History of Zion Church 17

in Edinburgh, received and accepted a call to the pastorate, and after due attention to presbyterial formula, was inducted and preached his first sermon as pastor, on that date, to the gratification of all who had the pleasure of hearing him. A splendid social reception was given by the ladies of the con- gregation, at which mutual acquaintanceship and social re- lationships began and continued till his exit. The new pas- tor came amongst us with the prestige of scholarship, a gifted ancestry and the very grace of early manhood. He had an uncle a judge in the Supreme Court of Canada; another, the very learned and reverend clerk of synod for the provinces by the sea. His grandfather, the Rev. Dr. Sedgewick, late of Musquodoboit, Nova Scotia, was a mighty power and influence for good, in the days of yore, whose hearers verily believed him to be an inspiration of scripture ages, and of the time and type of Elijah and John the Baptist. Sedgewick of Musquodoboit, MacCulloch of Truro, and Smith of Stewiacke, were three divines who in their day and generation laid broad and deep, not only the foundations of Presbyterianism in Nova Scotia, who built thereupon a superstructure against which the gates of evil have not prevailed, but who also started into being those educational facilities which have placed the province in the front rank of our fair Dominion, scholastically. Verily, there were giants in those brave days of old. Our new pas- tor was a very happy combination of young life, scholarly tastes, personal gifts, and a very engaging personality; his classical diction, his originality of treatment of text themes, his erudition from old Scripture tomes, his drawing power of interesting his hearers, not only won the hearts and affec- tions of his own people, canny men and women as they were in their hypercritical moments, but unfortunately won the attention of other congregations in other parts ofthis Canada of ours, as Zion Church was soon to discover. In due time the Reverend S. Lyle, D. D., of Central Church, Hamilton,