The Henson Journals

[127]

6th Sunday after Trinity, July 18th, 1909.

Keewatin. Lake of the Woods, Ontario:–

A fine but windy morning. Here we are spending Sunday in a society of 'week–enders'. It almost seems absurd to think of going to church, so general & so secure is the secularist assumption!! A halting deference to a dying convention leads a scanty remnant to the humble little churches, in which a disheartened & self–distrustful worship lingers. Max Dennistoun is an illustration ready to my hand. He and his sons go sailing: Mrs D. & the smallest boy come to church. How can the association of religion with women be in the case of those lads avoided?

We went to the little church. The service was fairly read by a weak–looking little man with a Welsh accent, & a curiously porcine face. He preached as badly as might have been expected but he was not irreverent, & might well have been worse. But taking him at his best, could anyone deny that, both physically & mentally, he was a weakling? He is paid 700 dollars per annum: which is less than the wages of a skilled artisan: but is he worth more? Yet can it be reasonably hoped that religion should make way with the Canadian, while it is represented by men of this kind?

[128]

He came to lunch. In conversation he told me that he had been admitted as a lay–reader by the present Bishop of London, & had worked in S. Mary–at–Hill parish. He has taken the course at S. John's, Winnipeg, and received priest's orders last year. His eyes are failing: the oculist says that he ought not to be doing clerical work. However he intends to get married in the coming autumn. All this portends no vigourous [sic] ministry.

I inquired what might be the state of religion here; he told me that the population was about 1200, and that there were 5 or 6 separately–organized churches. Of these the Presbyterians were the strongest.

Dr Jones told me that he had often asked men, his elder patients, whether if they had the opportunity they would be glad to have their lives over again, i.e. start with the younger generation: & that, with a single exception, they had replied in the negative. His own sentiments accorded with this view.

Dr Jones went back to Winnipeg this afternoon. After his departure we all sailed across the lake to a suitable island, & there had tea very pleasantly.

Returning we enjoyed a fine sunset.

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