sufficient grounds for anxiety. When he had finished his work on the Labrador coast, he was desirous, therefore, of reaching home without unnecessary delay. But besides the disappointments already mentioned, he experienced another. The captain of the steamer, in which he had embarked at Forteau, kindly undertook to transfer him to another which was going direct to Quebec, and when she came in sight at two o'clock one morning, the Bishop was put off in an open boat for this purpose, but the steamer did not stop, though she had replied to the signals made from the other, and the Bishop was obliged to return to his own vessel, In the interval between this time and his reaching Quebec, the effect of his fatigues and privations began to shew itself in an attack resembling inflammatory rheumatism, and he was obliged to be carried on shore at Quebec. His patient trust in God's goodness was rewarded by finding all apparently well at his home; and she for whom he might have been anxious, if he had not been always accustomed to cast all his care on Him Who cared for him, became his tender nurse. Before, however, her own anxiety on his account was relieved, she was removed beyond the reach of all trouble and care. On the 23rd August he lost the partner, for forty-seven years, of his life, the sharer of all his joys and sorrows, his help-meet in all his labours. And he bore it as one disciplined by trial only could have borne it. A few short hours of illness, during the whole of which she was unconscious, were all that were ordained for her at the last, and even to the very moment of separation he had not been able to realize to himself that it was so near. He had all his children and grandchildren around him in this hour of trial, and they never met together again afterwards till he was to see them so for the last time on earth.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Missionary sent to Labrador-First provincial synod-Appointment of Metropolitan-Sermon before the synod-Triennial circuit continuedLast visitation-Meeting of diocesan synod-Jubilee-Bishop Williams of Connecticut-Finlay asylum.

EVEN this heavy sorrow and his own continued illness did not hinder him from exerting himself for the supply of the spiritual wants of the few sheep over whom his heart yearned on the coast of Labrador. There was, indeed, no time to be lost before the closing of the navigation, and the Bishop went to Lennoxville on the 6th September, to confer Priests' Orders on a young Augustinian who had accepted his call to tend the straggling flock. He sent him forth with great thankfulness and comfort, being well persuaded, particularly from the manner in which the call had been received, that he was prepared to "endure hardness as a good soldier of Jesus Christ." Another Augustinian was at the same time admitted to the diaconate, to supply the place of him who was going to Labrador, on whom and on one other the Bishop laid hands again at the last ordination which he held.* From Lennoxville the Bishop proceeded to Montreal to attend the first meeting of the Provincial Synod. He was still so disabled that he could not take his place in the procession to the

Three weeks after this the new-made priest was called upon to attend the funeral of his Bishop, and this was the last public act in which he himself took part in the diocese, if not on earth. He was obliged to leave the ranks of the procession by illness, from which he never recovered.

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cathedral, but he nevertheless preached with unusual power and energy before the Synod. The marks of sympathy and affection with which he was everywhere received were very soothing to him. In his address to the synod of his own diocese in the preceding June, he had thus referred to the appointment of a Metropolitan at Montreal :

"We are permitted to enter this day upon the business of our third synodical session in this diocese. If our proceedings have not yet produced any very marked effects, we must not suffer ourselves, on that account, to be discouraged. It must be the history, I apprehend, of synodical action, to work itself first, step by step, into a manageable shape and a capacity for practical benefit, and it is then that the engine is set freely in motion and so plays as to effect the purposes for which it is constructed. A great and important addition to the machinery by which these operations are to be conducted has been made, since we last met, by the appointment of a Metropolitan of the Church of England in Canada, binding together the several dioceses in order to their joint action in matters ecclesiastical, and at the same time leaving each diocese free to provide separately for its own local interests, and to regulate its own immediate affairs. I trust that we shall be blessed in all this. I trust that we shall always approach and carry through our task in a spirit of devout humility, and with firm faith in the promises of grace and guidance made to us in Christ. I trust that a religious, a christian character, a character different from that of mere political organizations, will always be impressed upon our proceedings; and that none of us will insensibly be drawn into a habit of immersion (with whatever aptitude for the purpose we may happen to be gifted,) in the forms and details of business, to the prejudice either of that spiritual frame of mind, or of that devotedness to pastoral labour, that close assiduity of attention to the flock, which ought (and with heightened effect in a missionary diocese like our own) to characterize the ministers of the Gospel.

"We have full reason, I think, to be satisfied with the location of the metropolitan see at Montreal. The situation of that city is central: its wealth and its population greatly surpass those of any other city in British North America; and it is more marked than any other by a general spirit of progress and improvement. Nor is it a circumstance to be counted absolutely for nothing, that it has now a really creditable cathedral church, correct in design and beautiful in effect. As far as the person holding the office is concerned, all parties must be thoroughly satisfied: but, in point of fact, it is the place and not the person nor any personal considerations of whatever kind, which ought to determine the choice of the metropolitan see.

"As matters actually stand, the establishment of this chief see at Montreal would involve an arrangement of which the prospect has given rise to some jealousy, seeming not wholly unreasonable for the diocese of Montreal alone, having the election of its own Bishop, would thus choose the man who is to have ecclesiastical authority over the whole Province. A movement, however, has been made to provide against objections conceived to attach to this feature of the arrangement, without disturbing the arrangement itself. Against any such remedial contrivances, however, as would invest the metropolitan see with an ambulatory character, making it shift about, upon the occurrence of vacancies, from diocese to diocese, I should most energetically and solemnly protest.

"We now expect very soon to have a fifth bishopric established in Canada. In our episcopal communion, the multiplication of bishoprics is the extension of the Church and of her service in the cause of the Gospel-a very natural and obvious consequence, and one which has been remarkably exemplified in our own day. We are rather backward, I think, here, as regards the interest which we take in the operations of the Church at a distance; and the new task in which the Church of England has been permitted to engage in providing a local episcopate for the superintendence of missions among the heathen beyond the limits of the British dominions is an auspicious omen of great things to be achieved by her towards the gathering in of the Gentiles, which ought to stir within us more thankful emotion, more lively sympathy, more happy anticipation than is, I fear, likely to be actually witnessed. That hearty engagement in the affairs of our Church upon the spot, which is necessary to the effective character of synodical action, will never have life among us, unless we catch a glow of feeling reflected from abroad, and contract an animated sense of common interest in the advance of the cause of Christ over the world at large.

In our own particular case in this province, the principle of elective Bishops has been introduced. Not that it has been made compulsory: we are left free to choose our own method in each diocese of providing for the occupation of the episcopate, and might leave the nomination, if we saw good, in the hands of the Sovereign. But we may consider it, in a manner, as a settled point, that all the bishoprics will be elective; and the day cannot be very remote when occasion will be given to put this principle in exercise within the diocese of Quebec. I hope the clergy and laity will be prepared, when that day shall come, to act with a single eye to the glory of God, to the salvation of souls, and to the progress and consolidation of the Church;-with an inviolate spirit of charity and forbearance; with an utter repudiation of all worldly intrigue and partizanship, all recourse to the arts of canvassing and caballing,-everything, in short, which is described by the word electioneering in the transactions of popular government in the world. Without staying to examine the question respecting the preponderance of advantage in the system of election on the

one side, or nomination by authority on the other, it must be admitted that there are evils and dangers incident, generally, (for these remarks are not prompted by any suspicion of our particular local tendencies and dispositions,)—incident, generally, to the elective principle:-evils and dangers against which it may be for the wisdom of our synods to provide some adequate guard. The sentiment of Dr. Johnson, with reference to a question similar in its nature, within another communion established in one portion of the British Isles, without being adduced as condemnatory of the principle of election here in our view, may serve to indicate some of those incidental consequences, the prevention of which must, on all hands, be desired. Having had described to him, two parties, those for surporting the rights of patrons, independent of the people, and those against it,' 'It should be settled,' he said, 'one way or the other.' 'I cannot wish well,' he continues, 'to a popular election of the clergy when I consider that it occasions such animosities, such unworthy courting of the people, such slanders between the contending parties, and other disadvantages. It is enough' he concludes, 'to allow the people to remonstrate against the nomination of a minister, for solid reasons.''

The appointment of the Metropolitan had been in entire accordance with the wishes of the Bishop of Quebec. It has been stated that the office was offered to himself; but this is not strictly true, though, if it had not been for his intervention, an arrangement for giving it to the senior bishop for the time being, which had been actually agreed upon by the authorities at home, and would have involved his acceptance of it in the first instance,† would certainly have been carried In the episcopal conferences held in London in 1853 on the subject of synodical action, it was understood that a Metropolitan should be appointed for the whole of British

out.

⚫ I have inserted this passage, as well as that relating to the Metropolitan, as possessing a peculiar interest from the fact that the counsels which it contains were so soon called for in his own diocese. The passage was re-printed in a Quebec paper just before the election of the present Bishop, and probably contributed to produce the right spirit with which that election was conducted.

His patent as Bishop of Quebec dating in 1850, some of the officials at home who had not ascertained that the date of his consecration was 1836, imagined the Bishop of Toronto to be senior in office as well as in years, and this gave rise to a report that his lordship was to be the Metropolitan.