"We wont go" my wife said. But we went. She had never before seen the woods -- forests of maple sometimes, then sparkling lakes skirted by spruce and cedar, a roadway that had been chiselled through gneiss and granite, and dipping down into sandy flats where great pineries stretched as far as the eye could reach, pineries that were tall but not beautiful with their verdure, for they had been denuded by forest fires, and only their gaunt arms struck across the sky line from ghastly trunks. "How awful!" she said. We rode in our hood-covered buggy, not knowing how far our four wheels might find a sufficient roadway to permit of our proceeding, nor how long our buggy springs, made for the gentle streets of the south, might endure their tribulations, nor how much salve our wounded sides might need.
It was still early evening when we surmounted the top of one of seven hills, and caught our first glimpse of the little town nestling on the banks of the tree-bordered stream winding its bending way through the valley. The sun's rays were giving silver dressings to myriads of bubbles and balls of water that were being tossed over ledges and rocks, or long gleams that streaked the calmer pools. Nearly a mile away from us, lay the village that was to be our home for three years, and as we halted our course to feast our eyes on the unusual scene, there appeared no human motion, no human sound. We were miles from a railway. There was no factory at hand. The rapids, that promised power for some future day, were far upstream. Before us was a picture of undisturbed calm. So we moved on to descend the ranges we had already climbed ,to find our ample home, with tea all ready, and a group of welcomers, who that evening held a Prayermeeting in the nearby church and thanked God "for our ministering servant". I had heretofore thought myself to be God's ministering servant.
After the meeting that evening, I went down the village streets to find the baker and the butcher, and learned that the nearest practitioner of those trades was twelve miles away, that people, for the most part, in summertime did without meat, and that every housewife baked her own bread. In pity for the newcomers, the blacksmith's wife gave me a loaf from her stock, and on my way home I bought a bag of flour, some potatoes, some salt and some hops, intending to make yeast, and a neighbour gave me enough yeast to become a germ home and start my stock. Arrived at home I made my report, and at the same time a discovery. "Whatever shall we do?" my wife exclaimed. "I never learned to make bread; the baker always called at our door". This was a situation altogether outside of theology, and it looked too humiliating, possibly represented a loss of power, to go to a parishioner and make a confession, and ask for lessons in bread-making.
I resolved to become the teacher, and at that moment I found that knowledge gained on the farm was not all lost. I revived my recollection of making yeast, while my wife looked on; and we both admired the rising quality of the bubbling compound. Next I set the pan of flour with its yeast imbedded, and reverently covered with a table cloth, to stand overnight. How delighted were our eyes and our hearts the next morning when we found it had "risen"! The after processes were comparatively simple, and with the bake-oven of our stove at hand we were soon able to eat our own "home-made" bread. I had a willing and apt student, and my duties at the bread pan did not last long. And no one in that town ever knew that the minister's wife had come to the parsonage untaught the simple housewifely art.
My new field of labour was a paradise of beauty and geological interest. I was once more among the Laurentians, but it was a more widely settled section than that of my earlier days. The hills that surrounded our village frowned upon us with their abrupt precipices, with just a few passes which the inquisitive eye of man had discovered, by which to ascend the heights, otherwise to oblige us to follow the river's bank. The river bank was the most used way, as it led up among other settlers who gathered about the banks of lakes far inland. It was these lakes that charmed my soul, and never allowed me to grow prosaic on my long travels and often drab surroundings.
I often carried my sketchbook in my pocket as I rode over the country in the saddle, and my horse became quite used to long pauses, and seemingly was a sharer in my admirations, for I never had to plead with him to stand still; perhaps he was all too willing to do that act. Just now those lakes spread before my mind with their panoramic beauty as I recall the hill from which I could contemplate their long-drawn-out and varied shapes, all suggestive of the day when eruptive forces were doing their work in preparing for the coming of sturdy men. The river from our town took me up by gorges down which rushed a noisy and boiling rapids, into which two men who did not like my theology threatened at one time to plunge me, and it led on to "Little Horseshoe", "Big Horseshoe", "Twelve Mile", "Mountain", "Boskung", and a long series beyond. The names furnished no fair suggestion of the inherent beauty of the surroundings, any more than did "Kashagmagamog" or "Gull Lake"; they simply showed how the mind bent on the surveyors duty and wearied by the abundance of Nature's charms, becomes matter-of-fact and prosaic.
It was not so with me; I enjoyed my sketch book on the hill tops, and the rowboat that carried me down a deep and quiet river for six miles from our town to another lake of far and misty views, and permitted me to dream daydreams amid that lovely foliage that bent down in sympathy from either bank, allowing me and my oars just room to pass, the sweet and solemn silence broken only by the soft sound of the meditative oars. I have no regrets for the days spent in that land, for I drank deeply of Nature's springs and carried with me an undying exaltation of soul born of God's own handiwork.
I do not know that I can say as much for man's work as it came to us in the form of bush-fires. Great and awful was the sight, and yet while fearing, one wanted to stand and admire. But there was the roar of the wind generated by the heated atmosphere that would make one wonder where to turn for safety. Savage seemed the flames, as they danced on the brows of all the hills surrounding our town, licking up dry grass and vegetation, and then with an audible vastness of voice leaping and roaring up the tall trees to throw their embers on the roofs of our houses, or out into their neighbours of the forest beyond, as if for a wilder orgy. Leaping from tree to tree crackling and roaring, frightening all native life and driving it out to the "clearances" for safety, those uncontrollable monsters of the winds and the flaming trees, attack the traveller who suddenly finds his only available way of escape is to whip up his horse and flee the way the flames are going. No one who has witnessed a forest fire wants the sight repeated. It was a part of my experience, and my prayers for the people on the Sabbath day in the months of July and August were earnest and sincere.
When I was able to look over my new charge, I found that I was superintendent of a parish of five preaching places, one of which was a church of some years standing, a second was a partially completed church, and the three remaining were schoolhouses. We lived in the "county town". It was seven miles from a railway station, but that did not seem to affect its psychology, for the whole community of five hundred souls went about its daily round of duties as if railroads did not exist.
Why should it be concerned on such a score? It kept in touch with the outside world by its postal service which arrived every day by stage coach. Then the communal body had many and valuable members, such for instance as a jail and sheriff, a County Court that held sessions quarterly, a County Registry Office where all Deeds of Land were kept on file, a County School Inspector, and the highest grade of school in the county, a Doctor and Chemists shop, a local newspaper and printing office, three hotels, three churches, numerous shops and residences; and nobody lived in this town unless having some very special reason and employment, for the exigencies of conditions weeded out "the lame, the halt, and the blind".
One important personage whom I have not mentioned was the "Crown Lands Agent", whose especial, and government-remunerated, office it was to meet all persons finding their way into this region with a desire to locate on land of one hundred and sixty acres, which the government in Toronto gave for a fee of five dollars and the completion of an engagement to live on the land for five years, clear up twenty-five acres, and build and occupy a little house. That the land of this country was good, the Agent thought it his duty to prove by cultivating and exhibiting at the annual Fair, held in the Town Hall of this County Town, the best of garden vegetables; and wisely or otherwise I undertook in my Manse garden to grow similar things without letting him know it, until he found them on exhibition with the coveted First Prizes attached. I had to pay for that in the loss of his favour; but then I had not quite lost the art of the farm, and I wanted some good exercise.
Out on the country roads and sidelines I had primitive conditions to battle with. There were rocky hills, hills of cobble stones, sand hills, swamp roads and corduroy roads, roads that ran by the shores of delightful lakes, and roads that climbed the sides of precipitous rocks with only the uncut trees between the traveller and the valley several hundred feet below. Over some of those roads I was the first person to take a "buggy"; this for the most part was too heavy a vehicle, and my covering hood on it was sometimes caught in the overhanging boughs of trees; I therefore provided myself with a lighter conveyance known as a "buckboard", which was of lower gear, having four wheels smaller than those of the buggy, and on which a lightweight box was built with a seat and springs. Much of this conveyance was made of steel, and it was of such a character that I travelled as fast as the horse cared to go over corduroy or rocks without fear of breakage.
For my first year, the five preaching places kept me busy with revival meetings and foundation and organisational work. Up among the hills into a neighbourhood which was really a plateau, there was a congregation which was largely composed of people from Lincolnshire, England. "Don't laugh when they sing", the townspeople warned me when I was going there for service for the first time. Our meeting place was a log schoolhouse. Certainly I thought as I looked round about upon my congregation there was no touch of city fashions there, neither in ladies hats, for the heads were bare save for a few shawls, and as for the men they not only had no collars, they made no pretence of white shirts.
And when I announced the hymn and invited them to sing, it was well that I had been forewarned, for the peculiar drawl was smile-provoking. But all were intensely serious and reverent and my three years work saw wonderful changes, and yielded two young men for the ministry, one of whom became a great success, and one young woman as a school teacher.
In a second appointment, which also was a schoolhouse, my theology was not agreeable to two of the three Trustees having charge of the house, they being "Freethinkers" and pronounced followers of the notorious American opponent of Christianity, Col Robert Ingersoll, so one Sunday I and my congregation found the schoolhouse locked against us; that was simply the beginning of new things. Across the road was a piece of ground two acres in extent which some settler had cleared and then had forsaken; I attached myself to this by playing the part of a land surveyor "Beginning at the north-east corner surveyor's post, thence parallel to the public road in a westerly direction thirty-two rods, thence at right angles southerly ten rods, thence at right angles easterly thirty-two rods, thence at right angles northerly ten rods to the post at the point of beginning". This simple description with Five Dollars and the names of five persons as a board of Trustees sent to the Crown Lands Department, Toronto brought to hand the Crown Patent for two acres of ground as church property.
Then a canvass among village storekeepers and lumber mills brought in the lumber and nails necessary for putting up the frame of a church twenty-six by thirty-six feet, and closing it in, which was all that was necessary for summer occupation. But if anyone had passed by before we had gotten that far on, he would have seen our congregation sitting on a log of a tree on the property, and the minister using the tree stump as his pulpit; it had been a pine tree, and it was amply capacious.
During my second year, there came a petition one day from a neighbourhood which I had not seen, praying for preaching services, and with amounts opposite each name, which represented some forty persons, but the total amount was about Thirty Two Dollars -- not a large sum as a reward for driving over difficult roads, but it was the spirit of the people that called me and the Spirit of Christ that said Go. And I went. In my third year I was able to have that erected into the headquarters of a new mission, with a young man under me whom I had to train, who became a prominent preacher and who has now finished his course and is on the retired list.
My second year of work saw me completing an unfinished church and building two others, while my preaching appointments, by investigating settlements without services (I made it a rule from the beginning that I would not attempt to preach in places that were already supplied, there were too many needy places), increased from five to nine, which called for much weeknight work. Thus it was that my third year found me with a helper as candidate for the ministry, as also the young man under my supervision, whom I have already mentioned, and I instituted a new mission in the Muskoka section of Ontario, and had a young man appointed under another superintendent than myself. This mission was so far from my headquarters that I have never even yet seen it! Those were three years of tremendous activity and gratifying expansion, and God blessed me with good health. I had thought on my appointment to that field that it spelled my funeral, but it proved otherwise.
Out of my village work I gathered two bright young lads for the ministry, to whom I gave a year's teaching in Greek and theology; one of these "boys" (one of them was only sixteen when God gathered him in) became a very prominent preacher in Ontario. One of the girls of this congregation became a successful school teacher.
Notwithstanding the many demands for outside public work, I maintained my habits of study and followed my timetable, continuing an extramural college course. For this purpose the county School Inspector was appointed "Examiner", having as his duties to receive papers, preside when I wrote, and return my answers to the College Board. This occurred every six months. I therefore came to the end of my third year in this place, being the end of my fifth year of non-resident studies, with my course accomplished in forty subjects, and my degree won of Bachelor of Philosophy! My greatest satisfaction in this achievement was the consciousness that I had completed something.
May I utter a note of warning to my reader? If you wish to be quiet and untroubled, do not be ambitious. Do not aspire to climb above your natural compeers. The mass of the world wishes to keep every one on the same level. And yet in this mass there is always someone who is trying to do the keeping and the driving -- in other words trying to be a "boss" -- a leader. That is the one -- not to be feared -- but to be observed. You may expect a manifestation of jealousy from him because he perceives that his dominance is threatened. And this applies in religion as much as in politics.
So it was that, having gained the university degree by actual study, ministers out on front circuits lifted their eyebrows and were asking "What is wrong?" One actually said "I do not see how you get so much time for study. I think we shall have to send you farther into the woods where you will have to work for your living and not be neglecting the visiting of your people". "The farther back you send me the more I shall study" I replied. He was a city minister and we were a few of many enjoying a pleasant ride on the River St Lawrence, when he made this not very desirable speech. A little later he came to me and said "You will be spending Sunday out here in the Front; come and preach for me". "Thank you, but I expect to preach to my own people on Sunday. You may have some pastoral visiting you would like to have done".
I must not forget that it was while I was in my many engagements in Haliburton county that I met with "Sam" Hughes. It was Orangemen's Day, on the twelfth of July. He was then a young man, not yet heard of as an aspirant for political honors. I was the public speaker for the day, but he was the private one, and as the editor and proprietor of The Lindsay Warder newspaper he sought the goodwill of all possible readers in the north country. As he lounged with the men on the grass it was easy for me to see that he was studying the soft side of human nature. I did not agree with his politics at that time, but as he expressed the wish to send me his paper free of charge, as he so treated all ministers in the county, and expressed the hope that I would have no objection to reading it, I tried to be gracious in accepting his hospitality.
It was shortly after I had removed from that county that he became a candidate in the Conservative interest. My name for the first time was on a voters list, and although I was one hundred and fifty miles distant I felt a keen sense of duty to go and vote. I went, paying my own expenses both ways, and Hughes was defeated by four votes, which I thought was my vote and influence. He protested the election and summoned me to Court. We met in a barber shop downtown and had it out. "There is not a Methodist preacher in all the land" he said "who thinks so little of money that he would travel all that distance to vote and pay his own expenses without getting something". "Sam" I said in reply "You are looking at a better specimen of humanity than you ever saw before".
He was elected the next year, and at a distance I watched his career, especially in the South African Campaign, but more particularly in the Great War. I changed my politics when I observed the movements of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and I took up my pen in support of Sir Sam. I was convinced that there was no man in all Canada that could have massed Canadian forces to the colors as he did. We corresponded, and we shook hands and were satisfied to let the bygones of little politics be bygones. He deserved all the honors he received and more. Surely the country will not forget!
I must record my first adventure into investments, for it had very much to do with my later days, as all investments usually have. I was walking along the Front street of Belleville one day, with barely enough money in my pocket to carry me home, when I suddenly heard a man's voice:- "Allow me Sir to present to you my business card" and turning my attention I saw the speaker hurrying across the street towards me. His business card represented life insurance. I had for some years looked upon life insurance as a sort of vain speculation, but I had after a more careful study concluded that this was an institution that worked on the principle of "brotherhood" and "averages", and that while the longest livers might pay in too much, they were making up to the company for the short-lived. I had therefore become sympathetic, and even desirous. But what was the use? I had no money. "We will take your note for six months without interest" he said. That certainly is a good proposition, and if I die in the meantime what will my wife receive? "All of the Thousand Dollars except the amount of the Note and Interest". It looked now as if I was into gold quartz in earnest. But what was the use of talking -- there were questions to be asked that I could not satisfactorily answer. "Come over to our doctor", he said. And over we went. And the questions about ancestry could not be answered -- just as I had said. "We'll proceed" he said. And we proceeded; and in the end the doctor said "The finest case I have had". So I went home that day with a Thousand Dollars covering my head. I paid the Note in three months instead of six. Three months later the Sun Life Insurance man, having heard of what the Mutual Life man had done, looked me up and placed a Thousand Dollars for his company. Both of these were Thirty Year endowments. Would I live so long? Would self denials ever be of any use to me?
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