a high order—he was endowed with acuteness, activity, energy and a genius for government. He put an indelible impress upon all the pupils that passed through his hands. The intellectual force which the centred upon them dominated their subsequent career. Having left the Presbyterian communion himself to join the Episcopal Church, as we shall have occasion to notice more fully by and by, he became a redoubtable champion of prelacy, and very likely considered he was doing God service, when he sought to bring others to adopt his new views. No one, so far as I know, ever accused him of deliberately setting himself to gain over to the Episcopal Church the sons of his worthy neighbour and friend, Rev. J. Bethune; but ingenuous youth are easily moulded unconsciously by a master-mind like Dr. Strachan's. And it was all the easier to influence them in this direction, that they inherited from their father highly conservative feelings, deep attachment to the mother country, and a profound veneration for British institutions. Add to these considerations the fact that the Church of England had got the start of the Church of Scotland in Canada; had a larger number of clergymen, who occupied a higher position in the country, and were better provided for out of the public purse. It is known that Dr. Strachan pointed these facts out to clergymen of the Church of Scotland, and to private members of that Church, as a reason why they should cast in their lot with the Anglican communion; and it is not likely that he would withhold his views from the young students whose opinions he was privileged to shape. Whatever was the ground occupied by these two young men, in preferring to take Orders in the Church of England, rather than in that of their father, they were worthy of the high positions which they achieved, and were ornaments of the church of their choice. For that matter, both of them might have become bishops: as it is well known that the late Dean of Montreal declined overtures made to him to place him over the Diocese. Both of them were accurate scholars, as all Dr. Strachan's capable pupils were; both of them were for a time teachers themselves, as so many of the greatest men in the Churches of England and Scotland have been; and both of them have left to their children the heritage of a spotless name. The Reverend John Bethune was ordained by Bishop Mountain at Quebec, in 1814, the year before his father's death, and was first settled at Augusta, near Brockville, as the following announcement intimates that he taught the Government school, established in the village of Augusta. "The Public School, for the District of Johnstown, U.C., will be opened on August 1st next. Augusta, 17th April, 1815. JOHN BETHUNE." He seems to have subsequently been in charge of the Church, at Brockville, because in the year 1818 he became Rector of Christ Church, Montreal, in exchange with Rev. Mr. Leeds, who remained at Brockville. In features, he strongly resembled his father. There is an admirable portrait of him in the Vestry House of Christ Church, below which is the following inscription: "JOHANNES BETHUNE, S.T.P. Parochiæ Regiomontanæ annos quatuor et quinquaginta Rector, Ædis Christi Cathedralis in urbe Regiomontana, Annos Duodeviginti Decanus, natus est die quinta Jannaurii, A. S. MDCCXCI. In pace decessit die vicesima secunda Augusti, A.S. MDCCCLXXII." In 1835, he was appointed Principal of McGill College, at the termination of the lawsuit the relatives of Hon. James McGill's widow had carried on to set aside the will by which the estate of Burnside, together with £40,000 was left by that gentleman to form a University in Montreal. It was the wish of the founder, as well as of the Governors, that Rev. Dr. Strachan should be the first Principal; but his position as Rector of Toronto and Archdeacon of York was so important that he would not give it up for even this office, so attractive to one possessing his tastes, and the filling of which would have realised the dream of his youth. Unable to accept the position himself, there was no one whom he would more naturally desire to see at the head of the new institution than his friend and former pupil, Dean Bethune. The College question, however, was not yet settled, and before the University could be got on a satisfactory footing, a new charter had to be procured in 1852. This involved the resignation of Dr. Bethune, and the recasting of the governing body of the College. The Rev. A. N. Bethune was for many years Rector of Cobourg, and the attempt to make King's College at Toronto an Anglican Institution, pure and simple, having failed, when the Diocese of Toronto resolved to institute an independent Theological School at Cobourg, Mr. Bethune was appointed the first Professor of Theology. When it was determined, in 1866, to appoint a coadjutor bishop to aid the now aged Dr. Strachan, the choice of the Synod lay on Mr. Bethune—a result most gratifying to the venerable prelate—who, in declaring Mr. Bethune elected, added: "and I hope that his future life will be what his past has been,—just, and holy, and upright, in every respect, worthy of the high station to which he has been called." Less than a year afterwards Dr. Bethune succeeded to the See of Toronto, owing to the death of his senior, Dr. Strachan. Thus two Scotchmen, both trained Presbyterians, and both of them having some slight relation to the old St. Gabriel Street Church, Montreal, filled in succession the office of Anglican Bishop of Toronto. In taking leave of the founder of the Presbyterian cause in Montreal, it may be interesting to some to know that Mr. Bethune's grandson, the son of Angus already mentioned, Dr. Norman Bethune of Toronto, has lately connected himself with the communion to which he by descent belongs, after worshipping for many years in the Anglican Church. This is what Darwin would have called a return to the original type. It is still more interesting to learn that one of his sons is now prosecuting his studies with a view to the ministry of the Presbyterian Church. CHAPTER IV. SOCIAL, CIVIL AND COMMERCIAL CONDITION OF THINGS IN MONTREAL A CEN- The Reverend John Bethune's effort to establish a Presbyterian Church in Montreal was not altogether successful, yet it paved the way for ultimate success. The beginning was small, but so also was the beginning of the city. It is difficult for those who have seen Montreal only within the last thirty years to realize how humble a town it was a hundred years ago. Let me mention one or two things which indicate the backward state of matters socially and commercially in the year 1786. A mail for England was despatched only once a month, and it went by way of New York, taking about four weeks on the way, whence it was carried by packet-ship, and four months had to elapse before an answer could be had from across the Atlantic; now we have a daily mail for Great Britain, besides that we are in momentary communication with all parts of the world by telegraph. The incoming mail was put off the New York packet at Halifax, whence it came overland to Montreal, which it took a month to reach. In 1789, it was publicly intimated by the postal authorities; "Letters for any part of the continent of Europe are to be sent under cover to a correspon |