Toronto of Old: Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of OntarioScadding, Henry
History
Toronto of Old: Collections and recollections illustrative of the early settlement and social life of the capital of Ontario
Scadding, Henry
Toronto (Ont.) -- Description and travel; Toronto (Ont.) -- History
Dr. Phillips was formerly of Whitchurch, in Herefordshire. He died in
1849, aged 68, at Weston, on the Humber, where he founded and organized
the parish of St. Philip. His body was borne to to its last
resting-place by old pupils. We once had in our possession a pamphlet
entitled "The Canadian Remembrancer, a Loyal Sermon, preached on St.
George's Day, April 23, 1826, at the Episcopal Church (York), by the
Rev. T. Phillips, D.D., Head Master of the Grammar School. Printed at
the _Gazette_ Office."
There remains to be noticed the "pastor and master" of the whole
assemblage customably gathered together in St. James' Church--Dr. John
Strachan. On this spot, in successive edifices, each following the other
in rapid succession, and each surpassing the other in dignity and
propriety of architectural style, he, for more than half a century, was
the principal figure.
The story of his career is well known, from his departure from Scotland,
a poor but spirited youth, in 1799, to his decease in 1867, as first
Bishop of Toronto, with its several intermediate stages of activity and
promotion. His outward aspect and form are also familiar, from the
numerous portraits of him that are everywhere to be seen. In stature
slightly under the medium height, with countenance and head of the type
of Milton's in middle age, without eloquence, without any extraordinary
degree of originality of mind, he held together here a large
congregation, consisting of heterogeneous elements, by the strength and
moral force of his personal character. Qualities, innate to himself,
decisiveness of intellect, firmness, a quick insight into things and
men, with a certain fertility of resource, conspired to win for him the
position which he filled, and enabled him to retain it with ease; to
sustain, with a graceful and unassuming dignity, all the augmentations
which naturally accumulated round it, as the community, of which he was
so vital a part, grew and widened and rose to a higher and higher level,
on the swelling tide of the general civilization of the continent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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