you continue for the present in the work which God has opened for you, and which you have, by His good hand upon you, been so wonderfully successful.”15
Cody urged the Huron evangelicals to back L.N. Tucker for the bishopric. Tucker was an evangelical, an eloquent preacher, and later dean of the cathedral in London. But Tucker was not elected. David Williams, nominally an evangelical, was elected and then consecrated on January 6, 1905. Cody hastened to send his congratulations. This was the beginning of his friendly relations with Williams, who later wielded a powerful influence in the counsels of the Canadian church. Early in 1905 Williams showed his good will by inviting Cody to preach at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London.
Cody was rapidly becoming a sort of ecclesiastical statesman, controlling the future prospects of many of his friends and acquaintances. Because of his Wycliffe connection and his growing reputation in the church generally, he was widely consulted by bishops and others desiring to secure suitable men for curacies or rectorships. He was also invited by many of the younger clergy to support their own candidacies for desirable posts. In April 1902 the Bishop of Niagara, J.P. DuMoulin, asked Cody to recommend a student to act as a supply in Fergus. Cody suggested W.T. Hallam. Dyson Hague, who had a church in Montreal, wanted a curate and was demanding in his requirements: “Now what is needed is a man over 30–35 perhaps – a preacher with a good voice – musical if possible – and of moderate churchmanship ... as far as possible a presentable man to a congregation like this ... and if a Wycliffe man a good all round man so as to disarm criticism.”16 Cody’s old friend F.J. Steen, who had been appointed senior assistant minister at Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal, was looking for a curate. He was even more demanding than Hague: “It is a sine qua non that he be a gentleman in the highest and strictest sense of the word, with all a gentleman’s manners and polish, and also that he be a good churchman of moderate views. I am not anxious to get an extremist, either High or Low. The Hague type of evangelical, however good, would never do.”17 Everybody wanted a “moderate” man, even Dyson Hague, not regarded as moderate himself.
Other correspondents enlisted Cody’s help. A Bishop’s College graduate, who had been teaching at Upper Canada College, wanted a position at Ridley, finding his duties at UCC too completely “secular.”18 A curate in St. George’s Cathedral, Kingston, wanted to succeed De Soyres, the rector of a church in Saint John, New Brunswick: “I understood 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