Such was the spirit in which the Governor in those days replied to the respectful address of a large and influential body of Christians. He even went further in another part of his reply, and referred to "the absurd advice offered by your missionaries to the Indians, and their officious interference."[29] Such language from the lips of Her Majesty's Representative, if at all possible in these days, would provoke a burst of indignation from those to whom it might be addressed, but it had to be endured fifty years ago, when to question the prerogative of the Crown, or the policy of the Executive, was taken as prima facie evidence of disloyalty, and republicanism.
5. Into the discussion of the claims of the Church of England in Upper Canada, two questions entered, which were important factors in the case. Both sides thoroughly understood the significance of either question as an issue in the discussion; and both sides were, therefore, equally on the alert—the one to maintain the affirmative, and the other the negative, side of these questions. The first was the claim that it was the inherent right of the Church of England to be an established church in every part of the empire, and, therefore, in Upper Canada. Both sides knew that the admission of such a claim, would be to admit the exclusive right of that Church to the Clergy Reserves as her heritage. It was argued, as an unquestionable fact, that the exclusive right of the Church of England in Upper Canada to such reserves must have been uppermost in the mind of the royal donor of these lands, when the grant was first made. The second point was, that the admission of this inherent right of the Church of England to be an established church in Upper Canada, would extinguish the right of each one of the nonconformist bodies to the status of a Church. It can well be understood that in a contest which involved vital questions like these (that is, of the exclusive endowment of one Church, and its consequent superior status as a dominant Church), the struggle would be a protracted and bitter one. And so it proved to be. But justice and right at length prevailed. A portion of the Reserves was impartially distributed, on a common basis among the denominations which desired to share in them, and the long-contested claims of the Church of England to the exclusive status of an established church were at length emphatically repudiated by the Legislature; and, in 1854, the last semblance of a union between Church and State vanished from our Statute Book.[30]—J. G. H.
Dec. 18th, 1830.—In the Guardian of this day, Dr. Ryerson published a petition to the Imperial Parliament, prepared by a large Committee, of which he was a member, and of which Dr. W. W. Baldwin was Chairman. In that petition the writer referred to the historical fact, that, had the inhabitants of this Province been dependent upon the Church of England or of Scotland for religious instruction, they would have remained destitute of it for some years, and also that the pioneer non-Episcopal ministers were not dissenters, because of the priority of their existence and labours in Upper Canada. The petition, having pointed out that there were only five Episcopal clergy in Canada during the war of 1812, and that only one Presbyterian minister was settled in the Province in 1818, declared that:
The ministers of several other denominations accompanied the first influx of emigration into Upper Canada, (1783-1790,) and have shared the hardships, privations, and sufferings incident to missionaries in a new country. And it is through their unwearied labours, that the mass of the population have been mainly supplied with religious instruction. They, therefore, do not stand in the relation, of Dissenters from either the Church of England or of Scotland, but are the ministers of distinct and independent Churches, who had numerous congregations in various parts of the Province, before the ministerial labours of any ecclesiastical establishment were, to any considerable extent, known or felt.
Jan. 20th, 1831.—As an evidence that the views put forth by Dr. Ryerson, in the Guardian, against an established Church in Upper Canada, were acceptable outside of his own denomination, I give the following letter, addressed to him at this date from Perth, by the Rev. Wm. Bell, Presbyterian:
Though differing from you in many particulars, yet in some we agree. Your endeavours to advance the cause of civil and religious liberty have generally met my approbation. Some of your writings that I have seen discover both good sense and Christian feeling. The liberality, too, you have discovered, both in regard to myself and in regard of my brethren, has not escaped my observation. Be not discouraged by the malice of the enemies of religion. Your Guardian I have seldom seen, but from this time I intend to take it regularly. Consider me one of your "constant readers." The matters in which we differ are nothing in comparison of those in which we agree.
Feb. 9th.—Some members of the Church of England in the Province evinced a good deal of hostility to the Methodists of this period, chiefly from the fact that they had been connected with the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, and that the Canada Conference had formed one of the Annual Conferences of that Church, presided over by an American Bishop. As an evidence of this hostility, Dr. Ryerson stated in the Guardian of this date, that Donald Bethune, Esq., and others, of Kingston, had petitioned the House of Assembly:—
To prohibit any exercise of the functions of a priest, or exhorter, or elder of any denomination in the Province except by British subjects; 2nd, to prevent any religious society connected with any foreign religious body to assemble in Conference; 3rd, to prevent the raising of money by any religious person or body for objects which are not strictly British, etc.
The Legislature appointed a Committee on the subject, and Dr. Ryerson, as representing the Methodists, Rev. Mr Harris the Presbyterians, and Rev. Mr. Stewart the Baptists, were summoned to attend this Committee with a view to give evidence on the subject. This Dr. Ryerson did at length, (as did also these gentlemen). Dr. Ryerson traced the history of the Methodist body in Canada, and showed that, three years before this time, the Canada Conference had taken steps to sever its connection with the American General Conference, and had done so in a friendly manner.[31]
The petition was aimed at the Methodists, as they alone answered the description of the parties referred to by the petitioners. The petition was also a covert re-statement of the often disproved charge of disloyalty, etc., on the part of the Methodists. The House very properly came to the conclusion—