and Episcopal boys. Surely, surely, we have enough of this most wretched sectarianism in our churches without carrying it further! But we have a new argument recently started on this question. A very learned gentleman has just arrived from England to enlighten us on high churchism-a gentleman who, at our former meeting, proved his zeal for religion-I mean the already famous Mr. Dartnell, secretary of the Church Union. This gentleman made a speech at a church meeting lately, in which he avowed the doctrine that secular education is the fostering parent of crime, and he called on his brother churchmen to resist the schoolmaster as they would the "foul fiend." I hold in my hand the report of his speech, and I find he used these words: "It was discovered that ignorance and treason were far more expensive than religion, and efforts were made to check the evil. Had they resorted to the increase of the ministers of the gospel they might have succeeded, but the remedy applied was secular education. We have 25 years' experience of it in England, and what are the results? It has been aided by voluntaryism, and, with the two combined, the results have been that crime and pauperism have increased in a ratio almost incredible. The committals to gaol in 1813 were 7,164; in 1836 they amounted to 20,984, and in 1842, to 31,909. Thus, with secular education crime has increased in 30 years over 400 per cent. This year the increase has been 500 per cent. Here it is palpable that secular education has not checked the progress of crime, but rather accelerated it. And yet we are asked to introduce it into Canada." We are asked to throw open the field to secular education, and then would come crime, pauperism, and destitution. The opposite of all this is the fact-not secular education, but the want of it, has increased crime.

The people of England have been shamefully dead to the importance of education-the established church has lain almost dormant in regard to it, and now, when she comes alive, it is not to foster it, but to stop its progress as the grand leveller of priestcraft. In 1848, I find from the sessional papers of the House of Commons, that the whole amount given for that year for the support of common school education in England was but £125,000 for sixteen millions of people, though £111,547 was given for the extension of the British Museum! Why, in Upper Canada we contribute more from public funds for common school education than they do in all England. It is monstrous, therefore, to assert that education has increased crime, for there has been no national education. Indeed, the assertion is proved to be totally destitute of truth by the criminal statistics. I find that in Scotland in 1846 there were 17,855 prisoners, and that 4,210 of them could not read; 8,374 could read with difficulty; and 5,273 could read well; 9,551 of them could not write, 2,122 could merely sign their names, 4,715 could write with difficulty, 1,237 could write well, and but 282 had learned more; a tremendous argument in favour of secular education. In England and Wales I find the argument still stronger. Of 65,922 prisoners in 1846, 22,315 could not read or write; 13,907 could only read; 27,037 could read or write imperfectly; 2,473 could read and write well, and 261 knew more than that! There is no getting over this. And as regards Canada, I have reason to

know that of the 400 prisoners in the penitentiary, not six are well educated. But the sectarianism of the godless education cry is not its only evil-it proposes a new system which it is is impossible to carry out, and which, if extended much further, will destroy the whole fabric without substituting another in its place. All the sects are now combined, with the exception of about 100 schools; and yet we can only keep open 3,209 schools for an average of 9 months in the year. In 1849 there were 138,465 children on the roll, but of these there was only an average attendance of 72,204 in summer, of 78,466 in winter, and 100,000 children of school age were not on the roll at all. If we remain united, therefore, it is clear that to cover the whole ground we want 5,000 teachers. We pay our teachers now £107,713 a year, but then we should have to pay at least £150,000. the Roman Catholics have separate schools already

A GENTLEMAN: And so has the English Church.

Now,

Mr. BROWN: Yes, they have a few, but not so many as the Roman Catholics, and if the evil is allowed to go on, it will spread to other sects. At the least calculation, under the separate system, there would be wanted 15,000 teachers, instead of 5,000-a sad waste of labour-12,000 school houses would have to be built, at a cost of some £300,000; and nearly half a million of pounds, or the whole revenue of the province, would be required annually to pay the teachers. It is impossible to carry out such a scheme, and it is therefore doubly unprincipled to urge it.

Our common schools are doing admirably now, and if we have any patriotism we will sternly maintain its integrity. Look at its effects in Lower Canada. In 1789, while sectarian teaching was in full bloom there, and the church munificently endowed to that end, evidence was laid before the government that in many parishes there were not six persons who could read or write. How is it under the national system? In the first half-year of 1849, 68,822 scholars were in attendance, and in the latter half 54,758.

And now a few words in regard to ecclesiastical corporations, and I have done. I cannot but express my astonishment at the indifference with which the statesmen of our country regard the progress of these injurious institutions; for he is little versed in the history of his race who does not know the monstrous evils which they have everywhere entailed, and how often they have had to be put down at the demand of the public voice. These corporations never die; their property cannot be alienated; it goes on increasing with great rapidity. One would think that a glance at the alarming amount of property already at stake on this state-church question would rouse men to its importance. In "Smith's History of Canada," it stated that the land owned at the conquest by

Roman Catholic institutions was...
Lower Canada Reserves..

Upper Canada Reserves..
Rectories.

Carried forward

ACRES.

2,115,178
903,433
2,395,687

21,638

5,435,936

This immense quantity of land is at stake in the state-church question; for, though part has been sold, the proceeds remain, and might be invested; and if the priests had their will, every acre of the above would be transferred to their control. But this is not all. In addition, we have 54 religious, educational, or charitable corporations established since the union, holding property to an unknown extent; and how many more I know not established previous to the union; 48 of the 54 are authorized to hold property to the annual value of £79,333 6s. 8d., and six of them are unlimited. How much land they now hold I know not; but if they had the revenue permitted them, and their property yielded the same returns as the reserves, it is an alarming statement but I believe a correct one, that they might hold six or seven millions of acres and not transgress their charters. But the fact is, the limit to the amount of property is no limit at all. How is it to be made to operate? There is no return made of the property held, and if there were, the limit could easily be evaded. I am utterly opposed to these sectarian corporations. I would give them every necessary power to organize themselves; but I would enforce on all a stringent law of mortmain.

I must apologise for detaining the audience so long; but I cannot conclude without urging on every one who hears me the deep importance of all these questions on the future well-being of our country. There is no ground for us to take but that of a resolute determination to uproot the whole fabric-to leave not a vestige of it in existence. A long and a fierce contest, I grieve to think, is yet before us; our opponents are rousing themselves with fresh vigour to the struggle; and if we are to succeed, it must be by united and energetic action. Let us vow that we never shall give up the battle until victory has been fully accomplished, and let us keep ever before us as the goal we must reach-no reserves ! no rectories! no sectarian education! no ecclesiastical corporations! no sectarian money grants! no sectarian preferences whatever!

ANTI-SLAVERY DEMONSTRATION.

The following speech was delivered in Toronto at the annual meeting of the Anti-Slavery Association, on the 24th of March, 1852, on which occasion Mr. Brown moved the following resolution: "That while we would gratefully record our thanks to those clergymen and others in the United States who have so nobly exposed the atrocities of the Fugitive Slave Law, we deplore the indifference of some and the unrighteous approbation of others, whose duty it is to vindicate the gospel of Christ from the aspersions of those who represent it as a shield for cruelty and injustice." The subject of slavery at that time caused no little excitement in Canada on account of its hideous features being constantly brought before the public by the poor fugitives, and the necessity which existed for aiding them when they reached the free soil of Canada, and also in defending them in the courts when bogus criminal charges were brought against them to procure their extradition.

MR. BROWN said: I recollect when I was a very young man, I used to think that if I had ever to speak before such an audience as this, I would choose African slavery as my theme, in preference to any other topic. The subject seemed to afford the widest scope for rhetoric, and for fervid appeals to the best of human sympathies. These thoughts arose far from here, while slavery was a thing at a distance, while the horrors of the system were unrealized, while the mind received it as a tale and discussed it as a principle. But when you have mingled with the thing itself; when you have encountered the atrocities of the system; when you have seen three millions of human beings held as chattels by their Christian countrymen ; when you have seen the free institutions, the free press, and the free pulpit of America linked in the unrighteous task of upholding the traffic; when you have realized the manacle, and the lash, and the slot-hound, you think no more of rhetoric; the mind stands appalled at the monstrous iniquity; mere words lose their meaning; and facts, cold facts, are felt to be the only fit arguments. In regard to the resolution I have read, this is especially the case. I am to speak of the Fugitive Slave Bill of 1851, and if we search the statute books of the world, I know not where we shall find its parallel. Every one knows how this bill came into existence. The slaves of the south were daily escaping into the northern states, and once there, they were almost beyond reach of their masters. True, there was a law usually constructed to enable the slave-holder to recover his property in any part of the union; but it had to be effected by due process of law, and public feeling in the

north was rapidly becoming sensitive to the degradation of permitting the slave-catcher to drag men into life bondage from the farms of the north. A party had also arisen calling themselves free-soilers, who took up the position that the slave-holders had no right to follow the refugee into the free states, that the moment a slave put his foot on the free north, his shackles fell from his limbs. They said to the south, we respect your state rights, but you must respect ours; you may keep slavery on your own grounds, but you must not bring it here. It was a bold movement and a noble one, and had it been firmly carried out throughout the northern states, slavery would soon have fallen before it.

But the south was aroused; the "peculiar institution was in danger, the cotton interest in the north was alarmed; new and more stringent laws for the protection of the slave-owner and in aid of the slave-catcher were demanded from congress, under the penalty of a disruption of the union. Northern merchants quailed before the ire of the south, doughface politicians trembled for their party alliances, aspirants for the presidency pandered for southern votes; and the Fugitive Slave Bill was passed as a compromise measure," to the lasting disgrace of republican America.

Let me recite the provisions of this infamous enactment. In the first place, it enabled the slave-holder or his agent to seize his "chattel" wherever he found him, without any warrant. You cannot arrest a criminal of the depest dye without a warrant, but a man who is guilty of no crime but his colour can be seized at any moment without any form of law. In the next place, this law forbids the freeman of the north from showing charity to the refugee. Any one knowingly aiding a fugitive slave is subjected to a fine of $1,000 and six months' imprisonment in the common gaol, and to a civil suit for damages of $1,000. What a mockery of liberty! Punish a man as a criminal, in the American republic, because he sympathizes with the bondsman and helps him to be free!

Another remarkable feature of this bill is, that the carrying out of its provisions was taken from the state authority and handed over to the federal officers. The slave-holders felt that their only safety was in plac ing the trust in the hands of men looking to Washington for their orders. The United States marshals were made the chief man-catchers of their respective districts-the United States commissioners the judges in all cases arising under the bill. And these functionaries are bound by the severest penalties to carry out the law. The marshal is made personally responsible in the sum of $1,000 for the escape of any slave committed to his care, however efficiently he may have acted. In all other cases, civil or criminal, sheriffs and other public officers are only held responsible for their fidelity and diligence; it was left for the Fugitive Bill to punish a man for that which he did not do and could not avert.

Then, again, the bill compels the free northerners to turn out at the bidding of any southern miscreant who claims a coloured person for his property, and to aid in hunting him down like a beast of prey, and send