Revision as of 17:53, 12 August 2020

Bethany Gospel Chapel, formerly Hebron Gospel Hall, is now no longer in existence. It met first “in a large house on Richmond Square”¹ before moving on to “what was called Crescent Hall, a large upper room corner of St. Catherine and Crescent Streets.”² Eventually this assembly moved to a store-front building with apartments overhead, located at 5182 Wellington Street in Verdun on the southern side of the island. In addition to the meeting room, there were two smaller rooms for the Sunday School.

The building received a brick face-lift sometime in the fifties. This was a gathering of Grant Brethren, a faction resulting from the 1884/5 division within the Exclusive wing of the Brethren, Montreal having the dubious honour of being the flash point for this drama. For a history of other Grant assemblies established on the Gaspé coast, see the author’s Early History of English Brethren Assemblies on Quebec’s Gaspé Coast.Frederick W. Grant of Plainfield, New Jersey, one of the Brethren’s most respected teachers, on a visit to Montreal, was read out of the Exclusive assembly meeting at Natural History Hall. Mr. Samuel Ridout also of Plainfield, NJ, himself among the Grant Exclusives, often visited Hebron.³ He clearly entertained doubts about the justification of what had taken place at Montreal. At one time he reportedly asked, “Was Natural History Hall right in putting away Mr. Grant as a wicked person, and making such a refusal a test of fellowship?”⁴

Exactly when or how Hebron appeared on the scene is unknown. Partisans of F. W. Grant who, as we have seen, had been read out of the Exclusive meeting, first met on Craig Street in Montreal on December 21, 1884. What possible connection, direct or indirect, may have existed between Craig Street and Hebron Gospel Hall is unknown.

A statement of Hebron’s identity, appearing on the reverse side of an announcement of its services, reads: "We are simply Christians. We refuse all sectarian creeds, barriers, bonds or distinctions. We recognize no membership other than membership in the body of Christ, the Church of Scripture. (Rom. 12:4,5; 1 Cor. 12:27; Eph. 5:30) This is a sufficient bond of union and basis of fellowship and to this Church all Christians were joined by the operation of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 12:12,13). No other membership is known to Scripture. We meet in the name of the Lord Jesus (Matt. 18:20) and welcome as fellow-members all who evidence that they are born again by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:26; Rom. 15:7) and not scripturally debarred for moral sin (1 Cor 5:11) or fundamentally evil doctrine (1 Tim. 1:19,20) or willful association with such (2 John 10)." No date is attached but it is signed W. O. Stucker.

Parenthetically, Mr. John James, whom the author Napoleon Noel identifies as “the prominent partisan of Mr. Grant”⁵ at the time of the Montreal Division, is later referred to by George Dixon as “a gifted teacher”,⁶ by then assumedly among the Open Brethren in “the north end of the city” of Montreal. This brother provides us with an interesting story. Separating from the Exclusives at Natural History Hall, he was among the first to stand with F. W. Grant when the latter was read out of that assembly. He and others immediately began meeting on Craig Street in the city. Ten years later, we find him among a breakaway group known as the Independents who “would, and did, have fellowship with Open Brethren …. These men were finally refused by the Grant company before ending up in fellowship with the Open Brethren.”⁷ This is part of the story scattered throughout the pages of Napoleon Noel’s two-volume The History of the Brethren, published in 1936, by which time Mr. James had gone to be with the Lord.

That he had lived to regret the many divisions that wracked the Brethren movement and in which he had himself earlier participated is clear from the following quote taken from A History of the Plymouth Brethren by W. Blair Neatby, published in 1901: “Let us,” says Mr. John James, a Montreal Brother, “look at ourselves:- Some say I am of J.N.D., others I am of W.K.; Some say I am of J.B.S., others I am of C.E.S.; Some say I am of A.P.C., others I am of F.W.G.; Some say I am of F.E.R., others I am of W.J.L. Mr. James is mentioned with honour as one to whom this state of things appeared an unmitigated scandal.”

"Although among the Grant Exclusives, Hebron apparently maintained ties with the Antoine Street and other Open assemblies in the city. This is not surprising given the fact that it was likely the only Grant assembly in Montreal and sadly in need of fellowship with other believers. Then, too, given the history of the Grant faction, it had reason to distance itself from the Exclusives continuing to meet at Natural History Hall. In the mid-1950s attendance at Hebron was around 35 people.

According to a letter from William O. Stucker addressed to Arnold Reynolds⁹ and dated March 19,1964, the name was changed to Bethany Gospel Chapel, still meeting on Wellington Street in Verdun. This is confirmed by a handwritten letter from Douglas Draper to Mr. Reynolds dated January 8, 1966, in which we read that this was “formerly Verdun Christian Brethren Church – Hebron Gospel Hall.”

Already affiliated with the Christian Brethren Church in the Province of Quebec (CBCPQ)¹⁰, civil pastors included:

• Douglas Draper (1951-1966) who moved eventually on to the Pointe Claire assembly
• Dr. Henry Maiben Candlish (1967-1978) who retired to Florida;
• Roderick John Belcher (1978-).

Persons associated with this meeting at one time or another in addition to the above include, among others:

• David Mills
• R.J. Kane
• William Ophenius Stucker
• Thomas Turley
• Andrew Young
• James Kershaw
• Richard Rye
• J. Stevenson
• Churchill Wilson

As an interesting sidelight on the times, Andrew Young’s son, Thomas, met and married Joyce Julien who, with two of her sisters had come over from the Exclusive meeting on Councilor’s Street, attracted by the livelier music at Hebron. Tom and Joyce were joined in matrimony by Douglas Draper at Ebenezer, now Rosemount. They eventually ended up at Grace Chapel in Sherbrooke where Joyce continues to fellowship.

In 1974, between a third and a half of Verdun’s population was English-speaking and, according to Arnold Reynolds, the assembly was already “a rather struggling affair.”  Attendance at the assembly continually decreased, especially following the 1980 Quebec Referendum and subsequent exodus of the English. The assembly closed its doors in 1984. George Dixon handled the legal details. Its archives are stored at Bethel Chapel in Westmount. RS

Sources

• ¹   Dixon, George H. Looking Backward Pressing Forward, A brief history of the Montreal Assemblies of Christians known as brethren 1860’s-1993, p.9.
• ²  Ibid., p.10

• ³  ditto

• ⁴   Noel, Napoleon. The History of the Brethren, vol. I, p.342.

• ⁵   Ibid., p.332.

• ⁶   Dixon, p.9.

• ⁷   Noel, vol. I., p.356. Such is earlier stated as well of Mr. James on page 332 of the same volume, in these words: “He afterwards left the ‘Grant’ party, and drifted into Open Brethrenism.”

• ⁸  Neatby, W. Blair. A History of the Plymouth Brethren, p.323.

• ⁹   Arnold Reynolds of Sherbrooke, Quebec, served from 1959-1979 as the third general secretary of the Christian Brethren Church in the Province of Quebec (now Christian Brethren Churches in Quebec). This is a legal corporation created in 1942 for the purpose of securing to local assemblies of believers the right as religious establishments to register births as well as deaths and to celebrate marriages. Only the right to celebrate marriages continues to the present time.

• ¹⁰   See preceding end note.