regarding the subscription of elders would
never have been carried through."

A man of a very catholic spirit, and a lover of peace and concord, the
Professor, like many others who longed for a comprehensive union of the
Scottish Churches, would willingly have made all reasonable concessions
for the attainment of so desirable an object. But he was too loyal a son
of the Church of Scotland to consent to any unworthy compromise, and in
the hour of danger no one was more ready than he to exert all the
influence at his command in her defence. Readers of Dr Boyd's
'Twenty-five Years of St Andrews' may remember the account there given
of the impression made by the Professor's sermon in the Town Church in
the height of the contest in 1885, when the question of Disestablishment
was brought so prominently before the electors of the St Andrews Burghs.
Dr Boyd says: "It had been intimated at the services during the day that
Dr Mitchell, our Professor of Church History, would lecture in the
parish church in the evening on 'Some aspects of the Church Question
deserving of consideration in the present crisis.' Dr Mitchell was that
year Moderator of the Kirk: and he very seldom preaches. The church was
filled by a great congregation. I should not in the least degree have
been surprised to hear Dr Mitchell preach wisely and devoutly: that is
his usual way. But it did surprise me to find that man of calm and
well-balanced mind fire up into a pathos and vehemence which I have
rarely seen equalled and never surpassed. The question of
disestablishment had been raised: and one was made to realise how it
stirs the blood of good men here. And not merely were there this evening
a fire, a keenness, a power of stirring a multitude to the depth of
their nature, which are rare indeed, but an incisive severity of
denunciation which few had expected from that calm, cautious man. And if
the preacher was at white-heat, so was the congregation long before he
was done. Several times there would have been loud applause, had it not
been hushed."

The attitude which the Professor maintained in regard to the doctrine
and worship of the Church was a strictly conservative one, and may be
best described in his own words, taken from an article included in the
list of his minor works. In that article, after quoting the advice
tendered by an eminent minister of the Church of England to a minister
of the Church of Scotland--"Stick by your own Kirk: it is an hones