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residing at Southcroft, some three miles away in the country. His mother (Georgina Campbell before her marriage) was a woman of simple piety. As the firstborn, he was named after his parents, though not perhaps without remembrance of the Glasgow poet, Thomas Campbell. Both were members of the United Presbyterian Church, and were attracted to the ministry of the Rev. Dr. William Anderson, of the John Street Church, partly by his fame as a preacher of much power, but not less by his liberal views on questions of election and predestination. A certain repugnance to the rigid Calvinism of the Confession permeated the household, and had already led a brother of Mr. Finlayson, sen., to withdraw from the University, which he had entered with a view to the ministry.

Mr. Finlayson's education was begun at the St. Enoch's Parish School, where he was soon the leading scholar, and continued in classics and mathematics at the Glasgow High School, under Dr. Low and Dr. Bryce, where he had a tough struggle with the future Professor J. W. Hales for the Greek medal. But according to the custom of the time, not wholly abandoned even yet, at the age of fourteen and a half he proceeded to the University of Glasgow, where he was a student for five sessions (1850-1855). He appears to have made his mark from the first among an unusually brilliant group of undergraduates. Among his classmates were three who were afterwards to be eminent professors of their own University, Edward Caird, John Nichol, and William Jack; the present Provost of Oriel College, Oxford, and eminent Homeric scholar, D. B. Monro; his schoolfellow, Professor Hales; Professor J. D. Everett, F.R.S., of Belfast;

two with whom he was to be closely associated in later life, the Rev. Dr. Macfadyen of Manchester and the Rev. Dr. Mackennal of Bowdon; and others who gained distinction in various walks of life. His professors during his earlier years were, that most finished and graceful of scholars, who has unfortunately preferred to live in the memory of many generations of almost adoring students rather than in the gratitude of readers, E. L. Lushington; that prince of teachers and soundest of writers, William Ramsay; and for a session the substitute of the latter, W. Y. Sellar, for so many years the illustrious professor at Edinburgh. The prelections of the last, with his admirable criticisms of the Latin poets, and not less admirable illustrations of them from the stores of English literature, were greatly appreciated by his young pupil, and he set much store by the prize. which he gained in this class. Later on he passed into the classes of Hugh Blackburn, the professor of mathematics, and of the present Lord Kelvin (the only one of his professors who is still a member of the Senate), in both of which he gained prizes; and also in the logic class of Professor Buchanan, and especially in that of moral philosophy of Dr. Fleming, he highly distinguished himself. Of the students with whom, to judge from the correspondence which has been preserved, he was on the most intimate terms, may be mentioned J. W. Hales (until he proceeded to Durham Grammar School, on his way to Christ's College, Cambridge); J. M. Ross, the sub-editor of Chambers's Cyclopaedia, editor of the Globe Cyclopaedia, and author of Early Scottish History and Literature; James Brown, afterwards minister in Paisley; J. D. Everett; George

Palmer, who perished in the wreck of the London; A. G. Fleming, the U.P. minister, who married his sister; and Tiyo Soga, the first native Kaffir missionary. Besides the work of the University classes, which he followed with the greatest regularity and diligence, though this often implied a walk of three miles in from the country before 7.30 A.M. on a dark winter's morning, he took an active part in the young men's societies both at Dr. Anderson's church and, occasionally, at the Greyfriars' Church; and there are still some who remember his clear and effective speaking, and his passionate love of debate. At the "Southcroft Club," which met on Saturday evenings at his father's house, literary, political, and philosophical questions were in the winter discussed with not less eagerness, and his circle of University friends was increased by the addition of others, of whom Dr. R. Giffen, C.B., was afterwards the best known. But in the summer the club devoted itself rather to athletic sports, into which Finlayson, with his spare, active frame, threw himself with great enthusiasm. During this period some time was also spent in his father's office, where he developed those habits of methodical accuracy which marked his writing and his conduct.

From an early age he was destined, alike by his parents' wishes and by his own predilections, for the work of the Christian ministry; and mainly through the influence of his pastor, Dr. Anderson, he decided to apply for admission to the United Presbyterian Theological Hall in Edinburgh, which he entered for the session August-September, 1854. But it was not long before he found his position there becoming untenable. He was already a deeply interested student

of F. D. Maurice, though it was only at a later date. that J. M. Ross introduced him to the fountain-head of much of Maurice's teaching in the theological works of Coleridge. On some points the doctrines of Dr. James Morison would have attracted him, but on others, he would have found these at least as repellent. His standpoint at this time cannot be better stated than by some extracts from a letter which he sent early in 1856 to Dr. Anderson :

"So long as the formula put to young men at license and ordination requires them to signify an unqualified adherence to the doctrines of the Westminster Confession of Faith, I feel that I cannot conscientiously become a licentiate or a minister of our church. Nor so long as that Confession teaches the doctrine that God for His own glory passed an unconditional decree of reprobation upon some men and angels-that Christ died for the some who are elected, and for them alone that there are elect infants that the heathen world and all those to whom the light of the gospel never came, are inevitably and endlessly damned, etc.-I feel that I could not signify my adherence, even generally, to that Confession, because these doctrines appear to me to spring directly from the root of its theology, and not merely to be accidental blemishes upon it."

He goes on to reject emphatically the pleas that this subscription is a matter of form, or of historic interest, or that there is a tacit understanding that the assent is merely general. He makes a characteristically frank and earnest appeal to Dr. Anderson to use his influence, for the sake of the many whom his preaching and his books had brought to convictions b

directly at variance with the obvious meaning of the standards of the church, to get such a tacit understanding put into plain honest English. But he repeats that for his own part he could not give even a general assent. Dr. Anderson, in a sympathetic but not very helpful reply, recognises the extreme difficulty of his position, and evidently feels that it can only have one result. But it is worth while observing precisely what this was, especially as it has been misunderstood. It was not a question of being required to withdraw from the Theological Hall. No test was demanded, if I am rightly informed, of students as such. But the question was whether he should continue to travel along a road-not very attractive to him, it may be remarked, in itself knowing all the time that he would find an insuperable barrier at the end on applying for license.

Even at this stage strong pressure was put upon Mr. Finlayson to enter the Church of England, rather than join the Independents, to whose ideal he felt. himself much attracted. In March, 1856, Dr. A. Macleod, at this time joint pastor with Dr. Anderson, afterwards of Birkenhead, and to the end a much loved friend of Finlayson, dissuaded him from the latter course, advising in preference the temporary abandonment of the ministry; and his intimate friend J. M. Ross enforced the same view very strongly :"The unwritten creed of their churches, the motley crowd of passions, prejudices and ignorances which so frequently are opposed to a high-minded minister, render his position almost intolerable. True, if the Congregationalists accept you, you are free from the perjury attending your entrance into the United Presbyterian

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