PRINCIPAL CAIRNS

BY JOHN CAIRNS

FAMOUS SCOTS SERIES

The designs and ornaments of this volume are by Mr. Joseph Brown, andthe printing is from the press of Morrison & Gibb Limited, Edinburgh. 

PREFACE

In preparing the following pages I have been chiefly indebted for thematerials of the earlier chapters to some MS. Notes by my late uncle, Mr. William Cairns. These were originally written for Professor MacEwenwhen he was preparing his admirable _Life and Letters of John Cairns, D. D. LL. D. _ They are very full and very interesting, and I have madefree use of them. 

To Dr. MacEwen's book I cannot sufficiently express my obligations. Hehas put so much relating to Principal Cairns into an absolutely finalform, that he seems to have left no alternative to those who come afterhim between passing over in silence what he has so well said andreproducing it almost in his words. It is probable, therefore, thatstudents of the _Life and Letters_--and there are many who, like Mr. Andrew Lang with Lockhart's _Life of Scott_, "make it their breviary"--will detect some echoes of its sentences in this little book. Still, I have tried to look at the subject from my own point of view, and towork it out in my own way; while, if I have borrowed anything directly, I trust that I have made due acknowledgment in the proper place. 

Among those whom I have to thank for kind assistance, I desire speciallyto mention my father, the Rev. David Cairns, the last surviving memberof the household at Dunglass, who has taken a constant interest in theprogress of the book, and has supplied me with many reminiscences andsuggestions. To my brother the Rev. D. S. Cairns, Ayton, I am indebtedfor most valuable help in regard to many points, especially that dealtwith at the close of Chapter VI. ; and I also owe much to the suggestionsof my friends the Rev. P. Wilson and the Rev. R. Glaister. For help inrevising the proofs I have to thank the Rev. J. M. Connor and my brotherthe Rev. W. T. Cairns. 

J. C. 

DUMFRIES, _20th March_ 1903. 

CONTENTS

PREFACE

CHAPTER I: ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD

CHAPTER II: DUNGLASS

CHAPTER III: COLLEGE DAYS

CHAPTER IV: THE STUDENT OF THEOLOGY

CHAPTER V: GOLDEN SQUARE

CHAPTER VI: THE CENTRAL PROBLEM

CHAPTER VII: THE APOSTLE OF UNION

CHAPTER VIII: WALLACE GREEN

CHAPTER IX: THE PROFESSOR

CHAPTER X: THE PRINCIPAL

CHAPTER XI: THE END OF THE DAY

PRINCIPAL CAIRNS

 * * * * *

CHAPTER I

ANCESTRY AND CHILDHOOD

John Cairns was born at Ayton Hill, in the parish of Ayton, in the eastof Berwickshire, on the 23rd of August 1818. 

The farm of Ayton Hill no longer exists. Nothing is left of it butthe trees which once overshadowed its buildings, and the rank growthof nettles which marks the site of a vanished habitation of man. Itsposition was a striking one, perched as it was just on the edge of thehigh ground which separates the valley of the little river Eye fromthat of the Tweed. It commanded an extensive view, taking in almost thewhole course of the Eye, from its cradle away to the left among theLammermoors to where it falls into the sea at Eyemouth a few miles tothe right. Down in the valley, directly opposite, were the woods andmansion of Ayton Castle. A little to the left, the village of Ayton layextended along the farther bank of the stream, while behind both castleand village the ground rose in gentle undulations to the uplands ofColdingham Moor. 

South-eastwards, a few miles along the coast, lay Berwick-on-Tweed, thescene of John Cairns's future labours as a minister; while away in theopposite direction, in the heart of the Lammermoors, near the headwatersof the Whitadder and the Dye, was the home of his immediate ancestors. These were tenants of large sheep-farms; but, through adversecircumstances, his grandfather, Thomas Cairns, unable to take a farm ofhis own, had to earn his living as a shepherd. He died in 1799, worn outbefore he had passed his prime, and his widow was left to bring up heryoung fatherless family of three girls and two boys as best she could. After several migrations, which gradually brought them down from thehills to the seaboard, they settled for some years at Ayton Hill. Thefarm was at the time under some kind of trust, and there was no residentfarmer. The widowed mother was engaged to look after the pigs and thepoultry; the daughters also found employment; and James, the elder son, became the shepherd. He was of an adventurous and somewhat restlessdisposition, and, at the time of the threatened invasion by Napoleon, joined a local Volunteer corps. Then the war fever laid hold of him, and he enlisted in the regular army, serving in the Rifle Brigade allthrough the Peninsular War, from Vimiera to Toulouse, and earning amedal with twelve clasps. He afterwards returned, bringing with hima Portuguese wife, and settled as shepherd on the home-farm of AytonCastle. 

The younger son, John, as yet little more than a child, was hired outas herd-boy on the neighbouring farm of Greystonelees, between Aytonand Berwick. His wages were a pair of shoes in the half-year, with hisfood in the farm kitchen and his bed in the stable loft. His schooldayshad begun early. He used afterwards to tell how his mother, when he wasnot more than five years old, carried him every day on her back on hisway to school across a little stream that flowed near their cottage. But this early education was often interrupted, and came very soonto a close; not, however, before he was well able to read. Writing hetaught himself later; and, later still, he picked up a good workingknowledge of arithmetic at a night-school. He was a quiet, thoughtfulboy, specially fond of reading, but, from lack of books, reading wasalmost out of his reach. He had not even a Bible of his own, for Bibleswere then so dear that it was not possible for parents in humble life toprovide those of their children who went out into the world with copieseven of the cheapest sort. In place of a Bible, however, his mother hadgiven him a copy of the Scottish Metre Version of the Psalms, with a"Preface" to each Psalm and notes by John Brown of Haddington. Thiswas all the boy had to feed his soul on, but it was enough, for itwas strong meat; and he valued and carefully kept that old, brown, leather-bound Psalm-book to the end of his days. 

When James left home, the shepherding at Ayton Hill was taken up byhis brother John. Though only a lad in his teens, he was in everyrespect, except in physical strength, already a man. He was steady andthoughtful, handy and capable in farm work, especially in all thatconcerned the care of sheep, for which he had a natural and probablyan inherited instinct. He was also held in great regard by theRev. David Ure, the earnest and kindly minister of the BurgherMeeting-house, which stood behind the Castle woods at the lower end ofAyton village. The family were of that "strict, not strictest speciesof Presbyterian Dissenter, " and John attended also the Bible-class andFellowship Meeting. The family of John Murray, a ploughman or "hind"from the Duns district, and now settled at Bastleridge, the next farmto Ayton Hill, also attended Mr. Ure's church. An intimacy sprang upbetween the two families. It ripened into affection between JohnCairns and Alison, John Murray's only daughter, and in June 1814 theywere united in marriage. The two eldest daughters of the Cairns familyhad already gone to situations, and were soon to have homes of theirown. The grand old mother, who had been for so many years both fatherand mother to her children, was beginning to feel the infirmities ofage. When, therefore, the young couple took up housekeeping, she leftthe home and the work at Ayton Hill to them, and with her youngestdaughter went over to live in Ayton. 

John Cairns and his wife were in many respects very unlike oneanother. He was of a grave, quiet, and somewhat anxious temperament, almost morbidly scrupulous where matters of conscience andresponsibility were concerned. She, on the other hand, was alwayshopeful, making light of practical difficulties, and by her untiringenergy largely helping to make these disappear. She had a greatcommand of vigorous Scotch, and a large stock of homely proverbs, of which she made frequent and apposite use. Both husband and wifewere excellently well read in their Bibles, and both were unitedin the fear of God. Built on this firm foundation, their union oftwenty-seven years was a singularly happy one, and their differenttemperaments contributed to the common stock what each of themseparately lacked. Ayton Hill remained their home for six years aftertheir marriage, and here were born their three eldest children, ofwhom the youngest, John, is the subject of the present sketch. 

In the spring of 1820 the trust under which Ayton Hill had been workedfor so many years was wound up, and a new tenant took the farm. Itbecame necessary, therefore, for the shepherd to seek a new situation, and this brought about the first "flitting" in the family history. TheBerwickshire hinds are somewhat notorious for their migratory habits, in which some observers have found a survival of the restlessnesswhich characterised their ancestors in former times, and was alikethe result and the cause of the old Border Forays. Be that as it may, every Whitsunday term-day sees the country roads thronged with cartsconveying furniture and bedding from one farm to another. In front ofthe pile sits the hind's wife with her younger children, while thehind himself with his older boys and girls walks beside the horse, orbrings up the rear, driving the family cow before him. In some casesthere is a flitting every year, and instances have even been known inwhich anxiety to preserve an unbroken tradition of annual removalshas been satisfied by a flitting from one house to another on thesame farm. 

The Cairns family now entered on a period of migration of this kind, and in the course of eleven years they flitted no less than six times. Their first removal was from Ayton Hill to Oldcambus Mains, in theparish of Cockburnspath, where they came into touch with the Dunglassestate and the Stockbridge Church, with both of which they were inafter-years to have so close a connection. The father had been engagedby the Dunglass factor to act, in the absence of a regular tenant, asjoint steward and shepherd at Oldcambus, and the family lived in theotherwise unoccupied farmhouse. The two elder children attended aschool less than a mile distant, and in their absence John, theyoungest, who was now in his fourth year, used to cause no littleanxiety to his careful mother by wandering out by himself dangerouslynear to the edge of the high sea-cliffs behind the farmhouse. 

At length, in a happy moment, he took it into his head to go to schoolhimself; and, although he was too young for lessons, the schoolmasterallowed him to sit beside his brother and sister. When he was tired ofsitting, tradition has it that the little fellow used to amuse himselfby getting up and standing in the corner to which the school culpritswere sent. Here he duly put on the dunce's cap which he had seen themwear, and which bore the inscription, "For my bad conduct I standhere. "

A tenant having been at length found for Oldcambus Mains, the family, which had been increased by the birth of three more children, removedback to the Ayton district, to the farm of Whiterigg, two miles fromthe village. The house which they occupied here is still pointed out, but it has been enlarged and improved since those days. At that time, like all the farm servants' dwellings in the district, it consistedof a single room with an earthen floor, an open unlined roof of redtiles, and rafters running across and resting on the wall at eachside. There was a fireplace at one end and a window, and then a doorat right angles to the fireplace. When the furniture came to be putin, the two box-beds with their sliding panels were set up facing thefireplace; they touched the back wall at one end, and left a smallspace free opposite to the door at the other. The beds came almost, if not quite, up to the level of the rafters, and screened off behindthem perhaps a third of the entire space, which was used as a lumbercloset or store. Above the rafters, well furnished with _cleeks_ forthe family stock of hams, there was spread, in lieu of a ceiling, alarge sheet of canvas or coarse unbleached cotton. There was a tableunder the window, a _dresser_ with racks for plates, etc. , set upagainst the opposite wall, and an eight-day clock between the windowand the fireplace. "Fixtures" were in such houses practicallynon-existent; the grate, which consisted merely of two or three barsor _ribs_, the iron _swey_ from which hung the large pot with itsrudimentary feet, and, in some cases, even the window, were theproperty of the immigrants, and were carried about by them fromfarm to farm in their successive flirtings. 

When at Whiterigg, the children attended school at Ayton, and hereyoung John learned his letters and made considerable progress inreading. After two years, the death of the Whiterigg farmer madeanother change necessary, and the family returned to the Dunglassestate and settled at Aikieside, a forester's cottage quite nearto their former home at Oldcambus Mains, and within easy reach ofOldcambus School. Aikieside is in the Pease Dean, a magnificent woodedglen, crossed a little lower down by a famous bridge which carriesthe old post road from Edinburgh to Berwick over the Pease Burn ata height of nearly one hundred and thirty feet. A still older roadcrosses the stream close to its mouth, less than a mile below thebridge. The descent here is very steep on both sides, but it seemsto have been even steeper in former times than it is now. This pointin the old road is "the strait Pass at Copperspath, " where OliverCromwell before the battle of Dunbar found the way to Berwick blockedby the troops of General Leslie, and of which he said that here"ten men to hinder are better than forty to make their way. "

Beautiful as the Pease Dean is, it has this drawback for thosewho live in the vicinity--especially if they happen to be anxiousmothers--that it is infested with adders; and as these engagingreptiles were specially numerous and specially aggressive in the"dry year" 1826, it is not surprising that when, owing to the cottageat Aikieside being otherwise required, John Cairns was offered ahouse in the village of Cockburnspath, he and his wife gladly availedthemselves of that offer. From Cockburnspath another removal was madein the following year to Dunglass Mill; and at last, in 1831, the muchtravelled family, now increased to eight, found rest in a house withinthe Dunglass grounds, after the father had received the appointment ofshepherd on the home-farm, which he held during the rest of his life. 

CHAPTER II

DUNGLASS

The Lammermoor range, that "dusky continent of barren heath-hills, "as Thomas Carlyle calls it, runs down into the sea at St. Abb's Head. For the greater part of its length it divides Berwickshire from EastLothian; but at its seaward end there is one Berwickshire parishlying to the north of it--the parish of Cockburnspath. The land inthis parish slopes down to the Firth of Forth; it is rich and wellcultivated, and is divided into large farms, each of which has itsgroup of red-roofed buildings, its substantial farmhouse, and its longtail of hinds' cottages. The seaward views are very fine, and includethe whole of the rugged line of coast from Fast Castle on the east toTantallon and North Berwick Law on the west. In the middle distanceare the tower of Dunbar Church, the Bass Rock, and the Isle of May;and farther off is the coast of Fife, with Largo Law and the Lomondsin the background. The land is mostly bare of trees, but there is anotable exception to this in the profound ravines which come down fromthe hills to the sea, and whose banks are thickly clothed with finenatural wood. 

Of these, the Pease Dean has already been mentioned. Close besideit is the Tower Dean, so called from an ancient fortalice of theHome family which once defended it, and which stands beside a bridgeheld in just execration by all cyclists on the Great North Road. But, unquestionably, the finest of all the ravines in these partsis Dunglass Dean, which forms the western boundary of Cockburnspathparish, and divides Berwickshire from East Lothian. From the bridge bywhich the Edinburgh and Berwick road crosses the dean, at the heightof one hundred feet above the bed of the stream, the view in bothdirections is extremely fine. About a hundred and fifty yards lowerdown is the modern railway bridge, which spans the ravine in onegigantic arch forty feet higher than the older structure that carriesthe road; and through this arch, above the trees which fill the glen, one gets a beautiful glimpse of the sea about half a mile away. 

Above the road-bridge, and to the right of the wooded dean, are thenoble trees and parks of Dunglass grounds. The mansion-house, ahandsome modern building, part of which rises to a height of fivestoreys, is built only some eight or ten feet from the brink of thedean, on its western or East Lothian side. About fifty yards fartherwest are the ivy-covered ruins of a fine Gothic church, whose massivesquare tower and stone roof are still tolerably complete. This churchbefore the Reformation had collegiate rank, and is now the soleremaining relic of the ancient village of Dunglass. In former timesthe Dunglass estate belonged to the Earls of Home, whose second title, borne to this day by the eldest son of the house, is that of LordDunglass. But it was bought about the middle of the seventeenthcentury by the Halls, who own it still, and in whose family therehas been a baronetcy since 1687. The laird at the time with which weare now dealing was Sir James Hall, whose epitaph in the old churchat Dunglass bears that he was "a philosopher eminent among thedistinguished men of an enquiring age. " He was President of the RoyalSociety of Edinburgh for many years, and was an acknowledged expertin Natural Science, especially in Geology. His second son was thewell-known Captain Basil Hall, R. N. , the author of a once widely-readbook of travels. 

Behind the church, and about a hundred yards to the west of themansion-house, are the offices--stables, close boxes, coach-house, etc. , all of a single storey, and built round a square pavedcourtyard. The coachman's house is on one side of this square, and theshepherd's on the other. The latter, which is on the side farthestfrom the "big house, " has its back to the courtyard, and looks outacross a road to its little bailyard and a fine bank of trees beyondit. It is neat and lightsome, but very small; consisting only of asingle room thirteen feet by twelve, with a closet opening off it notmore than six feet broad. How a family consisting of a father, mother, and eight children could be stowed away in it, especially at night, israther a puzzling question. But we may suppose that, when all were athome, each of the two box-beds would be made to hold three, that asmaller bed in the closet would account for two more, and that for theaccommodation of two of the younger children a sliding shelf wouldbe inserted transversely across the foot of one of the box-beds. Certainly, an arrangement of this kind would fail to be approved by asanitary inspector in our times; and even during the day, when all thefamily were on the floor together, there was manifest overcrowding. But the life was a country one, and could be, and was, largely spentin the open air, amid healthful surroundings and beautiful scenery. 

The income available for the support of such a large household seemsto us in these days almost absurdly inadequate. The father's wagesrarely exceeded £30 a year, and they never all his life reached £40. They were mostly paid in kind. So many bolls of oats, of barley andof peas, so many carts of coals, so many yards of growing potatoes, a cow's grass, the keep of two sheep and as many pigs, and a freehouse, --these, which were known as the _gains_, were the main items inthe account. This system gave considerable opportunity for managementon the part of a thrifty housewife, and for such management there werefew to surpass the housewife in the shepherd's cottage at Dunglass. 

The food was plentiful but plain. Breakfast consisted of porridgeand milk; dinner, in the middle of the day, of Scotch kail and pork, occasionally varied by herrings, fresh or salt according to theseason, and with the usual accompaniments of potatoes and peasebannocks. At supper there was porridge again, or mashed potatoeswashed down with draughts of milk, and often eaten with horn spoonsout of the large pot which was set down on the hearth. Tea was onlyseen once a week--on Sunday afternoons. And so the young family grewup healthy and strong in spite of the overcrowding. 

Before the removal to Dunglass, the two eldest children had been takenfrom school to work in the fields, where they earned wages beginningat sixpence a day. Their education, however, was continued in somesort at a night-school. John and his younger brother James, and thetwins, Janet and William, who came next in order, attended the parishschool at Cockburnspath, a mile away. Cockburnspath is a villageof about two hundred and fifty inhabitants, situated a little offthe main road. It has a church with an ancient round tower, and avenerable market-cross rising from a platform of steps in the middleof the village street. 

On the south side of the street, just in front of the church, stoodthe old schoolhouse--a low one storey building, roofed with the redtiles characteristic of the neighbourhood, and built on to theschoolmaster's two-storey dwelling. The schoolmaster at this timewas John M'Gregor, a man of ripe and accurate scholarship and quiteseparate individuality. The son of a Perthshire farmer, he had studiedfor the ministry at St. Andrews University, and had, it was said, fulfilled all the requirements for becoming a licentiate of the Churchof Scotland except the sending in of one exercise, This exercise hecould never be persuaded to send in, and that not because he had anyspeculative difficulties as to the truth of the Christian revelation, nor yet because he had any exaggerated misgivings as to his ownqualifications for the work of the ministry; but because he preferredthe teaching profession, and was, moreover, indignant at what heconceived to be the overbearing attitude which the ministers of theEstablished Church assumed to the parish schools and schoolmasters. This feeling ultimately became a kind of mania with him. He was atfeud with his own parish minister, and never entered his churchexcept when, arrayed in a blue cloak with a red collar, he attendedto read proclamations of marriages; and he could make himself verydisagreeable when the local Presbytery sent their annual deputationto examine his school. Yet he was essentially a religious man; he hada reverence for what was good, and he taught the Bible and ShorterCatechism to his scholars carefully and well. 

As he disliked the ministers, so he showed little deference to thefarmers, who were in some sort the "quality" of the district, and tosuch of their offspring as came under his care. The farmers retaliatedby setting up an opposition school in Cockburnspath, which survivedfor a few years; but it never flourished, for the common peoplebelieved in M'Gregor, whom they regarded as "a grand teacher, " asindeed he was. He had a spare, active figure, wore spectacles, andtook snuff. There was at all times an element of grimness in him, andhe could be merciless when the occasion seemed to demand it. "Starkman he was, and great awe men had of him, " but this awe had its rootsin a very genuine respect for his absolutely just dealing and hismasterful independence of character. 

John Cairns first went to Mr. M'Gregor's school when the familyremoved to Cockburnspath from Aikieside, and he made such progressthat two years later, when he was ten years old, the master proposedthat he should join a Latin class which was then being formed. Thisproposal caused great searchings of heart at home. His father, withanxious conscientiousness, debated with himself as to whether it wouldbe right for him thus to set one of his sons above the rest. He couldnot afford to have them all taught Latin, so would it be fair to theothers that John should be thus singled out from them? The mother, onthe other hand, had no such misgivings, and she was clear that Johnmust have his Latin. The ordinary school fees ranged from three tofive shillings a quarter; but when Latin was taken they rose to sevenand sixpence. Mr. M'Gregor had proposed to teach John Latin withoutextra charge, but both his father and his mother were agreed that toaccept this kind offer was not to be thought of for a moment; and hismother was sure that by a little contriving and saving on her partthe extra sum could be secured. The minister, Mr. Inglis, who wasconsulted in the matter, also pronounced strongly for the proposal, and so John was allowed to begin his classical studies. 

Within two years Greek had been added to the Latin; and, as theunavoidable bustle and noise which arose in the evening when thewhole family were together in the one room of the house made studydifficult, John stipulated with his mother that she should call him inthe morning, when she rose, an hour before anybody else, to light thefire and prepare the breakfast. And so it happened that, if any of therest of the family awoke before it was time to get up, they would seeJohn studying his lesson and hear him conjugating his Greek verbsby the light of the one little oil-lamp that the house afforded. Perhaps, too, it was what he saw, in these early morning hours, ofthe unwearied and self-forgetful toil of his mother that taught himto be in an especial degree thoughtful for her comfort and considerateof her wants both then and in after-years. 

But his regular schooldays were now drawing to an end. His father, though engaged as the shepherd at Dunglass, had other duties of a verymultifarious kind to discharge, and part of his shepherd work had beendone for him for some time by his eldest son, Thomas. But Thomas wasnow old enough to earn a higher wage by other work on the home-farmor in the woods, and so it came to be John's turn to take up the workamong the sheep. When his father told Mr. M'Gregor that John wouldhave to leave school, the schoolmaster was so moved with regret at thethought of losing so promising a scholar, that he said that if Johncould find time for any study during the day he would be glad to havehim come to his house two or three nights in the week, and to go overwith him then what he had learned. As Mr. M'Gregor had become more andmore solitary in his habits of late--he was a bachelor, and his agedmother kept house for him--this offer was considered to be a veryremarkable proof of his regard, and it was all the more gratefullyaccepted on that account. 

It fortunately happened that the work to which John had now to turnhis hand allowed him an opportunity of carrying on his studies withoutinterfering with its efficiency. That work was of a twofold character. He had to "look" the sheep, and he had to "herd" them. The lookingcame first. Starting at six o'clock in the morning, accompanied by thefaithful collie "Cheviot, " he made a round of all the grass-parks onthe home-farm, beginning down near the sea and thence working his wayround to a point considerably higher up than the mansion-house. Hisinstructions were to count the sheep in each field, so that he mightbe able to tell whether they were all there, and also to see whetherthey were all afoot and feeding. In the event of anything being wrong, he was to report it to his father. The circuit was one of three orfour miles, and the last field to be looked was that in which weregathered the fifty or sixty sheep that were to be brought out to theunfenced lawns round the mansion-house and be herded there duringthe day. 

These sheep were generally to be found waiting close to the gate, andwhen it was opened they could quite easily find their own way down totheir feeding-ground. As they passed slowly on, cropping the grass asthey went, John was able to leave them and go home for his breakfastof porridge and milk. Breakfast having been despatched, and Cheviotfed, he once more wrapped his shepherd's plaid about him, rememberingto put a book or two, and perhaps a piece of bannock, into the _neuk_of it, and set out to find his flock. There was usually littledifficulty in doing so, for the sheep knew the way and did not readilywander out of it; while, even if they had deviated a little from thedirect route, no great harm would at this stage of their passage haveresulted. It was quite different when they came down to the lawns nearthe house. These were surrounded by ornamental shrubbery, and it wasto keep the sheep from invading this and the adjacent flower-bordersthat the services of the herd-boy were required. 

What he had to do, then, after he had brought the sheep down, was totake his place on some knoll which commanded the ground where theywere feeding, and keep an eye on them. If nothing disturbed them theywould feed quietly enough, and a long spell of reading might be quitesafely indulged in. If any of them showed signs of wandering out ofbounds, a stroll in their direction, book in hand, would usually bequite sufficient, with or without Cheviot's aid, to turn them. And ifa leading sheep were turned, the others would, sheep-like, follow thenew lead thus imparted. This was the usual state of things in fineweather. In wet weather there were not the same possibilities ofstudy, unless the feeding-ground happened to be in the neighbourhoodof the old church, where sufficient shelter could be found for readingand the sheep could be watched through the open doorway. About fouro'clock--in winter somewhat earlier--it was time to take the sheepback to the fold-field, and then the parks had to be again looked, this time in the reverse order, the shepherd's cottage being gainedin time for supper. 

After supper, John would go into Cockburnspath to recite the lessonshe had prepared to Mr. M'Gregor. The schoolmaster never prescribed anydefinite section to be learned; he left this to his pupil, in whoseindustry and interest in his work he had sufficient confidence. He rarely bestowed any praise. A grim smile of satisfaction, andsometimes a "Very well, sir, " were all that he would vouchsafe; butto others he would be less reticent, and once he was heard to say, "I have so far missed my own way, but John Cairns will flourish yet. "

John is described as having been at this time a well-grown boy, somewhat raw-boned and loose-jointed, with an eager look, ruddyand healthy, and tanned with the sun, his hair less dark than itafterwards became. He was fond of schoolboy games--shinty, football, and the rest--and would play at marbles, even when the game wentagainst him, until he had lost his last stake. Archery was anotherfavourite amusement, and he was expert at making bows from thethinnings of the Dunglass yews, and arrows tipped with iron_ousels_--almost the only manual dexterity he possessed. Like allboys of his class, his usual dress was a brown velveteen jacket andwaistcoat and corduroy trousers that had once been white. 

Along with the teaching he got from Mr. M'Gregor, there went anothersort of education of a less formal kind which still deserves to bementioned. Now that he was earning a wage, --it was about eightpenceor tenpence a day, --which of course went into the common stock, heventured occasionally to ask his mother for sixpence to himself. Withthis he could obtain a month's reading at the Cockburnspath library. A very excellent library this was, and during the three years of hisherding he worked his way pretty well through it. It was especiallystrong in history and standard theology, and in these departmentsincluded such works as Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_, Mitford's _Historyof Greece_, Russell's _Modern Europe_, Butler's _Analogy_, and Paley's_Evidences_. In biography and fiction it was less strong, but it had acomplete set of the Waverley Novels in one of the early three-volumeeditions. When he went to Mr. M'Gregor's, John used often to takebutter churned by his mother to the village shop, and the basket inwhich he carried it was capacious enough to hold a good load of booksfrom the library on the return journey. 

All the family were fond of books, and the small store of volumes, mostly of old Scotch divinity, in the little bookcase at Dunglass waswell thumbed. But reading of a lighter kind was also indulged in, andon winter nights, when the mother was plying her spinning-wheel andthe father had taken down his cobbler's box and was busily engagedpatching the children's shoes, it was a regular practice for John tosit near the dim oil-lamp and read to the rest. Sometimes the readingwould be from an early number of Chambers's _Journal_, sometimes fromWilson's _Tales of the Borders_, which were then appearing--both ofthese being loans from a neighbour. But once a week there was alwaysa newspaper to be read. It was often a week or a fortnight old, for, as it cost sixpence halfpenny, it was only by six or eight neighboursclubbing together that such a luxury could be brought within the reachof a working-man's family; but it was never so old as to beuninteresting to such eager listeners. 

But the most powerful of all the influences which affected John Cairnsat this period of his life remains to be mentioned--that which cameto him from his religious training and surroundings. The Christianreligion has acted both directly and indirectly on the Scottishpeasantry, and it has done so the more powerfully because of thedemocratic character of the Presbyterian form which that religion tookin Scotland. Directly, it has changed their lives and has given themnew motives and new immortal hopes. But it has also acted on themindirectly, doing for them in this respect much of what education andculture have done for others. It has supplied the element of idealismin their lives. These lives, otherwise commonplace and unlovely, havebeen lighted up by a perpetual vision of the unseen and the eternal;and this has stimulated their intellectual powers and has so widenedtheir whole outlook upon life as to raise them high above those oftheir own class who lived only for the present. All who have listenedto the prayers of a devout Scotch elder of the working-class must havebeen struck by this combination of spiritual and intellectual power;and one thing they must have specially noticed is that, unlike theelder of contemporary fiction, he expressed himself, not in broadScotch but in correct and often stately Bible English. 

But this intellectual activity is often carried beyond the man in whomit has first manifested itself. It tends to reappear in his children, who either inherit it or have their own intellectual powers stimulatedin the bracing atmosphere it has created. The instances of RobertBurns and Thomas Carlyle, who both came out of homes in whichreligion--and religion of the old Scottish type--was the deepestinterest, will occur to everyone. Not the least striking illustrationof this principle is shown in the case of John Cairns. In the life ofhis soul he owed much to the godly upbringing and Christian exampleshown to him by his parents; but the home at Dunglass, where religionwas always the chief concern, was the nursery of a strong mind as wellas of a strong soul, and both were fed from the same spring. In thiscase, as in so many others, spiritual strength became intellectualstrength in the second generation. 

The Cairns family attended church at Stockbridge, a mile beyondCockburnspath and two miles from Dunglass, and the father was an elderthere from 1831 till his death. The United Secession--formerly theBurgher--Church at Stockbridge occupied a site conveniently centralfor the wide district which it served, but very solitary. It stoodamid cornfields, on the banks of a little stream, and looked across tothe fern-clad slopes of Ewieside, an outlying spur of the Lammermoors. Except the manse, and the beadle's cottage which adjoined it, therewas no house within sight, nor any out of sight less than half amile away. 

The minister at this time was the Rev. David M'Quater Inglis, a man ofrugged appearance and of original and vigorous mental powers. He was agood scholar and a stimulating preacher, excelling more particularlyin his expository discourses, or "lectures" as they used to be called. When he tackled some intricate passage in an Epistle, it was at timesa little hard to follow him, especially as his utterance tended to behesitating; but when he had finished, one saw that a broad clear roadhad been cut through the thicket, and that the daylight had been letin upon what before had been dim. "I have heard many preachers, " saidDr. Cairns, in preaching his funeral sermon nearly forty years later, "but I have heard few whose sermons at their best were better than thebest of his; and his everyday ones had a strength, a simplicity, andan unaffected earnestness which excited both thought and Christianfeeling. " Nor was he merely a preacher. By his pastoral visitationsand "diets of examination" he always kept himself in close touch withhis people, and he made himself respected by rich and poor alike. 

The shepherd's family occupied a pew at Stockbridge in front of thepulpit and just under the gallery, which ran round three sides of thechurch. That pew was rarely vacant on a Sunday. There was no herdingto be done on that day, and in the morning the father looked the sheepin the parks himself that the herd-boy might have his full Sabbathrest. He came back in time to conduct family worship, this beingthe only morning in the week when it was possible for him to do so, although in the evening it was never omitted, and on Sunday eveningwas always preceded by a repetition of the Shorter Catechism. Afterworship the family set out for church, where the service began ateleven. 

The situation of Stockbridge, it has been already said, was solitary, but on Sundays, when the hour of worship drew near, the place lost itssolitude. The roads in all directions were thronged with vehicles, men on horseback, and a great company on foot; the women wearing thescarlet cloaks which had not yet given place to the Paisley shawlsof a later period, and each carrying, neatly wrapped in a whitehandkerchief, a Bible or Psalm-book, between whose leaves were a sprigor two of southernwood, spearmint, or other fragrant herb from thecottage garden. 

The service lasted about three hours. There was first a "lecture"and then a sermon, each about fifty minutes long; several portionsof psalms were sung; and of the three prayers, the first, or "longprayer, " was seldom less than twenty minutes in length. In summerthere was an interval of half an hour between the lecture and thesermon, "when, " says Mr. William Cairns, "there was opportunity for adelightful breathing-time, and the youths who were swift of foot couldjust reach the bottom of a hill whereon were plenteous blaeberries, and snatch a fearful joy if one could swallow without leaving thetell-tale marks on the lips and tongue. "

At the close of the afternoon service there was a Sunday school, chiefly conducted by Mr. Inglis himself, at which an examinationon the sermon that had just been delivered formed an important partof the exercises. And tradition has it that the questioning andanswering, which had at first been evenly distributed among thepupils, usually in the end came to resolve themselves pretty much intoa dialogue between Mr. Inglis and John Cairns. It was here that theminister first came to close grips with his elder's son and took themeasure of the lad's abilities. After he did so, his interest inJohn's classical studies was constant and helpful; and, although hegave him no direct assistance in them (if he had done so, he wouldhave called down upon himself the wrath of Mr. M'Gregor), he wasalways ready to lend him books and give him useful advice. 

After three years at herding and at Mr. M'Gregor's, the questionarose, and was the subject of anxious debate in the family councils, as to what was to be done with John. He was now sixteen. His elderbrother, Thomas, had got a post under his father, whom he afterwardssucceeded as shepherd at Dunglass. His elder sister had gone to asituation. And now James, the brother next younger than himself, had also left home to be apprenticed to a tailor. It was time forsome decision to be come to with regard to him. Mr. M'Gregor wasanxious that a superstructure should be built on the foundationlaid by himself by his going to College. Mr. Inglis's advice wasunhesitatingly given in the same direction. With his father, the oldscruples arose about setting one of his children above the rest; butagain his mother's chief concern was more about ways and means. Hisfather's question was, _Ought_ it to be done? his mother's, _Can_ itbe done? There were great difficulties in the way of answering thispractical question in the affirmative. There were then no bursariesopen for competition; and though the expenses at home were not sogreat as they had once been, now that three of the family had been sofar placed in life, the University class-fees and the cost of living, even in the most frugal way, entailed an expense which was formidableenough. Still, the mother thought that this could be faced, and, in order to acquaint herself more fully with all the facts of thesituation, she resolved to pay a long-promised visit to her youngestbrother, who with his family was now living in Edinburgh. He was acarrier between that city and Jedburgh, and, though still in acomparatively humble way, was said to be doing well. 

The visit was a great success. Mrs. Cairns was most warmly receivedby her brother and his wife, who proposed that John should stay withthem and share with their own family in what was going. This offer wasgratefully accepted, so far as the question of lodging was concerned. As to board, John's mother had ideas of her own, and insisted onpaying for it, if not in money at least in kind. Thus it was settledthat John was to go to College, but nothing was settled beyond this. Perhaps his parents may have had their own wishes, and his ministerand his schoolmaster their own expectations, about a career for him;but in the boy's unworldly heart there was nothing as yet beyond thedesire for further learning and the earnest resolution to be notunworthy of the sacrifices which had made the realisation of thisdesire possible. He worked at his herding up till the day beforehe left for the University, in the end of October 1834; and then, starting in the middle of the night with William Christison, theCockburnspath carrier, he trudged beside the cart that conveyed thebox containing his clothes and his scanty stock of books all thethirty-five miles between Dunglass and Edinburgh. 

CHAPTER III

COLLEGE DAYS

When John Cairns entered the University of Edinburgh in November 1834he passed into a world that was entirely strange to him. It would bedifficult to imagine a greater contrast than that between thelow-roofed village school and the spacious quadrangle surrounded byheavily balustraded stone terraces and stately pillared façades, intowhich, at the booming of the hourly bell, there poured from thevarious classrooms a multitudinous throng of eager young humanity. Andhe himself in some mysterious way seemed to be changed almost beyondhis own recognition. Instead of being the Jock Cairns who had herdedsheep on the braes of Dunglass, and had carried butter to theCockburnspath shop, he was now, as his matriculation card informedhim, "Joannes Cairns, Civis Academiae Edinburgeniae;" he was addressedby the professor in class as "Mr. Cairns, " and was included in hisappeal to "any gentleman in the bench" to elucidate a difficultpassage in the lesson of the day. 

He attended two classes this winter--that of "Humanity" or Latintaught by Professor Pillans, and that of Greek under the care ofProfessor George Dunbar. Pillans had been a master at Eton, and at alater period Rector of the Edinburgh High School. He was a little manwith rosy cheeks, and was a sound scholar and an admirable teacher, whose special "fad" was Classical Geography. Dunbar had begun life asa working gardener at Ayton Castle. He had compiled a Greek Lexiconwhich had some repute in its day, but he was not an inspiring teacher, and his gruff manners made him far from popular. 

Trained by a country schoolmaster, and having no experience ofcompetition except what a country school affords, John Cairns haduntil now no idea of his own proficiency relatively to that of others;and it was something of a revelation to him when he discovered how farthe grounding he had received from Mr. M'Gregor enabled him to go. Hisclassical attainments soon attracted notice, and at the end of thesession, although he failed to win the Class Medals, he stood highin the Honours Lists, and was first in private Latin studies and inGreek prose. Nor were these the only interests that occupied him. Afellow-student, the late Dr. James Hardy, writes of him that from thefirst he was great in controversy, and that in the classroom duringthe ten minutes before the appearance of the professor, he was alwaysthe centre of a knot of disputants on the Voluntary Church question orsome question of politics. Also it is recorded that, on the day aftera Parliamentary election for the city, he had no voice left, havingshouted it all away the day before in honour of the two successfulWhig candidates. 

During this session, as had been previously arranged, he lodged inCharles Street with his mother's brother, whose eldest son, JohnMurray, shared his room. For this cousin, who was about his own age, he had always the greatest regard, and he was specially gratefulto him for the kindness with which he helped him over many of thedifficulties which, as a raw lad from the country, he experiencedwhen he first came to live in the city. The friendship between thecousins remained unbroken--though their paths in life were widelydifferent--till they died, within a fortnight of each other, nearlysixty years later. 

All through the winter a box travelled with the Cockburnspath carrierevery three or four weeks between Edinburgh and Dunglass, taking withit on the outward journey clothes to be washed and mended, and on thereturn journey always including a store of country provisions--scones, oatmeal, butter, cheese, bacon, and potatoes. The letters that passedbetween the student and his family were also sent in the box, foras yet there was no penny post, and the postage of a letter betweenDunglass and Edinburgh cost as much as sixpence halfpenny orsevenpence. Often, too, John would send home some cheap second-handbooks, for he had a general commission to keep his eye on thebookstalls. Amongst these purchases was sometimes included a Bible, so that before the end of the winter each member of the family hada separate Bible to take to church or Sunday school. 

At the close of the winter session he accepted the invitation ofanother brother of his mother, who was a farmer at Longyester, nearGifford in East Lothian, on the northern fringe of the Lammermoors, tocome and be tutor to his three boys during the summer. At Longyesterhe spent four very happy months in congenial work among kind people. He learned to ride, and more than once he rode along the hill-foots toDunglass, twenty miles to the eastward, to spend the Sunday with hisfather and mother. 

During these months he also came into personal contact with a familywhose influence on him during these early years was strong andmemorable--the Darlings of Millknowe. Millknowe is a large sheep-farmin the heart of the Lammermoors, just where the young Whitadder windsround the base of Spartleton Law. The family at Millknowe, consistingat this time of three brothers and two sisters, all of whom hadreached middle life, were relatives of his father, the connectiondating from the time when his forebears were farmers in the sameregion. They were a notable family, full of all kinds of interestinglore, literary, scientific, and pastoral, and they exercised aboundless hospitality to all, whether gentle or simple, who camewithin their reach. One of them, a maiden sister, Miss Jean Darling, took a special charge of her young cousin, and in a special degree wonhis confidence. From the first she understood him. She saw the powerthat was awakening within him, and was, particularly in his studentdays, his friend and adviser. 

As the summer of 1835 advanced, it came to be a grave question withhim whether he could return to college in the ensuing winter. Hisfather had had a serious illness; and, though he was now recovering, there was a doctor's bill to settle, and he still required more careand better nourishment than ordinary. Cairns was afraid that, withthese extra expenses to be met, his own return to College mightinvolve too serious a drain on the family resources. While matterswere in this state, and while he was still at Longyester, he receiveda request from Mr. Trotter, the schoolmaster of his native parish ofAyton, to come and assist him in the school and with the tuition ofboarders in his house. This offer was quite in the line of the onlyideas as to his future life he had as yet entertained; for, so faras he had thought seriously on the subject, he had thought of being ateacher. On the other hand, while his great ambition was to return tothe University, the fact that most of his class-fellows in the pastsession had been older than himself suggested to him that he couldquite well afford to delay a year before he returned. 

So he went to Ayton, lodging while there with his father's youngestsister, Nancy, who had come thither from Ayton Hill along with hermother, when her brother John was married in 1814, and had remainedthere ever since. Cairns had not been two months in Ayton before hisresponsibilities were considerably increased. Mr. Trotter resigned hisoffice, and the heritors asked the assistant to take charge of theschool until a new teacher should be appointed. There were between onehundred and fifty and two hundred children in the school; he was thesole teacher, and he was only seventeen. Moreover, some delay occurredbefore the teacher who had been appointed to succeed Mr. Trotter couldcome to take up his work. But Cairns proved equal to the situation. The tradition is that his rule was an exceedingly stern one, that hekept the children hard at work, and that he flogged extensively andremorselessly. 

When the new master arrived upon the scene, he subsided into hisoriginal post of assistant. It had been his original intention to goback to the University in November 1836; but as that date approachedit became evident that the financial difficulty was not yet removed, so he accepted an engagement to continue his work in Ayton for anotheryear. 

His stay in Ayton was a very happy one. He liked his work, and hadseveral warm friends in the village and district. Among these were Mr. Ure, the kindly old minister who had married his parents and baptizedhimself. Then there was Mr. Stark, minister of another Secessionchurch in the village--a much younger man than Mr. Ure, but a goodscholar and a well-read theologian. There was also a fellow-student, Henry Weir, whose parents lived in Berwick, and who used often to walkout to Ayton to see him, Cairns returning the visits, and seeing forthe first time, under Weir's auspices, the old Border town in whichso much of his own life was to be spent. 

All this while he was working hard at his private studies. To thesestudies he gave all the time that was not taken up by his teaching. He read at his meals, and so far into the night that his aunt becamealarmed for his health. He worked his way through a goodly number ofthe Greek and Latin classics, in copies borrowed from the libraries ofthe two ministers; and he not only read, but analysed and elaboratelyannotated what he read. But in the notes of the books read during theyear 1837 a change becomes evident. It can be seen that he took moreand more to the study of theology and Christian evidences, and hisnote-books are full of references to Baxter and Jeremy Taylor, toRobert Hall, Chalmers, and Keith. 

At length in the summer a crisis was reached. A letter to his father, which has not been preserved, announced that his views and feelingswith regard to spiritual things had undergone a great and far-reachingchange, and that religion had become to him a matter of personal andparamount concern. Another letter to Henry Weir on the same subject isof great interest. It is written in the unformed and somewhat stiltedstyle which he had not yet got rid of, and, with characteristicreticence, it deals only indirectly with the details of the experiencethrough which he has passed, being in form a disquisition on theimportance of personal religion, and a refutation of objections whichmight occur to his correspondent against making it the main interestof his life. 

"My dear Henry, " the letter concludes, "I most earnestly wish that youwould devote the energies of your mind to the attentive considerationof religion, and I have no doubt that, through the tuition of theDivine Spirit, you would speedily arrive at the same conviction of theimportance of the subject with myself, and then our friendship would, by the influence of those feelings which religion implants, be morehallowed and intimate than before. I long ardently to see you. "

The experience which has thus been described caused no great rift withthe past, nor did it produce any great change in his outward life. Hedid not dedicate himself to the ministry; he did not, so far as can begathered, even become a member of the Church; and although for a shorttime he talked of concentrating his energies on the Greek Testament, to the disparagement of the Greek and Latin classical writers, withintwo months we find him back at his old studies and strenuouslypreparing for the coming session at College. But a new power hadentered into his life, and that power gradually asserted itself asthe chief and dominating influence there. 

Cairns returned to the University in the late autumn of 1837, enrolling himself in the classes of Latin, Greek, and Logic. Althoughhe maintained his intimacy with his uncle's family, he now went intolodgings in West Richmond Street, sharing a room with young WilliamInglis, son of the minister at Stockbridge, then a boy at the HighSchool. Here is the description he gives to his parents of hissurroundings and of the daily routine of his life: "The lodging whichwe occupy is a very good room, measuring 18 feet by 16 feet, in everyway neat and comfortable. The walls are hung with pictures, and thewindows adorned with flowers. The rent is 3s. 6d. , with a promise ofabatement when the price of coals is lowered. This is no doubt a greatsum of money, but I trust it will be amply compensated by the honesty, cleanliness, economy, and good temper of the landlady. . . . I shall giveyou the details of my daily life:--Rise at 8; 8. 30-10, Latin class;10-1, private study; 1-2, Logic; 2-3, Greek class; 4-12. 30, privatestudy. As to meals--breakfast on porridge and treacle at 8. 15; dine onbroth and mutton, or varieties of potatoes with beef or fish, at 3. 15;coffee at 7; if hungry, a little bread before bed. I can live quiteeasily and comfortably on 3s. Or 3s. 6d. Per week, and when you seeme you will find that I have grown fat on students' fare. "

At the close of the session he thus records the result of his work inone of the classes:--

"There is a circumstance which but for its connection with the subjectof clothes I should not now mention. You are aware that a gold medalis given yearly by the Society of Writers to the Signet to the bestscholar in the Latin class. Five are selected to compete for it bythe votes of their fellow-students. Having been placed in the numbera fortnight ago, I have, after a pretty close trial, been declaredthe successful competitor. The grand sequence is this, that at theend of the session I must come forward in the presence of many ofthe Edinburgh grandees and deliver a Latin oration as a prelude toreceiving the medal. Although I have little fear that an oration willbe forthcoming of the ordinary length and quality, I doubt that thetrepidation of so unusual a position will cause me to break down inthe delivery of it; but we shall see. The reference of this subjectto the clothes you will at once discern. The trousers are too tight, and an addition must be made to their length. The coat is too wide inthe body, too short and tight in the sleeves, and too spare in theskirt. As to my feelings I shall say nothing, because I do not lookupon the honour as one of a kind that ought to excite the leastelation . . . I would not wish you to blazon it, nor would I, but forthe cause mentioned, have taken any notice of it. "

Besides this medal, he obtained the first place in the Greek class. InLogic he stood third, and he carried off a number of other prizes. Hehad been in every way the better for the interruption in his course;his powers had matured, he knew what he could do, and he was able todo it at will, and from this point onward he was recognised as easilythe first man of his time in the University. But he had now to lookabout him for employment in the vacation; and for a while, in spiteof the successes of the past session, he was unable to find it, andwas glad to take some poorly paid elementary teaching. But at length, by the good offices of one of the masters in the Edinburgh Academy, backed by the strong recommendation of Professor Pillans, he becametutor in the family of Mr. John Donaldson, W. S. , of whose house, 124Princes Street, he became an inmate. "What I want, " said Mr. Donaldsonto the professor, "is a gentleman. " "Well, " replied Pillans, "I amsending you first-rate raw material; we shall see what you will makeof it. " He retained this situation till the close of his Universitycourse, to the entire satisfaction of his employer and his family, andwith great comfort to himself--the salary being more than sufficientfor his simple needs. 

He had, as we have seen, attended the class of Logic during hissecond session; but as he was then devoting his main strength toclassics, and as the subject was as yet quite unfamiliar to him, hedid not fully give himself up to it nor yield to the influence ofthe professor, Sir William Hamilton. But during the summer, while hewas at Mr. Donaldson's, in going again over the ground that he hadtraversed during the past session, he was led to read the works ofDescartes, Bacon, and Leibnitz, with the result that mental philosophyat once became the supreme interest of his academic life, and, whenthe winter came round again, he yielded entirely to its spell and tothat of the great man who was then its most distinguished Britishexponent. 

The class of Hamilton's that he attended in the session of 1838-39 wasthat of Advanced Metaphysics. It so happened that at that time a hotcontroversy was going on about this very class. The Edinburgh TownCouncil, who were the patrons of Hamilton's chair, claimed also theright to decide as to what subjects the professor should lecture on, and pronounced Metaphysics to be "an abstruse subject, not generallyconsidered as of any great or permanent utility. " But, while thiscontroversy was raging without, within all was calm. "We were quietlyengaged"--wrote Cairns twenty years later--"in our discussions asto the existence of the external world while the storm was ragingwithout, and only felt it to be another form of the _non-ego_; whilethe contrast between the singular gentleness and simplicity of ourteacher in his dealings with his pupils, and his more impassionedqualities in controversy, became more remarkable. "[1] Hamilton'sphilosophy may not now command the acceptance that once belonged toit, and that part of it which has been most influential may be putto-day to a use of which he did not dream, and of which he would nothave approved, but Hamilton himself--"the black eagle of the desert, "as the "Chaldee Manuscript" calls him--was a mighty force. Theinfluence of that vehement and commanding personality on a generationof susceptible young men was deep and far-reaching. He seized and heldthe minds of his students until they were able to grasp what he had togive them, --until, in spite of the toil and pain it cost them, theywere _made_ to grasp it. And he further trained them in habits ofmental discipline and intellectual integrity, which were of quitepriceless value to them. "I am more indebted to you, " wrote Cairns tohim in 1848, "for the foundation of my intellectual habits and tastesthan to any other person, and shall bear, by the will of the Almighty, the impress of your hand through any future stage of existence. "

[Footnote 1: _Memoir of Sir W. Hamilton_, p. 231. ]

Cairns was first in Hamilton's class at the close of the session, andalso first in Professor John Wilson's Moral Philosophy Class. "Of themany hundreds of students, " Wilson wrote four years later, "whosecareer I have watched during the last twenty years, not one has givenhigher promise of excellence than John Cairns; his talents are of thehighest order; his attainments in literature, philosophy, and sciencerare indeed; and his character such as to command universal respect. "

This winter he joined with eight or nine of Hamilton's mostdistinguished students in forming the "Metaphysical Society, " whichmet weekly for the purpose of discussing philosophical questions. In aMemoir which he afterwards wrote of John Clark, one of the founders ofthis Society, he thus describes the association that led to its beingformed, and that was further cemented by its formation: "Willinglydo I recall and linger upon these days and months, extendingeven to years, in which common studies of this abstract nature boundus together. It was the romance--the poetry--of speculation andfriendship. All the vexed questions of the schools were attempted byour united strength, after our higher guide had set the example. Thethorny wilds of logic were pleasant as an enchanted ground; its driesttechnicalities treasured up as unspeakably rare and precious. Westumbled on, making discoveries at every step, and had all thingscommon. Each lesson in mental philosophy opened up some mystery of ourimmortal nature, and seemed to bring us nearer the horizon of absolutetruth, which again receded as we advanced, and left us, like childrenpursuing the rainbow, to resume the chase. In truth, we had much ofthe character of childhood in these pursuits--light-heartedness, wonder, boundless hope, engrossment with the present, carelessnessof the future. Our old world daily became new; and the real world ofthe multitude to us was but a shadow. It was but the outer world, the _non-ego_, standing at the mercy of speculation, waiting to beconfirmed or abolished in the next debate; while the inner world, inwhich truth, beauty, and goodness had their eternal seat, should stillsurvive and be all in all. The play of the intellect with these subtleand unworldly questions was to our minds as inevitable as the stagesof our bodily growth. Happy was it for us that the play of affectionwas also active--nay, by sympathy excited to still greater liveliness;and that a higher wisdom suffered us not in all these flowery mazesto go astray. "[2]

[Footnote 2: _Fragments of College and Pastoral Life_, pp. 24-25. ]

From indications contained in the brief Memoir from which thisextract is taken, as well as from references in his correspondence, it would appear that about this time he subjected his religious beliefsto a careful scrutiny in the light cast upon them by his philosophicalstudies. From this process of testing and strain he emerged with hisfaith established on a yet firmer basis than before. One result ofthis experience may perhaps be found in a letter to his father, in which he tells him that he has been weighing the claims of theChristian ministry as his future calling in life. He feels theforce of its incomparable attractions, but doubts whether he isfitted in elevation and maturity of character to undertake so vasta responsibility. Besides, he is painfully conscious of personalawkwardness in the common affairs of life, and unfitness for thepractical management of business. And so he thinks he will takeanother year to think of it, during which he will complete hisCollege course. 

He spent the summer of 1839 with the Donaldson family at their countryseat at Auchairn, near Ballantrae, in south Ayrshire, occupyingmost of his leisure hours in mathematical and physical studies inpreparation for the work of the coming winter. In the session of1839-40, his last at the University, he attended the classes ofNatural Philosophy and Rhetoric, taking the first place in the latterand only just missing it in the former. He attended, besides, SirWilliam Hamilton's private classes, and was much at his house and inhis company. In April 1841 he took his M. A. Degree, coming out firstin Classics and Philosophy, and being bracketed first in Mathematics. Among his fellow-students his reputation was maintained not merely bythe honours he gained in the class lists, but by his prowess in thedebating arena. Besides continuing his membership in the MetaphysicalSociety, he had also been, since the spring of 1839, a member ofthe Diagnostic, one of the most flourishing of the older students'debating societies. Of the Diagnostic he speedily became the life andsoul, and discussed with ardour such questions as the Repeal of theCorn Laws, Vote by Ballot, and the Exclusion of Bishops from theHouse of Lords. One memorable debate took place on the SpiritualIndependence of the Church, then the most burning of all Scottishpublic questions. The position of the Non-Intrusion party in theEstablished Church was maintained by Cairns's friend Clark, while hehimself led on the Voluntary side. The debate lasted two nights, and, to quote the words of one who was present, "Cairns in reply swept allbefore him, winning a vote from those who had come in curiosity, andsecuring a large Liberal majority. Amidst a scene of wild enthusiasmwe hoisted his big form upon our shoulders, and careered round the oldquadrangle in triumph. Indeed he was the hero of our College life, leaving all others far behind, and impressing us with the idea thathe had a boundless future before him. "[3]

[Footnote 3: _Life and Letters_, pp. 94-95. ]

CHAPTER IV

THE STUDENT OF THEOLOGY

Over Cairns's life during his last session at the University therehung the shadow of a coming sorrow. His father's health, which hadnever been robust, and had been failing for some time, at length quitebroke down; and it soon became apparent that, although he might lingerfor some time, there was no hope of his recovery. In the earlier daysof his illness the father was able to write, and many letters passedbetween him and his student son. The following extracts from hisletters reveal the character of the man, and surely furnish anillustration of what was said in a former chapter about the educativeeffect of religion on the Scottish working-man:--

"DUNGLASS, _Dec_, 23, 1839. 

"I would not have you think that I am overlooking the Divine agency inwhat has befallen me. I desire to ascribe all to His glory and praise, who can bring order out of confusion and light out of darkness; and Idesire to look away from human means to Him who is able to kill and tomake alive, knowing that He doth not grieve willingly nor afflict thechildren of men. "

"DUNGLASS, _Jan_. 5, 1840. 

"As I have no great pain except what arises from coughing, I havereason to bless the Lord, who is dealing so bountifully with me. . . . It would be unpardonable in me were I not endeavouring to make myselffamiliar with death in the forms and aspects in which he presentshimself to the mind. Doubts and fears sometimes arise lest I shouldbe indulging in a false and presumptuous hope, and, as there is greatdanger lest we should be deceived in this momentous concern, we cannotbe too anxious in ascertaining whether our hope be that of the Gospel, as set forth in His Word of truth. Still, through the grace and mercyof the Lord Jesus Christ, whom, I trust upon scriptural grounds, Ican call my Saviour, I am enabled to view death as a friend and asdeprived of its sting, and this is a source of great comfort to me andcheers my drooping mind. I can say that my Beloved is mine and I amHis, and that He will make all things to work together for His ownglory and my eternal good. Dear son, I have thus opened my mind toyou, and I trust that your prayers will not be wanting that my faithmay be strengthened, and that all the graces of the Holy Spirit mayabound in me, to the glory of God through our Lord Jesus Christ. "

During this and part of the next year Cairns remained in Mr. Donaldson's family, and his relations with that family as a whole, aswell as his special work in the tuition of the young son and daughterof the house, were of the most agreeable kind. He had by this time, however, formed some intimate friendships in Edinburgh, and there wereseveral pleasant and interesting houses that were always open to him. One of these deserves special mention. Among his most intimate Collegefriends was James McGibbon Russell, a distinguished student of SirWilliam Hamilton, and one of the founders of the Metaphysical Society. Russell was the son of a Perthshire parish minister, but his parentswere dead, and he lived with an uncle and aunt, Mr. And Mrs. ArchibaldWilson, whose own family consisted of two sons and three daughters. Cairns was introduced by Russell to the Wilson family, and soon becameintimate with them. His special friend--at last the dearest friendhe had in this world--was the younger son, George, afterwards thewell-known chemist and Professor of Technology in the Universityof Edinburgh. No two men could be less alike--George Wilson with abright, alert, nimble mind; Cairns with an intellect massive like hisbodily frame, and characterised chiefly by strength and momentum; andyet the two fitted into each other, and when they really got to knoweach other it might truly be said of them that the love between themwas wonderful, passing the love of women. 

By the midsummer of 1840 Cairns had come to a final decision about hisfuture calling. "I have, " he wrote to his father on 13th June, "aftermuch serious deliberation and prayer to God for direction, made up mymind to commence this year the study of divinity, with a view to theoffice of the ministry of the Gospel. I pray you, do implore the graceof God on my behalf, after this very grave and solemn determination. "

The Secession Church, to which he belonged, and to whose ministry hedesired to seek admission, had no theological tutors who were setapart for the work of teaching alone. Its professors, of whom therewere four, were ministers in charges, who lectured to the studentsduring the two holiday months of August and September. The curriculumof the "Divinity Hall, " as it was called, consisted of five of theseshort sessions. During the remaining ten months of each year thestudent, except that he had to prepare a certain number of exercisesfor the Presbytery which had him under its charge, was left very muchto do as he pleased. 

Cairns entered the Hall, at that time meeting in Glasgow, in theAugust of 1840. Of the four professors who were on the staff of theinstitution, and all of whom were capable men, only two need herebe mentioned. These were Dr. Robert Balmer of Berwick and Dr. John Brown of Edinburgh. Dr. Balmer was a clear-headed, fair-mindedtheologian--in fact, so very fair, and even generous, was he wontto be in dealing with opponents that he sometimes, quite unjustly, incurred the suspicion of being in sympathy, if not in league, withthese opponents. He is specially interesting to us in this place, because Cairns succeeded him first in his pulpit, and then, after along interval, in his chair. Dr. Brown, the grandson and namesake ofthe old commentator of Haddington, was a man of noble presence andnoble character, whose personality "embedded in the translucent amberof his son's famous sketch" is familiarly known to all lovers ofEnglish literature. He was the pioneer of the scientific expositionof the Scriptures in the Scottish pulpit, and was one of the firstexegetical theologians of his time. His point of view may be seen in afrequent criticism of his on a student's discourse: "That is truth andvery important truth, but it is not _the_ truth that is taught in thispassage. " Being so, it was simply "matter in the wrong place, " _dirt_to be cleared away as speedily as possible. 

Cairns had been first attracted to Dr. Brown by his speeches on theAnnuity Tax, an Edinburgh ecclesiastical impost for which he hadsuffered the spoiling of his goods, and he had been for more than ayear a member of his church in Broughton Place; but it was only nowthat he came to know him really well. Henceforth his admiration forDr. Brown, and the friendship to which Dr. Brown admitted him, wereto be amongst the most powerful influences of his life. Among hisfellow-students at the Hall were several young men of brilliantpromise, such as John Ker, who had been first prizeman in the Logicclass in Hamilton's first session, W. B. Robertson, Alexander MacEwen, Joseph Leckie, and William Graham. Of these, Graham, bright, witty, versatile, the most notorious of punsters and the most illegible ofwriters, was his chief intimate, and their friendship continuedunbroken and close for half a century. 

But meanwhile the shadow was deepening over the home at Dunglass. Allthrough the autumn and early winter his father was slowly sinking. Hewas only fifty-one, but he was already worn out; and his disease, ifdisease it might be called, had many of the symptoms of extreme oldage. His son saw him for the last time near the close of the year. "I cannot say, " he wrote to Miss Darling, "that depression of spiritswas the only, or even the chief, emotion with which I bade farewellto my father. There was something so touching in his patience andresignation, so calm and inwrought in his meek submission to theDivine will, that it affected me more strongly than raptures ofreligious joy could have done. He displays the same evenness of temperin the sight of death as has marked his equable and consistent life. "

He died in the early morning of 3rd January 1841. His son William thusdescribes the scene: "It was the first time any of us except ourmother had looked on the face of the dying in the act of departing, and that leaves an impression that can never be effaced. When the endcame, and each had truly realised what had happened, our mother in abroken voice asked that 'the Books' might be laid on the table; thenshe gave out that verse in the 107th Psalm--

 'The storm is changed into a calm At his command and will; So that the waves that raged before, Now quiet are and still. '

It was her voice, too, that raised the tune. Then she asked Thomas toread a chapter of the Bible and afterwards to pray. We all knelt down, and Thomas made a strong effort to steady his voice, but he failedutterly; then the dear mother herself lifted the voice of thanksgivingfor the victory that had been won, and after that the neighbours werecalled in. "[4]

Cairns was soon to have further experience of anxiety in respect tothe health of those who were near to him. Towards the close of theyear in which his father died, his brother William, who had almostcompleted his apprenticeship to a mason at Chirnside, in Berwickshire, was seized with inflammation, and for some weeks hung between life anddeath. At length he recovered sufficiently to be removed under hiselder brother's careful and loving supervision to the EdinburghInfirmary, where he remained for four months. During all that timeCairns visited his brother twice every day, he taught himself to applyto the patient the galvanic treatment which had been prescribed, andbrought him an endless supply of books, periodicals, and good thingsto eat and smoke. 

[Footnote 4: It would appear that it was not an uncommon custom inScotland in former times to have family worship immediately aftera death. Perhaps, too, this verse from the 107th Psalm was the oneusually sung on such occasions. There may be a reminiscence of this, due to its author's Seceder training, in a passage in Carlyle's_Oliver Cromwell_, where, after describing the Protector's death, and the grief of his daughter Lady Fauconberg, he goes on to say, "Husht poor weeping Mary! Here is a Life-battle right nobly done. Seest thou not

 'The storm is changed into a calm At his command and will; So that the waves that raged before, Now quiet are and still. 

 Then are _they_ glad, because at rest And quiet now they be: So to the haven he them brings, Which they desired to see. '"

In the end of 1842 George Wilson was told by an eminent surgeon thathe must choose between certain death and the amputation of a footinvolving possible death. He agreed at once to the operation beingperformed, but begged for a week in which to prepare for it. He hadalways been a charming personality, and had lived a life that wasoutwardly blameless; but he had never given very serious thought toreligion. Now, however, when he was face to face with death, the greateternal verities became more real to him, and during the week ofrespite the study of the New Testament and the counsel and sympathyand prayers of his friend Cairns prepared him to face his trial withcalmness, and with "a trembling hope in Christ" in his heart. Thetwo friends, who had thus been brought so closely together, werehenceforth to be more to each other than they had ever been before. 

The next year, 1843, was a memorable one in the ecclesiastical historyof Scotland. Cairns, though not sympathising with the demand of theNon-Intrusion party in the Church of Scotland for absolute spiritualindependence within an Established Church, had an intense admirationfor Chalmers, and was filled with the greatest enthusiasm when heand the party whom he led on the great 18th of May clung fast tothe Independence and left the Establishment behind them. Indeed hisenthusiasm ran positively wild, for it is recorded that, when thegreat procession came out of St. Andrew's Church, Cairns wenthurrahing and tossing up his hat in front of it and all the way downthe hill to Tanfield Hall. To Miss Darling, who had no sympathy withthe Free Church movement, he wrote: "I know our difference of opinionhere. But you will pardon me for saying that I have never felt moreprofound emotions of gratitude to God, of reverence for Christianity, of admiration of moral principle, and of pride in the honesty andcourage of Scotsmen, than I did on that memorable day. "

In the autumn of this year he was able to carry out a project whichhe had had before him, and for which he had been saving up his moneyfor a long time. This was the spending of a year on the Continent. It was by no means so common in those days as it has since become fora Scottish theological student to attend a German University. Indeed, until the early Forties of last century, such a thing was scarcelyknown. Then, however, the influence of Sir William Hamilton, and theinterest in German thought which his teaching stimulated, created thedesire to learn more about it at its source. 

It is natural that this movement should have affected the students ofthe Secession Church before it reached those of the Establishment; fornot only were they less occupied with the great controversy of the dayand its consequences, but their short autumn session left them freeto take either a winter or a summer _semester_, or both, at a GermanUniversity without interrupting their course at home. The late Dr. W. B. Robertson of Irvine used to lay claim to having been the pioneerof these "landlouping students of divinity. " John Ker and othersfollowed him; and when Cairns set out in 1843, quite a large companyof old friends were expected to meet at Berlin. Cairns's departure wasdelayed by the illness of James Russell, who was to have accompaniedhim, but he set out towards the end of October. He had accepted anappointment as _locum tenens_ for four weeks in an English Independentchapel at Hamburg, which delayed his arrival at Berlin until afterthe winter _semester_ had commenced. But this interlude was greatlyenjoyed both by himself and by the little company of English merchantswho formed his first pastoral charge, and who, on a vacancy occurring, made a strong but fruitless attempt to induce him to remain as theirpermanent minister. 

Arrived in Berlin, he joined his friends--Nelson, Graham, Wallace, and Logan Aikman. With Nelson he shared a room in the Luisenstrasse, where they set up that household god of all German students--a"coffee-machine, " with the aid of which, and some flaming _spiritus_, they brewed their morning and evening beverage. They dined in themiddle of the day at a neighbouring restaurant, on soup, meat, vegetables, and black bread, at a cost of threepence. 

At the University, Cairns heard four or five lectures daily, taking among others the courses of Neander on Christian Dogmatics, Trendelenburg on History of Philosophy, and Schelling, the last ofthe great philosophers of the preceding generation, on Introductionto Philosophy. Of these, Schelling impressed him least, and Neandermost. Through life he had a deep reverence for Neander, whom heregarded, with perhaps premature enthusiasm, as the man who sharedwith Schleiermacher the honour of restoring Germany to a believingtheology. 

Here is the description he gives of him in a letter from Berlin toGeorge Wilson: "Suppose yourself in a large square room filled withStudiosi, each with his inkstand and immense _Heft_ before him andready to begin, when precisely at 11. 15 a. M. In shuffles a littleblack Jew, without hat in hand or a scrap of paper, and strides up toa high desk, where he stands the whole time, resting his elbows uponit and never once opening his eyes or looking his class in the face;the worst type of Jewish physiognomy in point of intellect, thoughwithout its cunning or sensuality; the face meaningless, pale, andsallow, with low forehead, and nothing striking but a pair of enormousblack eyebrows. The figure is dressed in a dirty brown surtout, blueplush trousers, and dirty top-boots. It begins to speak. The voice isloud and clear, and marches on with academic stateliness and gravity, and even something of musical softness mixes with its notes. Suddenlythe speaker turns to a side. It is to spit, which act is repeatedevery second sentence. You now see in his hands a twisted pen, whichis gradually stripped of every hair and then torn to pieces in thecourse of his mental working. His feet, too, begin to turn. The leftpirouettes round and round, and at the close of an emphatic periodstrikes violently against the wall. When he has finished his lecture, you see only a mass of saliva and the rags of his pen. Neander isout of all sight the most wonderful being in the University. Forknowledge, spirituality, good sense, and indomitable spirit of thefinest discretion on moral subjects, the old man is a real marvelevery way. In private he is the kindest but also the most awkward ofmortals. His lectures on _Dogmatik_ and _Sittenlehre_ I value beyondall others, and I would gladly have come to Berlin to hear him alone. "

Besides hearing these University lectures, Cairns read Germanphilosophy and theology for nine or ten hours daily, took lessons inHebrew from a young Christian Jew named Biesenthal, [5] and in theseshort winter months acquired such a mastery of German as a spokenlanguage that in the spring he was urged by Professor Tholuck ofHalle to remain and qualify as a Privatdocent at a German University. He also gained a knowledge of men and things German, and a livinginterest in them, which he retained through life. 

[Footnote 5: Afterwards author of a learned but fantastic Commentaryon the Epistle to the Hebrews. Biesenthal had an enthusiasticreverence for what in the hands of others were the dry details ofHebrew Grammar. "Herr Doctor, " a dense pupil once asked him, "oughtthere not to be a Daghesh in that Tau?" "God forbid!" was thehorrified reply. ]

At the close of the winter _semester_, the last weeks of which hadbeen saddened by the news of James Russell's death; he set out on atour extending over three months, and planned to include the principalcities and sights of Central and Southern Europe. He had only about£20 in his pocket, but he made this cover all the expenditure thatwas necessary for his modest wants. He travelled alone and, wheneverit was possible, on foot, in the blouse and peaked cap of a Germanworkman, and with a light knapsack strapped on his shoulders. Heavoided hotels and lived cheaply, even meanly; but, with his splendidhealth, simple tastes, and overflowing interest in all that he saw, this did not greatly matter. 

His classical studies, and an already wide knowledge of Europeanhistory, suggested endless interesting associations with the placesthrough which he passed; and the picture galleries furnished him withmaterials for art criticisms which, considering that he had had fewopportunities of seeing paintings, surprise one by their insight andgrasp. At Wittenberg we find him standing by the grave of Lutherin the Castle Church, and reflecting on the connection between hispresence there and the life and work of the man whose body lay below. "But for him there had neither been a Scotland to send out pilgrimstudents of theology, nor a Germany to receive them. "

At Halle he has interesting interviews with Tholuck and JuliusMüller; from Dresden he diverges to Herrnhut, where he witnesses theordination of a Moravian missionary and takes part in a love-feast. AtPrague, that wonderful city where the barbaric East begins, he findshis deepest interest stirred by the Jewish burying-ground and thehoary old synagogue. And so he passes on from city to city, and fromland to land, by Vienna, Salzburg, and Munich, to Innsbruck, thenceover the Brenner to Trent and Venice, and by Bologna to Florence andRome. Returning by Genoa, Milan, and the Italian Lakes, he passes intoSwitzerland, and travels homeward by the Rhine. During this tour, when, in spite of the heat, he frequently walked forty-five or fiftymiles a day, he had little time for letter-writing; but a smallpaper-covered book, in which he each night jotted down in pencil hisimpressions of what he had seen during the past day, has fortunatelybeen preserved. From this three brief extracts may be made, and mayserve as specimens of the whole, which is virtually reproduced entirein Dr. MacEwen's Biography. The first contains a description of theJewish cemetery at Prague: "Through winding, filthy, pent-up, andover-peopled lanes, in the part of the old town next the river, heapedup with old clothes, trinket-ware, villainous-looking bread, andhorrid sausages, one attains to an open space irregularly and rudelywalled in and full of graves. The monuments date from the tenthcentury. No language can give an idea of its first impression. At oneend one sees innumerable masses of grey weather-beaten stones in everygrotesque angle of incidence and coincidence, but all rude and mean, covered with mystic Hebrew letters and half-buried amid long grass, nettles, and weeds. The place looks exactly as if originally acollection of dunghills or, perhaps, of excavated earth, left to itsnatural course after the corpses had been thrown in and the rudebillets set over them. The economy of the race is visible in theirmeasure for the dead, and contrasts wonderfully with the roominessand delicate adornment of German churchyards in general. The hoarantiquity of the place is increased by a wilderness of alders whichgrow up around the walls and amidst the stones, twisted, tangled, stunted, desolately old and yet renewing their youth, a true type ofthe scattered, bruised, and peeled, yet ineradicable Israel itself. "

An incident at Novi, between Genoa and Milan, is thus described:"I had strolled into a vineyard behind the town, quite lonely andcrowned with one cottage. On one of the secluded paths I found a littlegirl lying on the grass, with her face turned up to the sun and fastasleep. The breeze played beautifully with her hair, and her dressfluttered and rustled, but there she lay, and nothing but the heavingof her frame, which could hardly be distinguished from the agitationof the wind, proved that she was only asleep. I stood gazing for along while, thinking of the Providence that watched alike over thechild in its slumberings and the pilgrim in his wanderings; and asI saw her companions playing at no great distance, I left the spotwithout awakening the absent little one. As I was passing the cottagedoor, however, I was overtaken by the mother in evident agitation. Shepointed along the path I had come by, as if she feared her child hadwandered to the highway or been lost amid the wild brushwood that grewon that side of the vineyard. I soon made her understand that the_piccolina_ was just behind her, and waited till she bounded away andreturned with the crying thing in her arms, loading it with gentlereproaches and me with warm expressions of gratitude. "

At Milan it must be admitted that he goes into raptures over theCathedral, but one is glad to note that he reserves an ample tributeof enthusiasm for the old church of St. Ambrose: "In the cloister ofSt. Ambrose I saw the famous cypress doors which the saint closedagainst Theodosius, time-worn but solid; the brazen serpent, the finepulpit with the bas-relief of the Agape, and the veritable Episcopalchair of marble, with solid back and sides, and lions embossed at thecorners, in which he sat in the councils of his presbyters. It isalmost the only relic I have done any honour to. I knelt down andkissed it, and forgot for the time that I was both Protestant andPresbyterian. "

After a stormy and perilous voyage from Antwerp, he reached Newcastlein the first week of August, and started at once for Edinburgh tobe present at the opening of the Divinity Hall. At the Dunglasslodge-gate his brother David, who was waiting for a letter which hehad promised to throw down from the "Magnet" coach as he passed, caught a hurried glimpse of him, lean and brown as a berry after hisexertions and his exposure to the Italian sun. On the followingSaturday he put his pedestrian powers to the proof by walking fromEdinburgh to Dunglass, when he covered the thirty-five and a halfmiles in seven hours and fifty minutes, having stopped only twice onthe way--once in Haddington to buy a biscuit, and once at a waysidewatering-trough to take a drink. 

The Hall session of 1844 was Cairns's last, and the next step for himto take in ordinary course was to apply to a Presbytery for license asa probationer. He had, however, some hesitation in taking this step, mainly because he was not quite clear whether the real work of hislife lay in the discharge of the ordinary duties of the ministry, orwhether he might not render better service by devoting himself, asopportunity offered, more exclusively to theological and literary workin behalf of the Christian faith. His friend Clark, whom he consultedin the matter, strongly urged him to decide in favour of the latteralternative. His speculative and literary faculties, he urged, hadalready been tested with brilliant results; his powers as a preacher, on the other hand, were as yet an unknown quantity, and Clark thoughtit doubtful if they would be appreciated by an average congregation. The struggle was severe while it lasted, but it ended in Cairnsdeciding to go on to the ministry in the ordinary way. In November1844 be applied to the Edinburgh Presbytery of the Secession Churchfor license, and he received it at their hands in the followingFebruary. He had not long to wait for a settlement. Dr. Balmer ofBerwick, one of his divinity professors, had died while he was inSwitzerland, and on his deathbed had advised his congregation to waituntil Cairns had finished his course before electing a successor. Accordingly, it was arranged that he should preach in Golden SquareChurch, Berwick, a few weeks after he received license. The resultwas that a unanimous and enthusiastic call was addressed to him. Hereceived another invitation from Mount Pleasant Church, Liverpool, of which his friend Graham was afterwards minister; but, after somehesitation, he decided in favour of Berwick. 

Meanwhile changes had been taking place in the home circle atDunglass. His brother William, whose illness has been alreadyreferred to, had now passed beyond all hope of recovering the use ofhis limbs. Having set himself resolutely to a course of study andmental improvement under his brother John's guidance, he was able toaccept a kindly proposal made to him by Sir John Hall of Dunglass, that he should become the teacher of the little roadside school atOldcambus, which John had attended as a child. On the marriage of hiseldest brother in the summer of 1845 the widowed mother came to keephouse for him, and henceforth the Oldcambus schoolhouse became thefamily headquarters. But that summer brought sorrow as well as change. Another brother, James, a young man of vigorous mental powers, andoriginally of stalwart physique, who had been working at his trade asa tailor in Glasgow, fell into bad health, which soon showed thesymptoms of rapid consumption. He came home hoping to benefit by thechange, but it became increasingly clear that he had only come hometo die. He lingered till the autumn, and passed away at Oldcambusat the end of September. It was with this background of change andshadow that the ordination of John Cairns took place at Berwick onAugust 6, 1845. 

CHAPTER V

GOLDEN SQUARE

Berwick is an English town on the Scottish side of the Tweed. As allthat remained to England of the Scottish conquests of Edward I. , itwas until the Union of the Crowns the Calais of Scotland. It thus cameto be treated as in a measure separate from England although belongingto it, and was for a long time separately mentioned in English Acts ofParliament, as it still is in English Royal Proclamations. This statusof semi-independence which it so long enjoyed has helped to give it anindividuality more strongly marked than that of most English towns. 

In religious matters Berwick has more affinity to Scotland than toEngland. John Knox preached in the town for two years by appointmentof the Privy Council of Edward VI. , and in harmony with his influenceits religious traditions were in succeeding generations stronglyPuritan, and one of its vicars, Luke Ogle, was ejected forNonconformity in 1662. 

After the Revolution of 1688 this tendency found expression in therise and growth of a vigorous Presbyterian Dissent; and in theearly years of the eighteenth century there were two flourishingcongregations in the town in communion with the Church of Scotland. But as these soon became infected with the Moderatism which prevailedover the Border, new congregations were formed in connection withthe Scottish Secession and Relief bodies, and it was of one ofthese--Golden Square Secession Church--that John Cairns becamethe fourth minister in 1845. 

Berwick is one of the very few English towns which still retain theirancient fortifications. The circuit of the walls, which were built inthe reign of Elizabeth, with their bastions, "mounts, " and gates, isstill practically complete, and is preserved with care and pride. Afew ruins of the earlier walls, which Edward I. Erected, and whichenclosed a much wider area than is covered by the modern town, stillremain; also such vestiges of the once impregnable Castle as have notbeen removed to make way for the present railway-station. Beyond this, there is little about Berwick to tell of its hoary antiquity and itseventful history. But its red-roofed houses, rising steeply from theleft bank of the Tweed, and looking across the tidal river to thevillages of Tweedmouth and Spittal, have a picturesqueness of theirown, whether they are seen when the lights and shadows of a summer dayare playing upon them, or when they are swathed in the white folds ofa North Sea _haar_. 

The Berwick people are shrewd, capable, and kindly, and combine manyof the good qualities of their Scotch and Northumbrian neighbours. Their dialect is in some respects akin to the Lowland Scotch, withwhich it has many words in common; and it has also as a prominentfeature that rising intonation, passing sometimes almost into awail, which one hears all along the eastern Border. But the greatoutstanding characteristic of Berwick speech is the _burr_ a roughguttural pronunciation of the letter "i. " With nothing but the scantyresources of our alphabet to fall back upon, it is quite impossible torepresent this peculiarity phonetically, but it was once remarked by astudent of Semitic tongues that the sound of the Hebrew letter 'Ayinis as nearly as possible that of the burr, and that, if you wantto ascertain the correct Hebrew pronunciation of the name _Ba'al_, all you have got to do is to ask any Alderman of Berwick to say"_Barrel"_[6]

[Footnote 6: Some words are very hard to pronounce with a burr inone's throat. Dr. Cairns used to tell that on one occasion, long afterhe had got well used to the sound of the Berwick speech, he was underthe belief that a man with whom he was conversing was talking abouta _boy_ until he discovered from the context that his theme wasa _brewery_. ]

In 1845 the population of Berwick was between 8000 and 9000. "Itincluded, " says Dr. MacEwen, "some curious elements. " Not the leastcurious and dubious of these was that of the lower class of the oldFreemen of the Borough. These men had an inherited right to the use oflands belonging to the Corporation, which they let; and to a vote at aParliamentary election, which they sold. When an election drew near, it was a maxim with both political parties that the Freemen must beconciliated at all costs; and the Freemen, knowing this, were quiteprepared to presume on their knowledge. Once, at an election time, ithappened that in the house of a prominent political leader in Berwicka fine roast of beef was turning before the kitchen fire, and wasnearly ready for the dinner table, when a Freeman walked in, liftedit from the spit, and carried it off. No one dared to say him nay, for had he not a vote? and might not that vote turn the election?

At the other end of the social scale were the half-pay officers, the members of neighbouring county families, and the attorneys anddoctors, who in some degree constituted the aristocracy of Berwick, and most of whom attended the Episcopalian Parish Church. The bulkof the shopkeepers and tradesmen, with some of the professional menand a large proportion of the working people, were Dissenters, andwere connected with one or other of the half-dozen Presbyteriancongregations in the town. Of these that of which Cairns was theminister was the most influential and the largest, having a membershipof about six hundred. 

The church was in Golden Square, of which it may be said that it isneither a square nor yet golden, but a dingy close or court opening byan archway from the High Street, the main thoroughfare of Berwick. Thebuilding was till recently a tannery, but the main features of it arestill quite distinguishable. It stood on the left as one entered fromHigh Street, and it had the usual high pulpit at its farther end, witha precentor's desk beneath it, and the usual deep gallery supported onmetal pillars running round three of its four sides. The manse, itsdoor adorned with a decent brass knocker, stood next to the church, onthe side farthest from the street. It gave one a pleasant surprise onentering it to find that only its back windows looked out on the dimlittle "square. " In front it commanded a fine view of the river, herecrossed by a quaint old bridge of fifteen arches, which, owing to theexigencies of the current, is much higher at the Berwick end than atthe other, and, as an Irishman once remarked, "has its middle all onone side. " For some little time, however, after Cairns's settlement, he did not occupy the manse, but lived in rooms over a shop in BridgeStreet; and when at length he did remove into it, he took his landladywith him and still remained her lodger. 

For the first five years of his ministry Cairns devoted himselfentirely to the work which it entailed upon him, and steadily refusedto be drawn aside to the literary and philosophical tasks which manyof his friends urged him to undertake. He had decided that his work inBerwick demanded his first attention, and, until he could ascertainhow much of his time it would absorb, he felt that he could not gobeyond it. On the early days of the week he read widely and hard onthe lines of his Sunday work, and the last three days he devoted towriting out and committing to memory his two sermons, each of whichoccupied about fifty minutes in delivery. The "committing" of hissermons gave him little or no trouble, and he soon found that it couldbe relegated without anxiety to Saturday evening. And he got into thehabit of preparing for it by a Saturday afternoon walk to the littleyellow red-capped lighthouse at the end of Berwick Pier. At the upperend of the pier was a five-barred gate, and on the way back, whenhe thought that nobody was looking, he would vault over it with arunning leap. 

His preaching from the first made a deep impression. Following theold Seceder tradition, and the example of his boyhood's minister Mr. Inglis, and of his professor Dr. Brown, his discourse in the forenoonwas always a "lecture" expository of some extended passage ofScripture, and forming one of a consecutive series; while that in theafternoon followed the familiar lines of an ordinary sermon. But therewas nothing quite ordinary in his preaching at any time. Even whenthere was no unusual flight of eloquence, there was always to benoted the steady march of a strong mind from point to point till theconclusion had been reached; always a certain width and elevation ofview, and always the ring of irresistible conviction. And although thediscourse had been committed to memory and was reproduced in the verywords that had been written down in the study, no barrier was therebyinterposed between the preacher and his hearers. Somehow--at leastafter the first few paragraphs--when he had properly warmed to hiswork, the man himself seemed to break through all restraints andcome into direct and living contact with his hearers. 

His action sermon, _i. E. _ the sermon preached before the Communion, was always specially memorable and impressive. He had the subjectchosen weeks, and sometimes even months, beforehand, and, as he had noother sermon to write for the Communion Sunday, he devoted the wholeof the preceding week to its preparation. His action sermons, whichwere those he usually preached on special occasions when he was awayfrom home, dealt always with some theme connected with the Person orWork of Christ. They were frequently apologetic in their conceptionand structure, full of massive argument, which he had a remarkablepower of marshalling and presenting so as to be understood by all; butthe argument, reinforced by bursts of real eloquence, always convergedon the, exaltation of the Redeemer. "I never thought so much of him asI do to-day, " said one of his hearers to another after one of thesesermons, "I never thought so much of Christ as I do to-day, " repliedthe other; and that reply showed that in at least one case the purposeof the preacher in preparing and delivering his sermon had beenfulfilled. 

On the Sunday evening Cairns had a Bible-class of over one hundredyoung men and women, to which he devoted great care and attention. "It was the best hour of the day to us, " wrote one who was a member ofthis class. "He was nearer us, and we were nearer him, than in church. The grandeur and momentum of his pulpit eloquence were not there, butwe had instead a calm, rich, conversational instruction, a quietdisclosure of vast stores of information, as well as a definitedealing with young hearts and consciences, which left an unfadingimpression. "

But Cairns was no mere preacher and teacher. He put out his fullstrength as truly in his pastoral work as in his work for and inthe pulpit. He visited his large congregation statedly once a year, offering prayer in each house, and hearing the children repeat a psalmor portion of Scripture which he had prescribed the year before. Hetimed these visits so accurately that he could on one occasion banterone of his elders on the fact that he had received more than hisdue in one year, because the last visitation had been on the 1st ofJanuary and this one was on the 31st of December. A good part of hisvisiting had to be done in the country, because a considerable sectionof his congregation consisted of farmers or hinds from Northumberland, from the "Liberties of Berwick, " and even from Scotland, which firstbegins three miles out from the town. These country visitationsusually concluded with a service in a barn or farm-kitchen, to whichworshippers came from far and near. 

But besides this stated and formal visitation, which was intimatedfrom the pulpit, constant attention was bestowed on the sick, thebereaved, the poor, the tempted, and all others who appealed speciallyto the minister's heart or his conscience. And yet there was no senseof task-work or of a burden to be borne about his relations to hiscongregation. His exuberant frankness of manner, contrasting as thisdid with the reserved and somewhat stiff bearing of his predecessorDr. Balmer, won the hearts of all. And his keen sense of the ludicrousside of things often acted as an antiseptic, and kept him right bothwith himself and with his people. 

Once, however, as he used to tell, it brought him perilously near todisaster. He was in the middle of his sermon one Sunday afternoon inGolden Square. It was a hot summer day, and all the doors and windowswere open. From the pulpit he could look right out into the square, and as he looked he became aware of a hen surrounded by her youngfamily pecking vigorously on the pavement in search of food, andclucking as she pecked. All at once an overwhelming sense of thedifference between the two worlds in which he and that hen were livingtook possession of him, and it was with the utmost difficulty that herestrained himself from bursting into a shout of laughter. As it was, he recovered himself with a mighty gulp and finished the servicedecorously enough. 

Cairns was also assisted in his work by his phenomenal powers ofmemory. After reading a long sermon once, or at most twice over, hecould repeat it verbatim. Once when he was challenged by a friend todo so, he repeated, without stopping, the names of all the childrenin his congregation, apologising only for his imperfect acquaintancewith two families who had recently come. Another instance of this isperhaps not so remarkable in itself, but it is worth mentioning onother grounds. Five-and-thirty years after the time with which weare now dealing, when he was a professor in Edinburgh, some of hisstudents were carrying on mission work in a growing district of thecity. An iron church was erected for them, but the contractor, anEnglishman, before his work was finished was seized with illness anddied. He was buried in one of the Edinburgh cemeteries, and Dr. Cairnsattended the funeral. Having ascertained from the widow of the deadman that he had belonged to the Church of England, he repeated at thegrave-side the whole of the Anglican Burial Service. When he was askedafterwards how he had thus come to know that Service without book, hereplied that he had unconsciously got it by heart in the early days ofhis Berwick ministry, before there was either a cemetery or a BurialsAct, when he had been compelled to stand silent and hear it read atthe funerals of members of his own congregation in the parishchurchyard. 

Rather more than a year and a half after his ordination, in May 1847, the Secession Church in which he had been brought up, and of which hewas now a minister, entered into a union with another of the Scottishnon-Established Churches, the Synod of Relief. There was thus formedthe United Presbyterian Church, with which his name was afterwards tobe so closely associated. The United Church comprised five hundredand eighteen congregations, of which about fifty were, like those inBerwick, in England; the nucleus of that English Synod which, thirtyyears later, combined with the English Presbyterian Church to formthe present Presbyterian Church of England. References in hiscorrespondence show that this union of 1847, which afterwards had suchhappy results, excited at the time little enthusiasm, and was enteredinto largely as a matter of duty. "It is, " he writes, "like the union, not of two globules of quicksilver which run together of themselves, but of two snowballs or cakes of mud that need in some way very toughoutward pressure. I hope that the friction will elicit heat, sincethis neither cold nor hot spirit is not to edification. "

The other letters of this period range over a wide variety ofsubjects. With John Clark he compares experiences of ministerialwork; with John Nelson he discusses European politics as these havebeen affected by the events of the "year of revolutions, " 1848; withGeorge Wilson he discourses on every conceivable topic, from abstruseproblems of philosophy and theology to the opening of the NorthBritish Railway; while his mother and his brothers, William and David, the latter of whom about this time left his work in the Dunglass woodsto study for the ministry, are kept in touch with all that he knowsthey will best like to hear about. But in all this wide field of humanlife and thought and activity, which he so eagerly traverses, it isquite evident that what attracts him most is the relation of it allto a higher and an eternal order. With him the main interest is areligious one. Without an atom of affectation, and without anythingthat is at all morbid on his part, he reveals this at a hundredpoints. In this connection a letter which he wrote to Sir WilliamHamilton and which has since become well known, may be quoted here;and it, with Sir William's reply, will fittingly conclude the presentchapter. This letter bears date November 16, 1848, and is asfollows:--

"I herewith enclose the statement respecting the Calabar Mission ofour Church, which I take blame to myself for having so long delayed tosend. My avocations are very numerous, and a habit of procrastination, where anything is to be written, has sadly grown on me with time. Icannot even send you this brief note without testifying, what I couldnot so well utter in your presence, my unabated admiration of yourphilosophical genius and learning, and my profoundly grateful sense ofthe important benefits received by me both from your instructions andprivate friendship, I am more indebted to you for the foundation ofmy intellectual habits and tastes than to any other person, and shallbear, by the will of the Almighty, the impress of your hand throughany future stage of existence. It is a relief to my own feelings tospeak in this manner, and you will forgive one of the most favouredof your pupils if he seeks another kind of relief--a relief which hehas long sought an opportunity to obtain--the expression of a wishthat his honoured master were one with himself in the exercise ofthe convictions, and the enjoyment of the comforts, of livingChristianity, or as far before himself as he is in all otherparticulars. This is a wish, a prayer, a fervent desire oftenexpressed to the Almighty Former and Guide of the spirits of men, mingled with the hope that, if not already, at least some time, thisaccordance of faith will be attained, this living union realised withthe great Teacher, Sacrifice, and Restorer of our fallen race. Youwill pardon this manifestation of the gratitude and affection of yourpupil and friend, who, if he knew a higher, would gladly give it asa payment of a debt too great to be expressed. I have long ago beentaught to feel the vanity of the world in all its forms--to renouncethe hope of intellectual distinction, and to exalt love aboveknowledge. Philosophy has been to me much; but it can never be all, never the most; and I have found, and know that I have found, the truegood in another quarter. This is mysticism--the mysticism of theBible--the mysticism of conscious reconciliation and intimacy with theliving Persons of the Godhead--a mysticism which is not like that ofphilosophy, an irregular and incommunicable intuition, but open toall, wise and unwise, who take the highway of humility and prayer. IfI were not truly and profoundly happy in my faith--the faith of theuniversal Church--I would not speak of it. The greatest increase whichit admits of is its sympathetic kindling in the hearts of others, notleast of those who know by experience the pain of speculation, thetruth that he who increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. I know youwill indulge these expressions to one more in earnest than in formeryears, more philanthropic, more confident that he knows in whom hehas believed, more impressed with the duty of bearing everywhere atestimony to the convictions which have given him a positive holdat once of truth and happiness. 

"But I check myself in this unwonted strain, which only yourlong-continued and singular kindness could have emboldened me toattempt; and with the utterance of the most fervent wishes for yourhealth, academical success, and inward light and peace, I remain yourobliged friend and grateful pupil. "

To which Sir W. Hamilton replied as follows:--

"EDINBURGH, _Dec_. 4, 1848. 

"I feel deeply obliged to you for the kindness of your letter, andtrust that I shall not prove wholly unworthy of the interest you takein me. There is indeed no one with whom I am acquainted whosesentiments on such matters I esteem more highly, for there is no onewho, I am sure, is more earnest for the truth, and no one who pursuesit with more independence and, at the same time, with greaterconfidence in the promised aid of God. May this promised aid bevouchsafed to me. "[7]

[Footnote 7: _Memoir of Sir W. Hamilton_, pp. 299-301. ]

CHAPTER VI

THE CENTRAL PROBLEM

It was confidently expected, not merely by Cairns's personal friendsbut by others in a much wider circle, that he would make a name forhimself in the world of letters and speculative thought. It was notonly the brilliance of his University career that led to thisexpectation, for, remarkable as that career had been, there have beenmany men since his time who, so far as mere prize taking is concerned, have equalled or surpassed him--men who never aroused and would nothave justified any high-pitched hopes about their future. But Cairns, in addition to gaining academic distinctions, seems to have impressedhis contemporaries in a quite exceptional degree with a sense of hispower and promise. Professor Masson, writing of him as he was inhis student days, thus describes him: "There was among us one whomwe all respected in a singular degree. Tall, strong-boned, andgranite-headed, he was the student whom Sir William Hamilton himselfhad signalised and honoured as already a sterling thinker, and thestrength of whose logic, when you grappled with him in argument, seemed equalled only by the strength of his hand-grip when you met himor bade him good-bye, or by the manly integrity and nobleness of hischaracter. "[8] And again, writing of him as he was at a later date, the same critic gives this estimate of his old fellow-student's mentalcalibre: "I can name one former student of Sir William Hamilton's, nowa minister in what would be accounted in England one of the straitestsects of Scottish Puritanism, and who has consecrated to the duties ofthat calling a mind among the noblest I have known and the mostlearned in pure philosophy. Any man who on any subject of metaphysicalspeculation should contend with Dr. Cairns of Berwick-on-Tweed, wouldhave reason to know, ere he had done with him, what strength foroffence and defence there may yet be in a Puritan minister'shand-grip. "[9]

[Footnote 8: _Macmillan's Magazine_, December 1864, p. 139. ]

[Footnote 9: _Recent British Philosophy_, pp. 265-66. ]

That this is no mere isolated estimate of a partial friend it wouldnot be difficult to prove. This was what his friends thought of him, and what they had taught others outside to think of him too. The time, however, had now come when it had to be put to the proof. During thefirst five years of his ministry at Berwick, as we have seen, Cairnsdevoted himself entirely to his work in Golden Square. He must learnto know accurately how much of his time that work would take up, before he could venture to spend any of it in other fields. But in1850 he felt that he had mastered the situation, and accordingly hebegan to write for the Press. The ten years between 1850 and 1860 wereyears of considerable literary activity with him, and it may be saidat once that their output sustained his reputation, and even addedto it. There falls to be mentioned first a Memoir of his friend JohnClark, who, after a brief and troubled ministerial career, had died ofcholera in 1849. Cairns's Life of him, prefixed to a selection fromhis Essays and Sermons, fills only seventy-seven small pages, and itis in form to a large extent a defence of metaphysical studies againstthose who regard them as dangerous to the Christian student. But itcontains many passages of great beauty and tenderness, and delineatesin exquisite colours the poetry and romance of College friendships. "I am greatly charmed, " wrote the author of _Rab and his Friends_to Cairns, "with your pages on the romance of your youthfulfellowship--that sweet hour of prime. I can remember it, can feel it, can scent the morn. "[10]

[Footnote 10: See above, pp. 44-45. ]

In 1850 the _North British Review_, which had been started some yearspreviously in the interests of the Free Church, came under theeditorship of Cairns's friend Campbell Fraser. Although he was a FreeChurch professor, he resolved to widen the basis of the _Review_, andhe asked Cairns to join his staff, offering him as his province Germanphilosophy and theology. Cairns assented, and promised to furnish twoarticles yearly. The first and most important of these was one whichappeared in 1850 on Julius Müller's _Christian Doctrine of Sin_. Thisarticle, which is well and brightly written, embraces not merely acriticism of the great work whose name stands at the head of it, butalso an elaborate yet most lucid and masterly survey of the variousschools of theological thought which were then grouping themselves inGermany. Other contributions to the _North British_ during the nextfour years included articles on "British and Continental Ethics andChristianity, " on "The Reawakening of Christian Life in Germany, " andon "The Life and Letters of Niebuhr"; while yet other articles sawthe light in the _British Quarterly Review_, the _United PresbyterianMagazine_, and other periodicals. In 1858 appeared the importantarticle on "Kant, " in the eighth edition of the _EncyclopediaBritannica_, which was written at the urgent request of his friendAdam Black, and which cost him ten months reading and preparation. 

As has been already said, his reputation appears to have been fullymaintained by these articles. They brought him into touch with manyinteresting people, such as Bunsen and F. D. Maurice; and, in Scotland, deepened the impression that he was a man with a future. In 1852John Wilson resigned the Professorship of Moral Philosophy in theUniversity of Edinburgh, and the Town Council, who were the patronsof the chair, took occasion to let Cairns know that he might havethe appointment if he desired it. He declined their offer, and withcharacteristic reticence said nothing about it either to his relativesor to his congregation. He threw himself, however, with great ardourinto the support of the candidature of his friend Professor P. C. M'Dougall, who ultimately was elected to the post. 

Four years later Sir William Hamilton died, and a fierce fight ensuedas to who was to be his successor. The two most prominent candidateswere Cairns's friend Campbell Fraser, then Professor of Logic in theNew College, Edinburgh, and Professor James Frederick Ferrier of St. Andrews. Fraser was then a Hamiltonian and Ferrier was a Hegelian, anda great hubbub arose between the adherents of the two schools. Thiswas increased and embittered by the importation of ecclesiastical andpolitical feeling into the contest; Fraser being a Free Churchman, and Ferrier receiving the support of the Established Church and Toryparty. The Town Council were very much at sea with regard to thephilosophical controversy, and, through Dr. John Brown, they requestedCairns to explain its merits to them. Cairns responded by publishinga pamphlet entitled _An_ _Examination of Professor Ferrier's Theoryof Knowing and Being_. This pamphlet had for its object to show thatFerrier's election would mean a renunciation of the doctrines which, as expounded by Hamilton, had added so greatly to the prestige of theUniversity in recent times as a school of philosophy, and also toexpose what the writer conceived to be the dangerous character ofFerrier's teaching in relation to religious truth. It increasedthe storm tenfold. Replies were published and letters sent to thenewspapers abusing Cairns, and insinuating that he had been led bya private grudge against Ferrier to take the step he had taken. Itwas also affirmed that he was acting at the instigation of the FreeChurch, who wanted to abolish their chair of Logic in the New College, but could not well do so so long as they had its present incumbenton their hands. A doggerel parody on _John Gilpin_, entitled "TheDiverting History of John Cairns, " in which a highly coloured accountis given of the supposed genesis of the pamphlet, was written andfound wide circulation. The first two stanzas of this effusion werethe following:--

 "John Cairns was a clergyman Of credit and renown, A first-rate U. P. Church had he In far-famed Berwick town. 

 John likewise had a loving friend, A mighty man of knowledge, The Rev. A. C. Fraser, he Of the sanctified New College. "

Cairns found it needful to issue a second pamphlet, _ScottishPhilosophy: a Vindication and Reply_, in which, while tenaciouslyholding to what he had said in the last one, he challenged Ferrier tomention one single instance in which he had made a personal attackon him. When at length the vote came to be taken, and Fraser waselected by a majority of three, there were few who doubted that theintervention of the Berwick minister had been of critical importancein bringing about this result. 

Two years later George Wilson, who was now a professor in theUniversity, had the satisfaction of intimating to his friend thathis _alma mater_ had conferred on him the degree of D. D. , and in thefollowing year (1859) a much higher honour was placed within hisreach. The Principalship of the University became vacant by the deathof Dr. John Lee, and the appointment to the coveted post, like thatto the two professorships, was in the hands of the Town Council. Itwas informally offered to Cairns through one of the councillors, butagain he sent a declinature, and again he kept the matter carefullyconcealed. It was not, in fact, until after his death, when thecorrespondence regarding it came to light, that even his own brothersknew that at the age of forty this great and dignified office mighthave been his. 

These declinatures on Cairns's part of philosophical posts, or poststhe occupation of which would give him time and opportunity for doingoriginal work in philosophy, are not on the whole difficult tounderstand when we bear in mind his point of view. He had, aftercareful deliberation, given himself to the Christian ministry, andhe meant to devote the whole of his life to its work. He was not tobe turned aside from it by the attractions of any employment howevercongenial, or of any leisure however splendid. His speculative powershad been consecrated to this object, as well as his active powers, andwould find their natural outlet in harmony with it. And so the hopesof his friends and his own aspirations must be realised in his work, not in the field of philosophy but in that of theology. Accordingly, he decided to follow up his work in the periodicals by writing a book. He took for his subject "The Difficulties of Christianity, " and madesome progress with it, getting on so far as to write several chapters. Then he was interrupted and the work was laid aside. The great bookwas never written, nor did he ever write a book worthy of his powers. A moderate-sized volume of lectures on "Unbelief in the EighteenthCentury, " a volume of sermons, most of which were written in the firstfifteen years of his ministry, a Memoir of Dr. Brown, --these, with theexception of a quantity of pamphlets, prefaces, and magazine articles, were all that he gave to the world after the time with which we arenow dealing. How are we to account for this? The time in which helived was a time of great intellectual activity and unsettlement--timethat, in the opinion of most, needed, and would have welcomed, theguidance he could have given; and yet he stayed his hand. Why did hedo so? This is the central problem which a study of his life presents, and it is one of no ordinary complexity; but there are someconsiderations relating to it which go far to solve it, and theseit may be worth while for us at this point to examine. 

At the outset, something must be allowed for the special characterof the influence exerted on Cairns by Sir William Hamilton. Thatinfluence was profound and far-reaching. In the letter to Hamiltonwhich was quoted at the end of the preceding chapter, Cairns tells hismaster that he must "bear, by the will of the Almighty, the impress ofhis hand through any further stage of existence, " and, strong as theexpression is, it can scarcely be said to be an exaggeration. ButHamilton's influence, while it called out and stimulated his pupil'spowers to a remarkable degree, was not one which made for literaryproductiveness. He was a great upholder of the doctrine that truth isto be sought for its own sake and without reference to any ulteriorend, and he had strong ideas about the discredit--the shamefulness, as it seemed to him--of speaking or writing on any subject until ithad been mastered down to its last detail. This attitude preventedHamilton himself from doing full justice to his powers and learning, and its influence could be seen in Cairns also--in his delight instudies the relevancy of which was not always apparent, and in acertain fastidiousness which often delayed, and sometimes evenprevented, his putting pen to paper. 

But another and a much more important factor in the problem is to befound in the old Seceder ideal of the ministry in which he was trainedand which he never lost. It has been truly said of him that "he neverall his life got away from David Inglis and Stockbridge any more thanCarlyle got away from John Johnston and Ecclefechan. " According to theSeceder view, there is no more sublime calling on earth than that ofthe Christian ministry, and that calling is one which concerns itselffirst and chiefly with the conversion of sinners and the edifying ofsaints. This work is so awful in its importance, and so beneficentin its results, that it must take the chief place in a minister'sthoughts and in the disposition of his time; and if it requires thesole place, that too must be accorded to it. "To me, " wrote Cairns toGeorge Gilfillan in 1849, "love seems infinitely higher than knowledgeand the noblest distinction of humanity--the humble minister who wearshimself out in labours of Christian love in an obscure retreat as amore exalted person than the mere literary champion of Christianity, or the recondite professor who is great at Fathers and Schoolmen. Ireally cannot share those longings for intellectual giants to confrontthe Goliath of scepticism--not that I do not think such persons usefulin their way, but because I think Christianity far more impressiveas a life than as a speculation, and the West Port evangelism ofDr. Chalmers far more effective than his Astronomical Discourses. "[11]

[Footnote 11: _Life and Letters_, p. 307. ]

It was to the ministry, as thus understood, that Cairns had devotedhimself at the close of his University course and again just before hetook license as a probationer, when for a short time, as we have seen, he had been drawn aside by the attractions of "sacred literature. " Henever thought of becoming a minister and was putting his main strengthinto philosophy and theology. Not that he now forswore all interest ineither, but from the moment of his final decision, he had determinedthat the mid-current of his life should run in a different direction. 

Yet another important factor in the case is to be found in thecircumstances of his Berwick ministry. Had his lot been cast in aquiet country place, with only a handful of people to look after, thegreat book might yet have been written. But he had to attend to acongregation whose membership was at first nearly six hundred, andafterwards rose to seven hundred and eighty and, with his standardof pastoral efficiency, this left him little leisure. Indeed it iswonderful that, under these conditions, he accomplished so much ashe did--that he wrote his _North British_ articles, maintained areputation which won for him so many offers of academic posts, and atthe same time laid the foundation of a vast and spacious learning inPatristic and Reformation theology. Akin to his strictly ministerialwork, and flowing out of it, was the work he did for his Church asa whole--the share he took in the Union negotiations with the FreeChurch during the ten years that these negotiations lasted, and theendless round of church openings and platform work to which hisgrowing fame as a preacher and public speaker laid him open. 

But there is one other consideration which, although it is to someextent involved in what has already been said, deserves separate andvery special attention. Although his friends and the public regrettedhis withdrawal from the speculative field, it is not so clear that heregretted it himself. He had, it is true, worked in it strenuouslyand with conspicuous success, and had revealed a natural aptitude forChristian apologetics of a very high order. But it does not appearthat either his heart or his conscience were ever fully engaged in thework. He never seemed as if he were fighting for his life, because healways seemed to have another and an independent ground of certaintyon which he based his real defence. There is a passage in his Life ofClark which bears upon this point so closely that it will be well toquote it here:--

"The Christian student is as conscious of direct intercourse withJesus Christ as with the external world, or with other minds. This isthe very postulate of living Christianity. It is a datum or revelationmade to a spiritual faculty in the soul, as real as the externalsenses or any of the mental or moral faculties, and far more exalted. This living contact with a living person by faith and prayer is, likeall other life, ultimate and mysterious, and must be accepted by himin whom it exists as its own sufficient explanation and reason, justas the principles of natural intelligence and conscience, to which itis something superadded, and with which, in this point of view, thoughin other respects higher, it is co-ordinate. No one who is living incommunion with Jesus Christ, and exercising that series of affectionstowards Him which Christianity at once prescribes and creates, candoubt the reality of that supernatural system to which he has beenthus introduced; and nothing more is necessary than to appeal to hisown experience and belief, which is here as valid and irresistible asin regard to the existence of God, of moral distinctions, or of thematerial world. He has no reason to trust the one class of beliefswhich he has not, to trust the other. . . . To minds thus favoured, thisforms a _point d'appui_ which can never be overturned--an _aliquidinconcussum_ corresponding to the '_cogito ergo sum_' of Descartes. Their faith bears its own signature, and they have only to look withinto discover its authenticity. Philosophy must be guided by experience, and must rank the characters inscribed on the soul by grace at leastas sacred as those inscribed by nature. Such persons need not that anyman should teach them, for they have an unction from the Holy One; andto them applies the highest of all congratulations: 'Blessed art thou;for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but My Fatherwhich is in heaven. '"[12]

[Footnote 12: _Fragments of College and Pastoral Life_, pp. 38-40. ]

These words contain the true explanation of Cairns's life. There wasin it the "_aliquid inconcussum_"--the "unshaken somewhat"--which madehim independent of other arguments, and which kept him untouched byall the intellectual attacks on Christianity. Other people who hadnot this inward testimony, or who, having it, could not regard it asunshaken by the assaults of infidelity, he could argue with and seekto meet them on their own intellectual ground; but for himself, anyvictories gained here were superfluous, any defects left him unmoved. Was it always so with him? Or was there ever a time when he wascarried off his feet and had to struggle for dear life for hisChristian faith amid the dark waters of doubt?

There are indications that on at least one occasion he subjected hisbeliefs to a careful scrutiny, and, referring to this later, he spokeof himself as one who, in the words of the Roman poet, had been "muchtossed about on land and on the deep ere he could build a city. "This, coming from one who was habitually reticent about his religiousexperiences, may be held as proving that there was no want of rigourin the process, no withholding of any part of the structure from thestrain. But that that structure ever gave way, that it ever cametumbling down in ruins about him so that it had to be built againon new foundations, there is no evidence to show. The "_aliquidinconcussum_" appears to have remained with him all through theexperience. This seems clear from a passage in a letter written in1848 to his brother David, then a student in Sir William Hamilton'sclass, in which he says; "I never found my religious susceptibilitiesinjured by metaphysical speculations. Whether this was a singularfelicity I do not know, but I have heard others complain. "[13]

[Footnote 13: _Life and Letters_, p. 295. ]

This, taken in conjunction with the passage quoted above fromClark's Life, in which it is hard to believe that he is not speakingof himself, seems decisive enough, and in a mind of such speculativegrasp and activity it is remarkable. "Right down through thestorm-zone of the nineteenth century, " writes one who knew him well, "he comes untroubled by the force of the '_aliquid inconcussum_. 'Edinburgh, Germany, Berwick; Hamilton, Kant, Hegel, Strauss, Renan, itis all the same. The cause seems to me luminously plain. Saints arenever doubters. His religious intuitions were so deep and clear thathe was able always to find his way by their aid. They gave him hisindependent certainty, his '_aliquid inconcussum_. '"

His influence on the religious life of his time was largely due tothe spiritual faculty in him that is here referred to. He was thepower he was, not so much because of his intellectual strength asbecause of his character, --because he was "a great Christian. " Butin this respect he had the defects of his qualities; and it is opento question whether he ever truly appreciated the formidable characterof modern doubt, just because he himself had never had full experienceof its power, because the iron of it had never really entered intohis soul. 

George Gilfillan, who, with all his defects, had often gleams of realinsight, wrote thus in his diary 14th January 1863: "I got yesterdaysent me, per post, a lecture by John Cairns on 'Rationalism, Ritualism, and Pure Religion, ' or some such title, and have read itwith interest, attention, and a good deal of admiration of its abilityand, on the whole, of its spirit. But I can see from it that he isnot the man to grapple with the scepticism of the age. He has notsufficient sympathy with it, he has not lived in its atmosphere, hehas not visited its profoundest or tossed in its stormiest depths. Intellectually and logically he understands it as he understands mostother matters, but sympathetically and experimentally he does not. "

There is a considerable amount of truth in this, although it islacking somewhat in the sympathy which the critic desiderates in theman he is criticising. Cairns did not feel that the battle with moderndoubt was of absolutely overwhelming importance, and this, along withthe other things to which reference has been made, kept him fromgiving to the world that new statement of the Christian position whichhis friends hoped to get from him, and which he at one time hoped tobe able to give. 

CHAPTER VII

THE APOSTLE OF UNION

The close of the period dealt with in the last chapter was made sadlymemorable to Cairns by the death of some of his closest friends. InOctober 1858 died the venerable Dr. Brown, with whom, since he was astudent, he had stood in the closest relations, and whom he reveredand habitually addressed as a father. In November 1859 the brightspirit of George Wilson, the dearest of all his friends, passed away;and in the same year he had to mourn the loss of Miss Darling, thecorrespondent and adviser of his student days. His brave old motherdied in the autumn of 1860, and in the following year he lost anotherold and dear friend in Mrs. Balmer, the widow of his predecessor inGolden Square, who perhaps knew him better than his own mother, andhad been deeper in his confidence than anyone since he came toBerwick. From this period he became more reserved. With all hisfrankness there was always a characteristic reticence about him, andthis was less frequently broken now that those to whom he had sofreely poured out his soul had been taken from him. But he drew closerto those who were still left--especially to his own kindred, to hissisters, to his brother William at Oldcambus, and to his brotherDavid, who had now been settled for some years as minister atStitchel, near Kelso. [14]

[Footnote 14: His eldest brother, Thomas, had died from the effects ofan accident in 1856. ]

Dr. Brown had nominated him as one of his literary executors, andhis family were urgent in their request that he should write theirfather's Life. With great reluctance he consented, and for eighteenmonths this task absorbed the whole of his leisure, to the completeexclusion of the work on "The Difficulties of Christianity, " withwhich he had already made some progress. The undertaking was a labourof love, but it cannot be said to have been congenial. Memoir writingwas not to his taste, and in this case he had made a stipulation thatstill further hampered him and made success very difficult. This wasthat he should omit, as far as possible, all personal details, andleave these to be dealt with in a separate chapter which Dr. Brown'sson John undertook to furnish. This chapter was not forthcoming whenthe volume had to go to press, and was separately issued some monthslater. When the inspiration did at length come to "Dr. John, " it camein such a way as to add a new masterpiece to English literature, andone which, while it gave a wonderfully living picture of the writer'sfather, disclosed to the world as nothing else has ever done the true_ethos_ and inner life of the Scottish Secession Church. The Memoiritself, of which this "Letter to John Cairns, D. D. " is thesupplementary chapter, is a sound and solid bit of work, giving anaccurate and interesting account of the public life of Dr. Brown andof the movements in which he took part. It is, as William Graham saidof it, "a thoughtful, calm, conclusive book, perhaps too reticent andcolourless, but none the less like Dr. Brown because of that. "

No sooner was this book off his hands than Cairns was urged toundertake another biographical work--the Life of George Wilson. Butthis, in view of his recent experience, he steadfastly refused todo, and contented himself with writing a sketch of his friend for thepages of _Macmillan's Magazine_. When, however, Wilson's biographywas taken in hand by his sister, Cairns promised to help her in everypossible way with his advice and guidance, and this he did from weekto week till the book was published. This help on his part wascontinued by his seeing through the press Wilson's posthumous book, _Counsels of an Invalid_, which appeared in 1862. With the completionof this task he seemed to be free to return to his theological work, and he did return to it; but his release turned out to be only a briefrespite. In 1863 the ten years' negotiations for Union between theFree and United Presbyterian Churches, in which he felt impelled totake a prominent and laborious part, were begun, and they absorbednearly all of his leisure during what might have been a productiveperiod of his life. When he emerged from them he was fifty-four yearsof age, he had passed beyond the time of life when his creative powerswere at their freshest, and the general habits of his life and linesof his activity had become settled and stereotyped. 

This is not the place in which to enter into a detailed account of theUnion negotiations. That has been done with admirable lucidity andskill by such writers as Dr. Norman Walker in his Life of Dr. RobertBuchanan, and by Dr. MacEwen in his Life of the subject of the presentsketch, and it does not need to be done over again. But somethingmust be said at this point to indicate the general lines which thenegotiations followed and to make Cairns's relation to them clear. That he should have taken a keen and sympathetic interest in any greatmovement for ecclesiastical union was quite what might have beenexpected. What interested him in Christian truth, and what he had, ever since he had been a student, set himself specially to expound anddefend, were the great catholic doctrines which are the heritage ofthe one Church of Christ. Constitutionally, he was disposed to makemore of the things that unite Christians than of those which dividethem; and, while he was loyally attached to his own Church, many ofhis favourite heroes, as well as many of his warmest personal friends, belonged to other Churches. Hence anything that made for Union wasentirely in line with his feelings and his convictions. Thus he hadthrown himself heartily into the work of the Evangelical Alliance, andat its memorable Berlin Meeting of 1857 had created a deep impressionby an address which he delivered in German on the probable results ofa closer co-operation between German and British Protestantism. In thesame year he took part in a Conference in Edinburgh which had beensummoned by Sir George Sinclair of Ulbster to discuss the possibilityof Church Union at home. And when in 1859 the Union took place in theAustralian Colonies of the Presbyterian Churches which bore the namesof the Scottish Churches from which they had sprung, it was to a largeextent through his influence that the Australian United Presbyterianstook part in the Union. 

His ideal at first was of one great Presbyterian Communion co-extensivewith the English language, and separately organised in the differentcountries and dependencies in which its adherents were to be found, but having one creed and one form of worship and complete freedom fromall State patronage and control. But, as the times did not seem ripefor such a vast consummation, he made no attempt to give his ideal apractical form, and concentrated his energies on the lesser movementwhich was beginning to take shape for a union of the PresbyterianChurches in England and the non-Established Presbyterian Churches inScotland. He was one of those who brought this project before theSynod of the United Presbyterian Church in May 1863, when he appearedin support of an overture from the Berwick Presbytery in favour ofUnion. The overture was adopted with enthusiasm, and the Synod agreedby a majority of more than ten to one to appoint a committee to conferwith a view to Union with any committee which might be appointed bythe Free Church General Assembly. The Free Church Assembly, which meta fortnight later, passed a similar resolution unanimously, althoughnot without a keen discussion revealing elements of opposition whichwere afterwards to gather strength. 

It is quite possible that, as competent observers have suggested, if the enthusiasm for the project which then existed had been takenadvantage of at once, Union might have been carried with a rush. But the able men who were guiding the proceedings thought it saferto advance more slowly; and, when the Joint Union Committee met, they went on to consider in detail the various points on which thetwo Churches differed. These had reference almost entirely to therelations between Church and State. The United Presbyterians were, almost to a man, "Voluntaries, " _i. E. _ they held that the Church oughtin all cases to support itself without assistance from the State, andfree from the interference which, in their view, was the inevitableand justifiable accompaniment of all State establishments. The FreeChurchmen, on the other hand, while maintaining as their cardinalprinciple that the Church must be free from all State interference, and while therefore protesting against the existing Establishment, held that the Church, if its freedom were adequately guaranteed, might lawfully accept establishment and endowment from the State. Anelaborate statement was drawn up exhibiting first the points on whichthe two Churches were agreed with regard to this question, and thenthe points on which they differed. From this it appeared that theywere at one as to the duty of the State--or, in the language of theWestminster Confession, the "Civil Magistrate"--to make Christian lawsand to administer them in a Christian spirit. The Civil Magistrateought, it was agreed, to be a Christian, not merely as a man but as amagistrate. The only vital point of difference was with regard to thequestion of Church establishments--as to whether it was part of theChristian Civil Magistrate's duty to establish and endow the Church. But, as it seemed to be a vain hope that the Free Church would everget an Establishment to its mind, it was urged that this was a merematter of theory, and might be safely left as an "open question" in aUnited Church. The statement referred to, which is better known as the"Articles of Agreement, " was not ready to be submitted in a final formto the Synod and Assembly of 1864, and the Committee, which was nowreinforced by representatives from the Reformed Presbyterian Churchand from the Presbyterian Church in England, was reappointed to carryon its labours. 

But meanwhile clouds were beginning to appear on the horizon. Inthe United Presbyterian Synod there was a small minority of sturdyVoluntaries who, while not opposed to Union, were apprehensive thatthe price to be paid for it would be the partial surrender of theirtestimony in behalf of their distinctive principle. They did not wishto impose their beliefs on others, but they were anxious to reserveto themselves full liberty to hold and propagate their views in theUnited Church, and they were not sure that, by accepting the Articlesof Agreement, they were in fact doing this. The efforts of Dr. Cairnsand others were directed, not without success, to meeting theirdifficulties. But in the Free Church a more formidable oppositionbegan to show itself. There had always been a conservative elementin that Church, represented by men who held tenaciously to the moreliteral interpretation of its ecclesiastical documents and traditions;and, as the discussions went on, it became clear that the hopelessnessof a reconciliation with the Establishment was not so universally feltas had been at first supposed. The supporters of the Union movementincluded almost all the trusted leaders of the Church--men like Drs. Candlish, Buchanan, Duff, Fairbairn, Rainy, and Guthrie, Sir HenryMoncreiff, Lord Dalhousie, and Mr. Murray Dunlop, most of whom hadgot their ecclesiastical training in the great controversy which hadissued in the Disruption; but all their eloquence and all their skilldid not avail to allay the misgivings or silence the objections of theother party. At length in 1867 a crisis was reached. The Articles ofAgreement, after having been finally formulated by the Committee, had been sent down to Presbyteries for their consideration; and thereports of the Presbyteries were laid on the table of the Assemblyof that year. The question now arose, Was it wise, in view of theopposition, to take further steps towards Union? The Assembly by346 votes to 120 decided to goon; whereupon the Anti-Union leadersresigned the seats which up to this time they had retained on theUnion Committee. 

It is true that, after the Committee had been relieved of thishostile element, considerable and rapid progress was made. Hopes werecherished for a time that the Union might yet be consummated, andthe determination was expressed to carry it through at all hazards. But the Free Church minority, ably led and knowing its own mind, stubbornly maintained its ground. Its adherents, who included perhapsone-third of the ministers and people of the Church, were speciallynumerous in the Highlands, where United Presbyterianism waspractically unrepresented. 

Here most distorted views were held of the Voluntaryism which most ofits ministers and members professed. It was represented as equivalentto National Atheism, and from this the transition was an easy one, especially in districts where few of the people had even seen a UnitedPresbyterian, to the position that an upholder of National Atheismmust himself be an Atheist. It became increasingly clear, as the yearspassed, that if the Union were to be forced through, there must bea new Disruption, and a Disruption which would cost the Free Churchthose Highland congregations which for thirty years it had been itsglory to maintain. Moreover, it was currently reported that theAnti-Union party had taken the opinion of eminent counsel, and thatthese had declared that, in the event of a Disruption taking placeon this question of Union, the protesting minority would be legallyentitled to take with them the entire property of the Church. Theconviction was forced on the Free Church leaders (and in this theywere supported by their United Presbyterian brethren) that the timewas not yet ripe for that which they so greatly desired to see, andthat even for Union the price they would have to pay was too great. And so with heavy hearts they decided in 1873 to abandon thenegotiations which had been proceeding for ten years. All that theyfelt themselves prepared to carry was a proposal that Free Churchor United Presbyterian ministers should be "mutually eligible" forcalls in the two Churches--a proposal that did not come to much. 

Three years later, the Reformed Presbyterian Church united with theFree Church, and in the same year (1876) the United PresbyterianChurch gave up one hundred and ten of its congregations, which unitedwith the English Presbyterian Church and thus formed the presentPresbyterian Church of England. The original idea, at least on theUnited Presbyterian side, had been that all the negotiating bodiesshould be welded into one comprehensive British Church; but this, especially in view of the breakdown of the larger Union, proved to beunworkable, and the final result for the United Presbyterians was thatthey came out of the negotiations a considerably smaller and weakerChurch than they had been when they went into them. 

In all the labours and anxieties of these ten years Dr. Cairns hadborne a foremost part. At the meetings of the Union Committee he tookan eager interest and a leading share in the discussions; and, whilenever compromising the position of his Church, he did much to set itin a clear and attractive light. In the United Presbyterian Synod, where it fell to his lot year by year to deliver the leading speech insupport of the Committee's report, his eloquence, his sincerity, andhis enthusiasm did not a little to reassure those who feared thatthere was a tendency on the part of their representatives to concedetoo much, and did a very great deal to keep his Church as a wholesteadily in favour of Union in spite of many temptations to have donewith it. Dr. Hutton, one of those advanced Voluntaries who had neverbeen enthusiastic about the Union proposals, wrote to him at the closeof the negotiations: "We have reached this stage through your vastpersonal influence more than through any other cause. "

Outside of the Church Courts he delivered innumerable speeches atpublic meetings which had been organised in all parts of the countryin aid of the Union cause. These more than anything else led him to beidentified in the public mind with that cause, and gained for him thename of the "Apostle of Union. " The meetings at which these speecheswere delivered were mostly got up on the Free Church side, where thereseemed to be more need of missionary work of this kind than on hisown, and his appearances on these occasions increased the favour withwhich he was already regarded in Free Church circles. "The chiefattraction of Union for me, " an eminent Free Church layman is reportedto have said, "is that it will bring me into the same Church with JohnCairns. "

That he was deeply disappointed by the failure of the enterprise onwhich his hopes had been so much set, he did not conceal; but he neverbelieved that the ten years' work had been lost, and he never doubtedthat Union would come. He did not live to see it, but when, on October31, 1900, the two Churches at length became one, there were many inthe great gathering in the Waverley Market who thought of him, andof his strenuous and noble labours into which they were on that dayentering. Dr. Maclaren of Manchester gave expression to these thoughtsin his speech in the evening of the day of Union, when, after payinga worthy tribute to the great leader to whose skill and patience thegoodly consummation was so largely due, he went on to say: "But allduring the proceedings of this day there has been one figure and onename in my memory, and I have been saying to myself, What would JohnCairns, with his big heart and his sweet and simple nature, have saidif God had given him to see this day! 'These all died in faith, nothaving received the promises. . . God having provided some better thingfor us. '"

CHAPTER VIII

WALLACE GREEN

All the time occupied by the events described in the last twochapters, Dr. Cairns was carrying on his ministry in Berwick withunflagging diligence. True to his principle, he steadily devoted tohis pulpit and pastoral work the best of his strength, and always letthem have the chief place in his thoughts. He gave to other thingswhat he could spare, but he never forgot that he had determined to bea minister first of all. His congregation had prospered greatly underhis care, and in 1859 the old-fashioned meeting-house in Golden Squarewas abandoned for a stately and spacious Gothic church with a handsomespire which had been erected in Wallace Green, with a frontage to theprincipal open square of the town. A few years earlier a new manse hadbeen secured for the minister. This manse is the end house of a row ofthree called Wellington Terrace. These stand just within the old townwalls, which are here pierced by wide embrasures. They are separatedfrom the walls by a broad walk and a row of grass-plots, alternatingwith paved spaces opposite the embrasures, on which cannon were onceplanted. The manse faces south, and is roomy and commodious. When Dr. Cairns moved into it, he had an elderly servant as his housekeeper, ofwhom he is said to have been not a little afraid; but, after a coupleof years or so, his sister Janet was installed as mistress of hishouse; and during the remaining thirty-six years of his life sheattended to his wants, looked after his health, and in a hundredprudent and quiet ways helped him in his work. 

The study at Wellington Terrace is upstairs, and is a large roomlighted by two windows. One of these looks across the river, whichat this point washes the base of the town walls, to the dingy villageof Tweedmouth, rising towards the sidings and sheds of a busyrailway-station and the Northumberland uplands beyond. The other looksright out to sea, and when it is open, and sometimes when it is shut, "the rush and thunder of the surge" on Berwick bar or Spittal sandscan be distinctly heard. In front, the Tweed pours its waters into theNorth Sea under the lee of the long pier, which acts as a breakwaterand shelters the entrance to the harbour. Far away to the right, HolyIsland, with the castle-crowned rock of Bamborough beyond it, areprominent objects; and at night, the Longstone light on the OuterFarne recalls the heroic rescue by Grace Darling of the shipwreckedcrew of the _Forfarshire_. 

Opposite this window stood the large bookcase in which Dr. Cairns'slibrary was housed. The books composing the library were neithervery numerous, very select, nor in very good condition. Although hewas a voracious reader, it must be admitted that Dr. Cairns tooklittle pride in his books. It was a matter of utter indifference tohim whether he read a favourite author in a good edition or in a cheapone. The volumes of German philosophy and theology, of which he had afair stock, remained unbound in their original sober livery, and whenany of them threatened to fall to pieces he was content to tie themtogether with string or to get his sister to fasten them with paste. One or two treasures he had, such as a first edition of Bacon's_Instauratio Magna_, a first edition of Butler's _Analogy_, and aStephens Greek Testament; also a complete set of the Delphin Classics, handsomely bound, and some College prizes. These, with the Benedictineedition of Augustine, folio editions of Athanasius, Chrysostom, andother Fathers, some odd volumes of Migne, and a considerable numberof books on Reformation and Secession theology, formed the mostnoteworthy elements in his collection. He added later a very completeset of the writings of the English Deists, and the works of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Renan. Side by side with these was what came to be avast accumulation of rubbish, consisting of presentation copies ofbooks on all subjects which his anxious conscience persuaded him thathe was bound to keep on his shelves, since publishers and authorshad been kind enough to send them to him. Nearly all the books thatbelonged to his real library he had read with care. Most of themwere copiously annotated, and his annotations were, as a rule, characterised by a refreshing trenchancy, --in the case of some, as of Gibbon, tempered with respect; in the case of others, as ofF. W. Newman and W. R. Greg, bordering on truculence. The only othernoteworthy objects in the study were two splendid engravings ofRaphael's "Transfiguration" and "Spasimo" (the former bearing thesignature of Raphael Morghen), which had been a gift to him from Mrs. Balmer. 

The greater part of each day was spent in this room. He could getalong with less sleep than most men; and however late he might havesat over his books at night, he was frequently in his study again longbefore breakfast. After breakfast came family worship, each item ofwhich was noteworthy. Although passionately fond of sacred music, hehad a wild, uncontrollable kind of voice in singing. He seemed to havealways a perfectly definite conception of what the tune ought to be, but he was seldom able to give this idea an accurate, much less amelodious, expression. Yet he never omitted the customary portion ofpsalm or hymn, but tackled it with the utmost gallantry, fervour, andenthusiasm, although he scarcely ever got through a verse withoutgoing off the tune. 

His reading of Scripture had no elocutionary pretensions about it;it was quiet, and to a large extent gone through in a monotone; buttwo things about it made it very impressive. One of these was the deepreverence that characterised it, and the other was a note of subduedenthusiasm that ran all through it. It was clear to the listener thatbehind every passage read, whether it was history, psalm, or prophecy, or even the driest detail of ritual, there was visible to him a greatworld-process going on that appealed to his imagination and influencedeven the tones of his voice. And his prayers, quite unstudied as theyof course were, brought the whole company right into the presence ofthe Unseen. They were usually full of detail, --he seemed to remembereverybody and everything, --but each petition was absolutelyappropriate to the special case with which it dealt, and all werefused into a unity by the spirit of devotion that welled up throughall. After prayers he went back to his study, and nothing was heard orseen of him for some hours, except when his heavy tread was heardupstairs as he walked backwards and forwards, or when the strains ofwhat was meant to be a German choral were wafted down from above. 

The afternoon he usually spent in visiting, and, so long as heremained in Berwick, there was no more familiar figure in its streetsthan his. The tall, stalwart form, already a little bent, --but bent, one thought, not so much by the weight of advancing years as by wayof making an apology for its height, --the hair already white, themild and kindly blue eye, the tall hat worn well back on the head, the swallow-tail coat, the swathes within swathes of broad whiteneckcloth, the umbrella carried, even in the finest weather, under thearm with the handle downward, the gloves in the hands but never onthem, the rapid eager stride, --all these come back vividly to thosewho can remember Berwick in the Sixties and early Seventies of lastcentury. His visitations were still carried out with the method andpunctuality which had characterised them in the early days of hisministry, and he usually arranged to make a brief pause for tea withone of the families visited. On these occasions he would frequently bein high spirits, and his hearty and resounding laughter would breakout on the smallest provocation. That laugh of his was eminentlycharacteristic of the man. There was nothing smothered or furtiveabout it; there was not even the vestige of a chuckle in it. Its deep"Ah! hah! hah!" came with a staccato, quacking sound from somewherelow down in the chest, and set his huge shoulders moving in unisonwith its peals. The whole closed with a long breath of purestenjoyment--a kind of final licking of the lips after the feastwas over. 

Returning to his house, he always entered it by the back door, apparently because he did not wish to put the servant to the troubleof going upstairs to open the front door for him. It does not seemto have occurred to him to use a latch-key. In the evening there wasgenerally some meeting to go to, but after his return, when eveningworship and the invariable supper of porridge and milk were over, healways went back to his study, and its lights were seldom put outuntil long past midnight. 

Although his reading in these solitary hours was of course mainlytheological, he always kept fresh his interest in the classicalstudies of his youth. He did not depend on his communings with Origenand Eusebius for keeping up his Greek, but went back as often as hecould find time to Plato and to the Tragedians. Macaulay has defined aGreek scholar as one who can read Plato with his feet on the fender. Dr. Cairns could fully satisfy this condition; indeed he went beyondit, for when he went from home he was in the habit of taking a volumeof Plato or Aeschylus with him to read in the train. One of hisnephews, at that time a schoolboy, remembers reading with him, whenon a holiday visit to Berwick, through the _Alcestis_ of Euripides. It may have been because he found it necessary to frighten his youngrelative into habits of accuracy, or possibly because an outragecommitted against a Greek poet was to him the most horrid of alloutrages; but anyhow, during these studies, he altogether laid asidethat restraint which he was usually so jealous to maintain over hispowers of sarcasm and invective. He lay on the study sofa while thelesson was going on, with a Tauchnitz Euripides in his hand; butsometimes, when a false quantity or a more than usually stupidgrammatical blunder was made, he would spring to his feet and fairlyshout with wrath. Only once had he to consult a Greek lexicon for themeaning of a word; and then it turned out that the meaning he hadassigned to it provisionally was the right one. A Latin lexicon hedid not possess. 

On Sunday, Wallace Green Church was a goodly sight. Forenoon andafternoon, streams of worshippers came pouring by Ravensdowne, ChurchStreet, and Walkergate Lane across the square and into the largebuilding, which was soon filled to overflowing. Then "the Books" werebrought in by the stately beadle, and last of all "the Doctor" camehurriedly in, scrambled awkwardly up the pulpit stair, and covered hisface with his black gloved hands. [15] Then he rose, and in slowmonotone gave out the opening psalm, during the singing of which hisstrong but wandering voice could now and again be distinctly heardabove the more artistic strains of the choir and congregationrendering its tribute of praise. The Scripture lessons were read inthe same subdued but reverent tones, and the prayers were simple anddirect in their language, the emotion that throbbed through them beingkept under due restraint. The opening periods of the sermon werepitched in the same note, but when the preacher got fairly into hissubject he broke loose from such restraints, and his argument wasunfolded, and then massed, and finally pressed home with all thestrength of his intellect, reinforced at every stage by the play ofhis imagination and the glow of a passionate conviction. His "manner"in the pulpit was, it is true, far from graceful. His principalgesture was a jerking of the right arm towards the left shoulder, accompanied sometimes by a bending forward of the upper part of thebody; and when he came to his peroration, which he usually deliveredwith his eyes closed and in lowered tones, he would clasp his handsand move them up and down in front of him. But all these things seemedto fit in naturally to his style of oratory; there was not thefaintest trace of affectation in any of them, and, as a matter offact, they added to the effectiveness of his preaching. 

[Footnote 15: In accordance with the old Scottish custom, Dr. Cairnswore gloves during the "preliminary exercises, " but took them offbefore beginning the sermon. On the Sunday after a funeral hediscarded his Geneva gown in the forenoon, and, as a mark of respectto the deceased, wore over his swallow-tail coat the huge black silksash which it was then customary in Berwick to send to the ministeron such occasions. ]

In Wallace Green Dr. Cairns was surrounded by a devoted band ofoffice-bearers and others, who carried on very successful HomeMission work in the town, and kept the various organisations of thechurch in a vigorous and flourishing state. He had himself no facultyfor business details, and he left these mostly to others; but hisinfluence was felt at every point, and operated in a remarkable degreetowards the keeping up of the spiritual tone of the church's work. With his elders, who were not merely in regard to ecclesiasticalrank, but also in regard to character and ability, the leaders of thecongregation, he was always on the most cordial and intimate terms. Innumerical strength they usually approximated to the apostolic figureof twelve, and Dr. Cairns used to remark that their Christian namesincluded a surprisingly large number of apostolic pairs. Thus therewere amongst them not merely James and John, Matthew and Thomas, buteven Philip and Bartholomew. 

The Philip here referred to was Dr. Philip Whiteside Maclagan, abrother of the present Archbishop of York and of the late ProfessorSir Douglas Maclagan. Dr. Maclagan had been originally an armysurgeon, but had been long settled in general practice in Berwick insuccession to his father-in-law, the eminent naturalist, Dr. GeorgeJohnstone. It was truly said of him that he combined in himself thelabours and the graces of Luke the beloved physician and Philip theevangelist. When occasion offered, he would not only diagnose andprescribe but pray at the bedsides of his patients, and his influencewas exerted in behalf of everything that was pure and lovely and ofgood report in the town of Berwick. His delicately chiselled featuresand fine expression were the true index of a devout and beautiful soulwithin. Dr. Cairns and he were warmly attached to one another, and hewas his minister's right-hand man in everything that concerned thegood of the congregation. 

It will readily be believed that Dr. Cairns had not been suffered toremain in Berwick during all these years without strong efforts beingmade to induce him to remove to larger spheres of labour. As a matterof fact, he received in all some half-dozen calls during the course ofhis ministry from congregations in Edinburgh and Glasgow; while at oneperiod of his life scarcely a year passed without private overturesbeing made to him which, if he had given any encouragement to them, would have issued in calls. These overtures he in every case declinedat once; but when congregations, in spite of him or without havingpreviously consulted him, took the responsibility of proceedingto a formal call, he never intervened to arrest their action. He had a curious respect for the somewhat cumbrous and slow-movingPresbyterian procedure, and when it had been set in motion he feltthat it was his duty to let it take its course. 

Once when a call to him was in process which he had in its initialstages discouraged, and which he knew that he could not accept, hissister, who had set her heart on furnishing an empty bedroom in themanse at Berwick, was peremptorily bidden to stay her hand lest hemight thereby seem to be prejudging that which was not yet before him. Two of the calls he received deserve separate mention. One was in 1855from Greyfriars Church, Glasgow, at that time the principal UnitedPresbyterian congregation in the city. All sorts of influences werebrought to bear upon him to accept it, and for a time he was ingrave doubt as to whether it might not be his duty to do so. But twoconsiderations especially decided him to remain in Berwick. One wasthe state of his health, which was not at that time very good; and theother was the pathetic one, that he wanted to write that book whichwas never to be written. 

Nine years later, in 1864, a yet more determined attempt was madeto secure him for Edinburgh. A new congregation had been formed atMorningside, one of the southern suburbs of the city, and it wasthought that this would offer a sphere of work and of influence worthyof his powers. A call was accordingly addressed to him, and it wasbacked up by representations of an almost unique character and weight. The Free Church leaders, with whom he was then brought into closetouch by the Union negotiations, urged him to come to Edinburgh. Amemorial, signed by one hundred and sixty-seven United Presbyterianelders in the city, told him that, in the interests of theirChurch, it was of the utmost importance that he should do so. Anothermemorial, signed by several hundred students at the University, putthe matter from their point of view. A still more remarkable documentwas the following:--

"The subscribers, understanding that the Rev. Dr. Cairns has receiveda call to the congregation of Morningside, desire to express theirearnest and strong conviction that his removal to Edinburgh wouldbe a signal benefit to vital religion throughout Scotland, and moreespecially in the metropolis, where his great intellectual powers, hisdeep and wide scholarship, his mastery of the literature of modernunbelief, and the commanding simplicity and godly sincerity of hispersonal character and public teaching, would find an ample fieldfor their full and immediate exercise. "

This was signed (amongst others) by three Judges of the Court ofSession, by the Lord Advocate, by the Principal and seven of theProfessors of the University, and by such distinguished ministersand citizens as Dr. Candlish, Dr. Hanna, Dr. Lindsay Alexander, AdamBlack, Dr. John Brown, and Charles Cowan. It was a remarkable tribute(Adam Black in giving his name said, "This is more than ever was donefor Dr. Chalmers"), and it made a deep impression on Dr. Cairns. TheWallace Green congregation, however, sought to counteract it by anargument which amusingly shows how well they knew their man. Theyappealed to that strain of anxious conscientiousness in him which hehad inherited from his father, by urging that all these memorials were"irregular, " and that therefore he had no right to consider them incoming to his decision. They also undertook to furnish him with themeans of devoting more time to theological study than had hithertobeen at his disposal. After a period of hesitation, more painful andprolonged than he had ever passed through on any similar occasion, hedecided to remain in Berwick. He was moved to this decision, partly byhis attachment to his congregation; partly by a feeling that he coulddo more for the cause of Union by remaining its minister than wouldbe possible amid the labours of a new city charge; and partly by thehope, which was becoming perceptibly fainter and more wistful, thathe might at last find leisure in Berwick to write his book. 

But, although he did not become a city minister, he preached veryfrequently in Edinburgh and Glasgow, and indeed all over the country. His services were in constant request for the opening of churches andon anniversary occasions. He records that in the course of a singleyear he preached or spoke away from home (of course mostly on weekdays) some forty or fifty times. Wherever he went he attractedlarge crowds, on whom his rugged natural eloquence produced a deepimpression. It has been recorded that on one occasion, while a vastaudience to which he had been preaching in an Edinburgh church wasdispersing, a man was overheard expressing his admiration to hisneighbour in language more enthusiastic than proper: "He's a deevilo' a preacher!"

With all this burden of work pressing on him, it was a relief when theannual holiday came round and he could get away from it. But thisholiday, too, was usually of a more or less strenuous character, andembraced large tracts of country either at home or, more frequently, on the Continent. On these tours his keen human interest asserteditself. He loved to visit places associated with great historicevents, or that suggested to him reminiscences of famous men andwomen. And the actual condition of the people, how they lived, andwhat they were thinking about, interested him deeply. He spoke toeverybody he met, in the train, in the steamboat, or in hotels, influent if rather "bookish" German, in correct but somewhat haltingFrench, or, if it was a Roman Catholic priest he had to deal with, in sonorous Latin. And, without anything approaching cant orofficiousness, he always tried to bring the conversation round tothe subject of religion--to the state of religion in the country inwhich he was travelling, about which he was always anxious to gainfirst-hand information, and, if possible and he could do it withoutoffence, to the personal views and experiences of those with whom heconversed. He rarely or never did give offence in this respect, forthere was never anything aggressive or clamorous or prying in histreatment of the subject. 

On his return to Berwick his congregation usually expected him to givethem a lecture on what he had seen, and the MSS. Of several of theselectures, abounding in graphic description and in shrewd and oftenhumorous observation of men and things, have been preserved. It mustsuffice here to give an extract from one of them on a tour in the Westof Ireland in 1864, illustrating as it does a curious phase of Irishsocial life at that time. Dr. Cairns and a small party of friends hadembarked in a little steamer on one of the Irish lakes, and weretaking note of the gentlemen's seats, varied with occasional ruins, which were coming in view on both sides. 

"A fine ancient castle, " he goes on to say, "surrounded by treesand almost overhanging the lough, attracted our gaze for some time erewe passed it. The owner's name and character were naturally broughtunder review. 'Is not Sir ---- a Sunday man?' says one of the companyto another. 'He is. ' The distinction was new to me, and I inferredsomething good, perhaps some unusual zeal for Sabbath observanceor similar virtue. But, alas! for the vanity of human judgments. A 'Sunday man' in the West of Ireland is one who only appears on theSunday outside his own dwelling, because on any other day he would bearrested for debt. Even on a week day he is safe if he keeps to hisown house, where in Ireland, as in England, no writ can force its way. Sir ---- was also invulnerable while sitting on the grand jury, wherequite lately he had protracted the business to an inordinate length inorder to extend his own liberty. As the boat passed close beside hiscastle, a handsome elderly gentleman appeared at an open window, andwith hat in hand and a charming smile on his face made us a mostprofound and graceful salutation. We could not be insensible to somuch courtesy--since it was Sir ---- himself who thus welcomed us; butas we waved our hats in reply, one of our party, who had actually awrit out against the fine old Irish gentleman at the very time, withvery little prospect of execution, muttered something between histeeth and pressed his hat firmer down on his head than usual. Suchlandlordism is still not uncommon. The same friend is familiar withwrits against other gentlemen whose house is their castle, and to whomSunday is 'the light of the week. '"

The closing period of Dr. Cairns's ministry at Berwick was madememorable by a remarkable religious revival in the town. Following ona brief visit in January 1874 from Messrs. Moody and Sankey, who hadthen just closed their first mission in Edinburgh, a movement beganwhich lasted nearly two years. With some help from outside it wascarried on during that time mostly by the ministers of the town, assisted by laymen from the various churches, among whom Dr. Maclaganoccupied a foremost place. Dr. Cairns threw himself into this movementwith ardour, and although he did not intend it, and probably was notaware of it, he was its real leader, giving it at once the impetus andthe guidance which it needed. Besides being present, and taking somepart whenever he was at home in the crowded evangelistic meetings thatfor a while were held nightly, and in the prayer-meeting, attended byfrom one hundred and fifty to two hundred, which met every day atnoon, he must have conversed with hundreds of people seeking directionon religious matters during the early months of 1874. And, knowingthat many would shrink from the publicity of an Inquiry Meeting, hemade a complete canvass of his own congregation, in the course ofwhich by gentle and tactful means he found out those who reallydesired to be spoken to, and spoke to them. The results of themovement proved to be lasting, and were, in his opinion, wholly good. His own congregation profited greatly by it, and on the Sunday beforeone of the Wallace Green Communions, in 1874, a great company of youngmen and women were received into the fellowship of the Church. Thecatechumens filled several rows of pews in the front of the spaciousarea of the building, and, when they rose in a body to make professionof their faith, the scene is described as having been most impressive. Specially impressive also must have sounded the words which he alwaysused on such occasions: "You have to-day fulfilled your baptism vow bytaking upon yourselves the responsibilities hitherto discharged byyour parents. It is an act second only in importance to the privatesurrender of your souls to God, and not inferior in result to yourfinal enrolment among the saints. . . . Nothing must separate you fromthe Church militant till you reach the Church triumphant. "

CHAPTER IX

THE PROFESSOR

It had all along been felt that Dr. Cairns must sooner or later findscope for his special powers and acquirements in a professor's chair. In the early years of his ministry he received no fewer than fouroffers of philosophical professorships, which his views of theministry and of his consecration to it constrained him to set aside. Three similar offers of theological chairs, the acceptance of whichdid not involve the same interference with the plan of his life, cameto him later, but were declined on other grounds. When, however, avacancy in the Theological Hall of his own Church occurred by thedeath of Professor Lindsay, in 1866, the universal opinion in theChurch was that it must be filled by him and by nobody else. Dr. Lindsay had been Professor of Exegesis, but the United PresbyterianSynod in May 1867 provided for this subject being dealt withotherwise, and instituted a new chair of Apologetics with a specialview to Dr. Cairns's recognised field of study. To this chair theSynod summoned him by acclamation, and, having accepted its call, he began his new work in the following August. 

As in his own student days, the Hall met for only two months in eachyear, and the professors therefore did not need to give up theirministerial charges. So he remained in Berwick, where his congregationwere very proud of the new honour that had come to their minister, andthat was in some degree reflected on them. Instead of "the Doctor"they now spoke of him habitually as "the Professor, " and presented himwith a finely befrogged but somewhat irrelevant professor's gown foruse in the pulpit at Wallace Green. 

Dr. Cairns prepared two courses of lectures for his students--one onthe History of Apologetics, and the other on Apologetics proper, orChristian Evidences. For the former, his desire to go to the sourcesand to take nothing at second-hand led him to make a renewed andlaborious study of the Fathers, who were already, to a far greaterextent than with most theologians, his familiar friends. His knowledgeof later controversies, such as that with the Deists, which afterwardsbore fruit in his work on "Unbelief in the Eighteenth Century, " wasalso widened and deepened at this time. These historical lectures werealmost overweighted by the learning which he thus accumulated; butthey were at once massive in their structure and orderly and lucid intheir arrangement. 

In the other course, on Christian Evidences, he did not includeany discussion on Theism which--probably because of his specialfamiliarity with the Deistical and kindred controversies, and alsobecause the modern assaults on supernatural Christianity from theEvolutionary and Agnostic standpoint had not yet become pressing--hepostulated. And, discarding the traditional division of the Evidencesinto Internal and External, he classified them according to theirrelation to the different Attributes of God, as manifesting HisPower, Knowledge, Wisdom, Holiness, and Benignity. With this coursehe incorporated large parts of his unfinished treatise on "TheDifficulties of Christianity, " which, after he had thus broken itup, passed finally out of sight. 

The impression which he produced on his students by these lectures, and still more by his personality, was very great. "I suppose, " writesone of them, "no men are so hypercritical as students after they havebeen four or five years at the University. To those who are aware ofthis, it will give the most accurate impression of our feeling towardsDr. Cairns when I say that, with regard to him, criticism could not besaid to exist. We all had for him an appreciation which was far deeperthan ordinary admiration; it was admiration blended with loyalty andveneration. "[16] Specially impressive were the humility which wentalong with his gifts and learning, and the wide charity which madehim see good in everything. One student's appreciation of this latterquality found whimsical expression in a cartoon which was delightedlypassed from hand to hand in the class, and which represented Dr. Cairns cordially shaking hands with the Devil. A "balloon" issuingfrom his mouth enclosed some such legend as this: "I hope you are verywell, sir. I am delighted to make your acquaintance, and to find thatyou are not nearly so black as you are painted. "

[Footnote 16: _Life and Letters_, p. 560. ]

During the ten years' negotiations for Union a considerable number ofpressing reforms in the United Presbyterian Church were kept back fromfear of hampering the negotiations, and because it was felt that suchmatters might well be postponed to be dealt with in a United Church. But, when the negotiations were broken off, the United Presbyterians, having recovered their liberty of action, at once began to set theirhouse in order. One of the first matters thus taken up was thequestion of Theological Education. As has been already mentioned, thetheological curriculum extended over five sessions of two months. Itwas now proposed to substitute for this a curriculum extending overthree sessions of five months, as being more in accordance with therequirements of the times and as bringing the Hall into line with theUniversities and the Free Church Colleges. A scheme, of which this wasthe leading feature, was finally adopted by the Synod in May 1875. It necessarily involved the separation of the professors from theircharges, and accordingly the Synod addressed a call to Dr. Cairnsto leave Berwick and become Professor of Systematic Theology andApologetics in the newly constituted Hall, or, as it was henceforth tobe designated--"College. " In this chair it was proposed that he shouldhave as his colleague the venerable Dr. Harper, who was the seniorprofessor in the old Hall, and who was now appointed the firstPrincipal of the new College. 

Dr. Cairns had thus to make his choice between his congregation andhis professorship, and, with many natural regrets, he decided infavour of the latter. This decision, which he announced to his peopletowards the close of the summer, had the incidental effect of keepinghim in the United Presbyterian Church, for in the following year theEnglish congregations of that Church were severed from the parent bodyto form part of the new Presbyterian Church of England; and WallaceGreen congregation, somewhat against its will, and largely in responseto Dr. Cairns's wishes, went with the rest. He had still a year tospend in Berwick, broken only by the last session of the old Hall inAugust and September, and that year he spent in quiet, steady, andhappy work. In June 1876 he preached his farewell sermon to an immenseand deeply moved congregation from the words (Rom. I. 16), "I am notashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God untosalvation unto every one that believeth. " "For more than thirtyyears, " he concluded, "I have preached this gospel among you, and Ibless His name this day that to not a few it has by His grace provedthe power of God unto salvation. To Him I ascribe all the praise; andI would rather on such an occasion remember defects and shortcomingsthan dwell even upon what He has wrought for us. The sadness ofparting from people to whom I have been bound by such close and tenderties, from whom I have received every mark of respect, affection, andencouragement, and in regard to whom I feel moved to say, 'If I forgetthee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning, ' inclines merather to self-examination and to serious fear lest any among youshould have suffered through my failure to set forth and urge homethis gospel of salvation. If then any of you should be in this case, through my fault or your own, that you have not yet obeyed the gospelof Christ, I address to you in Christ's name one parting call that youmay at length receive the truth. "

A few weeks later he and his sister removed to Edinburgh, where theywere joined in the autumn by their brother William. William Cairns, who had been schoolmaster at Oldcambus for thirty-two years, was inmany respects a notable man. Deprived, as we have seen, in earlymanhood of the power of walking, he had set himself to improve hismind and had acquired a great store of general information. He wasshrewd, humorous, genial, and intensely human, and had made himselfthe centre of a large circle of friends, many of whom were to be foundfar beyond the bounds of his native parish and county. Since hismother's death an elder sister had kept house for him, but she haddied in the previous winter, and at his brother's urgent request hehad consented to give up his school al Oldcambus and make his home forthe future with him in Edinburgh. The house No. 10 Spence Street, inwhich for sixteen years the brothers and sister lived together, is amodest semi-detached villa in a short street running off the DalkeithRoad, in one of the southern suburbs of the city. It had two greatadvantages in Dr. Cairns's eyes--one being that it was far enough awayfrom the College to ensure that he would have a good walk every day ingoing there and back; and the other, that its internal arrangementswere very convenient for his brother finding his way in hiswheel-chair about it, and out of it when he so desired. 

The study, as at Berwick, was upstairs, and was a large lightsomeroom, from which a view of the Craigmillar woods, North Berwick Law, and even the distant Lammermoors, could be obtained--a view which was, alas! soon blocked up by the erection of tall buildings. At the backof the house, downstairs, was the sitting-room, where the family mealswere taken and where William sat working at his desk. He had beenfortunate enough to secure, almost immediately after his arrival inEdinburgh, a commission from Messrs. A. & C. Black to prepare theIndex to the ninth edition of the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, then incourse of publication. During the twelve years that the work lasted heperformed the possibly unique feat of reading through the whole of thetwenty-five volumes of the Encyclopaedia, and thus added considerablyto his already encyclopaedic stock of miscellaneous information. Opening off the sitting-room was a smaller room, or rather a largecloset, commanding one of the finest views in Edinburgh of thelion-shaped Arthur's Seat; and here of an evening he would sit in hischair alone, or surrounded by the friends who soon began to gatherabout him, "And smoke, yea, smoke and smoke. "

Sometimes a more than usually resounding peal of laughter would bringthe professor down from his study to find out what was the matter, andto join in the merriment; and then, after a few hearty words ofgreeting to the visitors, he would plead the pressure of his work andreturn to the company of Justin or Evagrius. 

His three nephews, who during the Edinburgh period were staying intown studying for the ministry, always spent Saturday afternoon atSpence Street, and sometimes a student friend would come with them. Dr. Cairns was usually free on such occasions to devote an hour or twoto his young friends. He was always ready to enter into discussions onphilosophical problems that happened to be interesting them, and thepower and ease with which he dealt with these gave an impression as ofone heaving up and pitching about huge masses of rock. His part inthese discussions commonly in the end became a monologue, which hedelivered lying back in his chair, with his shoulders resting on thetop bar of it, and which he sometimes accompanied with the peculiarjerk of his right arm habitual to him in preaching. A _snell_ remarkof his brother William suggesting some new and comic association witha philosophic term dropped in the course of the discussion, wouldbring him back with a roar of laughter to the actual world and tomore sublunary themes. When the young men rose to leave he alwaysaccompanied them to the front door, and bade each of them good-byewith a hearty "[Greek: Panta ta kala soi genoito], "[17] and aninvariable injunction to "put your foot on it, "--"it" being thespring catch by which the gate was opened. 

[Footnote 17: "All fair things be thine. "]

Once a week during the session a party of six or eight students cameto tea at Spence Street, until the whole of his two classes had beengone over. After tea in the otherwise seldom used dining-room of thehouse, some of the party accompanied the professor to the study. Here he would show them his more treasured volumes, such as hisfirst edition of Butler, which he would tell them he made a point ofreading through once a year. Others, who preferred a less uncloudedatmosphere, withdrew with his brother into his sanctum. Soon allreassembled in the dining-room, and a number of hymns were sung--someof Sankey's, which were then in everybody's mouth, some of hisfavourite German hymns with their chorals, which might suggestreferences to his student days in Berlin or to later experiences inthe Fatherland, and some by the great English hymn-writers. At lastcame family worship, always impressive as conducted by him, but oftenthe most memorable feature by far in these gatherings. It was a verysimple, and may seem a very humdrum, way of spending an evening; butthe homely hospitality of the household--the conversational gifts, very different in kind as these were, of himself and his brother--and, above all, his genial and benignant presence, made everything go offwell, and the students went away with a deepened veneration for theirprofessor now that they had seen him in his own house. 

During his first two years in Edinburgh he was busily engagedin writing lectures and in adapting his existing stock to therequirements of the new curriculum. Of these lectures, and of otherswhich he wrote in later years, it must be said that, while all ofthem were the fruit of conscientious and strenuous toil, they wereof unequal merit, or at least of unequal effectiveness. Some ofthem, particularly in his Apologetic courses, were brilliant andstimulating. Whenever he had a great personality to deal with, such asOrigen, Grotius, or Pascal, or, in a quite different way, Voltaire, he rose to the full height of his powers. His criticisms of Hume, ofStrauss, and of Renan, were also in their own way masterly. But acourse which he had on Biblical Theology seemed to be hampered bya too rigid view of Inspiration, which did not allow him to laysufficient stress on the different types of doctrine correspondingto the different individualities of the writers. And when, after thedeath of Principal Harper, he took over the entire department ofSystematic Theology, his lectures on this, the "Queen of sciences, "while full of learning and sometimes rising to grandeur, gave one onthe whole a sense of incompleteness, even of fragmentariness. Thisimpression was deepened by the oral examinations which he was in thehabit of holding every week on his lectures. 

For these examinations he prepared most carefully, sitting upsometimes till two o'clock in the morning collecting material andverifying references which he deemed necessary to make them complete. His aim in them was not only to test the students' attention andprogress, but to communicate information of a supplementary andmiscellaneous character which he had been unable to work into hislectures. And so he would bring down to the class a tattered Father ortwo, and would regale its members with long Greek quotations and witha mass of details that were pure gold to him but were hid treasureto them. His examination of individual students was lenient in theextreme. It used to be said of him that if he asked a question towhich the correct answer was Yes, while the answer he got was No, he would exert his ingenuity to show that in a certain subtle andhitherto unsuspected sense the real answer _was_ No, and that Mr. So-and-so deserved credit for having discovered this, and for havingboldly dared to _say_ No at the risk of being misunderstood. This, ofcourse, is caricature; but it nevertheless sufficiently indicates hisgeneral attitude to his students. 

It was the same with the written as with the oral examinations. In these he assigned full marks to a large proportion of the paperssent in. Once it was represented to him that this method of valuationprevented his examination results from having any influence on theadjudication of a prize that was given every year to the student whohad the highest aggregate of marks in all the classes. He admitted thejustice of this contention, and promised to make a change. When heannounced the results of his next examination it was found that hehad been as good as his word; but the change consisted in this: thatwhereas formerly two-thirds of the class had received full marks, now two-thirds of the class received ninety per cent. !

And yet the popular idea of his inability to distinguish between agood student and a bad one was quite wrong. He was not so simple as heseemed. All who have sat in his classroom remember times when a suddenkeen look from him showed that he knew quite well when liberties werebeing attempted with him, and gave rise to the uncomfortable suspicionthat, as it was put, "he could see more things with his eyes shut thanmost men could see with theirs wide open. " The fact is, that all hisleniency with his students, and all his apparent ascription to them ofa high degree of diligence, scholarship, and mental grasp, had theirroots not in credulity but in charity--the charity which "believethall things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. " His very defectscame from an excess of charity, and one loved him all the betterbecause of them. Hence it came about that his students got far morefrom contact with his personality than they got from his teaching. It is not so much his lectures as his influence that they look backto and that they feel is affecting them still. 

When Dr. Cairns came to Edinburgh from Berwick, it was only to alimited extent that he allowed himself to take part in public workoutside that which came to him as a minister and Professor ofTheology. There were, however, two public questions which interestedhim deeply, and the solution of which he did what he could by speechand influence to further. One of these was the question of Temperance. During the first twenty years of his ministry he had not felt calledupon to take up any strong position on this question, althoughpersonally he had always been one of the most abstemious of men. Butabout the year 1864 he had, without taking any pledge or enrollinghimself on the books of any society, given up the use of alcohol. Hehad done so largely as an experiment--to see whether his influencewould thereby be strengthened with those in his own congregation andbeyond it whom he wished to reclaim from intemperance. 

When he became a professor he was invited to succeed Dr. Lindsayas President of the Students' Total Abstinence Society, and, as noabsolute pledge was exacted from the members, he willingly agreedto do so. From this time his influence was more and more definitelyenlisted on behalf of Total Abstinence, and in 1874 he took a furtherstep. In trying to save from intemperance a friend in Berwick who wasnot a member of his own congregation, he urged him to join the GoodTemplars, at that time the only available society of total abstainersin the town. In order to strengthen his friend's hands, he agreed tojoin along with him. This step happily proved to be successful asregarded its original purpose, and Dr. Cairns remained a Good Templarduring the rest of his life. 

While there were some things about the Order that did not appeal tohim, such as the ritual, the "regalia, " and the various grades ofmembership and of office, with their mysterious initials, he lookedupon these things as non-essentials, and was in hearty sympathy withits general principles and work. But, although he was often urged todo so, he never would accept office nor advance beyond the initiatorystage of membership represented by the simple white "bib" of infancy. On coming to Edinburgh, he looked about for a Lodge to connect himselfwith, and ultimately chose one of the smallest and most obscure in thecity. The members consisted chiefly of men and women who had to workso late that the hour of meeting could not be fixed earlier than 9p. M. He was present at these meetings as often as he could, and onlylamented that he could not attend more frequently. 

While fully recognising the right of others to come to a differentconclusion from his own, and while uniformly basing his totalabstinence on the ground of Christian expediency and not on that ofabsolute Divine law, his view of it as a Christian duty grew clearerevery year. And he carried his principles out rigidly wherever hewent. He perplexed German waiters by his elaborate explanations as towhy he drank no beer; and once, as he came down the Rhine, he had acharacteristically sanguine vision of the time when the vineyards onits banks would only be used for the production of raisins. At thesame time his interest in Temperance work, alike in its religious, social, and political aspects, was always becoming keener. He wasfrequently to be found on Temperance platforms, and was in constantrequest for the preaching of Temperance sermons. Some of his speechesand sermons on the question have been reprinted and widely read, andone New Year's tract which he wrote has had a circulation of onehundred and eighty thousand. 

The other question in which he took a special interest was that ofDisestablishment. To those who adopted the "short and easy method"of accounting for the Disestablishment movement in Scotland bysaying that it was all due to jealousy and spite on the part ofits promoters, his adhesion to that movement presented a seriousdifficulty. For no one could accuse him of jealousy or spite. Henceit was a favourite expedient to represent him as the tool of moredesigning men--as one whose simplicity had been imposed upon, and whohad been thrust forward against his better judgment to do work inwhich he had no heart. This theory is not only entirely groundless, but entirely unnecessary; because the action which he took on thisquestion can readily be explained by a reference to convictions he hadheld all his life, and to circumstances which seemed to him to callfor their assertion. 

He had been a Voluntary ever since he had begun to think on suchquestions. His father, in the days of his boyhood, had subscribed, along with a neighbour, for the _Voluntary Church Magazine_, and thesubject had often been discussed in the cottage at Dunglass. It willbe remembered that during his first session at the University he wasan eager disputant with his classmates on the Voluntary side, and thattowards the close of his course, after a memorable debate in theDiagnostic Society, he secured a victory for the policy of severingthe connection between Church and State. These views he had neverabandoned, and in a lecture on Disestablishment delivered in Edinburghin 1872 he re-stated them. While admitting, as the United PresbyterianSynod had done in adopting the "Articles of Agreement, " that the Stateought to frame its policy on Christian lines, he denied that it wasits duty or within its competence to establish and endow the Church. This is, to quote his own words, "an overstraining of its province, --aforgetfulness that its great work is civil and not spiritual, --and anencroachment without necessity or call, and indeed, as I believe, inthe face of direct Divine arrangements, on the work of the ChristianChurch. "

These, then, being his views, what led him to seek to make themoperative by taking part in a Disestablishment campaign? Two thingsespecially. One of these was the activity at that time of a BroadChurch party within the Established Church. He maintained that thiswas no mere domestic concern of that Church, and claimed the right asa citizen to deal with it. In a national institution views were heldand taught of which he could not approve, and which he consideredcompromised him as a member of the nation. He felt he must protest, and he protested thus. 

The other ground of his action was the conviction, which recentevents had very much strengthened, that the continued existence ofan Established Church was the great obstacle to Presbyterian Unionin Scotland. It is true that there was nothing in the nature of thingsto prevent the Free and United Presbyterian Churches coming togetherin presence of an Established Church. As a matter of fact, they havedone so since Dr. Cairns's death, though not without secessions, collective and individual. But experience had shown that it was theexistence of an Established Church, towards which the Anti-Unionparty had turned longing eyes, which was the determining factor inthe wrecking of the Union negotiations. Besides, Dr. Cairns lookedforward to a wider Union than one merely between the Free and UnitedPresbyterian Churches, and he was convinced that only on the basis ofDisestablishment could such a Union take place. To the argument that, if the Church of Scotland were to be disestablished, its members wouldbe so embittered against those who had brought this about that theywould decline to unite with them, he was content to reply that thatmight safely be left to the healing power of time. The petulant threatof some, that in the event of Disestablishment they would abandonPresbyterianism, he absolutely declined to notice. 

The Disestablishment movement had been begun before Dr. Cairns leftBerwick, and he supported it with voice and pen till the close of hislife. He did so, it need not be said, without bitterness, endeavouringto make it clear that his quarrel was with the adjective and not withthe substantive--with the "Established" and not with the "Church, " andunder the strong conviction that he was engaged "in a great Christianenterprise. "

CHAPTER X

THE PRINCIPAL

During 1877 and 1878 the United Presbyterian Church was much occupiedwith a discussion that had arisen in regard to its relation to the"Subordinate Standards, " i. E. To the Westminster _Confession of Faith_and the _Larger and Shorter Catechisms_. These formed the officialcreed of the Church, and assent to them was exacted from all itsministers, probationers, and elders. A change of opinion, perhapsnot so much regarding the doctrines set forth in these documents asregarding the perspective in which they were to be viewed, had beenmanifesting itself with the changing times. It was felt that standardsof belief drawn up in view of the needs, reflecting the thought, and couched in the language of the seventeenth century, were not anadequate expression of the faith of the Church in the nineteenthcentury. The points with regard to which this difficulty was moreacutely felt were chiefly in the region of the "Doctrines ofGrace"--the Divine Decrees, the Freedom of the Human Will, and theExtent of the Atonement. Accordingly, a movement for greater libertywas set on foot. 

There were many, of course, in the Church who had no sympathy withthis movement, and who, if they had been properly organised and led, might have been able to defeat it. But the recognised and trustedleaders of the Church were of opinion that the matter must besympathetically dealt with, and, on the motion of Principal Harper, the Synod of 1877 appointed a Committee to consider it, and to bringup a report. This Committee, of which Dr. Cairns was one of theconveners, soon found that, if relief were to be granted, they hadonly two alternatives before them. They must deal either with theCreed or with the terms of subscription to it. There were some whourged that an entirely new and much shorter Creed should be drawn up. Dr. Cairns was decidedly opposed to this proposal. The subject of theCreeds of the Reformed Churches was one of his many specialties in thefield of Church History, and he had a reverence for those venerabledocuments, whose articles--so dry and formal to others--suggested tohis imagination the centuries of momentous controversy which theysummed up, and the great champions of the faith who had borne theirpart therein. Besides, he was very much alive to the danger of fallingout of line with the other Presbyterian Churches in Great Britain andAmerica, who still maintained, in some form or other, their allegianceto the Westminster Standards. 

His influence prevailed, and the second alternative was adopted. A "Declaratory Statement" was drawn up of the sense in which, whileretaining the Standards, the Church understood them. This Statementdealt with the points above referred to in a way that would, it wasthought, give sufficient relief to consciences that had shrunk fromthe naked rigour of the words of the _Confession_, It also containeda paragraph which secured liberty of opinion on matters "not enteringinto the substance of the faith, " the right of the Church to guardagainst abuse of this liberty being expressly reserved. Dr. Cairnssubmitted this "Declaratory Statement" to the Synods of 1878 and 1879, in speeches of notable power and wealth of historic illustration, and, in the latter year, it was unanimously adopted and became a"Declaratory Act. " The precedent thus set has been followed by nearlyall the Presbyterian Churches which have since then had occasion todeal with the same problem. 

Except when he had to expound and recommend some scheme for which hehad become responsible, or when he had been laid hold of by othersto speak in behalf of a "Report" or a proposal in which they wereinterested, Dr. Cairns did not intervene often in the debates of theUnited Presbyterian Synod. He preferred, to the disappointment ofmany of his friends, to listen rather than to speak, and shrank fromputting himself in any way forward. He had been Moderator of the Synodin 1872, and as an ex-Moderator he had the privilege, accorded bycustom, of sitting on the platform of the Synod Hall on the benchesto the right and left of the chair. But he never seemed comfortableup there. He would sit with his hands pressed together, and in astooping posture, as if he wanted to make his big body as small andinconspicuous as possible; and, as often as he could, he would go downand take his place among the rank and file of the members far back inthe hall. But he had all a true United Presbyterian's loyal affectionfor the Synod, and a peculiar delight in those reunions of old friendswhich its meetings afforded. Amongst his oldest friends was WilliamGraham, who although, since the English Union, no longer a UnitedPresbyterian, simply could not keep away from the haunts of his youthwhen the month of May came round. On such occasions he was always Dr. Cairns's guest at Spence Street. He kept things lively there with hisnimble wit, and in particular subjected his host to a perpetual andmerciless fire of "chaff. " No one else ventured to assail him asGraham thus did; for, with all his geniality and unaffected humility, there was a certain personal dignity about him which few ventured toinvade. But he took all his friend's banter with a smile of quietenjoyment, and sometimes a more than usually outrageous sally wouldsend him into convulsions of laughter, whose resounding peals filledthe house with their echoes. 

In the spring of 1879 died the venerable Principal Harper. Dr. Cairns felt the loss very keenly, for Dr. Harper had been a loyaland generous friend and colleague, on whose clear and firm judgmenthe had been wont to rely in many a difficult emergency. Besides, ashis biographer has truly said, "he was habitually thankful to havesomeone near him whom he could fairly ask to take the foremostplace. "[18] Now that Dr. Harper was gone, there seemed to be no doubtthat that foremost place would be thrust upon him. These expectationswere fulfilled by the Synod of that year, which unanimously andenthusiastically appointed him Principal of the College. His friendDr. Graham, who, as a corresponding member from the Synod of thePresbyterian Church of England, supported the appointment, gave voiceto the universal feeling when he described him as "a man of thoughtand labour and love and God, who had one defect which endeared him tothem all--that he was the only man who did not know what a rare andnoble man he was. "

[Footnote 18: _Life and Letters_, p. 661. ]

In the following year (1880) Principal Cairns delivered the CunninghamLectures. These lectures were given on a Free Church foundation, instituted in memory of the distinguished theologian whose name itbears; and now for the first time the lecturer was chosen from beyondthe borders of the Free Church. Dr. Cairns highly appreciated thecompliment that was thus paid him, regarding it as a happy augury ofthe Union which he was sure was coming. He had chosen as his subject"Unbelief in the eighteenth century as contrasted with its earlier andlater history"; and, although it was one in which he was already athome, he had again worked over the familiar ground with characteristicdiligence and thoroughness. Thus, in preparing for one of thelectures, he read through twenty volumes of Voltaire, out of a setof fifty which had been put at his disposal by a friend. The firstlecture dealt with Unbelief in the first four centuries, which hecontrasted in several respects with that of the eighteenth. Thenfollowed one on the Unbelief of the seventeenth century, then threeon the Unbelief of the eighteenth century, in England, France, andGermany respectively; and, finally, one on the Unbelief of thenineteenth century, from whose representatives he selected three forspecial criticism as typical, viz. Strauss, Renan, and John StuartMill. These lectures, while not rising to the level of greatness, impress one with his mastery of the immense literature of the subject, and are characterised throughout by lucidity of arrangement and bysobriety and fairness of judgment. They were very well received whenthey were delivered, and were favourably reviewed when they werepublished a year later. [19]

[Footnote 19: In the following year (1882) he received the degree ofLL. D. From Edinburgh University. ]

Between the delivery and the publication of the Cunningham LecturesDr. Cairns spent five months in the United States and Canada. Theimmediate object of this American tour was to fulfil an engagement tobe present at the Philadelphia meeting of the General Council of thePresbyterian Alliance--an organisation in which he took the deepestinterest, as it was in the line of his early aspirations after a greatcomprehensive Presbyterian Union. But he arranged his tour so as toenable him also to be present at the General Assembly of the AmericanPresbyterian Church at Madison, and at that of the Presbyterian Churchof Canada at Montreal. The rest of the time at his disposal he spentin lengthened excursions to various scenes of interest. He visited thehistoric localities of New England and crossed the continent to SanFrancisco, stopping on the way at Salt Lake City, and extending hisjourney to the Yo-Semite Valley. More than once he went far out of hisway to seek out an old friend or the relative of some member of hisBerwick congregation. Wherever he went he preached, --in fact everySunday of these five months, including those he spent on the Atlantic, was thus occupied, --and everywhere his preaching and his personalitymade a deep impression. As regarded himself, he used to say thatthis American visit "lifted him out of many ruts" and gave him newviews of the vitality of Christianity and new hopes for its futuredevelopments. 

After the publication of the Cunningham Lectures there was a widelycherished hope that Dr. Cairns would produce something still moreworthy of his powers and his reputation. He was now free from theincessant engagements of an active ministry, and he had by this timegot his class lectures well in hand. But, although the opportunity hadcome, the interest in speculative questions had sensibly declined. There is an indication of this in the Cunningham Lectures themselves. In the last of these, as we have seen, he had selected Mill as therepresentative of English nineteenth-century Unbelief. Even then Millwas out of date; but Mill was the last British thinker whose systemhe had thoroughly mastered. In the index to his _Life and Letters_the names of Darwin and Herbert Spencer do not occur, and even in anApologetic tract entitled _Is the Evolution of Christianity from mereNatural Sources Credible_? which he wrote in 1887 for the ReligiousTract Society, there is no reference whatever to any writer of theEvolutionary School. With his attitude to later German theologicalliterature it is somewhat different, for here he tried to keep himselfabreast of the times. Yet even here the books that interested himmost were mainly historical, such as the first volume of Ritschl'sgreat work on Justification (almost the only German book he readin a translation), and the three volumes of Harnack's _Historyof Dogma_. 

This decay of interest in speculative thought might be attributed tothe decline of mental freshness and of hospitality to new ideas whichoften comes with advancing years, were it not that, in his case, therewas no such decline. On the contrary, as his interest in speculativethought gradually withered, his interest on the side of scholarshipand linguistics became greater than ever, and his energy here wasalways seeking new outlets for itself. When he was nearly sixty hebegan the study of Assyrian. He did so in connection with his lectureson Apologetics, --because he wanted to give his class some idea of theconfirmation of the Scripture records, which he believed were to befound in the cuneiform inscriptions. But ere long the study tookpossession of him. His letters, and the little time-table diary ofhis daily studies, record the hours he devoted to it. When he went toAmerica he took his Assyrian books with him, and pored over them onthe voyage whenever the Atlantic would allow him to do so. And he wasfully convinced that what interested him so intensely must interesthis students too. One of them, the Rev. J. H. Leckie, thus describeshow he sought to make them share in his enthusiasm:--

"One day when we came down to the class, we found the blackboardcovered with an Assyrian inscription written out by himself beforelecture hour, and the zest, the joy with which he discoursed upon thestrange figures and signs showed that, though white of hair and bentin frame, he was in the real nature of him very young. For two days helectured on this inscription with the most assured belief that we werefollowing every word, and there was deep regret in his face and in hisvoice when he said, 'And now, gentlemen, I am afraid we must return toour theology. '"[20]

[Footnote 20: _Life and Letters_, p. 743. ]

Another of his students, referring to the same lectures, writes asfollows:--

"It was fine, and one loves him all the more for it, but it wasexasperating too, with such tremendous issues at stake in the world ofliving thought, to see him pounding away at those truculent old RedIndians in their barbarian original tongue. Yet I would not for muchforget those days when we saw him escaping utterly from all worriesand troubles and perfectly happy before a blackboard covered withamazing characters. It was pure innocent delight in a new world ofknowledge, like a child's in a new story-book. "

When he was sixty-three he added Arabic to his other acquirements. Itis not quite clear whether he had in view any purpose in connectionwith his professional work beyond the desire to know the originalsof all the authorities quoted in his lectures. But, when he hadsufficiently mastered the language to be able to read the Koran, he knew that he had two grounds for self-congratulation, and thesewere sufficiently characteristic. One was that he had his revenge onGibbon, who had described so triumphantly the career of the Saracensand who yet had not known a word of their language. The other wasthat he was now able to pray in Arabic for the conversion of theMohammedans. 

About the same time he began to learn Dutch. He assigned as one reasonfor this that he wanted to read Kuenen's works. But as the only one ofthese that he had was in his library already, having come to him fromthe effects of a deceased friend, it is possible that this was just anunconscious excuse on his part for indulging in the luxury of learninga new language--that he read Kuenen in order to learn Dutch, insteadof learning Dutch in order to read Kuenen. However, his knowledge ofthe language enabled him to follow closely a movement which excitedhis interest in no common degree, viz. The secession of a largeevangelical party from the rationalistic State Church of Holland, under Abraham Kuyper, the present Prime Minister of that country, and their organisation into a Free Presbyterian Church. 

Other languages at which he worked during this period were Spanish, of which he acquired the rudiments during his tour in California;and Dano-Norwegian, which he picked up during a month's residence atChristiania in 1877, and furbished for a meeting of the EvangelicalAlliance at Copenhagen in 1884. All this time he was pursuing hisPatristic and other historical studies with unflagging vigour, always writing new lectures, always maintaining his love of abstractknowledge and his eager desire to add to his already vast stores oflearning. When, a year and a half before his death, a vacancy occurredin the Church History chair in the College, he stepped into the breachand delivered a course of lectures on the Fathers, which took hisclass by storm. 

"His manner, " says one who heard these lectures, "was quite differentin the Church History classroom from what it was in that of SystematicTheology. In the latter he taught like a man who felt wearied and old;but in the former he showed a surprising freshness and enthusiasm. It was delightful to see him in the Church History class forgettingage and care, and away back in spirit with Origen and his other oldfriends. "

These lectures, while abounding in searching and masterly criticismof doctrinal views, are specially noticeable for their delineation ofthe living power of Christianity as exhibited in the men and the timeswith which they deal. This was the aspect of Christian truth which hadall along attracted him. It was what had determined his choice ofthe ministry as the main work of his life, and in his later years itstill asserted its power over him. Although he had now no longer aministerial charge of his own, he could not separate himself from theactive work of the Church--he could not withdraw from contact with theChristian life which it manifested. 

During the winter months he preached a good deal in Edinburgh, especially by way of helping young or weak congregations, more thanone of which he had at different times under his immediate care untilthey had been lifted out of the worst of their difficulties. In summerhe ranged over the whole United Presbyterian Church from Shetland toGalloway, preaching to great gatherings wherever he went. In arrangingthese expeditions, he always gave the preference to those applicationswhich came to him from poor, outlying, and sparsely peopled districts, where discouragements were greatest and the struggle to "maintainordinances" was most severe. His visits helped to lift the burdenfrom many a weary back, and never failed to leave happy and inspiringmemories behind them. Among these summer engagements he always kept aplace for his old congregation at Berwick, which he regularly visitedin the month of June, preaching twice in the church on Sunday, andfinishing the day's work by preaching again from the steps of the TownHall in the evening. On these occasions the broad High Street, at thefoot of which the Town Hall stands, was always crowded from side toside and a long way up its course, while all the windows withinearshot were thrown open and filled with eager listeners. 

In this continual pursuit of knowledge, and in the contemplation, whether in history or in the world around him, of Christianity asa Life, his main interests more and more lay. In the one we cantrace the influence of Hamilton, in the other perhaps that ofNeander--the two teachers of his youth who had most deeply impressedhim. Relatively to these, Systematic Theology, and even Apologetics, receded into the background. Secure in his "_aliquid inconcussum_, "he came increasingly to regard the life of the individual Christianand the collective life of the Church as the most convincing of allwitnesses to the Unseen and the Supernatural. 

Meanwhile the apologetic of his own life was becoming ever moreimpressive. In the years 1886 and 1887 he lost by death several ofhis dearest friends. In the former year died Dr. W. B. Robertson ofIrvine; and, later, Dr. John Ker, who had been his fellow-student atthe University and at the Divinity Hall, his neighbour at Alnwick inthe early Berwick days, and at last his colleague as a professor inthe United Presbyterian College. In the early part of the followingyear his youngest sister, Agnes, who with her husband, the Rev. J. C. Meiklejohn, had come to live in Edinburgh two years before for thebetter treatment of what proved to be a mortal disease, passed away. And in the autumn he lost the last and the dearest of the friendsthat had been left to him in these later years, William Graham. Theselosses brought him yet closer than he had been before to the unseenand eternal world. 

He was habitually reticent about his inner life and his habits ofdevotion. No one knew his times of prayer or how long they lasted. Once, indeed, his simplicity of character betrayed him in regard tothis matter. The door of his retiring-room at the College was withouta key, and he would not give so much trouble as to ask for one. So, in order that he might be quite undisturbed, he piled up some formsand chairs against the door on the inside, forgetting entirely thatthe upper part of it was obscure glass and that his barricade wasperfectly visible from without. It need not be said that no oneinterrupted him or interfered with his belief that he had beenunobserved by any human eye. But it did not require an accidentaldisclosure like this to reveal the fact that he spent much time inprayer. No one who knew him ever so little could doubt this, and noone could hear him praying in public without feeling sure that hehad learned how to do it by long experience in the school of privatedevotion. 

Purified thus by trial and nourished by prayer, his character wenton developing and deepening. His humility, utterly unaffected, likeeverything else about him, became if possible more marked. He was notmerely willing to take the lowest room, but far happiest when he wasallowed to take it. In one of his classes there was a blind student, and, when a written examination came on, the question arose, How washe to take part in it? Principal Cairns offered to write down theanswers to the examination questions to his student's dictation, andit was only after lengthened argument and extreme reluctance on hispart that he was led to see that the authorities would not consentto this arrangement. 

It was the same with his charity. He was always putting favourableconstructions on people's motives and believing good things of them, even when other people could find very little ground for doing so. In all sincerity he would carry this sometimes to amusing lengths. Reference has been made to this already, but the following furtherillustration of it may be added here. One day, when in company with afriend, the conversation turned on a meeting at which Dr. Cairns hadrecently been present. At this meeting there was a large array ofspeakers, and a time limit had to be imposed to allow all of themto be heard. One of the speakers, however, when arrested by thechairman's bell, appealed to the audience, with whom he was gettingon extremely well, for more time. Encouraged by their applause, hewent on and finished his speech, with the result that some of hisfellow-speakers who had come long distances to address the meetingwere crushed into a corner, if not crowded out. Dr. Cairns somehowsuspected that his friend was going to say something strong about thisspeaker's conduct, and, before a word could be spoken, rushed to hisdefence. "He couldn't help himself. He was at the mercy of thatshouting audience--a most unmannerly mob!" And then, feeling thathe had rather overshot the mark, he added in a parenthetic murmur, "Excellent Christian people they were, no doubt!"

But not the least noticeable thing about him remains to bementioned--the persistent hopefulness of his outlook. This becamealways more pronounced as he grew older. Others, when they saw theadvancing forces of evil, might tremble for the Ark of God; but he sawno occasion for trembling, and he declined to do so. He was sure thatthe great struggle that was going on was bound sooner or later, andrather sooner than later, to issue in victory for the cause he loved. And although his great knowledge of the past, and his enthusiasm forthe great men who had lived in it, might have been expected to drawhis eyes to it with regretful longing, he liked much better to lookforward than to look back, using as he did so the words of a favouritemotto; "The best is yet to be. "

All these qualities found expression in a speech he delivered onthe occasion of the presentation of his portrait to the UnitedPresbyterian Synod in May 1888. This portrait had been subscribed forby the ministers and laymen of the Church, and painted by Mr. W. E. Lockhart, R. S. A. The presentation took place in a crowded house, andamid a scene of enthusiasm which no one who witnessed it can everforget. Principal Cairns concluded a brief address thus: "I have nowpreached for forty-three years and have been a Professor of Theologyfor more than twenty, and I find every year how much grander thegospel of the grace of God becomes, and how much deeper, vaster, andmore unsearchable the riches of Christ, which it is the function oftheology to explore. I have had in this and in other churches a bandof ministerial brethren, older and younger, with whom it has been alife-long privilege to be associated; and in the professors a bodyof colleagues so generous and loving that greater harmony could notbe conceived. The congregations to which I have preached have faroverpaid my labours; and the students whom I have taught have given memore lessons than many books. I have been allowed many opportunitiesof mingling with Christians of other lands, and have learned, I trust, something more of the unity in diversity of the creed, 'I believe inthe Holy Catholic Church. ' In that true Church, founded on Christ'ssacrifice and washed in His blood, cheered by its glorious memoriesand filled with its immortal hopes, I desire to live and die. Lifeand labour cannot last long with me; but I would seek to work to theend for Christian truth, for Christian missions, and for Christianunion. Amidst so many undeserved favours, I would still thank God andtake courage, and under the weight of all anxieties and failures, and the shadows of separation from loved friends, I would repeatthe confession, which, by the grace of God, time only confirms:'_In Te, Domine, speravi; non confundar in aeternum_. '"

CHAPTER XI

THE END OF THE DAY

In May 1891 the report of an inquiry which had been instituted in theprevious year into the working of the United Presbyterian College wassubmitted to the Synod. The portion of it which referred to PrincipalCairns's department, and which was enthusiastically approved, concluded as follows: "The Committee would only add that the wholepresent inquiry has deepened its sense of the immense value of theservices of Dr. Cairns to the College, both as Professor and asPrincipal, and expresses the hope that he may be long spared to adornthe institution of which he is the honoured head, and the Church ofwhich he is so distinguished a representative. " The hope thusexpressed was not to be fulfilled. 

The specially heavy work of the preceding session--the session inwhich, as already described, he had undertaken part of the work ofthe Church History class in addition to the full tale of his own--hadovertaxed his strength, and, acting on the advice of Dr. Maclagan andhis Edinburgh medical adviser, he had cancelled all his engagementsfor the summer. Almost immediately after the close of the Synod an oldailment which he had contracted by over-exertion during a holiday tourin Wales reappeared, and yielded only partially to surgical treatment. But he maintained his cheerfulness, and neither he nor his friends hadany thought that his work was done. In the month of July he paid avisit to his brother David at Stitchel. He had opened his brother'snew church there thirteen years before, and it had come to be astanding engagement, looked forward to by very many in the district, that he should conduct special services every year on the anniversaryof that occasion. But these annual visits were very brief, and theywere broken into not only by the duties of the Sunday, but by thehospitalities usual in country manses at such times. This time, however, there were no anniversary sermons to be preached; he hadcome for rest, and there was no need for him to hasten his departure. The weather was lovely, and so were the views over the wide valleyof the Tweed to the distant Cheviots. He would sit for hoursreading under the great elm-tree in the garden amid the scents ofthe summer flowers. "I have come in to tell you, " he said one dayto his sister-in-law, "that this is a day which has wandered out ofParadise. " "We younger people, " wrote his niece, "came nearer to himthan ever before. He was as happy as a child, rejoicing with everyincrease of strength. He greatly enjoyed my brother Willie's singing, especially songs like Sheriff Nicolson's 'Skye' and Shairp's 'Bushaboon Traquair. ' We were astonished to find how familiar he was withall sorts of queer out-of-the-way ballads. Never had we seen him sofree from care, so genial and even jubilant. "[21] The summer Sacramenttook place while he was at Stitchel, and he was able to give a briefaddress to the communicants from the words, "Ye do shew forth theLord's death till He come, " in a voice that was weak and tremulous, but all the more impressive on that account. One of his brother'selders, a farmer in the neighbourhood whom he had known since hisschooldays, had arranged that he should address his work-people in thefarmhouse, and to this quiet rural gathering he preached what provedto be his last sermon. 

[Footnote 21: _Life and Letters_, p, 769. ]

He himself, however, had no idea that this was the case; and when heleft Stitchel he did so with the purpose of preparing for the workof another session. But as the autumn advanced and his health didnot greatly improve, another consultation of his doctors was held, the result of which was that he was pronounced to be sufferingfrom cardiac weakness, and quite unfit for the work of the comingwinter. He at once acquiesced in this verdict, and, with unabatedcheerfulness, set himself to bring his lectures into a state thatwould admit of their being easily read to his classes by two friendswho had undertaken this duty. This done, he wrote out in full theGreek texts--some five hundred in all--quoted in his lectures onBiblical Theology. These two tasks kept him busy until about the endof the year 1891, when he began an undertaking which many of hisfriends had long been urging upon him--the preparation of a volumeof his sermons for the press. He selected for this purpose thosesermons which he had preached most frequently, and which he had, with few exceptions, originally written for sacramental occasionsat Berwick--some of them far back in the old Golden Square days. These he carefully transcribed, altering them where he thought thisnecessary, and not always, in the opinion of many, improving themin the process. 

He found that his strength was not unduly strained when he worked thussix or seven hours a day. But he always, as hitherto, spent one hourdaily in reading the Scriptures in the original tongues, in which timehe could get through three pages of Hebrew and an indefinite quantityof Greek. There was, however, one change in his habits which hadbecome necessary. He was forbidden by the doctors to study at night. And so, instead of going upstairs in the evening, he remained in thecomfortable parlour, where he wrote his letters, talked to his brotherand sister, or to visitors as they came in, and regaled himself withlight literature. This last consisted sometimes of volumes of theFathers, but more frequently of the Koran in the original. He wouldfrequently read aloud extracts, translating from the Greek and Latinwithout ever pausing for a word; as regards the Arabic, he had Sale'stranslation at hand to help him through a tough passage, but he wasalways a very proud man when he could find his way out of a difficultywithout its aid. 

As the winter advanced he felt that it was desirable that he shouldhave another medical opinion, so that, in the event of his furtherincapacity, the Synod at its approaching meeting might make permanentarrangements for carrying on the work of his chair. On the 19th ofFebruary he was examined by Drs. Maclagan, Webster, and G. W. Balfour, who certified that he was "unfit for the discharge of any professionalduty. " After consulting his relatives, he decided to resign hisProfessorship and the Principalship of the College, and on the 23rda letter intimating this intention was drafted and despatched. Thecommittee to which it was sent received it with great regret, and aunanimous feeling found expression that, at anyrate, he should retainthe office of Principal. This was echoed from every part of theUnited Presbyterian Church as soon as the news of his contemplatedresignation became known; and in a wider circle adequate utterancewas given to the public sympathy and regard. 

On the 3rd of March he was able to preside at the annual conversazioneof his students, when he was in such genial spirits, and seemed to beso well, that humorous references were made by more than one speakerto his approaching resignation as clearly unnecessary, and indeedpreposterous. On the following Saturday he travelled to Galashiels toattend the funeral of his cousin John Murray, whose room he had sharedduring his first session at the University, and in his prayer at thefuneral service he referred in touching terms to the close of theirlife-long friendship. Returning to Edinburgh, he went to stay tillMonday with an old friend, whose house afforded him facilities forattending the communion service at Broughton Place Church next day. For although this church, which he had attended as a student, and ofwhich he had been a member since he came to live in Edinburgh, wasmore than two miles distant from Spence Street, his Puritan trainingand convictions with regard to the Sabbath would never allow him togo to it in a cab. 

On reaching home next week he resumed his work of transcription, andwent on with it till Thursday, when, after taking a short walk, hebecame somewhat unwell. Next day he felt better, and did some writingin the forenoon; but in the afternoon the illness returned, and hewent to bed. In the early hours of next morning, Saturday 12th March, his sister, who was watching beside him, saw that a change was coming, and summoned Mr. And Mrs. David Cairns, who had fortunately arrivedthe evening before. His brother William, on account of his bodilyinfirmity, remained below. The end was evidently near, but he wasconscious at intervals, and his voice when he spoke was clear andfirm. "You are very ill, John, " said his brother. "Oh no, " he replied, "I feel much better. " "But you are in good hands?" "Yes, in the bestof hands. " Then his mind began to wander, and he spoke more brokenly:"There is a great battle to fight, but the victory is sure . . . Godin Christ . . . Good men must unite and identify themselves with thecause. " "What cause?" asked his brother. "The cause of God, " hereplied. "If they do so, the victory is sure; otherwise, all isconfusion . . . I have stated the matter; I leave it with you. " Then, after a short pause, he suddenly said, "You go first, I follow. "These eminently characteristic words were the last he spoke, and asDavid knelt and prayed at his bedside death came. 

The impression produced on the public mind by his life and character, and called into vivid consciousness by the news of his death, foundmemorable expression on his funeral day, Thursday 17th March. Ithad been the original intention of his relatives that the funeralarrangements should be carried out as simply as possible, with aservice in Rosehall Church, which was close at hand, for those whodesired to attend it, and thereafter a quiet walk down to Echo BankCemetery, where he was to rest beside his sister Agnes. It was thoughtthat this would be most in accordance with his characteristic humilityand shrinking from all that savoured of display. But the publicfeeling refused to be satisfied with this idea, and the relativesgave way. 

The Synod Hall of the United Presbyterian Church, to which the coffinhad been removed in the early part of the day, and which holds threethousand, was crowded to its utmost capacity. The Moderator of Synodpresided, and beside him on the platform were the Lord Provost, Magistrates and Council of the city, the Principal and Professors ofthe University, the Principal and Professors of the New College, andmany other dignitaries. In the body of the hall were seated, rowbehind row, the members of the United Presbyterian Synod, who hadcome from all parts of the country, drawn by affection as well asveneration for him of whom their Church had been so proud. Alongwith them was a very large number of ministers of the other ScottishChurches, and representatives of public bodies. The galleries werethronged with the general public. The brief service was of thatsimple and moving kind with which Presbyterian Scotland is wont tocommemorate her dead. There was no funeral oration, and the prayers, which were led by Dr. Macgregor, the Moderator of the EstablishedChurch General Assembly, by Principal Rainy, and by Dr. AndrewThomson, while full of the sense of personal loss, gave expressionto the deep thankfulness felt by all present that such a life hadbeen lived, and lived for so long, among them. One incident createda deep impression. After the coffin had been removed, the variousrepresentative bodies successively left the hall to take their placesin the procession that was being marshalled without. "Wallace GreenChurch, Berwick" was called. Then a great company of men rose to theirfeet, showing that, after an absence of sixteen years, their oldminister still retained his hold on the affections of the peopleamong whom he had lived and worked so long. 

Outside the hall the scenes were even more impressive, and weredeclared by those whose memories went back for half a century to havebeen unparalleled in Edinburgh since the funeral of Dr. Chalmers, in1847. Along the whole of the three miles between the Synod Hall andEcho Bank Cemetery traffic was suspended, flags were at half-mast, andall the shops were closed. As the procession, which was itself fullya mile in length, made its slow way along, the crowds which lined thepavements, filled the windows, and covered the tops of the arrestedtramway cars, reverently saluted the coffin. When the gates of theUniversity were passed, not a few thought of the time, more thanfifty-seven years before, when he who was now being borne to hisgrave amid such great demonstrations of public homage, came up a shy, awkward country lad to begin within these walls the life of strenuoustoil that had now closed. How much had passed since then! How greatwas the contrast between the two scenes! A little later, whenthe procession passed down the Dalkeith Road, everyone turnedinstinctively to the house in Spence Street, where he had lived hissimple and godly life, unconscious that the eyes of men were upon him. As the afternoon shadows were lengthening he was laid in his grave;and many of those who stood near felt that a great blank had come intotheir lives, and that Scotland and the Church were the poorer for theloss of him who had followed his Master in simplicity of heart and hadcounted cheap those honours which the world so greatly desires. [22]

[Footnote 22: Six years later the sister who had so long lived with himwas laid in the same grave. William Cairns sleeps with his kindred inCockburnspath churchyard. ]

It is difficult to count up the gains and losses of a life. He hadgreat gifts, --gifts of abstract thinking and writing, powers ofscholarly research and continuous labour, --but his life had followedanother path determined by his early choice. Was this choice a wiseone? It is difficult to say. But two things seem clear. One is thathe never appears to have regretted it. At the public service in theSynod Hall, Principal Rainy gave thanks for "those seventy-fouryears of happy life. " These words are entirely true. His life wasan exceptionally happy one. This surely means a great deal. If hehad missed his true vocation, he could not have had this happiness. 

The second noticeable point is, that his choice made the influenceof his personality strong throughout Scotland. He seems to haverecognised that his true home lay in the region of Christian faithand works, in the great common life of the Church; and so he made hisappeal, not to the limited number of those who could read a learnedtheological treatise which the changing fortunes of the battle withUnbelief might soon have put out of date, but to the common heart ofthe whole Church. That great assemblage from all parts of the countryon his funeral day was the response to this appeal, and the bestanswer to the question as to whether he had erred in the choice of acalling and wasted his powers. Waste there undoubtedly was. In everylife this cannot but be so, for a man must limit himself; but, if itbe for a high end, the renunciation will be blessed with some fruitof good. And so, although the memory and the name of John Cairns maybecome fainter as the years and generations pass, his influence willlive on in the Christian Church, to whose ideal of goodness he broughtthe contribution of his character.