THE members of the Esquesing congregation, as has been stated, had been connected in Scotland with different branches of the Presbyterian family, and it will help to an understanding of the situation in Canada to glance at these, at some of the Missionaries in Upper Canada, and the formation of Presbyteries and Synods.

The first separation in Scotland from the Established Church led to the Organization of the Reformed Presbyterian, or Covenanting Church, and arose from dissatisfaction that there was not sufficient recognition by the king and nation of the Solemn League and Covenant. There were those who held that none but a covenanting king was entitled to occupy a British throne. The first Presbytery of the Reformed Presbyterian, or Covenanter Church, was organized in 1743, and the first Synod in 1811.

A larger secession from the Established Church of Scotland had its origin with The Rev. Ebenezer Erskine, when, as moderator of the Synod of Perth and Stirling, on October 10. 1732, he preached; a sermon faithfully assailing some prevailing evils in the Church. The Synod and General. Assembly called him to account for his strictures, but he refused to withdraw them. Three other ministers joined him, and when they were deposed as members of the Church of Scotland, they formed the Associate Presbytery on December 6, 1733. They did not dissent from the evangelical doctrine of the Confession of Faith, nor the principles and constitution of the Church of Scotland, but from the practices and proceedings of the prevailing party in the Church. The Associate Presbytery grew into the Associate Synod.

The Associate Synod became divided in a few years because of diverse opinions entertained respecting the oath required of burghers, or citizens of corporate towns, which was imposed for the purpose of guarding against dangers which threatened the nation in connection with the rebellion of 1745. There was a part of this oath which seemed to approve of the Established Church of Scotland as it was with its abuses. Others considered that the oath simply abjured popery. Those who were willing to tolerate the Burgess oath retained the name of the Associate Synod, and were generally known as Burghers; while those who disapproved of the Burgher oath were known as the General Associate Synod, and were, known as Antiburghers. In 1820 there was a reunion of the Burgher and Antiburgher Synods into the United Associate Secession Church. This body was joined by the Relief Synod, another Secession Church, in 1847, when the name of the United Presbyterian Church was adopted.

The Presbyterian people who came to Canada had been in connection with one or other of these Scotch Churches, the people from the north of Ireland from similar bodies there, as were some of those who came from the United States. The First Presbyterian Congregation of Esquesing was composed of members from some,-or all of these Churches.

In 1791 the old Province of Quebec was divided into the two Provinces of Upper and Lower Canada. Three years later, or in 1794, Governor Simcoe, the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, transferred the Seat of Government of the new Province from Newark (Niagara) to York (Toronto), and the first Parliament met there in 1797. Sixteen years afterwards York had a population of only 425, Kingston, and Newark were very small, and there was scarcely another village to the west of Upper Canada.

In May, 1787, The Rev John Bethune, who held the first Presbyterian service in the previous year in Montreal, settled at Williamstown in the County of Glengarry, where he organized four congregations, secured the erection of four Church edifices and laboured for twenty-five years. It is said that he was the only Presbyterian minister in Upper Canada when it became a separate province.

The first systematic effort to, send misisonaries to Upper Canada was made by the Dutch Reformed Church of the United States. The Rev. John L. Broeffle, who had labored in New York State, came over and preached in the Counties of Stormont and Dundas. He lived at Williamsburgh and preached to German Presbyterians, and although a faithful and laborious pastor his stipend never exceeded one hundred dollars. He died in 1815.

The Rev. Robert McDowell was also sent to Canada by the Dutch Reformed Church in 1798. He organized congregations in different places between Brockville and York. His long continued and faithful labors were of the greatest importance in establishing Presbyterianism in Upper Canada. He accepted a call to three Churches on the Bay of Quinte—Adolphustown, Ernestown and Fredericksburgh—in 1800, and continued to labor there till he died in 1841.

The Dutch Reformed Church sent other missionaries who remained for a time, and much is due them for what they accomplished for Presbyteriansm in the Province, and especially to Mr. McDowell.    .

There were other Presbyterian ministers who labored in the Niagara District, and settlements further west, but it is not our purpose to speak of more than one or two more of these self-denying men.

The first Presbyterian congregation organized in Upper Canada, it is said, was at Stamford in 1785 in the Niagara District.

One of the most notable missionaries and pastors of this period was The Rev. Daniel Eastman, who was born in Goshen County in the State of New York, and was licensed by the Morris County Associated Presbytery. He preached for the first time in this Province at the Beaver Dams, near St. Catharines in July, 1801, at Stamford, travelled extensively, and preached to1 the solitary settlers in many places. He made his headquarters at Beaver Dams, and preached from the Niagara River to where the City of Hamilton now stands. After the war of 1812-1814 he moved to Barton, and during the time of his residence there travelled as far west as London. He was an original member of the Presbytery of York, and assisted in the formation of the United Symbol of Upper Canada in 1831, and threw in his lot with the Free Church in 1844. He became blind, but continued occasionally to preach.

He died in Grimsby in 1865. On a monument to his memory he is spoken of as “The Father of Presbyterian Churches in the Niagara and Gore Districts".

For several years there were no Presbyteries in Upper or Lower Canada, with which ministers and congregations could become connected. In 1818 four ministers, who had come from Scotland, and been in connection there with the Associate or Burgher Synod, applied to the home Synod to have a Presbytery organized, but before the authority to do so was received they thought best to organize a Presbytery which would include all the Presbyterian ministers, and congregations of Upper and Lower Canada. These four ministers were The Rev. Wm. Bell of Perth, The Rev. William Taylor of Osnabruck, The Rev. William Smart of Elizabethtown (Brockville,) and The Rev. William Jenkins, who had settled in the Township of Markham in the County of York in 1817, where for some years he was the only Presbyterian minister in this part of Upper Canada. These four men organized the “Presbytery of the Canadas” in 1818, the first regularly organized Presbytery of Canada under whose supervision ministers and congregations were placed. Up to this time ministers might acknowledge the jurisdiction of Church Courts in Great Britain, or the United States, but practically they acted without Presbyterial oversight. In the organization of the Presbytery of the Canadas it was unanimously agreed that “the doctrines, discipline and worship of the Church of Scotland” should be recognized by the Presbytery.

The Rev. William Bell, one of the four ministers above mentioned, who settled in Perth in 1817, tells of the trouble and annoyance to which he was subjected when he made application for leave to celebrate marriages.

The law in Canada at this time required that all ministers, excepting those belonging to the Church of England, should appear at the General Quarter Sessions after giving three months notice of their intention, produce seven respectable persons belonging to their congregations as witnesses, present, the certificate of their ordination, and take the oath of allegiance. This often required long journeys back and forth for ministers and witnesses, great hardships and overcoming of obstacles sometimes purposely placed in their way. The view was held by the Government from the earliest time, which was mainly composed of members of the Church of England, that it was the Established Church in Canada, and that ministers of other denominations were not on an equality before the law with the clergy of the Church of England.

At the close of 1818 there were sixteen ministers in Upper and Lower Canada. In 1820, a Synod of three Presbyteries was formed, but on account of the great distances the attendance at both Presbytery and Synod meetings was so small that most of the members reorganized into the “United Synod of Upper Canada” with its two Presbyteries of Brockville and York.

A convention of ministers of the Church of Scotland held in Kingston on July 7, 1831, organized themselves into the “Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland.” It embraced the Presbyteries of Quebec, Glengarry, Bathurst and York, and had nineteen ministers on its roll.

Soon after the organization of the United Synod of Upper Canada, and the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland, efforts began to unite the two Synods. This union was consummated in July 1840, and the united body took the, name of the “Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Canada in connection with the Church of Scotland.”

The above sketch of the different Presbyterian Church in Scotland, of some of the first Presbyterian ministers who labored in Upper Canada, and of the organization of Presbyteries and Synods, is drawn from the “History of the Presbyterian Church in Canada ’ ’ by The Rev. Dr. 'William Gregg.