George D. Low, Clunie, The Right Hon. the Earl of Dalhousie, Brechin Castle, Rev. Allan Sinclair, Kenmore, D. G. R. Munro, Logierait, D. M. Connell, Fortingal, Mr Duncan M'Callum, farmer, Glenlyon, R. Balfour, Secretary of the City of Glasgow Assurance Allan Stewart of Bunrannoch, Strathgarry, Duncan M'Laren, Dunning, William Milne, Auchterarder, Rev. Jagadishwar Bhattacharjya, Mahanad, Dr Alexander Duff, . Theodore J. Meyer, Ancona, Mr Andrew Jameson, Sheriff of Aberdeenshire, Alexander Rankine, residing at No. 18 Via San Sebastiano, PROCEEDINGS OF THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND. THURSDAY, MAY 23, 1867. THE Assembly met at noon in the Assembly Hall, which was crowded in all parts. The Rev. W. Wilson, Dundee, the retiring Moderator, preached the opening sermon from Ephesians ii. 18-" For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father." Public worship being concluded, the Assembly was constituted with prayer by the Moderator. ELECTION OF MODERATOR. The CLERK having read the roll of members, Mr WILSON Said-Fathers and Brethren,-The time has now come for my retiring from that position to which the kindness of last General Assembly raised me twelve months ago. I am very grateful for the regard then shown me, and for all the forbearance exercised towards me, in an Assembly associated with such happy memories. According to established usage, there is only one further duty which devolves upon me before I leave this chair. It falls to me to propose one for your acceptance to preside over the meetings of this Assembly. It is a relief to me that in making that proposal, I do not act on my own responsibility, but as the organ of others. In these circumstances, I feel it to be a high privilege to propose as the Moderator of this Assembly so old and tried a friend as the Rev. Dr Roxburgh, of Glasgow-(applause)with whom, both before the Disruption and since, I have been associated in many kinds of labour. Dr Roxburgh's claims to the honour which I propose should be conferred on him are undoubted and eminent. He has been distinguished throughout all his career as a laborious, faithful, and successful minister. And, apart from his work as a pastor, he has earned the esteem and grateful regard of the whole Church by his labours in connexion with the cause of Home Missions and Church Extension. (Applause.) These labours have characterised the whole of bis life as a pastor. In the earliest years of his ministry he was mainly A instrumental in rearing what will be an ever-during monument of his zeal and success. St Peter's Church, in Dundee, the scene of Robert M'Cheyne's most prosperous ministry, may be said to owe its existence to Dr Roxburgh. Nor during his laborious ministry in Glasgow has his zeal in the same great cause abated. Not only as convener of the Glasgow Evangelisation Committee, but afterwards as my predecessor in the office I now hold, as convener of the Home Mission Committee, he has done noble work for the Church. We cannot forget what an impulse was given to Home Mission enterprise under his convenership, nor those addresses by which, from year to year, he so interested the Assembly and the Church, and gained a foremost place in many hearts for the cause he advocated. I am sure I need say no more, if indeed it was necessary to say so much, to commend Dr Roxburgh to the acceptance of this Assembly. I have very peculiar satisfaction in moving his appointment as Moderator. (Loud applause.) The motion was cordially and unanimously agreed to, and the Moderator-elect, having been introduced by Dr Candlish and Dr Buchanan, took the chair. MODERATOR'S ADDRESS. The MODERATOR delivered the following address :-Fathers and brethren, I return you my unfeigned thanks for the kindness which has placed me in this chair, filled in time past by a succession of distinguished predecessors. To have a place on the roll of moderators of the Free Church of Scotland, containing so many revered and honoured names, is a distinction which I had not ventured to anticipate, and did not presume to aspire after. I am deeply sensible of my insufficiency for the adequate discharge of the duties of the office, and must crave a more than usual amount of your indulgence. I am little versed in the forms of ecclesiastical procedure, and have had little experience in presiding over the deliberations of large assemblies. But I know that you will cordially aid whatever efforts may be necessary to maintain the dignity and orderliness of your proceedings; and I rely on the kindness of the brethren who surround this table to favour me with their counsel as circumstances may require. Let me ask also that in the case of protracted and exhausting sittings, should my strength prove unequal to the fatigue, the Assembly will not deem me wanting in respect if I request to be relieved by a brother more able than myself. (Applause.) May the great Master of assemblies Himself preside over our deliberations. Conducted in His name, in dependence on His Spirit, and under a sense of accountability to Him as our sole Head, may all our things be done with charity, and so as to advance His glory, and the edification of His Church. Our meeting this day reminds us that this Church has entered on the twentyfifth year of its history in its disestablished state. A generation, nearly, has gone and come since the Disruption. No one who was privileged to share personally in the conflict that issued in that memorable event, and in the subsequent labour of rebuilding the walls of our Zion, can recall, without wonder and praise, all the ways by which God has led us from first to last. Looking back now from the comparative tranquillity of these later years, it requires an effort to realise the life and energy that distinguished our proceedings during that eventful period, and the intense and wide-spread interest which they awakened, when the very exist ence of our Church seemed imperilled, and such men as Chalmers, and Welsh, and Gordon, and Dr Patrick M'Farlane, and William Cunningham, and Andrew Gray, were among the foremost actors on the scene. The shadows of those stirring times are fast becoming long-extended and low-levelled. And one loves to linger on the remembrance of the great and good men, the echoes of whose once familiar voices seem still to fall ou our ear; and on the remembrance of those days when, in common with them, we felt conscious that God was literally leading us "by a way we knew not, and in paths that we did not know, and was making darkness light before us." For, as has been often and truly remarked, while each step was made plain in the light of duty and conscience, as the time arrived for taking it, no one could have anticipated it, nor could calculate what the next step would be. "We went out, not knowing whither we went;" knowing this only, that we could not err when following the guidance of Divine Providence, interpreted in the light of Christian principle; and we were suddenly surprised, so to speak, to find ourselves, "through fire and through water, brought out into a wealthy place." Let it also be thankfully remarked how God has not only safely guided us in our disestablished state through manifold difficulties and perplexities arising from without, and has frustrated threatened attempts against our spiritual jurisdiction, but has more than once delivered us from internal controversies, which threatened at the time to sow the seeds of discord among brethren, and to rend the peace of the Church. And now, after the expiry of nearly a quarter of a century, we remain this day, by His good hand upon us a united Church-united not only by a common profession, but in the bonds of Christian affection--a Church comprising about twice the number of congregations we started with in 1843— tolerated by the State in the full exercise of its spiritual freedom-not vexed by inward divisions, nor having any cause of lasting disturbance or alienation in the midst of it—but all of us, as I verily believe, "standing fast in one spirit, and with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel." Thus, every year added to our history has contributed to our stability, and has given us fresh reason to raise our stone of grateful remembrance, saying, "Hitherto hath the Lord helped us the Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad." (Applause.) When Joshua" waxed old and stricken in age," we read of his delivering a farewell charge, in which he recounted to the people of Israel God's signal benefits and providences to them and to their fathers, and expressed his concern that God should be honoured and his cause maintained after he was gone. It was a pious and patriotic thing in the venerable leader of his countrymen to feel this solicitude as to the future conduct and condition of those he was leaving behind. And it is natural and reasonable that those who were privileged to take an active part, however humble, in the momentous events to which I have referred, should have similar anxieties as to the future of our beloved Church. By what means are her permanent place and influence in the country to be maintained? How is she not merely to retain, but to improve her position? In what way is her usefulness to be at once perpetuated and extended, and herself made increasingly a blessing to the land and to the world? And how is her progress to be quickened in that course of prosperity on which she has been carried forward hitherto Assuredly these ends are not to be attained by placing our |