Of the candidates ordained in Middletown on the third of August, 1785, COLIN FERGUSON was the only one not of Connecticut. He came from Maryland, and the testimonials recommending him were signed by the Rev. Dr. William Smith, afterwards president of the House of Deputies, and others of that State. He was born in Kent County, and was the son of a Scotsman who emigrated to this country and maintained a respectable character but never rose to affluent circumstances. An opportunity occurred for the youth to accompany a Scottish schoolmaster about to return to Edinburgh, and he gladly availed himself of it and thus obtained a classical education without expense to his father. After several years spent at the University of Edinburgh, he came back to America with a good reputation for scholarship, but it does not appear that he had the ministry in mind so early as this. He found employment as an instructor, and upon the establishment of Washington College, Chestertown, Md., in 1782, he was chosen a professor in it, and held the place until Dr. Smith, the president or principal, returned to Philadelphia, when he was promoted to the headship of the institution. It was under the direction of Dr. Smith that he studied theology, and his ministerial labors were chiefly limited to St. Paul's Parish, Kent County, of which for sometime he had the charge in addition to his college duties. The degree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon him shortly after his ordination by the institution with which he was connected, and was a deserved honor on the score of learning. He was a member of the August General Convention of 1789, and signed as one of the delegation from Maryland the "Resolves" of that body which led to the final union and settlement of the Church in all the States. About the year 1804, the Legislature of Maryland passed enactments which deprived the college of the means of a liberal support, and Dr. Ferguson thereupon resigned his office and "retired to his farm in the vicinity of Georgetown Cross Roads, where he spent the remainder of his life." He died of paralysis on the 10th of March, 1806, in the 55th year of his age. "As a preacher," says one [Footnote: P. Worth, in Sprague's _Annals of the American Episcopal Pulpit_, p. 344.] who was his pupil for seven years and had constant opportunities to make observations upon his character, "I cannot say he possessed any remarkable power. His sermons, as specimens of composition, were of a high order, creditable to him as a scholar and a writer, but they were not strongly marked by an evangelical tone. Perhaps I should not do him injustice, if I was to say that his sermons, in this respect, were not very unlike those of the celebrated Dr. Hugh Blair." I take the names of the candidates in the order in which they lie in the Registry Book of Bishop Seabury--not that this order determines the actual order of ordination, for I am confident it does not.