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A Survey of Canadian Church History*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Henry H. Walsh*
Affiliation:
McGill University, Montreal, Quebec

Extract

It is a constant theme of all writers on Canada that the feat of “extending the thin ribbon of population towards the Pacific and of holding all together demanded both the alert resourcefulness of the pioneer and the strategic daring and tactical caution of the true statesman.” It is also affirmed that “in the annals of political architecture the formation of the Dominion of Canada deserves a foremost place.” Both in the process of extension and in the formation of the federal constitution the leaders of the Canadian churches played a vital role. Also they helped to give substantial reality to an artificially contrived nation by fashioning their own church structures in accordance with the new national boundaries of 1867. But what was far more important, they actively cooperated, perhaps even against their own inner convictions, in bringing about a modus vivendi between the two warring cultures that found themselves compelled to live together in one house. Preceding the present “mutual agreement to forgive and forget” there is a long story of religious warfare and rivalry which ought to be of interest to church historians generally, if only to gain some insight into the character of a Christianity which has been so largely shaped under negative conditions.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1958

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Footnotes

*

Henry H. Walsh is Professor of Church History, Faculty of Divinity, McGill University. He holds academic degrees of B. A. and M. A. from King’s College, Halifax, N. S., B. D. from the General Synod of the Anglican Church in Canada, S. T. M. from the General Theological Seminary, New York, Ph. D. from Columbia University. He is an Honorary Canon of All Saints Cathedral, Halifax, and one-time examining chaplain to the Bishop of Nova Scotia. His most important publications are: The Concordat of 1801 (New York, 1933), and The Christian Church in Canada (Ryerson, 1956). Address: Divinity Hall, 3520 University St., Montreal, P. Q., Canada.

References

1 The Cambridge History of the British Empire (Cambridge, 1930), VI, vi.

2 Vide Sedgwick’s, H. D. Ignatius Loyola (New York, 1923), p. 127 et seq., where he contrasts Fénelon and François de Sales with Loyola.Google Scholar

3 Vide Miller, & Johnson, , The Puritans (New York, 1938), pp. 5761 Google Scholar. R. G. Thwaites, I, 133.

4 Vide The Jesuit Relations and Allied Documents (Cleveland, 1876–1901), ed. by

4a Vide Gosselin, A., Le Vénérable François de Montmorency-Laval (Quebec, 1901), pp. 58 et seq.Google Scholar

5 Ibid., pp. 321 et seq.

6 Vide Mandements Lettres Pastorales et Circulaires des Evêques de Québec publ, par Mgr. Tetu et Abbé C. O. Gagnon (Quebec, 1888), II, 188 et seq.

7 So called by Haliburton, T. C. in An Historical and Statistical Account of Nova Scotia (Halifax, 1892), I, 220.Google Scholar

8 Nova Scotia Archives, I, 124.

9 Vide C. F. Pascoe, Two Hundred Years of S. P. G., 1701–1900, vol. I, chap. XXI.

10 Vide Armstrong, M. W., The Great Awakening in Nova Scotia 1776–1809 (Hartford, Conn., 1948)Google Scholar, passim; also Clark, S. D., Church and Sect in Canada (Toronto, 1948), especially chaps. 1 & 2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Vide Roy, M., The Parish and Democracy in French Canada (Torento, 1950), p. 17.Google Scholar

12 Vide Alline, Henry, Life and Journal (Boston, 1806).Google Scholar

13 Vide C. F. Pascoe, op. cit., I, 130.

14 Vide Walsh, H. H., The Christian Church in Canada, pp. 57.Google Scholar

15 M. W. Armstrong, op. cit., p. 136.

16 Vide S. D. Clark, op. cit., pp. 80–84.

17 Vide O’Brien, C., Memoirs of Rt. Rev. Edmund Burke (Ottawa, 1894), passim.Google Scholar Gregg, W., History of the Presbyterian Church in the Dominion of Canada (Toronto, 1885)Google Scholar estimates that there were 90,000 Roman Catholics in the Eastern Provinces in 1834, and an equal number of Presbyterians; Church of England, 70,000; Baptists, 60,000; Methodists, 30,000; other denominations, 10,000.

18 For an estimate of the leadership of Bishop Mountain vide Millman, T. T., Jacob Mountain, First Lord Bishop of Quebec (Toronto, 1947), especially pp. 264283.Google Scholar

19 Vide Mandements, op. cit., III, 7 et seq.

20 Vide Reid, W. S., The Church of Scotland in Lower Canada: its struggle for establishment (Toronto, 1936), passim.Google Scholar

22 Vide Millman, T. R., Life of Bishop Stewart (London, Ont., 1953), especially pp. 155173.Google Scholar

23 Vide Bethune, A. N., Memoir of the Right Reverend John Strachan (Toronto, 1870), passim.Google Scholar

21 For the origin & growth of Methodism on the Canadian frontier vide Carrol, J., Case and His Contemporaries (Toronto, 1867), especially vol. I.Google Scholar

24 Vide Sissons, C. B., Egerton Ryerson, His Life and Letters (Toronto, 1937–1947), I, 349446.Google Scholar

25 Vide Macdonnell, W. J., Reminiscences of the Late Hon. and Right Rev. Alexander Macdonnell, etc. (Toronto, 1888), passim.Google Scholar

26 W. Gregg, op. cit., passim.

27 The census of 1842 found in Census of Canada 1870–1811 (Ottawa, 1876) gives church populations as follows: Roman Catholics, 637,742; Anglicans, 151,318; Presbyterians, 120,076; Methodists, 98,747; Baptists, 20,474; Congregationalists, 8,159; Lutherans, 4,625; and Quakers, 5,200.

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29 An interesting discussion of the beginnings of higher education in Canada is to be found in The Cambridge History of the British Empire, VI, 788–799.

30 Vide Percival, W. P., Across the Years: A Century of Education in Quebec (Montreal, 1946)Google Scholar for an enlightening account of the dual educational system that now prevails in the province of Quebec.

31 Vide Macmillan, C., McGill and Its Story (London & Toronto), passim.Google Scholar

32 The University of Toronto and Its Colleges 1827–1906, published by the Librarian (Toronto, 1906), passim.

33 The Report of Earl of Durham (London, 1902).

34 A detailed account of the origin of l’Institut Canadien is to be found in the History of the Guibord Case (published by the “Witness” Printing House, Montreal, 1875).

35 Vide Silcox, C. E., Church Union in Canada (New York, 1933), passim.Google Scholar

36 Vide Sweet, W. W., The American Churches (New York & Nashville, 1948), especially chap. VII.Google Scholar

37 Vide Gordon, C. W., The Life of James Robinson, D. D. (Toronto, 1908), especially chap. VI.Google Scholar

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39 Vide Morice, A. G., History of the Catholic Church in Western Canada (Toronto, 1910)Google Scholar, especially vol. II, pp. 57 et seq.

40 Vide The Manitoba School Case, 1894 (ed. for the Canadian Government by the appellant’s solicitors in London, 1895), passim.

41 Vide Skelton, O. D., Life and Letters of Sir Wilfrid Laurier (Toronto, 1921), passim.Google Scholar

42 Vide Daly, G. T., Catholic Problems in Western Canada (Toronto, 1921), passim.Google Scholar

43 Vide Canadian Frontiers of Settlements, ed. by St. A. Macintosh and A. L. Joerg (Toronto, 1936), vol. VII, passim.

44 Vol. XXI, No. 3 (Sept., 1952), pp. 212–213.

45 Vide Clark, S. D., “The Canadian Community,” Canada, ed. by Brown, G. W. (Toronto, 1950), p. 481.Google Scholar

46 Vide Report, Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts Letters and Sciences (Ottawa, 1951), pp. 136 et seq.

47 Vide Philips, Charles E., “Education” in The Culture of Contemporary Canada, ed. by Park, Julian (Toronto, 1957), p. 321.Google Scholar

48 These forms, says Bracq, J. C. in L’Evolution du Canada Francais (Montreal, 1927), p. 394 Google Scholar, “were determined by historic memories, by the spirit of the clergy and the climate.”

49 Vide Dion, Gérard and O’Neil, Louis, L’immoralité dans la province de Québec (pub. par Le comité de moralité publique de Montreal, 1956).Google Scholar