Even if the jealousy of rival politicians—each bent upon self-aggrandizement at the expense of more honourable aims—should defeat all efforts in behalf of religious endowments through the Dominion Legislature, cannot the religious associations amongst us bestir themselves in time? Cannot the necessity for actual settlement be waived in favour of donations by individuals for Church uses? Cannot the powerful Pacific Railway Syndicate themselves take up this great duty, of setting apart certain sections in favour of a Christian ministry?
The signs of the times are dark—dark and fearful. In Europe, by the confession of many eminent public writers, heathenism is overspreading the land. In the United States, a community of the sexes is shamelessly advocated; and there is no single safeguard of public or private order and morality, that is not openly scoffed at and set at nought.
Oh, men! men! preachers, and dogmatists, and hierarchs of all sects! see ye not that your strifes and your jealousies are making ye as traitors in the camp, in the face of the common enemy? See ye not the multitudes approaching, armed with the fell weapons of secular knowledge—cynicism, self-esteem, greed, envy, ambition, ill-regulated passions unrestrained!
One symptom of a nobler spirit has shown itself in England, in the understanding lately suggested, or arrived at, that the missions of any one Protestant Church in the South Sea Islands shall be entirely undisturbed by rival missionaries. This is right; and if right in Polynesia, why not in Great Britain? why not in Canada? Why cultivate half-a-dozen contentious creeds in every new township or village? Would it not be more amiable, more humble, more self-denying, more exemplary—in one word, more like our Master and Saviour—if each Christian teacher were required to respect the ministrations of his next neighbour, even though there might be some faint shade of variety in their theological opinions; provided always that those ministrations were accredited by some duly constituted branch of the Christian Church.
I profess that I can see no reason why an endowment should not be provided in every county in the North-West, to be awarded to the first congregation, no matter how many or how few, that could secure the services of a missionary duly licensed, be he Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, Congregationalist, Disciple—aye, even Anglican or Roman Catholic. No sane man pretends, I think, that eternal salvation is limited to any one, or excluded from any one, of those different churches. That great essential, then, being admitted, what right have I, or have you, dear reader, to demand more? What right have you or I to withhold the Word of God from the orphan or the outcast, for no better reason than such as depends upon the construction of particular words or texts of Holy Scripture, apart from its general tenor and teaching?
Again I say, it is much to be deplored that Canada had not more Reformers, and Conservatives too, as liberal-minded as was W. L. Mackenzie, in regard to the maintenance and proper use of the Clergy Reserves.
It was not the Imperial Government, it was not Lord John Russell, or Sir Robert Peel, or Lords Durham and Sydenham, that were answerable for the dispersion of the Clergy Reserves. What they did was to leave the question in the hands of the Canadian Legislature. It was the old, old story of the false mother in the "Judgment of Solomon," who preferred that the infant should be cut in twain rather than not wrested from a rival claimant.
I would fain hope that the future may yet see a reversal of that disgrace to our Canadian Statute Book. Not by restoring the lands to the Church of England, or the Churches of England and Scotland—they do not now need them—but by endowing all Christian churches for the religious teaching of the poorer classes in the vast North-West.