The Rev. A. McL. Stavely is the senior Presbyterian clergyman of St. John. He came to the city in the ship _Eagle_, August 3rd, 1841, having been ordained minister at Kilbrought, Ireland, June 12th, of the same year. On the 7th of August, 1841, he preached his first sermon in the first Reformed Presbyterian Church which was then in the building in Lower Cove, opposite the Public Schools, known as the Wheeler property. He was the first minister of that denomination who came to the city, and has continued ever since in charge of this body. In 1850, the Lower Cove Church was sold, and has been since used for manufacturing purposes. The church on the corner of Princess and Sydney Streets, and which was burned, was erected in 1850. The house adjoining and which was originally intended as a parsonage, was purchased by Mr. Stavely, as his private house, and he has been living in it for twenty-seven years. In 1870, at a cost of $2,000, the basement of the church was excavated, and a fine new hall for general purposes was made. By the fire Mr. Stavely loses heavily, and his library, the accumulation of many years, was destroyed. Probably, the greatest wreck of the day was the destruction of the costly and splendid new Victoria School--a building which presented a massive front, and occupied a commanding position on the corner of Duke and Sydney Streets. This was the edifice which many who lived up the street as far as Carmarthen Street firmly believed would act as a barrier to the flames, and keep off the fire from their houses. Some so implicitly believed this that until the high walls fairly bent over, not an effort was made to remove even a picture from the rooms. O, said the householders on Upper Duke street, that immense pile will never burn; we are safe enough. But the proud edifice where a thousand children received daily a free education, did burn, and the sight though terrible, was one of the most impressive of the day. Now there was hurrying and packing in three score houses at once, and loud cries to teamsters and shrieks to servants and porters rent the air. Those, who talked the loudest before the school was in ashes, exhibited the greatest despair when they saw what they believed up to this moment to be their surest safeguard, encircled in the fury of the flames, going down before their eyes. First the wood-work around the sashes gave way, and lights shot from half a hundred windows, and the crash of glass as it was hurled to the pavement showed that the great fire had abated not a jot. The hot slates on the roof came down the giddy height in scores, and one man pinned to the earth by a falling slate was carried away insensible of pain but with a two-inch wound upon his scalp. The flames crackled for a while and then the dull, heavy sound of weighty bodies falling inside sent a shudder through the waiting, watching crowd below. The woodwork snapped and sang in the blaze, and the great stones on the