Edward Hartley Dewart was born on 30 March 1828 in Stradone, County Cavan, Ireland, the son of James and Margaret Hartley Dewart. When he was four his father immigrated to Canada, sending for his wife and children two years later. Edward was educated in the local Ontario schools of Dummer Township and at the provincial Normal School, then taught briefly before entering a career in the church. He was ordained into the Wesleyan Methodist ministry in 1855 after a four-year probation. The following year he married Matilda Hunt, and they apparently had three sons. For twenty-five years, from 1869 to 1894, he edited the Christian Guardian , the Methodists' weekly newspaper in Toronto. He received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from the Methodist-sponsored Victoria University in 1879. He was still writing columns for the Christian Guardian up until his fatal heart attack.

Although a fine writer himself, always interested in literature and acquainted with...