and the new life were to her unknown, but she knew her
husband and could trust his judgment. There would be hardship and
loneliness, but these she was ready to share with him. Besides, he had
heard the call, and to that call he must give heed, and she was not the
one to bid him pause. Nor did he pause. Leaving his family behind him in
the meantime at Norwich, he proceeded westward in the second week of
October, 1874.
His journey was uneventful. His
route lay through the United States by Duluth, thence by train to Glyndon,
and thence to Crookston, where he hoped to find the boat for Winnipeg. To
his chagrin he found the boat gone, and Crookston full of impatient
passengers, among them the Bishop of Saskatchewan with his whole family
who had been there for five days unable to get passage. What was he to do?
He was due in Winnipeg for his induction on Tuesday of the following week.
The next boat would not arrive in Winnipeg till Thursday. Should he wait
patiently, or impatiently, with the worthy Bishop and then take a
pleasantly tedious boat trip down the sinuosities of the Red River? No
such programme would suit this impetuous traveller. He writes his wife:
"Found the boat gone. The next would
not get down till Thursday night and unless I came by stage I could not
arrive at all for induction. So got away from Crookston on Sabbath
evening. The roads were good and we made good time. Arrived in Winnipeg on
Tuesday morning about four o’clock. They had all been despairing of my
being here on time, except a few brave souls who maintained that such was
not the character of the man. Got nicely rested before induction came on.
Presbytery met in the afternoon at two o’clock and I attended."
Very different was the welcome
waiting him this time from that which met him at his first coming to
Winnipeg. Then, without a word of greeting, he made his way to his
uncomfortable hotel, chilled to the bone with his long drive through the
fierce January frosts and depressed with loneliness and homesickness. Now
he is welcomed by hosts of friends and by a united and enthusiastic
congregation. As that day he looked upon Winnipeg, the impression made
upon him by the straggling city never left him. Many years afterwards,
recalling his feelings, he writes:
"I stood at Fort Garry gate and
looked over the black trail with its clustering variegation of shops and
shacks that marked the main street of the capital. From that day, my hope
for the West has never faded, nor have I ceased to be grateful for its
rich opportunities for service."
His congregation and, indeed, the
whole city were waiting him. His letter to his wife goes on:
"The meeting at the induction was
quite a large one— the church was full. It was also a good representation
of all parties in the Church. There were quite a number of
strangers—people belonging to our own Church who had come here during my
absence. They appeared to be all hearty and pleased. The Kirk people, too,
I think, will work well. I want to pursue the policy of forgetfulness of
the past, and active effort for the cause of Presbyterianism and
Christianity for the future."
He came at a time when he was badly
needed. The congregation had become somewhat disorganized during the
interregnum, and there was much sickness, for the city was full of the
typhoid fever that for many years continued to haunt the banks of the Red
River. In addition, immigrants were arriving in large numbers, some
distributing themselves in shacks and tents upon the prairie on the
outskirts of the city, others pushing on to seek the better country that
to them seemed to lie nearer the setting sun. By "the Dawson route" and by
steamer they came, many of them poor, some of them sick, all lonely, all
needing help, comfort and cheer. Robertson took hold of the situation with
a firm grasp. First he proceeded to organize his force of workers.
"Things here are quiet," he writes
to his wife under date October 30th. "There is still a good deal of
sickness with fever, but there are very few deaths. The weather has turned
cold now, and I think we shall have no new cases. I have done a good deal
of visiting, but there is a great deal yet to be done. I am falling in
with new people every day, and no person seems to have any idea of where
our people are. Things are not in a good state generally, but they may
take a better turn soon now. There is much work to be done and
single-handed I cannot overtake it all. The Sabbath-school has been low
owing to sickness and no one being here to take an interest in it. Next
week we have a meeting of teachers and expect to do something to set
matters right. Prayer-meeting and all have suffered, but we hope to make
things better there too."
And again a week later he writes:
"Am very busy visiting, etc., here
just now. Had a meeting of Session last night and tried to get things in
order. We did a good deal of business and found members willing to aid as
much as possible. We agreed to have regular meetings once every month and
oftener if necessary. We agreed to get some men in the respective
districts into which the city is divided to aid the elders in keeping
trace of those coming in and going out. Session are going to visit
themselves as much and as faithfully as possible. Measures are to be
adopted to see strangers to seats and to welcome those who come to our
services, and we are also to arrange about advertising services in papers
and posting notices in boarding-houses and hotels. We have adopted
measures to have a society for the relief of the poor, too, and I expect
we shall get some aid in attending to cases of real want. Things are
beginning to be organized, and before long we shall be on our way. We must
vigorously push and do what we can, for unless this is done we must
suffer. I meet with people who have never been in our church yet although
here all summer. I am coming in contact with people and finding out
Presbyterians of whose existence Session and congregation were ignorant.
Such things must not be if it can be prevented."
Again that imperative "must" makes itself felt. The
Session and congregation gather about him loyally. The leaders of the Old
Kirk party, won over by his courtesy, his preaching power and his
administrative ability, attach themselves to him. Dr. Clark retires from
the city and after a short experience of mission work, retires from the
Presbyterian Church into the Anglican fold where we lose sight of him
forthwith. There was no place now for party feeling or division. The
pressing necessities of their work forced minister and people to united
and earnest cooperation. Never a boat or stage arrived but the minister of
Knox Church was there to seek out and welcome first the Presbyterians and
then any others that may need him. Dr. Young, the veteran missionary of
the Methodist Church, once remarked in those times, "There is no use of my
going to meet incoming travellers. Robertson is always there and they are
all Presbyterians anyway." Not all Presbyterians, but certainly a very
large proportion of them, and it was characteristic of Robertson that he
frankly accepted responsibility for these from the moment of their arrival
in a new country, and to these he gave himself without stint of time or
energy or means.
Immediately the congregation begins to grow in strength
and in unity. As the winter approaches, the problem of increased
accommodation looms up.
"Church affairs quiet," he writes. "Our attendance is
good, especially at night. Measures must be adopted about a new church
during this winter. The question of our site is not settled and hence
nothing can be done. The Hudson’s Bay Company want to give us a lot in
another place. This we are unwilling to take, for the present site is
central. More room, however, we must have. Book racks are put in all pews
and we are to have psalm-books also. They are sent for."
Thus his first winter passes, his days filled with
varied work that taxed even his great physical powers to the utmost and
left him often spent of strength and greatly needing the care and comfort
of his home and family.
About the end of the first year of his pastorate, his
wife and children arrived in Winnipeg. That was a great day for them all.
Its incidents never faded from his wife’s mind during the twenty-five
years that followed. It was in early September. The boat came late at
night to the wharf that lay imbedded in the muddy bank of the Red River.
It was black and rainy when Mrs. Robertson, standing on the deck piled
high with baggage and freight and crowded with passengers, her two
children beside her and her baby in her arms, saw by the dim light of the
wharf her husband’s tall form under an umbrella held high. The baby was
crying, and to the father’s disappointment, refused utterly to go to him.
So up the long flight of steps, slippery as only Red River mud can make
things slippery, they toiled, and through the muddy streets to the hotel
for the night. It was a dismal enough introduction to the new country for
the wife, but next morning the sun was shining brightly over this
wonderful Western town. Her husband’s friends and her own came about her,
offering hospitality of heart and home, and soon Mrs. Robertson found
herself happy and content, busy to the full with her own and more with her
husband’s work, to his infinite comfort and peace.
During these years Winnipeg was full of young men. By
scores and by hundreds they poured in, the most adventurous, the most
enterprising, the most ambitious of the peoples from which they came. To
win and hold these men, Mr. Robertson organized a Bible class that became
one of the most striking features of the congregational life and work. His
method of teaching stimulated thought and provoked discussion. Those were
vigorous days, and the young men and young women who attended the class
were intellectually alert and keen, so that many a day the hour passed
unnoticed, and long before the discussion was done the time for closing
had come. In this way and by regular social gatherings of the class at his
own house, where he was as young as the youngest of them, the minister
grew into the affection and confidence of the younger portion of his
congregation.
The story of the Knox pastorate during those seven
years, from 1874 to 1881, so remarkable in Winnipeg’s history, deserves
separate telling, so rich is it in striking incident and so vivid with the
shifting colours of that kaleidoscopic period. But here it can have no
larger space. As pastor, Mr. Robertson was indefatigable in his toil,
unstinted in his sympathy, unfailing in resource. Old timers in Winnipeg
are full of stories that illustrate his tact, sympathy, humour. Here is
one.
An old Scotch lady lay dying. The minister visiting her
could elicit from her mind, dulled by approaching death, no response.
Falling back upon his long unused Gaelic, he repeated a Psalm and offered
prayer in that ancient tongue. The effect was immediate and magical. The
eye lighted up, the spirit came back again for a few brief moments,
recalled by the sound of the mother tongue of her childhood days.
A friend of those early days tells of another incident
illustrative of the courage and endurance of her minister:
"His pastoral duties often called him to take long
drives into the surrounding country. These drives in winter time were
always attended with hardship, sometimes with danger. Once during the
winter of 1877 he went to Stony Mountain to perform a marriage ceremony.
On his return a storm came up with startling suddenness. The sun was
shining brightly and there was no appearance of a storm, when Mr.
Robertson noticed a great white cloud like snow rolling along near the
ground, while the sky still remained clear. In another instant the storm
was upon him, a blizzard so blinding that the horse stopped, turned round,
and left the trail. With a great deal of difficulty he got the horse back
to the road, unhitched it from the cutter, took off the harness, and let
it go, then set off himself to fight his way through the storm. A short
distance from Kildonan he overtook a man driving a load of wood who had
lost his way, and who was almost insensible from cold and fatigue. He
turned the horses loose and took the man with him to a house in Kildonan.
After half an hour’s rest he set off again for Winnipeg, for he had left
his wife sick in bed and he well knew she would be in terror for him. So
once more he faced the blizzard, and, after two hours’ struggle, he
reached his home."
During the seven years of his pastorate the
congregation continued to grow, not only in numerical and financial
strength, but in spiritual life and in missionary zeal. The congregational
report at the end of the first year of his pastorate showed 100 families,
100 communicants, three elders, a small Sabbath-school and Bible Class,
with insignificant contributions to the Mission funds of the Church. At
the end of the second year, 1876, the figures stood : families 135,
communicants 177, elders 9, Sabbath-school 120, Bible Class 45. In 1878,
the statistics showed a still greater advance: families 185, communicants
233, Sabbath-school and Bible Class 250, and in addition to paying
a stipend of $2000.00, the congregation contributed $160.00 to Home
Missions, $75.00 to French Evangelization, and $100.00 to benevolent
purposes. The last year of Mr. Robertson’s pastorate the annual report
recorded 265 families, with an additional 125 single persons, 411
communicants, Sabbath-school and Bible Class 350, contributions to Home
Missions $280.00, to schemes of the Church $532.00, to benevolence
$483.00, a total for all purposes of $9,359.00, no insignificant sum for
such a congregation.
With his business men he was simple, direct and manly
in his methods. His managers consulted him regularly and his advice came
to be trusted and followed. He despised the circuitous and ethically
doubtful methods employed too often for the raising of money for church
purposes. "Don’t charge for your social," he said once to his Ladies’ Aid;
"when we want money, I’ll ask the people for it straight." And ask the
people he did, and with such good effect did he practice this habit, that
when the large undertaking of building a new church was upon them, he went
to his men and in a single week raised twelve thousand dollars of the
twenty-six thousand needed. That church building was at once a triumph of
architectural skill and test of congregational loyalty and of ministerial
genius in finance.
There is no doubt that it was during his pastorate in
Knox Church, that Mr. Robertson received that training in business method
and financial management that proved so valuable to him in his later
career. And certain it is, too, that if Knox Church owed much to his
leadership and his organizing genius, he owed much to Knox Church and to
the able and vigorous men with whom he was brought into contact day by day
in his administration of the congregation’s affairs in those stirring and
strenuous times.
