This part of the work often left me feeling trapped, and it was sometimes a relief to find nobody was at home. One could then leave a card and tally one more visit in the book. One hot afternoon I knocked on a door and was greeted by a little boy of about four years old. I asked if his mother or father were in, and he said in a bright and chirpy manner, “Come on in,” and ushered me into the living room. I was just about to sit down when a startled pair of eyes peering out through a tangle of wet and still-soapy hair appeared like an apparition from behind a half-open door. Spying my clerical form, the woman gave a sudden cry and shouted at little Ricky to “Show the gentleman out, I’m having a bath!” and slammed the bathroom door. I retreated in a hurry.
The following year, I accepted the position of rector of St. Margaret’s-in-the-Pines, West Hill. In 1957 there was just a small chapel and a very sad-looking concrete-block parish hall, but the fourteen-acre setting with its tall, ancient pines and well-kept cemetery was magnificent. The road through the property was part of the old stagecoach route from Toronto to Kingston—the Kingston Road, as its modern successor is still called today. The first church was built in 1832, thirty-five years before Confederation, and the victims of early cholera and other epidemics were said to have been buried along the way, not far from the rectory.
Unlike doctors, until recently most ministers, priests and rabbis still made house calls. In the course at seminary called Pastoralia, we were taught that the typical day should go as follows: sermon preparation and/or hospital visiting in the morning; systematic house-by-house visiting of everyone on the parish rolls in the afternoon; meetings or individual counselling in the evenings. I took over the parish at a time when traditional farmlands and the spread of suburbia were still intermeshed around Toronto. Once, I was visiting a family who lived in an old farmhouse not far from the edge of the Scarborough Bluffs, the cliffs which mark that part of the shore of Lake Ontario. It was a chilly October day and there was a warm fire in the old wood stove. Things looked very cozy and I accepted a cup of tea and biscuits. Just then, a large, elderly dog came in from outside, padded over to me, collapsed at my feet and fell asleep. Unfortunately, the poor animal had recently been in close contact with a skunk, and the heat from the fire on his wet coat made the odour rise like steam from a kettle. Nobody else appeared to notice, but my stomach started to do cartwheels and I knew if I didn’t make a run for it I would soon be sick. I put down the food and drink and beat a hasty retreat. I remember the stunned look on my parishioners’ faces. I didn’t have the courage to tell them the truth. The suit had to be sent to the cleaners twice before it was fit to wear again.
There were always some members of the church who had to be approached with special care. Everyone had warned me that an elderly widow in my first parish, Mrs. Barnfather, could be fierce and that she disliked me sight unseen, on principle, because I was replacing her friend, the previous rector. I very much wanted to make a good impression and win her over to my side. When she opened the door, I realized she was almost as tall as I was, with grey hair pulled into a prim, tight bun on the top of her head. She invited me into her formal parlour and served up tea and fruitcake. She had provided me with a table napkin that I tried to keep on my knee while balancing the cup and saucer and eating a piece of cake. Unfortunately, the napkin kept falling to the floor. To make conversation, I ventured a weak joke. I said, “I wish I had a wooden leg—then I could use a thumbtack to keep this napkin in place.” She glared at me ferociously and replied, “My late husband had a wooden leg, and that’s anything but humorous!” It was to be a long time before we eventually became friends.
Churchgoing was then very much in fashion, and new homes were springing up on all sides in my parish. Soon the church and hall were filled for morning services and the numbers were continuing to grow rapidly. Our congregation decided to build a large new church, as many other growing suburban congregations were doing. Architects were hired, endless planning and fundraising dinners were held, and in the spring of 1960 the cornerstone was laid. The dedication of the completed sanctuary was set for late that fall. In good time, a splendid, lofty building went up, with lots of clear and tinted glass through which the worshippers could still appreciate the natural beauty of their surroundings. The soaring arches inside were of British Columbia fir and the roof was made of cedar shingles. The whole impression was one of woodsiness and airy heights.
The contract for the pulpit, lectern and altar had been let to a craftsman in downtown Toronto—a friend of a key parishioner. He did excellent work, but unfortunately he found it hard to keep to a schedule. As the much-awaited day of dedication of the new church approached with no pulpit in sight, I went to his downtown workshop and was greatly alarmed to find everything in the most elementary form, half buried in piles of shavings. He assured me, however, that everything was proceeding as it should. I tried to smother my fears, but when the day before the event came and went and still there was no altar, lectern or pulpit, I began to panic.
We were expecting several hundred people at the dedication, including local politicians and, in particular, the Lord Bishop of Toronto himself. In the Anglican ceremony of dedication of a church, there are special prayers of consecration to be said over all three items that were still missing. How to explain their absence? I cajoled, pleaded and begged, and the craftsman continued to assure me he would be on time. But when the Bishop arrived for dinner at the rectory on the evening of the affair, there were still no essential furnishings. The Bishop, the Right Reverend Fred Wilkinson, who terrified me at the best of times, had to be told. I took him aside and broke the news. He was quite annoyed. “I suppose you expect me to ask God to bless the altar, pulpit and lectern which one day will be seen here,” he grumbled. I gulped and told him that was about all we could do.
Finally, the service was ready to begin. The church was filled to overflowing and the choir was assembled at the doors to commence the processional hymn. As the sexton tolled the hour and I was in the middle of announcing the opening hymn, there was a roar at the gates of the churchyard and a cloud of dust as an antique truck lurched its way up the drive. It screeched to a stop and the driver, my tardy cabinetmaker, leaped out crying: “Don’t start yet!”
The red-faced Bishop, holding on to his ceremonial shepherd’s crook, curtly gave his permission to delay the proceedings until the contents of the battered truck were brought in. The altar came first, in four pieces, and had to be assembled up at the front while the packed congregation looked on in astonishment. Next came the pulpit. It seemed enormous and looked more like a chariot from Ben-Hur than an ecclesiastical podium. The maker and four men and I had all we could do to carry it up the aisle. Since it wouldn’t fit in the aisle, it had to be carried waist-high above the pews on either side. While we struggled with it, my accountant, who was also the insurer of the property, rushed up to say that he would not accept liability if the pulpit were to tip and fall on anyone. So an announcement was made and people scurried for cover or scrunched up together, and we struggled on. The craftsman, who was carrying some of the weight on his shoulders and dropping wood shavings all over the new carpet, was nearly crushed when we finally set it down too quickly.
When my former “boss,” the Archdeacon of York Mills, the Venerable A.C. McCollum, eventually climbed into the pulpit and launched into his sermon, he began, “I can’t tell you what a privilege it is to be the first person ever to preach from this pulpit. What’s more, I’m certain I’m the first because I saw it come down the aisle with my own eyes!” Afterwards, some people told me that it was the most dramatic church service they had ever attended, and others said they thought I had staged the whole thing for effect! This is one of the moments in my life that would be done differently if I had another chance.
Christmas in the 1950s and 1960s, while the source of a certain delight, was also a season of utter exhaustion for the ministry. There was private communion to be taken to the sick, children’s concerts to be endured, gift and food boxes to be delivered to the poor, and extra sermons to be given. After several years had passed, it became almost impossible to say anything new on the subject, I found.
On the afternoon of December 24, 1959, I was almost dropping in my tracks from weariness. Earlier that day I had delivered a box containing a large turkey and trimmings, with toys for the children, to a “needy” family who lived in a high-rise apartment building. The elevator