Chapter XIII. Growth of Country and Church (1876-1880)

TEN years had elapsed since the Consecration of Dr. Machray as Bishop of Rupert's Land--ten busy, crowded, eventful years, in which the foundations had been well and truly laid on the "lines of the old Church," as the Bishop phrased it when writing to a friend; next followed a period of several years' duration when, to continue the metaphor, the super structures began to rise--a period of no striking, sudden, or outstanding change in the Church, but of growth and, on the whole, of steady development. In 1876 the country showed a material advance, although the two preceding years had again brought disaster and great distress to the settlers because of the renewed invasion of countless hosts of grasshoppers which utterly ruined the crops. So tremendous was the havoc wrought by these creatures that the Dominion Government had to come forward with supplies of flour, pork, and seed-wheat for the most necessitous of the people.

Yet the country went on growing and increasing in numbers. Even in those two years of gloom and suffering the population of Winnipeg doubled; the 3000 inhabitants of 1874 had become 6000 in 1876. Small towns and villages sprang up on the prairies, such as Emerson, Portage la Prairie, and Selkirk, and many little settlements appeared behind those already formed, some of them lying a consider able distance away from the Red River and Assiniboine parishes. The North-West Territories, the government of which had been carried on from Winnipeg by the Lieutenant-Governor of Manitoba, were given a government and a capital of their own, the alteration in their political status indicating that settlement was also going into them. In spite of all checks and discouragements, the settlers, whether old or new, remained steadfast, hopeful, confident, unafraid. "I share the strong belief of the people of Manitoba," said the Bishop," in the wonderful capabilities of this young country.

As yet the Church stood far ahead of any other religious body in Manitoba, but it was already feeling--what it still feels--the difficulty and the pressure of establishing missions in the widely scattered, sparsely peopled settlements. [Canon O'Meara in Mission Field, May 1876.] The Church occupied Portage la Prairie, Selkirk, a town growing up in the parish of St. Clement's on the Red River, and Emerson; started, under Canon Grisdale, a mission in the north of Winnipeg, which developed into Christ Church; and sent representatives to the outlying settlements of Cook's Creek, Victoria, and Woodlands, which could be reached by the College-Cathedral staff; but other settlements lying farther afield had to be left without Services because of the want of men and means. In many cases the new settlements were too distant from the old parishes on the two rivers for their Incumbents to do much for them. The larger part of the missionary work was done from St. John's, but its staff was not big enough to undertake it all. The Bishop, anxious for the new districts, stated that he required three travelling missionaries for them, but had not the funds at his command.

The great majority of the settlers came from Eastern Canada, but the Church in that part of the Dominion would do little or nothing to help the Bishop, who, appealing to the S.P.G. for men, wrote: "There is no use mincing matters. Churchmen in 'Canada' are so divided and so taken up with themselves that the Church here will receive no substantial aid from them, although so many Canadian Churchmen are coming over to our settlements. . . . 'Canada' does not give us $100 (£20) a year." The want of support from Eastern Canada was not only a thing grievous in itself; but contrasted painfully with the action of other religious organisations with respect to Manitoba missions. Keenly alive to the opportunity presented by the North West, the Presbyterian Church and the Wesleyan Church in old Canada were ever sending fresh supplies of men and money into Manitoba, and were eager and ready to take advantage of the opening made by the presence of some of their people in a settlement--as, of course, they were quite justified in doing. From the Church point of view the trouble resulting from this was, that as any given new settlement, or two or three such settlements grouped into a missionary district, was not, as a rule, able to support more than one Church, the religious body first in the field held it against the others. So, while as a Christian he was glad that the settlers should have religious services of any kind, the Bishop could not, as a Churchman, who saw no way of doing things better than the Church has directed, regard the position with entire satisfaction, particularly as in all these settlements were members of the Church that were apt to be lost to it from the absence of clergymen and Services of their own. In 1876 the struggle to hold the ground for the Church was already begun.

There was a meeting of the Diocesan Synod on January 12, 1876, at which the Bishop referred to the situation as well as other matters. On this occasion there assembled sixteen clergy and seventeen laymen amongst the former was the Rev. S. P. Matheson (now Archbishop), who had been ordained in the previous year; as boy and student he had passed through St. John's with great distinction, and was at this time, as has been stated, a Master in the College School before taking Orders he had done missionary work, and was now also on the College-Cathedral mission staff.

In his Address the Bishop commented on the legal status of the Synods, which, he said, was derived only from the consent of the members of the Church amongst themselves as expressed in a Canon of Sub mission to the Synods; such a Canon, prepared on lines similar to that in force in the Ecclesiastical Province of Canada, would be submitted for consideration. After alluding to various subjects, such as the necessity for adopting the Canon of Discipline passed by the recent Provincial Synod, and for obtaining a Temporalities Act for incorporating the Synod, parishes, and missions of the Diocese, the Bishop reviewed the position of the Church, which had two aspects--the work in Manitoba, of a colonial-missionary character; and that among the Indians, of the purely missionary type. With regard to the former, the Bishop gave details of what the Church was doing, and of what it was unable to do from want of means. The resources of the Church were still required for the old parishes, and the members of the College-Cathedral staff were doing whatever was in their power, but travelling missionaries were needed for the Boyne and Pembina country, for Woodlands and the neighbouring settlements, and for the new settlements in the west of Manitoba. For these missions the sum of $2000 (£400) was necessary, and he announced that Archdeacon Cowley was to visit Canada shortly to endeavour to raise the money under the sanction of the Eastern Bishops.

The Bishop stated that he was about to take two important steps he had given Statutes to the Cathedral, and he now proposed to surrender to the Synod the power of altering them; he had also given Statutes to the College, and, similarly, he was to transfer to the Synod the power of changing them. Referring to the Cathedral, he said:

The Cathedral is answering well the great ends which I have had in view. It is the Bishop's Church where he has a willing staff around him. It is a School of Theology. It is a Mission Centre. It thus serves great ends, and as the population increases round us, and there is a large field of work close to us, its importance will be increasingly felt. I have thought fully and anxiously provided Statutes for it, and I now propose to surrender into the hands of the Synod the power of altering them. I trust the Cathedral will grow to be the pride of the Diocese. It is for me to strive for the men we need. In my day we must struggle for the living agent. But it is not that I am insensible to the beauty of fine architecture Nothing should be thought too costly for the service of God But a grand Cathedral must be the dream--at any rate, the work--of another day.

Alluding to the College, he observed:

I wish to say a few words on the important step I am taking of surrendering into your hands the power of altering and amending the Statutes I have given the College. The building up of this College has been my great effort. I have felt it to be my pressing duty to the Diocese to do so. I might have gone somewhat more into your parishes, but I do not know that there would have been much advantage. I know very well how things are going on in most cases. Too much interference by a Bishop is worse than too little. But we could do nothing without Schools. I feel a good deal has been accomplished, and I wish the work to stand. Therefore, as life is very uncertain, I wish to commit the work to your affectionate care. May God bless and prosper the undertaking to the latest time, and make it redound to His Glory.

Speaking of the Indian missions, the Bishop rejoiced in seeing a considerable advance. A new mission, with outlying stations, had been opened at Fort Francis by the Rev. R. Phair; a clergyman had been placed at Touchwood Hills; Grand Rapids was again to be occupied. On the other hand, the Bishop had to deplore the death of the famous missionary at Devon on the Saskatchewan--the Rev. Henry Budd, who had been the first Indian convert in the country and the first native clergyman, a man on whose labours among the Indians a "very great blessing" had rested. Several bands of refugee Sioux Indians had recently come into Manitoba, and the Bishop hoped to start a mission soon amongst them, having already some funds in hand for the purpose.

After referring to the continued success of St. John's College and School, and the need for the establishment of a Ladies' School, the Bishop finished his Address with some noteworthy sentences. It was sometimes thought, and said, by those who knew only the outside, so to speak, of the Bishop's life, that while he was a great Church organiser and statesman, he "lacked spirituality." Yet to those who met him from day to day, as well as in the midst of difficulties and discouragements, it was known that "religion was to his own soul that living, delightful thing" which, in his lecture on John Howe, he said it was to that grand old Puritan. In concluding his Address to this Synod, he said:

In bringing my remarks to a close, let me say that some thing more is necessary than the best organisation. All may be only of the earth, earthy. "It is by my Spirit," says the Lord. "Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it." What is the body, though so fearfully and wonderfully made, without life? We have each of us to think for ourselves and for the Church. What is the real remedy for all the ills and necessities of the Church? Is it not the Baptism of the Spirit? It is this that makes men act from a sense of duty. It is this that rouses them to willing self--sacrifice. It is this that discloses to them the priceless value of the souls for whom Christ died. Pray, brethren, that the Spirit of God may be with our Pastors and with their flocks, that they may have life, that they may find themselves in the Fold of the Good Shepherd, that they may be saved, and go in and out and find pasture.

Some people deemed the Bishop somewhat "stern"; touching this Archbishop Matheson writes:

People who only saw him outwardly sometimes thought that he was stern, unbending, and almost severe. He could put on a stern manner, but those who were permitted to come into touch with his inner life knew that he possessed the most kindly and sympathetic nature. He had the most marvellous self--control, so that he rarely "showed his feelings," but they were there all the same, and when you were in trouble he made you feel that in him you had the sympathy of a brother, combined with the strength of a Great Man of God. His self-control under the most trying circumstances was wonderful. Though I was associated with him very closely for nearly forty years, and passed with him through valleys that often were dark with deep glooms of sorrow, I never, except on one occasion, saw him shed an outward tear, and yet I never knew a man of finer sympathy, or one who so thrilled you with a sense of sympathy for you, while saying so little in words to you about it.

In the Synod of 1876 it was carried unanimously, "That this Synod cordially accepts the Statutes and the power of legislating for St. John's College and St. John's Cathedral which his Lordship the Metropolitan of Rupert's Land tenders for its acceptance; and would record its gratitude to Almighty God for the success which has crowned his Lordship's untiring and self-sacrificing efforts to place these institutions upon a permanent and effective footing." The Canon of Submission of Clergy to the Provincial and Diocesan Synods, and the Canon of Discipline, were passed.

During the summer of that year the Bishop made a Visitation of the missions on the east side of Winnipeg, proceeding by waggon to the Lake of the Woods, and thence by canoe down the Winnipeg River to Islington, an important station of the C.M.S. After holding Confirmation and other Services, he returned to St. John's by Lake Winnipeg. He made a similar but more extended journey in this district four years later, crossing on that occasion Lake of the Woods, and ascending Rainy River to Fort Francis, the mission mentioned in his Address to the Synod in 1876.

The visit of Archdeacon Cowley to the Eastern Dioceses of Canada met with very partial success, the amount raised being a little over $600 (£120); he went on to England, where he obtained about £80 ($400) more, but when in London he succeeded in enlisting, for the establishment of a Ladies' College in connection with St. John's, the sympathy of the Rev. Henry Wright, the Honorary Secretary of the C.M.S., who offered the splendid gift of £1500 ($7500), afterwards increased to £2000 ($10,000), towards it.

With 1875 the plague of grasshoppers ceased there was an abundant harvest in 1876, and Manitoba demonstrated, for the first time on a considerable scale, its capacity for producing great crops of wheat and other cereals, one marked result being a large increase in the number of immigrants. Railways had not yet entered the Province, but had come nearer the frontier; the steamers on the Red River were crowded all that season, and after navigation had closed in October many people arrived by stage, which now was running daily from the railway terminus in Minnesota to Winnipeg.

"We are no longer isolated," said the Bishop to his Synod in May 1877. "By means of telegraphic communication, connecting us with the United States and Canada, newspaper enterprise presents us daily with the latest telegrams from all parts of the world. The telegraph has already been carried for about a thousand miles to the west of us. The expenses of living are considerably less than they have been for some years. We can have in our houses the conveniences and luxuries of modern life We may look forward to a near future when we shall have tasteful and substantial public buildings and residences, and when the fertile land of this country will be made to beautify their surroundings." He then went on to speak of the progress of the Church Within eighteen months five new churches had been built and opened, and four of them had been consecrated, while four more were in course of erection. There was also a considerable advance in contributions from the congregations towards the support of their ministers; one church, Holy Trinity, Winnipeg, had become self-supporting. The statistics published at the end of the Report of this Synod showed that there were now twenty-nine parishes and missions in the Diocese (the reduced Diocese), with twenty-five clergy and six catechists. Further evidences of the growth of both country and Church were seen in that the College buildings, though so recently enlarged, were no longer able to afford accommodation to all who wished to enter the College and the College School, and Canon Grisdale was sent to England to plead for funds for St. John's, while the Ladies' College also was erected in that year.

At this Synod the Bishop stated that he intended going to England in the following year to be present at the Lambeth Conference, and for other business mainly connected with the Diocese. Hitherto he had acted as general treasurer of the diocesan funds; in view of his departure he desired to be relieved of this financial work, and proposed handing to the Synod, St. John's College, and the Cathedral respectively, the various funds he held in trust for them. He also suggested that the appointment of a Secretary of the Mission Board would soon be necessary, as more active, regular, and sustained efforts would have to be made for the support of the missions, if the Church were to be equal to its opportunities. More missionaries were needed, and the strain on the Mission Board, already great, must be expected to become greater as population increased in the country. He then referred to the question of education in Manitoba. As the province became more and more prosperous, its schools would become stronger and better, but he deplored the difficulty of maintaining in them the giving of a religious education, and said:

If the leading Protestant denominations were unable to accept the same translation of the Bible, or if they differed from each other on the essential truths that are found in the Apostles' Creed, then it might be hopeless to come to any understanding. But it is not so. There is nothing to prevent in our schools the daily recognition of the necessity of the divine blessing, and of the Word of God as the source of all wisdom and knowledge, in the opening and closing of the school by a simple form of prayer and the reading of God's Word. Further, there is nothing that should prevent the learning of the Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer, and the use of a catechism explaining these that would bring before the minds of the young the leading facts of revealed religion and of the Christian Faith.

I acknowledge the first importance in these days of a good secular education, and it is perfectly impossible for any separate Protestant denomination to undertake the work of efficiently supplying primary education in its parishes. Therefore we must endeavour to work heartily with the system that is established by the State, and, as far as we can, supply its deficiencies. . . . I see no necessity for our Protestant schools being deprived of what I consider the precious privilege of religious teaching. . . . For various reasons I view with deep regret and suspicion its absence. . . . Such teaching is necessary for setting up what is the only true standard of right and wrong.

The Bishop here set forth his view as to the relation that should subsist between religious education and secular in Manitoba, it was a subject to which he frequently returned in succeeding years, and the part he took in the "Manitoba Schools Question," and the bitter controversy that raged round it in Manitoba and the whole of Canada, will be related in due course. In 1877 he was Chairman of the Provincial Board of Education, Protestant Section, as he had been since the passing of the Education Act of Manitoba in 1871, by its first Legislature, and one of his leading clergymen, the Rev. W. C. Pinkham, was Superintendent of the Protestant schools of the Province. But what may be styled the secular spirit was strong, even thus early. The notable thing is that it was in the domain of education that Manitoba at this time took a great stride forward. It was not only in the Church that there were men of faith, foresight, and large views, in these days of the pioneers.

The most outstanding feature in the annals of the country in 1877 was in every way remarkable; it was connected but indirectly with the Church, yet it was intimately bound up with the life then and afterwards of the Bishop. On February 20 the Legislature of the Province passed an Act founding the University of Manitoba, and not long afterwards the Bishop was appointed its first Chancellor by the Government; the appointment was for three years, but the Bishop was reappointed Chancellor again and again until his death. In introducing the measure in the Legislature, the Minister who had it in charge, the Hon. Joseph Royal (afterwards Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Territories), said that the Government felt that the foundation of a Provincial University might be some what premature, but that this step had been urged upon them for two years past. He did not mention any name, but it was understood that the bill had been inspired by the Lieutenant -Governor, the Hon. Alexander Morris, who had come to Manitoba in 1872 as Chief Justice, becoming, on the resignation of Governor Archibald, Lieutenant-Governor about the end of that year. Perhaps the measure was in part the result of conversations Mr. Morris had had with the heads of the three incorporated Colleges then in existence--St. Boniface, St. John's, and Manitoba, but none of them had any-thing to do with its being brought forward before the local Parliament. It may be said, without hesitation, that no other country ever had such an institution provided for it so early in its history.

The University was unique among Colonial Universities. The three incorporated Colleges, united in a sort of republic, formed the basis. The difficulty arising from their belonging to different Churches--Roman Catholic, Church of England, and Presbyterian--was bridged over in the most amicable way by making the subjects in which the University examined candidates for degrees those on which all three Colleges met as upon common ground--Classics, Mathematics, Natural Science, and Modern Languages--while adequate provision was made for conciliating varying points of view on "contentious" subjects, such as Mental and Moral Philosophy and History. It was provided that the University was to be an examining institution at first, and not a teaching institution, though later it might become so (as it has become). Each College was given power to form a separate Faculty of Theology, with the right of conferring degrees in Divinity, and graduates holding such degrees were given exactly the same standing in the University as other graduates. It was enacted that the examinations were to be con ducted in English or French, the two languages of the Province, according to the desire of the student--St. Boniface, it will be remembered, was a French-speaking College.

The Lieutenant-Governor for the time being was made Visitor, with certain powers. The Governing Body was composed of a Chancellor, appointed by the Government for three years, of a Vice-Chancellor, appointed for a year at first by the Government, but after the first year elected by the Council, and of a Council consisting of seven representatives from each of the Colleges, three representatives elected by Con vocation, which was made up of all graduates resident in the Province of any recognised University in the Dominion who registered their qualifications with the Provincial Secretary before a specified date, and one member of each section of the Board of Education. Provision was also made for the affiliation of other Colleges, and of Medical or Law Schools, which might come into being, and of Normal Schools for the training of teachers, as also for the examination of non-collegiate students. Under its Statutes the general superintendence of all examinations was entrusted to a Board of Studies, consisting of two members of Council elected annually by each of the affiliated Colleges, and two members elected annually by the Council at a statutory meeting. The University course was spread over three years, and the students graduated either by taking an "Ordinary" or an "Honours" Degree for the former there were three Examinations, a Preliminary, a Previous, and a Final, and for the latter a Previous and a Final Examination; these arrangements, and even the names of the examinations, followed the model of Cambridge, and were doubtless suggested by the Bishop.

Conceived on broad and generous lines, the scheme for the University had as its distinguishing characteristic a pronounced consideration for differing modes of thought, with the intention of drawing to the institution from the start the support both of the State and of the whole community. From the outset the project received the enthusiastic support of Bishop Machray, who was no believer in denominational Universities, and he brought to its assistance and development all the rich store of knowledge and experience that Cambridge and Aberdeen had given him. His acquaintance with these two Universities had satisfied him that, everything considered, it was better for students to be in residence in College under supervision than to live practically independently in lodgings. The three Colleges fulfilled this condition, but the University also allowed the other to obtain for non-collegiates. Before the passing of the Act he had been in correspondence with the Dominion Government with respect to St. John's College being authorised to grant degrees in Divinity; the provision in this respect made by the Act for all the Colleges was quite satisfactory to him. Addressing the Synod of 1877, the Bishop said:

I have to congratulate you on the passing of the Act creating the University of Manitoba. On the whole, it has a constitution about as satisfactory as could be devised in the immediate condition of things. It unites all the denominations and Colleges in the examinations for degrees in Arts, Sciences, Medicine, and Law. By its recognition of denominational Colleges, with their own internal government secured to them, it satisfies those who feel the first importance of a religious character and control, while it does not prevent the affiliation of Colleges independent of such direction. It also at the same time secures for the different denominations, with the consent of their governing bodies, the power of establishing in their Colleges a Faculty for conferring theological degrees. I feel very much gratified with the result. All is gained that I desired.

In prescribing subjects, books, methods of study, and in the working out generally of details, the various points of view of the different Colleges, especially of St. Boniface, had to be considered and, if possible, reconciled. With this object private meetings were held at St. John's College, over which the Bishop presided; the best feeling prevailed, and everything was arranged harmoniously in the end, largely owing to the friendly sentiments and good sense of Father Forget, the Rector of St. Boniface, whom the Bishop characterised as the "lovable Rector" in an article on the University which he contributed in 1896 to the Encyclopaedia of Canada, edited by the well-known Canadian publicist, Mr. Castel Hopkins. Thus from the beginning--and thenceforward--Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Presbyterians worked together for the University with right good-will; when differences arose, as they were bound to arise, they were considered and overcome in a spirit of mutual tolerance and esteem, and ever on that side was thrown the large influence of the Bishop, who, while holding his own opinions, respected those of men differing conscientiously from him.

Under the Act St. John's College became an integral part of the University, and its students were prepared for the University examinations, involving a good deal of additional work on the College staff It was still the day of small things, and the University began with a small handful of students. Seven presented themselves for examination at the end of the first year, 1878, and of these the majority were undergraduates of St. John's; twenty years later the University had upwards of 400 students. In 1877 the University had very little money to support it, its main revenue being derived from a grant by the Provincial Government of $250 (£50); the Dominion Government, however, came to its assistance by presenting to it an endowment, though not of immediate value, in the shape of a grant of 150,000 acres of land in the Province, and the Provincial Government gradually augmented the subsidy as the University increased in numbers with the growth of the country. The first meeting of the Council was held on October 4, 1877, and among other things Major Jarvis, a Cambridge man, was appointed Registrar.

Here the writer will perhaps be pardoned introducing a personal, but interesting, if amusing, reminiscence of that day of small things. Shortly after the first meeting of the University Council the Bishop sent for him (then a theological student of St. John's), and told him to go with the other theological students, three in number, and the two head boys of the College School, to the residence of Major Jarvis, the Registrar, to be matriculated. The small band of six, nothing loth, but hardly realising the dignity of their position as the first undergraduates of a University destined some day to be great, walked from St. John's across the snow to Point Douglas, Winnipeg, where the Major lived. Finding him at home, the writer, who acted as spokesman, told the Major of the nature: of the business on which they had come, whereupon he smiled and looked a little blank, observing that there was no University Register yet in existence. However, he was equal to the occasion, produced a half-sheet of ordinary writing -paper, and bade them inscribe their names upon it! Thus and thus were the beginnings of the University of Manitoba, which, at the time this biography is written, has an attendance of i 100 students, of whom about 200 are ladies.

The winter of 1877-78 passed tranquilly away. A meeting of the Diocesan Synod was held on May 15, 1878, at which sixteen clergy and eighteen lay delegates were present. The Address of the Bishop was largely taken up with a consideration of the position of the Diocese, more especially from a financial standpoint. He mentioned that he was resigning the care of its funds to the Synod, and desired the appointment of a Secretary of Synod who should look after the support of the missions and other business affairs. He stated that he was about to leave for England, not for relaxation, but to attend the Lambeth Conference, to make another appeal for the assistance of the College, and to be present for a time at Sidney, the Statutes of which College were to be revised; he still held his Fellowship of Sidney, "not without advantage to the Diocese." After the Bishop had concluded his remarks, the Synod elected Canon Grisdale Secretary and Treasurer of the Synod, and a Diocesan Mission Board was formed.

A fortnight later the Bishop left for England, but before his departure for Winnipeg he was presented by the Synod, in the presence of a large audience, with an illuminated address, congratulating him on the "wonderful success" which had attended his efforts for the Church, enumerating them in detail, and speaking at the same time of the devotion and self-denial he had shown. In his reply the Bishop said, "It is a very full payment for any exertion I may have made to feel that I have the confidence and affection of the Diocese.

I gratefully accept from you the word devotion, for I feel I have consecrated myself wholly to Christ's work among you; but there is another word which you kindly add which I must refuse, and that is self-denial. I do not know that there is a single action or effort that has cost me a moment's regret. What I have done has been a labour of love."

Arriving in England at the end of June, the Bishop spent the month of July in London, stopping with his kind friends, the Rev. C. A. Jones and Mrs. Jones, 2 Little Dean's Yard, Westminster. The second Lambeth Conference met on July 2, 1878, there being present a hundred Bishops of the Anglican Communion, drawn from all parts of the world. The Bishop was assigned a seat with the other Metropolitans by the side of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and was given an opportunity during the Conference of making a statement respecting the Diocese, which was afterwards published in a condensed form as a letter addressed to the Archbishop. Most of the work of the Conference was done by six committees, of two of which the Bishop was a member. The Bishop's chief feeling regarding this Conference was one of deep satisfaction with the substantial unity displayed on all questions of moment, and the decided witness borne to the great principles on which the reformation of the Church of England was conducted. After visits to relations and friends, he took a short holiday in Switzerland, returning to England in September to prosecute his appeal for funds for St. John's College. He saw the Secretaries of the great Societies, and found them, as usual, attentive and sympathetic From London as head quarters he went during the winter to various Church centres, where he spoke of the needs of the Church in Manitoba and the North-West, meeting, however, with only partial success, as a depression existed in all classes of industry and in business generally which deepened as the winter advanced. The Christmas season he spent at Cambridge with Mr. Williams-Ellis; he had already been at Sidney for the revision of the College Statutes.

Towards the end of February he submitted a Memorandum to the Church Societies, reviewing the position and progress of his Diocese and of Manitoba. He showed the growth of the country by quoting statistics. In 1876 free homesteads had been taken up to the extent of 55,000 acres, in 1878 of nearly 300,000 acres; in 1870 there existed sixteen Protestant school districts, in 1878, a hundred; in 1870 there were sixteen post-offices, in 1878, fifty-eight. All this advance had been made in the face of plagues of grass hoppers and other discouragements, such as slow and dear travel; now the grasshoppers had disappeared, and a railway was about to reach Winnipeg. A tremendous development of immigration must be the inevitable result, with a correspondingly great call upon the Church, which it could only meet if it were given support from outside the Diocese. Other religious bodies were alive to the opportunities and necessities of the case; the Presbyterians and the Wesleyans of Eastern Canada were sending ministers with abundant means behind them into the Province of Manitoba and farther west. The Bishop, therefore, asked for large aid from the Societies, particularly the Colonial Church Societies, to enable him to "hold the ground," as he was not being supported by the Church in Eastern Canada in any degree approaching the support given in that part of the Dominion to their missionaries by other denominations.

The depression then affecting the whole of England had told upon the incomes of the English Societies, but they responded nobly. The S.P.C.K. voted £500 ($2500) to the endowment of each of the Chairs of Exegetical Theology and Ecclesiastical History of St. John's College, and £380 ($1900) for scholarships for three years; this Society also voted £1000 ($5000) to the College for new buildings on certain conditions, while the S.P.G., in spite of a diminished income, set apart for Rupert's Land almost all the funds at their disposal from their withdrawal from other fields which they thought should be independent of their aid. The Bishop's appeal to Churchmen generally resulted in his obtaining about £2500 ($12,500), mostly in small sums, the highest donation being £100 ($500). Considering the depression, this amount showed how hard the Bishop had worked, but as he required four times the sum he was greatly disappointed. On his return to Winnipeg in the summer of 1879 he was presented with an address by his people, expressing their deep and affectionate regard, and a purse of $800 ($160)/ The Bishop, cheered but much affected, thanked his friends warmly for the address and the gift; the money he handed to the College to form a begin-fling of the "Machray Exhibition for Sons of the Clergy."

On August 13 the Provincial Synod of Rupert's Land held its second meeting at St. John's, under the Presidency of the Bishop as Metropolitan, Bishops Horden and M'Lean also being present; there was a fair representation of clerical and lay delegates. The session was a very short one. in the morning Divine Service was held in the Cathedral, with a sermon by Bishop Horden; in the afternoon the Metropolitan delivered a brief Address, in which he intimated that the Archbishop of Canterbury, as Primate of the Province, had given his full approval to the acts of the first Provincial Synod (1875). Notice of the formation of the Ecclesiastical Province, he said, had been sent to all the Archbishops, the Primus of Scotland, all Metropolitans in the Colonies, and the presiding Bishop of the American Church, and he specially mentioned that the Metropolitan of the Province of Canada had sent to them the kindest congratulations. The Province of Rupert's Land had now been recognised throughout the whole Church, and he alluded to his having been placed beside the other Metropolitans at the Lambeth Conference by the Archbishop of Canterbury. At the previous Provincial Synod an invitation to join the Province had been sent to the Diocese of British Columbia; the Bishop announced that it had been declined.

In the autumn of 1879 a line of railway from the south reached Winnipeg, the population of which had increased to 10,000. In the spring of 1880 there was a decided increase in the volume of immigration, and it continued to swell all through that year and the next, until a region 120 miles in breadth by 200 miles in length was thinly covered with settlements. Many little towns and villages rose as if by magic on the prairies. From this time onward the work of the Bishop, which had steadily been growing more arduous, became a continuous struggle, ever growing harder and harder as the pressure and strain waxed more and more intense,--the struggle to find men and means to open and carry on new missions as well as to maintain the old, and to sustain and fortify the College and other educational efforts; that he kept up this struggle for nearly twenty-five years showed the splendid fibre of which this man was made. He found change and some relaxation while travelling in a Visitation of the eastern missions in the summer of 188o (see p. 268), but the pressure and strain was soon on him again. Writing to the Secretary of the C.C.C.S. in October, he apologised for not being able to send reports of the missions supported by that Society: "I feel exceedingly to blame for not writing you sooner respecting your missions, but I can only say that I am doing the work of two or three men, and I fear the work of none of them too satisfactorily. I am up early and go late to rest, and every day brings such a pressure of immediate needs that correspondence gets delayed from day to day and from week to week."

In the autumn he addressed a letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury, stating briefly but with anxious clearness the circumstances in which the Diocese was placed by the influx of settlers, and its inability to cope with it satisfactorily unless assisted from England. He pressed the point that the Church in Eastern Canada was helping but little; it had its own mission needs, and seemed to be able to spare hardly anything for Manitoba and the North-West, whereas the Presbyterians and Wesleyans in Eastern Canada were supporting their missions in these regions with energy and devotion. He asked for similar help from England. The Archbishop replied sympathetically to the Bishop, and also wrote to the Rev. C. A. Jones, of Westminster School, the Bishop s Commissary, a letter in which he said: "Looking to the probable future of Manitoba, the claims set forth by the Bishop seem to me to be of an exceptionally important kind, and I cannot but think that no time ought to be lost in helping the Bishop to meet the wants of the rapidly growing population." The Archbishop communicated with the S.P.G. and the S.P.C.K., recommending exceptional aid to Rupert's Land in view of its exceptional position.

At a meeting of the Diocesan Synod held on November 24, 1880, and attended by sixteen clergy and eighteen lay delegates, the Bishop spoke of the deepening responsibility of their position from the growth of the country. He alluded to the work of other bodies with whom their relations were "so friendly and kind" without any compromise of their distinctive principles, and longed for something of the sympathy and help with which these bodies were supported by their brethren in "Canada." Turning to their own work, he spoke of grants from the S.P.G. for Emerson, Nelsonville, and Victoria, for Morris and Rapid City, but said that they all knew that the settlement of the country was going on so quickly that the missionaries at Nelsonville and Rapid City were simply lost in the vast tracts that their ministrations touched. In each of these large areas the Presbyterians and Wesleyans had each from four to six ministers, yet not a few of the settlers were Churchmen. Where were they to look for aid? He hoped that in time they would receive substantial aid from Eastern Canada, the Provincial Synod of which had recently established an organisation with that object. $4000 (£800) from Canada, with what they got from England, would be sufficient for the day, but what about the morrow? He urged his people to try to do more of and for themselves. The Mission Board had put forward a plan, asking for at least five cents (2 1/2 d) a month for the Home Mission Fund from every member of the Church above eighteen years of age. He reminded the Synod that this kind of plan was the secret of the financial success of the Wesleyans and of the Free Church of Scotland, and he trusted it would be adopted throughout the Diocese.

Speaking of the College, he regretted that neither his efforts nor those of Canon Grisdale, who had been in England in 1877-78, had resulted in any marked lessening of the debt caused by the additions to the buildings. For the present the staff of the College was sufficient, but the University work had added to its duties, and some addition to its numbers would soon be necessary, as the number of students must increase with the growth of the country. He next touched on their most recent venture, the Ladies' College; the building had been erected free of debt (by the Bishop making up from his own pocket a deficiency of some $8000 (£1600), but the College was not paying its way, and there was already a floating debt of $5000 (£1000). The Bishop commended the effort to the generosity of local Churchmen, and asked for subscriptions for it. However, there was ground for hope and courage. "Much has been accomplished, not without labour, for we have had few large gifts," he said in conclusion. "It would not take much now to give our Schools an independent position, and then we should have before us as a single aim the noble enterprise of supplying the means of grace to this great country--the empire that is being founded in this great land."

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