entered into personal communication with the leading individuals among
the principal religious communities, and after many interviews,
succeeded in obtaining their support to a measure for the distribution
of the reserves among the religious communities recognized by law, in
proportion to their respective numbers."

Lord Sydenham's efforts to obtain the consent "of leading individuals
among the principal religious communities" did not succeed in
preventing a strong opposition to the measure after it had passed
through the legislature. Dr. Ryerson, a power among the Methodists,
denounced it, after he had at the outset shown an inclination to
support it, and the Bishop of Toronto was also among its most
determined opponents. Lord Sydenham's well-meaning attempt to settle
the question was thwarted at the very outset by the reference of the
bill to English judges, who reported adversely on the ground that the
power "to vary or repeal" given in the Constitutional Act of 1791 was
only prospective, and did not authorize the provincial legislature to
divert the proceeds of the lands already sold from the purpose
originally contemplated in the imperial statute. The judges also
expressed the opinion on this occasion that the words "Protestant
clergy" were large enough to include and did include "other clergy
than those of the Church of Scotland." In their opinion these words
appeared, "both in their natural force and meaning, and still more
from the context of the clauses in which they are found, to be there
used to designate and intend a clergy opposed in doctrine and
discipline to the clergy of the Church of Rome, and rather to aim at
the encouragement of the Protestant religion in opposition to the
Romish Church, than to point exclusively to the clergy of the Church
of England." But as they did not find on the statute book the
acknowledgment by the legislature of any other clergy answering the