X.

KING STREET: ST. JAMES' CHURCH--(_Continued._)

It is beginning, perhaps, to be thought preposterous that we have not as yet said anything of the occupants of the pulpit and desk, in our account of this church interior. We are just about to supply the deficiency.

Here was to be seen and heard, at his periodical visits, Charles James Stewart, the second Bishop of Quebec, a man of saintly character and presence; long a missionary in the Eastern Townships of Lower Canada, before his appointment to the Episcopate. The contour of his head and countenance, as well as something of his manner even, may be gathered from a remark of the late Dr. Primrose, of Toronto, who, while a stranger, had happened to drop in at the old wooden church when Bishop Stewart was preaching: "I just thought," the doctor said, "it was the old King in the pulpit!" _i. e._, George III.

Here Dr. Okill Stewart, formerly rector of this church, but subsequently of St. George's, Kingston, used occasionally, when visiting York, to officiate--a very tall, benevolent, and fine featured ecclesiastic, with a curious delivery, characterized by unexpected elevations and depressions of the voice irrespective of the matter, accompanied by long closings of the eyes, and then a sudden re-opening of the same. Whenever this preacher ascended the pulpit, one member of the congregation, Mr. George Duggan, who had had, it was understood, some trivial disagreement with the doctor during his incumbency in former years, was always expected, by on-lookers, to rise and walk out. And this he accordingly always did. The movement seemed a regular part of the programme of the day, and never occasioned any sensation.

Here the Rev. Joseph Hudson officiated now and then, a military chaplain, appointed at a comparatively late period to this post; a clergyman greatly beloved by the people of the town generally, both as a preacher and as a man. He was the first officiating minister we ever saw wearing the academical hood over the ordinary vestment.

Here, during the sittings of Parliament, of which he was chaplain, Mr. Addison, of Niagara, was sometimes to be heard. The Library of this scholarly divine of the old school was presented by him _en bloc_ to St. Mark's Church, Niagara, of which he was incumbent. It remained for some years at "Lake View," the private residence of Mr. Addison; but during the incumbency of Dr. McMurray, it has been removed to the rectory-house at Niagara, where it is to continue, in accordance with the first rector's will, for the use of the incumbent for the time being.

It is a remarkable collection, as exhibiting the line of reading of a thoughtful and intelligent man of the last century: many treatises and tracts of contemporary, but now defunct interest, not elsewhere to be met with, probably, in Canada, are therein preserved. The volumes, for the most part, retain their serviceable bindings of old pane-sided calf; but some of them, unfortunately, bear marks of the havoc made by damp and vermin before their transfer to their present secure place of shelter. Mr. Addison used to walk to and from Church in his canonicals in the old-fashioned way, recalling the Johnsonian period, when clergy very generally wore the cassock and gown in the streets.

Another chaplain to the Legislative Assembly was Mr. William Macaulay, a preacher always listened to with a peculiar attention, whenever he was to be heard in the pulpit here. Mr. Macaulay was a member of the Macaulay family settled at Kingston. He had been sent to Oxford, where he pursued his studies without troubling himself about a degree. While there he acquired the friendship of several men afterwards famous, especially of Whately, sometime Archbishop of Dublin, with whom a correspondence was maintained.

Mr. Macaulay's striking and always deeply-thoughtful manner was set off to advantage by the fine intellectual contour of his face and head, which were not unlike those to be seen in the portrait of Maltby, Bishop of Durham, usually prefixed to Morell's Thesaurus.

One more chaplain of the House may be named, frequently heard and seen in this church--Dr. Thomas Phillips--another divine, well read, of a type that has now disappeared. His personal appearance was very clerical in the old-fashioned sense. His countenance was of the class represented by that of the late Sir Henry Ellis, as finely figured, not long since, in the _Illustrated News_. He was one of the last wearers of hair-powder in these parts. In reading the Creed he always endeavoured to conform to the old English custom of turning towards the east; but to do this in the desk of the old church was difficult.

Dr. Phillips was formerly of Whitchurch, in Herefordshire. He died in 1849, aged 68, at Weston, on the Humber, where he founded and organized the parish of St. Philip. His body was borne to to its last resting-place by old pupils. We once had in our possession a pamphlet entitled "The Canadian Remembrancer, a Loyal Sermon, preached on St. George's Day, April 23, 1826, at the Episcopal Church (York), by the Rev. T. Phillips, D.D., Head Master of the Grammar School. Printed at the _Gazette_ Office."

There remains to be noticed the "pastor and master" of the whole assemblage customably gathered together in St. James' Church--Dr. John Strachan. On this spot, in successive edifices, each following the other in rapid succession, and each surpassing the other in dignity and propriety of architectural style, he, for more than half a century, was the principal figure.

The story of his career is well known, from his departure from Scotland, a poor but spirited youth, in 1799, to his decease in 1867, as first Bishop of Toronto, with its several intermediate stages of activity and promotion. His outward aspect and form are also familiar, from the numerous portraits of him that are everywhere to be seen. In stature slightly under the medium height, with countenance and head of the type of Milton's in middle age, without eloquence, without any extraordinary degree of originality of mind, he held together here a large congregation, consisting of heterogeneous elements, by the strength and moral force of his personal character. Qualities, innate to himself, decisiveness of intellect, firmness, a quick insight into things and men, with a certain fertility of resource, conspired to win for him the position which he filled, and enabled him to retain it with ease; to sustain, with a graceful and unassuming dignity, all the augmentations which naturally accumulated round it, as the community, of which he was so vital a part, grew and widened and rose to a higher and higher level, on the swelling tide of the general civilization of the continent.

In all his public ministrations he was to be seen officiating without affectation in manner or style. A stickler in ritual would have declared him indifferent to minutiae. He wore the white vesture of his office with an air of negligence, and his doctor's robe without any special attention to its artistic adjustment upon his person. A technical precisian in modern popular theology would pronounce him out now and then in his doctrine. What he seemed especially to drive at was not dogmatic accuracy so much as a well-regulated life, in childhood, youth and manhood. The good sense of the matter delivered--and it was never destitute of that quality--was solely relied on for the results to be produced: the topics of modern controversy never came up in his discourse: at the period to which we refer they were in most quarters dormant, their re-awakening deferred until the close of a thirty years' peace, but then destined to set mankind by the ears when now relieved from the turmoil of physical and material war, but roused to great intellectual activity.

Many a man that dropped in during the time of public worship, inclined from prejudice to be captious, inclined even to be merry over certain national peculiarities of utterance and diction, which to a stranger, for a time, made the matter delivered not easy to be understood, went out with quite a different sentiment in regard to the preacher and his words.

In the early days of Canada, a man of capacity was called upon, as we have seen in other instances, to play many parts. It required tact to play them all satisfactorily. In the case of Dr. Strachan--the voice that to-day would be heard in the pulpit, offering counsel and advice as to the application of sacred principles to life and conduct, in the presence of all the civil functionaries of the country, from Sir Peregrine Maitland to Mr. Chief Constable Higgins; from Chief Justice Powell to the usher of his court, Mr. Thomas Phipps; from Mr. Speaker Sherwood or McLean to Peter Shaver, Peter Perry, and the other popular representatives of the Commons in Parliament;--the voice that to-day would be heard in the desk leading liturgically the devotions of the same mixed multitude--to-morrow was to be heard by portions, large or small, of the same audience, amidst very different surroundings, in other quarters; by some of them, for example, at the Executive Council Board, giving a lucid judgment on a point of governmental policy, or in the Chamber of the Legislative Assembly, delivering a studied oration on a matter touching the interests and well-being of the whole population of the country, or reading an elaborate original report on the same or some cognate question, to be put forth as the judgment of a committee: or elsewhere, the same voice might be heard at a meeting for patriotic purposes; at the meeting of a Hospital, Educational, or other important secular Trust; at an emergency meeting, when sudden action was needed on the part of the charitable and benevolent.

Without fail, that voice would be heard by a large portion of the juniors of the flock on the following day, amidst the busy commotion of School, apportioning tasks, correcting errors, deciding appeals, regulating discipline; at one time formally instructing, at another jocosely chaffing, the sons and nephews of nearly all the well-to-do people, gentle and simple, of York and Upper Canada.

To have done all this without awkwardness shews the possession of much prudence and tact. To have had all this go on for some decades without any blame that was intended to be taken in very serious earnest; nay, winning in the process applause and gratitude on the right hand and on the left--this argues the existence of something very sterling in the man.

Nor let us local moderns, whose lot it is to be part and parcel of a society no longer rudimentary, venture to condemn one who while especially appointed to be a conspicuous minister of religion, did not decline the functions, diverse and multiform, which an infant society, discerning the qualities inherent in him, and lacking instruments for its uses, summoned him to undertake. Let no modern caviller, we say, do this, unless he is prepared to avow the opinion that to be a minister of religion, a man must, of necessity, be only partially-developed in mind and spirit, incapable, as a matter of course, of offering an opinion of value on subjects of general human interest.

The long possession of unchallenged authority within the immediate area of his ecclesiastical labours, rendered Dr. Strachan for some time opposed to the projects that began, as the years rolled on, to be mooted for additional churches in the town of York. He could not readily be induced to think otherwise than as the Duke of Wellington thought in regard to Reform in the representation, or as ex-Chancellor Eldon thought in regard to greater promptitude in Chancery decisions, that there was no positive need of change.

"Would you break up the congregation?" was the sharp rejoinder to the early propounders of schemes for Church-extension in York. But as years passed over, and the imperious pressure of events and circumstances was felt, this reluctance gave way. The beautiful cathedral mother-church, into which, under his own eye, and through his own individual energy, the humble wooden edifice of 1803 at length, by various gradations, developed, forms now a fitting mausoleum for his mortal remains--a stately monument to one who was here in his day the human main-spring of so many vitally-important and far-reaching movements.

Other memorials in his honour have been projected and thought of. One of them we record for its boldness and originality and fitness, although we have no expectation that the aesthetic feeling of the community will soon lead to the practical adoption of the idea thrown out. The suggestion has been this: that in honour of the deceased Bishop, there should be erected, in some public place, in Toronto, an exact copy of Michael Angelo's Moses, to be executed at Rome for the purpose, and shipped hither. The conception of such a form of monument is due to the Rev. W. Macaulay, of Picton. We need not say what dignity would be given to the whole of Toronto by the possession of such a memorial object within its precincts as this, and how great, in all future time, would be the effect, morally and educationally, when the symbolism of the art-object was discovered and understood. Its huge bulk, its boldly-chiselled and only partially-finished limbs and drapery, raised aloft on a plain pedestal of some Laurentian rock, would represent, not ill, the man whom it would commemorate--the character, roughly-outlined and incomplete in parts, but, when taken as a whole, very impressive and even grand, which looms up before us, whichever way we look, in our local Past.

One of the things that ennoble the old cities of continental Europe and give them their own peculiar charm, is the existence of such objects in their streets and squares, at once works of art for the general eye, and memorials of departed worth and greatness. With what interest, for example, does the visitor gaze on the statue of Gutenberg at Mayence; and at Marseilles on that of the good Bishop Belzunce!--of whom we read, that he was at once "the founder of a college, and a magistrate, almoner, physician and priest to his people." The space in front of the west porch of the cathedral of St. James would be an appropriate site for such a noble memorial-object as that which Mr. Macaulay suggests--just at the spot where was the entrance, the one sole humble portal, of the structure of wood out of which the existing pile has grown.

Our notice of the assembly usually to be seen within the walls of the primitive St. James', would not be complete, were we to omit all mention of Mr. John Fenton, who for some time officiated therein as parish clerk. During the palmy days of parish clerks in the British Islands, such functionaries, deemed at the time, locally, as indispensable as the parish minister himself, were a very peculiar class of men. He was a rarity amongst them, who could repeat in a rational tone and manner the responses delegated to him by the congregation. This arose from the circumstance that he was usually an all but illiterate village rustic, or narrow-minded small-townsman, brought into a prominence felt on all sides to be awkward.

Mr. Fenton's peculiarities, on the contrary, arose from his intelligence, his acquirements, and his independence of character. He was a rather small shrewd-featured person, at a glance not deficient in self-esteem. He was a proficient in modern popular science, a ready talker and lecturer. Being only a proxy, his rendering of the official responses in church was marked perhaps by a little too much individuality, but it could not be said that it was destitute of a certain rhetorical propriety of emphasis and intonation. Though not gifted, in his own person, with much melody of voice, his acquisitions included some knowledge of music. In those days congregational psalmody was at a low ebb, and the small choirs that offered themselves fluctuated, and now and then vanished wholly. Not unfrequently, Mr. Fenton, after giving out the portion of Brady and Tate, which it pleased him to select, would execute the whole of it as a solo, to some accustomed air, with graceful variations of his own. All this would be done with great coolness and apparent self-satisfaction.

While the discourse was going on in the Pulpit above him, it was his way, often, to lean himself resignedly back in a corner of his pew and throw a white cambric handkerchief over his head and face. It illustrates the spirit of the day to add, that Mr. Fenton's employment as official mouth-piece to the congregation of the English Church, did not stand in the way of his making himself useful, at the same time, as a class-leader among the Wesleyan Methodists.

The temperament and general style of this gentleman did not fail of course to produce irritation of mind in some quarters. The _Colonial Advocate_ one morning averred its belief that Mr. Fenton had, on the preceding Sunday, glanced at itself and its patrons in giving out and singing (probably as a solo) the Twelfth Psalm: "Help, Lord, for good and godly men do perish and decay; and faith and truth from worldly men are parted clean away; whoso doth with his neighbour talk, his talk is all but vain; for every man bethinketh now to flatter, lie and feign!" Mr. Fenton afterwards removed to the United States, where he obtained Holy Orders in the Episcopal Church. His son was a clever and ingenious youth. We remember a capital model in wood of "Caesar's Bridge over the Rhine," constructed by him from a copper-plate engraving in an old edition of the Commentaries used by him in the Grammar School at York.

The predecessor of Mr. Fenton in the clerk's desk was Mr. Hetherington--a functionary of the old-country village stamp. His habit was, after giving out a psalm, to play the air on a bassoon; and then to accompany with fantasias on the same instrument such vocalists as felt inclined to take part in the singing. This was the day of small things in respect of ecclesiastical music at York. A choir from time to time had been formed. Once, we have understood, two rival choirs were heard on trial in the Church; one of them strong in instrumental resources, having the aid of a bass-viol, clarionet and bassoon; the other more dependent on its vocal excellencies. The instrumental choir triumphantly prevailed, as we are assured: and in 1819 an allowance of L20 was made to Mr. Hetherington for giving instruction in church music. One of the principal encouragers of the vocalist-party was Dr. Burnside. But all expedients for doing what was, in reality, the work of the congregation itself were unreliable; and the clerk or choir-master too often found himself a solitary performer. Mr. Hetherington's bassoon, however, may be regarded as the harbinger and foreshadow of the magnificent organ presented in after-times to the congregation of the "Second Temple" of St. James', by Mr. Dunn--a costly and fine-toned instrument (presided over, for a short time, by the eminent Dr. Hodges, subsequently of Trinity Church, New York), but destined to be destroyed by fire, together with the whole church, after only two years of existence, in 1839.

In the conflagration of 1839 another loss occurred, not so much to be regretted; we refer to the destruction of a very large triplet window of stained glass over the altar of the church, containing three life-size figures by Mr. Craig, a local "historical and ornamental painter," not well skilled in the ecclesiastical style. As home-productions, however, these objects were tenderly eyed; but Mrs. Jameson in her work on Canada cruelly denounced them as being "in a vile tawdry taste."--Conceive, in the presence of these three Craigs, the critical authoress of the "History of Sacred and Legendary art," accustomed, in the sublime cathedrals of Europe, to

"See the great windows like the jewell'd gates Of Paradise, burning with harmless fire."

Mr. Dunn, named above as donor of an organ to the second St. James', had provided the previous wooden church with Communion Plate. In the _Loyalist_ of March 1, 1828, we read: "The undersigned acknowledges the receipt of L112 18 5 from the Hon. John Henry Dunn, being the price of a superb set of Communion Plate presented by him to St. James' Church at this place. J. B. Macaulay, Church Warden, York, 23rd Feb., 1828."

Before leaving St. James' Church and its precincts, it may be well to give some account of the steps taken in 1818, for the enlargement of the original building. This we are enabled to do, having before us an all but contemporary narrative. It will be seen that great adroitness was employed in making the scheme acceptable, and that pains were shrewdly taken to prevent a burdensome sense of self-sacrifice on the part of the congregation. At the same time a pleasant instance of voluntary liberality is recorded. "A very respectable church was built at York in the Home District, many years ago"--the narrative referred to, in the _Christian Recorder_ for 1819, p. 214, proceeds to state--"which at that time accommodated the inhabitants; but for some years past, it has been found too small, and several attempts were made to enlarge and repair it. At length, in April 1818, in a meeting of the whole congregation, it was resolved to enlarge the church, and a committee was appointed to suggest the most expeditious and economical method of doing it. The committee reported that a subscription in the way of loan, to be repaid when the seats were sold, was the most promising method. No subscription to be taken under twenty-five pounds, payable in four instalments."

"Two gentlemen," the narrative continues, "were selected to carry the subscription paper round; and in three hours from twelve to thirteen hundred pounds were subscribed. Almost all the respectable gentlemen gave in loan Fifty Pounds; and the Hon. Justice Boulton, and George Crookshank, Esq., contributed L100 each, to accomplish so good an object. The church was enlarged, a steeple erected, and the whole building with its galleries, handsomely finished. In January last (1819)," our authority proceeds to say, "when everything was completed, the pews were sold at a year's credit, and brought more money than the repairs and enlargement cost. Therefore," it is triumphantly added, "the inhabitants at York erect a very handsome church at a very little expense to themselves, for every one may have his subscription money returned, or it may go towards payment of a pew; and, what is more, the persons who subscribed for the first church count the amount of their subscription as part of the price of their new pews. This fair arrangement has been eminently successful; and gave great satisfaction."

The special instance of graceful voluntary liberality above referred to is then subjoined in these terms: "George Crookshank, Esq., notwithstanding the greatness of his subscription, and the pains which he took in getting the church well finished, has presented the clergyman with cushions for the pulpit and reading desk, covered with the richest and finest damask; and likewise cloth for the communion-table." "This pious liberality," the writer remarks, "cannot be too much commended; it tells us that the benevolent zeal of ancient times is not entirely done away. The congregation were so much pleased," it is further recorded, "that a vote of thanks was unanimously offered to Mr. Crookshank for his munificent present." (The pulpit, sounding-board, and desk had been a gift of Governor Gore to the original church, and had cost the sum of one hundred dollars.)

When the necessity arose in 1830 for replacing the church thus enlarged and improved, by an entirely new edifice of more respectable dimensions, the same cool, secular ingenuity was again displayed in the scheme proposed; and it was resolved by the congregation (among other things) "that the pew-holders of the present church, if they demanded the same, be credited one-third of the price of the pews that they purchased in the new church, not exceeding in number those which they possessed in the old church; that no person be entitled to the privilege granted by the last resolution who shall not have paid up the whole purchase money of his pew in the old church; that the present church remain as it is, till the new one is finished; that after the new church is completed, the materials of the present one be sold to the highest bidder, and the proceeds of the same be applied to the liquidation of any debt that may be contracted in erecting the new church, or furnishing the same; that the upset price of pews in the new church be twenty-five pounds currency;" and so on.

The stone edifice then erected (measuring within about 100 by 75 feet), but never completed in so far as related to its tower, was destroyed by fire in 1839. Fire, in truth, may be said to be, sooner or later, the "natural death" of public buildings in our climate, where, for so many months in every year, the maintenance within them of a powerful artificial heat is indispensable.

Ten years after the re-edification of the St. James' burnt in 1839, its fate was again to be totally destroyed. But now fire was communicated to it from an external source--from a general conflagration raging at the time in the part of the town lying to the eastward. On this occasion was destroyed in the belfry of the tower, a Public Clock, presented to the inhabitants of Toronto, by Mr. Draper, on his ceasing to be one of their representatives in Parliament.

In the later annals of St. James' Church, the year 1873 is memorable.

Several very important details in Mr. Cumberland's noble design for the building had long remained unrealized. The tower and spire were absent: as also the fine porches on the east, west, and south sides, the turrets at the angles, and the pinnacles and finials of the buttresses. Meanwhile the several parts of the structure where these appendages were, in due time, to be added, were left in a condition to shew to the public the mind and intention of the architect.

In 1872, by the voluntary munificence of several members of the congregation, a fund for the completion of the edifice in accordance with Mr. Cumberland's plans was initiated, to which generous donations were immediately added; and in 1873 the edifice, of whose humble "protoplasm" in 1803 we have sought, in a preceding section, to preserve the memory, was finally brought to a state of perfection.

By the completion of St. James' Church, a noble aspect has been given to the general view of Toronto. Especially has King Street been enriched, the ranges of buildings on its northern side, as seen from east or west, culminating centrically now in an elevated architectural object of striking beauty and grandeur, worthy alike of the comely, cheerful, interesting thoroughfare which it overlooks, and of the era when the finial crowning its apex was at length set in its place.

Worthy of special commemorative record are those whose thoughtful liberality originated the fund by means of which St. James' Church was completed. The Dean, the Very Rev. H. J. Grasett, gave the handsome sum of Five thousand dollars. Mr. John Worthington, Four thousand dollars. Mr. C. Gzowski, Two thousand dollars. Mr. J. Gillespie, One thousand dollars. Mr. E. H. Rutherford, One thousand dollars. Mr. W. Cawthra, One thousand dollars. Mr. Gooderham and Mr. Worts, conjointly, One thousand dollars. Miss Gordon, the daughter of a former ever-generous member of the congregation, the Hon. J. Gordon, One thousand dollars. Sums, in endless variety, from Eight Hundred dollars downwards, were in a like good spirit offered on the occasion by other members of the congregation, according to their means. An association of young men connected with the congregation undertook and effected the erection of the Southern Porch.

Let it be added, likewise, that in 1866, the sum of Fourteen thousand nine hundred and forty-five dollars was expended in the purchase of a peal of bells, and in providing a chamber for its reception in the tower--a free gift to the whole community greatly surpassing in money's worth the sum above named: for have not the chimes, with all old-countrymen at least, within the range of their sound, the effect of an instantaneous translation to the other side of the Atlantic? Close the eyes, and at once the spirit is far, far away, hearkening, now in the calm of a summer's evening, now between the fitful wind-gusts of a boisterous winter's morn, to music in exactly the same key, with exactly the same series of cadences, given out from tree-embosomed tower in some ancient market-town or village, familiar to the listener in every turn and nook, in days bygone.

And further, let it be added, that in 1870, to do honour to the memory of the then recently deceased Bishop Strachan, the congregation of St. James "beautified" the chancel of their church at a cost of Seven thousand five hundred dollars, surrounding the spacious apse with an arcade of finely carved oak, adding seats for the canons, a decanal stall, a bishop's throne, a pulpit and desk, all in the same style and material, elaborately carved, with a life-like bust in white marble of the departed prelate, by Fraser of Montreal, in a niche constructed for its reception in the western wall of the chancel, with a slab of dark stone below bearing the following inscription in gilded letters:--

"NEAR THIS SPOT REST THE MORTAL REMAINS OF JOHN STRACHAN, FIRST BISHOP OF TORONTO, WHO DEPARTED THIS LIFE NOVEMBER THE 1ST, 1867, IN THE NINETIETH YEAR OF HIS AGE AND THE TWENTY-NINTH OF HIS EPISCOPATE. HIS CONSPICUOUS LABOURS, FORESIGHT, AND CONSTANCY IN THE SERVICE OF THE CHURCH AND COMMONWEALTH, AS AN EDUCATOR, AS A MINISTER OF RELIGION, AS A STATESMAN, FORM AN IMPORTANT PORTION OF THE EARLY HISTORY OF WESTERN CANADA. DURING THIRTY-FIVE YEARS HE WAS RECTOR OF THIS CHURCH AND PARISH. IN REMEMBRANCE OF HIM, THE CONGREGATION HAVE BEAUTIFIED THE CHANCEL AND ERECTED THIS MEMORIAL. EASTER, 1870."

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