Thaddeus ignored him and continued. “And the Gospel of John confirms the direction: Jesus said ‘Verily, verily I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God. Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God.’”
“Born again of water!” The man’s voice floated over the crowd, and Thaddeus suddenly knew who he was and what he was trying to do. He was a disrupter — someone who had come along to do nothing more than disrupt the Methodist meeting with some other creed’s point of view. And since he had been speaking specifically about the rite of baptism, Thaddeus knew that this man must come from one of the denominations that supported full immersion.
“Shush!” one woman shouted in the man’s direction, but a murmur rippled through the rest of the worshippers. This was entertainment that they had not anticipated, and they were eager to hear how Thaddeus would respond.
He decided to meet the challenge head on, and instead of continuing with the words that Jesus spoke to his apostles, went instead to a verse from Numbers.“But the man that shall be unclean and shall not purify himself, that soul shall be cut off from among the congregation, because he hath defiled the sanctuary of the Lord. The water of separation hath not been sprinkled upon him. He is unclean.”
“You must read your Bible more carefully,” the man shouted. “Pay special attention to the passages concerning John the Baptist.”
“I would be happy to,” Thaddeus said, and continued with the verses concerning the baptism of Christ. “The water is symbolic of the new life that God grants us as we join the church community,” he explained to the rapt faces in front of him. “It is representative of your covenant with God.”
The gathered crowd appeared content with this, but the Baptist (for he must surely be a Baptist) took no part in the singing and praying that followed.
Just as the meeting was ending, the man stepped forward a pace or two and spoke again. He hoisted the Bible he was carrying into the air so all could see, and then he laid it next to his heart. “I love this book above all books,” he said, “and I esteem it above all others. It is the Book of Books. My good friend here,” the man went on, “relies upon the King James version of this Book of Books, as I am convinced that he knows nothing of Greek or Latin.”
Several heads turned toward Thaddeus to ascertain whether or not this was true. He shrugged. There was no disputing the fact that he knew no classical languages.
“I, however,” the man said, “thank the Good Lord that I have the knowledge to read the original Greek and Latin for myself, and I can tell you that this Bible, this Protestant Bible, has been translated wrongly.”
A gasp went up. This was heresy.
“I challenge you to meet with me and I will prove to you that immersion is the direct and only mode of baptism established by Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
At this point Thaddeus responded. “That’s a very interesting proposition,” he said. “I would be delighted to meet with you in debate. But I suggest that our meeting should not take place in some corner somewhere, but rather in full view. With witnesses.”
The crowd murmured their approval of this plan.
“I will be at the hall in Cold Springs this coming Sunday, and I would be more than willing to give you a place on my platform; provided, of course,” here Thaddeus fixed the man with a stern stare, “you can give proof to your claims. Do I understand you correctly? You are saying that you will prove that Our Lord intended baptism to be a rite of full immersion?”
The man hesitated a little in the face of this direct challenge. “I will try to prove it,” he said.
Thaddeus grinned. “Oh yes, sir, you can try all you like. I look forward to it. Next Sunday. At the Cold Springs meeting.”
The crowd gave a collective gasp and then erupted in cheers. This was so much more than they had bargained for, a battle of preachers with themselves the referees. The Baptist minister looked a little crestfallen. He had no doubt hoped that a debate would take place on the spot, but Thaddeus had far too much experience to fall into the trap. If he engaged in argument at this point, it would appear that he had lost control of the meeting. Besides, news of a lively debate would spread through the neighbourhood and perhaps draw far more people.
He ended the meeting with a prayer, as planned. Having failed to stir any trouble, the Baptist minister wandered off at the end of it.
The rest of the crowd pushed forward to speak to Thaddeus, to shake his hand, some of them just to reach out and touch him. Knowing how important this personal contact was, he tried to take the time to speak to each one. And when they had all drunk their fill of him, he looked for Mrs. Gordon and the woman in the flowered dress, but they were nowhere to be seen.
II
Martha Renwell was delighted when her grandfather wrote and asked if she could come to Cobourg to keep house for him. He’d taken an appointment on the Hope Circuit, he said, but had an assistant and so would not be absent for any long stretches of time. The letter went on:
As it happens, my assistant’s family lives next door, and will be on hand should any emergency arise while I’m away. Mrs. Small has agreed to see to the heavy laundry, and Mr. Small will keep the kitchen supplied with kindling, so even though it’s rather a large house, Martha wouldn’t be obliged to do anything that she doesn’t already do at the hotel. If you could spare her, it would be a great help to me, as I believe I have already amply demonstrated that I’m hopeless at housekeeping.
Her father was dubious about the proposal.
“You’re only fifteen,” he said. “And you’d be on your own while he’s off down the road somewhere. Are you sure you want to do this?”
She was sure. For one thing, she missed her grandfather. She had lived with Thaddeus and Betsy from the time she was a baby. For most of her childhood, Thaddeus had been close by — he had not preached after her grandmother grew so sick — and Martha was used to taking her problems to him, to discussing the things that puzzled her and the subjects that she wanted to know more about. It was only after Betsy died that Thaddeus had returned to his old life of riding circuits for the Methodist Episcopal Church, and even then she sensed that he had gone reluctantly. He had promised her once, when she was very little, that he would never be far away, and when he left for Yonge Street he had assured her that it was a temporary posting. But then he had accepted this new appointment. She had been profoundly disappointed when she heard about his decision, but now it appeared that he hadn’t forgotten her after all.
It wasn’t that she was unhappy in Wellington. She loved her father and adored her stepmother, but now that she was finished with school, she was finding her days long and not a little boring. There was the constant round of cooking and cleaning and changing of linens attendant on the keeping of a hotel, of course, and she tried to make herself as useful as she could. But under her stepmother Sophie’s hand, the Temperance House Hotel was superbly organized. Every day Martha would complete her assigned tasks in short order and then start looking for ways to keep herself busy.
She spent hours walking the shore of Lake Ontario, picking her way over the rough stones and marvelling at the things that washed up on them: driftwood; pieces of ship’s tackle and lengths of rope; broken crockery; occasionally an apple or an orange, rotting and sodden from its time in the water. When the weather was too inclement for her to spend time outside, she would read. Newspapers were stacked up in the parlour for the convenience of the hotel guests, and she would go through these from front to back. Occasionally, one of the guests would leave behind a book. Martha would read it before her father had a chance to mail it back to its owner. Sometimes there was no forwarding address for the person whose book they thought it was, and these relics she kept, to reread when there was nothing else.
She envied the boys she had shared a classroom with. Most of them hadn’t even