PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND.

there been but one generous feeling in the breasts of the crew, the captain would have been saved from disgrace, invaluable lives

would have been preserved. and the painful

excitement and bad feelings which have

since arisen, would have been averted.

MEMORIAL ADDRESS.

ON THE OCCASION OF THE CENTENARY OF THE BRUDENELL PIONEERS AND THE UNVEIL- ING OF THE MONUMENT TO THEIR MEMORY. ‘

BY NATHANIEL MAOLAREN.

The place where we stand this day should be to us sacred ground containing, as it does, the mortal remains of our ances— tors, the heroic men and women who, leav— ing the comforts and. certainties of their na- tive land behind them, braved the dangers of a tempestuous sea, and the uncertainties of an unknown and inhospitable shore, with the noble purpose in view of providing for them— selves a home and a country in which they could enjoy the privileges of freedom and in- dependence, a land which they could call their own and transmit it to their descend- ' ants as an heirloom forever.

One hundred years ago a little band of Scottish emigrants consisting of James Mc- Laren, who may be termed the leader of the band, his wife, Isabel McDonald, and their family, numbering four sons and three daughters. with two sons—in-law, James Stewart and Donald Gordon. and their fami- lies landed at Brudenell River, which was at that time almost an unbroken wildemess, and at once began that stem struggle for existence which is the inevitable experience of all settlers in a new and untried coun- try.

Strong in their faith in the God of their fathers, almost the first care of the little community was the erection of a place of worship upon the spot whereon we are now assembled. Rude and primitive the build-

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ing must have been, constructed as it was, of the rough-hewn trees of the forest, but during his life, as often as the day of rest returned, in that little churchJames McLaren read the inspired volume and the Gaelic ver- sion of the service of the Episcopal church

of which he was an adherent, to the few‘

scattered settlers of the neighboring districts, who made their way by the blazed trails of the forest, others by birch canoe and dug- outs on the waters of the Three Rivers, to that lowly structure there to offer to the Su- preme Being the worship of humble, con- trite and honest hearts. And who shall say that the worship thus humbly given 'was not received at the throne of the Eternal with as much acceptance as though offered in the most elaborate structure raised by the hand of man, accompanied by all the ceremonial splendor that learning could. teach or wealth afford? It is claimed by some of the de- scendents of the pioneers that the late Bishop McEachem, a man who in his day was re- spected and revered by all who had the privi- lege of his acquaintance, irrespective of creed

or nationality, once administered the ordi-/_

nance of baptism within the walls of this primitive edifice.

Dmth visited the new settlement early in its history. In I804,'a few months after their landing, Christina McLaren, wife of Donald Gordon, passed to the great beyond

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“in. "