had watched Cody’s career through university and “had listened to J.E. Bryant ... rhapsodize on the wonders of his mind as it developed in school life.” There was another candidate for the classics position, Stephen Leacock, but his qualifications were not as strong as Cody’s. Leacock’s rueful account, written years later, describes Cody as “a blue-eyed, handsome young man with a squared jaw which correctly reflected his firmness, though he was never to be unreasonably opinioned.”3
Cody was a popular teacher at Ridley. His friendly relations with the boys are reflected in a letter from an old student, Walter Caldecott, written after Cody had left Ridley in order to train for the Anglican ministry:
Poor old Ridley, the football from all accounts must be weak, when such as Uniacke, Cartwright Major could get on, why honestly they hardly crawled into the II last year, I should think it hard on Mr. MacLean [the English master] and Perry to play with such a team. I have heard from Cam Cartwright, his health is good, but he says that Mr. White is not nearly so nice as you were when you tried to drill Latin into our dull Heads.
I hope you may still be at St. Paul’s when I return, it seems natural to listen to you, like old times. Do you remember the “Top Hat” supper? I’d give $5 to be at one now, although our songs were never in tune (especially when Thompson was there and Lee) still I think we all enjoyed ourselves. And perhaps you remember last Easter when the “Wing” came to attack the “main.” We told them (the wing) that why they never arrived on the scene was because, they went and knocked at your door and asked to be sent back. I made the charge against Billy Evans. (I didn’t go in the wing for a while after.)
I really thought that Mr. Williams [the mathematics master] had designs on my life and if I had not been sleeping the sleep of the just I should have been a tender victim to Cruel fate, fortunately I am a heavy sleeper, as my snores must have assured him of my genuine sleep.4
The Ridley boys were probably not quite so hearty nor so innocent as they appear in Caldecott’s letter, but it does bear out Leacock’s assertion that Cody “had no pretensions and even though he had little athletic ability, the boys liked and respected him.”5 Cody’s stint at Ridley was the beginning of his long and friendly association with the school. He was a member of the Ridley board until his death.
Cody likely decided to enter the Anglican ministry during his undergraduate career when he had already come under Sheraton’s influence. He had been contemplating the ministry since his time with Hincks in Galt, but Sheraton and the Des Barres – Senior and Junior – probably were the final influences. He registered at Wycliffe in 1890, but remained at Ridley for another two years. He took a summer course in Hebrew at Chautauqua, N.Y., in 1890, apparently in preparation for his divinity program. He may also have done some work at Wycliffe during vacations, and while at Ridley he did a good deal of preaching in the college chapel and in churches in the St. Catharines area.
The course at Wycliffe that preceded ordination normally took three years. Cody managed to complete it by the spring of 1893, although he was in residence for only a year, 1892–93. When he registered at Wycliffe in 1890 the college had been in operation for thirteen years. By that time it had produced some sixty graduates and was about to move into its new building on Hoskin Avenue, north of the site of the present Hart House. The faculty was still small. In 1885 it consisted of Sheraton, three young Wycliffe graduates (Edwin Daniel, George Wrong, and F.H. DuVernet), two city clergymen (S.J. Boddy and Septimus Jones), and a professor from University College, J.M. Hirschfelder, who taught Hebrew. The course was similar to that of other evangelical Anglican colleges then and for a long time afterwards. The distinctive feature was tremendous emphasis on Bible study and on the theology of the Protestant Reformation. The core of the program was Old Testament and New Testament studies and a number of professional courses such as Apologetics (the defence of the truth), Systematic Theology (an organized presentation of the Christian faith), Homiletics (the organization and preaching of sermons), and Liturgies (the study of the Prayer Book).
The program was based on a firm and precise seven-point statement of principles, set forth at the outset of Wycliffe’s history and substantially restated in subsequent Wycliffe calendars. The first two indicate their tenor: “(1) The Bible as the sole rule of faith and (2) Justification by faith in Christ alone.”6
Cody’s 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