laudable Practice

At this time of year, as October days shorten and the leaves begin to fall, my thoughts usually turn to a certain colonial-era Dutch Reformed church, "in the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson": It stands on a knoll, surrounded by locust-trees and lofty elms, from among which its decent, whitewashed walls shine modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming through the shades of retirement. A gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet of water, bordered by high trees, between which, peeps may be caught at the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its grass-grown yard, where the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at least the dead might rest in peace. On one side of the church extends a wide woody dell, along which raves a large brook among broken rocks and trunks of fallen trees. Over a deep black part of the stream, not far from the church, was formerly thrown a wooden bridge; the road that led to...

A recent article on the Covenant site made for incredibly grim reading for those of us who value the heritage of Canadian Anglicanism. Reflecting on newly-published statistics from the Anglican Church of Canada, the opening sentence of the article declared, "Canada is the first major province of the Anglican Communion to have collapsed". While we might have questions about the conclusions drawn by the article, there is little doubt that the statistics to which it refers are devastating. This being so, one might wonder what value or relevance there may be in celebrating the witness and legacy of Charles Inglis. Not only is secular, 21st century Canada far removed from the political, social, and cultural views of the Loyalist Inglis; the predominant progressive concerns of contemporary Canadian Anglicanism are, to say the least, radically different to the Old High thought and sensibilities embodied by Inglis. We might suggest, however, that it is precisely such an approach whi...

As Canadian friends celebrate Thanksgiving, my thoughts turn to Old Holy Trinity, Middleton, Nova Scotia .  During the Summer, I happened across pictures of the church on social media and reproduced them for a post celebrating Charles Inglis , commemorated in the Church of Ireland calendar on 16th August. I then read Brian McConnell's delightful history of Old Holy Trinity, The First Church , a title referring to this being the oldest church built by United Empire Loyalists in the lands that would become Canada.  On this Thanksgiving Day, those of us elsewhere who value Canadian Anglicanism can look to Old Holy Trinity as embodying a heritage, virtues, and theological commitments which represent the best - and, we might add, future hope - of Anglican life and witness in Canada.  Unfashionable though it may be within official Canadian Anglican circles to recall the significance of the Loyalists to the foundation of Anglicanism in the True North, the story of those Loyalist...

On Canadian Thanksgiving Day , in giving thanks for the role of the United Empire Loyalists in ensuring that, after the American War, the Anglican way took root in the lands of Canada, we were introduced to the SPG missionary John Doty.  As he ministered to a small community of Loyalists in Sorel, Quebec, he informed the Society in London that it was a "mixed society consisting of Dissenters, Lutherans, and churchmen". He noted, however, that his being the only Protestant service in the area, "all attend Divine worship": The Dissenters conforming to the liturgy, and the Lutherans, without exception, declaring to be members of our church. It is the reference to the Lutherans that is particularly interesting because it continues a pattern that was seen in the American colonies before the rebellion.  For example, SPG and the Bishop of London helped to support Swedish churches in Delaware , including employing missionaries in Swedish orders to minister to these communi...

Over recent years, laudable Practice has marked Canadian Thanksgiving Day by giving thanks for particular aspects of the character of Anglicanism in the True North .  This year, I turn to a sermon preached in 1785 , to a settlement of United Empire Loyalists in Sorel, Quebec, by a cleric - John Doty - who had been an active Loyalist during the Revolutionary War. Doty, born in New York, had received orders in the Church of England in 1770, before serving as rector to two churches in the province of New York.  During the American War he was chaplain to a regular British unit and then to the King's Royal Regiment of New York , a Loyalist unit, many of whose officers and men, with their families, found refuge in Quebec at the conclusion of the war. And it was in Sorel, Quebec, that Doty was to be found at the war's end, conducting divine service for the first time in that settlement on - rather ironically - 4th July 1784. According to a history of Christ Church, Sorel - the c...