The following reference to Mr. Hays’ life and work was made at the close of public worship in the American Presbyterian church, Montreal, on Sabbath, April 28th. Dr. Johnston said: “The subject that we have been considering this morning has unavoidably suggested to you, as it has to me, many thoughts regarding the life, the death and the work of Mr. Charles M. Hays whose loss our land mourns today.
“Much has already been said of Mr. Hays as the railway magnate, the man of enterprise, the devoted husband and father and the loyal friend. Upon these phases of his character I will not therefore further dwell, but there remains something to be said of that feature of his life which, though less conspicuous to the general public, nevertheless lay deep and strong behind all these other characteristics, and was indeed the inspiration of them. We all in this congregation know the large place which Mr. Hays gave to the work and worship of the church, and the readiness with which his time and influence were always lent to its interests. He loved the House of God. That love, in a measure, was doubtless the result of early training in a home of whose deep religious character he ever loved to speak in terms of affection and appreciation. It was also due in part to his deep sense of what he owed in his place of great prominence to the community at large, and to a younger generation in particular, in the way of example. Most of all, however, it was due to his appreciation of the place that worship should have in every life, and to his deep sense of the need of every soul for those things that the House of God and its services can give. This attitude instead of lessening, as in so many lives it does, as responsibilities increased, and honours accumulated, deepened in Mr. Hays with the passing years.
“The continent-wide enterprises with which his name will always be associated were not simply enterprises and interests to him. They constituted a work, a ministry, which it was given him to administer for man, and through man for God. The tens of thousands for whom he had already thrown open the door of their exodus from European stagnation and oppression were his Israel, whom he, in God’s name, was leading out into liberty and larger life. These broad prairies and boundless stretches of Northern Saskatchewan and the Peace River district, those hitherto impassable Rockies, giving gateway to the flowering farmlands that slope toward the silver sands of the Pacific--these were his Canaan, which it was his to conquer, not with sword and clash of battle, but with genius and enterprise and the power of science, so that into the good ‘Land of Promise’ he might bring the oppressed peoples of the world, to make a nation strong in liberty and in righteousness.