Alexander Tilloch Galt

“ Other conservative Protestants may perceive some different and yet safe course, but for my own part, acting under the sense of responsibility for my past acts, I find but one line of duty open to me, and that is to give my hearty support and sympathy to the Liberal Catholics of Quebec. With a plain and unmistakeable declaration on the part of the Protestants that they will, equally for their Roman Catholic fellow citizens, as for themselves, resist the encroachments of the Church upon the State, it may be possible to arrest the arrogant course of Bishop Bourget and his confreres. ”

“ Ordinary party politics lose all their significance in the presence of a contest which involves the right of holding any opinions at all hostile to the Roman Catholic hierarchy—and much reflection has convinced me that we shall be false to our own immediate and future interests, if we hesitate in now repudiating in the most decided manner the threatened encroachments upon the rights of our Roman Catholic fellow citizens, equally as if our own were at this moment attacked. ”

“ As a natural consequence, a freedom of thought sprang up among the laity, and was shewn in the public utterances of their press, which held forth the hope that the liberal views of the so-called Gallican Church would ever prevail in Lower Canada, and that Protestant and Catholic would alike respect their several opinions, cordially uniting in all that concerned the prosperity of their common country, without either Church claiming undue supremacy, or introducing the fatal element of religious strife. ”

“ Politically they had been for many years under the leadership of men of known and tried liberality. Lafontaine, Morin, and Cartier, were names synonimous with upright dealing and even-handed justice, irrespective of race or religion. Whilst at the same time the course of the Roman Catholic Hierarchy and Clergy had ever been distinguished by such devotion to their duty of inculcating piety and virtue, and such moderation towards all who differed with them, that it may truly be said they had earned the respect and confidence of all. ”

“ What we have to dread is the action of the formidable Church party, after it has brought into harmony with itself all the members of its own Church—all those of French-Canadian origin. Our turn will then come, and, having under their control the whole machinery of Legislative and Executive power, the rights we enjoy and the safeguards we possess will be, one by one, attacked, until our position will be so intolerable as to induce us to become, as their organs even already term us, aliens or strangers ”

“ Since that the Pope declares in his Encyclical of 1853 that the laity fulfil in that a filial duty from the moment that they combat under the direction of the clergy. Modern Liberalism pretends that religion should not leave the sacristy, nor go beyond the limits of private piety. But the Pope declares that Catholics can only efficaciously defend their rights and their liberties by actively mixing up in public affairs. By these characteristic traits you will recognize Catholic Liberalism. ”

“ The strength of the Protestant Church in the Dominion, and on this Continent, renders it beyond all doubt, where the final victory must rest, but grievous injury must meantime arise, not the least of which will be the blight that will fall on the prosperity of the people by the mental subjugation of so large a part of our Roman Catholic fellow subjects. ”

“ Alas, it is for us to make ourselves guilty of arrogance and disobedience, to merit for ourselves the heaviest chastisements of divine vengeance, for them to be shamefully chased from the sanctuary of all revealed revelations by losing the faith, and to be plunged into the abyss of the greatest evils. ”

“ Nor can it be believed that such a severe and cruel pressure is put upon the consciences of our Roman Catholic fellow subjects for the paltry object of securing the ephemeral triumph of a temporary political party. The conclusion is inevitable, from the nature of the means employed, that a deep laid plan exists for the complete subjugation of Lower Canada to Ecclesiastical rule, with the view of extending the same baneful influence, hereafter, to the whole Dominion. ”

“ There is no question of religious faith involved—let any one worship God as his conscience dictates, but the Clergy, whether Protestant or Catholic, must be forbidden to interfere with secular affairs in any other character than as ordinary citizens. ”

“ It is repugnant to all proper feeling that the tremendous weapons of religious anathema should be lightly used in mere secular warfare, or that the hold over the human conscience entrusted to the Minister of God, should be exercised for any other purposes than those of piety and moral purity. ”

“ We publish herewith this rule of conduct and we order all those who have charge of souls to exactly conform themselves to it. By refusing admission to the Sacrament to all those who read or efficaciously encourage the newspapers in which they take to task or cover with insults, the shepherds of souls, because they oppose the dissemination of erroneous principles, reproved by the Sovereign Pontiff or by the early Fathers, charged by Jesus Christ to teach all people those holy doctrines which are placed in the bosom of the Church. ”

“ The present Government is fully determined to maintain in all their force these rights and privileges, and will never permit, upon any pretext whatsoever, even an attempt to take from the minority that which the Constitution and the title of a British subject assures to all those who live under the protection of the British Flag. ”

“ The contest must appear to them hopeless when they find arrayed against them all the religious forces of their own Church, and the influence of those who ought to sympathize with their desire to be free from ecclesiastical tyranny. ”

“ Meantime, I have the conviction that you will be able to avert the impending disruption of our former party alliances, and maintain the supremacy of law and of public opinion over the dictum of any one, be he priest or layman; or, failing this, that you will take the lead in withdrawing the support of British Protestants from the Government of Mr. ”