"BROUGHTON PLACE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, EDINBURGH.
"It is very difficult, in a few sentences, to convey to another the
impression which gradually grows up from frequent contact with a nature
so sympathetic, clear-sighted, active, and many-sided in its activities
as that of a fellow-student and friend like Elmslie. Acquaintance with
him was mainly confined to two widely sundered periods, both of them
anterior to the last, crowded, brilliant years.
"It was during the session of 1866-67, at King's College, Aberdeen,
that I first met him. As every one who knew the Aberdeen of that time
is aware, the third year was to most students peculiarly severe. Bain—a
consummate teacher—made distinction in his class appear the blue ribbon
of the college course, for which the best men earnestly contended.
Fuller was merciless in his demands upon his senior mathematical class,
who found, as the months went on, that it was less and less possible to
keep him in sight. And with 'Davy' Thomson there was no trifling,—fear
of his sarcasm greatly helping our thirst for natural philosophy. As
the session advanced the chariots of most of us drave heavily. Elmslie,
however, who studied everything, seemed to do his work with a masterful
ease which impressed us all. He came up smiling to an examination as if
it were a thing of nought. Study could not blanch the fresh bloom on
his cheek, or damp the lively play of spirit which characterized him
then as much as in after years. I have just been looking at his
portrait in our class group, and at his clear bold signature in the
lithographed autographs which accompanied it. To a singular extent his
personal character was formed, and his peculiar excellencies were
developed, at that early date. He was, when little more than a boy, a
man whose words clung to you, whose ways lingered in your memory. Even
then, too, he had something of that sweet hopeful Christian spirit
which was to make his preaching so helpful. One student, whose
opportunities had been few, whose struggle had been painful in the
extreme, used to speak to me with enthusiasm of Elmslie's kindly notice
and assistance. While other natures were but emerging from chaos,
barely conscious to themselves, giving but the faintest indication to
others what they were to be, he whose course was to be so soon run, was
already girt up and disciplined for life's way.
"After our college course was completed, I did not meet him till 1878,
when already he had been for some time minister in Willesden. On more
than one occasion, I stayed with him for a day or two, and saw with my
own eyes how full and many-sided a life he was living then, even before
fame came. He was carrying on his studies, advising publishers with
regard to learned and bulky MSS., superintending a railway mission,
maintaining in briskest activity the work of his congregation, and in
these and many other channels winning 'golden opinions from all sorts
of people.' Especially did I admire his faculty of adapting himself to
English ways of thinking and feeling. And amid this abounding life, and
with the promise of all that came after bright before him, he was so
unaffected and ingenuous and humble, never shrinking from his future,
yet not feverishly anticipating it, that it was impossible not to love
him. Here, too, he showed his skill in discovering elements of strength
in men whom others would dismiss as incompetent. I remember a
missionary who succeeded to the astonishment of everybody, and I verily
believe of himself, under his kindly and stimulating superintendence.
It is one of the pleasant memories of my life that I carried the motion
in Synod which made it possible for him to be elected as permanent
Professor. I remember how the Willesden flock were between smiles and
tears all that day, and how when the second vote was carried which
severed the tie between their minister and them, they did not know
whether to be grieved or glad, so strong was their love, so eager was
their desire for his advancement. No one could hear him speak that
night and doubt his future. All that the great world has since seen in
him, we knew to be there, and more, which would have been revealed had
not death so soon sealed his lips.
"Of the later years, others will speak. Out of these earlier memories I
have woven—all unskilfully I fear, yet with sincere affection—this
modest wreath for his tomb."