Although the names of Rev. Francis Metherall and Rev. Richard Cotton are better known for their early role as missionaries on PEI I came across this biography Philip James who served while Metherall was serving and before Cotton arrived. The full biography is in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
His arrival, on 29 July 1834, allowed Metherall to expand the Bible Christian mission westward from its first outposts north and east of Charlottetown. James, assigned to serve the eastern area (including Gallas Point, Rustico Road, and Wheatley River), found that most of the Island’s inhabitants, chiefly Presbyterians and Roman Catholics in affiliation, were almost totally bereft of Christian preaching. In some communities people had only one or two opportunities annually to hear the Gospel preached, and one group he addressed had not been able to hear a sermon for over two years. James worked hard to meet the need, travelling the rough terrain on foot in all seasons. At New Bideford (Bideford), he formed a small class “composed of some of our friends from England,” but regretted that he could be among them only at six-week intervals. He could not visit some preaching points as often as that. Clearly, the mission’s resources were totally inadequate to minister to the Island’s many communities, most of which lacked places of worship. James, who was highly devout, wrote in 1835 that he was frequently “destitute of a room in which to retire for prayer.” Moreover, he felt that the church did not understand the conditions under which its missionaries laboured, in particular the severity of the Canadian winter, the need for warm clothing, the poor housing and isolation of its preachers, the scattered circuits, and the difficulties of transportation. After two years on the Island he wrote: “I should just like to have the Missionary Committee with me for a few days, only a few days, when I am tottering through the snow three or four feet deep, and over the ice, when the water and slush . . . takes me nearly to my knees for six or seven miles together, and then say, whether a horse be necessary.”
One of the drawbacks of sporadic preaching was that its benefits were often lost before the preacher had the opportunity to return. As James described it, “A poor Irish woman told Brother Metherall, that I came among them so seldom, that although they felt under the word when I was there, they ‘got wild again’ before my return.” He was convinced that if the church’s leaders could see the spiritual destitution of some of the areas where he worked, they would exert themselves to the utmost to send the Gospel. A third missionary was just as necessary as the second had been. Help came in 1839 when Richard Cotton arrived to share the load, but James was not to benefit long from the additional assistance. The increased immigration to Upper Canada of people from Devon and Cornwall, where most supporters of the Bible Christian Church resided, meant that experienced missionaries were needed there. Accordingly, in 1841 he departed Prince Edward Island to join other colleagues, including John Hicks Eynon*, his wife, Elizabeth [Dart], and, later, Ann Robins [Vickery], in bringing the Gospel to their followers in Upper Canada.
