Page 13 - Presbyterian Connection – Spring 2021
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Connection
HISTORY
Presbyterian Church Heritage Centre
presbyterian.ca
SPRING 2021
PRESBYTERIAN
13
    The new site of the Presbyterian Church Heritage Centre (PCHC) in Carlisle United Church in the hamlet of Carlisle, Municipality of North Middlesex, Ont.
ning water! Some building spaces were perfect...but out of our price range, and many basement areas were damp with mold and mildew. We even had an offer to move the en- tire museum to the east coast.
In January 2018, we visited Car- lisle United Church, in the village of Carlisle, Ont., within the Municipality of North Middlesex and 20 minutes northwest of London, Ont. Since our first meeting we have developed a uniquepartnershipwiththehospitable members of this small rural congre- gation. The fact that the Presbyte- rian Church Heritage Centre will be hosted by the former Falkirk Presby- terian Church (Falkirk being the origi- nal name of the village’s post office) is good-naturedly acknowledged by members of the congregation and Ad- visory Committee.
Since that first meeting in Carlisle, the Advisory Committee under the umbrella of The Presbyterian Church in Canada’s Committee on History has a new name: the Presbyterian Church Heritage Centre (PCHC). Beginning February 2021, we have leased the upper-level sanctuary space in Carlisle United Church for our new Heritage Centre. The con- gregation of Carlisle United Church will continue to worship and has
Photos of the student work crew, supplied by St. Timothy’s Presbyterian Church in Toronto, who worked for two weeks in July 2019 to help pack up the pictorial church plate collection and library of the National Presbyterian Museum.
generously agreed to meet in the church’s lower level.
COVID-19 presented challenges as we packed up the old space and we hope to be able to open the new Presbyterian Church Heritage Centre early in 2023. We have extensive ren- ovating to do in the new space. The Presbyterian Church in Canada has approved that we launch a campaign this year. Your financial support to the Presbyterian Church Heritage Centre is necessary if we are to continue the legacy of the National Presbyterian Museum that welcomed individuals and group tours for over 16 years.
The National Presbyterian Museum closed in Toronto at the end of 2018. Thank you to our Curator, Ian Mason, for his diligence with the ongoing move and as well the set-up of our new space in the future.
Marilyn Repchuck, Convener of the Presbyterian Church Heritage Centre Advisory Committee, is looking for- ward to announcing our future open- ing and dedication. Please visit us at pcheritagecentre.ca or contact us by email at pcheritagecentre@gmail.com.
We value the connection of his- tory and heritage and offer a place for future generations to learn from the past. With your support, it will be possible for us to build for tomorrow.
Please plan to visit the new Pres- byterian Church Heritage Centre when it opens.
Presbyterian history begins here... our heritage is our future.
The Rev. Wylie C. Clark (ca. 1894), minister, Knox Presbyterian Church in
Saskatoon, Sask., 1914–1925. PHOTO CREDIT: LH-2442, COURTESY OF SASKATOON PUBLIC LIBRARY
Star on Oct. 19, 1918, he wrote: “Our dear ones have been exposed to the deadly missiles of war and now we at home are being attacked by the insistent germs of a noxious disease. Death lists have multiplied themselves. Sorrow and heaviness Continued on page 14
By the Presbyterian Church Heritage Centre Committee
Since Sept. 29, 2002, the National Presbyterian Museum has been gen- erously hosted in the lower level of St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Toronto’s Riverdale district. The Na- tional Presbyterian Museum was the first denominational facility of its kind in Canada. Since October of 2016, the Presbyterian Church Museum committee speculated that the con-
gregation of St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Toronto would be planning to redevelop its 110-year-old build- ing.
In 2017, a team went in search of a new home for the museum. It was not going to be easy to move 400 years’ worth of artifacts as well as an outstanding collection of Com- munion tokens. In our search for a new location, the team visited many churches—some that were closed, and even some without heat or run-
  Proclaiming the Good News on Church-less Sundays in 1918
 By the Rev. Peter Bush, former Moderator of The Presbyterian Church in Canada and editor of “Presbyterian History”
The year 1918 was a dismal one for Canada. World War I, raging since 1914, had reached a fevered pitch as the Germans launched two major offensives trying to break through Allied lines. But the Allies held and by the end of September 1918, the Germans were back where they had been in March. The Allied leadership, in taking advantage of the German failure, launched counterstrikes in the late fall of 1918. All of this filled the headlines of Canadian newspapers, which also carried the names of the dead.
During the fall of 1918, different kinds of headlines joined the ones about the war, as the Spanish flu rav- aged Canadians. The first wave of the
flu took place in the spring of 1918, with between 4,000 to 5,000 deaths in Canada. Then in the fall of 1918, a mutation of the influenza virus produced an extremely contagious and deadly form of the disease. As many as 45,000 Canadians died in this second wave, a disproportion- ate number of them being between 20 and 40 years of age. By the sec- ond half of October, cinemas and churches were closed to stop the spread. The lockdown was a patch- work quilt, with some regions clos- ing only for a couple of weeks, and others for nearly two months. The longest shutdowns took place in the West. Winnipeg and Regina were still in shutdown when the war ended on Nov. 11, 1918.
Closing churches raised the ques- tion: How would ministers commu- nicate with parishioners during this spiritually demanding time? Acting as
the Internet of the day, daily newspa- pers across the country opened their pages for ministers to publish short sermons, “sermonettes,” in Saturday editions. As one newspaper put it, “A Churchless Sunday is not a Sermon- less Sunday.” The Montreal Gazette, on Monday, Oct. 28, 1918, com- mented that having a Sunday without church services meant the return to Standard Time, which occurred the previous day, “caused none of those inconveniences” that usually accom- panies the time change.
Not being able to meet together as Jesus’ followers made the emotional burdens of late 1918 all the more dif- ficult. The Rev. E. Leslie Pidgeon of Augustine Presbyterian Church, Win- nipeg, wrote in the Winnipeg Tribune on Oct. 19, 1918:
“Many of us scarcely recognized how much the ‘assembling of our- selves together’ meant in our lives
until we have been compelled to ex- perience a churchless Sabbath. We are learning in this strange way the meaning of the psalm our forebears sang, ‘I joyed when to the house of God, Go up they said to me.’”
Being unable to attend church had parishioners recognizing what they were missing with churches being closed.
Clergy who did submit “sermon- ettes” discovered that writing a 400- word meditation was very different from preaching a 35-minute sermon. Not everyone was able to adjust well from spoken to written communica- tion, from a context where length was celebrated to one where brev- ity enhanced the chances of a piece being read. The Rev. Wylie C. Clark of Knox Presbyterian Church, Saska- toon, was among those who learned to communicate effectively in limited print space. In the Saskatoon Daily





























































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