Born
in Kingston, England in 1801, as a young man James Evans immigrated with his parents to
Lower Canada. He married Mary Blithe Smith in 1822 and shortly
thereafter the couple moved to Augusta Township. There, the couple
renewed their faith at a Methodist camp meeting and dedicated their lives
to God (apparently, as a young boy, James had been exposed to the
Methodist faith, both through an apprenticeship with a devout Methodist
grocer and from hearing the famous evangelist Gideon Ouseley).
James began teaching in 1828 at the Rice Lake school and translating
scripture
and hymns for local use. In 1830 he was accepted on probation as a Methodist
minister and began to serve on the Methodist circuit at Credit, Ancaster and St. Catherines. By 1833 he was
fully ordained as a Methodist minister and embarked upon his
missionary career in earnest.

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