that Evangelical principles prevail and I can say that my churchmanship coincides with yours and that nothing would be introduced to interfere with the spiritual upbuilding of the congregation.”
Moderation in the clergy was as valued then as later. Nobody wanted a man of extreme views. Those who wanted Cody to recommend someone usually stressed that the person be moderate, and those seeking posts frequently stressed their own moderation. Most of Cody’s applicants could be classified as evangelicals, but all trusted in his fairness and discretion.
Cody had had a strong interest in politics ever since his days in Embro and Galt. Now that he was a rector, this interest was reflected in some of his sermons. He never saw any conflict between his religious and political opinions. In his Thanksgiving sermon in 1910 on the text “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,” for example, he discussed the connection between Christianity and patriotism.
Some of the basic ideas he held that he considered Christian were actually common to much of Anglo-Saxon conservatism. In Thanksgiving sermons in 1913 and 1921 based on Luke 12:48 (“For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required”), he put forward the typical conservative idea that privileges always involved responsibilities. As a Christian, he insisted that the responsibilities could only be fulfilled if there were moral and spiritual growth among our people.
Cody’s type of conservative was frequently regarded by other nationalists as colonial, but he was not a colonial in the sense of regarding everything British as first rate and everything Canadian as second rate. Like other fellow conservatives such as George Monro Grant, George T. Denison, D’Alton McCarthy, and Alex McNeill, he was proud of Canada’s position and achievements but never considered separation from the Empire. He believed Canada would become increasingly significant within the Empire.
Evangelical Christians were often accused of not being interested in social justice. This was not the case with Cody. He had a sophisticated view of the relation between the Christian religion and social justice. He argued that God was concerned with all aspects of human life, physical as well as spiritual. Our duty is to make God’s will prevail upon earth. It is his will that his children should have healthy homes and breathe pure air, and that capital and labour should not defraud each other. Cody insisted that Christian doctrine and concepts of social justice were closely related in the minds of Christians.
In his early career Cody seemed merely to display the normal interest of a well-informed Canadian in current affairs and in the spectacles Toronto society provided. The South African War was in progress in 1900 and Canadian troops were actively engaged. On May 30 and 31 Cody went downtown to witness celebrations over the capture of Pretoria. He witnessed the Orange Parade on the “glorious twelfth” of July and the Labour Day procession on September 3. During the federal election campaign of 1900, he attended a Tory rally at Massey Hall. There he saw the leaders, Sir Charles Tupper and Hugh John Macdonald, and heard a speech by the Tory warhorse Sir George Foster.
Cody continued his political participation through the 1900–1905 period. By the year 1905, the Laurier government was involved in the controversy over separate schools for the new provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. On February 7 Cody heard Sir John Willison speak of the issue at the Canadian Club. In the following month Cody addressed a meeting on “North-West Autonomy” at Massey Hall. Other speakers were John Willison and D’Alton McCarthy, the famous leader of the “Equal Rights” movement. In April he heard Clifford Sifton, the leading opponent of separate schools, at the Canadian Club. From the company he kept, McCarthy and Sifton, it is obvious that Cody was an exponent of public schools and an opponent of French separate schools in the West.
Chapter 7
Cody’s Friends, 1900–1905
Cody’s friendships after 1900 were perhaps not so close as his earlier ones with undergraduate contemporaries like Tommy Des Barres and F.J. Steen. Because of his liberal views on doctrine, Steen had engaged in a struggle with Archbishop Bond. He had expressed bitterness at his suspension from active work at Montreal Diocesan, a theological college, and in the Diocese of Montreal (“I was being judged on a question of apologetics by men who really know nothing of the subject beyond Paley”) but rejoiced in his reinstatement (“I withdrew nothing and recanted nothing”).1 He died suddenly at the end of 1902. Tommy Des Barres was in England for a long time. Cody does not seem to have kept up the connection, although he and Florence visited him in the early 1930s.
Some of Cody’s friends were older men who had been his counsellors. Bryant, his old school principal in Galt and afterwards his friend in Toronto, maintained his interest in Cody. In 1902 he recommended Cody for the rectorship of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Morristown, New Jersey. Cody of course was not interested in leaving St. Paul’s. It was probably through Cody’s influence that Bryant’s publishing firm was for a time printer of the Evangelical Churchman.
Sheraton, probably the dominant influence in Cody’s theological life, continued to express his affection and encouragement. He had come to rely heavily on Cody for support in the difficulties at Wycliffe. In his letters to Cody, Sheraton was almost excessively warm in his expressions of gratitude. He described Cody as “everything to me in friendship and in work – my right hand” and “my best beloved friend and strong fellow worker.” Inviting Cody to give the Convocation Address at Wycliffe in 1905, he concluded, “No one can do it so effectively as you. In fact, I would like to have you always but I suppose that would not be practicable.”2
S.H. Blake was Cody’s principal counsellor and loyal friend at St. Paul’s, until Blake’s death in 1914. Blake was 65 in 1900 and he had all the confidence of an elder statesman. He was well connected (a scion of the Hume-Blake-Cronyn connection), a successful corporation lawyer, and principal leader of the evangelical party in the Diocese of Toronto. As a parishioner at St. Paul’s, he admired Cody and was anxious to keep him at St. Paul’s. His frequent letters to Cody were full of pithy comments and good advice about Wycliffe and St. Paul’s. On February 21, 1901, Blake sounded off on the powers of the laity in the church: “It seems to me that as a general rule throughout the rural parts of our country there is very little influence on the part of laity except that which arises from their position as suppliers of money.”3 On August 23, 1903, on the subject of Wycliffe, he asserted that “O’Meara [the Wycliffe financial agent] should be identified more with Wycliffe – We want him not only as a Financial, but also as one to look after and draw on young men.” Blake also wanted changes in the Wycliffe faculty, asserting “our staff is not strong enough – we know the strength of the men that are in it, but to the outside world we may appear weak.” While Blake was plentiful in the advice he offered, he was always generous in his encouragement to Cody and in his financial support of Wycliffe and St. Paul’s.
Another congenial associate was Archbishop S.P. Matheson of Rupert’s Land, who usually stayed with the Codys when he was in Toronto. He was fond of Maurice, Cody’s young son (born in 1897), and seems to have been on kidding terms with him. In a letter of 1907, written when he was en route to Winnipeg, Matheson instructed Cody, “Tell Maurice that we had snow on the ground from North Bay up to near Kenora ... but that was in Ontario. As soon as we came near to ‘the Banana Belt’ of Manitoba it was, of course, lovely.”4
Matheson made a confidant of Cody. For instance, prior to his election as archbishop in 1904, he wrote Cody at some length of his embarrassment at the bad feeling between himself and a rival candidate. He often consulted Cody about appointments in his diocese. A keen evangelical, he was anxious to secure Wycliffe men for Rupert’s Land: “Oh if I could only get ten good earnest evangelical young men this spring [1906], how I would thank God! It is heart breaking to see these parishes vacant and our Church people wandering to other bodies. I am praying that Wycliffe may be able to help us.”5
Ellen Knox, the principal of Havergal,
