Jim McConnell's Autobiography 1877 - 1957Canadian pioneer farmer in Ontario, Saskatchewan and British Columbia |
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30. Our youngest sister, Edith, came up from North Tonawanda, NY and stayed with Fred's wife, Mary, and visited Fred every day until the last. On June 26th, 1953, we received word that Fred had passed away that morning. The funeral service was held on June 29th, and we saw Fred's coffin laid in the Revelstoke Cemetery. Fred was the last of my three brothers and, like so many others, is laid aside looking towards the dawn of Eternity's morning. And now time is really speeding us on. We are now well into 1958. I have ceased planning for myself and any great future here and am content to review the past and to record here all that I have seen and all that has been revealed to me in over eighty years of my life. We have lived in the age where mechanical and machine power has been given to man. Our grandparents sowed their grain by hand and cut it with the reaping hook. They travelled first by ox team and later by horse and buggy or wagon. In those days while I was still young, in referring to anything that was impossible, they used to say "You cannot do that any more than you can f ly." Now, in our day we sow our grain with a drill pulled by a gas-powered engine, and we reap and thrash and clean it in one operation with a Combine. We drive on our roads in comfortable enclosed cars at speeds up to 80 miles an hour. We have aeroplanes that travel at speeds from 100 to 500 miles an hour and carry from 50 to 100 passengers. So we see that in our age, God has given wonderful power into the hands of man. It would seem that thousands of years of progress and advancement have been given to us in one brief generation. We hear much about progress and advancement and achievement these days, but it is only with sorrow that we can look at the dark shadow that hangs over this advanced age. For all the wonder of mechanical power given to us, we have taken and used it to subdue, conquer and destroy some of the human race -- especially so when we remember the tremendous power of the Atom Bomb. The men who first used the power of the atom made it into bombs and dropped those bombs on innocent people in those two Cities of Japan. It destroyed life and brought years of misery, suffering and death on people who had no way of defending or protecting themselves. And yet today we hear so much about Christianity in the world. Evidence of this Christianity is seen everywhere in the world, and we hear it over the radio at all times of the day. But we still have to search and look everywhere to see if there is any sign of that new Commandment: "That we love one another," for we know that if love is lacking, then the new life is not there either. The New Testament, as well as the Old, emphasizes the importance of the sanctity of the home. Eph 6:4 speaks of children being brought up in the nurture or tender care and the admonition of the Lord, or quietly teaching them of the great evil of disobeying God's laws. It is to be expected that the enemy of our lives would try to destroy the quiet pureness and sanctity of the home. Solomon in his time said: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom," but today, if we go out and look around, we find very few families are ever taught to fear the Lord. In almost every home, amusement and entertainment comes first. The h igh cost of living has also affected the home life, and the mother has to go out and work all day to help keep the bills paid -- leaving the children all day to shift for themselves. And we ask why this condition should exist at this time -- in the midst of plenty and over-production. When this question is asked, we are told that two opposing ways of life are competing for control in the world. Two ways, two ideals, two forces are struggling for supremacy in our world. They are called "Democracy" and "Communism." Here in the West we know a little about Democracy or free enterprise as we
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