Boundless Dominion: Providence, Politics, and the Early Canadian Presbyterian Worldview 0773551077, 9780773551077

Citation preview

B o u n d l e s s Domi ni on

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McGill-Q ­ u e e n ’s S t u di e s i n t h e H i s to ry o f Religio n Volumes in this series have been supported by the Jackman Foundation of Toronto. s e ri e s o ne : g .a . r awly k , e d i to r 1 Small Differences Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants, 1815–1922 An International Perspective Donald Harman Akenson

10  God’s Peoples Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel, and Ulster Donald Harman Akenson

2 Two Worlds The Protestant Culture of Nineteenth-­Century Ontario William Westfall

11 Creed and Culture The Place of English-­Speaking Catholics in Canadian Society, 1750–1930 Edited by Terrence Murphy and Gerald Stortz

3 An Evangelical Mind Nathanael Burwash and the Methodist Tradition in Canada, 1839–1918 Marguerite Van Die

12 Piety and Nationalism Lay Voluntary Associations and the Creation of an Irish-­Catholic Community in Toronto, 1850–1895 Brian P. Clarke

4 The Dévotes Women and Church in Seventeenth-­Century France Elizabeth Rapley

13 Amazing Grace Studies in Evangelicalism in Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States Edited by George Rawlyk and Mark A. Noll

5 The Evangelical Century College and Creed in English Canada from the Great Revival to the Great Depression Michael Gauvreau 6 The German Peasants’ War and Anabaptist Community of Goods James M. Stayer 7 A World Mission Canadian Protestantism and the Quest for a New International Order, 1918–1939 Robert Wright 8 Serving the Present Age Revivalism, Progressivism, and the Methodist Tradition in Canada Phyllis D. Airhart 9 A Sensitive Independence Canadian Methodist Women Missionaries in Canada and the Orient, 1881–1925 Rosemary R. Gagan

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14 Children of Peace W. John McIntyre 15 A Solitary Pillar Montreal’s Anglican Church and the Quiet Revolution Joan Marshall 16 Padres in No Man’s Land Canadian Chaplains and the Great War Duff Crerar 17 Christian Ethics and Political Economy in North America A Critical Analysis P. Travis Kroeker 18 Pilgrims in Lotus Land Conservative Protestantism in British Columbia, 1917–1981 Robert K. Burkinshaw 19 Through Sunshine and Shadow The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Evangelicalism, and Reform in Ontario, 1874–1930 Sharon Cook

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20 Church, College, and Clergy A History of Theological Education at Knox College, Toronto, 1844–1994 Brian J. Fraser

24 The Chignecto Covenanters A Regional History of Reformed Presbyterianism in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, 1827–1905 Eldon Hay

21 The Lord’s Dominion The History of Canadian Methodism Neil Semple

25 Methodists and Women’s Education in Ontario, 1836–1925 Johanne Selles

22 A Full-­Orbed Christianity The Protestant Churches and Social Welfare in Canada, 1900–1940 Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau

26 Puritanism and Historical Controversy William Lamont

23 Evangelism and Apostasy The Evolution and Impact of Evangelicals in Modern Mexico Kurt Bowen

s e ri e s t wo: i n me mo ry of g e o r ge rawlyk d o n al d ha r ma n a k e n so n , e di tor   1 Marguerite Bourgeoys and Montreal, 1640–1665 Patricia Simpson   2 Aspects of the Canadian Evangelical Experience Edited by G.A. Rawlyk   3 Infinity, Faith, and Time Christian Humanism and Renaissance Literature John Spencer Hill   4 The Contribution of Presbyterianism to the Maritime Provinces of Canada Edited by Charles H.H. Scobie and G.A. Rawlyk   5 Labour, Love, and Prayer Female Piety in Ulster Religious Literature, 1850–1914 Andrea Ebel Brozyna   6  The Waning of the Green Catholics, the Irish, and Identity in Toronto, 1887–1922 Mark G. McGowan   7  Religion and Nationality in Western Ukraine The Greek Catholic Church and the Ruthenian National Movement in Galicia, 1867–1900 John-­Paul Himka

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 8 Good Citizens British Missionaries and Imperial States, 1870–1918 James G. Greenlee and Charles M. Johnston   9  The Theology of the Oral Torah Revealing the Justice of God Jacob Neusner 10  Gentle Eminence A Life of Cardinal Flahiff P. Wallace Platt 11 Culture, Religion, and Demographic Behaviour Catholics and Lutherans in Alsace, 1750–1870 Kevin McQuillan 12 Between Damnation and Starvation Priests and Merchants in Newfoundland Politics, 1745–1855 John P. Greene 13 Martin Luther, German Saviour German Evangelical Theological Factions and the Interpretation of Luther, 1917–1933 James M. Stayer 14 Modernity and the Dilemma of North American Anglican Identities, 1880–1950 William H. Katerberg

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15 The Methodist Church on the Prairies, 1896–1914 George Emery 16 Christian Attitudes towards the State of Israel Paul Charles Merkley 17 A Social History of the Cloister Daily Life in the Teaching Monasteries of the Old Regime Elizabeth Rapley 18 Households of Faith Family, Gender, and Community in Canada, 1760–1969 Edited by Nancy Christie 19 Blood Ground Colonialism, Missions, and the Contest for Christianity in the Cape Colony and Britain, 1799–1853 Elizabeth Elbourne

26 Evangelicals and the Continental Divide The Conservative Protestant Subculture in Canada and the United States Sam Reimer 27 Christians in a Secular World The Canadian Experience Kurt Bowen 28 Anatomy of a Seance A History of Spirit Communication in Central Canada Stan McMullin 29 With Skilful Hand The Story of King David David T. Barnard 30 Faithful Intellect Samuel S. Nelles and Victoria University Neil Semple

20 A History of Canadian Catholics Gallicanism, Romanism, and Canadianism Terence J. Fay

31 W. Stanford Reid An Evangelical Calvinist in the Academy Donald MacLeod

21 The View from Rome Archbishop Stagni’s 1915 Reports on the Ontario Bilingual Schools Question Edited and translated by John Zucchi

32 A Long Eclipse The Liberal Protestant Establishment and the Canadian University, 1920–1970 Catherine Gidney

22 The Founding Moment Church, Society, and the Construction of Trinity College William Westfall

33 Forkhill Protestants and Forkhill Catholics, 1787–1858 Kyla Madden

23 The Holocaust, Israel, and Canadian Protestant Churches Haim Genizi

34 For Canada’s Sake Public Religion, Centennial Celebrations, and the Re-­making of Canada in the 1960s Gary R. Miedema

24 Governing Charities Church and State in Toronto’s Catholic Archdiocese, 1850–1950 Paula Maurutto

35 Revival in the City The Impact of American Evangelists in Canada, 1884–1914 Eric R. Crouse

25 Anglicans and the Atlantic World High Churchmen, Evangelicals, and the Quebec Connection Richard W. Vaudry

36 The Lord for the Body Religion, Medicine, and Protestant Faith Healing in Canada, 1880–1930 James Opp

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37 Six Hundred Years of Reform Bishops and the French Church, 1190–1789 J. Michael Hayden and Malcolm R. Greenshields 38 The Missionary Oblate Sisters Vision and Mission Rosa Bruno-­Jofré 39 Religion, Family, and Community in Victorian Canada The Colbys of Carrollcroft Marguerite Van Die 40 Michael Power The Struggle to Build the Catholic Church on the Canadian Frontier Mark G. McGowan 41 The Catholic Origins of Quebec’s Quiet Revolution, 1931–1970 Michael Gauvreau 42 Marguerite Bourgeoys and the Congregation of Notre Dame, 1665–1700 Patricia Simpson 43 To Heal a Fractured World The Ethics of Responsibility Jonathan Sacks 44 Revivalists Marketing the Gospel in English Canada, 1884–1957 Kevin Kee 45 The Churches and Social Order in Nineteenth-­and Twentieth-­ Century Canada Edited by Michael Gauvreau and Ollivier Hubert 46 Political Ecumenism Catholics, Jews, and Protestants in De Gaulle’s Free France, 1940–1945 Geoffrey Adams 47 From Quaker to Upper Canadian Faith and Community among Yonge Street Friends, 1801–1850 Robynne Rogers Healey 48 The Congrégation de Notre-­Dame, Superiors, and the Paradox of Power, 1693–1796 Colleen Gray

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49 Canadian Pentecostalism Transition and Transformation Edited by Michael Wilkinson 50 A War with a Silver Lining Canadian Protestant Churches and the South African War, 1899–1902 Gordon L. Heath 51 In the Aftermath of Catastrophe Founding Judaism, 70 to 640 Jacob Neusner 52 Imagining Holiness Classic Hasidic Tales in Modern Times Justin Jaron Lewis 53 Shouting, Embracing, and Dancing with Ecstasy The Growth of Methodism in Newfoundland, 1774–1874 Calvin Hollett 54 Into Deep Waters Evangelical Spirituality and Maritime Calvinist Baptist Ministers, 1790–1855 Daniel C. Goodwin 55 Vanguard of the New Age The Toronto Theosophical Society, 1891–1945 Gillian McCann 56 A Commerce of Taste Church Architecture in Canada, 1867–1914 Barry Magrill 57 The Big Picture The Antigonish Movement of Eastern Nova Scotia Santo Dodaro and Leonard Pluta 58 My Heart’s Best Wishes for You A Biography of Archbishop John Walsh John P. Comiskey 59 The Covenanters in Canada Reformed Presbyterianism from 1820 to 2012 Eldon Hay

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60 The Guardianship of Best Interests Institutional Care for the Children of the Poor in Halifax, 1850–1960 Renée N. Lafferty

71 The Cistercian Arts From the 12th to the 21st Century Edited by Terryl N. Kinder and Roberto Cassanelli

61 In Defence of the Faith Joaquim Marques de Araújo, a Brazilian Comissário in the Age of Inquisitional Decline James E. Wadsworth

72 The Canny Scot Archbishop James Morrison of Antigonish Peter Ludlow

62 Contesting the Moral High Ground Popular Moralists in Mid-­ Twentieth-­Century Britain Paul T. Phillips

73 Religion and Greater Ireland Christianity and Irish Global Networks, 1750–1950 Edited by Colin Barr and Hilary M. Carey

63 The Catholicisms of Coutances Varieties of Religion in Early Modern France, 1350–1789 J. Michael Hayden

74 The Invisible Irish Finding Protestants in the Nineteenth-­ Century Migrations to America Rankin Sherling

64 After Evangelicalism The Sixties and the United Church of Canada Kevin N. Flatt

75 Beating against the Wind Popular Opposition to Bishop Feild and Tractarianism in Newfoundland and Labrador, 1844–1876 Calvin Hollett

65 The Return of Ancestral Gods Modern Ukrainian Paganism as an Alternative Vision for a Nation Mariya Lesiv 66 Transatlantic Methodists British Wesleyanism and the Formation of an Evangelical Culture in Nineteenth-­Century Ontario and Quebec Todd Webb 67 A Church with the Soul of a Nation Making and Remaking the United Church of Canada Phyllis D. Airhart 68 Fighting over God A Legal and Political History of Religious Freedom in Canada Janet Epp Buckingham 69 From India to Israel Identity, Immigration, and the Struggle for Religious Equality Joseph Hodes

76 The Body or the Soul? Religion and Culture in a Quebec Parish, 1736–1901 Frank A. Abbott 77 Saving Germany North American Protestants and Christian Mission to West Germany, 1945–1974 James C. Enns 78 The Imperial Irish Canada’s Irish Catholics Fight the Great War, 1914–1918 Mark G. McGowan 79 Into Silence and Servitude How American Girls Became Nuns, 1945–1965 Brian Titley 80 Boundless Dominion Providence, Politics, and the Early Canadian Presbyterian Worldview Denis McKim

70 Becoming Holy in Early Canada Timothy G. Pearson

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Boundless Dominion Providence, Politics, and the Early Canadian Presbyterian Worldview

D e n i s M c K im

McGill-­Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Chicago

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©  McGill-Queen’s University Press 2017 ISBN ISBN ISBN ISBN

978-0-7735-5106-0 (cloth) 978-0-7735-5107-7 (paper) 978-0-7735-5240-1 (eP DF ) 978-0-7735-5241-8 (eP UB)

Legal deposit fourth quarter 2017 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Awards to Scholarly Publications Program, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication McKim, Denis, 1979–, author Boundless dominion: providence, politics, and the early Canadian Presbyterian worldview/Denis McKim. (McGill-Queen’s studies in the history of religion. Series two; 80) Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISB N 978-0-7735-5106-0 (cloth). – IS BN 978-0-7735-5107-7 (paper). – ISB N 978-0-7735-5240-1 (eP DF ). – IS BN 978-0-7735-5241-8 (eP U B ) 1. Presbyterians – Canada – History. 2. Canada – Religion. I. Title. II. Series: McGill-Queen’s studies in the history of religion. Series two; 80 BX 9001.M35 2017     285'.271      C 2017-906466-5 C 2017-906467-3

This book was typeset by Marquis Interscript in 10.5 / 13 Sabon.

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Contents

Acknowledgments xi Illustrations xv Introduction: Seeing Things the Presbyterian Way  3 1  Becoming Presbyterian  26 P a rt One : P rovi d e n ce 2  Israel and Empire  59 3  Slavery and Liberty  87 P a rt T wo : P o l i t i cs 4  Two Swords  115 5  Christian Leviathan  135 P a rt T h r e e : N at u re 6  Wandering in the Wilderness  165 7  God’s Garden  185 P a rt F our : H i s to ry 8  Saving John Knox’s House  215 9  The Pulse of the Past  241

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x Contents

Conclusion: Boundless Dominion  261 Notes 273 Bibliography 317 Index 355

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Acknowledgments

Whoever said that writing was both a solitary activity and a cooperative endeavour was on to something. While this book was composed in isolation (alas, I’ve never been able to get much work done in coffee shops), it couldn’t have been written without the assistance of a great many people. Though I can’t acknowledge everyone who helped me with this project while I chipped away at it over the last decade, it’s a pleasure to be able to convey my gratitude to those individuals who’ve made the most profound contributions. For everyone else, a meagre “thank you” will have to suffice. Working with the staff at McGill-Queen’s University Press has been a delight. In particular, Kyla Madden has been extraordinarily helpful. To say that I’m grateful for her kindness, patience, and wisdom would be an understatement. I’m also grateful to Scott Howard, who’s done yeoman service in his role as copy editor, and the anonymous reviewers, who provided judicious, learned appraisals of my work. For facilitating the research on which this book is based, I’m indebted to the staff of the following institutions: the Presbyterian Church in Canada Archives; the United Church of Canada Archives; the United Church Archives, Maritime Conference; Library and Archives Canada; the Archives of Ontario; the Queen’s University Archives; Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management; and the Media Commons, Robarts Library, University of Toronto. I’m especially grateful to Bob Anger and Kim Arnold of the Presbyterian Church in Canada Archives, who went out of their way to accommodate my requests and steer my research in positive directions. I never met John Moir, doyen of Canadian Presbyterian historiography. But his writings have been an invaluable resource.

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xii Acknowledgments

It would be difficult to overstate the depth of my gratitude to members of the Department of History at the University of Toronto, where I began to lay the groundwork for this project as a graduate student. Steve Penfold’s imaginative insights during early brainstorming ­sessions and penetrating comments have strengthened this book substantially. I greatly appreciate his contributions, and am an admirer of his omnivorous historiographical interests and expertise. Steve’s not called “scary smart” for nothing! Arthur Silver, who graciously offered assistance while in retirement, has been immensely influential. Long, meandering conversations with Arthur on the politics and culture of nineteenth-century Canada (among many other topics) have been among the most intellectually gratifying experiences of my life. I’m grateful for his astute comments and wise counsel. Mark McGowan was an exceptional PhD supervisor. He gave unsparingly of his time and knowledge, wrote a dizzying number of reference letters, responded to an even larger number of emails, and served as a model of scholarly dedication and collegiality. Thank you, Mark! I’m also grateful to Jan Noel, who posed stimulating questions during the defence of my dissertation, and to Marguerite Van Die, who provided shrewd insights as the external examiner. In addition to her involvement in the defence, Marguerite provided important encouragement during the early stages of my work on the book, and generously commented on an unwieldy draft of the introduction. As a result of her assistance, this book is far better than it otherwise would have been. During my doctoral studies, I belonged to a writing group whose members – Ariel Beaujot, Susana Miranda, Alison Norman, Nathan Smith, and Cara Spittal – were hugely helpful in many, many ways. Special thanks to the following individuals, who’ve provided indispensable assistance and camaraderie at various stages of my nomadic academic journey: Ruth Compton Brouwer, Gwen Davies, Helen Dewar, Michel Ducharme, Christopher Dummitt, Colin Grittner, Hannah Lane, William Lundell, Stuart Macdonald, Stéphanie O’Neill, Todd Webb, and Donald Wright. Keith Grant, the engine behind Borealia, is a great friend who’s aided me on countless occasions. Brad Miller and Julia Rady-Shaw make academic life (and life in general) much more enjoyable and enriching than it would be if I’d never had the good fortune of meeting them. For numerous reasons, I’d also like to thank Alanna James. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Elizabeth Mancke, who was my supervisor while I was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of History at the University of New Brunswick. I have no idea where I’d be without her steadfast support and guidance. Working with Elizabeth,

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Acknowledgments xiii

Jerry Bannister, and Scott See on the “Unrest, Violence, and the Search for Social Order” project has been a terrific experience both intellectually and socially. They’re superb scholars, and even better people. I value their friendship enormously. My colleagues in the history department at Douglas College – Ashleigh Androsoff, Cedric Bolz, Julian Brooks, Gail Edwards, Sally Mennill, Jeff Schutts, and Robin Wylie – have been remarkably welcoming and cooperative. I’m lucky to work with them. The Beer and McKim families have been tremendously supportive, as ever. Before his death in 2009, my grandfather, Sam Beer, cheered me on and offered characteristically incisive advice. My sister, Jessica Runge, and her family – husband Arthur, son Zachary, and daughter Zoë – have been a constant source of comfort and good cheer. My father, David McKim, died much sooner than I (or anyone else) would have liked. He was a wonderful parent and friend. I miss him every day. My mother, Frances Beer, is brilliant, warm, funny, and strong. My parents contributed to this book in every fathomable way. For this reason, and a million others, it is dedicated to them.

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Thomas McCulloch. Pictou Academy N.S. / Thomas McCulloch, D.D. Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1972-26-524

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Hon. George Brown. Notman & Fraser / Library and Archives Canada / C-0006165

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George Munro Grant, principal of Queen’s University. Library and Archives Canada / C-001663

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Agnes M. Machar (1837–1927). Library and Archives Canada / C-051848

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Outdoor Communion of Presbyterians by C.W. Jefferys. Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1972-26-1402

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Margaret Wilson. Photograph by Stephanie Hanna courtesy of Knox College

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B o u n d l e s s Domi ni on

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In t ro du cti on

Seeing Things the Presbyterian Way And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Genesis 1:28 If we approach the past with a willingness to listen, with a commitment to trying to see things their way, we can hope to prevent ourselves from becoming too readily bewitched. An understanding of the past can help us to appreciate how far the values embodied in our present way of life, and our present ways of thinking about those values, reflect a series of choices made at different times between different possible worlds. Quentin Skinner, Visions of Politics, Volume I: Regarding Method (2002): 6

In Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich, Stephen Leacock satirizes the fictional Presbyterian church of St Osoph. So quarrelsome was the congregation, he states, that it severed its ties to virtually every other Presbyterian group due to an elaborate series of disputes. Implicit within his remarks is an irreverent critique of Presbyterianism’s reputation for austerity and fractiousness. St Osoph’s, Leacock explains, seceded forty years ago from the original body to which it belonged, and later on, with three other churches, it seceded from the group of seceding congregations. Still later it fell into a difference with the three other churches on the question of eternal punishment, the word “eternal” not appearing to the elders of St Osoph’s to designate a sufficiently long period. The dispute ended in a secession which left

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4

Boundless Dominion

the church of St Osoph practically isolated in a world of sin whose approaching fate it neither denied nor deplored.1 Fictitious though Leacock’s sketch of St Osoph’s may have been, it illuminates the actual ethos of Presbyterianism. In the mid-nineteenth century, for instance, British North American Presbyterians were divided into a multiplicity of factions as a result of myriad disagreements over such issues as the church-state relationship.2 The fracturing of the denomination can thus be seen as evidence of the combative tendency exhibited to such a seemingly absurd degree in Leacock’s St Osoph’s.3 Leacock’s sketch also alludes to a “real life” struggle over damnation that roiled Canadian Presbyterianism in the 1870s.4 The harsh attitude displayed by members of St Osoph’s regarding this issue was evident during a controversial episode involving D.J. Macdonnell, a  Presbyterian minister. In 1875, Macdonnell questioned the Westminster Confession of Faith (a thoroughly Calvinist document which serves as a distillation of Presbyterian doctrine, stressing “the power of God, salvation by grace alone, and ‘election,’ or the doctrine that God had predestined from before all time only a limited number of souls for eternal salvation”), and its insistence on the endless duration of the reprobate’s punishment.5 Macdonnell admitted to being wracked by “moral confusion” as a result of the apparent tension between the anxiety-provoking notion of unending punishment and the comforting idea of a merciful God. Consequently, he was plunged into a heresy trial administered by the Presbyterian Church in Canada. The controversy was defused in 1877 when Macdonnell agreed to abide by a declaration of piety deemed acceptable by doctrinal conservatives who clung to the orthodox position on damnation. Yet the fact that elements within the denomination objected to his expressions of uncertainty comports with the stern ethos satirized in Leacock’s account.6 The Presbyterian reputation for fractiousness and austerity is thus by no means historically inaccurate.7 Yet there was more to early Canadian Presbyterianism than seemingly innumerable division-inducing disputes and dour debates over damnation. Across northern North America over the nineteenth century, members of the denomination were galvanized by an elaborate outlook, the characteristics of which contrast sharply with the caricature of the impossibly prickly Presbyterian. So comprehensive was this outlook that it amounted to a worldview. The philosopher David K. Naugle has usefully defined “worldview” as an all-encompassing “view of things” flowing from “the mind’s aspiration to

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Introduction 5

a unified comprehension of the universe,” and shaped by its “quest for a framework to orient people to the world around them and to the ultimate issues of life.”8 The Presbyterians’ worldview invigorated a divided, diffuse denomination, and imbued them with a compelling synthesis of ­distinctiveness, duty, and destiny. Illuminating this worldview’s characteristics is the objective of Boundless Dominion, a thematic intellectual history of early Canadian Presbyterianism. Cutting across the institutional schisms that divided the various Presbyterian factions, and transcending the boundaries of political geography, the denomination’s worldview could fairly be described as “boundless.” At its heart lay a desire to facilitate God’s achievement of dominion, or spiritual sovereignty, over early Canada, and to promote an uncompromising piety across the wider world. Efforts to realize these complementary objectives pivoted on the promotion, at home and abroad, of the denomination’s theological tenets and ecclesiastical traditions. Early Canadian Presbyterians strove to create a godly society on the northern half of North America, in which biblical precepts suffused everyday life, bolstered public institutions, and furnished the foundation of popular morality. Accompanying this goal, which had important implications for both settlers and Indigenous peoples alike, was an ever-more fervent yearning to promote Protestantism elsewhere in the world, including places like Asia and Africa, where “pagan hordes” were allegedly mired in soul-imperilling darkness. Members of the denomination were convinced that, in purging the world of sinfulness, they would hasten the arrival of the Christian millennium itself. The Presbyterians’ priorities mesh with the Westminster Confession, which recognizes God as the “supreme Lord and King of all the world.” They also mesh with the “cultural mandate” articulated in the opening chapters of Genesis, through which God bestows on humanity respon­ sibility for the progressive unfurling of history, witness to which is the  divine injunction to assert “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”9 The term “dominion” is freighted with meaning, possessing as it does both a religious dimension – in addition to fuelling the notion that God has enjoined humanity to control nature, the term surfaces repeatedly elsewhere in the Bible – and a political one – it has been used in reference to territories over which England (Britain after 1707) has exercised sovereignty. Disparate though they may seem, these aspects of the term are, in fact, interrelated: the concept of sovereignty, which is based on “the

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Boundless Dominion

idea that there is a final and absolute authority in [a given] political community,” originally pertained not to any particular jurisdiction, but rather to God’s dominion over the universe.10 Confederation-era Canada amply attests to the compatibility of dominion’s religious and political dimensions. For example, amid the search for an apt designation for the new Canadian polity at the Westminster Conference in 1867, New Brunswick’s Samuel Leonard Tilley, a devout Methodist, recommended “dominion” (a term he happened upon while reading the seventy-second psalm) after metropolitan authorities rejected the colonial delegates’ initial suggestions of “kingdom” and “viceroyalty” as “premature,” “pretentious,” and liable to antagonize the United States. Also, in the early post-Confederation period, many Canadian Christians (especially evangelical Protestants) strove to render northern North America the Kingdom of God, or “His Dominion,” through vigorous evangelism geared toward such groups as Indigenous peoples and nonAnglo-Celtic immigrants west of the Great Lakes.11 Boundless Dominion focuses on the period between 1815, which witnessed the beginning of a sustained surge in transatlantic British migration and a corresponding expansion in Presbyterianism’s membership, and 1875, when the Presbyterian Church in Canada was forged. Yet it is chiefly concerned neither with early Canadian Presbyterianism’s numerical growth nor with its institutional evolution, topics that have been ably discussed elsewhere. It concentrates, instead, on early Canadian Presbyterianism’s intellectual substance through an investigation of the fundamental ideas – the irreducible attitudes, assumptions, and anxieties – that circulated in the denominational consciousness and shaped the Presbyterian worldview. As well, rather than viewing 1815 and 1875 as impermeable temporal barriers, developments before and after these dates that were germane to the early Canadian Presbyterian worldview will be discussed. This approach implicitly recognizes that historical phenomena seldom, if ever, abide by neatly delineated chronological parameters.12 Assessing upwards of sixty years of history allows one to ascertain which ideas resonated most deeply in the denominational consciousness, and had the most enduring impact on the Presbyterian identity. Boundless Dominion focuses on the five provinces that had the largest concentrations of Presbyterians in the nineteenth century: Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia (including Cape Breton, which was its own British North American colony between 1784 and 1820), New Brunswick, Lower Canada/Canada East/Quebec, and Upper Canada/Canada West/ Ontario. It also considers the small Presbyterian community that lay to

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Introduction 7

the west of the Great Lakes (especially the Red River settlement), while Newfoundland, whose Presbyterian population was miniscule throughout the nineteenth century, has been omitted from this study altogether.13 The provinces on which this study concentrates were anything but homogeneous, as they differed from each other in various ways both before and after Confederation. Early Canadian Presbyterianism was similarly diverse, with factions clashing over various issues. Moreover, Presbyterians differed from one another depending on their environmental surroundings. Whether or not they belonged to the same faction, the experiences of members of the denomination living in, say, Montreal undoubtedly differed from the experiences of their counterparts situated along Nova Scotia’s Northumberland Shore. Yet for all their diversity, early Canada’s Presbyterians had important things in common. This was particularly true when it came to the realm of ideas, as will be seen.14 Boundless Dominion concentrates on early Canadian Presbyterianism for four reasons. First, it was a large denomination that jostled throughout the nineteenth century with the Anglicans and the Methodists for the greatest number of Protestant adherents. The sheer size of the denomination – which, by the early 1870s, accounted for upwards of one quarter of the Dominion’s nearly two million Protestants – helps to explain why it was one of early Canada’s most influential groups, as does the fact that its supporters were dispersed across vast territorial expanses.15 Second, early Canadian Presbyterianism boasted an eclectic array of prominent individuals as members. Influential adherents could be found in politics, including the Tory William Morris and the Reformer George Brown; business, including the industrialist John Redpath and the merchant Isaac Buchanan; education, including Thomas McCulloch, founder of Nova Scotia’s Pictou Academy, and George Monro Grant, who was instrumental to the growth of Queen’s University; and literature, including versatile writers like Agnes Machar and C.W. Gordon (i.e., “Ralph Connor”); or, as was often the case, in some combination of the above. Third, nineteenth-century Canadian Presbyterianism was highly diverse. This characteristic may come as a surprise to readers apt to see the denomination as homogeneously Scottish. To be sure, focusing on the “Scottishness” of Canadian Presbyterianism is understandable: people of Scottish birth and ancestry have traditionally accounted for a large portion of the denomination’s membership, while Canadian Presbyterianism’s Scottish orientation has repeatedly been reinforced by successive influxes of Scots Presbyterian immigrants intent on maintaining links to their homeland. Yet this focus can also be misleading. To begin with,

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conceiving of “Scottish” as a coherent ethnic category obscures the substantive cultural differences that distinguished Highland Scots from their Lowland counterparts when it came to such significant issues as language, economics, and religion. In the nineteenth century, for example, the former frequently spoke Gaelic, practised livestock pastoralism, and included a substantial Roman Catholic contingent; by contrast, the latter often spoke a dialect of English known as Scots, cultivated crops and championed industrialization, and tended to be Protestant. Furthermore, the relationship between these two groups was frequently marked by mutual antipathy, a phenomenon that migrated across the Atlantic Ocean alongside Scottish immigrants from both the Highlands and the Lowlands. Evidence can be gleaned from disdainful remarks made about Upper Canada’s Highland Scots in a diary entry penned in the early ­nineteenth century by the Reverend William Proudfoot, a Lowland Presbyterian minister stationed in the colony’s southwestern region. “These ignorant Highlanders,” he wrote, “are a hindrance to improvement wherever they go – about them there is an obstinacy which nothing can move and then the Gaelic – alas the Gaelic!”16 Conceiving of Presbyterianism as uniformly Scottish is also misleading because it obscures the important part played by members of the denomination from Ireland and the United States in shaping the denomination’s development in early Canada. For instance, Irish Presbyterians, who hailed mainly from Ulster, established Presbyterian communities in such eastern Upper Canadian communities as Cavan and Monoghan townships. For their part, Presbyterians from the United States, whose con­ tributions have often been minimized as a result of the anti-American backlash that manifested after the War of 1812 and rebellions of 1837– 38, aided the denomination’s growth in southwestern Upper Canada in the early nineteenth century, where they introduced such compelling evangelical practices as temperance campaigns and the use of Isaac Watts’s hymns.17 (“Evangelicalism” is a fluid term to which different meanings can be attached depending on the context. Nevertheless, its characteristics include conversionism – “the belief that lives need to be changed”; biblicism – “[the] belief that all spiritual truth is to be found in [the Bible’s] pages”; activism – “the dedication of all believers… to lives of service to God”; and crucicentrism – “the conviction that Christ’s death was the crucial matter in providing atonement for sin.”Additionally, for many groups, evangelicalism entails an obligation to promote exacting standards in societal morality, revealing that it as at least as concerned with the “creation of a godly community” as it is with cultivating individual piety.18)

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Also, as intimated above, early Canadian Presbyterians exhibited diversity in terms of political affiliation, with adherents advocating ­everything from staunch Toryism to thoroughgoing Reformism; and in terms of socioeconomic class, as evidenced by the disparity in the early nineteenth century between the “ultra-respectable” Church of Scotland Presbyterians residing in towns like Kingston, and the comparatively unrefined Presbyterian evangelicals populating the rough-hewn communities that dotted Lake Erie’s northern shore.19 That said, by the turn of the twentieth century, Presbyterians as a whole had emerged as arguably Canada’s “most successful religious group” based on such quantitative socioeconomic indicators as home ownership.20 An examination of Presbyterianism, then, sheds light not only on one religious group, but also on the pluralism – social, political, and economic – that typified the societies in which they lived. Finally, an investigation of early Canadian Presbyterianism enhances our understanding of the influential religious culture of which the denomination was part. Religion was one of early Canada’s most important cultural phenomena. Christianity shaped the ethical orientations of millions of people by informing attitudes toward such fundamental spiritual considerations as virtue and salvation, sinfulness and damnation. Yet religion’s importance was not confined to the expressly spiritual realm. Rather, it seeped into everyday life, exerting influence on myriad concerns; indeed, in keeping with historian Robert Anthony Orsi’s definition of “popular religion,” one could plausibly contend that it comprised not just sacred practices and beliefs, but also people’s “most deeply held ethical convictions, their efforts to order their reality, their cosmology” – or, simply, “what matters.”21 Religiosity, then, involved far more than clerical pronouncements and the official initiatives of religious institutions, highly significant though both of these phenomena could be.22 Examples of the diverse ways in which early Canada’s religious culture manifested include its impact on popular morality, class, and ethnicity. Regarding popular morality, Christianity influenced attitudes toward such significant (and, from a contemporary standpoint, seemingly secular) issues as work, wealth, and gender. It was also linked to class identities, a fact that was at least as true for non-Presbyterian denominations as it was for Presbyterians. Thus, groups like the Anglicans, who during the first half of the nineteenth century enjoyed benefits deriving from their controversial connection to an established church, were associated with colonial society’s upper crust; while groups like the Baptists, who featured prominently in backwoods settlements sprawled along the frontier, reputedly came from comparatively modest socioeconomic

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backgrounds. Christianity also intersected with notions of ethnicity. For instance, English-speaking Roman Catholics came to be associated with Ireland, while Presbyterians were often linked to Scotland. That such assumptions were often ill founded did little to detract from the magnitude of their impact.23 Ultimately, though, religion was not simply one particular identity along the lines of, say, class, or gender; rather, as historians Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau have argued, it was a “cultural resource from which people drew” in order to render such identities comprehensible, and invest them with a coherent sense of meaning.24 Rooted in spiritual conviction, early Canada’s religious culture elicited the strongest of emotions – hope and awe, fear and guilt – and prompted the faithful to manifest their beliefs publicly through service as missionaries, temperance crusaders, and Sunday school teachers.25 That religion was capable of functioning in such a compelling manner, and of influencing both the private life of the individual and the public life of the community, attests to the profundity of its impact. In addition to elucidating one denomination’s worldview, examining Presbyterianism facilitates an appreciation of religion’s multivalent significance in nineteenth-century Canada, as adherents of the denomination shared much in common with members of other Christian groups, and collaborated with several of them on moral reform campaigns. While Presbyterians were part of a religious culture, at a more precise level they were involved in a decidedly Protestant culture that crystallized in the mid-nineteenth century. Eclipsing alternative expressions of Protestantism – including High Church establishmentarianism and radical revivalism – this culture derived its motive force in large part from the beliefs of enthusiastic yet “respectable” denominations like the Presbyterians and the Methodists, and from the initiatives of multidenominational voluntary societies like the Evangelical Alliance and the Young Men’s and Women’s Christian Associations.26 Of central importance to the Protestant culture was anti-Catholicism, with members of various denominations (including Presbyterians) routinely defining themselves in contradistinction to the Roman Church. Historian Linda Colley has suggested that anti-Catholicism was a veritable sine qua non for the development, in the eighteenth century, of a British identity.27 The same could be said for the emergence, in nineteenth-century Canada, of a Protestant culture. Due to an array of factors occurring at home and abroad (about which more will be said in chapter 3), Protestants frequently portrayed themselves as the dynamic, enlightened antithesis of a torpid, benighted Catholic “other.” The fact that there

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Introduction 11

were exceptions – Presbyterians expressed gratitude to the Recollets of Montreal for allowing them to hold services in their church before the erection of their own facility in the late eighteenth century, for example – should not obscure anti-Catholicism’s centrality.28 Indeed, antipathy to the Roman Church, in conjunction with temperance advocacy, antislavery activism, and an insistence on the importance of Sabbath observance, constituted the fundamental imperatives around which an eclectic Protestant culture coalesced. Drawing on a heady combination of evangelicalism and bourgeois values, this culture quested to recast society in its own image.29 Presbyterian involvement in a Protestant culture was compatible with sectarian diversity. As mentioned, members of the denomination differed over church-state relations, among other issues. They also found fault with other Protestants. Presbyterians’ criticisms, in the early nineteenth century, of the emotionally unchecked revival spectacles of such radical evangelical groups as the Methodists are illustrative. These events were criticized for their unbridled displays of religious exuberance; for their lack of rigorous scriptural explication; and for their alleged inability to  engineer enduring conversions to lives of Christian righteousness. Accordingly, McCulloch flatly denounced them as “revolting displays of human debasement.”30 He also criticized radical evangelicalism in his didactic fictional work, The Letters of Mephibosheth Stepsure. Conceiving of the Letters as a mechanism for instilling in Nova Scotians an appreciation for such traits as hard work and sobriety, McCulloch skewered the Reverend Shadrach Howl, an untutored Bible-thumper: “being tired of chopping down trees,” McCulloch observed, “[Howl] converted himself into a preacher of the gospel, [and informed the populace] … that our calamities are a judgement upon the town for rejecting his doctrines.”31 Presbyterian criticisms of other Protestants gradually softened. This process was attributable to the fact that, by the mid-nineteenth century, groups like the Methodists had largely shed their reputation for uninhibited religious enthusiasm, a development that coincided with their absorption into colonial society’s increasingly bourgeois sociocultural mainstream. Yet members of the denomination retained a strong sense of distinctiveness that served to differentiate them meaningfully from other Protestants. For evidence one need look only to the remarks of the Reverend William Ormiston during the lead-up to the creation of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. In attempting to lay the groundwork for a Dominion-wide entity, he noted that, for all their diversity, Canada’s Presbyterian factions shared a commitment to the denomination’s

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essential characteristics: the “venerable” doctrines of the Westminster Confession, and its decentralized system of “Church Government,” which entailed leadership by ministers and lay elders, and an elaborate hierarchy of church courts.32 Granted, the tenor of Presbyterianism changed over time, due in large part to the challenges posed to orthodox Calvinism by the emancipatory, and decidedly less dour, Arminian theological doctrines embraced by such popular evangelical denominations as Methodism (about which more will be said in chapters 1 and 2).33 For example, in the early nineteenth century, McCulloch, a dyed-in-the-wool Calvinist, stressed humanity’s innate depravity; several decades later, the Reverend Michael Willis, a “respectable” evangelical, downplayed Calvinism’s harsher aspects and emphasized Christ’s “eternal electing love.” Still, the denomination’s commitment to its fundamental doctrines and form of church polity remained firmly intact throughout the pre-1875 era.34 By the late nineteenth century, certain Presbyterians were pivoting away from strict adherence to the denomination’s doctrinal standards. In 1876, Agnes Machar, a prominent lay Presbyterian and public intellectual, advocated distinguishing between that which was religiously essential – “A continuing belief in a still-caring creator,” “the divinity of Jesus Christ” – and that which was not – for instance, “Rigid creeds with the capacity to  destroy faith,” which was probably an allusion to the Westminster Confession.35 Indicative though they are of a relaxation of Presbyterian theological views, such sentiments were seldom expressed before 1875. Moreover, they did not undermine Machar’s faith. On the contrary, the fact that she served “as one of the most articulate and intelligent Canadian lay defenders of Christian orthodoxy” in an age of modern challenges to religious convictions reveals that, in Machar’s case, open-mindedness and Presbyterian devotion were not mutually exclusive.36 How can we reconcile the Presbyterians’ penchant for sectarian strife, and for embracing traits that distinguished them from other denominations, with their involvement in a Protestant culture? The answer may lie in the concept of “aspirational” Protestantism. In studying the relationship between religion and national identity in Britain from the mid-­ seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries, historians Tony Claydon and Ian McBride have argued that British Protestants throughout this period simultaneously conceived of their homeland as a godly nation while recognizing the existence of widespread sinfulness and sectarian fragmentation in their churches. In accounting for the apparent tension between the British Protestants’ idea of a righteous nation and their

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Introduction 13

awareness of irreligion and disunity in their midst, Claydon and McBride posit that Britain’s Protestant culture under Stuart and Hanoverian monarchs can most profitably be understood not as actual, but rather as aspirational. That is, while British Protestants acknowledged that vice and interdenominational strife existed in their communities, they derived inspiration from the ideal of a harmonious Protestant nation in which sinfulness and sectarian squabbling would be unknown.37 The idea of aspirational Protestantism has illuminating implications for the study of early Canadian Presbyterianism. Though members of the denomination differed with one another, as well as with adherents of other Protestant groups, they were galvanized by the notion of a multi­ denominational community that would be unified in its efforts to promote virtue and combat vice. Thus, sectarian conflict and an eclectic Protestant culture were not necessarily incompatible. Accordingly, McCulloch, the very individual who denounced radical evangelicals’ revival spectacles as so many stomach-churning exhibitions of “debasement,” could praise the British Empire’s Protestant churches – including ones influenced by radical evangelicalism – as “the glory of Christ.”38 Investigating the Presbyterian worldview also sheds light on the Protestant moral vision that held sway over large swaths of Englishspeaking Canada during the Victorian age (and, arguably, beyond), as both perspectives perceived society in starkly moralistic terms. For historian Christopher Dummitt, this vision – which esteemed such traits as thrift, sobriety, and industriousness – was informed by ascetic notions of selfhood that run counter to “the increasingly mainstream therapeutic culture [of the early twenty-first century],” which seeks not to stifle “individual passions” but rather to channel them in ways that foster “self-fulfillment.” By contrast, the Protestant moral vision drew on ­attitudes toward the self that were deeply suspicious of unchecked ­emotions, and saw self-restraint as an invaluable means of combatting depravity and cultivating habits conducive to individual virtue and ­societal betterment.39 In recent decades, scholars have largely focused on “the hypocrisies of, and the tools of domination hidden within,” nineteenth-century Protestant moralism.40 And with good cause; for example, they have shown that Protestant-led campaigns against indiscriminate alcohol consumption and Sabbath desecration often had as much to do with cementing the elite status of their middle-class leaders, and with manipulating the contours of working-class culture, as they did with elevating society’s ethical “tone.”41

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Yet for all their insightfulness, such critiques can obscure as much as they reveal, for they often view the past in an anachronistic manner. As Dummitt has observed, critiques of Protestant moralism are frequently premised on the present-minded assumption “that our contemporary state of … relativism is the natural, good and proper starting point for any historical analysis of morality.”42 Put differently, while critiques of the Victorian ethical outlook have much to recommend them, they can also be problematic, since they are the products of a contemporary mindset that is skeptical of ethical absolutes and differs fundamentally from the comparatively inflexible orientation their authors seek to analyze. Judging the past according to the standards of the present makes it difficult, if not impossible, for one to assess the Protestant moral vision dispassionately. Regrettably, the result can be an ahistorical critique that tells us more about the authors’ sensibilities than it does about the peoples about whom, ostensibly, they are writing.43 An exploration of the early Canadian Presbyterian worldview offers an alternative to anachronistic critiques of Protestant moralism. While, as we will see, such an exploration does not deny the existence within the denomination of unsavoury attitudes (anti-Catholicism, for example, was rampant), it takes pains to understand the circumstances from which those attitudes, and others, emerged. In doing so, an exploration of the Presbyterian worldview allows critical evaluations to be made in a historically sensitive manner, one that avoids both “presentist” condemnation (or what E.P. Thompson called “the enormous condescension of posterity”), and a reactionary anti-relativism that runs the risk, whether intentionally or not, of rationalizing bigotry.44 The arguments articulated in Boundless Dominion spring from the conviction that ideas matter. While not denying the tremendous importance of such non-ideological factors as demography and environmental change, the study presupposes that intellectual abstractions are, or at least can be, consequential historical phenomena. In response to the potentially confounding question of whether ideas are causes or effects of historical change – that is, of whether they are catalysts for behaviour, or reactions to shifting circumstances – this author is inclined, somewhat facetiously, to say that the answer is “Yes.” Happily, scholars interested in the historical significance of ideas need not choose between seeing them as causes or effects; depending on the context, they can both animate our actions and reflect the ever-changing environments in which we live. Indeed, the historical significance of ideas stems in large part from their flexibility, and their corresponding capacity for exerting influence in diverse ways.

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Introduction 15

Ideas also imbue our lives with meaning. As historian Gordon S. Wood has argued, intellectual abstractions function as imaginative strategies by which people order and confer significance on the welter of sensory phenomena they absorb on a daily basis. Moulded by the historical contexts from which they emerge, these strategies constitute “our beliefs, our ­ideology, our culture.” Given the pivotal part played by historically contingent ideas in grafting meaning onto our actions, one could plausibly argue, à la Wood, that intelligible patterns of human behaviour cannot exist without them.45 Thus, while it draws on the insights of several scholarly subfields, notably cultural history, Boundless Dominion is mainly a work of intellectual history. Intellectual history, as a historiographical genre, has experienced both highs and lows. It took significant strides in the middle third of the twentieth century, especially in the United States and Great Britain. Evidence can be seen in the launching, in the 1940s, of the Journal of the History of Ideas, a periodical dedicated to the systematic examination of aspects of Western thought; and in the publication of such landmark works of intellectual history as A.O. Lovejoy’s Great Chain of Being and Perry Miller’s New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century. Characteristics of works of intellectual history produced in this era, which were not monolithic, included a desire to identify individual ideas that transcended time and shaped history in meaningful ways over long periods (as evidenced by Lovejoy); and an effort to offer a comprehensive account of the conceptual circumstances that prevailed in a given community and influenced its inhabitants’ collective psyche (as reflected in Miller).46 For neither the first nor the last time, historiographical trends afoot elsewhere in the English-speaking world had a significant, albeit belated, impact on Canadian historical scholarship. The flowering of intellectual history in the United States and Britain, coupled with important domestic developments – notably a pervasive optimism surrounding Canada’s centennial and a corresponding outpouring of cultural nationalism – proved fertile conditions for Canadian intellectual historians at work in the 1960s and early 1970s. Testament to which are the works of S.F. Wise, whose penetrating assessment of ideas articulated by clergy around the  turn of the nineteenth century, “Sermon Literature and Canadian Intellectual History,” shed light on the ways in which conservative values were implanted in the British North American consciousness; and Carl Berger, whose exquisite investigation of attitudes espoused by imperial enthusiasts in Canada between Confederation and the Great War, The Sense of Power, has been credited for “[inaugurating] serious intellectual history in English-speaking Canada.”47

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As elsewhere, the subfield of Canadian intellectual history struggled in the later twentieth century. Social historians, many of whom utilized unconventional quantitative methodologies traditionally deployed in disciplines like sociology and economics, devoted their energies in everexpanding numbers to such neglected analytical categories as race, class, and gender. These scholars, in the evocative words of historian Robert Darnton, aimed “to make contact with the submerged mass of humanity and to rescue the lives of ordinary men and women from oblivion in the past.”48 From the perspective of this burgeoning subfield, intellectual history could seem irrelevant, owing to its reputed preoccupation with the writings of articulate elites. Worse, it could seem misleading, given that, in focusing on abstractions, intellectual historians accorded short shrift to the material circumstances – wages, labour conditions, technological changes – that shaped ordinary people’s lives.49 Compounding matters was the tendency of Canadian intellectual historians to fixate on the rigid parameters of the nation-state, which often precluded subtler analyses of such significant phenomena as regional idiosyncrasies and transnationalism.50 Yet while the practice of intellectual history receded, it did not disappear. On the contrary, thoughtful contributions to the subfield were authored in the late twentieth century on topics ranging from Upper Canadian perceptions of the early American republic, to French Canadian understandings of Confederation, to the nineteenth-century central Canadian agitation for westward territorial expansion. Thus, the rise of social history and the persistence of intellectual history were not mutually exclusive.51 Encouragingly, historians have exhibited a willingness in recent years to transcend sub-disciplinary divisions and synthesize aspects of the two, tacitly recognizing the crucial, reciprocal relationship between ideological abstractions and social experience.52 As well, stimulating works of intellectual history proper continue to be authored on such topics as the idea of liberty and print culture, attesting to the subfield’s enduring vibrancy.53 Two historiographical developments that have come to the fore in recent decades have stimulating implications for the practice of intellectual history in the early twenty-first century, whether in Canada or elsewhere. The first finds expression in the writings of such “Cambridge School” scholars as Quentin Skinner and J.G.A. Pocock. With the history of early modern political thought as their quarry, these figures have challenged traditional intellectual historians’ tendency to conceive of ideas as immutable abstractions that transcend time, arguing instead that they should be perceived as

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products of specific circumstances. Ideas, from this perspective, cannot be understood in isolation from the historical milieux from which they emerge. It follows that the recovery of meaning hinges on the recovery of context, including the concepts and vocabularies that were available to the people who articulated the ideas themselves.54 Scholars have begun to utilize such notions in an effort to make sense of how religious peoples from previous eras made sense of the world and their place within it. Rather than transposing anachronistic assumptions onto the past, they have attempted to perceive matters from the perspectives of their subjects; or, to put it informally, to see things their way. This methodology does not involve adopting (or, for that matter, rejecting) the beliefs of religious peoples from bygone ages. Nor does it entail making pronouncements on whether those beliefs were “right” or “wrong.” Instead, seeing things their way involves employing a historically sensitive approach to religious ideas, one that strives to understand the world from the vantage point of peoples who lived amid contexts that differ from our own.55 The second development, which is linked to the interrelated subfields of cultural history and historical anthropology, plumbs the ways in which ordinary peoples perceive themselves and their environments.56 The underlying presupposition is that one’s perception of the world is not, in actuality, the world per se, but rather a particular rendering of that world filtered through the prism of unconscious attitudes and expectations. The resulting emphasis on “mental worlds” concentrates on sensory perceptions and tacit assumptions. It also focuses on cognition: the processes and faculties involved in the apprehension and absorption of knowledge. That is, in addition to concentrating on what people thought and felt, it concentrates on how people thought and felt, and entails an examination of the metaphors, symbols, and interpretive categories that structure and inform popular understandings. Exploring “mental worlds,” in historian Peter Burke’s words, serves to “occupy the conceptual space between the history of ideas and social history,” obviating the need to choose between “an intellectual history with the society left out and a social history with the thought left out.”57 In view of its emphasis on the mechanisms by which people experience the world, this approach dovetails in significant respects with the burgeoning scholarly literature on the history of sensibilities.58 Boundless Dominion draws on both of these developments – an emphasis on the importance of context to the history of ideas, and the study of “mental worlds” – in exploring early Canadian Presbyterianism.

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Under intellectual history’s auspices, it intersects with two additional literatures. The first is the history of the British world. Pocock, in the 1970s, set forth the notion of an expansive interpretive framework that considers the interrelated histories of Britain’s “three kingdoms” (England, Ireland, and Scotland) as well as its settler colonies. Rejecting historiographical Anglo-centricity, he advocated a “new British history” that would integrate metropolitan and colonial experiences, yielding “a context of inherent diversity [that would replace] the image of a monolithic ‘parent society’ with that of an expanding zone of cultural conflict and creation.”59 Consistent with these sentiments, Boundless Dominion views nineteenth-century Canada – including its Presbyterian community – as part of a transoceanic community characterized by a latticework of commercial, ideological, and emotional circuits that crisscrossed the globe, influencing people’s lives on several continents in deeply meaningful ways. The application of such a framework, which implicitly acknowledges the permeability of borders and the multifaceted significance of the imperial phenomenon, brings into focus the myriad ways in which Canada has shaped, and been shaped by, the wider world. Unsurprisingly, the second literature to which Boundless Dominion connects under the auspices of intellectual history is the study of Christianity in Canada. Works devoted to aspects of this topic before the late twentieth century explored a multitude of issues, including the religious aspect of the French-English relationship, church-state relations, and the process of “indigenization” through which denominations shed affiliations with metropolitan bodies and became ensconced in Canadian society. Yet these studies, which were largely confined to the periphery of Canadian historical scholarship, scarcely scratched the surface of such fundamental issues as religion’s intellectual and cultural substance – or, as Berger put it, of perceiving religion “as a way of defining self,” and as a way of determining notions of “feeling and faith.”60 The subfield’s orientation shifted in the later twentieth century, due in large part to a lively debate over the so-called “secularization thesis,” which posits that religiosity is incompatible with modernity, and is therefore doomed to wither away.61 For historian David B. Marshall, a significant uptick in the number and percentage of Canadians adhering to “no religion” around the turn of the twentieth century was symptomatic of fundamental religious declension. Marshall, whose conclusions accorded with arguments enunciated several years before by historian Ramsay Cook, attributed this development to such factors as the impact of

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Darwinian science.62 (While Presbyterians, by the late nineteenth century, were cognizant of Darwinism’s ascent, their intellectuals’ emphasis on interpretive frameworks like Baconian induction – which accommodated critical inquiry and orthodox faith – shielded the denomination’s bedrock beliefs from potentially corrosive intellectual innovations for several decades to come.63) Differing perspectives propounded by various scholars – including Marguerite Van Die, Nancy Christie, Michael Gauvreau, and Phyllis Airhart – challenged Marshall’s arguments and the controversial thesis to which they were linked. In diverse ways their works brought into focus the resiliency of religion, which in their authors’ view was integral to the development of modern Canada, as expressed in such phenomena as urbanization, industrialization, and the elaboration of the state. This resiliency was evident in the fact that religion exerted substantive influence in diverse arenas well into the twentieth century.64 Boundless Dominion contributes to the literature on Christianity in Canada by illuminating religion’s centrality to Canadian culture before secularization’s onset, whenever that may have been, through an exploration of the Presbyterian worldview. In examining Presbyterians’ ideas, Boundless Dominion relies pri­ marily on published documents: sermons, pamphlets, and newspapers emanating from a denominational press that expanded significantly in the mid-nineteenth century. By that juncture, each of early Canadian Presbyterianism’s major subgroups churned out at least one publication, including the Church of Scotland’s Presbyterian; the Secessionists’ United Presbyterian Magazine; and the Free Church’s Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record. Moreover, by the early twentieth century religious newspapers, including Presbyterian ones, had become Canada’s largest non-governmental literary genre. Their main contributors were clergy. Through such media, which were designed to engage large audiences, authors’ views reached a denominational community that boasted high literacy rates and a long tradition of viewing the written word as a reliable route to moral edification and spiritual uplift. Moreover, the sentiments expressed via Presbyterian publications were not limited to literate consumers, as they could be propagated (like other texts) among illiterate members of the denomination in such “sociable spaces” as churches and meetings of voluntary societies. The production, distribution, and reception of these documents constituted a Presbyterian print culture.65 Boundless Dominion focuses on published documents, which tended to be written by clerical and lay elites, for two reasons. First, they were

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integral to the development of a Presbyterian “public sphere.” This entity integrated members of a fractious denomination into discussion-oriented communities where words and ideas intermingled and vied for supremacy. These communities, in turn, functioned as deliberative forums through which ideas were articulated, debated, and transmitted to broader segments of the denomination. The ideas expressed by Presbyterians via ­sermons, pamphlets, and newspapers were therefore not confined to an isolated, unrepresentative few; instead, they were instrumental to the emergence of discursive communities whose influence reverberated across the denomination.66 The second reason is that a correlation existed between the rhetoric espoused through such texts and the actions undertaken by the denom­ ination’s rank and file. Consider the Presbyterians’ mid-nineteenth-­ century denunciations of slavery in the United States. One representative critique, which was published in the January 1861 edition of the Canadian United Presbyterian Magazine, denounced slavery as a degrading practice through which “three or four million of our fellow-creatures [are] held in bondage,” and as a “blot” on the American republic’s “otherwise fair and boastworthy escutcheon.”67 Such sentiments accord with the Presbyterians’ financial support for the Buxton mission, a settlement created in Canada West for black people who had shed the fetters of slavery in Southern states and migrated northward.68 Emphasizing the correlation between rhetoric and action is not meant to suggest that ordinary Presbyterians were uniformly receptive to elite ideas. On the contrary, expressions of rank-and-file resistance were by no means unheard of. For example, the efforts of James MacGregor, a minister in the Maritimes between the late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth centuries, occasionally met with expressions of “thoughtless irreligion,” which manifested “even in the House of God.” After the first service he presided over in Nova Scotia, a member of the congregation abruptly announced to the other people in attendance – and, doubtless, to the minister’s chagrin – “come, let us away to the grog shop!”69 Nor is the emphasis on the correlation between rhetoric and action meant to suggest that ordinary Presbyterians reflexively obeyed elite injunctions, as though they were mere automatons charged with carrying out orders haughtily dispensed from on high. Spontaneously occurring initiative, conversely, appears to have been an equally (if not more) important motivating factor when it came to the behaviour of the denomination’s adherents. For evidence one need look only to demands made, in 1837, by ordinary Presbyterians from Musquodoboit, Nova Scotia,

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Introduction 21

who “complained” to a Halifax-based body “of the want of public worship and the dispensing of ordinances among them,” due to the absence of regular ministrations in their community. Their expressions of dissatisfaction seemingly proved effective, as the Haligonians responded by “[coming] to the resolution” that it was necessary to ensure that their coreligionists in Musquodoboit would henceforth receive ministerial services “at least once a quarter.”70 Ultimately, stressing the relationship between rhetoric and action is intended to demonstrate that intellectual impulses exerted substantive influence within the denomination, and were by no means confined to the musings of an isolated, atypical elite. An investigation of published Presbyterian documents ultimately calls into question the notion of a yawning, unbridgeable chasm between the “high” culture of elites and the “low” culture of the populace. True, ministers and eminent laypeople wielded disproportionate influence, owing to the fact that they usually enjoyed greater wealth, education, and status than their ordinary coreligionists. What is more, they tended overwhelmingly to be “stale, pale, and male” – that is, older white men – meaning that the words that appeared in published Presbyterian writings were seldom those of young people, racial minorities, or women.71 Doubtless, such discrepancies contributed, at least occasionally, to divergent priorities and experiences. Still, it would be erroneous to conclude that these groups represented discrete, monolithic blocs with little, if anything, in common. To do so would be to downplay the diversity inherent in both constituencies. Equally problematic, it would deny both the efforts of elites to craft their arguments in ways that would appeal to large audiences, and the active part played by those audiences in absorbing sentiments that surfaced in denominational publications. Thus, published Presbyterian documents can be seen as sources that aggregate elite and popular perspectives, notwithstanding the existence of substantive intradenominational inequities.72 In exploring the early Canadian Presbyterian worldview, Boundless Dominion begins with a chapter, “Becoming Presbyterian,” that provides essential background information on the denomination’s origins, evolution, and impact. The remainder of the study is divided into four parts and a conclusion. Each part consists of two chapters which explore differing aspects of themes – providence, politics, nature, and history – that were fundamental to the Presbyterian worldview. Additionally, each chapter of Boundless Dominion begins with a scriptural excerpt and a secular epigraph that are germane to their respective sections of the work. Drawn from the King James Version of the Bible, the former would have

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been familiar to nineteenth-century Canadian Presbyterians, given their denomination’s longstanding tradition of venerating the written word – and, in particular, the contents of the Bible – as an indispensable vehicle for the inculcation of religious virtue. The latter, for their part, encapsulate sentiments that are explored (sometimes explicitly, sometimes implicitly) in the pages that follow. Chapter 2, “Israel and Empire,” opens the first part and discusses the centrality within early Canadian Presbyterianism of providence, the doctrine of a divinely authored universal design invested with dynamic purpose. While members of the denomination were not unique among Christian groups in focusing on the providential theme, their Calvinist theology, as we will see, prompted them to place a particularly heavy emphasis on God’s authority. This emphasis dovetailed with their attachment to the British Empire, which was seen as a divinely sanctioned vehicle for the diffusion of Protestantism and the purportedly matchless traditions of Western civilization. Equating themselves with ancient Israel, members of the denomination were convinced that they had a special role to play in bringing the providential plan to fruition. The third chapter, “Slavery and Liberty,” explores the ways in which providential thinking influenced Presbyterian attitudes toward Roman Catholicism and slavery. Members of the denomination routinely denounced the Roman Church as backward and benighted, and hailed Protestant missionary activity in such primarily Roman Catholic settings as Lower Canada as a providential instrument through which thousands could be liberated from their supposed spiritual subordination. Slavery, for its part, was castigated as a dehumanizing practice that flew in the face of the lofty ideals on which the American republic rested. Accordingly, members of the denomination supported the creation, in British North America, of havens like the Buxton Mission for black people who had successfully fled enslavement. Presbyterian views on Roman Catholicism and slavery bring into focus the centrality of providentialism within the denomination. This mental orientation equipped Presbyterians with a sense of duty that had important implications for their worldview. Chapter 4 begins Boundless Dominion’s second part, which focuses on the politics of early Canadian Presbyterianism. Entitled “Two Swords,” the chapter examines the church-state attitudes that existed within the denomination. These attitudes – which included everything from enthusiasm for state-supported Christianity to the belief that civil involvement in the religious realm invariably corrupts religious principles – had deep roots in Europe, and contributed to an atmosphere of

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intra-denominational disunity in northern North America. Circumstances particular to early Canada, including the notorious Clergy Reserves endowment, exacerbated sectarian tensions. The fifth chapter, “Christian Leviathan,” argues that a range of political orientations varying from steadfast conservatism to Reform-oriented liberalism accompanied the Presbyterians’ diverse church-state views. Predictably, such ideological differences served to aggravate divisions between the denomination’s constituent parts. The chapter also argues that, for all their diversity, Presbyterians occupied common ground when it came to the relationship between civil authority and religion. Members of the denomination shared a desire to harness state power as a means of Christianizing society. They sought to deploy potentially coercive government authority in hopes of rendering Protestantism the foundation of popular morality and eradicating rampant Sabbath desecration and drunkenness, contributing materially to the phenomenon of state formation. Boundless Dominion’s third part assesses Presbyterian perceptions of the natural world. Chapter 6, “Wandering in the Wilderness,” demonstrates that members of the denomination viewed the untamed environment as both physically and morally ominous. That is, in addition to perceiving undomesticated northern North American territories as forbidding physical environments, early Canadian Presbyterians viewed them as forbidding moral environments in which disorder and depravity proliferated due to a lack of churches and clergy. Such beliefs acted as a catalytic metaphor, emboldening Presbyterians to Christianize ­hinterland communities. Chapter 7, “God’s Garden,” discusses Presbyterian efforts to tame the supposed moral wilderness and facilitate its reconciliation with God. This initiative included dispatching missionaries to sparsely populated communities, where they would be tasked with promoting Christianity among religiously neglected peoples, including settlers and Aboriginals. It also involved instituting Presbyterianism’s liturgical traditions in backwoods settings. Important here were “communion festivals,” in which the sacrament was administered to large groups of people outdoors, and church courts, through which such putative ethical offences as drunkenness and extramarital sex were investigated and punished. Bound up with efforts to Christianize remote communities was the Presbyterian belief that the projection of religious virtue was inevitably accompanied by an audible transition in which sounds of irreligion (for instance, ones associated with hunting on Sunday) were replaced by either pious silence

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or vocal expressions of spiritual devotion, including sermons delivered outdoors; and by a pattern of material progress, with fruitful farms and bustling towns steadily replacing the undomesticated wilderness. Presbyterians were convinced that, in promoting piety in hinterland settings, the untamed environment would be purged of sinfulness and redeemed. The final part of Boundless Dominion explores Presbyterian understandings of history. Chapter 8, “Saving John Knox’s House,” examines the historical narrative that featured prominently in the denominational psyche. Presbyterians envisioned themselves as part of an august tradition that linked a succession of divinely favoured peoples – including themselves – in an unbroken chain that extended majestically through time. It began two thousand years before Jesus’s birth with the establishment of the covenant between God and Israel, and included such iconic and fiercely pious entities as John Calvin and John Knox, the Covenanters and the Puritans. According to this elaborate – indeed, epic – narrative, Presbyterians (along with other members of this tradition) were responsible for facilitating the onward march of Western civilization, and for propagating the soul-saving Gospels. Adversity featured prominently in the Presbyterians’ historical account. The virtuous protagonists responsible for advancing such righteous phenomena as religious and civil liberty engaged in battle – sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively – with villainous adversaries, including alleged Roman Catholic and Episcopalian oppressors. Members of the denomination were convinced that the eventual triumph of good over evil, which would follow the climactic clash between the two foretold in scripture, would be all the more gratifying in view of the fiendish enemies that had been vanquished along the way. Such beliefs spurred them on in their evangelistic endeavours. The last chapter,“The Pulse of the Past,” demonstrates that Presbyterians invoked history when they became embroiled in nineteenth-century conflicts over such issues as government funding for Pictou Academy and the Clergy Reserves. So influential was their interpretation of the past that it was invoked even when the denomination’s factions clashed with one another, with members of the denomination conjuring aspects of the past (albeit in differing ways) to substantiate their positions regarding such controversial issues as church-state relations. Their conception of history, then, was fluid and contested, as opposed to being static and unambiguous. The final chapter also examines the pronounced extent to which the Presbyterians’ understanding of history shaped their conception of time itself. Given the denomination’s emphasis on the unfolding of the

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providential plan, they were unwilling to perceive time’s passage as either purposeless or inscrutable. Rather, while they conceded that God was capable of working in mysterious ways, Presbyterians often saw time as deeply meaningful and pregnant with eschatological import. In particular, they were adamant that time was hurtling inexorably toward Christ’s Second Coming and the realization of a magnificent millennial kingdom. The impact of such views was manifest in Presbyterian contributions to Canadian higher education, as will be seen. The conclusion, for its part, weaves together the threads explored in the various chapters, and underscores the profound and abiding importance of religiosity as a cultural phenomenon. Among other things, it posits that an understanding of this phenomenon is necessary in order to grasp the fundamental shift that has occurred, in English-speaking society, from the rigid moralism of the Victorian age to the relativistic ethos by which it has been eclipsed. What follows is neither a celebratory denominational history nor a present-minded evisceration of a complex religious community whose views developed amid cultural circumstances that differed sharply from our own. Rather, in seeing things the Presbyterian way, it aims to illuminate the content and impact of the denomination’s boundless worldview.

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1 Becoming Presbyterian And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. Mark 16:15

We are all Atlanticists now – or so it would seem from the explosion of interest in the Atlantic and the Atlantic world as subjects of study among historians of North and South America, the Caribbean, Africa, and western Europe. David Armitage, The British Atlantic World, 1500–1800 (2002): 11

What is Presbyterianism? Which factors led to its emergence, what are its main characteristics, by which means did it spread across various parts of the world, and why was it so influential in early Canada? The following chapter addresses these questions through an exploration of the denomination’s origins, evolution, and impact. Early Canadian Presbyterianism did not exist in a vacuum. Rather, the denomination’s development was influenced in crucial ways by phenomena occurring elsewhere in the world, and in earlier eras. Indeed, like so much of early Canadian history, the Presbyterian worldview cannot be understood aright in isolation from the broader spatial and temporal circumstances from which it emerged.1 Evidence can be gleaned from the denomination’s institutional development, its doctrines, its system of church polity, and its approach to worship. These issues – integral to an understanding of Presbyterianism, whether in Canada or elsewhere – are the focus of this chapter.

In t h e B e g in ni ng … Presbyterianism’s roots lie in early modern Geneva, where the Frenchborn Reformer, John Calvin, settled in the 1530s. Calvin’s Protestant

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counterpart, Martin Luther, endeavoured to draw a distinction between that which, in his view, was religiously essential – the doctrine of justification by faith, the notion that the Bible was the lone wellspring of religious knowledge – and that which, for him, was religiously ephemeral – sacerdotal rituals, the Roman Church’s ecclesiastical hierarchy. While Calvin echoed Luther in rejecting Catholicism’s allegedly illegitimate authority, he aimed to reconcile what he saw as the substance of undefiled religion with the administrative and disciplinary mechanisms of a church that had been purged of Roman influences.2 He built on foundations laid by such continental theologians as Johannes Oecolampadius and Martin Bucer, who were integral to the emergence of “Reformed Protestantism.” These figures were alarmed by the torrent of societal disorder that had seemingly engulfed sixteenth-century Europe as a result of the decline of feudalism and the fracturing of Christendom – evidence of which supposedly lay in the distressing proliferation of disobedient children, insubordinate servants, and adulterous husbands and wives.3 Calvin believed that, on account of original sin, humanity was mired in a state of abject depravity from which it was incapable of escaping. Only God could facilitate the redemptive process through which undeserving sinners would be reconciled with their creator and permitted to spend eternity in heaven. It was imperative, in Calvin’s view, for a purified church to enforce strict moral standards so as to counter humanity’s intrinsic tendency toward disobedience. The church’s disciplinary efforts, the logic ran, would engender a godly society, or commonwealth, over which unalloyed Protestant piety would reign. Such beliefs were enunciated in Calvin’s immensely influential theological compendium, Institutes of the Christian Religion, the first edition of which was published in 1536.4 Calvin rejected the Roman Church’s governmental hierarchy on the grounds that it was unscriptural. Instead he advocated a decentralized system of church governance featuring ecclesiastical leadership by clergy and laypeople, which was purportedly consonant with biblical dictates. Known as the “consistory,” this system was patterned on “the apostolic church as described in the New Testament.” While it could be “a remarkably intrusive institution” – at the height of its influence, the consistory summoned before its meetings one fifteenth of Geneva’s adult population for moral scrutiny and, often, punishment – it could also be “a genuinely caring institution,” for instance by providing a setting in which conflicts between family members, neighbours, and business partners could be discussed and, possibly, resolved.5 While Geneva’s civil authorities were responsible for supporting the church’s initiatives, they were expressly prohibited from meddling in its

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affairs. The Calvinist model of ecclesiastical governance, which conceived of church and state as separate yet complementary, exerted tremendous influence in early modern Geneva – so much so that it gained a reputation throughout the Protestant world for its unwavering insistence on the strictest standards in popular morality.6 Obedience to religious and civil authority was necessary, in Calvin’s understanding, to mitigate the sinfulness of the reprobate and shield the pious from the corruptive encroachments of sin; or, as Calvin himself put it, to ensure that those “who lead a filthy and infamous life may not be called Christians, to the dishonour of God,” and that “the good be not corrupted by the constant company of the wicked, as commonly happens.”7 Evidence of Calvinism’s impact on Geneva can be seen in the staggering range of offences punished by the consistory. In the mid-sixteenth century, for example, a carter was excommunicated for neglecting to turn his back while urinating in the street, while two men and a woman were denied communion for “scandal and disrespect to the institution of marriage” after they witnessed a groom repeatedly slicing a loaf of bread at breakfast to signify the number of times he had engaged in sexual intercourse with his bride the night before. Additional evidence of Calvinism’s impact on Geneva can be seen in the remarkable extent to which perceived immorality was eradicated within the city-state. For instance, parish records from the 1550s indicate that the rate of illegitimate childbirth in Geneva was 0.12 per cent, which is among the lowest ever recorded by Europe’s historical demographers. Unsurprisingly, Calvinism’s thoroughgoing efforts to purge Geneva of sinfulness elicited resentment, as reflected in the fact that disgruntled community members surreptitiously named their dogs Calvin and disdained him as a latter-day Cain.8 Notwithstanding its detractors, Calvinism was so influential that, by the second half of the sixteenth century, it had emerged as “the most dynamic and widely established form of European Protestantism.”9 Observers have suggested that Calvinism’s significance transcended the expressly religious realm, influencing the domains of politics and economics in substantive ways. Regarding politics, it has been suggested that Calvinism’s emphasis on decentralized church governance established a precedent for challenging concentrated authority, thereby facilitating the flowering of modern democracy. Proponents of the Whig interpretation of history, in particular, have noted that key developments in Western political history – the Dutch Revolt, England’s seventeenth-century revolutions, the American War of Independence – occurred in settings over which Calvinism exerted considerable influence, which attests in their

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view to a correlation between religious and political reform. As for economics, observers, including the sociologist Max Weber, have posited that Calvinism’s emphasis on “inner-worldly asceticism” led to the ­cultivation of characteristics conducive to the growth of modern capitalism. For proponents of this view, the fact that communities impacted by Calvin’s doctrines played key roles in capitalism’s ascent – the Netherlands rose to “commercial supremacy” in the seventeenth c­ entury, Britain embraced industrialization in the eighteenth century, continental Europe’s “entrepreneurial elites” were disproportionately concentrated in Calvinist communities in the nineteenth century – served to validate their assumptions.10 Calvinism differed in significant respects not only from Roman Catholicism, but from other forms of Protestantism as well. Though Calvinists emphatically joined their Protestant counterparts in denouncing myriad aspects of the Roman Church’s brand of Christianity – including the veneration of saints and the doctrine of purgatory, the proscription of clerical marriage and restrictions on the consumption of meat – they diverged when it came to ecclesiastical traditions and theology. Regarding ecclesiastical traditions, Calvinists differed from Lutherans concerning communion: they rejected the Lutherans’ belief that this practice involved the “real presence” of Christ, viewing it instead as a sacred symbol of Christian fellowship and an invaluable reminder of Jesus’s sacrificial death. Calvinists also disagreed with Anabaptists over baptism: they dismissed Anabaptists’ insistence on “reserving baptism for adult believers” on the grounds that it could result in large segments of the population never being baptized at all, if they, or other members of their communities, felt they were unworthy of the sacrament.11 Calvinists also diverged from other Protestants when it came to theology. This discrepancy was perhaps nowhere more evident (and, in the fullness of time, more consequential) than in differences between the ­Calvinist doctrines that came to permeate such denominations as Presbyterianism, and the Arminian doctrines that eventually suffused rival Protestant groups like Methodism. Calvinism posited that all human beings, judged exclusively on their own merits, warranted eternal damnation as a result of the ineradicable taint of original sin. However, Calvinists also held that a gracious God, at the dawn of time, had predestined certain individuals (“the elect”) for salvation, an outcome that was secured through the sacrificial death of his only begotten son, and manifest among the elect in an unwavering devotion to Christ. The phenomenon of sal­ vation, they maintained, was wholly contingent on God’s “freely given

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mercy,” and had nothing whatsoever to do with the spontaneously occurring initiatives of inherently sinful individuals. To suggest that human beings could play a role in engendering their own salvation was to render human beings, instead of God, the catalysts of sanctification. Calvin’s beliefs on this matter reflected the intellectual influence of Augustine of Hippo, an early Christian theologian whose views prefigured Calvinism in significant respects centuries before the Reformation.12 Calvin discouraged his adherents from attempting to discern God’s will regarding the fate of their souls. Instead, he urged them to place absolute faith in God, the sovereign ruler of the universe, and to look to Christ, their Saviour, “for the hope of salvation.” While critics of predestination have denounced it as arbitrary and anxiety provoking, Calvin himself saw it as a “comforting and fortifying doctrine” that guaranteed to the faithful that their devotion to Christ would invariably weather any and all tribulations.13 Premised on the teachings of Jacobus Arminius, a Dutch theologian who taught at Leiden University in the early seventeenth century, the tenets of Arminianism contrasted markedly with those of Calvinism. Although they did not reject the doctrine of original sin, Arminians maintained that God had equipped the entirety of humanity with the capacity for soul-saving Christian faith. That certain people neglected to avail themselves of this gracious gift was attributable not to any limits on ­sinners’ means of pursuing sanctification, but rather to their own unwillingness to repent of their sins and abide by Christian teachings. Without going so far as to assert that human beings could orchestrate their own salvation, Arminianism placed greater emphasis on the potentially uplifting aspects of individual agency than did predestinarian Calvinism, wherein individuals are utterly incapable of sparking the redemptive process that would reconcile them with God.14 Constituting one branch of the Reformed tradition, Calvinism made its way across large swaths of Europe in the mid-sixteenth century via the recently invented printing press, as well as patterns of group migration and commercial intercourse involving its adherents. The result was the development of a diasporic consciousness that knitted together Reformed Protestants, including Calvinists, who were scattered across diverse settings. The Reformed tradition found particularly receptive audiences in the “Huguenot crescent” of France, parts of the Netherlands (where it competed for theological influence with Arminianism), and Scotland. In the latter, the combination of decentralized ecclesiastical governance and Calvinist doctrine that originated in Geneva would be adapted to larger communities, resulting in the emergence of Presbyterianism.15

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Scotland officially embraced Protestantism in 1560 as a result of the Scottish Reformation, through which the “Auld Alliance” linking the monarchies of Scotland and France was shattered and a Protestant Confession of Faith was adopted. This event went further than its English counterpart in eradicating vestiges of Catholic iconography and ritualism, contributing to the spartan form of worship for which Scottish Presbyterianism came to be known.16 Amounting to an assault on the elaborate culture of medieval Catholicism, such developments reflected the Reformed tradition’s hostility to “human inventions” that were denounced for exalting the “created” – idolatrous innovations – above the “Creator” – God himself – and for hindering unadulterated Christian devotion.17 John Knox was instrumental to the promotion of Calvinism in Scotland, which he saw as a divinely favoured nation akin to Old Testament Israel.18 In the 1550s, the Scottish-born Knox studied under Calvin in Geneva, where he sought refuge from persecution at the hands of Mary Tudor. His fierce aversion to her reign contributed to his belief that pious subjects were duty bound to resist the injunctions of impious civil rulers (an issue that will be discussed in greater depth in chapter 4). So great was Knox’s admiration for the city-state that he lauded it as the “maist perfyt schoole of Chryste” to have existed on earth since the era of the Apostles.19 Knox’s Calvinist convictions informed his contribution to the First Book of Discipline (1560), a landmark text in Scotland’s religious history. Mincing no words, it declared that Catholic traditions like mass should be “utterly repressed,” as they were “damnable to mans salvation.”20 Drawing on the orthodox Protestant conviction that the Bible is the only veritable source of religious knowledge, the First Book of Discipline also called for the creation of a well-educated ministry and schools in every parish, which were deemed necessary to cultivate a literate populace capable of appreciating God’s word for itself. Indeed, Knox’s insistence on the importance of “comprehensive educational provision” stands as one of his most significant historical contributions.21 Andrew Melville emerged as Scotland’s principal Protestant following Knox’s death in 1572. Like Knox, Melville had studied in Geneva, where he absorbed the austere teachings of Calvin’s disciple, Theodore Beza. Melville’s most significant contribution to Scottish Protestantism found expression in the Second Book of Discipline (1578), an influential text composed by Melville as well as several of his fellow Scottish Protestants. The book included a denunciation of Episcopacy – the hierarchical system of church polity employed by Anglicans, among other groups – and called for ecclesiastical governance by ministers and elected lay elders, or

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“presbyters,” who would be equal to each other in rank. (Etymologically, presbyter derives from “presbuteros,” a Greek word for elder.) Cumu­ latively, these figures would exercise the authority of bishops under the Episcopalian system, amounting to a “corporate episcopacy.” Melville and his associates believed that basing church governance on the “mutuall consent of brethrene” enjoying “equalitie of power” would “tak away all occasioun of tyranny” within the Scottish church. Based as it was on the Calvinist consistory, this system serves as the essence of Presbyterian ecclesiastical polity.22 Crystallizing in early modern Scotland, Presbyterianism’s distinctive governmental system consisted of a hierarchy of church courts, which will be discussed in ascending order. At the bottom of the hierarchy are church, or “kirk,” sessions, of which there were approximately one thousand in Scotland by the early nineteenth century. Kirk sessions consisted of a congregation’s minister as well as roughly a dozen reputedly respectable male household heads drawn from the local parish. They presided over the administration of congregational affairs and disciplined moral transgressors, who could be summoned before their gatherings and subjected to various punishments. Above the kirk session was the presbytery, a judicial entity that by the mid-seventeenth century included the minister and a single ruling elder from several parishes. Responsible for “overseeing overall church life and public morals,” the presbytery’s functions included acting as an appellate court for controversial cases that arose within individual kirk sessions, and developing overtures, or proposals, for new church policies. Certain supposed moral offences – adultery, for instance – could also be sent directly to the presbytery for scrutiny and, quite possibly, punishment. Synods ranked above presbyteries. In addition to monitoring developments within both presbyteries and kirk sessions, these bodies, which comprised the personnel of several presbyteries from a given region, were tasked with investigating appeals concerning cases that had not been resolved at the presbytery level, and evaluating overtures emanating from the various presbyteries. Atop the Presbyterian system was the General Assembly, which brought together ministers and elders from across Scotland for week-long annual meetings that were usually held in Edinburgh.23 Members of individual congregations selected, or “called,” prospective ministers, who were known as either “probationers” or “licentiates” before their appointments. The congregation’s selection would then be ratified during a meeting of the presbytery. These figures were expected to have obtained a university degree as well as formal theological training,

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which attests to the denomination’s abiding emphasis on the importance of education. Congregations also chose deacons. Members of the laity responsible for issues such as poverty relief, these figures did not typically play a role in the church’s administrative and disciplinary affairs.24 Rooted in kirk sessions, Presbyterianism’s “disciplinary apparatus” exerted a profound influence in early modern Scotland. Although its impact was modest in the wake of the Scottish Reformation – in the 1570s, for example, the effectiveness of the apparatus was hindered by a paucity of “competent ministers,” and by the absence of kirk sessions within many parishes – it emerged, by the end of the sixteenth century, as a dominant cultural institution.25 Central to the effectiveness of the Presbyterians’ disciplinary apparatus was the cooperation that it received from Scottish laypeople. Historian Margo Todd has noted that this cooperation manifested in at least three ways. First, members of the laity provided ecclesiastical officials with incriminating information regarding their neighbours’ transgressions, which, in turn, were investigated and, possibly, punished by kirk sessions. Second, kirk sessions appointed reputedly virtuous individuals as “cautions” who would monitor the behaviour of people thought to have committed serious ethical offences, and who would face fines if their charges re-offended. Third, due to a combination of “vigilantly spying neighbours” and the guilt drummed into people’s heads by Presbyterian preachers, members of the laity voluntarily offered confessions regarding their own supposedly sinful behaviour – as seen in the Aberdeen couple who, in the 1590s, admitted to having had sexual intercourse during a  fast, something that would not have been detected without their ­admission, since their tryst had not resulted in a pregnancy. Early modern Scottish Presbyterians’ efforts to promote virtue and combat vice accorded with the priorities of their Puritan contemporaries in England, fellow Calvinists with whom they shared “an intensely affective piety, a wrenching anxiety over election … and a pronounced sense of this life as a pilgrimage.” Yet, in Todd’s view, Scottish Presbyterians “achieved a [degree of] parochial discipline of which English Puritans could only dream.” Where Puritans struggled to exert control over religiously moderate elements within English society, Presbyterian moral influence prevailed over virtually the entire Scottish realm. So powerful was the kirk’s disciplinary influence that it was as though early modern Scotland had become Calvin’s Geneva “writ very large.”26 For all its disciplinary effectiveness, Scottish Presbyterianism would be  challenged in the seventeenth century by the Stuart monarchs who

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reigned over Scotland and England after the Union of the Crowns in 1603. The Stuarts felt that an autonomous Presbyterian church governed by a decentralized “corporate episcopacy” was incompatible with governmental stability. Such views were informed by the politico-religious philosophy of Erastianism, which viewed the church’s subordination to a sovereign state as an essential precondition of social order and the perpetuation of monarchical rule.27 The Stuarts sought to consolidate their authority in Scotland by imposing on its populace the traditions of the Episcopalian Church, an Erastian institution led by bishops who served under the auspices of the Crown, and whose initiatives rankled ardent Presbyterians. Especially objectionable from the Presbyterians’ perspective were the Articles of Perth, which aimed to restore such “popish” ecclesiastical traditions as chanting, “high feasts,” and the practice of kneeling while taking communion. In 1638, thousands of ordinary Scots registered their displeasure with the Stuarts’ impositions, which they associated with politico-religious tyranny, by signing the National Covenant, through which they made plain their attachment to constitutional governance and Presbyterianism. Then, in 1643, Scotland’s most ardent Presbyterians joined forces with England’s Parliamentarians during their civil war with Charles I and the Royalists. Their union – which drew the two nations closer together, both religiously and politically, in hopes of promoting “mutual security” – was consummated with the signing of the Solemn League and Covenant, which called for the implementation of Reformed Protestantism throughout the British Isles.28 As a result, Presbyterianism was temporarily instituted in both Scotland and England, although Erastianism resurfaced in the latter following the Parliamentarians’ victory at the Battle of Naseby. This partnership also resulted in the articulation, in the mid-1640s, of  texts that represented a distillation of Calvinist orthodoxy – the Westminster Confession of Faith, and the Larger and Shorter Catechism – known, in the aggregate, as the Westminster Standards. These documents constituted the foundation of Presbyterian doctrine.29 Efforts to impose Episcopalianism on Scotland resumed in 1660 after the Restoration of the House of Stuart and the attendant ascension of Charles II. This coercive campaign reached its sanguinary crescendo with the “Killing Times” of the 1680s, through which scores of defiant Presbyterians were put to death as a result of their unwillingness to ­jettison their beliefs. Presbyterianism would not be acknowledged as Scotland’s official religion until the era of the Glorious Revolution, through which Charles’s successor, the Roman Catholic James II, was

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displaced by his daughter, Mary, and her Dutch Calvinist husband, William of Orange. The Revolution Settlement of 1690 recognized the Presbyterian Church of Scotland as the nation’s state church, a development that was largely motivated by William’s calculated desire to curry favour with the Presbyterian majority in the Scottish parliament (which, he hoped, would marginalize his Jacobite detractors). The Revolution Settlement, in keeping with the Calvinist tradition, acknowledged both the church’s independence from the state – Presbyterian clergy were prohibited from occupying seats in Parliament – and the state’s obligation to support the activities of an autonomous church – the state assumed responsibility for assisting the Scottish Church financially.30 Unsurprisingly, most members of the denomination welcomed the Revolution Settlement, since it recognized Presbyterianism as Scotland’s official religion and ended the persecution to which the later Stuart kings had subjected them. A minority, the Covenanters, did not. Adherents of this faction (who were also known as “Reformed Presbyterians” or “Cameronians,” in reference to one of their leaders, the arch-­Presbyterian Richard Cameron) recoiled at the Revolution Settlement for two primary reasons. First, by establishing Episcopalianism in England, it failed to entrench Reformed Protestantism throughout the British Isles, a requirement of the Solemn League and Covenant. Second, it failed to recognize Christ’s sovereignty over the state, which in their view vitiated the sacred bond that wedded the Scottish nation to God. The latter concern prompted Covenanters to reject the authority of an allegedly ungodly civil authority, which meant that they refrained from such politically charged activities as voting.31 Notwithstanding the Covenanters’ objections, Scottish Presbyterianism received further recognition with the Treaty of Union of 1707, through which England and Scotland were merged, forming Great Britain. The treaty acknowledged the equality, within their respective realms, of Britain’s two religious establishments: the Episcopalian Church of England, an Erastian institution fused to the state; and the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, or “Kirk,” whose autonomy from the state was legally enshrined.32 No sooner had Presbyterianism been recognized as Scotland’s official religion than the denomination was plunged into a vortex of internal conflict. Triggering this development was the practice of lay patronage, through which influential entities such as large landholders disregarded the wishes of potentially quarrelsome congregations and appointed ministers to individual churches. Viewed by ordinary Presbyterians as a

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violation of their congregations’ sovereignty, the practice had been abolished in 1690 in conjunction with the Revolution Settlement. However, as a result of the influence wielded within the Scottish Church by powerful lay patrons, it was reintroduced in 1712 with the pivotal consent of Britain’s civil courts. This development, coupled with an internal theological conflict pitting Calvinist evangelicals against reputedly deistic doctrinal “Moderates,” resulted in the fracturing of Scottish Presbyterianism.33 Moderatism, which flourished in such cities as Edinburgh, drew on fashionable ideas linked to the Enlightenment, and downplayed the sterner aspects of Calvinist orthodoxy.34 Followers of a prominent evangelical, Ebenezer Erskine, broke ranks with the Church of Scotland in 1733. The departure of Erskine and his adherents was occasioned by their objections both to lay patronage, which they thought violated the “parallel sovereignties” of church and state, and to Moderatism, which they thought rendered the Scottish Church religiously apathetic. The Reverend Thomas Chalmers, a nineteenth-­century evangelical, uncharitably likened the Moderates’ sermons to a winter’s day: they were “short and dear and cold.”35 Erskine’s faction experienced a rupture of its own in the following decade, due to an internal quarrel over an oath that was to be taken by public officials recognizing “the true religion presently professed in this realm.” One seceding group, the General Associate Synod (or “Anti-Burghers”), objected to the oath, which they claimed was tantamount to a recognition of the Church of Scotland as the nation’s “true religion.” A second seceding group, the Associate Synod (or “Burghers”), detected no such acknowledgment, although they chafed at the Church of Scotland’s tacit willingness to tolerate elite interference in congregational affairs. It should be noted that these rival factions clung to the ideal of permanent state support for an autonomous church, while objecting to what they saw as Erastian intrusions in the sacred sphere.36 The lay patronage controversy sparked a second secession from the Church of Scotland in 1761, when another evangelical faction parted company with the national body. This group, which came to be known as the Presbytery of the Relief Church, echoed Erskine and his followers in denouncing perceived secular interference in the spiritual realm. Yet in articulating their objections, members of the Relief Church went further than their Secessionist forerunners, eventually embracing the philosophy of voluntarism. This outlook entailed a rejection of state-aided Christianity and a corresponding reliance on the freewill contributions of ordinary church members. The tenets of voluntarism, which eventually permeated

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the Burgher and Anti-Burgher factions as well as the Relief contingent, were seen as necessary in order to inoculate the church against the contagion of meddlesome temporal authorities.37 In 1843, another rupture would occur with the Church of Scotland, which remained that nation’s largest Presbyterian group despite the departures of the eighteenth century. The schism, unsurprisingly, was prompted by the issue of lay patronage, which continued unabated as a result of the civil courts’ unwillingness to rule against it. Frustration over this matter resulted in the Great Disruption, during which upwards of one-third of the Church of Scotland’s ministers and members withdrew from the national institution. Led by Chalmers, the secession found its most sympathetic audience within the Church of Scotland’s residual evangelical constituency, whose members came to be known as “non-intrusionists.”38 The Great Disruption resulted in the formation, in Scotland, of the Presbyterian Free Church. This constituency’s politico-religious orientation effectively occupied a “middle ground” between Church of Scotland establishmentarianism and Secessionist voluntarism, arguing that, while the state should support the church materially, it should refrain from involving itself in any other way in the sacred domain. Thus, by the midnineteenth century, Scottish Presbyterianism consisted of three principal branches: the Church of Scotland, the Secession tradition, and the Free Church. As we will see, each of these constituencies migrated across the Atlantic Ocean and exerted significant influence in British North America. Presbyterianism was brought to Ireland in the early seventeenth century by Scottish immigrants arriving in Ulster (especially such counties as Antrim and Londonderry). Military chaplains stationed there in the 1640s bolstered the denomination’s influence, helping to set the stage for the formation, in 1690, of the Synod of Ulster. Irish Presbyterianism, which became Ulster’s largest Protestant denomination, was patterned on its Scottish counterpart in terms of both theology and church polity. Yet the two entities were not identical. For example, while Presbyterianism was an established entity in Scotland, an Episcopalian body, the Church of Ireland, enjoyed establishment status in Ireland. Consequently, while elements of Scottish Presbyterianism could count on state aid, its Irish analogue was primarily dependent on voluntary contributions, which arguably rendered it “more responsive to lay preferences.” Additionally, perhaps the most controversial issue in early modern Irish Presbyterianism – the “nonsubscription controversy” of the 1720s, in which ministers rejected the notion that adhering to the Westminster Confession was requisite for clerical service – was “one of purely indigenous origin.”39

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This development reflected the growing influence, in Ireland, of a theologically flexible “New Light” orientation. This aspect of Irish Presbyterianism provoked criticism from various groups, including members of the Secession tradition, which had been imported from Scotland in the mid-eighteenth century; and evangelicals within the Synod of Ulster, whose influence grew markedly in the early nineteenth century. Consequently, New Light influence declined, starting in the 1790s.40 The Covenanting tradition also took root in Ireland, where the Solemn League and Covenant had been “warmly received” after it was imported from Scotland in 1644. Like their Scottish counterparts, Irish Covenanters rejected the Revolution Settlement, laying the groundwork for the formation of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland.41

T h e N o rt h A m e r ic a n Di mens i on Peoples from diverse places – including France, the Netherlands, and the British Isles – contributed to the growth of Reformed Protestantism in the “New World,” attesting to the diasporic character of the religious tradition to which they belonged. French Huguenots, whose religious beliefs derived from Calvinism, imported Reformed Protestantism to the Americas in the early modern era. Gaspard de Coligny, an admiral, attempted to establish havens for persecuted French Protestants in Latin America in the 1550s, albeit unsuccessfully. Further north, Huguenots – including Pierre du Gua de Monts, under whose fur trade monopoly Champlain founded Quebec – were permitted to practise their religion alongside Catholics in the St Lawrence Valley in the early seventeenth century. Yet this experiment in religious pluralism ended in 1627 with the creation of the Company of One Hundred Associates, whose own fur trade monopoly entailed an obligation to promote Roman Catholicism. With the exception of a brief period in the late 1620s and early 1630s, Protestantism would not be practised in that colony on a large scale until the collapse of the French regime over a century later.42 During the mid-sixteenth century the Reformed tradition gained a foothold to the south of New France in the Dutch colony of New Netherland, where it became the principal expression of Christianity. And, in the eighteenth century, it flourished in such Anglo-American colonies as Pennsylvania, as more than 200,000 Ulster Scots – who were often Presbyterian – immigrated to the New World between 1717 and 1767. Many of these Irish Presbyterians had emigrated as a result of the religious discrimination they had been subjected to in Ireland, where

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Episcopalianism was established and such Dissenting groups as the Presbyterians were prohibited from holding public office, among other civil disabilities. (Such penalties were often nominal, though, and economic concerns, such as wrack rents, were also a catalyst for emigration.) From the Ulster Scots Presbyterian perspective, religious persecution engineered by Episcopalian elites persisted in the New World, where imperial authorities attempted to establish Anglican influence – for example, by creating colonial establishments, and calling for the construction of an American episcopate – in an effort to foster deference and loyalty among the populace.43 Small wonder, then, that Ulster Scots Presbyterians in colonies like Pennsylvania were among the most enthusiastic contributors to the Revolutionary War. So zealous was the denomination’s support for the radical insurgency that a Hessian soldier, in reflecting on his experiences in wartime Pennsylvania, observed that “[one could] call this war … by whatever name you may, only call it not an American Rebellion, it is nothing more than an Irish-Scotch Presbyterian Rebellion.”44 As a result of the denomination’s support for the conflict, Presbyterianism was underrepresented among the Loyalists who left revolutionary America in the late eighteenth century and settled elsewhere in the British world. (Although Presbyterian loyalty, especially among Highlanders in the Carolina backcountry, was not unknown.) American Presbyterians, as a result, played only a minor role in shaping the denomination’s early development in post-revolutionary British North America, which received the bulk of the Loyalist émigrés.45 Robert McPherson, a military chaplain stationed among British soldiers participating in the Seven Years’ War, presided over the first Presbyterian service on what is now Canadian territory in 1758, after the decisive British assault on the French fortress of Louisbourg. Presbyterianism’s growth in the Atlantic region for the next half-century was slow. A small Presbyterian contingent existed among the New England Planters (most of whom were Congregationalists) who moved north in the mid-eighteenth century after the expulsion of the Acadians. Joining them in the later eighteenth century were Presbyterians who had emigrated from Ireland and settled in such towns as Truro, Nova Scotia.46 Contributing to Presbyterianism’s sluggish growth in the Maritime region in the later eighteenth century was the Church of Scotland’s lack of interest in overseas missionary activity, which effectively deprived colonial Presbyterians of regular ministrations. The Secession churches, especially the Burghers and Anti-Burghers, displayed greater enthusiasm

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when it came to the propagation of the Gospels overseas, due largely to their evangelical ardour. However, their mission-related efforts were hobbled by scant resources. Still, the fervour of Secessionists residing in the Maritimes – including the missionary and representative of the British and Foreign Bible Society, James MacGregor, and the educator and c­lergyman, Thomas McCulloch – would be instrumental to the denomination’s modest early nineteenth-century growth.47 This pattern of Presbyterian expansion was reflected in the 1817 establishment of Presbyterianism’s first British North American-based Synod, the Synod of Nova Scotia. While it included a small Church of Scotland contingent, the Secessionists were by far the most important contributors to this new institution. By the mid-1820s, the Synod of Nova Scotia boasted close to 40,000 adherents, and it had assumed responsibility for the embryonic presbytery of Prince Edward Island.48 Presbyterianism’s development was slower in the Canadas. Early churches were established in Quebec, where a congregation consisting of disbanded Scottish soldiers was created after the Conquest under the leadership of George Henry; and in Montreal, where the Loyalist chaplain John Bethune oversaw the creation of a congregation before relocating to Upper Canada. As in the Maritimes, Presbyterianism’s expansion in the Canadas was inhibited in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries by the Church of Scotland’s apathy toward overseas missionary activity, and by the limited resources of the Secession churches who, as we have seen, exhibited greater enthusiasm toward colonial evangelism. Irish Presbyterians contributed substantially to whatever early success the Secessionists enjoyed in the Canadas. By 1818, there were fewer than twenty Presbyterian ministers in Upper and Lower Canada, and the denomination’s influence was confined to a few communities: Quebec, Montreal, settlements clustered around the Bay of Quinte, and the Niagara region. Half of these Presbyterian ministers belonged to the “Presbytery of the Canadas,” a Canadian-based institution created in 1818 that would be renamed the United Synod of Upper Canada in the early 1830s.49 Beginning in the 1820s, the Church of Scotland adopted an uncharacteristic enthusiasm for the spiritual welfare of British North America’s Presbyterians. The Scottish Church’s newfound spirit of missionary zeal was manifest in the creation, in 1825, of the Glasgow Colonial Society (G C S), a missionary agency supported by Church of Scotland evan­ gelicals. During its first decade, the GCS dispatched forty missionaries to  British North America, thereby enhancing the Scottish Church’s

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influence in colonies whose populations were swelling as a result of British immigration. The advent of the GC S was initially greeted by Maritime Presbyterians as a welcome, if belated, show of support from the metropolitan church, which established Synods in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in the early 1830s. Yet Maritime Presbyterians quickly came to view the G CS and its agents not as allies, but rather as rivals. This shift was attributable to the fact that the GC S – which enjoyed the support of influential colonial officials including Lord Dalhousie, the ardent Church of Scotland adherent or “kirkman” who served as lieutenant-governor of Nova Scotia and governor-general of British North America – aimed to assert control over jurisdictions that were already under the authority of the indigenous Synod of Nova Scotia. Such behaviour undermined the colonists’ initiatives, inflaming tensions between metropolitan and colonial institutions.50 Nova Scotia’s expanding Church of Scotland contingent also proved reluctant to support Pictou Academy, a Presbyterian school founded by  McCulloch in the early nineteenth century. The Scottish Church’s reluctance to support the academy, which struggled to obtain reliable government funding, was largely due to the fact that it was perceived as a threat to their own fledgling educational institution, Dalhousie College. Aggravating tensions was the fact that Secessionists were linked to the colony’s reform-oriented political constituency, while adherents of the Church of Scotland tended to be Tories.51 The rivalry between the GC S and indigenous British North American Presbyterian institutions was less pronounced in the Canadas. This was due to the paucity of Presbyterian missionaries serving in Upper and Lower Canada before the GC S’s creation, and the Canadas’ larger expanse. Both factors rendered instances of missionary overlap between the factions’ representatives unlikely, especially in comparison to the Maritimes. Due to the GC S’s exertions, a Canadian Church of Scotland Synod consisting of four presbyteries was established in the early 1830s. Adherents of the Scottish Church went on to play a vital role, in the early 1840s, in founding a Presbyterian institution of higher learning. Queen’s College in Kingston was designed “for the education of youth in the principles of the Christian religion; and for their instruction in the various branches of Science and Literature, [which would] greatly conduce to the welfare of our … Province.”52 Other Presbyterian groups were active in the Canadas in the early nineteenth century. These included the United Secession Church of Scotland,

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an avowedly voluntarist faction that was established in Upper Canada in 1834, and which came to be known as the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church in Canada; and a variety of American Presbyterian groups, who were especially active in the Niagara region, where they exhibited enthusiasm for evangelical musical innovations and temperance initiatives. The American groups’ influence declined precipitously following the ill-fated rebellion of 1837–38, however, as many of its members relocated to the United States. Thereafter, British influences became virtually hegemonic.53 How did British North American Presbyterians respond to the Great Disruption that convulsed the denomination overseas? While not legally subordinate to metropolitan churches, colonial Presbyterians exhibited support for the “non-intrusionist” faction led by Thomas Chalmers and the Scottish Church’s evangelical wing. Their reaction suggests that, while they may have relocated to North America, many early Canadian Presbyterians continued to conceive of themselves as members of a British community. The colonials’ support for the Free Church cause can be chalked up to several factors, including their philosophical objection to lay patronage, and the fact that many British North American kirkmen had been involved with the G CS, which had extensive links to the Scottish Church’s evangelical contingent – the group that precipitated the metropolitan rupture.54 Delegates of both the Church of Scotland and the Free Church were dispatched to British North America in an effort to persuade colonial Presbyterians of the righteousness of their respective contentions. The Free Church delegation, which included the energetic minister Robert Burns, appears to have been the more successful of the two parties, as reflected in its success in engendering support for the non-intrusionists’ cause. Nova Scotia’s Kirk Synod, which included Prince Edward Island, expressed unanimous support for the non-intrusionists’ decision to break ranks with the Scottish Church, eventually adopting the title “Free Synod of Nova Scotia” in a display of solidarity with their aggrieved metropolitan coreligionists. Contributing to the decline of the Kirk’s influence in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island was the fact that several of the Scottish Church’s ministers stationed in those colonies opted to return to Scotland, filling vacancies within metropolitan congregations whose ministers had departed for the recently created Free Church. The ministers’ departures, coupled with the Maritime Presbyterians’ overwhelming support for the Free Church, meant that for a time in the mid-1840s only two Kirk ministers remained in Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Circumstances were different in New Brunswick, where only three of thirteen Kirk ministers elected to secede in 1845. The New Brunswickers’

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support for the Kirk can be attributed in part to the fact that neither of  the Scottish delegations visited that colony, meaning that New Brunswick’s Presbyterians were not exposed to Robert Burns’s compelling non-intrusionist arguments.55 In 1844, twenty-three of the Kirk’s sixty ministers in Canada opted to break ranks with the Church of Scotland and establish a Canadian Free Church, which came to be known as the Presbyterian Church of Canada. Of these individuals, twelve had been G CS missionaries, which attests to that organization’s close ties to the evangelical contingent that had engendered the Great Disruption overseas. The Canadian Free Church enjoyed its strongest support in Upper Canada’s western districts, as evidenced by the fact that thirteen of its twenty-three ministers were located west of Hamilton, and seventeen of its ministers were located west of Kingston. The Canadian Free Church, which established theological colleges in Montreal and Toronto, underwent a rapid process of expansion, netting eleven ministers in its first few weeks of existence and emerging as the largest – and, probably, most influential – element within British North American Presbyterianism.56 Covenanting Presbyterianism, for its part, migrated to British North America in the 1820s. Irish Covenanters assumed responsibility for the subgroup’s affairs in the Maritimes; Scottish and (beginning in the 1850s) American Covenanters assumed responsibility for the subgroup’s affairs in the Canadas. The faction’s support was greater in the Maritimes than it was in the Canadas, where many of the subgroup’s supporters gravitated to the Free Church. By 1867, for instance, there were only two Covenanter congregations in all of Canada West, located in Lanark and Glengarry counties.57 The Covenanters’ repudiation of an allegedly ungodly civil authority may have hindered their growth in the Canadas. James Geggie, a missionary sent by Scottish Covenanters to Lower Canada in the era of the rebellions, surmised that his faction’s unwillingness to swear oaths of allegiance to the British monarch impeded their development in the colony, given that ordinary colonists who refused to do so risked being branded as “Rebels” and having their property confiscated. That other Presbyterian groups experienced success in the same region (Mégantic County) while the Covenanters did not suggests that Geggie’s assumptions were accurate.58 (See table 1 for data on the distribution of northern North America’s Presbyterians in the mid-nineteenth century, the period in which census information regarding citizens’ religious affiliations began to be compiled with regularity across British North America. And see chart 1 for a depiction of the various Presbyterian mergers that occurred in early Canada prior to 1875.)

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Given the fragmented state of British North American Presbyterianism, how did the denomination’s constituent parts manage to coalesce and establish a Dominion-wide institution? One factor contributing to the process of reconciliation was the similarities that existed between the Secession and Free Church factions. Ostensibly, the two differed over the church-state relationship: Secessionists were often outright voluntarists, while the Free Church theoretically insisted on the state’s responsibility for supporting an autonomous church. However, both bodies were drawn together by a deep-seated suspicion of civil intrusions into what they saw as the church’s inviolate domain, a sentiment that dovetailed with the anti-establishmentarian ethos that held sway over much of North American society. As well, by the mid-nineteenth century, hitherto contentious church-state controversies had grown less polarizing as a result of such developments as the secularization of the Clergy Reserves, which began in 1854. Secession and Free Church Presbyterians were also drawn together by a shared moral orientation. This orientation – which manifested in an evangelical aversion to Sabbath desecration, alcohol abuse, slavery, and Roman Catholic ultramontanism – helped integrate Secession and Free Church Presbyterians into nineteenth-century Canada’s eclectic Protestant culture. Members of these factions also tended to be reformoriented when it came to their political leanings, rallying in numerous instances around the leadership of such eminent Presbyterian evangelicals as Peter and George Brown. Overall, such similarities contributed to the emergence of a compelling impetus for union.59 The Canadian Free Church constituency, the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada, merged in 1861 with its Secessionist counterpart, the Synod of the United Presbyterian Church in Canada, establishing the Canada Presbyterian Church. For their part, Nova Scotia’s Free Church Synod merged in 1860 with its Secessionist counterpart, the Synod of Nova Scotia, establishing the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces of British North America. That institution in turn absorbed the small Free Church Synod of New Brunswick in 1866. Not to be outdone, the Kirk Synods of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick – the Synod of Nova Scotia and the Synod of New Brunswick, both in connection with the Church of Scotland – officially joined forces in 1867, establishing the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of the Maritime Provinces of British North America. This merger involving Maritime adherents of the Scottish Church indicates that the Presbyterian appetite for unification in the later nineteenth century was not limited to the Free Church and Secession subgroups, vital though their initiatives were.60

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Table 1  Distribution of Presbyterians in mid-nineteenth-century British North America 1851–52 Upper Canada Population Protestants Presbyterians Presbyterians as percentage of Protestants Br ea kdown by s ubgroup “Presbyterians” “Presbyterians – Church of Scotland” “Presbyterians – Free Church” 1851–52 Lower Canada Population Protestants Presbyterians Presbyterians as percentage of Protestants Br ea kdown by s ubgroup “Presbyterians” “Presbyterians – Church of Scotland” “Presbyterians – Free Church” 1851 Nova Scotia Population Protestants Presbyterians Presbyterians as percentage of Protestants Br ea kdown by s ubgroup “Presbyterians – Church of Scotland” “Presbyterians – Lower Provinces” “Presbyterians – Reformed” 1861 New Brunswick Population Protestants Presbyterians Presbyterians as percentage of Protestants [Breakdown by subgroup unavailable for New Brunswick] 1861 Prince Edward Island Population Protestants Presbyterians Presbyterians as percentage of Protestants [Breakdown by subgroup unavailable for Prince Edward Island]

952,004 723,608 204,148 28.2 75,308 59,102 69,738 890,261 123,619 33,486 27.1 29,154 4,047 267 276,854 182,770 72,924 39.9 18,868 25,279 28,777 252,047 166,239 48,832 29.4

80,857 44,003 25,862 58.8

Source: “Censuses of Canada 1665 to 1871,” Statistics Canada, accessed 4 June 2010, http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/98-187-x/98-187x/2000001-eng.htm.

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1861 Canada Presbyterian Church

1868 Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in Connection with the Church of Scotland

1840

1844 Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada (“Free Church”)

1834 Synod of the United Presbyterian Church in Canada

1833 Synod of New Brunswick in Connection with the Church of Scotland

Synod of the Presbyterian Church of the Maritime Provinces in Connection with 1875 The Presbyterian Church in Canada the Church of Scotland

1868

1866

1860 Synod of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces

1833 Synod of Nova Scotia in Connection with the Church of Scotland 1845 Free Synod of New Brunswick

1844 Free Synod of Nova Scotia

1817 Secessionist Synod of Nova Scotia

Chart 1 Major Presbyterian unions in Canada

1818 Presbytery of the Canadas (became the United Synod of Upper Canada in 1831)

1795 Presbytery of Pictou (Anti-Burgher)

1786 Presbytery of Truro (Burgher)



Becoming Presbyterian 47

A movement for Dominion-wide union began gathering momentum in the early post-Confederation era. The Reverend William Ormiston, outgoing moderator of the Canada Presbyterian Church, contributed to the burgeoning union cause in the early 1870s when he sent an overture to the four major Canadian Presbyterian groups that comprised British North American Presbyterianism: the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces of British North America; the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of the Maritime Provinces of British North America; the Canada Presbyterian Church; and the Synod of the Presbyterian Church in Canada in Connection with the Church of Scotland. Ormiston hoped to further the project of denominational reconciliation; his efforts resulted in a veritable blueprint, the Basis of Union, which was designed to obviate residual differences between the various factions, and to lay the groundwork for a Dominion-wide institution.61 The strongest objections to the Basis of Union initially came from the largest of the four major groups, the Canada Presbyterian Church (which included both the Secession and the Free Church factions), with 92 of this faction’s 263 sessions objecting to the proposal. By contrast, only 15 of 107 Canadian Church of Scotland sessions voted against it. Yet an amended Basis of Union designed to assuage the Canada Presbyterian Church’s concerns resulted in the virtual evaporation of that body’s opposition. The Presbyterian Church of the Maritime Provinces, comprising that region’s Secession and Free Church constituencies, embraced the revised Basis of Union unreservedly. The greatest resistance to the proposal lay in the Maritime region’s Kirk constituency, the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of the Maritime Provinces of British North America. Fifteen congregations from this body elected to remain outside of the national Presbyterian institution. Overall, though, less than 5 per cent of the ministers from the four major British North American churches chose not to join the new Presbyterian Church in Canada. Representing the vast majority of Canada’s roughly 600,000 Presbyterians, this body was ushered into existence in 1875 with a meeting of the new church’s General Assembly at Montreal’s Victoria Hall skating rink. The Free Church contingent – which featured prominently in Canada’s rapidly industrializing urban centres, and was actively involved in the Dominion’s multidenominational Protestant culture – arguably played the most active part in shaping the new institution’s identity after 1875.62

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P r e s b y t e r ia n Worshi p While they differed over such issues as the relationship between religion and civil authority, metropolitan Presbyterians typically held fast to the denomination’s characteristic combination of Calvinist doctrine and decentralized church polity.63 Their colonial counterparts – who, as we have seen, were beset by intra-denominational rancour before 1875 – were little different. Plagued though the denomination was by internecine conflict, Presbyterianism’s characteristics in terms of theology and church governance migrated across the Atlantic Ocean and took root in northern North America, transcending the sectarian divisions that separated the denomination’s constituent parts. Accordingly, aspiring Church of Scotland ministers in the presbytery of Prince Edward Island declared in the mid-nineteenth century that the Westminster Standards were the “truths of God,” and affirmed that the denomination’s distinctive system of “government and discipline” was “founded upon the word of God.”64 Likewise, the Islanders’ contemporaries in the Canadian Free Church pledged that Presbyterianism’s distinctive combination of Reformed theology and decentralized governance constituted “the truths of God.”65 This indicates that, while they were far from monolithic, early Canadian Presbyterians did not belong to a hopelessly disjointed “community of communities.” Instead, they were part of a sprawling entity that included members of the denomination strewn across northern North America and the wider British world (about which more will be said in chapter 2). Unsurprisingly, links between members of the same faction were especially strong – so much so that they cut across territorial boundaries. For  instance, in 1852, a group of Nova Scotia Secessionists informed their Canadian counterparts that “you are dear to us”; the next year the Canadians responded, “To you belongs the great honour of being the first of Colonial Churches” to dispatch missionaries to far-flung locales, in hopes of “[assailing] idolatry in its strongholds.”66 Similarities between metropolitan and colonial Presbyterians were not limited to issues of theology and ecclesiastical polity. Significant aspects of Presbyterian worship in early Canada also hewed closely to the ­template forged overseas. Take church architecture. Early Canadian Presbyterian services were typically held in log cabins or wooden clapboard structures, especially in remote communities. Comparatively grand structures – for example, St Mathew’s Church, Halifax – were erected in early Canada’s expanding towns, where they were financed through such measures as private donations and tax exemptions. Often

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inspired by images that appeared in British and American pattern books, urban churches included characteristics like elevated podiums and boxed pews that would be rented out to the congregation’s wealthier members. The “poorer classes,” by contrast, would typically be seated on log benches. Reflecting the orthodox Protestant emphasis on the importance of preaching, urban churches also featured “unobstructed sightlines to  the pulpit” and “amphitheatrical seating,” which differed from the Anglicans’ Gothic Revival structures, whose “rectangular buildings with aisled naves” were conducive to a comparatively “ritualistic” form of worship.67 Yet in myriad instances the décor of Presbyterian houses of worship – whether in backwoods settlements or bustling towns – was characterized by a simple, unpretentious aesthetic that was reminiscent of church architecture overseas.68 Sunday morning services usually began at nine o’clock and opened with congregation members’ requests for prayers of remembrance. The central component of these services was a sermon, often more than an hour and a half long, comprising a stern synthesis of scriptural analysis and moral injunction. Members of the congregation also sang metrical psalms. With the exception of a tuning device known as the “kirk fiddle,” adherents of the denomination viewed musical instruments, especially organs, with skepticism well into the late nineteenth century. Their use, it was feared, might detract from the religious fervour of individual congregation members, who would no longer feel compelled to express their religious convictions aloud.69 While Presbyterian attitudes toward musical instruments mellowed somewhat over time, misgivings persisted, especially among evangelicals. Indeed, two ministers from the Canada Presbyterian Church, in accounting for why their congregations refused to join the Presbyterian Church in Canada, cited the permissive attitude toward musical instruments among their coreligionists in other factions as an insuperable obstacle to reconciliation.70 Sunday afternoon church services would begin after a mid-day recess. These meetings included the official admittance of new congregation members; the admonishment by the minister of supposed moral transgressors, who would usually be seated at the front of the church on a seat known as the “stool of repentance”; and the baptism of infants, a prerequisite for church membership in adulthood. Communion, or the “Lord’s supper,” would usually be administered once annually, and often constituted the most important congregational event of the year. The sacrament’s dispensation could attract substantial crowds, the largest of which numbered in the thousands. This was especially true in remote settings,

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where clerical ministrations were scarce. As a result of the throngs of people, communion would often be administered outdoors during one of the warmer months, representing the culmination of an elaborate series of events lasting for several days.71 These “communion festivals” were patterned on events that took place in the British Isles, especially the Scottish Highlands. In adhering to the traditional protocol that originated in the seventeenth century, the festivals represented the perpetuation in the New World of a metropolitan practice, one that likely served to strengthen a sense of liturgical continuity between Presbyterian immigrants and their descendants in northern North America, and their coreligionists overseas. Spread over several days, the festivals included numerous sermons, which were often delivered in both English and Gaelic, as well as lay scriptural explication. The use of Gaelic in Presbyterian services waned in the second half of the nineteenth century due to the fact that Presbyterian immigrants increasingly arrived from the Lowlands (though immigration from this region was by no means unknown in the early nineteenth century), and because of the language’s decline in traditionally Gaelic-speaking Highland communities.72 The dispensation of the sacrament itself was usually followed by a day of thanksgiving. A solemn ethos typified the proceedings – so much so that an observer likened them to a “picnic of deaf mutes.”73 As in Britain, catechism played a key role in promoting Presbyterianism in early Canada. Sunday schools – which were usually led by a church’s minister or the local schoolmaster, and which relied on the support of literate laypeople drawn from the congregation – instilled Calvinist teachings in young people’s minds beginning in the early nineteenth century. The evangelical Secession and Free Church constituencies embraced these institutions more enthusiastically than their counterparts in the Church of Scotland.74 Presbyterian youth would also be required to memorize such texts as the Shorter Catechism, “a collection of questions designed to present the doctrines of the Westminster Confession in a simplified form.”75 Young people’s religious knowledge – or lack thereof – could also be scrutinized through public examinations that occurred at regular intervals. Additionally, the degree to which young people (as well as older Presbyterians) had absorbed the denomination’s teachings could be investigated by ministers, whose responsibilities included “[visiting] the congregation ministerially from house to house with regularity”; and by elders, who were charged with “[exercising] a vigilant inspection over the families and individuals … [in] the congregation and the church in general.”76

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Some sense of the pronounced extent to which Presbyterian doctrine was inculcated in young Presbyterian minds can be gleaned from an episode recounted in Frank Baird’s sentimental work, Rob MacNab: A Story of Old Pictou. Written to coincide with the sesquicentennial of the landing of the Hector, the fabled vessel that brought a contingent of Scots immigrants to Pictou, Nova Scotia, in 1773, Baird’s narrative blends fact and fiction in chronicling the experiences of Pictou’s “Presbyterian pioneers,” and aimed to demonstrate that, “in the moral battle of life, virtue ultimately [trumps] evil.”77 The story’s narrator, a young man named Hector Davie Cameron (so called because he was born on the ship that brought his family to North America), is summoned around the turn of the nineteenth century to appear before the local kirk session, where he is asked to recite answers to questions contained in the Shorter Catechism. So thorough was his command of the document that, in response to the first question, “What is the chief end of man?,” he “rattled off” the answer “almost as one word: ‘Man’s-chief end t’glorify God ’nd ’njoy ’im-f’rever.’” Cameron, the reader is informed, “was as sure [of the answer] as [he] was of his own name.”78 Family prayer also played a role in instilling religious principles in the minds of early Canadian Presbyterians, irrespective of age. Family members, including servants in the case of the well-to-do, would gather in the morning and the evening for Christian worship. This event usually involved scriptural explication and silent prayer. Domestic religious exercises declined as the nineteenth century unfolded, and formal church institutions proliferated. An indication of the centrality of family prayer to Presbyterianism’s growth in early Canada can be derived from W.A. MacKay’s Pioneer Life in Zorra (1899), which explores the “holy faith and heroic deeds” of the early nineteenth-century Presbyterian inhabitants of a small town in Oxford County, Ontario. Within every “humble cabin in the woods,” MacKay writes, there could be found a “family altar, around which parents assembled, morning and evening, for the worship of the Most High.” Family worship represented “the most important event in the daily life of the pioneer,” and was seemingly conducted “in every house on many a long concession line.” For MacKay, its usefulness as a mechanism for cultivating communal virtue and individual piety could scarcely be exaggerated: It promotes order and regularity in the home, and diffuses a sympathy among the members. It calls off the mind from the deadening effects of worldly affairs. It says to every member of the family

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“There is a God; there is a spiritual world; there is a life to come.” It fixes the idea of responsibility in the mind of child. It develops, as neither pulpit nor Bible class nor Sabbath School can do, a sense of duty to God and man.79 MacKay’s remarks should be taken with a grain of salt. After all, there is little reason to think that nineteenth-century observers were somehow less inclined to distort history to advance a particular agenda than their twenty-first-century counterparts. However, even if one adopts a thoroughly skeptical outlook and assumes that he was overstating the religious zeal of Zorra’s residents in hopes of portraying the community as particularly pious, the fact that MacKay took pains to do so reflects the premium he placed on domestic Presbyterian devotion. If this was the case, MacKay’s motivations might have included disappointment in the waning of household worship in the late nineteenth century. Additionally, the fact that Zorra produced a disproportionate number of eminent Presbyterians – including G.L. MacKay, the first Presbyterian missionary dispatched to “Formosa” (Taiwan), and C.W. Gordon (or “Ralph Connor”), who spent part of his youth in the community – shows that even if Pioneer Life in Zorra contains exaggerations, its depiction of communal Presbyterian devotion is not entirely misleading.80 In the early twentieth century, John Murray expressed comparable sentiments in reflecting on the experiences of Cape Breton’s early ­ Presbyterians, who in his view benefitted enormously from family worship. Many of these people, he explains, enjoyed “the felicity that can only come to the individual, and the home, in connection with the fear of God and of obedience to His will.” Instrumental to the realization of such a state, for Murray, was the prevalence among the island’s Presbyterians of family prayer, which took place regularly around altars “erected in every home.”81 While Murray’s remarks, like MacKay’s, should not be accepted as the unvarnished truth, they arguably provide a glimpse of the  importance of Presbyterian family worship for certain nineteenthcentury inhabitants of Cape Breton. Family prayer would almost invariably be led by the male head of household, which attests to the existence of patriarchal authority within early Canadian Presbyterianism. For example, among the early Presbyterians of Zorra, scriptural excerpts would be read “slowly and solemnly … by the high priest of the family.” Then, after the children had had an opportunity “to tell something of what they had heard,” the patriarch would hold forth, offering a lengthy prayer marked by a “grave, dignified solemnity.”82

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Stressing the importance of male authority to early Canadian Presbyterianism, one minister observed in the mid-1860s that “praying fathers and heads of families are the best of all patriots. Our empire,” he elaborated, “owes much of its greatness to its brave warriors, its wise statesmen, its enterprising merchants, its men of learning and science.” Yet it owed exponentially more, the minister added, “to the piety and prayers of its household patriarchs.” Through their promotion of piety in the domestic realm, these men were supposedly responsible for maintaining the high standards in religious virtue that were indispensable to the British Empire’s greatness.83 However, while patriarchy was undeniably influential, it would be wrong to conclude that female Presbyterians were unimportant when it came to promoting the denomination’s tenets and traditions. On the contrary, women played a crucial role in Presbyterian missionary activity at home and abroad, especially in the later nineteenth century. They managed to do so largely as a result of their association with such supposedly innate female traits as sensitivity and kindness, which equipped women with a potent rationale for their involvement in mission-related activities. Consequently, the promotion of Protestant piety, whether in northern North America or elsewhere, came to be viewed throughout much of early Canadian Presbyterianism (not to mention other Christian denominations) as consonant with women’s “essential” characteristics. Women also played a crucial role in fundraising initiatives for mis­ sionary work. For example, by the late nineteenth century, female-led agencies generated as much as two-thirds of the revenue for overseas Presbyterian missionary activities. Unmarried women were particularly active in the denomination’s mission-related work, as full-time engagement in such initiatives was thought to be prohibitively time-consuming for married women whose primary obligations (childbirth, childrearing, chores) purportedly lay in the home. Evidently, then, the existence of patriarchy within nineteenth-century Canadian Presbyterianism was not an insurmountable obstacle to vigorous female involvement in the denomination’s campaign to facilitate God’s achievement of dominion over northern North American, and to promote Protestant principles and practices across the wider world.84 Religious texts, many of which had been “taken from the motherland,” also contributed to the development of early Canadian Presbyterianism. While published materials were often scarce in fledgling colonial communities, members of the denomination in various settings derived religious edification from the writings of such eminent metropolitan figures

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as the Puritan divines Thomas Boston and Richard Baxter. Above all, though, they availed themselves of the Bible, a “dearly cherished” text that was read “over and over again,” and was widely available to Presbyterian immigrants and their offspring in English and Gaelic.85 Indeed, one could plausibly infer that the Bible’s significance for early Canadian Presbyterians was comparable to its significance for New England Puritans. For the latter group, as historian David D. Hall has ­elegantly observed, the Bible was a singular document in that, unlike other books, it was capable of “escaping its materiality.” That is, the Bible “was priceless, though you found it in a marketplace; it was ­timeless, though a  printer may have dated an edition; it was living, though its matter was mere ink and paper.”86 The same could be said for Presbyterians in ­nineteenth-century Canada, many of whom derived spiritual sustenance from Christianity’s foundational text, which they regarded as the authoritative Word of God and the only veritable source of religious knowledge. Although members of the Presbyterian community (especially the largely evangelical Free Church and Secession factions) became involved in temperance campaigns, substantial segments of the denomination (including adherents of the religiously moderate Church of Scotland) did not object to moderate alcohol consumption at such social events as wakes. Members of the denomination were stricter when it came to Sabbath desecration, a transgression that few devout Presbyterians, regardless of their subgroup, could abide. Thus, an acute solemnity prevailed within the home on Sundays, when only the most vital of functions – the preparation of meals and the attainment of firewood, for instance, were expected to have been carried out the day before – were seen as permissible. In this respect, as in others, early Canadian Presbyterians resembled their metropolitan coreligionists.87 In The Master’s Wife, Andrew Macphail offers a glimpse of the penchant for unbending Sabbatarianism exhibited by the Presbyterian population of Orwell, Prince Edward Island. “On the holy day,” Macphail observed, “the best [i.e., most pious] people would not light a fire or draw water from a well.” However, while lighting fires and drawing water on the Sabbath were denounced as contemptible acts of irreligion, “the ultimate act of defiance” was chopping wood. The reason? Since “[one’s] neighbours would hear the sound of the axe,” the act furnished audible evidence to surrounding homes and passers-by of a family’s scandalous disregard for the Fourth Commandment.88 For further evidence of Presbyterianism’s uncompromising attitude toward Sabbath observance, one need look only to the actions of one

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early nineteenth-century Cape Breton clergyman who forced two boys, after they were caught skating to church one wintry Sunday morning, to drop their skates through a hole that had been chopped in the ice, never to be retrieved. In addition to being extreme, the minister’s reaction to the boys’ behaviour may have been contradictory: after all, if it was unacceptable for the boys to skate to church, should not the labour associated with their punishment, which violated the biblical injunction to refrain from work on the Sabbath, have been unacceptable as well? Nonetheless, his response is indicative of the fierce Sabbatarianism that lurked within early Canadian Presbyterianism.89 Yet, contrary to the caricature of the impossibly austere Presbyterian, members of the denomination were quite capable of acts of kindness and sociability. For example, Cape Breton’s early Presbyterians were apt to help one another “when anything more difficult than usual was to be done.” Such an inclination manifested in “frolics” – collaborative initiatives designed to mitigate the difficulties of labour-intensive projects. For  example, “men had their chopping, rolling, house or barn raising frolics,” while women “had their spinning and quilting frolics.” These activities were frequently accompanied “by a forenight of dancing … to the music of the fiddle or the bagpipe.” Furthermore, Cape Breton’s early Presbyterians were inclined to “exchange social visits between neighbouring homes, especially in the long winter and fall evenings.” These encounters, which were widely known by the Gaelic name of Ceilidh, are indicative of the denomination’s capacity for behaving in ways that ran counter to its reputation for unremitting austerity.90 Continuities between metropolitan and colonial modes of worship played an important part in alleviating feelings of isolation and cultural dislocation experienced by immigrants from Scotland and Ulster. As historian Marjory Harper has noted, churches – including Presbyterian ones – promoted cohesiveness among immigrant communities scattered across the globe, in large part by “ministering to the spiritual needs of their uprooted … compatriots.”91 The devotion exhibited by the Reverend Norman McLeod’s followers bespeaks the tendency of Presbyterians to cling to religion as a means of assuaging homesickness and fostering communal identity amid unfamiliar circumstances. In 1817, McLeod was accompanied by four hundred of his parishioners from Loch Broom, Scotland, across the Atlantic to Pictou, Nova Scotia. Three years later McLeod and his flock moved again, this time from Pictou to St Ann’s on Cape Breton Island. McLeod and his followers would be uprooted yet again in the mid-nineteenth century, relocating in this instance from

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St Ann’s across the world, eventually settling in New Zealand in 1851! Although their behaviour was not representative, the willingness of McLeod’s flock to follow him wherever he went, over a span of more than thirty years, illustrates the importance of religion – including Presbyterianism – among Scottish immigrants.92 Early Canadian Presbyterianism cannot be understood in isolation from the spatial and temporal context from which it emerged. Developments occurring elsewhere in the world, and in other time periods, were integral to the denomination. Evidence can be seen in Presbyterianism’s institutional evolution, its doctrines, its system of church polity, and its form of worship. Recognizing this fact is essential to an appreciation of  the early Canadian Presbyterian worldview, the characteristics and impact of which will be explored in the following chapters.

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2 Israel and Empire Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. Matthew 10:29

In Canada, Great Britain must ever be recognized as the mother of parliaments, the upholder of true liberty, and as worthily filling the foremost place in the promotion of wise civilization. William Kingsford, The History of Canada, VIII (1895): iv

In Church and Sect in Canada, sociologist S.D. Clark attributed the late nineteenth-century emergence of Dominion-wide churches – including the Presbyterian Church in Canada, birthed in 1875 – to the waning of divisive ecclesiastical influences “inherited from the old world.” “Empire gave way to nation,” he explained, and the “sect spirit” that had militated against the formation of national churches evaporated on account of the “growing maturity of Canadian life.”1 Clark’s observations, which portray Old World influences as obstacles to the various churches’ maturation, are indicative of an ingrained interpretation of early Canadian Presbyterian history. Accounts of the denomination’s development have dwelled on the pattern of internecine conflict that preceded the establishment of a Dominion-wide body. Specifically, they have devoted substantial attention to the “spirit of separation” supposedly responsible for denominational fracture. Typically, such discussions are followed by an explanation of how the factions became involved in a “movement towards union,” through which anxieties were allayed, rifts were patched up, and, at length, reconciliation was achieved.2 This pattern has been portrayed as the religious corollary to the polit­ ical maturation of the Canadian state. That is, discussions about the

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creation of a unified church coextensive with the Dominion of Canada are often intertwined with a teleological discourse on the country’s transition from subordinate colony to autonomous nation. The “colonyto-nation” approach pivots on the idea that “overseas influences” were responsible for denominational fragmentation before 1875. Disputes originating in Europe allegedly crossed the Atlantic and impeded the establishment of cohesive Presbyterian communities in northern North America. Such influences purportedly waned as Presbyterianism’s constituent parts became ensconced in early Canada. According to the traditional rendering, the precedent of Confederation was central to this process of ebbing overseas influences. Mirroring the British North American colonies in their decision to enter into a political union, Presbyterianism’s subgroups cast off the acrimony of the pre-­ Confederation era. Instead, the argument runs, they embraced a nationwide institution as a mechanism for diffusing Calvinist traditions. The tacitly nationalist narrative usually unfolds as follows: colonial subservience gives way to national assertiveness, Old World parochialism succumbs to New World unity, and the Presbyterian Church in Canada is born. Shelves groan beneath the weight of such accounts.3 The colony-to-nation narrative has shortcomings, perhaps the most glaring of which is its preoccupation with divisions wrought by Old World influences before the formation of a national church. To focus on the pattern of institutional conflict that preceded the union of 1875 is to downplay major aspects of early Canadian Presbyterianism, notably the abiding importance of metropolitan influences. The preceding critique is not meant to suggest that the emphasis placed by Clark and others on the “indigenization” of Canadian Presbyterianism (among other denominations) is wholly inaccurate. To do so would be both misleading and ungenerous. After all, the realization of a nationwide church inarguably involved toppling formidable obstacles, several of which were indeed remnants of disputes whose origins lay overseas. Moreover, nationalist mid-twentieth-century observers were often motivated by an iconoclastic desire to deviate from the imperialist preoccupations of an earlier age. Their emphasis on the emergence of autonomous Canadian institutions, including the Dominion’s churches, can thus be viewed as a bold alternative to the scholarly orthodoxy against which they reacted.4 Still, a tendency among church historians to concentrate on Presby­ terianism’s institutional history – and, in particular, on the shedding of Old World influences before the advent of a Dominion-wide body – has

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contributed to a reductive conception of the denomination’s formative era that neglects significant aspects of Presbyterianism’s intellectual substance. Situating Canadian Presbyterian history in a “British world” context represents a refreshing alternative to the traditional account. Historian Phillip Buckner has forcefully argued that this country’s past has been shaped in profound ways by its interactions with the British Empire. In an address to members of the Canadian Historical Association given in the early 1990s, he urged his audience to jettison the notion that the emergence of a coherent Canadian identity was a “natural development” that decisively eclipsed “all other loyalties.”5 Rather than conceiving of Canadian nationalism as a spontaneously occurring phenomenon that decisively laid waste to imperial enthusiasm, he advocated an alternative tack. Drawing on the works of historians J.G.A. Pocock and Linda Colley, Buckner recommended a methodological approach focused on the intricate web of circuits – political, commercial, cultural – that constituted the transoceanic British world.6 The adoption of such a model, Buckner reasoned, would counteract the distorting aspects of nationalist historiography, and reassert the centrality of the “imperial experience” within Canadian history.7 The British World framework has stimulating implications for the study of nineteenth-century Canadian religion, as historians Todd Webb and Richard Vaudry have shown.8 Presbyterianism is no exception. In stressing the permeability of borders and the enduring resonance of the imperial affiliation, this framework allows for a departure from the comparatively parochial emphases that have hitherto characterized accounts of the denomination’s development. Indeed, by applying it to nineteenthcentury Canadian Presbyterianism’s intellectual dimension, it emerges that, pace the indigenization narrative, Old World influences were integral to the denomination. In addition to conceiving of themselves as part of a British world, early Canadian Presbyterians portrayed themselves as a uniquely favoured people, similar to ancient Israel. Members of the denomination were convinced that they had been endowed with responsibility for advancing God’s providential design, through which the wicked would be punished and the righteous would be rewarded.9 This conviction dovetailed with their attachment to the principles, institutions, and mystique of the British Empire, which was seen as a divinely sanctioned vehicle for the diffusion of Protestantism and the matchless traditions of Western civilization. The central theme of this chapter is the synthesis of providentialism and British imperialism that circulated in early Canadian Presbyterianism. It

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contends that this combination, which was interpreted in diverse ways depending on the circumstances, was central to the denomination’s worldview. Presbyterians drew on a conceptual amalgam of providence and empire in an effort to make sense of the universe and their supposed status within it as a divinely favoured entity.

A P e o p l e H ig h ly F avoured of God The Christian idea of providence holds that the “sovereign God who ­creates is also the God who guides.”10 More precisely, providence – the doctrine of God’s ceaseless universal rule – has three irreducible characteristics: first, that God is the fount of creation; second, that God exercises sovereignty over his creations and is thus the engine of historical change; and third, that God has imbued all things, including time itself, with an unwavering purpose which for all its mystery will inevitably culminate in the Christian millennium. The cosmos, the totality of the past, the natural world – everything is accounted for. The idea of providence therefore amounts to nothing less than the awe-inspiring assertion that no aspect of God’s handiwork, however minute, is exempt from divine oversight and influence.11 While proponents of providentialism in various contexts have often believed that it could manifest in diverse ways – on a day-to-day basis, “general” providence could act through the “laws of nature” while, at pivotal junctures, “special providence” could act through the miraculous manipulation of those laws – they have harboured little doubt that, at bottom, “God controls everything.”12 Providentialism also mitigates the hardships and uncertainties that pervade people’s lives. By emphasizing the purposeful nature of divine rule, providentialism confers meaning and, often, legitimacy on that which might otherwise seem inexplicable or unjust. Historian Keith Thomas, in surveying early modern England’s sociocultural terrain, has remarked on providential thinking’s capacity for helping ordinary people cope with the difficulties that punctuate human existence: The doctrine of divine providence consoled [people] for the death of their close relatives, comforted them in their worldly misfortunes, and held out the prospect of eternal felicity as compensation for the short-lived sorrows of earthly existence.13 Margaret Brodie, a Scottish Presbyterian immigrant residing in Lower Canada, attested to providentialism’s ability to invest unfortunate

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phenomena with divine meaning – and, thus, validity – in a letter to a relative written in 1817. As a result of a recent outbreak of measles, Brodie reported, one of her children had died. The event marked “the Sixth time that the arrow of Death has … [cut] down my offspring ere they had ripened to any great maturity.” Devastating though the child’s death undoubtedly was, Brodie seemed to derive a degree of comfort from her belief that the tragedy had been divinely ordained, and was therefore subsumed within God’s oft-inscrutable plan. “[We] ought not repine,” she wrote, “it is Gods [sic] hand let him do what he will though he slay me I trust in him for the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away blessed be the name of the Lord.”14 Providentialism also elicited gratitude. While an abiding emphasis on divine sovereignty helped cushion the blow of misfortune, it was also capable of evoking thankfulness for positive developments that were construed as evidence of godly favour. Robert McDowall, an early Presbyterian missionary in Upper Canada, informed adherents of the denomination that the good things in their own lives should be attributed to providential benevolence. He focused on the plight of less fortunate peoples as a means of instilling gratitude in his Presbyterian audience: Many, once as wealthy as you, are now poor, or as healthy as you, are now in the grave; had a home as good as yours, but it burned down; had children, as perhaps you have, but the frost of death laid them in the grave. It is this kind of providence that has saved you and yours.15 So flexible was providentialism that, in addition to grafting meaning onto that which might seem inexplicable or unjust, it could foster gratitude for that which evoked happiness. Thus, any development – from heart-rending catastrophes to awe-inspiring achievements – could be evidence of God’s gracious intercession in worldly affairs. There is nothing uniquely Presbyterian, or even uniquely Christian, about the idea of metaphysical forces governing the universe. On the contrary, centuries before Jesus’s birth, Nemesis – the “goddess of vengeance” from Greek mythology who punished hubristic individuals – functioned in ways that foreshadowed what came to be known as Christian providentialism. What is more, within Christianity, theologians like Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas wrote extensively about providential sovereignty long before the Reformation and the subsequent birth of Presbyterianism. However, Protestants have arguably focused

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more strenuously on providential themes than other Christians, due, in large measure, to their elimination of ecclesiastical “intermediaries” between individual sinners and their creator, which has been described as rendering God “awesomely close.” Nowhere is this tendency more apparent than in the Reformed (or Calvinist) tradition to which Presbyterianism belongs.16 Presbyterians placed tremendous emphasis on providence, “the majestic truth before which our Church above all humbles and prostrates ­herself.”17 This penchant was borne out in a belief in God’s infinite authority, and a corresponding conviction regarding humanity’s abject inability to merit salvation. Steeped as they were in the tenets of Calvinism (a topic to which this chapter will return), Presbyterians routinely stressed God’s boundless power. They also stressed the insufficiency of individual agency when it came to humanity’s yearning for sanctification. Redemption, they maintained, is contingent on God’s graciousness. Innate sinfulness – which surfaced immediately, and persisted throughout one’s life – meant that human beings were pathetically incapable of sparking the redemptive process that resulted in salvation. McDowall’s remarks on this matter are indicative: The infant manifests its aversion to the holy law … as soon as it is capable of manifesting its choice. The youth, instead of remembering the creator, forget him, and relish … carnal mirth more than the ­service of God. Men, instead of praying always … pray not at all … [and] attend only to their worldly, perishing concerns.18 Such sentiments reveal Calvinism’s profound theological impact on early Canadian Presbyterianism. As historian Graeme Murdock has explained, Calvin conceived of God as “a perfect, all-mighty, all-knowing, transcendent power who created the universe, holds sovereign authority over the world, and judges the life of each individual.” Convinced that the entirety of humanity warranted damnation on account of original sin, Calvin maintained that certain human beings – the elect – would be reconciled with their creator because of Jesus’s sacrificial death and subsequent resurrection. That this was the case had everything to do with the gracious intercession of the universe’s “perpetual governor,” and nothing at all to do with the initiatives of individuals whose innate sinfulness necessitated the imposition, on earth, of strict disciplinary standards that enforced biblical morality. Accordingly, human beings, whether or not they were among the elect, were duty bound to obey their sovereign

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creator, who exercised perpetual authority over wordly affairs.19 Providence was also thought to offer potential evidence of election, which could reduce a given sinner’s soteriological anxiety. Paradoxically, ardent Calvinists felt that such evidence could be discerned in both “mercies” – blessings that afforded the elect solace in times of hardship, and reinforced their religious devotion – and “judgements” – punishments that reminded the elect of the necessity of abiding by high moral standards.20 The essence of Calvinist theology finds expression in the acronym “TU LIP.” Though modern theologians invented the acronym, the tenets to which it refers were articulated in the early seventeenth century at the Synod of Dort (or Dortdecht) in the Netherlands. Amounting to a distillation of Reformed Protestant principles, T U L I P represents: “Total Depravity” – the notion that original sin was imputed to the entirety of humanity for all time, rendering us a “lost race”; “Unlimited Election” – the belief that salvation derives not from sinners’ actions, but instead “the grace of God and the abiding influence of the Holy Spirit”; “Limited Atonement” – the idea that Christ’s demise and the accompanying prospect of election pertain only to the elect, purportedly disproving the notion that Jesus “purchased the whole world of men by his death”; “Irresistible Grace” – the conviction that individuals who have been chosen for salvation cannot resist the sanctifying intercession of “the Just and Holy Governor of all”; and, lastly, “Perseverance of Saints” – which affirms that those who have truly “entered upon the possession of the heavenly inheritance [i.e., election]” will never lose their special status, regardless of the circumstances.21 In the mid-1840s, the Presbyterians’ emphasis on such beliefs, and on the underlying conviction that God wields absolute universal authority, was made plain for William Robertson, a member of Montreal’s Coté Street Church, a Free Church congregation. For harbouring beliefs that deviated from T UL I P orthodoxy – he openly countenanced the notion that “Christ … died for all men” – Robertson was exhorted by the kirk session “to plead with God that he might be delivered from … [views] which were contrary to the standards of our Church.” Eventually, as a result of his unwillingness to jettison such notions, Robertson was informed that he was “no longer … a member of the Free Church.”22 Presbyterian views on divine omnipotence and human beings’ powerlessness to earn salvation contrasted with the theological doctrines that circulated in other Christian groups, including the Arminian teachings that suffused influential Protestant denominations like Methodism. Presbyterians dismissed this outlook, which allegedly held that repentant

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individuals’ spontaneous exertions could help reconcile human beings with God. In 1869, the Reverend Michael Willis, principal of Knox ­College, Toronto, declared that proponents of Arminian views presumptuously conceive of sinners as capable of precipitating the redemptive process through which they could be made holy. By contrast, when it came to this process, churches rooted in the Calvinist tradition, including Presbyterianism, afforded “all the glory” to the universe’s creator. Calvinists, in Willis’s view, attributed the extension of saving faith to the “wonderful love” of God, who “in His infinite wisdom and mercy” selected certain individuals for salvation, not because of their own actions, but rather because of his awesome capacity for bestowing unmerited holiness upon them.23 Willis’s objections to Arminianism are illustrative of an influential theological viewpoint that circulated within the denomination. For example, in the mid-nineteenth century, the United Presbytery of Wellington, an Upper Canadian Secession group, responded to a rumour that one of its ministers had promulgated Arminian views by declaring its “thorough conviction, that there is no minister in our church, so dishonest and so reckless of his ordination vows,” as to disseminate unorthodox teachings – by which he meant ones that deviated from the Calvinist creed.24 Willis’s account of Arminianism could fairly be described as an uncharitable caricature, as opposed to a dispassionate description. Arminianism, in the words of historian John Webster Grant, “stressed as strongly as Calvinism our inherent incapacity to choose the way of salvation.” However, in contrast to Calvinism’s notoriously bleak view of human nature, Arminianism posited that sinners are endowed with a capacity for accepting God’s “offer” of grace. “The possibility of … redemption,” Grant explained, “could therefore be held out to all.”25 Arminianism’s hopeful tenor contrasted sharply with what is widely seen as the chilling doctrine of predestination, and helps to account for the popularity enjoyed by Methodism on both sides of the Atlantic following its emergence in the late eighteenth century.26 Still, while Willis’s account of Arminianism may have been misleading, the fact that early Canadian Presbyterians espoused such views attests to their belief that, as Calvinists, they were specially equipped to recognize God’s boundless sovereignty. Early Canadian Presbyterians conceived of providence as intricate and utterly comprehensive. John Barclay, minister of St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Kingston, Upper Canada, attested to the denomination’s belief in God’s limitless authority in an early nineteenth-century sermon. That God created the world and presides over its affairs “cannot be doubted,”

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he declared. “The same wisdom that … arranged in due order all its parts and gave to each its properties … shall be able to maintain that order, and to produce that end to which everything is adapted.”27 For Barclay, the notion that such a carefully calibrated arrangement as the solar system was the result of mere “chance” was nothing short of risible. He posed rhetorical questions to lay bare its absurdity. Is it by chance that the planets rotate in an orderly manner around the sun? Or that the sun, positioned at the centre of the universe, dispenses “light and heat, and joy” to earth’s inhabitants? Or that the earth’s surface, routinely “decayed and faded by winter’s storms,” is rejuvenated each year by the warming return of spring?28 Surely not! For Barclay, providence – “that increasing energy and care by which [God] preserves and governs all his creatures, and all their actions, carrying forward with unvarying purpose, and with unerring hand, the great design of creation” – was responsible for the solar system’s intricacy, order, and ineffable magnificence.29 In the late nineteenth century, the Reverend William Cochrane of Brantford, Ontario, echoed Barclay in attributing the splendour of the cosmos to an omnipotent superintending authority. “None but an atheist,” he explained, “can contemplate the majestic order of the heavenly bodies, and the wise adaptation of means to ends that reign throughout, without feeling impressed with a sense of infinite knowledge which is everywhere evident.”30 However, for Cochrane, the intricacy of the rest of the universe paled in comparison to the magnificent attributes – namely, sentience and an undying soul – that God had bestowed on humanity, the apple of his eye. While God “exercises a general providence over all His creatures,” Cochrane explained, He regards man a far nobler work than planets, or sparkling stars … For … what are the stars, and suns, and systems in themselves – ignorant of their creation and unconscious of their existence – as compared with man, endowed with intellect and allied to Divinity itself? What is matter in its grandest combinations compared with souls that shall live forever?31 Human beings, from Cochrane’s perspective, occupied a privileged position in the divinely orchestrated arrangement. The Reverend George Patterson, in the mid-nineteenth century, offered a complementary account of God’s authority. Where Barclay emphasized the creator’s universal sovereignty, and Cochrane highlighted humanity’s

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special cosmic status, Patterson stressed God’s guidance of history itself. “The plans of Providence,” he explained, “exhibit one closely connected chain of events, stretching from the beginning of time until the end thereof.” Expanding on the divine plan’s interconnected nature, Patterson noted that each event in the grand historical drama is linked to the next, “whether in the all absorbing past or the opening future.” This sequence, he added, was deeply purposeful: every occurrence was the result of a foreordained design, one that included “all the past periods of human existence.” Patterson went as far as to submit that this pattern was destined to persist until “‘the last syllable of recorded time.’”32 The totality of history, then, was subsumed within the onward march of providence. In assessing the Presbyterian worldview, the importance of the allembracing, relentlessly determinative providential schema sketched by figures such as Barclay, Cochrane, and Patterson can scarcely be overstated. True, Presbyterians were by no means the only Christians to focus on providential themes, and to conceive of themselves as a chosen people. However, given their belief in God’s absolute sovereignty, providentialism occupied an especially prominent position within the denomination: it governed their conception of the world, and their perceived position within it as a chosen people. From the seemingly mundane to the monumental, the hand of God was thought to be everywhere apparent, and ceaselessly at work. It followed that the unfolding of the divine plan included unfavourable phenomena as well as that which was gratifying. It was a mistake, in the Presbyterians’ view, to believe that God was capable of dispensing “nothing but peace and prosperity.” This “delusive sentiment” allegedly sprang from two equally problematic presuppositions: that people “merit peace and ­prosperity”; and “that peace and prosperity are the only things that a gracious Providence can bestow upon a nation.”33 Such notions were patently inconsistent with the workings of providence, which was at least as capable of inflicting hardships as it was of conferring rewards. Members of the denomination, accordingly, interpreted instances of worldly suffering as so many divinely administered punishments. Such views are consistent with Calvinist orthodoxy, which held that unchecked sinfulness within a community could spark a degeneration in which the proliferation of vice and disorder elicits providential wrath.34 The Reverend Robert McGill’s reaction to a fire that ravaged Montreal in the early 1850s illustrates the Calvinist belief that providence metes out punishments to individual transgressors and their communities alike. McGill, in assessing the fire’s import, began by declaring that “every

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sincere Christian” surely believes in God’s providential rule, and is aware of the fact that the “events of his own life” have been shaped by that heavenly authority “[who] created and upholds the universe.” Yet in addition to governing people’s lives, McGill asserted that providence also exercises control over the affairs of larger groups, which God dealt with in accordance with their prevailing moral “character.”35 Thus, when a community has been subjected to hardship, it can be “fairly inferred” that the attendant communal suffering was warranted on account of certain citizens’ sinfulness. Implicit in this assertion is the idea that pious individuals living among sinners would not be spared God’s anger, a belief that comports with Calvinism’s emphasis on the necessity of enforcing communal, as well as individual, virtue. The fire, for McGill, was one such punishment. While he conceded that it was difficult to ascertain why the universe’s “Sovereign Ruler” had chosen to punish Montreal’s inhabitants in this way, McGill surmised that the conflagration was a divinely engineered reaction to a lack of unity among the city’s Protestants. He charged that, as a result, the city’s Catholic contingent – which was guilty of priestly despotism and blasphemous “ritualism” – had been allowed to exert excessive influence.36 McGill concluded his sermon by asserting that a campaign by Montreal’s Protestants to foster cohesiveness within their ranks would be necessary if they hoped to counter Catholicism’s pernicious impact and shelter their community from harsher punishments in the future. Additional evidence of the pronounced extent to which early Canadian Presbyterians interpreted earthly misfortune as divine punishment can be found in the reaction of St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in York, Upper Canada, to a cholera outbreak that plagued the town in 1832. Weekly meetings of the congregational session and wider church community were convened in an effort to assuage York’s suffering. They were designed to encourage “prayer as well as supplication to God on account of the prevalence of the present pestilential Disease,” which was supposedly caused by sinfulness. Church records indicate that members of the congregation acknowledged “the duty and necessity of a distinct recognition of God in a judgement so marked as the present malady.” Accordingly, they appealed to the universe’s ruler to hasten the plague’s “removal,” and prayed for the “sanctification of … the community and the world at large while it prevails.”37 The spectre of providential punishment shaped Presbyterian attitudes toward the family. Take, for instance, the denomination’s views on domestic worship. One observer, writing in the mid-nineteenth century,

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described this exercise as “a blessing to a whole neighbourhood, to the whole community, to the whole nation.” Why? Because families who promoted piety in the home served as the “grand conservators of national virtue and morality.” As such, they prompted God to bestow providential “blessings on the land,” while averting the “judgements of the Almighty.”38 Yet where sinfulness could engender expressions of divine disappointment, God’s approval could manifest in a nurturing paternalism that rewarded virtue and encouraged obedience. Presbyterians believed that, while God punished the reprobate, he bestowed blessings on the righteous.39 In keeping with this notion, early Canadian Presbyterians felt that they enjoyed a special providential status that was emblematic of divine favour. The Presbyterians’ sense of communal distinctiveness rested on the belief that they were a special people tasked with a special mission: to promote Christianity’s glad tidings, and facilitate civilization’s progress. Like sixteenth-century Calvinists and seventeenth-century Covenanters, they saw themselves as an elect entity – a chosen people, in other words, wedded to God by way of an unbreakable bond, and imbued with a divinely sanctioned destiny that linked them to the unfurling of the providential design. While it was expressed in diverse ways depending on the circumstances, this belief featured prominently in the denominational consciousness throughout the pre-1875 era. The notion that Presbyterians were an elect people derived largely from the legacy of the Protestant Reformation, and the attendant belief that members of the denomination were latter-day Israelites fused to God. Fearing persecution for rejecting papal authority, many sixteenthcentury Protestants in primarily Catholic communities took flight from their increasingly inhospitable homelands and resettled in such autonomous centres as Zurich and Amsterdam, Emden and Geneva. Their travails were likened to those of the Israelites, who, according to the biblical narrative, fled Egyptian captivity and were delivered under providential auspices into Canaan. Such notions suffused Protestant communities across early modern Europe, and helped them to make sense of the chaotic circumstances in which they lived.40 The Protestants’ conception of themselves as the Israelites’ successors involved more than flattering analogies. Protestants – especially Calvinists – gravitated to the notion that, like Israel, they were united to God through an indissoluble pact, or covenant. As recounted in Genesis, God (or Yahweh) promises to shelter the descendants of Abraham, an Israelite, in exchange for their allegiance. If Israel will obey his commandments,

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God will establish a pact with them, and act as their protector. The forging of such a bond has profound implications, as it weds a chosen people to the universal sovereign irrevocably. So powerful is this bond that, in historian Donald Harman Akenson’s words, once the covenant has been established, “it is impossible to speak of God without automatically referring to the covenant. Or, to put it another way: God cannot exist outside the covenant.”41 Though early modern Calvinists were by no means the only group to liken themselves to ancient Israel, the “intensity and frequency” with which they invoked the supposed correlation – evidence of which can be seen in their heavy rhetorical emphasis on the covenant – stands as one of their most salient cultural characteristics.42 Entering into an unbreakable relationship with God has its benefits, not the least of which is the prospect of permanent providential protection. Indeed, the argument has been made that the notion of a covenantal bond between Israel and God was instrumental to the former’s ability to withstand threats posed by various adversaries and retain their “national identity and religion” amid acute hardship.43 Yet the covenant also confers burdens. After all, its strictures dictate that a divinely favoured people must invariably obey God’s laws, whatever the circumstances. Failure to do so can elicit divine disappointment and, quite possibly, punishment. Covenant theology therefore includes both “indicative” and “imperative” dimensions: the former signifies Israel’s divinely favoured status, the latter affirms their obligation to obey God.44 Interlaced notions of righteousness and responsibility therefore pervade the mental worlds of divinely favoured peoples. Undergirding many Calvinists’ belief in a covenant between God and his people was a theological emphasis on the special relationship that was forged, initially, between God and Adam – the “covenant of works,” which was nullified as a result of the Fall – and, subsequently, on the “covenant of grace,” through which the possibility to eternal life in heaven was granted to the elect as a result of Jesus’s ­sacrificial death.45 Calvinists, including Presbyterians, embraced the covenantal idea for at least three reasons. First, despite the fact that they believed that one’s soul was predestined to either eternal bliss or unending anguish, they felt that in stripping away as much sinfulness as possible and obeying God’s commandments, they could discern within themselves evidence of election to everlasting life in heaven. Second, they felt that a communal obligation to obey God’s laws would counter the destabilizing aspects of  both Arminianism, which allegedly encouraged impiety by exalting human agency, and Antinomianism, which posited that divinely favoured

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individuals were free to engage in lawless behaviour as a result of their elect status. Finally, the covenant tempered the sense of angst associated with the seemingly arbitrary aspects of providence, since it was premised on the notion that the universe’s sovereign ruler, while capable of acting in mysterious ways, would ultimately protect a divinely favoured people, provided they were obedient. Granted, Calvinists believed that only a minority within any community – including an elect one – would ultimately be admitted into heaven. Yet they clung to the covenantal model chiefly as a result of its spiritual utility, disciplinary effectiveness, and capacity for assuaging anxiety.46 Such views became entrenched in Calvinist communities in northern Europe during the early modern era, establishing a compelling rationale for individual piety, providing a justification for strict social order, and underpinning notions of communal righteousness. They migrated to Scotland, where Presbyterianism rose to prominence after the Scottish Reformation of 1560. Evidence can be found in the writings of John Knox, whose influential History of the Scottish Reformation conveyed the conviction that Scotland’s early Protestants were a divinely favoured entity linked by a covenant to an “unchanging” God. Critically, such notions came to permeate Scottish Presbyterianism, which crystallized in the late sixteenth century largely as a result of the painstaking efforts of Andrew Melville, who made invaluable contributions to the Second Book of Discipline (1578).47 The covenanting tradition was so enmeshed in the fabric of Scottish Presbyterianism that it was invoked during two of the most pivotal moments in the nation’s history. First, in 1638, thousands of Scots signed the National Covenant, which affirmed their devotion to Presbyterianism and their corresponding opposition to the arbitrary impositions of the Episcopalian monarch, Charles I. Second, in 1643, Scotland’s fiercest Calvinists aligned themselves with the English Parliamentarians during their civil war with the Royalists through the Solemn League and Covenant. In both instances, Scots Presbyterians exalted the covenant in  highlighting their special status, and the supposed righteousness of their beliefs.48 The covenanting legacy was also influential in Ulster. Historian Kerby A. Miller has argued that, in addition to bolstering a belief in a special relationship with God, the covenanting ethos strengthened bonds between Presbyterian “families and neighbours, ministers and congre­ gations” through its emphasis on communal morality. The result, in his  view, was a heightened sense of denominational virtue and social

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cohesion, both of which were systematically reinforced by Presbyterianism’s characteristic system of church courts. Elaborating on the notion that Ulster Presbyterians conceived of themselves as an elect entity, Miller has asserted that members of this community in the eighteenth and ­nineteenth centuries viewed history itself as a great drama in which they played the part of ancient Israel. Cast in the role of the Israelites’ Egyptian tormentors were “Anglican Pharaohs,” who wielded dispro­ portionate influence as a result of their status as members of a religious establishment, the Church of Ireland. Ulster Presbyterians, Miller explains, were confident that this “morality play” would result in a decisive triumph in which they, like Israel, would be “delivered” from persecution by God.49 Comparable cohesiveness appears to have existed among Ulster Presbyterians in early Canada, as exemplified by the fact that, in the late eighteenth century, members of this community in Truro, Nova Scotia, paid their minister via general assessment and devoted the proceeds from the sale of common lands to the creation of a meeting house to be used for religious purposes. For Truro’s Ulster Presbyterians, historian Carol Campbell has noted, “town and church were regarded as one, and the assumption was made that residence in one meant membership in the other.”50 The notion that Presbyterians were latter-day Israelites took root in early Canada. A Sabbath School lesson designed for young Upper Canadian Presbyterians attests to the belief that members of the denomination were an elect community involved in a covenant-based relationship with God. The lesson explained that the Israelites, following their flight from Egypt and subsequent sojourn in the wilderness, were poised to enter into Canaan under Joshua’s aegis. Their experiences brought into focus the fact that God carries “his people” – whether they were ancient Israelites or nineteenth-century Presbyterians – to safety through “all trials,” regardless of their severity. The lesson concluded by urging the impressionable Presbyterians to “follow God through all dangers, as did the Israelites.” The underlying message was clear: a uniquely favoured community, Presbyterians were obliged to emulate Israel in their obedience to the universal sovereign.51 Accompanying the Presbyterians’ supposed status as a chosen people was an obligation to honour God’s commandments. God, in forging a bond with Israel, established a union that was destined to endure throughout the ages. Inherent in this relationship was a responsibility to obey his  laws; disobedience, as noted, could result in divine punishment.

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Consequently, as the scholar Anthony D. Smith has observed, the mental life of a “chosen people” is characterized by neither “naive optimism” (certainty that God will invariably look favourably on his peoples, no matter the circumstances), nor “passive fatalism” (blithe resignation to the inevitability of whatever will happen in the future, be it good or ill). Rather, covenanted peoples conceive of themselves as both specially favoured and endowed with a solemn duty from which they must not deviate. Anxiety regarding disobedience and the corresponding spectre of providential punishment, therefore, looms large.52 Early Canadian Presbyterians were no exception to this pattern of apprehensiveness among supposedly chosen peoples. For evidence one need look only to a sermon delivered by William Gregg in Toronto in 1863. He began by observing that Israel ran afoul of God after their arrival in Canaan. The cause of this development, Gregg explained, was their “dishonesty,” “uncleanness,” and disregard for God’s laws. Such transgressions were all the more egregious in view of the fact that the Israelites were a “holy nation” that had been “nourished and supported by their heavenly Father.” Yet as a result of their disobedience God had come to see them as a “sinful nation” deserving of punishment. Gregg linked this account to the cosmic status of Canadian Presbyterianism. He informed his audience that the “promises which were made to the Israelites will all be fulfilled to us,” but only if “by faith” Presbyterians venerate Christ and obey his father.53 God, in keeping with the covenant, could be expected to protect an elect community; failure on the part of that community to obey his laws, though, would invite providential punishment.

A D iv in e ly F avo ured Empi re The Presbyterians’ belief in their status as an elect community dovetailed with their attachment to the British Empire. Members of the denomination imagined themselves as part of a vast imperial entity that transcended borders and united Presbyterians across the British world. Moreover, they saw Britain’s empire – their empire – as a vehicle for promoting Protestantism and Western civilization, and believed they had a special role to play in bringing the providential plan to fruition. This outlook accords with what historian Nicholas Guyatt has described as “historical providentialism”: the belief that God has chosen certain peoples to advance the divine plan, and tailored their histories accordingly.54 Of central importance to the Presbyterians’ imperial enthusiasm was the notion of “aspirational” Protestantism.55 While they chafed at the

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existence in Britain’s sphere of influence of ungodly phenomena (including objectionable theological doctrines espoused by other denominations), early Canada’s Presbyterians were inspired by the idea of a purified Protestant power that would promote religious and civil virtue the world over. The Presbyterians’ emphasis on the British Empire’s greatness – which members of the denomination routinely attributed to providential favour – bore a close resemblance to the views expressed by their metropolitan counterparts, and contrasted with the anti-imperial radicalism of their Anglo-American coreligionists in the era of the Revolutionary War. Similar to other groups across the empire, Presbyterians embraced a sense of British imperial patriotism. This tendency was sustained, in large part, by transatlantic migration. Hundreds of thousands of Britons immigrated to British North America between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and Confederation, profoundly altering the colonies’ demographic composition, and fuelling the imperial fervour that prevailed across much of nineteenth-century Canada.56 This influx – which coincided with the dramatic expansion of the world’s English-speaking population, a development historian James Belich has described as the “Anglo-boom” – included many Ulster Presbyterians (a majority of British North America’s Irish population prior to the mid-nineteenth century was Protestant), as well as close to 200,000 Scots, most of whom were Presbyterian. These peoples emigrated for various reasons, including the agricultural clearances that precipitated immigration for displaced Highland crofters (although, as historian J.M. Bumsted points out, many Highlanders immigrated voluntarily), and the existence of kin networks overseas.57 Like other groups, the Presbyterians’ attachment to Britain manifested in diverse and occasionally overlapping ways: in a sense of ethnic, or “racial,” identification with the peoples of the British Isles; in celebrations of such British institutions as parliamentary democracy; and in expressions of pride in the empire’s globe-spanning power.58 The elasticity of the Presbyterians’ attachment to Britain did not detract from its forcefulness. Quite the opposite – the fact that “Britishness” could be interpreted in various ways enhanced its potency by allowing it to be deployed in various contexts. Nor was the Presbyterians’ imperial fervour incompatible with the denomination’s links to Scotland. Scots and Ulster Scots derived pride from their contributions as soldiers, traders, and missionaries to the empire, immigrating in disproportionately large numbers to British settler colonies. Scottish enthusiasm for the empire intensified after the defeat, in the mid-eighteenth century, of the Jacobite insurgents, an event that was followed by a vigorous – and largely

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successful – campaign to dilute Highland distinctiveness and promote loyalty to the Hanoverian regime in hitherto-unruly regions.59 Presbyterian immigrants and their descendants were no exception to this pattern of ever-more-pervasive imperial enthusiasm. Crucially, the flexibility of Britishness allowed for the coexistence of plural identities.60 Presbyterian imperial fervour was compatible not only with notions of Scottish and Ulster Scots distinctiveness, but also with notions of local pride in early Canada. Moreover, as with other groups, the Presbyterians’ sense of attachment to the empire was reinforced through holidays like Victoria Day and the inculcation of imperial pride in schools. In conjunction with the fact that people from one part of Britain living in the colonies were likelier than their metropolitan counterparts to live and work alongside people from others parts of Britain, such phenomena contributed to a pan-British consciousness that persisted even as national and subnational identities imported from the Old World waned. Thus, early Canadians of British birth or ancestry, including Presbyterians, were arguably “more British” than the British themselves.61 The consolidation of Britishness in early Canada was by no means a frictionless phenomenon. Rather, as historian Kurt Korneski has observed, it entailed processes of “coercion, violence, and dispossession” by which the Indigenous peoples of northern North America were dispossessed, marginalized, and subordinated to the dominant, European-derived society.62 That early Canadian Presbyterians saw Britain as a divinely favoured entity is hardly surprising. After all, in 1815 it emerged as the world’s principal military power after its triumph in a protracted struggle with its arch-rival, Napoleonic France. It was also the world’s economic powerhouse, boasting prosperous industries, a sophisticated financial system, and elaborate trading networks that crisscrossed the globe. And, following the departure of the Thirteen Colonies, its colonial holdings expanded significantly, increasing from twenty-six in 1792 to forty-three in 1816.63 Enjoying dominion over vast swaths of territory and hundreds of millions of people in Africa and Asia, Australasia and North America – many of whom were neither white-skinned nor Christian – Britain’s empire was celebrated by its admirers as a majestic domain upon which the sun never set. For British Christians (and, above all, evangelical Protestants), it went without saying that the empire was responsible for engendering the cultural enlightenment and spiritual elevation of “heathen” peoples within its sphere of influence. Imperial enthusiasts, whether in Britain itself or one of its settler colonies, could be forgiven for attributing the

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empire’s glorious status to providential favour. How else to account for the attainment of such greatness?64 From the early Canadian Presbyterians’ vantage point, religion was instrumental to the empire’s might. This belief was encapsulated in an editorial published in the August 1843 edition of Canadian Presbyterian Magazine, which portrayed Christianity as the indispensable catalyst for Britain’s transition from ancient barbarism to modern sophistication. “Britain itself owes everything, under God, to the influence of the Gospel,” the article declared. The author’s evocative remarks on the part played by Christianity in propelling Britain to the heights of global power bear quoting at length: The cruelties of Rome did not humanize nor the northern superstitions enlighten us. The missionary who first trode [sic] our shores found himself standing in the very temple of Druidism. And wherever he turned he heard the din of its noisy festivals, saw the obscenity of its lascivious rites, and beheld its animal and human victims. But Christianity had marked the island for its own … from that eventful moment to the present, the various parts of the social system have been rising together. Even when most at rest, its influence has been silently penetrating the depths of society … rendering law more ­protective, power more righteous.65 If the adoption of Christianity was integral to Britain’s ascent, the corollary was that the onset of irreligion could engender its downfall. While early Canadian Presbyterians usually emphasized the empire’s glorious providential status, they occasionally observed that exhibitions of sinfulness could result in the withdrawal of divine favour, as had been the case with ancient Israel under the conditions of the covenant. For example, the British government’s willingness, in the mid-nineteenth century, to provide funding in various parts of the empire for the “soul-destroying … errors” of Catholic education purportedly threatened to trigger a catastrophic downward spiral. The Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record bristled at the notion that Britain, an entity that had “been raised so high among the nations of the earth by her Protestantism,” could institute pernicious measures that bolstered “Satan’s kingdom” and imperilled “the perpetuity of the … Empire.” It was incumbent on the “enlightened British Christian and patriot,” the Record concluded, to “strive and pray” that such support be terminated, lest Britain’s privileged cosmic status be lost.66 Such assertions suggest that, for all their confidence in the empire’s

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greatness, Presbyterians were capable of acknowledging that Britain’s might was contingent on a godly favour that could be withdrawn. Early Canadian Presbyterians’ imperial enthusiasm accords with the attitudes of their coreligionists overseas. Historian Colin Kidd, in discussing the limits of Scottish nationalism, has argued that nineteenthcentury Lowlanders and Ulsterites (many of whom were Presbyterian) thought of themselves not as Celtic, but rather as Teutonic. He has demonstrated that many Lowlanders and Ulsterites distanced themselves from Celts – a people, he explains, who were derided for their perceived backwardness and attendant penchant for superstition – and stressed their supposedly superior status as a “Germanic race” who shared much in common with the comparatively enlightened “Anglian and Saxon ­peoples of England.” The notion that Lowlanders and Ulsterites, including Presbyterians, constituted a repository of unspoiled Teutonism con­ tributed to the crystallization of a staunchly British cultural identity that  differentiated them from their Celtic counterparts in the Scottish Highlands and Ireland, many of whom were Roman Catholic.67 To what extent were Highland Presbyterians integrated into the British Presbyterian community? By the late eighteenth century Scots Highlanders of various religious stripes had largely shed the taint of Jacobite disloyalty that had accrued to them in an earlier era as a result of their support, in certain instances, for England’s erstwhile Roman Catholic King, James II, and his descendants. Following the defeat of the Jacobites, British officials introduced legislation designed to undermine Highland distinctiveness. Such measures, which included efforts to limit the wearing of tartan to soldiers serving in Britain’s army, consolidated imperial influence within the Highlands. No longer a breeding ground for insubordination, they became “the arsenal of the empire” due to the Highlanders’ contributions to Britain’s “imperial war machine.” Highland Presbyterians, who had never been as closely linked to the Jacobite insurgency as their Roman Catholic and Episcopalian counterparts, were no exception.68 In the early twentieth century, Alexander Maclean, a Nova Scotia Presbyterian historian, remarked on the Highlanders’ reputation for loyalty. In attempting to demonstrate that Highland soldiers were unswervingly pro-British, he cited an anecdote involving a Highland piper who had been captured in Europe during the Napoleonic Wars. When asked by Napoleon himself to “play a Scottish march,” the piper obliged. However, when the French emperor asked him “to play a retreat,” the piper refused. He did so not because of insolence, but rather because, in the piper’s words, “we were never taught to play that tune,” indicating

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that surrender was anathema to Highland soldiers. Martial valour, moreover, was what allowed them to make such significant contributions to British imperial ventures. “To Highland bravery,” Maclean concluded, “Britain is largely indebted for the high place that it holds to-day in the destiny of the world.”69 Accelerating the Highlanders’ absorption into the British sphere of influence were the activities of Presbyterian missionary institutions like the Scottish Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge (S P CK). Serving as the Presbyterian equivalent of the English Episcopalian institution of the same name, this agency was founded in 1709 in an effort to promote piety among religiously neglected Highlanders. Scotland’s S P CK took pains to purge Highland society of phenomena as reputedly per­ nicious – and allegedly interrelated – as ignorance and superstition, Jacobitism and Roman Catholicism. Supported by the Church of Scotland and the British government, the institution also strove to promote loyalty to the Hanoverian regime. Granted, many Highlanders retained distinctive traits, not the least of which was the Gaelic language. Still, the activities of bodies like the Scottish SP C K helped draw Highlanders, including Presbyterians, into Britain’s cultural orbit.70 Contrary to Kidd’s arguments, nineteenth-century Canadian Presbyterians’ imperial enthusiasm does not seem to have expressed itself in a race-based discourse through which purportedly Teutonic Lowlanders endeavoured to differentiate themselves, biologically, from their supposedly primitive Highland counterparts. In fact, members of the denomination were inconsistent when it came to the question of whether Lowlanders and Highlanders were distinct peoples, although they did suggest that Irish Catholics were racially inferior to their Protestant counterparts in Ulster. (Such inconsistency arguably attests to the nebulous nature of “whiteness” itself.71) Instead of focusing on race, early Canadian Presbyterians’ sense of imperial patriotism was usually couched in a rhetorical emphasis on the superiority of Britain’s constitution and the exalted status of its empire. Such emphases resonated with members of the ­Presbyterian community, whether they were Lowlanders, Highlanders, Ulsterites, or northern North Americans. The Presbyterians’ imperial patriotism contrasted with the reputation for radical insubordination garnered during the Revolutionary War by their Anglo-American coreligionists. Due to various factors – the legacy of Presbyterian opposition to perceived Episcopalian oppression, the denomination’s democratic system of church polity, the Calvinist ­tradition of resistance to illegitimate authority – members of the denomination are

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thought to have been among the keenest contributors to the revolu­ tionary insurgency.72 And understandably so: Benjamin Witherspoon, a Presbyterian minister, was the only cleric to sign the Declaration of Independence, and certain opponents of the revolution went as far as to dismiss it as “a Presbyterian war” because of the denomination’s steadfast support for the Patriot cause, which was especially emphatic in such “middle colonies” as Pennsylvania.73 What accounts for this discrepancy? How can it be that eighteenthcentury Anglo-American Presbyterians typically favoured the revolution while their nineteenth-century coreligionists on the same continent tended, for the most part, to be pro-British? Answers to these questions lie on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Thousands of Presbyterians emigrated from Britain to British North America after the Napoleonic Wars. By the early nineteenth century they had, by and large, come to see the empire as a defender of justice and liberty against the equally appalling threats of revolutionary anarchy and Napoleonic despotism. This orientation, which accompanied Presbyterians on their transatlantic voyage, was reinforced in the New World. Loyalty emerged as a compelling force for British North Americans, including Presbyterians. Contributing to this development were such factors as the American Revolution and its fallout, the War of 1812, and the aforementioned influx of British immigrants. True, loyalty meant different things to different people: for arch-conservatives, it entailed unswerving obedience to colonial elites, while for thoroughgoing reformers, it was wholly compatible with expressions of political dissent and uncompromising campaigns to secure liberties enshrined in the British constitution. In large part, loyalty’s flexibility sprang from the elastic phenomenon of “Britishness” to which it was linked. This phenomenon, as historian E.A. Heaman has noted, was based not on “abstract appeals” to imprescriptible freedoms, but rather on an eclectic bundle of principles, including “liberty and authority, reason and tradition, rights and duties.” Predicated on an evolving constitutional tradition that dated at least as far back as Magna Carta, notions of “Britishness” often found expression in references to a free press, habeas corpus, and sanctity of contract, attesting to the concept’s plasticity.74 Loyalty was central to colonial society. Rejecting violent insurrection as a legitimate form of political protest, it served as a popular motif around which diverse peoples coalesced, including women and men; Indigenous peoples who viewed the Crown as a bulwark against settler colonialism; African Americans who found a refuge from slavery (though

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not racism) in British North America; and white people of British birth or extraction who felt a sense of kinship with metropolitan Britons. Cutting across these groups was an admiration for the British monarchy and the unrivalled might of the British Empire, which reinforced interlocking notions of loyalty and imperial pride across society. Nineteenth-century Canadian Presbyterians were no exception.75 In 1836, the Reverend Alexander Mathieson, a member of the Church of Scotland, rhapsodized about the unrivalled greatness of the British constitution. Britain’s subjects “groan not under the oppressive sway of a tyrannical monarch,” he declared. Contrary to the cruel despotisms that held sway over continental Europe, Britons lived under the “mild reign” of a king, William IV, “who is the father of his people,” and whose paternal authority is prudently curtailed by Lords and Commons. Mathieson added that subjects of the empire were the beneficiaries of a governmental system that, in its capacity for promoting justice and liberty simultaneously, existed throughout the world as an object of “admiration.”76 An editorial published in 1843 in the Toronto Banner, the Presbyterian publication run by Peter and George Brown that came to be affiliated with the Canadian Free Church, echoed Mathieson’s expressions of fondness for the British constitution. Whether in “ancient or modern times,” the article asserted, no regime could be found that has provided its peoples with such a remarkable combination of wealth, justice, and liberty. No form of government, the article gushed, has “secured so large an amount of individual prosperity,” formulated such “equitable laws,” and extended to its peoples such remarkable freedom. It came as no surprise to the Banner that the British constitution – the constellation of laws, conventions, and institutions by which Britons were governed – was the envy of the world.77 The Reverend William Gregg, a Free Church adherent, attributed the supposed superiority of Britain’s institutions to providential guidance. “Why should we imagine that the ship of State can move steadily along without an immediate superintending Providence,” he inquired, when we acknowledge the punitive “hand of God” when societies are afflicted by catastrophes? In much the same way that God punishes sinful communities, Gregg explained, he shelters and sustains those that are righteous. For Gregg, the splendour of the British constitution was neither the result of mere good fortune nor the product of purely human endeavour. Rather, it was attributable to an abiding providential favour that conferred greatness on Britain and its subjects.78

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A combination of providentialism and imperial enthusiasm was ­central to the Presbyterian identity in nineteenth-century Canada. In addition to providing a disparate assortment of factions with a cluster of ideas around which to rally, it contributed to a compelling sense of denominational mission. By equipping the Presbyterians with a synthesis of pride, prestige, and virtue, it bolstered their belief in a communal responsibility for advancing God’s design. An 1861 editorial published in the Home and Foreign Record of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces of British North America reflects the belief that Presbyterians had been chosen to advance the providential plan. Recalling the vocabulary of the early modern Puritans (another Calvinist group), the author declared that British North American Presbyterians’ “position” and “duty” were inextricably linked – “We are a city set on a hill which cannot be hid.” Presbyterianism’s “duty,” the article continued, “is to let our light so shine that men seeing our good works may glorify our Father in heaven.”79 Presbyterians, in the author’s view, were an elect people who were duty bound to facilitate the unfolding of the divinely authored design through such entities as missionaries and evangelical voluntary societies. Members of the denomination, moreover, saw the British Empire as a providential vehicle through which the world could be Christianized. Presbyterian interpretations of significant nineteenth-century developments in northern North America and elsewhere in the world reveal the synthesis of providentialism and imperial enthusiasm that obtained in the denominational consciousness. Various events – the War of 1812, the Napoleonic Wars, the Canadian rebellions of 1837–38, the European revolutions of 1848, the Indian “mutiny” of 1857, and the Canadian Presbyterian union of 1875 – were interpreted as evidence of God’s unchecked authority, and the British Empire’s privileged cosmic status. Members of the denomination invoked this combination of divine authority and imperial patriotism (albeit in differing ways, depending on the context) in an effort to make sense of developments occurring at home and abroad. In an address delivered in Montreal in 1815 on the significance of the War of 1812, the Reverend Robert Easton stated that providence was responsible for the fact that Lower Canada was largely spared the violence and upheaval that characterized the conflict’s most intense military encounters. “It cannot escape our notice,” he observed, that the colony was “exempted in great measure from the scourge of war.”80 It was to “that overruling providence,” Easton stated, that Lower Canadians were

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indebted for the preservation of peace and stability during an era in which American invaders threatened British North America’s security.81 Dramatic though it may have been, Easton’s rhetoric pales in comparison to the positively glowing terms in which British North America’s Presbyterians discussed Britain’s triumph over France in the Napoleonic Wars. To them, Britain’s victory, which brought to an end more than twenty years of mostly uninterrupted warfare, threw into relief the ­special relationship that existed between the empire and the ruler of the universe. Thomas McCulloch, a Nova Scotia Secessionist, attributed Britain’s victory in the Battle of Trafalgar to its status as an object of divine favour in a sermon given in 1814.82 Accompanying this exalted status, McCulloch thundered, was a responsibility for propagating Christianity among the wretched and benighted the world over. God, he declared, had bestowed on the empire a special “duty” to propagate the Gospels as widely and vigorously as possible. McCulloch went as far as to assert that the empire was the instrument through which the regeneration of  the world would be achieved. In emphasizing British Protestants’ responsibility for precipitating the world’s redemption, he equated nineteenth-century Presbyterianism with the chosen people of the Old Testament. “We are a part of the commonwealth of Israel,” he said; “we share its immunities; we have an interest in all its hopes and [consolations]; and, certainly, it becomes us to seek its prosperity.”83 Presbyterian remarks about the British Empire’s divinely favoured status were not limited to the War of 1812 and the Napoleonic Wars. On the contrary, in a sermon delivered in 1838, Robert McGill argued that the fizzling of the Upper Canadian Rebellion – an insurrection that threatened to sever the bonds that linked that colony to the metropole – was attributable to “the providence of God.”84 McGill began by stating that the universe’s governor wields control “not only over individuals, but over nations.” It was to this superintending authority, he explained, that “the pious and good owe the peculiar blessings of their own condition … [including] the prosperity of kingdoms, the security of empire and the fate of battles.”85 There could be no uncertainty, in McGill’s conception, as to whether Upper Canada’s “deliverance” from radical violence in 1837–38 had been divinely orchestrated. McGill deployed rhetorical questions to sharpen his contention: “Can we doubt that [God] smote to the earth the fierce and blaspheming [rebels]? Can we doubt that he paralysed all their subsequent opposition and scattered them as chaff before the wind[?]”86

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An address composed in 1838 by the Synod of the Presbyterian Church in Canada in Connection with the Church of Scotland stressed the cosmic significance of the Upper Canadian Rebellion’s failure.87 It affirmed that “few, if any” of the Scottish Church’s members had played “any part” in the uprising. Yet they did not regard their faction’s reluctance to engage in disloyal behaviour as grounds for complacency. Quite the opposite – they saw the chaos wrought by the rebellion as a mild punishment meted out by God due to the pervasive sinfulness within their church. Their remarks dovetail with the idea that failure on the part of a covenanted people to abide by God’s commandments can result in divine punishment. “God,” the address stated, “has given us intimation of his power to punish, and has chastised us gently according to his mercy.” Providential chastisement, they added, had been administered as a result of several transgressions, including “[our church’s] feverish anxiety concerning political affairs – our general unconcern regarding things of religion – the  common dishonour of [God’s] name, and disregard of his laws.” The address concluded by urging members of this Canadian Presbyterian constituency to abide by stricter moral standards. Failure to do so, it implied, could bring forth harsher punishments in the future.88 Presbyterian conceptions of the British Empire’s privileged position were not confined to conflicts that bore immediately upon Britain and its empire. The revolutionary tumult that enveloped continental Europe in 1848, for example, was taken as evidence of the empire’s special status, despite the fact that Britain was not directly involved in the proceedings. That the British Isles were, for the most part, spared the continent’s upheaval was allegedly indicative of godly favour. Britain’s exalted global position was trumpeted in an essay published in the May 1848 edition of the Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record. The essay focused on God’s preservation of Britain as a veritable oasis of peace and stability despite its close proximity to the revolutionary maelstrom. It was evident, in the author’s view, that divine authority had prevented the transmission of the radical contagion from continental Europe to Britain: “God has so ordered it” that the spasms responsible for the overthrow of “imperial thrones” on the continent failed to wreak comparable havoc among his favoured peoples in Britain.89 Given the cosmic significance of events like the revolutions of 1848, mid-nineteenth-century Canadian Presbyterians were grateful for the privileged status of their empire. Take, for instance, the statement composed in 1848 by the Presbyterian Church of Canada in Connection with the Church of Scotland and addressed to Lord Elgin, Canada’s governor

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general. At this “remarkable” juncture in history, it declared, when so many nations are “convulsed by revolutions,” the stability of the empire furnishes ample cause for “rejoicing.” The hand of God, to the Presbyterians’ way of thinking, had protected the British monarchy from the “dreadful evils” of revolution.90 The address to the governor general, Queen Victoria’s Canadian surrogate, added that “this part of Your Majesty’s dominions” enjoyed the “utmost peace and tranquility” as a result of its pro-British orientation. The Canadian Presbyterians concluded by announcing that they looked forward to remaining “loyal and attached” to Britain’s divinely favoured empire in the future.91 The Presbyterians’ response to the Indian “mutiny” of 1857 offers additional proof of the denomination’s abiding attachment to the empire. Historian Ronald Hyam has described this event as perhaps “the most traumatic experience” in Britain’s “imperial century,” the hundred-year span between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the outbreak of the Great War when the empire’s global influence reached its apogee. The conflict was sparked by the British military’s use among Indian soldiers, or sepoys, of cartridges for the Lee-Enfield rifle that were greased with cow and pig fat. To access their contents the cartridges had to be bitten open, an act that was deeply offensive to Hindus and Muslims, respectively. Notwithstanding this catalytic issue, the conflict was symptomatic of a smouldering resentment among the Indian populace toward policies employed in southern Asia by the British regime, or Raj. The episode itself involved killings on both sides, including the murder of two hundred British civilians at Cawnpore and, in a grisly act of retribution, the firing of reputedly treasonous sepoys out of the mouths of cannons.92 The reaction of Hamilton, Canada West’s Central Presbyterian Church to the Indian conflict attests to the existence within the denomination of “grass roots” enthusiasm for the empire and its purportedly glorious global mission.93 The congregation set aside 27 November 1857 as a day of “humiliation and prayer” regarding the “calamities” in southern Asia. Members of the church looked to providence to bring about the restoration of order, and the diffusion throughout the Indian subcontinent of Christian civility.94 Presbyterian responses to the union of 1875, which entailed the ­creation of a Dominion-wide church, highlights the importance of providentialism and British imperialism within the denomination in the late nineteenth century. The four bodies comprising “the great Presbyterian family of British North America” – the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces of British North America; the Synod of the

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Presbyterian Church of the Maritime Provinces of British North American in Connection with the Church of Scotland; the Canada Presbyterian Church; and the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in Connection with the Church of Scotland – joined together in that year to  establish a national institution. This achievement, according to one Presbyterian observer, would not have been accomplished without the “Providence of God,” which allowed the denomination’s constituent parts to jettison their differences and forge a “solemn covenant” with one another – as well as with Christ, “the King and Head of the Church.”95 Yet the Presbyterians’ realization of a Dominion-wide church was not fuelled by a desire to distance themselves from metropolitan traditions. Rather, in setting the stage for the creation of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, members of the denomination took pains to reaffirm their fidelity to what they habitually described as “the church of our fathers.”96 Accordingly, a Canadian Church of Scotland deputation was dispatched to Britain in 1875 for the express purpose of conveying to their ­metropolitan counterpart their “deep gratitude” and “undiminished attachment.”97 Thus, the establishment of a national institution and the  perpetuation of meaningful ties to the metropolitan church were entirely compatible. To be sure, early Canadian Presbyterianism was not monolithic. For the better part of the nineteenth century a seemingly irrepressible penchant for sectarian squabbling militated against the establishment of a cohesive institution, resulting in the dizzying proliferation of factions before the union of 1875. Yet focusing on the internecine quarrels that preceded the creation of a Dominion-wide church obscures important aspects of the denomination’s worldview. Conceiving of themselves as a divinely favoured entity analogous to ancient Israel, early Canada’s Presbyterians were galvanized by a belief in the denomination’s special providential destiny. This was complemented by a belief in the incomparable greatness of the British Empire, which was celebrated as a divinely sanctioned vehicle for the propagation of religious and civil virtue. Early Canadian Presbyterians drew on a synthesis of providentialism and imperial enthusiasm in seeking to make sense of the world and their supposed place within it as a covenanted people. A central component of their worldview, it contributed to a heady sense of mission that transcended the boundaries of British North America and the early Dominion of Canada.

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3 Slavery and Liberty Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people. Proverbs 14:34

Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and the tolerance with them. Karl Popper, The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945): 265

From the synthesis of providence and empire that invigorated early Canadian Presbyterianism flowed two complementary impulses that influenced the denomination’s worldview. The first was anti-Catholicism. Members of the denomination argued that where the Roman Church was backward and benighted, Protestantism was progressive and enlightened. They contrasted the fortunes of primarily Catholic and Protestant countries in attempting to substantiate their prejudicial beliefs, arguing that discrepancies between the two – specifically, the struggles of the former and the successes of the latter – derived from religious differences. Presbyterians also hailed campaigns to promote Protestantism among Lower Canadian Catholics as a providential device by which the Frenchspeaking populace could be liberated from the spiritual subordination to which the colony’s priests had subjected them. The second impulse was an impassioned opposition to slavery. Members of the denomination were especially critical of that practice’s persistence in mid-nineteenth-century America, where it continued unabated even after its abolition elsewhere. Presbyterians argued that slavery’s continuation in the United States flew in the face of the lofty ideals enshrined in the republic’s foundational documents and trumpeted

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by its boastful public figures. This opposition was borne out in their support for the Buxton Mission, a settlement created in the mid-nineteenth century for black people seeking refuge from the dehumanizing drudgery of bondage. Presbyterians believed that God himself had engineered their transition from slavery in the United States to freedom in British North America. They also believed that the Civil War, which ravaged the republic from 1861 to 1865, was providential retribution for Americans’ unwillingness to abolish slavery, which amounted to an unconscionable national sin. While modern-day observers might be inclined to view anti-Catholicism and anti-slavery as markedly different tendencies – a progressiveminded observer, for instance, might see the former as repellent, and the latter as righteous – Presbyterian attitudes toward the two were remarkably similar. Specifically, they viewed Catholicism and slavery as inherently and intolerably oppressive. One involved spiritual subordination, the other involved temporal subordination; both were obstacles to liberty as Presbyterians defined it. The corresponding desire to combat them, which found expression in words and deeds, contributed to a sense of divinely ordained duty.

A n t i- C at h o l ic Ani mus Reductive, interrelated notions regarding the righteousness of Protestantism and the iniquity of Catholicism exerted substantial influence within early Canadian Presbyterianism. That this was the case is unsurprising, as such views circulated throughout the British world. Historian David Hempton, in discussing the relationship between religion and Britain’s politics between the late seventeenth and mid-twentieth centuries, has pithily identified the convictions that underpinned English antiCatholicism. “Protestantism,” he writes, “was England; it preserved freedom; it was morally pure; and it was providentially on the right side in the great cosmic battle between good and evil.” Conversely, “Roman Catholicism was foreign, violent, morally corrupt, doctrinally erroneous, magical, devious, and was led by a standing army of Popes, Jesuits, and priests.”1 His statements could easily be transposed onto the broader British Protestant community of which early Canadian Presbyterians formed part. Congruent with Hempton’s remarks, scholars have argued that a popular culture of anti-Catholicism was instrumental to the emergence of a coherent British identity in the eighteenth century. Evidence can be found

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in Protestant churches’ designation of days of thanksgiving for events like the sinking of the Spanish Armada, the foiling of Guy Fawkes’s “gunpowder plot,” and the quashing of the Jacobite risings of “’15 and ’45”; in the pervasiveness, in ordinary Britons’ homes, of texts such as John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, which chronicled Protestants’ perseverance in the face of Catholic cruelty; and, not least, certain Britons’ habit of burning the pope in effigy.2 Anti-Catholic sentiments deepened in the nineteenth century. This occurred as a result of several developments that allegedly threatened the Protestant foundations on which British society rested. The four following events played particularly important roles in stoking antiCatholicism. “Catholic Emancipation” in 1829 removed restrictions on Catholics’ ability to sit in Parliament. The Maynooth Grant of 1845 allowed for the provision of funds from the British treasury for a Catholic seminary in Ireland. The Oxford Movement gathered momentum in the 1830s and witnessed Anglican divines warming to reputedly heretical notions concerning apostolic succession and transubstantiation. Finally, the “Papal aggression” controversy of the 1850s, in which Pope Pius IX – an adherent of ultramontanism, a thoroughgoing expression of Catholicism – sought to revive the Roman Church in England by establishing an ecclesiastical hierarchy in that country for the first time since the Reformation.3 Such developments coincided with a marked rise in evangelicalism, an emotionally charged expression of religiosity that emphasized moral absolutes and militated against harmonious Protestant-Catholic relations. Among other things, the evangelical surge amplified British Protestants’ disdain toward their Catholic counterparts, who were denounced with ever-more fervency as an insidious “fifth column” that threatened to corrode Britain’s Protestant character from within. Evangelicals’ use of terms like “Popish” and “Romish” made plain their belief that British Catholics were inherently disloyal, harbouring allegiances to a despotic leader and a foreign land. Consequently, evangelicals were increasingly convinced that the nation’s Protestantism – which was entrenched both in Britain’s constitution, as evidenced by Catholics’ ineligibility to serve as monarch due to the Protestant Succession, and in Britain’s cultural fabric, as evidenced by Protestant churches’ responsibility for admin­ istering such rites as baptisms – “now had to be asserted rather than just assumed.”4 Such phenomena contributed to the crystallization of a palpably Protestant identity. Cliché though the term may be, Catholicism existed

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in the British consciousness as the quintessential “other,” functioning as the medieval foil against which an ostensibly enlightened Protestant populace strove to define itself. Indeed, in its liberty, prosperity, and dynamism, the attendant sense of “Britishness” was, for its adherents, the antithesis of the stifling torpor that typified the culture of Catholicism. These metropolitan developments – the popular culture of anti-Catholicism; developments like Catholic Emancipation, the Maynooth Grant, the Oxford Movement, and the Papal aggression controversy; the rise of evangelicalism; and the attendant othering of Catholicism – triggered outpourings of anti-Catholicism across the British world. Early Canadian Presbyterianism, it must be said, was no exception. Indeed, anti-Catholicism lay at the heart of the denominational identity, as will see. That metropolitan phenomena contributed to an anti-Catholic animus among early Canada’s Presbyterians can be gleaned from remarks made about the Oxford Movement in an article published in August 1843 in the Banner, a Presbyterian publication run by Peter and George Brown. The article expressed dismay at the fact that “pulpits of a professed church of the Reformation [the Church of England] are filled with these noxious doctrines, and with the most determined hostility to all who bear the Protestant name.”5 Colonial Presbyterians were also disdainful of the Maynooth Grant, which the Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record denounced in June 1845 as “a direct and deliberate countenancing and establishing of anti-Christian error and corruption.”6 Reinforcing anti-Catholicism within early Canadian Presbyterianism were controversial domestic developments in the mid-nineteenth century. These included riots precipitated by the incendiary remarks of the exmonk, Alessandro Gavazzi; oratorical assaults on the Roman Church by Charles Chiniquy, a convert from Catholicism and Presbyterian minister; the ever-more intolerant attitudes of the Orange Order, whose members styled themselves “loyal defenders of the Protestant Crown and Empire against the machinations of Rome”; and Upper Canadian Protestants’ shrill objections to the spectre of French Catholic “domination” in Canada, which was allegedly evident in the struggle over separate schools.7 Developments at home and abroad revealed that Catholicism “is neither asleep nor encompassed with dotage,” and that Protestants the world over had ample reason to “fear her.”8 Unfavourable colonial circumstances that seemingly had little to do with religion – the cholera ­outbreak of 1832, the economic downturn that followed Britain’s adoption of free trade – paradoxically amplified anti-Catholic hostilities, as insecure

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Protestants in primarily English-speaking colonies lashed out at a vulnerable cultural minority. As in Britain, colonial Protestants criticized the Roman Church’s influence in large part because it threatened freedoms supposedly enjoyed by British subjects as a result of the empire’s Protestantism. Their anxieties turned on the belief that Protestantism, due to its emphasis on the importance of “the right of private judgement,” was integral to liberty, religious and civil. In October 1849 the Presbyterian remarked on the idea that Protestantism was indispensable to sacred and secular freedom: “Those who contend for the liberty of the press and the newspaper, though but little for that of the pulpit, and the Bible … can make no pretension to a sincere and enlightened desire to see the world made free.”9 Catholicism, by contrast, was thought to be inimical to free inquiry – and, so, to liberty of any sort – as a result of the suffocating authority wielded by its hierarchy. Such beliefs led militant Protestants to the blunt conclusion that no “genuine Roman Catholic can be a freeman.”10 Indicative of this sentiment are the remarks of William McCulloch, Thomas’s son and a Presbyterian minister, regarding the hostile response of Catholics in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, to an inflammatory address given there by Chiniquy in the midnineteenth-century. For McCulloch, the Catholics’ reaction was “not merely … a gross personal outrage but a plain indication of the purpose of our Romanish fellow subjects – wherever they are ascendant – to destroy that freedom of speech and worship that is the birthright of every British subject guaranteed by solemn provisions of Law.”11 There were exceptions. For all their differences, ordinary colonial Protestants, including Presbyterians, were capable of exhibiting at least a  modicum of sympathy toward Catholics, thereby undermining the ­ferocity of the anti-Romanist invective spewed by certain ministers and laypeople. Remarks made about Catholics in The Master’s Wife, Andrew Macphail’s sentimental recounting of his experiences growing up in the largely Presbyterian district of Orwell on Prince Edward Island in the 1860s and ’70s, provide an illustration. “Catholic families,” he recalled, “were not resented as such. On the contrary, they were treated with indulgence. Their religion was not their fault. It came as a wholesome surprise that they regarded their religion as the greatest blessing in their lives.” Similarities between the groups’ conceptions of communion were central to the Presbyterians’ sympathetic, albeit condescending, attitude toward their Catholic fellow Islanders. Both groups, Macphail explains, perceived the sacrament “as an awful mystery in which the accidental fell

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away; the material passed into the spiritual; and by a process of thought the human was merged in the universal divine.”12 Such anecdotes demonstrate that early Canadian Protestantism was not  uniformly anti-Catholic. Yet they should not conceal anti-­ Catholicism’s prominence. Anti-Catholic diatribes, coupled with missionary efforts to convert northern North American Catholics, particularly in Lower Canada, occupied unmistakably important positions within several Protestant groups, not the least of which was Presbyterianism. Anti-Catholicism’s flexibility contributed to its resonance, as it encompassed everything from relatively dispassionate treatises against the doctrine of purgatory to paranoiac screeds about Catholic conspiracies to subvert the British constitution.13 However, while differing strains of anti-Catholicism could be compatible – for instance, the belief that Catholics were inherently disloyal, and the belief that they posed an existential threat to British liberties – they could also be mutually exclusive. Take, for example, Peter Brown’s criticism of the Orange Order, an immensely popular voluntary society notorious for its raucous antiCatholic public outbursts, especially in the early and mid-nineteenth century. While Brown was no stranger to anti-Catholicism, as historian Richard W. Vaudry has written, “he regarded Orange parades as childish, insulting to Roman Catholics,” and he saw the order’s members as “disturbers of the peace of the community, and a barrier to evangelism.” Furthermore, “the tendency of Orangemen to band together at election time was [for Brown] ‘unlawful and unconstitutional,’ ‘dangerous to good government,’ and liable to provoke violence.”14 That Orangemen often served as the “shock-troops” of Upper Canadian Toryism likely compounded Brown’s hostility, given his Reformist orientation.15 Thus, while anti-Catholicism’s flexibility was capable of enhancing its forcefulness, it also featured elements that were inherently contradictory. Simple the phenomenon was not. Prejudice fuelled early Canadian Presbyterians’ anti-Catholic attitudes. Historian John Wolffe has attributed the existence of prejudice to human beings’ innate predisposition to “generalize,” and to arrive at irrational conclusions “quite as readily as rational ones” when it comes to unfamiliar (and often unsettling) people, places, and things. After such conclusions have crystallized, he explains, evidence that seemingly challenges the prejudicial assumption is either ignored or, alternatively, acknowledged as an exception that proves the rule. The result? A “vicious circle” through which parochialism and intolerance reinforce each other’s influence, and bigotry congeals into conventional wisdom.16

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A counter-argument could be made that, instead of springing from irrational prejudice, Presbyterian critiques of Catholicism derived from rational – that is, reason-based – objections to the Roman Church’s traditions. After all, Presbyterians are Protestants, and Protestants disagree with Catholics over such issues as, say, the significance of communion. Why, then, should Presbyterian criticisms of the Roman Church be denounced as so many expressions of unthinking bigotry? Such views are not without merit. Rational objections likely informed Presbyterian attitudes toward Catholicism, flowing as they invariably did from an ecclesiastical tradition that differed fundamentally from that of the Roman Church. Yet the vitriolic tenor and sheer pervasiveness of Presbyterian anti-Catholicism – which routinely stressed the poverty and ignorance of Catholic communities, and portrayed the Roman Church’s authority as the spiritual equivalent of slavery – betrays an animus that transcends rationality. It is one thing for a Protestant to disagree with a Roman Catholic over, say, the pope’s ecclesiastical headship. It is another thing altogether for a Protestant to declare that Catholics the world over are mired in soul-imperilling ignorance from which they are pathetically incapable of escaping. While it may be based, in part, on rational objections, the second assertion attests to the existence of an underlying prejudice due to its sweeping, thoroughly condemnatory nature. Thomas McCulloch put forth succinct expressions of anti-Catholicism in two early nineteenth-century texts, 1808’s Popery Condemned by Scripture and the Fathers, and its 1810 sequel Popery Again Condemned. The catalyst for his diatribes was a conflict between Robert Stanser, Anglican rector of Halifax, and Edmund Burke, who would go on to serve as that city’s Roman Catholic bishop. The dispute arose over Burke’s desire to establish a Catholic school in Nova Scotia.17 McCulloch’s remarks, which included castigations of such Catholic traditions as the veneration of Saints, capture the anti-Catholic views that circulated within British North American Presbyterianism. Coursing through McCulloch’s denunciation was a palpable excitement regarding an inevitable millennial clash between good and evil, which were manifest in the forces of Protestantism and Catholicism, respectively. Describing the Roman Church as “the mother of harlots” in Popery Condemned, he declared that the time was “not far distant, when the flames with which she has tormented the servants of God, will overtake her.”18 Though they may have drawn on rational objections, McCulloch’s remarks were plainly informed by a scathing prejudice.

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Early Canadian Presbyterians, in criticizing their “Romish” counterparts, took pains to contrast living standards in predominantly Catholic and Protestant communities. This strategy was designed to underscore the supposed discrepancy between Catholic backwardness and Protestant dynamism. It derived from the conviction that, where Catholicism was virtually synonymous with poverty and ignorance, Protestantism was eminently conducive to prosperity and enlightenment. Presbyterian remarks on the perceived correlation between Protestantism and progress fit snugly within a longstanding, though not monolithic, intellectual tradition. Evidence can be found in the writings of such nineteenth-century historians as Francis Parkman, whose romantic narratives routinely contrasted “Protestant virtue and Catholic vice, Anglo-Saxon liberty and Latin absolutism.”19 Additional evidence can be found in the interpretations forwarded in the early twentieth century by the sociologist Max Weber, who famously posited that Protestant (especially Calvinist) morality – which esteemed such traits as solvency and diligence – helped engender modern capitalism. Weber’s underlying assumption is that cultivating such traits – which, from a Calvinist standpoint, were seen as necessary in order to combat sinfulness, and as possible evidence of election – aided the ascent of a market-driven economy, since the characteristics that made one a “good Protestant” almost invariably made one a “good capitalist” as well. Indeed, for Weber, the interpenetration of religion and economics was so extensive within Calvinism that, for its adherents, “the process of sanctifying life almost took on the character of a business enterprise.”20 More recently, American and British scholars have argued that there was indeed a substantive correlation between Protestantism and the evolution of capitalism. Historian Mark A. Noll has suggested that American evangelicals’ rejection of coercive religious establishments in the era of the Revolutionary War dovetailed with their rejection of tightly regulated economies that threatened to stifle private enterprise. Both developments, he reasons, were predicated on evangelicals’ repudiation of overweening state authority, with the latter phenomenon (economic coercion) setting the stage for the early republic’s enthusiastic adoption of free market principles. However, Noll is also at pains to point out that Americans’ enthusiasm for laissez-faire economics coexisted somewhat awkwardly with an entrenched suspicion of the potentially corruptive influence of wealth, which militated against an ethos that celebrated unchecked acquisitiveness.21

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As for Britain, Boyd Hilton has suggested that evangelicalism was integral to its adoption of free trade in the nineteenth century. Viewing market fluctuations, which involve the spectre of hardship as well as the promise of reward, as comparable to the process of redemption – in which suffering inevitably precedes salvation – ardent British Protestants came to believe that laissez-faire economics could help prepare repentant sinners to be reconciled with God. For Hilton, the fact that evangelicals enamoured of enfettered commerce described their cherished economic philosophy as the “Gospel of Free Trade” attests to the convergence of free market doctrines and Protestant zeal in nineteenthcentury British society.22 Early Canadian Presbyterians who juxtaposed living standards in primarily Catholic and Protestant contexts often invoked environmental themes. Specifically, they stressed the supposedly inverse relationship between natural fecundity and national virtue in highlighting Protestantism’s putative superiority over the Roman Church. That Presbyterians adopted this strategy suggests that their views were shaped by the nineteenth-century historian Thomas Babington Macaulay, a renowned contributor to the Whig historiographical tradition (about which more will be said in chapter 8) whose intellectual influence reverberated across the English-speaking world. He provocatively wrote that the Protestant nations of northern Europe and the British Isles, despite being “little favoured by nature,” emerged as “the most flourishing and best governed in the world,” while their Roman Catholic counterparts to the south, who enjoyed remarkable environmental advantages, languished as a result of cultural “decay.”23 An excerpt from a public lecture by the Reverend George Patterson, which was published in Halifax’s Presbyterian Witness and Evangelical Advocate in early 1860, is illustrative of the Presbyterians’ penchant for adopting a Macaulay-esque tack in maligning Roman Catholicism. Patterson began by declaring that, “whatever advance has been in knowledge, in freedom, in wealth, and in the arts of life has been in spite” of the influence exerted by the “Romish Church.” He focused on environmental factors in developing his argument. “The loveliest provinces of Europe,” he wrote in reference to such southern European nations as Italy and Spain, have been plunged into states of “poverty, political servitude and … intellectual torpor” under “Romish” authority. Conversely, northern European nations once notorious for “sterility” and “barbarism” were transformed by “skill and industry” into fruitful “gardens,” boasting an

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illustrious lineage of “heroes, statesmen, philosophers and poets” as a result of their Protestantism.24 For Patterson, religion was responsible for the differences between Catholic and Protestant countries. “Righteousness exalteth a nation,” he thundered, “but sin is a reproach to any people.” It was no coincidence that those states that enjoyed enlightenment and prosperity were also the ones in which Protestantism exerted the most influence. Britain, in his understanding, epitomized the correlation between Protestant piety and national greatness. Its august status was attributable “to her sound Protestant Christianity,” which allowed Britain to overcome unfa­ vourable natural circumstances and achieve unprecedented greatness. “This alone,” he affirmed, “could preserve her in the future.” Implicit in Patterson’s statements was the corresponding conviction that Catholicism was responsible for the struggles of nations that enjoyed comparatively advantageous environments.25 (Presbyterians made similar arguments about “heathen” peoples in places like Africa, who were “sunk in ignorance, barbarity, and every abominable wickedness” despite the fact that “Nature has given many of them advantages far higher than we can lay claim to.”26) Comparable views appeared in an 1846 edition of the Presbyterian Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, in which an unnamed commentator contrasted the Protestant and Catholic states of the Americas. The discussion turned on the alleged distinction between the former’s vigour and freedom and the latter’s lethargy and subjugation. In “Protestant America,” the author declared, “every man” enjoys virtually undisturbed freedom as a result of widespread religious liberty and enlightenment. Thus, “peace and happiness, knowledge and love, liberty and prosperity” abound. This scenario contrasted with the destitution and ignorance of “Catholic America,” comprising Mexico and “the republics south of her.” There, the author affirmed, “despotism and anarchy, desolation and misery” exist in direct proportion to the pervasiveness of Catholicism.27 The article encapsulated the belief that Catholicism invariably obliterated whatever benefits derived from a salubrious climate and an abundant array of natural resources. Providence, Presbyterians believed, had consigned the “fairest portions of the world” – including “Italy, Spain … and South America” – to the spiritual domain of “popery.” Accordingly, inhabitants of such naturally “rich and fertile countries” were bogged down in poverty and ignorance due to the degrading influence of Catholicism, the “mother of abominations.” It went without saying that the success of northern countries that did not enjoy

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such felicitous environmental circumstances, including drizzly Britain, sprang from their Protestantism.28 The relationship between religious virtue and national greatness was also evident, purportedly, within the British Isles. The author contrasted Ireland and Scotland in hopes of substantiating this notion. “Popery” was described as “the blight of [Ireland’s] prosperity,” and “the withering curse of her children.” By contrast, Scotland, “across the channel,” was replete with schools and churches, which were central to its sterling moral character and “hallowed wealth.” Religious differences were said to account for this disparity: where Catholic Ireland was wracked by  poverty and ignorance, Protestant Scotland was “the glory of the British Isles.”29 The supposed correlation between Catholicism and backwardness featured prominently in Presbyterian critiques of Lower Canadian society. Consider remarks that appeared in the Presbyterian in October of 1848, in which the author referred to “the generally deplorable state of ignorance of the [French] Canadians on the score even of the ability to read, their natural simplicity of character,” and their willingness “to believe what is told them by those considered more learned than themselves.” Such characteristics stemmed from “the strong hold which their superstitious system of religious faith … has taken of their minds.”30 Consider, too, the remarks of the Reverend Robert Burns, a Scottish missionary who participated in a mid-nineteenth century North American tour on behalf of the Free Church which included visits to several Canadian towns. Burns, who eventually immigrated to Upper Canada, emphasized what he saw as the disparity between the depleted fields of the “old habitants” and the comparatively productive “husbandry” to which he had been exposed in principally English-speaking Protestant communities.31 Burns described Lower Canada’s Catholic population as “a simple and light-hearted race” who inhabited their lands “from generation to generation without any perceptible change.”32 The Lower Canadians’ stagnancy, in Burns’s view, rendered them spiritually apathetic, and so incapable of throwing off the yoke supposedly thrust upon them by the colony’s priests. Religion, for Burns, was responsible for the discrepancy between Lower Canadian backwardness and Upper Canadian dynamism. Alternative explanations for the Lower colony’s struggles – the fact that its farms had been cultivated for longer periods than Upper Canadian ones, the manifold burdens of seigneurialism – were studiously ignored. Where Lower Canada’s sluggishness was attributed to “popery,” the wealth and

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ingenuity that purportedly typified English-speaking communities flowed ineluctably from their Protestantism.33 Burns went as far as to liken Catholicism’s impact on Lower Canada to slavery’s impact on the Southern United States, which was responsible in his view for the exhaustion of agricultural resources as well as the exploitation of slaves. For example, Burns observed that his time in French Canada reminded him of his travels in Virginia, where the “withering effects” of slavery were evident in “the blasting of the fields” and the “degradation of man.”34 Burns, along with other nineteenth-century Protestant evangelists, attributed Lower Canada’s misfortune largely to the fact that it was a “bible-free” colony. This was so, they believed, because the colony’s literacy rates were lower than they were elsewhere in British North America, and because its Catholic authorities were uncomfortable with literate laypeople reading unauthorized Bibles. That such criticisms were often ill founded – for instance, members of the Lower Canadian laity often absorbed aspects of the biblical narrative through religious iconography, whether they could read or not – did little to detract from the vehemence of their detractors’ denunciations, attesting to the entrenched prejudice on which they rested.35 Given the salience of anti-Catholicism within the denomination, it is hardly surprising that many Presbyterians came to feel that they were obligated to promote Protestantism among Lower Canada’s Catholics. Failure to combat “Romish” superstition, they were convinced, would condemn much of the colony’s populace – which, as a result of its purported cultural torpor, was incapable of liberating itself from Catholic oppressiveness – to an endless, excruciating perdition. Small wonder, then, that members of the denomination devoted substantial attention to the activities of Protestant missionaries labouring in Lower Canada. While they expressed interest in converting English speakers, par­ ticularly Lower Canada’s Irish Catholics, Presbyterians were primarily concerned with promulgating Protestantism among that colony’s Frenchspeaking majority, which numbered roughly one million by the midnineteenth century.36 An 1854 editorial in George Brown’s Globe reflects the sense of urgency that attended the efforts of Protestant missionaries serving among Lower Canada’s French-speaking Roman Catholics. It also reflects the Presbyterians’ tendency to equate the spiritual oppressiveness of Roman Catholicism with the temporal oppressiveness of slavery. The editorial stated that “many a man in the parishes of the districts of Quebec and ­Montreal, grinding under despotism which he has not the power to resist, looks

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with hope to the efforts of Upper Canadian Protestants who are about to free him from slavery.”37 James Fettes, a missionary stationed in Lower Canada, had articulated similar sentiments several years before. He hoped that his efforts, guided by the “great Head of the Church,” would liberate French Canadian Catholics from “Romish ignorance and superstition,” adding that he aspired to “break the bonds by which Satan holds so many thousands in his power, and so successfully enslaves the whole of this benighted land.”38 Perceived responsibility for converting Lower Canadian Catholics was linked, in the Presbyterian consciousness, to the belief that they were a divinely favoured entity endowed with responsibility for advancing the providential design. “Assuredly it will not redound to our honour as a branch of the Scottish Zion,” a Presbyterian observer stated in 1848, “if we show an unwillingness or lukewarmness in supplying our neighbours, the Votaries of Romanism, with that spiritual instruction which they know not” as a result of their subordination to priestly authority. To disregard the denomination’s responsibility for promoting Protestantism would be to flout the duties conferred on them by God, per the covenantal relationship discussed in the previous chapter.39 An article in the January 1861 edition of the Canadian United Presbyterian Magazine invoked the Scottish Reformation in attempting to highlight Protestantism’s positive social impact, and to underscore the importance of combatting Catholic despotism in places like Lower Canada. The Scottish Reformation conferred invaluable benefits on Presbyterians, including “an open bible … the free proclamation of the gospel … education in all its branches … [and] the elevation of the system of morals above the blighting and degrading influences of Jesuitical casuistry.” Members of the denomination, as a result, were duty bound not only “to prize the attainments we have made,” but also to “cherish a ‘heart-hatred’ of popery, just as we do her twin sister … American slavery; and to let our ‘light to shine’ as becomes the purity of our ­professed faith.”40 The spectre of strife in Ireland was raised in an effort to imbue the project of Lower Canadian evangelism with enhanced import. Sentiments expressed in an article published in the September 1845 edition of the Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record are indicative of this strategy. It began by emphasizing the necessity of converting Lower Canada’s Catholics. Indeed, for the author, that objective “possesses claims of the strongest kind upon our attention and prayerful exertions – claims preferable … to almost every other missionary undertaking.”41 The author

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invoked Ireland’s turbulent history, which included a series of rebellions engineered by disaffected Catholics as well as Protestant reprisals designed to quell dissent, as a means of accentuating the dangers that  would ensue if the absorption of Lower Canada’s Catholics into the Protestant mainstream was pursued with anything less than evangelical vigour. Had the Christians of Great Britain done their duty to Ireland in evangelising it as they might have done, what an amount of evil might have been prevented. Let Christians and churches in Canada consider this parallel case, and learn from it their duty, and the sad results to be expected from the neglect of it.42 When it came to the anti-Catholic sentiments that existed within early Canadian Presbyterianism, there was a meaningful correlation between rhetoric and action. Members of the denomination were arguably the most enthusiastic contributors to the French Canadian Missionary Society (FCMS), a multi-denominational organization established in Montreal in 1839 for the purpose of converting Lower Canadian Catholics to Protestantism.43 The F C M S ’s mandate, according to the Presbyterian minister William Smart, involved promoting Protestantism among spiritually enslaved French-speaking Catholics, who were “sunk in the darkness of popery, under the yoke of a numerous and wealthy priesthood.” Echoing Burns’s paternalistic remarks, Smart observed that, while French Canadians were “naturally intelligent,” they were “extremely ignorant” as a result of Catholicism’s stultifying societal impact. Consequently, they were in dire need of “improvement.” Accordingly, the FC MS established an “Institute” complete with a one-hundred-acre farm at Point aux Trembles, near Montreal. There, in a veritable laboratory of Protestant progress, Lower Canada’s Catholics would be weaned off the stupefying traditions of the Roman Church, and receive training in advanced agricultural techniques in which the “French Canadians are miserably deficient” as a result of their religiously induced backwardness.44 Evangelists working under the F C MS’s auspices also distributed tracts, visited with Catholic families, and created Protestant schools in hopes of diminishing the “Romanists’” influence. A report issued in 1859 indicated that, as a result of the institution’s efforts, as many as 1,200 Lower Canadian Catholics had “embraced Protestantism,” while “over eight hundred young persons had been educated, and that these, with scarcely

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any exception, had become Protestant.” Canadian Presbyterians – and, in particular, Free Church adherents – were the primary financial contributors to the F C MS. In 1859, approximately two-thirds of the $6,480 raised in Canada for the organization came from the Free Church via “congregational collections and private subscriptions.” (The institution raised an additional $5,339 in Britain and the United States.) Presbyterians continued to support the F C MS financially after 1871 despite the fact that, in that year, the Canada Presbyterian Church (the entity that absorbed the Free Church and one of its Secession counterparts in 1861) established its own organization for Lower Canadian evangelism, the French Evangelisation program, to which members of the denomination also contributed upwards of $3,000 annually.45 Presbyterian efforts to promote Protestantism among Lower Canadian Catholics were also evident in the Ladies’ Auxiliary Association in Connection with the French Mission Work of the Church of Scotland, an organization comprising female members of the denomination established in Montreal in the mid-1860s. The association’s first annual report revealed its anti-Catholic orientation by likening the Roman Church’s influence to the abject oppression of slavery. Specifically, the association made plain its hope that, “through its instrumentality, many precious souls may be led to pursue and love the word of God, and thereby be emancipated from the moral bondage by which they are surrounded, to the enjoyment of Gospel light and liberty.”46 Consistent with such anti-Catholic aims, the association established a day school through which the teacher, one “Miss Vernier,” extolled Protestantism’s virtues. Additionally, the society raised funds to support the missionary activities of a “Mr Geoffrey,” who visited Lower Canadian families, presided over prayer meetings, and attempted to distribute ­copies of the Bible in hopes of undermining the cultural authority wielded by the colony’s priests. The results of the association’s efforts were mixed. Miss Vernier’s activities were deemed a success, with twelve students – eight of whom were girls – enrolled in the school by the end of its first year. Mr Geoffrey’s efforts, by contrast, met with stiff resistance. Routinely “reviled and insulted,” he managed to persuade only seven Catholic families to accept copies of the Bible during his first year of service, while failing to engender any conversions.47 Members of the denomination viewed the Dominion-wide Presbyterian union of 1875 as providential means for combatting Catholicism. One observer, speaking at the General Assembly held in Montreal that marked the new institution’s inception, trumpeted the establishment of a national

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church as a divinely ordained instrument by which the “great and mighty power of Rome” could be thwarted. The remarks reportedly elicited an ovation from the Presbyterian multitude arrayed before him.48 Tellingly, the first act of the newly minted Presbyterian Church in Canada was to establish an institution that would be geared toward French Canadian evangelism. The agency routinely accounted for onefifth of the denomination’s annual domestic expenditure, and employed seventy-nine workers in conversion-related activities by 1892. It also operated two preparatory schools and offered French-language courses at the Presbyterian theological college in Montreal. Such initiatives attest to the substantive relationship between anti-Catholic rhetoric and action within early Canadian Presbyterianism, a pattern that manifested repeatedly throughout the nineteenth century.49

T h e A m e r ic a n R e p u b l i c, Slavery, and t he P rov id e n t ia l M e a n ing of the Ci vi l War What about the United States? How did early Canadian Presbyterians perceive the republic to the south, and to what degree were developments occurring within its borders viewed through a providential lens? Imperial enthusiasm, as we have seen, was central to the denomination. Yet the fact that Presbyterians were typically pro-British does not necessarily mean that they were anti-American. Historian Jane Errington has convincingly argued that, while loyalism was indeed a compelling phenomenon in Upper Canada, a residual “wariness” over the legacy of the American Revolution and the reputed instability of republican institutions steadily declined in the nineteenth century. Eclipsing it, she contends, was an “admiration for and an openness to American ideas and developments,” with the American republic functioning as a “yardstick” against which Upper Canadians gauged their colony’s progress.50 Errington’s assessment is eminently applicable to early Canadian Presbyterianism. Lingering misgivings over America’s supposed radicalism – which were particularly pronounced in Upper Canada, where the War of 1812 exacerbated animosities imported by certain Loyalists – were, in the fullness of time, supplanted by admiration for the United States’ burgeoning wealth and capacity for ingenuity. This attitude is evident in the reference (mentioned on page 96) to the “happiness, knowledge and love, liberty and prosperity” that were thought to abound in “Protestant America.”

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Early Canadian Presbyterians tended to be fond of their American coreligionists, especially the “Old School” constituency within their ranks. This group shielded Calvinist orthodoxy around the turn of the nineteenth century amid a torrent of unorthodox evangelicalism that, for theological conservatives, verged on heretical religious radicalism. The Old School faction managed to safeguard Calvinism’s essence chiefly as a result of its emphasis on providential sovereignty, which countered the belief that repentant sinners’ exertions could facilitate their redemption, and bolstered the doctrine that God was solely responsible for sanctification.51 Presbyterian skepticism toward radical evangelicalism also surfaced within British North America, as reflected in the fact that the renowned revivalist Henry Alline was accosted by two of the denomination’s ministers in Nova Scotia in 1776, who criticized him for “[being] without a license from a society of ministers” and “breaking through all order.”52 Yet Canadian Presbyterian perceptions of the American republic were by no means uniformly positive. In addition to their suspicions regarding America’s radical evangelicals, whose emotionally charged revival festivals were flatly dismissed as “the getting up [of] a mere animal excitement by means fitted to excite weak nerves,” early Canada’s Presbyterians also objected to the institution of slavery in Southern states.53 It should be noted that early Canadian Presbyterianism’s first outspoken critic of slavery, the Reverend James MacGregor, objected not to developments in the United States, but rather to ones within British North America. A Scottish immigrant and member of the staunchly anti-slavery Anti-Burger Secession group, MacGregor immigrated to Nova Scotia from Scotland in 1786. Slavery, which had never been widespread in Scotland, was legally prohibited in that country in 1778. However, numerous Scots were linked to the practice, whether as West Indian planters or metropolitan entrepreneurs whose commercial activities implicated them in industries that relied on enslaved labour. MacGregor’s anti-slavery views were directed at the behaviour of a slaveholding fellow Presbyterian minister and Scottish immigrant residing in Nova Scotia, Daniel Cock. A Burgher, Cock served in the largely Scots-Irish community of Truro, to which New England Planters had imported slavery in the mid-eighteenth century. (Legal campaigns to eradicate slavery in British North America began in the late eighteenth century, and it was abolished across the British Empire by 1834.) So emphatic was MacGregor’s opposition to Cock’s ownership of slaves that he authored a provocative pamphlet, A Letter to a Clergyman

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Urging Him to Set Free a Black Girl Held in Slavery, that has been credited with “[helping create] a matrix for the incipient judicial assault” on the practice. Published in 1788, MacGregor’s denunciation involved equating slavery with the spiritual tyranny of the Roman Church, charging that Cock’s behaviour rendered him “no more enlightened than Catholics.” MacGregor bitterly lamented the fact that “Presbyterian ministers, who of all others should keep farthest off from her, should be found publicly committing fornication with the Great Whore [slavery], drinking themselves drunk, and stupefying their consciences with their filthy wine!” “But blessed be God,” he added, striking a comparatively optimistic chord, “though hand in hand, the Negroes shall be free.”54 Presbyterian anti-slavery critiques intensified in the mid-nineteenth century, mainly as a result of controversial developments in the United States. One such development was the Fugitive Slave Act, which affirmed slave-owners’ right to cross state lines and reclaim escaped “property” that had taken flight to jurisdictions where slavery was prohibited, triggering an influx of tens of thousands of black people, both free and enslaved, into British North America. Another was the extension of slavery into recently acquired territory in the American West following the Mexican War. Such developments elicited criticism of what, by the midnineteenth century, had come to be known as the United States’ “peculiar institution” – a comment on its disappearance elsewhere. Opposition to this aspect of American society was vital to early Canadian Presbyterianism, and was especially pronounced among a Free Church community that had opposed slavery from the faction’s inception. While Secessionists also conveyed their “unqualified and unmitigated abhorrence” of slavery, the Scottish Church accorded scant attention to it, as evidenced by the fact that the Canadian Church of Scotland’s Acts and Proceedings failed to mention slavery once between the founding of its synod in 1831 and the end of the Civil War. Such discrepancies accord with a broader pattern evident in nineteenth-century Canadian Christianity – namely, that evangelical groups tended to be outspoken critics of slavery while their religiously moderate counterparts, despite their overwhelming opposition to the practice, were usually less strident on the issue.55 (It bears saying that the Scottish Church’s Canadian adherents did denounce slavery categorically, if infrequently, through publications like The Presbyterian.) Slavery galvanized a great many Presbyterians, bolstering their sense of divinely ordained purpose. It also brought into focus the synthesis of providentialism and imperialism that lay at the heart of the denomination’s worldview.

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Central to the anti-slavery critique set forth by mid-nineteenth century Canadian Presbyterians was the belief that the practice was unjust and inhumane. The Reverend Michael Willis, one of the denomination’s most vigorous anti-slavery activists and the one and only head of the AntiSlavery Society of Canada, defined the institution in a public lecture as “compulsory service, founded in violence, and recognising no right of consent or contract in the weaker party.”56 In addition to objecting to slavery’s disregard for slaves’ “right of contract,” Willis recoiled at the way in which it deprived enslaved blacks of their right to liberty of conscience. That is, by manipulating virtually every aspect of a slave’s life, slaveholding effectively “disallows the prerogatives of his reason, and defies the sanctities of his conscience.”57 For Willis, no justification for slavery could be found in either the “law of nature” or the pages of scripture. He was adamant that the biblical “injunction to obedience” could not be deployed as a pro-slavery rationale. After all, this imperative, when taken to its logical conclusion, furnished ethical justifications for such repugnant phenomena as polygamy (owing to the alleged subordination of wives to husbands) and despotism (given citizens’ obligation to obey civil laws). Rejecting such rationalizations as morally unconscionable, Willis insisted that “the law of right” must invariably counterbalance the “law of might.” The values espoused and embodied by “our Lord Saviour” made clear the tenets by which human behaviour should be governed, he declared. Chief among them was the “law of love,” which was plainly incompatible with the cruel practice of slavery.58 For early Canadian Presbyterians, the persistence of slavery in the United States tarnished the American republic’s otherwise lustrous reputation. George Brown, in an 1863 address to the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada, asserted that the United States occupied a “frightful position” in the eyes of Western Christendom as a result of its tacit willingness to countenance the practice. Brown lauded Canadian anti-slavery activists, including Willis, for attempting to “goad” the Americans to suppress the “inhuman traffic” that diminished their stature in the estimation of other Christian nations.59 Such sentiments reflected Brown’s belief that slavery’s stubborn persistence was “the greatest defect of American democracy.” So impassioned were his denunciations of the practice that they garnered praise in metropolitan abolitionist circles, where they were heralded by iconic individuals like J.S. Mill (a staunch critic of slavery), and reprinted by the Emancipation Society of Manchester.60

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Canadian Presbyterians felt that American slavery flew in the face of the high-minded ideals on which the republic rested. “Is it possible,” asked an article published in The Presbyterian in 1848, to believe that “the Americans have become and continued [sic] democratised in their form of government from a genuine respect for the mutual rights of citizenship, when slavery is still maintained among them by law?” The American constitution’s ostensible recognition of the equality of all men amounted to rank hypocrisy in view of the country’s pernicious institution. For Canadian Presbyterians, “slavery and the rights of man are equally eternal principles in their constitution,” which was tantamount to “a mockery of God and man and all principle, for which doubtless a day of reckoning will come.”61 The latter statement gestures toward the  theme of providential punishment, a topic to which this chapter will return. Given their opposition to slavery, members of the denomination criticized Canadian institutions that were linked to American bodies implicated in the practice’s perpetuation. For example, a Secession group cast aspersions on the multidenominational Upper Canadian Tract society for its affiliation with the American Tract Society, which was guilty of purging anti-slavery sentiments from its publications. The Canadian society was chastised for its cooperation with an American entity that would exhibit such “connivance and obsequiousness” toward an unjust institution.62 So acute were Canadian Presbyterians’ objections to slavery that they precipitated a rupture with their American coreligionists. In June of 1845, the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada (a Free Church entity) denounced the “sinful apathy” of America’s churches regarding the persistence of such an abhorrent practice. America’s Old School Presbyterians were not spared the Canadians’ wrath. The catalyst for the rift between these factions was a resolution on slavery that was passed, in 1845, by the  American body to which the Old School constituency belonged. Essentially, the resolution privileged the preservation of denominational unity over the necessity of eradicating slavery. In particular, it avowed that it was not the church’s responsibility to “take action” when it came to that practice, given that America’s religious institutions were founded on the belief that slave-owning was no obstacle to “Christian communion.” It followed that disputes over the practice served only “to separate the Northern from the Southern portion of the Church,” a result that “every good citizen should deplore.”63 The Canadian Free Church Synod’s Committee on American Slavery responded by sending a condemnatory response to the Presbyterian

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Church in the United States. It inveighed against what it saw as the Americans’ craven refusal to condemn slavery, through which “three millions of human beings … are held in bondage by their fellow creatures … [and] bought and sold as any article of property.” Pulling no punches, the Canadians also criticized the “injustice” and “cruelty” of a practice “which,” they avowed, “no special cases of kind treatment” on the part of supposedly benevolent slaveholders could “neutralize or excuse.”64 Canadian Secessionists also chastised Charles Hodge, a prominent Old School theologian and editor of the influential Princeton Review, in 1861. The catalyst for the denunciation was an article Hodge wrote expressing support for the Fugitive Slave Act and attempting to dissuade disgruntled Southerners from leaving the union, noting that, contrary to what many of them might have believed, Northern society was not replete with rigid abolitionists. The Canadians, speaking through their monthly publication, expressed dismay at their American coreligionists’ apparent willingness to tolerate slavery’s continuation. They also published a critique of American Presbyterianism composed by a Scottish abolitionist minister, which excoriated the Americans for failing to denounce slavery wholeheartedly. The critique went as far as to dismiss America’s churches – including the Old School Presbyterians, whose staunchly Calvinist theological views the Canadian Presbyterians cherished – as “rotten to the core,” adding that the dissolution of the union would be a welcome development if it led to slavery’s elimination.65 The struggle over slavery eventually tore American Presbyterianism apart, and resulted in a breach between Canadian members of the denomination and their coreligionists to the south. Canadian Presbyterian objections to American slavery, which found expression in boycotts of denominational publications produced in the United States and a refusal to send delegates to meetings of American Presbyterian bodies, persisted until the abolition of slavery in the United States – a development that began with the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, and was completed with the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865.66 Objections to slavery in Southern states reinforced the Presbyterians’ sense of providential purpose. Nowhere was this more evident than in their support for the Buxton Mission, a settlement established in 1849 for fugitive slaves. Located in Raleigh Township, Canada West, the settlement distinguished itself as one of North America’s largest and most successful “free black” communities.67 William King, a Presbyterian minister and repentant former slaveholder, played an integral role in the mission’s development. From the

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raising of funds for the requisite lands (9,000 acres in Kent Country), to the oversight of the religious and educational aspects of community life, to the decision to name the settlement in honour of the acclaimed British abolitionist Thomas Fowell Buxton, King worked ceaselessly to create a refuge from the dehumanizing drudgery of slavery. It was to be, as King put it, a “City of God” that would provide ex-slaves with a “haven against social ostracism and legal discrimination.”68 Vital though his contributions were, King was not the only Presbyterian to support the Buxton Mission. On the contrary, other members of the  denomination provided the enterprise with critical backing. The Presbyterian Church of Canada publicly supported the project; individual Presbyterians invested in the joint stock company that funded its initiatives; prominent Presbyterians, including laymen like George Brown and clergy like Robert Burns, served on the committee that superintended its activities; and the Buxton Mission Fund, a denomination-wide fundraising program, raised additional revenue by soliciting voluntary contributions. Due in large part to Presbyterians’ efforts, the mission emerged as a bustling community that afforded its inhabitants – of whom there were approximately 1,000 by the mid-1860s – an opportunity to own land, obtain an education, and forge social networks. Significantly, however, exhibitions of intolerance by racist white people in neighbouring communities were by no means unknown – indeed it seems plausible that such behaviour contributed to the decision of “large numbers” of blacks to return to the United States after the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued.69 For all the Presbyterians’ contributions, nothing was more important to the community’s success than the courage, ingenuity, and vigilance demonstrated by the inhabitants themselves, who tended to be either Methodists or Baptists.70 However, in considering Presbyterianism’s role in the community, it bears mentioning that Willis presided over its first communion service, while several young men from the mission would go on to study at Knox College, including John R. Riley, who received a theology degree from that institution in 1867.71 Unlike slavery’s apologists, King rejected the notion that black people were inherently inferior to white people. An optimistic, if condescending, belief in black people’s capacity for improvement informed his vision for the mission. Rather than attributing enslaved blacks’ subordinate status to innate deficiencies, King maintained that their suffering could more accurately be viewed as the unfortunate, yet unavoidable, outcome of sustained servitude. It followed that, if black people were provided with

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freedom and an opportunity to obtain an education, they could shed their supposed inferiority and ascend to a level of intelligence and sophistication that would be equal to that of white people.72 King was not alone among Canadian Presbyterians in his optimistic racial views. An article in the May 1854 edition of the Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record invoked the notion that the supposed inferiority of America’s black population sprang not from intrinsic shortcomings, but rather from the devastating effects of bondage. “How often,” the article began, are anti-slavery activists confronted with the argument that “‘[blacks] are incapable of education, and totally devoid of that amount of intellect necessary to raise them to an equal standing with other civilized nations!’ This,” the article countered, “the testimony of experience denies.” Elaborating on the notion that state-sanctioned subjugation, rather than innate inferiority, was responsible for black people’s suffering, the article affirmed that “it cannot be a subject of very great astonishment, if the ‘cloven-foot’ of … bondage … [makes] some impression on the unfortunate victims of slavery.” However, responsibility for such “evil” rested squarely with the “slave-holding oppressor,” as opposed to the slave.73 Inculcating Christianity was essential, in the Presbyterians’ understanding, to the ex-slave’s transition from subjugation to citizenship. Without this element, the argument ran, attempts to cultivate civility among black people – or anyone else, for that matter – would inevitably be unavailing, since the “history of past ages” demonstrated that Christianity was the only reliable agent of cultural improvement. For the Presbyterians, progress regarding the propagation of the gospel among black people who had settled in Canada (including inhabitants of  the Buxton Mission) was attributable to the symbiotic relationship between providence and British imperialism. Members of the denomination were convinced that, under the auspices of divine authority and the empire’s enlightened sway, righteousness would assuredly triumph over iniquity. Presbyterians were confident that “the same God who ‘created all men equal’” would liberate a “long oppressed and seriously injured people.” The Buxton Mission, then, was viewed as a “merciful enterprise” destined to “rescue” thousands of blacks who, “but for the opportunity of casting themselves on British protection,” would have been the “victims of human cupidity and cruelty” in the American republic. The underlying assumption, which conveniently downplayed the existence of racism in early Canada, was clear: God himself had engineered the exodus from slavery in the American republic to freedom in British North America.74

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Early Canadian Presbyterians interpreted the Civil War as providential punishment for the sin of slavery. This interpretation meshes with the Calvinist notion that God punishes both individual transgressors and their communities. God, in the Presbyterians’ reckoning, “sustains a moral relation to nations,” and deals with them in accordance with their prevailing ethical character. It was hardly surprising, then, that when a nation allows for the perpetuation of such a gross transgression as slavery, it stands “chargeable with guilt” in his eyes. Failure on the part of that nation to eradicate such exhibitions of “national sin” would surely elicit “the vengeance of heaven.”75 America’s unwillingness to prohibit slavery was especially galling in view of its Protestant heritage. The Americans’ moral failings would have been less egregious, Canadian Presbyterians reasoned, had they been mired in a “night of darkness” comparable to that which blanketed the pagans of “Dahomey or Ashantee” in Africa. (Such statements reveal that the Presbyterians’ opposition to slavery in the United States did not preclude bigoted denunciations of black peoples elsewhere.) Yet such was not the case. Americans, conversely, inhabited a land that enjoyed “the light of gospel truth.” Consequently, their tolerance of slavery was all the more outrageous – indeed, it helped to account for the Civil War’s severity, which was portrayed as a just reprisal delivered by God.76 Canadian Presbyterians harboured little doubt that providence would liberate America’s slaves. “Events point to the time as not distant when Jehovah shall cause every yoke to be broken,” they declared. It seemed obvious that the Civil War was divine retribution inflicted on a nation whose inhabitants were at once “the guiltiest of oppression, while the most boastful of freedom.” Elicited by the “foul stigma” that accrued to the United States as a result of slavery, the conflict attested to God’s capacity for punishing wayward individuals and their communities.77 Early Canadian Presbyterianism, as we have seen, was galvanized by a combination of providential fervour and imperial enthusiasm. From these impulses flowed a blistering anti-Catholic prejudice and a scathing critique of slavery. Where contemporary observers might be apt to see these impulses as different, nineteenth-century Canadian Presbyterians saw them as similar. Catholicism subjugated the soul, slavery subjugated the body; both phenomena, moreover, were inimical to liberty, which members of the denomination frequently equated with an absence of religious and temporal coercion. Thus, campaigns to counter them – which were evident in the activities of Lower Canadian evangelists, and the denomination’s support for the Buxton Mission, respectively – were

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viewed as providential instruments for combatting oppression, whether spiritual or temporal. Attitudes toward Catholicism and slavery ultimately reinforced notions of divinely ordained duty, which lay at the heart of the Presbyterian worldview.

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P art t wo Politics

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4 Two Swords Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s. Matthew 22:21

In most civilizations known to us, in most times and places, when human beings have reflected on political questions they have appealed to God when answering them. Mark Lilla, The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West (2007): 3

William Jenkins, an Upper Canadian Presbyterian cleric who settled in Markham township in the early nineteenth century, informed his son in the autumn of 1837 that vandals had smashed the windows and “[pulled] down the chimney” of a school that his congregation used for religious purposes. An adherent of Presbyterianism’s Secession tradition and a resolute Reformer, Jenkins was convinced that the culprits were “Tory” sympathizers from a rival Presbyterian group, the Church of Scotland, who sought to discourage him from delivering subversive sermons critical of the colony’s oligarchic elite. Yet Jenkins assured his son that, regardless of the depths to which his detractors within the Scottish Church were willing to stoop, they would never deter him from denouncing injustice and extolling the virtues of constitutional liberalization.1 Jenkins’s remarks suggest the deep divisions that existed within early Canadian Presbyterianism. After all, even if he was mistaken and the Scottish Church’s supporters were not the vandals, Jenkins’s hunch is indicative of the sectarian suspicions that lurked within the denomination. Incompatible perspectives on the church-state relationship were largely responsible for this ethos of conflict, serving as probably the

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greatest source of intra-denominational disunity before the formation of the Presbyterian Church in Canada in 1875. Members of the denomination advocated an array of attitudes on this issue, ranging from unswerving government support for religion to the unequivocal separation of church and state. Debates over the extent to which civil authorities should involve themselves in the religious realm created sectarian conflict – in addition to quarrelling among themselves, Presbyterians clashed with members of other denominations – for most of the nineteenth century. Tensions ran especially high between the early 1820s, when debates over religious establishments began to intensify, and the mid-1850s, when church-state disagreements at long last started to subside. While these conflicts rankled across early Canadian Presbyterianism, they were particularly acute in Upper Canada. By the mid-nineteenth century, Presbyterian politico-religious attitudes in that colony fell into one of three fundamental categories. Members of the Church of Scotland saw themselves as adherents of a legally established institution, advocating close relations between civil authority and religion, or “throne and altar.” Certain Secessionists, influenced by the philosophy of voluntarism, insisted on the strict separation of the two. Lastly, backers of the Free Church, which emerged in British North America after the Great Disruption tore asunder Scottish Presbyterianism in 1843, advocated an arrangement in which the state supports the church financially but is prohibited from involving itself in its affairs in any other way.2 Which factors account for the diverse church-state views that circulated in early Canadian Presbyterianism, and why were they so polarizing? Answers to these questions lie on both sides of the Atlantic. The denomination’s divergent politico-religious perspectives were products of an epic struggle over the relationship between Christianity and civil authority that originated in early modern Europe and manifested across the north Atlantic world. Indeed, Presbyterian church-state views cannot be understood accurately in isolation from the temporal and spatial circumstances from which they emerged. Compounding matters were circumstances ­particular to British North America, notably the Clergy Reserves, which Governor General Lord Sydenham described in the early 1840s as “the one great overwhelming grievance – the root of all the troubles of the Province – the cause of the Rebellion – the never failing watchword at the hustings – the perpetual source of discord, strife and hatred.”3 Shaped by this combination of metropolitan and colonial factors, Presbyterian debates over church-state relations bore on such fundamental issues as respectability, justice, and the degree to which government

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should assume responsibility for fostering societal virtue. Although they have not been completely neglected, the divergent perspectives articulated by the denomination’s members on this issue have traditionally received less attention than the contrasting politico-religious visions set forth, in the early nineteenth century, by establishmentarian Anglicans and radical evangelical voluntarists.4 These perspectives attest to the denomination’s ideological diversity, and to the heated church-state debates that were central to the ethos of early Canadian Presbyterianism.

Calv in is m , P r e s b y t e r ia ni s m, and the S tate Let us begin with a discussion on the meaning of the word “state.” Historian Michael Braddick, in accounting for the development of early modern England’s governmental apparatus, has defined the state as a “coordinated and territorially bounded network of agents exercising political power.”5 This chapter, in assessing Presbyterian church-state views, will abide by Braddick’s definition, which aptly characterizes the function of government in myriad Western polities. However, two qualifications are in order. First, the physical space that corresponds to modern-day Canada has never had a singular state, but rather a congeries of occasionally overlapping jurisdictions – colonial, provincial, federal – whose authority, in historian E.A. Heaman’s words, “people recognized as the state at any given time.”6 Second, major decisions pertaining to the British North American colonies’ administration, especially before the advent of responsible government, were made in Britain itself. This governmental wrinkle – which entailed the physical separation of colonial and metropolitan legislators, and the attendant potential for miscommunication and divergent priorities – had important implications for the colonies’ constitutional evolution.7 To say that the church-state attitudes that existed in early Canadian Presbyterianism had deep roots would be an understatement. John Calvin, the sixteenth-century theologian whose writings were integral to the development of Presbyterian orthodoxy, viewed church and state as separate yet compatible. “Pious kings,” he wrote, “leave to the church her jurisdiction, and to priests the duties assigned them by the Lord.”8 Calvin’s church-state views reveal the influence on his thinking of the ancient “two swords” doctrine. This outlook is often associated with Pope Gelasius I, who, in the fifth century, drew a distinction between ecclesiastical and civil spheres in hopes of obviating conflict between the two, arguing that God had authorized both entities to exert control over their respective realms.9

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Rejecting Roman Catholicism’s ecclesiastical hierarchy, Calvin presided over the implementation in Geneva (the Protestant city-state where the French-born Reformer settled in the 1530s) of an alternative system of church governance, one led by ministers and lay elders who were equal to each other in rank. Premised on an uncompromising desire “to control human behaviour in all its variety,” this system promoted exacting standards in popular morality by scrutinizing citizens’ behaviour and meting out punishments to supposed transgressors.10 Yet in Calvin’s Geneva, civil authorities had an important role to play in bolstering popular morality. His views on the relationship between sacred and secular authority pivoted on the conviction that church and state occupy autonomous yet complementary spheres. The two entities, for Calvin, were involved in a mutually beneficial relationship, with each one obligated to support the other. Obedience to both, he stated, was necessary to ensure that “they who lead a filthy and infamous life may not be called Christians, to the dishonour of God,” and that “the good be not corrupted by the constant company of the wicked, as commonly happens.”11 Thus, in sixteenth-century Geneva, sacred and secular laws were eminently compatible and, indeed, mutually reinforcing: given the pervasiveness of Calvinist morality, to sin was to commit a crime, and to commit a crime was to sin. While promoting temporal stability through the enforcement of its laws, the state invariably bolstered the church by combatting what Calvin saw as humanity’s innate depravity; for, as he put it, “all human works, if judged according to their own worth, are nothing but filth and defilement.”12 Political resistance, in Calvin’s view, was justified in the event that secular rulers failed to abide by Christian standards. However, he refused to approve of overt insubordination, since for him all forms of government were divinely instituted, a perspective that meshed with the biblical injunction to obedience enunciated in Paul’s Epistle to the Romans. Instead of rebelling, individuals could “pray for deliverance, petition and remonstrate” in hopes that a pious ruler would supplant an impious one. The furthest Calvin was prepared to go when it came to the issue of political resistance was to allow civil authorities to constrain the actions of purportedly ungodly officials under whom they served. Modest though it was, this authorization would have important political implications for Calvinist communities elsewhere in the world. Evidence can be seen in early modern Scotland, where John Knox helped lay the groundwork for the Scottish Reformation by arguing that it was incumbent on “inferior magistrates” to challenge their ungodly superiors. Integral to Knox’s

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hostility toward authorities like Mary Tudor and Mary, Queen of Scots, such notions throw into relief his conviction that adherence to biblical principles was “a public and political duty,” as opposed to an exclusively “personal, moral goal.”13 Manifest in their impact on Knox, Calvin’s church-state views found a receptive audience in early modern Scotland, where Presbyterianism flourished largely as a result of the efforts of Andrew Melville, who facilitated the denomination’s growth in the late sixteenth century through his contribution to the Second Book of Discipline. For the denomination’s adherents, civil intervention in the church’s domain was unacceptable. The Westminster Confession of Faith, which was crafted in 1645 and serves as the basic expression of Presbyterian doctrine, was unambiguous in its declaration that the “civil magistrate may not assume to himself the administration of the word and sacraments, or the powers of the keys to the kingdom to heaven.” State authorities’ encroachments on the church’s domain threatened Christ’s spiritual sovereignty, and were therefore unacceptable. According to the Confession, Jesus, “as king and head of his church,” delegates ecclesiastical authority to religious “office-holders,” whose sphere of influence was “distinct” from that of their civil counterparts.14 However, early modern Scottish Presbyterians also felt that the state was duty bound to help the church in its efforts to promote virtue. The civil magistrate, in the words of the Confession, “hath authority, and it is his duty, to take order that unity and peace be preserved in the church.” Consequently, the state functioned as the church’s steadfast ally in its efforts to promote virtue – so much so that the church-state partnership went further in early modern Scotland than it had in Geneva. In the latter, punishments for religious offences usually ranged from admonishment to excommunication (the execution, in 1535, of Michael Servetus was a noteworthy – and gruesome – exception). By contrast, in the former, clerical authorities with state authorization routinely imposed fines and prison sentences on individuals found guilty of sinful behaviour.15 The Presbyterian notion that church and state were separate but complementary would be challenged in the seventeenth century by Stuart monarchs, who aimed to consolidate their political and religious authority over Scotland’s populace following the Union of the Crowns in 1603. The Stuarts, in pursuing this objective, employed a divergent approach to church-state relations known as Erastianism, which entailed subordinating the church to a sovereign state. The Stuarts viewed Presbyterian traditions – including the denomination’s decentralized system of ecclesiastical

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governance, and its insistence on the church’s autonomy from the state – as incompatible with monarchical rule. An Episcopalian or bishop-run system of church polity that functioned under the auspices of a sovereign state was in their view a sine qua non for the maintenance of monarchical stability – a perspective that found pithy expression in the hierarchical adage “no bishop, no king.” Such views were abhorrent to Presbyterians, who viewed Erastianism as a menace to the church’s spiritual autonomy, and the attendant “crown rights” of Christ.16 Presbyterianism would not be recognized as Scotland’s national religion until the Glorious Revolution, which witnessed the toppling of the Roman Catholic James II (James VII in Scotland) and the ascent of William and Mary.17 The new sovereigns, hoping to curry favour with the Presbyterian majority in the Scottish parliament, acknowledged the Church of Scotland, a Presbyterian institution, as the nation’s state church through the Revolution Settlement of 1690. Congruent with the Calvinist tradition, this act acknowledged the church’s independence from the state, as reflected in the fact that, henceforth, Presbyterian clergy would be prohibited from occupying seats in Scotland’s parliament. It also acknowledged the state’s obligation to support the initiatives of an autonomous church, as reflected in the fact that the state assumed responsibility for supporting the Church of Scotland financially.18 The Scottish Church received further recognition, in 1707, with the Treaty of Union. This document, which ushered Great Britain into existence, recognized the equality of the new nation’s religious establishments in their respective realms: the Church of England, an Episcopalian institution fused to the state via the Henrician Reformation, and the Church of Scotland, a Presbyterian institution whose autonomy from the state was enshrined in the British constitution. The Treaty of Union neglected to specify whether the churches’ statuses as established entities extended to Britain’s settler colonies. Its silence on this matter would have significant ramifications for the politico-religious history of British North America.19 A series of intra-denominational conflicts came on the heels of Presbyterianism being recognized as Scotland’s national religion. The catalyst was lay patronage. Through this practice, influential figures – large landowners, for example – appointed ministers to individual churches without necessarily heeding their congregations’ preferences. The practice, which was condemned by ordinary Presbyterians as a violation of their congregations’ sacred sovereignty, had been prohibited in 1690 in consequence of

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the Revolution Settlement. Due to the influence exerted by powerful lay patrons, however, it was reinstated in 1712 with the consent of Britain’s civil courts. In conjunction with a theological dispute involving fiercely Calvinist evangelicals and reputedly deistic doctrinal “Moderates,” the lay patronage controversy led to the shattering of Scottish Presbyterianism a scant forty-three years after the Revolution Settlement, and an even scantier twenty-six years after the Treaty of Union.20 In 1733, a prominent Presbyterian evangelical, Ebenezer Erskine, and his supporters withdrew from the Church of Scotland. They did so as a result of lay patronage, which to them threatened the “parallel sovereignties” of church and state, and the Moderatism that, to the evangelicals’ way of thinking, represented an unacceptable deviation from Calvinist orthodoxy. The following decade, Erskine’s faction experienced its own schism due to a conflict over an oath requiring public officials to recognize “the true religion presently professed in this realm.” One seceding group, the General Associate Synod, or Anti-Burghers, rejected the oath on the grounds that it amounted to an acknowledgement of the Church of Scotland as the “true religion” of the nation. Another seceding group, the Associate Synod, or Burghers, discerned no such acknowledgement within the oath, although they continued to object to what they saw as the Church of Scotland’s scandalous willingness to countenance acts of lay patronage. Notwithstanding their differences, both groups – the AntiBurghers and the Burghers – continued to exalt the idea of government assistance for an autonomous church, and to deplore what they perceived as Erastian interference in the religious domain.21 A second secession from the Church of Scotland occurred in 1761 when another evangelical constituency – the Presbytery of the Relief Church – broke ranks with the national church over lay patronage. Similar to their seceding predecessors, members of this group bristled at what they understood as the encroachments of meddlesome temporal authorities on the spiritual realm. However, they went further than Erskine and his followers in denouncing this phenomenon – witness to which is the fact that they adopted a “voluntarist” philosophy premised on a rejection of state-supported religion and a corresponding reliance on the freely given financial contributions of individual members of a given congregation. Such principles, which eventually seeped into the AntiBurgher and Burgher communities, were deemed necessary in order to shield churches from the potentially corruptive interference of civil authorities. Working in tandem with political Reformers, voluntarists

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would play a crucial role in challenging the authority of religious establishments across the British world.22 In 1843, the Church of Scotland, which continued to be the nation’s largest Presbyterian group despite the aforementioned conflicts, experienced yet another rupture. It was precipitated, predictably, by the lay patronage controversy, which persisted due to the unwillingness of civil courts to prohibit the practice. Growing frustration over this issue among the Church of Scotland’s residual evangelical element led to the “Great Disruption.” As a result of this event, more than one third of the Church of Scotland’s ministers and members broke ranks with the national ­institution. Many of these disgruntled Presbyterians were drawn from Scotland’s burgeoning middle class, and were inclined toward political liberalism. Led by the Reverend Thomas Chalmers, they constituted the core of an embryonic “Free Church,” a Presbyterian constituency whose politico-religious outlook, in effect, represented a via media between the extremes of Church of Scotland establishmentarianism and Secessionist voluntarism. In particular, Free Church supporters insisted that, while the state should furnish the church with reliable financial aid, it had no right to interfere in ecclesiastical affairs.23 By the mid-nineteenth century, then, Scottish Presbyterianism consisted of three main branches, with each one espousing a distinct outlook on the church-state relationship: the Church of Scotland, whose members were establishmentarians; the Secession tradition, whose supporters often championed voluntarism; and the Free Church, which struck a balance between those who believed that church and state were inextricably intertwined and those who insisted on the necessity of erecting an impermeable barrier between the two. As for Irish Presbyterians, they were legally inferior to adherents of the Church of Ireland, an Episcopalian institution that enjoyed establishment status until 1869. Consequently, they were prohibited from holding office and subjected to other “disabilities” which, while mostly nominal, engendered resentment and contributed to large-scale transatlantic migration in the eighteenth century.24 Often affiliated with the Secession church, Irish Presbyterians in nineteenth-century Canada shared their Scottish counterparts’ suspicion of close church-state ties.25 Imported to British North America by the tens of thousands of Presbyterians who emigrated from Scotland and Ulster in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, these diverse viewpoints stoked politico-religious disputes in early Canada, where debates over religious establishments compounded sectarian animosities.26

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Co m p o u n d in g C o l o n i al Ci rcums tances Religious establishments, as historian Stewart J. Brown has observed, were integral to the British constitution. On an abstract level, they epitomized the state’s “religious identity,” and attested to the popular belief that Britain’s might and prosperity hinged on godly favour. Religious establishments were equally significant on a practical level, as evidenced by their responsibility for promoting virtue among the masses and presiding over the symbolic watersheds – baptisms, weddings, and funerals (or “hatching, catching, and dispatching”) – that conferred legitimacy on people’s lives.27 When it came to settler colonies, imperial officials and local elites hailed religious establishments as mechanisms through which loyalty and deference could be systematically inculcated in people’s minds, given their traditional role as auxiliaries of the metropolitan state.28 Anglicanism, as a result, was established in Nova Scotia following its elevation to the status of royal colony in 1758; in New Brunswick shortly after that colony’s creation in 1784; and in Prince Edward Island by the early 1790s.29 (Although they tend to be associated with conservative elites, it should be noted that colonial Anglicans were a diverse group when it came to their theological, ethnic, and political identities.30) Imperial authorities’ support for religious establishments intensified after the American Revolution. The reason? The radical insurrection that precipitated the demise of the First British Empire was attributed, in large part, to inadequate Anglican influence in the Thirteen Colonies, and to the pervasiveness among American colonists of such allegedly inter­ related phenomena as Dissenting Protestantism and political insubor­ dination.31 Thus, figures like Thomas Carleton, New Brunswick’s first lieutenant-governor, were decidedly in favour of Anglican establishments, which in his understanding bolstered social stability by reminding people that the status quo was divinely ordained. Anglican elites espoused comparable views. For instance, Charles Inglis, who was consecrated as Nova Scotia’s first Anglican bishop in 1787, echoed Carleton in arguing that state-aided religion was conducive to hierarchical order. “Whosoever is sincerely religious toward God,” Inglis explained, “will also … be loyal to his earthly Sovereign, obedient to the laws, and faithful to the government which God hath placed over him.” By contrast, religious Dissent invariably engendered “wild notions… which militate against Order” in both religious and civil spheres.32 Controversies over religious establishments failed to elicit the degree of acrimony in the Maritimes that they did elsewhere in British North

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America (especially Upper Canada). Three factors account for this discrepancy. First, in the aftermath of the Acadian expulsion, colonial officials resolved to avoid overt displays of religious favouritism in order to  promote Dissenting migration. Policymakers feared that a state-­ sanctioned hierarchy that conspicuously exalted Anglicans over other Protestants – for instance, by gifting them with expansive Crown lands – would discourage the migration from New England to Nova Scotia of other denominations’ adherents (chiefly Congregationalists), thereby hindering the colony’s development. Second, the Church of Scotland had  modest influence in the Maritimes before the 1820s, when the Glasgow Colonial Society, a missionary agency supported by the Scottish Church’s evangelical faction, began promoting its interests in British North America. Prior to that decade, most Maritime Presbyterians came from the Secession tradition. Leery of close church-state ties, members of this group made no serious attempt to gain recognition for themselves as adherents of an established institution. Third, there was no lucrative endowment comparable to the Clergy Reserves over which Maritime Protestants – including Presbyterians – could squabble. This absence meant that even after the Scottish Church’s growth in the later 1820s, the group’s members did not mount a serious campaign in favour of establishment status.33 This is not to suggest that Maritime Presbyterians were unfamiliar with politico-religious strife. Few statements could be further from the truth. In the first third of the nineteenth century, members of the denomination became embroiled in highly charged disputes (several of which were subsumed within transatlantic conflicts), including debates over the performance of marriage rites; public funding for Pictou Academy; and King’s College, Windsor, an Anglican institution of higher learning.34 Yet, when it came to religious establishments, politico-religious debates in the Maritimes were, for the most part, uncontroversial.35 The same cannot be said for Upper Canada. The critical issue distinguishing that colony from its Maritime counterparts when it came to religious establishments was the Clergy Reserves endowment, which raised hackles in the first half of the nineteenth century. Similar to the Maritime colonies, Upper Canada’s development was largely shaped by imperial policymakers’ desire to insulate the colony from radical republicanism.36 Officials viewed state-aided Christianity as a mechanism by which hierarchy could be promoted and expressions of popular insubordination could be thwarted. Accordingly, John Graves Simcoe, the first lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, informed the

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Archbishop of Canterbury in the late eighteenth century that “every establishment of Church and State that upholds the distinctions of rank and lessens the undue weight of the democratic influence, ought to be introduced.” John Strachan – who ultimately served as Anglican bishop of Toronto, and fulcrum of the archconservative Family Compact – echoed Simcoe, declaring in the early nineteenth century that a “Christian nation” without an establishment was a “contradiction.”37 William Grenville, the colonial secretary responsible for crafting the Constitutional Act, drew on similar convictions. In formulating that document, he took pains to create a Christian establishment in an attempt to neutralize the insidious republican impulse that had occasioned the American Revolution.38 The Constitutional Act’s thirty-sixth clause, consistent with such conservative aims, called for “a permanent Appropriation” of one-seventh of  Canadian lands, which would be reserved “for the Support and Maintenance of a Protestant Clergy.”39 While it was unclear which Protestant group(s) the act had in mind, a subsequent clause within the document empowered colonial governors “to constitute and erect, within every Township or Parish … one of more Parsonage or Rectory … according to the Establishment of the Church of England” – revealing that imperial authorities envisioned the Anglican Church, at least, enjoying the benefits that derived from establishment status.40 What about the Clergy Reserves? When the Constitutional Act mentioned a “Protestant Clergy,” was it referring exclusively to the Church of England, or could access to the endowment be extended to Britain’s other religious establishment, the Church of Scotland? The act’s ambiguity on this matter was largely attributable to metropolitan tensions: Prime Minister William Pitt was reticent to acknowledge the Anglican Church as Canada’s sole establishment, lest doing so exacerbate sectarian animosities in Britain. It plunged Canadian society into a lengthy dispute that continued to smoulder even after the introduction, in 1854, of legislation that led to the Reserves’ secularization.41 The Treaty of Union’s failure to clarify the status of Britain’s establishments in settler colonies contributed to the controversy engulfing the Reserves. Anglicans like Strachan contended that, on account of the ­treaty’s silence, the Church of England – which, after all, was explicitly accorded special status in the Constitutional Act – should be recognized as Canada’s lone establishment. It followed, in his understanding, that the Reserves were the exclusive “property of the Church of England.”42 Strachan also emphasized the Elizabethan Act of Supremacy, which was mid-sixteenth-century metropolitan legislation recognizing the monarch

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as the “supreme governor” of the Church of England, and which laid the groundwork for the proliferation of Anglican establishments across the empire by requiring colonial governments to support the English Church.43 Members of the Church of Scotland, for their part, bristled at such arguments, which seemed to disregard the Scottish Church’s status as a legally established entity. The argument has been made that the Constitutional Act did not, in actuality, create an Anglican establishment in Upper Canada. This interpretation rests on the fact that state assistance was ultimately extended to several denominations in the colony, as well as on the fact that privileges enjoyed by the English Church – for instance, the tendency of the colony’s lieutenant-governors and legislative chaplains to be Anglican – stemmed from custom as opposed to law. However, while such interpretations may technically be correct, Anglicans frequently portrayed themselves as members of an establishment – and, in many cases, saw their connection to the state as an essential component of their denomination’s identity. This, coupled with the tendency of Dissenters to rail against the colony’s Anglican establishment (thereby implicitly acknowledging its existence), reveals a widespread belief that the English Church, for good or ill, was the beneficiary of state-sanctioned assistance that exalted Anglicanism above other denominations.44 Debates over the Reserves were not purely academic. By 1838, the lands amounted to more than three million acres of largely fertile territory in the Great Lakes-St Lawrence basin. The question of which institution(s) controlled them grew increasingly contentious as the colonial population expanded, and available arable soil grew scarce. The Reserves controversy proved especially controversial in Upper Canada, where the fate of more than two million acres of territory (a majority of the endowment) was at stake. Beginning in the 1820s and persisting for several decades, disputes over the Reserves fuelled politico-religious tensions in that colony.45 Predictably, the controversy seeped into the political arena. Tories – many of whom were adherents of the Churches of England and Scotland – struggled with one another over control of the endowment, while Reformers – many of whom were Dissenters inclined toward voluntarism – denounced the Reserves as impediments to settlement, and as antithetical to civil equality in a religiously pluralistic setting.46 Certain Anglicans, like Robert Baldwin, objected to Anglican attempts to monopolize the endowment, attesting to the denomination’s diversity.47 Yet debates over the Reserves entailed much more than petty clashes over plots of land.

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Granted, narrow self-interest featured prominently in disputes over which churches, if any, were entitled to a share; but loftier concerns were also at play. Indeed, the Clergy Reserves debate bore on fundamental considerations. For conservative representatives of the Churches of England and Scotland, who conceived of their institutions as bulwarks of order and tradition in a dangerously democratic North American context, control over the Reserves bespoke their status as Upper Canadian society’s indispensable moral guardians. For Reformers – many of whom sympathized with the voluntarist creed, and were galvanized by evangelicalism – the Reserves represented state-sanctioned religious favouritism. Such prejudice, for them, was not only unjust, but also ill suited to a religiously diverse colony in which ordinary people looked to better their lot in life through toil and enterprise, as opposed to reaping benefits that sprang from their connection to a privileged institution. At the heart of the Clergy Reserves dispute, then, lay diametrically opposed visions of what Upper Canada’s identity ought to be: one was static, aristocratic, and unapologetically hierarchical; the other was fluid, meritocratic, and ­oriented toward egalitarian individualism. The Clergy Reserves debate therefore revealed the existence of a pitched ideological battle between conservative establishmentarians and their reform-oriented adversaries for control of the commanding heights of colonial society. Competing strategies for the Christianization of Upper Canada compounded tensions. Establishmentarians typically advocated the gradual, systematic inculcation of Protestant virtue in the minds of the populace by a highly educated, permanently endowed clergy. Such an approach, they reasoned, was essential in order to instil in the populace a sober-minded appreciation of the Gospels that would be conducive to the proliferation of righteousness and the perpetuation of hierarchy. Voluntarist evangelicals, conversely, stressed the primacy of spontaneously occurring conversion experiences and the corresponding importance of individual sinners pursuing (and, hopefully, achieving) soul-saving relationships with God. For them, the establishmentarians’ staid approach was inimical to the emotional intensity of authentic, unmediated Christian devotion.48 Canadian Presbyterian demands for recognition as members of an established church – which implicitly meant a permanent share in the Reserves – began in earnest in the 1820s, when Upper Canadian members of the Church of Scotland argued with growing intensity that they were as entitled as members of the Church of England to the benefits of state aid. Accordingly, they demanded recognition for themselves as

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adherents of an established body, not least because financial assistance from ordinary parishioners was notoriously difficult to secure.49 Tes­ tament to this are the remarks of one observer writing the following decade, who lamented the parsimony of Presbyterians in St Thomas, Upper Canada, where “not a copper has been yet realized for finishing [a church].” The observer added that he had “no confidence in that people generally – and I pity most heartily pity [sic] the few who are urging matters forward on their responsibility.” For “they do not even promise a sufficient living to a Minister, and what they do promise, I am perfectly satisfied they would never [provide].”50 William Morris, a Perth merchant of conservative political leanings who emerged in the 1820s as the Church of Scotland’s principal lay spokesman, led the Presbyterian campaign for co-establishment in the Upper Canadian legislature. Encapsulating the views of many of his coreligionists, he insisted that “the two national churches are alone legally entitled to enjoy the advantages to be derived from the clergy lands.” Making plain his philosophical support for establishmentarianism, he added that since “it is the duty of the Government of every Christian country to provide some way or other for the spiritual wants of the people, I am of the opinion that it would be an act of great injustice to the subjects of both Kingdoms if these lands were applied to any other purpose than the support of religion.”51 The Church of Scotland’s co-establishment quest benefitted from the activities of the Glasgow Colonial Society. This agency, which served as the Presbyterian equivalent of the Anglican Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, enhanced the Church of Scotland’s influence in Upper Canada. During its first decade, the GC S dispatched to the colony twentyone missionaries, virtually all of whom implored the colonial government, after their arrival, to honour its purported obligation to support the Scottish Church materially. The Scottish Church’s demands for coestablishment status, due in large part to the efforts of Morris and the impact of the GC S, contributed to the British government’s decision, in the early 1840s, to make the Clergy Reserves endowment available to  several groups, creating a “plural establishment” that included the Church of Scotland.52 Central to the Canadian Church of Scotland’s co-establishment ­campaign was a yearning for “respectability,” a vague yet compelling desire to differentiate themselves socially from the colonial hoi polloi. In the early 1820s, the Reverend William Bell, a cleric affiliated with the Presbytery of the Canadas (an indigenous institution that was eventually

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absorbed by the Scottish Church), objected to an Upper Canadian soldier’s characterization of him as a dissenter “from the established church of Scotland.” The soldier, who had impregnated a “servant girl,” entreated Bell to baptize the child in 1823. Aghast at the circumstances under which it had been conceived, Bell refused. The soldier retaliated by submitting a petition to Upper Canada’s lieutenant-governor, Peregrine Maitland, demanding that Bell be relieved of his position, since he was “connected with Burghers [a Secession faction with] … political principles very different from the Church of Scotland.” Though the petition was disregarded, the soldier’s overture irritated Bell, as it impugned his attachment to a respectable institution – the Church of Scotland – whose equality with the Church of England was enshrined in the Treaty of Union.53 This episode indicates that supporters of the Scottish Church, which drew much of its support from “ultra-respectable” constituencies in towns like Kingston, were loathe to be associated with Secessionists, whose reputedly unsophisticated backers were clustered in roughhewn communities strewn along Lake Erie’s northern shore.54 Evidently, the Scottish Church’s campaign for recognition as a respectable institution was undiminished upwards of three decades later. Montreal’s Alexander Mathieson, a Church of Scotland minister, arrived at a function held for the Prince of Wales during his 1860 North American tour. Mathieson, who intended to deliver an address to the prince on the  Scottish Church’s behalf, was informed by the governor general, Sir Edmund Head, that he would not be permitted to read the statement aloud, and that he would have to settle for submitting his remarks to the prince in writing. A dismayed Mathieson, who had already heard an Anglican delegate deliver an audible address on the English Church’s behalf, fumed at the second-class status to which the Scottish Church, in his view, had been subjected. Such treatment, which prevented the Church of Scotland from receiving public recognition as a respectable established entity, violated its right to equality with its English counterpart.55 Disputes over the Clergy Reserves intensified in the later 1820s and the 1830s. While conservatives in the Churches of England and Scotland quarrelled over the endowment, an ever-expanding segment of Upper Canadian society – including an ever-more-assertive contingent of reform-oriented Dissenters – criticized the Reserves as an intolerable bulwark of privilege. Rejecting the very notion of state-sanctioned religious hierarchy, they called for the Reserves to be liquidated, and the lands devoted to such initiatives as public education. An address composed by the Upper Canadian legislative assembly and submitted to

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King William IV in early 1828 attests to substantial support for such measures. Epitomizing many Dissenters’ anti-establishmentarian views, it affirmed that “it is the general desire of Your Majesty’s subjects in this Province, that the monies arising from the sale of any of the lands set apart in this Province for the support and maintenance of a Protestant clergy, should be entirely appropriated to purposes of education and internal improvement.”56 Resentment toward the Reserves helped spark the Upper Canadian Rebellion. In his Report on the Affairs of British North America, Lord Durham, or “Radical Jack,” acknowledged the bitterness sown by the endowment among the colony’s Dissenters, who comprised a majority of the population, and played a disproportionately large role in the violent insurrection engineered by William Lyon Mackenzie. The resolution of the controversy, he declared, was “essential to the pacification of Canada.” Failure to defuse the issue in a timely manner, Durham elaborated, threatened to trigger further unrest, which in turn could mean “the loss of the Colony” due to popular disenchantment with the British regime.57 Historian William Westfall has convincingly challenged the received view that Radical Jack’s criticisms of the Reserves were motivated by “advanced liberal and democratic ideas.” Instead, he has posited that Durham drew on utilitarian arguments put forth, in early modern England, by William Warburton and William Paley. Their arguments, Westfall explains, served to bolster metropolitan religious establishments on the grounds that they promoted social stability, mostly because a majority of the British populace belonged to one of the nation’s state churches. However, since such was plainly not the case in Dissenterdominated Upper Canada, Durham concluded that religious establishments should be scrapped, and replaced by something else – as it happened, he gravitated toward laissez-faire economics – that would succeed where the establishments had failed, and foster social harmony.58 Among the disgruntled Upper Canadian voluntarists was the Presbyterian minister John Jennings. A Secessionist, he offered an impassioned criticism of close church-state relations in the late 1840s at Knox Presbyterian Church, Toronto, on the occasion of the inaugural meeting of the multidenominational – and decidedly voluntarist – Anti-Clergy Reserves Association. Jennings’s denunciation of what he  saw as the injustice inherent in the endowment was indicative of the  politico-­ religious outlook prevailing across much of Secession Presbyterianism, which was marked by deep-seated skepticism toward religious establishments.59

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What of the Free Church? If members of the Church of Scotland demanded co-establishment status, and members of the Secession tradition advocated voluntarism, what was the position on the Reserves of the Presbyterian group that emerged after the Great Disruption? The Free Church (or “Free Kirk”) took root in British North America one year after the Scottish rupture in consequence of colonial opposition to the practice of lay patronage overseas. This phenomenon, in the estimation of sizeable segments of British North American Presbyterianism, amounted to unscriptural civil meddling in the church’s domain. While colonists were not required to replicate the metropolitan secession – British North American Presbyterianism was not legally subordinate to the Scottish Church, and lay patronage was a non-issue in the colonies – they opted, starting in 1844, to create colonial Free Churches in a display of solidarity with their aggrieved metropolitan coreligionists, attesting to the abiding sentimental bonds that connected them to their British counterparts.60 Overseas, Free Church supporters maintained that, while the state was obligated to “pay the piper” by providing the church with financial aid, it should not “call the tune” for fear of undermining its integrity. Yet it remained to be seen whether this outlook – which stressed Christ’s sovereignty over both nations and civil rulers – would flower in British North America. The answer, perhaps appropriately given the labyrinthine complexity of Presbyterian church-state attitudes, was both yes and no. Notionally, Canadian Free Church supporters shared their metropolitan counterparts’ conviction that the state should give the church financial support, while refraining from otherwise involving itself in its affairs. To implement voluntarist principles would be to render the state godless, and remove its responsibility for fostering popular virtue. Yet they also acknowledged the existence, within their ranks, of divisions over whether they should accept state aid in the form of Reserves revenues. Ultimately, they elected not to accept such support lest it elicit further conflict, gravitating to a position that could fairly be described as de facto voluntarism.61 The Canadian Free Church’s decision not to seek state aid was actuated by more than mere reluctance to aggravate internal rifts. An increasingly emphatic philosophical objection to the very notion of religious establishments was integral to the group’s refusal of a share in the Reserves. Many Free Church Presbyterians – including influential laymen like Peter and George Brown – were seeing public endowments, including the Reserves, as synonymous with corruptive civil manipulation, and as

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antithetical to the laissez-faire liberal ethos with which they came to be associated.62 Rejecting state intrusions in the religious realm, they felt that Christian virtue (the purest expression of which, they were convinced, was evangelical Presbyterianism) should be allowed to suffuse society of its own accord, unhampered by intrusive state officials – although they nominally clung to the ideal of a Christian government presiding over a pious populace. Such laissez-faire beliefs, which have been described as the religious equivalent of “free trade,” hastened the Free Church’s adoption of de facto voluntarism.63 The Browns’ liberalism, which conditioned their church-state outlook, was intertwined with an ingrained anti-Catholicism. This animus was fuelled in the mid-nineteenth-century by developments unfolding in both metropolitan and colonial contexts. In Britain, the decision of Robert Peel’s Tory government to support a Catholic seminary in Maynooth, Ireland, was construed as an abandonment of the state’s traditional (and constitutionally embedded) Protestantism.64 And in British North America, the union of the Canadas was supposedly accompanied by the spectre of Catholic “domination” in the colonial assembly, a phenomenon some saw manifest in the struggle over separate schools. Compounding anxieties in both contexts was the rise of “ultramontanism,” a doctrinaire manifestation of Catholicism championed in Europe by Pope Pius IX, and in British North America by the bishop of Montreal, Ignace Bourget. Often expressed in opposition to a nineteenth-century surge in liberalism and the impious individualism with which it was associated, ultramontanism asserted (among other things) the papacy’s supremacy over the state in the event of a jurisdictional conflict pitting one against the other. In consequence, Upper Canadian Free Church Presbyterians – including the Browns – thought it necessary to shield themselves and their church from the encroachments of potentially corrupting, increasingly depraved civil authorities.65 In 1854, Canada’s MacNab-Morin ministry introduced a settlement designed to bring the Clergy Reserves saga to an end. In response to the agitations of Reformers, including the rigid Clear Grit faction, the Clergy Reserves Act stipulated that, eventually, proceeds generated by unsold reserved lands would be allocated to municipalities in the form of development loans. However, it also stipulated that clergy who received stipends drawn from the endowment would be allowed to do so for the remainder of their lives, and would have the option of swapping them for lump-sum payments, which in turn could be invested in new endowments. The act proved controversial. It upset voluntarists because it

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permitted churches receiving public support to continue doing so even after the death of clerical beneficiaries through the investment of their stipends in new endowments. Yet it also upset establishmentarians, who bitterly denounced the reserves’ dissolution as a violation of their churches’ time-honoured right to state support. Contentious though its terms may have been, the act was responsible for secularizing perhaps the most divisive entity in Canada’s constitutional history.66 The Reserves’ secularization, which signalled the end of British North America’s religious establishments, marked a profound shift in the history of the colonial state. Given their capacity for inflaming tensions, colonial establishments were no longer regarded by colonial policy­ makers, including Durham, as sanctified bulwarks of order. They were replaced by a liberal religious ethos involving notions of legal equality for all denominations, and predicated on the tenets of voluntarism. This shift had important implications for the clergy of the Churches of England and Scotland. No longer auxiliaries of the colonial government, they had little choice but to fashion new identities for themselves as representatives of autonomous entities. Yet this development was less jarring for these figures than one might presume. The reason was that state aid for colonial establishments had dwindled in the preceding years, as reflected in the British government’s withdrawal, in 1836, of its traditional support for the Anglican Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Thus, for clergy of the Churches of England and Scotland, the establishments’ demise marked the end of a politico-religious arrangement that has been described as “the worst of all possible worlds,” because it featured the downside of state control without the upside of adequate, reliable civil assistance.67 Remarkably, divergent church-state philosophies continued to wreak havoc among Presbyterians even after the Reserves controversy had begun to subside.68 Lingering philosophical differences over the extent to which state officials should involve themselves in the church’s affairs prevented members of the denomination from settling on terms that would allow for the creation of a Dominion-wide church until 1875. During the negotiations that resulted in that year’s establishment of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, provisions for “forbearance” on the issue of Christ’s “headship” over nations were introduced, in the hope that they would neutralize longstanding disagreements. They were effective. At long last, the politico-religious impediments that had separated Presbyterians due to differing church-state views that dated at least as far back as the early modern era were toppled, and a national institution was forged.69

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Politico-religious conflict lay at the heart of early Canadian Presbyterianism. An array of attitudes regarding the relationship between religion and civil authority circulated in the denomination, militating against cohesion for several decades before 1875. Conflicts were especially acute in Upper Canada due to the Clergy Reserves endowment, which i­ nstigated both intra-denominational disputes and clashes between Presbyterians and members of other denominations. By the mid-nineteenth century, Upper Canada’s Presbyterians were divided primarily into three irreducible categories when it came to church-state relations. Members of the Church of Scotland, styling themselves members of a “respectable” established entity, advocated close church-state ties; Secessionists, drawing on the tenets of voluntarism, often called for the absolute separation of church and state; and the Free Church, which emerged after the Great Disruption, supported an arrangement in which the state would support the church materially but forswear involvement in any other aspect of the church’s affairs. While they were influenced by controversial North American cir­ cumstances, the Presbyterians’ diverse politico-religious attitudes were largely the product of a protracted struggle over the relationship between Christianity and civil authority that had its genesis in early modern Europe, and manifested across the north Atlantic world. Awareness of this fact is vital to an appreciation of the church-state arguments articulated by members of the denomination in early Canada, the intellectual substance and societal impact of which will be explored in greater depth in the next chapter.

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5 Christian Leviathan Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Romans 13:1

Whereas the political organization of all pre-modern societies was in some way connected to, based on, guaranteed by some faith in, or adherence to God, or some notion of ultimate reality, the modern Western state is free from this connection. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (2007): 1

It will be abundantly clear by now that early Canadian Presbyterians were prone to fragmentation. Few if any issues were more divisive than the church-state relationship, which stoked sectarian conflict – including both internecine disputes and clashes with other Christian groups – before the formation of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. In Upper Canada, where struggles over religious establishments rendered politicoreligious conflict especially acrimonious, Presbyterians typically fell into one of three categories when it came to church-state relations. Adherents of the Church of Scotland conceived of themselves as members of an established entity, advocating close relations between civil authority and religion; Secessionists, many of whom were galvanized by the principles of voluntarism, demanded the unequivocal separation of church and state; and backers of the Free Church, which emerged after the Great Disruption, insisted that the state should support the church financially while refraining from intervening in its otherwise inviolate domain. Such differences were informed by varied understandings of “Britishness,” which members of the denomination invoked to substantiate their competing church-state contentions. That aspects of the British tradition

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were deployed in diverse ways attests to its remarkable plasticity, and to its absolute centrality within nineteenth-century Canadian society.1 As will be seen, the Presbyterians’ pro-British views were by no means synonymous with colonial obsequiousness. Quite the opposite; members of the denomination felt that their exaltations of Britain were wholly compatible with expressions of dissatisfaction with the status quo, and with demands for redress from metropolitan authorities. Accompanying the Presbyterians’ diverse church-state views were an equally diverse variety of political orientations ranging from staunch Toryism to thoroughgoing liberalism, which served to amplify sectarian animosities. Significantly, the denomination’s penchant for politico-religious conflict was evident in both the Canadas and the Maritimes. Despite the absence in the latter of rancorous quarrels over religious establishments, the region’s Presbyterians promulgated disparate church-state views that inflamed factional tensions – so much so that they occasioned violent outbreaks. This ethos of conflict was manifest in the “most Presbyterian” town of Pictou, Nova Scotia, as the following anecdote illustrates. While the community’s rock-ribbed Presbyterians were unified in their allegiance to the denomination’s core beliefs – indeed, according to one observer, they would “sacrifice their lives, if required” in defence of the Shorter Catechism and Westminster Confession – they were divided by partisan rivalries that seemingly made “every Kirkman … a Conservative and every Antiburgher … a Liberal.” Consequently, on the occasion of a vigorously contested nineteenth-century election held in early March, “the streets were covered with snow … but on the forenoon the snow was not all white. The red was there and not sparingly.”2 For all their differences, an important politico-religious commonality existed within the denomination. While the factions differed – often sharply – over the degree to which the state should involve itself in the religious realm, they shared a desire to harness state power in hopes of rendering Protestantism the bedrock of popular morality and eradicating such supposed societal blights as Sabbath desecration and drunkenness. Cutting across the denomination’s schisms, this inclination intensified in the mid-nineteenth century with the crystallization of a multidenominational “Protestant culture” that sought to purge society of sinfulness through vigorous involvement in public life, a multifaceted organism consisting of the state, the market, and the spheres of voluntary activity and popular opinion.3 The Presbyterians’ belief that government should foster virtue has been overlooked by scholars concerned with a “sect spirit” imported from the Old World, which militated

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against denominational cohesiveness before the creation of the Pres­ byterian Church in Canada;4 and by scholars who, in examining the ­Presbyterians’ nineteenth-century church-state views, have focused overwhelmingly on debates over religious establishments.5 That various Presbyterians pressured government to legislate morality reveals that religious entities were linked to the process of state formation, through which civil authority was projected across space and brought to bear on people’s lives in myriad ways. Gathering momentum in the mid-nineteenth century, this two-pronged phenomenon consisted of the growth of actual government agencies and a comparatively abstract process of legitimation by which state power took on enhanced validity in the popular psyche.6 Presbyterian involvement in this process contributed to what historian David Sehat, in discussing Christianity’s role in American public affairs, has described as a “moral establishment.”7 This cluster of religiously inspired laws and institutions differed dramatically from “confessional” state churches (including the Churches of England and Scotland), through which governments express their Christian identities by bestowing privileges on certain denominations.8 By contrast, moral establishments – manifest in Canada in the Scott Act of 1878, which empowered municipalities to prohibit the sale of alcohol, and the Lord’s Day Act of 1906, which restricted commercial and leisure activities on Sundays – utilize potentially coercive government authority as a means of infusing society with a generic Christianity tacitly influenced by evangelical Protestantism.9 Pinpointing the exact moment when Canada’s moral establishment crumbled is a difficult, if not impossible, task. Some might identify the waning of a prohibition movement in the 1920s; others might highlight judicial rulings against bans on Sunday shopping in the 1980s; still others might argue that restrictive drinking laws in several provinces bespeak the lingering influence of a moral establishment today. While determining the exact date of its collapse (if in fact it has collapsed) is beyond the scope of this study, the fact that a moral establishment exerted influence, at least, well into the twentieth century attests to the pivotal influence of religion in modern Canada.10 In addition to exploring the intellectual substance of the Presbyterians’ church-state beliefs, this chapter builds on scholarship focusing on the part played by religious actors in shaping Canadian public life. Although Christianity ceased to be an “arm of the state” with church disestablishment in the mid-nineteenth century (a phenomenon that was signalled by the liquidation of the Clergy Reserves and the settling of the University

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Question), it would be erroneous to conclude that it simply retreated into the private sphere, as historian Marguerite Van Die has demonstrated.11 On the contrary, religious figures – including Presbyterians – continued to exert substantive influence in the public realm, as evidenced by the moral establishment’s elaboration. So significant were their contributions that one could accurately assert that, in the second half of the nineteenth century, the state in important respects became an “arm of the church” due to the enthusiastic initiatives of religious actors, not the least of which were Presbyterians.12 Divided though they were before 1875, members of the denomination made impassioned appeals in favour of a “moral establishment” – indeed, their support for such a thing, which intensified in the mid-nineteenth century, emerged as one of the central components of the denomination’s worldview.

Chu rc h o f S c o t l a n d E s ta bli s hmentari ani s m Members of the Church of Scotland saw state-aided Christianity as vital not only to the interests of their faction, but to the welfare of colonial society.13 Writing in 1848, one Canadian backer of the Scottish Church sought to underscore the causal relationship between religious establishments and temporal progress. “Where are men the most intelligent, the most orderly, the most industrious?” the author asked. “Which is the nation that takes the lead in the progress of civilization, that stands preeminent in wisdom and power, and by invention and enterprise enriches itself with the commerce of the world?” “It is not,” the author replied, “the nation that owned the largest extent of territory, the greatest number of inhabitants, [or] the greatest physical resources.” Rather, it is the nation that takes pains to embrace religious “truth.” For the author, it went without saying that such truth was inherent in Protestantism, the purest expression of which was Presbyterianism. Yet it would be a mistake to assume that uncorrupted Christianity would magically come to permeate society of its own accord. Instead, the author wrote, civil authorities should assume responsibility for supporting the church by equipping it with reliable financial aid and devising laws that enforced piety.14 Striking an alarmist chord, the author added that the alternative to state-aided religion was impiety and disorder. The evaporation of stateaided Christianity would unleash a multitude of sins: “deeds of rapacity and cruelty” would abound; society’s moral foundations would crumble; and industriousness would decline due to a pervasive lack of confidence in social stability. Selfishness, the author continued, “uncontrolled by the

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fear of God, by righteous law and good government, and partially restrained only by natural affection and the fear of retaliation, rends asunder the confidence that should unite society.” Conversely, wherever Christianity receives stable support, it serves “as eyes to the blind and feet to the lame,” enforcing discipline, fostering stability, and emboldening enterprising individuals to apply themselves. Religious establishments, then, could be counted upon to transform the temporal domain from a “marshy jungle” into a “fruitful field.”15 Such sentiments sprang from a deep-seated suspicion of voluntarism. For establishmentarians (including Church of Scotland Presbyterians), this system unwisely accorded responsibility for fostering popular religiosity to ordinary people who, by virtue of their fallen state, were ill equipped to act as conscientious stewards of their own spiritual welfare. Worse: under voluntarism’s auspices the very people who needed religious tutelage the most – the poor, the ignorant – were the least likely to assume responsibility for ensuring that it was provided, whether because of impecuniousness, indolence, or a combination of the two. Reliance on voluntary support for religion, establishmentarians were convinced, would undoubtedly result in the perpetuation of suffering and the intensification of sinfulness.16 The Scottish Church’s co-establishment campaign, which intensified in Upper Canada beginning in the 1820s due to an influx of Church of Scotland missionaries dispatched by the Glasgow Colonial Society, had legal and historical dimensions. Regarding the legal dimension, members of the group declared that the Treaty of Union recognized the constitutional equality of “the established Church of Scotland and the established Church of England.” Indeed, the parity of these institutions was “a fundamental and unalterable part” of the legislative act that created Great Britain. The corollary, they maintained, was that the Scottish Church in Upper Canada was as entitled to state aid as its Anglican counterpart, whose efforts to monopolize the Reserves flowed from the belief that it was the colony’s lone establishment.17 As for the historical dimension, Scottish Churchmen noted that the Conquest had occurred after the Treaty of Union’s implementation, meaning that Britain as a whole – including both of its religious establishments – enjoyed sovereignty over British North America, not simply England and its state church. The Treaty of Union’s silence on the status of Britain’s state churches in British settler colonies did little to hinder the Church of Scotland’s co-establishment demands. Absent explicit guidelines, the group’s supporters maintained, their equality with the English

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Church should be respected.18 Indeed, “adherents of the Church of Scotland, in any British colony, are entitled to a communication of all civil and religious rights, privileges, and advantages, equally with the adherents of the Church of England.”19 The Scottish Church’s supporters burnished their devotion to the British Empire. Convinced that “of all churches,” theirs was “the most consistently loyal to the King, and British constitution, and the most to be depended on in time of need,” this strategy presumably reflected genuine beliefs, given the frequency and fervour with which it was deployed.20 Yet it also strengthened their co-establishment campaign. By highlighting the group’s devotion to the empire, and the sacrifices that they had made on its behalf, colonial adherents of the Church of Scotland took sig­ nificant strides toward legitimating their demands for compensation from metropolitan authorities. Consider an address submitted in 1829 to Upper Canada’s lieutenant-governor, John Colborne, by ministers of an indigenous group, the Synod of Upper Canada, which was eventually absorbed by the Church of Scotland. It stated that the ministers had taken pains to promote “the spiritual and temporal welfare of His Majesty’s subjects in the Colony,” while “inculcating … loyalty to our King, and obedience to our King, and obedience to laws.” Their efforts, they ­hastened to add, met with “difficulties” and “privations.” Given these hardships, they urged Colborne to “recommend us to His Majesty’s Government, as being worthy [of support].”21 Likewise, in 1838, Upper Canadian Lieutenant-Governor George Arthur received a petition from the Church of Scotland informing him that Scottish Presbyterians, who purportedly constituted “the great mass of British emigrants” in the colony, had devoted “their lives and fortunes” to transforming a “remote and desert despondency” into “a fertile Province.” In doing so, they “rested in full confidence that the guardian power of the Parent state would be watchfully extended over them,” especially when it came to their religious privileges. Scottish Churchmen, therefore, were “grievously disappointed” at being denied the legal equality with the Church of England to which they were entitled. When it came to their “religious rights,” the petition concluded, “Scotchmen have been in Canada as exiles from their own realm – as aliens in the land of the stranger.”22 Bound up with the Scottish Church’s establishmentarianism was a tendency toward political conservatism. While Scottish Churchmen quarrelled with their English counterparts over the Reserves, members of the two groups forged a de facto alliance in the early nineteenth century. In

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part, this alliance was social. Adherents of both institutions “met and mingled easily in society and business,” forming the nucleus of a small colonial elite. Yet their alliance was also ideological: they shared the belief that a reciprocal church-state relationship was indispensable to the preservation of an orderly society in which representatives of established churches occupied prominent positions and quelled threats to the status quo. Accordingly, members of both denominations, who wielded influence on colonial councils, objected to the activities of Reform-oriented Dissenters who criticized religious hierarchy, and were associated with emotionally unbridled displays of evangelical enthusiasm that allegedly undermined societal order.23 For evidence one need look only to their efforts, in Upper Canada, to thwart the attempts of the Methodists to gain the right to perform marriages.24 Methodism – which had a reputation for religious exuberance and links to the United States, especially in the early nineteenth century – was seen as subversive in many Tories’ eyes, although such associations were truer of the Methodist Episcopals than they were of the comparatively conservative British Wesleyans.25 Manifest in its alliance with the Church of England, Church of Scotland conservatism persisted well into the nineteenth century. Indeed, the Toronto Leader reported, in the mid1860s, that its members were “almost exclusively Conservative.”26 Church of Scotland conservatism found expression in a rhetorical emphasis on the group’s support for the British Empire, and their corresponding opposition to radical challenges to order and authority. Members of the group argued that these complementary positions were evident during the rebellions, where the “blood and energies” of Scottish Churchmen were expended “in no scanty measure” in defending the colony against potentially subversive “enemies of the empire.”27 Given the frequency and fervour with which they were espoused, such expressions likely sprang from a genuine sense of devotion to the empire and the ennobling principles for which it was thought to stand. Yet they also served a practical purpose. In view of their support for the British regime, champions of the Scottish Church could plausibly argue that civil assistance for their institution would be conducive “to the preservation of good order.”28 The United Synod of Upper Canada expressed comparable views before being absorbed by the Church of Scotland in the early 1840s. For instance, in the era of the rebellions, its representatives informed authorities – including Francis Bond Head, Upper Canadian lieutenant-governor and, by extension, Queen Victoria herself – that “for upwards of thirty

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years” they had exhibited “their devoted and Christian loyalty to the British Throne, and British Constitution.” Having established their loyalist bona fides, they denounced the “wicked and unnatural rebellion” that had recently convulsed the Canadas, adding that they felt “deep satisfaction” that “only two individuals connected with our Congregations were either engaged with it, or implicated in it.” The Synod’s representatives subsequently invoked their fidelity as a justification for equitable treatment. “We assure your Majesty,” they declared, “that our people were among the first, in the depths of a Canadian winter to rush to the ports of danger, and they will be among the last to leave them.” Given their loyalty, it followed that they had a right to “claim from your Royal Majesty equal favours” regarding state-aided religion.29

S e c e s s io n V o l untari sm Secessionists viewed the church-state relationship differently. Where members of the Church of Scotland advocated state-supported Christianity, Secessionists denounced civil involvement in the religious domain as a violation of Christ’s sovereignty. Their attitudes were often informed by the politico-religious philosophy of voluntarism, which viewed government-supported religion as a menace to doctrinal integrity, and required churches to rely entirely on the financial contributions of devout parishioners.30 Religion, for voluntarists, was “the Kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ,” who enjoyed dominion as “king of kings … [over] all the events of time.” Thus, civil intervention in the church’s sphere – as epitomized by the creation of state churches – amounted to a violation of Jesus’s “royal prerogative.” What is more, since they were of divine origin, the church’s “laws and institutions” were thought to be “absolutely perfect.” Accordingly, “every thing necessary for the regulation of the affairs of the church in all places, at all times, and in all circumstances, is amply provided for.”31 Civil interference in the church’s sphere violated a godly – and, thus, faultless – ecclesiastical arrangement. Secessionists also charged that state authorities had no authority over the church. Sinners received Christian teachings not as “subjects of any particular civil government,” but instead as “[human beings] involved by nature in one common ruin, and as standing in absolute need of the one common salvation.” Government officials implemented laws as authorities over the temporal “body politic” and not over the church, an entity over which they had no jurisdiction whatsoever. As representatives of the sinful earthly realm, they were “utterly incapable to legislate in the

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kingdom which is not of this world.” Secessionists criticized the Church of Scotland for seeking assistance from a “civil power,” which in their view vitiated its “spiritual independence”; indeed, they denounced the Scottish Church as “constitutionally antichristian” for its alleged willingness to subordinate church to state.32 Secessionists also saw state-aided religion as an obstacle to temporal harmony, and denounced it in terms that were as evocative as they were unequivocal. Civil authorities, argued one observer, “are just the world itself, as distinguished from the church of Christ,” and were therefore irredeemably corrupt, acting as “the seed of the serpent.” It came as no surprise, then, that state intrusions in church’s sphere served as “the bane of just legislation,” and the “prime agent” of sectarian conflict.33 Thus, Secessionists criticized close church-state relations not only for violating the church’s sovereignty, but also for aggravating temporal tensions.34 As religious enthusiasts enamoured of voluntarism, Secessionists had much in common with their evangelical counterparts in the early American republic. Still, in spite these similarities, Secessionists mirrored the Church of Scotland by invoking notions of “Britishness” to justify their politico-religious outlook. However, the groups’ attitudes toward Britain were not identical. Where adherents of the Church of Scotland referred to such constitutional statutes as the Treaty of Union in trying to substantiate their co-establishment campaign, Secessionists drew on other aspects of the British tradition – for instance, the right of ordinary subjects to alter the Canadian constitution, and the legal equality of all Britons (including colonists) before the state – in seeking to validate their views. In doing so, they attested to the contested nature of imperial enthusiasm within the denomination. Secessionists, in emphasizing their allegiance to Britain, emulated metropolitan Dissenters, who in the early nineteenth century felt it necessary to demonstrate that they were proBritish, lest their criticisms of barriers to religious equality like the Test and Corporation Acts come across as disloyal.35 Interpreting the Clergy Reserves as a form of state-sanctioned religious favouritism, Canadian Secessionists denounced the endowment as “exceedingly injurious” to the “welfare of the Province.” One argument proffered in an effort to secularize the Reserves was that the British Crown, in creating the endowment through the Constitutional Act, had committed not the private property of George III, but rather that of the British “nation.” The corollary? As long as it was advocated by actual Britons (including North American colonists), altering the Reserves – by, say, dissolving the endowment and devoting the proceeds to public

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education – was entirely legitimate.36 In advocating such measures, Secessionists were not calling for the endowment to be liquidated unilaterally by aggrieved colonists. Nor were they advocating severing ties to the metropolitan authorities responsible for creating the Reserves in the  first place. Rather, in attempting to legitimate their contentions, Secessionists invoked the right of ordinary Britons to replace the endowment with something that, for them, seemed more equitable, leaving the imperial connection firmly intact. William Jenkins, a Secession minister, invoked Britain in calling for the Reserves’ secularization. Jenkins belonged to a nondenominational group known as the “Friends of Religious Liberty,” which included such reform-oriented luminaries as William Warren Baldwin and Robert Baldwin, Jesse Ketchum and William Lyon Mackenzie. In conjunction with other group members, Jenkins denounced the Reserves, insisting that they be liquidated, and that the proceeds be channelled into public schooling. Yet in criticizing the endowment – which, after all, had been created by metropolitan authorities – Jenkins did not couch his arguments in the rhetoric of revolutionary republicanism. Rather, he justified his campaign by stressing such “British rights” as freedom of conscience, and the equality of all subjects in the eyes of the state.37 Maritime Secessionists also invoked the British tradition in attempting to present their politico-religious contentions in the most effective light. As noted in the previous chapter, debates over religious establishments in the Maritimes, including ones involving Presbyterians, were relatively tepid in comparison to the ones that beset the Canadas. Yet this is not to suggest that the region’s Presbyterians avoided politico-religious quarrels altogether. Instead, members of the denomination became embroiled in several conflicts centring on the relationship between Christianity and civil authority, including the debate over which churches’ clergy were allowed to perform marriages. This right, which was not fully extended to non-Anglican clergy until the early 1830s, elicited frustration within Secession Presbyterianism (as well as other Dissenting denominations) in the early nineteenth century.38 When it came to the debate over performing marriages, Maritime Secessionists argued that they had been subjected to second-class status because of the influence enjoyed in the colonial government by conservative Anglicans who jealously guarded their church’s privileges. Yet rather than citing their supposed mistreatment as grounds for rebellion, the Secessionists pointed to their allegiance to the Crown as evidence of their unimpeachable loyalty. Their fidelity to Britain, despite the purported

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“violation” of their “natural and constitutional right” to fair treatment, revealed that these Presbyterians were an especially “loyal people” – for “men who are loyal to Britain’s King in spite of every indignity … are loyal indeed.”39 Secession opposition to state-aided religion was paralleled by a tendency toward Reformist politics, which united adherents of this particular expression of Presbyterianism on both sides of the Atlantic, and which was evident in their hostility toward state-sanctioned religious hierarchy, among other objectionable phenomena.40 Such views, as we will see, were premised in part on laissez-faire principles that contemporary observers might fairly equate with “classical” liberalism, as opposed to the “statist” liberalism by which it was eclipsed in the twentieth century. Consider Jenkins’s attitudes. The Friends of Religious Liberty, the reformoriented group to which he belonged, demanded changes that brought into focus the complementary combination of anti-establishmentarian and egalitarian principles that permeated Secession Presbyterianism and other groups. These changes included the extension of equal rights to the clergy of “all denominations” regarding marriage rites, and the allocation of funds from Reserves’ lands to “general education.” Through such measures the Friends hoped to eliminate governmental barriers to civil and religious freedom and equality. Their objectives, in Jenkins’s opinion, contrasted sharply with the hierarchical – and decidedly illiberal – vision espoused by Church of Scotland conservatives, who argued that certain churches were entitled to preferential treatment owing to their status as established entities.41 However, as historian Michael Gauvreau has shown, the Reformist bent of many Secessionists also sprang from their ingrained aversion to Erastian interference in the religious realm. This orientation, which originated in early modern Scotland, manifested in Secessionists’ hostility to the elitedriven process of lay patronage, which saw wealthy proprietors foisting ministerial appointments onto congregations in violation of what they saw as their sacrosanct autonomy. It found expression in the remarks of Robert Wallace, an Irish Secession minister who, in the 1840s, asserted that “it is evident … from history, from the admission of some of the most evident divines … and from the word of God, that ministers were chosen by the suffrages of the people, and that they were called by a congregation.” In addition to highlighting the diversity of politico-religious outlooks circulating in early Canadian Presbyterianism, such remarks throw into relief the eclectic character of the Reformist campaign waged in the early and mid-nineteenth century against Tory elites in church and state.42

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The Secessionists’ tendency toward Reformist politics can also be seen in the remarks of William Proudfoot, a minister of this Presbyterian group based in southwestern Upper Canada in the early nineteenth century. Echoing many Reformers, he objected to establishmentarian quests to control the Reserves, and called for revenues garnered from the endowment to be devoted to public schools. Proudfoot’s attitudes were informed by a negative view of Upper Canada’s Tories, many of whom supported state-aided religion, and by a positive view of their Reform-oriented detractors, who typically led the charge against state-sanctioned denominational hierarchy. For Proudfoot, “the sickly, weakly, timid man fears the people, and is a Tory by nature … [while] the healthy strong and bold [man] cherishes them, and is a whig by nature.”43 Secessionists in the Maritimes were also inclined, in many instances, toward Reformism.44 Early nineteenth-century Pictou County, which boasted a substantial Secession contingent, has been described as “eminently … Liberal” in its political orientation.45 The arguments enun­ciated by Nova Scotia Secessionists regarding disputes over religious control in the educational realm accord with this assertion. (Members of the town’s Kirk community, by contrast, tended to be Tories.) Consider the dispute surrounding Pictou Academy, the school founded by the Secession clergyman and educator Thomas McCulloch. The academy encountered difficulty in the early nineteenth century in attempting to obtain financial support from the colonial government.46 McCulloch based his arguments for state aid on the fact that the school, which was open to members of all denominations, was acceptable to the majority of the colonial population, which saw its demands as “just and reasonable.” Thus, when McCulloch attempted in 1816 to obtain a charter from the colonial assembly which would elevate Pictou Academy from the status of grammar school to that of college, his efforts met with scant resistance. However, McCulloch reported that Pictou Academy’s attempts to gain regular financial assistance subsequently endured “violent opposition” at the hands of the Anglican clique in the colonial council. This constituency, for McCulloch, viewed the school’s growth as a threat to its own institution of higher learning, King’s College, Windsor, which had been established in 1788.47 McCulloch denounced government favouritism for King’s College as illiberal and exclusionary. A statute introduced in 1802 stipulated that no student of King’s “shall frequent the Romish mass, or the meeting houses of Presbyterians, Baptists, or Methodists, or the … places of worship of any other dissenters from the Church of England.” This requirement

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prohibited the majority of the Maritime colonies’ religiously diverse population from matriculating.48 Moreover, King’s received a generous annual grant of £1,750 from the colonial legislature, despite the fact that its enrolment was half the size of Pictou Academy’s. Due in large part to the English Church’s “interference and influence,” government support for Pictou Academy, which had been made available to the school in the past on an ad hoc basis, was suspended in 1827. For McCulloch, Anglican hostility to Pictou Academy was unacceptable, as it disregarded the will of the people in favour of the interests of a parochial elite. His defence of scholastic inclusiveness, and his objections to state-supported religious hierarchy, attest to McCulloch’s laissez-faire liberal leanings.49

T h e F r e e C hurch Canadian backers of the Presbyterian Free Church, for their part, espoused church-state attitudes that differed from both establishmentarianism and voluntarism. The essence of the Free Church’s position ran as follows: the state, consistent with the Westminster Confession, should provide the church with reliable financial support, but should refrain from meddling in its affairs for fear of compromising its integrity. For permitting lay patrons to foist ministerial appointments onto individual congregations, the Church of Scotland was, in the Free Church’s estimation, guilty of repudiating the doctrine of Christ’s “headship” over the church. To remain a part of such a body, British North American Free Church adherents reasoned, would be “to become a partaker of her sin.” It followed that, if they hoped to avoid such a fate, colonial Free Church supporters had no choice but to break ranks with the Scottish Church. Although they were not required to replicate the metropolitan rupture, to maintain ties would be to flout the “proper” relationship between sacred and secular. The Church of Scotland, for allowing temporal authorities to influence its affairs, was allegedly guilty of denying Christ’s “headship” in exchange for access to “state endowments” such as the Reserves’ revenues. The result, for the Free Church, was the scandalous subordination of the Scottish Church to an irredeemably sinful temporal authority.50 The essence of the Free Church critique was conveyed to the metropolitan Church of Scotland in the aftermath of the Disruption, an event that roiled Presbyterian communities across the British world.51 With “much sorrow of heart,” Canadian Free Church sympathizers informed their erstwhile parent church that, as a result of its refusal to repudiate civil interference, it had failed to defend the sovereignty of the “Great

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Head of the Church.” The Scottish Church, they elaborated, deviated from Presbyterian orthodoxy by acknowledging the “supremacy of the civil ruler over the church,” as evidenced by its willingness to tolerate lay patronage. Such behaviour amounted to a denial of Christ’s “sole headship” over church and state, the unfortunate yet inescapable result of which was the fracture of “our national Zion.”52 The Free Church, as noted in the previous chapter, opted not to accept revenues derived from the Reserves. This decision stemmed from two impulses: a reluctance to aggravate internal rifts over whether they should accept state support, and an increasingly pronounced philosophical aversion to putatively corrupting civil manipulation in the religious realm. Yet for all their reservations about state aid, Free Church supporters were not dyed-in-the-wool voluntarists. True, they eschewed government support flowing from the Reserves. However, Free Church supporters clung to the belief that the state, due to Christ’s “headship” over both nations and civil rulers, is perennially obligated to support the church. Free Church members charged that voluntarism was tantamount to religious neutrality, which in their understanding represented the thin edge of an alarmingly irreligious wedge. Godly societies, the Free Church explained, should “acknowledge God and honour His Son, who is King of Kings, and King of Nations.” Anything less amounted to an abandonment of Christian principle, which would inevitably cause iniquity and injustice to proliferate across society. Voluntarism, taken to its logical conclusion, was capable of no such acknowledgement in light of its opposition to substantive church-state ties. The Free Church held that, because of voluntarism’s doctrinal aversion to state support, it “forbids the recognition of any one religious standard – Bible any more than Koran – Protestantism any more than Romanism.” Thus, while the Free Church denounced civil interference in the church’s domain, its supporters inveighed against voluntarism for failing to recognize Protestantism’s indispensable temporal importance.53 Free Church backers, unlike their voluntarist coreligionists, felt that the state was duty bound to accord special recognition to Christianity. The reason? Members of this Presbyterian group felt that “individual conscience, and ecclesiastical freedom,” were most secure in societies that took pains to recognize Christianity (especially evangelical Protestantism) as “the supreme standard of public as well as private virtue.” While the state should refrain from “dictating to men what they shall believe, or how they shall worship,” it should acknowledge Protestantism’s capacity for promoting rectitude and discouraging vice.54 (The Church of Scotland

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expressed similar views, arguing that Catholicism was incompatible with “freedom … in the state, in the Church, in the intercourse of Society, in the Family [and] in the hearts and consciences of individuals” – implicitly avowing that state-supported Protestantism was vital to the realization of liberty, among other benefits.55) The state, in other words, should not impose its religious preferences on its citizenry; but it should draw on Christian teachings in exercising its authority. Thus, while the Canadian Free Church gravitated toward de facto voluntarism, it did not renounce the idea of state-aided religion altogether. Similar to adherents of both the Church of Scotland and Secessionism, members of the Free Church invoked the British tradition in order to accentuate their arguments’ effectiveness. Free Church supporters, who criticized the policies of “High Church” Anglicans who were opposed to reform, felt that their views were consonant with freedoms enshrined in the British constitution, furnishing further evidence of the imperial affiliation’s plasticity. In the mid-1840s, Isaac Buchanan, an Upper Canadian businessman and Free Church sympathizer, criticized perceived Anglican insolence regarding the Reserves and the sectarian character of King’s College, Toronto. In levelling his criticisms, Buchanan took pains to point out that his arguments were not informed by a spirit of colonial insubordination. Rather, he insisted that they sprang from deep-seated loyalty, and were entirely compatible with Britain’s constitutional tradition. He argued that the English Church’s policies regarding both the Reserves and King’s College – which, though inclusive by British standards, “accorded official status” to Anglicanism and “amply endowed” the English Church with prime lands – buttressed an inequitable religious hierarchy, and threatened British sovereignty in northern North America.56 The reason was that the monopolist objectives of the “High Church” faction, which Buchanan accurately associated with Upper Canada’s Tory elite, served to alienate the colony’s Dissenters, who comprised the bulk of the colonial population.57 For Buchanan, High Church exclusivity was at least as grave a threat to the British regime in North America as radical republicanism. In view of Upper Canada’s close proximity to the United States, Buchanan explained, it was inevitable that anti-monarchical sentiments would occasionally bubble up, and “become an alarming element to us.” Equally (if not more) disconcerting, however, were the “wrong … illiberal principles” epitomized by Anglican attempts to control the Reserves and maintain King’s College’s sectarian character. Such initiatives, to

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Buchanan’s way of thinking, were every bit as “anti-British” in their disregard for the wishes of the colony’s non-Anglican majority as the purportedly anarchic views that circulated in the American republic.58 Resisting the pretensions of the High Church faction and demanding that the Reserves and King’s College be reformed was neither subversive nor disloyal, he maintained. On the contrary, defending Upper Canadian Dissenters was consistent with the religious tolerance that had been extended to their counterparts overseas since the late seventeenth century. Furthermore, treating Dissenters equitably would reinforce their loyalty, which in turn would perpetuate imperial influence, rendering alternatives – including republicanism – unappealing. An equally pro-British chord was struck in an 1843 edition of the Banner, Peter and George Brown’s publication, which came to be affiliated with the Free Church after the Disruption. In advocating constitutional liberalization, the Browns likened the hierarchical policies employed by Canada’s Tories to those of “Roman and High Church Priests, and Jacobite bigots.”59 Embedded in this assertion is a suspicion of hierarchical church governance, whether Roman Catholic or Episcopalian, which was frequently equated with unaccountable oligarchy in the civil sphere. The Browns’ criticism of authoritarian governance turned on the belief that it was antithetical to liberties enshrined in the British constitution. Britain’s greatness, for them, derived from its broad-minded traditions, witness to which was its alleged openness to freedom of conscience and assembly. Similarly, a “free range of intellectual exertion” was instrumental to the technological and scientific accomplishments of exceptional Britons, including James Watt’s “wonderful discoveries” and Isaac Newton’s ability to “scale the heavens.” Parochialism, by contrast, “cramps the freedom of thought … represses commercial enterprise and industry, and dries up the springs of human understanding.” In addition to being unfounded in the “Word of God,” the oligarchic tendencies of Upper Canada’s Tories were inimical, in the Browns’ view, to the essence of “Britishness.”60 As intimated in the Browns’ remarks, Free Church members tended to be Reformers. This was especially true in Upper Canada, where the group’s supporters, clustered in Toronto and the bustling communities to its west, were “largely Liberal” in their political leanings.61 The Free Church’s Reformist bent – which typically bore a close resemblance to the “classical” liberalism espoused by their Secession coreligionists – derived from two interrelated impulses: aversion to ecclesiastical hierarchy, and opposition to state encroachments on the religious realm.

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Both perspectives were given voice in the remarks of Peter Brown, who has been described as “the most … articulate lay spokesman for evangelical Presbyterianism in [Victorian] Canada.” In reference to the Free Church community to which he belonged, Brown exclaimed, “we are liberal in politics because we are liberal in religious principle.” For Brown, “good Civil government” was essential to religious liberty, which he defined in unmistakably evangelical terms as “our right of public worship, our right to read the Bible and to propagate the truths of the Gospel.”62 Coursing through his remarks was the laissez-faire conviction that government intrusions in the religious domain, as epitomized by the formation of establishments that bestowed privileges on certain denominations, were obstacles to the dissemination of uncorrupted Christianity. A crucial component of good government, then, was the absence of state intervention in the church’s realm, a belief that conditioned Free Church supporters’ attitudes regarding the role of government more generally. Convinced that limited government and Christianization were eminently complementary, Free Church supporters objected to such bastions of government-supported religious hierarchy as the Clergy Reserves endowment and King’s College, Toronto, which were seen as impediments to liberty, both religious and civil. Upper Canadian Free Church supporters maintained that liquidating the Reserves and channelling its proceeds into public education would eliminate a bulwark of state-sanctioned religious favouritism while nurturing the scholastic development of Upper Canadian children, irrespective of their denominational background. Their views ran counter to those of establishmentarian Tories, who saw state-supported Christianity in its various guises as a crucial means by which conservative clerics could systematically instil deferential attitudes in the colonial consciousness. The 1854 settlement that led to the Reserves’ dissolution disappointed Free Church adherents since it allowed clergy who had received Reserves’ revenues to reinvest their share of the proceeds “by commutation,” effectively creating new endowments.63 The consequence, in the opinion of the Free Church’s Evangelical and Missionary Record, was the “perpetuation of … evils [the elimination of which] was long and earnestly sought by a large proportion of the people.”64 Echoing the Record’s lament, George Brown’s Globe castigated the “commutation clause” as “the very injustice, against which we have desired to guard.” Free Church opposition to the clause and the underlying principle of state-sanctioned privilege attests to the faction’s opposition to the Reserves and the illiberal ethos with which they were associated.65

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The Free Church’s liberal tendencies were also evident in the struggle over King’s College. Members of this Presbyterian faction objected to what they saw as the Toronto institution’s sectarian exclusivity. As an alternative, they advocated a non-denominational university that would be open to adherents of all Christian groups. Significantly, this included Roman Catholics, notwithstanding the fact that members of the Free Church admitted to a “dislike” of that church’s traditions. Liberalism and anti-Catholicism therefore coexisted as influential impulses within the Free Church. Such sectarian hostility from a faction that championed educational inclusiveness is perhaps less counterintuitive than one might think, given the tendency of the Free Church – not to mention several other mid-nineteenth-century Protestant factions – to criticize Catholicism’s purportedly autocratic system of ecclesiastical polity, and  to caricature the Roman Church as Protestantism’s spiritually oppressive antithesis. Free Church supporters objected to what they saw as the “narrow and contracted” ethos of King’s College, which in their view was inimical to the generous “spirit” of Christianity and “the British Constitution.”66 Far better, they maintained, to create a non-denominational college that would be accessible to everyone. By drawing together students from various religious groups, such an institution would harmonize “the heterogeneous … elements of which Canadian society is composed.”67 Critically, “non-denominational” did not mean “religiously neutral.” Quite the reverse: Free Church supporters hoped that Upper Canada’s non-denominational college would be influenced, tacitly, by the evangelical Protestantism that suffused their ranks, reflecting the religious dimension of nineteenth-century Canadian liberalism. The importance of this characteristic to liberalism throughout the British world is ­difficult to overstate, as it contributed to the “visceral thrill” with which that multifaceted phenomenon – which featured political, economic, and religious dimensions – is associated.68 Despite their support for religiously accessible higher education, Free Church Presbyterians remained fiercely critical of Catholicism. They viewed the “Bible Christianity” to which students at the institution would likely be exposed as a “means of doing much to enlighten [Catholics] … who are now under the bondage of superstition.”69 (They expressed comparable views concerning Upper Canada’s “common schools,” championing a universal system anchored in evangelical Protestantism, and rejecting “the idea of propitiating Roman Catholics,” who were skewered for their “hatred of the Bible.”70)

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Free Church supporters were convinced that a non-denominational institution of higher learning undergirded by evangelicalism would serve as a “great common foundation” on which a cohesive – and decidedly Protestant – colonial community would rest.71 Free Church support for such an institution underscores the faction’s disdain for state-sanctioned denominational hierarchy, which was incompatible with their understanding of civil and religious liberty.

H a r n e s s in g G overnment The factions comprising early Canadian Presbyterianism differed frequently, profoundly, and in a multiplicity of ways. This quarrelsome tendency was perhaps nowhere more evident than in disputes over church-state relations, with members of the denomination supporting everything from establishmentarianism to voluntarism. Presbyterian church-state differences were informed by divergent understandings of the British tradition, which throws into relief the contested character of the imperial affiliation that exerted influence in myriad ways across the denomination. And they were borne out in an equally wide-ranging variety of secular political viewpoints ranging from conservatism to liberalism, which compounded tensions between the denomination’s constituent parts. Yet for all their differences, a paradoxical politico-religious unity existed within the denomination as well. Although the factions differed over whether the state should assist the church materially, they sought to deploy potentially coercive government authority in order to create an unambiguously Christian moral order – one in which biblical principles constituted the foundation of popular morality, and acts of Sabbath ­desecration and alcohol consumption were curtailed (if not eliminated altogether). While they differed over how, exactly, this objective should be realized, by the mid-nineteenth century early Canada’s various Presbyterian factions, along with members of several other Protestant denominations, sought to create a “moral establishment” through which an increasingly interventionist government would systematically foster piety. Their efforts ultimately proved effective, contributing as they did to the implementation of coercive laws aimed at Christianizing society. Consistent with the Calvinist emphasis on the importance of promoting popular morality, such initiatives attest to the religious dimension of Canadian state formation. Supporters of the Scottish Church called for Christian principles to permeate public life. Alexander Mathieson, a Church of Scotland minister,

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argued that “religious institutions” were indispensable to the promotion of communal virtue. Civil authorities, he declared in 1836, should acknowledge “the intimate connection” of secular and religious institutions as “at once the highest glory and the greatest privilege of their nation.” It was the duty of “every Christian state” to infuse its laws and institutions with biblical morality – indeed, he went as far as to call for Christianity to be made “the foundation of all … public proceedings.” Failure to draw on Christian teachings in exercising state authority was tantamount to renouncing “allegiance to the King of kings,” the inescapable result of which would be the “the most disgusting fanaticism … [and] the most deplorable infidelity.”72 John Machar, moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in Connection with the Church of Scotland, expressed comparable sentiments in a mid-1830s letter to the lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, John Colborne. Machar declared that there was an “inseparable connexion” between a community’s spiritual and temporal “prosperity.” The effectiveness of religion, he explained, was enhanced by the “fostering care” of civil magistrates guided by Christian principles. Baked into this assertion was the belief that virtuous communities would inevitably thrive. When Christianity pervaded public life, Machar explained, it brought into focus the “political, moral, and religious” obligations that act as “the most intimate and indissoluble bond” between a people and their government.73 A desire to establish Christian morality as the foundation of public life informed Church of Scotland attitudes toward Sabbath desecration and alcohol consumption. Both issues took on enhanced urgency in the eyes of many British North American Christians in the mid-nineteenth century, as technological innovations raised questions about the operation of railway lines on Sundays, and social pathologies linked to urbanization and industrialization laid bare the malign effects of rampant drunkenness. While little would be achieved in the way of prohibitory legislation until later that century, it was in the mid-nineteenth century that both issues emerged as compelling concerns.74 This pattern of enhanced emphasis on Sabbatarianism and temperance illustrates an important intellectual shift that occurred in mid-nineteenthcentury Canadian Christianity. Protestant groups in particular underwent a transition in this era from an “other-worldly” orientation, which involved deliberately distancing themselves from an intrinsically sinful temporal realm, to an activist orientation that endeavoured to realize moral reform through strenuous involvement in public life. Spurred by a

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heady synthesis of evangelicalism and bourgeois beliefs, mid-nineteenthcentury Protestants strove to create the “Kingdom of God” on earth by launching an uncompromising assault on sinfulness.75 This shift was ­paralleled by a transition from what has been described as a “patrician double-standard” – that is, a tendency among elites to overlook their own transgressions while looking askance at those of the “rabble” – to a “middle-class morality” in which an expanding bourgeoisie, operating through such public institutions as schools and voluntary societies, strove to infuse all of society (including its own ranks) with unimpeachable Protestant virtue.76 Presbyterians were very much involved in these developments, which demonstrates that the denomination was subsumed within a larger Protestant culture. On balance, however, it was the evangelical Secession and Free Church groups that were the keenest contributors to the moral reform movement. For their part, adherents of the Church of Scotland were often skeptical of the most extreme manifestations of evangelical enthusiasm, seeing them as religiously anarchic and socially uncouth.77 This skepticism accounts, in large part, for the Scottish Church’s relatively tepid attitude toward Sabbath observance and teetotalism. Nevertheless, the Church of Scotland was not indifferent to campaigns that strove to purify society by snuffing out sinfulness. Rather, as the nineteenth century unfolded, members of this faction increasingly supported the implementation of coercive laws designed to curtail Sabbath desecration and drunkenness, albeit in a more restrained manner than their unabashedly evangelical coreligionists. Their advocacy for these causes reflects their desire to deploy state power as a means of Christianizing society, which would lay the groundwork for a moral establishment. The Church of Scotland’s Committee on Sabbath Observance petitioned the Canadian legislature, in 1861, regarding “the sacred character of the Sabbath as a Divine Institution.” They called for the “abolition of labour on that day” in government and public works under state control, viewing Sabbath observance as a communal acknowledgement of God’s authority over society. Comparable sentiments were conveyed to the heads of major railway and steamboat companies, whose directors were reminded “of the great power possessed by them in the providence of God [to encourage] … right observance of the Sabbath,” and urged to behave in a manner that would shield themselves and their fellow colonists from the “guilt of desecrating that day which God … has authoritatively required all men to keep holy.”78 The Church of Scotland implored government officials and the heads of major transportation companies to

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abide by their Christian obligation to honour the Sabbath so as to insulate themselves and their communities from sinfulness and the accompanying spectre of punishment. Tellingly, they saw the state as a means by which their objective could be realized. Church of Scotland attitudes toward temperance campaigns offer further evidence of the faction’s belief that the state should act as an agent of Christianization. In 1843, William Bell wrote of a temperance meeting that he attended in eastern Upper Canada. An address was delivered at the meeting by another Church of Scotland minister, who enumerated the principles on which the “Temperance cause” was based: first, that “prevention is better than cure”; second, that “we are bound to remove all cause of temptation from ourselves and others”; and third, that “intoxicating drinks are not only unnecessary, but pernicious.”79 That a Church of Scotland clergyman was in favour of curbing access to alcohol, and was convinced of the necessity of removing “temptation” from both himself and others, suggests that by the mid-nineteenth century, members of this Presbyterian group were receptive to the idea of legislation curtailing the availability of strong drink. While they espoused markedly different church-state attitudes, Secessionists echoed their establishmentarian coreligionists in advocating a Christian moral order in which state power promotes virtue. Skeptical though they were of civil involvement in the sacred sphere, Secessionists looked to government as a means by which society could be cleansed. Such attitudes demonstrate that, for members of this Presbyterian constituency, the separation of church and state and the separation of religion and public life were very different things. While Secessionists objected to civil meddling in the sacred realm, they called for the implementation of godly laws that would allow Christianity to flourish in early Canada. That this was the case reveals that there were limits to the Secessionists’ laissez-faire liberalism, which was apparently subordinate to their religiously motivated desire to purify society. The Secession Canadian Presbyterian Magazine declared in 1855 that “the Almighty sustains a moral relation to nations.” This assertion stemmed from the Calvinist belief that a potentially vengeful God dispenses punishments to wayward communities in much the same way that he chastises sinful individuals. Thus, when a nation’s laws “give sanction or encouragement … [to] any sort of injustice or oppression,” that nation invariably “stands chargeable with guilt in the sight of God.” Failure to eradicate such evils, the author added, represented a communal sin, “which if persevered in … must without fail bring down the vengeance of

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heaven upon the [populace].” It was therefore incumbent on civil authorities to deploy laws that staved off divine chastisement, which in keeping with the Calvinist tradition could be visited upon individuals and societies alike.80 For Secessionists, it followed that pious public officials were necessary in order to ensure that the state, in exercising its power, upheld high moral standards. In 1851, the Canadian Presbyterian Magazine called for zealous Christians “to stand at the next election as Members for Parliament.” Once empowered, such figures would have the opportunity to craft legislation that would Christianize society in a systematic fashion. In a similar vein, the magazine added that it hoped to see “Christian men” assume public office, ones who took their cues “from the Bible – the statute-book of Heaven.”81 Plainly, then, voluntarist convictions did not prevent Secessionists from calling on religion to play a robust role in public affairs. The Secessionists’ campaign to Christianize colonial society was reflected in their attitudes toward Sabbath observance and temperance. Regarding both practices, members of the group sought to harness state power and purge society of sinfulness. Their attitudes acquired enhanced fervour from the evangelical zeal that coursed through this particular Presbyterian constituency. The Canadian Presbyterian Magazine observed, in 1843, that the Sabbath was “given to man before he fell.” If Sabbath observance was necessary before the Fall, the publication asserted, it must be infinitely more important “now that he has become a sinner, ignorant, apt to forget God.” Human beings, on account of innate sinfulness, were naturally apt to disobey God. It was therefore necessary for the state to intervene so as to discourage sinners from ignoring a divine commandment. Since God sustains a “moral relation to nations,” failure to curb Sabbath desecration through prohibitory laws could evoke divine wrath from which nobody – including dutiful Sabbatarians – would be safe.82 Secessionists expressed comparable sentiments in an 1851 petition to the Canadian Legislative Assembly. The Sabbath, members of the United Presbyterian Synod observed, is a “divine institution, given to man while in a state of primeval perfection,” and so all the more essential in a postlapsarian state of affairs. The petition added that the Sabbath ought to be observed by individuals “in their private, professional, and commercial relations.” Government was no exception. It was necessary, the petitioners explained, to view the “the transaction of business” in any “Public Departments” on the Sabbath “as sinful as it relates to God, unjust as it

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relates to man, and as setting a bad example to the entire community.” The petitioners concluded that, in order to promote humanity’s “spiritual … good” and to maintain “our country’s reputation and prosperity,” government activity should not occur on that day. Allowing the machinery of state to operate on the Sabbath amounted to a communal display of irreligion, and an affront to God. As ever, the spectre of providential punishment loomed on the horizon.83 The Secessionists’ desire to utilize the state’s authority in order to Christianize British North America was manifest in their support for temperance campaigns. Members of the group denounced immoderate alcohol consumption for bringing about humanity’s degradation. This pernicious tendency, one Secessionist noted, was evident in the alcoholic’s “bloated countenance … trembling, palsied limbs … poverty … [and] despair.” Particularly problematic was the fact that drunkenness eliminated “the light of understanding and conscience” instilled in individuals by their creator. Consequently, the alcoholic’s status “as among God’s rational creatures” was lost, and he assumed “his place among brutes.”84 Given its profoundly detrimental impact, Secessionists called for the deployment of state power in order to curtail alcohol’s availability. The Secessionists’ interest in utilizing government as a means of curbing alcohol consumption is evident in the remarks of an unnamed clergyman from this faction, who reflected on a layover he had taken in a hotel in Napanee, Canada West, in the mid-1850s. The minister recalled “with special pity” an encounter with several young males “of genteel exterior … [who were] in manifest haste to become men of a certain and unreputable character.”85 “There is something peculiarly painful to the pious and patriotic,” the minister explained, “to witness … such conduct on the part of the young” – people who represented “the hope of the Church and the country.” Having lamented their impeding descent into debauchery, the minister launched into a tirade against alcohol’s malignant societal impact. The state-sanctioned sale of intoxicating liquors was nothing short of “monstrous and politically insane,” representing as it did the most effective device ever created “by men or devils, for destroying … individual and social peace and prosperity [and] for securing the moral debasement and physical degradation of a community.” The best means by which to prevent further alcohol-induced degradation, the author concluded, was “Prohibition” – indeed, government measures curtailing alcohol’s availability were deemed a “necessity.”86 Adherents of the Free Church, for their part, echoed their Church of Scotland and Secessionist coreligionists in seeking to Christianize British

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North America. While they had a distinct perspective on the church-state relationship, they shared their establishmentarian and voluntarist counterparts’ desire to utilize civil authority as a means of purging society of sinfulness and creating a moral establishment. Such priorities suggest that, like their Secession coreligionists, there were limits to the Free Church’s laissez-faire convictions. Free Church Presbyterians yearned to render Christian principles the foundation of popular morality. One observer, writing in 1850, argued that Upper Canada should “acknowledge God and honour His Son.” Doing so, the author explained, required basing “the whole structure of the political fabric … [on] a recognition of God’s word, and on the Christian law.” The author went as far as to assert that Christian nations and their leaders are “guilty of criminal disregard of the Divine authority” when they fail to entrench in their laws and institutions “the morality of God’s word and the ethics of Christianity.”87 Like their Church of Scotland and Secession coreligionists, Free Church adherents denounced Sabbath desecration, which they saw as an obstacle to the implementation of exacting moral standards. One Free Church commentator observed in the mid-1840s that the “Sabbath is frequently desecrated by the visiting of friends or the receiving of visitors, without any spiritual end in view.” This pattern, the author noted, was disconcerting for many reasons, not the least of which was its tendency “to destroy any good impression made upon those persons by the public services in which may have engaged.” “Vital religion,” the author added, will proliferate in Canada only when sinners “devote their whole attention on the Sabbath to spiritual things, and to the public and private duties enjoined in the Word of God.”88 Free Church Presbyterians looked to the state to promote Sabbath observance, which they often equated with high standards in popular piety. For example, concerns over Sunday labour by civil servants prompted Free Church supporters to implore government to eradicate state-sanctioned Sabbath desecration. In 1854, a Canadian Free Church publication argued that a society purporting to “recognize God” should not “[go] so far as to compel public servants to violate his Holy day.” The state, in permitting its officials to work on the Sabbath, was “robbing both God and man … [and] directly committing a sin, which is a reproach to any people.”89 It was necessary, in the author’s view, for the state to prohibit the practice of public officials working on Sundays, which was interpreted as a scandalous display of religious indifference by the community’s representatives. Failure to do so could evoke the wrath of God.

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Free Church followers also looked to the state to curb drunkenness. An editorial in one of the faction’s newspapers, in 1849, described rampant drinking as a “sin [that has] fixed a stain upon our national character.” So  egregious was the alcohol problem that “strangers” visiting Upper Canada were inclined to view the colony “unfavourably” in comparison with the United States. The reason? The prevalence of “low tippling houses,” which were condoned “by an almost indiscriminate system of licensing.”90 (Maine, in the mid-nineteenth century, became the first North American jurisdiction to implement prohibition laws.) Betraying an evangelical belief in the Bible’s indispensable importance to redemption, the editorial observed that “nothing but the gospel” could eliminate such social blights. It hastened to add, though, that “prudential external rules” introduced by civil authorities could act as “instruments in God’s hand,” facilitating the “regeneration of souls.” That is, while public officials “cannot make a drunkard a sober-man, they may do much toward making him so, by removing temptations, and abridging the opportunities of gratifying his depraved appetite.”91 Thus, while individual piety and vigilance were vital to regeneration, the state in the Free Church’s view could – indeed, should – expedite the process by implementing godly laws. In 1858, members of Central Presbyterian Church, a “Free Kirk” congregation in Hamilton, Canada West, expressed their support for the introduction of legal impediments to alcohol consumption. Describing the “present traffic in intoxicating liquors” as inimical to the “social, industrial, and moral” welfare of their community, the congregational session called for “the suppression of the traffic and for the discontinuance of the use of intoxicating drink.” It was necessary, in their estimation, to unleash government authority in order to counter alcohol’s degrading societal effects.92 This chapter has mainly concerned itself with the intellectual substance of the Presbyterians’ church-state views, and the various factions’ support for a “moral establishment.” Nevertheless, it should be mentioned that members of the denomination played a crucial role in persuading the state, in the late nineteenth century, to impose on Canadian society laws that were consonant with evangelical Protestantism’s thoroughgoing moral agenda. For example, Presbyterians were “the most ardent adherents” of the Lord’s Day Alliance, a multidenominational organization launched in 1888 that was dedicated to combatting Sabbath desecration. Initially concerned with the enforcement of existing laws, such as those against “illicit tippling in bars,” by the end of the nineteenth century the

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Alliance’s members came to focus on a new problem: Sunday streetcars. Seeking to counter this threat, the Alliance redoubled its efforts and, in 1899, came under the leadership of J.G. Shearer, an energetic Presbyterian minister. Propelled in large part by the efforts of Shearer and other zealous Presbyterians, the Alliance waged an especially vigorous campaign in favour of strict Sabbath observance laws. This resulted, in 1906, in the passing of the Lord’s Day Act, which restricted business and leisure activities across the Dominion on Sundays. Such developments indicate the substantive impact of early Canadian Presbyterians’ deep-seated politico-religious convictions, as members of the denomination played a key role in the elaboration of the state.93 Perhaps no issue divided early Canadian Presbyterians more than church-state relations, as members of the denomination espoused politico-religious philosophies that varied from establishmentarianism to voluntarism. Champions of establishmentarianism and voluntarism ­ appealed to equally diverse understandings of “Britishness,” which members of the denomination invoked in attempting to bolster their churchstate arguments. These viewpoints were paralleled by an array of political orientations ranging from hidebound Toryism to fervent Reformism, which exacerbated tensions between Presbyterianism’s constituent parts. Conflict-ridden though the denomination was, an important commonality existed within early Canadian Presbyterianism. While the factions clashed over whether civil authorities should assist the church financially, they shared a desire to harness government power in hopes of rendering Christianity the foundation of popular morality and eradicating Sabbath desecration and drunkenness. Presbyterians of all stripes were adamant that civil authority should assume responsibility for promoting popular piety, a belief that calcified after church disestablishment in the mid-­ nineteenth century and found expression in demands for the creation a “moral establishment.” Such impulses contributed to the development of an increasingly sophisticated governmental apparatus, testifying to the key role played by Presbyterians in shaping modern Canada.94

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P art T hr e e Nature

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6 Wandering in the Wilderness And the l o rd’s anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation, that had done evil in the sight of the lord, was consumed. Numbers 32:13

Nature seen as dead, or alive but indifferent, or alive and actively hostile towards man is a common image in Canadian literature. The result of a dead or indifferent Nature is an isolated or “alienated” man; the result of an actively hostile Nature is usually a dead man, and certainly a threatened one. Margaret Atwood, Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (1972): 54

An article in the July 1855 edition of the Home and Foreign Missionary Record of the Free Church of Scotland, a metropolitan Presbyterian publication, described the budding settlements sprawled along the shores of Lake Huron as “a smiling scene” of villages. So swift was their development that it was as though they had been brought forth from the land by the stroke of an “enchanter’s wand.” The author breathlessly added that, due to the seemingly irreversible pace at which the villages were expanding, “the wilderness” was receding, and “man,” spurred by “his hopes, his activities, and his destiny,” was inexorably “taking its place.”1 A palpable sense of duty blunted the editorial’s enthusiasm. The author emphasized the necessity of exporting Presbyterianism not only to the fledgling villages that dotted the shores of Lake Huron, but to the rapidly multiplying “frontier” communities strewn about British North America as well.2 “A glance at what is going on in this part of Canada,” the author stated, offers “no mean idea of the mighty future in reserve for the people beyond the Atlantic,” and testifies to the importance of “[our church’s]

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colonial scheme.” To the author’s sentiments were added the agitated remarks of an unnamed Presbyterian minister stationed within the region. Separated by a distance of thirty miles from the nearest Presbyterian cleric, he decried the lack of clergy in the area. It was imperative that missionaries “enter upon [that] field,” the minister declared. After all, the fate of the settlers’ souls was at stake. The minister added that, “What we need for this land – and indeed for all lands – is men of energy – men of piety – men of prudence – men of prayer – in short, men of God. May the Lord of the Vineyard,” he concluded, “thrust forth labourers into the field, white unto the harvest.”3 Evocations of the natural world featured prominently in early Canadian Presbyterianism. This was especially evident when it came to the undomesticated environment, or “wilderness” (which, as we will see, can be a misleading term). Although their views were not monolithic, members of the denomination – and, especially, adherents of the evangelical Secession and Free Church factions – routinely portrayed the wilderness as a harsh physical reality that needed to be wrestled into submission.4 Yet, in keeping with an outlook that is embedded in the Western tradition, they also saw it as a figurative wasteland pervaded by sinfulness. These mutually reinforcing tendencies informed attempts to promote Christianity – the purest expression of which, they felt, was Presbyterianism – in religiously neglected communities. Their efforts spanned the late eighteenth century, which witnessed an early influx of Presbyterians into what became the Dominion of Canada, to the mid-nineteenth century, which experienced patterns of urbanization, industrialization, and technological sophistication through which human beings attained ever-more control over the northern North American environment.5 Presbyterian expressions of uneasiness toward the supposedly sinful wilderness may well have been part of a rhetorical strategy employed by the denomination’s missionaries to elicit support from their “ecclesiastical superiors.”6 Yet the fact that these figures routinely invoked the wilderness when discussing early Canadian affairs suggests that, even if they harboured ulterior motives, they believed that their remarks would ­resonate with audiences who were genuinely alarmed by the depravity lurking in undomesticated environments. For all their anxieties about untamed nature, Presbyterians believed that the forbidding wilderness could be transformed into a benign ­garden by promoting piety in backwoods settings among both settlers and Indigenous peoples, with the latter group’s supposed spiritual vulner­ability emerging as a major priority in the mid-nineteenth century. Presbyterians’ tendency to contrast the unruly wickedness of the

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wilderness with the human-controlled righteousness of the garden reveals the influence of a pattern that is deeply ingrained in major monotheistic religions, including Christianity. Manifest in Genesis, it has contributed to the belief that human beings have been enjoined by God to exert control, or dominion, over nature.7 This belief has arguably exerted an especially significant impact on denominations – including Presbyterianism – influenced by Calvinism, due to that theological tradition’s emphasis on God’s providential sovereignty.8 The fact that hostility toward the wilderness was entrenched in the Western tradition, coupled with the fact that other denominations (especially “New Light” followers of Henry Alline in the Maritimes and circuit-riding Methodists in Upper Canada) also took pains to evangelize backwoods communities, indicates that Presbyterians were not the only Christians motivated by concerns regarding the undomesticated environment.9 Yet while the Presbyterians’ desire to subdue what they saw as the wilderness may not have been unique, members of the denomination diverged from their counterparts in other Christian groups over the means of achieving their goal. Their evangelistic efforts found expression in a thoroughgoing Calvinism and a commitment to the denomination’s distinctive ecclesiastical traditions – a topic that will be examined in the next chapter. Examining Presbyterian environmental attitudes therefore sheds light on both the multidenominational campaign to evangelize supposed waste places (biblical parlance meaning forbidding terrains), and the unique tactics implemented by a significant denomination in seeking to realize that objective. The Presbyterian campaign to tame the wilds of early Canada runs counter to the notion that they were apathetic missionaries. The argument has been made that, when it came to promoting Christianity in backwoods settings, Presbyterians exhibited less missionary fervour than groups like the Methodists, who possessed a “genius” for adapting to forbidding environmental circumstances. Observers have attributed the Presbyterians’ tepidness to several factors, including their insistence that ministers obtain a formal education before embarking on missionary ventures, and the time-consuming establishment of the denomination’s system of church government, which inhibited their representatives’ ability to move nimbly from one spiritually starved community to another. The result, the argument runs, was a “lack of missionary spirit” that contrasted with the vigorous exertions of other groups.10 An exploration of the wilderness motif and its significance within early Canadian Presbyterianism qualifies this interpretation. Granted, groups like the Methodists were quicker off the mark when it came to

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evangelizing embryonic settlements. However, Presbyterian attitudes toward the environment reveal a deep-seated desire to bring about the moral transformation of such communities through the energetic promotion of the denomination’s tenets and traditions. Ultimately, the wilderness functioned as a catalytic metaphor that spurred Presbyterians on in their quest to facilitate God’s dominion over early Canada.11

D e f in in g “ W il derness” Two caveats are in order before we delve into Presbyterian attitudes toward the undomesticated environment. First, “wilderness” was a malleable imaginative construct. As mentioned, the untamed natural world was seen as both a physical and a moral entity. It also lacked a fixed location. Depending on the era, wilderness could mean anything from the recesses of Nova Scotia in the late eighteenth century to the Prairie hinterland of the late nineteenth century. Yet the ill-defined nature of the wilderness construct did not detract from its effectiveness. Quite the opposite – its protean character allowed it to be deployed for a wide variety of reasons, and in an equally wide variety of contexts, thereby enhancing its resonance. Second, the very notion of a British North American wilderness is fraught with problems, given its disregard for Indigenous societies. Generations of Europeans believed that “for land to be fully possessed,” it needed to be cultivated. They also believed that Indigenous peoples were “nomadic savages without agriculture.”12 It followed for land-hungry settlers that, since Native peoples had failed to subdue their environments, “New World” territories were theirs for the taking.13 This mentality, in turn, laid the groundwork for the phenomenon of “ecological imperialism” through which settler societies transform colonial environments by importing unfamiliar plants, animals, and notions of property.14 In addition to facilitating dispossession and ecological imperialism, the notion of a Canadian wilderness obscures Indigenous agency. Suggesting that Aboriginals lived on primordial “virgin land,” as historians Richard White and William Cronon have observed, “not only ignores the human influences that had long reshaped pre-Columbian North America but also ‘naturalizes’ Indians in a way that denies both their histories and their cultures.”15 While they may have enjoyed a more symbiotic relationship with the natural world than their European counterparts, certain Aboriginals employed techniques – “slash and burn agriculture,” for instance – that brought about significant environmental change before

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colonization.16 That some of the environments encountered by colonists seemed to exhibit “primeval” characteristics as a result of the diseaseinduced decline of their original inhabitants should not conceal the ­reality of Indigenous engagement with those environments before the colonists, and their diseases, arrived.17 This chapter therefore conceives of the wilderness not as a verifiable reality, but instead as a compelling abstraction that spurred colonial evangelism, among other things. The Presbyterians’ desire to subdue the natural world meshes with an intellectual tradition that is entrenched in Western culture, and has tended to conceive of the untamed environment as subordinate to humanity. In an innovative essay written in the 1950s, historian Perry Miller probed the natural world’s impact on early American culture through an exploration of the Puritans’ seventeenth-century journey to northeastern North America, which he evocatively described as an “errand into the wilderness.” By his own admission, Miller was more interested in the “errand” – the reasons for, and the impact of, their migration – than he was with the physical characteristics of their “wilderness” destination. Nonetheless, one could justifiably infer from his essay that, insofar as the Puritans valued the natural environment of the region to which they had migrated, they did so not because of its intrinsic characteristics, but rather because it furnished the location for the uniquely righteous society, or “city upon a hill,” they sought to create.18 Historian Roderick Nash illuminated the idea of wilderness, and the Western tradition’s tendency to view it unfavourably, upwards of a decade later. While he acknowledged that hostility toward the wilderness was not unique to the West – on the contrary, Nash observed that many cultures have portrayed it as the antithesis of the “bountiful and beneficent” circumstances associated with paradise – he demonstrated that animosity toward the untamed environment was especially prevalent in the European societies responsible for American colonization. This characteristic, Nash suggested, may have been partially attributable to the influence of an ancient folkloric tradition that equated the wilderness with that which is “supernatural and monstrous,” as evidenced by Pan, a terrifying figure from classical mythology who had “the legs, ears, and tail of a goat and the body of a man,” and resided in “wild places.”19 However, Nash also attributed the West’s hostility to wilderness to Judeo-Christianity. He explained that the ancient Hebrews, who inhabited arid territory, used the term “wilderness” in reference to regions that were too dry to sustain agricultural societies, and perceived rainfall as a blessing. Accordingly, the Old Testament describes parched terrain as an

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accursed “wilderness,” and the Edenic paradise as a well-watered garden. Though Nash acknowledged that the wilderness plays a key role in the Old Testament as the setting in which the Hebrews are purified before entering Canaan, he maintained that it was only valued in an instrumental sense, and concluded that the text evinces “no fondness … for the wil­ derness itself.” Nash made similar arguments about the New Testament. Although he conceded that the wilderness is the pivotal site of Jesus’s postbaptismal test, he argued that whatever value it was invested with derived not from its own characteristics, but instead from the subordinate role it plays in preparing Christ “to speak for God.” For good measure, Nash contrasted Judeo-Christianity’s aversion to wilderness with the positive attitude exhibited by Eastern religions – Jainism and Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism – in which wilderness, rather than being maligned as a wasteland, is revered as a manifestation of divinity itself.20 Although they are by no means homogeneous, subsequent writings on the wilderness theme have often echoed Nash in arguing that Western society “has thought of nature as designed for the human species” due, in large part, to Judeo-Christianity’s penchant for portraying nature as separate from, and inferior to, the metaphysical sequence of sin, redemption, and salvation. Among other things, such beliefs are thought to have ­contributed to a moral justification for the subjugation of the untamed environment.21 Even in the case of Gilbert White, the renowned eighteenth-century Anglican naturalist who wrote fondly of the natural circumstances of the English community in which he lived, historian Donald Worster has suggested that his positive environmental attitude was more influenced by “pagan pastoralists” like Virgil who advocated “harmony between man and nature” than by Christianity, which Worster equates with an “imperial” desire to dominate nature.22 Eventually, as Cronon has noted, Western attitudes toward the wilderness began to change. Largely in response to their societies’ effective campaigns against nature, influential elements within Western culture came to regard the undomesticated environment sympathetically, as seen in romantic poets’ belief that natural settings were “sublime” sites in which one could “glimpse the face of God,” and Frederick Jackson Turner’s celebration of the “frontier” as an energizing antidote to the stultifying effects of metropolitan modernity.23 Similarly, Miller observed that, as the “wilderness” waned, American cultural producers – artists, novelists, historians – increasingly juxtaposed the “virtue, repose, and dignity” of nature with the “ugliness, squalor, and confusion” of cities. What is more, they felt that the former epitomized America’s vigorous

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national character, and associated the latter with the ossified decadence of Europe.24 Yet such views should not overshadow the Western tradition’s deep-seated animosity toward “wilderness,” a perspective borne out in the environmental attitudes of early Canadian Presbyterians. Much like other colonists, Presbyterians saw the undomesticated natural world as a harsh physical wilderness that needed to be struggled against and subjugated. This outlook throws into relief the widespread belief that progress entailed vanquishing nature, as encapsulated in an Upper Canadian observer’s assertion that the colony’s settlers “[look] upon trees as enemies.”25 That colonists felt this way is unsurprising; after all, in addition to inheriting the antagonistic Western attitude toward the wilderness, they often grappled with formidable physical obstacles, including “the apparent barrenness of the indomitable rock formations … the extremities of heat and cold, and … the unrelenting tangle of primordial [sic] forest.”26 True, not all colonists were critical of the untamed environment. For example, while Susanna Moodie stressed the hardship that she encountered in backwoods Upper Canada, her sister Catharine Parr Traill described the colony “as a land of hope” for metropolitan immigrants willing to forego “the artificial refinement of fashionable life in England.”27 (Moodie and Parr Traill were born into the Anglican Church; as they aged, the former’s fidelity to that institution faded, while the latter’s remained intact.) Moreover, not all colonists adhered to a strict wilderness/garden dichotomy, wherein the former is invariably forbidding and the latter is invariably benign. Moodie, whose writings on the northern North American environment were not uniformly negative, referred to the “august grandeur” of untamed natural circumstances that, according to the dichotomy, should have been denounced as inhospitable.28 Significant though they are, such perspectives should not obscure the fact that, for many colonists, British North America’s development was the product of “an epic victory of human ingenuity and effort over a challenging wilderness.” By no means purely rhetorical, hostility to the untamed natural world contributed to profound environmental change. In fewer than one hundred years, for instance, Upper Canada’s ecology was transformed from “woodland to farmland” due to the efforts of “an army of axe-wielding settlers” who were motivated, in large part, by an adversarial attitude toward what they saw as the wilderness.29 That Presbyterians perceived the untamed natural world as a harsh physical wilderness can be seen in the attitudes of members of the denomination based in Pictou, Nova Scotia, many of whom had immigrated

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from the Scottish Highlands in the late eighteenth century. According to one observer, they met with “toil and privation” in trying to combat the “primeval forest” that stood in their way, while the winters arrived with “a severity of which they had in the old country no conception.” Overall, Nova Scotia’s natural circumstances were “truly appalling.”30 Compounding matters were the “false hopes” instilled in the Highlanders’ minds by immigration promoters who downplayed the difficulties of pioneer life in order to make relocation to the New World optimally appealing. The immigrants’ inflated expectations were quickly punctured, as they encountered a “dense forest” shortly after stepping ashore. Overcome with despair, many of them “sat down in the forest and weeped [sic] bitterly.”31 Upper Canadian Presbyterians expressed comparable views. In 1831, the Reverend David McAllister of Lanark, Upper Canada, complained of the colony’s seemingly endless forests to a Glaswegian colleague, lamenting that the terrain was “unvaried and exceedingly confined – nothing but trees, trees, trees continually.” So dense were the forests, he added, that they were virtually impenetrable; worse: they were intolerably “dreary.” Such circumstances prompted McAllister to conclude that only missionaries of “decided piety” would be able to endure backwoods colonial life.32 His views arguably comport with aspects of the “garrison mentality” identified by Northrop Frye and Margaret Atwood, in which Canada’s harsh environmental circumstances are viewed with a sense of dread.33

C o n f ro n t in g t h e M o r al Wi ldernes s Yet Presbyterians also saw the untamed natural environment as a Godforsaken moral wilderness. Although it is difficult to determine definitively which factors engendered this outlook, it seems probable that it was informed by a combination of the anti-wilderness rhetoric that ­pervades the Western tradition, given the tendency of members of the denomination to invoke the wilderness/garden dichotomy; and the experiences of backwoods Presbyterians, who were among the most emphatic critics of the sinfulness that supposedly prevailed over outlying colonial regions. Whatever the underlying factors that caused Presbyterians to feel the way they did, members of the denomination were convinced that an absence of Christianity rendered the natural terrain an anarchic expanse over which depravity held perennial sway. The belief that the “wilderness” could be spiritual as well as physical found expression in an appeal

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sent by colonial Presbyterians to their metropolitan counterparts in 1830 that invoked the wilderness/garden dichotomy. After reporting that they had successfully “cleared away the vast forest, and prepared the land for cultivation,” the colonists wrote that, on account of a paucity of ministers, “thousands of those who once rejoiced in that … garden of God … in their native land … are now sitting by the rivers of Canada and weeping,” while their North American-born “children” were languishing amid “a barren wilderness.” Given their reference to the productive transformation of the British North American landscape, it seems evident that the “wilderness” mentioned in the appeal was a spiritual adversary.34 The supposed spiritual vulnerability of colonial Presbyterians residing in remote communities, coupled with a Calvinist belief in humanity’s innate depravity, elicited anxiety in urban Presbyterians and backwoods missionaries alike. A belief in intrinsic human sinfulness dates at least as far back as Augustine of Hippo, an early Christian theologian who influenced Calvin, and was not unique to Presbyterians. Still, it contributed to  their uneasiness about the sinfulness they imagined in backwoods communities, as we will see.35 Indicative of this attitude are the remarks of the Reverend Thomas McCulloch in an early nineteenth-century address to the United Presbyterian Synod of Scotland, through which he hoped to garner support from metropolitan Presbyterians for the fledgling Pictou Academy. McCulloch portrayed Nova Scotia as “a wilderness and solitary place.” He noted that, with the exception of a few “miserable patches” of territory reclaimed from the forest, Nova Scotia contained scant evidence of either cultural “civilization” or economic “improvement.”36 In view of these circumstances, McCulloch implored his coreligionists to assist Pictou Academy, which in turn would shower “the rays of science” and the “sun of righteousness” on Presbyterians struggling to “subdue the forest” on the British Empire’s outskirts. He concluded by informing his metropolitan counterparts that they had the power to transform the “solitudes” of Nova Scotia’s uncultivated recesses and “make the wilderness glad.”37 Comparable views were enunciated in an editorial published in the February 1846 edition of the Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record of the Free Church of Canada, which emphasized the importance of evangelizing Canada’s hinterland settlements. For the author, religious “destitution” prevailed over the colony’s “vast fields.” Thus, the author advocated the creation of “Ladies’ Missionary Societies” within colonial Presbyterian congregations that would devote themselves to raising funds for missionaries toiling in recently settled regions.38

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Following the editorial was a missive penned by the “Female Association” of Knox Church, Toronto, and addressed to the Presbyterian Female Colonial Committee of Edinburgh, Scotland. The authors’ remarks highlighted the necessity of promoting Presbyterianism across what they saw as the wilderness. The colony’s spiritual deprivation, in their view, stemmed not from a lack of religious enthusiasm on the settlers’ part, but instead from a lack of clergy: “It is not that ministers are waiting for people, but [that] people are waiting for ministers – flocks are gathered, but there are no shepherds.” Canada’s backwoods settlements therefore amounted to a spiritual “wilderness.” The authors concluded by urging their Scottish counterparts to include the colony’s “infant institutions” in their prayers in hopes that God would “bless Canada,” and transform it into a “fruitful corner of his own vineyard.”39 The remarks of the missionary James Fettes, which betray an unmistakably Calvinist outlook, also illustrate the disquiet elicited in certain Presbyterian minds by the sinfulness that purportedly permeated outlying settlements and imperilled their inhabitants’ spiritual welfare. In 1848, he stated that the “moral, spiritual, and mental” character of the typical Canadian settler was evident not in urban centres, but rather in “the bush.” In British North America’s “partially cleared and settled districts,” Fettes explained, “all those influences, which restrain open vice in cities, are removed, [and] human nature is found in all its naked deformity and degradation.” The dreadfulness of the situation could scarcely be overstated. Given the dearth of religious authority and the corresponding prevalence of “evil” in frontier settlements, Fettes declared that he had “been made to tremble” in contemplating the fate of the settlers’ “immortal souls.”40 The remedy for such distressing circumstances, for Fettes, was a campaign of evangelism that would penetrate remote communities. Failure to act quickly would result in the intensification of sinfulness, he warned. “Canada [will] never be evangelised,” Fettes argued, “nor the wants of her people, as regards either mental or spiritual instruction, at all adequately met,” until missionaries Christianize “her forest settlements.”41 Metropolitan observers also expressed anxiety about spiritual destitution in early Canada’s remote regions. In 1838, “a mercantile gentleman” who had spent time in Canada informed the readers of the metropolitan Home and Foreign Missionary Record of the Church of Scotland that colonial Presbyterians – including ones in hinterland settlements – occupied a parlous spiritual state. The reason? Metropolitan Presbyterians had failed to provide their Canadian coreligionists with adequate

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religious care. He deployed environmental themes in underscoring the severity of the situation: Had ministers and teachers, in sufficient numbers, accompanied the vessels which carried out countrymen from our shores, so sad a picture could scarcely have been presented as that which exhibits so great a tract of the settlement, almost as an unbroken heathen soil. Yet all was not lost. If Presbyterians in Scotland strove to address their colonial counterparts’ spiritual destitution – for example, by ensuring that “every ship” freighted with immigrants bound for British North America included Presbyterian standard-bearers – they could shore up their spiritual standing, sinful though their environments were.42 Similarly, an editorial published in the February 1855 edition of the Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record of the Free Church of Scotland portrayed Canada’s frontier communities as a spiritual wilderness in need of cultivation. The author emphasized the importance of promoting the Gospels among inhabitants of Port Sarnia, Saugeen, and Port Stanley, which were described as “outposts” of the presbytery of London, Canada West. There, the author reported, the “cords” of Presbyterianism’s transnational “Zion” were extending. Entire counties that had hitherto been so many “ranges of unbroken forest are now being most rapidly filled up  with settlers from the Old Country, as well as from various parts of Canada.”43 The author stressed the necessity of making Presbyterianism available to these communities’ inhabitants. The exhortation was couched in language that evoked the natural world. The author urged the “Lord of the Harvest” to send forth missionaries, who would “scatter abroad the good seed of the kingdom … water those athirst, and … gather the fruit which may be produced to the praise and glory of God.”44 Motivated by such beliefs, Presbyterian standard-bearers took pains to evangelize their coreligionists, beginning in the late eighteenth century. The physically taxing efforts of the Reverend James MacGregor attest to the desire of impassioned individuals to promote Presbyterianism in sparsely populated settlements. Following his arrival in Pictou in 1786, the Scottish-born MacGregor devoted himself to promoting Christianity as a minister of the Anti-Burgher wing of Presbyterianism’s Secession faction, and an agent of the British and Foreign Bible Society.45 His activities, which were “proverbial for their hazards and hardships,” included travels along Nova Scotia’s Gulf Shore as well as journeys to

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Cape Breton and St John’s Island (renamed Prince Edward Island in 1799). MacGregor’s evangelistic determination was evident in 1790 during a trip to the latter colony. His destination was Princetown, which was thought to have been without regular ministrations for two decades. At one stage in MacGregor’s own “errand into the wil­ derness,” which ultimately involved walking, sailing, and riding, he travelled many miles on foot along “expansive beach” and “almost impassable rock” in search of Presbyterians.46 MacGregor also displayed evangelistic fervour in Nova Scotia. On one occasion, he tried to cross a brook using a fallen tree for a bridge while searching for his isolated coreligionists. Maintaining his balance required “the whole skill of a rope dancer.” Perhaps more determined than he was nimble, MacGregor lost his equilibrium mid-way, tumbling into the water below. He emerged and managed to clamber up the banks of the brook by grabbing at shrubbery. Then the soggy evangelist resumed his journey.47 MacGregor’s adventures have been portrayed as reinforcing his appreciation for the importance of prayer. In 1805, he set out on horseback from “the Bend of the Petitcodiac” (modern-day Moncton) for Sheffield, New Brunswick, a small community whose Presbyterians had recently submitted a petition soliciting ministrations. Mid-journey, MacGregor dismounted in the woods “for some purpose,” and temporarily lost sight of his horse. When he was ready to remount, the steed was nowhere to be seen. MacGregor’s efforts to locate the animal were unavailing, mainly because the ground was “covered with moss or leaves,” which prevented him from following its tracks. The situation prompted MacGregor to wonder whether “Providence was frowning on his undertaking” or, alternatively, whether “his old enemy … Satan” was tormenting him. Dejected, MacGregor decided to kneel down and pray. When he opened his eyes, the horse stood before him! Since by that time darkness had fallen, MacGregor had little choice but to allow the horse to “take its own course.” After arriving at his destination later that night, MacGregor discovered that the animal had been travelling along a narrow “mill-dam,” and that an errant step on one side would have plunged them into the water, while an errant step on the other side would have entailed “a most dangerous, if not fatal fall.” For MacGregor, there could be no doubt that the “remarkable preservation of his life” amid the untamed environment sprang from the power of prayer.48 The experiences of Robert McDowall, an Upper Canadian Presby­ terian who travelled throughout the colony from his arrival in the late

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eighteenth century until his death in 1841, are similarly indicative of certain colonial Presbyterians’ desire to promote piety in backwoods ­settings. (He was dispatched from New York to Upper Canada by the Albany Classis of the Dutch Reformed Church, but joined the indigenous Presbytery of the Canadas in the early nineteenth century.) McDowall focused on territory along Lake Ontario’s northern shore between Belleville and Brockville. Yet his efforts occasionally carried him further west. For example, on several occasions McDowall travelled to York; and in at least one instance he is rumoured to have gone as far as Sandwich (Windsor), which lay upwards of 500 kilometres west of his primary area of activity. In pursuing isolated Presbyterians, McDowall travelled either on horseback or on foot along the colony’s “miserable backwoods trails.” And in crossing rivers for which bridges had not been built, he either swam or paddled canoes. McDowall, who gained a reputation for summoning unsuspecting Presbyterians to church services through the use of a moose horn, presided over more than 1,600 christenings and perhaps as many as 1,300 marriages in attempting to Christianize Upper Canada.49 The wilderness motif featured prominently in McDowall’s recollections. The colony’s earliest Protestants, he observed in the late 1830s, had settled amid “a vast unbroken wilderness,” where they lived in “great privations … without a preacher of the Gospel.” The creation of new settlements in the early nineteenth century served only to compound the colony’s “moral desolations” as a result of the diffuse population and “badness of the roads,” which hindered missionaries’ efforts to reach remote villages. Nonetheless, unfavourable though such circumstances were, McDowall lauded the few missionaries – presumably including himself – who had “ventured into our moral wilderness” in hopes of sparking the settlers’ spiritual reinvigoration.50 Romantic as the preceding accounts may have been, they reflect the efforts of early Presbyterian missionaries to promote the denomination across undomesticated northern North American territories. For all their exertions, individuals like MacGregor and McDowall were unable to subdue what many Presbyterians saw as British North America’s moral wilderness. Consequently, metropolitan members of the denomination concluded that a more concerted proselytizing campaign would be necessary if they hoped to eradicate the sinfulness that, in their view, reigned over hinterland colonial communities. Such impulses ­contributed to the formation of the Glasgow Colonial Society (G CS ), created in 1825 and absorbed into a larger missionary society in 1840. Among other things, this organization strove to promote the religious

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“improvement” of Scots immigrants in isolated locales – purportedly ­tottering on the brink of “paganism” – by equipping them with missionaries, Bibles, and religious tracts.51 The evangelistic enthusiasm exhibited by the G CS was fomented by two principal factors. The first was the lingering influence of an evangelical revival that galvanized Protestants the world over beginning in the late eighteenth century. For many of the people who were swept up in its frenzied excitement, the revival manifested in such traits as spontaneous outbursts of religious enthusiasm; a belief in scriptural inerrancy; and an emphasis on Christ’s atonement and inevitable return. Its influence reverberated among Protestants well into the nineteenth century as a result of the vast network of Bible and missionary societies created under its auspices. The second factor stoking interest in Christian evangelism were the widely publicized activities of such missionary celebrities as David Livingstone and Alexander Duff, whose exploits in places like western Africa received extensive coverage within Protestant communities across the Western world. Such accounts whetted the appetites of devout Christians for evangelism in exotic locales.52 Early Canada’s Presbyterians were no exception. As the nineteenth century unfolded and the denomination expanded, members of the ­ denomination became ever-more involved in missionary activities. Their evangelistic ardour was evident in northern North America, where Presbyterian missionaries served among religiously neglected EuroCanadians as well as Indigenous peoples (about whom more will be said); it was also evident elsewhere in the world, with members of the denomination promoting Christianity in such far-flung fields of activity as the Caribbean and Asia. So keen were Presbyterians when it came to overseas evangelism that, by the early twentieth century, they occupied more foreign mission stations than any other Canadian-based Protestant group.53 Following its creation, the GC S was inundated with appeals from British North American Presbyterians anxious to obtain regular ministrations for their communities. The authors typically stressed the lack of Presbyterian clergy in remote settings and the corresponding religious vulnerability of their inhabitants. For example, the Presbytery of Halifax, a Church of Scotland body, informed the G CS in 1838 of “the great necessity that exists for sending out with as little delay as possible an acceptable missionary” to address the settlers’ “spiritual destitution.”54 In their appeals, the authors used language that evoked the natural world – especially the God-forsaken wilderness. The Reverend Donald Fraser of Cape Breton, for instance, informed the G CS in the late 1820s

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that the island included a Scottish immigrant “generation … who had heard the joyful sound of the word of Life” in their homeland, and were “alive to the destitution of their situations” as a result of the lack of clergy in their midst. Fraser contrasted these people, who purportedly mourned “in sorrow over … remembrances of [religious] privileges once enjoyed,” with a native-born generation that was largely un-churched. Specifically, he lamented the likelihood of “moral darkness” descending over the latter as a result of spiritual neglect. Fraser concluded by asserting that, were such depressing circumstances conveyed to the “Scottish public,” they would surely spark an outpouring of sympathy, “which would enable your Society [the GC S] to dispel the gloom which palls the hopes of our countrymen in these wilds.”55 Several years later, the Reverend “P. McIntyre” of St James, New Brunswick, expressed comparable sentiments. In attempting to garner metropolitan support for Presbyterian evangelism, he asserted that the colony’s “expatriated” Scots were mired in a “trackless wilderness.” The undomesticated environment, for McIntyre, was moral as well as physical. Scots immigrants, he explained, were “left to the care of nature, without the labour of a single vine-dresser to prepare them for the vineyard above.” Due to a lack of ministrations, immigrants and their descendants were either “growing up in heathen ignorance,” or, equally distressing, “lamenting the loss of those religious privileges which they once enjoyed.”56 Those appealing to the GC S also warned that colonial Presbyterians whose spiritual needs went unmet could wind up members of other denominations. The Reverend Alexander MacLean, for example, informed the GC S in 1833 that, while Presbyterians in the vicinity of St Andrew’s, New Brunswick, were “warmly attached” to the denomination, they were “unavoidably left to be gathered in by strangers.” The reason, he explained, was that the colony’s few Presbyterian ministers were “confined almost exclusively to their own flocks” in more densely populated areas, rendering their coreligionists “immersed in the forest” susceptible to other groups’ overtures. Consequently, “hundreds of families have been lost to our church in this province.”57 In another address MacLean observed that lay “Highlanders” had bolstered Presbyterianism in New Brunswick by “leading the people’s devotions in the Scottish form of worship” in their homes. Thus, despite the “want of regularly-educated Pastors,” the denomination managed to avoid losing adherents, some of whom presumably would have been absorbed by other denominations had it not been for lay ministrations. However, MacLean warned the GC S that these “patriarchs” were “almost

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extinct,” implying that metropolitan Presbyterians would need to play a more assertive role in promoting the colonials’ religious welfare if they hoped to avoid large-scale departures to other groups in the future.58 Metropolitan Presbyterians praised their colonial counterparts for attempting to evangelize hinterland settlements. A group of Scottish Presbyterian students informed members of the Presbytery of Canada in September 1837 that they viewed the colonials’ “labours of love” with “intense interest.” The Scots congratulated the colonists for “reclaiming” certain Presbyterians from “Heathenism,” while preventing others from being ensnared in such a precarious spiritual situation in the first place. British North American Presbyterians, they concluded, were responsible for planting anew in the “wilderness” the “worship and discipline of our forefathers,” and for bringing forth “from the banks of the St. Lawrence and the shores of the land-locked lakes of America” the sacred songs of the “sweet singer of Israel.”59 Before the mid-nineteenth century, Presbyterian missionaries focused on attending to the needs of their spiritually starved coreligionists. Yet as the denomination’s influence grew, members of the denomination increasingly advocated evangelizing other peoples. The following editorial, drawn from the May 1861 edition of The Home and Foreign Missionary Record of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces of British North America, reveals the denomination’s desire to promote Presbyterianism as widely as possible in the mid-nineteenth century. The author began by lamenting the pervasiveness of sin, superstition, and “dense ignorance” in hinterland settings.60 These remarks were followed by a discussion of the Presbyterians’ obligation to counter such phenomena wherever they existed. The denomination’s representatives should bring the Gospels to “the fisherman’s hut, the lumberer’s camp, the navvy’s shantie … to the farmer’s comfortable home, and to the princely merchant’s luxurious palace – to the rum-shops and gin-­ palaces, [and] to the nameless dens of vice in our towns.”61 Indeed, Presbyterians were endowed, “by the all powerful will of God,” with responsibility for redeeming “every family,” and ensuring that the most obscure “fragments and outskirts of settlements” resounded with the “songs of Zion.”62 For the author, missionaries were not solely responsible for diffusing Presbyterianism. Instead, as “soldiers” in Christ’s army, every “Presbyterian man, woman, and child” should devote themselves to evangelism. Ominously, the author warned that those who shirked their duties could expect to be subjected to the irrevocable punishments that would be

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meted out to “mutineers, or cowards or base deserters” on the “Day of Reckoning,” which loomed over their activities like Damocles’s sword.63 The Presbyterians’ increasingly ambitious evangelistic design had important implications for Indigenous peoples. As we have seen, Presbyterian missionaries in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries focused mainly on the supposed spiritual plight of their isolated ­coreligionists. As a result, Presbyterians trailed other groups – Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Methodists – in promoting Christianity among Aboriginals. Yet as the denomination’s ranks swelled and its institutional machinery grew more sophisticated, Presbyterians placed more emphasis on converting northern North America’s First Peoples. Indeed, by the mid-nineteenth century Indigenous evangelism had become a compelling priority for many British North American Presbyterians. This development coincided with the intensification of settler colonialism, a complex phenomenon in which, as historian Lorenzo Veracini has observed, “colonisers ‘come to stay’ [in colonial environments] and to establish new political orders for themselves.”64 Presbyterian attitudes toward Indigenous communities mirrored their attitudes toward undomesticated nature. Moral darkness, they were convinced, enshrouded both entities. They were also convinced that the sinfulness endemic in the wilderness and its Aboriginal denizens must be eradicated if they hoped to facilitate Christianization. Small wonder, then, that environmental themes featured prominently in Presbyterian discourses on missionary initiatives geared toward Indigenous communities. The remarks of the Reverend John Black, who was sent to the Red River settlement in the 1840s by the Presbyterian Church of Canada, are indicative of the sense of responsibility for the spiritual elevation of Aboriginals that came to pervade mid-nineteenth-century British North American Presbyterianism. In an 1864 letter to a Canada-based counterpart, Black lamented that their denomination lagged behind “other communions” in its efforts to convert Aboriginals, meaning that tracts of land inhabited by Indigenous communities lay spiritually uncultivated. He declared that, in giving short shrift to the Aboriginals’ souls, Presbyterians had failed to take seriously the “chief end” of Christianity: promoting the Gospels as widely as possible.65 A mutually reinforcing combination of racism and paternalism appears to have informed Black’s attitudes. The Red River region’s Aboriginals, whom he described as members of the “Ojibway and Chippeway tribe,” were a “poor miserable race for whom little had been done.” They eked out a living, Black claimed, “partly by begging and partly by working and

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partly by what they can take with their nets, hooks, snares, and guns.”66 Converting such an “ignorant, intemperate, degraded, and neglected” people was imperative if they were to have any hope of avoiding damnation.67 (The Reverend Hugh McKay, a Presbyterian minister active in the North-West territory, struck a similar chord several years later. “[My] labours,” he stated, “are among a people that is becoming extinct, a poor people suffering for want of the necessaries of life and dying without any sure hope for the life to come.”68) Bound up with Black’s contempt for Native peoples was a condescending sense of responsibility for fostering their spiritual welfare. Both attitudes intensified in the mid-nineteenth century due to the social and economic plight of certain Aboriginals, many of whom were increasingly pressured to vacate their lands by an ever-expanding settler population.69 Although, as Sarah Carter points out, due to the diversity of Aboriginal peoples and their environments, “there was no single or monolithic pattern of encounter” between Natives and non-Natives. For example, while non-Natives strove to acquire Indigenous lands in fertile areas deemed suitable for large-scale colonization, they were more interested in harnessing “Aboriginal labour” than they were in dispossession in areas where “intensive settlement” seemed environmentally unfeasible.70 Black invoked the natural world in advocating Aboriginal evangelism. In 1870, he informed a colleague that “the native tribes whose country we occupy” ought to have “the first claim” on our denomination’s attention and resources. The region, in Black’s view, amounted to a “great heathen field” that Presbyterians had been enjoined to “cultivate” by God.71 Black was not alone among Presbyterians in his negative view of Aboriginals. On the contrary, as historians Andrew Hinson and Graeme Morton have argued, the Reverend William Bell, a Scottish immigrant who settled in Perth, Upper Canada, in the early nineteenth century, was also disdainful of the region’s Indigenous inhabitants. For instance, while Bell was quick to denounce certain Irish Catholics in the vicinity for ­begging, he refrained from imposing similarly harsh judgements on a group of Natives who “[travelled] round the village … calling at a few houses … [hoping to] obtain what will supply the wants of nature.” Bell’s inconsistency, Hinson and Morton have concluded, flowed from his belief that Natives were inferior to whites, and could not be held to the same moral standards.72 However, while Bell shared Black’s negative view of Natives, he did not share Black’s sense of obligation for evangelizing what he saw as a deficient people. Such discrepancies indicate that

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Presbyterian attitudes toward Aboriginals were not uniform, and that the drive to convert them grew stronger over time. The Presbyterian desire to propagate Protestantism ultimately transcended British North America. The denomination’s most ardent adherents envisioned an evangelistic campaign that would culminate in the worldwide eradication of sinfulness. For example, in the early nineteenth century, MacGregor lamented the disparity between the “one hundred and fifty millions of Christians” in western Europe and North America and the “seven hundred millions” of heathens in Asia, Africa, and parts of the “Russian Empire.” He argued that organizations like the British and Foreign Bible Society, a non-denominational group with  which he was involved, had a crucial role to play in enhancing Christianity’s influence. Indeed, he went as far as to assert that they were responsible for making the Bible available to “all mankind.” Describing the society as “the glory of our mother country,” MacGregor urged the British Empire’s Presbyterians – including those in North America – to serve as its “chief support.”73 Such views were expressed with growing ardour in the mid-nineteenth century, as evangelicalism achieved greater influence over British North American society.74 Remarks made in 1844 by Presbyterian minister Mark Young Stark, at a meeting of a multidenominational evangelical prayer group held in Dundas, Canada West, are indicative. Stark emphasized the importance of promoting religious virtue among the “millions of peoples” in Africa and Asia mired in “heathen darkness, superstition, and idolatry.” Sadly, he stated, “spiritual destitution” and “infidelity” exerted more influence on both continents than “evangelical truth.” Yet Stark attempted to comfort his audience by informing them that the “entire world” lay before them as a missionary field; through the efforts of Presbyterians and their evangelical allies, spiritually desolate terrains could be “cultivated and fertilized.”75 Such beliefs may have contributed to certain Presbyterians’ decision, beginning in the late nineteenth century, to serve as missionaries in such far-flung locales as Trinidad and India.76 Environmental themes were central to the early Canadian Presbyterian worldview. Nowhere was this more evident than in the denomination’s attitude toward what was widely seen as the northern North American wilderness. Presbyterians saw the untamed environment as an unruly physical entity that needed to be subdued. Yet they also saw it as a moral entity that was saturated with sinfulness. These mutually reinforcing perspectives influenced the denomination’s efforts to promote Presbyterianism

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among spiritually starved settlers of British birth and ancestry, as well as among Aboriginals, whose supposed spiritual vulnerability came to be seen as a pressing priority in the mid-nineteenth century. The wilderness served as a compelling metaphor for the denomination’s desire to institute God’s dominion over early Canada.

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7 God’s Garden The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Isaiah 40:3

The pure beauty of the Canadian water, the sombre but august grandeur of the vast forest that hemmed us in on every side and shut us out from the rest of the world, soon cast a magic spell on our spirits, and we began to feel charmed with the freedom and solitude around us. Susanna Moodie, Roughing It in the Bush; Or, Forest Life in Canada (1852): 26

For all their anxiety about immorality in the undomesticated environment, early Canada’s Presbyterians were confident that the wilderness could be purged of sinfulness and redeemed. This objective, they believed, would be realized by promoting Protestant piety in backwoods com­ munities among settlers and Natives, whose cultures they strove to transform with an ever-intensifying vigour beginning in the later nineteenth century. As we will see, Presbyterians expressed fondness for natural environments that had seemingly been rid of sinfulness and reconciled with God, and used gendered – specifically, feminized – language in referring to territories that were infused with Christian virtue, and were no longer perceived as ominous. Presbyterians also believed that the diffusion of righteousness in such settings was accompanied by an aural transition. That is, they felt that as Presbyterianism spread across sparsely populated, recently settled regions, irreverent sounds of merrymaking and Sabbath desecration would give way to either reverent silence or audible expressions of Christian piety. Additionally, they equated the

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denomination’s growing influence in remote regions with patterns of material progress that were viewed as the inevitable corollary to the propagation of Christianity among religiously neglected peoples, and were supposedly borne out in the emergence of fruitful farms and bustling towns.1 Such developments were celebrated as the fulfillment of humanity’s God-given duty to achieve control, or dominion, over nature. Of central importance to Presbyterian perceptions of the untamed environment were the denomination’s ecclesiastical traditions, including “communion festivals” in which the sacrament was administered outdoors beneath the “canopy of heaven”; and church (or kirk) courts of session, which aimed to enforce strict moral discipline by scrutinizing people’s behaviour and punishing such transgressions as illicit sexual activity and drunkenness. Presbyterian views regarding communion festivals attest to their belief that undomesticated territories could be purged of sinfulness and brought under godly auspices, a conviction that was shared by their coreligionists as well as adherents of other denominations elsewhere in the British Empire. As well, they underscore the fact that animosity toward the untamed environment did not render Presbyterians hostile to nature in all its forms.2 Their enthusiasm for certain environments comports with Calvinist doctrine. Kirk sessions, for their part, consolidated the denomination’s influence in fledgling villages and bustling towns. They reflect the denomination’s systematic efforts to combat sinfulness, which, as we saw in the last chapter, was thought to be especially prevalent in undomesticated environments. Both of these traditions – communion festivals and kirk sessions – fostered cultural cohesiveness among Presbyterian immigrants and their North American-born coreligionists by perpetuating metropolitan practices in colonial contexts.3 Ultimately, early Canadian Presbyterians were convinced that, through the vigorous promotion of the denomination’s tenets and traditions, the sinful wilderness could be imbued with holiness and reconciled with its creator.

T a m in g t h e W il derness The Presbyterian belief that the undomesticated environment could be subdued and reunited with God found expression in the mid-nineteenthcentury writings of George Patterson, a minister and antiquary. In chronicling the experiences of Nova Scotia’s early Presbyterians, he declared that they met with “toil and privation” in struggling to carve settlements out of the wilderness in the late eighteenth century. Patterson attributed

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this difficulty to the denseness of the forest, which stymied efforts to cultivate the land, and the severity of the colony’s winters, which verged on the intolerable.4 Patterson added that the settlers managed to prevail over such unfavourable circumstances due to an admirable combination of resourcefulness and determination. Evidence lay in a pattern of environmental “improvement” (a theme to which this chapter will return) borne out in such physical changes as the felling of trees, the harvesting of crops, and the hunting of animals. As a result, farms and towns began to replace the wilderness, developments Patterson plainly welcomed. Yet, for Patterson, colonial Nova Scotia also underwent a moral transformation. Integral to this process was the missionary fervour exhibited by MacGregor, a figure from whom Patterson descended, and about whom Patterson wrote in a hagiographic manner. According to Patterson, upon arriving in the colony in the late eighteenth century MacGregor confronted a “wilderness” in which Christian ministrations were largely unknown. Equipped with little more than a Bible and a pocket compass, he ventured into remote communities in hopes of eradicating the religious “carelessness and indifference” that engulfed them. Through MacGregor’s efforts, settlers were informed of their innate sinfulness and the corresponding necessity of adhering assiduously to biblical dictates. The contrast between the “dark ground” of their intrinsic depravity and the “brighter colours” of Christian redemption was laid bare, resulting in the intensification of religious devotion within their ranks. Thus, in addition to being transformed physically, Nova Scotia had been transformed religiously: the colony’s “moral wilderness” was “rejoicing and blossoming as the rose.”5 Hagiographic though they may have been, Patterson’s sentiments convey the Presbyterian belief that the sin-saturated wilderness could be made righteous through hinterland evangelism. Where undomesticated recesses were denounced as wicked, burgeoning settlements transformed by Protestant piety were celebrated as evidence of Christianization; members of the denomination hailed the fact that they had been rendered virtuous, redeemed. Similar to MacGregor, the anonymous author of a March 1828 article published in Pictou’s Colonial Patriot celebrated natural environments that had supposedly been purified. The author focused on the “exquisite pleasure … of a summer’s Sabbath evening.” On such occasions, “a holy tranquility reposes” over “every mountain and valley … and river.” Indeed, it was as though “nature were conscious of the sanctity of the day of rest.” Such solemnity reflected the pronounced extent

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to which Christianity had come to prevail over the people of Pictou and their natural environs, issuing in “an intimate communion between earth and heaven.”6 Early Canada’s Presbyterians do not seem to have valued nature on its own terms. Unlike other groups – romantic poets, transcendental philosophers, impassioned preservationists – who have exalted the undomesticated environment for its intrinsic characteristics, Presbyterians tended to celebrate nature as evidence of God’s providential sovereignty, and as a mechanism for fostering religious devotion. This tendency can be seen in a sermon given in 1835 by the Reverend Henry Esson in Montreal. From his perspective, “the glory, the majesty, the loveliness” of nature emanated not from the “inherent qualities of her dead forms,” but rather from God, whom Esson poetically described as “that one Eternal, incomprehensible Spirit, which is above all, and through all, and in all and whose ineffable … splendours pierce through the dark cloud that envelops our mortal state, like rays of the sun, streaming through the evening skies.” In addition to reflecting God’s awesome creative capacity, nature was valuable as a means of strengthening humanity’s appreciation for the divine. “The spirit of religious faith and feeling,” Esson informed his audience, “is inseparable from the genuine, fervent love of nature and her works.” It followed that “to hold communion with Nature, is to hold communion with Nature’s God.” Indeed, Esson went as far as to argue that religion was indispensable to an appreciation of the natural world. Without the “sentiment of religion,” he explained, “we can see nothing great, or beautiful, or glorious in earth or heaven. Take this away,” he continued, “and every affection of the human heart withers and dies … as a plant, deprived of light and heat, is bereaved of its bloom and verdure and freshness, drops as its fades, and ere it dies, ‘all soiled, it laid low in the dust.’”7 The Presbyterians’ belief that untamed natural environments could be redeemed was paralleled by their belief that Indigenous peoples could be transformed from uncouth heathens into virtuous Christians. Members of the denomination felt that, through the vigorous promotion of Protestantism, the wilderness and Aboriginals residing within it could be cleansed and brought under godly auspices. Consider the remarks of an unnamed Presbyterian missionary based in Saugeen, Canada West. Writing in 1850, the missionary reflected on his experiences at a feast held by converted “Saugeen Indians” the previous Christmas. In doing so, he claimed to recapitulate remarks delivered at

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the event by Red Cloud, presumably a prominent community member. Red Cloud expressed gratitude for the “favourable” developments wrought in the “Indian character” due to the efforts of Protestant evangelists who had served in the Aboriginals’ midst, which were allegedly perceptible in behavioural changes displayed during communal feasts. Prior to the evangelists’ arrival in the community, Red Cloud explained, women took pains to hide the men’s “bows and arrows, guns, axes, spears, and scalping knives” before the feasts began. Why? Because “they were well assured that as liquid fire was to form a prominent article of [the event], there was the greatest danger of the one brother imbruing his hands in the blood of the other, in the course of the uproarious [affair].” After the evangelists’ arrival, however, such measures were no longer necessary; for, the “uninterrupted concord of brotherly love” had replaced the fratricidal violence of the past. The missionary found Red Cloud’s remarks gratifying – so much so that, after the feast had ended, he “waded [his] way homeward, knee deep in snow … rejoicing the long solitary way.”8 It is unlikely that these Aboriginals were Presbyterian, since the events recounted by the missionary preceded the establishment of the denomination’s first Native mission (more on which below) by more than a decade. Still, his recollections are revealing. They encapsulate the conviction that Indigenous peoples could be transformed from pagan savages into civilized human beings through sustained exposure to Christianity. As we have seen, Presbyterians felt that an equally profound transformation could occur within nature. Delighted by the growth of Christianity among the Saugeen First Nation, the missionary rhapsodized about the region in which they lived, which in his view was well on its way to becoming “the Garden of Canada.” For the missionary, the environment’s magnificence was emblematic of the reconciliation of nature and God, as the following remarks reveal. Lake Huron’s “wide bosom” was “crusted over” with snow for the first time that season. Bearing a resemblance to “an ample robe of purest white,” its reflection “girdled the picture with a transparent belt.”“Varying and changing in its active form,” the scenery reminded the missionary, by turns, of “a numerous rejoicing company” or “a stillness which showed that order and harmony were there.” Ultimately, such circumstances reflected “nature’s second marriage with her rightful Lord.”9 The missionary’s description of the environment differed sharply from the antagonistic attitude toward the wilderness discussed in the previous chapter. Rather than denouncing the natural world as a wasteland, he

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celebrated its beauty as awe-inspiring evidence of God’s providential handiwork. (This tendency also manifested in the minds of early Canadian scientists, whose utilitarian motivations coexisted with the conviction that nature’s “patterns and operations disclosed [God’s] wisdom, power, and goodness”; such convictions dovetailed with the concept of “natural theology” espoused by figures like the English theologian William Paley, who portrayed nature as an astonishingly intricate, divinely crafted mechanism.10) Central to the missionary’s enthusiastic description of Canada West’s environment was his awareness of Christianity’s growing influence among the section’s Aboriginals. The projection of Protestantism into un-churched settings, he felt, had contributed to the redemption of the natural circumstances in which they lived. The missionary’s description of the natural surroundings of the Saugeen First Nation also bespeaks the tendency of Presbyterians to use gendered language in describing environmental circumstances that had seemingly been Christianized. Literary critic Annette Kolodny, in discussing early American cultural producers’ attitudes toward the supposed wilderness, has insightfully argued that they used stereotypically feminine imagery in hopes of neutralizing “the threatening, alien, and potentially emasculating terror of the unknown,” rendering it a nurturing “new Mother.”11 Thought-provoking though her remarks are, they do not accord exactly with the Presbyterians’ discursive practices vis-à-vis nature. Instead of using feminized language in reference to what they saw as the sinful wilderness, members of the denomination used it in reference to natural environments that they felt had been redeemed, as evidenced by the missionary’s assertion that the Saugeen Indians’ environs reflected “nature’s second marriage with her rightful Lord.” This tendency accords with an ancient tradition that finds expression in the Bible, and depicts fruitful natural environments – crop-growing fields, say – “as female, a mother whose fertility brings all life into being,” as opposed to bestowing such descriptions on territories disdained as God-forsaken wastelands.12 Presbyterian efforts to convert Natives intensified in the second half of the nineteenth century. Evidence of this development, as we will see, lies in the denomination’s campaign to transform Aboriginal environments. Contributing to the Presbyterians’ ever-more-zealous efforts to Christianize Indigenous peoples were such phenomena as the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which facilitated colonization west of the  Great Lakes; the depletion of buffalo stocks on the Plains, which weakened that region’s Aboriginal communities; and the Red River and North-West rebellions, which Presbyterian authorities denounced as

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unacceptable exhibitions of “defiance to queen and empire,” and threats to “Ontario settlers.” In response to the latter conflict, the Canadian Presbyterian organization responsible for missionary work among western Aboriginals declared that efforts to convert these peoples should be accelerated “as rapidly as possible” so as to prevent further outbursts of insubordination and expedite the “Indians’” assimilation.13 Suffusing the North-West conflict with providential meaning, the organization declared that, through the North-West conflict, “the Lord is calling us to greater diligence and greater fidelity in imparting to … [the] poor benighted tribes the knowledge which alone can lead them in the way of peace and everlasting life.”14 Fired by the desire to realize what they saw as the complementary objectives of conversion and assimilation, Presbyterians focused on such peoples as the Plains Cree, who had had little contact with missionaries, and were supposedly bogged down in “absolute heathenism.” Accordingly, the first sustained Aboriginal mission undertaken by Canadian Presbyterians – which was established on the banks of the North ­Saskatchewan River in 1866, and named “Prince Albert” in honour of Queen Victoria’s consort – was geared toward converting members of that group. James Nisbet, who had been John Black’s assistant at the Red River settlement, was the mission’s main representative.15 Nisbet had been sent to the region from Canada West as an itinerant minister in the early 1860s. Like adherents of other denominations, he realized that a permanent settlement would serve as a more effective mechanism than itinerancy for persuading Aboriginals to embrace Christianity. Nisbet and his coreligionists decided that their mission would include farms, through which Natives would be weaned off their nomadic lifestyle, reflecting the missionaries’ assumption that sedentary agriculture was superior to an unsettled existence. The mission would also include schools in which, among other things, Western gender roles would be stressed – boys would receive instruction in agricultural techniques, girls would be acquainted with domestic chores. Such institutions were designed to hasten the Aboriginals’ absorption into early Canada’s non-Native culture, an objective that dovetailed with efforts to propagate Christianity.16 Nisbet and the Red River party encountered stiff resistance from the Cree, largely as a result of the fact that treaties providing for the transfer of their land to the mission agents had not been signed. Consequently, the Aboriginals bristled at the Presbyterians’ attempts to assert control over their territory. George Flett, an adherent of the denomination who

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happened to be Métis, strengthened the Presbyterians’ influence. A former Hudson’s Bay Company postmaster, Flett served as the mission’s interpreter beginning in 1866, the year in which the Prince Albert mission was established. Roughly a decade later, he was ordained as a minister of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Exercising “characteristic shrewdness,” Flett asserted his claim to a portion of the land, subsequently providing the Red River party with permission to “utilize his rights.” In doing so, he laid the groundwork for the consolidation of the Presbyterians’ influence on the Prairies.17 Flett’s efforts reveal the tendency of various denominations, including Presbyterians, to employ Indigenous peoples in various capacities in their missionary efforts on the Prairies. By 1887, four of the ten ordained Presbyterian ministers active in Indigenous communities on the Prairies were either First Nations or Métis. These figures occupied what has been described as a “middle ground” between the Indigenous societies in which they had been reared, and the increasingly aggressive EuroCanadian culture that bore down upon them. That this was the case dovetails with the interpretations of historians Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau, who have argued that, instead of being passive objects on whom missionaries operated, Indigenous peoples “were able to select and reinvent the Christian message in order to fashion an indigenized but no less authentic expression of Christianity,” playing an active role in the conversion process.18 The Presbyterian penchant for employing Indigenous peoples in mission-related activities was evident elsewhere in the world. By the early twentieth century, Indigenous people were employed by Presbyterian missionary contingents in diverse roles – for example, as translators, guides, and cooks – in such varied settings as Formosa (Taiwan), the Polynesian “New Hebrides,” and India. That Presbyterian authorities saw northern North American Indigenous peoples as similar to the native peoples encountered by the denomination’s representatives on other continents can be seen in the fact that, until 1920, the denomination’s Foreign Missionary Committee assumed responsibility for Aboriginal evangelism within Canada.19 Nisbet contacted the Presbyterian Church in Canada in the late 1870s about the possibility of the mission attaining the services of a teacher who could instil Christian principles in the minds of Indigenous children. In response, Lucy Baker, a teacher and Presbyterian from Glengarry County, Ontario, was dispatched to the North-West Territory. Described in a nineteenth-century publication as “a little lady – one of the old

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school, the kind done up in ecru lace and black silk,” Baker, in the event, assumed responsibility for far more than primary education. Between her arrival in the North-West Territory in the late 1870s and her retirement upwards of twenty years later, Baker worked tirelessly among western Canadian Aboriginals – initially the Cree and, later, a group of Sioux – providing instruction to people of various ages in a staggering variety of fields ranging from literacy skills to cattle-raising. (The Prairies’ Indigenous population had expanded sharply in the second half of the nineteenth century due to the arrival of Native groups who had migrated north of the “Medicine Line” as a result of clashes with United States forces in the American West.20) Baker forged friendships with many of the region’s Aboriginal women, whom she was known to invite into her home. There, Baker availed herself of the opportunity to share with them Christianity’s glad tidings. So significant was her impact on the region that the Sioux reportedly dubbed Baker their “Queen,” and hoisted the Union Jack in her honour.21 The attempts of Presbyterian standard-bearers like Baker to Christianize western Canada’s Aboriginals mesh with arguments forwarded by historian Myra Rutherdale, who has shown that Christian missionaries serving in the Canadian west and north in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries strove to engender the social improvement of the Indigenous peoples among whom they lived. This objective, she explains, manifested in attempts to promote religious virtue and sedentary agriculture. Yet Rutherdale demonstrates that it also manifested in attempts to transform Indigenous cultures. This aspect of the missionaries’ activities entailed altering the rhythms of life – for instance, by celebrating Christian holidays – and emphasizing such symbolic acts as the distribution of Western clothing and trinkets as gifts. These measures, Rutherdale has explained, rendered the mission field a “theatrical” environment in which Natives and missionaries acted out the process of cultural transformation.22 Baker’s activities accord with Rutherdale’s interpretations. Her efforts regarding the interlocking objectives of conversion and assimilation contributed to a process of cultural transformation that was borne out in the Sioux’s anointment of her as “Queen,” and in their unfurling of Britain’s flag in her honour. Such developments attest to the Presbyterians’ desire to promote Protestant piety within Indigenous communities and in the environments where they lived. Both entities, they believed, could be stripped of sinfulness and reunited with God.23 For early Canadian Presbyterians, the moral transformation of the wilderness – which was interpreted as the corollary to the promotion of

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religious virtue among both settlers and Natives in sparsely populated settings, as we have seen – was an audible phenomenon. That is, the ethical transition undergone by religiously neglected hinterland communities could, in their understanding, be heard. This was allegedly evident in a shift from an irreligious din – which, for many, was scandalously pervasive on Sundays – to either serene silence or, alternatively, vocal expressions of Protestant piety. Sonic changes were thought to reveal that Christian virtue was steadily vanquishing the moral wilderness.24 Presbyterians saw Sabbath desecration as one of the principal transgressions perpetrated by the denizens of remote communities, epitomizing as it reputedly did the depravity of religiously neglected peoples. In the mid-1840s, the Reverend John Bethune noted that, while travelling along a plank road in Canada West that ran through Ancaster to a service scheduled to take place in Caledonia, he routinely overheard people voicing “contempt” for the Sabbath. On one occasion he crossed paths with a man near Ancaster who was belting out the lyrics to a “merry song” with such fervour that they echoed throughout the adjacent forest. Bethune accosted the man and asked, “Is it the Lord’s praise you are singing on the Lord’s Day?” After several moments of uneasy silence, the man replied that, yes, he had indeed been extolling God’s virtues. Unconvinced, Bethune conveyed his doubts to the man before resuming his journey. No sooner had Bethune done so than he noticed two more men entering the forest, “one of whom carried a gun” and was apparently bound for a sacrilegious afternoon of hunting.25 Yet as Christianity took root in fledgling villages, Presbyterians felt that their inhabitants’ behaviour changed. The noisy impiety that irked figures like Bethune was replaced by either pious stillness or audible expressions of Christian zeal. The denomination’s belief in this religiously induced shift can be seen in Patterson’s account of the aural culture of Nova Scotia around the turn of the nineteenth century. On Sabbath mornings, he explained, for “miles around” Presbyterians wound their way along “rude bridle paths” to religious services, eventually arriving at locations where they found God’s “tabernacle” amid “the fields of the wood.” For the rest of the day, “instruments of labour” as well as children’s toys were set aside, and expressions of light-heartedness were suppressed.26 For Patterson, the Presbyterians’ piety was linked to the redemption of the environment. Pious silence was seen as representing this encouraging development. The natural world “seemed to sympathize” with the Presbyterians’ solemnity, which was evident in “unbroken stillness.”

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In “checking the merry laugh of childhood and hushing the tongue of volatile youth,” their piety resulted in a “tone of quiet” descending over the environment. Such circumstances soothed “the soul of devout contemplation,” signalling as it supposedly did the Christianization of the natural surroundings.27 Additional evidence of the belief that the expansion of Protestant piety correlated with reverential silence can be found in the remarks of a Reverend Paterson, who was sent to British North America in 1846 as a part of a deputation by the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland.28 (Paterson and his coreligionists were charged with ascertaining the “wants and character” of the institution’s colonial adherents.) He was pleased by what he found. Paterson noted that, according to the Presbyterians with whom he had spoken, the widespread immorality of the previous era had declined, as sinners were being awakened in everexpanding numbers from the “slumbers of death.” Indicative of this trend was the pious stillness that one encountered on Sundays. Before the growth of religious virtue, Paterson was informed, it was almost impossible to “step from the door on [the] Sabbath” without hearing “the sound of the axe or the gun.” However, as a result of the promotion of Christianity in remote colonial communities, one could now travel “many miles” on a Sunday and “hear neither.” For Paterson, this change revealed that his particular branch of Presbyterianism was well on its way to realizing its objective of a society in which “everywhere Christian churches might be formed.”29 Even if his remarks included exag­ gerations intended to highlight the importance of Presbyterian missionary work, they reveal that members of the denomination looked to audible phenomena in seeking to gauge the progress of Christianity in colonial communities. Silence was not the only audible indication of Presbyterianism’s progress. On the contrary, for members of the denomination, the sounds of a sermon also signalled the triumph of religious reverence over noisy impiety. The Reverend Robert Burns gave numerous sermons in remote locations between his emigration from Scotland to Canada in the mid-1840s and his death in 1869. In these settings, he reputedly used a tree-stump for a pulpit and “the canopy of heaven” as a “sounding board” against which his “clear, sonorous voice” reverberated. Burns’s orations reached spiritually starved peoples who, reportedly, absorbed his words with “throbbing hearts” and “tearful eyes.” The sounds of Burns’s sermons within early Canada’s “forest cathedrals” were illustrative of the denomination’s growing influence.30

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The audible dimension of Presbyterianism’s impact on early Canada was also evident among ordinary members of the denomination in Lower Canada’s Eastern Townships. Presbyterian families in this region were known to exclaim their religious convictions while delineating the territories that they were destined to inhabit. Specifically, the families “sang the survey” by reciting the twenty-third psalm aloud as they “marked out” plots of land that they had acquired.31 Presbyterians associated the moral transformation of British North America with the amorphous phenomenon of “improvement,” which historian Daniel Samson has usefully defined in a study of colonial Nova Scotia as “an inherently positive term that denoted not only progress and betterment for the individual and the nation but also the legitimation of capitalist consolidation and practice.”32 Members of the denomination saw improvement as the divinely ordained corollary to the infusion of Christian virtue into religiously neglected hinterland communities, and believed that it was manifest in the emergence of productive farms and bustling towns. Such views were expressed with ever-more intensity as the nineteenth century unfolded, and the undomesticated environment gave way to a “human-dominated” landscape peppered with schools and churches, post offices and prisons.33 The Presbyterians’ belief that patterns of Christian evangelism and improvement were entwined accords with the characteristics of what historian Doug Owram has described as the “Victorian intellectual world” that prevailed across much of the English-speaking world, including large swaths of Canada, for most of the nineteenth century. This outlook, he has argued, was premised on three interlocking features of Victorian ­culture: the belief that theirs was “an exceptionally progressive age”; an unquenchable desire to learn more about the natural world; and, not least, an abiding confidence in God’s superintending authority. Binding these characteristics together, Owram argues, was a particular conception of “truth,” one that allowed such seemingly disparate phenomena as capitalist acquisitiveness, scientific inquiry, and religious devotion to be seen as complementary. The result was a heady synthesis that was especially resonant in British North America/ Canada between the suppression of the rebellions in the late 1830s, and, several decades later, the intensification of the Darwinian challenge to Christian orthodoxy.34 For Burns, the progress exhibited in settlements on the shores of Lake Huron represented complementary patterns of material and moral improvement. Reflecting in the mid-1860s on his first visit to the

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region approximately twenty years before, Burns stated that he felt “astonishment” at the scale and speed of the “physical and moral changes” that had transpired. During the initial visit, he recalled, it had been little more than “an unbroken forest”; now, though, the region was “all taken up” by settlers, who were “settled peaceably and comfortably along road-lines judiciously marked out.” Their towns, moreover, were bejewelled with churches and schools “to an extent that augured well.” For Burns, the region’s material progress was connected to its moral progress; both phenomena, moreover, evinced the taming of the wilderness. He took pride in the transformation of what one of his parishioners described as “the virgin soil of Canada,” which would surely play host to “a new empire and a flourishing church.”35 Burns struck a similar chord while reflecting on a “missionary tour” that he had taken to eastern Upper Canada in 1845, which included an exploration of the Rideau Canal. Burns, who had travelled by steamer with “members of the Kingston Home Mission Committee,” observed somewhat ominously that the vessel’s “turnings and windings in a narrow but deep stream through the dense forest” reminded them “of the first invasion of an unknown land.” Yet he marvelled at the “massive works at ‘Jones’ Falls,’” which equipped the Presbyterians with “a very high idea of the skill and enterprise which had been embarked [on] in this mighty national undertaking – the Rideau Canal.” Burns attributed the enterprise, partially, to providential favour. He expressed gratitude for the fact that God,“the gracious disposer,” had bestowed on its Presbyterian superintendent, the businessman John Redpath, “the great elements of doing good – ample means and an enlarged heart.” Such technologically sophisticated initiatives showed the impressive extent to which humanity, under providential auspices, had subdued nature.36 Likewise, the sentimental recollections of W.A. MacKay, who reflected on the growth of the largely Presbyterian town of Zorra, Ontario, at the end of the nineteenth century, are indicative of the Presbyterian belief in a divinely sanctioned harmony between Christian evangelism and material improvement. He observed that “the traveller going through Oxford [the county in which Zorra is located] to-day” would be taken aback by  the magnitude and rapidity of its development. While the county boasted “commodious schoolhouses … comfortable homes … [and] fertile fields,” within the memory of its older inhabitants it had been little more than “an unbroken forest, where the wild Indian roved and the bear and wolf prowled.” The piety of Zorra’s early settlers was integral to this “wonderful change,” he stated. So important were their

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endeavours that “the memory of their holy faith and heroic deeds ought not to be allowed to lightly perish.”37 The idea that there was a complementary relationship between material and moral progress found perhaps its clearest expression in George Monro Grant’s Ocean to Ocean, which chronicled the transcontinental journey undertaken in 1872 by Sandford Fleming and his associates as they laid the groundwork for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Grant, a Presbyterian minister and eventual head of the Imperial Federation League, was the expedition’s official secretary and unofficial chaplain. His remarks, which gave pride of place to environmental themes, encapsulate the compelling belief that Canada’s provinces were destined “not to ripen and drop, one by one, into the arms of the Republic – but to work out their own future as an integral and important part of the grandest Empire in the world.”38 Grant focused on Canada’s natural resources to substantiate his argument about Canada’s destiny. Beginning in the east with Nova Scotia’s “sea-pastures” and coal deposits, as well as New Brunswick’s vast forests; running westward through “the great province of Ontario” into the “exhaustless glaciers of the Rocky Mountains”; and concluding with the Pacific coast, which offered a gateway to the lucrative markets and “swarming millions of Cathay,” Canada was a remarkably – perhaps singularly – fruitful field of activity.39 Given these advantageous environmental circumstances, he implored Canadians to “go forward” and exploit the Dominion’s natural endowments. In doing so, Grant reasoned, they would be making the most of what providence had set aside for their “possession,” which in turn would allow for the realization of Canada’s destiny as an integral part of a divinely favoured empire that was as good as it was great.40 Metropolitan Presbyterians espoused similar views concerning the supposedly symbiotic relationship between material and moral progress. Evidence can be gleaned from an editorial published in the February 1836 edition of the Missionary Record of the United Presbyterian Church, a Scottish publication. It described Upper Canada as a “finely situated, and rapidly rising country – a country which will soon come to occupy an important place among the nations.”41 The author added that the “rough mode of life” that had initially typified colonial existence was steadily waning as a result of the settlers’ efforts to “cut down their huge trees, and open spaces for cultivation.” Their activities precipitated remarkable – and, for the author, laudable – environmental change: the “axe, the plough, [and] the steam engine” were relentlessly subduing the

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wilderness, allowing settlers to enjoy many of the sophisticated comforts of “European life.” Bound up with these developments was the growth of Presbyterianism. For the author, “it will not be long ere … [the colonial church] takes its place side by side with us in the great enterprise of converting the world.”42 Paradoxically, Presbyterian enthusiasm for material improvement was compatible with their appreciation of certain natural environments. Where modern-day observers often see human-engineered development as a menace to the natural world, British North American Presbyterians (along with their coreligionists and other Christians elsewhere in the British Empire) saw initiatives such as the creation of farms and towns as the fulfillment of humanity’s divinely ordained duty to achieve dominion over nature. From their vantage point, human beings were making the most of a precious gift bestowed on them by their creator.43

T h e R o l e o f P res byteri an E c c l e s ias t ic a l Tradi ti ons Presbyterian attitudes toward communion festivals shed valuable light on the denomination’s environmental outlook. Their perceptions of these events, which revealed the significant differences between Presbyterians and members of other Christian groups, bring into focus the denomination’s conviction that the wilderness could be transformed into a benign garden and reconciled with God. They also underscore the fact that, for all their hostility toward the supposed wilderness, British North American Presbyterians did not disdain all forms of nature. Although they occurred elsewhere in British North America, including Prince Edward Island and Upper Canada, the festivals had an especially significant impact on Cape Breton where, as Laurie Stanley-Blackwell has shown, they contributed to the emergence of a vibrant Presbyterian culture in the mid-nineteenth century. During the first third of that century, she explains, “spiritual destitution” afflicted Cape Breton’s ­ Presbyterians. Several factors – a lack of clergy capable of speaking Gaelic to Scottish Highlanders, a large Roman Catholic population, and the infrequent dispensation of communion – stunted the denomination’s growth. Beginning in the 1830s, however, Cape Breton Presbyterianism was invigorated.44 Of central importance to this process were communion festivals: events revolving around the sacrament’s dispensation, which colonial Presbyterians travelled to from far and wide. Also known as the “sacramental

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season” (or “Sàcramaid”), the festivals were especially influential between 1840 and 1890, representing “a form of spiritual nourishment that rises above everyday life and represents the highest expression of the individual and collective encounter between God and His believers and the human journey to salvation.”45 They usually took place once per year “after the summer shearing or the fall harvest,” and were held outdoors because churches were unable to accommodate the vast crowds that amassed, the largest of which numbered in the thousands.46 In addition to their religious significance, the festivals offered a welcome respite from such adverse phenomena as the physical isolation of many communities and the social upheaval wrought by out-migration.47 Preparations for the festivals, which were spiritual as well as logistical, began several weeks in advance. Spiritually, Cape Breton Presbyterians strove to purify themselves so as to avoid profaning the holy event in which they were about to participate. Thus, in the lead-up to the festivals, they placed greater emphasis on family worship than they usually would, they ensured that debts were paid, and they appeared before kirk sessions charged with scrutinizing people’s behaviour and meting out punishments to unrepentant sinners. Logistically, Presbyterians who lived near the festival locations busily prepared for the influx of “pilgrims” from other communities who would be billeted in their homes and barns. The attendant obligations fell especially heavily on women, who were usually responsible for feeding their guests, among other festival-related burdens that added to their workloads.48 The festivals themselves adhered assiduously to a metropolitan model about which more will be said. They began several days before the dispensation of the sacrament, and involved fasting, sermons delivered in English and Gaelic, scriptural explication led by lay catechists known simply as “the men,” and, before the sacrament’s consumption, the distribution of communion tokens, which were lead coins that typically bore either a scriptural excerpt or a minister’s initials and signified that recipients were worthy of the “lord’s supper.”49 Doubtful of their worthiness, most participants elected not to partake of the sacrament for fear that doing so would cause irreparable harm to their souls, a concern that was consistent with Paul’s warning to the Corinthians “that those who [partake] unworthily [eat and drink] judgement upon themselves.” This belief, coupled with a desire to protect pious individuals from being negatively impacted by impious ones, meant that Calvinists traditionally barred reputedly dissolute people from receiving communion. In the context of the festivals, this tendency manifested in the “fencing of tables” – a

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practice whereby supposedly impious individuals were prevented from receiving the sacrament.50 While emotional outbursts were not unknown, especially during lively sermons designed to provoke strong reactions, an air of solemnity prevailed over the dispensation of the sacrament itself.51 Indeed, participants absorbed this aspect of the festivals in a state of religiously induced awe, prompting one observer to liken the proceedings to a “picnic of deaf mutes.”52 While they may have embraced the festivals more enthusiastically than their coreligionists elsewhere in early Canada, Cape Breton’s Presbyterians were not alone in abiding by the metropolitan template. For example, members of the denomination in Orwell, Prince Edward Island, took pains to adhere to traditions established overseas in staging communion festivals in the mid-nineteenth century. Their commitment to the preservation of Old World religious practices was at least as pronounced among second- and third-generation Islanders as it had been among their immigrant forebears, a testament to the endurance of metropolitan influences.53 As elsewhere, the festivals constituted “the event of the year.” Evidence can be seen in the distances people travelled in order to participate in these events, and in the reactions of the communities in which they took place: “People came from fifty miles. All work was suspended. Every house was filled, and many visitors were billeted in barns.”54 Participation in communion festivals integrated early Canadian Presbyterians into a longstanding transatlantic tradition. Although they originated in post-Reformation Scotland, they took on several of their most salient characteristics in the seventeenth century, when defiant Presbyterians in Scotland and Ulster responded to the Stuarts’ attempts to foist Episcopacy upon them by surreptitiously participating in illicit outdoor services.55 “[Forced] to flee from their persecutors and find shelter in the moors, glens and mountains,” devout Presbyterians known as the Covenanters consumed the “Lord’s Supper … under the blue canopy of heaven.”56 Re-enactments of this phenomenon galvanized metropolitan Presbyterianism in the years to come, as members of the denomination periodically gathered to worship outside and renew religious commitments. Nowhere was the impact of this tradition more apparent than in the Scottish Highlands, which hosted the “Cambuslang sacrament” of 1743, an event that attracted approximately 30,000 people. Though they were ostensibly religious gatherings, Highland communion festivals came to be associated with “sexual dalliances” and excessive drinking. So notorious were the proceedings that the poet Robbie Burns satirized them in “Holy Fairs.”57 (Burns’s relationship with Presbyterianism, the religion

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into which he was born, was complicated. Though he was capable of depicting Presbyterians as parochial hypocrites, as seen in “Willie’s Holy Prayer,” he also praised what he saw as their unpretentious devotion, as seen in “Cotter’s Saturday Night.”58) However, a rising tide of evangelicalism in the late eighteenth century served to tamp down, if not eradicate, irreverent behaviour. Thereafter, communion festivals tended to be approached with the “utmost seriousness,” notwithstanding occasional deviations.59 Communion festivals were imported to the New World beginning in the  seventeenth century, and flourished among British (and, especially, Highland) immigrants and their descendants. The tradition fuelled the rise of a vigorous evangelical culture in places like North Carolina and Kentucky, throwing into relief the existence of an expansive religious community that subsumed Protestants – including Presbyterians – on both sides of the Atlantic.60 Their impact on early Canada was considerable, as the festivals reinforced bonds between members of the denomination and their metropolitan forebears. In Cape Breton, for example, “many devout Presbyterians regarded these open-air communions as condensed re-enactments of the drama of the persecuted Covenanters who had sought the safety of secluded glens for their forbidden worship.”61 In bringing Presbyterians together in their new homes while providing them with ecclesiastical reminders of their old ones, the festivals nurtured a sense of communal cohesion. In Cape Breton, “a genuine Highland Sacrament of the olden time” galvanized the denomination and recalled the land where some of them had been born. Held in 1872, the event attracted people “from all directions,” and from as many as seventy-five miles away. The multigenerational gathering included everyone “from the grandsire of eighty winters to the youth of twelve summers!” The festivals elicited strong emotions, as exemplified by the participants’ reactions to the sermons that formed an integral part of the proceedings. Evidence could be seen in “a line of aged women, eyes glassy with the tear of emotion,” and in “a clump of old men with heads bare of bonnet or protecting locks,” who devoured “the preaching word.” For all their diversity, the participants were drawn together “by the time-hallowed associations of the sacred ordinance,” one that was integral to their Presbyterian identity.62 Communion festivals had a similar impact elsewhere. In Pictou, for example, they were viewed as “a season of joyful anticipation.” This sense of excitement derived chiefly from the fact that the events were “a reproduction of the open air communions in which, in the land of their

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fathers,” many of the colony’s Presbyterian immigrants had participated. Naturally, then, festivals held in Pictou “carried [their] thoughts far away to the better land,” and recalled “the Psalmists’ melancholy memories as he sang, ‘By Babel’s streams we sat and wept as Zion we thought on.’”63 In view of the festivals’ significance, it is hardly surprising that nostalgic participants experienced wistful pangs as they departed from the “sacred scene … that had renewed so many memories of a land, and of associations, beyond the sea.”64 Although they occasionally provided opportunities for “feasting and courtship,” communion festivals tended to be dour affairs.65 Evidence can be seen in the participants’ modest attire, as deviations from simple black clothing were associated with irreverence.66 (Sartorial uniformity also served to obscure socio-economic divisions between participants, contributing to the “communal aspect” of the proceedings.67) It can also be seen in their behaviour. Consider the following description of the sombre interactions that took place between members of the denomination at one Cape Breton festival: “the greeting was sober; sisters even did not kiss; many met at first in silence, with teeth set and eyes fixed, and shook hands vigorously a long time with the motion of sawing wood.”68 Participants also exhibited remarkable religious devotion. Take, for example, the following account of the conduct of roughly 1,000 Pres­ byterians who took part in a late nineteenth-century festival in Cape ­Breton, which involved lengthy sermons delivered amid a downpour: for five hours and twenty minutes that multitude sat upon the soaking sward as if glued to it. During the first two hours of that time, the rain came down incessantly. Comparatively few had umbrellas to raise and every male had his head uncovered … They did not stir from that spot until nearly half past four o’clock … Greedier hearers of Gospel truth, it has never been my privilege to witness.69 Communion festivals were influenced by evangelical enthusiasm. Yet they differed significantly from the revivalist gatherings of other evangelically inclined denominations. For example, the festivals’ emphasis on Calvinist orthodoxy, scriptural explication, and solemn deportment distinguished them from superficially similar events orchestrated by such groups as the Methodists. Although they took place outdoors and involved large crowds, the Methodists’ revivalist events (or “camp meetings”) were characterized by Arminianism, an alternative theological outlook to Calvinism that stressed “the universality of God’s saving

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grace” as opposed to predestination; a lack of biblical analysis; and frequent emotional outbursts that included “shouting and wailing, violent bodily shaking, [and] even fainting.” Also, certain observers may have objected to the fact that radical revival festivals, and the culture of evangelical exuberance to which they were linked, afforded enthusiastic women opportunities to serve as lay exhorters, which ran counter to notions of patriarchal propriety.70 Presbyterians criticized the Methodists’ events as doctrinally dubious, socially anarchic, and unlikely to engender conversions. Accordingly, Thomas McCulloch denounced them in the early nineteenth century as so many “revolting displays of human debasement,” while George Patterson dismissed them several decades later as “the getting up [of] a mere animal excitement by means fitted to excite weak nerves.”71 Such criticisms demonstrate that, while Presbyterians may have been part of a larger Protestant culture that coalesced in the mid-nineteenth century, they clung to unique ecclesiastical traditions, and objected to the perceived excesses of radical evangelicalism.72 A sustained critique of radical revivalism appeared in the June 1861 edition of the Home and Foreign Record of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces of British North America. These gatherings, the author noted, laid bare a distressing tendency to prioritize “outbursts of feeling” over scriptural explication.73 Although the author did not deny that preaching took place at the radicals’ revivals, it was said to be subordinate to untutored exuberance. Because it emphasized emotional spontaneity over a thorough examination of God’s Word – which, for the author, was the only viable mechanism for “turning men from darkness to light” – radical revivalism was unable to achieve a meaningful “change of heart,” a failing that was evident in the frequency with which supposed converts regressed into impiety after their conversions.74 Presbyterians associated communion festivals with the redemption of nature. An example of this tendency is Patterson’s account of the festivals that took place “beneath the canopy of heaven” around the turn of the nineteenth century in Pictou, which was at that time the Atlantic region’s “evangelical heartland.”75 Consistent with Stanley’s account, Patterson described a series of events that culminated with the dispensation of the “lord’s supper,” and included fasting, sermons, scriptural explication, and the distribution of communion tokens. The process began on a Thursday afternoon and ran until as late as eleven o’clock on Sunday night, with the following Monday being reserved for spiritual reflection and expressions of “Thanksgiving.”76

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The communion festival, for Patterson, reflected the moral transformation of the wilderness. Specifically, he felt that the environment in which it had occurred had been infused with religious awe: as Presbyterians solemnly made their way to and from the table from which the sacrament was dispensed, “nature seemed hushed in silence, and the trees of the wood appeared as if listening to the voice of the servant of God, while the far off echoes sounded as the response of the work of creation to the celebration of redemption.” For Patterson, the natural environment had been imbued with religious virtue, and was itself exulting in the moral transformation that had taken place.77 A further sign of the Presbyterian tendency to equate communion festivals with the redemption of nature can be seen in their responses to events on Cape Breton several decades after the proceedings recounted by Patterson. In July 1858, for example, “thousands” of Presbyterians gathered outdoors at a rustic location along the Mira River, where “the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was dispensed.” According to an observer writing in the Presbyterian Witness and Evangelical Advocate, “a rich effusion of the Spirit was shed … in many a heart.” So intense was the piety of the proceedings that it was said to reveal “that a divine Majesty rested upon the place.” Rather than being a God-forsaken wilderness, the natural environment in which the event occurred revealed the presence of divinity itself.78 Similarly, after a communion festival held in West Bay, Cape Breton, in July 1864, a Presbyterian commentator observed that the event’s natural setting “was made not with [human] hands,” but instead betokened “God’s workmanship.” The commentator added that, while it was necessary to hold the event outdoors because the community’s “meeting houses” were too small to accommodate the throngs of Presbyterians that amassed, had the participants been given the choice they likely would have preferred “the hill side, the green grass, the mossy hillock, the leafy roof, the cool shade, the gentle breeze, the sweet smell, [and] the blue sky” to an actual church, “however comfortable.” For the commentator, partly this was due to the fact that such phenomena were reminiscent of communion festivals that certain Presbyterians had participated in in the Scottish Highlands before immigrating to British North America. Yet it was also due to the fact that the environment in which the festival took place had been imbued with holiness. God had answered the prayers of “many an expectant and longing soul” by “making the place of his feet glorious … and all the places around [him] … a blessing.”79 In addition to discerning it in the natural environment, divinity was also thought to

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be apparent in the pious silence that attended the proceedings: “Oh, the surrounding silence was eloquent, men and women … young and old together felt … how God was in this place – how reverence was in this place – how it was none other than the house of God – how it was the gate of heaven.”80 The Reverend Robert Burns expressed comparable sentiments after participating in a “delightful” communion season in Kincardine, Ontario, in 1867. He noted that upwards of 1,500 Presbyterians participated in the event, which showed Christianity’s growing influence in the region. Burns also noted that palpable piety prevailed over the proceedings. “All was deeply solemn,” he reported, “and conducted with beautiful order and quietness.” Religious solemnity had engulfed both the people of Kincardine and their natural environment, with the sacrament being dispensed in an orderly manner beneath what a gratified Burns described as the “canopy of heaven.”81 The contrast between Burns’s enthusiastic environmental outlook and the anti-wilderness perspectives evinced by British North America’s early Presbyterian missionaries could not have been starker. That members of the denomination were capable of evincing fondness for certain natural environments demonstrates that Presbyterians did not harbour animosity toward nature in all its guises. Rather, they expressed hostility toward natural phenomena over which Christianity had little influence, while displaying fondness for environments – including ones in  Cape Breton and Ontario – that had seemingly been infused with ­religious virtue. This tendency qualifies the notion that, of all religious traditions, Judeo-Christianity has been especially “anti-natural,” since the anti-wilderness views that pervaded British North American Presbyterianism (among other groups) did not prevent members of the denomination from expressing appreciation for natural settings that, in their view, had been Christianized.82 It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine decisively which factor(s) caused early Canadian Presbyterians to bestow praise on certain natural environments. Nonetheless, it bears mentioning that their fondness for those environments meshed with Calvinist doctrine, which sees nature “as the most important source of God outside the Bible.” Calvin believed that human beings were incapable of attaining knowledge of God through their own interpretive faculties, which in his view were miserably deficient as a result of original sin. Instead, Calvin felt that “the most perfect way of seeking God … [is] for us to contemplate him in his works whereby he rendered himself near and familiar to us, and in some

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manner communicates himself [to us].” Such convictions prompted him to declare “that it can be said reverently … that nature is God.” Comparable views appear in the Westminster Confession, which states that “the Light of Nature, and the works of Creation… manifest the Goodness, Wisdom, and Power of God.”83 Given their centrality to Presbyterian theology, it seems plausible that such sentiments may have informed the denomination’s environmental outlook in nineteenth-­ century Canada. The Presbyterian capacity for celebrating nature can be seen in the views of Agnes Machar, a versatile writer and public intellectual who was also a devout member of the denomination. In the late nineteenth century, Machar, who was based in Kingston, Ontario, routinely wrote of, in historian Ruth Compton Brouwer’s words, “the glories of a flower, a wood, or a sunset.” Machar’s inspiration derived in large part from the  fact that such delightful phenomena revealed that “the universe was something more than ‘a cold, material, loveless sphere.’”84 By no means hostile to the untamed environment, Machar rhapsodized about what she saw as God’s gracious presence in the natural environment ­surrounding her. In addition to communion festivals, church courts (or kirk sessions) were central to the Presbyterians’ efforts to Christianize northern North America. Throughout the nineteenth century, early Canada’s principal evangelical denominations – the Methodists, the Baptists, and the Presbyterians – policed their members’ behaviour in hopes of discouraging vice and purging incorrigible sinners from their congregations. For the Methodists, this process took place in class meetings, in which members of a congregation gathered in one of their coreligionists’ homes (or, for want of sufficient space, their barns) and discussed various issues, including members’ supposed moral trespasses. For the Baptists, ministers and deacons investigated unsavoury conduct at “covenant meetings” typically attended by the entire congregation. As for the Presbyterians, ethical offences were investigated at meetings of the kirk session. There, ministers and elders assessed offences, interrogated perpetrators, and administered punishments typically ranging from admonishment to excommunication.85 Kirk sessions reinforced early Canadian Presbyterians’ attachment to their heritage while providing a means of adapting to shifting circumstances. Historian Nancy Christie has explained that these institutions strengthened Presbyterians’ sense of continuity with the past through the perpetuation of a tradition with overseas roots. Yet she has also explained

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that they acted as “mediators of newer mental worlds” – that is, as forums through which members of the denomination adapted to social, political, and economic transformations. Thus, they contributed to a denominational ethos that was simultaneously anchored in the past and capable of adapting to the present.86 Protestant church courts – including Presbyterian kirk sessions – proliferated in the mid-nineteenth century. In this era, religiously neglected peoples increasingly came under the influence of ecclesiastical institutions as British North America underwent a transition from a simple economy based on subsistence agriculture to one that was comparatively sophisticated and market-oriented. Indicative of this shift was the construction of costly churches in expanding communities, which facilitated large-scale institutionalized Christian observance. The churches’ proliferation, coupled with the crystallization of a “Protestant culture,” resulted in the intensification of systematic evangelical efforts to regulate people’s conduct.87 Why were Protestants willing to allow their actions to be monitored, and potentially penalized, by religious bodies whose rulings were not legally binding? Historian Lynne Marks has insightfully argued that adherence to church courts sprang mainly from devout Christians’ belief that they were obligated to abide by their denominations’ moral standards, based as they reputedly were on unimpeachable religious doctrines. It followed that failure to do so warranted scrutiny and punishment. Additionally, devout Christians may have thought that church courts were patterned on disciplinary institutions implemented by the early Christian church, a belief that presumably would have lent heightened legitimacy to the bodies’ modern-day rulings.88 Protestant church courts’ influence waned in the late nineteenth century. There are several potential explanations for this development, including: the creation of dominion-wide churches, whose centralized bureaucracies sapped individual congregations’ autonomy; the impact of Darwinian science and biblical “higher criticism,” which led to a relaxation of Protestant orthodoxy; the sophistication of the secular legal system, which rendered church courts redundant; and a growing reluctance among bourgeois church members to have their behaviour dissected by their working-class counterparts. Whatever the reason for their decline, however, there can be little doubt that church courts exerted substantial influence for much of the nineteenth century.89 Early Canadian Presbyterians, in seeking to promote virtue and erad­ icate vice, strove to purge the wilderness of sin. They utilized church

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courts as a means of combatting depravity, which, as we have seen, was thought to be especially pervasive in backwoods settings. In seeking to purify society, Presbyterian authorities from a particular congregation would divide communities into discrete districts. Members of the congregation residing in these districts would then have their behaviour monitored, inspected, and (in some cases) punished by either elders or the minister, who served as moderator of the kirk session. Testifying to the impact on nineteenth-century Canada of disciplinary traditions that developed in the Calvinist communities of early modern Europe, elders were responsible for exercising “a vigilant inspection over the families and individuals in [their] respective quarters in particular and over this congregation and the church in general,” while ministers were charged with visiting the congregation “from house to house with regularity.”90 Kirk sessions were also responsible for reporting to higher levels of Presbyterian church government on such matters as “the state of religion” in their congregation, and whether in their communities “the discipline of the church [was] faithfully maintained.”91 Such regimentation contrasted with the chaos that supposedly held sway over the wilderness, and reflected the denomination’s yearning to impose order on early Canada, including its remote communities. Accordingly, in the summer of 1849, the kirk session of Earltown, Nova Scotia, declared that the community would be “divided into sections.” Elders and the minister assumed responsibility for assessing the congregation members residing in particular districts, and for reporting on “the state and progress of religion” within them at meetings of the kirk session. People suspected of impious behaviour would then be called before the body and subjected to its rulings.92 Much like their counterparts elsewhere, Earltown’s Presbyterian authorities believed that such measures were necessary if they hoped to purify their communities. An example of the Earltown church court’s attempt to enforce morality can be seen in their response, in 1850, to the case of Jane M., who was accused by her husband Donald of conceiving an illegitimate child with his journeyman assistant, Alexander.93 After gathering information about the situation, the court affirmed that “no undue motives” had prompted Donald’s charge, and that his wife appeared to have been “in most blameworthy and suspicious circumstances.” At a subsequent meeting of session, Jane, who had been summoned to appear before the body, confessed her guilt, although she refused to elaborate on what she had done wrong, and explicitly denied that the child she was carrying had been conceived out of wedlock. Despite her efforts to mitigate the situation, the session

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arrived at the “painful conclusion” that Mrs M. was “guilty of the crime laid to her charge.” Her punishment? Excommunication “from the privileges of the Christian Church.”94 Kirk sessions’ rulings were not always so harsh. For instance, in February 1843 the session of St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Markham, Canada West, investigated the case of two people, Alexander D. and Ann B., who had been accused of “fornication” and suspended from the church. Both people appeared before the session and “made satisfactory acknowledgements” regarding their behaviour. After processing their remarks, the session ruled that they “should be re-instated in to the privileges of the church.”95 Yet while the session’s ruling was relatively lenient, the fact that it had the authority to suspend Alexander D. and Ann B., summon them to one of their meetings, and pass judgment on their conduct lays bare the moral authority wielded by the institution within early Canadian Presbyterianism. Presbyterian efforts to assert moral authority over early Canada could also be seen in larger communities. Consider the disciplinary measures undertaken by Hamilton, Canada West’s Central Presbyterian Church in the mid-nineteenth century. Much like the congregation of Earltown, the community was divided into districts, with each one assigned to individual elders or the minister. These figures, in turn, were charged with the moral “inspection” of congregation members residing within their district’s boundaries.96 The session’s objective, congruent with the aims of Presbyterian church courts in other locations, was to promote popular piety and rid their communities of sin. The case of Mrs Robert S. is indicative of Central Presbyterian Church’s desire to eradicate drunkenness. In September 1853, the church’s moderator, John H., stated that he and an elder, Mr L., had recently visited the home of Mrs Robert S., a congregation member. According to John, she was found to be “very much under the influence of intoxicating drink.” The moderator added that, in another instance, he had dropped in on Mrs Robert in hopes of discussing the matter further, only to find her in a state of denial about the inebriated condition in which she had been discovered on his first visit. Despite the denial, Mrs Robert was summoned to appear before the kirk session later that month to “answer” to the charge of drunkenness made against her. She appeared, and denied the charge. In an attempt to defend her character she provided the church court with a letter signed by a friend, Jane, which stated that Mrs Robert had recently spent two days in her home while on a vacation and that, for the entirety of the visit, she “did not taste any kind of drink.”97

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Mr L., the elder who had accompanied the moderator on his initial “visitation,” proceeded to testify. He stated that, on their arrival, Mrs Robert had been found “sitting on the step of her door.” She stumbled while attempting to rise, which purportedly revealed that she had been drunk. Ultimately, as a result of several factors – including the evidence marshalled against her, her “disagreeable” response, and her insufficiently persuasive “evidence” – Mrs Robert was suspended from church privileges.98 She was summoned to appear before the session again in the autumn of the following year. The summons was prompted by a “charge of drunkenness” levelled against her by the local police, and for which she had been fined the sum of ten shillings. Her subsequent failure to appear before the session resulted in her suspension from church privileges, a punishment that was to continue until she demonstrated willingness to comply with the session’s decrees.99 Four years later, Mrs Robert S. was found yet again to be in “a state of intoxication” by the moderator. Two church elders were dispatched to meet with her, and she was solicited to appear before the kirk session. In this instance, she appeared before the disciplinary body. Mrs Robert confessed her guilt, pledging to attempt to remain sober in the future, although she conceded that she “could not promise” to foreswear the consumption of strong drink forever. Deeming this confession insufficient, the session concluded that, due to her frequent appearance before them for “the same fault,” and her manifest inability to refrain from dissolute behaviour, her name should be deleted from the communion roll, signifying excommunication.100 Admittedly, Hamilton’s Central Presbyterian Church was located in an expanding city, rather than a hinterland village. Nevertheless, the attempts of the congregation’s kirk session to discourage dissolute behaviour within its sphere of influence mesh with a broader Presbyterian pattern of striving to eliminate sin from early Canada – including its backwoods settlements – through the systematic projection of the denomination’s authority. This impulse bespeaks the abiding importance of a disciplinary emphasis that originated in Calvin’s Geneva. Early Canadian Presbyterians believed that the moral wilderness could be purged of sinfulness and brought under godly auspices. They felt that this objective could be achieved by promoting religious virtue in remote communities among settlers and Natives whose cultures they strove to transform with ever-more tenacity as the nineteenth century unfolded.

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Presbyterians used stereotypically feminine language in describing remote regions that had been Christianized, and were no longer perceived as ominous. Additionally, they believed that the promotion of piety in backwoods environments would result in a transition in which an irre­ ligious din would be replaced by either reverential silence or audible Christian zeal, and they associated the denomination’s expanding influence in such settings with environmentally transformative patterns of material improvement that were supposedly borne out in the creation of fruitful farms and towns that signalled humanity’s achievement of dominion over nature. Such assumptions accord with the prevalent nineteenthcentury faith in the era’s singularly progressive character. Presbyterian ecclesiastical traditions were central to the denomination’s perception of the undomesticated environment. Their attitudes toward communion festivals, which attested to significant differences between members of the denomination and their counterparts in other Christian groups, demonstrate their conviction that the untamed natural world could be made holy. They also show that the Presbyterians’ animosity toward the untamed environment did not render them hostile to all forms nature, as members of the denomination, in keeping with Calvinist doctrine, exulted in natural environments that, in their view, betokened God’s presence in the natural world. For their part, kirk ­sessions attest to the Presbyterians’ systematic campaign to combat sinfulness, which was thought to be especially prevalent in backwoods settlements (although their influence also manifested in urban centres). In the final analysis, early Canadian Presbyterians believed that, through the vigorous promotion of Protestant piety, the sinful wilds could be transformed into God’s garden.

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P art F o u r History

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8 Saving John Knox’s House So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David until the carrying away into Babylon are fourteen generations; and from the carrying away into Babylon unto Christ are fourteen generations. Matthew 1:17

… the whig historian can draw lines through certain events, some such lines as that which leads through Martin Luther and a long succession of whigs to modern liberty; and if he is not careful he begins to forget that this line is merely a mental trick of his; he comes to imagine that it represents something like a line of causation. Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History (1931): 12

A marble statue on the main floor of Knox College, Toronto, captures the agonizing end of a young woman’s life. Based on the work of the Victorian sculptor C.B. Birch, and donated to the school by Senator A.C. Hardy of Brockville, Ontario, in 1938, it depicts a slightly larger-than-life-sized woman – Margaret Wilson – tied to a sturdy stake. A stoical veneer is etched on her face; anguish smoulders beneath the surface. Wilson nobly gazes heavenward as she awaits inescapable death. Although it may be apocryphal, the event that the statue depicts is part of an elaborate historical narrative that featured prominently within early Canadian Presbyterianism, as we will see. The statue is the product of a Presbyterian mythology that has been promoted by figures like the Scottish antiquary Robert Wodrow, whose writings highlighted hardships endured by members of the denomination at the hands of Stuart kings.1 Wilson and another woman, Margaret McLachlan, were sentenced to death in 1685 for refusing to take an oath

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of abjuration that effectively entailed repudiating their Presbyterian beliefs and acquiescing to the Crown’s politico-religious supremacy. In the late seventeenth century, Presbyterians in Scotland and Ulster who rejected the Episcopalian system thrust upon them by the Stuarts opted to participate in illicit outdoors services, or “conventicles.” These gatherings allowed the denomination’s most ardent adherents to worship freely, unmolested by hostile authorities. Wilson and McLachlan, along with Wilson’s sister Agnes, were apprehended on their way home from one such service, which had been held surreptitiously in the countryside of southwestern Scotland. Their unwillingness to renounce their convictions ran counter to the aims of the Stuart regime, which sought to cement its authority over Scotland’s populace. According to Wodrow and those whom he has influenced, the narrative surrounding Wilson’s execution runs as follows. Thirteen-year-old Agnes, the youngest of the three captives, was freed after her parents paid a fine. The two older women were not so fortunate. For their insubordination, eighteen-year-old Margaret Wilson and sixty-three-year-old Margaret McLachlan were sentenced to death by drowning. Accordingly, they were tied to stakes in an estuary near their home of Wigtown, Scotland, where a rising tide was to take their lives. As the waters rose, Wilson was given a final opportunity to repudiate her beliefs. She had been forced moments before to witness the fatal submergence of McLachlan, whose stake had been planted amid deeper waters further away from shore. Wilson’s persecutors assumed that subjecting the younger – and thus, they reckoned, more pliable – woman to such a ghastly spectacle would bring about an eleventh-hour change of heart. They were wrong. Wilson rebuffed the offer, remaining steadfast in her beliefs until the awful end. She reputedly spent her final living moments reciting from memory excerpts from Psalm 25 and Book of Romans. And thus a martyr was born.2 Wilson’s execution may never have taken place. Evidence derived from seventeenth-century records indicates that, instead of dying in such a horrific manner, Wilson likely repudiated her views and received a pardon. (The experience of the oft-forgotten McLachlan, for its part, is thought to have been virtually identical.) Yet the fact that the narrative of Wilson’s demise may be apocryphal has not prevented it from being accepted by Presbyterians in Scotland, as well as elsewhere in the world, as an accurate account of what happened. Indeed, Wilson’s death features prominently in accounts of the “Killing Times” of the late seventeenth century, when scores of Presbyterians were actually executed for refusing to

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renounce their beliefs. Her final moments, in the estimation of sympathetic observers, epitomize Presbyterian courage and conviction amid grinding oppression. According to the text that accompanies the statue, Wilson’s “martyrdom symbolizes the sufferings of numerous covenanted men and women opposed to kingly domination.” The statue has proven controversial for reasons that have precious little to do with the early modern circumstances that occasioned its creation. In the early 1990s, a polarizing debate played out over whether the statue should be moved from the “main rotunda” in which it was located to a less prominent location elsewhere in the college. Proponents of moving the statue argued that it symbolized misogynistic violence (in addition to being bound to a stake, the woman it depicts happens to be bare-breasted) – an issue that was especially pressing for many Canadians in this era due to the École Polytechnique massacre that had occurred in Montreal in 1989. Their critics, by contrast, argued that the campaign to have the statue moved was unnecessary, and equated it with the growing (and, in their view, alarming) societal influence of excessive “sensitivity,” “political correctness,” and “censorship.” Ultimately, the statue was relocated from the rotunda to a less conspicuous location outside the college boardroom; however, it was not placed within the boardroom itself, which was one of the destinations to which it might have been sent, and which would have rendered it all but inaccessible to the public because the room is usually locked. Deeply divided though they were, participants on both sides of this debate – which transcended its academic environment of origin and surfaced in the pages of the Toronto Star and the Vancouver Sun – had at least one thing in common. They largely ignored the early modern politicoreligious circumstances that were supposed to have led to Wilson’s execution, and the covenanting tradition with which she is associated.3 The term “covenanting” in the context of Wilson’s (alleged) awful demise is saturated with meaning. It implicitly refers to such phenomena as the National Covenant of 1638, through which thousands of Scots pledged their devotion to Presbyterianism and constitutional governance in response to the unpopular religious and political impositions of Charles I and William Laud; the Solemn League and Covenant of 1643, which bound Scotland’s most enthusiastic Presbyterians to the English Parliamentarians during their civil war with the Royalists; and, not least, the sacred bond that wedded God to his chosen people, the Israelites, as recounted in Genesis. Thus, the term “covenanted” integrates Wilson (one of the “Wigtown martyrs”) and her counterparts into an utterly grand historical lineage.4

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The statue of Margaret Wilson attests to the potency of Presbyterianism’s past. Members of the denomination have exalted the Covenanters for upwards of three centuries. What is more, their influence transcends the religious realm, especially in Scotland.5 There, the Covenanters’ legacy has been appropriated, modified, and yoked into the service of groups advocating everything from nineteenth-century Utopianism to contemporary constitutional devolution.6 Early Canadian Presbyterians fit neatly within this tradition. A compelling conception of the past, in which groups like the Covenanters occupied a prominent position, permeated the denomination. This conception anchored nineteenth-century Presbyterians in a historical narrative that began two thousand years before Jesus’s birth with the covenant between God and Israel, and climaxed with the Christian millennium, an event that will be discussed in the next chapter. The intervening events – which included dramatic clashes between heroes and villains – represented the divinely orchestrated unspooling of the providential plan. As we will see, the denomination’s narrative abided by a mythical formula, and reflected the impact of intellectual traditions that have emphasized the progressive trajectory of history. Notwithstanding the Wigtown Martyrs’ plight, the Presbyterians’ narrative was unmistakably patriarchal. Men, acting under providential ­auspices, were the catalysts of historical change. Women, by contrast, received scant attention. Members of the denomination situated themselves in a male-dominated tradition in which they were responsible for advancing the divinely sanctioned work of a series of heroic actors, including the ancient Israelites, Protestant icons John Calvin and John Knox, and fiercely pious factions like the Covenanters and the Puritans – with the latter group portrayed as a “kindred” community with whom Presbyterians shared a flinty commitment to Calvinist orthodoxy and an unwavering opposition to tyranny.7 These groups and individuals were held up as champions of righteous phenomena, including the religious and civil liberty that purportedly flourished in Britain after the Glorious Revolution. Various Canadian Presbyterians were incorporated into this lineage, including the Huguenots of New France (who, as Calvinists, were portrayed as Canada’s “first Presbyterians”); James MacGregor, a pioneering missionary in the Maritimes; and John Black, the denomination’s “apostle” at the Red River settlement. Seen through the prism of the denomination’s historical account, early Canadian Presbyterians were not simply one of many Christian groups struggling to carve out a niche for themselves on the British Empire’s

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outskirts. Rather, they were part of a venerable tradition that was instrumental to the worldwide diffusion of piety and liberty. True, members of the denomination were not the only Christians to situate themselves in a prestigious lineage.8 Yet this fact should not obscure the Presbyterians’ conviction that they were heirs of a special tradition that united exceptional peoples throughout history. Naïve though their outlook may have been, members of the denomination believed that theirs was a singularly righteous inheritance. This chapter will survey the Presbyterian rendering of the past and explore its significance within the denomination’s mental world. It contends that their historical narrative, in addition to reflecting many of the denomination’s bedrock beliefs, served several purposes. The Presbyterians’ supposed involvement in a glorious epic conferred legitimacy on their ecclesiastical traditions, and contributed to notions of denomin­ ational pride and providential purpose. Additionally, it reinforced ­sentimental attachments to the homelands left behind by Presbyterian immigrants from Scotland and Ulster, and spurred on the denomination’s adherents in their efforts to Christianize society.9 Given its multivalent significance, the importance of the denomination’s narrative to the Presbyterian worldview can hardly be overstated.

N a r r at in g P r e s b y teri an Hi s tory The Presbyterians’ historical narrative focused on the persistence of a righteous tradition that originated among the ancient Israelites, a divinely favoured people who were credited with pioneering the denomination’s distinctive governmental system. According to the Presbyterians’ understanding of the past, this tradition was nurtured by the early Christian church following a rupture between God and Israel, and imported to the British Isles by St Patrick and St Columba in the fifth and sixth centuries, respectively. European sects – the Waldenses and the Albigenses – sheltered the tradition in the medieval period, when Roman Catholic “prelacy” threatened its survival. The tradition was reinvigorated in the era of the Reformation by iconic figures like Luther, Calvin, and Knox, and defended against the Stuarts’ onslaught in the seventeenth century by the Covenanters and the Puritans. The latter groups, who Presbyterians portrayed as complementary entities, purportedly laid the groundwork for the proliferation of religious and civil liberty in Britain after 1688. Early Canadian Presbyterians integrated northern North American groups into this legacy – including the Huguenots and the denomination’s early

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representatives in the Maritimes and the West – and conceived of themselves as stewards of a line that began in ancient Israel. The Presbyterians’ interpretation of history adhered to a mythic formula that has been illuminated by Northrop Frye. He described myth as a “type of story” that dissolves “boundaries separating legend, historical reminiscence, and actual history.”10 Myths, for Frye, are not unerringly accurate accounts of the past, but rather literary mechanisms through which elaborate stories are told. Typically, they consist of discrete beginnings, definitive endings, and an intervening sequence of events including trying setbacks and invigorating advances. Representative of this structure is the biblical narrative itself. Situated between the dawn of time and the apocalypse is an alternating series of uplifting advances and depressing setbacks – the Creation, the Fall, the forging of the covenant, and so on – that unfold in a wave-like pattern.11 The Presbyterian historical account dovetails with Frye’s remarks. It had a beginning (the special relationship between God and Israel), an end (the millennium), and a series of events in between that included struggles between virtuous protagonists and their demonic adversaries. This intervening sequence functioned as a narrative engine, propelling the account along from one conflict to the next, and infusing it with a palpable sense of drama. The denomination’s interpretation of history also had a recognizably mythical “shape,” as it alternated rhythmically between successes and disappointments in an undulating pattern. The Presbyterians’ mythic rendering of the past ultimately acted as a vehicle though which members of the denomination substantiated their membership in a majestic historical tradition. The Presbyterian narrative also bore the imprint of two intellectual traditions that have stressed the theme of progress. The first centred on the notion that England was an elect nation, which ultimately exerted influence throughout the British world. Integral to this tradition was John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, which was initially published in English in 1563. This book, which was probably read by more people in early modern England than any text other than the Bible, celebrated the struggles of virtuous peoples against an array of antagonists, with an emphasis on the plight of Protestant martyrs during the reign of Mary Tudor. It drew on an ancient tradition associated with such scholars as the Venerable Bede and Geoffrey of Monmouth, which chronicled England’s progression over time; and it proliferated largely as a result of the vigorous print culture that burst forth in the Elizabethan era.12

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Foxe’s work contributed to the notion that England and its peoples were divinely favoured entities that had been set apart, literally and figuratively, from the rest of the world, and who were endowed with responsibility for advancing God’s plan. While early modern scholars and their successors came to doubt aspects of the ancient tradition on which Foxe drew – say, the notion that Joseph of Arimathea founded the English Church, or the idea that Brutus was Britain’s first king – they did not doubt the fundamentally progressive arc of history, or the privileged cosmic position of the English nation and its peoples. Shaping the attitudes of poets and politicians, preachers and planters, this notion became enmeshed in the English (after 1707, the British) identity.13 It seems likely that the resonance of this tradition within Presbyterianism would have been enhanced by the fact that it meshed with the notion of Scotland as a divinely favoured nation fused to God through a covenant, a compelling idea initially enunciated by John Knox.14 The second intellectual tradition influencing the Presbyterians’ ­narrative was the Whig interpretation of history, which exerted influence across the English-speaking world after the Glorious Revolution and reached its apogee during the Victorian age. “Whig history,” according to historian John Burrow, “is, by definition, a success story.” While it is capable of acknowledging the existence of inauspicious phenomena, the Whig interpretation conceives of the past as a fundamentally progressive succession of events that culminate in such positive outcomes as the triumph, in Britain, of “constitutional liberty and representative institutions.”15 Of central importance to the Whig historian is the existence of a causal relationship between the present and an illustrious tradition whose origins can be traced linearly into the past. By establishing an “authentic, unimpeachable line of descent” with this tradition, Whig historians can depict themselves and their societies as its “true … preservers.”16 Such an approach invests their beliefs and behaviour with validity and prestige, while portraying the past as the foreordained unfurling of an inherently progressive series of steps. While it is not monolithic – on the contrary, Whig scholars in differing contexts have approached history in differing ways – the tradition’s practitioners have tended to share an optimistic attitude toward the past and its relationship with the present. While the Whig interpretation fell out of favour in the early twentieth century – the first generation of professional historians, for instance, criticized what they saw as the unduly romantic tendencies of the Whigs, many of whom

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were “gentlemen amateurs” – its decline should not obscure the magnitude of its impact during the era in which it held sway.17 The Presbyterians’ progressive narrative bespoke the influence of both of these intellectual traditions. Their conception of themselves as a divinely favoured people tasked with bringing the providential plan to fruition bore a close resemblance to the notion of national election forwarded by figures like Foxe. And their portrayal of themselves as the heirs of a singularly righteous heritage originating in ancient Israel accorded with the characteristics of Whig scholarship. Yet the fact that the Presbyterians’ understanding of the past was derivative of other influential intellectual traditions should not conceal the particular deep-seated beliefs that informed the denomination’s account. The way in which they narrated their story may have been imitative, but its content reflected convictions about the past that were expressed with palpable fervour on myriad occasions. Early Canadian Presbyterians believed that a responsibility for advancing God’s plan had been passed down throughout the ages from one providentially favoured group to the next, and saw themselves as a link in this magnificent, unbroken chain. Their ability to substantiate their place in this lineage hinged on the existence of continuity between themselves and the ancient Israelites, a special group who were separated from the rest of the nations for the benefit of the human race … and chosen by God, to be the depositaries of those interesting and important revelations, which he made from time to time to the world, for the purpose of preparing it for the reception of the Gospel.18 Presbyterians, accordingly, took pains to portray themselves as a covenanted people who enjoyed a special relationship with God. Without this status the Presbyterians’ understanding of the past crumbled, amounting at best to an elaborate fiction, at worst a pathetic delusion.19 That members of the denomination conceived of themselves as a divinely favoured people comports with a longstanding tradition that features prominently within Calvinist, or “Reformed,” Christianity. In the early modern era, for example, such notions were central to the sense of collective identity and providential purpose felt by Calvinists dispersed across Europe, many of whom had been forced to relocate from evermore-inhospitable homelands as a result of their deviations from Roman Catholic orthodoxy. While these Calvinists’ belief that they enjoyed a

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special relationship with God was hardly unique, it was “distinctive in … [the] frequency and intensity” with which it was deployed.20 The Presbyterians’ belief in their status as latter-day Israelites was evident in a series of Sabbath school lessons published in 1874 in The Monthly Record of the Church of Scotland in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Adjoining Provinces. The lessons, which aimed to instil Christian morality in young people’s minds, stressed the Israelites’ privileged cosmic status, and portrayed nineteenth-century Presbyterians as their covenanted successors. Consider the following lesson, from Exodus, on Moses’s parting of the Red Sea. It offered “wonderful proof” of God’s fondness for Israel, “His ancient and chosen people.” With seething waters before them and Egyptian tormentors hot on their heels, the Israelites were understandably beset by fear. Yet Moses, whose faith in God was unwavering, enacted his will and parted the waters, allowing for their deliverance.21 For the lesson’s author, the miraculous escape of God’s chosen people highlighted the fact that the universe’s creator, who is “the same yesterday, today, and forever,” shelters “His people,” wherever they go. “Very often,” the author added, “we are like the Israelites.” When faced with challenging circumstances, Presbyterians are prone to bouts of anxiety. However, chosen peoples – be they ancient Israelites or nineteenth-­ century Presbyterians – must remain faithful, for God is on their side, and will assuredly deliver them from hardship.22 Presbyterians traced their system of church polity to ancient Israel. Doing so legitimized the denomination’s traditions, as it implied continuity with the governmental institutions employed by a chosen people.23 While the Israelites “were yet in bondage in Egypt, we find that they had their Elders … who were obeyed as heads of tribes, and rulers among the people.” These “Elders” were “men of gravity, experience, and wisdom” who acted as the people’s “representatives.” Anyone who had “intelligently and impartially” read the Old Testament could see that the governmental model employed by the Israelites, God’s “covenanted people,” effectively represented Presbyterianism’s essence.24 The Reverend Henry Esson expressed similar views in a sermon delivered in 1835 in Montreal’s St Gabriel Street Church. The governmental system of the “Hebrew Commonwealth,” he stated, was the “secret source” of the Israelites’ “national spirit,” which was largely responsible for their existence as a beacon of righteousness amid a “heathen world.” For Esson, the significance of Presbyterian traditions was virtually identical. They were “indelibly” etched on the Presbyterian heart, and were

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conducive to an “impressive fidelity” and religious “genius” that differentiated the denomination from its competitors, whose traditions were invariably rooted in error.25 According to the Presbyterians’ narrative, the ancient Israelites’ Jewish successors were unable to retain God’s favour. The reason, allegedly, was their refusal to accept Jesus as saviour. Presbyterians maintained that, without Jesus’s miraculous birth and redemptive mission, the entirety of history would be purged of purpose, unravelling into “a very Babel of  confusion.” Members of the denomination accordingly denounced Judaism as “an unmeaning superstition.” Sent by God to suffer and die on humanity’s behalf, Jesus was the mainspring of “wisdom” and “sanctity.” The “Jewish Church” amounted to a heretical institution as a result of its unwillingness to embrace him.26 Peter Brown addressed the supposed rupture between God and the Jews in an undated journal entry. His remarks reveal that such beliefs circulated not only in the public sphere of newspapers and sermons, but in private Presbyterian consciences as well. Brown began by describing the ancient Israelites as “the chosen people of God,” adding that they had been elevated “above all nations” and endowed with “the true religion.” Yet, according to Brown, they lost their way. Despite God’s care for them, the Jewish people became “corrupted and degenerated,” eventually “crucifying his son who came to save sinners.” God, in response, “left them to be subdued by the Romans.” His repudiation of the Jews “never would have happened,” Brown lamented, “if they had kept his will … in their hearts” and embraced his son.27 Presbyterianism’s “grand features” and “leading principles” were not left to wither on the vine after the purported parting of the ways between God and the Jews. Rather, according to the denomination’s narrative, the righteous tradition that originated among the Israelites was sustained in the early Christian church. Ecclesiastical polity among Jesus’s first followers, consistent with the essence of Presbyterianism, was characterized by “parity of ministers,” with “Christ alone” as the church’s head.28 The existence of de facto Presbyterianism in the early church lent legitimacy and prestige to the denomination, as it equated its adherents with Christ’s initial devotees and bolstered the notion that they were heirs of a singularly righteous tradition. It was believed that Presbyterianism had made its way, under providential auspices, to the British Isles centuries before the Reformation. In early 1867, the Reverend R.F. Burns informed Presbyterians in St Catharines, Canada West, that St Patrick, “a Scotchman,” introduced

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the denomination’s institutions to Ireland in the fifth century. St Patrick, Burns explained, imported a decentralized system of church governance that involved leadership by ministers and elders, a form of ecclesiastical polity that “was modeled like all other Apostolical Churches, after the Jewish Synagogue.” Such traditions epitomized Presbyterian governance, a fact that would not have been lost on Burns’s audience. He added that, as a result of St Patrick’s efforts, Ireland came to be known as the “Island of the Saints,” existing as “a centre of light” amid an otherwise benighted world.29 Burns added that St Columba brought Presbyterianism to Scotland during the sixth century. Columba, “an Irishman,” effectively “paid back to Scotland the debt which his then favoured island [Ireland] owed to Patrick the Scotchman.” The result, for Burns, was the establishment of Presbyterian traditions in Scotland. He added that the Culdees, a monastic order, nurtured these institutions – which, in Burns’s view, epitomized the “religion of Jesus” – during the eighth century, ensuring their survival. As a result of the efforts of St Columba and the Culdees, Scotland existed in Burns’s account as a locus of de facto Presbyterianism centuries before the Reformation.30 While it was fundamentally progressive, the Presbyterian conception of the past was not devoid of adversity. Rather, in keeping with Frye’s mythic formula, their narrative landscape was strewn with obstacles. These entities were vital to the Presbyterians’ historical account. In struggling against sinfulness and persecution, the denomination’s purported predecessors – who amounted to dramatis personae – were able to exhibit virtuous traits like piety and integrity while advancing the providential plan. Clashes between good and evil provided the Presbyterians’ epic with its basic narrative thrust, driving the account along from one sequence of events to the next and rendering the inevitable triumph of good over evil all the more exhilarating. In the medieval period, Roman Catholic “prelacy” threatened the Presbyterian institutions that had reputedly originated in ancient Israel and been nurtured by the early Christian church, St Patrick, St Columba, and the Culdees. Early Canadian adherents of the denomination criticized the Roman Church’s “unscriptural” form of ecclesiastical polity, charging that it replaced decentralized authority with an illegitimate hierarchy. Consequently, Western Christendom was plunged into a “dolorous … darkness” that persisted largely unchallenged until the sixteenth century.31 Presbyterianism persisted. According to the denomination’s heavily romanticized account, Christian sects in continental Europe preserved

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Presbyterian traditions during the medieval era. These sects included the Waldenses, whose flouting of orthodox liturgies and attempts to translate the Bible into vernacular languages incurred the Roman Church’s wrath in the twelfth century; and the Albigenses, whose radical asceticism and insistence on the absolute sinfulness of the material world prompted Pope Innocent III to launch a crusade against them in the thirteenth century. Nineteenth-century Presbyterians celebrated both groups for sheltering the “true faith” during some of the darkest days of Catholic oppression.32 Then, in the sixteenth century, providence brought forth a “noble army” of Reformers who took up the “torch of truth” that the Waldenses and Albigenses had sheltered and kept ablaze. Reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin passed the torch “from land to land,” redeeming large swaths of Christendom.33 They were also responsible, in the view of early Canadian Presbyterians, for promoting religious and civil liberty (about which more will be said later on in this chapter). Indeed, the Reformers’ support for these allegedly interrelated freedoms was portrayed as perhaps their greatest accomplishment. An article published in the February 1864 edition of the Monthly Record of the Church of Scotland in Nova Scotia and the Adjoining Provinces observed that, as a result of the Reformation, “medieval darkness” was “swept away,” and a ray of “sacred and civil” light was allowed to shine on “Church and World.” Every true Christian should acknowledge the Reformation’s significance, the article’s author declared, for it extended to the faithful believer “an open Bible,” a “reformed Church,” and a “right to worship God according to his conscience, none making him afraid.” Such were the ennobling freedoms for which the Reformers had been willing “to labour and die.”34 According to the Presbyterians’ narrative, the architects of the Reformation adhered to de facto Presbyterian traditions. The denomination’s system of church polity was said to be embraced by such figures as Luther and Calvin as the soundest form of church governance. This was evident, Presbyterians maintained, in their commitment to the “Apostolic” tradition, in which prelacy was unknown and church elders, whose authority was “plainly warranted” in scripture, functioned within a decentralized ecclesiastical framework. In this system, “individual congregations were not to be considered as independent communities, but as so many members of the body to which they belonged, and to be governed by representative assemblies for the benefit of the whole.” Thus, in addition to promoting religious and civil liberty, Canadian Presbyterians

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celebrated the Reformers for perpetuating distinctive denominational traditions that originated in ancient Israel.35 Which brings us to the next chapter in the Presbyterians’ narrative: the Scottish Reformation. This event laid the groundwork for the emergence of Presbyterianism as Scotland’s national religion in the seventeenth ­century, and had been anticipated by such “earnest, godly” figures as St Columba and the Culdees, who had sowed Presbyterianism’s seeds in Scotland long before the Reformation. And while the tradition imported by Columba and nurtured by the Culdees had been threatened by the “strong hand” of Catholic prelacy, they had sparked a religious fire in Scotland that “could never fully be extinguished.”36 Scottish Reformers – including Patrick Hamilton, George Wishart, and John Knox – purportedly contributed to this sacred conflagration. Their efforts, according to devout Presbyterians from the sixteenth century onward, resulted in a “new covenant” between Scotland and God.37 Early Canadian Presbyterians celebrated the “young and amiable” Patrick Hamilton for contributing to Scotland’s religious regeneration. Burned at the stake in 1528 for espousing religious convictions that deviated from the teachings of the Roman Church, Hamilton was probably Scottish Protestantism’s first martyr. A willingness to sacrifice his life rather than “worship the Virgin, or acknowledge the Pope as the Vicar of Christ,” garnered him a prominent place within the Presbyterian firmament.38 For members of the denomination, Hamilton fit snugly into a righteous tradition of peoples willing to suffer – and, in certain cases, die – in the name of religious truth. Canadian Presbyterians also celebrated George Wishart (“godly, eloquent, self-denying”) as a symbol of integrity in the era of the Scottish Reformation. Like Hamilton, Wishart was immolated in 1546 as a result of his rejection of Roman Catholicism. Protestants responded to this event by murdering the Roman Catholic cardinal, Andrew Beaton, who, they believed, had authorized the execution. From the Canadian Presbyterians’ perspective, the Protestants’ behaviour was understandable. “Goaded on to madness” by popish oppression, Scotland’s Protestants naturally sought to exact revenge on the “notorious” cardinal, whom they blamed for Hamilton’s death. The Canadian Presbyterians’ interpretation of the Scottish Catholics’ reaction to Beaton’s murder, which involved perpetuating the cycle of violent sectarian retribution, was markedly different. Where the Protestants’ execution of Beaton was justifiable, the Catholics’ seemingly similar response was denounced as an egregious exhibition of “revenge and redress.”39

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These divergent reactions, which may strike contemporary observers as evidence of a rank double standard, bespeak the nineteenth-century Presbyterian belief that their putative predecessors were decidedly on the right side in an epic struggle between good and evil. They were not modern-day relativists, doubtful of the intrinsic superiority of any one cultural tradition over another. Given their forebears’ supposed righteousness, it followed for nineteenth-century Presbyterians that, while Beaton’s murder should be applauded, the Catholics’ similarly violent response should be deplored. Early Canadian Presbyterians, in reflecting on the Scottish Reformation, were especially effusive in praising John Knox. While they credited William Wallace for resisting English tyranny in the fourteenth century, they lauded Knox for struggling against the “more grinding oppression” of Roman Catholicism two centuries later. 40 Knox, with “truth on his side,” combatted Catholic cruelty and superstition, and resisted the authoritarian rule of such figures as Mary Tudor. Accordingly, he was likened to a series of heroic figures who had struggled against irreligion and injustice in bygone eras, including “the Israelites in Egypt … Daniel and his followers in Babylon … [and] Christ and his apostles in the Roman Empire.”41 In 1848, a Canadian Presbyterian publication, the Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, hailed Knox’s contribution to Scotland’s Reformation.42 According to the Record, Knox, despite “the wildest whirl of contending emotion … never lost sight of his being … a servant of God, nor swerved a hair’s breadth from truth and right.” The publication, in seeking to bolster its positive view of Knox, reprinted excerpts of a biographical sketch of the iconic Scottish Reformer penned by Thomas Carlyle, a writer whose works – notably On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (1841) – helped launch the “Great Man” historiographical tradition. The sketch, in praising Knox, tackled his reputation for austerity and militancy, and equated his personality with the Scots national character. Observed Carlyle: They go far wrong … who think that Knox was a gloomy, spasmodic, shrieking fanatic. Not at all. He is one of the solidest of men. Practical, cautious, hopeful, patient and [a] most shrewd observer … [a] quietly discerning man. In fact, he has very much the character we assign to the Scotch at present: a certain sardonic taciturnity is in him.43

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Further evidence of the early Canadian Presbyterians’ admiration for Knox can be gleaned from their support for a mid-nineteenth-century metropolitan campaign to save the iconic Reformer’s home. In 1849, a Canadian Presbyterian publication printed an appeal from a Scottish organization that sought to raise funds that would be used to preserve the structure, which they ambitiously hoped to transform into “a public and historical and ecclesiastical museum.” The home, the appeal reported, was in need of “thorough repair.” What is more, if it was not attended to soon the rickety structure risked collapsing or being demolished, as it was notoriously “unsafe.” Thus, the campaign’s organizers called on “friends from every quarter” – including Canadian Presbyterians – to contribute to the preservation of a “great national relict.”44 Another Canadian Presbyterian publication reprinted an article, in 1849, from a metropolitan publication that advocated saving John Knox’s house. The article lauded his “zeal, resolution, ability, and consistent devotion,” adding that “the history of Scotland does not contain a narrative more striking or wonderful” than that of Knox’s sixteenthcentury struggles. His efforts, the article gushed, precipitated “the tran­ sition of our country from Popery to the Evangelical faith of the Reformation.” His house, therefore, should be viewed “with a kind of patriotic and religious interest.”45 In celebrating Knox, early Canadian Presbyterians were emulating a multitude of Scottish writers who, over several centuries, had extolled what they saw as the Reformer’s matchless virtues. For instance, in poems composed shortly after Knox’s death in the early 1570s, John Davidson valorized him as a “model of uprightness” who courageously denounced sinfulness and relentlessly combatted tyranny. In the early seventeenth century, David Calderwood portrayed Knox “as the founding father of the Scottish Reformation and of Presbyterianism” in his History of the Kirk of Scotland, an influential text that relied heavily on Knox’s own writings. And in the early nineteenth century, Thomas McCrie depicted Knox in a biography as a “champion of democracy” and “comprehensive educational provision” as a result, respectively, of his efforts to combat arbitrary monarchy and establish schools in every parish so that the populace would be able to read God’s word independently. Such characterizations likely would have been gratifying to Knox himself, given that, in  historian Jane Dawson’s words, he “had an eye to his posthumous reputation and possessed a sharply defined self-image he wanted to transmit to posterity.” Evidence of this orientation can be found in Knox’s

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assertion that, while “this unthankful aige” may not appreciate his contributions, “the aiges to come [will be] compelled to beir witnesss [to their importance].”46 True, not all Scottish observers lauded Knox; on the contrary, certain Roman Catholics depicted him as an “arch-heretic,” while individuals who had drunk deep of Enlightenment rationalism castigated him as a “fanatic.”47 Nonetheless, the fact that writers in several eras had lionized Knox largely accounts for his iconic status within Scottish culture. By no means confined to Scotland, this status migrated to early Canada, as evidenced by the prominent position occupied by Knox within the Presbyterians’ sprawling historical narrative.48 Additionally, the early Canadian Presbyterians’ interpretation of the Scottish Reformation bore a close resemblance to the influential account of this event written by Knox in the sixteenth century. His multivolume History of the Reformation in Scotland portrayed the developments of the mid-sixteenth century as an “apocalyptic” struggle between good and evil, with the former prevailing – and, critically, laying the groundwork for the proliferation of Protestantism in Knox’s homeland – under providential auspices. To say that his rendering of the Scottish Reformation was similar to the one propounded by early Canadian Presbyterians would be an understatement. This suggests that, in addition to being a  heroic protagonist in the early Canadian Presbyterians’ historical ­narrative, Knox’s own writings may have informed their conception of the past.49 Early Canadian Presbyterian enthusiasm for the Scottish Reformation manifested in diverse ways. For example, a series of public addresses designed “to call the attention of the people to the character and results” of that event were delivered across British North America, in 1860, on the occasion of its three-hundredth anniversary. Presbyterian authorities anticipated that these commemorative acts would encourage “a hearty gratitude” among members of the denomination for the “blessings” conferred on them by the engineers of Scotland’s divinely sanctioned transition from “Popery” to Protestantism.50 In one of the addresses, the Reverend John Taylor of Hamilton, Canada West, “joyfully and devoutly” reflected on the Scottish Reformation’s significance. The event, for Taylor, was responsible for the “growth and maturity” of Scottish Protestantism despite acts of “wholesale slaughter” carried out by “cruel” Catholics like Beaton.51 Moreover, individual Presbyterian congregations and synods explicitly acknowledged the event’s tercentennial anniversary. So, in 1860, St  Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Toronto, devoted a service to the

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“commemoration of the Tricentenary of the Scottish Reformation,” while the Presbyterian Synod of New Brunswick in Connection with the Church of Scotland took pains to honour the Scottish Reformation, which brought about “the greatest blessings in our Father Land.”52 Presbyterians also penned essays celebrating the Scottish Reformation. One of them, written by the Reverend Andrew Ferrier of Caledonia, Canada West, argued that the event amounted to “a breaking of the yoke of popery in Scotland,” by which the populace had been “enslaved.”53 Scotland’s Reformation, for Ferrier, wrested authority from a corrupt prelacy, and sparked a religious rebirth that resulted in the Scottish people’s acquisition of an enviable combination of wealth and piety.54 Another essay recognized the “sufferings and the triumphs” of such “heaven-prompted heroes” as Hamilton, Wishart, and Knox, who obtained for Scotland the indispensable aspects of Protestantism – “an open Bible and a preached gospel.” Their efforts, according to the author, “exalted Scotland as a nation,” amounting to a gift for which her “sons” – including those in British North America – “can never be sufficiently thankful.”55 Momentous though it may have been, the Presbyterian historical narrative did not conclude with the Scottish Reformation. The Covenanters also bulked large in the denomination’s understanding of the past. These early modern Presbyterians were celebrated, in large part, for resisting monarchical tyranny and religious coercion. Presbyterians’ intertwined “civil and religious liberties” were purportedly threatened in this era not by Catholics, but by the equally (if not more) oppressive Stuart monarchs and their Episcopalian collaborators. According to the denomination’s narrative, seventeenth-century Presbyterians were subjected to the interrelated evils of unchecked monarchy and tyrannical Episcopacy, and were prohibited from practising their religion freely. Consequently, “the Covenanters … had to flee from their persecutors and find shelter in the  moors, glens and mountains, where there were no churches and where, of necessity, God had to be worshipped … under the blue canopy of heaven.”56 Bent on “reigning as absolute monarchs,” the Stuarts were determined “to put down by the strong arm of civil authority, all who expressed the slightest dissatisfaction with their tyrannical proceedings.”57 Yet the Covenanters – the staunchest Presbyterians – refused to renounce their beliefs.58 While their lives “hung in constant doubt,” the Covenanters clung to their convictions, secure in the knowledge that God was on their side. This resolute stance was attributable to the belief that God “is ever with

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his Church in affliction.” In much the same way that he assisted the Israelites during their flight from Egyptian captivity, God could be counted upon to assist other divinely favoured peoples – including the Covenanters – in “the deserts” of oppression.59 As for Covenanters who were executed during the “Killing Times,” they were hailed as a “noble army of martyrs, who resisted unto death the tyrannical attempts” of the Stuarts and their collaborators to rob them of their liberties.60 The Puritans also featured prominently in the Presbyterians’ historical account. The Presbyterians portrayed this group favourably, rejecting their reputation for fanaticism and intolerance. (Apropos of this reputation, H.L. Mencken once quipped that Puritanism is “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”) Evidence of the Presbyterians’ fondness for the Puritans can be found in an article published in Halifax’s Presbyterian Witness and Evangelical Advocate in 1860. The article lamented the fact that the word “Puritan” had become “a term of reproach applied to those who contended most strenuously for soundness of faith, simplicity of worship and purity of manners.”61 The article also expressed dismay that, while the Puritans were responsible for ­“making Britain and America what they are at this day,” their legacy had been tarnished in both countries. In Britain, “statesmen” who owed their freedoms to the Puritans’ “principles” were blithely “awarding bounties to the priests of despotism” (presumably an allusion to the Maynooth Grant); while, in America, “many of those who glory in tracing their ancestry” to the Puritans were either “fierce supporters of ­slavery” or, similarly distressing, proponents of such unorthodox doctrines as Unitarianism.62 From the Presbyterians’ perspective, the Puritans were cut from the same cloth as the Covenanters. Like his Covenanting counterpart, the archetypal Puritan was “Calvinistic in his creed, and regarded himself as the special object of the solicitude of the Almighty.” Both groups, moreover, looked forward not to earthly riches or acclaim, but instead to a “heavenly kingdom” beyond the grave.63 For early Canada’s Presbyterians, the British “nation” was indebted to the Puritans for their “deep hatred” of religious and political injustice. In their view, the Puritans’ aversion to tyranny, ecclesiastical and civil, was evident during the English Civil War. This conflict pitted the Parliamentarians (many of whom were Puritans) against the Royalists, who aimed to stifle expressions of dissent, whether religious or polit­ ical. So important were the Puritans’ contributions to this conflict that their significance transcended England’s borders. Their belief that

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“G OD A L ONE I S L O R D OF T HE C O N S CI E N CE ” reverberated across the Western world, penetrating “the prison houses of tyranny – waking up the nations – overturning thrones and dynasties.” Indeed, early Canadian Presbyterians argued that the Puritans’ emphasis on freedom of conscience was largely responsible for undermining the foundations on which spiritual and temporal injustice rested.64 Presbyterians and Puritans were therefore portrayed as “kindred” groups to whom Western society was indebted for their steadfast opposition to despotism.65 Intellectual historian Blair Worden has perceptively argued that the phrase “civil and religious liberty” did not exist before the English Civil War. While, to be sure, religious and political dissenters had found common cause with one another prior to the 1640s, their actual objectives, he has written, tended to differ. By contrast, notions of spiritual and temporal liberty became fused in Civil War-era England, largely because of the diverse Christian groups that coalesced around the Parliamentarians’ cause. Thereafter, religious and political liberty came to be regarded as symbiotic phenomena, while their antitheses, religious and political coercion, were viewed “as common if not inseparable impulses.” Transcending the British Isles, such notions plainly exerted influence within early Canadian Presbyterianism, as seen in their emphasis on the purportedly complementary nature of religious and civil liberty.66 Early Canadian Presbyterians also believed that the Puritans had contributed to the British constitution. The Puritans’ opposition to oppression, “whether beneath a crown or a mitre,” was integral to the religious and political freedoms enshrined in this elaborate bundle of laws, conventions, and institutions, which was credited for Britain’s “present rank and moral grandeur among the kingdoms of the world.”67 The Presbyterians’ celebration of Britain’s constitution reflects their belief that the Glorious Revolution marked a crucial historical turning point. Where members of the denomination denounced the Stuarts as oppressors, the events of 1688 – which resulted in enhanced freedom for Protestant Dissenters, and circumscribed arbitrary monarchical power – purportedly ushered in an ethos of unprecedented religious and political liberty. This transition occasioned a shift in Presbyterian attitudes toward monarchy in the British Isles. Rather than being a source of coercion (as had been the case during the Stuarts’ reign), it was celebrated as a paragon of freedom (a status that was secured after the toppling of James II). Integral to this freedom were the complementary religious and political liberties embedded in Britain’s constitution.68 In addition to their staunch Calvinism, the Puritans’ supposed contributions to British liberty – and,

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in particular, freedoms flowing from Britain’s constitution – accounts for their inclusion in the Presbyterians’ narrative. The Reverend Henry Esson summarized the Presbyterians’ attitudes toward the Puritans in a sprawling sermon delivered in the mid-1830s that, inter alia, smacked of the Whig interpretation of history. The Puritans and the Covenanters, he stated, “are, without all question, the Fathers and Founders of British Liberty, Civil and Religious.” These complementary groups’ “almost superhuman energies wrenched, from the reluctant grasp of tyrants, the powers and engines of oppression.”69 For Esson, progressive events occurring “in our own day” were “merely the complete realisation of the beneficent and glorious designs for which these men … toiled and bled and died.” Given their invaluable contribution to the onward march of religious and civil freedom, Esson called for the erection of a “historical monument” that would be dedicated to the Covenanters and the Puritans, kindred peoples whom he lauded, again, as the “Fathers and Founders of British Liberty.”70

T h e “ C a n a d ia n ” Di mensi on Early Canadian Presbyterians were integrated into the denomination’s account. Particular attention was paid to New France’s Huguenots, Nova Scotia’s first Presbyterian missionaries, and the denomination’s path-breaking representatives west of the Great Lakes. Bringing such peoples into the Presbyterians’ narrative affirmed that the denomination’s early Canadian adherents were part of a transoceanic tradition that linked a succession of divinely favoured peoples in an unbroken chain extending majestically throughout time. Thus, nineteenth-century observers were convinced that theirs was a uniquely righteous inheritance. That aspects of the Presbyterians’ historical account were unoriginal mattered less than their belief that it exalted them above other groups as a chosen people. According to George Patterson, the denomination had deep roots in early Canada. The Huguenots, he explained, adhered to a Calvinist creed that acknowledged the Bible as the only source of religious truth; they also recognized the doctrine of ministerial parity. For Patterson, this combination of Calvinism and decentralized church polity rendered the Huguenots positively Presbyterian regarding both “doctrine … [and] worship.” Patterson elaborated on the New World’s extensive Presbyterian heritage. In the mid-sixteenth century, he stated, the Huguenot Gaspard de

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Coligny devised a colonization scheme whereby French Protestants who had been “persecuted” in their homeland would be resettled in the “New World.” Patterson praised de Coligny’s plan, which sought to create a refuge for an oppressed religious minority, as “one of the most beautiful conceptions of modern times.”71 Sadly, however, France’s “Catholic party” thwarted his vision. In the early seventeenth century, Pierre du Gua de Monts, a French fur trader, made another attempt to create a New World sanctuary for French Protestants. De Monts, Patterson argued, sought to establish a refuge from the “ecclesiastical domination” to which the  Huguenots had been subjected in France. His plans, however, were quashed in 1627 with the establishment of the  Company of One Hundred Associates, whose mandate expressly entailed promoting Catholicism.72 Patterson’s remarks on the failure of religious toleration in New France were followed by a discussion of the growth of Protestantism – including Presbyterianism – elsewhere in colonial North America. He observed that, in 1621, Scotland’s William Alexander obtained from James I (James VI in Scotland) a land grant in Nova Scotia, “which he proposed to colonize on an extensive scale.” According to Patterson, Alexander pledged to settle the “eastern part of New England” with “his own countrymen.” Populating the region with “a body of people of the mettle [of the] Scottish Covenanters,” Patterson explained, would establish a “firm ­barrier of Scottish Presbyterianism” that would counter Catholicism’s expanding influence in the St Lawrence Valley.73 That Nova Scotia’s actual Presbyterian population was miniscule until the end of the eighteenth century seems to have had little bearing on Patterson’s narrative regarding a brewing New World rivalry between Protestants (including Presbyterians, of course) and Catholics. The battle lines were drawn. Patterson portrayed the subsequent Anglo-French struggle for North American imperial dominance as an epic conflict between the “representatives” of Protestantism in Englishspeaking colonies and “Popery” in New France. Protestants, in grappling with their Catholic adversaries, were motivated as much by “hatred of what they deemed Popish idolatry” as they were by fondness for their “mother country.” Consequently, a “spirit of religious enthusiasm” fuelled their prosecution of the conflict, which culminated triumphantly in the Conquest.74 Such remarks likely reflect the intellectual influence of the nineteenth-century historian Francis Parkman, an American whose romantic writings starkly contrasted “Protestant virtue and Catholic vice, Anglo-Saxon liberty and Latin absolutism.”75

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Individual early Canadian Presbyterians were integrated into the lineage that lay at the heart of the denomination’s historical account. Examples include the Reverend John Brown, a missionary involved in the founding of the Antiburgher Presbytery of Pictou, Nova Scotia, in 1817; and the Reverend Hugh Graham, a minister who served in the Nova Scotian communities of Cornwallis and Stewiacke starting in the late eighteenth century. Both figures, according to the denomination’s narrative, deserved “honourable mention” in the “annals” of history. Through their efforts, the Christian “seed” had been planted in Nova Scotia’s “barren” backwoods. Thus, the “sturdy Presbyterianism” of the British Isles, for which “covenanting forefathers had shed their blood,” took root in the North American “wilderness.”76 The Reverend James MacGregor occupied an especially esteemed position in the Presbyterians’ narrative. So revered was MacGregor within the denomination’s ranks that his apotheosis began while he was still alive. Residents of the Maritime colonies’ backwoods settlements had reputedly languished in religious “destitution” before MacGregor’s arrival. Following his immigration to Nova Scotia, however, MacGregor served as an indefatigable missionary. Leaving behind the comforts of his “native land,” MacGregor wound paths through the trackless “wilderness” in search of his religiously neglected “brethren,” imparting to them at every opportunity “Heaven’s best boon to man.”77 Reluctant though it was to bestow high praise on “living characters,” the Colonial Patriot of Pictou made an exception for MacGregor, who “seems already to belong to history.” His name, the Patriot explained, was “so linked to everything good … [and] so venerated by thousands of people on both sides of the Atlantic” that members of the denomination were hard-pressed not to “think of it as if it [were] one already in heaven.”78 Western Canadian Presbyterians also played an important role in the denomination’s historical epic. John Black, the Presbyterian “apostle” at the Red River settlement beginning in the mid-1840s, was one such figure. Writing at the end of the nineteenth century, the Presbyterian historian George Bryce went as far as to suggest that Black and his fellow nineteenth-century missionaries had made a greater contribution to the onward march of righteousness than either the Covenanters or the Puritans. According to Bryce, the latter groups’ sacrifices in the seventeenth century served to “stir our bosoms with emotion.”79 Yet for all their valour, Bryce maintained that the nineteenth century had witnessed “a new and, perhaps, greater heroism” exhibited by the “army of Christian adventurers” who travelled throughout the world, including

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western Canada. Everywhere this army waged “a new war” in the name of “King Jesus” (a term that had been used by the Covenanters) against “sin and idolatry.” Their adversaries, for Bryce, were more fearsome and debased than even “the bloody Claverhouse,” an Episcopalian who reputedly tormented Presbyterians during the Killing Times. From Bryce’s perspective, Black served in the vanguard of this new “army,” which was painstakingly laying the “foundation of a spiritual empire of the future.”80 Black was not the only figure lauded by Bryce for promoting Presbyterianism west of the Great Lakes. For Bryce, Presbyterian missionaries who fanned out across the West in search of religiously neglected Scottish settlers in the late nineteenth century possessed the “Scottish blood” and “fervid spirit” of “national religious heroes” like Hamilton, Wishart, and Knox. Joining Black in this evangelistic campaign was James Nisbet, the first Presbyterian missionary to the Cree in what became Saskatchewan; and the Reverend James Robertson, who was instrumental to Presbyterianism’s expansion in the “great north-west.” So similar were these early western Canadian Presbyterian heroes to their “Old World” forebears that the churchyard at Kildonan, Manitoba, where some of them were buried, came to be seen as hallowed ground – indeed, in Bryce’s view, it was “a Presbyterian Westminster abbey” for western Canada.81 Nineteenth-century Canadian Presbyterians believed that they, too, constituted a link in the lengthy chain that united chosen peoples throughout the ages. According to a member of the denomination writing in 1848, early Canada’s Presbyterians viewed the Covenanters’ “martyr graves” with “filial piety.”82 The writer boasted “lineage” with a group that had been “baptised with the blood of martyrs,” adding that the Covenanters’ characteristics – including, presumably, their support for religious and civil liberty – had accompanied Presbyterian immigrants to “this extremity of the globe.” “I do not repudiate that inheritance,” the observer asserted; “I run not after modern inventions with no combats, no glories, no past and no future.”83 Such remarks attest to the belief that nineteenth-century Presbyterians were the Covenanters’ successors, and were tasked with responsibility for defending the noble principles for which they had suffered and died. The Reverend Alexander Mathieson had expressed similar views in a sermon delivered to Montreal’s Scottish Presbyterians twelve years before, in which he equated the Covenanters with their nineteenth-­ century coreligionists. The Covenanters, Mathieson observed, “were driven by the arm of power from their homes and their temples.” Unwilling to abandon their beliefs, “they made the dens and caves of the earth their

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homes, and the cradle of our liberties – they made the heath their pillow – the canopy of heaven their covering – and nature’s wide expanse their temple.” According to Mathieson, their integrity – which was evident in their participation in Presbyterian services forbidden by the Stuarts – had been inherited by their successors. The Covenanters, he stated, “have left a heritage to their children, both at home and in other climes,” of principled insistence on the “rights of conscience, and of a worship simple, but divine.” Mathieson added that, where “prayers and piety” had rendered Scottish Presbyterians “victorious over [their] enemies in times past,” they would surely “preserve [them] in every peril in times to come.” Implicit in his remarks was the idea that early Canada’s Scottish Presbyterians – the Covenanters’ supposed successors – were no exception, and would benefit from providential protection as long as they obeyed God.84 The Presbyterians’ historical narrative strengthened sentimental attachments between members of the denomination residing in early Canada and their overseas homelands. For Henry Esson, the “kindred … ties” between Scottish Presbyterian immigrants and the land of their birth were reinforced by a sense of historical continuity. Specifically, he suggested that history – “the influence of the oral … traditional, [and] legendary lore of a nation, floating down in a golden tide from age to age, and generation to  generation” – served to “bind” Scottish-born Presbyterians in early Canada (like himself) to their “natal soil,” and to associate their homeland with “every character … [and] every deed or event which can shed glory around it.”85 An appreciation of history, in other words, cultivated in early Canada’s Scots Presbyterians a heightened sense of attachment to the country from which they had emigrated. The Presbyterians’ conception of history also strengthened sentimental bonds between Scottish-born members of the denomination sprawled along Nova Scotia’s Musquodoboit River and their homeland. In the early nineteenth century, the Reverend John Sprott informed the Glasgow Colonial Society that the region’s religiously neglected Presbyterians, rather than being receptive to the overtures of missionaries from other countries, “were strongly prepossessed in favour of Scotland and Scottish men.” The reason, according to Sprott, was that they regarded Scotland “with a hallowed feeling of tenderness and veneration.” A particular understanding of history was integral to this positive perspective. These colonial Presbyterians saw Scotland not only as “the land of [their] fathers,” but also as “the birth place of a Knox and a Melville … [and] the  repository of religious principles and practical wisdom.”86 Such

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sentiments informed their instinctive pro-Scottish orientation, which accompanied these Presbyterian immigrants on their transatlantic ­voyage to North America. While early Canadian Presbyterian commentators focused on the part played by history in strengthening bonds between Scottish members of the denomination and their homeland, they also acknowledged what they saw as a similar pattern among early Canada’s Ulster Presbyterians. Consider the following remarks by George Patterson about Irish-born members of the denomination from Nova Scotia, and their experiences at an outdoor communion festival held in the early nineteenth century. “Tender recollections crowded upon them,” he wrote, of “the green fields of Ulster, where they and their fathers had met to keep the feast … [and] of the minister from whose lips they first heard the words of eternal truth.”87 While Patterson was not himself from Ireland, his remarks suggest that, as with his Scottish coreligionists, history may have strengthened affective links between Irish Presbyterian immigrants in Nova Scotia, and their homeland across the Atlantic. The Presbyterians’ historical narrative spurred them on in their efforts to bring about God’s dominion. For evidence one need look only to the way in which it influenced their attitudes toward Roman Catholics, an example of which can be seen in remarks that appeared in the Presbyterian in June of 1848. The author conjured aspects of the denomination’s history in imploring Presbyterians to serve as vigorous evangelists among Lower Canadian Roman Catholics: “Assuredly it will not redound to our honour as a branch of the Scottish Zion, – the Church of our Fathers – a Church distinguished for adhering to the Truth … if we show an unwillingness or lukewarmness in supplying our neighbours, the Votaries of Romanism, with that spiritual instruction” of which they are ignorant.88 History, then, can be seen as galvanizing Presbyterians in their efforts to combat Roman Catholicism. Further evidence that the Presbyterians’ historical narrative informed their evangelistic efforts can be found in an 1861 edition of the Canadian United Presbyterian Magazine. The article began by highlighting benefits that accrued to Scotland as a result of its Reformation, and proceeded to  emphasize what it saw as Protestantism’s superiority over Roman Catholicism. The Scottish Reformation, it declared, conferred on Scotland such blessings as “education in all its branches,” and was responsible for “the elevation of the system of morals above the blighting and degrading influences of Jesuitical casuistry.” Given the Scottish Reformation’s invaluable impact, the article added, it behooved its British North

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American beneficiaries to honour its spirit by “[cherishing] a ‘heart-hatred’ of Popery,” and neutralizing the Roman Church’s societal influence.89 Early Canada’s Presbyterians situated themselves in a sprawling historical narrative that included the ancient Israelites, Protestant icons like John Calvin and John Knox, the Covenanters and the Puritans, and such early Canadian entities as the Huguenots of New France, James MacGregor of the Maritimes, and John Black of Red River. The narrative exhibited a mythical formula, and reflected the influence of intellectual traditions – the notion that England and its peoples were elect entities, the Whig interpretation of history – that portrayed the past as an inherently progressive sequence of events. This historical narrative served ­several purposes. By emphasizing Presbyterianism’s ancient origins and venerable history, it legitimated the denomination’s ecclesiastical traditions. By emphasizing the Presbyterians’ responsibility for advancing the divinely ordained work of righteous groups and individuals, it contributed to denominational pride and purpose. By celebrating their church’s Old World origins, it strengthened Presbyterian immigrants’ sentimental attachments to their homelands. And, by weaving early Canadian Presbyterians into an august historical lineage, it motivated them to facilitate the realization of God’s dominion. Informed by several of the denomination’s most deep-seated beliefs, the narrative was integral to the Presbyterian worldview.

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9 The Pulse of the Past And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high mountain, and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God … Revelation 21:10

The Christian … demands a history of the world, a universal history whose theme shall be the general development of God’s purposes for human life. R.G. Collingwood, The Idea of History (1946): 49

For early Canadian Presbyterians, history was not confined to musty tomes: it was alive. In addition to locating themselves in a prestigious historical tradition, members of the denomination appealed to the past during debates over such issues as the conflict over Pictou Academy, and the struggle, in the Canadas, over the Clergy Reserves. Presbyterians also utilized the past during their internecine quarrels over church-state relations. In both instances, members of the denomination drew on history in hopes of strengthening their arguments, resulting in the formulation of temporally expedient “usable pasts.” Presbyterians interpreted the past in diverse, occasionally contradictory ways. Consequently, their understanding of history was fluid and contested, as opposed to being static and unambiguous. Predictably, the Presbyterians’ use of the past influenced contemporary affairs, as it helped to substantiate their contentions concerning nineteenth-century controversies. However, it also influenced bygone eras, modifying historical interpretations in ways that rendered Presbyterians’ arguments optimally effective. Yet it would be erroneous to conclude that the denomination’s historical interpretations amounted to little more than deliberate, disingenuous distortions. Rather, the frequency and ­fervour with which Presbyterians invoked history suggests that their interpretations derived from sincere, if selective, views that blended

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convictions about the past with concerns about the present. That such interpretations were used to advance nineteenth-century agendas should not obscure the genuine beliefs on which they rested. The Presbyterians’ understanding of history shaped their conception of time itself. Divergent though their interpretations of the past could be, many members of the denomination saw time as deeply meaningful and relentlessly progressive. History, in their understanding, was governed by God, and was geared toward the realization of the divinely authored plan. It followed that the unfolding of time was neither amoral nor incomprehensible, but purposeful and shot through with eschatological import. God could behave in mysterious ways, to be sure. Yet occasional instances of divine inscrutability did not detract from the Presbyterians’ belief that all events were directed, under the auspices of an omniscient superintending providence, toward the growth of Protestant piety and Christ’s Second Coming. History would culminate, they believed, in the realization of a majestic millennial kingdom in which violence, poverty, and injustice ceased to exist. Informed by palpable excitement regarding the millennium’s inevitability, the Presbyterians’ attitudes toward time overlapped with those of other Protestant denominations. Yet they were unique inasmuch as they were linked to the elaborate historical narrative discussed in the previous chapter. Members of the denomination believed that the millennium represented the culmination of the divinely sanctioned work of a succession of chosen peoples – themselves included – throughout history. Thus, when it came to their understanding of time, members of the denomi­ nation were simultaneously part of a broader Protestant culture and ­members of a distinct denominational community. As we will see, the cultural impact of the Presbyterians’ temporal outlook was evident in their involvement in higher education, testifying to the significance of its impact. Deployed in diverse ways depending on the circumstances, and flowing inexorably toward the millennium, the Presbyterians’ view of history was unmistakably dynamic. Indeed, given its flexibility and progress-oriented momentum, the denomination’s understanding of the past fairly pulsed with vitality.

“ U sa b l e ” P r e s b y teri an Pas ts Presbyterians invoked history in hopes of strengthening their arguments regarding nineteenth-century points of contention. Consider Thomas

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McCulloch’s remarks on Pictou Academy, which struggled to obtain reliable funding from the Nova Scotia government early in the century. McCulloch, who had founded the school, attributed this difficulty to an Anglican faction in the colonial council, which he suspected saw it as a threat to their own institution, King’s College, Windsor, and therefore sought to stifle its development.1 McCulloch appealed to metropolitan Presbyterians in an attempt to raise money for the school. In doing so, he emphasized history and, specifically, the links that supposedly bound members of the denomination in Nova Scotia to their forebears overseas. According to McCulloch, the “primary object” precipitating the school’s creation had been a desire to perpetuate the “principles” that Scotland’s “witnesses and martyrs … have transmitted to their offspring with the testimony of their blood.” Sustaining these principles, he explained, was the “only means” by which colonists could confer on Nova Scotia the noble characteristics of Scotland, “the land of their fathers.”2 Plucking at heartstrings, McCulloch observed that, while metropolitan Presbyterians had taken pains to promote the denomination among “foreigners and foes,” they had neglected the religious welfare of their colonial counterparts. His appeal was couched in language that emphasized the connective historical tissues that linked colonists and their metropolitan coreligionists: [We] in Nova Scotia are neither foreigners nor foes. Your country is ours and your kindred are ours. We have the same home and our hearts turn with yours to the same mansions of the dead endeared to us and hallowed by the dust of our fathers. Let not our offspring be as foreigners and aliens … let them inherit with their brethren.3 Presbyterians also invoked the past during the Canadian struggle over the Clergy Reserves. For example, in an 1835 sermon, the Reverend Henry Esson referred to the Treaty of Union of 1707 in arguing that Presbyterians had been mistreated when it came to the controversial endowment that was designed, according to the Constitutional Act of 1791, to nurture a “Protestant clergy” in the Canadas. Esson criticized the “notorious and … ungrateful partiality of his Majesty’s successive administrations … in these colonies.” Why? Because they had failed to recognize that Presbyterianism’s legal status, in the Canadas, was equal to that of Anglicanism. For Esson, it followed that Canadian Presbyterians were entitled to a share in the Reserves. Central to his argument was the Treaty of Union, which created Great Britain and recognized the Church

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of Scotland (as well as the Church of England) as one of its religious establishments. While Esson acknowledged that the treaty was initially resisted in certain quarters, he stated that it was ultimately “auspicious” for both England and Scotland, adding that the latter had achieved “prosperity and glory” under its auspices. As a result of the treaty, he continued, Scotland enjoyed “the equal participation of all rights and privileges with her sister kingdom.” That such equality should be recognized in British settler colonies went without saying – or, at least, it should go without saying.4 Failure to treat the Scottish Church’s Canadian offshoot equitably when it came to the Reserves, he warned, could “have the effect of extinguishing the last spark of attachment to the British Government.”5 The Presbyterian tendency to draw on the past was also evident during the intra-denominational quarrels that occurred across northern North America before the establishment, in 1875, of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Fuelling these conflicts were disagreements over the churchstate relationship, an inflammatory issue that contributed to the disintegration of the denomination. By the middle of the nineteenth century, as we have seen, most Presbyterians fell into one of three categories when it came to the relationship between Christianity and civil authority: Church of Scotland establishmentarianism; Secession voluntarism; and adherents of the Free Church, who argued that the state was obligated to support the church financially while refraining from intervening in its affairs. Though all three of these perspectives originated in the Old World, ­circumstances that were particular to early Canada – notably the Clergy Reserves controversy – aggravated animosities between the various groups, whose beliefs vied with one another for conceptual supremacy within Presbyterianism’s collective consciousness.6 Supporters of the three traditions utilized the past in attempting to validate their contentions. For example, in an article published in March 1848, Canadian adherents of the Church of Scotland emphasized aspects of Scottish history in seeking to bolster their argument in favour of ­state-aided Christianity. Specifically, they celebrated the architects of the Scottish Reformation, who strove to liberate themselves from the “corruption and tyranny of Rome” with a determination that was unmatched by other Protestant groups.7 According to the Canadian Church of Scotland, the Scottish Reformers’ efforts were followed by an equally arduous campaign led by seventeenth-century Presbyterians – including the Covenanters – against the Stuart kings, who sought to subject members of the denomination to a “coarse Erastian vassalage.” Happily, however, the “scriptural intelligence” of the Presbyterian populace secured

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for Scotland a “civil establishment,” one that had been “plenteously watered with the blood of her martyrs.” Canada’s Church of Scotland adherents portrayed this establishment, which was instituted after the Glorious Revolution, as the culmination of the heroic deeds of the Scottish Reformers and their Covenanting successors. To abandon establishmentarianism, then, would be to forsake their noble legacy of suffering and sacrifice.8 Comparable views were expressed later that year in an address published by the Church of Scotland’s Canadian offshoot. Instead of parting company with the Scottish Church, Canadian supporters of that body “esteemed it at once a duty and a privilege to remain in that Church … whose foundations were cemented by the blood of the martyrs.” As indicated in the preceding quote, the Canadians’ admiration for the Church of Scotland derived, in large part, from its supposed association with hallowed figures from Scottish history. Over the Church of Scotland’s “walls,” the address stated, “reared by the noble exertions of the Knoxes, and all that long list of ‘Scottish worthies’ [an allusion to early modern icons who facilitated Protestantism’s growth in Scotland], had floated the banner of the covenant.” The Church of Scotland, moreover, had assumed responsibility for “the spreading of the Divine light of truth to the dark places of the earth.” Its Canadian adherents, naturally, took pride in their association with such a venerable institution.9 Early Canada’s Secession Presbyterians saw history differently. For instance, while they echoed their establishmentarian coreligionists in celebrating the Glorious Revolution (Secessionists described that event as “a signal interposition of Divine Providence” that freed Presbyterians from Stuart-engineered tyranny), their attitude toward developments that followed William and Mary’s ascent could not have been more different.10 Where the Church of Scotland lauded the “civil establishment” that was instituted by the Revolution Settlement, the Secessionists believed that the post-1688 era witnessed rampant religious corruption. The culprit, for them, was pernicious civil interference in the church’s affairs, a phenomenon that intensified after the Glorious Revolution. An illustration of this degenerative pattern was the proliferation of lay patronage, a state-sanctioned practice that allegedly compromised the Scottish Church’s autonomy and facilitated temporal injustice. Whenever such meddlesome practices were allowed, “the Church became more and more doctrinally corrupt, and the standard of everlasting truth was weakened and [made] ready to be overthrown.”11 Furthermore, history revealed that, wherever civil interference in religious affairs obtained “a

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legal settlement,” it became an “enemy of civil and religious liberty,” serving as the “primary cause of all religious persecutions, – the great obstacle in the way of national improvements and the progress of the gospel … [and] the legalised stronghold of superstition, tyranny, and oppression.”12 The Scottish Church’s willingness to countenance lay patronage therefore amounted to a betrayal of the noble principles associated with the Glorious Revolution. For their part, early Canada’s Free Church adherents pointed to the past in an attempt to legitimate their own church-state views. Following the “Great Disruption” that triggered the Free Church’s formation, the Reverend William Rintoul embarked on an Upper Canadian speaking tour in an effort to garner support for his faction’s cause. In addressing the inhabitants of such towns as King, West Gwillimbury, and Oro, Rintoul made plain his belief in the righteousness of the Free Church’s decision to withdraw from the Scottish establishment. For him, its departure was entirely valid, as the Scottish Church had “cut herself off from the fellowship of all other Churches.”13 Like his establishmentarian and voluntarist coreligionists, Rintoul invoked history to fortify his argument. From Rintoul’s perspective, “the spirit of the Church of Knox” had left the establishment and migrated to the “Free Protesting Church,” where, as a result of the latter institution’s righteous commitment to state support and religious autonomy, it “thrives mightily.”14 Members of St John’s Presbyterian Church, Halifax, expressed similar sentiments in the Great Disruption’s aftermath. For them, a “violation of faith” had occurred as a result of the Church of Scotland’s willingness to recognize “another Head than Christ.” In substantiating this claim – which insinuated that the Church of Scotland’s commitment to the ­establishment principle reflected a revolting inclination to subordinate Christianity to civil authority – they invoked an interpretation of history that, conveniently, dovetailed with their views. According to these Free Church sympathizers, “the Free Protesting Church” was the “Church of Knox.” Moreover, it was “the plant that has been watered by the blood of Martyrs; and of whose pleasant fruit, many even in distant lands, have been privileged to partake.”15 The underlying assumption was clear: in withdrawing from the Scottish establishment, the Free Church was defending the precious principles for which Scotland’s religious heroes had suffered and died. In quarrelling over divergent interpretations of the past, early Canadian Presbyterians were by no means unique. On the contrary, a comparable pattern manifested in Scotland, where intra-Presbyterian cleavages were

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exacerbated by the various subgroups’ penchant for invoking history when attempting to validate irreconcilable contentions. For example, Scottish Presbyterians clashed in the mid-nineteenth century over which faction was the true heir of John Knox’s crucial contributions to Protestantism, with adherents of the newly minted Free Church making an especially impassioned argument for why they, in particular, bore the imprint of the iconic Reformer’s righteous historical legacy.16 As we have seen, early Canada’s Presbyterians utilized history during conflicts, in Nova Scotia, over funding for Pictou Academy, and, in the Canadas, over the Clergy Reserves. Presbyterian factions also invoked history, albeit in incompatible ways, during clashes over church-state relations. In both cases, members of the denomination drew on selective interpretations of history to enhance their arguments’ effectiveness, resulting in the emergence of “usable pasts”: historical understandings that could be harnessed to advance contemporary agendas.17 Given the diverse ways in which Presbyterians perceived the past, and the tendency of one faction’s historical interpretations to contradict those of other factions, it seems evident that their conception of history was neither static nor uncontroversial. Quite the opposite – in view of its plasticity and capacity for stoking sectarian strife, it can more profitably be seen as ­flexible, and subject to vigorous contestation. Early Canadian Presbyterian understandings of the past influenced contemporary circumstances. Members of the denomination invoked historically significant issues (the Scottish Reformation, the Glorious Revolution) and actors (John Knox, the Covenanters) as a means of substantiating their arguments regarding nineteenth-century controversies. Yet their understandings of the past also influenced bygone eras. Members of the denomination altered history in seeking to confer enhanced legitimacy on their contentions. That is, they interpreted the past selectively – typically, by emphasizing examples that meshed with their priorities – in order to invest their arguments with optimal validity. Yet it would be a mistake to dismiss Presbyterian historical accounts as  nothing more than cynical efforts to distort the past for sectarian gain. True, early Canada’s Presbyterians invoked history to advance the denomination’s interests (or, in the case of intra-denominational quarrels, particular factions invoked history to strengthen their claims). Yet the frequency and fervour with which Presbyterians referred to historical phenomena suggests that their interpretations sprang from genuine beliefs that mixed assumptions about the past (for example, the idea that, as a result of the Treaty of Union, the Church of Scotland was entitled to

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equal treatment with the Church of England) with concerns about the present (for example, resentment at the supposed fact that the Church of Scotland had been treated unfairly by colonial authorities when it came to the Reserves). Indeed, the notion that Presbyterians actually believed what they said about the past seems decidedly more plausible than the  counterargument that members of the denomination – including Secessionists, who did not stand to benefit materially from their arguments – deceitfully manipulated history on myriad occasions, routinely manufacturing enthusiasm for historical phenomena about which they did not really care. In addition to resisting the urge to dismiss the historical understandings of groups from bygone eras as deliberate distortions of history, modernday observers would do well to avoid perceiving them as devoid of historical validity. Historian Mark McGowan has discouraged historians from disdaining popular recollections of the past, or “collective memories,” as “unsophisticated twaddle.” Instead, he advocates perceiving them as “tools with which to understand the larger experience of a people.” His remarks encapsulate the belief that, while such memories may be based on selective (and, perhaps, empirically dubious) understandings of the past, they can convey a great deal about the societies from which they emerge. The arguments advanced in this chapter regarding early Canadian Presbyterian conceptions of history accord with such interpretations.18 By no means devoid of validity, the Presbyterians’ attitudes toward history accord with arguments made by historian Norman Knowles, who has written that reminiscences about the past and acts of commemoration are not “simply tools of hegemony” manipulated by “elites” hoping to consolidate their authority. Instead, he argues, they are the result of a “complex process” shaped by the intermingling of historical recollections and contemporary concerns.19 Consistent with Knowles’s remarks, the denomination’s understanding of the past was not a deliberate distortion of history. Rather, it was based on sincere, if selective, beliefs that merged assumptions about the past with anxieties about the present.

T h e T e x t u r e o f Ti me Early Canadian Presbyterians’ understanding of history influenced their understanding of time itself. Historian William Gallois’s interpretations have shed valuable light on the idea of time, and can fruitfully be applied to the Presbyterians’ mental world. He has advocated perceiving time not as “a singular, natural and uncontested entity,” but rather as a plural

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phenomenon that is “constructed in varied manners in different cultures.”20 Implicit in this statement is the notion that perceptions of time can differ from one culture to the next. However, for Gallois, the Western conception of time – which has emphasized such characteristics as progress, individualism, and linearity – is so influential that it has overshadowed the existence of alternative (i.e., non-Western) “temporalities” focusing on, for example, that which is cyclical, eternal, or temporally transcendent.21 Integral to the Western understanding of time is the Christian belief in the world’s inevitable apocalyptic end – indeed, it is of virtually immeasurable importance to what Gallois has described as Christianity’s ­conceptual orientation toward “time as judgment.”22 The millennium, according to Christian orthodoxy, is associated with a decisive clash between good and evil; divinely administered judgments through which salvation is extended to the righteous and damnation is meted out to the wicked; and the establishment of a millennial kingdom in which suffering and injustice are entirely unknown. Excitement and anxiety regarding these events – which are inextricably linked to Christ’s triumphant return – are central to the Christian temporality. Indeed, the millennium exists within the Christian consciousness as the eschatological terminus towards which universal history has ever been progressing. The Presbyterian perception of time accords with Gallois’s remarks on the Christian temporality. Time, for them, was relentlessly progressive. To be sure, it could seem inscrutable. Yet the fact that God was capable of behaving in mysterious ways did not detract from time’s essential character. History, in the Presbyterians’ view, amounted to a grand chronicle of God’s purposeful governance of the universe, the result of which would be the millennium. As discussed in the previous chapter, the Presbyterians’ myth-like historical narrative included adverse circumstances. However, members of the denomination harboured little doubt that, for all its adversity, history was a progress-oriented entity that would culminate in a “happy ending.” Though the overtly evangelical Secession and Free Church constituencies were the principal exponents of such views, a belief in the fundamentally progressive trajectory of time coursed through the denomination. The Presbyterians’ temporal outlook could aptly be described as teleological. This adjective is often used disdainfully in contemporary Western historiography in reference to that which is portrayed, erroneously, as inevitable. One could envision a twenty-first-century historian dismissing as “teleological” the hypothetical argument that the Canadian Rebellions

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led, inexorably, to the realization of responsible government, because it fails to appreciate the importance of historical contingencies. However, the term has a more nuanced philosophical meaning. A teleological explanation for a given historical phenomenon is one that focuses on its effects (say, the legacy of the rebellions) as opposed to its causes (the specific factors that precipitated their outbreak), with the circumstances of the present appearing as the inevitable culmination of developments that began in the past. Religiously, this orientation has often informed interpretations of the Bible, with Christians assuming “that the past foretold the present and that the future would fulfil the prophecies of the past.”23 Presbyterians, as the supposed heirs of a uniquely righteous tradition, felt that they had been given the responsibility of advancing the providential design. This assumption influenced their temporal understanding. Given their belief that they had a special role to play in bringing God’s plan to fruition, the Presbyterians’ temporality reflected a preoccupation with progressive succession – the notion that one divinely favoured group bequeathed responsibility for advancing God’s design to the next – and the existence of a definitive end point towards which history, doubtless, was making its way: the millennium. While they were loath to predict precisely when it would occur (the Westminster Confession stated that the timing of the apocalypse is “unknown to man,” the better to render us “always watchful” and “ever prepared”), members of the denomination were convinced that righteousness would prevail decisively over ­sinfulness, which in turn would allow for the creation of a heavenly kingdom.24 So pronounced was the Presbyterians’ belief in the millennium that their understanding of time was imbued with a palpable sense of anticipation. Presbyterian attitudes toward the world’s end tended to comport with the doctrine of “post-millennialism,” which posits that Christ’s return will occur after a thousand-year period in which peace and prosperity, happiness and harmony prevail on earth. This outlook differs from “pre-millennialism,” an alternative eschatological interpretation which holds that the Second Coming will take place before the joyous thousand-year age.25 Both perspectives have shaped their proponents’ perceptions of earthly developments, albeit in differing ways. Post-millennialism – which resonated with several nineteenth-century denominations, including many Presbyterians – conceives of worldly improvement and the unfolding of  God’s plan as complementary phenomena. For post-millennialists, Christ’s return will follow a glorious epoch precipitated by a synthesis of

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spiritual and material progress. By contrast, pre-millennialism – a comparatively pessimistic perspective which found expression in the prophecies of the radical early nineteenth-century evangelical William Miller, and persists in the twenty-first century among adherents of denominations such as Seventh-Day Adventism – perceives earthly developments as utterly unrelated to the unfurling of the providential design. From the pre-millennialists’ perspective, that which occurs in the irredeemably sinful temporal realm has nothing to do with Christ’s return, which must take place before the millennium can happen.26 While early Canadian Presbyterians do not seem to have used either term explicitly – post-millennialism and pre-millennialism are mainly employed by modern-day observers in distinguishing between influential eschatological interpretations – their views on the supposedly interrelated nature of earthly and cosmic developments usually accorded with a post-millennial perspective (as we will see). It should be noted, though, that a minority of Presbyterians gravitated toward pre-millennial ideas. This happened early in the nineteenth century, due in large part to the influence exerted by Edward Irving, a charismatic metropolitan cleric – and, initially, Church of Scotland minister – who was instrumental to the founding of the Catholic Apostolic Church, which espoused radical eschatological views. There was also a resurgence of pre-millennialism in the late nineteenth century, as part of what could plausibly be described as a fundamentalist backlash against such upsetting innovations as biblical “higher criticism.”27 Nonetheless, while it was not universally embraced, a sense of confidence in the complementary relationship between earthly and cosmic progress featured prominently in the denomination, usually overshadowing pre-millennial perspectives. This was evident in the early and midnineteenth century, with post-millennial interpretations being applied to such developments as British military victories and technological breakthroughs; and in the late nineteenth century, when such views helped sustain evangelical convictions in an era of potentially destabilizing assaults on Christian orthodoxy.28 It bears mentioning, though, that most nineteenth-century Presbyterians – much like members of other denominations – were not bound by a particular “textbook” definition of millennialism. So, while they frequently gravitated toward a postmillennial viewpoint, they also felt free, depending on the circumstances, to draw liberally on ideas that modern-day observers might justifiably equate with pre-millennialism, which demonstrates the concept’s fluidity.29 (While it is difficult to determine why some Protestants embraced

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pre-millennialism while others embraced post-millennialism, a clue may lie in people’s attitudes toward conversion. Specifically, those who interpreted this phenomenon as instantaneously transformative might have been apt to perceive the millennium as an abrupt development, while those who saw it as an incremental process might have been inclined to perceive it in comparatively gradual terms.30) Which factors led to the emergence of the post-millennial views that percolated in early Canadian Presbyterianism (among other groups), and why were they so influential? Millennial ideas have circulated in the Judeo-Christian consciousness since at least the eighth century BC, when the prophet Isaiah anticipated the world’s end. However, the notion that worldly circumstances were somehow connected to the unfolding of God’s plan surfaced relatively recently. For centuries, Christians felt that they were destined to endure hardship during their time on earth. Augustine of Hippo, an early Christian theologian whose ideas were highly influential during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, is closely associated with this belief. He argued that Christians, as a result of original sin and the corresponding corruption of the earthly realm, would “never be free” from the “ills which abound in human society amid the distresses of our mortal condition.”31 Worldly sinfulness, for Augustine, contrasted sharply with the bliss of heaven, which is where the saints – the privileged few who would be allowed to enjoy eternity alongside God – would go at the end of their arduous stints on earth. Worldly developments, including that which contributed to society’s improvement, seemed unrelated to the metaphysical workings of an oft-inscrutable providence. Attitudes toward the relationship between worldly circumstances and the progress of God’s design began to change in the early modern era. Contributing to this development were such advances as the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, which exerted enormous influence on Western society. As a result, many Western Christians increasingly felt that, instead of being dissonant phenomena, earthly events and the unspooling of God’s plan were connected. Indeed, an ever-expanding segment of Western Christendom inferred that God, in addition to redeeming souls, was steadily redeeming the world. Earthly and cosmic progress came to be viewed as symbiotic phenomena whose irreversible onward march would culminate in the establishment, on earth, of a heavenly kingdom in which the lion would lay down with the lamb. Such views were especially influential among Protestant denominations across the Western world. Galvanized by the evangelical revivals of

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the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, these groups often defined themselves in contradistinction to the supposed backwardness of Roman Catholicism, with the pope being denounced in certain quarters as the antichrist. For much of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Protestantism, including many Presbyterians, patterns of temporal and spiritual improvement were by no means unrelated. On the contrary, they saw earthly improvement – including seemingly profane technological innovations like railways and the telegraph – as hastening the millennium’s arrival. What is more, they became convinced that, as the true bearers of Christian virtue, they had a vital role to play in thwarting the retrogressive “aggressions of Popery,” and advancing God’s providential plan.32 Yet despite the emergence of an optimistic belief in the interrelated nature of earthly and cosmic progress, Protestants (and, especially, evangelicals) continued to believe that the apocalypse and Day of Reckoning would follow the millennium – a belief that comports with the Westminster Confession. Such convictions infused Protestants’ earthly activities – including temperance campaigns, the creation of Sunday schools, and an insistence on the importance of Sabbath observance – with enhanced import. In view of the supposedly symbiotic character of worldly and cosmic advances, Protestants, including Presbyterians, felt obligated to abide by strict moral standards and promote the Gospels as strenuously as possible. The prospect of either everlasting life in heaven or an excruciating eternity in hell spurred them on in their efforts to Christianize the world. Their views accord with the characteristics of post-millennialism, which influenced the Presbyterians’ attitudes toward history and fuelled their efforts to facilitate God’s achievement of dominion over early Canada and, ultimately, the wider world. Early Canadian Presbyterians were by no means the only Protestants to emphasize what they saw as the complementary nature of earthly and cosmic progress. Such views circulated widely, influencing the beliefs and behaviour of several denominations. However, their perception of time was unique in that it was intertwined with the denomination’s historical narrative, which as we have seen sought to legitimate Presbyterian governance and integrate its members into an illustrious lineage that started with ancient Israel. Crucially, the millennium and the apocalypse represented the end of the denomination’s progress-oriented epic. When it came to the denomination’s understanding of time, then, their views were both similar to those of other groups and distinctly Presbyterian. In 1864, the Reverend Simon McGregor articulated the Presbyterians’ progressive understanding of time in a sermon delivered in Pictou. He

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began by emphasizing the cosmic significance of Jesus’s birth. “To that marvellous event,” McGregor informed his parishioners, “the previous history of the world had ever been shaping itself in its downward course.”33 Without the birth of God’s son, who was sent to endure hardship and a humiliating death on humanity’s behalf, history itself would be reduced to a “mass of disorder,” “an awful enigma.”34 Fortunately, however, such was not the case. In McGregor’s view, history was moulded by God, and was progressing irreversibly toward the millennium. He found evidence in the fact that Christianity’s “glad tidings” were being propagated “from sea to sea” and “shore to shore”; idols were being smashed, he added, and hypocrites were being exposed with unprecedented frequency. In the fullness of time, McGregor thundered, “righteousness” will envelop the world “like a great river,” triumphing decisively over wickedness and laying the groundwork for a glorious millennial epoch. While he acknowledged that impiety and injustice were not unknown, McGregor was confident that God, “the Governor of the universe,” will “take up the tangled reins into His own hands, and guide the world on to happiness.”35 “S.M.G.,” writing in the Monthly Record of the Church of Scotland in  Nova Scotia and the Adjoining Provinces, voiced comparable con­ victions earlier that year. While this person acknowledged that all denominations, including the “Kirk,” were possessed of “defects,” S.M.G. expressed confidence in the progressive arc of history, whose “march,” s/ he asserted, “is onwards.” To substantiate this view of history, S.M.G. displayed a poetic flourish and invoked Tennyson: “‘through the shadow of the world, she sweeps into the brighter day,’ and, under her Great King and Head, she will accomplish greater things in the Future than she has done in the past.”36 Consistent with the post-millennial outlook, contemporary events were central to Presbyterian discourses on the progressive – indeed, teleological – course of history. Members of the denomination associated earthly developments – including the weakening of autocratic regimes, and the proliferation of evangelical voluntary societies – with providential progress and the inevitable advent of the millennium. This tendency was especially pronounced in the mid-nineteenth century. That such was the case is unsurprising, as this was an era in which evangelical attitudes suffused English-Canadian society.37 (Canadian Protestants, including certain Presbyterians, continued to stress the progress-oriented thrust behind history at the turn of the twentieth century under the intellectual auspices of an Anglo-Canadian iteration of Hegelian idealism. Premised

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on the notion that “religious progress … was everywhere manifested in concrete terms,” this perspective aimed to reconcile Christian faith and the imperatives of speculative philosophy within an all-encompassing synthesis, contributing in crucial ways to the Social Gospel phenomenon through its emphasis on the temporal realm.38) Evidence of the Presbyterians’ penchant for associating worldly events with the progress of God’s plan can be found in the March 1861 edition of the Home and Foreign Record of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces of British North America. The Record enthused about the growth of “Civil liberty” in such countries as Italy, Russia, and France. “Within two years,” it observed, “more than fifteen millions of Italians have risen to the dignity of free men. Russia has emancipated many millions of serfs. The Emperor of the French is making concessions to his subjects.” The Record linked these “civil changes” with “the diffusion of the Gospel,” stating that “[never] were Bible Societies, Tract Societies, Missionary Societies so energetically engaged.” The Record was adamant that these developments reflected the progressive trajectory of history. Specifically, they were setting the stage for “a happy Millennial Age to be enjoyed by the Church on earth, when the name of Jesus shall be universally known and his power acknowledged.”39 Similar sentiments appeared in the Record in August 1861, in which the publication remarked on “progress” that was thought to be evident in Europe and Asia. For example, the Record referred to encouraging developments in Russia, where, until recently, “the Bible was a forbidden book.” However, “this year the gates of that vast empire have been flung open to the operations of the Bible Society, and the life-giving word is eagerly sought by the people.” Equally encouraging trends were afoot in Austria and Italy. In the former, “a measure of religious liberty” had been realized “which could hardly have been expected from a power so tyrannical, so popish, so retrogressive.” As for the latter, the “political power of the Pope has been almost wholly extinguished; and his Bible-hating satellites, the Grand-Dukes … have been swept out of the pathway of popular advancement.” Further afield, the Record expressed enthusiasm about “the good news from the Far East.” In particular, evangelical truth was plainly on the march in “China, and Japan, and Siam, and India.” In such places, the Record reported, “retrogression” is unknown, and “we find satisfactory progress.” Cumulatively, these earthly developments brought into focus the fact that the millennium was drawing near – or, as the Record breathlessly put it, they foreshadowed “the speedy coming of Christ’s kingdom in its all prevailing strength and glory.”40

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An 1875 meeting of Presbyterians from Canada, Britain, the United States, and Australia in London, England, was also interpreted as evidence of the progressive course of history. That this was so reveals the persistence of millennial optimism within the denomination in the late nineteenth century. The meeting aimed to unite members of the denomination from various countries, who would have the opportunity to discuss means “for advancing the Redeemer’s Kingdom, and pulling down the strong-holds of Satan.” It was construed as an indication of God’s intention to “hasten in His good time the day when all shall dwell together in the unity of the Spirit and in bonds of heavenly peace.” Thus, the gathering of Presbyterians from several countries was emblematic of “a wider, deeper, more magnificent movement” toward a joyous millennial age.41 For all their millennial optimism, early Canada’s Presbyterians were not complacent when it came to either spiritual or temporal matters. Rather, while members of the denomination eagerly looked forward to  the realization of the heavenly kingdom, they also believed in the ­inevitability of the apocalypse and, finally, the Day of Reckoning. The conviction that the latter events would assuredly occur had important implications for the Presbyterian worldview. In addition to believing that they had been endowed with a responsibility for advancing the providential design, members of the denomination were certain that God would judge them, along with everyone else, at the end of time. The Westminster Confession contributed to many Protestants’ belief in the inevitability of such climactic events, given its unambiguous declaration that “God has appointed a day, wherein He will judge the world.” Through this process, the Confession states, “all persons … shall appear before the tribunal of Christ,” with their trials resulting in “the salvation of the elect” and the “damnation of the reprobate.”42 Such beliefs furnished Presbyterians with a rationale for promoting righteousness that was as compelling as it was unequivocal. Divinely favoured though they knew themselves to be, early Canada’s Presbyterians did not believe that they were somehow immune from divine scrutiny. On the contrary, the fact that they had been exalted above other peoples and charged with facilitating the onward march of providence meant that, if anything, they would be held to a more rigorous standard than everyone else. Failure to acquit themselves well, they felt, raised the spectre of divine punishment. Given the eschatological events looming on the horizon, Presbyterians felt that they could not “support [God’s] cause too liberally or labour too diligently in His service.” Thus, they insisted that “ministers, elders, [and] communicants” were obliged,

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through their “baptismal covenant,” to do whatever they could in God’s service. For, God “records in heaven every word you speak, every line you write, every mile you travel, every act you perform for the advancement of His cause on earth, and He will remember them all on the last great day!”43 Circulating extensively in the Presbyterian public sphere, such sentiments conferred heightened import on the beliefs and behaviour of the denomination’s members. If responsibility for advancing the providential design were not sufficiently compelling to goad Presbyterians on to righteousness, the threat of divine scrutiny – and, quite possibly, condemnation – at the end of time surely was. “God’s judgements,” according to early Canada’s Presbyterians, “are fitted to teach us the necessity of holiness.” After all, “God cannot be the friend of sin, even with his own people.”44 By no means unique to nineteenth-century Presbyterians, such notions have featured prominently within several Reformed Protestant groups, including ones driven from their homelands in the sixteenth century by hostile Roman Catholics. In addition to providing a powerful incentive to virtuous behaviour, a sense of confidence in the coming of the millennium has instilled in such peoples the belief that they will prevail over their adversaries, while consoling them in times of persecution.45 Presbyterians, as “the people of God,” were urged to “do and dare and suffer” for the universal sovereign in anticipation of the apocalypse, when God, flanked by “mighty angels,” would exact revenge “on those that know not God and obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.”46 Nothing less than the fate of their souls was at stake! Certain that the entirety of one’s life – including “every secret thing” – would be scrutinized on the Day of Reckoning, it was imperative that they “walk circumspectly” and serve as zealous Christian standard-bearers; for, “on the last day,” in keeping with the Westminster Confession, the entirety of humanity will assemble before the divine “Judge,” who will dispense irrevocable sentences of either “acquittal” or “condemnation.”47 To shirk one’s duty was to betray God and consign oneself to an endless, fiery perdition. Given the frequency and fervour with which such views were expressed, it seems plausible that anxiety about the spectre of divine judgement was one factor informing Presbyterian attempts to bring about God’s achievement of dominion over early Canada and, eventually, the entire world. Concrete evidence of the impact of the Presbyterians’ temporality on early Canadian society can be found in their contribution to higher education. Members of the denomination from differing factions, and in differing eras, deployed a teleological understanding of time in grappling

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with modern challenges to Christian orthodoxy. For example, in the midnineteenth century, the Reverend Robert Burns, a Free Church adherent who served as professor of church history at Knox College, Toronto, for upwards of twenty-five years, invoked a view of the past consonant with evangelical convictions in response to potentially upsetting developments like scientific skepticism about miracles recounted in the Bible. Similar to adherents of other evangelical groups, Burns cast history as a divinely engineered entity consisting of several epochs, or “dispensations,” with each one proving more “inclusive and universal” than its predecessor. Guided by God, and flowing ineluctably toward the millennium, Burns’s historical account – which was predicated on a palpably progressive conception of time – served to safeguard bedrock Christian convictions, not the least of which was a belief in the transcendent power of the universe’s providential ruler.48 George Monro Grant, a product of the Church of Scotland who served as principal and professor of theology at Queen’s University for several decades beginning in the late nineteenth century, put forth comparable views. Rather than jettisoning orthodox religious convictions in response to the ascent of Darwinism, Grant propounded the belief that history was authored by God, and was profoundly purposeful. So convinced was Grant in the progress-oriented nature of time that it constituted the “guiding force” behind his work at Queen’s. As reflected in the views of Burns and Grant, the attitudes of certain Free Church and Church of Scotland Presbyterians regarding the trajectory of the past had much in common. In fact, they were so similar that they have been described by historian Michael Gauvreau as the “intellectual cement” of the Presbyterian union of 1875. Moreover, rather than being confined to their own minds, the historical views of such nineteenth-century Presbyterians as Burns and Grant were also transmitted to their students, some of whom presumably relayed them to other members of the denomination.49 The early Canadian Presbyterian understanding of history was unmistakably vibrant. Members of the denomination involved in nineteenthcentury quarrels – including the dispute over Pictou Academy, and the struggle surrounding the Clergy Reserves – invoked the past as a means of advancing their interests. Presbyterians also invoked history during intra-denominational clashes over the church-state relationship. Given the various ways in which it was utilized, and the tendency of one faction’s views to clash with those of other factions, it seems clear that the denomination’s understanding of the past was neither unchanging nor

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uncontested, but rather flexible and subject to divergent, occasionally irreconcilable interpretations. The Presbyterians’ understanding of history influenced contemporary events. In particular it was called upon to buttress contentions made by  members of the denomination embroiled in various conflicts. Paradoxically, though, it also influenced bygone ages. Instead of being immutably ensconced in the past, history was invoked by Presbyterians who sought to strengthen their arguments by conjuring up hallowed actors and events and deploying them for diverse purposes. It would be a mistake to conclude that the denomination’s historical understanding amounted to a deceitful distortion of the past animated by nothing more than a calculated desire to advance sectarian agendas. That Presbyterians were capable of drawing on history for self-interested reasons cannot be doubted. However, the recurrent, impassioned manner in which they were discussed indicates that Presbyterians’ invocations of the past stemmed from genuine (if selective) historical interpretations, ones that melded convictions about the past and concerns about the present. The Presbyterians’ understanding of history also shaped their conception of time, which they saw as thoroughly purposeful and unerringly teleological. From the Presbyterian perspective, history was governed by God, and was coursing inexorably toward the millennium. Their conviction that the arc of history bends toward progress influenced their conception of time, which was seen as divinely orchestrated and geared in every instance toward the realization of the providential plan. Notwithstanding God’s capacity for behaving mysteriously, Presbyterians believed that time was flowing relentlessly toward a glorious millennial age that would be followed by history’s apocalyptic end. Although adversity featured prominently in their account, members of the denomination felt that the end of history would occur amid happy circumstances. Yet Presbyterians did not interpret the inevitability of these developments as grounds for complacency. Scarcely anything could be further from the truth. The denomination’s belief that they were responsible for advancing God’s plan, coupled with a pervasive anxiety regarding the apocalypse and accompanying Day of Judgment, invested Presbyterians’ words and deeds with a fierce sense of urgency. Adherents of other Protestant denominations shared the Presbyterian sense of millennial optimism. However, the Presbyterians’ belief in the progressive nature of history was unique in that it was interwoven with a narrative that validated the denomination’s model of governance, and

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situated its members in an illustrious lineage that united a succession of chosen peoples throughout time. The millennium, for members of the denomination, constituted the cosmic terminus towards which universal history – an onward march toward progress that had been facilitated by several divinely favoured groups, including early Canadian Presbyterians – had ever been making its way. Thus, while they were not the only Protestants to look forward to the end of time, the Presbyterians’ millennial enthusiasm was tightly intertwined with a distinctive rendering of history in which the denomination’s members played a pivotal part. The impact of such views, which insulated the Presbyterians’ core convictions from potentially destabilizing intellectual innovations, was manifest in their contribution to higher education. The Presbyterians’ view of the past – which was deployed in differing ways depending on the circumstances, and featured a decidedly progressive thrust – displayed remarkable vitality. Indeed, in view of its flexibility and momentum, one could fairly conclude that, for early Canada’s Presbyterians, history was alive. Such tendencies, in the last analysis, comport with William Faulkner’s famous assertion: “the past is never dead. It’s not even past.”50

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Boundless Dominion He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth. Psalms 72:8

The time seems about due for a new history-writing which will attempt to explain the ideas in the heads of Canadians that caused them to act as they did, their philosophy, why they thought in one way at one period and in a different way at another period. Frank H. Underhill, “Some Reflections on the Liberal Tradition in Canada” (1946): 17

Robert McDowall, a Presbyterian missionary who laboured in Upper Canada for several decades beginning in the late eighteenth century, sat down to dinner one Sunday evening in a settler’s cabin. A ferocious Sabbatarian, he abruptly stood up mid-meal, picked up a plate of biscuits that lay on the table, walked to the door, opened it, and tossed them outside. The reason? The biscuits tasted too fresh to have been baked on Saturday.1 Impolite though it may have been, McDowall’s act derived from an unwillingness to tolerate the consumption of what amounted, in his view, to an edible manifestation of Sabbath desecration. His behaviour meshes with Presbyterianism’s reputation for austerity. In addition to expressing itself in strict Sabbatarianism, the Presbyterians’ capacity for stern ­religiosity was also evident in the frequency with which members of the denomination became embroiled in sectarian quarrels. Much like their metropolitan counterparts, nineteenth-century Canadian Presbyterians clashed with members of other denominations over, among other things, church-state relations. On this issue, they also found fault with one

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another, with a rigid reluctance to compromise contributing to the fracturing of the denomination. Presbyterianism’s reputation for severity is thus by no means historically inaccurate. Yet there was more to the denomination than staunch Sabbatarianism and sectarian argumentativeness, influential though both tendencies were. At the heart of early Canadian Presbyterianism lay a comprehensive worldview, the characteristics of which differed dramatically from the denomination’s dour reputation. To be sure, the Presbyterians’ views were far from monolithic. However, this worldview galvanized members of a denomination that was institutionally fragmented and spatially diffuse. Specifically, it equipped them with an exhilarating synthesis of distinctiveness, duty, and destiny that resonated across Presbyterianism’s various factions. Consistent with the Westminster Confession, the central component of this worldview was a yearning to bring about God’s dominion (or spiritual sovereignty) over northern North America, and propagate an uncompromising piety throughout the rest of the world. The realization of these interrelated goals hinged on the promotion of the denomination’s theological doctrines and liturgical practices at home and abroad. Presbyterians, in seeking to achieve their objectives, envisioned the establishment of a godly society in which uncompromising Protestant morality permeates everyday life, informs the decisions of public officials, enhances the authority of government institutions, and promotes pop­ ular virtue. This goal was intertwined with a desire to propagate Protestantism – the purest form of which, they were convinced, was Presbyterianism – in such distant locales as Africa and Asia, where millions of people were supposedly beset by soul-imperilling ignorance. Members of the denomination were convinced that, in combatting sinfulness in nineteenth-century Canada as well as elsewhere in the world, virtue would prevail definitively over sinfulness, and the stage would be set for the Christian millennium, a thousand-year epoch in which violence, poverty, and injustice would be unknown. A belief in providential sovereignty played an important part in determining the contours of the Presbyterians’ worldview. Granted, adherents of the denomination were not unique in emphasizing providential themes. However, owing to their unswerving Calvinism, the Presbyterians’ understanding of God’s authority differed substantively from the interpre­ tations that circulated in other groups, not the least of which was Methodism. The Arminian theological views that circulated within this denomination purportedly included the belief that spontaneous human

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exertion could play a role in reconciling repentant sinners with their creator. Presbyterians, conversely, insisted that God alone could precipitate this soul-saving process. The Presbyterians’ emphasis on the providential motif dovetailed with their attachment to the principles, institutions, and mystique of the British Empire, which members of the denomination saw as a divinely sanctioned vehicle for the worldwide diffusion of Protestantism, and for the unmatched virtues of Western civilization. Events at home and abroad – including the War of 1812, the Napoleonic Wars, the Canadian rebellions, the European revolutions of 1848, the Indian “mutiny” of 1857, and the Canadian Presbyterian union of 1875 – were interpreted as evidence of God’s foreordained design for the world and its peoples. In each instance, an omnipotent providence was portrayed as sheltering the empire and its inhabitants, who felt they had been charged with a solemn responsibility for facilitating the onward march of piety and righteousness. Conceiving of themselves as an elect people fused to God by an Old Testament-style covenant, Presbyterians believed that they had a crucial role to play in bringing to fruition the divine plan. A synthesis of providentialism and imperialism informed Presbyterian attitudes toward Roman Catholicism and the practice of slavery in the United States. Catholicism, which members of the denomination routinely dismissed as backward and benighted, was viewed as antithetical to the purportedly dynamic, enlightened Protestantism that prevailed across much of the British world. Accordingly, Protestant missionary activity in such primarily Catholic settings as Lower Canada was perceived as a providential instrument through which Catholic peoples would be liberated from the spiritual subordination to which they had been subjected by a despotic priestly caste. Slavery, for its part, was portrayed as an accursed institution, one that flagrantly contradicted the high-minded ideals on which the American republic rested. Presbyterians viewed post-revolutionary British North America, where legislation calling for the gradual elimination of slavery had been introduced in the late eighteenth century, as a refuge from the dehumanizing drudgery that unfree American blacks had endured in Southern states. Thus, adherents of the denomination supported the creation, in British North America, of settlements for fugitives who had escaped the fetters of slavery. The Civil War, which tore at the fabric of American society between 1861 and 1865, was seen as a divinely administered punishment meted out by the universe’s providential ruler on account of the republic’s national sin. A scathing anti-Catholic prejudice

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and a strident objection to the practice of slavery in the American republic ultimately brought into focus the centrality of providentialism and imperialism within the Presbyterians’ mental world. What is more, it equipped members of the denomination with an exhilarating sense of duty that transcended the boundaries of the British North American colonies and the early Dominion of Canada. Diverse, division-inducing attitudes toward the church-state relationship featured prominently in early Canadian Presbyterianism. Nowhere was this pattern more evident than in Upper Canada, where, by the ­mid-nineteenth century, the denomination’s adherents typically fell into one of three categories regarding this issue. Members of the Church of Scotland, conceiving of themselves as members of a prestigious religious establishment whose legal equality with the Church of England was enshrined in the Treaty of Union, advocated state-aided Christianity. Members of the Secession tradition, whose arguments were often informed by the politico-religious philosophy of voluntarism, insisted on the absolute and unequivocal separation of sacred and secular spheres. Lastly, supporters of the Free Church, which emerged after the Great Disruption, championed an arrangement in which the state provides the church with unwavering financial support, but is strictly prohibited from meddling in its affairs. These perspectives, which were both a cause and an effect of sectarian conflict, were shaped by an ancient struggle over church-state relations that originated in early modern Europe and played out across the north Atlantic world. Presbyterians from all three categories based their contentions on differing interpretations of the British tradition, a fact that attests to the elasticity and cultural centrality of the multivalent phenomenon that was “Britishness.” As well, the various factions’ church-state arguments often corresponded to differing political viewpoints that ran the gamut from arch-conservatism to advanced liberalism, throwing into relief Presbyterianism’s ideological heterogeneity. Notwithstanding their undeniable church-state diversity, members of the denomination shared a commonality when it came to the interplay between religion and public life. Divided though they were when it came to relations between church and state, Presbyterianism’s constituent parts aimed to harness the authority of government in an effort to Christianize early Canada. That is, adherents of the denomination – regardless of the faction to which they belonged – sought to create a godly polity in which Christian ethics would constitute the foundation of public life, and acts of Sabbath desecration and immoderate alcohol consumption would be curtailed. In important ways, this impulse contributed to the process of

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Canadian state formation, through which governmental authority was projected across space and brought to bear on ordinary people’s lives in unprecedented ways. Despite their differences, Presbyterians looked to the state to realize their goal, attesting to their support for a “moral establishment” in which government legislates virtue. The Presbyterians’ worldview was superimposed onto their conception of the natural world. Their yearning to infuse society with Protestant virtue, in other words, was paralleled by a desire to tame what members of the denomination saw as the anarchic environment of northern North America. Like other early Canadians, Presbyterians perceived the undomesticated natural world as a physical wilderness that needed to be subdued. Yet they also saw it as a moral wilderness that was replete with sinfulness. Such notions informed denominational efforts to promote religious virtue among both settlers and Native peoples whose cultures they strove to transform with an ever-escalating fervour as the nineteenth century unfolded. Notwithstanding their anxieties about the wilderness, Presbyterians felt that it could be purged of sinfulness and reunited with God. The denomination’s adherents felt that this could be achieved by dispatching Presbyterian standard-bearers to religiously neglected hinterland communities, whose inhabitants would be exposed to Presbyterianism’s sanctifying traditions. Presbyterians also felt that the promotion of religious virtue in remote communities would result in both an audible transition, through which irreverent sounds of merrymaking would be replaced by either pious silence or vocal articulations of Christian zeal; and material sophistication, in which undomesticated regions would give way to bustling towns stippled with schools, churches, and roads, which were widely associated with moral and temporal progress. Of central importance to the Presbyterians’ campaign to tame early Canada’s moral wilderness were the denomination’s ecclesiastical traditions – particularly communion festivals, through which the “lord’s supper” was administered to large crowds beneath the “canopy of heaven,” and church courts, through which penalties were dispensed to supposed transgressors for offences like illicit sex and habitual drunkenness. The former furnished evidence of the Presbyterians’ belief that God-forsaken wastelands could be imbued with holiness, while the latter bolstered the denomination’s moral authority within embryonic villages and expanding urban centres. An epic conception of history was also integral to the early Canadian Presbyterian worldview. The denomination’s conception of the past began approximately two thousand years before Jesus’s birth, and

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culminated triumphantly in the millennium. Everything that occurred in between these events represented the divinely engineered unfurling of God’s foreordained design for the world and its inhabitants. The Presbyterians’ historical narrative opened with the covenantal bond between God and Israel, and involved such iconic figures as John Calvin and John Knox, the Covenanters and the Puritans. The latter were portrayed as a kindred community with whom Presbyterians shared an unswerving devotion to Calvinist orthodoxy and an unwavering opposition to tyranny. The denomination’s sprawling conception of the past included early Canadian entities as well, including the Huguenots of New France and early Presbyterian representatives such as James MacGregor of the Maritimes and John Black of Red River. Convinced that they were a divinely favoured people, Presbyterians believed they had a special part to play in this historical epic. They saw themselves as heirs of a uniquely righteous tradition that had been bequeathed throughout the ages from one covenanted entity to the next, and were thus responsible for nothing less than the onward march of religious and civil liberty, among other progressive phenomena. The Presbyterians’ narrative was not free of adversity. Far from it – the heroic protagonists were challenged by formidable adversaries, not the least of which were alleged Catholic and Episcopalian tormentors. Such struggles were integral to the denomination’s historical account. The inevitable triumph of good over evil – which followed the apocalyptic conflict between the two forces foreshadowed in scripture – would be all the more satisfying in view of the foes that had been defeated along the way. So ingrained was the Presbyterians’ conception of the past that it ­featured prominently within the denomination even when its constituent parts quarrelled with one another. For example, when Presbyterians clashed over church-state relations, the various factions invoked aspects of the past, albeit in differing ways, in hopes of legitimating their contentions. Their understanding of the past, then, was neither unchanging nor unambiguous, but rather fluid and hotly contested. The historical account that circulated in the denomination had important implications for the Presbyterian understanding of time. Given their abiding emphasis on the advancement of the providential plan, adherents of the denomination came to perceive time as neither aimless nor wholly inscrutable. Although they did not deny God’s capacity for acting in mysterious ways, Presbyterians perceived time’s passage as a deeply purposeful phenomenon that was shot through with eschatological significance. Time was understood to be a fundamentally progressive entity that would

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culminate, inevitably, in the earthly realization of a magnificent millennial kingdom where poverty, sinfulness, and ignorance would be eradicated. Yet the Presbyterians’ basically optimistic attitude toward the trajectory of history did not engender spiritual complacency. Instead, members of the denomination felt that, owing to their elect status, they were obligated to facilitate the providential plan’s realization. Additionally, many Presbyterians were convinced that the divine judge would dispense ir­revocable sentences of either damnation or salvation to the entirety of humanity at the end of time, per the Westminster Confession. If a sense of responsibility for advancing the providential design was not enough to spur Presbyterians on to righteousness, the spectre of eternal anguish surely was. While their attitudes toward time overlapped in many ways with those of other Protestant groups, the Presbyterians’ temporal paradigm was also unique, in that it was inextricably linked to the epic narrative regarding the denomination’s history. The Presbyterians’ historical account reached its crescendo with the millennium’s advent and, finally, the apocalypse. Its impact can be seen in the denomination’s contribution to Canadian higher education, with Presbyterian intellectuals drawing on a particular rendering of history as a means of shielding bedrock beliefs from perceived threats to Christian orthodoxy. Ideas matter. Presbyterian attitudes toward such phenomena as providence, politics, nature, and history exerted substantial influence within the denomination, and early Canadian society, throughout the pre-1875 era. Their views – which were mainly espoused through newspapers, pamphlets, and sermons – were not confined to the writings and utterances of an unrepresentative coterie. Rather, they were discussed with remarkable frequency by a host of individuals, clerical and lay, over a long period of time. Moreover, the media through which these themes were discussed gave rise to a discursive community, or “public sphere,” whereby a diverse aggregation of Presbyterians became involved in discussion-oriented communities, with words and beliefs circulating freely and jockeying for supremacy. Such communities, in turn, functioned as deliberative forums through which ideas were discussed, debated, and transmitted to a broader Presbyterian public, which itself played an active role in absorbing sentiments that surfaced in denominational publications. The views expressed through such media should not necessarily be taken at face value – after all, nineteenth-century commentators were surely as capable of harbouring ulterior motives as their twenty-first-century counterparts are. Still, to insist that the denomination’s worldview was nothing more

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than a self-serving vehicle for achieving objectives (power, prestige, wealth) that are readily apparent to modern-day observers is to view the past through a cynical, present-minded lens – one that is ill equipped to understand ideas that emerged from cultural circumstances that differ fundamentally from those of our own age. There was also a meaningful correlation between the views expressed through Presbyterian publications and the actions undertaken by rankand-file members of the denomination. For instance, the opinions put forth by prominent clerical and lay actors regarding anti-Catholicism and slavery were paralleled by initiatives regarding these issues launched by “ordinary” members of the denomination. Evidence can be found, respectively, in the Presbyterians’ support for Protestant missionary activity among the overwhelmingly Catholic inhabitants of Lower Canada; and in their fundraising efforts on behalf of the Buxton mission, which aimed to provide a haven in mid-nineteenth-century Canada West for oppressed peoples who had fled bondage in the American republic. To contend that there was a meaningful correlation between elite ­rhetoric and rank-and-file action is not to imply that subtle acts of resistance or, for that matter, overt insubordination on the part of ordinary Presbyterians did not occur. Nor is it to suggest that rank-and-file members of the denomination automatically acquiesced to elite injunctions, as though they were zombie-like creatures mindlessly doing the bidding of Presbyterianism’s disproportionately influential clerical and lay upper echelons. Rather, while it is hard to substantiate definitively a causal relationship between words and deeds, it seems plausible that there was a meaningful relationship between them when it came to early Canada’s Presbyterians, if only because what they said – Catholicism is inherently oppressive, slavery is an abomination – often meshed with what they did – evangelizing Lower Canadians, backing the Buxton mission. Moreover, as with other groups, one could also contend that, given the vital part that ideas play in transposing meaning onto our experiences, Presbyterian behaviour cannot exist in isolation from intellectual abstractions. That is, because ideas imbue our experiences with significance, it could fairly be said that human behaviour, whether it involves Presbyterians or anyone else, is rendered incoherent – meaningless, even – without them.2 Exploring ideas that circulated in early Canadian Presbyterianism also allows us to better our understanding of the highly influential Christian culture to which the denomination belonged. Needless to say, nineteenthcentury Canada’s Christian culture informed millions of people’s attitudes

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toward such quintessentially spiritual considerations as sinfulness and salvation. Yet its significance transcended the overtly spiritual realm. In influencing popular morality, nineteenth-century Canada’s Christian culture also informed people’s views toward phenomena – including work, wealth, and gender – that modern-day observes might be apt to see as secular. In addition to illuminating the characteristics of one denomination, examining the Presbyterians’ worldview sheds light on early Canada’s Christian culture, since members of the denomination had a great deal in common with other groups, collaborating with several of them on moral reform campaigns. Delving into Presbyterianism’s mental world also sheds light on nineteenth-century Canada’s Protestant culture, which comprised differing denominations and crystallized in the mid-nineteenth century. In myriad instances, members of this culture, including Presbyterians, rallied around the following ethical concerns: the pervasiveness of immoderate alcohol consumption and Sabbath desecration; slavery in the American republic; and the rise of allegedly despotic ultramontanism, with Protestants routinely portraying themselves as the righteous antithesis of a debauched Roman Catholic “other.” Motivated by a combination of evangelicalism and bourgeois values, members of this culture became actively involved in public life, and quested to render a particular conception of Protestant virtue the bedrock of public and private morality. The importance of this culture, which shaped understandings of virtue and engendered the formulation of coercive laws that aimed to promote exacting standards in societal virtue, can scarcely be exaggerated. Exploring the intellectual history of nineteenth-century Presbyterianism, which played a prominent role in the multidenominational Protestant community that coalesced in the mid-nineteenth century, illuminates many of the beliefs on which it was based. Through the prism of nineteenth-century Presbyterianism one ultimately catches a glimpse of religion’s utter centrality in Canadian society before processes of secularization – through which Christianity’s societal influence ebbed – began to gather momentum. Canadian historians’ accounts of when secularization occurred vary widely, ranging from the late nineteenth century to the 1960s. That “secularization” can mean ­different things – the severing of church and state, the decline of popular engagement with religious institutions, the emergence of a milieu in which religiosity is but one cultural orientation among many – has arguably contributed to the uncertainty over when, exactly, it happened.3 Yet  by focusing on secularization’s timing, scholars inadvertently risk

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drawing attention away from religion’s profound importance before its cultural influence began to wane, whenever that may have been. Historian Callum Brown has offered penetrating insights on the historical centrality of Christianity to British culture. The “mere presence of Christian churches or of Christian people in Britain does not make, and never has made, Britain Christian,” he writes. Rather, what made it Christian, in Brown’s view, was the fact that aspects of Christian morality suffused everyday life, and shaped conceptions of individual and collective identity before the phenomenon of secularization (which in his view occurred abruptly in the 1960s) displaced Christianity from its traditional place at the heart of British society.4 Brown’s arguments have stimulating implications for the study of religion in nineteenth-century Canada. Northern North America was not a deeply Christian society, for good or ill, throughout that century (and, in many scholars’ opinion, beyond) simply because it contained numerous churches and churchgoing people – although both phenomena furnish quantifiable evidence of Christianity’s cultural salience. Instead, it was a deeply Christian society because aspects of that religion penetrated millions of people’s heads and hearts, determined notions of virtue and depravity, and played a crucial role in structuring understandings of selfhood and community – as reflected in notions of individual accountability to God, and in a sense of communal obligation to one’s fellow citizens, respectively. To investigate the Presbyterian worldview, then, is to enhance our appreciation of the religiously based motivations that influenced both the private life of individuals and the public life of societies. An investigation of Presbyterianism’s intellectual substance brings into focus religion’s tremendous importance in early Canada, as it reveals the pronounced extent to which adherents of this denomination looked to religious phenomena in an effort to make sense of the world and their place within it. For evidence one need look no further than Presbyterian understandings of providence, which offered a comprehensive rationale for everything from jarring tribulations (the death of a child, an outbreak of cholera) to exhilarating triumphs (British military victories, the achievement of denominational union), thereby mitigating the hardships and uncertainties that pervade people’s lives, and rendering existence itself palpably meaningful.5 Given its multifaceted importance, historians of nineteenth-century Canada would do well to devote further attention to the crucial part played by religion in shaping northern North American culture. So, too, would historians of twentieth-century Canada, since an appreciation of

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religion’s historical importance is essential to an understanding of the  fundamental shift that occurred, in English-speaking society, from the seemingly rigid moralism of the Victorian age to the comparatively flexible relativism that prevails today, especially among cultural elites in the arts, journalism, and academia.6 Recent scholarship on Protestant moralism has tended to focus on its penchant for domination and manipulation, as seen in one historian’s description of the “state-sponsored prohibition movement” as “straightforwardly a class-based attack” that used “blunt coercion” to alter workers’ behaviour.7 This characterization is not inaccurate, as prohibition’s advocates, from the mid-nineteenth century onward, were indeed drawn from an increasingly assertive bourgeoisie whose members frequently assumed a paternalistic responsibility for what they saw as the ethical elevation of their working-class counterparts. (Although this tendency should not obscure religion’s resonance among workers in various contexts, for whom it has afforded a welcome respite from “the conflictual world of workplace politics.”8) Yet the fact that such criticisms have become commonplace is indicative of a basic attitudinal change: from an outlook that deplored excessive drinking on the grounds that it was impious and undisciplined, to one that emphasizes prohibition’s capacity for repression and subjugation, and sees alcoholism as a disease as opposed to a vice. That neither perspective is perfectly representative of the intellectual ethos from which it emerged – there were alternatives to Protestant moralism in the nineteenth century, just like there are alternatives to relativism today – should not detract from the magnitude of the conceptual shift that has occurred. It is difficult, if not impossible, for historians of modern-day Canada to appreciate the importance of this transition, and the accompanying ascent of relativism, without also appreciating the radically divergent perspective that it eclipsed. Ultimately, whether one is studying the nineteenth or the twentieth century, to downplay religion’s significance is to becloud one of the most irreducibly important aspects of this country’s past – decidedly distasteful though some of its characteristics may be to many of us in the twenty-first century. Hugh MacLennan, in his novel Each Man’s Son, engages with Presbyterianism’s reputation for austerity. Dr Dougald MacKenzie, a mid-twentieth-century Cape Breton physician, attempts to comfort his guilt-ridden friend and colleague, Dr Daniel Ainslie, who is the novel’s protagonist. MacKenzie, in attempting to discern the root cause of Ainslie’s unhappiness, identifies his friend’s upbringing as the child of a

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Presbyterian minister – through which a stern Calvinism was inculcated in his mind beginning at an early age – as largely responsible for his psychological suffering in adulthood. Ainslie, despite gravitating to agnosticism in adulthood, is in MacKenzie’s view tormented by his Presbyterian heritage. “Dan,” MacKenzie states, “you haven’t forgotten a single word you’ve ever heard from the pulpit or from your own Presbyterian father. You may think you’ve rejected religion with your mind, but your personality has no more rejected it than dyed cloth rejects its original colour.” Unable to refute his colleague’s assessment, Ainslie agonizes over why he has been condemned to “forever feel guilty before he could reason away any cause for guilt.” MacKenzie had told him that, “although he might be an intellectual agnostic, he was an emotional child in thrall to his barbarous Presbyterian past.” As Ainslie struggles to digest his colleague’s remarks, he notices himself feeling “guilty again.” But why, he wonders, was this the case? “Was there no end to the circle of Original Sin? Could a man never grow up and be free?”9 As the son of a Presbyterian minister, MacLennan presumably knew of what he wrote.10 Yet it would be a mistake to conclude from his novel that there was – is – nothing more to Presbyterianism than Calvinism’s angst-inducing psychological residue, notwithstanding the tendency of observers on both sides of the Atlantic to associate the denomination with feelings of “guilt, inadequacy, and emptiness.”11 Early Canadian Presbyterians were galvanized by a boundless worldview, the features of which differ dramatically from cartoonish depictions of the impossibly austere Presbyterian. Though a dour conceptual orientation inarguably exerted influence within the denomination’s ranks, they were simultaneously energized by an ambitious desire to bring about God’s achievement of dominion – spiritual sovereignty – over early Canada. The realization of this objective, adherents of the denomination felt certain, involved creating a godly society in which uncompromising Protestantism permeates individual homes and consciences, and constitutes the ethical foundation of public life. Closely associated with this impulse was a yearning to propagate unalloyed Protestantism throughout the wider world, which in turn would hasten the arrival of the Christian millennium itself. So, yes, austerity was an important aspect of early Canadian Presbyterianism. But it was by no means the only factor shaping the denomination’s worldview.

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A b b r e v i ati o n s D U A Dalhousie University Archives L AC Library and Archives Canada N S ARM Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management P CCA Presbyterian Church in Canada Archives Q U A Queen’s University Archives U CA United Church Archives U CA-M A R United Church of Canada Archives – Maritime Conference

I nt ro duct i o n  1 Leacock, Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich, 203.   2 Leacock was neither the first author nor the last author to emphasize unappealing aspects of Presbyterianism’s reputation. Walter Scott, in such early nineteenth-­ century novels as The Tale of Old Mortality (1816) and The Heart of Midlothian (1818), portrayed uncompromising members of the denomination as “canting” zealots; while Margaret Laurence, in her Manawaka novels of the late twentieth century, stressed the legacy of “guilt, inadequacy, and emptiness” engendered by Calvinism, Presbyterianism’s theological mainspring. Carruthers, Scottish Literature, 101–3; Robinson, “Fleeing the Emptiness,” 123–5.   3 Moir, “‘Who Pays the Piper…,’” 13–27; Grant, Divided Heritage, 28–57.   4 A note on terminology: in discussing pre-Confederation developments, the term “British North America” will be used; in discussing developments that straddle 1867 the terms “nineteenth-century Canada” and “early Canada” will be used interchangeably; and, in discussing the physical space that corresponds to the modern-day Canadian nation-state regardless of chronology, the term “northern North America” will be used.  5 Brown, Providence and Empire, 20–1.

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  6 McLelland, “Ralph and Stephen and Hugh and Margaret,” 115. See also Marshall, Secularizing the Faith, 42–5; and Moir, Enduring Witness, 172–4.   7 Aspects of this reputation have persisted into the twenty-first century. In a characteristically provocative column published in 2010, The Globe and Mail’s Margaret Wente invoked her Presbyterian background in lamenting what she sees as contemporary Canadians’ inability to prepare financially for the future. Wente began her column by sheepishly admitting that she had recently used a credit card to purchase expensive items at a grocery store, an indulgent act that she implicitly equates with modern-day Canadians’ failure to set aside sufficient funds for retirement. Wente contrasts her own behaviour with that of her thrifty Presbyterian grandmother, who weathered the Great Depression largely as a result of her capacity for self-restraint – a capacity which derived, Wente suggests, from her religiosity. “I could almost see the ghost of Grandma looking down at me,” Wente wrote, “telling me that I would go to Hell. Grandma was a Presbyterian … She thought debt was the original sin.” “Coming Soon: The Great Retirement Shock.” The Globe and Mail, 17 April 2010, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/ coming-soon-the-great-retirement-shock/article4315362/.  8 Naugle, Worldview, 5–10.   9 Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 23, “Of the Civil Magistrate,” accessed 16 December 2015, http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/index. html; Gen. 1:28 (King James Version). On the “cultural mandate” see Naugle, Worldview, 22–3. 10 Hinsley, Sovereignty, 1; 54–8; Elshtain, Sovereignty, 2–3. 11 W.L. Morton, The Critical Years, 212–13; Airhart, “Ordering a New Nation and Reordering Protestantism,” 98–101. In the twenty-first century, the term “dominion” is often used in reference to an ultra-conservative element found within fundamentalist Protestantism whose supporters are known as “Christian Reconstructionists.” Members of this constituency rely heavily on “dominion theology” – the idea that humanity has a God-given duty to exert control over the world – in seeking to “transform the larger culture … [and] bring it in line with what they see as the requirements of biblical law.” Ingersoll, Building God’s Kingdom, 2–5; 32–3. 12 On historical periodization see White, “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality,” 1–25. 13 Notwithstanding the efforts of early missionaries like John Hall and Robert Jamieson, Presbyterianism’s presence in British Columbia was limited before the completion, in 1885, of the Canadian Pacific Railway. This transcontinental infrastructure project led to the growth of the province’s settler population, including its Presbyterian contingent, which numbered 15,000 by the early 1890s. Gregg, Short History of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, 174; Moir, Enduring Witness, 145. 14 Though capable of shedding valuable light on regional diversities (and, thus, a crucial aspect of Canadian history), regionalism is not without limitations as an interpretive framework. For example, it can obscure the existence of sub-regional identities, or what historian Carl Berger called “limited identities within limited

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identities.” Berger, The Writing of Canadian History, 289. On “limited identities” in Canada, see Careless, “‘Limited Identities’ in Canada,” 1–10. A regional focus can also obscure similarities between polities located in different regions. For example, as historian Elizabeth Mancke has observed, in the early modern era northern North American colonies ranging from Rupert’s Land to Newfoundland shared significant characteristics. They included “an early and strong state presence that preceded British settlers, weak colonial governments relative to the metropolitan bureaucracy, colonial governments subservient to Parliament, powerful metropolitan-based commercial interests, and a significant state tolerance for local cultures.” Mancke, “Another British America,” 5. 15 On the eve of church union in 1925, when two-thirds of the Presbyterians joined with the Methodists and the Congregationalists in forming the United Church of Canada, Presbyterianism was the Dominion’s largest Protestant denomination. In recent decades, its membership has declined precipitously – it shrank by more than a third between 1991 and 2001 – and accounts for only about 1 per cent of the Canadian population in the early twenty-first century. Undoubtedly important though they are, the reasons for this decline – and for the decline of “mainline” Protestantism in Canada more generally – are beyond the scope of this study. Macdonald, “Presbyterian and Reformed Christians and Ethnicity,” 174. On church union see Airhart, A Church with the Soul of a Nation, 3–63. 16 Macdonald, “Presbyterian and Reformed Christians and Ethnicity,” 176; Bumsted, The Scots in Canada, 3. The extent to which Canadian Presbyterianism has shed its Scottish cultural identity over time is unclear. On one hand, developments occurring in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries – the creation of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the experiences of Canadian Presbyterians involved in the world wars – arguably contributed to the emergence of a distinctly Canadian denominational identity. On the other hand, however, the intensification in recent years of conspicuously Scottish traditions within Canadian Presbyterianism – ­notably “Robbie” Burns suppers and the practice of “kirking the tartan,” wherein blessings are bestowed on particular clans’ tartans – indicate that notions of “Scottishness” within the denomination are alive and kicking. Macdonald, “Presbyterian and Reformed Christians and Ethnicity,” 194–6. On the ambiguities and contradictions inherent in renderings of “Scottishness” see McKay, “Tartanism ­Triumphant,” 5–47. 17 Macdonald, “Presbyterian and Reformed Christians and Ethnicity,” 175–6; Moir, Enduring Witness, 80–6. 18 Noll, The Rise of Evangelicalism, 19; Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 50. 19 Moir, Enduring Witness, 79. 20 Baskerville, “Did Religion Matter?,” 67. 21 Orsi, The Madonna of 115th Street, xvii. See also Hall, Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment, 18–20. 22 Christie and Gauvreau, Christian Churches and Their Peoples.

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23 According to the first Dominion census, Ontario’s Anglicans actually had lower rates of home ownership than rival Protestant groups like the Baptists. Darroch and Soltow, Property and Inequality in Victorian Ontario, 94–5. On the concentration of Protestants in nineteenth-century Ontario’s Irish community before the arrival of the famine migrants see Akenson, The Irish in Ontario, 24–6. On the prevalence of Roman Catholics in colonial Scottish communities see McLean, The People of Glengarry, 101–2. 24 Christie and Gauvreau, “Modalities of Social Authority,” 2. 25 On emotions in history, see Rosenwein, “Worrying about Emotions in History,” 844–5. 26 Westfall, Two Worlds; Acheson, “Evangelicals and Public Life in Southern New Brunswick,” 50–68. For a critique of this interpretation see Forbes, “Contesting the Protestant Consensus.” 27 Colley, Britons, 11–54. 28 U CA 86. 079C , Croil Papers, box 1, file 1. Autobiography, “Life of James Croil, 1821–1916, pp. 1–100,” 70. 29 In her study of Upper Canadian Quakerism, historian Robynne Rogers Healey deftly points out that the development of a Protestant culture “did not represent the movement of more people into a narrow band of identity as much as it exemplified the broadening of identity to encompass more [people].” Healey, From Quaker to Upper Canadian, 8. 30 McCulloch, The Prosperity of the Church in Troublous Times, 10. 31 Frye, “Introduction,” vi; Samson, The Spirit of Industry and Improvement, 73; Sharman, “Thomas McCulloch’s Stepsure,” 619. 32 U CA Croil Papers. “Autobiography: Life of James Croil, 1821–1916.” Transcript of 1870 letter by William Ormiston of the Canada Presbyterian Church, addressed to “the moderators of the respective Churches,” 133–4. 33 Semple, The Lord’s Dominion, 144. 34 Klempa, “History of Presbyterian Theology in Canada to 1875,” 211. Starting in the late nineteenth century, certain Presbyterians, in response to societal problems wrought by urbanization and industrialization, gravitated toward the Social Gospel movement, which strove to create God’s kingdom on earth through myriad reformoriented initiatives. Allen, The Social Passion; Fraser, The Social Uplifters; Boudreau, “Strikes, Rural Decay, and Socialism.” 35 Machar also expressed dismay at the Presbyterian Church in Canada’s decision to try Alexander Macdonnell, a friend of hers, for heresy. Brouwer, “The ‘BetweenAge’ Christianity of Agnes Machar,” 355–6. 36 McKillop, “Science, Ethics, and ‘Modern Thought,’” 62–3. 37 Claydon and McBride, “The Trials of the Chosen Peoples,” 26–8. 38 McCulloch, The Prosperity of the Church in Troublous Times, 10. 39 Dummitt, “The ‘Taint of Self,’” 65–74. See also Howe, Making the American Self, 4–5. On the moral imperative in Victorian Canada see McKillop, A Disciplined

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Intelligence. On metropolitan notions of morality see Himmelfarb, Poverty and Compassion. 40 Dummitt, “The ‘Taint of Self,’” 77. Dummitt has also argued that, in the postwar era, the “moral certainties” of the Victorian age crumbled, and were replaced by a “raucous maelstrom of competing ideas of what was fit and proper.” One outcome of this shift, he explains, was that Victorian morality came to be seen not simply as “old-fashioned,” but also as “repressive” and deserving of “ridicule” – indeed, certain observers went as far as to portray it as a veritable illness: “Victorianitis.” Dummitt, Unbuttoned, 222–7. 41 See, for instance, Valverde, The Age of Light, Soap, and Water, 17–33; Heron, Booze, 11–12. 42 Dummitt, “After Inclusiveness,” 115. 43 Himmelfarb, Victorian Values and Twentieth-Century Condescension, 12–15. 44 Thompson, The Making of the English Working-Class, 12. 45 Wood, “Ideology and the Origins of Liberal America,” 630–1. See also Bouwsma, “From History of Ideas to History of Meaning,” 279–91; Geertz, “Ideology as a Cultural System,” 47–76; and Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 879–907. 46 See also Houghton, The Victorian Frame of Mind; Curti, The Growth of American Thought. 47 Cook, “Canadian Intellectual History,” 20. See also Owram, “Intellectual History in the Land of Limited Identities,” 114–28; McKillop, “So Little on the Mind,” 18–33. 48 Darnton, “Intellectual and Cultural History,” 331; Owram, “Writing about Ideas,” 64. 49 Bret, “What is Intellectual History Now?,” 331–2. 50 Gauvreau, “Beyond the Search for Intellectuals,” 58–90; Karr, “What Happened to Canadian Intellectual History?,” 167–73. 51 Errington, The Lion, the Eagle and Upper Canada; Silver, The French Canadian Idea of Confederation; and Owram, Promise of Eden. See also Cook, The Regenerators; Shore, The Science of Social Redemption; Gauvreau, The Evangelical Century; Zeller, Inventing Canada; and Westfall, Two Worlds. 52 See, for example, Walden, “Tea in Toronto and the Liberal Order,” 1–24; Heaman, The Inglorious Arts of Peace; Mills, The Empire Within; and Podruchny, Making the Voyageur World. 53 Ducharme, The Idea of Liberty in Canada during the Age of Atlantic Revolutions; Eamon, Imprinting Britain. 54 See, for example, Skinner, Visions of Politics; Pocock, Politics, Language and Time. 55 Chapman et al., eds., Seeing Things Their Way. 56 Examples include Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic; Bloch, The Royal Touch. 57 Bret, “What Is Intellectual History Now?,” 124; Burke, Varieties of Cultural History, 162–5.

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Notes to pages 17–26

58 Wickberg, “What Is the History of Sensibilities?,” 661–84; McNairn, “‘The common sympathies of our nature,’” 49–71. 59 Pocock, “British History,” 3–21; Pocock, “The Limits and Divisions of British History,” 317–19. See also Bridge and Fedorowich, “Mapping the British World,” 1–15. 60 Berger, The Writing of Canadian History, 292. See also Christie and Gauvreau, “Introduction,” 24; and Moir, “Canadian Religious Historiography – An Overview,” 136–50. 61 On the historiography of the “secularization” debate in Canada see McKillop, A Disciplined Intelligence, ix–xxvii; Marshall, “Canadian Historians,” 57–81. 62 Marshall, Secularizing the Faith; Cook, Regenerators. 63 Gauvreau, Evangelical Century, 284–5. 64 Van Die, An Evangelical Mind; Christie and Gauvreau, A Full-Orbed Christianity; and Airhart, Serving the Present Age. 65 Clarkson and O’Leary, “Books and Periodicals for an Expanding Community,” 355–60; Heath, “‘Forming Sound Public Opinion,’” 110–11; Rutherford, A Victorian Authority, 26–31; and Eamon, Imprinting Britain, 10. 66 On the “public sphere” in early Canada see McNairn, The Capacity to Judge; Bannister, “The Campaign for Representative Government in Newfoundland,” 19–40. Such studies bespeak the impact of Habermas’s The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. For wide-ranging perspectives on the “public sphere” see Crossley and Roberts, eds., After Habermas. 67 Canadian United Presbyterian Magazine, January 1861, 4. 68 Hepburn, Crossing the Border, 41–51. 69 N S ARM M G 1, Thomas McCulloch papers, vol. 554, doc. 37. Address to United Presbyterian Synod, Scotland on behalf of Pictou Academy. “Remarks Upon the Religion and Education of Nova Scotia from the time of its occupation by the British till the present.” See also MacLeod, History of Presbyterianism on Prince Edward Island, 10. 70 U CA- M AR P P 200, Minutes of the Presbytery of Halifax, Church of Scotland, 20 September 1837. See also Jack, History of Saint Andrew’s Church, 77–85. 71 That this was the case lays bare the exclusionary dimension of the public sphere. On this topic see McLaughlin, “Feminism and the Political Economy of Transnational Public Space,” 156–75. 72 Hall, “The World of Print and Collective Mentality in Seventeenth-Century New England,” 76–96; Toews, “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn,” 883–5.

C ha p t e r o n e   1 On transnationalism and Canadian history see Dubinsky and Yu, eds., Within and Without the Nation. Without denying the benefits of spatially expansive interpretive models, historian Jerry Bannister has pointed out that they can obscure distinct developments in regions like Atlantic Canada that are often accorded short shrift

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(or ignored altogether) by scholars concerned with larger nations and empires. Bannister, “Atlantic Canada in an Atlantic World?”  2 MacCulloch, The Reformation, 237–41.  3 Graham, The Uses of Reform, 1–2.  4 Bouwsma, John Calvin, 36; 204–13.   5 Kingdon, “The Geneva Consistory in the Time of Calvin,” 21–34. See also Kingdon, “The Calvinist Reformation in Geneva,” 92–8.  6 Höpfl, The Christian Polity of John Calvin, 149–50; 153–5.   7 McNeil, ed., Institutes of the Christian Religion (book 4, chapter 12), 5.  8 Benedict, Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed, 99–103.   9 Ibid., xv. 10 Ibid., xvi–xvii. A fuller discussion on Calvinism’s political and economic implications can be found in chapters 2 and 3, respectively. 11 Ibid., 28–9; Murdock, Beyond Calvin, 1–22. 12 MacCulloch, Christianity, 702–3; Murdock, Beyond Calvin, 22–3. 13 Benedict, Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed, 90. 14 Murdock, Beyond Calvin, 22–8. 15 Ibid., 1–2. See also Pettegree et al., eds., Calvinism in Europe. 16 McDougall and Moir, eds., Selected Correspondence of the Glasgow Colonial Society, xxiii. 17 Stoll, Inherit the Holy Mountain, 29. The contrast between “created” and “Creator” appears in Romans 1:25. 18 Dawson, John Knox, 315. 19 Moir, Enduring Witness, 11. 20 Cameron, ed., The First Book of Discipline, 87. 21 Dawson, “Knox, John,” 30. 22 Kirk, ed., The Second Book of Discipline, 175; Herron, Kirk by Divine Right, 29; and Moir, Enduring Witness, 11–14. 23 Brown, Providence and Empire, 19–20. 24 McDougall and Moir, eds., Selected Correspondence of the Glasgow Colonial Society, xxiii–xxv; Smith, Farris, and Markell, A Short History of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, 12–15. 25 Graham, “Knox on Discipline,” 284; Graham, The Uses of Reform, 130–1. 26 Todd, “The Problem of Scotland’s Puritans,” 180–1. 27 Mason, Kingship and Commonweal, 3. 28 Stevenson, “The Early Covenanters and the Federal Union of Britain,” 177. 29 Moir, Enduring Witness, 14–16. 30 Herron, Kirk by Divine Right, 45; Moir, Enduring Witness, 17. See also Buckroyd, Church and State in Scotland. 31 Kidd, “Conditional Britons,” 1147–76; Hay, The Covenanters in Canada, 11–13. 32 Kidd, Union and Unionisms, 215–7. 33 Herron, Kirk by Divine Right, 51. 34 Cheyne, The Transforming of the Kirk, 17; Brown, Providence and Empire, 21.

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Notes to pages 36–43

35 Klempa, “History of Presbyterian Theology in Canada to 1875,” 206. On Chalmers’s evangelical Presbyterian vision see Brown, Thomas Chalmers and the Godly Commonwealth in Scotland. 36 Klempa, “History of Presbyterian Theology in Canada to 1875,” 206; Kidd, Union and Unionisms, 225. 37 Kidd, Union and Unionisms, 225–7. 38 Hillis, “The Sociology of the Disruption,” 47–58; Gauvreau, “Reluctant Voluntaries,” 138–9; and Brown, Religion and Society in Scotland Since 1707, 21. 39 Jones, “The Scotch-Irish in British America,” 289. 40 Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 1–6; 44; Jones, “The Scotch-Irish in British America,” 288–90. 41 Hay, The Covenanters in Canada, 13. 42 On the Huguenots in colonial North America see Moir, “Nec Tamen Consumebatur,” 1–12; Crowley, “The French Regime to 1760,” 3–6; and Gregg, Short History of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, 1–5. 43 Trinterud, The Forming of an American Tradition, 228–41; Jones, “The ScotchIrish in British America,” 292. 44 Noll, Christians in the American Revolution, 51–2. 45 Bumsted, The People’s Clearance, 66–8; Jones, “The Scotch-Irish in British America,” 309–10; Trinterud, Forming of an American Tradition, 244; and Moir, Enduring Witness, 20–35. 46 Wilson, The Irish in Canada, 8; Smith, Farris, and Markell, A Short History of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, 22–3; Moir, Enduring Witness, 37. 47 On McCullloch see Buggey and Davies, “McCulloch, Thomas.” On MacGregor see Wilson, Highland Shepherd. 48 Smith, Farris, and Markell, A Short History of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, 27–30; Moir, Enduring Witness, 55–9. Additionally, followers of the Scottish-born Presbyterian minister Donald McDonald (an eccentric and charismatic figure who arrived in Prince Edward Island in 1826) effectively constituted an autonomous Christian community within the colony. At their peak, these “McDonaldites” comprised more than ten per cent of the Island’s Protestant population. Brouwer, “‘Prince Edward Island’s Unique “Brotherly Love” Community,’” 7–8; Weale, “McDonald, Donald.” 49 Moir, Enduring Witness, 63–72. 50 Ibid., 77–80. 51 Campbell and MacLean, Beyond the Atlantic Roar, 204–8; Gregg, Short History of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, 31. 52 P CCA 1973-1044-1-6, Presbyterian Church of Canada in Connection with the Church of Scotland fonds. Royal Charter of Queen’s College, Kingston, 1841. 53 Moir, Enduring Witness, 80–6. 54 See Murison, “The Disruption and the Colonies of Scottish Settlement,” 135–50. 55 Moir, Enduring Witness, 103–4.

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56 Ibid., 104–5; Vaudry, The Free Church in Victorian Canada, 1844–1861, 38–47. On the history of Knox College, which began as the Free Church’s theological school, see Fraser, Church, College, and Clergy. 57 Hay, The Covenanters in Canada, 13–30. On Maritime Covenanters see Eldon Hay, The Chignecto Covenanters. 58 Hay, The Covenanters in Canada, 136–9. 59 Moir, Enduring Witness, 119–28; Smith, Farris, and Markell, A Short History of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, 50–2. On the Protestant culture see Westfall, Two Worlds; and Acheson, “Evangelicals and Public Life in Southern New Brunswick, 1830–1880,” 50–68. 60 Moir, Enduring Witness, 128–31. 61 Ibid., 136–7. 62 Ibid., 128–45. 63 Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 157–8. 64 U CA 79.033C , Presbyterian Church of the Maritime Provinces in Connection with the Church of Scotland. Presbytery of Prince Edward Island Minutes, 1854–1875, microfilm reel 1. “Formula … required to be subscribed by Licentiates of the Church of Scotland on obtaining License, and by ministers at their ordination and induction.” 65 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, July 1845, 100. 66 Canadian Presbyterian Magazine, July 1852, n.p.; Presbyterian Magazine, September 1853, n.p. 67 Magrill, A Commerce of Taste, 3–6; 42–9. 68 McDougall and Moir, Correspondence of the Glasgow Colonial Society, xxvi– xxviii. There were exceptions. In the early nineteenth century, for example, the Church of Scotland erected structures – St Andrew’s, Toronto, for instance – in the neo-classical style that were designed to reflect its supposed status as an established entity and a bulwark of social order. Westfall, Two Worlds, 145. 69 Smith, Farris, and Markell, A Short History of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, 15–18. 70 Moir, Enduring Witness, 123–33. 71 McDougall and Moir, Correspondence of the Glasgow Colonial Society, xxviii. 72 Moir, Enduring Witness, 122. 73 Campbell and MacLean, Beyond the Atlantic Roar, 202–4. See also Smout, A History of the Scottish People 1560–1830, 461–6; Harper, Emigrants and Exiles, 351; Stanley, The Well-Watered Garden; and Stanley-Blackwell, Tokens of Grace, 13–20. 74 Moir, Enduring Witness, 122. 75 Brown, Providence and Empire, 20–1. 76 U CA-M AR P P 200, Minutes of Halifax Presbytery c. 1817–1860. “Formula of Questions at Presbyterial Visitations.” 77 Laurie Stanley-Blackwell, “Introduction,” in Rob MacNab, xv.

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Notes to pages 51–61

78 Baird, Rob MacNab, 153–5. For an Upper Canadian example see MacKay, Pioneer Life in Zorra, 127–8. On the commemoration of the Hector see Boudreau, “A ‘Rare and Unusual Treat of Historical Significance,’” 28–48. 79 MacKay, Pioneer Life in Zorra, 21–42. 80 On prominent Presbyterians from the community see MacKay, Zorra Boys at Home and Abroad. 81 Murray, The History of the Presbyterian Church in Cape Breton, 259–65. 82 MacKay, Pioneer Life in Zorra, 39–40. 83 P CCA William Gregg papers 1978-8001, microfilm reel 2; series I-3-b. Poems and Tracts, 1840–1868. April 1865; no. 1; “Family Worship,” 4. See also PCCA AR5 E 7S4, “A Sermon, Preached in the Presbyterian Church, St. Gabriel Street, Montreal, on the November, 1835 (St. Andrew’s Day). By the Rev. H. Esson, Senior Chaplain of the St Andrew’s Society of Montreal.” 84 Brouwer, New Women for God, 5–13; Klempa and Doran, Certain Women Amazed Us, 40–2; Grant, “Two-Thirds of the Revenue,” 108; and Johnston, “The Road to Winsome Womanhood,” 103–19. 85 MacKay, Pioneer Life in Zorra, 49–50; Murray, History of the Presbyterian Church in Cape Breton, 237. 86 Hall, Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment, 22–4. 87 Campbell and MacLean, Beyond the Atlantic Roar, 220. 88 Macphail, The Master’s Wife, 103–4. See also Moir and McDougall, Selected Correspondence of the Glasgow Colonial Society, xxviii–xxxi. 89 Harper, “Exiles or Entrepreneurs?,” 35–6; McDougall and Moir, Selected Correspondence of the Glasgow Colonial Society, xxxi; and Campbell and MacLean, Beyond the Atlantic Roar, 220. 90 Murray, History of the Presbyterian Church in Cape Breton, 264. 91 Harper, Adventurers and Exiles, 327. 92 Harper, “Exiles or Entrepreneurs?,” 35; Campbell and MacLean, Beyond the Atlantic Roar, 198. See also Bumsted, The People’s Clearance, 70–6.

c h a p t e r t wo  1 Clark, Church and Sect in Canada, 329–30.   2 See, for example, Walsh, The Christian Church in Canada, 212–14.   3 See Grant, “Canadian Confederation and the Protestant Churches,” 327–37; Smith, Farris, and Markell, A Short History of the Presbyterian Church in Canada; Parker, Yet Not Consumed; Oliver, The Winning of the Frontier; and Smith, “The Presbyterian Tradition in Canada,” 38–52.   4 Perry, “Nation, Empire, and the Writing of History in Canada in English,” 131; Careless, “Frontierism, Metropolitanism, and Canadian History,” 66–7.   5 Buckner, “Whatever Happened to the British Empire?,” 12. See also Buckner, “Was There a ‘British’ Empire?,” 110–28.

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  6 Pocock, “British History,” 602; Colley, “Britishness and Otherness,” 309–29. See also Christie, “Introduction: Theorizing a Colonial Past,” 3–44; Bridge and Fedorowich, “Mapping the British World,” 1–15; and Armitage, “Greater Britain,” 427–45.   7 Buckner, “Whatever Happened to the British Empire?,” 30.  8 Webb, Transatlantic Methodists; Vaudry, Anglicans in the Atlantic World.   9 On providence in early Canada see Stewart and Rawlyk, A People Highly Favoured of God; Wise, “God’s Peculiar Peoples,” 19–43. On providence elsewhere in the north Atlantic world see Guyatt, Providence and the Invention of the United States; Clark, “Providence, Predestination and Progress,” 559–89; Bloch, Visionary Republic; and Hatch, The Sacred Cause of Liberty. 10 McKim, Presbyterian Beliefs, 27. See also Helm, The Providence of God; Davies, The Vigilant God; and Viner, The Role of Providence in the Social Order. 11 Helm, The Providence of God, 22–3; McKim, Presbyterian Beliefs, 27. 12 Viner, The Role of Providence in the Social Order, 4; Guyatt, Providence and the Invention of the United States, 5. 13 Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, 95. 14 Gibson, “Self-Reflection in the Consolidation of Scottish Identity,” 37. 15 P CCA 1973-5015, Robert McDowall fonds, box 1, file 5. “Untitled and undated sermons or essays written by Robert McDowall.” 16 Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England, 2–16; Worden, “Providence and Politics in Cromwellian England,” 55–99. 17 The Presbyterian, June 1848, 86. 18 P CCA, McDowall fonds, box 1, file 5. “Untitled and undated sermons or essays written by Robert McDowall.” 19 Murdock, Beyond Calvin, 22–4; Benedict, Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed, 85. 20 Worden, “Providence and Politics in Cromwellian England,” 72. 21 Willis, “The Sovereignty of God in Revivals,” in Pulpit Discourses Expository and Practical, 121–2; P C C A Gregg papers 1978-8001, microfilm reel 2; 20/11/1846. “And I give unto thee eternal life and they shall neither perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand”; N SA R M MG1, Thomas McCulloch Papers, vol. 552, doc. 120. 22 P CCA 1978-4001-2-1, Coté Street Presbyterian Church, Montreal. Session minutes, 1845-66, 1978-66. Meetings of 18 February, 20 February, 23 February, and 28 February 1846. 23 Willis, The Gospel of Grace Vindicated, 12. See also Presbyterian Magazine, August 1843, 181; Missionary Record of the United Presbyterian Church, July 1855, 125. 24 Canadian United Presbyterian Magazine, October 1854, n.p. 25 Grant, A Profusion of Spires, 29–30. See also Van Die, An Evangelical Mind, 30–1. 26 Semple, The Lord’s Dominion, 144. 27 Q U A St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church fonds. Appendix B; A Collection of Seven Sermons by the Rev. John Barclay, MA , First Minister of St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church (Kingston); Sermon on Psalm 103:19, n.d., n.p.

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28 Ibid. See also Monthly Record of the Church of Scotland in Nova Scotia and the Adjoining Provinces, February 1864, 23. 29 Q U A, St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church fonds. Appendix B; A Collection of Seven Sermons by the Rev. John Barclay, MA , First Minister of St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church (Kingston); Sermon on Psalm CIII:19 (June 1822?), n.p. 30 William Cochrane, “Numberer of the Stars,” in The Heavenly Vision, 83. See also Cochrane, Life of Rev. William Cochrane, D.D., 268–9. 31 Cochrane, “Numberer of the Stars,” in The Heavenly Vision, 86–7. 32 Patterson, Memoir of the Rev. James MacGregor, 1, quoting Shakespeare’s Macbeth. 33 The Presbyterian, May 1849, 70. See also P C C A Gregg papers, microfilm reel 2. Sermon on Isaiah 1:15; Toronto, 30 August 1863. 34 Höpfl, The Christian Polity of John Calvin; Bouwsma, John Calvin. As mentioned, certain individuals also perceived providential punishment as evidence of their own elect status. That such divergent interpretations of the meaning of divine chastisement were possible underscores the fundamental inscrutability of providence. 35 McGill, Discourses Preached on Various Occasions, 49–51. 36 Ibid., 62–4. See also Willis, “The Duty of Mourning for the Sins of the Land,” in Pulpit Discourses Expository and Practical, 257. 37 P CCA microfilm 2004-8039, St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church, Toronto. Session Records, 1 July 1832. 38 P CCA Gregg papers, microfilm reel 2; series I-3-b. Poems and Tracts, 1840–1868. April 1865; no. 1; “Family Worship,” 4. 39 Bayne, Canadian Presbyterian Pulpit. 21. Such views suffused other groups influenced by Calvinism, notably New England Puritans. Miller, Nature’s Nation, 92–3. 40 Smith, The Cultural Foundations of Nations, 107–34; Murdock, Beyond Calvin, 118. See also Smith, The Antiquity of Nations; Smith, Chosen Peoples, 64–5. 41 Akenson, God’s Peoples, 21. 42 Murdock, Beyond Calvin, 118. 43 MacCulloch, Christianity, 59–61. 44 Nicholson, God and His People, 209–16. 45 Klempa, “History of Presbyterian Theology in Canada to 1875,” 202. 46 Smith, Cultural Foundations of Nations, 120–3; Miller, The New England Mind, 398–462. 47 Dawson, John Knox, 315–16; Murdock, Beyond Calvin, 119. 48 Smith, Cultural Foundations of Nations, 120–3. See also Smith, The Antiquity of Nations. 49 Miller, Emigrants and Exiles, 157–60. See also Wilson, The Irish in Canada, 8; and Wilson and Spencer, eds., Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World. 50 Campbell, “A Scots-Irish Plantation in Nova,” 162. 51 P CCA Gregg Papers, microfilm reel 2, series 1-3-b. Poems and Tracts, 1840–68. “Notes on Sabbath School Lessons.” See also Monthly Record of the Church

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of Scotland in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Adjoining Provinces, February 1874, 52–3. 52 Anthony D. Smith, Chosen Peoples, 44–94; Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations, 200–8. 53 P CCA Gregg Papers, microfilm reel 1. Sermon on Isaiah 1.15. Toronto, 30 August 1863. 54 Guyatt, Providence and the Invention of the United States, 6. 55 On this topic see Claydon and McBride, “The Trials of the Chosen Peoples,” 26–8. 56 Errington, “British Migration and British America, 1783–1867,” 140–1. 57 Marjory Harper, “Exiles or Entrepreneurs?,” 22–39; Bumsted, The Scots in Canada, 10–12; Bumsted, The People’s Clearance, 62–6; Bitterman, “On Remembering and Forgetting,” 253–4; Wilson, The Irish in Canada, 8–11. On the “Anglo-boom” see Belich, “The Rise of the Angloworld,” 39–58; and Belich, Replenishing the Earth. 58 Buckner, “Introduction,” in Canada and the British Empire, 6. 59 Kidd, Union and Unionisms, 5; Mackenzie, “Empire and National Identities,” 215– 30; Bumsted, The Scots in Canada, 5–7; Colley, Britons, 83–5; Smout, A History of the Scottish People 1560–1830, 461–6. 60 On plural identities see Cook, “Identities Are Not Like Hats,” 260–5. 61 Buckner, “Whatever Happened to the British Empire?,” 11–31. 62 Korneski, “Britishness, Canadianness, Class, and Race,” 164. 63 Brown, Providence and Empire, 7. 64 Ibid. See also Wolffe, God and Greater Britain, 222; and Drayton, “Knowledge and Empire,” 233. 65 Canadian Presbyterian Magazine, August 1843, n.p. 66 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, September 1849, 169. See also PCCA AR5 E 7S 4, “A Sermon, Preached in the Presbyterian Church, St. Gabriel Street, Montreal, on the 30th of November, 1835 (St. Andrew’s Day). By the Rev. H. Esson, Senior Chaplain of the St. Andrew’s society of Montreal,” 38. 67 Kidd, “Race, Empire, and the Limits of Nineteenth-Century Scottish Nationhood,” 873–92. See also Kidd, The Forging of Races, 15–16. On Scottish Presbyterian loyalty to the Hanoverians during the Jacobite risings see Colley, Britons, 83–5. 68 Colley, Britons, 119–20. 69 Alexander Maclean, The Story of the Kirk in Nova Scotia, 40–1. 70 Smout, A History of the Scottish People, 461–6. 71 For differing perspectives on the notion that Highlanders and Lowlanders were racially distinct from one another see Burns, The Life and Times of the Rev. Robert Burns, 334; and Missionary Record of the United Presbyterian Church, July 1855, 126. On the supposed racial inferiority of Irish Catholics see NS ARM MG1, George Patterson fonds, vol. 742. “Pioneers of Presbyterianism in the Maritime Provinces of Canada,” no. 7: “Reverends Daniel Cock and David Smith.” On “whiteness” see Ignatiev, How the Irish Became White; Coleman, White Civility.

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72 According to historian Ruth H. Bloch, Calvinist Christianity was vital to the revolutionary impulse due in large part to its emphasis on communal righteousness, which seemingly legitimated rebellion. Consequently, she argues, groups that drew on its tenets (including Presbyterians) were likelier to support the war than groups (for example, certain Methodists and Anglicans) that did not. Bloch, “Religion and Ideological Change in the American Revolution,” 47–63. 73 Marty, “The American Revolution and Religion, 1765–1815,” 502–3. See also Noll, Princeton and the Republic; Noll, Christians in the American Revolution, 51–2; Tiedemann, “Presbyterianism and the American Revolution in the Middle Colonies,” 306–44. 74 Heaman, A Short History of the State in Canada, 83–4. On the flexibility of Britain’s “ancient” constitution see Pocock, The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law. 75 Bannister and Riordan, “Loyalism and the British Atlantic, 1660–1840,” 20; Bannister, “Canada as Counter-Revolution,” 98–146; Jasanoff, Liberty’s Exiles, 8–9; Carter, “Aboriginal People of Canada and the British Empire,” 200–19; Miller, “British Rights and Liberal Law in Canada’s Fugitive Slave Debate, 1833–1843,” 133–61; and Mills, The Idea of Loyalty in Upper Canada, 5–9. 76 P CCA AR5 M 6S 4, Alexander Mathieson, “A Sermon, Preached in St. Andrew’s Church, Montreal, on the Thirtieth Day of November, 1836 (St. Andrew’s Day) by the Reverend Alexander Mathieson, A.M. (Minister of that Church, and one of the Chaplains of the St. Andrew’s Society, Montreal),” 13. 77 The Banner, August 1843. 78 P CCA Gregg papers, microfilm reel 2. Scrapbook; Sermon at Cooke’s Church, Toronto, n.d., n.p. 79 Home and Foreign Record of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces of British North America, January 1861, 6. 80 Easton, Reasons for Joy and Praise, 10. 81 Ibid., 14. See also Smart, Death and Victory, 3. 82 McCulloch, The Prosperity of the Church in Troublous Times, 7–10. See also McMullin, “In Search of the Liberal Mind,” 68–85. 83 McCulloch, The Prosperity of the Church in Troublous Times,” 17. See also Cochrane, “The Builder and the Glory” in The Heavenly Vision, 252–3. 84 Presbyterians also credited “the good providence of God” for quashing the Lower Canadian Rebellion. See the letter from the Reverend Walter Roach, Beauharnois, Lower Canada, to the Reverend Robert Burns, 10 January 1838, in McDougall and Moir, eds., Selected Correspondence of the Glasgow Colonial Society, 6:214. 85 P CCA Robert McGill, “The Love of Country, a Discourse Preached in St. Andrew’s Church, Niagara, on Tuesday 6 February, 1838 (a Day Appointed for Public Thanksgiving, on Account of Our Deliverance from the Miseries of the Late Insurrection)…,” 7–8. 86 Ibid., 19. See also Memorials of the Life and Ministry of the Rev. John Machar, 68–9.

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87 Home and Foreign Missionary Record for the Church of Scotland, May 1838, 14–15. 88 Ibid. William Lyon Mackenzie was raised as a devout Presbyterian, largely as a result of the influence of his mother, Elizabeth, an ardent Secessionist. According to his biographer William Kilbourn, an intimate familiarity with the biblical narrative fuelled Mackenzie’s radicalism, as it afforded him with examples of righteous resistance to tyranny. Kilbourn, The Firebrand, 13–14. See also MacKay, “The Political Ideas of William Lyon Mackenzie,” 3. 89 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record of the Free Church of Scotland, May 1848, 106. 90 The Presbyterian, August 1848, 126. 91 Ibid. See also The Home and Foreign Missionary Record for the Church of Scotland, January 1845–December 1846, 214. 92 Hyam, Britain’s Imperial Century, 134–44. 93 On this theme see Buckner, “‘Casting Daylight Upon Magic,’” 158–89. On Canadian imperialists’ attitudes toward India see Hastings, “Fellow British Subjects or Colonial ‘Others’?,” 3–26. 94 P CCA 1973-8022, Hamilton, Ontario, Central Presbyterian Church. Session minutes, 1841–1990. 17 November 1857. 95 The Presbyterian, July 1875. See also Home and Foreign Record of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces of British North America, June 1875, 142. 96 See, for example, P C C A A R 5 M 3S 4, “A Sermon, Preached in St. Andrew’s Church, Quebec, on the 29th of May, 1861, At the Opening of the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in Connection with the Church of Scotland by Alexander Mathieson, DD , Minister of St. Andrew’s Church, Montreal,” 16–17. 97 U CA 86. 079C , James Croil Papers, box 1 file 2. “Autobiography: Life of James Croil, 1821–1916, pp. 101–202,” 136–7.

C ha p t e r t h re e  1 Hempton, Religion and Political Culture in Britain and Ireland, 144.  2 Colley, Britons, 11–54; Wolffe, The Protestant Crusade; and Haydon, “‘I love my King and my Country,’” 33–52.   3 Wolffe, “Anglicanism, Presbyterianism and the Religious Identities of the United Kingdom,” 304–19; Careless, Brown of the Globe, 123–5.  4 Wolffe, The Expansion of Evangelicalism, 212–13; 220; Haydon, “‘I love my King and my Country,’” 38–49.  5 Banner, 18 August 1843, n.p. See also Banner, 22 September 1843, n.p.; and 29 September 1843, n.p.  6 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, 81.  7 Careless, The Union of the Canadas, 182–5. See also Fay, A History of Canadian Catholics, 136–51; Miller, “Anti-Catholic Thought in Victorian Canada,” 474–94; See, Riots in New Brunswick; and Wilson, “Introduction,” in The Orange Order in Canada, 10–11.

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Notes to pages 90–100

 8 Canadian United Presbyterian Magazine, September 1860, 274–5.  9 Presbyterian, October 1849, 169–70. 10 Vaudry, “Peter Brown,” 11. See also Gauvreau, “Reluctant Voluntaries,” 151. 11 U CA-M AR William McCulloch fonds, box F and I-019 file D. William McCulloch, “Presbytery of Truro to Mr. Goodfellow.” 12 Robertson, “Introduction,” in The Master’s Wife, ix–xi; Macphail, The Master’s Wife, 100–1. 13 Miller, “Anti-Catholic Thought in Victorian Canada,” 494. 14 Vaudry, “Peter Brown,” 12. 15 Wilton, “‘Lawless Law,’” 124. 16 Wolffe, Protestant Crusade, 4. 17 Moir, Enduring Witness, 58–9. 18 McCulloch, Popery Condemned by Scripture and the Fathers, 94–5. 19 Novick, That Noble Dream, 44–6. 20 Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, 124. See also Tawney, Religion and the Rise of Capitalism. 21 Noll, “Protestant Reasoning about Money and the Economy,” 267–73. 22 Hilton, The Age of Atonement, 3–16; 32. 23 Dickens and Tonkin, The Reformation in Historical Thought, 158. 24 Presbyterian Witness and Evangelical Advocate, 21 January 1860, 10–11. 25 Ibid., 11. 26 Presbyterian, April 1848, 54–5. 27 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, February 1846, 159. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. 30 Presbyterian, October 1848, 142. 31 Differing perspectives on the sluggishness of agricultural productivity in New France and Lower Canada can be found in Ouellet, Lower Canada; and Greer, Peasant, Lord, and Merchant. 32 Robert Burns, Report Presented to the Colonial Committee of the Free Church of Scotland, 15. 33 Ibid. 34 Burns, The Life and Times of the Rev. Robert Burns, 299–300. 35 Jones, “Sacred Words, Fighting Words,” 282–7. 36 On Protestant evangelism among Lower Canadian Catholics see Black, “Different Visions,” 49–74. 37 Globe, 27 January 1854, n.p. 38 The Presbyterian, April 1848, 50. 39 The Presbyterian, June 1848, 79. 40 Canadian United Presbyterian Magazine, January 1861, 11. 41 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, September 1845, 120. 42 Ibid. 43 Grant, “Presbyterian Home Missions and Canadian Nationhood,” 140.

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44 U CA William Smart Papers, box 1, file 14. Notes and Miscellaneous Papers. “Brief Explanation of the Character, Objects, and Wants of the French Canadian Missionary Society.” 45 Gregg, Short History of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, 137–8; 168. 46 P CCA 2005-7003, Ladies’ Auxiliary Association in Connection with the French Mission Work of the Church of Scotland. Photocopy of the First Annual Report, 1864, 1–2. 47 Ibid., 1–3. 48 The Presbyterian, July 1875, 180. 49 Grant, “Presbyterian Missions and Canadian Nationhood,” 141. The Presbyterian Church in Canada, which accepted Charles Chiniquy into its ranks in 1863, sponsored the first of many speaking tours by this controversial anti-Catholic orator in the province of Quebec in 1870. Ibid., 139–41. 50 Errington, The Lion, the Eagle and Upper Canada, 36. On Canadian intellectuals’ perceptions of the United States beginning in the late nineteenth century (which focused heavily on differing attitudes toward “modernity”) see Bélanger, Prejudice and Pride. 51 Marsden, The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience; Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity, 196. Testament to the rise of radical evangelicalism in revolutionary America and the early republic was the rapid expansion of such unorthodox sects as the Free Will Baptists, and the decline of such “establishment” denominations as Episcopalianism. On the persistence in post-revolutionary British North America of traditional expressions of Protestantism see Little, Borderland Religion. 52 Klempa, “History of Presbyterian Theology in Canada to 1875,” 197. 53 Patterson, Memoir of the Rev. James MacGregor, 242. See also NS ARM MG1, Thomas McCulloch papers, vol. 554, doc. 37. Address to the United Presbyterian Synod, Scotland on behalf of Pictou Academy. On radical evangelicalism in British North America see Rawlyk, The Canada Fire; and Rawlyk, ed., Aspects of the Canadian Evangelical Experience. 54 Cahill, “The Antislavery Polemic of the Reverend James MacGregor,” 131–42; Cahill, “Colchester Men,” 135–43; Whitfield, “The Struggle over Slavery in the Maritime Colonies,” 20–43. 55 Stouffer, The Light of Nature and the Law of God, 167–8. 56 P CCA AR5 WS 4, Michael Willis Papers. “Slavery; A Lecture by Michael Willis.” N.d., 1. The Society also received substantive support from prominent members of the Presbyterian laity, including George Brown and Oliver Mowat. Farris, “Willis, Michael.” 57 P CCA Willis papers. “Speech of Dr Willis in the Free Presbytery of Glasgow, October 7, 1846,” 17. 58 P CCA Willis Papers. “Slavery; A Lecture,” 5. See also Stouffer, The Light of Nature and the Law of God, 153. 59 L AC C-1601, George Brown papers, microfilm reel 5. The American War and Slavery: Speech of the Hon. George Brown, at the Anniversary Meeting of the

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Anti-Slavery Society of Canada, Held at Toronto, February 3, 1863, 1. See also Canadian United Presbyterian Magazine, January 1861, 4. 60 Careless, Brown of the Globe, 102. 61 The Presbyterian, November 1848, 179. 62 Stouffer, The Light of Nature and the Law of God, 150–1. 63 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, July 1845, 98–9. 64 Ibid. American Presbyterianism was not devoid of anti-slavery activists. On the contrary, the Reverend Albert Barnes, a theologically liberal “New School” Presbyterian, condemned the practice as a violation of “all the laws which God has written on the human soul.” Holified, Theology in America, 503. On American Christians’ diverse reactions to the ethical dilemma of slavery and the wrenching conflict it helped precipitate see Stout, Upon the Altar of the Nation. 65 Stouffer, The Light of Nature and the Law of God, 151. 66 Moir, Enduring Witness, 126–7. 67 Hepburn, Crossing the Border; Ullman, Look to the North Star. 68 Bordewich, Bound for Canaan, 390. 69 Gregg, Short History of the Presbyterian Church, 136–7; 166–7. 70 Hepburn, Crossing the Border, 41–51; Stouffer, The Light of Nature and the Law of God, 154–5. 71 Klempa, “History of Presbyterian Theology,” 213. 72 P CCA Willis Papers. “Slavery; A Lecture,” 5–6. 73 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record of the Free Church of Scotland, May, 1854, 99. 74 Home and Foreign Missionary Record for the Free Church of Scotland, November 1850, 123. 75 Canadian Presbyterian Magazine, January 1855, 13. See also Canadian United Presbyterian Magazine, January 1861, 30. 76 Canadian United Presbyterian Magazine, April 1861, 97–8. 77 Ibid., September 1861, 259–60.

C ha p t e r f o u r   1 P CCA AR5 JH P 7, Mariel Jenkins, “Grace Seasoned with Salt: A Profile of the Reverend William Jenkins, 1779–1843,” 8–9. In a highly influential essay, historian Ian McKay argued that liberalism accords intellectual primacy to “‘the individual’ – the human being who is the ‘proprietor’ of him- or herself, and whose freedom should be limited only by voluntary obligations to others or to God, and by the rules necessary to obtain the equal freedom of other individuals.” Such notions are integral to his conception of a “liberal order framework” premised on liberty, equality, and property. Stimulating though McKay’s arguments have been, they should be considered alongside those of historian Jeffrey L. McNairn, who has taken pains to point out that the liberal order framework, as an interpretive mechanism, is more sensitive to liberalism’s “limits” than it is to its “possibilities.”

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McKay, “The Liberal Order Framework,” 623; McNairn, “In Hope and Fear,” 64–97.   2 Other church-state perspectives existed within the denomination. For example, the Covenanters, or “Reformed Presbyterians,” repudiated what they saw as a corrupt civil authority, a belief that flowed from their conviction that the Revolution Settlement had failed to abide by the covenants of the seventeenth century and implement Calvinist Christianity throughout the British Isles. This conviction prompted Covenanters on both sides of the Atlantic to avoid such politically charged acts as voting, which for them was tantamount to endorsing of an ungodly regime. Distinct though their politico-religious views were, the Covenanters enjoyed minimal support in nineteenth-century Canada. On the eve of Confederation, for example, there were only two Covenanting congregations in all of Canada West. On this unique element within Canadian Presbyterianism see Hay, The Covenanters in Canada.   3 Knaplund, ed., Letters from Lord Sydenham, 43–4.   4 Key works focusing on contrasting church-state perspectives include Christie, “‘In These Times of Democratic Rage and Delusion,’” 14–15; Westfall, Two Worlds, 19–81. On the ancient origins and transatlantic character of Upper Canadian politico-religious conflict see McKim, “God and Government,” 74–97.  5 Braddick, State Formation in Early Modern England, 6. See also Brewer, The Sinews of Power, 252.  6 Heaman, A Short History of the State in Canada, 1.   7 See, for example, Buckner, The Transition to Responsible Government; and Martin, Britain and the Origins of Canadian Confederation.   8 Kingdon, “The Geneva Consistory in the Time of Calvin,” 21–34.  9 VanDrunen, Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms, 32–4; Elshtain, Sovereignty, 11–17; and Hinsley, Sovereignty, 54–8. 10 Höpfl, The Christian Polity of John Calvin, 149–50; 153–5. 11 McNeil, ed., Institutes of the Christian Religion (book 4, chapter 12), 1; 5. 12 Moir, “‘Who Pays the Piper…,’” 13–14; Bouwsma, John Calvin, 36; 204–13. 13 Höpfl, Christian Polity of John Calvin, 49; 160; Mason, Kingship and Commonweal, 143–55; and Dawson, “Knox, John,” 24. 14 Kidd, Union and Unionisms, 215–17. Comparable views had been enunciated in the First Book of Discipline, a foundational text in the Reformed tradition to which John Knox (among others) had contributed in the mid-sixteenth century. 15 Mason, “Imagining Scotland,” 12–13; Dawson, “Calvinism and the Gaidhealtachd in Scotland,” 231–54. 16 Moir, Enduring Witness, 15–16; Buckroyd, Church and State in Scotland 1660– 1681, 2; 40. 17 See Stevenson, Union, Revolution, and Religion; Douglas, Light in the North. 18 Herron, Kirk by Divine Right, 45. 19 Kidd, Union and Unionisms, 215–7; Moir, Enduring Witness, 18. 20 Herron, Kirk by Divine Right, 51. 21 Ibid.; Kidd, Union and Unionisms, 225.

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22 Norman, The Conscience of the State in North America, 15; Kidd, Union and Unionisms, 225–7. 23 Hillis, “The Sociology of the Disruption,” 47–58; Gauvreau, “Reluctant Voluntaries,” 138–9; and Brown, Religion and Society in Scotland Since 1707, 21. 24 Jones, “The Scotch-Irish in British America,” 292. 25 Moir, Enduring Witness, 71–2. 26 Errington, “British Migration and British America,” 140–1; Bumsted, The Scots in Canada, 10–12; and Wilson, The Irish in Canada, 8–11. 27 Brown, Providence and Empire, 10. See also Brown, The National Churches of England, Ireland, and Scotland 1801–1846. 28 On state churches in colonial America see Porterfield, Conceived in Doubt, 6–7. 29 Moir, “Loyalty and Respectability,” 86–7; McDougall and Moir, eds., Selected Correspondence of the Glasgow Colonial Society, 1:154–5. 30 Gauvreau, “Review of Richard W. Vaudry, Anglicans and the Atlantic World,” 1154–5; Kenyon, “The Influence of the Oxford Movement upon the Church of England in Upper Canada,” 79–94. 31 Bonomi, Under the Cope of Heaven, 132–3; Moir, ed., Church and State in Canada, 39. 32 Moir, The Church in the British Era, 22–3; MacNutt, The Atlantic Provinces, 104–5; Fingard, The Anglican Design in Loyalist Nova Scotia, 2–11. 33 Moir, “Loyalty and Respectability,” 86–7; Moir, ed., Church and State in Canada, xvii–xix; 35–57. In 1825, Colonial Secretary Lord Bathurst proposed creating Clergy Reserves in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The proposal was supported by New Brunswick’s lieutenant-governor, Howard Douglas, but opposed by his Nova Scotia counterpart, James Kempt. The latter felt that the introduction of such an endowment would likely stoke sectarian animosity, a perspective that was shared by Nova Scotia’s Anglican bishop, Charles Inglis. The option of creating Clergy Reserves in the Maritimes withered on the vine following Bathurst’s resignation in 1827. Moir, ed., Church and State in Canada, 53–7. 34 Wallace, “‘Preaching Disaffection’ in the Presbyterian Atlantic,” 377–99; Wood, “The Significance of Evangelical Presbyterian Politics in the Construction of State Schooling,” 62–85. 35 Buggey, “Churchmen and Dissenters,” 271. 36 Adamson, “God’s Continent Divided,” 431–3; Craig, Upper Canada, 14. 37 Moir, Church in the British Era, 86; 116; Craig, Upper Canada, 21. 38 Clark, English Society 1660–1832, 300–1. 39 Wilson, The Clergy Reserves of Upper Canada, 4. It would be misleading to ­portray the Constitutional Act as an expression of reactionary ultra-conservatism, as it created elective assemblies that had not existed in the colony of Quebec. A more nuanced characterization has been put forth by historian Michel Ducharme, who has posited that the act can be understood as an attempt to counter a radical “Rousseauian” conception of freedom with a comparatively moderate “Blackstonian” one based on, among other things, an appreciation of

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the British constitution. Still, the Constitutional Act’s provisions – which vested tremendous powers in the hands of colonial governors and appointive councils, and called for the creation of a Protestant establishment – attest to imperial authorities’ conservative desire to stifle republicanism in post-revolutionary British North America. See Ducharme, “Canada in the Age of Revolutions,” 162–86; and Ducharme, The Idea of Liberty in Canada. 40 Shortt and Doughty, eds., Documents Relating to the Constitutional History of Canada, 2:1045. In Lower Canada, the Church of England existed as a “quasi– establishment” alongside the Roman Catholic Church, whose legal privileges had been enshrined in the Quebec Act of 1774. Efforts by such Lower Canadian Anglicans as Jacob Mountain to attain for their church the status of sole religious establishment were unavailing. Metropolitan officials believed that stripping the Catholic Church of its rights would foment resentment among the FrenchCanadian majority, who had proven themselves to be reliably loyal during the War of 1812. The Catholic Church’s privileges, in conjunction with the paucity of Protestant churches and the limited territorial extent of the endowment in Lower Canada, rendered the Clergy Reserves relatively uncontroversial in that colony. Moir, Church in the British Era, 61; Moir ed., Church and State in Canada, 162. 41 Wilson, The Clergy Reserves of Upper Canada, 6. 42 Strachan, A Speech of the Venerable John Strachan, 26–7. 43 Doll, Revolution, Religion, and National Identity, 15; Dunham, Political Unrest in Upper Canada, 86; “Act of Supremacy 1558.” 44 Talman, “The Position of the Church of England in Upper Canada, 1791–1840,” 58–73; Fahey, In His Name, xv–xvi. 45 Moir, Church and State in Canada, 162. 46 Read, The Rebellion of 1837 in Upper Canada, 6. 47 Cross, A Biography of Robert Baldwin, 105–7. 48 Gauvreau, “Protestantism Transformed,” 57; Westfall, Two Worlds, 19–49; Moir, Church and State in Canada, 161; Wilson, The Clergy Reserves of Upper Canada, 11; and Craig, Upper Canada, 134. 49 Murison, “The Disruption and the Colonies of Scottish Settlement,” 141. 50 P CCA 2003–3018-1-7, Presbytery of Hamilton, 1837. “Letter, London [Upper Canada?], Dec 9, 1837, to Rev. Donald McKenzie protesting the conditions he will have to endure at St. Thomas, written by Daniel Allan.” See also Presbyterian, September 1849, 137. 51 Kyte, “Journal of the Hon. William Morris’s Mission to England in 1837,” 229–30. 52 Moir, “Loyalty and Respectability,” 89–94. 53 U CA 79.052C, United Synod of Upper Canada fonds, folder 1. Rev. William Bell, Perth to Rev. Archibald Anderson, St Andrew’s, Argenteuil, Lower Canada, 29 March 1823. Before joining the Presbytery of the Canadas in 1818, Bell insisted that it adopt “the doctrines, discipline, and worship of the Church of Scotland.” Moir, Enduring Witness, 70–1. 54 Moir, Enduring Witness, 79.

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55 Radforth, Royal Spectacle, 134. 56 Moir, Church and State in Canada, 169–75; Gill, The Reverend William Proudfoot and the United Secession Mission in Canada, 91–2. 57 Craig, ed., Lord Durham’s Report, 93–7; Grant, A Profusion of Spires, 91–2; Read, The Rebellion of 1837 in Upper Canada, 18. 58 Westfall, “The Doctrine of Expediency,” 178–90. The popularity of Britain’s religious establishments ebbed in the nineteenth century, due in large part to the dramatic ascent of Methodism. Machin, Politics and the Churches in Great Britain, 8–25. 59 Moir, “Loyalty and Respectability,” 100–1. 60 Murison, “The Disruption and the Colonies of Scottish Settlement,” 135–6. 61 In 1848, the Baldwin-Lafontaine ministry announced that a Clergy Reserves surplus of £1,800 would be distributed among several denominations in keeping with the principle of a “plural establishment” introduced in 1840, which aimed to defuse the controversy surrounding the endowment by distributing its proceeds to various groups. The Canadian Free Church Synod decided not to pursue the portion of the endowment to which it was entitled. Gauvreau, “Reluctant Voluntaries,” 152–5; Moir, “‘Who Pays the Piper…,’” 20; Moir, “Loyalty and Respectability,” 102–3. 62 Careless, Brown of the Globe, 125. 63 Gauvreau, “Reluctant Voluntaries,” 152–5; Moir, Enduring Witness, 109. 64 Wolffe, The Expansion of Evangelicalism, 218–20. 65 Vaudry, “Peter Brown,” 11; Gauvreau, “Reluctant Voluntaries,” 152–5. 66 Moir, Church and State in Canada West, 79; Wilson, The Clergy Reserves of Upper Canada, 20–1; and Moir, Church in the British Era, 180–3. 67 Gidney and Millar, Professional Gentlemen, 112–14; Westfall, Two Worlds, 86; 103–20. Church disestablishment also had important architectural ramifications, as the Church of England and Church of Scotland shifted away from neo-classical structures that bespoke their status as “institutions of order,” and toward a Gothic style that “gave the church the power to act as an independent sacred force in a secular world.” Westfall, Two Worlds, 145–6. 68 Moir, “‘Who Pays the Piper …,’” 21. 69 Ibid.

c ha p t e r f i ve   1 “Britishness” was also capable of aggravating sectarian animosities. See Gauvreau, “The Dividends of Empire,” 235.  2 Maclean, The Story of the Kirk in Nova Scotia, 72.   3 See Van Die, ed., Religion and Public Life in Canada; Westfall, Two Worlds. On Roman Catholics and public life see McGowan, “Rendering unto Caesar,” 65–85.   4 See Grant, “Canadian Confederation and the Protestant Curches,” 327–37.   5 See Moir, “‘Who Pays the Piper…,’” 13–27.

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  6 On Canadian state formation see Heaman, A Short History of the State in Canada; Greer and Radforth, eds., Colonial Leviathan. On the Canadian state before the mid-nineteenth century see Johnson, In Duty Bound. On metropolitan state formation see Braddick, State Formation in Early Modern England; Brewer, The Sinews of Power. On the links between metropolitan state formation and British imperialism see Mancke, “Empire and State,” 175–95.  7 Sehat, The Myth of American Religious Freedom.  8 Norman, The Conscience of the State in North America, 20; Wolffe, “Anglicanism, Presbyterianism and the Religious Identities of the United Kingdom,” 322.   9 On the intersection of religion and the state in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries see Valverde, The Age of Light, Soap, and Water. 10 On this topic see Van Die, “Protestants, the Liberal State, and the Practice of Politics,” 89–129. 11 Van Die, “Introduction,” in Religion and Public Life, 6–7. On religious “retreat” see Grant, A Profusion of Spires, 96. 12 On the intensification of religious influence over the state in Canada after the mid-nineteenth century see O’Toole, “Canadian Religion: Heritage and Project,” 41–2. 13 The notion that religious establishments were socially beneficial was by no means unique to Presbyterians. Anglicans, for example, made much of their temporal utility. Westfall, “The Doctrine of Expediency,” 183. 14 The Presbyterian, April 1848, 54. 15 Ibid. See also P C C A A R 5 M6S 4, “A Sermon, Preached in St. Andrew’s Church, Montreal, on the Thirtieth Day of November, 1836, (St. Andrew’s Day) by the Reverend Alexander Mathieson, A.M. (Minister of that Church, and one of the Chaplains of St. Andrew’s Society, Montreal),” 35. 16 Westfall, Two Worlds, 100–1. 17 P CCA 1973-1044-1-4, Presbyterian Church in Canada in Connection with the Church of Scotland papers. “Meeting of Delegates at Cobourg Regarding the Clergy Reserves, 1837.” 18 P CCA 1973-1044-1-5, Presbyterian Church of Canada in Connection with the Church of Scotland papers. “Petition Concerning Establishment, 1838.” 19 P CCA “Meeting of Delegates at Cobourg Regarding the Clergy Reserves.” See also McGill, Brief Notes on the Relation of the Synod of Canada to the Church of Scotland, 17; and Morris, Reply of William Morris, 12. 20 U CA William Smart papers, box 1, file 2. “[Auto?]biography of Rev. William Smart, Brockville, 1811–49,” 58–60. 21 P CCA 1973-1042-1-1, United Presbytery of Upper Canada – Petition to Sir John Colborne, Lt.-Gov., 1829. 22 P CCA “Petition Concerning Establishment.” See also Home and Foreign Missionary Record for the Church of Scotland, May 1838, 102–3. 23 Wise, “Upper Canada and the Conservative Tradition,” 175–6; Rawlyk, “Politics, Religion, and the Canadian Experience,” 261–2.

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24 Adamson, “God’s Continent Divided,” 431–2. The Upper Canadian Marriage Law of 1793 gave Anglicans a virtual monopoly over marriage ceremonies. The right to perform marriages was extended to Lutherans, clergy of the Church of Scotland, and other “Calvinists” later that decade, due largely to the fact that such entities were established elsewhere, and were therefore viewed by imperial policymakers as unlikely to engender social instability. However, in contrast to Anglicans these groups’ clergy were required to obtain permission from local justices of the peace in order to preside over marriage ceremonies. Moreover, the numerically substantial Methodists and other “dissenting” groups were denied the right to perform marriages until 1831, when a combination of factors – including the rise of a Reform movement on both sides of the Atlantic, and a corresponding surge in opposition to state-sanctioned religious hierarchy – resulted in the liberalization of Upper Canada’s marriage laws. Moir, ed., Church and State in Canada, 142–8. See also Ward, Courtship, Love and Marriage. 25 Colonial representatives of the Church of England and Church of Scotland were not entirely hostile to Dissenting denominations like the Methodists. On the contrary, while they felt that “most of [their] preachers are weak, ignorant men, not in general friendly to any of our establishments,” they welcomed the Methodists’ efforts to penetrate remote settlements and propagate Christianity among the settlers, suggesting that, for churchmen, unorthodox religion was better than no religion at all. Q U A William Bell diaries, vol. 1, 30 March 1818. 26 Waite, The Life and Times of Confederation, 126n27. 27 Home and Foreign Missionary Record for the Church of Scotland, December 1838, 102–3. 28 Ibid., May 1838, 29. 29 P CCA 1973-1042-1-3, United Synod of Upper Canada – Memorials to Queen Victoria and Lt. Gov. Sir Francis Bond Head, 1837. 30 Esson, A Plain and Popular Exposition of the Principles of Voluntarism, 4–20. Esson gravitated to the Free Church in the 1840s. Nevertheless, his views in this document pithily encapsulate the voluntarist creed that was central to Secession Presbyterianism. 31 Canadian Presbyterian Magazine, May 1843, 123–4. 32 Ibid. See also Canadian Presbyterian Magazine, June 1855, n.p.; and Canadian United Presbyterian Magazine, December 1861, 353–4. 33 Canadian Presbyterian Magazine, June 1855, n.p. 34 The Secessionists’ objections to close church-state relations were not limited to the pretensions of the Church of Scotland. On the contrary, they also criticized Britain’s other religious establishment, the Church of England, for attempting to exalt itself legally over other denominations. Anglicanism, “so exclusive and so arrogant,” aimed to arrogate to itself powers to which the original “Apostolic” church “had never laid claim,” and which by rights belonged to “none but the Redeemer himself.” Presbyterian Magazine, January 1843, n.p. 35 Wolffe, The Expansion of Evangelicalism, 215.

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36 Canadian Presbyterian Magazine, July 1851, n.p. 37 P CCA AR5 J HP 7, Mariel Jenkins, “Grace Seasoned with Salt: A Profile of the Reverend William Jenkins, 1779–1843,” 8–9; PCCA AR5 L 4D6, Mary Lizette Jenkins Papers. William Jenkins Letters. “Journal by the Reverend William Jenkins; Kept during his Indian Mission.” 38 The Church of England, despite a limited supply of clergy, attained a monopoly over the performance of marriage rites in Nova Scotia in 1758. However, justices of the peace were allowed to perform the ceremonies, as were the clergy of Dissenting sects so long as marriage banns were read and both the bride and groom belonged to the same congregation. Essentially, the same policy was adopted by New Brunswick following that colony’s creation in 1784, and by Prince Edward Island in the early nineteenth century. Marriage laws were liberalized throughout the Maritimes in the early 1830s during the “Age of Reform” that manifested across the British world. Moir, ed., Church and State in Canada, 58–63. See also Burns and Innes, eds., Rethinking the Age of Reform. 39 Colonial Patriot, 29 February 1828, 97. See also Story, “The Church and State ‘Party’ in Nova Scotia,” 53–4. 40 Wallace, “‘Preaching Disaffection’ in the Presbyterian Atlantic,” 2–17. 41 P CCA Jenkins Papers. William Jenkins Letters. “Journal by the Reverend William Jenkins; Kept during his Indian Mission”; P CCA Mariel Jenkins, “Grace Seasoned with Salt,” 8–9. “Equality” is a notoriously difficult term to define. Using the admittedly anachronistic language of modern political science, one could plausibly argue that Upper Canadian Secessionists, many of whom were Reformers, seem to have advocated “equality of opportunity” – the equal right (at least theoretically) of individuals to “sink or swim” based on their own instincts and capabilities – as opposed to “equality of outcome” – society-wide uniformity (at least theoretically) regarding living conditions and social status. Such characteristics comport with Ian McKay’s influential interpretation of liberalism, which in his view attained hegemonic status in the mid-nineteenth century. McKay, “The Liberal Order Framework,” 623. 42 Gauvreau, “Covenanter Democracy,” 60. 43 Gill, The Reverend William Proudfoot and the United Secession Mission in Canada, 92–103. 44 There were exceptions to this pattern. For instance, in 1860s Prince Edward Island, which was wracked by sectarian conflict, Presbyterians – including the United Presbytery that included Free Church and Secession groups – banded together with other Protestants in supporting the Tories, while the island’s Catholics typically rallied around the Liberals. Robertson, “Party Politics and Religious Controversialism in Prince Edward Island,” 29–59. 45 McCulloch, The Life of Thomas McCulloch, 30. See also Campbell and MacLean, Beyond the Atlantic Roar, 204. 46 That certain Secessionists made such requests reveals that not all adherents of this particular Presbyterian subgroup were dyed-in-the-wool voluntarists.

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47 D U A Thomas McCulloch fonds. Collection no. ms-2-40. Box 1, file a-4. Thomas McCulloch “To the Senate of the University of Edinburgh.” 48 Ibid. See also Fingard, “The 1820s,” 265–6. 49 Campbell and MacLean, Beyond the Atlantic Roar, 208; Gregg, Short History of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, 31. 50 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record for the Presbyterian Church of Canada, August 1844, 1–2; ibid., November 1844, 26. See also Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, April 1846, 169. 51 Murison, “The Disruption and the Colonies of Scottish Settlement,” 135–6. 52 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, June 1845, 81. 53 Ibid., February 1850, 56–7. 54 Ibid., 57. See also ibid., March 1854, 69–71. 55 Presbyterian, November 1848, 178–9. 56 Westfall, The Founding Moment, 12; A.B. McKillop, Matters of Mind, 6; and Moir, Church and State in Canada West, 83–5. 57 Vaudry, The Free Church in Victorian Canada, 95–9. Buchanan’s loyalty prompted him to denounce Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine for their decision, in 1843, to resign from the Executive Council. Their actions, in his view, smacked of republicanism, a conviction that was only reinforced by the fact that certain supporters of Baldwin and Lafontaine were indeed critics of the “British connection.” McCalla, “Buchanan, Isaac.” 58 [Buchanan], First Series of Five Letters, 36–7. 59 Banner, 1 September 1843, n.p. 60 Ibid. 61 Careless, Brown of the Globe, 1:60. See also Waite, Life and Times of Confederation, 126; Creighton, John A. Macdonald, 1:98 62 Vaudry, “Peter Brown,” 11–15. 63 Gidney and Millar, Professional Gentlemen, 115. 64 Evangelical and Missionary Record, February 1855, 69; ibid., March 1854, 69–71. 65 Careless, Brown of the Globe, 1:125; Moir, Church in the British Era, 182. 66 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, October 1843, n.p. 67 Vaudry, “Peter Brown,” 13–14. 68 On this topic see Vincent’s The Formation of the Liberal Party. 69 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, October 1843, n.p. 70 Ibid., March 1854, 69–71. On Presbyterian support for public schools in the Maritimes see Wood, “The Significance of Evangelical Presbyterian Politics in the Construction of State Schooling,” 62–85. 71 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, January 1848, n.p. See also ibid., October 1843, n.p.; [Buchanan], First Series of Five Letters, 36–7. 72 P CCA “A Sermon, Preached in St. Andrew’s Church, Montreal, on the Thirtieth Day of November, 1836, (St. Andrew’s Day) by the Reverend Alexander Mathieson,” 28–9; 43–5. See also The Presbyterian, April 1848, 54.

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73 Q U A Presbyterian Church of Canada in Connection with the Church of Scotland Fonds, Motions and Minutes, 1818–35. “Moderator John Machar to LieutenantGovernor John Colborne,” n.d. 74 British North America’s first temperance societies were created in the 1820s. They aimed to limit access to “ardent spirits” (moderate consumption of wine, beer, and hard cider was tolerated), relying on moral suasion to realize their goal. This strategy was eclipsed in the mid-nineteenth century by a comparatively thoroughgoing approach that called for prohibitory legislation targeting the production, distribution, and consumption of alcohol in all its forms. The mid-nineteenth century also witnessed the emergence of hard-driving campaigns in favour of Sabbath observance, which resulted in laws discouraging entrepreneurial activity and leisure ­pursuits on Sundays. Noel, Canada Dry, 150; Murphy, “The English-Speaking Colonies to 1854,” 157–8; 173–4; and Clarke, “English-Speaking Canada from 1854,” 310–11. On Sabbatarianism see Laverdure, Sunday in Canada. 75 Murphy, “English-Speaking Colonies to 1854,” 157–9; 173–4. 76 Heaman, A Short History of the State in Canada, 109–10. 77 Moir, Enduring Witness, 124–5. 78 The Presbyterian, October 1861, 158. 79 Q U A Bell Diaries, vol. 4, April 1843. 80 Canadian Presbyterian Magazine, January 1855, 13. See also ibid., August 1851, n.p. 81 Ibid., August 1851, n.p. 82 Ibid., March 1843, 13. 83 Ibid., October 1851, n.p. See also P C C A 2004-1002-1-17, “Unsigned Petition to the Government of the Province of Canada Regarding Sunday as a Holiday.” 84 Canadian United Presbyterian Magazine, October 1854, n.p. 85 Ibid., December 1855, 356. 86 Ibid. See also ibid., October 1854, n.p. 87 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, February 1850, 56. See also ibid., August 1854, 150–1; and “Libertas” [Peter Brown], The Fame and Glory of England Vindicated, 189. 88 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, August 1845, 107. 89 Ibid., February 1854, 57. 90 Ibid., November 1849, 7. 91 Ibid. See also ibid., February 1850, 57. 92 P CCA 1973-8022 (incorrectly listed as 1973-8002), Hamilton, Ontario. 1841– 1990. Central Presbyterian Church Session Minutes, 18 February 1858. 93 Clarke, “English-speaking Canada from 1854,” 325–6. See also Van Die, “Protestants, the Liberal State, and the Practice of Politics.” 94 If anything, Presbyterian support for a “moral establishment” grew stronger with time. An 1882 memorandum from the Presbyterian Church in Canada, for example, advocated informing the Dominion government that “the undisturbed enjoyment of the Lord’s Day” was something to which “as citizens of a Christian

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country [we] are entitled as a right – inalienable on the highest authority.” UCAM AR William McCulloch fonds, box F and I-019, file 4. Institutional Correspondence/Reports. “Memo. to Synod [re:] Sab. desecration [1882].”

chapter six   1 Home and Foreign Missionary Record of the Free Church of Scotland, July 1855, 330–1.   2 Closely associated with Frederick Jackson Turner’s seminal thesis regarding the invigorating impact of America’s westward expansion, the concept of a “frontier” has been criticized for downplaying such phenomena as environmental degradation and Indigenous dispossession. See Slotkin, The Mythology of the American Frontier. On the “frontier thesis” and Canada see Cross, ed., The Frontier Thesis and the Canadas.   3 Home and Foreign Missionary Record of the Free Church of Scotland, July 1855, 331. The allusion toward the end of the quote is to John 4:35 (King James Version): “Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? Behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest.”   4 By implicitly positing the existence of primordial North American natural circumstances, the word “wilderness” erases the pre-Columbian environmental impact of Indigenous peoples. Instead of using the word wilderness uncritically, I have used such terms as “untamed nature” and “undomesticated environment,” which capture the unruliness of certain colonial North American territories without suggesting that human engagement with the natural world on that continent was unprecedented before Europeans arrived. A fuller discussion on this topic appears on 168–9.   5 Historical geographer Graeme Wynn has written that a transition from an “Eotechnic age,” involving reliance on “wood, wind, and water,” to a “Paleolithic era,” through which human beings harnessed “coal, iron, and steam,” was integral to the environmental transformation of mid-nineteenth century British North America. Unleashing a “massive increase in energetic capacity,” it facilitated “humanity’s growing power over nature,” and was epitomized by the explosive growth of railways. Wynn, Canada and Arctic North America, 167–72.   6 On Christian missionaries’ calculated tendency to stress “New World” sinfulness see Christie and Gauvreau, Christian Churches and Their Peoples, 13–14.   7 Cook, 1492 and All That, 7–18; Greer, ed., The Jesuit Relations, 119. Northrop Frye wrote that biblical invocations of the garden blended paradisiac imagery with “idealized pastoral imagery.” Early Canadian Presbyterian references to gardens accord with this pattern, as will be seen. Frye, The Great Code, 139–42.   8 Beattie and Stenhouse, “Empire, Environment and Religion,” 414–15; 430–1.   9 Rawlyk, The Canada Fire, 138–9. Roman Catholics also aimed to combat the sinfulness that supposedly beset outlying settlements. See McGowan, Michael Power,

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58. On early American Methodism’s environmental views, which were shaped by the backwoods evangelism of circuit riders and outdoor “camp meetings” through which the “wilderness” was transformed into what denomination members saw as a cathedral-like setting, see Richey, Methodism in the American Forest, 21–36; 52–62. 10 Clark, Church and Sect in Canada, 133. See also Landon, Western Ontario and the American Frontier, 104–5. 11 On metaphor in nineteenth-century Canadian religious history see Westfall, “Order and Experience,” 5–24. 12 Cook, 1492 and All That, 7; 22. 13 Scott, “Cultivating Christians in Colonial Canadian Missions,” 23. Historian William Cronon has written that environmental subjugation was celebrated in colonial America and the early American republic, although he notes that explanations for this phenomenon shifted over time from ones that emphasized providence to ones that emphasized human endeavour. As will be seen, early Canadian Presbyterians blended the two, portraying humanity’s dominion over nature as a divinely ordained process. Cronon, Changes in the Land, 5. 14 See Crosby, Ecological Imperialism; Greer, “Commons and Enclosure in the Colonization of North America,” 365–86; and Cook, “Cabbages Not Kings,” 5–16. 15 White and Cronon, “Ecological Change and Indian-White Relations,” 417. 16 Cook, 1492 and All That, 21. On the symbiotic Indigenous relationship with nature see Chief Luther Standing Bear, “Indian Wisdom,” 201–6. 17 Nelson and Callicott, “Introduction,” in The Great New Wilderness Debate, 11; Cronon, Changes in the Land, 12–13. On pre-Columbian environmental change see Mann, 1491. 18 Miller, “Errand into the Wilderness,” in Errand Into the Wilderness, 1–15. 19 Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, 8–11. On the ancient origins of the Western tradition’s animosity toward untamed nature see McKay, Picturing the Land, 5; 147. For wide-ranging perspectives on the wilderness theme see the edited collections by Nelson and Callicot, The Great Wilderness Debate and The Wilderness Debate Rages On. 20 Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind, 13–21. Historian Ramachandra Guha has critiqued North American environmentalists’ penchant for emphasizing “Eastern traditions’” purportedly harmonious relationship with the natural environment, which obscures their practitioners’ capacity for “finely tuned but nonetheless conscious and dynamic manipulation of nature.” Important though it is, this argument does not preclude the notion that, largely as a result of JudeoChristianity, the Western tradition has been particularly hostile toward the untamed environment. Guha, “Radical American Environmentalism and Wilderness Preservation,” 233–7. 21 Oelschlaeger, The Idea of Wilderness, 322. The Judeo-Christian tendency to draw a distinction between nature and divinity contrasts with the animistic view, in which the two are seamlessly interwoven. Worster, Nature’s Economy, 28–9.

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22 Worster, Nature’s Economy, 5–10; 26–30. White’s views on the natural environment appear in The Natural History of Selborne. 23 Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness,” 473–9. See also Worster, Nature’s Economy, 58–62. 24 Miller, “Nature and the National Ego,” in Errand into the Wilderness, 204–16. 25 Wood, Making Ontario, 8. 26 Zeller, Inventing Canada, 3. 27 Moodie, Roughing It in the Bush, 274; Traill, The Backwoods of Canada, 94; and Gray, Sisters in the Wilderness, 115. 28 Moodie, Roughing It in the Bush, 274; 278–9. 29 Wood, Making Ontario, 8; 82. 30 Patterson, Memoir of the Rev. James MacGregor, 64–5. See also Murray, The History of the Presbyterian Church in Cape Breton, 236–7; 258. 31 Bumsted, The People’s Clearance, 62–5. 32 McDougall and Moir, eds., Selected Correspondence of the Glasgow Colonial Society, 3:36–40. 33 Frye, “Conclusion,” in Literary History of Canada, 821–849; Atwood, Survival. 34 The Scottish Missionary and Philanthropic Register…, 427. 35 MacCulloch. Christianity, 702–3. 36 N S ARM Thomas McCulloch papers, vol. 554, doc. 37. Address to United Presbyterian Synod, Scotland on behalf of Pictou Academy. “Remarks Upon the Religion and Education of Nova Scotia from the time of its occupation by the British till the present.” 37 Ibid. 38 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, February 1846, 162. 39 Ibid., 163. See also Home and Foreign Missionary Record for the Church of Scotland, May 1838, 15; and Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record of the Free Church of Scotland, February 1855, 69. 40 The Presbyterian, April 1848, 51. Presbyterian concerns about the sinfulness that purportedly plagued backwoods communities were by no means incompatible with critiques of urban existence, which members of the denomination also denounced. For example, see Thomas McCulloch’s condemnations of town life in The Stepsure Letters. 41 The Presbyterian, April 1848, 52. 42 Home and Foreign Missionary Record for the Church of Scotland, May 1838, 15. 43 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record of the Free Church of Scotland, February 1855, 69. 44 Ibid. 45 Buggey, “James Drummond MacGregor,” 457–62. 46 MacNutt, The Atlantic Provinces, 162–3; MacLeod, History of Presbyterianism on Prince Edward Island, 9–10; and Bush, “James Drummond MacGregor,” 3. 47 Patterson, Memoir of the Reverend James MacGregor,” 226–7.

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48 Jack, History of Saint Andrew’s Church, 21–2. 49 Moir, “Robert McDowall,” 28–35. 50 P CCA 1973-5015, Robert McDowall Fonds, box 1, file 2. “Statement of the Rev. Robert McDowall concerning early history of Presbyterian work in Upper Canada, Addressed to the Rev. Henry Gordon. Dated 18th January, 1839.” See also UCA William Smart papers, box 1, files 2–4. [Auto?]biography of Rev. William Smart, Brockville, 1811–1849, 27–8. 51 McDougall and Moir, eds., Selected Correspondence of the Glasgow Colonial Society, xii–xv. 52 Brouwer, New Women for God, 12; 14; 22–3; Wolffe, The Expansion of Evangelicalism, 45–70; 166; and Bebbington, The Dominance of Evangelicalism, 109–16. 53 Brouwer, New Women for God, 16. 54 U CA-M AR P P 200, Minutes of the Presbytery of Halifax, Church of Scotland, 4 April 1838, 13. 55 Murray, The History of the Presbyterian Church in Cape Breton. 243. For a similar example from Upper Canada see McDougall and Moir, eds., Correspondence of the Glasgow Colonial Society, 5:75–6. 56 Harper, Adventurers and Exiles, 347. See also UCA-MAR PP 200, Minutes of the Presbytery of Halifax, Church of Scotland, 4 April 1838, 13. 57 McDougall and Moir, eds., Correspondence of the Glasgow Colonial Society, 4:218. 58 Ibid., 1:153. 59 P CCA William Proudfoot Papers, box 1, file 2. “The Students of the Missionary Society in Connection with the Secession Hall, To the Moderator and other members of the Presbytery of Canada.” Edinburgh, 20 September 1837. 60 Home and Foreign Missionary Record of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces of British North America, May 1861, 113. 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid., 113–14. 63 Ibid., 115. 64 Grant, Moon of Wintertime, 148; Bryce, John Black, 93–4; Veracini, “‘Settler Colonialism,’” 313. 65 McNab, They Went Forth, 84–5. 66 U CA 86. 030C, Canada Presbyterian Church/Presbyterian Church in Canada: Foreign Mission Committee. John Black Letters, 1861–1881 (Red River Missions). Letter no. 1. 26 August 1861. Black to Rev. Dr Burns. 67 U CA Black Letters. Letter no. 621. 4 December 1875. Black to McLean. 68 Bush, The Western Challenge, 87. 69 Grant, Moon of Wintertime, 81–2. 70 Carter, “Aboriginal People of Canada and the British Empire,” 200. 71 U CA Black Letters. Letter no. 363. 1 November 1870. Black to Mr McLean. 72 Hinson and Morton, “Observations of a Scottish Moralist,” 221–32.

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Notes to pages 183–91

73 Patterson, Memoir of the Rev. James MacGregor, 338; 384. 74 Gauvreau, “Protestantism Transformed,” 50. 75 U CA Mark Young Stark Fonds, box 2, file 6. Lecture (on “the present state of the missionary enterprise of the Church of Scotland”), March 29, 1844, Delivered at 1st Monthly Prayer Meeting, Dundas, Canada West. On the centrality of evangelicalism to mid-nineteenth-century English-speaking British North America see Gauvreau, “Protestantism Transformed,” 57. 76 Johnston, “The Road to Winsome Womanhood,” 103–19; Brouwer, New Women for God.

c h a p t e r se ve n   1 On “progress” in early Canada see Owram, “Progress, Science, and Religion,” 225– 44; Samson, The Spirit of Industry and Improvement; and Weaver, The Great Land Rush. On the religious dimension of progress see Gauvreau, The Evangelical Century, 92–124; 184–5; and Westfall, Two Worlds, 159–90.   2 On communion festivals see Stanley-Blackwell, Tokens of Grace; Stanley-Blackwell, “‘Tabernacles in the Wilderness,’” 93–117; and Stanley, The Well-Watered Garden, 127–49. On the capacity of Christians, including Presbyterians, to view nature favourably (and, specifically, as “God’s creation”) elsewhere in the British Empire see Beattie and Stenhouse, “Empire, Environment and Religion,” 415; 431–2.   3 On colonial immigrant communities see Errington, Emigrant Worlds and Transatlantic Communities.  4 Patterson, Memoir of the Rev. James MacGregor, 64–5; 77.   5 Ibid., 226–39; chapter 22.  6 Colonial Patriot, 7 March 1828, n.p.  7 P CCA AR5 E 7S 4, “A Sermon, Preached in the Presbyterian Church, St. Gabriel Street, Montreal, on the 30th of November, 1835 (St. Andrew’s Day). By the Rev. H. Esson, Senior Chaplain of the St. Andrew’s society of Montreal,” 18–22. “All soiled, it laid low in the dust” is from “To a Mountain Daisy,” a poem by the Scottish bard Robbie Burns.  8 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, April 1850, 86–7.   9 Ibid., 87. 10 Westfall, “Order and Experience,” 11–15; Berger, Science, God, and Nature in Victorian Canada, xii–xiii; 31–45. 11 Kolodny, The Lay of the Land, 9. 12 Frye, The Great Code, 152. 13 Grant, “Two–Thirds of the Revenue,” 102–3; Grant, Moon of Wintertime, 160–2. See also Francis, The Imaginary Indian, 49–53; and McKellar, Pioneer Presbyterian Missionaries. 14 Bush, The Western Challenge, 89–90. The transparently assimilationist thrust behind the Presbyterians’ evangelistic campaign was manifest in the remarks of the Reverend F.E. Pitts, who served as principal of residential schools operated by the

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denomination in such settings as Kenora, Ontario, in the early twentieth century. The schools, he observed, “not only [teach their students] to read, write, etc., but [try] to teach them new conditions of living. [Teach] them to eat different food, to sleep in beds, to dress, wash, bathe … not like their parents have done but in a manner that shall enable them to live in civilized conditions … as long as they live.” Ibid., 102–3. 15 Bryce, John Black, 93–4. 16 Scott, “Cultivating Christians in Colonial Canadian Missions,” 29; 36; Bryce, John Black, 94–6. 17 Bryce, John Black, 98–9. 18 Christie and Gauvreau, Christian Churches and Their Peoples, 107–8. 19 Bush, The Western Challenge, 86–7; 91–3. 20 Ibid., 94; Miller, Skyscrapers Hide the Heavens, 171–2. 21 Grant, Moon of Wintertime, 107–8; Klempa and Doran, Certain Women Amazed Us, 40–2; Grant, “Two-Thirds of the Revenue,” 108; and Reid, “Lucy Baker,” 67–82. 22 Rutherdale, Women and the White Man’s God, 93–4. 23 For all their efforts, the Presbyterian impact on western Canadian Indigenous ­communities was modest. For example, a report produced in the early twentieth century indicated that “mission work” had reached only about 3 per cent of the Dominion’s Indigenous population. It also bears mentioning that, although members of the denomination may have supported the objective of converting Native peoples and absorbing them into Euro-Canadian society, they did not always approve of the way in which other entities – for instance, the Canadian government – attempted to realize that objective. Evidence can be seen in remarks made in 1886 by William Caven, principal of Knox College, Toronto, who denounced state officials involved in assimilative activities geared toward Native peoples as “tyrannical, unjust, or immoral.” Bush, The Western Challenge, 90; 118. 24 On sonic history see Rath, How Early America Sounded; and Laxer, “Listening to the Fur Trade.” 25 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, February 1846, 156. 26 N S ARM M G1, George Patterson fonds, vol. 742. “Being a biographical sketch of all the Presbyterian ministers who labored in the maritime provinces previous to 1817…”; no. 7: “Reverends Daniel Cock and David Smith.” 27 Ibid. 28 United Presbyterian Church Missionary Record, September 1846, 131–2. 29 Ibid., September 1846, 163. 30 Burns, The Life and Times of the Rev. Robert Burns, 259–60. 31 Harper, Adventurers and Exiles, 351. 32 Samson, The Spirit of Industry and Improvement, 59. 33 Wood, Making Ontario, 82. 34 Owram, “Progress, Science, and Religion,” 225–44. While Darwinian science posed an undeniable threat to orthodox Christianity in Canada (as elsewhere) beginning

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in the mid-nineteenth century, Protestant clergy’s emphasis on alternative explanatory frameworks – for instance, Baconian induction, which accommodated critical inquiry and orthodox faith – shielded bedrock beliefs for several decades to come. Gauvreau, Evangelical Century, 284–5. On the coexistence of Darwinism and Christianity elsewhere in the British Empire see Stenhouse, “Darwinism in New Zealand,” 61–90. 35 Burns, The Life and Times of the Rev. Robert Burns, 334. See also Burns, Report Presented to the Colonial Committee of the Free Church of Scotland, 7; 20–1 (hereafter Burns Report). 36 Burns, The Life and Times of the Rev. Robert Burns, 293–4. 37 MacKay, Pioneer Life in Zorra, 21–2. In addition to celebrating the part played by Zorra’s early Presbyterians in subduing the wilderness, MacKay’s fondness for their initiatives betrays a sense of nostalgia for what might have seemed like the settlers’ primitive piety. This sentiment is unsurprising, given that MacKay’s remarks were written around the turn of the twentieth century, when much of the northern North American environment had been brought under human ­control, and the idea of a “moral wilderness” had lost much of its anxiety-­ inducing potency. 38 Grant, Ocean to Ocean, 23; Mack, “George Monro Grant,” 186–7. 39 Grant and Hamilton, Principal Grant, 134. 40 Grant, Ocean to Ocean, 362. 41 Missionary Record of the United Presbyterian Church, February 1836, 20. See also Burns Report, 10–20; and Presbyterian, January 1848, 15–7. 42 Missionary Record of the United Presbyterian Church, February 1836, 21. See also United Presbyterian Church Missionary Record, June 1846, 83; and ibid., September 1846, 148. 43 Beattie and Stenhouse, “Empire, Environment and Religion,” 431–2. 44 Stanley-Blackwell, Tokens of Grace; Stanley, The Well-Watered Garden; StanleyBlackwell, “‘Tabernacles in the Wilderness.’” 45 Stanley-Blackwell, Tokens of Grace, 14. 46 While Calvin dismissed transubstantiation as a “popish fiction,” he valued communion as “a stimulus to faith and devotion, a token rather than a channel of divine grace, which solidified the bonds between the real presence of a risen Christ and communicants.” He also discouraged potential communicants from “taking the Lord’s Supper lightly, without an exhaustive preparatory self-examination.” Ibid., 15. 47 Stanley-Blackwell, “‘Tabernacles in the Wilderness,’” 107; Stanley, The WellWatered Garden, 147–9. 48 Stanley-Blackwell, “‘Tabernacles in the Wilderness,’” 94–5; Robertson, “Introduction,” in Macphail, The Master’s Wife, ix–xiv. 49 Stanley-Blackwell, “‘Tabernacles in the Wilderness,’” 98. 50 Benedict, Christ’s Churches Purely Reformed, 86; Stanley-Blackwell, “‘Tabernacles in the Wilderness,’” 105.

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51 Presbyterian Witness and Evangelical Advocate, 9 October 1852, 352; 27 August 1853, 274; 10 September 1853, 274; Stanley-Blackwell, “‘Tabernacles in the Wilderness,’” 98–107; and Stanley, The Well-Watered Garden, 127–49. 52 Campbell and MacLean, Beyond the Atlantic Roar, 202–4; Murray, History of the Presbyterian Church in Cape Breton, 266. 53 Harper, Adventurers and Exiles, 351. 54 Robertson, “Introduction,” in Macphail, The Master’s Wife, ix–xiv. 55 Schmidt, Holy Fairs, 3; 33–41. 56 Murray, The History of the Presbyterian Church in Cape Breton, 266. 57 Schmidt, Holy Fairs, 4. 58 Carruthers, Scottish Literature, 55–7. 59 Stanley-Blackwell, Tokens of Grace, 19–20. 60 Ward, “Evangelical Awakenings in the North Atlantic World,” 329–47; Noll, ­“Revivalism and the Rise of Evangelical Social Influence in North Atlantic Societies,” 113–36; and Schmidt, Holy Fairs, 4. 61 Stanley-Blackwell, “‘Tabernacles in the Wilderness,’” 107. 62 Murray, History of the Presbyterian Church in Cape Breton, 268–9. 63 McCulloch, Life of Thomas McCulloch, 35. 64 Frank Baird, Rob MacNab, 161. 65 Stanley-Blackwell, Tokens of Grace, 13. 66 Bennett, Oatmeal and the Catechism, 55. 67 Stanley-Blackwell, “‘Tabernacles in the Wilderness,’” 102. 68 Campbell and MacLean, Beyond the Atlantic Roar, 203. 69 McDougall and Moir., eds., Selected Correspondence of the Glasgow Colonial Society, xxvii. 70 Semple, The Lord’s Dominion, 127–45. 71 McCulloch, The Prosperity of the Church in Troublous Times, 10; Patterson, Memoir of the Rev. James MacGregor, 242. See also NS ARM MG1, Thomas McCulloch papers, vol. 554, doc. 37. Address to the United Presbyterian Synod, Scotland on behalf of Pictou Academy. On radical evangelicalism in British North America see Rawlyk, The Canada Fire; and Rawlyk, ed., Aspects of the Canadian Evangelical Experience. 72 Miller, “Religious Commotions in the Scottish Diaspora,” 22–38. 73 Home and Foreign Record of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces of British North America, June 1861, 148. 74 Ibid., 151. 75 On communion festivals in Pictou see Rawlyk, The Canada Fire, 185–206. 76 Patterson, Memoir of the Rev. James MacGregor…, 183–98. 77 Ibid., 199. 78 Presbyterian Witness and Evangelical Advocate, 21 August 1858, 134. See also ibid., 9 October 1852, 352. 79 Ibid., 24 September 1864, 154. 80 Presbyterian Witness and Evangelical Advocate, 1 October 1864, 158.

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Notes to pages 206–16

 81 Burns, Life and Times of the Rev. Robert Burns, 68; 264. See also McDougall and Moir., eds., Selected Correspondence of the Glasgow Colonial Society, xxvii.  82 Worster, Nature’s Economy, 27; Beattie and Stenhouse, “Empire, Environment and Religion,” 415; 431–2.  83 Stoll, Inherit the Holy Mountain, 21–2.   84 Brouwer, “The ‘Between-Age’ Christianity of Agnes Machar,” 352. The quoted phrase is Machar’s. See also Brouwer, “Machar, Agnes Maule.”   85 Marks, “No Double Standard?,” 50–1. See also Christie, “Carnal Connection and Other Misdemeanours,” 66–108.   86 Christie, “Carnal Connection and Other Misdemeanours.” See also Crerar, “‘Crackling Sounds from the Burning Bush,’” 123–36; and Moir, “The Stool of Repentance,” 72–84.   87 Marks, “No Double-Standard?,” 51.  88 Ibid.  89 Ibid.  90 U CA-M AR P P 200, Minutes of Halifax Presbytery c. 1817–1860. “Appendix: Formula of Questions at Presbyterial Visitations.”  91 P CCA 1978-4002-1-5, Milton, O N , Knox Presbyterian Church. Session Minutes, 1855–1867. 5 March 1874.  92 P CCA 1999-4002-1-1, Earltown, Nova Scotia, Knox Presbyterian Church. Session minutes, 1846–1959. 6 August 1849.   93 To ensure optimal privacy, I have refrained from using surnames.  94 P CCA Earltown, Nova Scotia, Knox Presbyterian Church. Session Minutes, 12 February 1850. See also P C C A 1978-4002-1-5, Esquesing, Ontario, Boston Presbyterian Church. Session Minutes, 1832–1858 (included with records for Knox Presbyterian Church, Milton, O N ), 28 April 1844.  95 P CCA 1986-8008, Records of the Session of the Presbyterian Church, Markham (St Andrew’s), 12 February 1843.  96 P CCA 1973-8022, Hamilton, Ontario, Central Presbyterian Church. Session Minutes, 1841–1990, 13 September 1849.   97 Ibid., 14 September 1853; 24 September 1853.   98 Ibid., 24 September 1853; 5 October 1853.   99 Ibid., 4 October 1854; 2 November 1854. 100 Ibid., 3 April 1858; 9 April 1858. Records indicate that, following repeated appeals, Mrs. Robert S. was restored to church membership in the fall of 1864, only to be removed yet again in the winter of 1866 as a result of her “habitual intemperance.” Ibid., 4 October 1864; 2 February 1866.

c ha p t e r e i g h t    1 See, for example, Wodrow, The History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland.    2 Cowan, “The Covenanting Tradition in Scottish History,” 131–3.

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  3 Macdonald, “Loss of Memory in the Diaspora,” 225–50; Macdonald, “Margaret Wilson,” 1–8.   4 On the Covenanters see Stevenson, Union, Revolution, and Religion in SeventeenthCentury Scotland; Douglas, Light in the North. Wilson’s views comported with those of the arch-Presbyterian Richard Cameron, whose followers rejected the ­Revolution Settlement that came on the heels of the Glorious Revolution because it failed to entrench Reformed Protestantism throughout the British Isles and recognize Jesus’s sovereignty over the state. Accordingly, these “Covenanting” Presbyterians did not join the Church of Scotland, which became an established church in 1690. Given these circumstances, Wilson is technically unaffiliated with mainstream Presbyterian institutions (including ones in Canada) whose roots lie in the Scottish Church. Nonetheless, the Covenanting mystique is so powerful that it has resonated with factions – including various Canadian Presbyterian constituencies – who are not formally connected to the denomination’s radical “Cameronian” offshoot, the Reformed Presbyterians (or “Covenanters”). Macdonald, “Loss of Memory in the Diaspora,” 233–4.   5 On Scottish historical memory see Trevor-Roper, The Invention of Scotland; Pittock, The Invention of Scotland; and Cowan and Finlay, eds., Scottish History.   6 For all their popularity, the Covenanters are not without their detractors. In The Tale of Old Mortality (1816), for example, Walter Scott portrayed them as “violent, revolutionary fanatics,” implicitly equating them with the French Revolution’s sanguinary fallout. Duncan and Mack, “Hogg, Galt, Scott and their Milieu,” 216–17.   7 The twentieth-century scholarship of W. Stanford Reid made valuable contributions to the study of Presbyterian history. Prominent among them was his critique of what he saw as Max Weber’s reductive interpretation of Calvin, which equated the Reformer with modern capitalism, and downplayed key aspects of his theology. Macleod, W. Stanford Reid, 239–56. See also Reid, ed., John Calvin.   8 Anglicans, for example, located themselves in a grand historical tradition as well. See Swyripa, “The Monarchy, the Mounties, and Ye Olde English Fayre,” 322–38; Westfall, “Constructing Public Religion at Private Sites, 23–49.   9 The notion that the Presbyterians’ historical narrative served several purposes dovetails with the concept of “usable pasts” discussed in the next chapter. 10 Frye, “Myth, Fiction, and Displacement,” 30. 11 Frye, The Great Code, 46; 192–8. See also Dick, “‘A New History for a New Millennium,’” 85–109. 12 Walsham, Providence in Early Modern England, 33; King, Foxe’s ‘Book of Martyrs.’ 13 Haller, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs and the Elect Nation, 13–14; 142–50; 225–44. That such sentiments circulated in early Canadian Presbyterianism can be seen in the remarks of Thomas McCulloch who, in an 1814 sermon, observed that “[the] churches of Britain are the glory of Christ; and, by divine grace, they have become the centre of a zeal for religion, which is spreading like the torrent, and arousing

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Notes to pages 221–4

the activity of men to the very ends of the earth.” McCulloch, The Prosperity of the Church in Troublous Times, 10. 14 Mason, “Imagining Scotland,” 12–13. 15 Burrow, A Liberal Descent, 3; and, of course, Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History. 16 Burrow, A Liberal Descent, 17–19. 17 Burrow, A History of Histories, 470–3; Novick, That Noble Dream, 44–6; Wright, The Professionalization of History in English Canada, 5; and Taylor, Promoters, Patriots, and Partisans, 165–6. Walter Scott’s romantic novels influenced many nineteenth-century historians. Indeed, according to historian Peter Novick, Scott was the most emulated author in early nineteenth-century America “by a wide margin.” Early Canadian Presbyterians, however, were ambivalent about his works. Chiefly, their ambivalence stemmed from the fact that, while Scott was capable of portraying moderate Presbyterians favourably – for example, the characters Henry Morton in The Tale of Old Mortality (1816) and Jeanie Deans in The Heart of Midlothian (1818) – he portrayed doctrinaire Presbyterians, including the Covenanters, as intolerant fanatics. Novick, That Noble Dream, 45; Waterston, “The Lowland Tradition in Canadian Literature,” 212; Carruthers, Scottish Literature, 98–103. For evidence of early Canadian Presbyterian ambivalence toward Scott see P C C A A R 5 E7S4, “A Sermon, Preached in the Presbyterian Church, St. Gabriel Street, Montreal, on the 30th of November, 1835 (St. Andrew’s Day). By the Rev. H. Esson, Senior Chaplain of the St. Andrew’s society of Montreal,” 60–3. 18 Colonial Patriot, 7 December 1827, 4. 19 On the covenant and national identities see. Smith, Chosen Peoples; Akenson, God’s Peoples. On the covenant within nineteenth-century Canadian Presbyterianism see Christie and Gauvreau, Christian Churches and Their Peoples, 29–30. 20 Murdock, Beyond Calvin, 118–19. 21 Monthly Record of the Church of Scotland in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Adjoining Provinces, February 1874, 50–1. 22 Ibid., 51–4. 23 Presbyterians were not alone in citing history as a means of validating their ecclesiastical traditions. Anglicans, for example, invoked aspects of the past – the doctrine of apostolic succession, for instance – in seeking to highlight their church’s especially righteous heritage. Westfall, Two Worlds, 121. 24 The Presbyterian; Missionary and Religious Record of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in Connection with the Church of Scotland, September 1850, 137. 25 P CCA “A Sermon, Preached in the Presbyterian Church, St. Gabriel Street … By the Rev. Robert Esson,” 47–8. 26 Monthly Record of the Church of Scotland in Nova Scotia and the Adjoining Provinces, November 1864, 201–2. 27 L AC C-1601, George Brown Papers, microfilm reel 4. Peter Brown’s Journal.

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28 Home and Foreign Record of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces of British North America, January 1861, 1–3. 29 P CCA AR5 V 3D 6, “Valedictory Discourse (In Substance) Delivered in the Canada Presbyterian Church, St. Catharine’s, 24 February 1867, by the Reverend R.F. Burns,” 10. 30 Ibid. 31 Home and Foreign Record of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces, January 1861, 1–3. 32 The Presbyterian, December 1850, 185–6. 33 Home and Foreign Record of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces, January 1861, 1–3. According to historians A.G. Dickens and John Tonkin, the Reformation has received so much attention, and been interpreted in such diverse ways, that it represents a veritable “window on the West.” That is, the various ways in which it has been perceived over the half-millennium since it occurred serve as a mechanism by which scholars can trace major developments in the history of Western thought. Dickens and Tonkin, The Reformation in Historical Thought, 323. 34 Monthly Record of the Church of Scotland in Nova Scotia and the Adjoining Provinces, March 1864, 46. 35 The Presbyterian, December 1850, 186. 36 Monthly Record of the Church of Scotland in Nova Scotia and the Adjoining Provinces, March 1864, 44–5. On the Scottish Reformation see Cowan, The Scottish Reformation; and Donaldson, The Scottish Reformation. See also Todd, The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland. 37 Mason, “Imagining Scotland,” 12–13. 38 Monthly Record of the Church of Scotland in Nova Scotia and the Adjoining Provinces, June 1864, 103. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid. 41 Ibid., 104. See also Archives of Ontario MS-409-3, William Cochrane Papers, microfilm reel 3. “Notebook of William Cochrane containing an account of a voyage to Europe ca. 1869.” 42 Free Church adherents strove to portray themselves as Knox’s true heirs. This phenomenon, which was evident on both sides of the Atlantic, will be discussed in the next chapter. 43 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, April 1848, 87. Carlyle also bestowed high praise on Martin Luther, whom he portrayed in On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History as a figure of world-historical significance. Dickens and Tonkin, The Reformation in Historical Thought, 163–4. 44 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, November 1849, 7–8. 45 Presbyterian, September 1849, 143. Although he received less attention than Knox, early Canadian Presbyterians bestowed considerable praise on Andrew Melville. “The Church,” according to one nineteenth-century publication, has been redeemed

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Notes to pages 230–2

from the world.” However, “unless it be fenced and hedged from mundane corruptions, the line of demarcation [between the two] will soon disappear.” It was to “the orderly and systematic mind of Melville” that Presbyterians were indebted for integrating such “fences and hedges” into Presbyterian polity. Monthly Record of the Church of Scotland in Nova Scotia and the Adjoining Provinces, October 1864, 185. 46 Dawson, John Knox, 312. 47 Dawson, “Knox, John,” 29–30. 48 Although it seems probable that early Canadian Presbyterians would have been familiar with the works of both Davidson and Calderwood, the exact extent to which they drew on them in developing their historical account is unclear. However, there is ample evidence that members of the denomination were closely acquainted with the writings of McCrie. See Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, June 1845, 85; and July 1845, 94. 49 Dawson, “Knox, John,” 29; Dawson, John Knox, 315. 50 The Presbyterian, November 1860, 160–1. 51 Canadian United Presbyterian Magazine, June 1860, 243–9. 52 P CCA 1989-8027, Toronto, St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church (King and Simcoe Streets). Session Minutes, 1842–93, 6 December 1860; UCA 79.0353/TR, Synod of New Brunswick in Connection with the Church of Scotland, Transcript of Minutes, 1859–1868, 12 July 1860. 53 Canadian United Presbyterian Magazine, July 1860, 197–201. 54 Ibid, 201. 55 Ibid., December 1861, 358. See also ibid., January 1861, 11. 56 Murray, The History of the Presbyterian Church in Cape Breton, 266. 57 Canadian Presbyterian Magazine, March 1854, n.p. See also Canadian Presbyterian Magazine, January 1854, n.p. Of course, many Scots – including at least a few Presbyterians – supported the Stuarts, whom they associated with a Scottish independence that had been imperilled (if not eradicated) by the Glorious Revolution and, especially, the Treaty of Union. Pittock, The Invention of Scotland, 2–5; 13–16; 24–40. 58 Numerous Ulster Presbyterians also celebrated the Covenanters. For example, they attributed a surge in evangelical enthusiasm among members of the denomination beginning in the late eighteenth century – which manifested in such phenomena as a growth in voluntary societies and philanthropic organizations – to a “rediscovery of seventeenth-century Presbyterian beliefs and practices.” Holmes, The Shaping of Ulster Presbyterian Belief and Practice, 47–8. 59 Canadian Presbyterian Magazine, March 1854, n.p. See also ibid., January 1854, n.p. 60 Colonial Patriot, 7 December 1827, 9. See also ibid., 2 July 1828, 244. 61 Presbyterian Witness and Evangelical Advocate, 14 January 1860, 6. 62 Ibid. See also Canadian Presbyterian Magazine, June 1852, n.p.

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63 Canadian Presbyterian Magazine, March 1854, n.p. See also Colonial Patriot, 2 July 1828, 244. 64 Home and Foreign Record of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces, January 1861, 1–3. 65 Colonial Patriot, 2 October 1828, 244. 66 Worden, God’s Instruments, 314–52. 67 Canadian Presbyterian Magazine, March 1854, n.p. See also Colonial Patriot, 2 July 1828, 244. 68 Kidd, Union and Unionisms, 5. On the Glorious Revolution see Pincus, 1688. 69 P CCA “A Sermon, Preached in the Presbyterian Church, St. Gabriel Street … By the Rev. Robert Esson,” 60. 70 Ibid. 71 N S ARM M G 1, George Patterson fonds, vols. 742–44; MG 9 nos. 5, 31. Vol. 742, “Pioneers of Presbyterianism in the Maritime Provinces of Canada.” See also Presbyterian, September 1849, 143. 72 On the Huguenots in colonial North America see John S. Moir, “Nec Tamen Consumebatur,” 1–12; Crowley, “The French Regime to 1760,” 3–6; and Gregg, Short History of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, 1–5. 73 N S ARM Patterson Fonds, vol. 742, “Pioneers of Presbyterianism in the Maritime Provinces of Canada.” 74 Ibid. 75 Novick, That Noble Dream, 44–6. 76 George Patterson, Memoir of the Rev. James MacGregor, 67–8. See also McDougall and Moir, eds., Selected Correspondence of the Glasgow Colonial Society, 1:164–6. 77 Colonial Patriot, 4 April 1827, 133. 78 Ibid., 4 January 1828, 33. MacGregor, indeed, seems to have been a revered figure on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. According to the Juvenile Missionary Magazine of the United Presbyterian Church, a metropolitan publication, he was “instrumental” to the growth of Presbyterianism in Nova Scotia, which in turn had nurtured the development of an “intelligent” and “pious” populace. Juvenile Missionary Magazine of the United Presbyterian Church 6 (1849): 39–41. 79 Bryce, John Black, v. 80 Ibid., v–vi. 81 Bryce, The Scotsman in Canada, 2:255–7. 82 The Presbyterian, June 1848, 87. 83 Ibid. See also The Home and Foreign Record of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces of British North America, January 1861, 4. 84 P CCA AR5 M 6S 4, “A Sermon, Preached in St. Andrew’s Church, Montreal, on the Thirtieth Day of November, 1836, (St. Andrew’s Day) by the Reverend Alexander Mathieson, A.M. (Minister of that Church, one of the Chaplains of St. Andrew’s Society, Montreal),” 54–6. Notwithstanding Mathieson’s emphasis on Scotland,

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Notes to pages 238–48

certain Irish Presbyterians elected to worship outdoors in the late seventeenth century as well. 85 P CCA, “A Sermon, Preached in the Presbyterian Church, St. Gabriel Street … By the Rev Robert Esson,” 20–1. 86 McDougall and Moir, eds., Selected Correspondence of the Glasgow Colonial Society, 1:164–6. See also Missionary Record of the United Presbyterian Church, July 1855, 126. 87 Patterson, Memoir of the Rev. James MacGregor, 239. 88 Presbyterian, June 1848, 79. 89 Canadian United Presbyterian Magazine, January 1861, 11.

chapter nine   1 Campbell and MacLean, Beyond the Atlantic Roar, 208.  2 N S ARM M G 1, Thomas McCulloch Papers, vol. 554, 37. Address to United Presbyterian Synod, Scotland on behalf of Pictou Academy. “Remarks Upon the Religion and Education of Nova Scotia from the time of its occupation by the British till the present.”  3 Ibid.   4 Esson, owing in part to his emphatic evangelicalism, gravitated to voluntarism in the mid-nineteenth century. McDougall, “Esson, Henry.”  5 P CCA AR5 E 7S 4, “A Sermon, Preached in the Presbyterian Church, St. Gabriel Street, Montreal, on the 30th of Nov, 1835 (St. Andrew’s Day). By the Reverend Robert Esson, Senior Chaplain of the St. Andrew’s Society of Montreal,” 63–6; 84. See also U CA 86.206C , William Smart Papers, box 1, file 2. “[Auto?]biography of Rev. William Smart, Brockville, 1811–49,” 58–60.   6 See Moir, “‘Who Pays the Piper…,’” 13–27.  7 The Presbyterian, March 1848, 41.  8 Ibid.   9 Ibid., June 1848, 87. See also Monthly Record of the Church of Scotland in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Adjoining Provinces, January 1874, 2–5; ibid., February 1874, 37–8. 10 Canadian Presbyterian Magazine, October 1851, n.p. 11 Ibid., December 1851, n.p. 12 Ibid., April 1852, n.p. 13 Ecclesiastical and Missionary Record, June 1845, 81. 14 Ibid. See also King, Narrative of Events Issuing in the Institution of the Free Church of Scotland in Separation from the State, 24. 15 Novascotian, 10 June 1844, 198. 16 Dawson, “Knox, John,” 29. 17 On this topic see Hobsbawm and Ranger, eds., The Invention of Tradition. 18 McGowan, Creating Canadian Historical Memory, 17. On historical memory in Canada, see also Rudin, Remembering and Forgetting in Acadie; Coates and

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Notes to pages 248–55

315

Morgan, Heroines and History; Nelles, The Art of Nation-Building; Knowles, Inventing the Loyalists; and Vance, Death So Noble. 19 Knowles, Inventing the Loyalists, 12–13. 20 Gallois, Time, Religion, and History, 242. See also Corfield, Time and the Shape of History; Carr, Time, Narrative, and History. 21 Gallois, Time, Religion, and History, 26. 22 Ibid., 130. 23 Westfall, Two Worlds, 29. 24 Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 33, “Of the Last Judgement,” accessed 16 December 2015, http://www.reformed.org/documents/wcf_with_proofs/index. html. 25 On Canadian millennialism see Gauvreau, The Evangelical Century, 91–124; Westfall, Two Worlds, 159–190. On millennialism elsewhere in the north Atlantic world see Moorhead, World without End; Bloch, Visionary Republic; Harrison, The Second Coming; and Tuveson, Redeemer Nation. 26 Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 285–92. 27 Westfall, Two Worlds, 167–8; 171–2; Moir, Enduring Witness, 175–6. 28 Gauvreau, Evangelical Century, 184–5. 29 Harrison, The Second Coming, 3–6. 30 Westfall, Two Worlds, 26–7; 171–2. 31 Augustine of Hippo, Concerning the City of God against the Pagans, 858–9. 32 Canadian United Presbyterian Magazine, September 1860, 274–5. 33 Monthly Record of the Church of Scotland in Nova Scotia and the Adjoining Provinces, November 1864, 201–2. 34 Ibid., 202. See also P C C A A R 5 M6S 4, “A Sermon, Preached in Montreal, on Sunday the 28th of December, 1834, by the Rev. Henry Esson,” 5–6. 35 Monthly Record of the Church of Scotland in Nova Scotia and the Adjoining Provinces, November 1864, 204–5. 36 Ibid., October 1864, 184. 37 Gauvreau, “Protestantism Transformed,” 50. 38 McKillop, “The Idealist Legacy,” 96–102. See also McKillop, A Disciplined Intelligence, 171–228. Historians have vigorously debated the degree to which idealism facilitated secularization. While the latter development may have played out within the cerebral worlds of articulate elites, there is ample evidence indicating that Christianity persisted as a compelling force in Canadian society well into the second half of the twentieth century. Noll, “What Happened to Christian Canada?,” 248–50; Christie and Gauvreau, Christian Churches and Their Peoples, 198. 39 Home and Foreign Record of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces of British North America, March 1861, 57–9. 40 Home and Foreign Record of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces of British North America, August 1861, 197–9. See also Cochrane, The Heavenly Vision, 252–3.

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Notes to pages 256–72

41 Home and Foreign Record of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces, June 1875, 143. 42 Westminster Confession, chapter 33. 43 Home and Foreign Record of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces, May 1861, 113–5. 44 Bayne, Canadian Presbyterian Pulpit, 21. 45 Murdock, Beyond Calvin, 121–2. 46 Home and Foreign Record of the Presbyterian Church of the Lower Provinces of British North America, March 1861, 58–9. 47 P CCA 1978-7001, William Gregg Papers, reel 2. Series 1-3-b; poems and tracts, 1840–68. “The Judgement Foretold [Sermon]. Matt. 25,” 31–46. 48 Gauvreau, Evangelical Century, 92–104. 49 Ibid., 155–9. See also Mack, “Grant, George Monro.” 50 Requiem for a Nun, 80.

c onc l usio n   1 P CCA 1973-5015, Robert McDowall fonds, box 1, file 6. Essay: “Life of the Rev. R. McDowall” by Stuart Woods, 2; Moir, “Robert McDowall,” 34–5.   2 Wood, “Ideology and the Origins of Liberal America,” 630–1; Geertz, “Ideology as a Cultural System,” 47–76.   3 For differing perspectives on secularization see Marshall, Secularizing the Faith; Gauvreau and Hubert, “Beyond Church History,” 3–45. On the definitional challenges surrounding secularization see Taylor, A Secular Age, 1–15. See also Brown and Snape, eds., Secularisation in the Christian World; McLeod and Ustorf, eds., The Decline of Christendom in Western Europe, 1750–2000.  4 Brown, The Death of Christian Britain, 8. On the sixties and “dechristianization” – a complex phenomenon that entails the waning influence of Christianity, as opposed to religion tout court – see Christie and Gauvreau, eds., The Sixties and Beyond.   5 On the history of meaning see Bouwsma, “From History of Ideas to History of Meaning,” 279–91.   6 Dummitt, “Mackenzie King Wasn’t a Libertarian,” 108–15.  7 Heron, Booze, 12. See also Valverde, The Age of Light, Soap, and Water, 33.   8 Christie and Gauvreau, Christian Churches and Their Peoples, 77. See also Turkstra, “Constructing a Labour Gospel,” 93–130.  9 MacLennan, Each Man’s Son, 67. 10 Cameron, Hugh MacLennan, 7–12. 11 Robinson, “Fleeing the Emptiness, 123–38; Carruthers, Scottish Literature, 53.

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350 Bibliography Swyripa, Frances. “‘The Monarchy, the Mounties, and Ye Olde English Fayre’: Identity at All Saints’ Anglican, Edmonton, 1875–1990s.” In Canada and the British World: Culture, Migration, and Identity, edited by Phillip Buckner, 322–38. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 2006. Talman, J.J. “The Position of the Church of England in Upper Canada, 1791–1840.” In Historical Essays on Upper Canada, edited by J.K. Johnson, 58–73. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1975. Tawney, R.H. Religion and the Rise of Capitalism: A Historical Study. London: John Murray, 1926. Taylor, M. Brook. Promoters, Patriots, and Partisans: Historiography in NineteenthCentury English Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989. Taylor, Charles. A Secular Age. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007. Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England. London: Penguin, 1971. Thompson, E.P. The Making of the English Working-Class. New York: Pelican, 1980. Tiedemann, Joseph S. “Presbyterianism and the American Revolution in the Middle Colonies.” Church History 74, no. 2 (2005): 306–44. Todd, Margo. The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. – “The Problem of Scotland’s Puritans.” In The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism, edited by John Coffey and Paul C.H. Lim, 174–90. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. Toews, John E. “Intellectual History after the Linguistic Turn: The Autonomy of Meaning and the Irreducibility of Experience.” American Historical Review 92, no. 4 (October 1987): 879–907. Trevor-Roper, Hugh. The Invention of Scotland: Myth and History. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008. Trinterud, Leonard J. The Forming of an American Tradition: A Re-examination of Colonial Presbyterianism. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1949. Tuck, Richard. “History of Political Thought.” In New Perspectives on Historical Writing, 2nd edition, edited by Peter Burke, 218–32. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2001. Turkstra, Melissa. “Constructing a Labour Gospel: Labour and Religion in Early 20th-Century Ontario.” Labour/Le Travail 57 (Spring 2006): 93–130. Tuveson, Ernest Lee. Redeemer Nation: The Idea of America’s Millennial Role. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968. Ullman, Victor. Look to the North Star: A Life of William King. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969. Valverde, Mariana. The Age of Light, Soap, and Water: Moral Reform in English Canada, 1885–1925. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2008 [1991]. Vance, Jonathan. Death So Noble: Memory, Meaning, and the First World War. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1997.

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Bibliography 351 Van Die, Marguerite. An Evangelical Mind: Nathaniel Burwash and the Methodist Tradition in Canada. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1989. – “Protestants, the Liberal State, and the Practice of Politics: Revisiting R.J. Fleming and the 1890s Toronto Streetcar Controversy.” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 24, no. 1 (2013): 89–129. – Religion, Family and Community in Victorian Canada: The Colbys of Carrollcroft. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005. – ed. Religion and Public Life in Canada: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001. VanDrunen, David. Natural Law and the Two Kingdoms: A Study in the Development of Reformed Social Thought. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010. Vaudry, Richard W. Anglicans in the Atlantic World: High Churchmen, Evangelicals, and the Quebec Connection. Montreal and Kingston: McGillQueen’s University Press, 2003. – The Free Church in Victorian Canada, 1844–1861. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1989. Veracini, Lorenzo. “‘Settler Colonialism’: Career of a Concept.” In The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 41, no. 2 (2013): 313–33. Vincent, John. The Formation of the Liberal Party, 1857–1868. London: Constable, 1966. Viner, Jacob. The Role of Providence in the Social Order: An Essay in Intellectual History. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1972. Waite, P.B. The Life and Times of Confederation 1864–1867: Politics, Newspapers, and the Union of British North America. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1962. Walden, Keith. Becoming Modern in Toronto: The Industrial Exhibition and the Shaping of a Late Victorian Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997. – “Tea in Toronto and the Liberal Order, 1880–1914.” Canadian Historical Review 93, no. 1 (March 2012): 1–24. Wallace, Valerie. “‘Preaching Disaffection’ in the Presbyterian Atlantic: Jotham Blanchard and the Reform Crisis in Scotland and Nova Scotia, c.1827–1837.” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History 42, no. 2 (2014): 377–99. Walsh, H.H. The Christian Church in Canada. Toronto: Ryerson Press, 1956. Walsham, Alexandra. Providence in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Ward, Peter. Courtship, Love and Marriage in Nineteenth-Century English Canada. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1990. Ward, W.R. “Evangelical Awakenings in the North Atlantic World.” In Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 7, edited by Stewart J. Brown and Timothy Tackett, 329–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Warner, Michael. “Publics and Counterpublics.” Public Culture 14, no. 1 (Winter 2002): 49–90.

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352 Bibliography Waterston, Elizabeth. “The Lowland Tradition in Canadian Literature.” In The Scottish Tradition in Canada, edited by William Stanford Reid, 203–231. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1976. Weale, David. “McDonald, Donald.” In Dictionary of Canadian Biography. Vol. 9. Accessed 24 May 2017. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/mcdonald_donald_ 1783_1867_9E.html. Weaver, John C. The Great Land Rush and the Making of the Modern World, 1650–1900. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2003. Webb, Todd. “Making Neo-Britons: The Transatlantic Relationship between Wesleyan Methodists in Britain and the Canadas, 1815–1828.” British Journal of Canadian Studies 16, no. 1 (2005): 1–25. – Transatlantic Methodists: British Wesleyanism and the Formation of an Evangelical Culture in Nineteenth-Century Ontario and Quebec. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013. Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by Talcott Parsons. New York: Scribner’s, 1958. Westfall, William. “Constructing Public Religion at Private Sites: The Anglican Church in the Shadow of Disestablishment.” In Religion and Public Life in Canada: Historical and Comparative Perspectives, edited by Marguerite Van Die, 23–49. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001. – “The Doctrine of Expediency: Lord Durham’s Report and the Alliance of Church and State.” Journal of Canadian Studies 25, no. 1 (Spring 1990): 178–90. – The Founding Moment: Church, Society, and the Construction of Trinity College. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002. – “Order and Experience: Patterns of Religious Metaphor in Early Nineteenth Century Upper Canada.” Journal of Canadian Studies 20, no. 1 (Spring 1985): 5–24. – Two Worlds: The Protestant Culture of Nineteenth-Century Ontario. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1989. White, Hayden. Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973. – “The Value of Narrativity in the Representation of Reality.” In The Content of the Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation, 1–25. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987. White, Richard, and William Cronon. “Ecological Change and Indian-White Relations.” In Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 4, edited by Wilcomb E. Washburn, 417–29. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1988. Whitelaw, Marjorie. “Thomas McCulloch.” Canadian Literature nos. 68–9 (SpringSummer, 1974): 138–47. Whitfield, Harvey Amani. Blacks on the Border: The Black Refugees in British North America, 1815–1860. Burlington: Vermont University Press, 2006. – “The Struggle over Slavery in the Maritime Colonies.” Acadiensis 41, no. 2 (Summer/Autumn 2012): 20–43.

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Bibliography 353 Wickberg, Daniel. “What Is the History of Sensibilities? On Cultural Histories, Old and New.” American Historical Review 112, no. 3 (June 2007): 661–84. Williams, George H. Wilderness and Paradise in Christian Thought: The Biblical Experience of the Desert in the History of Christianity and the Paradise Theme in the Theological Idea of the University. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1962. Wilson, Alan. The Clergy Reserves of Upper Canada. Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association, 1969. – Highland Shepherd: James MacGregor, Father of the Scottish Enlightenment in Nova Scotia. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015. Wilson, David A. “Introduction: Who Are These People?” In The Orange Order in Canada, edited by David A. Wilson, 9–24. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007. – The Irish in Canada. Ottawa: Canadian Historical Association, 1989. Wilson, David A., and Mark G. Spencer, eds. Ulster Presbyterians in the Atlantic World: Religion, Politics and Identity. Dublin: Four Courts, 2006. Wilton, Carol. “‘Lawless Law’: Conservative Political Violence in Upper Canada, 1818–1842.” Law and History Review 13, no. 1 (Spring 1995): 111–36. Wise, S.F. “God’s Peculiar Peoples.” In God’s Peculiar Peoples: Essays on Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century Canada, edited by A.B. McKillop and Paul Romney, 19–43. Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1993. – “Upper Canada and the Conservative Tradition.” In God’s Peculiar Peoples: Essays on Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century Canada, edited by A.B. McKillop and Paul Romney, 169–84. Ottawa: Carleton University Press, 1993. Wolffe, John. “Anglicanism, Presbyterianism and the Religious Identities of the United Kingdom.” In Cambridge History of Christianity, vol. 8, edited by Sheridan Gilley and Brian Stanley, 304–19. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. – The Expansion of Evangelicalism: The Age of Wilberforce, More, Chalmers and Finney. Downers Grove, I L : Inter-Varsity Press, 2007. – God and Greater Britain: Religion and National Life in Britain and Ireland 1843–1945. London: Routledge, 1994. – The Protestant Crusade in Great Britain 1829–1860. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991. Wood, B. Anne. Evangelical Balance Sheet: Character, Family, and Business in MidVictorian Nova Scotia. Waterloo, O N : Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006. – “Pictou Academy: Promoting ‘Schooled Subjectivities’ in 19th-Century Nova Scotia.” Acadiensis 28, no. 2 (1999): 41–57. – “The Significance of Evangelical Presbyterian Politics in the Construction of State Schooling: A Case Study of the Pictou District, 1817–1866.” Acadiensis 20, no. 2 (Spring 1991): 62–85. Wood, David J. Making Ontario: Agricultural Colonization and Landscape Recreation before the Railway. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000.­

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354 Bibliography Wood, Gordon S. “Ideology and the Origins of Liberal America.” William and Mary Quarterly 44, no. 3 (July 1987): 628–40. Worden, Blair. God’s Instruments: Political Conduct in the England of Oliver Cromwell. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. – “Providence and Politics in Cromwellian England.” Past and Present 109 (November 1985): 55–99. Worster, Donald. Nature’s Economy: A History of Ecological Ideas. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994 [1977]. Wright, Donald. The Professionalization of History in English Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005. Wynn, Graeme. Canada and Arctic North America: An Environmental History. Santa Barbara, C A : A B C -C L I O , 2007. Yates, Nigel. Eighteenth-Century Britain: Religion and Politics, 1714–1815. Edinburgh: Pearson, 2008. Zeller, Suzanne. Inventing Canada: Early Victorian Science and the Idea of a Transcontinental Nation. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987.

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Index

Acadia/Acadians, 39, 124 Africa/Africans: and British imperialism, 76; and missionaries, 178, 183, 255; and nature, 96; Presbyterian bigotry towards, 110; and Presbyterian worldview, 5, 262 Airhart, Phyllis, 19 Akenson, Donald Harman, 71 Alline, Henry, 103, 167 America. See United States American Revolution. See Revolutionary War (United States) Anglicans/Anglicanism: and church architecture, 49; and church-state relationship, 123–6, 133, 139, 144, 146–7, 149–50, 243; in colonial America, 39; and Episcopacy, 31; and Oxford Movement, 89; and social class, 9, 276n23 animism, 301n21 Anti-Burghers. See General Associate Synod anti-Catholicism, 87–102, 268; and Charles Chiniquy, 289n49; and liberalism, 132, 152; and “Protestant culture,” 10–11

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Anti-slavery Society of Canada, 105. See also slavery Aquinas, Thomas, 63 Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich. See Leacock, Stephen Arminianism. See Calvin, John/ Calvinism Articles of Perth, 34 Asia/Asians: and British imperialism, 76, 85; and Presbyterian evangelism, 178, 183; and Presbyterian worldview, 5, 262 “aspirational Protestantism,” 12–13, 74–5 Associate Synod (Burghers), 36, 121 Atwood, Margaret, 172 Augustine of Hippo, 30, 63, 173, 252 Baker, Lucy, 192–3 Baldwin, Robert, 126, 144, 294n61, 298n57 Baldwin, William Warren, 144 Bannister, Jerry, 278n1 Barclay, John, 66–7 Belich, James, 75 Bell, William, 128–9, 156, 182

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356 Index Berger, Carl, 15, 18, 274n14 Bethune, John, 40 Bible, 21–2, 54; and anti-Catholicism, 91, 98–9, 101, 152; and evangelicalism, 8, 160, 178; and evangelism, 183, 255; and Free Church liberalism, 151–2; and John Knox, 31; and nature, 190, 206; and Protestant Reformation, 27, 226. See also teleology Bloch, Ruth H., 286n72 Brodie, Margaret, 62–3 Brouwer, Ruth Compton, 207 Brown, Callum, 270 Brown, George, 7, 44; and anti-­ slavery activism, 105, 108, 289n56; and British imperialism, 81, 150; and church-state relationship, 131, 151. See also anti-Catholicism Brown, Peter, 92, 151, 224 Brown, Stewart J., 123 Bryce, George, 236–7 Bucer, Martin, 27 Buchanan, Isaac, 7, 149–50, 298n57 Buckner, Phillip, 61 Bumsted, J.M., 75 Burghers. See Associate Synod Burke, Peter, 17 Burns, R.F., 224–5 Burns, Robbie (poet), 201–2, 275n16, 304n7 Burns, Robert (minister): and Great Disruption, 42, 43; and Lower Canadian evangelism, 97–8; and “modern challenges” to Christian orthodoxy, 258; and nature, 195–7, 206; and slavery, 108 Burrow, John, 221 Buxton Mission, 20, 22, 87–8, 107–9, 268. See also slavery

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Calderwood, David, 229, 312n48 Calvin, John/Calvinism, 26–36, 38, 48, 50; contrast with Arminianism, 12, 29–30, 66, 71, 203–4, 262–3; and capitalism, 94; and churchstate relations, 117–21; and Hugh MacLennan, 271–2; and history, 24, 218–19, 222–3, 226, 240; in literature, 273n2; and nature, 167, 173, 186, 206–7, 212; and “Old School” Presbyterians, 103, 107; and providence, 22, 64–6, 68–72, 110, 156–7; and Revolutionary War, 79–80, 286n72; and transubstantiation, 306n46; and W. Stanford Reid, 309n7; and Westminster Confession, 4. See also communion festivals “Cambridge School,” 16 Cameron, Richard, 35, 309n4. See also Covenanters Campbell, Carol, 73 Carleton, Thomas, 123 Carlyle, Thomas, 228, 331 Carter, Sarah, 162 catechism, 34, 50–1, 136 Catholic Emancipation, 89–90 Caven, William, 305n23 Celtic peoples, 78 Chalmers, Thomas, 36–7, 42, 122 Chiniquy, Charles. See anti-Catholicism Christie, Nancy, 10, 19, 192, 207 Church of Ireland, 37, 73, 122 Church of Scotland: and anti-­ Catholicism, 148–9; approach to worship, 48, 50; and British imperialism, 140–2; and church architecture, 281n68, 294n67; and church-state relations, 116, 120–2,

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Index 357 125–31, 138–40; development in early Canada, 39–41; and Dissenters, 296n25; disintegration of, 36–7; emergence of, 35; and Great Disruption, 42–3, 122; and Highland evangelism, 79; and history, 244–5; limited influence in Maritimes, 124; and marriage, 296n24; and missionary work, 101; and moral reform, 54, 154–6; and Presbyterian union, 44–7; and providence, 84–6; and slavery, 104; status of, 9. See also Tories/Toryism Civil War (England), 34, 72, 217, 232–3 Civil War (United States), 88, 110, 263 Clark, S.D., 59, 60 class, socioeconomic, 9, 13, 122, 155, 208, 271 Claydon, Tony, 12–13 Clear Grits, 132 Clergy Reserves, 23, 116, 124–34, 143, 151, 294n61; and history, 241, 243, 247; and Maritimes, 292n33, 293n40; and Presbyterian union, 44 Cochrane, William, 67 Cock, Daniel, 103–4 Colley, Linda, 10, 61 communion festivals, 23, 50, 186, 199–207, 212, 265 Confederation, 60, 44, 116, 124–9, 132 Conservatives/Conservatism. See Tories/Toryism Constitutional Act, 125–6, 143, 243, 292n39 Cook, Ramsay, 18–19 Covenanters: and church-state relationship, 291n2; criticism of,

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309n6; in early Canada, 43; emergence of 35, 309n4; and history, 218, 231­–2, 237–8, 240, 244, 266; in Ireland, 38, 312n58; and nature, 201, 202 Cronon, William, 168, 170, 301n13 Dalhousie, Lord (George Ramsay), 41 Dalhousie College, 41 Darnton, Robert, 16 Darwin, Charles, 18–19, 196, 208, 258, 305n34 Davidson, John, 229, 312n48 Dawson, Jane, 229 dechristianization, 316n4 dominion: idea of, 5–6 Ducharme, Michel, 292n39 Duff, Alexander, 178 Dummitt, Christopher, 13–14, 277n40 Durham, Lord (John George Lambton), 130, 133 education, 7, 10, 152, 257–8; and John Knox, 31, 229. See also Dalhousie College; King’s College (Windsor); King’s College (York/ Toronto); Pictou Academy Elizabethan Act of Supremacy, 125–6 Erastianism, 34, 119–20, 145 Errington, Jane, 102 Erskine, Ebenezer, 36, 121 Esson, Henry, 188, 223–4, 234, 238, 243–4, 296n30 ethnicity, 10 Evangelical Alliance, 10 evangelicals/evangelicalism, 8–9, 11–13, 141, 183; and anti-­ Catholicism, 89; and British imperialism, 76; and capitalism, 94–5;

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358 Index and church-state relationship, 127, 132, 137, 148, 151, 249n61; and discipline, 207–8; and Glasgow Colonial Society, 40, 124; and Irish Presbyterianism, 38; and moral reform, 54, 104, 155, 157, 160; in Niagara region, 42; and Presbyterian evangelism, 166, 183; in Prince Edward Island, 297n44; and “Protestant culture,” 154–5, 269; radical iterations of, 103; and Reform politics, 127, 151–3; and revivalism, 166, 178, 202–4; and Scottish Presbyterianism, 36–7, 42–4, 121–2; and Sunday schools, 50; and time, 249–55, 258. See also communion festivals evolution. See Darwin, Charles Family Compact, 125 Fawkes, Guy, 89 Fettes, James, 99, 174 Flett, George, 191–2 Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, 89, 220 Fraser, Donald, 178–9 Free Church: approach to worship, 48; and British imperialism, 81, 149–50; and church-state relations, 122, 131–2, 134, 147–9; development in early Canada, 42–3; emergence of, 37; and history, 246–7, 311n42; and missionary work, 101; and moral reform, 54, 155, 158–60; and Presbyterian union, 44–7; and providence, 81; and slavery, 104, 106–7; and Sunday schools, 50; and theology, 65; and time, 249; and “wilderness,” 166. See also reform, political

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French Canadian Missionary Society, 100 Frye, Northrop, 172, 220, 300n7 Gallois, William, 248–9 Gauvreau, Michael, 10, 19, 145, 192, 258 Gavazzi, Alessandro, 90 gender, 9, 53, 190–1 General Associate Synod (AntiBurghers), 36, 121 Glasgow Colonial Society, 40–3, 128, 177–8. See also evangelicals/ evangelicalism Glorious Revolution, 34–5, 120, 233– 4, 245–6, 312n57 Gordon, C.W. (“Ralph Connor”), 7, 52 Grant, George Monro, 27, 198, 258 Grant, John Webster, 66 Great Britain: and British Empire, 22, 53, 61, 74–86; and “British world,” 18, 39, 61; migration from, 6, 40–1; national identity, 10, 12–13; and early Canadian Presbyterianism, 42; and Treaty of Union, 35. See also Africa/Africans; Asia/ Asians; Indigenous peoples Great Disruption, 37, 43, 116, 122, 131, 246 Gregg, William, 74, 81 Guha, Ramachandra, 301n20 Guyatt, Nicholas, 74 Hall, David D., 54 Hamilton, Patrick, 227, 231, 237 Healey, Robynne Rogers, 276n29 Heaman, E.A., 80, 117 Hegelian idealism, 254–5

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Index 359 Hempton, David, 88 Henry, George, 40 Hilton, Boyd, 95 Hinson, Andrew, 182 Hodge, Charles, 107 Huguenots, 38, 218–9, 234–5 immigration/immigrants: from Britain, 7–8, 37, 38, 40–1, 75–6; and community, 50, 54–6, 186, 201; and history, 238–40; and inflated expectations, 172; and loyalty, 80; west of Great Lakes, 6; and “wilderness,” 179. See also communion festivals Indian “mutiny,” 85 Indigenous peoples: and British imperialism, 76, 80; and Presbyterian evangelism, 181–3, 190–3; and Presbyterian worldview, 5–6; and “wilderness,” 166, 168–9, 181–2, 188–90, 193–4. See also Baker, Lucy; Bell, William; Flett, George; Métis; Nisbet, James; Plains Cree; Rutherdale, Myra Inglis, Charles, 123 intellectual history, 15–19, 269 Irish/Ireland, 10, 39; and “British World” framework, 18; in colonial America, 38; contributions to Canadian Presbyterianism, 8; and ethnicity, 78; experiences of immigrants from, 239; history of Presbyterianism in, 37–8, 73, 122, 224–5; and Maynooth Grant, 89, 132; sectarian conflict in, 97, 99–100 Israel/Israelites, 31; and history, 24, 217–20, 222–4, 240, 266; and providence, 22, 61, 70–1, 73–4, 83

29333_McKim.indd 359

Jacobites, 35, 75–6, 78–9, 89, 150 Jenkins, William, 115, 144–5 Jewish peoples/Judaism, 224–5. See also Israel/Israelites Ketchum, Jesse, 144 Kidd, Colin, 78–9 “Killing Times,” 34, 216 King, William, 107–9 King’s College (Windsor), 124, 146, 243 King’s College (York/Toronto), 149–52 Kirk sessions, 32–3, 186, 207–11 Knowles, Norman, 248 Knox, John, 24, 31; and history, 218– 19, 227–30, 240, 246–7, 266; and politics, 118–19, 291n14; and providence, 72 Knox College, 66, 108, 215, 217, 258, 305n23 Kolodny, Annette, 190 Korneski, Kurt, 76 Ladies’ Auxiliary Association in Connection with the French Mission Work of the Church of Scotland, 101 Leacock, Stephen, 3–4 liberalism, 131–3, 145–7, 150–2, 156 Livingston, David, 178 Lovejoy, A.O., 15 Loyalists/Loyalism, 39–40, 102, 141–2 Luther, Martin/Lutherans, 27–9, 296n24, 311n43; and history, 226 Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 95 Macdonnell, D.J.: heresy controversy involving, 4, 276n35. See also Westminster Confession

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360 Index MacGregor, James, 20, 40; and history, 236, 266, 313n78; and nature, 175–7, 183, 187; and slavery, 103–4; Machar, Agnes Maule, 7, 12, 207. See also Westminster Confession Machar, John, 154 MacKay, G.L., 52 MacKay, W.A., 51–2, 197, 306n37 Mackenzie, William Lyon, 130, 144, 287n88 Maclean, Alexander, 78–9 Macphail, Andrew, 54, 91–2 Maitland, Peregrine, 129 Mancke, Elizabeth, 274n14 Marks, Lynne, 208 marriage, 124, 141, 144–5, 296n24, 297n38 Marshall, David B., 18–19 Mathieson, Alexander, 81, 129, 153– 4, 237–8, 313n84 Maynooth Grant, 89–90, 232 McBride, Ian, 12–13 McCrie, Thomas, 229, 312n48 McCulloch, Thomas, 7, 12, 40, 302n40; and anti-Catholicism, 93; and British imperialism, 83, 309n13; criticism of revivalism, 11, 13, 204; and history, 243; and Pictou Academy, 41, 146–7, 242–3; and “wilderness,” 173 McCulloch, William, 91 McDonald, Donald, 280n48 “McDonaldites.” See McDonald, Donald McDowall, Robert, 63, 176–7, 261 McGill, Robert, 68–9, 83 McGowan, Mark, 248 McGregor, Simon, 253–4 McKay, Hugh, 182

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McKay, Ian, 290n1 McNairn, Jeffrey L., 290n1 McPherson, Robert, 39 Melville, Andrew, 31–2, 72, 119, 238, 311­n45 Methodists/Methodism, 12, 29, 141, 294n58; and nature, 300n9; Arminian theology of, 65–6, 262–3 Métis, 191–2 Mill, J.S., 105 millennialism: and Presbyterian understanding of time, 25, 242–60; and Presbyterian worldview, 5, 262; and providence, 62 Miller, Kerby A., 72 Miller, Perry, 15, 169 missionaries/missionary activity, 10, 40–1, 48, 52; in British Columbia, 274n13; and British imperialism, 75; in Lower Canada, 92, 97–101, 263; and Presbyterian historical narrative, 234, 236–8; and Presbyterian women, 53; and progress, 197; and providence, 82; and Scottish Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge, 79; and sound, 195; and “wilderness,” 166– 7, 172–5, 177–9, 180–3, 187. See also gender; Glasgow Colonial Society; Indigenous peoples Moodie, Susanna, 171 Morris, William, 7, 128 Morton, Graeme, 182 Mowat, Oliver, 289n56 Murdock, Graeme, 64 Nash, Roderick, 169–70 National Covenant, 34, 72, 217 Naugle, David K., 4 New France, 38, 234–5, 288n31

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Index 361 “New Lightism,” 38, 167 New Netherland, 38 Nisbet, James, 191–2, 237 Noll, Mark A., 94 Novick, Peter, 310n17 Oecolampadius, Johannes, 27 “Old School” Presbyterians. See Calvin, John/Calvinism Orange Order, 90, 92 organ controversy, 49 Ormiston, William, 11, 47 Orsi, Robert Anthony, 9 Owram, Doug, 196 Oxford Movement, 89–90 Paley, William, 130, 190 “Papal aggression,” 89 Parkman, Francis, 94, 235 Patterson, George: and providence, 67–8; and anti-Catholicism, 95–6; and nature, 186–7, 194, 204–5; and history, 234–5, 239 Pictou Academy, 7, 24, 41, 124, 146– 7, 243, 258 Plains Cree, 191 Planters, Nova Scotia, 39, 103, 221 Pocock, J.G.A., 16, 18, 61 Presbyterianism: negative reputation of, 3–4, 55, 79–80, 261–2; in MacLennan’s Each Man’s Son, 271–2; persistence of, 274n7; in Scott’s novels, 273n2. See also MacLennan, Hugh; Scott, Walter Presbytery of the Relief Church, 36, 121 presentism, 14, 25, 267–8 print culture, 19, 220 Protestants/Protestantism. See entries for various denominations

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Proudfoot, William, 8, 146 public sphere, 19–20, 267–8, 278n71 Puritans/Puritanism, 33, 54, 82; and history, 24, 218, 232–4, 240, 266; and providence, 284; and “wilderness,” 169 Queen’s College, 7, 41, 258 Rebellions of 1837–38, 8, 42, 116, 130, 141–2; and Covenanters, 43; and providence, 83–4, 286n84 Redpath, John, 7, 197 reform, political, 7, 9, 28–9, 80, 296n24, 297n38, 297n41; and church-state relationship, 126–7, 129, 132, 141; and Free Church, 44, 92, 150–3; and Secessionists, 41, 44, 115, 144–7; and voluntarism, 121–2 Reformation, 70, 226–7. See also Scottish Reformation Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland, 38. See also Covenanters Reformed tradition, 48, 64–5, 257; emergence of 27, 30–1, 291n14; in early modern Scotland, 34–5; in North America, 38; and providence, 222. See also Covenanters Reid, W. Stanford. See Calvin, John/ Calvinism relativism, 14, 271 residential schools, 304n14 Revivalism. See evangelicals/ evangelicalism Revolutionary War (United States), 28–9, 39, 75, 79–80, 94, 102, 123–5 Revolutions of 1848, 84–5 Riley, John R., 108

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362 Index Rintoul, William, 246 Roman Catholics/Roman Catholicism: in early Canada, 38; and ­education, 152; and ethnicity, 10, 78–9; in Lower Canada, 293n40; in Prince Edward Island, 297n44; and Protestant Reformation, 27, 29, 31, 70, 118; among Scottish Highlanders, 8; and “wilderness,” 300n9. See also anti-Catholicism; Catholic Emancipation; Ultramontanism Rutherdale, Myra, 193 Sabbath observance, 54–5, 264, 299n74; and Presbyterian union, 44; and “Protestant culture,” 11, 13, 269; and sound, 185, 194–5; and the state, 43, 136, 153–9, 160–1 Samson, Daniel, 196 schooling. See education Scots/Scotland, 97; and British imperialism 75, 79; and “British World” framework, 18; history of, 30–8, 42, 72, 118–22, 201, 216–18, 221, 225, 227–31, 235, 238–9, 243–8, 309n4; and identity, 10. See also immigration/immigrants Scott, Walter, 273n2, 309n6, 310n17 Scottish Reformation, 31, 33, 72; and anti-Catholicism, 99; and history, 227–31, 239–40, 244–5 Secession Church: and British imperialism, 143–5; and church-state relationship, 116, 120–2, 124, 129–30, 142–3, 296n30, 296n34, 297n46; development in early Canada, 39–42, 44; emergence of, 36–7, 38; and history, 245–6;

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inter-colonial fraternity among, 48; and marriage, 144; and missionary work, 101; and moral reform, 54, 155–8; and Presbyterian union, 44–7; in Prince Edward Island, 297n44; and providence, 83; and slavery, 103, 106–7; and Sunday schools, 50; theology of, 66; and time, 249; and “wilderness,” 166; and William Lyon Mackenzie, 287n88. See also reform, political secularization thesis, 18–19, 269–70 Seven Years’ War, 39, 235 sexuality, 28, 33, 186, 201 Simcoe, John Graves, 124–5 Skinner, Quentin, 16 slavery, 20, 22, 87–8, 102–11, 263–4, 268–9; and British imperialism; and “New School” Presbyterians, 290n64; and Presbyterian union, 44; and “Protestant culture,” 11 Smart, William, 100 Smith, Anthony D., 74 Social Gospel, 255, 276 Solemn League and Covenant, 34–5, 38, 72, 217 sound, 23–4, 185, 193–5, 265 sovereignty, 5–6, 62 Stark, Mark Young, 183 Strachan, John, 125–6 Stuart monarchs, 33–5, 119–20, 201, 215–17, 231–3, 244–5 Sunday/Sabbath Schools, 10, 50, 73, 223 Synod of Ulster, 37, 38 teleology, 249–50 temperance, 10, 54, 299n74; among Presbyterians in southwestern Upper Canada, 8, 42; and

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Index 363 “Protestant culture,” 11; and the state, 154, 156, 158, 160–1 Thomas, Keith, 62 Thompson, E.P., 14 Tilley, Samuel Leonard, 6 time, 24–5, 249–59 Todd, Margo, 33 Tories/Toryism, 7, 9; and Church of Scotland, 115, 136, 140–2; Free Church opposition to, 149; and Orange Order, 92; Secession opposition, 145–6 Traill, Catharine Parr, 171 Treaty of Union, 35; and churchstate relationship, 120–1, 125, 129, 139, 143, 264; and history, 243, 247–8 Turner, F.J., 170, 300n2 “two swords” doctrine, 117 Ultramontanism, 44, 89, 132, 269 United Church, 275n15 United States, 6, 149, 289n50; Canadian Presbyterian admiration for, 102; contributions to Canadian Presbyterianism, 8, 42; links to Methodism, 141; temperance in, 160. See also Civil War (United States); Revolutionary War (United States); slavery Van Die, Marguerite, 19, 138 Vaudry, Richard W., 61 Victorian age, 25, 196, 221, 270–1. See also Dummitt, Christopher; Owram, Doug voluntarism, 36–7, 126, 131–2, 139, 142–3, 148

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Wallace, Robert, 145 War of 1812, 8, 80, 82, 102, 293n40 Warburton, William, 130 Watts, Isaac, 8 Webb, Todd, 61, 92 Weber, Max, 29, 94, 309n7 Wente, Margaret, 274n7 Westfall, William, 130 Westminster Confession, 5; articulation of, 34; and church-state relations, 119; inculcation of, 50; and Irish Presbyterianism, 12; Macdonnell’s deviation from, 4; Machar’s probable allusion to, 12; and millennialism, 250, 253, 256– 7, 267; and nature, 207; and Presbyterian worldview, 262; its resonance across various Presbyterian groups, 11–12 Whig history, 28–9, 95, 146, 221–2, 234 White, Gilbert, 170 whiteness, 79 wilderness/garden dichotomy, 166–7, 171–3 Willis, Michael, 12, 66, 105, 108 Wise, S.F., 15 Wishart, George, 227, 231, 237 Witherspoon, Benjamin, 80 Wolffe, John, 92 Wood, Gordon S., 15 Worden, Blair, 233 worldview: concept of, 4–5 Wynn, Graeme, 300n5 Young Men’s Christian Association, 10 Young Women’s Christian Association, 10

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