Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

LONDON:

GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS,

ST. JOHN'S SQUARE.

AN apology is due to my brethren of the Clergy for the tardiness of my compliance with their desire, most kindly expressed, that I should publish the following Charge: but I believe that they will themselves know how to make my excuse.

It may be proper to mention, that in consequence of my having been under the impression that the Charge was rather long, the whole of it was not delivered at any one time; but every part of it was delivered either in one or other of the places, where the Clergy were assembled for the visitation, and every essential part was delivered in all.

Since the following sheets were first put to press, the Report of the late Governor General and High Commissioner has been received in this country. It is impossible that any thing can more strongly and more ominously exemplify the correctness of the remarks made in pp. 10-12 of the Charge. Let the Clergy stand prepared. Let them not be parties to any surrender of what they conscientiously believe to be the claims and interests of the Church, but let them judge what may be likely to follow in the end, if statements such as those in the following extracts from the document just mentioned, should really be

taken as the basis of legislation, and the guide of government. Let them observe also the commendation bestowed in other quarters and withheld from themselves, upon points where I am thankful to say that He who sees all, and whose approbation is all in all, knows that they are, as a body, richly entitled to it. Let them be assured that, with the Divine blessing, I will not be wanting in any feeble endeavours of mine to procure them justice, but let them discern, in the necessity for those endeavours, the signs of the times.

No person at all acquainted with the facts of the case respecting the alleged powers of Rectors-the proceedings of the Church in the maintenance of its pretensions, the working of the voluntary principle on this side of the Atlantic, the proportion of the poorer classes who belong to the Church of England, and the exertions of the Church Clergy, not only in the field of Missionary labour, but in the Missionary character which very generally attaches to their ordinary duties, can fail to see at once how these facts are not simply at variance, but pointedly contrasted with the impressions which persons unfriendly to the Church appear to have made it their business to communicate to the mind of His Excellency, and which, through his Report, have been communicated to the British government, legis ture, and people.

Marchmont, near Quebec,
April, 1839.

EXTRACTS.

But the last public act of Sir John Colborne before quitting the government of the province, in 1835, which was the establishment of the fifty-seven Rectories, has completely changed the aspect of the question. It is understood that every Rector possesses all the spiritual and other privileges enjoyed by an English Rector; and that, though he may have no right to levy tithes (for even this has been made a question), he is, in all other respects, in precisely the same position as a Clergyman of the Established Church in England. The Church of England in Upper Canada, by numbering in its ranks all those who belong to no other sect, represents itself as being more numerous than any single denomination of Christians in the country.

*

**

The superiority of what is called the voluntary principle, is a question on which I may almost say that there is no difference of opinion in the United

States, and it cannot be denied that on this, as on other points, the tone of thought prevalent in the Union has exerted a very considerable influence over the neighbouring provinces.

The Church, too, for which alone it is proposed that the State should provide, is the Church which, being that of the wealthy, can best provide for itself, and has the fewest poor to supply with gratuitous religious instruction. Another consideration which distinguishes the grounds on which such a question must be decided in old and new countries is, that the state of society in the latter is not susceptible of such an organization as is necessary for the efficiency of any Church Establishment of which I know, more especially of one so constituted as the Established Church of England; for the essence of the Establishment is its Parochial Clergy. The services of a Parochial Clergy are almost inapplicable to a colony, where a constantly varying population is widely scattered over the country. Any Clergy there must be rather Missionary than Parochial.

« AnteriorContinuar »