We gratefully recognize the fact that the congregation worshipping in St. Gabriel Street Church received its first formal Presbyterial status from the Church across the border. I have been unable to ascertain whether Mr. Bethune was ordained in Scotland or in the Carolinas, and therefore cannot say whether he was a minister of the Church of Scotland or not, but, in any case, he came to us through the States, and Mr. Young's orders were clearly American. We glory in the distinction of having once belonged to this great Church. Going back a step, indeed, it might be claimed, that the Presbyteries that ordained Mr. Young and Mr. Bethune, if he were ordained in America, derived their orders from Scotland. The early synods of the Presbyterian Church in the United States take up that position. Here is an extract from the minutes of the Synod of New York, on the 27th September, 1751.

"We do hereby declare and testify our constitution, order and discipline to be in harmony with the Established Church of Scotland; we declare ourselves united with that Church in the same faith, order and discipline."

Again, in 1753, we find the Synod re-affirming this position :—

"In the colonies of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and Carolina, a great number of congregations have been formed upon the Presbyterian plan, which have put themselves under the Synodical care of your petitioners, who conform to the constitution of the Church of Scotland, and have adopted her standards of doctrine, worship and discipline. The young daughter of the Church of Scotland, helpless and exposed in this foreign land, cries to her tender and powerful mother for relief."

The Presbyterians of the United States, writing to the Governor of Virginia, in 1750, said that "they were of the same persuasion as the Church of Scotland."

Mr. Bethune and Mr. Young had therefore a true Presbyterian succession. And it may be said that the Presbyterian Church of the United States has been faithful to the principles thus avowed, as received from the mother country. Indeed, it is more conservative of the traditions of the elders than the Churches of Great Britain are. It would seem as if Colonial Churches were always more tenacious of ancient forms and usages than the parent ones. Consequently a severer type of Presbyterianism is to be found in Ireland and the United States than in Scotland, at the present time.

The connection of the St. Gabriel Street Church with the Presbytery of Albany was of but short duration, we have seen. Of the Presbytery of Montreal, which the congregation and Mr. Young were dismissed to join, we have no information. It has left no records behind it of its meetings or acts—none, at least, that have hitherto been discovered. But there has been a tradition in Canada that it was composed of Dr. Sparks of Quebec, Mr. Bethune of Glengary and Mr. Young of Montreal, together with the representative elders from the respective charges which they served.

It does not seem to have been in existence in 1800,—at least, to have exercised its episcopal functions at a time. when a wise and vigilant oversight would have been of the utmost value to the cause of religion, not to say of Presbyterianism, in Montreal.

Mr. Young was a man of no great strength of character. We have seen that his first visit to this city was by way of a temporary escape from some difficulties into which he got in his pastoral charge over the line. Being a weak brother at the best, his isolation, all the time he served this church, from brethren who might counsel and fortify him, was most unfortunate. The wine merchant seems to have been, relatively, a more important personage then than now, judging by the number of men of high standing that

engaged in the business at that time. Dining out was the rule with the wealthier citizens. There were no newspapers, exchanges or clubs in those days, where men might congregate and gather intelligence of what was going on in the world; and this means of mental occupation and gratification was compensated for, a hundred years ago, by social intercourse. Conversation over the walnuts and the wine was what books and journals are to the people of this generation. The minister was expected to grace the tables of his rich parishioners; and it would have taken a gentleman of much personal dignity and strength of will to dominate the tendencies of a high-strung, harddrinking society, such as that in which he, to a considerable extent, moved. Mr. Young was not possessed of the fibre, either intellectual or moral, to exercise a wholesome control over the excesses of the time. Instead of conquering the evils of his surroundings, he was in some degree conquered by them.

In 1801, complaints began to be made that he did not always act with discretion. At this point, the good offices of a Presbytery, if they could have been secured, would have been of immense advantage to the cause of decency and order. It seems conclusive that there was no Presbytery in existence to which he and the congregation owed allegiance, that it was left with a committee of the congregation, composed partly of the Session and partly of the Managers of the temporal affairs of the church, to inquire into the rumours afloat injuriously affecting Mr. Young's character, and to deal with them. This was a

most embarassing situation for a congregation to be placed in, while it was ruinous to the clergyman's influence. For, whether he is acquitted or condemned, a minister's usefulness is gone, when the members of his own congregation are called upon to investigate charges affecting his moral character. It is a first principle in Presbyterian government that neither a congregation nor a session can

sit in judgment upon a minister.

He can be properly tried only by his peers in the Presbytery or Supreme Court.

That the charges against Mr. Young were, up to November, 1800, not regarded as having blasted his character so as to unfit him for the duties of his office, is clear from the fact that he continued to officiate in the church up to 9th August, 1802; and that when a vote was taken whether he should retire or continue to supply the pulpit, on the 10th day of November, 1800, the great majority expressed a wish that he should remain.

Mr. Young was never technically minister of the church, and this fact made the irregularity of the congregation in putting him upon his trial less than it would otherwise be. As has been already said, he received an appointment as "stated supply" from the Presbytery of Albany; but this was after the arrangement had been made between him and the congregation. He never received what is known as "a call" from the congregation, nor was he inducted into the pastorate by the Presbytery. It was, in fact, a private arrangement he had made with the people, and it was to last as long as it suited both parties. Had he been formally installed as pastor, the procedure taken by the session and temporal committee would have been a violation of Presbyterian principles and practice.

The difference betwixt the position of "stated supply" and that of pastor is well put in the evidence given in the suit, Kemp vs. Fisher, by Rev. C. H. Taylor of Ballston Centre, then clerk of the Presbytery of Albany :—

"The said Rev. Mr. Young was never installed or inducted in said St. Gabriel Street Church by the Presbytery of Albany and in regard to his relation to said. Presbytery, he never was pastor of said Church, but was merely, for a stated time, fulfilling towards the Church the functions of a regular pastor. The relation of a pastor

to a Church is, according to our constitution, indissoluble, save by the action of the Presbytery; but that of 'stated supply,' although recognized by the Presbytery, is one of voluntary arrangement between the clergyman and the congregation, and endures so long as it is mutually consented to by them. Taking a congregation under the care of a Presbytery gives it all the rights and privileges of a part of the Presbytery, while so under their care and that connection remains—unless regularly dismissed— which appears to have been the case with the Church at Montreal. The said Rev. Mr. Young was not regular pastor of said church at Montreal during the time it was under the care of the Presbytery of Albany, not having been installed, as I have already mentioned. A resignation of a clergyman, addressed to the church or congregation for which he officiated, would, according to our rules, be inefficacious to destroy, or put an end to, his relation to such church and congregation, if a regular 'pastor,' but if a 'stated supply' only, it would put an end to his connection. But a 'stated supply' is often and, indeed, generally, for a stated time; and in such case, it becomes the duty of the congregation to receive the clergyman for that time,—and the duty of the clergyman to fulfil that time, otherwise it would be disrespectful to the Presbytery. But the arrangement is, in its nature, of a temporary character." The only acts of jurisdiction, then, exercised by the Presbytery of Albany over the congregation of St. Gabriel Street Church, during the twenty-one months it was under their care, was the appointment of Mr. Young as "stated supply," from September, 1791, to March, 1792, and then dismissing him and the congregation in June, 1793. Mr. Young appears to have remained as "stated supply" at his own risk, from 1793 till 1802, and when there appears to have been no Presbytery to take action in the premises, perhaps there was nothing left for the congregation to do but to take the law into their own hands.