The Henson Journals
Mon 12 July 1909
Volume 160, Pages 115 to 116
[115]
Monday, July 12th, 1909.
Winnipeg:– I sent back the proofs of the Yale Lectures to the Plympton Press. After breakfast, I wrote letters:–
1.To Rev: Henry Lewis, answering questions about conditional re–ordination of Presbyterians.
2.To Mr Frazer Cunninghame proposing to preach in S. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, on either the 23rd or the 30th Jany.
3.To Rev. Landulph–Smith promising to address the Islington Clerical Society on Oct: 12th on "Intercommunion & Reunion".
4.To Mrs Hadden, condoling with her on her husband's sudden death.
5.To Gow.
6.To Albert Saxton, discussing some difficulties about subscribing the 39 Articles.
In the afternoon I called on Principal Patrick at the Manitoba College, & presented my letter of introduction from Dr Mitford Mitchell. He received me with much kindness. For an hour we discussed the situation (ecclesiastical) in this country. There seems every prospect that the Presbyterian, Methodist, & Congregational Churches will unite: but "the historic Episcopate" is a fatal barrier to any rapprochement with the Church of England. [116] He said that in his opinion there would be little difficulty in bringing the Canadian Anglicans into line with the other churches if but they would ignore the counsels of the English Church at home. But the influence of the Pan–Anglican Conference and the financial dependence on England were forces destructive of unity in Canada.
We dined with Dr Jones. I had much interesting conversation with Mr Whyte, a Vice–President of the C.P.R., & a much regarded citizen of this town. He explained that the C.P.R. placed their stations at distances of nine or ten miles in order to facilitate the passing of the trains, the line being a single track; that these stations became the centres of population. He told me that the 'bone–pickers' (i.e. the men who collected the buffalo bones on the prairie, a class no longer existing, since all the bones have gone) used deliberately to fire the prairie in order to discover the bones which the long grass concealed.
He gave no good account of the French Canadians, who in his opinion are priest–ridden & politically corrupt. Apparently they, like the Irish in the United States, are the principal causes & instruments of political corruption.