PREFATORY PLEA

A published life of the Rev. Robert Corson has not been undertaken because he was considered a great man, in any nne respect. And if he bad been considered as merely an average good Methodist preacher, his biography certainly would not have been written. There are hundreds of average preachers, as good and devoted as he, whose lives it would not be worth while to publish. “Father Corson’s” life is essayed because, while he preserved a spotless religious reputation for over three-score years, there was something in his spirit, manner, and doings, which caused him to be “the observed of all observers” and led to his being loved above many, which has begotten a desire to retain the genial old gentleman still, in some form, among his friends.

But the unusual structure of the book will strike the reader, and perhaps make it the occasion of confronting the Editor with not very approving criticism on the part of some. Some of these probable grounds of attack may be anticipated. Each of the unusual features, therefore, I shall make to stand out by itself for a moment.

First, I have made the several stages of his public life to coincide with the several epochs of Canadian Methodist history. In justification of which unusual plan I have to say : If this distribution of his life-work and progress will answer as well as any other division of his career, who has a right to object?. But I have done more: I have given such incidental references to all passing occurrences in Provincial Methodism, that, while lured on by the story of a humble itinerant, “the general reader,” who could not be induced to encounter an elaborate history, because something too formidable, will, unknown to himself, be getting informed on all the essential outlines of that history.

Here some one of those who always know how a thing should be done better than the person who has made it a special and delighted study, will ask: “Why connect the history of the Church with so obscure a person as Mr. Corson?" It would be very well if he had been a leading influence like some of the learned doctors, but not with a humble labourer like him. Nay, his very humility, which led him to labour on in an overlooked career, was one of those very things that made his efforts as valuable to the Church as those of almost any of the doctors. Besides, it must not be forgotten that Robert Corson did take a noticeable part in the deliberations of Conference itself; and, in his own peculiar way, his course was an influential and useful one. Further, he could not help having been brought into the Church before any of the great crises in its history transpired; and he had the rare merit of clinging to the main cause of Methodism in this Province, through weal and woe, until all the difficulties it had to confront were tided over; such as the first Missionary aggression; the organization of the Canada Annual Conference; the separation from the States ; the first state of independency; the union with the British Conference ; the disruption of the union, and the separate action of the two sections of Wesley anism; the happy reign of the restored union; and the final work of organizing a Methodist church for the whole Dominion of Canada. And he took a profound interest in every useful movement, as it transpired, if nothing further. Why, then, may we not notice these instructive events as we drift along down the stream of this old minister’s long public life! Why?

But some may say that I have dealt in materials below the dignity of such lofty themes. Truly, some of the incidents would have been too homely and familiar, if dignified history had been my main object, But, on the contrary, my principal design was the portrayal of an individual, and he one of the most unpretentious and pleasantly accessible of men. And, as I had to describe a bush-born preacher, destined to be a pioneer nearly all his public life, who was borne up and along in his toils and privations by the exuberance of his joyous, playful spirits, I have concluded, that a style of phraseology and illustration suited to the rude scenes through which he was called to pass would be the best adapted to recall those times ; and would best befit the genial, unexacting, and almost rollicking good man I was trying to present to my readers. In short, I wished to make his “old companions in distress” live their lives over again along with him ; aye, and cause this generation also to live that peculiar life along with him and his compeers.

I wish to present a Robert Corson, or a “Father Corson,” whom his friends, old and young, would know and recognize again. Such a one, I believed, would be welcomed back with open arms, while any other would receive the proverbial "cold shoulder.” In pursuance of the above intentions, I have gone farther and used the colloquialisms and patois of former days; presented old-time pet names, some of them rugged enough (albeit Mrs. Robert Corson herself, from her native delicacy of taste, disallowed their use among her third generation of Corsons); described the homely scenes of the rude heroic age of Canadian history, civil and ecclesiastical, to do which I have preserved snatches of doggrel poetry, one at least smacking a little of profanity, because I thought a legitimate description required them.

I have no sympathy with those scarcely honest people who would make out all their ancestors to be of gentle blood and manners; and who think it imprudent to hint that a minister (I beg their pardon, "a clergyman”), ever did so sordid and vile a thing as to perform manual labour —those persons I mean who have so much conceit and affectation that they can never do nor say a natural or sensible thing; nor I care not for their criticisms. Of their attacks, I am prepared to say to the whole army of exquisites, “Come one, come all” and as soon as you like!

“Believe us, noble Vere de Vere, From yon blue heavens above us bent, The grand old gardener and his wife Smile at the claims of long descent: Howe’er it be, it seems to me, ’Tis only noble to be good, Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood.”

And I embrace this opportunity to take on myself, as Editor, and off my contributors and publisher, all the odium for all things homely, quaint, unusual and outre. But if any person, in a friendly spirit, will point out anything slip-shod, or in really bad taste, I will promise to try and amend my ways.

Another objection may arise, namely, that I have reproduced myself, in adopting portions of my “Biographical History” and sundry other works of mine, which related to Mr. Corson, in this memoir of him. My plea, if this charge should be made, is this: It has been only gathering into this what was dispersed abroad in those, with the additional merit, that I have corrected, condensed, or amplified, as it was needed.

There are some sanctimonious people who will, no doubt, say my book is not religious enough ; that is, it is not so grave and demure as it should have been made. To such and to all 1 solemnly declare I have sought to subserve the interests of earnest religion in all I have done, to quicken the ministry, and to promote the welfare of the Church at large.

With these explanations I commend my peculiar featured little offspring to the care and direction of that God who created, with their respective idiosyncracies, both Robert Corson, the subject of the book, and

John Carroll,
The Author.
Don Mount, April 22nd, 1879.

Father Corson
Or, The old style Canadian Itinerant; embracing the Life and Gospel labours of The Rev. Robert Corson, Fifty-Six Years a Minister in Connection with the Central Methodism of Upper Canada, edited by The Rev. John Carroll, D.D. (1879) (pdf)