The text was 2 Cor. 5. xi. Knowing the terror of the Lord, we persuade men.-The wishes of a large majority of the congregation were now accomplished.-God, în mercy, had heard their prayers, and granted them English preaching;—and, what rendered the boon peculiarly gratifying, there was good evidence that the preacher, who had been sent to them, was truly a man after God's own heart. It was, therefore, a season of thanksgiving and praise in their habitations, long gratefully remembered.

It has been said, and the anecdote is repeated, simply to show the warm and kindly feelings with which the ministrations of this eminent servant of Christ were regarded, that some pious aged persons gathered around him at the close of a prayermeeting one evening, when he had been fervently addressing the Throne of Grace, and said to him, "Ah, Dominie! we offered up many an earnest prayer, in Dutch, for your coming among us; and truly the Lord has heard us, in English, and has sent you to us."*

The venerable subject of this Mémoir, in one of his private papers, thus speaks of Mr. Laidlie : "He was a very acceptable preacher; bold and

*Mag. of the Reformed Dutch Church.

authoritative, commanding respect, fear, and love. The wicked trembled when he announced the terrors of the Lord, while the lambs of the flock were nourished and comforted, when he displayed the grace, care, and faithfulness of their divine and good Shepherd. He was much delighted with, and attached to, the Church Catechism; he had studied it with great diligence, and prepared excellent lectures upon every section of that precious standard of evangelical truths. By this study he became a learned and sound divine, and recommended himself greatly to the Church. In his labours, preaching, catechising and visiting the congregation, he was indefatigable. He was the first who was called expressly to preach English in the Dutch Church in America. A revival of religion then commenced; the Church prospered, and the blessing of the Lord was abundantly experienced under his ministry."

The writer has often heard an aged saint, who recurred with evident satisfaction to the hours she had spent under the preaching, or catechetical instructions of this man of God, tell of the revival alluded to in the above extract; and, from the representation given of it, it must have been a powerful and glorious work of the Spirit. From traditionary and other accounts, it appears, that

Dr. Laidlie (now made a Doctor in Divinity by the College at Princeton) was a man not only of ardent piety and remarkable pulpit talents, but also of more than common discernment and prudence; possessing precisely those qualities, the exercise of which, in his difficult situation, was indispensably necessary to the enjoyment of much comfort, or to extensive usefulness.

Coming into the Church at a time when the collision of opinions and interests between the two great parties, the Cœtus and Conferentie, was at its height; and connected with a congregation, which was in a state of very excited dissension, in consequence of his settlement among them as an English preacher, it behooved him to look well to his goings and he did so look to them. He was plain and affectionate in all his deportment:-He complied with the existing practice of the Church in the most trivial things:-He treated with the utmost respect the patrons of the Dutch language: -He studied peace; and made it evident to all, in his public ministrations and private conversation, that his predominant desire was to win souls to Christ. It was his happiness, therefore, to enjoy, in a very high degree, the esteem and confidence of the congregation which he served, and of the Christian community at large. But beloved as was

Dr. Laidlie, and successful as had been his ministry, in the city, from the moment of its commencement, there still remained those, whom a blind and invincible attachment to the Dutch language, incited to a course of conduct exceedingly blame-worthy in itself, and, in no small degree, vexatious to the Church. They were not to be reconciled to the innovation;-nay, seemingly the more chagrined, the more popular it appeared to be, they were incessant in their efforts to obtain such a preponderance of their party in the government of the Church, or such a triumph over the Consistory in a civil suit, which had been instituted against that body for a supposed illegal act, as would give them the power of exploding it.

The nature of the suit alluded to, which, though commenced nearly two years before, was yet undecided, and which must be noticed a second and a third time in the succeeding pages, as involving the final settlement of the question relative to the language, it is proper should be here briefly but distinctly stated.

Soon after the blank call was sent to Holland, the principal opponents of the measure concerted among themselves a plan for turning out of office those that had given it their support, and putting

in men, who would endeavour, at once, to nullify all the proceedings in the case. In order to carry these designs, it was proposed that, at the next election, the members in full communion, a majority of whom they believed was on their side, should choose the new Consistory, in contravention to a long immemorial practice of the Church,-or, at least, assert their right to do so; and, in the event of its being denied, immediately seek redress in a court of justice. Accordingly, in the ensuing October, when the election was held, the right was claimed, in due form, by a Mr. Abel Hardenbrook, who offered to vote upon the occasion. The vote was of course rejected, and that rejection was made, without any delay, the ground of a judicial process.

The English language ought, in reality, to have been introduced into the Dutch church fifty years *

now.

* Dr. Livingston thought it should have been introduced an hundred years before. Mr. P. V. B. Livingston, a respectable relative of his, in a letter dated Feb. 1769, writing on the subject says"Had this been done in this city, thirty years ago, the Dutch congregation would have been much more numerous than it is The greatest part of the Episcopal Church consists of accessions they have made from the Dutch Church." He adds, -that though the Dutch was his mother tongue-the first language he had been taught, and was still spoken by him with ease ➡he could not understand a Dutch sermon half as well as he could an English one, and that as for his children-"there was not one that understood a sentence in Dutch."