In summer and winter, both sowing and reaping, in season and out of season
It was a bitterly cold day when pioneer evangelist Richard Varder arrived in Punnichy, SK, a village 80 miles (128 km) north of Regina. In his words, it was a place “where there seemed to be no living testimony for God.” He scanned the village shops, and considered where it would be best to begin sharing the gospel in town.
His eyes landed on a pool hall, and, on inquiring, discovered that most of the men where there. He “determined to drop his hook where the fish were.”
“Is the proprieter around?” he asked.
“I’m the proprieter,” responded a corpulent fellow.
“How much an hour do you get out of this place of business?”
The questioner was old and kindly looking. The owner could hardly find the question objectionable. “About two dollars and a half,” he replied.
“All right,” Varder said, “I’m a tract distributor and a preacher; I’ll give you a dollar and a quarter to let me tell these men about Christ for half an hour.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, the fat man, as if he was enjoying himself, said, “Go ahead, Dad.”
After explaining to his impromptu audience the arrangements he had made with the owner, for his allotted half hour, Varder told the good news of God’s grace in Christ to those men. They listened, as he said afterward, “without even a growl from the wild beast.”
When he was through and stepped up to pay, one of the men was at the desk ahead of him.
“No, Dad, you don’t pay; I’m going to pay for this. The other preachers don’t care for our souls—and you’re willing to pay your own money to preach to us? You, can’t do it; I’m going to pay.” And he did.
What the eternal results were, heaven will tell. But there is a letter in his Memoirs (Memorials of a Quiet Life by Leonard Sheldrake) written by a certain A. J. Mately who tells of a pool room in Punnichy that was “fixed up” for three weeks of gospel meetings there. Mately observed, “Preaching of grace, he preached with grace, and I can truly say that I have seldom heard the gospel preached so faithfully yet…so lovingly.”
WHO WAS RICHARD VARDER?
Richard Ferris Varder was born April 30, 1858, in the village of Harberton, South Devonshire, England. He was the seventh of eight children, brought up in a home where both parents knew the Lord.
Saved just before his seventeenth birthday, Varder wrote of the occasion:
My deliverance came on a Sunday night. The other members of the family had gone to the church service but I, under some pretence, absented myself. Left alone in the house, and already in soul trouble, I began to consider my condition before God.
I wept. I prayed. But it was all to no avail. I gave up at last in despair. Then suddenly the Spirit directed my mind to Isaiah 53:6. I had often sung the words when going through Handel’s famous Oratorio, The Messiah, and knew them off by heart, but up to this time they had been merely a string upon which so much music was hung. But now I was able to enter, line by line, into their meaning.
“All we like sheep have gone astray.” “That’s me,” I thought. “I’ve gone astray.”
“We have turned everyone to his own way.” “Me again. It’s true my way had been more religious than that of many, but it had still been my way.”
“And the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” “Can it be that my sins were laid on Jesus?” I thought. It seemed too good to be true. But it was true! God had said it and it could not be otherwise. So with the simplicity of a child, I took Him at His word. Yes, my sins were laid on Jesus; I believed Him and the burden was gone.
Varder remained in the Church of England for another five years, but in 1880 he discovered from the Word of God that believers should be buried in baptism (Rom. 6:1-4). Finding a group of believers in the town where he lived who practiced this and other principles they saw in the New Testament, he happily identified with them. Many of the truths that he found to be so precious were learned in those early days from great servants of God like Robert Chapman and Henry Dyer.
Shortly after being received into the fellowship of these believers in the town of Totnes, in Devonshire, Richard Varley began to venture into open-air evangelism.
In April of 1881, he emigrated to western Canada. One wonders what he thought when arriving in Winnipeg, Manitoba, a true frontier town of tents and log huts. There were no paved streets, and when it rained the roadways became a sea of what was called “Red River grease.”
He had learned carpentry from his father and so was quickly put to work. This he did through the summer and saved enough so he could preach the gospel through the winter.
BRINGING IN THE SHEAVES
The years 1882-1886 were primarily sowing times, and towards the end of that time, Richard was often the yokefellow of John Rae, one of the early pioneers in western Canada.
They found great joy in carrying the gospel to surrounding towns. Selkirk, about 23 miles north of Winnipeg, especially concerned Varder.
The tide began to turn in 1886, when in that year his efforts and trials were rewarded in the planting of the Selkirk assembly.
The following years, 1887-1895, saw a rich harvest in Manitoba and the Dakotas. Sinners were saved by the scores and little assemblies began popping up all across the prairies. Local evangelists like Varder, Rae, and John Grimason (working mostly in North Dakota) were occasionally joined by Donald Munro, Donald Ross, John Smith, and Alexander Marshall.
Richard Varder and Alfred Goff, both from England, were preaching as a team by 1890. Alfred Goff had been saved under the preaching of Henry Craik, coworker with George Mueller.
TWO GALLONS OF WHISKEY OR TWO PREACHERS
During the terrible winter of 1889-1890, William Monkman left his home at Balsam Bay on the shores of Lake Winnipeg to make the journey to Selkirk, a distance of 28 miles in the bitter cold. The fifth anniversary of his wedding day was approaching and, although he was not a drinking man, Monkman thought that the etiquette of the north required some whiskey for his guests at the celebration.
Halfway to Selkirk was a small settlement where his parents lived and he decided to stop by. As it happened, Richard Varder and Alfred Goff were conducting gospel meetings in homes in the area. William joined the group to listen and, as the good news was explained from John 6, he trusted the Lord. Afterward he discovered that his brother and sister-in-law had been saved the day before.
So instead of continuing his journey to acquire two gallons of whiskey, instead he invited the two preachers to come north to his district with the gospel. They came and shortly eight more people professed salvation. These nine—Mr. and Mrs. William Monkman, Mr. and Mrs. John Flett, Mr. and Mrs. Alex Anderson, Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Derby, and Mrs. John Rupert—were baptized in the waters of Lake Winnipeg by Richard Varder and established the Balsam Bay Assembly in June of 1890.
NEWS OF THE PIONEERS
Something better done in those days than in ours, I’m afraid, was publishing reports of pioneer gospel work so the saints could pray for these laborers. It is something we need to do. Here are two reports from Our Record in 1890:
“Brothers Varder and Alfred Goff, of North Dakota, are gone to Manitoba to tell the blessed news of Jesus and His love to those who need to hear it.” “Brethren Varder and Goff went back to Dakota last week. There have been fifteen saved…since they came up here, for which we have much cause to praise the name of Jesus.”
Richard did some form of “tent-making” most of his days. Sometimes it was carpentry, sometimes market gardening, but as soon as he had enough, he would go back to the gospel. Only in 1922 did he finally lay down his tools for full-time evangelism. The Lord took him Home on Sept. 2, 1933, a faithful servant to the end.