BEFORE churches were built in the early settlements services were held by itinerant preachers at the houses of the people, or else in the school-houses, if accessible. Most of these itinerant preachers were earnest, zealous men, and labored honestly for what they considered to be right and their duty. Subsisting upon the cosmopolitan (to them) parishioners, their real need of money was not excessive. It is related of many of them that they did not receive in money more than $50 to $100 per year during their whole stay in the vicinity. Donations in kind being frequent, and usually abundant, the need of money was not felt. Money, indeed, to the pioneer was too precious to be lightly paid out, or even talked over, except of necessity. Most of the settlers in the neighboring townships who had not received Royal grants, had bought their lands from the Crown, the Canada Company, or the Bursar of Toronto University.
Although the price was usually about $4 per acre, with long terms allowed for payment, and the vendors were very lenient, yet pay-day inevitably came around, and every Halifax pound obtained must be hoarded against it.
My earliest recollection of an itinerant preacher is of one particular man whose visits were made quarterly, and who always sang at night:
“How happy is the man
Who has chosen wisdom’s ways,
And has measured out his span,
To his God in prayer and praise.”
He was as happy and light-hearted as the birds of the air. His hands were not hardened by incessant chopping of forest trees, nor was his face blackened by burning log-heaps. Just how it was I never quite knew, but one day he borrowed a saddle and $40 from my father, and forgot to come back again. My father did not, so far as I can remember, participate in the ideal joys of this itinerant, nor did he seem to be disturbed or unhappy from deprivation of them.
The genuine camp-meeting was every summer the great feature, and was looked upon as the special means of grace. Tents and shanties were put up in a grove, and furnished with rude tables and beds, with seats arranged outside, and a rostrum for the minister. Four crotched sticks were stuck in the ground, with beams across, and sticks upon the beams. On these earth was laid to make a hearth, and a fire built on it. Such elevated fires shed weird lurid gleams over the scene at night. So far as I can recollect I have never seen (and I have seen a little of all lands) anything more picturesque. The shouting preacher, the groaning penitents, the managers or elders flitting about among the hearers, while mischievous, unsympathizing boys perched on the trees, ready for any prank which might present itself; each separate platform of fire casting its dancing shadows, showing up each detail distinctly—all combining to make a scene never to be forgotten. (See [page 209].)
The camp-meeting generally lasted a week, and I would not for a single moment wish to convey the idea that much good was not accomplished by these gatherings, although they certainly were not without some traces of fanaticism.
The “Millerite scare,” as it might be called, was another instance of the extent to which religious fanatics could influence their hearers and affect their lives. From some manuscript left by my mother, and the account given me by my father, and by my uncle, David Annis, I have gleaned the following anecdotes of this curious event in our country:
During the winter of 1842-3 the Second Adventists, or Millerites, were preaching that the world would be all burnt up in February, 1843. Nightly meetings were held, generally in the school-houses. One E—H—, about Prince Albert, Ont., owned a farm of one hundred acres and upwards, stocked with cattle and farm produce, as well as having implements of agriculture. So strongly did he embrace the Second Advent doctrines of the Millerites that he had not a doubt of the fire to come in February and burn all up, and in confirmation of his faith gave away his stock, implements and farm. Sarah Terwilligar, who lived about a mile east of Oshawa “corners,” on the Kingston Road, made for herself wings of silk, and, on the night of 14th of February, jumped off the porch of her home, expecting to fly heavenward. Falling to the ground some fifteen feet, she was shaken up severely and rendered wholly unfit to attend at all to the fires that were expected to follow the next day. (See [page 220].)