give to the clergy. He even
thought that in regard to the particular case at Montreal, and in any
other case where a church should be, or was about to be built by
private contribution, the bishop would exhibit infinite discretion, if
he did not do more than wish to advise and to consecrate. The same
rights, privileges, prerogatives and authority as bishops enjoy under
the common Law of England could not safely be given to colonial
bishops, nor could it be possible to obtain them. A more worldly view
of church extension could not well be conceived, but the suggestion was
not by any means an imprudent one. Bishops, being but men, are too apt
to abuse power, and it is surely well that too much of it should not be
granted to experiment upon.

While all this was quietly going on, _sub rosa_, in Lower Canada, the
Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, were quietly taking hold of
the public mind in Upper Canada. Although the meeting houses were only
few and far between, and churches and chapels were extremely rare, the
most illiterate of the sects were itinerating, hither and thither, with
wonderful success.

About this time there was also a disposition to diffuse education. His
Majesty, the King, gave directions to establish a competent number of
free schools in the different parishes, to be under the control of the
Executive, but the project was strenuously opposed by the Roman
Catholic clergy, and only grammar schools in Montreal and Quebec were
provided for, which have languished and died. It was feared by Bishop
Mountain that the want of colleges and good public schools would render
it necessary for parents to send their children to the United States,
to imbibe, with their letters and philosophy, republican principles. It
was at his suggestion also that the idea of free schools was
entertained. The Canadians were deplorably ignorant, and their
children, it was designed, should be free from that reproach. It is
only now, however, that they are emerging from the most debasing state
of mental darkness, into something like enlightenment. Example has done
that which force would have failed to accomplish.

As illustrative of the saying "there is nothing new under the sun," it
is worthy of remark here that upon the arrival of the intelligence in
Canada, respecting the breaking out of the war with France, in 1798,
some of the leading members of the House of Assembly, which was then
sitting, proposed to levy the sum of L20,0