e received no fewer than four offers of philosophical professorships, which his views of the ministry and of his consecration to it constrained him to set aside. Three similar

nobody else. Dr. Lindsay had been Professor of Exegesis, but the United Presbyterian Synod in May 1867 provided for this subject being dealt with otherwise, and instituted a new chair of Apologet

Berwick, where his congregation were very proud of the new honour that had come to their minister, and that was in some degree reflected on them. Instead of "the Doctor" t

renewed and laborious study of the Fathers, who were already, to a far greater extent than with most theologians, his familiar friends. His knowledge of later controversies, such as that with the Deists, which afterwards bore fruit in his work on "Unbelief

rom the Evolutionary and Agnostic standpoint had not yet become pressing-he postulated. And, discarding the traditional division of the Evidences into Internal and External, he classified them according to their relation to the different Attributes of

gard to him, criticism could not be said to exist. We all had for him an appreciation which was far deeper than ordinary admiration; it was admiration blended with loyalty and veneration."16 Specially impressive were the humility which went along with his gifts and learning, and the wide charity which made him see good in everything. One student's appreciation of this latter qualit

on of Theological Education. As has been already mentioned, the theological curriculum extended over five sessions of two months. It was now proposed to substitute for this a curriculum extending over three sessions of five months, as being more in accordance with the requirements of the times and as bringing the Hall into line with the Universities and the Free Church Colleges. A scheme, of which this was the leading feature, was finally adopted by the Synod in May 1875. It necessar

e old Hall in August and September, and that year he spent in quiet, steady, and happy work. In June 1876 he preached his farewell sermon to an immense and deeply moved congregation from the words (Rom. i. 16), "I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation unto every one that believeth." "For more than thirty years," he concluded, "I have preached this gospel among you, and I bless His name this day that to not a few it has by His grace proved the power of God unto salvation. To Him I ascribe all the praise; and I would rather on such an occasion remember defects and shortcomings than dwell even upon what He has wrought for us.

the centre of a large circle of friends, many of whom were to be found far beyond the bounds of his native parish and county. Since his mother's death an elder sister had kept house for him, but she had died in the previous winter, and at his brother's urgent request he had consented to give up his school al Oldcambus and make his home for the future with him in Edinburgh. The house No. 10 Spence Street, in which for sixteen years the brothers and sister lived toget

his desk. He had been fortunate enough to secure, almost immediately after his arrival in Edinburgh, a commission from Messrs. A. & C. Black to prepare the Index to the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, then in course of publication. During the twelve years that the work lasted he performed the possibly unique feat of reading through the whole of the twenty-five volumes of

yea, smoke

find out what was the matter, and to join in the merriment; and then, after a few hearty words of greetin

th these gave an impression as of one heaving up and pitching about huge masses of rock. His part in these discussions commonly in the end became a monologue, which he delivered lying back in his chair, with his shoulders resting on the top bar of it, and which he sometimes accompanied with the peculiar jerk of his right arm habitual to him in preaching. A snell remark of his brother William suggesting some new and comic association with a philos

uded atmosphere, withdrew with his brother into his sanctum. Soon all reassembled in the dining-room, and a number of hymns were sung-some of Sankey's, which were then in everybody's mouth, some of his favourite German hymns with their chorals, which might suggest references to his student days in Berlin or to later experiences in the Fatherland, and some by the great English hymn-writers. At last came family worship, always impressive as conducted by him, but oft

ulating. Whenever he had a great personality to deal with, such as Origen, Grotius, or Pascal, or, in a quite different way, Voltaire, he rose to the full height of his powers. His criticisms of Hume, of Strauss, and of Renan, were also in their own way masterly. But a course which he had on Biblical Theology seemed to be hampered by a too rigid view of Inspiration, which did not allow him to lay sufficient stress on the different types of doctrine corres

is lectures. And so he would bring down to the class a tattered Father or two, and would regale its members with long Greek quotations and with a mass of details that were pure gold to him but were hid treasure to them. His examination of individual students was lenient in the extreme. It used to be said of him that if he asked a question to which the correct answer was Yes, while the an

ing any influence on the adjudication of a prize that was given every year to the student who had the highest aggregate of marks in all the classes. He admitted the justice of this contention, and promised to make a change. When he announced th

t was put, "he could see more things with his eyes shut than most men could see with theirs wide open." The fact is, that all his leniency with his students, and all his apparent ascription to them of a high degree of diligence, scholarship, and mental grasp, had their roots not in credulity but in charity-the charity which "believeth all things, hopeth all

hat he could by speech and influence to further. One of these was the question of Temperance. During the first twenty years of his ministry he had not felt called upon to take up any strong position on this question, although personally he had always been one of the most abstemious of men. But about the year

nitely enlisted on behalf of Total Abstinence, and in 1874 he took a further step. In trying to save from intemperance a friend in Berwick who was not a member of his own congregation, he urged him to join the Good Templars, at that time the only available so

s and work. But, although he was often urged to do so, he never would accept office nor advance beyond the initiatory stage of membership represented by the simple white "bib" of infancy. On coming to Edinburgh, he looked about for a Lodge to connect himself with, and ultimately chose one of

exed German waiters by his elaborate explanations as to why he drank no beer; and once, as he came down the Rhine, he had a characteristically sanguine vision of the time when the vineyards on its banks would only be used for the production of raisins. At the same time his interest in Temperance work, alike in its religious, social, and politic

movement presented a serious difficulty. For no one could accuse him of jealousy or spite. Hence it was a favourite expedient to represent him as the tool of more designing men-as one whose simplicity had been imposed upon, and who had been thrust forward against his better judgment to do work

s the close of his course, after a memorable debate in the Diagnostic Society, he secured a victory for the policy of severing the connection between Church and State. These views he had never abandoned, and in a lecture on Disestablishment delivered in Edinburgh in 1872 he re-stated them. While admitting, as the United Presbyterian Synod had done in adopting the "Articles of Agreement," that the State ought to

of a Broad Church party within the Established Church. He maintained that this was no mere domestic concern of that Church, and claimed the right as a citizen to deal with it. In a nation

not without secessions, collective and individual. But experience had shown that it was the existence of an Established Church, towards which the Anti-Union party had turned longing eyes, which was the determining factor in the wrecking of the Union negotiations. Besides, Dr. Cairns looked forward to a wider Union than one merely between the Free and United Presbyterian Churches, and he was convinced that only on the basis of Disestablishment

He did so, it need not be said, without bitterness, endeavouring to make it clear that his quarrel was with the adjective and not with the sub