While we know a great deal about the role religion played in institutions in Victorian Canada, its place in home and family life has remained relatively unexplored. Drawing on a treasure trove of family papers and material culture, Marguerite Van Die depicts religion as "lived experience" in a portrait of a Protestant middle-class family in Quebec's Eastern Townships. The Colbys were members of Canada's emerging economic elite, active in the local community, public life, and politics. Their lives offer rich insights into the construction and practice of domestic religion and the moral and...

While we know a great deal about the role religion played in institutions in Victorian Canada, its place in home and family life has remained relatively unexplored. Drawing on a treasure trove of family papers and material culture, Marguerite Van Die depicts religion as "lived experience" in a portrait of a Protestant middle-class family in Quebec's Eastern Townships. The Colbys were members of Canada's emerging economic elite, active in the local community, public life, and politics. Their lives offer rich insights into the construction and practice of domestic religion and the moral and...

Through an in-depth study of the thought and intellectual formation of Nathanael Burwash (1839-1918), a little-known but highly influential Canadian educator and Methodist theologian, Marguerite Van Die presents a picture of one of the most unsettling periods in the Christian church. During Burwash's life, Canadian Methodist thought and education had to deal with the impact of biblical criticism, idealist thought, and the evolutionary theory of Darwin. Burwash saw himself as following in the footsteps of an earlier generation of Methodists, led by Edgar Ryerson. This vision was reflected in...