THE VERY REVEREND JOHN BETHUNE, D.D., DEAN OF MONTREAL. DESPAIR not that the writing on the tree, Of one day's growth was virtue never known; The joys of Heav'n for his Redeemer's sake. THE Very Reverend John Bethune, Doctor of Divinity, and Dean of the Anglican Cathedral, is also the Rector of the Protestant Parish of Montreal. For nearly fifty years he has been, as it were, the ecclesiastical pivot around which the domestic histories of three generations of Christian people have revolved. Some whom he baptized in their infancy have placed their grandchildren in his arms, to receive, "in virtue of his office and ministry," the "sign and scal" of their adoption into the Christian family. When it is remembered that he has never changed or sought to change his place, it may easily be conjectured how thoroughly interwoven his clerical life has been with the daily lives of the members of that "communion and fellowship," in which his and their lots have been cast. The earliest passage in the history of such fellowship is eloquent in its beauty: "Where is it mothers learn their love? In every church a fountain springs O'er which the Eternal Dove Hovers on softest wings!" The sparkling water borrows brightness from above, when it is mingled with "a few calm words of faith and prayer." And they who "back to their arms their treasure take," are not prone to esteem him lightly in whose arms that treasure was cradled, when the "dew baptismal" dropped upon its brow. And thus, too, in all the subsequent passages of his human history is the Christian minister moved diligently to care for those of whom he is said to have the spiritual oversight. The child must be diligently educated towards higher privileges. The "agony of wavering thought," must be combated, and all which separates the troubled soul from its untroubled rest must be hushed and stilled by and through a ministry of peace. Nor are such ministrations restricted to a particular portion of human life. It is true, the extreme points are the cradle and the grave. Yet the intermediate period is full of diversified duties. It is the clergyman who catechizes and prepares youth for confirmation. It is the clergyman who supplements the poetry of love with the "tie indissoluble," the marriage covenant, and the espousal ring. It is his voice to which the young mother attunes her first public prayer. It is he who is sought for in seasons of sickness and distress, even though he may be overlooked in times of prosperity and health. Then, too, at the last, when all is over, and we have placed our treasures within the hushed sanctuary of some "circling woodland wall," the same familiar human voice soothes us with the divine words: "I am the resurrection and the life!" But it frequently happens that a clergyman's business is not all "prayer," neither is his pleasure all "praise"-even while purifying his own thoughts, and the thoughts of others, for a life beyond life, he is not unfrequently compelled to mingle with the " common clay," and sully the brightness of his spiritual calling with the damaging duties of secular work. To secure a principle or protect a property which he may have deemed sacred, the subject of our sketch, for example, has, after the manner of men, been required to wrestle uncomfortably for the mastery. This obligation to strive, either with authority, or against clamor, is rarely assumed with cheerfulness. It is one of those inconvenient duties" which most men would rather avoid. If they are undertaken, he must indeed be divinely favored who can, in all respects, so discharge them as to keep "sin free." The ordeal is at best a misery; it. adds nothing to a clergyman's comfort, while it almost necessarily detracts from his usefulness. We shall, in the course of our sketch, have occasion to observe that the clerical career of the Dean of Montreal has, apparently in spite of himself, been more or less crossed and vexed with secular controversies. The fighting blood of the old royalists flows in the Dean's veins, for his father was a "United Empire Loyalist." He was born in the Island of Skye, in the year 1751, and educated for the ministry of the Church of Scotland at King's College, Aberdeen. Subsequently, he emigrated with some members of his family to South Carolina. Shortly after his arrival there the revolution of the then North American Provinces, now the United States, commenced, and a royal corps was raised within the last mentioned State. The late student of King's College, Aberdeen, had been ordained, and thus it was that the Reverend John Bethune, then a resident of South Carolina, was appointed the chaplain. This regiment appears to have had a brief existence only. It was defeated by the republicans, and many of its members, including the chaplain, were made prisoners. On being exchanged, he went to Halifax, where he was appointed Chaplain of the 84th regiment of the line. After the peace of 1783, on the reduction of the army, he resided for several years, at Montreal, during which time he was the minister of the Presbyterian Congregation in that city. Afterwards, he was appointed to a mission in the County of Glengarry, where, in a small log house, in the Township of Charlottenburg, on the 5th January, 1791, the subject of this sketch was born. His father, the Rev. John Bethune, was, as we have said, a Scotsman by birth, and a tolerably stiff Presbyterian by education. In an "uncanny" moment, however, so far as his spiritual predilections were concerned, he fell into hopeless bondage to one who had been born and brought up in the communion of the Church of England. Now, although it is not difficult to make a most earnest and exemplary Episcopalian out of a Presbyterian, it seems, at least so far as we have had the opportunity of observing, a much less easy task to make a Presbyterian out of an Episcopalian. If the experiment be tried with the members of the gentler sex, as it is sometimes tried with matrimonial accompaniments, it is, we believe, observable, that even in their husband's home, and on the "best day of all the seven," wives the most dutiful have furtive thoughts of their father's church, and of the unforgotten worship in days of old. The old liturgy, the old ritual, and the old collects, the hallowed forms and phrases of the past are marked and remembered, even when, like some cherished idol, they may be looked at in silence only, or listened to like "the still small voice" of the Holy One in the sanctuary of the soul. Years had passed away. The young church maiden had become a wife and a mother. She had too, we doubt not, with seemly reverence listened to her husband's teaching, and with mute humility "sat under" his ministry. Moreover she had striven to love it, as fondly as she loved him. In every way, as we may be permitted to conjecture, she endeavoured to be "a help meet for him," to act as he would have her act, and, if possible, to think as he would have her think. Her husband very naturally desired that one of his sons should be educated for orders in the Church, of which he was a minister. With the ultimate intention of being sent to Scotland, that son was in the meanwhile required to attend such schools as the country afforded, and he was especially moved to acquire, when and where he could do so, such classical instruction as might be placed within his reach. Just at that time a school was opened at Cornwall under the direction of a famous teacher, who had recently |