The special instance of graceful voluntary liberality above referred to is then subjoined in these terms: "George Crookshank, Esq., notwithstanding the greatness of his subscription, and the pains which he took in getting the church well finished, has presented the clergyman with cushions for the pulpit and reading desk, covered with the richest and finest damask; and likewise cloth for the communion-table." "This pious liberality," the writer remarks, "cannot be too much commended; it tells us that the benevolent zeal of ancient times is not entirely done away. The congregation were so much pleased," it is further recorded, "that a vote of thanks was unanimously offered to Mr. Crookshank for his munificent present." (The pulpit, sounding-board, and desk had been a gift of Governor Gore to the original church, and had cost the sum of one hundred dollars.) When the necessity arose in 1830 for replacing the church thus enlarged and improved, by an entirely new edifice of more respectable dimensions, the same cool, secular ingenuity was again displayed in the scheme proposed; and it was resolved by the congregation (among other things) "that the pew-holders of the present church, if they demanded the same, be credited one-third of the price of the pews that they purchased in the new church, not exceeding in number those which they possessed in the old church; that no person be entitled to the privilege granted by the last resolution who shall not have paid up the whole purchase money of his pew in the old church; that the present church remain as it is, till the new one is finished; that after the new church is completed, the materials of the present one be sold to the highest bidder, and the proceeds of the same be applied to the liquidation of any debt that may be contracted in erecting the new church, or furnishing the same; that the upset price of pews in the new church be twenty-five pounds currency;" and so on. The stone edifice then erected (measuring within about 100 by 75 feet), but never completed in so far as related to its tower, was destroyed by fire in 1839. Fire, in truth, may be said to be, sooner or later, the "natural death" of public buildings in our climate, where, for so many months in every year, the maintenance within them of a powerful artificial heat is indispensable. Ten years after the re-edification of the St. James' burnt in 1839, its fate was again to be totally destroyed. But now fire was communicated to it from an external source--from a general conflagration raging at the time in the part of the town lying to the eastward. On this occasion was destroyed in the belfry of the tower, a Public Clock, presented to the inhabitants of Toronto, by Mr. Draper, on his ceasing to be one of their representatives in Parliament. In the later annals of St. James' Church, the year 1873 is memorable.