THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



the feudal claims of the first-born. To establish 

 in Canada the state Church, which is the grand 

 buttress of aristocracy in England, has proved as 

 hopeless as to establish aristocracy itself. The 

 Church lands have been secularized ; the univer- 

 sity, once confined to Anglicanism, has been 

 thrown open ; the Anglican Church has been re- 

 duced to the level of the other denominations, 

 though its rulers still cling to the memories and 

 to some relics of their privileged condition. As 

 a religion, Anglicanism has little hold upon the 

 mass of the people : it is recruited by emigration 

 from England, and sustained to a certain extent 

 by a social feeling in its favor among the wealth- 

 ier class. More democratic churches far ex- 

 ceed it in popularity and propagandist force: 

 Methodism especially, which, in contrast to Epis- 

 copacy, sedulously assigns an active part in 

 church-work to every member, decidedly gains 

 ground, and bids fair to become the popular re- 

 ligion of Canada. Nor is the militarism of Euro- 

 pean aristocracies less alien to industrial Canada 

 than their monarchism and their affinity for state 

 churches. The Canadians, as we have already 

 said, can fight well when real occasion calls ; so 

 can their kinsmen across the line ; but among 

 the Canadians, as among the people of the North- 

 ern States, it is impossible to awaken militarism 

 — every sort of galvanic apparatus has been tried 

 in vain. Distinctions of rank, again, are want- 

 ing; everything bespeaks a land dedicated to 

 equality ; and fustian, instead of bowing to broad- 

 cloth, is rather too apt, by a rude self-assertion, 

 to revenge itself on broadcloth for enforced sub- 

 missiveness in the old country. Where the rela- 

 tions of classes, the social forces, and the whole 

 spirit of society, are different, the real principles 

 and objects of government will differ also, not- 

 withstanding the formal identity of institutions. 

 It proved impossible, as all careful observers had 

 foreseen, to keep the same political roof over the 

 heads of slavery and antislavery. To keep the 

 same political roof over the heads of British ar- 

 istocracy and Canadian democracy would be an 

 undertaking only one degree less hopeless. A 

 rupture would come, perhaps, on some question 

 between the ambition of a money-spending no- 

 bility and the parsimony of a money-making 

 people. Let aristocracy, hierarchy, and milita- 

 rism, be content with the Old World ; it was con- 

 quered by the feudal sword ; the New World was 

 conquered only by the axe and plough. 



4. The force, sure in the end to be attractive, 

 not repulsive, of the great American community 

 along the edge of which Canada lies, and to which 



the British portion of her population is drawn by 

 identity of race, language, religion, and general 

 institutions ; the French portion by its connec- 

 tion with the Roman Catholic Church of the 

 States ; the whole by economic influences, against 

 which artificial arrangements and sentiments con- 

 tend in vain, and which are gathering strength 

 and manifesting their ascendency from hour to 

 hour. 



An enumeration of the forces which make in 

 favor of the present connection will show their 

 secondary and, for the most part, transient char- 

 acter. The chief of them appear to be these : 



a. The reactionary tendencies of the priest- 

 hood which rules French Canada, and which fears 

 that any change might disturb its solitary reign. 

 Strong this force has hitherto been, but its strength 

 depends on isolation, and isolation cannot be per- 

 manent. Even the " palasocrystallic " ice which 

 envelops French Canada will melt at last, and 

 when it does French reaction will be at an end. 

 We have already noted two agencies which are 

 working toward this result — the leaven of Ameri- 

 can sentiment brought back by French-Canadians 

 who have sojourned as artisans in the States, and 

 the ecclesiastical aggressiveness of the Jesuits. 



b. " United Empire Loyalism," which has its 

 chief seat in Ontario. Every revolution has its 

 reaction, and in the case of the American Revo- 

 lution the reaction took the form of a migration 

 of the royalists to Canada, where lands were as- 

 signed them, and where they became the politi- 

 cal progenitors of the Canadian Tory party, 

 while the " Reformers " are the offspring of a 

 subsequent immigration of Scotch Presbyterians, 

 mingled with wanderers from the United States. 

 The two immigrations were arrayed against each 

 other in 1837, when, though the United Empire 

 Loyalists were victorious in the field, the political 

 victory ultimately rested with the Reformers. 

 United Empire Loyalism is still strong in some 

 districts, while in others the descendants of roy- 

 alist exiles are found in the ranks of the oppo- 

 site party. But the whole party is now in the 

 position of the Jacobites after the extinction of 

 the house of Stuart. England has formally rec- 

 ognized the American Revolution, taken part in 

 the celebration of its centenary, and through her 

 embassador saluted its flag. Anti-revolutionary 

 sentiment ceases to have any meaning, and its 

 death cannot be far off. 



c. The influence of English immigrants, espe- 

 cially in the upper .ranks of the professions, in 

 the high places of commerce, and in the press. 

 These men have retained a certain social ascen- 



