Contribution of Methodism to Atlantic Canada 9780773563223

Citation preview

The Contribution of Methodism to Atlantic Canada

This page intentionally left blank

The Contribution of Methodism to Atlantic Canada EDITED BY

CHARLES H.H. SCOBIE AND

JOHN WEBSTER GRANT

McGill-Queen's University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Buffalo

McGill-Queeris University Press 1992 ISBN 0-7735-0885-6 Legal deposit second quarter 1992 Bibliotheque nationale du Que'bec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Main entry under title: The Contribution of Methodism to Atlantic Canada Papers presented at a conference held at Mount Allison University, October 6-8, 1989. Includes index. ISBN 0-7735-0885-6

i. Methodist Church — Maritime Provinces — History — Congresses. 2. Methodist Church — Newfoundland — History - Congresses. 3. Methodist Church Maritime Provinces - Influence - History Congresses. 4. Methodist Church - Newfoundland Influence - History - Congresses, i. Scobie, Charles H. H. ii. Grant, John Webster, 1919— . HI. Mount Allison University. Centre for Canadian Studies 6x8252. A84c66 1992 287'.og7i5'og 091-090643-2 Typeset in Baskerville 10/12 by Caractera production graphique inc., Quebec City.

Contents

Preface vii Introduction 3 METHODIST ORIGINS IN BRITAIN AND ATLANTIC CANADA

1 John Wesley and the Origins of Methodism Owen Chadwick 2 Methodist Origins in Atlantic Canada John Webster Grant

11

32

METHODISM IN NEWFOUNDLAND

3 Laurence Coughlan and the Origins of Methodism in Newfoundland 53 Hans Rollmann METHODISM IN NOVA SCOTIA

4 William Black, Henry Alline, and Nova Scotia's First Great Awakening 79 George Rawlyk 5 "Give All You Can": Methodists and Charitable Causes in Nineteenth-Century Nova Scotia 92 Allen B. Robertson

vi Contents METHODISM IN NEW BRUNSWICK

6 Methodism and the Problem of Methodist Identity in Nineteenth-Century New Brunswick 107 T.W. Acheson METHODISM IN PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

7 Prince Edward Island Methodist Prelude to Church Union, 1925 127 James D. Cameron METHODISM AND EDUCATION

8 Methodism and Education in the Atlantic Provinces, 1800-1874 147 Goldwin French 9 The Golden Age of the Church College: Mount Allison's Encounter with "Modern Thought," 1850-1890 169 Michael Gauvreau METHODISM AND LITERATURE

10 Methodism and Methodist Poets in the Early Literature of Maritime Canada 189 Thomas B. Vincent 11 "In the Garden of Christ": Methodist Literary Women in Nineteenth-Century Maritime Canada 205 Gwendolyn Davies 12 Methodism and E.J. Pratt: A Study of the Methodist Background of a Canadian Poet and Its Influence on His Life and Work 218 David G. Pitt METHODISM AND HYMNODY

13 The Singer's Response to the Word: Charles Wesley's Hymns of Invitation 237 James Dale 14 Methodist Hymn Tunes in Atlantic Canada Fred K. Graham List of Contributors Index

275

269

257

Preface

On 4 June 1839, Charles Frederick Allison, a Sackville, New Brunswick, merchant and staunch Methodist layman, wrote a letter to the Reverend William Temple, chairman of the New Brunswick District Wesleyan Methodists, proposing the establishment of a school "in which not only the elementary, but higher branches of education may be taught." Allison undertook to purchase "an eligible site" in Sackville, erect suitable buildings, and give the sum of one hundred pounds per annum for ten years. The resulting Wesleyan Academy for boys was joined after a number of years by a "Ladies' College," and followed in 1858 by authorization for a degree-granting institution, the Mount Allison College. These became the Methodist educational institutions for the region, and from them evolved "Mount Allison University." They represent an important contribution, but far from the only one that Methodism made to Atlantic Canada. It was thus fitting that as part of its sesquicentennial celebrations Mount Allison University hosted a major scholarly conference on "The Contribution of Methodism to Atlantic Canada," which was held from 6 through 8 October 1989. The university thereby not only honoured its founders but also contributed to the growing recognition of the significance of religion in Canadian history and to the developing body of sound scholarly studies of religion in Canada. The present volume is based on the papers that were presented by the invited speakers. The conference, which was co-sponsored by the Canadian Methodist Historical Society, featured keynote addresses by two prominent

viii Preface

Church historians. Owen Chadwick, formerly Regius Professor of History and Master of Selwyn College in the University of Cambridge spoke on John Wesley and the origins of Methodism in the British Isles; his address also served as the Ebbutt Lecture for 1989. John Webster Grant, Professor Emeritus of Church History, Emmanuel College, Toronto, surveyed Methodist origins in Atlantic Canada. These were followed by twelve further papers, some by established scholars and others by newer researchers beginning to make their mark in the field. Overall, the papers examined the contribution made by Methodism in the four Atlantic provinces not only to the religious life of the region but also in such areas as education, literature, music, and society generally. The conference was made possible by an "Aid to Occasional Scholarly Conferences in Canada" grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and by further financial support from the British Council, Mount Allison University, and the Ebbutt Memorial Trust. Thanks are due to the members of the planning committee, which I chaired - Gwen Davies, James Gerrie, William B. Hamilton, Eldon Hay, and Carrie MacMillan; to George Rawlyk of Queen's University and Rev. J. William Lamb, president of the Canadian Methodist Historical Society, for valuable help and advice; to Mount Allison University, and in particular to Sheila Brown, Vice-President (Academic) for her encouragement and support. I am especially grateful to John Webster Grant for his assistance in co-editing the volume, in writing the Introduction, and in preparing the index. It was gratifying to have the volume accepted for publication by McGill-Queeris University Press. It has been a pleasure to work with Philip J. Cercone, executive director and editor of the press, and with Joan McGilvray, co-ordinating editor. Thanks are due to Robin Hamilton who undertook the initial typing of the manuscript. Margaret Whitla of Sackville rendered invaluable assistance in the task of editing the work for publication. A special word of thanks is due to the Jackman Foundation of Toronto, which provided a generous financial contribution toward the cost of publication, and in particular to Father Edward Jackman, op, for his encouragement and support. All the papers printed here offer new insights into Methodism in the Atlantic provinces, and a number are based on original research undertaken specifically for the conference. It was felt highly desirable that these papers be made available to a wider audience and in more

ix Preface

permanent form. We seek to do that through this volume, hoping that these studies will be appreciated both as a significant contribution to the understanding of Methodism in Atlantic Canada and as a stimulus to further research and writing in this field. Charles H.H. Scobie

This page intentionally left blank

The Contribution of Methodism to Atlantic Canada

This page intentionally left blank

Introduction

George A. Rawlyk notes in this volume that "a small group of historians ... has thrust Henry Alline forward with such vigour" that the contributions to the religion and culture of the Maritime provinces of other denominations including the Methodist have gone largely unnoticed. One could add that in Newfoundland there has been a similar concentration on Roman Catholic historiography and that both Anglican and Presbyterian roots in the region have been more thoroughly explored in recent years than those of Methodism. The publication of these papers should help to right the balance and perhaps, even more impressively, demonstrate that a number of researchers have already begun to right it. For this development some of the credit must go to the stimulus afforded by the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, the continued financing of which is now threatened. Another factor may be a process of self-examination forced on the United Church of Canada by internal stresses, since a desire to clarify denominational identity has undoubtedly helped to inspire Maritime Baptist historians. Some contributors, including myself, would probably have expressed ourselves rather differently if we had known in advance some of the new directions that others were taking. Readers are more likely to be impressed, however, by the extent to which a number of independent researchers agree on the main outlines of the story. Striking, too, is the almost total absence of hagiography or triumphalism. What has emerged is an examination more than a celebration.

4 Introduction The volume begins, as any serious attempt to come to grips with Methodist history must begin, with an account of John Wesley. As Owen Chadwick recalls, he put an individual stamp on the denomination he inadvertently founded that has been matched in the experience of few other religious bodies. To the insular Anglicanism of his time, he brought a variety of fertilizing influences: the Puritanism of his family background with its concentration on the nurture of small communities of faithful Christians; the essentially Catholic devotionalism of non-jurors as mediated through the writings of William Law; and the broad sweep of continental Protestantism that affected him through life-changing contacts with Moravian pietism. Equally prominent in Chadwick's presentation, however, are the limits of Wesley's influence on later Methodism. The movement he led was but one expression of a religious ferment that was already in evidence in regions as diverse as Italy and the American colonies. He guided it with a firm hand, but he could never totally control it. Instead, with the instincts of a flexible autocrat, he turned to account innovations such as lay preaching, of which he was initially suspicious. He also, despite sincere protestations of loyalty to the Church of England, took the decisive steps in formalizing the inevitable evolution of his societies into an independent denomination and of his lay preachers into a professional clergy. A similar interface between the original Methodist impulse and other influences, along with elements of ambivalence in the Wesleyan inheritance itself, is evident in the history of Methodism in Atlantic Canada. In my article, I attempt to show how the nature and relative position of Methodism was affected by demographic and cultural factors, and not least by contacts with other religious communities and movements. These last are considered in greater detail in other chapters. Rawlyk discusses the relations, as much symbiotic as competitive, between Methodist evangelism and that of Henry Alline and his New Light followers. T.W. Acheson carries the same thread into nineteenth-century New Brunswick, where Free Will Baptists who carried on the Allinite tradition constituted the chief damper on Methodist expansion into rural areas. Hans Rollmann characterizes Laurence Coughlan, traditionally honoured as the pioneer of Newfoundland Methodism, as a follower of Wesley's one-time colleague George Whitefield, whose version of Methodism was distinctly heterodox from a Wesleyan point of view. Since in North America "Whitefieldian" and "New Light" were practically synonyms, the implication seems to be that two somewhat incompatible versions of evangelical Protestantism competed in the Maritime provinces but mingled within a single denomination in Newfoundland.

5 Introduction The product of varied and sometimes conflicting influences, the Methodism of Atlantic Canada had a similarly complex impact on the society around it. As Acheson demonstrates for New Brunswick, the society of the Maritime provinces tended to occupy middle ground between traditional and populist forms of evangelical Protestantism. In Halifax, Allen B. Robertson points out, a significant group of Methodists who prospered (including a son and son-in-law of the founder William Black) had a special place in the charitable organizations of the city. For the most part, they shared the social attitudes of their counterparts of other denominations, showing no inclination for radical change. They were, however, represented beyond their numbers in positions of leadership, and they took a special interest in the improvement as well as the relief of the poor. In all of these aspects, they represented faithfully Wesley's own progressive conservatism. In Newfoundland, where most merchant princes were Anglican, Methodism took on a more populist colouring. Even there, however, Whitefieldian restiveness under Wesleyan nurture may eventually have helped the Salvation Army and Pentecostalism to make inroads into Methodist membership. The two articles on education bring out mainly ambiguities inherent in the Wesleyan inheritance itself. Goldwin French suggests that Wesley's concern at once for piety and for general improvement carried possibilities both of obscurantism and of openness, leading in Atlantic Canada as elsewhere to a view of education as preferably non-sectarian in content but as best carried out under denominational auspices in order to ensure its Christian character. Michael Gauvreau argues that this same ambivalence disposed the faculty of Mount Allison University to greet disturbing ideas in the late nineteenth century with neither wholehearted acceptance nor outright rejection and thus enabled them to ride out the intellectual storms of the period with relatively little buffeting. The prominence of Methodists among Maritime writers of the early nineteenth century is brought out by Gwendolyn Davies for women and Thomas Vincent for men, and once again we see piety and openness in tension. Literature was a risky field for Methodists, who were expected not even to read novels or to attend operas or plays. Fortunately some of the literary trends of the period, such as fondness for the appreciative description of nature, the popularity of historical narrative, and the prevalence of didacticism, provided openings for them. Poetry was favoured, but even fiction might be acceptable if moral lessons were drawn clearly enough. There were, however, limits to Methodist tolerance, and a muted note of rebellion appeared in the work of some women writers who found them repres-

6 Introduction sive of their sex. In the twentieth century rebellion was no longer muted but shouted at top voice in both the life and the writings of a poet from Newfoundland, where the limits were even more narrowly drawn. Yet, as David G. Pitt insists, E.J. Pratt remained in his convictions not only Christian (albeit in unconventional fashion) but specifically Methodist in his insistence on the centrality of conversion. It was surely not by coincidence that he came to this partial reconciliation with his Methodist heritage through participation in the life of a sister university of Mount Allison that experienced a similar intellectual development. Newfoundland, where Methodism fostered a subculture that represented a distinctive alternative to Roman and Anglican versions of Catholicism, was the one conference of the church whose members cast a majority vote against church union. In the Maritimes, where they occupied a mediating position among evangelical Protestant denominations, Methodists found it natural to join with members of other churches in matters of common concern and often gave active leadership to such enterprises. This prominence in cooperation, which Robertson notes in relation to Halifax charities, James Cameron documents for a multitude of organizations in Prince Edward Island. Thus, he observes, Maritime Methodists were being prepared well in advance to merge their identity in a larger union. It is perhaps fitting that, in the two final articles, the emphasis on the influence of John Wesley in Owen Chadwick's opening paper is balanced by a recognition of the contribution of his brother Charles. Methodism spread not only by means of the spoken word but also through its hymnody, and sometimes most effectively through the latter. As James Dale demonstrates, Methodist hymns both celebrated and evoked religious experience, and did so in very conscious and specific ways. Through its arrangement, as well as its words, the Methodist Hymn Book was intended to lead those who used it in an almost clinical way from the first stirrings of spiritual awakening to a dawning awareness of sinless perfection. Yet, in Fred Graham's presentation, the element of ambivalence surfaces once again. Wesley's hymns entered Atlantic Canada in company of those of Isaac Watts and others, and often to tunes and arrangements that were products of singing schools organized on New England models. Some tunes were even composed locally, though few of these have survived. The result was a tradition, in music as in other fields, that combined both Wesleyan and non-Wesleyan elements. If one finds in these essays little denominational arrogance and litde regret for the disappearance of Methodism as a separate entity, a major reason may be that the story of Methodism in Atlantic Can-

7 Introduction

ada was one of solid rather than spectacular achievement. It seemed at one time that Methodism would be the dominant religious force in western Nova Scotia and the Saint John Valley, and perhaps also in the outports of Newfoundland. This did not come about, although Methodists predominated in more limited areas such as Cumberland and the north side of Conception Bay. The Methodist contribution was nevertheless substantial and in some ways distinctive and, in some fields such as education, literature, and charitable organization, out of proportion to numerical strength. It is to be hoped that this volume will stimulate further research into a significant component of the religious life of Atlantic Canada. John Webster Grant

This page intentionally left blank

Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada

This page intentionally left blank

i John Wesley and the Origins of Methodism OWEN CHADWICK

John Wesley was born the child of a Lincolnshire rector on 17 June 1703. By that year, the Reformation, as a movement of faith and love of the Bible and religious practice, had spread geographically from Siebenbiirgen near the Carpathian mountains inside the Ottoman empire at the east, and even in some German settler communities along the Volga, to all the new communities along the Atlantic coast of North America. The mature Wesley had a range of vision about this. One would expect the child of a Lincolnshire parish, educated at a London school and then at Oxford University, with little range of experience or friendship outside the Anglican Church, to be narrow, insular, and very English in his outlook. In many ways, he was very English: practical, not a theorist, and truly at home among ordinary people. But his vision ranged more widely. The reasons for this are twofold. First, he had inherited, from his family, an unusually varied Anglican outlook. Second, the German successors of Martin Luther in central Europe and in the Christian communities on the Atlantic coast of North America were indispensable to the development of his mind and the formation of his future work. Wesley's father and mother were dedicated Anglicans, but on both sides they inherited something unusual in their Anglican faith. On both sides of the family were ancestors who had been committed to a reform movement within the Church of England that took place during the Civil War and the Commonwealth. The churchmen on the parliamentary side tried to reform the Church of England. They got rid of the high churchmanship that was the Catholic strand

i a Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada

within the Church of England but that backed King Charles I and his power. They abolished bishops - the institutional mainstays of high churchmanship - and the deans and chapters of cathedrals, the last relics of the medieval monasteries. They tried to get a better system of appointment to parishes so that the people might not have their faith tried by immoral pastors. They tried to get a system of discipline into parishes, so that local immoralities would be, as far as possible, controlled or amended. They tried to get a less formalized, and therefore less liturgical way of worship, so that the services would be more congregational, more free, and more personal. In short, they tried to continue the reformation of the Church of England, its ministry, its moral standards, its structure, its use of endowments, and its way of worship. When King Charles II was restored, it was decided amidst the bigoted reaction that, since ordination by a bishop was necessary to ministry in the Church of England, those who had been ordained while there were no bishops must now be (re-)ordained. Some ministers had served for nearly twenty years on the strength of a presbyteral ordination and were now asked to act as though those years of ministry were invalid. Some of the best men could not do this violence to their consciences. Among those who could not accept (re-)ordination was one of John Wesley's grandfathers, who had to go into hiding, and twice was in prison, during the reign of Charles II. Here was an Anglicanism that was (so to speak) in protest against the establishment; existed among quiet congregations scorned by the public and hunted by the police; and displayed all the convictions that such a plight must breed - stand for the truth though the world despise you, stay faithful to your prayers and beliefs, be a little flock, and know that you are blessed. Wesley's parents held as part of their convictions that it was their duty to do what they could to make the Church of England better - that is, more devout, less formal, more Biblical, and perhaps more free. They passed this conviction on to their sons, John and Charles. Another strand of influence in the Wesleys' upbringing came in with John and Charles Wesley's education. Both were sent to Westminster School and Oxford University. When Britain turned out the Stuarts, some people with consciences could not accept the new king from Holland, and, later, more people could not accept the new king from Germany. Often such people were the old high churchmen, who were still attached to the traditional ideals of monarchy. For the most part, they were not plotters (Jacobites), but they were non-jurors, who could not take an oath of allegiance to the new sovereigns. One of the Wesleys' friends at Westminster was a Scot of a Jacobite family.

13 John Wesley and the Origins of Methodism

At Oxford both John and Charles came under the influence of the non-jurors. These old high churchmen were much more willing than were normal Protestants to draw on Catholic writers. Such writers usually came from the Middle Ages - famous writers of devotion such as Thomas a Kempis - but sometimes they came even from the Counter-Reformation with its newer mystical tradition and newer devotional modes of expression. The leading mind of all the nonjuring devotional school was William Law, and both Wesleys came deeply under his influence. When Charles Wesley visited families pastorally in his early days, he often read from William Law to the household. Here then are the two strands of influence in family life that made the two children of the Anglican rural rectory dedicated but not conventional Anglicans. The experience of their families was wider, both in a reforming or a puritan direction and in a Catholic devotional perspective. The second wider influence was that of the German Lutheran faith. Religions that occupy most of the space in the world always produce little groups. In old Catholicism that was the way of monks and nuns. The Reformation was against monks and nuns. It wanted religion to come out into the world. Wesley himself expressed his sentiments against monks in a famous passage: "They advise to the desert! to the desert! and God will build you up ... whereas ... directly opposite to this is the gospel of Christ... Solitary religion is not found there ... The gospel of Christ knows of no religion, but social; no holiness, but social holiness."1 But soon Luther's people followed the same instinct of withdrawal, or moral aspiration - not now a withdrawal from the world or from secular jobs, but a withdrawal into prayer and Bible reading and strictness of life. By the time John Wesley was a baby in the Lincolnshire rectory, Pietism was a strong movement in Germany. For the most part, it was unorganized, consisting of little groups of like-minded Christians who wanted to meet for prayer and Bible reading and who took resolutions about a stricter rule of life in a society that was growing less strict, especially with the public reaction against puritanism. These groups might also use privately published helps to devotion, because they had not been receiving quite what they needed out of the official liturgies of their church. All of us know of such groups today, and some of us may indeed be members of such a group. When John Wesley was eleven years old, a German became king of England, and for decades England was headed* though not ruled, by monarchs who could not speak the English language properly. This opened the way to more knowledge of Germany and contacts

14 Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada

with Germans. Groups of German Pietists were in London, of which by far the most important were the Moravian Brethren, who had transformed the older Reformation group of Bohemian Brethren under the leadership of Count Zinzendorf of Herrnhut beyond Dresden in the state of Saxony. At first John Wesley did not know of them. He had his own specially strict group, a brotherhood at Oxford University. This group had been founded by his brother Charles while John was away serving as his father's curate, but when John came back he was at once in the lead. 1° 1735 he and his brother Charles were persuaded by John Burton, of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, who was one of the trustees for Georgia, that they should cross the Atlantic, John to be a missionary to the Indians in Georgia. It is well known that John Wesley's only experience of the western side of the Adantic was in almost all respects a disaster. He could hardly get near any Indians because of the overwhelming needs of the settlers in Savannah and surrounding areas. His rigidity about liquor, as well as his complete hostility to the import of African slaves at a time when labour was needed urgently if the young colony were to thrive, earned him a ferocious unpopularity among the colonists. But this was not quite as bad as it sounds because all his life he had the deep-seated conviction that a Christian who does the Lord's work is bound to be unpopular. But the worst was his love affair with a young woman named Sophy. He was supposed to have a vocation as a missionary and thought it not possible for a missionary to be married. His inner conflict and the mutual affection between Sophy and him so tormented Sophy that finally she married a bad man on the rebound; the resulting complexities produced a prosecution of Wesley in the courts. Not believing in his guilt, but doubtful whether, amidst such personal unpopularity, the trial could be just, he fled to England before the case was finished. The love affair was one that even now elicits the compassion of every reader toward both parties. But no one can suppose the two-year mission to Georgia of this young, very pious, and scholarly Oxford don to have been a success. Yet the Atlantic was a condition of his future work. It brought him, first physically, then intellectually, and then spiritually, into very close touch with the Germans of the Lutheran tradition. The ship he sailed on to America was one of two merchant ships, aboard each of which was a community of German Protestant refugees, sailing to find a new home after religious trouble in their own land. On John Wesley's ship were twenty-six Moravians (along with a Moravian bishop), many of whom had been turned out of Bohemia in a late reaction of the Counter-Reformation. On the other ship were some of the numerous

15 John Wesley and the Origins of Methodism

Protestants who had been expelled by the Archbishop of Salzburg from his territories in the last great act of intolerance in Central Europe before the French Revolution. Most of the refugees had been given shelter in Prussia, but some were heading for America to make a life in a new world that had the name of tolerance. This encounter of Wesley and the Lutherans was momentous for the history of Methodism. Here was a high church English priest, devout and strict but decidedly rigid (so rigid that he could not in conscience give communion to the minister of the Salzburgers because they had no proper ministry of bishops in the historic line), meeting groups of refugees from the historic Lutheran tradition. When he met them, he admired them — their way of life, their faith, and their teaching. The more he saw of them, the more he wanted to see of them, and the more time he spent with them, the more he admired them. One particular moment needs to be recorded: the storm in the Atlantic, Sunday, 25 January 1736. In the middle of a gale, with tremendous shocks and jarrings on the planks, Wesley groped his way along the ship to join the Germans' morning service. They started with a psalm, and, as they sang, the sea broke over, split the mainsail in pieces, covered the ship, and poured in between the decks, as if the great deep had already swallowed us up. A terrible screaming began among the English. The Germans calmly sang on. I asked one of them afterwards "Was you not afraid?" He answered "I thank God, no." I asked, "But were not your women and children afraid?" He replied mildly, "No; our women and children are not afraid to die."2

John Wesley knew that he himself was afraid. He contrasted in his mind the screaming of the English with the fortitude and the faith of the Germans. It was a weighty moment in the process by which the high church English priest came to revere the tradition of the European Reformation. The refugees from Bohemia and the refugees from Salzburg were different kinds of Lutheran. The Salzburgers were the old-fashioned sort of Lutheran; doctrinal, conservative about the liturgy and the forms of service, suspicious of too much individuality or too much innovation in church, espousing a religion of the head, and doubtful of a religion of too much heart lest it become fanatical. The Moravians were strong in the newer Pietist tradition. They gave much more place to feeling, intent on the religion of the heart, suspicious of the religion of the head lest it be merely of the head, and willing for private meetings for prayer, with the individuality, freedoms, and

16 Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada

withdrawals that they must involve. The Salzburgers would be critical of the Moravians as too emotional and liable to fanaticism if not disorder. The Moravians would be critical of the Salzburgers as liable to formality or coldness in religion. John Wesley travelled on the Moravian ship, and it was the Moravians who won his reverence. But this was not only a physical accident of being a fellow traveller. He was already opening his mind to the Pietist way; he wanted more freedom in prayer and more private meetings for the study of the Bible, and he was already impressed by the Moravian organization of what they called bands and the Methodists were to call classes. He was a less insular sort of person when he came back to London than when he set out. He had come into touch with the heirs of the German Reformation. Of supreme importance to Wesley were the directness and the simplicity of the Germans' personal piety, which were most felt in their hymns. The Church of England at the time was a Reformed church that would not allow anything into its liturgy that was not scriptural; therefore, it would not allow hymns unless they were translations of psalms. But John Wesley discovered from the Germans the devotional power of hymns. He taught himself German - not well enough to speak it fluently, but well enough to read it easily and to translate. He began, with his brother, to translate some of the great Lutheran hymn writers for English-speaking devotional use. In some ways, the making of hymnody, and such hymnody that was acceptable in the non-Lutheran Protestant churches, was one of the two most important contributions he ever made to English-speaking religion and English literature. His first collection of hymns was published in Georgia in 1737. The idea of faith and courage in a storm and of salvation despite the storm kept coming repeatedly in both his own and his brother's writing. The words that are most famous were actually written by his brother. Jesu, lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly, while the nearer waters roll, while the tempest still is high: Hide me, O my Saviour, hide, till the storm of life is past; safe into the haven guide; O receive my soul at last.

The causes of what happened to English religion during the second quarter of the eighteenth century are still not agreed. The mis-

17 John Wesley and the Origins of Methodism

sion to convert had been a Roman Catholic act - an itinerant friar coming to a town and preaching to the people for a week with an intense emotionalism and extraordinary consequences. The Protestants were suspicious of it. They distrusted the excess of emotion it generated and the superstition among simple people they could often see to go with it. But simultaneously, on both sides of the Atlantic, Protestant preachers accepted the method and witnessed extraordinary consequences that were at once similar to and yet very different from the Catholic mission. John Wesley read of Jonathan Edwards and the amazing effects of his preaching among the people in New England; he heard of the similar effects Howell Harris caused among the people of Wales; and he knew George Whitefield, who followed him to Georgia. At Bristol, Whitefield started the same kind of field preaching or missioning, and got audiences of thousands in the open air. He summoned John Wesley to help. Not without scruple, Wesley went; he caused even more startling effects - startling not only because of the physical manifestations, but also because, while Whitefield was in his social element, John Wesley was not. What was the cause? Was it something to do with a growth in population so that the ordinary means of the ordinary churches were hopelessly outdistanced by the new numbers of people who needed to be ministered to? The population had grown but not very fast five million in England and Wales at the end of the seventeenth century, rising to six million by 1750. The speed of growth was quickening all the time. By 1800 the population was nine million. Was it something to do with the earliest industrial revolution, since the first crowded hearers of Whitefield and Wesley at Bristol were miners? This cannot be entirely right because similar movements were taking place in America, which was still a pastoral society, and also in Italy, which was in the midst of the later Counter-Reformation, through the work of great missioners of the friar tradition like Leonard of Port-Maurice. Yet there must be something true here. Nearly all the main successes of the earliest Methodists lay in the growing industrial areas of England - the north west, Yorkshire (although also in parts of Yorkshire that were not industrial), the Potteries, Bristol, London, and the tin-mining area in Cornwall (although Methodism was also very successful in rural Cornwall). The prosperous agricultural counties in the south were hardly touched. Was it that revival needed a crowd, not just a handful, so that the secret was not the growth of industry but the growth of towns that industry demanded and made possible? Was it something to do with a success in the Reformation - in other words, that at last the common people had acquired real knowledge of the Bible and a basic grounding in the Christian religion which

i8 Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada

opened their ears to the possibility of what the revivalist said, and had begun to acquire an elementary education? This must have had something to do with it. The religiosity, and the respect for the Bible among many of the common people, stands out in the early Methodist sources. Was it something also to do with the opposite - the failure of the Reformation to achieve its ideal of bringing home true religion to the common people, so that now there was a gap crying aloud to be filled? The Reformers aimed at worship understood by the people and joined in by the people, and a people taught by an educated ministry. What they had acquired so far was a dumb congregation that, except for the psalms, left the liturgy to parson and clerk, exchanged an unintelligible Latin for an English prose above their heads, and sat bored while a remote university graduate droned on bookishly. Anyone who reads the early Methodist sources is compelled to see that the people of England and Wales had a religious need that was not being met by their official church. The social situation was extraordinary, as we now read of it. On a summer Sunday night of 1742, John Wesley was in Newcastle-onTyne.3 He went with a friend down into the poorest part of the town, stood at the end of the street, and began to sing Psalm 100. Three or four people came out of their houses to see what was happening and were astonished to see a clergyman singing on the street corner. Soon four or five hundred had gathered, and he preached to them. Before he finished preaching, there were, he calculated, twelve or fifteen hundred people, although this might not be an exact figure, since he was usually generous in such calculations. But what is important is the social situation. Did they come out because it was an extraordinary event, as they might have come out if the circus had arrived? Did it make a difference that this was the poorest part of the town? Did it make a difference that they listened to an English accent with which they were not familiar? Was there a religious interest? - they would not dream of entering their local parish church since they had no clothes to go in but they were suddenly interested if the church came to them? Did any interest arise when they discovered who it was — a preacher at whom, they would have heard, hooligans threw stones and under whose utterances women made emotional scenes - and they wanted to see whether there would be any fun to observe?4 We must not underestimate the force of curiosity in creating the opportunity. Wesley was part of a great religious and social movement, one that he had not caused but of which he became the chief leader. The movement was emotional, powerful, and uncontrollable.

ig John Wesley and the Origins of Methodism

It was in no one's hand, so to speak, as they all waited for the pentecostal outpouring. That meant, in the hard terms of human society, that they would slowly organize themselves into different groups. First, the Moravians decided that John Wesley was in error because he was determined to hold the movement to the Church, and they believed that the movement and the Church were not compatible and that they must organize a different church, a Moravian church, in England. Gradually Wesley came to believe that the Moravians were in error for this very reason; they seemed to want to turn a great movement into the confines of a sect. On 20 July 1740, he walked out of the Fetter Lane love feast, which he had done most to found, and the Fetter Lane group became completely Moravian.5 Yet he never ceased to yearn after them and admire them, long after he believed them to be totally wrong. There was a second reason for controversy. Wesley was now beginning to be influential within the tradition of dissent. Dissent was deeply influenced by the Calvinism of the Puritans and the Scottish Presbyterians. John Wesley was happy to accept election and the assurance of salvation, but he would never accept the doctrine that God intended the salvation of some of humanity and not all; therefore he would never accept a neo-Calvinist doctrine of predestination as, after Calvin, it had come systematically to be formulated by the extremist Calvinists. Since his appeal was so moving to many of the Calvinist tradition, they could not understand how a man who was so evangelical, Protestant, and scriptural could reject the Calvinist doctrine of predestination and talk about the need for good works and the ideal of perfection. They had never met an Arminian like him. George Whitefield could not understand it, and he and Wesley parted, although eventually they became friends again and remained friends for all their disagreements. This mutual tolerance was not true among the dogmatic neo-Calvinists. Someone needed to show the English-speaking world that it was possible to be a true and dedicated evangelical Protestant without having to subscribe to all the doctrinal articles of the Calvinist faith. This Church of England clergyman had been brought up to value greatly the private prayer of his home and to see others of the neighbourhood allowed to join it - that is, he valued prayers in private places of meeting, not as any alternative to the church services but as a supplement to them. The encounter with the Pietists of the German Reformation made him see how these meetings for devoted private prayer could be as indispensable to true Christian profession as the services in church. He also kept meeting people among his own societies who owed their faith not to the Church at all but to the

so Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada meetings for private prayer. They started to tell him that sacraments were quite unnecessary. This idea he would resist to the death; the Church and its sacraments were founded by the Lord, and he and his people would be part of it. Meanwhile, he had to make decisions about how these loose meetings for private devotion should be organized. If they were not to become wild and disunited, they had to be organized by rules, and they were becoming so numerous that they needed buildings to hold their prayer-meetings in. Who was to own the buildings or be responsible for the rent if they were leased? As the groups spread like wildfire, John Wesley and his brother might ride horses around all day but they could not be everywhere; there had to be people who would preach to them. These people needed to be selected, and the selection could not be left to the normal processes of ordination in the Church because only a relatively few ordained clergymen were willing to take part. Very few of these preachers had the degrees from a university that the Church regarded as indispensable in its ministers. Very quickly, then, this movement began to be a kind of workers' church, though it was not a church; it still belonged to the Established Church, took its sacraments in the Established Church, and held services in the buildings of the Established Church whenever it was allowed, which was not often. John Wesley was a highly educated, even a learned man. He never showed signs of believing that you needed more knowledge than of the Bible and normal religious experience to be a preacher. The idea of the lay preacher was born at once. It was not a schismatic act; it happened naturally out of the people and the social situation. John Wesley did not at first think of them as a new kind of clergy. He called them helpers or assistants. Something new was being born without Wesley. The activity of John Nelson of Birstall in Yorkshire helps to explain why.6 Nelson was not a poor man but a skilled stonemason, who made a decent living as an artisan. In his leisure hours, he held meetings at his house. When the numbers swelled so that they gathered round his door, the meetings became street meetings. Then he started preaching in the towns around Birstall and kept writing to John Wesley to come to help. He did not aim to be a rival to the Church; he earnestly told his people that the sacrament was essential to the Christian life. The vicar of Birstall had him brought up before the magistrates for illegal preaching, and he was press-ganged into the army but released under an act of clemency after Methodist influences were brought to bear on the injustice. Happily, there is now a memorial to John Nelson in Birstall parish church.7 Another of the early lay preachers was also

a i John Wesley and the Origins of Methodism a stonemason, and there were a couple of soldiers, a couple of apprentices, and a couple of schoolteachers.8 A surprising number of them came from the Celtic fringe - Cornwall, Scotland, Ireland, and the Borders; there were also two or three French Huguenots, a Swiss, and one who had been brought up a French Roman Catholic acolyte. Wesley later persuaded many of these preachers to record their reminiscences - how they came to God and what they suffered in the earliest years on their mission. These often artless documents were printed in a magazine and later collected in volumes, in their latest form as Wesley's Veterans in seven volumes.9 They are social documents of importance. Occasionally they have poor grammar ("When about thirteen years of age the Bishop of Chester came and confirmed ... "), and often they are repetitive. They do not avoid the characteristic faults of people who are asked to say in public why God has made them better than they used to be, faults of egoism or minipharisaism or, at worst, complacency. But they have enchanting selfrevelations, present some evidence of the state of society, and on rare occasion rise to heights of devotional writing that stand comparison with famous authors of the Christian centuries. They show a rare courage in the face of threats and violence. They show some people who felt a vocation to be a minister but knew that they could never persuade a bishop to ordain them because they would never be able to pass the bishop's examination. They show more who were most reluctant to take on the work - the travel, the poverty, the hardship, the mockery, the unpopularity, and the physical danger - and who went only because they knew that they were sent. They show also that no church can convert a proletariat. If by some effusion of grace or national need a church starts to convert a proletariat, it ceases to be a proletariat, because the affected members acquire sobriety, conscientious endeavour, and a desire for education. In June 1742, Wesley went down to Epworth, his own old home, where his father had been rector and where his mother Susanna had brought up so many children in a godly and strict way. He did not dare to go anywhere but the inn because he thought that none of the people whom he knew would want to have him. He went to the clergyman, who had been his father's curate, and offered to help by preaching or taking the service. The curate refused the offer. Nevertheless a large congregation turned up at the service expecting to hear Wesley. The curate preached against enthusiasm; in Wesley's opinion, he says charmingly, the sermon "was not suitable to the expectation of many of the hearers." So as people went out of church, Wesley's companion told them that Wesley, not being allowed to

22

Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada

preach in church, would preach in the churchyard at six P.M. At that hour, he stood on his father's tombstone and preached to a full churchyard.10 Notice that he does not think it irreverent to preach standing on his father's tomb. Notice that he has no hesitation in committing the illegal act of preaching in the churchyard without being invited to do so by the authorities of the local parish church. But, in extenuation, a fact is disclosed that throws a different light on the event. He had discovered that wandering preachers were telling the people that the Bible, truth, and prayer were all that was important and that the sacraments not only were to be disregarded but were damnable; therefore, he discovered, some in the village had stopped going to church. Wesley's sermon on his father's tombstone was not only, as it looked, an anti-Church act. It was trying to get the people to see a truth that included the Church. Still, a sort of ministry was beginning. The lay preachers who were school teachers were accustomed to the idea that if you are going to give out you have to take in, and therefore that reading books matters. These stonemason, soldier, and apprentice preachers, who were now expected to give out, instantly found the same; if some refused the same because they were not, they said, used to reading books and got nothing out of them, John Wesley and his colleagues were soon after them. Without exactly defining what they were doing, Wesley and his colleagues were beginning to train a non-graduate clergy. Some of them, given the chance, took to books as other men took to books; for example, a few learned Greek or Hebrew or both in order to read the Bible in the original. Yet, in this new kind of ministry, there was a conscious sense of social class — these preachers knew they belonged to the working class, were being sent to the working class, and were more likely to understand the working class than were graduates of the university. One of the original rules for them (1744) has a remarkable sentence: "Do nothing as a gentleman. You have no more to do with this character than with that of a dancing master".11 At first, Wesley retained a curious vestige of his old high churchmanship. He had thought it wrong to marry Sophy in Georgia, although he felt passion for her, because, he believed, a missionary to the Indians could not marry since if he married he would have to settle. Now he found himself the head of an extensive mission to the English working classes in which he must travel ceaselessly and could not settle. For many years, he believed that he had a religious vocation to the unmarried state; that is, for practical reasons he retained the old high church argument for remaining unmarried in the ministry,

23 John Wesley and the Origins of Methodism which had helped to create the idea of celibacy of the clergy in the fourth century. His preachers wandered over the country and had no wages for their work; they often depended on their hosts for food and clothes; how could they be married? Being a Protestant, Wesley did not, of course, make it a rule, but he told them that it was desirable. He still thought it desirable a fortnight before his own marriage.12 But these preferences were not practical. The preachers could no more live on the people's alms than Franciscans could. Some of them were bound to have wives and children. They must have pay, however little it might be, and they must have conditions of service. Someone must therefore organize where the money was to come from; the conditions of a settled ministry were followed inevitably, although the intention was still not to rival the Church of England but to be a special mission within the Church to the working class. They did not decide on regular pay until 1752, ten years later, and then the pay was twelve pounds a year, with another twelve pounds for a wife. The sufferings of some of the wives while their husbands travelled about are almost too painful to read. John Wesley was against pensions for old and ill preachers; he thought it showed a lack of trust in providence. When in 1763 they decided in spite of him that they must have such a fund, he was reluctant at first, but accepted it with good grace. The crucial issue concerned the sacraments. The sacraments could only be received in church. But many of the people could not be pushed into a church, partly because they had no respectable clothes and partly because they had somehow acquired a suspicion of the religion to be found inside a church. Were they to have sacraments in meeting-houses? Had they to wait until the nearest priest of the Church of England who was prepared to help Methodists came to celebrate a sacrament for them? If sacraments are essential, they must be got to the people, but they can only be got to the people if travelling preachers are allowed to celebrate the sacraments. By 1755 some preachers saw this to be true. A few of them started to celebrate the sacraments without asking anyone. Others started to bombard Wesley with requests that they be empowered to celebrate. Wesley, who could see the shock that this practice would cause, stopped them. His own brother Charles, co-founder of the movement, would never stand for the idea of non-ordained persons celebrating sacraments. But there was a need. The pastoral necessity of England in the early industrial revolution was driving Methodism into equating its ministers with priests, an equality that by origin was foreign to their outlook. The drive toward allowing preachers to ordain was an even

24

Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada

more desperate necessity in America, where the population was growing, there were fewer priests, and there was not a single bishop to ordain any more. Under such conditions, it was inevitable that the few clergy of the Church of England who were prepared to take part were of rare importance. John Wesley was fortunate. He was blessed with a clerical brother who shared in his work and became one of the great hymn writers of the centuries. And he also attracted some clergy who disproved the historical opinion that pastoral care in the parishes was dead. One such clergyman was John Fletcher, a lay tutor in Shropshire. When in his middle twenties, Fletcher had started thinking seriously about religion, been introduced to Methodism, and joined a Methodist class, where he read John Wesley's writings. At the age of twenty-eight he was ordained an Anglican priest and went straight to John Wesley to help him administer the sacraments. When Fletcher accepted the parish of Madeley, Wesley was understandably disturbed; here was a man who could uniquely help in the wandering country-wide mission to the people, but had decided to settle within the confines of a single parish. Fletcher of Madeley is famous in English history as one of the best of the parish clergy in all the centuries. He also, until four years before he died, rejected a wife — a very godly wife — on the old grounds that a married man could not give himself to his parish. Wesley tried to make him his successor as the supreme governor of the Connexion, but Fletcher died first. Such a priest was a not unimportant part of the debt that the Church in England owed to John Wesley. At the same time, several of these vicars or rectors were important, as Fletcher of Madeley was, to the development of Wesley's movement. On 14 August 1744, Wesley was taken over to the vicarage of Shoreham near Brighton and introduced to the vicar, Vincent Perronet. The acquaintance was to be momentous. Although he was a static incumbent clergyman, who never went out on missions, Perronet became a stable force to both the Wesleys and always had a room in his vicarage reserved for the wandering Methodist missioners. Before his death, he had three Methodist classes meeting regularly in different rooms of his vicarage, and he remained a close friend of the Wesleys to the end. Another Anglican curate was exceptional in that when he joined Wesley in 1776 (quite late in Wesley's life), he gave up the parish system and joined the itinerant ministry. This was Thomas Coke, who did the planning for the meetings in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. Originally the government rested with John Wesley, and he was good at it; he had a compelling presence, decisive mind, strong common sense, and, for the most part, sound judgment. But he was

2 25 John Wesley and the Origins of Methodism

continually riding all over England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, because only he and his brother could hold so far-flung and diverse a body of congregations and preachers together. It is true that the people to be organized were not very numerous at first, but they could hardly be organized by someone who was not readily accessible because he was continually moving around on a horse. After the first years, Wesley did not venture out into new territory himself, but sowed where the seed had fallen. The strength of the organization that developed under these conditions is remarkable. First it became necessary to appoint stewards to manage the finances of the congregations; then it became necessary to house the preachers, and someone was needed to own the houses or to manage the property as a trustee. Government came out of the need first to see that preachers did not deviate from the aim of the movement and, second, to see that the property given for the purposes of the movement was used for those purposes. In 1744 Wesley summoned helpers to what was to become an annual meeting. The first, held at the Foundery in London, consisted of six Anglican clergymen who then invited four lay helpers to join them. In the 17508, the meeting became an annual conference, which was a meeting between Wesley and his chief assistants, at his own invitation. In 1767 they began to keep minutes and statistics. What were the local rights? If the conference appointed a preacher to a meeting, could the local people dismiss him if they did not approve of what he said or did? In other words, were these meetings for prayer and holiness like the chapels of the Congregationalists, where the local people and they alone were the government? It should be evident from all that has been said that John Wesley would see an absolute necessity to stop this from happening. In 1784 came the Deed of Declaration by which one hundred preachers named by John Wesley were declared to be the legal conference, and so that was the law of the land. This process was not without its growing pains. Wesley was not a dictator but the president of a group of fellow clergymen and fellow preachers. As the society developed, there came to be a right wing and a left wing. The clergymen and their allies were determined to remain a constituent part of the Church of England. Some of the preachers came out of the background of dissent and had no desire to be other than dissenters from the Established Church, which they saw to be largely an obstruction to Methodist work. Some of the Anglican clergy in the movement - above all, the co-founder of the movement and its great poet, Charles Wesley - were disturbed by the more extreme doctrines put forward by some of the preachers, and

26 Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada

some of the preachers resented the restrictions that the society started trying to place on their freedom. The system of discipline developed because it was a necessity if the society were to survive as a unity. But from the first John Wesley had shown no desire to be all inclusive. He thrust people out of congregations, even thirty at a time, when he thought discipline demanded it. The reason for such action was that he did not conceive the society as a church. A church must go out to all the world, put up with tares, and not be ruthless to the sheep that stray. A monastic order, or a society for holiness, cannot put up with people who destroy its raison d'etre. Wesley's purpose was to found a society where the Christian life would be truly lived, and he always thought in terms of quality rather than quantity - though he never ceased to lift up psalms of praise for the extraordinary numbers that accepted the obligations the society laid upon them. If he was not a dictator, he believed in discipline in a way not usual in a modern church. Basic to the disagreements was the relationship between the two brother-founders. Charles was a determined Anglican, who would do nothing to separate from the denomination in which he had grown up. John was also a determined Anglican, but believed at last that there were higher considerations than churchmanship and that people's souls took precedence over the rules. Occasionally the two brothers had personal friction — especially when Charles drove John's fiancee into marriage with someone else in order to prevent a marriage he was sure would be a disaster for the society. This was an incident that the friendship of any normal pair of brothers could not have survived. But they had founded the society together, and they retained the affection of brothers to the end. The end came in 1788 with the death of Charles. John was travelling in the north at the time, and did not immediately learn of the death. In Bolton, Lancashire he attended a service where he found a choir of a hundred boys and girls drawn from the Methodist Sunday Schools - so amazingly had the society prospered - and tried to give out the second hymn, Wrestling Jacob ("Come O thou Traveller Unknown"), which is one of the noblest of the Charles Wesley hymns. In the pulpit, as he read out the verse, Wesley came to the lines "My company before is gone / And I am left alone with thee," and all his affection for his brother swept over him. The tears came in a flood before all the people, and he sank down in the pulpit with his face in his hands; the people knew why and were silent. Methodism was driven to become a separate denomination by the need for pastoral care and the law of England. The problem of pastoral care is best illustrated by a correspondence of 1775 between

27 John Wesley and the Origins of Methodism

Wesley and the preacher Joseph Benson. Benson was convinced that the system for ensuring that the preachers were of some use to the people was woefully inadequate; too many of the preachers were illiterate, and too many did not have the right qualifications or character for the work. It was therefore necessary, according to Benson, that John Wesley and the central administration exercise a far closer control on who could become a preacher and who could not. Benson suggested that there be an examination of qualifications; that those who were selected be set apart with the laying on of hands, in order to give them authority both in their own eyes and in the eyes of their people; that those found unsuitable by quality or character be rejected altogether; and that those who were suitable but needed education be sent for a year to the school at Kingswood by Bristol to be taught, not Latin and Greek, but their own language, the Bible, the best English books on divinity, and Church history. Such was the plan. Benson put it to the annual conference of 1775, which was held at Leeds.13 It will be seen that at the heart of the plan lay the need to turn John Wesley into a bishop. To supervise the preachers adequately, there must be a system of ordination. It was proved a vain hope that the bishops of the Church of England, who demanded graduates of universities and a knowledge of Latin and Greek, if not Hebrew, would be willing to ordain so many uneducated working men. Yet they needed ordination; therefore, Wesley himself must ordain them. It was true he had kept the power at the centre of the denomination, and was opposed to the Congregational system, whereby the people alone chose its own pastor. The Methodists are not, he said when the French Revolution broke out, "republicans," a statement made in application to the choice of ministers. To Benson's plan were three fundamental objections. The first was the reality of Kingswood. It was a good school, but, with all their best men out in travelling missions or resident in Anglican parishes, where could they find a staff capable of training ordinands? The second was the basic conviction that Methodism had shown how men and women who were uneducated could nevertheless be not only very good Christians but very good pastors. Methodism had released into the Christian mission a whole new stratum of the people, with untold benefits to the Church's relationship to the working class and even more to the lower middle class. One of the scheme's critics maintained that some of the preachers who could hardly talk sense "have been the means of more good than many who had matter, manner, method, and parts at their command."14 In any case, could John Wesley, who repeatedly said that he would never separate from the

a 8 Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada

Church of England, do something so dramatically schismatic as to ordain preachers in the Church of England without any authority to do so but a supposed call of God? Fletcher of Madeley, who saw the need for some such scheme, recorded his objection thus: "Messrs Wesley could not with decency take the step of turning Bishops after their repeated declarations that they would stand by their mother to the last."15 Yet Benson had seen a necessity. It might be impossible to meet the necessity, but that did not make the necessity go away. Fletcher thought about the scheme and produced, that August, the astonishing recommendation that pastoral care was driving them into some such schismatic act, from which John Wesley ought not to shrink. It had to be accepted that the Church of England was in need of reform. It was obvious that the Methodists were a body for reforming the Church of England. The only way to do this, according to Fletcher, was for the Methodists to form themselves into a separate body, very close to the Church of England, but with improved articles and prayer book. They should ask the bishops to ordain Methodist preachers who could pass their examination; when the bishops refused, as they would, the two Wesley brothers should ordain such preachers as appeared to them qualified for holy orders; they should confirm children and make it a rule that none would be admitted to the sacrament unless they were confirmed. In sending this comment on Benson's scheme, Fletcher doubted whether he (Fletcher) could be right, but believed it nevertheless ought to be considered. "What, sir," he wrote to John Wesley, "if you used your liberty as an Englishman, a Christian, a divine, and an extraordinary messenger of God?"16 The second force driving them to become the denomination the leaders had no desire to found was the law of England. There was a Toleration Act for dissenters, but those who could not claim the protection of this act by registering as dissenters were subject to the Conventicle Act, which banned illegal assemblies of religious persons. Most bishops did not dream of enforcing the Conventicle Act against the Methodists. But not quite all. The Bishop of Lincoln, Pretyman, in other ways not a model of a bishop, prosecuted Methodists under the Conventicle Act, and Wesley appealed against him to the prime minister, Pitt. The Methodists still made people attend the sacraments at the churches and hear the sermons preached. It was hard, he argued, that people who did not wish to be dissenters could only escape from prosecution if they registered themselves as dissenters. But the law of England did not protect people who claimed to be

20 John Wesley and the Origins of Methodism members of the Established Church and did not follow all its rules. Militant opponents started to prosecute them in the courts and made them pay fines. They were still a meeting to encourage prayer and holiness within the English church, yet they drew in people of every sort of religion and of no religion. In his last year of life, Wesley wrote to a colleague that "the Methodists are to spread life among all denominations; which they will do till they form a separate sect."17 Long before this, he himself was a national figure, constantly receiving invitations to preach in parish churches. In 1784 he ordained three men for the work in America. Was this an act of schism? Some later historians have said so, but it did not seem so at the time. When he was a young high churchman, he believed that only bishops could ordain priests. Before 1755 he was persuaded that priests could ordain priests in the primitive Church and that the ordination by a bishop was an arrangement that could be altered if necessary. In 1789, still with no intention of making a separation, he ordained two men for England. What Benson and Fletcher predicted as a necessity happened at last. The social situation drove the Methodists into separation irrespective of the need for legal protection. They lived their Christian life mainly within the Methodist communities. Their freedom of fellowship - their classes, prayer-meetings, watch-nights, love feasts, and, above all, hymnody - contrasted with the formalities and even the class structure of the establishment. Some Methodists went to the sacraments of the Church with a deep devotion and sat patiently under the sermons of the parish church, but the centre of gravity of their devotional life was really outside the parish church. Religious communities are different things from meetings of fathers, mothers, and children, where the fathers and often the mothers are still doing their work in the world and earning their wages. The Church of England was hardly capable of coping with the outpouring of a life of prayer even if the situation had not been driving the communities into a separation. In this revival, there appeared one of the stirrings of popular religious faith that comes in Christendom almost in each century; historically it is most akin to the friars five hundred years before it; in our age, it is most akin to the charismatic movement. Such movements always have deep roots in the past and its experience of Christianity; they always have something innovative in relation both to the times in which they appear and to the people who found or develop them. They are always controversial because powerful, popular, and eager for change; they always divide men and women and have oppo-

30 Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada

nents as well as disciples. But they create disciples and endow them with a power that is long-lasting and the effects of which no historian could measure. The roots of this movement lay in the Reformation — its experience of free grace; the doctrine of justification as at the heart of Christianity; the freedom of the Christian soul, not to be too much at the mercy of a hierarchy. The Methodist movement was a reaction against the reaction against the Reformation. NOTES 1 Thomas Jackson, ed., The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., Sometime Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, 14 vols (London: Wesleyan Conference Office 1872), 14: 304. 2 W. Reginald Ward, ed., Journal of John Wesley in The Works of John Wesley (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press 1988), 18: 143. 3 Ibid., 3:368-9. 4 Journal, 3:14 (30 May 1742). 5 Ibid., 2:162. 6 Ibid., 2:266n. 7 Ibid., 3:11-12, 136 and references there. 8 Ernest Gordon Rupp, Religion in England 1688-1791 (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1986), 392. 9 J. Telford, ed., Wesley's Veterens 7 vols (London: Robert Culley & Charles H. Kelly, 1909-14). 10 Ward, Journal, 2: 273—4. The curate was John Romley, who studied under Wesley's father and then became his curate. Nine years after this, he went mad and died. 11 Minutes of the Methodist Conference(London: Methodist Conference Office 1812), vol. i, rule 8 of Friday, 29 June 1744. 12 Rupp, Religion in England, 304; and cf. Wesley's "Thoughts on Single Life and Thoughts on Marriage" in Jackson, Works, 11: 43gff. 13 Benson first tried the scheme on Fletcher, whom he asked to show it to Wesley. At first, Fletcher was not very well disposed to the plan. But he put it to Wesley, who wrote back to Fletcher that he would give Benson the chance to put it to Conference. By the time Conference opened at Leeds on i August 1775, Fletcher thought much better of Benson's scheme; he wrote Wesley a letter with an extended adaptation of it. This letter is printed in the appendix of Nehemiah Curnock, ed., The Journal of Rev. John Wesley, A.M. (London: Charles H. Kelly 1909-16), 8: 328—9. The important episode is studied from Wesley's point of view in Frank Baker, John Wesley and the Church of England (London: Epworth

31 John Wesley and the Origins of Methodism

14 15 16 17

Press 1970), 2ogff; and from Fletcher's point of view in P.P. Streiff,/ran Guillaume de la Flechere 1729-85: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Methodismus (Easier und Berner Studien zur historischen und systematischen Theologie, Band 51) (Frankfurt am Main 1984), 376ff. The critic was Collins, Fletcher's own assistant in the Madeley circuit. Curnock, Journal of John Wesley, 8: 330. Fletcher to Benson, 12 July 1775, in Ibid. Fletcher to Benson, i August 1775, in Ibid, 331. John Telford, ed., The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., 8 vols. (London: Epworth Press 1931), 8: 211.

2

Methodist Origins in Atlantic Canada JOHN WEBSTER G R A N T

The spiritual energies released by John Wesley and his movement soon made themselves felt throughout English-speaking countries and beyond, often through unanticipated and unauthorized agencies. It is scarcely surprising, therefore, that the first references to the impact of Methodism in Atlantic Canada are elusive and evanescent. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the Methodist itinerant Charles Churchill noted in a current provincial almanac a reference to a visit to Halifax of two Methodist preachers in 1760,* while the Yorkshire farmers John Robinson and Thomas Rispin reported a Methodist preaching house in Halifax in the course of an exploratory trip in 1774.* These references, for which I have found no further elucidation or even confirmation, at least remind us of the danger of assuming an absence merely because we have no evidence of a presence. During the first half of the nineteenth century - from 1800 in the Maritime provinces and from 1815 in Newfoundland - the Methodism of Atlantic Canada was under the firm direction of the British conference. Inevitably it was profoundly affected by this long-standing connection. Already, however, Methodism had become a significant presence in both segments of the region. In this chapter I will focus on this period of origins, asking how Methodism affected and was affected by the context of pioneer colonial societies and seeking to identify some ways in which its early experience affected its later development.3

33 Methodist Origins in Atlantic Canada Newfoundland Methodists trace their beginnings to the arrival of Laurence Coughlan at Harbour Grace on Conception Bay in 1766.4 As in New York, where Philip Embury began to preach later in the same year, the Methodism that reached Atlantic Canada had no official connection at first with Wesley and his conference. Coughlan was a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), specially ordained by permission of the Bishop of London for his task, who throughout his stay conducted Anglican services in Anglican churches. Coughlan had formerly been a recognized Methodist itinerant, first in his native Ireland and then in England, but was dropped from the list after his acceptance of ordination from a vagrant Orthodox bishop of dubious standing. Arthur E. Kewley has suggested that his grasp of Methodism was deficient, a judgment with which Hans Rollmann heartily concurs in chapter 3.5 Certainly Coughlan's denunciatory approach contrasted with Wesley's emphasis on the power of the Holy Spirit to transform lives, and his high-flown style had more affinities with Henry Alline's than with Wesley's. Yet Wesley seems to have valued his services highly at one time, and one suspects that many other itinerants were not better instructed. For three years, Coughlan manifested his Methodism at Harbour Grace mainly in visiting from house to house reading and expounding Scripture. Then came a revival, and lay people began to pray aloud and to preach both at church and in private meetings that Coughlan organized. Hearers came from as far as twenty miles away, and Coughlan, who did not take well to small boats, found himself responding to frequent invitations from surrounding communities. Meanwhile, however, magistrates and merchants had mounted an opposition, going so far (according to Coughlan) as attempting to poison him.6 Complaints about his personal attacks on leading citizens led the governor in 1772 to ask the SPG to remove him, and the following year he returned to England and resigned.7 He left behind not only devoted followers but several dedicated leaders - Thomas Pottle at Carbonear, and John Stretton and Arthur Thomey at Harbour Grace - who carried on Methodist classes to the annoyance of his Anglican successor. John Hoskins, who left England in 1775 with the intention of teaching school in New England but arrived instead at Old Perlican, held services not only there but at Lower Island Cove and Bonavista in the face of opposition even more bitter than Coughlan had endured. To set these Methodist beginnings in perspective some account needs to be taken of the state of Newfoundland society in early days. Even more than in later times, the economy revolved around the cod

34 Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada

fishery. Ships were outfitted by merchants of the west country, of Jersey, and even of Scotland, who in most cases never saw Newfoundland. Each spring their ships set out, mainly from Devon and Dorset. They took with them fishing hands for the season, some from the nearby coast, others from inland parishes - lads who may never have seen the sea before. Those still needed they picked up in Ireland, usually at Waterford. In the fall, the ships returned with their fish and most of their fishermen. Despite a legend to the contrary, there was no consistent policy forbidding settlement in Newfoundland, and over the years an increasing number wintered or even made permanent homes there.8 Many of these were ordinary fishermen without capital. Others were representatives of fishing companies, independent merchants, or "planters" who secured sites for fish stages and provided both boats and equipment for fishing. These few facts already carry significant implications. In religion the Irish fishermen were almost uniformly Roman Catholic, while the English came largely from areas where neither Methodism nor the older dissent had taken much hold; Newfoundland Methodists, almost without exception, would have to be stolen sheep or their descendants. Almost the entire population was male, with the consequences for carelessness about manners and morals that a society without families entails. The rhythm of life was distinctly seasonal, with little time for anything but work in the summer and little to do in the winter but to get drunk. There was almost no government and therefore virtually no law. To make matters worse, the planters who invested their money and their lives in Newfoundland seldom prospered. Almost from the outset, their economic power began to slip away to the merchants, while opportunities lacked for cultural activities and even for literacy. D.W. Meinig has described the early Newfoundland population as "an accumulation rather than an implantation," adding, "It began as a kind of flotsam washed up on the beaches from an intensive seasonal harvest of the sea and only gradually took on greater substance and a vaguely visible shape as a settlement region."9 Descriptions from the eighteenth century were almost universally uncomplimentary. William Black, who visited in 1791, wrote of the inhabitants of a cove near Harbour Grace: "They are not many degrees above the savage tribes, either in manner of living or intellectual improvements."10 In the late eighteenth century, however, the situation was changing in ways that gave Coughlan's arrival a remarkably strategic timeliness. By the 17708, the resident population of Newfoundland constituted half of the total and, by the end of the century, 90 percent.11 In the years immediately following the arrival of Methodism, from 1780 to

35 Methodist Origins in Atlantic Canada 1830, permanent migration was at its peak.12 During most of these years, the Church of England had only a handful of missionaries in the colony and in the eighteenth century never more than three, so that Methodism had a relatively open field within the Protestant population.13 Equally significantly, the area where permanent settlement was furthest advanced was Conception Bay, which in Coughlan's time contained nearly 40 percent of the wintering population. While women still constituted only 13 percent of the adult population of the island, moreover, their proportion and thus that of stable families was also highest in Conception Bay.14 That these conjunctions were not altogether coincidental is suggested by the fact that Coughlan's appointment to Harbour Grace was in response to a request by local leaders, although he proved to be not precisely the sort of parson they had in mind. However he may have deviated from Wesleyan orthodoxy, CoughIan and his successors brought into this situation a message that admirably fitted it. Not least, it promised the reversal of a process that was rapidly bringing a return to barbarism. The intensity of the experience it demanded, along with the ensuing discipline, provided a stimulus to radical change in patterns of behaviour that was lacking in the formal services typical of the Anglicanism of the time, although many settlers were strongly attached to the Book of Common Prayer and the first Methodist missionaries continued to use it.15 Frequent and eventful meetings not only furnished inspiration and support for this realignment but had the practical function of filling leisure hours that might otherwise have been used destructively. Contemporary reports tell of the dramatic reformation of whole communities, if also of equally dramatic backsliding on the missionary's departure.16 It was further noted of converts, in a situation in which violent quarrels had been commonplace, that "their love to each other was almost equal to that of the first Christians."17 The prominence of women among the authors of testimonials that Coughlan solicited after his return to England suggests a close link with the emergence of the family as a factor in Newfoundland life, as does the close association of Methodism with education from the outset. Welcomed by many of the common people, Methodism was greeted by merchants with hostility and on several occasions with violence. One reason may be surmised from Coughlan's claim that "when the Word took place in their Hearts, many of them not only got out of Debt, but also had to spare."18 Receiving their money was of short-term advantage to merchants, but the basis of their power was the "truck" system that provided the inhabitants with supplies in expectation of future deliveries of fish and thus kept them perpet-

36 Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada

ually under obligation to the merchants. The observation of Coughlan's Anglican successor that those who attended conventicles were unfriendly to the civil government suggests another reason;19 this may have been a canard, but could have been a source of genuine concern at a time when the American colonies were moving toward rebellion. More generally, the Methodist presence threatened the continuance of a wide-open society that some found both attractive and advantageous, while the appearance of preachers of independent mind undermined the authority of a class whose leadership had generally been unchallenged. Yet merchants must not be thought of as a solid bloc of opposers. John Stretton provided the first Methodist chapel out of his own resources,20 and the patronage of some of the wealthy would continue to be important. Such people recognized the need to build Newfoundland society on a firm moral foundation. From these observations it might be surmised that Methodism from its inception swept Newfoundland like a firestorm. On the contrary, for forty years after Coughlan's departure, it consisted mainly of barely glowing embers that flared up fitfully at times and as often threatened to go out altogether. John McGeary, appointed by the British conference in 1785, soon quarrelled with Coughlan's local preachers, and the preachers were equally at odds with one another.21 William Black, summoned from Nova Scotia in 1791, found only about fifteen women continuing to meet. He reported, in response to his preaching, a great outburst of revival that gathered momentum as it went along,22 but his only obvious permanent legacy was the more secure holding of Methodist property.23 For some years after that, preachers arrived in ones and twos, each reporting discouragement on arrival and some revival thereafter. John Gosse of Carbonear, another merchant favourable to Methodism and grandfather of the English dramatist Edmund Gosse, summed up the period to 1812 in the wistful comment, "There was a prospect of much good being done in this place, when Mr Black was here, in the year i7gi."24 As Kewley has been at pains to point out, the real expansion of Methodism began only with the organization of Methodist missionary societies in England, beginning at Leeds in 1813 and culminating in a nation-wide society in 1817, the formation of the Newfoundland District in 1815, and the dispatch of six ministers in i8i6. 25 Even so, it seems that some characteristic features of Newfoundland Methodism had already emerged, even, to a degree, in Coughlan's time. Some of these were geographic and demographic. Methodism was introduced to the Burin Peninsula early in the nineteenth century and in time made its way northward as far as Labrador. It even secured a significant foothold at St John's, where at

37 Methodist Origins in Atlantic Canada

first it had deferred to Congregationalism. Its heartland was, and continued to be, a relatively small area on the north side of Conception Bay and the south side of Trinity, an area that, despite his eccentricities, Coughlan had pre-empted for Methodism if only by calling it to Wesley's attention. During the nineteenth century, Roman Catholic proselytism on and beyond the Avalon Peninsula and closer Anglican attention to later settlers on the south coast would only confirm the importance to Methodism of its original foothold. Spreading out from one of the earliest areas of settlement, Methodism was also disproportionately represented among older strands of the population; several prominent Methodist family names - Butler, Butt, Davis, Guy, and Parsons - were recorded on the island before lyoo.26 In its ethos, moreover, Newfoundland Methodism has continued to be affected by the manner of its introduction to the province. It retained a tradition of periodic and highly emotional revival more reminiscent of the American frontier — or of George Whitefield — than of English Wesleyanism. As a result, despite early use of the Rook of Common Prayer, it has shown a consistent preference for informal and largely unstructured worship. It has also emphasized the negative aspects of moralism in ways that recall Coughlaris denunciatory manner. Contrasting sharply with those of the other leading denominations of the island, these features have given Methodists a strong sense of distinctiveness that was further intensified after 1844 when Bishop Edward Feild introduced tractarianism to the Church of England. In many ways, this assurance of having a distinctive witness to offer has been the great strength of Newfoundland Methodism. It has not made for ready receptivity to new ideas. The introduction of Methodism to the Maritime provinces was similarly unofficial, but came about not through missionary effort but through group migration. Between 1772 and 1775, more than one thousand people from the Dales and neighbouring areas of Yorkshire settled on and around the Isthmus of Chignecto. Most of them belonged to the Church of England, and many also to well established Methodist societies with which Wesley had kept in close touch. They were substantial people, mainly tenant farmers, and they migrated almost entirely as nuclear family units. On arrival they did not take up vaguely described grants, as so many immigrants did, but were able to buy land that was already partly improved. They had not been driven from their ancestral lands, although raised rents were a factor in some cases, but typically gave to government officials as their reason for migration, "to improve my condition".27 Unlike many immigrants, most of them succeeded.

38 Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada Although the incentives to migration were overwhelmingly economic, the Yorkshire settlers showed concern even before departure that their spiritual life should not suffer from the transition.28 After their arrival, the Methodists among them organized classes and held meetings from house to house for prayer, singing, and exhortation. For a time piety faltered, but in the spring of 1779 meetings became more intense and conversions followed. One of those caught up was eighteen-year-old William Black, who had deep — and today we should probably say rather morbid - religious impressions in childhood but had grown careless after the death of his mother. Within a short time after his own conversion, he was able to bring about that of most of his family. Soon, along with several other young converts, he was holding meetings and exhorting throughout the isthmus. All of these events followed a familiar Methodist pattern and might have taken place as readily in Yorkshire as in Cumberland.29 Yet Cumberland was in Nova Scotia, not Yorkshire, and the future of Methodism in the Maritimes would be greatly affected by its environment. The population of the region, then all included in Nova Scotia, was already somewhat mixed. Halifax had a motley collection of people, from officials and merchants to soldiers of the line. There were Germans and a few French, both Lutheran and Reformed, around Halifax and in Lunenburg County, some Ulster Presbyterians in Colchester County and elsewhere, a number of Acadians on the fringes, and, from 1773, some Scots around Pictou. The most numerous group, however, and the one most open to novel religious experience, consisted of some 12,000 to 14,000 settlers from New England who had taken up lands involuntarily vacated by the Acadians or had established fishing stations on unoccupied sections of the coast. A fair number were already in Cumberland when the Yorkshire settlers arrived, and the two groups mingled readily. Apart from a number of Baptists, the majority of the Yankees represented the Congregationalism of their home colonies, from which they brought Calvinist theology and a supply of learned ministers. Already there was tension, however, because many had been affected by "New Light" revivals in New England that had been initiated by Wesley's former colleague George Whitefield, in 1740. New Englanders moved to Nova Scotia as the spillover of a population increasingly pressed for land when westward migration was still blocked by Indian possession. They found the experience disorienting, especially when the authorities refused to allow them to transplant their familiar town government. Many of them were moving out again when the Yorkshire settlers arrived. Those who remained were dispirited by economic depression, finding compensation in "drunkenness, disorderliness,

39 Methodist Origins in Atlantic Canada

gambling and frivolity — the characteristic activities of an uprooted society"30 — and occasionally in a taste of enthusiastic religion. Into this situation strode - or more often rode - the figure of Henry Alline. After a highly coloured conversion in 1775, this young farmer from Falmouth soon overcame his Congregational scruples against preaching by the uneducated and engaged in constant itinerant evangelism among the Yankees of Nova Scotia and beyond until his death from tuberculosis in 1784. His career will be discussed in greater detail in chapter 4, but to place Maritime Methodism in context I must make two points briefly. One is that Alline stirred up greater excitement than these provinces had known or would know again, an excitement that would last until almost the end of the century and would have some of its most florid expressions well after his death. The other is that his message, which he himself described as anti-traditional,31 resembled that of Methodism in some important respects and differed radically from it in others. Similar to Methodism were his call for immediate, instantaneous, and life-changing conversion, and his insistence, over against Calvinism, on its possibility for all. It was not without significance that in western Nova Scotia the Free Baptists, who later carried on some elements of the Allinite tradition, were popularly referred to as "Methodist Baptists." Uncongenial to Methodists, however, were Alline's invitations to ecstasy, his apparent indifference to the civic virtues, and his denial of the possibility of backsliding after conversion; Wesley summed up his errors as "mysticism and Antinomianism."82 It is also relevant to note that, in July 1781, Alline visited Cumberland, where the Wesleyans welcomed him warmly but were greatly disturbed by the divisive preaching of his protege T.H. Chipman on a subsequent visit.33 Late in 1781, Black determined to devote his life to an itinerant ministry. He tried his spurs in settlements along the Petitcodiac that had few religious services of any kind. Then, in May 1782, he took his message to Alline's home ground around Minas Basin and in the Annapolis valley, founding a Methodist society at Windsor and laying the foundations for one in Halifax. In succeeding journeys, he visited the south shore of Nova Scotia, where he had unusual success, as well as Prince Edward Island, where he had less. The immediate occasion of Black's self-appointment as an itinerant was his reaching the age of twenty-one, which he interpreted as relieving him of any obligation to assist on his father's farm; to note that he largely retraced Alline's steps is merely to observe that he visited the places most likely to receive his message. Yet this decision, following so closely upon Alline's visit to Cumberland, must surely have been suggested by the latter's example. Black also seems to have shared Alline's initial reluc-

40 Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada tance to undertake preaching without more formal education, since after his first tour he suggested to Wesley the possibility of attending Kingswood School.34 By invading Alline's territory, however, Black exposed his home base to attack. During his absence in 1782, Alline paid another visit to Cumberland, a visit that divided the society so thoroughly that in 1806 Joshua Marsden reported, "Scarcely any vestiges of the pioneering work of God are now seen."35 Almost incredibly, Black's home community of Amherst erected its first Methodist church only in i84i.36 When Black began his preaching career, Nova Scotia was already receiving a new immigration as refugees from the American Revolution began to reach the province, and in 1784 the trickle became a flood that threatened for a time to overwhelm the earlier population. Contrary to an impression that once prevailed, Maritime Loyalists came not mainly from New England but from New York, New Jersey, and as far south as the Carolinas.35 Their religious affiliations have never been determined with any precision. Conventional wisdom once identified them as preponderantly Anglican; even if so, it should be remembered that the Episcopal laity of the south were almost as puritanical in outlook as the Congregationalists of New England. Since in terms of later religious affiliation it is impossible to distinguish areas of Loyalist settlement from those already occupied by Yankees, it seems evident that the two groups shared common experiences and were open to the same influences. The arrival of the Loyalists did, at any rate, bring reinforcements to the Methodist cause. Only the Methodists had been able to maintain services at New York without interruption during the British occupation, because the army had commandeered all other places of worship.38 On the withdrawal of British troops, Nova Scotia received an appreciable portion of the society, including several class leaders and local preachers, notably Robert Barry, Charles White, and John Mann. The Halifax society was reinforced, and Shelburne became an important centre of activity. Aged twenty-three and without official standing, Black recognized his inability to cope with the situation without assistance. Having applied unsuccessfully to Wesley in 1782 for reinforcement, he went in person to make his plea before the founding conference of the American Methodist Episcopal church in 1784. Bishop Asbury exceeded his expectations, on this occasion at least. Two preachers were appointed to Nova Scotia, one of whom, Freeborn Garrettson, has been described by George Rawlyk as perhaps next after Alline among local religious leaders of the period in gifts and influence.39 For two years, he was unquestionably the leading Methodist strategist of the region. Then, in 1787, his slated appointment as superinten-

41 Methodist Origins in Atlantic Canada dent for Nova Scotia and Antigua failed to be made, and henceforth the American church sent a diminished supply of junior preachers, of whom few left a lasting memory. Unlike its counterpart in the Canadas, Maritime Methodism was never a part of the Methodist Episcopal church, and as the west began to open up, Asbury begrudged scarce preachers to a foreign outpost. Meanwhile Wesley had appointed James Wray in 1788 to a brief and unhappy tenure as superintendent, and in 1791 the English conference sent the able AJ. Bishop to Saint John for an even shorter ministry. Continuity during this period was provided by local recruits: John Mann and his brother James, along with the maverick ex-soldier Duncan M'Coll, who was effectively working St Stephen as an independent enterprise before the others had even heard of him.40 Black was ordained in 1789, and after Wray's departure his authority was unchallenged. In view of his ultimate place in Maritime memory, however, I was fascinated to come upon an incidental remark by Garrettson in a letter to Wesley in 1786: "Black ... I expect is, and will be, more and more attached to our cause."41 In the Maritimes, the early Methodists were confronted by a situation quite different from that with which they had to deal in Newfoundland. In Newfoundland their opposition came from such people as the man who complained that "the Clergy in England did not preach up, that People must go to Hell, except they were born again; and as for his Part, he would not believe it";42 in the Maritimes their hearers were people already overheated with religious excitement and adept at arguing the symptoms and conditions of being born again. Missionary approaches in the Maritimes reflected this contrasting situation. Of course the primary task, as ever, was to rouse sinners to repentance and faith and to urge converts on to holiness, and the records are rich in accounts of positive and often exuberant evangelism. Black exulted of an early mission at Horton, that is, Wolfville. "God called me to speak with freedom, fervency and power. The word was sharp as a sword to wound, and powerful also to comfort. The shout of a king was heard in our camp. Many cried for mercy, while others shouted Hosanna to the Son of David."43 Jacob Bailey, the local Anglican clergyman, wrote less sympathetically of Annapolis Methodists that "ignorant men and women and even children under twelve years of age were employed to pray and exhort, until the whole assembly groaned, and screamed, and finally ended with a falling down and a rolling upon the floor of both sexes together."44 In approaching a theologically aware constituency, however, it was also necessary to defend Methodist doctrine and to point out weaknesses both in the Calvinist tradition and in Alline's bolder specula-

42 Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada tions. This was all the more important because of the necessity of distinguishing Methodists from New Lights in the popular mind. Perhaps one can also detect echoes of the never completely resolved tension between Wesley and Whitefield; to Garrettson, at least, "Whitefieldian" and "New Light" were practically synonyms.45 Accordingly, we often read of theological challenges to the missionaries, who dealt with them in preaching and conversation, and, where possible, through the distribution of Methodist books. The most frequent subject of controversy was the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, shared by orthodox Calvinists and Allinites, which implied that those who had experienced conversion were assured of salvation despite subsequent sins. Typical was a conversation, once again at hyperreligious Horton, which Garrettson recorded from his point of view. "I was conversing with one of their head Speakers — she told me, she thought death would Slay more sins for her than ever was before. And as for Sin, Said she, it cannot hurt me - no not Adultery, Murder, Swearing, drunkenness, nor no other sin Can break the Union between me & Christ. They have judged, and passed sentence on us, as no Christians, nor Called to Preach."46 Alline himself was unequivocal in insisting that "there is no way that God can bring you to Heaven, but by making you heavenly,"47 but his tendency to identify salvation with the spirit and sin with the flesh lent itself to frequent misunderstanding and was occasionally abused by misguided enthusiasts. Marsden, arriving as a Methodist missionary in 1800, encountered a familiar argument "that the body only sins, not the Soul, as a nut cast into the mud is only soiled in the shell, not the kernel."48 Seeing no prospect of a satisfactory supply of preachers from the United States, Black successfully applied in 1800 for a direct connection with the English conference. A series of revivals in 1807 gave a new impetus to the work, and, from its inception in the next decade, the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society provided, as in Newfoundland, the comprehensive and detailed direction for which it was known wherever it worked. In 1855, mainly through the insistence of a financially embarrassed society rather than local demand, a relatively autonomous conference of Eastern British America including Newfoundland was formed. Another development was the arrival in Prince Edward Island in 1832 of Francis Metherall, a representative of a small body of English Methodists known as Bible Christians. It was rather odd, in a way, that this west country group, which originated in the section of England from which the bulk of Protestant Newfoundlanders have been drawn, should have been active in Ontario and Prince Edward Island but never in Newfoundland. Called to the island at the request of emigrant members, Metherall

43 Methodist Origins in Atlantic Canada

and a few successors carried on vigorous evangelism and established a number of small churches.49 The Methodist union of 1874 brought Maritime Methodists within a national church and gave them a stake in western missions, but apart from the absorption of the Bible Christians in 1884 neither union involved local rearrangement. Through these and other developments, Maritime Methodism grew, matured, and underwent many subtle changes. As in the case of Newfoundland, however, I would contend that the period of origins left a permanent impression. Once again, this was conspicuously true of geographic and demographic distribution. While Methodism subsequently penetrated areas on the periphery such as Guysborough and the Upper Saint John valley, its main strength continued to be in the parts of the region that had been worked by Black and Garrettson — roughly, the Yankee and Yorkshire settlements, plus Halifax. To an almost uncanny degree, the earliest circuits became the districts of a later era, and a fair number of them continued into the United Church of Canada as presbyteries. The earliest Methodist stratum was reinforced by Loyalists and later immigrants from the British Isles and augmented by converts drawn in from various quarters, but these later additions seem mainly to have been absorbed into the body without greatly altering its ethnic flavour. Where one found significant concentrations of Methodists, there were usually more Baptists, along with a fluidity of denominational allegiance foreign to the eastern part of the Maritimes. One group prominent in early Methodist records, however, virtually disappeared from them. It has been estimated that more than one-tenth of the Loyalists were free blacks.50 At Shelburne, Digby, and even Saint John, they were at first more numerous than whites in Methodist societies,51 but after the removal of about twelve hundred to Sierra Leone in 1793, this segment of the population seems to have been left increasingly to Baptist care. Undoubtedly the social composition of Maritime Methodism changed considerably in the course of the nineteenth century as the stigma attached to membership was gradually replaced by a somewhat unfashionable respectability. Yet the contrast should not be overdrawn. While Marsden may have derived some pious satisfaction from his reflection that "none of the rich and great received the truth," his more nuanced judgment that Methodism spread "chiefly among the poor and middling classes" was probably closer to the mark.52 Many of the elite, if not Bishop Inglis, regarded Methodism as a useful means of reaching classes inaccessible to the Church of England, much as some Methodists later regarded the Salvation Army. John Bryenton, the rector of St Paul's, Halifax, said to Gar-

44 Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada

rettson on the latter's arrival, "Sir ... you are on a blessed Errant [sic]. I'll do what I can in assisting you. I desire to see the Gospel spread."53 Richard John Uniacke, later attorney-general of Nova Scotia, expressed the hope that Methodism might in time "extend itself so far into the country parts as to produce a return of that decency and decorum ... which, I am sorry to say, in so many instances in the country parts of this province, has been sadly violated by the mistaken methods pursued by ignorant persons, whose errors arise from an overheated imagination."54 Such approbation made easier the adherence to Methodism of public-spirited community leaders such as Simeon Perkins of Liverpool, Col. S.V Bayard of Annapolis, and later Lemuel Wilmot of Fredericton and, by no means least, Charles F. Allison. Despite impressive growth, one can detect in Maritime Methodist historians a note of disappointment, of wistful regret for what might have been. "The Province swarms with Methodists who are indefatigable in propagating their tenets," wrote Lieutenant-Governor John Parr in 1787, implying that they constituted the chief rivals of the Church of England.55 In the event, they became one among a number of denominations, and by no means the largest of them. A finger of blame is often pointed at the Methodist Missionary Society, and with some plausibility. While its inception brought a shortlived spurt in activity and membership, the period of most rapid expansion followed the formation of a semi-autonomous local conference. Its heavy-handed imposition on the informality of the Black era of a discipline, which, according to a circular to missionaries, had "been formed under the immediate direction of Divine Providence, and is altogether suited to the state of Christian Society,"56 created more frustration than efficiency. Its insistence on acting only on the basis of detailed information, and then of making appointments and allocations a year in advance, inhibited flexibility in fluid situations. Its downgrading of locally recruited ministers discouraged many potential candidates and long prevented the denomination from speaking with an authentically indigenous voice. Its assumption of ultimate responsibility, despite its repeated pleas for local self-help, encouraged an unhealthy dependency.57 Unquestionably, however, the shift from the American to the British connection in 1800 had brought new vigour and contributed to growth that at least kept pace with that of the population. Whatever might have been best by the 18305 and 18405, complaints of missed opportunities had been heard in a much earlier period. James Mann wrote in 1804, "The work, in general, has been at a stand for some time."58 The early English preachers were not

45 Methodist Origins in Atlantic Canada

impressed by the situation that greeted them. In 1805 William Bennett reported, "The work of God has not spread in these Provinces, with equal rapidity to what I have seen of it at home, and heard of it in the United States," while giving thanks for "drops and crumbs" of encouragement.59 In the following year, Marsden wrote from Halifax, "Religion does not seem to flourish here," and his comments on Windsor and Cumberland were even less favourable.60 Revival in 1807 brought a flurry of more optimistic reports, but by 1812 William Croscombe at Horton had reverted to form, lamenting, "Religion in this part of Nova Scotia is at a very low ebb," while adding, typically, that the people were very hospitable.61 Various reasons have been offered for this failure to capitalize fully on the apparent potentialities of the situation. Contemporaries most frequently complained of a shortage of missionaries; Black suggested in 1804 that with suitable preachers Methodism would have swept the Saint John Valley, adding that the opportunity had now been lost.62 Undoubtedly, he was thinking of the failure of the Americans to keep the province supplied, but we must ask why, in an area where Allinite preachers abounded, Black, M'Coll, and the two Manns carried the bulk of the burden for the Methodists for so long. In part, this failure has been charged to Black himself. He was easygoing, no great organizer, unaccustomed to the full Methodist discipline, and naturally resentful when someone from England attempted to apply it to churches of which he rightfully regarded himself as the founder.63 Kewley's suggestion that Newfoundland Methodism was out of step with Wesley might be applied with equal force to the Maritimes.64 Halifax did not institute quarterly meetings until iSag,65 nor did the enduring pioneer leaders engage in an itinerant ministry in much more than name. M'Coll and the Manns were essentially local preachers, while Black established himself at Halifax with a permanence that prompted some dissidents to suggest that it was time he moved on.66 On the other hand, Wesley recognized that Black carried within himself the main thrust of the Maritime mission, and both he and Thomas Coke poured ice water on Black's occasional suggestions of returning to England.67 The problem was not the difficulty of securing converts, even of leadership calibre, but rather that of holding them. With their Arminian theology of universally available grace, Methodists were and remained at an advantage over other denominations in effectiveness in reaching out not merely to the religiously dissatisfied but to the religiously unawakened.68 When Black began his mission, however, Alline had already wrought irreversible changes in the mentality of Yankee Nova Scotians. Even before Alline's call to awakening,

46 Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada indeed, Calvinism had thoroughly implanted the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, and the Baptists who co-opted his movement continued to promote it. So pervasive was its influence that a later itinerant attributed his lack of success to "Antinomianism, a deleterious weed that vegetates in the soil."69 Methodists complained of circuits so ruined by the "Antinomian virus" that Baptists reaped where they had sown,70 and several of their most promising ministerial recruits defected to become pillars of the Baptist cause.71 Many later immigrants or their descendants also conformed in time to the religious culture that had first put its stamp on the region. Despite frequent references in the literature to Irish Methodists in New Brunswick and the scarcity of Baptists in Ireland, for example, by 1851 more New Brunswickers of Irish origin listed themselves as Baptists than as Methodists. Always somewhat in the shadow of the more successfully indigenized Baptists, and unable to overtake the social advantages of the Church of England or the clannishness of Presbyterians, Maritime Methodists never quite succeeded in demonstrating that they represented a radically different option. To some extent, this lack of a distinctive and readily recognizable ethos inhibited the emergence of the sense of unique vocation that was so evident in Newfoundland. It also helped to make possible some very positive features of Maritime Methodism: the ready participation of its laity in public life without committing the denomination to a particular party; an educational vision that made possible both the foundation of Mount Allison and the willingness to sacrifice it for the sake of establishing a great Maritime university at a time when others were more concerned to defend their own fiefdoms; and a tradition of first-rate religious journalism established in defiance of bans imposed by a paternalistic and centralizing missionary society. Wherever Methodism has gone, it has carried with it the elements of a common theology, a common moral stance, and a common evangelistic thrust. They have been the chief sources of its power everywhere. Like all movements, however, it has manifested itself differently in different circumstances. In many parts of North America, including Ontario, it was able, by catching the updraft of early nineteenth-century movements of revival, to become the largest Protestant church and thus in large measure to shape the dominant culture. In Atlantic Canada, its story was different. In Newfoundland it became essentially a counter-culture, in the Maritime provinces part of a Protestant spectrum. Never was the difference in ethos more evident than when Methodists were asked to vote on church union. Maritime Methodists welcomed the prospect of entering the United

47 Methodist Origins in Atlantic Canada

Church of Canada, while Newfoundland was the only conference to register a negative vote. NOTES 1 Charles Churchill, Memorials of Missionary Life in Nova Scotia (London: John Mason 1845), 2 52 John Robinson and Thomas Rispin, Journey Through Nova Scotia (York, England: n.p. 1774; reprint, Sackville: Mount Allison University 1981), 4. 3 For more detailed if dated narrative accounts, the reader is referred to T. Watson Smith, History of the Methodist Church within the Territories Embraced in the Late Conference of Eastern British America, including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and Bermuda, 2 vols (Halifax: Methodist Book Room 1877, 1890) and William Wilson, Newfoundland and Its Missionaries (Cambridge, Mass.: Dakin & Metcalf 1866). Somewhat revisionist is E. Arthur Belts, "Bishop Black and His Preachers: The Story of Maritime Methodism to 1825," mimeograph in Maritime Conference Archives 1974. 4 Patrick O'Flaherty, "Laurence Coughlan," Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1979), 4: 175. 5 Arthur E. Kewley, "The First Fifty Years of Methodism in Newfoundland, 1765-1815: Was It Authentic Wesleyanism?" United Church Archives Bulletin 26 (1977)''Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society 19 (March/June 1977) no. i, 2: 6—26. Black was of the same opinion; see memoir by Richard Knight in Thomas Jackson, ed., The Lives of Early Methodist Leaders, 6 vols, 3rd ed. (London: Wesleyan Conference Office 1866), 5: 289. 6 Laurence Coughlan, An Account of the Work of God, in Newfoundland, North America (London: W. Gilbert 1776), 7—11. 7 O'Flaherty, "Coughlan," 176. 8 C. Grant Head, Eighteenth-Century Newfoundland(Toronto: McClelland and Stewart 1976), 146. 9 D.W. Meinig, Atlantic America, 1492—1800, vol. i of The Shaping of America: A Geographical Perspective on 500 Years of History (New Haven: Yale University Press 1986), 87. 10 Arminian Magazine 15 (1792): 177. The evaluation of "savage tribes" is Black's, not mine. 11 Head, Eighteenth-Century, 82. 12 John J. Mannion, ed., The Peopling of Newfoundland: Essays in Historical Geography (St John's: Memorial University 1977), 5. 13 T.R. Millman and A.R. Kelley, Atlantic Canada to igoo: A History of the Anglican Church (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre 1983), 23.

48 Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada 14 Head, Eighteenth-Century, 145. 15 G.G. Findlay and W.W. Holdsworth, The History of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, 5 vols (London: Epworth Press 1921), i: 341. 16 Smith, History of the Methodist Church, 2: 166. 17 Methodist Magazine 38 (1815): 319. 18 Coughlan, Account, 15. 19 Millman and Kelley, Atlantic Canada, 21. 20 Wilson, Newfoundland, 148. 21 Wesley to John Stretton, 19 March 1788, in John Telford, ed.,The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., 8 vols (London: Epworth Press 1931), 8: 48-9; ibid., 27 February 1789, 119-20. 22 Arminian 15 (1792): 123, 181, 234—5. 23 Jackson, Early Methodist Preachers, 5: 290. 24 Methodist 36 (1813): 319. 25 Kewley, "First Fifty Years," 21; Smith, History of the Methodist Church, 2: 3i-526 W. Gordon Handcock, "English Migration to Newfoundland," in Mannion, Peopling, 18. 27 Mildred Campbell, "English Emigration on the Eve of the American Revolution," American Historical Review 61 (1959): 16. 28 Bernard Bailyn, Voyagers to the West: A Passage in the Peopling of America on the Eve of the Revolution (New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1986), 423. 29 Black's account of these events appeared in Arminian 14 (1791): 15—16, 68—73, 121—5. It is summarized in Matthew Richey, A Memoir of the Late Rev. William Black, Wesleyan Minister, Halifax, N.S., including notices of several individuals; with copious extracts from the unpublished correspondence of the Rev. John Wesley, Rev. Dr. Coke, Rev. Freeborn Garretson[sic], etc. (Halifax: W. Cunnabell 1839), 20-7. 30 Goldwin French, Persons and Politics: The Role of the Wesleyan Methodists in Upper Canada and the Maritimes from ij8o to 1855 (Toronto: Ryerson 1962), 22. 31 Henry Alline, A Court for the Trial of Anti-Traditionist (n.p., n.d. but probably Halifax: A. Henry 1783), n.p. 32 Wesley to Black, 26 February 1783, in Telford, Letters, 7: 169. 33 Smith, History of the Methodist Church, 1:96-7; George A. Rawlyk, ed., Henry Alline: Selected Writings (New York: Paulist Press 1987), 36. 34 Richey, Memoir of Black, 98. 35 Methodist 29 (1806): 284. 36 D.W. Johnson, History of Methodism in Eastern British America (Sackville: n.p., n.d.), 59. 37 Neil MacKinnon, This Unfriendly Soil: The Loyalist Experience in Nova Scotia, 1783-1791 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queeris University Press 1986), 58-61.

49 Methodist Origins in Atlantic Canada 38 J.B. Wakeley, Lost Chapters Recovered from the Early History of American Methodism (New York: Wilbur B. Ketcham 1889), 287. 39 George A. Rawlyk, "Freeborn Garrettson," Dictionary 6: 275. 40 T.W. Acheson, "Duncan M'Coll," Dictionary 6: 429-32. 41 Garrettson to Wesley, 15 July 1786, Garrettson Letters, United Church Archives, (photocopy from Drew University). 42 Coughlan, Account, 22. 43 Richey, Memoir of Black, 66. 44 E.M. Saunders, History of the Baptists of the Maritime Provinces (Halifax 1902), 291, quoted in Maurice W. Armstrong, The Great Awakening in Nova Scotia (Hartford: American Society of Church History 1948), 130. 45 Nathan Bangs, The Life of the Rev. Freeborn Garrettson (New York 1829), 19946 Garrettson Journal, 22 May 1785, Garrettson Papers, United Church Archives (photocopy from Drew University). 47 Rawlyk, Alline, 265. 48 Joshua Marsden, The Narrative of a Mission in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Somers Islands, with a tour to Lake Ontario, 2nd ed. (London: J. Kershaw 1827), 9749 Johnson, History, 239-40. 50 MacKinnon, This Unfriendly Soil, 50. 51 Smith, History of the Methodist Church, i: 143, 156, 222. 52 Marsden, Narrative, 213, 217. 53 Garrettson to Thomas Coke, February 1785, Garrettson Letters. 54 Quoted in Smith, History of the Methodist Church, i: 244. 55 Quoted in Judith Fingard, The Anglican Design in Loyalist Nova Scotia, 1783-1816 (London: SPCK 1975), 129. 56 Methodist 27 (1804): 333. 57 Smith, History of the Methodist Church, 2: 432-40; Findlay and Holdsworth, History, i: 334—5; French, Parsons and Politics, 55. 58 James Mann to Missionary Committee, 1804, Methodist 28 (1805): 574. 59 William Bennett to Mr Benson, 12 July 1805, ibid., 607. 60 Joshua Marsden to Coke, 30 June 1806, ibid. 30 (1807): 235; Marsden to Coke n.d., ibid. 29 (1806): 284, 286. 61 William Croscombe to Mr Highfield, 28 September 1812, ibid. 35 (1812): 955. 62 Black to Missionary Committee, 10 October 1804, ibid. 28 (1805): 190. 63 Smith, History of the Methodist Church, i: 209; French, Parsons and Politics, 32; Belts, "Bishop Black," 19, 52; S.D. Clark, Church and Sect in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1948), 192. 64 Kewley, "The First Fifty Years," 9. 65 Smith, History of the Methodist Church, 2: 229. 66 Goldwin S. French, "William Black," Dictionary 5: 65-6.

50 Methodist Origins in Britain and Atlantic Canada 67 Wesley to Black, 19 October 1784, in Telford, Letters 7: 244; French, "Black," 66. 68 E.A. Belts offered me a kindly reminder to this effect. 69 Quoted in Smith, History of the Methodist Church, 2: 427. 70 James Mann to Daniel Fidler, 19 July 1785, 13 October 1786, James Mann Papers, United Church Archives (microfilm from Drew University). 71 George A. Rawlyk, Wrapped up in God: A Study of Several Canadian Revivals and Revivalists (Burlington, Ont.: Welch 1988), 68—71.

Methodism in Newfoundland

This page intentionally left blank

3 Laurence Coughlan and the Origins of Methodism in Newfoundland HANS ROLLMANN

On 27 October 1746, William Peaseley,1 a missionary of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) in Foreign Parts in St John's, Newfoundland, wrote to his employer in London, There is lately come among us one of Mr. Whitfield's [sic] Disciples, who has taken upon him to pray & preach publickly; but as he is discountenanced both by the Civil & Military Power, & has not one Follower, 'tis to be hop'd he'll soon find his attempt fruitless. We have not, I thank God, as yet been troubled with that Enthusiastick Spirit, which has rag'd so violently in other parts of America.2

The hopes of the Anglican priest that enthusiastic religion not flourish in Newfoundland seem to have been fulfilled; we hear nothing further of this earliest revivalist preacher3 or of "enthusiasm" there, that is, until the arrival of Peasely's ministerial colleague, Rev. Laurence Coughlan, in 1766 at Harbour Grace, Conception Bay, The story of Newfoundland's Methodist origins as depicted by nineteenth-century denominational historiography, notably in the influential panoramas of T. Watson Smith4 and William Wilson,5 was a rather idyllic affair, which linked the Newfoundland pioneer Laurence Coughlan harmoniously both with Methodism's founder John Wesley and with the island's subsequent Wesleyanism. Most historians6 have taken over wholesale or in part this nineteenthcentury portrayal of harmony and continuity. Upon a close examination of all relevant sources, however, the story appears to be more

54 Methodism in Newfoundland

complex than our Victorian predecessors publicly admitted and in dire need of revision and re-telling — this time in all of its colours, shades, and contours and free from the polemical concerns of an age that was preoccupied with denominational self-definitions and differences. L A U R E N C E C O U G H L A N ' S I R I S HAND ENGLISH ITINERANCY

Laurence Coughlan, formerly a Roman Catholic, was converted to Methodism at Drummersnave, today's Drumsna, a town near Carrickon-Shannon, County Leitrim, Ireland, by Methodist itinerants in the early 17505. Tradition has it that he became instrumental in the conversion of Robert Strawbridge, the first Methodist preacher in America.7 Coughlan entered a trial period as lay preacher in Ireland in 1755s and, in 1757, together with John Murlin, left for England, where the London conference records appointments for him and three other Irish preachers.9 In the late 17508, he served Methodist congregations in Colchester and Whitehaven,10 but in September 1760, together with two other Methodist preachers, he entered upon a missionary tour in Ireland.11 Coughlan proceeded to Waterford, one of the contemporary source areas for Newfoundland labour and emigration and the place where in 1763 his future co-worker in Harbour Grace, John Stretton, was to be converted by Mrs Eliza Bennis.12 The year 1762 saw him back in England. Two letters to Wesley that survive from this period show us a pious evangelical, whose religious experience vacillated between awe and bliss and who was in constant need of experiential verification of his own call and ministry.13 The next time Coughlan appears in Wesley's letters, it is a passing reference to three preachers in the North West Round of England and as a stalwart supporter of Wesley.14 Wesley's positive mention of Coughlan in March 1763, at a time when he had "scarce one hearty helper but Laurence Coughlan," contrasts with the internal dissent plaguing the Methodist movement at the time. The excessive enthusiasm and "realized perfectionism"15 of Thomas Maxfield and a group of London Methodists had caused Wesley, the "reasonable enthusiast," much grief,16 as had the lack of control over independent associates such as the Calvinistic Methodist circle around Lady Huntingdon. It would seem, however, that Wesley's appreciation of Coughlan cannot have lasted for long. From two letters of Coughlan in 1762,17 his 1776 book An Account of the Work of God in Newfoundland,™ and the correspondence with Lady Huntingdon while he served as a preacher in her "Connexion,"19 it appears that Coughlan's religious

55 Laurence Coughlan and Methodism in Newfoundland

Rev. Laurence Coughlan

appeal emphasized the subjective element in religion. His enthusiasm — not unlike that of Maxfield — appears to have been a major reason for the widening gulf between Wesley and him. Coughlan's Methodist orthodoxy has traditionally been defended with the following quote from his 1772 letter to Wesley: "I am, and do confess myself, a Methodist. The name I love, and hope I ever shall. The plan which you first taught me, I have followed, as to doctrine and discipline."20 While it is true that Coughlan did follow Methodist organizational forms,

56 Methodism in Newfoundland his doctrine was called into question by Wesley himself, who in a letter accused him of an emotional misunderstanding of holiness and perfection and linked him directly with his arch-foe Maxfield. Wesley's last mention of Coughlan in a letter to Stretton shortly after Coughlan's death also hints at doctrinal heterodoxy when he speaks of Coughlan's "contrition for his past unfaithfulness."21 John Hoskins, the Methodist school master and lay preacher at Old Perlican, Newfoundland, seemed also agreed upon the doctrinal unsoundness of Coughlan and extends this predicate to his followers in Harbour Grace and Carbonear when he writes to Wesley that, "in Harbourgrace [sic] and Carbonear, where Mr Coughlan laboured, it is dwindled almost to nothing, chiefly by means of Calvinism and Antinomianism."22 In fact, Coughlan illuminates what he meant by following a "Methodist plan" in a letter to the Countess of Huntingdon of 13 January 1774, in which he identifies it simply as a feelingbased enthusiastic religion. He writes, "I hope my Lady I shall always abide in the good old Methodist plan which was to Insist upon a present feeling ... "2S In a further letter of 15 March 1776 to the countess, which had as its background the religious situation in Norwich, he again emphasizes "the Feeling part" as a main element of his understanding of faith and ministry.24 If the theological estrangement with Wesley took place over an excessive subjectivism on Coughlan's part, the break was finalized only after the contentious Erasmus ordinations in 1764. These ordinations by the supposed Greek Bishop Erasmus are still a dark chapter in Methodist history. I cannot at this point add to the evidence summarized by A. Barrett Sackett in his article "John Wesley and the Greek Orthodox Bishop."25 During Wesley's absence from London in 1764, several Methodist lay preachers were ordained by the Greek emigre from Amsterdam. Laurence Coughlan was one of them. In response to pressure from Charles Wesley and others, as well as the public scandal caused by the ordinations, John Wesley distanced himself from those whom Erasmus had ordained, although he seems to have been responsible for the ordination of his associate Dr John Jones and thus probably had given hopes to others to follow suit. The so ordained presumably sought ordination at the hands of an alleged Greek bishop because they were refused or expected to be refused ordination by Anglican bishops. In the case of Coughlan, there is no statement by him about the incident, but Wesley defended himself on 10 February 1765 in a letter in the St James Chronicle with these words about his former "hearty helper": "When I was gone out of town, Bishop Erasmus was prevailed upon to ordain Laurence Coughlan, a person who had no learning at all."26 Ironically, fifteen

57 Laurence Coughlan and Methodism in Newfoundland years later, when Bishop Lowth refused the Newfoundland school teacher John Hoskins of Old Perlican ordination for a similar lack of formal learning, Wesley protested vociferously against making learning and not piety the supreme criterion for the ordained ministry.27 With the exception of John Jones, all those ordained by Bishop Erasmus left the Wesleyan fold. There is also a connection between Bishop Erasmus and Maxfield, who had four ministers ordained by the Greek bishop following Coughlan's ordination.28

COUGHLAN'S ORDINATION AND CALL TO N E W F O U N D L A N D After his ordination by Erasmus and presumed separation from the Wesleyan fold, on 4 October 1764 Coughlan registered an "independent" meeting house - something always avoided by Wesley - in the parish of St Mary Magdalen, Bermondsey, Surrey. Here, he was listed simply as "Preacher of God's Word"29 and was eventually contacted by those Newfoundlanders who sought a minister for their newly erected church in Harbour Grace. It appears that a Calvinistic Congregationalist dissenter in Conception Bay, formerly a member of Rev. Edward Ashburner's congregation in Poole, took the initiative in introducing formal religious services in Conception Bay and thus may also have encouraged the building of a church in Harbour Grace and the subscription for a minister among the residents. Reverend Samuel Greatheed, relying on first-hand information, presumably provided by John Jones, the Congregationalist minister in St John's (no relation to Dr John Jones, the Methodist), writes in his "Life of the Rev. John Jones, Late of St. John's, Newfoundland": An elderly inhabitant of that place [Harbour Grace or possibly Carbonear] who had been accustomed to lead the singing in Mr. Ashburner's congregation [in Poole], proposed to introduce this part of worship, in addition to the family lecture; and the notice it attracted was so general that the inhabitants determined to build a place of worship, and to apply for a minister from England, there being at that time only one in the Island, beside the clergyman at St. John's. The late Mr. Coughlan, of Lady Huntingdon's connection, was sent to them by the Society [SPG] ... ; and after labouring for three years without the evidence of success, was honoured with great usefulness to the conversion of souls."0 The building of a church in Harbour Grace before Coughlan's arrival is independently verified in a letter of 6 November 1764 by Rev. Edward Langman, the SPG missionary in St John's.31

58 Methodism in Newfoundland

The dissenting connection with Poole becomes even closer through the involvement of the Cornhill banker George Welch, whose signature was under a letter requesting of the Earl of Dartmouth, then president of the Board of Trade, a recommendation for Coughlaris ordination to the Bishop of London. On 22 November 1765, the inhabitants of Harbour Grace and Carbonear had authorized the Harbour Grace merchant George Davis,32 who at the time kept a residence in London, "to procure and agree with a Protestant Minister of the Gospel, to come and reside among [us]" for an annual salary of one hundred pounds.33 This plan was put into action in April 1766 when George Davis and George Welch asked the Earl of Dartmouth to recommend Laurence Coughlan to the Bishop of London in order "to get him Ordained & settled at Harbour Grace which we shall esteem a great favour as we think he may be a great Blessing to the Colony."34 George Welch was a prominent dissenter in London with close ties to the independent Congregationalists in Poole and to the Kemp family. In fact, Welch was related to both Edward Ashburner and the Kemps, who were active lay people in the dissenting congregation at Poole and principal traders with Carbonear.35 The channelling of the ordination request through the Earl of Dartmouth may also have been of significance. Dartmouth was not only president of the Board of Trade but also a benefactor of dissenters, especially the Calvinistic Methodists around Lady Huntingdon.36 Indeed, Cowper's "one who wears a coronet and prays" secured the ordination for several dissenters, including John Newton, a preacher who — like Coughlan — had previously been ordained by the Greek bishop.37 In Goughlan's case, the Bishop of London did not himself ordain but gave permission for ordination to the bishops of Lincoln and Chester. On 18 April, Dartmouth sent Coughlan, together with his letters of recommendation, to the Bishop of London. In Dartmouth's own communication he mentions that a ship in Poole was waiting for Coughlan and "will sail as soon as he gets thither."3*1 On 25 April, the Bishop of London granted dimissory letters for Coughlan to receive deacon's orders from the Bishop of Lincoln, which took place the next day. The following day, the Bishop of Chester ordained Coughlan priest.39 There is no indication whatsoever - as has become received opinion - that Coughlan was in Newfoundland before his ordination in 1766. Previous experience there would certainly have been mentioned in support of his qualifications in the letters recommending him. After the Bishop of London signed a missionary bond,40 Coughlan, his wife Anne,41 and their daughter Betsey set sail for Newfoundland from Poole sometime in April 1766.

59

Laurence Coughlan and Methodism in Newfoundland

CONCEPTION

BAY IN 176642

Conception Bay in 1766 was the most populous area in Newfoundland. From its principal towns of Harbour Grace and Carbonear, merchants carried out an active cod fishery and thriving trade with England and the major ports in Europe. After the collapse of earlier seventeenth-century experiments with colonization, settlement had been less ordered, even officially frowned upon but conceded nonetheless, lest a neglect might expose the area to French dominance. In addition, the immigration of Irish from the southeast of Ireland employed in the fishery reached a new height in the 17605. The demographic equilibrium was not threatened, but a good third of the population was now Roman Catholic, the rest West Country Englishmen or traders and planters from Jersey and elsewhere. To deal with de facto settlement without formal colonial status, rudimentary institutions of law, commerce, and administration had come into place, notably a magistracy in Harbour Grace, the capital harbour in the area. The relative prosperity of the area generated a great optimism about the island's future and, with it, hopes for a more ordered society. But the downside of population growth also asserted itself, such as occasional riots by disenfranchised Irish Catholics. The need for the building of a public gaol in Harbour Grace in the 17608 reflects the tensions in the growing outport. Both the optimism of residential growth and concern over controlling the Irish Catholic population may have contributed to the erection of a church and a petition by the Conception Bay locals to secure an Anglican minister. The beginning of a continuing Anglican presence on the island dates from the arrival of Rev. John Jackson in 1701, following a private subscription by local residents.43 Jackson's support in 1703 through the newly founded Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts initiated an enduring relationship between Newfoundland Anglicans and the SPG, which, for better or worse, made the missionaries on the island dependent upon an agency far removed from their field of activity. The Anglican missionaries of Newfoundland were especially hampered by a colonial policy that exhibited ambivalent and often hostile attitudes toward settlement. This policy prevented the establishment of a successful glebe and vestry system, prevalent in other colonies and so important for an effective ecclesiastical presence in the Americas. In addition, the absence of a local legislature robbed Anglicans of the constitutional entrenchment of preferences characteristic of the Established Church elsewhere and made the local ministers precariously dependent upon the favours or disfavours of the many and often changing governors. Although

60 Methodism in Newfoundland

Winter population, Conception Bay, 1764-73. Public Record Office, London: Colonial Office (Newfoundland), original correspondence 194.

Newfoundland had been the example quoted by Thomas Bray in 1700 when seeking public support for his plan of a Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, the same Newfoundland throughout the eighteenth century became an exception to the SPG design of establishing within a short time self-supporting parishes in the colonies. In 1764 there were two sPG-supported clergymen in Newfoundland: Rev. Edward Langman,44 a St John's veteran minister, and Rev. James Balfour,45 a convert from Scotch Presbyterianism, who was stationed in Trinity. Although Governor Palliser was greatly responsible for the retarded colonization of Newfoundland during the eighteenth century, he considered the presence of religion a controlling mechanism for pacifying the masses and was thus not opposed to a minister in the most populous region of Newfoundland. In Labrador he encouraged the Moravian mission among the Inuit for similar reasons, so that the natives would not interfere with the trade in southern Labrador.46 In 1764, the year in which a church was being built in Harbour Grace, Palliser may very well have had the Conception Bay area in mind when he observed that the inhabitants of Newfoundland "live as mere savages without religion, without marrying or christening their children ... who spend the Lord's Day in idleness and

61 Laurence Coughlan and Methodism in Newfoundland debauchery, every one living as he likes."47 The call for a third minister, to serve the Conception Bay communities, followed a predictable pattern: private subscription for the building of a church and the maintenance of a minister by the merchants and inhabitants. Not common, however, was that the religious initiative came from a Calvinistic dissenter. It explains, however, the subsequent choice of minister: Rev. Laurence Coughlan. ANGLICAN PRIEST AND REVIVALIST IN N E W F O U N D L A N D

Coughlaris stay in Newfoundland can be reconstructed from his correspondence with the SPG, his Account of the Work of God, and Wesley's, Coughlan's, and Stretton's letters, as well as the official Colonial Office and magistracy records from Newfoundland. Although he arrived there early in the summer of 1766, he was back in England already in December with a petition "of the inhabitants of Harbour Grace, Carbonear and parts adjacent in the Bay of Conception" requesting support from the SPG because of the failure of the summer fishery.48 At its general meeting of 19 December 1766, the SPG decided to appoint Coughlan "missionary at Harbour Grace and Carbonear with a salary of 50 £ annually" and advanced him half a year's salary.49 According to the letters sent to London, the missionary fulfilled his duties with great care and with self-proclaimed betterment of public morals. He baptized, married, buried, and visited his parishioners, preached even in Gaelic to the Roman Catholics on Saturdays, enumerated the people in Conception Bay, and recorded his statistics in the annual Notitia.*0 In October 1769, he could write to the SPG: "Since my coming to the Bay, drunkenness and profane swearing with sabbath-breaking is very much done away. Great numbers come to church constantly."61 He established a charity school in a building erected by the community, which in 1771 had seventy pupils and was served by several schoolmasters during Coughlan's stay.52 There were also chapels established in nearby Carbonear and Blackhead, staffed - whenever Coughlan could not visit there - by local lay people. Probably that same year he was also appointed one of two justices of the peace, following a practice among the Newfoundland clergy since the time of John Jones, missionary to Bonavista, in the i72os.53 While the letters to the SPG, which listed a steady increase in Anglican communicants, left the impression of normalcy, trouble was nevertheless brewing in Harbour Grace. In July 1770, Governor Byron ordered Coughlaris original subscribers to pay their minister the stipend they had promised but neglected to pay.54 The dissatisfaction

6a

Methodism in Newfoundland

of these subscribers, the principal merchants and planters in Conception Bay, came into the open in a court case against Coughlan by the Roman Catholic merchant Hugh Roberts. Besides Coughlan's uncompromising moral demands, this case exhibited a growing alienation between the merchant elite and Coughlan's evangelical flock.55 The religious polemic that surfaces in the depositions is directed against the manifestations of popular piety and displays a considerable unease over their social consequences. Coughlan was accused of having "appoint'd illiterate People to hold meetings at Private Houses" and, guided by a sectarian spirit, was said to have declared "Publickly that no Person whatever should be admitt'd to the Holy Sacrament but such as constantly Attend the Nocturnal Meetings of his deputed Curates & Submitt'd themselves to be examin'd by them one of whom is a very illiterate Fellow a Common Fisherman that many People have been debarr'd from going to that Ordinance as they would not pass under such a scrutiny ... "x To the accuser Roberts, Coughlan's religious conduct was so reprehensible and irregular that he asked the governor to "represent to the Laudable Society for probagating [sic] the Gospel what an improper Person they have sent us, who we cannot think is known to them." Nearly all the merchants who had originally pledged their support for Coughlan now declared themselves for Roberts, stating "that we all are Sufferers in many respects through the said Lawce Coghlan & that he is a very unfitt Person for a Justice of the Peace as well as a Missionary, being Ignorant of the Laws of his Country & a Person of no Education, &: pray that he may be Silendd or remov'd."57 Coughlan, although denying successfully all charges against him, including the one of religious favouritism, had to admit his sectarian ethical impulse, that he had "Sometimes advis'd the Communicants to go to the said Meetings and said he had rather give the Communion to them than to those that did not meet; but never yet den^d one person for that reason."58 The court case before a naval surrogate of the governor ended with no conviction of Coughlan but, on 21 October 1771, Governor Byron directed his justice of the peace "for the quiet of the ... Place" to "Deliver up his Commission."59 While performing his duties as an Anglican clergyman, Coughlan also sought to preach his religion of the heart and organize interested individuals into small groups, the door-to-door evangelism and classes he was familiar with since his Methodist itinerancy. After little initial success, the revival eventually took place both within his own church and in the small gatherings. "Some prayed aloud in the Congregation; others praised aloud, and declared what God had done for their Souls: Nor was this only at their private Meetings, now and

63 Laurence Coughlan and Methodism in Newfoundland

then, but also in the great Congregations."60 Once the revival had started, the intensity of the religious manifestations surprised and even alarmed Coughlan and increased his doubts about the solidity of the experiences. They manifested themselves in private and public meetings with great "noise," so that "under almost every Sermon and Exhortation some were cut to the Heart, and others rejoiced in loud Songs of Praises."61 Coughlan himself observed that the length of preaching and instruction preceding this revival was a distinguishing mark from other revivals, especially the ones in which he had participated in England and Ireland. THIS Work began in a very remarkable Manner; not common, as in England, Scotland, or Ireland. We find the Revival of Religion in England (which has been carried on for above Thirty Years) began soon after the Gospel came to the Parts where it had been preached, but this differs somewhat; for the Gospel was preached in Newfoundland near three Years before there was the least Appearance of any Awakening.62

Coughlan's initial discouragement led to his attempt in 1768 to return to the Methodist itinerancy, but this was promptly thwarted by Wesley's refusal to have Coughlan rejoin the Wesleyan fold.63 One reason for the three-year duration before the onset of the revival seems to have been the religious state of the people, many of whom lacked the rudimentary forms of religion and needed to be prepared religiously for a revival. This is somewhat similar to the situation described by Hoskins in Old Perlican, Trinity Bay, where a basic familiarity with religion had to take place before the need for subjective holiness was perceived as existentially relevant.54 An added factor may also have been the different role expectations among his hearers, who perceived Coughlan as a regular Anglican priest but not as a revivalist. Coughlan, who played both roles, may have had difficulties in eliciting the appropriate response to his revivalist message because his mission in Newfoundland was initially understood exclusively in terms of his Anglican ministry. His position as Anglican priest and SPG missionary also distinguished him significantly from his American and Nova Scotian Methodist counterparts and prevented him from organizing outright an independent society. Coughlan's effectiveness as a revivalist can, in my judgment, be best understood by the relevance and simplicity of his message: a turning away from vice or religious indifference and formality to a life of virtue and personal commitment under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Hell-fire sermons and deathbed conversions provided the stark

A N

A C C O U N T OF THE

W O R K OF GOD, I n

Newfoundland^ North-America^ In a Series of L E T T E R S, To which are prefixed a few

CHOICE EXPERIENCES; Some of which were taken from the Lips of Perfons, who died triumphantly in the FAITH. O come hither, and hearken, all ye thai fear God; and I ivt/l tell you ivbat he bath donefor my Soul. To which are added, fome excellent Sentiments, extracted from the Writings of an eminent Divine.

Humbly Dedicated to the Right Honourable The C O U N T E S S of H U N T I N G D O N , By the Rev. L. COUGHLAN* Late Miffionary to the Society for propagating the Gofpel in Foreign Parts, at Harbour-Grace, and Carbonear, in Conception Bay, Newfoundland, and nowMinifter of Cumberland-Street Chapel, London, L O N D O N : Printed by W. G I L B E R T , No, 13•, Cree-Church-Lane, Leadenhall-Strttt; and Sold at Cumberland-Street Chapel. 1776.

Title page of Coughlaris An Account of the Work of God in Newfoundland, 1776. Courtesy of the Centre for Newfoundland Studies, Memorial University, Newfoundland.

65 Laurence Coughlan and Methodism in Newfoundland

relief against which the saving message of Christ was preached.63 The subspecies of deathbed conversions provided the minister and his lay helpers with powerful occasions for preaching, and the genre was still exploited religiously in Coughlan's Account of the Work of God, where he contrasts the peacefulness and ease of the believer's death with the terror of the unrepentant sinner facing death.66 The conversion experiences recorded by Coughlan's hearers provide only mediate access to the inner world of the converted, since the biblical and liturgical language with which these experiences are expressed hides more than it reveals. Several converts describe themselves as individuals who attended church regularly but did not perceive the need for a conversion. The need for a religious and moral change was eventually felt as a result of Coughlan's preaching. Next, there took place almost invariably a prolonged personal struggle under an increasingly heavy consciousness of guilt. Finally, the individuals were freed from their burden of sin and guilt in a liberating dramatic experience, the type of religious change that William James calls a "sudden conversion."67 Conversion usually followed a religious or personal crisis but the situations in which this liberation took place varied greatly: during private or public prayer, during public or private Bible reading, during or after the partaking of the Eucharist, in a fearful personal experience, or even during illness or on the deathbed. But the removal of sin and guilt was not necessarily the final stage in the conversion experience. Often there followed profound doubt about the authenticity and finality of the conversion, which was overcome only gradually in a series of experiential confirmations.68 The conversion of the sinful self is, even if only a few times, described theologically as a spiritual rebirth, In the deathbed experience of a prototypical sinner, Coughlan noted that the man during his life had protested against Coughlan's unorthodox Anglicanism, "that he was for the Church, the Church, and that he was sure the Clergy in England did not preach up, that People must go to Hell, except they were born again ... "69 Also, Coughlan's co-worker, John Stretton found objectionable in Balfour's preaching that the successor of Coughlan in Harbour Grace spoke "not one word of the New Birth ... "70 The time when this revival initially struck is noteworthy. It was in the midst of winter, a seasonal characteristic shared with Hoskins's revival in Old Perlican.71 But the relation of seasonality and revival can best be explained by the seasonal character of the Newfoundland economy, which in the ice-free time saw the entire community employed in the fishery. Only the winter provided opportunities for

66 Methodism in Newfoundland

a sustained evangelistic and missionary activity among the Newfoundland inhabitants. Stretton observed that Coughlan held meetings "in the winter season, for that is the only time they have to spare."72 It seems that women, particularly young women, predominated among those who became converts.73 Sometimes the previous conversion of a family member was a factor. The societal impact of gender becomes clear when one remembers that the ratio of women in the total population of Conception Bay was one in ten. What is characteristic for the later revivals of Hoskins and William Black, and of revivalism in general - the significant involvement of children and young people - does not seem to have been true of Coughlan's revival. From the accounts, I cannot ascertain a single conversion of a child or an adolescent. This is especially remarkable when one considers that half of the total population were children. Coughlan's appeal was not directed to the upper crust of Conception Bay society, although he was effective even among the women in the family of his principal opponent, the Harbour Grace magistrate Charles Garland, whose sister experienced a deathbed conversion.74 But, generally, Coughlan's converts were those whom he describes in contemporary pietistic idiom as using "the artless Language of precious souls",75 and for whom he had much genuine affection.715 The ameliorative effects upon the lower classes were significant and unsettling for the merchants, who had kept them in semi-servitude by a truck system that exchanged rum and supplies for fish caught during the fishing season. The heart-felt religion of Coughlan's revival enabled converted fishermen to break free from their alcohol addiction and achieve a greater sense of self-worth and financial and personal independence. Coughlan reverses the economic deprivation theory of religion when he observes shrewdly that before they received the Gospel, they spent much of their Time in Rioting and Drunkenness; but when the Word took place in their Hearts, many of them not only got out of Debt, but also had to spare. Here I would remark, how groundless is that Report, that those People who grow religious grow poor, or turn Beggers."

In explaining the revival, these characteristics can only with much violation of the evidence be exploited in favour of a narrow economic or demographic reductionism. While one could argue that the population dynamics of Conception Bay, especially the influx and settlement of the Irish Roman Catholics, produced insecurity or an identity crisis for the established English settlers and prepared them for other-worldly solutions and re-orientations, the lack of a response

67 Laurence Coughlan and Methodism in Newfoundland

specifically reflecting such a change among those most affected makes such an explanation unlikely. Unlike Black's revivalist tour of 1791, which took place in the midst of a serious economic depression, economic reasons yield little when attempting to explain the onset and dynamic of Coughlan's revival. All in all, the revival was "religious" in nature. It provided the converted with subjective certainty of liberation from sin and guilt, once such liberation had become - through the preaching and pastoral efforts of Coughlan — established as an authentic and desirable solution to the human plight of the residents. It also conveyed concrete moral, emotional, and aesthetic rewards resulting from a life of holiness. For the individual who underwent a conversion experience, the human horizon of meaning was not so much an ethnically changing society as it was a precarious outport existence, which now could be endured with fellow believers, illuminated by ultimate meanings, and grounded in ontological certainty. The notoriety of the minister and the psychological manifestations of the conversions seem to have been a factor in the spread of the revival throughout Conception Bay in that they attracted the curious from outside of Harbour Grace. These people, in turn, took Coughlan's salvific message into their communities in a kind of inverted itinerancy. Coughlan's ministerial charge, but especially the geographical realities of outport-bound Newfoundland, placed severe limits on the mobility of the preacher.78 Coughlan attracted primarily local fishermen and small planters. The numerical strength of the converted, who actively supported Coughlan and met in groups, does not seem to have been large. Stretton may have slightly underestimated the strength, but he generally reflected the true situation when, in October 1770, one year after the revival started, he spoke of "a few professors scattered through the different Bays, that were awakened by the labours of Mr. Coughlan ... "79 In Harbour Grace, Coughlan formed the men and women into separate classes without organizing them into a formal Methodist society. Presumably, the establishment of a regular "society" during Coughlan's tenure as Anglican priest and SPG missionary would have led to his immediate removal from the ministry. The formation of a Methodist society took place after his departure along the lines of Wesley's societies and rules, but with little lasting success. The numerical strength of the new society in Harbour Grace shortly after Coughlan's departure was thirty.80 According to the eyewitness accounts, the social cohesion of private assemblies in the form of "classes" seems to have been decisive for the forging of a religious identity. Coughlan acknowledged in his

68 Methodism in Newfoundland

1772 letter to Wesley, "My preaching in this land would do but little good, were it not for our little meetings."81 These weekly meetings became even more important after the missionary's departure from the island.88 They were also a thorn in the eyes of merchants and other community leaders in that they established a communal identity inaccessible to those in power and outside the realm of traditional mechanisms for achieving social control. Only the leadership in the movement was recruited from among the merchants and well-to-do planters: the Harbour Grace merchant John Stretton and the convert from Roman Catholicism Arthur Thomey, as well as the Freshwater native Thomas Pottle. Coughlan and Thomas Pottle, it should be mentioned, if only in passing, are also credited with having converted while in Newfoundland Pierre Le Sueur and Jean Tantin, two traders from Jersey who eventually introduced Methodism to the Channel Islands.83 Coughlan's departure from Newfoundland in 1773 followed a further petition by his enemies to the governor to remove him after he had disqualified a prominent merchant as godfather of a child on moral grounds.84 Governor Shuldham forwarded the merchant complaints resulting from this dispute to the SPG, and Coughlan, upon his return from Newfoundland, appeared on 15 October 1773 before the Society and resigned his mission.85 Already in November 1772, he had approached Wesley with a Methodist credo and a desire to preach as an itinerant among Methodists in Ireland.86 But when Wesley remained as uncooperative in re-admitting Coughlan to the Wesleyan fold as he had been in 1768, Coughlan became a successful if somewhat unsettled preacher in Lady Huntingdon's Connexion, with appointments in London, Norwich, and other places. In 1776, at the height of the Calvinistic controversy, he again chose sides against Wesley, by dedicating his Account of the Work of God to his benefactress Lady Huntingdon. In April of the same year, Coughlan's "Heart [was] in Continual Pain about my dear Children in Newfoundland . . . " and he made plans to return once more to the island.87 But these plans do not seem to have materialized, and he remained a preacher in the Connexion. Coughlan's last ministerial position seems to have been Holywell Mount Chapel in London. A song book, published in 1779 by Coughlan for use in this chapel, and a mezzotint portrait, dated 20 April 1781, testify to his ministerial presence in this chapel belonging to Lady Huntingdon's Connexion.88 The final word comes from a letter by John Wesley of 25 February 1785 to Coughlan's former co-worker Stretton in Harbour Grace and still reflects some of the early tensions.

69 Laurence Coughlan and Methodism in Newfoundland The last time I saw Mr. Coughlan he was ill in body but in a blessed state of mind. He was utterly broken to pieces, full of tears and contrition for his past unfaithfulness. Not long after I went out of town God removed him to a better place.89

NOTES

1 See Frederick Jones, "William Peaseley," Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1974), 3: 504. 2 William Peaseley to the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG), 27 October 1746; u[nited]spc Letters, Series B, vol. 14, fol. 83-4 (microfilm 95870/9, Centre for Newfoundland Studies, Memorial University, Nfld., microfilm #471). 3 The unnamed follower of Whitefield may very well have been one of William Pepperrell's returning Louisbourg crusaders. The French stronghold had been captured in June of 1745 (see Byron Fairchild, "Sir William Pepperrell," Dictionary, 3: 505—9). Pepperrell, who remained in Louisbourg until May of 1746, was accompanied by the fanatic aged Congregational revivalist Samuel Moody (Alfred G. Bailey, "Samuel Moody," Dictionary, 3: 470-1). It was George Whitefield himself who had helped to raise Pepperrell's American army and had provided the motto Nil Desperandum, Christo Duce for the crusade, preached a sermon to the departing forces, and urged them on in messages when the siege looked less than promising. See Arnold A. Dallimore, George Whitefield: The Life and Times of the Great Evangelist of the Eighteenth-Century Revival (Edinburgh: Banner of Truth 1980), 2: 201—3. 4 T. Watson Smith, History of the Methodist Church within the Territories Embraced in the Late Conference of Eastern British America, including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, F*rince Edward Island and Bermuda (Halifax: Methodist Bookroom 1877), i: 41-58, 59-80. 5 William Wilson, Newfoundland and Its Missionaries (Cambridge, Mass.: Dakin & Metcalf 1866), 134-60, 175-9. 6 The exceptions are Arthur E. Kewley ("The First Fifty Years of Methodism in Newfoundland, 1765—1815: Was It Authentic Wesleyanism?," Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society, 19 [March/June 1977], no. 1-2: 6—26) and Patrick O'Flaherty, ("Laurence Coughlan," Dictionary, 4: 175-7)7 On Drumsna and the Coughlan-Strawbridge connection see C.H. Crookshank, Wesley and his Times, Vol. i of History of Methodism in Ireland (Belfast: R.S. Allen 1885), 100—1, and Ruthella Mory Bibbins, How Methodism Came: The Beginnings of Methodism in England and America

70 Methodism in Newfoundland

8

9

10

11 12 13 14 15

16

17 18

(Baltimore, Maryland: The American Methodist Historical Society of the Baltimore Annual Conference 1945), 25-30. William Crook, Ireland and the Centenary of American Methodism (London: Hamilton, Adams; Dublin: R. Yoakley 1866) 213. Crook relies largely on Crookshank for the early history of Irish Methodism but fills in local information where available, unfortunately without adequate documentation. "Account of Mr. John Murlin," Arminian Magazine 2 (1779): 534; cf. "The Life of Mr. John Murlin," in The Lives of the Early Methodist Preachers, 5th edition, ed. John Jackson (London: Wesleyan Methodist BookRoom n.d.), 3: 298 and Crookshank, History of Methodism in Ireland, i: 122. John Wesley, 29 December 1758 [journal]; Wesley to Matthew Lowes, 6 March 1759, in John Telford, ed., The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., 8 vols (1931; reprint, London: Epworth Press 1960), 4: 56—7; Coughlan to Wesley, 26 January 1762, Arminian 4 (1781): 336. For an account of the eventful voyage, see Thomas Tobias to John Wesley, 3 October 1760, Arminian, 3 (1780): 391-2. C.H. Crookshank, History of Methodism in Ireland,i: 149—50. Coughlan to Wesley, 26 January and 12 April 1762, Arminian, 4 (1781): 336-8. John Wesley to Charles Wesley, 6 March 1763, in Telford, Letters, 4: 204. The literature on "Christian Perfection" and its range of understandings in early Methodism is vast. See especially Wesley's own Plain Account of Christian Perfection (London: R. Hawes 1777) and, among the scholarly literature, the study of H. Lindstrom, Wesley and Sanctification: A Study in the Doctrine of Salvation (1946; reprint, n.p.: Francis Asbury Press 1980). Cf., for example, Telford, Letters, 4: 196—7; see also the case of George Bell, as summarized in L. Tyerman, The Life and Times of the Rev. John Wesley, M.A., Founder of the Methodists (New York: Harper 1872), 2: 45961. Coughlan to Wesley, 26 January and 12 April 1762, Arminian, 4 (1781): 336-8. Laurence Coughlan, An Account of The Work of God, in Newfoundland, North-America, In a Series of Letters, To which are prefixed a few Choice Experiences; Some of which were taken from the Lips of Persons, who died triumphantly in the Faith. To which are added, some excellent Sentiments, extracted from the Writings of an eminent Divine. Humbly Dedicated to the Right Honourable The Countess of Huntingdon (London: W. Gilbert 1776).

71 Laurence Coughlan and Methodism in Newfoundland 19 Coughlan to Selina the Countess of Huntingdon, 13 January 1774 and 15 March 1776, Lady Huntingdon Archive, Cheshunt College (through the kind loan of Archivist Edwin Welch). 20 Coughlan to Wesley, Harbour Grace, 4 November 1772, Arminian 8 (i785):49°-2. 21 Wesley to Stretton, 25 February 1785, in Telford, Letters, 7:260-61. 22 Hoskins to Wesley, Old Perlican, Newfoundland, 15 October 1781, in "An Account of Mr. John Hoskins: in a Letter to the Rev. John Wesley" Arminian, 8 (1785): 34-7, 85-8, 143—6, 194-6. 23 Coughlan to Selina the Countess of Huntingdon, 13 January 1774. 24 Ibid., 15 March 1776. 25 A. Barrett Sackett, "John Wesley and the Greek Orthodox Bishop," Proceedings of the Wesley Historical Society 38/3 (December 1971): 81-7; 38/4 (May 1972): 97—102. Sackett reconstructs the events and refutes the claim by George Tsoumas ("Methodism and Bishop Erasmus," The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 2 [Christmas 1956]: 61—73) that Erasmus was no legitimate Greek bishop. 26 Wesley to the printer of the St James Chronicle, 10 February 1765, in Telford, Letters, 4: 289-90. 27 John Wesley to Robert Lowth, Bishop of London, 10 August 1780, in Telford, Letters, 7: 31. See Tyerman, Life and Times, 3: 176; Wesley to William Black, 19 March 1788, in Telford, Letters, 8: 48. 28 Wesley to the printer of the St James Chronicle, in Telford, Letters 4, 290. 29 "Late Eighteenth-Century Dissent in Surrey," Transactions of the Congregational Historical Society 17/4 (November 1955): 128-35, 12930 Samuel, Greatheed, "The Life of the Rev. John Jones, Late of St. John's, Newfoundland," Evangelical Magazine (November 1800): 441-2. 31 Langman to SPG, 6 November 1764 SPG Letters, Rhodes House Library, Series B6, No. 161, fol. 2—3. (Hereafter cited by the appropriate bundles as "B6" and "PRE," following the abbreviations adopted by the List and Index Society.) The church's structure came pre-fabricated from Boston. 32 George Davis (c. 1725-89), like his father John Davi(e)s and grandfather George Davi(y)s (the family came originally from Topsham, Devon), was a merchant in Carbonear, Conception Bay, Newfoundland. Elizabeth, his first wife, had donated to Coughlan's chapel in Carbonear a Church of England prayer book and metrical psalter. Davis's second wife, Mary Branscombe (i758?-i838), was a Methodist. Davis traded with Poole and London, and in 1765 had a London address (Prescot Street [Goodman Fields - by Whitechapel]). Davis was associated with the Pike (he began his career as an agent of Pike & Green in 1757) and Garland families. On Davis, see Earl William Kennedy,

72 Methodism in Newfoundland

33 34 35

36

37 38 39

40 41

42

"Interim Report on the (Presumed) Family of GEORGE DAVIS (Died 1789), Merchant, of Carbonear, Poole and London," unpublished paper, Orange City, Iowa, 1980, esp. 4 and 8. Government Records (Newfoundland), Department of the Colonial Secretary, Letter books, Outgoing Correspondence [hereafter GNZ/IA], 4: 237—8. Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador. George Davis and George Welch to the Earl of Dartmouth, 16 April 1766, Fulham Papers, Lambeth Palace, London. William Kingsbury, A Discourse Delivered at Poole, Dorset, July 6, 1804, Immediately after the Interment of the Rev. Edward Ashburner, M.A. ...to which are Added, Memoirs of his Life, Labors, and Departure (Southampton: T. Baker 1804), esp. 21-38; W. Densham and J. Ogle, The Story of the Congregational Churches of Dorset (Bournemouth: W. Mate 1899), 194203; Derek Beamish, John Hillier, and H.F. V. Johnstone, Mansions and Merchants of Poole and Dorset (Poole: Poole Historical Trust 1976), 6271; Bernard C. Short, Poole: The Romance of its Later History (London and Aylesbury: Hunt, Barnard [1932]), 98-104; J.S.S. Armour, "Religious Dissent in St. John's," (M.A. thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland 1988), 42-6. On Dartmouth's association with the countess see the references in [Aaron Crossley Hobart Seymour], The Life and Times of Selina Countess of Huntingdon, 2 vols (London: William Edward Painter 1839-40), esp. 2: 32-7. See also the other relevant passages in the index to the Countess of Huntingdon biography, furnished by Francis M. Jackson and privately printed by the Wesley Historical Society (p. 7). [Seymour], Life of Countess of Huntingdon, i: 370; on Newton's ordination see ibid., 2: 36—7. Earl of Dartmouth to Bishop of London, 18 April 1766, Fulham Papers, Lambeth Palace, London. For this and the following see The Bishop of London's Act Book, 1761-65 (Guildhall Library, MS. 9548); see also Fulham Papers, Lambeth Palace, London. The Lambeth Palace record indicates that Coughlan's ordination papers were received on 11 April 1766. Fulham Papers, Lambeth Palace Library, microfilm, reel 21: 221-2. Marriage Register, St Giles without Cripplegate, 1762, 120 (London: Guildhall Library, microfilm 6421/1); also, Marriage Allegations in London, 1762 [A-L] (London: Guildhall Library, microfilm 10091/107). I am much indebted to Mrs Morgan, Ruislip, Middlesex, for having found and copied the information on Coughlan's marriage, as well as for securing literature not easily available to the North American researcher. For literature on the material in this section, see Keith Matthews, Lectures on the History of Newfoundland,1500-1850 (St John's: Breakwater

73 Laurence Coughlan and Methodism in Newfoundland

43

44 45 46

47

48 49 50

51 52

1988); C. Grant Head, Eighteenth Century Newfoundland(Toronto: McClelland and Stewart 1976); A.H. McLintock, The Establishment of Constitutional Government in Newfoundland, 1783-1832: A Study of Retarded Colonization (Toronto: Longmans 1941); and W. Gordon Handcock, So longe as there comes noe women: Origins of English Settlement in Newfoundland(St John's: Breakwater 1989). For this and the following information, see Hans Rollmann, "Religious Enfranchisement and Roman Catholics in Eighteenth-Century Newfoundland," in Religion and Identity: The Experience of Irish and Scottish Catholics in Atlantic Canada, ed. Terrence Murphy and Cyril J. Byrne (St. John's: Jesperson Press 1987), 34-52; Hans Rollmann and Bonita Power, "Bonavista's 'Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water': The First School in Newfoundland," Humanities Association of Canada Bulletin/Bulletin de I'associatim canadienne des humanite's, 17/1 (April 1989): 27-33; and Hans Rollmann, "The Colonial Episcopate of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland Missions," Frontiers Then and Now: The Canadian Anglican Episcopate Ij8j-ig8j (The Archbishop Owen Memorial Lectures 1987) (Toronto: Anglican Book Centre 1989), 26-32. Frederick Jones, "Edward Langman," Dictionary, 4: 437-8. Frederick Jones, "James Balfour," Dictionary, 5: 52-3. William Whiteley, "The Establishment of the Moravian Mission in Labrador and British Policy, 1763—83," Canadian Historical Review (March iQ 6 4)45 /l: 29-50. Public Record Office, London: Colonial Office (Newfoundland), original correspondence 194, vol. 17 [hereafter cited as c.o.], "Palliser's 'Remarks on the Instructions of 1764,'" quoted in Jacob Parsons, "The Origin and Growth of Newfoundland Methodism: 1765—1855," (M.A. thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland 1964), 15. [Petition of the People of Harbour Grace and Carbonear] to SPG, 30 October 1766, B6/i66. General Meeting of the SPG in Foreign Parts, 19 December 1766 (SPG Journal, Rhodes House Library). See Coughlan's letters from Harbour Grace to the SPG of 28 October 1767 (86/170), 15 October 1768 (86/175), J 3 October 1769 (86/179), 9 November 1770 (86/184), 15 November 1770 (86/187), 3 December 1771 (86/194), and 26 October 1772 (pRE/6i). Coughlan to SPG, 13 October 1769, 86/179. See especially the communications regarding schoolmaster John Griggs, starting with Governor Byron's recommendation of Griggs, 26 October 1771, St John's (B6/i8g), and Griggs' own letters to the SPG from Harbour Grace, 4 November 1771 (36/191), 30 October 1772 (86/195), and 12 October 1773 (pRE/62).

74 Methodism in Newfoundland 53 See Rollmann and Power, "Bonavista's 'Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water'," 27-33. 54 GN2/1A: 4: 237-8. 55 The Surrogate Court records of Harbour Grace stayed in Newfoundland until the 1960$ but were then sold privately and are now unavailable. Fortunately, the case of Laurence Coughlan was extracted by the late Anglican rector of St Paul's, Harbour Grace, Rev. EG. Kirby, and appended to a talk given by Warwick Smith to the Newfoundland Historical Society in 1942. See Warwick Smith, "Rev. Laurence Coughlan: An Address," typescript of a talk given on 19 March 1942 (Newfoundland Historical Society mimeograph in the author's possession), and cf. with the less accurate but independent transcription in the notebook of Frank McCrae (unpaginated, 26 lined notebook pages, Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador, PS/15). Further documentation of the case can be found in letters from Gov. John Byron to Charles Garland and Gov. John Byron to Coughlan, GNS/IA: 5: 1771-4, 5-6, Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador. On Coughlan's own assessment of the situation.see his Account, 14, and his letter of 3 December 1771 to the SPG, 86/194. 56 Deposition of Hugh Roberts, Harbour Grace, 26 August 1771, in Smith, "Rev. Laurence Coughlan: An Address," 2. 57 Ibid. 58 Deposition of Coughlan in ibid., 4. 59 Gov. John Byron to Charles Garland, GNa/iA, 6. 60 Coughlan, Account, 9—11. 61 Ibid., 12. 62 Ibid., 7. 63 Wesley to Coughlan, 27 August 1768, in Telford, Letters, 5: 101-3. 64 Hoskins to Wesley, Old Perlican, 15 October 1781, Arminian, 8 (1785): 26. 65 Wilson, Newfoundland,138—9. 66 Coughlan, Account, 20-4. 67 William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience (New York: The Modern Library 1936), 213-53. 68 The preceding typology is based on the "Experiences" and testimonial "Letters" appended to Coughlan's own "Account" in Account, 25-168. 69 Ibid., 22. 70 Stretton to Eliza Bennis, Harbour Grace, 30 November 1777, in Christian Correspondence, Being A Collection of Letters, Written By the Late Rev. John Wesley. And Several Methodist Preachers, In Connection with him. To the Late Mrs. Eliza: Bennis, with her Answer Chiefly Explaining and Enforcing the Doctrine of Sanctification First Published from the Originals (Philadelphia: B. Graves or Thomas Bennis 1809), 236.

75 Laurence Coughlan and Methodism in Newfoundland 71 Coughlan, Account, 16; Hoskins to Wesley, 15 October 1781, in "An Account of Mr. John Hoskins," 86. 73 Stretton to Bennis, Carbonear, 29 October 1770, in Christian Correspondence, 200. 73 The majority of Coughlaris correspondents in Account are women. 74 Coughlan, Account, 31. 75 Ibid., B/verso. On the term '^artless" as a predicate, which describes both the simplicity of the Methodist converts and their low standing in society, see Michael R. Watts, The Dissenters (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1978), 406-21. 76 Coughlan admired the self-reliance and practical abilities of the native Newfoundlanders, whom he described as "People of a very bright Genius." See Coughlan, Account, 18—19. 77 Ibid., 15. 78 Ibid., 14 and 16 on the charge of "madness." 79 Stretton to Bennis, Carbonear, 29 October 1770, in Christian Correspondence, 200. 80 Stretton to Bennis, Harbour Grace, 14 November 1775, in Christian Correspondence, 210—11. 81 Coughlan to Wesley, Harbour Grace, 4 November 1773, in Arminian, 8 (1785): 490-282 Arthur Thomey to Coughlan, 12 January 1775, in Account, 141-4; Stretton to Bennis, Harbour Grace, 30 June 1777, in Christian Correspondence, 224-5. 83 Peter Le Sueur, "A Short Account of Peter Le Sueur, of Jersey: By his Eldest Son," Methodist Magazine 43 (November 1820), 801-8; Matthieu Lelievre, Histoire du Mtthodisme dans les Isles de la Manche (Paris: Librairie Evangelique; London: Theophilus Woolmer 1885), 155—72, esp. 157-61. 84 See the c.o. 195 Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador court records of Coughlaris response to Fiott's charge against him of May 1772; see also the following SPG archival materials: Charles Garland to Gov. Shuldham, Harbour Grace, 18 October 1773 (PRE/58); petition of Capt. Nicholas Fiott to Gov. Shuldham, Harbour Grace, n.d. (PRE/59); affidavits of Mary Martin and John Alcock, Harbour Grace, n.d. (pRE/6o). 85 SPG in Foreign Parts: The Journals, 1701-1850, microfilm #567, 19: 344-6 and 20: 49-50. 86 Coughlan to Wesley, 4 November 1772, Arminian 8 (1785): 490-2. 87 Coughlan to Countess of Huntingdon, Norwich, 16 April 1776 (Cheshunt College Archives). 88 See Lawrence Coughlan, A Select Collection of Psalms and Hymns, Extracted from Several Authors, and Published for the Use of the Congregation

76 Methodism in Newfoundland of Holywell Chapel. The Fifth Edition with an Appendix Enlarged. (London: W. Gilbert 1779). The mezzotint portrait (in the author's possession), which shows Coughlan in ministerial gown, was engraved and published by J. Jones in 1781 (from a now lost oil painting in an oval frame) and is listed in O'Donoghue, Catalogue of Engraved British Portraits Preserved in the Department of Prints and Drawings in the British Museum (London: British Museum 1908), i: 501. 89 Wesley to Stretton, 25 February 1785, in Telford, Letters, 7: 260-1. The tradition first recorded by Charles Atmore and subsequently repeated, according to which Coughlan, "while he was engaged in conversation with Mr. Wesley in his study, ... was seized with a paralytic stroke, and was thus suddenly taken to the paradise of God," is highly unlikely and may be a legend spun from the communication of Wesley to Stretton. (Charles Atmore, Methodist Memorial [Bristol: Richard Edwards 1801], 83).

Methodism in Nova Scotia

This page intentionally left blank

4 William Black, Henry Alline, and Nova Scotia's First Great Awakening GEORGE RAWLYK

George Orwell once perceptively observed that "he who controls the past controls the future." Historians create the past; they tell us what happened and why, and they impose on their readers their own unique framework for understanding the interplay of events and personalities in some bygone era. Historians, of course, create badly distorted versions of the past; they continue "to look in a glass darkly" - despite many of their protestations to the contrary. Their distorted versions, however, often become the so-called historical truth, and consequently they significantly shape the contours of emerging historiography and the actual writing of history. DURING THE PAST TWENTY-FIVE years or so, in the realm of Maritime religious historiography in general and the late eighteenth century in particular, a small group of historians, largely because of their prolific publishing, has thrust Henry Alline forward with such vigour that the Falmouth farmer-tanner-preacher has been transformed into what one New Brunswick scholar has called "the greatest 'Canadian' of the eighteenth century, the greatest Maritimer of any age and the most significant religious figure this country has yet produced."1 Obviously, some would argue that the late twentieth-century Allinites have succeeded brilliantly in controlling both the historical past and the hagiographic future. According to Tom Vincent, Alline has become, among other things, "a mythical larger-than-life protoBaptist who could leap tall Anglicans and Methodists at a single

8o Methodism in Nova Scotia

bound, a veritable Paul Bunyan of revival enthusiasm."2 Among those so-called "tall" Methodists that Alline effortlessly jumped over was William Black, Black (who was twelve years Alline's junior) was only of "average height," with, his most recent biographer has noted, "a round rosy face ... a benevolent smile and a sweet voice."3 A native of Yorkshire, Black had, in 1775, emigrated at the age of fourteen with his family to the Chignecto Isthmus region of Nova Scotia. Some fifteen years earlier, a twelve-year-old Henry Alline had emigrated with his family from New England to the Falmouth region of Nova Scotia. Alline was brought up in a strict Calvinist Congregational atmosphere, while Black was influenced by his parents' Yorkshire Arminian Methodism. In the early months of 1775, a few months before Black landed in Nova Scotia, Alline experienced a profound spiritual and psychological crisis - his "New Birth." Alline described the sudden transforming power of spiritual regeneration in his Journal. 0 the infinite condescension of God to a worm of the dust! for though my whole soul was filled with love, and ravished with a divine ecstasy beyond any doubts or fears, or thoughts of being then deceived, for I enjoyed a heaven on earth, and it seemed as if I were wrapped up in God.4

These emotionally charged words, it may be argued, would provide the cutting edge of his New Light gospel until his death in New Hampshire in early February 1784. Divine love, in the person of Jesus Christ, had "ravished" Alline to such an "ecstatic" extent that he viewed his own conversion experience as being the pattern set for all others and the "Great Awakening" norm. In 1779 William Black also experienced a traumatic "New Birth." The seventeen-year-old Black described his conversion in the following manner: We continued singing and praying about two hours, when it pleased the Lord to reveal his suitableness, ability and willingness to save me, so that I could cast my soul upon him with, - "I am thine and thou art mine," while our friends were singing, "My pardon I claim, For a sinner I am A Sinner believing in Jesus's name." 1 could then claim my interest in his blood, and lay fast hold on him as the hope set before me - the Lord my Righteousness. Instantly, my burden dropped off - my guilt was washed away — my condemnation was removed - a sweet peace and gladness were diffused abroad in my soul - my mourning was

81 Black, Alline, and Nova Scotia's First Great Awakening turned into joy, and my countenance, like Hannah's, told my deliverance, it was no more heavy. After returning public thanks, I went home praising God.5

As had been the case with Alline, Black was not satisfied with merely being converted. He desperately wanted to share his Arminian-Evangelical message with other Nova Scotians during the disorienting years of the American Revolution. Black preached his first sermon in the spring of 1781, and, after turning twenty-one on 10 November of the same year and feeling that he was now free of his family responsibilities, he began to itinerate. "From the outset, apparently," Goldwin French has pointed out, "Black was not simply an itinerant evangelist but a Methodist preacher."6 For less than two years, the itinerating careers of Black and Alline overlapped in Nova Scotia. The two evangelists had a great deal in common — far more than may have separated them. Both, it should be stressed, considered the emotional "New Birth" to be the central Christian experience. Both, moreover, were powerful opponents of Calvinism and both, despite what some of Alline's disciples might have practised and preached, were obsessed with living the simple, holy, and Christ-centred Christian ascetic life. In the period of 1781 to 1783, both men were widely perceived as being unusually gifted charismatic preachers who were able to communicate to their often huge congregations what many considered to be a divinely inspired message. They resonated, in a profound sense, with those hundreds who crowded to hear them, offering them emotional release, simple answers to often complex problems, and an almost palpable sense of renewed communitas. Alline and Black also, of course, had their differences. In his view of the creation, the perseverance of the saints, and the atonement, among other doctrines, Alline was certainly not orthodox, and Black always underscored this fact. Furthermore, Alline was a New England Planter, with a Yankee twang in his voice and an American way of seeing much of reality. Black was a Yorkshireman; anyone who heard him speak realized both this and his deep commitment to Great Britain, its institutions, and its heroes. It is noteworthy that those Nova Scotians who actually heard Alline and Black in the latter years of the American Revolution, and who recorded their impressions, believed that the two evangelists, in fact, preached the "same gospel." According to Simeon Perkins, the Liverpool merchant, general factotum, and diarist, who was not a New Light enthusiast, the four sermons of Alline's that he heard in November 1782 were "Very Good," "very ingenious," "Very Good,"

82

Methodism in Nova Scotia

and "Very Well."7 In fact, Perkins did not write one negative word about Alline. On 16 February 1783, Perkins expressed about Alline what he knew the Liverpool consensus to be. Mr. Alline Preached both parts of the day and Evening. A number of People made a relation of their Experiences after the Meeting was concluded & Expressed Great Joy & comfort in what god had done for them. Mr Alline made a long Speech, Very Sensible, Advising all Sorts of People to a Religious Life, & gave many directions for their outward walk. This is a wonderful day & Evening. Never did I behold Such an Appearance of the Spirit of God moving upon the people Since the time of the Great Religious Stir in New England many years ago.8

It is clear that, for Perkins, Alline's revival had all the same "Appearance" of New England's First Great Awakening. This is the connection that Perkins and many of his Yankee contemporaries would make not only in the 17805 but right into the nineteenth century. A little more than three months after Alline had left Liverpool for the last time, Black arrived. Perkins noted in his diary on Wednesday, 28 May 1783, Mr. Black, a Methodist or New light preacher belonging somewhere up the Bay of Fundy Arrives from Halifax and Preaches at the Meeting House at Evening.9

On 29 May, Black preached twice; "The People that followed Mr. Alline," Perkins observed, "seem very fond of him."10 On Tuesday, 3 June, Perkins described "the Very extraordinary Stur among his hearers, great Crying-out etc.,"11 and on Sunday, 22 June, he once again commented favourably on Black's preaching - "He performs very well."12 Soon after 22 June, Black left Liverpool only to return late in April 1784. By this time, largely because of forces beyond his control, Black confronted a serious split among Liverpool evangelicals - specifically between the New Light disciples of Alline and the Methodists. What is particularly noteworthy about Perkins's response to Alline and Black in 1782 and 1783 is that he was certain that they preached the same Evangelical gospel. The Yorkshire and New England residents of the Chignecto area evidently strongly agreed with this assessment in 1782, after Alline's first visit to the area. Alline's brother-in-law, John Payzant, who knew the area well, maintained that after Alline's first sojourn in the Chignecto "New Lights and Methodistfs] joined together."13 The Evangelical united front was shattered

83 Black, Alline, and Nova Scotia's First Great Awakening

soon after Alline left because of the Antinomian preaching of one of Alline's disciples, T.H. Chipman. As long as Alline was in the region, however, the New Light-Methodist coalition held together his powerful, charismatic personality providing the glue. Alline died in 1784 at the height of his career, leaving behind a remarkable literary and oral legacy. It is not surprising, therefore, that for his contemporaries, as well as for so many twentieth-century scholars, Alline's remarkable preaching career captured the essence of Nova Scotia's response to the American Revolution. He is the prism through which so much — perhaps too much — late eighteenthcentury Nova Scotia history is viewed. Black, on the other hand, probably reached the apex of his religious significance in the 17805 and experienced an inexorable decline of influence as the eighteenth century blurred into the nineteenth. When he died in Halifax on 8 September 1834, Black seemed to have been pushed firmly to the periphery of the province's religious life. The publication in 1839 °f his Memoir did little to add shape or substance to his legacy. Black had almost lived too long; the eighteenth-century Black was a powerful, charismatic preacher; the nineteenth-century Black seemed to be far too concerned with British order and respectability. In abandoning his New Light heritage, Black, in an ironic twist of historical development, significantly strengthened Alline's reputation as the "Whitefield of Nova Scotia." ALLINE AND BLACK RESPONDED to one another in radically different ways, and this helps to explain why twentieth-century scholars have treated them so differently. In his Journal, published originally in Boston in 1806, Alline never even mentioned Black by name. Alline first visited the Cumberland-Chignecto region in July 1781, and for almost six weeks he saw "Many sinners ... groaning under the burthen of their sins, and pleading for mercy, and for the blood of Christ with unspeakable agonies of soul."14 Often preaching three times a day, he noted that the "hearers were so numerous, that I was obliged to preach in the fields."15 Because of the "power of the Holy Ghost that was among the people,"16 Alline was able to persuade scores of Yorkshire Methodists and Yankee Congregationalists to join together to form a New Light church. On 16 August 1781, after visiting present-day Sackville, Alline noted in his Journal, This day the church met and about twenty were added to it. It was a blessed day to my soul, especially at about eight o'clock in the evening: when speaking to the Christians, my whole soul was so ravished with the love of Jesus,

84 Methodism in Nova Scotia that I could scarcely speak; yea, my very heart seemed melted with love. O the love, the infinite love of my God I How is my soul on the wing when I have but one glimpse of that sacred love: and if one glimpse is so great and transporting what will it be to swim forever in the infinite ocean, and nothing to annoy. O my Jesus, shall I ever be so happy, shall I one day awake in perfect joy with thee? O it is all I want, and all I need. Give it to me, O my God, and thine be the glory forever. Amen.17

When Alline left his Cumberland followers on a i August 1781 he felt that they were "all wrapped up in unity of the Spirit and bonds of peace." "When I left them," he explained, "I could hardly speak, although not with grief, for I could leave them freely, but was so affected with what I saw and felt of God's love and goodness; and to think I should one day meet them in glory, to love and praise my God to all eternity, bore my soul above the world."18 When Alline returned to the Cumberland area, in early June 1782, he discovered "some Christians alive to God; but some had got into darkness (& Bondage) by disputing about principles."19 The basic disputed "principle" was, without question, that of the perseverance of the saints — a key Allinite doctrine bitterly attacked by the followers of John Wesley. Doctrinal squabbling, however, did not stop hundreds from thronging to hear Alline "proclaiming the name of Jesus."20 On 9 July 1782, Alline left the region, never to return. Black's journal for the 17808 gives a different picture of Alline and also of Black's role in Nova Scotia's First Great Awakening. According to Black, Alline poached on the Methodist class meetings in Cumberland during both his visits, persuading scores of recent Methodist converts to become ardent New Lights.21 This Allinite poaching seemed to worry Black much more in 1782 than in 1781. The evidence suggests that Black's itinerating, which began in November 1781, was in fact inspired by Alline's example. Black's 1781 journal, moreover, reads very much like Alline's more famous Journal. For example, on 25 November 1781, Black observed, Preached in the evening with much liberty; and many were refreshed. Part of this day I was in a lively frame, but experienced much dulness the remainder of it. O Lord, revive my soul, and quicken me, a poor unworthy creature; unworthy to eat the crumbs that fall from my Master's table!22

For the first few months of his itinerating ministry, Black preached in the Chignecto-Cumberland region - the area he knew best. In May 1782, he felt compelled to make his way to the Allinite heartland - to Windsor, and then to Cornwallis and Horton, and even to Fal-

85 Black, Alline, and Nova Scotia's First Great Awakening mouth. On 3 June, at "a Mr. Johnson's" in Horton, Black "gave out a hymn, and engaged in prayer." "Mrs. Johnson," he pointed out, was so over-powered with the love of God that she could scarcely stand under it. She broke forth in raptures of praise, and declared, in language I little expected from her, the wonderful goodness of God. She exhorted, with variety of expression, all present, to make their calling and election sure; and then, with inexpressible transport, cried out - "O! that I had wings like a dove, for then would I fly away and be at rest." Several present were deeply affected, and continued for two or three hours praising God, and imploring mercy.2' The following day, at a time when Alline was on board a vessel destined for Cumberland, Black "Preached at Falmouth," where "Many felt the power of the word." "Several of Mr. Alline's friends were present," he proudly wrote. "They rejoiced greatly, declaring, it was the very Gospel which they had heard - the power of God unto salvation."24 On 7 June, Black returned to Windsor and then made his way to Halifax, where he preached, as he bluntly put it, "to a stupid set of people." "O what a town for wickedness is this," he complained. "Satan has here many faithful and steady servants."25 On 30 June, Black was back in Cornwallis, and at this time he was at the heart of an intense religious revival. I preached at Cornwallis in the morning, on "By grace are ye saved," and in the afternoon, to the largest congregation I ever saw collected in any part of the country, or perhaps anywhere else on "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives."26 Once again emulating Alline, Black emphatically associated himself with Isaiah; the "Spirit of the Lord God" was upon William Black, God's special prophet to Nova Scotia. Black's growing confidence in his charismatic power was obviously affecting many Nova Scotians, who saw him as Alline's equal and not his Methodist inferior. Consequently, news about Black's Cornwallis revival swept down the Annapolis Valley and beyond, and his "pretty general notoriety ... led to the expression of a desire, from various quarters, of a visit from him."27 In early July, Black travelled to Annapolis and slowly made his way up the Annapolis Valley to Horton where, on 9 July, he preached a

86

Methodism in Nova Scotia

memorable sermon. "O what a noise and shaking among the dry bones," he enthused. "My voice could scarcely be heard."28 Five days later, Black had returned home, where he discovered that seventy more Methodists had joined Alline's New Light Church. According to a distraught Black, Alline had "thrown all into confusion - brokenup the classes, and introduced a flood of contention, the consequences of which I dread."29 Almost immediately, Black began his Methodist counter-offensive, and in the process his earlier positive view of Alline was replaced by an increasingly negative one. Moreover, by attacking the Allinites and by stressing the pristine purity of the Methodists, Black exacerbated the ethnic and religious divisions that were to be found near the surface of Cumberland life.30 In the early days of 1783, Black's journal reflected a morbid introspection underscored by the conviction that he had been in fact defeated by Alline and his New Light disciples. Desperately searching for support, encouragement, and advice, Black began to write to John Wesley. On ao February 1783, Wesley replied, urging Black to further his theological education in England at the Kingswood School. Wesley also warned Black about Allinism. "Of Calvinism, Mysticism, and Antinomianism," he cautioned, "have a care; for they are the bane of true religion."31 Despite Wesley's warning, and despite the fact that the Allinites were creating serious problems in the Cumberland region, Black endeavoured in July 1783 to "maintain if possible a friendly intercourse with Mr. Alline, from a persuasion that with all that was exceptionable in his doctrinal views, there was associated sincere love to the Saviour, and an ardent zeal for the extension of his kingdom."32 On 4 July 1783, Black penned the following remarkable letter to Alline who, despite his serious illness, was preparing for his final return trip to New England. The letter, without question, was received by Alline, who did not leave Windsor for Maine until 27 August 1783. Black's letter began "Dear Brother." I hear you are very ill in body, but I trust happy in soul, rejoicing in the sweet Lord Jesus. Since I saw you I have been at Liverpool, proclaiming the love of Christ to lost sinners; and blessed be God we have had happy and delightful days. On my first arrival they appeared dull, having been without preaching for some time. But soon the fire began to kindle. I know not that I ever heard more heart-piercing cries, as well from the young as the old. The people of God too, more exceedingly happy, praising him for his wonderful goodness to the children of men. Their cries and praises ascended for hours together, so that sometimes our meetings did not break up till one in the morning. Truly the Lord rained down the manna of his love in gracious

87

Black, Alline, and Nova Scotia's First Great Awakening

showers, and several declared with joy that they found the pearl of great price. The people at Liverpool are all well, and most of them happy. They long to see you again; and I assure you I rejoice to find that the Lord has owned your labours amongst them, and I trust he will continue to do so until he calls you hence. Although we differ in sentiment, let us manifest our love to each other. I always admired your gifts and graces, and affectionately loved your person, although I could never receive your peculiar opinions. But shall we on this account destroy the work of God? God forbid! May the Lord take away all bigotry, and fill us with pure genuine, Catholic love! Wishing you God's speed in every work to which the Lord calls you, I conclude with, when it is well with thee, remember me.33

How does one account for Black's conciliatory letter? Obviously, seeing Alline face to face in the Chignecto region and actually feeling a deep Christian "affection" for the dying evangelist played a key role. In addition, Black's remarkable Liverpool revival, which was perceived by its participants as a natural outgrowth of Alline's earlier ones, drew the two men together. This process was further strengthened by the growing conviction in Black's mind that, despite their differences, the Almighty was indeed using both of them to direct what Black referred to as the "Power of God ... upon the [Nova Scotia] people."34 Once he found himself in Alline's Yankee heartland, away from his Cumberland home base, Black seemed more willing to accept Alline's gospel, despite its "peculiar opinions," to be an integral part of "the work of God" in the colony. In July 1783, Black felt almost as close to the Falmouth preacher as he had in the summer of 1781. But before the friendship could be consolidated and built upon, Alline left the colony never to return. Alline's death, however, did not thrust Black forward as Nova Scotia's foremost evangelist. In fact, a year after Alline's death, Black found himself pushed to the periphery of the revivalist movement in the colony by a fellow Methodist, Freeborn Garrettson.35 Although the Maryland-born Methodist preacher spent only twenty-six months in Nova Scotia, his influence in the colony, according to J.M. Buckley, "was almost equal to that of Wesley in Europe and Asbury in the United States."36 Black continued to preach his Methodist gospel until his retirement in 1812, but he was never able to re-establish his First Great Awakening revivalistic ascendancy. The responsibilities of marriage, sickness, a growing suspicion of New Light revivalistic techniques, the expanding conservative influence of British Methodism, and, most important of all, a desperate longing for respectability all combined to draw Black away from his Awakening moorings.

88 Methodism in Nova Scotia

Although his achievements were, according to his most recent biographer, rather "modest," Black "would have wished to be remembered" by posterity "affectionately as one who at great peril and at great cost to himself brought a new hope and assurance to thousands of people, many of whom were beginning a new life in an alien and inhospitable land."37 When Black died on 8 September 1834, he left a considerable estate behind, together with what a leading Halifax Methodist minister referred to as a "universal mourning sympathy."38 "Bishop" Black, as he was affectionately called, was widely regarded by his contemporaries as the "Father of Methodism" in the Maritime Provinces. He is largely forgotten, however, by contemporary Canadians, especially those who worship in the church that, in theory at least, embodies his own peculiar version of pietistic Methodism. CANADIAN HISTORIANS, TOO, HAVE largely underestimated the role that Black played, especially in eighteenth-century Nova Scotia religious life. As has already been pointed out, he has been largely eclipsed by Henry Alline, the so-called "Paul Bunyan" of Maritime revivalism. The historiographical mold concerning the respective roles of Alline and Black in Nova Scotia's First Great Awakening was firmly set in 1948 by M.W. Armstrong, The Great Awakening in Nova Scotia 1776—1809, and S.D. Clark, Church and Sect in Canada. For Armstrong, Black is merely a shadowy presence on the religious scene and is referred to only to throw some further light on Alline's evangelistic exploits. Clark does devote considerably more space and attention to Black, but, even for Clark, Black emerges only as a minor league evangelist in contrast to Alline the major leaguer - although in all fairness to Clark, Black is never viewed as a bush-league evangelist. Influenced more by Clark than by Armstrong, Goldwin French proved to be the important exception to the historiographical norm. His Parsons and Politics: The Role of the Wesleyan Methodists in Upper Canada and the Maritimes from 1780 to 1855 (1962) presented a sympathetic yet critical assessment of Black's role not only in the religious life of the Maritime Provinces but also in the First Great Awakening. But even French felt compelled to admit that, by 1800, Black's influence was indeed modest and even superficial, lacking what French called the necessary "dynamic spirit of initiative."39 This implicit critique of Black was made more explicit in French's important 1987 Dictionary of Canadian Biography article on Black.40 In this reassessment of Black, it may be argued that French has the Methodist

8g Black, Alline, and Nova Scotia's First Great Awakening preacher playing a far more obvious second-fiddle to the "charismatic" Alline.41 Largely because of its emphasis on the comparative approach, as well as its sympathetic treatment of religion, French's book, in my view, never received the scholarly attention and critical praise that is certainly merited. Moreover, there were no disciples to preach the French gospel or to enlarge upon it. Instead, the early 19705 witnessed the beginnings of what has been somewhat spitefully referred to by some as the "Allinite Transformation of Maritime Religious Historiography." With the publication of Jack Bumsted, Henry Alline, Gordon Stewart and G.A. Rawlyk, A People Highly Favoured of God, and Rawlyk, Nova Scotia's Massachusetts, Alline was firmly established, as far as these historians were concerned, as the most influential Nova Scotian religious leader.42 More sympathetic to Armstrong than to Clark, Bumsted, Stewart, and Rawlyk viewed William Black as an insignificant bit player in the drama of Alline's Awakening. This assessment would permeate virtually all further serious scholarly work on the Awakening. On re-reading Ridley's Memoir of the Late Rev. William Black, as well as other Maritime Methodist sources, I have come to realize that the early Black was indeed far more important than I had earlier realized in shaping the contours of Nova Scotia's First Great Awakening.43 Black's crucially important role in the Awakening, particularly in 1781 and 1782, needs to be reassessed. This reassessment will have to be done carefully and sensitively within the context of the 1780$ and not within that of the early nineteenth century or even the twentieth. When this is done, perhaps a Methodist Paul Bunyan will suddenly emerge on the historical landscape to provide inspiration not only for a beleaguered evangelical remnant in the United Church but also for a growing number of anti-Allinites in the historical profession. NOTES 1 D. Bell, ed., Newlight Baptist Journals (Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot Press 1984), xiii. 2 Tom Vincent, "Henry Alline: Problems of Approach and Reading the Hymns as Poetry," in They Planted Well: New England Planters in Maritime Canada, ed. M. Conrad (Fredericton: Acadiensis Press 1988), 203. 3 Goldwin French, "William Black," Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1987), 6: 67.

go Methodism in Nova Scotia 4 Henry Alline, The Life and Journal (Boston: Gilbert & Dean 1806), 35. 5 Matthew Richey, A Memoir of the Late Rev. William Black, Wesleyan Minister, Halifax, N.S., including notices of several individuals; with copious extracts from the unpublished correspondence of the Rev. John Wesley, Rev. Dr. Coke, Rev. Freeborn Garretson [sic],etc. (Halifax: W. Cunnabell 1839), 25-6. 6 French, "William Black", 62. 7 B.C. Harvey and C.B. Fergusson, eds., The Diary of Simeon Perkins, 1780—ij8g, 5 vols (Toronto: Champlain Society 1958), 2: 168—74. 8 Ibid., 177. 9 Ibid., 188. 10 Ibid., 188. 11 Ibid., 189. 12 Ibid., 190. 13 B.C. Cuthbertson, ed., The Journal of John Payzant (Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot Press 1981), 28. 14 B. Moody and J. Beverley, eds., The Journal of Henry Alline (Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot Press 1982), 180. 15 Ibid., 178. 16 Ibid., 179. 17 Ibid., 179. 18 Ibid., 181. 19 Ibid., 197. 20 Ibid., 199. 21 Richey, Memoir of Black, 44-5. 22 Ibid., 50. 23 Ibid., 66—7. 24 Ibid., 67. 25 Ibid., 69. 26 Ibid., 74. 27 Ibid., 74. 28 Ibid., 76. 29 Ibid., 78. 30 See Richey, Memoir, 80—1. 31 Quoted in Richey, Memoir, 98-9. 32 Ibid., 107. 33 Ibid., 107-8. 34 Ibid., 104. 35 See G. A. Rawlyk, Wrapped Up In God: A Study of Several Canadian Revivals and Revivalists (Burlington, Ont.: Welch 1988), 55-57. 36 J.M. Buckley, A History of Methodism in the United States, 2 vols (New York: The Christian Literature Company 1897), i: 369. 37 French, "William Black," 67.

gi 38 39 40 41 42

Black, Alline, and Nova Scotia's First Great Awakening

Quoted in French, "William Black," 66. Ibid., 39. French, "William Black," 62-8. Ibid., 63. Jack Bumsted, Henry Alline (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1971); Gordon Stewart and G.A. Rawlyk, A People Highly Favoured of God (Toronto: MacMillan 1972); G.A. Rawlyk, Nova Scotia's Massachusetts (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queeris University Press 1973). 43 Richey, Memoir of Black. E.A. Belts, Bishop Black and His Preachers (Sackville: Tribune Press 1976), unfortunately, adds little to the historiographical debate.

5 "Give All You Can": Methodists and Charitable Causes in Nineteenth-Century Nova Scotia A L L E N B. ROBERTSON

Methodism, as envisioned by Wesley and his successors, was to bring about gradual social reformation as mankind changed one soul at a time by the process of individual spiritual regeneration. It was hoped that in time the whole culture would be altered by this progressive transformation into one at once more compassionate and just, since all actions following conversion were to be guided by Christian principles. With Christ at the centre of each life, there would be an outwardly radiating influence for good that would be seen in changes in attitude and action among peoples of every class and occupation. Not all critics, however, have evaluated Methodism's influence as a positive benefit to society. In 1963 E.P. Thompson proposed that Methodism was simply a useful tool of capitalism conveniently employed to promote passivity and good work habits among the lower classes and to ensure their obedience to established authority, 1 Thompson's interpretation fails to take into account the strong religious convictions of many employers and the effect Wesleyanism had on their private and public behaviour. It likewise denigrates the benefits the labouring classes derived from a faith that instilled the virtue of industriousness, promoted a temperate lifestyle, and gave Christian consolation.2 Employers and employees alike who sincerely followed the teachings of Methodism were guided by what Goldwin French has identified as Wesley's triple injunction. Distilling the practical requirements of a Christian life, Wesley charged the faithful to "Gain all you can," "Save all you can," and "Give all you can."3 The third

93 Methodists and Charitable Causes

dictum, "give all you can," was a call that encouraged the poor and prosperous alike to engage in active lives of charity and good works according to their means. The Wesleyan Methodist merchants of nineteenth-century Halifax, Nova Scotia belonged to one of the most dynamic strata of provincial society. As members of the capital's prosperous merchantocracy, they were dedicated to profit-oriented business enterprises that secured for them the double rewards of wealth and prominent social position.4 These second and third generation Nova Scotian Methodist businessmen were their church's chief lay spokesmen in the community at large. They felt it incumbent on themselves to demonstrate to their fellow Methodists and to the wider society in which they lived that mercantile capitalism and evangelical piety were not mutually exclusive. The public demonstration of this compatibility was most clearly expressed in the merchants' support of charitable causes and social endeavours in the city. Good works fused with evangelical zeal could, and did, provide both a justification of the merchants' livelihood and a practical example of faith in action. From the second decade of the nineteenth century down to Confederation, one can find Halifax Methodist merchants actively involved in a wide variety of socially beneficial causes. They supported charity for the poor, the ill, and the unemployed; promoted literacy, the growth of Sabbath, and day schools; and were prominent in helping to establish an institution for the care of the mentally ill. The traditional works of charity - feeding the poor and clothing the destitute - were undertaken with a special concern for the particular needs of the lower classes living in Halifax. As a seaport and urban centre, the city went through a yearly cycle of unemployment, which reached its peak of misery in winter when port activity declined.5 The labouring poor were the first to be hard hit when the demand for their services waned. The lack of organized government relief meant that the poor were left to the mercy of church-run charities, individual philanthropists, or specially formed societies designed to meet a pressing need. In the latter group, city merchants and other leading citizens pooled their own resources and solicited aid from the general public. One of the better known volunteer organizations of the iSaos was the Halifax Poor Man's Friend Society.6 Founded in 1820, it provided food, clothing, and fuel for the destitute and helped find employment for the able-bodied. The first committee of twenty men consisted of merchants, lawyers, and doctors.7 The Wesleyans on the committee included the secretary, John A. Barry, the treasurer, Martin Gay Black, and committee member Charles Loveland. All three were mer-

94 Methodism in Nova Scotia

chants; Barry and Black were also brothers-in-law. Black was a son of Rev. William Black, the well-known founder of Nova Scotia Methodism (see chapter 4). John A. Barry's father, Robert, was a prosperous merchant and Methodist lay exhorter; he also had been a correspondent of John Wesley during the last six years of Wesley's life. The Barry and Black households formed the centre of a nucleus of Methodist merchants at Halifax.8 Given their prominence, it is not surprising that these men should have been selected to sit on the committee. The Poor Man's Friend Society was a highly structured ecumenical group. The main committee met for a business meeting each month, while an annual general meeting was held in December - the start of the worst period of seasonal unemployment.9 The twenty members were the main operating branch of the society and were augmented by a four-member financial subcommittee that reported on special problems. The society divided Halifax into seventeen wards, with "visitors" assigned to each section to ascertain cases of distress and to record subscribers' names for the financial subcommittee, which met weekly. As Black and Barry were members of the subcommittee, one can clearly see the importance of the Methodist contribution to the running of the society. Subscriptions were one shilling a month. Provision was made for journeymen and servants to contribute six pence monthly until such time as they might be unemployed and need aid from the society. The society, in effect, was functioning as a form of volunteer unemployment insurance. Ward duty meant that, in their capacity as visitors, society members did far more than contribute money or lend their prestigious names to promote the organization's aims. There was an emphasis, rather, on direct interaction with the poor, and committee members took to the streets in winter to seek out Haligonians in need of help and to dole out food at the soup kitchens that they established. The seventeen wards — most of which were divided into three or four subsections - required considerable legwork during the cold winter months. Of the eighteen men chosen as visitors in February 1820, four were Wesleyans (Hugh Bell, John A. Barry, Martin G. Black, and Charles Loveland) while a fifth, John G. Marshall, was an evangelical Anglican who converted to Methodism within the decade.10 Bell, a merchant and Methodist lay preacher, was to figure prominently in many of the city's charitable causes in the ensuing years. Other Methodist businessmen who shared visitor duties were Samuel Black, George Nock, David Starr, Joseph Starr, and James N. Shannon. Since only 10 percent of all Halifax businessmen were Methodist, it is clear that

95 Methodists and Charitable Causes

a disproportionate number of the committee were drawn from its ranks. The society met with frequent opposition, since there was a prevalent fallacy promoted among many faiths at the time that poverty was the result of sin and idleness. There were those who openly attacked the committee in the newspapers on the grounds that it simply promoted the idleness of the poor.'' John Wesley himself had condemned this puerile view of poverty, which would have cut off aid to the poor, declaring that the argument was "wickedly, devilishly false." Wesley preached and Methodists believed that poverty could be ameliorated if "people lived within their means" and if ample employment for those willing to work was made available.12 Martin G. Black and his fellow committee members refuted their detractors with statements on the policies of the society and by publishing statistics they gathered in their work with the poor. In the first nine months of its operation, for example, at least 1,183 cases representing 4,213 people received aid. In addition to the labour exchange, help had included foodstuffs, fuel, clothing, and bedding.13 By 1823, the society was operating a daily soup kitchen to better facilitate the distribution of food to the needy. The logistics of providing basic necessities, food, and work as described in some of the organization's reports make it remarkable that this non-government volunteer society was able to function as long as it did given the heavy demands made on the members' time and the resources at hand.14 It has been pointed out that groups such as the Halifax Poor Man's Friend Society failed to curb poverty and did not create a permanent solution for the comfort of the city's poor.15 Nonetheless, the committee had the courage to proceed in the only way open to it - to help the unemployed poor, one person at a time. The Halifax Poor Man's Friend Society was not the first organization founded in the city to aid the poor. As early as 1811, the Philanthropic Society was instituted "for the relief of poor debtors in jail."16 Its aim was to relieve the sufferers in debtor's prison with the distribution of fuel, food, and bedding. The Philanthropic Society had no intention of bailing inmates out of their difficulties (indeed, such an idea would not have occurred to its members), yet its thirteen years of existence demonstrated the commitment among its subscribers to ameliorating a harsh legal system.17 Those few Methodist merchants who operated in Halifax during the society's early years joined the group. They included, among others, the Starrs, Hamiltons, Allisons, and Blacks. It may be argued that a concentrated effort to

96

Methodism in Nova Scotia

change the poor laws would have been a far better goal for the society. This cannot be denied and illustrates a basic weakness in certain charitable pursuits, which tend too often to treat symptoms without addressing the root cause of the problem. Wesley had revived an emphasis on good works as an essential concomitant of evangelical Christianity. While he did not believe that good works were a ladder to heaven, he taught that faith and scripture alone were poor substitutes to offer a starving man. In common with other sects that have emerged from Protestantism's ongoing divisions, Methodists sought to recreate the virtues practised in the apostolic communities of the New Testament. Care of the widow and orphan and support for the hungry were second in importance only to eucharistic communal worship during the apostolic and patristic eras. This relationship is important to note in any examination of the Methodist role in charitable causes, and one must keep in mind that the Halifax Wesleyan merchants perceived the world from a Methodist perspective grounded in a particular interpretation of the Christian world-view. This may seem an obvious observation, but it needs re-emphasis to avoid the false analysis that nineteenth-century humanitarian motivation stemmed ultimately from economic concerns or was a peculiar manifestation of patriarchalism. But Methodist charity in late Georgian Halifax was not the preserve of men alone. Though far less known for their activities, the wives of the Methodist merchants were equally moved to aid the needy. Restricted as they were by nineteenth-century social conventions, they developed groups that were active in the spheres open to them.18 The committee members of the Halifax Methodist Female Benevolent Society, active in the 18205, used their skills to help clothe the poor with garments of their own making. It is not surprising to learn that committee members Mrs Hugh Bell (Anne), her daughter, Anna, and her sisters-in-law Desiah and Lavinia Starr were able to tap directly into the resources of the Methodist business community through their husbands and parents. The active participation of Rev. William Black's second wife Mary gave an added endorsement to the Benevolent Society's efforts. A report for 1828 noted that members of the society had sewn three hundred garments for women using cloth received from merchant donors.19 In the iSaos and 18305, other avenues of helping the poor were explored by the city's Wesleyans. The lack of any means for the poor to acquire a rudimentary education became an area of increasing concern. During the first two decades after the War of 181 a, Halifax Methodist merchants schooled their own sons and daughters in private seminaries. William Barry, a brother of leading Methodist mer-

97 Methodists and Charitable Causes

chant John A. Barry, set up a seminary to teach both boys and girls near the heart of the city's mercantile operations.20 The alternative to city schooling was for Methodist boys to be sent to Annapolis Royal. There, at Albion Vale, Alexander Henderson operated a non-denominational (though heavily Wesleyan influenced) academy.21 As their own children received an excellent education, those involved in charitable causes soon realized that the ability to read and write and to know enough arithmetic to do basic sums constituted a key by which the poor could unlock the door of poverty. Such knowledge offered advantages in the labour market, kept the poor from being cheated, and furthered Christianity by allowing the poor to read the Bible for themselves. In combining a rudimentary education with the widespread practice of apprenticeship, pragmatic evangelicals, Methodists among them, saw that the cycle of poverty could be broken as the young learned a trade or livelihood. During the War of 1813, retired army paymaster Captain Walter Bromley founded the Royal Acadian School on Argyle Street in Halifax. His was a non-denominational institution, and he made a special effort to include among his pupils the children of the poor.22 Several Halifax Methodist merchants were among his early supporters. By 1821, when provincial funding was sought for a new building, the Royal Acadian School had a committee of eleven men, including prominent Wesleyans Martin G. Black, John A. Barry, William Black, and John E. Starr. These Wesleyans had been attracted to the school by Bromley's educational aims: to maintain a high educational standard with an emphasis on raising the standard of literacy among the poor, to provide a sound moral education for the young, and to instill in the pupils a sense of the importance of industriousness.28 The involvement of Methodist merchants in the Royal Acadian School coincided with their participation in the Halifax Poor Man's Friend Society and the Philanthropic Society. While it could be said these other organizations alleviated only the symptoms of poverty, with their participation in schools the Methodists at least found a means of attacking one root cause of poverty. Along with basic educational skills, they placed emphasis on helping to situate children, especially orphans, in apprenticeship trades. The apprenticeship system has been attacked for denying children access to a higher education, but this view ignores what the Wesleyan merchants and other philanthropic Haligonians knew - that apprenticeship provided both a schooling and provision for food, clothing, and shelter.24 While abuses could and did exist, apprenticeship was the most viable alternative of the time. The other point to note is that the apprenticeship system was not confined to the lower classes. The Barry, Bell, and

98 Methodism in Nova Scotia

Anderson families, for instance, maintained an apprenticeship relationship that stretched over four generations.25 There is no reason to believe that merchant families would think education based on schooling and apprenticeship an inferior way of preparing children for the world since they practised it themselves. During the 18305 and 18405, Halifax Methodists founded their own denominational educational facility, the Wesleyan Methodist Day School. Devoted to the same principles Bromley espoused, it offered a wider range of subjects and a higher level of education than did the Royal Acadian School.26 The Day School committee also made provision for students too poor to pay any fees. In 1849 tne committee petitioned the assembly for funds to carry on its work, arguing that its mission was to train the "Religious, Moral, Intellectual and Physical being" of its students and that the continuance of the school would "place the means of instruction within the reach of the middle classes of society at a low charge, and confer instruction on the children of the poor without cost to their parents."27 The committee members included five Methodist merchants, Martin G. Black, Rufus Black, James N. Shannon, Daniel Starr, and John H. Anderson — all of whom had been active in their support of other charitable organizations. These men clearly took pride in their own denominational school, which attended to the needs of the intellectual, vocational, and moral instruction of the young in their care. In 1850 the Wesleyan Day School had forty-five paying and ten free students.38 The proportion of non-paying children was lower than in some other city schools, indicating that the school catered primarily to Methodist families. The number of poorer children may also have been lower because the school offered a more advanced curriculum. The numbers do not, however, in any way denigrate the benefits offered by the school to the poorer Methodist children. By far the greater number of children received rudimentary education in the Sabbath schools. Reverend Robert Lusher began the first Methodist Sabbath school in 1824 at the Argyle Street chapel (known as Old Zoar Chapel).29 Funding and instruction in the school was overseen by a Sabbath School Society and a Committee of Management. The school offered children a basic course of religious instruction through the study of the Bible and Wesleyan literature coupled with the teaching of elementary reading and writing skills. At a time when the five-day work week was unknown and children worked the same hours as adults, the Sabbath schools provided schooling on the one day in which there was freedom from the grind of work. By the mid-18308, the Sabbath school idea was taken up by the newly formed Brunswick Street Wesleyan congregation. In 1849

gg Methodists and Charitable Causes the Argyle Street school taught 171 children and the Brunswick Street Sabbath School 216 children. The structure of the Old Zoar school shows the organizational complexity that evolved to handle the large number of children; it included a superintendent, a secretary, a librarian who oversaw a library of eight hundred volumes, and twenty teachers (nine men and eleven women). Overseeing the schools at large was the Halifax Wesleyan Sabbath School Committee. Nine of the fourteen members of the committee were Wesleyan businessmen; George H. Starr acted as secretary and John H. Anderson, Esq. was treasurer.30 During the 18405, one Methodist in particular, Hugh Bell, expanded Methodist community involvement by his interest in the care of the mentally ill. Bell, Irish by birth and Nova Scotian by upbringing, had begun his career as a school teacher but had turned to bookkeeping for the Halifax brewers Lydiard and Nock.31 Bell had prospered in his business undertaking to such an extent that in 1838 he was able to hand over his affairs to his sons. For the remainder of his life, Bell was active in provincial and municipal politics. Methodism had captured Bell's heart as a youth, and by the end of the second decade of the nineteenth century he was known in the Halifax-Dartmouth region as a promising lay preacher. Along with John A. Barry, he served on the committee for the Halifax Branch of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Auxiliary Society.32 In a letter to his son John in 1831, Bell revealed the place he felt God should take in his son's life. "Remember that every thing depends on His blessing, that all things are His, and He giveth to whomsoever He will. Let it be your first care, therefore, to make Him your friend and then you may confidently expect His blessing."33 Philanthropic works were a natural extension of this evangelical piety. After a four-year term in the provincial House of Assembly, Bell turned to municipal politics, and in 1841 he became a city alderman. Within three years, he was elected mayor of Halifax.34 At that time he declared his interest in a special project that, as one biographer has observed, had probably grown out of his 1835 appointment as a member of the Halifax Poor Commission, although his exposure to the plight of the poor while a member of the Halifax Poor Man's Friend Society had previously alerted him to the special needs of the destitute.33 As mayor in 1841, Bell announced that the whole of his first year's salary would be devoted to the creation of an asylum for the mentally ill. At the time, Halifax, in common with communities throughout British North America, the United States, and the United Kingdom, housed its mentally ill in poor houses and jails. Bell used his positions

ioo Methodism in Nova Scotia both as mayor and as legislative councillor (an 1841 appointment) to add weight to a city council petition of 1845 directed at the provincial government to create a lunatic asylum. A three-man commission consisting of Dr A.S. Sawers, Samuel P. Fairbanks, and Bell himself was created to examine institutions in the United States. Through his position on this commission, Bell communicated with American philanthropist Dorothea Dix from whom he took up the cause of humanitarian, individual treatment of the mentally ill, which would be given in a special hospital setting.36 The name chosen for the institution was Mount Hope Asylum, and it was built across the harbour from Halifax near Dartmouth. As in the case of many government projects, time elapsed between its inception and the implementation of the project. Bell was seventy-six when the corner-stone was finally laid in 1856. Bell's busy life of mercantile and political success never overshadowed his keen evangelical fervour and committed involvement in charitable causes. The Wesleyan Methodists were not the only Haligonians to respond to the needs of the poor and socially disadvantaged, and for all their good their projects did not solve the social ills of their day. These people did, however, pursue with energy and devotion Wesley's call to "give all you can." The Barrys, Bells, Starrs, Andersons and other Methodist merchants were not obligated to become personally involved in helping to alleviate the suffering of the destitute in the city. Nor were they obligated to care about the education of any other children than their own or to provide better facilities for the insane. Men such as Hugh Bell and James N. Shannon, for example, had, through shrewd business acumen and hard work, acquired comfortable incomes and recognized social position. These men were not motivated, however, by half-defined ideas of social humanitarianism based on Deistic or Utilitarian principles. They were willing to give of their time and resources as a result of their devotion to the Wesleyan evangelical faith. Good works, then, were a demonstration of a vital religious life — a far cry from a substitution for prayer, a way to barter with God, or a way to "feel" good. Few personal documents remain in which Halifax Methodist merchants have recorded their attitudes toward benevolent societies and institutions. One must sift through the minutes of meetings, newspaper reports, and almanacs to reconstruct their activities. These secondary avenues, however, reveal the extent to which a small percentage of the merchant populace took on leading roles in various charitable causes. Urban suffering and deprivation became their sphere of mission work. In February 1820, the minutes of the Halifax Poor Man's Friend Society cited the following passages from Proverbs:

ioi

Methodists and Charitable Causes

"He that giveth to the poor lendeth to the Lord, and He will repay it."37 Through their participation in charitable concerns, the Wesleyan merchants of Halifax repeatedly demonstrated that men of business need not be divorced from the call of evangelical fervour and Christian social welfare. NOTES 1 E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Pantheon Books 1963), 354. 2 Brian Harrison, review of E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class 2nd ed. (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books 1963) in The English Historical Review 86 (1971): 547-87. 3 Thomas Jackson, ed., The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., sometime fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, 14 vols (London: Wesleyan Conference Office 1872), 6: 126, 131, 133. 4 Allen B. Robertson, "The Methodist Merchant Brotherhood" chapter 2 in "John Wesley's Nova Scotia Businessmen: 1815—1855" (PH.D. thesis, Queen's University 1990), 34—72; D.A. Sutherland, "Halifax Merchants and the Pursuit of Development, 1783-1850," Canadian Historical Review 59, no. i (March 1978): 1-17. 5 Judith Fingard, "The Relief of the Unemployed Poor in Saint John, Halifax and St. John's, 1815—1860," Acadiensis 5, no. i (Autumn 1975): 336 Ibid., 32-53; George Hart, "The Halifax Poor Man's Friend Society, 1820-7: An Early Social Experiment," Canadian Historical Review 34, no. 2 (June 1953): 109-23. 7 Nova Scotia Royal Gazette, 27 December 1820. 8 S. Buggey, "Martin Gay Black," Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1976), 9: 52-3; J. Murray Beck, "John Alexander Barry," Dictionary, 10: 35-6; Allen B. Robertson, "Robert Barry," Dictionary, 7: 52-3. 9 The organizational structure was outlined in the Society's initial minutes; see "Halifax Poor Man's Friend Society: Proceedings 1820-1826," Public Archives of Nova Scotia, MG 20, vol. 180, no. 2, 17 February 1820. 10 Phyllis R. Blakeley, "Hugh Bell," Dictionary, 8: 73—5; C.E. Thomas, "John George Marshall," Dictionary, 10: 496—7. 11 The leading critic used the pseudonym "Malthus"; Hart, "Poor Man's Friend Society," 117, 119. 12 Stuart Andrews, Methodism and Society (London: Longman 1970), 50. 13 "Halifax Poor Man's Friend Society: Proceedings," 7 September 1820.

loa

Methodism in Nova Scotia

14 Over a century and a half later, volunteers continue to provide for the needs of Halifax's destitute. The St Vincent de Paul Society through Hope Cottage in 1988 served 49,417 meals in addition to distributing clothing and providing referral services for other institutions. See Society of St. Vincent de Paul; Particular Council — Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada: The One Hundred and Thirty-Fifth Annual Report 1988 (Halifax: Society of St Vincent de Paul 1988). 15 Fingard, "Relief of the Unemployed Poor," 44. 16 Philanthropic Society Minutes, Public Archives of Nova Scotia, MG 20, vol. 241, no. 6, July 1811. 17 The Philanthropic Society Minutes, ibid., stated, "The Subscribers deeply impressed with the melancholy situation of Persons confined in the Jail of the Town for Debt For whose subsistence no legal Provision being made, they are often exposed to the severest sufferings from Cold and Hunger, have agreed to form themselves into a Society for the purpose of alleviating in some degree the Horrors of such Confinement." 18 Allen B. and Carolene E.B. Robertson, eds., Memoir of Mrs. Eliza Ann Chipman, Wife of the Rev. William Chipman, of Pleasant Valley, Cornwallis (Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot Press 1989), xx-xxi. 19 Committee of the Halifax Methodist Female Benevolent Society, Report, 1828, Public Archives of Nova Scotia, MG 20, vol. 1016, no. i. 20 "William H. Barry, (Late Master of the Liverpool Grammar school)," re: addition to his school room above old Parade Ground near the National School, Argyle Street; Acadian Recorder, 4 January 1823, i; Acadian Recorder, 4 January 1823, i; "William H. Barry ... Has in compliance with the wishes of his friends in Halifax, concluded to open a Seminary at ... (corner of Duke and Granville Streets) ... for the Education of Youth of both Sexes ... ," ibid., 14 April 1821. 21 T. Watson Smith, History of the Methodist Church within the Territories Embraced in the Late Conference of Eastern British America, including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and Bermuda, 2 vols (Halifax: Methodist Book Room 1877), i: 387—92. Among merchants whose sons attended the Academy in 1833 were Edward Knowles, Hugh Bell, and William A. Black. See "Return of the Annapolis Combined Grammar and Common Schools, taught by Andrew Henderson ... ," Public Archives of Nova Scotia, RG 14, vol. 45A, no. 32, 1833. See also, ibid., no. a6(b), 1839, in which Henderson is styled "Principal of the Albion Academy." 22 Judith Fingard, "Walter Bromley," Dictionary, 7: 107-10; Judith Fingard, "English Humanitarianism and the Colonial Mind: Walter Bromley in Nova Scotia, 1813-25," Canadian Historical Review 54, no. 2 (June 1973): 123-51-

io3 Methodists and Charitable Causes 23 "The Petition of the General Committee for the Royal Acadian School," i February 1821, Public Archives of Nova Scotia, RG 14, vol. 30, no. 81; Judith Fingard, "Attitudes toward the Education of the Poor in Colonial Halifax," Acadiensis a, no. 2 (Spring 1973): a8. The John Starr of the Royal Acadian School Committee was a brother to merchant Joseph Starr and a cousin to another Methodist merchant in the city, David Starr. 24 Fingard, "Education of the Poor," 32—3. 25 G.A. White, ed., Halifax and Its Businesses (Halifax: Nova Scotia Printing Company 1876), 125; Winthrop Bell, A Genealogical Study (Sackville, N.B.: Tribune Press 1962), 85, no; Hugh Bell to John Allison Bell, 11 March 1831 (re: J.A. Bell's entering an apprenticeship with John H. Anderson), Public Archives of Nova Scotia, microfilm, Biography, Bell Family, Halifax. 26 Smith, History of the Methodist Church, 2: 390. 27 "Petition of members of the Committee of the Wesleyan Methodist Day School," 1849, Public Archives of Nova Scotia, RG 5 'P', vol. 75, no. 95. 28 "Return of Schools taught, with the apportionment of the Provincial Grant for the support thereof, in the City of Halifax for the year ending December 3151, 1850," Public Archives of Nova Scotia, RG 14, vol. 30, no. 325. 29 George H. Starr, Secretary, "Halifax Wesleyan Sabbath School Report," The Wesleyan, i August 1849. 30 Ibid. Committee members included Edward Jost, James Hills, Joseph Bell, James Woodworth, John E. Starr, Martin G. Black, William Full, John Metzler, Samuel L. Shannon (son of James), Edward Billing, George Ritchie, and John Hays. 31 Blakeley, "Hugh Bell." 32 Smith, History of the Methodist Church, 2: 83. 33 Hugh Bell to John Allison Bell, n March 1831, Public Archives of Nova Scotia, Bell Family. 34 Shirley Elliott, ed., The Legislative Assembly of Nova Scotia 1758—1983; a Biographical Directory (Halifax: Province of Nova Scotia 1984), 13. 35 Blakeley, "Hugh Bell." 36 Journal of the House of Assembly igo8, Appendix 3A: "History of the Nova Scotia Hospital with pictures of Dorothy [sic] Dix, Dr. DeWolfe, Hugh Bell, Dr. Sinclair, etc." 37 Halifax Poor Man's Friend Society Proceedings, Public Archives of Nova Scotia, vol. 2. The quotation is from Proverbs 19:17.

This page intentionally left blank

Methodism in New Brunswick

This page intentionally left blank

6 Methodism and the Problem of Methodist Identity in Nineteenth-Century New Brunswick T.W. A C H E S O N

Methodists ranked last among the five major religious groups found in the 1871 census of New Brunswick. In contrast to its own early expansion in the colony, and to the experience in Ontario, where Methodism was the most dynamic and rapidly growing religious tradition throughout the century, New Brunswick Methodism grew less rapidly in the post-Napoleonic years than did the population of the whole colony. The traditional explanation argues that the evangelical initiative in the colony passed from the Methodists to the Baptists in the early nineteenth century. While it is clear that this did, in fact, happen, that explanation begs the question. I would suggest that the reasons for this loss of initiative had much to do with a problem of Methodist identity, and until this question was finally resolved at midcentury, Methodism in New Brunswick flourished only in its traditional centres. By the time a resolution was finally reached, the period of major settlement had passed and institutional patterns had coalesced. Methodism grew rapidly in the last third of the nineteenth century — indeed its growth surpassed that of all other denominations in the province - but that growth was largely confined to the urban centres, such as Moncton and Fredericton, where industrial expansion provided the economic opportunities for continued population growth.1 The parallel with Ontario Methodism is an important one. The demographics of the Bay of Fundy watershed — which contained more than two-thirds of the population of the colony — closely resembled those of the Upper Canadian colony. The population of the two

io8 Methodism in New Brunswick

colonies shared many attitudes and constituted societies that had been shaped by a common historical experience. For two generations, the social order of New Brunswick and Upper Canada was marked by Anglican dominance. During much of this period, religious dissenters were denied access to public offices and were sometimes tarred with the brush of disloyalty. In the period after 1815, both colonies experienced very extensive population growth, as wave after wave of British migrants gradually overwhelmed the children of preLoyalists, Loyalists, and post-Loyalists. A clear majority of the New Brunswick immigrants were Irish, but in the Bay of Fundy watershed, as in Ontario, a majority of the Irish were Protestants. Ontario and New Brunswick Methodism differed in only one important respect: Methodism in the Canadian colony was the product of a vital American movement that became the largest religious tradition in the United States by the time of the Civil War; New Brunswick Methodism after 1800 was an extension of English Wesleyanism. The early experience of New Brunswick Methodism paralleled that of its Upper Canadian counterpart both in terms of the rapid growth of the movement and of its significance within the new settlements. Despite their small numbers - a fact lamented by their preachers - Methodists represented the largest and most highly organized body of religious dissenters in the Bay of Fundy watershed by 1810. Significant circuits existed at Sackville, Saint John, and St Stephen, and there were growing Methodist communities at Sussex Vale, Sheffield, Taymouth, and Fredericton.2 New Brunswick had not enjoyed any great measure of prosperity prior to 1807, and tne modest expansion of the circuits in the late eighteenth century represented a significant growth in a provincial population that almost certainly experienced a decline between 1784 and 1800 and that probably totalled no more than forty thousand people by i8io.3 Yet, when the relative strength of the movement in 181 o is compared with that of the Confederation era, it is clear that Methodism failed to maintain itself as a major tradition even in the Bay of Fundy heartland where it had been established so early. The failure of Methodism in the period stemmed from its inability to expand into the areas of post-i8i5 New Brunswick settlement. Although the tradition was probably proportionally stronger in its early strongholds in 1871 than it had been in 1810, Methodist communities simply did not exist in many rural parishes at Confederation. There were 126 civil parishes in New Brunswick by 1871. In only three - St Stephen, Westmorland, and Sheffield - did Methodists constitute the largest religious tradition. There were seven significant Methodist communities in New Brunswick in 1871. In order of size,

log The Problem of Methodist Identity

these were the city of Saint John and its suburbs (5,500); St Stephen with St James and St David (3,000); Westmorland with Botsford, Sackville, and Dorchester (2,700); St Mary's with Fredericton and Douglas (2,100); Woodstock with Wilmot, Wakefield, and Richmond (1,700); Studholm with Sussex and Havelock (1,600); and Moncton with Coverdale and Salisbury (1,200). In addition, there were two small rural communities at Petersville-Westfield (800) and HopewellAlma (8oo).4 Apart from St Stephen, Westmorland, and Sheffield, Methodists did not dominate any part of the province. In their largest centre, Saint John, they composed only 15 percent of the population. Most of my comments in the discussion that follows deal with Saint John and St Stephen, the two largest Methodist communities in the province. New Brunswick Methodism was born in the Tantramar among the Yorkshire emigrants, who represented the only significant group of indigenous Methodists in the province. Its development after 1780 paralleled that of the various other evangelical streams, notably those associated with Henry Alline and his successors and the small but growing evangelical movement within the Church of England.5 While the leadership of the infant Methodist movement was sometimes able to distinguish among these various manifestations of evangelical Christianity, it is not clear that many followers could do the same. Yorkshire Methodists understood their spiritual roots, but that allegiance was probably strengthened by strong ties of ethnic identification. Most of the remaining Methodists in the colony before 1812 were converts from a variety of social and cultural backgrounds, people who had become Methodists as adults and who frequently lacked any broader framework in which they could integrate their newfound faith. For many, one form of the evangel was as good as another. Typical of the latter group was Duncan McColl, who brought Methodism to St Stephen in 1785. McColl was a Scottish Episcopalian who served as a pay-sergeant at Castine and New York during the American Revolution. Following a long spiritual search and a fortuitous marriage to a Methodist convert of unshakeable conviction, McColl became a Methodist shortly before his arrival in St Stephen. Like so many of his contemporaries, he was self-taught and self-trained. He had a passionate commitment to what he perceived as the spiritual superiority of Methodism over other paths. Yet he was never a sectarian. While he jealously and successfully defended his territory against the incursions of New Lights from New Brunswick and Congregationalists from Maine, he rarely denied the validity of their mes-

110

Methodism in New Brunswick

sage or their ministry. He remained a staunch supporter of the Bible Society and any other common endeavour that promoted the ascent to the Kingdom. In his pietism, his emphasis on purity of life, his absolute certitude of the necessity of conversion, and his constant striving for the life of the spirit, McColl resembled a hundred other evangelical leaders in the region. His common front with them was highlighted by his resistance to the Methodist discipline. McColl refused to itinerate. He refused to support a distinct Methodist missionary society or the Sunday school movement. He remained in St Stephen for more than forty years, built most of the chapels on his large circuit, and held ownership of them within the circuit. At the time of his death in 1830, he had created an organization that was the dominant religious influence in the middle St Croix River Valley and gave the Methodists an hegemony that they possessed nowhere else in the province.6 McColl's experience was a familiar one in late eighteenth-century New Brunswick. He arrived in an unformed community with few common traditions. He introduced Methodism to people who apparently did not have the cultural context to deal with it, and he gradually shaped much of the forming community norms around the new ideology. His earliest converts were mainly pre-Loyalist New Englanders, precisely the group most familiar with the culture of eighteenthcentury evangelicalism. McColl gradually won converts among the Loyalists, only a handful in the first decade, then in larger numbers through a series of revivals between 1795 and 1816. The Calvinists, the favourite diet of Baptist evangelists, resisted his efforts. McColl preached for more than a decade to the isolated Scots Presbyterian farmers in St James parish, only to be rejected by most of them when he attacked the Westminster Confession. The other characteristic of McColl's Methodists was their relative poverty, a recurring theme in the commentaries of most preachers and other contemporary observers, McColl had only limited success in the neighbouring and more aristocratic parish of St Andrews. The business and professional community that conformed to the Church of England of that town included virtually the whole of the Presbyterian business community.7 Even in St Stephen, however, it was clear that a significant social gulf existed between the followers of McColl and the much smaller following of Parson Andrews. A similar experience was reported by observers in Saint John. There, Joshua Marsden emphasized that the purity of the movement and the moral superiority of its followers stemmed from the lack of any wealthy people within the communion. He equated the rich, the great, and

in The Problem of Methodist Identity the proud. It was they who opposed his revivals, who lampooned his people in handbills, and who "disturbed" his society.8 McColl is a particularly instructive example of early New Brunswick Methodist behaviour. His understanding of himself as an evangelical and as a Pietist reflects much of the difficulty that the Methodists faced in understanding themselves as a distinct people. The common evangelicalism that Wesleyans shared with so many other religious traditions of the period was a problem that Methodists confronted everywhere in North America. In most cases, however, the evangelical competition was represented by Calvinists, whether Congregationalists, low Anglicans, dissenting Presbyterians, or Baptists. In New Brunswick, however, the situation was complicated by the early presence of a Free Will Baptist movement. That tradition originated with Henry Alline in the late eighteenth century. In the years following Alline's death, mainline Baptists separated themselves more and more from his influence. Allinites persisted, however, in certain Baptist communities and emerged in institutional form with the creation of the New Brunswick Christian Conference in i832.9 These "immersed Methodists" possessed a theology and a polity quite similar to the Wesleyans; their discipline and demands for perfection in personal and public life sometimes exceeded even those of the Methodist tradition, renowned for its puritanism. The population of New Brunswick, like that of Upper Canada, grew very rapidly after 1815. From perhaps 60,000 in 1815, it reached nearly 250,000 in 1860. British immigrants and their New Brunswick-born children may have accounted for half the population by the latter date. Most of the nineteenth-century arrivals were Irish, and the Irish made up more than 70 percent of those British who finally settled in the colony.10 Most New Brunswick Methodists before 1810 had been converts. Comparatively few of the nineteenth-century immigrants had been raised in the Methodist tradition. Like the Baptists, nineteenthcentury Methodists continually had to attract converts if their movement was to keep pace with the growth of population. Baptists proved very successful at this undertaking; Methodists were much less successful in these efforts between 1810 and 1850. Outside the areas of first-generation Methodist strength, they remained comparatively weak.11 In the new settlements, their communities tended to be composed of native children of the first-generation New Brunswick converts or immigrant Methodists like the Irish at Petersville or the English at Richmond. The inhabitants of most of the new parishes created in this period were British immigrants, and it was in these

112 Methodism in New Brunswick

new rural and often frontier communities that the greatest possibilities for denominational expansion existed. It was precisely in these communities that the Baptists established themselves in this period. Across the broad farmlands of Carleton County through York County and on into the Kennebecasis Valley, Free Will Baptists in the mid-nineteenth century competed with Methodists for the harvest of souls. Their success in traditional Methodist centres like St Stephen and Saint John was limited. The similarity of the two traditions and the difficulties that the Methodists faced in dealing with their rivals are well illustrated in the biographies of Mary Bradley and Joshua Barnes. Bradley was a country girl from a religious family living in the Sheffield area at the turn of the century. After a period of spiritual searching and experience, during which she attempted to join several religious groups, she finally found her spiritual home with the Wesleyans of Saint John.12 The Methodists were not as fortunate with Barnes. Born in King's County a generation after Bradley, Barnes was the son of an Anglican family that for two generations had held minor public offices in that county. He moved to Saint John while still a young man, where, much to the mortification of his parents, both he and his sister fell in with the Methodists. After serving as a local preacher, Barnes resolved to enter the ministry. Following a period of indecision, he entered the Free Will Baptist ministry, where he served as one of the most effective evangelists in the denomination.13 Both of these cases reveal the hazards of sharing a dynamic evangelicalism in a colony where an attractive alternative was to be found, and where new converts were accustomed to rendering judgment on the traditions of a denomination by subjective standards that they had developed through a long personal experience. Thanks to the activities of men like Barnes, Free Christian Baptists were nearly as numerous as Methodists by 1871. Methodists and Free Christian Baptists together constituted the second largest religious grouping in the province and the largest in the Bay of Fundy watershed. Their proportion of the population of the Bay of Fundy watershed closely approximated that of the Methodists in Ontario. The geographic distribution of their membership lends support to the thesis that they together occupied the same position in New Brunswick that the British and American Methodists occupied in Upper Canada. Only rarely were large communities of Methodists and Free Christian Baptists found in the same parish. Methodists were found in the areas of eighteenth-century settlement and in urban centres; Free Christian Baptists were found in the areas of nineteenth-century settlement and were overwhelmingly dwellers in rural areas. The

113 The Problem of Methodist Identity

urban/rural dichotomy was particularly sharp. There were twelve parishes containing urban cores in 1871. About 32 percent of New Brunswickers lived in these parishes, as did 38 percent of Methodists and 12 percent of Free Christian Baptists.14 Even in the Free Christian Baptist stronghold of Carleton County, Methodists outnumbered Free Christian Baptists in Woodstock, the county town. The doctrine and sensibility that Methodists shared with Free Christian Baptists presents only one part of the problem confronting Methodist leaders in the early nineteenth century. The issue that most confused the identity of early colonial Methodists was the relationship between their movement and the Church of England. Methodism, it must be remembered, was part of the Anglican communion when McColl began his mission in St Stephen. The formal break with the Church of England in the colonies only began in 1792 when the Halifax society started to hold services during the time of Anglican Church services.15 While Methodist and Allinite faith and practice were often embarrassingly similar - embarrassingly at least to Methodist leaders - the Methodist societies had a symbiotic relationship with the religious establishment. The Anglican hierarchy in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia did not much like Methodists - although Charles Inglis was accused of having had an infatuation with the movement in his younger days in New York. Nonetheless, Governor Thomas Carleton generally accepted their loyalty and licensed their preachers. Late eighteenth-century Methodism co-existed with the Established Church in the principal Loyalist settlements, and there it offered a respectable alternative to Anglican services. At times, that relationship worked to the benefit of Methodism; Anglican dissidents from unacceptable clergy or doctrine easily made the transition to the new dissent. The ties with the Established Church, however, pose considerable difficulties with the classic interpretation that has coloured so much of Upper Canadian Methodist historiography. Methodism and Anglicanism shared the same older communities of settlement, and were over-represented in the towns of the province. In many ways, the English Wesleyan experience in New Brunswick after 1815 is suggestive of what Canadian Methodism might have become had there been no separate Canadian movement. In the extremely fluid ecclesiastical situation that existed in the New Brunswick Church in the eighteenth century, many Anglicans regarded the Methodists as an extension of their own tradition. For many years after the formal separation, Anglicans continued to attend Methodist services and to participate in Methodist organizations. Marsden noted in 1807 that a number of members in his soci-

H4 Methodism in New Brunswick

eties were Anglicans.16 Indeed, as late as the iSaos, some Anglicans continued to attend Wesleyan services, sometimes going to the Anglican service in the morning and then to the Methodist in the afternoon or evening. For some this may have been simply a matter of convenience. It also reflected the strong evangelical influences that characterized Saint John Anglicanism almost from the beginning. The willingness of most Methodist leaders to accept the special position of the Anglican Church in the city was in part a reflection of their evangelical commitment. They shared this commitment with the rectors of Saint John, who participated with them in the common causes such as the Bible Society, the Temperance Society, the Tract Society, and the organizations to care for the poor, to save destitute children and fallen women, and to preserve the Sabbath and suppress lewdness and public immorality. They were as staunch evangelicals as any Methodist.17 Only one of the four Anglican parishes in the Saint John area could be described as "high," even by the old "Church and State" standard. As prominent a churchman as Charles Simonds, Speaker of the House of Assembly, and for more than two decades the most influential political figure in the province, participated in Wesleyan services and even served as president of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society.18 Given the colonial American experience both of Anglicanism and of the majority of the Saint John residents of the Loyalist generation, there is nothing unusual in this.19 It provided the obvious advantage of a certain kind of respectability to the socially marginal members of the Methodist societies, and perhaps saved them from some of the insults that befell other sectaries in the city. The association with Anglicanism did, however, impede the growth of a distinctive Methodist identity. The association with Anglicanism also promoted the intense pietism that had characterized late eighteenth-century New Brunswick Methodism. Preachers and laity alike accepted their position as chapel people. The civil and social superiority of the Anglican Establishment was publicly acknowledged. Methodists saw themselves as a people apart, a holy community called out of the world. The class meetings and the introspection that they promoted all contributed to this perception. McColl cooperated with the Anglican rectors of St Andrews and later of St Stephen; neither he nor his members ever challenged the inherent privileges of the Establishment.20 When the Episcopal Methodists of Upper Canada began their assaults on the Anglican Establishment in the years following the War of 1812, their actions were publicly repudiated by Alexander McLeod, the leading Methodist layman of Saint John, who was editor of The City Gazette.*1

115 The Problem of Methodist Identity Eighteenth-century Methodists had led the fight against the privileges given to the clergy of the Established Church in the Marriage Act; the nineteenth-century protest was led by Calvinists.22 The historic links between New Brunswick Wesleyanism and the Anglican Establishment were further strengthened by the increasingly dominant role played by the missionary society of the English general conference. There is a perception that the quintessentially English institution in the colony of New Brunswick was the Church of England. In fact, this was not the case. Despite the later influence of John Medley, there were few English-born missionaries within the New Brunswick Church at mid-century. By contrast, even a cursory examination of E.A. Betts's studies of the Methodist clergy serving in the colony reveals the overwhelming English influence in New Brunswick Methodism between 1815 and i8so.23 Even if one counts McColl as a Loyalist (and technically he was), most of the superintendents on the St Stephen, Milltown, and St David circuits (which made up the core area of McColl's mission) between 1830 and 1850 were English-born. A similar situation existed on the Saint John circuits. Given the small English-born population in the colony in the nineteenth century, it is obvious that the Methodist clerical leadership in the second generation of the province was not representative of the colonial population. Even more important for the development of Methodism was the attitude toward the Anglican Establishment brought to the colony by the agents of the missionary society. Leaders of the English Wesleyan conference were the most politically and socially conservative religious dissenters in England. They were clearly prepared to support the Church of England Establishment and to accept their own place as chapel people. The classic interpretation of Methodist influence in preserving the English social order in the period between 1789 and 1848 is that of Elie Halevy. In Hale'vy's view, the Methodists and Methodist influence among England's working classes prevented the development of the major revolutionary movements that swept over most of western Europe in this period.24 The conservatism of the Wesleyan leaders did not reflect as much a commitment to the moral superiority of the English social order as a concern that Methodists should be in this world but not of it. It was this same pietism that characterized their influence in the colonies. New Brunswick, however, was not England and, despite the English influence, Methodists' discontent with the inferior legal and social position they suffered began to surface as early as 1830. Protest centred successively on the Marriage Act (which required Methodists to be married by clergy of the Church of England), on the College

116 Methodism in New Brunswick

Question (whether King's College in Fredericton should be an Anglican institution), on the issue of prison chaplaincies, and on the favouritism shown to the members of the Established Church in the distribution of public offices most of which were traditionally held by Anglicans. The pietism of the Methodist communities at St Stephen, Saint John, and Fredericton, and their compliant attitude toward the Establishment, gradually eroded between 1830 and 1844. The act that marked the end of this phase of Methodist development in Saint John occurred with the formation of the Evangelical Union in 1844. Although seemingly designed as an alliance of all evangelicals in the city, the Union excluded the Anglican evangelicals, arguably the largest group of evangelicals in the city. Instead, the organization consisted of the Free churches of the city in opposition to the Establishment. Methodists joined with Baptists, Free Presbyterians, and Congregationalists to oppose the doctrine of religious privilege. A number of members from the organization formed the Election Society to contest the 1844 colonial election. Representatives from the Methodist, Baptist, and Free Presbyterian communions entered the fray on behalf of their co-religionists.25 While it is true that the Methodist clergy showed less enthusiasm for the Election Society than did those of the other dissenting denominations, this could not disguise the fact that large numbers of the Methodist laity were prepared to use political action to establish what they considered religious equality. None of the Election Society candidates won election in 1844. Yet, even by 1844, other Methodists were already found in the House of Assembly, almost always among a small group of selfproclaimed reformers. They included George Hill from St Stephen and, notably, the young Fredericton lawyer, Lemuel Allan Wilmot, who within a short time was to establish himself as the most prominent Methodist in the province. The political disengagement of Methodists from their Anglican roots continued in the decade following 1844. Two broad coalitions of interests, closely resembling political parties, emerged in the province in the early 18505. Although the leaders of these groups would probably have referred to themselves as conservatives and reformers, they were popularly known as Rummies and Smashers, an allusion to their respective positions on the subject of liquor control.26 That issue must not, however, be permitted to obscure the fact that the gulf between Smashers and Rummies was much larger than simply the question of prohibition. Smashers were prepared to use the instrument of the State to secure a morally better society. There was in the Smashers' ideological arsenal a notion that a better world

117 The Problem of Methodist Identity

could be created through social regulation. Drink should be regulated because it could cause harm; the instruction of the young should be regulated to provide equality of opportunity, something Methodists felt they had never enjoyed. The significance of religious traditions in the formation of these political allegiances in the province is clearly demonstrated in Charlotte County (which included St Stephen) in the elections of the 18508. Charlotte electors returned four members to the Assembly from a single constituency. Parties normally offered tickets of four candidates, although electors had the choice of any four candidates from among the ten or more usually running. In the provincial election of 1856, more than 70 percent of the Methodist electors of Charlotte County voted the whole Smashers' ticket.27 In so doing they were joining most free church evangelicals in the province in conformity with their world view. The Smashers' stronghold in Saint John was, significantly, Queen's Ward, the site of both the Centenary and the Germaine Street chapels and home to the greatest concentration of Methodists in the province. The narrative above describes the process through which Methodists were transformed from pietists to political activists prepared to intrude their beliefs upon the larger society. Why did it occur between 1820 and 1856? The most plausible explanation suggests that, as a group, New Brunswick Methodists were becoming more prosperous, more socially prominent, and more self-confident. Most commentators of the period deprecated such a notion. Methodist preachers gloried in the humbleness of spirit they found among their people. Robert Cooney lauded the fact that there were no well-to-do Methodists in the city; it was wealth, he argued, that was the cause of most of the sins of the spirit.28 Preachers had reason to fear the wealthy; both the Saint John and the St Stephen circuits had been rocked by the dissension caused by a number of businessmen who eventually defected from the Methodist fellowship rather than submit to the Discipline.29 But Cooney"s statement, made in the early 18505, is simply wrong. First generation New Brunswick Methodism had been a movement of the poor and disinherited, filled with small farmers, labourers, and jacks-of-all-trades. As the nineteenth century progressed, however, the movement became increasingly urban and increasingly centred on the artisans of these towns. These were the artisans who most prospered during the golden age of wind and sail that characterized the New Brunswick economy at mid-century. The evidence of the growing prosperity of Methodists is overwhelming. Saint John provides some of the most conspicuous examples. When Joshua Mars-

118 Methodism in New Brunswick den constructed the Germaine Street Chapel in 1807, more than one hundred members of the congregation participated in the construction.30 When the Centenary Chapel was constructed a generation later, the work on the much more splendid structure was done by wage labour. Leading Methodists between 1850 and 1870 included not only Wilmot at Fredericton, but also the master shipbuilder, John Owen, the shipowner Jacob Troop of Saint John, and Zachariah Chipman, president of the Bank of St Stephen.31 It was while serving as lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick that Wilmot managed to accomplish his primary goal of establishing a free common school system for the province and that the New Brunswick Schools Act was implemented by his premier, George King, a prominent Methodist lawyer from Saint John. It is important not to characterize the whole denomination by its most prominent members. In fact, the overwhelming majority of Methodists were not professionals or businessmen. Even as late as 1870, it is probable that the wealthiest and most socially prominent men in the province were under-represented in the ranks of the Methodists. Yet it was not only the wealthy who were prosperous and respected. New Brunswick Methodists, like those of Hamilton, Ontario, were found to a surprising degree among the small proprietors and master artisans in the towns.32 The rank-and-file members were found among the respectable tradesmen. Few were found on the bench of magistrates, but many were counted on the grand juries of the county. As I pointed out at the beginning of this discussion, rural Methodists were clumped in only three or four agricultural areas. In the two principal agricultural counties of the province, the Methodist presence was centred on the parishes of Studholm, Wilmot, and Wakefield where agricultural output per farm was significantly higher than the county average and nearly twice the provincial average.33 In Wakefield, for example, Methodists were less likely to be farmers and more likely to be rural artisans or retailers. Moreover, Methodist farmers in this parish were younger than those of other denominations, and those Methodists who farmed were somewhat more productive than others.34 The prosperity of the denomination was evident in the buildings in which Methodists worshipped. The fine Centenary Chapel in Saint John has already been mentioned.35 The even more splendid Fredericton Chapel (now the Wilmot Church) was built in 1853, at the same time that the new Bishop of Fredericton was constructing his cathedral.36 The two structures faced each other on the city plat only three short blocks apart, their spires easily dominating the city

i ig The Problem of Methodist Identity skyline. Both were large neo-Gothic buildings, but the wooden Methodist church was half again the size of the cathedral, and its steeple — with its pointing finger — dwarfed that of the cathedral. At St Stephen, Zachariah Chipman (whose daughter became Lady Tilley) imported English stone and brick masons to build the fine new Methodist church (McColl Church) after fire destroyed the chapel in 1871.37 Chipman also contributed to the endowment of the new Methodist college at Sackville. It was from such churches that young Methodist men and women were sent to their new Methodist college at Sackville, a college that came to challenge the primacy of the Anglican college at Fredericton.38 Even in smaller communities where the Methodist presence was less obvious, there were obvious signs of prosperity. A recent study of inheritance patterns among deceased residents of nineteenthcentury Carleton County revealed very sharp distinctions between Methodists on the one hand and Baptists, Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Roman Catholics on the other.39 It seems that, in their wills, Methodist male decedents were quite as prepared to turn over their estates to their wives or daughters as to their sons. This seemed a stunning example of the impact of religious ideas on culture, until further examination revealed that most of the Methodist decedents were business and professional men, while the great majority of others were not. The Anglicans may have been the Establishment in Carleton County, and they may have occupied most of the public offices of the county, but they do not appear to have been the economic equals of the Methodists by 1870. There are many questions raised by this Methodist nineteenthcentury experience. What role did Methodist theology and social teachings play in the economic mobility of its adherents? Did Methodism tend to attract the successful or did its poorer adherents gradually abandon the movement at mid-century? Certainly the experience suggests that there was little of the out-at-the-top movement of prosperous dissenters to the Established Church similar to that which occurred in the mother country. Rather, most of the prosperous stayed, and the leadership they provided altered the perception that Methodists had of themselves and of their relationship to the larger society. Shorn of its dependence and its pietism, a still evangelical Methodism, now more a denomination than a movement, and possessing a perception that was now self-consciously and traditionally Methodist, went on in the last third of the nineteenth century to become the most rapidly growing element in the religious fabric of the province.

12O

Methodism in New Brunswick

NOTES

1 The relative strength of the major denominations was as follows: 1871 1901 Regular Baptist 42,729 65,201 Free Christian Baptist 27,866 15,668 Church of England 45,481 41,767 Methodist 29,651 35,973 Presbyterian 38,712 39,496 Roman Catholic 96,016 125,698 2 See Goldwin French, Persons and Politics: The Role of the Wesleyan Methodists in Upper Canada and the Maritimes from 1780 to 1855 (Toronto: Ryerson 1962), 62-6, and T. Watson Smith, History of the Methodist Church within the territories Embraced in the late Conference of Eastern British America, including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and Bermuda, 2 vols (Halifax: Methodist Book Room 1877), vol. i, chaps. 4, 7, 8 and 12. Membership figures for the period are not useful indicators of the size of the Methodist community in any locality. Saint John, for example, showed only eighty members in 1799, but attendance at services indicated a community of several hundred people. The lack of clerical leadership also meant that the membership of some societies was ignored in any given year. 3 The surviving elements of the partial census of New Brunswick carried out in 1803 indicate there was a decline in the population in areas of Loyalist settlement between 1784 and 1803. This trend is confirmed by most commentators of the period. See W.O. Raymond, ed., The Winslow Papers A.D. 1776—1^26 (Saint John: Sun Publishing Company Limited 1901), 488-91. 4 Canada, Census (1871), i: 214-29. 5 On Alline and the New Lights, see George Rawlyk, Ravished by the Spirit: Religious Revivals, Baptists and Henry Alline (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1984). On Bishop Charles Inglis and the evangelicals, see Judith Fingard, The Anglican Design in Loyalist Nova Scotia, 1783—1816 (London: SPCK 1972). 6 T.W. Acheson, "Duncan M'Coll," Dictionary of Canadian Biography, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1987) 6: 429-32; and T.W. Acheson, "A Study in the Historical Demography of A Loyalist County," Histoire Sociale/Social History, i: 53—65. 7 T.W. Acheson, "Denominationalism in a Loyalist County: A Social History of Charlotte, 1784—1950" (M.A. thesis, University of New Brunswick 1964), 31-2. 8 Joshua Marsden, The Narrative of a Mission to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the Somers Islands (Plymouth: J. Johns 1816), 102—3.

i2i

The Problem of Methodist Identity

9 The early relationship between Methodists and Baptists is best explored in David Bell's fine introduction to The Newlight Baptist Journals of James Manning and James Innis (Hantsport, N.S.: Lancelot Press 1984), chap. i. The Free Christian Baptists have been ill-served by the Baptist historiography of the Maritime Provinces, a fact that perhaps reflects the Nova Scotia bias of most Maritime Baptist historians. Only recently have George Rawlyk and David Bell begun to define the origins of a denomination that, in late nineteenth-century New Brunswick, was nearly the size of the Regular Baptist. 10 Information on migration flows into New Brunswick is found in the annual reports of the Immigrant Agent. These were generally published in the journals of the House of Assembly. The agents' reports were usually bound each year as an appendix to the journal of the House of Assembly. The appendices were often unpaged. 11 More than half of the Methodists in 1871 were found in or around the parishes of Westmorland, St Stephen, Saint John, and Fredericton. These were the principal Methodist communities in 1800. 12 Mary Bradley, A Narrative of the Life and Christian Experiences of Mrs. Mary Bradley of Saint John, New Brunswick, Written by Herself: including extracts from her diary and correspondence during a period of upwards of sixty years (Boston: Geo. C. Rand 1849), chaps 6-8. 13 Joshua N. Barnes, Lights and Shadows of Eighty Years: an autobiography by Rev. Joshua N. Barnes: revised and edited by his son, Edwin C. Barnes: with an introduction by Rev. Joseph McLeod (Saint John: Barnes and Company 1911), chap. 3. 14 The twelve town parishes were Saint John, Portland, St Stephen, Fredericton, Sussex, Moncton, Bathurst, Chatham, Woodstock, Sackville, Newcastle, and St Andrews. See Canada, Census (1871), i: 214-29. 15 Smith, History of the Methodist Church, i: 350. 16 Marsden, Narrative, 102. 17 T.W. Acheson, Saint John: The Making of a Colonial Urban Community (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1985), chap. 6. 18 T.W. Acheson, "Charles Simonds," Dictionary, 8: 805—11. 19 Elizabeth Davidson, "The English Church in the American Colonies," Papers of Trinity College Historical Society, no. 20, 73. 20 Acheson, "Denominationalism," 39-40. 21 City Gazette (Saint John), i and 18 October 1820. 22 W.S. MacNutt, New Brunswick: A History (Toronto: MacMillan 1963), 92, 166. 23 E. Arthur Belts, Bishop Black and His Preachers (Sackville, N.S.: Tribune Press 1976), appendix 2. 24 The history and historiographical significance of the Halevy thesis is brilliantly analyzed by Bernard Semmel in his introduction to Elie

122

25 26 27

28 29 30 31

32

33

34

35

Methodism in New Brunswick

Hal£vy, The Birth of Methodism in England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1971). Acheson, Saint John, 130, 132—4; MacNutt, New Brunswick, 248, 305—6. MacNutt, New Brunswick, chap. 14. Gail Campbell, "'Smashers' and 'Rummies': Voters and the Rise of Parties in Charlotte County, New Brunswick, 1846-1857," Historical Papers (1986), 86-116. Robert Cooney, The Autobiography of a Wesleyan Methodist Missionary (Montreal: E. Pickup 1857), 149—50. See Acheson, "Denominationalism," 137-8. Marsden, Narrative, 104—14. See E.G. Wright, Saint John Ships and Their Builders (Wolfville, N.B.: E.G. Wright 1976), and Harold Davis, Twin Communities on the St. Croix (Orono: University of Maine Press 1952). This impression is confirmed by comparing Saint John Methodist membership rolls with the 1851 and 1861 raw census data. For Charlotte County, see Acheson, "A Study in the Historical Demography of a Loyalist County." In his study of Hamilton, Ontario, Michael Katz found that Wesleyans were the most affluent denomination in the city at mid-century. While they had proportionally fewer well-to-do adherents than did the Free Church Presbyterians, they also had far fewer poor adherents. Overall, 15 percent of Hamilton Wesleyans were poor, compared with 40 percent of the population as a whole (and with 54 percent of Catholics, 40 percent of Anglicans, and 26 percent of Presbyterians). See Michael Katz, The People of Hamilton, Canada West (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1975), 37-8, 355. Studholm and Wakefield were among the most prosperous agricultural parishes of the province. Per farm outputs for New Brunswick in 1871 were 97 bushels of oats, 39 bushels of buckwheat, 210 bushels of potatoes, and 11 tons of hay. Oat production in Studholm was 84 percent above the provincial average; in Wakefield it was 356 percent. Buckwheat production was 269 percent and 195 percent above that for the province, potato production was 52 percent and 40 percent higher, and hay output was 65 percent and 51 percent (Canada Census [1871], 3: 186-9). While the most productive i percent of farmers were not Methodists, the output of the Methodists in the upper quartile of producers generally exceeded that of non-Methodists. Butter output of Methodists in this group, for example, was 500 Ibs as opposed to 400 Ibs for nonMethodists. This data was generated from analysis of the 1871 manuscript census for Wakefield Parish. On the history of Centenary Church, see G.A. Henderson, Early Saint John Methodism and the History of Centenary Methodist Church, St John, N.B. (Saint John: G.E. Day 1890).

123 The Problem of Methodist Identity 36 On the Fredericton Chapel, see W.A. Squires, The Wilmot United Church (Fredericton: Wilmot Church 1977). 37 On McColl Church, St Stephen, see Ellen Gregg, Kirk-McColl, 1785ig8o (St Stephen: Print'n Press 1980). 38 See J.M. Reid, Mount Allison University: A History to 1963, 2 vols (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1984), 2: 158. 39 Marilyn Sarchfield, "An Analysis of Inheritance Patterns in the Carleton County Probate Records 1835—40, 1855-60, 1875-80" (B.A. Honours Paper, University of New Brunswick, 1989).

This page intentionally left blank

Methodism in Prince Edward Island

This page intentionally left blank

7 Prince Edward Island Methodist Prelude to Church Union, 1925 JAMES D. C A M E R O N

On 10 June 1925, the Methodist Church of Canada on Prince Edward Island vanished permanently. Its members, along with their counterparts in the other provinces, slid placidly into the new and large United Church of Canada, which was formed by merging the Methodist Church with Congregationalists and about two-thirds of the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Marguerite Van Die has recently noted that, "for Methodists, some of the structures for such a union were clearly in place from the earlier period of revivalism: a tradition of interdenominational cooperation in education, social reform, and missions, and an understanding of religion which valued experience over creed."1 She might also have mentioned the important nineteenth-century mergers among separate Methodist branches, as well as certain trends in piety and theology that likewise prepared the way for the union of 1925. An examination of both the origins of Methodism on P.E.I, and its subsequent transformations will show how the foundations were laid on the Island, as elsewhere, for the eventual formation of the United Church of Canada in igas- 2 Methodism originated on P.E.I, in 1774 with the settlement of Benjamin and Elizabeth Chappell in the area of New London.3 The Chappells had emigrated from London, England with a number of others, attracted, no doubt, by inflated descriptions of the Island "paradise," and had established a small pioneer settlement on the north shore called Elizabethtown.4 Benjamin had been born into the Anglican church and later became a devout convert and friend of John Wesley. His deep commitment to the spread of Wesley's powerful

i?8 Methodism in Prince Edward Island

revivalist teachings on individual repentance, faith, justification, regeneration, and sanctification was evident in the religious services he led in his home village and later in Charlottetown, where he moved in October 1778 to find more work as a mechanic and carpenter,5 Five years later he was able by his "earnest and repeated invitation"6 to convince the first Methodist preacher, William Black of Nova Scotia, to come to the Island in order to invigorate the tiny band of Wesleyan disciples; Jack Bumsted has claimed that Chappell "more than anyone else made the spirit of John Wesley a reality on Prince Edward Island."7 But the progress of Wesleyanism was slow during this early pioneer phase of Island history; apparently there were only twenty Methodists on P.E.I, in 1794, and not a single addition could be boasted seven years later in 1801, when the population exceeded four thousand.8 Yet, by the time Benjamin Chappell died at the age of eighty-five in 1825, Island Methodism was Firmly established. One source of growth was Loyalist immigration to the Island after the American Revolution.9 Apparently some of the Methodist Loyalists settled in Charlottetown and were formed into a class at Chappell's house.10 The first Methodist minister stationed on P.E.I, reported in 1809 that the greatest part of a congregation of 150 who came to hear him preach was Loyalist.11 An effective Methodist pioneer and dedicated lay preacher from Ireland, Thomas Dawson, who purchased land and settled at the head of the Hillsborough River in 1801, also contributed to the expansion of early Island Methodism. When he first arrived, he was so struck by the need for religious services on the Island that he "visited every settlement ... preaching and holding services among the people ... "12 Unfortunately, he died rather suddenly in 1804. In May 1806, the arrival of seventy-three men, women, and children from the Channel Island of Guernsey, along with a local preacher by the name of Joseph Avard, suddenly swelled the little group of Island Methodists.13 The Wesleyan revival, apparently, had had a significant impact on the Channel Islands.14 Shortly after arriving in Charlottetown, the new immigrants removed to the area of Murray Harbour South and firmly established Methodism on the southeast end of the Island. Finally, the Island was accorded its first ordained Methodist minister in 1807 by the British Wesleyan Methodist conference. The pioneer ministry of Rev. James Bulpitt further bolstered the Island cause. Shortly after his arrival, Methodist congregations were reported in settlements across the Island such as Charlottetown, Murray Harbour, Bedeque, Cherry Valley, and Tryon.

129 Prelude to Church Union, 1925

The complexion of Island Methodism became more complicated in 1832 when Francis Metherall, a native of North Devon and an experienced minister, was sent to P.E.I, by the Bible Christian Conference in England. The Bible Christians had been established in 1815 as a separatist group, mostly in the English counties of Devon and Cornwall, by William O'Bryan, a well-educated Wesleyan local preacher and son of a prosperous Cornish farmer.15 Bible Christian emigrants from Cornwall and Devon had come to P.E.I, and Ontario in the early nineteenth century.16 The Bible Christian mission to Canada, it seems, was precipitated both by the evangelical revival and by requests from Bible Christian emigrants to the New World. The first Bible Christian missionaries came, argues A. Burnside, "as missionaries to west country Bible Christian exiles, at the request of their own people in the new land to establish their own particular denomination. The mission was primarily directed towards the Bible Christian dispersion in the Canadas."17 So MetheralFs entrance onto the Island signalled the formal beginnings of a second brand of Wesleyanism on P.E.I.18 According to Burnside, the Bible Christians were the most aggressively evangelical of all the Methodist groups.19 Metherall was no exception to the rule. Apparently he was experienced, physically strong, and very active.20 In a relatively short time, he was able to establish Bible Christian works at places across the Island such as West Cape in western P.E.I., Union and Princetown Roads in the central region, and Sturgeon and Vernon River on the eastern side. Revivals in certain districts, such as those around Vernon River from 1842 to 1844, also helped his Bible Christian cause. Yet the growth of the movement was anything but dramatic; in 1855 there were only 369 members on P.E.I., and this number declined to 300 only one year later, in spite of a general population increase.21 A number of factors explain the relative failure of the denomination. First, Roman Catholics and Presbyterians were the dominant Christian traditions on P.E.I, in the mid-nineteenth century. According to the 1841 census, Catholics accounted for 43 percent and Presbyterians for 32 percent of an Island population of 47,034. Together, these churches appealed to the large Scottish and Irish segments of the population. Furthermore, the Bible Christian movement was obscure and unknown, and, therefore, as Burnside states, "those seeking a Methodist type of faith [were] more likely to join the better known, better staffed, and more fashionable Wesleyans."22 Bible Christians themselves blamed internal divisions, mismanagement, flawed ministerial leadership, and lack of itinerant preachers for their lack of success.23 Finally, outmigration,

130 Methodism in Prince Edward Island

stimulated by such problems as the land question and restricted opportunities for employment, imposed a persistent drain on the membership. As a result of these disadvantages, the Bible Christian denomination remained weak on P.E.I.; by 1855 it could claim the affiliation of only 1,752, or 2.5 percent, out of a population of 71,196. In 1855 Island Methodism affiliated with the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society in London was much larger than the Bible Christian denomination. It had been on the Island longer, had more ministers, and was more widely known. Methodist numbers had also been increased by immigration and revivals.24 Even though Islanders were largely Roman Catholic or Presbyterian, Island Methodism, perhaps, could have been even more dynamic and expansive if there had been a more adequate ministerial supply, a problem that plagued all denominations in the colonial period. At the annual district meeting in Nova Scotia in June 1853, one Island missionary pressed home the point that there were "favourable openings for the extension of our work which cannot be extended at present for want of additional labourers."25 iTie ministerial workload was overwhelming; pastors, responsible for extended circuits, were commonly expected to preach four to five times each week, to visit families, to catechize the young, and to keep registers of baptisms and marriages. Nonetheless, the Census of 1855 reported 4,713 Wesleyan Methodists - close to 7 percent of the Island population and almost three times the number of Bible Christians.2" Up to 1855, Island and Nova Scotia Methodists, like those in the other Maritime colonies, had been considered a missionary district. Like the other districts, they held their own annual meeting. But, in July 1855, all the separate Maritime districts, including Newfoundland, were united into one conference called the Conference of Eastern British America. This new conference, however, did not end its connection with the British conference; it would not achieve full independence until 1874. The Bible Christians, for their part, remained as a missionary district with their financial and clerical support coming solely from the English Bible Christian Conference. For them, complete independence from the English Connexion lay nearly three decades in the future. This early period of Methodist origins and growth on P.E.I, was evidently important for the future of Island Methodism; however, from the standpoint of church union in 1925, the mid-nineteenth century decades and following were even more crucial to the destiny of the denomination. During these years, key changes occurred that would gradually lay the groundwork for the eventual union of the Methodists

131 Prelude to Church Union, 1925

and Presbyterians into the United Church of Canada in 1925. The consolidation of separate Methodist tributaries was an important initial step in this direction; the mergers reduced the number of Methodist denominations and provided valuable experiences in negotiating and compromising on differences over doctrine and polity.27 The Bible Christians on P.E.I, were the first of the two Island Methodist traditions to begin the trend of denominational consolidation.28 The process began, surprisingly, in 1865, when Islanders still opposed Confederation and appeared, on the political level, in no mood for union with the upper provinces.29 In that year, the P.E.I. District merged with the much larger Canada Conference, which had been established in 1855. Island Bible Christians hoped the union would ensure a better supply of ministers; the supply from the English conference had always been meagre, and a good number of those who came had even moved on to Ontario.30 The Canada Conference saw the union as an important step in the consolidation of its efforts at expansion. The growth in Island Bible Christian support for the union with the central Canadian conference culminated in 1864 with the reaffirmation of an earlier resolution by the District of Prince Edward Island: "That as we are still of the opinion that the union of this district with the Canadian Conference would be for the benefit of all concerned; we have but to reiterate our former resolution upon that matter."31 The Canada Conference was a willing partner in the marriage; it passed a resolution in the same year agreeing "to take Prince Edward Island, and its staff of labourers, into connection with this Conference, including its control and financial responsibility ... "32 The English conference happily confirmed the union, to which the Island district contributed 566 members.33 The next significant Methodist union was achieved in 1874. At this time, two denominations that existed west of New Brunswick — The New Connexion Methodist Church of Canada and the Wesleyan Methodist Conference - united with the Conference of Eastern British America to form the Methodist Church of Canada. The last session of the old Eastern British America conference was held in Charlottetown beginning on Wednesday, 25 June 1874, almost one year after the Island's belated entry into Confederation. At its close, the conference members met in different places to form three new annual conferences for the Maritimes — Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.34 With the union, Maritime Methodists finally achieved complete independence from British Wesleyanism.35 Apparently, the different Methodist traditions in Canada at this time were "one people" in doctrine and social concern. Even in polity,

METHODIST TRIBUTARIES AND UNIONS ON P.E.I.

Note: The darker lines represent denominations which actually existed on P.E.I.

133 Prelude to Church Union, 1925

the differences were not too great; the trend was toward increased lay representation in the church courts.36 Yet the Bible Christians were a "reluctant partner" in the union discussions that had emerged in the late i86os.37 Cephas Barker, a prominent Bible Christian minister, stated in a letter to the Christian Guardian in 1865, "I do not see the utility of attempting an amalgamation of the various branches of the Wesleyan family."38 According to Burnside, the Bible Christians saw union as a "Wesleyan plot to absorb their denomination."89 In addition, they had experienced rivalry with other Methodists in certain rural areas. Burnside castigates their attitude. "The Bible Christians must receive the major part of the blame for a display of petty awkwardness and obstructiveness which threw early hopes of a united Methodism into disarray."40 Since the Bible Christians resisted union in 1874, the formation of the Methodist Church of Canada did not affect the Maritime region of the church numerically, although it did alter conference boundaries. Both the denominations that merged with the former Conference of Eastern British America existed only west of New Brunswick.41 The Bible Christians on P.E.I., along with their counterparts in Ontario, remained coldly aloof from this first union experiment. The final and most widely encompassing union of Canadian Methodists occurred in 1884. On i June of that year, the Methodist Church of Canada, the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada, the Primitive Methodist Church in Canada, and the Bible Christian Church in Canada merged into the Methodist church. The new, united denomination claimed a total formal membership of i6g,8o3.42 The apparent impetus for this broad Canadian Methodist union arose from the Methodist Ecumenical Conference held at Wesley's Chapel, London, in September i88i.43 Furthermore, the Bible Christians, even by 1879, were deeply concerned about their connexional debt and viewed union as a means of defraying it.44 The result was large affirmative voting majorities among both Island Bible Christians and Methodists in support of the union.45 Yet the Bible Christian resistance to union revealed in 1874 and earlier had not been completely eroded by 1884. Out of 2,403 Island Bible Christians reported in the Census of 1881, 294 identified themselves as continuing Bible Christians in the Census of i 891.46 Of these, 109 were listed in Kings County, 161 in Prince County, and only 24 in Queens County. The Island Bible Christian resistance to union seemed to be linked to several factors. First, relations on P.E.I. between the Bible Christians and the Wesleyans had not always been positive. John Harris reported, for example, that in 1857 on the Murray Harbour-Sturgeon circuit "the Wesleyans took advantage of

134 Methodism in Prince Edward Island

certain difficulties that arose in the church, entered the place while our cause was divided, formed a church out of the disaffected members, and continue there to this day, to the injury and weakness of both parties."47 Furthermore, some Bible Christians may have retained a somewhat jaundiced view of Methodists "from away," especially central Canadian ones, because the 1865 marriage between Island and Canadian Bible Christians had not always been smooth. In 1883, the year before union, Harris lamented, "For some years some irritation and prejudice prevailed, growing out of what was regarded by many preachers and people in Ontario as clannishness and favouritism manifested by some going there from the Island, and what was regarded by the people of Prince Edward Island as dogmatic Ontario provincialisms, in methods and habits, on the part of some coming from that province ... "48 The insularity of the Island, as well as fear of absorption by the Wesleyans, may also have hardened Bible Christian resistance to the union of i884.49 In spite of this Bible Christian intransigence, the majority did support the union and, hence, significantly enlarged the membership of the New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island Conference, which was inaugurated at Saint John, New Brunswick on 25 June 1884. While the union did not affect Maritime conference boundaries, the New Brunswick and P.E.I. Conference gained 548 members and four ministers.50 Indeed, D.W.Johnson claims that it was the only Maritime conference numerically affected by the union of 1884, because the Bible Christians were the only Methodist denomination other than the Methodist Church of Canada that had significant numbers of members in the conference territory.51 By 1891, Methodists, therefore, accounted for 13,301 out of 109,078 Islanders. This was over 12 percent of the population, a slightly higher proportion than Methodists at this time represented in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. By this date, the Methodist consolidation process was complete; an important precondition for Methodist involvement in the union of 1925 had been established. The question of why nineteenth-century mergers among groups such as the Methodists occurred in the face of traditional denominational loyalties has perhaps been best answered by John W. Grant. He claims that Old World differences grew less and less significant because of a process of indigenization - "a growing sense of local identity and a growing identification of the churches with the Canadian scene."52 Confederation, too, was a key influence for unity, as it challenged the denominations to lay "a Christian foundation for a new and expanding nation," a task that they could only poorly discharge in their divided state.53 Other related factors that especially eroded differences among Methodists, Grant argues, included ecu-

135 Prelude to Church Union, 1925

menism and the combined challenges of Catholicism, scepticism, and home and worldwide missions. There was, most likely, at least one important result of the nineteenth-century denominational consolidations; this was that the arrangements required to effect them — interchurch negotiations, the exchange of fraternal delegates at national church courts, the formation and work of joint union committees, and the formulation of bases of union - bequeathed to the denominations a heritage of unionist thought, experience, and religious diplomacy. This legacy would be important for the church union movement, which culminated in 1925. Nineteenth-century Methodist mergers evidently made a contribution to church union in 1925, but so did cooperative reform activism among both Island Methodists and Presbyterians. There were many examples of such joint efforts to effect social uplift. On the Island, Protestants waged broadly based campaigns to promote Bible reading in the public schools,54 to oppose the public endowment of the Catholic college, Saint Dunstan's, to block the formation of Catholic denominational schools within the state financed educational system,55 and to support the incorporation of the Grand Orange Lodge of Prince Edward Island.56 Several Island religious newspapers also demonstrated common Protestant views on various social questions. On 4 March 1857, a weekly called the Protector and Christian Witness began publication with articles opposing Roman Catholicism and supporting Bible reading in the public schools. But it was short-lived; the last edition seems to have appeared on 22 December iSsS.57 Its successor, the Protestant and Evangelical Witness, published from 1859 to 1865, aimed to promote "an active, close, warm fellowship" among Protestants, even though it was established through the cooperation of Presbyterians.58 Like the Presbyterian and Evangelical Protestant Union, which appeared later, from 1875 to 1885, it strongly advocated temperance and attacked the supposed evils of Roman Catholicism and its organ the Vindicator.™ The Protestant Union appeared from 1885 to 1886 and, among other things, continued the tradition of anti-Catholicism.60 This paper was followed by the Island Guardian, which published from 1887 to 1894, but the early religious emphasis of the paper gradually waned, and by the iSgos secular news was receiving "equal coverage."61 Broad Protestant support for the Young Men's Christian Association, Sabbath observance, the Lord's Day Alliance, and temperance organizations was also important evidence of common reform efforts. These nineteenth-century concerns extended into the twentieth century and were supplemented by new cooperative reform projects. In 1908, for example, the Charlottetown District Methodist clergy

136 Methodism in Prince Edward Island

put themselves on record as being in hearty support of the recently organized interdenominational Social Service Council of P.E.I, and its aims of temperance and moral reform. Indeed, the clerics organized a series of public meetings in their district to address these topics.62 Presbyterians, too, were very much involved in the council.63 Both Island denominations certainly supported the Protestant Orphanage (incorporated in 1923) with board representatives, sympathetic resolutions, and regular financial aid. In the early 19205, the Protestant denominations cooperated in the cause of religious education. A national body, called the Religious Education Council of Canada, had been formed in 19 ig,64 and a regional counterpart was also created, called the Maritime Religious Education Council. Its predecessor was the Sunday School Association. The work of the council was to supervise and direct general Sunday school work, to plan conventions and institutes, and to promote various youth camps and groups. A variety of Protestant denominations, including the Methodists and Presbyterians, supported the council.65 A final regional example of Protestant cooperation was the Maritime Home for Girls at Truro.66 The cooperative efforts in social reform that had emerged in the nineteenth century were undergirded by important theological changes among both Methodists and Presbyterians that led to an unprecedented degree of convergence in theological and social outlook.67 By 1884, among Methodists, the evangelical emphasis on abrupt, emotional conversion was being superseded, although not eliminated, by the view of personal salvation as a gradual, evolutionary growth in grace.68 This shift was a result of changes in theology, new concepts in science, a growing trust in progress, and the need to bring second-generation Methodists into the church. In 1884 Methodism in Canada had become a national church, which needed to nurture and protect its membership in a healthy religious community and which aimed to enter a partnership with the state in order to banish immorality.69 Indeed, Neil Semple has argued that the newly unified church came to "sustain a dynamic ethical and spiritual mission throughout Canada" and facilitated the spread of Ontario's cultural and intellectual values throughout the young nation.™ Methodist piety continued to be transformed during the forty years from the 1884 union to 1925. Dramatic conversion and the experience of individual holiness were increasingly eclipsed by spiritual nurture and an emphasis on the practice of holiness, especially through social reform activities. Phyllis Airhart contends that the denomination gradually rejected the type of evangelism that claimed

137 Prelude to Church Union, 1925 a revivalistic lineage because the old revivalist machinery no longer worked. To explain the transformation, she writes, "As a result of an indeterminate mixture of factors of which apathy, affluence, expansion, and urbanization were part, saddle-bag preachers, camp meetings, and protracted meetings had given way to mothers, Sunday School teachers, settled ministers, and professional revivalists."71 Supposedly, the fragmentation of the earlier revivalist piety had also been promoted by findings in the psychology of religion, by the higher criticism of Scripture, by the theory of evolution, and by the new ideas of religious education, as well as by the adoption of the social gospel. Douglas Campbell discovered the same process at work. "The tenets of Methodism as constructed by John Wesley unravelled over time", he observed, "thereby leaving the core areas of conversion and the sources of grace in decline but placing the assurance of salvation through the 'fruits of salvation' in the ascendancy."72 Clearly, the older nineteenth-century Methodist evangelicalism, in both central Canada and the Maritimes, was acquiring a new bed partner in the form of a liberalism that stressed practical Christianity at the expense of orthodoxy.73 Burkhard Kiesekamp described the liberal approach as "a marked preference for personal and subjective inward experience over the more objective and doctrinal emphasis of traditional Christianity and a departure from a traditional conception of revelation as a direct transmission of propositions to a more modern conception of it as God's disclosure of himself as person."74 Both the older orthodoxy and the new shades of liberalism were concerned with the spiritual health of the nation.75 Confederation and the subsequent formation of national denominations stimulated the desire among many church leaders to serve and shape the spiritual and moral needs of the young, expanding country. Keith Clifford has maintained that a vision of Canada as "His Dominion" provided the "inner dynamic" of Protestantism in the first decades of the twentieth century and also formed the basis of "a broad Protestant consensus and coalition."76 Kiesekamp has shown how the Protestant consensus was also buttressed by a new view of community that was no longer content with an existing unity based on the believer's spiritual union with God but instead desired an organic union that was external and visibly confirmed.77 Thus, practical Christianity, reform preoccupations, nationalism, and a new concept of community illustrated a significant degree of convergence in theological and social views among late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Methodists and Presbyterians. Although these theological and social changes have been charted largely for national denominational leaders, the transformations were

138

Methodism in Prince Edward Island

not irrelevant to the Island situation. First, the newly emerging denominational ethos among Methodists was partly responsible for initiating and sustaining the union movement, which deeply affected Island churches in the early igoos. Second, even though liberalism seemed to have no bold Island Methodist champions in the early twentieth century — orthodoxy appeared in good health — the presence of the new theology in the colleges, such as Mount Allison in Sackville, New Brunswick78 and Victoria in Toronto, Ontario made it inevitable that Island ministers would carry some of its emphasis to the province. The growing concern for social reform among Island clerics was surely one liberal influence; the willingness of most ministers to subordinate their denominational loyalties and distinctives in order to work for church union was evidently another.79 Religious developments among Island Methodists from the midnineteenth century to 1920 were crucially important to the church union movement. The Methodist denominational consolidations had created the church that would unite with the Presbyterians in 1925 and, in the process, had established important union traditions. Cooperative social reform efforts had revealed common social and religious aims while also increasing communication among Protestants. In addition, vital theological shifts had weakened denominational loyalties and bolstered concern for the social regeneration of a rapidly changing society. These developments were an essential prelude to the church union of ig25.80 The tone of that prelude was clearly sounded in 1912 when the Methodist Church of Canada placed before its local congregations the question of union with the Congregationalists and Presbyterians. On the Island, 3,655 Methodists were polled, and fully 93 percent or 3,393 voted in favour of union.81 The earlier consolidations, cooperative reform efforts, and theological trends had effectively prepared the way. Moreover, Island Methodists, who by the twentieth century accounted for 13 percent of the population, were undoubtedly demoralized by the problem of outmigration. The Island population had steadily declined from a nineteenth-century high of 109,078 in 1881; it would reach a twentieth-century low of 88,615 in 1921. Union with the large contingent of Island Presbyterians must have appeared as a promising means of bolstering congregations in decline.82 Finally, Methodist church structures that were more centralized than Presbyterian ones did not give such free rein to dissent.83 For example, Methodist church property was held by the denomination for its work overall, and local opposition to union would perhaps jeopardize local church property. Nonetheless, after 1912, Methodists were given no second chance to vote at the con-

139 Prelude to Church Union, 1935

gregational level on the proposed merger. Thus, on 10 June 1925, when the union was formally consummated, Island Methodists ceased to exist as a separate denomination. Henceforth, their fate would be played out in a relatively equal partnership with concurring Presbyterians in the new United Church of Canada on Prince Edward Island. NOTES 1 Marguerite Van Die, An Evangelical Mind: Nathanael Burwash and the Methodist Tradition in Canada, i83g-icji8 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1989), 172. 2 A recent study by Keith Clifford on the Presbyterian resistance to union, called The Resistance to Church Union in Canada, igo4—ig$g (Vancouver: University of British Columbia 1985), neglects, surprisingly, to elucidate the important preconditions for church union. 3 Jack Bumsted has provided a helpful biographical sketch of Chappell's life in "Benjamin Chappell," Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto: University of Toroto Press 1987), 6: 130—2. 4 John T. Mellish, Outlines of the History of Methodism in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (Charlottetown: G. Herbert Haszard 1888), 4; and J.M. Bumsted, Land, Settlement and Politics on Eighteenth Century Prince Edward Island (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1987), 63-4. 5 Ibid., 193. 6 Quoted in Mellish, Outlines, 5. 7 Bumsted, "Benjamin Chappell," 131. 8 Mellish, Outlines, 5, 7. 9 Robert Rankin claims that about four to five hundred Loyalists settled on St John's Island from 1784 to 1787, and he concludes that their religious preferences were "just as varied as their social stations"; see Rankin, An Island Refuge: Loyalists and Disbanded Troops on the Island of Saint John (n.p.: The Abegweit Branch of the United Empire Loyalist Association of Canada 1983), i, 14. 10 Mellish, Outlines, 5. 11 Ibid., 14. 12 Ibid., 8. 13 Ibid., 10. 14 Marion Turk, The Quiet Adventurers in Canada (Detroit: Harlo 1979), 4i15 See Michael Wickes, The Westcountry Preachers: A New History of the Bible Christian Church (1815—igoj) (Bideford, Devon: Wickes 1987). A. Burn-

140 Methodism in Prince Edward Island

16 17 18

19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27

28

29

30 31 32 33 34 35

side has so far done the most exhaustive work on the Bible Christian movement in Canada in "The Bible Christians in Canada, 1832-1884" (TH. D., thesis, Victoria University, Toronto 1969). See B. Greenhill and A. Gifford, Westcountrymen in Prince Edward's Isle (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1967). Ibid., 54. John Harris's short study, The Life of the Reverend Francis Metherall and the History of the Bible Christian Church in Prince Edward Island (Toronto: Bible Christian Bookroom 1883), while designed for the "edification of the saints," is still useful, thorough, and accurate. Burnside, "The Bible Christians in Canada," ii. Hams, Reverend Francis Metherall, 12. Burnside, "The Bible Christians in Canada," 116, 122. Ibid., 123. Ibid., 117. See Mellish, Outlines, 45, 51. Minutes of the Annual District Meeting of Wesleyan Missionaries in Nova Scotia East District, June 1853, Maritime Conference Archives of the United Church of Canada, Halifax. P.E.I. Assembly Journal (1856), appendix D. This nineteenth-century trend of Methodist reunion was not unique to Canada. It also characterized Methodism in Australia, Ireland, and the United States. See Ruth Rowse and Stephen Charles Neill, eds., A History of the Ecumenical Movement 1517—1948, and ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press 1967), 300-2, 451-4. See the accompanying chart on page 133 for an overview of the main Canadian Methodist consolidations in the nineteenth century and how they affected Island Methodism. These have been traced in J.W. Caldwell, "The Unification of Methodism in Canada, 1865-1884," The Bulletin (1967): 3-61, and William Howard Brooks, "The Changing Character of Maritime Wesleyan Methodism, 1855-1883" (M.A. thesis, Mount Allison University 1965). Francis W.P. Bolger, "Prince Edward Island Rejects Confederation, 1864-1867," in Canada's Smallest Province: A History of Prince Edward Island, ed. Francis W.P. Bolger (n.p.: P.E.I. Centennial Commission 1973). i56-84Harris, Reverend Francis Metherall, 109—10. Quoted in Burnside, "Bible Christians in Canada," 86. Quoted in Harris, Reverend Francis Metherall, 88. Wickes, Westcountry Preachers, 58. Patriot, 2 July 1874. D.W. Johnson, History of Methodism in Eastern British America, including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Bermuda, from the Beginning to the Consummation of Union with the

141 Prelude to Church Union, 1925

36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

47 48 49 50 51 52

53 54 55

56

Presbyterian and Congregationalist Churches in 1925 (Sackville, N.B.: Tribune Press n.d.), 11. Burnside, "Bible Christians in Canada," 291, 295-6. Ibid., 239. Christian Guardian, 11 October 1865. Burnside, "Bible Christians in Canada," 252. Ibid., 247. Johnson, History of Methodism, 11. Patriot, 3 June 1884. Burnside, "Bible Christians in Canada," 323. Ibid., 317. See Johnson, History of Methodism, 13, and Burnside, "Bible Christians in Canada," 359. Of course, these figures likely include some persons who entered the union of 1884 but still identified themselves as Bible Christians, since they had not yet assumed, in any personal way, the identity of the new Methodist church. But it is evident that other Bible Christians refused to enter the new church, at least for a time. In 1883, immediately before union, John Harris reported seven ministers and 647 members in the P.E.I. Bible Christian Society (Reverend Francis Metherall, 111). Johnson recorded that only four ministers and 458 members entered the Methodist church in 1884 (History of Methodism, 240). Further research is needed on the locations and ultimate fate of this faithful Bible Christian remnant. In Ontario, out of 23,726 Bible Christians listed in 1881, 5,889 still identified themselves as such in 1891. Harris, Reverend Francis Metherall, 52. Ibid., 106. Burnside suggested these two factors; "Bible Christians in Canada," 330. These are the figures reported by Johnson, History of Methodism, 240. Ibid., 13. John W. Grant, The Canadian Experience of Church Union (London: Lutterworth Press 1967), 9. See also Frank A. Peake, "Movements Toward Christian Unity in the Post-Confederation Period," Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society 9 (December 1967): 84-108. Ibid., 18. Ian Ross Robertson, "The Bible Question in Prince Edward Island from 1856 to 1860," Acadiensis 5 (Spring 1976): 3-25. Ian Ross Robertson, "Religion, Politics, and Education in Prince Edward Island from 1856-1877," (M.A. thesis, McGill University 1968), parts 2-4. See Ian Ross Robertson, "Party Politics and Religious Controversialism in Prince Edward Island from 1860 to 1863," Acadiensis 7 (Spring 1978): 29-59. On P> 57' Robertson notes the Protestant fear of appar-

142 Methodism in Prince Edward Island

57

58

59 60 61 62 63

64

65 66

67

68

69 70

ent Roman Catholic aggressiveness, which aroused the growth of Orangeism on the Island in the 18508 and i86os. The degree to which anti-Catholicism united Protestants and played a part in church unions, including that of 1925, is an important question but difficult to answer. It cannot be discounted on the Island, because, as Robertson indicates on p. 58, Catholics accounted for almost 50 percent of the population, and the religious and ethnic homogeneity of many largely self-contained districts easily contributed to unchallenged stereotypes of alien religions. Heather Boy Ian, Checklist and Historical Directory of Prince Edward Island Newspapers ij8j—ig86 (Charlottetown: Public Archives of Prince Edward Island 1987), 123. See the article calling for unity and cooperation, Protestant and Evangelical Witness, 6 July 1859, Robertson Library, University of Prince Edward Island. Copies of the Presbyterian and Evangelical Union are also available in the Robertson Library. Boylan, Checklist, 125. Ibid, 69. Annual Financial District Meetings, Minutes (1908), 24. Maritime Conference Archives. In 1923, for example, nine members of the Island Presbytery were appointed to the council. P.E.I. Presbytery Minutes 1923, Maritime Archives. See Patricia Dirks, "Finding the 'Canadian' way: Origins of the Religious Education Council of Canada," Studies in Religion/Sciences religieuses 3 (i9 8 7) : 3o3-i6. J Minutes of the Annual Conference of New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island igzi, 42-4, Maritime Archives. Twila Buttimer, '"Great Expectations': The Maritime Methodist Church and Church Union 1925" (M.A. thesis, University of New Brunswick 1980), 96. See Clifford, Resistance, 17, and Burkhard Kiesekamp, "Presbyterian and Methodist Divines: Their Case for a National Church in Canada, 1875-1900," Studies in Religion/Sciences religieuses 2 (1973), 289—302. George N. Emery, "The Origins of Canadian Methodist Involvement in the Social Gospel Movement, The Bulletin, 26 (1977): 106-10. Van Die's recent work, An Evangelical Mind, stresses the continuities within Methodism, such as a persistent concern for conversion and for faithfulness to Wesley's teachings. Emery, "Origins," 116. Neil Semple develops the ideas of the decline of abrupt conversion patterns and Methodism as the instrument of Ontario's religious

143 Prelude to Church Union, 1925 hegemony in '"The Nurture and Admonition of the Lord': Nineteenth Century Canadian Methodism's Response to 'Childhood'," Social History/Histoire sociale 14 (May 1981): 157—75, anc' m "Ontario's Religious

71

72

73

74

75

Hegemony: The Creation of the National Methodist Church," Ontario History 77 (March 1985): 19—42. His thesis charts how Methodism was transformed from a defined body of converts into a far-reaching urban, social institution, respectable and middle class. See Semple, "The Impact of Urbanization on the Methodist Church in Central Canada, 1854-1884" (PH.D. thesis, University of Toronto 1979). Phyllis Airhart, "The Eclipse of Revivalist Spirituality: The Transformation of Canadian Methodist Piety 1884-1925" (PH.D. thesis, University of Chicago 1985), 238. Van Die supports this conclusion but stresses that the changes were not abrupt (Van Die, An Evangelical Mind, 193). Douglas Campbell, "People of the Connexion: The Methodists in Canada," working paper #3, p. 21, Presbyterian Church Archives, Knox College, Toronto. The presence of these trends among Protestants in the Maritimes has been shown by Ernest Forbes, "Prohibition and the Social Gospel in Nova Scotia," Acadiensis i (Autumn 1971): 11—36; Arthur Belts, Pine Hill Divinity Hall, 1820-1970: A History (Truro, N.S.: Executive Print 1970), 31; John Reid, Mount Allison University: A History to 1963, 2 vols (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1984), i: 193, 225, 227, and 271 and 2: 55 and 58; and George Rawlyk, "Fundamentalism, Modernism and the Maritime Baptists in the 19205 and 19305," Acadiensis 17 (Autumn 1981): 5, 18, 29. Kiesekamp, "Presbyterian and Methodist Divines," 289. Other writers besides Semple, Airhart, Campbell, and Kiesekamp who have noted theological change and the rise of a social reform agenda among Methodists and Presbyterians include D.C. Masters, "The Rise of Liberalism in Canadian Protestant Churches," Canadian Catholic Historical Association Study Sessions (1969): 27-39; Emery, "Origins," 75-93; Michael Gauvreau, "The Taming of History: Reflections on the Canadian Methodist Encounter with Biblical Criticism, 1830—1900," Canadian Historical Review 65 (1984): 313—46; Ramsey Cook, The Regenerators: Social Criticism in Late Victorian English Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1985), chap. 2; and A.B. McKillop, A Disciplined Intelligence: Critical Inquiry and Canadian Thought in the Victorian Era (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1979). There is some indication that the conventional terms "liberal," "conservative," and "orthodox," used to identify theological emphases, especially since World War I, will have to be revised as our knowledge of the intellectual ferment becomes more refined. See Michael Gauvreau,

144 Methodism in Prince Edward Island

76

77

78 79

80

81 82

83

"War, Culture and the Problem of Religious Certainty: Methodist and Presbyterian Church Colleges, 1914-1930," Journal of the Canadian Church Historical Society, 19, i (April 1987): 12-31. Keith Clifford, "His Dominion: A Vision in Crisis," Studies in Religion/ Sciences religieuses 2 (1973): 24. Mary Vipond has investigated the role nationalism played in the formation of the United Church of Canada in "Canadian National Consciousness and the Formation of the United Church of Canada," The Bulletin 24 (1975): 5-27. Burkhard Kiesekamp, "Community and Faith: The Intellectual and Ideological Bases of the Church Union Movement in Victorian Canada," (PH.D. thesis, University of Toronto 1974), passim. Reid, Mount Allison University, i: 227, 271. Clifford writes, "Liberalism ... tended to dissolve doctrinal particularity and to relativize the organizational principles of religious institutions"; see Clifford, Resistance, 17. For a detailed treatment of the church union movement on P.E.I., see James D. Cameron, "The Garden Distressed: Church Union and Dissent on Prince Edward Island 1904-1947" (PH.D. thesis, Queen's University 1989). Minutes of the N.B. and P.E.I. Methodist Conference, igis, 102, Maritime Archives. Since before Confederation, Presbyterians had accounted for nearly 30 percent of the Island population, almost twice the denomination's national proportion in 1921 and a much larger proportion than in any other province. Alan W. Black, "Church Union in Canada and Australia: A Comparative Analysis," Australian-Canadian Studies i, no. i (January 1983): 53.

Methodism and Education

This page intentionally left blank

8 Methodism and Education in the Atlantic Provinces, 1800-1874 GOLDWIN FRENCH

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the future Atlantic provinces, in common with the other British North American colonies, had few educational institutions.1 Seventy-five years later, however, the foundations of systems of elementary and secondary schools had been laid, and numerous colleges and universities had been established in the area. Moreover, a measure of consensus had been reached on the principles that would govern the relationship between the several provincial communities and the schools and universities and on the values that could be embodied legitimately in their teaching and practice.2 In 1800, too, at the instigation of William Black, the widely scattered Methodist societies in the Adantic region severed their rather tenuous connection with the Methodist Episcopal church in the United States and accepted the jurisdiction of the Wesleyan conference in England. The missionary districts that were created in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland, which eventually came under the direction of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, were grouped together in 1855 to form the autonomous Conference of Eastern British America. Within two decades, the conference gained full independence from the Wesleyan conference and became a component part of the new Methodist Church of Canada — a body whose responsibilities extended from the far shores of Newfoundland and Bermuda to British Columbia. In other words, the British phase of the evolution of Methodism in the eastern prov-

148 Methodism and Education

inces was co-terminous with the decisive formative period in the educational history of those provincial societies.3 T. Watson Smith, the first major historian of Methodism in the Atlantic region, stated in 1890: Methodism started out from the gates of a renowned English university on its work of saving men. The Wesleys were educators before they became evangelists, and the early Wesleyan itinerants though often lacking in a liberal education were never disposed to question the maxim of their leaders, that while to be a Christian was a man's first need, to be a "scholar" was his consequent necessity.4

Reginald Ward has noted recently that John Wesley, like Rousseau, "was passionately interested in education."5 Similarly, Maldwyn Edwards has stressed that "John Wesley's importance as a social reformer lies chiefly in his service to education," and that in the nineteenth century the "Methodist people" became "the greatest force (apart from the Established Church) in popular education" in England.6 Although Smith emphasized that "the Methodists of the Maritime Provinces were later in their entrance upon educational work than were the adherents of some other sections of the church,"7 he clearly believed that involvement in education was wholly consistent with the tradition and practice of Wesleyan Methodism. He and other contemporary writers naturally focused on the Methodist role in establishing schools and colleges in the Atlantic region and evidently concluded that their brethren had made a significant contribution in this respect. One must first ask, however, what convictions and attitudes about education the Methodists sought to infuse, directly or indirectly, into the "mind" of the secular communities of this region - a question that should be answered in the light of the ambiguous views of Wesley and his successors on this subject. In what ways, if any, did they endeavour to embody their values in legislation and in the functioning of schools and colleges? Also, given the relatively small percentage of Methodists in the total population, how extensive and pervasive was their influence on the evolution of schooling and higher education in the Maritimes? DURING THEIR FIRST THREE decades in the Wesleyan fold, the missionaries and the societies in the Maritime colonies were concerned principally with survival in the face of competition with other churches and their limited resources in the way of preachers and

149 Education in the Atlantic Provinces, 1800-1874

funds. In 1826, when the Nova Scotia district was divided into two parts, there were still only twenty stations or circuits, twenty-three missionaries, of whom two were in semi-retirement, and about two thousand members in the whole of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island. Similarly, in sparsely populated Newfoundland in 1826, the district comprised thirteen stations, in which twelve missionaries ministered to 1,011 members. The numbers of those who attended Methodist services were presumably much larger than those of members, but in 1827, only 9,408 people, 7.7 percent of the estimated population of Nova Scotia, considered themselves Methodists.8 The majority of the missionaries had been recruited in England or Ireland by the English conference - these districts had only begun to attract local candidates for ministry - and several had spent more than a decade in British North America. Recruited from the lower middle or artisan classes, these missionaries had, at best, grammar school education.9 They were a strongly evangelical group, whose primary objective was to be "instrumental in the salvation of souls," by which they meant preaching the doctrines of justification by faith, assurance, and holiness as Wesley understood them.10 Consistent with the policy of conference, they had "a sincere esteem for the venerable Establishment of our country" and sought to avoid involvement in partisan politics, while stressing their loyalty to the Crown and the British constitution.11 With their limited means, the preachers were endeavouring to maintain and to enlarge a community of believers whose spiritual and moral atmosphere was in keeping with Wesley's criteria and who would maintain continuity not only with Wesleyan Methodism but also with English civilization. In so doing, they were both helped and inhibited by their institutional and financial dependence on the Wesleyan Missionary Society. In the 18305 and 18405, the society's affairs were directed by several resident secretaries, including Jabez Bunting, Robert Alder (a former missionary in British North America), and John Beecham, the future architect of the Conference of Eastern British America. Authoritarian, committed to the furtherance of Wesleyan interests, and sympathetic to the Established Church, these men had as their primary concern to set and uphold priorities for allocating funds that were never adequate to meet the needs of an ever-expanding, world-wide missionary enterprise. Hence, they encouraged the societies in wellestablished settlements, such as the Maritime colonies, to increase their givings to the cause, and they refused to countenance any local initiative that might impose an additional burden on the society's budget.12 But the confident tone of the society's annual reports, the

150 Methodism and Education

secretaries' injunctions about self-sufficiency, the turbulent state of the English Wesleyan community, and the missionaries' growing awareness of the concerns and needs of their own followers stimulated them to begin to look beyond their simple commitment to evangelical preaching and to consider the implications of their Methodist heritage for the social and cultural development of their community. The first indication of this changing attitude was a proposal to establish a classical seminary or academy put forward by the Nova Scotia District Meeting in iSaS.13 Several places expressed interest in this scheme, but it was not implemented - indeed, it is unlikely that at that stage the Missionary Society would have approved it. At this juncture, the educational institutions of the Atlantic colonies were still rudimentary, as were those in Upper and Lower Canada. From the outset, the primary concern of the founders of the colonies was not with elementary education, but with the training of a sufficient number of young men to provide for the professional needs of Church and State, a task that they assumed would be carried out under the aegis of the Church of England. Hence, charters were granted to King's College, Windsor, and the College of New Brunswick in Fredericton, each of which was to provide secondary as well as higher education under Anglican auspices with financial support from the local legislatures.14 Both were restricted in practice to Anglican students and instructors and, as such, came under attack, particularly in Nova Scotia. In both colonies, however, additional steps had been taken to promote education. The first common school act was passed in Nova Scotia in 1808; it was followed three years later by a grammar school act. In each case the Legislature stressed that "certain essential parts of general education" should be accorded to "persons of every rank and station in civilized society."15 Similar legislation was enacted in New Brunswick; in this colony each county was to have two schools to instruct "youth of both sexes in English language, writing and arithmetic ... "16 In this region, however, as in Upper Canada, the field of elementary education was initially dominated by voluntary schools, many of which were under the direction of the British and Foreign Schools Society and the strongly Anglican National School Society. Although the interests of Dissenters and Roman Catholics were accommodated in various ways, state support of church-controlled institutions, Anglican exclusiveness, and the employment of large numbers of clergy as teachers fostered a perception, particularly among Presbyterians, Baptists, and Catholics, that in this, as in other matters, the local governments favoured religious discrimination and inequality.

151

Education in the Atlantic Provinces, 1800—1874

Not surprisingly, in this entrepreneurial and discriminatory environment, the several denominations began to look to their own interests. Pictou Academy, intended originally by its founder, Rev. Thomas McCulloch, to educate Presbyterian ministers, was chartered in 1816 as an institution "for persons of every religious denomination who wish to improve their minds by literary studies."17 Although Baptists, among others, were impressed by McCulloch's "Christian liberality," he and his fellow Presbyterians were unable to secure permanent provincial grants for the academy. The Baptists, inspired by the accession to their ranks of several prominent Anglicans, founded Horton Academy, the future Acadia College, in 1829. Meanwhile, Dalhousie College, established in 1818 ostensibly to serve the cause of nonsectarian higher education, remained a paper creation with a largely Anglican board.18 In effect, from the Methodists' vantage point, no firmly established patterns in educational matters had been as yet established in the eastern colonies. Clearly, there was widespread interest in providing schools, academies, and colleges, but equally there was no consensus on the means by which this need should be met. These colonial communities were not yet ready to accept publicly funded, state-administered educational systems. Anglican pretensions to control over higher education, in particular, had been eroded, but not decisively repudiated. Above all, the fundamental issue - what specific religious beliefs and values should be embodied in instruction at all levels and on what conditions - had not been resolved. At the time, doubtless the colonial elites and probably the majority of the people assumed that the climate of opinion in schools and colleges should be Christian, not secular. But, if Christian and Anglican, or Christian and Presbyterian, were not to be equated, should the community support institutions in which only non-denominational Christianity was upheld, or should it accept and provide funds for church-controlled institutions at any or all levels? If the latter policy were adopted, should its benefits be accorded to those such as Roman Catholics who were widely believed to teach false doctrine? Conversely, should society permit and assist Roman Catholics or others to opt out of the collective arrangements adopted by the majority? Assuredly, the Methodists, like most of their fellow-citizens, had not begun to sort out these issues. From the beginning, the missionaries, believing as they did that Methodist doctrines were the best, resisted Anglican encroachments, but they were not prepared indeed, the Missionary Society would not have allowed them - to challenge the Church's position directly. Students at King's College, Windsor, attended evening services conducted by Robert Alder, who

152 Methodism and Education believed that Wesley's abridged Anglican liturgy could be used in some chapels and that its use might improve Methodist—Anglican relations.19 The Reverend William Temple, acting on behalf of his brethren, declined to involve the Methodists in proposed interdenominational moves to protect the privileges of Dissenters, stressing their esteem for the Church and maintaining that no Methodist would reject the use of the Anglican catechism.20 Thus, in proposing to establish a Methodist seminary or academy, probably they did not intend to compete with the Church. Rather they sought to found a school in which young Methodists could drink from a pure religious stream — an institution likely modelled on Wesley's Kingswood School, in which religious instruction, useful learning, and strict discipline were combined to combat vice, idleness, and effeminacy, but which would be open to students from all denominations.21 Aware by 1834, however, that, despite the lack of interest in secondary education in the conference, the secretaries were prepared to approve the establishment of colonial academies, provided that they were "truly Christian and Methodistical," the missionaries continued to cast about for ways of achieving their goal.22 Their prayers were answered in 1839, when Charles F. Allison of Sackville, a former Anglican and now an influential Methodist, stated that "the establishment of Schools in which Pure Religion is not only taught but Constantly brought before the Youthful mind" is "the basis and ground work of all the happiness which Man is Capable of enjoying here on the Earth."23 To that end, he offered to provide means for "the establishment of a school of the description mentioned ... under the management and Control of the British Conference."24 Allison's generous proposal was accepted with alacrity by the ministers and the Missionary Society; from this initiative would come, in time, the Mount Allison academies for men and women and Mount Allison University. The founding and growth of these institutions have been described admirably in John Reid's Mount Allison University: A History to 1963, and will not be recounted at length here.25 Nevertheless, in defining and implementing the principles by which Mount Allison would be shaped and directed as an academy and university, and in guarding its interests, the Methodists would come to articulate and defend their views on education and the proper relationship between Church and State in that enterprise. The first principal of the Sackville Wesleyan Academy was Humphrey Pickard, a native of New Brunswick and a graduate of Wesleyan University in Connecticut. 26 A young, vigorous, intensely evangelical minister, who wrote enthusiastically of a protracted meeting in which forty penitents had emerged ("my soul exalts still when

153 Education in the Atlantic Provinces, 1800-1874

I think of it"), Pickard would define the Methodists' educational outlook clearly in his 1843 inaugural address and would direct Mount Allison's affairs in that spirit until his retirement in i86g.27 At the outset, Pickard stressed that "any plan designed to elevate the human race which does not practically recognize [the importance of education] is fatally deficient ... Monstrous misconceptions of the nature, design and influence of education have been begotten and cherished by ignorance ... every one of which is to be removed ..." He continued: "Nature, Providence, and Revelation all unite in unequivocally declaring the value and necessity of right education." Man's "efficiency, rank, and influence, to a very great extent, depend upon his education, and it is so by the arrangement - merciful and wise of our great Creator." Education itself is "that instruction and discipline which are necessary to prepare man for the duties and enjoyments of existence"; its intent is to raise man from "gratification merely animal" and "lead him to seek acknowledged connexion and realized communion with God!" To succeed in this endeavour, the academy required suitable facilities and "WELL QUALIFIED, EFFICIENT" administrators and teachers committed to ensuring that the students acquired "habits of prompt, energetic, well-regulated mental action" and that their "dispositions and affections" were "disciplined for undeviating rectitude of moral action." The "course of instruction" will be "designed to teach the student ... to prize moral excellence even more highly than intellectual acquisitions." It would include classical literature, science aided by philosophy, and a look "into the secret chambers and labyrinths of our own minds ..." The Bible, however, he emphasized, is "our most valuable text book. Let any other be taken away, but this must not be removed or our efforts will be fruitless ... Here God speaks! Let us listen and be wise. Thus, only may men be prepared to do good service to the cause of truth in our fallen world." If all those involved worked faithfully on its behalf, he concluded, "the history of this Institution may be brightly written upon the intellectual and moral character of those who may ... hold connection with it. Each mind will be itself a living volume of incalculable value to be here filled up with chapters of this history, and which, being well bound with good moral habits and principles may issue self-circulated through society ... "28 Unlike many such addresses, Pickard's was commendably succinct, and its thrust was very clear. It reflected not only Wesley's emphasis on useful learning but the current synthesis of reason and revelation in the curricula of universities such as Wesleyan. The goal of the Sackville Academy was, like those of others such as Victoria College in Upper Canada, to equip students with essential knowledge, in a

154 Methodism and Education

context in which moral formation was assigned a higher priority than learning as such. Implicitly, unrestricted investigation or speculation was being discouraged, and the primacy of revelation was being firmly asserted.29 Although he believed that this is a "fallen world" and that penitence and conversion alone place the individual on the path to holiness, Pickard left the impression that disciplined study could transform the student into "a living volume of incalculable value."30 In reality, of course, the spirit of revival would be manifest in the academy's life. It was to be an evangelical and strongly Methodist institution, open to poor as well as prosperous students of any religious persuasion. Moreover, although it was initiated and in part supported by an individual patron, the Wesleyans sought and obtained financial support for the academy from the legislatures of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. In this way, they became embroiled in the politics of higher education in the Atlantic colonies. Here, as in Upper Canada, public attention and criticism were focused on the position and privileges of particular institutions — in this case, Dalhousie College and King's College, Fredericton. The former was nominally a public university, but perceived to be Presbyterian, the latter was still under Anglican control but now (1843) open to students of any denomination. The underlying issue, was, however, what the terms should be of the relationship between the Church and the State in higher education, which at that time included quasi-collegiate schools such as the academy in Sackville. The specific question was whether the colonial governments should assist denominationally controlled academies and colleges, provided they were open to all, or whether they should support only nonsectarian universities in which, at the time, in practice Christian values would be normative. Although they were constrained, particularly until 1855, by the Missionary Society's insistence on strict observance of political neutrality by the ministers, the Methodists were determined to defend the interests of the academy and, later, of Mount Allison University. In so doing, their position on the matter of state support for churchrelated institutions was stated clearly both in private and in public. Before the academy began its work, the ministers published a statement in the British North American Wesleyan Methodist Magazine in which they stressed the academy's need for an endowment to become "a vigorous means of diffusing the great principles of our holy religion in connexion with a thoroughly valuable education ... Infidelity and superstition are on the alert to secure the culturing of the rising generation." Moreover, "neither godlessness nor a paganized Christianity spares sacrifices to effect its designs."31 Nine years later, con-

155 Education in the Atlantic Provinces, 1800-1874

fronted with the possibility that Nova Scotia would abolish grants to denominational colleges, the ministers argued in their new organ, the Wesleyan, that the point at issue was "a purely secular versus a religious education." The supporters of denominational education "claim equal rights and will not be satisfied with less ... They object to be taxed for the support of one college, wherever situated, to which they cannot conscientiously send their children unless some assistance be afforded to those Seminaries to which they can." In effect, the Methodists believed that assistance should be granted to all or to none.32 Subsequently, in a series of letters by a "Wesleyan," the rationale for a comprehensive system of education was developed, and the argument for residential secondary schools in which religious instruction would be given was advanced. "The scheme (of avoiding religion) is infidel and atheistic in its tendency ... and as such, it should be earnestly protested against by every Christian in the province, notwithstanding the gross inconsistency of a few who brand ... as sectarian and vicious the system of higher education which renders respectable denominations of Christians responsible to the parents and public for carrying on the work of education, not upon sectarian but upon truly Catholic principles."33 A secular system, the anonymous author insisted, "can never receive the sanction of an enlightened Christian people ... "34 The Wesleyan was urged to destroy "any godless university scheme" before it got under way.35 When, in 1858, the decision to establish Mount Allison College was taken, the Provincial Wesleyan commented that the academy would not have been successful "had the theories of political expediency instead of the oracles of God guided our course — had we sought to conciliate infidelity or popery ... Methodism cannot dispense with the Bible, nor can it ever become a participant in the guilt of proscribing it by political enactment."36 Three years later, the Provincial Wesleyan published a series of editorials on higher education - "that kind and degree of mental culture which aims fully to develop in the most harmonious manner the whole assemblage of intellectual faculties."37 Members of all classes and those entering the professions, including the ministry, should be so educated. "Piety has no preference for ignorance and barbarism ... Religion has a natural affinity for knowledge, refinement and mental training. Our ministry, therefore, should be thoroughly educated men ..." The "high mental training for which we earnestly plead must ... be conducted under strictly Christian auspices and be of a decidedly Christian character ... An education that abjures the culture of the moral nature is a monstrosity ... a most presumptuous denial of the final God-decreed object of human training ... All

156 Methodism and Education

courses of Collegiate study should be pervaded, and rectified and vitalized by the sublime Christology of revelation - thus, and thus only, can collegiate education be Christian Education."38 This objective, the editor argued, could not be achieved by state-controlled colleges or by private foundations. Denominational institutions, which imposed no tests and did not proselytize, would, he asserted, be most effective. To this end, the government should assist all denominational colleges. "A denomination ... possesses a most righteous claim upon the state which, if presented, can be refused only by an act of tyranny and injustice" — a comment that referred specifically to Mount Allison's welfare.39 This theme was sounded again by the Provincial Wesleyan in 1863, in a series of editorials about the reopening of Dalhousie University, ostensibly as a provincial institution, but apparently under Presbyterian control. The editor insisted that the Wesleyans were strongly committed to denominational colleges, but "that any denomination should monopolize an institution which from its foundation was designed to be provincial, and to have available for denominational ends all the funds and property of such Institution ... is not to be tolerated."40 The Methodists "will never for one moment entertain the idea of partnership in Dalhousie," but, the editor stressed, there was a case for a federation of colleges. "The time may not be far distant... when provincialists will be able ... to point to our UNIVERSITY OF PROVINCIAL COLLEGES."41 Methodist interest in the concept of a provincial university modelled on the University of London had been expressed as early as 1846 by Enoch Wood in private discussions with Governor Colebrooke of New Brunswick. In 1862, Mount Allison proposed the establishment of a federated University of New Brunswick.42 In the end, federation would not be adopted in Nova Scotia or New Brunswick as a means of reconciling denominationally controlled higher education with broader provincial concerns and needs. Similarly, government grants to Mount Allison and other institutions would eventually be discontinued.43 The significant fact, however, is that in establishing and defending the academies and university in Sackville, the members of the Wesleyan Methodist community stated clearly the argument that in a Christian society, higher education, indeed all forms of education, should be conducted within a framework of Christian belief and that in practice this objective could be best achieved in secondary and university level institutions under denominational control. They were convinced that as long as admission to such schools and colleges was open to students of all religious persuasions and the costs of such education were kept as low as pos-

157

Education in the Atlantic Provinces, 1800—1874

sible, the institution could not be considered exclusive or socially divisive. Accepting implicitly Wesley's belief that the nature of the Christian experience and life was as he had described it, members of the Methodist community assumed that the evangelical spirit should pervade the atmosphere of their foundations and that diverse theological assumptions could be accommodated harmoniously with it. The intellectual future of Mount Allison, in particular, would depend upon the interpretation attached to the statement in its catalogue. "The fullest recognition ... is given to the truths and claims of the Christian religion; the Bible is publicly honored as the Word of God, and no pains are spared that the education imparted may be suitably leavened with religious principle."44 If it took seriously the empirical Wesley, the keen analyst of the nature and validity of religious experience, it could become a place of liberal learning and scholarship; if it clung to Wesley's description of himself as a man of one book, to the belief that "Methodism is best," and to a rigid understanding of the Bible, it could become a conservative bastion.45 In 1874, however, this challenge had not yet assumed clear and identifiable shape. The decision to establish Mount Allison College was preceded by the first debate on theological education in the conference. Aware perhaps that Wesley had shown little interest in formal education for ministry and that the English Conference had not ventured into this field until 1834, the Conference of Eastern British America, like the Canada Conference, was hesitant to take up the subject.46 In 1859, however, the conference stressed "the imperative duty of our Connexion to make immediate provision for the establishment of [a] Theological department... ," without derogating from the necessity of "a Divine call to the work of the Ministry ... "4V Rather, as the English Conference emphasized, "a well-instructed ministry alone can be expected to be a permanently efficient ministry."48 The editor of the Provincial Wesleyan stressed that "our ministry ... should be thoroughly educated men ... "49 He was nevertheless opposed to making educational qualifications the basis for selecting candidates for the ministry, since the Church "must always be prepared to accept God's choice." Even so, he believed, Methodism in the Atlantic region would flourish only by "the strengthening and consolidating of all the interests of our Church and especially of those which relate to the increase and effectiveness of our ministry."30 Not surprisingly, the conference limited itself initially to appointing Charles De Wolfe, a Nova Scotian and a former Baptist, who had studied at the Wesleyans' Hoxton Theological Institute in England as

158 Methodism and Education

theological professor in 1861. He was expected to "attempt a good deal — Theology, Homileticks [sic], Biblical Introduction, Church History and the Hebrew language."51 The Faculty of Theology at Mount Allison was not established until i875-52 Although its members also taught arts subjects, their presence was indicative of the conference's commitment to systematic preparation for ministry — preparation in which every effort would be made to avoid simply "training the intellect, but neglecting, perverting, destroying the moral sympathies and capabilities."33 Moreover, the first dean, Charles Stewart, believed that "as much is to be learned in the actual presentation of the gospel as in private studies over it. And of a surety, 'He that winneth souls is wise.'"54 Clearly, the Methodists in this area, as elsewhere, were still fearful that knowledge would weaken zeal and thereby render the ministry potentially ineffectual, an attitude that would inhibit an effective response to the onslaught of revolutionary scientific and historical ideas. From the 18405 onward, the primary educational concern of the Maritimes' district meetings, and later of the Conference of Eastern British America, was the fostering of the Sackville institutions, because the principles on which they were founded — "the necessity for mental culture of the highest order, combined with constant inculcation of 'the fear of the Lord', which is the beginning of true wisdom" - had "ever been sacred in the eyes of intelligent Methodists" and were not embodied in any state system of education.55 Nevertheless, the ministers and the societies were not oblivious to the development of the elementary schools in which the majority of children would inevitably receive instruction. In the Atlantic colonies, as in the Canadas and the United States, responding to the demand for more and better schools raised many crucial issues. Assuming, as these communities eventually would, that all children should receive some education, the practical problem was to devise acceptable means by which the existing haphazard mixture of public and private schools could be replaced by an orderly system of state schools. This process, in turn, engendered complex and often bitter controversies concerning the financing and management of the schools, the training of teachers, and the question of whether schooling should be compulsory for children to a certain age. The most contentious matter in a society that was predominantly Christian, and thus assumed that Christian beliefs and values should be embodied in the teaching and discipline of the schools, was how to achieve this objective without alienating one or more of the churches, particularly the Roman Catholic church.

159 Education in the Atlantic Provinces, 1800-1874

By 1850, the thrust of public policy in the three mainland colonies was toward the establishment of comprehensive, tax-supported systems of elementary education. Nevertheless, a special joint meeting of the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick missionaries in 1847, perhaps inspired by the recent decision of the Wesleyan conference to establish seven hundred day schools in England, appointed a committee of ministers and laity to prepare a plan for several such schools in their districts.56 Apparently, no action was taken on this matter. The Methodists' journal, the Wesleyan, began publication in 1849, and within a year, its editor had begun to comment at length on education. But, again, these articles dealt largely with the ongoing quarrel over provincial grants to church-related academies and colleges. The Wesleyan did stress, nevertheless, that the community should provide a proper education for all children. Every society was said to be a partnership whose well-being is affected by the quality of all its partners. Thus, all should be "trained up as well as possible." Education could not be left to private initiative because some would be too poor to procure it and others indifferent to it. Hence, the government should create an adequate elementary school system.57 When accused of meddling in partisan politics, the Wesleyan contended that, as education "pertains to the intellectual, moral and religious prosperity" of any people, it did not and should not fall within the category of party politics.58 Given the Methodists' commitment to religiously informed secondary and higher education, they assumed without hesitation that the elementary school curriculum must be imbued with Christian teaching, which would be symbolized visibly by the use of the Bible in the schools. Despite their pride in Methodist uniqueness, and the parent conference's hostility to state-controlled schools, doubtless they would have agreed, with Egerton Ryerson, that the "fundamental principles of Religion and Morality" could be taught in a non-sectarian way.59 But, in the Maritime colonies, as in Upper Canada, the Roman Catholic church did not accept this position and was determined, if possible, to secure legislative sanction for publicly supported separate or Catholic schools. This policy generated protracted controversies in the Atlantic region. Although the district meetings, and later the conference, were careful not to become identified with any political party on this score, the Methodist community was strongly opposed to the concept of separate schools. Methodist hostility to Roman Catholic aspirations was based in part on the positive argument, enunciated in 1871 by Lieutenant-Governor L.A. Wilmot of New Brunswick, an eminent Methodist, who said

160 Methodism and Education

that children of all denominations would be gathered as adults "into the World's Great School" and would compete "side by side ... for its rewards. No Statesman will ever be found who could successfully resolve this Great School into its Denominational elements for carrying on the business of the world ..." Therefore, he assured the New Brunswick Legislature, "you have acted wisely and well in providing that all, who are growing up to take their part in such an inseparable union, shall be educated for it side by side in early life."60 It was fed also by their fervent belief that the Roman church was an apostate and heretical institution. Methodist antagonism to Rome was exacerbated in the 18408 and thereafter by the Tractarian movement in the Church of England, one of whose leaders described Wesleyan theology "as degenerating into developed heresy."61 This anti-Catholic note, which was nourished by the presence of Anglo-Catholic bishops in New Brunswick and Newfoundland, was sounded regularly by the Provincial Wesleyan and the conference. In response to Catholic complaints about the use of the Bible in the schools, the former insisted that "Methodism cannot dispense with the Bible ... "62 In 1858, the conference exhorted ministers and people to diffuse the principles of the Protestant Reformation and "to counteract the pernicious tenets and practices of the Romish apostasy."63 Five years later, the Provincial Wesleyan noted that the Liberals in Nova Scotia had been decisively defeated because of their efforts to secure Catholic votes; the editor hoped that in future no party would "be exposed to the temptation of pandering to denominational power."64 The newspaper welcomed the strengthening of the public school system in Nova Scotia by the acts of 1864 and 1865. In its last session before joining the Wesleyan Methodist church in Canada, the conference stressed that "a powerful hierarchy ... is seeking control of Public Education" and deprecated any attempt to deprive Canadians of "a common right and an inalienable heritage," that is, free non-sectarian education.65 In the end, the Roman Catholic church lost its battle to secure state-supported separate schools in this region except in Newfoundland. Here, although the Methodists were convinced that "popery ... is struggling for the dominancy ... ," they were obliged to recognize that, as the largest denomination in the colony, the Roman Catholics could not be denied their claim to a share of the grants for education.66 But a special district meeting in 1850 concluded that division of the Protestant share of the funds among these denominations would create "a number of petty and rival schools several of which would necessarily be of an inferior character ..." Hence, the ministers urged the Legislature that in making "provision for the support of

161 Education in the Atlantic Provinces, 1800-1874 Elementary Schools any proposition for the further division of the grant among Protestants may not be entertained ... "67 The Methodists accepted reluctantly the Newfoundland government's decision in 1876 to perpetuate several denominationally controlled school systems.68 FOR THE METHODISTS IN THE Atlantic colonies — who of course were not unique among Christians — the world of faith and the world in which they lived and worked were different aspects of one reality. They believed that the former in the guise of the Holy Spirit infused the latter; that is, they conceived that a transcendent power became immanent in the process of conversion and the progressive regeneration, which they described as the quest for holiness. The essence of the Christian life was thus defined in the language of experience, but experience and claims derived from it were legitimate only if they were consistent with Scripture. The Bible, for them, was still a seamless account of the unfolding of God's purpose in and beyond history. The principal, indeed the only, stated goal of the Wesleyan ministry was by preaching and discipline to enable as many as possible to hear, understand, and respond to the Christian gospel as they understood it. Nineteenth-century Methodism in the Atlantic region inevitably lacked in some measure the dynamic quality that Wesley's charisma and his understanding of the nature of his movement had given to it. It was an emerging denomination in which questions about the status and needs of ministers, the evolution of polity, the protection of the church's interests in a not wholly friendly social and political environment, and the colonial relationship in which the Methodist societies stood helped to shape their contribution to the solution of pressing issues, such as the purpose of schooling and the means of providing it. Despite their dependence on a parent community in which at this time creativity and charity were less conspicuous than the dogged pursuit of the conference's interests, the Methodists in the Maritime colonies strongly affirmed their conviction that the Christian tradition must infuse the assumptions and the working of schools and colleges. They sought, in effect, to ensure that religion encompassed the culture of education. To achieve this end, non-sectarian biblical instruction must, at a minimum, be a basic element in the curriculum of the common schools. Schooling must be made available to all children on equitable terms. In secondary schools and colleges in which the functional elites, including ministers, of a modern society would

i6a Methodism and Education be educated, the denomination itself should assume responsibility for "right" teaching, with the assistance and cooperation of the State. For the Methodists, this entailed the establishment of institutions in which the fundamental relevance of experimental religion and of Scripture was made manifest in teaching and practice. This was to be accomplished by evangelical preaching and the inculcation of moral discipline and by discouraging critical inquiry. This kind of education should be open to all who aspired to it — the humble and the well-connected. Those who shared in it could and would, in many cases, emerge with closed minds and rigid values. But "right" teaching was not inherently anti-intellectual, and, in the long run, the fear of new knowledge within it could and would be leavened by the claims of experience. Recognizing that the Missionary Society and the conference deprecated political activity on the part of the missionaries, other than preaching loyalty to the Crown, the constitution, and the Empire, and that engaging in partisan politics could split their congregations, the district meetings and later the conference, pursued their goals as unobtrusively as possible and relied heavily on voluntary action. Biblical instruction was offered to children of Methodists and others in the Sunday schools, by teachers whose efforts were commended regularly by the conference. By 1870, there were 309 schools with 2,238 teachers and 16,976 students.69 Wherever possible, the establishment of Methodist day schools had been encouraged, and, in Newfoundland, this would lead in the end to the creation of a publicly funded system of Methodist schools. After 1840, however, the principal concern of the districts and later of the conference was the promotion of the emerging cluster of institutions in Sackville. To this end, district chairmen did not hesitate to engage in lobbying governors such as Sir William Colebrooke and assorted legislators.70 Their journals, the British North American Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, the Wesley an, and the Provincial Wesleyan commented frequently on education, but much that appeared, particularly in the last, was intended to defend the interests of Mount Allison. In effect, this branch of the Wesleyan Connexion evidently believed that the most effective way in which it could inject the "right" values into the educational system and the "mind" of the Atlantic region was to foster its own schools and college and to encourage Methodists and non-Methodists alike to attend them. By 1874, the year in which Methodists in the Maritime region became part of a nationwide Methodist church, the principal features of the educational landscape in this area had taken shape. Except in Newfoundland, elementary and secondary education would be pro-

163 Education in the Atlantic Provinces, 1800-1874

vided in schools managed and supported financially by provincial and municipal governments. The Roman Catholic church had lost its battle to secure recognition and acceptance of state-supported separate schools. Higher education was being offered by public and church-related colleges and universities, but the latter had not been able to foster a strong consensus in support of the legitimacy of government financial assistance to meet their needs. In contrast to Ontario, where the cancellation of provincial grants to church-related institutions was mitigated in part by university federation, attempts to achieve federation would not come to fruition in the Atlantic provinces.71 But, despite and perhaps because of the fierce controversies over higher education, many in these communities remained firmly committed to the perpetuation of their religious heritage in the teaching and practice of their several educational institutions. When the Conference of Eastern British America was formed in 1855, it had a total membership of 13,136 in the four colonies. In 1874, this number had increased to 17,580, still a small proportion of the total population of this region.72 Although the number of Methodist adherents was probably at least five times as great, the fact remains that, throughout the area, Methodists were at no time the largest Protestant group. In Nova Scotia they were outnumbered by Presbyterians and in New Brunswick by Baptists. On the other hand, it would appear that the Methodist community was broadly based; it was strong in urban centres such as Fredericton, Halifax, and Saint John, and it counted many prominent business and political figures among its adherents.73 Hence, the impact of Methodism on the surrounding community was probably greater and more pervasive than the number of Methodists would suggest. In this context, one may ask, did the Methodists exert a distinctive influence on the shaping of the Maritimes' "mind," and specifically on its conception of the nature and role of education? In retrospect, it is clear that their views of the utility of education and the respective roles of Church and State in this matter were shared by other sectors of the community. Their hostility to the Roman Catholic church was characteristic of the endemic rivalry between Protestants and Catholics in the English-speaking world throughout the nineteenth century. Their belief in their own superiority and their self-righteous defence of their own denominational interests resembled the attitudes and actions of other churches. Their commitment to evangelical preaching was no stronger than that of their Baptist rivals. But they had not lost contact with Wesley's understanding of the dynamic significance of religious experience and the quest for spiritual and moral regeneration in this life. They endeavoured, albeit haltingly and

164 Methodism and Education

imperfectly, to keep alive and to make known the essence of his teaching, and thereby to maintain in their world a strong sense of continuity between experiential religion, their conviction that history is a process of divine evolution, and the shaping of secular culture. In Mount Allison, they had founded an intellectual community in which the nature and implications of the tension between faith and reason, zeal and knowledge, and divine guidance and human initiative could and would be constructively explored. NOTES 1 Until 1867, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland were British colonies. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick became Canadian provinces in 1867; Prince Edward Island entered Confederation in 1873 and Newfoundland in 1949. 2 The development of the schools in the Atlantic colonies has been sketched in J.D. Wilson, R.M. Stamp, and L.-P. Audet, eds., Canadian Education: A History (Toronto: Prentice-Hall 1970), chaps 5, 6, and 7. The history of the colleges and universities in this area has been outlined in R.S. Harris, A History of Higher Education in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1976). 3 The formation of the Conference of Eastern British America is described in Goldwin French, Parsons and Politics: The Role of the Wesleyan Methodists in Upper Canada and the Maritimes from 1780 to 1855 (Toronto: Ryerson 1962), chap. 8. The background of the union of 1874 is given in J. Warren Caldwell, "The Unification of Methodism in Canada," The Bulletin, United Church Archives, no. 19 (1967): 3-61. 4 T.W. Smith, History of the Methodist Church Within the Territories Embraced in the Late Conference of Eastern British America, including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and Bermuda, 2 vols (Halifax: Methodist Book Room 1890), 2: 385. 5 W.R. Ward and R.P. Heitzenrater, eds., Journals and Diaries I (1735— !738), vol. 18 in The Works of John Wesley (Nashville: Abingdon 1988), 436 Maldwyn Edwards, "John Wesley" in A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain ed. R. Davies and G. Rupp, 4 vols (London: Epworth Press 1965-88), i: 67. 7 Smith, History of the Methodist Church, 2: 386. 8 Minutes of the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick District Meetings, 1826, Records of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society (outgoing), United Church Archives, microfilm reels 1,5; Minutes of the Methodist Conferences from the First Held in London, By The Late Rev. John Wesley, A.M., In The Year 1744, 16 vols (London: John Mason 1833), 6: 142-3,

165 Education in the Atlantic Provinces, 1800-1874

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18

19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

152; G.A. Rawlyk, Ravished by the Spirit: Religious Revivals, Baptists and Henry Alline (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1984), 93. (Note re Records that correspondence from WMMS in London to the BNA districts is labelled "outgoing" and that correspondence from BNA to London is labelled "incoming"). This statement is based on comments in the missionaries' letters to the Missionary Society. The quotation is from John Snowball to the Missionary Secretaries, 26 October 1825, Records (incoming), reel 5. See William Temple to the Secretaries, 17 October 1825, Records (incoming), reel 5. See French, Parsons and Politics, chap. 4. Smith, History of Methodism, 2: 389. See Harris, History of Higher Education, 28. Wilson, Stamp, and Audet, Canadian Education, 95. Ibid., 109. Quoted in ibid., 96. On McCulloch's life and work see Susan Buggey and Gwendolyn Davies, "Thomas McCulloch," in Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1988), 7: 529-41. R.S. Longley, Acadia University (Kentville: Kentville Publishing Co. 1939), 22; D.C. Harvey, An Introduction to the History of Dalhousie University (Halifax: McCurdy 1938), 18. Alder to the Secretaries, 2 December 1822, i April 1824, Records (incoming), reels 4, 5. Temple to the Secretaries, 17 October 1825, Records (incoming), reel 5. Religious and Literary Journal (Saint John), 15 August 1829, 236; RDavies, A.R. George, and G. Rupp, eds., A History of the Methodist Church in Great Britain (London: Epworth Press 1983), 3: 280. John Beecham to the Chairman of the New Brunswick District, 27 February 1834, Records (outgoing), reel 8. C.F. Allison to William Temple, 4 June 1839, Records (incoming), reel 22. Ibid. John G. Reid, Mount Allison University: A History to IQ&S, a vols (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1984). For a brief biography of Pickard, see Goldwin S. French, "Humphrey Pickard," Dictionary, 11: 687—8. The quotation is from a letter dated 29 January 1841 in the British North American Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, i (1840—1): 279. Pickard's address was printed in full in the British North American Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 3 (1842-3): 282-92. See A.B. McKillop, A Disciplined Intelligence (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1979), chap, i, and Marguerite Van Die, An Evangelical Mind: Nathanael Burwash and the Methodist Tradition

166

30 31 32 33 34

Methodism and Education

in Canada, 1839—1918 (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1989), 40-4. British North American Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 3 (1842—3); 292. British North American Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, i (1840—1): 558. Wesleyan, 23 February 1850. Ibid., i June 1850. Ibid.

35 Ibid36 Provincial Wesleyan, 4 March 1858. (The Wesleyan became the Provincial Weslfyan in 1852 and retained that name until 1875.) 37 Ibid., 16 January 1861. 38 Ibid., 23 January 1861. 39 Ibid., 6 February 1861. 40 Ibid., 18 November 1863. 41 Ibid., 2 December 1863, 9 March 1864. 42 Enoch Wood to Robert Alder, 27 March 1846, Records (incoming), reel 15; Reid, Mount Allison University, i: 86-7. 43 New Brunswick discontinued its grant in 1872 and Nova Scotia in 1881. Reid, Mount Allison University, i: 114—15, 151—252. 44 Quoted in Reid, Mount Allison University, i: 93. 45 See Frederick Dreyer, "Faith and Experience in the Thought of John Wesley," American Historical Review, 88 (1983): 12-30. Wesley described himself as homo unius libri. See E.H. Sugden, ed., The Standard Sermons of John Wesley (London: Epworth Press 1931), 2: 31. 46 See Wesley's comment on this in W.B. Brash, The Story of Our Colleges, 1835—1935 (London: Epworth Press 1935), 19, 15. Jabez Bunting put forward a plan to provide young preachers with systematic training in divinity in 1805. He became the first president of the Wesleyans' Theological Institution in 1834. See Davies, George, Rupp, eds., History of the Methodist Church, 3: 282, 286. 47 Minutes of Several Conversations Between the Ministers of the Wesleyan Methodist Connexion or Church of Eastern British America, At Their Third Conference Begun in Sackville, New Brunswick on June 24th 1857 (Halifax: Wesleyan Conference Office 1857), 17; ibid., At Their Fifth Conference Begun in Charlottetown, P.E. Island on June 22nd 1859 (Halifax: Conference Steam Press 1859), 20. 48 Ibid. (1863), 41. 49 Provincial Wesleyan, 23 January 1861. 50 Ibid., 11 April 1866. 51 De Wolfe to William Arthur, 31 August 1861, Records (incoming), reel

1952 Reid, Mount Allison University, i: 108. 53 Ibid., 109. 54 Ibid., no.

167 Education in the Atlantic Provinces, 1800-1874 55 Minutes of Several Conversations (1871), 114. 56 Minutes of several conversations held between the Wesleyan Ministers of the Nova Scotia and New Brunswick Districts, 3 July 1847, Records (outgoing), reel 5. 57 Wesleyan, 23 March 1850. 58 Ibid., 18 May 1850. 59 J.G. Hodgins, ed., Documentary History of Education in Upper Canada from the passing of the Constitutional Act 0/1791 to the close of the Rev. Dr. Ryerson's administration of the Education Department in 1876, 28 vols (Toronto: Warwick & Rutter 1894-1910), 6: 147. 60 Quoted in K.F.C. MacNaughton, The Development of the Theory and Practice of Education in New Brunswick, 1784—1 goo (Fredericton: University of New Brunswick 1947), 196. 61 Quoted in Davies, George, and Rupp, History of the Methodist Church, 2: 219. 62 Provincial Wesleyan, 4 March 1858. The controversy on this issue is well illustrated in J.R. Robertson, "The Bible Question in Prince Edward Island from 1856 to 1860," Acadiensis 5 (Spring 1976): 3-25. 63 Minutes of Several Conversations (1858), 24. 64 Provincial Wesleyan, 3 June 1863. 65 Minutes of the Twentieth Annual Conference of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Eastern British America and of the First Nova Scotia Conference, and First New Brunswick and P.E. Island Conference of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Canada (Halifax: William Macnab, Printer 1874), 149. 66 William Faulkner to the Missionary Secretaries, 5 January 1837, Records (incoming), reel 10. Before 1833, schools in Newfoundland were promoted and run by voluntary agencies. The Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society supported Methodist day schools and the Anglican Newfoundland School Society. The Education Act of 1836 established a system of grants for the voluntary schools and those to be established by boards of education. 67 Quoted in EW. Rowe, The Development of Education in Newfoundland (Toronto: Ryerson 1964), 83—4. 68 Ibid., 90-1, 100. 69 Minutes of Several Conversations (1870), 32-3. 70 See for example, Enoch Wood to Robert Alder, 2 February 1846 and 27 March 1846, Records, reel 21, in which he describes his meetings with the governor and various legislators on behalf of the academy; see also Ephraim Evans to Robert Alder, 7 February 1849, Records, reel 16, in which Evans tells of warning the provincial secretary of Nova Scotia against any attempt to establish a "godless system of public instruction." 71 Reid's Mount Allison University contains a full account of the various abortive attempts at university federation in the Atlantic provinces.

i68 Methodism and Education 72 Minutes of Several Conversations (1855), 10; Minutes of the Twentieth Annual Conference (1874), 21. In 1871, the populations of the four areas were: Nova Scotia, 387,800; New Brunswick 285,594; Prince Edward Island, 94,021; and Newfoundland, 150,000. The numbers of Methodists by district in 1874 were: Halifax, 2,095; Truro, 1,677; Annapolis, 1,307; Liverpool, 1,691; Saint John, 1,944; Fredericton, 1,466; Sackville, 1,801; Prince Edward Island, 1,210; St John's, 2,533; and Carbonear, 1,856. 73 L.A. Wilmot was only the most visible of prominent Methodists. The 1874 session of the conference was attended by the Hon. S.L. Shannon, the Hon. C. Young, J.J. Rogerson, G.H. Starr, and D.H. Starr, all leading figures in the Atlantic region. Methodism was strong in the Halifax business community.

9 The Golden Age of the Church College: Mount Allison's Encounter with "Modern Thought," 1850—1890 MICHAEL GAUVREAU

Speaking at the end of the i86os, Matthew Arnold declared that Bishop Butler's Analogy, perhaps the greatest eighteenth-century work of Christian apologetic, was, "for all real intents and purposes now, a failure." The celebrated English critic lamented that this work "seemed once to have a spell and a power; but the Zeit-Geist breathes upon it, and we rub our eyes, and it has the spell and the power no longer."1 Arnold charged that Butler's attempts to prove the truth of Christian revelation by affirming a connection between nature and Scripture and by basing the truth and authority of the Bible on the evidence of miracle and the fulfilment of prophecy had been invalidated by modern science and historical criticism. Far from being grounded in empirical observation, Butler's views of human nature were, he stated, purely fanciful and hypothetical and were in retreat before new discoveries in the "human sciences." These new discoveries, too, had demonstrated that, far from being genuine history, Scripture contained many passages that were fanciful and legendary. In Arnold's estimation, the modern critical spirit had seriously undermined the foundations of Christian orthodoxy so well guarded for over a century by Bishop Butler. A few years later, at Mount Allison University, a small Methodist institution in Sackville, New Brunswick, the high position of Bishop Butler appeared to be threatened by the same developments outlined by Matthew Arnold.2 Reverend Ralph Brecken examined the "rationalist" criticism of the Bible, the archaeological discoveries that challenged the Scriptural account of human origins and destiny by

170 Methodism and Education

positing a great antiquity for the human race, and the theory of evolution, which apparently insisted upon the exclusion of the spiritual from the scientific sphere. All of these developments apparently threatened the Butlerian and Baconian harmony of reason and faith that Methodism had constructed from the encounter of the evangelical impulse and from the eighteenth-century world of high churchism and the Scottish Enlightenment.3 Brecken noted that Butler's Analogy was founded upon the premise that "nature and religion are twin sisters, the offspring of the same parent mind with the family likeness in their faces."4 In his opinion, Butler's argument was jeopardized not because it had been invalidated by modern science (indeed, in Breckeris estimation, it remained "logical and conclusive") but because to devotees of Darwin and Spencer The Analogy was a "plebeian production," and its views respecting human nature and revelation were no longer "scientific."5 These Victorian musings on the place of an obscure eighteenthcentury Anglican bishop will perhaps excite little interest among modern students of religion. After all, the body of beliefs that evangelicals drew from Butler - that science and Scripture were mutually harmonious aspects of the same divine revelation; that the Bible, unlike other books, was true on the level of doctrine because it was true as history; and that human reason unaided by faith was limited in relation to divine revelation — was shattered in the three decades after 1860 by the very Zeit-Geist so eloquently depicted by Matthew Arnold. Evangelicalism, it is claimed, was thus doomed to intellectual irrelevance, either as an "anti-modernist" fundamentalism or as a species of religious "liberalism" that had abandoned sound theology in the name of social activism.6 Between 1850 and 1890, however, the intellectual life of Mount Allison University, particularly of its theological faculty, leads one to believe that this obituary for evangelicalism was premature. While Rev. Ralph Brecken was aware of the difficulties in sustaining the Butlerian position in the face of modern thought, he nonetheless concluded his article with the remark that the "testimony of the rocks must be the testimony of Scripture ... if we fail to catch the harmony of their blended voices, the cause of discord is in ourselves."7 Far from being an isolated voice, this Methodist minister was merely stating the fundamental assumption that governed the spirit of learning at the college during the late nineteenth century. Indeed, far from endorsing the opinion that the Zeit-Geist shattered the mental world of evangelicalism, I advance the somewhat whimsical argument that Methodism, with the much-maligned Bishop Butler at the forefront, was effectively able to devour and digest both the scientific and critical challenges to Scripture, and to do so in such a way that the central

171 The Golden Age of the Church College

doctrines of evangelicalism and the traditional balance of faith and reason emerged virtually unscathed from the encounter. The persistence of the eighteenth-century view of the province of reason and the authority of the Bible presented by the name of Bishop Butler, interpreted in another cultural context as the precondition of a defensive "fundamentalism," actually served in Canadian Methodism as the basis of a limited accommodation that muted the opposition between religion and critical thought and prevented the emergence of theological parties in church congregations and colleges. In both intellectual and institutional terms, the environment at Mount Allison during the decades between 1850 and 1890 displayed a remarkable stability. Founded as an academy in 1843 under the principalship of Rev. Humphrey Pickard, the college had from the beginning affirmed the essential unity of knowledge and religious belief. "Nature, Providence, and Revelation," declared Pickard in his inaugural address of 1843, "all unite in unequivocally declaring the value and necessity of right education."8 A true Christian education must rest upon a symmetry of mental and moral character, which, in his estimation, combined natural philosophy, the classics, and mental and moral philosophy in such a way as to "enlighten the understanding and quicken the conscience." But the foundation of all learning lay in "the volume of Inspiration," which was "infinitely our most valuable text book."9 Indeed, the principal left no doubt that the authority of the Bible was the foundation of all knowledge. Speaking in the momentous year of 1859, he explicitly placed science and philosophy in a subordinate position, because, he stated, neither could disclose what was truly important for the Methodist: the relationship between the individual soul and a personal God. This, however, was no cause for despair, because God has made a revelation to man of most important doctrines respecting Himself and man's relation to Him and His government, — His wonderful plan of mercy for man's redemption from the fearful curse and fatal consequences of his sin ... Faith takes hold of these. It is the action of the soul so grasping the doctrines of the Gospel system that they become vital principles in the heart, beautifully developing themselves in a harmonious, consistent Christian life ... Obedience to the Gospel is demanded.'" The implicit corollary was that because, for the Methodist, the Bible was superior to science and philosophy, reason had but a strictly limited role in interpreting revelation. For the Methodist founders of Mount Allison, the work of Bishop Butler was of central importance in underpinning the foundations of a Christian education. Butler's Analogy of Religion to the Course of

172

Methodism and Education

Nature affirmed that the same divine providence ruled not only the constitution of physical nature, but also the workings of the human mind. More importantly, it reminded the Christian believer of the irrefutable evidence of the historical unfolding of the divine purpose as recorded in Scripture. In the college, men like Humphrey Pickard, who in his capacity as principal was also professor of mental and moral philosophy, relied upon Butler1' to interpret the Bible not only as a book of inspired doctrines, but as a book of facts that, because revealed by God, were literally true. Butler's statement that "revelation ... may be considered as wholly historical" accorded well with the popular preaching and beliefs of Methodist congregations on both sides of the Atlantic. The Analogy also provided, for professors, students, and preachers alike, an almost foolproof method of dealing with objections to the plenary inspiration and historical accuracy of Scripture. Although the Bible contained many diverse elements, Butler informed his readers that it was authentic and genuine history. "Prophecy is nothing but the history of events before they come to pass; doctrines also are matters of fact; and precepts come under the same notion." Scripture, in his estimation, gave an account of the world "as God's world," and it was this inspired quality that distinguished it from all other books.12 It followed from this that, in interpreting the Bible, Butler and the "Baconian" outlook, which drew heavily upon Butler's apologetics, would naturally seek to limit the function of unaided human reason. Because revelation stood prior to reason, the human mind, Butler declared, possessed "no principles of reason, upon which to judge beforehand."13 Reason was limited to authenticating the revelation, and once it accepted the "testimony" to the miracles and prophecies adduced by Christ and the Apostles, Scripture had to be accepted in its entirety as inspired and true. The questions that so agitated biblical critics were simply irrelevant for Butler and his followers. As the Bishop bluntly stated, "Neither obscurity, nor seeming inaccuracy of style, nor various readings, nor early disputes about the authors of particular parts; nor any other things of the like kind could overthrow the authority of the Scripture."14 The popularity of this high church bishop in Methodist circles can also be explained by the fact that his views accorded well with prominent features of the evangelical theology. Butler was insistent upon the limits of the human intellect; he informed his readers that the probings of reason into the truth of revelation could afford only "probable evidence," an "imperfect kind of information" to be considered as "relative only to beings of limited capacities" for whom "probability is the very guide of life."15 As Boyd Hilton has argued

173 The Golden Age of the Church College in his magisterial study of the social thought of British evangelicals, Butler's doctrine that certainty is unimportant, and that probable evidence is sufficient for assurance of salvation, may have provided an antidote to insecurity. Indeed, although Butler based his faith on the evidences, he and his evangelical disciples kept those evidences sufficiently flimsy to argue for the priority of trust in God and, more importantly, to advocate the necessity of moral probation and discipline, two key elements of the evangelical outlook.16 Like those Methodists who drew heavily upon his work, Butler was insistent upon the supremacy of conscience,17 that mysterious faculty where the human will encountered that of a personal God. Perhaps more importantly, Butler's ideas emerged from the same eighteenthcentury high churchism as those of John Wesley, with whom the Bishop frequently corresponded.18 Like Wesley, Butler insisted upon the central place of the doctrine of the atonement to Christian belief, and he considered religion a "practical subject."19 Although much of the workings of divine providence in both the natural world and the Bible was simply incomprehensible to the human mind, some assurance could be derived from the use of "reason together with experience."20 It was no surprise, then, that one textbook frequently used in the theological faculty at Mount Allison in the 18703 paired Butler and Wesley, stating that each "was one of the most marked instruments of movement and influence in the respective fields of the argumentative and the spiritual; the one a philosopher writing for the educated, the other a missionary preaching to the poor."21 As the decade of the i86os dawned, Maritime Methodists, like their counterparts in the Canadas, England, and the United States, felt the impact of a variety of intellectual changes in the transatlantic world. It is possible to see this encounter between evangelicalism and "modern thought" as the beginning of a process by which theology was displaced from its central position in the colleges in favour of a "research ideal" founded upon the supremacy of the scientific outlook.22 One would be hard put, however, to discern such a process taking place at Mount Allison between 1860 and 1890. While it might be argued that the foundation of a separate faculty of theology in 1875 was symptomatic of the need of scientific endeavour for greater independence, this should not be taken as evidence of a growing secular temper or as the "marginalization" of religion in the intellectual life of the college. Indeed, the arts and science professors of the college all held joint appointments in the theological faculty, an arrangement that not only preserved the prestige of theology, but permitted a great deal of flexibility in dealing with the impact of "modern thought." The fact that the faculty of Mount Allison was

174 Methodism and Education

successful in preserving the pre-i86o theological underpinnings of college education, founded upon the evangelical encounter with the eighteenth century, firmly dictated the extent to which any accommodation to the discoveries in the "natural" and the "human" sciences could affect the supremacy of the Bible. This situation effectively contributed to the continued dominance of the evangelical outlook in the teaching of science and the liberal arts.29 It is by now a virtually accepted doctrine that the impact of evolutionary thought on the natural sciences in the late nineteenth century raised fundamental problems for the harmony of science and Scripture that the work of Bishop Butler had so well promoted. To a considerable extent, however, the presence at Mount Allison of Rev. John Burwash, professor of Natural Science and of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology between 1874 and i8go,24 served to mute the controversies that so agitated the Protestant world in both Britain and America. Burwash's adjustment of the respective claims of science and revelation rested upon what might initially appear to be a paradox. He urged upon his students the preservation of the unity of religion and science in an age that seemed intent upon dividing these two realms. As he expressed it in an 1884 sermon, "The book of nature apart from revelation can only bring despair."25 In his view, the teaching of science went hand in hand with Christian faith and the imaginative faculties, and was designed to evoke in the mind of the student "the forms and relations of the beautiful things that God has placed in forest and field."26 Burwash's views placed him within a transatlantic tradition whose devotees the historian David Livingstone has described as "servants of Science and of Scripture," eminent scientists who maintained that to accept a modified version of evolutionary theory involved no surrender of fundamental Christian doctrines. Indeed, this Methodist clergyman-professor was much influenced by the American naturalists James Dwight Dana, Silliman Professor of Natural History at Yale, and Asa Gray, Fisher Professor of Natural History at Harvard, with whom Burwash studied in the early 18705. Dana's Manual of Geology and Gray's Botany both appeared on the Mount Allison science curriculum in i876,27 and students under Burwash's tutelage would have learned the essential lesson that the term "evolution" did not imply atheism; rather, the fact that nature and mind exhibited orderly processes pointed to the existence of a personal God who was consciously and actively guiding creation toward a progressive goal.28 Despite his open-mindedness to evolutionary theories, and his firm belief that "the scientific method [was] as applicable to religion as to science,"29 Burwash's views were characterized by a firm sense that

175 The Golden Age of the Church College

inquiry into matters of faith and revelation was circumscribed by what he believed were the "bounds to our knowledge, and ... to our investigation."30 Such an attitude, Burwash concluded, was not designed to foster an attitude of agnosticism. For a Methodist raised upon the Christian evidences of Bishop Butler, the fact that the natural world and the human mind contained incomprehensible mysteries such as sin and death merely suggested the necessity of revelation. To accept the necessity of revelation, however, meant for Burwash the injunction upon the human intellect of an attitude of caution against what he termed "unwarrantable speculations concerning that great region about which sense has nothing to reveal — the spiritual."31 Here lay the key to Burwash's reconciliation of evangelicalism and evolution: a practical division of labour between revelation and science that accorded the final authority to the Bible. Without the aid of a vital experience of faith, Burwash concluded, the scientist could simply not hope to understand the greatest mysteries of the human condition. But, it might be objected, in proclaiming that there was no fundamental conflict between a properly limited scientifically responsible theory of evolution and the main tenets of evangelical theology, Burwash and his mentors were deluding themselves and their students, and were, in reality, unconsciously surrendering the most important elements of the orthodox evangelical position. Such a reconciliation of Scripture and science was, however, perfectly compatible with a mid-Victorian reading of Bishop Butler. As the eighteenth-century cleric was fond of reminding his readers, the natural world was "an incomprehensible scheme."92 this very fact permitted an open mind concerning the method by which God carried on the moral government of the world. Although Butler believed that nature and human beings were ruled by miraculous design, the constitution of the moral universe was "carried on by general laws."33 The Analogy proposed no theory of transmutation, but there was nothing in the work that would preclude these natural and moral "laws," though unknown, from being gradual or evolutionary in character. It was in very recognition of the flexibility of the eighteenth-century tradition of Christian evidences that no less an authority than Charles Darwin himself placed an admiring quotation referring to the tradition represented by Butler at the beginning of his celebrated Origin of Species?* In leaving the door open for a reconciliation of evangelical and evolutionary positions, however, Butler's legacy was insistent upon the limits of the development theory, particularly in the sensitive sphere of human origins and mind. The very notion that the human mind

176 Methodism and Education must proceed on the basis of probability was a powerful line of defence; it allowed evangelicals to assert that evolution must remain an open question because it could not be absolutely proved. Writing in 1876, Rev. Ralph Brecken asserted that no induction was an absolute certainty until "all the possible phenomena ranging under the supposed principle are gathered together. When this is the case, the proposition deserves the dignitary title of Law, but till then, it is only a hypothesis or at best a theory."35 For those raised on The Analogy, the fact that the natural and moral governments of the world were connected in one harmonious scheme indicated the clear supremacy of supernatural purposes and moral laws over natural processes, a consideration that left open the possibility of miracle and the assurance of divine activity and design in the world. Butler denied that a universe ruled by general laws was a necessitarian mechanism that had constrained human freedom or banished a personal God. "God's miraculous interpositions," he claimed, "may have been, all along in like manner, by general laws of wisdom."36 As Rev. Cranswick Jost stated in a lecture to the Theological Union of Mount Allison in 1883, miracles were not a violation of the laws of nature;37 he echoed Butler's dictum that natural law was subservient to moral law.38 The "system of nature and that of the supernatural," insisted Rev. Jost, "were not rival systems." Indeed, because God was superior to nature, miracle meant simply that "the lower laws of nature will be subordinated, as occasion may require, to the higher laws and uses of spiritual life and being."39 Here lay the basis for a limited acceptance of the evolutionary hypothesis for many Canadian Methodists. Like many of their counterparts in Britain and America, Mount Allison's clergymen-professors and students found no need to jettison their eighteenth-century traditions of discussion concerning Christian evidences, derived from Bishop Butler, in the face of scientific materialism.40 On the surface, Butler's notions of probability, induction, and the operation of the divine purposes through general laws of nature and mind seemed to concede a wide sphere of scientific investigation. In practice, however, men like John Burwash used Butler to limit strictly the application of the scientific outlook to theological questions, which, for the evangelical, encompassed the sphere of human origins, consciousness, morality, and destiny, that nebulous borderland of natural law and supernatural purposes. While, in dealing with the facts of the natural world, the senses could acquire knowledge and reason could "collate and compare the facts of sense,"41 these must, according to Burwash, proceed with constant reference to the priority of faith and the pre-

177 The Golden Age of the Church College supposition that revelation was the only authoritative guide to its own interpretation. If anything, these twin guideposts of the Mount Allison Methodist intellect were even more rigorously enforced in the sphere of biblical study and theology than in the laboratory of John Burwash. Evolution was believed to be a subset of a more urgent and compelling problem: the application of historical criticism to the very records of the Christian faith. By the i Syos, adventurous German critics had challenged the vital equation of history and prophecy by adopting the mechanism of evolutionary naturalism to explain the origins and growth of the Hebrew religion and, in so doing, eroded the factual basis of the evangelical theology of history. The application of this outlook to the Bible was premised on the notion that the logic of historical method, rather than doctrine or tradition, could determine the actual contents and religious and moral value of Scripture.42 For Methodist preachers and their congregations, the Bible was not primarily a book of science, but a key to action of a personal God in the individual moral life, in the formation of societies, and in human history. It was historical study, not Darwinism itself, that could potentially undermine the biblical statements of fact and doctrine that made up the central imperatives of the Methodist version of the evangelical creed. College professors and ministers believed that the tasks of preaching and conversion and the link between college and congregation rested on their ability to draw from Scripture precise and predictable laws of human and divine behaviour that were true as theology, history, and moral precept. Any weakening of the certainty of the "facts" revealed in the Bible would displace theology from its status as both history and science. Between 1860 and 1890, Methodist leaders like Samuel Nelles and Nathanael Burwash, the guiding spirits of Victoria College, Toronto sought to forge a limited accommodation between the popular theology of Methodism and the historical sciences. These clergymen sought to maintain a balance between Methodist tradition, the eighteenth century inheritance of Butler and Bacon, and a "reverent" form of biblical criticism that explicitly sought to use historical study to affirm the reliability of the Bible as history and as the vital source of doctrine. At Mount Allison, this sensitive balance was promoted by Rev. Charles Stewart (1827—1910), who in 1870 assumed the chair of Old Testament Exegesis and Systematic Theology and, when a separate faculty of theology was established, was named dean. Significantly, Stewart was also professor of Moral Philosophy and Evidences of Christianity in the college.43 This dual role compelled him

178 Methodism and Education

not only to confront the issues raised by higher criticism, but to maintain a moral philosophy consonant with Christian doctrine in the face of scientific materialism, positivism, and philosophical idealism. Stewart brought to this task a number of basic beliefs that closely circumscribed the relationship between his creed and historical study. The core of his theology was premised upon his expressed belief that Christianity rested upon "the Divine Personality of Jesus Christ- He is unchangeable." The Methodist task, in his estimation, was to "preach Christ and Him crucified. We are to convince men of their sin and danger, and to lead them to the Saviour."44 From this, it may be surmised that Stewart was not to be numbered among those who sympathized with the recasting of fundamental doctrines in the light of the latest theories of modern science or prevailing fashions of historical interpretation. "There is," he reminded the Theological Union of Mount Allison in 1879, dogmatic religious truth. By this we mean that there is something stated to be believed; something defined to be accepted, something affirmed, "delivered once for all to the saints," which is not to be questioned but trusted; not to be held with certain mental reservations which explain it away, but to be embraced with the whole heart.45 Doctrine rested firmly upon the authority of Christ.

This high view of the divinity of Christ and of the substitutionary, rather than moral or ethical, nature of the Atonement, identified Stewart as an exponent of the classic evangelical position. As might be expected, he held firmly to the centrality of the authority of the Bible in Christian preaching and life. His task, as he saw it, was to train preachers, not scholars, and the college training he offered in theology and biblical exegesis was designed with this express purpose in view.46 His own personal theology, and his close contact with the Church's need for sound preaching, led him to affirm a view of the Bible's authority and the role of reason in its interpretation little different than that advanced by Bishop Butler over a century and a half earlier. The Bible, he declared in 1879, was "oracular, supreme, final"; reason possessed its own sphere, but, in relation to revelation, it was "subordinate," because the Word of God, in his estimation, was "Plenipotentiary from the court of heaven" arid "discloses facts and deals with questions which neither reason nor any other messenger from that court can possibly have in charge."47 Stewart would have wholeheartedly agreed with Butler's contention that "the Scripture-history in general is to be admitted as an authentic

179 The Golden Age of the Church College

genuine history, till somewhat positive be alleged sufficient to invalidate it."48 Stewart's own theological views had been forged in the pre1850 culture of English Methodism, and his notebooks contain a remarkable list of procedures for authenticating Scripture, concluding with the assertion that both Old and New Testaments were reliable as both history and prophecy. Here, disciples of Butler maintained, reason must stop; once the intellect had collated and weighed the evidence for and against divine revelation, the Scripture had to be accepted in its entirety as accurate testimony to the events it purportedly described.49 There is no evidence to indicate that this prominent Methodist educator ever altered this basic position. His inaugural lecture to the Theological Union in 1879 found him confronting his students with the fact that certain modern biblical critics had attempted "to depreciate not only the moral excellence of the teaching of Christ, but His own truthfulness and honesty." All such speculations, he reminded them, "touch the very vitals of the Christian religion. It is either wholly true, or utterly false and misleading. It either leads us in the ways of virtue, or it is the champion of the basest wrong the most daring impiety."50 Stewart's lectures on the Old Testament always assumed the general reliability of their books as history, although, as he informed his students, it was history written "from a religious point of view," which omitted events and details of interest to the civil historian. This characteristic, he claimed, often confused higher critics who simply assumed that the books of the Old Testament were legendary or mythical.51 This Methodist clergyman-professor consistently denied the central contention of the higher critics, that the Bible could be treated in the same manner as other ancient texts. Although he certainly welcomed the application of historical method to Scripture, he cautioned his students, "We find among the Hebrews a faith in God and a religious purpose of which Heathendom affords not the slightest trace. Under Divine Providence, too, and the leading of God's Spirit the exploits of the sacred heroes advanced the highest interests of mankind."52 The most vital piece of equipment for the biblical scholar, therefore, was the prior possession of a reverent faith, achieved through Christian experience. This approach to biblical study was also dictated by the place of theology in the college, which Stewart believed must lie at the heart of the preacher's education and, more generally, must inform the entire concept of a Christian liberal education. For anyone raised in the Butlerian-Baconian tradition, the prestige of theology rested upon its ability to appeal to a repository of reliable "facts," the Bible, which placed a premium on safeguarding the accuracy and plenary

180 Methodism and Education

inspiration of Scripture. "Theology," Stewart stated, "is the crown and perfection of all the sciences. To enable us to grasp the great principles of this science, and to trace out their wonderful harmonies in the government of God, and especially in the redemption of mankind [is] one of the noblest employments in which the human intellect can be exercised."53 In the faculty of theology, Stewart's curriculum was divided into three interlocking parts: exegesis, history, and theology. In the last, he drew upon such masters as Charles Hodge, whose Systematic Theology of 1873 represented the crowning achievement of the Baconian method; the eminent English Methodist theologian Richard Watson; and the medieval theologian Anselm, whose Cur Deus Homo advanced a high view of the substitutionary nature of the Atonement similar to that favoured by Stewart.54 Of equal interest was Stewart's selection of works of history, apologetics, and biblical theology. The main figures here were authors such as the Anglican clergyman Adam Storey Farrar (A Critical History of Free Thought) and the American Congregationalist George P. Fisher, professor of Church History at Yale (Essays on the Supernatural Origin of Christianity). The authors of both these works informed the aspiring Methodist preachers that they had nothing to fear from the application of history to the biblical evidence; more significantly, both claimed to be writing within the Butlerian tradition, which stressed the moral government of God, which could be discerned in the process of history and which defended the supernatural character of both Scripture and human history. If this updating of Butler's legacy confirmed the evangelical faith of Stewart and his students in the reliability and trustworthiness of Scripture as history, prophecy, and theology, it also allowed them considerable flexibility and open-mindedness55 on the application of historical inquiry to the biblical text. Perhaps the most troublesome area of debate between evangelicals and higher critics in the 18708 and i88os was over the question of inspiration and God's miraculous intervention in human history — the degree to which one could maintain that God's word was actually present in portions of Scripture, as distinguished from human imagination or legend, and the extent to which one could actually claim that human history was ruled by a divine purpose. On this point, the canny Anglican bishop, while certainly defending the plenary inspiration of the Bible, was silent as to the mode and specific degree of supernatural presence in any particular biblical text. In fact, Butler admitted that "God's miraculous interpositions may have been, all along ... by general laws of wisdom." These interpositions, he reminded his readers, were "exactly in such degrees and respectively; all this may have been by general laws."56

181 The Golden Age of the Church College

Butler's silences enabled his mid-Victorian disciples, like Stewart, to assume the accuracy and inspiration of the biblical narratives, while rejecting "mechanical" or verbal inspiration in favour of a more dynamic view, one that accepted the Bible as a progressive revelation. "The fact of Inspiration," declared Rev. John Lathern in 1881, "suggests the secret and the solution of gradual development in the fullness of revealed truth." In a twist on Butler's argument from design, this Methodist preacher argued that the fact of development testified to the divine origin of the Bible, because it was a revelation adapted to the human condition at various stages of historical development. But through all variety of theme and composition there runs a golden thread of unity. The Book is an organism. There is never a break in the line of continuity. Inference is irresistible. Evidences of controlling mind are incontestable and everywhere.5'

By 1880, the Mount Allison version of the Methodist intellect had with minor adjustments to its own theological traditions appropriated the critical outlook, redirecting it to its own purposes. In this process, the legacy of the eighteenth century neither became jettisoned in the name of "relevance," nor became the bulwark of an uncompromising anti-modernism, as it did in some American denominations. In the hands of devout Methodist professors like Charles Stewart and John Burwash, the Butlerian legacy imparted a degree of flexibility and openness to the college. In an age of change and doubt, it reassured those evangelicals who demanded the preservation of an authoritative Scripture, but who wished to have their theology informed by sound scientific and historical scholarship. More importantly, by regarding human knowledge as finite and only "probable," Butler bade the professor and the preacher turn in the direction of faith and vital experience, which, in the end, provided the most telling testimony to God's presence in the world. NOTES 1 Matthew Arnold, "Bishop Butler and the Zeit-Geist," in Matthew Arnold, St. Paul and Protestantism (1870; reprint New York: The Free Press 1970), 333. 2 Butler's dominant position in the intellectual world of evangelicalism has been splendidly analyzed in Boyd Hilton, "The Mind of Economic Man," chap. 5 in The Age of Atonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on

i8a

3

4 5 6

7 8

9 10

11

Methodism and Education

Social and Economic Thought, 1795—1865 (Oxford: Oxford University Press 1988). For the evangelical relationship to the culture of the eighteenth century in Canada, see Michael Gauvreau, The Evangelical Century: College and Creed in English Canada from the Great Revival to the Great Depression (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queeris University Press 1991), chap. i. Ralph Brecken, "Science and Religion Reconcilable," The Argosy i (6 June 1876): 54-5. Ibid., 55' This is the position most forcefully advocated in the English Canadian context by Ramsay Cook. See his stimulating work, The Regenerators (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1985). The conflict hypothesis has also been advanced by A.B. McKillop, A Disciplined Intelligence (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 1979), chaps 4—7. For the American context, the notion of an irreconcilable conflict between "evangelical orthodoxy" and "evolutionary thought" has been advanced by George Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture (New York: Oxford University Press 1980). For a critique that stresses the continuity of pre- and post-Darwinian versions of evangelicalism, see Gauvreau, The Evangelical Century. Brecken, "Science and Religion Reconcilable," 55. Humphrey Pickard, An Inaugural Address delivered at the Opening of the Wesleyan Academy, Mount Allison, Sackville, N.B. (Saint John: 1843), 5. For the early years of the college, see also John G. Reid, Mount Allison University: A History to 1963, 2 vols (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1984), i: 31-2. Pickard, Inaugural Address, 8—9, 10. Humphrey Pickard, "A Discourse Commemorating the late Chas. F. Allison, delivered May 29, 1859," Mount Allison Academic Gazette 8 (i December 1859): 5—9. For the use of Bishop Butler's Analogy at Mount Allison, see Catalogue of the Mount Allison Wesleyan College and Academy, 1851, Mount Allison University Archives, which explicitly notes the use of Butler's work in the third year of the collegiate department. For Butler's place in the wider intellectual life of Canadian Methodism, see Samuel Nelles Papers, "Moral and Religious Lectures," 1864, United Church Archives. The Analogy continued to be required reading of Methodist probationers until well into the 18705. See Henry Flesher Bland Papers, Box 5, file 270, "Evidences of Christianity" and "Inspiration of the Bible," 1867-68, United Church Archives; and Salem Bland Papers, Box 9, no. 807, "Notes on Butler's Analogy" 1879, United Church Archives.

183 The Golden Age of the Church College 12 Joseph Butler, The Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature (1736; reprint, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1874), 273-4. 13 Ibid., 184. 14 Ibid., 184—5. 15 Ibid., 3. 16 Hilton, The Age of Atonement, 174—5, 182—3. 17 See Joseph Butler, "Upon the Natural Supremacy of Conscience," in Sermons (1729; reprint, Oxford: Oxford University Press 1874), 30-8. 18 For the relationship between Wesley and Buder, see Frank Baker, John Wesley and the Church of England (London: Epworth Press 1970), 69-71. Although Wesley and Butler disagreed on the question of church government, they shared a common stock of philosophical and epistemological convictions. On this point, see Richard E. Brantley, Locke, Wesley, and the Method of English Romanticism (Gainesville: University of Florida Press 1984), 11. 19 Butler, Analogy, 118. 20 Ibid., 181. 21 Adam Storey Farrar, A Critical History of Free Thought in Reference to the Christian Religion (1862; reprints New York: n.p. 1888), 161. For the use of this book at Mount Allison, see Catalogue of the Mount Allison Wesleyan College and Academy, 1875. 22 See A.B. McKillop, "The Research Ideal and the University of Toronto," in Contours of Canadian Thought (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1987), 78—95; Cook, The Regenerators, chap. 2; McKillop, A Disciplined Intelligence, chaps 4 and 5. 23 F.W.W. DesBarres, "Theology at Mount Allison," The Argosy Weekly, 9 March 1940, F.W.W. DesBarres Papers, Mount Allison University Library, Archives. See also J.W. Falconer and W.G. Watson, A Brief History of Pine Hill Divinity Hall and the Theological Department at Mount Allison University (n.p.: 1946). 24 Born at Lachute, P.Q., in 1842, John Burwash was the brother of Nathanael Burwash, Chancellor of Victoria College. In 1859, the younger Burwash entered Victoria College, took the full course in arts, and graduated in 1863 with the Prince of Wales Medal. Upon graduating, he was received as a Methodist probationer, stationed on the Canton, Colborne, and Barrie circuits, and ordained in 1867. Subsequently, he served as pastor in Belleville and Parkhill, from 1867 to 1870. In 1870, he was appointed principal of the Mount Allison Boys' Academy. Between 1872 and 1873, he was stationed at L'Original and took a year's post-graduate study at Harvard. In 1874, he was appointed professor of natural science at Mount Allison, a post he held until 1890, with a brief absence to serve as

184 Methodism and Education

25 26 27

28 29 30 31 32 33 34

35

36 37

38 39 40

pastor in Charlottetown. In 1890, he left Mount Allison for the chair of natural science at Victoria College, and, in 1892, transferred to the theology department of that institution, where he was professor of homiletics, pastoral theology, and English Bible until 1912. John Burwash died in 1913. See Biographical File, "John Burwash," United Church Archives. John Burwash, "The Limits of Religious Thought," in The Methodist Pulpit, ed. S.G. Phillips (Toronto: William Briggs 1884), 188. See John G. Reid, Mount Allison University, 109; "Science and the Imagination," The Argosy, 3 (6 February 1877): 76-7. For James Dwight Dana and Asa Gray, see David N. Livingstone, Darwin's Forgotten Defenders: The Encounter Between Evangelical Theology and Evolutionary Thought (Grand Rapids: William Eerdmans/Scottish Academic Press 1987), 57—77. For the use of their texts at Mount Allison, see Catalogue of the Mount Allison Wesleyan Academy, 1876. Livingstone, Darwin's Forgotten Defenders, 75—6. Quoted in Reid, Mount Allison University, 109. Burwash, "Limits of Religious Thought," 179. Ibid., 182. Butler, Analogy, 137. Ibid., 137. Charles Darwin, Origin of Species (1859; reprint, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books 1968), 50. Darwin's opening epigraph cites approvingly William Whewell, the eminent British natural philosopher who paraphrased Butler's comments on God working through general laws. It was from James Moore that I originally obtained this reference to Butler in Darwin, although Moore mistakenly states that Darwin quoted Butler himself; James R. Moore, The Post-Darwinian Controversies: A Study of the Protestant Struggle to Come to Terms with Darwin in Great Britain and America, 1870-1 goo (Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press 1979, 347. Brecken, "Science and Religion Reconcilable," 54; Yodh, "Letter," The Argosy, 2 (3 December 1875): 31-32; H.W.B., "Concerning Pyramids," The Argosy, 6 (i October 1879): 2-3; "The Uncertainties of Science," The Argosy, 12 (8 May 1885): 89-91. Butler, Analogy, 200, 112-13. Craswick Jost, Miracles, being the Fifth Annual Lecture Before the Theological Union of Mount Allison Wesleyan College, delivered June 1883 (Saint John: n.p. 1883), 45. Butler, Analogy, 133. Jost, Miracles, 5. My interpretation of this point has been influenced by a reading of Moore's Post-Darwinian Controversies. Moore, however, devotes little

185 The Golden Age of the Church College

41 42

43

44

45

46 47

48 49 50 51 52 53

attention to Butler, preferring to concentrate on the legacy of Paley. In the early nineteenth century, Butler was far more influential in shaping evangelical attitudes toward the "natural" and the "human" sciences. See Hilton, The Age of Atonement, chap. 5 and, for the English Canadian scene, Gauvreau, The Evangelical Century, chap. a. Moore, Post-Darwinian Controversies, 181. For a discussion of these developments, see Gauvreau, The Evangelical Century, chap. 4. For the relationship of religion and historical study, see Owen Chadwick, The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1975), 189— 228. For the impact of the new biblical criticism and historical study on Canadian Methodism, see Michael Gauvreau, "The Taming of History: Reflections on the Canadian Methodist Encounter with Biblical Criticism, 1830—1900," Canadian Historical Review 63, no. 3 (September 1984): 315-46Charles Stewart was born in Glasgow in 1827 into a Methodist family. Converted in his youth, he served for several years as a local preacher. In 1852, he arrived in Nova Scotia, became a Methodist probationer, and was ordained in 1856, subsequently preaching extensively on circuits in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. He replaced Charles De Wolfe as professor of theology at Mount Allison in 1870, became dean of the faculty in 1875, and retired in 1903. Charles Stewart, Lecture Notes, "The Unchangeable Christ, Heb. 13:8," n.d. Charles Stewart Papers, 5/2, Mount Allison University Archives; Stewart, "Saturday Morning Lecture," 9 December 1871, Stewart Papers, 5/4. Charles Stewart, "The Teaching of Christ in Regard to His Own Person and Work," Theological Union of Mount Allison Wesleyan College, First Annual Lecture and Sermon, June 1879, 54. Stewart, "Saturday Morning Lecture." Stewart, "The Teaching of Christ, 12-13. Cf. with Butler, whose Analogy defined reason as "'the candle of the Lord within us', though it can afford no light, where it does not shine; nor judge, where it has no principles to judge upon" (p. 310). Butler, Analogy, 253. Charles Stewart, "Book of Notes on Basic Scriptural Doctrines," May 1851, "13. Genuiness of Scripture," Stewart Papers, 5/1. Stewart, "The Teaching of Christ," 11. Charles Stewart, "Biblical Criticism XXV. Kings," Stewart Papers, 5/12. Charles Stewart, "Biblical Criticism XXI. Judges," n.d., Stewart Papers, 5/8. Stewart, "The Teaching of Christ," 54.

i86 Methodism and Education 54 For the curriculum and the main works, see Catalogue of Mount Allison Wesleyan Academy, 1875. 55 For Stewart's "open-mindedness," see Biographical File, "Charles Stewart," United Church Archives. 56 Butler, Analogy, 201. 57 John Lathern, The Inspiration of the Bible. A Lecture delivered before the Theological Union of Mount Allison Wesleyan College, June 1881.

Methodism and Literature

This page intentionally left blank

io Methodism and Methodist Poets in the Early Literature of Maritime Canada THOMAS B. V I N C E N T

The focus of this chapter is on poetic activity in the pre-Confederation literature of Maritime Canada, and particularly on the role that Methodist poets and Methodist publications played in nurturing and developing local poetry during this period. But, while the focus may be regional, it is important to recognize that almost all features of emerging colonial societies draw their general character from some broader cultural context. Not surprisingly, the basic pattern of the relationship between Methodism and literature in Maritime Canada was shaped initially in Great Britain. From its beginning, the Methodist movement instinctively recognized the importance of language and literature as fundamental instruments in articulating and communicating the spirit of the religious experience it represented. Methodism's emphasis on the importance of "the word" is perhaps most dramatically demonstrated by the central role that dynamic preaching played in the evolution of the movement. While most Church histories tend to focus on the development of organization and doctrine, the real power of Methodism, the power that moved human hearts, flowed from a spiritual vision articulated in affective language. In the shadow of the great preachers stood the early poethymnists of Methodism, such as Charles Wesley. The importance of their contribution to the growth of Methodism is often not as fully recognized as it should be. Yet, there is evidence to suggest that the poetry of Methodism was more pervasive, more enduring, and more influential in the long run in sustaining the spiritual vision of Methodism than all the tons of sermons lost in time. At the very least,

190 Methodism and Literature these writers established literature (especially poetry) as the handmaid of religion in developing and furthering the Methodist movement. This affinity between literature and religious purpose in early Methodism is reflected in the literary quality of Methodist periodical publications in both Great Britain and colonial British North America. Early editors consciously set out to wed the two, and by 1875, when the Canadian Methodist Magazine begins, it had become basic editorial policy. In the first issue, editor William Withrow presented a case for "A Native Methodist Literature." One important object of our magazine shall be the development and fostering of a native literature. We could easily fill our pages with the best productions of the European press. But that would frustrate a cherished purpose which we have in view. We shall from time to time re-produce such papers, not only for their intrinsic excellence, but as models of style and of treatment of the subjects discussed. But we wish most of our articles to have a distinctly national flavour — to be an indigenous growth and to be racy of the soil ... And we hope that our Canadian Methodist Magazine shall be not an unimportant contribution to the fostering and development of a worthy Canadian literature.' Withrow continued, elaborating on his understanding of the relationship between the literary and religious purposes of the journal. But the culture of literature itself is not our object. That is only a means to an end. Unless literature is instinct with high moral principles it will be a curse rather than a blessing. It is a literature loyal to Methodism and to truth that we wish to develop - a literature that shall unfold our principles, defend our doctrines and illustrate our polity. Yet it is not a narrow, sectarian literature we seek to educe. Methodist bigotry is the worst kind of bigotry, because it is opposed to the genius of Methodism's free institutions. Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; these things we shall endeavour to promote and to urge upon the hearts and consciences of our readers. We do not purpose to confine ourselves exclusively to what might be called strictly religious subjects. The late Dr. Arnold remarked that what the times demand is not so much a distinctive religious literature, as secular subjects treated from a religious point of view. We believe that the age wants both of these kinds of literature, and it is our purpose to contribute to the supply of that want. We hope that all the varied interests of our religious and social life will be duly treated in these pages. We do not expect that every article

igi

Methodist Poets in Maritime Canada

will be of interest to every one. But we hope that every one will find something adapted to his taste, and meeting his intellectual and spiritual needs.2

While the declared intention of nurturing literature in Methodist periodicals was to further religious ends, in fact these and other sectarian journals became important cultural instruments contributing to the development of local literature in the nineteenth century. This was particularly true in colonial North America, where the number of outlets for literary publication and distribution was severely limited. From the 18305 to the i86os, sectarian journals were extremely influential in shaping and governing local literary taste by virtue of their powerful if not dominant position in the structure of colonial Canadian publishing. The Methodist journals were among the best edited and most consciously literary of these periodicals. William Withrow did not start a tradition; he followed in one that had important roots in Maritime Canada. The first role that Methodism played in Maritime literature was not, however, as an agent of cultural development but as an object of social and religious satire. One of the most lively pieces of Nova Scotian poetry from the late eighteenth century is a long, anti-Methodist satire entitled "The Adventures of Jack Ramble, The Methodist Preacher," written by Jacob Bailey, the Anglican incumbent at Annapolis Royal.3 Through the 17808 and 17908, the growth of Methodism, together with the activities of New Light and Presbyterian evangelists, presented a serious threat to the financial and institutional stability of Anglican parishes and to the livelihood of their priests. Bailey experienced first hand the (for him) detrimental effects of the Methodist movement on his congregation as a result of the work of William Black, Freeborn Garrettson, and John Cooper in the AnnapolisGranville area. In addition to the economic repercussions of Methodist expansion, the philosophical and theological differences between Bailey's Anglicanism and Wesleyan Methodism were profound. For Bailey, religious experience was fundamentally a rational phenomenon involving the recognition and acceptance of divine order and authority in the universe and in society. He instinctively distrusted the forms of intimate emotional awareness that accompanied an evangelical approach to man's relationship with God. For him, emotion led man away from reason and order toward chaos and irrationality. Moreover, as a loyalist refugee from the American Revolution, he was convinced that the rebellion was historical evidence of the inevitable political consequences that flowed from dissenting religious thought. The close relationship between the American

192

Methodism and Literature

Methodist church and its Nova Scotia Mission confirmed his suspicion. In a letter of May 1785 to an old friend and newly ordained episcopal bishop of Connecticut, Samuel Seabury, Bailey writes, Mr. Garrison [sic] the Methodist preacher, which Mr. Marchinson [sic] was generous enough to import from Maryland, occasions great confusions among us - and I fear he may injure the Church more than all the Old Dissenters and New Lights with their united influence. It is possible however that his zeal may so far exceed his prudence as to frustrate his designs which are evidently to form a separation if not excite a spirit of sedition.4

In "The Adventures of Jack Ramble," Bailey castigates Methodist preachers as seditious, self-interested hypocrites and implies that by association any movement led by such men could only be seen as perfidious, inherently immoral, and blasphemous. What Bailey failed to realize was that the world was moving away from the Augustan ideological assumptions and the neoclassical aesthetics that he espoused and toward exploring human experience and human sensibility in terms of the range of sensory awareness and the complexity of emotional sensitivity. The diction and imagery of poetry were turning to patterns of affective language, the tone and mood of poetry were becoming more lyrical and sentimental, and reason, where it entered in, tended to be zealously didactic and prescriptive. Methodist poets found this type of verse peculiarly suited to their imaginative and poetic sensibilities, largely because it appears to have been compatible with the nature of religious experience as they understood it. It gave them a literary vehicle to express how they felt, at the same time allowing them to articulate insights into moral and religious truths. Not surprisingly, Methodist poets frequently turned to moral and religious subjects, but by virtue of the emotional sensitivity built into their poetics, they were also drawn toward an intense awareness of the natural world around them. In addition, they had a strong and dramatic sense of the human historical moment as it manifested itself in the specifics of time and place. As a result, the bulk of Methodist poetry tends to fall into three groups: moral and religious verse, nature verse, and descriptive/historical verse. This is not to suggest that Methodist poets were unique in their poetics or that they originated these modes of poetry. But it does place them in the main stream of English poetry in the early nineteenth century, where they were able to contribute significantly to the literary activity of their time according to their various talents. In Maritime literature, their contribution may have been even

ig3 Methodist Poets in Maritime Canada more significant, partly because of the effectiveness of the Methodist press and partly because of the notable verses of a few individuals.5 By the early decades of the nineteenth century, sentimental aesthetic assumptions had clearly established their dominance of poetics in Maritime literature. It was at this point that Methodist poets began to make their contributions felt. The earliest was Thomas Daniel Cowdell, who was followed toward the end of the 18205 by the most influential of the early Methodist poets, John Sparrow Thompson. But the name most often remembered from this period is that of Joshua Marsden, although, as an English missionary, he spent relatively little time in the area and saw himself as a British writer writing for a British audience. Thomas Daniel Cowdell was a merchant, musician, occasional lay preacher, and sometimes poet of Halifax, who flourished in the first two decades of the nineteenth century. In 1809, in order to help finance a trip to Great Britain, he published a book of verse at Dublin entitled A Poetical Journal of a Tour from British North America to England, Wales and Ireland ... 6 Expanded editions of this book appeared in 1811 and 1817 under the better known title of The Nova Scotia Minstrel.7 The most substantial piece is a long narrative poem describing Cowdell's journey. Although it is a pedestrian effort for the most part, the poem has two interesting features. First, Cowdell's description of Nova Scotia in Part One reflects a deeply felt response to the natural environment, together with a vision of the goodness of life that grows out of that terrain and exists in harmony with it. From shores, where howls the savage bear, And tawny tribes of Indians are; Where quiet, endless forests grow, That never felt the woodman's blow; A continent, rul'd by extremes Of frigid cold, and flaming beams; Far distant from Europa, fam'd, And which, like her, may yet be tam'd, I come - and briefly be it known Such lands have blessings of their own. Yes, though a ruthless, rugged coast, The best of blessings it can boast. Look not on its surrounding sphere, Nor credit all accounts you hear. Environ'd with forbidding views, You may, at first, her shores refuse;

ig4 Methodism and Literature Internal beauties soon relieve What crude exteriors oft deceive.8

The poem goes on to present a picture of a social ideal firmly rooted in a benign natural world whose vigour is reflected both in its wildness and its fecundity. This vision of a pleasant, fruitful affinity between the natural environment and the socio-moral quality of life is balanced later in the poem by the intrusion of a strong element of social criticism directed variously at the moral turpitude of life on board a British man-ofwar and at the inequities of life in Great Britain generally. This social criticism, together with the earlier descriptive passages, gives a glimpse of an interesting social and moral vision lying beneath the narrative surface of the poem. But Cowdell never pursues this vision to any length or draws it to a dramatic conclusion. Nonetheless, his verse demonstrates the poetic potential of joining a vision of moral propriety with an infelt sensitivity to the natural environment, and in doing so points forward to a type of nature lyric that turns on a moral idea. The poetic relationship between morality and nature would ultimately become one of the most important frames of reference for the Methodist poets of the mid and later nineteenth century. The relationship of Joshua Marsden, the missionary poet, to Maritime poetry is tenuous at best. He is really a British poet who spent a few years in the area and recorded his experiences (mostly in prose) in his book, The Narrative of a Mission ... (i8i6). 9 His verse tends to be openly didactic and prescriptive, a form of versified essay with little play of mind and a strong element of self-righteousness. Even in his descriptive poetry, didactic purpose tightly controls the poetics. For example, when we compare Marsden's use of the Nova Scotian terrain in "A Poetical Farewell to Nova Scotia" to Cowdell's verse, we find Marsden emphasizing the harshness of the environment in order to make a point about the blessings of grace. Thy forests and snow-drifts, thy marshes and bogs, Thy birch-cover'd wigwams, and sun-veiling fogs, Thy cold rocky soil, and thy winters severe, His presence can sweeten, his blessing can cheer:10

There is no socio-moral vision flowing from human experience here; rather, the superficialities of human experience have become grist for the didactic articulation of abstract moral and religious precept.

ig5 Methodist Poets in Maritime Canada

While there is a good deal of this type of verse in nineteenth-century Maritime literature, one suspects that local poets needed no inspiration to write it. The most interesting and important of the early Methodist poets was John Sparrow Thompson, a Halifax journalist and editor. Thompson was perhaps most influential as a constructive critic and friend to other aspiring Nova Scotian poets. In that capacity, he helped nurture the talents of, among others, Joseph Howe, John McPherson, Angus Gidney, and the Herbert sisters. But his own poetry, written in the 18208 and 18305, merits some attention. In 1829, ne published a volume of verse and prose entitled Scripture Sketches in which each piece was anchored in a biblical passage. The idea was interesting, but the premise of the book's structure was so confining that most of the verses emerge as little more than poetic exercises, technically competent but imaginatively flat. In a few poems, however, Thompson is able to combine successfully a sensitivity to the natural world, a philosophic sentiment, and a religious or moral observation. For example, his poem titled "Imbecility" presents a remarkable description of the night sky and a darkened world, while the theme of the poem turns on the vanity of man's assumption that he controls his universe. Can'st thou unloose the flaming "Orion's" orb, Bidding him scorch the clouds, whose torrents pour, In drenching floods upon the saddened earth. Anon - his glare increases - traveller now Avoid the forest gloom — the lion stalks, The brindled tiger bounds — the reptile brood Wind through the southern jungle, panting fierce To find the dwindled stream that streaks the glen. Woe to the wretch who crosses on their path ... n

Less dramatic but equally affective is a lyric such as "Night Worship," which employs the same basic images of darkness but serves a distinctly different theme. When day goes glowing down in the west, I sigh not for the waning light; The gloom sends weary man to rest, And gaudy glare is lost in night; And sainted solitude and peace, Sheds o'er the watcher soothing grace.

196 Methodism and Literature My soul unchecked by thickest gloom, Mounts gladly up the heavenly road: And sees immortal light illume, That throne from which all beauty glowed. His smile is glory, he who bade, Light spring at first from deepest shade.12

In the 18305, Thompson continued to publish occasionally in local magazines and newspapers, usually those of which he was the editor. The most interesting of these poems were those that set out to describe local scenery and local history. Thompson was a driving force behind a growing desire to establish a native colonial literature in Nova Scotia. As part of that effort, he believed that local writers must begin to draw their imagery and subjects from the natural and historical realities that clearly belonged to their particular part of the world. At the same time, the poetic perspective of their verse must be grounded in appropriate moral and religious assumptions so that the spirit of their poetry moved readers to see the natural world and human history as expressions of the benign grace of God manifesting itself intimately in the experience of life. For Thompson, the intention of a native literature was not only to articulate and record a set of local realities but also to make universal spiritual realities immediate and concrete by revealing them in terms of local experience. This part of Thompson's artistic assumptions, the part that sees a process of spiritual familiarization and illumination occurring through the use of affective literature, is completely compatible with his Methodism, if not directly rooted in it. The best of the descriptive/historical poems appeared in the Acadian Telegraph, a short-lived newspaper edited by Thompson in Halifax in 1836—7. The historical poems consist of "Madame LaTour's Arrival," "Madame LaTour's Death," "The Indian Attack on Dartmouth," and "Sunk Ships." The descriptive pieces are incorporated into a four-part piece entitled "Point Pleasant," structured around a walk, during which the poet wanders literally through the natural environment and mentally through his own thoughts. There is also a separate poem entitled "Ferguson's Cove," a subject Thompson had broached in an earlier poem of the same title.13 It is difficult to give an adequate sense of these longer, descriptive pieces through a brief excerpt. At best, one may grasp something of Thompson's descriptive powers as reflected in these lines from "Point Pleasant: View from Fort Needham," describing Halifax and the view toward Eastern Passage.

ig7 Methodist Poets in Maritime Canada There the town climbs the height, and over all, In bosoming curve, the hill, whose mazy wall Is crowned by glaring ordnance, rises high, Tracing its flag staffs on the southern sky. Beyond is George's isle, its massive tower Displays the emblem of old England's power; Its snowy camp on grassy slope is seen, Its cape-like wharf o'er pearly floods serene: And, farther still, the larger richer Isle, Where woodland peaks and wavy pastures smile, Bounding the Eastern Strait. That stream-like pass Is mark'd by shallops, which along the glass Are urg'd by men, who hail the breeze, which blows From these strange cots to where their babes repose.14 The last two stanzas of "Sunk Ships," however, give a better sense of Thompson's ability to combine sentiment and thought. This poem contemplates the meaning of the sunken French warships, believed to have been scuttled in the Narrows of Halifax Harbour in 1746 during the ill-fated naval expedition of the Duke D'Anville to recapture Louisbourg. Tis said that, still, these homes forsaken lie Unbroken in the depths, and peering high Their spires approach the surface; sometimes seen By careful passers o'er the floods serene. Sad sight are these sea-castles in decay: Instead of crews, and sails, and pennons gay, What slimy things about their chambers crawl, Glide through the ropes, and climb the top-mast tall! And did these once leave flying foam behind, Shake their bright streamers in the morning wind, Pour the quick fire, and raise the wild hurrah, And seem like white swans on their ocean way? Now o'er their tops light boats softly go With merry noises casting, casting shades below; As cawing rooks, o'er small peak'd turrets, glide, All reckless of the Abbey's Gothic pride.15 While the efforts of individual Methodist writers were significant in the early literary activity of the Maritimes, it was the emergence

198 Methodism and Literature of sectarian journals in the 18305 and 18408 that consolidated and focused the contributions of Methodist poets. Early attempts to establish an official publication in the Maritimes were hindered by the opposition of the secretaries of the Missionary Committee in London, who argued that establishing such a publication would create a financial loss for British Methodist journals. More to the point, the difficulties the committee encountered in moderating the editorial aggressiveness of Egerton Ryerson's Christian Guardian in Toronto made them reluctant to let colonial Methodists expand the number of official periodicals.16 In spite of resistance, Maritime Methodists tried four times through the 18308 to mount a local Methodist journal, but none lasted more than a year. Finally, in late 1840, the Missionary Committee sanctioned the publication of the British North American Wesleyan Methodist Magazine at Saint John. This journal was not very strongly organized or adequately financed and began to stumble after three years, finally dying in 1847. Yet the need for a periodical was clear, and in April 1849, under the able editorship of Alexander W. McLeod, Jr and his assistant Charles Churchill, the first issue of the Wesleyan emerged from the presses of Evans and Pickard at Halifax. Reluctantly, the Missionary Committee sanctioned the publication, and it remained the official organ of Maritime Methodists until church union in 1925. Although the evolution of Methodist journalism in the Maritimes was somewhat uneven, right from the beginning there was a group of poets most of whose work was published in these Methodist magazines and newspapers. This clustering of writers was not unique to the Methodists; the Baptists, Anglicans, and Presbyterians also had small "schools" of poets attached to their sectarian journals. In all cases, there was a clear sense of the author bringing his talents to the service of his faith. Among the more prominent Methodist poets were Alexander W. McLeod, William Martin Leggett, Charles Churchill, Alexander H. Cocken, Thomas H. Davies, William Charles McKinnon, and AJ. Williamson of Toronto. As well, there were significant contributions from women poets, notably Mary Eliza Herbert, Almirah Bell, and Margaret Elizabeth Desbrisay, who wrote under the unfortunate sobriquet of "Bessie Beranger." Most of the verse published was technically competent but uninspired. The editors rejected doggerel but frequently accepted the mediocre. Nonetheless, the poetry printed reflects a sense of literary taste, a clear notion of appropriate subject, and an eye for poetic craftsmanship. While the artistic criteria exercised may have been overly conservative, the more talented writers were on occasion able to produce some pleasing results. One of the more interesting exam-

igg

Methodist Poets in Maritime Canada

pies is that of William Charles McKinnon. McKinnon had pursued a career as a novelist and writer of historical and descriptive poetry in the 18408, but converted to Methodism and entered the ministry in 1853. His later poetry maintains a narrative structure, but tends to be didactic in purpose, moving to a religious conclusion. His poem "Spirit Rest," published in August 1853, is a thinly veiled spiritual autobiography in which a deeply felt religious sentiment is superbly controlled by natural image and biblical allusion. My soul is like that solitary dove That went forth from the ark, and soared in vain, O'er the far waters of the cheerless main, But nothing found in that wide waste to love And back returned into its ark again. Poor dove! it yearrid for earth, and trees and streams, And clouds and mirage only met its eye, Tempting it onward in the far dim sky, Like youth's first vision of those glorious dreams That come like truth, and shadow-like flit by.17

The poem goes on to describe the frustrations of the dove's first journey and its eventual return to the ark as a parallel to the poet's journey in this life and his return to Christ. In the dove's triumphant second journey, the poet projects his own death and hoped-for entry into heaven. More typical of the Methodist poets are the works of Alexander Cocken and Thomas H. Davies. Cocken's verse is generally cast in one of two forms: the didactic philosophic poem or the devotional lyric. The former explores the moral and religious dimensions of some aspect of human experience from a philosophic point of view. The titles themselves - "Where is Rest," "Charity," "Abide With Us." — reflect something of the nature of these poems.18 In his devotional lyrics, Cocken attempts to fuse his love of nature with the intense emotion of religious devotion. Generally, the descriptions of nature are turned into allegories carrying a religious message, but at times he allows his lyric response to remain uninterpreted and leaves the poem's conclusions to the reader's imagination. In addition to devotional lyrics and philosophic poems, Thomas H. Davies explored some less typical forms. He wrote a number of biblical narratives that reveal a strong dramatic imagination. His poem "The Passage through the Red Sea" is perhaps his best. It begins:

aoo Methodism and Literature Six joyous days had pass'd since Israel's hosts Had left the house of bondage, and had felt The sweets of liberty: no longer tasked By Pharoah's men severe and made to toil And form beneath a burning sky each day The tile, straw mixed, and smooth to beautify Old Egypt's palaces and pyramids, That stand and frown against the face of Time! There was a freshness to their pallid cheeks In the free air, that seemed now to tell them, As it brought health and vigour to their limbs That they were free ... 19 Davies also produced one of the most stirring elegies of early Maritime poetry. For most poets, the elegy is usually an excuse for maudlin sentimentality, but in his poem "Over the River of Death," Davies is inspirational and skilfully uses a rhythmic verse-form to project the positive energy that flows from his Christian vision of the afterlife. Over the river of Death there lies A world of glory bright, And all who do true wisdom prize Shall walk its streets of white: Over the river of death is found A world of spirits pure, By faith we reach that hallowed ground, And make salvation sure. Beyond the river of death there runs The river of Life most fair, And he who to the margin comes A heaven of joy shall share; From founts divine shall waters rise The heavenly souls to cheer, And as they drink they grow more wise Through God's eternal year! Over the river of death I'll know The wise, the good, the true, I loved them well on earth below, But larger love is due; And larger love my soul shall feel To all the saints on high,

2oi

Methodist Poets in Maritime Canada

When God does to our hearts reveal The joys that never die!20 There is one other early Methodist poet who should be mentioned, one who is sometimes neglected because he dramatically left the Methodist ministry in mid-career and became an Anglican priest, taking his congregation with him. Yet William Martin Leggett was perhaps the finest lyricist of the early Methodist poets. He was raised in rural Sussex Vale, New Brunswick, where his father was superintendent of the Indian School. Although he appears not to have had a great deal of formal education, his home environment was cultivated and literary; both parents were minor poets. In 1833, he published a volume of lyrics at Saint John entitled The Forest Wreath and continued to publish in local newspapers through the 18305 into the 18405. A second volume, Sacred Poetry, appeared in 1840. In a significant number of his verses, he demonstrates a lyric sensibility superior to that of his contemporaries in Maritime poetry and can legitimately claim a place in the distinguished company of the great lyric poets of the Saint John River Valley. The range of Leggett's subjects and lyric moods is reasonably varied, but a number of them share a nostalgic perspective on human experience and are haunted by images of death and dying. Unlike most of his contemporaries, however, who attempted to deal with the theme of mortality, Leggett rarely slips into sentimental morbidity. In his most moving lyrics, he is able to achieve something of the mystical character of Celtic lament, which allows him to elevate the sense of loss to a profound vision of apocalyptic dissolution, and to do so in terms of simple natural imagery. One of his finest lyrics of this sort is titled "On the Winds." The summer spell is gone — But the rude Genius of the Winds hath past O'er the wild Harp of Winter - Hark! each blast Conveys a deeper tone. Hail! hoary-headed Minstrel of the North! I love to watch thee as thou venturest forth In low, low murmurs, that at distance come Like unseen spirits stealing thro' the midnight gloom Pausing anon — the tombs among — As if it wooed the grave with dying — dying song! Then, starting from thy resting place, (the grave), O'er surge and surf thy hurried muse runs mad

2O2

Methodism and Literature

With the rude rushing roar of wind and wave Till spent thy rage — now heavy, lone, and sad! And there is deathly grandeur in thy song, Wrapt in the mysteries of some passing cloud, When forked light'nings play the chords among And Earth shakes with convulsions — long and loud! Or, when th' Autumnal blast Rolls the mountain-side along And the howl of injured ghosts Aids the song! Genius of the woods, sing on! — thy call — Thy lullaby shall rock the hills to sleep And thou shall thy wild revels keep O'er the ruins of us all!!!21

In the latter part of the nineteenth century, the general focus of poetic imagination began to shift away from an inherently religious vision of human reality toward an explicitly secular one. Exploration of life as a religious experience gave way to exploration of life as an aesthetic experience, and the search for moral insight yielded to a desire for philosophical understanding. By the end of the century, failure to achieve aesthetic expectation and philosophical enlightenment led to a growing sense of frustration, anxiety, and disillusionment in the poetry of the modern world. The spirit of Methodism and the vision of reality it projected became increasingly incompatible with the direction in which poetic imagination was moving. Where, once, Methodist poets had been able to bring their spiritual experience to the service of poetry and poetic imagination to the service of religion, from the 18705 onward these two great territories of the soul became more and more foreign ground to each other. Only occasionally can we detect the deliberate, creative fusion of religious and poetic sensibility in the main stream of twentieth-century verse. In modern Canadian literature, some of the greatest of those occasions would come in the work of another Methodist poet - E.J. Pratt.

NOTES

i William H. Withrow, "A Native Methodist Literature," Canadian Methodist Magazine i, no. i (January 1875): 76.

203 Methodist Poets in Maritime Canada 2 Ibid., 77-8. 3 The major part of this poem, together with commentary, is published in T.B. Vincent, ed., Narrative Verse Satire in Maritime Canada, 1779— 1814 (Ottawa: Tecumseh Press 1978). 4 Bailey (Annapolis Royal) to Seabury (Saint John), 28 May 1785, Letterbook for 1785, Fort Anne Papers (microfilm), Public Archives of Nova Scotia. 5 This chapter treats selected works of male poets only so as not to overlap with chapter II on Methodist women writers. 6 A Poetical Journal of a Tour from British North America to England, Wales and Ireland (Dublin: Wilkinson & Courtney 1809). 7 Thomas Daniel Cowdell, The Nova Scotia Minstrel, 3rd ed. (Dublin: Dugdale, Kiene, and Cutler 1817). Cowdell is also credited with A Poetical Account of the American Campaigns of 1812 and 1813 (Halifax: John Howe 1815), but there is little evidence to support the attribution. 8 Cowdell, "Description of Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Prince Edward Island ... ," lines 1—18, A Poetical Journal (Dublin: Author 1809). 9 Joshua Marsden, The Narrative of a Mission to Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the Somers Islands; with a Tour to Lake Ontario. (Plymouth-Dock: J. Johns 1816). Reprinted in Amusements of a Mission (London: Blanchard 1818). 10 Marsden, "A Poetical Farewell to Nova Scotia," lines 49—52, The Narrative of a Mission. 11 John Sparrow Thompson, "Imbecility," lines 24-32, Scripture Sketches (Halifax: Author 1829). 12 Thompson, "Night Worship," lines 1-12, Scripture Sketches. 13 This earlier poem appeared in the Novascotian, 23 July 1828. These poems are attributed to Thompson on circumstantial evidence. Conclusive evidence of his authorship is lacking. 14 John Sparrow Thompson, "Point Pleasant: View from Fort Needham," lines 53-66, Acadian Telegraph, 2 September 1836. 15 Thompson, "Sunk Ships," lines 17-32, Acadian Telegraph, 7 July 1837. 16 This view is offered by T. Watson Smith in History of the Methodist Church within the Territories Embraced in the Late Conference of Eastern British America including Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island and Bermuda, (Halifax: Methodist Book Room 1877, 1890), 407-917 William Charles McKinnon, "Spirit Rest," lines 1-10, the Wesleyan, 18 August 1853. 18 These poems appeared in, respectively, the Wesleyan, 6 May 1839; tne Guardian, 23 March 1849; and the Christian Messenger Magazine, 9 July 1847. 19 Thomas H. Davies, "The Passage through the Red Sea," lines 1-12, the Wesleyan, 7 August 1867.

2O4 Methodism and Literature 20 Davies, "Over the River of Death," lines 1—24, the Wesleyan, 12 June 1861. 21 William Martin Leggett, "On the Winds," The Forest Wreath (Saint John: Durant and Sancton 1833).

11 "In the Garden of Christ": Methodist Literary Women in Nineteenth-Century Maritime Canada GWENDOLYN DAVIES

In the mid-nineteenth century, recalls Charles Bell in an informal memoir, "there were perhaps more wealthy men in Brunswick Street [Methodist Church] than in any other church" in Halifax. "As a consequence" of this, he notes, "many of the young ladies became very dressy, and this offended the old-fashioned Methodists, who quoted Scripture and Wesley's rules, and hymns against worldliness. It was the day of crinolines, and my recollections are of young ladies coming up the aisle with skirts so full they had to be pressed in before they could get into the pews. Feathers, ribbons, flowers, jewels, and gaily decorated hats were also in evidence. In contrast," continues Bell, "the objectors would come in, such as Miss Isabel Smith, tall, angular, with dull coloured dresses and skirts so close they could hardly walk, and bonnets to match! I must confess," he adds, "that I admired the first named class the most. The whole atmosphere was changed. Miss Smith, coming up from prayer meeting, where she was a regular attendant, met Mr. Lathern [the minister] and said 'What do you think they have down there ... a fiddle!!' Mr. Lathern said, 'Sister Smith, what will you do with the harps when you get to Heaven?' but Sister Smith drew a sharp distinction between fiddles and harps! She never went to prayer meeting again."1 In many respects, this vivid record of life in Brunswick Street Methodist Church rivals anything that would emerge from the pens of two contemporary Methodist novel-writers, Mary Eliza Herbert of Halifax and Hannah Maynard Pickard of Saint John. It also illustrates in its juxtaposition of fiddles and feathers on one hand, and

206 Methodism and Literature prayer and propriety on the other, the tensions that were to emerge in the literary writing of Methodist women in the Maritimes from the 17805 to the i88os. That these tensions were to extend beyond issues of deportment and class to include a questioning of patriarchal structures and a challenge to society's complacency about the poor is also part of the dynamic of Methodist women writers in this period. From its inception in the eighteenth century in Britain, the Methodist movement was to give a role to women found only among the Quakers in the other denominations of the day. Women in the official church, the Church of England, as Earl Kent Brown has pointed out, "had a clearly defined position. They attended service. They listened to the sermons men preached. They prayed for their sons and husbands and for their own needs. They raised their children in the true faith, insofar as they were able; and they sent some of their sons into the ministry." According to Brown, they "made up the major portion of any congregational meetings, save only the high governmental councils of the Church. They nursed and cared for the ill of the parish and gave alms for the assistance of the poor ... Women were citizens of the Anglican Christian commonwealth," notes Brown, "but they were second class citizens who lived in proper subordination to their Lords and Masters."2 By contrast, Methodism created an evolving role for women, one marked in its first fifty years in Britain by significant freedoms from stereotypical roles.3 "In Mr. Wesley's Methodism," adds Brown, "women became preachers, group leaders, founders of schools, active visitors and callers, benefactresses, models of Christian life for male and female alike, and even itinerants."4 When conservative objections in the Connexion impelled some to speak out against women's preaching in the church, Wesley introduced nice distinctions that allowed exceptions to the rule, masked preaching as prayer, or permitted the expounding of a text.5 After Wesley's death, these circumlocutions were not effective with detractors, notes Deborah Valenze in Prophetic Sons and Daughters, and by 1803 the Wesleyan conference had voted "against women preaching on the grounds that 'a vast majority' of Wesleyans were 'opposed to it' and, moreover, 'their preaching [did] not at all seem necessary, there being a sufficiency of Preachers.'"6 "Female unruliness," Valenze argues, had "challenged the prevailing institutional image of masculine reasonableness. The Wesleyan establishment responded with contempt."7 Yet, in spite of the Wesleyan Connexion's prohibition against female preaching, the practice continued to flourish among sectarian Methodists.8 In cottages and domestic circles, female evangelists spoke eloquently, and in the process, notes Valenze, overrode "the patriarchal social order."9

207 Methodist Literary Women in Maritime Canada The debate over the preaching of women emerged in the North American church in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as it had in the English one, and, for Mary Coy Bradley of Gagetown and Saint John, the issue was never to be resolved satisfactorily. In her private manuscript journal and in A Narrative of the Life and Christian Experience of Mrs. Mary Bradley of Saint John, New Brunswick, published in 1849, sne recalls her childhood in Gagetown and Maugerville among the New England Congregationalist Planters who had settled there around 1760.'° Mary Coy "Expearenced Religion,"11 as she put it, when she was sixteen years old, but it was the visit five years later of the itinerant Methodist missionary, Mr Bishop, that was to have a profound influence on her life. The Elders of the [Congregationalist] Church allowed Mr. Bishop to preach that afternoon and in the evening he preached in a privet House and gave out a Prayer Meeting to be held in the morning it was Sabath morning. I never heard of such a thing before as a prayer Meeting neither did I ever hear a femail lift up her voice to pray in publick before that time. While hearing sister pray I was struck by a small still voice to my mind that when she sloped that I should pray. I felt afraid to attempt it But it was spoak to my mind that I wanted blessing and if I would pray I would git it. I did so and I was not disapointed.12 From this time on, Mary Coy was to be engaged in a spiritual quest that was to see her formally join the Methodist church in 1803 after years of attending service. Throughout her spiritual struggle, it was the desire to voice her religion, to speak publicly as a woman, that engaged her. "I had always heard that women had nothing to do in public, respecting religious exercises," she wrote of the year 1788, "and that it was absolutely forbidden in the Scriptures for a woman to pray in public, or to have anything to say in the church of God."13 The contrast between Congregationalism's exclusion of women in the ministry of the church and Methodism's openness in allowing "a femail" to "lift up her voice" was clearly a significant turning point in the shift in Mary Coy's denominational allegiance. "I thought if it were customary for females to preach the gospel, how gladly I would engage in the employment," she noted before joining the Methodists. "I truly felt a missionary spirit."14 Unfortunately, she was to discover that although she could play a role in teaching a Methodist class ("a work in which I delight to direct, encourage, and urge on my Christian sisters, in their heavenly journey"),15 she faced the same restrictions that early nineteenth-century British Methodist women did in being denied a wider forum. "I thought if I had been a man," she

ao8 Methodism and Literature wrote in her published journal, "nothing could hinder me from going abroad to proclaim salvation to a dying world."16 Instead, she had to sublimate her energies in teaching other women, in writing the journal that she was to publish in 1849, and in accumulating the property that was to enable her to leave £650 to the Conference of the Wesleyan Connexion when she died in iS^g.'7 Mary Coy Bradley's narrative is not a literary work in the traditional sense of the word. Exhibiting all the conventions of self-examination, spiritual awakening, and dramatic conversion associated with the spiritual journal, it conforms to the pattern of religious records published by John Wesley, George Whitefield, and others in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Yet Mary Coy Bradley's narrative occasionally rises above the limitations of its form, revealing a lively intelligence in its domestic images, references to daily life, and impressions of marriage. "I was at work one day in my father's garden," she wrote sometime before 1788, "pulling up the weeds, which were so thick and thrifty that they had overgrown the good seed, so that I could not see that which sprung from it, until I looked carefully, and separated them by pulling up the weeds; which, when I had done, that which sprung from the good seed seemed to droop and wither with the heat of the sun; it then came into my mind that this was a just resemblance of my own heart, wherein God had sown the good seed of grace; yet the evil and corrupt thoughts, naturally springing up, if not rooted out and kept down, would soon extinguish the good seed, or render it fruitless."18 Biblical as such a reference is, it is also familiar and indigenous to the world from which Mary Coy Bradley emerged. "Corroding worms," "miry clay," "shocks of corn," "eagle-like strength," and "trimmed lamps" are all part of the felt experience of Mary Bradley's rural background. There is nothing in her journal that does not fit the authenticity of her life, and, in this sense, the confessional reflects a narrative voice that is moving in both its sincerity and its humility. Equally convincing in its reliability is the tone of frustration that informs Mary Coy Bradley's journal from the beginning. On one level, there is the authority of men and the Church, both denying her the right to preach in a public forum. Rebellion against authority was common to women's conversion tales, as Susan Juster has pointed out in '"In a Different Voice': Male and Female Narratives of Religious Conversion in Post-Revolutionary America."19 In her struggle for a place in the Methodist congregation of Saint John, Mary Bradley finds herself fighting back, retorting to the minister, Mr M., that, "If I am deluded, it must be the effect of your preaching."20 She is less

209

Methodist Literary Women in Maritime Canada

outspoken with her husband, but here, too, she chafes against male authority and domination. In one of the most candid passages in eighteenth-century Maritime prose on the bondage of a loveless marriage, she records her sense of futility and powerlessness in the face of her first husband's temper. When I married Mr. M., not having much previous acquaintance with his temper and disposition, I expected to receive the greatest marks of attention, kindness, and indulgence from him. But I soon found that, being his wife, I was bound by law to yield obedience to the requirements of my husband; and when he enforced obedience, and showed marks of resentment if his wishes were not met, I was tempted with anger, and felt a spirit of resentment arise in my heart.21

Schooled to be passive in a society in which cultural assumptions about gender were deeply embedded, she could only address her anger by ascribing responsibility to Satan and by challenging him, not her husband. Satan, who is ever ready to second any outward trial, and put the worst face upon every word and circumstance, gained an advantage over my weakness - captivated my mind - cast me down - I was discomfited - my peace and happiness disturbed - temptation more fierce - resistance more difficult fiery darts took more effect - and I fell a victim. I was tempted not only to be angry with my husband, but also to hate him. I was afraid to look him in the face or to speak for fear I should betray the feeling of my mind, which I endeavoured to conceal from him and every one beside. I felt as though Satan knew every thought, and feeling of my mind ... 22

In her personal milieu, where female freedom was limited both by social convention and by a deterministic view of behaviour, Mary Coy Bradley had no other resource to fall back upon than that of religious convention. She had no voice, no free will. Satan "captivated my mind ... and I fell a victim." In this sense, her rebellion is rationalized more than that of the fictional Lucy Cameron in Mary Eliza Herbert's undated and unpublished novel of that name. Set in the city in the mid-nineteenth century, Lucy Cameron devastatingly highlights the sense of isolation and loss that accompanies a marriage of convenience. Whereas Mary Coy Bradley had at least the solace of her Methodist fellowship to fall back upon, the fictional Lucy Cameron is left with nothing more than her own sense of culpability in forging with her "own hands, life-long fetters."

aio Methodism and Literature "If he were only my brother, cousin, Uncle, anything else but my husband," she broke out passionately; "but to know that I belong to him, that I have forged, with my own hands, life-long fetters, to read in every look, in every action, that he considers me his property; one whose whole sole aim should be to cheer, amuse, and minister to him, a 'Something dearer than his dog and nobler than his horse,' ah this is bitterness indeed."" Because Miss Herbert was a guarded social novelist, it seems doubly significant that the husband in Lucy Cameron is caricatured with such vividness. As Lucy took her seat at the head of the table and presided with gentle grace, at the bountiful and well-served repast, Mr. Cameron's dull grey eyes rested upon her with a gleam of satisfaction, and a thrill of pride and pleasure swelled his heart, that he had secured, as the mistress of his home, one so well fitted to adorn it. A shrewd business man, he had, nevertheless, indulged what fancy he possessed in the selection of a wife and he loved her as much as his cold, worldly, ambitious nature had room to spare ... He compared her with the wives of his acquaintances and friends, and assuredly she lost nothing by the comparison. "What were they? pretty dolls, not much more, only good for fashion, and flirtation and nonsense, drawling out a meagre 'yes" or 'no,' if you tried them on any sensible subject; now, his could converse, and well, too; really he was proud of her, but prouder of himself for obtaining her ..." You perceive that this man thought only of himself; he saw he had made a good bargain, and rejoiced in it, but in all his musings, he never troubled himself about his wife's view of the matter, or if, for a moment, he dwelt on it, it was to suppose how deeply grateful she must be for the affluent circumstances in which he had placed her, as contrasted with her earlier surroundings.24 The world of "affluent circumstances," of "feathers and fiddles," in Brunswick Street Methodist Church might well have quivered under Mary Eliza Herbert's scorn; her statements are as critical of insensitive acquisitiveness and male power as any that Miss Isabel Smith of Brunswick Street could have devised or that Edith Wharton would write into The House of Mirth in 1905. Yet Miss Herbert never published Lucy Cameron, even though she brought to it the kind of happy and conventional conclusion that her readers would expect. In all likelihood, the novel deviated too markedly from her usual celebration of domestic and family values to allow her to feel comfortable in bringing it before her usual Methodist audience. However, in her creation of a protagonist who can close the door on her husband and

211 Methodist Literary Women in Maritime Canada

sit "down on her comfortable cushioned rocking-chair with a sigh, which I am afraid," the author adds, "was partly one of relief," Mary Eliza Herbert comes close to psychological realism. "I know it was wrong in her" she adds, "but she was no heroine remember, only a woman ... "25 More typical of Mary Eliza Herbert's fiction was Woman As She Should Be; Or, Agnes Wiltshire published in 1861. A wealthy orphan raised in urban luxury, Agnes is brought to a sober recognition of the shallowness of her life when a close friend dies in spiritual agony. She shocks her elite circle by becoming a Sabbath-school teacher, by establishing and superintending a day school for poor children, and by becoming a teetotaller. When she is shipwrecked on the coast of Newfoundland and finds herself among rustic fisherfolk, Agnes teaches school and organizes prayer meetings until she is rescued and returned to the comfort of the city. There is a love triangle for the romantic of heart, but the novel's vividness lies in its dramatic description of a shipboard fire, its tale of moral disintegration because of drink, its depiction of drunken sailors, and its final image of a new Eden as Agnes and her husband, Arthur, fund a church, school, minister, and teacher in the outport. They also inspire the cultivation of the outport's bleak landscape so that "fruit and flowers, shady trees, and fields of waving grain, were, in a comparatively short time, to be seen in every direction" in this restored Eden.26 Stories like Woman As She Should Be seem to emerge almost organically from Mary Eliza Herbert's Methodist background. Her pious heroines seize all the opportunities that Methodism opened to women in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. They teach, write, run schools, handle money, build churches, and challenge class lines by dint of hard work and religious example. They may be beautiful, well-connected, and upwardly mobile, as the popular reading taste of the day dictated, but they know the virtue of conscientious service and an educated heart. These values also informed Miss Herbert's literary periodical, the Mayflower, or Ladies' Acadian Magazine, published from May 1851 to February 1852. "Religion and Politics" already had "their strenuous and unflinching advocates," she noted in her lead editorial, but "lovers of Literature, those who delight to step aside, now and then, from the beaten and dusty paths of life, to roam a while in the flowery fields of romance, — to hold communion with the Muses, - or to cull additional stores to their scientific knowledge" had no provincial literary periodical on which to rely. In a sense, one would have expected many in the Methodist community to decry such a journal; as Ann Douglas has pointed out in The Feminization of American Culture, periodicals like the Mayflower were

212

Methodism and Literature

consistently attacked in New England because of their sentimental fiction and their cultivation of the imagination.27 The Wesleyan magazine, however, encouraged the young poet and editor, perhaps because her journal promised to highlight the family, educational, and religious values integral to the Methodist social vision. As well, Miss Herbert and her family were known as devout Halifax-Irish members of the Connexion. Prior to her death in 1847, Sarah, the elder sister, had earned a reputation as a poet of sacred verse and temperance fiction. She had edited the temperance paper, the Olive Branch, and had been associated with the Methodist Sabbath School and the Ladies' Temperance and Benevolent Society. For her part, Mary Eliza had been baptized in Halifax's Old Zoar Chapel in 1829 by the renowned Methodist clergyman, Bishop William Black. At least part of her education had been with the Methodist writer, editor, and teacher, John Sparrow Thompson, and after 1847 she had taught side by side in the Brunswick Street Methodist Sabbath School with fellow poet and artist, Maria Morris. Over the years, she was to be the unofficial laureate of Methodism in Halifax, writing for the Wesleyan magazine such poems and articles as "Lines on the erection of the Methodist Chapel, South End," "Thoughts Suggested On the Reopening of Argyle St. Church," and "The Late Martyrs of Erromanga."28 Where the Mayflower did encounter difficulty was with the Anglican Church Times. In two items, on 23 May 1851 and 20 June 1851, Rev. James Cochran of the Times criticized the Mayflower for its poor layout, inexpensive paper, and failure to attract original contributions. Attributing most of the blame for the calibre of the periodical to the real and aesthetic poverty of Halifax society, the Times nonetheless mourned the absence of the "grace and elegance and beauty" that would make the journal suitable for "parlour or boudoir."29 It cited remuneration as a possible chief consideration in the editor's publishing the journal and regretted that a more "proper value" had not been placed upon the "exercise."30 Central to comprehending this attack is an understanding of Rev. James Cochran's standards of taste and his conception of women. In an address entitled "Recollections of Half A Century" given in 1864, he clearly identified the role in which he saw the "daughters of Acadia." Yes, old man and minister as I am, I hope I may be allowed to say that every time I meet these daughters of Acadia I feel proud of them - I love to see their bright eyes, their rosy cheeks, their cheerful smiles - Whatever they

gi3 Methodist Literary Women in Maritime Canada are — R.C., Ch. Dissenters, high or low I love them all — They make us good wives, good mothers, good daughters, good sisters — as any country under the sun can boast of. Nor is literary talent wanting among them. They can write poetry as sweet to mouth, and stories as pathetic as need be read.31

Mary Eliza Herbert's fiction and her journal did not contradict Cochran's ideal of "bright eyes" and "rosy cheeks," but the "cheerful smiles" of her heroines found expression in the classroom and in acts of benevolence more frequently than in the "parlour or boudoir." Responding swiftly to Cochran in July 1851, Herbert subverted his patriarchal remarks by charging him with ungentlemanly conduct in suggesting that money, not principle, was the guiding force behind her publication of the journal. He trusts, however, that the Mayflower will be remunerative, which is, he dares say, the chief consideration. Of course he is free from all desire of being remunerated for his own efforts to cater for the public. We dare say he is quite disinterested, otherwise he would not know so well to impute motives to others. His reference to the "chief consideration," we regard as altogether beneath serious notice. When he informs us of his gratuituous labors for the public enlightenment, we shall give him due credit for being a genuine philanthropist; but until that auspicious moment shall have arrived he will not take it amiss if we remind him that silence on "the chief consideration" will better become him than ungentlemanly allusion.32

Mary Eliza Herbert's sally silenced the Church Times, but not before it became obvious that class issues separating the Methodists from Anglicans had been as much under discussion in the debate over the periodical as had aesthetic and gender elements. These divisions were not often repeated on a public literary stage in the Maritimes in the nineteenth century, although Herbert tended to reveal the relationship between class and poverty and the exploitation of women in at least one other novel. In Belinda Dalton; Or Scenes In The Life Of A Halifax Belle (1859), a spinster, robbed of her family inheritance by an unscrupulous lawyer, ends her days strong in Christian faith but deep in penury. The story concludes with Herbert's address to the "Reader." Should any who have perused these scenes, and who thoughtlessly have been accustomed to speak in a somewhat contemptuous tone, of that often unjustly despised class, Old Maids, be led from it, to pause and reflect on what, perchance, might be the admirable traits in the character they contemn, and

214 Methodism and Literature thus arrive at the charitable conclusion that virtue is not incompatible with poverty, and that the friendless are those who should most fully share in the sympathies of the youthful heart, our labor will not have been in vain.33 Herbert's literary appeal on behalf of the poor - particularly impoverished women — found reinforcement in the works of another female Methodist writer of mid-century, Hannah Maynard Pickard of Saint John. Intended for children, the three stories of The Widow's Jewels illustrate the values of personal piety, service to others, and family unity that underlie Mrs Pickard's Methodist perspective. The Saint John that she knew was the one to which she had come as a recent bride when she married Rev. Humphrey Pickard, later to be principal of the academy at Mount Allison in Sackville. "It has many advantages," she wrote her father in New England after arriving in the city, "but the change which is so apparent to me, from the handsome, clean streets of Boston, is not calculated to render it altogether pleasing to my eye or foot... Poverty and apparent wretchedness are to be constantly met, and that train of evils which follow in the footsteps of intemperance."34 This view of Saint John becomes the backdrop for her story of Mrs McCoy and the elderly Mrs Meloy, both of whom illustrate the plight of immigrant widowhood in a world where only "feathers and fiddles" count. St. John has been, for a time, the home of the writer of this, and near the spot where she lived is the lonely dwelling place of poor Mrs. McCoy. We call it lonely, though it stood in the midst of that busy city, and though in the house which they occupied, there were other families, like themselves, emigrants, from the coast of Ireland; but it was lonely because it was the abode of the widow and the fatherless, who oppressed by affliction and poverty, felt indeed that they were "strangers to the world, unknown," and from their small upper room, saw not as the gay, the rich, may see and feel, the exciting animation which fills the breast, where business rattles in its noisy course, and beauty wealth and fashion walk abroad in bright display-55 The contrast between the personal destructiveness of poverty and the heedlessness of uncaring wealth informs the story of "Robert McCoy" and reiterates Pickard's message to children that only Christian faith and Christian service can ensure one's access to heaven. Methodist prayer meetings and gatherings are the only solace left to old Mrs Meloy, and in Robert's sterling efforts to escort her to them each evening, Pickard establishes an exemplum for all children. That Saint John Methodists tried to translate their awareness of social need and the debilitating effects of poverty into action emerges in yet

a 15 Methodist Literary Women in Maritime Canada

another letter of Hannah Pickard's to her father. Tickets to raise money were sold for a "tea meeting," she writes, in which the company sat down not to "cakes and sweetmeats" but to "good tea, good bread and butter, tea-crackers and cheese."3'5 This distinction between "cakes and sweetmeats" and "bread and butter" — between the world of society and acquisitiveness and that of hard-working, plain values — runs as a motif in the letters, fiction, and memoirs of Methodist women writers in the Maritimes as one moves from the eighteenth to the nineteenth centuries. While the vast body of creative literature by Methodist women falls into the category of spiritual verse and moral exposition by writers like Almira Bell, Mary Barry, Maria Morris, and Sarah Herbert, there is nonetheless running through the prose of women like Mary Coy Bradley, Mary Eliza Herbert, and Hannah Pickard a strong sense of social conscience that is inextricably related to their Methodist backgrounds. Intertwined with this in the case of Bradley and Herbert is a recognition of the ironic powerlessness of women in a society that is financially and hierarchically controlled by men. While neither of these women is overtly feminist in championing change, it may have been the influence of Methodism that gave them the confidence and ability to grow and recognize these social realities. It may also have been the limiting factor of their faith that made Methodist literary women sublimate much of the passion of their insight into conventionalized and acceptable literary forms. Nonetheless, within their limitations, they wrought well to "pull" at the weeds that Mary Coy Bradley had described as "thick and thrift/' in her garden, and, through their writing, they let the good seed spring up to be fruitful in the garden of Christ. NOTES i "Recollections of Charles Bell of the Brunswick Street Church" in Churches: Halifax, N.S., Brunswick Street United, Public Archives of Nova Scotia, microfilm reel 1:5. a Earl Kent Brown, Women of Mr. Wesley's Methodism (Lewiston/Queenston: The Edwin Mellon Press 1983), 3-4. 3 Ibid., xii. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid., 24-8. 6 Deborah H. Valenze, Prophetic Sons and Daughters (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1985), 92. I would like to thank Hannah Lane of Fredericton for drawing my attention to this book.

216 7 8 g 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30 31 32

Methodism and Literature

Ibid., 93. Ibid., 94. Ibid., 96. Mary Bradley, A Narrative of the Life and Christian Experience of Mrs. Mary Bradley of Saint John, New Brunswick (Boston: Strong & Brodhead 1849). New England Historic Genealogical Society, "Mary Bradley," BIOG 234, s6i, series B, n.p. Ibid. Bradley, A Narrative, 47. Ibid., 83. Ibid., 209. Ibid., 150. St John County Probate Files, i84g(Mu)-i852(Mc), reel 025, 398, and reel 04 (1855-61), 400, Saint John Public Library. Bradley, A Narrative, 43. Susan Juster, "'In A Different Voice:' Male and Female Narratives of Religious Conversion in Post-Revolutionary America," American Quarterly 41 (March 1989): 36. Bradley, A Narrative, 149. Ibid., 109. See also Margaret Conrad, ed., "Mary Bradleys Reminiscences: A Domestic Life in Colonial New Brunswick," Atlantis 7 (Fall i9 Sl ): 95Bradley, A Narrative, 109; Conrad, "Mary Bradleys Reminiscences," 95. Mary Eliza Herbert, Lucy Cameron, Dalhousie University Archives, MS 2.32, n.d., 13—14. Ibid., 7—g. Ibid., 13. Mary Eliza Herbert, Woman As She Should Be; Or, Agnes Wiltshire (Halifax: Mary E. Herbert 1861), 145. Ann Douglas, The Feminization of American Culture (New York: Alfred A. Knopf 1977), 113—17. See Mary Eliza Herbert, "Lines On the erection of the Methodist Chapel, South End," the Wesleyan 3, 46 (22 May 1852): 361; "Thoughts Suggested On the Re-opening of Argyle St. Church," the Wesleyan 4, 11 (23 September 1852): 41; and "The Late Martyrs of Erromanga," the Wesleyan (12 March 1862): 2. The Church Times (20 June 1851): gg. Ibid. James Cochran, "Recollections of Half A Century," Public Archives of Nova Scotia, vertical MSS. file, 1866, 20—6. "Notices of the Mayflower" the Mayflower \ (July 1851): g3.

217

Methodist Literary Women in Maritime Canada

33 Mary Eliza Herbert, Belinda Dalton; Or Scenes In The Life Of A Halifax Belle (Halifax: Mary E. Herbert 1859), 60. 34 Edward Otheman, Memoir and Writings of Mrs. Hannah Maynard Pickard, Late Wife of Rev. Humphrey Pickard, A.M., Principal of the Wesleyan Academy at Mount Allison, Sackville, N.B. (Boston: Ela 1845), 1 5 1 35 A Lady, The Widow's Jewels (Boston: Wake, Peirce & Co. 1844), 17—18. 36 Otheman, Memoir, 152.

12 Methodism and EJ. Pratt: A Study of the Methodist Background of a Canadian Poet and Its Influence on His Life and Work DAVID G. PITT In his Writing of Canadian History, Carl Berger notes that certain Canadian biographers "have rendered illuminating studies of religion as both a positive and negative force in the lives of individuals."1 He describes the first volume of my biography of E.J. Pratt2 as "virtually organized around the story of Pratt's rejection of Methodism,"3 suggesting that I have seen Methodism in Pratt's life as a negative force. This is, of course, largely true. The title, The Truant Years, was prompted mainly by Pratt's truancy from what his father, Rev. John Pratt, called the "Methodist Way." It was, of course, prompted also by other truancies - social, behavioral, professional, and literary but his truancy from Methodism and its moral, intellectual, and emotional concomitants was the primary one, from which, in the main, the others sprang. But that is not the whole of the matter. While it is true that Pratt's rebellion against certain aspects of Methodism played an important part in shaping the form and character of his life and career, including his career as man of letters, it is also true that many of the ideas and attitudes characteristic of his father's faith, inculcated from childhood, remained with him all his life. These ideas influenced if not determined, his vision of man and the world and the values by which he judged them and by which, for the most part, he lived. I have used both the terms "rejection" and "rebellion" to describe Pratt's early defection from Methodism, because I think there is a distinction to be made. His rebellion came first, against the extreme outward forms in which Methodist tenets and attitudes were made

219 Methodism and EJ. Pratt manifest in the community. Only later came his rejection of many of the tenets themselves — the narrowly orthodox theology, the scriptural literalism. Pratt received his Methodism, both ideological and practical, directly from an infallible source, his father. Born in Yorkshire in 1839, RCV- J onn Pratt came of pure-bred Wesleyan Methodist stock. The Pratts of Swaledale were, in fact, among the earliest of Wesley's converts in Yorkshire, having succumbed to the attractions of his fervid gospel of spiritual salvation and social reform as early as the 17405 during one his first forays into the Yorkshire dales. When Wesley returned later to establish his "classes" and "societies," the Pratts of Swaledale were among the founding members. The early indoctrination of the young being a primary article of the Wesleyan creed, John Pratt's regimen for his children's moral and spiritual nurture was both Methodistic and methodical. Even had he been inclined to regard as somewhat out-of-date (and there is no evidence he did) the injunctions of the Methodist "Hymn for Parents"4 - to show the child "his lost estate," to "beat the pride of nature down," and to "bend or break his rising will" — his church countered any such inclinations with frequent admonitions against laxity. "We got heaven and hell drummed into us,"5 Pratt recalled long after, and he was being only mildly hyperbolic. At the age of ten he was compelled to undergo, publicly, the dramatic and, for him, traumatic process of "conversion" and thereafter expected "to walk humbly in the Way." The psychological effects of such impositions upon an intelligent and sensitive boy were profound and long lasting. Young Pratt's feelings about all the many concomitants of his father's regimen and doctrines are hard to determine. These were things he rarely talked of in serious moments in his later life. In an interview he gave late in his life, he tried to soften some of the lines of the picture he recalled of his Methodist childhood and of his father. Describing his father as seeming "rather moderate in his views in a community with a strong Calvinist affinity," he went on to say that in Methodism, "there was no predestination, as the Calvinists believed, ... [that] you were doomed at birth, damned without hope of redemption. But the Methodists had a relieving philosophy — there was [the] possibility of repentance. We grew up in this atmosphere ... Sin was a malaise to be cured in all forms ... [My father's] view was moderate Methodism. Life was better than the creed."6 But more often than not, his early Methodist upbringing, when recalled at all, was done in the character of the whimsical, hyperbolic story-teller he liked to assume. In such a character he could joke about the "endless prayermeetings,"7 the humiliations of the backslider, and the puritanical

aao Methodism and Literature

prohibitions on this and that: he could describe the fire-and-brimstone preaching as able to lift "the congregation out of their pews by the most gorgeous descriptions of heaven, or else shake them under the planks by painting hell with colours never seen on land or sea."8 Yet one senses that beneath the whimsy and jocularity are disquieting if not painful memories, as for example in the following description of his father's preaching. We would creep under the seats until the time came for the benediction. We could come out from our hiding [place] when we were sure the colours were dry. One might dispute the gospel truth of the message but no one could deny the power. Tt was a real heaven and hell we saw. The cinders were in our eyes on Sunday night. Only the morning put out the nightmare fires, and not always then ... 9

It seems certain that, for all his father's power and eloquence as a preacher and his fervour as a crusader against what he called "the ramparts of sin," E J. Pratt looking back could find little if any use or sympathy for old-time Methodism's means to spiritual ends, or for many of the ends themselves. Like most ministers, John Pratt hoped that at least one of his five sons would choose to follow him into the ministry. But as the years passed, it appeared increasingly unlikely that any of them would. The two elder ones completed their schooling with considerable success at the Methodist College in St John's (in those days almost the only high school for Methodist children in the denominationally organized school system in Newfoundland) but shortly took jobs in "the World of the Great Unsaved." The third son, Edwin, for whatever reason, did so dismally in his final year at the outport school in Fortune that his father refused to gamble on sending him off to the college. Instead, he secured for him an apprenticeship in a dry-goods establishment in St John's. There he had such a dreadful time that when his three-year indenture was up at age eighteen, he quit and went home, convinced that without a better education he faced a very uncertain future. What happened next is of crucial importance. Had it not occurred, it is hard to conjecture what Pratt might have been and done. Briefly, John Pratt, by now stricken with the illness that would eventually kill him and still yearning to have at least one son carry on his work, struck a solemn deal with Edwin, who now wanted to go back to school: the father would finance the son through college if he would agree to became a candidate for the Methodist ministry. In the words

221

Methodism and E.J. Pratt

of a cousin of Pratt's, "It was as simple as that. I know Ned never wanted to do it, but in the circumstances he had little choice."10 Yet it must have been an agonizing decision for the boy to make. As he often declared in later years, "I never, never once wanted to go into the ministry." There is no reason to question his disavowals. Long before his mind was clouded by religious doubts, any early inclinations he might have had would have been dampened by scenes of clerical life viewed too closely and too early — its austerity if not penury, its moral rigorism, the "recurring Gethsemanies of anguish"11 through which his father passed each time he was called on to break the news of another tragedy at sea. But more important, I believe, was that a preacher-pastor — a John Pratt — did not fit the self-image Edwin already visualized, nor did the role answer the kind of persona he had already begun to shape for himself. Once he had accepted the role he tried to play it out faithfully for as long as he could. But in so doing he was to retard the severing of impeditive umbilical cords and thereby retard his full self-realization for years to come; to plague himself with many frustrations and a sense of guilt at his eventual but inevitable dereliction; to misdirect and dissipate his energies and delay the flowering of his genius for nearly two decades. The educational asset that accrued to him from his "deal" was unquestionably one of great value; the pity is that it could not have been had at a lower and an uncontractual cost. Back at school, at the Methodist College, having now a personal if not a vocational motive to make up for lost time, he seriously applied himself to his studies and, in the spring of 1902, finished his high school program in good standing. In no hurry to become a candidate for the ministry, he decided to become a schoolteacher, and for two years taught — with indifferent success — in a two-room school at Moreton's Harbour. During the winter of his second year teaching, his father died, but if Ned had hoped that his father's death might release him from his bond, he was mistaken. Instead of now being able to follow his own inclination, which was to go on to a university somewhere (to do what, eventually, is not clear), he found himself held to his bond by his mother. His attachment to her was strong and close, and she had set her heart on Eddie's carrying on his father's work. Though he would rather have done almost anything else, he could not bring himself to disappoint her. He had little choice, therefore, but to keep his word and offer himself as a candidate for the Methodist ministry. He seems to have clung to a fragile hope that his candidature would be rejected, but whatever may have been his doubts about the

222

Methodism and Literature

fateful step he was taking, his ecclesiastical superiors had none, as evidenced by the entry in their records of May 1904. Edwin Pratt is recommended as a suitable candidate for the Ministry. Converted at 10 years of age under his father, he has read and will keep the Rules of Methodism, believes our doctrines, and is determined to employ all his time in the service of God. He does not take snuff, tobacco, or strong drink; is in sound health of body and mind, is not in debt, and is not engaged to marry ... Unanimously recommended.12

Though a curious if not ironic caricature of the later, un-Methodistical Ned Pratt of Toronto, the sketch is clearly that of an exemplary candidate for Methodist holy orders in 1904. For the next three years, as required, he preached and performed the other usual ministerial duties, first at Clarke's Beach and then at Bell Island. Despite his dislike for the work, he seems to have been very good at it, soon acquiring the reputation of a good preacher — if no Boanerges - and "a wonderful funeral man." A press notice from 1906 reads: "With regard to Bro. Pratt ... it is safe to say that the mantle of his sainted father has fallen on him. He is a good preacher and well liked."13 At the end of his three probationary years on circuit, in the spring of 1907, he became eligible, along with two fellow probationer friends, to proceed to university for formal studies in arts and theology. Again, events conspired to twist the course of his life in a direction he had not chosen. Of the three colleges where Methodist probationers usually trained — Mount Allison University, Victoria College (Toronto), and Wesleyan Theological College (Montreal) - Pratt and his friends had chosen Wesleyan, mainly because of its growing reputation for liberal theological views. Several members of its faculty who had studied German Higher Criticism at Leipzig, particularly George Workman, had already been branded as heretics by some of the Newfoundland Methodist hierarchy. It was not that the three Newfoundland probationers were especially radical in their theological views, but the fact that Wesleyan College was eyed suspiciously by the panjandrums of Newfoundland Methodism gave it a certain attraction — that of the slightly notorious, even the forbidden. Mount Allison, on the contrary, was regarded as safely traditional and orthodox; Victoria, which had earlier removed George Workman from its theological staff, lay between the two extremes. Wesleyan was thus the most exciting of the three to young probationers adventurous enough to face a challenge to the faith of their fathers.

223 Methodism and EJ. Pratt This was particularly true of Pratt. He had already encountered, at the Methodist College, conceptions of man, nature, and God not found in his father's theology, having dipped (surreptitiously) into Darwin, Huxley, and Spencer, books that were lent to him by Robert Holloway, the British-born principal and science master. Though, as a public custodian of Methodist doctrines and morals, Holloway could not openly admit to owning such subversive volumes, he was not hesitant to let an apt and inquisitive pupil access to his secret bookshelves. To quote S.H. Soper, one of the probationer friends already mentioned: Even before Ned went to university, he had developed a very inquiring mind ... Once he got the idea that the traditional theology might not have the whole truth ... he became obsessed with the desire to find out what the whole truth was ... It was natural that a man like George Workman, that radical of radicals, would have attracted him. So we made up our minds that we would go to Wesleyan College.14 But the hierarchy of the Methodist church in Newfoundland had other ideas. They had been suspicious of Wesleyan for some time. Accordingly, at its annual conference that year (1907), a session devoted mainly to an assault on the "new" theology, Wesleyan College was declared out of bounds to all future Newfoundland candidates. Nor was that all; Pratt and his two friends, known to have already chosen Wesleyan, were given no alternative. They were summarily ordered to Mount Allison. The three were furious and, after a consultation among themselves, decided to ignore the order. They would not be so rebellious as to flout the express ban on Wesleyan, but they would not go to Mount Allison. They decided instead on Victoria College, where liberal views, though not yet rampant, were gradually emerging. It was a calculated risk; they might well be "dropped" forthwith (a euphemism for "expelled in disgrace") or, almost as drastic, denied the tuition allowance provided by the Church for its candidates in training, something they counted on very heavily. But they were prepared to take the gamble. So, instead of Montreal, Pratt found himself on his way to Toronto. By a curious and unexpected twist of fate, the whole course of his life was wrenched into directions he had not dreamed of and with consequences he could not have foreseen. What his life might otherwise have been, we can only idly conjecture. But it is a virtual certainty that had he not gone to Victoria College and fallen under the spell of Pelham Edgar, its celebrated and colourful professor of English, he would never have been

224

Methodism and Literature

a poet. By meddling with a young probationer's plans, the Methodist church in Newfoundland may not, perhaps, have denied the Church a great preacher, but it undoubtedly helped to give Canada one of its greatest poets. If, however, the Newfoundland Methodist conference had hoped to shield him from the unsettling winds of theological change, it was mistaken. Before he had been long at Victoria College, Pratt was encountering as liberal and unorthodox theological views as any he would have met at Wesleyan. These came from, for example, the brilliant, young, unfortunately short-lived George Blewett, philosopher-psychologist-cum-theologian, sometimes called "Canada's first native-born philosopher," and, shortly thereafter, from the controversial George Jackson, whose contentious appointment to the newly created Chair of English Bible in 1909 Pratt and his more liberalminded fellow theologues helped bring about. Pratt responded enthusiastically to the "radical" lectures of both men; they represented just the quality of intellect he had hoped to find in Montreal. To quote S.H. Soper, who was also Pratt's roommate at Victoria College, Ned had, at the outset at least, the almost naive conviction that his courses would open doors not only to knowledge — facts, data — but to Truth with a capital T! He'd already come to doubt whether his father's Methodist faith had all the answers to the "ultimate questions." And he wanted to know the answers. He was almost obsessed with this ... he realized that the truth might turn out to be a rather bleak affair, but that didn't deter him ... Many thought him a strange student, especially for a theologue — and I suppose he was!15

A strange student, especially for a theologue! But though no sermon from his student days is extant, the evidence of former parishioners on the rural circuits he served (as summer-supply preacher) and of fellow theologues who knew him best suggests that his preaching was as traditionally Methodistic as his "sainted father" could have wished. Whatever he himself may or may not have believed, he seems to have had no desire to unsettle his rural congregations. It is doubtful whether during his student days, if at all, he was ever actually either a sceptic or an agnostic in any usually accepted sense of the words. The term humanist, admittedly vague, probably comes closest to describing him at that time; what he sought and hoped to find in his university courses was that spirit of free enquiry that usually characterizes the humanist's approach to truth. The courses given by Blewett and Jackson were exactly what he was hoping for, and he became their faithful disciple and staunch defender.

225 Methodism and EJ. Pratt

Although the high-handed, censorial behaviour of the Church in Newfoundland may not have been the only reason that none of the three rebels returned to the Newfoundland conference, it was certainly a major one. All three completed their studies and were ordained, so that Pratt managed, literally, to keep his promise to his parents, but he was never to serve as a regular minister of the Church. He did serve as a summer supply both during his student years and for several years after ordination, solely for the sake of the few dollars paid him. Upon ordination in 1913, with the prospect of being forced to take a regular appointment still facing him, he requested a formal transfer from the Newfoundland to the Alberta conference. This was granted, but with the penalty of having his three probationary years in Newfoundland expunged from his record of pensionable service. To the Newfoundland conference, it would seem, "Brother Pratt" had become a "non-person." But he never took a regular appointment in Alberta or anywhere else. After teaching for a few years in the Department of Psychology and Philosophy at Toronto, in which discipline he had done all his advanced graduate work, including the doctorate, he was appointed by Pelham Edgar in 1920 to the Department of English at Victoria College on the strength of the poetry he had by then published under Edgar's mentorship. That was the end of his ministerial activities and of any close, active connection with the Church. He did remain a member of a Toronto congregation and attended Sunday services from time to time, and until 1961 his name continued to appear on the ministerial rolls of the Church in the Red Deer, Alberta presbytery, as a minister "not in pastoral" but in "educational" work. In that year, however, having made, during a television interview on the occasion of his eightieth birthday, some irreverent remark about his ministerial connections, he was summarily expunged from the books. But by then both his ministerial and his Methodist affiliations had long been shed. Even before his escape from the pulpit in 1920, he had begun, quite deliberately, to cultivate a lifestyle very different from that of his Newfoundland Methodist childhood and youth. And it was in this sphere that the countervailing influence of Pelham Edgar first began significantly to affect his life. Before Pratt's arrival at Victoria, Edgar was already a legendary figure about the campus and beyond. Unlike most of his colleagues at Methodist Victoria, he was a non-conformist. Besides being a High Anglican (Pratt once described him whimsically as a "Pagan, or, what is the same thing, a High Anglican"),16 he was also, for a Canadian, "high-born," the son of a titled politician whose wife was the daughter of an old and aristocratic Toronto family. Born

226 Methodism and Literature to wealth, gentility, privilege, and social prestige, he was in origin, breeding, and background as unlike the usual Victoria college don plebian, teetotal, puritan, Methodist - as one could imagine. Pratt was captivated from the first. No one in his previous experience had presented in the flesh an image of the kind of life and world of which he had hitherto only read or dreamed. To quote Arthur Phelps, another classmate of Pratt's, "Ned saw all that [Edgar represented] and he loved it, and wanted it himself. The instinct was in his nature really - and, of course, it didn't jibe with Methodist holy orders."17 In other words, to satisfy the instincts within him that Edgar (and others like him) awakened, Pratt had no choice but to shed his old, Methodist, ministerial persona and adopt a new, very different one. It was not that he had any desire to be a social renegade or to rise above his origins because he despised them. He always had a great contempt for the pompous and the pretentious. Yet the instincts were there that impelled him toward a new, expansive, stimulating, creative kind of life, such as no penurious and circumscribed Newfoundland outport existence, Methodist or any other, for all its basic values and endowments of other kinds, could possibly offer. His decision not to return to the Newfoundland ministry was due, I believe, as much to such inner drives and appetites as to the autocracy of the Newfoundland Methodist establishment, his own lack of enthusiasm for the profession, or any dissenting views he may have held on Methodist doctrines. His means did not — and would not for some time to come — permit him to indulge very extensively in many of the luxuries and superfluities of a more worldly, less rigoristic kind of life. But as far as possible, he sought to savour all the fruit forbidden by his father's Methodism, much of it rather innocuous, even juvenile, in the view of most people nowadays. He took up smoking — cigars at first, then a pipe; he began drinking moderately — beer and wine, then stronger distillations; he attended all the prize-fights and wrestling matches that came to town and, when possible, made a point of meeting the participants; he learned to play "Devil's cards" and quickly became a poker addict and soon a temperate gambler; he learned to play golf, joined a club, and played matches with his High Anglican mentor (on Sundays!); he cultivated swearing, four-letter words, and risque stories - everything, in short, most emphatically proscribed by parental edict and most frequently the subject of solemn denunciation from the pulpit and at annual conclaves of the Newfoundland Methodist conference. As soon as he could afford the expense of the necessary refreshments, liquid and otherwise, he made the poker-playing, yarnspinning stag-party a regular feature of his social ritual and acquired

227

Methodism and E.J. Pratt

a summer place north of Toronto where he could entertain lively weekend gatherings of friends and hangers-on. What may be seen as his chief poetic, public declaration of defection, rebellion, repudiation - call it what you will - was his curious, saturnalian fantasy, written in 1923, The Witches' Brew. The poem is ostensibly the story of three water-witches who try to determine "The true effect of alcohol / Upon the cold aquatic mind" - upon, that is, the fish of the sea. But it is actually a farcical, allegorical satire on Canadian mores, particularly as these were symbolized by the Prohibition laws then in force. It was, in effect, a protest against all the restrictive, prohibitive, puritanical injunctions that hemmed about Canadian society and a plea for the liberation of mind and imagination through, as he put it, "the warm arts of human sinning." On a more personal level, the poem was also, I believe, a deliberate act of desecration and purgation: the desecration of sacred cows — puritan, Methodist, theological, academic, even literary — and in the same act a cleansing of the Augean stables of his mind and imagination of all the clutter that sacred cows (like any other) inevitably accumulate about them. A passage deleted from an early version of the poem is especially illuminating. In a remarkable tour de force that he called "An Inventory of Hades," which owes, perhaps, more than a little to Dante's Inferno, Pratt had included among the languishing inhabitants of the nether world, "evangelists, / Some with brains and some without," whom he described as making up ... a ragged, ghastly rout, With Teachers of Theology Whose straggling gowns, green and threadbare, And musty with Eternity Gave off an odour like bad air.18

No one in his inventory, published or unpublished, was transfixed with more causticity than were the evangelist and theologian. But the effect on Pratt of his Methodist heritage was not solely the evocation of negative responses of rejection and rebellion. For all his overt hostility to much that his heritage comprised, his poetry nevertheless contains, I think, certain positive legacies of his Methodist upbringing. In his essay "Hymns in a Man's Life," D.H. Lawrence writes of the enduring legacy of the nonconformist hymns of his childhood. Banal though most of them were, he writes, they had for him in many ways "a more permanent value" than "the finest poetry." E.J. Pratt, as far as I know, left no such direct testimony to the importance for him of

228

Methodism and Literature

the hymns sung over and over in the Methodist services and prayer meetings of his early years. But there is no doubt that, like Lawrence, he was affected and influenced by them. I think it no exaggeration to say that his poetic sensibilities were, partly at least, shaped by these hymns - not by the emotionalism and often sentimentalism of many of them (something, again, that he reacted against), but by the imagery, the metaphorical and allegorical forms, frequently used to express a view of life and human destiny. The view expressed, for example, of life as a hazardous but heroic struggle, portrayed often as a voyage or battle on stormy seas, is a recurrent theme in Methodist hymn books and in EJ. Pratt. To illustrate, an early poem, "For Valour," is based very obviously on the popular prayer-meeting hymn by Isaac Watts, "Am I a Soldier of the Cross", particularly the stanza Must I be carried to the skies On flowery beds of ease, While others fought to win the prize And sailed through bloody seas?19

In similar metaphoric terms though far more detail, Pratt makes this idea the basis of an elaborate religious allegory, clothed at times in a language that approaches the rhetoric of evangelical passion. Pratt's imagery of the sea, and the metaphorical uses to which he puts the sea voyage as the scene of embattled action, symbolizing life, seem to me to owe much to the many hymns built upon such images and metaphors. A somewhat different kind of hymnal reverberation occurs in such a poem as "Erosion"20 ("It took the sea a thousand years"), which is based, partly at least, on an ironic inversion of a familiar passage in Isaac Watts's metrical rendition of Psalm go: "A thousand ages in thy sight."21 Pratt himself dabbled briefly in hymnody. Few and generally unknown today, his hymns are not among his best work, but they do reflect significant reverberations of the Methodist hymns of his youth. Written on request for a musical pageant mounted in 1927 by the newly created United Church to celebrate both its formation and the Silver Jubilee of Confederation, these hymns are generally banal, lacking in celestial fire. Interestingly, however, it is when Pratt occasionally allows himself to touch upon the "old fundamentals" of Methodism that he rises to the only heights of "near-poetry" in the whole of his pageant verse. Give us the starry faith serene That glows within a clouded night,

229

Methodism and E.J. Pratt

The hold upon the things unseen, The promised core of morning light, That trust which, in a burned desire, Can take refinement from the fire. Divinest Love that would reclaim The world from sin and all its loss, Whose theme eternal is the name Of Christ and a Triumphant Cross! So charge our wills that we may draw Men's hearts unto Thy holy law.22

Compare also such lines as these: Father whose mighty heart would hold Mankind of every time and race, Who proved the richness of His grace In Christ the Shepherd of His fold! We would, out of the world's great need, Where blind men call out to be led, And hungry souls cry out for bread, Restore His Galilean creed.23

Other positive legacies of this heritage may also be noted, for example, the use he makes of the Methodist conception of conversion. In his allegorical poem The Fable of the Goats, the salvation of two caprine tribes (representing two peoples headed for a suicidal war) is effected by a transforming spiritual conversion. That he has a traditional Methodist conversion in mind is established, I believe, by his using, at the climactic moment, the oft-quoted words of John Wesley to describe his own conversion: "I felt my heart strangely warmed."24 The notion that only by a process of conversion, the making of "a new creature in Christ crucified," can humanity be saved from annihilation by war, is a recurrent one in Pratt. (See, for example, "From Stone to Steel"25 and "The Highway."26) One might cite, too, the Methodist-apocalyptic interpretation he gives to the loss of the Titanic in his poem The Titanic. The poem is, significantly, dedicated to his father, the stern if kindly Methodist preacher, instrument of God, who called down His judgment on the presumptuous and vainglorious works of a self-secure and Godless generation, who read God's judgment in the testimony of such events as the Great Fire that burned St John's in 1892 and the Bank Crash

230 Methodism and Literature that humbled his wealthy, worldly parishioners in 1894. With its reverberations of the Book of Revelation, The Titanic is, I believe, not only an act of homage to the Methodist "Boanerges" who preached Divine judgment and retribution, but also Pratt's own "Book of Apocalypse." It should be noted that, a few years later, Pratt dedicates Brebeufand His Brethren*7 also to his father. But now it is to the gentler but no less fervent man, whom Pratt once called both a saint and a martyr. In many ways, the poem, ostensibly about the heroic, selfsacrificing exploits of a French Catholic "hero of the faith," is also a celebration of the Methodist missionary from Yorkshire who, like Brebeuf, committed his life to bringing "the Word and the Way" to sinners in a foreign land and died in harness an agonizing death — not, to be sure, by torture at the hands of those he came to save, but a protracted and painful death all the same. It may be argued that Pratt's writing this poem at all was an elaborate act of contrition and expiation to purge himself of a lingering sense of guilt for having failed the one man in his life who came close to manifesting the heroic, self-abnegating virtues of a true Christian martyr. Although formal religion, to quote Pratt's widow, "came to rest rather lightly on his shoulders,"28 Pratt remained in many ways a "religious" person to the end of his life. Though some critics have read scepticism, agnosticism, even atheism into his work, I know that they are mistaken. As a student at Victoria, like many another before and since, he experienced periods of "honest doubt," when he wrestled with questions that seemed to be answered by only the bleakest conclusions. It is true that some of the darker philosophical interpretations of the scheme of things haunted him - and his poetry for many years. In an early poem, actually a verse drama, entitled Clay, which was published in its entirety only in the recent two-volume Complete Poems, he debated earnestly and at great length the case for rejecting the Christian view of humanity, nature, and God. Using the dramatic form, he was able through his characters to voice the arguments, which he knew to be cogent and compelling, against the Christian view without actually appearing to subscribe to them himself. But although the upper hand is firmly wielded by the opposition throughout most of the play, in the end it is a more or less Christian conception of the world that prevails. The same is true of other early poems in which the same debate appears in one form or another. By the time he wrote The Iron Door, in 1926 after his mother's death, he was almost, if not quite, ready to forget the debate and affirm without hedging questions the Christian view of human destiny. There continued to be times when, like the bewildered young man in The Iron Door, he saw the universe as a dark, cold, indifferent

231

Methodism and E.J. Pratt

mechanism, "dead but for its power to spin."29 He was always keenly aware of what he called "the ironic enigma of nature"30 - the irony of being human in a non-human world. But there is no doubt that through all his questing for Truth, his wrestling with doubt, his struggling toward certainty, the primary tenets of his father's faith remained with him like fixed stars by which to guide his ultimate course. This is emphatically demonstrated in a late poem called "The Truant," which Pratt regarded as the definitive statement of his religious and philosophical credo.31 In it, again using a dramatic form, he pits Man, the truant who refuses to dance the cosmic ballet of atoms, against the master of the dance, the great panjandrum, representing the mechanistic, materialistic conception of a dead, indifferent universe. Writing in the darkest days of World War II, he uses a wartime setting and context. The last section, in which Man, the defiant if somewhat puny truant, gets the last, triumphant word, sums up and drives home the argument Pratt wishes to make. We who have met With stubborn calm the dawn's hot fusillades; Who have seen the forehead sweat Under the tug of pulleys on the joints ... Who have taught our souls to rally To mountain horns and the sea's rockets When the needle ran demented through the points; We who have learned to clench Our fists and raise our lightless sockets To morning skies after the midnight raids, Yet cocked our ears to bugles on the barricades, And in cathedral rubble found a way to quench A dying thirst within a Galilean valley — No! by the Rood, we will not join your ballet.32

NOTES

1 Carl Berger, The Writing of Canadian History: Aspects of Canadian Historical Writing since igoo, and ed. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press i985)> 292. 2 David G. Pitt, E.J. Pratt: The Truant Years iSSg-igs? (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1984) and E.J. Pratt: The Master Years 1927—1964 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1987). A fuller treatment of Pratt's Methodist background may be found in these volumes, from

232

Methodism and Literature

which some of the matter in this paper is taken, by courtesy of the University of Toronto Press. 3 Berger, Writing of Canadian History, 293. 4 A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists, comp. John Wesley (London: Wesleyan Conference Office 1780; repr. 1877), hymn no. 467. 5 Susan Gingell, ed., E.J. Pratt on His Life and Poetry, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1983), 42. 6 Ibid. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid, 13. 9 Ibid. 10 Interview with Dr Cluny Macpherson, St John's, 10 June 1966. 11 Interview with Pratt, Toronto, 23 January 1961. 12 Twillingate District Minutes, May 1904, United Church Archives, St John's. 13 The Methodist Monthly Greeting (March 1906). 14 Interview with Rev. S.H. Soper, Stratford, Ont., 10 June 1967. 15 Ibid. 16 Unpublished, untitled script in the Pratt Manuscript Collection, E.J. Pratt Library, Victoria University, Toronto. 17 Interview with Arthur L. Phelps, Kingston, Ont., 14 June 1967. 18 Draft MS of The Witches' Brew in Douglas Library, Queen's University, Kingston. 19 Spurgeon's Our Own Hymnbook, comp. C.H. Spurgeon (Pasedena: Pilgrim Publications 1866; reprint 1976), hymn no. 671. 20 E.J. Pratt, Complete Poems, ed. Sandra Djwa and Gordon Moyles, 2 vols (Toronto: University of Toronto Press 1989). Poems quoted by courtesy of the University of Toronto Press. 21 A Collection of Hymns, no. 41. 22 United to Serve. A Pictorial Presentation (presented in Massey Hall, Toronto, March 1927). A copy of the text is lodged in the United Church Archives, Emmanuel College, Victoria University, Toronto. 23 Ibid. 24 The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley A.M. in 4 Volumes (London: J.M. Dent & Co.; New York: E.P. Dutton & Co. n.d.) i: 102. Cf.Fable of the Goats, line 459, in Pratt, Complete Poems, 2: 25. 25 Pratt, Complete Poems, i: 260. 26 Ibid, 256. 27 Pratt, Complete Poems, 2: 46—110. 28 Interview with Viola L. Pratt, Toronto, 12 July 1968. 29 E.J. Pratt, The Iron Door, line 166, in Complete Poems, i: 209.

233 Methodism and E.J. Pratt 30 E.J. Pratt, "Memories of Newfoundland," in Gingell, E.J. Pratt on His Life and Poetry, 8. 31 This was something he often affirmed. In a letter, for example, to Desmond Pacey (29 October 1954, Public Archives, Ottawa), Pratt wrote, "My own profession of faith was expressed in The Tmant." [Pratt's italics.] 32 E.J. Pratt, "The Truant," lines 175-90, in Complete Poems, 2: 130-1.

This page intentionally left blank

Methodism and Hymnody

This page intentionally left blank

13 The Singer's Response to the Word: Charles Wesley's Hymns of Invitation JAMES DALE

On Whit Sunday 1738, Charles Wesley experienced his evangelical conversion. He immediately began writing hymns, unleashing a torrent of verse that was to continue for the rest of his life. A high proportion of the hymns is vividly personal in tone and content; the writer and the singers unite in seeking and sharing a variety of religious experiences. The hymns are designed to elicit response — response that is insisted upon. There is evidence for this in a number of early Methodist sources, among them Charles Wesley's own Journal (despite its regrettably fragmentary state) and the biographies written by the early preachers for inclusion in John Wesley's Arminian Magazine. Furthermore, in the organization of the hymns themselves, in the authority of the prophetically proclaimed Word that they display, and in the environment of the believing community (or rather the community of those who seek saving faith), there are the elements needed for a constant re-creation of the hymns in the minds of singers and readers - the process Wolfgang Iser calls Konkretisation.1 Charles Wesley's Journal, probably not designed for publication, contains a spontaneity that is absent from the carefully edited and calculated work of his more celebrated elder brother John. The delight at the efficacy of the hymn as a form of evangelism is apparent in an early Journal entry, dated 16 June 1738, less than four weeks after the conversion. After dinner Jack Delamotte [brother of Charles Delamotte, who went to Georgia with the Wesleys] came for me. We took coach; and by the way he

238 Methodism and Hymnody told me, that when we were together ... , in singing, "Who for me, for me hath [sic] died," he found the words sink into his soul; could have sung for ever, being full of delight and joy ... and ... found that he did indeed believe in the Lord Jesus."2

The. same hymn, "O Filial Deity," is seen in action again a few days later.3 Sun., July sd. ... In the evening we met, a troop of us, at Mr Sims's. There was one Mrs Harper there, who had this day ... received the Spirit, by the hearing of faith; but feared to confess it. We sung the hymn to Christ. At the words, "Who for me, for me hath [sic]4 died," she burst out into tears and outcries, "I believe, I believe!" and sunk down. She continued, and increased in the assurance of faith; full of peace, and joy, and love. We sang and prayed again.5

The justly famous hymn, "And Can it Be,"6 which still survives in modern Methodist hymn-books,7 contains "the words that made the first impression" upon a man simply called "Robin,"8 "a poor drunken servant."9 The words are from the third stanza of the hymn: '"Tis mercy all, immense and free, / For, O my God, it found out me!" Robin, says Wesley in his Journal, "now seems full of sorrow, and joy, and astonishment, and love."10 His master, Mr Seward of Bengeworth, near Evesham, was converted under Charles Wesley's preaching and became so generous with his money that his family thought he had gone mad. There is a charmingly ingenuous reference in the Journal to Seward's brother Henry. Mr Henry met me with threats and revilings. I began singing, "Shall I, for fear of feeble man, / Thy Spirit's course in me restrain?"" He ran about raving like a madman, and quickly got some men for his purpose ... [He] cried, "Take him away and duck him." I broke out into singing ... li!

Here we have one clear instance where Charles Wesley's hymn singing did not make a favourable impression. For once, the hymn was not one of his own, but a translation from the German by John Wesley.13 The entry for 17 May 1741 gives an interesting variation on the theme of conviction or conversion through singing. "A poor soldier" tells Wesley that he became aware of God's universal love (a characteristic Wesleyan emphasis from the earliest days of the revival) while a verse of a hymn was being "repeated."14 This seems like a variation on the time-honoured practice of "lining out" the metrical psalms in church services, a function generally performed by the parish clerk.15

339 Charles Wesley's Hymns of Invitation

Hymn-books were comparatively expensive, despite efforts to keep prices down, and congregations could not in any case be relied upon to be wholly literate. People who were regular attenders at Methodist preaching would in time, whether they were literate or not, come to know a good many hymns and tunes by heart. A lively hymn set to a rollicking tune has a way of lodging itself in the mind, and this is exactly what Charles Wesley found in Ireland in 1748. Mon. morning, February 8th, took horse for Tyril's-pass. We overtook a lad whistling one of our tunes. He was a constant hearer, though a Roman, and joined with us in several hymns which he had by heart.16

In due course, there were naturally plenty of literate - and prosperous - Methodists. In a letter of 1768 written from London to his wife in Bristol, Wesley tells of the experience of "Mrs Ratcliff ... , a lady from Bath, begotten again in an hymn of mine." After hearing him preach, she had gone home and "opened [her hymn-book] on those words": Who is the trembling sinner, who, That owns eternal death his due? Waiting his fearful doom to feel, And hanging o'er the mouth of hell? Peace, troubled soul, thou needs't not fear, Thy Jesus saith, "Be of good cheer." Only on Jesu's blood rely; He died, that thou might'st never die."

Wesley continues, The Spirit applied the word "Thy Jesus" to her heart, and assured her God, for his sake, had forgiven her. She continued unspeakably happy for two years, and is still among the children. She keeps her chariot merely to attend the preaching.18

Mrs Ratcliff is clearly of a different social class from drunken servants and poor soldiers. She lives in the very fashionable resort of Bath, and she is sufficiently prosperous to keep her own "chariot," or carriage. More to the point, she owns one or more of the Wesleys' collections of hymns, and it is in reading, not singing, a hymn that she receives assurance of forgiveness. That this is part of the accepted pattern of Methodist experience is borne out in many of the auto-

240 Methodism and Hymnody

biographies of the early preachers that John Wesley solicited for the Arminian Magazine. It is important to remember that membership of Methodist societies and classes was open to "awakened" people who were seeking salvation; those who had attained this goal would then, after careful questioning, be admitted to the "Select Societies" and smaller groups within them called "Bands."19 Hymns would invariably be sung at the meetings for preaching (often, in the early days, in the open air), which were open to all. It was presumably at such a public gathering that Mrs Ratcliff had heard Charles Wesley preach and from which she had gone home "in deepest distress."20 Was it the preaching or the singing that caused the distress? The hymns, in any case, helped to generate an atmosphere of eager expectancy; they were the Word of God preached in singing, calling for the response of repentance as a necessary preliminary to the response of faith. John Wesley divided the 1780 Collection of Hymns into carefully worked-out sections, "according to the experience of real Christians."21 The first section, "Exhorting, and beseeching to return to God," begins with a hymn that has traditionally opened Methodist hymn-books ever since, "O for a Thousand Tongues." The last three stanzas of this hymn deliberately direct the reader or singer to a set of responses, beginning, in the seventh stanza, with an invitation to an awareness of the atoning sacrifice of Christ. See all your sins on Jesus laid: The Lamb of God was slain, His soul was once an offering made For every soul of man.22

The earlier part of the hymn has been leading up to this point, especially the fourth stanza with its stress on the freedom and cleansing from sin that Christ brings ("He breaks the power of cancelled sin"), but the imperative "See" in the seventh is designed to compel attention. This imperative leads on to more, in the eighth stanza. Awake from guilty nature's sleep, And Christ shall give you light, Cast all your sins into the deep, And wash the Ethiop white.2*

The hearer of the Word is required to act upon the previous command to "see," and to act in an urgent way - "awake," "cast," and

a4i

Charles Wesley's Hymns of Invitation

"wash." The commanding voice of the seventh and eighth stanzas gives way to a promise of forgiveness in the ninth and concluding stanza. With me, your chief, ye then shall know, Shall feel your sins forgiven; Anticipate your heaven below, And own that love is heaven.

What sort of transaction between writer and reader/singer is going on here, or at least posited? Even in the condensed version of the hymn presented in the 1780 Collection, there is an autobiographical element apparent before these final lines. The first two lines of the second stanza plead, "My gracious Master, and my God, / Assist me to proclaim ..." But, at the end, the voice is not so much that of a proclaimer as that of a fellow sinner who offers a shared experience and identifies himself with the seeker for assurance of forgiveness. The emphasis on "me" is heightened when one looks at Charles Wesley's Journal for the days preceding his conversion; part of the entry for Wednesday, 17 May, reads, I spent some hours this evening in private with Martin Luther [his commentary on Galatians], who was greatly blessed to me, especially his conclusion of the ad chapter. I laboured, waited, and prayed to feel "who loved me, and gave himself for me."**

Notably, in its first published form, in 1740, the hymn was entitled, "For the Anniversary Day of One's Conversion."25 The sharing of experience is a recurring element in the hymns. One that has not worn as well as the celebrated "O for a Thousand Tongues" is "Thy Faithfulness, Lord, Each Moment We Find."26 The second and fourth stanzas (as given in the 1780 Collection, with two lines of the 1741 original rolled into one) are: The mercy I feel To others I show; I set to my seal That Jesus is true: Ye all may find favour, Who come at his call; O come to my Saviour; His grace is for all. O let me commend My Saviour to you, The publican's friend, And advocate too; For you he is pleading His merits and death, With God interceding For sinners beneath.

24a Methodism and Hymnody The jog-trot rhythm might not be admired by metrical purists; it suggests a bumpy ride on horseback on one of the appalling roads of early eighteenth-century England. However, the metre is functional. Wesley knows very well what he is doing; ample evidence exists, especially with the recent publication of volume I of the Unpublished Poetry?7 of his skill with the more respectable metres of his day, heroic and octosyllabic couplets. In this hymn, diction and metre combine to produce a work of memorable simplicity, which the young Irishman might well join in singing with his travelling companions. Given the mnemonic quality of the metre, then, and the straightforward language, the typical emphasis on personal experience is enhanced; the writer calls on the singer to "come to my Saviour" [my emphasis], deliberately repeating the "come" of the preceding line the repetition itself perhaps an echo of Revelation 22:17, which reads, And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

The idea of shared experience is emphasized by Stanley Fish. Fish, the great high priest of reader-response criticism in North America, can be a puzzlingly protean critic to read, saying one thing and then unsaying it not much later — and obviously enjoying the process. But in part two of /5 There a Text in This Class?, with its stimulating discussion of "interpretive authority" and its elaboration of the theory of "affective stylistics,"28 he makes the proposition, valuable for a study of Wesley's hymns, that literature is to be perceived as read and accepted within an "interpretive community."29 Regrettably, this community nowadays seems to be restricted to academic environments. Who, for example, outside university English departments reads Paradise Lost (the subject of Fish's influential early book, Surprised by 5m)? Still, the idea of community is important; literature is neither produced nor read in a vacuum. Within the community, there tend to be generally accepted ideals and aspirations, which serve to shape the cultural output of the community; an element of consensus exists. Within eighteenth-century Methodism, that consensus was pretty clearly accepted and understood: the societies - not churches - were composed of seekers - seekers of forgiveness, of assurance of saving faith, of a holiness of life summed up in the term "Christian Perfection." Because of this sense of shared commitment to a search that was by definition unending until death, early Methodism possessed a

243 Charles Wesley's Hymns of Invitation

dynamic that differentiated it from the traditional dissenting churches, which accepted members only on profession of faith, and from the established Church of England, which theoretically claimed the allegiance of all who were neither Papists nor Protestant Dissenters. (The Wesleys, particularly Charles, tried to stress the doctrine that Methodism was a part of the Established Church, but the movement got away from them.) Within this network of likeminded people, the hymns played a significant role. They helped to create the network, which in turn nourished them; they constitute, as has often been said, a practical theology, memorable and based on experience. As John Wesley says in his famous Preface to the 1780 Collection, they are "a little body [not so little if one thinks of Charles Wesley's nine thousand30 pieces of verse] of experimental and practical divinity."31 As the common possession of those who sought to praise and serve a "common Saviour,"32 the hymns acquire substance beyond the mere marks on a page of manuscript or print. The practicality of the divinity is apparent in many ways; the "affective stylistics" that characterizes them can be seen at work in lines like these: Talk with us, Lord, thyself reveal, While here o'er earth we rove; Speak to our hearts, and let us feel The kindling of thy love.3S

Robert Holub describes the model of aesthetic response put forward by the German literary theorist Hans Robert Jauss in Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics^ as one in which an integral part of the response to literature consists of elements of "pleasure, identification, and affirmation."33 The fashion in current literary critical thought is to assume that Christian doctrine is extraneous to literature; indeed, the only kind of religion acceptable at present is Marxism, in its differing forms. I find it significant, though, that Stanley Fish has exercised his skill for the most part in relation to seventeenth-century English literature, much of which is strongly Christian in its emphasis. One of the Christian writers he studied was George Herbert, a poet much admired by the Wesleys and, it seems to me, a poet whose concept of the Christian poet as preacher-intermediary had a considerable influence on the content and structure of Charles Wesley's hymns. In The Living Temple: George Herbert and Catechizing,36 Fish not only assumes, as do most other critics, that Herbert's religious preoccupations are central to his poetry, but asserts that Herbert is "catechizing" his readers and thereby acting as God's intermediary:

244 Methodism and Hymnody Herbert stands to God as his readers stand to Herbert. His experience, like ours, is at once contrived (by someone else) and real.37

Like Herbert's poems, many of Wesley's are intimately personal in their manner, and their organization operates in an emotional and associative way rather than according to a strictly logical pattern. In their stimulating recent study, English Congregational Hymns in the Eighteenth Century, Madeleine Marshall and Janet Todd seem to find this a drawback. They compare Wesley's work to Isaac Watts's. In Charles's hymns, the theatrical and dramatic display, which is one means used to meet the obligation of hymns to "entertain" their singers, is not the neat, cohesive presentation found in Watts's work. Description is always subordinated to its subjective significance, and logical continuity is frequently sacrificed ... We find that the devout singer-spectator of Watts's tableaux has become an active participant in Wesleyan hymn drama.38

Yet it is just because the hymns ask their singers to become active participants that they become incorporated in the consciousness of their singers and readers. I have already given a number of examples of the impact made by Wesley's hymns, but to see them at work in the setting of the community of early Methodism is to demonstrate what Robert C. Holub calls (rather forbiddingly) "empirical reception theory: actual responses to texts."39 Holub goes on to refer to a "major study of socialist reading habits," over five hundred pages long, published in East Germany in igyS.40 I cannot aspire to such Teutonic throughness, but offer now a minor introduction to actual responses to hymns by some of the early Methodist preachers, as conveyed in their autobiographies.41 Some of these narratives seem to be written to a formula - "What does Mr Wesley want to hear?" - but that may be because there was a common doctrine, shaped in part by the Standard Sermons and in part by the hymns. One hymn in particular is mentioned repeatedly in the narratives of the early preachers, such as William Hunter,42 Robert Roberts,43 Thomas Taylor,44 George Shadfbrd,45 and Thomas Rankin.46 In the 1876 and subsequent hymnals, the hymn may be tracked down by its opening lines, "How happy Are They / Who the Saviour Obey."47 These men obviously felt that it described their response to the Word preached or sung. Just as striking passages from poets such as Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, or Pope may lodge memorably in the minds of their readers, so this hymn became a part of the preachers' consciousness; they made it their own, and their

245 Charles Wesley's Hymns of Invitation

experience of the text fits reasonably well into the model of aesthetic response put forward by Jauss. "How happy Are They" is so much a part of the religious awareness of the preacher William Hunter (1728—1797) that he quotes it in a lengthy addition to his attempt "to write a little of the dealings of God with me."48 He feels the need to write not merely of his conversion (a long process, as with many of the preachers) and his preaching career, but also of "that greater salvation, being saved from inbred sin."49 Had John Wesley urged him to write about his personal experience of Christian Perfection? The answer would seem to be yes, judging by John Wesley's Journal for i June to 4 June 1772. Here there is an account of an extraordinary "revival of the work of God,"50 in which the preaching of William Hunter was prominent, with much stress on the doctrine of Christian Perfection.51 John Wesley was always looking out for evidence of the truth of this doctrine. So Hunter says, As touching that greater salvation, being saved from inbred sin, I shall simply relate what I know of the dealings of God with me in this respect. For some time after I knew the goodness of God to my soul, I was very happy; I sung in His ways for joy of heart, and His consolations were not small in me ... It was then I rode on the sky, Freely justified I, Nor envied Elijah his seat; My soul mounted higher In a chariot of fire, And the moon it was under my feet. Jesus all the day long Was my joy and my song; O that all His salvation may see! He hath loved me, I cried, He hath suffered and died, To redeem such a rebel as me.52 But afterwards it pleased Infinite Wisdom to open a new scene to me. I began to be exercised with many uncommon temptations. ... BS

The unfortunate man even began to "read mostly the Calvinists' writings, who all write that sin must be in believers till death."54 However, hearing John Wesley preach at Newcastle, Hunter writes that '^a divine light shone in upon my heart with the word, and I was clearly

246 Methodism and Hymnody

convinced of the [Methodist] doctrine of sanctification, and the attainableness of it."55 He goes on, "It would be tedious to relate the various exercises I went through for several years."56 The upshot was, though, that he was eventually given "a great measure of heavenly light and divine power."57 I may say, with humility, it was as though I was emptied of all evil, and filled with heaven and God. Thus, under the influence of His power and grace, I rode upon the sky [my emphasis].58

Charles Wesley's vivid capturing of the affective impact of the sense of triumphant release - "I rode on the Sky / Freely justified I!" here does double duty, first conveying the joy of assurance and then that of "entire sanctification." Hunter needs the hymn; he appropriates it to himself (rather than a biblical passage, interestingly enough) to describe the high points of his spiritual journey. As one might expect, other stages in Hunter's life are also summed up in quotations from hymns. Thomas Taylor (1738-1816) was clearly a readier writer than simple William Hunter. His autobiography takes up over one hundred pages in Wesley's Veterans (John Telford's edition of the preachers' memoirs), and there are various influences apparent in his account, including Baxter, Milton — and of course John Wesley. Much of his reading was in books made available to him through John Wesley's Christian Library series, and he certainly made good use of it. His style is forceful and direct, but not unsophisticated. Here he is talking of his time in the York circuit. The most disagreeable thing in this circuit is the smallness of the congregations; hence one is almost buried alive. There is but little trade in any part of the circuit; and where there is little trade, there is seldom much increase in religion.59

A sharp contrast with this down-to-earth commonsensical Christianity is the vivid account of his conversion experience. While I was calling upon the Lord, He appeared in a wonderful manner, as with his vesture dipped in blood. I saw Him by the eye of faith, hanging on the cross ... 60

In its imaginative power, biblical allusion, and concise force, this account suggests something of the quality of Donne's great poem "Goodfriday 1613." But with all the resources at his command, Taylor

247 Charles Wesley's Hymns of Invitation

still, a little further on in the conversion narrative, falls back on Charles Wesley, quoting the seventh stanza of "How happy are They." 0 the rapturous height Of that holy delight, Which I found61 in the life-giving blood; Of my Saviour possessed, 1 was perfectly blessed, As if filled with the fullness of God.62

George Shadford and Thomas Rankin were two preachers sent by John Wesley to the American colonies to put Methodism on a surer footing there; Rankin, who was chosen as superintendent of the mission, chose Shadford to accompany him. In describing their conversion experience, both quote the hymn but different stanzas. Shadford gives the first and fifth stanzas in full,63 and then goes on: I was happy, happy in my God; clothed with the sun, and the moon under my feet.64

One may say, "Well, obviously George Shadford is quoting from Revelation 12:1; the hymn doesn't refer to being clothed with the sun and Elijah's fiery chariot makes no appearance here." But "I was happy, happy in my God" is not in the Revelation passage; it is suggested by the first line of the hymn, and it seems likely that the two stanzas quoted in full sent Shadford's mind back to the whole of the hymn, especially the arresting "I rode on the Sky" stanza - which in turn led on to a recollection of the passage from the Book of Revelation. Thomas Rankin's recollections provide a context of Bible and hymns, leading once again into a quotation from "How happy are they." Rankin was a Scot by birth, and he speaks well of the minister of the kirk that he attended; he also heard Whitefield preach during the great evangelist's visit to Scotland in 1757,65 and a great impression was made on him. He struggled for saving faith, despite the suggestion that came to him, perhaps because of his Calvinist upbringing, "Probably you are not one of the elect; and you may seek, and seek in vain."66 The continued urge to seek for salvation expressed itself in two lines from the hymn "Jesus Hath Died, That I Might Live": "My soul breaks out in strong desire, / The perfect bliss to prove."67 Then, he writes, I began to wrestle with God in an agony of prayer. I called out, "Lord, I have wrestled long and have not yet prevailed: Oh, let me now prevail!" The

248 Methodism and Hymnody whole passage of Jacob's wrestling with the Angel came into my mind; and I called out aloud, "I will not let Thee go, unless Thou bless me!" In a moment the cloud burst, and tears of love flowed from my eyes.68 The story of Jacob, from Genesis 32, is well known, but among Methodists - at least until recently - Charles Wesley's hymn on the topic is even better known. (It is greatly to the credit of the editors of the new United Methodist Hymnal that they have chosen to print the entire text of "Wrestling Jacob."69) More echoes of "Wrestling Jacob" follow in Rankin's testimony. Every doubt of my acceptance was now gone, and all my fears fled away as the morning shades before the rising sun.™ Proper source-criticism here should go back to Watts' "O God, Our Help in Ages Past,"71 or beyond that to Psalm 90, but look at the seventh stanza of "Wrestling Jacob," as given in the 1780 Collection: 'Tis Love! 'Tis Love! [the name of the Angel] Thou diedst for me; I hear thy whisper in my heart. The morning breaks, the shadows flee, Pure Universal Love thou art.72 The biblical passage is appropriated by the believer through the Wesley hymn, and the joy now felt by him finds almost inevitable expression in: Jesus all the day long Was my joy and my song! Oh that all His salvation might seel He has loved me, I cried, He has suffered and died To redeem such a rebel as me.73 The slight misquotation here ("might" instead of "may"74) suggests that Rankin was probably quoting from memory, something one is likely to do with verse that is treasured and much-used. Surely the Jaussian categories of "pleasure, identification, and affirmation" are all here, and the common material of the Methodist community provides the necessary social as well as religious context. Fish's "interpretive community," in which "affective stylistics" have their greatest impact, is somewhat narrowed down when one realizes

249 Charles Wesley's Hymns of Invitation

that "How Happy Are They" was available, until the late date of 1787, only in Charles Wesley's Hymns and Sacred Poems of 1749, "published by subscription, largely in order to underwrite his marriage that year to Sarah Gwynne."75 Books published by subscription were much more expensive than those offered for sale on bookstalls, so that the peculiar circumstances of the hymn's first publication suggest that it was directed to a minority audience, including gentry and nobility (like the famous evangelical Lady Huntingdon, called "our old friend" in Charles Wesley's Journal for 3 June 1751, who "seemed taken with Sally," Charles's young wife, and promised to call on her).76 Some of the preachers acted as agents for the sale of the hymns to subscribers, and might presumably have copies of their own - but Thomas Rankin did not become a travelling preacher in connection with John Wesley until 1761,77 twelve years after the hymn was published. Still, he had "read all Mr Wesley's Works, and in particular his Journals"'79' before he ever heard Wesley preach, and may well have read and sung a good many of Charles Wesley's hymns. Were the 1749 Hymns and Sacred Poems passed from hand to hand? Were there handwritten copies of some of the hymns that became favourites? In any case, what might be called the personal possession of "How Happy Are They" is something shared by a select group of preachers, who find in it the expression of their joyously shared experience. Response to the hymn involves knowing it and cherishing it so that it becomes a part of oneself; the word sung and read becomes analogous to the Word preached and read. This has been the Methodist tradition in relation to the Wesley hymns. When the black marks on a page become speech or song, we all hear something different, even if we understand and accept what we perceive as, for example, Wesleyan theology. What happens if you are one of the people (few in number today, I imagine) who wholeheartedly agree with the doctrine of Christian Perfection and seek to apply it in their lives, or if, on the other hand, you are, like me, fascinated by it, interested in its origins and its effect on believers, but wary of trying to incorporate it into your way of thinking and believing? A hymn dealing with that doctrine will have several very different readers or singers. What about the famous "Wrestling Jacob," one of the few Charles Wesley hymns widely available in literary anthologies? (Presumably there is something distinctive about "Wrestling Jacob" - or is it that this is just one of the few hymns that editors have heard of?) Leaving behind those godly patriarchs of eighteenth-century Methodism, how does today's reader react to the hymn, assuming he or she is actually prepared to read and possibly even to sing it? The question

250 Methodism and Hymnody

as to how this hymn might work upon a possible reader/singer would take a great deal of time and space to resolve; I want merely to suggest, as a conclusion, one or two ways of approaching "Wrestling Jacob" on its own terms. I shall be using the full text, as it appeared in the 1742 Hymns and Sacred Poems, a text reproduced in Frank Baker's fine anthology, Representative Verse of Charles Wesley.'79 The title is original; it is assumed that the reader will know the biblical passage - Genesis 32:24-32 - on which the hymn is based. One must put to one side the assumptions of modern biblical exegesis, which can have us questioning "the identification of Jacob's adversary with God";80 indeed, the Angel is seen as a theophany of "Jesus, the feeble Sinner's Friend" (1. 63). Matthew Henry's well-known and much used commentary was Charles Wesley's resource,81 even though his brother John did remark rather acidly in a letter, "If you would save yourself the trouble of thinking [when reading the Bible], add Mr Henry's comment."82 The reader/singer today must simply accept the fact that Charles Wesley's creative imagination was fired by the tradition of allegorical and typological exegesis; it had, after all, been around a long time. There should be no great problem here; Shakespeare's political, social, and religious attitudes are now largely outmoded, but that does not prevent the continued production and enjoyment of his plays. Within the exegetical assumptions made, then, how does "Wrestling Jacob" work in its generation of responses from those who read or sing it? First, and most important, the patriarch Jacob is replaced by the "I" of the hymn: Come, O Thou Traveller unknown, Whom still I hold, but cannot see, My Company before is gone, And I am left alone with Thee. (11. 1-4)

George Herbert's concept of the Christian priest-poet as intermediary between man and God seems to have had a considerable influence on the structure of Charles Wesley's hymns, and here, as is so often the case in Herbert's verse, the speaker of the poem is its controlling force; because of the personal pronoun, the individual is drawn in to participate in the struggle, to identify with the "I." The final two lines of the first stanza indicate precisely what is going to happen in the rest of the hymn: "With Thee all night I mean to stay, / And wrestle till the Break of Day" (11. 5—6). Then the struggle for saving faith is linked with Jacob's "Tell me, I pray thee, thy name";83 possession of someone's name points toward an understand-

251 Charles Wesley's Hymns of Invitation

ing of and access to that person. One is drawn into the quest by the speaker's reiterated questions: "Who, I ask Thee, who art Thou?" (1. 11); "Art Thou the Man that died for me?" (1. 15); "Wilt Thou not yet to me reveal / Thy new, unutterable Name?" (11. 19-20). The refrain "Till I Thy Name, Thy Nature know" occurs as the last line of the third, fourth, fifth, and seventh stanzas, giving an obsessional quality to the quest. The imperative "tell" adds to the hypnotic effect of the repetition; it is used in the second and fourth stanzas. But what is it that the searcher is looking for? The Name is a surrogate - for what? Wesley captures the mystery of that strange encounter of the solitary Jacob with the mysterious stranger, simply called "a man"84 in the Genesis narrative. Mystery provokes us; hence the market for detective stories. We want to know what lies beyond the uncertainty, what significance it has. If we are part of the community of belief - Christians or in John Wesley's phrase "Almost Christians"85 - we have a particular interest in seeing how this poem moves to its conclusion. The crux of the questioning is in the fourth stanza: "Wilt Thou not yet to me reveal / Thy new, unutterable Name?" (11. 19—20). If we know the Bible well enough, we may connect this with Revelation 3:12: Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, ... and I will write upon him the name of my God ... and I will write upon him my new name.86

Jesus, the exalted Lamb of God, is the speaker in the Book of Revelation passage, and, in the familiar "Hymn to Christ" in the Epistle to the Philippians, there are words that Wesley would have a right to expect to be in the minds of readers and singers of "Wrestling Jacob." God ... hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.87

The question to the unknown antagonist, "Art Thou the Man that died for me?" (1. 15) shows the soteriological thrust of the questioning, and one moves on to the familiar but powerful Christian paradox, "When I am weak then I am strong" (1. 34)88 The paradox is reasserted in My Strength is gone, my Nature dies, I sink beneath Thy weighty Hand, Faint to revive, and fall to rise; I fall, and yet by Faith I stand. (11. 37-40)

252

Methodism and Hymnody

One might deluge these lines with biblical parallels, and lose the poem in the process. My point is that the interpretive community, to which the individual reader or singer belongs, is ideally aware of the biblical resonances that enlarge the hymn and extend its effect; the ideal participating reader/singer, in other words, is aware of the Christian poetic assumptions. These assumptions - of the need to seek salvation in Christ and of the powerful mystery that invests the very name of Jesus — constantly remake the poem in the consciousness of those who read or sing it. (It is taken for granted that congregations in our time do not have the zeal or the stamina to sing hymns of twelve or more stanzas.89 Who decides these things? Congregational involvement - not mere acquiescence - in hymn-singing recreates the hymn in another way from the experience of the hymn by an individual; it will be regrettable if such recreation is lost to us.) The "I" of the poem reaches the end of the struggle in the dark in the ninth stanza. The speaker has demanded of his antagonist at the end of the preceding stanza: "Speak, or Thou never hence shalt move, / And tell me if Thy Name is LOVE" (11.47-48). (Note the imperative "tell" again). The dark night of questioning ends with daybreak. 'Tis Love, 'tis Love! Thou diedst for Me, I hear thy whisper in my Heart. The Morning breaks, the Shadows flee: Pure UNIVERSAL LOVE Thou art. (H- 49-52)

The rest of the hymn is triumphant, but no less theological and experiential. The knowledge of the hitherto "great mysterious God unknown"90 as "JESUS the feeble Sinner's Friend" (1. 62) is accompanied with a confidence that he will not "with the Night depart, / But stay, and love me to the End" (11. 63—4). The complex mixture of pleasure, identification, and affirmation leads the participant to share in the final assertion, I leap for Joy, pursue my Way, And as a bounding Hart fly home Thro' all Eternity to prove Thy Nature, and Thy Name is LOVE. (11. 81-4)

NOTES

i Wolfgang Iser, "The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach," in Reader-Response Criticism: From Formalism to Post-Structuralism ed.

253 Charles Wesley's Hymns of Invitation

2 3

4

5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Jane P. Tompkins (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 1980), 50. Thomas Jackson, ed. The Journal of the Rev. Charles Wesley, z vols (1849; reprint Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon Hill Press 1980), i: 107. Franz Hildebrandt, O.A. Beckerlegge, and J. Dale, eds., A Collection of Hymns for the use of the People called Methodists, (1780; reprint Oxford: Clarendon Press 1983), no. 186. (Also known as the Large Hymn Book.) It is curious to see Charles Wesley, in this and the preceding passage quoted from the Journal, apparently misquoting from his own hymn. Was the manuscript "hath" changed to the rather regrettably sibilant "hast" by John Wesley's editorial pen? Jackson, Journal, i: 115. (The hymn must have been sung from handwritten copies; it was not printed until the 1739 Hymns and Sacred Poems.) Hildebrandt, Beckerlegge, and Dale, Collection of Hymns, no. 193. See, for example, Carlton R. Young, ed., The United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville: United Methodist Publishing House 1989), no. 363. Jackson Journal, i: 163. Ibid., 162. Ibid., 163. Hildebrandt, Beckerlegge, and Dale, Collection of Hymns, no. 270. Jackson, Journal, i: 196. See the notes to hymn no. 270, in Hildebrandt, Beckerlegge, and Dale, Collection of Hymns. Jackson, Journal, i: 275—6. H.A.L. Jefferson, Hymns in Christian Worship (London: Rockliff 1950), 38.

16 Jackson, Journal, 2: 2.

17 I have been unable to trace this hymn. 18 Jackson, Journal, a: 248—9. 19 A helpful account of the discipline of early Methodism can be found in L.E Church, The Early Methodist People (London: Epworth Press 1948), 149-8320 Jackson, Journal, 2: 248. 21 Hildebrandt, Beckerlegge, and Dale, Collection of Hymns, 74 (John Wesley's preface to the 1780 edition). 22 Hildebrandt, Becherlegge, and Dale, Collection of Hymns, no. i. 23 In our properly sensitive age, it should be pointed out that the "Ethiop," representative of the blackness of sin, is as biblical as the rest of the stanza. Jeremiah 13:23 reads: "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil." The Ethiop survived as late as the Wesleyan hymn-book of 1876, but he disappears from the 1904 book. 24 Jackson, Journal, i: 88.

254 Methodism and Hymnody 25 Hildebrandt, Beckerlegge, and Dale, Collection of Hymns, 790. 26 Ibid., no. 5. 27 S.T. Kimbrough, Jr. and Oliver Beckerlegge, eds., The Unpublished Poetry of Charles Wesley (Nashville: Abingdon Press 1988), vol. i (Kingswood Books.) 28 Fish first published this theory in Self-Consuming Artifacts (Berkeley: University of California Press 1972). See also "Literature in the Reader: Affective Stylistics," in Tomkins, Reader-Response Criticism, 70—100. 29 Stanley Fish, Is There a Text in This Class? (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press 1980), 322. 30 Estimates vary, but this is a figure current at present. 31 Hildebrandt, Beckerlegge, and Dale, Collection of Hymns, 74. 32 Ibid., no. 200, line 2. 33 Ibid., no. 205. The first stanza is based on the story in Luke 24:13—35 of the journey to Emmaus. 34 Hans Robert Jauss, Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics, trans. Michael Shaw (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1982). 35 Holub, Reception Theory, 178. (Holub treats the main emphases of Jauss's recent theory on pp. 70—81.) 36 Stanley Fish, The Living Temple: George Herbert and Catechizing (Berkeley: University of California Press 1978). 37 Ibid., 167. 38 Madeleine Forell Marshall and Janet Todd, English Congregational Hymns in the Eighteenth Century (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky 1982), 64. 39 Robert C. Holub, Reception Theory: A Critical Introduction (London: Methuen 1984), 134. 40 Ibid., 135. 41 I am using the text in J. Telford, ed., Wesley's Veterans, 7 vols (London: Robert Culley & Charles H. Kelley 1909-14). 42 Telford, Wesley's Veterans, 4: 176, 179. 43 Ibid., 242. 44 Ibid., 7: 18. 45 Ibid., 2: 184-5. 46 Ibid., 6: 127. 47 This hymn, according to Frank Baker's textual apparatus in Representative Verse of Charles Wesley ([London: Epworth Press 1962], 102—3) has a curious publication history. It was included first in Hymns and Sacred Poems (1749) and again in A Pocket Book of 1787, but not in the 1780 Collection. It reappears, in a truncated form, in the supplement to the 1876 version of the Collection. Although it is only the first part of a longer hymn in the 1749 Hymns and Sacred Poems, it was wrenched out of its original context (part of a series of hymns "For One Fallen from

255 Charles Wesley's Hymns of Invitation

48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

66

67 68 69 70 71

Grace") by John Wesley's editing and became a hymn of jubilation. The sixth stanza had a particular appeal, perhaps because of its striking imagery coupled with the leaping anapaestic metre of the whole piece. I rode on the Sky (Freely justified I!) Nor envied Elijah his seat; My Soul mounted higher In a Chariot of Fire, And the Moon it was under my Feet. Telford, Wesley's Veterans, 4: 170. Ibid., 4: 176. N. Curnock, ed., The Journal of the Rev. John Wesley, 8 vols (London: Robert Culley & Charles H. Kelly 1909—1916), 5: 463. Ibid., 470. These are stanzas from Charles Wesley's hymn "How happy Are They / Who the Saviour Obey." See note 47. Telford, Wesley's Veterans, 4: 176. Ibid., 4: 177. Ibid. Ibid., 178. Ibid., 179. Ibid. Ibid., 7: 69. Ibid., 7: 18. Taylor — or a compositor — misquotes. Baker (Representative Verse, 103) has "felt," not "found." Telford, Wesley's Veterans, 7: 18. Ibid., 2: 184. Ibid., 2: 185. Ibid., 6: 121-6; i22n. For Rankin, see D. Butler, John Wesley and George Whitefield in Scotland (Edinburgh and London: Blackwood 1898), 221: "Scotland gave Wesley many able coadjutors, among whom may be mentioned Thomas Rankin, a native of Dunbar." Telford, Wesley's Veterans, 6: 126. The hymn is no. 402 in Hildebrandt, Beckerlegge, and Dale, Collection of Hymns; Rankin adapts the wording slightly. Ibid. Telford, Wesley's Veterans, 6: 126. Carlton R. Young, ed., The. United Methodist Hymnal (Nashville, Tenn.: United Methodist Publishing House 1989), 386-8. Telford, Wesley's Veterans, 6: 126. Hildebrandt, Beckerlegge, and Dale, Collection of Hymns, no. 39. (See stanza 4.)

256 Methodism and Hymnody 78 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80

81 83 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 go

Ibid., no. 136. Telford, Wesley's Veterans, 6: 127. See Baker, Representative Verse, 102, no. 73. Baker, Representative Verse, 381. Jackson, Journal, 2: 81-2. Telford, Wesley's Veterans, 6: 147—54. Ibid., 148. Baker, Representative Verse, no. 25, pp. 37—9. AH line references in the text are to this edition. "The chief difficulty with the story is the identification of Jacob's adversary with God." (John S. Kselman, commentary on Genesis in J.L. Mays, gen. ed., Harper's Bible Commentary [San Francisco: Harper and Row 1988], 107). See A. Kingsley Lloyd, "Charles Wesley's Debt to Matthew Henry," London Quarterly and Holborn Review 171 (1946): 330-7. T. Jackson, ed., The Works of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M. 14 vols (London: Wesleyan Conference Office 1872), 12: 260. Gen. 32:29. Gen. 32:24. E.H. Sugden, ed., Wesley's Standard Sermons, 2 vols (London: Epworth Press 1921), i: 53—67. See also Rev. 2: 17 and 19: 12. Phil. 2:9-10. a Cor. 12:10. "Wrestling Jacob" is reduced from fourteen to twelve stanzas in the Collection of Hymns, Hymn 97 in the 1876 ed. of the Collection of Hymns (line i).

14

Methodist Hymn Tunes in Atlantic Canada FRED K. GRAHAM

Reformed Protestantism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries had confined congregational song largely to the singing of psalms, which were published in metrical form and sung to a somewhat limited repertoire of tunes. The 1562 "Old Version" of the psalms was succeeded by Tate and Brady's more accessible "New Version" in 1696. Isaac Watts (1674-1748), dissatisfied with what was available, began to write freer versions, which led to his writing of hymns reflective of Christian scriptures and life. With the publication of his own first collection in 1706, a new wave of evangelical song began to roll. The way was thus prepared for the astonishing contributions of John Wesley (1703-91) and Charles Wesley (1707-88). Charles's contribution (some 6,500 hymns) has been analyzed in chapter 13. Although John contributed less poetry, he did much to secure the place of hymn singing in Methodism. From the appearance of the "Charleston Collection" in 1737 through to the definitive compilation A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists (1780), his firm editorial hand may be seen. As an Arminian, holding that God's sovereignty could co-exist with human free will, John Wesley emphasized that a response in life was called for. In musical terms, this meant that hymns were a vehicle of response and that music for that response must assist in evoking Christian action and life. He recommended hymns for "making our calling and election sure, for perfecting holiness in the fear of God . . . " and for "raising or quickening the spirit of devotion, ...

258 Methodism and Hymnody

confirming the [pious reader's] faith, enlivening his hope, and ... kindling or increasing his love of God and man."] John Wesley disliked the florid, repetitious, and occasionally fugal music heard in Anglican worship, as well as the slow mode of performance. He liked the chorales of the Moravians that he had heard on board the Simmonds en route to America in 1735. F.J. Gilman states that Luther and Wesley, more than any others, saw "the propagandist value of song as an aid to the evangelist."2 For Wesley, that meant simple melodic music to proclaim a message of "certainty and safety."3 In addition to the psalm tune repertoire, the Wesleys had two main melodic types available: the German-Moravian chorale and the tunes of their own era (Restoration music, as well as Italian baroque compositions), during which Handel lived and composed in England. An example of a hymn based on a chorale is "Amsterdam"4 (Example i), which was one of Wesley's favourites. It was included in his first volume of tunes, A Collection of Tunes set to music as they are commonly sung at the Foundery (1742). Of the hymns in this collection, R.G. McCutchan says, "Whereas Watts conformed to familiar metrical schemes for tunes already known, Wesley wrote regardless of any known tunes."5 The booklet supplied forty tunes intended to supplement rather than supplant the psalm tunes in use at that time. An example of the second style is the opening of a popular tune, the aria sung by Venus, the goddess of love, in Henry Purcell's opera King Arthur. The original text, centred on love for Britain, seems to have inspired Charles Wesley to write the closely related text centred on the love of Christ. Although somewhat altered, the tune "Westminster" clearly follows its predecessor's shape (Examples 2 a and 2b).6-7

259 Methodist Hymn Tunes in Atlantic Canada

It should be noted that succeeding publications in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries experimented freely with the matching of tunes and texts. For example, the tune we know as "Easter Hymn" (for the text "Jesus Christ is Risen Today") appeared in the "Foundery" Collection as the tune for "Hark! the Herald Angels Sing," but other texts were later paired with that tune. Tune books of the period normally have only one or two stanzas underlaid; it was understood that most of the assembly would have the words-only hymn-book. A Collection of Hymns for the use of the people called Methodists (1780) was such a words-only publication, in which the metre is carefully noted so that a tune of appropriate metre in the corresponding tunebook Sacred Harmony(1780) could be sought out. The fifth edition (1786) included the name of the preferred tune at the top of each selection. The separation of text and tune may also be found in Methodist practice of British North America in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Two important social influences on Methodist hymnody in this region are worthy of note. The first concerned musical leadership. Unaccompanied singing was led by a minister, cantor, or clerk who "lined out" the psalm for the congregation to repeat. This was the New England style which travelled with singing masters to the Maritimes after 172O.8 The second influence came from the rise of singing schools. A New World echo of an English movement to renovate the singing of psalms, singing classes were both an educational and a social occasion lasting a few weeks. The itinerant teachers strove to encourage "regular" singing, consisting of a true unison pitch and a steady agreed tempo, as opposed to the "usual" way of singing, which was random and individualistic.9 One singing school teacher was Amasa Braman of Connecticut who spent sixteen months in Liverpool, Nova Scotia.10 Another was Stephen Humbert, who opened a sacred Vocal Music School in Saint John in 1796. Humbert was a hymnodist, church

HALIFAX. L.M.

Example 3 "Halifax"

Example 4 "Gagetown"

262

Methodism and Hymnody

Example 5 "Fredrickton"

musician, ship builder, baker, and Loyalist who was granted land in 1783. In 1791 he organized a Methodist congregation. The first tune book produced for Canadian use was Humbert's Union Harmony of 1801 (of which no copies are known to exist today), with other editions appearing in 1816, 1831, and 1840. Of the 229 tunes in the 1816 edition, 136 come from American collections, 63 from English, and 23 from Canadian." Of the latter, tune names frequently pay homage to local communities, for example, "Carleton Side," "Gagetown," "Halifax," "Loch Lomond," "St. John," and "Sussex Vale."1*-13 Even though the tune book was advertised as being for use "in all the worshipping assemblies of these provinces,"14 it was probably used more in the singing classes. Of particular interest and controversy at the time was the matter of fuguing tunes, in which voices enter imitatively one after another.15 The clash of text that results was as criticized in this period as it had been by John Wesley in his day. One of Humbert's most effective pieces in this style is shown in part in Example 4.16 Local place names did not always however, indicate new tune material. "Fredrickton" (Example 5) clearly derives from the German chorale "Vater Unser," but was possibly reworked and renamed by Humbert.17 Margaret Filshie has emphasized how, toward mid-century, denominational books replaced a variety of congregational collections.18 Sacred Harmony (1838), published in Toronto under the direction of Alexander Davidson, had a broad influence. It appeared in two editions: one with the usual round notes, the other with shape notes as an aid to proficiency in note-reading and part-singing. The tunes were set out in three parts in support of singing schools.19 A great influence on Davidson's work may have been the "better music" movement associated with the publication of the Boston Handel and Haydn Society Collection of Church Music (1822) compiled by Lowell Mason (1792—1872).20 The movement encouraged use of tunes by European rather than North American composers. After the union that produced the Methodist Church of Canada in 1874, a Methodist Tune Book (1881) was published in Toronto, Mon-

263 Methodist Hymn Tunes in Atlantic Canada

treal, and Halifax, arranged with numbers corresponding to the Methodist Hymn Book (words only). The practice of underlaying one verse only is retained; tunes are grouped in blocks according to metre. The Preface states that "the adoption of these tunes it is hoped will promote intelligent expression and devout feeling in one of the most delightful exercises of Christian worship."21 It was the Methodist Hymn and Tune Book (1894) that finally placed complete words and music in the hands of the congregation and was successful in reclaiming many Wesley favourites. The succeeding and last denominational hymn-book prior to church union (1925) was the Methodist Hymn and Tune Book (1918). It is noteworthy that it contains about fifty original Canadian tune compositions.22 Where did the tunes come from that the Methodists of Atlantic Canada sang? First, from Europe came tunes such as "Old Hundredth" and "Fredrickton" (see Example 5). Second, use was made of the adaptations of melodies found in oratorios or instrumental works. One of these is "Siloam" (Example 6), found in the 1864 Canadian Church Harmonist and set to "Now I Have Found." Adapted from Haydn's "Symphony in G," it contains twenty melismas; Wesley would have approved of its style.23 Third, the imitative style seen in Example 4 remained an important part of repertoire till mid-nineteenth century. Possibly the most famous of Stephen Humbert's compositions in this genre was the fuguing tune called "Singing School." The piece assisted his defence of Union Harmony as useful for class and for worship. The text spelled out the purposes and moral. 'Tis pleasing to my pensive mind, To recollect the hours, When socially we all combin'd T'exert our vocal powers.

'Twas not obscene and vulgar song, That did our time employ, But themes divine, flow'd from our tongues, And fill'd our hearts with joy. While others waste the sinful night, And kill their youthful prime, In songs profane take their delight And murder their best time.24

Siloam. (6 lines 8s.)

Example 6

"Siloam"

265 Methodist Hymn Tunes in Atlantic Canada

Nearer, my God, to Thee.

Fourth, there were the tunes of American Methodism that were brought to the Maritimes by the singing school movement initially and the "better music" movement later. An example of the latter is the tune "Bethany" (Example 7) by Lowell Mason.25 It is made immediately accessible through use of the descending motif (measures i, 5, and 13) to commence three of the four phrases. Finally, there were original tunes from the time of Stephen Humbert through to the time of church union. The tastes of Victorian Canadian society became more evident in compositions at the turn of the century. George Ross (1875-1967) of Moncton contributed the tune "Moncton" (Example 8), which depends heavily on harmonic

266 Methodism and Hymnody

h

structures for flow and energy.26 It peaks in the third phrase after use of motifs of repeated notes, a characteristic of tunes of this era. Alfred Whitehead, a teacher at Mount Allison University from 1913 to 1915 and from 1947 to 1953, was very interested in hymn composition. His tune "Mount Allison" (Example 9) uses some pitch repetition but shapes each phrase carefully, ever climbing, to reach a peak in phrase three, after which it drops suddenly (an octave) in the closing phrase.27 The imported tunes of Atlantic Canadian Methodism - "Dundee," "Old Hundredth," "Bethany" — still survive. With each succeeding hymn and tune collection, however, the evolution of current cultural

267 Methodist Hymn Tunes in Atlantic Canada

tastes seemed to lead to the omission of original Canadian tunes, "St. John," "Summerside," and "Liverpool" to name a few. Surely this rich Methodist musical heritage is worthy of rediscovery. Let us join with John Beckwith in asking, "Since we have lately stopped tearing down our old buildings, could we also stop throwing away our old hymn tunes?"28

NOTES

1 F. Hildebrandt and O.A. Beckerlegge, eds., The Works of John Wesley (Oxford: Clarendon Press 1983) 7: 3, 75, 2 FJ. Gilman, The Evolution of the English Hymn (London: Allen and Unwin 1927), 217. 3 E. Routley, The Music of Christian Hymnody (London: Independent Press 1957). 9i4 Quoted from Sacred Harmony: a choice Collection of Psalms and Hymns set to Music in two or three parts for the Voice, Harpsichord and Organ (London: John Wesley 1780). 5 R.G. McCutchan, Our Hymnody (New York: The Methodist Book Concern 1937), 12. 6 Quoted from The Works of Henry Purcell, The Purcell Society (London: Novello and Co. 1928), 158. 7 Quoted from Hymns and Psalms (London: Methodist Publishing House 1983), no. 267 (iii). 8 See M. Filshie, "Sacred Harmonies: The Congregational Voice in Canadian Protestant Worship, 1750—1850," in Religion/Culture: Comparative Canadian Studies/Etudes canadiennes comparees, ed. W. Westfall et al. (Association for Canadian Studies 1985), 288. 9 For a full discussion of "usual" and "regular" singing, see Nicholas Temperley, "The Old Way of Singing: Its Origins and Development," Journal of the American Musicological Society 34.3 (1981): 511 ff. 10 See Filshie, "Sacred Harmonies," 291. 11 Nicholas Temperley, "Stephen Humbert's Union Harmony, 1816," in Sing Out the Glad News: Hymn Tunes in Canada, ed. J. Beckwith, CanMus Documents (Toronto: Institute for Canadian Music 1987), i: 63. 12 Ibid., 64-9. See also Barclay MacMillan, "Tune Imprints in Canada to 1867: A Descriptive Bibliography," Papers of the Bibliographic Society of Canada (1977), 48. 13 J. Beckwith, "On compiling an anthology of Canadian hymn tunes," in Sing Out the Glad News, 12, quoting from Stephen Humbert, Union Harmony; or, British America's Sacred Vocal Musick, 4th ed., enl. & impr. (Saint John: Stephen Humbert 1840), 225.

268 Methodism and Hymnody 14 Advertisement in the Saint John Gazette, 5 September 1801; quoted in Temperley, "Stephen Humbert's Union Harmony, 1816," 57. 15 For detailed discussions, see Filshie, "Sacred Harmonies," 293; see also Stephen Blum, "The fuging tune in British North America," in Sing Out the Glad News, 119 ff. 16 S. Blum, "The fuging tune in British North America," 131; quoting from Stephen Humbert, Union Harmony, 2nd ed. (Saint John: Stephen Humbert 1816), 164. 17 From Humbert, Union Harmony, 4th ed.; quoted in Beckwith, "On compiling an anthology," 10. 18 Filshie, "Sacred Harmonies," 288. 19 These are set out in greater detail in Dorothy Farquharson, "Ofor a thousand tongues to sing": A History of Singing Schools in Early Canada (Waterdown, Ont.: 1983). 20 Lowell Manson, ed., The Boston Handel and Haydn Society Collection of Church Music (Boston: Boston Handel and Haydn Society 1822). 21 W. Briggs, ed., Methodist Tune Book (Toronto: Methodist Book and Publishing House 1881), iii. 22 Beckwith, "On compiling an anthology," 24. 23 Quoted in John Beckwith, ed., The Canadian Musical Heritage (Ottawa: Canadian Musical Heritage Society 1986), vol. 5, no. 563. 24 Quoted in ibid., no. 85. 25 Quoted in ibid., no. io8b. 26 Quoted in ibid., no. 288. 27 Quoted in ibid., no. 290. 28 Beckwith, "On compiling an anthology," 29.

List of Contributors

T.W. ACHESON holds the degrees of B.A. and M.A. from the University of New Brunswick, and gained his PH.D. from the University of Toronto. He is currently professor and chairman of the Department of History at the University of New Brunswick. His published work includes Industrialization and Underdevelopment in the Maritimes, 1880— 1930 (1985) and St. John: The Making of a Colonial Urban Community (1985)JAMES D. CAMERON is a graduate of the University of Prince Edward Island (B.A. 1980, B.ED. 1981) and of Acadia University (M.A. in theology, 1985), and has taught Canadian and Maritime religious history at the University of Prince Edward Island. His research has focused on church union on Prince Edward Island. He was the recipient of a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Doctoral Fellowship in 1987, and completed his PH.D. at Queen's University in 1990. Currently he holds the position of University Historian at Saint Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia. OWEN CHADWICK was Regius Professor of History in the University of Cambridge from 1968 until his retirement in 1983 and master of Selwyn College from 1956 to 1983. A graduate of Cambridge, he served as vice-chancellor of the university from 1969 to 1971, and in 1981 became president of the British Academy. Knighted by the Queen in 1982 for distinguished service to university, church, and state, he is also a member of the Order of Merit. Dr Chadwick is

270

List of Contributors

widely known as a scholar, teacher, writer, and lecturer. His best known works deal with modern European church history and include From Bossuet to Newman: The Idea of Doctrinal Development (1957), The Victorian Church (two volumes, 1966, 1970), The Secularization of the European Mind in the Nineteenth Century (the 1973—74 Gifford Lectures published in 1977), The Popes and European Revolution (1981), Britain and the Vatican during the Second World War (1987), and The Spirit of the Oxford Movement (1990). JAMES DALE holds the degrees of B.A. (Hons. English, 1955), M.A. (1959) and PH.D. (English and Church History, 1961), from the University of Cambridge. He has taught at United College, Winnipeg, at Trent University, and, since 1967, at McMaster University, where he is associate professor of English. The author of numerous articles, he is a contributor to A Milton Encyclopedia (1978—80) and joint editor of Volume 7 of the Works of John Wesley, A Collection of Hymns for the Use of the People Called Methodists (1983). He is a charter member of the Charles Wesley Society and a member of its board of directors. GWENDOLYN DAViES is a graduate of Dalhousie-King's, the University of Toronto, and York University. She taught Canadian Literature at the University of Bordeaux, was sometime associate director of Canadian Studies and head of the English Department at Mount Allison University (where she taught from 1976 to 1988), and is currently a member of the English department at Acadia University. Dr Davies has frequently lectured and published on Canadian literature and is the editor of The Mephibosheth Stepswre Letters (Carleton University Press, 1990). GOLDWIN FRENCH holds the degrees of B.A. (Hons.), M.A. and PH.D. from the University of Toronto (Victoria College), Doctor of Sacred Letters (honoris causa) from Trinity College, Toronto, and Doctor of Laws (honoris causa) from Kwansei Gakuin University, Japan. From 1947 he taught at McMaster University, where he was professor and chairman of the Department of History from 1964 to 1970. From 1973 to 1987, he was president of Victoria University, holding crossappointments in the Department of History and the Centre for Religious Studies, University of Toronto. In addition to authoring articles and contributions to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, he is the author of Parsons and Politics: The Role of the Wesleyan Methodists in Upper Canada and the Maritimes from ij8o to 1855 (1962). Dr French has edited Canadian Studies in History and Government and the Cana-

271 List of Contributors dian section of the Encyclopedia of World Methodism; since 1971 he has been editor-in-chief of the Ontario Historical Studies Series. MICHAEL GAUVREAU is a graduate of Laurentian University (B.A. Hons.) and the University of Toronto (M.A., PH.D.). He has taught history at Laurentian University, the University of Manitoba, and, since 1988, McMaster University. In addition to authoring many articles, he has contributed to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography and is the author of A Guide to the Golden Age: A History of the Nickel Industry in Sudbury, 1883—igj8 (1978) and The Evangelical Century: College and Creed in English Canada from the Great Revival to the Great Depression (1991). FRED K. GRAHAM is a fellow of the Royal College of Organists, London and holds degrees from the University of Toronto (MUS. BAG.), the Eastman School of Music (M.M.) and Drew University (M. PHIL.), from which he also received his PH.D., with a dissertation on "The Core Repertory of Methodist Hymn Tunes: 1810-1878." He has held church music positions in Ottawa and Halifax and has travelled widely as an adjudicator and recitalist. He has lectured at the Atlantic School of Theology and Dalhousie University Department of Music; since 1988 he has been Program Consultant, Congregational Worship for the United Church of Canada. His article "John Wesley's Choice of Hymn Tunes" appeared in The Hymn (October 1988). JOHN WEBSTER GRANT is Professor Emeritus of Church History at Emmanuel College of Victoria University, Toronto, where he taught from 1963 to 1984. He graduated from Dalhousie University (B.A. and M.A.) and Oxford University (D.PHIL.) and studied at Princeton and Pine Hill Divinity Hall, Halifax. He taught at Pine Hill, Union College of British Columbia, and United Theological College of South India and Ceylon, and was editor-in-chief of Ryerson Press, Toronto, from 1960 to 1963. Dr Grant is the author of numerous articles and contributions to reference works, and is the general editor and part author of the three-volume History of the Christian Church in Canada (1966-72). Among his best known books are The Canadian Experience of Church Union (1967), The Church in the Canadian Era (1972; revised edition, 1988), Moon of Wintertime (1984), and A Profusion of Spires (1988). DAVID G. PITT is professor emeritus of English, Memorial University of Newfoundland. A graduate of Mount Allison University (B.A.,

372

List of Contributors

LL.D.) and the University of Toronto (M.A., PH.D.), he taught English at Memorial, where he was also head of the department. Editor of Critical Views on Canadian Writers and other volumes, he is also the author of numerous articles, papers, and books. His award-winning two-volume biography of Canadian poet E.J. Pratt, The Truant Years (1984) and The Master Years (1987), has been widely acclaimed. He has also published several books of church history and one of fiction. GEORGE RAWLYK holds the degrees of B.A. (McMaster University), M.A. and PH.D. (University of Rochester). He has taught at Mount Allison University and Dalhousie University, and, since 1969, has been professor of History at Queen's University, where he also served as chairman of the history department from 1976 to 1985. He has been awarded honorary degrees from Pine Hill; Union College of British Columbia; Victoria University, Toronto; Trinity College, Toronto (D.D. in each case); and Mount Allison University (LL.D.). He has been a visiting professor at several universities and in 1987—8 was Winthrop Pickard Bell Professor of Maritime Studies at Mount Allison University. A prolific author, he has written many articles and contributions to books and has edited numerous volumes, including The Sermons of Henry Alline (1986) and Henry Alline (1987). His books include Yankees at Louisbourg (1967), Nova Scotia's Massachusetts: A Study of Massachusetts—Nova Scotia Relations, 1630—1*784 (1973), New Light Letters and Songs (1983), Ravished by the Spirit: Revivals, Maritime Baptists and Henry Alline (1984, second edition 1988), and "Wrapped Up in God": A Study of Several Canadian Revivals and Revivalists (1988). ALLEN B. ROBERTSON holds the degrees of B.A. (Hons.), B.ED, and M.A. from Acadia University and obtained his PH.D. from Queen's University in 1990 with a dissertation on "John Wesley's Nova Scotia Businessmen: Halifax Methodist Merchants 1815-1855." He has lectured for Henson College, Halifax and has served as an archival assistant with the Public Archives of Nova Scotia. A contributor to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography and Dictionary of Evangelical Biography, he has published several articles, including "Charles Inglis and John Wesley: Church of England and Methodist Relations in Nova Scotia in the Late Eighteenth Century" (1987) and "Methodism and Nova Scotia's Yankee Planters" (1988). He co-edited with Carolene E.B. Robertson The Memoir of Mrs Eliza Ann Chipman (1989) and is currently book review editor for the Nova Scotia Historical Review. HANS ROLLMANN is a graduate of Pepperdine University, Los Angeles (B.A.), Vanderbilt University (M.A.) and McMaster University (PH.D.).

273 List of Contributors

He was a research associate with the Judaism/Christianity Project at McMaster and has taught at the University of Toronto. He currently teaches at Memorial University of Newfoundland, where he has been associate professor of Religious Studies since 1985. He is also adjunct professor of Systematic Theology at Queen's College, St John's. Dr Rollmann has published numerous articles in the areas of both German theology and the religious history of Newfoundland and Labrador, including "John Jones, James O'Donel, and the Question of Religious Tolerance in Eighteenth-Century Newfoundland" (1984), "Inuit Shamanism and the Moravian Missionaries of Labrador: A Textual Agenda for the Study of Native Inuit Religion" (1985), and "Religious Enfranchisement and Roman Catholics in EighteenthCentury Newfoundland" (1987). THOMAS B. VINCENT holds the degrees of B.A. (Hons.) from Dalhousie University and M.A. and PH.D. from Queen's University. He teaches at the Royal Military College, Kingston, where he has been professor in the Department of English and Philosophy since 1984. In addition to numerous articles, he has contributed extensively to the Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature and the Dictionary of Canadian Biography and has edited several volumes. His books include Narrative Verse Satire in Maritime Canada, 1^^0—1814 (1978), Eighteenth Century Canadian Poetry: An Anthology (1981) and Henry Alline, Selected Hymns and Spiritual Songs (1982).

This page intentionally left blank

Index

Acadian Telegraph, 196 Account of the Work of God, An (Coughlan), 54, 64, 65,68 "Adventures of Jack Ramble, The" (Bailey), 191-2 Airhart, Phyllis, 136-7 Albion Vale (school), 97 Alder, Robert, 149, 151-2 Alline, Henry, 39, 40, 42, 45, 111; compared with William Black, 79-89 Allison, Charles Frederick, vii, 44, 152 Alma, NB, 109 Amherst, NS, 40. See also Black, William "Am I a Soldier of the Cross" (Watts), 228 "Amsterdam" (tune), 258; music, 258 Analogy of Religion (Butler), 169-73 "And Can It Be" (C. Wesley), 238 Anderson, John H., 98, 99 Andrews, Samuel, no Anglicans. See Church of England Annapolis, NS, 41, 85, 97, !9!

Anselm, St, 180 "Antinomianism," 39, 42, 46,83 apprenticeship, 97 Arminiamism, 19, 45, 81 Armstrong, M.W., 88 Arnold, Matthew, 169—70, 190 Asbury, Francis, 40—1 Ashburner, Edward, 57, 58 Avard, Joseph, 128 Bacon, Francis, 170, 177, i?9 Bailey, Jacob, 41, 191—2 Balfour, James, 60, 65 Baptists, 43, 46, 107, 111—12, 151, 163; Free Christian (or Free Will), 39, 112-13; historiography of, 3 Barker, Cephas, 133 Barnes, Joshua, 112 Barry, John A., 93—4, 97, 99 Barry, Mary, 215 Barry, Robert, 40, 94 Barry, William, 96—7 Bayard, S.V., 44 Beckwith, John, 267

Bedeque, PEI, 128 Beecham, John, 149 Belinda Dalton (Herbert), 213 Bell, Almirah, 198, 215 Bell, Anna, 96 Bell, Anne (wife of Hugh), 96 Bell, Charles, 215 Bell, Hugh, 94, 99, lO2n.21

Bell Island, NFLD, 222 Bennett, William, 45 Bennis, Eliza, 54 Benson, Joseph, 27, 3on.i3 "Beranger, Bessie" (pen name of Margaret Elizabeth Desbrisay), 198 Berger, Carl, 218 "Bethany" (tune), 265; music, 265 Belts, E.A., 115 Bible: authority of, 153, 157, 169-72, 178-81; criticism of, 169-70, 177-80, 222; inspiration of, 181 Bible Christians, 42, 12930, 131, 133-4 Bishop, A.J., 41, 207

276

Index

Black, Martin Gay, 93-5, 97,98 Black, Mary, 96 Black, Rufus, 98 Black, Samuel, 94, 95 Black, William, 44-5, 86, 212; background and conversion of, 38, 80—1; compared with Henry Alline, 79-89; ministry of: in Maritime provinces, 39, 43, 81, 84—6, 128, 147, 191; in Newfoundland, 34, 36, 66, 67 Black, William A., 97, loan.21 Blackhead, NFLD, 61 Blacks, 43 Blewett, George, 224 Bonavista, NFLD, 33 Book of Common Prayer, 35 Botsford, NB, 109 Bradley, Mary Coy, 112, 207-9, 2 I 5 Braman, Amasa, 259 Bray, Thomas, 60 Brebeuf and His Brethren (Pratt), 230 Brecken, Ralph, 169-70, 176 British and Foreign Schools Society, 150 British North American Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, 154, 162, 198 Bromley, Walter, 97 Brown, Earl Kent, 206 Bryenton, John, 43 Buckley, J.M., 87 Bulpitt, James, 128 Bumsted, Jack, 89, 128 Bunting, Jabez, 149 Burin Peninsula, NFLD, 36 Burnside, Albert, 129, 133 Burton, John, 14 Burwash, John, 174-5, 176-7, i83-4n.24 Burwash, Nathanael, 177

Butler, Joseph, 169-81 Byron, John, 61—2 Calvinism, 19, 68; in the Maritime provinces, 38, 42, 46, 81, no, 111; in Newfoundland, 57, 219. See also "Antinomianism"; perseverance of the saints Calvinistic Methodists, 54. See also Whitefield, George; Huntingdon, Selina, countess of Campbell, Douglas, 137 Canadian Methodist Magazine, 190—1 Carbonear, NFLD, 33, 56, 58, 59, 61 Carleton, Thomas, 113 Chappell, Benjamin, 127-8 Chappell, Elizabeth, 127 Charlotte County, NB, 117 Charlottetown, PEI, 128 Cherry Valley, PEI, 128 Chignecto. See Cumberland Chipman, T.H., 39, 83 Chipman, Zachariah, 118, 119 Christian Guardian, 198 church and state, 114-16, 150-1, 154-7- »59. 161-3 Churchill, Charles, 32, 198 Church of England: evangelicals in, 24, 114, 116; in the Maritime provinces, 43-4,46, 110, 11317, 191, 212-14; and Methodist origins, 11-13, 23-9; in Newfoundland, 35>37>57- 6i ; inU PP er Canada, 108 Church Times (Halifax), 212-13 church union. See Union, church

Clark, S.D., 88 Clarke's Beach, NFLD, 222 classes, Methodist, 67-8, 240 Clay (Pratt), 230 Clifford, Keith, 137 Cochran, James, 212-13 Cocken, Alexander H., 198, 199 Coke, Thomas, 24, 45 Colebrooke, Sir William, 156, 162 Collection of Hymns, A (1780), 240-2, 243, 257, 2 59 Collection of Tunes, A (1742), 258 College of New Brunswick. See King's College, Fredericton Conception Bay, NFLD, 59; chart, 60. See also revival, in Newfoundland conference, origin of, 25 Congregationalism: in the Maritime provinces, 38, 39, 40, 207; in Newfoundland,57—8 Conventicle Act, 28-9 Cooney, Robert, 117 Cooper, John, 191 cooperation among churches, 135-6 Cornwallis, NS, 84—5 Coughlan, Anne, 58 Coughlan, Betsey, 58 Coughlan, Laurence: Account of the Work of God, 54,64,65,68; in Ireland and England, 54-7,68-9, 76n.8g; ministry in Conception Bay, 33, 35-7, 534, 56,61-8; ordination and call to Newfoundland, 57-8; portrait, 55 Coverdale, NB, 109 Cowdell, Thomas Daniel, 193-4 criticism: literary, 195; reader response, 242;

877

Index

social, 194, 215. See also Bible, criticism of Croscombe, William, 45 Cumberland, NS and NB, 37- 39. 4o, 45. 82-4. 86

Evangelical Revival, 16— 19, 29-30. See also Methodism; Wesley, Charles; Wesley, John; Whitefield, George evolution, 170, 174-6

Dalhousie College and University, 151, 154, 156 Dana, James Dwight, 174 Dante, 227 Dartmouth, second earl of, 58 Darwin, Charles, 170, 175, 223 Davidson, Alexander, 262 Davies, Thomas H., 198, 199-201 Davis, George, 58, 7in.32 Dawson, Thomas, 128 Deed of Declaration, 25 Desbrisay, Margaret Elizabeth, 198 De Wolfe, Charles, 157-8 didacticism in poetry, 192, 194-6, 199 Digby, NS, 43 dissent, 19, 25 Dissenters, disabilities of, 108 Dix, Dorothea, 100 Dorchester, NB, 109 Douglas, Ann, 211 Douglas, NB, 109

Fable of the Goats, The (Pratt), 229 Fairbanks, Samuel P., 100 Falmouth, NS, 84-5 Farrar, Adam Storey, 180 Feild, Edward, 37 Fetter Lane society, 19 Filshie, Margaret, 262 Fish, Stanley, 242, 243-4, 248-9 Fisher, George P., 180 Fletcher, John, 24, 28, 3on.i3 Forest Wreath, The (Leggett), 201 "For Valour" (Pratt), 228 Fredericton, NB, 108, 109, 116, 118-19, 1 2 1 > !63See also King's College, Fredericton "Frederickton" (tune), 262, 263; music, 262 French, Goldwin, 88-9, 92

"Easter Hymn" (tune), 259 Eastern British America, Conference of, 42, 130, 157-8, 160 Edgar, Pelham, 223, 225—6 education, vii, 22, 96-9, 147-86. See aho under various institutions Edwards, Jonathan, 17 Edwards, Maldwyn, 148 empirical reception theory, 244 Epworth, 21-2 Erasmus, Bishop, 56-7 "Erosion" (Pratt), 228

Gagetown, NB, 207 "Gagetown" (tune), 263; music, 261 Garland, Charles, 66 Garrettson, Freeborn, 40i, 42, 87, 191, 192 Gidney, Angus, 195 Gilman, F.J., 258 Gosse, John, 36 Grand Orange Lodge of Prince Edward Island, 135 Grant, John Webster, 134-5 Gray, Asa, 174 Great Awakening, First, 82, 84, 86, 89 Greatheed, Samuel, 57

Guysborough, NS, 43 Halevy, Elie, 115 Halifax, NS: Methodists in, 32, 40, 43, 113, 163, 205; philanthropy in, 93—101, 212; William Black in, 39, 45, 85 "Halifax" (tune), 262; music, 260 Halifax Methodist Female Benevolent Society, 96 Halifax Poor Man's Friend Society, 93-5, 200-1 Harbour Grace, NFLD: appointment of Laurence Coughlan to, 35, 57—8, 61; Methodism in, 33, 56, 66, 67; William Black in, 34, 59. See also Conception Bay; CoughIan, Laurence Harris, Howell, 17 Harris, John, 133-4 Havelock, NB, 109 Henderson, Alexander, 97

Henry, Matthew, 250 Herbert, George, 243-4, 250 Herbert, Mary Eliza, 195, 198, 209-14, 215 Herbert, Sarah, 195, 212 Hill, George, 116 Hilton, Boyd, 172 Hodge, Charles, 180 Holloway, Robert, 223 Holub, Robert C., 243, 244 Hopewell, NB, 109 Hopkins, Sophy, 14, 22 Horton, NS, 41, 42, 45, 84, 86 Horton Academy, 151 Hoskins, John, 33, 56, 57, 63, 65, 66 Howe, Joseph, 195 "How happy are they" (C. Wesley), 244-9, 2545n-47

278

Index

Humbert, Stephen, 259, 262, 263 Hunter, William, 244, 245-6 Huntingdon, Selina, countess of, 54, 56, 57, 58, 68 Huxley, T.H., 223 hymns: of Charles Wesley,

237-56> *57, 258-9; of

E.J. Pratt, 228-9; John Wesley and, 16, 257-8; role of, 242, 243-4; tunes of, 257—68 Hymns and Sacred Poems: 1742, 250; 1749, 249

industrial revolution, 17 Inglis, Charles, 43, 113 Irish: in Conception Bay, 34, 59, 66; in NewBrunswick, 108, 111. See also Roman Catholics Iron Door, The (Pratt), 230-1 Island Guardian, 135 Jackson, George, 224 Jackson, John, 59 James, William, 65 Jauss, Hans Robert, 243, 245 "Jesu, lover of my soul" (C. Wesley), 16 Johnson, D.W., 134 Johnson, Mrs (Horton), 85 Jones, John (Congregational minister), 57 Jones, John (Methodist preacher), 56, 57 Jost, Cranswick, 176 Juster, Susan, 208 Kewley, Arthur E., 33, 36 Kiesekamp, Burkhard, 137 King, George, 118 King's College, Fredericton, 116, 150, 154

King's College, Windsor, 150, 151-2 Kingswood School, 27, 40, 86, 152 Knowles, Edward, io2n.ai Labrador, 36, 60 Ladies' Temperance and Benevolent Society (Halifax), 212 Langman, Edward, 57, 60 Lathern, John, 181, 205 Law, William, 13 Lawrence, D.H., 227-8 Legge, William (second earl of Dartmouth), 58 Leggett, William Martin, 198, 201-2 Leonard of Port-Maurice, '7

Le Sueur, Pierre, 68 literature, Methodism and, 5, 189—91. See also Methodism, novels; Methodism, poetry Liverpool, NS, 82, 86-7, 257 Livingstone, David (historian), 174 Loveland, Charles, 93—4 Lower Island Cove, NFLD, 33 Loyalists, 40, 45, 128, J39n-9 Lucy Cameron (Herbert), 209—1i Lusher, Robert, 98 Lutheranism, German, 13, H-iS'

McColl, Duncan, 41, 45, 109-11, 114, 115. See also St Stephen, NB McCulloch, Thomas, 151 McCutchan, R.G., 258 McGeary, John, 36 McKirmon, William Charles, 198, 199 McLeod, Alexander W, 114, 198

McPherson, John, 195 Mann, James, 41, 44, 45 Mann, John, 40, 41, 45 Marchinton, Philip, 192 Maritime Religious Education Council, 136 Marsden, Joshua, 40, 42, 43,45, 110-11, 113-14; ministry of, 117—18; poetry of, 193, 194-5 Marshall, John G., 94 Marshall, Madeleine, 244 Mason, Lowell, 262, 265 Maugerville, NB, 207 Maxfield, Thomas, 54-6, 57 Mayflower (periodical), 211—13 Medley, John, 115, 118-19 Meinig, D.W., 34 Metherall, Francis, 42, 129 Methodism: discipline of, 26, 45, 110; historiography of, 3; novels of, 209— 11, 213-14; organization of, 25, 240, 242; origin of, 17, 19—30; poetry of, 189—204, 237—31; preachers in, 20—3, 27— 8, 29; social effects of, 66—7, 92—103; social standing of, 117-19, 239. See also under various persons, places, and institutions Methodist College, St John's, 220, 221, 223 Methodist Ecumenical Conference, 1881, 133 Methodist Episcopal Church (American), 40-1, 147 Methodist Hymn and Tune Book (Canada 1894 and 1918), 263 Methodist Hymn Book (Canada), 223 Methodist Sabbath School Society (Halifax), 98—9, 212

279 Index Methodist Tune Book (Canada 1881), 262-3 Milltown, NB, 115 ministry, 12, 15; desire for educated, 157—8. See also Methodism, preachers in miracles, 176, 180 Moncton, NB, 109 "Moncton" (tune), 265-6; music, 265 Moravians, 14—16, 19, 60, 258 Moreton's Harbour, NFLD, 221 Morris, Maria, 212, 215 Mount Allison College and University, vii, 46, 119, 152-8; and E.J. Pratt, 222, 223; theology at, 138, 153, 169—86. See also Allison, Charles F. "Mount Allison" (tune), 266; music, 266 Mount Hope Asylum, 100 Murlin, John, 54 Murray Harbour, PEI, 128, 133-4 Narrative of a Mission, The (Marsden), 194 National School Society, 150 Nelles, Samuel, 177 Nelson, John, 20 New Brunswick: demography of, 111, laon.i; Methodism in, 107-22; political controversy in, 115—17. See also under various localities New Brunswick Christian Conference, 111 New England: First Great Awakening in, 82; settlers from, 38—9, 43, 45-6, no Newfoundland: early settlement of, 33-5, 59; chart of, 60; Methodism in, 33-7. 4L 46-7, 53-4,

61-8. See also Coughlan, Laurence; Pratt, E.J.; and under various localities New Lights, 4, 38-40, 42, 82; in Cumberland, 82-4, 86 New London, PEI, 127—8 New York City, Methodism in, 40 Newton, John, 58 Nock, George, 94 non-jurors, 12-13 Nova Scotia: demography of, 37-9; denominational rivalry in, 79—91; Methodists in, 39-42, 149; religious situation in, 41, 45. See also Halifax and under various localities Nova Scotia Minstrel, The (Cowdell), 193 O'Bryan, William, 129 "O Filial Deity" (C. Wesley), 237-8 "O for a thousand tongues" (C. Wesley), 240-1 Old Perlican, NFLD, 33, 63,65 Olive Branch (periodical), 212

Ontario, Methodists in, 107—8, 112, 113 "On the Winds" (Leggett), 201 "Over the River of Death" (Davies), 200—1 Owen, John, 118 Oxord University, 12—13, H Palliser, Hugh, 60—1 Parr, John, 44 "Passage through the Red Sea" (Davies), 199—200 Payzant, John, 82 Peaseley, William, 53 Pentecostalism, 5 perfection, Christian, 54, 242, 245

Perkins, Simeon, 44, 81-2 Perronet, Vincent, 24 Petersville, NB, 109, 111 Petitcodiac River, NB, 39 Phelps, Arthur, 226 Philanthropic Society (Halifax), 95-6 philanthropy, 93—101 Pickard, Hannah Maynard, 214—15 Pickard, Humphrey, 152-4, i7!-2 Pictou Academy, 151 Pietism, 13-14, 15, 19. See also Evangelical Revival; revival piety, changes in, 136—8 Pottle, Thomas, 33, 68 Pratt, E.J.: education of, 221, 223-4; life style of, 225—7; and Methodism, 6, 218-20, 225-31; and the ministry, 221, 223-4; poetry of, 202, 227-31; John Pratt (father), 218, 219, 220-1, 229-30; mother, 221 prayer meetings, 19—20 preachers. See Methodism, preachers in predestination, 19, 39. See also Calvinism Presbyterian and Evangelical Protestant Union, 135 Presbyterians, 46; in New Brunswick, 110, 111; in Nova Scotia, 151, 154, 163; in Prince Edward Island, 129, 135—6, 137 Prince Edward Island: demography of, 129, 134; Methodism in, 39, 42-3, 127-44; reform movements in, 135-6. See also under various localities Princetown Road, PEI, 129 Protector and Christian Witness, 135

380 Index Protestant and Evangelical Witness, 135 Protestant Union, 135 Provincial Wesleyan, 155—6, 157, 160, 162 Purcell, Henry, 258—9 Puritanism, 11—12 Rankin, Thomas, 244, 247-9 Rawlyk, G.A., 89 Reformation, Protestant, 11, 13, 15-16, 17-18, 30 Reid, John, 152 revelation, 171—2, 175, 180—1. See also Bible, authority of revival: in Newfoundland, 33, 35, 37, 59> 62-8; in Nova Scotia, 41, 42, 81, 82, 84-6, 87 Richey, Matthew, 89 Richmond, NB, 109, 111 Rispin, Thomas, 32 "Robert McCoy" (Pickard), 214 Roberts, Hugh, 62 Roberts, Robert, 244 Robinson, John, 32 Roman Catholics, 17, 37; and education, 135, 151, 159-61, 163; in Newfoundland, 34, 59, 66; in Prince Edward Island, 129, !35 romanticism, 192—3 Romley, John, 21, 3on.io Ross, George, 265 Royal Acadian School, 97 Rummies, 116 Ryerson, Egerton, 159, 198 Sabbath schools, 98—9, 162 Sackett, A. Barrett, 56 Sackville, NB, 108, 109. See aho Mount Allison University; Westmorland

sacraments, 20, 22, 23, 24 Sacred Harmony (Davidson 1838), 262 Sacred Harmony (]. Wesley 1780), 259 Sacred Poetry (Leggett), 201 St Andrews, NB, 110 St David, NB, 109, 115 St James, NB, 109 Saint John, NB, 116, 259, 262; Methodists in, 41, 43, 208, 214; numbers in, 108, 109, i2on.n, 163; political attitudes in, 114, 116, 117-18; social standing in, 11011, 117—18 Saint John Valley, NB, 43, 45> 112-13 St John's, NFLD, 367. See also Methodist College, St John's St Mary's, NB, 109 saints, perseverence of, 42, 46, 81, 84, no, in St Stephen, NB, 41, 108, 109—10, 115, 116, 117, 119, 121. See also McColl, Duncan Sawers, A.S., 100 schools, 96—9, 158—62. See also education and under various institutions science and religion, 16970, 173-6, 178. See also Bible, authority of Scripture Sketches (Thompson), 195-6 Seabury, Samuel, 192 Semple, Neil, 136 Shadford, George, 244, 247 Shannon, James N., 94, 98, 100 Sheffields, NB, 108, 109 Shelburne, NS, 40, 43 Shuldham, Molyneux, first baron, 68 "Siloam" (tune), 263; music, 264

Simonds, Charles, 114 "Singing School" (Humbert), 263 singing schools, 259-62 Smashers, 116-17 Smith, Isabel, 205 Smith, T. Watson, 53, 148 Social Service Council of Prince Edward Island, 136 societies, Methodist, 25, 240, 242 Society of the Propagation of the Gospel, 33, 59— 60, 61, 68 Soper, S.H., 223, 224 Spencer, Herbert, 170, 223 SPG. See Society for the Propagation of the Gospel "Spirit Rest" (McKinnon), 199 Starr, Daniel, 94, 95, 98 Starr, Desiah, 96 Starr, George H., 99 Starr, John E., 97 Starr, Joseph, 94, 95 Starr, Lavinia, 96 Stewart, Charles, 158, 177-81, i85n.43 Stewart, Gordon, 89 Strawbridge, Robert, 54^ Stretton, John, 33, 36, 54, 65, 67, 68 Studholm, NB, log, 118, i22n.33 Sturgeon, PEI, 129, 133-4 Sunday schools, 98-9, 162 Sussex (or Sussex Vale), NB, 108, 109 Tantin, Jean, 68 Taylor, Thomas, 244, 246-7 Taymouth, NB, 108 Temple, William, 152 theology, changes in, 136-8, 153 Thomas a Kempis, 13

281

Index

Thomey, Arthur, 33, 68 Thompson, E.P., 92 Thompson, John Sparrow, 193, 195-7. 212 "Thy Faithfulness, Lord" (C. Wesley), 241—2 Titanic, The (Pratt), 229—30 Todd, Janet, 244 Toleration Act, 28 Trinity Bay, NFLD, 37 Troop, Jacob, 118 "Truant, The" (Pratt), 231 Truant Years, The (Pitt), 218 Tryon, PEI, 128 Uniacke, Richard John, 44 union, church, 130—9, 141—2^56; Bible Christian (1865), 131; Methodist (1874), 131; Methodist (1884), 133, i4in.46; with Congregationalists and Presbyterians (1925), 6, 46-7, 138—9; chart, 132 Union Harmony (Humbert), 262, 263 Union Road, PEI, 129 United Church of Canada, 3, 43, 127, 225, 228-9. See also union, church United Empire Loyalists. See Loyalists university federation, 156

Ward, Reginald, 148 Watson, Richard, 180 Watts, Isaac, 228, 244, 248, 257 Welch, George, 58 Wesley, Charles, 12, 13, 14, 26, 237; hymns of, 6, 16, 26, 237-56, 258; influence of, 56, 189; Journal, 237-9, 241; opinions of, 20, 23, 25 Wesley, John, 4, 41, 173; and E.J. Pratt, 229; influences on, 11-16; and Laurence Coughlan, 33, 54-7, 63, 68-9; mission of, 14, 17—22; opinions of, 92-3, 95, 96, 148, 245, 257-8; and the organization of Methodism, 20—6; and separation from the Church of England, 26-9; and William Black, 40, 45, 86 Wesleyan, The, 150, 155, l62,198,2 1 2

Valenze, Deborah, 206 Van Die, Marguerite, 127 Vernon River, PEI, 129 Victoria College and University, Toronto, 138, 153, 222, 223-4, 225 Vincent, Thomas B., 79 Vindicator, 135

Wesleyanism, British: and Atlantic Canada, 108, I l 3 > 147—8, 179; attitude to women, 206. See also Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society Wesleyan Methodist Day School (Halifax), 98 Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society: and Atlantic Canada, 36, 42, 44, 115, 130, 198; and education, 149—50, 151— 2, 154; Halifax Auxiliary, 99. See also Wesleyanism, British Wesleyan Theological College, Montreal, 222, 223 Wesley's Veterans (Telford),

Wakefield, NB, 109, 118, 122n.32

West Cape, PEI, 129 Westfield, NB, 109

"Westminster" (tune), 258; music, 259 Westminster School, 12 Westmorland, NB, 108, 109, i2in.i i White, Charles, 40 Whitefield, George, 17, 19, 247; and Atlantic Canada, 4; and the Maritime provinces, 42; and New England, 38; and Newfoundland, 37, 53, 6gn-3 Whitehead, Alfred, 266 Widow's Jewels, The (Pickard), 214 Williamson, A.J., 198 Wilmot, Lemuel Allan, 44, 116, 118, 159 Wilmot, NB, 109, 118 Wilson, William, 53 Windsor, NS, 39, 45, 84, 85. See also King's College, Windsor Witches' Brew, The (Pratt), 227 Withrow, William, 190 Woman As She Should Be (Herbert), 211 women: among Coughlan's converts, 35, 66; role of in Methodism, 206-9, 211, 215 Wood, Enoch, 156 Woodstock, NB, 109 Workman, George, 222, 223 worship: in the Church of England, 12, 16, 18; in Newfoundland Methodism, 35, 37 Wray, James, 41 "Wrestling Jacob" (C. Wesley), 248, 249-52 Yorkshire settlers, 37-8, 43, 109

21, 246

Zinzendorf, Nicolaus von, H