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Dr DUFF, who temporarily occupied the chair, then addressed the deputation to the following effect:-In the absence of the venerable Moderator of this House, it has devolved on me to convey to you the thanks of the Assembly for the deeply interesting statements you have presented to us, as well as to express our deep sympathy towards you, and towards the various causes in which you are engaged. One of your number has come year after year amongst us, our dear friend Mr Monod; so that we begin to look upon him as if he was an annual member of the Assembly. (A laugh.) Last year we had the privilege of having another of your number amongst us for the first time,M. Durand of Belgium. On that occasion he addressed us in French; and sure I am it is a matter of congratulation to us this year that we should have heard him in our own tongue. In one of you we joyfully recognise an alumnus of our own college, and a licentiate of the Free Church, who has gone forth on his evangelistic enterprise, to carry on the antagonism with the Man of Sin beneath the walls of the University of Louvain. Another of your number has addressed us in French. With regard to him I will say this, that as a descendant of the famous Turretin,— a name familiar to all the students of theology in this country, and one who is not only known, but whose works have proved an inexhaustible mine to the Presbyterian ministers of Scotland,-I venture to say, without any letter of recommendation, M. Turretin might make a tour through the whole of Scotland, and he would find his name a passport to every manse of the Free Church-(loud cheers)—and there would a reception await him, such as he would not be honoured with were he furnished with the passports of all the emperors on the Continent. (Hear, hear.) As to the other excellent friend who addressed us from the School or College of Geneva, the statements he presented were peculiarly gratifying. One name he alluded to, which brought up at once a flood of associations to my mind. We have had a long theory in Scotland that, one of the surest ways of diffusing the light and life of Christianity is to rear up thoroughly trained men in a school of prophets. Accordingly, it cheers us to learn that this theological school of Geneva has sent forth its evangelists, not only into all parts of the Continent, but into all parts of the world. One of these most honoured men, De Rodt, reached the banks of the Ganges, and laboured there, highly blessed of God, among the heathen. He was an intimate familiar friend of my own; I saw him on his death-bed, and I accompanied him sorrowfully to the His name grave. will be long cherished, not only by European Protestants in Calcutta, but a sorrowing body of native converts will continue to cherish and revere there his memory. And now, dearly beloved brethren, you may be assured, from the expressions of sympathy already manifested towards you in this House, that you stand amongst us more beloved than ever, from those reports of your labours which you have presented to us, as well as from those of former years. Truly you occupy a difficult position; and, as one of you has properly reminded us, we who are here in Scotland, and they who are in England, have just as deep an interest in entertaining and maintaining your cause as yourselves. It is the cause of our common Christianity. With regard to our friend from the Canton de Vaud, his presence here reminds me, that, as an expression of the Catholicity of Christianity, so soon as we in Calcutta heard of the outburst of spiritual freedom in the Canton de Vaud, our sympathies were drawn thoroughly and unanimously towards the suffering ministers there; we resolved to make a public collection in their behalf; and there being at the time in Bengal à respected missionary from Switzerland, M. Lacroix, a name as honoured as any ever was in India,

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we called on him to preach the sermon on the occasion. The handsome sum of £130 was at once contributed. These things are alluded to in pass ing, merely to indicate, that, in all lands, whereever there is a genuine Christian, his heart throbs when he hears of the sufferings of other members of the Church, no matter in what part of the world he may be, whether north, south, east, or west; and this is but a faint prelude to the glorious time when the whole world will be united into one great universal brotherhood. Some of you have stated unto us this day that your churches are pressed round about,-beleaguered as it were,-encompassed on all sides by the emissaries of the Man of Sin, and, therefore, in deepest poverty ; but, dear friends and brethren, remember that "He who was rich for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might become rich;" and may be you shall find in your experience that the Head of the Church is now employing you as instruments for making many rich unto salvation. You may be weak, and, therefore, apt to be faint-hearted; but remember that he is Almighty on earth as well as in heaven; and you may rest assured that he will cause your weakness to become your strength; and that though one and all of you occupy conspicious posts of danger and difficulty,-beset, as you are, by these emissaries of the Man of Sin,-you have been carried into these posts by the resistless current of an overruling Providence. As good soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ, it becomes you not to choose, but cheerfully to occupy the posts which He, as Captain of your salvation, may have thus, in his perfect wisdom and goodness, assigned to you. You may be sure that if He has appointed you to a post in the Church beset with difficulty, it is because he means to confer on you especial honour. You never heard in this world of a craven coward, or one not to be depended on, exalted by a skilful commander to the post of danger. There are no other but chosen spirits sent into these posts; and the time may come when in your precious experience your post of danger will be found to be the post of honour, and your post of difficulty the post of safety, when all the emissaries of Satan are defeated and laid prostrate in the dust. One other remark, and I am done. I could not help being very much affected, and I do not doubt that every member of this House was also affected, at the statements you gave us this day of the manner in which you are hemmed in and pressed all around, and liable to be scattered at any moment as by the breath of the east wind; as well as your statements with reference to the smallness of your numbers, the want of sympathy you experience, and the weariness and loneliness of spirit that must often creep upon you. Similar trials we in this country have also endured; but then, our suffering ministers have been cheered on by the sympathies, by the prayers, and, I must say, by the surpassing liberalities, of hundreds of thousands of praying people. Therefore, it is not so easy for many amongst us fully to comprehend all the difficulties of your position in this respect. Yes; those who go abroad into the realms of heathenism can enter somewhat more into your feelings. But with reference to this, my dear friends, bear always in remembrance that though you are in a small minority now, though your evangelical principles cannot be called popular in the sense in which they are now popular in this country, yet that it has been so, in different ages and climes, with these great principles. They cannot be more unpopular in France and other parts of the Continent than were the same substantial principles as upheld and testified to by Abraham among the inhabitants of Canaan; yet the time came when these principles took root in the soil of Canaan's territory. They cannot be more distasteful to the mighty men on the Continent now than they were

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distasteful as upheld by Moses in the land of Egypt; and yet the time came when the rejection of these principles caused that country to be covered with plagues, and God brought down its pride to the dust, with the loss of the flower of all its chivalry. They cannot be more obnoxious to the men power and might on the Continent of Europe, than they were when upheld and propagated by Jesus Christ himself; yet we know the rejection of these principles caused the land of Judea to be swept with the besom of destruction; and though scourged and crucified on the heights of Calvary, they were destined one day to sway the sceptre of universal empire in the city of the Cæsars. Take courage, then, my dear friends, from the history of the past, and though your contention for those evangelical principles for which you are called so nobly, and I will say so heroically, to testify, may be in the spirit of a living martyrdom, surrounded as you are by the spies of Jesuitism, who have ears all over the world,--for doubtless it is known in the Vatican what is done here,-nothing is unknown there concerning the contest of scriptural truth against Romish error;-be upheld by the remembrance of past triumphs, and rest satisfied that these principles for which you contend are not the growth of yesterday,-that they contain in them the germ of indestructible vitality,-and that in the Providence of God the range of their operation is yet destined to be co-extensive with the globe, and the period of their duration to run parallel with all eternity. You may leave us, as some of you have done on former occasions, with the assurance that you have the sympathies and the prayers of thousands of the praying people of this land. And I do hope and trust that, in the year to come, we shall be enabled to testify that you are upheld, not only by our sympathies and prayers, but also by the more abounding liberalities of the thousands and tens of thousands of the Free Church of Scotland. (Loud applause.)

OPPRESSION ON THE CONTINENT.

On the motion of Dr Candlish, an overture from the Synod of Glasgow and Ayr, praying the Assembly to take steps for calling forth a more liberal interest on behalf of the harassed people of God on the Continent, by an expression of public sympathy, the appointment of intercessory prayer, and the rendering of such help and co-operation as the circumstances seemed to demand, and the jealousy of the oppressors might allow, was remitted to the Colonial Committee.

EXPULSION OF MISSIONARIES FROM AUSTRIA.

Dr CANDLISH said. The House was aware that the Committee for the Conversion of the Jews had recently conducted a correspondence with her Majesty's Foreign Secretary, with regard to the expulsion of Messrs Edwards, Wingate, and Smith, from the Austrian dominions. He could not permit that opportunity to pass without expressing his high admiration of the singularly able statement prepared by the Committee and forwarded to Lord Malmesbury. (Hear, hear.) He thought it right, however, that in this emergency the hands of the Jewish Committee should be strengthened; and with that view he would take the liberty of suggesting the appointment of a small Committee of the Assembly, to prepare an answer to the last communication from Lord Malmesbury, to conduct any further correspondence with Her Majesty's Government which might be necessary, and to report the result to the Commission in August.

A Committee was appointed accordingly.

See Appendix.

STUDENTS' CERTIFICATES.

The Assembly then took up the returns made to the overture anent the engrossing of students' certificates, and finding that the overture had been approved of, by a majority of Presbyteries, passed the same into a standing law of the Church.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE OF SELECT FINANCE.

Mr MELDRUM reported verbally that, with one exception, all the Committees of the Church had reduced their debt during the past year. The exception was the Committee for the Conversion of the Jews. The debt, however, was very small, and had been entirely occasioned by the circumstances connected with the expulsion of the missionaries from Austria. The increased sympathy which that expulsion had naturally called forth would no doubt, evince itself in such a way as to enable the Jewish Committee to extinguish its debt in a very short time. (Hear, hear.) He had only further to add, that the various offices of the Church continued to be conducted in the most efficient manner, and with the greatest attention to economy in the expenditure. (Hear, hear.)

The Assembly approved of the report, and the Committee was re-appointed.

ASSOCIATE SYNOD OF NORTH AMERICA.

A communication was laid on the table addressed to the Moderator, from the Associate Synod of North America, of date 13th May 1851. The Assembly remit said letter to Colonial Committee, with instructions to prepare a suitable reply, and authorise the Moderator to subscribe the same.*

EVENING SEDERUNT.

The Assembly having been constituted, and the minutes of previous diet read, called for the

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON STANDING ORDERS.

Mr Gray gave in a report. The Assembly approve of the report, and reappoint the Committee, Mr Gray, Convener, and renew the instructions formerly given to collect and revise all the Standing Orders now in existence, and to report to next Assembly. And with reference to the Overture "anent the Examination of the Minutes of Standing Committees," remitted by last Assembly to this Committee to bring up a proposal thereon to this Assembly, the Assembly appoint said minutes to be placed annually in the hands of the Clerks of Assembly, who are hereby authorised to examine said records, and attest the same in the event of their being found correctly kept—reporting thereanent to the Assembly.

REPORT OF COLONIAL COMMITTEE.

Mr BONAR gave in the report of the Colonial Committee, as follows :— "During the year which has now closed, the Colonial Committee have been called to consider many urgent claims, and have been enabled to make and carry out a considerable number of most hopeful appointments. Anything like an account of these, if accompanied with the usual review of the ever-enlarging sphere of their operations, would swell this annual report much beyond what the time of the Assembly would permit. The Committee have therefore resolved to confine themselves, on this occasion, almost exclusively to the things which have been actually done during the present year.

See Appendix.

"CANADA.-In Canada the Committee rejoice to say that the long protracted vacancy in Coté Street congregation, Montreal, has come to a most happy termination, by the unanimous call and consequent settlement, of the Rev. Donald Fraser, who finished his studies at the New College the winter before last-was licensed by the Presbytery of Toronto, and ordained minister of Coté Street congregation in the month of August last. Since then the congregation has increased-new life and energy breathes in their operations-and they are beginning to devise and accomplish means of further usefulness in the city and neighbourhood. It darkens our joy to have to record along with Mr Fraser's settlement, the sudden and much lamented death of Rev. Mr Rintoul of St Gabriel Street Church. Mr Rintoul was one of the most devoted ministers of the Canadian Church, and his loss will be deeply felt, not only in Montreal, but throughout the country. The congregation of St Gabriel Street Church have applied to the Colonial Committee for a pastor, and we rejoice to be able to say that we have good prospect of being able to recommend a suitable person to occupy that important place.

"Quebec has this year added another noble ecclesiastical structure to those already existing in connexion with the Free Church along the frontier cities of Canada. Both in position and in architecture it is a building which does the highest credit to the congregation. The congregation have lately been under the pastoral charge of Mr Walker of Newton-Stewart. During his ministry their numbers greatly increased, and they have all joined in intimating to him their unanimous desire that he would, without delay, become their permanent pastor.

"Passing from Quebec to Hudson's Bay, a distance of nearly two thousand miles, we are still within the range of our wide-spread field of labour in North America, and in a part of it in which the Assembly has more than once expressed a very peculiar interest, as containing a long-neglected but most interesting settlement of our countrymen. The plan which was arranged last spring for sending a minister to this distant region having failed, Dr Burns of Toronto, with the Canadian Synod, whose co-operation we had requested, entered cordially into the matter, and urged it on the consideration of the preachers and ministers of that Church. Dr Burns declared that, rather than see these poor people once more doomed to meet with a disappointment, he would go to them himself, and finally succeeded in obtaining the services of Mr Black, a licentiate of the Church of Canada, for this important mission. By the good hand of his God upon him, and by means, in which the Committee with him desire to recognise the special providence of God, Mr Black reached, in safety, these distant countrymen ; and never did minister receive a more heartfelt and hearty welcome from a congregation. For thirty-three years they had waited. Twice they had sent a deputation eight hundred miles to meet the expected minister, and twice had they been disappointed; and correspondingly great was their joy to welcome him at last to their distant home.

"No sooner had these interesting settlers heard of the appointment, than they secured a site in place of that which they had been so unrighteously deprived of, and subscribed upwards of £400 to build a church, which is now begun. Meanwhile the congregation assembles in the manse, which is already so far advanced as to admit of being fitted up for this purpose. Notwithstanding the scattering necessarily incident to so long and so disheartening a destitution, forty-five families-about three hundred people still adhere to the Free Church. They are moral, orderly, and prosperous. In every one of their houses family worship is maintained. Elders have been ordained. The communion has been dispensed with peculiar solemnity. Bible classes have been opened, and a regular weekly prayer-meeting established. It is almost needless to add that Mr Black's ministry has been highly prized by these worthy people. They write in highest commendations of him, and with deepest gratitude to all who have interested themselves in them. New vigour seems infused into their little circle, and they have sent home a large order, with money to pay it enclosed, for school books, and books for a school library.

"The Home Mission of Canada, last year, in a friendly letter, urged the Committee not to think that their local supply of preachers was at all equal to the necessities of the country, and earnestly requested that probationers might be sent. One, the Rev. Ewan M'Lean, was sent, partly at the expense of Sir James Matheson, to accompany the emigrants from Lewis. Two have gone recommended by us; but such has been our destitution of funds for some time past, that we were not able to give these brethren either outfit or free passage. Two others we expect to follow immediately.

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