Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher | Page 6

urgent. Breakfast was served in the huge
kitchen, the squire, his guest, his children, and the hired men all sitting
at the same table, like a feudal lord, with his men-at-arms, in an old
baronial hall.
"Father," said Zenas, "Tom Loker and Sandy McKay have gone off
with the militia. They went to the village last night and signed the
muster-roll. I saw them marching past with some more of the boys and
the redcoats early this morning."
"I saw them, too," said the squire. "They needn't have given me the slip
that way. It will leave me short-handed; but I wouldn't have said nay if
they wanted to go."
After breakfast Neville mounted his horse and rode off to the place
appointed for holding the Methodist Conference,--the new
meeting-house near St. David's. He soon overtook the detachment of
militia, which was marching to join, at Long Point, the main force
which Brock was to lead thither from York by way of Ancaster. He
noticed that the men, though 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