Daniel McPhail: The reluctant pastor of Osgoode

It was during the Ottawa Valley revival of 1834–1835, which was narrated in last month’s column, that the Scottish-Canadian, Daniel McPhail, became certain of a call to vocational ministry.

He lacked the funds, however, to pursue formal theological education. Providentially, as he was shopping one day in nearby St Andrews East (now Saint-André-d’Argenteuil), the Presbyterian postmaster of the settlement, Guy Richards, offered to provide the money he needed for schooling as well as for the support of his mother and siblings while he was away from home.

McPhail, ever the plain speaker, asked him if this came with any sort of obligation to become a Presbyterian; he was adamant that if it did, he would never renounce his Baptist principles. Richards replied curtly, and possibly with a little irritation: “Who has asked you to renounce your principles?” Satisfied that the offer of financial support came with no strings attached, McPhail went to study at the Hamilton Theological and Literary Institution (now Colgate University) in Hamilton, New York, in the summer of 1835.

McPhail spent three years studying at this American school, which was designed specifically to train men for a vocational ministry in Baptist churches.

Ministry at Osgoode

Upon his return to Canada in 1838 after graduation from the American school, McPhail prepared for his ordination, which took place on Thursday, 24 January 1839 at the Dalesville Baptist Church. According to the traditional Baptist pattern of ordination that had developed in the 18th century in the British Isles, McPhail presented a confession of his theological convictions along with a statement of his call to the ministry in what was reported as “a clear and interesting manner”.

In the summer months following his ordination, McPhail was invited to preach in the community of Osgoode, due south of what is now Ottawa. The result of a number of weeks of preaching in a barn that had been turned into a makeshift auditorium was the conversion and baptism of 26 men and women who were formed into a church on Sunday, 14 July. McPhail described in a letter what had taken place in the community as the word of God had been preached: “The people in Osgood [sic] were moral … They had a form of religion, and thought it sufficient. … But when their eyes were opened by the ever-blessed Spirit, to see that morality, or any other natural excellence whatever – that nothing short of a change of heart could save them – they became awfully altered. Never have I witnessed the power of truth to such an extent as among that people. … The finished work of Christ, as a ground of hope for perishing sinners, seemed to be all their desire. Indeed, I was never tried so much as when pressed upon by them to show in what does a saving faith consist, and how was the heart interested in it …”

In this same letter, McPhail noted that the newly-formed body of believers were making plans for an appropriate place of worship, but, he asked, “Where is the person to occupy the pulpit?” Robert Alexander Fyfe, an associate of McPhail, considered interrupting his academic studies to take charge of the Osgoode work but, after prayer, came to the conclusion that he should not do so.

McPhail wrote to William Fraser, the pastor of the nearby Baptist church in Breadalbane and a powerful evangelist who preached in both Gaelic and English, to see if he could fill the pulpit for a while, which he did. But Fraser was of the opinion that McPhail himself was the best man to serve as the new church’s pastor. In fact, Fraser was convinced that neither “Hermes [n]or Apollo”, those mythical, divine masters of speech, could please the Osgoode congregation half as much as McPhail. It was not until the following year, though, that McPhail agreed to be the pastor of the Osgoode work. He would serve there faithfully for the next 25 years.

Any reluctance on McPhail’s part to assume this pastoral charge, which mostly consisted of fellow Highland Scots men and women, probably stemmed from his deep sense of a call to do the work of an evangelist. Looking back upon McPhail’s life from the vantage-point of the 1890s, Alexander McDonald (pictured), who was converted under McPhail’s preaching and became a pioneer missionary in Western Canada, observed that while McPhail was a faithful and diligent pastor, … his preeminent excellency lay in his power as an evangelist. … He had a burning zeal for the salvation of souls. His motto seemed to be “Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” [2 Cor. 5:11a]. … he counted his labour as fruitless, if souls were not led to Christ.