THE REVEREND HENRY WILKES, D.D.,

MINISTER OF THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, MONTREAL.

IN the sixteenth century, so Macaulay writes, "there was not in the whole realm a single congregation of Independents or Baptists." In the middle of the following century, the former, though not numerically equal to the rest of the population, were, from their union and resolution, influential enough to control the State, and for a time to assert their supremacy over the Church. Puritanism in England, and Protestantism in Europe, were generally the offspring of free thought. Religious liberty was the syren State authority was the satyr English catholicism, though

to which their voices were attuned. from which their faces were averted. less repugnant to the puritan than Roman catholicism was to the protestant, was resisted "root and branch," as opposed alike to human reason and the divine law. To the two religious bodies we have named, a third may be added; for the English Presbyterians, after the passing of the Toleration Act, were grouped with the former as protestant dissenters, a name by which they continue to be distinguished. Divines, in their discussion of such questions will naturally make use of terms selected from their own vocabularies, but the theological, and the political value of such terms will rarely be found in accord. The members of all denominations in Canada will be apt to agree in thinking that in this Province not such distinctions can be said to exist, as there can be no statutory dissent from a church which has no statutory existence.

The rent ecclesiastical, which commenced in England three centuries ago, was not, perhaps it could not be, immediately repaired. Unhappily it widened and grew worse, until a small, and as some have thought what should have been only an accidental and temporary schism became a serious and permanent separation. The consequences of such division could scarcely have been imagined at the time of its occurrence. It was probably thought that the seceders would return to the body from which they had separated, and, like stragglers on the march, they would eventually rejoin the main army. It was scarcely foreseen that their hostility would become an inheritance, to be transmitted to future generations. But whether foreseen or not, the fact remains to afflict those, no matter by what names they are designated, who yearn for Christian oneness, and who really believe that the unity for which their Saviour prayed, should be practiced by the people for whom He died.

The meaning and value of words not only undergo serious changes by transmission from one generation to another, but the action of time appears very materially to soften the sharpness of their edges. Truth of course remains immutable. But with the increase of knowledge our perception of what is true becomes enlarged, and our judgment of what we considered false becomes qualified. Thus we probably learn that there is some truth in all systems, and much error in all opinions. Although, for example, a schismatic must be a dissenter, it does not as certainly follow that a dissenter must also be a schismatic. The words, though indifferently made use of, are by no means synonymous. This view was taken in the hearing of the writer by one whose opinion has, we have reason to think, some weight in the Congregational body. It is many years since when a placard with the following heading, "Dissent not Schism," was posted at the entrance of a dark looking court near the Mansion House, London. Then followed the further information that a sermon or lecture on the above subject would

be preached on that day, at the chapel at the head of the court, by the Rev. Thomas Binney. To the chapel the writer went, and heard, what at this distance of time he must be allowed to call the undeniably clever and decidedly unclerical discourse of the somewhat eccentric, but evidently gifted preacher. After tearing the word schism into shreds, examining its derivation and rummaging about its roots, the preacher, according to the writer's recollection, observed that the congregational body of that day had, for several generations, been protestant dissenters. Never having belonged to the national church, it was contended they could not be separatists from that church,-consequently could not be schismatics. It might more logically, so the preacher hinted, be objected that they were heretics; but that enquiry, he somewhat playfully added, "does not come up to-day." The distinction may, and probably will, by many persons be regarded as more popular than precise. It must however be accepted for the purpose of this sketch. The truth seems to be that from the accident of birth, and not from the discipline of conviction, people are either churchmen or dissenters. They inherit, with their blood, not only their fathers' faith, but the form and fashion in which it found expression. Such convictions can only be unsettled by new courses of enquiry and by a discipline of thought to which the mind is not readily attracted. Honor to parents is a part of the divine law, and a facile disposition to think lightly of them or their ways is not the most encouraging sign of true godliness. Three centuries of ecclesiastical separation must produce abiding effects on the generations separated. The social life and the prevailing literature of dissent, from their relation to one another, must give inclination to the taste and laws to the minds of those who are familiar with one, and are instructed in the other. Parents, friends, teachers, church polity, traditional prejudice, social preferences, and kindred causes, are the bands by which the protestant dissenters are knit together, and which supply them

with a history of their own, interwoven with, but distinct from, the larger history of their country.

The subject of our sketch, the Rev. Henry Wilkes, D.D., minister of the "First Congregational Church, Montreal," affords, as we shall presently see, a fair illustration of the Rev. T. Binney's argument. He was born at Birmingham, on the 21st June, 1805. He was not only the son, but the grandson of dissenters; for his parents and grand-parents were Independents. His father was a manufacturer. The subject of our sketch received a good commercial education, sufficient to qualify him for the business followed by his father. When at the age of fourteen years only, he was in the habit of taking long journeys for trading purposes to places more or less remote from home. But though diligent in business, his thoughts, like the thoughts of the nephew of Abou Taleb, as he drove his camels from Mecca to Damascus, were not narrowed within the circle of commerce. The religious atmosphere of the denomination in which he had been nourished pervaded his mind; for while he labored in one calling, he longed for another. But many vicissitudes had to be encountered before his pious wish could be realized.

In the year 1820, the elder Mr. Wilkes and his family emigrated to Canada, and settled at Toronto. Here the subject of our sketch, who, we may add, was the eldest son, addressed himself zealously to the duties which the new life seemed to require. As a new settler, in a new country, he at first sought, by physical toil, to qualify himself for his lot; but to little purpose, for his intellect rebelled against his occupation. Whereupon he abandoned a mode of life foreign to his tastes, and for a period of six months coquetted with the study of law. In the year 1822 he removed, with his father, to Montreal. On his arrival there, his attention was again turned towards commerce. A situation was obtained for him in the mercantile establishment of Mr. John Torrance. In 1827, he was associated with Mr. David Torrance, and admitted to a share in