The Anglican Church of Canada by Philip Carrington

Chapter Two: The French Wars

An essential part of the history of Canada is the story of the efforts of both the French and the English to increase their dominance in North America. For decades these two powers were at war continually capturing, losing and re-capturing various pieces of Canadian real-estate. Into all of this the Anglican Church in Canada started in fits and starts. It is notable that during one of the several short times of peace a new religious associated was formed in 1698 called The Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. This was an organization that was going to become very important and whose important work was the distribution of religious literature through libraries and book stores. This group in turn formed another society that was to be hugely influential called the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts. Both of these were under the patronage of the Crown and the Archbishops in England.

It was at this time that the first church buildings were being built in Canada. There is an interesting emphasis on communion vessels given to various churches by Queen Anne. These vessels are interesting because they will come up a few times in the next generation. These royal gifts are now in the care of St. Paul’s church in Halifax, the oldest Anglican church in Canada still running.

In some sense the beginning of a stable Anglican church was the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. This ended the French wars for a full thirty years and gave some stability to the frontier. It was during this time that with the help of the SPG “clergy were appointed, churches were build, and schools started.” The rest of the period is kind of a dreary repetition of war, peace, war breaks out again, peace, more war, a little peace, some more war… It was during this time that the Acadians were expelled and finally the Battle of the Plains in 1759 which effectively ended the French wars on this continent.

As I said earlier there is a real sense here that the Anglican church came in fits and starts depending of British interests and the state of the wars. I would like to end this post with a quote I enjoyed from the book. It is about different groups working together to create the Canadian experiment:

“We pause to make a point which will often appear in our history, the ability of Canadians of different races and religions to work together in unity without surrendering their native loyalties or culture. It is a kind of national partnership which calls for sympathetic imagination, Christian character, and realistic thinking.” P.35