CHAPTER XIV.

Second triennial circuit-Anxiety for the establishment of a see at Montreal-Correspondence with clergy at Red River-Severe illness-Formation of Church Society, and steps taken towards the foundation of Bishop's College-Second visitation of clergy.

THE second triennial visitation was begun by the confirmation of one hundred and seventy-two persons, among whom was the first of his own children on whom he laid hands, in the cathedral at Quebec, on the 13th October 1839. Early in the following January, the Bishop set out on a journey through the districts of Montreal, Three Rivers, and St. Francis, an account of which was afterwards published by the S. P. G. I shall make, therefore, only a few extracts, chiefly of passages which serve to shew the manner in which the services of the Church were appreciated, besides giving the general results of the visitation, and some particulars which may help to exhibit the progress of the Church during the three preceding years.

At St. Andrews several young persons, who had been prepared for confirmation, but had not received their tickets, having called for them early on an intensely cold day, on which the confirmation was to be held, were all frost-bitten in some part or other of the face. Some candidates who had been disappointed at Huntingdon followed the Bishop to Ormstown, and "not being sufficiently protected against the weather, had suffered greatly from cold in their tedious progress," the roads being nearly blocked up from the effects of

a snow-storm, and they had to measure their way back after dark; "but in commending them," says the Bishop, "for their exertions, I exhorted them cheerfully to endure this and greater things, if called upon, for their religion, and reminded them of the distant journeys which men were prompted to make, under an inferior dispensation, to keep the ordinances of the Lord's House at Jerusalem." Three others who had been disappointed in the same neighbourhood afterwards went fifteen miles for confirmation, and the clergyman who brought them "travelled about forty miles to bring them, and went immediately back with them. Two young Irish girls, sisters, came from Milton to Abbottsford; but having, in consequence of misinformation, gone a vast way round, they arrived after the confirmation was over, and I learned nothing about them till after they had gone home again. Mr. Johnson, however, had told them to meet me at Cutler's school-house the next day. Considering their long journey, their disappointment. after all their efforts, the continued rain throughout the day, and the very bad state of the roads, as well as the distance between Milton and the school-house, I expected that they would give it up. They came, however, and as I spoke a few simple words of exhortation to them after they had been confirmed, the two standing together (for no confirmation had been appointed at the place), the tears rolled down their cheeks. These little incidents serve to shew what feeling there is to work upon in the bosoms of poor settlers in the woods, and who hath despised the day of small things?" "

At Shefford a young man and woman, who had been prevented by circumstances from being examined, came into the vestry room before service "soliciting, with tears, the blessing of confirmation." At Drummondville, it is mentioned that "a young lad, who was working in a shanty thirty miles off and earning high wages, not only came down on foot to be confirmed, but came to his own family a week beforehand,

sacrificing the profits of that week, to spend it in study and preparation, and this in opposition to the strong remonstrances of his companions. At Rawdon the church was so thronged that one man described himself as having been for a quarter of an hour with his person half in and half out of the door without being able to move an inch. Ninety-one persons were confirmed, six of whom, on account of the crowd and some confusion in the lower end of the church, did not get forward at the proper time, nor make known their disappointment till after my robes were packed up again, and I was leaving the church. The little trouble, however, of again putting on my vestments to administer a separate confirmation to them was well repaid by their thankfulness, and better still by the very deep marks of feeling which they evinced as recipients of the rite." In several other instances the candidates are spoken of as "deeply and sensibly affected," and speaking generally, the Bishop remarks; "I am indeed thankful to say that a deep reverence and deliberate selfdedication to Christ did seem to characterize the candidates in the different places which I visited; and I cannot but hope that, in many instances, their future walk will evince. their sincerity in this important act of their lives."

The Bishop was accompanied through the district of Montreal by the Rev. M. Willoughby, agent of the Newfoundland School Society, whose object was to ascertain the wants of the district with respect to education, which in many instances he was enabled to supply. In accepting the office of VicePresident of this society, a few months before, the Bishop .said:

"The want of good common schools in which a scriptural education is afforded is grievously felt by a great portion of the protestant inhabitants of this province, and I do trust in God that the society will have the happiness of being instrumental in the prevention of much moral and religious and, I may add political, evil, as well as in the production of much positive good in the field newly opened. I shall regard the society as aiding instead of interfering with the ancient protectress of the colonial Churches,

the venerable society for the Propagation of the Gospel, the department of labour which the former has assumed being evidently subservient to the objects of the latter, and still not being identical with them."

In the course of the visitation an ordination was held at Sherbrooke, when Mr. Willoughby was admitted to Priest's Orders, together with the Rev. W. Dawes. The names of both these good men are connected with the increase of the Church at this period, " and in their deaths they were not divided," for both were taken away by fever which they contracted in their attendance on Irish emigrants in 1847. To Mr. Willoughby, too, belongs the honour of initiating the operations of the society just mentioned; while Mr. Dawes filled the office of secretary of the diocesan Church society, with remarkable fidelity and earnestness (qualities which indeed pervaded his character in everything which he undertook), from its formation till the time of his death. Mr. Willoughby was the first incumbent of the first chapel which was built in Montreal, where, till the date which we have now reached, there was no place of worship, besides the parish church,* belonging to the Church of England. Trinity Chapel, built at the sole expense of Major W. P. Christie, was consecrated in May 1840. Mr. Dawes, as travelling missionary of a local association already mentioned at Montreal, was the pioneer of the district lying to the south-west of that city, now for the first time visited by a Bishop. His labours had been carried on for about fifteen months. He had established eighteen stations at which he preached twenty-five times in every four weeks. Four churches were either in progress or in immediate contemplation, and forty- · one persons were presented for confirmation at Russeltown, sixty-five at Hemmingford, and forty-one again at Napierville. Fifteen more at Hemmingford and several at Russel

An evening service had been established in the parish church, at which all the pews were thrown open.

town were prevented from coming forward owing to the roads being completely blocked up.

Besides in this tract of country, confirmations were held now for the first time at the Gore on the Ottawa, Kingsey, Bury, Compton, and Lake Maskinongé. Most of these places had been previously visited by the Bishop in his capacity of Archdeacon, and since his former visitation he had been enabled to fix missionaries at the three first mentioned, as well as at Stanbridge. Before the conclusion of this journey, Compton was erected into a separate charge, and measures were taken for conferring a similar benefit on Granby, as well as on Portneuf, and for dividing the labours of Mr. Dawes by assigning a portion of them to a second missionary within their range. The association which maintained Mr. Dawes maintained another missionary in the settlements north of Montreal, whose head-quarters were at Mascouche, where the church was consecrated during this visitation. Another had been consecrated at Upper Durham on the St. Francis. All the places visited in 1837 were revisited this year with the exception of Hull, for which a confirmation had been held at Bytown in 1838. In the district of Montreal twentyseven confirmations were held, and eight hundred and ninetyfive persons confirmed, including one hundred and twenty-five at Montreal. In the districts of St. Francis and Three Rivers two hundred and sixty persons were confirmed at twelve places. The Bishop was absent from Quebec two months. The number of clergy in Lower Canada had been increased by ten, and about the same number of churches had been built, or were in progress, or in immediate contemplation. The Bishop says, "Churches (God be praised for it) are springing up so fast, that I must beg for more help as soon as I shall have forwarded the account of money already paid or promised from the Society's grant of £500. At Laprairie I received the refreshing intelligence, (together with the announcement of aid granted towards the erection

*