty. Instead of coming forward manfully to devote a
portion of our temporal substance to the service of God, we turn
away with indifference, or we sit down to count the cost, and
measure the salvation of our souls by pounds, shillings, and
pence.... While we are bountifully assisted, and seldom required to
do more than half; yet we are seen to fail on every side (page
19).[129]

On pages 34-40 of this pamphlet, Bishop Strachan is very severe on the clergy to whom Bishop Fuller refers, whom he accuses of putting forth efforts "to disturb the peace of the diocese--efforts which were rapidly being organized into something of a regular system of agitation, so common ... among the traders in politics" (page 34).

An agitation having been commenced by the Bishop and clergy in Western Canada, in 1843, for "better terms" and an amendment to the Imperial Clergy Reserve Act of 1840, the question was re-opened. The effect of this re-opening of the question was deprecated by Dr. Ryerson and others. Early in January, 1844, Mr. Surveyor-General Parke sent to Dr. Ryerson the copy of a letter written by Rev. Prof. Campbell, of Queen's College, Kingston, in which Mr. Campbell sets up the claim of the Kirk of Scotland, having a branch in Canada, as such, to a portion of the Canadian clergy reserves. Mr. Parke says:--

The writer of the letter arrives at two other conclusions, which, I
think, are based on error, and calculated to interfere materially
with the rights of the other bodies of Protestant Christians:
namely, that the Kirk in Canada participate in the clergy reserves,
solely by the right it has as a branch of the Kirk in Scotland; and
that other bodies of Christians participate in them merely as an
act of favour. To the first of these conclusions I entirely object,
on the ground that the Act confers the reserves, purely and solely,
on Canada, and for the benefit of interests and persons, absolutely
within Canada. To the second conclusion or statement of the
Professor, that is, that other bodies participate as a matter of
favour, I object on every ground on which it is possible for equity
to place the subject. What! shall the unexampled toils, and
incessant labours of the early and later Methodists, and other
pioneers of the christianizing of Canada, have doled out to them,
as a matter of simple grace, and a body in Scotland, who never knew
nor participated in the labour of sowing the seeds of the Gospel
through the length and breadth of the land, claim as a matter of
absolute right, for one of its branches, a participation in lands,
purely Canadian in fact and law? This I can never assent to; it was
the question on which, as a Methodist, I first became a Canadian
politician, and it is the question on which I yet feel the keenest.
I desire to call your attention to the matter, and solicit a
correction from you of errors which, I think, are insidiously
calculated to mislead the public mind, and make uphill work in
combating other questions which may arise in unfortunate Canada,
bye-and-bye. Some of the Kirk folks would monopolize for
themselves, as far as they dare, and the Church of England too; but
the general community, who have borne the burden and heat of the
day--fought and won the battle--should not in any way have their
interests and feelings trifled with by the unreasonable claims of a
few, who at comparatively a late day entered the field.

As the agitation increased, Dr. Ryerson, who was in England in 1845, addressed a letter to Lord Stanley, Colonial Secretary, in January, on the injustice to the non-episcopal churches of the Act of 1840. He said:--

There is a subject which, in connection with transpiring
circumstances in Canada, deeply involves the future condition of
the government of Canada, and which can be considered by your
Lordship alone: I refer to the withholding, to the present time,
from the Wesleyan Methodist body in Upper Canada all benefit of the
Act passed for the settlement of the clergy reserve question--a
question which certain parties in Canada propose to re-open, with a
view of depriving the Church of England of what is considered a
disproportionate share of the proceeds of the clergy reserves. The
advantage afforded by such a subject of agitation would be eagerly
seized upon by the leaders of the opposition in Parliament. The
Wesleyan Methodist body in Upper Canada (now numbering 131 regular
ministers, and 24,000 communicants), has for many years possessed
and does still possess the casting vote between the contending
political parties in that country; and should they join in the
agitation contemplated, nothing but military power will prevent the
wresting out of the hands of the Church of England their--the
chief--pecuniary advantages which it derives from public sources.
Hitherto the leading members of the Wesleyan Methodist body have
declined any public agitation on the subject--though solicited by
influential parties--contenting themselves with private
communication to the Government until they should find them
hopelessly unsuccessful. Should not their case be considered? I
have reason to believe that they will at their next annual meeting,
to be held in June, commence an appeal to the public and to the
Local Legislature on the injustice done them; as they have
ascertained that all the leading lawyers in Upper Canada of both
parties, as well as three successive Governors considered them
wronged in the manner in which they alone, of the four great
leading denominations of the country, have been excluded from the
benefits of an act, to the basis of which Lord Sydenham never could
have obtained the consent of the Canadian Legislature without their
most decided support.

I should deeply lament the re-agitation of the clergy reserve
question in Canada. Such a step, on the part of the great Wesleyan
body there, would doubtless be attended by the strengthening of the
opposition in the Legislature, and to probable withdrawal of the
support of several members from the present Government. In an
interview with the official Committee of the Wesleyan body, shortly
before I left Canada, I promised them to bring the subject before
your Lordship during my stay in England. They, therefore, deferred
appealing to the Local Legislature to interpose in their behalf,
until they should learn the result of such an appeal to your
Lordship....

I cannot suppose that it has been the wish of your Lordship, any
more than the intention of the Crown officers, to perpetuate the
exclusion of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada from their
confessedly-just claim of which they have already been deprived for
a period of four years. The amount of the claim is less than
one-half of what has been secured to the Roman Catholic Church in
Upper Canada--less than one-third of the amount paid the Church of
Scotland, and less than one-tenth of what has been guaranteed to
the Church of England. The Wesleyan body, whose members in Upper
Canada have increased eight thousand during the last four years,
will be satisfied on the payment of the sum admitted in their
behalf. And I submit that the sanctioning of it by your Lordship
will, in my humble opinion, be far better, even as a matter of
policy--apart from higher considerations--than affording just
ground for an agitation, the consequences of which cannot be easily
foreseen.

No relief was, however, afforded by a change in the administration of the Act of 1840. The Act itself remained unrepealed until 1853.

FOOTNOTES:

[128] In process of time, the necessities of his Church compelled the Bishop to adopt a new financial scheme, which he laid before his clergy in 1841, one main feature of which was to incorporate the voluntary principle with a system of moderate grants--such as has been the rule adopted for some years by the Mission Board of the Diocese of Toronto.

[129] In sending a copy of this pamphlet some years ago to the Editor of this volume, Archdeacon Fuller (now Bishop of Niagara), said:--This able and interesting document ... was drawn out from the late Bishop by the growing dissatisfaction amongst the clergy and laity, in consequence of Bishop Strachan managing the whole of the clergy reserve fund, without consulting anybody, and managing to get several thousand pounds of arrears paid to himself, as Bishop, and his protegé, the present Bishop [Bethune], made Archdeacon of York, with a salary of £365 a year as Archdeacon, while he could not find means to pay the missionaries more than £100 a year.