FAMOUS NOVELIST

Taranaki Daily News, 14 March 1935, Page 2

FAMOUS NOVELIST

LECTURE TOUR OF RALPH CONNOR. VISIT TO NEW PLYMOUTH. The Rev. Charles W. Gordon, D.D., better known aS Ralph Connor, famous novelist, will visit New Plymouth towards ttto end of March, accompanied by his daughter. He Will lecture On his experiences, his tour being sponsored by the National Council of the Y.M.C.A. Local arrangements are in the hands of the association secretary, Mr. j. H. Ledgerwodd. Born of Scottish ancestry in Glengarry county, Canada, his father, the Rev. Donald Gordon, was a famous Free Church minister of disruption times. It was in his congregation that occurred thC great Glengarry revival referred to in “The Man from Glengarry” and m “Torches' Through the Bush.” Ralph Connor was educated at Toronto and at Edinburgh. He travelled over Europe on a bicycle with a group of Canadian students. ‘ He acted as a missionary in the Rocky Mountains from 1890 to 1893, and it WAS no doubt in that locality that he obtained much of the material for his famdUs books. For many years he was the pastor at St. Stephen’s Church, Winnipeg. He served the Presbyterian Church in Canada as convener of various conference committees, notably social service and evangelism, and he became Moderator of the General Assembly in 1921. Dr. Gordon’s scholarship is undoubted, and among other honours he holds the degrees of D.D., LL.D, and F.R.S. Very few people have not read some of his books and almost everyone has read Such novels as “The Sky Pilot,” “Black Rock. ‘•The Prospector” and “Glengarry Days.”