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IN 1839, the Methodist minister Joseph Stinson reflected on the arrival of Methodism in the Niagara peninsula area: “In the log hut, the shanty, and the silent grove, those self-denying men collected around them the hardy backwoodsmen and their children.”1 His focus was on the itinerant, the unselfish, heroic preacher who underwent many hardships in order to bring the gospel to the settlers in the new land. His simple description used rhetoric that was already familiar at the time he spoke, and that flourished in volumes of Methodist history over the next decades. It was the narrative of the heroic itinerant. In 1766, Lawrence Coughlan, a converted Irish Catholic, arrived in Newfoundland to spread the Wesleyan message. Ten years later, after his return to Britain, he published An Account of the Work of God in Newfoundland , North America. Thus he began a stream of writing that sought to record the extension of Methodism into the colonies that became Canada, and on across the nation as it stretched from ocean to ocean.2 Later historians of Methodism including George Playter, William Wilson , John Carroll, and Thomas Watson Smith made extensive use of such autobiographical writings and journals.3 The narrative tradition continued because the frontier, of course, was not static. As missionaries in one area became the ministers of self-supporting congregations, others were sent forth to form circuits where settlers were just beginning to make their homes. Thus, to the end of the nineteenth century and even beyond, the common narrative of Methodist history was the tale of the heroic preacher who sowed the seed of the gospel on sometimes fertile, sometimes barren or rocky ground. In 1904, George Webber briefly sketched the life of an early preacher. He still used the vocabulary of heroism: Notes to chapter 1 start on page 247 19 “Bed and candlestand, for any passing Elisha”: Hospitality and the Founding of Churches CHAPTER 1 In opening his new field, this heroic pioneer had no church, no congregation , no members; everything had to be created. He preached the Gospel in the open-air, in the woods, in barns, in workshops, in dwelling-houses, in schoolhouses.…But so self-denying was his spirit, and so unreserved his surrender to Christ, that he did not think any sacrifice too great, or any labor too arduous, if only the people might be saved. His circuit soon extended nearly two hundred miles. Think of a young woman travelling seventy miles through the woods to urge [the preacher] to supply the township of her home with Gospel services , such were the needs of those times. But he had the joy of seeing societies formed, congregations gathered, churches built, Sunday -school organized, and many people soundly converted to God. The precious seed was scattered broadcast, and he lived to see a blessed harvest.4 This is the essence of the “heroic itinerant” narrative. The “heroic pioneer ” was willing to sacrifice all because of his complete dedication, and his sacrificial work was blessed by God. If the reader examines the account again, however, something more emerges. “Such were the needs of those times.” Such, also, was the heroic dedication of one young woman, yet the focus of the drama is so firmly on the preacher that she slips across the stage unnamed and virtually unnoticed. Webber does not tell his readers whether her mission was successful, whether her home became part of this 200-mile circuit. And yet she travelled seventy miles through the woods on her urgent task. The young woman’s journey was remarkable, but the urgency she felt was not unique. To backwoods and village had come settlers who brought with them their own religious heritage, their own longings. So this young woman and others like her sought out those preachers who might range close enough to bring them the comforts of religion. Narratives shaped by the heroic figure of the itinerant tend to obscure the initiatives of women, and seldom do they afford even this large a glimpse into women’s part in the story. Yet there are traces of another narrative pattern, the settlers’ narrative , that features the activity of lay women and men. Settlers carried to their new homes religious traditions that they endeavoured to keep alive in their families and among their neighbours. The dominant narrative largely eclipsed their stories, but occasionally their actions had some particularly auspicious result. Then traces of the tradition survive . There are two significant examples of this alternate tradition...

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