History of the Anglican Church of Canada

Chapter Four: The Second American War

This chapter of the ACC takes place during a time of great uncertainty in the Western World. It was the time of revolution: the American Revolution and the French Revolution. Of the two of course the French was the more radical. In that conflict the “ancient order” of church and monarchy came down and was replaced with a militantly secular republic. Out of this of course rose Napoleon, and once again all of Europe was at war.

So what did Charles Inglis do? Bless his soul, he started founding educational institutions. He realized early on that the people of Canada would have to educated themselves in order to become a mature country. While his undertaking encountered political problems by and large he was successful and some of them are still with us today. In the rest of the ACC the institution was really starting to come together. Over these years Bishops were consecrated in Quebec and Toronto. Part of the problem for the Bishop in Quebec is that while the Anglican church was in theory the Establishment Church, in fact the governor of the province was really courting the Roman Catholic church as it was the dominant church in Quebec.

It was also at this time that the first Anglican cathedral outside of the British Isles. King George was generous to this new church in Quebec by donating books, hangings, vessels for communion and two great silver candlesticks for the altar. And in all of this the population was steadily growing through the influx of British settlers and through the influx of American settlers. New parishes were being built. It all looked good until the beginning of the Second American War in 1812. It is interesting to note that once again the Americans expected the Canadians to rise up and join them which “was not unreasonable since nine-tenths of the new settlers had come from the States, and only about a quarter of these were Loyalists.” However, they joined together to repulse the Americans

Except for the war this was not a time of dramatic activity. In some ways it seems very mundane. And yet it strikes me that this is really the work of the church. Much of it is mundane. We wake up every morning, eat breakfast and go out to labour for the kingdom of God. It is not necessarily heroic but it is our calling, and we have done it for centuries.