The Express.
London, England, 1860-12-01 00:00:00

THE BRITISH COLUMBIA MISSION.

At the Mansion House meeting yesterday,
Mr. CRICRIATIM FOITZSCUE, M.P., Under Secretary for
the Colonies, said that being connected officially with the
twin colonies of Vancouver's Island and British Columbia,
which formed the chosen over which the Bishop of Columbia
presided, he gladly undertook to second a resolution. It
was well known that an eminent and distinguished man, who
latelyheld the office of Secretary of State for the Colonies,
Sir E. B. Lytton, had the honour of founding the
youngest, and, perhaps, the most interesting of the colonies
of England ; but British Columbia was handed down in •
very unformed or infant state to the present authorities
at the Colonial-office, and he could say that no one took a
greater interest in its welfare and progress than his noble
friend the Duke of Newcastle. (Hear, bear.) It was im-
possible for any one to be connected officially with the
worldly and material affairs of a community like that of
British Columbia without haring an earnest desire that its
higher, holier, and more sacred interests should not be
neglected—that it should not only pores, as it happily did,
the rudiments of law, order, and good government—a
vigorous commerce and a healthy and hardy industry ; but
that there should be sown the seeds of an educated, re-
ligious, God-fearing, and Christian nation. (Cheers.) And
if he were a member of the church of England, he must be
particularly gratified to learn that his church was likely to
be the means of conferring that great boon upon that 'dis-
tant land. (Hear, hear.) He need hardly remind them
that such relations as those between church and state in
England did not and could not exist between the govern-
ment and the church in British Columbia. The system of
state endowments for religious purposes was absolutely
alien to North America, whether in or beyond British poi-
sessions, and its establishment there was admitted to be im-
possible. That policy was fully recognised by the government
at home and in the colony, and by none more heartily than
the Bishop of Columbia. When the bishop went out than
much suspicion and alarm was excited among a jealous com-
munity, for the name of a bishop seemed to them to imply
• system to which they hail been unaccustomed, and
objected. The newspapers had articles against the estab-
lithenut of a state church, and the House of Assembly
adopted resolutions in the same sense, but soon after his
arrival the whole scene changed. By his great tact and
excellent sense and judgment he succeeded in diverting the
current of popular opinion into a channel highly favourable
to his mission. He threw himself boldly on the voluntary
efforts of the people, and they gave him a cordial and
hearty welcome. But while they could not have re-
course to state endowments, the voluntary sys-
tem was not without great difficulties, and unless
they endeavoured earnestly to surmount those,
the cause of religion in the colony might be imperilled.
This new colony, which was only a child of two years'
growth, was as largei as the whole of France, and until re-
cently had been but a wilderness, inhabited by wandering
Indians and a few white men engaged in the fur trade.
Since the discovery of gold a tarp population had poured
in from the neighbouring states, but it was not • settled or
fixed population, arid varied much in its number. Being
a mining population chiefly it was shifting and isolated, and
it was no exaggeration to say that hardly a spot could be
found in British Columbia with 100 settled inhabitants. A
serious obstacle was interposed by such a state of things
to any steady and regular support of the church
or schools by voluntary contributions. The good
order and respect for the laws which prevailed in that
I scattered population was perfectly marvellous, hut they
were unable themselves to establish • Christian church in
the colony, though if it were founded for them they would
gladly welcome it, and perhaps in a short time support it with-
out any extraneous assistance. Another reason why the church
of England should strike its roots deeply in British colonies
war that it might efface as it were the anti-English or rather
un-English character of the people. There never was an
English colony in which such a preponderating proportion
of the population was not drawn from the home country,
and the consequence was that it had lost in • great degree
its British habits and feelings. This, however, afforded no
ground for complaint or idarin. The policy of the govern.
meat had been to throw open the door of the colouy as
widely as possible, and to allow the Americo people to enter
as freely as they liked ; but it showed that the teachers of
the rising generation should be drawn as much as possible
from the mother country, and thus made to form a link,
which was greatly wanted, between the dependency and our.
selves—a mettle for fusing in one harmonious Christian
community the whole of that mixed and heterogeneous
population. The Indian race, the original possessors of the
country, had paramount claims on their attention. They
bad suffered much from the presence of the white man, but
he did not mean to say that the relations between the white
and coloured man were as unsatisfactory to a British terri-
tory as in the United States. They were marked by far
lees of oppression, cruelty,i and bloodshed ou the
one side, and of revenge on the other, than un-
fortunately was too often the case in the United
States. But it was not enough to say that they had
escaped the contaminating influence of the white can—that
they had not been poisoned, both in body and sae!, by
ardent spirits to the same extent as elsewhere. We had
surely a higher duty to perform towards those who were a
peaceable, friendly, and teachable people, when not mad-
dened with drink. In almost all the quarrels between the
two races the fault hail been on the side of the stronger—
or the white man. (Hear, bear.) In British Columbia the
Indians were in • peculiarly favourable position. They had
the advantage of Christian teachers ; and at the present
moment there were 4,000 settled on land of their own mar
the town of Victoria, the capital of Vancouver's Island, and
enjoyed the protection of the governor, who was thoroughly
acquainted with their character, sad ready to assist any
Christian minister who wished to promote their civilisation.
(Hear, hear.) He heartily concurred in the observations
• the Bishop of London, that the church of England was
ready in this mission to join bands with all men prof ceing
Christianity. Here the objection could not le taken that
this was a work of proselytism and conversion as between
different sects and denominations. Their work was to
wage war against ignonince and vies in all forms, snit to
endeavour, wider the blessing of God, to reduce chaos to
order, and to throw upon it the light of Christianity.
The contributions inunediatelyresulting from the meeting
at the Mansion-house amount to over GOOF._

Sir Edmund Head, the Governor of Canada, was prevented
from attending the meeting by othcial 'momenta.

No Humor, No Kt:co.—The High Church organ
The Union, than expresses the opinion of its party on Lord
R. Montague's letter :—" It is very refreshing to find a man
of high social position, like Lord Robert Montague, coining
forward with a freak and manly exposition of his views on
the merits of Garibaldi, and sending them to the Tomes
with his name attached. Lord Robert may expect to be
the butt of the liberal journalists for a fortnight to come
but be will have the satisfaction of seeing that, although
he is victimised personally, his arguments are uu.tsmiled ;
end for this very good reason, that no amount of sophistry
or elusive ' fine writing' will do away with or ohaeur., the
dear logical force with which the noble lord "bows the real
character of Garibaldi and his acts, and the light in which
they must be viewed as affecting the principles of public
morality and the rights of sovereigns."
enema PALAOL. 0111 SHILLINO
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