So that while the members of the church of England are but 61,788, the Nonconformists from that church, in the province, are 167,244, being a majority in favour of nonconformity of 105,456 in Upper Canada alone.

Sir George Arthur says, in his dispatch concerning these statistics, "I am of opinion that no sect will be satisfied with the returns: it is indeed probable, that in general they will be greatly disappointed." We own this would be our case, if we did not recollect that the term Presbyterian" is used in North America, as well as in many parts of England, as a convertible term with Independent or Congregationalist; and when we see 31,308 Presbyterians, without reference to sect, we feel satisfied that numbers of our brethren are included therein.

We cannot conclude our account of the Canadas without attempting to explain the present state of the most exciting question connected with their internal polity; we refer to "the Clergy Reserves."

Immediately after the conquest of Canada, George III. gave assurance of protection and support to the Romish Church, the rights, privileges, lands, or seigniories, of which were guaranteed first by the articles of capitulation in 1759, and eventually confirmed by Act of Parliament in 1774. In that statute, however, the legislature declared "that it should be lawful for his Majesty, his heirs or successors, to make such provision out of the rest of the said accustomed dues and rights for the encouragement of the Protestant religion, and for the maintenance and support of a Protestant clergy within the said province, as should from time to time be thought necessary and expedient." This intention was carried into execution in 1791, when his Majesty called on Parliament, by a royal message, to concur with him in making a permanent appropriation of lands in both the provinces of Canada, for the maintenance and support of a Protestant clergy. In consequence of this communication, Parliament proceeded by the statute 31 Geo. 3. c. 31. to authorize the setting apart of one-seventh of all lands in Upper Canada, and of all such lands in the lowest province as are not already occupied by the French inhabitants, for the purpose specified in the message.

For many years after this statute was passed, the lands thus appropriated were in a great measure unproductive, owing to the limited demand for land of any description; and the want of power to alienate them even on terms the most advantageous. About the year 1819, a corporation was formed under the public seal of each province, consisting of the Bishop of Quebec, and the clergy of his diocese, with power to grant leases of these lands, and thus to draw from them a permanent revenue, which, as is not denied or concealed, it was intended to appropriate to the support of the ministers of the Church of England in that colony.

Immediately on this step being taken, and as soon as the intended

application of those funds was known to them, the members of the Church of Scotland advanced a claim to participate in "the clergy reserves," or their proceeds, founded on the words of the statute, in which they insisted that their clergy were included as the ministers of a national and Protestant church, and on the treaty of the union between England and Scotland, in which solemn national compact an entire community of rights and privileges is secured to the inhabitants of both countries. On these grounds it was contended, that the ministers and other members of the Church of Scotland, are entitled, in every colony settled or acquired since the year 1706, to be put on a perfect equality, in all respects, with those of the Church of England, in proportion to the numbers belonging respectively to each denomination.

Other sects felt that they were equally Protestant, and therefore have asserted their right to participate in those funds which make a common provision for all Christians who do not belong to the Church of Rome; but to use the terms of Lord Durham," a great body of all Protestant denominations, and also numerous Catholics, who inhabit the province, have maintained that any such favour towards any one, or even all of the Protestant sects, would be most unadvisable, and have either demanded the equal application of those funds to the purposes of all religious creeds whatsoever, or have urged the propriety of leaving each body of religionists to maintain its own establishment, to repeal or disregard the law, and to apply the clergy funds to the general purposes of the government, or to the support of a general system of education."

Notwithstanding the strong feeling manifested by the public upon the question of Establishments, a measure was adopted by the late governor which greatly irritated the anti-establishment party. We cannot better describe it than in the words of Lord Durham.

“During all this time, however, though much irritation had been caused by the exclusive claims of the Church of England, and the favour shown by the Government to one, and that a small religious community, the clergy of that church, though an endowed, were not a dominant, priesthood. They had a far larger share of the public money than the clergy of any other denomination; but they had no exclusive privileges, and no authority, save such as might spring from their efficient discharge of their sacred duties, or from the energy, ability, or influence of members of their body. 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. This is regarded by all other teachers of religion in the country as having at once degraded them to a position of legal inferiority to the clergy of the Church of England; and it has been resented most warmly. In the opinion of many persons, this was the chief pre-disposing cause of the recent insurrection, and it is an abiding and unabated cause of discontent. Nor is this to be

wondered at. 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. Even admitting, however, the justice of the principle upon which this enumeration proceeds, and giving that church credit for all that it thus claims, its number could not amount to one third, probably not a fourth, of the population. It is not, therefore, to be expected, that the other sects, three at least of whom, the Methodists, the Presbyterians, and the Catholics, claim to be individually more numerous than the Church of England, should acquiesce quietly in the supremacy thus given to it. And it is equally natural that the English Dissenters and Irish Catholics, remembering the position which they have occupied at home, and the long and painful struggle through which alone they have obtained the imperfect equality they now possess, should refuse to acquiesce for themselves in the creation of a similar establishment in their new country, and thus to bequeath to their children a strife as arduous and embittered as that from which they have so recently and imperfectly escaped.

But for this act, it would have been possible, though highly impolitic, to have allowed the clergy reserves to remain upon their former undetermined and unsatisfactory footing. But the question as to the application of this property, must now be settled, if it is intended that the province is to be free from violent and perilous agitation. Indeed, the whole controversy, which had been in a great measure suspended by the insurrection, was, in the course of the last summer, revived with more heat than ever by the most inopportune arrival in the colony of opinions given by the English Law Officers of the Crown in favour of the legality of the establishment of the rectories. Since that period, the question has again absorbed public attention; and it is quite clear that it is upon this practical point that issue must sooner or later be joined on all the constitutional questions to which I have previously adverted. I am well aware that there are not wanting some who represent the agitation of this question as merely the result of its present unsettled character, and who assert, that if the claims of the English church to the exclusive enjoyment of this property were established by the Imperial Parliament, all parties, however loud their present pretensions, or however vehement their first complaints, would peacefully acquiesce in an arrangement which would then be inevitable. This might be the case if the establishment of some dominant church were inevitable. But it cannot be necessary to point out that, in the immediate vicinity of the United States, and with their example before the people of Canada, no injustice, real or fancied, occasioned and supported by a British rule, would be regarded in this light. The result of any determination on the part of the British Government or Legislature to give one sect a predominance and superiority, would be, it might be feared, not to secure the favoured sect, but to endanger the loss of the colony, and, in vindicating the exclusive pretensions of the English church, to hazard one of the fairest possessions of the British Crown. "I am bound, indeed, to state, that there is a degree of feeling, and an unanimity of opinion, in the question of ecclesiastical establishments over the northern part of the continent of America, which it will be

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prudent not to overlook in the settlement of this question. 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. Similar circumstances, too, have had the effect of accustoming the people of both countries to regard this question in a very different light from that in which it appears in the Old World; and the nature of the question is indeed entirely different in old and new countries. The apparent right which time and custom give to the maintenance of an ancient and respected institution cannot exist in a recently settled country, in which every thing is new; and the establishment of a dominant church there is a creation of exclusive privileges in favour of one out of many religious denominations, and that composing a small minority, at the expense not merely of the majority, but of many as large minorities. 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 oue 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.

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"A still stronger objection to the creation of a Church Establishment in this colony is, that not merely are the members of the Church of England a small minority at present; but, inasmuch as the majority of emigrants are not members of the Church of England, the disproportion is likely to increase, instead of disappearing, in the course of time. The mass of British emigrants will be either from the middle classes of Great Britain, or the poorer classes of Ireland; the latter almost exclusively Catholics, and the former in a great proportion either Scotch Presbyterians or English Dissenters."

Upon Lord Durham's return, an act was brought into the provincial legislature,"to dispose of the lands commonly called the clergy reserves;" and which provides that the proceeds of all the reserves sold or to be sold, be paid into the hands of the receiver-general of the province, to be applied by the Imperial Parliament for religious purposes. This measure was carried in the House of Assembly, at a late hour of the night preceding the day of prorogation, by a majority of one vote in a house of 44 members.

Thus is transferred to the British Parliament the settlement of a question, which Sir George Arthur acknowledges to be one" in its nature most exciting, and which in Upper Canada tends to give rise to the fiercest discussions, both in regard to political and religious principles."

The most vigorous efforts, therefore, we anticipate will be made at home to persuade Parliament to appropriate the clergy reserves exclusively to the Episcopal Church.

The Bishop of Exeter in his late charge, referring to this question, says that "this particular of the enactment must give us hope; for before such appropriation shall be made, we cannot doubt that Parliament will direct that some course be taken to ascertain the right construction of the phrase a Protestant clergy,' in the act which was designed to give effect to the pious munificence of her Majesty's royal grandfather: and as little can we doubt, that if it be found that the phrase in that statute means, as we trust it means, clergy of the Church of England, no false liberality, no readiness to sacrifice principles to a supposed expediency, will prevent the British legislature from doing what religion and justice shall be equally found to demand."-p. 16.

The same sentiment in less cautious phrase occurs in the last report of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. "As none of the proposed measures, either for complete or partial spoliation can be carried into effect without the sanction of both Houses of the British Parliament, the Society trusts that the day is far distant when they shall have to mourn over the completion of an act manifestly impolitic and grossly unjust."-p. 30.

Our readers have read Lord Durham's opinion upon this exciting question, let them now read Sir George Arthur's testimony. "Whatever might have been the legal interpretation in the present act, of the term Protestant clergy,' it is my duty to state that no such limitation will now satisfy the people of this country."-Dispatch to Lord Normanby, May 14.

Let high churchmen take warning! But we fear they would prefer to see the Canadas independent of the British crown, rather than witness their established clergy dependant on the affectionate and free-will offerings of the people!

NOVA SCOTIA.

Nova Scotia forms a large peninsula in advance, as it were, of that long line of the American coast which extends south-west from St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. It is separated from the continent by the Bay of Fundy. It was early colonized by the French, then by English settlers, but was not permanently annexed to the British crown till September, 1710. The extreme length from the north-east to the north-west is estimated by M. Bouchette at 383 miles, the breadth varies considerably from 30 to more than 100 miles, the entire superficies is stated at 15,617 square miles, and 9,994,880 acres. No census has been taken of the population since 1827, when one, said to be very accurate, gave 123,848. A previous enumeration, in 1817, had shown only 82,053; this would indicate an increase of 50 per cent. in ten years, which would make the population, in 1837, 180,000, which is supposed to be the very largest computation that can be safely formed. This colony, like most others, possesses a British constitution in miniature.

Each of the ten counties into which the country is divided elect two 6 A

N. S. VOL. III.