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methodized into a system that worked harmoniously
and effectively under the control of a single mind.
It was felt to be truly so by the students who passed
under its training; so that each fell into his own
proper place, and the daily work of the divinity hall
went on with the regularity of a well-adjusted ma-
chine. It was sometimes objected to the course of
lecturing, that it attempted to comprise too much;
that it descended to too many minutise; and that the
fit proportion which each subject should bear to the
whole was thus lost sight of. Dr. Macgill himself
was sensible of these defects, and many years before
his death employed himself in lopping off whatever
he considered to be redundant in his lectures, and
condensing whatever was too diffuse. But let it be
remembered, also, that when he commenced he was
groping his way along an untried path. Even his
learned predecessor, Dr. Findlay, had laid out for
himself a theological course of such vast range as an
ordinary life would have been utterly insufficient to
overtake; and thus, at the end of each four years'
course, his pupils escaped with a few theological ideas
that had been extended and ramified to the uttermost;
a little segment instead of a full body of divinity. But
in the other duties of his professorship, where his
own individuality was brought into full play, unfet-
tered by forms and systems, Dr. Macgill was un-
rivalled. In his oral examinations of the class he
seemed to have an intuitive sagacity in entering at
once into the character of each pupil, and discovering
the kind of management which he most needed. In
this case it was most gratifying to witness with what
gentleness, and yet with what tact, he repressed the
over-bold and animated the diffident, stimulated the
slothful and encouraged the career of the diligent
and enterprising; while his bearing, which was in
the highest degree that of a grave divine and accom-
plished scholar, adorned by the graces of a Christian
gentleman, won the reverence, the confidence, and
affection of his students. But it was not alone in
the class-room that these qualities were exhibited in
their fullest measure. His evenings were generally
devoted to his students, of whom he was wont to
have a number in rotation around the tea-table, so
that at the end of the session none had been omitted;
and while at these conversaziones he could unbend
from the necessary formality of public duty, and en-
courage a flow of cheerful intercourse, it always
tended more or less to the great object which he
had most at heart—the formation of a learned, pious,
and efficient ministry. Nor was this all. Few, in-
deed, can tell or even guess his cares, his labours, and
his sacrifices in behalf of these his adopted children,
whom once having known, he never ceased to re-
member and to care for, and for whose welfare his
library, his purse, and his personal labours were
opened with an ever-flowing liberality. These were
the very qualities most needed by a professor of
theology, and best fitted to influence the pupils under
his training. Dr. Macgill, indeed, was neither a man
of high genius nor commanding eloquence; at the
best he was nothing more than what might be called
a third-rate mind—a man who, under different cir-
cumstances, might have passed through life unknown
and unnoticed. But with a mind so balanced, and
animated with such high and holy principles, he was
enabled to acquire an ascendency and accomplish a
work which first-rate intellects have often attempted
in vain.
After having continued for several years exclu-
sively devoted to the duties of the theological chair,
Dr. Macgill suddenly found himself summoned to
the arena of a church-court, and that, too, upon a
question where the conflict would be at outrance.
Hitherto he had been the enemy of ecclesiastical
glurality, modified though it was in the Church of
Sotland by the union of some professorship with the
ministerial charge of a parish, instead of the care of
two or more parishes vested in one person. And
while some confined their hostility to the objection
that the chair and the pulpit generally lay so far apart
that the holder must be a non-resident, the objec-
tions of Macgill were founded upon higher principles.
He knew that plurality was totally opposed to the
laws and spirit of the Scottish church; and he was
too well aware of the important duties of a minister
to have his office conjoined with any other pursuit.
And now the time and occasion had arrived when
he must boldly step forward and speak out. In
1823 the Rev. Dr. Taylor, principal of the university
of Glasgow, died, and the Rev. Dr. Macfarlan, minis-
ter of Drymen, was appointed to succeed to the
office. But hitherto the principal of the college had
also been minister of St. Mungo's, or the High
parish of Glasgow, and it seemed a matter of course
that Dr. Macfarlan should hold both livings con-
jointly, to which he was appointed accordingly. It
was the gentlest form in which plurality had ever
appeared in Scotland, for both charges were in the
same city, while the one, it was thought, could not
infringe upon the duties of the other. But to Dr.
Macgill it appeared far otherwise. By the statutes
of the college the principal was bound to superin-
tend its secular affairs, and teach theology, which
was a task sufficient for any one man; and thus the
holder would be compelled either to give half-duty
to both offices, or reduce one of them to a sinecure.
It was upon these arguments that Dr. Macgill op-
posed the double induction. It was a stern and severe
trial that thus devolved upon one who had hitherto
been such a lover of peace; and it was harder still,
that his opposition must be directed against one who
was thenceforth, let the result be what it might, to
become his daily colleague as well as official supe-
rior. Many in his situation would have contented
themselves with a simple non liquet, whispered with
bated breath, and thought their vote a sufficient
testimony of their principles. Superior, however,
to such considerations, and anticipating the great
controversy that would be at issue upon the subject,
Dr. Macgill, several months before it took place,
brought the question before the senate of the uni-
versity, and finding that his learned brethren would
not coincide with him, he had entered in the college
records his protest against the induction. In the
keen debates that afterwards followed upon the sub-
ject in the presbytery of Glasgow, the synod of
Glasgow and Ayr, and at last the General Assembly,
to which it was carried for final adjudication, Dr.
Macgill assumed the leadership; and few, even of
his most intimate friends, were prepared for that
masterly eloquence which he exhibited at the first
step of the controversy. In taking his chief ground
upon the argument of the responsibility of city
ministers, and the immense amount of labour which
they had to undergo, especially in such a city as
Glasgow, he invoked his brethren of the presbytery
in language that was long afterwards felt and remem-
bered. The question, as is well known, was lost by
the evangelical party; and the union of the offices of
principal of the university of Glasgow and minister of
the church and parish of St. Mungo was confirmed, as
well as the continuance of plurality sanctioned. But
this was only a last effort. The opposition which
Dr. Macgill thus commenced had aroused the popu-
lar feeling so universally upon the subject as to com-
mand the respect of the government; and the royal
commission which was afterwards appointed for