*Excerpt from Reuban Butchart's "The Disciples of Christ in Canada Since 1830", Part 2, "The Churches of Christ in NS"*
*This page needs additional information and history. If you would like to contribute information to this project, please email info@restorationhistory.ca*
Benjamin Howard organized this little loyal church of the Maritime folk, after John McDonald (likely with Howard's help), had organized West Gore church, in or about the year 1837. It was one of the group that soon followed. W. W. Eaton credits Howard as founder "about this time", which seems to correspond with the date of his writing. He states in The Christian, October, 1839 that the church was then in being and had a building nearly completed within which to worship. Thus Newport's peoples aims and purposes would naturally be at one with the other Hants County groups (see West Gore). It was for them a period of intellectual and spiritual revolution, in which they would feel kindred bonds uniting.
In Canada's second religious journal--The Disciple--(by T. H. Blenus at Newport) in February, 1879, the editor states that his church was one of the earliest in the province; that it had struggles within and without, and thereby passed through fiery trials; that at times it had difficulty in maintaining its identity. This reads like the book of Revelation (chapter one). It housed doubters, those who were announcing the old questions confronting Eve in the Garden, "Yea, but is it really so?" Yet it continued its program, revealing the loyalty of those who decades after dedication were "sustaining evangelistic labor in the county", meaning possibly the preaching points at Cheverie Road and Aylesford. In the early times the churches maintained preaching outposts, in schoolhouses, sometimes homes. And the membership of Newport was scattered over a ten mile radius in horse and buggy days. That was something, and would still be something for churches which today, more prosperously situated for equipment, do not achieve.
A vivid point in this little history is that W. H. Harding, veteran preacher of the Maritimes, at Newport announced his intention of giving his life to the gospel. His life record reveals much strenuous labor thereafter. His first ministry began with Newport church, in November, 1888. He had a wide area of pastorates, but his restless evangelistic spirit ever beckoned him to wider fields.
In October, 1892, the Newport membership was estimated at sixty-five. It is impossible for an outsider to estimate causes of decline. They are as likely as not to be more economic and social than religious. The Reform light shone brightly in Hants at the beginning, and continued bravely for decades. That light still shines in lives known to the writer.