The end of Carson’s ministry in Melbourne came suddenly through an attack against his mission by one of the newspapers. The result was the loss of many of the congregation despite a subsequent apology from the newspaper journalist.20 Kingsley Ridgway accepted this as God’s leading that he should embark upon his missionary career to the Pacific. In May 1926, Ridgway took employment as an accountant in Rabaul, New Britain with Burns Philp and Co., who were shipping contractors for the Australian administration.21 In the evenings and weekends in Rabaul he practised his missionary ministry, meeting with and discipling New Guinea workers.22 In the meantime Carson moved back to Sydney and accepted appointment with the Methodist Church at Lakemba and later in the Gosford circuit.23
18 K. Ridgway, In Search of God, 195. 19
K. Ridgway, In Search of God, 195.
20 K. Ridgway, In Search of God, 196.
21 Correspondence from Burns Philp, Rabaul, February 10, 1927, K. Ridgway records (Archives). 22 Kingsley M. Ridgway, "Feet Upon the Mountains: A History of the First Five Years of the
Wesleyan Missionary Work in Papua New Guinea," in Pioneer with a Passion, 2nd edition, ed. Lindsay Cameron (Australia: Wesleyan Methodist Church, 2011), 247.
23 Carson's willingness to accept ministry in the Methodist Church suggests that he was opposed to
Ridgway being trained in the liberal school of theology but not opposed to service in the Methodist Church, and the Methodist Church in the 1930s still had a base of evangelical local churches where a Canadian holiness preacher could be welcomed. From Ridgway's account, however, it is clear that Carson soon divided his congregation with his open preaching on spiritual conversion.
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Ridgway returned to Melbourne from his twelve month contract in Rabaul in 1927, expecting to travel to Canada with the Carson family. This was delayed however, so Ridgway took employment with E.F. Watt in Melbourne as an accountant.24 After twelve months in that work he joined Carson in Gosford where the ministry was experiencing both success and opposition. By this time Ridgway’s relationship with the oldest Carson daughter, Dorcas, had matured and they were married on February 25, 1929 in the Methodist Church of Gosford.25 See figure 6.2. Ridgway then sailed to Canada with Dorcas, her mother and siblings while Carson stayed some months longer in the Wyong circuit, before he too joined the family in Canada.
Figure 6.2 Dorcas and Kingsley Ridgway's wedding day, February 25, 192926
In the Province of Ontario, Kingsley and Dorcas enrolled for theological studies at the campus of the Standard Church in Brockville. This church has a long history in the holiness tradition, and it symbolises a remarkable network of events that came together over the next century. A former Methodist evangelist, Ralph C. Horner (1853-1921) had been removed from the Methodist Church because of his theology of three blessings; that is, an experience of salvation, a second experience of holiness cleansing (entire sanctification) and a third experience of power in witnessing
24
Personal reference from J.C. Rosevea, June 12, 1928, K. Ridgway records (Archives).
25 Wedding certificate, February 25, 1929, K. Ridgway records (Archives). 26 J. Ridgway records (Archives).
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(fire).27 His followers were known as "Hornerites" and it was these who had reached A.B. Carson in Saskatchewan in 1905. Horner initially tried to join another holiness organisation, the Wesleyan Methodist Connection of America in 1894,28 but was soon expelled from that denomination as well because of his theology of three blessings. (This is the same Connection that Kingsley Ridgway ultimately established in Australia fifty years later.) Subsequently, Horner commenced the Holiness Movement Church, with himself as Bishop. A.B. and Ida Carson trained at the Holiness Movement College in Ottawa before their mission to Australia. However, in 1916, while the Carsons were in Western Canada and before their arrival in Australia, Ralph Horner and a group of his followers left the Holiness Movement Church and commenced the Standard Church of America with headquarters in Brockville, Ontario. Therefore it was to Ontario that the Carson family returned in 1929 with Ridgway. Ridgway completed his pastoral training at Brockville and pastored several congregations of the Standard Church in Canada. He was ordained on October 9, 1932 in Brockville29 under the authority of the Kingston Conference of the Standard Church of America and was appointed to missionary service in Egypt.
Several chapters in their lives later, in the mid-1940s Ridgway chose not to continue with the Standard Church, but instead transferred his ordination credentials to the Wesleyan Methodist Church of America and commenced the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Australia. Fifty-eight years later, in 2003, the Standard Church officially merged into the Wesleyan Church of North America and the network was reunited. Figure 6.3 illustrates the founding of the Holiness Movement Church and the Standard Church with the merger into the Wesleyan Church in 2003. It also illustrates ministries of Ralph Horner, A.B. Carson and Kingsley Ridgway.
Kingsley and Dorcas’s first four children were born in Canada: James, Dorothy (Izzy), Marjorie and Walter. Meanwhile, Ridgway had not forgotten his calling to the Pacific. He continued to vigorously promote a mission work to the islands and he
27 This third experience of power would place Horner closer to Pentecostalism than to John Wesley's
traditional focus upon purity of life and intention.
28
"Horner, Ralph Cecil," The Dictionary of Canadian Biography, accessed February 12, 2014, http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/horner_ralph_cecil_15E.html.
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published In Search of God as an appeal to the North American church for support of a South Pacific ministry.
Figure 6.3 Holiness Movement Church, Standard Church & Wesleyan Church
In August 1937, as the first step toward a mission work in the Pacific,30 Ridgway was sent to superintend the Standard Church mission field in Egypt, arriving at Port Said on September 28, 1937.31 During his brief but intense three years in Egypt, Ridgway wrote a thesis titled "A History of the Religions of Egypt from the Earliest Times to the Present," for which he was awarded a Doctorate of
30 Lindsay Cameron, "Editor's Note," in Ridgway, In Search of God, 147. 31 Notes for 1937-1940, undated, K. Ridgway records (Archives).
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Divinity from Webster University in Missouri, U.S.A.32 In May 1940, with World War II troops amassing in Egypt, Ridgway took on additional chaplaincy ministry to the troops in the Western desert through the auspices of the Young Men's Christian Association (Y.M.C.A.).33 This ministry was short-lived. As war intensified the Ridgways were evacuated to Australia. They departed Port Said on June 23, 1940 for a perilous sea voyage to Australia as one of a twenty-three ship convoy escorted by the British Navy. During this two and a half month voyage they experienced the threat of German torpedos, cramped conditions and oppressive heat in the steel- hulled Zam Zam as they sailed via the Suez Canal to Colombo (Ceylon). From there, on another vessel they sailed via Fremantle (Western Australia) to arrive in Melbourne on September 7, 1940.
Figure 6.4 The Zam Zam on which the Ridgways were evacuated from Egypt34