Providence, Politics, and the Early Canadian Presbyterian Worldview, 1815-1875

Boundless Dominion: Providence, Politics, and the Early Canadian Presbyterian Worldview, 1815-1875 by Denis Beer McKim A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of History University of Toronto © Copyright by Denis McKim 2011 Boundless Dominion: Providence, Politics, and the Early Canadian Presbyterian Worldview, 1815-1875 Denis McKim Doctor of Philosophy Graduate Department of History 2011 Abstract Insofar as the word “Presbyterian” is recognized at all in the early twenty-first century, it is understood to be virtually synonymous with such terms as “austere” and “parochial.” Judging by the actions and attitudes of the denomination’s staunchest adherents in nineteenth-century Canada, such associations are by no means historically unfounded. Devout early Canadian Presbyterians exhibited an unmistakable capacity for, among other things, strict Sabbatarianism and sectarian conflict. Yet there was more to the denomination in nineteenth-century northern North America than an unbending insistence on the importance of Sabbath observance and a seemingly irrepressible penchant for inter- and intra-denominational disagreement, influential though such tendencies were. Early Canadian Presbyterianism was galvanized by an elaborate worldview, the essential characteristics of which contrast sharply with the denomination’s dour reputation. This worldview drew together members of an institutionally incoherent, geographically dispersed denomination and equipped them with an invigorating conceptual synthesis of distinctiveness, duty, and destiny. The central component of the Presbyterians’ worldview was a desire to facilitate God’s ii achievement of dominion, or spiritual sovereignty, over northern North America, and to promote an uncompromising Protestant piety as extensively and as energetically as possible throughout the wider world. The realization of these inter-related objectives hinged on the propagation at home and abroad of the denomination’s characteristic theological doctrines and liturgical practices. Fervent Presbyterians were convinced that, in combating sinfulness in nineteenth-century Canada as well as elsewhere in the world, virtue would prevail definitively over sinfulness and the groundwork would be laid for the Christian millennium, a glorious thousand-year age in which violence, poverty, and injustice would be entirely unknown. iii Acknowledgments I did not write this dissertation alone. A number of people contributed in one way or another to the study that follows, and it is a pleasure to be able to acknowledge their efforts here. I am grateful to the staff, faculty, and graduate student community in the Department of History at the University of Toronto for creating a stimulating scholarly environment in which to study and work. For facilitating the research on which this dissertation is based I am indebted to the staff of the following institutions: the Presbyterian Church in Canada Archives; the United Church of Canada Archives; Library and Archives Canada; the Archives of Ontario; the Queen’s University Archives; Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management; and the Media Commons, Robarts Library, University of Toronto. I am especially grateful to Bob Anger and Kim Arnold of the Presbyterian Church in Canada Archives, where much of my research was carried out. Every historian should have the opportunity to work with such kind, conscientious professionals. I had the good fortune of belonging to a writing group whose members—Ariel Beaujot, Susana Miranda, Alison Norman, Nathan Smith, and Cara Spittal—have been enormously helpful and unfailingly supportive. This dissertation has benefited greatly from their insights and advice. Members of the writing group as well as Julie Gilmour, Brad Miller, and Julia Rady-Shaw generously assisted with my preparation for the dissertation’s defence. The writings of John S. Moir, doyen of Canadian Presbyterian historiography, have been an invaluable resource. Stuart Macdonald bolstered my knowledge of Christian and Presbyterian history and offered perceptive comments on several of the dissertation’s chapters. Heidi Bohaker insightfully assisted with the third chapter, while Todd Webb provided helpful historiographical references. The Beer and McKim families have, as always, been hugely supportive. My grandfather, Samuel H. Beer, provided particularly important encouragement and characteristically incisive advice prior to his death in 2009. I am grateful for his contributions and miss him very much. It is difficult to accurately convey the depth of my gratitude to the members of my dissertation committee for their guidance and friendship. Steve Penfold’s imaginative iv contributions to early brainstorming sessions and penetrating comments on the various chapters have strengthened this dissertation substantially. I am grateful for his thoughtful involvement in this project, and am an admirer of his wide-ranging historiographical interests and expertise. Arthur Silver, who graciously acted as one of my committee members while in retirement, has been immensely influential throughout my time as a graduate student. Discussions with Professor Silver on, among other things, the politics and culture of nineteenth-century Canada have been among the most intellectually gratifying experiences of my life, and I am grateful for his assiduous comments on numerous aspects of my dissertation. Mark McGowan has been an exceptional supervisor. He has given unsparingly of his time and knowledge, offered perceptive feedback on the various chapters, written a dizzying number of reference letters, responded to an even larger number of e-mails, and served throughout as a model of scholarly enthusiasm and dedication. I am also grateful to Jan Noel, who posed stimulating questions during the dissertation’s defence, and to Marguerite Van Die, who provided astute insights in her role as external examiner. Notwithstanding the many individuals who have assisted with the research and writing of this dissertation, the author is solely responsible for any errors and/or infelicities that may appear in the pages that follow. My sister, Jessica Runge, and her family have been an important source of comfort and good cheer. I am inspired by Helen Dewar’s scholarly aptitude and devotion, and am deeply indebted to her for her love and support. Her contributions to this project have been indispensable. My parents, Frances Beer and David McKim, have contributed to this dissertation in every conceivable way. For this reason, and countless others, it is dedicated to them. v Table of Contents Abstract ii Acknowledgments iv Table of Contents vi List of Tables vii Introduction: Confronting a Caricature 1 Chapter One: The Wonders Wrought: Providence, Empire, and the Moral Foundations of Early Canadian Presbyterianism 48 Chapter Two: Exiles from their Own Realm? Church, State, and the Politics of Early Canadian Presbyterianism 99 Chapter Three: Beneath the Canopy of Heaven: Nature, Order, and the Presbyterian Conception of the Northern North American Wilderness 152 Chapter Four: Summoning Up History: Myth, Millennium, and the Making of Usable Presbyterian Pasts 196 Conclusion: Boundless Dominion 241 Bibliography 253 vi List of Tables Table One: Distribution of Presbyterians in Mid-Nineteenth-Century British North America 28 vii Introduction: Confronting a Caricature And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. —Genesis 1:28 The time seems about due for a new history-writing which will attempt to explain the ideas in the heads of Canadians that caused them to act as they did, their philosophy, why they thought in one way at one period and in a different way at another period. —Frank H. Underhill, “Some Reflections on the Liberal Tradition in Canada” (1946) In Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich Stephen Leacock satirizes the fictional Presbyterian church of St. Osoph. So quarrelsome was the congregation, he explains, that as a result of an extensive series of disputes it severed its ties to virtually every other Presbyterian group. Implicit within Leacock’s assertion is an irreverent critique of the wider denomination’s reputation for fractiousness. St. Osoph’s, he elaborates, seceded forty years ago from the original body to which it belonged, and later on, with three other churches, it seceded from the group of seceding congregations. Still later it fell into a difference with the three other churches on the question of eternal punishment, the word “eternal” not appearing to the elders of St. Osoph’s to designate a sufficiently long period. The dispute ended in a secession which left the church of St. Osoph practically isolated in a world of sin whose approaching fate it neither denied nor deplored.1 Satirizing St. Osoph’s—and by extension the larger Protestant denomination to which it belonged—was surely Leacock’s main objective. Yet it should not go unacknowledged that his sketch also sheds valuable light on the actual Presbyterian ethos of the day. Among the most revealing aspects of Leacock’s account is his depiction of the congregation’s unrelenting tendency toward fragmentation. The fractured state of mid- nineteenth-century British North American Presbyterianism throws into relief the “real life” existence of such a predisposition. Owing to a litany of

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