ew of
this unfortunate subject ... the distress of my five clergymen, and
the desolation with which it menaces the Church, it involves
consequences so calamitous and imminent as to justify the
representative of the sovereign in assuming more than ordinary
responsibility in arresting their progress...."

On the 31st October, I again brought this painful subject at great
length before the Provincial Government, and stated that, having
failed to receive relief, I could only see one way left of
mitigating the evil, and that is by an appeal to my people on the
present critical situation of the Church, and in behalf of my
destitute clergymen. It is indeed a step which I take with extreme
reluctance, and which, were it possible, I would most willingly
avoid.... (page 6.)

In a remarkable document, which the Bishop published in 1849, on "_The
Secular State of the Church in the Diocese of Toronto_," he furnishes a
painful and striking commentary on the effect of his own teaching: that
it was the duty of the State to support the Church, and thus relieve the
people of the chief obligation of supporting the Gospel amongst them.
Speaking of "contributions to the Church within the Province," he says:

Till lately we have done little or nothing towards the support of
public worship. We have depended so long upon the Government and
the [Propagation] Society, that many of us forget that it is our
bounden duty. Instead of coming forward manfully to devote a
portion of our temporal substance to the service of God, we turn
away with indifference, or we sit down to count the cost, and
measure the salvation of our souls by pounds, shillings, and
pence.... While we are bountifully assisted, and seldom required to
do more than half; yet we are seen to fail on every side (page
19).[129]

On pages 34-40 of this pamphlet, Bishop Strachan is very severe on the
clergy to whom Bishop Fuller refers, whom he accuses of putting forth
efforts "to disturb the peace of the diocese--efforts which were rapidly
being organized into something of a regular system of agitation, so
common ... among the traders in politics" (page 34).

An agitation having been commenced by the Bishop and clergy in Western
Canada, in 1843, for "better terms" and an amendment to the Imperial
Clergy Reserve Act of 1840, the question was re-opened. The effect of
th