All aboard for the east! Horse, buggy, cutter, household and personal effects, wife, four children and self, are all packed into spaces on one of those spacious and attractive boats of the Canada Steamships Company, that ride as steadily and proudly through Lake Ontario and the St Lawrence River as ocean liners plough the ocean. It is the month of June, and we are resolved to take our "moving" for two hundred and fifty miles as light-heartedly as if it were only a picnic and holiday. Probably the minister's wife and children feel the breaking of social ties far more keenly than he does, so he finds a pleasure in adding to their interest in this wonderful inland water way. Downstream we go, out of the Bay of Quinte, into the St Lawrence, past the city of Kingston, past Gananoque, Brockville, Prescott, and Cornwall, in and out among a Thousand wooded islets, or where wealth has built its castle on a bit of Laurentian granite that obtrudes its head above waters that suggest only purity. It is Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, and as our ship passes Lachine and comes sailing through the Lachine canal into harbour in Montreal what sights meet our eyes! Canal banks, streets, public buildings and private, and the sides of Mount Royal are as gay as electricity and artistic decorators can make them.
We are on our way as The King's Messengers, but we are enjoying privileges granted by the King Whose the world is and the fulness thereof, and who knows what Montreal may mean to us and our usefulness in the future? So we take a day to dwell in Canada's largest city, traverse some of its streets, reach its mountain top, and look down upon a sight which having been once seen can never be forgotten, since it has made an impression on ones personality that becomes a lasting part of oneself. My ecclesiastical destination was "Sutton in the Eastern Townships". It was some seventy miles from Montreal. Sutton being an English name had more than ordinary attraction, and I went forward with wondering and expectation. Just from what point the townships were called "eastern" it would be interesting to learn; I have not been able to discover. Taking Montreal as a base for geographical observation, it would seem that these townships are more south than east; at any rate they range along the boundary line between Quebec and the United States, and we generally speak of the United States as being south of us.
These townships are spread along the range of Appalachian mountains which have their beginnings in the portion of the Province of Quebec some six hundred miles from Montreal, down the St Lawrence river in a district known as Gaspe, which was visited by the French adventurer Jacques Cartier in 1534, and later furnished fishing grounds for Breton and Jersey fishermen. These Appalachians, composed of shale for the most part, it is quite likely once extended a hundred miles farther north than they do at present and, linking up Labrador, formed a barrier to the Atlantic ocean; but that was long before the age of man. Since then the bottom fell in and resulted in the Gulf of St Lawrence.
So these hills, which may be the home of valuable deposits of oil, copper, gold and other minerals, run away from the St Lawrence in a [south-easterly] direction, across the Province of Quebec, and down through the State of Vermont in the United States. On a clear day, these mountains can be seen from Mount Royal in Montreal for a distance southward of seventy miles; and since a haze of blue generally hangs over them, they are known, in Vermont especially, as "The Blue Mountains". On the Canadian side of the boundary line, following upon the Revolution of l776-l783, these hills were settled largely by refugees, some of whom had borne arms and suffered losses for their British principles and are entitled to be known as "United Empire Loyalists", and others there were who, because of the heavy taxation that fell upon the States in consequence of the war, as well as the prospect of free grants of land under the British Crown, decided to cross the border; these and others who later joined them have left, after one hundred and fifty years, a magnificent type of free and independent Canadian citizenship, English speaking in a Province which is predominantly French.
To be assigned a charge in "The Townships" was no small honor, yet it involved difficulty, and sacrifice. In the first place one had to expect small congregations, for the policy of the Roman Church is to "permeate", and thus either crowd out or convert out; and secondly the atmosphere of discouragement settling upon Protestant people in religious matters, as they compare their own small families with the large families of the French, with no English immigration and therefore no opportunity to make additions to church membership rolls, other than by the tardy process of family replacement, they become unusually indifferent in attendance upon church services. On the other hand, those who do stand loyally by are such as one can rely upon; from among them the halt, the lame and the blind have by the force of their surroundings been weeded out.
My charge consisted of two villages, five miles apart, and my home was but seven miles from the American boundary, such an imaginary line that although I crossed it many times in three years I never saw it. There was one peculiar and interesting way in which one could know something of his geographical position, namely by what was known as the "line house". This was a building with such a dubious reputation that one who valued his reputation for respectability would not wish to be seen in it, and it was equally a trouble alike to American and Canadian police officers. It was built on the thin edge of the imaginary line with one half in American and the other half in Canadian territory, and the principal reason for its existence and occupation was an illicit business in strong drink.
At the time of which I am writing, the Canadian territory was under a prohibition law, and the American section was subject to licence; but this house was not licensed. "Raiding" at times seemed to be a "sport". The American officers made a raid, and behold, they found nothing in their end of the house but household furniture and an innocent looking family; the family had received a timely "tip" that the raid was coming off, and in the exercise of their prudence had moved their questionable goods to the Canadian end of their house, into which had the American officers gone they would have been liable as trespassers. When the Americans returned to town, and word had reached the Canadian administrators, a quiet moving night had passed over the scene, and Canadians found nothing wrong. I often wondered why the officers of both countries could not agree on concerted action, and by a combined raid catch the evil genius; but then that is the way in which countries work generally; one says "It is not our business to protect the other". This line house was only a sample of many wrongs that might be found along a boundary of four thousand unforted miles. Sin and vice always require fighting.
My villages were beautifully situated at the foot of the Appalachians and were somewhat overshadowed on the east by the "Roundtop", one of the loftiest peaks in the Province of Quebec, so that if one really wanted to see sunrise he would needs arise while his neighbours were wrapped in blue mists, and the smoke of their chimneys hung over the valley rather than curled upward, and he would need spur his horse and do some hill ascents, until he could look down from this natural roof and scan the hills running away down to valleys in the east, something like the vision that appears to one who stands at Bruce's monument near Stirling, a glorious vision as the sun is peeping over the faraway horizon, and one that rewards amply the early climber. And strangely enough, on these mountain sides the soil so luxurious in a grass that reminds one of Old England, is like a sponge, and springs of water burst forth everywhere -- the farmer's reservoir.
All of the villages, towns and cities of the Eastern Townships, from the Chateauguay, the Richelieu and the St Francis rivers, are beautiful -- not only for situation, but in their situation, and are in striking contrast with those of Ontario, whose residents seem so intent on occupation for gain and in individualistic satisfaction; but here the voice of Nature seems to have found united response in the making of streets, the planting of trees, the production of flowers, the building of homes in harmony with surroundings, the creation of parks; and even cemeteries are beautified as if they were places to smile in and breed hope, rather than gloom. It is the nearest approach to England that at this time I had found in Canada, and I felt very much at home.
My first work following the preaching was to visit and know my people, and in doing this, while it took much time to climb the hills (the age of automobiles was not yet) the utter absence of monotony, both in the landscape and the people, furnished a constant source of pleasure and of study. I often succeeded in making six calls in an afternoon, and the subject of conversation would not be the same in any two; there was an absence of the inconsequential and formal; such as "How do you like this part of the country?" "What do you think of our weather?" "Do you think we shall have good crops this summer?" "Do you think you will like living among us eastern folks as well as you did in the west? We must seen strange to a newcomer". I found none of this. But instead there was an air of definiteness and seriousness. It was a problem suggested by Sunday's sermon. Or it was a Sunday School teacher who just wanted an opportunity to talk with the minister about a class of boys or girls. How to make the Young People's Society more attractive and helpful was a President's question. There was a sick case to be cheered, and an old couple who could not venture the roads as formerly. And there was the finance minister of the church who just wanted an occasion to take the minister into his confidence and let him know all about the financial difficulties. There was never any time lost in such pastoral visiting; and my diary contains many such records. When I returned home I always felt that I had had a good time with my widely spread clinic, and I settled into my study with a refreshed, not a tired, spirit and grasped my work with zest. Our village was predominantly English and Protestant, and that suited me very well.
But one day it was announced that war was on in South Africa; then what manifestations came to the front! It was hard to live where a minority people acted and talked as if they were in the majority. Taken on a reckoning throughout the Province, I suppose that they were, and they evidently knew this, and knew also that they had support for their views and behaviour. But it was hard to bear with the sarcastic question of the only butcher in our town, a French-Canadian who knew that you had to patronise him, and who asked:- "Well, how is Ladysmith today" after every failure of General Buller. Besides, this tradesman kept a huge tricolour flying above his building. At such a time I had to hold my peace. One day a "ragamuffin", that is a van such as gypsies used to use, a covered-in wagon, dressed in rags, drawn by a bare-bones horse, and followed by a group of children also dressed in rags and carrying small editions of the tricolour and singing songs in French, paraded the streets and past my house. It was provoking.
My duty at such a time was work, not talk. So I provided myself with the old-time song books, and specials like the Death of Nelson, Rule Britannia, and the one created by the occasion -- "The Soldiers of the Queen", made special social occasions, and drew my young people together, and acting as soloist sometimes, and choirmaster more frequently, I had them singing for the day of triumph which I knew would come. And the day came, and then our citizens who were in the majority, concluding that the other man had had his say, brought out a real Union Jack, of such proportions as I have seldom seen equalled, so large that it spread the full space of Front street. We needed no ragamuffin; that was our silent, but effective witness. I went to the butcher shop as usual, and he did not enquire about Ladysmith, neither did I retaliate with the question "How about Ladysmith now?". I think our silence was golden. And as time went on and 1900 was approaching, this French-Canadian grew very confidential one day. "I wish" he said, "I had been able to learn English when I was young; it would mean money to me today. I am going to send my boy to your college in Stanstead and give him a good English education. We French people cannot do much in this country without good English".
At one side of our village, in the most elevated and sightly building spot, was a large Roman Catholic Church and school, convent and Presbytery. The parish priest was Father Brassard. The Anglican Minister was the Rev Capell, and with him I had a very intimate fellowship. Somehow I gained more than a "nodding" acquaintance with Father Brassard, for the citizens smiled and were surprised to see that ecclesiastic riding beside me in my carriage and with which on occasion I toiled up the hillside and deposited him at his presbytery.
There came a day when the forces of prohibition and of alcohol were arrayed in war in our county. An Act of the Dominion Parliament, known as the Scott Act, gave to Counties the right to vote on the question of prohibition of the sale of liquor within a county. This Act had been in force in this county for twenty years, and happy and thrifty countryside homes and prosperous village shops bore eloquent testimony to the beneficial effects.
Village hotels, however, were not satisfied with furnishing bed and board, and were restless agitators constantly seeking to educate their patrons to the advantage of the trade in drink. Added to these factors existing in every village of the county, was the powerful influence of a large brewery near the border line of an adjacent county, which county had not adopted prohibition; and the railroad serving our county carried the goods of this brewery, and no one could prohibit it from doing so. Many infractions of the law therefore occurred -- so many, and court cases were so frequent, that good citizens became impatient.
Within the County was formed a Branch of the Dominion Temperance Alliance, and naturally I found my place in it as an active member.
Presently we found ourselves on the defensive, and that is never a good role to play in chess, certainly not in politics. We were surprised when we learned that the liquor people had petitioned authorities, and had secured the right to a vote on the question of repeal. They followed up their tactical advantage by immediately organising public meetings, and imported a Toronto lawyer to carry on the campaign. The Dominion Alliance appointed me to confront him and refute his arguments.
So I was welcomed to his platform; but unfortunately it was his platform, not mine; that is he had the opening and closing address, and he was very wily, and no matter how logical might be my replies to his original arguments, he always made jocular turns in his finals, which left the people more deeply impressed with what he had previously said. For instance, the Canadian Government had issued a five-volume report on investigations by the Liquor Commission. A Minority Report was contained in one volume. This volume I had with me the first night that I met this legal Goliath. He, in the course of his address, laid great stress on the report as a whole, and especially on the Minority Report, which by misquotation he sought to show was in harmony with the larger report. I thought I had caught him nicely and so I gave the people a correct reading, indicating his omission and the difference it made; he answered my correction by laughingly saying -- "A slip of the memory". But next night in a different section of the county, and every night during the campaign of ten nights, he repeated that same little but dastardly trick.
Apparently the audiences were, for the most part, with our prohibition moves, but there are other ways to get votes, and the dollar bill is a mightier argument than verbal logic; so we found when too late, that while we were reasoning in the schoolhouses and halls, the agents were around the hillsides finding voters who had never before been seen at a poll.
The vote was to be held on a Tuesday, and our people decided to have a Saturday night meeting and a Monday night one in our two prominent villages. Saturday night was to be in my home town. It was felt by our Committee that the sympathy and help of the French Priest must be secured; accordingly I was commissioned to visit him and solicit his co-operation. I did so, and in his Presbytery he expressed his great pleasure in co-operating. I went to our meeting on Saturday night, where our assembly was too large for the hall, and we addressed the people from a platform in the open. I concluded my address with the announcement that I had visited the parish priest and he had expressed his pleasure in co-operating.
The hotel keepers were members of Father Brassard's church. Before mass on Sunday morning he was interviewed by them, with the result that he made announcement during service in which he repudiated what I had said. During the day the news was carried to me.
Monday morning I returned to the Presbytery. "I regret, Father Brassard, that some misunderstanding has occurred between us. I did not wish to use your name unadvisedly on Saturday evening, but I had understood from you that you were in favour of the Scott Act". "No, I am not in favour of the Scott Act". "Then are you in favour of Licence?" "Oh, no. I do not think that our people are sufficiently educated to trust them with so dangerous a thing as Licence". "Then Father Brassard, what shall I say? You are not in favour of licence, and you are not in favour of the Scott Act; what do you favour? I should like to understand your views".
"Well, you see, we are the fathers of our people. We wish to handle the liquor question as we do the school system. I am the Chairman of our school board, and have the naming of the board. I wish to name the licensing commission, and we would regulate the traffic and say where it should be prohibition, and where there should be licence." "Then I may make this announcement tonight?" "You may". It spread consternation in our open air meeting that night, and there were two men near my stand on the platform who said they would like to "get hold of that Protestant preacher". I had fought a good fight, but our cause had to suffer defeat next day. And for several days thereafter, I had a number of tantalising anonymous telephone calls.
Coming to "The Townships" after sixteen years of residence in Ontario, it might be only natural that I should make some mistakes before becoming thoroughly identified with my new environment. The worst of these sprang out of an unconscious assumption on my part that the English speaking people, being isolated, had not had as fair a chance for development as had their western neighbours, and so when recommending improvements I fell unconsciously into the habit of saying "as we do in Ontario"; but I received such a reproof from one of my laymen one day, that I did not need it again -- "Why are you forever telling us how they do things in Ontario? You seem to think that Ontario is perfection, but I want to tell you that we think that we are ahead of Ontario".
However that might have been, I found that my work on this charge required the use of all of the experiences I had gained in Ontario -- I had to organise into a stability elements that had depended for their existence on fluctuating convenience; financial conditions were very defective, and the Chairman of the District said "you will have to make it a personal matter, and forget yourself -- do it for Christ's sake"; spiritual conditions called for evangelistic work; Sunday School work made demands upon all of my accumulated experiences in the west; buildings also demanded attention; in addition, I was drawn upon for District work; and finally I was drawn into the field of authorship, seemingly as a matter of necessity, but as I now believe by the intention of my invisible Guide, the "Good Hand of my God".
I saw much to do, and took the first opportunity to get at it. I began with evangelistic work, considering that improvements in other departments could be effected only when built on a foundation of spirituality, and I repeated these efforts each of three years. Our evangelistic work began in our home village in connection with a "District" meeting. I considered it a good time to "break ice". So I called for an evening open air meeting after the business of the day was done, and while ministers were with us. I noticed that our Chairman looked somewhat askance on my proposal. One of my members had a large open lawn on "Front" street, and leant it for the occasion. One of our ministers was of French extraction, and was in charge of a French Mission, and his command of the language was good; this suited my purpose.
I asked the Chairman to take charge of the meeting, but he motioned me to go ahead. So I began with the singing of "All hail the power of Jesus' name", my preference always for open air meetings. From a half-hour street meeting we moved to the church, which as never before for such a service, was crowded. At the close the Chairman said -- "You cannot stop this, you must have another tomorrow night". And so we did. And the Chairman lost his fright, and went home to try the blessed experiment in his own church, then to requisition my services for a week, including a Sunday, and an afternoon address to men only.
For some years my charge had needed a new home for its minister. Not but what that which already existed was large enough, but it was lacking in many respects, and especially it seemed to bring to every succession of minister some attack of disease. My predecessor had typhoid fever; my children were attacked with scarlet fever. It was agreed by the good people of the town that if the means to build could be secured, we ought to arise and build. Once more my ability as an architect was called into requisition, and also my service as financial agent. It was while I was in bed for ten days with tonsillitis, that I made a mental calculation of all materials and costs, and when able to be up, used my telephone to bring to my help a contractor. So at the beginning of my second year, we saw go up what was described by our medical neighbour as "the most beautiful house in the village". We had the satisfaction of living in the house, enjoying a comfortable study, for a year and a half, and also laying out the grounds, and planting trees which have since flourished.
Then there was the financial work which had to be done "for Christ's sake". I have never enjoyed doing anything which seemed to have myself as its object, but I took hold of this problem as helping the people, by the improvement in salary to secure a better class of minister when I might leave them, and by the blessing of God, I so far succeeded that the stipend which was only Five Hundred and Fifty Dollars when I came to them was now increased to Seven Hundred and Fifty.
I enjoyed two holidays during my term -- one was down at the sea coast in Cape Breton. This was to be for two weeks and one Sunday, and I was accompanied by a brother minister and his wife. Our boat, sailing from Montreal, was a member of the "Black Diamond Line", and as its name would imply was specially assigned for the carriage of coal from the Maritime Province to Montreal, but it had quite excellent, though limited, accommodation for cabin passengers. We had the usual sea experiences in the Gulf of St Lawrence, but arrived in fairly good form at our destination in North Sydney. Here the ship left us with the understanding that it was to proceed to St Johns, Newfoundland, and call for us on its return.
In the meantime, our pleasure was undiluted by any care. Back and forth we rode by ferry across the spacious harbour between North Sydney and Sydney, home of the Dominion Steel and Coal Company, bathed ourselves daily in Atlantic waves of salt water, visited inland lakes and overland townsites and places of ancient historical interest, and allowed ourselves a descent of seven hundred feet into coal mines with a walk out under the ocean bed. We made friends, and did some preaching on our first Sunday, thereby giving the Pastor a chance for a holiday off.
When, however, our agreed day for return arrived we learned at the Company's office that our boat had forgotten to call, and instead had gone direct up the St Lawrence on her way to Montreal. Then it was that we had an unintentionally lengthened holiday, did service for another Sunday, gave the Pastor an additional ten days, and really had more of a picnic than otherwise, in persuading the Coal Company to place at our disposal a boat which was not chartered to carry passengers. But altogether that was one of my most restful and delightful inland holidays.
My second holiday was the gift of a friend. Miss Anna Bilbrough of Croydon had left England on a tour of Mission stations down through Africa, had proceeded to Australia and the Maori mission work, had visited Japan, and then had gone inland in China beyond the usual routes of white people. To return to England she crossed the Pacific to the United States, came on to Moory's Schools at Northfield, and then, as I was in direct line for her visit to Montreal, she spent a Sunday with me, and gave my people the benefit of her travels. Twice during that day she occupied my pulpits, and the addresses were live missionary ones -- campaign talks fresh from the field. Before leaving me for Montreal, she came to my study, and laying a sum of money on my table she said "Conferences are on at Northfield, and I want you to have ten days there -- it will benefit your work." I have been grateful ever since.
I was the only person there from Canada, and was looked upon and referred to as something of a curiosity; they did not know that Canada produced such culture! Our neighbours to the south have such a gnarled and twisted conception of what Canada is and Canadians are like! It was D L Moody's last year on earth, and I was glad to hear him, both in the great assembly Hall and at the Round Top, and to note his utter freedom from frills, and his directness in addressing the conscience, as well as his pleasant business way in managing meetings. It was my privilege also at this time to listen to the Rev Campbell Morgan, whom I found was an expositor, though at times I thought him a somewhat awkward joker; I have listened to him since and found his ways much smoothened. At this time I also listened to Dr Arthur T Pierson, and Dr Cunningham.
I gave myself up to study, and made the various forms of gathering during ten days a sort of university extension course. I returned home with broadened Christian sympathies, an increased love for God's word and the exposition of it, and a delightful remembrance of the beauties of Northfield. How much good a little money wisely spent can do!
Altogether my three years in "The Townships" were among the happiest of my ministry, and when it came to the time of leaving, I had never before felt how nearly cruel was the itinerant system; indeed I seemed to have awakened to the fact that my talents qualified me for beginning a work and continuing it, rather than to leave it to the chance of some one else brushing aside that which I had begun. However, with many tokens of esteem to follow us, ecclesiastical law said the time limit had been reached and we must move on.
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