W. J. SIPPRELL – Methodist Minister

Reflection

Beautiful is the large church, With stately arch and steeple; Neighbourly is the small church, With groups of friendly people; Reverent is the old church, With centuries of grace; And a wooden church or a stone church, Can hold an alter place. And whether it be a rich church Or a poor church anywhere, Truly it is a great church If God is worshiped there. ...author unknown ************************ "Thus has passed away the old order of things, and in the great march of progress all seems to have changed. In the short period of sixty years the old woods have nearly all been cleared away. The corduroy roads and the stumps are no longer seen. The oxen and the sled are gone. The log barns are rotted away or burned up. The old cradle and the hand rake are seldom used now. The old log schoolhouse on the corner is long a thing of the past. The old church, too, has been changed. Its environment has also changed. In the grassy plot around where it stood are numerous mounds over which the weeds solemnly wave. These were not there sixty years ago. The old shanty with its hallowed associations has passed away. The old clay fireplace, the chain and the hook that hung from the lug-pole, the old bake-kettle that sat on the hearth, the old benches that stood by the walls, all are gone. The old familiar faces that sat around the great old fireplace sixty years ago and told the old stories of their early homes far away, they too are nearly all gone and sleeping - sleeping in the years of the long ago." ******************************************** Though everything else has changed the Church remains the same a silent reminder that we need God as much today as our forefathers did a century ago. It stands as a visible link with the past reminding us of the faith, courage and perseverance of the men and women who first settled here. ******************************************** ’About Music - Tis pleasing to my pensive mind - To recollect the hours - When socially we all combin’d - To exert our vocal powers - Oft we beguil’d the winter eve - Forgot the chilling storm - The charms of music to receive -The sacred notes perform. ******************************************** She was so simply beautiful The village pastor’s child, It seemed, where’r she turned her face, Eternal summer smiled. ******************************************** "Listening to the song and story of my dusky friends my heart is bounding with delight. . . . Like innocent children they asked me whether or not I had seen any buffalo. . . . The shadows are falling over their pathway. . . . And they bow to the inevitable lot imposed upon them by the white race . . . [they] await the time when the Great Spirit shall call [them] away."
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