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HomeMy WebLinkAbout355"Article from the Toronto Telegram, April 19,1958.p 14. Let The People Praise Thee, O God Psalms 67:3 Illustrations: Tall, century-old trees stand sheltering guard and provide serene setting for St. George's Anglican Church in Pickering village. Fast-growing Sunday School holds its classes in nearby Community Hall. On list of St. George's objectives is a parish hall. Rev. John Crouch, who started his ministry in St. George's, was visiting minister last Sunday, is at rear of congregation picture. Rev. Adam Elliott, who founded St. George's in the early 1800s, was a missionary for the Church of England in Upper Canada. He began as a traveling missionary of the ""Society for Civilizing and Converting the Indians and Propagating the Gospel Among the Destitute Emigrant Settlers in Upper Canada."" In Pickering today lives Mrs. Norman Graham, whose grandfather, also named Adam Elliott, was a nephew of the Rev. Adam Elliott. Present incumbent, Rev. H. S. Shepherd, spent 25 years of his ministry serving Indians and Eskimos, was a canon in the Diocese of the Arctic. Picture of him and Mrs. Sheppard was taken at Aklavik on their wedding day . . .the silver anniversary of which they mark, appropriately, this St. George's Day. Rev. E. G. Robinson was St. George's rector with longest tenure . . . 25 years . . . of incumbency. His friends in the parish are legion. Canon the Rev. H. S. Shepherd and Mrs. Shepherd have many memories of 25 years in the Arctic. CHURCH IN ACTION by AUBREY WICE St. George's At Pickering Oasis For Worship, It Stands Serene Near Busy Highway It sits there, seemingly as old as time itself, and yet I wonder how long it can hold out against the ever-lengthening suburban development to the east of Toronto. If I were a worshipper there, I would hope it would be as long as I live, and perhaps that yardstick will hold. This is St. George's Anglican Church, Pickering, a plain, red brick building—plain on the outside, plain on the inside—that stands on the right hand side of the village's main street as you go eastward. It must be well over 100 years old, but there is no record to prove it. The record that proves its age is the ancient bell tower atop the roof, the weather-beaten gravestones in the churchyard, the tall evergreens that line the yard, like angular grandfathers immune through experience to the barbs of the world, and the darkly varnished pews that sit, quietly there in the stillness, outliving generation after generation. If you have any sensitivity at all, you must feel the worshipful atmosphere of this oasis that sharply contrasts with the gasoline stations, stores and an outside loudspeaker down the street blaring out flat-toned modern tunes for seemingly no purpose but to create noise. They say everything must start sometime, and so St. George's mark their anniversary from 1832. It was a bleak November day, with winter fast approaching that Rev. Adam Elliot rode in on horseback. He enquired around about holding a service and Mr. Francis Seys, with the friendliness of country folk, opened his home to this traveling missionary. They gathered there in ones and twos in the little-used parlor, and listened to Mr. Elliot preach and recite Anglican prayers. They watched him lift two babies into his arms while with rough hands he dipped into a borrowed bowl from the Seys kitchen for drops of water to sign the cross on the infants foreheads and so baptize them into the living Church of Jesus Christ and take away their sin. His second stop at Mr. Seys home a year or two after the first, brought a much greater response from the neighbors and in fact, there were so many, they had to meet in the barn. In that rustic setting they thanked God, sang His praises, asked His blessing, and more children were baptized. A second service in a nearby school later in the day brought out about 100, so St. George's was well on its way. Whenever the trains that run through Pickering sound a signal, it could be a greeting to this old church because the tracks they run on are laid on land formerly owned by the church. The Grand Trunk Railway needed that land, and at today's prices it would come pretty high, but in those days it wasn't uncommon to barter goods. And so it was that the railway gave the bricks for the church building in exchange for the land. In number, the rectors this church has had would add up to quite a few, but the man who was there by far the longest time was Rev. E. G. Robinson, who is now assistant at St. Nicholas' in Birch Cliff. Mr. Robinson spent 25 years at Pickering, coming there in 1929, just at the time Port Whitby, another Anglican Church linked with St. George's, became a separate parish. In its place, Dunbarton, about three miles west of Pickering, was added. St Paul's Church at Dunbarton, was built by a prominent Toronto lawyer, Harry A. Newman, whose two sons entered full time work for the Anglican Church. Mr. Newman owns the church, but it is leased to the diocese for a dollar a year, and Mr. Newman says he'll pay the dollar himself. Rev. H. S. Shepherd, the present rector of St. George's and St. Paul's, is kept quite busy looking after the two congregations. Luckily though, he has a car, which Mr. Robinson didn't have for much of his ministry. He walked miles to do his visiting so it is a good thing he is fond of this form of motivation. Reminiscing about the church he lived with so long, Mr. Robinson told me it originally was called St. George's-Dufferin Creek, after the stream of water that runs along the flats west of the village. The first year he was there he lived in the old frame rectory but it was practically falling apart so they tore it down and put up a brick house in its place. While we sipped a cup of tea, he told of the years he kept a supply of clothing and shoes in the basement to give to the unemployed. One service, he recalls, he looked around the congregation and realized only two of them were working—he, and a telephone operator. Canon Shepherd, St. George's rector of today, is a man who early learned the secret of tranquility while growing up by the seaside in the Maritimes, and he developed it to the point of saturation in 25 years in the Arctic. Blessed with a strong physique, Mr. Shepherd felt God could use him somewhere that perhaps other men couldn't go, so he volunteered for Arctic duty. This landed him at Shingle Point, a remote dot on the Arctic coast with no communication for months on end with the outside world. For seven years he ran a school for Eskimo children. A year after arrival, 1930, his wife-to-be arrived as music teacher and in 1933 they went 110 miles—three days by dog-sled — to be married, slipping into the little church at Aklavik at 11 o'clock Sunday night in that eerie Arctic light. Now, 25 years of marriage have passed, and Wedensday, appropriately St. George's Day, they will celebrate the anniversary with their two sons and daughter and close friends. Those years at Shingle Point, when they shot caribou and caught fish to supplement their once-a-year supplies, were certainly memorable. This school was a new venture for the Anglicans and all of the buildings were constructed from drift-logs that floated hundreds of miles down the MacKenzie River. And it was while at Shingle Point they saw Will Rogers and Wiley Post dip their plane low overhead in salute. All of them at the station stood out and waved as these two famous men flew on, only to crash the next morning and be killed. Eventually, the school was closed. They floated all of the furnishings and the children, by barge, to the new school at Aklavik. Nine more years were spent at Aklavik and then because their children were growing they came out of the Arctic and Mr. Shepherd taught at Lakefield School, Port Hope, where his boys were enrolled. However, men had become so scarce for northern work due to the war, he was persuaded to go back, and stayed until 1954. Canon and Mrs. Shepherd like Pickering very much. Mrs. Shepherd teaches Sunday School and plays the piano for the singing. Sunday School for the 120 children—there were only 15 three years ago—is in the Pickering Community Hall at the same time as the church service, 11.15 a.m. But things are pretty crowded and the church is hoping eventually to get their own parish hall. For the tiny tots, there's a nursery school in the basement of Mr. Shepherd's home. This is the only space available. The rector's Sunday schedule is to have a service at Dunbarton at 9.45 a.m., at Pickering at 11.15 and again at Pickering at 7.30 in the evening. The Dunbarton congregation is larger than St. George's at present. Even so, the whole area is growing and St. George's is growing with it. The present membership is 148 families, but every week new faces turn up. These are people who have tired of city living and want to get out and breathe the fresh country air. Across the still, country air, just down the way a piece from St.George's, there came the tinkling of easy laughter last night. It punctuated the smooth rhythm of dance music coming from the community hall where the ladies were presenting a dance and parish get-together to raise money for that new parish hall. They even have a separate bank account marked ""Parish Hall,"" in the little Pickering bank. Teas, bake sales, pancake supper, Christian bazaar and garden party—just about every month there is something, and all for good causes. There are a number of other organizations at St. George's and a new one is about to be born—a men's club—on the most appropriate date, St. George's Day, April 23. "