Henry Alline

Henry Alline (pronounced Allen) (June 14, 1748 – February 2, 1784) was a minister, evangelist, and writer who became known as "the Apostle of Nova Scotia."

Northeastern North America had been pulled into the conflict by King George's War and achieved a significant victory with the capture of the Fortress of Louisbourg in 1745, only to have it returned to France during treaty negotiations.

With the removal of the common enemy, France, a North American paradigm shift occurred in the political relationship between the British metropole and its New World colonies.

The Awakening's new ideas caused the new born faithful (New Lights) to shun vices and evil pastimes to live more personally in the Christian ethic.

After the deportation of the Acadians, Nova Scotia's fine farmlands in the Bay of Fundy region remained empty, and in an effort to repopulate the country, the British government offered the recently vacated lands in grant to Protestants who wished to move to the colony.

Town assemblies of a sort continued until 1770, when they were finally forbidden because of the sympathetic position emanating from the gatherings for the rebels to the south.

In his journal, he reported participating in the favourite pastime of the youths of the day of frolicking, which included dancing, partying, and drinking.

However, it was on the eve of the American Revolution, and the violent convulsions that began to occur in New England precluded his departure from Nova Scotia.

Despite his misgivings he began preaching in Falmouth, particularly after his neighbors heard that he had become a New Light and sought his advice and asked him to lead them in prayer.

The same year, both Falmouth and Newport formed churches with his assistance, were anti-Calvinist in nature and generally rejected, traditional Congregationalism.

His ministry was hugely successful and drew the attention and grudging admiration of even those who opposed him like Simeon Perkins of Liverpool, who stated, "Never did I behold Such an Appearance of the Spirit of God moving upon the people....

Opposition rose against him from those who thought he was a destabilizing factor to the day's social order: primarily government representatives in Halifax and the Anglican clergy that was fully integrated into the governmental power structure.

Ministers of various other Protestant sects also opposed him on theological grounds, the New Light's jettisoning of an educated and "properly"-ordained ministry, and assuredly the loss of parishioners that eroded both tithing flows and the clergy's status in their community's hierarchy.

[9] Throughout that time, Alline established seven additional churches and composed his many hymns, pamphlets, sermons, personal journal, and two major theological works.

Alline fell mortally ill the last week of January 1784 while he was preaching at North Hampton, New Hampshire.

The Reverend David McClure, a Calvinist minister, and his family took him into their home and provided him with whatever comforts they could extend to a dying man.

The epitaph they had cut into his tombstone reads, "He was a burning and shining Light, and was justly esteemed the apostle of Nova Scotia.

John Wesley was sent Alline's 'Two Mites Cast into the Offering of God, for the Benefit of Mankind' by the Nova Scotia Methodist leader William Black.

The troubles in the Thirteen Colonies further compounded the Planters confusion and fellings of aimlessness and left them in an awkward position with respect to both their former neighbours in New England and with the British authorities in Halifax.

With Alline's theology based on the eternal love of God and the ability of all people, male or female, high- or low-born, to achieve salvation, a path forward was perhaps available.

Though Alline made many converts to his religious ideas, the Allinites splintered into many competing Newlight sects after his death, such as Pansonites, Chipmanites, Kinsmanites, Blackites, Welshites, Hammonites, Palmerites, Brookites, Pearlyites, and Burpeites, and a few even turned to the Anabaptism.

[15] Most of the sects disappeared as quickly as they appeared, with the followers eventually merging with Wesleyan or Congregationalist churches or helping to establish two major Baptist denominations in the Maritime region.

Alline is Canada's most prolific 18th-century writer, publishing 487 hymns and spiritual songs, three sermons, many pamphlets, and two major theological works: Two Mites Cast into the Offering of God, for the Benefit of Mankind and A Court for the Trial of the Anti-Traditionalist[16] His Journal was published posthumously and has now taken its place as one of the classics of North American spiritualism and Christian mysticism.

[17] Gordon Stewart has written that in spite of being voluminous, Alline's journal is of limited utility since "his profuse and repetitive style often becomes little more than a list of the places he visited and a continual restatement of his spiritual travails.".

[18] By contrast, Jamie S. Scott argues that the travels recounted in the journal reflect the travails of the author's spiritual journey: "Embracing both psychological and theological readings," Scott writes, "The Life and Journal testifies to a lifelong struggle to transform both personal and public conditions of despair into conditions of harmony and hope.".