LICENSE OF DIVINITY STUDENTS.
THIS Presbytery met at Wick on Friday forenoon, the 24th day of April. The chief business was the licensing of Mr. Donald M. Macdonald, Stornoway, and Mr. Donald A. Macfarlane, M.A., Inverness, divinity students, as preachers of the Gospel. The Clerk (Rev. J. R. Mackay, M.A., Inverness) reported that these students had satisfactorily passed their Final Examinations in Old Testament Hebrew, New Testament Greek, Church History, and Systematic Theology. At this diet the Presbytery heard the students deliver trial discourses with a view to license, namely, a Popular Sermon, a Controversial, a Greek Exegesis, and a Hebrew Exegesis. These trial discourses were sustained with much approbation, and at an adjourned meeting Messrs. D. M. Macdonald and D. A. Macfarlane were licensed to preach the Gospel.
ORDINATION OF REV. D. M. MACDONALD.
The Presbytery met at 7 p.m. of the same day, with a view to the ordination of the Rev. D. M. Macdonald, newly licensed as a preacher. The Canadian Mission Committee had secured the services of Mr. Macdonald as a deputy for a twelvemonth to Canada, and the Northern Presbytery, under whose jurisdiction he was, proceeded on this occasion to ordain Mr. Macdonald, that he might fulfil as an ordained missionary all the functions of the ministry in the Canadian Mission field. Rev. D. Beaton, Moderator of Presbytery, presided, and after an appropriate sermon by the Rev. J. R. Mackay, on Philippians i. 1, the Moderator put the usual Questions to Mr. Macdonald, who satisfactorily answered the same, and signed the Formula in the presence of the congregation. Thereafter the Moderator engaged in prayer, and with the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery, solemnly ordained Mr. Macdonald to the office of the holy ministry. This being done, Rev. J. S. Sinclair, Glasgow, who was associated with the Presbytery, addressed the newly-ordained minister as to the duties of his office. The meeting was closed with the benediction.
WHAT a sight was innocent and harmless Jesus when He stood before the Governor, and had not one word to say! They laid thieves’ hands on our Saviour’s hands, that had never stolen, that had never shed blood. Bands bound His hands, but love, mercy, and grace bound His tender heart with stronger bands and cords, to loose us out of the bands of sin. He cried in the Spirit, “Father, bind me and loose them; slay me and save them. All their ill be upon me.” So be it, dear Jesus!—Rutherford.
“THERE is not a step a Christian takes toward heaven but the world, the flesh, or the devil disputes it with him.”—White.