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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Exeter Times-Advocate, 1967-03-16, Page 4A real sca tterbrain ONE OF A SERies OF CENTENIAL REPORTS Tells its own history Courtesy is required Motorists certainly have a moral responsibility to keep a watchful eye for areas where slush and mud prevail so they won't shower nearby pedes- trians. There's nothing that takes the joy of spring away faster than to be lib- erally drenched when a car flies through a mud hole, and while some of them are hard to avoid, the territory the substance covers is much reduced with a reduction in speed. Motorists should also be reminded that a shower of the same substance can cover their own windshield — or that of another — and cause them to be "blinded" until they get it removed; and this can certainly create driving hazards. This is certainly the season in which a driver's courtesy is given the greatest test and we trust they will ell pass. Most area residents pride them- selves in the hardiness they display in battling our winter weather, but de- spite this, most are quite willing to drop this superiority over some of their fellow countryment for the warm suns of spring. Such an attitude is quite prevalent these days with the promise of spring in the air and for most the disappear- ance of the snow and chill winds can't come soon enough. However, spring does bring some adversities of its own, and now is the time that mention should be made of them so we can make the transition without too much hardship. The greatest problem, of course, is the mud and slush we'll have to face, but this nuisance can be made much easier to live with if all those con- cerned lend their cooperation. for kneeling penitents to seek salvation. Churches of this pattern were built for evangelistic preaching and appeal. Revival s er vie es were very much a part of the life of James Street during the first half century of its life and more, It was the custom for the min- ister to preach revival services, or rather nightly series of ser- vices, once or twice a year. Oc- casionally he would invite the pastor of another Bible Christian or Methodist church to do it for him. Very occasionally a big name team of evangelists would be brought in. Such a team was Crossly and Hunter and there are those in the congregation to- day who were converted during the two campaigns they con- ducted here and who remember them with deep emotion and grat- itude. Let's hope it works While there are always those who throw up their hands in the face of adversity, this is certainly not the case with community leaders in Grand Bend. For the past several months they have been seriously reviewing the causes and effects of the outbreaks of rowdyism in recent summers and have come up with what appear to be sound programs to thwart further disturb- ances. Obviously, there is no practical way the resort can guarantee an end to the problems, as they are caused solely by the human element, but the increased street lighting, police protec- tion and other programs should help eliminate some of the opportunities for trouble-makers. Members of council, the Chamber of Commerce and other persons who have shown leadership in this regard are to be commended for their efforts to keep the summer resort as the best in Ontario. We hope their efforts pay off. A typical pose This photo of Elmer Bell, Q.C., was taken by the London Free Press during the annual meeting of Western Ontario Progressive Conservatives at London, Saturday. it is a responsibility eire,.,:eeseeeekeeeeeecieIe 9?: eee.'erf * "* *: Politics should not be the business of only a few. It is the responsibility of every citizen to take whatever part he can in helping to formulate the policy which he feels is best for his province or country. In addition, he should then work on behalf of the party which he feels best serves his needs so that the party which he supports can be elected and put into effect the legislation he favors. This is the basic concept on which our democracy is formed and we are all losers when we fail to accept our responsibilities in preserving it. Too many people tend to look up- on politicians as a group telling them what to do, when in reality we have every possibility to tell politicians what we want them to do. When we fail to do so, we have no one to blame but ourselves. Canada's Agriculture Minister J. J. Greene had some thought-provoking comments on the Canadian political scene when he appeared in Exeter last week, and they deserve to be consid- ered by all conscientious citizens, re- gardless of their political affiliations, While his main aim was to stir up the Liberal party faithful, Mr, Greene's contentions that all persons should take an active part in the party of their choke is sound and perhaps the only way that politics can rise above the rather degrading position it is now held by a vast majority of Canadians. If it has degenerated to this posi- tion in the minds of some, it is not par- ticularly the fault of those who are active in politics, but rather the fau't of those who remain outside it and complain and criticize. That dream costs money The other dimension Our problems aren't always as big as they look. It's just that we some- times tend to get bogged down in a difficult approach when the solution simply calls for a little imagination. A true anecdote from Czarist Rus- sia illustrates the point nicely. It cen- tres on the difficulty that arose in the Eighteenth Century when what is now the city of Leningrad was being laid out. A number of large rocks left by a glacier from Finland had to be re- moved. One big piece of granite lay right in the path of a main street, and bids were advertised for its removal. All the estimates submitted by con- tractors were extremely high-priced be- cause in those days there was no me- chanical equipment for this kind of job, no hard steel for drilling or crack- ing the stone and no explosives except inferior black powder. Before any of the bids were ac- cepted, an insignificant-looking peasant turned up and offered to get the boul- der out of the way for a small fraction of the price quoted by the other candi- INSCRIBE NAMES As in most churches there are names inscribed in memorial windows and on some of the furn- ishings and symbols. The abiding strength of the church has come chiefly from its lay leadership through the years, partly because the pastorates of its ministers have been so brief - thirty one ministers have come and gone in a hundred years - but mostly because of the dedicated service of both men and women in every part of the work and life of the church. No church could have more reason to remember the men and women who have served it, One window bears the name of one of the founders, a man in whose home the people met for worship and prayer before there was a building at all. Another bears the name of a minister, the man who gathered the people together and welded them into an ordered and organized fellowship. Still another name honours one who Sunday by Sunday for many many years gathered the little children and taught them to love Christ and His Chu re h. The names thus recorded bring up memories of scores of others who have no memorial but whose service lives in a living church. With a little imagination the organ may be thought of as more than an instrument to accompany the singing. Spreading its pipes over a good part of the front of the church it is a kind of symbol of the place music has had in the worship of the congregation. In its first years when instru- ments were an expendable lux- ury or indeed banned altogether the congregation bought a small melodian. After that it had a piano, then a small reed organ pumped with the feet, then its first pipe organ, and now its new pipe organ. The congregation has always had a faith that sings; the hymn books it has used over the years have always been good collections of good hymns, Something more of the church's history and nature is expressed in the word "United" of its pre- sent name and denomination, In 1883 the church became a Meth- odist congregation. The year was a year of unions. The Methodists, awakened to the folly of the div- isions into which they had broken into, united. The Wesleyan, Methodist Epis- copal, Methodist New Connection, and the Primitive Me t hod i sts merged to become the Canadian - Please turn to page 5 By REV, S. E. LEWIS High over the main entrance to James Street United Church, too far up for those who go in and out to notice, is a stone in which hands, long since dead, carved "B C Church 1862". The date is the year the church was built, or more precisely, that part of it in which the stone is set, The letters B C stand for a name so well known at the time that it did not need to be spelled out, Bible Christian. The Bible Christians were a sect which had originated inDev- onshire, England, a number of years before, in the same re- vival which produced Methodism and was similar to it in every way. It came to Exeter with Englishmen from Devon. The first Bible Christian Church built in Exeter was a modest meeting house on Main St., but in six short years the congregation outgrew it. Those six years which saw a handful of people grow from a small frame building to a brick church so well constructed that it is still an integral part of the church building today is eloquent testimony to the zeal of those evangelical and m i s s iona r y minded Christian people. The "white" brick of the church tells a story too. It tells of local industries which are no more and of communities which have disappeared or great- ly changed. Five or six brick- yards at Crediton supplied the white brick of which Exeter is built but of these industries every trace is gone. Gone too is the once promising community of Devon; only a group of tombstones remain to remind those with long memories that it was once a village more popu- lous than Exeter. The white brick of Crediton has proven itself extremely dur- able and the passing of this in- dustry has been a real loss to Huron county. Inside the church the building tells more of its story. Through the years additions have been made. They may not be noticed by the casual visitor because they are so well blended together but they are quite clear when pointed out. These additions were made to accommodate the congregation which grew as the village around it grew and, a greater reason, as the small Bible C hr i sti an churches in Usborne, Stanley and Hay closed. The Bible Christian people built the small churches so that no man and his family would have to walk more than three miles to church. But as the roads opened and improved the congregations amalgamated. It seems that the grandparents closed their churches for reas- ons of expediency more easily than their grandchildren do to- day for the same kind of reasons. Many of these congregations, Bethesda, Providence, Eden, Be- thel, Sharon, to name only some, came to James Street. Cairns along the concession lines mark the sites of these churches today but the descend- ants of their congregations, about a hundred families of them, live on in James Street Church. Its structure tells something else about the church. The tra- ditional plan of the church build- ing from early times was that of a cross with a long narrow nave. The plan of James Street is wide and circular with the pulpit at the focus, and, until removed in re- cent years, the communion rail liam Stewart, agriculture minist- er; Elmer Bell, Q.C., who heads the Ontario Progressive Conser- vative Association; Ernest Jack- son, London insurance executive and manager of Mr. Roberts' party leadership campaign in 1961; and John White, London South MPP and government whip. Two of the key men come even closer to the area when it is noted both Mr. Robarts and Mr. Jack- son are summer residents of Oakwood subdivision at G r and Bend. So, while Mr. Sopha may not think too highly of the calibre of men directing the destiny of On- tario, it is very difficult for re- sidents in this district to agree with his contention as we cer- tainly take pride in the important role being played by these men, although we do suspect others in Ontario take more share in the deliberations of the PCs than the Liberal member would indicate. ;F We just couldn't resist the temptation to borrow our edi- torial page picture this week While some residents in this district may think they're tucked away in an obscure corner of On- tario, there is evidence to sug- gest that we are really in the forefront in many ways, and one observer noted last week that the policies which govern this great province of ours actually come out of this area. The remarks which lead to this conclusion were made by Elmer Sopha, the Liberal MPP from Sud- bury, who annually delivers his deadpan and entirely-unsolicited appraisal of the cabinet of Pre- mier John Roberts. While none of Mr. Sopha's re- marks was intended to be com- plimentary, they did point out the esteem in which some area poli- ticians are held in the hierarchy of the Ontario government. Mr. Sopha said an inner circle of five from the London area - an 'unholy quintuplicate" - wields the real power with Premier Ro- berts. Named to the group were: The Hon. C. S. MacNaughton, pro- vincial treasurer; the Hon. Wil- dates. He was authorized to try his luck. He rounded up a lot of other peas- ants with spades and they began dig- ging a deep hole beside the rock. Meanwhile the rock was propped up to keep it from rolling into the exca- vation. When the hole was deep enough, the props were knocked out and the boulder dropped into it. It's been there ever since. The rock was covered with soil and the rest of the earth was cart- ed away. Our historian doesn't mention how the contractors felt about the whole thing after the rock had been elimi- nated but we can guess that they must have been somewhat embarrassed. Their difficulty resulted from thinking in two dimensions — they planned to move the rock to some other place on the earth's surface. The peasant, on the other hand, thought of the third dimension as well; that is, up and down. Since he couldn't move the boulder up, he put it under- ground. — The Milton Canadian Champion ..; .e• ^e, . • e,e • c:• 50 YEARS AGO A number from here attended the box social in Shipka Tuesday night. Frank Taylor and Clayton Sims sang a duet and after the program Frank sold the boxes deriving good prices. Boyle & McLeod of Exeter will open up the barber shop in Cen- tralia Friday of each week. The Ontario Flax Company has appointed Joe. Davis as foreman of the Exeter Flax Mill, J. H. Holtzman received a cablegram from his son-in-law Rev. Melville Whiting of Tokyo, Japan, announcing the birth of a son. Times EStablished 1873 Advocate Established 1881 Amalgamated 1924 exefeRimesakmocafe SERVING CANADA'S BEST FARMLAND Member: C.W.N.A., O.W.N.A., C.C.N.R. and ABC Publishers: J. M, Southcott, M. Southcott Editor: Bill Batten Advertising Manager: Howie Wright Phone 235.1331 a,. 011 ="iii j ' ir Ei *air OE ;,-,"“ 1 - ,U k" tr ; Ezs r Ei '4-1P• -30-:H7'. f:FI ';';:.:=?•=-1 .......= ....---• Aisr ' 4 Lrm"-m. ...2". I it' .-. , r, wii"41's • am Published Each Thursday Morning at Exeter, Ont. Authorized as Second Mass Mail, Post Office bep't, Ottawa, and for Payment of Postage in cash My daughter had a birthday this week, her sixteenth. That's quite a milestone in a woman's life. Rather like the fortieth mile- stone, except in reverse. Life is beckoning, not waving. I'd give my right arm for that girl, even though it's ready to drop off from bursitis, and I've already offered it to the highest medical-research bid- der. And she'd take it. I can still Write cheques with it, and it still works well enough to reach for my wallet. Ah, I shouldn't be cynical about eny baby. She's the only one I have. Thank God. She's been causing me pain- ful pleasure since the day she was born. Any normal kid, as you know, is born at 4 a.m. Kim popped, literally popped, into the world at noon. And my wife has never forgiven me. The Old Girl began to grunt and groan about 4 a.to., but didn't want to disturb the doc- tor's sleep, and told me it would be about 24 hours before any- thing happened. She knew all about it, having already had a son, who took about 36 hours getting out of the nest, I knew from nothing. So We drove sedately to the hospital about 0 a,m., and book- ed in. She suggested I go to work, as there was no point hanging around hang-doggedly. I Said, fearfully, but with the utmost relief, "You're sure you don't need me?" She retorted (bitterly, I learned later), "Don't be silly. It'll be hours," This WaS about 10 Ian. Paid in Advante Circulation, September 30, 1966, 4,427 SUBSCRIPTION RAtES: Canada $5.00 Per Year; USA VA) I phoned the hospital at noon to ask if it was OK to drop in on my wife and hold her hand, The nurse chortled, "Congrat- ulations! You have a fine baby girl." And the kid has been getting me in dutch ever since. There's nothing basically wrong with Kim. Except that she's too much like her mother, as far as I'm concerned. And too much like her father, as far as her mother is concerned. Aside from this, she's a per- fectly normal, infuriating teen- ager. That is, she inhabits the bath- room only about five hours a day. She hates school, but her whole social life is centred there, She loves privacy, with some infernal machine blotting beat- noise. She thinks her parents are the square root of two, the only concession she will make to mathematics. She doesn't like liver, oys- ters, mushrooms, vegetables, salad, onions or curry, which makes for a bland diet at our place. She likes steak, imported cheese and any fruit that is out of season, which makes for an expensive grocery bill. Like all teenage girls, she gets along beautifully with her mother. They agree on every- thing. except just about any- thing you can name, Like all teenage girls, she is not temperamental. You can rely on her moods, Either furious or -radiant. She claims her parents won't even try to "communicate,"This PleaSe turn to page 5 . R4f, 7; MareCOZZOM ee • eeee e..eee,e'egeeee. %eery, from the London Free Press. The pose struck by Elmer Bell is one that is familiar to many area residents. It's a bit difficult to tell from the picture whether or not Mr. Bell's pipe is smoking, but we actually doubt it, because we've never seen it go for any more than a few seconds. It would probably be safe to say that Mr. Bell could be term- ed a ,,match smoker" rather than a "tobacco smoker", which is a fairly common practice among pipe smokers who seem to fill up ash trays with burnt matches much quicker than they do with tobacco remnants. The Carter Commission report on taxation will be debated at great lengths for the next few months, and while most of us would agree with its aim of en- suring more equity in taxation, many will argue over some of its methods of doing so. The report says money is in- come and should be taxed, re- gardless of how that money is made. Falling into that category are such things as sweepstakes win- nings, capital gains on stock market deals, bequests or gifts from rich relatives. Of all the principles in the Carter report, this is perhaps the most useful to millions of average taxpayers, but will prob- ably draw criticism from those same millions, This is due to the fact most of us carry through life a dream of sudden riches and we don't want any tax man standing by waiting to get his hands on a portion of it. We have the insanely illogical idea that the money we work to earn is somehow second-rate in- come and can be taxed; but money which arrives by luck, gift or gamble is first-rate income and shouldn't be taxed. Logically, it should be the other way around. While the Carter concept of taxing ALL income could and should become highly popular, the politicians will need courage to buck the illogical, get-rich- quick ideas which hide in each human brain. So many people will say; "Yes, but what if I should suddenly acquire a great deal of money....?" They won't, but they can't help feeling they wouldn't want it taxed. Jack McArthur, financial ex- pert for the Toronto Daily Star, Says the Carter idea would be good for most of us and would save us money, but he suspects most politicians will treat It with great caution. However, white greater taxa- tion on the higher income people would be a benefit for the aver- age citizen, it is not entirely true to say it IS best for the country, Canada needs investors, and to reduce the return On invest- merits by taxation, could dis- courage some from makingthose investments or at least would re- duce the amount they have avail- able to Make investments, 25 YEARS AGO Lines are now being erected to provide telephone service from the Exeter exchange to the new Royal Air FOrce Service Flying Training School now being es- tablished at Centralia. At the Thames Road church Sunday morning Hon. James G, Gardiner, a former member of the church, unveiled an honor roll containing the names of the young men of the congregation now serving overseas, or in the course Of training, 15r. L. LaWaon of Listowel, son of Mr. and Mrs. James Law- son of Exeter, has enlisted with the dental department of the Ca- nadian Army Medical Corps. If sending parcels to a lady overseas include a few hairpins, bobby pins or safety pins -- they are unbelievably scarce in Brit. ain. And it IS said younger la- dies might like a lipsticic. 15 YEARS AGO Robert Nicol, recently dis- charged from the RCA has re- sumed his position as linotype operator at The Exeter Times- Advocate. The Airforce Wives Auxiliary have donated a total of $600 to date to the South Huron Hospital. They will have the furnishings of a room named after them. Council authorized purchase of a new truck for the town to re- place the old wartime vehicle now in use. The first step to hire a full- time manager-secretary for the Ausable watershed was taken by the Authority Monday afternoon at their first 1952 meeting held in Parkhill. 10 YEARS AGO Exeter barbers bumped the price of adult haircuts a dime this week. Effective March 14 the adult price will be 85 cents. A 40-year agreement between the AuSable Authority and EX, eter over the use Of water from the proposed Morrison Dam in Usborne township was approved by town council Monday night, Norman Hyde, son of Mr, and Mrs. Harvey Hyde, RR 1 Hensall was runner'-tip for the top show- man of the day at geview Day at W este r n Ontario Agricultural School at Ridgetown, has been hired as a Member of the staff of the school. Mrs. Henry Krug, Kitchener, Wide named Woman of the Year Vies Speaker at the baffektil Tea for the opening of the cancer campaign in tketer.