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Bethany Gospel Chapel, Verdun, QC

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Bethany Gospel Chapel, formerly Hebron Gospel Hall, is now no longer in existence. It met first “in a large house on Richmond Square”¹before moving on to “what was called Crescent Hall, a large upper room corner of St. Catherine and Crescent Streets.”²Eventually 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.

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 this assembly 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. Perhaps they were one and the same assembly.

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.

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Richard Strout

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