Examples of life on the road...

By sunset I arrived at another camp. There I had supper and slept. In the morning I had my breakfast and left. At one place I had to walk along the rivers edge. The tide was coming and the ground was soft, I was frightened because my feet sank. Fortunately there was a small branch, I took it an used it to extricate myself from the sinking sand. The first chance I had I returned to a more populated land.

As I went along I learned of Professor Bielair and his wife who were spending the summer in their summer home. I knew the professor in Montreal. He was a French Professor at McGill University. The professor and his wife invited me to dinner and to stay over-night. Professor Bielair’s wife was the daughter of Father Chinique, a converted Roman Catholic Priest. Before I left he told me that there were very few Protestants in that part of the country. The nearest Protestant was ten miles away.

There was a French Protestant Mission Church under the direction of a student pastor for the summer. As I traveled a gravel train overtook me. The man in charge stopped the train and invited me to ride. He asked me where I was going and who I was. As it turned out he himself was a Protestant. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a dollar and gave it to me.

At Lake Long, the train dropped me off; and, there was the mission church and the young Pastor. We were delighted to see each other. Absolute strangers but behaved like “old friends.”

During my stay at the mission church we talked about many things; of the many things, one stands out in my mind. What the young pastor related to me was a narrow escape he had visiting a church. The young pastor said he was asked by several Roman Catholic French Canadians to preach on Saint Peter. Was Saint Peter the Prince of the Apostles?

Was Saint Peter the first Bishop of the Roman Catholic Church? My missionary friend agreed to preach on the subject.


The missionary set aside the Sunday to preach on the subject of Saint Peter. He preached. As usual there was a division of opinion; some folks were even enraged. One day after the missionary spoke he went out to make some “pastoral calls”, and as came out of a home a man came out of another home screaming and carrying an axe! That axe carrying person was determined to kill the young preacher. My new missionary friend said he rushed to his buggy and horse and ran for his life.

It is incredible really, what some people are willing to do “in the name of church or in the name of religion.”