He was, in a limited sense, a classical scholar. Greek and Latin, Hebrew and the Mathematics, were at his fingers' ends. Not long after leaving college, he obtained the place of a preceptor to the children of a farmer in Angus-shire. The situation of schoolmaster of Dunino, a parish situated foury miles south of St. Andrews, in Fifeshire, and six miles north of Anstruther, the school taught by Tennant, the orientalist, professor of Hebrew and other oriental languages in St. Mary's College, St. Andrews, and the author of the Poem of Anster Fair, became vacant, when Mr. John Strachan made application for the fat berth, the salary being nearly L30 a year, and obtained it. Mr. Strachan taught quietly at Dunino, attending St. Andrews College, in the winter, until he received the offer of L50 a year, as tutor to the family of a gentleman living in Upper Canada. He accepted it, left Dunino, and went to the wilderness. Mr. Strachan taught as a private tutor for some time and subsequently established a school for himself, when he married a widow possessed of cash and respectably connected. The Church of Scotland, in Canada, was then at a very low ebb. Even in Quebec, although there had been a regularly ordained clergyman of the church officiating since 1759, there was only, from 1767 to 1807, an apartment assigned to the Scotch Church for the purpose of divine worship, by the King's representative, in the Jesuits' College. Nay, in 1807, the Scotch Church was entirely sent adrift by Colonel Brock, to be afterwards permitted to meet in a room in the Court House. Until 1810 there was no Scotch Church in Quebec. What inducement was there for a progressive Scotchman to remain in connection with such a church? Mr. Strachan clearly perceived that the road to worldly preferment ran through the Church of England, and, having a wife, and the expectation of a family, he recognised the expediency of obtaining orders as a descendant of the apostles. It was not long before he obtained permission to officiate as a minister of the Church of England, and he abandoned the birch for the surplice. Mr. Strachan justified every expectation that may have been formed of him. He became a most zealous churchman, and a very short time elapsed until the Scotch schoolmaster was the Hon. and Revd. Dr. Strachan, Rector of York, now Bishop of Toronto, and he may go to the grave satisfied that he has done more to build up the Church of England in Canada, by his zeal, devotion, diplomatic talent, and business energy, than all the other bishops and priests of that church put together. Some idea will now have been formed of the state of the Church of England "establishment," in Canada, about a time, when it was intended to amalgamate with it the fabrics of Rome. Bishop Mountain had a seat it in the Legislative Councils of both provinces. He only was the embodiment of Church and State.