Mid Ascog[2]
May 11th, 1868
My Dear Father,
I should not have thought if writing again so soon had not Mr McK.[3] taken advantage of my talking of Smith’s Tacitus[4] to ask if I had it and if (he paying postage) I would send for it, as we have now begun to read the first book of the Annals.
I have learned in this & one or two other instances that Mr M[cK.] though liberal enough in large matters has his heart set on small savings, so of course I did not refuse, as the book will certainly not be ill treated; but as the plan is a bad one I must be cautious how I speak of editions that we have got.
I hope however you will not object to send the work in this instance; for indeed what could I say?
Personally I get on very well with Mr McK. I talk to him about books &c which as a dabbler he likes; and as his conversation is prosy & very shallow I do not find this popularity an unmixed evil. However both he and Mrs M[akellar] are very kind. I was three times there last week — once at dinner & twice at tea & I am made quite at home.
The Juniors are perhaps improving a little but that is very doubtful. I think I have considerably modified their open profanity in my presence; but I do not know if I have ever touched their consciences — if indeed they have any. It is pretty clear however that they respect me, which is so far an advantage.
I had a letter from Bell in Saturday Evg. asking if I did not think the Students might do something to urge Dods to continue a candidate. I did not know that he had threatened to withdraw his name but that he had done so was the impression B’s letter left. Of course I wrote at once saying I would be glad [to] take part in any course that might be devised by those in Edinburgh.
I think it is since I wrote last that I have heard from Lindsay. He is going to take a run down to see me to-morrow which will be a pleasant variety for me. If Grant is chosen principal and professor, Lindsay is to be his assistant.
I have been doing a little at Candlish’s sermon lecture,[5] and have got so far as to finish a sketch of an introduction showing the place
my text holds in the long Prophecy 36 — 6 & its relation to
Jeremiah’s prophetic work in general. Now I have one difficulty. My description
of the state of things in Judea at that time — chiefly made with the help of
Ewald — is really strictly based on passages, but looks very like random
writing — Should I, in a sermon written for criticism, attach references, wh: wd be very numerous, to my authorities[6] in various parts of Jeremiah?
I was a little amused last week, after reading the disappointing news that your sermon was not going off, when I counted up that – when Mamma wrote, it could not have been exposed for sale more than three days. Of course, many copies would not go off in the first few days till people seeing the Sermon in each others hand began to know about it.[7]
I went to call on Mr Davidson a few days ago & found him not in, but a day or two after met him & introduced myself to him in the street. He asked me to come and see him on an evening, when I could get away from my teaching.
Did you see Wallace’s speech in the Ed. Presbytery?[8] It is a most singular & by no means auspicious phenomenon to find the Established Church taking up such a line. If you haven’t, I’ll try to enclose it in my next. I am quite well.
Your Aff. Son
Wm Robertson Smith
[1] CUL ADD 7449 C099 MS
[2] Smith’s address in Bute, where he spent most of the summer tutoring. The 1882 Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland describes Mid Ascog [s.v. Ascog] as one of several “pleasant residences” a mile or so from Rothesay.
[3] The William Makellar referred to in the letter of 1868-04-28. Cf. B&C, p.100, which speaks of WRS being “engaged in some not very congenial tutorial work”.
[4] Smith, William (later Sir William) (1831–1893): produced an extensive range of classical textbooks, including his Selections from Tacitus. He is best remembered for his Bible Dictionary (1860–1865) and for his editorship of the Quarterly Review from 1867.
[5] Smith’s replacement of “sermon” by “lecture” illustrates his difficulty in judging what style to adopt.
[6] The word “texts” has been inserted by WRS above the word “authorities”.
[7] This was the sermon by WPS on John 17, about which WRS had previously commented (1868-01-25) and which was preached before the Free Provincial Synod of Aberdeen on April 14, 1868. It was published shortly thereafter by “Geo. Davidson, 185, Union Street, Aberdeen” and so far as can be ascertained was William Pirie Smith’s sole venture into print. It is a 27 page pamphlet entitled The Organic Unity of the Christian Church: a Sermon on John xvii, 20,21. Eirenic in tone, it urges a resolution of the current conflicts impeding church union.
[8] Wallace, Robert (1831–1899): Church of Scotland minister at Old Greyfriars, Edinburgh. Liberal in matters of worship and doctrine, Wallace was appointed to the chair of Church History at Edinburgh University in 1872 but was charged (unsuccessfully) with heresy by Edinburgh Presbytery in 1873. Disillusioned by the internecine strife within the Scottish churches, Wallace became editor of The Scotsman from 1876 to 1900, before joining the legal profession and ultimately becoming MP for Edinburgh East until his death. Robert Wallace, Life and Last Leaves (Smith and Wallace, 1903) contains a variety of his controversial and sometimes eccentric editorials, several of which refer to Robertson Smith’s heresy trial.