“A second Lutheran congregation, the Tabernacle congregation, was formed in Winnipeg by Reverend Hafsteinn Pjetursson in 1894. During the prolonged ill-health of Reverend Jon Bjarnason, 1892-1893, Reverend Pjetursson, from the Argyle settlement, assisted with services in the First Lutheran Church, and in 1893 the congregation extended a call to him to be assistant pastor. However, in the following year, Bjarnason´s health gradually improved and he began to resume his pulpit duties. In the early nineties, Notre Dame Avenue had become a sort of dividing line in the Icelandic community. To the north were the “city people”, and to the south were the “prairie people”. The street was also an ideological dividing line; to the north there was a stronghold of Liberals, Logberg-adherents, and members of the Good Templar lodge “Skuld”, while to the south there were many Heimskringla partisans and members of “Hekla” lodge. The natural tendency was that if one faction supported a move, the other opposed it. About the time when Reverend Bjarnason returned to the pulpit, an increasing number of people in the south ceased to attend the First Lutheran church, In view of the rivalry between north and south, this was not an unnatural development, but at the same time a certain number of people preferred Pjetursson for their pastor. In Argyle, he had won the hearts of his congregation. He did not match Bjarnason´s intellect, and many other of his admirable qualities, but he was sensitive and imaginative, and he was noted for his grace and fluency of speech. In his preaching he drew on a rich store of historical and Biblical knowledge. “He was a very fine man, revered almost as a saint, deeply religious and strict in his religion, but withal moderate in his teachings. He used no notes in his preaching and his language was poetic and beautiful. An old man who had the faculty of criticism called him the golden-tongued.” It has been said that scarcely a member of his congregation was dry-eyed when Reverend Pjetursson preached his farewell serman at the end of his four-year stay in Argyle.” (From The Icelandic People In Manitoba pp. 237-8).