nessed a scene of great religious scandal with much pain. A quarrel took place between two Presbyterian clergymen officiating in the same church, and there was a violent contest in consequence between their respective partizans as to the possession of it. One party had got in—early on a Sunday morning, too; barricaded the door, and there were blockaded by the other, who endeavoured to starve them into. submission. But the besieged held. out stoutly, and a supply of provisions having been obtained through a window in the course of the night, they shewed a determined front in the morning. All this time the crowd of Canadians in the street were laughing disdainfully at these disgraceful proceedings, and enjoying this extraordinary spectacle as a good joke. It was by no means agreeable to my Protestant feelings to see persons of the greatest respectability committing themselves in this serio-comic manner, and when I beheld a most estimable medical friend, with whom I had dined the day before, figuring as a ringleader in the fray, he appeared like the blind Samson making sport for the Philistines.

"It is but justice to the clerical gentlemen concerned, to add that they disapproved of these unseemly practices, and took no part in them."

The elders being outside at the time, along with the rest of the congregation assembling, were arrested, and taken away, and had to give bail to appear before the Quarter Sessions. A bill of indictment was found against the principals in the affair, but they could not be brought to trial, owing to the adjournment of the criminal court, till the September term; and things had to remain in this unsatisfactory condition until then.

In this extremity, the temporal committee wrote to the two ministers of the Church of Scotland in Quebec, Rev. Dr. Harkness and Rev. J. Clugston, soliciting their

good offices, and urging them to come to Montreal and help to adjust the difficulties between the two parties. These gentlemen had already given it as their opinion that the majority of the session had acted irregularly in venturing to hold an inquiry into the conduct of their minister; and their opinion not having been accepted, they concluded that it would be useless to come up to Montreal, as they had no hope that their interposition would be successful. They suggested rather the calling of a meeting of all the Church of Scotland ministers in the country, to deal with the matter.

CHAPTER XX.

The circumstances leading up To The establishment of St. Paul's Church —the award op the clerical arbitrators—The Synod's Action Thereon—Delay in accepting it—award of the lay arbitrators —St. Paul's Congregation organized—Meet in the Baptist Church —Build St. Paul's—Kindly relations resumed between the two Ministers and their Congregations.

Mr. Esson had declared his readiness to meet his accusers and their accusations before any competent court of the church, and had mentioned particularly the committee of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on Canadian affairs, as a body before which he would answer any charges submitted against him. It was agreed by both parties to leave the questions at issue between them to this impartial tribunal. But the distance between Montreal and Edinburgh, in those days, when correspondence across the Atlantic depended upon sailing vessels, was so great that it was found to be a very tedious way of meeting a grave crisis in the St. Gabriel Street Church that demanded prompt action. Accordingly, Principal Lee of Edinburgh, clerk of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, after going some length in dealing with the matter, suggested that the whole of the proceedings in the case should be submitted to the arbitration of some ministers in the colony, mutually chosen.

The session party did not seem at first inclined to accept this advice or the suggestion of the Quebec ministers, but on the 15th April, 1831, passed the following resolution as embodying their views:

"Resolved, finally, that as the Church of Scotland as established by law in Scotland has not yet extended its jurisdiction to Canada—until this event, and until a Presbytery, formed in this country, can shew credentials of office from the parent church ; or until a colonial Presbytery shall have received the formal recognition of the church in St. Gabriel Street— and until said church and congregation shall have placed themselves in due form under the jurisdiction of such body—the session of the church (as being in Scotland a judicatory next in grade to a Presbytery) most of necessity be the only ecclesiastical tribunal in a country where no Presbytery exists; and that any attempt of a self-constituted assembly of ministers, unrecognized as aforesaid, to interfere with the concerns of said church in St. Gabriel Street, ought to and will be resisted."

This was signed by 31 persons, and amongst them were three of the elders.

The ministers of the Church of Scotland in Canada were communicated with, and agreed among themselves to meet at Kingston to deal with this grave matter among other things, on the 7th of June, 1831, and out of this meeting grew the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland, and, it may be said, the General Assembly of to-day. The Presbyterian ministers had been urged by Sir George Murray, Secretary of State for the colonies, to meet any way, with a view to organizing and being in a condition to treat with the government for their rights as a body, and this advice had weight with them; but the immediate occasion of their coming together was to try and compose the unhappy differences that existed in the St. Gabriel Street Church.

The following minute gives an account of the Synod's original organization:—

"The ministers, elders and commissioners from congregations in communion with the Church of Scotland, assembled in St. Andrew's Church. Kingston,—present:

The Rev. Alexander Gale, of Amherstburg,

George Skeed, of Ancaster,

John Machar, Kingston,

The Rev. John Cruickshank, Bytown,
Alexander Ross, Aldborough,

Robert McGill, Niagara,

Thomas Clark Wilson, Perth,

William McAlister, Lanark and Dalhousie,

William Rintonl, York,

Alexander Mathieson, Montreal,

Henry Esson, Montreal,

John McKenzie, Williamstown,

Hugh Urquhart, Cornwall,

Alexander Connel, Martintown,

Edward Black, Montreal,

Geo. Mackenzie, Esq-, barrister at law, commissioner from Kingston, John Willison, Esq., surgeon, elder, from Ancaster,

John McGillivray, Esq., commissioner from Williamstown,
Alexander McMartin, Esq., M. P., commissioner from Martintown,
John Turnbull, Esq., commissioner from Belleville,

The Hon. Archibald McLean, elder, from Cornwall,
Sampson, Esq., commissioner from Amherstburg,
John Crooks, Esq., elder, from Niagara,

John McLean, Esq., elder, from Kingston."

After lengthened and mature deliberation, it was unanimously resolved: "That this convention of ministers and elders, in connection with the Church of Scotland, representing their respective congregations, do form themselves into a Synod, to be called the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada, leaving it to the Venerable, the General Assembly, to determine the particular nature of that connection which shall subsist between this Synod and the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland."

Both parties in St. Gabriel Street Church ultimately agreed to refer the matters in dispute between them to the arbitrament of the assembled ministers. Each of them prepared a memorial and statement of the case. That emanating from Mr. Esson's side was signed by the following: Kenneth Walker, Wm. Peddie, Dr. William Caldwell, and Robert Simpson, members of the temporal committee,—and Thomas Blackwood and James Leslie, elders,—also by