George Torrey, Lockland Currie and Mr. Willis were born in the Highlands of Scotland, before the Revolutionary War, but had settled for some years in North Carolina. The object in mooring their boats at Bruinsburg was to obtain information from Judge Bruin respecting the new country east of Natchez. Dugald Torrey was selected to confer with Judge Bruin, who had recently been appointed Judge of the Supreme Court of the Territory. As he approached the house, he observed three gentlemen at the window, one of whom rose and came to meet him. To his joy and surprise, this gentleman proved to be his friend, the Rev. Mr. Brown, a Presbyterian minister, who came to the Territory as a missionary, from North Carolina. He had preached the day before in the neighborhood, and on that morning was on a visit to Judge Bruin, with Waterman Crane. These gentlemen conceived a warm friendship for the emigrants. By their advice, instead of descending the river to Natchez, the strangers ascended the Bayou Pierre to Port Gibson, in the vicinity of which they rented a temporary home, and made a crop. This gave them an opportunity to become acquainted with the country and make a judicious location of a permanent home. During the year, they purchased land in the eastern part of Jefferson County. The whole country east of their location, as far as the State of Georgia, was an unbroken wilderness. The settlement of these Scotch-Irish Presbyterians on the border of an unknown wilderness of public land, just having been surveyed, and offered at government price, with the right of pre-emption to actual settlers, at once attracted numerous other settlers of the same race and religion. In a few years, over one hundred Highland-Scotch Presbyterian families settled in their vicinity. Most of them spoke the Gaelic language, had been taught the Shorter

Catechism, and forms of worship and usages of the Presbyterian Church, and were persons of elevated and devout piety. Among them were families by the names of Gilcrist, Baker, Cameron, McIntyre, McLauchlin, McLaurin, Buie, Cato, Brown, Smith, Patterson, Watson, Galbreath, Smylie, Trimble, McClutchie, Farley, Curie, Wilkinson, McCormick, McMillan, McClean, Henderson, McCallum. The Southern climate has proved as favorable to the longevity of this hardy race of people as the colder climate of their native hills. And, within a few years ago, the venerable hoary heads which thronged their Sabbath services, and whose songs of praise filled the stranger with reverence and awe, formed a most impressive spectacle. The fear of the Lord, in which they and their children had been reared, proved, even for this world, the beginning of wisdom. In due time, it brought down upon them temporal as well as spiritual blessings, and many of their descendants have risen to fortune and political distinction.

DEATH

OF THE

ᎡᎬᏙ .

JAMES PURVIANCE, D. D.

THE Synod and Presbytery of Mississippi have lost another of that now sparse class of members who may be called the patriarchs of these bodies.

Dr. James Purviance died at his residence in Natchez, just before the hour of twelve, on the night of Wednesday, the 14th inst., 1874. For the last ten years, a chronic affection of the throat and the general exhaustions consequent upon a series of fevers, with which he was attacked in 1860, have rendered him an invalid. He has lived encamped upon the borders of the heavenly country, and, beyond an occasional effort to assist his daughters in the instruction of a female school, has had little to do with the affairs of the world. His decline was very gradual. He foresaw the fatal event-set his house in perfect order-committed himself without a misgiving into the hands of his Saviour-and, in the tranquillity of a painless sleep, passed away to his heavenly rest. His brethren could have asked for him no happier ending of life.

He was a native of Baltimore, and a member of an old and respectable family, still represented in that city by his brother, Commodore H. Y. Purviance.

His first purpose was to adopt the military profession, and, in pursuance of this, he entered the national school at West Point, where he was a class-mate of the generals R. E. Lee and Jos. E. Johnston. Abandoning this

purpose, he returned to Baltimore, and entered upon the study of law, and, after a regular course of study, was admitted to the bar. Soon after this event, however, under the ministry of the late Dr. Nevins, he underwent that thorough change in his religious convictions which resulted in his profession of his faith as a Christian, and his adoption of the ministerial office as his calling. He received his theological training at Princeton. His first field of labor was Baton Rouge, Louisiana, which was then the centre of a wealthy and important district, largely infected with infidelity and interfused with a Roman Catholic population-and which, perhaps, on this account, was selected by the Missionary Board of the Church as a scene calling for the services of such gifted minds as those of Dorrance, Hutchison, and Purviance.

The reputation for comity as a gentleman, and fidelity and ability as a pastor, which the youthful evangelist acquired during his residence at Baton Rouge, led the congregation of the Carmel Church, Adams County, Mississippi, upon the withdrawal of Dr. Chase from that charge, in 1840, to extend to him a call to become their pastor. He continued at this post till 1854, when he was elected President of Oakland College. The Board of Directors, in making this choice, had not been mistaken in supposing that certain well-defined traits in the character of Dr. Purviance marked him out as a man eminently adapted to exercise an ascendency over the minds of a community of youth, and to secure to the institution under his care the benefits of good order and high-toned manners. The result fully justified their expectations, and the six years of his incumbency constitute one of the palmiest periods in the history of the college.

From this position he was constrained, from the prostration of his health, to retire in 1860, and from that

time his life has been little else than a protracted struggle with disease. The ardor of his nature and the impetuosity of his will, which many who knew him only in his earlier life will recall, were beautifully tempered by Divine grace through the instrumentality of affliction, and before his departure he had become literally like a shock of corn ripened for the garner.

It is the inevitable misfortune, perhaps, of persons with as positive points of character as those which Dr. Purviance possessed, to come in collision sometimes with the opinions of their brethren; but there is no one, probably, who knew him well who will not certify that if ever there was a heart devoted to the love and maintenance of truth, it was his; and if ever there was a man since Paul's day who has verified Paul's ideal of the Christian-in the loyal soldier, the honest steward, and the single-eyed racer, and over whose grave the inscription could be written-"I have fought a good fight, I have kept the faith, I have finished my course”—it was he. J. B. S.