benefits of an act, to the basis of which Lord Sydenham never could
have obtained the consent of the Canadian Legislature without their
most decided support.

I should deeply lament the re-agitation of the clergy reserve
question in Canada. Such a step, on the part of the great Wesleyan
body there, would doubtless be attended by the strengthening of the
opposition in the Legislature, and to probable withdrawal of the
support of several members from the present Government. In an
interview with the official Committee of the Wesleyan body, shortly
before I left Canada, I promised them to bring the subject before
your Lordship during my stay in England. They, therefore, deferred
appealing to the Local Legislature to interpose in their behalf,
until they should learn the result of such an appeal to your
Lordship....

I cannot suppose that it has been the wish of your Lordship, any
more than the intention of the Crown officers, to perpetuate the
exclusion of the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Canada from their
confessedly-just claim of which they have already been deprived for
a period of four years. The amount of the claim is less than
one-half of what has been secured to the Roman Catholic Church in
Upper Canada--less than one-third of the amount paid the Church of
Scotland, and less than one-tenth of what has been guaranteed to
the Church of England. The Wesleyan body, whose members in Upper
Canada have increased eight thousand during the last four years,
will be satisfied on the payment of the sum admitted in their
behalf. And I submit that the sanctioning of it by your Lordship
will, in my humble opinion, be far better, even as a matter of
policy--apart from higher considerations--than affording just
ground for an agitation, the consequences of which cannot be easily
foreseen.

No relief was, however, afforded by a change in the administration of
the Act of 1840. The Act itself remained unrepealed until 1853.

FOOTNOTES:

[128] In process of time, the necessities of his Church compelled the
Bishop to adopt a new financial scheme, which he laid before his clergy
in 1841, one main feature of which was to incorporate the voluntary
principle with a system of moderate grants--such as has been the rule
adopted for some years by the Mission Board of the Diocese of Toronto.

[129]