7 So. Charlotte St
Feby 10th 1870
My Dear Black,
I have been thinking of writing to you for some time but have been so busy that I have always delayed and delayed. But now I have made a beginning and so am in for it.
I have scarcely heard a word about you. Have you written to anybody? Gibson[2] whom I meet pretty often at the Evening Club has only vague favourable accounts gleaned from your father. Miller[3] is equally ignorant. Miller by the way has gone abroad. He is to be at Rotterdam, preaching, for a short time; and then move on to Germany. Divers other men are also to be in Germany in Summer. Harper, Elmslie, Robinson &c.[4]
I suppose you have got no New College news. Indeed there is not much to give. Candlish’s sermon plan still survives. That is the first item. Then nearby the Theol. is flourishing. Have you got intimation of your Corresponding Membership? If you haven’t you will soon. Macmaster has joined the Independents but nevertheless reads an Essay tomorrow. The opposition is calm. Their only activity is to go out all together with much noise during a speech in general and smoke the calumet in the dark regions under the Common Hall.[5] Kippen is flourishing. He is going this week to the Missionary Society’s prayer meeting in St George’s where he intends to give “such an exposition, as they have never heard and will never hear again”. The Subject I believe is the book with 7 Seals.[6] Bell is much more liberal since his visit to Germany and recently gave Sanders a frightful flaying for narrow-minded orthodoxy. The Union debate was last Friday. That queer Bookseller Lyon and another of Begg’s Creatures found their way into the Theol. on the occasion; but they were disappointed for the vote was crushingly pro-union.
The morning after the Union debate brought up before the Miss. Soc. the question of sending a deputation to the University Miss. Assocn. There was some resistance from Boyd but he found no backer and fell from his motion. Did you hear about the Latin row at the Board. The questions objected to have to my satisfaction been cancelled. I believe we have Rainy to thank for this.
Lindsay is still getting on well with Candlish and the people.
I daresay you have heard that Wilson got a call or elected for the
second time as Candlish’s Colleague but stopped the thing at once. Thomson[7] will not be called to St George’s but has been elected by the St Andrews
people and will certainly be called presently. Meantime that unhappy
congregation has suffered under the dreariest series of probationers the mind
can imagine. One man whom I had the privilege of hearing seemed to be a
Socinian. I have heard another Socinian[8] this winter Wallace of Greyfriars.[9] McLean and I heard him with great dissatisfaction. Not only false but flippant
and even silly.
Kay has got a call to Innerleithen (I think). Rae has gone home but proposes to go abroad in Spring. Gray has been unwell and so has again disappointed Candlish of a Sermon. I had a note from him last week in middling spirits. I am systematical enough to suppose that I had as well give some account of my own prospects. I have been horribly overworked and consequently have rather suffered in health. About Xmas I was off work for a fortnight. Nevertheless I have contrived to write a somewhat hurried article on Prophecy which the British Quarterly has promised to consider. But the Editor tho’ strongly pressed by a friend on my behalf did not through [sic] out great hopes. The difficulty is to get into the first number. Calderwood is also to try to get a note on Rothe in correction of an article by Gibb into the Contemporary. I don’t trust much to either attempt; but since the circulation of Testimonials (Ritschl, Lotze &c came out like bricks) most Presbyteries have mentioned [me] by name. Davidson & McGregor are hopeful. There is some chance of Candlish & Rainy if Meyer fall through — as is likely. In brief I begin for the first thing [time] to view the thing as a possibility. Further I can’t go.
My paper on Mill has been translated into French for a scientific journal.[10] The Editor promises to let me have copies, a few of which may perhaps be sown with effect. I have had a gigantic controversy with Stirling in the Courant. Stirling luckily lost his temper and with his temper his head. In consequence I kept cool and walked into him in a style that Fraser among others viewed as quite successful. S. appealed to Ingleby as a mathematical champion. Ingleby however wrote a cold note to the Courant, and a private letter to Tait saying that Stirling had nothing for it but to cry “Peccavi”.[11]
So much for my non-news. A sheet of news justifies a sheet of questions. I suppose you are working tremendously but pray find time to drop me a note. By the way lest I forget it is thought desirable that their [sic] should be a certificate from you in the supplement to my Testimonials; so pray keep that in view. But above all let me hear how you like Seville — your work — your ex-priests — the language &c. I often wish we were together again — either I in Spain or you in Edinburgh. I hope you have found somebody in Seville whom you can make a friend of and who keeps you from moping. I am not on your Committee[12] so I don’t mean a wife! But is Cabrera or is anyone else a man whom one cannot only esteem but really get intimate with? I have been reading Borrow’s Bible in Spain[13] and am amused by the need of “formality”. I think you are quite able to do that though without wanting either to laugh or to blush. I saw just a scrap from you in the Presbyterian, but I don’t want a publishable account of your doings.
Do you find the work personally edifying? That is what I feel most wanting in my present divided and distracted existence at the N.C. & University, and what is my chief reason for wishing to get to properly theological work.
I will leave this letter open for a night to collect any messages that any one I can see tomorrow morning may have; but meantime I must close in the hope of soon hearing from you.
Your affectionate friend
Wm Robertson Smith
P.S. I have seen only Russell who
begs me to communicate in his place your election as Hon. Corresponding
Member of the Theol.
[1] CUL ADD 7449 A009 MS. It is superscribed “Recd. Feb. 26th. Answered 1st Mar. [S(en)t?] Mar. 8th”.
[2] Gibson, Alexander (d.1887): Edinburgh advocate and member of the Edinburgh Evening Club, who later became a close friend (cf. B&C p. 141) and who first introduced WRS to J.F. McLennan.
[3] Miller, Alexander (b.1843): was ordained to Buckie in 1875.
[4] These, and similar personal surnames later, refer either to current New College students or to those like Black who had completed their course the previous session.
[5] A sarcastic reference to those in the Theological Club who tended to oppose Smith and his friends.
[6] Cf. Rev. 8
[7] The Rev. George W. Thomson of Kirkcaldy in fact declined to accept the call to St Andrew’s Church in Edinburgh’s George Street: see PFCA, 1870, pp.39f.
[8] Lit., a disbeliever in the divinity of Jesus Christ (after the 16th c. theologians, Laelius and Faustus Socinus) but frequently used as a term of abuse for anyone holding liberal theological beliefs.
[9] See 1868-05-11.
[10] Probably La Revue des Deux Mondes.
[11] The Latin term for “I have sinned” had gained popular currency after its punning use by Sir Charles Napier in his message — “Peccavi” [I have Sind] – announcing his capture of that Indian province in 1843.
[12] The committee overseeing the establishment and financing of Presbyterian College at Seville was headed by Sir Henry Moncreiff. The whole enterprise proved to be short-lived.
[13] Borrow, George Henry (1803–1881): writer and traveller. The Bible in Spain, in which fact and fiction are very much intertwined, was first published in 1843.