Archibald, Peter S., Moncton, New Brunswick, Chief Engineer of the Intercolonial Railway, was born at Truro, Nova Scotia, on the 21st March, 1848. His parents were William and Elizabeth Archibald, and were both natives of Nova Scotia. Peter S. Archibald received his education at the Truro Model and Normal schools, and joined the railway service in 1867, when scarcely out of his teens. Since then he has gradually risen, through all the grades from rodman, until he now occupies the position of chief engineer. He joined the volunteers as a private, and served in that capacity for three years, and was afterwards promoted to a lieutenancy in the 73rd battalion. Mr. Archibald is a member of the American Institute of Civil Engineers. As a living example of what can be done by a young man who sets his mind on rising in his profession, he is a good example, and deserves a great deal of praise for his pluck and perseverance, and his example is well worthy of imitation by our young men who wish to get on in the world. In April, 1874, Mr. Archibald was married to Clara G. Lindsay, daughter of T. S. Lindsay, of Rockland, Maine, U.S.
Mathews, Rev. George D., D.D., Pastor of Chalmer’s (Presbyterian) Church, Quebec, one of the best known of our Presbyterian divines in the old as well as the new world, was born in the town of Kilkenny, Ireland, in 1828. As in the case of others of our distinguished men in America, the three nationalities of the motherland are to be found represented in him, for, though born in Ireland, he had for his father a true-hearted Scotchman, while his mother was a native of England. The subject of our sketch spent his earliest years in the city of Dublin, where he received his education at the hands of private tutors who prepared him for entering Trinity College as an undergraduate in arts. His career at this celebrated seat of learning was in every sense a most satisfactory one, so that he took his degree in 1848. It is needless to say that the classical and literary tastes which he acquired at college have never left him, as those who have had the pleasure of his acquaintance, or who have had the opportunity of sitting under his ministrations as a pastor, can readily bear witness. After leaving college he devoted himself for a time to the study of law, but that profession becoming more and more distasteful to the young student, as his mind matured on social questions and the solemn responsibilities of life, he subsequently forsook the pathways which Coke, Blackstone and Hale have in vain endeavoured to make smooth, for a more peaceful retreat with the school of the prophets. Entering the United Presbyterian Hall of Divinity at Edinburgh, he there had the privilege of receiving instruction from such distinguished theologians as Dr. John Brown, Dr. Eadie, and a number of other teachers, whose lives and characters have moulded the history and polity of the U. P. Church in Scotland. Under such men Rev. Dr. Mathews felt more and more the serious mission he had to perform in life. With zeal he entered upon the examination of the theology of the times, fortifying himself with the most careful study of mental science, and obtaining for himself the credit of being a devoted investigator in the realms of thought, and a keen observer of the many paths into which advanced thinkers are ever leading their fellowmen. Yet, never for a moment did the young student deviate from the faith; and never, throughout his long career as a minister has he had to endure the scorn of those whose chief delight it often is to rail at the ministers of advanced opinions. His preaching has ever been thoroughly orthodox, notwithstanding the wide scope of his knowledge and scientific attainments. Possessed of a remarkable fluency of speech, his discourses are generally given extempore, being marked at the same time with an eloquence which is all the more attractive from the simplicity of the language he employs. In December, 1853, he was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Glasgow, and immediately thereafter was ordained at Stranraer, a town of about eight thousand inhabitants, in Wigtonshire, Scotland. No more delightful locality could have been selected for a man of such tastes and predispositions as the subject of our sketch. The town of Stranraer, as is well-known, stands upon an arm of the sea at the head of Loch Ryan, and for the beauty and natural sweetness of its surroundings is all but unequalled by the other towns in the south of Scotland. Here the young preacher found his first charge among a people kindly disposed and hospitable, and here his efforts to do good were well received, not only by those of his own congregation, but by the whole community. No duty was overlooked, public or pastoral; and yet amidst the pressure of work which always falls to the lot of a young and conscientious pastor, the literary spirit did not forsake the youthful clergyman during his spare moments from pulpit work and pastoral ministrations, as many of the old numbers of the “Dublin University Magazine” can bear witness. For several years he continued to contribute to this and other periodicals, and it need hardly be said that his contributions even then gave promise of the literary and administrative abilities which have brought the Rev. Dr. Mathews’ name so prominently before the denomination of which he is a minister. At length, in 1868, while on a visit to the United States, the U. P. minister at Stranraer received a call to one of the city charges in New York. In the following year he reluctantly gave up his charge in Scotland, and to the universal regret of his people and fellow townsmen, set sail for America. Nor did the feeling in his favour fail to show itself in a tangible form. A beautiful testimonial was presented by the community to the retiring pastor with many and valuable accompanying presents. Shortly after his arrival in New York, Dr. Mathews undertook the editorship of “The Christian Worker,” a monthly magazine devoted mainly to religious topics. This duty he performed in addition to his pastoral work. Under his management the periodical rose into favour until at length its circulation brought the editor into prominence all over the continent. The editor of the “Worker” also took an active part in all church affairs, expressing an influence in the church courts and on church problems which has always been respected. As an evidence of this growing influence, in 1873, when the proposal was mooted by Rev. Dr. McCosh, of Princeton, and Rev. Dr. Schaff, that the various Presbyterian Churches throughout the world should come into close relationship with one another, Dr. Mathews was chosen secretary of the first committee formed for the carrying out of definite plans to promote such brotherly alliance. Two years later, he was sent to London by the Presbyterian Church in the Northern States as one of its commissioners to confer with the representatives from other Churches as to the feasibility of a union of Presbyterianism throughout the world. This was the origin of the Presbyterian Alliance, which has since become a household word in the Presbyterian church. The first important conference was held in London, England, where it was agreed to form an “Alliance of the Reformed Churches holding the Presbyterian system,” and at the first meeting of this new association of Presbyterians, Dr. Mathews was appointed American secretary—a position which he has held for many years, and which through his energy and administrative skill has become one of the most influential in the Presbyterian church of to-day. While performing the duties of this office, Dr. Mathews has been engaged from time to time in preparing many new and reliable tables of statistics together with a series of concise and tabular sketches of the Presbyterian Churches of the world. In 1879 he became associate editor of the Catholic Presbyterian, the organ of the Alliance, and a periodical of the highest literary dignity and style. At the meeting of the Alliance in 1884, at Belfast, he was further appointed by its general council to edit the record of its proceedings, filling a volume of no less than seven hundred pages. Included within this volume, there is to be found a very valuable and exhaustive statistical report, or rather series of reports, compiled by the painstaking secretary, a work for which he has received the highest commendation from his brethren and others who have carefully examined it. As the fruit of prolonged labour and original enquiry, it carries within it information of the most interesting kind, not only to Presbyterians but to all Protestant churches. In recognition of Dr. Mathews’ great services to the Presbyterian cause, and the prominent position he had attained to in church affairs, the Western University of Pennsylvania conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Divinity. At the present writing, the secretary of the Pan-Presbyterian Council is pastor of Chalmers Church, Quebec. Some years ago he was chosen one of the governors of Morrin College, being at the same time professor of systematic theology in that institution. Since 1883 he has also taken charge of the classes in moral philosophy. In ordinary educational affairs he has always taken a deep interest, having been for years a member of the Council of Public Instruction for the Province of Quebec. As with many other men of business habits, Rev. Dr. Mathews has a favourite recreation. His is in numismatic research, and possessing a very valuable collection of coins: he published, in 1876, a volume on the “Coinages of the World,” which has had a large circulation. He was married, in 1856, to Maria F. Irvine, of Dublin, by whom he has had a family of two sons and a daughter, all of whom survive their mother, who died in 1880.
Bentley, Hon. George Whitefield Wheelock, Kensington, Commissioner of Public Works for Prince Edward Island, was born at Margate, Prince county, P.E.I., on the 21st December, 1842. He is the youngest son of Thomas Bentley and Hannah Smith. His father, Mr. Bentley, sen., emigrated from Yorkshire, England, to Prince Edward Island, in 1817; and his mother, Hannah Smith, came to the same island in 1800 with her parents, she having been born on the passage out from England. The father of this lady was the youngest son of a family of twenty-two children. The Bentley family first settled in Cavendish, one of the oldest settlements on the island, and afterwards removed to Prince county, and took up their abode at a place they named Margate, after the celebrated watering-place in England. George, the subject of our sketch, received an ordinary English education in his native place. After leaving school he devoted himself to agricultural pursuits, and in 1874 removed to Kensington, his present residence, where he has since carried on business as a merchant and as a farmer. In 1879 he was elected to the House of Assembly of P.E.I., by the electors of the 4th electoral district of Prince county; again at the general election in 1882, and again in 1886, he was each time returned at the head of the poll. In January, 1887, he was appointed a member of the Executive Council, and in the following month was chosen commissioner of Public Works. This appointment necessitated another appeal to the electors, and he was again returned in spite of determined opposition. Mr. Bentley has been a life-long advocate of temperance, and has for the last twenty-five years been connected with the order of the Sons of Temperance. He has held the office of grand worthy patriarch of the Grand Division of Prince Edward Island, and is now a member of the National Division of the Sons of Temperance of North America. He has travelled through all the provinces of British North America, and many of the states of the neighbouring republic. Politically Mr. Bentley belongs to the ranks of the Conservative party; and in religious matters he is an adherent of the Methodist church. On the 9th February, 1870, he was married to Emma Jane, daughter of William Dennis, of Margate, P.E.I.
Jack, William Brydone, M.A., D.C.L. The deceased Dr. William Brydone Jack was born in the parish of Tinwald, Dumfriesshire, Scotland, on the 23rd November, 1819. He received his elementary education at the schools of the parish, and was afterwards sent to the academy of Hutton Hall, Caerlaverock, where he was prepared for entering college. In 1835 he went to St. Andrews, and became a student in the United College of St. Salvador and St. Leonard’s. During his course he was distinguished for proficiency in mathematics and physics, carrying off the highest prizes in these departments of study. Shortly after graduating with the degree of M.A. in 1840, he was offered the professorship of physics in the Manchester New College, in succession to the celebrated Dr. Dalton, and about the same time the position of professorship of mathematics, natural philosophy and astronomy in King’s College, Fredericton (now the University of New Brunswick), was tendered to his acceptance. Sir David Brewster, who was then principal of the college at St. Andrews, and with whom Dr. Jack had been a favourite pupil, thought that the duties and responsibilities of the situation at Manchester would, at the first outset in life, be rather hazardous and trying for one so young and inexperienced. Accordingly, in deference to Sir David’s advice and that of other friends, Dr. Jack accepted the professorship in New Brunswick, and assumed its duties in September, 1840. As King’s College was at first under the management of the Church of England, it failed to command the confidence and sympathy of the general public, and consequently it was never so prosperous as it should have been. Many and violent attacks were therefore made upon it both in and out of the legislature, till after much worry and struggle it was, in 1860, re-modelled and named the University of New Brunswick, over which all denominations were admitted to an equal control. In 1861 Dr. Jack was appointed president of the university, and for many years he laboured and laboured successfully in bringing the college into repute, and securing the general acceptance and confidence of the public. He spent his vacations largely in travelling about the province, and by public addresses making the college known and the benefits of the higher education appreciated. On the inauguration of the Free School system he was made, ex-officio, a member of the Board of Education. In 1885, after a service of forty-five years as professor and president, failing health induced him to resign his appointments, and seek the ease and quiet of private life. In 1886 the government was pleased to appoint him a member of the Senate of the University, in whose progress and prosperity he continued to take the warmest interest. Dr. Jack was always a devoted student of astronomy, and after the establishment of lines of telegraph communication, he was among the first to make use of them, determining distances of longitude. By connection with Harvard Observatory, Mass., the true longitude of Fredericton was ascertained. Taking Fredericton as the starting point, he obtained, at the instance and expense of the local government, the longitude of St. John, and afterwards of some places on the boundary survey of the province. The determinations were of service to Sir William Logan in the construction of his geological map of Canada. Dr. Jack died at Fredericton, New Brunswick, on the 23rd day of November, 1886, on his sixty-sixth birthday.
Cowperthwaite, Rev. Humphrey Pickard, A.M., Pastor of the Queen Square Methodist Church, St. John, New Brunswick, was born in Sheffield, New Brunswick, on the 30th of November, 1838. His father was Hugh Cowperthwaite, and his mother, Elizabeth Ann Hunter; she was of Scotch descent. His grandfather, on his father’s side, was a United Empire loyalist, and came from New Jersey in 1783. His great-grandfather was an officer in the British army, during the American revolutionary war of independence. Humphrey received his education in the parish school, and afterwards at Sackville College, where he graduated in arts in 1867. He adopted the clerical profession, and is now an active minister of the Methodist church, in connection with the New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island conference. For several years he was chairman of the Prince Edward Island district, and secretary of the conference for two terms. On two occasions he visited the province of Ontario, on matters connected with his church, and attended as a delegate the conferences which met at Hamilton and Belleville a few years ago. On the 19th of July, 1867, he was married to Annie S. Buchanan, of Glasgow, Scotland, youngest daughter of W. M. Buchanan, editor of the “Practical Mechanics’ and Engineers’ Magazine,” and for some time lecturer on geology in the Glasgow University.