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The Colonial Church and School Society and the Early Years of the Sabrevois Mission, 1850–18841

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The Colonial Church and School Society and the Early Years of the Sabrevois Mission, 1850–18841 CHAPTER THREE THE COLONIAL CHURCH AND SCHOOL SOCIETY AND THE EARLY YEARS OF THE SABREVOIS MISSION, 1850–18841 Richard W. Vaudry Introduction The origins of the Sabrevois mission lay in the conversion of one man and the evangelistic vision of another. On Sunday, 26 July 1846, in the Anglican church at Christieville in the Richelieu Valley, before about 200 worshippers, Charles Roy publicly renounced the Roman Cathol- icism in which he was raised and was received into the United Church of England and Ireland by the third bishop of Quebec, George Jehoshaphat Mountain. Describing this event as ‘wholly new in Canada,’ Mountain characterized Roy as ‘a servant of God,’ and his faith as a demonstration of his ‘firm adherence to the undisguised truths of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the apostolic communion of the Church he was about formally to join.’2 This was a momentous step, both for Roy and for the future of French Evangelical Anglicanism in the province. Conversion to Protestantism involved the renunciation of an identity which had been taken for granted from birth and which, in the minds of many Roman Catholics, was inextricably bound with the idea of French Canadian nationality. However, serious and prolonged study of a French Bible which had been given to his family by a British regimen- tal officer stationed at St. Jean, had convinced Roy that the Roman Catholic Church was in serious error on a number of critical doctrines.3 1 Funding for this research has been received in part from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada through their Aid to Small Universities Programme. 2 [George J. Mountain], A Journal of Visitation in a Portion of the Diocese of Quebec. By the Lord Bishop of Montreal, in 1846. Church in the Colonies, No. XVIII, (London: SPCK, 1847), 46. 3 For varying accounts of the gift of this Bible see Ernest R. Roy, ‘Our Family’s Debt to the Bible,’ (1950) Unpublished MS United Church Archives, Toronto, 1. Robert Merrill Black, ‘Anglicans and French-Canadian Evangelism 1839–1848. Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society, 26.1 (Apr. 1984), 30. Montreal Witness, 27 Jul. 1871. Jean-Louis Lalonde, Des loups dans la bergerie: Les protestants de langue française 50 richard w. vaudry Further study and reflection persuaded him that the Anglican Church’s Thirty-Nine Articles were thoroughly scriptural. While fears of ‘perse- cution and trouble, even in his own family, …delayed [him] openly renouncing the communion of Rome,’4 he experienced a deepening conviction of the need to make the profession of his new found faith public ‘as a help to hold him to his adopted faith, in his maintenance of which he knew he should be severely assailed.’5 Roy’s wife, Félicité Simard, was next to publicly renounce the Roman Catholic church. Their conversions to Protestantism were deep and long lasting and together they raised twelve children, becoming the ‘first family’ of French Canadian Anglicanism.6 Accounts of Roy’s conversion would become part of a transatlantic missionary discourse. Relayed through press and pulpit throughout the British Atlantic world it held out the promise of the widespread conversion of French Canadians and served to shape evangelistic strategies.7 au Quebec 1534–2000 (Montreal: Fides, 2002), 131. Ernest R. Roy, ‘Our Family’s Debt to the Bible,’ 1. Cf. Mountain, A Journal of Visitation, (1847), 46–47. Ernest Roy also suggests that Charles Roy sought out Mr. Tanner, ‘a French Canadian missionary’ in Montreal who helped him understand certain difficult passages of scripture. 4 Montreal Witness, 27 Jul. 1871. 5 Mountain, Journal of Visitation, 47. Mountain’s account of Roy’s conversion tends to emphasize the role of the visible church. Ernest Roy suggests that Charles had been threatened by his father with being disinherited but that after careful explaining of the situation, ‘his father relented and unconditionally presented him with his portion of the inheritance.’ ‘Our Family’s Debt to the Bible,’ 2. 6 Ernest Roy asserted that he knew ‘of eleven sons, sons-in-laws or grandsons who became priests in the Church of England.’ Three sons served as clergy in the Diocese of Montreal: Edward, Jean and J.J. See J.I. Cooper, The Blessed Communion: The Origins and History of the Diocese of Montreal 1760–1960, (Montreal: Diocese of Montreal, 1960), 254. In her study of French Canadian Protestants in South Ely, Quebec, Christine Hudon, drawing on the work of Dominique Vogt-Raguy, asserts that many conver- sions to Protestantism were superficial and could easily result in a reversion to the Roman Church. The same could certainly not be said of families like the Roys, Fortins and Babins. Christine Hudon, ‘Family Fortunes and Religious Identity: The French- Canadian Protestants of South Ely, Quebec, 1850–1901,’ in Gender, Family, and the Religious Culture of Canada, 1760–1960, ed. Nancy Christie and Michael Gauvreau, (Montreal/Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2002), 138–66. Lewis Norman Tucker included a picture of the Roy family in the London publication of his Rome and the Bible (London: Hadden, Best, 1884), 12. The caption refers to ‘First French Canadian Family that Left the Church of Rome to Join the Church of England.’ The same picture appears in R.P. Duclos, Histoire De Protestantisme Francais au Canada et aux Etats- Unis, (Lausanne: G. Bridel, 1913), I, 237. 7 As late as 1884 promoters of the Sabrevois mission in England, like Rev. L. N. Tucker still referred to Roy’s conversion in making their case for English support. Rome and the Bible: Or The French Canadians, (London: Hadden, Best, 1884), 11. Cf. ‘Church of England French Missions in Canada,’ The Foreign Church Chronicle and Review for the Year 1882, (London: Rivingtons, 1882), 113–14; Cf. The Church Journal, 4 Mar. 1875, .
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