the Bellefeuille Macdonalds have portraits of Hon. W. McGillivray and A. N. MacLeod. Mr. Macdonald died at the ripe old age of 90 years, leaving, among other children, the late Judge Rolland Macdonald, of Welland, Ontario, and De Bellefeuille Macdonald of this city, whose wife is a daughter of Lieut.Col. the Hon. R U. Harwood, M.L.C., Seignior of Vaudreuil,—whose mother, again, was a daughter of the Marquis of Lotbiniere, Knight of the Royal and Military Order of St. Louis, and Engineer-in-Chief of New France. CHAPTER XVII. REV. HENRY ESSON, M.A.,-HIS BIRTH, EDUCATION, AND CALL TO MONTREAL -HIS HIGH CULTURE AND SOCIAL QUALITIES-HIS EARLY THEOLOGICAL VIEWS HIS CONNECTION WITH EDUCATION AND THE CLERGY RESERVES QUESTION-HIS MARRIAGE-HIS IDEAS ABOUT AN ESTABLISHED CHURCH -THE CHANGE IN HIS NOTIONS OF PREACHING THE GOSPEL-JOINS THE DISRUPTION MOVEMENT IN CANADA-APPOINTED PROFESSOR IN KNOX COLLEGE HIS DEATH-DR. WILLIS' ESTIMATE OF HIS CHARACTER AND WORK. The Rev. Henry Esson's pastorate in St. Gabriel Street Church was not only the longest, leaving out the fifteen years during which Mr. Somerville was nominally minister, without sharing in the work or responsibilities of the office; but also covered the most important period of its history, and was in many respects the most influential. He was a man exceptionally gifted, and he found in the Montreal of those days a fitting theatre on which his gifts could be displayed to advantage. No other minister of the church ever bulked so largely in the eyes of the public, or made so marked an impression upon the entire commnnity. Mr. Esson belonged to the city and country, as well as to the Scotch Church in St. Gabriel Street. He was just the kind of man the proprietors of pews, on the whole, were at the moment looking for. The new Christ Church was now opened, and, with its organ and music, and other attractions, was a keen, though friendly competitor with its Scotch neighbour near by. The leading men of the St. Gabriel Street Church resolved to have their organ and other attractions centred in the pulpit. An able and accomplished preacher was the agency on which their confidence for the success of their church rested. Mr. Esson was born at Deeside, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, in the year 1793, so that he was 24 years of age, in 1817, when he became joint pastor of the St. Gabriel Street Church. He was the youngest son of a highly respected farmer, who trained his household in the fear of the Lord, and received an abundant blessing from heaven in return. He received his university education in Marischal College, Aberdeen, and had the good fortune to attract the special attention of the Rev. Professor Stuart of that institution, by reason of his scholarly attainments and amiability of disposition. Many of the prominent merchants of Montreal were from Aberdeen city or county, and when an additional clergyman was wanted for the Scotch Church in this city, it was natural for them to put themselves in communication with the influential representatives of the church in the Granite City, in order to gain the end they had in view, the securing of a colleague to Mr. Somerville, who would worthily sustain the dignified position of a Minister of the Established Church of Scotland, in the commercial metropolis of Canada, by his preaching power, his literary acquirements and his social talents. Clothed by the representatives of the congregation here with full appointing power, Professor Stuart selected Mr. Esson as eminently well-fitted in all these respects for the situation in question. We give the history of the transaction, as showing how the Presbyterian Church managed to work out its destiny in special circumstances, and accommodated itself to the exigencies in which it was placed. At a meeting of the temporal committee on the 14th December, 1816, "It was intimated that several members of the Church had expressed an opinion that, in consideration of the delicate condition of the present |