The Scottish Reformation. Alexander F. Mitchell
to take a warm interest in his students after they had left the Divinity Hall, and had entered on the work of the ministry; and when attending the General Assembly he could generally tell how many of its members had passed through one or other of his classes in St. Mary's College. When he retired from the duties of his Chair in 1894, the occasion was regarded as affording a suitable opportunity of giving public expression to the esteem in which he was held by his friends, and to their grateful appreciation of his services both to the Church and the University; and in 1895, while the General Assembly was in session, he was presented, in name of a large number of his former students and other friends, with an illuminated address, a cheque for 200 guineas, and his portrait by Sir George Reid—acknowledged to be one of the best that have yet come from the studio of the President of the Royal Scottish Academy. The Right Hon. James A. Campbell of Stracathro, M.P., with whom he had long had intimate relations, presided at the ceremony and made the presentation. The reply of the Professor, as containing many interesting reminiscences, and as showing the view which he took himself of his life and work, is here inserted in extenso. He said:—
"Mr. Campbell, I thank you, sir, with all my heart, for the many kind things—far more kind than I deserve—which you have just said of me, and for the many kind services which you have rendered to me in the course of our lifelong friendship; and I thank, with all my heart, you, my many esteemed friends and pupils, who have united in presenting me with this address expressive of your warm affection, this speaking likeness and munificent gift. Kindness far more than I have merited has followed me all my life through—never more conspicuously than at the close of my public career; and now in retiring from the professorial work I loved, and from the College for which almost for half a century I lived and laboured, it is a consolation to me to know that I carry with me into my retirement the esteem of so many honoured friends and the affectionate regard of so many former pupils. Some have been speaking lately of the loneliness of a Scottish student's college life. I can only say for myself that the years I spent as a student in St. Mary's College were among the happiest of my life, and that the friendships then formed within the little band of my fellow-students were among the most valued and lasting of those I have enjoyed. I have but to name John Robertson, afterwards minister of Glasgow Cathedral;[Pg xxxvii] John Tulloch, afterwards Principal of St. Mary's College; William Milligan, afterwards Professor of Biblical Criticism in Aberdeen; William Dickson, afterwards Professor of Divinity in Glasgow; Drs. W. H. Gray, Gloag, and Herdman, and with these some who afterwards joined the Free Church: Dr. Thomson, long at the head of the Free Church Jewish Mission at Constantinople; Dr. Thomas Brown, younger brother of my late colleague, Dr. William Brown, agent for the Turkish Missions Aid Society; and Edward Cross, afterwards Free Church minister at Monifieth, with whom I laboured in happiest intercourse in Dundee, he being assistant to the Free Church minister in the same district of the town when I was assistant to the Parish minister. When in my twenty-sixth year I returned as a Professor in the College where so shortly before I had been a student, I can never forget the kindness with which I was received by my aged instructors there, especially by Principal Haldane, whose kind counsels were then invaluable to me, nor the kindness of Professors Duncan and Alexander, the only two of my instructors remaining in the Old College. St. Andrews about that time had the reputation of being rather a hot place. The conviction that I was a man of rather placid temper, who would not add fuel to the flame, I believe weighed considerably with Lord Advocate Rutherfurd in finally recommending me for the Chair. Within[Pg xxxviii] St. Mary's College we were a happy family, and the youth of twenty-six and the two aged Professors beyond threescore and ten continued to work in unbroken harmony—the youth deeming it a special privilege to aid the venerable Principal in his class-work during the last year of his life, as well as to aid him and his aged colleague in their pulpit work. It was soon after this that I began to take an active part in Church work, attending the General Assembly as an elder and as Convener of the Jewish Mission—doing what I could to reorganise it in Turkey, first in conjunction with such venerable fathers as Drs. Muir, Hunter, Grant, and James Robertson, and with several brethren nearer my own age, who were bearing the burden and heat of the day—Drs. Crawford, Nicholson, Nisbet, William Robertson, and Elder Cumming, and such laymen as Sheriff Arkley, David Smith, Henry Cheyne, John Elder, John Tawse, and the good Edmund Baxter, all now gone to their rest and their reward. Principal Haldane was succeeded by my old class-fellow, Principal Tulloch, in harmony with whom I wrought for thirty years in the College, occasionally taking part of his work, as I had of his predecessor's, when he was laid aside by ill-health, and also taking part with him in Church work, especially in the work of the Anti-Patronage Committee, on whose success so many in the Church had set their hearts. After his untimely removal, though I had served for seven or eight years beyond the statutory thirty, I continued at my post, and in the most kind and cordial relations both in Church and University work with his successor, Principal Cunningham, heartily co-operating with him in the repeal of what has been termed the Black Act of 1711, and in the restitution of the old formula for ministers and elders, which are now so generally welcomed, and have been acknowledged by one at least of the three who protested against the change to be a great boon. I have often spoken of the pleasure I have had in superintending the work of my students, and my gratification at the zest with which they took to the study both of Hebrew and Church History. The circumstances which led to my resignation are already well known to you all, and I need only say that it was to me a very regretful necessity. I leave in each of the three other Divinity Faculties at least one distinguished pupil, and in St. Mary's College two who, with their younger colleagues, I trust will strive to make it more than ever a School of the Prophets, a nursery for earnest, faithful, scholarly, and devoted ministers, who shall set high above all passing isms Christ the personal Saviour, and those great truths as to His divine nature, incarnation, atoning death, and glorious resurrection, to which the historic Church of Christ through so many centuries has clung as her life and strength and joy. Christ before, Christ behind—according to St. Patrick's prayer—Christ above, Christ beneath, Christ in the heart, Christ in the home. I heartily thank you all for your great kindness, and especially Principal Stewart and Mr. Wenley, and one who once said I had been as a father to him, and of whom I may truly say that he has been as a son to me."
In 1852 the Professor married the eldest daughter of the late Mr. Michael Johnstone of Archbank, near Moffat, who belonged to an influential yeoman family that has been connected with Annandale for the last two hundred years. The late Mr. Peter Johnstone, brother of Mrs. Mitchell's father, who was a proprietor as well as a large farmer, is still remembered as having done a great deal to promote the cause of education in the district where he resided; and her brother, the late Mr. James Johnstone, was tenant of Bodsbeck farm, which is the scene of the Ettrick Shepherd's well-known Covenanting story—"The Brownie of Bodsbeck." How much Mrs. Mitchell did to brighten the life and to minister to the happiness of the Professor can be known only to those who have had the privilege of being admitted into the inner circle of their friends, and there are not a few who have very pleasant reminiscences of delightful intercourse with them in their house at 56 South Street, where the duty of entertaining strangers seemed never to be forgotten. Their family of four sons and two daughters all survive, with the exception of the eldest son, Robert Haldane, who died several years ago in Australia, to which he had emigrated along with his brother Johnstone.
Probably few are aware that the Professor spent many of his happiest days, and did much of his literary work, at Gowanpark, his country residence near Brechin, which, with its charm of seclusion and restfulness, no one who has visited it can ever forget, and which his family came to regard as their home almost as much as St. Andrews. There he found relaxation in the interest which he took in the work of his little farm, which was his own property, and as long as he had health he enjoyed a ramble among the neighbouring hills, or a walk, varied by an occasional drive, along the quiet country roads. His home in the country, however, was with him no mere place of recreation, still less of idleness, and there, as elsewhere, he never failed to find his chief source of pleasure in the prosecution of his favourite studies.
When the Professor retired from the duties of his Chair he did not cease to take an interest in the affairs of the College, of which he was an ornament while he lived, and with which, as was said in a notice of him at the time of his death, his name will always be associated—like those of Andrew Melville, Samuel Rutherford, and others in remote and troublous times, and that of Principal Tulloch in our own more peaceful days. Nor did he cease to