Through Stained Glass
The main administration building on the Mount Allison campus, Centennial Hall, was named shortly before its completion in 1884. The name of Centennial Hall, contrary to popular belief, has nothing to do with the celebration of Canadian nationhood in 1967. Built following a fire as the main College building in the 1880s, it was realized at the time that the naming of the new building was an opportunity to commemorate the Methodist background that inspired Charles Frederick Allison’s vision of a place of education. Thus, the building was named to recognize the centenary of William Black’s first mission enterprise in the newly English provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; accordingly, the Black Memorial Chapel was housed in Centennial Hall on the second floor, and was dominated by two large windows, one commemorating William Black and the other Charles Frederick Allison.
William Black, Yorkshireman and minister, understood that in John Wesley’s preaching and practice an insistence on the new birth through justification by faith was combined with an emphasis on disciplined Christian living; this notion of “sanctification” was not only concerned with the perfection of the individual soul, but also with the transformation of the world around. This vision had also inspired Allison, and for decades became part of the mandate of the University, not only educating young men (and through the Ladies’ College, young women), but also making them “fit for life”, meaning ready to be engaged in the world as agents of transformation.
The mission and mandate of Mount Allison has changed over the years, but in many ways it has never fully departed from its origins – service to others, creation of informed and engaged citizens, responsibility in the larger world. These were the goals of a missionary enterprise under William Black, these were the goals of Charles Frederick Allison – who had himself been influenced through Methodist missionary enterprise – and these remain the goals still: to offer a transformative educational experience so that graduates themselves become agents of transformation in the world. The Methodist understanding of faith has traditionally included the theological concept of sanctification, the outworking of one’s faith and salvation in the world, including the seeking to perfect not only oneself, but the world. This drive to bring goodness, justice, rightness, humanity to the world has been a traditional part of the Methodist mission, and these concepts now more broadly understood as citizenship and responsibility continue to shape the educational mandate of Mount Allison.
In our twenty-first century world, the word “engagement” is frequently used to gather together ideas of shared and responsible living, looking beyond self, working to make the world a better place. But of course this is not a new idea. It has informed the mission of Mount Allison through nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and into the twenty-first. Graduates of Mount Allison continue to be those agents of change. From the days when pre-theological students were a large number of the student body, moving on to United Church parishes to become agents of transformation for individuals, communities and beyond, to the contemporary setting, when students, regardless of religious background, seek vocations and avocations that allow for engagement, interaction, transformation, the task of engagement continues.
Theology was once at the heart of the mission – but the theology of the church now is less about the study of the nature of God, than an understanding of how that theology affects, changes, motivates those who believe. Religious questions are those that probe the essence of who we are, what our purpose is, and how we live out that purpose. If we consider Centennial Hall, we are not likely to reflect on the man for whom it was named, William Black; and while we no longer celebrate the man and the mission, at a deeper, more profound level, we continue to celebrate the significance of that heritage – the engagement of the world as those who wish to interact, to pursue justice, to seek humanity, to be at common cause with everyone.
The buildings change, and even more quickly the faces at Mount Allison change. However, the mission remains, not only to educate, but also to make graduates who are fit for life, a life of engagement, responsibility. The legacy of Black lives on, in the lives of students who make a difference, and indeed in the presence of the Chapel on campus, in which the light of inspiration breaks in through stained glass.
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