Grant John Webster 1919 2006 (2 results)

Softcover. 106 p.; 21.5 cm. (Ecumenical studies in history ; 8) Contents: Foreword -- I. Unity and disunity on the frontier -- II. The desire for a national church -- III. The presuppositions of union -- IV. `Twixt the cup and the lip -- V. After the union -- VI. After the disruption -- VII. Towards further union -- VIII. The Canadian experience -- Index. -- `The act of union that inaugurated The United Church of Canada on June 10, 1925, may well be regarded by future historians as but one in a series of such events of which it was neither the first nor the last. The bodies taking part in it--the Presbyterian Church in Canada, the Methodist Church, the Congregational Churches of Canada and the General Council of Local Union Churches--were all the products of earlier amalgamations. So numerous were these, indeed, that one may too readily conclude that Canadian Church history has been marked by a constant trend towards union. In fact, tendencies to union and to division have been in constant tension, and more than once division and union have been intimately associated. Practically none of the early colonists came to Canada for religious reasons, and isolation and the lack of effective provision for pastoral care speedily dulled old denominational loyalties. To some of the frontiermen who settled in Upper Canada, with several generations of moves into the wilderness already behind them, old-country traditions had become very remote indeed. In these circumstances, the ecclesiastical allegiance of Canadians was determined less by ancestral inheritance than by the source of local leadership.' (p. 7) VG, sewn, in orig. green wrapper.

Hardcover. Condition: VG in dj. 1st edition. vii, 424 p.; 20 cm.