Professor W. G. Elmslie, D.D.: Memoir and Sermons

by William Gray Elmslie

"Blaikie gave us a capital lecture, its only fault being that there was too much matter, so that we could not get down even a mere abstract of the substance."

"Edinburgh, 1868.

"Things are still going on capitally. At the hall Davidson is most admirable, and Blaikie every day coming out even better and better. For instance, speaking of the fondness the early apologists displayed at pointing not to the lives, but to the deaths of Christians, he added, 'And indeed, gentlemen, I cannot help saying that in the course of my experience as a minister I have always noticed the hush and breathless attention such a subject ever commands, and I have found nothing make a deeper impression, or act more powerfully as a means of producing good, than a description of a triumphant death-bed.' This is practical, true, and useful."

Elmslie threw himself with intense energy into the work of his classes. At first he found it difficult to maintain the place he had achieved at Aberdeen, for he had able competitors, but his unweariable diligence and quick apprehension soon put him at the head.

In one of his earliest letters from Edinburgh he writes, "On Wednesday evening I did first copy of my essay with a headache coming on, which came on with such heartiness that I went to bed, and I could not go to college on Thursday. (N.B. It is remarkable that when I have no mamma to nurse me my headaches never come to such extremes as they do when I have a fall-back. This one was bad enough, but not one of the desperate kind.)"

There was only one cure for these headaches, and he could never bring himself to take it. It would be tedious to go over the story of his successes. By this time his younger brother, Leslie, had entered the University of Edinburgh, where his triumphs were scarcely less than those of his senior at the New College. So used did the household at Insch become to telegrams announcing new prizes and scholarships, that at certain periods of the year the faithful mother had telegrams of congratulation already filled up, waiting to be despatched.

Many students of theology are more impressed by the preaching they hear than by their Professors, and Edinburgh has always been known for pulpit eloquence. But it was the reverse with Elmslie. No preacher seems to have had any great power over him. He attended the Free High Church, then ministered to by Mr. William Arnot; but though he admitted the freshness and fertility of the preacher's mind, he was not a warm admirer of his sermons. He often listened to Dr. Charles J. Brown, in the Free New North, and liked him: "he seems such a fine-hearted man." One day he went to hear a fellow-student, and missed the way to the church. He turned aside into the Barclay Church, where Mr. (now Dr.) Wilson was preaching. "I like Mr. Wilson very much. He is thoroughly practical, both in his preaching and in his prayers. For instance, in the one after the chapter he prayed for boys and girls at school, that they might be helped with their lessons when they were difficult, and that they might learn obedience and courtesy and be made blessings to their teachers; also for those persons who had not had a good training in their youth, and felt it now in showing a good example to the children, and especially for those parents and children who were troubled with bad tempers." After remarking on the great predominance of young people in the congregation, he says that the sermon was delivered with a great deal of energy and action, and that the idea of the preacher seemed to be to bring religion down on the every-day life, that it might become the motive power in work. "On coming out I accosted an intelligent-looking man, and said, 'Was that Mr. Wilson?' 'Yes,' he said, and added, with a proud smile, 'And didn't you like him?' I answered, 'Very much indeed,' whereupon he looked exceedingly gratified and prouder than ever. I wish there were more such pride."

On another occasion he writes, "At present I had sooner hear Dr. Candlish than any one. He is so strong and honest, and wide in his sympathies. His address to the students was full of passion and feeling, and sympathy with the difficulty of believing some of our Calvinistic doctrines, such as eternal ruin, heathens' doom, etc. He went a very great length indeed, and ended by saying it was too hard for him, and his heart drew him the other way, and all he could do was to fall back on his loyalty to Christ. It was more a picture of his own heart's struggles than the Principal's address." But his usual note is, "Heard ————, in ———— Church: middling."

In 1871 he gained the Hamilton Scholarship in a most brilliant manner, his marks being so extraordinary that as they came in the secretary of the Senatus thought there must be some mistake. His fellow-students, he writes, were overwhelmingly kind in their congratulations, and he himself seems to have rejoiced in this success more than in any other of his life. One thing was that in his after-work he would not have the same amount of anxiety and despair that weighed him down in his preparations. But the chief thing was the joy it would give at home. "I need not tell you," he writes to his mother, "how sweet your letter was to me, telling me of your joy on receipt of the telegram. When no letter came in the morning you cannot think how disappointed I was, for, to confess the truth, I had been thinking all Sabbath of the pleasure of reading the home letters, and in them getting the real joy of the scholarship. For, except the pleasure of knowing the gladness caused at home, there is not much satisfaction otherwise in it. It is strange how soon, after the first surprise of getting it, the delight of getting it passed away, and I think there was more enjoyment in the working for it than in the having it."