Benefit of religious tracts – One lent in twenty-two houses – Man with cart – Tract given to one man, the means of the conversion of another – Sermons – Mr. Simeon – Description of a good minister – H.M.S. Sparrowhawk – Smuggled provisions – Smuggled fowl for dinner – Meat preserved by becoming frozen – Expedition into the uncleared woods – American General – Charlotte county militia – Voyage to St. John’s – Find half the town on fire – Of some use in stopping the conflagration – Armine Mountain.

My first attempt to do any good to the people by means of giving them tracts was as follows:— I set off one morning on the St. John’s road and leaving it at a certain point I followed a road inclining to the left. On coming to two or three small farm houses, I went into one of them, offering up the prayer which our Saviour desired His disciples to use when He sent them forth among the people, “Peace  be to this house.” I found a woman sweeping the floor, who told me she was housekeeper to the owner of the house, who was then away. After trying to give her some good advice, I left with her three small tracts, one of which was entitled, “Conversation in a Boat between two Seamen,” one of the Religious Tract Society’s works. The man afterwards tried to find me at home, at St. Andrew’s, several times before he succeeded. He informed me that he had been brought up religiously in Scotland, when he was young; but that the kind of life he lived as hawker, since his arrival in New Brunswick, had led to his becoming utterly careless about religion. And that this tract had been the means, by God’s blessing, of arousing him to a consideration of his danger, and to a determination to try and lead a holy life for the time to come. He had lent the little tract, above mentioned, in a hamlet beyond him, and it had such an effect upon the inmates of the twenty-two cottages, of which it consisted, that he came to request me to purchase for them twenty-two Bibles and Testaments, that each house might be supplied with a copy of the Bible or Testament. He continued to go on very satisfactorily afterwards.

I forget whether it was on my return from this man’s house, or on another occasion that I met on the road a man driving a cart and two horses. Thinking I might never have an opportunity of seeing him or speaking to him again, and that my accosting him would be taken kindly by him, I stopped him for two or three minutes, and spoke to him, as seriously as I could, about the state of his soul, and about his God and Saviour, and about eternity. I never saw him again; but some few weeks afterwards I recollect a very tall man called upon me, who told me that he lived up in the woods about nine miles off, and that he had been anxious to come and find me out, as the man whom I had met with the cart and told him what I had said to him, and that it had made him wish to speak to me about his own religious state. He said the man whom I had met also told him that directly I was out of sight he stopped his cart and horses again, and went into the wood at the side of the road, and fell on his knees and prayed earnestly to God to save his soul.

I never saw either of them afterwards, but it may not be without its use that I should mention that the man who came down from the woods spike in what we should call a regular canting tone, and also through his nose, so that his way of speaking was most disagreeable. I was then struck with the great importance of making great allowance for any peculiarity of manner which might discover itself in persons, especially when they might be speaking on religious subjects. We ourselves should of course avoid, as much as possible, any peculiarity of manner, or of speaking, which is calculated to annoy other people; but the consideration, that really good people do often fall into these peculiarities, should lead us to bear with them, however trying and annoying them may be to us. This man had all the appearance of being sincere. Perhaps that which is spoken of the Saviour in Isaiah xi, 2, 3, may be intended to teach us the above lesson, as well as that of always endeavouring to put the best construction on every person’s conduct, however much appearances may be against him.

On the same road another interesting circumstance occurred. One Sunday afternoon Gawler and I were taking a quiet walk, when not far from the town we observed a man on crutches, who had come through the belt of wood from his house and clearing within it, and was standing on the road. I accosted the man whilst Gawler walked quietly on; I spoke to him on religious subjects, and then gave him a hand-bill, about the size of a pound note, on which was printed a short but very striking address on eternity, issued by the Religious Tract Society. After saying a few words to him and promising to call upon him, I proceeded to overtake Gawler. I very well remember that as I walked up the hill, before I overtook him, I prayed that the reading the tract and what had been said to the man might be blessed to his eternal welfare. On turning round after we had reached the top of the rising ground, we saw that two men were reading the tract together, another man having joined him from the house or wood. I saw the man, who had broken his leg three or four times; at first he appeared to be seriously impressed, but as he got better this seemed to pass off. Some time after I had returned to England, in one of Gawler’s letters was the following sentence: “John ——, to whom you were made effectually useful by giving a tract to another man one Sunday afternoon, when you were walking with me on the St. John’s road, desires to be kindly remembered to you.” Thus in God’s providence, this little messenger, containing divine truth, came into this man’s hands, when it was not at all intended for him. I heard about him several times from the Gawlers; they had no doubt about his being a truly good and religious man; and he always attributed his great change to this tract having fallen into his hands. I do not distinctly recollect any other cases in which the circulating of books and tracts at St. Andrew’s was productive of benefit. We set up a lending library there, principally consisting of useful and simple religious books, and when I left St. Andrew’s, our friends there intrusted to me a very sufficient sum which I was to lay out in purchasing books for the purpose of increasing the library. Our friends were very kind to us and very grateful for our poor attempts to do them good, and to sow that seed amongst them which a gracious God, by His Almighty  power, has made effectual, and we believe, to the salvation of many souls. I know not why I should not state it, thought I hesitate to do so, that one of these friends, writing about a year and a half ago to Mrs. Gawler, expressed herself thus:— “The people seem to be awakening; there are some really praying souls amongst us; I think it is in answer to the prayers of your dear husband and Mr. Leeke, and other Christian friends, that mercies are vouchsafed to St. Andrew’s. There is certainly more spiritual life amongst us. Continue your prayers for us, dear friends. God blessed your coming amongst us at first. How affectionately you are still remembered by many in this place.”

More recently, the following passages occurred in other letters: “The names of Colonel and Mrs. Gawler and Mr. Leeke are household words with us.” “The photographs Mr. Leeke sent of his house and family are very much admired. It is a great pleasure to show them to our friends. The house covered with ivy and the family in front of it is a beautiful picture.”

I had not been long at St. Andrew’s when one morning the clergyman called upon me, and let out that he was intending to preach a sermon, on the following Sunday, on the subject of the Good Centurion, and that he should introduce something about me in it. I of course laughed at the idea, and told him that it would be most improper. It was with great reluctance, however, that he gave up his project. His views were not at all clear upon the doctrines of salvation by faith only, and of holy works as the fruits of faith, and we had frequent discussions about his sermons, which, although he must have been many years my senior, he very kindly engaged in with me. He sometimes preached some very excellent sermons. One Sunday morning he preached one of these, and that very evening we read the same sermon, in the work of an old author, at our family prayers. This sermon was very clear upon the above-mentioned points; and in our subsequent discussions I always referred to what he had stated in that sermon; and when he felt himself pressed, he said that was an old sermon which had been written several years ago. He used to give me his sermons to read, and that I might mark the passages which I thought erroneous, sol that we might go over them together afterwards.

I suppose that all ministers do occasionally, and perhaps some frequently, preach sermons which they have not composed themselves; all must be indebted for almost all the ideas they have to those who have gone before them. There is an old saying too, that it is better for a man to preach a good sermon of another man’s that a bad one of his own. An experienced man, when I first too orders and had to prepare two sermons for each Sunday, besides several lectures for evenings in the week, strongly advised me only to compose one of the sermons, and to take the most suitable sermon for my people which I could find amongst the published sermons of others. One friend recommended Simeon’s sermons as a study and patter; and certainly his twenty-one volumes, comprising upwards of 2500 sermons on texts taken, I believe, from every book of the Old and New Testaments, contain a body of sound divinity for which the church at large, and all ministers of the gospel, will have reason to be thankful to Almighty God to the end of tiem and to all eternity. One special beauty and excellence, and I may almost say peculiarity, in Mr. Simeon’s sermons is, that he keeps close to his text in each sermon, and follows out the meaning of each portion so as to produce that singular, beautiful, and pleasing variety for which his sermons are so remarkable. The Rev. Charles Simeon was for several years the Senior Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, and many of his sermons were preached before the university.

There are several dangers, if they may be so called, in preaching the sermons of other ministers. The chief danger is that a man may grow idle, and not give that time and attention to the composition of sermons which is so calculated to increase his own knowledge of the word of God, and to bring blessings to his own soul, and also to make him a blessing to others. Another danger is, that if his hearers discover that he occasionally borrows another person’s sermon, they will be apt to think all his sermons are borrowed, and not to give him credit for those sound and useful sermons which may have been composed with much labour and prayer. Everybody has heard of some curious troubles that ministers have got into, when they have ventured to preach the published sermons of others. Besides the instance mentioned above, I only personally know of one other, much more awkward, circumstance of the kind:— A very clever, and very hardworking and over-worked professor, when the select preacher for the time, preached a most clever and useful sermon in the university pulpit at Cambridge, on two well-known passages which, apparently, contradicted each other. The vice-chancellor was so well pleased with the sermon, and thought it so calculated to do good to the members of the university; that he requested the professor to preach it over again on the following Sunday. This request he could scarcely help complying with, and the sermon was preached for the second time; but the next morning it was buzzed about that it was one of Romaine’s sermons. It was rather a hazardous thing for a man to venture upon before such a congregation, but I do not know that he suffered for his temerity, for I had some reason to think it possible that he never found out that his “pious fraud” (I think we may so call it) had been discovered.

It has always appeared to me that ministers should get out of the habit of using written sermons as soon as possible. Let them study the Word of God with prayer, and become well acquainted with the passage that are intending to preach upon, and they will, after a little time, find that there is not so much difficulty in what is called extempore preaching, as they had anticipated. With regard to eloquence, I think they should give themselves little trouble and less concern. Let them, in dependence upon the help and strength of the Holy Spirit, and seeking to have their hearts filled with love to God and to the souls of men, endeavour humbly to unfold the truths of God’s Word to their people, and they shall not be without a blessing on their work. We should not too much undervalue eloquence; but I think directly either the congregation or the minister himself beings in any degree to trust to his eloquence, or to any other gift he may possess, there is the greatest danger that it may interfere with and prevent that blessing on the word preached, which ministers and people should invariably pray for and expect. I have always been much pleased with the description given of a good minister in the Pilgrim’s Progress, “Christian saw the picture of a very grave person hang up against the wall, [in the Interpreter’s house,] and this was the fashion of it:— It had eyes lifted up to heaven, the best of books in its hand, the law of truth was written upon its lips, the world was behind its back; it stood as if it pleaded with men, and a crown of gold did hang over its head.” Let us pray that all bishops, priests, and deacons, and all ministers of the gospel, may be of the character and spirit thus so beautifully delineated. With regard to eloquence, if ministers have it not, let them not be thereby cast down. St. Paul was not an eloquent man, but who was more useful or more honoured of God? He says of himself, in 1st Corinthians, ii, 3, “I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling; and my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power; that your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” St. Paul also says of himself and other ministers, in 2 Corinthians iv, 7, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the pwer may be of God, and not of us.”

I fear I have greatly wandered from my recollections of St. Andrew’s, but I have felt constrained to follow out these other subjects to a certain extent; and what I have written must remain where it is, for I have not the time which will enable me to arrange what I write in what might appear to be more correct order.

One Sunday morning we were rather surprised by seeing several naval officers at church, for we were not aware that the Sparrowhawk, Captain Dundas, had looked in upon us, and was in St. Andrew’s harbour. The little child of the Gawlers was just dead, so that the calling upon the commander devolved on me. He was very kind, and gave me some luncheon; but as they sailed in a day or two, we saw nothing more of them.

There were several articles of consumption which might have been passed from the United States into the province of New Brunswick, and vice versâ, to the benefit of both countries, but they were, as appeared to us very foolishly, prohibited. Amongst these were meat and dead poultry. In North America, in the winter, these things are frozen for the purpose of keeping them, and they may in this way be kept for weeks and months. They are unfrozen by being placed for a sufficient time in cold water, and then they are as good and as fit for use as they would have been if they had only been killed a few days.

Rather a singular circumstance occurred to me in connexion with this prohibition to the entrance of dead poultry by the New Brunswick custom-regulations. I was invited to take a family dinner with some of our kind friends, the family consisting only of the gentleman and his wife. Just before we sat down to dinner, a very fine roast capon made its appearance, and very tempting it looked to hungry people. I was just anticipating a very pleasant attack  upon it, when the master of the house innocently observed, “We are indebted to our neighbours on the other side of the bay for this fine capon,” which meant that it had been smuggled. Had nothing been said about it, I should, of course, have partaken in it. As it may be supposed, I was very sorry for the disappointment of my host and hostess when they found I did not think it right to eat of the principal article of food which they had provided for my entertainment. But there was no help for it, as I did not think it right to partake of that which I knew to be smuggled. I think, as the party consisted of only three persons, it is possible there was not any other sort of meat at the table, which would make it all the more annoying to my friends.

Gawler and I determined one morning to make an exploring expedition into the woods, and after going along the St. John’s road for some distance, we took a track to the left, and followed it for some considerable distance, when, turning to the left again, we soon found ourselves, to our heart’s content, in the midst of a wild, uncleared American forest. Trees of very size had fallen over each other in all kinds of directions. I think the part we got into was called, “The Cedar Swamp.” There was not so much difficulty in getting on when we were careless about the direction we went in, but when we decided on returning home, and arranged to separate and to make our several ways as well as we could to a certain point which we were acquainted with, at which two roads met, it was necessary that we should proceed in a particular direction, and then began the difficulty of making progress. The tacking of a ship, with the wind right ahead, was nothing to it. We had only the sun, seen through the tops of the trees, to guide us, but that was quite sufficient. Whilst we kept the direction which formed an angle with the direction the sun was in, to our right and rear of about 135 degrees, we knew that we were not far wrong. Trees that had been lying there for scores of years, in all imaginable stages of decay, and lying over and under each other in all directions, seemed to oppose almost insurmountable difficulties to our progress. But although it was a tedious business, there was no real difficulty in making our way. We could advance, perhaps, ten or fifteen feet along a fallen tree, six feet from the ground, in the right direction, and then find our way barred by the trunk and branches of another tree lying at right angles with it, and five or six feet above it; then, after climbing on to it and choosing whether we would go to its root or top, we had to make our way along its trunk, twenty or thirty, or more feet, till we could descend to some other tree that promised either itself to give us a better advance in the right direction, or to conduct us to one that would. I know not whether this will give my readers anything like an idea of what a walk in an uncleared American forest is, but I have done my best to describe it. Another peculiarity met with in these forests, sometimes at every few yards, is the vast number of high dead trees which aare standing and which a slight push will send to the ground. The first I met with was on a rather steep descent in the wood; it might be ten inches in diameter and forty feet high. I was very much astonished to find, on putting my hand against it to stop myself, that the whole trunk went right away before me to the ground. I pushed numbers of them down, but there was this danger attending the doing so, which, however, could be easily avoided, that, when the tree was pushed to the ground, in most cases, a portion of the top came off, and came straight down, and was generally of sufficient size and weight to seriously injure the person underneath, if it happened to fall on his head. We were, I think, nearly a mile from the point we arranged to make for when we separated, and we thought ourselves rather clever, when, without having seen each other, we found we had struck the two roads, one of us the one road and the other the other, both within eighty yards of their point of junction.

They told us that bears seldom visited that part of New Brunswick; but the foot-marks of two bears were discovered that winter on the sand or snow, in a creek about two miles to the northward of the town. I sometimes used to think they would be “ugly customers” to meet with, unarmed as we always were. However, I never heard of anyone who had seen them.

I used to read to those of our soldiers who liked to attend, on the Sunday evening, and also on some evening in the week. At one time I read “Robinson’s Scripture Characters” to them. We always had a prayer also, but whether I used some of the church prayers or not I do not recollect. I knew of one man only who thought he was first led to think seriously about the salvation of his soul, by attending those reading parties.

We had very little intercourse with the state of Maine, on the other side of the bay of Passamaquoddy. There was a communication between Eastport, a small town about ten miles from St. Andrew’s, by means of a small decked vessel; I am not sure that it went there every day. There was also a large village called Robinstown, on the opposite side of the bay, through which we got our letters from England. I once went over there with Gawler, and we were somewhat amused to find, that the landlord of the small inn, or large public-house, there, had been a general officer in the United States service, and had commanded all that district for two hundred miles back as far as the river Penobscot, and had also ceded it to the English general Sir John Sherbrooke, in the late war ending in 1815. He was a very pleasant and quiet person, and ordered a separate dinner for us and himself and another person, which was intended as a mark of attention to us. Whilst we were standing and talking to him, a man came up and said to him, “General, I shall be glad if you will order my horse a feed of corn,” which sounded rather oddly in the ears of English officers.

Whilst I was at St. Andrew’s, the Charlotte County Militia assembled there for their annual training, and we looked forward to it with some degree of interest. Several of the officers resided at St. Andrew’s. Some of them requested us not to come and see them when they were assembled on parade, but we told them it was too grand an affair for us to miss. They had, I think, a grenadier and also a rifle company, and were a fine body of men, but, as might be expected from the short time they were assembled, and from the want of proper drilling, they knew scarcely anything about marching, or the use of their firelocks. One day when Gawler and I and several of our men were looking on, they accepted our offer to shew the rifle company, I think it was, how to move a little in skirmishing order, and we made our men fall in and be intermingled with them. The little drill they got in this way they appeared to be much pleased with. But on our inviting them to assemble frequently and place themselves under our instruction, with the promise that if they did so, we would make them one of the best light infantry companies in the world, (which we could have done in the course of time) they found there were difficulties in the way of their assembling which precluded them from accepting the invitation. I suppose most of the rifle company belonged to St. Andrew’s, for otherwise our proposal would have been useless. I was quite grieved to see the state in which our militia were left, until I went into the United States some time afterwards, and found that their militia were, if possible, in a still more inefficient state. I suppose in these days all these matters are properly attended to. During the war I understood that the inhabitants, on each side of the border, did not at all interfere with each other; and higher up the bay, and on the river above it towards St. Stephen’s, they were in much closer proximity than in the immediate neighbourhood of St. Andrew’s. This, perhaps, would account in some measure for the carelessness which was manifested when I was there, relative to the training of the militia.

St. Stephen’s was a settlement up the river at some distance, perhaps fifteen miles, from St. Andrew’s. Dr. Thompson was a good and pains-taking clergyman there; his younger brother was the good clergyman of Machidavie, (I forget how it is spelt) a settlement in another direction, north-east, I think, of St. Andrew’s. Dr. Thompson made, what I considered at the time, a very singular request of me, when I was about to leave New Brunswick; it was, that I would try and get a large tract, a thousand acres, of the government reserved land for him; he considered he had a claim upon government in consequence of services which he had rendered when residing in the north of Ireland. I thought he might almost as well have asked me to get him a peerage; however, I received his papers containing the particulars of the services rendered to the government, and had not been long in England, when, on mentioning the subject to a near relative, he offered to give me a letter to one of the chief men in the Colonial Office, who was an intimate friend of his. Armed with this important missive, I went to the Colonial Office, and saw the under-secretary, or chief clerk, I forget which. He promised to look into the papers, and let me hear from him in a few days. The finale was, that my friend obtained the grant of the thousand acres, which were all the more valuable to him, as they were close to his own house and to a good road, which latter advantage greatly enhances the value of grants of land in the colonies.

I had occasion, before I returned to England, to go up to St. John’s for a few days. It was about seventy miles off, and I went in the packet up the bay of Fundy. I recollect a curious story which the captain or some other person on board the packet told us. He knew the case of a small vessel, in consequence of the wind being dead against them, having put into a small inlet, which we were then passing, in which it anchored for the night; and that, in the middle of the night, the crew all at once found the vessel dashing out of the inlet, and going to sea at the rate, I think he said, of a hundred miles an hour. It was supposed that a whale had got entangled in the cable, and had started off with the vessel. It sounds like what is usually called an “American story;” at all events, according to an old 52nd saying, “It’s very like a whale.”

We neared Partridge Island and the harbour of St. John’s in the middle of the night, and, from some considerable distance, saw that there was a large fire, which we could not account for, either in or near St. John’s. As we stood up the harbour, with a good breeze from the southward, we soon perceived that nearly half the town was on fire. We stood on past the town, and landed beyond the fire. I immediately jumped on shore, and running up to the fire, found that several of the lower streets towards the harbour had been burnt for a very considerable distance. Tylden, I recollect, expressed his astonishment, in no very measured terms, at seeing me make my appearance in the midst of this terrible fire. I think I did some considerable service there, for perceiving that the fire was increasing, and that nothing effectual was done to stip it, and that it spread from street to street by means of the dry palings which separated the gardens between the streets, along which palings it was rapidly carried up the hill by the southerly wind, I collected some twenty of the soldiers, and extending them a few paces from each other, we advanced in line against the palings, kicking one after another of these slight fences flat down, and thus preventing the wind from taking treh fire along them, as it had done along the other fences. I believe this had very much to do with stopping the fire: indeed, but for this proceeding, the houses in the street above (the houses were chiefly of wood) would certainly have been burnt, for in several places the fire was already beginning to rush along the partitions when we came to them. I fear my services on the occasion were not know, and that it is now too late for me to expect that the inhabitants of St. John’s shall acknowledge them by giving me a vote of thanks, or reward them by getting the government to give me a grant of some thousands of acres of their best reserved land.

Some new officers had joined the 52nd since their arrival in New Brunswick, and I particularly recollect meeting Mountain there, and being very much pleased with him during the few days I remained at St. John’s. I remember that each day at mess he made a point of asking me to take some wine with him, and I have thought that perhaps it ws for the purpose of shewing that he valued that character which I had as a religious man, and which others might possibly have spoken of in terms of ridicule. Many years afterwards I met with him, when he had himself come out openly as a man who feared God. His father and brother were bishops of Quebec. I copy the following about Armine Mountain from the 52nd record:—

“Amongst the regimental changes this year (1825) was that of Lieut. A. H. S. Mountain, from the 52nd, to be captain unattached, on the 26th of May. This officer afterwards rose to be a colonel and adjutant-general of H. M. forces in India, and his biographer thus writes:—

‘The regret of the 52nd at losing young Mountain was extreme, and exertions were made by the officers to arrange some means by which he could procure a company in their corps, but it could not b e accomplished, and he never rejoined that regiment. He always, however, looked upon the time spent with the 52nd as the foundation of his military experience, and when, in the course of service, he obtained the command of a regiment, his aim ever was to introduce the high feeling of honour, the esprit de corps, and gentlemanlike conduct, which had been fostered in that distinguished regiment.’ ”

It is a well-known fact that whenever regiments proceed to any of the colonies when rum is cheap, some of the men will drink of it till they bring themselves very rapidly to the grave. The new rum which they purchase, and often that which is supplied by the contractors, is particularly injurious; some three or four of our men lost their lives from drinking the new rum, soon after our arrival in New Brunswick. Either on this occasion, or when I first came to St. John’s, I recollect seeing a crowd of persons in the street, and a few soldiers amongst them. On my coming up to them, I found a man, half mad with drink, standing with his bayonet drawn, and setting at defiance a corporal and a file of men, who had been sent to take him to the guard-room. This is always a most painful and awkward position for a non-commissioned officer to be placed in; I once knew a similar case which ended in the death of the man in custody. On my coming to the crowd, I went up to the man, and merely said “Hollo! what is all this about?” and he immediately returned his bayonet to the scabbard, saying, “Now there is an officer, I will give in,” and went off quietly with the men of the guard.

Trying circumstances, connected with my promotion and the half-pay lieutenancy I had refused, which I will explain in a subsequent chapter, rendered it desirable that I should proceed to England; and this step, which had been long determined on, in the event of my receiving an unfavourable reply to a memorial I had forwarded to the Duke of York, was taken immediately after my return from St. John’s. I was very sorry to leave all my kind friends at St. Andrew’s, especially the Gawlers, but I had great reason to be most thankful for all the mercy and goodness which God had been pleased to manifest to me during my residence at that place, both as regarded my own religious state, and the work which He had enabled me to participate in with my dear friends the Gawlers, with a viewto the religious benefit of others.

It was a very considerable trial to me to leave Sandhurst; but I have been enabled to see clearly that the great Disposer and Over-ruler of all events did, in His wisdom and loving-kindness, send me to America; and in many a mortification, and in much more severe trials which have occurred to me since then, I have constantly seen the same loving-kindness and wisdom in all His dispensations towards me. “It is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.”