The Scottish Reformation | Page 9

retired from the duties of his
Chair in 1894, the occasion was regarded as affording a suitable
opportunity of giving public expression to the esteem in which he was
held by his friends, and to their grateful appreciation of his services
both to the Church and the University; and in 1895, while the General
Assembly was in session, he was presented, in name of a large number
of his former students and other friends, with an illuminated address, a
cheque for 200 guineas, and his portrait by Sir George
Reid--acknowledged to be one of the best that have yet come from the
studio of the President of the Royal Scottish Academy. The Right Hon.
James A. Campbell of Stracathro, M.P., with whom he had long had
intimate relations, presided at the ceremony and made the presentation.
The reply of the Professor, as containing many interesting
reminiscences, and as showing the view which he took himself of his
life and work, is here inserted in extenso. He said:--
"Mr Campbell, I thank you, sir, with all my heart, for the many kind
things--far more kind than I deserve--which you have just said of me,
and for the many kind services which you have rendered to me in the
course of our lifelong friendship; and I thank, with all my heart, you,
my many esteemed friends and pupils, who have united in presenting
me with this address expressive of your warm affection, this speaking
likeness and munificent gift. Kindness far more than I have merited has
followed me all my life through--never more conspicuously than at the
close of my public career; and now in retiring from the professorial
work I loved, and from the College for which almost for half a century
I lived and laboured, it is a consolation to me to know that I carry with
me into my retirement the esteem of so many honoured friends and the
affectionate regard of so many former pupils. Some have been speaking
lately of the loneliness of a Scottish student's college life. I can only say

for myself that the years I spent as a student in St Mary's College were
among the happiest of my life, and that the friendships then formed
within the little band of my fellow-students were among the most
valued and lasting of those I have enjoyed. I have but to name John
Robertson, afterwards minister of Glasgow Cathedral; John Tulloch,
afterwards Principal of St Mary's College; William Milligan,
afterwards Professor of Biblical Criticism in Aberdeen; William
Dickson, afterwards Professor of Divinity in Glasgow; Drs W. H. Gray,
Gloag, and Herdman, and with these some who afterwards joined the
Free Church: Dr Thomson, long at the head of the Free Church Jewish
Mission at Constantinople; Dr Thomas Brown, younger brother of my
late colleague, Dr William Brown, agent for the Turkish Missions Aid
Society; and Edward Cross, afterwards Free Church minister at
Monifieth, with whom I laboured in happiest intercourse in Dundee, he
being assistant to the Free Church minister in the same district of the
town when I was assistant to the Parish minister. When in my
twenty-sixth year I returned as a Professor in the College where so
shortly before I had been a student, I can never forget the kindness with
which I was received by my aged instructors there, especially by
Principal Haldane, whose kind counsels were then invaluable to me,
nor the kindness of Professors Duncan and Alexander, the only two of
my instructors remaining in the Old College. St Andrews about that
time had the reputation of being rather a hot place. The conviction that
I was a man of rather placid temper, who would not add fuel to the
flame, I believe weighed considerably with Lord Advocate Rutherfurd
in finally recommending me for the Chair. Within St Mary's College
we were a happy family, and the youth of twenty-six and the two aged
Professors beyond threescore and ten continued to work in unbroken
harmony--the youth deeming it a special privilege to aid the venerable
Principal in his class-work during the last year of his life, as well as to
aid him and his aged colleague in their pulpit work. It was soon after
this that I began to take an active part in Church work, attending the
General Assembly as an elder and as Convener of the Jewish
Mission--doing what I could to reorganise it in Turkey, first in
conjunction with such venerable fathers as Drs Muir, Hunter, Grant,
and James Robertson, and with several brethren nearer my own age,
who were bearing the burden and heat of the day--Drs Crawford,

Nicholson, Nisbet, William Robertson, and Elder Cumming, and such
laymen as Sheriff Arkley, David Smith, Henry Cheyne, John Elder,
John Tawse, and the good Edmund Baxter, all now gone to