Mr. CHARLTON.

I will get up, and 1 will inform the hon. gentleman (Mr. Wallace) that the Westminster Confession of Faith is under discussion in the Presbyterian Church, that there is a very large proportion of members who are in favour of its modification, and that I belong to that wing.

Mr. WALLACE.

The Westminster Confession of Faith, I presume, being a statement of the faith of intelligent men, of men of education and learning, has been under discussion and criticism . from the first day it was adopted. 300 years ago, down to the present day, and ' when the hon. member tells us that it is under discussion to-day, he is not telling us anything we do not know. Why, of course it is. He is not giving us any information by telling us what we all knew before. That is one of the beliefs of the Presbyterian Church ; they have not amended it. Our good friend tells us that they have it under discussion ; it may be under discussion for 100 years, and it may be made still stronger, and still more positive than it is stated here. I do not know, and our good friend does not know either. Now, Mr. Speaker

Mr. CHARLTON.

I would like to ask the hon. gentleman (Mr. Wallace) what this has to do with a political question-the creed of a church or the tenets of the Presbyterian Church, on the Westminster Confession of Faith.

Hear, hear.

Mr. WALLACE.

I think it is a very proper question to ask. and I say ' hear, hear.' too. To-day the King of England is head of the Presbyterian Established Church of Scotland, and he is head of that church which accepts the doctrine which I have just read. That is the reason why my statement has something to do with the question, because the King of England has to subscribe to that doctrine as well as the hon. member for North Norfolk. You will notice that the hon. gentleman (Mr. Charlton) ds in quite distinguished Company.

Mr. CHARLTON.

He does that in his private capacity as an humble member of the church.

Mr. WALLACE.

Mr. WALLACE.

He does It in liis public capacity as head of the Established Church of Scotland. Here again the Westminster Confession of Faith, says :

Private masses, or receiving the sacrament by a priest, or any other, alone, is likewise the denial of the cup to the people; worshipping the elements, the lifting them up, or carrying them about for adoration, and reserving them for any pretended religious use, are all contrary to the nature of the sacrament, and to the institution of Christ.

Further on article G, page 119, says :

Transuhstantiation or the changing of bread and wine into the substance of Christ's body and blood by consecration of the priest or by any other way, is repugnant, not to Scripture alone, but even to common sense and reason*, overthroweth the nature of the sacrament ; and hath been and is the cause of manifold superstitions, yea, of gross idolatries.

Here we have things more offensive and more objectionable to the hon. gentleman (Mr. Charlton) in the Westminster Confession of Faith, than there is in the coronation oath, and the Westminster confession has to be made by the King of England. And this gentleman who is going to go over to England, and present his humble petition at the foot of the Throne, we never heard his eloquent voice from one end of the Dominion to the other raised-to say that these things should be changed in the Westminster Confession of Faith, until this afternoon, when he said that there was going to be a conference sometime in the future to consider the subject.

Mr. CHARLTON.

The hon. gentleman

(Mr. Wallace) evidently did not notice that X professed to some extent the same views in my speech.

Mr. WALLACE.

What is that ?

Mr. CHARLTON.

The hon. gentleman

evidently did not understand me in my speech, as endorsing to some extent these views, as my own views, as a private individual and member of the church. That has nothing to do with the question however. I stated that the views of the hon. gentleman from Victoria. N.B. (Mr. Costigan) were divergent from mine, but neither of us had the right to make these views the criterion by which the King shall be governed in his declaration of office as ruler of an empire which is composed of subjects of different religious views.

Mr. WALLACE.

That does not answer the statement I have made. The hon. gentleman (Mr. Charlton), said :

To call them idolaters would be unfair, would be unjust, would be odious. He would resent it, and he would fight to the death to remove it.

That is what he has told us in a few minutes as his own confession of faith, and

he said he did not believe in pressing the cup of bitterness to his neighbour's lips. But where is he now ? He tells us that he had stated that he shared the views which I have expressed. If he did say so, I must apologize to him, because I caught the very opposite meaning from his remarks. Now. Mr. Speaker, there is something else in regard to this matter. There is another church, the glorious old Church of England; that church which has done so much to evangelize the world, and to spread the belief of its own religion, without being open to the accusation of being partisan, or without being unjust to those other churches that have clustered around it in Great Britain and other countries as well. There are thirty-nine articles of faith. Mr Speaker, i shall not read you the thirty-nine articles.

. ' Hear, hear.'

1 Dispense.' ' Thank you.'

Mr. WALLACE.

The Minister of Railways and Canals (Hon. Mr. Blair) thanks me very much, but I think if I did refresh his memory with the thirty-nine articles, he ought to thank me very much more, because I do not know any gentleman of my acquaintance who seems to have so utterly forgotten the essence of so many of these articles as the Minister of Railways and Canals has. The twenty-second article is the one to which I would call his attention on page 192. and that article is subscribed to by King Edward VII., our glorious monarch, as the head of the Church of England. Tlie English church is established by law in England, not in Canada, because we have no established church in Canada except the Roman Catholic Church in Quebec, and we read in the papers that they are trying down there to override the civil power in some cases.

Oh.

Mr. WALLACE.

But this is one side of the question.

Hear, hear.

Mr. WALLACE.

I say that in Great Britain the King of England is the head of the Church of England. He has to shb-scribe to the thirty-nine articles of the Church of England; he has to take communion in the Church of England. Article 22, reads as follows :

The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardons, worshipping and adoration as well of images as of reliques, and also invocation of saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the word of God.

That is the declaration the King has to make. I will not read article 28, because it is a long one, and it might tire out the Minister of Railways and Canals, but it is

Order, order.

Mr. SPEAKER.

The hon. gentleman should not refer to an hon. member by name.