Ministerial Career
With a brother and two Knox College classmates he travelled to Scotland and Europe and spent a term of study in Edinburgh. He was ordained a Presbyterian minister in 1890. He moved to Alberta, then still part of the Northwest Territories, and he served a large area west of Calgary that today includes the municipalities of Banff and Canmore. He served in the Rocky Mountains until 1894. The congregation in Canmore is called Ralph Connor Memorial United Church in remembrance of his time there.
He moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba where he would spend nearly 40 years as minister of St. Stephen's Presbyterian/United Church, which was a new congregation when he arrived. During these 40 years he also wrote in Kenora, Ontario on Lake of the Woods.
Near the start of the First World War, in 1915 he became Chaplain of the 43rd (Cameron Highlanders) Battalion CEF (see The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada). In 1916 he was made senior chaplain of Canadian Forces in England with the rank of Major. He then proceeded to France as senior chaplain, 9th Brigade, British Expeditionary Force. He was mentioned in Imperial despatches.
After returning from Europe, he was Moderator of the 1921 Presbyterian General Assembly and became a strong advocate for union of the Presbyterian, Methodist and Congregational Churches in Canada. In June 1925, he was on the podium during the final benediction of the Presbyterian Church General Assembly at Toronto's College Street Church. He encouraged the organist to play Handel's Hallelujah Chorus as loudly as possible to drown out the sound of protests from a group who called themselves "Continuing Presbyterians" who had gathered in the front corner of the assembly hall to vote on resuming nearby later that evening.
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