Chapter XI. First Division of the See (1871-1873)

THOUGH the Rebellion was at an end, and a garrison of two battalions of Canadian militia in Winnipeg kept watch and ward over the country, civil affairs remained in some confusion while the new régime was being established. "Red River Settlement" and "Assiniboia" disappeared in "Manitoba," which became the fifth province of the Dominion, with a political system fashioned on the same plan as that of the other members of the Confederation. It was allotted a certain number of representatives in the Dominion Houses of Parliament, and the administration of local government was placed in the hands of a Lieutenant-Governor, who was appointed for a term of years by the Dominion, and a Cabinet or Ministry formed in the usual manner by the leader of the stronger party in a Provincial Legislature, the elections to which were on a popular basis.

Bishop Machray had expressed a wish to go to England for the winter of 1870-71, but he deferred the visit for a year for two reasons: one was that the civil authorities told him that they thought it was desirable to have his presence, support, and advice, especially on educational questions, while the new order of things was being instituted; and the other was that Bishop Anderson wrote that he considered a visit to England so soon after the insurrection was perhaps inopportune--though Bishop Machray could not under stand this objection, as his Church people had taken no part in the Rebellion. Mr. A. G. Archibald, a Nova Scotian and a Churchman, was selected as the first Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba, and he arrived at Fort Garry, part of which now was called Government House, in the beginning of September 1870. The first elections to the local Legislature were held in January 1871. There were twenty-four seats, and of the men chosen to fill them twelve were Roman Catholics, eleven were members of the Church of England, and one was a Presbyterian, thus showing with fair accuracy the proportion both of French settlers to British and of Church people to the whole population.

Now that the country had been transferred to Canada, the Bishop looked forward to its being opened up to settlement at a comparatively early date, but he realised that there could be no immigration on a large scale until Manitoba, into which the new settlers would first come, was made as easily and inexpensively accessible as was possible considering the distance to be traversed. After the check--a marking time, as it were--caused by the Rebellion to the development of his plans, he went on with his preparations for the future. The facts which he had to face were that his vast Diocese was far too large to be worked efficiently by one Bishop, and that the Church was poorly pro vided with men and money. He thought that a large number of Canadians might be expected to migrate from the older provinces of the Dominion to Manitoba; some proportion of them would be Churchmen, while the rest would mostly be Presbyterians and Wesleyans. He asked himself what help he might anticipate receiving from the older Dioceses of Canada, and the answer was chilling and discouraging in the extreme; on the other hand, he knew that the Presbyterians and Wesleyans in Ontario, the premier province of the Dominion, had determined to send ministers, with plenty of financial backing, into Manitoba and the North-West.

"Here we are," he wrote, "with a great colony about to be opened up to the world, and with no funds, whilst the various denominations are prepared to send experienced men and all necessary funds to found their bodies--men with the traditions, experiences, and sympathies of the new settlers that are coming. I have no hope of any aid from the Church in (old) Canada, for every Diocese there is bound up in itself." This being the case, he had to see what could be done in his own Diocese, and what the Church Societies in England were willing to do: with regard to the former he had been educating his people in the carrying out of the principle of self-support and in systematic giving to Church purposes; with respect to the latter he set before them two main necessary objects--the division of the See and the building up of a strong missionary centre at St. John's in its College.

He had already written to the Church Societies, indicating that the division of the See was essential for the success of the Church in Rupert's Land. In the course of the winter of I 870-71 he urged his views on the C.M.S., the Society to which the great majority of his clergy then belonged. In several letters he advocated the immediate formation of the two "Northern Missionary Bishoprics," one for the missions in the Far North on the east side of Rupert's Land, and the other for those in the Far North on the west side. Looking still farther into the future, he expressed his conviction that "Canada," Rupert's Land, and British Columbia would each before long have to be worked as separate ecclesiastical provinces. [When the word Canada is placed within "" it refers to Eastern Canada.] "Canada" was already an ecclesiastical province, but he meant that as a province it would retain the boundaries it possessed before the transfer of Rupert's Land to the Dominion. He pointed out that the Roman Catholic Church, "seldom behind in organisation," had formed that part of Rupert's Land known as the Northern Department of the Hudson's Bay Company into an ecclesiastical province, with an archbishop and three suffragan bishops--Bishop Taché had now become Archbishop of St. Boniface. As Prebendary Venn, the Honorary Secretary of the C.M.S., replied in encouraging terms, Bishop Machray intimated his intention of paying a lengthy visit to England to press the matter on by every means in his power, and his hope to be in London by the middle of September to discuss details with the Society, and place his plans before the trustees of the Colonial Bishoprics' Fund. Feeling some confidence in the early establishment of these two Bishoprics, he next turned his attention to the formation of a third.

The territory lying immediately west of the Province of Manitoba was known as Saskatchewan, from the name of the great river which flowed through it from west to east--an enormous area many times larger than England. Certain that Manitoba and the country on the east of it (now known as Keewatin, with a Bishop of its own) would Soon tax his energies and activities to the utmost, the Bishop said that Saskatchewan too must have its Bishop at the earliest possible moment, for if immigration first came into Manitoba it could not be long before it would overflow into Saskatchewan. The two former Bishoprics were purely missionary in their character, and could scarcely ever be anything else, at any rate not for a great number of years. The latter Bishopric, however, while in the beginning it would be almost wholly missionary, would take on a different aspect as time rolled on, and become to an ever-increasing extent a Colonial Diocese, with a settled resident population, largely agricultural and similar to that of Manitoba, displacing the Indians. These considerations put the proposed Diocese of Saskatchewan on a different footing from the others, and consequently ally appeal for its formation had to take this into account. Therefore, while the appeal for the support of the purely missionary Bishoprics was made to the C.M.S., that for Saskatchewan could only be made partly to that Society. The Society whose field of action is the Colonies of the Empire is the S.P.G., and so the Bishop opened negotiations with that Society on behalf of the projected Diocese of Saskatchewan.

There was no difficulty, he thought, in finding the very men who were to be the first Bishops of these Sees, once they were established; they were on the spot, it might be said, ready to his hand. There was Horden at Moose Factory on Hudson's Bay; there was Bompas now at Fort Chipewyan in Athabasca; and for Saskatchewan where was there a better man than M'Lean, Archdeacon of Manitoba? (The Archdeaconry of Assiniboia had been changed into the Archdeaconry of Manitoba.) To part with his friend M'Lean would be an act of self-sacrifice, but he never permitted such a consideration to stand in the way when duty, high aims, or good to others called. More over, it was a cardinal principle with him that, when there was a prospect of advancement in position or income, the man on the spot who deserved it most should not fail to get the benefit of it.

The second object of the Bishop's visit to England was to make an appeal for funds for St. John's College. Among the Acts passed at the first session of the Legislature of Manitoba was one incorporating the Bishop of Rupert's Land as a "corporation sole" (under the Letters Patent founding the See the Bishop of Rupert's Land was declared a corporation sole, but the Bishop thought it expedient to have the same declared by local law when there was a Legislature in the country), and another incorporating St. John's College, enabling it, as a corporation, to hold endowments in the shape of real property or otherwise. The latter Act, at the time when it was passed, looked to the future rather than the present, for in 1871 only a very small beginning had been made. Both the College and the College School were in a prosperous state, though their effective working was cramped by the want of suitable buildings, the erection of which had again had to be deferred owing to the Rebellion. But endowments and funds for buildings had to be raised if the College was to fulfil the Bishop's hopes that it was to become "a fountain of light, a school of the prophets in that great land," and the missionary centre of the life of the Church when the expected population was coming into the country.

Writing to the S.P.G., he drew the notice of that Society to the course of action taken by "the able and loving Bishops who have accomplished such great things in the new western Dioceses of the American Church" by having such a missionary centre as he contemplated in St. John's College. He appealed to their members as Churchmen by stating: "It is the unanimous opinion of the American Bishops that the action of the first ten years, after immigration begins to flow into a new territory, determines, humanly speaking, the standing of a religious body, and the first thing to do is the laying hold of the higher education." In the spring of 1871 he sent Archdeacon M'Lean, his able lieutenant, to "Canada" on behalf of the College, where, as the result of a three months' campaign, he succeeded in obtaining over $8000 (£1600). Upon the Archdeacon's return to Winnipeg the Bishop left for England.

He arrived at Cambridge on September i6, 1871, and spent a fortnight very agreeably in the society of Mr. Williams-Ellis and other old friends in the University and county; he preached at Newton and Madingley, and renewed his acquaintance with his former parishioners. All were deeply interested in hearing of the progress of his work in Rupert's Land--a part of the Empire that was now somewhat better known in England because of the attention which the Red River Rebellion had attracted to it, though some of the notions that were afloat regarding it were hardly accurate. During the course of his visit the Bishop frequently delivered addresses in various English cities and towns, and though these utterances were chiefly concerned with what was being done and to be attempted in his Diocese, he usually took advantage of these occasions to present a faithful description of the North-West. For instance, speaking at Gloucester, he said that he found the common view held in England of Rupert's Land was that it was a vast region where the year was made up of "nine months' snow and three months' mosquitoes." To such a ludicrously incorrect statement it was enough, he thought, to reply that it contained an enormous area of the most fertile land in the world, only waiting for the husbandman and the plough to go in and possess it, and then no long time would elapse before its genuine character would be demonstrated and realised; in time it would become the granary of England, in spite of its long cold winter, which, though rigorous, was quite endurable.

At the beginning of October he went to London, where he became the guest of the Rev. C. A. Jones, who had been one of his great friends during his Cambridge days, and of Mrs. Jones. Mr. Jones had left Cambridge in 1863 to take the Mathematical Mastership in Westminster School, of which he was also a House Master, with his residence at 2 Little Dean's Yard. Mr. Jones contributes some impressions and reminiscences of this visit:

Bishop Machray arrived at my house, 2 Little Dean's Yard, Westminster, from Cambridge on the evening of Monday, October 2. I doubt if I had seen him more than once or twice since I left Cambridge in January 1863, but he struck me as very little, if at all, changed, except that he had grown a venerable long beard, which he seemed very fond of stroking. Though my wife was the sister of his old friend, Thomas Hewitt (known to his friends as Theta), for many years Fellow and Bursar of Emmanuel College, I do not think she had met him before. He saluted me in his old familiar style, with a hearty laugh and "Well, how are you?" That he at once adapted himself to the life of a busy Westminster Boarding House Master may be gathered from the fact that what was intended to be a short, few days' visit developed into one that lasted on and off for ten months. He took his breakfast and when he was in, which was not often, his lunch in hail like ourselves, and chatted pleasantly with the senior boys among whom he sat, many of whom often spoke of him afterwards to me. He was always ready to assist me in every way, presiding at luncheon if what sometimes happened, especially on a Tuesday, I was kept at the Board of the Westminster Hospital, and ready in the evening to take prayers for me and chat over the events of the day with my head boy, if we were out to dinner.

He took a great interest in the many old customs of Westminster School, especially in the play which he attended the following Christmas--that year the Andria. He told me he got many a hint for the rising school of St. John's College, Winnipeg, during his visit. We were a singularly happy and united party at Westminster in those far-off days. We naturally introduced him to my colleagues. Our head master, Dr. Scott (Senior Classic, etc.), and the second master, Henry Manning Ingram, still happily among the living, a godson of Cardinal Manning, took a special interest in him and his work, and Dr. Scott assigned to St. John's College the school offertory on All Saints' Day, amounting to over £20. Both, have reason to believe, liberally helped his funds on more than one occasion.

Many were the pleasant little dinners, with the Bishop as chief guest, in these dear old days. The Bishop and I had many mutual friends in London, particularly Titcomb, after wards Bishop of Rangoon, then at St. Stephen's, South Lambeth, and Robert Long of St. Simon's, Upper Chelsea, one of his commissaries, afterwards Archdeacon of Auckland, in both of whose churches the Bishop preached. Among others whom he several times met at my house was my very old friend of the same year, Gorst, afterwards Sir John. They had had very similar experiences, Gorst being in New Zealand during the Maori troubles of 1861, of which he has recently written a graphic account, and the Bishop in connection with the Red River Rebellion. The Bishop was particularly considerate in his manner with the servants, and ever afterwards, till just before his death, he always inquired after them and sent kindly messages to them. Two of them, who are still with me, remember him with affectionate regard.

He was a very busy man, spending the day in writing careful letters, not always easy to read, on behalf of his Diocese, making calls, and dining out at official and private dinners, always with his Diocese in view. Though he collected a considerable sum, I think some £5000, he was, I fear, on the whole disappointed.

Though a man of decided views, both in Church matters and in politics, he was not narrow, and was equally welcome at the S.P.G. and the C.M.S., at the S.P.C.K. and the C.C.C.S. The S.P.G., as Prebendary Tucker often told me, had the highest opinion of his work and judgment, and it was, I know, to S.P.G. influences that he owed the distinction, which he so much prized, of being made, on Bishop Austin's death, Prelate of the Order of St. Michael and St. George. The C.M.S. equally valued him, and the only little differences he had with that Society were due to the fact that he thought they were in too great a hurry to reduce their grants to the great North West, though he held firmly to the opinion that the Church there should, as soon as possible, be self-supporting. He and the Society, as the result of long negotiations, eventually came to an amicable arrangement.

The Bishop's chief subject of conversation was the great future of his adopted land, and the result has shown how true a prophet he was. He also talked much about Cambridge and Sidney, and everything that occurred in connection with them interested him deeply. I have reason to know that some twenty-five years later, when he began to think he was too old for Rupert's Land, he would have accepted the Mastership of Sidney had it been offered to him, as it probably would have been had it been vacant a few years earlier. Dis aliter visum est. When it fell vacant a new generation had arisen that knew not Joseph--and I think it was wisely ordered, and that it is more fitting that the great statesman Archbishop will sleep "till the day dawn" in the country of his adoption.

Soon after his arrival in London the Bishop called on the Secretaries of the C.M.S. and the S.P.G., and had an informal and very friendly conversation with each of them about his plans for Rupert's Land. A meeting with the Correspondence Committee of the C.M.S. was arranged for October 24, to enable him to make a categorical statement, which was to be the beginning of the negotiations for the division of the See, and, at the same time, permit him to tell the Society of the position of St. John's College. At the S.P.G. he was received with great cordiality by Prebendary Bulloch, who promised to assist him by every means in his power. Having thus got matters well in train, the Bishop, on October 9, went to Nottingham to attend a Church Congress. Thereafter he was the guest, at Lambeth Palace, of the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Tait), whom he found appreciative and sympathetic. As Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Tait was his Metropolitan, and he was anxious to have the Archbishop's approbation of his plans and hearty co-operation in carrying them out; but, naturally, Dr. Tait wanted some time to consider them. In the end the Archbishop not only gave them his entire approval, but was at some pains to expedite them.

There was a full meeting of the C.M.S. Committee on the day appointed, and the Bishop put before them the necessity there existed for the formation of the two Northern Missionary Bishoprics. He also gave them a review of all their missions in his Diocese, and pointed out that, as the part of it known as Manitoba would become within a comparatively short period a settled country, most of their missions there would before long cease to be missions, properly speaking, and be transformed into regular parochial charges, whose incumbents would be supported by their congregations. There would be new missions, however, opened up in Rupert's Land, and to supply clergy for them he suggested the desirability of the Society looking to St. John's College in Winnipeg to furnish them instead of sending men out from England, who could not possibly be so well acquainted with the conditions obtaining in the North-West as were those who were educated and brought up in the midst of them. He then spoke of his great wish to raise funds for the College, so as to equip it thoroughly for the work of the Church. The Committee listened attentively, and promised to give his scheme for the Bishoprics their earnest consideration; in the mean time they voted a subscription of a hundred guineas to the College.

It was not till the summer of 1872 that the question of the two Northern Bishoprics was settled in accordance with the Bishop's plans; and before that took place he had many interviews with Bishop Anderson and Archdeacon Hunter, both of whom were of material assistance, and with the Secretaries of the Church Societies and others interested, all of whom "turned over and weighed," as he afterwards told his Synod, his propositions with the utmost care. Arch deacon Hunter was particularly helpful, taking an active part in the deliberations of the C.M.S., who also were greatly influenced by the strongly expressed views of the Bishop's two Archdeacons, M'Lean and Cowley, in support of the division of the See, and by the known opinions of their missionaries, Horden and Bompas. Archdeacon Cowley had, without the Bishop's knowledge, written to the C.M.S., begging the Society to take advantage of the Bishop's presence in Eng land to see about dividing his "unmanageably huge Diocese," as the Archdeacon characterised it, and the divisions he suggested were precisely those that the Bishop himself desired.

An important meeting of the General Committee of the C.M.S. was held on June 10, when the Bishop presented a Memorandum dealing exhaustively with the subject, printed copies of which had previously been circulated among the members of the Society who usually were present at such meetings. The attendance was very large, and the President of the Society, Henry, third Earl of Chichester, was in the Chair. As much that appeared in this Memorandum has been given already in this book, it is unnecessary to repeat the statements which it contained. The response of the Society was generous and complete; the stipends for the new Bishoprics were to be provided by the Society, and a sub-committee was appointed to settle all details with the Bishop. This sub-committee presented a report on July 8, which was adopted by the Society. Provision was made for the support of the two senior missionaries, Bompas in the Athabasca Mackenzie district, and Horden in the Hudson's Bay district, if they should be consecrated Bishops. Horden had already been communicated with, and had agreed to become Bishop of the latter; but, owing to the great distance of Fort Chipewyan from London, and the difficulty of getting in touch with it, it was not known for some time whether Bompas would give his consent to be nominated as Bishop of the former. Before Bishop Machray left for Canada, the Archbishop of Canterbury had applied for the Royal Licence for the Consecration in England of Horden.

After the arrangements with the C.M.S. were completed, the Bishop appeared by invitation before a meeting of the Council of the Colonial Bishoprics' Fund, over which the Archbishop of Canterbury presided, and he presented a full statement regarding the two Bishoprics to be maintained by the C.M.S., and a third Bishopric--that proposed for the district of Saskatchewan. The Council approved of the formation of the three new Sees, and decided that in an appeal shortly to be issued, asking for funds for an increase in the Colonial Episcopate, these three should occupy the first place. Thirty-two years before the Council had made a similar appeal, with the result that they received and administered a capital sum of nearly a quarter of a million sterling ($1,250,000), and had materially assisted in establishing thirty new Sees. On this occasion the Council named twenty-seven new Bishoprics, the formation of which was considered to be necessary and pressing. The manner in which the Colonial Bishoprics' Fund aids the establishment of a new See is by a vote, usually of £1000 ($5000), towards its endowment, and, incidentally, it may be mentioned that the S.P.G. and the S.P.C.K. help in the same way and to much the same extent. The vote is given either outright in a lump sum, or proportionately to some amount to be raised for the same object from other sources--as, for example, £500 to meet £4500, or £1000 to meet £9000--thus furnishing a strong incentive to the friends of any given See to work hard, so as to be able to obtain these considerable sums of money. As the C.M.S. had agreed to furnish the incomes for the Bishops of the two Northern Missionary Dioceses, the next endeavour of Bishop Machray was to start an endowment for the Bishopric of Saskatchewan, which he did by getting together a committee before he left England, who heartily undertook this effort.

While these important negotiations were being carried on with vigour and success, the Bishop devoted the rest of his time to the advocacy of his appeal for the College. His great argument was that the College, if adequately equipped, could, by supplying a ministry who knew local requirements as no outsider could hope to know them, be able to meet the inrush of settlers and the consequent growth of the country better than any other agency or means. The influx was already beginning into Manitoba, the southern frontier of which was now only 160 miles from the railway, whereas when he had gone out as Bishop of Rupert's Land just six years before it was 700 miles from the nearest continuous line of railroad from the Atlantic to the Middle West. Winnipeg, which was changing from a hamlet into a town, was now connected with the world by telegraph. There was the prospect of the early construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway, which was destined to link Old Canada with the New and with the Pacific; Manitoba and the North-West would be thrown wide open to settlement. As it was, fresh settlements were being formed behind the old which lay along the banks of the rivers, and ever fresh settlements would be forming behind these again.

Every one, the Bishop said, could see how this process had gone on, and was still going on, in the American States immediately adjoining Manitoba. Minnesota was fast filling up, and it would be the same in Manitoba. Minnesota, under its devoted Bishop, Dr. Whipple, had splendid Church institutions at Faribault--a Cathedral, a College, and schools; but splendid as they were, they had come twenty-five years too late to enable the Church to hold its ground in Minnesota. Was it to be the same in Manitoba? It would be, the Bishop asserted, if the Church in England did not understand the situation and help St. John's College at once, when there still was time to prepare. "The thought of this coming multitude, this new nation of white men, mainly, doubtless, of Anglo-Saxon blood--with all their struggles for this world, carrying with them the common human burden of sin with all its sorrows--may well fill the mind with anxiety, and bid it be alive and active in preparing." St. John's College, if sufficiently assisted now, would be, as he intended, the great missionary centre of all Diocesan effort and work. A little assistance now would count for much more than any larger help in the future.

Such were the pleas the Bishop put before the English Church people for the College; the response was considerable, but not so great as he had hoped for. During his visit he received in all £5270 ($26,000) in donations, including £300 ($1500) previously granted by the S.P.C.K., besides the promise of subscriptions and collections of the value of £130 ($650) a year; the larger part was for the College. He also was given a great number of books for the College library. The Queen, through Sir Theodore Martin, presented a signed copy of her Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands; the University of Oxford voted publications from the University Press to the value of £150; while the University of Cambridge gave him a copy of all its publications. The Secretary of State for India, Mr. A. Macmillan, of Messrs. Macmillan and Co., the well-known London publishers, and many others, made gifts of valuable books. Mrs. Macallum presented a library of 400 volumes in memory of her husband, the Rev. John Macallum, whose Red River Academy had been a forerunner, of St. John's College. So many books, indeed, did the Bishop receive for the College that its library was nearly doubled. Amongst those who were of special assistance to the Bishop during this visit to England, in addition to those previously mentioned, were the Rev. T. T. Smith, Rector of Truxford, near Hereford, and Mr. Isbister, Head Master of the Stationers' School, London, whose name will appear later in these pages in connection with a munificent bequest to the University of Manitoba.

After paying some visits to relatives and friends, the Bishop sailed for Canada on August 29, 1872. Immediately on his arrival at St. John's, Winnipeg, building operations were begun, and a considerable addition was made to the College, while a new wing which was contemplated was deferred till the following summer. These much-needed extensions when completed would provide, the Bishop thought, sufficient accommodation for some years. He called a meeting of the Diocesan Synod, to be held in the second week of the ensuing January, to tell his people how he had prospered during his visit to England, and to get their assent to the changes he had made as regarded the Diocese as a whole. While absent from Winnipeg he had been in frequent correspondence with Archdeacon M'Lean, who acted as his Commissary; and it was arranged that the Archdeacon was to be formally nominated to the new Bishopric of Saskatchewan, and in the following summer proceed to England for the purpose of raising an endowment for that See. Mean while Dr. Horden was consecrated Bishop of Moosonee, the ceremony taking place on December 15 in London, with the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Tait), the Bishop of London (Dr. Jackson), the Bishop of Rochester (Dr. Claughton), and other Bishops, including Bishop Anderson, officiating.

The Diocesan Synod met on January 8, 1873, in the midst of a great snowstorm which lasted for some days. The storm was general over a vast extent of territory, reaching far to the south, and caused much loss of life among the settlers in Minnesota. The Synod was opened with Divine Service in the Cathedral, the sermon being preached by Archdeacon M'Lean, from Acts xv. 22: "Then pleased it the apostles and elders, with the whole church, to send chosen men of their own company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas." A celebration of the Holy Communion followed. After luncheon at Bishop's Court, the Synod assembled in St. John's College, there being present the Bishop, ten clergy, and twenty-one lay delegates.

The Bishop delivered an Address, which began by enumerating the reasons why the Synod had not been summoned earlier. Four years had passed since the last meeting, and in the interval there had occurred the plague of grasshoppers in 1868, the Rebellion of 1869-70, and then the negotiations for the division of the See in 1871-72, which, taken together, accounted for the delay in holding a Synod. After thanking Archdeacon M'Lean for acting as his Commissary, and referring to losses the Diocese had sustained by the death of one missionary--the Rev. David Hale, the representative of the C.M.S. at Fairford--and the retirement of another, the Rev. W. Mason, C.M.S. missionary at York Factory, after labours extending over thirty years--he proceeded to give an account of the steps which he had taken for the division of the See, and of the success which had attended his efforts. The division of the See entailed a further step. "The formation of these Bishoprics," he said, "will enable us, by means of the Bishops and Clerical and Lay Delegates from each Diocese, to obtain a thorough and effective representation of the whole Church in Rupert's Land, and thus put us in a position to proceed practically to self-government."

He stated that temporary boundaries for the four Dioceses must meanwhile be marked out, and then a Convention or Provincial Synod was to be assembled as soon as possible, with two Houses, one of the Bishops and the other of representatives of the clergy and laity, to determine the organisation of the Church. Until that was done the new Bishops were to hold the same position to himself as Suffragan Bishops did to the Bishops in England. In the Letters Patent founding the See of Rupert's Land the Crown had reserved power to divide the Diocese with the consent of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Rupert's Land for the time being. But that referred to a time when there was no Legislature in the country. The position was now changed, and the Crown would not issue new Letters Patent. The new Bishops, there fore, would have their authority from the Church alone. The Bishop stated that he had been advised by two eminent counsel in England that at present it was not desirable for him to resign by deed his rights, as Bishop of Rupert's Land, over the new Sees. These rights, however, would lie dormant, and the Church in Rupert's Land, with the concurrence of the necessary parties, would provide an organisation for the new Dioceses, and a Constitution under which their Bishops would have due authority. While congratulating the Synod on the formation of these Dioceses, he said, c It is a joy to my heart more than I can express that I am to be no longer nominally the Bishop of an impossible jurisdiction."

The Bishop spoke next of the duties of the clergy and of the means of supporting them. The former were likely to be more onerous in the new state of things that was coming fast upon them, owing to the growth of settlement in the country; and the latter more precarious, because in the future the English Societies would not give such large individual grants as in the past. In these circumstances each clergyman must expect to be called on to go outside his parish or mission to minister to the adjacent districts, and, at the same time, each must inculcate ever more forcibly upon his people the duty of providing his stipend so far as they could. The deficiency, where it existed, would be met by a grant from a Home Mission Fund, which would start with the interest from the Clergy Endowment Fund, now £80 ($400) a year, and be increased by collections, offertories, and subscriptions. He thought that much might be done by the gathering of small weekly or monthly contributions.

Turning to the subject of St. John's College, he mentioned the amount he had raised in England, and stated that there was now an endowment for the Professorship of Systematic Divinity yielding £200 ($1000) a year, and a general endowment for the College bringing in about £80 annually. Since the last meeting of Synod the total funds of the Church had increased from nine to forty thousand dollars (from £1800 to £8000). The charge of such a sum was a responsibility, the Bishop said. While he was willing to act as Treasurer for the present, he desired all possible protection against casualties beyond his control, and suggested the passing of a resolution appointing Mr. Donald Smith (the same gentleman who had acted as Special Commissioner for Canada during the Rebellion) agent for the Treasurer, with power to invest, sell investments, make and receive payments, and the like, in Montreal, where Mr. Smith carried on business as a financial agent. Auditors must also he appointed to check the accounts and securities.

Having thanked the Bishop for his Address, the Synod discussed a Canon for the organisation of the Church in Rupert's Land, drawn up in accordance with the Bishop's suggestions and approved by the Executive Committee of the Diocese, and on the motion of Archdeacon M'Lean, seconded by Archdeacon Cowley, the Canon was passed. After a preamble setting forth the consent of the Bishop to the division of the See, and that it was necessary for the well-being of the Church in Rupert's Land that the Bishops, Clergy, and Laity should be able to provide for the government and administration of the Church in the same, the Canon assigned boundaries to the four Bishoprics,--Rupert's Land, Saskatchewan, Hudson's Bay (Moosonee), and Athabasca,--formed these Bishoprics into an Ecclesiastical Province called Rupert's Land, and stated that as soon as two of the new Dioceses were organised a Provincial Synod was to be summoned by the Bishop of Rupert's Land to represent the whole Church in Rupert's Land, the business of the first meeting of this Synod being the framing of a Constitution to provide, among other things, for the representation of the different Dioceses and for the general government of the Church in Rupert's Land. A resolution conveying the best thanks of the Diocese to the C.M.S. for making provisions for two of the Bishoprics was carried unanimously. Motions were passed respecting the Mission Board and other subjects which the Bishop had brought up in his Address, and in accordance with it. Having taken the necessary steps which remained for the division of the See, and having provided for the calling of a Provincial Synod proceedings which constituted a great landmark in the history of the Church in Rupert's Land--the Synod was adjourned by the Bishop.

At the end of the published Report of this Synod there is a short but extremely interesting prospectus of St. John's College. In this document the Bishop appears as Chancellor, and Archdeacon M'Lean as Warden of the College; the Theological Faculty consists of the Warden as Professor of Systematic Theology, the Bishop as Professor of Ecclesiastical History, and the Rev. Dr. de Lew as Lecturer in Hebrew. In the College School Latin and Greek are taught by the Warden, Dr. de Lew, and Mr. Matheson (now Archbishop of Rupert's Land); English by the Warden, the Rev. J. D. O'Meara (afterwards Dean of Rupert's Land), and Mr. Matheson; Mathematics and Arithmetic by the Bishop and Mr. W. Flett; German by Dr. de Lew; French by Dr. de Lew and Mr. O'Meara; and Music by the Rev. W. Beck (afterwards Precentor of St. John's Cathedral). There are two resident tutors, Mr. Flett and Mr. Matheson, and a matron, Mrs. Leslie. The academic year is divided into two terms each of twenty weeks--a Midsummer Term beginning January 29, and a Christmas Term beginning August 1; the boarding charges for students are $70 (£14), and for boys $60 (£12) per term, while the charges for tuition are on the same low scale. The prospectus states that while the Warden is absent in England the Bishop will occupy his place. Archdeacon M'Lean left Winnipeg for London in June to raise an endowment for Saskatchewan, and from that time, for many a long year afterwards, the Bishop was Warden of the College and Head Master of the College School.

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