Keig, 26th April 1870
May 26,1870[2]
My Dear Black,
This letter is not to be finished for a long time. Indeed so long as I remain here I shan’t have much to say but according to [my] proposals[3] I shall make one or two jottings. My last was sent off in the interval between the Board Exams & declaring of Cun’s.[4] I came off better than I had any right to hope — and wondrous to relate had full marks in Pelagianism & stranger still in Jansenism, a subject that calls for much reading & from me could get little. I had decent marks from Innes & Salmond[5] (Heb. & Greek) 190 & 191. Of course Nat. Hist. was a cropper 100 & so unluckily was Inspiration 170. Sin 196, Ch. Govt. 190, Texts 150 were passable. In several of the papers in which I got on best I gammoned the examiners in a rather bold way. Curiously there seems no limit to the degree to which this course can be safely followed. I fear my dear Black that you were not disrespectful enough in your papers. The Latin was all right — I got 195 or so for my translation merely, though Brander & Ewen who were low he “failed”?[6] I could have given Bell the whole Latin paper safely but I daresay Falconer who was 5th wd have changed places with McLean (4th) had we not carried our point & included the questions on the matter.[7] [N.B. Memorandum which might easily be shaped into an anathema. How detestable is country ink! For my sins I am writing with a whitey-gray fluid bought at Alford and I don’t believe you will be able to read my previous remarks.][8]
Since I came home I have been seedy. I was rather knocked up in Ed. & on the journey northwards developed Influenza & Rheumatism from which I am only just beginning to revive. Hence I have done & seen nothing and am not in the liveliest spirits just now. I am awaiting the arrival of the Presby and hope to receive licence within three hours. I should have said that I am to hold the Cunningham along with Tait’s.[9] I.[nnes] & Candlish sternly quelled Duns by declaring that the Senatus should never raise the question. Duns made what fight he could but had to give in. I presume Kippen has accepted the 3rd Cunningham & will receive it with dignity. He hardly made any preparations for the Examination. Really Kippen is showing powers one did not use to suspect. I don’t think I have even yet succeeded in persuading Rae that there is anything in him.[10] Rae by the way is in Bridge of Allan but when I last heard from him was only just arrived. He is getting violently wroth at the mull that is being made of the Union. I had a capital letter from him on the subject which convinced me that his brain if more easily fatigued is as fresh & vigourous [sic] as ever.
7 So Charl[otte] St. Edinburgh 12th May (Thursday)
After a longish interval I resume in Edinburgh. There has not a great deal happened to me since I wrote [the] last page. Of course I have been licensed & have preached once in my Father’s pulpit. That is all I have done in this line. In fact I am only just getting into tolerable working train again.
I heard of you from Gibson on Tuesday — the day on which I returned to Ed. I saw him at the club[11] and he told me you were, according to Kirkcaldy bulletins, [12] flourishing. But tho’ I am thus relieved of anxiety as to your fate during the late riots — lucky you got out of Barcelona[13] when you did — I live in hope of getting details from yourself at your leisure.
You have of course heard of the deaths of Dr James Buchanan and Sir Jas. Y. Simpson. Simpson’s funeral is tomorrow and seems likely to be enormous. But I don’t think there is much real regret for him unless on the part of those who lived in great measure by the visitors he brought to Edinburgh. I fancy Dr Matthew Duncan will get his Chair.[14]
You will see too that White [sic] of Glasgow has been called to Candlish’s or at least is to be called next week.[15] Lindsay tells me that there is a bitter if not large opposition headed by Miss Angel[a] Fraser. The ground is an assertion that he is an illegitimate son. Be this true or false, the mere raising of such an objection, and it is being spoken of noisily enough, is I fancy very likely to keep him back.[16]
The St And.[rew’s] people seem not to have quite lost hope that the Assembly will send them Thomson after all.[17] I fear they are over sanguine. But really things are coming to this that Edinburgh Churches can’t get ministers. We must have you back for one of them one of these days.
I am really tempted to entertain your plan & take a run to Spain in Autumn. I daresay I should manage this all the more easily if (as I expect) I fail in my Candidature. But I have no notion of the expense of the trip which I fear would exhaust my purse. Could you give me a notion on this point?
I say that I now expect to fail at the Assembly. I do so mainly because I fear the manner of voting. I suspect Salmond thro’ Wilson will be first proposed & that the first vote between Findlay & myself will enable Salmond’s friends to kill their most fatal enemy. It can’t be helped but it is rather riling that it should happen so.[18] Another card wh. is being played against me is a charge of heterodoxy based on my article in the B.Q. This weapon has been directed by Bain of Coupar Angus agst McDonald of N. Leith but I hope has missed its ring. P.S. It has missed I hear.
How close the Union fight is getting. I rather think victory will remain with the Compromise party in some shape. The thing may indeed probably go down to Presbys. but I expect that thereafter either inaction for some time or a process of gradual union will be resolved on.[19] Gradual union indeed is theoretically as difficult as instant incorporation but it does not so cruelly tread on prejudices and especially on social prejudices. Lindsay tells me that an old lady said to him today that she thought there was a good deal in the Social argument agst. Union. Lindsay kept his temper but chastened her with the anecdote about nobody asking U.P.s to dinner in Dundee. I fear I should have got angry. I am sure that in the first two Centuries there was a good deal in the social argument against a religion that showed slaves and masters supping together at the Lord’s Supper.
17th May
I must really try to finish at this sitting tho’ there isn’t much to say. I do not know if you will have heard of the death of Gray’s sister. She had been ill for some time but the end came suddenly and I fear took them by surprise. Poor Gray will be I fear much cut up. Candlish too has lost a grandchild, one of Henderson of Crieff’s children. It is thought however that in spite of this and his continued weak health he will appear in the Assembly with his Union Overture. A number of Committees to prepare for the Assembly meet today, and Candlish who was in Aberdeen and on Saturday unable to travel was determined to come up yesterday to be at them.[20]
Gibson showed me a letter of Miller’s from Rotterdam. [21] There was no sign in it. I thought that M. had picked up much knowledge of Dutch or much familiarity with Dutch ways. Rotterdam he seems hardly to think Dutch and of other towns he seems to have seen about as much as we did. Unlike us, he seems to like Amsterdam best. Of the other wanderers I have heard little. From Russell, Charles has a letter which I saw.[22] Russell, Robinson, Craig & Patrick are all in the same house.[23] R[ussell]’s letter was written very soon after his arrival in the first state of passive absorption of novelties. He can’t get over the Crucifix in Lutheran Churches, and the scars on the students’ faces. But from this stage I hope he will soon emerge.
To return to Edinburgh — Macneill has lost Trinity much to the chagrin of Fairbairn and the more educated part of the Congregation. By a majority of one the fisher elders brought in Siddie. Why doesn’t Fairbairn keep the appointment in his own hands.[24] McN. however may probably remain in Edinburgh. Morgan[25] has broken down and wishes McN. to assist him for three or four months. Besides McN. and myself, Falconer, Paul, Mclean & Siddie are licensed already. [26] Paul I believe is looking out for a call very impatient to get settled and I fancy married. I hear that Kippen is to be married to a young lady with substance like himself (I mean money not flesh). K. is meantime buying and I hope reading medieval theology extensively. He regards the Scholastic period as “undoubtedly the most fruitful period of Christology”.
How are you getting on? Are you able to give the men any really scientific theology? I mean have they stomach for that. I judge from what you wrote me that you find Exegesis to be what they most lack. But how do you teach Exegesis if they have no Greek. Are you teaching them Greek? I hope I shall here [sic] from you soon. Meantime I endeavour to get a more concrete notion of your surroundings by reading books about Spain. The last was “Gil Blas”. But I suppose things are so changed that Spain now is very unlike Gil Blas’ Spain. Borrow’s books, I found, considerably added to the definition (to speak astronomically) of my views.
Your affectionate Friend,
W. Robertson Smith
[1] CUL ADD 7449 A011 MS
[2] Written in Black’s hand and probably indicating the date of his reply.
[3] The proposals made in his previous letter to Black.
[4] Declaration of the Cunningham Fellowship awards.
[5] Stewart D. F. Salmond, the other examiner named hers, was also one of the candidates for the Aberdeen chair of Hebrew. He was later to prove highly supportive of WRS during the latter’s trail.
[6] The reading here is very doubtful, as is the purpose of the inverted commas and question mark.
[7] All the names in these two sentences relate to fellow students in Smith’s final year.
[8] A prophetic remark! The poor ink, allied to the thin paper used for foreign mail, means that several words are virtually indecipherable. The square brackets here are Smith’s.
[9] I.e. his emolument for assisting Tait.
[10] John Rae was a close friend of WRS for many years but is difficult to identify with certainty. He may have been the John Rae (b. 1836 at Udny) who was ordained to the Free Church at Gamrie, in 1866.
[11] Evidently the Edinburgh Evening Club, although “club” has no capital.
[12] Black’s parents lived at Kirkcaldy.
[13] Barcelona was “frequently distinguished by the violence of its civic commotions” [EB9 iii, p398].
[14] Pioneer of the use of chloroform in childbirth, Sir James Y. Simpson had held the chair of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Edinburgh until his death. Smith’s comment here is a fair judgment.
[15] Alexander Whyte, who was to prove a major support to WRS during his trial, had acted as “assistant and colleague” to the elderly Dr Roxburgh of St John’s Free Church in Glasgow for four years until called to St George’s West in Edinburgh as colleague to Dr Robert Candlish.
[16] Although the assertion was correct, it did not inhibit Whyte’s call to St George’s West. See The Life of Alexander Whyte by G. F. Barbour, pp.15f. Cf. also p.149, where mention is made of the summer holiday that year at Braemar when WRS and Whyte were walking companions.
[17] See Smith’s letter of 1870-02-10 to Black (note 7).
[18] WRS prediction proved wrong in this instance. His nomination, by Walker of Carnwath, in fact came first while Salmond’s, by Dr W. Wilson of Dundee St Paul’s, came fifth. In the final vote Smith won against Salmond by 139 votes.
[19] Enthusiasm for union with the U.P. Church lasted for a decade, reaching a peak in 1868 and declining thereafter until the matter was shelved in 1873 for a further fifteen years.
[20] The Assembly opened on Thursday, May 19, with Robert Candlish playing a major part.
[21] Probably Alexander Miller (see 1870-02-10, note 3).
[22] J. M. Russell (or Russel) and George Charles were third year students at New College in 1869–70.
[23] Joseph Robinson, John Craig and David Patrick were then second year students at New College.
[24] The Rev. Dr James Fairbairn was minister at the neighbouring Newhaven Free Church, hence the reference to “fisher elders”. Smith seems surprisingly prejudiced here in his sentiments. Trinity, an Original Secession Church in Leith joined with the Free Church in 1852 and by this date was temporarily housed in Hope Street in Leith Walk. A new building was erected around 1880.
[25] Morgan, John (b.1839): minister of Fountainbridge Free Church, Edinburgh.
[26] All those named were final year contemporaries of WRS.