resolved to take immediate action to that end, and have accordingly agreed to request the following-named gentlemen to act as Commissioners for the purpose of selecting in the Home Country a suitable person for the office of co-pastor and successor to Dr Stuart, viz.:—
- Mr JOHN ROSS, 1 Basinghall street, London;
- Mr ALEXANDER ROBERTS, Selkirk, Scotland;
- Mr THOMAS M. STEWART, Bank of New Zealand, London;
- Mr ROBERT T. TURNBULL, 5 East India avenue, London, E.C.;
- Mr DAVID WATSON, Bullion Field, Dundee; and
- Mr GEORGE YOUNG, Abbotsford Park, Edinburgh.
"2. The Deacons' Court of Knox Church authorises the Commissioners to allow a reasonable sum to defray the cost of passage, and to guarantee the payment of a stipend of six hundred pounds (£600) per annum, inclusive of house rent allowance to the gentleman whom they may select and appoint, the said stipend to begin to be payable from the date of embarkation for New Zealand.
"It will be understood, of course, that Dr Stuart will remain in occupation of the manse.
"3. The Session feels persuaded that from their own knowledge of the qualifications essential to the successful fulfilment of the duties of the oifice in question, the Commissioners scarcely stand in need of specific instructions as to the kind of man whom it is desirable they should select. Nearly all the Commissioners are acquainted with Dr Stuart, and some of them have been members of his congregation, and it seems almost sufficient simply to represent to them that the appointment of a gentleman possessing in a large measure the same qualifications that have rendered Dr Stuart's ministry in Dunedin so eminently successful is devoutly desired and prayed for by the office-bearers and the members of the congregation.
"4. It may be explained that the membership of Knox Church and of the several Presbyterian congregations of Otago is largely composed of persons who in the Home Country were in connection with different Presbyterian and other denominations, and that the choice of the Commissioners is by no means restricted to a clergyman connected with any particular Presbyterian Church. There is less anxiety as to the particular Presbyterian communion to which the object of the Commissioners' choice may belong than that he shall prove himself to be a godly, large-hearted, and zealous minister of the Gospel, catholic
