Archdeacon Read had been transferred to Milton after thirteen years in St. Eleanors, and that he was to be succeeded by the Reverend J. W. Forsythe, M.A. Both men gave services in St. Mark’s on alternate Sunday afternoons.

Young Mr. Richey exerted himself vigorously. He had the parsonage painted, and laid plans to build a schoolhouse and to replace the old church. In 1865 he reported:

The Missionary'found a new and attractive field of labour at Stanley Bridge, and by travelling twenty miles every second Sabbath, crossing a ferry twice, and officiating three times, he attended to it during a portion of the year, but at length was reluctantly compelled to withdraw, at least for a season.

In the same report to the DOS. he told that the Desk, Pulpit and Communion Table at St. Stephen’s had been hung with merino, the work of the ladies of the congregation. In 1866 he reported an increasing congregation in New London, with somewhat less of division, and more of the spirit essential to Christian unity amongst the people than in former years.

It may be that some of the tension in the congregation was caused by the introduction of slight changes in the mode of conducting services. In fact, with Mr. Richey came the first ripples of the revived Churchmanship of the mid-nineteenth century. As one who had returned from Methodism to the Church of England from conviction he was naturally strongly attracted to the distinc- tive principles and ceremonies of Anglicanism, and in this attitude he had the firm support of his Bishop. Indications of his thinking on matters theological and ceremonial are found in a number of poems which he wrote when in New London, and which were afterwards printed. Poems which are definitely dated as being composed in the old parsonage, 1863-65, are: “The Dying Disciple”, “Read This, Friend”, “So Came Thy Spirit, Virgin Born”, “The Book of Books”, “The Crucifixion”, “Easter Hymn”, and “When Blinded Guides Mislead the Blind”. A further poem, also written at New London, was composed in memory of a little son who died at the age of five years, eleven months, and is buried in an unmarked grave in St. Thomas Cemetery. It contains the lines 2——

For thou again hast taught me not to fear, I cannot shrink from death which thou didst bear,

Nor quite relinquish thee where now thou art, 0 sweet persistent victor of my heart!

Mr. Richey was ordained priest in Charlottetown in early September, 1866, being presented to the Bishop by Archdeacon Read. The Bishop spent five weeks on the Island on this visita- tion, confirming a class of eighteen persons at New London. James Arminius Richey’s father may have been present at his son’s ordination as he was pastor of the Methodist Church in Charlotte- town at that time. It may be added that Dr. Richey gave two sons to the Anglican Church, the other, Theophilus, being Rector of

St. Eleanors, 187 6-1883. 27