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McAuley, William

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an Associate Reformed Presbyterian minister, was born in the north of Ireland about 1765. His early education was thorouogh, as he was intended for some literary profession, and when about fifteen years old he was entered as student at the University of Glasgow, where he gained high distinctions. Both students and professors regarded him as a youth of singular promise. Upon graduation he at once entered upon the study of theology, under the well-known and venerable John Brown of Haddington, the professor of theology to the Associate Burgher Synod of Scotland, and was one of the last class of students taught by that great and good man. William McAuley was licensed to preach in 1789 by the Associate Presbytery of Armagh, and was ordained by that body in 1790, as minister of the Associate congregation of Tulliallan, and there he labored acceptably until 1794, when he emigrated to the United States. Here he was received by the Presbytery of Washington (Synod of New York), and was installed in charge of the united congregations of Kortright, Harpersfield, and Stamford, Delaware County, N. Y. As the country developed, his churches grew in power, and divisions becoming necessary, he was finally confined in his labors to Kortright alone. He held his post for over half a century, and died in the harness March 24, 1851. Mr. McAuley deserves to be remembered as one of the pioneers of American Protestantism. His task was one requiring energy and perseverance, and both these qualities he possessed in an eminent degree. Though frequently left to struggle against poverty and sickness in the care of a large family, he never faltered, and unhesitatingly pressed forward to advance the interests of his Master's cause. Says Dr. John Forsyth (in Sprague's Annals of the American Pulpit, 9:78): "That he was not an ordinary man, all, I think, will admit, who consider the single fact that his ‘ natural force' as a preacher was considered as ‘ unabated' by the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those who seventy years ago or more settled in a wilderness, which, through their instrumentality, has been made to blossom as the rose... . In the central portions of Delaware County there are thousands who, though they never saw him, yet, from what their fathers have told them, will cherish with affectionate veneration the name of William McAuley."