former chaplain in the Army. MacAulay, who had worked closely with Selkirk in encouraging the emigrations, served as both a lay and spiritual leader in the new community, conducting Sunday services in a chapel which he had built near his home in Mount Buchanan . Those services, and services in the new church after 1824, were conducted in Gaelic. Later, of course, English became the dominant language, and the 11a.m. service was conducted in English while the earlier 10a.m. service was in Gaelic. By 1910, even this final accommo¬ dation was ended. Without the institutional support of church and school, the Gaelic language was relegated to a marginal status, used mainly by the elders in family discussion when they didn't want the children to understand what they were talking about. Presbyterianism has remained the dominant Protestant faith in the Belfast district to this day. In addition to St. John' s, there is a Presbyterian church in Wood Islands . Both of these churches survived the fractious "church union" debates of the mid 1920s, though part of the Wood Islands congregation did leave to form the Belle River United Church - converting an old cheese factory for use as a sanctuary. That facility still stands, serving today as the Belle River Christian Church. A small Baptist Church in Eldon also operated as a United Church following Union. Today, the building serves as a lodge for the local chapter of the Masons. The McDonaldite Church One church which had a relatively small but devoted following was the "McDonaldite Church," named for the founder and spiritual leader, Rev. Donald McDonald . The church was, in actuality, a splinter branch of the Church of Scotland, operating under its juridical structure, but very much a creation of McDonald himself. In the Belfast area, the McDonaldites had a church at Belle River and another just outside the Belfast district at Uigg . McDonald was a charismatic and inspiring leader who came to Prince Edward Island from Scotland by way of . He arrived on the Island with a reputation as a drinker, a problem caused in part, no doubt, by what one McDonald biographer has described as "a lingering concern over the state of his own spiritual condition."1 McDonald was 1. See David Weale , "The Minister: The Reverend Donald McDonald ," The Island Magazine, Number 3, Fall-Winter 1977, p.l.