on an exceptionally high plane of cordiality. Thus, in the publication’s September 12, 1879 issue, an unknown correspondent advised that “Mount Stewart has the honour . . . in leading the campaign on the ‘Relief and Extension Fund’ in the Lower Provinces.” He goes on to relate that, al- though the congregation was small, they “are of the right stamp and give freely of their substance to the Lord.” Again, in the June 23, 1897 issue Mr. John W. Jay, Recording Steward, in regretting the departure of Rev. A. D. MacLeod to a new posting, remarks that “during his stay, there has not been one word or feeling of any kind but harmony and good will between pastor and people from one end of the circuit to the other, thus showing how he and Mrs. MacLeod are loved by their people.” As an interesting sidelight to the above, it is worthy of mention that, after church union, Mr. Jay served as Clerk of Session of St. John’s United Church until the time of his death in 1933. His son, Kenneth P. Jay has, moreover, at the time of writing, been a Session member for 42 years

and Clerk for 30 years.

In the Wesleyan for October 31, 1889, Rev. E. Slackford wrote that “one thing we need on this mission and that is a parsonage. The Methodist ministers have occupied a rented house (and a poor one at that) since the mission was formed.” A series of pie socials and other money-making projects were held for the next number of years, and, in 1908, the con- tract was finally awarded to Messrs. Cameron and MacDonald of Head of Hillsborough. Located on the north side of Railway Streeet, the building narrowly escaped destruction at the time of the burning of the station

house in 1911.

Of a strongly ecumenical disposition, most Methodists welcomed the idea of Church Union. As early as 1920, services, at least during the winter months, were of a union character, alternating between the Me- thodist and Presbyterian churches. Formal union was consummated in June, 1925 and, on the 21st of the same month, Rev. H. P. Tupper, the last Methodist minister to serve in Mount Stewart, preached his farewell

sermon.

St. Andrew’s Church

St. Andrew’s, the oldest Roman Catholic parish on the Island, was founded by Scottish immigrants who disembarked from the “Alexander” at the old French settlement of Bel—air, now Scotchfort, in 1772. Their landing-place was near the site of the church of St. Louis in whose cemetery some of them were to find their last resting places. The new- comers, however, under the direction of Rev. James MacDonald, the Island’s first English-speaking priest, chose to build their place of wor- ship, the church of St. John the Evangelist, a mile west of the cemetery on a site between the present railway line and the river. A log building with a straw thatch roof, the church was in regular use until 1802.

' Hugh (Ban) MacEachern, one of the “Alexander” passengers who did not take land on the MacDonald Estate, settled on the eastern side of Savage Harbour. There, in 1790, he was joined by his son, Angus Bernard, who had remained behind to attend the Royal Scots College at Valladolid, Spain. Now, “clothed in the dignity of the eternal priesthood,” he arrived to resume the work begun by the Rev. MacDonald who had died in 1785.

The young priest’s duties carried him to all parts of the Island and, often, to the mainland as well. As the roads of the pioneer colony were rudimentary at best and often non-existent, he became adept at

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