This is a historical study of Protestant missions to the Chinese immigrants in Canada from 1859 to 1967. It will describe and analyze, against the relevant historical background, Protestant clergy's attitudes to the Chinese, the motivation that led them to work among the Chinese, and the activities and results of the missions. It will also analyze the Chinese response to the missions, and the impact of the missions on Chinese immigrants' lives in Canada. The consensus of wanting to keep Canada's white Anglo-Saxon heritage provided the Canadian Protestant churches with a strong impetus to instill into all other ethnic groups the ideals and standards of white Anglo-Saxon Protestantism. Thus, the history of Protestant missions to the Chinese immigrants in Canada is also the history of the encounter between two different cultures and the history of a minority group's survival in a hostile society. In this sense, this history goes beyond the Chinese context and includes the interethnic relations with the dominant white English-speaking group.

This is a study of the politics of devotion in the Grand siecle . It concentrates on the activities of a small group of devout Catholics in Paris, who from the beginning to the end of the century exercised an influence on public life out of proportion to their numbers. This group came to be known to historians as the parti devot . The men and women of the parti devot were celebrated both for their profound spirituality and their political activism in the Catholic cause. Devot women were visible everywhere, teaching the young, healing the sick and proselytizing their families. They were so much at the centre of French devotional life that at times they appeared to steal the initiative from men. Yet many in the Church continued to fear their influence, and to regard them as dangerously vulnerable to heresy. How, then, were they able to rise above their limitations and take a central place in the devotional life of the period? The answer lies in the political position of devot clerics. France in the seventeenth century was a nation haunted by fear of religious war and external attack. As a result, Catholic clergy were under scrutiny as they had seldom been before, forced to choose between God and Caesar. Their divided loyalties rendered them less effective as reformers. It was against this background that women came to be so important to the reform of French Catholicism. Devot clerics encouraged women to do what they could not do, say what they could not say, knowing that women were not taken seriously as either theologians or political leaders. Thus women were valuable to the Church precisely because they were marginal in society. They, in turn, were able to exploit the situation for their own benefit, discovering a world of devotion and religious activism which had previously been closed to them.

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In this work, the author explores the origins, development, understanding and praxis of the common life in apostolic religious institutes of women, and the evolution of related legislation. The dissertation attempts to bring together an understanding of the evolution of the common life, its place and meaning for apostolic religious institutes of women, the legislation regarding the common life, and the cultural and societal influences on the legislation and the life of the institutes. The first chapter presents an historical overview of the legislation regarding the common life, from the early days of the Church until and including the 1917 Code of Canon Law. The teachings of the Second Vatican Council constitute the heart of chapter two which analyzes the current legislation relevant to the common life, as well as its formulation, especially as it pertains to apostolic institutes of women. Particular attention is paid to Perfectae caritatis, section 15 (common life) and no. 8 (nature of apostolic institutes), and to selected canons addressing both these issues. Chapter three analyzes and interprets the response of North American apostolic women religious to the conciliar invitation to return to the sources. It traces the most salient efforts at both adaptation and renewal in the areas of the apostolate and the common life. It also points out certain trends which have affected both the understanding and the praxis of the common life. The fourth and last chapter analyzes and interprets implications for the future, in relation to balancing the requirement of the common life, the apostolic thrust of the institute, and the situations regarding membership which are affecting many institutes at present, and no doubt will continue to do so in the future. It recognizes the impact of societal and cultural attitudes, past and present, on both religious life and on ecclesiastical legislation. This chapter focuses on an interpretation of the common life more appropriate to the times and to the nature of apostolic institutes. Finally, some tentative revisions of certain canons are suggested.

This dissertation presents the story of the (Lutheran) Church of the Augsburg Confession in Quebec. Both from within and without, the Church has been influenced in its theology and practice by a unique configuration of factors, making it distinctive from Lutheran churches elsewhere. In addition to the expected differences from the dominant British Protestant and French Roman Catholic teaching, there was the added Quebec peculiarity of Canadian millennial nationalism. This politico-religious nationalism was at its height just at the time that the confessional Lutheranism being implanted in Quebec was at an acutely amillennialist point. Theology though, was not the only distinctive feature. The Church as a whole tended to be an immigrant church. This was especially true for the first century, but even when English-Canadian congregations were established later on, they were largely composed of Lutherans originally from outside of Quebec. As was the case for most nineteenth and twentieth-century immigrants to the province, the Lutheran immigrants tended to be integrated into anglophone society. The anglicization and resultant decimation through the English exodus of the late twentieth century played a major role in the development of what is perhaps the most distinctive feature of Lutheranism in Quebec, that of its francophone missions. The author concludes that the combination of theology, ethnic diversity and minority status of Lutherans in the province has determined that the Church of the Augsburg Confession in Quebec be a distinctive Church. This distinctiveness sets it apart from other denominations in the province as well as from the Lutheran churches in the rest of Canada, North America, or for that matter, the rest of the world.

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