the general prosperity of the body, we agree to take Prince Edward Island, and 
     
     its staff of labourers, into connection with this Conference, including its control 
     
     and financial responsibilities, providing that, in view of the increase of expen- 
     
     diture necessarily involved in such union, the English Conference cease to claim 
     
     the tenth of our missionary receipts.” 
     
    
   
   
    
     Under the leadership of Rev. Cephas Barker, the condition of the Bible 
     
     Christian Church had improved greatly in spiritual awakening as well as in 
     
     growth in the number of church buildings and membership. In 1865, when Rev. 
     
     Barker left the Island for Coburg, Ontario, “the societies were peaceful, 
     
     finances healthy, and the prospects were encouraging.” The church in Charlot- 
     
     tetown had grown to fifty members and the district membership had risen to six 
     
     hundred and seven. 
     
    
   
   
    
     25. THE REV. FRANCIS METHERALL: HIS CLOSING MINISTRY 
     
    
   
   
    
     When Rev. Barker arrived in Charlottetown in the fall of 1856, to take 
     
     charge of the district, Rev. Metherall moved back to West Cape where he took 
     
     charge of that circuit until the Conference of 1859 when he was superannuated 
     
     upon the vote of the District Meeting. Rev. Francis Metherall was then sixty-eight 
     
     years of age having been the Superintendent of the Prince Edward Island District 
     
     for twenty-five years and having completed thirty-seven years in the active work 
     
     of the ministry. “He had been faithful amid all the wavering and fickleness of 
     
     others. He wrought hard and long, and bore the burden of the churches even in 
     
     old age. He had more than earned the rest and quiet of superannuation. We 
     
     confess that we have a great admiration of the quiet, earnest persistency with 
     
     which he did his work, not aiming to make a brilliant flourish, or a great parade 
     
     of his doings, but to be faithful to God and man, keeping steadily at his post 
     
     whether men approved or disapproved. His convictions of divine truth had taken 
     
     such a complete hold of his mind, he rested so thoroughly upon the Holy Spirit 
     
     for inspiration and aid, that he had no need to be constantly halting to inquire 
     
     whether or not men approved and appreciated his course. If he had so done, 
     
     much of his life’s work would never have been accomplished, and many victories, 
     
     when just within his grasp, would have been turned into defeats.”"’2 
     
    
   
   
    
     Although retired from the active ministry, Rev. Metherall continued to work 
     
     faithfully in the best interests of the congregations in the West Cape circuit until 
     
     the end of his life. The conference record states, “The later years of Rev. 
     
     Francis Metherall’s life were of much service to the west of the Island, where he 
     
     dwelt, continuing as he did to exercise his ministry, and preached the Word with 
     
     much power, until a few months of his death.”63 
     
    
   
   
    
     After his retirement from the ministry in 1859, the Rev. Francis Metherall, 
     
     his wife and family continued to live on their eighty-six acre farm on the Shore 
     
    
   
   
    
     Road in Lot 7, two farms from the Bible Christian parsonage, “Mission House”. 
     
    
   
   
    
       
     
    
   
   
    
     62 Ibid., pp. 90, 91. 
     
     63 lbid., p. 91. 
     
    
   
   
    
     199