"But to us at the time it was splendid. It was in one of our sessions that Dr. Blaikie founded the College dinner, which has since proved so valuable an institution, bringing all the students together daily in a social capacity; and any day you could have told where Elmslie was seated at the table by the explosions of laughter rising in that quarter all through the meal. Men strove to sit near him, and he diffused a glow up and down, his budget of stories never getting exhausted or his flow of spirits flagging. I well remember a speech he made at the close of the first session during which the dinner existed, to thank Professor Blaikie for his efforts on behalf of the students and congratulate him on the success of his experiment. It was, perhaps, the most remarkable of all Elmslie's speeches. Professors and students alike were simply convulsed with laughter, and one explosion followed another, till the assembly was literally dissolved; yet under all the nonsense there was capital sense, and the duty which he had undertaken could not have been more gracefully or completely discharged.
"On the serious side of college life he was equally a leader. His enormous influence over his fellow-students was uniformly pure and elevating; and in confidential hours, when conversation went down to the depths of experience, it was easy to see that his life, which was so gay and exuberant on the surface, was deeply rooted in loyalty to Christ. He threw himself heartily into the work of the Missionary Society in the Cowgate and the High Street. We began one winter to speak in the open air, but none of us were successful till we brought down Murray, who afterwards also went to the English Presbyterian Church and finished his career even sooner than Elmslie. Murray was no scholar, but in ten minutes he had a crowd round him extending halfway across the street, while we could never attract more than forty or fifty. It was a lesson which we often afterwards discussed with no small astonishment.
"I remember an incident of the Mission which Elmslie used to tell with great gusto. He was addressing the Children's Church on the story of Samson and the lion, when, observing that the children were not attending, he, instead of saying that the lion roared, emitted as near an approach to the roar itself as he could command. Instantly there was breathless attention; and when, after pausing long enough to allow for the full effect, he was about to proceed, a little girl cried out anxiously, 'O sir, do it again!' On another occasion he stopped to reprove rather sharply a boy who was very restless, when a companion, springing up, told him with great solemnity that he ought not to speak so to this boy, because he was deaf and dumb. Taken completely aback, Elmslie began humbly to apologise, when the whole class burst out into a shout of laughter at the skill with which he had been taken in. The boy could both hear and speak.
"After he went south I saw him very seldom. Once he caught me in London and took me out to preach at Willesden, where I was immensely impressed with his hold on the people and the extent of the field of influence he had opened up. Like his other friends, I was very impatient for some literary production worthy of his genius, and, when the brilliant tract on Renan appeared, I took the liberty of writing him urgently on the subject. It was always my hope that before very long we should be able to entice him back across the Border, to adorn a chair in one of our colleges. I did not hear of his illness till you wrote me that he was just dying. 'God moves in a mysterious way.' I have no hesitation in saying that Elmslie was by far the most brilliant man I have ever known, and there was never a human being more lovable. He seemed to be the man we needed most; but it is little we know; the Master must have had need of him elsewhere.
"Believe me yours most truly,
"James Stalker."
SERMONS.