William Howland 1844-1893
Mayor of Toronto the Good William Howland was deeply committed to the poor, sick and neglected of Toronto. At his own expense, he built a special school for children expelled from public schools for misconduct and later established a Home for the Aged and Homeless Poor. He visited this home almost daily, counselling and encouraging his dependents. With his own money, he bought 50 acres of land in Mimico, in present-day Etobicoke, and erected a reformatory for young delinquents rather than seeing them thrown into prison with hardened criminals. Today, this is the site of a large, government-run detention center. Howland also founded Toronto Mission Union, which operated five mission halls, one senior citizens home, one convalescent home and Toronto’s first home nursing service. On Sundays, he was in constant demand as a speaker in the pulpits of just about every Christian church in the city. It seemed that every waking moment of his life was devoted to Christian work, despite his extraordinarily heavy business responsibilities. In 1885, Howland was elected as Mayor of Toronto, and it was under his leadership that the city came to be known as “Toronto the Good.” He was also the founding president of the Christian Alliance in Canada, a forerunner to what became The Christian and Missionary Alliance. When he died suddenly of pneumonia at the age of 49, he was honoured with the largest funeral procession ever witnessed in Toronto up to that time.
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Workingman’s Home at 59 Frederick St. to rescue others from the grip of alcohol. Supported by the generosity of Bethany Church members, at its zenith, the home housed and fed 90 men each night, and the Gospel was preached nightly. n Annie Mellick, a crippled woman, was healed under Alliance ministry. She felt a call to start an orphanage for boys in a needy area. She rented an empty house at 82 Hayter St. and took possession of it with only her Bible and hymnbook. Completely lacking furniture, orphans and money, she waited six weeks. Then a group from the Bethany Chapel gathered in the empty house for prayer, asking God to send needy children and their sustenance. From then on, it was one miracle after another. Within a few days, two little homeless boys were deposited at the empty house, then another and yet another. No one except God was ever asked to provide support. Furniture, money and food trickled in when needed. Neither Annie nor her orphans ever went without necessary clothing or missed a single meal. The home continued for 35 years until it was forced to close down when the city took ownership of the land in order to build Toronto General Hospital. Annie died shortly thereafter, having had her heart broken by this action. These stories of early Alliance saints show how courageous people, whether in full-time vocational ministry or not, altered the face of a city when they adapted to the real needs of the ever-changing community while maintaining their core calling to lead the unsaved to Christ. The Alliance in Toronto Today Since those early days, several Alliance churches have returned or been planted in the inner city of Toronto. One of them, Toronto Alliance Church, is located on Queen Street West near Bathurst Street, a community where many of the neediest people in the city gather. One by one, people are being restored in spirit and body by ministries of this and other inner-city What began churches. slowly, with After being planted in 1991 as a ministry of First Alliance Church in Scarborough, a few Roma and through the assistance of many children churches through the years, several attending a important decisions have greatly served summer camp, their vision of “restoring broken lives.” For example, the leaders themselves moved has quickly into the downtown core in order to know grown to the “weight of the need” in their immediate nearly 100 neighbourhood, rather than commuting in people from a distance to minister part-time. The Roma people, who are arriving in large numbers as refugees from Eastern Europe, have provided a significant outreach opportunity. What began slowly, with a few Roma children attending a summer camp,