hope
became fainter and fainter. In his next letter he recounts a conversation
with a person (not named) 'of much intelligence, and well acquainted with
Upper Canada,' not a member of the Church of England, but favourable to the
maintenance of an endowment for religious purposes, who, after remarking on
the infatuation shown by the friends of the Church in 1840, expressed a
decided opinion that the vantage ground then so heedlessly sacrificed was
lost for ever, so far as colonial sentiment was concerned; and that
'neither the present nor any future Canadian Parliament would be induced to
enact a law for perpetuating the endowment in any shape.' The increasing
likelihood, however, of a result which he regarded as in itself undesirable
could not abate his desire to see the matter finally settled, or shake his
conviction that the Provincial Parliament was the proper power to settle
it. With his correspondent it was not so; nor can it be wondered at that
the organ of a Tory Government should have declined to accede to the prayer
of an Address, which could hardly have any other issue than secularisation.
But the decision was not destined to be left in the hands of the Tories.
Before the end of 1852 Lord Derby was replaced by Lord Aberdeen, and Sir J.
Pakington by Lord Elgin's old friend the Duke of Newcastle, who saw at once
the necessity of conceding to the Canadian Parliament the power of settling
the question after its own fashion. Accordingly on May 21, 1853, Lord Elgin
was able to write to him as follows:

[Sidenote: Empowering Bill passed.]

I was certainly not a little surprised by the success with which you
carried the Clergy Reserves Bill through the House of Lords. I am assured
that this result was mainly due to your own personal exertions. I am quite
confident that both in what you have done, and in the way you have done it,
you have best consulted the interests of the Province, the Church, and the
Empire. I trust that what has happened will have here the favourable moral
effect which you anticipate. It cannot fail to have this tendency.

As respects the measures which will be ultimately adopted on this vexed
subject, I do not yet venture to write with confidence. If the
representation of the Bishop of Toronto, as to the feelings which exist
among the great Protestant denominations on the question, were correct,
there could be no doubt whatsoever in regard to the issue. For you may
depend upon it the Roman Cath