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REV. STEVENSON MACGILL, D.D.
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voted the sum of £400 to assist in defraying the expense of publication; it was also highly recommended by the Secretary of the Admiralty, and the Adjutant-General of the Army.

In addition to these separate productions, Colonel Macdonald was a contributor to the "Gentleman's Magazine" for several years, until the close of his life; but the subjects of these essays are too numerous to specify. They were chiefly connected, however, with the philosophical studies which had occupied his attention from an early period, and were characterized by the philanthropy that had always animated his pen in seeking to promote the best interests of society. The same spirit was manifested in his personal exertions; and during the last twelve or fifteen years of his life, which were spent in Exeter, the charitable institutions of that city always found him an active co-operator, as well as liberal contributor. He died there on the 16th of August, 1831, aged seventy-two, and was buried in Exeter Cathedral.

MACGILL, Stevenson, D.D., professor of theology in the university of Glasgow, was born at Port-Glasgow, on the 19th January, 1765. His father, Thomas Macgill, a native of Dunbar, had been apprenticed to a ship-builder of that town; and one evening, when only seventeen years of age, he happened to step into a prayer-meeting, kept by a party of pious Methodist soldiers who had just returned from Germany. Such was the influence produced by this incident, that he joined the Methodist connection, and from that period, till his death in 1804, adhered steadily to that body, while his piety and worth were an example to every Christian community. The mother of the professor was Frances Welsh, daughter of Mr. Welsh, of Locharet, in East Lothian, a family supposed to be connected with that of John Welsh, the son-in-law of our great reformer, John Knox. She too, in the words of her son, "was a true Christian, of fervent piety, and habitually animated by the Divine principle of faith in the Son of God." Stevenson Macgill received the earlier part of his education in the parish school of Port-Glasgow; and at the age of ten, was sent to complete it at the university of Glasgow. Here, as his destination was for the ministry, he went through a nine years' course, where his proficiency in literature, science, and theology, obtained a considerable number of class honours, and secured the approbation of his professors. On the completion of his studies, Mr. Macgill was licensed as a preacher by the presbytery of Paisley in 1790, and soon after, received the offer of the chair of civil history in St. Andrews, a charge which was to be united with a small country parish. But even thus early, and in spite of so alluring a temptation, he was the uncompromising enemy of ecclesiastical plurality, and therefore the offer was refused. In the year after he was licensed to preach, he was presented to the parish of Eastwood; and while he continued there, his ministry was distinguished not only by careful study and preparation for the duties of the pulpit, but also by his attention to the moral and religious instruction of the young of his parish, and the proper support of the helpless poor. The diffusion of infidel and revolutionary principles, which the recent events in France had occasioned, also called forth the anxiety of Mr. Macgill; and in 1792, he published a small tract, entitled "The Spirit of the Times," particularly addressed to the people of Eastwood, in which he temperately and judiciously warned them against the anarchical theories of the day. After having been for six years minister of Eastwood, he was translated, in 1797, to the charge of the Tron Church of Glasgow, that had become vacant by the death of the Rev. Dr. M'Call. Here his pastoral labours were at