TORONTO OF OLD.
The state of religion in Canada could not be expected to be
prosperous during the prevalence of the demoralizing influences of
war. The Methodist circuit work, as well as the work of other
denominations, was very much disorganized. It was, from the
interruption of intercourse caused by the unnatural conflict,
without any supervision of the American Conference by which the
Canadian preachers had been stationed. They were consequently left
to their own resources to carry on their work as best they could,
and most of them struggled bravely, like Neville Trueman, the
example we have selected for illustration, against the various
obstacles in their way--the recklessness and spiritual
indifference begotten by the war--and the unjust and cruel
suspicions and aspersions to which they were themselves subject.
The Rev. Henry Ryan, as Presiding Elder of the Upper Canada
District--extending from the banks of the St. Lawrence to the
banks of the St. Clair--endeavoured, by frequent journeyings
throughout the vast field, to encourage both preachers and people
in carrying on the work of God, amid the disheartenments and
difficulties of the times. The Rev. Ezra Adams, in his
recollections of the period, says, "He used to travel from
Montreal to Sandwich, holding Quarterly Meetings: to accomplish
which, he kept two horses at his home at the Twenty Mile Creek,
and used one on his trip from the Niagara Circuit on his down
country route; the other he used on his Sandwich route."
Supplementing this statement with additional facts, the Rev. Dr.
Carroll, in his invaluable "History of Canadian Methodism,"
further remarks: "As his income was very small and precarious, he
eked out the sum necessary to support his family by selling a
manufacture of his own in his extensive journeys, and by hauling,
with his double team in winter time, on his return route from
Lower Canada, loads of Government stores or general merchandise."
Such were the shifts to which Methodist preachers had to resort in
order to sustain themselves in a work which they would not desert.
Mr. Ryan, by his loyalty, gained the confidence and admiration of
all friends of British supremacy, and, by his abundant and heroic
labours, the affections of the God-fearing part of the community.
During the progress of the war he held three Conferences, one as
we have seen at St. David's; another, in 1813, at Matilda; and a
third, the following year, at the old Methodist settlement of the
Bay of Quinte.
After the burning of Niagara, and the complete disorganization of
his circuit by the border strife, Neville Trueman sought an
interview with his Presiding Elder during one of his periodical
visits to the town of York. In consequence of the military
exigencies of the times, navigation was maintained across the lake
by armed brigs and schooners during the greater part of the
winter. Taking advantage of one of these trips, Neville obtained
permission from the military authorities to take passage in the
armed schooner _Princess Charlotte_ to York. The voyage was
tedious and the weather bleak, so he suffered severely from the
cold. As York harbour was frozen over, he landed on the ice and
made his way to the twice-captured capital. It presented anything
but a striking appearance, unless for dreariness and ruin. The
half-burned timbers of the Parliament Building, Jail, and Court-
House, showed in all their hideous blackness through the snow that
failed to conceal beneath its mantle of white the desolation of
the scene. In its most flourishing estate before the war, the town
hardly numbered some nine hundred inhabitants, whose residences,
for the most part humble wooden structures, were grouped along the
loyally-named King Street, near the river Don. At the western
extremity of the straggling town were the ruin-mounds of the fort,
rent and torn by the terrific explosion of its magazine. On the
banks of the Don, and commanding the bridge across that sluggish
stream, as though the enemy thought it not worth the trouble of
destroying, stood a rude log blockhouse, loop-holed for musketry,
the upper story projecting over the lower, after the manner of
such structures. [Footnote: A cut of this is given in "Lossing's
Field Book of the War."]
Neville proceeded to the hospitable house of Dr. Stoyles, on King
Street, near the intersection of the little-used road leading to
the country,--Yonge Street, now the great artery of the
circulation of the city. Till the erection of the first humble
meeting-house, the Methodist preaching was often held in Dr.
Stoyles' house. That gentleman also gave a cordial welcome to the
travelling preachers of the day, and here Trueman found, as he
expected, Presiding Elder Henry Ryan.
The following is the account given by Dr. Scadding, our Canadian
historiographer and antiquarian, in his charming book "Toronto of
Old," of the mother Church of Methodism in this goodly city, the
parent of the fair sisterhood which now adorn its streets: "The
first place of public worship of the Methodists was a long, low,
wooden building, running north and south, and placed a little way
back from the street. Its dimensions were forty by sixty feet. In
the gable end towards the street were two doors, one for each sex.
Within, the custom obtained of dividing the men from the women;
the former sitting on the right hand on entering the building, the
latter on the left."
The learned Doctor then goes on to illustrate historically the
separation of the sexes in places of public worship, from the time
of the Jews and the primitive church down to the modern Greek
Church, so that at least the early Methodists had good precedent
for their usage.
This old church was situated on the south side of King Street, on
the corner of Jordan Street, so named from Mr. Jordan Post, the
pioneer goldsmith of the capital, while the street in the rear
commemorates the name of Melinda, his wife. When the Adelaide
Street Church, which, for the time, was a very imposing brick
structure, was built on what was then the public square, the old
mother church was converted into a "Theatre Royal,"--to what base
uses must we come!
All this, however, at the time of which we write, was still in the
future; and Elder Ryan preached and prayed and exhorted to a
little company in the worthy Dr. Stoyles' great kitchen, which was
employed for that purpose as being the most commodious room in the
house. It was the day of small things for Methodism in the capital
of Upper Canada. But of the religious zeal of the little company
of believers, we may judge from the fact that several of the
members of the society came from two to eight miles, through the
proverbially wretched roads of "Muddy York," to the class meeting.
[Footnote: Carroll's "Case and his Cotemporaries," Vol. II., p.
167.]