Page:The Englishwoman in America (IA englishwomaninam00birdrich).pdf/326

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
312
CANADA.
Chap. XIV.

Besides these there are 8000 coloured persons and 14,000 Indians in Canada, and emigrants from every civilised country in the world.

As far as regards the Church of England, Canada is divided into three dioceses—Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec—with a prospect of the creation of a fourth, that of Kingston. The clergy, whose duties are very arduous and ill-requited, have been paid by the Society for Propagating the Gospel, and out of the proceeds of the clergy reserves. The Society has, in great measure, withdrawn its support, and recent legislative enactments have a tendency to place the Church of England in Canada, to some extent, on the voluntary system. The inhabitants of Canada are fully able to support any form of worship to which they may choose to attach themselves. Trinity College, at Toronto, is in close connexion with the Church of England.

The Roman Catholics have enormous endowments, including a great part of the island of Montreal, and several valuable seigneuries. Very large sums are also received by them from those who enter the convents, and for baptisms, burials, and masses for the dead. The enslaving, enervating, and retarding effects of Roman Catholicism are nowhere better seen than in Lower Canada, where the priests exercise despotic authority. They have numerous and wealthy conventual establishments, both at Quebec and Montreal, and several Jesuit and other seminaries. The Irish emigrants constitute the great body of Romanists in Upper Canada; in the Lower Province there are more than 746,000 adherents to this faith.