from the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online...
Rev. Albert CarmanALBERT CARMAN, Methodist minister, educator, and administrator was born on 27 June 1833 in Matilda (Iroquois), Upper Canada the son of Philip Carman and Emeline (Emmeline) Shaver. On 19 July 1860 he married Mary Jane Sisk, and they had three sons and one daughter. He died on 3 Nov.1917 in Toronto. Albert Carman was a quintessential Upper Canadian. His father, a self-educated tanner and farmer, was a grandson of an officer in the King�s Royal Regiment of New York, and his mother was a granddaughter of another �Royal Yorker.� The Carmans and Shavers were among the loyalist families who settled on crown grants in Matilda Township in 1784, and the Carmans were also among the earliest converts to Methodism in the colony. Carman never lost touch with his rural and loyalist roots and his family�s commitment to Methodism. He attended the first elementary school in the township and the grammar school in Matilda. In 1851 he entered Victoria College in Cobourg. The religious climate at Victoria was strongly evangelical, and Carman was converted in the winter of 1854 at the height of a period of intense preaching and spiritual introspection. He wrote to his father immediately, telling him what �the Good Lord� had done and asking for advice. A member of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada, established in 1834 by those who opposed the union of the Upper Canadian Methodist Episcopal conference with the British Wesleyans, Philip Carman encouraged his son to join that church, which Albert did. Although concerned at first about the intensity of his conversion, he soon became convinced that God would enable him to overcome all temptations. Combining assurance and humility, in 1858 he executed on �bended knees� a written covenant with God, promising to give one-tenth of his net income (he later amended this to gross income) for charitable purposes and symbolically to replace his gold watch with a cheaper one. Carman graduated from Victoria in 1855 and became principal of his old grammar school in Matilda. In 1857, now a candidate for the Methodist Episcopal ministry, he was appointed to the teaching staff at the newly opened Belleville Seminary, a preparatory school for young Methodist Episcopals, both men (particularly potential ministers) and women, which offered a three-year course in classics, mathematics, science, and philosophy. One year later, he replaced Joshua H. Johnson as principal of the school. When it was transformed into Albert College in 1866 Carman assumed the position of president, which he retained until 1875. He had achieved full ministerial status in 1864 without ever having served on a circuit.
Albert College - Belleville, Ontario 1870
From
its beginning, the Belleville Seminary was in difficult circumstances. Many in
the Methodist Episcopal community were suspicious of learning and of an
educated ministry. Moreover, the denomination was divided over whether the
school should seek provincial grants or follow the church�s voluntarist policy.
Under Carman�s forceful direction, and with the backing of his bishop, James
Richardson*, and of the superintendent of education for Upper Canada, Egerton
Ryerson*, it prospered modestly. Its survival owed much to Carman�s
administrative and teaching skills and to his effective advocacy of its
interests. His contribution was shaped and informed by the powerful blend of
evangelical spirituality, ambition, self-confidence, patriotism, and
intellectual and moral rigidity that constituted the core of his personality
and convictions. He managed the meagre resources of the school prudently and
sought energetically to strengthen its position in his church. Within the
college, secular knowledge and the knowledge of God were imparted in an
evangelical, morally conformist, and intellectually conservative context.
As
principal, Carman was often discouraged but remained convinced of the need for
the seminary to educate Methodist Episcopal youth and to provide trained
leadership for the church. Doubtless at his urging, it became affiliated with
the University of Toronto in 1861 and in 1866, as Albert College, secured a
charter empowering it to grant degrees in arts. Although women were not
admitted to degree programs, they were offered a diploma course; in 1868
Alexandra College was created for women students, who were permitted also to
attend undergraduate classes. In 1870, moreover, Carman initiated the
establishment of a faculty of divinity, and organized as well faculties of
arts, engineering, law, and music.
Carman�s
work at the college and his evangelical preaching and writing had a strong
impact on his brethren. Between 1868 and 1874 he defended the Methodist
Episcopal position in the negotiations for the union of Methodist churches, but
its entry into the union foundered on its insistence on an episcopate and its
opposition to lay representation in governing bodies. In 1874 Carman was
elected as the colleague and eventual successor of James Richardson. Ordained
bishop at Napanee on 4 September, he was sole head after Richardson died
in March 1875.
The
Methodist Episcopal Church in Canada was made up of three conferences in
Ontario, where it constituted the second largest Methodist denomination. Its
members were predominantly rural and were located largely in the old townships
along the St Lawrence and the Bay of Quinte and in the Niagara peninsula.
They were strongly evangelical and prided themselves on their continuing
commitment to the episcopal polity inherited from the church in the United
States and to the separation of church and state. Many hoped to re-establish an
institutional link with the American church, and there was considerable
hostility towards the larger Methodist Church of Canada, established in 1874.
Carman set out to overcome the administrative disarray of the church by
asserting his authority vigorously, by creating central agencies to manage
matters such as missions, and by providing skilful leadership for the
conferences. His powerful addresses, published in the church�s Canada Christian Advocate
(Hamilton, Ont.), and his visits to congregations encouraged his brethren to
believe that Episcopal Methodism had a significant role to play in the
religious life of the province.
Carman
knew that his church was essentially a regional denomination with a rural base,
and that to survive and become a powerful factor in Canadian society it had to
form congregations in cities and expand its base, especially by penetrating
Manitoba and the northwest. A church extension fund was set up in 1874 for work
in central Canada but very little was contributed. Churches were constructed,
in Kingston, for example, but none were built in Toronto or Montreal, and the
presence of the church hardly increased in urban Ontario and Quebec. Similarly,
missionaries were sent to Manitoba in 1876 and missions were begun in seven
centres, but in 1883 members numbered only 350. That effort had foundered on
the rocks of a highly mobile population in which Episcopals were a minority, of
fierce competition with other churches, and of the high cost of missions in a
volatile economic and social setting.
By
1881 Carman was aware that the mood of his brethren was no longer optimistic
and aggressive. Some ministers were seeking refuge in the church in the United
States. Many, perhaps the majority, of the clergy and laity were becoming more
receptive to the prospect of a union with the Methodist Church of Canada and
with the smaller Bible Christian and Primitive Methodist churches. The
Ecumenical Methodist Conference in 1881 heightened awareness of the spiritual
ties between the various Methodist bodies, and informal meetings of
representatives from the two main churches were held in Morrisburg that winter.
The bishop perceived his task to be devising a strategy that would lead to
union on terms likely to be acceptable to the majority in his church or, if the
negotiations failed, that would enable it to continue credibly on its own. The
General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church had approved lay
representation in 1878, and so the crucial point of contention was the
episcopacy. Fortunately, powerful figures in the larger Methodist Church of
Canada were dissatisfied with its system of governance and were advocating the
assignment of executive authority to a general superintendent. Thus, in
practice, Carman�s principal concern was to reconcile that notion with the one
of episcopacy which his ministerial brethren shared.
In
1882 the Methodist Church of Canada accepted in principle the notion of a
strong general superintendency. This decision enabled Carman to begin the
process of equating episcopacy with the proposed general superintendency. As a
result of his vigorous advocacy, the Basis of Union, adopted by the
representatives of the various churches in December 1882, included
provision for two general superintendents. Moreover, although they were to be
elected, it was understood that Carman would be one of the first two chosen.
When the Methodist Episcopal General Conference met in special session in
Napanee in January 1883, Carman stressed that �if there is a union it must
. . . commend itself to scripture, to intelligent conviction and the
impartial judgment of good men. But repudiating rabble on the
one hand and unscriptural dogma [apostolic succession] on the other[,] we do
tenaciously hold to a ministerial succession in the Church of God.� Since in
the Methodist Episcopal Church it was the ministers, or presbyters, who gave
the bishop powers of ordination and supervision, it was lawful for the
presbytery, or the General Conference, to abolish or alter the episcopacy.
Carman indicated that the general superintendency would be a scriptural
episcopacy, adapted to the needs of an itinerant ministry, effective in
symbolizing and maintaining the unity of the church, and resistant to
centralization or sectionalism. He concluded: �Our great principles of
doctrine, government and action can be harmonized into one Church � if
they cannot, either our principles are false and wrong, or God never intended
us to come together.�
Oppressed
by the church�s debt brought on by church extension, missions, and educational
institutions, and concerned about unmet needs, the General Conference was
stirred by Carman�s advocacy of a new departure. It approved the Basis of Union
and submitted it to the annual conferences and quarterly meetings. Carman
observed �a wonderful sensitiveness in the minds of many� about union in the
months leading up to the meeting of delegates from the uniting churches in
September 1883. This provisional General Conference elected Samuel
Dwight Rice, the president of the General Conference of the Methodist
Church of Canada, and Carman as general superintendents of the new church. When
Rice died in December 1884, he was replaced by John �thuruld Williams*,
who in turn died in December 1889. Subsequently, Carman ruled alone, a
task that he probably found congenial, if onerous. In 1910 the
General Conference elected Samuel Dwight Chown as a general
superintendent to share authority with the aged and combative Carman. They
worked together uneasily until Carman retired in 1914. Thus, to the extent that
the general superintendent could give leadership and direction to the Methodist
community, Carman shaped the development of Canadian Methodism during three
crucial decades.
The
Methodist Church of Canada, inaugurated formally on 1 June 1884, was
the largest Protestant denomination in Canada. A religious community whose
activities extended from Newfoundland to Japan, its members believed that ��the
world for Christ� must be our motto, and to win it for Him our settled aim,�
and that �God�s remedy for the woes and wants of men� was the continued
promulgation of the evangelical message at the core of the Methodist tradition.
But in the years of Carman�s ascendancy the context within which that message
was proclaimed as well as its content changed greatly. On the one hand,
Canadian Methodists were confronted with the demands of a Canadian society that
was becoming not only more urban and industrial but also characterized by
increasing ethnic, cultural, and religious diversity. On the other hand, the
foundations of Christian belief and doctrine were being questioned by
historical and scientific research. As a result, Methodist preaching and
practice underwent a subtle process of adaptation and adjustment � a development
in which Carman played an influential but cautious part.
Legislative
authority in the church was vested in a quadrennial General Conference,
and administrative and disciplinary functions were assigned to regional annual
conferences, with laity and ministers having equal representation at both
levels. The general superintendents, like their predecessors in the Episcopal
church, did not belong to a separate order and were elected by the
General Conference. As general superintendent, Carman was assisted by a
standing special committee nominated by him and appointed by the conference. He
presided over sessions of the General Conference and chaired its standing
committees. He was expected to preside over as many sessions of the annual
conferences as possible and to devote particular attention to the central
institutions and concerns of the church. He also chaired a court of appeal,
made up of six clerical and six lay persons who considered disputes over the
application of the rules and procedures, and the board of regents of Victoria
University, the church�s central educational institution, which from 1884
incorporated Albert College. Despite the size and complexity of the Methodist
organization, the general superintendent had great potential authority and
power. Carman�s performance was characterized by thoughtful preparation and
presentation of his views and policies, particularly in his addresses to the
nine sessions of the General Conference over which he presided, alone or
jointly, and he became highly respected for his skill in managing difficult
debates. He used the church�s journals extensively to promote his understanding
of the religious and social beliefs and concerns of Canadian Methodism and his
vision of its destiny.
The
strengthening of Methodism�s evangelical spirit, the implementation of
administrative changes to enable the church to fulfil its responsibilities more
efficiently, the promotion of moral reform, the preservation of Canada as a
predominantly Protestant and English-speaking nation, and the defence of the
authority of the Bible constituted the core of his preaching and practice. At
the General Conference in 1890 he stressed that the �great and enduring
verities� are �the purpose and spirit, the interests and enterprises, the forces
and conquests of the spiritual, universal, and eternal kingdom of our
Lord Christ.� Methodists needed �entire consecration to God.� Carman
sounded this evangelical note regularly, and accompanied it with an insistence
that �Methodism cannot fulfil its mission without continuous and abundant
revival.� Failing that, it would cease to be �a true branch of the living
vine,� the universal church, composed of those inspired and guided by the
�ever-living Christ.�
The
elaborate central administrative structure the Methodist Church started with in
1884 would become more complex and bureaucratic during Carman�s tenure. His
constant concern was whether the church�s human and material resources were
being used efficiently. Thus, he warned in 1890 against �a profusion of
committees� and argued that the representative character of the
General Conference was �the surest bulwark against all mere officialism,
all dangerous centralization, all hierarchy.� He cautioned the church never to
lose sight of the �essential equality of the ministry� in �spiritual matters�
and to ensure the �full employment of the laity in the temporalities and
polities of the household of faith.� Moreover, he urged the strengthening of
the general superintendency so that it would be �veritable and vigorous.�
Nevertheless, at the 1910 General Conference, in a review of changes since
1884, Carman noted that �the General Superintendent amounts to little but
a Court or Board chairman, or a Committee hack.� He argued that a stronger
general superintendency would enable the church to concentrate on evangelism
and exercise its influence fully in interdenominational and other national
matters. His plea was answered by the election of Chown. That the intricate
system which the latter took over in 1914 functioned effectively owed much to
the administrative skill and indefatigable energy that Carman had displayed as
an itinerant quasi-bishop and as presiding officer in boards, committees, and
the General Conference.
During
Carman�s period in office the church became identified with movements calling,
in the words of historian William H. Magney, for the application of
�Christian truths to the regeneration of society and the reformation of its
institutions on every level.� But the espousal of moral and social reform
obscured serious differences among Methodists over the foundations of Christian
truth and the means for making it effective and relevant in the secular order.
The issues deeply concerned Carman and would involve him in bitter controversy.
His role in the debates was defined by his fervent evangelicalism. He
believed in sin and the consequent need for individual regeneration, and he
considered that the sequel to regeneration must be the achievement of holiness
�by entire consecration and all-conquering faith.� He was convinced that a key
element in the defence of Christianity was �the doctrine of the Divine
Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures.� Believing as he did, in 1898 he stated
that it would be �an unpardonable blunder� to allow a theological student with
�loose ideas� on the Scriptures to graduate. As chairman of Victoria�s board of
regents, he took part in an attack on Professor George Coulson Workman,
who had argued that the Old Testament statements about the Messiah did not
foreshadow the historical Christ. Despite the objection of Victoria�s
chancellor, Nathanael Burwash, the
board decided that Workman should be confined to teaching in the faculty of
arts, a decision which precipitated Workman�s resignation.
Carman�s
last battle in defence of biblical orthodoxy began in 1909 with a public attack
on George Jackson, professor-elect of English Bible at Victoria, whose initial
appointments to the Sherbourne Street Methodist Church in Toronto and to
Victoria Carman had approved. Jackson�s assertions that the Bible embodies
spiritual truth and is not a historical or scientific work elicited a blunt
rejoinder from Carman. For him science was �well arranged knowledge gained
in the use of the proper ways, means and instruments�;
�history� was �a statement of facts, acts and actors, fully attested
and duly recorded.� Pressed on the one hand by conservatives
who saw Jackson as threatening the peace of the church, and on the other hand
by prominent laymen who asserted that Jackson had raised the level of preaching
in Canadian Methodism, Carman chose to renew his attack. Clearly, he was
concerned that rich Methodists would use their money contrary to the �highest
interests� of Methodism and the �trustworthiness of the word of God.� In the
end, swayed by arguments that �the thought and convictions of the men of our
church� must not be forced �into some cast iron mould� and that barren
controversy would inhibit fund-raising for missions, Carman in 1909 accepted a
declaration by the Victoria board affirming that �so long as our theological
professors maintain their personal vital relation to Christ and Holy Scripture,
and adhere to the doctrinal standards of our own church they
must be left free to do their own work.� None the less he sought to undermine
Victoria�s endorsement of the view that more than one definition of biblical
inspiration was compatible with Methodist doctrine. In his address to the
General Conference in 1910 he noted the danger posed by wealthy
congregations which could bring in ministers from abroad, but as chairman he
presided fairly over the defeat of those who fought to censure Jackson and to
inhibit freedom of expression in theological colleges.
Carman�s
conception of Canada under the government of God was a distinctive amalgam of
secular, denominational, and religious elements. He shared and fostered
Methodist hostility to �Romish aggression� and to Roman Catholic efforts to
maintain separate schools in Manitoba and the territories.
He believed as well that Canada was and should continue to be a partner in
�Christian civilization of the British type.� An �intense patriot,� who
asserted that �our country�s history and our political freedom and prosperity
were born with the expiring breath of a [James Wolfe] and [an Isaac Brock],�
Carman strongly supported Canada�s participation in World War I. In common
with John Wesley, also a conservative patriot, he had an ambivalent attitude
towards the existing social and economic order. Although he presided over the
establishment in 1902 of the church�s Board of Temperance, Prohibition, and
Moral Reform, he was not committed to the elaboration of the Social Gospel. For
him, moral reform meant maintaining the sanctity of the sabbath, eliminating
political corruption, and exalting rural values. Above all, the liquor traffic
was a great obstacle to the coming of the kingdom. �Against the poverty it
breeds the vice, vileness, and wretchedness it produces
the open violence, the hidden iniquity and crime it engenders,
we must stand up like men and cry unto the God of heaven for
strength and victory.� He was determined that political loyalties should not
divert Methodist electors from their duty to support prohibition, and thus was
prepared, if necessary, to ignore the other concerns of the political parties.
For Carman, indeed, every institution was open to attack by the Methodist
battalions, whose own spiritual vision could narrow and darken and who had to
be reminded constantly of the meaning of holiness.
If the
moral reform of Canadian society was Carman�s main goal, the potentially
corrosive influence of wealth was a principal concern. For him, as for Wesley
and the Apostle Paul, �the relation of increasing wealth in a church to the
purity of its doctrine, the spirituality and fidelity of its membership and the
power of its evangelism is more vital than ordinarily appears at first sight.� Ministers were warned
that �the money power is a tremendous power and it may be misdirected.� Carman endeavoured to contain the pressure of wealthy
Methodists � people like Alfred Ernest Ames, Harris Henry Fudger, Joseph
Wesley Flavelle, Chester Daniel Massey, and Newton Wesley Rowell at the
Sherbourne Street and Metropolitan churches in Toronto � who sought to
dominate the central direction of his church, but equally he had no sympathy
for the proponents of the �lower socialism,� whose reasoning he considered as
feeble and ill founded as that of the higher critics.
Although
he was re-elected in 1910 for an eight-year term, Carman asked the 1914
General Conference to let him retire. He was appointed general
superintendent emeritus at full salary. Subsequently, he was injured in an
accident from which he never recovered fully. He died in Toronto on
3 Nov. 1917. The pallbearers at his funeral included
Premier William Howard Hearst. The portraits of Carman presented after
his death were tinged with respect and admiration but little affection. The
secretary of the General Conference, Thomas Albert Moore, stressed that
Carman had stood for �the integrity and veracity of the Book, and was no
speculator or enterpriser of the truth� and that he had sought to build �a
national life, wherein sin would not find easy development.�
Well
educated and well read by the standards of his generation, Carman none the less
clung vigorously to the traditional view that the Scriptures constituted the
only valid record of the nature and purpose of God in history. For him,
however, the world was not moving toward an apocalyptic end: the religious
experience of the Apostles, the Wesleys, and all those sharing the evangelical
tradition demonstrated that God is continuously active, offering humanity the
opportunity to escape alienation and the power to live charitably with each
other. He continued the old battle cry of revival as the means of proclaiming
the message to individuals, and clearly did not agree that social salvation
precedes individual salvation. Nevertheless, he committed his church to a
ruthless program of moral reform, which presupposed the legitimacy of an
English-speaking, Protestant, conservative, ascetic Canada in which the power
of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the makers and vendors of alcohol would be
restrained or destroyed.
Dedicated, vigorous, and tenacious in
thought and action, Carman obstructed but did not prevent the reshaping of
Canadian Methodist theology in response to new currents in biblical scholarship
and philosophy. His rearguard action, one that probably reflected the majority
opinion in his church, combined with his tacit support of diverse attempts at
innovation, may in fact have facilitated acceptance of new ways of defining the
evangelical tradition. His administrative skills were a major factor in
enabling his church to fulfil its changing and increasingly complex role. His
aggressive leadership both within the church and outside it in temperance,
sabbath observance, and other organizations gave substance to the Methodists�
image as uncompromising adversaries of routine wickedness such as dancing,
card-playing, and gambling, as well as of that great evil, alcohol. Yet, within
the limits of his office and authority, Carman endeavoured to make Canadian
Methodism a vibrant embodiment of the work of the Holy Spirit where charity in
the fullest sense would be understood and practised. Ironically, his
authoritarian, dogmatic style obscured his goal, and his theology, based on a
traditional view of the Bible and the �facts� of religious experience, had
become obsolete in his own lifetime.
Created and maintained by: Ken Russell Questions? E-mail: [email protected]
Copyright � 2005 Canadian Methodist Historical Society |