Life in the Clearings versus the BushMoodie, Susanna
History
Life in the Clearings versus the Bush
Moodie, Susanna
Frontier and pioneer life -- Ontario; Moodie, Susannah, 1803-1885; Ontario -- Description and travel
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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