As an act of graciousness on the part of my brethren, they elected me to represent the District on the Stationing Committee of the Montreal Conference, so that I was now brought into contact with the methods in two conferences. Other situations I had occupied in Conference work included Secretaryships in various Districts and Financial Secretaryship for Conference which involved the gathering of secretaries, the organisation of their work, totalling their statistical returns and preparing the report for Conference. Once also it befell my lot to prepare and read the Conference Pastoral Address to church members. I was therefore becoming somewhat familiar with the routine of ecclesiastical work; but I was far from knowing the Church's geography. I was now about to add a new leaf to my book.
The Conference assembled in Ottawa, and my District Chairman was elected President. Thereupon he said to me:-- "Now I am in the Chair, you will have to look after our District; I have to watch Conference interests". He added further:-- "There is a move to place you in Clarendon; you will do well to look into it". I had refused everything for myself until I had seen my moving men placed. Now I seemed to be the only figure left on the board; so I proceeded to make enquiries. The information obtained did not satisfy me. I found that whereas I had been living some two hundred miles south easterly from Ottawa, in a land of beauty and romance, it was now proposed to move me to a point some fifty miles west of Ottawa, into a section whose chief interest was the production of wheat and cattle, with many religious disputes to accelerate the local activities. This charge would have one village church, and five country ones. The superintendent minister would have a ministerial junior colleague, and a band of lay preachers. There were four hundred members spread over the territory, and these represented as many families who would expect and would need pastoral visitation. There were six Sunday Schools and six or more midweek prayer meetings to be conducted. Financially, the situation was not encouraging; I concluded that if so many people had such difficulty in making up a minimum salary, it was because they were not sufficiently interested students, and therefore my methods would not appeal to them, and the environment would not raise my enthusiasm. Accordingly I reported to my Chairman that I did not wish the place.
The sessions proceeded. Some one was recorded for the undesirable circuit, and I was placed at an impossible point. I wondered and observed, but did not worry. It came to the last night before the close of Conference. That night the Stations must be finished, and the report be made ready for presentation the next morning. We assembled in the Committee room at 8 p.m. apparently prepared for an all-night sitting. I sat next to the President at the head of the table. "Brethren" he began, "we must take up the case of the Doctor here. I do not want to force a vote. What he wants I do not know; I have offered him a thousand things (a diplomatic exaggeration!), and I propose now that we ask him to speak for himself".
I did not expect such a plunge as that, but by the grace of God I accepted the situation calmly, and rising, I said:- "I did not come here, Brethren, to speak for myself, and I am not aware of having had a thousand things offered to me. I am here to look after the interests of men who cannot be here. If I must speak for myself, I have to say that I am willing to work, and that I have a family to support, but I have no fear on that score according to the promises of God. My chief concern in life, however, is to work in that place where such talents as I have can be of the greatest use. That is all, Brethren".
"And now, Brethren" said the President, springing to his feet, "the whole case is before you. We shall waste no time over it. What do you propose to do? I will take the Districts in order. Ottawa District -- will the Chairman give me anything?" "I am sorry to refuse anything, but I have my own men to look after". I saw that it was ball play, and as I sat there I concluded that it was pre-designed. In five minutes, five situations had been canvassed and dropped, and at last, the field that I had privately declined was reached, opened, and graciously assigned to me, and the President sat down with a satisfied declaration:- "That is good Brethren. This is the man that will put that circuit on its feet". No one however told me what was necessary to accomplish such a work of art.
A two-days ride up the Ottawa River from Montreal gave us a bit of a holiday, and the enjoyment of lovely presentations of many natural beauties. Our arrival at our destination was on a Thursday evening. The difference between our new environment and the one we had so recently left, did not predispose me to any extra enthusiasm, rather I turned into bed that night in a very drab parsonage, with a worn out sidewalk in front of it, and a broken-down platform at the front door, with feelings very much akin to homesickness. However I had arrived at the railway station wearing my silk-topper, both because it was the easiest way to transport it, and also because I wished to inject a little dignity into the new situation. As I walked two shop-lined streets, accompanied by two of the faithful who had met us at the station, I did pray for grace to endure this new cross as a good soldier of Jesus Christ, and resolved to ease my spirits by applying my best abilities to the situation.
My introduction to the work began next day. Naturally wife and children missed the fine home we had made and left, and I had to utter a family caution to offer no word of complaint, but to make the best of everything. It was a hard thing to do, where everything seemed to be out of order. The morning was about half gone when an old gentleman called; some one had already whispered to me over the fence, to be on guard as he was a "crank". I think that all my life other people's "cranks" have been my useful turners of my machinery, and in this case, he was my greatest and best. To the day of his death I thanked God for him.
On that first morning, he got out into the woodshed and busied himself repairing an old wooden cistern; I did not like the looks of it, and I was quite willing that he should have a free hand. It did not prove to be a new broom sweeping well either, for he kept up his attentions day after day, and he saw everything wrong that troubled my eye. Near to the dinner hour, on that Friday, he said "I want you to drive out with me this evening to see our best member who is very sick".
It was but a three mile ride. One of our best Canadian families had literally been invaded by the virus of a rabid enthusiasm under the name of religion. "Hornerism" was the name by which it was known, so-called after its chief advocate, and that advocate had been one of my fellow students in college days. I was quite well acquainted with all the symptoms of what to me since college days was no more than a nervous and emotional disease. In the present instance I learned that a "Campmeeting" had recently been held in the neighbourhood, and this good man, church-trustee and official whom all the countryside respected, had fallen victim. I found him sitting on the parlour floor, reason dethroned, observing no one, recognising no one, his eyes directed to the ceiling, and his hands acting in keeping with his imagination, he was singing the Campmeeting ditty:- "The fire is coming, the fire is coming" -- There was nothing else, and this sort of thing continued for hours. My advice was that he should be taken to the hospital for the insane in Montreal, and the next morning saw the family and friends departing with him. It was however only for five days, for he was returned as a corpse, and this was my first funeral in the new charge. It was the saddest case that I had ever witnessed.
From this incident I was led into a social and historical study. I found that my new parishioners were the result of an immigration policy of Canada launched in 1820, and included the founding of two colonies, one of Scotch in one township, and in the adjacent township a colony from the North of Ireland. It was with the Irish element that I had the most to do, and the names McDowell, Hodgins, Wilson and Armstrong were pretty well interwoven by marriage contacts. The township had kept quite to itself, and consequently old traditions and customs, such as all-night "wakes" for funerals were maintained through the years, and thus made a fruitful ground on which to plant religious forms that appealed principally to emotion.
Thus it was that extravagances of religious profession and experience were scattered among a people who loved to go about to hear or to tell some new thing in religion. I found that among a people who were predominantly Methodist there had sprung up divisive forms under the nomenclature of "Hornerites", "Scobieites", and "Connexionals". In essentials these all agreed with the mother Methodist church in the village, but personal animosities, local jealousies, and questions of taste as to head gear, companionships, food or holidays, had made it an easy task for an undereducated preacher who could not find acceptance in a village pulpit, to sow discord and prejudice. I soon saw that to combat these conditions and heal divisions I must do very much teaching both in and out of the churches. But how, with six on my hands?
I saw that I had to superintend, and set others to do the work, instead of trying to do it myself. Then the tendency was to keep the Superintendent in a state of nervous excitement. It was but a short time until, at every preaching appointment, he was met with the remark:- "You have not called at my house yet". Of course this remark proceeded from sheer kindness, the speaker intending to show in what high esteem the minister stood and how welcome he would be. God pity the minister who is not wanted in the house!
My assistant, a bright and godly young man, was a beginner, sent out under the Chairman of the District, which meant that his name had not yet come before the Conference, because he had as yet taken up none of the required studies; consequently I had his training in Greek, in theology, and in church procedures added to all of my other duties. Monday was usually given over to him.
When I had spent four weeks on the charge the Secretary of the Official Board called upon me with the information:- "We had a hard time trying to collect Seven Hundred Dollars for our last minister's salary; in fact we borrowed nearly a Hundred to pay him off. We told the Conference that if we were given the right sort of man we would make his salary Eight Hundred Dollars. Some of us have had a meeting, and we have decided that you are the man. Your salary will be Eight Hundred." Well that helped to get up a little steam.
On my first round of pastoral calls, I took my young man with me, both that he might learn my method, and also that he might discover the heresies, and how to be firm in dealing with them, moreover that the people at large might take note of his oneness with his superintendent. We had a lovely year together.
And together we began with September and launched into revival meetings, (the best cure for ignorances, discords and divisions of theology), and this covering so large a field, kept us on into winter.
I was blessed with good health, and my energies had also to go into financial and material matters, while my young man had his mornings for his studies. The problem of a church building had to be attacked. The situation was six miles from my home. An old church had to be demolished (it had been built with one corner post higher than the others), and it was resolved to build on a stone foundation (the original had stood on wooden posts), with gothic windows, instead of square-tops, with a "square pitch" roof, and to be finished generally in modern style. I was architect, "bee-hustler" and financier.
Once having the foundation built, I secured the mechanical services of a resident of our village, one who had much to do later with the cabinet finishing inside of the Parliamentary Tower and Hall of Remembrance in Ottawa, and as an intelligent workman he gave splendid execution to my ideas. I made it a practice to drive out early in the mornings and be on the ground as the sun arose -- this in October and November; and so it was that in six weeks from the day that my Nehemiah laid the first timbers on the stone foundation, our church was finished, seated, polished and the Chairman of the District was dedicating it! And it was paid for. That was an achievement that meant a moral and spiritual victory in the morass of vain theology. Next came the call to improve a church four miles from home, and willing hands and hearts turned in to help Zion!
One day when my old friend "the Crank" was choring about the parsonage, in the midst of an interesting conversation I showed him a framed photograph of the beautiful house we had left behind. "Oh," he said "could we ever have a parsonage like that here?" So at the November business meeting, of his own will he introduced the question of a new parsonage, told his colleagues that he had seen a picture of a parsonage which he very much liked, and asked his fellow members to give authority to the minister and himself to go together and solicit subscriptions, "and I'll put my name first" he added. Well, who could refuse a request like that? But they were all sceptical. A scheme taken hold of like that very seldom fails. Winter found us pressing our canvass, and my pencil busy with blueprints. I was once more the architect, and the writer of specifications. Then the Trustee Board passed necessary resolutions authorising the demolition of the old structures, gave me the powers of contractor, and committed me unreservedly to the enterprise.
There was not enough stone in the clay soil of that village to stone up a small well, and we had decided on a foundation of stone (concrete had not come into vogue at that time), and our foundation was to be 30 x 36, eight feet high and two feet thick. From whence the stone? Three miles away, on a hillside was a farm owned by a widow, and near to her house was a fine specimen of grey granite, just cropping out of the ground, to my mind a relic of the glacial age when the moraines carried over from the Labrador country and deposited these "boulders".
An examination showed me that we had here most substantial material. Our village "tombstone man" volunteered to undertake the break-up if I could find a man to work with him; the handiest man available was myself. So together we wrought at stone carving -- either he swung the sledge while I held the plug, or he held the plug and I swung the sledge; then the powder was placed and we ran for cover. We took a huge pile out of that rock, but we never reached the bottom of it; and everyone was proud of the parsonage cellar walls. That was in 1901. Citizens, other than those who belonged to my church, were gratified by what they pronounced to be the finest house in town. I lived in it for nearly two years, and when I left, I did so with the assurance that every minister in future days appointed there would have reason to be thankful. This was a step up in circuit organisation.
An inevitable question arose before three-quarters of my first year had been covered -- could not this large charge be more advantageously worked if it were divided into appointments for two married men? That of course would involve the building of another parsonage, and it would also involve some people in larger contributions for ministerial support, who were not now giving as the Lord gave to them. A vote had to be taken, and I was surprised to see how political methods could creep into church work. The word had gone out, and two men had canvassed the country, so that when the vote was called for, my proposition was completely turned down, and for once I was in bad grace with the winners. However the processes of thought had been set in motion, and in time brought forth fruit.
My second year saw consolidation of the work of the first year. Then came a request from the Chairman of the District, who lived on the south shore of the Ottawa river, asking that I would map out the work on the north shore with a view to reconstruction. It was a year since a former resolution had been voted down, and now that which had the same meaning came before our Board, but in different form. Men had had time to think, and no doubt had come to see the inevitable. But the matter was kept in quietness and there was no outside canvass. "If the Conference judges it expedient in the interests of the work at large to rearrange our circuit, we are willing to co-operate", so the resolution was framed, moved, seconded and carried, with but one dissentient in a Board of thirty.
The next Conference saw my field of labour cut to two appointments, and a newly married couple appointed to the remainder. I had a fatherly oversight towards them, and afforded them every possible encouragement. Nearly thirty years afterwards when that young minister was elected President of the Protestant Ministerial Association of Montreal he gripped my hand and said "I have to thank you for this". At the end of his first year in a parsonage, a parsonage which he like myself had built, I had a final word with him -- it is a blessing to be able to make the pathway of another easier. "You need not ask me a question -- I do not think that I could answer you, anyway -- if I could I would not. When you were appointed here, some one at Conference remarked to me that it was a pity -- 'he has spoiled every place he has gone to'. I have kept that to myself, and I have watched your steps during the year. I thought once that you were going to break down, but you recovered your balance, and you have done well. Keep on as you have been going and you will come through all right." So he did; and in due time I received my thanks. Also, long since I was thanked by the people who first opposed.
Then when circuit rearrangement had been proven to be a great success, some one at Conference whispered to me "You have succeeded in doing what the Conference tried for ten years to do and could not -- you have put that Circuit on its feet."
My old friend "The Crank" was one day left alone; his travelling companion in life moved on to her eternal rest. One day he came to ask help in wording his "Will", so that a house adjacent to the church might be left to be used by the church as the home for its sexton. It was an opportunity which I could not lose. This beautiful brick church had a tower and belfry, but no bell. Why should a Methodist church have a bell? Would that not be imitating the pomps and vanities of the world? If so why build a tower and steeple? I have always loved the beautiful in music and art, and I can not see why God cannot be worshipped in the beautiful. Well, I suggested to my aged friend that the finest monument he could erect to the memory of his wife and himself would be a bell in that church belfry. I was authorised to get it, and we agreed to keep the matter secret.
When the bell arrived at the station no one knew whose it was, save that the station master announced that it was billed to the minister. I was then many miles from home. When I returned next day, the donor had marshalled horses, men and tackle, and had the bell in its place, to the wonder of all the town. It was a bell that was easily heard four miles away. Of course it was sport to the boys to disturb services on Sunday; and one dear old soul of more than fourscore years, whose humble tastes belonged to the old school, and who donated to me a full set of Wesley's Journal to correct my heretical ways, was very much opposed to the modern innovation, and when the bell rang out of time, she announced in the open meeting that it was like Aaron's calf -- it did not know how to behave itself.
God gave me very great success on this field of labour, and I found such a sphere for teaching as I could not possibly have dreamed of. I learned very definitely that it is the man who makes his work, and not the work that makes the man; no man is made great by going to London unless he makes London great by his presence there. My sphere was not limited to my pastoral charge; it was my privilege to promote among the ministers and Christian workers of the District, a number of two-day Christian Workers' Conferences, which proved to be promotive of the best sort of Evangelism. Besides, I was called upon to take church services in Ottawa, and other towns in Ontario. It required the consecrated will to work against difficulties, but I found help, as Joseph did.
And then when my little works were coming to a culmination, I found that jealousy lived in these days, as in the days of Joseph. Other men wanted my ground, and could "not see why a stranger should come into the Conference and take so good a field from men who had spent all of their ministry trying to improve matters". One who had preceded me failed to see what real good had been done. Then one appeared whose father had been the minister when he was a boy, and had gone to school with those who were now leaders in the church. Without calling upon me he arranged an evening meeting of the Young People's Society in the church. I went in as a visitor and listened. That meeting accomplished its purpose. The next Conference transferred that junior man to my charge, and sent me to his undeveloped and lower-paid charge. "Blessed is he that in this world expecteth nothing!"
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