He was associated with Canada's Confederation Poets, and wrote 13 books of Christian and patriotic poetry, often using the natural world to convey deeper spiritual meaning.

This was anathema to the fervently anti-Catholic Anglican church in Quebec, and Bishop William Bond refused to consider Scott for the priesthood.

[8] Garvin included a quotation from M. O. Hammond writing in the Toronto Globe: "Frederick George Scott's poetry has followed three or four well-defined lines of thought.

He has reflected in turn the academic subjects of a library, the majesty of nature, the tender love of his fellowmen, and the vision and enthusiasm of an Imperialist.

"[7] Sandra Djwa wrote of his work "Several of Scott's early narrative poems, and his later didactic novel Elton Hazelwood (1891), describe typically Victorian crises of faith and the recognition of 'life and death as they are'.... Scott's many religious poems and his novel offer a more explicit rendering of the Victorian pessimism underlying the poetry of his more significant contemporaries, Charles G.D. Roberts and Archibald Lampman.

As talk of a possible European war ramped up in August 1914, Scott considered it would be his duty to accompany the Royal Rifles to Europe despite his age.

[9][7] At the final church parade at the Valcartier training camp before the 1st Division embarked for Europe, Scott was asked to give the sermon before all 15,000 soldiers, as well as many notables including Prime Minister Robert Borden, Minister of War Sam Hughes, and the Governor-General (Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn), his wife and their daughter Princess Patricia.

Despite Scott's apparent disregard for regulations, Alderson appointed him to be Senior Chaplain of the 1st Division in August 1915, and promoted him to the rank of honorary major in December 1915.

As fellow chaplain Llewellyn Gwynne noted, Scott was "Always in the thick of the fighting, bearing almost a charmed life, ignoring any suggestion that he should be posted to a softer job 'further back.'"

"[11] Private Donald Cleal, while recuperating from wounds in August 1917, wrote in a letter to the Toronto Star "We have a chaplain here, Canon Scott, of Quebec, who has several medals.

"[12] At the Second Battle of Ypres, Scott was close enough to the German front line that bullets were striking the wall of the stable where he was comforting the seriously wounded.

Elton, a Rhodes scholar who interrupted his education to enlist as a lieutenant with the McGill Heavy Siege Artillery, was severely gassed in the spring of 1918.

On 21 October 1916, during the Battle of the Somme, Captain Henry Hutton Scott, who served with the 87th Battalion (Canadian Grenadier Guards), was killed during an attack on Regina Trench.

The raging battle made it impossible for Scott to visit the gravesite, and he refused to let Henry's men risk their lives to retrieve his body.

A month later, Scott returned to the same spot and during the night, only accompanied by a few soldiers, cautiously moved out into no man's land to find Henry's grave and read the Anglican burial service for him.

[2]: 184  One of the soldiers, Alexander McClintock, later wrote, "The old chaplain stood beside the body and removed his trench helmet, baring his gray locks to the drizzle of rain that was falling.

Then while we stood with bowed heads, his voice rose amid the noise of bursting shells, repeating the burial service of the Church of England.

When orders came to turn over the motorcycle for "proper" military use, Scott sought out General Arthur Currie, by then commander of the Canadian Corps, to gain permission to keep the Clyno.

[2]: 333  But Scott's run of luck at the front lines came to an end near Cambrai on 27 September 1918 when an exploding shell severely wounded him in both legs.

Foster, in the September 1922 issue of Canadian Historical Review, wrote that Scott's recollections were "characteristic of the man, who is a student of human nature, a poet, and a humourist.

Told with quiet humour, his experiences furnish a very human document in the rapidly accumulating material dealing with Canada's part in the war.

The Canadian Encyclopedia called him "an Anglican priest, minor poet and staunch advocate of the civilizing tradition of imperial Britain, who instilled in his son [F.R.

Scott] a commitment to serve mankind, a love for the regenerative balance of the Laurentian landscape and a firm respect for the social order.

"[22] WWI veteran and writer Hubert Evans recalled that "most of us sensed pretty accurately the life purpose which actuated his heroism, his humanity, his unbelievable endurance.

We were Jack, with a wife and kids waiting in the far-off Peace River country; or harum-scarum Bill, with an anxious mother in Vancouver; or Tommy, of Woodstock, N.B., whose sister would be hoping for a letter.