"In 1815, soon after the close of the war with England, Mr. James Hull (said to have been a licentiate of the Presbyterian Church, Ireland) came to New Orleans from Georgia, and after preaching for a few months to the Protestant congregation, went to New York, and, unexpectedly to many of the people, received ordination. from the Episcopal Bishop; returned to New Orleans, and became rector of the Episcopal church, Alfred Hennan, Esq., becoming one of the vestry. Mr. Hull ended his days in New Orleans.

"On the 30th of December, 1817, the Rev. Elias Cornelius, on an agency to the southwestern Indians, for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, arrived in New Orleans; and much to the gratification and delight of the Protestant worshipers, preached several times, while awaiting the arrival of the Rev. Sylvester Larned, who came on the 22d of January, 1818. The people were charmed with Mr. Larned's eloquence and powers; and, on the 9th of February, held a meeting to take measures for the erection of a second Protestant house of worship for his accommodation, and subscribed $6,200 for that object; and soon after increased it to $40,000, and extended to him a call to become their pastor, with a salary of $4,000 per annum, which he accepted. The church. edifice was erected the following year (1819), and on the 31st of August, 1820, Mr. Larned died of yellow. fever." (See Rev. R. R. Gurley's Life of Sylvester Larned.)

NOTE. In the following articles I am materially indebted to the Rev. Henry McDonald, now of Texas, who has placed at my disposal the following reminiscences of the early times in Mississippi. From materials so ample, from a source SO authentic, from an old friend so accurate and so perfectly reliable, I have condensed into a small space the richest portion of the early history of the South-west.

BEGINNINGS OF

PRESBYTERIANISM IN MISSISSIPPI.

THE religious history of the Southwest received a coloring from its civil and political history. In 1682 La Salle, the able French commandant of Fort Frontenac, situated on Lake Ontario, below the site of the modern city of Buffalo, with thirty-five other Frenchmen-one of them was a Jesuit priest and missionary— penetrated from that fort to the head waters of Illinois River. He descended the river to its confluence with the Mississippi, and the Mississippi to its confluence with the Gulf of Mexico; and was the first white man who ever beheld the mouth of the "Great Father of Waters." At this point he erected a column, on which he erected the arms of France and the Cross. Before this cross he performed solemn religious ceremonies, and in the name of France and the Pope took formal possession of the country, on both sides of the river, from the top of the Alleghany to the Pacific Ocean. The French occupation established the Church of Rome in this magnificent empire, and excluded from it the Protestant worship. The preaching of the Gospel was probably not attempted. As the result of the war which grew out of the conflicting boundaries of the French and British colonies, in which the world became involved in 1763, France ceded to Great Britain, Canada and all the countries east of the Mississippi, except the Island of New Orleans; and Spain ceded to Great Britain, Florida. Great Britain erected Florida into two provinces, under the names of East and West

Florida, and attached the section known as the Natchez country to West Florida. Religious liberty was established under British rule, and gratuitous grants of land were made to settlers. This benign policy drew to the Natchez country some valuable citizens. Among them was the Rev. Samuel Swayze, who, with his brother, Richard Swayze, and a number of emigrant families, mostly his married children and relations, in 1773 emigrated from New Jersey and settled on the Homochitto River, on the Ogden grant, and near what afterwards was called the town of Kingston. It became known as the "Jersey settlement." The Rev. Samuel Swayze had been a Congregational minister in New Jersey for many years, and most of his children and relatives had been members of his church in that State. Soon after their arrival in their new homes in the wilderness, he organized them into a Congregational -church. It was the first church of any Protestant denomination ever organized in the Southwest, and Mr. Swayze was the first Protestant minister. The names of these colonists were: Swayze, Farrar, Fowler, Coleman, Calender, Corey, King, Douglas, Lucy, Hopkins, Griffing, etc. Their descendants constitute numerous and influential families in Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Texas; and they have contributed largely in shaping the destiny of the Methodist, Presbyterian, and Baptist Churches in these great States. The old graveyard is still seen in Kingston, and in it is the grave of the father of Rev. Timothy Dwight, D. D. He and his brother-in-law, General Lyman, lost their titledeeds to all that rich body of land embracing the city of Natchez and the surrounding region.

One result of the American revolutionary war was, that Great Britain ceded to Spain East and West Florida. The Natchez country was made a Spanish

province, and continued under Spanish rule for eighteen years. This event closed the Southwest against the preaching of the Gospel. Protestant worship was strictly forbidden. The Congregational Church in Jersey settlement, southwest of Natchez, was broken up, and never re-organized. Rev. Samuel Swayze and wife died eleven years after coming to the country, and were buried on the Bluff, near Fort Rosalie, where the entire graveyard was precipitated into the river. Persons detected in religious worship not in conformity with the Catholic Church were now cast into the Natchez prison. Protestant marriages were forbidden. As a condition of the release of Protestant prisoners, they were threatened, on renewal of their offense, to be sent as slaves to the mines of Mexico. Thrilling scenes occurred; of worship, with sentinels picketed out to give notice of the approach of executioners of the law; and traditions have been handed down among the descendants of old families, as precious memorials of a pious and heroic ancestry. Among the faithful and true Christian men who suffered imprisonment for holding religious meetings, were John Bolls, a ruling elder in the Presbyterian church, and the Rev. Richard Curtis, a Baptist preacher.

But the Head of the Church had designed not to keep the Southwest long closed against the progress of the Gospel. During the night of the 29th of March, 1798, the Spanish governor, with the troops under his command, secretly evacuated Fort Rosalie and departed for New Orleans; and early the next morning the American flag was raised, and American jurisdiction proclaimed. This act conferred religious liberty on the province. Soon after, the Rev. Mr. Curtis, who had suffered imprisonment for preaching the Gospel, organized a Baptist Church, called Salem. It was the

first church organized under the American rule. It was located on the south branch of Coles's Creek, ten miles from the present site of the town of Fayette, in Jefferson County. The house of worship has disappeared, but the graveyard is preserved, and on the gravestones are inscribed the names of many pioneers of religion and influence. At the date of the organization of this church Mr. Curtis was the only minister of any Protestant denomination in the territory. He died in 1818, at an advanced age, in Amite County, Mississippi.

The next minister of the Gospel who arrived in the province was the Rev. Tobias Gibson, who arrived in April, 1799, and in 1800 organized a Methodist Church at Washington, the seat of the territorial government, six miles east of Natchez. In 1804 he died, and was buried near Warrenton, below Vicksburg, and a suitable monument marked his grave. Who can enumerate the descendants of the Gibsons?

The Presbyterian Church was the next to enter the field. It was by a missionary enterprise of the Synod of North Carolina, the jurisdiction of which extended at that time over the States of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. But the charter granted by the British government included within Georgia all the territory west of the present limits of that State to the Mississippi River, constituting the present States of Alabama and Mississippi. After Georgia, in 1803, relinquished this territory to the Federal government, the Synod of Carolina continued for many years to be the nearest Presbyterial jurisdiction. On the establishment of American civil authority over the Mississippi Territory, in 1798, it naturally came under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Synod of Carolina; and that Synod immediately adopted efficient measures to send the Gospel and plant the Church in it.