. Beginning in the time of George IV, proceeding through the reigns of William IV, Victoria, Edward VII, George V and George VI, and continuing into the reign of Elizabeth II, Almighty God has been worshipped in New London parish in accordance with the 11turgy of the Book of Common Prayer. The large desk Prayer Book of St. Thomas’s, dating from the late 1820’s and now no longer used, carries the imagination back to the earliest years when the St. Eleanor’s clergyman rode down through the woods to the plain little clapboarded church overlooking the harbour, and led the farm and fisher folk and their children in prayer and praise. Within this long extent of time Anglicanism has put down deep roots in the rural communities of New London and Burlington as well as in the town of Kensington.

This has not been an easy task to accomplish. The foregoing story indicates that without the aid of the S.P.G., the C. & C.C.S. and the D.C.S. the Mission of New London would have survived, if at all, only in weakened form. But it was patiently supported by societies of the Mother Church of England and the local Church Society, and it has been carefully shepherded by every bishop of Nova Scotia from the time of John Inglis to the present day. With- in the parish itself four generations of members, small in number, have indeed loyally played their part, but without the help of the Great Church the New London story would have been less worth recording.

Many of the earliest parishioners carried their Church back- ground with them from England. The writer treasures the small two-volume combined Bible and Prayer Book which his great- grandmother owned in her girlhood, and brought from Devon to New London in 1821. Its title pages serve as a family register. On one of these pages its owner wrote the following lines (the spelling being brought up to date!):

Elizabeth Madge is my name, England is my nation,

Paignton is my dwelling place, In heaven I hope my habitation.

The hope of reaching that heavenly habitation, so the pioneers believed, could best be realized through membership in the Church, hence they valued their privileges in it as they travelled “home to God in the way the fathers trod.”

On this foundation the early clergy of St. Eleanor’s and New London were able slowly to build an enduring structure. The par- ish has been fortunate in its pastors, all of Whom could truly have said, with St. Paul, “For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.” Along with their people these early clergy had to endure no little privation. James Arminius Richey complained semi- humorously,—after he had removed to Nova Scotia it must besaid in all fairness——

I have a Mother who is kind and good But rather stints me of my daily food . . .

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