A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time. Various

A Cyclopaedia of Canadian Biography: Being Chiefly Men of the Time - Various


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of between six and seven hundred, and over four hundred scholars in its Sunday-school. For general benevolence and Christian aggressiveness its record is good. Rev. Mr. Hinson has always been a total abstainer, and from early youth connected with temperance societies. He is at present a member of the Moncton Division, Sons of Temperance, and is considered one of the most aggressive of the temperance army in New Brunswick. Mr. Hinson was brought up among the Baptists, and very naturally feels greatly at home in, and is one of the leading lights of, the denomination. In the pulpit he possesses a peculiar power, his manner and matter being forcible and original, and we have no doubt there is a great future of usefulness before this young and rising divine. He was married in July, 1886, to Jennie A. Austin, of Herts, England.

      “Our sheet this week appears in mourning, because we are called to record the death of one whose removal is indeed a public loss, and one, too, of no ordinary magnitude. Almost every individual in our community feels the death of Charles F. Allison as a public bereavement. But far beyond the circle of personal acquaintanceship, everywhere throughout the lower British American colonies, Mr. Allison’s name has been known and his influence felt, as the most munificent public benefactor who has yet arisen in these provinces, to bless his country and benefit the world. Mr. Allison was a native of Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, but came to this place when a young man, and here carried on, in connection with his partner, the late Hon. Wm. Crane, an extensive business until 1840. In all his business transactions he was remarkable for diligence, promptitude, punctuality, and rigid honesty. He did not make haste to be rich by embarking in any rash speculation, being, doubtlessly, more inclined to the safe than to the rapid mode of acquiring wealth. He was, however, quite successful, so that when he was led, many years since, to the more earnest consideration of the fundamental doctrine of the Christian system of practical ethics, ‘Ye are not your own, but bought with a price,’ etc., he found himself in possession of a considerable amount of property, of which he evidently, thenceforward to the end of his life, considered himself but the steward; and as such he was eminently wise and faithful, so that, we doubt not, he has been greeted by his Divine Master with the commendation, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’ A large portion of the last eighteen or twenty years of his life was most unostentatiously employed in various works altogether unselfish. The noble educational institutions which he founded, and which he has so largely helped to build up to their present state of pre-eminent usefulness, have occupied a great deal of his time and attention, for he not only cheerfully paid six thousand pounds and upwards to ensure their establishment, but without fee or reward discharged the onerous duty of treasurer, and watched and labored with parental kindness, solicitude and devotion, to promote their prosperity. These, we believe, will long stand, monuments of the wisdom as well as of the benevolence of the Christian patriot and philanthropist. We have not room to enlarge upon the modesty, gentleness, affability, and other traits of character which so endeared him to all who had the privilege of his personal acquaintance. Nor yet can we speak of the many ways in which his quiet influence will be so much missed in our neighborhood. ‘He rests from his labors, and his works do follow him.’ ”

      In The Provincial Wesleyan, of the same week, published at Halifax, Nova Scotia, a similar notice of Mr. Allison’s death appeared, in which the writer said:

      “He was a benefactor to his race, a blessing to his country, an ornament to the age in which he lived. He lived not for himself, but for his generation and for generations yet unborn. Fortune, this world’s wealth, he sought and won; but lavished it not on personal pleasures or selfish aggrandizement. His time and his means were freely given to the noble cause of securing to the youth of these provinces a sound, liberal, and religious education. His humility equalled his munificence. He thirsted not for fame. But he has left a monument for himself more noble than sculptured stone in the institutions he has reared, and with which his worthy name must be forever associated.”

      The Mount Allison Academic Gazette, in its first issue after the death of Mr. Allison, said:

      “The relation which Mr. Allison sustained to the institution, and to all who were connected with it, was such as no other individual can ever sustain. His removal is, therefore, to it and to them an irreparable loss. The feeling of sadness and anxiety induced by this event must, therefore, with those who understand the matter, be altogether other than an evanescent one. But although we are sure that we shall find everywhere many to sympathise with us in our abiding sorrow as we think of the deep affliction which befell us and the institution when its father was taken from us, we think it more becoming for us to ask them to rejoice with us in gratefully acknowledging how much he was allowed to accomplish for it whilst he yet lived. Nearly nineteen years were added to his life after he had formed the noble design of founding such an institution, and during all these years he labored and studied and prayed for its prosperity, as its father only could do. The value of the services which he rendered to the institution, ‘not grudgingly, as of necessity,’ but ever most cheerfully, and, be it remembered, entirely gratuitously, cannot be estimated. Probably if an accurate account had been kept of them, charging for each item its fair business value, they would be found to amount to scarcely less than the sum of his princely money benefactions to the founding and establishing this institution. Certainly it may well be questioned whether the devotion of twice the six or seven thousand pounds, which he gave, would without such personal attention and services, have secured the establishment of such an institution as he has left to perpetuate the blessed memory of his name.”

      The board of trustees of the institution, at a special meeting held on 6th Jan., 1859, passed the following resolutions, among others:

      “1. That although we are deeply conscious that the academy has sustained an irreparable loss in the decease of Charles F. Allison, Esq., and although the remembrance that his work on earth is done, that the invaluable services which, as treasurer, chairman of building,


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