Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-v9fdk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T08:01:10.942Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Canadian Confederation and the Protestant Churches*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

John Webster Grant
John Webster Grant
Affiliation:
Professor of the Church History, Emmanuel College, Toronto, Canada
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

On July 1, 1867, the colonies of Canada, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were united by an act of the imperial parliament—The British North America Act—to form a federal state known as Canada. The centennial of this Confederation was celebrated by Canadians in 1967. In this paper I want to discuss its influence on the Protestant churches of Canada.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , September 1969 , pp. 327 - 337
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1969

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Presbyterian, 08, 1867, p. 230.Google Scholar

2. Peake, F. A., “Movements towards Christian Unity in the Post-Confederation Period,” in the Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society, 12, 1967, p. 97.Google Scholar

3. There was certainly agitation for annexation in Pictou county in 1870. Christian Guardian, 02 9, 1870, p. 22.Google Scholar

4. “The French section of the community, who are unhappily controlled by self-seeking priests, have now complete ascendancy.” Christian Messenger (Brantford), 07 10, 1856.Google Scholar

5. Canadian Baptist, November 17, 1859.

6. Christian Guardian, 0314, 1866, p. 42.Google Scholar

7. Canadian Independent, 08, 1867, p. 71.Google Scholar

8. Christian Guardian, 11 18, 1868, p. 190.Google Scholar

9. Canadian Methodist Magazine, 09, 1875, p. 370.Google Scholar

10. Presbyterian Witness, 04 14, 1866, p. 116.Google Scholar

11. Canadian Independent, 01, 1866, P. 219.Google Scholar

12. Canadian Baptist, August 30, 1866.

13. Speech to the Confederation Resolutions, February 8, 1865. Waite, P. B. (ed.), The Confederation Debates in the Province of Canada, 1865 (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1963), p. 60.Google Scholar Brown also described Confederation as “the duty which an over-ruling Providence has placed upon us.” Ibid., p. 79.

14. Presbyterian Witness, 06 2, 1866, p. 172.Google Scholar

15. Home and Foreign Record of the Canada Presbyterian Church, 01, 1868, p. 65.Google Scholar

16. Presbyterian Witness, 06 29, 1867, p. 204.Google Scholar

17. Christian Guardian, 01 1, 1868, p. 2.Google Scholar

18. Guardian, July 17, 1867.

19. See footnote 7 above and the point it refers to in the text.

20. Canadian Independent, 08, 1867, p. 71.Google Scholar

21. Guardian, July 17, 1867.

22. Canadian Independent, 08, 1867, p. 71.Google Scholar

23. Christian Guardian, 01 1, 1868, P. 2.Google Scholar

24. Presbyterian Witness, 09 21, 1867, p. 301.Google Scholar

25. Home and Foreign Record, 10, 1867, p. 370.Google Scholar

26. Christian Guardian, 07 4, 1866, p. 106.Google Scholar

27. Home and Foreign Record, 10, 1867, p. 269.Google ScholarChristian Guardian, 09 11, 1867, p. 146Google Scholar; September 18, 1867, p. 149.

28. “Intemperance can have no place in the halls of the legislatures. Rulers must realize the responsibffity of their position and regulate their conduct accordingly,” Home and Foreign Record 10, 1867, p. 369.Google Scholar

29. Canadian Independent, 07, 1867, p. 1.Google Scholar

30. Presbyterian, 10, 1866, pp. 310, 311.Google Scholar

31. Christian Guardian, 07 4, 1866, p. 106.Google Scholar

32. Proceedings, General Synod of the Church of England in Canada, 1893, pp. 8, 9.Google Scholar

33. Presbyterian Witness, 09 17, 1864, p. 150.Google Scholar

34. Grant, W. L. and Hamilton, Frederick, Principal Grant (Toronto: Morang and Company Limited, 1904), p. 155.Google Scholar

35. McNeill, J. T., The Presbyterian Church in Canada, 1875–1925 (Toronto: General Board of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, 1925), p. 19.Google Scholar

36. The Executive Committee of the Canadian Wesleyan New Connexion Church protested against “unwarranted interference” from its British parent body on the union issue. Caldwell, J. Warren, “The Unification of Methodism in Canada, 1865–1884” in The Bulletin, 1967, p. 21.Google Scholar

37. Johnston, J. A., “Factors in the Formation of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, 1875,” doctoral thesis in the Archives of The United Church of Canada and Victoria University, 1955, p. 170.Google Scholar

38. Boon, T. C. B., The Anglican Church from the Bay, to the Rockies (Toronto: Ryerson, 1962), p. 186.Google Scholar

39. The Rev. A. B. Courtice of the Bible Christians wrote of the Methodist union that was to be consummated in 1884, “The present movement, if not balked, is to be a great and gracious blessing to the North-Western portion of this Dominion, now providentially opened up as an inviting mission field.” Observer, May 24, 31, 1882.

40. Vernon, C. W., The Old Church in the New Dominion (London: SPCK, 1929), p. 89.Google Scholar

41. Carroll, John, Case and His Cotemporaries. Vol. V. (Toronto: Methodist Publishing Rouse, 1877), 214–218.Google Scholar

42. Gregg, William, History of the Presbyterian Church in the Dominion of Canada (Toronto: Presbyterian Printing and Publishing Co., 1855), p. 574.Google Scholar

43. Sutherland, A., Methodism in Canada, (Toronto: Methodist Mission Room, 1904), pp. 282–283.Google Scholar

44. Riddell, J. H., Methodism in the Middle West (Toronto: Ryerson, 1946), p. 52.Google Scholar

45. Jones, J. Gordon, Greatness Passing By! (Toronto: Baptist Federation of Canada, 1967), p. 45.Google Scholar

46. Canadian Independent, 03, 1867, p. 354.Google Scholar

47. Toronto, James Campbell; London, Sampson Low.

48. Senator William McMaster was the leading promoter of the Dominion Board which for some years sought to co-ordinate the missionary work of Baptists in eastern and western Canada. Hamilton, Robert, “The Founding of McMaster University,” B.D. thesis, McMaster University, 1938, p. 81.Google Scholar

49. “The North-west is the question for Canada.” Christian Guardian, 10 14, 1868, p. 170.Google Scholar

50. Grant and Hamilton, op. cit., p. 131.

51. Presbyterian Witness, 09 17, 1864, P. 150.Google Scholar

52. Acts 17:5 quoted in the Canadian Independent, 10, 1867, p. 149.Google Scholar

53. J. Gordon Jones, op. cit., p. 85.

54. See articles by Freitag, Walter and Mladenovic, Milos in Grant, J. W. (ed.), The Churches and the Canadian Experience (Toronto: Ryerson, 1963), pp. 94–118.Google Scholar