The Englishwoman in America

by Isabella L. Bird

The census gives some interesting tables relating to the origins of the inhabitants of Canada. I wish that I had space to present my readers with the whole, instead of with this brief extract:—

Canadians, French origin 695,000 Canadians, English origin 651,000 England and Wales 93,000 Scotland 90,000 Ireland 227,000 United States 56,000 Germany 10,000

Besides these there are 8000 coloured persons and 14,000 Indians in
Canada, and emigrants from every civilised country in the world.

As far as regards the Church of England, Canada is divided into three dioceses—Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec—with a prospect of the creation of a fourth, that of Kingston. The clergy, whose duties are very arduous and ill-requited, have been paid by the Society for Propagating the Gospel, and out of the proceeds of the clergy reserves. The Society has, in great measure, withdrawn its support, and recent legislative enactments have a tendency to place the Church of England in Canada, to some extent, on the voluntary system. The inhabitants of Canada are fully able to support any form of worship to which they may choose to attach themselves. Trinity College, at Toronto, is in close connexion with the Church of England.

The Roman Catholics have enormous endowments, including a great part of the island of Montreal, and several valuable seigneuries. Very large sums are also received by them from those who enter the convents, and for baptisms, burials, and masses for the dead. The enslaving, enervating, and retarding effects of Roman Catholicism are nowhere better seen than in Lower Canada, where the priests exercise despotic authority. They have numerous and wealthy conventual establishments, both at Quebec and Montreal, and several Jesuit and other seminaries. The Irish emigrants constitute the great body of Romanists in Upper Canada; in the Lower Province there are more than 746,000 adherents to this faith.

The Presbyterians are a very respectable, influential, and important body in Canada, bound firmly together by their uniformity of worship and doctrine. Though an Episcopalian form of church government and a form of worship are as obnoxious to them as at home, their opposition seldom amounts to hostility. Generally speaking, they are very friendly in their intercourse with the zealous and hard-working clergy of the Church of England; and, indeed, the comparative absence of sectarian feeling, and the way in which the ministers of all denominations act in harmonious combination for the general good, is one of the most pleasing features connected with religion in Canada.

In Upper Canada there are 1559 churches, for 952,000 adherents, being one place of worship for every 612 inhabitants. Of these houses of worship, 226 belong to the Church of England, 135 to the Roman Catholics, 148 to the Presbyterians, and 471 to the Methodists. In Lower Canada there are 610 churches, for 890,261 adherents, 746,000 of whom are Roman Catholics. There is therefore in the Lower Province one place of worship for every 1459 inhabitants. These religious statistics furnish additional proof of the progress of Upper Canada. The numbers adhering to the five most important denominations are as follows, in round numbers:—

Roman Catholics 914,000
Episcopalians 268,000
Presbyterians 237,000
Methodists 183,000
Baptists 49,000

Beside these there are more than 20 sects, some of them holding the most extravagant and fanatical tenets. In the Lower Province there are 45,000 persons belonging to the Church of England, 33,000 are Presbyterians, and 746,000 are Roman Catholics. With this vast number of Romanists in Canada, it is not surprising that under the present system of representation, which gives an equal number of representatives to each province, irrespective of population, the Roman Catholics should exercise a very powerful influence on the colonial Parliament. This influence is greatly to be deplored, not less socially and politically than religiously. Popery paralyses those countries under its dominion; and the stationary condition of Lower Canada is mainly to be attributed to the successful efforts of the priests to keep up that system of ignorance and terrorism, without which their power could not continue to exist.

More importance is attached generally to education in Upper Canada than might have been supposed from the extreme deficiencies of the first settlers. A national system of education, on a most liberal scale, has been organised by the Legislature, which presents in unfavourable contrast the feeble and isolated efforts made for this object by private benevolence in England. Acting on the principle that the first duty of government is to provide for the education of its subjects, a uniform and universal educational system has been put into force in Canada.