Canadian Methodist Women, 1766-1925: Marys, Marthas, Mothers in Israel

CHAPTER 10. Widening the Field: Responding to a New Era

Notes to chapter 10 start on page 275 198 AN awareness of the “foreigners in our cities” and in the countryside helped Canadian evangelicals in the realization that their Christian responsibility was not directed exclusively toward individual souls, but toward changing conditions within society. Yet the social gospel was directed toward other issues as well, including that of moral purity as already seen in the work of Beatrice Brigden. It also incorporated into its concern older concerns such as Sabbath observance and temperance . These and other interests of social Christianity were intertwined, and were connected with the desire of many to maintain the standards of a Christian nation, standards that they feared might be eroded by the presence of too many non-English-speaking foreigners who had not been reshaped by the influence of Canadian evangelicalism. The latter part of the nineteenth century had also witnessed the rise of women’s organizational work. One component of this was the activity of women’s missionary societies, and the combined work of the Methodist group and those of other denominations marshalled the efforts of a large number of Canadian women. Many of these same women became active workers in the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, and some in the National Council of Women and in its local Councils. Canadian girls and women experienced other changes. During the nineteenth century, some Methodist girls received education at seminaries and then ladies’ colleges; many of these were institutions with Methodist roots. Some young women had attended normal schools, and had become teachers. Gradually the universities opened their doors to women, and the number of well-educated women grew; similarly the number of women in the paid labour force also increased. Widening the Field: Responding to a New Era CHAPTER 10 The impact of these changes was recognized to varying degrees by various Canadians, but when Canada went to war, everyone was affected. The consequences were felt by young and old in cities, villages, and farms across the nation. The war had particular impact on those women whose husbands and sons went off to serve, leaving them to take on new family roles and responsibilities. War also accelerated the entrance of women into the workforce, and, at home, women adapted their cooking to address shortages and aid the war effort, and they sought to give both material and emotional support to those in service. Women formed new associations for patriotic and Red Cross work, and church women adapted the activities of their existing ladies’ aids and even missionary societies to meet wartime needs. Methodist women were participants in all these changes. As individuals and in groups they sought ways to be true to their faith in a world that would not stand still, but continually presented new needs, and offered new possibilities. Social Reform Methodists had long expressed concern about the use of alcohol, opposing first distilled liquor and then all fermented spirits.1 They were not alone in this, and they allied themselves with other Christians, forming societies and holding public meetings to convince individuals to commit themselves to abstaining from all forms of alcohol. In about 1845, young Annie Leake went with her parents to such a meeting in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia. Later she wrote, “I found myself… standing alone on the altar step, holding on to the railing, giving my name to the pledge of Total Abstinence. Probably I knew very little of what I was doing, and think I can see even yet, the amused smile of ‘Parson King’ and Edward Ratchford Esq. two of the most prominent men of Parrsboro in those days, as one asked my name and the other wrote it down.”2 Annie Leake’s father was a carpenter, and the family lived on a marginal farm; the Leake family was Methodist. William King was rector of the local Anglican Church, while Ratchford was a member of one of the community’s earliest families. This was typical of the coalition that joined together in support of temperance in the middle of the century. Leake went on to reflect, “I cannot tell how much those meetings or that act moulded my character, but this I know, that I grew up, having as one of the strongest feelings of my make up, a hatred of the RESPONDING TO A NEW ERA 199 liquor traffic, and interest in all temperance movements.” Her reference to “all temperance movements” reflects...