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Posted
Rev A Brandram No 76
Montreal, 20 December 1838
My dear Friend,
On the evening of the same day in which the postscript to my last letter was written, I left New York, and on the 11th current I arrived safely in this city. Our lateness in the season, and the early set in of winter this year, we found to our disadvantage in traveling. The greater part of the water communications were frozen up, and the cold was severe. Our West India bodies did not much relish the frost which prevailed during our whole journey, but we stood all better than our expectation. We had the thermometer one morning as low as 5° under zero. As we entered the territories of Canada the snow came down upon us; and when it had thickened on the ground sufficiently, we dropped our wheel movement, and took to the sleigh, the peculiar winter vehicle of this country, and in which we came the last 50 miles of our journey. We thus you see at once got initiated into the winter weather and circumstances of this quarter, and we rejoice to say that though the change to us has been great and sudden, yet altogether we find things less against us than could have been well supposed. The Lord will deal graciously with us, we trust, in this polar region, as he did with us in the burning climes of the Torrid Zone, where we experienced so much of his mercy and his loving kindness in our health and in all our ways.
On the evening of the very day on which I arrived, there was held a meeting of the Committee of the Bible Society at this place. This gave me, at once, an opportunity of seeing several of our friends, and of entering on business without delay. Two days after this, a Sub-Committee was held, in order that we might have together a general discussion of all the points connected with the present state and prospects of the Society; and a general meeting of the Committee a few days subsequently, to consider these topics, and to form resolutions upon them. I was much gratified with the spirit manifested at all these meetings; and have been led thereby to anticipate very favourable things in regard to the Montreal Bible Society. Their operations, during the past year, have been extensive; and there is a prospect that they will be still further extended before long. The present political state of the country is unfavourable, and may retard our operations; but we see, though somewhat darkly, that even these civil commotions will, in effect, be attended or followed by good effects, as respects the kingdom of Christ; and also as respects the empire to which these colonies belong.
After full consultation with our brethren and fellow-labourers here, I have resolved to pay visits through the sphere of the Bible Societies in this Lower Province before moving from it; and for this I shall have the benefit of the sleigh movement, which is a great advantage in places where, during the unfrozen season, the roads are generally bad, and often nearly impassable. In the spring I purpose visiting the Upper Province; and on finishing my tour there, I would think of going to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
Since I arrived in this city, and indeed for months before, I have been meditating upon plans and arrangements for forwarding our cause as effectively as possible in this quarter. What things occurred to me in these meditations I have laid before our friends at the meetings which have been held. Our views have coincided in all the subjects discussed; and I shall now mentioned to you those parts of our plans that require early consideration.
On several occasions I understand this society has suffered a lack of Bibles on the spot where they were immediately wanted this want has been in part remedied at times by applying to the American Bible Society which is near at hand. Applications have been made to that institution on another ground also. Namely, from a fear of being burdensome to you through requesting supplies which they could not well pay, and which they were loath to ask you to put down as grants. I am sure it is the wish of the whole Committee in Earl Street to do everything possible to secure an extensive and useful circulation of the Scriptures in this quarter; and that you would not wish to throw any of the burden on our American friends, however kindly they might be disposed to participate with you in supplying us, as they have actually done on several occasions, and to a considerable extent.
I would propose, therefore, in conjunction with the Committee of our Society here, that there should be a depot of Bibles in this city, sufficiently ample to prevent a lack at any time. This depot should contain supplies also for all the Upper Province, which must, of necessity, always get them through this place, which is the extremity of sea navigation in this quarter, as vessels come from England to this port, but cannot go beyond it. This depot in Montreal for the supply of both the Canadas, should be considered a sub-depot of your general depository in Earl Street; and kept in your own hands in the person of your Agent. To it the various Societies here could apply from time to time to meet their immediate demands and means. Our Committee here, as already hinted, would consider this a very suitable arrangement, and a great means of forwarding the cause throughout the country generally. I mentioned to them that it would probably be well, notwithstanding they people in this city, to have supplies sent direct from England to Quebec, in order to save the sending them thither, the distance of 180 miles from this. But this difficulty they said would be very inconsiderable, as most probably the daily steam boats would take them from this to Quebec free of expense.
Another thing we discussed also, and about which we all feel very anxious, and that is, the obtaining of a Bible at a cheaper rate than any of those you at present have. We wish to have one that we could sell here at half a dollar, invoiced by you to us, say at two shillings sterling. In addition to the natural desire of our friends here to have the Bible cheap that they might with the same means make a more extensive circulation of the Scriptures, there is the circumstance of the prevalence among them of American ideas, feelings, and practices. Now the American Bible society as a Bible which sold at forty cents, and the one next to it up words is fifty cents. Could you meet our desire here on this score, say, by printing your non-pareil on paper inferior to your second class, and binding it in sheep, but not in canvas? We wish also an inferior and cheap edition of the small pica 8vo with references, and a cheap French Bible, say the non-pareil. Do please turn your attention to this subject, and forth with, and let us have these cheap Bibles if you possibly can. Be so good and give us a cheap New Testament also in French, and in English, say in 24mo or 12mo.
I made particular inquiry in the American Bible Society house in New York, as to the plan they had of making up and fixing the prices of their Bibles. They told me, that the cost of the paper, the cost of the press work, and the cost of binding are the three and only items that enter into the account. The expense of the stereotype plates is not charged, but thrown in gratis. On this plan they have a Bible, as already noticed of forty cents. Would it at all be consistent with your plans to purchase for us these cheap Bibles in New York, having them properly prepared in the title page for us as being printed for you? This arrangement was suggested to me by Dr. Macauley one of the Secretaries of the American Bible Society, at which time he stated, that he believed the Society would be most ready to accommodate you in this matter. We must remember however that there would be duty to pay on them, bringing them here, of 30 per cent. In regard to the French Bible, as they print cheap in Paris, probably it could be got in up easily at the cost of two shillings. The French edition published by the American Bible society is not good. Whilst on the subject of getting up books, it is not irrelevant to notice, that the American Bible society letter all their Bibles, which I think is a better plan than ours. The lettering on the back costs but little, and is a great addition to the appearance of a book.
A further subject of our discussions, and of our request to you, was in regard to the distribution of the Scriptures among the French population here by means of colporteurs or hawkers. Two of these Bible vendors you authorized this society to employ up to May next. You wished that the persons for that purpose might be obtained in this place. It has been found impracticable to find suitable man for this office among the native Canadians who speak the French language, as this class is in a very low condition generally in regard to education, and more so in regard to religion. One person has been engaged for some time in thus hawking books among the French population; but he is an English Canadian and of course not so suitable as a Frenchman would be. From these circumstances therefore we all agreed to petition you, and that most earnestly, that you would let us have two of Mr. De Pressense's colporteurs, that is two of those very persons whom he has already employed in the service, and in whom he has particular confidence. Our country is new in this respect, and the thing is untried with us, so that we required to act at the beginning with all the judgment possible, in order that the results may be good. Please then in Committee to accord us to such persons, and then write Mr.De Pressensé to select for us to of his well tried and best men, and send them out to this city in the spring, say by way of Havre and New York. I do hope you will grant us this boon, and in this way; and doing so you will confirm a very great special favour on the Canadians, and on the Montreal Bible Society, whose humble and earnest petition on the subject I thus forward to you. Allow me now to put down the quantity and kinds of Bibles and New Testaments to be sent out to your depot here as a commencement. They are as follows [see below].
These supplies you will please send out to buy an early conveyance in the spring direct to this port. Probably it would be well to divide them into two nearly equal parts, dividing the kinds as well as the whole quantity, and thus divided to send one half by one ship, and the other by another. Should the whole be sent out in one vessel, and that vessel be lost, we should lose a good part of the season before we could replace them. I think you had better thus divide, and send them.
It is much wished here, after the American fashion, that you would put a few blank leaves of good writing paper between the Bible and Testament in the English 4to Bibles for "family record" with these two words printed at the top of each page. You will see how this is done in the large American Bibles in your library, for I suppose you have copies of these, as well as of all the American editions of the Scriptures. There can be no objection to the doing of this I think, and it would make the book more valued. I should like you to say something to me as a guide in making grants, either for schools, or of a general nature from our depot here to the several societies to be supplied from it.
In a few days I set out, up the course of the River Ottawa, in company with some of our Bible friends, to visit some of the Bible societies in that quarter. The wintertime is the most advantageous and the favourite season for travelling here. It is then that the frost paves the otherwise bad roads, and the snow coming afterwards smooths them into a kind of rail way. And to which the people are during these months more at leisure, as their farming operations are at a stand, whilst the Earth is enjoying its rest, to awake again in due time at the sweet call of spring, to labour for man in summer, and to pour into his lap all plenty in the months of Autumn. O Lord, how manifold are thy works: in wisdom hast thou made them all: the Earth is full of thy riches.
I remain, My Dear Friend, Very Truly Yours,
James Thomson.
P.S. Have the goodness to alter the number of my last letter from 74 to 75, which number it ought to be, as the sketch of our Bible Society operations in Jamaica comes in for number 74 being dated 25 October. I have been hindered by my movements from finishing and copying this for you; but will seize the earliest leisure for attending to it; so that you may look for it soon.
Please desire Mr. Hitchin to remit £10 to Mr. Andrew Ker,[1] 12 Greenside Place, Edinburgh, and to place the same to my Private Account. J.T.
[1] Note (BM): Andrew Ker was appointed co-pastor along with Jas. Haldane in the Tabernacle after Thomson had gone abroad.
Posted
Rev A Brandram No 77
Montreal, 6th January 1839
My Dear Friend,
I have now the pleasure of addressing you a second time from this country and city. In my former communication dated 20 December, I mentioned that it was my intention to set out very soon on a Bible tour up the course of the River Ottawa. I set out accordingly on the 24th four days after writing you. I was accompanied by two valuable and esteemed friends, the Rev. Mr. Wilkes, and the Rev. Mr. Curry.
It would be neither news, nor information, to say, that the morning on which we set out was cold; for you must needs know that every morning and day here is cold, and cold enough during the winter season. Nevertheless, allow me to tell you, that that enter two items into our cold here, one of them visible, I may say, and the other sensible. The visible one is indicated by the degree on the thermometer; and the other one, which is sensible and felt, arises from the super-added wind; and I may say that the second is in many respects the severer of the two. We had both these items in the weather on 24 December when your three servants set out on their Bible tour. The thermometer was at eight degrees under zero, and the wind was brisk and right in our face. The cold was severe indeed. There sat and moved onwards in an open vehicle, your poor West Indian, just come out of the torrid zonian oven, and, by one leap, brought to this frozen pole. I need not tell you, that under these circumstances I thought, and thought again, of the warm and delightful days of Jamaica, which I had so recently left. I could not help thinking how foolish it was in me to leave the sunny clime of the West Indies, to come to this dreadfully cold place to be frozen to death or to uselessness. In truth my body was dragged along in the coldness of Canada, but my mind was in Jamaica. My two companions were better used to the cold of this country than I was; but even they felt this day to be very severe; and every body we spoke with on the road, declared by their looks and words, the severity of the cold. Indeed in different parts of the country I have heard since of that day as being, in a marked manner, keen and piercing. I knew not whether it is policy to confess, but to tell you the truth I felt I know not what kind of pleasure in perceiving everybody affected by the cold in the degree neatly or altogether like myself. There was a gleam of hope in this which naturally give pleasure in the midst of pain.
Well, we vehicled along over the snow sliding and straddling in this thing they call a sleigh without wheel or any other rotatory, and in which article it seems all ride here in the winter, from the governor to the peasant.
At 21 miles from Montreal we reached the town of Eustache, where we saw the effects of war and rebellion in burnt down houses, and here we perceived also proofs of the commotion state of this country at the present time, in observing the bands of soldiers stationed here, and in full military vigilance. We passed the sentinels and barracks, and nobody said anything to us; but lo and behold, when we had got 3 miles beyond, a sleigh flew past us like an arrow, and then stood right across our path, out of which issued a soldier gun bayonet and all, and ordered us to stop and return to the village. We thought this hard, and endeavoured to show the soldier that we were loyal men and no spies nor rebels; and what is the matter, said we, and what have we done? The soldier nobly replied, "I know nothing of your matter, I am only a private, and have orders to bring you back." Of course there was no resisting of this authority, and back we turned. In about a mile's travel however we met an officer, and so explained things to him that he let us turn and pursue our way. Seven miles onward we stopped at a house a little after dark. But we were not long there when two soldiers entered the place with noise and authority, and one of them was the commanding officer of the district. It should seem that suspicion fell upon us after we were let go, and off post haste came this officer and his man on horseback pursuing us for seven miles. He questioned us, and we replied, showing our passports, which fortunately we had brought with us. We then became friends and friendly, and so passed over all this affright and affray.
In this house we were most kindly invited to stay the night; and we accepted the invitation, as we had passed a severe and long day, though a short one, in the midst of the cold. We should have reached the place we aimed at had not the drifted snow injured the roads and impeded our way. In this house we were very kindly treated by Mr. and Mrs. Clare, whom we found to be friends of the Bible Society, and Bible readers and followers themselves.
Next day we started, and it snowed upon us all the way; but the weather was considerably milder than on the preceding day. We came to St. Andrews, where we had appointed a meeting for that evening. We held the meeting accordingly, which was fairly attended, and a Society was formed. We met with some obstacles here in the way of a full unity, but are in hopes they will by and by be removed, for Bible Societies often remove differences, and in truth the Bible we carry about should always make differences disappear, and unite all in one, under the banner of God and Christ. This place has helped our Bible work already, and we hope it will do so much more now through means of this Society.
On the following day we moved on, and up the River Ottawa, and which we crossed once on the ice for breach. We came to L'Orignal, and to the place of the Sheriff of the Ottawa district embracing to counties. At Hawkesbury a few miles before reaching this place, we were met and accompanied by the Rev. Mr. M'Killican, who has been twenty-two years in this country, and been engaged in preaching to the Gaelic settlers in this neighbourhood. At L'Orignal we held a meeting, and formed the Ottawa District Bible Society, with Mr. Treadwell, the sheriff, at its head. Our Committee, we considered, was formed of useful Bible men, and there is a good hope that this will prove a valuable Branch Society. At L'Orignal, our good friend and companion Mr. Wilkes left us, being obliged to return to Montreal.
On the 27th Mr. Curry and Mr. M'Killican and I went on to a place called Van Kleik's Hill on a rising ground which separates the waters which flow into the Ottawa and St. Lawrence rivers. Here we were to have held a meeting at noon but from some mistake in the notice nothing was done. From this we set out to Mr. M'Killican's house where we were kindly treated, and in the evening went a few miles onward to hold a meeting of the Bredalbane Bible Society. We had a good meeting in the Baptist chapel, in which the Rev. Mr. Fraser officiates, and hope some Bible Society good was done on the occasion. This district of Bredalbane is settled chiefly by persons speaking the Gaelic language, and most of whom are Protestants. A good many copies of the Scriptures have been circulated in this district through the Bible Society here, and the work of circulation goes on. We learned that there were some Bible and Gospel openings among the Catholic population in this quarter. The Society will look out for means of doing them good, as far as the getting the Scriptures into their hands is concerned. This, among other circumstances, shows the advantages of a local Bible Society.
After leaving Mr. Frazer's, where we had passed the night, and pursuing our way to a place where we had an appointment in the evening, we called that an intermediate distance on the Rev. Mr. McIsaac a Scotch clergyman who was stationed in that quarter. We found him friendly, and disposed to cooperate with us in the Bible committee embracing that place. We set forward again and some miles onward we stopped to dine with Mr. Catanach who is a warm friend of the Bible Society in every way. At his store there is kept constantly a Bible sale; and soon after we entered we saw a man carry off a great armful of the blessed books. At Mr. Catanach's we were gratified at meeting a Mrs. Mackenzie, who with her son had come seven miles to meet us, and to carry us to her house where we were to lodge. This was very kindly done, and we felt the kindness. After dinner we spoke a little to some people who came to see and you to us. We recommended the Bible, and forthwith a young woman bought a copy and took it home with her.
In the afternoon we started for Mrs. Mackenzie's, she and her son leading the way in their own vehicle. We reached her house, and were very kindly received by her husband Captain Mackenzie and her family. In a house adjoining to this we had a good meeting in the evening; the Gaelic tongue, and with which all of them were familiar. We surmounted this difficulty through our good friend Mr. M'Killican, who continued to accompany us. I told the good people present about the Blacks in the West Indies, giving out what I had to say piecemeal, and then sitting down to Mr. M'Killican and had stated the same in Gaelic. This intervaling of our addresses, and the two languages, and the notices about the West Indies and other places rendered our meeting, as we all thought, interesting. It was the Kenyon Bible Society that was addressed on the present occasion, and we hope it may be animated to go on with increasing vigor by what was thus brought before them. We have at least one Catholic with us, and our friends were gratified that he had an opportunity of hearing how readily many Catholics in Spanish America had received the Scriptures, priests and all; and they thought the circumstance might lead himself and others of his persuasion to receive the Scriptures in like manner.
Next morning we left Mrs. Mackenzie and her family, she earnestly recommended to me to see and speak with the son of hers who lived in a distant place, which I said I should probably visit in the course of the winter. She wished him to be brought to the Bible, and to God, and to Christ, where she herself stood.
About the middle of the night it had commenced snowing, and in the morning we had eight inches of new snow. At eight o'clock we set out; it still continued to snow heavily, and did so all the way, and it attained before we stopped to fifteen inches. As it was and had been perfectly calm, the roads were deeply covered all over and obliterated, so as to make it exceedingly difficult at times for our experienced guide and good friend Mr. M'Killican (who still accompanied us onward,) to find the way in the cross roads through which we had to go, and once, and again, and a third time we had to get some help, which was afforded in a very kind and frank manner. In passing through the woods the scene was beautiful. All the trees were loaded almost to breaking, with the snow that had just fallen on them. We safely reached the house of Mr. Kennedy, an excellent Christian man, living in what is called the Indian Lands, where we were to have a meeting that evening. Mr. M'K. and I stayed here, whilst Mr. Curry went on some twelve miles further to meet another appointment we had, and to prepare for further measures next day. In the afternoon the weather greatly changed, and in the evening we had quite a storm, consisting of a strong wind, a heavy drift of snow, and severe cold. It was such a night, Mr. Kennedy said, as he had seldom seen, and nothing worse had he witnessed since he came to this country seventeen years ago. You would say, of course, we had no meeting with such weather. But we had a meeting notwithstanding all, and our audience amounted to about thirty. We all seemed to enjoy the occasion, and perhaps things were heightened by the comparison of our sheltered situation, in the midst of the storm, and our Bible communications. There was a resemblance here to the safety and heavenly employments of the city of God upon earth, in the midst of a stormy world, which is like the raging sea, or a wild Canadian winter-storm, in the midst of which we were.
Our audience on this occasion also was mostly of the Gaelic tongue, not all understood English, so that the services of our good interpreter were not required. Both in these Indian Lands, and in all the county of Glengarry, as well as in many other places in this neighbourhood, the Gaelic language is extensively spoken. Of those using this tongue a good many are Catholics, and they too much resemble Catholics who are the Romans elsewhere. We hope however to get the Bible more or less introduced among them, and our local societies, as I said before, will most likely be greatly useful in this way. It was the West Glengarry Bible Society that we met on this occasion; and we endeavoured to animate it to new exertions.
On the Sunday morning following the stormy night all was calm and peaceful, but the cold was intense, the thermometer standing at 24° under zero. We had two appointments that day, 13 miles off, and the other 12. After breakfast we set out with a beautiful day, though of course severely cold. At our first place, in the house of Mr. Peter MacDougall, who is a member of the North West Glengarry Bible Committee, we had a very good meeting, and our addresses were of the nature of the Bible society sermons, combined with statements of what has been done, and what is still to do. We formed no new society here as we were within the sphere of the one above mentioned, and still on the Indian Lands. As soon as the service was over we set out for Martin Town, 9 miles onward, and we hastened because we were late, and the roads were bad from the heavy fall of snow and drift of the previous day. It was after dark before we reached. Here we met our good friend Mr. Curry, and were gratified that he had met with no accident in the bad weather of the Saturday. He had prepared for us a meeting, and we had a good audience, and forthwith formed a new society under promising circumstances. We passed the night that Mr. Malcolm McDiarmid's, where, as usual on all our way, we were treated with all Bible courteous attendance.
On Monday, 31st December Mr. Curry returned direct to Montreal, and I with Mr. M'Killican went on to Cornwall, a town lying on the north bank of the St. Lawrence. In this place Mr. M'Killican introduced me to the Episcopal minister Mr. Archbold, and to the Scotch minister Mr. Urquhart. Having done this he returned to Martin Town on his way homeward. The services of this good friend deserve to be particularized. He met us first north of his own house on the Ottawa on the Wednesday, and carried us afterwards to his own house, and then accompanied us, as I have noticed, day by day south of his own residence on to Cornwall on the St. Lawrence. His services have been efficient and gratifying, and I shall often recollect the superior nature of his conversations as I sat beside him in his own vehicle during part of our movements. May the God of the Bible reward him, and bless all his family, and prosper his ministry in this district.
In Cornwall, I had several interviews with the ministers above named, and saw other persons who might be of service in our Bible cause. Not the least of these other persons was Colonel Philpotts, brother to the Bishop of Exeter. This gentleman and soldier diligently studies the Bible, and is well-known in this country as the friend and advocate of Bible Societies. At present his name stands as one of the vice presidents of the Toronto Bible Society. Col. Philpotts entered warmly into the object of forming a Bible Society in his present residence the town of Cornwall; and through his services and influence, and through those of the two ministers mentioned, a society was in effect formed, and I hope under good prospects.
The whole of this country at present is in a military attitude, and drilling bodies and posted sentinels are to be seen here and there in all directions. But Cornwall and other frontier spots are filled with military men and things. The state of matters was of course unfavourable to the establishment of a Bible Society, but nevertheless we succeeded. Our meeting to form it was held in a private way, and its aspect fully partook of the military appearances of the place and country. We had three Colonels with us, and the dangling of swords was heard with every movement. In this warlike, but peaceful manner, we met and entered into resolutions to supply the place and neighbourhood, and all the world, with the Book of peace and righteousness. The three Colonels entered into the number of our office-bearers. There is just one more colonel in this place, but he is a Catholic and commands the Glengarry regiment, in which county as I mentioned before, there are many Catholics.
This meeting was held, and this society formed in Cornwall on 3 January. On the evening of the fourth as it grew dark I left that place in the stage, and at daylight next morning I arrived in Montreal.
Thus and thus as above described was begun and performed my first tour in this mission, and my first encounter I may say of a Canadian winter, I have mentioned to you at the beginning of this letter the severity of the cold on the day we set out, and what were some of my feelings both as to body and mind. I may now say to you at the close of this tour, that I feel more reconciled to my cold lot here than I did that day. The truth is, we had not another day of equal keenness during the whole tour. And although we had the thermometer down to 24° under zero, even that was less severe in feeling than the 8° under zero when we started. The difference arose from the presence and absence of the wind on the two days respectively, as I hinted to you before.
I have travelled all weathers during this tour, and in all hours of the day and the night. My health has not suffered at all, I may say, in this exposure, nor have I even had a common cold. I ought to feel most thankful to God for dealing with me in this gracious manner under the great change of climate I have experienced, and so suddenly. God will bestow upon me, I trust, a portion of the spirit of gratitude for such mercies, and will also animate me, I humbly hope, to persevere in his and your service in this country until I have completed, if God spare me in life and health, the visitation with which you have entrusted me.
I may now state, in reviewing this tour, that I am much gratified with the manifestations I have observed from place to place in favour of the great Bible cause, and I have been cheered with the many excellent Christian people I have met with. The Scriptures are much needed throughout this country at large, but I think there are materials that may be turned to account as media for supplying them with that accuracy and advantage which local institutions only can meet. The natural and extensive forests and wildernesses, which but a few years ago entirely covered this country, are now changed in part, and we see wherever we travel spots of cultivation amidst surrounding forests. So it is with regard to the possession of the Bible and the possession of religion in and over this country. There are many spots which are spiritually cultivated, and are now yielding the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. The forest here is fast giving way, and will, by and by, disappear.
Thus onward also is moving the kingdom of God, and it is much more certain that the reign of God shall prevail over the world, than that cultivation shall prevail over this land. Every Bible tour in the country extends the kingdom of heaven, and hastens on the halcyon and glorious days when the Son of man and of God shall rule on the earth. In these days, says the prophet Zechariah, "the Bells of the Horses shall be holiness unto the Lord." Every horse here during sleigh times, is by express law obliged to wear bells, and most needful this regulation is, to prevent accidents from the nearly noiseless sleigh over the snow. Thus moved on your Bible servants in the tour above described, with our horses bells ringing as we went along; and considering the Prophet's words, and our movements in fulfilling them, we thought the bells said and sung ever and anon as they sounded - "Holiness to the Lord."
I remain, My dear Friend, affectionately yours,
James Thomson.
Posted
Rev A Brandram No 78
Montreal, 31st January 1839
My Dear Friend,
I sit down now write you my third communication from this country, and to detail to you the occurrences of my second biblical tour in this mission. When our friend Mr. Wilkes parted from us at L'Orignal, as mentioned to you in my last letter, I desired him, as he was about to visit what is called the Eastern Townships, to make arrangements and engagements for me to visit the Bible and Societies formed there, and to hold meetings at new places, as he might see fit. Our friend kept this momento before him, and made engagements for me in several places; and on the 14th instant I set out in fulfillment of the same. I should mention to you that these Townships lie directly east of the city, eastward of the River Richlieu, and south of the him and him St. Lawrence. With this direction you will easily find them on the map. The French settlers, or old inhabitants of the country, occupy a portion of land lying near the two rivers mentioned, and after them come the Eastern Townships, which are all settled by English people, or those speaking that tongue.
My first movement was to Granby, and in the stage. A little below this city we crossed the great St. Lawrence river in all its breadth and depth on the ice. As soon as we had passed over we found ourselves in the French village of Longueuil, with its Catholic church and its Catholic inhabitants. In the forepart of the night we reached Granby, and at ten I set out again in the Sherbrooke stage. Just as I had sat down in this open sleigh-stage, a soldier stepped in and sat beside me, with a sword by his side, two loaded pistols in his belt, and one firm in his right hand for immediate use. This was to guard the mail which we carried, for it seems an attack had lately been made upon it in this neighbourhood, and supposed to be by the party which has so much trouble the country; and the nearness to the border of the United States gives a facility for committing these depredations.
At one o'clock in the morning I called up a good man on way whose name and nature had been described to me are before I set out. I inquired whether he could send me across the country through the woods and so save me from going 30 miles round as I must otherwise do by the stage. He said he could: upon which I stopped at his house, and two o'clock went to bed. Next morning after breakfast he took me in his sleigh and brought me to Melbourne. Lonely and cold was our ways through the forest until dark when we got in; but it was cheered by the interesting conversations we have together concerning all things around us in the country, and especially concerning the kingdom of God. Mr. Worcester is well instructed in all these matters, and lives a life to the glory of God before all.
After Melbourne I met with the Rev. Mr. Dunkerley, a minister resident in that place and in connection with Mr. Wilkes. At Durham the Township next to this northward was our first meeting to be. But from some misunderstanding the notice had not been duly given. To remedy this Mr. Dunkerley and I drove from house to house in the Township, occupying what time we could in the same, in order to give the people notice of our Bible meeting. We succeeded in bringing a fair number together, considering the scattered nature of the population, and the shortness and deficiency of the notice. We met in Mr. Dunkerley's Chapel in that place, for he has one there and another in Melbourne. We talked of the Bible, and gave Bible statements and information. The effect produced seemed good, and forth with a new society was formed.
Our next meeting was that Melbourne. Here also we had fewer people than otherwise we would, through the notice not having been given out on the Sunday preceding. In that township a Bible Society has existed for some time. We found the Gentlemen's part had done little or nothing, but that on the other hand, the Ladies' department, as is usual, had done well. The women ministered to Christ of their substance, and still women minister unto Christ in your ranks, in Melbourne, and in many other places. We endeavoured in our addresses to strengthen the strong, and to lift up the hands which hung down. We had with us here the Rev. Mr. Selley the Wesleyan minister of this neighborhood who added his vote on the same side with ours. Our next meeting in succession was at Danville 12 miles from Melbourne. Thither Mr. Dunkerley drove me in his sleigh, and when there we met with the Rev. Mr. Parker who had has resided in that place some ten years faithfully preaching the Gospel of Christ. Our meeting had been duly notified, and we had a good audience, some of them from six miles on one side, and some from eight miles on the other. Our usual Bible topics and notices were brought forward, and were well received. There has existed a society here for some time, and much good has been done by it. Among other interesting notices of the circulation and use of the Scriptures in this neighborhood Mr. Parker has by request drawn up the following, as respects the French population.
"I put a number of Bibles into the hands of a friend in a neighbouring township (Kingsey,) for the supply of destitute families, and on sale; among them a French Bible, to be loaned among the Canadian Catholics. It was lent to a family where a young married woman was the only person who could read. She became very deeply interested in reading, and as it was only loaned for a fortnight, her husband said that she spent almost whole nights reading, lest she should not be able to finish it before it would be called for. Meantime her only light was the light of a stove fire. She could read only by opening the door of the stove, and sitting or lying on the floor in order to get the light of the fire from a close stove. But almost no inconvenience could deter her from searching the Sacred Volume. And she could not refrain from telling her neighbours what a boon she had obtained. These neighbours came to hear, and after a little, a considerable congregation was seen flocking there from miles round to hear the Word of God, and they pronounced it 'all very good.' The term of the loan was prolonged, and in a few weeks (I think about five) the Sacred Volume was read through. Soon after it was returned, a young man (a Canadian) came to buy it, and was told by the man in whose possession it was, that it was not for sale, but to be loaned. He urged the privilege of purchasing it, but read it he must, (he said,) and if he could not buy it, wished to borrow, and it is known that he is reading it with an awakened interest, and says, he will continue to do so in despite of the priest. Probably we shall soon gratify him with that or another copy for its price."
"Another Canadian woman who could read French, from a distance of eleven miles came to my house on a stormy and cold evening, and said that she had been told that here she could get a Bible in our own language, and it was her errand and to obtain one. She was furnished, and I have since heard that she reads it much, and calls it 'very very good.' These persons reside near a Catholic Church."
"Two young man in our immediate neighborhood have recently come, in like manner, and to say the least I reading the word of God frequently and attentively. And for one I am fully convinced, that unless the object be defeated by injudicious efforts and statements of Protestants, this class of our population will be led more and more to read and inquire, and that the work of God already visible among them to a limited extent, will progress to the mass of Popery will be leavened by the pure Gospel of Jesus Christ."
By these notices of Mr. Parker us you will perceive that there are some hopeful openings among the French Canadian Catholics here. I have learned several of the encouraging circumstances concerning the same people in different places.
Our friend Mr. Dunkerley and myself were, as you may well suppose, much gratified with the Bible meeting we had at this place, and with these inspiriting statements made to us there respecting the reception and use of the Scriptures on the part of French Catholics. But all our pleasures are mixed with toils and pains. When we had closed our meeting we had to travel twelve miles home in a moonless, starless, dark, and snowy night. Our friend, Mr. Parker, would gladly have constrained us to pass the night with him, but I was obliged to return to Melbourne, as I had to start from thence in the stage for Sherbrooke, at four o'clock next morning, to meet an engagement I had there. We both felt, I believe, more than we expressed, concerning this twelve-mile drive under such circumstances. About midway, owing to the darkness, we got into a wreath of snow where we were in some danger. We both got out of the sleigh, and after some exertion, with precaution, we extricated the horse and sleigh, and then with one of us pioneering and the other cautiously leading the horse, we got again on to the proper road. After this we pursued our way without other accident, and when we saw, gladly hailed the lights of our home; and when we arrived there, we gave thanks to our heavenly Father gratefully for his merciful goodness to us on this and on many occasions.
After a short repose at Melbourne I set out at four o'clock in the stage for shadow broke. Sherbrooke is the head town of all the neighborhood, and is rapidly rising in population and importance. Your agent was kindly entertained there in the house of Mr. Samuel Brooks, the President of Sherbrooke Bible Society. On the Sunday evening we had a numerous meeting in the Rev. Mr. Robertson's chapel, himself being there, two of the Wesleyan ministers, and the Episcopal minister, that is all the ministers of that place. In addition to my statements here, and urging the putting of the Scriptures into the hands of all our fellow creatures over the whole world, I dwelt on the need and advantages of the Bible being held in high estimation in principle and practice by the Church of God in general, and by every family and individual of the great body. I stated too, and are urged, that all these objects were more or less attained by every meeting held expressly about the Bible, Bible Societies, Bible circulation, Bible reading, Bible instruction, and Bible blessings and glories here and hereafter. I do feel great and increasing confidence in that a Bible meeting is a meeting with which God is well pleased; and that every such meeting is greatly promotive of his glory, and conducive to the advancement of his kingdom on earth. The will of God must be made known before it possibly can be done: – I afterwards spoke in several of our friends and coadjutors there to reanimate themselves in their Bible work, for it was great; and this they promised to do. Some days after this I received a letter by post from a gentleman of high standing in the community in that place. Of this letter I give you a copy, begging you to excuse the seeming or real egotism is in my doing so. But your concerns are mine, and mine yours, and this is my apology. The sweet style of the letter besides, and the manifest interest it exhibits in your concerns, plead for my giving it to you: – "My dear Sir: – We were much obliged by your short visit to the Townships. I hope it will do good. I liked yourself for the Lord's sake, and I like the candour, simplicity and good spirit of your statement. I bless God for raising you up, and for qualifying you to fulfill the department of labour assigned to you in providence of his grace. I expected to have seen you again on Monday, and I went yesterday to Lennoxville in the hope of meeting you. My Bible contribution here has been hitherto expended in the supply of the County of Sherbrooke; but apart from local wants which no doubt have up have a paramount claim, I wish to embrace the opportunity of your presence in conveying my mite and my earnest wishes also in furtherance of the general fund and operations of that noble institution you worthily represent, and which truly gilts and brightens with honour and with hope, the age in which it is my privilege to live. I hope you will forgive this intrusion then, and received the enclosed note (for ten dollars), as I have no other way left of accomplishing my desire. And now may the presence and blessing of the Great King animate and protect you, and crown your labours with abundant success for his name's sake. With sentiments of respect and esteem I always remain, My dear Sir, Your very faithful, humble servant: – John Frazer."
From Sherbrooke I went to a place called it Eaton Corner, driven 3 ½ on the way by Mr. Selley the Wesleyan minister before mentioned, and then 13 miles more by Mr. Botterall another Wesleyan minister. That had been some doubt about the hour of meeting, and our visit besides was on the day of the week when it seems most were more than usually engaged. Nevertheless we hastily got together a little assembly: and a most gracious meeting was held: God was sensibly with us. A Bible Society was formed, and from the happy influence in which it began, I trust it will flourish. After our meeting Mr. Botterall drove me back to his own house at Lennoxville where I passed the night. Next morning the same obliging friend drove me to Compton a distance of ten miles. Here we had in the evening of a good meeting; and as a society was here in existence and action, we endeavoured to encourage and strengthen it. At a late hour Mr. Botterall and I set out and came to Charlestown, in order to be so far on the way to Stanstead where I have an engagement next day at an early hour. Thus far Mr. Botterall conducted me, and in a very kindly manner, and I feel greatly obliged by his services and his Christian courtesy.
It was well I have got so far on my way to Stanstead, for next morning the weather proved a very unfavourable. There was a fall of snow, a strong wind and drift, and severe cold. It was necessary however that I should go to meet my appointment. I hired a sleigh, and went fifteen miles, and was happy to arrive in good time. I took up my home with the president of the Stanstead the Bible Society, Mr. Pomroy, an elderly and sweet disciple of Jesus Christ, who has been in that place many years, and is greatly and justly esteemed by all. We went together to the place of meeting, but the weather had been so bad, and still continued so, that very few were there, most thinking that the severity of the weather would prevent the appointed meeting. After we were in the place some more people came, and our meeting was held. Cold, wild and stormy was all without, but within our little assembly that was peace, warmth and grace. God was with us, and we enjoyed a very comfortable meeting. We parted I trust with higher views of the Bible than ever, and with a reanimated desire to publish it wide throughout all the world without delay.
Next morning, 24 January, the thermometer stood at 31 under zero and of course it was cold enough. That day was employed in visiting some all our Bible friends in Stanstead. In the evening a little party of us met together at the house of Mr. Turner the Wesleyan minister, and our intercommunion with such, regarding the Bible and all connected with the Bible, that the remembrance of it will I believe, be long fresh in our memories. Altogether I was much gratified with my visit to the good people of Stanstead. May God greatly bless them in the kingdom of his son Jesus Christ, and in all their ways.
Military array and discipline prevail then at the present time. It be in the border town, a strong forces stationed in it, and the closest vigilance exercised. Many of the soldiers, or most of them, are militia, or rather the volunteers, brought in from the surrounding country. The friends of religion regret this state of things as having a very evil tendency on the young man, as well as others, in the demoralization consequent on this association together for such objects. They see however the necessity that is for such measures as the government has thus adopted; and they keep praying that all may be overruled for good.
On the 25th at daylight I left Stanstead, and at dusk reached Granby, where there was a meeting appointed for that evening of the Shefford County Bible Society and a good congregation assembled, and it is hoped that some good was produced in favour of the great cause of general Bible circulation. Next day across the country to St. John's, arriving in the evening, just seven weeks exactly sends our arrival there from New York on 8 December.
Nearly the whole of the parts I have passed through are inhabited by French Catholic Canadians: and so also is the town of St. John's, and most of the surrounding country. You will please recollect that I always think of you, and of the help we expect from you, when I travel through districts inhabited by this people. They are greatly in need, and have a strong claim for help, for they are in low estate, and need to be lifted up. The Bible, and the Bible only will and can set them on high, religiously, morally, and civilly. All people everywhere are in a low estate where the Bible is not; and the Bible always raises them in proportion to its entrance and extension.
At a place called Grande Ligne, ten miles south west of St. John's, there is a beautiful though small oasis in this French desert. About three years ago, two Swiss missionaries, speaking the French language, came to this country, and some time afterwards settled down at the place mentioned. God moved one of the families there to admit them into their house, amidst great opposition from the priest of the parish and the neighbours generally. The leaven took effect in due time, and went on spreading, and now by the grace and mercy of God they have a little church, consisting of twenty-four communicants, hopefully converted to God, twenty-two of whom were Catholics. There is also a school with about fifty French Canadian children in it. Thus you see this people are not impervious and sealed hermetically against the truth. But blessed effects are produced among them when blessed means are employed on their behalf.
Mr. Rousay and Madame Feller are worthy persons whom God has honoured in this good work. Sunday the 27th I passed in the House and Temple of these evangelists. It was a truly gratifying sight to see these French Canadians constituting their church worshiping God in the true knowledge of the gospel of Christ, and in a manner so different from their late ignorant and superstitious services. May God prosper this mission, and this work, and God will prosper it. Some friends in New York, and in this place have been moved to devise means and ways for extending this evangelization among these French Catholic Canadians by missionaries speaking their own tongue, and Switzerland is the country where such persons are most likely to be found. I am sure you will all say "God speed" to this work, and will be gratified with every communication that speaks of its advancement. It is a little out of order I know, but you may say to all who hear of this mission, the writer of this would readily be the receiver and deliver of any sums in its favour.
The number of the French Catholics in this country, are not much short, perhaps, of half a million. They are settled all along the great rivers of the country, and pretty densely, with here and there their villages and churches. In religion, education, and civil standing, they are, as before hinted, very low. Scarcely any efforts have been used hitherto for instructing these people. Much has been done for extending the Gospel in the Canadas generally, but these people have all the while been overlooked; partly from not having French tongues to speak to them, and partly from a hopelessness of any success that might attend the efforts made. Things have lately changed, however, and there is something like a movement among these very dry bones. The late and present civil commotions have been visibly over-ruled for awakening the attention of these people, and opening their minds in some degree to inquiry.
During this tour I have met with several cases that a strikingly pointing out this change, and it is truly gratifying to observe these favourable changes, I think again and again upon you, and upon our petition now probably in your hand, that you would be pleased to send us a couple of Mr. De Pressense's gens d'armes or rather gens de paix. I think of the manner in which you may be considering this matter, and somewhat fear you may not see our need so much as we do, and that you may perhaps required to be petitioned and you to grant us this biblical means we have sought out your benevolent hands. Mr. De Pressense can well spare two of the 44 he has got, or can easily get other two according to his own admission. The subject opens upon us here every day and enlarges itself. I humbly trust you will grant our petition at once: and I may at once say to you, that it will save you trouble to do so, for otherwise troubled you must be post after post with petition after petition, until you grant the same, either with good grace or from necessity, for by our continual coming we will weary you. They forgive me this rudeness, which our urgency has urged me into.
On Monday the 28th I left the mission house at Grande Ligne, and went on to Napierville and to La Colla, places which were the scenes of this latest rebellion here, I hope the last I went on to Odelltown which lies on the very boundary of the United States, and on this account all in it at present is military movement and vigilance. There is a Bible Society here, and I had learned that there was a good disposition to extend it. I found the resident Wesleyan missionary of the place absent on my arrival there, and this with the military state of things, and some other hinderances at that precise time induced me to coincide with the advice of some friends that met with, to defer the Bible meeting I had contemplated until some other more favourable time. I spoke with Col. Odell, and some other office bearers of the society, and found them very friendly towards the Bible cause.
On Tuesday the 29th I left Odelltown on my way homeward. In a few miles I reached La Colla. From that southward to the American Lines is English; but after that northward on La Prairie, a distance say of 25 miles, all is nearly French. I reached the great St. Lawrence River near the close of the day, and started to cross it just as it grew dark, and when the full moon was getting up. Boat we had none, nor bridge. We dashed into the river, stage, horses, passengers, and all as we were, and skimmed along its frozen surface. The scene was grand, very grand, liker enchantment than reality. The distance we went along the ice was about seven miles; and to add to the scene the road, if I may so call it, was thronged with vehicles, some going in the direction with us, and some passing us almost every minute. About midway there are three or four houses for entertainment, built on the ice, for the accommodation of passengers. This site of houses standing in or on the middle of this deep and broad river heightened the wonderment of the whole, and rendered it somewhat difficult to believe that all was a waking sight and not a dream.
Having crossed the St. Lawrence I found myself in Montreal, and at home. I praised God for his great goodness to me in all this second tour in this country, and for the encouragement I had met with in the grand object of circulating the Holy Scriptures, and advancing the kingdom of God.
May all the blessings of the Bible, and of this kingdom, be yours, and be the everlasting portion of all who love the same.
I remain, My Dear Friend, Very Truly Yours,
James Thomson.
Posted
Rev A Brandram No 79
Montreal, 16th February 1839
My Dear Friend,
In commencing this letter, I beg leave to notify to you the holding of the Annual Meeting of the Montreal Bible Society. Monday, the 4th Feb instant, was the day appointed for the meeting, the hour was seven in tin evening, and the place one of the largest churches in this city. I am happy to inform you, that that large place was filled and crowded on this occasion, and I may add, with interested spectators and hearers; that is to say, with persons to all appearance feeling an interest in the great Bible object which brought them together. But I speak correctly too, when I say this was an interested assembly; for who is not an interested person in the effects of a Bible meeting?
The platform was well supplied with ministers representing the different churches in this place. There were only two representatives wanting. One of these from the body that honours the Scriptures the least, or rather tramples upon them, and the other from that which honours them the most. This riddle you can explain at your leisure; and I would only here add, that there was little wonder that the absence of the former of these bodies, but it is most wonderful, and I may say most inconsistent, that a Bible Meeting should not have a ministerial representative from a church in which the Scriptures are more read in public than in any other in all Christendom. I hope both these churches noticed will be converted to the right way in due time; and they will to a certainty be both converted in this that a particular, and the Bible and Bible meetings will convert them.
The crowded audience referred to, listened with the closest attention to the several speakers till a late hour, and testified their approbation in a collection of thirty pounds, or 120 dollars. I may here put in also, that the immediate and closest friends of the Bible Society were much gratified for some days after the meeting, by hearing from various individuals o the audience, their expressions of satisfaction with the meeting, and cordiality in its great object. I notice these several circumstances, as descriptive of the state of your Bible Society here; and I may well say, you have obtained a broad and firm standing in this community, which will never be altered, I trust, except by increase.
Our report is just leaving the press, and I shall avail myself of a certain liberty I have of transmitting you a few copies by post. You will find much in this report to interested, and will be glad to see that in the midst of war, we have made such progress in the way of peace. Our motto is, "Peace, peace, to them that are far off, and to them that are near." I send you a newspaper in which you will see a short account of our public meeting, drawn up by are worthy friend the Rev. Mr. Curry, whom I mentioned to you as the companion of my form our Bible tour in this mission.
You will see that we had with us the Rev. Peter Jones, an individual of course well known to you in several respects. We were all much interested in his accounts of what God had done for his poor countrymen, the Indians of this territory; and by means, as he well pointed out, of the Bible.
Before I leave off speaking of the Montreal Bible Society, it is but right I should specially notice the manner in which the Committee meetings are attended. There is always a good, and I may say a large assemblage, and every body present seems to feel much interest in the concerns that are treated of. I may add also, that the meetings have been frequent and have therefore claimed a considerable share of the time of those who attend them. Altogether the standing and the prospects of the Montreal Bible Society are very encouraging. Blessed be God for the same, and may He who has brought us to this state, increase us from year to year and honour us greatly in the advancement of his kingdom.
In my letter to Mr. Hitchin No. 28 I enclosed a Bill for sixty pounds sent me from Perth, Bathurst District, upper Canada. That sum was for books, and I now give you the invoice I got along with the bill. They wish for [see below].
They say, "we should like these books sent out as early as possible, directed to Ward J. Bell, Perth, Upper Canada, care of Messrs B. Hart & Co., Montreal. We should prefer their being shipped direct to Montreal, as if unloaded at Quebec we should be put to some extra expense." They will of course cause them to be insured. If any money remains after accounting the order, you may mentioned that they can put in a few copies more of the English 4to Bibles, say not however to exceed in all 18 or 20 copies of that description.
This invoice will you please fulfill notwithstanding what I have said about what I may call perhaps my depot here, as mentioned in my letter No 76. Of that letter, I may here mention that I sent a copy of it, with some additions consisting of extracts from the minutes of the committee meeting held here relating to some of the statements made in the letter.
I have heard it regretted here by different persons, that so few copies of your last report were sent to this society. And now, though the Bible year is far advanced, they still beg me to write you for 30 or 40 copies of the same last year's report of 1838.
The noticing of this brings to my mind, that I had regrets expressed in the American Bible Society House in New York on this same subject, that you had sent there but few reports, Brief Views &c., and they indicated clearly, that they would be glad to receive more, and could use them to advantage.
I know not whether I should venture to ask you for a set of your reports, and of your extracts, and of your Bible pamphlets, for our Bible library here. But certain I am, that if you would send us than we should feel greatly obliged by your kindness.
By the way the mention of these pamphlets reminds me, that I have heard our Mr. Jamaica Tinson say, that he had begged these pamphlets bound up, and that Mr. Jackson said and wrote in answer to the petition – Yea, but that the fulfillment was – Nay. Be kind enough to notice this to our good friend beside you, why am sure will be glad to oblige Mr. Tinson on the matter referred to, as in all others within his reach.
The Jamaica letter, containing a view of Bible Society operations there, was sent off to you from hence some time since, and will very soon I trust be in your hands. In referring to an order for Bibles, in that document, from one single parish in Jamaica, then (October) in your hands, I believe I have said 4500 instead of 2400. The order I referred to is from Mr. McMurray of the Manchester Bible Society. Please look at that order and correct my letter by it.
All your letters for me in future (until further advice) please address direct to Montreal, instead of sending them to the American Bible Society House, New York as before desired. The Post Office arrangements I find admit of this. I formerly desired that letters should be sent to me only by the New York Packet ships. But, they may be sent by them, or by the steamer, as may be most convenient. I may here mention that there is a regular post between this and Halifax, so that you could also send in this way, should you at any particular time think it desirable, say in forwarding a duplicate. But New York affords the quickest and best transit for letters from England to Canada, both lower and upper.
Mr. Jackson's letter to Mr. Wilkes, dated I think of September, concerning the employment of Mr. Dupuis, was somehow overlooked, by its coming here when Mr. Wilkes was absent. Mr. Dupuis has been spoken to, and is to begin his operations as a Bible vender in a few days.
Soon after I came here, I wrote letters to all the 16 auxiliaries, to which I wrote from Jamaica under date 12 September. From some of those I have received answers, and of a very satisfactory nature. One I received lately was from Frederickton, New Brunswick. It is from the secretary of the Bible Society there "Henry Fisher", and he tells me, that the Rev. W Temple, whose name stands as secretary in your last Report, has not resided in that quarter these 17 years. Please to interchange these names in your next Report.
In a few days I intend to set out on a long tour over the Upper Province, going to Toronto, and to places west of it, as far as societies exist at present, or maybe formed, should materials and circumstances be favourable.
I remain, My Dear Friend,
Very Truly Yours,
James Thomson.
Posted
Rev A Brandram No 80
Montreal, 22nd February 1839
My Dear Friend,
I have lately received a letter from Toronto. It is above a gratifying nature, from the friendliness it exhibits, and from the intimation it contains of a hopeful prospect of an extensive circulation of the word of God in the district embraced by the Bible Society of that place. They have given me an order for books, and I forth with convey the same to you. It just for no less than 1040 Bibles and 1555 Testaments. The particular kinds and quantities are as follows [see below].
After preparing this order, it seems they received an Invoice from you of about £200 worth of books shipped to the care of Mr. Hyde, New York. You can deduct these £200 worth, they say, from the above numbers, attending of course to the kinds. "You may intimate," they add, "that we purpose they shortly to remit to the Society a Bill of Exchange. You will also oblige by urging on our friends at home the great importance of an early shipment, as it saves us considerable expense. Twice before they have been too late: once the books had to remain all winter at Montreal; and another time, they had to be got here by sleighs from Kingston." – Respecting the books sent for them to New York, they say, – "It will give us some trouble to get them without having to pay duty, both on the import into New York, and on the import into this province. If the former can be effected, we doubt not our Governor will consent to the latter, as he takes a lively interest in the prosperity of our Society. Should we not succeed in getting the United States duty remitted, they must be reshipped from New York to Montreal." The Toronto letter further states, that "A small pocket Bible with references is much sought after. A polyglot would be preferred. Also a small Testament: 50 of these would be desirable if printed for the Society".
What our friends here referred to seems to be a Bible like the American reprint of Bagster's English part of his polyglot. Most probably you have this reprint. If you have it not, I would say it appears in size about 18mo, and has the references in the middle of the page like Bagster's. Bagster's, I know, you could not circulate as it is; but you might print, of a similar size, say 18mo, the same references you print in your other Bibles. Please take this into consideration, and if you can meet our wishes, be so good as to do it; for no doubt, there is, and would be, a considerable demand for this book here, the people being already seasoned with it in the American volume above-mentioned: and I should think too, that it would meet with an extensive circulation in England also, and wherever you send English Bibles. The paper ought to be thin like Bagster's, that the volume may be thin and very portable. This arrangement will have the advantage besides the making the book cheaper, a circumstance always worth attending to when a major advantage is not sacrificed to it.
Before I leave this subject, of a very small reference Bible, I would beg leave to say how desirable it is to encourage the public demand for Bibles with the references. You are fully authorized by your own Rules, and by the Public Voice to print, publish, and circulate these as they are found in the English Standard Bible. You sit not, by the Public Balances, in the Annotator's or Commentator's chair in doing this, and you are therefore free to extend your labours what you can in this way. The object beyond all doubt, for which you circulate the word of God, is, that it may be understood. Now these references do greatly tend to make it be understood; and you should therefore, as above hinted, not only encourage, but also lead the public in this matter, that you may lead men sooner and surer to God. – I would illustrate this position with two things, one English, and the other West Indian. The English one, is the well-known (and too little-known) noble, terse, scriptural, and pious dictum or declaration of Bishop Horsley. He says, with respect to the use of Scriptures with References, – "It is incredible to anyone who has not made the experiment what a proficiency may be made in that knowledge which make us wise unto salvation, by studying the Scriptures in this manner, without any other commentary or exposition, then what the different parts of the sacred volume mutually furnished for each other. Let the most illiterate Christian study then in this manner, and let him never cease to pray for that Spirit it by which these books were dictated: and the whole compass of abstruse philosophy, and the recondite philosophy, shall furnish no argument with which the perverse will of man shall be able to shake this learned Christian's faith." – My other illustration, as I said, is West Indian. When in Barbados, I believe the first time, I was informed by an eyewitness of an elderly, or rather old Negro woman, a slave on a sugar estate, who having obtained I think from her master, a Bible with Marginal References, had perused much, and had acquired, partly by the text, partly by the references, a wonderful knowledge of Holy Scriptures. This excellent woman, black but comely, was in the habit of gathering a number of her fellow slaves around her; and when she had them assembled, she would first read a verse, two or more of the text, and then she would turn over to the passages noted in the references, and would then elucidate the Scriptures, and instruct and edify had little audience to the surprise of all who heard her – learned and unlearned. – I believe I never mentioned this circumstance in any of my letters from the West Indies. I forgot it at the proper time, though so worthy of being remembered.
This forget reminds me of another, and yet longer standing, and bearing upon my present subject of editions and forms of the Scriptures. – When I was in Oxford, I think in January 1827, I was introduced by our worthy friend Dr. MacBride to Mr.Collingwood and would the King's Printer. Among other specimens of his printing, Mr. Collingwood showed me a sheet or half sheet of the beginning of Genesis printed in paragraphs. Mr. Collingwood, I well recollect, spoke much in favour of this way of printing the Scriptures, and said he was willing to do it for the Society, if you wished. He gave me this sheet, or half sheet, and I still have it by me; and in giving it me I think he said something about my laying it before the Committee, and recommending the plan for adoption. My memory says that I did not do this. I take blame myself for neglecting it. The causes of my not noticing and recommending to you this plan, which so much agrees with my own judgment, I do not exactly recollect; but think that it was a feeling that my recommendation would not have had much weight, and that Mr. Collingwood without doubt would take an opportunity of bringing this subject before the Committee by Dr. MacBride or by other persons whose authority and influence would incline to a full examination of the plan, and it might be to its adoption. Probably enough Mr. Collingwood did this, though I have never heard of its being the case. One thing is certain, that you have not adopted it. But now, at the present day, year and hour, the subject is brought afresh before us, by the recent publication of a Portable Paragraph Bible in America, and by a similar work in England, from that Society, second only to our own – the Tract Society. Allow me then now, by way of making up for the former delinquency, to draw your attention to this matter, and to give my decided vote in its favour. As the King's (now the Queen's) printer will print in this form for you, there can be no serious difficulty in your way as to the adoption of this plan: and by adopting it you would very greatly elucidate the Scriptures. Begin, say, with one edition, which might be the non-pareil, brevier, or long primer.
Another item on this general topic. – In my letter from this on the 20th December, I brought before you, in conjunction with the Committee of our Bible Society here, the desirableness of having all our Bibles from England and you. And in order to the obtaining of this object, as well as for other reasons mentioned, I beg you to consider well whether you could let us have a Bible, with inferior paper and bindings, that it might not cost more to us and to you than two shillings. Such a Bible would come to us as cheap as any American one. The present times here and commotions furnish an additional argument in favour of what is here noticed. The other day the Secretary of one of our branch societies, who had had sent him from the depot some American Bibles, was highly offended at the same. He says in substance, – "Who knows how the American Bibles are printed: is not this a British colony: and can we not have Bibles printed in England?" This feeling is now gaining ground, and I hope you will feel with us. I have all confidence in the Bibles from the American Bible Society; but all do not think of this as I do: but besides this point of fidelity I would say, that loyalty himself, and propriety every way, lead us to seek all our Bibles from England; and from thence, I trust, for the future, we shall receive them. This you will see, militates against your obtaining cheap Bibles for us from New York as formerly hinted. – Please then, in connexion with this view of things, to let us have the cheap Bible, or rather Bibles petitioned for. I have said Bibles in the plural: for though our main petition is for a Bible at two shillings, we wish also a cheap edition of the small pica, with references; and not least a very cheap French Bible or two. I have always understood that printing and paper were low in France compared to England, and wondered that five shillings should be the price of your 18mo non-pareil French Bibles. You will I doubt not be able to let us have a very cheap Bible from thence; and I may say, it would be well to ship them direct from France thither, as it is highly probable we could get excuse of the duty here, which it may be you could not accomplish in England. I refer you for more particulars on this head, to my former letter dated as above-mentioned.
Our general depot in Montreal, concerning which I have written you in the same letter alluded to, will facilitate a constant supply of Bibles from England, and will be otherwise advantageous. The number of Bibles and Testaments I have requested from you for this depot, is small, and will probably do little more than supply this Lower Province. But in giving this inferior order, I was aware, that the Upper Province societies would of their own accord order supplies for the coming summer. Thus it has happened with Perth and Toronto: and as I said of Perth – fulfil their order notwithstanding my depot, so also I would say respecting the Toronto order now forwarded, and of others that may come to you direct. I wish to feel my way gradually about this people, and shall not be able to concentrate supplies to it till I have visited the different societies formed in the two provinces. – If you print the cheap Bibles, and can have them early, you can send out say 1000 of the cheapest English Bibles, and 1000 Testaments, and 500 of each of the other cheap Bibles and Testaments mentioned, in addition to the order for this depot already in your hands. – By the way, some of your invoices say "pocket Bibles", and as there are none so designated in your list printed in the Report, it would be well always to avoid this term and to conform to the wording in your list. This would tend to prevent mistakes. Be so good as send out for the general depot, say a dozen copies of the Bible map, done up in canvas and rollers.
It would be serviceable to me, and I shall feel obliged, if you would send me a duplicate of all invoices of Books sent to these Four Provinces and Newfoundland from and after the 1st January 1839, including the £200 worth for Toronto at New York. Of course my own depot is excepted, as I shall in this case have the original.
Probably it is worthwhile to send me one copy of the Monthly Extracts by post regularly as they issue from the press. These would furnish me with new and valuable matters for monthly use. During the West Indian mission of seven years I received very few of these Extracts, I should suppose under a dozen in all, and these with no regularity. If you think I should have these, be so good as a range for better regular and early transmission one by one per Post and New York. The steamers would be the quickest, but they are dear. The regular packets will bring them in good time. In thinking further on what I have said about American Bibles and cheap Bibles, I would add a word more. When in New York Dr. Macauley told me, that he had frequent applications at the American Bible Society House for Bibles from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, besides those from the Canadas before noticed to you. These requests, he said, they had often complied with, but not to the extent desired, from a feeling of delicacy that they might be interfering with you. That are two reasons for these applications, as I formerly intimated. One is, the fear of asking too much of you without remittances; but the other, and stronger perhaps, is a cheapness of the American Bibles, I mean the lowest priced ones. Now nothing can well stop this recurrence to America, but our having a cheap Bible ourselves. – I may here add too, that recently there are some Ministers and teachers from America in Jamaica: and I personally know the desire and the efforts of these to get out to that Island Bibles from America, and that because of their cheapness.
I have tired you out, I dare say, by all these observations about editions, and so forth. Forgive me: I seek the success of our great undertaking: and these mites I throw in, if peradventure they may tend to some good. May the Spirit who dictated all the precious volume you circulate guide you in every particular item of your work, that so the kingdom of God may be effectually hastened by your instrumentality. If anything I have said shall contribute to this, I shall rejoice in the same, giving all glory to God: – and unto God be all glory, in us all, in everything, and for ever and ever.
Believe me, Truly and Affectionately Yours,
James Thomson.
P.S. It will be as well, that you should not print anything I have said about American Bibles.
Posted
Rev A Brandram No 81
Montreal, 5th April 1839
My Dear Friend,
In my letter of the 16th February I intimated to you my intention of setting out soon after that date on a long tour over the Upper Province. On the 25th of the same month I started on this journey; but on reaching Cornwall I found my progress arrested unexpectedly. The great toe of my right foot had got injured some days before, partly I believe from the effects of winter frost, and partly from bruising. I had paid but little attention to it, not being aware of its real state. At Cornwall however I found it on examination to be in a condition requiring the greatest care and without delay. I was unable to proceed on my journey, and was confined to the house there for eight days. At the end of that time it had not improved, but was rather worse. Fearing that not less than a couple of weeks most probably would be required to restore this injured toe to its natural strength, and finding an easy conveyance to Montreal, I returned to this city, where I arrived on the 6th March. After I came I was entirely confined to the house through lameness for a fortnight, and nearly so for a week more. My improvement then went on better, and now at this stage I find my foot nearly though not entirely returned to its usual state.
Previous to my setting out for this journey I had written to several of the societies in my course stating when I expected to be with them. When I fully saw that I could not proceed, I wrote to the same societies to mention my detention, and the cause of it, and to say that on account of this hinderance, and considering the badness of the roads at this season of the year, I would not set out again till the navigation of the river and lakes should open.
I had been apprised before I set out, towards the end of February, that the weather might soon after that be expected to be bad, and to continue so during March and April. I was in that view advised to defer my journey during that unfavourable season. But I was unwilling to make so long a delay, and therefore set out with the intention of getting on more or less slowly as the roads and weather would permit. I have been hindered, as you see, by other causes from fulfilling my objects. –The loss to our cause from this accident and the detention has not, I am glad to learn been great. A letter I lately received from Toronto sets this before be. My correspondent, the Secretary of the Bible Society there, says, – "I think that in every way your present plan to visit this province when the navigation will be open better than being here at this time. The roads are, and will be, for a few weeks, intolerably bad, that even should you with great labour succeed in moving from place to place, it could not be expected that you could get the people to undergo the fatigue and positive labour that would be necessary to get to the public meetings."
Our winters here is now over, or nearly so. The frost and the thaw are at present contesting, but the thaw gains daily. Our river is still crossable on the ice in one place near the town, but it has become critical to cross it so. In a few days most probably there will be a grand disruption and perhaps and two or three weeks all our waters may be open for navigation. –Thus has passed off and over my first Canadian winter. I feel thankful to God that I have been able to stand it so well. The whole scene and circumstances have been singular to me, and seemed on a review to be like a dream. –To continue and lengthen out the dream, we had last week a most enchanting scene, which lasted for two days. Every tree in our gardens and orchards was converted into a grand candelabra, having all its branches and every twig thickly encased with icy crystals. Only think of the effect of the sun brilliantly shining on a whole orchard of these diamond lustres. I say, only think of it, for to describe it is impossible. We admire a large chandelier or two in a hall or saloon. But look at our orchard! Certainly nothing on earth can be more brilliant and enchanting.
The snow is now fast hastening away from our gardens and fields, and the land and the ground are coming again to sight, and pretty and cheering the sight is. This circumstance leads me to think of Noah's case, after he had been shut up from the sight of land about as long as we have been, or somewhat longer. How delightful must the sight of land have been to him on its reappearing. –There is another circumstance also in Noah's history that the reflecting mind is drawn to and dwells on in this country during the dreariness of winter. Summer and winter must continue, we remember, according to the promise Noah received. Summer therefore, we say to ourselves in our gloom, must again appear, and will dispel all our hoary and frozen deadness.
But let us also draw other consolation from these analogies, and from heavenly promises. How awfully is all this country in general frozen and dead unto God: and so alas, I may say too, is all the world. Oh how few are the saints – the saved – the number of those who are alive unto God through Jesus Christ! But, in the midst of this awful winter horror which the world now presents, we look forward, not with hope, but with absolute certainty, to the season of spring –then of summer –and then of harvest, even a glorious harvest of souls, when all the world will be full of saints, and everyone yielding fruits of righteousness unto God through our Lord Jesus Christ. That will be of a truth an orchard of brilliance, and of which the splendid scene that has lately been presented to us here, may be considered as an adumbration.
Further and lastly: –During the winter here, preparations are always being made more or less for the Spring: but who can bring the Spring about, but God only. So we, my friend, are making preparations for the spiritual Spring of this world during the present dreary and long continued winter. We are scattering abroad the word of God which alone can bring on the genial season we look for: but still God himself must bring it about, for our labours are nothing. Yet let us labour, and let us pray, for God will cause his sun to shine, and will melt this frozen world, and will usher in in due time all the richness of the promised seasons which with confidence we anticipate, because God hath said and sworn it in his own Blessed Book which we circulate and commend to all. Oh the blessed work therefore of circulating the Scriptures. In this, my Dear Friends, let us all rejoice, and all be faithful.
I remain Affectionately Yours,
James Thomson.
P.S. I have received information that the American duties paid on the Bibles you forwarded to New York for Toronto, will be returned when a document is sent from Toronto is sent stating that they have arrived there. Mr Hyde has obtained this favour for us. JT
P.S. 2nd. I have received no letters from Earl Street since my arrival in Canada. JT.
Posted
Rev A Brandram No 82
Montreal, 24th April 1839
My Dear Friend,
I write you a few lines just on the eve of my setting out for the Upper Province. If the Lord will I start tomorrow morning. I intend to go on to Toronto without delaying much by the way. Some of the Societies intermediate I shall speak with, but shall leave operations of any extent among them to my return from the more and most distant parts of the country. Our waters are now open for vessels, and all roads are better than the worst, and a bettering daily. This campaign will not occupy I suppose less than three months, and maybe longer as circumstances direct. My intention is to make a thorough visitation of the parts to which I now go, so that I may not have occasion to return to them for some time, but be at liberty to visit other places when this tour is completed.
I forward to you the duplicate of a letter from Toronto, enclosing the second of exchange of a remittance to you of £318. The statement given in this letter of Bible operations within the sphere of the Toronto Bible Society is very encouraging considering all opposing and hindering obstacles. Blessed be God who causeth the Bible to triumph in every place. Partial are its triumphs now, it is true: but they shall be general and complete in due time, and that time hastens on apace. Truly we fight and labour not as one that beateth the air, but we move on with a certainty of gaining our object, which no casualties can hinder, which no powers can prevent. God has said that his word shall cover the earth and fill it, and we go forth as his messengers, not doubting nor fearing for our purpose. We may be slow, but we must be sure.
You will see what our Toronto friends have said about sending out here the Monthly Extracts. The subject is important, and you will duly consider it. It would indeed be of value that we could see and hear you in your vast movements once a month. I have made special inquiries at our Post Office, and they informed me that newspapers and printed papers like your Extracts pay nothing when they come to us by way of Halifax, but that all such pay twopence when coming by New York. The stamping or not stamping makes no difference in the matter. You can inquire at the London Post Office whether they will receive and forward the Extracts unstamped or otherwise, and on what terms. If you can manage to get them to Halifax, all the difficulty is over. The steam packets twice a month which are to run before long from England to Halifax, and from thence to Quebec, will give great advantage in the transmission of these extracts.
I have I believe in a recent letter begged you to favour me with a bound set of Extracts for my own use. It occurs to me that it would be well to send out several copies of these, in order that I might give one say to each Branch Society.
We have had several meetings of our Committee here since I last noticed the subject, and I am happy to say all goes on well. We have many coadjutors in this city, and they labour cheerfully.
Your well-known hand, My Dear Friend, that used to cheer me and so often in my movements through the West Indies, and in previous times, has not been even once seen by me since my arrival in Canada. This is colder than our Canadian winter still, and I thought that cold enough. Pray what is or can be the matter? Has your right-hand forgot its cunning, that it can write no more, what answer am I to make for you? But I wait further, and leave you to answer for yourself, well knowing that whatever answer you do give, it will be the true one, for though you err little, yet when by chance you do go at all to one side, you always frankly say it, which all the world, even the Christian world do not. You are guileless. Well then for your answer for yourself, if ever you should write me again. Further, nobody writes for you: not a line from Earl Street have I received since I came to Canada.
Whether I hear from you or not,
I am Yours Affectionately,
James Thomson.
P.S. I advise a Bill drawn this day in favour of Joseph Wenham, Esq. for fifty pounds, to be charged to my private account.
Posted
Rev A Brandram No. 83
Chippeway Mission, River Credit, Upper Canada, 10th May 1839
My Dear Friend,
The present will be confined to notices and circumstances connected with the place from which I now write to you.
Probably you will recollect something about this Mission from its being so well known in England, and, I doubt not, personally to yourself. It is a village inhabited by Chippeway Indians, who only a few years ago were wandering over the expanse of this country, but are now by the providence and the grace of God gathered into this fold, where they enjoy the benefits of civilised life and religion. There are about 50 houses in the establishment, and the number of people is about 220. They have a chapel and a school house, and are privileged with regular religious instruction and the means of elementary education. Much has been done amongst them for good; but, (as it still is alas in all countries and among all peoples,) there is much remains yet to be done in order that they may fully reap all the advantages which God has placed within their reach through his blessing of civilisation, education, and religion. It is gratifying to the traveller to light on such a spot as this in his wanderings, and to contrast the present good with the past evil.
"Yet oft a sigh prevails, and sorrows fall,
To see the sum of human bliss so small."[1]
To contribute a little, however little, towards the good of such a people as this, is an enjoyment better than many others of a more general kind. To raise our fellow creatures in the scale of mentality, whilst also we are using means whereby they may become as high as angels, is a duty which we ought constantly to keep in mind. Means and ends are combined with each other by the Infinite Contriver of all, and in order to attain the latter we must avail ourselves of the former as the only royal road. By your ladder which God gave you skill to invent and to fix, one can climb up to the heights of mentality as well as to the third heavens. You must not think me fanciful, for I am only stating sober truths, that your ladder, standing on the Bible and made out of it, will reach to heaven we all know, nobody doubts it. But besides this we have proof bordering on demonstration, that your Bible Plan is one of the best means for advancing our fellow man in the scale of being, and for bettering their mental and worldly condition. I refer here to the well known and valuable discourse of Dr. Chalmers "On the Influence of the Bible Societies on the Temporal Condition of the Poor." On these double steps then which compose your ladder we may attain to high places here and hereafter.
My proem has been longer than I Intended, but the place and the people I am treating have led me on. I designed to write only a brief preliminary to your own work in this place, and this work I now bring before you.
On the 8th instant your agent visited this place, and on the evening of the following day there was held a meeting of the Chippeways in their chapel here. The attendance was good, and much interest seemed to be felt in the object which brought us together, and in the statements and details which were made. Your Grand Bible Plan I set before the Chippeways, and they seemed to perceive some of the grandeur of it, for the people are capable of higher conceptions and more expansive ideas than we are disposed to imagine. My West India Tour among a peculiar people led me to state many things concerning the past and present condition of the Negroes, and especially as concerns the Bible, their interest in it, and their labours to promote its general circulation. With the West India people I compared their own case, as also a peculiar people, endeavouring to point out what God had done for them, and what he expected of them.
A number of the people in this village understand a good share of English, but others know little of it. To meet this case, and that all the people might well understand the things that were brought before them, the Rev. Peter Jones went over my statements, when I had closed, embodying them in the Chippeway tongue. This served a double purpose, for it gave those who understood not before a knowledge of the things said, and on the other hand the re-hearing by others the same things in their native tongue which they had before listened to in English gave them a deeper impression of them from the accompanying savour of their native and favourite dialect.
The chiefs present, of whom there were four, also addressed their countrymen on these topics , and also the Rev. Mr. Slight and the Rev. Mr. Scott two Wesleyan ministers who were with us. All seemed to enjoy the occasion, and a Bible Society was forthwith formed with good will.
In April 1832, I communicated to you from the Island of Antigua the pleasing intelligence of the formation of the first Bible Society among the Negroes in the West Indies, I now communicate the no less pleasing intelligence of the formation of the first Bible Society among the Chippeway Indians, and I suppose the first formed among the Aborigines of North America, and all America. The Negroes kept up, and followed up, what they thus begun in the Bible cause. I trust the American Indians will do the same. The Negroes on Gilberts Estate in Antigua led the way among the Negroes, and the Chippeways of the Credit Mission now lead the way among the Red Man of the New World. May God prosper them and make them a Bible blessing to all their countrymen.
But I must not omit to notice one particular part of the Plan of your Grand Institution, and of its verification in the present instance. Your endeavour to re-make into one blood and feeling all nations of men on all the face of the earth. You have had your wish fulfilled in its measure in the spot from which I write, and in the institution here formed. The white and the red man met together, and together they have set down their names as brethren in unity, to give their support to this Bible Society as members of committee and as subscribers. What God joined together at first, and which man separated, is now come together again you see under your banners and God's.
It only now remains for me to record, that you may record, the names of the Office Bearers, and first subscribers to this Bible Indian Institution. I give the sums also, which thus far, you will see, amount to £5ː14ː3 of our currency, or say £4ː15ː0 sterling. I give you the Indian names of our Chippeway brethren, as it is just that they should stand registered in the Books of the British and Foreign Bible Society ......leaving you to pronounce these names the best way you can, I add one that you will have no difficulty with, and which is,
James Thomson.
[1] From Oliver Goldsmith, “The Traveller”. (BM)
Posted
Rev A Brandram No 84
Toronto, 23rd May 1839
My Dear Friend,
Agreeably to the notification given you in my letter of the 24th ultimo, I set out from Montreal on the 25th to make my Bible Tour over Upper Canada. On the 27th I was in Prescott, and called on the President, Treasurer, and Secretary of the Bible Society there, as well as on some individual members of the Committee. They all agreed in stating that they had for a good while past done little in their Bible work. They lamented the same, but would not wish this neglect to be set down as altogether arising from their indifference or indolence; but alleged, as they had good reason to do, that the war attack made on their town some time ago,[1] and the preceding and succeeding agitations arising from their border situation, and the general unsettlement of the country, had so operated on the minds of themselves and their Bible colleagues, that they had been forced as it were to neglect that which should not have been neglected. Our Prescott friends are willing to make a new effort in this good cause, and will gladly make arrangements for a public meeting, and for reinvigorating their Society. According to my plan, as stated in my letter already referred to, I did not wait to hold this meeting at Prescott, as I had to push on to Toronto. I left our friends however in the understanding that I would cooperate with them in this meeting and in their other measures when in the providence of God I should return to them after my general visitation of the father parts of this Province.
On the night of the 27th, and in the night, I came to the house of Mr Freeland, three miles from Brockville on the Prescott side. Here, as your servant, I was very kindly received, and had been invited several weeks before to make his house my tent during my short stay in that quarter. On the day following which was Sunday I attended the places of worship of Mr Campbell and Mr Smart, and was introduced to each of them. On the Monday and part of the Tuesday I had several interviews with two individuals just names, not together but apart, and also with other members of the Bible Society Committee there. I was glad to find that there was entertained by all with whom I met a good and friendly feeling in favour of the Bible cause. All seemed willing and anxious to restore their Society to its former state and to advance it, and they agreed together in that there was a good field open to them. Most or all of the misunderstandings will I think be understood when the parties are gathered together; and what cannot be so disposed of will it is hoped be sacrificed on the table of the Bible Committee when they all meet around it. I have in truth good hopes of seeing a flourishing Bible Society in Brockville, and that before long. Our friends regretted that I could not stop with them there to hold a public meeting and to rearrange their concerns. I promised to delay some time with them on my return, and they agreed to let all stand till then. I saw among others Mr Sherwood the president of the Society, and found him as anxious as any one to see the Society again in full action. Mr Sherwood is the Sheriff of the District on Johnstown in which Brockville is, and of course possesses a good deal of influence over the portion of the country for which he holds this office, and which influence he will I believe very cheerfully employ in furtherance of the Bible cause. From all these circumstances I have mentioned I shall look forward to my return to Brockville with satisfaction. But, as in all our satisfactions in this life there is a mixture of something else, so here, for I have kind and urgent invitations from Mr Campbell and Mr Smart, from Mr Sherwood and Mr Freeland to stay with them on my return, and I know not how to meet and fulfil all these kindnesses. I feel thankful for the state of things which this indicates, for I had looked to my visit to this place with some anxiety, and probably so did you.
On Tuesday afternoon I left Brockville, and next morning found myself in Kingston. On that day, Wednesday the first of May, I waited on you first, for by calculations easily made I found you were all assembled in Exeter Hall and in full career at our seven o'clock in the morning. I could not see you nor hear you, but I could understand you for all that, and could feel with you: and this I did, giving thanks to our Heavenly Father on your behalf, and making supplications. God, I trust, was manifestly present with you, and left his blessing on all assembled. I look forward anxiously to the time when your notices concerning the operations of that day shall arrive, to cheer the poor wanderer in his movements.
I visited our friends in Kingston, but found them very much down in their hopes respecting their Bible Society. They are willing however to see a new effort made to revive them in this cause, and agreed in the plan of holding a public meeting, and using other means in favour of a revival on my return. Mr. George Hardy the Depository I found to be a very efficient person in the work of the Society. I shall hope to see things put into a more vigorous train of operation when I revisit the place. The Rev. Mr. Machar the Secretary has I understand always taken a lively interest in the Society, but he has been absent from the country for some time. He is however expected by the time I may again be in Kingston, and I shall be very glad to find him returned when I come.
Bishop Macdonald of the Roman Catholic Church resides in Kingston. I called on him as we had met and sailed in a steamboat together on Lake Ontario in 1830. He recollected me and made many inquiries as to my travel since, and particularly regarding the Roman Catholics in Hayti and other parts where I had been. I told him how the Haytians had received the Bible, and of the large order the President gave for 200 Bibles and 3000 Testaments. I asked him whether he encouraged the use of the Scriptures among his people, and he answered in the affirmative, stating that he distributed many Bibles. He added that he was not pleased with you and us folks for saying that the Catholics were against the reading of the Bible. I told him some of our too good reasons for saying so, and that we would be glad not to say so any longer. He said he was about to visit England, and that he would feel much obliged would I give him letters to some benevolent persons there who might furnish him with an ample supply of Bibles! I found it was the Douay version which he circulates and wishes for. I tried to persuade him to take ours, and thus held out the prospect of his being well supplied. He hesitated about this, but did not put a negative on it. Should he when in London step into a certain house in Earl Street, I trust you will not knock him down in any fashion because he is a Catholic, but on the contrary and treat him with kindness, and meet his wishes, should he have any, for your Bibles.
On Saturday the 4th of May I arrived in Toronto, and came to the house of Mr. Champion, whose name is known to you as one of the secretaries of the Toronto Bible Society. Mr. C for some weeks before kindly invited me to make his house my house during my stay in this city. On the day of my arrival I went out, accompanied by Mr. Champion, to visit our Bible Society friends. We saw a goodly number of them, and found them all disposed to continue and to increase their support of your auxiliary here.
Among others we paid a visit to Sir George Arthur Toronto Bible Societythe Governor whom we found to have a warm feeling to the Society. He stated that he had for many years taken an interest in this great cause, and as a proof of this in mentioned that he made a donation to the Society of £50 sterling when he was governor of Honduras. In the course of the conversation it came out that you had not acknowledged this donation, or had not inserted his name in the proper place. On afterwards referring to your Annual Reports I find that this sum constitutes a Life Governor by your 6th rule. You have inserted I see a list of Life Governor's by payment of a bequest of £100 or upwards, but not I perceive of those who acquired the standing by a donation of £50. Finding no list of them I looked into the general list of contributors where I find that in case of donations of Ten Guineas and upwards you keep in the names of the donors from year to year. Sir George Arthur's name ought of course to be there, but it is not. Perhaps you will inquire into this, for there must be some oversight in it.
On Monday evening the sixth current there was held a meeting of the Committee of the Toronto Bible Society for the purpose of receiving your agent, and consulting with him on the state and prospects of the Society. It was a very full meeting, and the reception your agent met with was honourable to you and gratifying to him. At this meeting arrangements were made for the annual meeting on the 14th and we consulted together as to my movements and operations in this quarter, and in regard to all those means that might be brought to bear in order that this Province might as generally as possible become one general Bible Society field. You will be pleased to learn that the feeling of this Society in respect to the prosecution of their object is good and lively. This was well indicated on this occasion by the number of persons present at the Committee, by the items of business treated of, and by the general manner of all present.
Having an interval of the week between the Committee meeting just noticed and the Annual Meeting, it was thought desirable that I should visit some places at no great distance from this. Accordingly on Wednesday morning, the 8th, I set out to perform this short tour. I went first to the Chippeway Mission on the River Credit. An account of my visit to this place I have given you in my letter here enclosed of the 10th instant.
On Friday the 11th I went to Springfield a few miles from the Credit Mission. Things were not in order for holding a meeting there on the evening of that day, and therefore I passed on a few miles farther and came to Streetsville. Here I met with the Rev. William Rintoul one of the Kirk of Scotland Ministers. This gentleman showed me every kind attention, and helped me in every way in my work. He took me from house to house to see all these who were known or hoped to be friendly to the Bible cause. On the following day we held a meeting in the schoolhouse of the place. Mr. Rintoul had offered his Kirk for our meeting of his own accord, but we altered that arrangement at the suggestion of some of those we visited thinking on the whole the schoolhouse would suit better. This meeting was but thinly attended owing to the shortness of the notice and to the busy field occupations of the people at this season. The few present however were friendly, and forthwith a Preparatory Committee was formed, and arrangements made for holding another meeting on the Thursday following, and of which due and full notice should be given. On the Sunday I preached in Mr. Rintoul's Kirk, and in addition to other matters noticed the value of the Bible, and the advantages arising from its general circulation and use. Mr. Rintoul gave notice of the meeting for Thursday, and spoke of the object in view recommending it to the attention of the congregation. – On the evening of the same day I addressed an audience at Springfield on the Gospel, the great Bible subject and on the circulation of the Scriptures in their neighbourhood and over all the world, and urged them to take part in this work.
This is the manner in which I occasionally act on the Sabbath. To those who inquire about this or question it, I would say, "Have you not read in the law, how that on the Sabbath day the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath?" And have you not read how that the Lord of the Sabbath pronounced them blameless?
On the Monday I talked with those who was favourable to the formation of a Bible Society in Springfield, and arrangements were made for holding a meeting a few days later when it was hoped a Society would be formed. On the same day at Cooksville a meeting was appointed, but the weather proved so unfavourable that very few came. A Provisional Committee was however formed, and another day appointed for a meeting, when our friends compromised themselves to form a Society if they could, and which they believed practicable. Next morning I returned to Toronto. Four societies might be considered as formed during this little tour. I was particularly pleased with the general good feeling in favour of our Society which I met with in the several places visited.
On Tuesday evening the 14th of May the Anniversary Meeting of the Toronto Bible Society was held in one of the largest places of worship in the city. The house was well filled, and the platform was well ornamented with colours I may say of different hues in some respects, but all bearing on them conspicuously the Bible and the Gospel. In addition to a fair representation of the different denominations in the presence of their respective Ministers, we had also to Ministers representing two classes of people rather than two denominations. We had a Black Minister, and a Red Minister, a representative of Africa, and of the aboriginal North Americans. Our meeting was kept up with interest for the full proportion of time allotted to such meetings, and all seemed gratified, and disposed to say that this was the best Bible Society anniversary they had yet had in this place. Next year it will be better still I trust, and so on from year to year as their work increases in their hands.
On Wednesday the 15th your agent went out with Mr. Champion to Thornhill a village 12 miles to the North of this, and held the meeting there which was well attended, and resulted in the formation of a Bible Society which promises to be efficient. We had with us the Rev. Mr. Townley the Wesleyan Minister stationed in that place, and the Rev. Mr. Mayerhoffer the Episcopal Minister of a neighbouring Township. I notice this latter name particularly, because I understand Mr. Mayerhoffer is about to address you soon on a subject of some interest. It was not till yesterday that I knew of his intention I may probably notice him and his object in my next letter.
On Friday the 17th may the new Committee of the Toronto Bible Society met for the first time. The attendance was very good and with punctuality at the hour. Several subjects were discussed bearing on a more extended scale of operations, and all seemed to enter readily into the projected scheme of increased labour. A subcommittee was appointed at this meeting to inquire into various objects connected with the present arrangements of the Society. This subcommittee on the following days held several meetings: and on this day, the 23rd, and General Committee was held to receive the report of the subcommittee. This General Committee, like the former ones was well attended, and in it the same interest was shown in the affairs of the Society as was exhibited in the other Committee meetings mentioned. A very important measure was adopted at this meeting respecting the sale of Bibles in the city, and the supplying of demands from the country. It was agreed that there should be a shop taken for the exclusive purpose, instead of having the books on sale has heretofore in the corner of a general store and sale of all sorts of goods: and as necessarily connected with this a person is to be appointed to attend to this place, and to all business of the Society in this department, and in others as his time will permit. [The Tract Society books will be sold in the same place: but of this you should know nothing; and accordingly this sentence which tells you about it is in brackets, and says nothing, and it is not to be read.] Much is indicated in the adoption of this measure, as to the actual quantity of business of the Society, and as to the prospect of extending it. It augurs well for your affairs here, and may God fulfill the anticipations held forth.
I have sent you via Halifax a newspaper giving some account of the Annual Meeting, and also of the Bible Association formed at the Credit Mission. Both are drawn up, I believe, by the Rev. Mr. Scott who was present at the two meetings. The report of the Society will soon be printed, some copies of which shall be forwarded to you early.
The enclosed letter No 83 is you see entirely about the Chippeway Bible Society. If you could print any part of it in the Monthly Extracts with the names of the Chippeways, if not of other subscribers given, it would please our Red Brethren, and would encourage those at other places to follow their example. I have written the names so legibly that there will be no difficulty in ascertaining the lettering whatever there may be in the pronouncing. Please see that they are printed with perfect exactness, or the Indians will turn on you with their war clubs with which all of them are furnished in this time of war. And if you print this in the Extracts, you will of course send us some copies, otherwise we shall not be benefited. You will have observed what I have said in a former letter about sending out the Extracts generally. The measure there noticed seems to rise in importance as I see more of our Bible field in this country.
At long and length a letter has arrived from you, after a lapse of six months. It is dated the 26th of March, and came into my hands this day week. I perceive by it as I expected that other letters have been written by you within that chasm: but they have not reached me. Perhaps you will inquire how they were sent, and probably you will think proper to make up the loss by sending me a duplicate if you have copies by you. It would be advantageous to number your letters, as that plan would at once show whether any other missing at any time and how many.
That is nothing said in your letter about the projected general depot at Montreal noticed to you in my letter of the 20th December. That notice is most probably contained in a former letter which seems to be lost. I feel the loss considerably, as it affects in a material degree our general operations. I projected, as set before you, a depot for the general supply of the Canadas. But being at a loss to know that the plan has met with your approbation, I know not whether to trust to supplies in that way or not, or whether I should recommend to our Societies here to look to that depot, or to supply themselves otherwise. And this is the more felt on account of our seasons, which freeze up our communications for six months in the year. Further, now is the time to order a fresh supply for the fall of the year, and a few weeks longer delay may make it too late. But I cannot well give an you order, not knowing how the former one met your views. Neither have I learned anything regarding what was mentioned about cheaper Bibles, and the knowledge of this also enters into the matter of a new order. In the midst of all this uncertainty I would say, – Repeat the invoice of the 20th December. This may be over the mark, but it will be injurious to our interests to be under it. The order for cheap Bibles, if you furnish them, stands as in letter number 80, notwithstanding of what I have here said. These cheap Bibles and the number there mentioned are in addition to the repeating the invoice as above.
[This letter, I perceive, like some of several of its predecessors is too long, but I cannot well help it, and you may shorten it by red ink brackets to your own dimensions. I am thinking of sending you in future for each communication a half sheet full of dry bones, which you can put flesh on, and spirit it into yourself, and so fashion them to your own fashion.]
Tomorrow I leave this for Hamilton, and before I go from this city, it is but just I should say to you, that during my stay here I have been kindly entertained by Mr. Champion; and further I would say that this gentleman has rendered me very essential service in your concerns, and at the sacrifice of much time, which to a man in a large business is of no little moment.
Believe me always, My Dear Friend,
Affectionately Yours,
James Thomson.
[1] Note (BM): Battle of the Windmill, November 1838.
Posted
Rev A Brandram No 85
Sandwich, Upper Canada, 18 July 1839
My dear Friend,
My last letter to you was from Toronto, and dated 23rd May. Since that time I have been moving on westward, and I am at length come to what may be called one extremity of the very large field of operations you have assigned to me. Halifax in Nova Scotia may be considered as the other end of it, which is distant from this place by the Post Road 1550 miles. I bless God for having enabled me thus far to hold on my course, and bless him for all the encouragement I have had hitherto in this Bible field. I would also humbly trust that our gracious God will carry me in due time, and with similar mercies, to the other end of the territory assigned me for visitation. By your prayers, no doubt, I have been helped thus far; and on your prayers I shall count in my further movements.
Westward, as I have said, has been my course since my last. You will know, however, that I do not move on straight geographical lines. Though westward, therefore, as has been the general tending of my course, yet I have also had a good deal of northing and southing. The places I have visited I shall give you; and with a good map you will be able to trace the Bible track you have made since the last details were laid before you. They are as follows:—Hamilton, Barton, Nelson, Dundas, Beverly, Guelph, Galt, Paris, Brantford, Mohawk Indian Village, Burford, Woodstock, Oxford, London, Moravian Town, Chatham, Amherstburg, Sandwich. Some of these places are towns or villages, and some of them are townships. In most of these places meetings have been held, and societies formed—or re-animated, say, where they previously existed. In some cases, our meetings have been very good, that is, numerously attended : in other instances it has not been so. The long days and the constant field labours have been against us, as to the attendance at our meetings. In all cases, however, I may say, with the greatest truth, your object has been well received; and a general and cheerful feeling has been manifested, to cooperate with you in your endeavours to spread the Bible over all this country, and to bring it into every house, great and small. In all the lesser societies we have formed or re-formed, embracing a village or township, we have planned for the actual visitation of every human habitation within the particular spheres respectively of these Bible Associations. Our object is, with exactness, to ascertain where the Bible is, and is not; and where it is not, to bring it into these said destitute houses, by all and the best means that can be devised and used for that desirable end. We project, also, to collect something, if it were but one penny a year, from every house or individual actually in possession of a Bible, in order to throw these mites and sums into your general fund, to aid you in sending the Scriptures to all nations, in their several tongues. Our Branch Bible Societies embrace a larger field, and include several of these Township and Village Bible Associations. In forming these Branches, we are a good deal guided by the civil divisions of the country into "districts;" although circumstances at times oblige us to depart from this general rule. The whole of these Branch Bible Societies we wish to hook on, as I may say, to the Society at Toronto, which we would consider the centre of Bible Society operations in Upper Canada.
This country, you are too well aware, is exceedingly divided and distracted, both on political and religious grounds. To guide your Bible chariot in and through the midst of these twofold contentions requires, as you may well suppose, some care. The spirit of the Bible should be our polar star and this spirit is peace and goodwill towards men. In this spirit we may sail safely and successfully through very troubled waters. Your bark carries that which is for the healing of all nations and peoples, in all their evils; and as you touch in this and that port, you discharge not goods, but good; and manifest therefore it is, that you should do all this in the spirit of goodness, and of righteousness and truth. Oh, let us pray for one another, my brother and all my dear brethren, that we may have grace ever to act in all consistency with our sacred object, in all our doings in the high concerns of the kingdom of God in which we are engaged; and that we may be able to please God and to please men, in holy and happy combination, as the Bible directs!
Your Bible object has acted like a talisman as far as I have yet seen in my movements through this country, and has charmed nearly all of all classes and sides into at least a temporary unity. May God make it a perpetual one on earth, and eternal one in heaven! I could easily particularise names who have particularised themselves in their favour, and I may say affection, for your cause, but this would lead me into too much length. I must however give you one name, and because of its standing in close connection in more ways than one with the chief name of your society list. A few miles from Woodstock lives Admiral Vansittart, first cousin to Lord Bexley. I called on him and stopped three days at his house, coming and going meanwhile to places adjacent. The Admiral has a true Vansittart spirit, a Bible spirit, and is and has been long imbued with the Spirit of Jesus Christ, in whom he rests and rejoices. Your agent received every kind attention from Admiral Van at sittart, and was moved by him and his vehicles from place to place in the pursuit of his objects, and through the aid also of his eldest son Mr. John Vansittart, on whom the spirit of his father, the Spirit of God has recently and I trust powerfully fallen. The Admiral is president of the Woodstock Bible Society. He is anxious to see the Society in a prosperous state, and is most willing to labour in conjunction with all around him of all sorts and sides in order to enlarge and make fruitful the Bible institution over which he presides.
In this place and quarter from which I now write you, the westernmost part of Upper Canada, the majority by far of the inhabitants are French, as in the Lower Province. You will be pleased to hear that the French children read the New Testament at school. I hope, when our Bible Societies in this place and Amherstburg are in full operation, that the Bible will find its way into the houses of the Catholics. By our plan every house is to be visited, French and English, that all may have the Book of Life, if they will.
In my last letter I begged you would have the goodness to send out to the Montreal people the same quantities and kinds as requested in my letter of 20th. December last, and to send them out in good time that they might arrive before the St. Lawrence navigation closes for the season. I now mentioned this that the notice may serve as a kind of duplicate to that letter. Mr. Wilkes has I understand written you to add to that order a portion of brevier and minion Testaments. Be so good as to send these accordingly, and also be pleased to add 1000 Sunday School Bibles and 2000 Sunday School Testaments. I find in my movements that this description of Bible and Testament will be required to a considerable extent. These are partly for our Reports, and partly for general use.
I learned by notices from Montreal of the arrival of a stock of Bibles, and of their being sent out in ample quantities in different directions. That is a serious complaint forwarded to me on account of a defect in the invoice from Earl Street, as the different kinds and quantities in each case are not marked, so that as they write me the preparing of a supply, which with a good invoice might not have cost above three hours, has cost three days hard labour. I feel ashamed to notice the subject anew to you, as I wrote so particularly and as I thought strongly about it not long before leaving Jamaica. In former times also I requested attention to this matter with minuteness and urgency in whatever shipments might be made to places with which I was concerned. Surely you should have a standing order to have your invoices always made up so as to express the sorts and the quantity in each and every case that is packed in your stores. At least so it appears to me. Pray forgive my re-noticing this point. The labour arising from the defect in question has not in this instance fallen upon me, and I am therefore at liberty to be more frank in my statement of blame and off request.
I have the pleasure of acknowledging the receipt of your letter of 15th April. It came into my hands on 1st June: and since that letter has been received jointly written by Mr. Hitchin and Mr. Jackson, I acknowledge also the receipt of the Record newspaper of 2nd May which I suppose you sent. This paper contains a report of your annual meeting on 1st May. You may be sure I read over this article from beginning to end with much care and interest. God be praised who has honoured you so much in his work, and is still honouring you in so marked manner. Oh that we may be all stimulated by his goodness to labour with more zeal, wisdom and humility in this that a sacred cause.
On the 10th and 11th instant I found myself once more among my old and good friends the Moravians. The establishment at which I was is generally denominated by the people around Moravian Town, though the proper and characteristic name of it is New Fairfield. It is situated on the south side of the River Thames about 40 miles from its mouth, and is the only missionary station of the Moravians in Canada. It is exclusively an Indian mission, and the tribe is the Delawares. The number of Indians there at present is 127, but formerly there was more than double that number, the major part having gone off to a Delaware station in the States a couple of years ago under the influence of one of their chiefs named Kunkapot. My first introduction to this tribe of Indians was on getting off the stage at two o'clock in the morning on the 10th at a solitary Indian house on the north side of the River. I was half welcomely received at this unseasonable hour. I had a sound and comfortable sleep on the floor till the morning light, and soon after I was ferried over the river in a small canoe by my host, and after a few minutes walk I was introduced to the Rev. Mr. Luckenbach who has been stationed there for 19 years. I felt myself, as you may suppose, quite at home in this establishment, and I had the gratification of communicating various circumstances to our friends respecting their missions in the West Indies, which were new to them in this isolated place: and I had it in my power also to inform them concerning several of their personal friends, whom I had met with in my movements, and particularly of one who had been some years in this very spot, and whose house I had been in on different occasions in Jamaica. The missionary colleagues of Mr. Luckenbach is Mr. Bachman. These two worthy men of God, with their two wives, conduct the church, and I may say the State, of this Indian establishment, being only chargeable in all into the missionary society with which they are connected to the amount of 200 dollars annually.
Soon after breakfast I have the pleasure of meeting a number of the Indians in their Chapel to the amount of 80 of all ages. This was their usual morning service. The average attendance is about 30, the missionaries informed me, but the sound of the stranger's arrival well on trebled the usual number. I saluted these Red Men as my brethren, being all made, as I said to them, of one blood by the God and Father of all. I then went over the several items of our natural sinful state, of the redemption of man by the glorious all-efficient sacrifice of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and of the way in which we are to walk so as to please God who has formed us, and redeemed us, and dwells in us. I drew their attention to the Bible as God's book of directions for us all of whatever colour or condition. I closed with this, saying when we met again I should tell them many things especially about this Bible. All my discourse was delivered in sections, as I may say, and at the close of each one of the Indians interpreted to the audience what I had said.
On the following day at the same hour we met again, and had what I might call, a Bible meeting, and with the intention of forming, should the thing take with the Indians, a Bible Association among them. I may well say, "should the thing take," for the Indians under very suspicious and shrewd people, and for the stranger to endeavour to lead and induce them to give away money at all, and especially to give it to persons and for an object unknown to them, was rather a venturesome task. I felt it so, and tried to manage things in the wisest manner I could, in all truth and righteousness. God waved his hand over them, and the thing took to admiration. The Indians formed themselves into a Bible Association forth with, and cheerfully. When I had done speaking I desired them to talk among themselves upon the subject, and to conclude for or against the thing propose to them just as they felt inclined. They talked with each other, and Mr. Luckenbach shortly address them, and the result was as I have stated, the formation of a Bible Association. I had suggested to them, should they agree to the proposal brought before them, that they should subscribe half a dollar each year, or Schilling, or less, just as they were disposed and had means. One of the Chiefs have his name put down first, and neglecting my suggestion of half a dollar, of his own pure accord, and said, put me down for a dollar. The second chief then said, put me down also for dollar. The interpreter was the third person called upon; and he said, I will give two dollars, because I can read. The fourth individual said, I have given away a good deal of money for bad purposes, I will now give something for a good purpose, put me also down for two dollars. Several others followed for lesser sums, but above what could have well been expected.
At the close of our speeching, and just as we were beginning to put down subscriptions, all the women decamped, which led one of the men to say, that the Squaws went off as soon as they have heard of the money. I must justify the Squaws however, alias Indian women. It is true they did all move off, two excepted, when money was spoken of; but after we had taken down all the men's names who subscribed, and had retired to the house, by and by came in a Squaw of her own proper accord, and for the purpose of having her name put down as a subscriber. She had a dollar put down for herself, and then she gave the names of her two children for one shilling each. Another Squaw came in some little time after, and had her name put down for three shillings, then one of her children for a shilling, a second for the same sum, then a third, a fourth, and a face. Other women followed, and had their own and their children's names put down. The putting down of their children's names was their own suggestion, and they did so remarking that they wished that their children should have a blessing through a participation in this good work as well as themselves. On one of the occasions when we were taking down the names of these women and their children, a woman present said she had nothing to give, or she would have her name put down also. On second thoughts she said she could make a broom for which she would get sixpence, put me down, said she, for sixpence. Another woman present then said, I can make two brooms, put me down for a shilling. Lastly a man came in to subscribe who also had not been it meeting at all, but who had matters rehearsed to him by some of the other Indians. Other individuals we heard of also who intimated that they would subscribe. The missionaries are to bring the subject for their before the people, and in the course of a week or 10 days they are to write me giving me the names and sums of all the subscribers. When I get this paper I will send you a copy of it. Thus was formed our second Bible Society among the Red men, the aborigines of North America. I hope we shall have others added to them in due time. These two attempts have succeeded wonderfully, and are very encouraging. Pray ye, my friends, especially, that blessings may be upon these Indians will thus come forward in the Lords work, and by his own spirit moving them to act in a manner so contrary to their natural turn of disposition. I promised them a blessing, help me that they may obtain it.
And now in closing this letter, I pray for a blessing to be on you, My dear Friend, and in all your co-labourers in Earl Street. I humbly trust that your prayers will, by the blessing of our God, greatly avail to the strengthening of your poor agent in every way, for in every way he needs it.
I am your Faithful and Affectionate Friend,
James Thomson.
Posted
Rev A Brandram No 86
Falls of Niagara, 20th September 1839
My Dear Friend,
From this far famed place I now write you, I think, my eleventh communication from Canada. The general tenor of my letters has been encouraging respecting the Bible cause in this country, and the present note to you will not discord with my former notices.
"From seeming evil, still educing good,"[1] is a fine view of the manner of God's activity as described by one of my own name. We have had a case of this kind since I last wrote you, and which occurred immediately after, and in the place from which my letter was dated. On the 23rd July at our public Bible Meeting there in the Court House, I was violently attacked as a Yankee stroller. The Wesleyan Minister who sat on one side of me, was treated as my fellow stroller, and the English clergyman who sat on the other side was well rated and something more for having permitted such adventurers to come into the place and for procuring them a hearing. The gentleman who thus treated us was under a misunderstanding of things more ways than one at the time. He was afterwards made to see things in their true postures and colours. In consequence of which he came forward at a subsequent meeting, and with much frankness, nobleness, and humility of manner confessed himself sorry for what he had said on the previous occasion; and having done so, he stated at some length, and with much ability, the nature of the Bible and of Bible Societies, our need of both in the place, and the desirableness of all coming forward, promising it on his own part every support he could give. The clergyman of this place before referred to, and this gentleman had been for a good while in a bad understanding and non-intercourse with each other. This circumstance contributed not a little, I doubt not, to the unceremonious manner in which we were all treated at our first meeting. From this seeming evil however the effective good was educed of a hearty reconciliation of these two individuals, and to the great joy of both. I feel thankful to the God of Peace and of the Bible for having employed me in this peacemaking. The Bible is the book of peace, and peace and goodwill should be the objects of all who circulate it, and of all who read it: and peace will be produced by this Book wherever it is understood and obeyed. I touched on this topic I believe in my last letter: but it cannot be too frequently touched upon. We may differ in opinion with the Bible in our hands, but how we can be at war one with another, and bite and devour each other with the Bible directions to peace and goodwill towards all bad and good continually before our eyes, – this I cannot understand, and every occurring case of it, and the abounding cases of it, throw me into perplexity. But wisdom is justified of all her children: and the Bible's maxims are justified by the corresponding results in all who really understand this peaceful, godly, wonderful book. – Forgive this essay on peace, for perhaps you do not need anything of this kind in your favoured Isle. Having sent the Bible to us here to preach peace, we naturally suppose that you are all peaceful yourselves as you are taught to be out of the Bible you have sent to us.
The fracas and the recantation above noticed, and the recommendation of the Bible cause under such peculiar circumstances, and the reconciliation effected, have come to the knowledge of all in the quarter where they took place, and were general topics of conversation. Thus real good has been educed, and probably much, from the first seeming evil, and some, perhaps many, have been led to think, if not to say, "Great is the Bible, and it will prevail;" and great is, and prevail it shall, in its extension and effects.
After the affair above noticed I went up through Lake St. Clair, and then up the River of the same name further north till I came to Port Sarnia just at the entrance of Lake Huron. Here we formed a Bible Society for the Township of Sarnia and those contiguous to it. Mr. Cameron one of the members of our Provincial Parliament who lives there greatly contributed towards the formation of the Society, and also kindly lodged your agent, and helped him in his general concerns. Previous to the formation of our Society we rode out together some nine miles through the dense forest to see, besides others, a worthy man who cultivated his farm during the week, and on the Sunday preaches with fidelity the Gospel of Christ. Mr. Watson is a Baptist minister, and his services are gratuitous to all who choose to avail themselves of them. He received your agent gladly, and saw in my unexpected arrival a solution to the chief difficulty that then pressed on him, and an answer to his prayers regarding it. He had felt very anxious for a supply of the Scriptures, a special demand having arisen for them, and he knew not which way to turn himself to obtain the quantity required, and which his own labours in a great measure had made necessary. But my arrival, and the proposition to form immediately a Bible Society in that place met all his wishes, and far exceeded his hopes. He entered of course therefore at once into our plan of forming a Bible Society in Sarnia; and on the day of our meeting he left all his ripe products on the farm, which were crying for his attention, and came into the village to attend the meeting and help in the establishment of our Society. Mr. Watson proposes to bring the Bible subject before all his hearers and neighbours, and thinks he will succeed in inducing them to lend it that aid. Many of them, he said at our meeting, though about on their farms, were rejoicing in the formation of our Society. But he particularly recommended us to adopt the plan of subscribers putting down their names, not for a dollar which is our regular subscription, but for one bushel of wheat, which is about, or a little over, the same value. In this outlandish place on Lake Huron, and in many other places in Canada, the farmers though not poor, have yet but very little money in their hands, but they have wheat fully within their reach. Mr. Watson says they will put down their names readily for a bushel of wheat when they would hesitate much about subscribing a dollar in cash, because the latter is at times difficult to be obtained, whilst the former is ready in their hands. Mr. Cameron will receive the wheat subscriptions and will advance the money for us or send wheat to market. The plan of Mr. Watson's agrees most fully with my own ideas, ideas which were formed when I passed through this country nine years ago, and which have often come into my mind since. I was truly glad to see Mr. Watson take up the subject, and I trust he will succeed in it as to encourage us to attempt the same plan in places similarly circumstanced. The President of Hayti, you will recollect, paid your Bibles in coffee. The people in Sarnia are about to pay for their books in wheat, and to help you besides to feed the world by means of the same article. – To show what need there is of a Bible Society in Sarnia, I may mention, that there is in the Township a Scotchman with a family who has had no Bible in his house for seven years! – The position of Port Sarnia is very favourable for a Bible depot, being just below the entrance to the Lake and a convenient port where vessels often lie under contrary winds which hinder them from stemming the current which is here rapid, from five to seven miles an hour. – At our meeting we were favoured with the presence of the Rev. Mr. Raleigh the chaplain to Fort Gratiot on the American side of the river. He accordingly agreed in our object, and warmly recommended it. How pleasing it is thus to see the two nations join hand-in-hand and tongue with tongue in the noble Bible cause. Oh that this grand River may never flow between two such similar peoples calling themselves enemies and warring with each other! – The description of this Society is "The St. Clair Bible Society, for the townships on the River, and neighbourhood." President, Colonel Wright: Vice presidents, William Jones Esq. and Martin Sommerville Esq.: Treasurer, Malcolm Cameron Esq,: Secretary, George Durand Esq. and Mr. Alexr Vidal.
In this same Township of Sarnia there is an establishment of Indians under the care of the Wesleyans. Mr. Douse is the resident Minister. I stopped a few days under his hospitable roof during which we formed a Bible Society among these people. This is the third Society now formed among the Indians, and all of them under encouraging circumstances. The greater number of the Indians of this establishment were absent at the time I was there, being out on their hunting campaigns. When they return Mr. Douse will hold another Bible meeting, and get additional subscribers, and when his list is thus made up he will transmit it to me with the Indian names like as in the Credit Indian list I sent you. – There are about 250 Indians here more or less under Christian instruction. About 100 of these are apparently under the influence of the Gospel. The principles of the Gospel however have had a considerable effect upon the whole number. Drunkenness is a great besetting and overcoming sin of the Indians: yet there is only one case of this evil among these 250. That are in all here about 400 more or less stationary, many of whom are still pagans, and there are many wandering pagan Indians occasionally here from the borders of Lake Huron and parts adjacent. On Walpole Island in the St. Clair River there is a settlement of 250 which enjoys the occasional instruction of the missionary of this station. – The name of the Society is "The St. Clair Indian Bible Society." President and Treasurer, the Rev. John Douse: Secretary, Mr. George Henry. Mr. Henry is a full-blooded Indian, he understands English well, and acted as our interpreter.
From Sarnia I had intended to sail on the waters of Lake Huron to Goderich a town lying on the east of the lake, and to which I had learned there was steamboat regularly plying. About a fortnight however before my arrival in Sarnia the steamboat had been run down by another and sunk. There are sloops occasionally going that way, but I could find none at the time I was there. I found myself therefore under the necessity of returning by the same way I came, instead of going to Goderich, and from thence to London over land.
On arriving at Delaware town 15 miles west of London, I wish to visit an Indian establishment near it, which I had not been able to do when I passed that way some weeks before. I set out for this place alone and afoot inquiring my way when I could see a house on person, the greater part of the way being through the woods. I found it at eight o'clock at night after a walk of 11 miles. The missionary was a little surprised to see me at a late hour alone and walking. This place is called Munsey Town, and is under the charge of the Wesleyans. I mentioned to the Rev. Mr. Waldron my general business, and my object in visiting his establishment, namely, to try to form a Bible Society among the Indians as I had done among the Indians in other places. He entered into my plan, and accordingly early next morning he sent out notice for a meeting which was to be held at 11 o'clock on the same day. The notice was short, yet we had about 80 persons present. In noticing to you my visits to the other Indian establishments, I mentioned that I had to speak to the people through an interpreter. Here this disadvantage was doubled, for there were two distinct Indian tribes before me, speaking two distinct languages. Two interpreters therefore were necessary. These two nations or tribes are the Munseys and the Chippeways. They were ranged in distinct parts of the Chapel, the latter on my right hand and the former on my left, whilst in the desk beside me sat the two interpreters, one on each side fronting his people. I began and addressed these Red Men of these two tribes as I had done the other Indians elsewhere. I gave out what I had to say piecemeal, and at the end of each portion, first the one interpreter explained what I had said to the one people, and on his finishing the other acted in a similar way. This lengthened our meeting more than we wished, but the Indians sat with wonderful patience. They relieve themselves however on smoking, so that we had always some three or four pipes in action throughout the whole time the address lasted. Besides the Christian Indians, we had 10 pagans present some of them dressed fantastically enough, and one of them had his ankles decked off with a sort of rattles once belonging to the deers of the forest, and which made plenty of rattling sound as he moved, and pleased his own fancy of it did not please all others. There were five Chiefs there, two of the one tribe, and two of the other, and one speaking both tongues. At the close of the address the people were asked, as had been done on former occasions, to consult among themselves as to what had been set before them, and to speak their mind. The principal chief of the Chippeways rose and said he was grieved with the darkness of the Indian people, and wished to do what he could that they might be instructed. He agreed therefore to the formation of a Society. Other two Chiefs spoke on the same side. After these rose another chief one of the Munseys, and spoke some time. I drew from his speech that he was against our object, not understanding his language, but perceiving only is manner. I feared therefore that we had come to a break in our success among the Indians. I was however mistaken, for he spoke in favour of the object. His facetious manner had led me to put a wrong construction on him. From this circumstance I could not help thinking what an Indian, in Exeter Hall, not knowing out language, would think of some of our merry-making speakers and laughing audiences. Surely he would misunderstand as I did, and would think neither the speaker nor the audience could be engaged with the subject that concerned the eternal state of the major part of our fellow creatures. Merry-making and Bible and missionary subjects but ill accord together, as it has always appeared to me, and I should like to see all our mirth removed from such solemn assemblies. Among all my faults I can neither make laugh not laugh on such occasions.
All present agreed to the formation of a Society, and a considerable number put down their names with the respective sums attached. This is the fourth Bible Society among the Indians. Its name is "The Upper Munsey Town Indian Bible Society." Its president and treasurer is the Rev. Solomon Waldron, and it Secretary is Mr. John S Marsden. – Of the two languages that met my ear on this occasion the Chippeway and the Munsey, the former I thought was the more agreeable in it sounds and modulations. The Munsey interpreter entered fully into our subject, and was at times eloquent: his name is Half Moon. The other interpreter was a young man who never had interpreted in public before, but served on the present occasion, the regular interpreter being absent. – At this place, as well as the St. Clair Indian station, there were many of the Indians out on hunting expeditions.
When at the Indian Town here mentioned I learned that there was another Indian establishment a few miles off, and under the charge of the Rev. Mr. Flood, a clergyman of the English Church. On leaving Mr. Waldron's I went to Mr. Flood's near Delaware. I mentioned to him what I had been doing among the Indians, and he strongly urged me to stay with him two or three days during which we should visit his Indians and try to form a Bible Society among them also. I agreed, and on the Saturday afternoon we set out from his house with one horse between us. The distance was 12 miles, and we rode and walked in turn. It was dark when we got to the place. Next morning we visited some of the Indians' houses, and could perceive that Christianity is making some impressions on these people, and that Satan is striving to prevent or mar the good that is going on. At 11 o'clock Mr. Flood began his service, and after it was over I addressed the Indians on the Bible subject. Here also we had two nations, and two interpreters. Both of these were animated in rendering the address into their respective tongues, and the people were attentive although kept together for a considerable time. We had smokers on this occasion as before, and alike during the service and the address. Here likewise we had some pagan Indians, and among them was Rattle-ankles before mentioned. When after the Bible object had been set before the people, and was left in their own hands, an aged chief of 70 years, and the chief of the highest standing in the place rose and made a speech of some length, and in a manner indicating piety and fervour; and this Mr. Flood told me is his general manner and character. He was attentively listened to in this speech recommending our object. Other speakers followed, and all agreed, so that we formed our Fifth Indian Bible Society. Captain Snake, the chief just named, though 70 years of age is learning to read, and has made considerable progress. Mr. Flood has a high opinion of him as a Christian man, and he finds him of great use to him in his instructions to the Indians. He always gives a public exhortation to the people after Mr. Flood is finished the service, and embodies what he can of the sermon just delivered. Among our subscribers here we have two pagan Indians, who have had their names put down for half a dollar each. – The name of the Society is The Old Munsey Town Indian Bible Society. The president and treasurer is the Rev. Richard Flood, and the secretary is Mr. John Fairchild.
In these two Indian establishments that are in all about 700 people. They are settled down, have houses built, and are pursuing agriculture to a certain extent, but still go out on hunting excursions now and then. Most of these are still pagans, but even they appear to think that Christianity is the right way, as is indicated by various occurring circumstances. The Europeans have had, I think, a general impression that the North American Indians had no images among them. This is not the case. There are still several images at the present time among the Indians here described. They have their sacrifices also, and the main one seems to be that of a white dog. I hoped to have got one of these idols to send you. I missed it however, but hope to procure it for you some other time. – I could not help noticing the great variety of head and countenance of the Indians as they sat before me on this as on other occasions. There is all the variety in colour and features from the nearly European to the marked Esquimaux.
From Delaware I went to London, from thence to St. Thomas and back, then to Oxford, Burford, Brantford, Paris, Hamilton, and Toronto. From Toronto to Niagara, to St Catherine's and here. In some of these places we have had public meetings, in others the Committees of the Societies met, and in others again I saw the office bearers connected with Societies. I need not enter into particulars of what occurred at these meetings as they are such as it generally takes place. I may say however in general the Bible Society feeling is good with few exceptions in all the places I have been. Who form these exceptions I say not at present, but may afterwards. It would be wrong in this haste, not to notice that at St. Thomas the Rev. Mr. McKillican, and at Niagara the Rev. Mr. McGill greatly aided me in forming Societies in these two places, and with the latter I was very kindly lodged and treated whilst my business required my staying in his place, and to [the] other I am under a promise to lodge when I return according to his kind invitation. Both these gentlemen of Ministers of the Scotch Church. I may say also that in Toronto during the week I stopped there lately I was lodged with the Rev. Mr. Leach of the same church. I notice these things to show the good feeling in your favour, and the more so because of bygone things connected with that church, which are not yet bygone with all, but by and by I hope they will be forgotten in every case and sense. Several others of the same charge have befriended me privately and publicly. In the English Church also I have met with the kindest treatment by several of the Ministers, and I have lodged more or less time with the Rev. Mr. Green, the Rev. Mr. Rothwell, the Rev. Mr. Flood, and the Rev. Mr. Cronyn Nelson of Oxford, Delaware, and London. The ministers of the Congregational and the Wesleyan church have in every case befriended me, and have readily received me into their houses. I may mention by name of the former the Rev. Mr. Dyer of Hamilton, the Rev. Mr. Wastell of Guelph, and the Rev. Mr. Clarke of London. Of the latter I name as receiving me into their houses on this tour the Rev. Mr. Jones, the Rev. Mr. Douse, the Rev. Mr. Waldron, of the Credit, St. Clair, and Munsey missions. By individual members of these for churches I have also been lodged and kindly treated. These are the four leading religious bodies of this country. The Baptists form our fifth body, though they are not nearly so numerous as the others mentioned. Them also I have found in I may say all cases friendly. Thus you see you are in favour and savour with all, and so you should, for your object is so simple and so manifestly beneficial to all. Every Minister of every denomination ought to befriend you, for your work befriends him in his. And every layman too ought to befriend you, for your work will do and does them all good, and more good in proportion as good it extends among them through their own instrumentality. May the Lord give you more and more favour on every hand, until you, nay not you but your institution meet with all the favour which it deserves, and great are the deserts, though we its instruments are nothing.
Tomorrow I purpose, if the Lord will, to be in Toronto when we have a Committee meeting appointed for the evening. This will conclude my business there for the present. Our Toronto friends are going on prosperously. On the Monday following I intend to set out eastward visiting several places on my way, of which you shall hear in due time.
There are no letters from Earl Street since my letter to Mr. Hitchin of 24th August, except an invoice of the 11th June, with a note from Mr. Jackson on the same dated the15th. This came into my hands on the 6th instant.
The July Extracts promised are not come to Toronto, nor to me.
I remain, My Dear Friend, with sincere prayers for yourself, and you all,
Yours Affectionately,
James Thomson.
P.S. 21st September – I have just received a letter from Montreal saying that Mr Lapelletrie is safely arrived there. JT.
[1] Note (BM):
When ev'n at last the solemn hour shall come,
And wing my mystic flight to future worlds,
I cheerful will obey; there, with new pow'rs,
Will rising wonders sing: I cannot go
Where Universal Love not smiles around,
Sustaining all yon orbs, and all their suns;
From seeming evil still educing good,
And better thence again, and better still,
In infinite progression.- But I lose
Myself in Him, in light ineffable!
Come then, expressive silence, muse His praise. (James Thomson 1700-1748)
Posted
Rev A Brandram No 87
Montreal 28th October1839
My Dear Friend,
I arrived in the city a few days ago, and go down to Quebec this evening. On my return I shall have finished my tour for the season, and will then write you of what has occurred since my last.
My present letter will be confined to Mr. Lappelletrie, and his work. On the back of my last letter I noticed to you his arrival here, and of the same I suppose you have been duly apprised in form by our friend Mr. Wilkes. We are all pleased with Mr. Lappelletrie, and think him well qualified for what he has to be engaged in among us. He has now been at work for some little time, and his success is very encouraging. It is also I may say, very distressing, for he has sold off all our stock of De Sacy's New Testament, (the only one the people will in general receive,) and the season is now so far advanced as to preclude are getting any more by the St. Lawrence before the ensuing Spring. This distress was felt before I returned to this city, and a hasty urgent request was sent to our friends in New York for a supply of 500. They have come, but we find them so small, (apparently 32mo) that the people do not relish them. They object to them to on another score, Mr. Lappelletrie says on account of their being American. I suppose this latter objection arises from a fear that their receiving books from America might be looked upon suspiciously by the government under the present circumstances of this country.
Amidst these distresses, and to relieve them if possible, that so we may not be without a supply for the winter months, I have thought of requesting you to send us a supply direct to New York, and without any delay. We shall get them from thence the best way we can. I have a friend at court in Washington who I think will be the means of preventing the unpleasant circumstances which happened to those sent there before. I had written to him about these, but whilst he was making the proper inquiries Mr. Champion had ordered them off to London. At all events we must have the Books, therefore pray send them, and immediately after receiving this letter. Send us 600 of De Sacy's 12mo New Testament, and in cases of 100 each, consigned to Messrs. Goodhue and Co. New York. Send only De Sacy's, for it is only these we want. It will be better I think to send three cases with one vessel, and three cases with another, and please let these vessels be the very first and the very second sailing for New York after this comes to hand.
In haste, I remain, Truly Yours,
James Thomson.
Posted
Rev A Brandram No 88
Montreal 15th November 1839
My Dear Friend,
The day before yesterday I arrived in this city from Quebec, and have now finished my tour for the season. This tour has lasted from the 25th of April to the 13th of November, a full six months and a half. My letters from Toronto, Sandwich, and the Falls of Niagara will have informed you of the most material of the occurring circumstances up to the 20th of September. The present letter will take up the narrative of these at the Falls, and come down to the closing of the tour the other day.
On the evening of the 21st of September I reached Toronto, and on the same evening there was held a meeting of the Committee of the Toronto Bible Society. It was well attended like all the other meetings of the same body I had witnessed. The principal subjects of discussion at this committee meeting were, regarding the change of the name and field of their Society, the prices at which their books should be sold, and the employment of an agent who should be constantly occupied in visiting all the branch societies within their sphere, in forming new ones, and in making sure that the word of God did come into every home on the one hand, and that on the other something should be got from every house towards the grand general purpose of sending the Bible to all nations and tongues over the world. Our friends finally fixed and arranged regarding the new name and a new extent of their Society. It is to be, and now is, the Upper Canada Bible Society, and embraces all the Province, except some portions lying on the Eastern boundaries, and which may be more advantageously joined to the Montreal Society. In regard to what passed about the prices of the books, I shall write you at a future time, taking a range of the subject to embrace all the societies in this quarter. On the subject of an agent all the Committee were agreed as to its utility, but they were afraid lest its cost at the present time would be more than they were able to bear. I would suggest to you a mode of your helping them as to this matter at the commencement. At different times this Society has paid to the amount of £136:14:3 sterling for procuring and printing a translation of some portions of the Scripture into the Chippeway tongue. Now if you could place this sum to your general foreign translation account, and give credit to our Toronto friends for the same amount, it would probably set them in motion as to that agency, and when they were fairly set agoing most likely they would be able to move on afterwards by their own energies. Please think upon this, and do what you may judge best. An agency such as is in question would I think greatly conduce to hasten and forward our Bible work, in both its two parts in Upper Canada.
In Toronto on the present occasion I was so happy as to meet with the Rev. Mr. Evans, one of the Wesleyan missionaries, who had just come there on a visit from Lake Superior where he was stationed among the Chippeway Indians. Mr. Evans I met with in 1830 at Rice Lake among the same tribe of Indians. With this people he has been ever since, and is therefore well acquainted with them. We had a good deal of conversation together on the subject of these Indians, the most extensive tribe in this country, and principally as to the procuring for them a version of the major part of the Scriptures, or rather the whole if practicable. I ventured to say to Mr. Evans, that you would readily lend your aid to this, and extensively. New please to say whether I was right in thus speaking in your name, and if so, direct me to what extent might pledge you in the case.
On the afternoon of Monday, the 23rd of September I left Toronto, and at midnight reached Whitby. Here on the forenoon of Tuesday we should have had a meeting: but the notice had not been sent on in time from Toronto by a friend acquainted with the place and persons, which I was not. On the evening of the same day, at Darlington, and on the 25th at Port Hope, we failed of our projected meeting from the same cause. On the 27th I was in Peterboro where we had a good meeting in the midst of very bad weather, as it snowed the greater part of the day, and was very cold during remainder. The Bible Society atmosphere however in Peterboro was clear and warm. There is a fine committee here and fine people, all armed and marshalled, and waiting impatiently I may say, to hear the word – "March." In addition to their care for their own Township, they have formed a connexion with several others. Their object is in all these to do their Bible work faithfully and completely. They were anxious to know what little directions and suggestions I could give them for commencing in carrying forward their work of Bible visitation, etc. I found them met in Committee constituted, previous to the assembling of the people for the Public Meeting. I complied with their wishes, and addressed them by themselves, around the stove, on the subjects they desired to be informed on. On closing I expressed how much gratification it afforded to see them so well affected and zealous in this noble cause, and intimated that I would look with some interest for an account of their movements and the results following, and hoped that I should be able to urge others onward in other places by their example. I may say that this Committee and Society have done well hitherto, and we may reasonably expect therefore that their future proceedings will be like, and may perhaps surpass, their former good deeds. The Rev. Mr. Gilmour, the Agent of the New England Company here on behalf of the Indians settled in the neighbourhood is a warm and active friend of your cause. He kindly entertained, and afforded every help to your agent during his short stay in Peterboro.
In Cobourg I saw the Ministers of the different denominations, and found a good feeling prevailing in favour of our Society. Considering the lateness of the season, and what yet lay before me demanding my attention, I could not wait the necessary time for arrangements and sufficient notice for a public meeting. I was obliged to content myself therefore with preparing the way for a meeting at another time, whether I could return to attend it or not. – In Belleville I also saw the several Ministers who were all very favourably disposed towards us. I declined staying there as I had done at Cobourg, and for the same reason. – In Kingston I made but a short stay, intending to return to it from Brockville in a few days, if a public meeting could be held profitably. I saw the Rev. Mr. Machar who had but just returned to Canada from England. The shortness of his time since returning, prevented him, he said, from looking into the concerns of the Society. He considered therefore that we could hardly have a public meeting there at the time with proper advantage. The meeting therefore was put off, so that I gave up my intention of returning that in a few days as above intimated. In Kingston I saw also Mr. Hardy who likewise had just returned from the old country. He mentioned his having called that your Great House in Earl Street, where he delivered the note of introduction which I gave him to Mr. Jackson in the beginning of May when I passed through Kingston. Mr. Hardy spoke very warmly of Mr. Jackson's kind and very serviceable attentions to him. I have great pleasure in mentioning this circumstance, and beg you will notice it to our good friend as a little return for his kind services.
On the 3rd of October I came to Brockville. How to get all things put in proper working train there was a matter of more than common thought and arrangement. After visiting several persons, I proposed a meeting of all those who had formerly been connected with the Committee of the Society. Notices were sent accordingly. The meeting took place, all was harmonious, and we came to the Resolution to form a new Society. On the evening of the 8th we held our public meeting for the formation of the same. It was pretty well attended, and most of those connected with the previous Society of both parties were present. We all agreed in our resolution to terminate the old Society and to form a new one, leaving the affairs of the former to be settled by the Secretaries with the Agent of the Parent Society. Mr. Smart, Mr. Campbell, Mr. Sabine, and Mr. Freeland were with us, and took part in the business of the meeting. The whole transactions of the meeting were gratifying to all present, as far as I could judge from what then to place, and from what I heard afterwards. I felt glad and thankful to see things brought to this pleasant close on the one hand, and to see also a new Society formed with goodly prospects, without involving either of the two parties in unpleasant compromises. Mr. Sherwood, the Sheriff of the District, is as before the President of the Society, Mr. Freeland is Vice-president, Mr. Glasford is Treasurer, the Rev. P C Campbell and Mr. William Hynes are Secretaries and Mr. Smart is a member of the Committee.
The only thing that yet remains as somewhat unsettled in this Brockville concern, is in respect of Mr. Campbell's letter. I am inclined to think that this also could be accommodated had I a copy of the letter in question. I would be glad therefore if you would let me have a copy of it, and if you do that I shall not make a bad use of it, if I can help it, but a good one. Please send it early, lest it should be too late for my opportunities of doing good with it.
Mr. Smart gave me the sum of £68:14:5 Upper Canada currency, being all the monies he had on hand for the Society. This sum I have paid in to the Treasurer of the Montreal Bible Society, together with some other sums I have received, as I do not wish these monies to pass into or through my own accounts with the Society. They will be taken notice of in due order in the Montreal Society Books and Accounts. Mr. Smart also gave me a note of some outstanding accounts with societies for books, and likewise a list of the books in his possession which he has placed at my disposal.
It would not be fair, just, or generous to close these Brockville notices without saying a word or two as immediately affecting the interests of Mr. Smart. By his interest I mean his character, and his general deportment as your Agent. I am glad to say that I can find nothing injurious to him on these scores. There was, I may say, one or two things that seemed to bear another aspect. But it happened in this case, as it does in many others, that a nearer contact and inspection made to disappear and pass away that which before seemed something and unseemly. Mr. Smart's error was in having applied to you for the Agency without previously consulting the Committee at Brockville. He must have known well that they wanted a foreign prophet, shall I say, and not one of and among themselves whose every relation and concern they knew. The disappointment and consequent dissatisfaction was felt as everybody would have anticipated; and I told Mr. Smart that he could not have expected anything else. Others besides the Brockville Society felt disappointed in a similar manner, and hence the fact of various communications to you on the subject, and from hence also their nature and colours. You, on your part, were, I do not say in error, but a misunderstanding regarding Mr. Smart on two points, as I suppose, when you made the appointment. You thought, and you could not well have thought otherwise, that Mr. Smart had not only communicated his proposition made to you to the Brockville Bible Society previously, but that he also had their full approbation. You considered therefore, I believe, that your appointment would be not only acceptable but gratifying to our Brockville friends. The other point is this. When inquiring concerning Mr. Smart's character and standing, as you mentioned in one of your letters to me about the time, some of your colleagues said that the fact that Mr. Smart was the Secretary to the Upper Canada Synod was testimonial ample on these scores. You supposed all of you, I believe, and probably still do, that this Synod was the general body of the Church of Scotland ministers of this country. It is not so, and has no connection with that body. It consists of about 20 ministers or under, some of whom were formerly connected with the Synod of Ulster. Had Mr. Smart been the Secretary of the large influential body here of the Church of Scotland, it would have gone far in his favour as a savour and advantage, and might greatly have contributed to acceptableness. – As to Mr. Smart's fitness for an Agent of your Society, I have not seen anything unfavourable; and if stealing or coveting were lawful, I should feel disposed to take from him something that I would be the better of, and you too perhaps. But we must both be contented with such things as we have, and turn them to the best advantage. – The poor foreigner now here as your Agent enjoys an advantage very extrinsic to his character. It is, just because he is a foreigner, and perhaps also, because he can tell some travellers' stories. I am glad however that my disadvantage is your advantage, and though I have no certain dwelling place now, I look for one to come. Forgive this sigh for want of, and for – a home. If an Apostle, and the highest one of them, felt the disadvantage in question, and if God has given the sigh a place in his Book, the same feeling is forgivable perhaps in your poor Western wanderer whether at Cape Horn or in Canada.
I have given you our Brockville notices together without interruption, although our Prescott business took place intermediate. On the 3rd of October, as I have said above, I arrived in Brockville. On the 4th at noon I set out for Prescott, 12 miles to the east, driven by our good friend Mr. Freeland in his own vehicle. When I arrived I called on the Secretary of the Prescott Bible Society, the Rev. Mr. Boyd, and the chief member of the Committee, and made arrangements for a public meeting on the 7th, the Monday following. We then returned to Brockville late on a very cold frosty night, for the winter was even then commencing. – On the 7th I set out for Prescott to the public meeting, accompanied and driven by our worthy coadjutor Mr. Campbell, in a vehicle which a Bible friend lent us. We held the meeting accordingly, and though it was not so numerously attended as we had reason to expect from the notices given, yet it was a gracious meeting, which those who were there felt according to their statements, as I have no doubt they did. They all seemed anxious to keep up and extend the Bible feeling which God had inspired him to us that evening. For this end therefore they appointed another day about a week onward for a second public meeting. Mr. Campbell and I passed the night at Mr. Boyd's, where we were both much gratified with his courtesy and his conversation. – I beg leave to anachronise a little here, in order to give you a favourable notice of the second the Bible meeting above-mentioned, and the good results of both, and a third. Mr. Boyd wrote me on the 25th October saying, "We have had two meetings of the Bible Society since you were here, and there seems to be a good deal of interest manifested. The Committee are to visit the town and country." This agreeable communication was accompanied by an order for supplies of Books. I felt glad to see these good results at Prescott, for things were very dull there, as I indicated to you in my letter No 84 when mentioning my passing through the place in the end of April. Prescott had suffered in its Bible interests, and in all its interests, by the attack made upon it towards the end of last year by the Americaneers from the other side of the River. I hope as its Bible interest are again reviving, all its interests will revive with these; and in truth, all the real interests of every place rise and fall with the Bible interest.
On the 9th I left Brockville before daylight for Perth. The distance is 42 miles, and a great portion of the road was as bad as you could well imagine. I wish you had been with me on the journey, by way of proving the famousness of some of our Canadian roads, and to have a trial of our corduroy macadamising. Had you been in our waggon, you would have had shaking exercise enough to counteract your sedentariness for a week or a month.
But all are bad roads were forgotten on our getting into Perth, or rather on coming near to it, for there on the road outside the town I found the Rev. Mr. Bell the Secretary of the Perth Bible Society waiting to receive your messenger, and to take him to his own house. We took up Mr. Bell into our stage, and drove on to his door, which opened as it were of its own accord, and I was introduced to Mr. Bell's family in which I passed very pleasantly my short stay in Perth.
From Brockville on the day of my arrival there, the 3rd, I wrote to Mr. Bell to give notice on the Sunday, and make all proper arrangements for our public meeting on the 10th. Our business postmaster however at Brockville thought it proper to keep the letter two days before he sent it off, in consequence of which it did not arrive in Perth on the Friday as it should, but on the Monday. The opportunity arranged for, of giving notice in the congregations, on the Sunday, was therefore lost. Mr. Bell however by extra exertions continued to give as wide notices possible of our meeting. On the 10th in his church it was held, and notwithstanding all the disadvantages the assembly was good, and good I trust was produced. I should not forget to notice one of our audience, a Mrs. Davidson, whom I knew in Edinburgh 22 years ago. This good lady walked in from the country to our meeting a distance of seven miles. This was no mean exertion, as you will know, when I tell you that in body she would weigh you and me both. I was glad to see this old friend, as you may suppose, and felt it as a mark of particular kindness her having walked so far to our meeting, from old acquaintanceship in part, as well as from Bible interest: and an interest she has in the grand subject of the Bible, she is an old disciple.
The Perth Bible Society has done well, and is going on still in a proper and prosperous manner. I endeavoured in my address to urge to worthy and noble exertions, in this great work of giving the Bible to all around us, and to the whole world; and pressed greater personal attention on the part of all to the word of God, in order that we might attain to our highest standing in the Christian life, and might the more advance the kingdom of God.
From Perth I went to Bytown along the Rideau Canal. Here on the 14th October we held a Bible meeting in the Scotch Church which was well attended. At the close of the meeting a good many persons given their names as subscribers, and several pounds were paid down. On the day following a meeting of the Committee was held, in which there was a full attendance. An order was made out at this meeting for 230 Bibles and 220 Testaments. This Society I think bids fair to do well. In general visitation is forth with to be begun, and a Ladies' Association formed. Bytown occupies a very important position at the junction of the Rideau Canal with the Ottawa River, and is likely to become a place of increasing note as our colonization extends. The Rev. Mr. Cruickshank the Scotch minister has taken up our cause there warmly, and will I think be able to render us very efficient services.
I fear at every step the extension of this letter, yet despite the same you shall have an extract from the Bytown Bible Society Report read at our public meeting there. It is as follows: – "The teachers of the Wesleyan Methodist Sabbath school found many of their scholars anxious to obtain a Bible of their own to take home to search, so that they might be able better to answer those questions on scriptural truths put to them every Sabbath by the conductors of that school. Your secretary was applied to to know if Bibles could be issued from your depository to these children who were willing to pay 2d. weekly until they had paid the full amount, and the Sabbath School Society becoming responsible for the amount. The result is that 38 of those children have obtained Bibles, and several others Testaments at this easy rate, who did not have the comfort of such a treasure before; and Scripture knowledge of spreading in the same ratio."
To make amends for detaining you with this extract, I make a leap at once from Bytown to Quebec, a distance of 300 miles. Our public meeting there was held on the 7th instant. The weather was very unfavourable and yet we had a pretty good assembly. The report was interesting, and the effect produced by the various things spoken on the occasion was good and gratifying, as was to be gathered from the observations afterwards made by those who were present. All seem to agree in that the same meeting was the best of all the Bible meetings yet held in Quebec. This place may be considered as in and at the very centre of the French Catholic population of this country, and is far removed from the large Protestant and Bible population touching different parts of the circumference line. This peculiar situation makes it of course more difficult for the Bible Society work to move onward. As a counterpart to this there are many warm Bible friends in Quebec, consisting of clergy and laity of all the different Protestant denominations in the place. The Society has maintained its ground and advanced as well and better than could have been expected considering its disadvantages; and I trust that soon a new and nobler stand will be taken by it as a sort of second series in its operations. It has much yet to do, in the first work of a Bible Society, namely, the getting the word of God into every house over all the field embraced by the Society; and from the nature of the people around the work of the Quebec Bible Society must be hard, and of the considerable continuance. – At the meeting your long tried friend Mr. Hale read the Report, which he also wrote, and which will by and by be in your hands in a printed form. The Chief Justice, the Honourable Mr. Sewell, President of the Society, was to have been in the chair, but he was very ill at the time. In his illness however he took the trouble to write a letter to the meeting which was read, and in which he expressed his regret at not being able to be present with us as he had wished, and assured us of his continued affection for our institution. In a few days after, he breathed his last; and he is now therefore in a better position than any of us for forming the proper estimation in value of the Bible, and of Bible Societies. He died on the 13th instant, aged 74.
From the 9th to the 12th current, your agent was in Three Rivers, a town halfway between Quebec and Montreal, on the north bank of the St. Lawrence. This was the last place to be visited in his tour. It was not however the least interesting in the occurring incidents, but rather perhaps the most. The Catholic priest of this parish, and who is also the Vicar of the whole district, is very friendly to the circulation of the Scriptures among all his people from the Nun to the Ploughboy. I called on him soon after my arrival in the place, and made him also a second visit before I left it. On both occasions we talked freely on the subject on hand, namely, the circulation of the Scriptures among the people of the parish, and of his permission and encouragement of the same. His approval and encouragement extend only to the De Sacy's version. The New Testament is what he wishes his people to possess and use rather than the Old. His only obstacle in regard to the latter is, that he thinks the people in general are not enlightened sufficiently to perceive the proper connection of the Old Testament with the New. A free and general use of the New Testament is certainly a good preparation to qualify the people in this way, and towards this preparation he gives full encouragement. There is a Nunnery in the town, and in it is contained a large female school. Both the nuns and their scholars have received the New Testaments readily. There is also a large school in the place for Boys, having about 100 in it. Into this school also the Scriptures have been freely introduced. I paid a visit to it, and had a good deal of conversation with the two Masters on the use of the Scriptures by their pupils, and was much pleased with the views they expressed on the subject. I had a class read the 12th chapter of the Romans which I pointed out to them. I heard some other classes read also, and they likewise read from the Scriptures, in large sheet lessons, hung upon the walls, according to the Lancasterian plan on which the school is established. Both the Masters begged to have a couple of dozen of New Testaments, the one asking for them in the French and the other in the English language to suit the two departments of their school. But you will observe that though the children learn English as well as French, (the latter being their native tongue,) yet they are all of the Catholic religion, and the school is taught by, and is under the management of Catholics. I spoke to the Masters about reading aloud to all their scholars a chapter from the Bible at the commencement of the school, and at the close of it. Into this they both entered readily. To enable them to do so I engaged to send them two Bibles, one in French and the other in English. They are to begin at the first chapter of Genesis, and to read regularly through. – There is an English widow lady living there by the name of Buddon, formerly of Camberwell in your neighbourhood. She takes a lively interest in the circulation of the Scriptures around her. She has a list of petitioners for Testaments, partly from the Nunnery, and partly from the town, amounting to 58. They were waiting, and anxiously, the arrival of your De Sacy's Paris edition of the duodecimo.
Thus happily stand things, blessed be God at Three Rivers; and the circumstances are enhanced by the consideration that, after Montreal and Quebec, this is the largest town in the Province, and in its position, advantages, and influence, it is also I may say next in order to the two places mentioned. Add to this, the Priest under whose influence the Scriptures have thus so free course, is the Vicar of the district which is of considerable extent. It is true that he has not power over the Priests in the several parishes under his jurisdiction to make them think and act like himself and encouraging the use of the word of God; yet he will necessarily have much influence in this way, and that may be greatly beneficial to our cause. A pleasing case of this influence occurred not long ago. A Priest from a parish some 20 miles higher up the River on the same side, was on a visit at Three Rivers. When there the young woman showed him the New Testament which she had got, and asked him about it. He spoke much against her for having it and using it, and urged her to destroy it, or to give it back to the person from whom she had got it without delay. Next day this Priest was in company with the Vicar, and mentioned to him the case of the young woman and her Testament, and stating what advice he had given her. The Vicar told him the book in question was "The New Testament of Jesus Christ", and that it was profitable for all to have and use it there. On the first opportunity after this the Priest sent for the young woman, and told her he had seen the Vicar since he had spoken with her, and had learned the book she showed him was "The New Testament of Jesus Christ." He then said that he was very sorry for what he had said to her before on the subject, and counseled her to keep, and carefully to use, her New Testament.
You perceive what a happy opening this is for our operations. But that you may see it more distinctly, I shall set it out in relief by a contrast. Soon after I arrived in this country in the end of last year, we learned that a Priest in a large parish some 25 miles from Montreal down the River had taken some Bibles from the people and burned them. I went down to see him, accompanied by one of our Montreal Bible Committee, and to inquire into the truth and the circumstances of the case. We called on him and inquired about the matter, and he told us plainly that he had burned five Bibles and one New Testament. We tried to set out before him the evil of this in different lights, but probably without much effect. In this place are vender Mr. Hibbard had taken the precaution from fear what might occur to lend the books, not to make them over to the people as their own. We saw the people from whom the books had been taken, and they were ready to depose, that they stated to the priest when the books were taken away, that they were not their own property. We had thus a noose for the Priest, and we thought we would cast it over him, to teach him honesty, if not religion. We therefore got a lawyer friend of ours to write the Priest a letter about this our property which he had destroyed. Presently up came the Priest to Montreal, and sent his lawyer our lawyer about this concern. Our friend of course made himself big, as having all the law and the justice on his side, (and so he had,) and advised that the Priest should pay the price of the books, intimating that the sooner and quieter this was done the better. The lawyer went back to the Priest to tell him the result of his expedition, and presently after returned to our lawyer, and paid him for the five Bibles and one Testament which the Priest had burned. This movement of ours has had just effect we aimed up, for the Priest has never taken any more books from the people to burn, and further we learn, that he has never said a word in the Church or in the Confessional against our books. – I did not notice the subject to you at all before, because it was not terminated when I went to the Upper Province; but it now is, and in the manner above described: the whole sets out in relief, as I said, the conduct of the good Priest and Vicar at Three Rivers.
I now terminate this long tour, and long letter, for your relief in one way, and for mine doubly. I would who however just at closing notice a tour I made within this tour. I began to read at the first chapter of Genesis when I set out, and during the tour have made a tour through the whole of Our Book closing with the end of Revelation. In this new reading I have received, as you may well suppose, new lessons, and I have tried to learn them, though I cannot say with what success, nor ought I perhaps to say if I could. I may say to you however, that at our public meetings I often try to show how greatly we are all in error, and how greatly we all suffer, by neglecting to read and study as we ought God's Blessed Book, which is profitable for all things, for the life that now is, and for that which is to come. God's Book, I say it often, publicly and privately, and with all and increasing confidence, God's Book can and will cure all our evils in church and state, and without it we cannot be cured. How blessed therefore, My Brother, is the employment, which God has graciously given to you and to me, to administer this panacea. May the Lord make us good and faithful servants, and at the close of our service admit us into heaven, through our Lord Jesus Christ: to whom be glory for ever: Amen.
I remain, affectionately,
Your Fellow Servant,
James Thomson.
P.S. Since the 20th September, I have received letters from Earl Street as follows: – Yours (in copies) of the 20th of February and 5th March, both on the 17th October: – Yours of the 3rd July, on the 17th October: – and the Invoice per Pr. George of the 22nd of August, with Mr. Jackson's note of the 2nd September, on the 19th October.
We are very glad at the arrival of the 650 De Sacy's French Testaments by the Prince George. This supply will not however supersede the request in my letter No 87.
But what has become of the large order in my letter from Toronto of the 23rd May? For the supply we have been looking our eyes out these last two months: but we have seen or heard nothing of it, and the season is now far advanced, we see is closed.
P.S. 2nd I advise a Bill drawn say the 25th instant, in favour of William Greig, for Fifty Pounds, at sixty days: – and to be charged to my Travelling Account. Please notify this to Mr. Hitchin. J.T.
Posted
Rev A Brandram No 89
Montreal 21st December 1839
My Dear Friend,
The present letter will consist of miscellanea, the items of which I forbore to notice in my other letters, that my narratives might not be too much broken, intending afterwards to make a letter of them by themselves, which accordingly I now do. The first is an item that regards what I may call my great-scale movements. My commission of visitations, you know, embraces all the British North American Provinces. In a former letter I believe I intimated to you my intention of leaving the Canadas for Nova Scotia and New Brunswick in the Fall of the present year. When I had that arrangement before me, and mentioned it to you, I was not aware that my visit to Upper Canada would consume so much time as it did. After I had spent about a month in my summer tour in the Upper Province, I began to fear that I should be longer detained there than I had expected or wished; and at the close of the second month I perceived that I must either visit the Province less extensively than it should be visited, or else give up my intention of going to Nova Scotia in the Fall of the year. For a month longer this matter vacillated before me still unsettled. At length I concluded that it would be better for the interest of the Society that I should make my visitations in the Canadas more complete before I should leave them, although at the expense of delaying my visit to Nova Scotia from the Fall of 1839 till the spring of 1840. This therefore I arranged in my mind, and then pursued my visitations through, and to the full close of the summer, and until the frost and snow had made an appearance. Notwithstanding this lengthened to her that is still sufficient work before me in these two provinces for the winter season. With the winter however will conclude my Canada work, and when the ensuing season fairly opens, I shall proceed, if the Lord will, to New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. In October I wrote to each of the auxiliaries in these eastern provinces with whom I had previously been in correspondence, and who expected me in the Fall mentioning to them my change of purpose, and the causes of it, saying the same time that in consequence of this delay I should be enabled to spend more time with them than I could have done had I gone in the Fall as I had previously proposed. At the time I arranged in my mind to go to Nova Scotia as above noticed, it was my intention to return from that quarter to the Canadas in order to complete my visitation of them. By the present arrangement, as I have said, I will finish my business entirely here before I go so as not to have occasion to return; and further, I think I shall be able to visit the Eastern societies more suitably than would have been the case had I followed my first plan. To do the best for all the Provinces, and to promote your interest the most, is been my intention in thus planning and acting; and I shall be glad if my arrangements meet with your approbation.
The next item I take up is upon the subject of the Bible depot in Montreal, about which I wrote you, in the first instance in my letter of the 20th December1838. My purpose in laying before you this plan, was, in a chief degree, to prevent a lack of Books which had been often felt, and the consequent injury to the general circulation of the Scriptures in this quarter. There were difficulties connected with this arrangement, I foresaw, from the beginning, but the desirableness of completely preventing a deficiency of Bibles here at any time outweighed these difficulties, and they were left to be remedied as circumstances might direct when they should arise. One of the difficulties was, the non-continuance of your Agent here in whose hands the depot was to be, and likewise his frequent and length and absences from Montreal where the Books were deposited. Thus far all has gone well, for Mr. Milne the Agent engaged by the Montreal Bible Society has attended to the depot and in every way well, during my absences, and he continues to attend to it on my part, as having his residence in this city and being seldom long absent from it. – We have now made a year's experiment in this matter, and during this time I have learned, through an extensive visitation, the nature of this country, and the state and feelings of our various societies in regard to the matter. With the knowledge of thus acquired on the one hand, and in the view of leaving the Canadas as bearing on the point in another way, it becomes necessary to take up the consideration of the subject afresh, and to arrange for the future. In regard to the views of the Auxiliaries all over the country, I think I may say, they are decidedly favourable to this plan thinking it would be greatly conducive to convenience on the one hand, and on the other, to the keeping up a constant supply of the Scriptures, so that Bible operations, might not be hindered by a deficiency of Books, as has been often the case hitherto.
The general plan I would propose for a kind of permanency is this: – That the two great societies here, namely, that in Toronto and in Montreal should order from you direct all such supplies as they judge they may need from season to season, for themselves, and for the various branch societies connected with them. So also the Society at Quebec, and some others which may prefer direct connection with you, instead of being branches of the two central and extended societies mentioned. But nevertheless, and in addition to this, I think you should keep constantly on hand in this city of Montreal, an ample stock of Bibles and Testaments fully able to meet all runnings out, and extra demands that may at any time occur; and this supply or depot should be in your own hands, or managed say, directly in your name. Arrangements that have lately been entered upon in the Montreal Bible Society will make this plan easy for you, and I hope satisfactory. The Committee here has accorded to have a house for their stores and sales distinct altogether from the separate and private business of their Depositary. Hitherto these two have been combined, but circumstances have occurred to render an alteration proper.
The present Agent of the Society will act as Depositary, with the help of his family in his absence on visitations in the country. From confidence in the person to be in charge of this establishment, and from combined circumstances, the Committee anticipate pleasing and extended results from their new arrangement. Now the depot in your hands above referred to, could be kept in the house, and the management of it could be entrusted to the Depositary and Agent noticed, who would send out Books according to orders he might receive. His Books and Accounts would be kept separate from those of the Montreal Bible Society, and statements would be made out and sent you annually. The Depositary would act thus, not on his own responsibility, that under the superintendence of the Montreal Society. It is proposed that you should pay £10 to this house or establishment for storage on your Books, and another sum of the same amount for what we may call Factorage. The whole expense to you therefore by this arrangement, would be £20 annually. This plan taken in its several parts, would as it appears to me be a very suitable arrangement. It would be well I think that you should make an experiment of it for one year, and thereafter you might act as circumstances should direct. Probably the Tract Society, and the Sunday School concerns may be transacted in the same house; but should they, they will be altogether distinct. I mention this that you may fully understand all the circumstances of the case in the proposed arrangement.
My third item is about Cheap Bibles, of which I wrote at length, and with particulars, in my letters No 76, and 80. Since these letters were written you have lowered the price of all your Bibles, by taking out the stereotype plates. This is I think a wise arrangement. But nevertheless it does not meet the particular case I endeavoured to bring before you. What is wanted is a Nonpareil Bible say on 3rd or 4th class paper, or 5th or 6th is there are such numbers of tolerable paper, so that its original price may be a great deal lower still than your lowest. There might also be a Bible of another size or two on paper of the same sort. I humbly think you should reconsider this subject, and hope you will do so, and come down at once as low as you possibly, with any propriety, can, in the price of at least one of your Bibles, and one of your Testaments. Should you take up the subject anew, please look back at what is said on it in the two letters referred to in this paragraph. I would urge the subject, and I know you will forgive me for doing so, though you should not consider it proper to accede to my petitions, which yet I hope you will.
Analogous to the item just finished is the one about different or new editions of the Bible. Your notice as to a Paragraph Bible in your letter of May 21st well suits the case considering all the circumstances of the Society, namely, that you will wait at present and look on to see how the Tract Society's one makes its way. I trust it will make its way well, and that you will by and by follow in the track they are marking out.― Your Pearl Bible with marginal references will meet I trust the wishes expressed by friends as noticed in my letter No 80. An impression on similar paper would perhaps be desirable, and it would be a little cheaper.
In the postscript to my last letter I said, "What has become of the large order in my letter from Toronto of the 23rd May? For this supply we have been looking our eyes out these last two months: but we have seen or heard nothing of it, and the season is now far advanced, we fear closed." And closed now it is with a witness, and boarded over with ice, with horses and carriages passing over, yet the Books are not come. – Sometime after writing this postscript, and whilst re-thinking on the subject, I took up your letter of the 3rd July, in which you mentioned the receipt of my Toronto letter which contained the order here referred to, and I perceived I thought by the phraseology of your letter, that you had not observed that there was an order for books in the letter at all. You say, "Your letter did not lead to the adoption of any resolution, for we trust the supplies you ordered for the people are now all safely with you." On viewing this to be your meaning I turned to my letter from Toronto to see what I had there said, and find my wording to be, "Repeat the invoice of the 20th December." The saying "Repeat" supposes the former one come or counted upon, and indicates clear enough a wish that the same quantities and kinds should be sent again. Some of the expressions in the same paragraph plainly imply this view of the order noticed, for it is called "a fresh supply," and to come out "in the Fall of the year," whereas the 20th December one was to be sent and to come here in the Spring: and further, it is called "a new order." Thus I think I make out a case for myself, and against you. But supposing this oversight made at the reading of my letter, how could you read my letter from Sandwich, and print it too without seeing the overlook, and inquiring into the matter, and finding it, and saying you had perceived it, and that you were sorry, and all that? Now, have you not printed in your newspaper No 6, these following words, "In my last letter I begged you would have the goodness to send out to the Montreal depot, the same quantities and kinds as requested in my letter of the 20th December last; and to send them out in good time, that they might arrive before the St. Lawrence navigation closes for the season. I now mention this that the notice may serve as a kind of duplicate to that letter."
Well the matter is now past, and the St. Lawrence shut up; nor will it break up its ice for any of us, not even for the Bible. You will naturally fear that we have been much put out for want of the books. We have been put out, and will be more so before a new supply can come. Nevertheless we suffer, and will suffer less than what you may fear. Fortunately we had a pretty good supply laid in through your different shipments during the summer. Our greatest loss consists in the want of certain kinds rather than the want of Bibles. By the lack of these kinds we are unable to make up orders, and unable also to meet the needs of our daily purchasers in this city. Nevertheless, as I said, we are better off than could have been expected under the disappointment.
The order in my letter from Toronto of the 23rd May, and also that in my letter from Sandwich of the 18th July, I now cancel, and you will have another in their stead by the same conveyance which will carry this letter. To this therefore I refer you, and so close this item.
[I come now to say a few words respecting Invoices. You say September 10th, "On another head too I really believe we are not blameable, excepting it to be for a misdirection. On inquiry I find that all the Invoices are prepared just as you desire them to be with a full statement of the contents of each case (!). To yourself duplicates of these Invoices are sent. On these certainly has not been seemed necessary to send a copy of the contents." This say is so unlike Mr. Brandram's that I must needs suppose him to be merely an oracle in this instance, through whom somebody is thus speaking. I do not know of whom you inquired, but if you had inquired of me, I would have given you a different statement of the matter from the one here emitted. My statement is this: – First, of the Invoices per the Douglas and the Houghton containing the large supply of Books ordered on the 20th December there were no duplicates at all. Nor can I suppose these sent and lost: for if they had been sent they would have come along with the others in the same ship, and been both delivered safely, or both lost. Secondly, the Invoices that came with these books had no enumeration of the contents of each case; and hence it happened as I stated in my letter No 85, that three days were taken up, and in hard working, to make up a supply for the country, which order could have been made up in three hours with a proper Invoice. This is not my personal complaint, occasioned by the personal labourer here referred to, but it is that of the agent of the Montreal Bible Society at a time when I was more than 1000 miles distant from this place and him. Now be so good as communicate to your informant these things, for they are truths and facts. – The Invoices by the Resolution and the Prince George came in original and duplicate, and both of them had the enumeration of the contents of the several cases. You will perceive from the above that there is no outlet from the blame in question by the door of "misdirection", for there were no misdirections, as far as I can see in the case. But a word more about this escape by the door "misdirection." When in Quebec Mr. Atkinson read me a letter from Earl Street to him in answer to one he had written in which were complaints it seems identical with mine as to the want of notification of the contents of each case in the invoice, the excuse offered was, that as a duplicate of each Invoice was sent to me, the error had arisen from sending me through misdirection, the Invoice intended for Quebec, which Invoice, it was insinuated, had as a matter of course the contents of each case marked on it. Now, that it is not a matter of course to mark the cases as is here signified I know too well; and in respect to this same identical Quebec invoice, I beg leave to notify the duplicate which duly reached me, had no enumeration of the contents of each case on it. Please to hear a little more about the subject of Invoices, for it is the last time but one I shall ever touch upon it, if it can well be avoided. I would say, your Invoices, that is those which have come to me, have very seldom had the enumeration in question and that notwithstanding the notices and petitions that have been conveyed to Earl Street on the subject. I infer that others have fared as bad, and probably worse in the matter. But whether you hear of it or not, you may be sure inconvenience is felt everywhere. You see it was so that Mr. Milne here and Mr. Atkinson in Quebec, and both independent of each other, and of me. – Your first remission of books to me in Mexico consisted of 48 cases and there was not a line of directions on the Invoice as to what each case contained. I had therefore to open, empty, and refill with proper Invoices each case. This took me many days: and from standing in a dampish place where the books were stored, an illness followed lasting for some weeks with much danger. – From all the circumstances taken together respecting this matter of Invoices, I would again, and earnestly press upon your attention the propriety of having, as I said in a former letter, a standing order to have all our invoices done in the manner here indicated. Should this not seem good to you, then in that case, I would recommend an improvement on the other side, namely, to make your invoices to consist of, and be comprised in, one line, which line would just say, for example, "2000 Books, value £400:" and this plan will have one merit and the advantage of saving your clerks, whose dolorous complaint about making up my duplicates you have sent me once and again. How I pity them: but I pity still more, as you see, as in justice I ought, the poor wights on whom you lay the burden of emptying and filling again one by one all your cases, spending a day instead of an hour, just to make up the deficiency of your deficient Invoices. – Finally, for the present on the subject, I observe, I do not want this enumeration on my duplicates. Put it on the originals, and all originals, and I am satisfied, and others also will. Forgive my rallying, but do not forget what I have said.]
[Your Bible Society Reports number 3, 5, 6, and 7 have come to hand, and from 8 to 10 copies of each. 1, 2, and 4 have not appeared. They have all come by way of New York, and have cost exactly the same postage as if they had been unstamped. Had they come per British Mails through Halifax they would have come free. I took special care to notice in my letter No 82 the difference between sending via New York and via Halifax. After retaining for my own use one copy of each of the numbers come to hand, I have sent the rest to different parts of the country. With every copy I thus send I have to pay one penny according to the post office regulations in this country, and it is the same unstamped and unstamped papers. Mr. Wilkes has, I believe received the same numbers and copies as I have, and he has generally distributed his in this city. To whom else in this country you have sent your Reporter, I know not, but should be glad to learn, to prevent me from sending also to the same persons, as not improbably I may have done in the dark. The best plan to act upon in this matter, as it appears to me, will be, in the first place to send them all through the post office, and by the British Mail Packets, for only in this way will they come free. In the second place, every copy should be addressed to the very individual to whom ultimately it is to come, and for whose benefit it is intended, because every second sending incurs postage. What I have said applies to the post office rules of all British America as to this second sending. But I may add, that the same is or was the case in Jamaica, with the only difference of greater disadvantage. If for instance, you sent 20 or 50 copies to Mr. Tinson in Kingston. They will all come free into his hands, if they have come by the British Mails. But then Mr. Tinson cannot send them free through the post office into the country. Nor has he the advantage we have here of sending any printed sheet through the post office, all over the country for one penny paid in advance. There is no such regulation in Jamaica, and therefore for the transmission of such papers a special contract must be made with the postmaster. But if you should address your Reporter to any individual over all the Island it would come to him free. Your plan then should be, to have a list of all the persons to whom you may choose to send your Reporter, and by this list to address each copy to everyone in particular. Your list I think should contain the names of the President, Treasurer, and Secretaries of each of your societies as they stand in your Annual Reports. Some additional names might be added, of persons taking a lively interest in the Society's work, although they may not hold any of the above named offices.]
I have seen Mr. Willoughby, (now the Reverend) and more than once, since my return from Upper Canada. I mentioned to him what you said to me in your letter of the 5th March in answer to his application in reference to the employment of an Indian he noticed, in the distribution of the Scriptures. He informed me that the Indian was dead of whom he had written to you.
You were kind enough to notice in your Monthly Extracts, as I had begged you would, the formation of the first Bible Society among Red Men of North America, as it took place at the Chippeway Indian village on the River Credit U.C. on the 9th May of this year 1839. I sent two copies of your Extracts No 4, containing this notice to the Indian village, one to Mr. Slight and one to Mr. Jones. – In your letter of the 10th September, when noticing mine of the 18th July in which is an account of the formation of the second Red Man's Bible Society, at Moravian Town, you say, "We shall not print your account of the visit to the Indians. It is so much like the former one, and matters are on so small-scale that it might where the appearance of magnifying small matters." This is true, and yet I would plead for your doing honour to the Squaws of Moravian Town, and you may perhaps do it in your forthcoming Report, if not in your Extracts or Reporter. The liberal manner in which the Indians subscribed is also worthy of being noticed to their praise and encouragement. See letter No 85, from, "I had suggested to them" – onto – "by some of the other Indians." I now transmit to you the letter I received from the Rev. A. Luckenbach containing list of subscribers to this Indian Bible Society. You will see that there are 16 women's names and 19 children's on it. The document perhaps is worth placing in your archives, or at least of showing to your friends. – I send you also a longer list of Indian Bible Society names, and a document perhaps of greater curiosity, namely, the letter from the St. Clair herewith enclosed. You will there see a long list, and I may well say an honourable one, of Indians with their Chippeway names, and their Bible subscriptions, amounting to £14:13:9. And that you may properly estimate the merits of the case, read the letter of the Rev. Mr. Douse which is appended to the list, and which I here copy, (though you have it,) and verify. "I am happy," he says, "in being able to forward to you a list so large and respectable from my charge. They have done nobly. Of them it may justly be said, that 'in the abundance of their joy, and their deep poverty, they have abounded unto the riches of their liberality; for to their power, yea, and beyond their power they were willing of themselves.' Five years ago they were drunken, dirty, and ragged Indians: but now they are sober, clean, and well provided, and can find a little to spare. What hath God wrought! To him be all the praise: Amen." The Saviour has given a place in his Record to the widow and her two mites, and you may well be justified in giving a place in your Records to our Indians. Thus I plead for them, but leave all to your superior wisdom and judgment.
[My begging attention to the Indians in your periodicals, leads me naturally to my next item of miscellanea. You say, in your letter of the 10th September in reference to inserting portions of my letter No 85 in the Monthly Extracts, "In quoting from your letter we may perhaps leave out a sentence or two," and then you mention an expression in regard to Admiral Vansittart, and another regarding his son John. I agree most fully with your leaving out the sentences, and thank you for the improvement of my letters for the public eye by the same. I give you a carte blanche for all such improvements, and leave all these matters in your hands. I am aware of a kind of habit of writing rather to yourself as an individual and an intimate and dear friend, instead of writing what the public may see, or even what is suitable for the ear of the Committee. Forgive me, and improve me. – Notwithstanding however the general liberty I wish you always to take and frankly with my letters, I would at the same time petition, as I once did before, in favour of the large points, as I may call them, namely, the semicolon, colon, and the full stop. These, I beg your transcribers and printers, may put always just as I put them, without any alteration whatever. There are some other things also that I could wish to be adhered to as I put them, and which is not always done. You have printed in your Reporter No 7 Muncy instead of Munsey as I wrote. Now I cannot tell why my letter here should be set aside, and another substituted in its place. Again, in my letter No 77, which is in part printed in your last Annual Report, you have printed in page LXXXVII, line 9, warlike and peaceful, instead of war-like and peace-full as I wrote. As to names, (which if new I always give you with printers' clearness,) I should like to see them carefully attended to in the printing. Some years ago I wrote, and more than once on errors on this head; though I have observed similar oversights since that, I have been un willing to trouble you about them. In your 33rd Report, page CV, 3rd line from the bottom, you have printed Robertson for Paterson, and Coro for Coco, through which changes you have rendered it next to impossible to identify either the place the person.]
Your observations on my observations about mirth at public meetings are kind and corrective. perhaps I wrote too sweepingly. We need animated spirits as well as heavenly spirits. But yet I have seen, or rather heard, such mirth-making at religious meetings as left evil effects on the godly, and even offended the taste and feeling of the careless. Against such, I will, as I have done before, both speak and write: whilst at the same time I will gladly smile with you, and yours, and make you smile in turn, when words and things concur suitable for the same.
Sir George Arthur's donation was paid in to the Parent Institution, and not to the Honduras Bible Society. I asked him specially upon this point, and he specially told me as I have here stated. His name and donation ought therefore to have been in your general subscribers' list according to custom; and I doubt not but you will there insert it in your next Report.
Some months ago I communicated by letter, and lately in person with the Quebec Bible Society in reference to Mr. Atkinson's letter, and application for help which you referred to me. On examination into the state of things within their sphere, they found them better than they had thought. They will not therefore at present need help in the way of a grant of Bibles; and as to Bible readers you cannot help them.
I lately received a letter from Mr. Norman in the Havanna. He says he had received five dollars for Testaments sold at Matanzas, where, you will recollect, I could sell none, when I was there. He saw the rest of the books on the Bookseller's shelves, offered for sale without any impediment from authorities civil or ecclesiastical. Some, though but a few copies of the Scriptures are being sold in the Havanna, and no opposition to their sale is mentioned. We must, in regard to that Island, have long patience, both as to sowing and reaping.
I have also not long ago a letter from Mr. Watts of Carthagena. He says, "Spite of the priesthood a moral revolution is spreading slowly throughout the country. They have just received a deep blow in their iniquitous designs." This deep blow consisted in the public mind having been greatly turned against the friars in consequence of their opposition to government in the suppression of monasteries, and their exciting to an actual rebellion in Pasto on account of this measure. All these things, no doubt, and indeed everything, will prepare the way for the circulation of the Holy Scriptures, and the advancement of the kingdom of God. Since I received Mr. Watt's letter it has often been on my mind to say to you, and I now do it, that probably it would be well for you to authorize him to find out and employ a colporteur in that country. Not unlikely something could be done there in that way.
In my letter from Toronto I mentioned in Mr. Mayerhoffer as offering himself as an agent for you to distribute the Scriptures in Hungary, Austria, etc., and from whom you had some communication direct, or through Dr. Steinkopff. I said I would inquire all I could about him. I have done so. I do not know that he is exactly the person who would suit you, and yet he might be useful. With this ambiguity I would leave the matter till you yourself say something about him, in the view of his own communications, and your wishes and designs respecting the countries mentioned, and the employment of the means here offered to you. Mr. Meyerhoffer thinks he would be able to circulate the Scriptures in those countries extensively. He is a native of Hungary, and speaks the Hungarian, Croatian and Slavonic languages, all of which are there used. He also speaks and writes in German and Latin, and can converse in French. He was formerly a Catholic priest, was changed by the reading of the Scriptures, and is now a minister of the Church of England: he has a living the Toronto, and has been about 10 years in Canada. A considerable difficulty in the case perhaps would be the employment of him as a permanent agent, and he might not look for less. He has rather a large family. I think he spoke of £200 per annum as what he would engage for: I have been thinking that if he could get along this leave of absence, you might visit his home, and make a trial of what could be done in your work. He could I believe obtain leave for 18 months.
[I give you now a little item intermediate to a larger one. If there is anybody in Earl Street who would take the trouble of numbering your letters, I would gladly pay him a penny for each, at even twopence rather than not have it done. If they were numbered I should always know at once when anyone is missing. Let him begin at or with 1840.]
In your letter of the 21st me you say, "The Conclusion of our Report has been sent to you. Your opinion of that Conclusion I shall be happy to learn." In acknowledging your letter in which this is contained, I said this conclusion had not come to hand. I learned afterwards however that it had then come to Montreal, but had not been sent to me. Afterwards I got it, and read it with interest. Since of course I have seen it in the Report itself, and have read it again. The two letters by J. H. I have also received and read. I much like your conclusion. It is true, cogent, apposite, and firm. The use of the Septuagint by our Lord and his Apostles is, I have often thought, a remarkable fact, and surely it is well calculated to stagger the sticklers. You have done well to bring this forward. It was delicate ground, popularly, to hint at a defect in our Authorized Version. You felt it, and your remarks, as you observe, were wrung from you. It was right however and necessary for you to do what you have done. Perhaps you have prepared the way a little towards the obtaining an Improved Public Version, which I think in the present day, and under the Bible Society, through persons of different denominations combined, could be easily effected. I daresay you will get well pulled and bedaubed for what you have said about our perfect version, more perfect of course than the originals, as the Catholics say of the Vulgate, and the Lutherans almost of Luther's translation. I like your prayer at the close very much. May God hear it, and speedily, and largely may he answer it. – In regard to the versions from the Vulgate, I fear our good Protestants, at least many of them, have not candour enough for forming a true judgment of them. They are certainly better than they generally suppose. Our English Version, would not, I believe, appear so perfect as many think it, nor these versions from the Vulgate so defective, were a fair comparison made. I have lately read the Four Gospels of the De Sacy's Version, and in the Rhemes Testament. They are both wonderfully correct, and beyond all doubt these translations may justly be styled the word of God. When I have finished the Rhemes Irish version, as I may call it, I may perhaps say a few words more regarding it. – Your Mr. J.H. has, I think, managed Mr. Theld pretty well. He might have done more justice however to the truth, and to our cause, in regard to the use of the word Penance, the rendering of which I may say is the most objected to. The only impression on the mind of a Protestant as to the meaning of this word is that it expresses external religious performances or austerities, and no more. Now this is not the only nor the chief view which the Catholics think of it. In a note of the Rhemes version on Matthew 3.2, it is stated that the expression do penance "does not only signify repentance, and amendment of life, but also punishing past sins by fasting, and suchlike penitential exercises." This sentence in which the Catholics understand the words that have been so much blamed ought to be better known. Nor do the Catholic scruples to interchange, as I may say, the expression do penance with our word repent, as you may see by comparing, in the Rhemes Testament, Matthew 4.17 in Mark 1.15. These passages of parallel, and in this Catholic version the former is rendered do penance and the other repent. Further, the Catholics have not scrupled to throw away the word penance altogether, and to take the words repent and repentance in its stead all through the New Testament, as may be seen in the first number of the Irish National School Lessons from the New Testament on page 14. Let's have, by all means, truth, justice, fairness, and honesty, come what will. Pray who is your J.H.? If what I have said about penance is worth anything, you might show it to him.
In the matter of the above paragraph, you see how fully I side with you. When occasion offers I stand up in your defence all through regarding this thing, and endeavoured to justify your ways. There are some other points to, of days of yore, that come now and then before me, in which I am called to plead on your side, and I try to do the best I can to destroy the misconceptions and prejudices that exist in the minds of some against your Grand Institution. But, will you bear with me, if I tell you, by I am not able to defend you on all the scores brought against you. On one point I join and most readily, with your enemies and slanderers. Not to keep you in suspense: it is on the absence of prayer at your Public and Committee meetings. When speaking about you in this case when you are blamed in it, as you are by some of your best friends, I offer in your defense the various circumstances that conduced to your general understanding and practice on the point at the commencement of the Society. Still however I add against you, that it was wrong to enter into this understanding, and that it is doubly wrong to continue in it. Now however at all events I think the time is fully come when you may and should change your practice. I believe that Dissenters generally would concord with Churchmen in the matter, and Churchmen with Dissenters. The fact of public prayer being practiced in so many of your Auxiliaries at once opens the way, and removes the difficulty. The fact also of the Tract Society is constantly practising what is here indicated, is a strong argument, as that Society is founded on, and is conducted on, principal similar to your own, and this Society has never experienced any difficulty or inconvenience in this holy practice, so commendable in the sight of God and of man. It is certainly a great blot on the face of the Bible Society this want of public prayer at their meetings, or rather, the blot lies alone were chiefly on the Parent Institution, for many, I believe most, of the children do better than the parent in this case. – This subject being on my mind when writing to Mr. Hyde some months ago, I inquired of him what was the practice of the American Bible Society in this matter of public prayer at the general and committee meetings. His answer you shall have verbatim, and I beg you will way it well as it ought to be. He says: – "You are aware that the British and Foreign Bible Society is our great exemplar. Because they thought it inexpedient to commence their meetings with prayer, our board thought so too. In this respect your noble Society perhaps has much to answer for. In my opinion it is all wrong; and the sooner the Society in England reforms in this respect, the sooner shall we here. Our Auxiliaries generally open their meetings with prayer." – I would not weaken these well expressed sentiments by lengthening my observations on the subject. Nor will I put this paragraph in brackets. I wish, and my petition to yourself, and to each one, and all of the Committee, is that this subject should be taken into immediate and full consideration; and if this is the case, I have no doubt of the result you will come to. I conclude then by humbly and earnestly supplicating you forth with to appoint a sub-committee to consider this matter most seriously as its importance demands. There are, I know, some in New York and elsewhere also, who are weekly praying against you in this matter, and for you. May the Lord direct you to the proper acknowledgment of his name in your great and blessed work.
Believe me, Ever Truly Yours,
James Thomson.
Posted
Rev A Brandram No 90
Montreal 22nd January 1840
List of Books for the Montreal Depot of the British and Foreign Bible Society: to be sent out, half and half, by the earliest Spring vessels: with the Invoice addressed to Mr James Milne, and a duplicate to the undersigned: the former to have the contents of each case enumerated on it, the latter not. ―The orders contained in Letters 84 and 85 are hereby cancelled.
James Thomson.
Posted
Rev A Brandram Private
Montreal 12th March 1840
My Dear Friend,
This morning at three o'clock I arrived in this city from a town in the Upper Province, the particulars of which with notices of other visitations and operations during the winter will be set before you in due time. On my arrival I found a letter from Quebec, stating that certain matters between the Bible Society in that place and your Agent here have been forwarded to you, and upon which I hasten and to write a few lines that you may at once have the whole subject before you entire.
The matter before you for adjudication is very simple, and containable, I may say, in a nutshell. It is this: Are the Agents, and other officers of the British and Foreign Bible Society excluded by their office from speaking at all public meetings except those for Bible Society purposes? – And are they excluded from having their names on the Committees of all religious associations, not immediately connected with Bible Society concerns? – I am blamed by the Quebec Bible Society for having spoken at a public meeting in the city of the French Canadian Missionary Society, a Society formed, not on sectarian views, but on precisely the same catholic, general, broad grounds as the British and Foreign Bible Society; and I am blamed for having my name on the Committee of the same; and am further told, that it is wrong in me to have my name on the Committee of any local institution. If it was wrong in me to speak at a public meeting of the Society formed on broad catholic principles, like those of your Society, it must of course be worse to speak at a public meeting of any body bearing a distinct denominational character, and hence it would be wrong in all cases for any of your Agents to speak at any Missionary Meeting whatever.
As to local Institutions, – Are your Agents excluded from lending their aid in Committee or otherwise in favour of the particular denomination to which they belong? And if not, how much less blamable are they in their addressing a Society grounded on general principles like your own liberal institution? I have not used the first mentioned liberty, but I have used the second, in accordance with the wishes of our friends here, and that, in the case of the Religious Tract Society, which is an auxiliary of the Society of the same name in London, and in the case of the French Canadian Missionary Society, formed as I have before stated on the same principles.
The question you have now to decide, is not, what is more or less suitable and prudent in particular cases and circumstances, but what are the principles of your Society in the matters here stated.
But your decision of the case before you will involve also the permission or prohibition of your Agents as to preaching in any church belonging to any individual body or denomination; for the great constant, and only argument of our Quebec friends against your Agent was the lending of his influence obtained through connection with you, in favour of sectarianism, that is, any ism except the Bible Society ism. Now I thought I was within the sphere and limits of the last mentioned ism in lending my little aid to the two societies before named whose isms sympathize with yours, if they are isms at all, which they are not.
But you will wonder how our friends in Quebec could discern or descry sectarianism in the act or acts referred to, seeing they were exclusively in connection with special non-sectarian societies. unriddle the matter I must let you into the secret of it, and upon which it all hinges. For a considerable time past, not less than two or three years, whatever move the Quebec Bible Society has not felt quite well towards the Society in Montreal, and mainly or entirely on the supposed grounds that Mr. Wilkes was the chief mover in it, and that he led the Society on according to his own views, and that he was building up through their means his own denomination, that is Independency, and against the Church of England, also the church of Scotland, and the Wesleyans, of whom the objectors consist, but chiefly of the body first mentioned. Now the fault found by the Quebec Committee against the Montreal Committee was that it, (the Committee of the city,) allowed Mr. Wilkes to ascend their back, and stand up on their shoulders, and from this vantage ground to promote and advance his own sectarian views. And again the fault found with me was, that I also had allowed Mr. Wilkes to climb up on my back, and to stand on my shoulders, from whence also to play the same evil part; and further, it was alleged that my shoulders were very high, because of your great height which lengthened me up. It was moreover supposed that the French Canadian Missionary Society had been got up through Mr. Wilkes's influence, and for the same evil purposes. You will wonder at this statement, and will hardly believe it. It is nevertheless perfectly true, for all that I have here stated to you of it jocosely, was gravely and very seriously stated to me in conversation by the three or four leading persons who began and have carried on this affair which is now before you. And further, Mr. Willoughby, who has had much more intercourse with these parties than I have, more than stated and confirmed to me all I have said.
Now the evidently main object in attaching me, was to get a hit at the Montreal Bible Committee, and through this to bring down if possible Mr. Wilkes from all his height. It was intended by the parties, and distinctly mentioned to me by them, that a copy of their disapprobation of my aiding the French Canadian Missionary Society, was to be sent to the Montreal Committee, and with the views in question. I begged privately and publicly that the Quebec Bible Committee would not thus communicate with the Committee of this place. If you do, I said to them, you will produce a collision between the two Societies, for the Montreal Committee will immediately pass a resolution, I am perfectly certain I said, approving of what you have disapproved of. I knew this well, because my aid to the French Canadian missionary Society was all given in the face and with the full understanding and approbation of all our Bible friends here. I at length succeeded in this request, and no communication was made. That my view of things in this was correct became evident as soon as the objections made at Quebec were known. The members of the Committee here were individually much dissatisfied with the fault found with your Agent in the case, and none were more so than the members of the Committee belonging to the Church of England. There was however no official communication, and therefore there could be no official disapprobation expressed, and thus the two Societies were kept from a formal collision.
The very day after I returned from Quebec, I formerly withdrew my name from the French Canadian Missionary Society, in order to meet the wishes of our Quebec friends, and in my letter of withdrawal, I stated in the simplicity of my heart the cause of my doing so. I sent a copy of my communication to Quebec. Not long after I received a letter objecting to my having mentioned as a cause that which was openly and uniformly mentioned as such in all the conversations and discussions on the subject, and asking me to contradict and counteract what I said. A happy loophole let me out here, for I would no more have done what I was thus required to do than I would have signed a declaration stating that I had never been in Quebec or in London.
This odd request and other things that transpired led me as a duty to write with more point than I would have wished in some of my communications to our friends in Quebec, as you will most probably discern in the papers now before you, which I understand were sent off from Quebec to you on the 22nd February.
It is very painful to me to write of these things to you at all. I wished you should never hear of them knowing how would you would be grieved at that occurrence, and how reluctant you would feel to give a judgment in the case. Things however have turned out otherwise, and you will have to judge in it. Judge righteous judgment therefore, under the influence of the Spirit of God, and in accordance to the spirit of the Bible Society. For my part I promised not to take in dudgeon what you may say, although perhaps I may rally you if I think you are wrong.
One word before closing in respect to what is said of Mr. Wilkes. The allegations and suppositions referred to are totally unfounded; and to this all the members of our Society here connected with the Church of England would I am sure subscribe. One or two accidental circumstances have led to the suppositions in question, but nothing can be more incorrect than the idea that he is using the Bible Society here to build up his own denomination. A good number of the best and most active members of the Committee, and who are constant in that attendance, are of the Church of England, and this would seem to be pretty fair proof that matters are not and cannot be as is somewhere supposed.
I have told you more than once in my communications from this country, that there are contentions and collisions here not a few, both political and religious. To travel through among all these is like traveling through our fields here, and over many of our roads. The traveller often bounces against these on his way, and not infrequently has his vehicle overturned by them. I thought I had been rather fortunate in escaping such accidents, and hoped to get away from the country in safety, when lo and behold I drove against this stump at Quebec, and who could have seen it before him covered over with snow as I have described it. And now whether the stump or the vehicle suffers injury by the shock is in your hands to state.
Believe me ever, My Dear Friend, Very Truly Yours,
James Thomson.
Posted
To the Hon. Major Christie
Montreal, 17th March 1840
My Dear Sir,
Shortly after my return to this city on the 12th instant there was put into my hands a letter of yours addressed "to the Chairman of the Committee of the Montreal Auxiliary Bible Society", and dated the 29th ultimo. As that communication involves matters in which I am personally and officially concerned, I deem it a duty to make some observations upon it.
The first thing I would notice is, that you pass a gentle censure upon me for not having read to the aforementioned Committee your letter to me of the 11th January last. My answer to this is as follows. When I called on you on the same day the letter in question is dated, you told me you had a letter well on finished for me, but that you were glad to see me in order personally to tell me all its contents. You immediately related the whole subject to me about which you are writing: and at the close you said, I shall nevertheless of what I have now stated, finish my letter and send it to you. What I understood you wished me to do from these statements was, that I should as occasions offered explain the concerns in hand to any of the members of the Bible Society Committee in respect to your communications with Mr. Lapelletrie. This I did accordingly. On the 13th I think your letter came into my hands; and being hurried with some business at the time, and believing that I was already acquainted with all its contents, I did not read it till a day or two after, and then very cursorily owing to the impression before mentioned.
In the Committee on 21 January, when I found you there in expectation of your letter being read, I was sorry that I had it not with me, but offered to state at once its contents from memory as I knew well the substance of it. You said, No: it did not matter, it could be done at a future meeting, or something to that effect. In order that it might be read at the next meeting of the Committee I gave it to Dr. Holmes for that end when I went on my journey to Upper Canada. The other day I received it from Dr. Holmes, and looking it over in his presence I found this expression, "I therefore request you will submit the plain statement of facts to the Montreal Committee". From the manner, as above related, in which I first got the contents of this letter, and from the cursory manner in which I read it over after it came into my hands, I was really unconscious that this expression and request were in it. And finding it so, I confess at once, and most frankly, that I ought to have known that, as I should have read over your letter more carefully. Forgive me this error, and allow me to assure you that it was most unintentional, for I had not, that could have, the slightest difficulty or objection as to the reading of it to the Committee.
The next thing in your letter of the 29th February on which I would remark, is the expression, "The services of Mr. Lapelletrie were offered and accepted by me after his disengagement from the Bible Society". I necessarily suppose from this statement that Mr. Lapelletrie had in conversation given you to understand, that he had actually and duly resigned his connexion with the Bible Society. But he had not resigned when he offered you his services; nor does he himself say that he had in his letter to you, his expression is, "ne pouvant davantage appartenir á la Société Biblique". That he had not then resigned his connection with the Society is evident from the following circumstance. When I read over his letter to you which he showed me before he sent it, I rallied him on the impropriety of offering you services before resigning with the Society. His reply was, that he would be acting imprudently in giving up the one situation before he was sure of the other: for if he did, he said, he might be left destitute in a foreign land. I stated to him in answer to this, that he should do what was right, and leave results in the hands of God: but further, I added, you need not fear being left destitute in a foreign land, for the Bible Society will carry you back to your own country according to its arrangements. Of this conversation with Mr. Lapelletrie on the 10th January, I yesterday reminded him, and he acknowledged its correctness. This I consider a sufficient proof of his still being connected with the Bible Society when he wrote you. A further proof of the same is, that there is no document whatever from him to the Society as to resignation until the one lately given in, and dated the 2nd instant. Now it strikes me that you should yourself have seen a document of his resignation, or otherwise have been fully assured of its existence, before you received any letter from him containing offers of his service, or at all events before you accepted them. – As to what Mr. Lapelletrie says in his letter to the Bible Society Committee of the 2nd instant about his "dimision verbal" and about its being accepted "par plusieurs", and among others by myself, I would only say, that the conversation above related, which took place on the 10th of January and which he himself yesterday confirmed, is ample proof, so far as I am concerned, of his misstatement in the case made, it may be under forgetfulness.
The third thing I would notice in your letter of the 29th February is, what you say indicating that Mr. Lapelletrie was sent out of town seemingly with the purpose of preventing him from seeing the Bishop. It is necessary that I mention facts and occurrences in this matter, and by which it will be seen whether there was any intention of preventing the interview in question. After Mr. Lapelletrie had sent you his letter of the 9th January, he began to see that he had done wrong in regard to the Bible Society by offering you his services, and certain difficulties he had being removed as to his movements in the Society's work, he signified his hearty intention of continuing his Bible labours. At this time he was under an engagement to drink tea with you he told me, on the evening of Saturday 11th January, and then and there to see the Bishop. On the afternoon of this day, at Mr. Milne's house and in Mr. Milne's presence, Mr. Lapelletrie begged me to go on his part to see you and to prepare the way for his coming to you in the evening, by stating all that had recently occurred as I have just now related it, and that he was going out with Mr. Milne on Monday morning to join Mr. Hibbard. I called on you accordingly, and told you all, saying that Mr. Lapelletrie had desired me to do so, before he should come to drink tea with you that evening, and see the Bishop. At the time I stated to you Mr. Lapelletrie's impression that he was to see the Bishop on Saturday evening, all having been arranged for his going off on the morning of the following Monday. This shows therefore that there was no attempt made to hinder him from seeing the Bishop according to the hint to that effect in your letter. On my mentioning to you on that same Saturday afternoon all the arrangements in Mr. Lapelletrie's case, you acquiesced in them as far as I could judge, and gave no intimation to me that you wished Mr. Lapelletrie to delay his journey on Monday morning until after he had seen the Bishop: nor did I wonder at this, as the arrangements of which we had treated altered the circumstances for the time for which the interview between the Bishop and Mr. Lapelletrie was wished. Further, on the Saturday evening when Mr. Lapelletrie was in your house according to appointment, you never told him that you expected him to come to your house on Monday morning to see the Bishop. This I had from Mr. Lapelletrie yesterday: and he added, that he only knew this your wish by a note sent by your servant to him on Monday morning at the moment he was setting off for L'Assomption, and at which hour I was on my way to St Eustache.
In the fourth place, I would make a remark on what you say of Mr. Lapelletrie's remaining in town "doing the work of an evangelist which is not that of the Bible Society." The distinct arrangement made with Mr. Lapelletrie when it was agreed that he should remain in town, was that, each day immediately after breakfast he should on the part of the Bible Society visit from house to house disposing of the Scriptures until three or four o'clock in the afternoon; and that he should begin at one end of St. Antoine's Suburbs on one side going regularly through it, then the other side, then another street, and so on, and that he should note down the number of houses visited and the number of Bibles and Testaments distributed daily. Thus was the day's work to be given to the Bible Society. The rest of his time was of course his own. If Mr. Lapelletrie was not fulfilling this arrangement as you indicate, then the blame is his, and he was acting the part of an unfaithful servant. When I mentioned to Mr. Lapelletrie yesterday this arrangement made with him, he fully concurred with its being the rule that had been laid down to him. To this I may add, that if previous to the time here referred to, Mr. Lapelletrie acted inconsistently, with the rules prescribed to him by the Bible Society it was not from want of due notice of what was his duty, but from inobedience on his part, or from some sort of idea that he had liberty to act as he did.
I would now beg leave to notice an expression or two in your letter of the 11th January. These expressions are, "I replied, that if his engagements were at an end, and he would state the circumstance to me in writing, I would give him employment." – "Yesterday morning I received a letter confirming his statement of having left the service of the Bible Society, and repeating his offer to myself."
It was proper to require from Mr. Lapelletrie a statement in writing of his engagement having terminated with the Society before you at all treated with him about employment as indicated in the first of these quotations. In the second you say that his letter confirmed his verbal statement of his having left the society. The expression in his letter as I remarked before, will not bear out this view: he only says "ne pouvant davantage appartenir á la Société Biblique", which indicates rather an intention on purpose than an act of resignation; and in fact, as before stated, he had not then resigned, nor intended to do it, according to his own confession, till he saw that his offer to you was accepted: and but for this offer from you, he would I believe have continued with the Society.
In Mr. Lapelletrie's of the 2nd instant he says that his conscience was very much troubled for his not having fulfilled his offer made to you. I should be glad to recognize the tenderness of conscience he here speaks of, were it general instead of being on one side only. Previous to his having made you an offer of his services, namely on the 8th of January Mr. Lapelletrie actually did cast lots as to what he should do in his perplexity. This he did solemnly with prayer, and with the purpose and resolution before God of fallowing what the lot should bring out, considering the decision to be the voice of God to him. Well, the lot came out, that he was to obey the Bible Society. This is lot I have in my possession in his own handwriting, and it runs thus, as a voice and direction from God to him. "Obeis á la Société, tel est mon plaisir".
I am not disposed to approve of this way of deciding matters. But by the view with which he took of it, and his thus formally asking counsel of God, I conceive that he should have considered himself bound in conscience by it, and more especially as the path thus pointed out to him was all in favour of his fulfilling a work for which he was expressly sent to this country. Now, where I ask is his extreme tenderness of conscience in this promise and engagement with God, much more solemn than was a obligation he believes himself to have contracted with you: and what is of importance, in the case, the engagement with God was prior to his engagement to you? I do not see well how he can settle this case of conscience.
If he really is tender in conscience before God let it be here manifested. In truth he has acted in this matter, in my opinion exactly as the Jews did as mentioned in the 42nd and 43rd chapters of Jeremiah: and this I set before him distinctly at the time.
These obligations of Mr. Lapelletrie thus solemnly contracted before God by the lot were mentioned in your hearing and Dr. Holmes's on the10th January; and hearing them, you should, as it appears to me have been very careful in receiving any offers from him, and cautious as to afterwards urging them upon him as obligations.
In drawing this letter to a close, allow me to say what in my humble opinion you should have done, and that is cleaned in statistical this to you, talk of the Society for your service. You should I think as a member of the Bible Society, as a member of the kingdom of heaven, and as a father to him, have rallied him as to his duty to the Bible Society, for though the Society gave him an opening to leave, they certainly never counted on his acting on it as he has done and especially in so short a time. You should, I think, have encouraged him to go on and be faithful in his work is a good servant and for his own character's sake, besides the stronger reasons, whilst you might at the same time have signified that at the close of the two years' obligation, if not at the close of one year, (the special approbation of the Society obtained,) he might be employed in the way he preferred as an evangelist.
This step of Mr. Lapelletrie and your concern in it, will I conceive operate very unfavourably on the Bible Society at home in the sending out of other colporteurs; possibly it may stop them from sending a single one more: and indeed from this example what is to be expected, but that the same thing would be acted over again by other colporteurs on any occasion that should offer. Had Mr. Lapelletrie continued his two years in the service of the Bible Society, even at the cost of some present disadvantage to the Canadians, and then entered the field as an evangelist it would certainly have been better in every way, and not the least for the Canadians themselves. In that case, another and another colporteur from the Bible Society would have come out, and after a two years service each have become evangelists if found qualified, and would have devoted the rest of their lives, say, to the evangelization of the poor Canadians; and in this manner the necessary labourers would have been furnished for this country to the full extent of its wants. But by the present step and operations this cheering prospect is, I may say stopped, and the Canadians will suffer the most from it. Thus it always happens in all over haste about any concern. There is no speed in it, and real retardation is the result. You know well how I feel for that the poor Canadians: and the first is, that for their sakes personally as well as for the Bible Society interest in which I am officially concerned, I regret and greatly the movements referred to in this letter.
Before finishing this letter I would quote an expression from the beginning of your letter to me on the 11th January, and make an observation upon it in your favour. You say, "The first opportunity I had of seeing Mr. Lapelletrie was when you introduced him to me; and you may remember that I then inquired of him, if he knew any young man in France, or elsewhere like minded as himself; for I would gladly employ him as colporteur in my Seigneuries, which you know it has long been my interest to do, as soon as I could meet with a suitable one." Some, if not several individuals officially connected with us in the Bible Society here have construed this expression to your disfavour, as I suppose you are well aware. My own view of it completely justifies you of all blame in it; and thus I endeavour as I thought to show to others. I may however at the same time mentioned that it was I suppose this expression which led Mr. Lapelletrie to apply to you in the hope of employment. Nevertheless, I conceive you were entirely innocent of any improper intention in the case.
I have thus, My Dear Sir, thought it my duty in the way of business to make this communication to you in regard to this whole concern. You will, I am sure forgive my frankness, and not let it interfere with our personal friendship. Fidelity to the Society I represent has laid me under an obligation to write as I have done, but I have written, I trust in the spirit of Christian brotherhood.
I remain,
My Dear Sir
Very Truly Yours,
James Thomson.
P.S. Mr. Lapelletrie says in his letter of the 2nd March, "Je reconnais que je n'on pas considéré qu'il n'etait pas en mon pouvoir de renouveller mon engagement avec la Société Biblique sans premiérement obtenir le consentement de Mr. Christie."
This consent you could easily have given him, and in my opinion should, under all the circumstances of the case. But instead of relieving Mr. Lapelletrie. In this matter, you seem rather to have urged him upon the point. If Mr. Lapelletrie had come not to you as he did for the Bible Society, would you have been quite satisfied if the Bible Society here had obtained his services exactly as you have now obtained them? I think you would not.
Posted
Rev A Brandram . - No.91
Montreal, 24th March 1840
My Dear Friend,
Our winter is now nearly gone. It has been shorter, I may say, and less severely cold than last, but it has been more stormy. It is a common opinion here, that newcomers from less rigorous climates, suffer more the second winter than the first. I have not felt it so in my own case: and I do bless the Lord for his very gracious dealings with me during both of these two winters in which I have been in this country.
I have now to give you some account of my winter movements, and I shall be as brief in my statements as I well can. [And you can brief them more, and to your mind, by your red ink brackets.]
On the 23rd December, a few days after our winter road was formed of snow and frost, and fitted for our sleighs, I set out for St Andrews an L'Original, the same course I took the year before in my first winter journey. I was accompanied by Mr Milne the agent of the Montreal Society. On the 25th December the first anniversary of the Ottaway District Bible Society was held at L'Original. It was a good meeting in all respects. The assembly was good, the speakers and speaking were good, (myself and harangue of course excepted,) and the Report was good, and the results of the Society during this its first year were good, so that as I said before - all was good. - At St. Andrews we had a little meeting, and the results were not great, though we hope they were good. The Evil One still keeps up some discordances in that place, and which still operate unfavourably for our cause. - At St. Eustache we made arrangements for a future day, and were about to return to Montreal. But a severe snow storm came on, and anchored us fast for two whole days. On the third day we made our way to this city, through not a few nor slight difficulties, from the depth of the snow, the yet unformed road on it, and the constant drift on this the third day of the storm. - On the 13th of January I set out again for St. Eustache, accompanied by two friends from this place. We held our appointed public meeting, and formed our Society. St. Eustache, and all the country around, is French, and the English residents are few. Of these English only of course our Society was formed. But a constant sale of the Scriptures both in French and English is of great importance, and will operate beneficially, I trust, on all the population.
After my return from St. Eustache I was a good deal taken up with the arrangements of our New Depot and Sales Store here, and in the preparations for our Annual Meeting. The visitation to Odelltown was appointed during this time, but our second heavy winter storm came on, and interrupted it. Mr Milne and I set out in the midst of the storm, but we were under the necessity of returning.
On the 29th January of anniversary meeting was held. We had a large assembly, and would have had a much larger one, I believe, had the place been sufficiently ample. Numbers were prevented from attending, we afterwards learned, in the fear that there would not be room. It is gratifying to see this extensive Bible feeling in our community, and it is every way profitable. May the Lord increase it from year to year! A lively interest in the Bible cause during the meeting seemed evidently to prevail both on the platform and among all the auditors; and the impression generally produced, as could be afterwards collected, was that this last Bible meeting was the best of all that had been held here. The Report of the Society's proceedings during the year, (part only of which could be read,) was greatly calculated to stir up all with lively feelings of gratitude for all that God had done for the Society, and for the community here through its means. The whole of this Report has since been printed, and put into general circulation. Six copies of it were forwarded to you on the 12th instant, along with a letter of the same date, by favour of Capt. Douglas who left this on the following day for London bearing government dispatches. I am sure you will be greatly interested in this Report.
On the morning of the day immediately following our annual meeting, I set out on a tour to Upper Canada. I had previously made my arrangements and appointments. I went up on the bank of the St. Lawrence, and stopped first at Cornwall. Here we were prevented from holding a public meeting on account of some of the Chief Office Bearers being absent attending the Parliament then sitting in Toronto. A meeting of the Committee is to take place on their return, and arrangements are to be made for future operations. – In Prescott we were also hindered in our proposed public meeting by a little act of pure forgetfulness on the part of our worthy secretary. I found however by my conversation with the office bearers, that the Society was in a favourable state, and that many books had been disposed of.
At Brockville there was held a meeting of the Committee at which I learned that the general visitation of the town of Brockville had nearly been gone through, and that besides the supplying of books, a good list of subscribers had been obtained. Arrangements were made on this occasion for our holding a public meeting on my return, and for visiting their chief branches and associations; and at the same time it was agreed that the notice should be sent by this Committee to Perth, Lanark, Ramsay, etc. so that when I came this way again on coming down the River, I should go back to that quarter, and visit a number of places.
The clergy of the Church of England in the district in which Brockville is, and in some of the neighbouring districts, have recently formed themselves into a Bible Association, in connection with our Society; and from the progress that has already made, and the arrangements entered into, it promises to become very efficient in hastening on the general circulation of the Scriptures in this quarter. "The Eastern Clerical Bible Association" is the name it has adopted. It will stand, I believe, as an auxiliary to you, and will receive it supplies of the Scriptures from your Montreal Depot. As you have dealt pretty liberally with your various auxiliaries here in the way of grant the books, it will be but fair in accordance with this your generosity, to make a grant also to this new auxiliary. In the belief that this will be agreeable to you, I intend to make that Society a grant from our Depot in this city.
Kingston was next visited, and a few days were spent there in endeavours to revive and strengthen our auxiliary in that place by a public meeting and private interviews. Perhaps some advance was made in the cause through these means, but some things there I fear are not on so good and prosperous a footing as could be wished. Mr. Machar from the multiplicity of his engagements has judged it necessary to withdrawal from action as Secretary, though not from a place and portion of labour in the Committee. His place is supplied by the Rev. Mr. Roger of the English church. The Rev. Mr. Cartwright of the same church is on the Committee, and has promised to give the Society his aid as far as his many public duties as Rector of Kingston will allow him. Mr. Cartwright was gravely weighed the claims of both the two great Bible societies, for I will not call them rival ones, and he has before God seen it his duty to join us openly and I trust it will be effectively; whilst at the same time he withdraws not his interest in the Christian Knowledge Society, and our Brother, and Elder Brother, in the great work of circulating the holy Scriptures. The Archdeacon also shows us his good will by his subscription to the funds of the Kingston Society, and pleads his age for lack of further aid to it. Alexander Pringle Esq. is one of the secretaries of this auxiliary, and much credit is due to him for his attentions to our work, although much occupied in the civic business and bustle of Kingston, and the District of which it is the capital. And, query, should not all those who are much bustled with the bustles of life, give more than ordinary attention to the Bible and Bible cause, in order to counteract the distractions and deteriorations which the whilings of life are calculated to produce? Well may we say, blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord.
That is another name however in Kingston which I must give you, and I must make a whole paragraph of it. You know the person I allude to, as he was in your great Bible store in London last summer. I refer to Mr George Hardy. For five years he has been depositary to the Kingston Bible Society, and has been most efficient in that line of sustaining the existence and utility of the institution. He has received no remuneration for his services during all in time, and this is the more worthy of notice from the nature of his business, and his losses, I may say, in attending to the sales of the Scriptures at every hour when customers may happen to call. He and his sons are watchmakers, and it is therefore a much greater sacrifice to them, (in rising up presently from the nice machinery which occupies their attention,) than there would be to a general shopkeeper. But Mr. Hardy very distinctly and formally told me, and with grateful eyes, that he has lost nothing due to loss of time in this business. On the contrary, he says, that God has blessed his house ever since the Bibles were thus on sale in it, as he blessed in former times the house of Obed Edom. – The sum of £10 was allotted to Mr. Hardy as rent for one side of his front shop which he devoted to the books, and the sum was low for the room given. Mr. Hardy when I first saw him on this last visit to Kingston, showed me the order he had on the Treasurer for the payment here noticed, and it was for £50, for up to that time it seemed he had not drawn any of it. He asked me whether I thought you should then draw the sum, or leave it over some time in the Treasurer's hands. I advised him to draw it, that the accounts might stand fairly from year to year. Next day when I called he told me he had drawn it, but had paid back the half of it, namely £25, as a donation to the Society. He then drew out, and gave to me the other £25, to be sent to you, and placed in your hands. – Now, have I not presented to you a true Bible Society man? I will not add, that he is a Bible man also, for you will suppose this, and you will suppose right.
The town of Belleville is the centre or capital of the newly made district of Victoria. On the 12th February a public meeting was held there in the new Court House just finished, along with the Sheriff of the District in the chair. The assembly was very good, and I may say, there were present all the ministers of the place of all the different denominations. One was in body absent, that he sent a note saying that illness only hindered him from being with us. The Society was formed and I trust it will prove an efficient one the attentions and services of the Rev. James Ketchan of the Scotch Church I found of great use. All the other ministers also were and are most friendly.
On the 13th February a meeting was held in Colborne, but it was small on account chiefly of the deficiency of previous notice. Mr. Steele a merchant of that place takes an interest in our cause. The Society was formed, with him for its president. The Rev. William Reid of the Scotch Church, lately come to settle there, took up the cause warmly, and considers it a special favour of God towards him to give him something active to do in the blessed Bible cause on his commencing his labours as a Minister in that place. He officiates also in a place called Grafton, 8 miles off, and where he purposes before long to get up a little Bible Society as at Colborne, both of which he says shall have his special care and labours.
At Cobourg on the 14th February I was much disappointed. I had fully calculated on having a meeting there that evening. The person to whom I had written about the notices, under whom I fully calculated, partly from a partial absence, and partly I suppose from oversight, had not given the intimations, nor made the arrangements required. Consequently there was no meeting; and I regretted it the more, because every subsequent day of my time was pre-engaged, and therefore I could not point out a new day.
On the morning of the 15th I had an appointment at the Rice Lake, to meet the Indians there for a Bible meeting. You will recollect this place, as I mentioned it to you in my notice from this country in 1830. On my visit at that time across the lake in a canoe, and stretching out my hand I pulled up stocks of wild rice as we sailed along. Now however there was neither rice stalks, boat, nor water, but a solid board of ice, over which we drove with our vehicle as if we had been on the firmest ground. – At half past 10 o'clock I reached the Indian village, and found the Rev. Mr. Gilmour there just got out of his sleigh. I had communicated with him some time before about our meeting in this place and I found he had got all arrangements made. An Indian forthwith blew the gathering horn, and soon after the Indians assembled in the Chapel. The Rev. John Sunday, a full Indian of this tribe, is the officiating Wesleyan Minister of the place. It was an interesting sight to see the Indians met on such an occasion as this. They knew in part what was the object, and a assembled to hear further about it, and to take it into consideration. The meeting commenced of the hymn and prayer in the Indian tongue. On this, as on all other occasions in our Bible meetings among the Indians, I had to speak through an interpreter, and hence bit and it. It requires patience both to give out, and to take in, the speech in this piece meal way. But whatever might be the case with the speaker, the Indians were not lacking patience. When I had finished my address, Mr. Sunday spoke to his countrymen in their own language on the subject laid before them. He was followed by an old chief who, I understood, is greatly respected by his people, and very deservedly. He expressed himself highly gratified with what had been brought before the meeting, and stated his desire to see a Bible Society formed there as at the other Indian places to which reference had been made. He wished, he said, that he had then hand in his possession two dollars, as he would have given them immediately. He promised however that the very first two dollars he should have he would give for the subject. Some others of the Indians expressed themselves also in favour of the formation of a Society, and then the interpreter signified that they were all willing. We proceeded next to elect office bearers. The Rev. John Gilmour, who has charge of this establishment on the part of the New England Company, was elected President. All the other office bearers are Indians. This subscription list was then commenced, and names began to be taken down, and to which sums were added, which I might say, were more than worthy of the people, that is, they would higher than their circumstances, and above the proportions put down generally by more favoured persons to Bible Societies. As Mr. Gilmour and I had to go to Peterboro, we retired to the house of Mr. Sunday to prepare for going, and left the Interpreter, an Indian, to go on taking down names. Just before we started he came in. I inquired how many names he had. He replied. "Everyone there, both men and women." Now Query, Did it ever happen in England, or elsewhere, that all present both men and women put down their names as subscribers before they left the place of meeting? Perhaps this is the first instance of it. Does not the circumstance speak much in favour of the poor Indians? It does: and God will enrich them for it, and I pray that it may be before long. – Arrangements were made for having further meetings, and talkings, and subscribing in favour of the Bible object, and the Interpreter engaged to write me afterwards sending me a copy of the entire subscription list, with the names in the Indian language which is the Chippeway. – One man had his name put down for a fox skin as his subscription, worth something more than a dollar. When he was rallied as to whether he was sure of catching a fox for this end, he replied, that he had caught it already. One of the Indian women present when she saw that the meeting was likely to be interesting, sent out one to call her husband. He came, entered the Society like the rest, and was made one of the Council or Committee. The name of the Society is the Rice Lake Indian Bible Society, and it is in connection with the Upper Canada Bible Society at Toronto.
On Monday morning the 17th of February, Mr. Gilmour and I started for the Indian village at the Mud Lake. An Indian blew the horn on our arrival, and in half an hour our assembly congregated. We proceeded as at Rice Lake, and the result we found alike favourable. Our interpreter was an Indian as before, and of his character Mr. Gilmour spoke very highly. Our subscription list was duly honoured, and that by everyone present at the meeting, I understood, and the sums put down were most creditable to the poor Indians with their scanty and precarious means. The Secretary of the Society is an Indian who has had a superior education, and understands, they tell me, some Latin and Greek. There were a few whites at this meeting, persons living in the neighbourhood. The whites have set down their names as subscribers along with the Indians on the same list. This is one of the beautiful features of the Bible Society, that the tutored and the untutored, the rich and the poor, the bond and free associate side-by-side in goodwill and unity. – Among the names of Indians on our list, I perceive John Rice Lake, Joseph Musk-Rat that, and Mary Snow Storm.
On the evening of the same day, the 17th February, the anniversary of the Peterboro Bible Society was held. The assemblage was very good, and the general gratification seem to be felt. We had ministers with us of the various denominations. An elderly gentleman, with a lovely hoary head, graced our meeting. This was the Rev. Mr. Wolsey of the English Church, lately come to this country from Ireland. He took great interest in our object, and spoke with Irish fervour; and we in our turn felt much interest in him, and in all he said. – I spoke well to you of the Society when I visited this place in the end of September last. The Report read at this meeting, and Bible work carried into effect here since that time, as well as before, justified what I said. They have made a full visitation of some parts of their field, and they purpose going on in the same mode of examination until they complete their work.
Every on the 18th I set out from Peterboro accompanied by Mr. Gilmour, for Aldersville, another Indian village, lying on the South East side of the Rice Lake at some little distance, where we had an appointment for a meeting. On our way we passed through the Rice Lake Indian village, where we had been two days before, and took along with us from thence, Mr. Sunday, the Interpreter, and some other Indians. We would all very cordially received by the Rev. Mr. Case the Wesleyan missionary stationed there. We had no horn sounded in Aldersville to bring the people together, but a triangle bell was struck or rung for that purpose. On hearing it our Indians trooped to the place of meeting full of Bible interest, for they had heard of the two meetings lately held among their countrymen. After praise and prayer in the Indian tongue, and my address, the Rev. Mr. Sunday stood up and spoke to the Indians. He is the principal chief of this station, although he now resides and officiates on another. He stood therefore on this occasion as an Indian, and a Chief, and (according to custom at all our Indian meetings,) addressed his countrymen on the subject that had been just brought before them. I could not understand what he said, but his speech seemed to be of the first order, of pure genuine eloquence. I have often heard the Chippeway language spoken, but never before did I hear it so spoken. It was not the up and down intonation, as it had always before sounded to my years, but the beautiful hill and dale modulation that pleases the ear, as these surfaces please the eye. It seemed altogether a powerful as well as a beautiful address, and it seemed to be felt as such by the Indian auditory. – Here again, and on the 8th occasion we formed an Indian Bible Society. All present at the meeting became subscribers, I understood , and I may add, all not present, for all, and the whole of the people on this Indian establishment, men, women, and children, are resolved, they informed me, to give something more or less to the Bible Society. Query second, in what village in England do all the people—men, women, and children—give something to the Bible Society? Perhaps this is done in some of the villages of Wales. In stepping out of Mr. Case's house, adjoining the place of meeting, six little Indian girls came in a line, one after another, each with a basket in her hand of her own making. The whole were made to halt and front, and then each presented me with her little basket as a contribution to the Bible Society. I received them in order, and never did I receive a contribution to your Society, I may well say, with so much delight. These little squaws were very pretty, because they were thus prettily employed in presenting their pretty baskets, and pretty, because, by a course of school training, their faces had lost their Indian blankness, and were full of intelligence. – That is here at this village of Aldersville under the care of Mr. and Mrs. Case the best school establishment I have seen among the Indians of this country. The girls are not only taught reading, writing and needle work, but other work also not less important, and more especially for Indians. They are taught all sorts of female domestic and farm work. I should conceive that they have well profited by that instructions in these important labours by the specimens which I saw, and moreover which I tasted. We had an excellent dinner Mr. Case's all cooked by these Indian girls, including a fine pudding at the close: and their butter and cheese, all made with their own hands, from the milking of the cows onwards, were of the best quality. I was delighted with the whole establishment, and with all the persons and things on it, and greatly regretted that I could spend so short a time there, my other engagements cutting me off. – Before I leave the village however, I must say one thing more in favour of the Indians. I told you that all of them were going to give something less or more as a Bible Society subscription. Mr. Case informed me that the Indians are never backward to give their little sums when a proper object was presented before them. They often, he says, wish to give beyond their power, and he has to caution and restrain them from doing too much. I wish this feeling, if it were but by fits, of giving beyond their power, or say equal to their power, would fall on some thousands of the great and rich among you, and that it would always last till all the coffres of Christian benevolence were full, and that it would always return again when they get low or are empty. And this wish, extravagant as it may at first sight appear, will I am sure be realized to its fullest extent in due time. In circulating the Bible we hasten this expected season, and bring it about with certainty.
I have now to make my way to the public road on the banks of Lake Ontario, and to proceed by the stage to Brockville about 150 miles where I have an appointment on the 20th. We have had some days of severe of rapid thaw, one of the things most dreaded and hated in this country when it comes on early and unexpectedly, as it destroys the snow rapidly and softens the ice and so breaks up our fine winter roads on which we sleigh along so smoothly. This thaw continued and increased on my way to Brockville, and we had much rain. Such roads we had that I cannot properly describe them, and seldom have I experienced more discomfort in travelling than during these two nights and a day in making the journey referred to. Nor were dangers absent, and of kinds more than one. In passing along upon the frozen surface of the Bay of Quinte by night, the ice which had got bad by the thaw, gave way in part under our heavy sleigh full of passengers and luggage, and only by the rapid flight of our four horses whipped and hastened on were we saved from going down. We then got onto firmer ice; but it gave way again just at the edge and are sleigh stuck till we got help to bring it out. But there was little water there, and we all got out safely. Blessed be the Lord for this and as many preservations of me! – Not far from this place, a few years ago, the Rev. Mr. Murray of the Scotch Church, hastening home on Saturday for his duties next day, drove upon weak ice, and himself, horse, and vehicle went down, and all disappeared, except his cap which was left floating on the spot to tell the melancholy tale!
On arriving at Brockville I found myself unable to carrying my previous engagements into effect, from the continued thaw, and the breaking up of the roads. We held a public meeting there on the 22nd February which was well attended considering the badness of the weather. In a few days the weather began to mend, that is to say, the frost set in again. This was followed by a very fine day in our Canadian eyes, that is, it snowed heavily all day long. On the next day the weather was just to our liking, there was a keen frost, and sufficient snow on the ground for good sleighing. Thus favoured the Rev. Mr. Campbell and I set out. The appointed meeting there had taken place some days before when I was unable to be present. All seemed to wish for another meeting, and it was accordingly agreed on, and appointed to take place a few days after. In the meantime I went to Ramsay, and was happy to be there on the proper date of appointment for that place. Our meeting was very good, and I hope much good will result from it. The Ramsay Bible Society is chiefly under the patronage and care of the Rev. Mr. Fairbairn, Minister of the Scotch Church of that place. This gentleman is our warm friend in all our Bible work. A good deal has been done in it, by himself, his congregation, and neighbourhood, and I trust much more will yet be done by them. So they seem to wish themselves, not satisfied with what they have already done. Among other things I set before them the praiseworthy conduct of the poor Negroes in the West Indies, and of the poor Indians among themselves: and the impressions seemed thereafter to prevail, that the Negroes and the Indians had excelled them in the good and great work of the Bible Society. They resolve in future to walk more worthy of their many advantages. May God maintain this impression on their minds. Mr. Fairbairn will I know put them in remembrance, and I trust we shall hear of more and more being done by the Bible Society of that place.
On the 2nd March we had a meeting at Carlton Place, in that neighbourhood, and we were led to suppose that the feelings and impressions produced were favourable. On the 3rd was our meeting in Perth. A thaw had again set in, and the weather was very bad, nevertheless we had a very full meeting, and we hoped a profitable one. During my movements in this quarter, besides being kindly accompanied by Mr. Campbell all the time, I was favoured with the help and very kindly attentions of Mr. Fairbairn already mentioned, and the Rev. Mr. Wilson of Perth, and the Rev. Mr. McAlister of Lanark, both of the Church of Scotland, and whom (these three) I had not seen during my short visit to Perth in the end of last year. I feel greatly obliged to these for gentlemen for the warm interest they feel, and for the active cheerful aid they give, towards our Bible cause; and personally, I am much indebted to them for their kindnesses and hospitalities. Sweet was our communion together in the things of God, and though we have now parted, we shall not soon forget that we had such communion and comfort together in our Lord Jesus Christ.
Mr. Campbell and I returned on the 5th and 6th to Brockville, I may rather say through the roads rather than over them, for they were very bad. – At half past 2 o'clock in the morning of the 9th I set off from Brockville, and reached Cornwall at 8 in the evening with all my bones aching through flying over a road first broken into ruts and lumps and then frozen hard and in a springless waggon. I got mended next day, through the rest, and the kind attentions of the Rev. Mr. Urguhart of the Scotch Church at whose house I lodged. I saw our Bible friends at Cornwall. They have had a meeting of the Committee since the time I passed through there, in which a free contribution of £10 was ordered to be sent to the Montreal Bible Society, after clearing off all scores in the price of books. Steps are to be taken for extending the Society, so that Cornwall altogether as a branch of our Montreal tree may be said to have done very well. – I left Cornwall on the 11th instant and on the 12th reached this city, all well: and blessed be the Lord who has caused all my journeys hitherto thus to terminate! – And Oh! may the long and the last journey, even the last of life, also terminate – well! – And so may it be with you, My Dear Friend, and with all our Bible coadjutors!
Your letter of 28th November in reply to mine of the 28th October came to hand on the 29th January and Mr. Jackson's letter of the 14th with Invoice of 500 De Sacy's New Testaments came to hand on the 21st February. We here are all very much obliged by these prompt and cheerful attentions on your part to meet our wants and our circumstances. We wish we could reward you in respect to the care in hand in such a manner as would be agreeable to you, and we know that statements from us of our success in distributing the Scriptures among our French population here by Mr. Lapelletrie be would be most grateful to you. I am sorry we cannot do this. Mr. Lapelletrie and his Bible distribution labours with us has turned out like the seed that fell on the thin soil with rocks just under. There was a flush of growth and promise, and presently all withered away. Some account of Mr. Lapelletrie's labours and very encouraging success at the commencement you have in my letter of the 28th October. Not long after that, he seemed to turn his attention more to the work of a Catechist, or Evangelist, as they say in France, than that of a colporteur or distributor of the Scriptures. He was kindly informed, and more than once that this was not the work of the Bible Society however good in itself. At the same time every accommodation to his wishes, consistent with our single object, and even perhaps a little more, owing to our particular situation and circumstances, was granted him. Mr. Lapelletrie objected to our view of this mode of acting, and said we should have commended him rather than blame him for the mode in which he was labouring in giving instructions to the people out of the Scriptures; and further he justified himself by distinctly and repeatedly stating that your Committee in open meeting, and yourself in particular, told him he would not be confined here to the distribution of the Scriptures as the Colporteurs were in France, but that he would be at liberty to act the Evangelist as he might choose and as opportunities might offer. I told him he must needs be mistaken it in regard to this, but he repeated it firmly and again and again, and said also that Mr. Pressencé told him the same from the commencement of his communications with him about Canada. As I said we tried to keep things right and accommodated as long as we could, but at length our efforts failed, and Mr. Lapelletrie resigned seizing the opening you had left him in his terms of agreement. His services are engaged by Major Christie of this place to act as an Evangelist. This gentleman has considerable property in this Province in the form of Seigneuries, and his tenants are French and Catholics. He has long been desirous of giving them religious instruction, and willing to expend means liberally for that end. He has now obtained the services of Mr. Lapelletrie for this purpose. But we are not all quite satisfied with the way in which things have been managed. You will see some notice of this kind in the letter, a copy of which I now send you. Major Christie tells me he has written to you, and has sent you some papers, and with these it is fit you should see the copy I refer to. He has offered, we understand, to pay you Mr. Lapelletrie'se passage and expenses from France to Canada, should you wish it. It is proper that I should give you the opinion of the Committee here on this point, and it is, that he should so pay you.
A few days ago arrived your Bible Society Reporter for February, and in it the grateful news, that we are henceforth to have Bibles and one shilling and sixpence, and Testaments at sixpence. This, I think, is a right and great step in your work, and its results will be extensive and glorious. – This cheap Bible and Testament however, should, in my humble opinion, be printed on paper inferior to your second class now used. The funds of the Society should be made to go as far as possible, whilst at the same time the Scriptures are issued very cheap as you are now offering them. Forgive my hint, and weigh it.
I remain,
My Dear Friend,
Very Truly Yours,
James Thomson.
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Mr Hitchin
Montreal 24th March 1840
My Dear Sir,
I write a few lines to advise Two Bills drawn on your house, the value of both to be placed to my Private Account.
First: For One Hundred Pounds, in favour of John Mathewson Esq. at 60 days, dated the 23rd instant.
The second: For Fifty Pounds, in favour of John Dougall Esq. at 60 days, dated the 24th instant.
I understand you have received for me Twenty Pounds from Mr Morrish of Bristol.
In my letter of the 14th. November, did I say, that the £100 Bill then advised was to be placed to my Travelling Account? If I did so, it was a mistake, which please to rectify if committed. I say this, because I find, to my surprise, the oversight in question in my copy of said letter.
I remain,
My Dear Sir,
Truly yours,
James Thomson.
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