continuing relationship with Sheraton was of especial importance to his career.7 Sheraton was the dominant personality at Wycliffe and the intellectual centre of the evangelical community in Toronto. He was an able theologian and a fine teacher. A man of slight stature, he was much beloved by his students, who called him “the little doctor.” One gets a glimpse of this affection in a letter from one of his students to Mrs. Sheraton when Sheraton was ill in 1905, “As one of his boys who has had the privilege of his teaching I would not like to think of his being laid aside.”8 Sheraton was very approachable and sympathetic in dealing with students. Tommy Des Barres was much impressed by his fairness. Des Barres was having intellectual difficulties about whether to go to Wycliffe. Probably his father desired it, but he was less sure. He wrote to Cody after a conference with Sheraton in which he had announced he was not going to Wycliffe:
In his reply he endeavoured to broach some of my difficulties but did not succeed in removing them very considerably. I liked however, the spirit he assumed very much; he said he sympathized with me in my difficulties ... had himself passed through much the same, could not very well see how any thoughtful man could escape meeting them in some form or other ... He is certainly a Broad Evangelical, a progressive man and one in sympathy with all earnest seeking-after truth.9
Sheraton was an able administrator and an active participant in university politics. As editor of the Evangelical Churchman, he was a forthright exponent of the evangelical position in the Church of England. One of his colleagues, Dyson Hague, said he was a born propagandist who “devoted himself with a single eye to the glory of God” and “to the propagation of evangelical principles.” Cody described him as “a real master of the voluminous literature of the Reformation Period.”10 He was the author of various works including The Inspiration and Authority of the Holy Scriptures (1873) and Our Lord’s Teaching concerning Himself (1904).
During this period Cody had an especial contact with Sheraton as well as J.O. Miller through the Evangelical Churchman. The Evangelical Churchman had been one of Sheraton’s main concerns since its inception in 1876. Although he was succeeded as editor by Miller in 1888, he continued to play an active role in the production of the paper. It is not clear whether he or Miller enlisted Cody’s service, but at any rate Cody was doing editorial work for the Evangelical Churchman as early as 1889. There are letters in this period in the Cody papers from Goldwin Smith, Phillip Brooks (the great Boston preacher), and others in reference to applications from Cody for contributions to the Evangelical Churchman. A letter to Cody from Sheraton dated March 4, 1891, suggests how cordial the relationship between them had already become. Cody had submitted a review of a book on prophecy in which he was strongly critical of the author’s premillennial view.* Although Sheraton himself was not a premillennialist, he was concerned about the many premillennialist subscribers to the paper and rejected Cody’s review. Then, fearing his forthright rejection may have hurt Cody’s feelings, he wrote a long letter apologizing for his action and explaining his reasons in detail. He explained that the review had come to him in proof with a number of others: “I read very hastily and wrote a brief memorandum to the Committee. I have not at all changed my judgment as to the advisability of inserting it, but I feel that I did not make my reasons sufficiently plain and used some expressions stronger than the case warranted.”11
Cody continued to receive counsel and news from his relatives and friends. Phila married a Baptist minister, H.G. Fraser, in 1889. The Frasers were stationed in Hamilton and Phila urged Cody to “run across” from St. Catharines to see them. In 1890 the couple moved to Owen Sound. Phila’s father, Marvin, was living with them, apparently in ill-health, but still interested in the news: “He reads just as much as his daughters will let him, and though he is a good boy, he requires watching. The Birchell trial has occupied his attention lately.” Phila was still concerned about Cody’s spiritual welfare and earnestly enquired, “How is it now Harry do you sometimes find yourself absorbed just for the sake of the knowledge you gain, or is your life closely linked with the Giver of all wisdom. How grand a life may be if it is steadily guided by God.”12
In his letters to Cody, Tommy Des Barres continued to display the supreme self-confidence that had characterized his earlier letters. In 1889 he was considering the problem of where to go after graduation from University College. Having decided not to enter Wycliffe, he chose Yale. After two years he was at Cambridge, but he did not approve of that university either: “Cambridge life is very different from Yale or Toronto life. At first I was struck with what I thought was the men’s ignorance, but afterwards found to be narrowness of vision.”13
Two years later, having survived Cambridge, Tommy decided to be ordained and to stay in England for several years. Meanwhile, a cycling trip around southern England produced more of his caustic comments. About Bishop Ryle, the great evangelical, author of Knots Untied and other works, Tommy averred, “I dare to go against the trend of popular opinion at Cambridge and say that I don’t think Ryle is very much of an intellectual heavyweight. He is vastly G. Watkin’s inferior.” About Isaac Hellmuth, who had resigned in 1878 as Bishop of Huron and settled in England, he reported, “I saw Bishop Hellmuth when I was in Bristol ... I heard him styled ‘that well-nourished old gentleman’ and I thought it a most appropriate designation.” Tommy’s remarks about evangelicals were not those of a disciple: “It is interesting to note in England the various types of Evangelical churchmen e.g. 1) the Protestant Controversialist 2) the Keswickians 3) the Mouleians 4) the Broad Evangelicals 5) the Moderate Evangelicals.”14
The year 1892–93 was an important one in Cody’s life. While finishing his course at Wycliffe, he established a connection with St. Paul’s Church on Bloor Street East, an evangelical congregation under the rectorship of T.C. Des Barres Senior. This association likely came about as a result of the influence of Tommy and also of F.H. DuVernet, one of Cody’s Wycliffe friends. DuVernet was the curate at St. Paul’s and professor of practical theology at Wycliffe.
Cody was a student assistant at St. Paul’s in 1892–93. He is mentioned in the annual Warden’s Report for 1892–93 as having participated in the work conducted in the North End Hall by Stapleton Caldecott, a prominent parishioner.15 Though not yet ordained, he preached frequently at St. Paul’s. Meanwhile he brought his undergraduate career at Wycliffe to a respectable conclusion in May of 1893, graduating with first-class honours. In the prize list for 1893 his name appears twice – as winner of the De Soyres Prize in Church History and the Macpherson Prize in Biblical Greek.16 John De Soyres, probably the donor of the history prize, wrote to Cody at the time of his graduation congratulating him on his “brilliant essay” and urging him to continue in the field of church history. “I do hope that you will not lose your grip on historical studies ... Church History is sword and shield alike for the men who are ‘Evangelical Churchmen,’ and we want you to carry truth effectively.”17 But Cody found other fields of Christian endeavour more attractive.
Cody was ordained by Bishop Sweatman at St. Alban’s Cathedral on June 4, 1893.
* Evangelicals were divided (some of them still are) by their interpretations of prophecy, especially in reference to the book of Revelation. Premillennialists look forward to the reign of Christ for a thousand years on the earth when he returns at the Second Coming, whereas the Amillennialists regard the reign of Christ as occurring in the present prior to his return. The book in question was by William Milligan, a Scottish theologian, The Resurrection of the Dead(1890).
Chapter 5
Curate and Professor, Engagement and Marriage, 1893–1899
Cody soon made his mark as a promising young clergyman. He was curate in the expanding parish of St. Paul’s, was appointed a professor of theology
