peal of what has been termed the
Black Act of 1711, and in the restitution of the old formula for
ministers and elders, which are now so generally welcomed, and have been
acknowledged by one at least of the three who protested against the
change to be a great boon. I have often spoken of the pleasure I have
had in superintending the work of my students, and my gratification at
the zest with which they took to the study both of Hebrew and Church
History. The circumstances which led to my resignation are already well
known to you all, and I need only say that it was to me a very regretful
necessity. I leave in each of the three other Divinity Faculties at
least one distinguished pupil, and in St Mary's College two who, with
their younger colleagues, I trust will strive to make it more than ever
a School of the Prophets, a nursery for earnest, faithful, scholarly,
and devoted ministers, who shall set high above all passing isms Christ
the personal Saviour, and those great truths as to His divine nature,
incarnation, atoning death, and glorious resurrection, to which the
historic Church of Christ through so many centuries has clung as her
life and strength and joy. Christ before, Christ behind,--according to
St Patrick's prayer,--Christ above, Christ beneath, Christ in the
heart, Christ in the home. I heartily thank you all for your great
kindness, and especially Principal Stewart and Mr Wenley, and one who
once said I had been as a father to him, and of whom I may truly say
that he has been as a son to me."

In 1852 the Professor married the eldest daughter of the late Mr Michael
Johnstone of Archbank, near Moffat, who belonged to an influential
yeoman family that has been connected with Annandale for the last two
hundred years. The late Mr Peter Johnstone, brother of Mrs Mitchell's
father, who was a proprietor as well as a large farmer, is still
remembered as having done a great deal to promote the cause of education
in the district where he resided; and her brother, the late Mr James
Johnstone, was tenant of Bodsbeck farm, which is the scene of the
Ettrick Shepherd's well-known Covenanting story--"The Brownie of
Bodsbeck." How much Mrs Mitchell did to brighten the life and to
minister to the happiness of the Professor can be known only to those
who have had the privilege of being admitted into the inner circle of
their friends, and there are not a few who have very pleasant
reminiscences of delightful intercourse with th