Transatlantic Methodists: British Wesleyanism and the Formation of an Evangelical Culture in Nineteenth-Century Ontario and Quebec 9780773589131

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T r a n sat l a n t ic Methodi s ts

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M cG i l l - 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 n e : 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

14 Children of Peace W. John McIntyre

6 The German Peasants’ War and Anabaptist Community of Goods James M. Stayer

15 A Solitary Pillar Montreal’s Anglican Church and the Quiet Revolution Joan Marshall

7 A World Mission Canadian Protestantism and the Quest for a New International Order, 1918–1939 Robert Wright

16 Padres in No Man’s Land Canadian Chaplains and the Great War Duff Crerar

8 Serving the Present Age Revivalism, Progressivism, and the Methodist Tradition in Canada Phyllis D. Airhart

17 Christian Ethics and Political Economy in North America A Critical Analysis P. Travis Kroeker

9 A Sensitive Independence Canadian Methodist Women Missionaries in Canada and the Orient, 1881–1925 Rosemary R. Gagan

18 Pilgrims in Lotus Land Conservative Protestantism in British Columbia, 1917–1981 Robert K. Burkinshaw

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19 Through Sunshine and Shadow The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, Evangelicalism, and Reform in Ontario, 1874–1930 Sharon Cook 20 Church, College, and Clergy A History of Theological Education at Knox College, Toronto, 1844–1994 Brian J. Fraser 21 The Lord’s Dominion The History of Canadian Methodism Neil Semple 22 A Full-Orbed Christianity The Protestant Churches and Social Welfare in Canada, 1900–1940 Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau

23 Evangelism and Apostasy The Evolution and Impact of Evangelicals in Modern Mexico Kurt Bowen 24 The Chignecto Covenanters A Regional History of Reformed Presbyterianism in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, 1827– 1905 Eldon Hay 25 Methodists and Women’s Education in Ontario, 1836–1925 Johanne Selles 26 Puritanism and Historical Controversy William Lamont

s e ri e s t wo i n me mo ry of g e o r g e 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

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Aspects of the Canadian Evangelical Experience Edited by G.A. Rawlyk

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Infinity, Faith, and Time Christian Humanism and Renaissance Literature John Spencer Hill

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The Contribution of Presbyterianism to the Maritime Provinces of Canada Edited by Charles H.H. Scobie and G.A. Rawlyk

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Labour, Love, and Prayer Female Piety in Ulster Religious Literature, 1850–1914 Andrea Ebel Brozyna

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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 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

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

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21 The View from Rome Archbishop Stagni’s 1915 Reports on the Ontario Bilingual Schools Question Edited and translated by John Zucchi 22 The Founding Moment Church, Society, and the Construction of Trinity College William Westfall 23 The Holocaust, Israel, and Canadian Protestant Churches Haim Genizi 24 Governing Charities Church and State in Toronto’s Catholic Archdiocese, 1850–1950 Paula Maurutto 25 Anglicans and the Atlantic World High Churchmen, Evangelicals, and the Quebec Connection Richard W. Vaudry 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 31 W. Stanford Reid An Evangelical Calvinist in the Academy Donald MacLeod

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32 A Long Eclipse The Liberal Protestant Establishment and the Canadian University, 1920–1970 Catherine Gidney 33 Forkhill Protestants and Forkhill Catholics, 1787–1858 Kyla Madden 34 For Canada’s Sake Public Religion, Centennial Celebrations, and the Re-making of Canada in the 1960s Gary R. Miedema 35 Revival in the City The Impact of American Evangelists in Canada, 1884–1914 Eric R. Crouse 36 The Lord for the Body Religion, Medicine, and Protestant Faith Healing in Canada, 1880–1930 James Opp 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

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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 TwentiethCentury 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 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

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54 Into Deep Waters Evangelical Spirituality and Maritime Calvinist Baptist Ministers, 1790–1855 Daniel C. Goodwin

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

55 Vanguard of the New Age The Toronto Theosophical Society, 1891–1945 Gillian McCann

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

56 A Commerce of Taste Church Architecture in Canada, 1867–1914 Barry Magrill

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

57 The Big Picture The Antigonish Movement of Eastern Nova Scotia Santo Dodaro and Leonard Pluta

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

58 My Heart’s Best Wishes for You A Biography of Archbishop John Walsh John P. Comiskey

65 The Return of Ancestral Gods Modern Ukrainian Paganism as an Alternative Vision for a Nation Mariya Lesiv

59 The Covenanters in Canada Reformed Presbyterianism from 1820 to 2012 Eldon Hay 60 The Guardianship of Best Interests Institutional Care for the Children of the Poor in Halifax, 1850–1960 Renée N. Lafferty

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66 Transatlantic Methodists British Wesleyanism and the Formation of an Evangelical Culture in Nineteenth-Century Ontario and Quebec Todd Webb

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Transatlantic Methodists British Wesleyanism and the Formation of an Evangelical Culture in Nineteenth-Century Ontario and Quebec

T o d d Web b

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

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©  McGill-Queen’s University Press 2013 isbn 978-0-7735-4204-4 (cloth) isbn 978-0-7735-8913-1 (epdf) isbn 978-0-7735-8914-8 (epub) Legal deposit fourth quarter 2013 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. Funding has also been received from the Laurentian University Research Fund. 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 Webb, Todd, 1973–, author Transatlantic Methodists: British Wesleyanism and the formation of an evangelical culture in nineteenth-century Ontario and Quebec / Todd Webb. (McGill-Queen’s studies in the history of religion. Series two; no. 66) Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISB N 978-0-7735-4204-4 (bound). – IS BN 978-0-7735-8913-1 (eP D F ). – ISB N 978-0-7735-8914-8 (eP UB) 1. Methodism – Ontario – History – 19th century.  2. Methodism – Québec (Province) – History – 19th century.  3. Methodists – Ontario – History – 19th century.  4. Methodists – Québec (Province) – History – 19th century.  5. Wesleyan Methodist Church – Influence.  6. Ontario – Church history – 19th century.  7. Québec (Province – Church history – 19th century.  8. Great Britain – Church history – 19th century.  I. Title.  II. Series: McGill-Queen’s studies in the history of religion. Series two; no. 66 BX 8252.O 5W32 2013  287.0971309'034   C 2013-905463-4 C 2013-905464-2

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

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For James and Verna Webb “Victoria Nyanza and the Nile”

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Contents

Acknowledgments Abbreviations

xiii

xv

Note on Terminology xvii Introduction: Evangelicals in a Cold Climate 3 1 “United by the Ties of Race and Kindred”: The Formation of a British World 17 2 “The Storm so Strangely Raised in the British Provinces”: A British Wesleyan Errand into the Wilderness 43 3 “The Wretched Business of Canada”: Unity and Schism among the Canadian Methodists 70 4 “Untiring Endeavours to Save Souls and to Raise Money”: Mission Financing and Cultural Formation 102 5 “We Have Seen … Something Like British Methodism”: Revivalism, Pastoral Authority, and Cultural Formation 135 Conclusion: “Our Old Friend, the Canada Conference” 164 Notes

169

Bibliography

209

Index 225

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Acknowledgments

This book would not exist without the work of archivists and librarians in Britain, Canada, and the United States. The staff of the United Church Archives in Toronto deserves a special word of thanks. The staffs of the Archives of Ontario; the Bridwell Library, Southern Methodist University; the John Rylands Library in Manchester, England; the Library and Archives of Canada; the Robert W. Woodruff Library, Emory University; the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, England; and the microfilm library at the University of Toronto were models of professionalism. Teachers, colleagues, and friends also contributed to this book. William Westfall, Jeanette Neeson, and Roberto Perin of York University ushered this study into existence. Roberto Perin helped me cut a path through the denser thickets of Methodist history. Jeanette Neeson urged me to demonstrate why exactly ideas of Britishness and Wesleyanism were important to Methodists on both sides of the Atlantic. William Westfall was an inspiring ma and p h d supervisor – an inexhaustible source of knowledge  and wit. As was the case with Sarah Binks and William Greenglow in the sweet songstress’s P.R. period, I owe him more than I can hope to repay. My colleagues in Laurentian University’s History Department have been unfailingly supportive. Stephen Azzi and Ariel Beaujot, former members of the department, gave me valuable advice and encouragement during the writing process. Lively sessions at the annual meetings of the Canadian Society of Church History shaped and refined my ideas about religion and culture in the North Atlantic world. Marguerite Van Die’s questions, comments, and advice over the years were invaluable. My discussions with Scott McLaren were a great help in thinking about the nature of cultural formation among the Methodists.

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I would like to thank my old friends Geoff Read and Jason Reid, who confirmed me in the belief that George Dangerfield was on to something when he wrote that “history … is a combination of taste, imagination, science, and scholarship; it reconciles incompatibles, it balances probabilities; and at last it attains the reality of fiction, which is the highest reality of all.” Kristin Burnett, Robin Ganev, Jeet Heer, Ian Hesketh, Alexis Lachaine, Denis McKim, and Jamie Robertson also helped keep me going with their humour and camaraderie. And one could not ask for a better team of researchers than the Tuesday group of the Friends of the Library of Trinity College. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada provided a grant that allowed me to spend two months in archives in Manchester and London. Sections of Chapter Two appeared in “Making Neo-Britons: The Transatlantic Relationship between Wesleyan Methodists in Britain and the Canadas, 1815–1828” in the British Journal of Canadian Studies 18, no. 1 (2005). An early version of Chapter Three can be found in “How the Canadian Methodists Became British: Unity, Schism and Transatlantic Identity, 1827–1854” in Nancy Christie, ed., Transatlantic Subjects: Ideas, Institutions, and Social Experience in Post-Revolutionary British North America (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2008). It has been a privilege working with McGill-Queen’s University Press. Donald Akenson, Philip Cercone, and their team were unerring guides through the publication process. I would also like to acknowledge the two anonymous readers for the press. Their suggestions made the book stronger than it otherwise would have been. As for family, the dedication says it all.

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Abbreviations

ao cg

jru lm lac soas uca wmms wmms-c

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Archives of Ontario Christian Guardian John Rylands University Library, Manchester Library and Archives of Canada School of Oriental and African Studies United Church Archives, Toronto Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, Correspondence, 1793–1893

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Note on Terminology

The period between 1814 and 1874 was a complex one in the history of Methodism and the colonies that became modern-day Ontario and Quebec. Following in the footsteps of William Westfall’s The Founding Moment, “this study seeks clarity even at the price of strict accuracy.” Instead of adopting the official nomenclature of the time – writing about Lower and Upper Canada before 1841, Canada East and Canada West between 1841 and 1867, and Quebec and Ontario after 1867 – I use Lower and Upper Canada for the period before 1867, and Quebec and Ontario for the seven years after Confederation. As Westfall has pointed out, this reflects many a nineteenth-century colonist’s practice of sticking with “older terms long after they had been replaced officially.”1 How to distinguish between each Methodist group in central Canada is a knottier problem. The Methodists changed the name and institutional organization of their churches with what seems like dizzying regularity. In order to avoid confusion, I refer to the ministers who formed the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada in 1828, who went into the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada in 1833, and who remained loyal to that denomination after 1840 as the “American Methodists”/ “Methodist Episcopals” for the period before 1828 and as the “Canadian Methodists” for subsequent years. Both the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada and the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada appear here as the “Canada Conference” and “Canada connexion.” To denote the preachers and laity who made up the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Britain, I use the terms “British Wesleyans,” the “British Conference,” and the “British connexion.” I describe the missionaries that the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Britain sent to Lower and Upper Canada as “the British missionaries” or the “British Wesleyan missionaries,” as the context requires.

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T r a n sat l a n t ic Methodi s ts

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In t ro du cti on

Evangelicals in a Cold Climate

In the beginning there was John Wesley. On the evening of 24 May 1738 that young Church of England minister and failed missionary to colonial Georgia went “very unwillingly” to an independent chapel in Aldersgate Street, London. “About a quarter before nine,” while listening to one of the members of the congregation read from Martin Luther’s “Preface to the Epistle to the Romans,” he felt his “heart strangely warmed.” “I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation,” he later recorded in his journal, “and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.” This was the defining moment of Wesley’s life. It set him on the path that led to the formation of the first Methodist congregations in Bristol and London over the next two years.1 Wesley’s Aldersgate experience also established the central message of his new religion: all people could live with the assurance of eternal salvation, as long as they were willing to open their hearts and experience God’s saving grace. This promise of universal redemption, and Wesley’s eagerness to have it preached to rich and poor alike, powered Methodism’s expansion on both sides of the Atlantic during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Methodism in the British North American colonies of Lower and Upper Canada played a complex role in that process of denominational growth. It began as an American import. In 1785 the Heck and Embury families fled revolutionary New York and began their world anew in what became the province of Upper Canada after 1791. Where the Methodist laity went, Methodist ministers were  rarely far behind. In 1790 the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States decided to send the one-armed preacher William Losee to the Bay of Quinte to establish an official presence in the Canadas. He arrived in the area in

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1791 and, over the next three years, he demonstrated what a dedicated minister could achieve. Travelling from settlement to settlement, he organized any colonists who were willing to hear the Methodist message into small groups for worship and mutual support. Losee’s time in the colonies ended on a sour note – love-spurned, heartbroken – but an increasing number of American Methodist ministers came north over the following decades to build on the foundation that he had laid.2 After 1814, however, these Yankee preachers faced stiff competition. Another Methodist group appeared in the Canadas. In response to urgent appeals from a group of well-to-do laypeople in Montreal, the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Britain began its own mission in Lower Canada and, shortly afterward, in Upper Canada. Between 1814 and 1874 the ministers and laity of those two Methodist churches tried to find a way to live with each other. That effort manifested itself in a series of denominational conflicts and accommodations. In 1820 the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Britain and the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States split the gospel work in the Canadas, with the former taking Lower Canada and the latter Upper Canada. In a bid to demonstrate their loyalty to Britain, the Upper Canadian Methodist Episcopals steadily distanced themselves from the American church during the 1820s. In 1824 they established a separate conference within the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States; and in 1828 they formed the independent Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada, or, more simply the Canada Conference. Five years later, in 1833, the Canada Conference agreed to unite with the British Wesleyans, forming the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada. The union collapsed in 1840. After seven years of bitter transatlantic conflict, the British Wesleyans and the Canadian Methodists reunited. In 1854 the British Wesleyan missionary district in Lower Canada was folded into the reconstituted Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada. That arrangement persisted well beyond 1874, when the Wesleyans in Britain and the Canadian Methodists agreed to go their separate ways. When put so starkly, this chronicle of institutional change is somewhat deceptive. It highlights the fact that, up to 1854, Methodism in Lower and Upper Canada was in a near constant state of turmoil; but it overlooks an equally important reality. Whatever method the Methodists in Britain and the Canadas hit upon to settle their differences, the number of laity in the colonies who identified themselves as Methodists rose continuously during the nineteenth century. In 1851 the Methodists in Upper Canada outnumbered their Presbyterian brethren 213,365 to 204,148.

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Introduction

5

A decade later, Methodism was the largest Protestant denomination in both of the colonies, surpassing the Church of England by 6,171 members. That number stood at an impressive 102,920 in 1871.3 By the midnineteenth century Methodism was a potent religious force in Lower and Upper Canada, achieving a degree of denominational dominance that eluded the Wesleyan Church in Britain.

I No one proved keener to record and celebrate Methodism’s growth and triumph in the Canadas than the Canadian Methodists themselves. From the 1860s on, in autobiographies, biographies, and denominational histories, native-born Methodist ministers constructed a narrative that was heroic, romantic, and thoroughly North American in its focus. We can see this most clearly in the work of Egerton Ryerson, a leading Canadian preacher of the nineteenth century who, to borrow a phrase, was unwilling to spend his time “behind any scene, if there was the slightest chance of getting in front of it.”4 In his historical writing, Ryerson rarely lost an opportunity to highlight the North American roots of Methodism in the Canadas, usually at the expense of the British Wesleyans, who, with a few exceptions, were presented as outsiders and interlopers.5 Other ministers, particularly George Playter and John Carroll, took a similar approach to the history of Methodism in Lower and Upper Canada. They told a story about American and later Canadian Methodist preachers travelling through the backwoods, setting off revivals that brought hundreds of converts into their church. According to these accounts, until the mid-nineteenth century, denominational organization took a back seat to the operation of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the individual sinner in British North America. The British Wesleyans, who consistently stressed denominational organization over the experience of conversion, were never as successful as their North American brethren at drawing in the settler population.6 Modern studies of Methodism in Canada have continued the overwhelmingly North American focus of this nineteenth-century narrative. True, as is the case with studies of other Canadian religious groups, several have acknowledged the importance of the British presence in Lower and Upper Canada, examining its impact on Methodism at the local and regional level, and, in one instance, analyzing the attitudes and activities of a cross-section of English and Irish Methodist immigrants in the colonies.7 But, despite this attention, the influence of Egerton Ryerson still

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weighs on the scholarly mind. We have consistently reduced Ryerson’s fellow ministers, and particularly the British Wesleyans, to a walk-on role in the drama of the great man’s life, devoid of any real substance. According to Goldwin French and Neil Semple, for instance, those British Wesleyans who were involved with Lower and Upper Canada were simply men of “highly conservative opinions” who rarely appear to have been influenced by events in their home country. In his work on the Methodist “culture of experience” in Upper Canada, William Westfall carried this tendency further; he did not mention the British Wesleyan presence in the colony, aside from a brief discussion of the theological influence of John Wesley. Even studies that have given more analytical weight to British Wesleyan activities in Lower and Upper Canada have done so without a thorough investigation of their wider transatlantic context.8 Privileging all things North American makes sense given that, ultimately, historians have been concerned with demonstrating the increasing cultural uniqueness of Methodism in Canada. Since the 1960s, they have framed the story of Canadian Methodism’s evolution in terms of its growing distinctiveness from both American Methodism and British Wesleyanism. For example, in his work on Methodism in the Eastern Townships of Lower Canada, J.I. Little argued that the final result of American and British influence was “a distinctively English-Canadian identity” among the settler population – one that only grudgingly accepted some of the “conservatism” of British Wesleyanism, while managing to hold on to the vestiges of American denominational radicalism.9 In several ways, this cultural trajectory parallels the old story of the political development of British North America: an almost inevitable progress from colony to nation between the early 1790s and 1867. Goldwin French was the first to make this connection explicit, arguing that “a more vigorous nationalist impulse emerged within the Methodist community” in the Canadas by the 1850s. “As an expanding Canadian denomination,” he continued, the Canadian Methodists “became an example and inspiration to the secular nationalist forces that were stirring within the province of Canada.”10 In this framework, the British Wesleyans were one of the groups against which the Canadian Methodists defined their identity, itself a form of “nascent Canadian national consciousness.”11

II This narrative, yoking together denominational and national growth, becomes problematic when we turn away from North America and

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Introduction

7

focus on the other side of the Atlantic. The Wesleyans in nineteenthcentury Britain knew that their church was deeply engaged in Lower and Upper Canada. They were also aware that the Methodists in the Canadas could have a disruptive impact on British Wesleyanism. The first union between the British Wesleyan and Canadian Methodist churches, established in 1833, dominated several of the annual meetings of the British ministry in the 1830s and 1840s.12 British Wesleyanism’s connection with Methodism in the Canadas also helped trigger the last and largest of the schisms that disrupted its development during the nineteenth century. Between 1849 and 1852, discontented elements within the British Wesleyan pastorate – and above all the intense, secretive, and frequently paranoid minister James Everett – seized on Lower and Upper Canada as examples of all that was wrong with “Methodism As It Is.” In poetry and prose, Everett and his fellow malcontents described those colonies as places of rampant ecclesiastical patronage and corruption, where ministerial ne’er-do-wells who supported the conservative leaders of the church in Britain were rewarded with comfortable positions of power and educational honours that they did not need and had not earned. When those transplanted preachers returned to Britain, Everett gleefully used any indiscretions they might have committed in the Canadas in an effort to destroy them personally and professionally. He accused a secretary of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, Robert Alder, of violating one of the church’s main taboos – he was frequently and publicly drunk while touring the provinces in 1847. The charge stuck and Alder left the Wesleyan ministry in 1852, ending his days as an Anglican minister at Gibraltar, where, apparently, his lurid past was comfortably overlooked.13 It is unlikely that the unfortunate Reverend Alder ever forgot that the Methodist churches in nineteenth-century Britain and Canada were connected in complex ways. Our goal is to recapture that transatlantic perspective. To do that, we will need to rethink how we have studied those “ideas, beliefs, … attitudes” and institutions that constituted Methodist culture.14 Whether in Britain or in Lower and Upper Canada, Methodism was part of the broad evangelical culture described by David Bebbington. Its adherents shared a faith based on “conversionism, the belief that lives need to be changed; activism, the expression of the gospel in effort; biblicalism, a particular regard for the Bible; and what may be called crucicentrism, a stress on the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.”15 As important as those four elements were in determining who was and who was not an evangelical, however, they were not the main matters of discussion or

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debate among the Methodists in the Canadas and Britain. Institutional, financial, and political issues dominated their day-to-day affairs. In order to reflect that reality, we will concentrate on praxis: how the issues that were most important to the Methodists at the time shaped their sense of self. This approach requires us to delve more deeply into the inner workings of the British Wesleyan and Canadian Methodist churches, as well as the frequently contentious relationship between them, than previous studies have done. The organizational structure of nineteenthcentury Methodism lends itself to that kind of close reading. Both British Wesleyanism and Canadian Methodism were highly centralized churches; the vast majority of the decision-making power rested with the ordain ministers and with their leading lay supporters, who tended to share the clergy’s point of view. In theory, the average layperson happily subjected themselves to the constant oversight and control of the ministry. In truth, this antidemocratic system produced tensions within the Methodist ranks which, as W.R. Ward has noted, were “forced up … into open and central conflict more readily” than was the case among other churches, or, one might add, among other social and political institutions.16 This study reflects the records produced by those struggles among the Methodists in the Canadas and, in a departure from previous work, among the Wesleyans in Britain. The narrative that emerges from those sources turns the traditional account of Methodism in the Canadas on its head. Between 1814 and 1874 the Methodists in Lower and Upper Canada became increasingly integrated into a British world. They came to see themselves not as the forerunners of the modern Canadian nation, but as Britons and Wesleyans transplanted in the New World. This was not, however, a straightforward process of transferring an evangelical culture from Britain to the Canadas. In the Methodist case the construction of culture was complicated by a transoceanic conflict over what exactly it meant to be British and Wesleyan. At various points in the sixty years after 1814, this struggle over national and religious identity pitted the leaders of the Wesleyan church in Britain against the Canadian Methodists, and, equally important, against their own missionaries and lay supporters in Lower and Upper Canada. This was the dominant debate within North Atlantic Methodism and it shaped how the ministry and laity on both sides of the ocean structured the issue of identity. Other facets of the Methodist sense of self, such as the connection between social class and respectability, were determined within the parameters of this transatlantic dispute. This debate over the meaning of Britishness and Wesleyanism

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Introduction

9

was also grounded in a series of clashes over four key areas of Methodist life: church governance, mission financing, forms of worship, and political loyalty. Concentrating on these four themes, and how they played out among Methodists in Britain and the Canadas, will allow us to move away from a teleological framework that sees Methodist history as a simple progress towards national and denominational triumph. In the process, we will need to engage with three interconnected discourses: Atlantic history, the new British history, and imperial history. We should begin by noting that, in resituating Methodism in Lower and Upper Canada in a transoceanic context, this book contributes to an ongoing shift in the writing of Canadian history. In 2003, Richard Vaudry began his study of the Church of England in late-eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Quebec by lamenting that, “writing within a framework that stresses the importance of the Atlantic world has seldom found a receptive audience among Canadian historians.”17 That is no longer the case. Historians have begun to grapple with David Armitage’s declaration that “we are all Atlanticists now” by placing Canadian history in a broadly Atlantic context, examining how it was influenced by events in the Old World and other parts of the New World.18 At the same time, thanks in large part to Phillip Buckner’s advocacy, others have revisited the development of both pre- and post-Confederation Canada using the framework of the British world – that is, Britain and its settler colonies. Among the latter, the aim has been to uncover how far British North America was part of the “Expanding Society” of imperial Britain and how long British influence lingered after 1867.19 This study is part of that British world project. Like other works in the field, it builds on the insights of Carl Berger and J.G.A. Pocock. In his classic study, The Sense of Power, Berger demonstrated that, between 1867 and 1914, Canadian intellectuals derived considerable pride from the achievements of the British Empire and glorified Canada’s role in it. Some went so far as to argue that, in the near future, Canada would take up a leading role in the empire, usurping the position of tired old Britain. This small Canadian elite, in other words, thought of themselves as “greater Britons” than the people of the home country.20 In that respect, they were like settler groups across the eighteenth and nineteenth-century empire whose British identity constituted a self-conscious rejection of colonial status. Beginning in 1973, Pocock elaborated on that point in a series of talks and articles that established what has been called the new British history. According to this paradigm, British history should be conceptualized not as “the simple narrative of a monolithic empire’s interactions with its

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external proletariats,” but as the story of “the interrelations of a number of advanced and sophisticated provinces” beginning with the three kingdoms and cultures of England, Scotland, and Ireland. The new British history, however, also needed to include the relations between the United Kingdom and its settler communities across the Atlantic and Pacific from the sixteenth century onward. Canada, like New Zealand or Australia, could be seen as a part “of an expanding zone of cultural conflict and creation” emanating from the British Isles. Canadians, again like Australians and New Zealanders, were also Britons, though their relationship with the home country was often fraught with complexities. Cultural formation among Britons in Canada was never a “simple one-way imperial success story.” It was full of ambivalences, leading to the creation of “a diversity of interacting and variously autonomous cultures” within the larger framework of Britishness.21 As we will see, the Methodist communities of Lower Canada, Upper Canada, and Britain shared fully in that process, years before Berger’s intellectuals began to grapple with what the imperial connection meant for Canada and the home country. This argument is complicated, however, by a debate that has taken shape since the 1990s about the exact nature of the relationship between Britishness and religion, particularly Protestantism. Here we have to turn to the work of Linda Colley, her supporters and  critics. For Colley, Britishness took shape in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as the people of England, Scotland, and Wales went to war with Catholic and later revolutionary France. A combination of fervent Protestantism, the quest for personal profit and anti-French sentiment united the English, Scots, and Welsh in a conservative nationality that withstood any number of shocks, including the rise of popular radicalism after 1815, Catholic emancipation in 1829 and the abolition of slavery in 1834.22 Following Colley, Krishan Kumar stressed the role of Protestantism in this process, arguing that, from the early eighteenth century on, “British Protestantism was a Broad Church … Protestants of all hues shared certain basic values and understandings.”23 Other scholars, in contrast, have argued that Protestantism had the potential to create and fragment any collective sense of British nationhood. As Tony Claydon and Ian McBride have pointed out, denominational conflicts of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries divided the people of Britain – and, indeed, members of individual churches – into warring factions. At other times, particularly between 1660 and 1760, Britain’s wars with Catholic France and its allies helped forge a sense of belonging “to a Protestant international with branches across the [European] continent,”

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which, in turn, shaped British politics and society. Under both of these conditions, it became difficult to forge and maintain a common sense of Britishness, particularly one based on faith. In this reading, Britishness was an identity that different groups defined and aspired to, but, as a shared national identity, it was rarely achieved in reality.24 This critical insight has been further refined by Boyd Hilton, who demonstrated that Britishness was a tool used, within Britain, by the Irish, Scots, and Welsh to deal “with the English on equal terms within the Union.” In other words, it was tied to, and shaped by, relationships of power and, as J.C.D. Clark suggested, it was strongest among communities on the periphery of Britain and its empire.25 Before 1776, that included the settlers of what would become the United States who elaborated their own identity as freeborn Britons when challenged by sudden and unwelcome changes in imperial policy – a development that led groups in Britain, in turn, to rethink their sense of self.26 This study demonstrates that that pattern of cultural formation did not become a thing of the past with the outbreak of the American Revolution. It shaped Methodism in the Canadas and Britain for almost a century afterward. To understand that process of cultural formation, some recent trends in imperial history are also helpful. During the first decade of the twentyfirst century, several historians of empire attempted to get at the roots of Britishness by positing a transoceanic world in which a “cultural mélange of English, Scots, Irish, European, Native American, Indian, and African … jostled, often violently, for authority, wealth, and freedom.”27 Through their reactions to a racial “other,” missionaries and their metropolitan supporters played an essential role in the creation and gradual transformation of a national identity.28 As Alan Lester has pointed out, however, sometimes the “other” against whom missionaries and other settlers defined themselves could be fellow Britons, whether in the home country or in the colonies. In a number of different studies, Lester analyzed the relationship between British missionaries and settlers in South Africa and the antipodes. Operating through a series of formal and informal “imperial networks,” British church organizations attempted to label setters’ efforts to displace various indigenous populations as thoroughly anti-British activities. For their part, the settlers countered such charges by identifying themselves as Britons abroad, whose actions deserved the support of the metropolitan government. In the end, Lester demonstrated, settler nationalism took the shape of a British sense of self.29 In focusing on the transatlantic dialogue that took shape between the Wesleyans in Britain and the various Methodist groups in the Canadas

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around national identity, this book follows Lester’s lead; but it moves even further away from the mainstream of imperial history. That literature – and much of the current work on missionaries and empire, in general – has been based on the assumption that when “most British people” in the nineteenth century “spoke of missions, they meant enterprises devoted to conversion of people who were not Christian.” That may be a convenient argument for scholars intent on recovering the experiences of the colonized; in the Methodist case it simply does not ring true.30 Missions to settlers dominated the British Wesleyans’ activities in the Canadas until the mid-1850s, when they began to turn more firmly towards the “heathen” world.31 That is not to say that Native converts like the preacher and fundraiser Peter Jones did not matter in transatlantic Methodism. They certainly did. In cultural terms, however, there was a significant difference between attempting to make indigenous people British and dealing with settlers who already believed they were Britons.32 Concentrating on the transoceanic connections among the Wesleyans in Britain and the settlers and clergy in Lower and Upper Canada, this books deals with an unexplored part of the Methodist experience in those colonies. The place of the Natives of the Canadas in North Atlantic Methodism is an altogether different story. It requires a separate study to do it justice.

III In terms of structure, this book is a departure from previous work on Methodism in Lower and Upper Canada. As we have already noted, the early narrative of Methodist growth in those colonies tended to move from the conversion of individuals and groups – the experience of revivalism – to denominational organization. This study takes the opposite tack, moving from institutional growth, to financial matters, to revivalism. That structure reflects the transatlantic context of Methodism in the Canadas. By the time the first British Wesleyan missionaries arrived in Lower Canada in 1814, their home church was already well established, with a set of rules and regulations, as well as complex bureaucratic checks and balances. The missionaries attempted to recreate that denominational structure in the Canadas, sometimes working with or against their lay supporters and the Canadian Methodists. Initially, revivalism, with its often uncontrollable emotionalism and unpredictable outcomes, posed a challenge to the process of transferring British Wesleyan institutions from one side of the Atlantic to the other. It is difficult, however, to

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understand either why that was the case or how the Methodist groups in Lower and Upper Canada overcame that challenge without first dealing with the institutions themselves. The first chapter lays the groundwork for what follows. It argues that Methodism in Lower and Upper Canada became increasingly integrated into a larger British world between 1814 and 1874. This is demonstrated through a detailed study of the development and structure of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (the W M M S ) and its interactions with the Methodist communities in Lower and Upper Canada. In describing the work of the WMMS , this chapter challenges the standard view that Methodism in the Canadas was a strictly native development, derived primarily from American Methodist roots. In drawing out the increasing number and complexity of the transatlantic connections between the Methodist communities in Britain and in Lower and Upper Canada, it points out that Methodism in those colonies actually thrived and developed as an overseas extension of the British Wesleyan church. The second and third chapters deal with similar and sometimes interlocking patterns of cultural development within two groups: the British Wesleyan missionaries and laity in the Canadas and the Canadian Methodists. Chapter two concentrates on the British Wesleyan community in Lower and Upper Canada. Focusing on the period between the arrival of the first missionaries in 1814 and the union between the British Wesleyan church and the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada in 1833, it describes how changes in church governance in Britain, the United States, and the Canadas led to the formation of a unique British and Wesleyan culture among the missionaries and their lay supporters. It was a culture that frequently pitted the British Wesleyan laity and clergy in the colonies against their brethren in the home country. In chapter three we see that, during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, the Canadian Methodists followed a similar pattern of cultural formation. Once again, a new culture took shape as a result of a series of battles over church governance, this time between the Canada Conference and the Wesleyan leadership in Britain. In the twenty years after 1827, those increasingly vicious conflicts developed into a contest to see who would define the meaning of Britishness and Wesleyanism in the North Atlantic world. After 1847, however, the Canadian Methodists and the Weslyeans, both in the colonies and Britain, managed to reconcile their differences. That development was related to a series of cultural and structural changes within British Wesleyanism and Canadian Methodism that laid the groundwork for a mutually agreed upon British and Wesleyan identity.

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The fourth chapter examines the impact of British Wesleyan mission financing on the Methodist communities in Lower and Upper Canada between 1814 and 1874. It argues that the cultural transformations analyzed in chapters two and three were given added impetus by the confluence of the material interests of the British Wesleyan church, the Canadian Methodists, and the British Wesleyan missionaries and laity in the Canadas. Before 1849 the fiscal policies of the W M M S perpetuated the often complex British and Wesleyan cultures taking shape among the British Wesleyan and Canadian Methodist communities in Lower and Upper Canada. After 1849, however, a combination of financial crisis among the Wesleyans in Britain, the prospect of bankruptcy among the lay supporters of the British Wesleyan missionaries in the Canadas and the rapid expansion of the Canadian Methodist church helped to produce a movement in favour of Methodist unity in the colonies. The continued growth of Canadian Methodism in the 1850s and 1860s and the financial burden that accompanied it worked to keep that church firmly situated within a larger British world, despite the best attempts of the WMMS to cut its fiscal ties with the Canadas. The fifth chapter deals with the interaction between British Wesleyanism and Methodism in the Canadas in terms of religious practice in the sixty years after 1814. It focuses on the transatlantic career of the American Methodist and professional revivalist James Caughey. His activities on either side of the ocean highlighted the tensions produced by revivalism within transatlantic Methodism. The British Wesleyan missionaries and laity in Lower and Upper Canada supported Caughey’s gospel work, while the Wesleyan leadership in Britain rejected his methods and, as far as possible, blocked him from using their churches. For their part, the Canadian Methodists agreed with the British Wesleyan community in the colonies, supporting Caughey’s revivalist efforts; they also, however, adopted a number of British Wesleyan church structures, including the subordination of lay or local preachers to their ordained brethren, in order to aid in the contentious process of transforming colonial Methodism from a sect to a church. This coming together around the issues of revivalism and pastoral authority in the Canadas helped unleash the most destructive schism ever experienced by the Wesleyan church in Britain, while, at the same time, facilitating the union of 1854 between the British Wesleyan community in Lower Canada and the Canada Conference. It was, in other words, an important example of the creation of a British and Wesleyan culture in the colony that was broader and more inclusive than the one in the home country.

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IV Overall, then, this book analyzes the highly complex process through which Methodism in Lower and Upper Canada was integrated into a British world between 1814 and 1874. The various attempts by the leaders of the British Wesleyan church, the British Wesleyan missionaries, their lay supporters and the Canadian Methodists to define what it meant to be British and Wesleyan were often hotly debated. At times, three or more distinct British and Wesleyan identities were in play across the North Atlantic. This situation was made even more complex by the fact that there were often divisions about the ‘proper’ meaning of Britishness and Wesleyanism within the Methodist communities in the Canadas and Britain. The sense of Britishness and Wesleyanism adopted, for instance, by the British Wesleyan leadership was contested, sometimes violently, among the rank and file of that church; if a particularly conservative version of British and Wesleyan identity predominated among the Wesleyans in Britain by the 1850s that was not a foregone conclusion. Neither was the shape of the evangelical culture that emerged among the Methodists in Lower and Upper Canada by the middle of the nineteenth century; it too was a product of transatlantic and internal negotiation. In the end that culture was British and Wesleyan. By the 1850s, the Methodists of Lower and Upper Canada – whether the British Wesleyan missionaries, their lay supporters or the Canadian Methodists – identified themselves as transplanted Britons: loyal subjects of the monarchy with all the rights that membership in the Empire might convey, including the right to call on the denominational centre for financial aid in times of need and to be treated as equals during other periods. Like the Wesleyans in Britain, they were keen to see worship as a primarily church-centred activity – it was not something that should take place in the streets or fields of the Canadas. In addition, they wanted to see revivalism brought, to a great extent, under the control of the regular ministry, though the Methodists groups in those colonies were not willing to go as far as the British Wesleyan leadership in that area. In terms of church governance, the Methodists of Lower and Upper Canada accepted the leadership of the British Wesleyan church and repudiated any previous attachment to the Methodist Episcopals in the United States. They organized their church according to the rules and regulations of British Wesleyanism; it became increasingly hierarchical, with all groups firmly subordinated to the ordained ministry. As we have already noted, however, by 1874

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Methodism in Canada was also able to achieve what Wesleyanism in Britain never accomplished: it became the dominant Protestant force in the country. In the following chapters we will see how the transatlantic interactions among the Canadian Methodists, the British Wesleyans, and their missionaries and lay supporters in nineteenth-century Ontario and Quebec shaped the coming of that Methodistical apotheosis.

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1 “United by the Ties of Race and Kindred” The Formation of a British World

On 20 March 1855 readers perusing the Watchman, the unofficial organ of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Britain, would have found a report from “Theophilus,” “our correspondent” in Lower and Upper Canada. At first glance, the article appeared to be a celebration of the present and future connections between the Methodists in the Canadas and Britain. Theophilus described the efforts of his fellow Canadian Methodists to raise £10,000 that year for the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (WMMS) in London, England. The leading Canadian laity had mastered the lessons taught by their metropolitan counterparts: “the Farmers, Healds, Smiths, Woods, and Chappels” of British Wesleyanism, whose “zeal hath provoked many here for the fame of their doings long ago reached us.” Theophilus also wrote, thirty years before the fact as it turned out, about the completion of a railway linking eastern British North America with the colony of British Columbia. “When that takes place,” he stated, the Canadian Methodists could expect visits from “Wesleyan Missionaries” on their way from Britain to “China or Australasia, or somewhere else on the other side of the globe, where they can find … souls without salvation. I am sure such visitations will be welcome.” Having already learned from the British Wesleyan example, Canadian Methodism was set to become the great conduit of communication between the church in Britain and its missions in the east. The transatlantic links between the British Wesleyan and Canadian Methodist communities seemed to be on the high road to perfection. While celebrating the current and future connections between Canadian Methodism and British Wesleyanism, however, Theophilus also raised some troubling questions about the overall relationship between colony and metropole. “Many of the people of Britain, and professing intelligence

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too, sadly blunder when they speak of us,” he noted rather tartly. “Does Canada know more of England,” he wondered, “than England does of Canada?”1 In other words, how did colonies like Lower and Upper Canada fit into the British Empire? And, more specifically, to what extent had settler groups, like the Methodists in the Canadas, managed to overcome the various challenges that geographic distance posed to political and cultural integration? These questions exercised the minds of British colonists throughout the nineteenth century.2 Strange to say, finding answers to those questions has not been a pressing concern among Canadian Methodism’s modern historians. We know something about the links, at both the clerical and lay level, between British Wesleyanism and American Methodism and between the Methodists in Britain and the Canadas during the 1800s.3 On the whole, however, we are left with a story that centres on the growing cultural exceptionalism of Canadian Methodism. In that narrative, having amassed a following through a steady process of conversions, the Canadian Methodists moved with sure steps towards “independence” from both American Methodism and British Wesleyanism between 1791 and 1854. The political and doctrinal conservatism of the British Wesleyans, whether in the home country or among the missionaries who began to arrive in the Canadas in 1814, made them into the “other” against whom the Canadian Methodists defined themselves.4 Adopting Theophilus’s transatlantic perspective leads to a different conclusion: between 1814 and 1874 the Methodists in Lower and Upper Canada became increasingly integrated into a larger British world. This was true not only of the British Wesleyan community in the Canadas, but also of those ministers originally connected with the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States and, after 1828, to the self-governing Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada. A powerful missionary impulse within British Wesleyanism, mass migration from the home country to Lower and Upper Canada, and the networks that gradually took shape between the metropole and periphery after 1814, helped forge a sense of belonging to a “greater” Britain among the Methodist groups in those colonies. At the same time, however, the bureaucratic difficulties that bedeviled the British Wesleyans’ efforts to organize and regulate their mission field and the uncertainties of nineteenth-century transoceanic communication created a spatial and temporal division between Methodism in Britain and the Canadas.5 That divide frequently left the Methodists in the two colonies feeling ignored or abandoned by the Wesleyan church on the other side of the Atlantic. As a result, their self-perception as Britons was rarely free from tensions.

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I The root of those tensions lay deep in the Methodist past. The Wesleyan connexion was built on a series of contradictions. It was centralized but flexible; it was autocratic, in terms of its government, but also populist and expansive. Such contrasting forces propelled the growth of the church on both sides of the Atlantic in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Methodism’s complex nature can be traced back to its founder. John Wesley may have preached a message of universal salvation, but he was also notoriously dictatorial when it came to church government. He jealously guarded the prerogative of determining which laity could or could not become Methodists; he alone had the power to appoint, ordain, dismiss, and station ministers; and he controlled all the money raised among the laity to support the ministry and to fund chapel building. Wesley rejected the idea that the authority to govern either a church or a nation originated with the people. “We are no republicans, and never intend to be,” he wrote in 1790, “It would be better for those that are so minded to go quietly away.” Wesley had put those beliefs into concrete form six years earlier: he enrolled a Deed of Declaration in the Court of Chancery, granting all his powers, upon his death, to the Wesleyan Conference – an annual gathering of ministers that he had been holding since 1744.6 After Wesley died in 1791, the Conference duly became the supreme executive and legislative power in British Wesleyanism, meeting for a number of weeks every summer. In the Deed of Declaration Wesley confined its membership to one hundred handpicked ministers, but, at their first meeting in 1791, this “Legal Hundred” decided that all ordained ministers in the connexion should be allowed to attend and take part in the Conference’s annual meetings. Until 1814, however, only the Legal Hundred could vote for the president and secretary: ministers who served for one year, moderating and recording the proceedings of the Conference while it was in session and handing denominational business when it was not. The laity had no direct voice in the central governing body of their own church. The Conference struck different committees each year to station the preachers, to determine if any of them needed to be suspended or expelled and to decide who might make a valuable addition to the ministerial ranks. If the rules (discipline) of the connexion needed revising, only the Conference could make the changes; if the connexion was racked by a doctrinal dispute, only the Conference could settle it. This plenitude of power also encompassed the Wesleyan Methodist work in the rest of the British Isles. Under Wesley, for instance, the Irish Conference had to send all of its decisions to the British Conference for

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final approval. In order to simplify this process, the post-1791 ministry in Britain eventually delegated its collective authority to one of its own, and that individual presided over the annual meeting of the Irish Methodists. When critics of the British Conference argued that it had all the makings of a vast engine of ministerial despotism, they were not far off the truth.7 Yet the denominational structure that Wesley created between 1738 and 1791 also allowed the Methodist connexion to exploit any opening that appeared among Britain’s sinful multitudes. Wherever people were attracted by the Methodist promise of salvation, Wesley or one of his preachers organized them into societies. The laity who made up those societies met once a week in smaller groups, known as classes or class meetings, in order to monitor one another’s spiritual progress. Methodist ministers visited every society and its classes regularly, travelling from one group to another on a set circuit, preaching and making new converts as they went. In 1791 the Conference grouped the circuits into larger administrative units – the Districts – each overseen by a chairman selected from among the connexion’s senior ministers. Since few itinerant preachers could cover every part of a circuit in a week, Wesley and his successors also appointed a number of laity to help the ministry carry the load. Unordained and unpaid lay or local preachers conducted services for each society when the regular minister was unavailable; trustees made sure that any chapels the connexion built or bought were only used by Methodist preachers; stewards drew up the financial accounts for each chapel, society, and circuit; and class leaders supervised the weekly class meetings. Every three months the itinerant preachers held a meeting with all of the lay officials on each circuit to deal with the spiritual and temporal concerns of their part of the connexion. These quarterly meetings were entirely subordinate to the Conference and, after 1791, to the annual all-ministerial district meetings as well. Still, expansion was relatively easy under this regime: when new societies were formed in a given area, a minister divided them into classes, the Conference created a new circuit, assigned a minister to make the rounds and permitted him to call as many laypeople into the field as the work might require. There were seven circuits in Britain in 1746; there were 114 forty-five years later.8 Wesley never had any intention, however, of confining his redeeming mission to the British Isles. Less than a year after he felt his heart “strangely warmed,” he began to conceive his efforts to spread scriptural holiness throughout the land in broader terms. “I look upon all the world as my parish … This is the work which I know God has called me to,” he

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stated in March 1739. Nine years later, Wesley was more convinced than ever of his divinely ordained purpose. Writing from Dublin, he noted that “wherever I see one or a thousand men running into hell, be it in England, Ireland or France, yea, in Europe, Asia, Africa or America, I will stop them if I can: as a minister of Christ, I will beseech them in His name to turn back and be reconciled to God.” Wesley made little distinction between the gospel work at home and abroad. His preachers would go anywhere, among any people who might benefit from the Methodist brand of evangelical Protestantism, whether the strictly “heathen” or fellow Britons who were settling the colonies of the empire.9 Thanks to Wesley’s flexible approach to denominational expansion, Wesleyanism quickly spread throughout the North Atlantic region. From the 1760s on, Wesley directed the activities of Methodist ministers in the Thirteen Colonies, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, and the West Indies. Reacting to the millennial expectations produced by the French Revolution, one headstrong minister, Thomas Coke, travelled to Paris to establish a new mission in 1791. That effort ended badly – revolutionaries threatened the hang Coke and two other missionaries from the nearest lamppost – but the ongoing mission to what had become the United States scored spectacular successes.10 By the mid-1780s the Methodists in America had amassed enough of a following to create an independent Methodist Episcopal Church. Two hundred and fifty two itinerant preachers were overseeing 129 circuits in 1791.11 That same year the American Methodists established their first circuit among the settlers in the Canadas.

II A Methodist Episcopal mission to Lower and Upper Canada made sense as long as the English-speaking population of those colonies was 80 percent American by birth or descent. The American Methodist preachers certainly saw the Canadas as an extension of their gospel field in New England and upstate New York.12 But the forces of demographic change unleashed by the ending of the Napoleonic Wars altered that situation. Over a million people from the United Kingdom crossed the Atlantic and settled in Britain’s North American colonies between 1815 and 1874. From 1815 to 1837 alone more settlers from England, Ireland, and Scotland made their way to British North America than to the United States or the other colonies of the empire. These numbers dropped in the 1840s, but remained sizeable through the 1850s and 1860s.13 In the

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early period of mass migration, between 1815 and 1835, the majority of immigrants were either Scottish or Irish Protestants. Methodists probably constituted a small percentage of the Lowlanders who left Scotland for the Canadas; a much more significant number of Irish Protestant settlers were Methodists. By 1871 Methodists made up 34 percent of the Irish Protestant families in Ontario. Most of these were Wesleyans; only a small number belonged to other British Methodist groups, such as the Primitive Methodists and the Bible Christians.14 The flood tide of English emigration began in the 1830s and persisted until the closing of the Upper Canadian frontier in the 1850s and 1860s. Until boom times returned in the early 1870s, yearly immigration from England was measured in thousands rather than tens of thousands. As was the case among the Irish Protestants, many of these English emigrants were Wesleyan Methodists.15 The fact that the early stages of English migration to the Canadas were dominated by movement out of Yorkshire and the northern counties made this almost inevitable: that region was the heartland of Wesleyan Methodism in nineteenth-century Britain.16 Wesleyan ministers in Britain might very well complain, then, about emigration reducing the connexional membership in some parts of England and Ireland; but, at the same time, the Methodist population of Lower and Upper Canada was becoming more British and Wesleyan by the year.17 As their letters and journals attest, both the British Wesleyan missionaries stationed in the Canadas and their American Methodist counterparts were aware of this demographic shift. Everywhere these ministers went they found settlers with close ties to the Wesleyan connexion in Britain. While travelling through the Eastern Townships of Lower Canada in 1822, the missionary John DePutron lodged “with a kind and affectionate family who emigrated from Holderness [in Yorkshire] about 2 years ago.” “I refer to Mr. Tho[ma]s Hewson,” DePutron added, “who is well known in that part of England to many of our preachers.” Two years later, in the vicinity of Peterborough, Upper Canada, the American Methodist preacher Anson Green came across “a godly old Yorkshire woman,” “an intelligent Irish local preacher by the name of Blackstock” and “a sterling family, who were Wesleyans in England” all in the space of a week.18 The British Wesleyan missionaries and American Methodist ministers in Lower and Upper Canada responded to this influx in the same way: rather than building up their numbers through conversions alone, they turned a considerable portion of their energies to incorporating as many of the immigrants as possible into their respective churches. The British missionaries, for instance, attempted to reach out to any of their

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recently arrived co-religionists who came through the towns and cities of the Canadas, sometimes giving them money raised among pioneers who had already established themselves.19 More often, however, they formed such settlers into societies and classes on the established Wesleyan pattern. The missionaries also made efforts to keep in close contact with “fellow countrymen” who were “obliged to [go] into the wilderness, where there is no Temple, no Priest, [n]or place of public worship, to which they have access.” In the early 1830s, in a characteristic move, the missionaries formed a new circuit among the “Methodists from Ireland” near Wesleyville on the eastern bank of the Ottawa River. The American Methodist preachers also followed Wesleyan immigrants from Britain as they moved into areas like South Monaghan and Cavan townships in Upper Canada. They formed new societies around the town of York during the 1820s, primarily serving the English, Irish, and Scottish arrivals who “generally expressed a desire to have the Gospel preached among them.” Travelling through New Ireland, Lower Canada, in 1837, the British missionary John Borland described the outcome of this effort. Through the “instrumentality” of dedicated ministers like himself, many settlers had been “reclaimed from their … wanderings in apostasy, who, were previously to their coming to this country united in church fellowship with our people in Europe.”20 In the process the Methodists in Lower and Upper Canada began to conceptualize those colonies as extensions of the British Wesleyan gospel field, no less deserving of attention and support than Ireland or the dark corners of Lancashire. Within a year of arriving in Lower Canada the British Wesleyan missionaries wrote to their superiors in London, England, arguing that, “the great and continual emigration” from the United Kingdom, “among whom there are many Methodists,” called for the dispatch of more preachers to that province and to the town of Kingston in Upper Canada. The missionaries saw the rest of Upper Canada in the same light. At the very least, the town of York required a British Wesleyan minister: “vast numbers of emigrants from the United Kingdom of Great Britain are resorting there every year,” James Booth noted, “and many of them are the fruit of your labours at home, and many of them children of praying parents[;] how desirable should it be to have a British Missionary here, to direct them in a strange land, to the stranger’s friend.” Similarly, at L’Achigan, Lower Canada, James Knowlan found “settlers … from Ireland & Scotland; but chiefly from the former; and they are in great want of spiritual instruction.” He made sure to point out that they were “most anxious to have a Missionary

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among them.”21 From the missionaries’ point of view, migration to the Canadas was creating both opportunities and obligations for the British Wesleyan church. British Wesleyan settlers, whether in Lower or Upper Canada, situated themselves in the same transatlantic context. In January 1820 the laity around Newcastle, Upper Canada, pointed out that seven townships in their district were “newly settled and now settling upon by European emigrants, many of whom belonged to the Methodist Society at home” and who were “anxious to have continuation of those enjoyments with which they were blessed in their highly favoured country.” Twelve years later the laity of Quebec City requested a missionary from Britain to serve the “settlers … from all parts of the three kingdoms” of England, Ireland, and Scotland who were flooding into the Eastern Townships of Lower Canada, many of whom were “favourably disposed to Methodism.” In 1841 the laity in Kingston, Upper Canada, wrote that, while “your Memorialists beg leave to state that … we are favoured with the labours and pastoral care of the British Wesleyan Missionaries[,] there are hundreds of our fellow men residing in the surrounding Country who are destitute of the instructions of those Ministers whom they regard and love.” “Most of those persons have emigrated from Great Britain within the last twenty years,” they added, “and were brought to a knowledge of truth under the … ministry of the Wesleyan Ministers at home and on this account … they feel warmly attached to that Body.” The Kingston settlers also pointed out that preparations were being made for the reception of “a great influx of emigrants from England, Ireland & Scotland,” many of whom would be Wesleyans with “a claim” on the “attentions and pastoral care” of the church in the Old Country.22 By the early 1830s the leaders of the British Wesleyan church and the recently independent Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada were willing to help shoulder that load. Both groups increasingly shared the perception of Lower and Upper Canada as an integral part of a greater Britain. When the two churches agreed to unite in 1833, one of the most influential of the Wesleyans in Britain, Jabez Bunting, noted that, “patriotic duty … recommend[s] this union. Numerous emigrants from Britain and Ireland are going every year to Canada; many of them were once part of our own flocks. They have a claim upon our sympathy and attention.” Another of the British Wesleyan church’s leading men, Robert Alder, reiterated Bunting’s point in more sweeping terms, arguing that, despite “all that has been stated by a certain class of political economists,” the Canadas were entitled to “the protection and encouragements of the

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parent state.” After all, “there are many families in the United Kingdom who have near and dear relatives settled in various parts of America, and are looking towards it as their future abode.”23 Where Britons went, British institutions, whether in church or state, must surely follow. The ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada could not have agreed more. By way of proof, they also directed their “most anxious attention” to “the many emigrants from the mother country, and especially to the professors and families of Wesleyan Methodism.” It was an effort that their brethren in the British Wesleyan ministry found particularly gratifying and that they encouraged, observing that it was “an interesting part” of Canadian Methodism’s “great work to follow these sheep into the wilderness, and bring them into the fold of Christ.” The Canadian Methodists responded in turn, pointing out to the lay members of their own connexion that, “among the numerous emigrants from the Mother Country … there are many who have been members or hearers in the Wesleyan Church at home.” “They are our brethren,” the Canadian Methodist ministers added, “and we should receive, and welcome, and help them as such.” As the British Wesleyans proudly declared in 1862, the Methodists of the Canadas and Britain were “united by the ties of race and kindred.”24

III Well before the British Wesleyans and Canadian Methodists reached that happy level of unity, however, the connexion in Britain had to grapple with a pressing problem: how to control its expanding overseas missions. Almost instinctively, the British ministry turned to the Wesleyan tradition of centralization. Sometimes the British Conference oversaw the mission field, but, more often, it delegated its authority to the W M M S . That decision had profound implications for Methodism in Lower and Upper Canada. Organized between 1813 and 1818, the W M M S was one of the most important administrative bodies in the Wesleyan church. It was responsible for “the superintendence of the Collection and Disbursement of all Monies raised for Foreign Missions … and also the General Management” of the missions during the interval between the annual meetings of the Conference. It consisted of the president and secretary of the Conference, twenty-four ministers and, in a rare departure from Wesleyan practice, twenty-four laymen. The latter, however, generally represented the wealthiest and most conservative societies in the connexion; they were

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men who knew how to handle money and who were unlikely to rock the ministerial boat. The membership of the W M M S was also divided along regional lines. Sixteen lay and clerical members came from the English provinces, while the rest were drawn from the greater London area. In theory the entire WMMS met once a month in the capital; but, in reality, most of the day-to-day work of the missions was in the hands of three missionary secretaries, each a minister appointed by the Conference. At first only one of these preachers lived in the main offices of the W M M S – the Mission House at 77 Hatton Garden, London – and “devote[d] himself on the Week-Days … to the service of the Missions exclusively.” Eventually all three were released from regular preaching duties. The Conference added a fourth missionary secretary in 1834; they divided the mission field between them, each concentrating on a different geographical area.25 The WMM S aimed to keep the tightest possible control over the missions. District meetings nominated candidates for the mission work, but the WMMS had the authority to decide which of them would actually become a missionary. Any prospective missionary had to be free from debt, enjoy good health, have a good grasp of English grammar, and, of course, believe in the doctrines and discipline of Wesleyan Methodism. The WMMS – with the final approval of the Conference – determined where to station any of the candidates who were accepted and how long they should remain abroad. The term of service for a missionary in British North America was officially set at a minimum of twenty years. They were forbidden to leave their post until their time was up, unless they had permission from the WMMS .26 Once the missionaries returned to Britain they were entitled to a home circuit by virtue of their membership in the Wesleyan connexion. While overseas, however, the W M M S expected them to set up classes, societies, and districts “exactly upon the plan established in England,” to “promote the temporal interest of the Missions, by Weekly, Quarterly, and Annual Subscriptions,” and to behave according “to the model exhibited by your brethren at home.” That included not engaging in trade: “We wish you to be at the remotest distance from all temptation to a secular or mercenary temper,” the W M M S declared. The missionaries’ material wants were provided for based on “a regular and proper scale of allowances” determined at 77 Hatton Garden. In return the WMMS required its agents to keep an individual journal and to send home “such copious abstracts of it as may give a full and particular account” of their “labours, successes, and prospects.” The missionaries were also supposed to hold a district meeting once a

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year, under the direction of a chairman appointed by the W M M S , and to dispatch a set of minutes to the missionary secretaries “containing a detailed account of their proceedings … with an account of the state of the societies under their care, as well as the general state of religion in the countries in which they are stationed.”27 All of that looked good on paper, but, in actuality, there were forces at work that constantly threatened to disrupt the British Wesleyan mission field. At the most basic level, three or four missionary secretaries proved insufficient to oversee the connexion’s increasingly far-flung missions. The sheer crush of work often seemed to be on the verge of overwhelming them. In 1820, for instance, one of the missionary secretaries, Joseph Taylor, wrote to a preacher stationed in the Canadas explaining that “your minutes have been duly received but owing to the press of business we have not yet been able to take up the several points contained in them & when we shall be able I cannot say.”28 In the short term the situation might improve marginally, but any unexpected development could throw the Mission House off kilter. In 1834 the Missionary Secretary John Beecham explained the W M M S ’s delay in sending important information to the missionaries in Upper Canada by noting that, “we were pressed … by the death of two of the Secretaries, and had all our Missions throughout the world to attend to, as well as the concerns of Canada.” Four years later another missionary secretary, Robert Alder, described receiving forty-five letters from “Caffraria, & other parts of S. Africa; from St. Mary’s & Macarthy’s Island on the Western Coast; from Van Dieman’s land & New Zealand, from Jamaica, the Bahamas, North America, Sweden & France” all in one day. He did not indicate that this was an unusually heavy load for the Mission House. The missionary secretaries’ frequent inability to master this influx of correspondence was “calculated to awaken some degree of anxiety,” one of them, Elijah Hoole, admitted in 1847. “An increasing attention to the several departments of our home system, and our Foreign Correspondence is absolutely necessary,” he added. The W M M S was not exactly a well-oiled bureaucratic machine.29 In its efforts to impose some sort of order on the British Wesleyan missions, the WMMS also had to contend with forces beyond its control. The weakness of the North American postal system put limits on the missionary secretaries’ ability to keep in close contact with the various Methodist groups in Lower and Upper Canada, especially during the first half of the nineteenth century. Letters could easily go astray once they reached the colonies. In June 1820 the British missionary Richard

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Williams wrote to Joseph Taylor, pointing out that, “your letter dated 8th of January 1820 came to hand last Monday after having remained a long time in one of the country Post offices, which is not an infrequent thing and by means of which some of our letters from you are lost altogether.”30 The rudimentary nature of the transatlantic mails did not help this local situation. Until 1815 private ships and a packet operating between Falmouth, Quebec, Montreal, and New York were the only postal links between Britain and British North America. After the Treaty of Ghent, sailing companies began to provide regularly scheduled voyages between New York and Liverpool and between Boston and London. These vessels were faster and their rates cheaper than the Falmouth packet. As a result, by the 1820s and 1830s, most letters to and from Lower and Upper Canada were carried by American ships and passed through New York.31 That did not solve all the WMMS ’s problems: there were still many places along the way where communications could and did break down. In 1823 the WMMS complained about missionaries who entrusted the minutes of their district meetings “to persons who do not forward them.” Sixteen years later, however, one of the missionary secretaries made the same mistake while travelling to the Canadas. Robert Alder gave an important letter to a “Mr. Sands” of New York to be sent on to his colleagues in Britain. For whatever reason, Sands decided to put the letter on “the Sailing Packet on the 8th of July so that I am not now surprised,” Alder explained to his fellow missionary secretary, Jabez Bunting, “that you had not received it” in time for the opening of the British Conference.32 The WMMS was still learning how to work the North Atlantic postal system to its advantage by the 1840s. In the meantime the production and distribution of denominational literature opened up another area of difficulty for the missionary secretaries. The slowness and general unreliability of the transatlantic post undermined the purpose of the WMMS ’s publications: to keep the various parts of the British Wesleyan mission field in close contact and to foster a sense of common purpose. The Wesleyan Missionary Notices – distributed to all the missionaries and to any laity who collected at least one shilling a month to support the WM M S – were sometimes “printed at so early a period in the month, that we have not been able to give any interesting information, which we might receive after the 13th of the month” from faraway places like Lower and Upper Canada. This, the Missionary Secretary John Beecham lamented, “has often been very mortifying to ourselves, and our friends have often been disappointed to

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find no allusion in the notice when they have received it of something highly interesting … an imperfect report of which they had heard during the month.”33 Instead of creating unity, the Notices threatened to produce discontent among both laity and missionaries. Even if the missionary secretaries could solve that particular problem with relative ease, the denominational magazines, newspapers, and pamphlets that the WMMS regularly sent overseas could only do some good if they arrived in decent time. Often they did not. In 1821 John DePutron complained that, “no information” from Britain had reached the Wesleyan missionaries in the Canadas, “for my magazines etc. are not yet arrived though it is in season.” Similarly, in 1837, one of the leading British ministers in the Canadas, William Martin Harvard, could not understand why he had to wait so long to receive the official journal of the British Conference, the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine. “The Sept[ember] number,” he wrote, “did not come to hand till June; though we are but six weeks from England.” This sort of thing shocked even the usually stoical missionary secretaries. In March 1844 Robert Alder wrote to one of the British Wesleyans in the Canadas, pointing out how surprised the WMMS was that the missionaries had yet to receive several important publications from home, even though “we sent a supply out for Eastern and Western Canada the last Spring.”34 The flaws in the WMMS bureaucracy, combined with the complex nature of transatlantic communication, quickly translated into tensions between the denominational core and periphery. Even as they developed a vision of Lower and Upper Canada as provinces of a greater Britain, the various Methodist groups in those colonies were also left with a sometimes profound sense of isolation from their brethren on the other side of the Atlantic. “No kind Brother seems to think us worthy of his notice, or a few lines of church news from home,” one of the British missionaries told the Secretary Joseph Taylor in 1820, “What can be the reason my dear Brother? You have been a Missionary … You know what a Missionary must feel under such circumstances that has the work at heart. My mind is pained. Do write me tho[ugh] I am a stranger to you. Do, I beg, be familiar and write me as often as you can.” At once desperate and demanding, this tone was common in many missionaries’ letters and reports. They wrote about how “anxious” they were “to hear” from the connexional authorities in Britain and how “painful & discouraging” it was not to know exactly how the W M M S wanted them to conduct their mission work.35 At other times the missionaries let their superiors in London know, in no uncertain terms, that they were “grieved, at the

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apparent neglect” with which their communications seemed to be treated. Since his letters “referred to matters, not only of importance to myself personally, but to the cause of God,” the future Missionary Secretary Robert Alder declared, he had expected to hear from the Mission House in short order. Into the 1830s and 1840s the missionaries continued to convey this image of a people abandoned, receiving no news from their homeland and facing the prospect of having to act alone, without the “counsel and direction” of their brethren in Britain.36 The same language appeared in the correspondence of both the British Wesleyan laity in the Canadas and the Canadian Methodists. Whether asking for denominational news and publications from Britain or requesting money for their mission, the leading British Wesleyan laypeople in the Canadas were often either dismayed or angry when answers did not come from the WMMS . Writing to Britain in 1834, the Montreal businessman William Lunn was convinced that it was “useless to make any representations, public or private, respecting” his part of the gospel field to the missionary secretaries. Within two years that frustration had become full-on paranoia. “As you have not written to me for [a] very long time,” Lunn stated to Robert Alder, “of course you must have taken offense at something I do not know.” According to another Montreal merchant, John Mathewson, Lunn eventually vowed not to write to the WMMS again until he received a reply to his previous letters.37 The Canadian Methodists were equally put out on the rarer occasions when their “communications to the Mission House” were “treated with entire neglect.” The British Wesleyan Conference could be just as lax as the WMMS at times: its pronouncements to the Canadian Methodist Conference sometimes failed to arrive at their intended destination, even during times of denominational crisis.38 This feeling of isolation from the Wesleyan church in Britain complicated any notion of Lower and Upper Canada as simple extensions of the home country. In an attempt to garner more consistent attention from the WMMS , the British Wesleyan missionaries and their lay supporters, in particular, claimed that the colonies were actually grander than Great Britain. In 1824 William Lunn wrote to Missionary Secretary Richard Watson expressing the fear that the British Conference had “an erroneous idea of Canada[;] either you have received very imperfect accounts of it, or none at all.” In response, he described the colony as a “fine interesting Country” whose “prosperity advances with the rapid increase of its settlements.” Lunn also suggested that the Canadas were an improvement on the Old Country, in terms of climate at any rate

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– “the weather in Upper Canada is as fine as in England,” he stated, “and the soil quite as good, certainly the winters are finer and more healthy.” The missionaries took a somewhat different tack, countering perceived neglect by declaring their own superiority to the missionary secretaries and the WMMS . Serving in Upper Canada in 1834, William Lord told Robert Alder that, while he (Alder) may have “seen something of Methodism in this Province,” he could not possibly “understand it, nor can any one without residing here & mixing with the people & attending the various meetings,” which, of course, Lord himself had been doing. Benjamin Slight took up a similar line fourteen years later, noting that, “what Canada is, and what its wants are, is a subject but little known, & but little thought of” outside the colony. “It can only properly be appreciated,” he added, “by those who travel through the land in the discharge of ministerial duties.”39 As these comments suggest, despite the influx of British and Wesleyan immigrants, some of the missionaries and laity in the Canadas were prepared to define their sense of self against the home country and their denominational leadership.

IV It would nevertheless be wrong to suggest that the WMMS was a bureaucratic disaster from beginning to end or that the Atlantic remained an insurmountable barrier to effective communication throughout the nineteenth century. After the mid-1840s neither of those statements held true. Over the following thirty years, official and unofficial networks that had taken shape since 1814 drew the Wesleyans in Britain and the Methodists in Lower and Upper Canada ever more tightly together in a greater Britain. Even with all of that improvement, however, tension between the denominational centre and periphery remained unavoidable. Beginning in the mid-1840s the missionary secretaries started to implement new policies that indicated a growing trust in the efficiency of transatlantic communications. In 1844 Robert Alder stated that while some publications might continue to go astray, it was no longer necessary or desirable, given the continued expansion of the British Wesleyan mission field, for missionaries stationed in Lower and Upper Canada to write to the WMMS once every three months, as had been the norm since the early 1800s. “Instead of writing four times a year to us,” each missionary in the colonies would now send a report, “relating to everything connected with the spiritual and secular state and prospects of the work under his care,” to a minister selected by the W M M S . It was

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that minister’s responsibility to “prepare and forward to the Secretaries a clear and comprehensive quarterly statement, founded upon these reports.” Alder was sure that this plan would “place the work as a whole more fully and constantly before us, and through the medium of the [Wesleyan Missionary] Notices before our friends generally.”40 Thanks to technological change, that usually proved to be the case. In 1848 the Cunard shipping company introduced a Liverpool-Halifax-New  York steam packet service. This resulted in a weekly mail run during the spring and summer, and a fortnightly service the rest of the year. The shipping magnate Hugh Allan went one better in 1856, establishing a biweekly postal run between Liverpool and Quebec City. In 1859 this service became weekly.41 Transatlantic space was becoming smaller by the year. On the surface, then, the Methodists in the Canadas and Britain were less and less troubled by problems posed by the Atlantic crossing after the mid-1840s. The British missionaries, laity and their Canadian Methodist brethren certainly voiced fewer complaints about not receiving letters and publications from Britain than they had over the previous thirty years. And there is other evidence of growing transatlantic closeness, beyond the strictly negative. The British missionary Matthew Richey wrote to Robert Alder from Montreal in 1846, noting with some pride that the “Wesleyan community” on both sides of the Atlantic had “received through the columns of the Watchman, such ample information concerning the dimensions, architectural beauty, and auspicious dedication of our new sanctuary in St. James’ Street,” that he deemed it “superfluous to do more than simply advert to that memorable occasion” in his letter. In the 1850s the British missionaries in Lower Canada regularly received news about the deaths of the leading figures in the home connexion and, on at least one occasion, passed a suitably laudatory resolution at their district meeting. The Canada Conference of 1865 resolved that its thanks should be presented to the W M M S “for the donation of a copy of the London Watchman to each of the Ministers of this Conference … and, as well, for the liberal supply of the Missionary publications sent for circulation among our people.”42 By the middle of the nineteenth century, the Methodists in the Canadas seemed to be plugged into a larger British world. The policies of the WMMS , whether the missionary secretaries implemented them rigidly or creatively, also helped create and maintain that sense of transatlantic belonging among the Methodist clergy in Lower and Upper Canada. The rules around ministerial marriage are a case in point. After their first four years as missionaries, British Wesleyan

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preachers, whether they were stationed in the Canadas or elsewhere in the mission field, were permitted to marry. Many took immediate advantage of the opportunity, almost invariably looking to Britain for a suitable spouse. By doing so, some of them forged lasting bonds with powerful ministerial families in the home country. In May 1820, for instance, Richard Pope married “Miss Alice Redfern late from Manchester, England, a Person well known to most of our Preachers who have friends in that Circuit.” The new Mrs. Pope was a cousin of the ministerial heavyweight Jabez Bunting.43 Other preachers, like Joseph Stinson, did not aim quite as high. In 1826 Stinson announced his “engagement with a young Lady at home, whom I believe to be in all respects suitable for a minister and a missionary.” She was the eldest daughter of John Chettle, a Wesleyan minister. The WMM S permitted Stinson to cross the Atlantic and complete his happiness, as it did in most other cases.44 Some of the missionaries in the Canadas found wives among the societies there, but, in 1851, Gifford Dorey reverted to the usual pattern, seeking “permission to return home to get married.” He was compelled to travel to Britain, he stated bluntly, since he found “Canada very defective in suitable persons for the sphere I move in, and have therefore to look homeward.”45 While displaying a unique degree of gallantry, Dorey’s remark also reflected a common belief among many of the British Wesleyan missionaries: they needed wives fit for both colonial and metropolitan society. If all went well, they would not be riding circuits in the Lower or Upper Canada forever. The allure of greener gospel fields and the call of family obligations persuaded many missionaries to ask the WMMS to allow them to come home before they had completed their required twenty years overseas. For example, after experiencing the connexional battles that accompanied the collapse of the first union between the Canada and British Conferences in 1840, Joseph Stinson noted that his inclination was “to spend a year in England … and then to go to France.” “The attention I have paid to the study of the French and Spanish languages,” he assured the missionary secretaries, “will afford me the means of being useful on the continent.” William Martin Harvard wrote to the missionary secretaries in the same vein in 1847, stating that, “having been requested to choose either a Circuit in this country or in favoured England[,] I have prayerfully decided upon the latter.” This was partly because the Canadas contained “no special call of duty” for him. He also felt, however, that an absence of eleven years in the colonies had “given to my family at home a claim to my attention.” Similarly, in 1826 and 1827, Stinson was worried

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about his parents’ fears for his future. They believed that his health was poor; they knew he was their only son; and “they have an idea that if I am sent out again I shall be forced or compelled to stay abroad all my life.”46 The only solution was to return to Britain. Other missionaries requested a transfer home for other reasons. Sometimes they were aiming to preserve their own health or the health of a family member; and sometimes they were simply homesick. John Hetherington wrote to Jabez Bunting about one of his sons in February 1842. The boy had been “attacked by disease in his left knee about fifteen months ago” and he had been walking on crutches ever since. “Having already had recourse to every means within my reach,” Hetherington explained, he wanted to get the “opinion & advice” of an experienced surgeon on the other side of the Atlantic. He asked the W M M S for permission to bring his son to Britain, noting that “it would be a great advantage to myself and family were it so arranged that I could have a circuit … even for a few years.”47 Most other missionaries seem to have been convinced that whatever ailed them could be cured by the salubrious air of England and of its “sea coast” in particular.48 It would certainly help rid them of any lingering sense of ennui. In 1822 Henry Pope admitted that he sometimes felt dejected thinking about the companionship he had experienced “at home” and, apparently, had not found in the Canadas. Five years later James Booth described his “longing desire to visit Britain again,” even though he still felt “that sense of duty and Missionary zeal, which forced me from the bosom of my friends, and the land which gave me birth.”49 In many instances the WMMS strictly enforced its twenty-year rule; sometimes, however, the missionary secretaries proved to be a soft touch, allowing preachers to return home early and to take up circuits in Britain. In 1830 Enoch Wood, stationed in New Brunswick, arrived in London without the prior permission of the WMM S . He was charged with bearing “the whole expense of his voyage” to and from Britain and “admonished by the chair” for his disregard for connexional discipline. Missionaries assigned to the Canadas also experienced the WMMS’s displeasure: in 1833 James Knowlan’s unexpected appearance in Britain “astonished” the WMMS, which referred the case “to the investigation and decision of the [British] Conference” and ordered its treasurers “not to accept any bill drawn by Mr. Knowlan, nor to advance him any monies whatsoever.”50 In contrast, John DePutron, Joseph Stinson, William Martin Harvard, and at least seven other ministers had no need to fear the wrath of the church authorities. In 1821, after six years of trying unsuccessfully

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to convert French Canadians, DePutron argued that he had more to offer in either his native Channel Islands or any other French-speaking station than he did in the Canadas; three years later, the WMMS finally agreed and transferred him to a suitable circuit at home. As for the rest, the missionary secretaries assigned them without much ado to circuits across Britain: Leeds, Maidstone, and elsewhere.51 Over time the WMMS ’s sometimes flexible approach to stationing led, quite unintentionally, to the formation of a community of ministers within the British connexion, but outside the executive ranks of the WMMS , concerned and knowledgeable about developments among the Methodists in the Canadas. In 1823 the former missionary Thomas Catterick asked the Missionary Secretary Joseph Taylor if he had heard from the two ministers who had recently sailed for Canada; he also requested “any other late news which you may have received from that country.” When consulted by the WM M S two years later, the recently returned John Hick happily gave what advice he could about the fastest and cheapest ways to get to the Canadas and about which circuits in Lower Canada were most deserving of a new preacher.52 Twenty years on, John Hetherington kept in close contact with the missionaries still stationed in the Canadas, exchanging information about Wesleyan affairs at home and abroad and, like Hick before him, suggesting optimum travel arrangements.53 By the mid-1840s, however, no one was playing the role of transatlantic lynchpin with as much zeal as Joseph Stinson. In a characteristic move, in 1843, he asked for “a day in some quiet corner out of the City [of London] to have a full conversation on our North American affairs” with the missionary secretaries. When the missionary Matthew Richey travelled to Britain in 1851, “for conversation in reference to British North American generally,” he met with the Missionary Secretary Robert Alder and Stinson, even though the latter had not been in the colonies for almost a decade.54 This community of former missionaries provided an unofficial link between the Methodists in the Canadas and Britain, helping to keep the lines of transatlantic communication open even during times of connexional crisis. In 1842, for example, two years after the first union between the British and Canada Conference fell apart, one of the leading Canadian Methodist ministers, John Ryerson, described receiving “a long & affectionate letter from Mr. J[oseph] Stinson,” giving him information about the mood of the most recent British Conference and urging him “to come home to England” to settle the differences between the two churches. Stinson kept up this correspondence through 1843, at one

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point informing Robert Alder at the Mission House that, “I wrote fully & I think faithfully to J[ohn] R[yerson] by the last Packet & expect to get something from him soon.”55 In September he sent a note to John’s brother, Egerton, about the possibility of doing something “to place our affairs in Canada on a more agreeable footing.” He still entertained “the hope of spending many happy & useful years in Canada,” Stinson assured Egerton Ryerson, even though he was then stationed in Sheffield – “one of the best circuits in England.” When John Ryerson travelled to Britain in 1846 in a successful bid to broker a reunion, he let Egerton know that “Mr. Stinson is most cordial & affectionate & is doing his utmost to further the object of our mission & promote peace in Canada.” The ex-missionary John Hetherington was less sure about the value of Stinson’s efforts, arguing that he had lost all proper perspective after becoming “mixed up too much already with the question.”56 Such doubts merely demonstrated, however, Stinson’s success in keeping a foot firmly planted in both the British Wesleyan and Canadian Methodist camps. The WMM S ’s control over stationing also fostered a close connection between the British Wesleyan laity in the Canadas and the ministry in Britain. Very much aware of who was responsible for assigning preachers to circuits, the wealthy laity of Montreal and Quebec City established their own unofficial contacts with the home connexion between 1814 and 1874. They sent letter after letter across the ocean asking the missionary secretaries to dispatch the best of British Wesleyanism’s ministers to Lower Canada. In 1827, for instance, writing on behalf of his fellow laypeople, William Lunn begged the W M M S to stationed Robert Alder in Montreal “in the ensuing Spring if his health will permit, and if the Providence of God should so direct it.” A decade later, Peter Langlois wrote to the WMMS , urging it to send the popular British preacher Robert Young to Quebec City: he was certain that such an assignment would have a beneficial impact on Methodism throughout the colony.57 Over the next thirty-seven years the laity in Lower Canada continued to turn to the British connexion to fill their pulpits. In 1848 Lunn suggested that two ministerial stars, “Mr. Rigg, or Mr. James,” would be a good fit for Montreal; if the missionary secretaries could convince either the equally talented “Mr. Rattenbury or Mr. Hull” to come over too, that would be even better. The leading laypeople of Quebec City were less specific in 1852, merely asking the WMM S for “one of the most talented and pious young men that may now be at your disposal” to aid the missionary already on the ground. William Lunn was thinking along the same lines by 1853, noting that “perhaps some one of the able and excellent Ministers at home will have no objections to come to Montreal.”58

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If a polite but insistent letter to the W M M S yielded no results, the British Wesleyan laity in Lower Canada was prepared to turn to other, more direct, means of communication. They elaborated a system of personal contact with metropolitan Wesleyanism. This, once again, was primarily the work of the wealthy laypeople of Montreal and Quebec City who could afford to crisscross the ocean. Peter Langlois opened this avenue in 1816. While in Britain on business he wrote to the WMMS and, before boarding ship for home, conveyed what he considered to be important advice about the state of affairs in the Canadas. Three years later John Try travelled to London and informed the missionary secretaries “of the wishes of the Montreal people” concerning the stationing of various missionaries in Lower Canada.59 Such visits were infrequent after 1819, but when they took place these laymen made the most of them. Montreal’s John Mathewson visited Britain in 1847 and he was prepared to give the Wesleyan leadership “suggestions … in relation to the Montreal station.” In 1854 John Ferrier, also of Montreal, attended at least one of the missionary meetings in London. He made sure to tell the WMMS that “amongst our evangelical churches in Canada, no organization has been so adapted to meet the wants of the tide of emigration that is flowing towards our shores, as has been the organization of our Wesleyan Body.”60 Among the British Wesleyan laity, the image of the Canadas as part of a greater British gospel field encouraged the formation of multiple links with the home connexion. Of course, all the connections between Methodism in the Canadas and Britain did not operate at an unofficial level. When they united in 1833 and again in 1847, the British and Canada Conferences developed official mechanisms, including the presidency, that were well adapted to draw their connexions closer together and to facilitate transatlantic interaction. Under the 1833 and 1847 Articles of Union, the British Conference reserved the right to appoint one of its own ministers to preside over the Canada connexion every year. A British Wesleyan preacher served as the president of the Canada Conference fourteen times between 1833 and 1874, also regularly visiting the WMM S ’s Lower Canada District until it united with the Canada connexion in 1854.61 Some of these ministers took up the position for a month and then returned to Britain, leaving the  management of the gospel work in Upper and Lower Canada in the hands of a district chairman or, after 1847, of a co-delegate (or vice-president).62 Others stayed in the Canadas for a year or more and became deeply involved in the operations of the Canada connexion and the Lower Canada District. It was the latter arrangement that corresponded most closely to the British Wesleyan leadership’s vision of the

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presidential role. In 1834 Jabez Bunting argued that “in order to secure any decidedly beneficial result,” the Canadas “should be the residence of the President annually appointed in Upper Canada, during the year of his Presidency – connected with his acting, also, as Chairman … of the Lower Canada District, and thus forming a connecting link between the two Provinces, & exercising a salutary & uniting influence over the Methodism of both.” “I see very little good indeed can result from a hasty annual visit,” he added, “certainly none worth the great expense of it.”63 Bunting wanted the presidency to be the catalyst of Methodist unity in the Canadas under the aegis of the home connexion. Several of the British-appointed presidents of the Canada Conference managed to fulfill that role. William Lord, for instance, did yeoman work reconciling the Canadian Methodist ministers and laity to the union of 1833, temporarily at least. After Lord toured Upper Canada in 1835, Joseph Stinson happily reported to the WMMS that “the Societies generally are in peace & the tone of good Methodist & British feeling is increasing” across the connexion. By way of proof, the Canada Conference of 1835 officially thanked the British Wesleyans “for the appointment of our highly esteemed friend and brother, the Rev. William Lord, as our President.” “His extensive travels and arduous labours in this Province,” the Canadian ministers continued, “have eminently and effectually contributed to strengthen and consolidate the union between the two Connections.”64 After the union was reconstituted in 1847, James Dixon played a similar role. Even though he only visited the Canadas briefly, his presidency was so successful that the missionary Enoch Wood urged the British Conference not to “forget the original design for the Presidential chair” of the Canada connexion. “Every body was delighted with dear Dr. Dixon,” he added. Between 1852 and 1854, Enoch Wood himself, serving as both president of the Canada Conference and chairman of the Lower Canada District, convinced the latter to accept absorption by the former. “The business ended well relating to this union,” Wood informed the Missionary Secretary John Beecham in 1854, with “much good feeling” all around.65 Some of the presidents continued to work to maintain the link between the British and Canada Conferences once they returned to Britain. William Lord took it upon himself to settle business for any British Wesleyan missionaries who could not travel from Lower and Upper Canada to the home country. More importantly, perhaps, he did his best to keep up to date on developments among the Methodist communities in the two colonies; at one point, he complained that “it is a long time since I have had the pleasure of a letter from Montreal, & [I] begin to be

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anxious to know what you are doing.” He also kept his correspondents in the Canadas informed about the latest developments in the British connexion, discussing, for example, who was likely to be elected president of the Wesleyan Conference in 1842.66 When John Ryerson travelled to Britain in 1846 to negotiate the reunion, he noted that “no man in England, with the exception of Mr. Stinson, has manifested so deep an interest in our welfare & acted … so kindly … as Mr. Lord.” Eleven years later, Lord’s interest in his former brethren remained undiminished. “I do not forget Canada,” he wrote to the British Wesleyan missionary John Douse, “nor any old Friends, many of whom are as dear to me as any in any part of the world. I rejoice in your success, & see a glorious future for Canada & Canadian Methodism.” Later presidents, such as the Englishman William Morley Punshon, who held the post between 1868 and 1872, were equally conscientious. In 1873 Punshon let Egerton Ryerson know that “I have been kept pretty well abreast of your doings” through the colonial newspapers “which reach me, but I am anxious to hear now of the inner life of my friends” in Canada.67 The presidents strove to make the Methodists in Lower and Upper Canada as integral a part of the British Wesleyan gospel field as circumstances permitted. Those ministers who were appointed by their respective Conferences to conduct short deputations to either Britain or the Canadas also helped fix the Canada connexion within a larger British world. When the Canadian Methodist minister Anson Green crossed the Atlantic in 1856 he put the case for deputations succinctly in his address to the British Conference. “The advantages arising from a personal communication with the different branches of the Wesleyan Church,” he stated, “and especially with this Body … are so many and so great, as to produce a strong desire to perpetuate the practice. We are one with you in sentiment and feeling, and I am directed by my brethren to assure you of their high personal regards, and … to present to you their filial affections, their cordial Christian greetings.”68 This was not simply an example of a canny Canadian Methodist playing up to a British Wesleyan crowd. The establishment and maintenance of connexional unity was a constant aim of the various deputations that passed back and forth between centre and periphery. The WMMS sent Robert Alder to the Canadas in 1832 and again in 1834, for instance, to settle difficulties with its own missionaries. In 1832 Alder also laid the groundwork for the first union between the British and Canada Conferences.69 The relationship between the Canada and British connexions was conducted in large part through increasingly frequent deputations between

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1832 and 1840. Egerton Ryerson was “appointed the Delegate with full powers” in 1832 to travel to London to meet with the WMMS “to complete every thing” connected with the union of the two Conferences. When that union began to lurch towards dissolution in 1839 and early 1840, a flurry of contending deputations crossed both the Atlantic and the American-Canadian border. The WMMS sent Robert Alder overseas in 1839. The British Wesleyan missionaries looked forward to his arrival; he would, at last, convey “precisely and officially the views of our Conference on the question with which any President of this [Canada] Conference must more or less mix himself up.”70 In April 1840 Joseph Stinson rushed down to Baltimore to discuss the deteriorating situation in the Canadas with Robert Newton, the British Wesleyan delegate to the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States.71 Two months later the Canada Conference appointed two representatives, Egerton and William Ryerson, to travel to Britain with instructions “to use all proper means to prevent collision between the two Connexions.” Joseph Stinson and his fellow missionary, Matthew Richey, also braved the Atlantic in an attempt to defend the policies of the WMMS’s agents in Upper Canada.72 This level of interchange resumed between 1847 and 1874. In negotiating the 1847 Articles of Union, the two connexions agreed that, “the Canada Conference should have the same power as the Irish Conference now has, of sending Representatives” to the British Conference.73 The Canada connexion took advantage of this provision, dispatching eleven deputations to Britain over the next twenty-seven years. The Canadian Methodists expected the British Wesleyans to reciprocate. In 1856 the British ministers John Hannah and Frederick Jobson did pass through the Canadas. Enoch Wood noted that “this transient call from two such distinguished men, ministers of the Parent Body, was very much appreciated.” Jobson himself recorded scenes of large numbers of “British emigrants” in Toronto pressing them for news about the home connexion. “In the small vestry of Richmond Street Chapel,” he wrote, “I must have counted not less than twenty Methodists who had emigrated from our own county of Lincoln” alone.74 Two years later, a former president of the British Conference, Francis West, was rumoured to be coming to Lower and Upper Canada; Wood advised one of the missionary secretaries not to lay too much of a burden on him. He should be free to see the gospel work in the Canadas and to preach in some of the Canada connexion’s principle churches. That was the only way, Wood wrote, to make “our people … feel there is in reality a bond of Union between us and you.”75

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Sometimes, however, the British connexion did not deliver, leading the Methodists in the Canadas to stress, once again, the overriding importance of their own field of labour within the home connexion’s world parish. When Francis West failed to put in an appearance in 1859, for example, Joseph Stinson was disappointed. “I have no doubt,” he note, “but his ministerial labours and his counsels would have done us good. I think with you, that the growing importance of our great work on this vast continent is such, as demands and will amply justify & repay the trouble & expense of a pretty frequent visit from the Father Land of one or two of our beloved Fathers and Brethren.” “Our Conference is young & ardent,” Stinson added, “we have a glorious field before us, and we shall be better prepared to meet the necessities of the times and accomplish our work by the maintenance of a close connection with the Parent Conference.”76 Other ministers in Lower and Upper Canada felt the same way. Enoch Wood urged the British Conference to send one of the missionary secretaries in West’s place. “Let us have a delegation to ourselves,” he wrote, “whose eyes and ears, whose heart and pen will do us justice, and the great country we are taking a leading part in evangelizing.” In 1863 Wood sent another letter to the WMMS, explaining that “we heartily desire to maintain our Union with you,” but the Methodists in those colonies had cause “to complain that so few of the Representatives of the Parent Body” had appeared before a Conference “which in sixteen years has increased from One hundred and seventy to more than Six hundred Ministers and Preachers now receiving appointments.”77 There was a sense of grievance behind those words. Tension continued to go hand in hand with feelings of transatlantic unity among the Methodists in Lower and Upper Canada.

V There are also larger conclusions to be drawn from this story of transoceanic integration. The Methodists in Lower and Upper Canada were involved in a relationship with the British connexion that cannot be explained as a story of growing Canadian Methodist exceptionalism. Neither, however, can it be viewed as an example of British cultural domination. Instead, the Wesleyans in Britain and the various Methodist groups in the Canadas were locked in the same love-hate relationship that took shape among settler communities across the empire. Groups as diverse as the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century political and religious elites in British North America, nineteenth-century Ulster Protestants and white, Rhodesian farmers in the mid-twentieth century had a dual

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identity: they were Britons abroad and inhabitants of a new and different country that required new and different modes of thought and existence.78 For their part, the British Wesleyan leadership did not stop considering their ministers and laity as fellow Britons once they crossed the Atlantic; and those ministers and laity did not stop identifying themselves as Britons once they had settled in a new land. Given their new environment, however, they could not remain completely the same as the people they had left behind in Britain. It was that tension, as we will see, that shaped the cultural development of the British Wesleyan community in Lower and Upper Canada.

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2 “The Storm so Strangely Raised in the British Provinces” A British Wesleyan Errand into the Wilderness In 1818 two Methodist worlds – British and American – collided in the town of St Catharines, Upper Canada. A British Wesleyan missionary, Henry Pope, was making his way around the Niagara peninsula, spreading God’s word, when he received what must have been a surprising invitation from Henry Ryan, the leading Methodist Episcopal preacher in the colony. In a departure from the ill will that had characterized all the previous dealings between the two connexions in the Canadas, Ryan asked Pope to attend an American Methodist service at the house of some local laity. Pope accepted, though he likely sensed that there was more going on here than an attempt at denominational détente. As soon as he stepped through the door, his suspicions would have been confirmed. A prayer meeting was already in progress, directed by Reverend George Ferguson. Seeing the British Wesleyan missionary, and likely forewarned by Ryan, who was sitting “in a small room behind that in which the prayer-meeting was held,” Ferguson cut the devotions short and launched into a hymn: Jesus, great Shepherd of the sheep, To thee for help we fly; Thy little flock in safety keep, For, O! the wolf is nigh. He comes, of hellish malice full, To scatter, tear, and slay; He seizes every straggling soul, As his own lawful prey.

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By his own account, Pope was more amused than anything else to be identified as a ravenous beast, intent on ripping the American Methodist congregations in Upper Canada to shreds. And while this episode ended well enough – Ryan invited Pope into the back room, questioned him about his intentions, prayed with him and shook his hand, remarking that he was not such a bad fellow after all – Ferguson’s encounter with Pope could be a microcosm of how we have perceived the history of Methodism in Lower and Upper Canada between 1814 and the mid-1830s. The American Methodists and British Wesleyans were locked in conflict with one another and the former usually got the better of the latter.1 Concentrating on the evolution of American Methodism into a Canadian denomination, scholars have transformed that perception into orthodoxy. The resulting narrative goes something like this: the Methodist Episcopals from the United States, who began to arrive in the Canadas in 1791, were the zealous bearers of “American republican values” in the form of a “culture of popular religion.” These radical itinerants dominated the backcountry, particularly in Upper Canada, leaving the cities to the more conservative and less successful ministers of the Church of England. When the British Wesleyans appeared on the scene after the War of 1812, they attempted to buttress the paternalistic authority of the Anglican establishment; or, at least, they did nothing to threaten the close links between the colonial state and the Church of England that the governors of Lower and Upper Canada had begun to forge in the 1790s and early 1800s. In places like Lower Canada’s Eastern Townships, the ideological clash between American Methodism and British Wesleyanism manifested itself in heated disputes over pew rents, church building, and other local issues that pitted free-wheeling, often poor American settlers against British Wesleyan missionaries trained in a religious tradition that, by the 1820s, was becoming “increasingly conservative and middle class in outlook and composition.”2 By portraying the British Wesleyans as a uniformly reactionary force in the Atlantic world, this account of liberals and conservatives clashing in a time of colonial settlement obscures more than it reveals about the cultural development of Methodism in the Canadas. Missionaries like Henry Pope were not simply the conservative agents of British Wesleyanism in Lower and Upper Canada. The British Wesleyan community in the colonies – the missionaries and their lay supporters – had an existence of its own. We can catch a glimpse of that more complex reality in the work of several historians of Methodism in Canada. Goldwin French and Neil Semple, for instance, have both noted that there were serious disputes between the British Wesleyan community in the colonies

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and the WMMS during the early 1820s and again in the early 1830s. In each instance, the missionaries, egged on by a vociferous laity, objected to W MMS policies that they felt were wrongheaded, including a general withdrawal of all British Wesleyan missionaries from Upper Canada in 1820 and a union with the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada in 1833. There were “violent protests from Wesleyan sympathizers in Upper Canada” in 1820 and the laity looked on the union of 1833 “most unfavourably.” Among the missionaries, however, these reactions were little more than the product of the “personal antagonism and differing perceptions of the conduct of the church” caused by contact with the American Methodists.3 This reductionism has the benefit of leaving the scholarly orthodoxy intact; it accords less well with the day-to-day existence of the British Wesleyan missionaries and laity in the Canadas. The early history of the British Wesleyan community in Lower and Upper Canada cannot be understood outside of the context of American Methodist expansion and the British world that we examined in the last chapter. Each of those contexts influenced how the British Welseyan missionaries and laity in the Canadas perceived their role not only in those colonies, but also in the larger transatlantic British connexion. Viewed from that dual perspective, the key dates in the history of Methodism in central Canada were 1791, when the Methodist Episcopal Church established its first circuit in the colonies, and 14 July 1789, when the people of Paris stormed the Bastille. In the six years after 1814, a combination of the political and social forces unleashed by the French Revolution and conditions in North America convinced the British Wesleyan missionaries and laity in Lower and Upper Canada that they were engaged in an errand into the wilderness. With the support of the connexion in Britain, they would preserve those colonies from the double-barreled threat of republicanism and revolution posed, they believed, by the Methodist Episcopals. Between 1820 and 1834, however, the relationship between the Wesleyan Methodists in Britain and the American Methodists underwent a dramatic shift. As a result, a culture began to emerge among the British Wesleyans in the Canadas that remained conservative in comparison to that of the Methodist Episcopals, but which also differed in significant and subversive ways from the culture of metropolitan Wesleyanism.4

I The French Revolution was a little over a year and a half old when six working-class men carried John Wesley’s body to the grave in March 1791. Over the following decades the interplay of external and internal

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factors laid the groundwork for a conservative, if not reactionary, temperament among the British Wesleyan clergy. Chief among those factors were Britain’s long war against revolutionary and Napoleonic France, the discontents that surfaced among the laity and ministers after Wesley’s death and the post-1815 resurgence of British radicalism. Politically speaking, the 1790s and early 1800s were the worst of times for British Wesleyanism. The Conference happily recorded membership increases of thousands, but it also had to deal with a growing suspicion among England’s great and good that Methodism’s itinerant preachers were a fifth column, serving the interests of France’s most vehement revolutionaries – the Jacobins. From 1792 on, the Tory government of William Pitt the Younger cracked down on political dissidents of all kinds; it began to insist on specific pledges of loyalty from the British connexion by the end of 1795. At the same time, anti-Jacobin novels and tracts portrayed the Methodists as naïve, sometimes crack-brained enthusiasts who fluctuated between preaching the doctrines of Jesus Christ and the revolutionary trinity of liberté, égalité, fraternité.5 Anglican ministers thundered the same message from their pulpits. In his 1800 charge to the clergy of Rochester, Bishop Samuel Horsley argued that Methodist schools were havens of Jacobin influence, more concerned with teaching atheism and sedition than religion. Reverend T.E. Owen was equally vehement two years later, stating that the Wesleyans and other dissenters aimed at nothing less than the “overthrow” of Britain’s “religious and political constitutions” and the unleashing of “a revolution in these dominions similar to that which has deluged France with blood.”6 The British connexion’s leaders had to find a way to weather this storm or they risked going under. With few exceptions, the Wesleyan ministry threw itself behind the cause of King and country. In 1792 Samuel Bradburn, who, only months earlier, had preached in favour of the revolutionary Thomas Paine’s rabble-rousing tract, The Rights of Man, did a complete about-face and began arguing that there were no “better subjects in the British Empire than Methodists” since their views on civil government were based “not upon political manoeuvres, but upon the holy scriptures.”7 That year’s British Conference went one better, declaring, “none of us shall, either in writing or conversation speak lightly or irreverently of the Government under which he lives.” The ministers also resolved that “the oracles of God command us to be subject to higher powers” and “that honour to the king is there connected with the fear of God.”8 William Thompson, the first president of the connexion after Wesley’s death, made good on

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those resolutions. He wrote to William Pitt and personally guaranteed Wesleyan Methodism’s support for the government.9 At the same time the connexional press churned out sermon after sermon aimed at convincing both the powers that be and Wesleyanism’s own lay supporters that the itinerant ministry was determined to teach the world to “fear God and honour the King.”10 By 1794 ministers like John Pawson were being swept up in the first great wave of wartime British patriotism. He might have had doubts about the efficacy of Pitt’s war against revolutionary France, but Pawson also insisted that “I am as well affected to, and as heartily pray for the King, etc., as any man upon earth.” The dissenters, he added, “have on all occasions distinguished themselves as the most loyal subjects.”11 Driving the point home, the Conference of 1796 declared “no man, nor number of men, in our Connexion, on any account or occasion” should henceforth “do or attempt to do anything new.”12 Panicked reaction could hardly go much further than that. The Wesleyan ministry was also driven rightward in response to a series of internal upheavals during the 1790s. Soon after John Wesley’s death in 1791 the itinerant preachers faced a powerful lay agitation for complete separation from the Church of England – a campaign that centred on the desire of a large number of laypeople for the administration of the Lord’s Supper in the connexion’s chapels. Under Wesley’s iron rule, that practice had not been a part of regular services; instead, Wesleyan Methodists were obliged to attend their local Anglican church and receive communion as members of the Church of England. Already problematic at a time of counter-revolutionary reaction, this demand for a new relationship with Anglicanism was made even more explosive by the opposition that the trustees of the connexion’s chapels mounted to any change whatsoever in Wesleyan worship. As men of property, they were predisposed to support organizations that promised to ensure social stability, including the Church of England. Facing insurrection on two fronts, some of the denomination’s leading ministers wanted to fight the trustees into the last ditch. “If the preachers … are united,” William Thompson declared, “it will then be out of the power of any rich or overbearing men among us, or even Devils to prevent our usefulness.” Others, like the excitable Thomas Coke, wanted to put down the lay agitation, convinced that any move in the direction of Dissent would flood the connexion with people prepared to “toast … a bloody summer and a headless King.”13 In the event, calmer counsels prevailed and the Conference of 1795 put forward a “Plan of Pacification.”

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The plan constituted a compact between the ministry and the laity; it forbade the general administration of the sacraments across the British connexion, but permitted it on a chapel-by-chapel basis, provided that a majority of the local laity, the trustees, and the Conference agreed. By allowing – and sometimes forcing – the preachers to celebrate the Lord’s Supper separately from the Church of England, the plan transformed Wesleyanism into a genuinely dissenting denomination.14 But even that change in church government did not go far enough for one minister. Alexander Kilham was the archetype of Methodism’s angry young men – a long line of ministers, stretching into the mid-nineteenth century, who dreamed of ushering in an age of faith and unity, and whose efforts invariably split the connexion into warring factions. For his part, Kilham took the rhetoric of the age of democratic revolution and ran with it. He identified himself as a thoroughgoing Whig, bent on parliamentary reform and ridding his own church of its antidemocratic trappings. He became the self-appointed champion of lay rights within British Wesleyanism, publishing a pamphlet in early 1795 arguing that no one could oppose greater power for the laity “but narrow-minded bigots and lordly, overgrown bishops. The devil and his angels, with all their helpers, cannot hinder the people.”15 These were fighting words, and, in the autumn of 1795, Kilham went further in his Progress of Liberty among the People Called Methodists – a vitriolic attack on what he saw as the despotic tendencies of many of his fellow preachers. “We detest the conduct of persecuting Neros, and all the bloody actions of the great Whore of Babylon,” he wrote, “and yet in our measure, we tread in their steps.” “The cool dispassionate voice of the people, is the voice of God,” Kilham added.16 He was at it again in 1796, noting that, “every thinking person must be convinced, that our people have not the privileges which belong to them as christians. And until they come forward to help in managing our affairs, it will be impossible to give them satisfaction.”17 Even a later clerical dissident like James Everett was shocked by this call for democratic reform. He described Kilham as the human equivalent of a horsefly that “invariably passes over the sound part of the animal, and instinctively finds its way to a sore spot.”18 Many of Kilham’s contemporaries in the pastorate felt the same way and they were determined to drive him and his revolutionary politics out of the Wesleyan fold. Samuel Bradburn, for instance, was quick to denounce Kilham’s “dream of Equality” as “worthy only of such inexperienced novices.” Other leading members of the Wesleyan ministry, organizing to expel the troublemaker from the connexion, assured themselves

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that none of their “truly pious and useful men” would leave “the main body of the Preachers and people, and as to the others, such as Kilham, the sooner they go the better.” Thomas Coke was even more blunt, writing about aiming “a fatal blow” against “Methodist Jacobinism.”19 When the British Conference met in 1796, Kilham’s fellow ministers drummed him out of their ranks. Kilham might have grinned at his attackers during his trial and expulsion, but afterwards he lashed out, arguing that “no government under heaven, except absolute monarchies or the papal hierarchy, are so despotic and oppressive as ours is.”20 Over the following year, he crisscrossed England, convincing about five thousand like-minded laypeople to abandon the old connexion and join him in establishing the New Connexion. Kilham promised to grant the laity an equal share in the government of their own church.21 His former colleagues in the Wesleyan ministry responded by hinting darkly that his early death in 1798 – caused by “a small piece of bone … lodged in his throat at dinner” – was more providential than accidental. They also denounced the Kilham and his followers as “mere Tom Paineites” who, like Paine himself, were determined to diffuse “their levelling and destructive principles” across an embattled Britain.22 The British Conference would do its utmost to suppress all such radical activity, both among its own laity and in society in general. If anything, the post-1815 resurgence of British radicalism reinforced this conservative temperament. The Peterloo Massacre of 1819 was a turning point. Wesleyan preachers across England became convinced that murderous revolutionaries lurked in every shadow after the Manchester yeomanry hacked and slashed its way through a working-class crowd that had gathered to hear the radical Henry “Orator” Hunt speak in favour of parliamentary reform. Following Peterloo, the ministry worked hard to drive any lay radicals out of the connexion – “They are down,” one preacher gleefully reported in 1821, “and we intend to keep them down” – and to instill obedience to Caesar on all the circuits.23 The Conference issued a general circular in 1819: “The government that affords us protection is entitled to our constitutional subjection and support,” it decreed. Wesleyan laypeople were to “submit themselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake.” The laity could certainly unite with their fellow subjects “in every proper and lawful demonstration of attachment to our free constitution, and of loyalty to our venerable Sovereign,” but they must “meddle not with men that are given to change.” Following agitators like Hunt would gain godly folk nothing and might lose them everything they held dear, from “the peace of your minds,” to “the domestic

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comforts of your families,” “your civil liberty, as well as your religious privileges, and the protection of your persons and property by wholesome laws!”24 Radicalism, republicanism, and democracy had become the great bugbears of the British Wesleyan ministry by the early 1820s.

II The age of revolution cast a long a shadow over Lower and Upper Canada, just as it did over Britain. And, in the colonies, fears of radical excess fostered an equally significant cultural transformation among the people called Methodists. When the British connexion sent an initial contingent of missionaries to the Canadas in 1814, they quickly fell out with the Methodist Episcopal ministers from the United States that were already thick on the ground. Over the next six years the question of loyalty – who was a “true” Briton and who was not – became the most important issue dividing those two groups.25 The trouble the American Methodists faced in the Canadas was that any claim they made to British loyalty seemed suspect to anyone inclined to distrust or dislike them. The American Methodist ministers, who began to establish circuits in the Eastern Townships, the Bay of Quinte, and around the major urban centres of Montreal, Quebec City, and Kingston in the early 1790s, were dyed-in-the-wool Yankees from New York and New England. Their leaders, particularly Francis Asbury, had made a point of siding with the new republic and breaking with the staunchly loyal British connexion in 1784.26 Reflecting this radical political heritage, as well as the spiritual zeal that was common among evangelical groups in Federalist America, American Methodist preaching was otherworldly, overtly republican, and populist. Building on their often vivid dreams and visions, Methodist Episcopal preachers strove to draw people out of the moral corruption of this world; they also attempted to maintain the proper subordination of laity to ministry, while, like Alexander Kilham in Britain, equating the experiences and actions of the common people with the will of God.27 Many of the American Methodist ministers in the Canadas returned to the safety of their native land during the War of 1812 – though some, like Henry Ryan, stayed in the colonies, hauling supplies for the British army and proving his loyalty to the imperial crown and the colonial government, to his own satisfaction at least.28 With the Treaty of Ghent in 1814, the American Conference began to re-establish its presence in Lower and Upper Canada, but it was careful to station ministers “of British birth”

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or “Americans … of moderate politics” north of the border.29 The bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church probably hoped that this precaution would allow their preachers to avoid any charges of disloyalty or subversion. They could not have been more mistaken. The first British Wesleyan missionaries in the Canadas turned on their American brethren almost at once. They denounced the Methodist Episopal preachers they encountered as a dangerous and anti-British element in colonial society. Riding through Cornwall, Upper Canada, in 1817, Henry Pope set a tone that was at once xenophobic and hysterical. He declared that the presence of American Methodist ministers in colony was “more than English blood would (or could) endure!!” These Methodist Episcopals were “disaffected” men. In the Bay of Quinte, the missionaries charged their American brethren “with being ‘democrats,’ and enemies of our Government etc.”30 According to one group of Methodist Episcopal ministers, the British Wesleyans aimed to justify their presence in the Canadas by arguing that “‘these are British provinces,’ ‘We have a better right,’ ‘You are aliens,’ ‘Tis more loyal to join us,’ ‘It is contrary to the law for his Majesty’s subjects to come under a foreign Ecclesiastical jurisdiction.’”31 The British Wesleyans in Lower and Upper Canada, like the ministers in the home country, sided with the governing powers – a position that, in their minds, put them in opposition to the “democrats” of American Methodism. As the missionary Robert Lusher put it in 1819, “the fact is, American Preachers as well as people are known in general to be so much opposed to Englishmen, to their glorious Constitution and their beloved Country, that true subjects will not hear them.”32 The implication was that such “true subjects” would flock to British Wesleyan services. This was a convenient argument for the missionaries to make. Highlighting the American Methodists’ republican roots gave these British Wesleyan ministers an opportunity to extract themselves from the awkward position they found themselves in during the early years of their redeeming work. The missionaries quickly realized that, if they were to confine their labours to areas untouched by their Methodist Episcopal brethren, they would be locked out of Upper Canada, Montreal, and Quebec City. They would be forced to concentrate on rural Lower Canada, which, thanks to its largely French and Catholic population, was a stony gospel field. As James Booth explained in 1816, he and his fellow ministers found it “very difficult to form new circuits in Lower Canada in consequence of so very few English settlements” being in close proximity to one another. He could not believe, Booth added, that the

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home connexion ever intended its missionaries to “be shut up in a small village where only a few can be got who understands them.” Those areas of the Canadas occupied by the Methodists Episcopals presented a much more fruitful prospect for British Wesleyan usefulness.33 If the missionaries convinced the WMMS that their American brethren were a revolutionary threat, the home connexion could hardly censure them for breaking up the Methodist Episcopals’ circuits in the colonies. In that respect, it helped that, even before the first of the British missionaries arrived in the Canadas in 1814, British Wesleyanism itself appealed to many laypeople desperate to find a way to remain within the Methodist fold without being associated with anything American.34 During the 1790s and early 1800s there were several invasion scares in Lower and Upper Canada, all of them connected, in one way or another, with the United States. In 1793 and 1794 the French minister to the American republic, Edmond-Charles Genet, attempted to lay the groundwork for a French attack on Lower Canada, using agents like the French Canadian expatriate Henri Mezière to circulate revolutionary propaganda through the colony from his base in New York. Another agent in the service of the French Republic, the New Englander David McLane, was tried and executed for treason at Quebec City in 1797. Four years later, a penurious road builder, Asa Danforth, became involved in a plot to overthrow the government of Upper Canada that included the vice-president of the United States, that relentless schemer Aaron Burr, among its supporters.35 None of these plans came to anything, but the atmosphere of fear and anti-Americanism that they fostered affected many Methodist societies. The class leaders and trustees of Montreal Methodism wrote to the British Conference on the eve of the War of 1812. They complained that their Methodist Episcopal ministers were no longer suitable, that they themselves were being stigmatized “as a set of Jacobins, when in fact only our spiritual guides are so,” and that “we are supposed to be corrupted in the Serbonian bog of democracy, which we abhor!” “On these accounts,” the Montreal laity continued, “we have long wished and most affectionately desired a union with you, who dwell in a country we are united to by every tie of sacred love and gratitude.”36 In December 1815, the secretary of the WMMS quite rightly pointed out that the first missionaries were sent to Montreal because of the “very pressing request of the people of that place.”37 After the actual experience of invasion during the War of 1812, a growing number of Methodist laypeople in the Canadas were willing to

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believe – along with the rising star of the British Wesleyan ministry, Jabez Bunting – that “nothing could be more fatal to real liberty whether in church or state” than democracy.38 In 1817, Paul Glasford, a prominent member of the Methodist society in Matilda, Upper Canada, confidently stated that “the American preachers had not right to preach in Canada – that measures would be adopted to have them paid off and sent out of the country.”39 Three years later, the Methodist laity of Newcastle, Upper Canada, argued that the gospel labours of the “American Methodists Preachers … were they sufficient, are for many reasons, unacceptable to the inhabitants of Canada.” The Methodist Episcopal ministers’ connection to Yankee politics made them repugnant to the colonial authorities in Upper Canada and this “much limited their usefulness to His Majesty’s subjects, many of whom, though not opposed to Methodism, never hear them.”40 This view was shared by a group of fifty-six Irish immigrants, just about to leave Limerick for the New World in June 1819. “We … request,” they wrote, that the British Conference would send them “preachers from England & Ireland” who, they believed, would be “more profitable to us and acceptable to the Government of the country where we are going than … those of the United States who hold different sentiments with respect to Kingly Government to what we do.”41 Whether pre-1815 settlers or post-1815 immigrants, a section of the laity in the Canadas was prepared to support and propagate the conservative ethos of British Wesleyanism. For their part, the Methodist Episcopals quickly realized that there was more at stake here than control of this or that circuit: they were in danger of being labeled disloyal and driven out of Lower and Upper Canada. American Methodist preachers, like Henry Ryan, hit back as hard as they could, arguing that they were “conscientious in praying for Kings and all that are in authority.” In January 1818, another Methodist Episcopal minister, Nathan Bangs, scoffed at the idea that the British missionaries had any right to lecture their American brethren on the meaning of loyalty. After all, he suggested, it was those very British missionaries who were urging the Methodist Episcopal laity in Lower and Upper Canada to abandon their old allegiance to the American Methodist connexion. “What a wonder,” Bangs wrote sarcastically, “that aliens, surrounded by such loyal Subjects are permitted to preach at all, or even to escape the Gibbet.”42 “It must be something very singular,” Ryan declared in a general circular published in April 1818, “that has caused those men [the British missionaries] to swarm out of England … and express by their practice, a desire to crowd themselves upon a people

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in the Canadas, where a large majority of Methodists are in pointed opposition to their procedure.” The British Wesleyan invasion of Lower and Upper Canada was an unjustifiable act – the American Methodists preachers stood in as good a stead with the government of the colonies as any of the British missionaries.43 Laypeople across Upper Canada also defended the character of their Methodist Episcopal ministers, striving to define them as the epitome of British loyalty. While the leading laity of Montreal insisted that their ongoing association with the American Methodist preachers had led others to view them as “a nest of sedition,” eighty-two members of the Yonge Street and Ancaster circuits pointed out that “most” of those preachers had actually “become subjects of this Government.” The latter could see no reason to accept missionaries from the other side of the Atlantic simply because they were “British born.” In the Bay of Quinte, a group of four laymen and two preachers stated that “motives of Conscience influence our attachment to our Christian and Beloved Sovereign and to the happy constitution of our Country,” but they nevertheless wished to remain within the bounds of the Methodist Episcopal Church. There was, from their point of view, no difficulty in reconciling British loyalty and American Methodist worship. Ninety-two laymen on the Niagara circuit were of the same mind. “We feel an attachment to our King and Country,” they wrote in a petition to the W M M S in mid-1817, “but was it justified for National prejudice to interfere with the Church of Christ[?]” The Methodist Episcopal ministers had, after all, “been subject to our Government and the most of them are residents among us and have been treated with respect by our Government.”44 The laity who stood by the American Methodists continued to hammer away at that argument. In 1820 the leading members of the Bay of Quinte circuit pointed out that their ministers had never “made politics any part of their public ministry, except to teach obedience to the laws; to fear God and honor the King.” In this, they were no different from the British missionaries.45 By the 1820 the question of who had the right to abrogate the label of “loyal Briton” had created a formidable barrier between the British Wesleyan and Methodist Episcopal communities in Lower and Upper Canada. In the six years after 1814 the leadership of the Wesleyan connexion in Britain exacerbated that division through a combination of confusion and conviction. As a result, perhaps, of the many problems with transatlantic communication during that time, the W M M S seemed only vaguely aware of conditions in Lower and Upper Canada, much less of the rancorous conflict taking shape between its missionaries and the American Methodists. In 1816 the WMM S published an official report

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stating that the people of the Canadas were without Protestant ministers and were “verging towards complete heathenism,” or, even worse, “constantly attaching themselves to the Roman Catholics.”46 Yet, a year earlier, the Methodist Episcopals had pointed out how wrong such ideas were and had demanded the immediate withdrawal of the British missionaries from Lower and Upper Canada. James Buckley, the secretary of the WMMS, did not agree. He argued that the British Wesleyans could not abandon those colonies now that they had missionaries there. The “congeniality of sentiment” between missionaries and laity, Buckley noted, “might tend to facilitate the success of the Gospel in those parts which are under the British government.” He did not wish to stress politics, he added in a letter to Francis Asbury, but the “general habits and prejudices” of many of the settlers in places like Montreal “must be in favour of this country and of English preachers.”47 At the same time, Buckley instructed two of the leading ministers in the Maritimes, William Bennett and William Black, to attend the next meeting of the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, scheduled to take place in Baltimore in 1816. Bennett and Black, Buckley wrote, must do their best to settle the British and American connexions’ dispute over the work in Lower and Upper Canada. The British Wesleyan leadership was “anxious by every just & possible means to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace” between themselves and the Methodist Episcopals. “Their motto,” Buckley declared, “is ‘Let brotherly love continue.’” Two months later, however, Bennett and Black received emphatic instructions from the W M M S to “let nothing be wanting in power to keep possession of Montreal and if possible to obtain the Canadas.” Five months after that, following the failure of Bennett and Black’s efforts, the WMMS changed direction again and ordered its missionaries in Lower and Upper Canada to avoid conflict with the American Methodists, but not to abandon their own efforts in the two colonies.48 Here was confusion worse confounded.

III That confusion did not last long. On 10 July 1820 the Methodist connexions in Britain and the United States settled their differences and, in the process, transformed Methodism in the Canadas. In response to the agreement of 10 July, the Wesleyan missionaries and their lay supporters in the colonies began to elaborate a distinct British and Wesleyan identity – one that took shape in opposition to both the home connexion and the American Methodists.

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The agreement of 10 July 1820 was primarily the achievement of one Methodist Episcopal minister. John Emory was a man of undoubted talents. He entered the American Methodist ministry in 1809 and joined the Philadelphia Conference. He transferred to the Baltimore Conference in 1818 and, in 1828, became book editor for the entire connexion. Emory’s career reached a pinnacle in 1832 when he was elected bishop.49 In terms of the relationship between British and American Methodism, however, his most significant appointment came in 1820 when the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church selected him to act as its delegate to that year’s British Conference. He was instructed to “express to said conference our earnest desire … to cultivate the most friendly and harmonious relations with our brethren of the British connection.” Emory was also given the more specific task of proposing a way to settle the conflict between the two Conferences in the Canadas. “You are at liberty,” the Methodist Episcopal bishops wrote, “to stipulate that our preachers shall confine their labours in Canada to the upper province, provided the British missionaries will confine theirs to the lower.”50 Despite a few awkward moments, Emory was well received in Britain. One layperson told Emory that he spoke English very well and asked if English was much spoken in the United States. “Such are queries,” Emory noted, “which have been frequently put to me.”51 Most of the British Wesleyan ministers reacted to the American delegate with more intelligence. One of the leading men of the connexion, Joseph Entwisle, observed that Emory was “a thin, spare man, about thirty-five years of age; modest, grave, and pious, in his appearance and spirit: very intelligent, and interesting as a speaker, without the least parade or display. He began by speaking of the love of the American Methodists to us. We, the parents. They, the children.”52 Emory knew how to work a crowd. Adam Clarke, the  famous Wesleyan theologian and political halfwit, was so taken with the American representative that he invited him home and ran up the Union Jack in greeting. “He would have added the American stripes,” Emory wrote, “if he could have procured them.”53 The executive members of the WMM S were equally taken with this Methodist Episcopal minister. On 10 July they approved his suggestion to split the gospel work in the Canadas between the two connexions. Emory’s assurance that it grieved the Methodist Episcopals in those colonies to be represented as disloyal interlopers helped his cause. So did his statement that the American Methodist ministers in Lower and Upper Canada “teach loyalty and subjection to the higher powers.”54 There was some opposition when Emory’s plan was presented to the British

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Conference: one outspoken minister accused the Methodist Episcopals of preaching republicanism in the Canadas. The senior missionary secretary, Richard Watson, silenced the speaker.55 The Wesleyan leadership no longer accepted that opinion. The compromise struck by Emory and the W M M S was a watershed in the relationship between the British Wesleyan communities in the home country and in Lower and Upper Canada. After July 1820 the W M M S attempted to impose much more direct and consistent control over its missionaries than it had been able to achieve during the previous six years. All confusion vanished from the instructions that the missionary secretaries sent to the colonies. The W M M S ’s constant theme became “oneness” and the need to preserve the newly established unity between British Wesleyanism and American Methodism. In August 1820 the WMMS resolved “that as the American Methodists and ourselves are but one body, it would be inconsistent with our unity, and dangerous to that affection, which ought to characterize us in every place, to have different Societies and Congregations in the same towns and villages, or to allow of any intrusion on either side, into each other’s labours.”56 At the same time the missionary secretaries let their preachers in the Canadas know that the parent connexion had “recognized the principle, that the Methodist Body is one throughout the world, and that therefore its members are bound to cordial affection, and brotherly union.” All political considerations, including otherwise praiseworthy loyalty, were to be ignored in the interests of transatlantic harmony. The W M M S ordered its missionaries to withdraw from Upper Canada. This measure, the missionary secretaries stated, would “prevent collision, without sacrifice of public good.” They realized that there might be some opposition among the “warm spirits” of the British Wesleyan societies in the Canadas, but such “local prejudices” should be ignored. The missionaries were to “act upon the great principles sanctioned by the Conference.”57 Given the rather lax administrative efforts of the W M M S between 1814 and July 1820, these new orders signalled a revolution in church government. The missionary secretaries were endeavouring to exert their full authority over the connexional periphery. When definite news about the outcome of Emory’s mission reached Lower and Upper Canada, however, the reaction of the majority of the missionaries was not what we might expect from dutiful Wesleyan ministers. Their dislike of the Methodist Episcopals continued unabated, despite orders from the missionary secretaries to love thy neighbour. Robert Lusher wrote that he deeply regretted the plan adopted by the

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WMMS and the British Conference; a plan, Lusher felt, that the authorities at home would “not have adopted had a just representation been made to you by the American Delegate of the circumstances of the Upper Province or were you fully aware of the fatal influence it is likely to produce on the religious and political interests of this Country.” Among those fatal influences were “the introduction of a number foreign religious Teachers who it is well known hold our Constitution and government in the utmost contempt.”58 William Sutcliffe, having just arrived in the Canadas in October 1820, was quick to take up the same line as Lusher. He wrote that the plan to split the colonies between the two churches was “one of the most unadvised steps that ever our Dear Fathers and Brethren took.” More significantly, Sutcliffe began to differentiate between the Wesleyans in Britain and those in the Canadas. “Permit me to say that, as Englishmen you are unsuspicious,” he wrote, “you were not aware of the Yankee spirit, which obtains among the Americans. Our preachers have been treated very indifferently by some of them.”59 Sutcliffe’s letter suggested that the missionaries in Lower and Upper Canada were in a better position to say what was or was not good for those colonies. This had a hint of insubordination about it. Within a month the British Wesleyan community in the Canadas had turned against the connexional authorities in London. The line of reasoning adopted in the letters and petitions that the WMMS began to receive in late 1820 testify to the beginning of an indigenous British and Wesleyan culture in the Canadas. Many laypeople had already nailed their colours to the mast of British Wesleyanism in Upper Canada; they now found themselves torn between their attachment to the home connexion and their growing fear that the British connexion was about to abandon its missions in the colonies as a result of its détente with the Methodist Episcopals. From Matilda, Paul Glasford wrote that thousands of newly converted Methodists in Upper Canada exclaimed “against the injustice and cruelty” of the W M M S ’s new plan for the colonies. He pointed out that the “greater part” of those laypeople would “not go to hear a preacher from the United States, the sufferings of the inhabitants of this province by the plunder and destruction done by the American [troops] during the late war as well as old sufferers during the American Revolution has fired a prejudice not easily removed.” Glasford added a warning. “You may perhaps be surprised to learn that the arrangement with the American Delegate will not be carried into effect,” he wrote, “the members of Society, raised and brought to God through the instrumentality of your Missionaries refuse to be transferred.”60

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The leading laity of the British Wesleyan societies in Kingston and the Bay of Quinte agreed with Glasford. These laymen informed the W M M S that they also refused to be handed over to the tender mercies of the Methodist Episcopals. The leaders and stewards of the Kingston society wrote that they could not “submit to the decision of our Conference relative to the transfer” while they retained any memory of “the abuse” they had “received from them [the American Methodists].” “And we are fully persuaded,” they continued, “that if our Conference and Committee were fully acquainted with all particulars they would never have put us to the necessity of remonstrating against it.”61 One hundred and twelve British Wesleyan laity in the Bay of Quinte took a somewhat different tack. They argued that, in disobeying the directives of the British Conference and the WMMS , they were actually following the example of their brethren in the Old Country. “Gentlemen,” the petitioners wrote, “you will not allow any radicals to rule in your societies, nor ever to remain among you lest the[y] should poison the minds of others. Your Remonstrants act on the same principles. Those radicals are not loyal to their king and you put them from amongst you. Those Americans are disaffected to this government and enemies to our King and we cannot nor will not give ourselves to them and can you censure us for our conduct in this respect. We are persuaded you will not.”62 In defying the will of the connexional authorities in Britain, the British Wesleyans in the Canadas were only trying to create a perfect, untainted replica of the home country and connexion in the New World.63 If the British missionaries and their lay supporters in the Canadas actually expected this language of political and connexional loyalty to sway their brethren on the other side of the Atlantic, they were sorely mistaken. Having carefully examined the correspondence from the Canadas, the missionary secretaries went on the offensive in June 1821. They declared that the tone of several of the letters was “somewhat high, when it is considered that none of the Stations in Upper Canada support themselves, and some have contributed scarcely any thing to the support of the Missionaries they profess so highly to value.” They stated that, when “religious help from other quarters is within … reach,” they were under no obligation to provide missionaries. The missionary secretaries urged the members of the societies in the Canadas to “judge the Ministers who may be appointed by the American Conference with candour.” “If they preach the truth with ability,” they argued, “conduct themselves as good subjects, and exhort all to do the same, as the scriptures enjoin, the Committee cannot see on what Christian ground they can be objected

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to.” Then the missionary secretaries went for the jugular. The continued presence of the British Wesleyan missionaries would not avert the danger that the British Wesleyans in the colonies feared. “They speak as if we are already in command of the religion and conscience of a province which contains about 90,000 people,” the missionary secretaries wrote, “when our Societies amount only to 401, and our Missionaries to five or six. Whereas the Americans from their long establishment have a society of near 3,000 members, and 28 traveling, and 41 local preachers; and the American influence would still remain, unless we were to engage in a larger plan to displace them by British Missionaries.” That was not going to happen. It would be unchristian and, just as important to the constantly cash-strapped WMMS , far too expensive.64 Notwithstanding these arguments, animosity towards the settlement of 1820 continued unabated even among those missionaries who returned from Lower or Upper Canada to take up a circuit in Britain. Writing to the WMMS from London, England, in 1823, Thomas Catterick cast the events leading up to the partitioning of the Canadas in the form of a classic narrative of sin and salvation. “While we were … anticipating better days,” he stated, “the enemy of souls … was permitted to send, a servant of God from America, with fair words, to his Brethren in England, which words were heard, rec[eive]d and believed by you.” Such ingenuousness led to the inevitable Fall: “Resolutions were passed that greatly affected your Mission in Canada. They in fact gave a death blow to all our prospects & resolutions.” Paradise had been lost, largely thanks to the actions of the WMMS and the British Conference. The upper province now had to be redeemed “from its present fallen state.”65 And even though the WMMS agreed to retain a missionary presence in Kingston in 1821, the British Wesleyan preachers still stationed overseas kept up the pressure on the home connexion gradually to recommence its gospel work in Upper Canada. Such a move would be “attended with considerable advantage,” they argued.66 It would return that colony to the right path to salvation. The lay opponents of the compromise of 1820 in the Canadas remained equally determined to resist any change imposed by the connexional centre. They insisted that it was not their duty to join any denomination, Methodist or otherwise, against their own consciences. They argued “that the Ministry of the Missionaries from England has been more profitable to their souls than any other ministers they have ever heard.” In January 1824 missionary James Knowlan reported that “many of the people” of Upper Canada wanted “British Preachers,

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under British direction.” The preacher Joseph Stinson found the same attitude among the members of the Kingston societies nine months later. They would not unite with the Methodist Episcopals, he reported to the WMM S, “because they preach and act contrary to what they have been accustomed to.”67 There was both a political and a religious imperative at work here. There was no guarantee, one layman in Perth, Upper Canada, wrote in 1827, that the American Methodist ministers would “remain with us in time of peace and in time of war.” British missionaries, in contrast, would stay the course. And if the American Methodist preachers left the colony and British Wesleyans took their place, a glorious revival would doubtless ensue. “There is not,” this layman continued, “a District in the Province where the inhabitants are so exclusively British born subjects, nor a place in which the manners and customs of our Mother country are more cultivated and addressed to.” As a result, “a British Minister would be received with open arms, be a matter of rejoicing to the Wesleyan Methodists in the District, assimilate their minds, and prove a blessing to the Community.”68 Like their missionaries, these laypeople were still striving to maintain what they saw as untainted Britishness and Wesleyanism despite British Wesleyan policies.

IV This cultural development among the British Wesleyans in Lower and Upper Canada – defining themselves against both the home connexion and their American Methodist brethren – was consolidated during the 1830s thanks to another shift in the British Conference’s mission policy. In 1832 and early 1833 the British connexion moved towards a union with the recently independent Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada. The missionaries and their lay supporters rebelled against this initiative, while the Wesleyan leadership in Britain, interpreting developments in the Canadas in the context of their own church’s troubled history with schism, framed their response accordingly. The missionary secretaries were aware, from the start, that a union with the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada might cause trouble among their people in the colonies. They did their best to keep the initial negotiations secret. That did not work and the WMMS soon found itself dealing with heated opposition from its own preachers in the Canadas. Having heard news of the proposed union during an audience with LieutenantGovernor John Colborne, the missionary John Barry took the lead in whipping up an anti-union agitation.69 Barry, who had already established

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a formidable reputation as a controversialist and rabble-rouser in Ireland and Jamaica, refused to believe that any good could come of a union with the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada.70 Positioning themselves as “the guardians of the interests of Methodism in these Provinces,” his fellow missionaries, William Croscombe and John Hick, agreed. They felt compelled to warn the WMMS that the Canadian Methodists’ “political character … can never be changed”; their chief aims in contemplating the union were to preserve their own church and to “destroy British influence” in the colonies. The Canada connexion, Barry added, had “no object in view, but the total and final expulsion of all that is English from Canada.” And in yet another letter to the missionary secretaries, he warned that “if you wish to avoid the charge of radicalism, keep your people forever distinct from a body [the Canadian Methodists], who, I am sorry to say have made Methodism odious in Canada.”71 Once again, the missionaries were protecting genuine Britishness and Wesleyanism from what they saw as Methodist Episcopal duplicity and the home connexion’s stubborn stupidity. It was left to the British Wesleyan laity in Lower and Upper Canada, however, to take the anti-union agitation to its logical extreme: the threat of secession from the home connexion. In early October 1833 William Lunn of Montreal warned one of the leading ministers in Britain that, if the WMMS allowed the Canada Conference to take over the British Wesleyan society at Kingston and another that had taken shape at York, the missionaries stationed in the Canadas might have to “become independent” and establish their own “Wesleyan Missionary Society for Canada” in the Old Country. After setting up shop in Britain, this schismatic group would concentrate on performing the gospel labour that the WMMS seemed prepared to abandon – supplying Lower and Upper Canada “with as many zealous British Preachers” as its funds might permit. “And this,” Lunn made sure to point out, “will only be a consequence of the arrangement” that the British connexion had “recently made with the Upper Canada Conference.” A month later Lunn urged the missionary secretaries themselves to “repeal the Union at once,” unless they could find some way to ensure British Wesleyan supremacy within it. “If this be not done,” he added, “we cannot answer for the consequences.” He repeated the warning that if the WMMS forced the British Wesleyan community in Upper Canada to join the Canadian Methodists, “they will immediately become Independent, & we shall instantly join them.”72 In Upper Canada some of the leading laity in York began to translate Lunn’s words into actions. They locked the pro-union missionary Joseph

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Stinson out of their chapel.73 These laypeople vowed that they would “never consent, on any terms to be united” with the Canada Conference. They assured the WMMS that “we are desirous as you can be for the spread of true and genuine Methodism and would do all in our power to promote it.” At the same time, however, they were “fully convinced that the intended union with the Episcopal Methodists will not be the best means of affecting so desirable an object.” They also warned that, if the union went ahead, they would feel “compelled to connect ourselves with some other body of Christians among whom our religious privileges will be more permanently established than they at present appear to be.” These transplanted British Wesleyans wanted progress to halt – for the relationship between Wesleyanism in Britain and the Canadas to remain what it had been before 1833 or even 1820. If that did not happen, they would turn to “the Ranters or Primitive Methodists” or the “Canadian Wesleyans” – schismatic Methodist groups that had the advantage, respectively, of being British in origin or of rejecting American Methodism in the interest of imperial loyalty. “We prefer either of them,” the York laity concluded, “to the Episcopal Methodists, among whom we foresee nothing but strife, division and discord.”74 Another member of the York society, John Buttle, also raised the spectre of an “appeal … to every preacher in Great Britain.” “This is a matter of fearful import that may shake the foundation of your Missionary Machinery,” he noted, “I tremble for the result.”75 This argument was never going to sway the leaders of the British connexion. The Wesleyan ministry in Britain had actually become even less willing to tolerate dissent between 1820 and 1833. The Leeds organ agitation of 1827 demonstrated that trend most clearly. In 1820 the British Conference adopted a rule about introducing organs into its chapels. This organ rule stated that, in some instances, the Conference would allow the installation of these instruments, but that an initial request had to be made to a district meeting, “and if it obtain their sanction, shall be transferred to a committee at the Conference who shall report their opinion as to the propriety of acceding to the request.”76 In theory this process allowed the ministry to defend its central control over the connexion and to defuse any arguments between pro- and anti-organ factions that might arise at the local level. The preachers were aware that there were many laypeople who saw organs as a sign of worldly declension; but there were also other, mostly wealthy laity who believed organs were a suitable and even necessary sign of Wesleyanism’s rising social status. The trouble was that the second generation of Wesleyan ministers

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were more inclined to side with the latter than with the former.77 In one of his first major speeches before Conference, for instance, Jabez Bunting defended introducing an organ into a chapel in Liverpool. “The organ,” he wrote in his notes, “not Popish … If there be not flute stop, there will be no voluntaries; no danger of abuse.”78 This purely technical argument left a large number of Wesleyan laity unconvinced. In 1826 the division between pro- and anti-organ forces led to open conflict in Leeds. The wealthy trustees of the Brunswick chapel decided to install an organ, but they soon encountered opposition from a majority of the members of the circuits in the city. In October sixty local preachers protested against the trustees’ plan, arguing that an organ would not only be an unmethodistical innovation, but also a financial drain on the city’s poorer societies. When, in accordance with the organ rule, the question went before the Leeds District meeting, the ministers ruled against the introduction of an organ. Four of the Brunswick chapel trustees, however, refused to accept that decision and appealed it to the Conference. It was a tactic that bore bountiful fruit, from the trustees’ point of view. The Conference of 1827 decided to side with the wellto-do gentlemen of Leeds: it set aside the organ rule, overturned the judgment of the Leeds District meeting and declared that the Brunswick chapel could have an organ.79 This decision triggered a ferocious reaction among those local preachers and laity in Leeds who continued to oppose an organ. One particularly hotheaded local preacher, Matthew Johnson, began to organize his fellow dissidents into a protest movement against what he declared to be the Conference’s centralizing and arbitrary power. When the circuit superintendent, Edmund Grindrod, attempted to suspend Johnson, more than seventy local preachers sided with the latter, joining an increasingly raucous public agitation. Johnson was eventually expelled from the connexion, but, in the short term, that only made matters worse. Faced with mounting public opposition, a thoroughly beleaguered Grindrod decided to call in ministerial help, including the secretary of the Conference – Jabez Bunting. These carpetbagger ministers formed a special district meeting and, under Bunting’s guidance, determined that the anti-organ agitation in Leeds was nothing less than “an insurrection against the pastoral office.”80 The leaders and local preachers “were largely infected with the spirit of revolt against the first principles of our existing Church Government.” This “radical faction” had “assumed all the fearful characters of a Methodistical Luddism … and … it was indispensable to the permanent peace of the Society that it should be forthwith

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purged.”81 Purged it was: Matthew Johnson took 1,040 members out of the Leeds District. The ministerial hierarchy did little to stop the exodus; they viewed it as a necessary disciplinary exercise. “The Yorkshire Methodists,” Bunting told the Conference of 1827, “with all their excellencies, need teaching a lesson.”82 The agitation, however, soon spread from Leeds until “from the north bank of the Tyne to the south bank of the Thames the societies were shaken with a perilous excitement.”83 Donald Frazer, a minister stationed in Durham, described the tumult in apocalyptic terms. “There can be no medium course steered by us now,” he warned Bunting, “either we shall be the greatest instruments God ever employed in renovating the world, or we shall fall to pieces and lose what we have gained. May God pour upon us the spirit of love and of a sound mind!”84 Motivated by similar feelings, the connexion’s ministerial leaders worked hard to impose what they believed to be correct discipline throughout the circuits. They did this by attacking dissent wherever it reared its head. In 1829, for instance, the Conference received remonstrances from several of the connexion’s largest and most influential circuits, including Liverpool and Sheffield, against the way it had handled the Leeds organ agitation. In each case, the petitioners argued that, in dealing with the Leeds dissidents, the ministry had departed from both the spirit and the actual words of the Plan of Pacification.85 Bunting was quick to strike back, denouncing the Sheffield address as “arrogant and presumptuous.” The majority of his fellow preachers agreed and decided to stand by their actions. They officially chastised the Liverpool and Sheffield circuits for daring to question the Conference’s authority. As Bunting pointed out, the first job of the Methodist ministry was to instruct and “to govern our people.”86 The British Wesleyan hierarchy was prepared to apply the same rigorous approach to connexional discipline to its overseas missions. When news of the missionaries’ objections to the union with the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada reached London, the missionary secretaries initially attempted to put a brave face on things. At the Conference of 1833 John Beecham mentioned that the missionaries and laity in the Canadas were making “considerable opposition” to the union scheme. He outlined the objections that both groups had urged against it and demonstrated “wherein the arrangement had been misunderstood.” Jabez Bunting added that the union was “desirable for the interests of our common Methodism.”87 The missionary secretaries were less sanguine in their private counsels. The usually imperturbable Bunting was taken aback when Barry’s letters began to arrive at the Mission House in

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November 1833. “But what shall be done,” he wrote to Robert Alder and John Beecham, “to allay the storm so strangely raised in the … British Provinces? Barry & his party have acted most preposterously.” Bunting was also quick to suggest a way to deal with the problem: the imposition of harsh connexional discipline. “I question,” he continued, “if we ought not to recall him [Barry], or send him at all events to South Africa, or some other place quite out of range of North American feeling & influence.”88 The missionary secretaries did not, however, take any immediate action. Two weeks later the WMMS met. The twenty-one ministers and laymen in attendance noted “that very great dissatisfaction respecting the Union with the Upper Canadian Conference, prevails among some of our preachers and principle friends in Lower Canada.” The WMMS was worried that “the adoption of extreme measures by some of our Societies is threatened” and therefore appointed a subcommittee of high-powered ministers and laity to meet in three days to discuss a proper response.89 On 20 December 1833 the WMMS reconvened and adopted the report of that subcommittee. Viewing the whole, the Wesleyan leadership turned once more to stressing notions of Methodist unity on one hand and wielding the disciplinary rod with the other. The W M M S “marked with deep and painful feeling, the bitter and uncharitable spirit manifested by some of our preachers and friends against their brethren of the Upper Canadian Connexion … whose loyalty has been testified by judges as competent to decide on the subject.” They refused to make Upper Canada into “the scene of unhallowed rivalry, and unbrotherly contention, between the two bodies of Christians bearing the same name, holding the same doctrines, and having one common origin.” To deal with the issue, the missionary secretaries transferred John Barry out of the Canadas and sent him and William Croscombe letters of chastisement, demanding explanations for their schismatic behaviour.90 In the spring of 1834 the WMMS also dispatched Edmund Grindrod and Robert Alder to the colonies. They were supposed to settle things once and for all among the missionaries and their lay supporters.91 The W M M S expected the British Wesleyans in the colonies to accept the new regime. As in 1820 the response of the British Wesleyan laity in the Canadas was not what the connexional leadership at home hoped or expected. After receiving news of the outcome of the 20 December meeting of the WMMS, the leading lights of the Montreal circuit put forward a contract view of the relationship between connexional centre and periphery – a view hitherto overlooked by Wesleyan Methodist communities overseas. Having “voluntarily submitted themselves … to the instruction

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and pastoral care of the B[ritish] W[esleyan] Connexion,” they considered “themselves under the special protection of the Conference.” Indeed, they believed that the British connexion had given them “a pledge that no infringement whatever upon their rights and privileges should be suffered, & in possession of this confidence many of them left their Native shores where their liberty was not invaded, believing that no change in temporal circumstances could effect their religious privileges under its control.” The union of 1833 had broken this contract and the Montreal, Quebec, York, and Kingston societies were now joined together in an effort to stop the British Wesleyan hierarchy from destroying the prospects of British Wesleyanism in the Canadas. Montreal’s laypeople argued that the next British Conference had to evaluate the union critically. They claimed “this right on their behalf” on the strength of the Plan of Pacification.92 Like the Leeds organ agitators before them, the Montreal laity was drawing on connexional law in order to defeat the purposes of the connexional leadership. Not surprisingly, the British Wesleyan hierarchy became increasingly determined to impose its will on the missionaries and their lay supporters in Lower and Upper Canada. On 8 March 1834 Jabez Bunting noted that “we have received other letters from Canada … [T]hey … strengthen our conviction that a crisis has arrived, and that no possible means must be neglected of directing it, by the divine blessing, to a permanently peaceful and beneficial issue.”93 At their meeting on 23 April 1834 the WMMS refused to allow either William Croscombe or John Barry to return to Britain to defend himself and brushed aside the arguments of the Montreal laity.94 John Beecham wrote to Croscombe and the Montreal lay leadership two days later, noting, significantly, that he was directed to express the WMMS’s “deep regret” that the British Wesleyan community in the Canadas has adopted principles that were “utterly at variance with British Methodism, and which have produced all the defections and divisions in our societies in this country from the separation effected by [Alexander] Kilham down to the time of the agitation on the organ question in Leeds.”95 This dispute had degenerated into an out-and-out battle over the definition of what constituted proper British Wesleyan belief and practice. Bunting wrote to Edmund Grindrod on the same day that the WMMS met. “We have had letters this week from Messrs. Croscombe & Barry,” he noted, “full of self-vindication by mere assertion & vague declamation, & containing nothing satisfactory in defence of their flagrant violations of discipline & of methodistical order.” “The Committee,” Bunting added, “are very determined on this occasion to enforce a due

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submission to Rule; & resolved that they see no reason to alter their former decisions.”96 There was no openness to compromise here. The presence of Robert Alder and Edmund Grindrod brought the recalcitrant British missionaries and their lay supporters to heel, at least for the moment. Alder, who never lacked in self-confidence, was pleased with his own efforts. “The state of feeling is much worse than I anticipated,” he wrote from the Lower Canada District meeting, “if a stranger had come amongst them, he would have been placed in very painful circumstances, but when they approach me with their rigid countenances, I smile at them, & in spite of themselves kindly feelings are revived in their hearts.” He brought William Lunn on side – “A person told me yesterday, that it was expected I would twist Mr. L[unn] around my finger” – and he met the leaders and stewarts of the Montreal society “who are in a high state of inflammation. I shall endeavour to bleed & poultice them.”97 In the end, deference to the WMMS, as embodied in the person of Robert Alder, did seem to subdue the cultural transformation taking shape among the missionaries and laity. Against the opposition of Croscombe and Barry, Alder seized control of the district meeting and the missionaries obediently denounced all their previous schismatic actions. They reiterated their surrender to connexional authority in their annual district letter. They also noted, however, that they would not be doing justice to their “People” unless they stated their firm belief that “any appearance of opposition to the wishes of the Conference and Committee arose from a fear of their separation from the British Conference,  and not to any diminution of affection to Methodism.”98 Even in a deferential mood, the missionaries’ sense of self was no simple reflection of the will of the home connexion.

V In cultural terms, then, the British Wesleyan community in Lower and Upper Canada had become a separate – but not unique – entity within North Atlantic Methodism by the mid-1830s. Indeed, we should see it as one of several “neo-Britains” that took shape during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Settlers across the British Empire regularly attempted to recreate the conditions that they left behind in the home country. When that effort invariably proved hopelessly utopian, the settlers convinced themselves that they had forged a better and greater Britain, free of the many imperfections of the Old World.99 In New Zealand, for instance, English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish Protestant settlers took a rather loose sense of Britishness created in the United Kingdom and, sometimes in

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confrontation with a Maori “them,” created a much more cohesive sense of a British “us.” In the process, New Zealand was transformed into “the Britain of the South,” where there would be “progress without the price, [and] paradise without the serpent.”100 Conflict with an Aboriginal “other” was rarely, however, an essential component for making a neoBritain. More often, the “other” was fellow Europeans. In Australia, the gentlemen of New South Wales attempted to foster a world of English gentility in the twenty years after 1800. This involved differentiating themselves from the convict labourers around them. In that respect, it is telling that they considered it an insult to be called an Australian. The thing to be was British, and Britain, not Australia, was the centre of their world. Though, as Robert Hughes has pointed out, the lifestyle cultivated by the New South Wales gentry was already considered “old-fashioned in England”; it was “feudal and rural,” belonging “more to the 1720s than the 1820s.”101 The neo-Britains of the empire could be both beacons of progress and conservative fragments of the home country. The same pattern of cultural formation was being reproduced in British North America itself in the early nineteenth century. There the British Wesleyans were one of several groups that were prepared to redefine the meaning of both Britishness and loyalty to the governing authorities. Under the leadership of Ogle Gowan, for example, the Orange Order of 1830s Upper Canada laid claim to a loyal, British identity that was calculated to appeal to an increasingly English and Irish immigrant population. Yet this self-identification could as readily be turned against colonial officialdom as in its favour. When some leading members of the colony’s Tory oligarchy, the Family Compact, spoke about the possibility of seceding from the Empire in 1832, Gowan declared that his Orangemen would “continue to fight under the British colours; and if our Canadian fellow subjects are disposed to hoist the Canadian flag, instead of the British, down with them, say we.” These Orangemen may have heartily supported the government of Upper Canada during the rebellions of 1837–38, but they were also willing to denounce that government as treacherous and anti-British if and when they considered the conditions warranted.102 In that, they were walking the same path as the Orangemen of Ireland, who, as J.J. Lee has put it, “would be loyal to the crown as long as the crown protected their interests.” It almost went without saying that “they, not the crown, would define those interests.”103 That could just as easily summarize the mentality of the post1820 British Wesleyan community in the Canadas. And, by the 1840s, the Canadian Methodists were also starting to think along the same lines.

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3 “The Wretched Business of Canada” Unity and Schism among the Canadian Methodists

The British Wesleyan missionary William Martin Harvard served in Lower and Upper Canada during a period of extraordinary crisis for transatlantic Methodism. In 1840, four years after he arrived in the colonies, the union negotiated in 1833 between the British Wesleyan Conference and the Canadian Methodists of Upper Canada collapsed. Seven years of vicious denominational conflict followed, ending with a reunion in 1847. Harvard was involved in all of those upheavals, but he managed to remain “esteemed and beloved” by Methodists on both sides of the connexional divide.1 Poised as he was between two antagonistic camps, his opinions were worth consideration. He was surprisingly optimistic when he wrote to one of the leading Wesleyans in Britain in June 1841, despite the fraught circumstances of the time. Even without the union, Harvard stated, the British connexion would have “a most important secondary influence” in Upper Canada “by the modifications for good which our labours and principles will … give to the proceedings” of the Canadian Methodists. The British Wesleyan presence in the colony, he continued, “shall unavoidably act beneficially upon” the Canada Conference “against their will” and “may be of far greater advantage to the country than even our continuance in a union.” In other words, the ongoing British Wesleyan mission to the Canadas would be enough to transform the Canadian Methodists; the union might be over, but they would still have to adapt themselves to a larger, inescapable British and Wesleyan world. Sixteen years later, Harvard drove that point home. Looking back, he was certain that the British Wesleyan impact on the Canadas had been nothing short of “Providential.” It had ensured that Canadian Methodism – and even Upper Canada itself – remained in the British Empire.2 As simplistic as that analysis might seem, it happened to

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be true. In these two letters, Harvard described the process that made the Canadian Methodists British by the mid-1850s. The idea that any such cultural transformation took place does not fit easily with what we have been told about Canadian Methodism. That is because, in a pattern that should be familiar by now, historians have focused almost exclusively on the British North American context of the relationship between the Canadian and British connexions. Even when they have analyzed it in terms of a larger British framework, they have spoken in generalities. There is little sense in the work of Goldwin French or Neil Semple, for example, that the Canadian Methodists had to grapple with anything other than a monolithic British Wesleyan church during the unions and schisms that dominated their history between 1828 and 1854. John Moir has criticized French for reducing the complex story of British Wesleyan and Canadian Methodist interactions to the theme that “the clash between the Canadian party and the British party was evidence of a growing sense of Canadian self-awareness and identity by one side and an insensitivity to local issues and feelings on the other.” Moir himself was more attuned to the changing nature of British Wesleyanism during the first half of the nineteenth century and to the critical and sometimes anomalous role that the British Welseyan missionaries in Lower and Upper Canada played in the give-and-take world of colonial church governance. The picture he presented, however, did not probe either the wider British context or the process of cultural formation among the various groups involved in the conflicts that bedeviled the Canada connexion.3 Situating Canadian Methodism in those contexts requires us to continue our investigation of the history of British Wesleyanism and, equally important, of the way that metropolitan and colonial Methodism influenced one another. That is not a straightforward task. The history of Wesleyanism in Britain, particularly during the second quarter of the nineteenth century, has been almost completely rewritten since French’s pioneering efforts in the 1960s. The British Methodist scene is now best seen as one of violently clashing factions from the highest ministerial levels to the lowliest local Sunday school. Each of the groups caught up in the quarrels that divided the Wesleyan church in Britain had an image of what it meant to be a Methodist; and they were convinced that their opponents were threatening to destroy the precious heritage of John Wesley.4 At the same time, external actors and events had an impact on British Wesleyanism, especially during the 1830s and 1840s. The Oxford Movement after 1833 and the Disruption of the Church of Scotland in

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1843 found an echo in the Wesleyan connexion. In contrast, the place of Canadian Methodism in the home connexion’s “age of disunity” has never been addressed – until now.5 Examining Canadian Methodism from a transatlantic point of view leaves us with a new picture of the growth and cultural development of that denomination. This wider perspective demonstrates the validity of Goldwin French’s observation that the Canadian Methodists’ post-1840 self was sometimes expressed in terms of a British “outlook” or a British “spirit.” But his overall argument, that the final product of union, disunion, and reunion was a more vigorous sense of Canadian nationality “freed … from concern about metropolitan influences,” needs to be rethought.6 The outcome of that process was more complex. At one level, the battles fought between the British and Canada Conferences from 1828 to 1854 were about issues of church governance – who should lead and who should follow. They were also about who would define the meaning of Britishness and Wesleyanism in the North Atlantic world. As William Martin Harvard suggested, if there was a distinctly Canadian Methodist sense of self by 1854, it was cast in a British Wesleyan mold.

I Beginning in 1828 the leaders of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Britain attempted to incorporate the Methodists of Upper Canada into their own connexion. This was part of a larger effort to stamp their vision of British and Wesleyan identity on both metropolitan and colonial Methodism. Troubled by the American roots of many of the Canadian Methodist ministers and their antagonistic relationship with the Church of England, the leading British Wesleyans were determined to transform them into proper Britons and Wesleyans – an identity based on a conservative conception of both political loyalty and the doctrines of John Wesley. The Canadian Methodists, however, went into the union of 1833 believing that they already embodied all that was good in British Wesleyanism. They were loyal subjects of the King and orthodox believers, especially in terms of their opposition to the establishment principle – the idea that the Church of England should maintain its position as the only state-sponsored denomination in England and Britain’s settler colonies. In August 1840 the union collapsed. It fell victim to one of the main problems of transatlantic identity. A British and Wesleyan culture negotiated on the colonial periphery threatened to disrupt the connexional centre.7

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The origin of these transatlantic troubles can be traced back to the internal conflicts of the Wesleyan connexion in Britain – and, arguably, to the personality and policies of Jabez Bunting. We have already seen that ministerial autocrat at work, crushing the Leeds organ dissidents and doing his best to keep the wider British Wesleyan community in line. Given the way that, year after year, his influence seemed to expand with his girth, it is tempting to blame Bunting for all the crises experienced by the British connexion during the first half of the nineteenth century. If nothing else, that approach is true to the Wesleyan past. In the 1840s one of Bunting’s critics described him as “great in mind, and great in influence – too great to be forgiven.” This contemporary image of the “iron, menacing, shackling, brow-beating reign of Jabez Bunting” was based on reality; but, if we want to make sense of the history of Methodism in Britain and the Canadas, we also need to bear another fact in mind. Even though Bunting had his share of detractors in the British Conference, he had allies as well. He rarely, if ever, lost the support of a majority of his fellow ministers.8 In particular, Bunting could rely on a group of between ten and twenty preachers who controlled the administrative machinery of the connexion – the “Buntingian Dynasty.” Robert Alder, John Beecham, Edmund Grindrod, John Hannah, Elijah Hoole, Thomas Jackson, George Marsden, Robert Newton, Richard Watson, and the other Buntingites shared a vision of what it meant to be a proper British Wesleyan. As far as possible, a good British Wesleyan was supposed to be a Tory. Toryism, in this instance, was broadly defined as support for the established powers. In Buntingite eyes there was little difference between campaigning for Conservative candidates in elections, celebrating the possible embarrassment or collapse of Whig and Liberal governments, supporting the exclusive privileges of the Church of England and upholding the ministerial prerogative in the Wesleyan connexion itself. In each case they believed that they were battling those forces of Jacobinical radicalism first unleashed in the 1790s and following the Biblical injunction to “fear … the Lord and the king: and meddle not with them that are given to change.”9 That is not to say that Bunting and his allies were against all progressive ideas. During their years of dominance in the connexion, the Wesleyan Methodists were deeply involved in the antislavery movement, and, in 1829, Bunting himself swung the church behind Catholic emancipation.10 On some issues it was perfectly acceptable for both ministry and laity to support change.

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The problem was that those issues seemed few and far between to a sizable minority of preachers. There was little common ground between Joseph Beaumont, Joseph Fowler, Thomas Galland, and other ministers on the liberal wing of the connexion and the Buntingites. During the second quarter of the nineteenth century both the liberals and tories in the ministry fought to make their respective candidates president of the Conference. Bunting and his supporters wanted to defend what they saw as the genuine heritage of John Wesley; Beaumont, Fowler, Galland, and their fellow connexional liberals wanted to reclaim a Wesleyan heritage that they believed Buntingite centralization was destroying.11 The most serious conflicts, however, occurred between the Buntingian Dynasty and those connexional reformers who preferred to secede from the church rather than accept the implications of Wesleyan Toryism. These two groups, the Buntingites and the reformers, came to blows over one issue in particular in the 1830s: the establishment principle. That conflict became particularly heated in January 1832. A headstrong minister, Joseph Rayner Stephens, began to call for the disestablishment of the Church of England – in other words, for Parliament to strip Anglicanism of its official status as the state church. In this Stephens was one of many preachers, from John Wesley’s day onward, who wanted the Methodist connexion to take a more overtly dissenting position on the issue of church establishment. Wesley himself always resisted this trend among his colleagues, trying to find a comfortable if allusive via media between the Church and nonconformity.12 The Buntingites therefore felt that they were on firmly Wesleyan ground when they moved to silence Stephens. While never simply the slavish followers of Anglicanism, the Wesleyan Tories believed that the church establishment deserved their support: it was a means to a positive end. Ideally it provided the basis for a national religion that shielded Britain from all the horrors of the “wide-spreading Atheism, Socialism, and Libertinism of the age.” Bunting thus contended that it was the duty of every Wesleyan Methodist “to maintain the most friendly feelings towards the Church, and to discountenance as far as we can … that bitter and unchristian hostility” towards the establishment “which is now too much in fashion.”13 Bunting went even further when the British Conference met in August 1834. Referring to Wesley’s refusal to break with Anglicanism, he asked rhetorically whether his fellow ministers ought to “arm themselves with pickaxes, and pull down the house in which our father [Wesley] was born, and in which he thought he died[?]” He categorically stated, “I will not mix

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with Methodism, unless the principle of maintaining our exact neutrality be this, not one inch nearer to, nor one inch further from the Church than we now are.”14 Despite receiving some support from Joseph Beaumont and other connexional liberals, Joseph Rayner Stephens felt compelled to resign from the ministry. The Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society’s (WMMS) annual circular for 1834 summed up the Buntingite position on the whole affair. The Conference “could not consistently join in attempts to overthrow the National Establishment, considering that Mr. Wesley to the end of his life avowed, and practically proved, his attachment to the Church of England.” The Wesleyan connexion had to stop “the admission of the principles of Dissent among us.”15 This was a position that the Buntingian Dynasty intended not only to foster in the home connexion, but also to transplant to Methodist communities overseas. During the late 1820s, Jabez Bunting and his supporters began to perceive a need to bring the American Methodists in Upper Canada under British Wesleyan control. As we know, in 1820, in an effort to avoid divisions within transatlantic Methodism, the British Conference had agreed to confine its missionary operations to Lower Canada, while the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States had been given free rein in Upper Canada. On a theoretical level, the British Wesleyans still saw themselves as being “one” with their brethren in the American church. In actuality, however, the Buntingites were moving away from such transatlantic ecumenism. As Robert Alder made clear in 1828 in his testimony before a House of Commons select committee on the civil government of the Canadas, the Wesleyan leadership did “not deem it right that the Methodists of Upper Canada should be under the jurisdiction of a foreign ecclesiastical body.” A plan was in the works, Alder noted, “by which the Methodists of Upper Canada will be brought to act under the direction of the British Conference.”16 He was in a good position to know, since he had begun to develop just such a plan in the first weeks of 1828. Alder’s overall aim was to draw the Canadian Methodists away from their association with the American Methodist Episcopals and from any thoughts of an independent existence. Instead, the Upper Canadians would be integrated into a greater British Wesleyan connexion on the same basis as the Irish Conference. Each year, a British preacher would be sent to Upper Canada to preside over the annual conference; the Canadian Methodists would advertise and sell British Wesleyan literature through their own magazine and Book Room; and, every year, the WMMS would grant a certain amount of money to the Canada Conference for the support of its missions. This plan, Alder

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thought, would meet with the approval of all the Canadian Methodists in the province, except, of course, for those “incorrigible republicans” in their ranks.17 In directing their attention towards Upper Canada, the British Wesleyan leadership received support from two groups with equally conservative credentials: the colonial Church of England and the colony’s executive government. In 1827 the president of the British Conference met with John Strachan, the leading Anglican clergyman in Upper Canada, who made a special point of noting that “very great dissatisfaction was felt by the Government of that Province at the introduction of the American Methodists to the pastoral care of so large a portion of the population as attend the Wesleyan Ministry there.” Strachan thought that it would be for the best if the British Wesleyans would resume their missionary efforts in Upper Canada. A man of definite opinions, Strachan decided early on that the Canadian Methodists were a band of deplorable fanatics. They were all “uneducated itinerant preachers” whose main goal was “to pull down all establishments, undermine the loyalty of the people and constitute us a province of the United States.”18 In short, the Canadian Methodists were an affront to Strachan’s views on proper ecclesiastical order and established authority in church and state. The more conservative Wesleyans would be a godsend in comparison. The political authorities in Upper Canada were of the same mind. As the secretaries of the WMM S prepared to dispatch their agents to the colony, they received word that Lieutenant-Governor John Colborne “was pleased to enter into the views of the [Missionary] Committee … with respect to the employment of our [British] Missionaries in Upper Canada.” Like Strachan, Colborne hoped that the Wesleyans would eliminate what he saw as the overtly dissenting, if not disloyal, elements within Canadian Methodism.19 Church and king might be in danger otherwise. This advice and encouragement helped convince the Buntingites that Methodism in Upper Canada had to be saved from itself. It needed to be grounded in Wesleyan Tory principles, which, to the Buntingites, were genuine British and Wesleyan principles. The W M M S was certain that this course would be favoured by the “immense number of settlers which have gone out from Great Britain and Ireland, and are still flowing into the Province in large numbers every year.” These men and women were rapidly transforming Upper Canada into an extension of the home country, and, having been British Wesleyans at home, “they naturally looked to the [Missionary] Committee to extend its care to them, and not leave them in destitution of the means of grace in a distant land.”

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The Buntingites also believed that these settlers and others were developing a keenly felt prejudice “against the acceptableness of the Canadian Brethren.” This, Bunting and his supporters felt, was primarily the result of political attacks launched in the Canadian Methodists’ official newspaper, the Christian Guardian, on the colonial government and the Church of England. Such partisan meddling in the civil affairs of Upper Canada “was not in the spirit or according to the practice of British Methodists; and contrary to the abstinence from such pursuits” that the WMMS required of its own agents overseas. It was also calculated to give offense to both the colonial and imperial governments. To stop what they saw as the doctrinal and political deterioration of Methodism in Upper Canada, the Buntingites were willing to pour men and money into the colony. As one of secretaries of the W M M S , Richard Watson, put it in a letter to the imperial government, he and his fellow ministers would do their utmost both to “counteract anti-British feeling as it might rise up under the influence of a ministry foreign in its origin and too much impressed with the republican character” and to diffuse their own religious message throughout the province.20 The main obstacle to the unfolding of the Buntingite program in Upper Canada was the Canadian Methodist ministry itself. In one area in particular, the preachers’ image of John Wesley’s heritage was opposed to the Wesleyan Toryism of Bunting and his supporters. In 1826 and 1827 the Canadian Methodist ministers cut their teeth as a separate conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States in fierce combat with the colonial Church of England over what they perceived as the political illegitimacy and spiritual uselessness of a church establishment in Upper Canada. By the early 1830s, now preachers in an independent conference, the Canadian Methodists remained committed to opposing the establishment principle. This stance also shaped the Canadian ministers’ opinion of the British Wesleyan connexion. When one of them, George Ryerson, travelled to England in 1831 he was unimpressed with the British Wesleyans’ deference to Anglicanism. He was disgusted, he wrote, by “their servile & time serving clinging to the skirts of a corrupt, secularized & anti-Christian church.” It was preferable, George Ryerson believed, “to bear the temporary censure of enemies in Canada, than the permanent evil & annoyance of having a Church & State” president of Conference from among the British Wesleyans. Egerton Ryerson, George’s younger brother, fervently believed that, in a colony where, he claimed, Methodists outnumbered Anglicans ten to one, the idea of creating an established church was both inherently

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ridiculous and potentially divisive. The Canadian Methodists’ ongoing battle with the Church of England, Ryerson argued in a letter to Richard Watson, was “a necessary act of defence for ourselves” and an important duty to the religious peace of the country.21 The Canadian Methodists also objected to any suggestion that they were less British than the Wesleyans in the home country. The sons of a United Empire Loyalist, the Ryerson brothers led the way. Testifying in 1828 before the same House of Commons select committee that heard from Robert Alder, George Ryerson specifically aimed to defend the British character of the Canada Conference. In an effort to sweep much of the connexion’s American and often pro-republican past under the carpet, he noted that “all but four” of its ministers were “British subjects” either by birth or naturalization. The Canada connexion was also a body in which any British settler could and often did feel at home. According to Egerton Ryerson, “all the [British Wesleyan] preachers in regular standing … who have settled in this Province, have, on their arrival here, joined the Canada Connexion and have uniformly expressed their satisfactory conviction that Methodism is the same in U[pper] Canada as in Great Britain.” The same remark could be made about the British Wesleyan laity who had immigrated to the colony.22 The conclusion was obvious: in July 1832 the leading ministers of the Canada connexion resolved that “as a large portion of the Canada Conference consists of Europeans, as the Methodist Societies from Great Britain, who have generally united with us, have uniformly expressed themselves satisfied with the economy of Methodism in Canada … the influx of European emigration into this Province does not appear … to render the organization of Methodist societies distinct from those already established expedient or advisable.” The only result of such an “appeal to national prejudices and feelings” would be the creation of divisions in the Methodist community in Upper Canada on a level not seen since John Emory travelled to Britain in 1820.23 Having to choose between disruptions in their congregations and union with the British Wesleyans, the Canadian Methodist ministers decided to accept what they saw as the lesser of two evils. In June 1832 four British Wesleyan missionaries arrived in York, Upper Canada. The Canadian preachers stationed in the city, including Egerton Ryerson and his brother John, invited them to a meeting. The Christian Guardian reported that “the conversations which have taken place between members of the Methodist Conference and the Missionaries … open up … a cheering prospect to the interests of Wesleyan Methodism in Upper

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Canada”: that prospect being “the incorporation of the whole into a common system of Christian conquest upon a common principle – and under a common management.” Egerton and John Ryerson were determined to avoid conflicts between the two conferences, even if that meant placing their connexion under the direction of the Wesleyans in Britain.24 In the end, that is what happened. Initially drawn up by the Canadian Methodists in consultation with Robert Alder and then revised by Jabez Bunting and Alder in Britain, the Articles of Union followed the general pattern that the latter had suggested in 1828.25 They placed the Canadians in the same position vis-à-vis the British Wesleyans as the Irish Methodist connexion. The Canadian Methodists would adopt “the Discipline, Economy, and Form of Church Government in general of the Wesleyan Methodists in England”; all new candidates for the itinerancy would be adopted according to British Wesleyan usage; all the Canadian Methodist ministers would be ordained by imposition of hands, as was done in the British Conference; the British Wesleyans reserved the right to send one of their own ministers to serve as the president of the Canada Conference; and in exchange for stable funding, all the missions to the Native Americans and “destitute settlers” were to fall under the WMMS ’s control.26 The union of 1833 was more a matter of absorption than an agreement between equals. Despite the fact that the terms of the union satisfied much of their agenda, the Buntingites quickly developed concerns over its actual operation. They realized that their attempt to incorporate the Canadians into a larger British Wesleyan world might prove to be a double-edged sword. It threatened to bring Canadian Methodist ideas and practices into the British connexion. On 8 March 1834, Bunting wrote to the Britishappointed president of the Canada Conference, Edmund Grindrod, noting that “some changes must be made in the plan of Union, or at least in the practical administration of it, in order to secure any decidedly beneficial result.” The president of the British Conference, George Marsden, agreed, stating that, “the future prosperity of Methodism in British North America, depends much on the foundation being well laid.” Marsden met with Bunting, Grindrod, John Beecham, and Robert Alder in Sheffield in early April to discuss the alterations they felt were needed in the Articles of Union.27 Above all else, the Christian Guardian had to become a wholly religious journal, avoiding any political controversy. The cost to the British Wesleyan reputation at home would be too high if the Canadian Methodists continued on their anti-establishment course. As Bunting put it in late April 1834, “I own I do still fear that

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the political feelings of many of the Upper Canadian Methodists, unless it can be very greatly softened & neutralized, will make it impossible that we can long very satisfactorily identify our character with theirs.”28 After 1833 the Buntingite aim was to fix the Canada Conference firmly within a Wesleyan Tory framework as much to protect the interests and reputation of British Wesleyanism at home as to redeem Canadian Methodism itself. Over the next six years the Buntingian Dynasty’s efforts to put its own stamp on Methodism in Upper Canada failed. Given the different positions of the British Wesleyans and the Canadian Methodists on church establishment, the Buntingites’ lack of success was hardly surprising. The Canada Conference would not leave the issue alone. In 1839 the Canadian ministry vowed to make the Christian Guardian into a purely “religious and literary Journal,” but then defined church establishment as a matter of “religious politics.” The Canadian Methodists pledged loyalty to the forms of British Wesleyanism approved by the W M M S ; they also, however, called for an end to what they saw as the anomalous position of the Church of England in Upper Canada – it had to be disestablished.29 The WMMS sent Robert Alder to Upper Canada in early 1839 in a final attempt to save the union from “the political and antichristian character” assumed by the Canadian connexional press towards the church establishment. This stance was causing trouble in Britain. As the president of the British Conference put it in a letter to the secretary of the Canada Conference, “the advocacy in the Christian Guardian … of the principles of strict and systematic dissent, in opposition to all religious establishments, has given deep and just offence to many of our best friends in England.” “If the Guardian persist in the course which it has for some time pursued,” Thomas Jackson added, “the Union of the two Conferences can no longer be maintained.”30 Once in Upper Canada, Alder made it clear that, from a Buntingite point of view, the spirit of John Wesley still pervaded the British Conference “and that, in every sense compatible with the ecclesiastical independence of Methodism, the Wesleyan community stand in … friendly relation to the established Church of England.” This was a view “maintained by the Connexion during every period of its history” and especially since the withdrawal of Joseph Rayner Stephens. On behalf of Bunting and his allies, Alder demanded silence on the establishment issue in the Christian Guardian in order to “prevent that form of Methodism in Upper Canada with which, by the union, the character of the Methodism of Great Britain is

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identified from being involved ‘in suspicion and contempt.’”31 Canadian Methodism threatened to have more of an impact on British Wesleyan identity than the other way around. In that respect, the course pursued by Egerton Ryerson between 1833 and 1839 seemed calculated to exacerbate British Wesleyan fears. Writing in the Christian Guardian, Ryerson tried to transform the Buntingites into supporters of the Canadian Methodist campaign against the established church. In 1833 he argued that “as to cordiality of feeling between Methodism and the Establishment, there is not much of it in general” in Britain. He repeated this wishful thought in 1838, stating that, though they were supportive of the establishment at home, the British Wesleyan leaders laughed “at the lofty and exclusive pretensions” of the Anglican church in Upper Canada. Since this was manifestly untrue, Ryerson changed tack in mid-1838. He began to elaborate a British and Wesleyan identity independent of the Buntingian Dynasty. He seized what, for Methodists, was almost unassailable high ground, basing the Canadian Methodist opposition to colonial Anglicanism on a combination of the 1747 Minutes of the British Conference, John Wesley’s own lack of support for national establishments in his published writings, and the legal and theological arguments of William Blackstone and William Paley. He also bluntly stated that the Canadian Methodists’ “loyalty is beyond impeachment – they love and honour their Sovereign – they revere and defend the British Constitution.” There was more than one way to be both a loyal Briton and a good Wesleyan. Ryerson stressed that his fellow Canadian Methodists had fought on the side of the colonial government during the rebellions of 1837 and 1838 and yet still supported the position of the Christian Guardian on the establishment issue.32 British Wesleyan patience reached its breaking point when Ryerson appealed to the governor general of Lower and Upper Canada for a solution to the establishment question, bypassing the British-appointed president of the Canada Conference. In 1839 the British connexion drew up a series of charges denouncing Ryerson for his anti-establishment campaign. The majority of the Canadian preachers repudiated those charges and dispatched Ryerson and his brother William to Britain to settle the outstanding issues between the two churches.33 The Canadian troubles were quite literally coming home to roost. It was unfortunate, then, for the future of the union that letters and reports from the British Wesleyan missionaries in Lower and Upper Canada bolstered the Buntingian Dynasty’s fears of transatlantic infection during the late 1830s. Joseph Stinson, for one, was afraid that the

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union might degenerate into “a mere farce and greatly injure the British Conference and all lovers of British Methodism” unless the provinces received a greater infusion of British Wesleyan preachers and influence. He was also alarmed at “the bare possibility of the British Conference being in the least degree identified” with the anti-establishmentarianism of the Canadian connexion. He suspected that the Ryersons had entered the union with the aim of excluding “British influence” and using “the good name of the British Conference to accomplish their own ambitions & selfish purposes.” Stinson’s fellow ministers supported him in such views.34 Unity was what was needed, but unity on metropolitan terms; and if that could not be achieved, it would be better to cut the Canadian Methodists loose. “Surely,” Stinson stated to Thomas Jackson, “that policy which is right in one part of the Empire cannot be wrong in another part of the Empire.” “If the British Conference would maintain their own consistency & sacred honour – they must either dissolve the nominal union which now exists or bring the Canadian Preachers as completely under their control” as the British Wesleyan missionaries in the Canadas, forcing them to accept church establishment. Matthew Richey stated even more bluntly that “the attempt to protract the union can only humiliate ourselves.” “In the honour of true Methodism,” he added, “& for the sake of the Cause of God, let something be done & done quickly.”35 Richey and Stinson crossed the ocean in the spring of 1840 to deliver that message in person. The parties that converged on Newcastle-upon-Tyne for the British Conference of 1840 needed calm determination and cool brains if they were going to have any chance of saving the union. Neither of those virtues was much in evidence as the proceedings began. For its part, the British Wesleyan leadership did not trust Egerton Ryerson, believing that “his teachings are in want of faith.” They felt that it would be a valuable exercise to preserve “sound Wesleyan Methodism” in Upper Canada, but not at the cost of abandoning the original Wesleyan Tory aims of the union and allowing “Egerton Ryerson, or his family” to lord it over the British connexion.36 This position was reflected in the treatment that Egerton and William Ryerson received when they arrived in Newcastle: they were given what was, in Egerton Ryerson’s view, “a very cool reception from several of the preachers.” And when the Canadian delegates pressed for an opportunity to address the entire Conference on the union issue at once, they were ushered into a special committee, dominated by the Buntingites and including the recently arrived Joseph Stinson and Matthew Richey.37 Behind closed doors, the British ministers

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and missionaries determined that the representatives of the Canada Conference had failed to establish any justification for their connexion’s refusal to adopt British Wesleyan practices and policies. This situation had to be rectified or the union could not go on. As the official organ of Canadian Methodism, the Christian Guardian would have to “admit and maintain all the acknowledged principles of the Wesleyan Methodist Connexion,” by which the members of the committee meant “that principle of our Body, which asserts it to be the duty of the civil Government to employ their influence … for the support of Christian religion.”38 The final act of the union was played out in front of the entire British Conference. It placed the transatlantic nature of the dispute between the two connexions in stark relief. Egerton Ryerson made “a speech enormously long” in defence of his own character and that of the Canadian ministry. After listening to this “strange medley” for ten hours, Robert Alder noted that “the Union is not yet dissolved but it is passing away.”39 That was a good thing from his point of view; it would end all danger of British Wesleyanism being infected with the anti-establishment tendencies of the Canada Conference. “Unhappily,” Alder said, “in this case it is our principles that are at stake. With the prevailing party in Upper Canada, whose organ is the Guardian, the mission of Methodism is not to cry ‘Ye must be born again’; but they think they are called to lay the foundations of political government.” Jabez Bunting responded with equal firmness to Egerton Ryerson’s claim that the Canadian ministry should be allowed a wide degree of local autonomy within the union. The thing was impossible: “On great public matters we must merge our opinions. We cannot let the Connexion be committed to the violation of principles which the Conference has affirmed.” In contrast, the Ryerson brothers did not believe that their fellow ministers in Upper Canada would accept a Wesleyan Tory position on church establishment. As William Ryerson put it, “in the Old Country an Established Church is good; it is not suitable to ours.” The British Wesleyan ministers voted thirty-eight to thirteen to dissolve the union, ending what one of them called “the wretched business of Canada.”40 Joseph Taylor spoke too soon. Before leaving Britain the Ryerson brothers rushed into print with a pamphlet defending the Canada Conference. A little under two weeks later, the W M M S , with the aid of Joseph Stinson, determined that “our … operations in Upper Canada should be carried on for the future.”41 The stage was set for a major battle between the British and Canada Conferences over whose vision of Britishness and Wesleyanism would hold sway across the North Atlantic.

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II In the seven years after the union collapsed in 1840, the Canadian Methodists further elaborated a British and Wesleyan identity in order to resist British Wesleyan hegemony.42 This cultural development stemmed from the sheer ferocity of the conflict between the Canada Conference and the Buntingites and their agents in the colonies. That level of viciousness, in turn, was linked to the continuing transatlantic nature of the dispute. This was a civil war, splitting both connexions and compelling every party involved to sharpen their own self-perception as loyal Britons and orthodox Wesleyans. The Buntingite response to the Canada connexion was particularly notable for its intransigence. Short of unconditional surrender by the Canadian Methodists, the British Conference would not even consider making terms. In 1842, when the Canadian Methodists requested Joshua Soule, one of the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, to act as an arbitrator between the estranged connexions, the British Wesleyan leadership refused the offer, judging it “inexpedient.” Two years later the Buntingites declared that, while in theory they were always ready to consider reunification, they could not “entertain proposals for forming such a union as would identify us with them [the Canadian Methodists] until they are prepared to place themselves under the jurisdiction of this Conference, and so become, in truth and reality, one with us.”43 Such inflexibility was to be expected from the Buntingian Dynasty. Their vision of what constituted true British Wesleyanism came under increasingly heavy attack in the early 1840s. Bunting and his supporters came to blows with the liberals in the Conference over whether it was proper to wear the Geneva gown while preaching, over whether teetotal meetings should be allowed in Wesleyan chapels and over the authorship and publication of the Wesleyan Takings, a series of anonymous, hostile pen portraits of Buntingite ministers. These disputes only increased the Buntingites’ attachment to their own view of connexional identity. All “tattle about organic changes originates with the devil,” Bunting declared. In 1842, the connexion suffered a decrease of 2,065 members, and Bunting made “a most extraordinary speech on the importance of submission to Conference.” The Buntingites refused to yield so much as an inch to their growing number of opponents.44 The Canadian Methodists were included in that group. It did not help that Canadian Methodism played a direct role in the British connexional warfare of the 1840s. The collapse of the union gave

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the liberals in the British Wesleyan ministry another stick with which to beat the Buntingian Dynasty. At the Conference of 1840 Joseph Fowler and Thomas Galland defended the Ryerson brothers from the “intemperance of language” of Bunting and his supporters. While putting forward a motion to dissolve the union, Joseph Beaumont denounced Buntingite hegemony in the Canadas. He maintained that, “there is just as much reason in the Canada Conference sending Presidents to us as for us to send Presidents to them; and they are just as competent to manage their own affairs, as we are to manage our affairs.”45 An older minister, Thomas Ludlam, took his opposition to Buntingism even further. He wrote a letter of support to the Canada Conference. One of the few preachers at the Conference of 1834 who had voted in support of Joseph Rayner Stephens, Ludlam accused the connexional leadership of acting in a thoroughly ungodly, unmethodistical way in supporting church establishment above transatlantic unity.46 The liberals within the connexion were on the attack. A hostile British press joined the fray. The London Patriot, for instance, was soon “feasting away on Egerton [Ryerson]’s Pamphlet.”47 In response, the unofficial newspaper of the Buntingites, the Watchman, defended the connexion’s history of arraying “itself against that party … whose dearest object it is to injure, and, if possible, to overthrow the National Church of this Realm, as an Establishment.” In three letters to the Patriot, Robert Alder fought back against “misstatements and misrepresentations designed to damage the character of the British Conference.”48 Things, however, only went from bad to worse. Copies of the Christian Guardian crossed the Atlantic. Pamphlets supporting the Canada Conference and assailing the Buntingites were published in London and circulated through the connexion. Egerton Ryerson might argue that the Canadian Methodists could not be blamed if “some numbers” of their connexional newspaper had been sent to Britain, but, at the same time, he hoped that the circulation of newspapers and pamphlets from Upper Canada would “continue to increase until the removal of its causes shall supersede its necessity.”49 This direct intervention in the internal affairs of British Wesleyanism only increased the ire of Bunting and his supporters. Alder condemned “the libelous attacks from the pen of Mr. Egerton Ryerson … and others – which are forwarded to this Country for the unworthy but vain purpose of promoting distrust and disunion in our connexion.” Until they ended there could be no talk of peace, much less of reunion.50 War á outrance was the order of the day. The British Wesleyan missionaries and laity in Lower and Upper Canada were the main players in the Buntingite campaign against the Canada Conference. Their approach to that role and the zeal with which

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they played it, however, was shaped by more than unconditional loyalty to the Buntingite vision of proper British Wesleyanism. After the dissolution of the union, they were also actuated by an old fear – that the WMMS was on the verge of abandoning its congregations in the Canadas.51 It was a reasonable apprehension: as we know, the W M M S had given up its missions in Upper Canada twenty years earlier when faced with competition from the American Methodists. The missionaries and their lay supporters responded to this perceived threat by emphasizing their own identity as Britons and Methodists. Just as they had in the 1820s and early 1830s, they deployed a rhetoric that was meant to position them as the one true offshoot of the home connexion in the Canadas, which the British Conference was obliged to aid and protect for the sake of God and Empire. The Toronto and Kingston laity, for instance, pointed to the large numbers of British Wesleyan emigrants who had settled in Upper Canada and who wanted to continue under the home connexion’s oversight. They stressed their “attachment to the Ministers, rules and doctrines” of British Wesleyanism and called for no compromise with the Canada Conference. The missionaries took up the same strain. “The Loyal people of Canada,” Thomas Fawcett stated, “do not wish to be separated from the Parent-Country either civilly or ecclesiastically.”52 The British Wesleyans in the Canadas were determined prevent both those eventualities. With that end in view, the missionaries attacked Canadian Methodism as a threat to British and Wesleyan identity in Upper Canada. The methods that they used can be gathered from the connexional newspaper that they established as the union began to shake itself to pieces in the summer of 1840. First published in Montreal, the Wesleyan had “upwards of 1,100 subscribers” by October.53 In the third issue, the editor, Robert Lusher, noted that even though he and his fellow missionaries could not “recognize as truly Wesleyan, in every instance, the principles which have been adopted, and the policy which has been pursued by the [Christian] Guardian, especially during the last three years,” they did not wish to be either its “Censor or Antagonist.” They wanted to maintain the “friendly relation” with the Canada Conference that was supposed to exist between branches of John Wesley’s church. By its eighth issue, however, the Wesleyan was in full cry against Canadian Methodism, denouncing the “anti-British and anti-Wesleyan” Methodism of “at least the leaders of the Upper Canadian Conference” and declaring their own “unqualified abhorrence of the course which the Rev. E[gerton] Ryerson, and those of his friends, who act with him, seem determined to pursue.” In an attempt

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to widen the assault on the Canada connexion, Matthew Richey contributed an article describing the missionaries’ “incipient struggles with those who are inveterately opposed to the existence in the Province of a British Wesleyan ministry” and noting that this “opposition is shrewdly suspected … to be rather intimately allied to a sensitive dislike of every thing British.”54 The Canadian Methodists were opposed to true British Wesleyanism and therefore to all things British. This discursive strategy continued to be the stock-in-trade of the Wesleyan after it moved to Toronto in mid-1841. The new editors, Matthew Richey and John G. Manly, adopted a more blatantly political line in the prospectus for the second volume. They promised to “teach and enforce the principles of sound and scriptural loyalty to the noblest of earthly Governments – the Government of Great Britain.” In fulfilling that pledge, the Wesleyan would be conforming to the practice of the “venerated Parent Connexion, and be, therefore, at once British and Wesleyan,” two things, the editors implied, that the Canada Conference was not. Like the Buntingites at home, the missionaries and their lay supporters venerated the “Glorious Constitution both in Church and State, under which as Britons we have the happiness to live – and our constant aim … is, to maintain inviolable, and support to the utmost of our power, the Altar and the Throne.” Here was the very stuff of Wesleyan Toryism. It would be “one of the heaviest calamities with which this magnificent country could be visited,” an article in a later issue noted, if it were deprived “of the ministrations and institutions of pure, primitive, loyal, uncorrupted, British Methodism. The hearts of the people are at all points prepared to hail its approach, and rejoice in its light.”55 The implication here, of course, was that, while the people in the colony were redeemable, the Canada Conference itself was hopelessly impure, worldly, disloyal and corrupt. The heavy brigades of British Wesleyanism were in the field. The difficulty the Buntingites would face, by the late 1840s, would be reining them in. In the meantime, the reaction of the Buntingites and their missionary allies to the dissolution of the union created a crisis for Canadian Methodism. Wesleyan ministers in Britain were not above poaching ministers from competing Methodist denominations. Those concerned with the Canadas took steps to draw preachers away from the Canada connexion, arguing that it would “greatly weaken the Ryerson influence & in promoting this we are doing service to the cause of religion” in the colonies.56 By the time the Canadian ministers met at their annual Conference in June 1841, fifteen of their fellows had deserted the

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church and joined a newly constituted British Wesleyan missionary district for Upper Canada. Most of these preachers needed no urging from the WMMS to make the move. They departed the Conference pledging friendship, but also publicly complaining about “pledges broken by Mr. [Egerton] Ryerson” and of feelings of dissatisfaction with the proceedings of the Canada connexion.57 They took their twin messages of discontent and purified Britishness and Wesleyanism to the major centres of both British settlement and Methodist strength in the province, including Hamilton, London, and Toronto. The results were unhappy ones, as far as the remaining Canadian Methodist ministers were concerned. By mid-1841 they recorded the loss of approximately 548 members to the British Wesleyan missionaries.58 Though not crippling, such losses were extremely vexing for a church that measured gospel success almost entirely in terms of membership. At the Conference of 1842 the Canadian ministers denounced the “schisms and divisions” being created in their societies by the agents of British Wesleyanism as “causeless, unmethodistic and unjustifiable” and completely at variance with the ideal of Methodist “oneness” that the W M M S had embraced in 1820.59 This reaction was characteristic of the Canada connexion’s overall response to the crisis that it faced in the early 1840s. Under the pressure of events the Canadian Methodists argued that it was the British Wesleyans, both in Upper Canada and on the other side of the Atlantic, who were betraying the heritage of John Wesley. The Canada Conference, they stated, was more purely Wesleyan than either the Buntingites or the missionaries in the colonies. In October 1840 the Canadian ministers accused the British Wesleyan leadership of unilaterally wrecking the union and so violating those “Wesleyan and Scriptural principles” still upheld by the Canada connexion.60 They also staked a claim to being as orthodox as the British connexion in terms of their regular doctrine and discipline, both of which, they pointed out, had been recognized as “truly Wesleyan” by their brethren in the home country while the union lasted. The Canadian Methodist position was equally clear on the issue of church establishment and, to their minds, uncompromisingly Wesleyan. The ministers would not be advocates for the establishment principle in Upper Canada, “especially,” they resolved, “as Mr. Wesley himself and his Conference regarded a National Church as having no ground in the New Testament, but as being ‘a merely political Institution.’”61 By June 1841 the Canadian Methodists were even keener on defending their identity as unsullied Methodists. Meeting in Conference, the

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preachers denounced both the Buntingian Dynasty and its missionary agents in Upper Canada for contravening John Wesley’s strictures against schism and his idea of worldwide Methodist “oneness.” The missionaries, in particular, were performing “un-missionary work” and creating all the “evils of schism, strife, and division” among the Canadian Methodist congregations. A year later the Canada Conference levelled its guns at the “English Conference” in general: it was a violator of “the sacred principles of Methodist unity.” The Canada connexion, in contrast, refrained from invading the missionary congregations in Lower Canada from 1841 onwards.62 The not so subtle subtext here was that, if anyone was falling into worldly declension, it was the British Wesleyans and not the Canadian Methodists. Despite being buffeted from all sides by those who should have been their allies, the latter were remaining true to the old gospel paths first blazed by John Wesley. They were uncorrupted Wesleyans transplanted in Upper Canada. The Canadian Methodists were also New World Britons. In October 1840 they revived and elaborated on the claim that they made in the early 1830s – their connexion was “as much a British Wesleyan Conference as the Conference held in England.” The ministry expanded on this point in an attempt to minimize the inroads that the British Wesleyan missionaries were making in the church’s membership. The Ryerson brothers were the first into the breach, arguing, as they had ten years before, that British immigrants were perfectly at home in the Canada connexion. In their Report on their mission to Britain, Egerton and William Ryerson stated that “the Old Country part of the Members of our Church were the most forward and ardent” in their support of the editorial policies of the Christian Guardian. That newspaper, they claimed, had received memorials denouncing the interference of the WMMS in Canadian Methodist affairs from areas where “the official members of our church were almost entirely emigrants from Great Britain and Ireland.” These laypeople, along with many “natives of Canada,” knew “how to appreciate their rights and privileges on the Western, as well as on the Eastern side of the Atlantic.”63 This was more than desperate propaganda. Henry Mayle, a layman settled near Brantford, denounced the British Wesleyans’ failure to understand that Upper Canadians would never accept “a dominant Church party nor Tory ascendancy.” By trying to foist both church establishment and Conservative hegemony on the colony, the British Conference was engaged in “nothing less than a factious opposition to the liberal views about to be carried out in Canada by Her Majesty’s Government” – a reference to Lord Durham’s recommendation of responsible government

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for the Canadas.64 The Canadian Methodists were paragons of British loyalty in contrast to their brethren on the other side of the ocean. The Canadian Methodists’ adoption of a self-consciously British identity found its most forceful expression in two articles – “A Voice from Canada” and “A Second Voice from Canada” – that appeared in the Christian Guardian in December 1840 and February 1841. They were written by George Playter, a minister who grew up among the Wesleyans in Britain, emigrated to Lower Canada in 1832, joined the itinerancy in Upper Canada two years later, and who, when the union between the British Wesleyan and Canada connexions collapsed in 1840, decided to side with the latter. In these articles Playter addressed the Buntingites as both a “countryman” and as “a Wesleyan Minister.” From the vantage point of this dual identity, he attacked the missionaries’ attempts to identify themselves as Britons to the exclusion of all others: “‘British, British, British,’” the missionaries said, “and their tongues never tire in uttering, nor their ears of hearing, nor their pens in writing ‘British, British, British.’” To state that a person was British because they were connected with the British Conference was no more than a sophistic sleight of hand. “The name,” Playter argued, “does not bestow the attributes of character, but the attributes of character the name.” Addressing the WMMS directly, he continued: “Monopolizing the name to your party, is insinuating a denial of it to ours. However, while we are more careful about the character than the term, we are consoled with the fact, that as your agents did not bestow, neither can they remove, that ‘good name which is rather to be chosen than great riches.’” The Canadian Methodists, in Playter’s view, had proven their British identity through their actions. The Wesleyans in the colony and in the home country, in contrast, did not deserve the designation British; they only used it in an “insinuating” and “mean” way to attack those who ought to have been their gospel coworkers in the Canadian ministry.65 This self-image was adopted by the Canada connexion as a whole. At their 1841 Conference the ministry offered Playter its “cordial thanks” for his “able and admirable papers in defense” of their church. Indeed, even before the publication of the second “Voice from Canada,” Canadian Methodists began to argue that, when it came to the meaning of Britishness, they had nothing to learn from either the Buntingites or the missionaries in the Lower and Upper Canada. They firmly believed that the laity’s “British affection is beyond a just impeachment” and that they themselves were “more Wesleyan and British at the present time than the leading members of the British Conference and the Missionary Committee

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are.” The membership of the Barrie Mission came at the same point from the opposite angle, arguing that “the conduct of those calling themselves British Missionaries” was both “anti-British” and “without principle.” A year later, a self-declared member of the Canada Conference combined these two statements of British identity: “one of the greatest obstacles to the civil and religious prosperity of our country is the unholy strife occasioned by our British [Wesleyan] brethren. Canada might now have been something beside a British Province, if native Canadians had not spilt so much blood in its defence.”66 Unlike the missionaries or their Buntingite leaders, Canadian Methodists were  staunch supporters of a united and peaceful British Empire. They had transformed themselves into greater Britons, superior in their cultural purity to the British Wesleyans in the Canadas and across the sea.

III There were, then, several competing and antithetical British and Wesleyan identities in existence among the Buntingites, the Canadian Methodists, the British missionaries and their lay supporters in Lower and Upper Canada by the early 1840s. In 1846–47, however, the Canada and British Wesleyan connexions agreed to reunite. Strange to say, the terms of the union of 1847 were almost exactly the same as those of 1833, granting overall authority to the British Conference. According to John Carroll, Canadian Methodism’s most prolific nineteenth-century historian, the explanation for the reunion lay in changes in British Wesleyanism itself. Carroll described Jabez Bunting admitting to Egerton Ryerson that “in some respects, with regard to public questions, the Canadians had been ‘right,’ and they [the British Wesleyans] had been ‘wrong.’” In contrast, in 1847, Robert Alder told his fellow British Wesleyan ministers that a new arrangement between the two churches was possible because there had been “a total change in the Canadian Conference since 1839.”67 There was some truth in each of those statements. Cultural and structural changes in both British Wesleyanism and Canadian Methodism created the conditions necessary for the union of 1847. The leading figures in the two connexions came together around a more inclusive British and Wesleyan identity, motivated by the collapse of the establishment principle and that anti-Catholic zeal that was so often a building block of the British and evangelical sense of self.68 Change came to the Canada Conference first. In the late 1830s and early 1840s the imperial government took a long, hard look at Anglicanism’s

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position as the established church of Upper Canada. Governor General Charles Poulett Thomson arrived in the Canadas in 1839 determined to reform a system of colonial government that had broken down in the run-up to the rebellions of 1837 and 1838; he was not, however, supposed to grant the colonies responsible government. Instead, the Colonial Office in London instructed him to engineer a climate of political “harmony” in the provinces and between the imperial centre and periphery. With that end in view, the governor general turned to the troublesome issue of church establishment – a “perpetual source of discord, strife and hatred,” he wrote.69 Just after the union between the British and Canada Conferences fell apart, Thomson and Lord Melbourne’s Whig government in Britain stripped the colonial Church of England of its unique status. From 1840 to 1854 the Church of Scotland and, to a lesser extent, the other denominations of Upper Canada shared in state funding, creating a plural establishment that included Methodism. It was not the disestablishment that Canadian Methodists had been campaigning for since the mid-1820s, but they accepted the new arrangement. After 1840, the establishment principle was no longer a bone of contention for the Canadian Methodists.70 Three years later the Disruption of the Church of Scotland forced Jabez Bunting and his supporters to rethink their position on church establishments. Thomas Chalmers led 454 of his fellow evangelical ministers out of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in May 1843 and founded the Free Kirk. The issue at stake here was the right of the state to interfere in the internal affairs of the church, especially over the question of whether lay patrons should have the ability to force ministers on certain parishes. In 1834 the Scottish courts ruled that wealthy laypeople did possess that right, much to the dismay of Chalmers and his fellow non-intrusionists. The crisis came to a head in 1842 when the civil courts began to overturn various disciplinary rulings of the Church court. The Free Kirkers decided that the time had come to forge a national religion outside the pale of the Scottish church establishment.71 The Buntingites supported the Scottish evangelicals even before the schism occurred, seriously considering joining with others in 1843 to invite Chalmers to London to give a series of lectures discussing “whether it is practicable to carry out the principle of a Church Establishment without destroying the spiritual independence of the Church.” Bunting himself gave an unequivocal answer to that question at that year’s British Conference, stating, in the wake of the Disruption, that he had once hoped that “such a thing was possible as a Established Church without State interference.

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But now I see it to be impossible. I wish two thousand clergymen would leave the English Church in the same way” that the Free Kirkers had left the Church of Scotland. Though the Buntingites were unwilling to join with militant Dissent in an anti-establishmentarian assault on Church of England, they readily attacked the practice of church establishment while still paying lip service to the principle. The Watchman summed up the new position of the Buntingian Dynasty early in 1844: “there is no Established Church in existence on behalf of which, as it now stands, we could conscientiously contend.”72 The Buntingite view of the Church of England itself also underwent a major shift in the 1840s. Here Bunting and his supporters were reacting to the rise and progress of the Oxford Movement. The movement began in 1833 when, in response to the Irish Church Temporalities Bill of Lord Grey’s Whig government, the Anglican minister John Keble preached a sermon in St Mary’s Church, Oxford, on “national apostasy,” denouncing the erastianism of the Church of England. Three other Oxford men soon joined Keble in his campaign for Church independence: Richard Hurrell Froude, Edward Pusey, and John Henry Newman. In the fall of 1833 they began to publish a series of Tracts for the Times, aimed at reforming what they saw as the corruption of Anglicanism at the hands of English politicians and evangelical ministers and bishops. In these essays Keble and his friends emphasized the writings of the Church Fathers against the usual Protestant and evangelical reliance on the Scriptures alone. To most evangelicals the Tractarians seemed to be drifting in the direction of Popery by the early 1840s.73 Methodism itself came in for direct attack by the Tractarians in Edward Pusey’s 1842 Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Pusey denounced the Wesleyans for substituting the excitement of class meetings and love feasts for the genuine sacraments.74 That such an attack should come from within the ranks of the established church was shocking to Buntingite sensibilities. Driven along by the fear that Catholicism had infiltrated the established church, the Buntingian Dynasty turned on Anglicanism with all the zeal that it had once used in its defence. In 1841, the same year that Newman wrote Tract 90, demonstrating that the Church of England’s Thirty-Nine Articles were not inconsistent with Roman Catholic doctrine, Bunting made the extraordinary statement that “no person on earth or in heaven … can reconcile Methodism with High Churchism.” “Unless the Church of England will protest against Puseyism in some intelligible form,” he continued, “it will be the duty of the Methodists to protest against the Church of England.” That is exactly what the British

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Wesleyan Conference set out to do. In 1842 the Buntingite Thomas Jackson wrote a pamphlet in reply to Pusey’s Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Jackson assailed High Churchmen for their love of an effete religion “adorned with gold lace and ostrich feathers” and accused Pusey himself of seeking a union between the Church of England and Roman Catholicism.75 Wesleyans, the Watchman stated in November 1842, refused to trifle with an Anglican revival of Popish superstition. In their efforts to combat resurgent Roman Catholicism they preferred to align themselves with other strictly evangelical churches in organizations like the British and Foreign School Society or the Evangelical Alliance.76 Under such circumstances, cooperation with the Canadian Methodists could hardly be refused. The preface to the new Articles of Union, written in Britain by a committee of the WMMS , made that clear. In a period “when Evangelical Denominations are exemplifying a pervading and earnest desire to manifest their oneness in Christ, and thus will away the reproach which for so many ages has attached to the division and mutual acrimony of the Protestant Churches, it is extremely desirable that the unseemly differences which for some time have unhappily existed between the two Branches of the Wesleyan Methodists in Western Canada … should terminate.”77 Among the British Wesleyan leadership, support for both the Church of England and the establishment principle had been eliminated as components of proper Britishness and Wesleyanism by 1846. Reunion had become a viable alternative to continuing factiousness. The British Wesleyan missionary Joseph Stinson shared this outlook. A change of opinion about the politics of the Canada Conference and the establishment principle in the late 1830s and 1840s allowed him to become the chief advocate of reunion in Britain. Observing several prominent connexional reformers in Sheffield in 1846, Stinson could not understand why “we should be so distant with the poor sinners” in Upper Canada when “greater sinners amongst us at Home are cherished & allowed to occupy the high places of our connexion.” “We have been too thin skinned about Canadian whiggism,” Stinson told Robert Alder, “we have to endure plenty of it in England – lank, straight haired whiggery.” A mild form of political liberalism should not disbar the Canadian Methodists from membership in the British Wesleyan family. Neither should their approach to church establishment. Stinson began to turn on the idea of unconditional support for the Church of England in 1838 while still in Upper Canada. He complained about the unwillingness of Anglican ministers to do Wesleyanism “common justice” in the colony and how, in his estimation, “they patronize Popery … at the expense of

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Methodism.” Methodism, Stinson now believed, should be put on an equal footing with the Church of England and become in “all intents & purposes an Establishment.” By May 1842 he was even more convinced that the Anglicans cared “just as little about us [the British Wesleyans] as they do about the Canadian Methodists & if they could sweep us all out of the Province they would do so with a good will.” In Sheffield, in 1844, Stinson explicitly tied his new view of the Church of England to the issue of reunion, arguing that “the aspects of the times at home and abroad surely are plainly indicating that our very existence as a church depends in no small degree upon our unity, particularly in Canada where Popery & Puseyism are likely to attain Gigantic Power.”78 Many Canadian Methodists came to the same conclusion as they fought in their own battles with the Oxford Movement in the 1840s. Sharing the Buntingite fear of “diluted popery, under the guise of Protestantism,” the Canada connexion called for “no surrender of Wesleyan Methodism to the Puseyites.” In an ecclesiastical version of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend,” the Christian Guardian began to reprint articles from the British connexion’s official journal, the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, and from the Watchman denouncing Tractarianism as a “Popish system of priestly arrogance” and comparing it to the woman of Revelations “upon whose forehead is inscribed the name, ‘Mystery, Babylon the Great, Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth.’” By July 1842 the Canadian Methodists were pointing out that the British Wesleyans, “notwithstanding their professed, and we believe sincere attachment to the Church of England, are showing the world that they will not submit to the selfish and papistical demands of Puseyism in that Church.”79 Two years later, the editor of the Christian Guardian, George Playter, felt free to commend the anti-Puseyite opinions of “that excellent paper, the London Watchman.” “Well is it for that church which has a defender so bold and yet skillful,” he stated. This was a major reversal from the early 1840s when the Canada connexion stigmatized the Watchman’s “antiBritish principles.” The Canadian Methodists also began to call for unity among the evangelical churches – there was no other way to defeat the Catholic threat. As “Cosmos” of Toronto argued in May 1845, “a charge or broadside from such heavy metal would tell better on the ranks of “Puseyism,” than the thousand and one guns which are daily fired without effect.”80 The prospect of cooperation with the British Conference was in the air among the Canadian Methodists by the mid-1840s. That transformation helped ensure the success of John Ryerson’s efforts to reintegrate Canadian Methodism into the British Wesleyan fold. One

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of the leading figures in the Canada connexion after 1844, when Egerton Ryerson accepted the government post of superintendent of schools for Upper Canada, John was the most levelheaded of the Ryersons. Even though Egerton once described his brother as “a life-long Conservative,” he was no doctrinaire Wesleyan Tory of the Buntingite school.81 John was prepared to denounce the British Wesleyans in the colony when he thought they were overstepping their bounds or taking the connexion in the wrong direction. In 1837, for instance, he criticized what he saw as the superior attitude of many of the British Wesleyan missionaries in Upper Canada. He described how one of these magnificent specimens, suffering from a bladder infection, had taken to relieving himself on cabin floors two or three times a night, earning him the nickname “the pissing Preacher … among the wicked.” The Canadian Methodists could do without “such classical flights,” John concluded. They could also do without the editor of the Christian Guardian, Ephraim Evans, who, in 1838, was writing in support of the British missionaries and their “dear Church [of England].”82 As scornful as these sallies might be, however, they were the product of specific moments of frustration as the union staggered from crisis to crisis after 1833. On the whole, John Ryerson was convinced that the future of Methodism in Canada lay within a wider British Wesleyan world – and, when it counted, he was willing to fight for that belief. He struggled to preserve the union at the Canada Conference of 1839, at one point helping to defeat his brothers Egerton and William’s efforts to end it then and there.83 He threw himself into the effort to rebuild the union with equal verve after its collapse. In April 1841 John Ryerson approached his British Wesleyan counterpart, Joseph Stinson, and “expressed in the strongest terms his regret” at the two Conferences being “arrayed against each other.” John conceded that his brother, Egerton, had been mistaken to make the Christian Guardian into a political journal and he suggested that the majority of his fellow preachers “would gladly become bona fide members of the British Conference” as missionaries. By the next month, John Ryerson was proposing that, if they became agents of the WMMS, the Canadian ministers would place their church property under the control of the home connexion. He assured Stinson that “the best men” in the Canadian ministry supported his efforts.84 In November 1843 John told Stinson that he had “done all in my power to induce the [Canadian] preachers to consent to an arrangement as much in accordance with your views as possible.” He had successfully prevented references in the Christian Guardian “offensive to the British Conference, and indeed I have been trying all in

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my power, both with preachers and people, to bring about a settlement and restore peace to our Zion.” He convinced Robert Alder of his sincerity. By 1846 he had also convinced the majority of his fellow ministers of the wisdom of the course he had plotted out over the previous six years. That year’s Conference appointed John Ryerson and the equally pro-union Anson Green as representatives to the British connexion to negotiate a reunion. This may have been an immediate reaction to falling membership: in 1845 and 1846 the Canada connexion lost 2,200 members, likely to the British Wesleyan missionaries in Upper Canada and to other Protestant denominations.85 It was also, however, the culmination of a new willingness among the Canadian Methodist ministry to rejoin a wider British Wesleyan world under altered circumstances in both the home country and Upper Canada. In cultural terms the union of 1847 was based a commonly agreed upon sense of British and Wesleyan identity among the leading elements of both Conferences. The Canadian Methodists accepted a subordinate position within a larger transatlantic British connexion. Only British Wesleyans served as president of the Canada Conference between 1847 and 1862. In 1855 and 1856, when several Canadian ministers floated the idea that one of their own should be made president of the connexion, the suggestion was greeted with “amusement” by their fellow preachers. Asahel Hurlburt, who had been one of the chief opponents of the reunion, “deprecated any alteration, from the fact of our present success, and which had marked the history of the past years.”86 When Anson Green became the first Canadian preacher to fill the presidential chair in 1863, he declared that “the ice is now broken, and the way prepared for other Canadian ministers to fill our Conferential chair.” This was evidently a minority opinion. Over the next eleven years only three more native-born Canadians served as president.87 It helped that the British Wesleyans who were appointed to the presidency of Canada Conference after 1847 said what their colonial colleagues wanted to hear. The days of a Buntingite minister travelling across the Atlantic to accuse the Canadian Methodists of political disloyalty and flagrant breaches of faith and doctrine were over. The post-reunion British Wesleyans presidents gave life to a tempered sense of British and Wesleyan identity among the Canadian Methodists. They described the Canadian Methodists as “our children; and, in all future time and contingencies, they will be our brethren. They will carry out and perpetuate all that is valuable in our system, and, planting old England on a new soil, will reproduce our nation on a gigantic scale.” Speaking on behalf of their Canadian Methodist charges,

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they noted that the British Wesleyans had “a great deal of the beautiful, and the wealthy, and the wise, and the morally and materially powerful … which now we cannot compare with; but we have them all in Embryo.” They even went one step further, arguing that, in some ways, the Canada Conference had already exceeded the home connexion: by the 1870s it had become the real religious establishment of the colony.88 Having established an identity that was acceptable on either side of the Atlantic, the connexional leadership in Canada and Britain spent the next seven years attempting to contain the more militant notions of Britishness and Wesleyanism that had been unleashed after the dissolution of the first union in 1840. The task was most pressing among the British missionaries and their lay supporters in Upper Canada. Their fear of abandonment rekindled yet again by the Canadian Methodist deputation to the British Conference of 1846, the missionaries turned their well-developed self-identification as guardians of pure Britishness and Wesleyanism against the home connexion. They argued that, “of all the emigrant colonies in the Empire,” Upper Canada “is the last which should be without our presence and exertions.” It was filling up with “throngs of European settlers,” as well as “vast numbers of the youth of the neighbouring British American Provinces,” including British Wesleyans. Even an alliance with the Canadian Methodists, they stated, threatened to “prove most fatal to British Methodism in this country.”89 The British Wesleyan laity in Upper Canada also reacted badly to the idea of a reunion. The laypeople of Kingston refused to contemplate any union with the Canada Conference that did not secure absolute British Wesleyan authority in Upper Canada. The laity of Toronto, Hamilton, and London sounded the same tune. One Toronto layman put the matter squarely: “I have been a British Methodist all my days and intend to be a British Methodist. No power on earth shall ever make me a Ryerson Methodist,” including, apparently, the W M M S .90 Years of struggle to define and defend their position in transatlantic Methodism had transformed these missionaries and their lay supporters into quintessential loyalists: people who asserted “a British identity for reasons not always apparent or agreeable to the makers of policy and opinion in the United Kingdom.”91 The British Wesleyan leadership and several of their missionaries in the Upper Canada moved quickly to suppress this revolt against connexional authority. Matthew Richey, who, like Joseph Stinson, had become a convert to reunion, took the lead in the colony. Faced with irate memorials from Toronto, Bytown, and Kingston, he attempted to calm their

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anger, but looked to Robert Alder’s coming for a definitive settlement of the issues at hand. As early as September 1846 the W M M S had decided to send Alder to Upper Canada to meet with its agents “for the purpose of effectually carrying out the object contemplated” in the new Articles of Union.92 Once in the province, Alder told the assembled missionaries that, “with regard to the printing of resolutions, and exciting the people to disaffection by conversation, it is much to be deplored; they would have done better to have been praying.” Having given the missionaries that tongue-lashing, Alder attempted to put a damper on their fears. He twice pointed out that the British Conference would retain a veto power over the actions of the Canada connexion.93 This had the desired effect. The missionaries passed a resolution stating that, having spoken to Alder and attended “the interesting deliberations of the Canada Conference on the momentous subject,” they were “constrained” to recognize in the reunion “the special guidance of the Providence and Spirit of God.” They also noted that, since the union with the Canadian Methodists “will not separate us from our esteemed and endeared brethren of the British Conference,” they trusted that their attachment to British and Wesleyan ways would “increase rather than diminish by these arrangements.”94 The Britishness and Wesleyanism of the missionaries in Upper Canada had been successfully directed into safer channels. The operation was less successful with the laity. In 1861 the visiting British Wesleyan minister William Boyce found that many of the English immigrants in Upper Canada still felt no love for the Canadian Methodists “except so far as they abide by English usages.”95 His fear, however, that such discontented laity might leave the Canada connexion never materialized. After 1846 they no longer had ministers willing to follow them into the spiritual wilderness. There still remained the problem of dealing with the British Wesleyan community in Lower Canada. By 1852 the WMMS was well advanced in a plan to unite the missionary district in that province with the Canada connexion. The British-appointed president of the Canada Conference, Enoch Wood, was afraid, however, that “the old leaven will be a formidable barrier against the tendencies of the brethren [in Lower Canada] moving in the right direction, notwithstanding the practical evidence of the good of the Union in all Canada West.”96 Wood’s fears were justified. William Squire, one of the leading missionaries in Lower Canada, stated that his district would be more willing to contemplate union with the Canadian Methodists “were the whole work in this country purely British.” Since Methodism was most certainly not “purely British” in

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Upper Canada, “it will be difficult to assimilate the work, and bring it to a necessary unity.” Yet, within a year, Wood was able to convince the majority of the missionaries to consent provisionally to the new arrangement, despite the efforts of some of them to stave off all consideration of the plan. It probably helped that the WMMS had previously chastised the missionaries for daring to assume that they were “especially set for the defence of Methodism in British America, and possess such an independence of action as cannot in the nature of things belong to any District.”97 The Canadian Methodists also strove to put the missionaries’ worries about the nature of their connexion at ease. They stressed that the entire discipline of their church would be extended to Lower Canada, “including the articles of union between the British and Canadian Conference.” In other words, like their counterparts in Upper Canada, these missionaries would not be entirely cut off from British Wesleyanism; instead, they would become part of an even larger British and Wesleyan family. When the final version of the plan was accepted by the missionaries in May 1854, it stated, once again, that they would be governed under the Articles of Union.98 A militant British and Wesleyan identity among the missionaries in the Canadas was dead – killed by a kinder, gentler version embraced by both their leaders overseas and the Canadian Methodists.

IV The interaction of the British Wesleyan Conference, the British missionaries and laity in the Canadas, and the Canadian Methodists between 1827 and 1854 demonstrates the complexity of British and Wesleyan identity in the North Atlantic world. At the beginning of that period, the differing Buntingite and Canadian Methodist visions of Britishness and Wesleyanism became a source of conflict between the two connexions. When the first union collapsed in 1840, the British missionaries’ fear of abandonment by the home connexion helped strengthen their perception of themselves as the guardians of a pure British and Wesleyan identity in the Canadas. That self-image was turned on the Canada Conference as the Buntingites strove to protect their conception of British Wesleyanism from what they regarded as the insidious tactics of the Canadian Methodists. In response, the Canada connexion was forced to elaborate its claim to an unsullied British and Wesleyan identity. By the mid-1840s there were several conceptions of Britishness and Wesleyanism in play across the North Atlantic, clashing with and reinforcing one another.

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Cultural and structural change among both the British Wesleyans and Canadian Methodists ended this situation. The impact of the Disruption of the Church of Scotland and the Oxford Movement on British Wesleyanism undermined the Buntingite vision of an identity based on Wesleyan Tory principles. Among the Canadian Methodists, the creation of a plural establishment in Upper Canada, anti-Catholic zeal, and the leadership of John Ryerson convinced the majority of the ministry that the future of the church was to be found within a wider British Wesleyan connexional structure. By 1847 the two groups had achieved a reunion that was based on a shared concept of British and Wesleyan identity; this Methodist and transoceanic version of the Protestant consensus taking shape in Upper Canada gave the British connexion a position of leadership and acknowledged, and even encouraged, the aspirations of the Canadian Methodists.99 Over the next seven years the leading elements in the newly united Conference worked together to impose this new sense of self on the still recalcitrant British missionaries and laity in the Canadas. By 1854 there was a cultural unity among the Methodists in those colonies that would have been inconceivable twenty-one years earlier. That compromise lasted until the two connexions finally went their separate ways in 1874. To understand why that was the case, however, we also need to examine two other areas of Methodist life – money and worship – and the role that they played in identity formation on both sides of the Atlantic.

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4 “Untiring Endeavours to Save Souls and to Raise Money” Mission Financing and Cultural Formation In February 1844 the secretaries of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (WMMS) sent a letter to Enoch Wood, their chief agent in Lower and Upper Canada. “We regret the necessity which exists of addressing you so frequently on subjects exclusively of a financial nature,” they wrote, “we should much prefer to correspond with you on the spiritual interests of the Missions, on the progress of the work of God, and the signs of the times in reference to the Kingdom of Christ. But other matters which are also of importance, and in which the very existence of our Missions is intimately involved, imperatively demand our attention and yours also.” “Subjects exclusively of a financial nature” were, indeed, never far from the minds of British Wesleyan ministers, whether stationed in Britain or the Canadas. Money and fundraising were also constant concerns to Canadian Methodists before their final union with the British connexion in 1847 and afterward. As the Canada Conference put it in 1870, “while financial progress, in the work of the Church, is manifestly only secondary to spiritual progress, it may be made immensely conducive to spiritual progress; and it is necessary to the maintenance of our various spiritual agencies.”1 Both the British Wesleyans and the Canadian Methodists were aware of the critical role that money played in shaping the life of a church. The same can be said of historians of Methodism in Canada, but only up to a point. Since the 1960s scholars have acknowledged the importance of the relationship between missionary financing and cultural formation among the Methodists in British North America. We know, for instance, that the British Wesleyan missions in the Maritimes were constantly dependent on the WMMS for funding. That situation contributed to the missionaries’ slowness in developing “a genuinely independent attitude of mind

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that would have led them to throw off the [Missionary] Society’s authority.” Into the 1840s the British Wesleyan ministers in the Maritimes remained “Britons abroad, uninvolved and unintegrated into the national aspirations of their adopted communities.” It is difficult to say, however, how this financial-cultural interaction played out among the Methodists in Lower and Upper Canada. When analyzing Methodist finances in those colonies, most historians have concentrated on the long-running and extremely rancorous debate over the Clergy Reserves – the Crown lands set aside by the imperial government in 1791 for the support of a Protestant clergy in Upper Canada. They have framed that dispute almost entirely in terms of a contest between voluntarist Canadian Methodists, who believed that every church should pay its own way, and the Wesleyans, in Britain and the colonies, who were bent on gaining a share of a potentially lucrative source of funding. In the 1840s and 1850s the Canadian Methodists abandoned their more extreme voluntarist position and agreed to take a slice of the reserve pie. Goldwin French alone presented that transformation as evidence of a shift towards a recognizably British Wesleyan position in one area of Canadian Methodist life.2 Yet, beyond the issue of the Clergy Reserves, he hardly touched on the idea that the meeting of God and mammon might have produced some interesting cultural changes among the Methodists in the Canadas. J.I. Little has suggested a different approach to the relationship between money and cultural change in his work on the British Wesleyan missionary efforts in Lower Canada’s Eastern Townships. While mapping the ins and outs of the WMMS ’s fiscal policies at the transatlantic level, Little demonstrated that their sheer complexity could influence the interactions between the church hierarchy in Britain and the missionaries in Lower Canada, producing “what was effectively a labour dispute” between the connexional core and periphery. He also shed light on how the funding disputes between the WMM S and the missionaries affected the latter’s efforts to transform a largely American-born population into loyal Britons and Wesleyans. But how did financial upheaval in Britain and the colonies affect the self-perception of the Methodist laity outside the Eastern Townships or the missionaries themselves?3 The answer to that question is complicated – and adding the Canadian Methodists to mix only makes it more so. Between 1814 and 1874 the British Conference was buffeted by a series of fiscal crises that forced it to adopt increasingly restrictive funding policies towards its overseas missions. These efforts at retrenchment and reform sharpened the edge of those disputes over the meaning of Britishness and Wesleyanism that

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we have already examined, first between the British Wesleyan community in the Canadas and the WMMS, and later between the Canada and British Conferences. In repeated efforts to secure stable funding, the British Wesleyan missionaries, their lay supporters, and the Canadian Methodists self-consciously identified themselves as transplanted Britons and Wesleyans, while making demands on the cash-strapped connexional authorities in Britain that were almost impossible to fulfill. This dynamic continued after 1840, when the financial needs of the British Wesleyan missionaries and the Canada Conference helped smooth the way for their permanent union under the general oversight of the British Conference. Despite the WMMS ’s best efforts to force this new Canada Conference to be self-supporting from the mid-1850s on, the financial burden that accompanied the Canada connexion’s steady growth ensured that the Methodists in the Canadas persisted in presenting themselves as the inhabitants of a greater Britain even after the two conference cut their last official ties in 1874.

I During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the British Conference experienced a series of financial upheavals triggered by a combination of runaway chapel debt, the growing cost of supporting the ministry, and economic depression. Each of those crises affected the operations of the connexion both at home and overseas.  As part of its effort put its own fiscal house in order, the WMMS attempted to impose a series of strict financial controls over its gospel field. The British Wesleyan missionaries and laity in Lower and Upper Canada responded by drawing on, and manipulating, their British and Wesleyan identity in order to defeat those new policies. By the mid-1840s disputes over money had underscored just how malleable any sense of self could be within transatlantic Methodism. The British Wesleyan connexion’s money problems began early and they began at home – in its chapels. John Wesley tried to stop his spendthrift followers from building churches whenever they established a new circuit. Despite his efforts, the connexion’s chapel debt ballooned to £11,388 by 1766. It never stopped growing after that, spiraling upward at a particularly alarming rate after Wesley died in 1791. A leading minister in Scotland bought or began building fourteen chapels between 1813 and 1819, none of which the local congregations could afford. At the same time, on circuits across England, energetic laypeople

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constructed increasingly ornate and costly churches. In 1818 the British Conference set up a chapel fund to help finance its growing obligations. Despite collecting £128,154 by 1845, the fund could not pay down all the church’s chapel debts.4 The cost of the Wesleyan ministry also rose steadily from the 1790s onward. The itinerants who joined the ministry after Wesley’s death shared a desire to be considered the social equals of their Anglican and Dissenting counterparts. They wanted comfortable lodgings, good schools for their children and accommodations suitable to married couples. The growth in church membership and income, however, could not keep up with the expense of supporting the ministry.5 So intractable did the problem seem that, by the 1830s, ministers were praying for revivals not only to bring the redeemed into the fold, but also to increase the number of subscribers to the connexional funds. “God grant us a plentiful effusion of the Holy Spirit!” Jabez Bunting wrote in 1831, “Then all will be well.”6 Earlier, in 1818 and 1819, the British Conference had curtailed recruitment to the ministry. This was a step in the right direction, but the connexional leadership failed to deal with the main obstacle to sound financial management: instead of receiving a fixed stipend, Wesleyan ministers were reimbursed for their individual expenses. As a result, ministerial salaries rose in lock step with the preachers’ social pretensions.7 The financial pressures on the Wesleyans in Britain also became greater after 1815 for reasons beyond their control. The battle of Waterloo signalled the end of a twenty-three-year long wartime fiscal regime in Britain and the beginning of a period of painful readjustment to peacetime economic conditions. During the war years inflationary pressures allowed the British connexion to at least hope that it could, one day, pay off the liabilities that it was accumulating. Savage deflation after 1815 drove down prices and put an end to the Conference’s dream of financial stability. With members of their congregations thrown out of work and many of the wealthy laity in England’s industrial north teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, Wesleyan ministers could hardly expect their collections to increase. The breakneck expansion of the British connexion before 1815 proved to be a product of exceptional wartime conditions, of almost irrational speculation, and so, in the language of the time, merely “shadowy and ideal.” The majority of the English circuits were quickly driven to insolvency. In 1818 the British Conference could not afford to pay £5,000 in ministerial salaries alone.8 In response to these financial pressures, Wesleyan ministers pressed laypeople to give more money to stave off financial disaster. Some of the

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preachers were concerned, however, that the laity could only be pushed so far. In 1816 Miles Martindale noted that there were already “not less than 155” collections each year across the connexion. “Was there such a begging system in existence before?” he asked Jabez Bunting, “Almost every other day we have our hands in the pockets of our people.”9 Reviewing the fiscal situation of the British connexion in 1832, William Atherton was equally troubled. “Debt is the besetting sin of the system,” he wrote, “It was the sin of Wesley, it made him miserable. It was the sin of the Wesley family. We have more institutions than we have property, or piety to support, & every Charity is in debt, our Sunday schools cost 3/4 more than they need. Perhaps you have not thought on these things. We must all think & feel too. It is easy to ask ourselves, how our burdens are to be borne, our demands met & our debts paid? Can our subscriptions & collections be raised[?] No they will scarcely keep to what they are.” Worst of all, according Jabez Bunting, Wesleyan ministers were terrible accountants. “They have need of patience and good humour,” Bunting noted, “who have to do with Methodist Preachers in general, in matters of Accounts. Many of our Brethren are not men of business, & do not feel inclined to be taught the art of strict & stern regularity.” Under those circumstances only one solution seemed possible – retrenchment combined with a centralized, ministerial bureaucracy based in London.10 The connexion’s missions were front-and-centre in that drive for efficiency and savings – and that was no surprise given their early history. The founder of the Wesleyan missionary movement, Thomas Coke, was as poor a planner as the church ever produced. He may have been one of John Wesley’s closest lieutenants, but he frequently suffered from a staggering excess of zeal over knowledge. He pushed for more and more missions, yet he had little of the organizational ability that overseas expansion demanded. And, as if all of that were not bad enough, Coke was true to Bunting’s version of the Wesleyan norm – he was no bookkeeper. He was compelled, on a regular basis, to use his own dwindling savings to meet the financial obligations of the missions.11 The finances of the WMMS were in a near-chaotic state when Thomas Coke died in 1814, but his ad hoc approach to paying for the missions survived him. Between 1815 and 1819 the Wesleyan missionaries in Upper and Lower Canada and elsewhere drew money from the connexional funds in Britain to pay for everything from chapel construction to winter clothing to general circuit expenses.12 This method of mission financing became an open-ended liability for the home connexion. The more missionaries the British Conference sent into the field, the more

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of a drain the missions became on the Wesleyan treasury. In 1819 the WMMS came out with a set of rules that fixed some missionary salaries, established new regulations for drawing on the home connexion for money, and promised to provide all things necessary for health and comfort “but without profusion!”13 This was one in a long line of attempts both to impose order on the mission field and make it fiscally viable.14 Yet several missions around the world continually defied London’s financial authority; the circuits in Upper and Lower Canada were particularly troublesome in that respect. The missionary secretaries wrote to their ministers in the Canadas twice in 1819 to explain the W M M S ’s new accounting practices and to stress the importance of following directives sent out from London. In 1820 the missionary secretaries chastised the missionaries for spending far too much on board; they had it on the best authority that food was far less expensive in the Canadas than in Britain. The WMM S also took more drastic measures to bring the expenditure of the Canada District into line with official policies. It decided that the missionaries should abandon any circuit costing more than £60 per annum.15 Taking advantage of their distance from central authority, the missionaries in the Canadas ignored this order and the financial state of the district did not improve. In 1825 the Missionary Secretaries noted with exasperation that “we are sorry to say that the Canada accounts have all along been the most confused and unintelligible of any we have had to do with.”16 The stations in Upper and Lower Canada had to be brought under stricter control. In 1824–25 the WMMS adopted the policy of the “Maximum” to deal with what it considered to be the financial recklessness of its agents overseas. The Canada District, like the other Wesleyan missions, would be granted “an allowance for the whole Expense of the District.” This grant would be “made annually the amount of which the District shall on no account exceed.” The task of apportioning the grant to “the several Circuits according to their respective circumstances” was left to the missionaries in the colonies.17 This process, the W M M S explained, was used by the British Conference to regulate its expenses at home; it would be equally useful to regulate expenses abroad. It would allow the W M M S to give each mission “a just proportion of the Funds of the Society, according to circumstances of which no individual District can form a proper judgment, but which can be duly estimated by the Committee.” In other words, the Maximum allowed a degree of centralized control over spending that Thomas Coke’s ramshackle system made impossible. The Maximum was also designed, in part, to “induce the members of

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the several societies to exert themselves more effectually towards the support of the Ministry of the Gospel among them.”18 There would be no free rides among the Wesleyan Methodists. A second period of financial embarrassment for the British Conference in the 1840s left the WMMS more determined than ever to implement and enforce the Maximum. The British economy went through a severe depression between 1840 and 1848; the collections for all the Wesleyan connexional agencies, including the WM M S , suffered as a result. Jabez Bunting noted in 1842 that, while he was generally confident about the Mission House’s ability to pay off its debts, “we must go sternly forward on the Total Abstinence principle as to new liabilities, for a considerable time longer.”19 Such optimism vanished by the end of 1843. In December the missionary secretaries issued a circular to all the missionaries in the field. “We are just now painfully anxious,” they admitted, “We are distressed. We are alarmed … [W]e see reason to apprehend, as matters now stand, and unless the most vigorous and determined measures be instantly adopted, a Deficiency of Income, to meet the Expenditure of the Year, of ten or twelve thousand pounds .” The missionaries would have to make their districts pay their way. “Let us,” the circular read, “pay as we proceed, and thus redeem our connexional pledges.”20 As part of that effort, the missionary secretaries issued a new series of regulations in 1841 to increase the effectiveness of their control over mission finances; and, three years later, they made yet another attempt to enforce the Maximum. Even before the new policy came into effect in 1844, however, Robert Alder wrote to the chairman of the Upper Canada District – created after the collapse of the union between the British and Canada Conferences in 1840. He stressed the need for further “measures of retrenchment” and suggested that the Maximum was going to be reduced from £2,100 to £1,500 per annum. Any idea of extending the British Wesleyan missions in Upper Canada with help from the home funds would have to be abandoned.21 The metropole was tightening its financial and administrative grip on the connexional periphery. But by imposing the Maximum on the British Wesleyans in Lower and Upper Canada, the WMMS actually accelerated a process of cultural differentiation already underway among its missionaries. From the beginning, the missionaries were not thrilled with the W M M S ’s bid for central control. At their district meeting in 1826, they argued that the Maximum was insufficient to cover the costs of the work in the Canadas. If the WMMS upheld this new policy, it would stunt the growth of the missions in the colonies and defeat the purpose of the entire enterprise. Displaying

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an acute level of exasperation, a year later the missionaries wrote that they objected to the principle of the Maximum and “we trust we shall not have it again pressed upon us.” Then they returned to their other line of argument: such financial stringency, even the threat of it, “discouraged” them in their work. In 1828 the missionaries gave in a little and cut their individual allowance for board to a district total of £52 per year. “Having done thus much to meet the views of the Committee,” they wrote, “we have now reduced our income to the lowest sum possible in justice to ourselves, our families and the Church of God.” Despite this concession, the missionaries clung to the open-ended financial system of Thomas Coke, arguing that they would be fools to give up “a certainty for an uncertainty.”22 A year later the missionaries were “resolved to be as economical as possible,” but they were still against submitting to the Maximum. In 1830 they stated that the Maximum would “be by us ever resisted.” The chairman of the WMMS ’s Canada District, James Knowlan, wrote that the prospects of the mission under the Maximum were “sickening.” He went a step further in March 1831, pressing official charges against the missionary secretaries for advising the W M M S to adopt and “to carry into effect, arbitrary principles, and measures in the payment of the Missionaries … new in themselves … and liable to great abuse, and which have been abused.” The Maximum would never have been taken up, he wrote, “were it not for the evil counsels, and assistance of the persons complained of in these charges.” The missionary secretaries were forcing their agents in the Canadas to choose between “absolute submission & prompt resistance,” Knowlan argued, while defying the Maximum themselves and collecting the most exorbitant salaries.23 In an effort to justify their resistance to the connexional authorities at home, and to shame the missionary secretaries into abandoning their new financial policies, the missionaries also began to stress their dependence on the funds of the WMMS and the W M M S ’s obligation to support the mission work in Lower and Upper Canada. Until their district attained “a greater degree of maturity,” the missionaries in Lower Canada argued in 1826, they would have to rely on money from Britain to supply the gospel field, as well as “to live, and to appear with becoming decency before the public.”24 There was some truth behind that claim. Most settlers could not donate much to the mission cause; in a cashpoor agricultural society, the missionaries often had to accept payment in kind – cords of wood, for example, rather than a direct contribution to the mission coffers.25 There  were other problems as well. In 1828

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Richard Pope explained the Quebec City society’s dependence on the home funds by pointing out that several liberal donors had left the city, a few others had fallen into financial straits, three or four “respectable” ship captains had not visited the port that year, and Anglican ministers were starting to compete for the limited funds available. According to the missionaries, competition from other denominations was an increasing problem. They tried to excuse the deficiency in the accounts of the Stanstead circuit, despite an increase in membership, by stating that “at first people of different denominations supported our missions, but now we are chiefly if not altogether supported by those who are in connexion with us, or who are particularly favourable to our mission.” There was only so much money to go around. From the missionary point of view, these financial issues tied the WMM S to its agents in the Canadas. As the district meeting put it in 1830, “We need not say that as we are bound to the Conference and the Committee so the Conference and Committee are also bound to us especially as to the supply of our necessary wants.”26 The British Wesleyan missionaries responded to the W M M S ’s second round of retrenchment and reform in the 1840s with the same language of dependence and obligation. In 1841 the ministers in Lower Canada stated that their annual grant had “never yet been adjusted, to the real demands of the District, but merely suggested.” They requested that, “the maximum may not be fixed until by a trial of a few years it may be more easy to come to a fair average.” The implication, of course, was that, up to that point, the Maximum had not been fair at all. This was a problem because “with respect to meeting a District deficiency in the District itself … we have not as yet the resources to which we are accustomed to look in the Parent country.” The following year the missionaries in Lower Canada denied that they had any objections to “the principle of an Annual Grant fixing the maximum for the year although our words will probably bear that construction.” At the same time, however, they requested a variation in the Maximum from year to year to “meet our necessary wants and to relieve us from the embarrassing fear of debt and insolvency which must act ruinously upon the interests of religion in our District.”27 In 1844 the chairman for Lower Canada, William Martin Harvard, insisted on the “really Missionary character of our District whose labours … are chiefly among a people who are struggling with the difficulties of settling in a new country with but inadequate means of purchasing and improving their land.” The W M M S was guilty of overlooking the missionaries’ “untiring endeavours to save souls and to raise

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money” amidst impoverished congregations and stiff competition from the frequently well-funded missions of other Protestant churches.28 Culturally, these notions of dependence and obligation fed into the self-perception as transplanted Britons and Wesleyans – equal or superior to the ministers in Britain – that had first taken shape among the missionaries in the early 1820s. Despite any bureaucratic changes that the connexional authorities decided to implement, the missionaries insisted that they were and would remain British ministers serving a British population with “very strong claims upon the liberality of the British Nation.” The WMMS , in contrast, was in danger of losing sight of the patriotic zeal that, from the missionary point of view at least, motivated the fundraising laity of the home country. “Whether our own destitute poor are not to be first supplied in preference to foreigners or even the heathen is a question which we think would soon be decided by a British public,” the missionaries declared in 1830.29 The chairman of the Canada District, James Knowlan, drove this point home in his own communications with the missionary secretaries. How, he asked, would the supporters of the W M M S in Britain feel if they knew that a plan was in the works to “leave a people to many of whom they are connected by the tenderest of ties to linger out their days laboring … under severe temporal privation”? Knowlan had no doubt about the laity’s response. “Let the question be proposed on every Missionary platform throughout the United Kingdom,” he urged, “let the claim of the perishing heathen be placed before them on the one hand and the wants of a British Colony on the other” and the people would, no doubt, see right done by the latter.30 If the home connexion turned its back on the British settlers of Lower and Upper Canada, the laity in Britain would not: from the missionary point of view, the transatlantic bond between Britons at home and abroad remained strong, despite the W M M S ’s attempt to divide them in the name of fiscal restraint. Just as they had in the early 1820s, the missionaries also demonstrated a willingness to attack the policies of their leaders in Britain by defending their rights as Wesleyans – rights that the W M M S and the British Conference appeared to be violating. The Maximum, the missionaries declared in 1829, is “an absolute departure from the pledge given by the Committee, and guaranteed by the Conference, when we engaged as Missionaries, ‘that our wants should be supplied.’” It was certainly not their concern, the missionaries added in 1830, if other districts accepted the Maximum: “they are no rule to us, they have done in confidence what they may repent of at leisure.” In fact, they argued, no sane

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people would ever place themselves “at the sole will and pleasure of any other man or body of men[;] and perhaps the alarm exerted by the measures of the Committee towards this District was of advantage to us by putting us on our guard.” They were being treated like “Servants,” rather than “Brethren and agents.” They did not want to be independent of the connexional authorities at home, but they did want to be dealt with on the basis of perfect equality. “It is too much,” the missionaries wrote, “to expect that we should give ourselves wholly into your hands and the hands of your unknown successors and abandon every right we now possess.”31 The missionaries’ attempt to derail the Maximum by defining their own Wesleyanism against the apparent backsliding of the connexional authorities at home reached its height in 1831. They embarked on an attack on the missionary secretaries. “If the Secretaries have not power to manage the Missions,” the missionaries resolved in their district minutes, “it is because they lose sight of those principles of good government by which our Missions were conducted for many peaceful and happy years.” In such circumstances, the missionaries knew what their responsibility as Wesleyans entailed: they had to do all that they could to recall the WMMS “to a principle settled by their predecessors and acted upon for many years.” They pledged to “do our utmost to effect it, believing it to be our duty to ourselves, to our Bro[ther] Missionaries, to the Committee and to the Conference.” The missionaries, in other words, would bring the home connexion back to the funding system of Thomas Coke and so save the missions.32 James Knowlan offered to come to Britain to act as an emissary from the missionaries in the Canadas and to put things right. He and his fellow ministers were “anxious to establish a perfectly good understanding between the Committee & Missionaries without which permanent peace and prosperity cannot be expected.”33 That the missionaries thought that the WMMS would even think of endorsing such a plan – the connexional margins correcting the errors of the centre – demonstrates how far they had moved along the road to seeing themselves as better Wesleyans than their brethren in the home country. This was an argument that the British Wesleyan missionaries in the Canadas could not hope to win. The WMMS meant to impose its financial policy on the overseas districts and would accept no opposition. It threatened to subject the missionaries in the Canadas to the discipline of the British Conference unless they accepted and adopted the Maximum. The WMMS and not the missionaries was to be the final judge of how much of the home funds would be spent in the Canadas. In January 1832

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the missionary secretaries called for the Canada District to submit to the Maximum and recalled James Knowlan to Britain to account for his rebellious behaviour. The WMMS also dispatched Robert Alder to the Canadas to “carry into effect” their new financial policy.34 Faced with the ire of the connexional authorities in London and the presence of Alder with his “clear and forceful manner,” the missionaries backed down. Alder was pleased with this outcome: “the Canadian District is at peace with the Committee, by their acceptance of your plan,” he wrote to the missionary secretaries once he had returned to Britain, “and … the affair, as far as the Brethren there are concerned, is settled. Their Minutes show that.” So did the minutes of the British Conference, which, for 1833, related the story of Alder’s triumph over the recalcitrant missionaries in the Canadas and the humbling of James Knowlan.35 If, however, the British Wesleyan leadership expected perfect peace  to ensue, they were being too sanguine by half. In response to the W M M S ’s next round of cutbacks in the 1840s, the missionaries once again turned their self image as ministers serving a transplanted British and Wesleyan population against the home connexion. In 1840 the Lower Canada District pointed emphatically to the needs of those “emigrants from the land of our Fathers” whose “spiritual destitution” screamed out for help. The WMMS had to increase the Maximum in order to provide more ministers for these backcountry settlers.36 A year later, in Upper Canada, the missionary Thomas Fawcett asked whether the “people here” who had left “their Father Land shall not have the ministers of their choice and that too at a time while they are destitute of the means of supporting them. I think I almost hear the good people of England … answer Yes!”37 The missionaries in Lower Canada hinted heavily in 1842 that the WMMS was abandoning its duty to a British and Wesleyan community through “the line of limitation which the Committee have deemed it right to present to our Canadian work for the salvation of precious souls!” Other churches were stealing away what should have been British Wesleyan laity. At the same time, the members of the Upper Canada District argued that any increase in their expenses should not be viewed as a problem, but as part of “the pains and expense now necessary to lay the foundation of a pure Wesleyan Church in this Empire Province of Her Majesty’s N[orth] A[merican] Possessions.” The “continuous immigration to these shores of hundreds and thousands who had been fed in your own spiritual pastures” called out to be consistently sustained by the home funds.38 These missionaries were protecting pristine Britishness and Wesleyanism. The W M M S , by undercutting them

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financially, was threatening the loyal and pious community that was taking shape in the wilderness of Lower and Upper Canada. The reaction of the British Wesleyan laity in the Canadas to the home connexion’s repeated financial crises further complicated the relationship between the WMMS and the colonial districts. Along with their missionaries, the British Wesleyan laypeople of Lower and Upper Canada wanted to be regarded as Britons and Wesleyans with a strong claim on the home funds. At the same time, however, they wanted to keep their own money for themselves. This mindset fully revealed itself for the first time in 1839 in connection with the Centenary Fund. The British Conference established this fund to celebrate John Wesley’s formation of the first Methodist societies in 1739 and to bring much needed financial stability to the connexion. Wesleyan Methodist ministers collected it in every part of the world where solvent congregations existed; by 1844 they had raised approximately £220,000.39 The British Wesleyan laity in the Canadas played a reluctant role in achieving that success. Visiting Montreal in the autumn of 1839, Robert Alder found that “our Friends” were unwilling to give any money to the Centenary Fund unless they were assured that it would be applied to their own financial wants. “I was told again & again,” Alder wrote to Jabez Bunting, “that unless this point were conceded to them nothing would be done.” Alder did manage to convince the societies in Montreal to give something to the fund by arguing that “while all the Centenary objects have a Connexional character stamped upon them, that they are for that very reason, invested with a Local Character to every Methodist in every part of the World.”40 Once Alder was gone, however, the more prominent laypeople of Lower Canada returned to their insular views of the Centenary Fund. In October 1840 the lay grandees of Montreal and Quebec City determined to suspend their contributions until they heard what portion of the fund had been allotted to their own chapels.41 This was conditional loyalty with a vengeance. Financial stringency had an impact on British Wesleyan lay culture in the Canadas, beyond the specific issue of the Centenary Fund. In some instances, in their efforts to secure access to all of the home connexion’s funds, the laity used the same language of Britishness and Wesleyanism as their ministers. In June 1840 the trustees of the chapels in Montreal wrote to the missionary secretaries and pointed out that their congregations needed increased financial aid. Any relief that the W M M S could provide would be of great help to the cause of God in a province which, they insisted, would “probably [be] the future home of many millions

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of the descendants of the British Isles.” The laity also shared their missionaries’ sense of the mutual obligation between the W M M S and the mission in the Canadas. In this instance, however, that point of view was calculated to harm the missionaries more than the connexional funds in Britain. The missionaries could not rely on their “respected lay Friends” in the Canadian cities to make up any district deficiencies.42 Indeed, by 1844, many laypeople were “extremely sensitive as it respects the employment of their means beyond the limit of their own immediate borders.” “We mention this,” the missionaries noted, “but to indicate to the Committee the localizing tendencies of our Provincial and transatlantic position.”43 The Wesleyan laity possessed a changeable sense of Britishness and Wesleyanism; they became more British and Wesleyan when they wanted money from the home funds and less so when they wanted to protect their earnings. They could not simply be identified with the church leadership in Britain. Like their missionaries, these laypeople saw themselves as part of the British Wesleyan mission field, but, when it came to money, as to so much else, they had their own way of viewing that transatlantic world and their position in it.

II The same pattern of cultural development took shape among the Canadian Methodists between 1831 and 1840. During the early 1830s they drew on a sense of their own Britishness in order to tap into the rich fiscal resources of the home country. At the same time, they attempted to maintain their existence as an autonomous connexion. When the Canada Conference abandoned its independence in 1833, uniting with the British Wesleyans, money continued to be a source of conflict. Disagreements over whether Methodists should have anything to do with government grants or the Clergy Reserves – and how any money they generated should be used – fed into the wider dispute over identity and authority taking shape between the Buntingites in Britain and the Ryerson brothers and their supporters among the Canadian Methodists. In 1831 the Canadian Methodists decided to send two preachers – George Ryerson and the Native American convert Peter Jones – to Britain to raise money for their hard-pressed missions. They may have realized that the WMMS usually managed to collect about fifteen times more money than any North American Methodist church every year. The British Wesleyans, however, were unhappy with the idea of a rival Methodist group “interfering” with their work by “making private and personal

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applications for subscriptions” among their lay supporters. In response the WMMS gave Ryerson and Jones a grant of £300, but only on the condition that they would “agree … to give their best assistance to our funds at such Meetings as they may have opportunity of attending, while they remain in England.” One of the missionary secretaries, James Townley, also wrote to the president of the Canada Conference, William Case, warning that the British Wesleyans would severely “discountenance” any “future attempt” to raise “contributions from our friends” independent of the WMMS.44 In Upper Canada the Canadian Methodist ministers John Ryerson and Thomas Vaux replied by pointing out that while they never wanted to upset the calm of the British connexion, their church had undertaken its fundraising expedition to Britain on the recommendation “of a number of intelligent and respectable English Brethren, who stated their conviction, that more Guineas would be given in England in aid of our Indian Missions, than dollars in the United States.” They also stressed that, in sending two fundraisers across the ocean, the Canada connexion had been motivated by an awareness of its position in a wider British world. As “an Independent Connexion in a British Province, our Indian Missions established within the British Territories,” Ryerson and Vaux explained, “a preference was, of course, felt to making application to the British public,” rather than to the Methodists of the United States.45 For the sake of gaining access to the relative wealth of British Wesleyanism, the Canadian Methodists were willing to situate themselves within the boundaries of Greater Britain. That continued to be the case after the Canada and British Conferences united in 1833. From a financial standpoint, union with the British Wesleyans made sense for the Canadian Methodists, plagued as they were by “the admitted and notorious fact” of their “inadequacy as a body, both in regard to men and means, to supply all the religious wants of the white settlements and Indian tribes” under their care. For their part, Jabez Bunting and his supporters designed the financial conditions of the union in order to subject the Canadian Methodists to the same degree of central control that the W M M S attempted to exercise over its own missionaries in Lower and Upper Canada. This fit with their overall aim of incorporating the Canada connexion into a larger British Wesleyan community on the strictest Wesleyan Tory terms. The Buntingites tried to “secure the funds” of the British Conference “against any claims on the part of the Canadian Preachers,” while also demanding that the WMMS should have sole authority to determine the amount of support that the Canadian Methodist missions received from year

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to year. The final Articles of Union made the Canada Conference’s missionary society auxiliary to the WMM S and required it to transfer any subscriptions raised in Upper Canada for mission purposes to the connexional authorities in London.46 Yet, almost from the moment that both Conferences ratified the Articles of Union, conflict arose between the British Wesleyan centre and its new periphery over the explosive issues of government grants and the division of the Clergy Reserves. The main difficulty here was that, as part and parcel of their general opposition to church establishment, the Canadian Methodists refused to accept money from the state; and, despite the conditions of the union, they also expected to control any money collected in Upper Canada. Bunting and his supporters were quite willing, on the other hand, to accept government money and genuinely expected to control all mission funds whether they came from Upper Canada or elsewhere. This difference of opinion was particularly problematic since the Buntingites had made the decision to send missionaries into Upper Canada in 1832 based, in part, on the imperial government’s promise to “afford some pecuniary aid” to the W M M S .47 Bunting summarized the nature of the impasse in April 1834. Writing to the Britishappointed president of the Canada Conference, Edmund Grindrod, he pointed out that  the Canadian Methodists had “unhappily committed themselves to the Anti-Establishment & strictly voluntary principle; while we, on the contrary, are ready to avail ourselves of Government assistance.” “This,” Bunting continued, “is a difference not to be reconciled, unless they have moral courage enough to retrograde from the position they have taken up, or at least to refrain from taking any part in controversy.”48 The Canadian Methodists had to become what Bunting and his supporters saw as proper Britons and Wesleyans, embracing both the established church and government aid for the Protestant religion. If they did not, the union could not last. Faced with the prospect of what they saw as unwarranted interference in their connexional and fiscal affairs, the Canadian Methodists tried to make an end run around the Articles of Union in 1837. That year’s Canada Conference passed a series of resolutions denying that it had received any benefit from the imperial government’s grants to the W M M S in 1833 and 1834 and renouncing any claim on the Clergy Reserves. The Buntingite approach to both those issues, the Canadian Methodists declared, had led to “vigorous and widely extended efforts” among colonial radicals “to excite prejudices against our Connexion.” Unlike Bunting and his supporters, the Canada Conference remained opposed to “the

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establishment of one or more Churches in this Province, with exclusive rights and privileges – however well suited such an establishment may be to the condition of the Mother Country, where it is distinctly recognized by the constitution of the government … and includes a majority, and is desired by the great body, of the nation.” At the same time, however, the Canadian Methodists also stated that should “any adjustment to the Clergy Reserve Question be proposed and determined on … by which individual and collective effort can be combined for the religious and educational improvement of the country,” they would be willing to take their fair share in order not to support the ministry, but for the sake of “the religious and educational improvement of the Province.”49 In other words, the Canada Conference moved to block the W M M S ’s access to a government grant, while also claiming full authority, independent of the Buntingites, to control any money that might come out of the Clergy Reserves fund. At least some of the Canadian Methodist laity supported this tactic: in July 1837, the leading laypeople on the Belleville circuit hailed “the Conference resolutions, on Clergy reserves and government grants … with most cordial and unanimous approbation.”50 In an effort to ward off the inevitable counterattack from the British Conference, however, and to appeal to the growing number of British Wesleyan immigrants in Upper Canada, the Canadian Methodists attempted to justify their actions on British and Wesleyan grounds. In its address to William IV in 1836, the Canada Conference stressed its determination, as a body of loyal Britons, to maintain “the permanent connexion of this Colony with the Empire of Great Britain.” The Canadian Methodists felt compelled, nevertheless, to point out that the laity who made up their societies could be both “unwavering in their allegiance and attachment to Your Majesty’s person and Government” and “jealous of their inalienable right, as British subjects, to the enjoyment of equal civil and religious privileges.” It might prove a volatile mixture. As “loyal and devoted Canadian subjects” opposed to the idea of church establishment and  state endowment, the Canada Conference warned, “nothing could tend more directly to weaken the attachment of the people of this country to the Parent State, than the continuance of this system of exclusive patronage of any one Church.”51 In their resolutions on the Clergy Reserves and their address to the British Conference for 1837, the Canadian Methodists assured their transatlantic brethren that the Canadian Methodist ministry was doing its collective best to “maintain the integrity of our system,” “to inculcate the fear of God in connexion with honour to the King, and to keep our Societies generally in the love

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and practice of truth, as taught by Wesleyan-Methodism.” At the same time, as freeborn Britons, they could not blindly abide by John Wesley’s strictures against “intermeddling with secular politics” while an unjust establishment was taking root in Upper Canada. Instead, the Canadian Methodists claimed that their allegiance to “His Majesty’s Government” gave them “an indisputable claim” on equal rights with the Churches of England and Scotland: if those denominations had a share in the Clergy Reserves, the Canada connexion should too. Like the British Wesleyan missionaries and their lay supporters, the Canadian Methodists were prepared to embrace their position within a wider British and Wesleyan world in an effort to undermine the policies of the imperial and connexional metropole. This financial-cultural dispute contributed to the collapse of the union in August 1840. Jabez Bunting and his supporters were prepared to meet what they saw as a direct challenge to their authority head-on. The W M M S dispatched Robert Alder to Upper Canada in early 1839 in an attempt to force the Canada Conference back onto the Buntingite straight and narrow. He was successful to the extent that the Canadian Methodists rescinded the most obnoxious of their 1837 resolutions.52 This truce proved short lived, however, thanks to the actions of the governor general, Charles Poulett Thomson. In December 1839, as part of his efforts to put the establishment issue to bed, Thomson asked the leading Methodist ministers in Upper Canada for their thoughts on a possible solution to the Clergy Reserves problem. That put the proverbial cat among the pigeons. Within weeks, Joseph Stinson and his fellow British Wesleyan missionary, Matthew Richey, wrote to Thomson to claim a share in the Clergy Reserves for the British Conference as represented by the WMMS . That most opinionated of Canadian Methodist ministers, Egerton Ryerson, countered with a letter of his own, arguing that “any grants intended to benefit the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada ought undoubtedly to be placed at the disposal of the Conference of that Church.”53 As Thomson’s Clergy Reserves bill made its way through the British parliament, Robert Alder responded, in turn, to Ryerson’s claims. From his desk at the Mission House, he pointed out that, though it was unlikely that the British Conference would be able to maintain its union with the Canadian Methodists, there was no question whatever “whether we shall, or shall not prosecute our Missionary operations in Upper Canada.” That colony was part of the British Wesleyan gospel field, he assured imperial officialdom, and the W M M S was there to stay. As such, Alder objected most vehemently to Ryerson’s “proposal” for “alienating

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in whole or in part from them [the WMM S ] the Annual Grant and transferring it to the Upper Canadian Wesleyan Methodist Conference.”54 As we know, in April 1840 a special committee of the British Conference passed a series of resolutions rejecting Egerton Ryerson’s stand on church establishment; the largely Buntingite membership of the committee also condemned what it saw as his heinous attempt to “gain the possession, in whole or in part, of the Grant made by the Crown to the Wesleyan Missionary Society.”55 In June the Canada Conference repudiated the home connexion’s charges, resolving that, “we cannot recognize any right on the part” of the WMMS “to interfere with … the management of our own internal affairs (except as provided for in the Articles of Union) and especially with our views and proceedings on the Question of the Clergy Reserves.” As good Wesleyans, the Canadian Methodists disclaimed “any wish to interfere with the legitimate claims” of the British connexion on “the faith and liberality of Her Majesty’s Government.” As loyal British subjects, however, they were equally prepared to “submit to the proper authorities” respecting the final division of the reserves.56 Egerton Ryerson reiterated these points when he and his brother William attended the British Conference of 1840. “You require that the Conferences in Canada shall receive through you the Government grant, even if paid from Canadian property,” he told the assembled ministers, “This seems to us unjust, and even inconsistent. You have no business with the clergy reserves.” When Bunting declared that “the money from the clergy reserves will be applied by the Mission House to missionary purposes, for the benefit of the aborigines,” Ryerson argued that the WMMS had no right “to divert the land reserves from the purpose for which they were expressly reserved” – the “religious instruction and oversight” of the settler population of Upper Canada. The British Conference’s claim to the reserves, he stated, was “a virtual dissolution of the union.” “This Conference is the parent of Canadian Methodism,” Ryerson concluded, “but the preachers in Canada are not now in their minority.”57 The Buntingites could not agree. Developments over the next thirty-four years proved them right.

III The union of the British and Canada Conferences may have fallen apart in August 1840, but between the mid-1840s and 1854 new and pressing financial difficulties undercut any objections to a reunion among the various Methodist communities in the Canadas. Despite the doubts of

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the British Wesleyan missionaries and laity in Lower Canada about the value of a connection with the Canadian Methodists, by 1854 economic crisis in British North America, combined with the home connexion’s ongoing parsimony, convinced them that their future might have to be found within the Canada Conference. At the same time, the rising costs of Methodism’s redeeming work in the Canadas helped make a reunion of the British and Canada connexions conceivable and necessary on both sides of the Atlantic. The key context here was the crippling commercial depression that gripped the Canadas after Britain adopted Free Trade in 1846. Montreal’s British Wesleyans were particularly hard hit. In August 1848 the chairman of the Lower Canada District, John Jenkins, complained about the colony’s financial state and “our perplexing chapel embarrassment.” A month later, he let the missionary secretaries know that the Montreal laity was labouring under a debt of £16,500 on three chapels. The leading laypeople had managed to meet between £300 and £400 of that deficiency out of their own pockets, “but you are aware that this cannot go on, especially in the present embarrassed state of trade.” The chief financial supporters of British Wesleyanism in Montreal had, after all, lost over £70,000 between them in the previous year. The Mathewson family alone was “involved … in difficulties which it will take two or three years to surmount.” To service its massive debt, the district needed the WMMS’s help to borrow money in Britain at the lowest possible interest rate.58 The situation deteriorated in 1849. By March there were rumours that another financial pillar of the Lower Canada District, William Lunn, was bankrupt after “engaging in flour speculations.” Near the end of April the missionary Charles DeWolfe warned the W M M S that “business is in the most embarrassed state and our people [in Montreal] can scarcely make up our salaries.”59 When the missionaries gathered for their district meeting in May, they lamented that “the commercial depression in our Cities is alarmingly felt by our leading friends – while scores, yea hundreds … are leaving for other parts of this vast continent.” “The whole district is more or less affected by this circumstance,” they continued, “but especially the Cities of Montreal and Quebec, and the Towns of Three Rivers and St. Johns. The influence of this embarrassment in Montreal is such as to create almost a panic.” In response the missionaries initially resorted to those claims of dependence and obligation that had become so familiar to them during previous times of fiscal crisis. They understood, they wrote, that their fellow Wesleyans in Britain might feel sympathy for strictly “heathen” countries, but “we

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would respectfully request you to consider if it be not more desirable to prevent a country from sinking into barbarism than even to raise a country from barbarism.” The missionaries trusted that the W M M S would “place a sum at our disposal more adequate to our wants, and more accordant with our wishes.”60 That was not going to happen. The WMM S was reluctant to bail the Lower Canada District out of its latest financial difficulties – and that had a marked cultural effect. In June 1849 the Missionary Secretary Elijah Hoole informed John Jenkins that there was “no hope that the Com[mittee] can borrow money on the security of property in Montreal, & they have no other security to offer.” He advised Jenkins to look to local efforts to raise the necessary funds.61 The British missionaries responded by sending their chairman to Britain to plead for aid in person. Jenkins was only partially successful, convincing the missionary secretaries to secure a £5,000 loan for the Montreal chapels through a third party.62 Given such grudging support in what they likely saw as their hour of greatest need, the laity in Lower Canada began to look to the Canadian Methodists for help. In November 1850, for example, the lay leadership in Quebec City announced that they were unable to support two married preachers; however, instead of emphasizing their identity as transplanted Britons and Wesleyans, these laymen asked the missionary secretaries to use their “influence” with the Canada Conference “to procure … the Rev’d. Lachlan Taylor, who is an unmarried man,” and who had already been preaching among the hardup congregations of Montreal and Trois-Rivières since 1848. Two years later, John Jenkins went even further, admitting that the Lower Canada District’s fiscal dependence on the WMM S was crippling the energies of laity and missionaries alike: the latter, especially, “probably do not feel the necessity for financial exertions which they otherwise would do,” he wrote. “The system in Upper Canada would be much more successfully applied here,” he continued, “than that on which we now work … I begin to be of the opinion that the sooner we are thrown upon our own efforts the better it will be for us.” From a political, geographical, ecclesiastical, and spiritual point of view, Jenkins concluded, union with the Canada Conference offered the best way forward.63 The Canada connexion’s response to its own financial difficulties would also have made it easier for the missionaries and laity in Lower Canada to contemplate amalgamation during the 1850s. The Canadian Methodists were drawn back into the British Wesleyan fold after the mid-1840s. From a fiscal point of view, reunion in 1847 was as mutually advantageous for the Canada and British Conferences as the first union

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was supposed to have been in 1833. For the Canadian Methodists, reunification offered immediate relief from a falling connexional membership that cast doubt on their ability to maintain an independent existence.64 Similarly, as early as 1841, the missionary Joseph Stinson warned the WMMS that he had “little hope that the Missionary Committee will ever or can ever supply the country fully, independent of the Canada Preachers, hence I am the more anxious, that if an arrangement can be made on safe and honourable terms that it should be done.”65 Bunting and his supporters eventually agreed, convinced, by 1846, that a new union would be financially beneficial for the W M M S’s work in Upper Canada. In particular, reconciliation with the Canada connexion would allow the Mission House to lay its hands on the grant that the imperial government had first promised in 1833 and then suspended in 1840 when the union fell apart. The Buntingites were further reassured by the fact that the 1847 Articles of Union, heartily endorsed by the Canada Conference, gave the WMMS absolute control over its own expenditure in the Canadas.66 In other words, the missions to the Native Americans and the destitute settlers of Upper Canada would be subject to the same policy of the Maximum that had been in operation among the British Wesleyan missionaries in the colonies since 1826. According to the Canada Conference’s published Minutes, this transatlantic financial system operated very well between 1847 and 1854. Unlike the British Wesleyan missionaries and laity in Lower Canada, the Canadian Methodists seemed to move quickly towards fiscal independence. In the first year of the union the Canadian ministers hailed “the unabated zeal and liberality with which all our Institutions have been supported during the past year.” Their pastoral address of 1848 noted that “notwithstanding the depression of trade and commerce,” the laity’s contributions to the mission fund were undiminished. True, this sunny outlook was slightly dimmed by the fact that the preachers were collectively owed about £400 in salaries. The Canada Conference rebounded by 1849, however, reporting to the British connexion that, despite “the great depression which has pervaded all our agricultural, manufacturing and commercial interests,” the income of all of its connexional funds had increased; the collections for the mission work, in particular, had exceeded those of the previous year by between £100 and £200. Over the next twelve months, as the British Wesleyans in Lower Canada drifted onto the financial rocks, the Canada connexion’s funds seemed to sail away into the wide blue yonder. This rate of improvement, the Canada Conference informed its lay supporters, had to be maintained: “From

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year to year let there be an advancement. Whilst you improve in piety, improve also in liberality.” The Canadian Methodist laity responded by adding £1,000 to the mission fund in 1851. By 1853 they were contributing “with an increased and noble liberality … to the divine works of Missions, to the erection of an unprecedentedly large number of places of worship, to the support of the ministers, and the several Connexional funds.”67 The Canada Conference had every appearance of being a winning concern by the mid-1850s. The private correspondence that passed between the connexional leadership in Upper Canada and the Buntingites in Britain told a different story. Instead of moving towards financial self-sufficiency, the Canada Conference’s difficulties with ministerial salaries and chapel debt – the same expenses that had hobbled the home connexion in the past – translated into an increasing reliance on British Wesleyan support after 1847. The leading Canadian Methodists assumed, for instance, that the WMMS would cover the shortfall when, in 1848, the imperial government refused to resume its annual grant towards the connexion’s missionary work. This was almost a necessity, the newly appointed general superintendent of missions, Enoch Wood, pointed out: the allowances that the ministers in Upper Canada received were “miserably small and not to receive them when due is humiliating enough.” The Canadian Methodists also proved unable or unwilling to pay the salary of their British-appointed co-delegate (or vice-president), Matthew Richey. In 1848 Richey was forced to turn to the home connexion for a £125 loan, since, he noted bitterly, “I may as well be referred to a Bank in the Moon … as to any fund connected with the Canada Conference.” He made the same point even more forcefully in another letter. “There is,” he stated emphatically, “no resource here.” A year later, now serving as president of the Canada connexion, Richey was still asking the WMMS for financial support. Near the end of 1849, Wood tried to convince Robert Alder that “if the Canadian President’s salary were secured until next June [1850], there would be little difficulty in arranging for the future.” He expected the funds at the disposal of the Mission House to do the securing.68 Fiscal independence was nowhere near as close as the Canadian Conference’s official Minutes suggested.

IV That does not mean, however, that the Buntingites wanted to retain close financial ties with the Canadian Methodists forever. Between 1849 and the mid-1850s the British Conference experienced the  worst fiscal crisis

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in its history. As part of a larger effort to relieve the depleted funds of the WMMS , Bunting and his allies decided that the time had come for the Canada Conference to be self-sufficient. The Canadian Methodists refused to play ball, distracted, as they were, by money problems of their own. Instead, in an effort to maintain their access to the relatively deep pockets of the Wesleyans in Britain, they turned to the same notions of British identity and connexional obligation that the British Wesleyan community in the Canadas had first articulated in the 1820s. Beginning in the mid-1840s the entire denominational government that the Buntingites had created in Britain came under attack. That assault was primarily the work of one embittered, renegade preacher – the Wesleyan reformer James Everett. Described by historians as an “apostle of discord,” “the stuff of which Piltdown forgers are made,” and an “undistinguished” specimen “of the ministerial race,” Everett’s entire raison d’être was an all-consuming hatred of Bunting, his supporters, and their vision of a centralized British connexion. Like all Wesleyan reformers, he yearned for the fall of the Buntingian Dynasty and a return to what he saw as British Wesleyanism’s glory days, located sometime back in an imaginary version of the mid-1700s. Everett initially broke with Bunting in the 1820s and embarked on a private war, waged through a combination of clandestine plotting with other ministerial malcontents and unsigned, muckraking pamphlets. During the 1830s and 1840s, as the Buntingites inexorably extended their control over the home connexion and mission field, Everett’s contempt for his enemy and his enemy’s supporters grew apace. Between 1844 and 1849 he unleashed the accumulated grievances of over twenty years in a series of anonymous Fly Sheets.69 In those scurrilous pamphlets, Everett took special aim at one of the Buntingite strongholds in the British connexion: the WMMS. With almost fiendish delight, he poured over the missionary secretaries’ annual accounts and arrived at some provocative insights. The first Fly Sheet contained a table of salaries showing “the sums which the self-denying Secretaries have appropriated to themselves, while teaching the Missionaries, and others, economy, and applying the screw to both children and adults, to rich and poor, at public meetings, and at Christmas, to give.” According to Everett’s figures, a missionary labouring abroad might expect £200 a year, at most, to live on; a missionary secretary, in contrast, had to make due with a mere £500 per annum. That money was not wasted, of course: it paid for the essentials of Buntingite life, like “first class carriages, and frequent stops at first inns.” “We lie pretty soft,” Everett sneered, “when we have it in our power to feather our own nests.”70

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Finally forced to break cover after the British Conference expelled him and two like-minded reformers from the ministry in 1849, Everett was delighted to find that thousands of discontented laity across the connexion believed his anti-Buntingite propaganda. These were his people and they took up the cudgels against the ministerial bureaucrats of the WMMS, arguing that, “persons able to manage a Society or concern, with an income of £20,000, might be incompetent to the management of an income of £108,000.”71 Such charges created a groundswell of popular agitation that threatened to destroy British Wesleyanism in the years after 1849. The atmosphere of hatred and distrust that overwhelmed the connexion had a disastrous impact on all of its funds. Like other schismatic groups before them, Everett’s followers issued a call to “stop the supplies.” They intended to orchestrate an “immediate, universal, persevering suspension of all cash payments, until the priests give up their absolutism, and surrender into the hands of the Church the rights and powers of which they have stealthily deprived it.” Many ministers and laity, even those who were not among Everett’s wholehearted supporters, believed that it might not be a bad thing if the Conference were “compelled to take a lower tone by pecuniary difficulties.”72 In December 1849, in one of its general circulars, the WMMS admitted that, “the recent agitations have, to some extent, injuriously affected some of the regular sources of the Income of the Missionary Society.” Many contributors to the mission fund refused to give any donations at all. The W M M S urged its missionaries at home and abroad to pay individual attention to any of the laity who “ceased to render their support.”73 When the personal touch failed to produce results, Wesleyan ministers loyal to Buntingite rule resorted to mass expulsions – driving suspected reformers out of the connexion by the thousands. This drastic policy further eroded the British connexion’s money-raising ability; between 1849 and 1852 its general funds fell into a collective debt of £50,000. The WMMS’s income decreased from £94,000 to £78,000 per annum. In 1850, the president of the British Conference, John Beecham, advised against calling any new missionaries into the gospel work; the financial impact of Everett’s campaign would make it very difficult for the connexion to pay for their upkeep. A year later, the new president, John Hannah, suggested that the WMMS should reduce all missionary allowances by 10 percent. It appeared to be “the only immediate method of relief.”74 By the early 1850s this growing fiscal crisis had produced a determination among the British connexion’s leading ministers to find a way

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out of some of their more pressing overseas obligations. Meeting at the height of the Fly Sheets agitation in March 1850, the W M M S asked the missionary secretaries to prepare a plan to increase the “efficiency” of the missions in “the North American Colonies” and to decrease “their cost to the Society.”75 Having put their heads together, Bunting, Robert Alder, John Beecham, and Elijah Hoole suggested that it might be best to transform the WMMS ’s older missions to Europe and the empire’s settler colonies into affiliated Conferences. The Buntingites expected these new connexional bodies to be self-supporting, self-propagating but not entirely self-governing: the British Conference would remain at the centre of the Wesleyan world. Within two years the W M M S successfully established affiliated Conferences in France and Australia. “We hope that things will soon be ripe for a similar proceeding in reference to British North America,” a new missionary secretary, George Osborn, wrote, “& then we shall have more time & more funds for the service of places & parts of the world which stand more in need of our help. God grant it soon! For we cannot but feel that viewed in reference to the masses of paganism all around us, the movements of Missionary Societies are fearfully slow & comparatively feeble.”76 With only limited financial resources, the British Wesleyans had decided to privilege their missionary work to the truly “pagan,” non-European world. John Beecham had the unenviable task of announcing this change of policy to the Canada connexion in 1853. Pointing out the need to relieve the WMMS ’s funds from “the embarrassment to which they are subject,” Beecham stated that it was necessary for “our older Colonial Missions … to support their own cause, and exert themselves moreover to extend the work among those around them who are destitute of evangelical instruction.” “We are persuaded,” he warned, “that dire necessity will compel the entire withdrawal of the Committee’s Grants from the whole of British America at no distant period.” By 1854 the British connexion was well on its way to forming affiliated Conferences in the Canadas, the Maritimes, and Ireland. The Watchman once again expressed the home connexion’s general hope that, “as these young affiliated Connexions advance to maturity,” they would eventually become self-sufficient and so free the W MMS “to devote its resources with accumulating strength to the spread of the Gospel among heathen populations, especially in India and China.”77 Out of the public eye, the missionary secretaries were well aware that many British Wesleyans viewed the W M M S ’s continuing financial support for the gospel work in the Canadas and in other settler communities as an unwarranted burden. “We have no reason to

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expect any increase in our Mission Money this year,” Elijah Hoole wrote in 1857, “unless the foreign Districts come to our help …. Many of our friends are beginning to ask how it is that at least our Colonial Missions are not self supporting.”78 As had been the case following 1847, the Canada Conference responded to its new position in the British Wesleyan world with a Micawberlike optimism: they were always sure that something would turn up. In 1856, for example, Anson Green told Elijah Hoole that it was “now all but certain” that the Canadian Methodists would be able to “support all our missions” without asking the WM M S “for a farthing.” “And I am sure,” he added, “if you knew how much pleasure it affords us to be able to take these burdens off from your shoulders, you would, more than ever, feel that we are one in spirit, one in heart and one in cooperation with you.”79 Green spoke too soon. The British-appointed president of the Canada Conference, Joseph Stinson, wrote to the W M M S in 1859 declaring that he hoped that the “day is not far distant when you will receive help from Canada instead of affording it.” That same year, Enoch Wood stated as a certainty that “the day cannot be far distant when all the institutions of the Church here [in the Canadas] will be supported from local resources.” In 1861 Joseph Stinson was happy to inform the Elijah Hoole that “nearly all” new churches in Canada “are built free from debt.”80 The missionary secretaries would have been justified in viewing this as a noble sentiment, but not much more, by that point. The Canadian Methodists’ reliance on the financial clout of the British Conference and the WMMS remained a constant feature of the transatlantic relationship between connexional core and periphery into the late 1850s. After two years of declining income thanks to “unprecedented revulsions in the trade and commerce” of the colonies, the Canada connexion dispatched Enoch Wood to Britain in 1859 “for the purpose of negotiating Loans in behalf of several of our Connexional Trusts.” “He possesses our entire confidence,” Joseph Stinson explained to Elijah Hoole, “& we doubt not, but, you will to the extent of your ability, assist him in securing the object of his mission.”81 While in London, Wood pointed out that the Canada Conference had lost about £3,100 by 1859. This shortfall had consumed the Canadian missionary society’s entire reserve fund and so he had to borrow. “The plenteousness of the late harvest, and a gradual return of commercial prosperity will tell upon our future resources,” Wood told the WM M S, “but not to such an extent as to free the Society from great embarrassment in the maintenance of the work without some assistance from the Parent Society.” “With all

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economy and care that can be exerted,” he concluded, “it cannot be less than two years before the income will be sufficient to cover the expenditure, unless by woeful sufferings of the missionaries themselves.”82 The Canada Conference’s financial condition was slow to improve. By the early 1860s the Canadian Methodists found themselves in a situation very similar to the one the Wesleyans in Britain encountered in the years after 1815: their connexion was expanding more quickly than it could afford. Enoch Wood saw the problem clearly enough in 1861. “Our resources do not increase in proportion to our responsibilities in supporting the work as it is,” he explained to Elijah Hoole, “whilst ardent and zealous brethren will be pressing the appointment of additional labourers to new settlements” without giving so much as a thought to “our debt or probable income.”83 The Canada connexion had taken on four costly missions over the previous seven years. Between 1852 and 1854, it agreed to absorb the WMMS ’s work in Rupert’s Land, even though “it is not in our power to do more than sustain the Missions in Upper Canada.” In 1859 the Canadian Methodists also decided to dispatch another group of missionaries to mainland British Columbia and to Vancouver Island in order to preach “the unsearchable riches [of] Christ to the new settlers and destitute Indian tribes of that vast territory.” Closer to home, they began an effort to evangelize the French Canadians of Lower Canada in 1856, convinced that, even if the financial means were lacking at first, “all we want is to create the necessity and the means will be forthcoming.” And, four years later, the Conference established missions among the German communities in Hamilton and the Ottawa region.84 Unlike their brethren on the other side of the Atlantic, who tried to cut their expenses at home and abroad, the Canadian Methodists became yet more demanding in their calls for fiscal support from Britain. When the WMMS decreed that it would give “no further aid” to the Methodist missions in the Canadas in 1864, the announcement set off a storm of protest among the Canadian ministry. They were, after all, a part of a larger British Wesleyan connexion and expected to be treated as such. Some of the preachers, Wood warned the missionary secretaries, “were for refusing its recognition altogether – [they] declared it both a violation and withdrawal from the articles of Union on your part.”85 By 1866 Wood found that his fellow ministers in Lower and Upper Canada fervently believed that, under the conditions of the union of 1847, the British Conference was required to pour a continuous stream of money into the coffers of Canadian Methodism. According to Anson Green, Wesleyan

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money was supposed to be sent from the metropolitan to the colonial connexion “as long as grass grows, and water runs.” Two years later the new president of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada, William Morley Punshon, came across the same attitude among his Canadian brethren. “The Canadian Conference believe that your [financial] obligation is perpetual,” he pointed out to the W M M S .86 The Canada connexion had become a keener defender of a strict reading of the Articles of Union than the British Wesleyan leadership. To justify such continuing claims on the funds of the British Conference, the Canadian Methodists also pointed to the thoroughly British character of their new missions, particularly in the West. In 1866, for instance, Enoch Wood drew on the WMMS for £794.17.8 to cover a draft for the work in Rupert’s Land. “These Missions,” Wood assured the connexional officials in London, “are prospering and afford every encouragement for the future. A wide field invites the labourer, and though not so sunny, as some other parts of the world, I believe prosperous [Christ]ian Churches will adorn the fertile plains of that great tract of country.” Here, Wood was echoing words he had first used in 1863 when he pointed out that “the whole of that magnificent territory between the shores of the Pacific and the mouth of the Saskatchewan will be covered by the Saxon race.” “Too much stress,” he added, “cannot be laid upon the importance of these Missions.”87 Newly transplanted Britons cried out for consistent financial support from British Wesleyanism. Some of the leading members of the home connexion accepted and even encouraged this view of the Canada Conference’s missions. In 1868 William Morley Punshon described the West as “another empire for the Queen” in the making and noted that “it would be an error to cramp or limit the development of the work there” through a lack of financial support.88 At the same time, however, Punshon’s presidency of the Canada Conference between 1868 and 1873 marked the home connexion’s final attempt to break free from its financial obligations to the gospel work in the newly formed Dominion. The W M M S sent Punshon across the Atlantic with definite instructions. “Generally speaking,” the missionary secretaries wrote, “it will be wise for the Committee, and particularly for you, so to develop the resources of Canada that it may prosecute the work of Methodism without pecuniary aid from England.” With years of bitter experience to draw on, the W M M S did not expect that such self-sufficiency would be “reached at once and by a leap; nor could they desire that it should at any time be realized by contracting the operations which they have so long and successfully carried on; but they hope that

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by degrees it may be brought about with safety to all interests, and honour to all parties concerned.” There were “two or three pecuniary questions” to which Punshon would have to pay particular attention. For instance, the missionary secretaries needed him to look into a £3,000 grant that the Canada connexion had requested for the mission to Rupert’s Land in 1867. The WMMS was prepared “to pay the Balance” and “to continue to pay £1,000 annually for this year and the next.” However, looking at the Canada Conference’s “large debt,” the missionary secretaries were “of opinion that this Grant cannot be continued longer, and must cease with the year 1869.” They relied on Punshon to provide “large additions” to the income of the Canada Methodist missions. “We also suggest,” the missionary secretaries stated, “that the state of several organizations in Districts and Circuits should be looked after, and means taken to revive what is languid, and extend what may be but partially attempted.”89 Here was a well-laid plan to sever the fiscal ties between connexional core and periphery. Once in Canada, Punshon set about fulfilling his instructions with characteristic zeal. He aimed to play on the Canadian Methodists’ sense of Britishness, arguing that “it is proper & patriotic for them to become independent.” Once the colonial ministry adopted that perspective, Punshon believed, any financial or other difficulties would pretty much solve themselves.90 To a certain extent, he was correct. In the fall of 1868, in consultation with the leading Canadian ministers, Punshon agreed that the British connexion would pay the £3,000 requested for the support of the missions in Rupert’s Land. In addition, the WMMS would continue the grant of £1,000 for one more year, until the Canada Conference of 1870. Under this arrangement, the Canadian Methodists had no further claim on their British Wesleyan brethren beyond another £3,000 that would “remain in the hands” of the WMMS – “the Canada Conference to draw interest for it at the rate of not more than £200 per annum[,] such interest to be reckoned as part of the £3,000 in case that were [to] be ever claimed.” The Canada Conference, however, was supposed to do its best to do “without either principle or interest, & if the principal be not claimed before the expiration of three years from the Conference of 1870, the claim shall absolutely terminate & cease.” Punshon urged this plan on the WMMS as “the Parent Society will be relieved to an extent which will enable them to employ their resources with profit & blessings elsewhere”; which, of course, it had been attempting to do since the early 1850s.91 Yet, despite Punshon’s best efforts, the Canadians’ financial needs continued to draw them willingly into the arms of British Wesleyanism until

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1874 and beyond. Nothing demonstrates this as well as the case of Victoria College. The Canadian Methodists’ educational institution had never been financially sound. During the first union, the college’s fiscal woes had almost driven the British-appointed president of the Canada Conference, William Lord, to distraction.92 In 1858 – ten years before Punshon arrived in Canada – the Canadian connexion was forced to admit that, “our College with its Halls full of Students, is in imminent danger of being closed for want of funds.” Try as they might to halt the college’s long slide towards insolvency, the Canadian ministers could not do so. In 1858 the Conference apportioned the debt of Victoria College among each of the Districts “according to its members and wealth.” It proved difficult, however, to raise the required funds in this way and the college debt remained stubbornly in place when the Conference next met in 1859.93 Between 1860 and 1862 each Canadian minister agreed to contribute “at least ten cents to the support of Victoria College during the present Conference year,” and they also urged the laity to give to what became known as the “Victoria College Sustentation Fund.” From 1863 to 1865 the Conference laid an assessment of between 1 and 1.5 percent on the annual income of each preacher, the money to be put towards “the annual deficit arising from the excess of the College expenditure over the income.” To make matters worse, during the first year of Punshon’s presidency, the government of Ontario decided to withdraw its annual grant to Victoria, a decision, according to the Canada connexion, that “makes the present a trying crisis in its history.” The Conference expressed the hope that “the intelligent zeal and liberality of a loyal and united people will not suffer the overthrow of an institution, founded by the wisdom and piety of our fathers.”94 Utilizing his already well-honed skills as a connexional fundraiser, Punshon threw himself into the effort to save Victoria College from financial ruin. “The scheme,” he declared in December 1868, “is … to endow a Denominational University.”95 A year later, the Canada Conference was able to report that the public had subscribed $53,000 to the college and “when all the Districts are canvassed we doubt not the sum of at least $100,000 will be secured. This will place us in a position of independence.” In addition to touring Canada and the United States raising money for the college through a series of highly popular lectures, Punshon helped obtain loans that saw Victoria through the worst of its troubles. He also took on its classes in theology in 1871. As Punshon prepared to return to Britain in 1873, the Canadian Methodists quite rightly thanked him for “his generous contributions, powerful and

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successful appeals on behalf of the institutions and financial interests of our Church.” At the same time, however, he was aware that Victoria was still in a weak financial position.96 In 1878 the Canadian minister Richard Jones proved Punshon right, writing to him to ask for help in alleviating yet another large college debt.97 Even though the British Wesleyans had cut the last connexional links with the Canada Conference four years earlier, material interests continued to unite both connexions in a larger British Wesleyan world.

V In the sixty years after 1814 the financial disputes between the British Conference and the Methodists in Lower and Upper Canada moved in harmony with larger cultural developments that were already taking shape. Fiscal disagreements before the mid-1840s increased the rancor of the battles between metropole and periphery about what it meant to be a Briton and Wesleyan. Building on a sense of both entitlement and obligation, the British Wesleyan missionaries and their lay supporters argued that the WMMS’s adoption of the Maximum was tantamount to abandoning a loyal and pious settler population. To counter this threat to their position in a wider connexional world, the missionaries and laity defined their own sense of British and Wesleyan self against the perceived apostasy of their brethren in the home country, just as they had done in the early 1820s and would do again in the late 1840s and early 1850s. The Canadian Methodists followed a similar trajectory during the same period – elaborating a British and Wesleyan identity in order, first, to gain access to the wealthy laity of England in the 1820s and, second, to defend their own financial interests against Buntingite encroachment in the 1830s. From the mid-1840s on, however, the fiscal needs of the British and Canada Conferences helped draw the latter back into the British Wesleyan fold. At the same time, economic depression in the Canadas and the WMMS’s growing unwillingness to pay any more colonial bills made the idea of absorption by Canadian Methodism more palatable to the British Wesleyan missionaries and laity, especially in Lower Canada. Despite the achievement of a long-term union between 1847 and 1854, tensions over Britishness and Wesleyanism periodically resurfaced in the 1850s and 1860s as the British connexion, responding to the impact of the Fly Sheets agitation, attempted to get out of its financial obligations to the Canadian Methodists and the Canadian Methodists continued to turn to the British connexion to finance its rapid expansion

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in the Canadas and in the West. Even the administrative and fundraising efforts of William Morley Punshon could not persuade the Canada Conference to make the hard move towards complete self-sufficiency. The Canadian Methodists were Britons and Wesleyans and, where money was concerned, they were not about to let the connexional authorities in the home country forget that fact. Though, as we are about to see, that identity was complicated even further by the most characteristic of Methodist religious practices – revivalism.

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5 “We Have Seen … Something Like British Methodism” Revivalism, Pastoral Authority, and Cultural Formation

Two Wesleyan ministers reached Montreal on 2 December 1846. Gifford Dorey and Henry Cox came direct from Britain, dispatched by the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (WMMS) to help tend the Methodist flock in Lower and Upper Canada. Everything about Dorey pleased his fellow missionaries in the colonies: he was modest, talented, and dignified. His preaching gave “promise of a respectable and useful career in the work of the ministry.” The same could not be said of Henry Cox. His modesty “is by no means embarrassing,” his talent “is very partially disinterred,” and his dignity “is not of an impressive order.” During services Cox had taken to “jumping up in the pews and … thundering his appeals and exhortations – and then skipping among the people.” He would coax “as many as possible to come forward” to the front of the chapel “where he loudly avows his determination to remain with them till every one of them is saved.” “If we had not sufficient hemp in this country,” one preacher wrote, “I should express my regret that you had not sent enough with him to fetter him when necessary.” The trouble was that the impressionable Cox had come to Montreal “just at the time … of a more than usual degree of serious and awakened attention to the word of life” – in other words, a revival. While several of the missionaries urged him “not to repress the ardour but to regulate the manifestations of his zeal,” the Montreal laity apparently encouraged his enthusiastic efforts.1 The British Wesleyan community in the Canadas was divided over religious practices that were common among many Methodists in North America, but that were frowned upon by the leading Wesleyan ministers in Britain.

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That division mirrored revivalism’s complex impact on transatlantic Methodism as a whole, though, as is the case in other areas we have examined, the existing scholarship suggests otherwise. In much of that work revivalism has been situated in a North American context, rather than a transatlantic one. When examining the British Wesleyan missionaries and laity in the Canadas, for instance, historians have analyzed their reaction to revivalism in comparison to the Canadian Methodists in Upper Canada or the Methodist Episcopals and other, more radical, sects in the northern United States. The actions of missionaries like Henry Cox have been portrayed as either anomalies or conservative co-options of Yankee populism. Similarly, scholars have discussed the “tempering of revivalism” among the Canadian Methodists from a predominantly continental perspective. We know a great deal about the social context of that transformation, but far less about its transoceanic dimensions.2 How did the Canada Conference’s close, but often turbulent, relationship with the British connexion contribute to the tempering of revivalism? And why was it that, during Methodism’s age of disunity in the 1830s, 1840s, and early 1850s, the one issue that never seemed to trouble the various unions between the Canadian Methodists and the British Wesleyans was revivalism? We have at least one plausible answer to those questions. Marguerite Van Die has argued that revivalism remained an important part of the Canadian Methodist sense of self during the second third of the nineteenth century, but the leaders of the connexion shied away from “some of its wilder manifestations.” Instead, they “were careful to align themselves with the more staid British expression.”3 This analysis directs our attention towards the importance of Canadian Methodism’s transatlantic context, but it overlooks the fierce battles that took place within British Wesleyanism itself over the balance to be struck between religious enthusiasm and pastoral authority. We know that, in the first sixty years of the nineteenth century, the British Conference was divided between “high” and “low” factions that viewed revivalism as an issue of worship, church structure, and social class. The “high” Wesleyans wanted to ensure connexional stability by eliminating the wilder forms of revivalism and replacing them with a centralized denominational structure, based on a socially respectable – largely middle class – lay constituency willing to subject itself to the rule of the ministry. In contrast, the “low” Wesleyans were determined to foster continuous connexional expansion by giving revivalism free rein within a decentralized denominational structure, based on the loyalty of a wide range of laity, drawn from across the social spectrum, all seeking salvation under the loosest possible ministerial

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control.4 How this debate played itself out among the Methodists in the Canadas, and influenced the British connexion in turn, warrants more consideration than it has received. During the first half of the nineteenth century a cultural hybrid was created among the British Wesleyan missionaries, their lay supporters, and the Canadian Methodists in Lower and Upper Canada. By the 1850s the same concerns about the compatibility of revivalism and connexional order existed on both sides of the ocean. Ministers, whether stationed in Britain or the Canadas, recognized the power of religious awakenings, but many of them were also concerned about their disruptive potential, especially among the laity, and their impact on the social composition of Methodism. The debate between the “high” and “low” approaches to revivalism took on an added complexity, however, within the context of the North Atlantic world. The various Methodist groups in Lower and Upper Canada eventually worked out their own accommodation. That compromise allowed Methodism in the colonies to avoid the schisms that plagued the British connexion during the second quarter of the nineteenth century. It also helped lay the groundwork for a lasting union between the British Wesleyans in the Canadas and the Canada Conference after 1847.

I Revivalism lay near the heart of Methodism from the beginning. It was closely associated with the connexion’s expansion and central to its identity in relation to other churches. But revivals also became a source of contention within British Wesleyanism during the early nineteenth century. Jabez Bunting and his supporters did their best to clamp down on what they saw as revivalism’s popular excesses and to consolidate the power of the ministry. At the same time, groups more open to enthusiastic religion and lay control either opposed the Buntingites’ efforts within the church or separated from it entirely. John Wesley experienced his own conversion during the transatlantic revival that swept out of central Europe in the early eighteenth century, transforming Protestant communities from the Baltic region to the North American frontier. Travelling across Britain, often preaching out of doors, Wesley and his fellow ministers aimed to set off further revivals that would convert laypeople by the thousands, drawing them out of their sinful, worldly ways and into the Methodist connexion where their eternal salvation could be assured. This strategy was successful: by 1790

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there were 71,763 Methodist laity in Britain and Ireland and 57,858 in the United States.5 The first Methodists believed that the mass conversions that produced this kind of breakneck growth were a sign of divine favour, setting their connexion apart from – and above – all other denominations. That continued to be the Methodist view long after Wesley’s death: in 1868 a popular British Wesleyan preacher, William Arthur, declared that the Lord’s mercy had created the eighteenth-century awakening and “its permanent embodied result” was “the Methodist body throughout the world.”6 The Methodists were God’s peculiar people. By the early 1800s, however, a serious debate was developing within British Wesleyanism about the role that revivalism should be allowed to play in connexional life. Jabez Bunting and his supporters, in particular, were dismayed to discover that the religious enthusiasm that often accompanied popular revivalism alienated the very people they wanted to draw into the Wesleyan fold: the mercantile and manufacturing families of London and northwest England. Only such “gentlemen of respectability,” Bunting and his supporters believed, could keep the connexion afloat in the post-1815 era of financial crisis.7 Wesleyan Methodism could do quite nicely, on the other hand, without tatterdemalions who loved to clap and shout, but who were not keen on contributing to the funds of the church. The Buntingites also thought that the connexion could get by without laity who, in the grips of religious hysteria, seized control of prayer meetings, flouted ministerial directives and connexional rules, and who labeled any preacher who tried to impose order on a revival a “Dead Stick” or a “dead soul.” Faced with just this kind of undisciplined activity while stationed among the popular revivalists of Macclesfield in 1803, Bunting declared that “revivalism, as of late professed & practiced was [likely if] not checked, to have gradually ruined genuine Methodism.”8 He and his supporters never wavered from that belief. The Buntingites responded to this perceived threat with a sustained effort to eradicate all traces of popular revivalism within British Wesleyanism. They worked hard to force any groups that set too high a stock on emotional worship out of the Wesleyan fold. As Bunting noted in 1803, “Divisions from the Church, though awful, are perhaps after all less to be dreaded than Divisions in the Church.”9 Over the next seventeen years the Buntingites helped to see off John Sigston and the Kirkgate Screamers; John Broadhurst and the Band Room Methodists; Hugh Bourne, William Clowes, and the Primitive Methodists; William O’Bryan and the Bible Christians; and George Pocock and the Tent Methodists.10 The Conference also banned female preaching in 1803;

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and, four years later, it ruled against allowing “strangers to preach to our congregations” in response to the American evangelist Lorenzo Dow’s unauthorized tour through northwest England. In the future, only fully accredited Methodist ministers or lay preachers would be allowed in British Wesleyan pulpits. At the same time the connexional leadership denounced the open-air services, or camp meetings, that Dow introduced to the Methodists of Cheshire and Staffordshire as “highly improper in England, and likely to be productive of considerable mischief.”11 In 1820 the Buntingites capped off this phase of their campaign against popular revivalism by fixing their opposition to it in connexional law. That year’s Conference met on Merseyside and, under Bunting’s presidential oversight, adopted thirty-one resolutions that were likely his own handiwork. These Liverpool Minutes were meant to bolster the ministers’ pastoral authority and to place under their entire control every part of the Wesleyan community where the forces of unfettered revivalism might establish a foothold. The Conference made it clear that the Methodist ministry existed not only to feed and guide the laity, but also to teach and rule them. They were not “merely Chairmen of public Meetings, but … the Pastors of Christian Societies” ultimately answerable to God alone for their actions. As such, the pastorate had a divinely ordained responsibility to nominate and regulate the activities of the lay agents of the church, especially the local preachers and class leaders. The itinerant preachers were also instructed to discountenance “the spirit of strife and debate” and to suppress “all topics of useless or irritating discussion, not legitimately connected” with the advancement of the connexion. Of course, they had the final say on what did or did not constitute a topic of “irritating discussion.” Even so seemingly innocuous a thing as the local prayer meeting was supposed to be “prudently conducted by persons of established piety and competent gifts, and duly superintended by the Preachers” and their dutiful supporters among the class leaders.12 After 1820, ministerial autocracy was in; popular revivalism was most definitely out. And yet Bunting and his supporters were not against all forms of revivalism; such a stance would have been tantamount to disowning their Wesleyan heritage. The Buntingites made a careful distinction, however, between episodes of mass conversion brought about by popular revivalists and those that grew naturally out of the “regular means of grace”: daily prayer, Bible study, periodic fasting, attention to public preaching, the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, and regular attendance at love feasts and class meetings, all under pastoral oversight. Revivals of the latter type, in Bunting’s view, were eminently useful. They helped elaborate the

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structures of the connexion. Popular revivalists, in contrast, often failed to see beyond the local scene of their labours. They were “more ambitious to build chapels than to build up Churches,” Bunting remarked at the Conference of 1833.13 In terms of an ideal revival, the members of the Buntingian Dynasty envisioned a religious awakening in which lay emotionalism had its place, but where it also knew its place. In 1826– 27 one of Bunting’s closest allies, Edmund Grindrod, was involved in a revival in Edinburgh that could have served as an archetype. Though “many were in deep distress” during this religious awakening, “there was not the slightest confusion.” The minister remained firmly in control of the entire event; there was no challenge to his authority. It was also notable that the converts included “three Students of the University of Edinburgh … an Attorney’s clerk, two Daughters of different Ministers … and several other persons of respectability and education.”14 These were exactly the upwardly mobile groups that the Buntingian Dynasty wanted to see in the connexion. Despite the mastery they achieved over the governing machinery of Wesleyan Methodism during the second quarter of the century, the Buntingites’ distinction between acceptable and unacceptable forms of revivalism did not sweep all before it. They encountered opposition to their various efforts to create an orderly form of worship and a ministry that would not “shock the good taste of the people.”15 We have already seen how some Wesleyans fought against the installation of an organ in Leeds’s Brunswick chapel in the late 1820s; in the mid-1830s the liberal wing of the Conference and the more radical forces of Wesleyan reform tried to halt the establishment of a ministerial college. Both the organ and the college seemed to prove that the connexion was in danger of becoming less of a sect and more of a church: of this world and so open to worldly corruption. The agitators in Leeds believed that an organ was merely middle-class frippery “at variance with, and subversive of, spirituality in congregational worship.”16 At the 1834 Conference an alliance of liberal and reforming ministers supported Dr Samuel Warren in his charge that a Theological Institution under Buntingite control would inevitably lead to “a liturgical service, a splendid worship … a cassocked race of ecclesiastics, and whatever else may render this new, this improved edition of Methodism imposing and magnificent in the eyes of the world!” “But what,” in the meantime, “will become of our original characteristic simplicity and piety? In vain will you endeavour to supply their place by your showy chapels and your pealing organs!” The whole scheme, Warren declared, was “anti-Methodistical.” In an attempt to topple the Buntingian

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Dynasty, the Warrenite seceders demanded the “right of interference on the part of the members of the church in the regulation of all its affairs” – in other words, lay representation and circuit independence.17 The Buntingites responded to the Leeds and Warrenite agitations by elaborating on their own conception of the pastoral office and its relation to revivalism. In the aftermath of the organ dispute, Bunting was more convinced than ever that the itinerant ministry had to have complete power over all aspects of connexional life, including “‘advising for the promotion of the Gospel,’ as well as Expulsions, Admissions & Appointments of Preachers” and all lay officials. “The true & scriptural authority of the Ministry,” he wrote in 1829, “must on no account, be blinkered or compromised, in these latitudinarian days.”18 Two of Bunting’s supporters, John Beecham and Richard Watson, published pamphlets supporting this position. Creating a Methodist version of apostolic succession, they argued that God had granted John Wesley authority over the connexion, and Wesley, in turn, had passed that authority directly and in undiminished form to the itinerants who followed him. This “great and sound principle,” so flattering to the ministerial ego, convinced the majority of the itinerant preachers.19 In 1829 they denounced all “novel interpretations of the laws & usages” of Wesleyan Methodism; in 1835 they rejected the Warrenites’ demands for sweeping connexional reform. Two years later the Buntingites explicitly urged the Conference to repudiate any distinction between “a revival-preacher and others.” Any genuine “revival of the work of God,” Theophilus Lessey declared, “must begin in the minister’s own heart, and we should look for converts in all our services.”20 Ministerial control linked to the regular means of grace continued to be the Buntingites’ disciplinary and doctrinal lodestar.

II Bunting and his supporters worked to ensure that the same mindset existed among the ministers on every circuit overseen by the w m m s . They certainly succeeded with the missionaries stationed in Lower and Upper Canada, at least in the short term. Those preachers were keen supporters of the Buntingite view of pastoral authority and, up to the early 1820s, determined opponents of popular revivalism. As part of their more general rejection of the Methodist Episcopal presence in the Canadas, the missionaries rarely lost an opportunity to contrast their own mode of worship with what they saw as the enthusiastic and absurd efforts of their uneducated American brethren.

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The Buntingites attempted to achieve a consistent approach to revivalism and pastoral authority across the mission field through the careful selection of personnel. As missionary secretaries they were responsible not only for making certain that “no Missionary shall be ordained, or sent out until he has been first examined by the Committee and heard preach by a deputation [of] members appointed by the Committee, and approved by them,” but also for superintending “the conduct, studies, and pulpit labours of Missionaries while in London” awaiting dispatch overseas.21 The secretaries took that task seriously, questioning each of the candidates earmarked for the mission work “as to their experience, views of our doctrines, and their preaching abilities.” These examinations were designed to ferret out any prospective missionary who did not wholeheartedly believe in “our doctrines” and approve “our Discipline.”22 The members of the Buntingian Dynasty also tried to make sure that their missionary colleagues supported the policies of the connexional centre through direct instruction. In 1828, during the battle with the Leeds organ dissidents, the wmms issued a general circular, ordering its agents overseas to strike the same balance between revivalism and pastoral authority that the Buntingites aimed to achieve at home. The wmms told the missionaries to “use the utmost caution, on the one hand, to prevent extravagance and enthusiasm” during any religious awakening that might take place on their circuits and, “on the other, to guard against checking the good work of God.” To attain this end, the missionaries should be careful never to allow any prayer or class meeting “to be continued to late and improper hours” and should always “be … present … at such meetings,” or, if they could not be present, they should “place them under the direction of the most pious and prudent” of their class leaders. “Suppress all mimicry, or attempts to produce emotion,” the missionary secretaries wrote, “Let God work, and all will then be well; human passions never did, and never can, convert a soul.”23 Similarly, in 1835, when the Conference, in the wake of the Warrenite secession, revised the connexion’s rules about the expulsion of members and lay petitioning, the wmms produced another circular explaining the official Buntingite position. These changes were not to “be regarded in the light of concessions to those, who were doing the utmost to agitate and disturb the peace of the Societies for the purpose of revolutionizing Methodism.” “The Conference neither expected or wished to conciliate them,” the missionary secretaries added. The aim was merely to clarify pre-existing connexional law and, while ensuring some lay rights, to maintain the power of the ministry.24

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In terms of supporting the structures of Buntingite connexional government, the British Wesleyan missionaries stationed in Lower and Upper Canada did not disappoint their leaders. They came down on the side of the Buntingian Dynasty in its battle with the Warrenites. At their district meeting in May 1835 the missionaries in Lower Canada modestly resolved that “having painfully experienced the great disadvantages of being appointed to the Foreign work with a very defective Ministerial & Theological training, & believing as they do that a previous course of judicious study, & strict discipline would have greatly contributed to their usefulness as Christian Missionaries, [they] were rejoiced to learn that the last Conference had determined to commence a Theological Institution to aid the Junior Preachers in their studies.” They also hailed “its establishment as a most important & efficient auxiliary in the great work of evangelizing the world” and announced their determination “to afford it all the support in our power.” All the support in their power amounted to individual contributions totalling £9 9s.25 A month earlier, in Upper Canada, Joseph Stinson had signified his support for the home authorities in more emphatic terms. He let one of the missionary secretaries know that all of the British Wesleyan preachers in that colony “deeply sympathize with you in your troubles in the church at home, – what a vile fellow that Warren must be, a party headed by such a leader must be contemptible indeed.” “I do not doubt,” Stinson continued, echoing Bunting’s 1803 distinction between divisions from and within the connexion, “but we as a church shall in the end gain by the loss of all such persons as entertain his opinions & imbibe his spirit.”26 A year later the missionaries in Lower Canada took up the same militant strain, declaring, in their annual report, that, though they were “removed at a great distance from the scene of the ungodly & anxious strife in which our connexion has been involved,” they had “received with delight the intelligence of the noble and successful stand which you have been divinely assisted to make.”27 The British Wesleyans in the Canadas would remain steadfast in their loyalty to the forms of Buntingite rule. Between 1815 and the mid-1820s the missionaries also tried to transplant the Buntingite version of the proper relationship between pastoral authority and revivalism in the Canadas. The presence of a clearly definable “other” helped them maintain a sense of cultural unity with the home connexion in this area of Methodist life. There was much about the itinerant preachers of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States calculated to shock missionaries raised in the school of Bunting. In terms of pastoral authority alone, these American Methodists seemed

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to reject the notion of ministerial supremacy outlined in the Liverpool Minutes. According to Richard Reece, one of Bunting’s chief supporters, the Methodist Episcopal preachers treated laypeople with deference rather than the other way around. To make matters worse, the American Methodist ministers and laity, in both the United States and the Canadas, fervently embraced what were known as the “extraordinary means of grace.” They believed that the regular means of grace, while beneficial, could easily degenerate into religious formalism. In their view, every community needed a periodic jolt of mass evangelism in order to facilitate the spread and consolidation of Christ’s saving work.28 This Methodist Episcopal approach to revivalism found its most characteristic expression in the camp meeting. By the early 1800s, these often rowdy frontier gatherings had become an accepted feature of American Methodist worship. In 1807, the same year that the British Conference banned camp meetings in England, Bishop Francis Asbury declared that he was prepared to defy “all earth and hell,” to “endure fines, imprisonment, and death” sooner than give them up. They were, he later added, “the battle ax and weapon of war” that promised to “break down walls of wickedness.” Between 1805 and 1830 the Methodist Episcopals in Upper Canada held at least seventy-eight camp meetings and both ministers and laity expected each of them to end in “remarkable showers of saving grace and loud shouts of praise to God.”29 They also anticipated similar results from the regular means of grace. Methodist Episcopal ministers like William Case “cried aloud” on the docksides of the Niagara River or in the woods around York, Upper Canada. They based their extempore sermons on texts such as “Why will ye die,” literally hoping to scare the hell out of their hearers. They had little use for the more cultivated worship of the British Wesleyans.30 The first British Wesleyan missionaries in the Canadas demonstrated, in turn, that they had nothing but disdain for the Methodist Episcopals’ methods of spreading scriptural holiness through the land. They denounced the American ministers as uneducated, disorganized enthusiasts. Near Cornwall in 1817, Henry Pope declared that the “American preachers in this country … are by no means acceptable, partly owing to … their extensive ignorance and uncouth conduct.” Thomas Catterick elaborated on these charges three years later: the American Methodist preachers were “so ignorant and enthusiastic as to render their discourses ridiculous in the ears of respectable and well informed people.” At Methodist Episcopal meetings, tumbling, clapping, praying aloud, and shouting were all common occurrences. The American Methodist

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ministers smoked in the pulpit and preached from the most outlandish texts, including “‘Look not on me because I am black,’ ‘Sit on the large pot,’ ‘Top not come down’”. “In short,” Catterick concluded, “no one brought up in England could suppose that reasonable beings professing to worship God would act as they do.”31 The missionaries were also dismayed by what they regarded as the almost complete absence of the regular means of grace among the American Methodists. For example, when John Hick first visited Stanstead in the Eastern Townships in mid1821, he found that there were only eight members in the society, none of whom had attended a class meeting for over two years, despite the fact that the Methodist Episcopal Minutes recorded a society of two hundred members.32 Like their revivalist counterparts in Britain, the American Methodists appeared to be more concerned with creating excitement and making converts than with creating a viable church. The missionaries did their best to make up for the perceived failings of their Methodist Episcopal brethren. Stationed in Kingston in 1817, Thomas Catterick planned to introduce some of the key components of the regular means of grace as practiced among the Wesleyans in Britain. “In order to pursue our mode of discipline,” he would print tickets for class meetings, administer the sacraments once every three months, and hold a love feast. The missionaries tried to establish the same pattern of formal worship on every circuit they rode.33 It was, after all, the only way to achieve lasting results: in 1822, Henry Pope informed the missionary secretaries that the “cause of the Redeemer” was reviving on the Melbourne circuit, “but it has been exclusively in those places where prayer & class meetings have been properly regarded.”34 This mode of proceeding was effective on other circuits as well. James Booth wrote from Kingston in October 1819, noting that, “of late, in this town, we have seen … something like British Methodism[,] the life and power of God, without enthusiasm.” A month later, Booth described the class meetings in the town as “lively and well attended … Indeed I can sometimes imagine myself among my praying friends in Manchester for a greater resemblance of it I never witnessed in point of life, and power of God.” In 1820, on the Fort Wellington circuit, John DePutron conducted a “happy class meeting … The work appears to be deep without confusion or noise.” For his part, Richard Pope was glad to report on the “large & well behaved assembly” he encountered on his circuit in 1823. One of the leading British Wesleyan laymen of Montreal, William Lunn, attended a quarterly meeting at Odelltown in 1824 and believed himself “again in England” by the time it was over.35 Here, it would

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seem, was the very image and transcript of Buntingite Methodism on the imperial margins: orderly, effective, and not American.

III All of this made excellent copy for a connexional press controlled by Bunting and his supporters. Featured in the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, the missionaries’ reports from Lower and Upper Canada seemed to demonstrate the efficacy of Buntingite policies no matter what the context.36 Such generally sunny accounts, however, increasingly expressed aspirations rather than the actual conditions in the colonies. Beginning in the 1820s, several factors, including the rapid expansion of the Methodist Episcopal Church, gradually undermined the unity of opinion that existed between the missionaries and their connexional leaders about the relative value of the regular and extraordinary means of grace. Upholding Buntingite rules about what constituted respectable worship was more challenging than the missionaries’ published letters suggested. They found, for instance, that the backcountry circuits’ geographic isolation from the urban centres of Lower and Upper Canada made it difficult to establish those “means of grace peculiar to the Methodists.” This was especially a problem when it came to the class meeting. Into the 1830s and early 1840s settlers rarely attended classes regularly and, when they did, they related “very little of their religious experience, doing little but exhort[ing] others.”37 The task of instituting the regular means of grace could, however, be equally trying in urban centres like Montreal, where business concerns distracted even the most devout laity from the care of their own souls whenever the St Lawrence River was open to navigation.38 The “spirit of migration” among the colonial population also contributed to such worldliness. It played havoc with the membership of the district. “Many who have been brought to God since I came here,” John Hick wrote while stationed in Quebec City in 1819, “after having continued with us a few months have removed either into the United States or Upper Canada.” Similar complaints reached the wmms in the mid-1820s and 1830s.39 The regular means of grace alone could not keep the flock intact. The wmm s ’s rapidly shifting financial and connexional policies made a difficult situation worse. Beginning in 1824 the w m m s began to press its agents in the Canadas to produce better results in terms of both membership and fundraising. But no matter how often the laity of Montreal or Quebec City requested “such a minister as is generally appointed to some of the larger towns in England,” the missionary secretaries rarely

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complied.40 They were equally hardnosed when the missionaries themselves begged for reinforcements or for books and other publications that would allow them to disseminate “our principles … here as in England.” The necessary funds were not available.41 The British Conference’s détente with the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1820 and its union with the Canada Conference in 1833 only added another layer of complexity to the relationship between connexional centre and periphery. As we know, in each instance the wmms ordered its agents in Lower and Upper Canada, initially at least, to cooperate with their North American brethren and to honour the spirit of Methodist “oneness” that was supposed to exist among the various churches established by John Wesley. The missionary secretaries overlooked the fact, however, that this policy contradicted the more general instructions they issued, such as the circular of 1828, calling on all ministers stationed overseas to suppress outbreaks of popular revivalism – the very type of revivalism embraced by both the American and Canadian Methodists. The union of 1833 was a major turning point in the missionaries’ approach to popular revivalism. Under pressure to produce better results on the vast frontier circuits of America, they could hardly help noticing that the extraordinary means of grace had one definite advantage over the regular means of grace: overwhelming success. By the 1830s the Methodist Episcopal Church was well on its way to becoming the largest Protestant denomination in the United States; its Canadian offshoot was also expanding rapidly. In the new era of transatlantic unity decreed by the wmms this must have been a tempting image – far too tempting for many missionaries to resist. Two years after the agreement of 1820, John DePutron became the first British Wesleyan minister in Lower Canada to attend a Methodist Episcopal camp meeting.42 Within seven years of the union of 1833, the missionaries went further, holding at least half a dozen camp meetings of their own, often with American or Canadian Methodist help.43 The wmm s ’s demands had opened the door to this kind of cooperation and the British Wesleyan missionaries in the Canadas happily walked through it. At one camp meeting, near Hatley, Lower Canada, in 1838, four Methodist Episcopal preachers from the New Hampshire Conference assisted the resident missionary. In the early 1840s another British Wesleyan preacher travelled to the United States to attend several camp meetings there and, in 1842, conducted one at Odelltown with two Methodist Episcopal ministers in attendance.44 The American and later Canadian Methodists were equally helpful when the missionaries began to hold protracted meetings – a form of

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indoor camp meeting first developed in New England. Large numbers of people, under pastoral supervision, gathered for preaching and prayer in a local chapel every day, sometimes for several months. When James Knowlan organized one such meeting in Stanstead in 1828 a “Bro[ther] of the name of Peck from Vermont” was present. In 1835, when protracted meetings led to a major revival in Montreal and other parts of Lower Canada, both American and Canadian Methodist ministers played a part. The missionaries were thrilled with the results: “Montreal is like Heaven on earth,” Joseph Stinson enthused.45 As excited as some of the missionaries could be, they did not entirely abandon that wariness of popular revivalism that the missionary secretaries had so diligently hammered into their heads. They attempted to secure the benefits of American-style revivalism without suffering the consequences of its sometimes highly emotional nature. Several missionaries went to great lengths to ensure that the extraordinary means of grace fit as comfortably as possible within the w m m s ’s parameters of allowable forms of worship. At a camp meeting in Odelltown in 1834, James Booth called in the militia, had a magistrate on hand, and set the strictest possible rules of conduct.46 Other missionaries found that less heavy-handed measures worked equally well. After a militia-free camp meeting in Amherstburg in 1836, Benjamin Slight assured the missionary secretaries that “there was the utmost propriety & order preserved & much fixed attention was paid to the word” among a crowd of “from 800 to 1,000 people.” Similarly, in 1838, Edmund Botterell made sure to note that “the Congregation” at the Hatley camp meeting was “very attentive and unexpectedly large.”47 Protracted meetings were even more of a sure thing. “The desired good effect is produced,” James Knowlan explained in 1828, “without any of the inconvenience attending Camp Meetings.” Such revival services in Montreal in 1835 and again in 1837 resulted in the conversion of “some of the most respectable persons who have for many years attended our chapel & supported our cause” and were “carried on without any unseemly disorder.”48 In other words, among the British Wesleyans in the Canadas, the extraordinary means of grace produced the same result as the regular means of grace: worship acceptable to the leading laity and amenable to pastoral control. Tentative as the missionaries’ initial embrace of popular revivalism may have been in the context of the enthusiastic sects that flourished in western New York, New England, and in Lower Canada’s Eastern Townships, it nonetheless produced a sense of unease among the Buntingites in Britain. Bunting and his supporters were happy to print reports of other revivals

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in the Canadas in the Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, especially any that stressed the effectiveness of the regular means of grace, but very few if any accounts of the missionaries’ camp or protracted meetings seem to have appeared in its pages.49 That silence was consistent with the connexional leadership’s decision in the early 1800s to suppress all accounts of the first camp meetings held in the United States. Wesleyanism in Britain had to be protected from any transatlantic infection. Even in 1835, when the missionary secretaries bowed to the logic of their own call for Methodistical “oneness” in the Canadas and endorsed the protracted meeting as a means of grace “eminently owned of God,” they qualified their approval by adding “in America.”50 It had no place on the eastern shores of the Atlantic. Feeling the weight of Buntingite disapproval, in 1839 the chairman of the Lower Canada District, William Martin Harvard, responded with a sermon specifically aimed at defending protracted meetings. While attempting to justify this extraordinary means of grace, however, he had to acknowledge that it formed “no part of the usages of our Connexion, in the Parent Country” and that it was “there regarded, as wholly of transatlantic origin.” When he sent a copy of his sermon to Jabez Bunting, Harvard also noted that he was aware that “the probability is that the idea has already been found unsuitable to the position of our home connexion”; but he hoped that the great man would use his influence to see this mode of worship adopted as “a kind of allowable irregularity among us.”51 That was not going to happen.

IV Despite their support for the Buntingites during the Warrenite secession in the mid-1830s, a gulf had opened between the British Wesleyan preachers in the Canadas and the connexional leadership in the home country. During the 1840s, the missionaries’ changing approach to revivalism increasingly aligned them with the forces of Wesleyan liberalism and reform within the British connexion. This transformation was initiated by a new style of spiritual renewal developed in western New York in the 1830s: professional revivalism. Ministers like the Presbyterian Charles Finney crisscrossed the “burned-over district” with the aim of redeeming hundreds and sometimes thousands of the unrepentant. A far cry from the stump preachers of earlier times, they were mostly welleducated men, determined to use a battery of specialized techniques known as the “new measures” in order to bring about large-scale conversions in as orderly a manner as possible.52

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James Caughey became one of the most successful practitioners of the new measures after he entered the Methodist Episcopal ministry in the United States in 1832. Before he put in an appearance in any town or city, Caughey instructed the local ministers to “set all your people a-praying.” Once the ground was prepared, he delivered sermons that concentrated on the possibility of eternal damnation: “And I hereby notify you,” he told one congregation in a characteristic moment, “that a … failure here, involves the soul in all the horrors of Hell hereafter. The loss of Heaven implies a Hell, as sure as a loss of eyesight includes darkness.” After such sermons, Caughey held lengthy and intense prayer meetings, demanding the immediate repentance of all sinners present. If any came forward, he led them to the communion rail, or anxious bench, at the front of the church and, with the entire congregation looking on, exhorted them to find salvation. After a series of services lasting for weeks or months, the results were frequently spectacular – Methodist membership as much as doubled by the time Caughey was finished in an area.53 Caughey’s success also derived from a new approach to old Methodist ideas. He was an ardent exponent of “holiness.” This doctrine played on a distinction John Wesley had made between the two blessings of “justification” and “entire sanctification” (or Christian perfection). Wesley defined the former as that moment at conversion when sinners felt that God had forgiven all of their transgressions. The state of entire sanctification implied a further spiritual development: the convert became utterly committed to God and so saved from the power of future sin. Caughey believed that entire sanctification was an essential component of a fully Christian life and that nobody needed to experience gradual spiritual growth between one blessing and the next. Both justification and entire sanctification could and should come at once. That stipulation, however, ran counter to what Bunting and his supporters chose to see as correct Methodist doctrine. Originally, Wesley may have believed that justification and entire sanctification could occur instantaneously; but, by the 1760s, in an effort to forestall the possibility of antinomian excesses among his followers, he had changed his mind, arguing that there had to be gradual spiritual development between justification and entire sanctification. Even after a sinner had experienced justification, temptation would remain. Wesley also stated that, once achieved, entire sanctification (but not justification) could be lost through human flaws and spiritual laxity. Prayer and striving for holy living had to be maintained.54 It was a doctrine that seemed tailor-made to uphold the pastoral office within Wesleyan Methodism. If entire sanctification could

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not be gained in an instant and could be lost once achieved, ministerial oversight would remain essential to the life of the Methodist laity. Of course, the opposite also held true. From the mid-1830s onwards, little of that bothered the British Wesleyan community in the Canadas. In 1835 Caughey came north along with another minister from the Troy Conference of the  Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States to take part in the protracted meetings being held at Montreal and Quebec City. Many missionaries and laity were impressed with his message and his ability to generate quick results. At Montreal, according to Joseph Stinson, both Caughey and a companion were “cordially received” by the leading laypeople and their efforts were “rendered an unspeakable blessing to the church.” At Quebec City he and the British missionary Matthew Lang preached “very powerful sermons” and produced an “uncommon excitement”: “many were alarmed and led to flee from the wrath to come.” In a matter of weeks, approximately 370 were converted. Caughey was able to create such results, the missionary William Croscombe noted approvingly, “by explaining and applying the great doctrine and privilege of Christian perfection.” In 1837 some of “our best friends, and some, too, of great intelligence and respectability” among the Montreal laity successfully urged William Martin Harvard to conduct another set of revival services in their city and Caughey was there, once again, to lend a hand.55 By 1840 the leading laity of Montreal were falling all over themselves in the rush to aid Caughey’s progress, praising him as “a great revivalist” and “one who lives near to God.” Completely sold on this new extraordinary means of grace, Harvard also trumpeted Caughey’s coming, describing him as “very respectable in his preaching-talent – very devoted in his piety – very ardent in his zeal – very brotherly in his spirit – and very very successful in his labours,” preaching entire sanctification every afternoon at three o’clock in the Quebec City chapels.56 Over the winter, in that town alone, more than two hundred sinners were converted “and a quarter of that number fully sanctified.” Many of the missionaries were eager to assign most, if not all, of the credit for such gospel successes to Caughey’s professional revivalism.57 Some of the British Wesleyans in Lower Canada took their enthusiasm for Caughey even further. They began to see it as their duty to introduce him and his new measures to their brethren on the other side of the Atlantic. They firmly believed that they knew what was best for British Wesleyanism both at home and abroad. As early as 1835 William Lunn and the British-appointed president of the Canada Conference, William

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Lord, attempted to recruit James Caughey for the w m m s . Lunn also noted that, “if we are spared to next year … he is to accompany me to England.” Caughey would be “a most useful man in Manchester,” he suggested to Jabez Bunting. In November 1840 William Martin Harvard proposed that, “should Mr. Caughey come to London,” he should be “encouraged” to hold revival services “in one of our metropolitan chapels.” “Horseferry Road I should think a good place to begin,” he added.58 Six months later Harvard took definite steps to ease Caughey’s passage to England. He wrote to Bunting informing him that “I have taken the liberty to give [Caughey] an introduction to yourself,” so he could have “the advantage of your valuable advice as to how he should proceed” once he arrived on the other side of the Atlantic. He suggested, once again, that Caughey should be invited to hold a protracted meeting at the Horseferry Road chapel in Westminster and gave him another letter of introduction to the minister William Vevers to help him navigate his new surroundings. “Though I had nothing to do with projecting his visit to Europe,” Harvard concluded, “I am not without hope it may be also divinely owned.”59 At the end of June 1841 the laity of Quebec City and Montreal demonstrated their continued support for Caughey by anticipating his material needs “for some time to come.” The leading friends at Quebec City also gave him a cheque for £300 to defray all the expenses of his voyage to Liverpool.60 Accompanied across the Atlantic by the missionaries Matthew Richey and Ephraim Evans, Caughey came to Britain as much a representative of British Wesleyanism in the Canadas as of American Methodism. The reception that Caughey received from the connexional leadership in Britain demonstrated just how far many of the missionaries and laity in Lower Canada had drifted from their Buntingite moorings. As Caughey travelled from circuit to circuit, Bunting and his supporters gave him a cool reception. They saw the professional revivalist as a menace to their conception of the pastoral office. At the 1843 Conference one of Bunting’s allies, George Osborn, complained that Caughey wanted “to preach twice every Sunday, and to have exclusive possession of the pulpit for the rest of the week” in Leeds. He was superseding the authority of the stationed ministry. The following year Osborn spoke against Caughey again and Bunting, serving his third term as president of the Conference, declared that “the brethren who have given up their pulpits to Mr. Caughey have been guilty of a great violation of godly discipline.” In response a majority of the ministers decided that no preacher would be permitted to give up his pulpit for more than a month at a time.61

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This new regulation did nothing to stop Caughey’s progress through the Wesleyan connexion in Britain. The Buntingites were not amused. Instead of welcoming Caughey with open arms, William Vevers wrote from Derby early in 1845, stating that, “some of the simpletons … who countenance Caughey cannot or will not see the tendency of their own proceedings.” “I understand Mr. Caughey is still living in this country, and occupying our pulpits year after year,” Bunting said at the Conference of 1845, “and yet attending no Meeting where he can be questioned as to his teaching and his conduct. This is a new thing, and a bad thing.”62 Bunting and his supporters were frantic to bring Caughey to heel. If that did not happen, the Conference’s authority might be a dead letter. The Buntingites also objected to Caughey’s approach to the doctrine of holiness and to revivalism in general. They feared that Caughey’s view of entire sanctification – that it was necessary for a fully Christian existence – would split the connexion between those who had received that blessing and those who had only experienced justification. Even more troubling, Caughey’s message suggested that the laity could possess greater spiritual purity than their pastors. That did not square at all with the Liverpool Minutes’ description of the itinerant ministers as the teachers and governors of the connexion. Bunting responded by dismissing the idea that British Wesleyan ministers might have anything to learn from this Yankee preacher. “Are we all to go to America for a year or two to straighten up?” he asked sarcastically at the Conference of 1843. Osborn chimed in, denouncing the new measures as “mechanical” while another minister attacked them as the “machinery of a revival” carried to excess. Two years later Bunting and his son, William Maclardie, claimed that Caughey was destroying the genuine Wesleyan tradition of revivalism with his theatrical performances. The elder Bunting bluntly charged him with passing off “as revelation things that are either fancy or fraud.” This did not mean, Bunting pointed out at the Conference of 1846, that the Wesleyan ministry was “against revivals of religion. We need one.” From the Buntingite point of view, however, it was Caughey who was preventing a greater increase in connexional membership. As the minister James Kendall put it, the new measures threatened to “bring the regularly instituted ordinances of God into utter contempt.” The Conference, he felt, needed to legislate “in reference to the American innovations.”63 The preachers who made up the liberal wing of the British Conference were not convinced. Like many of the missionaries and laity in the Canadas, they were impressed with Caughey’s newfangled evangelism. In Britain, however, this position quickly took on factional overtones.

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The ministerial liberals believed that Caughey’s revivalist campaign was the perfect antidote to the shabby gentility and spiritual deadness that, in their view, constituted the chief features of Buntingite worship. Whenever a member of the Buntingian Dynasty attacked Caughey during a meeting of the Conference, Joseph Beaumont, James Dixon, or one of their fellow liberals leapt to his defence, declaring that the American revivalist was “a man of God,” that he would always be welcome in their pulpits, and that the connexion would be doing itself a terrible harm if it interfered with this “work of God.”64 The liberals fought back when Bunting whipped out enough votes at the Conference of 1846 to ban Caughey from all Wesleyan chapels in Britain and to initiate his recall to the United States. They argued that Caughey was “a messenger from God to recall us as a Church to the spirit and self devotedness of our Fathers.” They also continued to welcome Caughey in their chapels after he vowed to defy the orders of “the Old President” and to remain among the British Wesleyans until “God gives me scores of sinners as seals to my ministry.”65 In Liverpool the minister Edward Brice invited Caughey to baptize his son and then named him after the revivalist. Even this relatively minor act of rebellion rankled Bunting and his supporters. “This is too bad,” William Vevers wrote, “It is time that such men should not be allowed to occupy some of our best pulpits.” The agitation was far more vicious on many other circuits. Caughey’s supporters split congregations and attacked any Buntingite minister in their midst. The leading lay officials in Hull threatened to drive three itinerant ministers, including Vevers, out of the city.66 The Wesleyan reformers added fuel to the agitation catching fire across the connexion. James Everett, in particular, happily seized on the new measures as another weapon in his long war against the Buntingian Dynasty. In his mind, Bunting, in addition to his many other sins, was responsible for the loss of the simplicity and effectiveness that had characterized Methodist worship in the days of Wesley and the first circuit riders. Those apostolic men, Everett believed, had been replaced by a stationed ministry, fat and complacent, less concerned with saving souls than with filthy lucre or with gorging themselves on honorary doctorates from the Methodist universities and colleges of the United States. Certain that Caughey’s services were as close to the evangelicalism of the 1700s as anything he had come across, Everett portrayed the Conference’s attempts to drive the professional revivalist back to America as another example of the corruption of Buntingite rule. In the anonymous Fly Sheet of 1847 he charged Bunting with the basest hypocrisy: the great man

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“moved the recall of Mr. Caughey … anxious to be understood, at the same time, that he was a friend to revivals.” Yet, living comfortably in London, Bunting did “little in the way of preaching, meeting the societies, and holding prayer meetings.” “Why talk of the dangers of slighting the ordinary means [of grace],” Everett asked, “when he himself is comparatively a stranger to their use?” Two conclusions seemed inescapable: “there was more need of an importation of such men as Mr. Caughey, than of his recall” and, “if the church is to be saved, the pope must fall.”67 In Lower Canada the response of the missionaries and laity to Everett’s call to arms, and to the Fly Sheets agitation that began after his expulsion from the British connexion in 1849, epitomized the conservative-radical tension that had taken shape within colonial Wesleyanism. As they had in the past, the missionaries were quick to side with the Buntingite leadership; they also continued to champion the gospel efforts of James Caughey. Missionaries and laity alike wrote home, sympathizing with “our Fathers & Brethren … at this particularly trying time” and praying that God might “support His dear servants and sanctify this painful matter to the good of [H]is Church and the glory of His holy name.”68 In 1850 Benjamin Slight declared that the Wesleyans of Lower Canada were “firm constitutional Methodists;” but, a year later, Caughey visited Montreal to play his part in what turned out to be “a glorious revival.”69 During the winter of 1853–54 “that man of God the Rev. James Caughey” helped conduct another series of protracted meetings in Quebec City. Once again, he employed the new measures and preached the doctrine of holiness. The method and the message remained as effective as ever. After fourteen weeks Caughey had drawn 222 new converts into the connexion, while fifty-four “old members of the Church” had entered “into the blessing of sanctification.” In terms of worship the missionaries and their lay supporters remained British Wesleyan, but not in the way the Buntingites expected. They had more in common with the ministers and laity who followed Everett out of the British connexion, and who invited Caughey to return to the Old Country in 1857, than they did with the leaders of their own church.70

V Problematic as that cultural shift turned out to be for Bunting and his supporters, it played out differently on the other side of the Atlantic. The Wesleyan missionaries’ continuing support for both Buntingite connexional structures and American-style worship smoothed the way for the

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reunion of 1847 between the British and Canada Conferences; it also helped secure the absorption of the Lower Canada District by the reconstituted Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada in 1854. Before those connexional rearrangements could take place, however, Canadian Methodism underwent a different, though equally important, transformation. If the British Wesleyans in the Canadas became increasingly open to the extraordinary means of grace during the 1830s and 1840s, the Canada connexion plunged headlong in the opposite direction. By the third quarter of the century, Canadian Methodism was well advanced in the process that William Westfall has called “the tempering of revivalism.” Much like Bunting and his supporters in the early 1800s, many of the Canadian Methodist ministers began to see the exuberant, often uncontrollable emotionalism that characterized popular revivalism as a hindrance to the continued growth and consolidation of their connexion. Old-style camp and protracted meetings held little appeal for Canadian Methodism’s expanding urban and middle-class constituency; where such extraordinary means of grace continued to be used, they became increasingly institutionalized and, by the 1850s, lacked almost all spontaneity. That is exactly what most Canadian Methodist preachers wanted. Through hard and dispiriting experience, they had become convinced that many conversions at camp and protracted meetings only lasted as long as the initial excitement. After that wore off, the saved returned to their sinful ways and, of course, abandoned the connexion for the world. In response, by the mid-1840s, the Minutes of the Canada Conference began to stress “the importance and duty of a vigilant and faithful attention” to the regular means of grace. The Christian Guardian summed up the official Canadian Methodist position in October 1860: “Special services are often very useful, and sometimes quite necessary, but it is far more important to have a continual revival, to have the work of God always going forward.”71 As Bunting would have recognized, this was an approach to revivalism calculated to aid in the process of making a relatively freewheeling sect into a stable church. During the second quarter of the century the Canadian Methodist ministry repeatedly turned to British Wesleyan models to help them make that transition. The Buntingite belief in the supremacy of the itinerant ministry was particularly appealing to the leadership of the Canada connexion. Months before the Articles of Union between the two conferences were finalized in 1833, rumours began to spread among the Canadian local preachers that Egerton Ryerson had sold them out – that “our whole economy will be changed by arbitrary

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power.” As soon as the British Wesleyans arrived on the scene they would lord it over the local preachers, the latter feared, depriving them of the privileges they had enjoyed for years, including the right to be ordained and, afterwards, to marry, bury, baptize, and celebrate the Lord’s Supper alongside the itinerant ministers.72 For once Methodistical paranoia had a solid basis in fact: the Wesleyans in Britain and the Canadas did push the Canada Conference to conform to the norms of the home connexion, making a hard and fast distinction between the travelling and local preachers. And the Canadian itinerants complied.73 Within three months of the union coming into effect, the Christian Guardian, under Egerton Ryerson’s editorship, began to beat the drum of ministerial supremacy, drawing on arguments that the Buntingites had been developing since the 1820s. In a series of letters to the editor in January and February 1834, an anonymous “Watchman” argued that any assertion that ministerial power derived from “the people” was “contrary to fact.” The ministry acquired its prerogatives from John Wesley and Wesley had them from an even higher power: “The origin and authority of the ministerial office are described and established in the word of God.” The itinerant minister was a man set apart from the rest of the connexion; for the sake of souls, he led a life of almost continual sacrifice “not far short of that of the first ministers of the Gospel.” The local preacher, in contrast, was still involved in trade on a daily basis; he was a lesser breed, “an occasional teacher, but not a governor.” Only the travelling preachers could fill that second role. All the other members of the connexion had to acknowledge and respect that fact in order to ensure the continued unity and vitality of Canadian Methodism.74 Over the next two years the leaders of the British and Canada connexions worked together to put the local preachers in their place. At the Canada Conference of 1834, several of the itinerants, hoping perhaps to calm fears of clerical despotism among their lay brethren, suggested that any local preachers who had been selected for ordination before the ratification of the Articles of Union should be granted that privilege. The Buntingite Edmund Grindrod, serving as president, refused to consider such a proposal. He could not “conscientiously ordain secular men, as they were not in circumstances to take the ordination vows in ‘laying aside the study of the world.’” Egerton Ryerson’s brother, William, supported Grindrod, declaring “that a conflict with the local preachers was inevitable, and that the sooner it was brought to a crisis the better.” Swayed by Grindrod and William Ryerson’s arguments, the majority of the Conference passed a resolution calling for an end to the ordination

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of local preachers in the future, “as the altered circumstances in which the connexion is placed render it unnecessary and inexpedient.”75 When a faction of local preachers began to form their own church in 1834 and 1835, the Canadian itinerants equated the schism with the Warrenite agitation then rocking the home connexion. The Christian Guardian pointed to the similarities between “the measures employed there [in Britain] and here by the promoters of strife and division.” Indeed, the Canadian preachers could not “withhold the expression of our deepest sympathy with our brethren in England who, in defense of the great principles of the Wesleyan economy, have been called, in common with their Canadian brethren, to endure such a fight of affliction.”76 In terms of church structures, at least, the two connexions had become close allies in a transatlantic battle to uphold Buntingite values. The Canadian Methodist ministers’ support for British Wesleyan conservatism became all the stronger from 1836 onward. In that year, in 1846, and again in 1849, the Canadian Methodist ministers adopted the British connexion’s Liverpool Minutes. By doing so, they vowed to make the authority of the ordained ministry a sine qua non of Canadian Methodist existence. They also promised to follow John Wesley’s advice and “not to mend our rules, but to keep them for conscience sake.”77 The Canadian Methodists were willing to put the strictest of constructions on that last sentence, even if it meant striking out at one of their own. In 1854, for instance, when Egerton Ryerson pushed for the elimination of attendance at class meeting as a requirement of church membership, he encountered such vehement and nearly unanimous opposition from his fellow ministers that he felt obliged to withdraw from the ministry. The British-appointed president of the Canada connexion, Enoch Wood, saw the whole episode as a logical outgrowth of the Ryerson brothers’ zeal for “noisy popularity.” “Happily for the Wesleyan Church,” he added, “they have lost the power to wield the Conference according to their notions.”78 Bunting and his supporters were not so sure. Though they congratulated their Canadian brethren on their “noble firmness in maintaining unimpaired the discipline of our body” in 1854, at the next British Conference they questioned whether, earlier in 1855, the Canada connexion should have allowed Ryerson to resume his place among the itinerants. He may have promised to express his views on class meetings only on appropriate occasions, but he had not abandoned them. Nettled by the suggestion that the colonial ministry could so easily be led into apostasy, Wood replied that the colonial preachers were “as faithful to their trust as any others, not even excepting the Parent Body.”79

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The Canadian Methodists, in other words, were every bit as doctrinaire as their brethren on the other side of the Atlantic on this issue. At the Canada Conference of 1856, the majority of the ministers drove that point home, reaffirming their “deep conviction … of the importance of Class Meetings as a means of grace; and of our duty to maintain them as a condition of church membership; as thus they have been handed down to us by our venerated founder.”80 Like the missionaries in Lower Canada, the Canadian Methodist ministry also launched a vigorous defence of Buntingite rule when the Fly Sheets agitation began in 1849. At their Conference in 1851 the itinerant preachers expressed their sympathy with their fellow ministers in Britain and begged to assure them that the conflicts wracking the home connexion “only increase our approval of your principles and proceedings.” “The constitution which was received from the Rev. John Wesley,” they added, “and faithfully transmitted to you and to us, is a sacred and an invaluable trust, which … will not be resigned at the bidding of any power, much less at the dictation of a mistaken, unscriptural, and violent confederation.”81 This statement of support for the Buntingite view of ministerial authority echoed articles that had been appearing in the Christian Guardian since 1849. The editor, George Sanderson, came out swinging against Everett and his supporters. “Sympathy for the offenders,” he declared in one of his first editorials on the Fly Sheets agitation, “would prompt us to wish for clemency in their case,” but an even greater sympathy for the wider Methodist world compelled him “to demand the punishment of offenders against the peace, the spirit, the usage, and even the written law of Methodism.” Methodists, in both Britain and Upper Canada, did not need or want “successive changes in the system by which they have been so much blessed.” Responding to the agitators’ demand for greater lay rights within the government of the home connexion, Sanderson quoted approvingly from the Buntingian Dynasty’s organ, the Watchman: “in no great Church in Christendom have the people anything like the amount of real power … which they have in our own Church.” The Fly Sheets’ attacks on the “exclusive powers in Ministerial hands, like all other absurdities, will set many on seeing what they saw not before, that the popular power among us is really prodigious.”82 Whether this was true or not, it was a line well calculated to shore up support for the pastoral office among both ministers and laity on either side of the ocean. The Canadian Methodist ministers needed to protect their own position; the itinerant preachers’ embrace of Buntingite conservatism was not universally accepted. There were traces of opposition within the ministry

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and among the laity that were strikingly similar to developments in British Wesleyanism during the same period. One minister, Matthias Holtby, wrote to Egerton Ryerson in 1842 about his fear that “primitive, oldfashioned Methodism” was “on the decline in England.” Using language that would have been familiar to James Everett, Holtby lamented that the zeal of the British Wesleyan preachers of old was being “murdered by Degrees,” whether “A.M.D. or D.D. or even LL.D. with F.A.S. at the end of it.” He was afraid that “what has taken place in England may take place in Canada.”83 Holtby was not alone: when the Fly Sheets agitation broke out, discontented elements in Canadian Methodism attempted to make common cause with the troublers of the connexional waters in Britain. In one of several efforts by various journals to “kindle the flame of Wesleyan revolution” in the colony, the Hamilton Provincialist printed a letter from “An Old Wesleyan” denouncing the Christian Guardian as “a sickening specimen of cant and hypocrisy” for daring to downplay “the present religious commotion” in British Wesleyanism. The “Old Wesleyan” attempted to set the record straight, describing a vast uprising against the Buntingites and their wealthy lay supporters.84 Writing directly to the wmms in November 1851, Enoch Wood stated what should have been obvious by then: Upper Canada was “not altogether free from the company of sympathizers” with the agitators in Britain. The pro-Everett Wesleyan Times was regularly “sent amongst our people in different parts of this country” and, as Everett himself later noted, he received letters of support from Toronto and Hamilton.85 After visiting the latter city in 1851, Wood reported that “some of us [in the ministry] came in for a good share of abuse by persons who sympathize with Everett & Co.” A month later, he noted that “a Canadian fly-sheet writer” had described the “sympathy said to exist here with the ‘Reformers.’”86 Wood vigorously denied that such sympathy existed, but the evidence suggests otherwise. Despite the presence of a faction of Canadian Methodists willing to support Everett’s muckraking crusade in Britain, however, there was no schism in Upper Canada during the post-1847 period. The Canada Conference had adopted Buntingite notions of pastoral authority and sided with Bunting and his allies during the upheavals of the mid1830s and 1850s; but, as was the case with the missionaries in Lower Canada, this transformation was balanced by a continued attachment to the doctrine of holiness and that more respectable and controllable form of revivalism practised by James Caughey. Unlike the Buntingian Dynasty, the Canadian ministry did not make the mistake of alienating

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both connexional liberals and supporters of popular evangelism at the same time. Five years after the British Conference drove him out of its pulpits, James Caughey began to pay yearly visits to the highly appreciative Canadian Methodists in Upper Canada. He came to Toronto in November 1851, Kingston in 1852, Hamilton in 1853, London in 1854, Belleville in 1855, and Brockville in 1856.87 Reporting on Caughey’s services in Toronto, a correspondent for the Christian Guardian noted that, “you might see the skeptic and the infidel bowed at the penitent bench, and crying aloud for mercy … this work is so evidently of God, that we think a dog would scarcely dare to lift its head, or move its tongue against it.”88 At the Conference of 1852 the Canadian ministers put their collective stamp of approval on Caughey’s message and methods. During their proceedings, they dwelt on “the promotion of holiness or entire sanctification” and how it could best be accomplished; they also “affectionately” invited Caughey “to spend as much of his time in labouring in Upper Canada … as he may feel it consistent with his duty and vocation in promoting the conversion of sinners and the sanctification of believers.” The professional revivalist had an obvious appeal for the Canadian Methodists.89 It helped, as one Canadian preacher pointed out, that Caughey’s services were “free from extravagancies,” while also being “characterized by the most extraordinary power.” This equilibrium between respectability and spiritual utility fit nicely with Canadian Methodism’s gradual movement towards moderation in all forms of worship.90 Of course, it also paralleled the British Wesleyan missionaries’ approach to the extraordinary means of grace. When the unions of 1847 and 1854 took place, then, Bunting and his supporters did not have to worry about the colonial Wesleyans opposing either measure on disciplinary or doctrinal grounds. In 1856 the reconstituted Canada Conference vowed to “establish widely the same polity and means, diffuse the same spirit, and exult in the same triumphs” as the British Conference. At the same time, both the British missionaries and native-born preachers who now made up the Canada connexion continued to support professional revivalism and other extraordinary means of grace. When James Caughey conducted his first revival services in Toronto in 1851, he came “by special invitation;” he worked closely with the two ministers stationed on the circuit, including the British Wesleyan preacher John Douse, later described as “a man, who, notwithstanding his twenty-eight years residence in Upper Canada, believes … no form of Christianity to be compared to English Methodism.”91 To Douse, however, there was no contradiction between supporting

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Caughey and being a good Wesleyan. He joined Egerton Ryerson and other Canadian Methodist ministers and laity, praising Caughey’s efforts at a farewell breakfast held in his honour in June 1852.92 In March 1856 the Canadian correspondent of the Buntingite Watchman reported that “Mr. Caughey likes to winter among us British Wesleyans of Canada, and he is at present doing his Master’s work well at the large town … of Belleville,” then under the superintendence of the Canadian Methodist John Carroll. A year later, Enoch Wood, serving as president of the Canada Conference, gave the wmms a favourable account of the spread of camp meetings across the connexion.93 In August 1859 the new connexional president, Joseph Stinson, informed Missionary Secretary Elijah Hoole that he had recently had “the pleasure … of preaching to about five thousand people in a beautiful grove. A more attentive & devout congregation it was never my privilege to witness.”94 The British missionaries were and remained at home with the Canadian Methodists’ compromise between Buntingite church governance and a tempered form of American-style revivalism. That should come as no surprise; they had developed the same approach to life in the Canadas by the early 1840s.

VI Methodism in Lower and Upper Canada had its version of the dog that did not bark in the night. As we know, when the Canadian Methodists, the British Wesleyans, and the their missionaries went into the unions of 1833, 1847, and 1854, they came to blows over numerous issues: relations with the established Church of England, the nature of political loyalty, and the respective financial obligations of metropole and periphery. In contrast, the relationship between revivalism and pastoral authority was never a matter of contention. This silence can only be explained by examining the development of the British Wesleyan community in the Canadas and Canadian Methodism in relation to the home connexion. Ultimately, the changing relationship between revivalism and pastoral authority among the Canadian Methodists, the British Wesleyan missionaries, and their lay supporters in the Canadas created a broad and inclusive community. The Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada that was formed in 1854 was able to contain the more explosive forces of revivalism that had first been unleashed in the eighteenth century and to provide a home for both ministers and laity who continued to support notions such as Caughey’s version of the doctrine of holiness. This flexible combination, so different from what emerged in British Wesleyanism,

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may explain, in part, why Canadian Methodism entered a period of connexional expansion during the mid-1850s while it took over twenty years for the membership of the home connexion to recover from the shock of the Fly Sheets agitation. By 1861 the Methodists in Upper Canada had become the largest religious group in the colony, outnumbering both the Anglicans and the Presbyterians.95 People who continued to look to camp or protracted meetings for spiritual renewal or who attended the services held by a generation of professional revivalists who followed Caughey into the field, found a comfortable home within the Canada connexion. If, by the mid-nineteenth century, Canadian Methodism was a British Wesleyan connexion in terms of its church structures, it was North American in its approach to worship – and that was one of the main reasons for its success.

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C o n c l u s ion

“Our Old Friend, the Canada Conference”

In the end, what we have learned about the lives and times of the transatlantic Methodists? We know that, between 1814 and 1874, the leadership of the Wesleyan connexion in Britain attempted to shape the development of both the British Wesleyan community in the Canadas and the Canadian Methodists. At times the Methodist groups in Lower and Upper Canada embraced their official position in a wider British and Wesleyan world. They accepted district chairmen or presidents of Conference from Britain; they sent their own deputations to the other side of the Atlantic, often with fundraising first and foremost on the agenda. In some ways, however, the unofficial connections between the Methodists of Britain and the Canadas were even more important. At the fundamental level of demography, Methodism in the Canadas was an offshoot of British Wesleyanism. The Canada Conference and the British Wesleyan missionaries built up their lay followings by recruiting recently arrived Irish, Scottish, and English Wesleyan immigrants. Indeed, thanks to the mass migration of the post-1815 period, each of the three groups we have examined – the British Wesleyan missionaries and their lay supporters, the ministers of the Canada connexion and the leaders of British Wesleyanism – came to see the Canadas as an extension of a larger British mission field. That perception was central to the process of cultural formation in the colonies. The connection with Wesleyanism in Britain led to the articulation of a new sense of self among the British Wesleyan missionaries, their lay supporters, and the members of the Canada Conference. That culture was recognizably British and Wesleyan. After 1847 the Canada connexion accepted the lead of the British Conference; and the British Wesleyans in Upper and Lower Canada went into unions with the Canada Conference

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in 1847 and 1854 because they knew that the home connexion would remain at the centre of the Canadian Methodist world. Those two communities also adopted an approach to revivalism that was deeply disturbing to Buntingite sensibilities; at the same time, however, the Canadian Methodist ministers took up the British connexion’s approach to pastoral authority in an effort to navigate the dangerous passage from sect to church. To say that the culture that emerged among the Methodists of Ontario and Quebec by 1874 was a uniquely Canadian phenomenon obscures more than it reveals. It would also be a mistake, however, to see this transoceanic relationship in terms of a metropole imposing its views and customs on a colonial periphery. During the first half of the nineteenth century, the British Wesleyan missionaries and their lay supporters were engaged in a process of constant negotiation with their brethren on the other side of the Atlantic over what it meant to be a Briton and a Wesleyan. Having been trained for the gospel work during the social and political turmoil of the 1790s and early 1800s, the first missionaries to the Canadas believed that they had a duty to save those colonies from the threat of republican and revolutionary subversion posed, they thought, by the ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Yet, when the British Conference and the wmms decided that cooperation with the American Methodists was a goal worth pursuing in 1820, the missionaries and their lay supporters felt betrayed. They came to see themselves as the guardians of a pure version of Britishness and Wesleyanism, uncorrupted by the worldly diplomacy of the home connexion. That conservative, but subversive, sense of self was periodically driven into abeyance by the angry response of the wmms, but it reappeared at times of stress or conflict. The missionaries and laity turned their British and Weslyean identity against the Buntingites in the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s – every time connexional authorities in Britain negotiated a new union with the Canadian Methodists or altered the financial framework of the mission field. For their part, the members of the Canada Conference underwent a similar process of cultural formation between 1828 and the mid-1850s. In various attempts to fight off the unwelcome advances of the Buntingian Dynasty, in terms of both church governance and mission finance, Egerton Ryerson and his fellow ministers argued that they were every bit as British and Wesleyan as any members of the British Wesleyan connexion. These contests over what it meant to be a Briton and a Wesleyan became less heated during the second half of the nineteenth century. The leadership of the British and Canada Conferences came to an agreement

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about how those terms would be defined; they then worked successfully to impose that new sense of self on the British Wesleyan missionaries and their lay supporters. This transformation was possible because of structural and cultural changes on both sides of the Atlantic. Faced with the Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843 and the rise of the Oxford Movement in the 1830s, Jabez Bunting and the Wesleyan Tories abandoned their support for the principle of church establishment, which had been a major stumbling block in their relations with the Canadian Methodists. At the same time, thanks to the political arts of Governor General Charles Poulett Thomson, the Canada Conference became part of the very church establishment that they had fought to bring down since the late 1820s. After the mid-1840s there was no major issue of principle that might keep the two connexions from reuniting. Instead, they could happily combine forces for a grand assault on Roman Catholicism as embodied in Tractarianism. Fiscal considerations also played a role in ending hostilities. During the 1840s the Canada Conference found that it could not maintain its mission work without financial help from the home connexion; simultaneously, the Wesleyans in Britain wanted to get their hands on the grant that the imperial government had promised to them when they recommenced their missions in Upper Canada in the early 1830s. Similar concerns over money made the British Wesleyan missionaries and their lay supporters more open to the idea of union with the Canada Conference in 1847 and 1854 – if the wmms refused to meet the growing obligations of the missionary districts in the Canadas, perhaps the Canada connexion would. It helped that the mounting costs of the Canadian Methodists’ effort to support Victoria College and to become the national church of the Canadas after 1847 manifested itself in their continued insistence on the British and Wesleyan character of their gospel labours. It is important to bear in mind, however, that this was not just a story of the development of Methodism in Lower and Upper Canada. The connection with those colonies also shaped British Wesleyanism. Events unfolding in the Canadas contributed, time  and again, to the home connexion’s chronic instability during the second quarter of the nineteenth century. In 1833 and 1834 the British Wesleyan community in the Canadas threatened to set up a rival missionary society in the Old Country. During the early 1840s the Canadian Methodists gave ammunition to the liberals in the British Conference for their battles against Bunting and his supporters. Most spectacularly of all, the British Wesleyan missionaries and their lay supporters helped to trigger the Fly

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Sheets agitation in 1849. And, as was so often the case in this transatlantic world, James Everett’s final hell-raising campaign was reproduced, albeit on a smaller scale, among the Canadian Methodists. At many points the histories of Methodism in Britain and the Canadas cannot be fully understood unless they are viewed as part of a whole. That continued to be the case up to the moment when the British and Canada Conferences severed their official connection in 1874. Prior to that point, at least one leading British Wesleyan began to suspect that the ground was shifting under the union of 1847. During his visit to British North America in 1861, William Boyce observed that the spirit of “Yankee” Methodism was a growing threat to Methodism in the Canadas. A minority of Canadian Methodists wanted greater autonomy for their church; they were, in fact, becoming “ultra-Canadian” in their views. This suggests that, as the generation of the 1830s and 1840s passed from the scene, a number of Canadian Methodists were willing to think of a future outside the bounds of a strictly British and Wesleyan world.1 Was this the beginning of a genuine process of “Canadianization” within the connexion?2 Perhaps, but the discussions that led to a union between the Canadian Methodists and the much smaller Methodist New Connexion Church in Canada in 1874 demonstrated that the links between the Canada and British connexions remained strong – and problematic – to the end. As part of those negotiations, the Canadian Methodists agreed to accept a degree of lay representation in their denominational government. When that decision came before the British Conference for approval, some of its members were appalled. They appointed “a large Committee to go into the Canadian question,” convinced that “we cannot confirm their Minutes if they accept lay Delegation.” The danger was that the Wesleyan laity in Britain would demand the same treatment. The risk of transatlantic “infection” remained as potent in 1873 as it had been in the 1830s. Eventually, however, the British Conference decided that it made more sense to let the Canadian Methodists go their own way, rather than fighting yet another transoceanic battle over church governance.3 And so, in 1874, sixty years of often tumultuous interaction came to a close for the British Wesleyans and the Methodists of central Canada. The home connexion repealed the 1847 Articles of Union, leaving the Canada Conference free to govern its own proceedings and to unite with any other Methodist groups in the new dominion that might be persuaded to join it.4 Ministers on both sides of the Atlantic realized that they were witnessing the end of an era. The former president of the Canada

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connexion, William Morley Punshon, let his fellow British Wesleyan ministers know that “there never was a greater love to the Methodist Conference in England on the part of the Methodist Conference in Canada than at this moment.” At the same time, like the people of Canada in general, the Canadian Methodists had never felt a “deeper or more intense and chivalrous loyalty … to the mother country.” They remained loyal Britons and Wesleyans; the British Conference could feel secure in dissolving the union. “The consolidation and extension of Methodism in Canada was a very great thing,” Punshon continued. It would “lead to the formation of a religious empire of whose imperial moral grandeur no prophet could accurately prophesy.”5 In June 1874, on the other side of the Atlantic, the Canadian Methodist minister Anson Green recorded the last meeting of his Conference before the union with the New Connexion took effect. “The moment was one of much excitement,” he wrote, “calling up pleasing reminiscences; but the hour came for us to part, and we committed the executive reins  to faithful men … with confidence, trusting that they will fight as bravely, labour as diligently, and bring forth fruit as abundantly” as the Methodists in the Canadas had done throughout the nineteenth century. “But,” he added, “our old friend, the Canada Conference, which has nobly defended the truth, and multiplied its children by thousands, has done its work, and will disappear from the record.”6

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Notes

No t e o n t e r m i n o l o g y 1 Westfall, Founding Moment, xi.

I nt roduct i o n 1 Heitzenrater and Ward, eds., Works of John Wesley: Journals and Diaries, 18:249–50. Emphasis in original. See also Rack, “John Wesley,” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 58:183–5. 2 Lamb, “William Losee,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 6:405. 3 These statistics are drawn from Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 182. 4 Dangerfield, Strange Death of Liberal England, 130. 5 Ryerson, Canadian Methodism, 29, 129, 289, 293, 308, 310–11. Discussing the first American Methodist preachers in Lower and Upper Canada, Ryerson noted that “their self-denials, purity of life and doctrine, and extraordinary labours, demonstrated the divinity of their mission” (29) and that “they taught doctrines which lay at the foundation of a country’s freedom, and without which no country has ever been free” (129). The British Wesleyans, in contrast, took action in the Canadas based on information that was “perfectly untrue in every respect” (293). They also violated their own principles, while individual missionaries turned out to be “more … High Churchman than Wesleyan in Canadian affairs” (308). This privileging of the North American was also a feature of Ryerson’s two-volume work The Loyalists of America and Their Times (1880). Tellingly, he traced the origins of Loyalism to the Pilgrims of the Plymouth colony. See Knowles, Inventing the Loyalists, 41–5.

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Notes to pages 5–9

6 Playter, History of Methodism in Canada, 149–50, 151, 167–8, 171, 176; Carroll, Case and His Cotemporaries, 2:25, 2:34–5, 2:345–6, 3:iii–iv. It should be noted, however, that John Carroll, a supporter of ecumenical causes by the time he came to write his histories in 1860s, was at least willing to admit that individual British Wesleyans could, and sometimes did, have a beneficial impact on Methodism in Lower and Upper Canada. See, for example, the short biographies of the missionaries Enoch Wood and Joseph Stinson in Carroll, Past and Present, 244–6, 248–50. The transformation of the history of Canadian Methodism into romantic fiction is discussed in Westfall, Two Worlds, 80–1. 7 Little, Borderland Religion, 149–223; Little, “The Methodistical way,” 171– 94; Van Die, “‘A March of Victory,’” 77–9. For general overviews of the transatlantic context of Methodism in Canada see Carey, God’s Empire, 188–91; Grant, A Profusion of Spires, 75–7; Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit, 18, 30, 152–3. Recent studies that place religion in preConfederation Canada in a transatlantic framework include Healey, From Quaker to Upper Canadian; Gauvreau, “The Dividends of Empire,” 199– 250; McKim, “‘Righteousness Exalteth a Nation,’” 47–66. 8 French, Parsons and Politics, 70–4, 134–42, 171–91, 248–55; Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 6–7, 37–52, 76–86, 92–9; Westfall, Two Worlds, 39, 75–6. See also Christie, “‘In These Times of Democratic Rage and Delusion,’” 23, 42; Van Die, “‘The Double Vision,’” 257–60; Little, Borderland Religion, 154– 64. The closest thing we have to a truly transatlantic study of Methodism in British North America is Robertson, John Wesley’s Nova Scotia Businessmen. 9 Little, Borderland Religion, ix–xiv, 5–12, 218–23, 285. 10 French, Parsons and Politics, 271. 11 Champion, The Strange Demise of British Canada, 99. 12 Smith, History of Wesleyan Methodism, 3:185–7, 3:403–5. 13 j rul m , James Everett Papers, Notes and Memoranda, 4:814–16; 9:2614– 15; History of John Wesley’s Coat, 27–9. For a more detailed account of Everett’s attack on Robert Alder, its consequences and meaning see Webb, “The Destruction of Robert Alder,” 43–59. 14 This definition of culture is based on Westfall, Two Worlds, 13. It also draws on E.P. Thompson’s description of culture as a combination of “traditions, value-systems, ideas, and institutional forms.” See Thompson, Making of the English Working Class, 9. 15 Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 3. Emphasis in original. 16 Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 8; Ward, “The Religion of the People,” 266. 17 Vaudry, Anglicans and the Atlantic World, 5.

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18 Armitage, “Three Concepts of Atlantic History,” 13. For particularly useful examples of situating Canadian history in an Atlantic context see Greer and Mills, “A Catholic Atlantic,” 3–19; Bannister, “Canada as CounterRevolution,” 98–146. Bannister states that, “Canada is, at bottom, an experiment in counter-revolution fuelled as much by its imperial legacy and external relations as by its domestic imperatives” (99). 19 Buckner, “The Borderlands Concept,” 156. The products of this resituating of Canadian history in the context of the British World have been collected in a number of volumes, including Buckner and Francis, eds., Rediscovering the British World; Buckner and Francis, Canada and the British World; Buckner, Canada and the British Empire. See also Christie, ed., Transatlantic Subjects. 20 Berger, The Sense of Power. The phrase “greater Britons” is derived from James Belich, Making Peoples, 303–12, 446–50. 21 Pocock, “British History: A Plea for a New Subject,” 601–21, 626; Pocock, “The Limits and Divisions of British History,” 311–36. See also Pocock, “The New British History in Atlantic Perspective,” 490–500 and the essays collected in Pocock, The Discovery of Islands. 22 Colley, “Britishness and Otherness,” 309–29; Colley, Britons, especially 11–54. 23 Kumar, Making of English National Identity, 163. 24 Claydon and McBride, “The Trials of the Chosen Peoples,” 3–29; Claydon, Europe and the Making of England, 354. See also Semmel, Napoleon and the British, 72–106. 25 Hilton, A Mad, Bad and Dangerous People?, 240; Clark, “Restoration to Reform, 1660–1832,” 418, 419. See also MacKenzie, “Empire and National Identities,” 215–31, which speculates that, “the [British] Empire was more notable in preserving a plurality of British identities than in welding together a common imperial tradition” (230). 26 This argument is made in Breen, “Ideology and Nationalism on the Eve of the American Revolution,” 13–39; Gould, “A Virtual Nation,” 481, 484; Gould, Persistence of Empire, 181–214; Wahrman, Making of the Modern Self, 218–64. 27 Wilson, “Introduction: Histories, Empires, Modernities,” 12–13. 28 See, for example, Elbourne, Blood Ground; Hall, Civilizing Subjects. 29 Lester, “British Settler Discourse and the Circuits of Empire,” 25–48. Lester has elaborated on this argument in a number of articles, including Lester, “Imperial Circuits and Networks,” 1–18; Lester, “Humanitarians and White Settlers in the Nineteenth Century,” 64–85; Lambert and Lester, “Introduction: Imperial spaces, imperial subjects,” 1–31.

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Notes to pages 12–20

30 Etherington, Introduction to Missions and Empire, 15. Nancy Christie and Hilary Carey also argue against this view of missions and empire. See Christie, “Introduction: Theorizing a Colonial Past,” 17; Carey, God’s Empire, 21, 23–4. 31 See, for example, u ca , w m m s, District Minutes, Canada / Upper Canada, Reel 5, 11 May 1842. In 1842 the British Wesleyan missionaries had seventeen circuits in Upper Canada. Only six could be classified as Native missions, and several of those seem to have served a mix of Natives and settlers. Thirteen missionaries were assigned to settler communities and five, including one Native convert, to Native missions. The membership totals were 2090 settlers and 401 Natives. The number of Native converts dwindled over the next five years, from 357 in 1846 to 343 in 1847. During the same period the number of settlers attending British Wesleyan churches rose to 2725 in 1846 before declining slightly to 2715 in 1847. See ibid., 21 May 1846; ibid., 25 May 1847. 32 This point is derived from Pocock, The Discovery of Islands, 187–89. On Peter Jones see Smith, Sacred Feathers.

C ha p t e r o n e 1 Watchman, 20 March 1855, 94. 2 Some “colonials” continued to ask the same questions in the twentieth century. See for example Pocock, “History and Sovereignty,” 358–61. 3 Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism, 28–39; Van Die, “‘The Double Vision’,” 256–58; Van Die, “‘A March of Victory and Triumph’,” 77–9; Errington, Emigrant Worlds and Transatlantic Communities, particularly the sections dealing with the Methodist Peters and Pashley families. 4 French, Parson and Politics, 54, 67–74, 77–8; Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 52, 76–86, 92–8. 5 For an insightful view of the role of space and time in history see the articles collected in Bodenhamer et al., Spatial Humanities, particularly Ayers, “Turning Toward Place, Space, and Time.” 6 John Wesley to John Mason, 13 January 1790 in Telford, ed., Letters of John Wesley, 8:196. For the text of the Deed of Declaration see Townsend et al., A New History of Methodism, 2:551–6. 7 This account of the structure and authority of the British Wesleyan Conference draws on Bowmer, Pastor and People, 111–12, 163–7; Grindrod, Compendium, 1–11, 29–42, 61–2; Cooney, Methodists in Ireland, 127–8; Watts, Dissenters, 361–2, 466–8. Unlike Irish Methodism, Scottish Methodism did not have its own Conference.

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8 Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 245. This description of the British Wesleyan polity is indebted to Baker, “The People Called Methodists – 3. Polity,” 211–55; and Currie, Methodism Divided, 28–9. 9 John Wesley to John Clayton [?], 28 March 1739 in Baker, Works of John Wesley: Letters, 1:616; John Wesley to John Smith, 22 March 1748 quoted in Green, John Wesley, 91. Emphasis in original. 10 Baker, “The Trans-Atlantic Triangle,” 17–19; Walsh, “Methodism at the End of the Nineteenth Century,” 301–2; Watts, Dissenters, 6. 11 Richey, Methodist Conference in America, 35–9; Lee, A Short History of the Methodists, 363. 12 Marshall, “Americans in Upper Canada,” 38; Christie, “‘In These Times of Democratic Rage and Delusion,’” 10–11; Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 40–3. 13 Buckner, “Making British North America British,” 17. 14 Bumsted, “Scots,” 1124–7; Elliott, “Irish Protestants,” 766, 775. Wesleyan Methodism was never a strong force in Lowland or Highland Scotland. 15 Elliott, “English,” 469, 470–2, 481–2. 16 Elliott, “Regional Patterns of English Immigration,” 58–9, 63, 74; Snell and Ell, Rival Jerusalems, 124–6. 17 For the complaints see jru lm , Jabez Bunting papers, ma m plp 18.14.8, Jabez Bunting to Edmund Grindrod, 10 August 1831; uc a , WMMC -C, Box 14, File 88, #7, William Squire to Joseph Taylor, 23 September 1830. 18 uc a , wm m s -c, Box 6, File 48, #38, John DePutron to Richard Watson, 16 September 1822 (journal entry for 27 February 1822); Green, Life and Times of Anson Green, 51–2. 19 uc a , James Wilson papers, Autobiography, 11. See also French, Parsons and Politics, 68–70, 77–8, 107 and Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 45, 52, 147, who downplay or overlook the role of immigration in the growth of Methodism in Lower and Upper Canada. 20 uc a , wm m s -c, Box 7, File 52, #25, James Booth to Joseph Taylor, 4 August 1823; Carroll, Case and His Cotemporaries, 3:351, 2:322, 2:365–6; u ca, w m m s -c, Box 21, File 137, #15, John Borland to Robert Alder, 7 July 1837. 21 Ibid., Box 2, File 23, #24, William Bennett, John Strong and Richard Williams to James Buckley, 10 July 1816; ibid., Box 3, File 35, #32, James Booth to Joseph Taylor, 23 November 1819; ibid., Box 10, File 64, #2, James Knowlan to George Morley, 5 February 1826. 22 Ibid., Box 4, File 39, #16, Henry Ruttan et al. to the Secretaries of the wmms, 12 January 1820; ibid., Box 16, File 100, #8, Hilary Codville to James Townley, 3 April 1832; ibid., Box 25, File 169, #35, Leaders and Stewards of Kingston to the Secretaries of the wmms, 17 May 1841.

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Notes to pages 25–9

23 c g , 16 October 1833, 194; ibid., 7 May 1834, 103. Emphasis in original. 24 Minutes … from 1824 to 1845, 113, 178; Minutes … from 1846 to 1857, 76; Minutes of Several Conversations (1862), 95. 25 Minutes of several conversations between the preachers late in connexion with the Rev. Mr. Wesley (1818) quoted in Davies et al., History of the Methodist Church, 4:357. Emphasis in original. See also Findlay and Holdsworth, History of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, 1:73–5, 1:167. In 1841 the Mission House moved from 77 Hatton Garden to the more spacious Centenary Hall at 17 Bishopsgate Street Within, London. 26 Grindrod, Compendium, 217–22; soas , wmms, Special Series, Candidate Papers, Fiche #1909, 18 March 1834; uc a, wmms, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 28 August 1827. 27 uc a , wm m s, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 18 November 1815; Grindrod, Compendium, 211, 216, 221; uc a, wmms, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 31 March 1819. 28 uc a , wm m s, Outgoing Correspondence, Joseph Taylor to Richard Williams, 6 July 1820. 29 Ibid., John Beecham to John Berry, 25 April 1834; j rulm, Robert Alder papers, mam plp 1.36.6, Robert Alder to Jabez Bunting, 17 July 1838; j rul m , Elijah Hoole papers, m am plp 55.32.45, Elijah Hoole to Jabez Bunting, 18 August 1847. 30 uc a , wm m s –c, Box 4, File 39, #22, Richard Williams to Joseph Taylor, 16 June 1820. 31 Arnell, Transatlantic Mail, 1, 5. 32 s oas, wm m s, Home and General, Circulars, Fiche #1986, 10 August 1823; j ru lm, Robert Alder papers, m a m plp 1.36.8, Robert Alder to Jabez Bunting, 9 September 1839. 33 j rul m , John Beecham papers, m am pl p 7.2.4, John Beecham to Jabez Bunting, 22 December 1832. 34 uca, wmms-c, Box 5, File 44, #27, John DePutron to Joseph Taylor, 5 July 1821; jrulm, William Martin Harvard papers, mam plp 50.59.35, William Martin Harvard to Thomas Jackson, 22 August 1837; uc a , Matthew Richey papers, Box 1, File 2, Robert Alder to Matthew Richey, 25 March 1844. See also Hollett, Shouting, Embracing, and Dancing with Ecstasy, 102–10, which suggests that these problems were not as pronounced among Newfoundland Methodists. 35 uc a , wm m s -c, Box 4, File 39, #18, James Booth to Joseph Taylor, 29 May 1820; ibid., Box 6, File 48, #22, James Knowlan to Joseph Taylor, 24 August 1822; ibid., Box 9, File 59, #16, James Knowlan to Joseph Taylor, 31 May 1825. Emphasis in original.

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36 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 11, File 70, #11, Robert Alder to George Morley, 4 June 1827; ibid., Box 28, File 194, #4, William Martin Harvard to Robert Alder, 13 February 1844. Emphasis in original. 37 Ibid., Box 18, File 112, #16, William Lunn to Robert Alder, 31 October 1834; soas, m m sa, w m m s, Home and General, Home Correspondence, Fiche #205, William Lunn to Robert Alder, 1 March 1836; uc a , wmmsc , Box 26, File 178, #16, John Mathewson to Robert Alder, 28 June 1842. 38 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 30, File 216, #11, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 2 March 1846; u ca, Egerton Ryerson papers, Box 3, File 68, Egerton Ryerson to Jabez Bunting, 11 December 1844. 39 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 8, File 56, #3, William Lunn to Richard Watson, 3 February 1824; ibid., Box 18, File 119, #11, William Lord to Robert Alder, 31 December 1834; ibid., Box 29, File 226, #28, Benjamin Slight to the Secretaries of the w m m s, 13 October 1848. Emphasis in original. 40 uc a , Matthew Richey papers, Box 1, File 2, Robert Alder to Matthew Richey, 25 March 1844. 41 Arnell, Transatlantic Mail, 2–3. 42 uca, wmms-c, Box 29, File 210, #8, Matthew Richey to Robert Alder, 26 March 1846; ibid., Box 38, File 281, #21, Enoch Wood to John Beecham, 22 May 1854; uca, Egerton Ryerson papers, Box 4, File 110, William Scott to Egerton Ryerson, 13 March 1856; uca, wmms-c, Box 44, File 328, #19, John Hunt to the Secretaries of the wmms, 5 July 1865. 43 Ibid., Box 4, File 39, #28, Richard Pope to Joseph Taylor, 9 September 1820. For Alice Redfern see Bunting and Rowe, Life of Jabez Bunting, 1:10. 44 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 10, File 64, #6, Joseph Stinson to George Morley, 14 June 1826; u ca, w m m s, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 6 February 1828. 45 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 35, File 252, #19, Gifford Dorey to George Osborn, 18 December 1851; ibid., Box 36, File 260, #9, Gifford Dorey to George Osborn, 28 February 1852. See also ibid., Box 3, File 35, #9, Henry Pope to Joseph Taylor, 1 May 1819; ibid., Box 3, File 35, #24, Richard Williams to Joseph Taylor, 20 July 1819. 46 Ibid., Box 25, File 169, #29, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 22 November 1841; uca, Church Album Collection, Portraits and Letters of the Presidents of the Canada Conference, William Martin Harvard to Jabez Bunting, 10 June 1847; u ca, wmms-c, Box 10, File 64, #15, Joseph Stinson to George Marsden, 9 November 1826; ibid., Box 11, File 70, #18, Joseph Stinson to George Marsden, 5 July 1827. Emphasis in original. 47 l ac, Egerton Ryerson papers, File 1, John P. Hetherington to Jabez Bunting, 16 February 1842.

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Notes to pages 34–6

48 See for example uca, wmms-c, Box 5, File 44, #26, John Hick to Joseph Taylor, 5 June 1821; ibid., Box 6, File 48, #28, John Hick to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 21 December 1822; ibid., Box 34, File 243, #18, Benjamin Slight to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 19 November 1850; ibid., Box 43, File 317, #6, Henry Lanton to William Arthur, 25 April 1863. 49 Ibid., Box 6, File 48, #36, Henry Pope to Richard Watson, 12 August 1822; ibid., Box 11, File 70, #6, James Booth to George Morley, 19 March 1827. Emphasis in original. 50 s oas, w m m s, Special Series, Candidate Papers, Fiche #1908, Minutes of a Meeting of the Preachers of the London Districts, 10 November 1830; uc a , wmm s, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 17 July 1833. 51 uc a , wmm s -c, Box 5, File 44, #24, John DePutron to Joseph Taylor, 18 June 1821; ibid. Box 5, File 44, #27, John DePutron to Joseph Taylor, 5 July 1821; Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, November 1861, 965; Cornish, Cyclopaedia, 61, 73, 76, 84, 85, 98, 99, 100, 114, 142; Ward, Early Victorian Methodism, 356n1, 367n1. 52 s oas, w m m s, Home and General, Home Correspondence, Fiche #120, Thomas Catterick to Joseph Taylor, 16 October 1823; ibid., Fiche #134, John Hick to George Morley, 10 September 1825. 53 j rul m , John B. Selley papers, m am plp 96.4.4, John B. Selley to John Hetherington, 14 May 1846; soas, w mms, Home and General, Home Correspondence, Fiche #336, John Hetherington to Robert Alder, 29 May 1846; ibid., Fiche #367, John Jenkins to Elijah Hoole, 16 August 1847. 54 Ibid., Fiche #290, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 15 March 1843; uc a, Matthew Richey papers, Box 1, File 1, Matthew Richey to Louisa Richey, 22 June 1851. 55 uc a , Egerton Ryerson papers, Box 2, File 53, John Ryerson to Egerton Ryerson, 29 September 1842; soas , w mms, Home and General, Home Correspondence, Fiche #290, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 15 March 1843. 56 uca, Egerton Ryerson papers, Box 3, File 60, Joseph Stinson to Egerton Ryerson, 18 September 1843; ibid., Box 3, File 74, John Ryerson to Egerton Ryerson, 1 August 1846; uca, wmms-c, Box 31, File 223, #6, John P. Hetherington to Robert Alder, 22 March 1847. Hetherington believed that Matthew Richey and William Lord, two other veterans of the British Wesleyan missions in the Canadas, were equally biased in the reunion negotiations. 57 uc a , wmm s -c, Box 11, File 70, #20, William Lunn to George Morley, 20 July 1827; ibid., Box 21, File 137, #12, Peter Langlois to Jabez Bunting, 9 June 1837.

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177

58 Ibid., Box 29, File 226, #3, William Lunn to an unknown correspondent, 20 January 1848; ibid., Box 36, File 260, #7, Peter Langlois, William Blight and John Campbell to George Osborn, 13 February 1852; ibid., Box 37, File 268, #12, William Lunn to Elijah Hoole, 22 October 1853. 59 s oas, w m m s, Home and General, Home Correspondence, Fiche #34, Peter Langlois to James Buckley, 13 March 1816; uc a, wmms-c , Box 5, File 44, #19, Richard Williams to Joseph Taylor, 18 April 1821; ibid., Box 5, File 44, #42, Daniel Fisher to Joseph Taylor and Richard Watson, 14 December 1821. 60 Ibid., Box 31, File 224, #7, Matthew Richey to Jabez Bunting, 12 June 1847; ibid., Box 29, File 217, #5, William Lunn to an unknown correspondent, 13 July 1847; u ca, w m m s , Outgoing Correspondence, John Beecham, Elijah Hoole, George Osborn and William Arthur to Enoch Wood, 13 April 1854; Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, August 1854, 758. 61 Minutes...from 1824 to 1845, 64; Minutes...from 1846 to 1857, 35–6. This number includes ministers who either came directly from Britain or who were already stationed in the Canadas by the wmms: George Marsden (1833), Edmund Grindrod (1834), William Lord (1835–6), William Martin Harvard (1837–8), Joseph Stinson (1839–40, 1858–61), Robert Alder (1847), James Dixon (1848), Matthew Richey (1849–50), Enoch Wood (1851–7, 1862), William Thornton (1864), George Scott (1866), William Morley Punshon (1868–72). See Cornish, Cyclopaedia, 30. 62 Among this group were George Marsden, Edmund Grindrod, Robert Alder, James Dixon, William Thornton, and George Scott. 63 jrulm, Jabez Bunting papers, mam plp 19.2.3, Jabez Bunting to Edmund Grindrod, 8 March 1834. Emphasis in original. 64 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 19, File 127, #2, Joseph Stinson and William Lord to Robert Alder, 8 February 1835; Minutes … from 1824 to 1845, 114. Emphasis in original. 65 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 32, File 233, #31, Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, 12 July 1848; ibid., Box 38, File 281, #21, Enoch Wood to John Beecham, 22 May 1854. See also ibid., Box 36, File 267, #13, Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, 14 May 1852; ibid., Box 37, File 268, #2, Enoch Wood to John Beecham, 21 May 1853. 66 s oas, w m m s, Home and General, Home Correspondence, Fiche #244, William Lord to Robert Alder, 25 January 1841; uc a, Church Album Collection, Portraits and Letters of the Presidents of the Canada Conference, William Lord to John Mathewson, 3 June 1842. 67 uc a , Egerton Ryerson papers, Box 3, File 74, John Ryerson to Egerton Ryerson, 1 August 1846; u ca, John Douse papers, Box 1, File 5, William

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68 69 70

71 72

73

74

75 76 77 78

Notes to pages 39–44

Lord to John Douse, 25 March 1857; u c a, Church Album Collection, Portraits and Letters of the Presidents of the Canada Conference, William Morley Punshon to Egerton Ryerson, 2 December 1873. Watchman, 7 August 1856, 259. uc a , wm m s, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 15 February 1832; ibid., Reel 1, 14 November 1832; ibid., Reel 1, 20 December 1833. uc a , wm m s -c, Box 16, File 100, #18, William Lunn to John Mason, 3 September 1832; ibid., Box 23, File 159, #4, Matthew Richey to Joseph Stinson, 8 May 1839. Emphasis in original. Ibid., Box 24, File 167, #1, Joseph Stinson to an unknown correspondent, 29 April 1840. Ibid., Box 24, File 168, #29, Elijah Hoole to Robert Alder, July 1840; uc a, Matthew Richey papers, Box 1, File 1, Matthew Richey to Louisa Richey, 20 July 1840. uc a , wm m s -c, Box 30, File 209, #11, Anson Green to Robert Alder, 20 November 1846. For whatever reason, this agreement was not stated in the official minutes of the Canada Conference. See Minutes … from 1846 to 1857, 35–8. uc a , wm m s -c, Box 40, File 291, #13, Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, George Osborn and William Arthur, 28 June 1856; Jobson, America, and American Methodism, 351–2. uc a , wm m s -c, Box 40, File 296, #17, Enoch Wood to George Osborn, 25 October 1858. Ibid., Box 41, File 300, #1, Joseph Stinson to William Arthur, 13 March 1859. Ibid., Box 41, File 300, #9, Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, [1859]; ibid., Box 43, File 316, #7, Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, 2 July 1863. For the political and religious elites of British North America see, for example, the cases of the Family Compact in Upper Canada and the Anglican hierarchy in Lower Canada: Craig, Upper Canada, 109, 226–7; Vaudry, Anglicanism and the Atlantic World, 13–38. Lowry, “Ulster Resistance And Loyalist Rebellion in the Empire,” 191–209 provides a fascinating comparison of Ulster and Rhodesian settler identity.

C h a p t e r t wo 1 This episode appears in two slightly different versions in Carroll, Case and His Cotemporaries, 2:161–2, 2:211–12. I have favoured the second version: Pope’s own recollection of his encounter with Ferguson and Ryan. 2 Christie, “‘In these Times of Democratic Rage and Delusion’,” 22–3, 28, 41–3; Little, “The Methodistical way,” 172–82. See also Carey, God’s Empire,

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Notes to pages 45–9

3

4 5

6

7 8 9 10 11

12 13

14 15 16 17 18 19

179

188–91 for a similar narrative. For the early connection between the Church of England and the colonial state in Lower and Upper Canada see Vaudry, Anglicans and the Atlantic World, 73–87; Craig, Upper Canada, 70–96. French, Parson and Politics, 72–4, 146–7; Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 86–8. See also Little, Borderland Religion, 151–3, 158 for an analogous approach to the events of 1820 and 1833. This pattern of cultural formation was first outlined in Miller, “Errand into the Wilderness,” 2–15. Ward, “The French Revolution and the English Churches,” 62–84; Grenby, Anti-Jacobin Novel, 61, 83–4, 97, 112. See also Bayly, Imperial Meridian, 101, 138–9. Hole, Pulpits, Politics and Public Order, 170–2; Owen, Methodism Unmasked (1802), v, quoted in Walsh, “Methodism at the End of the Eighteenth Century,” 303. Ward, Religion and Society, 29; Bradburn, Methodism Set Forth and Defended (1792), 51–2, quoted in Semmel, Methodist Revolution, 127. Minutes (London, 1792), 270–1, quoted in Semmel, Methodist Revolution, 127. Hempton, Methodism and Politics, 62. Benson, Defence of the Methodists (1793), 42, quoted in Semmel, Methodist Revolution, 127. John Pawson to Joseph Benson, 21 November 1794 in Bowmer and Vickers, eds., Letters of John Pawson, 18. For Pawson’s thoughts on the war and its impact on Britain see John Pawson to Charles Atmore, 15 July 1795 in ibid., 53. Minutes (1796), 1:364 quoted in Semmel, Methodist Revolution, 119. uc a , Church Album Collection, Portraits and Letters of the Presidents of the British Conference, Reel 4, Album 4, William Thompson to Richard Rodda, 29 May 1792; jru lm, Thomas Coke papers, Thomas Coke to Joseph Benson, 15 July 1791 quoted in Ward, Religion and Society, 28. Emphasis in original. Bowmer, Pastor and People, 21, 34–6; Hempton, Methodism and Politics, 60–1, 65–6; Ward, “The Legacy of John Wesley,” 237. Gregory, Handbook, 141. For Alexander Kilham see Hempton, Methodism and Politics, 67–8. Kilham, Progress of Liberty, 19, 34. Emphasis in original. Kilham, Candid Examination, v. Everett, Wesleyan Takings, 1:318. jrulm, Samuel Bradburn papers, Samuel Bradburn to J. Reynolds, 12 April 1796 quoted in Semmel, Methodist Revolution, 119; John Pawson to Joseph Benson, 6 May 1796 in Bowmer and Vickers, Letters of John

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20 21

22

23 24 25

26

27

28 29 30

31

32 33

Notes to pages 49–52

Pawson, 78; jrulm, Thomas Coke papers, Thomas Coke to Joseph Benson, 6 February 1796, quoted in Hempton, Methodism and Politics, 69. Walsh, “Methodism at the End of the Eighteenth Century,” 288; Kilham, An Appeal, 2. Emphasis in original. Thom and Kilham, Out-Lines of a Constitution, 5–7, 30–1. For Kilham’s agitation see Walsh, “Methodism at the End of the Eighteenth Century,” 288–9; Ward, Religion and Society, 37–8. Life of the Rev. Alexander Kilham, 387; Walsh, “Methodism at the End of the Eighteenth Century,” 307; John Pawson to Joseph Benson, 14 December 1796 in Bowmer and Vickers, Letters of John Pawson, 102; John Pawson to Joseph Benson, 13 April 1797, in ibid., 116. John Stephens to Jabez Bunting, 1 February 1821 in Ward, ed., Early Correspondence, 61–2; Hempton, Methodism and Politics, 55–80. The circular was reprinted in the Montreal Herald, 12 February 1820. See also Hempton, “Thomas Allan and Methodist Politics,” 115–19. In that respect, the Methodist experience was typical of colonial society in general. For the larger debates about the meaning of “loyalty” in Upper Canada during this period see Errington, The Lion, the Eagle, and Upper Canada, especially Part Two. Richey, Early American Methodism, 37–8, 86. This was not an entirely rebellious act. Wesley gave the formation of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States his blessing. Christie, “‘In these Times of Democratic Rage and Delusion,’” 22–3, 32–3; Hatch, Democratization of American Christianity, 6–9, 49–56; Wigger, Taking Heaven by Storm, 106–10, 115–18. French, “Henry Ryan,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 6:671. Playter, History of Methodism in Canada, 144. Emory, William M’Kendree papers, Box 1, File 4, Peter Jones to William Case, 25 January 1817; ibid., Box 1, File 4, William Case to William M’Kendree, 17 March 1817; ibid., Box 1, File 10, Address of the Bay of Quinte Circuit to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 15 January 1820. Drew, Methodist Episcopal Church, Genesee Conference, Papers Relating to Canada, 1810–1823, Report of the Committee, appointed to examine the above “Report,” 1817. uc a , wm m s -c, Box 3, File 35, #17, Robert Lusher to Joseph Taylor, 12 July 1819. Emphasis in original. Ibid., Box 2, File 23, #28, James Booth to George Marsden, 10 December 1816. On the difficulties of converting the French Canadians see ibid., Box 2, File 27, #13, John DePutron to George Marsden, 20 October 1817.

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Notes to pages 52–5

181

34 For a similar pattern among the American Methodists during the Federalist period see Ward, “The Evangelical Revival,” 268. 35 Greenwood, Legacies of Fear, 3, 76–80, 139–70; Taylor, “A Northern Revolution of 1800?,” 383–404. 36 Findlay and Holdsworth, History of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, 1:377. 37 uc a , w m m s, Outgoing Correspondence, James Buckley to William Bennett, 30 December 1815. 38 Jabez Bunting to William Beal, 10 May 1821 in Ward, Early Correspondence, 74. 39 Emory, William M’Kendree papers, Box 1, File 10, Testimony of John Rose, John Gould, John Vancamp, and Catherine Vancamp, 1 January 1820. 40 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 4, File 39, #16, Henry Ruttan et al. to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 12 January 1820. 41 s oas, w m m s, Europe, Ireland Correspondence, Fiche #813, Petition from Members of Society in Canada, 29 June 1819. 42 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 1, File 20, #11, Henry Ryan to the General Secretaries of the w m m s, 9 October 1815; Emory, William M’Kendree papers, Box 1, File 7, Nathan Bangs’s copy of a letter from Enoch George to Richard McGinnis, 12 January 1818. Emphasis in original. 43 uc a , w m m s -c, Reel 2, #2, Circular written and published by Henry Ryan, 14 April 1818. 44 Ibid., Box 1, File 20, #12, Members of the Montreal Society to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 11 November 1815; ibid., Box 2, File 23, #29, Brethren of the Yonge Street and Ancaster Circuits to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 14 December 1816; ibid., Box 2, File 27, #4, The Bay of Quinte Circuit to James Wood, 4 February 1817; ibid., Box 2, File 27, #1, Henry Ryan to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 4 March 1817. Emphasis in original. 45 Emory, William M’Kendree papers, Box 1, File 10, Address of the Bay of Quinte Circuit to the General Conference, 15 January 1820. 46 Report of the Executive Committee, 25. Emphasis in original. 47 uca, wmms-c, Box 1, File 20, #11, Henry Ryan to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 9 October 1815; uca, wmms, Outgoing Correspondence, James Buckley to William Bennett, 30 December 1815; ibid., James Buckley to Francis Asbury, 31 December 1815. 48 Ibid., James Buckley to William Bennett, 30 December 1815; ibid., James Buckley to William Bennett, 14 March 1816; uc a, wmms, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 10 August 1816.

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49 50 51 52 53

54 55 56 57 58 59 60

61 62 63

64 65 66

Notes to pages 56–60

Kirby et al., The Methodists, 294–5. Emory, Life of the Rev. John Emory, 93–4. S MU, Journal of John Emory, 21 August 1820. Entwisle, Memoir of the Rev. Joseph Entwisle, 357. Emphasis in original. S MU, Journal of John Emory, 8 August 1820. For another example of Adam Clarke’s political naivety see Hempton, Methodism and Politics, 99–100. Emory, Life of the Rev. John Emory, 115–16; uc a, wmms, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 10 July 1820. S MU, Journal of John Emory, 2 August 1820. uc a , wmm s, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 23 August 1820. uc a , wmm s, Outgoing Correspondence, Joseph Taylor to John Hick [?], 23 August 1820. uc a , wmm s -c, Box 4, File 39, #37, Robert Lusher to Joseph Taylor, 17 November 1820. Ibid., Box 4, File 39, #42, William Sutcliffe to George Marsden, 31 October 1820. Emphasis in original. Ibid., Box 4, File 39, #43, Paul Glasford to Joseph Taylor, 23 November 1820. What Jane Errington has called the “fear of abandonment” was not confined to the British Wesleyan community in the Canadas. See Errington, The Lion, the Eagle, and Upper Canada, 144–7. uc a , wmm s -c, Box 5, File 44, #1, Neil McLeod et al. to Joseph Taylor, 2 January 1821. Ibid., Box 5, File 44, #8, Members, Trustees etc. of the Bay of Quinte Circuit to the General Secretaries of the wmms, [1821]. For similar sentiments see ibid., Box 5, File 44, #11, Members of the British Wesleyan Society of Fort Wellington to the General Secretaries of the wmms , 3 January 1821; ibid., Box 5, File 44, #9, Members and Friends of London and Burford to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 20 February 1821; ibid., Box 5, File 44, #36, Samuel Adams to Jabez Bunting, 2 May 1821; ibid., Box 5, File 44, #38, Maitland McCracken to Joseph Taylor, 8 June 1821. uc a , wmm s, Minutes of the General Committee, 20 June 1821. s oas, w m m s, Home and General, Home Correspondence, Fiche #118, Thomas Catterick to Richard Watson and Joseph Taylor, 20 August 1823. uc a , wmm s -c, Box 7, File 52, #29, John Hick to the General Secretaries of the wm m s, 15 November, 1823. For the wmms’s decision to make Kingston “an special case” see u ca, w mms, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 20 June 1821. In making this decision, the wmms was motivated by the large British military and naval presence in the town.

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67 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 7, File 52, #24, Richard Williams to Joseph Taylor, 10 May 1823; ibid., Box 8, File 56, #2, James Knowlan to Richard Watson, 25 January 1824; ibid., Box 8, File 56, #22, Joseph Stinson to Joseph Taylor, 18 October 1824. 68 Ibid., Box 11, File 70, #10, B. Letter to the British Wesleyan Conference, 1 June 1827. 69 j rul m , Robert Alder papers, m am plp 1.36.3, Robert Alder to John Beecham, 12 January 1833. 70 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 17, File 106, #27, John Barry to the General Secretaries of the w m m s, 12 January 1833; ibid., Box 17, File 106, #29, John Barry to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 15 March 1833. For John Barry see Taggart, Irish in World Methodism, 146–53. 71 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 17, File 106, #19, William Croscombe and John Hick to John Beecham, 31 May 1833; ibid., Box 17, File 106, #34, John Barry to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 2 August 1833; ibid., Box 17, File 106, #35, John Barry to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 5 August 1833. Emphasis in original. 72 Ibid., Box 17, File 106, #24, William Lunn to John Mason, 12 October 1833; ibid., Box 17, File 106, #38, William Lunn to the General Secretaries of the wm m s, 8 November 1833. 73 Ibid., Box 17, File 106, #26, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 11 November 1833. 74 Ibid., Box 18, File 119, #1, Memorial of the Stewards, Leaders and Trustees of the York Society, 20 January 1834. The “Ranters or Primitive Methodists” were an enthusiastic, largely working-class, denomination that separated from the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Britain in the early nineteenth century. The “Canadian Wesleyans” refers to a church formed by Henry Ryan in 1829 – the Canadian Wesleyan Methodist Church. It turned out to be damp squib. It took some members away from the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada, but it ceased to exist in 1841, uniting with Alexander Kilham’s New Connexion. 75 Ibid., Box 18, File 119, #12, John Buttle to John Beecham, 18 February 1834. 76 Minutes, v., 145, quoted in Bowmer, Pastor and People, 107. 77 Gowland, Methodist Secessions, 5–6, 27, 32, 53–4; Hempton, Methodism and Politics, 197–8; Ward, “The Religion of the People,” 275, 279. 78 j rul m , Jabez Bunting papers, m am p lp 18.12.4, Notes on the Liverpool Organ. Emphasis in original. See also Gregory, Side Lights, 74. 79 Bowmer, Pastor and People, 103–18; Gregory, Side Lights, 52–4; Watts, Dissenters, 414.

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Notes to pages 64–8

80 Bunting used this phrase at the Conference of 1828. See Gregory, Side Lights, 59. For Matthew Johnson and his role in the Leeds organ agitation see Bowmer, Pastor and People, 103–4; Gregory, Side Lights, 55; Ward, Religion and Society, 145–6. 81 Jabez Bunting to Joseph Entwisle, 22 December 1827 in Ward, ed., Early Correspondence, 164. Emphasis in original. Luddism was a machinebreaking movement that took shape in industrial England during the early nineteenth century. The Luddites, most of whom were workers in the textile industry, aimed to halt the growth of the factory system and to preserve the traditions of their trade. 82 Gregory, Side Lights, 72–4. See also Ward, Religion and Society, 146–7. 83 Gregory, Side Lights, 71. 84 Donald Frazer to Jabez Bunting, 14 March 1828 in Ward, Early Correspondence, 175. 85 Gregory, Side Lights, 75, 80–2. See also Jabez Bunting to Edmund Grindrod, 20 May 1828 in Ward, Early Correspondence, 176–7; Jabez Bunting to Joseph Entwisle, 24 October 1828 in ibid., 190–1. 86 Gregory, Side Lights, 78–9, 83. Emphasis in original. 87 c g , 16 October 1833, 194. Emphasis in original. 88 j rul m , Jabez Bunting papers, m am pl p 18.15.10, Jabez Bunting to Robert Alder and John Beecham, 18 November 1833. 89 u c a , w m m s , Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 6 December 1833. 90 Ibid., Reel 1, 20 December 1833; u ca , wmms, Outgoing Correspondence, Jabez Bunting to William Croscombe, 30 December 1833; ibid., Robert Alder to John Barry, 30 December 1833. 91 uc a , Church Album Collection, Portraits and Letters of the Presidents of the Canada Conference, Edmund Grindrod to Egerton Ryerson, 4 March 1834. 92 uc a , wm m s -c , Box 18, File 112, #4, James Ferrier and John Mathewson to Jabez Bunting, 8 March 1834. 93 j rul m , Jabez Bunting papers, m am pl p 19.2.3, Jabez Bunting to Edmund Grindrod, 8 March 1834. 94 uc a , wm m s, Minutes of the General Committee, 23 April 1834. 95 uc a , wm m s, Outgoing Correspondence, John Beecham to William Croscombe and the Trustees, Stewards and Leaders (Montreal), 25 April 1834. 96 j rul m , Jabez Bunting papers, m am pl p 19.2.10, Jabez Bunting to Edmund Grindrod, 25 April 1834. Emphasis in original. 97 UC A , wm m s -c , Box 18, File 112, #9, Robert Alder to Jabez Bunting and John Beecham, 19 May 1834.

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98 Ibid., Box 18, File 112, #10, Matthew Lang to the General Secretaries of the wmm s, 23 May 1834. See also ibid., Box 18, File 112, #11, Minutes of Several Conversations at the Montreal District Meeting, 16 May 1834; c g , 28 May 1834, 114. 99 For the concept of a neo-Britain see Belich, Making Peoples, 278–312, 374–5, 446–50; Pocock, “New British History in Atlantic Perspective,” 491–2, 497–500; Buckner, “Was There a ‘British’ Empire?,” 125–6; Belich, “Rise of the Angloworld,” 39–54. The idea that the effort to establish a genuine neo-Britain was, by definition, utopian derives from Thomas and Eves, Bad Colonists, 7. 100 Belich, Making Peoples, 297, 298, 304, 312. 101 Pocock, Discovery of Islands, 188–91; Hughes, Fatal Shore, 324–5. 102 The Antidote, 15 January 1833, quoted in Senior, Orangeism, 23. See also ibid., 24–34; Houston and Smyth, Sash Canada Wore, 26–8, 146–7; Senior, “Ogle Gowan, Orangeism, and the Immigration Question,” 202– 10; Mills, The Idea of Loyalty in Upper Canada, 85–90, 112–13, though Mills downplays the conditional nature of Orange loyalty. 103 Lee, Ireland, 1912–1985, 14. On the complex nature of Irish Orangeism during the period covered in this chapter see Blackstock, Loyalism in Ireland.

C h a p t e r t h re e 1 Carroll, Case and His Cotemporaries, 5:7; French, “William Martin Harvard,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 8:371–3. 2 j rul m, William Martin Harvard papers, ma m plp 50.59.14, William Martin Harvard to Jabez Bunting, 10 June 1841; ibid., ma m plp 50.59.27, William Martin Harvard to Jabez Bunting, 22 January 1857. Emphasis in original. 3 French, Parsons and Politics, 134–64, 171–91, 217–42, 248–53; Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 76–86, 92–9; Moir, “Notes of Discord,” 2, 10, 12–13. See also Mills, The Idea of Loyalty in Upper Canada, 52–70, which touches on the larger British context of pre-1840 Canadian Methodist “loyalty.” 4 Hempton, Methodism and Politics, 179–216; Ward, Religion and Society, 135–76, 236–47, 251–77; Watts, Dissenters, 458–69, 614–25. 5 Hempton, Methodism and Politics, 188–90; Turner, Conflict and Reconciliation, 146–72; Ward, Religion and Society, 241–4. See also Kent, Age of Disunity. 6 French, Parsons and Politics, 188–9, 271, 286–7. 7 Bridge and Fedorowich, “Mapping the British World,” 5–6 discusses this problem of transatlantic identity.

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Notes to pages 73–8

8 Everett, Wesleyan Takings, 1:6; Everett, ‘Methodism As It Is,’ 1:87. For various interpretations of Jabez Bunting and his impact on the British Wesleyan connexion see Hempton, “Jabez Bunting,” 91–108; Kent, Jabez Bunting; Ward, “Jabez Bunting” in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 8:696–8. 9 All the Numbers of the ‘Fly Sheets’, 34; Proverbs 24:21. See also Hempton, Methodism and Politics, 181–6; Watts, Dissenters, 411–12, 460, 541–2. 10 Hempton, Methodism and Politics, 136–40, 208–10; Watts, Dissenters, 425. 11 Gowland, Methodist Secessions, 16. 12 Edwards, Purge This Realm, 2–14; Turner, Conflict and Reconciliation, 9–29. 13 Watchman, 12 December 1838, quoted in Hempton, Methodism and Politics, 185; Jabez Bunting to James Kendall, 24 April 1834 in Ward, Early Victorian Methodism, 59–60. 14 Gregory, Side Lights, 155, 161. 15 s oas, wm m s, Home and General, Circulars, Fiche #1988, 30 August 1834; Edwards, Purge This Realm, 15–16; Gregory, Side Lights, 161–4. 16 Report from the Select Committee, 295. 17 soas, wmms, Home and General, Home Correspondence, Fiche #148, Robert Alder to George Morley, 7 January 1828. Alder also suggested that the Wesleyan missions in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick could be included in this new arrangement. That would not happen, however, until 1874. 18 uc a , wmm s , Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 11 April 1827; John Strachan, A Sermon Preached at York, Upper Canada, Third of July 1825, on the Death of the Late Lord Bishop of Quebec (Kingston, 1826) in Henderson, John Strachan, 92; John Strachan to [?] Hargreave, 7 March 1831, quoted in French, Parsons and Politics, 126. 19 uc a , wmm s, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 14 November 1832; uca , w m m s -c , Box 16, File 100, #26, John Colborne to Robert Alder, 14 July 1832; Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 79. 20 uca, wmms, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 15 February 1832; soas, wmms, Home and General, Circulars, Fiche #1988, 9 September 1833; uca, wmms-c, Box 16, File 105, #17, Richard Watson to Lord Goderich, 22 November 1832. See also Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 79–80. 21 uc a , Egerton Ryerson papers, Box 1, File 8, George Ryerson to Egerton Ryerson, 6 August 1831; u ca, w m m s -c , Box 15, File 94, #26, Egerton Ryerson to Richard Watson, 19 October 1831. Emphasis in original. See also Westfall, Two Worlds, 24–7; French, Parsons and Politics, 136. 22 Report from the Select Committee, 219; uc a, wmms-c, Box 15, File 94, #26, Egerton Ryerson to Richard Watson, 19 October 1831.

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23 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 16, File 100, #27, Extracts from the proceedings of the Board of Managers of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Church in Canada, [2 July 1832]; ibid., Box 15, File 94, #26, Egerton Ryerson to Richard Watson, 19 October 1831. Emphasis in original. 24 c g , 27 June 1832, 130; Ryerson, Canadian Methodism, 309–10; Gidney, “Egerton Ryerson,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 11:785. 25 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 16, File 100, #30, James Richardson to James Townley, John Beecham, and John James, 16 August 1832; uc a , wmms, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 10 June 1833. 26 uca, wmms, Outgoing Correspondence, John Beecham to the General Superintendent and Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Upper Canada, August 1833; c g , 16 October 1833, 193; Minutes … from 1824 to 1845, 63–5. For an overview of the connexional relationship between the British and Irish conferences see Cooney, Methodists in Ireland, 127–8. 27 j rul m, Jabez Bunting papers, m am p lp 19.2.3, Jabez Bunting to Edmund Grindrod, 8 March 1834; jrulm, George Marsden papers, ma m p l p 73.17.39, George Marsden to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 28 March 1834. See also jru lm, Jabez Bunting papers, ma m plp 19.2.6, Jabez Bunting to John Beecham, 29 March 1834; ibid., ma m plp 19.2.6a: Jabez Bunting to John Beecham, 31 March 1834. 28 j rul m, Jabez Bunting papers, m am p lp 19.2.10, Jabez Bunting to Edmund Grindrod, 25 April 1834. Emphasis in original. From Robert Alder’s point of view, the Canada Conference of 1834 promised to avoid all political campaigning in the pages of the Christian Guardian: c g , 12 June 1839, 129. See also Minutes … from 1824 to 1845, 84. 29 Minutes ... from 1824 to 1845, 141, 166–7, 183–4, 214–15, 233–4; Green, Life and Times of Anson Green, 183–4. 30 uc a , w m m s, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 30 January 1839; Thomas Jackson to the Secretary of the Canada Conference, 23 March 1839, quoted in Ryerson and Ryerson, Report of their Mission to England, 5. 31 c g , 29 May 1839, 121; ibid., 12 June 1839, 129. Emphasis in original. 32 Ibid., 25 December 1833, 25; ibid., 5 September 1838, 174; ibid., 16 May 1838, 109; ibid., 12 December 1838, 21; ibid., 12 June 1839, 130. 33 j rul m , Wesleyan Methodist Church, Conference Journal, nug Shelf 364a, 1840, 163–7; u ca , W M C-C, Minutes of the Annual Conference, Reel 1, 10–19 June 1840. The British Conference’s charges also related to the issue of the Clergy Reserves – the financial expression of the establishment principle in the Canadas. The Clergy Reserves are discussed in detail in the following chapter.

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Notes to pages 82–4

34 s oas, w m m s, Home and General, Home Correspondence, Fiche #213, Joseph Stinson to William Lunn, 28 July 1837; uc a, wmms-c, Box 23, File 159, #6, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 22 May 1839. Emphasis in original. See also ibid., Box 23, File 159, #1, Ephraim Evans to Joseph Stinson, 8 January 1839. 35 uc a , wmm s -c, Box 23, File 159, #26, Joseph Stinson to Thomas Jackson, 9 December 1839; ibid., Box 23, File 159, #10, Joseph Stinson and Matthew Richey to Robert Alder, 9 November 1839. Emphasis in original. This argument about the necessity of imperial unity had a long history in conservative thought in Britain. See Pocock, “Josiah Tucker on Burke, Locke, and Price,” 159–62. 36 uc a , wmm s -c, Box 24, File 168, #29, Elijah Hoole to Robert Alder, July 1840; uca, Church Album Collection, Portraits and Letters of the Presidents of the British Conference, Reel 1, Album 4, George Marsden to Jabez Bunting, 1840. 37 Ryerson, Story of My Life, 273. See also uc a, Church Album Collection, Portraits and Letters of the Presidents of the Canada Conference, Egerton Ryerson to Jabez Bunting, 7 August 1840; Ryerson and Ryerson, Report of their Mission to England, 12; Sissons, Egerton Ryerson, 1:557–8. 38 j rul m , Wesleyan Methodist Church, Conference Journal, nug Shelf 364a, 1840, 166–9. 39 soas, wmms, Home and General, Home Correspondence, Fiche #233, John Scott to an unknown correspondent, 10 August 1840; ibid., Fiche #229, Robert Alder to Elijah Hoole, 13 August 1840 [misdated April 1840]. See also Ryerson and Ryerson, Report of their Mission to England, 14–18. 40 Gregory, Side Lights, 292, 293–4; jru lm, Joseph Taylor papers, ma m p l p 105.6.37, Joseph Taylor to Joseph Entwisle, 1 September 1840. 41 uc a , wmm s, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 9 September 1840; j ru lm, Elijah Hoole papers, m am plp 55.32.34, Elijah Hoole to Jabez Bunting, 28 August 1840; Ryerson and Ryerson, Report of their Mission to England, 19. 42 Much like the American colonists of the first British Empire according to Wilson, The Sense of the People, 282–3. 43 j rul m , Wesleyan Methodist Church, Conference Journal, nug Shelf 364a, 1843, 449; ibid., 1845, 634. Emphasis in original. See also uc a, WMC - C , Minutes of the Annual Conference, Reel 1, 8 June 1842; j rulm, Joshua Soule papers, m am plp 98.6.18, Joshua Soule to Jabez Bunting, 3 August 1842 44 Gregory, Side Lights, 304–7, 308, 318, 321, 331, 338–9, 341; Ward, Religion and Society, 254–5.

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189

45 Gregory, Side Lights, 291; Sissons, Egerton Ryerson, 1:558. Bunting agreed with Beaumont’s motion for dissolution, but for different reasons. He believed that the union was “a perfect ignis fatuus” – a perfect illusion. Gregory, Side Lights, 294. 46 uc a , WM C-C, Minutes of the Annual Conference, Reel 1, 26 October 1840; uca, w m m s -c, Box 24, File 168, #12, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 2 November 1840; jrulm, John Rattenbury papers, ma m plp 86.28.76, John Rattenbury to Mary Rattenbury, 6 August 1834; c g , 18 November 1840, 13. 47 j rul m , John Beecham papers, m am plp 7.3.3, John Beecham to Jabez Bunting, October 6, 1840. 48 Watchman, 7 October 1840, 325; ibid., 14 October 1840, 334. See also ibid., 21 October 1840, 343; ibid., 11 November 1840, 366. Alder wrote these responses under the pseudonym “Observator.” See j rulm, John Beecham papers, m am plp 7.3.3, John Beecham to Jabez Bunting, 6 October 1840. 49 Reply of the Canada Wesleyan Conference, 40–1. See also c g , 5 May 1841, 110; u ca, w m m s -c, Box 29, File 201, #21, William Martin Harvard to Robert Alder, 13 September 1845. 50 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 25, File 176, #16, Robert Alder to Joseph Stinson, 4 October 1841. 51 See, for example, ibid., Box 24, File 168, #15, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 30 November 1840; u ca, w m ms, District Minutes, Canada / Upper Canada, Reel 5, 4 June 1841. 52 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 25, File 169, #35, Leaders and Stewards of Kingston to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 17 May 1841; ibid., Box 25, File 169, #22, Thomas Fawcett to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 14 July 1841. 53 Ibid., Box 24, File 161, #19, William Lunn to Robert Alder, 12 October 1840. 54 Wesleyan, 3 September 1840, 22; ibid., 15 October 1840, 49; ibid., 12 November 1840, 65; ibid., 21 January 1841, 105. 55 Ibid., 24 June 1841, 196; ibid., 9 February 1842, 86; ibid., 8 February 1843, 84. Emphasis in original. 56 j rul m, William Lord papers, m am plp 70.33.26, William Lord to Jabez Bunting, 11 March 1842. In Britain James Dixon noted that it would give him pleasure to steal away a minister from the New Connexion and so “weaken an antagonist body, founded as it is on a wrong basis.” In the Canadas the British Wesleyans succeeded in suborning J.C. Davidson, though it helped that he was already leaning in that direction. See j rulm,

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57

58

59 60 61 62 63

64 65 66 67 68

Notes to pages 88–91

James Dixon papers, m am plp 34.17.20, James Dixon to Jabez Bunting, 3 March 1842; u ca , w m m s -c, Box 26, File 177, #25, J.C. Davidson to Joseph Stinson, 5 January 1842; u ca, WMC -C, Minutes of the Annual Conference, Reel 1, 8 June 1842. c g , 4 November 1840, 5; Wesleyan, 12 November 1840, 64–5; Minutes … from 1824 to 1845, 262; u ca, w m m s -c, Box 24, File 168, #12, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 2 November 1840; uc a , wmms, District Minutes, Canada / Upper Canada, Reel 5, 28 October 1840; ibid., Reel 5, 4 June 1841. Ibid., Reel 5, 28 October 1840; u ca, w mms-c, Box 24, File 168, #15, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 30 November 1840; Reply of the Canada Wesleyan Conference, 34–5. uc a , WMC-C , Minutes of the Annual Conference, Reel 1, 8 June 1842. Minutes … from 1824 to 1845, 252, 257. See also c g , 30 December 1840, 38. Minutes … from 1824 to 1845, 258, 251. See also uc a, WMC -C, Minutes of the Annual Conference, Reel 1, 27 October 1840. Minutes … from 1824 to 1845, 281–2, 283–4, 293, 324. Emphasis in original. uc a , WM C-C , Minutes of the Annual Conference, Reel 1, 28 October 1840; Ryerson and Ryerson, Report of their Mission to England, 7. Emphasis in original. uc a , Egerton Ryerson papers, Box 2, File 44, Henry Mayle to Egerton Ryerson, 16 November 1840. c g , 9 December 1840, 25; ibid., 10 February 1841, 61. See also French, “George Frederick Playter,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 9:634–5. Minutes … from 1824 to 1845, 269; c g , 30 December 1840, 38; ibid., 6 January 1841, 41–2; ibid., 19 January 1842, 50. Carroll, Case and His Cotemporaries, 4:432; Gregory, Side Lights, 420. See also Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 97. On the role of anti-Catholicism in the formation of the British and evangelical sense of self see Colley, Britons, 11–54; Kumar, Making of the English National Identity, 158–65; Bebbington, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain, 101–3. For a dissenting view see Claydon and McBride, “The Trials of the Chosen Peoples,” 16–17, 25–6. Several works have dealt with the impact of anti-Catholicism on religion and society in nineteenth-century Canada, including Miller, “Bigotry in the North Atlantic Triangle”; Miller, “Anti-Catholic Thought”; Miller, “Anti-Catholicism in Canada”; Vaudry, Anglicans and the Atlantic World, 161–7. See also French, Parsons and Politics, which mentions the British Conference’s concern about the “need for Protestant unity in the face of Catholic revival” (250).

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Notes to pages 92–6

191

69 Charles Poulett Thomson to Lord John Russell, 18 January 1840 in Knaplund, Letters from Lord Sydenham, 42. Thomson was referring, in particular, to the Clergy Reserves. On the reign of “harmony,” see Careless, Union of the Canadas, 10–11, 37–8; Radforth, “Sydenham and Utilitarian Reform,” 71–5. 70 Moir, Church and State in Canada West, 33–8, 41; Westfall, Two Worlds, 104, 106–7. 71 Brown, National Churches of England, Ireland, and Scotland, 292–312, 348–62. 72 j rul m , John Beecham papers, m am plp 7.3.13, John Beecham to Jabez Bunting, 12 January 1843; Gregory, Side Lights, 348, 350–1; Watchman, 31 January 1844, quoted in Hempton, Methodism and Politics, 190. Emphasis in original. 73 Faught, Oxford Movement, 5, 69–70; Vaudry, Anglicans and the Atlantic World, 110–18. 74 Hempton, Methodism and Politics, 165; Turner, Conflict and Reconciliation, 162–3. 75 Gregory, Side Lights, 317; Thomas Jackson, A Letter to the Rev. Edward B. Pusey, D.D. (London, 1842), 99, quoted in Hempton, Methodism and Politics, 166; Watts, Dissenters, 544. 76 Watchman, 9 November 1842, 356; Edward Jones to Jabez Bunting, 15 November 1844 in Ward, Early Victorian Methodism, 308 and 308n2. On Wesleyan Tory support for the Evangelical Alliance see Ward, Religion and Society, 218–19. 77 uc a , w m m s, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 14 September 1846. 78 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 30, File 216, #11, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 2 March 1846; soas, w m m s , Home and General, Home Correspondence, Fiche #214, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 29 May 1838; uc a, wmmsc , Box 26, File 177, #7, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 9 May 1842; uc a , Egerton Ryerson papers, Box 3, File 68, Joseph Stinson to Egerton Ryerson, 18 November 1844. Emphasis in original. 79 c g , 31 October 1838, 206; ibid., 14 December 1842, 30; ibid., 23 March 1842, 85; ibid., 27 April 1842, 106; ibid., 20 July 1842, 154. Emphasis in original. 80 Ibid., 6 November 1844, 10; ibid., 21 May 1845, 121. See also ibid., 24 March 1841, 87. 81 Symons, “John Ryerson,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography 10:639. This sketch of John Ryerson and his position in the Canada connexion is also based on Gidney, “Egerton Ryerson,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography 11:787–9; Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 97.

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Notes to pages 96–8

82 uca, Egerton Ryerson papers, John Ryerson to Egerton Ryerson, 2 January 1837 quoted in Read, Rising in Western Upper Canada, 26; ibid., Box 2, File 35, John Ryerson to Egerton Ryerson, 22 May 1838. Emphasis in original. I would like to thank Dr Colin Read for pointing out the case of the “pissing Preacher,” William Steer. 83 j rul m , John P. Lockwood collection, Matthew Richey to Jabez Bunting, 3 July 1839. 84 uc a , wmm s -c, Box 25, File 169, #12, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 16 April 1841; ibid., Box 25, File 169, #18, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 3 May 1841; ibid., Box 25, File 169, #19, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 16 June 1841. 85 uc a , Matthew Richey papers, Box 1, File 2, John Ryerson to Joseph Stinson, 7 November 1843; u ca, w m ms-c, Box 30, File 216, #10, Robert Alder to Joseph Stinson, 4 March 1846; ibid., Box 30, File 216, #9, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 30 June 1846; uc a, WMC -C, Minutes of the Annual Conference, Reel 1, 3 June 1846; Green, Life and Times of Anson Green, 290–1; French, Parsons and Politics, 248–9; Moir, “Notes of Discord,” 11. 86 uc a , wmm s -c, Box 40, File 291, #[?], Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, William Arthur and George Osborn, [1856]; Cornish, Cyclopaedia, 30. Cf. Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 98 which argues that, “[w]hat had really changed” in 1847 “was the recognition by the British Conference that Canadians should run the local connexion with a minimum of external interference.” 87 Green, Life and Times of Anson Green, 389; Cornish, Cyclopaedia, 30. The Canadian presidents of Conference were Richard Jones (1865), James Elliott (1867), and Samuel D. Rice (1873 and 1874). 88 Dixon, Personal Narrative, 158; u ca , wmms-c , Box 43, File 316, #7, Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, 2 July 1863; Punshon, An Address delivered in the Free-Trade Hall, 6; Westfall, Two Worlds, 52. 89 uc a , wmm s, District Minutes, Canada / Upper Canada, Reel 5, June 20, 1846; uca, w m m s -c, Box 30, File 209, #4, William Case to Matthew Richey, 24 June 1846. Emphasis in original. 90 uc a , wmm s -c, Box 31, File 224, #34, William Martin Harvard to Robert Alder, 17 February 1847. See also ibid., Box 30, File 209, #12, Resolutions of the Leaders Meeting of Kingston to William Martin Harvard, Matthew Richey, and Robert Alder, 10 November 1846; ibid., Box 30, File 209, #10, Resolutions of the Toronto Stewards and Leaders, 23 November 1846; ibid., Box 30, File 209, #9, Memorial from the Hamilton Circuit, 7 December 1846; ibid., Box 31, File 224, #31, Official Members of the

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Notes to pages 98–103

91 92

93 94

95 96 97

98

99

193

London Circuit to the Chairman and Ministers of the Western Canada in special District Meeting assembled, 6 February 1847. Pocock, “Commentary,” 205. uc a , wm m s, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 14 September 1846; uca, w m m s -c, Box 29, File 210, #19, Matthew Richey to Robert Alder, 25 November 1846; ibid., Box 29, File 210, #20, Matthew Richey to Robert Alder, 12 December 1846. Ibid., Box 31, File 224, #[?], Summary of the discussions between Robert Alder and the members of the Canada West District, 26 May 1847. Ibid., Box 31, File 224, #6, William Martin Harvard and William Scott to the President and Members of the Wesleyan Conference, England, 17 June 1847. l ac , William Billington Boyce papers, Journal, 6 August 1861, 318. uc a , wm m s -c, Box 36, File 267, #13, Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, 14 May 1852. Ibid., Box 36, File 260, #13, William Squire to George Osborn, 18 June 1852; ibid., Box 37, File 268, #2, Enoch Wood to John Beecham, 21 May 1853; uca, w m m s, Outgoing Correspondence, John Beecham, Elijah Hoole, George Osborn, and William Arthur to the Missionaries in the Eastern Canada District, 30 March 1853. uc a , wm m s -c, Box 37, File 268, #[?], Resolutions adopted by the Wesleyan Conference in Hamilton City, Canada West, 6 June 1853; ibid., Box 38, File 281, #21, Enoch Wood to John Beecham, 22 May 1854. A number of works – including Grant, A Profusion of Spires; Semple, Lord’s Dominion; Westfall, Two Worlds – note that, by the mid-nineteenth century, a “new era of denominational harmony sustained a common body of religious and cultural beliefs as … old and conflicting cultures were slowly transformed into a common Protestantism” (Westfall, Two Worlds, 193).

c ha p t e r f o u r 1 uc a , wm m s, Outgoing Correspondence, Jabez Bunting, John Beecham, Robert Alder and Elijah Hoole to Enoch Wood, 29 February 1844; Minutes of Several Conversations (1870), 103. 2 French, Parson and Politics, 88, 185–7, 263, 270; Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 36, 92–5, 103, 107–10. The most detailed discussion of the Methodist involvement with the Clergy Reserves appears in Moir, Church and State in Canada West, 8–10, 30–1, 33–4, 39–43, 49, 54, 57, 61–2, 66. 3 Little, Borderland Religion, 164–73, 219–20.

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194

Notes to pages 105–8

4 Watts, Dissenters, 227–8; Ward, “Scottish Methodism,” 49; Kent, “Wesleyan Methodists to 1849,” 225–7. 5 Watts, Dissenters, 601–3; Hempton, “A Tale of Preachers and Beggars,” 126–7; Ward, Religion and Society, 97, 102. 6 j rul m , Jabez Bunting papers, m am pl p 18.14.8, Jabez Bunting to Edmund Grindrod, 10 August 1831. 7 Ward, Religion and Society, 103; Hempton, Methodism and Politics, 71; Ward, “The Religion of the People,” 275–6. 8 Hilton, Corn, Cash, Commerce, 96–7. See also Currie, Methodism Divided, 30, Gowland and Hayes, Scottish Methodism, 6; Ward, Early Correspondence, 5–6; Ward, “The Religion of the People,” 275–7. 9 j rul m , Miles Martindale papers, Miles Martindale to Jabez Bunting, 9 July 1816, quoted in Hempton, “A Tale of Preachers and Beggars,” 126. Emphasis in original. 10 j rul m , William Atherton papers, m am plp 3.14.25, William Atherton to Thomas Slugg, 27 February 1832; jrulm, Jabez Bunting papers, ma m p l p 18.9.1, Jabez Bunting to Jonathan Edmondson, 10 February 1820. See also Ward, Religion and Society, 97–104. 11 Ward, “The Legacy of John Wesley,” 239; Vickers, Thomas Coke, 273–4, 281–4. 12 See for example u ca , w m m s -c, Box 2, File 23, #20, Richard Williams to James Buckley, 20 May 1816; ibid., Box 2, File 23, #27, John Hick and Henry Pope to James Wood, 6 November 1816; ibid., Box 3, File 35, #26, Thomas Catterick to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 24 September 1819. 13 uc a , wm m s, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 31 March 1819. 14 Ibid., Reel 1, 12 April 1820. See also soas , wmms, Home and General, Circulars, Fiche #1986, 10 August 1823. 15 uc a , wm m s, Outgoing Correspondence, Joseph Taylor to John Hick, 2 April 1819; ibid., Joseph Taylor to Henry Pope, 3 September 1819; uc a, wmms , Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 20 September 1820. 16 uc a , wm m s, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 20 June 1821; uc a , wm m s, Outgoing Correspondence, James Mason to the Chairman of the Canada District, 20 October 1825. 17 uc a , wm m s, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 19 October 1825. 18 s oas, wm m s, Special Series, Finance, Minutes of the Finance SubCommittee, Fiche #3, 24 October 1827; ibid., Fiche #4, 2 December 1829. 19 Jabez Bunting to John Beecham, 13 January 1842, in Ward, Early Victorian Methodism, 270.

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195

20 s oas, w m m s, Home and General, Circulars, Fiche #1994, 22 December 1843. Emphasis in original. 21 Ibid., Fiche #1994, May 1841; u ca , wmms, Outgoing Correspondence, Jabez Bunting, John Beecham, Robert Alder, and Elijah Hoole to Enoch Wood, 29 February 1844; u ca , Matthew Richey papers, Box 1, File 2, Robert Alder to Matthew Richey, 3 February 1844. In reality, the district grant was reduced to £1,600 in 1845. 22 uc a , w m m s, District Minutes, Canada / Lower Canada, Reel 3, May 19, 1826; ibid., Reel 3, 18 May 1827; ibid., Reel 3, 15 May 1828. 23 Ibid., Reel 3, 15 May 1829; ibid., Reel 3, 13 May 1830; uca, wmms-c, Box 14, File 88, #19, James Knowlan to George Morley, 7 January 1830; ibid., Box 15, File 94, #3, James Knowlan to Richard Watson, 10 March 1831. 24 uc a , w m m s, District Minutes, Canada / Lower Canada, Reel 3, 19 May 1826. 25 Little, Borderland Religion, 164–5. 26 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 12, File 76, #2, Richard Pope to George Morley, 9 January 1828; u ca , w m m s, District Minutes, Canada / Lower Canada, Reel 3, 15 May 1828; ibid., Reel 3, 13 May 1830. 27 Ibid., Reel 3, 20 May 1841; ibid., Reel 3, 19 May 1842. 28 uca, wmms-c, Box 28, File 194, #4, William Martin Harvard to Robert Alder, 13 February 1844; uca, wmms, District Minutes, Canada / Lower Canada, Reel 3, 23 May 1844. Emphasis in original. 29 uc a , w m m s, District Minutes, Canada / Lower Canada, Reel 3, 19 May, 1826; ibid., Reel 3, 13 May 1830. 30 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 14, File 88, #17, James Knowlan to George Morley, 20 May 1830. 31 uc a , w m m s, District Minutes, Canada / Lower Canada, Reel 3, 15 May 1829; ibid., Reel 3, 13 May 1830. 32 Ibid., Reel 3, 20 May 1831. 33 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 15, File 94, #15, James Knowlan to the General Secretaries of the w m m s[?], 5 November 1831. 34 s oas, w m m s, Special Series, Finance, Minutes of the Finance SubCommittee, Fiche #5, 8 December 1830; uc a, wmms, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 4 January 1832; ibid., Reel 1, 18 January 1832; ibid., Reel 1, 15 February 1832. In recalling Knowlan, the wmms was responding to his letter of March 1831 accusing the missionary secretaries of hypocrisy. 35 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 16, File 100, #10, John Hick to John James, 16 June 1832; uca, w m m s, District Minutes, Canada / Lower Canada, Reel 3,

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36 37 38

39 40

41 42

43 44

45 46

47

48 49 50

Notes to pages 113–18

31 May 1832; soas , w m m s , Home and General, Home Correspondence, Fiche #177, Robert Alder to an unknown correspondent, 15 July 1833; j rul m , Wesleyan Methodist Church, Conference Journal, nug Shelf 364a, 1833, 267–8. Emphasis in original. uc a , wm m s, District Minutes, Canada / Lower Canada, Reel 3, 21 May 1840. uc a , wm m s -c, Box 25, File 169, #22, Thomas Fawcett to the General Secretaries of the w m m s, 14 July 1841. uc a , wm m s, District Minutes, Canada / Lower Canada, Reel 3, 19 May 1842; uca, w m m s -c, Box 26, File 177, #19, Matthew Richey to Robert Alder, 19 May 1842. Emphasis in original. Ward, Early Victorian Methodism, xi, 208n2; Kent, “Wesleyan Methodists to 1849,” 227n26. j rul m , Robert Alder papers, m am plp 1.36.8, Robert Alder to Jabez Bunting, 9 September 1839. Alder made the same argument in the Maritimes, in Halifax and St. John. uc a , wm m s -c, Box 24, File 161, #21, William Martin Harvard to Robert Alder, 5 October 1840. Ibid., Box 24, File 161, #13, William Lunn, James Ferrier, R. Campbell, John Mathewson, Nicholas P. Ruryzen, and John Hilton to Robert Alder, 25 June 1840; u ca , w m m s, District Minutes, Canada / Lower Canada, Reel 3, 20 May 1841. uca, wmms, District Minutes, Canada / Lower Canada, Reel 3, 23 May 1844. uc a , wm m s, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 11 May 1831; uc a , wm m s -c, Box 15, File 99, #4, James Townley to William Case, 13 June 1831. Ibid., Box 15, File 94, #25, John Ryerson and Thomas Vaux to James Townley, 14 October 1831. Emphasis in original. Minutes … from 1824 to 1845, 63–5, 67; uc a, wmms, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 10 June 1833; ibid., Reel 1, 6 December 1833. See also Cooper, “Religion, Politics, and Money,” 93–4. uc a , wm m s -c, Box 16, File 100, #26, John Colborne to Robert Alder, 14 July 1832. See also Cooper, “Religion, Politics, and Money,” 101; Moir, Church and State in Canada West, 8–9. j rul m , Jabez Bunting papers, m am plp 19.2.10, Jabez Bunting to Edmund Grindrod, 2 April 1834. Emphasis in original. Minutes …from 1824 to 1845, 163–8. uc a , Church Album Collection, Portraits and Letters of the Presidents of the Canada Conference, Anson Green to Egerton Ryerson, 26 July 1837. Emphasis in original.

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Notes to pages 118–23

197

51 Minutes … from 1824 to 1845, 166–7, 180, 183–4. 52 uca, wmms, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 30 January 1839; Minutes … from 1824 to 1845, 215–16; uca, wmms-c, Box 23, File 158, #7, Robert Alder to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 11 July 1839. 53 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 24, File 168, #21, Joseph Stinson and Matthew Richey to Governor General Charles Poulett Thomson, 11 January 1840; ibid., Box 24, File 168, #22, Egerton Ryerson to Governor General Charles Poulett Thomson (copy), 17 January 1840. 54 Ibid., Box 24, File 167, #11, Robert Alder to Lord John Russell, 29 April 1840. See also Moir, Church and State in Canada West, 33–8 for the history of Thomson’s Clergy Reserves bill. 55 uca, wmms-c, Box 24, File 167, #9, Resolutions of the Committee appointed by the British Conference of 1839, 29 April 1840; jrulm, Wesleyan Methodist Church, Conference Journal, nug Shelf 364a, 1840, 163–9. 56 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 24, File 168, #29, Elijah Hoole to Robert Alder (Resolutions proposed by various persons at the Canada Conference of 1840), July 1840. 57 Gregory, Side Lights, 293–4. Emphasis in original. 58 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 29, File 226, #24, John Jenkins to Elijah Hoole, 9 August 1848; ibid., Box 29, File 226, #26, John Jenkins to Robert Alder, 12 September 1848. 59 Ibid., Box 33, File 235, #2, John Jenkins to Robert Alder, 1 March 1849; ibid., Box 33, File 235, #6, Charles De Wolfe to Robert Alder, 20 April 1849. 60 uc a , w m m s, District Minutes, Canada / Lower Canada, Reel 4, 17 May 1849. 61 uc a , w m m s, Outgoing Correspondence, Elijah Hoole to John Jenkins, 7 June 1849. 62 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 33, File 235, #10, Matthew Lang and John Borland to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 4 July 1849; uca, wmms, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 19 September 1849. 63 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 34, File 243, #17, Peter Langlois, Robert Middleton, and John Campbell to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 15 November 1850; ibid., Box 36, File 260, #10, John Jenkins to George Osborn, 19 March 1852. Emphasis in original. 64 Moir, “Notes of Discord,” 11–12; Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 97. 65 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 25, File 169, #12, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 16 April 1841. Emphasis in original. 66 uc a , w m m s, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 14 September 1846; uca, w m m s, Outgoing Correspondence, Robert Alder to Earl Grey, 12 September 1846.

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Notes to pages 124–8

67 Minutes … from 1846 to 1857, 52, 76, 80, 107–8, 127, 177, 247. 68 uc a , wmm s -c, Box 32, File 233, #17, Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, 20 April 1848; ibid., Box 32, File 233, #41, Matthew Richey to Robert Alder, 7 October 1848; ibid., Box 32, File 233, #43, Matthew Richey to Elijah Hoole, 7 October 1848; ibid., Box 33, File 242, #14, Matthew Richey to Elijah Hoole, 5 July 1849; ibid., Box 33, File 242, #27, Enoch Wood to Robert Alder, 23 November 1849. Emphasis in original 69 Kent, “Wesleyan Methodists to 1849,” 223; Kent, Jabez Bunting, 56; Ward, Religion and Society, 264. See also Watts, Dissenters, 618–20. Everett’s authorship of the Fly Sheets has never been categorically proven, but Oliver Beckerlegge makes a persuasive argument for it in The Three Expelled, 12. 70 All the Numbers of the “Fly Sheets,” 13, 20. 71 j rul m , Elijah Hoole papers, m am plp 55.32.54, Elijah Hoole to Jabez Bunting, 13 October 1849. 72 c g , 18 September 1850, 390; Benjamin Gregory, Autobiographical Recollections (London, 1903), 392, quoted in Currie, Methodism Divided, 74. 73 s oas, wm m s, Home and General, Circulars, Fiche #1997, 3 December 1849. 74 j rul m , John Beecham papers, m am plp 7.4.3, John Beecham to Robert Coleman, 10 September 1850; jru lm , Elijah Hoole papers, ma m plp 55.32.59, Elijah Hoole to Jabez Bunting, 1851. See also Smith, History of Wesleyan Methodism, 3:483; Findlay and Holdsworth, History of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, 1:190. 75 uc a , wm m s, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 13 March 1850. 76 j rul m , George Osborn Papers, m am p lp 80.36.14a, George Osborn to William Moister, 2 October 1852. 77 uca, wmms-c, Outgoing Correspondence, John Beecham to Enoch Wood, 7 April 1853; Watchman, 25 April 1855, 133. 78 j rul m , Elijah Hoole Papers, mam plp 55.32.82, Elijah Hoole to William Moister, 30 December 1857. 79 uc a , wm m s -c , Box 40, File 291, #19, Anson Green to Elijah Hoole, 25 October 1856. Emphasis in original. 80 Ibid., Box 41, File 300, #17, Joseph Stinson to Elijah Hoole, 30 August 1859; ibid., Box 41, File 300, #23, Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, [1859]; ibid., Box 42, File 307, #14, Joseph Stinson to Elijah Hoole, 11 October 1861. Emphasis in original. 81 Minutes of Several Conversations (1858), 89; Minutes of Several Conversations (1859), 93; u ca , w m m s -c, Box 41, File 300, #3, Joseph Stinson to Elijah Hoole, 19 July 1859.

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Notes to pages 129–34

199

82 Ibid., Box 41, File 303, #4, Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, 17 September 1859. 83 Ibid., Box 42, File 307, #8, Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, [1861]. 84 c g , 21 July 1852, 162; Minutes … from 1846 to 1857, 211–12; Minutes of Several Conversations (1859), 83, 94–5; c g , 25 March 1857, 97; Cornish, Cyclopaedia, 352, 357. The wmms agreed to help pay for the mission to Rupert’s Land “as long as their assistance should be required.” 85 u c a , w m m s - c , Box 44, File 328, #25, Enoch Wood to the General Secretaries of the w m m s , [1865]; ibid., Box 44, File 328, #5, Enoch Wood to William Boyce, [1865]. In public, the Canada Conference put a somewhat braver face on this shift in w m m s policy: cg, 30 November 1864, 194. 86 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 45, File 337, #13, Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, 19 July 1866; ibid., Box 12, Fiche #554, William Morley Punshon to Elijah Hoole, 25 September 1868. Emphasis in original. 87 Ibid., Box 45, File 337, #3, Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, 8 February 1866; ibid., Box 43, File 316, #19, Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, 26 November 1863. 88 Ibid., Box 12, Fiche #572, William Morley Punshon to Elijah Hoole, 27 May 1868. 89 uc a , w m m s, Outgoing Correspondence, William Arthur, William Boyce, Elijah Hoole, George Osborn, and George Perks to William Morley Punshon, 11 April 1868. 90 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 12, Fiche #572, William Morley Punshon to Elijah Hoole, 27 May 1868. 91 Ibid., Box 12, Fiche #554, William Morley Punshon to Elijah Hoole, 7 November 1868. 92 Sissons, Egerton Ryerson, 1:358–9, 1:362–3, 1:389–92. 93 Minutes of Several Conversations (1858), 69, 76–7; ibid. (1859), 79, 83–4. 94 Ibid. (1860), 73; ibid. (1861), 72, 88; ibid. (1862), 85–6; ibid. (1863), 85; ibid. (1864), 79; ibid. (1865), 81; ibid. (1868), 126. 95 uc a , Hugh Johnston papers, William Morley Punshon to Hugh Johnston, 24 December 1868. Between 1862 and 1867 Punshon raised £10,000 for the British Wesleyan connexion’s Watering-Places Chapel Fund. See MacDonald and Reynar, Life of William Morley Punshon, 197. 96 Minutes of Several Conversations (1869), 125, 128–9; ibid. (1871), 50; ibid. (1873), 6; c g , 8 May 1873. 97 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 12, Fiche #565, Richard Jones to William Morley Punshon, 1878.

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Notes to pages 135–40

c ha p t e r f i ve 1 uc a , wm m s -c, Box 29, File 210, #20, Matthew Richey to Robert Alder, 12 December 1846. See also ibid., Box 29, File 226, #26, John Jenkins to Robert Alder, 12 September 1848; ibid., Box 29, File 226, #33, Thomas Kay to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 28 October 1848. The missionaries eventually convinced Henry Cox to moderate his preaching style, but for how long remains an open question. It is possible that his enthusiasm for revivalism carried him right out of the British Wesleyan connexion. We know for certain that he transferred to the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States in 1851. 2 Semple, The Lord’s Dominion, 127–40; Little, Borderland Religion, 178– 88, 194–207; Westfall, Two Worlds, 50–81. 3 Van Die, “‘The Double Vision,’” 257–8. 4 Hempton, Methodism and Politics, 92–6, 197–8; Ward, Early Victorian Methodism, xiv–xv. 5 The statistics are drawn from Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit, 212, 214. For the wider context of John Wesley’s conversion see Ward, Protestant Evangelical Awakening, 296–352. 6 Arthur, May We Hope for a Great Revival?, 63. 7 j rul m , James Buckley papers, m am plp 17.5.8, James Buckley to Jabez Bunting, 5 December 1817. See also Ward, Religion and Society, 82–3. 8 j rul m , George Russell papers, George Russell to Isaac Clayton, 7 July 1815 quoted in Davies et al., History of the Methodist Church, 4:349; j rul m , Jabez Bunting papers, Jabez Bunting to Richard Reece, 15 July 1803, quoted in Ward, “The Religion of the People,” 270; Bowmer, Pastor and People, 74, 85; Gowland, Methodist Secessions, 22–3. 9 j rul m , Jabez Bunting papers, Jabez Bunting to Richard Reece, 15 July 1803, quoted in Hempton, “Jabez Bunting,” 93. Emphasis in original. 10 Bowmer, Pastor and People, 71–85; Ward, Religion and Society, 81–3. 11 Minutes (London, 1807) quoted in Davies et al., History of the Methodist Church, 4:320–1; Grindrod, Compendium, 337–8; Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism, 219n57. 12 Minutes (London, 1820) quoted in Davies et al., History of the Methodist Church, 4:367–72. Emphasis in original. See also Bowmer, Pastor and People, 94; Ward, “The Legacy of John Wesley,” 239; Ward, “The Religion of the People,” 279. 13 Gregory, Side Lights, 128. Emphasis in original. For the regular means of grace see George, “The Means of Grace,” 259, 263, 271–3; Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 19–20.

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Notes to pages 140–4

201

14 jrulm, Edmund Grindrod papers, mam plp 47.16.39, Edmund Grindrod to Thomas Jackson, 17 November 1826; ibid., mam plp 47.16.34, Edmund Grindrod to Joseph Entwisle, 27 January 1827. 15 Gregory, Side Lights, 185. 16 Bowmer, Pastor and People, 106, 120; Ward, Early Correspondence of Jabez Bunting, 8; Watts, Dissenters, 414. Petition of the Leeds local preachers quoted in London Quarterly Review, July 1888, 276. 17 Samuel Warren, Remarks on the Wesleyan Theological Institution (London, 1834), 25, quoted in London Quarterly Review, April 1890, 82–3; Gregory, Side Lights, 171; Smith, History of Wesleyan Methodism, 3:279. 18 j rul m , Jabez Bunting papers, m am p lp 18.13.13, Jabez Bunting to John Beecham, 7 April 1829. See also ibid., ma m plp 18.13.10, Jabez Bunting to Joseph Gostick, 12 November 1828. 19 Jabez Bunting to Edmund Grindrod, 2 March 1831, in Ward, Early Victorian Methodism, 8; Gowland, Methodist Secessions, 7–8; Bowmer, Pastor and People, 115–7. See also Beecham, Essay on the Constitution of Wesleyan Methodism, 29–30. 20 j rul m , Wesleyan Methodist Church, Conference Journal, nug Shelf 364a, 1829, 98; Gowland, Methodist Secessions, 14; Gregory, Side Lights, 246. 21 uc a , w m m s, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 27 September 1816; ibid., Reel 1, 22 January 1819. 22 Ibid., Reel 1, 13 October 1815. 23 s oas, w m m s, Home and General, Circulars, Fiche #1987, 28 August 1828. 24 Ibid., Fiche #1988, 31 August 1835. For the 1835 revisions to the British Wesleyan polity see Bowmer, Pastor and People, 137–43. 25 uc a , w m m s, District Minutes, Canada / Lower Canada, Reel 3, 15 May 1835. 26 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 19, File 127, #6, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 21 April 1835. 27 uc a , w m m s, District Minutes, Canada / Lower Canada, Reel 3, 16 June 1836. 28 jrulm, Richard Reece papers, mam plp 88.21.5, Richard Reece to Jabez Bunting, 30 March 1824. Reece was visiting the United States when he wrote this letter. See also Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 128. 29 Francis Asbury to Stith Mead, 30 July 1807, in Clarke et al., Journal and Letters of Francis Asbury, 3:370; Francis Asbury to Jacob Gruber, 1 September 1811, in ibid., 3:453; ao, James Dougall papers, Andrew

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30

31

32 33

34 35

36

37

38 39

40

Notes to pages 144–7

Prindle to James Dougall, 4 July 1807; Kewley, “Camp Meetings in Early Canadian Methodism (Before 1830),” 18–19. For Francis Asbury’s support of camp meetings see also Wigger, American Saint, 317–24. uc a , William Case papers, Journal, 6 April 1808, 27 August 1808. See also Emory, William M’Kendree papers, Box 1, File 12, Isaac Puffen to William Case, 2 April 1820. Puffen, a Methodist Episcopal minister stationed at Kingston, described the British missionary James Booth as “a smooth easy preacher but not very great.” uca, wmms-c, Box 2, File 27, #5, Henry Pope to James Wood, 11 February 1817; ibid., Box 4, File 39, #30, Thomas Catterick to William Temple, 13 September 1820. Ibid., Box 5, File 44, #26, John Hick to Joseph Taylor, 5 June 1821. Ibid., Box 2, File 27, #10, Thomas Catterick to the General Secretaries of the wmms , 12 August 1817. See also ibid., Box 4, File 39, #22, Richard Williams to Joseph Taylor, June 16, 1820; ibid., Box 9, File 59, #24, James Knowlan to George Morley, 15 October 1825. Ibid., Box 6, File 48, #36, Henry Pope to Richard Watson, 12 August 1822. Ibid., Box 3, File 35, #21, James Booth to Joseph Taylor, 11 October 1819; ibid., Box 3, File 35, #32, James Booth to Joseph Taylor, 23 November 1819; ibid., Box 3, File 39, #10, John DePutron to Joseph Taylor, 10 April 1820 (journal entry for 18 June 1819); ibid., Box 7, File 52, #28, Richard Pope to Jabez Bunting, 23 October 1823 (journal entry for 30 September 1823); ibid., Box 8, File 56, #3, William Lunn to Richard Watson, 3 February 1824. Emphasis in original. See, for example, Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, May 1818, 388; ibid., January 1819, 76–8; ibid., October 1819, 795; ibid., September 1822, 608–9. uc a , wm m s -c, Box 4, File 39, #28, Richard Pope to Joseph Taylor, 9 September 1820; ibid., Box 25, File 170, #5, Henry Lanton to the General Secretaries of the w m m s, 29 March 1841. Ibid., Box 13, File 82, #23, John Hick to George Morley, 13 July 1829. Ibid., Box 3, File 35, #18, John Hick to Joseph Taylor, 15 June 1819. See also ibid., Box 9, File 59, #19, Henry Pope to John Mason, 1 September 1825; ibid., Box 20, File 129, #1, William Croscombe to Robert Alder, 29 October 1836. uc a , wm m s, Minutes of the General Committee, Reel 1, 3 November 1824; ibid., Reel 1, 19 October 1825; u c a , wmms-c , Box 8, File 56, #3, William Lunn to Richard Watson, 3 February 1824; ibid., Box 12, File 137, #12, Peter Langlois to Jabez Bunting, 9 June 1837.

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203

41 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 7, File 52, #20, James Knowlan to Joseph Taylor, 30 October 1823. J.I. Little suggests that this was a main reason for the missionaries’ embrace of some aspects of American-style revivalism; see Little, Borderland Religion, 219–20. 42 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 6, File 48, #38, John DePutron to Richard Watson, 16 September 1822 (journal entry for 16 September 1822); Hempton, “Methodist Growth in Transatlantic Perspective,” 53–5, 56–8; Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 75–6. 43 In addition to the examples cited below see c g , 21 October 1835, 198; uc a , wm m s -c, Box 19, File 121, #21, James Booth to Robert Alder, 26 November 1836; ibid., Box 20, File 135, #2, Benjamin Slight to the General Secretaries of the w m m s, 1 June 1836; uc a , Benjamin Slight papers, Box 1, File 1, Journal, 2 October 1840. 44 uc a , wm m s -c, Box 22, File 145, #27, Edmund Botterell to the General Secretaries of the w m m s, 11 October 1838; ibid., Box 25, File 170, #24, William Martin Harvard to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 24 November 1841; ibid., Box 26, File 178, #25, William Martin Harvard to Robert Alder, 29 October 1842; Little, Borderland Religion, 187–8. 45 uc a , wm m s -c, Box 12, File 76, #18, James Knowlan to George Morley, 24 October 1828; ibid., Box 19, File 121, #9, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 4 March 1835. See also ibid., Box 19, File 121, #7, William Croscombe to Robert Alder, 18 March 1835; ibid., Box 19, File 121, #10, John Tomkins to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 7 April 1835. 46 Ibid., Box 19, File 121, #21, James Booth to Robert Alder, 26 November 1834. 47 uc a , Benjamin Slight papers, Box 1, File 1, Journal, 20 August 1836; uc a , wm m s -c, Box 22, File 145, #27, Edmund Botterell to the General Secretaries of the w m m s, 11 October 1838. 48 uc a , wm m s -c, Box 12, File 76, #18, James Knowlan to George Morley, 24 October 1828; u ca, w m m s -c, Box 19, File 121, #9, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 4 March 1835; c g , 15 November 1837, 6. 49 In 1837 the editor did not print the missionary William Martin Harvard’s account of “our Protracted Meeting” in Montreal. See j rulm, William Martin Harvard papers, mam plp 50.59.35, William Martin Harvard to Thomas Jackson, 22 August 1837; ibid., ma m plp 50.59.13, William Martin Harvard to Jabez Bunting, 11 November 1839. 50 uc a , w m m s, Outgoing correspondence, Robert Alder to the Chairman of the Canada District, 23 March 1835. Cf. Little, Borderland Religion who sees Alder’s letter as an uncomplicated approval of protracted meetings (187).

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Notes to pages 149–54

51 Harvard, Special Efforts for the Souls of Men, 16; j rulm, William Martin Harvard papers, m am plp 50.59.13, William Martin Harvard to Jabez Bunting, 11 November 1839. 52 For Finney and the professionalization of revivalism see Cross, The BurnedOver District, 151–69. 53 j rul m , James Caughey papers, m am p lp 23.10.7, James Caughey to an unknown correspondent, 12 April 1847; Caughey, The Triumph of Truth, 70. Emphasis in original. See also Bush, “James Caughey” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, 12:168–9; Watts, Dissenters, 615–16. 54 This paragraph is particularly indebted to Bush, “The Rev. James Caughey,” 235. See also Collins, John Wesley: A Theological Journey, 91–3, 135, 186– 9, 193–5; Kent, Holding the Fort, 315–16; Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 389–90, 395–401. 55 uc a , wm m s -c, Box 19, File 121, #9, Joseph Stinson to Robert Alder, 4 March 1835; ibid., Box 19, File 121, #10, John Tomkins to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 7 April 1835; ibid., Box 19, File 121, #7, William Croscombe to Robert Alder, 18 March 1835; c g , 15 November 1837, 6. 56 uc a , wmm s -c, Box 24, File 161, #19, William Lunn to Robert Alder, 12 October 1840; ibid., Box 24, File 161, #23, William Martin Harvard to Elijah Hoole, 21 November 1840. 57 Ibid., Box 25, File 170, #4, William Martin Harvard to Robert Alder, 25 March 1841; Wesleyan, 18 February 1841, 119; ibid., 4 March 1841, 128. See also Carroll, Case and His Cotemporaries, 4:330. 58 jrulm, William Lunn papers, mam plp 71.15.3, William Lunn to Jabez Bunting, 17 June 1835; uca, wmms-c, Box 24, File 161, #23, William Martin Harvard to Elijah Hoole, 21 November 1840. Emphasis in original. 59 j rul m , William Martin Harvard papers, ma m plp 50.59.14, William Martin Harvard to Jabez Bunting, 10 June 1841. 60 Caughey, Letters, 1:75–8; J.C. Leppington to Jabez Bunting, 25 May 1846, in Ward, Early Victorian Methodism, 340. 61 Gregory, Side Lights, 344, 368, 369, 390. Cf. Bush, “The Rev. James Caughey.” Bush argues that “Canada was a half-way house for American evangelists who had their eye on Britain” and that “it became a testing ground for American-style revivalism in a semi-British milieu” (234). 62 William Vevers to Jabez Bunting, 25 January 1845, in Ward, Early Victorian Methodism, 315; Gregory, Side Lights, 390. 63 Gregory, Side Lights, 344, 345, 390, 391, 400, 401; James Kendall to Jabez Bunting, 5 January 1846, in Ward, Early Victorian Methodism, 338–9. Emphasis in original. See also Bush, “The Rev. James Caughey,” 234–5. 64 Gregory, Side Lights, 344, 369, 400.

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65 John Portis Haswell to Jabez Bunting, 10 August 1846, in Ward, Early Victorian Methodism, 342–3; jru lm, James Caughey papers, ma m plp 23.10.18, James Caughey to John Wright, 1 April 1847. Emphasis in original. See also Carwardine, Transatlantic Revivalism, 128–30. 66 William Vevers to Jabez Bunting, 23 March 1847, in Ward, Early Victorian Methodism, 350; William Vevers to Jabez Bunting, 11 March 1847, in ibid., 348. Emphasis in original. See also Kent, “Wesleyan Methodists to 1849,” 223. 67 All the Numbers of the “Fly Sheets,” 65–6; Everett, “‘Methodism As It Is,’” 1:320. For Everett’s support of Caughey, see Kent, “Wesleyan Methodists to 1849,” 223. 68 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 33, File 235, #15, Matthew Lang to Elijah Hoole, 1 October 1849. See also ibid., Box 33, File 235, #22, John Jenkins to Robert Alder, 21 December 1849; ibid., Box 35, File 252, #2, James Ferrier to the General Secretaries of the wmms, 8 February 1851. 69 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 34, File 243, #18, Benjamin Slight to the General Secretaries of the w m m s, 19 November 1850. Emphasis in original. For the Montreal revival see Carroll, Case and his Cotemporaries, 5:80–1. 70 Carroll, Case and his Cotemporaries, 5:167; c g , 1 February 1854, 66; ibid., 8 March 1854, 84. For Caughey’s second revival campaign in Britain, see Watts, Dissenters, 657–60. 71 Minutes … from 1846 to 1857, 48; c g , 10 October 1860, 162; Semple, “The Decline of Revival in Nineteenth-Century Central-Canadian Methodism,” 12–13; Van Die, An Evangelical Mind, 71–3; Westfall, Two Worlds, especially Chapter 3. 72 uc a , Egerton Ryerson papers, Box 1, File 9, Egerton Ryerson to Robert Alder, 21 November 1832; u ca, w m ms-c, Box 17, File 106, #17, [John Fenton], Address to the Members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 28 February 1833. 73 uc a , wm m s -c, Box 17, File 111, #8, George Marsden to Jabez Bunting, John Beecham, and Robert Alder, 31 December 1833; ibid., Box 17, File 106, #23, Egerton Ryerson to Robert Alder, 10 October 1833. 74 c g , 8 January 1834, 33; ibid., 15 January 1834, 37; ibid., 19 February 1834, 57. Emphasis in original. 75 Carroll, Case and his Cotemporaries, 3:440–1; uc a, WMC -C, Minutes of the Annual Conference, Reel 1, 11 June 1834. 76 c g , 28 October 1835, 202. For the formation of the new Methodist Episcopal Church, see Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 88–92. 77 uc a , W M C-C , Minutes of the Annual Conference, Reel 1, 8 June 1836; ibid., Reel 1, 6 June 1849; Minutes … from 1846 to 1857, 12–16.

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Notes to pages 158–62

78 uc a , wmm s -c, Box 38, File 281, #39, Enoch Wood to George Osborn, 24 June 1854. See also u ca , W M C-C, Minutes of the Annual Conference, Reel 1, 7 June 1854; u ca , w m m s -c, Box 38, File 281, #38, Enoch Wood to the General Secretaries of the w m m s, 18 June 1854. 79 Minutes … from 1846 to 1857, 318; uca, wmms-c, Box 34, File 282, #28, Enoch Wood to John Beecham, 5 October 1855. For Egerton Ryerson’s readmission to the Canada Conference, see uc a, WMC -C, Minutes of the Annual Conference, Reel 1, 6 June 1855. And for the Buntingite response, see uc a , Egerton Ryerson papers, Box 4, File 104, John G. Hodgins to Egerton Ryerson, 17 September 1855; Sissons, Egerton Ryerson, 2:315–17. 80 Minutes … from 1846 to 1857, 359. 81 Ibid., 174. 82 c g , 12 September 1849, 186; ibid., 31 October 1849, 214; ibid., 14 August 1850, 370. For agitators’ demands, see Currie, Methodism Divided, 72–4. 83 l ac, Egerton Ryerson papers, Matthias Holtby to Egerton Ryerson, 15 March 1842. Emphasis in original. 84 c g , 3 April 1850, 296; ibid., 8 May 1850, 316. 85 uc a , wm m s -c , Box 34, File 250, #12, Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, 14 November 1850; Everett, “’Methodism As It Is,’” 2:811. Everett also received letters of support from Montreal. 86 uc a , wm m s -c , Box 36, File 259, #9, Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, 10 November 1851; ibid., Box 36, File 259, #11, Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, 10 December 1851. 87 For an overview of Caughey’s time among the Canadian Methodists, see Bush, “Caughey,” 12:169; Bush, “The Rev. James Caughey,” 236–47. 88 c g , 18 February 1852, 74. 89 Ibid., 9 June 1852, 138; u ca, W M C-C, Minutes of the Annual Conference, Reel 1, 2 June 1852. In 1853 the Conference met in Hamilton and, in a departure from the usual practice, did not hold any evening services during the first week “in consequence of the interest which prevails in the revival meetings held by Mr. Caughey.” c g , 8 June 1853, 138. 90 Ibid., 20 July 1853, 162; Bush, “The Rev. James Caughey,” 240, 247; Van Die, Evangelical Mind, 63–4; Westfall, Two Worlds, 73. 91 Minutes … from 1846 to 1857, 368; c g , 14 January 1852, 58; uca, wmms-c, Box 42, File 311, #15, Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, 25 June 1862. 92 c g , 7 July 1852, 154–5. 93 Watchman, 5 March 1856, 78; u ca, w mms-c, Box 40, File 293, #14, Enoch Wood to Elijah Hoole, 21 December 1857.

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207

94 uc a , w m m s -c, Box 41, File 300, #17, Joseph Stinson to Elijah Hoole, 30 August 1859. 95 Hempton, Methodism: Empire of the Spirit, 104; Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 182.

C onc l us i o n 1 l ac , William Billington Boyce papers, Journal, 30 July 1861, 292–4; ibid., 3 August 1861, 308. For the impact of a new generation of preachers on Canadian Methodism, see Semple, Lord’s Dominion, 196. 2 Heath, A War with a Silver Lining, makes a convincing case that the process of cultural formation among the Canadian Methodists and other Protestant churches remained “firmly rooted in the British Empire” up to 1918 (88–117). 3 j rul m, George Perks papers, m am pl p 83.28.19, George Perks to George Osborn, 4 August 1873. The debates over lay representation in Canada and Britain are covered in Caldwell, “Unification of Methodism in Canada,” 15–20; Wellings, “Making Haste Slowly,” 25–37. 4 j rul m, Wesleyan Methodist Church, Conference Journal, nug Shelf 364a, 1873, 220–1. 5 Watchman, 13 August 1873, 263. 6 Green, Life and Times of Anson Green, 436–7. The union of 1874 also included the Eastern British American Conference – the Wesleyan Methodists in the Maritimes.

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Index

aboriginal people, 11, 12, 69, 79, 115, 120, 123, 172n31 affiliated conferences, 127 agreement of 1820, 4, 45, 55–61, 75, 78, 86, 88, 147, 165 Alder, Robert, 7, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31–2, 35, 36, 73, 177n61, 177n62, 186n17; deputations to Lower and Upper Canada, 39, 40, 66, 68, 99; and financing, 108, 113, 114, 119– 20, 124, 127; and immigration to British North America, 24–5; and Methodism in Upper Canada, 75– 6, 78; and schism of 1840, 80, 83, 85; and union of 1833, 66, 68, 79; and union of 1847, 91, 94, 97, 99 Allan, Hugh, 32 American Revolution, 3, 11, 58 Amherstburg, ON , 148 Anglican, Anglicanism. See Church of England anti-Catholicism, 91, 93–4, 101 Armitage, David, 9 Arthur, William, 138 Articles of Union: 1833, 37, 79, 117, 120, 156, 157; 1847, 40, 94, 99, 100, 123, 129–30, 167 Asbury, Francis, 50, 55, 144 Atherton, William, 106 Australia, 10, 69, 127

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Baltimore, MD, 40, 55 Baltimore Conference, 56 Band Room Methodists, 138 Bangs, Nathan, 53 Barrie, ON, 91 Barry, John, 61–2, 65–6, 67, 68 Bay of Quinte, ON, 3–4, 50, 51, 54, 59 Beaumont, Joseph, 74, 75, 85, 154, 189n45 Bebbington, David, 7 Beecham, John, 27, 28–9, 38, 73; and financing, 126, 127; and pastoral authority, 141; and union of 1833, 65–6, 67, 79 Belleville, ON, 118, 161, 162 Bennett, William, 55 Berger, Carl, 9 Bible Christian church, 22, 138 Black, William, 55 Blackstone, William, 81 Book Room, 75 Booth, James, 23, 34, 51–2, 145, 148, 202n30 Borland, John, 23 Boston, MA , 28 Botterell, Edmund, 148 Bourne, Hugh, 138 Boyce, William, 99, 167 Bradburn, Samuel, 46, 48

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Index

Brantford, ON , 89 Brice, Edward, 154 Bristol, England, 3 British and Foreign School Society, 94 British Columbia, 17, 129 British Conference, British connexion. See Wesleyan Methodist Church in Britain British identity, 8–11, 13, 15, 70–1, 72, 101, 164–6; and agreement of 1820, 58–61; and financing, 103–4, 111, 113–15, 115–20, 122, 130, 131, 133–4; and neo-Britain, 68–9; in pre-1820 Upper and Lower Canada, 50–4; and Protestantism, 10–11, 41–2; and schism of 1840, 83, 84–91, 100; and settlers, 41–2, 68–9; and transatlantic communication, 29–31; and union of 1833, 61–3, 81; and union of 1847, 94, 97–9; and union of 1854, 99–100; and union of 1874, 168 Britishness. See British identity British Wesleyan laity. See laity, British Wesleyan (in Lower and Upper Canada) British Wesleyan missionaries. See missionaries, British Wesleyan Broadhurst, John, 138 Brockville, ON, 161 Buckley, James, 55 Buckner, Phillip, 9 Bunting, Jabez, 28, 33, 34, 53, 84; and disruption of Church of Scotland, 92–3, 166; and doctrine of holiness, 150; and financing, 105, 106, 108, 114, 116, 117, 119–20, 123, 125, 127; and Fly Sheets, 125, 154–5; and immigration to British North America, 24; and Joseph Rayner Stephens, 74–5; and Leeds organ agitation, 64–5; and Methodism in Upper Canada,

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75, 77; and Oxford Movement, 93, 166; and pastoral authority, 139, 141, 144, 155–6, 158, 160, 161; power and girth, 73–4; and presidency of Canada Conference, 38; and revivalism, 137, 138–41, 143, 144, 146, 148–9, 152–6; and schism of 1840, 80–1, 83, 85, 119–20, 166, 189n45; and union of 1833, 24, 65–6, 67–8, 79–80, 116, 117; and union of 1847, 91 Bunting, William Maclardie, 153 Buntingian Dynasty. See Buntingites Buntingites, 96, 101, 165, 166; and disruption of Church of Scotland, 92–3; and financing, 115–20, 123–5, 127, 133; and Fly Sheets, 125–6, 159–60; and Joseph Rayner Stephens, 74–5; and Methodism in Upper Canada, 75–7; and Oxford Movement, 93–4, 95; and pastoral authority, 139, 141, 144, 155–6, 157–60, 162; principles, 73–4; and revivalism, 137, 138–4, 146, 148–9, 152– 6, 160–2; and schism of 1840, 80–1, 82–5, 87–91, 100, 119–20; and union of 1833, 79–80, 116– 17; and union of 1847, 91 Burr, Aaron, 52 Buttle, John, 63 Bytown, ON , 98 camp meetings, 139, 144, 147–9, 156, 162, 163 Canada Conference, Canada connexion. See Canadian Methodists Canadian Methodists, 4, 5–6, 7, 8–9, 12–14, 15–16, 17–18, 30, 32, 69, 70–2, 164–8; and Buntingites, 75–8; and deputations, 39–41; and financing, 102–4, 115–20, 122–5, 128–34; and Fly Sheets,

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Index

159–60; and immigration to British North America, 24–5; and Oxford Movement, 95; and pastoral authority, 155–61, 162–3; and presidency of conference, 37–9; and revivalism, 136–7, 147–8, 155–6, 160–2, 163, 206n89; and schism of 1840, 35, 80–91, 100, 119–20; and union of 1833, 45, 61–3, 65, 66, 72, 78–80, 162; and union of 1847, 91–2, 94–99, 101, 122–3, 162; and union of 1854, 99–100, 120–1, 162; and Victoria College, 132–3 Canadian Wesleyan Methodist Church, 63, 183n74 Carroll, John, 5, 91, 162, 170n6 Case, William, 116, 144 Catholic emancipation, 10, 73 Catterick, Thomas, 35, 60, 144–5 Caughey, James, 14, 150–5, 160–2, 163, 206n89 Cavan Township, ON , 23 Centenary Fund, 114 Chalmers, Thomas, 92 chapels, 20, 84; and financing, 19, 104–5, 106, 114, 121, 122, 124, 199n95; and Leeds organ agitation, 63–4, 140; and Plan of Pacification, 47–8; and revivalism, 135, 140, 148, 151, 152, 154; Richmond Street (Toronto), 40; St James Street (Montreal), 32; and union of 1833, 63 Cheshire, England, 139 Chettle, John, 33 Christian Guardian (Toronto), 77, 78, 96; and Fly Sheets, 159–60; and Oxford Movement, 95; and pastoral authority, 157–60; and revivalism, 156, 161; and schism of 1840, 80–1, 83, 85, 86, 89, 90, 187n28; and union of 1833, 79

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church governance, 9, 13, 15, 71, 72, 162, 165, 167. See also pastoral authority Church of England, 3, 5, 7, 9, 44, 46, 96, 162, 163; and Canadian Methodists, 77–8; and establishment principle, 72, 74–5; and disruption of Church of Scotland, 93; and financing, 105, 110, 119; and Methodism in Upper Canada, 76, 77; and Oxford Movement, 93–4; and Plan of Pacification, 47–8; and schism of 1840, 80, 81; and union of 1847, 91–2, 94, 95 Church of Scotland. See Presbyterian church circuit, 20, 21, 26, 33, 34, 35, 36, 45, 49, 50, 51–2, 53; Ancaster, 54; Bay of Quinte, 54; Belleville, 118; and financing, 104, 105, 106–7, 110, 118, 131; Fort Wellington, 145; and Leeds organ agitation, 64, 65, Melbourne, 145; Montreal, 66; Niagara, 43, 54; and pastoral authority, 141; and regular means of grace, 145, 146; and revivalism, 141, 142, 147, 152, 154, 161; Stanstead, 110; and Warrenite secession, 141; Wesleyville, 23; Yonge Street, 54 Clark, J.C.D., 11 Clarke, Adam, 56 class leaders, 20, 52, 139, 142 class meeting, 20, 26, 93, 139, 142, 145, 146, 158–9 Claydon, Tony, 10–11 Clergy Reserves, 103, 115, 117–20, 187n33 Clowes, William, 138 co-delegate (vice-president), 37, 124 Coke, Thomas, 21, 47, 49; and financing, 106, 107, 109, 112 Colborne, John, 61, 76

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Colley, Linda, 10 Colonial Office, British, 92 Cornwall, O N, 51, 144 Cox, Henry, 135, 136, 200n1 Croscombe, William, 62, 66, 67–8, 151 Cunard shipping company, 32 Danforth, Asa, 52 Davidson, J.C., 189n56 deputations, 39–41, 164 DePutron, John, 22, 29, 34–5, 145, 147 Derby, England, 153 DeWolfe, Charles, 121 disestablishment. See establishment principle disruption of the Church of Scotland, 71–2, 92–3, 101, 166 district, district meeting, 20, 26–7, 28, 63, 114, 115, 128, 131, 132, 146, 164, 166; and Leeds organ agitation, 64–5; Lower Canada District, Canada District, 4, 32, 37–8, 68, 99–100, 107, 109–10, 111–13, 122–3, 143, 149, 156; Upper Canada District, 108, 113 Dixon, James, 38, 154, 177n61, 177n62, 189n56 Dorey, Gifford, 33, 135 Douse, John, 39, 161–2 Dow, Lorenzo, 139 Durham, Lord, 89–90 Eastern British American Conference. See Maritimes Eastern Townships, QC, 6, 22, 24, 44, 50, 103, 145, 148 economic conditions: in Britain, 105, 108; in Lower and Upper Canada, 109–10, 121 Edinburgh, Scotland, 140 Elliott, James, 192n87 Emory, John, 56–7, 78

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empire: British, 9, 11–12, 15, 18, 21, 41–2, 46, 70, 82, 86, 91, 98, 113, 118, 127, 130; and neo-Britain, 68–9; religious, 168 England, English, 26, 158, 160, 168; and British identity, 10–11, 18, 31, 53–4, 60, 89, 97; economic conditions in, 105; and financing, 104–5, 113, 116, 130, 133; and immigration to British North America, 21–2, 24, 69, 164; and neo-Britain, 69; and political radicalism, 45–7, 49–50; and revivalism, 138, 139, 144, 145, 146–7, 152; and transatlantic communication, 29, 33, 34, 35, 39 Entwisle, Joseph, 56 establishment principle, 44, 91, 162, 166, 187n33; and Canadian Methodists, 76, 77–8, 91–2, 101; and disruption of Church of Scotland, 92–3; and financing, 117–20; and Joseph Rayner Stephens, 72, 74–5; and schism of 1840, 80–3, 85, 88, 89, 120; and union of 1833, 79–80; and union of 1847, 94–5, 98 Evangelical Alliance, 94 evangelicalism, 21, 37, 50; and culture, 7–8, 15, 91; and disruption of the Church of Scotland, 92; and Oxford Movement, 93–5; and revivalism, 154 Evans, Ephraim, 96, 152 Everett, James, 7; and Alexander Kilham, 48; and Canadian Methodism, 159–60, 167, 206n85; and Fly Sheets, 125–6, 154–5, 198n69; and James Caughey, 154–5 Falmouth, England, 28 Family Compact, 69, 178n78 farmers, Rhodesian, 41–2

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Fawcett, Thomas, 86, 113 Ferguson, George, 43–4 Ferrier, John, 37 financing, 8, 9, 12, 14, 15, 20, 162, 165, 166; and British Wesleyan laity, 103, 104, 113, 114–15, 119, 120–2, 123, 133; and British Wesleyan missionaries, 102–4, 106–14, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120– 3, 133; and Canadian Methodists, 102–4, 115–20, 122–5, 128–34; and Clergy Reserves, 103, 115, 117–20, 187n33; and Fly Sheets, 125–7; and Maximum, 107–14, 123; and schism of 1840, 104, 117–20, 123; and union of 1833, 115–17, 123; and union of 1847, 102, 122–4, 128–9, 133–4; and union of 1854, 120–2, 133–4; and Wesleyan Methodist Church in Britain, 102, 103–33, 187n33; and Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, 102–4, 106–15, 116–31, 133, 199n84 Finney, Charles, 149 Fly Sheets, Fly Sheets agitation, 125–7, 133, 154–5, 159–60, 163, 166–7, 198n69 Fowler, Joseph, 74, 85 France, 10, 21, 27, 33, 46, 47, 127 Free Trade, 121–2 French, Goldwin, 6, 44–5, 71, 72, 103 French Canadians, 35, 51, 52, 129 French Revolution, 10, 21, 45–7, 52. See also Jacobins Froude, Richard Hurrell, 93 Galland, Thomas, 74, 85 Genet, Edmond-Charles, 52 German missions, 129 Gibraltar, 7 Glasford, Paul, 53, 58, 59

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Gowan, Ogle, 69 greater Britain, 9, 18, 24, 29, 30–1, 68–9; and financing, 104, 116. See also neo-Britain Green, Anson, 22, 39, 97, 128, 129– 30, 168 Grey, Lord, 93 Grindrod, Edmund, 73, 177n61, 177n62; and financing, 117; and Leeds organ agitation, 64; and pastoral authority, 157–8; and revivalism, 140; and union of 1833, 66–8, 79, 117 Halifax, NS, 32, 196n40 Hamilton, ON, 88, 98, 129, 160, 161, 206n89 Hannah, John, 40, 73, 126 Harvard, William Martin, 29, 33, 34– 5, 70–1, 72, 177n61; and financing, 110–11; and James Caughey, 151, 152; and protracted meetings, 149, 203n49 Hatley, QC, 147, 148 Hetherington, John, 34, 35, 36, 176n56 Hick, John, 35, 62, 145, 146 Hilton, Boyd, 11 holiness, doctrine of, 150–1, 153, 155, 160, 161, 162 Holtby, Matthias, 160 Hoole, Elijah, 27, 73, 122, 127, 128, 129, 162 Horseferry Road chapel, England, 152 Horsley, Samuel, 46 Hughes, Robert, 69 Hunt, Henry “Orator,” 49 Hull, England, 154 Hurlburt, Asahel, 97 immigrants, immigration, 5, 21–4, 31, 40, 53, 69, 78, 89, 99, 113, 118, 164

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Ireland, Irish, 5, 10, 11, 21–4, 62, 68–9, 76, 89, 127, 138, 164 Irish Church Temporalities Bill, 93 Irish Conference, Irish Methodism, 19–20, 40, 75, 79, 172n7 Jackson, Thomas, 73, 80, 82, 94 Jacobinism. See Jacobins Jacobins, 46, 49, 52, 73 Jamaica. See West Indies Jenkins, John, 121, 122 Jobson, Frederick, 40 Johnson, Matthew. See Leeds organ agitation Jones, Peter, 12, 115–16 Jones, Richard, 133, 192n87 Keble, John, 93 Kendall, James, 153 Kilham, Alexander, 48–9, 50, 67, 183n74 Kingston, O N , 23, 24, 50, 59, 60, 61, 62, 67, 86, 98, 145, 161, 182n66, 202n30 Kirkgate Screamers, 138 Knowlan, James, 23-4, 34, 195n34; and agreement of 1820, 60–1; and financing, 109, 111, 112–13; and revivalism, 148 Kumar, Krishan, 10 L’Achigan, QC, 23–4 laity, British Wesleyan (in Lower and Upper Canada), 4, 8–9, 12, 13, 14, 15–16, 30–1, 32, 36–7, 42, 44–5, 78, 100, 101, 164–7; and agreement of 1820, 55, 58–9, 60–1, 86; and financing, 103, 104, 113, 114–15, 119, 120–2, 123, 133; and Fly Sheets, 155; and Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, 52–3, 54; and pastoral authority, 162; and revivalism, 135–6,

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137, 145, 146–7, 151–2, 155, 162; and schism of 1840, 85–6, 87; and union of 1833, 61, 62–3, 65, 66–8; and union of 1847, 91, 98–9; and union of 1854, 120–2 Lancashire, England, 23 Lang, Matthew, 151 Langlois, Peter, 36, 37 Lee, J.J., 69 Leeds, England, 35, 152. See also Leeds organ agitation Leeds organ agitation, 63–5, 67, 73, 140, 141, 142 Lessey, Theophilus, 141 Lester, Alan, 11–12 Letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 93, 94 liberalism and liberals, Wesleyan, 74, 75, 84–5, 140, 149, 153–4, 161 Limerick, Ireland, 53 Lincoln, England, 40 Little, J.I., 6, 103, 203n41 Liverpool, England, 28, 32, 64, 65, 139, 152, 154 Liverpool Minutes, 139, 144, 153, 158 local preacher, 14, 20, 60; and Leeds organ agitation, 64; and pastoral authority, 139, 156–8 London, England, 3, 17, 23, 26, 28, 29, 34, 35, 37, 40, 58, 60, 65, 85, 92, 106, 107, 113, 117, 128, 130, 138, 142, 152, 155 London, ON, 88, 98, 161 Lord, William, 31, 38–9, 176n56, 177n61; and James Caughey, 151– 2; and Victoria College, 132 Losee, William, 3–4 Lower Canada District, Canada District. See districts loyalism, loyalty, 4, 9, 15, 69, 162, 168; and agreement of 1820, 56, 57, 59; and financing, 114; and

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Methodism in Lower and Upper Canada, 50–4, 78; and political radicalism, 46, 49; and schism of 1840, 81, 87, 90; and union of 1833, 63, 66, 72, 76; and union of 1847, 97, 98 Luddism, 64–5, 184n81 Luddites. See Luddism Ludlam, Thomas, 85 Lunn, William, 30–1, 36, 121; and James Caughey, 151–2; and revivalism, 145; and union of 1833, 62, 68 Lusher, Robert, 51, 57–8, 86 McBride, Ian, 10–11 McLane, David, 52 Macclesfield, England, 138 Maidstone, England, 35 Manchester, England, 33, 49, 145, 152 Manly, John G., 87 Maori. See aboriginal people Marsden, George, 73, 79, 177n61, 177n62 Maritimes, 55, 102–3, 127, 196n40, 207n6 Martindale, Miles, 106 Mathewson, John, 30, 37; family, 121 Matilda, O N, 53, 58 Mayle, Henry, 89–90 Maximum, 133; development, 107–8; enforcement, 108, 112–13; and resistance of British Wesleyan missionaries, 108–14; and union of 1847, 123 means of grace, 76, 159; extraordinary, 144, 146, 147–9, 151, 156, 161; regular, 139, 141, 144, 145, 146, 147–9, 153, 155, 156. See also revivalism Melbourne, Lord, 92 Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada. See Canada Conference

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Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, 3, 4, 5–6, 13, 15, 18, 40, 43–5, 165, 180n26, 202n30; and agreement of 1820, 57–61, 86, 147, 165; and British identity, 50– 4; and John Emory, 56; and immigration to British North America, 21–3; and Methodism in Upper Canada, 75–6, 77; and revivalism, 14, 136, 141, 143–6, 147–8, 150, 151, 152; and schism of 1840, 84; and Wesleyan Methodist Church in Britain, 54–5 Mezière, Henri, 52 ministry, 8, 15, 19–20, 105, 137, 154, 156–7. See also local preacher; pastoral authority mission financing. See financing Mission House, London, England, 26, 27, 30, 36, 65, 108, 119, 120, 123, 124, 174n25 missionaries, British Wesleyan, 8–9, 12, 13–16, 18, 43–5, 76, 101, 164–7; and agreement of 1820, 45, 55, 56, 57–8, 59–61, 86; and deputations, 39–40; and financing, 102–4, 106–14, 115, 116, 117, 119, 120–3, 133; and Fly Sheets, 155, 159; and immigration to British North America, 22–4; and Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States, 50–2, 53–5; and pastoral authority, 141–4, 148, 155–6, 160, 161–3; and presidency of conference, 38–9; and revivalism, 135–6, 137, 141–9, 151–2, 153, 155–6, 160, 161–3; and schism of 1840, 70–1, 81–3, 85–91, 100; selection and oversight, 26–7, 142; and transatlantic communication, 29–32, 37; transatlantic community, 32–6; and union of 1833, 45, 61–3,

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65–8, 78–9, 162; and union of 1847, 94–5, 96, 97, 98–9, 155–6, 162; and union of 1854, 99–100, 120–2, 162 missionary secretaries. See Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society Moir, John, 71 Montreal, Q C , 4, 28, 30, 32, 36, 37, 38, 50, 51, 52, 54, 55, 206n85; and financing, 114–15, 121, 122; and revivalism, 135, 145, 146, 148, 151, 152, 155, 203n49; and schism of 1840, 86; and union of 1833, 62, 66–8 Napoleonic Wars, 21, 46, 105 Native Americans. See aboriginal people neo-Britain, 68–9 New Brunswick, 34, 186n17. See also Maritimes Newcastle, O N, 24, 53 Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, 82 New Connexion church, 49, 167, 168, 183n74, 189n56 New England, 21, 50, 148 New Hampshire Conference, 147 New Ireland, QC , 23 Newman, John Henry, 93 new measures. See revivalism New South Wales. See Australia Newton, Robert, 40, 73 New York, 3, 21, 28, 32, 50, 52, 148, 149 New Zealand, 10, 27, 68–9 Nova Scotia, 21, 186n17. See also Maritimes O’Bryan, William, 138 Odelltown, QC, 145, 147, 148 Orange Order, Orangeism, 69 Osborn, George, 127, 152, 153 Ottawa, O N , 129

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Owen, T.E., 46 Oxford Movement, 71–2, 93–4, 95, 101, 166 Paine, Thomas, 46, 49 Paley, William, 81 Paris, France, 21, 45 pastoral authority, 14, 136–7, 139, 165; and British Wesleyan laity, 162; and British Wesleyan missionaries, 141–4, 148, 155–6, 160, 161–3; and Canadian Methodists, 155–61, 162–3; and James Caughey, 150–1, 152–3; and Wesleyan Methodist Church in Britain, 142, 156–63 Patriot (London, England), 85 Pawson, John, 47 Perth, ON , 61 Peterloo Massacre, 49–50 Pitt, William (the Younger), 46, 47 Plan of Pacification, 47–8, 65, 67 Playter, George, 5, 90, 95 Pocock, George, 138 Pocock, J.G.A., 9–10 Pope, Henry, 34, 43–4, 51, 144, 145 Pope, Richard, 33, 110, 145 postal system: and transatlantic communication, 27–32 Presbyterian church, 4, 119, 149. See also disruption of the Church of Scotland presidency of conference, 37–9, 75, 79, 97–8, 124, 130–1, 164 Primitive Methodist church, 22, 63, 138, 183n74 Prince Edward Island, 21. See also Maritimes Protestantism: and British identity, 10–11, 68–9 protracted meetings, 147–8, 149, 151, 152, 155, 156, 163, 203n49 Provincialist (Hamilton, ON ), 160

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Index

Puffen, Isaac, 202n30 Punshon, William Morley, 39, 168, 177n61; and financing, 130–3, 134, 199n95 Pusey, Edward, 93, 94 Puseyism. See Oxford Movement quarterly meeting, 20, 145 Quebec City, 24, 28, 32, 36, 37, 50, 51, 52; and financing, 110, 114, 121, 122; and revivalism, 146, 151, 152, 155; and union of 1833, 67 radicalism, political, 50, 59, 62, 73, 117; and Britain, 45–7; post-1815, 10, 49–50 rebellions of 1837–38, 69, 81, 92 Redfern, Alice, 33 Reece, Richard, 144 reform and reformers, Wesleyan, 74, 94, 125, 126, 140, 149, 154, 160. See also Everett, James responsible government, 89–90, 92 revival. See revivalism revivalism, 5, 12, 14, 15, 61, 105, 134, 135, 136–7, 162, 165, 200n1; and British Wesleyan laity, 135–6, 137, 145, 146–7, 151–2, 155, 162; and British Wesleyan missionaries, 135–6, 137, 141–9, 151–2, 153, 155–6, 160, 161–3; and Canadian Methodists, 136–7, 147–8, 155–6, 160–2, 163, 206n89; and new measures, 149–50, 151–5, 160, 161, 163; tempering, 156, 162; and Wesleyan Methodist Church in Britain, 135–41, 144, 147, 149, 152–6, 161–3, 200n1 Rice, Samuel D., 192n87 Richey, Matthew, 32, 35, 40, 177n61; and financing, 119, 124; and revivalism, 152; and schism of 1840,

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82, 87; and union of 1847, 98–9, 176n56 Rights of Man, The, 46 Roman Catholic church, Roman Catholicism, 10, 51, 55, 93, 94, 166 Rupert’s Land, 129, 130, 131, 199n84 Ryan, Henry, 43–4, 50, 53–4 Ryerson, Egerton, 5–6, 36, 39, 165, 169n5; and establishment principle, 77–8; and financing, 119, 120; and pastoral authority, 156–7, 158, 160; and revivalism, 161, 162; and schism of 1840, 40, 81, 82–3, 85– 9, 120; and union of 1833, 78–9; and union of 1847, 91, 96 Ryerson, John, 35–6; and financing, 116; and union of 1833, 78–9; and union of 1847, 39, 95–7, 101 Ryerson, George, 77, 78, 115–16 Ryerson, William: and financing, 120; and pastoral authority, 157–8; and schism of 1840, 40, 81, 82–3, 85, 89, 120; and union of 1833, 96 St Catharines, ON, 43 St Johns, QC, 121 Sanderson, George, 159 schism of 1840, 4, 33, 40, 70, 80–3, 84–91, 98, 100; and financing, 104, 117–20, 123 Scotland, Scottish, 10–11, 104; and immigration to British North America, 21–2, 23, 24; and Methodism, 172n7, 173n14 Scott, George, 177n61, 177n62 settlers, settler communities, 5, 44, 53, 55, 72; and British identity, 6, 9, 10, 11–12, 18, 41–2; and financing, 109, 111, 113, 120, 123, 127, 129, 133; and immigration to British North America, 21–4;

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and Methodism in Upper Canada, 76–7, 7; and neo-Britain, 68–9; and revivalism, 146; and schism of 1840, 120; and union of 1833, 79; and union of 1847, 98 Semple, Neil, 6, 44–5, 71 Sense of Power, The. See Berger, Carl Sheffield, England, 36, 65, 79, 94, 95 Sigston, John, 138 Slight, Benjamin, 31, 148, 155 societies, Methodist, 20, 23, 25, 26–7, 33, 38, 78; and agreement of 1820, 57–61; and financing, 107–8, 110, 114, 118–19; and Fly Sheets, 155; and Leeds organ agitation, 64, 65; and pastoral authority, 139, 142; and revivalism, 145; and schism of 1840, 88; and union of 1833, 62, 63, 66–8 Soule, Joshua, 84 South Africa, 11, 66 South Monaghan Township, ON , 23 Squire, William, 99–100 Staffordshire, England, 139 Stanstead, Q C, 145, 148 Stephens, Joseph Rayner, 74–5, 80, 85 stewards, 20, 59 Stinson, Joseph, 33–6, 38, 41, 177n61; and agreement of 1820, 61; and financing, 119, 123, 128; and revivalism, 148, 151, 162; and schism of 1840, 40, 81–3; and union of 1833, 62–3; and union of 1847, 39, 94–5, 96, 98; and Warrenite secession, 143 Strachan, John, 76 Sutcliffe, William, 58 Taylor, Joseph, 27, 28, 29, 35, 83 Taylor, Lachlan, 122 Tent Methodist church, 138 Theological Institution, England, 140, 143. See also Warrenite secession

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“Theophilus,” 17–18 Thirteen Colonies. See United States of America Thirty-Nine Articles, 93 Thomson, Charles Poulett, 92, 119, 166 Thompson, William, 46–7 Thornton, William, 177n61, 177n62 Toronto, ON, 23, 40, 62–3, 67, 78, 86, 87, 88, 95, 98, 144, 160, 161 Tories and Toryism, Wesleyan. See Buntingites Townley, James, 116 Tract 90, 93 Tractarianism. See Oxford Movement Trois-Rivières, QC , 121, 122 Tracts for the Times, 93 Treaty of Ghent, 28, 50 Troy Conference, 151 trustees, 20, 47, 48, 52; and financing, 114–15; and Leeds organ agitation, 64 Try, John, 37 Ulster Protestants, 41–2 union of 1833, 4, 7, 13, 24–5, 35, 37, 38, 39, 40, 45, 70, 72, 91, 96, 162, 189n45; and financing, 115–17, 123; negotiations and terms, 78– 80; and pastoral authority, 156–8; and resistance of British Wesleyan missionaries and laity, 61–3, 65–8; and revivalism, 147–9 union of 1847, 4, 13, 37, 38, 39, 40, 70, 91, 94, 95, 97, 101, 147, 162, 164–5, 166, 167, 176n56; and financing, 102, 122–4, 128–9, 133–4; and pastoral authority, 161; and resistance of British Wesleyan missionaries and laity, 98–9; and revivalism, 137, 155–6, 161–2 union of 1854, 4, 14, 37, 38, 101, 156, 164–5, 166; and financing,

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120–2, 133–4; and pastoral authority, 161; and resistance of British Wesleyan missionaries, 99– 100; and revivalism, 155–6, 161–3 union of 1874, 167–8, 207n6 United Empire Loyalists. See loyalism United States of America, 11, 21, 44, 50, 52, 53, 56, 58, 76, 116, 132, 136, 138, 144, 146, 147, 149, 150, 154 Upper Canada District. See districts Van Die, Marguerite, 136 Vaudry, Richard, 9 Vaux, Thomas, 116 Vermont, 148 Vevers, William, 152, 153, 154 Victoria College, 132–3, 166 Wales, Welsh, 10–11 War of 1812, 50, 52 Ward, W.R., 8 Warren, Samuel, 140–1, 143. See also Warrenite secession Warrenite secession, 140–1, 142, 143, 149, 158 Watchman (London, England), 17, 32, 85, 127, 159, 162; and disruption of the Church of Scotland, 93; and Oxford Movement, 94, 95 Waterloo, battle of. See Napoleonic Wars Watson, Richard, 30, 57, 73, 77, 78, 141 Wesley, John, 6, 46, 47, 71, 72, 74, 77, 80, 81, 86, 88, 89, 147, 154, 180n26; conversion, 3; dead and gone, 45; and doctrine of holiness, 150–1; and missions, 20–1; and pastoral authority, 141, 150–1, 157, 158, 159; and revivalism, 137–8; and structure of Methodism, 19–20

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235

Wesleyan (Montreal and Toronto), 86–7 Wesleyan identity, 8–9, 13, 15, 72, 101, 103–4, 164–6; and agreement of 1820, 58–61; and financing, 111–12, 113–15; 117–20, 122, 129–30, 133–4; and pastoral authority, 136–7, 139–44, 147–8, 150–2, 159, 160–3; and revivalism, 135–63; and schism of 1840, 80–9, 100; and union of 1833, 61–3, 66– 8, 76–80; and union of 1847, 91–4, 97–9; and union of 1854, 99–100; and union of 1874, 168 Wesleyan Methodist Church in Britain, 4–9, 13–14, 15–16, 17–18, 28, 30, 34, 77, 164–7; and affiliated conferences, 127; and “age of disunity,” 71–4, 84; and agreement of 1820, 56–60, 147; and Alexander Kilham, 48–9; and deputations, 39–41; and financing, 102, 103–33, 187n33; and Fly Sheets, 125–6, 155, 163; and immigration to British North America, 24–5; and Joseph Rayner Stephens, 74–5; and Leeds organ agitation, 63–5; and Methodism in Lower and Upper Canada, 50, 52–3, 54–5, 75–6; and Oxford Movement, 93–4, 95; and pastoral authority, 142, 156–63; and Plan of Pacification, 47–8; and political radicalism, 45–7, 49–50; and presidency of Canada Conference, 37–9; and revivalism, 135–41, 144, 147, 149, 152–6, 161–3, 200n1; and schism of 1840, 33, 35, 70, 80–6, 88–92, 100, 119–20; structure, 19–20; and union of 1833, 61, 62, 65–8, 70, 79–80, 115, 147, 162; and union of 1847, 91, 96–9, 101–2, 122–3, 129, 155–6,

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162; and union of 1854, 100, 162; and union of 1874, 167–8; and Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, 25 Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada. See Canadian Methodists Wesleyan Methodist Magazine (London, England), 95, 146, 149 Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (W M M S), 7, 13, 14, 17, 24, 52, 54–5, 135, 165, 166; and agreement of 1820, 45, 56–61, 86; and financing, 102–4, 106–15, 116–31, 133, 199n84; and Fly Sheets, 125; founding and organization, 25–7; and Joseph Rayner Stephens, 75; and Methodism in Upper Canada, 76–7; policies and transatlantic community building, 32–41; and revivalism, 141–2, 146–9, 152, 162; and schism of 1840, 80, 83, 86, 88–90; and transatlantic communication, 27–32; and union of

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1833, 45, 61–3, 65–8, 75, 76, 79; and union of 1847, 94, 96, 98–9; and union of 1854, 99–100 Wesleyanism. See Wesleyan identity Wesleyan Missionary Notices (London, England), 28–9, 32 Wesleyan Takings, 84 Wesleyan Times (England), 160 Wesleyville, QC , 23 West, Francis, 40–1 Westfall, William, 6, 156 West Indies, 21, 27, 62 William IV, 118 Williams, Richard, 27–8 Wood, Enoch, 34, 38, 40, 41, 177n61; and financing, 102, 124, 128–9, 130; and pastoral authority, 158, 160; and revivalism, 162; and union of 1854, 99, 100 York, UC . See Toronto, ON Young, Robert, 36

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