As long as the generality of the houses are roofed with shingles, this liability to fire must exist as a necessary consequence.
The shingle is a very thin pine-board, which is used throughout the colony instead of slate or tiles. After a few years, the heat and rain roughen the outward surface, and give it a woolly appearance, rendering the shingles as inflammable as tinder. A spark from a chimney may be conveyed from a great distance on a windy day, and lighting upon the furry surface of these roofs, is sure to ignite. The danger spreads on all sides, and the roofs of a whole street will be burning before the fire communicates to the walls of the buildings.
So many destructive fires have occurred of late years throughout the colony that a law has been enacted by the municipal councils to prevent the erection of wooden buildings in the large cities. But without the additional precaution of fire-proof roofs, the prohibition will not produce very beneficial effects.
Two other very pretty churches occupy the same hill with the Catholics and Episcopal,--the Scotch Residuary, and the Free Church. The latter is built of dark limestone, quarried in the neighbourhood, and is a remarkably graceful structure. It has been raised by the hearty goodwill and free donations of its congregation, and affords another capital illustration of the working of the voluntary principle.
To the soul-fettering doctrines of John Calvin I am myself no convert; nor do I think that the churches established on his views will very long exist in the world. Stern, uncompromising, unloveable and unloved, an object of fear rather than of affection, John Calvin stands out the incarnation of his own Deity; verifying one of the noblest and truest sentences ever penned by man:--"As the man, so his God. God is his idea of excellence, the compliment of his own being."
The Residuary church is a small neat building of wood, painted white. For several years after the great split in the National Church of Scotland, it was shut up, the few who still adhered to the old way being unable to contribute much to the support of a minister. The church has been reopened within the last two years, and, though the congregation is very small, has a regular pastor.
The large edifice beneath us, in Pinacle street, leading to the bay, is the Wesleyan Methodist church, or chapel, as it would be termed at home. Thanks to the liberal institutions of the country, such distinctions are unknown in Canada. Every community of Christian worshippers is rightly termed a church. The Church is only arrogated by one.
The Wesleyans, who have been of infinite use in spreading the Gospel on the North American continent, possess a numerous and highly respectable congregation in this place. Their church is always supplied with good and efficient preachers, and is filled on the Sabbath to overflowing. They have a very fine choir, and lately purchased an organ, which was constructed by one of their own members, a genius in his way, for which they gave the handsome sum of a thousand dollars.
There is also an Episcopal Methodist church, composed of red brick, at the upper end of the town, by the river side, which is well attended.
You can scarcely adopt a better plan of judging of the wealth and prosperity of a town, than by watching, of a Sabbath morning, the congregations of the different denominations going to church. Belleville weekly presents to the eye of an observing spectator a large body of well-dressed, happy-looking people,--robust, healthy, independent-looking men, and well-formed, handsome women;--an air of content and comfort resting upon their comely faces,--no look of haggard care and pinching want marring the quiet solemnity of the scene.