Stephen Fulton Huestis [H127]
(1835-1928)
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- Charles Herbert Huestis [H1271] (1863-1951)
- Annie Florence Huestis [H1274] (1867 - 1957) m. Rev. George F. Dawson
- Arthur Edward Huestis [H1272] (1865 - 1929)
- Archibald Morrison Huestis [H1273] (1869-1965)
- Harry Ernest Huestis [H1275] (1873-1945)
Rev. Dr. Stephen Fulton Huestis D.D., [H127] (1835-1928)
Stephen Huestis was a most interesting man. He takes a dour picture, and he looks so stern and uncompromising in his official pictures, but I think that he was in fact a warm and genial fellow. Stephen was the first son of Rebecca Fulton Huestis, Joshua's second wife; he was named for Rebecca's brother. He was schooled in Wallace and at Mount Allison Academy in Sackville, which was a Methodist college teaching both the liberal arts and theology. He first entered the ministry in 1858 under the guidance of his older cousin Reverend George Oxley Huestis, and was ordained a Methodist minister in 1862. Following his ordination service he was married to Miss Louisa Archibald of Truro.
Methodist ministers had a circuit, which was a group of churches, not always close. The minister moved from one community to another, staying at homes and conducting services. They were worldly and educated men so they would have been welcome company in any community. He said: "Following my ministry at Ship Harbour [down the Eastern Shore from Halifax] I removed to Guysboro and Canso County. The circuit embraced the territory now included in Guysboro, Canso, White Head and New Harbour, Stormont Boylston, Mulgrave. I travelled the first two circuits on horseback and strongly commend this method of locomotion to all young preachers, both healthful and economical."
To put Stephen Huestis into his contemporary context I offer the following essay on Methodism, extracted without permission from an essay online by Victor Shepherd (2001).
Upon [Wesley's] return to England in the wake of an unsatisfying ministry in the new world he came to the assurance of saving faith and of sins forgiven on May 24, 1738. Thereafter his ministry, formerly a not uncommon 18th century Anglican blend of mysticism and moralism, was grounded in the Reformation understanding of justification by grace through faith on account of Jesus Christ.
John recognized that "Scripture, from beginning to end, is one grand promise"; namely, salvation known and enjoyed as a present reality, as contrasted with the current Anglican understanding of blessedness in the life-to-come. With his theological emphasis on soteriology [salvation], John insisted that God had "raised up Methodism to spread scriptural holiness throughout the land." Whereas his pre-1738 pronouncements (see his sermon, "The Circumcision of the Heart") had declared that people became holy by means of humility, he now insisted -- and never recanted -- that holiness was a divine gift, owned in faith, and humanly exercised with unrelenting rigour. While classical Protestantism had stressed justification (pardon, remission of sins, free acceptance), Wesley retained this yet stressed deliverance: God could do something with sin beyond forgiving it; namely, release people not merely from its guilt but especially from its grip or power. In this vein he endorsed "Christian perfection", maintaining that no limit could be set to the scope of God's deliverance in this life. Herein he merged the Puritan emphasis on godliness that he found in his predecessors with the similar emphasis on sanctity found in the church catholic. Strenuously disagreeing with Calvinism's notions of predestination and limited atonement, he maintained that Christ had died for all: all needed to be saved, could be saved, could know they were saved, and could be saved to the uttermost.
Since, Wesley insisted, "the New Testament knows nothing of solitary religion", Methodism characteristically developed the communal dimension of its corporate life. Converts were expected to join in public worship weekly and to receive Holy Communion as often as possible. In addition they were formed into "societies", "classes", "bands", and "select societies" in order to expose themselves to stringent examination from peers and thereby promote self-honesty, mutual correction, encouragement, edification, and service. The "societal" emphasis was marked too by a concern for every aspect of human well-being. To try to mitigate suffering Wesley wrote a textbook of primitive medicine, begged money to establish London's first free pharmacy, developed schools for the disadvantaged children of coalminers, built houses for widows, gathered funds for start-up loans to Methodist entrepreneurs whom the chartered banks would not consider.
In all these endeavours John's brother Charles (1701-1788) supported John, matching him in outdoor "field" preaching. Charles' greatest contribution to Methodism, however, remained his hymn-writing (9,000 poems and hymns), as Scripture-saturated hymns rooted themselves in minds and hearts as often as Methodist people hummed the tunes amidst their daily work.
Following Wesley's death, Methodism ceased to be "leaven" in the Church of England and became a separate denomination. One of its missioners, Laurence Coughlan, arrived in Newfoundland in 1766 and began working among Protestant English and Irish settlers. Five years later William Black, born in England but raised in Nova Scotia, commenced evangelizing in the Maritimes, his work falling under the supervision of British Wesleyans in 1800. In 1855 this body formed the Wesleyan Methodist Conference of Eastern British America.
In the meantime the social position of Methodists was changing in Canada. Earlier the Church of Scotland and the Church of England had formed social elites inaccessible to Methodists, the latter being poor and frequently despised. Zealous in evangelism and ardent in their pursuit of godliness, however, their sobriety, industry and thrift fuelled their social ascendancy. Some Methodist families became wealthy: the Goodherams from grain and railways, the Masseys from farm implements, and the Flavelles from meatpacking. By mid-18th century they were able to challenge the Anglican monopoly on education and political power.
From this position Methodism was able to make its unparalleled contribution to the public good, a system of high-quality public education. Insisting that education subserved not only the evangelical cause in particular but also the human good in general and the social good more widely still, Methodism's educational architect, Egerton Ryerson, undid the Anglican Church's exclusive control over education. Ryerson implemented the system operative in Canada today: high quality education available to all, without a religious or doctrinal means test.
Aware of John Wesley's legacy, Canadian Methodists dedicated themselves to the alleviation of human distress on any front, their vision here being no less than social transformation. They exerted themselves on behalf of convicts and ex-convicts, prostitutes and impoverished immigrants, all the while campaigning for better housing, improved public health, unemployment insurance, pensions, compensation for injured workers, the eight-hour work day, humane working conditions and homemaking skills. Salem Bland and James Woodsworth were the most visible exponents of the Social Gospel movement in Methodism, the latter eventually leaving the ministry in order to co-found the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. The prosecution of social justice, it was thought, would largely eliminate the sources of social disharmony. At the same time leaders such as Samuel Chown continued to uphold the necessity of personal regeneration.
Concern for education and social transformation naturally gave rise to a commitment to publishing. Books, magazines and pamphlets were produced in ever-greater numbers; even by 1884 the circulation of Methodist-backed publications stood at 160,000, excluding the materials produced for overseas missions. Under William Briggs and Lorne Pierce, Methodists became instrumental in promoting a Canadian literary tradition, producing vast quantities of Canadian fiction, poetry, history and textbooks for schools.
Our man Stephen was right in thick of all of this. During his adult life the Methodist Church in Canada became one of the largest denominations, and equally one of the most influential. He served in many circuits around Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, finally settling in at Brunswick Street Methodist Church in downtown Halifax. At this point Brunswick Street United sits in the midst of a rather seedy neighbourhood but 100 years ago it was the well-to-do section of the city, with many of the successful merchants and professionals living in fine houses there.
As the above essay points out, the Methodists were active in the publishing world, and Stephen was appointed to the important post of publisher of the Wesleyan, a weekly newspaper in Halifax and Nova Scotia. He was also the manager of the Methodist Book Room, a store that has only recently closed after many years in private hands. Stephen stayed in this post for many years, until he retired. One of the tidbits that I uncovered as I was looking through old Halifax city directories is that Stephen seemed to have used his publishing enterprise as a make-work project for Huestis sons and nephews as they started working. I think that more than a few Wallace kids got a start in Halifax through a bit of work at the Wesleyan.
I have several obituaries and biographies for the Reverend Doctor Stephen F. Huestis, and I will put parts of them below.
From The Wesleyan:
DEATH CALLS PROMINENT CLERGYMAN - Rev Dr. S.F. Huestis Passes Away at Home in St. Andrews - BRILLIANT CAREER - Spent Fifty Years in Active Service in the Church
At. Andrews, NB, Jan.16 - Rev Dr S.F. Huestis eminent divine of the former Methodist Church and prominent in the activities leading to the union of that Church with the Presbyterians and Congregationalists to form the United Church of Canada, died here tonight at 7:15 o'clock tonight at the residence of his daughter, Mrs Dawson and Rev. George F. Dawson. He was 92 years of age and had been in the ministry for more than 70 years.
A service will be held on Tuesday at 2:00 pm in the United Church at St, Andrews and the body will be taken, it is expected, to Toronto for internment.
BORN AT WALLACE - Dr Huestis was born at Wallace, NS on May 8, 1835, of United Empire Loyalist descent. He was a man of strong personality and striking presence and possessed of an analytical and logical mind which was most valuable in the councils of the church. After 50 years of active service in the church he retired in 1908, following which for four years he served as immigration chaplain in Halifax for the Methodist Church. In 1912 he removed to Toronto, and there his wife, formerly Miss Louisa F. Archibald of Truro, died in 1915. For the last nine years Dr Huestis made his home with the Reverend and Mrs George Dawson in the Exmouth Street parsonage in Saint John, at Sussex, NB and in St Andrews.
He first united with the church under the guidance of Wesley C. Beals in 1850 and entered the ministry under the leadership of Rev. R.A. Temple, in 1858. He was educated at Mount Allison Academy in Sackville. During his 50 years in the active Ministry he served on the following circuits: Port Hawkesbury, (Ship Harbor, Port Hood), Guysboro, Digby, Bridgetown, Windsor and Brunswick Street Church in Halifax, Nova Scotia; Richibucto, Woodstock. Jacksonville, Carleton, Saint John, in New Brunswick. He held the office of Eastern Book Steward at Halifax and was publisher of the Wesleyan from 1880 to 1908.
HELD IMPORTANT POSTS Dr. Huestis was president of the Nova Scotia Methodist Conference in 1879 and Chairman of the Halifax district in 1881. He was a member of the first union committee when the Eastern British-America Conference was united to the Western Conference to form the Methodist Church of Canada, and was a member of each of the general conferences of the Methodist Church of Canada from 1875 to 1906 and held the office of secretary of general conference in 1890. He was a delegate to Ecumenical Congress at Washington to 1891 and in New York in 1900. From the time of the union of the Eastern and Western Conferences, Dr. Huestis was continuously a member of the Mission Board until 1910. He was both a member of the union committee to form the Methodist Church and a member of the Union Committee to form the basis of union between the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational Churches. He received the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity from Mount Allison University in 1900.
The surviving children are Charles H. Huestis, D.D., general secretary of the Lord's Day Alliance, Edward A. and Archibald M, all of Toronto, A. Florence, wife of Rev F. Dawson of St Andrews, and Harry E., consulting engineer of the Harbour Commission at Quebec.
Stephen and Louisa Huestis and family, 1878. Son Charles and daughter Annie in the back, Arthur Edward at the far left, Harry in the middle and Archibald at the right.
Thanks to Scott Clarke for this picture of his 2x Great Grandfather Archibald and family.
