while several of these have risen to respectability and wealth, the great majority, true to their ancestry, have all the characteristics of their convict-virago origin. They are loafers, gaolbirds and idlers, a burden on honest industry, and a poison to virtuous blood. Will it be different with the off-spring of their congeners who land on our shores? Will the new environment, the promise and opportunity of advancement, be strong enough to master and subdue the taint and trend of generations of pauperism and crime? Not likely. While the teachings of science in reference to heredity are accepted, we cannot afford to try experiments by an infusion of vitiated blood. Nor does any good reason exist why such people anywhere should be allowed to propagate their kind. In a civilized country, a license to marry and discharge the high function of a parent should argue something more than the possession of a couple of dollars and a decent dress. Physical health, mental balance and a record free from vice or crime should be unfailing conditions. Many European countries pay far more attention to the sires of their horses than any state does to the parentage of its citizens. Has the command to Joshua to exterminate the Canaanites any lesson for us in this Nineteenth Century? The execution of the command has been termed stern surgery, but in reading the subsequent history of Israel you wish sometimes that the surgery had been more searching. So much in any case is clear that alliances with degenerate stock are an evil and that there is far more danger of the good sinking than the bad rising through them. My aim has been to advance a few facts rather than deduce conclusions. But let me ask whether the defective and insane, the cripple and the criminal, should not be excluded entirely? Since the importation of large numbers of mechanics and laborers tends to demoralize the labor-market and lead to strikes and lockouts, it is pertinent to ask whether the state should encourage and aid this class of immigration ? I know it is contended that this country should be an asylum for the poor and oppressed of all lands-that laborers can cultivate the soil and gain a competence. It is a sufficient reply that a state is not a charitable society, or a philanthropic organization—that it must have regard to the national welfare and moral culture of its people that laborers and operatives who settled on land in the West were easily discouraged, abandoned their homesteads, and drifted into cities and towns. Do not strikes separate our people and prevent complete fusion? Who are the strike organizers and bomb-throwers? Why is so large a proportion of our laboring classes out of the churches and hostile to religion? Is the foreign element largely responsible for the lower tone of public life and the infidel views on religious questions? In every city is a large shifting vote, and politicians have discovered a means of shifting it, although not of keeping it shifted. Did not the disclosures before the courts, after the last general election, bring the blush to the cheek of every patriotic Canadian? Is not the liquor traffic of the country largely controlled and supported by the foreign element? Are they not the principal opponents of a prohibitory liquor law? And who are the foes of our Sabbath laws? Who removed them off the statute book in British Columbia? In the Western States is not the Sabbath a holiday rather than a holy day? A day for cricket and baseball, for boating and racing, for picnicing and beer gardening, rather than for the services of the Sanctuary? Is not this the result of the teaching and the practice of the worst elements of the continent of Europe? Is not this foreign element recruiting the strength of the Romish Church, and is she not a menace to free institutions? Does she not aim to control the votes of her people and through them the legislative leaders, and has she not been too successful in her aims? Need I remind you of the legislation in favor of the Jesuits of this Province? And that she may the more easily preserve and control her people, does she not keep them separate? Are not her views of mixed marriage and separate schools parts of a system built up by astute men for purposes remotely religious? Is she not responsible for the dualism that exists in Canada to-day? Stop the importation of Roman Catholics to the United States, and one or two generations will see the Roman Catholic Church shorn of its strength. The Character of the settlers in the North-West can be referred to only very briefly. The Canadian is our best settlerhe is most intelligent, most versatile, and most successful. The Scottish immigrant easily adapts himself to the requirements of the country and proves a valuable acquisition. The same is true of the Protestant Irish. Of Irish Roman Catholics only a small number go to Manitoba. The English have not been of the class best suited for engaging in agricultural pursuits, and hence they have not succeeded where others have achieved success. The Germans have been sturdy and successful settlers, but the religious views of the Mennonites have kept them separate from the rest of our people, prevented English being taught in their schools, and the children from adopting the customs of Canadians. Scandinavians and Icelanders are I valuable citizens. The Norseman with his splendid vitality quickened the sluggish Saxon in England, and no doubt he will enrich the blood of the West. Of Jews and Italians I can speak in only very qualified terms. They are deficient in some of the qualities that lie at the foundation of all success. am, of course, speaking of the immigration to the Canadian North-West. I have every confidence in the regenerating power of the Grace of God and the up-lifting influence of our institutions, but is it not clear that immigration is too important a department of state business to be allowed any longer to run itself? The interests of the country, the people and religion, seem to demand intelligent restriction. But if immigration is impeded what is to become of the struggling masses in Europe? That is a problem for European statesmen and economists to consider. And as long as European nations maintain colossal forces, spend from $3,000,000 to $5,000,000 on a single ship, reserve immense blocks of land for deer and other game, they deserve little sympathy. Let them disband their armies, and use the money in supporting them to reclaim waste lands. Let them spend the cost of a "Nelson" or a “Trafalgar” in building cottages for the poor. Let the deer parks and game preserves be utilized for raising human food, and devise a measure for the more equitable division of the profits of labor. By such reforms it is maintained that Europe could support three times its present population. In any case, Canada must guard her own interests, and much as we need people we must take good care that they are of the kind to be an acquisition. The session closed with the pronouncing of the Benediction. WEDNESDAY, 24th OCTOBER, 1888. MORNING SESSION. The Conference assembled at 10 o'clock. The chair was occupied by the REV. PRINCIPAL BARBOUR, D.D., of the Congregational College, Montreal. The proceedings opened by the singing of the hymn, "Blest be the tie that binds." The REV. W. J. JOLLIFFE, of Quebec, offered prayer. TOPIC: ROMAN CATHOLICISM IN CANADA. CHAIRMAN'S ADDRESS. REV. PRINCIPAL BARBOUR, D.D., MONTREAL. The subject for consideration at this session is of the most momentous character. Archbishop Whately has shown the analogy between human nature and Romanism, its worldly ways and its substitutions and superstitions, which are so prominent in the Romish system. We should look at this great question as it is put before us and cease to wonder at the mighty power it has secured in this world of human beings, with the seeds of all its great movements already sown in the human heart. One of my experiences with Romanism has been in this City, and it touches on the remark of a shrewd observer, that you are likely to be hated more for showing men the right way than for letting them alone in the wrong. There has been a remarkable experience in Montreal, between the Protestant clergy and the Protestant citizens and the powers that be at Rome. You have heard of the effort to have a statue of the Virgin Mary erected in the Mountain Park, which is public property, and the use of which would have been offensive to all Protestants in this Christian city. Thanks to the living and working Evangelical Alliance in this city that project was stopped. To the praise of this city be it said—and I, as a stranger, can praise it, for I have never lived in a city, in the old or new world, in which there is such a united Protestant feeling as there is in Montreal. It struck me delightfully when I arrived here, and the longer I live the more I see the reality of it. This working Evangelical Alliance came together and so framed and directed their remonstrances that the proposition to have erected that offensive statue was withdrawn. Rome likes us none the better for setting her rightshe would like us more if we let her go on in the way of Rome. But I must remember that my duty this morning is to introduce the speakers appointed, and I have to present to you now, one who is, as his work will show you, well qualified to take the lead in this discussion. I present to the Alliance the Rev. Principal MacVicar, of the Presbyterian College, Montreal. POSITION AND ATTITUDE OF ROMANISM. The views there advanced, I am glad to say, have not been set aside. On the contrary, leading journals have repeated and widely disseminated them. I shall have occasion now, in condensed form, to re-affirm some of the same points, and need hardly add that the subject is far too large for the limits assigned to this paper. The attitude of the Romish Church towards Protestantism has always been the same, and must be defined by her published dogmas and the decrees of her Councils and Popes. These show her to be steadily intolerant to heretics, and to assert with unwavering confidence her superiority over civil rulers and governments.* As she claims to be infallible and unchangeable, * St. Thomas, Vol. iv., p. 91, says: "Quanquam heretici tolerandi non sunt ipso illorum demerito, usque tamen ad secundam correptionem expectandi sunt, ut ad sanam redeant ecclesiæ fidem; qui vero post secundam correptionem in suo errore obstinati permanent, non modo excommunicationis sententia, sed etiam sæcularibus principibus externimandi tradendi sunt." Translated "Though heretics must not be tolerated because they deserve it, we must bear with them till, by second admonition, they may be brought back to the faith of the Church; but those who, after a second admonition, remain obstinate in their errors, must not only be excom H |