The Roman Catholics Have Enormous Endowments, Including A Great Part Of
The Island Of Montreal, And Several Valuable Seigneuries.
Very large sums
are also received by them from those who enter the convents, and for
baptisms, burials, and masses for the dead.
The enslaving, enervating, and
retarding effects of Roman Catholicism are nowhere better seen than in
Lower Canada, where the priests exercise despotic authority. They have
numerous and wealthy conventual establishments, both at Quebec and
Montreal, and several Jesuit and other seminaries. The Irish emigrants
constitute the great body of Romanists in Upper Canada; in the Lower
Province there are more than 746,000 adherents to this faith.
The Presbyterians are a very respectable, influential, and important body
in Canada, bound firmly together by their uniformity of worship and
doctrine. Though an Episcopalian form of church government and a form of
worship are as obnoxious to them as at home, their opposition seldom
amounts to hostility. Generally speaking, they are very friendly in their
intercourse with the zealous and hard-working clergy of the Church of
England; and, indeed, the comparative absence of sectarian feeling, and
the way in which the ministers of all denominations act in harmonious
combination for the general good, is one of the most pleasing features
connected with religion in Canada.
In Upper Canada there are 1559 churches, for 952,000 adherents, being one
place of worship for every 612 inhabitants. Of these houses of worship,
226 belong to the Church of England, 135 to the Roman Catholics, 148 to
the Presbyterians, and 471 to the Methodists.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 323 of 478
Words from 87778 to 88039
of 129941
