Canadian Christian Heritage Under Fire #1 - Christian History of Canada — Ian Goligher

Christian Foundations and the Question of National Heritage

Psalm 11 verse 3, if the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do? Notice the if in this question, it is not a certainty. What would happen if one of our politicians stood up in Parliament and stated that this is a Christian nation built on Christian principles?

I think you know that the response in the present atmosphere of Ottawa would be please hush up, this is not a place for religion. But there was a time, not too very long ago, when such would have been well received and would have been given a man, not a deferral, but rather would have given him stature and commendation in the ranks of the political leaders of our nation.

Now my interest in this subject this evening began a good number of weeks ago as I was reading about the history of the United States and how it has been firmly planted from the days of the pilgrims arriving in the Mayflower to its constitution 1776 built on Christian, Protestant principles and truths.

And I read this book which prompted me to say well is this something of this nature concerning our country in Canada? And can we without hesitation say that this is similar if not the exact same in this dominion of Canada?

And so I started to do some searching and I thought it was going to be tough going to find real hard evidence of key figures, political leaders, institutions that were unquestionably and unashamedly built for the glory of Christ and for the cause of spreading the kingdom of God in this part of the world.

Well instead of tough going I am now swamped with so much information on the subject that my difficulty is how do I narrow it all down to a sizable amount of information for a meeting like this? And this evening I really am only be able to tell a few stories that will illustrate the facts of our Christian heritage here in Canada.

The Erasure of Christian History

Now most of this does not get told in our schools today. In fact much of it doesn't even get told in Christian schools today. In fact the reality is that most of what I want to tell you this evening is edited from the humanist agenda in public education.

And there is every attempt in the swing of educational institutions today to dismiss the Christian history and heritage of this nation. In Sweden for example where social experiments went all out to promote the humanist history, the true biblical Christian history of that once great Christian nation Sweden which knew reformation, fire and blessing was dismissed.

And everything before 1932 when the social democrats came to power was of no significance. It has been noted regarding Sweden's policy of rewriting or withholding history from the youth that a complete break from the past had to be made in order to accomplish the goal of socialism.

And I'm going to quote from a Swedish author. It is a truism that to change people it is desirable to cut off the past. In the Swedish schools the study of history has been truncated. That means it has been chopped up and the pieces that are not liked left out.

An emphasis has been led upon the Swedish labor movement. The European heritage and the classical background have been dismissed and an atmosphere created in which only recent decades appear to count.

Now I speak of Sweden because they are slightly ahead of the Western world's movement towards humanism. They began the experiment with more determination and in a broader sweep than just about any other Western country.

And humanists view contact with history a great risk. And so they either rewrite history or they totally ignore it. Now what's happening in Canada today and I think even more alarmingly what is happening in evangelical circles is that we buy into the humanist agenda.

We fail to study the history of Christianity even in our own nation. We drift along the pathway of man's religion of humanism rather than contend for those well-founded firm godly foundations that have been of tremendous blessing in this nation and generations gone by.

Now to assist us in this sweep of history which I'm going to curtail to the 1800s. I had hoped to start a way back and just bring us up to date here tonight but it's impossible to do that. I'm going to start with pre-confederation and main figures that led up to the Confederation of Canada 1867 and some who were directly involved in the shaping of the Confederation of Canada.

Humanism Versus the Christian Worldview

But before we get into that I think we need to define what is humanism. I don't want to use terms that either we are so generic or so broad that we confuse ourselves. I want us to grasp when we speak about the humanist agenda that we really grasp what's going on in the education system and in the political powers that be in our land at this time.

Let me give you a brief definition of what is humanism. The modern definition of humanism is the belief that all life begins and ends with man. Man is man's chief end. Francis Schaeffer put it this way.

Humanism is the placing of man at the center of all things and making him the measure of all things. And if you want to make it really simple humanism's agenda is this. If it feels good do it. If it pleases carnal sinful fallen man let him do it as long as he's having a good time and he's not directly harming anyone else.

The humanist manifesto point number eight is a fairly good definition from their own terminology. Religious humanism considers the complete realization of human personality to be the end of man's life that means the purpose of man's life and seeks his development and fulfillment in the here and now.

This is the explanation of the humanist's social passion. And let me state clearly tonight humanists are probably more passionate about their agenda than born-again Christians are about the gospel agenda.

That is a tragedy. That is a sad state of affairs. And I begin this series this evening first of all preaching to myself and preaching to our own congregation that we may be awakened. That there is a battle going on for the hearts and minds of Canadians and we need to be as passionate for Christ as the humanist is to promote himself and the mere good of man.

God's Glory as Christianity's Central Agenda

I think you will know that Christianity is based on this agenda. Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. You don't even have to be a Presbyterian or a free Presbyterian to know that. Genesis 1 -1.

In the beginning, God. In the beginning, God is central. And of course John 1 -1. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Christ is center of his own creation and of the world.

And this is where Christians must stand. And let me give you another little aside before we get into the history tonight. Christians today are under attack being guilt-ridden with this statement. You need to be neutral.

And in this nation of Canada, we have what is now called the mosaic of multiculturalism. But in reality, in the religious perspective, it is polytheism. Polytheism. That means many gods. And as this country grows in diversity of cultures, nationalities, and religion, it is evident that polytheism will begin to make pressures and demands.

Now, if we buy into the neutral position, we will say that everybody should become a nothing. And that I have no right to set the Christian agenda, the Christian mission, the glory of the true God before a man or woman who is loyal to another deity, who is a false god.

And so we must be delivered from the mentality that in Canada, to be a good citizen, to give people civil and religious rights, that we should all be neutral. When God met with Moses at the burning bush, he was not neutral.

And he didn't say to Moses, you can keep your shoes on or you can take them off, whatever you like. If Moses was going to be the servant of God, he was a servant of a holy God, the Jehovah God. And as he revealed himself to Moses, and later in those 10 commandments, gave the summary of that law of God to his servant, the God of Moses was not neutral.

And he did not expect Moses to be neutral. Now our answer to the pressures today for neutrality, the pressures for live and let live, the pressures for we have a right to our opinion, but others have a right to their opinion too.

And let me tell you, what is that? What is that? It's humanism. Man's opinion is humanism. I'm not here tonight as a preacher of the gospel to give you my opinion. I am here tonight to give you the gospel.

And the gospel is not man's opinion. The gospel is the divine revelation of eternal truth, the plan of God centered on his son to save men from sin. Nothing neutral about it. It is the power of God unto salvation to everyone that believeth.

But to them that believe not, they'll end up in hell. There's nothing neutral about hell. There's nothing neutral about a man living in darkness and dying in sin. Losing his soul. And praise God, there's nothing neutral about being born again by the spirit washed in the blood and going home to glory one day.

So we want to address this ruse, I will call it, that to be a citizen in Canada, we are to be neutral. Neutral is just a euphemism for the humanist agenda. We are Christian. It is my glory to exalt my savior.

It is our calling to honor him in all our ways. As we get to these figures and institutions in the 1800s of Canada, we're going to see that neutrality was not even a factor. And the humanist agenda was not what built this nation and brought us many of the benefits that still are the liberties and freedoms that we enjoy to this very day.

Now, as I said earlier, I want to narrow the field to the 1800s. And when we get to the 1900s, Lord willing, next week, I'm probably going to be under more pressure for time because there are two main figures that I want to tell you about.

One is Dr. T .T. Shields of Toronto. He is called the Spurgeon of Canada. And I want to also talk about a Bible college in the Prairies that at one time had a thousand students. Now, I'm not talking about a Bible school that is a mixture of liberal arts and a mixture of psychology.

I'm talking about a real Bible school where if you didn't accept the Bible, you'd never have been there. And just to think of that 50 years ago, within a thousand miles of where we are now, there was such a school in this nation.

That is a great story in itself. And I want to take time to tell that story and some of the key figures involved in it. But tonight, we're going to go back into the 1800s before the railroad was built in this country, before there were even four provinces in Confederation, before Sir John A. Macdonald was even the first Prime Minister of this country, and go back to those days whenever there was provincial rule or direct rule from Great Britain and to the days of Queen Victoria, who herself is, of course, a story on her own.

The New Light Revival and Nova Scotia's Christian Roots

But we want to begin tonight with a man called Sir Charles Tupper of Nova Scotia and his part in Confederation. We begin there because Nova Scotia, along with a few other maritime provinces, were blessed at the end of the 1700s with times of mighty gospel revival.

Now, this is the period when Britain and America were fighting it out for independence around 1776. And you had the flow of peoples from the colonies of the USA back up into Canada again to the maritime provinces.

And with them came preachers who preached the gospel. A man who stands out is Henry Alene, a Congregationalist, the son of a New England farmer. But he brought the gospel as people were displaced and set about their new homesteads in Nova Scotia.

And he was instrumental in what became known as the New Light Revival. Now, that demands an explanation, but I confess I don't know all the facts of why it was called the New Light Revival. But what I was able to discern, I could say truly that it describes what I have read of revivals either under Jonathan Edwards, under George Whitefield in Scotland, Wales, England.

It was a revival where it was evidently not the pressures of men stirring up people, but the Spirit of God humbling people. And they were crying out, like one of old, what must I do to be saved? I think I could best give this to you in Alene's own words as he wrote of a time when he arrived back in Nova Scotia.

He wrote this, When I came to Liverpool, that's an area there, I had the happiness to meet a number of my friends on the wharf who informed me of the glorious work of God that had appeared ever since I left them and was still going on in the place.

Almost all the town assembled together and some that were lively Christians prayed and exhorted and God was there with the truth. I preached almost every day and sometimes twice a day and the houses where I went were crowded almost all the time.

Many were brought out of darkness and rejoiced and exhorted in public and oh how affecting it was to see some young people not only exhort their companions but also take their parents by the hand and entreat them for their soul's sake to rest no longer in their sins but fly to Jesus Christ while there was hope.

The work of God continued with uncommon power throughout almost all the place. Now that was God moving at the end of the 1700s, the beginning of the 1800s in the maritime and a man who was really the fruit of that outpouring of God's spirit in that time was this man Tupper.

He became a leading figure in confederation. A man who brought this very province so much of Christian value and worth that the spirit of God was truly at work. He was himself was the son of a Baptist minister and he contributed to the politics and the life of Nova Scotia to a great degree and it is recorded that this Christian heritage even in politics is echoed in present-day Nova Scotia.

Leonard Tilley and the Dominion of Canada

Now these are important things because they were formative days. They were days when there was no education system in place and these were the figures that began the ministries and the administration, call it the bureaucracy of government in Canada leading up to confederation and these men were the leaders who took the savor of the gospel and put it to work and that's why you have a nation in various, in its various parts, portions that is built on Christian values and truth.

Now speaking of confederation, another man comes to fore, a man called Leonard Tilly. Do you know why this nation today is called the dominion of Canada? Well, if you turn in your Bible to the Psalm 72, to Psalm 72, you will discover that it's right here in the Bible.

Verse 8, he shall have dominion from sea to sea and this is credited to Leonard Tilly. Leonard Tilly was a New Brunswicker. He was converted at the age of 21 through a sermon of a man called the Reverend William Harrison.

He became active in the temperance movement, seeking to banish alcohol in every way he could. This was impressed upon him because one day he heard the cries of young girls. He ran to their rescue and discovered that their drunken father had just murdered their mother and he found this woman withering in her own blood and the little girls sobbing and he saw the father carried off to jail and I don't know the fate of the father but that impression never less this man Tilly and he began to work for the temperance movement.

He was an executive of a temperance society and so successful was he that he was called to run for politics and he was present in PEI 1867 at the time of confederation when the British North American Act was set up.

The question of the day was what shall we call the new nation that was to be born? This man had gone to his bedroom and read Psalm 72 and as if the Lord had spoken to him from his word. He went back to Sir John A. Macdonald and others involved in that process of confederation and almost to a man there was full agreement that that's what this should be called.

From sea to sea he shall have dominion. What a testimony to the Christian spirit and ethic of that time that was reigning in the highest levels of government. Here is a letter that John A. Macdonald wrote to Queen Victoria that the name the Dominion of Canada was a tribute to the principles that they earnestly desired to uphold.

What are those? If you read the text he Christ shall have dominion from sea to sea and I cannot say all but there were many men unashamed of seeking to give birth to a new nation that would seek to have the Lord reign from coast to coast.

Now Tully's reputation remained unscarred and unmarred even though John A. Macdonald got himself into trouble and when you hear this you'll say there's nothing new under the sun. At the building of the railroad across Canada there was a contractor called Allen who gave a huge donation to John A. Macdonald's Liberal Party prior to receiving the contract.

It sounds like nothing ever changes in certain fields of politics and for a time John A. Macdonald had to step down from politics but although Tully was very much his right-hand man he was not involved in that scandal whatsoever.

Tully became the Minister of Finance under John A. Macdonald at a later date and in 1879 he received a knighthood from Queen Victoria. A Christian man, a man who knew the Bible and did what he could to imprint the truths and values of Christianity upon the future generations of this nation.

Egerton Ryerson and Christian Public Education

Number three is the story of Egerton Ryerson. I have put a bit of this information in the back of the bulletin and if you want it in text I hadn't room for it all but a good part of the history of this man was right there.

This man is called the father of public education in Canada. Now I should say that the humanist wants to get their hands on education at every opportunity. They know that the way to change a nation and to change the ideas of a rising generation is to take over the education system.

Neutrality is the thing that children in school are taught from kindergarten right through. Christianity is not tolerated. I spoke of that event in Peggy's Cove on the East Coast when Prime Minister Chrétien gave the command, this is common knowledge today, he gave the command that the name of Jesus was not to be used.

That's in keeping with the humanist agenda in the education system of today and the guilt is leveled upon Christians. You can use the name of Jesus at home or in your church but don't do it in public.

Now that is not civil and religious liberty. That is not even equality because we are called upon to deny the very God whom we serve doing so. Now in 1844 this man Ryerson was appointed the superintendent of education in Canada and he began with, and I'm going to quote this because I want to get it right and I want you to know that I'm not just speaking off the top of my head here, that this is a quote that we can stand upon, the prospect of seeing every child of my native land in the school going in the way and of witnessing one comprehensive and unique system of education from ABC of the child up to the matriculation of the youth into the provincial university which would present an aspect of equal benignity to every sect and every party upon the broad basis of our common Christianity.

Now obviously he was a public figure and he was not going to promote one denomination above another and he was going to promote what was at that time a Christian ethic that was the the very warp and woof of society and had no public problem promoting it.

He achieved his goal with the legislative assembly of Ontario in the school act of 1871, so that had been just four years after confederation, and universal education became an accomplished fact resulting in a well-ordered school system in which elementary education was free and compulsory attendance would soon become the norm.

Now you may say but that's the agenda of the humanist today to grab the education system, but what I'm going to read now is what makes the difference. The role and the curriculum of the grammar schools had been redefined and the foundations of a free secondary school system also had been led.

The students used textbooks in which Christian value and loyalty to the constitution were included and then in brackets Ryerson wrote the textbook First Lessons in Christian Moral, 1871, and they were taught by instructors who met and approved certification criteria.

In 1876 the department of education became a ministry and Ryerson retired from the superintendency, his work completed. Now why is this so important? The question is would the education ministry today accept an Egerton Ryerson to be a decision maker, to direct the goals of education?

The humanists would scream, they would say this man is not sufficiently neutral, he has an agenda, a Christian agenda. That's the difference in this nation today than 1871. My fourth example is a man called William Dawson.

William Dawson, McGill, and Creationist Education

He was the third principal of McGill University and I have really been very fortunate in discovering some of this information because I went on the McGill University website to try and find a little bit of their history, go to one of their buttons about us, you know, hoping to be led to their beginnings and so on.

And let's remember that prior to confederation almost every education system in Canada was Christian, formed by some Christian church or other, some Catholics, some Protestants, some Anglicans, some Baptists, some even Methodists, but almost learning, all learning institutions pre-confederation were church schools.

And so I wanted to discover what church or denomination gave birth to McGill University. Their website hadn't got one line on it, all it spoke about the generosity of the McGill family to try and fund the beginning of a university.

I then talked to a man in this church who I knew at least had some links with that university, if he could do some research for me and he got me a seven page fax piece of information and still nothing that defined McGill University as a Christian organization.

And then on Wednesday I was studying for our adult Sunday school Bible class on anthropology and a name came up in a theology book, William Dawson. Now there was no information about who William Dawson was and so I did some search on him and turned out that he was the third principal of McGill University.

And when you discover the Christian caliber of this man and his academic credentials, you will not argue that McGill University, which has been called the Harvard of the North, the leading academic institution of this nation, was soundly based on Christian principles.

Now this man William Dawson was born in Nova Scotia, he was educated in Scotland, returned to Nova Scotia in 1847 and he became the third principal of McGill University in 1855. Now at that time it was a mere cow pasture, it was not really a campus of any size at all and it also had financial difficulties.

So it can truly be said, and indeed this article that I have before me does say, that this man William Dawson made McGill University a world-class university. He was the man with the brain and the drive and the organizational skills to produce McGill at that time.

Now Dawson changed McGill's academic focus. He believed that the teaching of natural and applied sciences, geology and paleontology was foundational. Now remember 1855, that's four years before Charles Derwin published his book The Origin of Species, which sort of is the time of the burst of evolutionary thinking.

William Dawson refuted it. He was himself a student of geology and of paleontology, of bones and fossils and so on. He started his own little museum and in McGill University today there is a museum called after him on that very field.

William Dawson took a very, very distinct Christian stand. Dawson was highly critical of Darwin's arguments concerning the fossil record and unlike Darwin, Dawson believed steadfastly that nature was the result of a divine creator and that nature could not be mindless, random without a plan.

He argued that not only did Darwinism sweep away Christianity and natural religion, but that a populace imbued with the doctrine of the struggle for existence would cease to be human in any ethical sense and must become brutes or devils or something between the two.

In Dawson's opinion, Darwin had committed countless absurdities. Would this man get hired at McGill University today? That's the question. McGill University became a mother of many other institutions including UBC and it was 1915 that UBC got its own charter having been an offshoot of McGill University.

The tragedy is that our learning institutions today are humanistic, man-centered and have rejected the doctrine of creation, the creator and a God-centered education. Do you know where the whole term university comes from?

And do you know what is the unifying factor of a university? In classical education, university finds its center in theology, the study of God. But today, they are very segregated and very much ignored if not totally rejected.

Again, I'm using these examples to show that 150 years ago, Canada and the greatest institution in the political leaders that formed this country were men of a Christian mindset. I'm not sure if they were alive today that they would even join the Free Presbyterian Church.

I'm sure some of them had quirky ideas and little notions and strong opinions and this and that and they may not all have been what you would call well-rounded Christians, but they were men who believed that's the basis for a good society and for truth and righteousness.

William Holland and Toronto's Christian Civic Mission

Another man that stands out in Canadian history is a man called William Holland and he is called Toronto the Good. Perhaps you've heard that name of the city of Toronto. Well, this man, William Holland, he was born in 1844.

He went to England in 1876 where he was converted through the text Isaiah 43 .1. The verse says, Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, thou art mine. And he returned to Canada. He heard a sermon of an Anglican preacher evangelist and was soundly converted from his nominal Anglicanism to a vibrant evangelical faith.

Now, this man became very concerned about the poor and the squalor of Toronto and as a Christian he began a mission known as the Toronto Mission Union and he worked for the poor, for the orphans and for those that were downtrodden in the city of Toronto.

He was so successful in that mission that he was persuaded to run for Mayor of Toronto in 1855 and, although it seemed impossible, he swept into office for one term for just three years and during that time he put a big banner over his office.

It was Psalm 127 .1. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain. How long would such a banner get staying over the Mayor's office in Toronto today? The humanists would be crying out.

They would be saying we have a Christian as a leader. We can't accept that. We do not have a leader who's neutral. He worked in various ways to again assist the poor and many workers of factories and employees of large companies and he persuaded people to pay fair wages, to deal with poverty, orphans, gambling, prostitution, Sabbath breaking and unlicensed drinking and the list goes on in the three years that he was in office and voluntarily he stepped down from that office and went back into Christian mission work and felt that that was his place to serve and to minister the gospel.

Now, again, what an example of a time when our cities, one of our major cities, was moved and was willing not only to elect him to office but assist carry out many of his visions as a man of God to assist people in the city of Toronto.

Timothy Eaton and Christian Business Ethics

Now, these are many wonderful stories. Let me give you another one. Time's with us tonight. We're doing okay. This is the Merchant Prince, one article calls him. His name, unfortunately, is no longer over stores in Canada today but his name is Timothy Eaton.

Timothy Eaton was born in Ireland, Presbyterian parents. He came to Canada and was converted under the Methodists and was a Methodist all of his years. Now, his name was given to him. He had two older brothers, James and John.

Parents called them that because that they were their favorite Bible names. His father died before Timothy's birth but his mother gave him the third favorite name of his father, Timothy. He came to Southern Ontario.

His brother there had already started up a store and merchandise. He worked with him for some time. In fact, the story is that he slept under the counter as an apprentice before he was able to have his own place for accommodation.

And if you work from early morning to late night, six days a week, pretty good place to have your bed just under the counter. Then he bought his own store in Toronto and he ran his store with Christian conviction.

Fixed prices and that was a new thing. An advertised price that would stay true whatever date or term it was advertised for. His workers, he was the first to call his employees associates. He believed in paying them fair wages and even giving them pension plan.

When very few employers of that time even knew what a pension plan was for employees. And at the end of his life, he had 9 ,000 employees. He expected honesty from every employee. And he even advertised that shoppers should curtail their shopping hours because the competition was extending the hours and he would not.

And he asked the public to not shop beyond normal hours so that employees could be with their families and have a normal life. Very thoughtful, considerate man on that basis. And then it is well known that he never opened a store on the Lord's Day.

And I am told that even here in Vancouver, that it was a common practice that even the shutters were pulled down on the windows, lest any avid shopper would go along trying to shop through the window.

He is credited with the catalogue shopping system and that became very, very successful. When he died, his wife, still a Methodist, donated all the money to build a Methodist church in the city of Toronto.

It became the Timothy Eaton Memorial Methodist Church. And so there was a family that you could say temporally, at least, God blessed on Christian principles and succeeded in this land of Canada. And what a testimony, what a credit it is to the blessing of God to those that honour him, he will honour.

David Thompson and Gospel Witness in Exploration

One or two last small stories. We have in British Columbia the great Thompson River. It's way up past Camelot somewhere. I haven't a clue where it begins or ends, but it is one of the main rivers in British Columbia.

It is named after an explorer for a fur trading company that later merged with the Hudson Bay Company. And David Thompson went out exploring for that trading company. And everywhere he went, he took his Bible.

And when he met voyagers along the way, he read the scriptures to them. And in this part of the world, he was one of the very first to read the scriptures to the native people and give them the gospel.

Although he freely confesses that language was an exceeding great barrier that he never really overcame. And there was a limited amount of information he was able to convey to the native peoples as he read to them the word of God.

But he did by many means seek to give them the gospel. Now, he has a record in his journal that after a weary day's march, we sat by a log fire, we being himself and his Indian guides, the bright moor with thousands of sparkling stars passing before us.

We could not help inquiring who lived in those bright mansions. They concluded them to be the abode of the spirits of those that had a good life. There's the Indian mind in its paganism looking up at the stars saying, there are the spirits of those who lived a good life.

The work ethic even amongst them. But of course, in his limited way, David Thompson gave them a gospel. He recorded this in his diary. He says, a missionary has never been among them. And my knowledge of their language has not enabled me to do more than teach the unity of God and the future state of rewards and punishment.

So, here we have in the history of this province, explorer, major river called after his name, whoever thinks that he was a man who walked with God. And yet, his testimony and character and service so honored that his name was on that river for, I don't say forever, but for duration of this.

The Salvation Army's Early Gospel Work

The last example, and I'll be very brief with this one, are the Sally Ann Lassies of Vancouver. Go to Stanley Park, you will see a little place called Hallelujah Point. And the Salvation Army girls used to gather right there, just close to Dead Man's Island, stood on Stanley Park, and they sang the gospel.

And we're told that in those days before the noise of a city, or a modern day city, that their singing wafted across the water and was heard clearly on the banks of Gastown and downtown Vancouver. And they came and did a great work for God.

I don't remember all the stories of those young women, but they were the first. And later, 40, 40 Salvation Army workers came to go into the interior of British Columbia with the gospel. And so we can only rejoice that these great things under God have been accomplished, and we have in so much of the fiber of political life, educational life, the exploration of this country, the gospel endeavors of this country, things that have steered this country for the Lord and for his grace.

Protestant and Roman Catholic Legacies in Canadian History

Now there's one thing I have to say in closing. As I have sifted through this history, I've had to do one thing, because so many authors in their ecumenical, modern, contemporary minds, they will speak about Baptists, and they'll speak about Presbyterians, and then Anglicans, and then they'll go to speak about the Jesuits and the Oblate Fathers as if they were all bringing the same gospel to this country.

Now you know that that is not the case. I haven't even spoken yet tonight about Charles Chenequay, who also belongs to those years we've been speaking about, and how when he was 50 years in the Church of Rome, converted by the grace of God, became a preacher and evangelist in the province of Quebec, the priests would have killed him.

And there were many mobs and attempts to end that man's life. And so don't think that during those years there was an ecumenical love-in between all denominations, and especially between Romanism and Protestantism.

There was not. And today, as people write these histories, and we accept the facts on their individual basis, we don't deny there were Jesuits, we don't deny there were Jesuits that reached Indians with their message.

We don't deny that the Oblate Fathers were the first to create wineries in the Okanagan. Man, you are not sure whether that's a blessing or not. We do not deny that even on the West Coast, the Roman Catholic movement has been very strong.