The Reverend Ernest Harrison

Ernest Harrison was an Anglican minister. He was a bit of a radical in his church. He had written a book called A Church Without God. I don’t believe it was denying the existence of God. He was just stating that he didn’t think God was alive and well in the Anglican church. This viewpoint was not very popular in his denomination.

Ernest Harrison was also the best English teacher I ever had. He taught me for one year at Ryerson. From the very beginning he encouraged me to think. You didn’t have to agree with him as long as you could make a strong argument for your case. He was one of the few teachers who ever gave good marks to somebody with independent thought.

In his survey English course, I learned that the writing of an era often is often parallel to historical events. More simply put, people write about what they know and what they know is what is happening around them.

One day he took me aside. He saw that trying to please everyone was almost an obsession with me. I was always afraid that I might offend somebody. If I did, I apologized profusely and looked like a sad puppy.

This is the gist of what he told me.

There are three types of people in the world. There are those who hate you, often without any good reason at all. There are those who love you, and sometimes this love is so pure, you can’t figure it out either. The third group is comprised of the vast majority of people in the world who couldn’t care less about you.

He told me that one the secrets to happiness in life could be summed up in these words.

Try to spend as little time as possible with those who hate you.

Try to spend as much time as possible with those who love you.

For the vast majority of people who don’t care about you, be as kind as you can with them. Some of them may become one of those who love you.

They were simple words, but nobody had told me anything like this before. They rang true. To this day, I try to put into practice this bit of wisdom that the Reverend Ernest Harrison told me.