Introduction

A word of introduction will help some readers better appreciate the historical context of the Rev. Donald McDonald's ministry.

The first Presbyterian ministers to come to what are now the Maritime Provinces of Canada (but which in McDonald's time were separate colonies of Great Britain) were not from the established Church of Scotland but from groups which had seceeded from that church. Burgers in Truro and Anti-burgers in Pictou united to form a Synod in 1817 and began to train their own ministers at Pictou so that they could be less dependent upon missionaries from Scotland. The Church of Scotland entered the scene in some force after the Glasgow Missionary Society was formed in 1825 and became rivals to the Presbyterians already working in the Atlantic provinces.

In 1M3, however, a major disruption took place in the Church of Scotland when a large body of ministers and people, protesting state “interference" in church affairs formed themselves into the Free Protesting Church of Scotland which would not be under any form of state control. The new church body claimed to be the true form of the Church of Scotland. It happened, also, that those who formed the Free Church were from the more evangelically—minded group in the Church of Scotland.

Soon after the disruption deputations from both