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 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.