United Colleges - Vox Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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vox 5 work of Hebrew Literature and Language in co-operation with Prof. E. Guthrie Perry. This po¬ sition he held until the time of his death. During all the years he kept in close touch with the Council of Religious Education, and watched with intelligent interest the devel¬ opments in this new phase of reli¬ gious emphasis and growth. On Friday, December 14, 1928, he walked home from Wesley Col¬ lege with another member of the staff, seemingly in his usual good health and spirits. At the dinner table he mentioned casually that he did not feel well. He went to his study but was stricken with such intense pain that it was necessary to call the doctor. Then another medical man was called in, and ad¬ vised removing him to the hospital, where at five o’clock the next morn¬ ing an operation was performed. Peacefully on Tuesday morning he passed into his eternal rest, leaving a widow, six sons and one daugh¬ ter to mourn his departure. The funeral service was conduct¬ ed by Rev. Harry Heathfield, his pastor, in Young United Church, on Thursday, December 20. Many tributes, in spoken and unspoken words, in flowers and telegrams, were paid to a life well and faith¬ fully lived. Prof. Hetherington had many unique qualities. His face and form arrested attention, and made one turn to notice the man as he passed. He was a good preacher of the didactic type, winning always the respect and confidence of his con¬ gregation. It was, however, in the classroom that he excelled. He knew his subjects and was passion¬ ately devoted to them; but, better still, he knew his students and loved them with a father ' s devo¬ tion. All through life he main¬ tained that keen and active inter¬ est in youth which marked his early years. During his college days he was highly honored by his fellow students for his sterling worth and for his ability to enter into the sports of the college. His prowess as a football player will always remain a pleasant memory with the early students of Wesley. Prof. Hetherington was a keen and sensitive student, and a lover of nature. Few men could inter¬ pret the mountains, the rivers and prairies as he could. But after all this is said, his significant contribution may be summed up in three particulars. It was his good fortune to take a part in the life of Canadian thought when three great movements were evolving in the intellectual and spiritual life of the people. When he began his teaching ca¬ reer, Religious Education was just beginning to occupy the attention of religious leaders, and many were claiming for this new science a de¬ termining power in religious devel¬ opment. Its advocates were saying that all men needed for their salva¬ tion was a fuller knowledge and a better mental culture on sounder principles. Prof. Hetherington al¬ ways maintained that beyond all the mental processes, however val¬ uable, that a new birth was a nec¬ essary factor. He reiterated with unswerving fidelity the solemn truth “Ye must be born again.” He pleaded for a new life as the basis of religious experience and growth. In the realm of Psychology, of which he was a close student, while some were seeking to find all the mental phenomena of human life in stimul i and reactions in neu¬ rones, nerve centers and complexes,

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4 VOX Albert Edward Hetherington, B.A., B.D., S.T.M., D.D. Late Professor of Religious Education, Wesley College Albert Edward Hetherington was born about sixty years ago near Smith Falls, Ont. When he was a mere lad the family moved to Lucknow on the boundary line be¬ tween Huron and Bruce. Here his father died. In those days Huron and Bruce were sending many of their sons and daughters to the new land opening up in the west, and the Hetherington family joined with many others in the search for a new home. After a short so¬ journ near Portage la Prairie, Man., a homestead was taken up near what was known as Plum Creek in the early days, now the thriving town of Souris. Here his boyhood days were spent and here his early education obtained. While attend¬ ing school in the nearby town he lived with his sister, Mrs. Dol- madge. She noticed that the grow¬ ing lad was of a religious thought¬ ful turn of mind and was asking many serious questions. That she might aid him she secured for him the Chautauqua course of reading and entered heartily into the study of these with him. When writing a few months ago to Mrs. Dol- madge from Galipoli he recalled the study of the Chautauqua course with her and attributed much of his later interest in oriental life to that course of reading. A Wesley Student In 1889 he registered as a stu¬ dent in the second class of Wesley College and graduated in 1893 with the silver medal for general proficiency in the general B.A. course. Among the graduates from Wesley that year are such well- known names as Rev. Dr. James Endicott, Rev. W. W. Abbott, Rev. R. R. Bennett, Messrs. J. K. Sparling and H. W. Whitla. After spending the usual time on probation he went to Victoria College to complete his Theological training, where he obtained his de¬ gree of Bachelor of Divinity. After ordination he joined the B.C. Conference and in 1898 was asked to become, with Rev. Mr. Turner, the pioneer missionary to the Klondike. In this new land with its peculiar situation and dif¬ ficult problems he rendered fine service, and did a lasting work. In 1902 he returned to pastoral work in Vancouver. One of his appointments was the Chown Me¬ morial Church, where he took the lead in building the present church. The Board of this Church, through its pastor, Rev. O. M. Sandford, paid a fine tribute to the character, work and achievement of Prof. Hetherington while filling that pas¬ torate. For a short time he was a mem¬ ber of the staff of Columbia Col¬ lege, and principal of that institu¬ tion. On severing his connection with it, he went abroad to study the Old Testament and Religious Education. Part of the time was spent at the University of Chicago and part at Harvard. From the latter irtstitution he received the de¬ gree of Master of Systematic The¬ ology. Called to Wesley College He then returned to a brief pas¬ torate in B.C., from which he was called to be Secretary of Young People’s work in Manitoba, and professor of Religious Education in Weslev College. On the death of Rev. D. Stewart, he took over the

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6 VOX in afferent and efferent waves, he unceasingly affirmed the fact of a personality, living and essential, behind and in all the marvellous mechanism. Conduct was more than behavior, and life more than physical processes. When others were attempting to explain the strange power of hu¬ man aspiration, longing and ambi¬ tion as the residue of a lower order from which men had evolved, Prof. Hetherington grew impatient with a crassly materialistic evolu¬ tionary hypothesis, and kept clear¬ ly before the minds of his students and hearers the thought that man is akin to God, and from God come these nobler aspirations of his soul. These are not an inheritance from a lower origin, but the breath of the divine in the soul of man call¬ ing him upward to communion and fellowship with God. So, during the time of transition and change in Religious Education, Psychology and Evolution, he ren¬ dered a very distinct service, sym¬ pathizing with all new light and fresh truth, but adhering firmly to the great fundamental principles of the Christian faith and life. A good man, faithful and effec¬ tive, has done his work here, and has passed on to work in a higher life in closer communion with the God he loved and sought loyally to serve. Appreciation by a Student Dr. Hetherington will live in the memories of his students. It will be so not merely in the intellectual advance which they made under his guidance, but also in the value of personality which he revealed to them. One of his former students tells this in a few paragraphs of appreciation which follow. “We live calmly among men who might be put into brave books and be the bravest figures in those books,’’ has frequently been my thought as I have listened to Professor Hetherington illustrating in his lectures from his early ex¬ periences in the Trail of Ninety- Eight.” He was our teacher in Psy¬ chology, Religious Education, Old Testament and Hebrew, in which subjects we considered him not so much a foremost student, but rath¬ er as one who knew folks and neighbored with their experiences in the learning processes. His personality had for us the largest appeal—that ready laugh of his, that wave of the arm in re¬ cognition across the halls, that knowing glance of the eye, that pushing of the stray lock of hair across the forehead, that keen sense of the ludicrous, the rollicking glee he had in his friends, that helpfulness without censoriousness, that service without thought of self-sufficiency, that freedom from ranting, that happiness in an over¬ abundance of work, those firm un¬ wavering convictions without dog¬ matism or self-assertion, that in¬ stinct and grace of a man of peace, that spiritual nature which needed not to talk about religion all the time to let men know he had re¬ ligion—such a man he was, and as such he moved in and out among the students as an inspiration and a blessing, whose heart was young and whose sympathy was a per¬ petual spring.