The Story of My Life; Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada Part 37

The year 1839 was noted for the enthusiasm with which "Durham Meetings"

were held throughout Upper Canada. These meetings were for the purpose of endorsing the famous report of Lord Durham, and for approving of the many valuable reforms which that report suggested. Much opposition and even violence characterized these meetings; but they revived and again inaugurated the right of free speech on public questions. The only record which Dr. Ryerson has left of this period of his history is as follows:--

In 1838 I yielded to persuasion and remonstrances, and was again re-elected Editor, and continued as such until June, 1840, when I relinquished finally all connection with the Editors.h.i.+p of the _Christian Guardian_.

It was during this period, from 1833 to 1840, that the most important events transpired in Upper Canada; the controversy respecting the clergy reserves, and a church establishment, was steadily and earnestly maintained.

The const.i.tution of Lower Canada was suspended for two years, and an Executive Council Government was established in its place. The dominant party in Upper Canada by liberal professions succeeded in the elections, in 1836; but, instead of adopting a just and liberal policy, they sought to exclude all Reformers from a share in the Government as virtual rebels, and set themselves to promote a high-church establishment policy, to the exclusion of the Methodists and members of other religious denominations.

This unwise, unjust, and inverted-pyramid policy laid the foundation for a new agitation. The Methodists were the only party capable of coping with the revived high-church policy to crush out the rights of other denominations and the liberties of the country, and to paralyze their influence. The Presbyterians being divided, the Canadian Conference was not to be deterred, or moved from its principles, avowed and maintained for more than ten years; the result was a contest between the English and Canadian Conferences, which culminated in 1840 in a separation of the two bodies, and a conflict of seven years--wholly political--for London Wesleyan, English superiority, and tory ascendancy on the one side, and Canadian Methodist and Canadian liberty on the other side.

It is not my purpose to enter into detail, except in so far as Dr.

Ryerson became an actor in the new scenes and events which followed the appointment of Mr. Charles Poulett Thompson as Governor-General.

Mr. Poulett Thompson arrived in Quebec on the 19th October, 1839, and in Toronto on the 21st November. As Governor-General, he superseded both Sir John Colborne at Quebec and Sir George Arthur at Toronto.

On the 3rd December, the Governor-General opened the Upper Canada Legislature; and on that very day Dr. Ryerson addressed to him an elaborate letter on the chief object of his mission. In referring to the clergy reserve question, he said:--

For sixteen years this question has been a topic of ceaseless discussion; and one on which the sentiments and feelings of a very large majority of the inhabitants have been without variation expressed; notwithstanding that Governor has succeeded Governor, and party has succeeded party.... From the time when, at the elections of 1824, the sentiments of the country were first called forth to the present moment, its collective voice has demanded, what your Excellency has avowed on another subject, "equal justice to all of Her Majesty's subjects." This question is the parent of social discord in Upper Canada; all the other party questions have originated in this. The elevation of one cla.s.s above all others in a community where there is little diversity of rank or intelligence, begets a necessity for special means to support that elevation. Hence partizan appointments to office; hence partizan administration of offices; hence party animosities, embittered by the jealousies of conscious weakness on one side, and a deep sense of unmerited exclusion and provocation on the other.... Hence on the one side a selfish, insolent, baseless ecclesiastical and political oligarchy, and, on the other side, an abused, an injured, and dissatisfied country.

The bill providing for the vesting of the proceeds of the reserves in the Imperial Parliament, to which I have referred in the preceeding chapter, was not sanctioned by Her Majesty. This was "a sore blow and a heavy discouragement" to those who had laboured so a.s.siduously to carry such a bill through the local Legislature. The objection raised to it by Lord John Russell was twofold. The chief reason, however, was thus expressed:--

It appeared to Her Majesty's Government that strong objections existed to this delegation to Parliament by a subordinate authority of the power of legislation. The proceeding should have been by address to the three estates of the Realm, asking them to undertake the decision of the question.

Thus by a stroke of Lord John Russell's pen, the whole of the pet scheme of the ruling party, devised after three months' anxious local legislation, was irrecoverably lost. And yet it was not lost, for by the after careful manipulation of Lord John and his colleagues by Bishop Strachan, Lord Seaton (Sir John Colborne) and Sir George Arthur, that bill afterwards proved to be, for ten years, the basis of a far more sweeping and unjust measure than even the most reckless and partizan member of the Legislature in Upper Canada would have ventured to propose.

When it was known that Her Majesty had declined to sanction Sir George Arthur's bill, steps were taken by the Governor-General to devise such a measure as would meet with the approval of the great ma.s.s of the people in Upper Canada. To aid him in accomplis.h.i.+ng this desirable end, Mr.

Poulett Thompson privately sought the aid of leading public men in the Province. Having obtained their a.s.sistance, he, with the advice of his Council, prepared a compromise measure which was designed to be just and equitable to all parties concerned.

On the 6th January, 1840, the Governor-General sent a message to the House of a.s.sembly, in which he thus outlines the measure which, with his sanction, Hon. Solicitor-General Draper submitted to the House:--

The Governor-General proposes that the remainder of the land should be sold, and the annual proceeds of the whole fund, when realized, be distributed [one half to the Episcopal and Presbyterian Churches, and the other half among other religious bodies desiring to share in it] for the support of religious instruction within the Province, and for the promotion there, of the great and sacred objects for which these different bodies are established or a.s.sociated.

On this bill, Dr. Ryerson remarked:--

From this message, the hopelessness of success in any further attempts to get the annual proceeds of the reserves appropriated to exclusively secular objects, is apparent.... Up to the present time I have employed my best efforts, by every kind of argument, persuasion and entreaty, to get the proceeds applied simply and solely to educational purposes.... This is unattainable, and is rendered so by an original provision of our Const.i.tution (of 1791), as stated by the Governor-General.

The bill was fiercely attacked by the then newly-appointed Bishop of Toronto. He denounced it as--

Depriving the National Church of nearly three-fourths of her acknowledged property, and then, in mockery and derision, offering her back a portion of her own, so trifling as to be totally insufficient to maintain her present Establishment; it tramples on the faith of the British Government by destroying the birthright of all the members of the Established Church who are now in the province, or who may hereafter come into it; it promotes error, schism and dissent, and seeks to degrade the clergy of the Church of England to an equality with unauthorized teachers, etc.

The Bishop then uttered, that which events proved to be a memorable and true prophecy, that the Church--

Need be under no great apprehension in regard to any measure likely to pa.s.s the Provincial Legislature on the subject of the reserves:--reckless injustice in their disposition will not be permitted; although the Church may appear friendless and in peril, from the defection and treachery of some professing members.... If any of her children incline to despondency, let them turn their eyes to England, where we have protectors both numerous and powerful, watching our struggles, and holding out the hand of fellows.h.i.+p and a.s.sistance. [See next page.]

Dr. Ryerson at once joined issue with the Bishop, and--

Confuted the pretensions of "John Toronto" by the doctrines and statements of "John Strachan," who, when in England in 1827, published a pamphlet in which he stated that "the provincial legislatures have nothing to do, either directly or indirectly, with the Romish Church; but the same legislatures may vary, repeal, or modify the 31st Geo. III., cap. 31, as far as it respects the Church of England."

Dr. Ryerson pertinently asked the Bishop--

How could a "birthright" be "varied, repealed, or modified," as he had admitted that the const.i.tutional act could do, "as far as it respects the Church of England?" Can (he asks) the Legislature "vary or repeal" the deeds by which individuals hold their lands?--Which of the "dissenting" denominations recognized by law is not as orthodox in doctrine as the Church of England, and far more orthodox than those who endorse the Oxford "Tracts for the Times?"

The bill was finally pa.s.sed in the House of a.s.sembly, by a vote of 31 to 7, and in the Legislative Council, by a vote of 13 to 4, notwithstanding a remarkably outspoken and defiant speech from the Bishop. In it he used the following language:

Feeling that the bill provides for the encouragement and propagation of error; inflicts the grossest injustice by robbing and plundering the National Church; that it attempts to destroy all distinction between truth and falsehood; that its anti-Christian tendencies lead directly to infidelity, and will reflect disgrace on the Legislature, I give it my unqualified opposition.

The Bishop again utters his prediction, and stated that what he wanted would be secured in England. He said--

At the same time I have no fear of its ever becoming law. But it may be useful, for its monstrous and unprincipled provisions will teach the Imperial Government the folly of permitting a Colonial Legislature to tamper with those great and holy principles of the Const.i.tution, on the preservation of which the prosperity and happiness of the British Empire must ever depend.

Although it was almost impossible to reason with any one who would deliberately use such extravagant language, yet Dr. Ryerson replied to the Bishop's statements _seriatim_. With a touch of irony, he said:--

After penning such an effusion, the Bishop might well betake himself to the Litany of his Church, and pray the good Lord to deliver him--from all blindness of heart; from pride, vain glory and hypocrisy; from envy, hatred and malice, and all uncharitableness.

The fate of the bill is thus described in a statement on the subject, prepared by Dr. Ryerson. What he details clearly reveals the powerful and sympathetic influences which the Bishop of Toronto was able successfully to bring to bear upon "Henry of Exeter"--the then leader of the Bench of Bishops,--and, through him, upon the other Bishops in the House of Lords. Besides, Sir John Colborne (now Lord Seaton) took strong ground in the House of Lords in favour of the views of his old friend, Bishop Strachan, and aided the English Bishops in giving them practical effect. Thus the reiterated prophecy of the Bishop of Toronto was not uttered without abundant foreknowledge. It proved too true. Knowing this, he no doubt felt free to deal in strong language, both against the Legislature of Upper Canada, and the members of the Church of England in both Houses, who were too patriotic, just and reasonable, as well as far-seeing, to second his efforts to aggrandize the Church at the expense, and against the strongly-expressed and oft-repeated wishes, of the majority of the people, of Upper Canada. He said:

On the bill being sent to England (accompanied by a most energetic despatch from the Governor-General, imploring Her Majesty's Government not to disallow, but to sanction it), the Bishop of Exeter moved in the House of Lords, that the question of the right to the clergy reserve property in Canada should be referred to the twelve Judges of England; but the decision of the Judges having proved adverse to the exclusive pretensions of the Bishop of Exeter and his party in England and Canada, the English Bishops then conferred with Lord John Russell, in order to set aside Lord Sydenham's Canadian bill, and introduce one into the Imperial Parliament which would accomplish as far as possible the objects aimed at by referring the question to the Judges. Lord John Russell became a consenting party and agent in this unconst.i.tutional act of injustice and spoliation against the rights and feelings of a large majority of the people of Upper Canada. It was against this act that Messrs. W. and E. Ryerson (then in England), on behalf of the Wesleyan Church in Canada, remonstrated in an elaborate and strongly-worded letter to Lord John Russell--the only communication of the kind made by any religious body in Canada against the bill while it was before the British Parliament, or for several years afterwards.

Knowing the strong influences which had been brought to bear upon Mr.

Poulett Thompson against Dr. Ryerson, by Sir George Arthur (page 193), and against the Methodist body generally by interested parties in this discussion, Dr. Ryerson addressed a letter to the Governor-General on the 25th March, 1840, in which he reviewed the course of the _Guardian_ and his own att.i.tude on public questions during the preceding ten years.

The letter was evidently written with deep feeling, and under a keen sense of the injustice done to the Methodist people by means of the prolonged and persistent misrepresentation of these years. He said:--

I address your Excellency with feelings of the highest respect and strong affection. You are the first Governor of Canada who has exerted his personal influence and the authority of his station, to accomplish that in Upper Canada which has been avowed and promised by every Colonial-Secretary during the last ten years--framing enactments and administering the Government for the equal protection and benefit of all cla.s.ses of Her Majesty's Canadian subjects.... In doing so, your Excellency has been told that you have patronized "republicans and rebels." ... The _Guardian_, which you have been pleased to honour with an expression of your approbation, has been charged with opposite crimes from different quarters.... You have been told that the ministers of the Wesleyan Methodist Church--whose rights you have justly and kindly consulted--have formerly come from the United States; and that the _Guardian_, during the first years of its existence, was nothing but a vehicle of radicalism, disaffection, and sedition.... As to the former, I may say that the Methodist ministers have not come from ... the United States during the last twenty years.... As to the latter, I furnish three columns of extracts from the _Guardian_, ... from which the following may be adduced:--

1. That in 1830 I entertained less friends.h.i.+p towards our American neighbours than I do in 1840.

2. That in 1830 I advocated the very principles in the administration of the Provincial Government that your Excellency has declared to be the basis of your administration in 1840.

3. That in 1830 I was as strongly opposed to an exclusive, or sectarian, spirit as I am in 1840.

4. That the very advice which I gave to the electors in 1830, as to their rights and interests, I could now repeat with a view to support your Excellency's administration.

5. That the very principles upon which your Excellency has commenced your administration, ... were actually promised and a.s.sured to the people of Upper Canada by a Tory Government in 1830.

In 1830 the Colonial-Secretary and Sir John Colborne proclaimed the "good laws and free inst.i.tutions," and the non-preference system amongst religious denominations, which your Excellency is determined to carry into practice.... When the hopes created by these avowals have not only been deferred for these years, but those who have indulged these hopes have been maligned and proscribed for const.i.tutionally seeking a realization of them, you cannot be surprised if many of their hearts have been made sick, and that confidence and hope has yielded to distrust and despair.

The Governor-General, through his private secretary, often requested Dr.

Ryerson, while Editor of the _Guardian_, to correct misstatements which were made in regard to His Excellency's proceedings.[109]

After an interview with His Excellency, at his request, Dr. Ryerson, in a letter dated 4th April, 1840, made a practical suggestion as to the desirability of establis.h.i.+ng the _Monthly Review_, as a means of disseminating the liberal views which he entertained in regard to the future government of this country, and also as an organ of public opinion in harmony with these views. It was at first proposed that Dr.

Ryerson should edit the _Review_, but after fuller consideration of the matter he declined, and the editing and management of it was, at his suggestion, placed in the hands of John Waudby, Esq., Editor of the Kingston _Herald_. It was issued in Toronto early in 1841, but ceased on the death of Lord Sydenham, in September of that year. In Dr. Ryerson's letter to the Governor he said:--

About a fortnight after your Excellency left Toronto, I happened in the course of conversation with Hon. R. B. Sullivan to mention the subject of establis.h.i.+ng a monthly periodical, such as I had mentioned to you. Mr. Sullivan was anxious that something of the kind should be undertaken; I stated to him that I understood that your Excellency would highly approve of such a publication, if it could be successfully established. Mr. Sullivan pressed me to prepare a prospectus and submit it for your Excellency's consideration. I drew up a prospectus, and got an estimate of the cost, covering all expenses. Mr. Sullivan fully concurred in the prospectus, except the first paragraph. He was afraid it might be construed into an expression of opinion in favour of "responsible Government," and proposed another paragraph in place of it. The one was as acceptable to me as the other. A feeling of apprehension and embarra.s.sment at the responsibilities of such an undertaking, and the course of exertion which a successful accomplishment of it would require, has deterred me from forwarding, until now, the accompanying prospectus for your Excellency's perusal and signification of your pleasure thereon.[110]