Neville Trueman, the Pioneer Preacher : a tale of the war of 1812

Now lower the dreadful clouds of war;

Its threatening thunder rolls afar;

Near and more near the rude alarms

Of conflict and the clash of arms

Advance and grow, till all the air

Rings with the brazen trumpet blare.

Towards the close of a sultry day in July, in the year 1812, might have been seen a young man riding along the beautiful west bank of the Niagara River, about three miles above its mouth. His appearance would anywhere have attracted attention. He was small in person and singularly neat in his attire. By exposure to summer's sun and winter's cold, his complexion was richly bronzed, but, as he lifted his broad-leafed felt hat to cool his brow, it could be seen that his forehead was smooth and white and of a noble fulness, indicating superior intellectual abilities. His hair was dark,

-his eye beneath

Flashed like falchion from its sheath.

His bright, quick glances, alternating with a full and steady gaze, betokened a mind keenly sympathetic with emotions both of sorrow and of joy. His dress and accoutrements were those of a travelling Methodist preacher of the period. He wore a suit of "parson's grey," the coat having a straight collar and being somewhat rounded away in front. His buckskin leggings, which descended to his stirrups, were splashed with mud, for the day had been rainy. He was well mounted on a light-built, active-looking chestnut horse. The indispensable saddle-bags, containing his Greek Testament, Bible, and Wesley's Hymns, and a few personal necessaries, were secured across the saddle. A small, round, leathern valise, with a few changes of linen, and his coarse frieze great-coat were strapped on behind. Such was a typical example of the "clerical cavalry" who, in the early years of this century, ranged through the wilderness of Canada, fording or swimming rivers, toiling through forests and swamps, and carrying the gospel of Christ to the remotest settlers in the backwoods.

Our young friend, the Rev. Neville Trueman, afterwards a prominent figure in the history of early Methodism, halted his horse on a bluff jutting out into the Niagara River, both to enjoy the refreshing breeze that swept over the water and to admire the beautiful prospect. At his feet swept the broad and noble river, reflecting on its surface the snowy masses of "thunderhead" clouds, around which the lightning still played, and which, transfigured and glorified in the light of the setting sun, seemed to the poetic imagination of the young man like the City of God descending out of heaven, with its streets of gold and foundations of precious stones, while the rainbow that spanned the heavens seemed like the rainbow of the Apocalypse round about the throne of God.

Under the inspiration of the beauty of the scene, the young preacher began to sing in a clear, sweet, tenor voice that song of the ages, which he had learned at his mother's knee among the green hills of Vermont-

Jerusalem the golden,

With milk and honey blest,

Beneath thy contemplation,

Sink heart and voice opprest,

I know not, oh! I know not

What joys await me there;

What radiancy of glory,

What bliss beyond compare.

They stand, those walls of Zion,

All jubilant with song,

And bright with many an angel,

And all the martyr throng.

With jasper glow thy bulwarks,

Thy streets with emeralds blaze,

The sardius and the topaz

Unite in thee their rays.

Thine ageless walls are bonded

With amethyst unpriced;

The saints build up its fabric,

The corner-stone is Christ.

[Footnote: We cannot resist the temptation to give a few lines of the original hymn of Bernard of Clugny, a Breton monk of English parentage of the 12th century-"the sweetest of all the hymns of heavenly homesickness of the soul," and for generations one of the most familiar, through translations, in many languages. The rhyme and rhythm are so difficult, that the author was able to master it, he believed, only by special inspiration of God.

Urbs Syon aurea, patria lactea, cive decora,

Omne cor obruis, omnibus obstruis et cor et ora,

Nescio, nescio, quae jubilatio, lux tibi qualis,

Quam socialia gaudia, gloria quam specialis.]

For a moment longer he gazed upon the broad, flowing river which divided two neighbouring peoples, one in language, in blood, in heroic early traditions, and the common heirs of the grandest literature the world has ever seen, yet severed by a deep, wide, angry-flowing stream of strife, which, dammed up for a time, was about to burst forth in a desolating flood that should overwhelm and destroy some of the fairest fruits of civilization in both countries. As he gazed northward, he beheld, on the eastern bank of the river, the snowy walls and grass-grown ramparts of Fort Niagara, above which floated proudly the stars and stripes.

As he gazed on the ancient fort, the memories of its strange eventful history came thronging on his mind from the time that La Salle thawed the frozen ground in midwinter to plant his palisades, to the time that the gallant Prideaux lay mangled in its trenches by the bursting of a cohorn-on the very eve of victory. These memories have been well expressed in graphic verse by a living Canadian poet-a denizen of the old borough of Niagara. [Footnote: William Kirby, Esq., in CANADIAN METHODIST MAGAZINE for May, 1878.]

Two grassy points-not promontories-front

The calm blue lake-the river flows between,

Bearing in its full bosom every drop

Of the wild flood that leaped the cataract.

And swept the rock-walled gorge from end to end.

'Mid flanking eddies, ripples, and returns,

It rushes past the ancient fort that once

Like islet in a lonely ocean stood,

A mark for half a world of savage woods;

With war and siege and deeds of daring wrought

Into its rugged walls-a history

Of heroes, half forgotten, writ in dust.

Two centuries deep lie the foundation stones,

La Salle placed there, on his adventurous quest

Of the wild regions of the boundless west;

Where still the sun sets on his unknown grave.

Three generations passed of war and peace;

The Bourbon lilies grew; brave men stood guard;

And braver still went forth to preach and teach

Th' evangel, in the forest wilderness,

To men fierce as the wolves whose spoils they wore.

Then came a day of change. The summer woods

Were white with English tents, and sap and trench

Crept like a serpent to the battered walls.

Prideaux lay dead 'mid carnage, smoke, and fire

Before the Gallic drums beat parley-then

Niagara fell, and all the East and West

Did follow: and our Canada was won.

As the sun sank beneath the horizon, the flag slid down the halyards, and the sullen roar of the sunset gun boomed over the wave, and was echoed back by the dense forest wall around and by the still low-hanging clouds overhead. A moment later the British gun of Fort George, on the opposite side of the river, but concealed from the spectator by a curve in the shore, loudly responded, as if in haughty defiance to the challenge of a foe.

Turning his horse's head, the young man rode rapidly down the road, beneath a row of noble chestnuts, and drew rein opposite a substantial-looking, brick farmhouse, but with such small windows as almost to look like a casematad fortress. Dismounting, he threw his horse's bridle over the hitching-post at the gate, and passed through a neat garden, now blooming with roses and sweet peas, to the open door of the house. He knocked with his riding-whip on the door jamb, to which summons a young lady, dressed in a neat calico gown and swinging in her hand a broad-leafed sunhat, replied. Seeing a stranger, she dropped a graceful "courtesy,"-which is one of the lost arts now-a-days,-and put up her hand to brush back from her face her wealth of clustering curls, somewhat dishevelled by the exercise of raking in the hayfield.

"Is this the house of Squire Drayton?" asked Neville, politely raising his hat.

The young lady, for such she evidently was, though so humbly dressed-simplex munditiis-replied that it was, and invited the stranger into the large and comfortable sitting-room, which bore evidence of refinement, although the carpet was of woven rags and much of the furniture was home-made.

"I have a letter to him from Elder Ryan," said Neville, presenting a document elaborately folded, after the manner of epistolary missives of the period.

"Oh, you're the new presiding elder, are you?" asked the lady. "We heard you were coming."

"No, not the presiding elder," said Neville, smiling at the unwonted dignity attributed to him, "and not even an elder at all; but simply a Methodist preacher on trial-a junior, who may be an elder some day."

"Excuse me," said the young lady, blushing at her mistake. "Father has just gone to the village for his paper, but will be back shortly. Zenas, take the preacher's horse," she continued to a stout lad who had just come in from the hayfield.

"I will help him," said Neville, proceeding with the boy. It was the almost invariable custom of the pioneer preachers to see that their faithful steeds were groomed and fed, before they attended to their own wants.

Miss Katherine Drayton-this was the young lady's name-was the eldest daughter of Squire Drayton, of The Holms, as the farm was called, from the evergreen oaks that grew upon the riverbank. Her mother having been dead for some years, Katherine had the principal domestic management of the household. This duty, with its accompanying cares, had given her a self-reliance and maturity of character beyond her years. She deftly prepared a tasteful supper for the new guest, set out with snowy napery and with the seldom-used, best china.

"Hello! what's up now?" asked her father, cheerily, as he entered the door. He is worth looking at as he stands on the threshold, almost filling the doorway with his large and muscular frame. He had a hearty, ruddy, English look, a frank and honest expression in his light blue eyes, and an impulsiveness of manner that indicated a temper-

That carries anger as the flint bears fire,

Which much enforced, showeth a hasty spark,

And straight is cold again.

He was not a Methodist, but his dead wife had been one, and for her sake, and because he had the instincts of a gentleman, of respect to the ministerial character, he extended a hospitable welcome to the travelling Methodist preachers, who were almost the only ministers in the country except the clergyman of the English Church in the neighbouring village of Niagara.

"The new preacher has come, father. He brought this letter from

Elder Ryan," said Katherine, handing him the missive.

The Squire glanced over it and said, "Any one that Elder Ryan introduces is welcome to this house. He is a right loyal gentleman, if he did come from the States. I am afraid, though, that the war will make it unpleasant for most of those Yankee preachers."

"Why, father, is there any bad news?" anxiously inquired the young girl.

"Ay! that there is," he replied, taking from his pocket the York Gazette, which had just reached Niagara, three or four days after the date of publication.

Here the young preacher returned to the house, and was cordially welcomed by the Squire. When mutual greetings were over, "This is a bad business," continued the host, unfolding the meagre, greyish-looking newspaper. "I feared it would come to this, ever since that affair of the Little Belt and President last year. There is nothing John Bull is so sensitive about as his ships, and he can't stand defeat on the high seas."

"War is not declared, I hope," said Neville, with much earnestness.

"Yes, it is," replied the Squire, "and what's more, Hull has crossed the Detroit River with three thousand men. [Footnote: Rumour had somewhat exaggerated the number of his force. It was only twenty-five hundred.] Here is part of his proclamation. He offers 'peace, liberty, and security,' or, 'war, slavery, and destruction.' Confound his impudence," exclaimed the choleric farmer, striking his fist on the table till the dishes rattled again. "He may whistle another tune before he is much older."

"What'll Brock do, father?" exclaimed Zenas, who had listened with a boy's open-mouthed astonishment to the exciting news.

"He'll be even with him, I'se warrant," replied the burly Squire. "He will hasten to the frontier through the Long Point country, gathering up the militia and Indians as he goes. They are serving out blankets and ammunition at the fort to-night. I saw Brant at Navy Hall. He would answer for his two hundred tomahawks from the Credit and Grand River; and Tecumseh, he said, would muster as many more. We'll soon hear good news from the front. The Commissary has given orders for the victualling of Fort George. We are to take in all our hay and oats, beef cattle, and flour next week."

"O Father, mayn't I go with Brock"? exclaimed the young enthusiast

Zenas, "I'm old enough."

"We may soon be busy enough here, my son. No place is more exposed than this frontier. The garrisons at Forts Porter and Niagra are being strengthened, and I could see the Yankee militia drilling as I rode to the village."

"Hurrah!" shouted the thoughtless boy, "won't it be fun? We'll show them how the Britishers can fight."

"God grant, my son," said the farmer solemnly, "that we may not see more fighting than we wish. I've lived through one bloody war and I never want to see another. But if fight we must for our country, fight we will."

"And I'm sure none more bravely than Zenas Drayton," said

Katherine proudly, laying her hand on her brother's head.

"You ought to have been a boy, Kate," said her father admiringly.

"You've got all your mother's pluck."

"I'd be ashamed if I wouldn't stand up for my country, father: I feel as if I could carry a musket myself."

"You can do better, Kate: you can make your country worth brave men dying for," and he fondly kissed her forehead, while something like a tear glistened in his eyes.

For a time Neville Trueman mused without speaking, as if the prey of conflicting emotions. At last he said with solemn emphasis, "My choice is made: I cast in my lot with my adopted country. I believe this invasion of a peaceful territory by an armed host is a wanton outrage and cannot have the smile of Heaven. I daresay I shall encounter obloquy and suspicion from both sides, but I must obey my conscience."

"Young man, I honour your choice," exclaimed the Squire effusively, grasping his hand with energy. "I know what it is to leave home, and kindred, and houses and lands for loyalty to my conscience and my King. I left as fair an estate as there was in the Old Dominion because I could not live under any other flag than the glorious Union Jack under which I was born. It was a dislocating wrench to tear myself away from the home of my childhood and the graves of my parents for an unknown wilderness. Much were we tossed about by sea and land. Our ship was wrecked and its passengers strewn like seaweed on the Nova Scotia coast- some living and some dead-and at last, after months of travel and privation, on foot, in ox carts and in Durham boats, we found our way, I and a few neighbours, to this spot, to hew out new homes in the forest and keep our oath of allegiance to our King."

The old U. E. Loyalist always grew eloquent as he referred to his exile for conscience' sake and to the planting by the conscript fathers of Canada of a new Troy under the aegis of British power.

"I came of regular Yankee stock," said Mr. Trueman. "My mother was a Neville-one of the Nevilles of Boston. She heard Jesse Lee's first sermon on Boston Common, and joined the first Methodist society in the old Bay State. My father was one of Ethan Allen's Green Mountain Boys, and assisted at the capture of Ticonderoga. He was also a volunteer at Bunker Hill. It was then he met my mother, being billeted at her father's house."

"You have rebel blood in you and no mistake," said the Squire.

"I believe the colonists were right in resisting oppression in '76," continued Neville; "but I believe they are wrong in invading Canada now, and I wash my hands of all share in their crime."

"We will not quarrel about the old war," said the veteran loyalist. "The Gazette here says that many of your countrymen agree with you about the new one. At the declaration of hostilities the flags of the shipping at Boston were placed at half-mast and a public meeting denounced the war as ruinous and unjust."

"I foresee a long and bloody strife," said Neville.

"Neither country will yield without a tremendous struggle. It is ungenerous to attack Great Britain now, when, as the champion of human liberty, she is engaged in a death-wrestle with the arch despot Napoleon."

"But Wellington will soon thrash Boney," interjected Zenas, who was an ardent admirer of the Peninsular hero, "and then his redcoats will polish off the Yankees, won't they, father?"

"If you had seen as much of the horrors of war, my boy, as I have, you would not be so eager for it. God forbid it should deluge this frontier with blood; but if it do, old as I am, I will shoulder the old Brown Bess there above the fireplace that your grandfather bore at Brandywine and Yorktown."

"What I dread most is the effect on religion," said Trueman. "Several of the Methodist preachers are, like myself, American- born, and we all are stationed by an American bishop. I am afraid many will go back to the States, and all will be liable to suspicion as disloyal to this country by the bigoted and prejudiced. But I shall not forsake my post, nor leave these people as sheep without a shepherd. If there is to be war and bloodshed and wounds and sudden death on this frontier circuit, they will need a preacher all the more, and, God helping me, I'll not desert them.

"I am a man of peace, and fight not with worldly weapons, but I can, perhaps, help those who do."

"God bless you for that speech, my brave lad," exclaimed the

Squire. "Nobody questions my loyalty, and if need arise,

I'll give you a paper, signed with my name as a magistrate, that

will protect you from harm."

Kate had sat quiet, busily sewing, during this conversation, but her heightened colour and her quickened breathing bore witness that she was no uninterested listener. With a look of deep gratitude, she quietly said, "We are all very much obliged to you, Mr. Neville, for your noble resolve."

The young man thought that grateful look ample compensation for the mental sacrifice that he had made, and an inspiration to unfaltering fidelity in carrying it into effect.

The next morning all was bustle and excitement at the farmhouse. "All hands were piped," to use a sea phrase, to aid in the revictualling of the fort, the orders for which were 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 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.