50 ONTARIO. 



do very well if the women and children attended to these 

 matters ; the rest would follow in due time. But here is 

 the hitch; the women say, "What is not worth the 

 attention of the men is not worth our attention we are 

 as good men as they are; we want to make money in 

 trade, to vote at elections," &c., &c., &c. So religion goes 

 to the wall. This is partly the effect of carrying toleration 

 to excess. The people who hold these opinions are the 

 descendants of the old Puritan fathers. As has been 

 often the case in history, a generation of bigots has 

 been followed by a generation of freethinkers. Few 

 native-born Americans are Roman, Catholics, few belong 

 to the Church of England. They are Congregationalists, 

 followers of Mr. Ward Beecher, or of any other gentleman 

 who tickles their fancy. Many of them " take their 

 religion around," Anglice, they go to listen to any new 

 preacher they hear of. And yet these very people have 

 the consummate impudence to send missionaries to con- 

 vert benighted Britishers. 



Things are very different in Canada. There in every 

 city or village the Churchman can attend his own church, 

 the Roman Catholic, the Presbyterian, and the Methodist 

 can do the same. There is toleration here too, but not 

 carried to excess. There is not war to the knife, as in 

 Ireland, between Protestant and Catholic. Political 

 parties are not divided according to religion ; Protestant 

 and Catholic, Churchman and Dissenter, vote together 

 at the polling booth, and yet each loves and supports 

 his own church. In Lower Canada, where the Roman 

 Catholic church is predominant, the Church, as might be 

 expected, is driven to an extreme, and, as in Ireland, may 



