These are the terms of
respect and reverence by which the person named was usually designated
for many years before his death, whenever referred to in public.
Privately, he was designated by the ministers' and members of the church
who knew him as “Father Whitehead.” He was so called when the writer,
first became a, Methodist, some twenty-five years before Mr. W.’s death.
His first sight of him also was in the “Old Framed Meeting House” in
“little York,” at a prayer meeting. Mr. W. was bn his way from the lower
part of the Province to his residence in Burford. Turning aside as a
wayfaring man for a night, he had heard of this social means of grace,
and felt it his duty and privilege to attend. We were struck with the
peculiar manner of his utterance whenever he elevated his voice, which
made him so difficult to be understood by hearers till they became
familiar with its sound. This was the only drawback to his ministry. For
his other excellencies were many and great.
He was a man of sterling, unbending
integrity. He was not ashamed to be singular, and to stand alone, when
contending for what he thought to be right. Many of the senior ministers
will remember his standing in a minority of one in the great question
before the Conference in thirty-three. But he, who always contended so
honestly while a measure was under discussion, was equally submissive
when it was fairly carried by a majority. In this respect his conduct
was in beautiful contrast to that of another member of the Conference at
that time, who, to avoid the difficulty of voting against what he did
not approve, ran out of the house; and yet, subsequently left the
connexion on account of this very measure, and did all in his power to
rend it asunder. Whitehead’s genuine, truly evangelical piety was the
secret of all this. His habits were very much of the simple, hardy kind,
that characterized the early Methodist Preachers on the American
continent. He rose early, lived plain, and always rode on horseback. No
Wonder then, that he usually had excellent health and attained to a
great age. It is a curious fact, that Mr. W/s favourite horse,
"Sally-John,” so called to commemorate the names of the man and his wife
from whom he bought him, although he served his master to the advanced
age of twenty-jive years, had never a harness on his back. Mr. W. was a
great reader and exceedingly well informed on all subjects of general
interest. He was partial to our English poets, particularly Young's
Night Thoughts, a copy of which he had always about him. He maintained
that it was the most replete with thought, and the most suggestive of
any book in the language. It was this venerable minister’s commendation
t>f it, that led the writer, when a mere stripling, to purchase and give
himself to the study of this work from which he thinks he derived both
pleasure and profit.
Mr. Whitehead’s
healthful flow of spirits, combined with, his intelligence, piety, and
great conversational powers, made him a most interesting and desirable
companion. The writer remembers the pleasure and profit he derived from
his company during a visit of his to the circuit he was then travelling
in '29. The old gentleman's excursion to the East, as far as Hollowell,
had a most salutary influence in counteracting an evil leaven, which had
begun to work in the connexion. It was during that visit, he first heard
him preach. It was in the town of Cobourg, on his favourite theme,
“Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world.”
Mr. W. was eminently
social, and although not a “spirit drinker,” he was fond of “the cup
which cheers, but not inebriates.” And we have been told by an
intelligent and pious gentleman, who had the strongest affection for
him, that dur-the war of 1812, Mr. W. who was almost the only Methodist
minister that laboured east of Kingston, and whose circuit extended from
that town to Cornwall, and as far back as the Rideau : knowing how
destitute the people were of that luxury in the interior, he used to
carry some tea in his saddlebags, (as the celebrated Essayist, Foster,
did, in his pocket when he went to see the poorer members of his flock);
and to share at least, with the “old folks” of the families where he
lodged. But whether old or young, the visits of one whose conversation
was so entertaining and improving was hailed by all in those days, when
there were few, if any, books and newspapers, and in many parts of the
country no mails, not to mention the want of railroads and magnetic
telegraphs! Under such circumstances, how inexpressibly beneficial must
the itinerant rounds of such a man have been?
The writer, thus late,
at the suggestion of an aged preacher, one whom we might denominate his
“companion in arms,” has endeavoured to pay a tribute of respect to one
of a class of men to whom Canada owes much. As he has not dealt in
anything like narrative in reference to Mr. TV. he encloses the obituary
of him published in the Minutes of Conference for 1846, which it is
judged best to publish:
“Quest. IV. What
Preachers have died since last Conference?"
“Ans. Thomas
Whitehead.—He died at the house of his son, in Burford, 22nd January,
1846, aged 83 years, and in the 62nd of his ministry. The theme of his
long ministry was embodied in his last words—“Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace, good-will towards men.” He was born in
Duchess County, in the Province (now State) of New York, 11th December,
1762; was converted and joined the Methodist Church in the 18th year of
his age; commenced his itinerant ministry at the age of 21, under the
direction of the New York Conference, and laboured about three years in
the neighbourhoods of Albany and New York, when he was sent as a
Missionary to the Province of Nova Scotia, and continued there and in
the Province of New Brunswick about 16 years, when he returned to New
York; laboured two years near Albany, and was sent by Bishop Asbury in
Sept. 1806 to Upper Canada, where he continued to reside and labour
during the last forty years of his useful life. While in Nova Scotia, he
married a daughter of Israel and Flizabeth Andrews. At the time of his
coming to Canada he had a family of six children; was exposed six weeks
in an open boat coming from Albany to Niagara, during the greater part
of which time he and his family subsisted on boiled wheat. He laboured
two years in the Niagara District—two years in the Long Point country—
travelled several years on circuits in the Prince Edward, Midland, and
Johnstown Districts, when he removed again to the Long Point
Circuit—superannuated and settled in Burford in the year 1815.
‘‘Mr. Whitehead’s early
religious convictions had been deep and strongly marked, and his
experience of salvation by faith clear and undoubted. His piety was, in
the words of his favourite Dr. Young, as
“An even spun thread,
alike throughout ”
fervent, deep, and
experimental, during the whole of his protracted Christian life. His
gentlemanly deportment was but emblematical of his gentle and
affectionate piety, and his fine physical stature but the index of the
noble spirit within. He possessed a well cultivated mind, which was
richly stored with general knowledge. His pulpit talents were superior;
and notwithstanding a slight impediment in his speech, which in- v
creased with age, he was a popular as well as highly instructivo and
animated Preacher. He was industrious and faithful in his public labours,
as he was diligent and devout in his private readings and prayers. In
all agitations and oppositions, he remained firm in his connexion and
attachment with the Church in which he had found the Lord Jesus. Christ
crucified was his favourite theme, and preaching his delightful
employment. He loved to preach, as the Discipline directs, on the
occasions of Christian festivals, and preached no less than fifty-three
Christmas sermons on as many successive Christmas days. He preached for
the last time in his life on Christmas-day, 1815, from Luke ii. 14,
While his body, literally worn out, was gradually sinking beneath the
accumulation of years and labours, the vigour of his intellect remained
unimpaired— his peace perfect—his hope buoyant. His eye of luminous
faith converted the darkness of death into the opening light of .Heaven,
and transformed its gloomy valley into a highway of triumph; and while
he was giving the sign of assured victory, after speech had failed, he
fell asleep in Jesus—haying furnished a practical commentary during a
longer period than any other Clergyman in Canada, on the words of his
favourite hymn, with which he was accustomed, for many years, almost
invariably to commence public service:
“His only righteousness
I show,
His saving truth proclaim:
'Tis all my business here below
To cry, “Behold the Lamb!”
“Happy if with my latest
breath
I may but gasp his name;
Preach him to all, and cry in death,
"Behold, behold the Lamb!*
"After the example of
the Redeemer himself and his holy Apostles, Mr. Whitehead, with his
ministerial brethren, was, for many years, maligned and persecuted as an
American Preacher—as not well affected to the Government of his birth
and choice; but he, as well as his fellow-labourers have long since
lived down this calumny; and his mortal remains were followed to the
grave by the largest concourse of people, of all ranks and
denominations, which was ever witnessed in Burford on any similar
occasion.
“It may be added in
this place, that those self-sacrificing Preachers who, like Mr.
Whitehead, came into this country at an early period, came here not
because of their aversion to the British Government, but because of
their preference for it, and because of their willingness to endure any
privations and labours in order to preach to the then destitute
inhabitants of Canada the unsearchable riches of Christ. Volunteer
Preachers for the then distant and wilderness Canada, were called for in
the Conference of the new American Republic, when those who, from
hereditary attachment, or from disappointment at the working of the new
American Institutions, and from a noble spirit of Christian enterprise
to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth, offered themselves as
labourers in Canada. To them the people of Canada are deeply indebted.
Their souls were then cared for by no other class of men. Those
venerable men have nearly all gone to their reward; and like Mr.
Whitehead, have died in the faith of the Gospel, which they had laboured
and suffered so much to preach. It remains for the living members of the
Church to serve the present generation as faithfully and as efficiently
as their predecessors served the last generation.”
We want to say in
conclusion, to those who never saw him, that the printed portrait of
this servant of Christ is a good one; but it is not so life-like as it
would have been, if his hair had been disposed in the meek way he
usually wore it. |