Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher | Page 6

tolerably well armed, were very indifferently shod for their long tramp over rough roads. They had no pretence to uniform save a belt and cartouch box, and a blanket rolled up tightly and worn like a huge scarf. As He walked his horse for awhile beside Tom Loker who had groomed his horse the night before, he told him what the squire had said about his joining the militia.
"Did he now?" said Tom. "Then my place will be open for me when I return. We'll be back time enough to help run in that beef and pork into the fort, won't we, Sandy?"
"That's as God pleases," said the Scotchman, a sturdy, grave- visaged man. "Ilka bullet has its billet; an' gin we're to coom back, back we'll coom, though it rained bullets all the way."
Neville bade them God speed and rode on to "Warner's meeting- house," as it was called. It was a large frame structure, utterly devoid of ornament, near the roadside. "Hitching" his horse to the fence, he went in. A meagre handful of Methodist preachers were present--not more than a dozen--indeed, the entire number in the province was very little more than that. In the chair, in front of the quaint, old-fashioned pulpit, which the present writer has often occupied, sat a man who would attract attention anywhere. He was nearly six feet in height, and of very muscular development; indeed tradition asserted that he had once been a prize-fighter. His dark hair was closely cut, which increased his resemblance to that especially unclerical and un-Methodistic character. This was the Rev. Henry Ryan, the Presiding Elder of the Upper Canada District--extending from Brockville to the Detroit River. [Footnote: The whole of Lower Canada formed another district, of which the celebrated Nathan Bangs was at that time Presiding Elder.] In a full rich voice, in which the least shade of an Irish accent could be discerned, he was addressing the little group of men before him. The ministers labouring in Canada had expected to meet their American brethren; but, on account of the outbreak of the war, the latter had remained on their own side of the river, and held their Conference near Rochester, New York State. The bishop, however, appointed the Canadian ministers to their circuits, but the relations of Methodism in the two countries were almost entirely interrupted during the war. A few of the ministers labouring in Canada obeyed what they conceived the dictates of prudence, and returned to the United States; but the most of them, although cut off from fellowship, and largely from sympathy with the Conference and Church by which they were appointed, continued steadfast at their posts and loyal to the institutions of the country, notwithstanding the obloquy, suspicion, and persecution to which they were often subjected. In this course they were greatly sustained and encouraged by the unfaltering faith and energy of Elder Ryan, who, though subsequently in his history he became a religious agitator, was at this period a most zealous and effective preacher, one who, in the words of Bishop Hedding, "laboured as if the thunders of the day of judgment were to follow each sermon." During the agitations and civil convulsions by which the country was disturbed, he continued to meet the preachers in annual conference, and endeavoured to maintain the ecclesiastical organization of Methodism till it was permitted to renew its relations with the mother Church of the United States.
On the present occasion, Elder Ryan gave a rousing exhortation, like the address of a general on the eve of a battle, that inspired courage in every heart. Then followed a few hours of deliberation and mutual council on the course to be adopted in the critical circumstances of the time. Certain prudential arrangements were made for maintaining the connexional unity of the Church under the stress of disorganizing influences, and certain provisions effected for the unforeseen contingencies of the war. Then, after commending one another to God in fervent prayer, and invoking His guidance of their lives and His blessing on their labours, they sang that noble battle hymn and marching song of Charles Wesley's:--
In flesh we part awhile, But still in spirit joined, To embrace the happy toil Thou hast to each assigned; And while we do Thy blessed will, We bear our heaven about us still.
They looked like a forlorn hope, like a despised and feeble remnant, but they were animated with the spirit of a conquering army. With many a hearty wring of the hand and fervent "God bless you!" and, not without eyes suffused with tears, they took their leave of one another, and fared forth on their lonely ways to their remote and arduous fields of toil.

CHAPTER II
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THE EVE OF BATTLE.
The next scene of our story opens on the eve of