“It’s a great heap o’ siller,” said he; “div ye no’ really think that it’s a pity to see a’ that gude siller gaun out o’ the country?”
I will close this chapter with two reminiscences of Dr. Duff in the Free Church General Assembly.
The Home Mission report was being commented on by Sheriff Monteith. He said that home missions had not the romance about them that foreign missions had.
Dr. Duff sprang to his feet with a bound like a tiger springing on its prey, and said something like this:
“Romance, sir! Romance did I hear you say!—romance? Are the burning suns of India romance? leaving home and kindred, and ease and comfort, romance? exposing your family to the horrors of heathenism, romance?” At each sentence he stepped nearer Sheriff Monteith, until, while saying something rather personal about not leaving his comfortable table to visit the dens of infamy in the Cowgate, his clenched fist was dangerously near the Sheriff’s face. It was not a long speech, but the look of burning indignation with which he delivered it, and the energy of his gesticulation, told powerfully. At the last words, “Romance, forsooth!” he sat down exhausted.
THE FLOWERS O’ THE FOREST.
Never was “oil thrown on the waters” with more quiet force and effect than by Dr. Buchanan on that occasion. A few words sufficed, words of remarkable dignity and tenderness, and at their close he took Sheriff Monteith by the one hand, and Dr. Duff by the other, and with great heartiness they shook hands on the platform of the Assembly amidst the loud applause of the audience. I thought then, and I think yet, that I never saw three as fine-looking, noble-hearted Christian gentlemen,—certainly never grouped on such a striking occasion. It seemed to me to be a living group representing Faith, Hope, Charity, but I would not undertake to determine which was which.
My other reminiscence is of the evening meeting after the union of the Free Church with the Original Secession Church. I can recall Dr. Duff’s massive, sunburnt face, his thick, erect, bristling hair, and his perfervid eloquence.
He spoke of looking out on his return from India for the grand old ministers he used to meet in his younger days. “Where were Dr. Andrew Thomson, Dr. David Dickson, old Dr. McCrie, Dr. Chalmers?” Not in the haunts of living men. He had to go to the graveyards and content himself with honouring their memories; and it made him feel as if
‘The flowers o’ the forest were a’ wede away.’