XIV.
THE DIOCESE OF CALEDONIA.
As we have already mentioned, when Mr. Duncan went out in 1856 there was but one clergyman of the Church of England on the whole western coast of British America, viz., the Rev. E. Cridge, chaplain at Victoria. The colony of British Columbia, however, grew apace; and in 1859 it was formed into a Diocese, Dr. Hills being appointed the first Bishop. The visits of Bishop Hills and of more than one of his colonial clergy to Metlakahtla have been noticed in the foregoing pages. By them a large number of the Christian Indians were baptized. The C. M. S. Committee have always desired to provide an ordained missionary for the settlement; but for some years their effort seemed fruitless. It has been before mentioned that the Rev. L. Tugwell, who went out in 1860, and was privileged to baptize the first group of converts, was compelled by failure of health to return home in the following year. In 1864, the Rev. R. R. A. Doolan, B.A., of Caius College, Cambridge, offered himself for the work. He laboured zealously for three years, and began the Mission on Nass River, as already related; and then in 1867 he, too, had to return to England. Both he and Mr. Tugwell found important spheres of missionary labour in connection with the Spanish Church Mission. In 1865, the Rev. F. Gribbell was sent out; but the climate of Metlakahtla seriously affected his wife's health, and he accepted colonial work offered him at Victoria by the Bishop of Columbia. In 1867 the Rev. R. Tomlinson, B.A., was appointed to the Mission, and he has providentially been permitted to continue in its service ever since. He, however, took over the work on Nass River, begun by Mr. Doolan, so that Metlakahtla still remained without an ordained missionary. But the grace of God is not tied to a regular ministry, and the settlement grew and prospered, spiritually as well as materially, under the loving care of its lay founder. In 1873, Mr. W. H. Collison joined the Mission as a schoolmaster, and in 1878 Mr. H. Schutt went out in the same capacity, to leave Mr. Collison free to begin new work in Queen Charlotte's Islands. In 1877 the Rev. A. J. Hall, a young clergyman in full orders, was appointed to Metlakahtla; but he, too, under the advice of his brethren, removed soon after his arrival to Fort Rupert, to break up fresh ground. At length Mr. Collison, having been ordained deacon and priest by Bishop Bompas, of Athabasca, during the latter's visit to the coast in the winter of 1877 -8, and having been released from the work at Queen Charlotte's Islands by the arrival of Mr. G. Sneath in 1879, again took up his abode at Metlakahtla as pastor of the settlement.
In the meanwhile, certain unhappy disputes in Victoria, arising from the extreme doctrinal views which found an entrance into the Church in the Colony, as they have into the Church at home, had resulted in a secession to the American "Reformed Church" under the leadership of the Rev. E. Cridge. Mr. Cridge was greatly beloved by the Christians of Metlakahtla, having given much godly counsel and help to the Mission; and they not unnaturally felt much sympathy for him in the painful step he had felt it his duty to take. In this state of things, the Bishop of Columbia, anxious not to rouse feelings which it might be hard to allay, with much wisdom and generosity refrained from visiting Metlakahtla, and wrote to Bishop Bompas, of Athabasca, who is a devoted missionary of the C. M. S., asking him to come over and visit the coast, and to perform episcopal functions in the C. M. S. Mission. Accordingly, in November, 1877, Bishop Bompas, reached Metlakahtla after a long and difficult journey across the Rocky and Cascade Mountains, and the wilderness of lakes and rivers stretching between those chains. He remained three months on the coast, visited the outlying stations, confirmed 124 of the Christian Indians, ordained Mr. Collison deacon and priest, and assisted Mr. Duncan and the other missionaries in maturing plans for the extension of the Mission. [Footnote: Bishop Bompas' account of the Christmas he spent in Metlakahtla is given at page 75. A narrative of his journey across the Rocky Mountains appeared in the C. M. Intelligencer of August, 1878.]
In 1879, Bishop Hills, being on a visit to England, arranged with the Church Missionary Society a plan for providing its Missions with episcopal oversight. He had come, charged by his Diocesan Synod to take steps for dividing his vast diocese into three—Columbia, New Westminster, and Caledonia—which would form an ecclesiastical province on the west side of the Rocky Mountains, just as, on the east side, the four dioceses of Rupert's Land, Moosonee, Athabasca, and Saskatchewan, form the province of Rupert's Land. The northernmost of these three divisions, Caledonia, would comprise the field of the C. M. S. Missions; and the Society therefore undertook to guarantee the income of the Bishop for this division, provided that the Committee were satisfied with the appointment made. The scheme was happily consummated by the choice of the Rev. Wm. Ridley, vicar of St. Paul's, Huddersfield, who had been a C. M. S. missionary in India, but whose health had been unequal to the trying climate of the Peshawar Valley. Mr. Ridley was consecrated on St. James's Day, July 25th, 1879, at St. Paul's Cathedral, at the same time as Dr. Walsham How to the Suffragan -Bishopric of Bedford (for East London), Dr. Barclay to the Anglican See of Jerusalem, and Dr. Speechly to the new diocese of Travancore and Cochin.
The Diocese of Caledonia comprises the territory lying between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean, with the adjacent islands, and is bounded on the south by a line drawn westward from Cape St. James, at the south end of Queen Charlotte's Islands, and on the north by the 60th parallel of latitude. It comprises, therefore, the mining districts on the upper waters of the Fraser and Skeena and Stachine rivers, with their rough white population, and many thousands of Indians of the Tsimshean and Hydah nations on the coast, as well as others in the interior.
Bishop Ridley sailed from Liverpool on September 13th for New York, crossed the States by the Pacific Railway, took a steamer again at San Francisco, and reached Victoria on October 14th. There he met Mr. Duncan, and also Admiral Prevost, who had again gone out a few months before, partly to prepare the way for the new Bishop; and a few days after they sailed together for Metlakahtla. On November 1st he wrote as follows:—
"Metlakahtla has not disappointed me. The situation is excellent. There is no spot to compare with it this side of Victoria. During this week the weather has been charming. Frosty nights, but the days mild, as in Cornwall at this season. Numbers of the worn-out old folk have been basking in the sun for hours daily. Squatting in the long grass, they looked the very pictures of contentment. They all gazed on the sea. No wonder if they loved it. Besides being the store-house from which they took their food, it is the chief feature in one of the most beautiful views I have ever seen. We are at the entrance of an estuary that winds about, labyrinth-like, until it leads up to a stream more than twenty miles distant inland. Outside are large islands, their lofty heads pine-clad, and the same garment reaching to the very waves on all sides. These are God's breakwaters. Inside, wherever the channel widens, there are smaller islands, so disposed as to make it impossible to say what is island and what continent. These are gems in a setting that perfectly reflects the grass and pines fringing the sea's glossy surface, as well as the background of snow-patched mountain.
"Yesterday the stillness was reverential, and quite in keeping with Sunday rest. Scores of graceful canoes were drawn above the tide. Not a paddle broke the silence. As Admiral Prevost and I stood in the Mission garden we heard, in the distance, the howls of a pack of wolves. A flight of crows or rooks claimed a moment's attention. Besides this, nothing disturbed the calm sea, or the stillness, but the wing of some wild fowl splashing the sea as it rose. Before we returned to the house we were ravished with the splendour of the sunset. The giant that had run its day's course transformed the scene. He touched everything, till sea and sky vied with each other in glorious effects. The snowy peaks to eastward blushed.
"But, after all, the Sun of Righteousness has produced a far more beautiful transformation in the character of the Indian, and this change is not fleeting. The church bell rings, and, from both wings of the village, well-dressed men, their wives and children, pour out from the cottages, and the two currents meet at the steps of the noble sanctuary their own hands have made, to the honour of God our Saviour. On Saturday I had made a sketch of the village. Mr. Duncan remarked, as the people streamed along, 'Put that stream into your picture.' 'That would never do,' I said, 'nobody would believe it.' Inwardly I exclaimed, 'What hath God wrought!' It would be wrong to suppose that the love of God alone impelled them all. All, without reasonable cause to the contrary, are expected to attend the public services. A couple of policemen, as a matter of routine, are in uniform, and this is an indication that loitering during service hours is against proper civil order. This wholesome restraint is possible during these early stages of the corporate life of the community. At present one strong will is supreme. To resist it, every Indian feels would be as impossible as to stop the tides. This righteous autocracy is as much feared by the ungodly around as it is respected and admired by the faithful. Thus are law and Gospel combined with good results."