514
according to the rules of the church, be licensed and
ordained, the vacancy should be supplied by an assis-
tant, until that period arrived. On the completion
of this arrangement, which took place in 1768, Sir
Henry removed to Edinburgh, where he prosecuted
his studies to their close, distinguishing himself among
his fellow-students by the superiority of his talents,
and continuing to inspire his friends with the most
sanguine hopes of the success of his future ministry.
Having attained the prescribed age, he was licensed
to preach the gospel, although he had not yet com-
pleted the required term of attendance at the di-
vinity hall; and immediately after was ordained,
15th August, 1771, to the church of his native parish.
The singular talents of the young preacher, however,
did not permit of his remaining long in so obscure
a charge as that of Blackford. On the occurrence
of a vacancy in the extensive and populous parish
of St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh, Sir Henry Moncrieff,
whose personal worth and extraordinary abilities
were already known and appreciated in the capital,
was called upon to supply it. Into this charge he
was inducted in October, 1775, about four years after
his ordination and settlement at Blackford. The sub-
sequent life of Sir Henry Moncrieff, though remark-
able for an exemplary and unwearied diligence in the
discharge of the laborious duties of his office, and
for a continued display, on his part, of every excel-
lence and virtue which can adorn the human char-
acter, presents little of which the biographer can
avail himself. Holding on the "even tenor of his
way," and neither turning to the right nor to the left,
but still anxiously promoting the interests of religion
by his eloquence, and of morality by his example,
Sir Henry Moncrieff was one of those great and good
men who are content to confine the exercise of their
talents—of talents which, if they had been directed
by ambition, might have procured them a more
dazzling fame—to the immediate duties of their
calling, and who think that the high intellectual
powers with which they have been gifted cannot be
more usefully or more appropriately employed than
in extending the knowledge and promoting the
happiness of those within the immediate sphere of
their personal influence.
It was not inconsistent, however, with his duties
as a minister of the Establishment, that he should
take an active interest in the business of the church
courts. At the period when he entered public life
the Moderate party, headed by Drs. Robertson and
Drysdale, had attained a complete and hardly re-
sisted supremacy in the Scottish church. Sir Henry,
however, instead of joining the party with which his
secular rank might have been expected to connect
him, took the opposite course, and soon rose, by the
force of talent and character, assisted, but in no great
degree, by his rank, to the situation of a leader in
the more zealous party, over whom he ultimately
acquired a control not more useful to their interests
than it was honourable to himself. In 1780 he was
proposed as moderator of the General Assembly, in
opposition to Dr. Spens of Wemyss; the competi-
tion was keen, Dr. Spens being elected by a ma-
jority of only six votes : but in 1785 Sir Henry, being
again a member of the General Assembly, was unani-
mously chosen moderator. Dr. Andrew Thomson,
to whom in later life he yielded much of his influ-
ence in the church, has thus spoken, in his funeral
sermon, of the public character of Sir Henry:—
"It was in early life that he began to take an
active part in the government of our national church.
The principles of ecclesiastical polity which he
adopted as soon as he entered on his public career
he adopted from full and firm conviction; and he
maintained, and cherished, and avowed them to the
very last. They were the very same principles for
which our forefathers had contended so nobly, which
they at length succeeded in establishing, and which
they bequeathed as a sacred and blood-bought legacy
to their descendants. But though that circumstance
gave a deep and solemn interest to them in his
regard, he was attached to them on more rational
and enlightened grounds. He viewed them as
founded on the Word of God, as essential to the
rights and liberties of the Christian people, as identi-
fied with the prosperity of genuine religion, and with
the real welfare and efficiency of the Establishment.
And therefore he embraced every opportunity of
inculcating and upholding them; resisted all the
attempts that were made to discredit them in theory,
or to violate them in practice; rejoiced when they
obtained even a partial triumph over the opposition
they had to encounter; and clung to them, and
struggled for them, long after they were borne down
by a system of force and oppression; and when,
instead of the numerous and determined host that
fought by his side in happier times, few and feeble,
comparatively, were those who seconded his manly
efforts, and held fast their own confidence: but he
lived to see a better spirit returning. This revival
cheered and consoled him. Fervently did he long
and pray for its continuance and its spread. Nor
did he neglect to employ his influence in order to
introduce pastors who would give themselves con-
scientiously to their Master's work, preaching to their
flocks the truth as it is in Jesus, watching for souls
as those that must give an account, and faithfully
and fearlessly performing all the duties incumbent on
them, both as ministers and as rulers in the church."
Sir Henry made a more successful opposition,
especially towards the end of his life, to the domi-
nant faction in the church than had been made for
upwards of half a century before; and in more in-
stances than one he left their leader, Principal Hill,
in a minority. To his efforts, indeed, are to be as-
cribed, in a great measure, the introduction of evan-
gelical doctrines into parts of the country from which
they had for many years been excluded, the prepon-
derance of evangelical ministers and elders in the
church courts, and the consequent ascendency of the
popular party. Young men of piety and promise
were always sure of his assistance and encouragement.
In this respect many had reason to bless him ; while
the church at large has had reason to rejoice in his
fidelity and wisdom. In the management of the
Widow's Fund, established by act of parliament in
the year 1744, Sir Henry took a deep interest, and
acted as its collector for upwards of forty years. He
was also one of the original members of the Society
of the Sons of the Clergy, and by his influence and
his exertions contributed largely to its success. He
was, besides, a warm friend to every reasonably ad-
justed scheme that had for its object the amelioration
of the moral and physical condition of mankind. In
the year 1826 he was bereaved of his wife (Susan,
daughter to Mr. James Robertson Barclay of Keavil,
W.S., to whom he had been married in 1773, and
who was his cousin); while his own health, which
had been generally good, was also undergoing a
decline. In the month of August of the following
year (1827) Sir Henry himself died, after an illness
of considerable duration. At the time of his death
he was in the seventy-eighth year of his age, and the
fifty-sixth of his ministry.
The personal character of Sir Henry Moncrieff
was, in the highest degree, respectable, and his
conduct, in every relation of life, most exemplary.
He had thoroughly studied the whole scheme of the