It will be seen that the Address to the Crown and reply, above quoted, contemplated the application of no part of the proceeds of the clergy lands for the support of the clergy of any religious persuasion, but the application of the whole to the promotion of education, and in aid of erecting places of worship. I do not make these references to advocate this view of the question, but to show that the Crown has long since a.s.sented to the alienation of the whole of the proceeds of the reserves from the support of the clergy of any Church, should the Canadian Legislature think proper to do so, and that the Church of Scotland in Upper Canada agreed with the other religious persuasions, and the great majority of the Canadian people, in the advocacy of such an alienation of said reserves. The same parties cannot now object on const.i.tutional and moral grounds to what they heretofore advocated on those same grounds.
9. It has, however, been alleged that the people of Canada have acquiesced in the provisions of the Imperial Act, and are satisfied with it. At the time of pa.s.sing the Imperial Act, in 1840, and down to within the last two years, the discussion of questions relating to the organization and system of government itself occupied the attention of the public mind in Canada; but no sooner was the public mind set at rest on those paramount and fundamental questions, than the Canadian people demanded the restoration of their rights on the question of the clergy reserves. What they have felt for two years, and often and strongly spoken, through the local press and at the hustings, they now speak in the ears of the Sovereign of the Imperial Parliament. That there must be deep and general dissatisfaction in Canada on this subject, will appear from the following circ.u.mstances: (1) The Imperial Act infringes the rights, and contravenes the wishes of the Canadian people; (2) It inflicts an injustice and wrong upon the great majority of the religious persuasions in that country, where the "convictions of nine-tenths" or rather ninety-nine one-hundredths, of the inhabitants are in favour of "equal rights upon equal conditions," among all cla.s.ses and persuasions; (3) The Legislative a.s.sembly, by a majority of 51 to 20, declare that the Imperial Act, "so far from settling this long agitated question, has left it to be the subject of renewed and increased public discontent;"
(4) The comparative silence of the Wesleyan body--the oldest, the most numerous, and the most unjustly treated, of all the excluded denominations--is expressive and ominous. Its representatives, having proceeded to England in 1840, remonstrated against this Bill, then before Parliament; they sought the a.s.sent of Her Majesty"s Secretary of State for the Colonies to be heard at the Bar of the House of Commons against it, and having been refused, they presented to him, July 27th, 1840, a most earnest remonstrance against the Bill. On the Bill becoming law, they silently submitted, and on grounds which were explained, a few months since, by the official organ of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada, in the following words:--
On Lord John Russell"s Bill becoming a law, the question was changed from a denominational to a Provincial one--from an ecclesiastical to a const.i.tutional one. It was no longer a question between one denomination and another, but a question between Upper Canada and the Imperial Parliament. As Canadians, and acting in behalf of a large section of the Canadian community, the representatives of the Wesleyan Methodist Church expressed their convictions, their feelings, and their apprehensions to Her Majesty"s Government while the question was pending before Parliament; but when the execrable Bill became an Imperial Law, it was as much out of place for them as clergymen, or of any religious persuasion to strive to fulfil their own predictions, or set on foot a Colonial civil contest, as it would have been pusillanimous in them not to have remonstrated before the consummation of such an act of wrong against the people of Upper Canada. The question is now being taken up in the right place, and, we trust, in the right spirit.
10. Under such circ.u.mstances it is impossible that the question can long remain in its present state, and it is for the Imperial Parliament to say what shall be done. It is admitted upon all hands that the members of the Churches of England and Scotland in Canada are more wealthy in proportion to their numbers, and, therefore, less needful of extraneous aid than the members of any other religious persuasion; and in proportion to their numbers and wealth will be their comparative influence and advantages in the proceedings of their own Legislature. It is a grave question, whether the Imperial Parliament will place itself in an att.i.tude of hostility to the Legislative a.s.sembly and people of Canada for the sake of conferring questionable pecuniary distinctions upon the clergy of the two most wealthy denominations in that country?
Should any members of Parliament be disposed to pursue this course, and hazard this experiment, I beg them to pause and consider the following questions:--
(1) Can the real interests of the Churches of England and Scotland themselves be advanced by occupying a position of antagonism to the acknowledged equal rights of the great majority of the people of Canada?
And is it desirable that these Churches should be the instruments and emblems of wrong to a country, rather than natural and powerful agencies of its unity, advancement, and happiness? Interested parties in Canada may not be able to see this, but British and Christian statesmen ought not to overlook it.
(2) Ought the members of the Churches of England and Scotland, who take a part in public affairs in Canada, and who may be candidates for popular power, to be placed in circ.u.mstances in which they must either war against the position and authorities of their own Church, or war against all other religious persuasions, or retire from public life altogether?
(3) What will be the natural, or apparently inevitable, result of thus singling out two cla.s.ses of Canadian people, and distinguishing them from all others by pecuniary endowments, and sustaining them in that position, not by the free Legislature of their own country--not by the original principles of their const.i.tution of government to which Canada may have pledged itself--but by a recent Imperial Act, to the preparing or provisions of which the Canadians were no parties, and against which they protest? Is it likely that the will or predilections of a transatlantic House of Lords, so largely composed of and influenced by one cla.s.s of ecclesiastical dignitaries, can long determine the mutual relations of religious persuasions in a country const.i.tuted as Canada is, and bordering on the northern free Anglo-States of America? What the Canadians ask they ask on grounds originally guaranteed to them by their const.i.tution; and if they are compelled to make a choice between British connection and British const.i.tutional rights, it is natural that they should prefer the latter to the former? It is also to be noted that the Imperial Act in question has to be administered through the local Canadian administration. Such is the machinery of the Act. The revenue that it appropriates is Canadian, and it is worked through Canadian agency--through Canadian heads of departments, responsible to the representatives of the people of Canada. Should the Canadian people, then, find that their respectful and earnest appeal to the Imperial Parliament, through the Sovereign, is in vain, they will naturally look to their own resources and elect representatives at the ensuing general elections who will pledge themselves to oppose the administration of the Imperial Act--representatives who will support no Inspector or Receiver-General that will be responsible for the payment of even any warrant for moneys under such Act. The consequence must soon be, not only injury to existing inc.u.mbents whom the Canadian a.s.sembly now propose to secure, but collision between the Government and the Legislative a.s.sembly, and ultimately between the latter and the Imperial authorities; and finally, either the establishment of military government in Canada (an impossibility), or the severance of that great country from Great Britain. On the other hand, if the reasonable demand and const.i.tutional rights of the people of Canada be regarded in this question, I believe Canada will remain freely and cordially connected with the Mother Country for many years, if not generations, to come. I will conclude these observations in the expressive words of Lord Stanley, to the spirit of which I hope every British statesman will respond. On the 2nd of May, 1828, in a speech on this subject, Lord Stanley expressed himself in the following terms:--
That if any exclusive privileges be given to the Church of England, not only will the measure be repugnant to every principle of sound legislation, but contrary to the spirit and intention of the Act of 1791, under which the reserves were made for the Protestant clergy.
I will not enter further into it at present, except to express my hope that the House will guard Canada against the evils which religious dissensions have already produced in this country and in Ireland, where we have examples to teach us what to shun. We have seen the evil consequences of this system at home. G.o.d forbid we should not profit by experience; and more especially in legislating for a people bordering on a country where religious intolerance and religious exclusions are unknown--a country to which Parliament looked in pa.s.sing the Act of 1791, as all the great men who argued the question then expressly declared. It is important that His Majesty"s Canadian subjects should not have occasion to look across the narrow boundary that separates them from the United States, to see anything there to envy.
FOOTNOTES:
[137] Since the foregoing was written, it has been ascertained that the Wesleyan Methodists number 142,000, or more than one-fifth of the entire population (1850).
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER LIV.
1854-1855.
Resignation on the Cla.s.s-Meeting Question.--Discussion.
The last important connexional discussion in which Dr. Ryerson was engaged was on the Cla.s.s-Meeting Question. For years he had objected, chiefly privately, amongst his brethren, clerical and lay, to making attendance at cla.s.s-meeting a condition of membership in the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Canada. For various reasons, few members of the Conference desired to have the subject publicly discussed in Conference.
They felt that a serious practical difficulty surrounded the question itself--difficulties which could not be surmounted by public discussion.
Many of them also knew that in calmly discussing, without personal feeling, the abstract principle involved in the rule, it would be found that their judgment and loyal feeling to the Church would go one way, while their uniform practice in the administration of the rule would often be at variance with both, owing to peculiar circ.u.mstances. On the other hand, Dr. Ryerson thought, that not only should preaching and practice in this matter agree, but that theory and practice should also agree. And hence he felt that as his preaching and practice agreed in opposition to the rule, he was not loyal to the Church in ministering at her altars, while he was heartily and conscientiously opposed to the fundamental rule of membership prescribed by that Church. Hence, on the 2nd of January, 1854, he addressed the following letter to the Rev. Dr.
Wood, President of the Wesleyan Methodist Conference (I omit extraneous matter):--
I hereby resign into your hands, my membership in the Conference, and my office as a minister of the Wesleyan Methodist Church--herewith enclosing my parchments of ordination, thus taking my place among the laity of the Church.
I have resolved to take this step after long and serious deliberation, but without consulting any human being. I take this step, not because I do not believe that the Wesleyan ministry is as fully authorized as the ministry of any other branch of the universal Church, to exercise all the functions of Christian priesthood; not because I do not as unfeignedly as ever subscribe to all the doctrines of the Wesleyan Church; not because I do not profoundly honour the integrity and devotedness of the Wesleyan ministry; not because I do not think that Christian discipline is as strictly, if not more strictly, maintained in the Wesleyan Church than in any other Christian Church in the world.
But I resign (not my connection with, but) my ministerial office in the Wesleyan Church, because I believe a condition of membership is exacted in it which has no warrant in Scripture, nor in the practice of the primitive Church, nor in the writings of Mr. Wesley; and in consequence of which condition, great numbers of exemplary heads of families and young people are excluded from all recognition and rights of membership in the Church. I refer to attendance upon cla.s.s-meeting--without attendance at which no person is acknowledged as a member of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, however sincerely and cordially he may believe her doctrines, prefer her ministry, and support her inst.i.tutions, and however exemplary he may be in his life.
I believe the cla.s.s-meetings, as well as love-feasts, have been and are a means of immense good in the Wesleyan Church, and that both should be employed and recommended as prudential and useful, means of religious edification to all who may be willing to avail themselves of them. But attendance at love-feast is known to be voluntary and not to be a condition of membership in the Church; so I think that attendance at cla.s.s-meeting should also be voluntary, and ought not to be exalted into an indispensable condition of membership in the Church; I am persuaded that every person who believes the doctrines, and observes the precepts and ordinances enjoined by our Lord and His Apostles, is eligible to membership in the Church of Christ, and cannot, on Scriptural or Wesleyan grounds, be excluded from its rights and privileges upon the mere ground of his or her being unable to reconcile it to their views to take a part in the conversations of cla.s.s-meetings.
The views thus stated, I have entertained many years. After having revolved the subject in my mind for some time, I expressed my views on it in 1840 and 1841.... But since my more direct connection with the youth of the country at large, and having met with numbers of exemplary persons who prefer the Methodist Church to any other, but are excluded from it by the required condition of attending cla.s.s-meeting, besides thousands of young people of Wesleyan parents and congregations, I have become more deeply than ever impressed with the importance of the question, to which I referred in remarks made at the last and preceding Conferences. I had intended until within a short time to defer any decision on the step I now take until the next annual Conference, and until after bringing the question in the form of distinct propositions before the Conference; but, after the best consideration in my power, I have thought it advisable to resign my office in the Church at the present time--fearing the revival and results of unpleasantnesses from my bringing the question formally before the Conference, ... and from a deep conviction that I should no longer delay taking the most effectual means in my power to draw the attention of the ministry and members of the Wesleyan Church to this anomaly in her Disciplinary regulations, and secure, if possible, to tens of thousands of persons the rights and privileges of membership in that branch of the Church of Christ which they prefer--rights and privileges to which I am persuaded they are justly ent.i.tled upon both Scriptural and Wesleyan grounds.
I do not think it is honest or right for a man to hold the office of a minister in a Church, all whose essential regulations, as well as doctrines, he cannot justify and recommend. I say essential regulations; for there may be many regulations and practices in a Church of which a minister may not approve, and the existence of which he may deplore, but which would not prevent him from maintaining, as usual, his relations and course of labour. An enlightened Christian mind can and will, without any compromise of principle, allow a wide lat.i.tude in modes of proceeding, and in matters of opinion, taste, and prudence. But a regulation which determines who shall and who shall not be recognized as members of the Church of Christ, involves a vital question, the importance of which cannot be overrated, and which must be determined by Divine Revelation, and not by mere conventional rules.
Now, while as an individual I may value and wish to attend, as far as possible, all prudential as well as inst.i.tuted means of grace in our Church, I cannot as a teacher, by word or office, declare that all persons who will not attend cla.s.s-meetings, in addition to observing all the ordinances of Christ, should be rejected and excluded from the Christian Church. I cannot say so--I cannot think so--I cannot believe it Scriptural or right, in respect to great numbers of estimable persons, and of the sons and daughters of our people, who believe Wesleyan doctrines, who respect and love the Wesleyan ministry, support Wesleyan inst.i.tutions, are exemplary in their lives, and who wish to be members of the Wesleyan Church, but who, from education, or mental const.i.tution, or other circ.u.mstances, cannot face much less enjoy, the developments and peculiarities of the cla.s.s-meeting. I have met and sympathized with many who have sought to reconcile their views and feelings to the personal speakings and communications of cla.s.s-meetings, but who could not succeed; and not being allowed otherwise to enjoy the privileges of membership in the Wesleyan Church, were driven to seek admission into some other Christian communion.
Our Lord and His Apostles have prescribed no form of religious communion but the Lord"s Supper. The New Testament meetings of Christian fellowship, in which the early Christians edified one another, are appropriately adduced as the exemplars of Wesleyan love-feasts--that voluntary and useful means of religious edification. But it is remarkable that a person may neither attend love-feast nor the Lord"s Supper, and yet retain his membership in the Wesleyan Church, while he is excluded from it if he does not attend cla.s.s-meeting, though he may attend both the Lord"s Supper and love-feast, as well as the preaching of the word and meetings for prayer. Nay, I find in the latter part of the section of our Discipline on "Cla.s.s Meetings," that the minister in charge of a circuit is required to exclude all "those members of the Church who wilfully and repeatedly neglect to meet their cla.s.s," but to state at the time of their exclusion, "that they are laid aside for a breach of our rules of Discipline, and not for immoral conduct." I know of no Scriptural authority to exclude any person from the Church of Christ on earth, except for that which would exclude him from the kingdom of glory, namely, "immoral conduct." But here is an express requirement for the exclusion of persons from the Wesleyan Church for that which it is admitted is not "immoral conduct," namely, neglect of cla.s.s-meeting. This is certainly going beyond Scriptural authority and example.
I have said that I do not regard as Wesleyan, or having the sanction of Mr. Wesley, the making attendance at cla.s.s-meeting an essential condition of membership in the Church of Christ. Mr. Wesley declared that the sole object of his labours was, not to form a new sect, but to revive religion in the Church and in the nation; that each cla.s.s was a voluntary society in the Church, but was no more a separate Church organization than a Bible Society, or Temperance Society, or Young Men"s Christian a.s.sociation, is a separate Church organization. Nor did Mr.
Wesley regard the admission of persons into, or exclusion from, any one of his societies as affecting, in the slightest degree, such person"s Church membership. Nay, Mr. Wesley insisted that all who joined his societies, in addition to attending cla.s.s-meeting, and the ministrations of his preachers, should regularly attend the services and sacraments of the Church of England. In his sermon "On Attending Church Service," Mr.
Wesley says, "it was one of our original rules, that every member of our society should attend the church and sacrament, unless he had been bred among Christians of another denomination." In his Tract, ent.i.tled "Principles of a Methodist Further Explained," (written in reply to the Rev. Mr. Church,) Mr. Wesley says:--
The United Society was originally so called, because it consisted of several smaller societies united together. When any member of these, or of the United Society, are proved to live in known sin, we then mark and avoid them: we separate ourselves from every one that walks disorderly. Sometimes if the case be judged infectious (though rarely) this is decided openly; but this you style "excommunication," and say, "does not every one see a separate ecclesiastical communion?"
Mr. Wesley replies:--
No. This society does not separate from the rest of the Church of England. They continue steadfast with them both in the apostolical doctrine, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.
And in further reply to the charge, that in excluding disorderly persons from his society, he was usurping a power committed to the higher order of the clergy, Mr. Wesley says:--
No; not in the power of excluding members from a private society, unless on the supposition of some such rule as ours is, viz.: "That if a man separate from the church, he is no longer a member of our society."
These pa.s.sages (from scores of similar ones in Mr. Wesley"s works), are sufficient to shew what Mr. Wesley understood and intended by admission into, or exclusion from, any one of his societies--that it did not in the least affect the relations of any person to the Church of which he was a member. Now, the rule which Mr. Wesley imposed as a condition of membership in a private society in a Church, we impose as a condition of membership in the Church itself.
It is also worthy of remark, that attendance at cla.s.s-meeting is not required of members in the general rules of the society--those very rules which our ministers are required to give to persons proposing to join the Wesleyan Church.
In those rules no mention is made of cla.s.s-meeting, nor is it there required that each member shall meet the leader, much less meet him in a cla.s.s-meeting, in the presence of many others; but that the leader shall see each person in his cla.s.s, and meet the minister and stewards once a week. Yet, by constant and universal practice, we have transferred the obligation from the leader to the member, and made it the duty of the latter (on pain of excommunication), to meet the former in cla.s.s-meeting; an obligation which is nowhere enjoined in the general rules. In those rules it is said:
There is only one condition previously required of those who desire admission into these societies--a desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins.
The rules then truly state, that wherever this desire is really fixed in the soul, it will be known by its fruits. These fruits are briefly but fully set forth under three heads. (1) By doing no harm. (2) By doing good. (3) "By attending all the ordinances of G.o.d: such as, the public worship of G.o.d; the ministry of the word, either read or expounded; the Supper of the Lord; family and private prayer; searching the Scriptures, and fasting or abstinence. These are the general rules of our societies, all of which we are taught of G.o.d to observe, even in His written word, which is the only rule, and the sufficient rule, both of faith and practice." Now, neither cla.s.s-meeting nor love-feast is mentioned among the "ordinances of G.o.d" enumerated in the general rules of the society; nor is it mentioned in Mr. Wesley"s Large Minutes of Conference among the inst.i.tuted means of grace. So far as the general rules themselves are concerned, there is nothing which makes attendance at cla.s.s-meeting a condition of membership, even in Mr. Wesley"s societies as he originally inst.i.tuted them; nor did the idea of holding cla.s.s-meetings at all occur to Mr. Wesley until after the general rules were drawn up and published.[138] But what was not required by the general rules soon became a condition of membership in another way--this was by the system of giving tickets. Mr. Wesley says in his Plain Account of People called Methodists:
As the society increased, I found it required still greater care to separate the precious from the vile. In order to this, I determined, at least once in three months, to talk with every member myself, and to inquire at their own mouth, as well as of their leaders and neighbours, whether they grew in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. To each of those whose seriousness and good conversation I had no reason to doubt, I gave a testimony under my own hand, by writing their name on a ticket prepared for that purpose. Those who bore these tickets, wherever they came, were acknowledged by their brethren, and were received with all cheerfulness. These tickets also supplied us with a quiet and inoffensive method of removing any disorderly member. He has no ticket at the quarterly visitation (for so often the tickets are changed); and hereby it is immediately known that he is no longer of the community.
It was at length required by a minute of the Conference, (as our own discipline enjoins,) that a preacher should not give a ticket of membership to any person who did not meet in cla.s.s. In our own Discipline, in the section on cla.s.s-meetings, will also be found the following question and answer:--
_Question._--What shall be done with those members of our church who wilfully and repeatedly neglect their cla.s.s?
_Answer._--1. Let the chairman, or one of the preachers, visit them whenever it is practicable, and explain to them the consequence if they continue to neglect, viz., exclusion.
2. If they do not attend, let him who has charge of the circuit exclude them (in the church), showing that they are laid aside for a breach of our rules of discipline, and not for immoral conduct.
By this added ministerial authority and duty, a condition of membership in the society is imposed which is not contained in the General Rules, and which subjects a member to exclusion, for that which is acknowledged to be "not immoral conduct."
This appears a strange regulation in even a private religious society within a Church; but no objection could be reasonably made to any such regulation in such a society, if its members desired it, and as it would not affect their Church membership. But the case is essentially different, when such society in a Church becomes a Church, and exercises the authority of admitting into, and excluding from the Church itself, and not merely a society in the Church.
In England, and especially in the United States and Canada, the Wesleyan Societies have become a Church. I have repeatedly shewn in past years, that they have become organized into a Church upon both Wesleyan and scriptural grounds. I believe the Wesleyan Church in Canada is second to no other in the scriptural authority of its ministry and organization.
Believing this, I believe that exclusion from the Wesleyan Church (either by expulsion or refusal of admission) is exclusion from a branch of the Church of G.o.d--is an act the most solemn and eventful in the history and relations of any human being--an act which should never take place except upon the clear and express authority of the word of G.o.d.
Far be it from me to say one word other than in favour of every kind of religious exercise and communion which tends to promote the spiritual-mindedness, brotherly love, and fervent zeal of professing Christians. That cla.s.s-meetings (notwithstanding occasional improprieties and abuses attending them), have been a valuable means in promoting the spirituality and usefulness of the Wesleyan Church, no one acquainted with her history can for a moment doubt; and I believe that myriads on earth and in heaven have, and will ever have, reason for devout thankfulness and praise for the benefits derived from cla.s.s-meetings, as well as from love-feasts and meetings for prayer. But attendance upon the two latter is voluntary on the part of the members of the Wesleyan Church; and what authority is there for suspending their very membership in the Church of G.o.d on their attendance upon the former? The celebration of the Lord"s Supper, and not cla.s.s-meeting, was the binding characteristic inst.i.tution upon the members of the primitive Church. So I am persuaded it should be now; and that Christian faith and practice alone (and not the addition of attendance upon cla.s.s-meeting,) should be the test of worthiness for its communion and privileges.