From Revd. [John] Kenner at 423 Dufferin Avenue, London, Ontario, Canada, to [Lewis] Court.
He was very pleased to receive Court's letter re C. Backer?? [The rest of this paragraph is very difficult to read].
Court is mistaken in thinking that Kenner has a memoir of [unreadable word]. Kenner attended the Conference at Plymouth in 1855, at which he received his first appointment to the Scilly Isles. At that Conference he remembers Joseph H. [unreadable surname] preaching? At that same Conference the late [Frederick William] Bourne, William [Billy] Bray and a number of others, were received into full connexion.
Brother [Cephas Barker] was also present at Conference. He had a lofty forehead, a keen eye and thick lips. His general aspect was stern and commanding, but children everywhere loved him.
Kenner was unable to attend the Conference of 1856, at which Barker was appointed Superintendent of Ministers at Prince Edward Island, Canada. After nine years there he was sent to Ontario, where in 1871 Kenner made his acquaintance. Barker filled all the offices of the Church and was President of Conference in the year of Kenner's arrival in Canada. He was also editor of two weekly newspapers and one Sunday School instructor, and for ten years was the Treasurer of the Mission and Connexional Funds. During his time as treasurer, the funds were £60,000 in debt. To administer such a fund was a major drain on his time and energy.
Barker had a great capacity for work. Even so, the Church laid too much upon him and he never learned to say no. He possessed a strong constitution but in the long term the pressure was too much for him to bear. On the night of Sunday 14th November 1881 after a hard days work, Barker took some refreshment and retired for the night. He was dead by morning.
Reference is made to Barker's visit to England [in 1880], during which time he was relieved of all Connexional duties. Upon his return to Canada, he assumed the pastorate?? of Horton Street Church in London, Ontario. As far as Kenner knows, Barker had only one child, a daughter by his first wife. She married and moved away from the area. Her present whereabouts are unknown. Barker's widow either disposed of her husband's effects or took them with her to the Isle of Wight from where she originally came. She has since died and the Church has none of his effects from which to glean further information. Revd. [John] Harris succeeded Barker in the editorship of the Bowmanville Observer [of Ontario]. If anyone in Canada could give more information about his predecessor it would be him.
Two years ago, Kenner's wife?? died and he had to dispose of 1200 volumes and many bound volumes of the Connexional Newspaper to various ex-members of the Bible Christian Church [part of the united Canadian Methodist Church since 1884]. Kenner is therefore unable to comply with Court's request to give further details of Barker's visit to England [1880].
[John] Hicks Eynon died in Exeter on March 22nd 1888 at the age of 87, and was buried in the same place.
Court also asked about Kenner himself, which of course is a very familiar subject.
Kenner was born in the parish of Lanest, Cornwall, on June 20th 1836. He was converted? at Bridgetown in Devon in 1854, and became a preacher the following year. His first station was the Scilly Isles. He married in 1861 and in 1871 after finishing a term as Superintendent of the South Wales district moved to Canada. Kenner includes a full list of his home and Canadian Stations and length of service - see Oliver Beckerlegge's U M Ministers and their Circuits (1968). He thus enjoyed forty-four years uninterrupted service as an active minister. He was honoured by his brethren with the office of Conference President in 1875. Kenner also served three years as Conference Secretary, three years as Missions Secretary and eight years as Treasurer of the Connexional Funds.
When Kenner first arrived in Canada about one half of the brethren who had emigrated from England were members of the English Preachers'.
Annuity Society. [The rest of this passage is very difficult to read, but discusses in detail the problems of Connexional finance]. At Kenner's suggestion, the Canadian Conference started their own fund for the benefit of preachers. He also negotiated with [Frederick William] Bourne?? a separation of the funds of the English and Canadian Bible Christian Connexions. Reference is also made to financial negotiations at the time of Canadian union in 1884. In recognition of his services Kenner was presented with a gold watch on 19th June 1883. The watch still keeps good time after thirty-three years.
Kenner was one of five children - three boys and two girls. His oldest sister died in 1855 and was buried with their father in Tregarl? Methodist Cemetery. His youngest sister passed away in the city of [either Manchester, England or more probably Hamilton, Ontario] twelve years ago on January 3rd. All three brothers entered the Bible Christian ministry. Henry came out to Canada in 1861 and was joined by William and John in 1871. The oldest brother was William, who died last September at the age of eighty-six in the city of Peterborough. Henry is still alive at the age of eighty-four and is living in Winnipeg.
Kenner completed sixty years as a minister last July and will celebrate his 81st birthday, if spared, on June 20th next. On June 27th [1914] his wife died. They were happily married for fifty-three years. The April following, his youngest son died suddenly and in the September his eldest brother as before mentioned. This information is personal but Court did ask for it.
On the whole, God has been good to Kenner. People here are very kind and his health is remarkably good. Indeed, for his age he remains very active.
Kenner has never been what is popularly known as a `Revivalist' although he has experienced some manifestations of God's grace in the conversion of sinners. He feels that his ministry has been most successful in the area of `personal appeal'.
The church here is well equipped with a choir of between sixty and seventy. An organ which in the past year has had £15,000 spent on it, adds to the effect.
Kenner has three meals a day provided for him and a daughter who is kindness personified. He keeps himself occupied visiting the sick and ministering to the poor.
He has a voracious appetite for reading and follows John Wesley's advice regarding early rising.
Kenner was converted during the month of March sixty-eight years ago on a Sunday evening after listening to a sermon by a local preacher William Kitto. His text was `The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own wages'. The scene of his conversion was not a church but a hayloft.
He knows from irrefutable evidence that he was called to God's ministry.
One of the assets which Kenner enjoyed when he entered the ministry, was an appreciation of his own ignorance. At the time he knew practically nothing of men or books. He recalls that on his way to take up his first ministerial appointment [Scilly Isles], he noticed on a bookstall in Penzance a book called [unreadable title]. He knew nothing of the author but as it dealt with God, man and redemption, he felt that it would probably be very valuable. You can imagine his surprise therefore, when he discovered that the author's intention was to destroy faith in religious truth. He read the book as well as the writings of Voltaire, Volney??, Bolling?? and Thomas Paine. In 1862, he also studied the works of Bishop [John William] Colenso on the authenticity of the Bible. [The rest of this paragraph is very difficult to read]. Spritual matters are discussed in detail.
Reference is made to Revd. C.Backer??.
During [Frederick William] Bourne's lifetime, Kenner subscribed to the Bible Christian Magazine and Bourne also sent him any interesting snippets of Connexional information. Kenner should really have continued to take the magazine of the United Methodist Church [post-1907] but was not approached to do so, and therefore reached the conclusion that if the new management were not concerned with retaining their old subscribers, then he would let the matter drop. When Brothers [William Blake] Lark and [John] Luke were attending the Ecumenical [Conference], Kenner spoke with Luke and sent him the Canadian denominational [unreadable word] for the preceding twelve months in return for Luke sending him the Minutes of the British Conference Magazine or anything concerning the progress of the United Methodist Church. Luke must have been either forgetful or sick as Kenner has never heard from him.
Kenner will forward the year book with a paragraph written by Kenner's brother Henry.
On the back of the slip which was sent with Court's photograph, is a picture of Revd.[Arthur] Hancock. Kenner was particularly pleased to receive this, as he thinks that he knew Hancock as a child. On occasion, he used to sleep at the house of Hancock's father, who used to be a local preacher of great worth in the Bodmin Circuit. His mother was likewise a model of womanly virtue. She was a refined woman of great culture with a perfect command of herself and her children. [The rest of the paragraph is very difficult to read]. Should Court see Hancock, he should pas on an old man's blessing.
If Court ever succeeds in `deciphering these hieroglyphics, I think I shall have inflicted sufficient penalty on you for writing me: and I presume when I recover my memory and steadiness of hand to try and be a little plainer in my writing…'.
In a postscript he mentions that he has just been reading a work on the work in China by Revd. G.S. Bond?? and he noticed several references to the British missionary Samuel Pollard. Kenner was present at the Portsmouth Conference [1886], which appointed Pollard and [Francis John] Dymond to that work, voting £100 towards the establishment of the scheme. How has the mission prospered? Are those two worthy gentlemen still there? He sees that Pollard has enabled the Bible Society to provide the [montagnard Miao] people with bibles in their own language, which is surely an achievement to be proud of and thankful for.
Notes .
- John Kenner (b.1834) was born in Cornwall and entered the Bible Christian ministry in 1855. He emigrated to Canada in 1871 and held several pastoral positions in Ontario. Kenner served as President of the Canadian Conference in 1875, Secretary of Conference in 1877 and 1880 and Connexional treasurer for eight years. In 1884 he transferred to the Canadian Methodist Church. Kenner's two brothers Henry and William were also Bible Christian ministers, who served in Britain and Canada. Source: Beckerlegge
- John Harris entered the Canadian Bible Christian ministry in 1863, serving as Secretary of Conference in 1883. He transferred to the Canadian Methodist Church in 1884. Source: Beckerlegge
- John Hicks Eynon (1801-88) was born in Gloucester, and was converted by the early female itinerant Elizabeth Dart, whom he later married. He entered the Bible Christian ministry in 1826, and after service in several home circuits, was appointed to Upper Canada in 1832. He remained in Canada for the remainder of his ministry and pioneered the work of the Church across large areas of the colony. Source: Beckerlegge and Bourne, pp.214-217, 303, 519