Reformed Covenanter
Cancelled Commissioner
... Dr Hugh Martin has sent the Montrose Standard a copy of a letter which has addressed to Dr Kennedy, of Dingwall, on “The disgraceful bunglement of what is called the Smith case.” Dr Martin says:— “Nothing could be more ridiculous than the attempt get up a cry about tyranny, oppression, and all that sort of thing; and Smith’s own scream at the bar for Robert Rainy is the most puerile and laughable thing he has done, if it wasn’t in jest and jeering.”
Prof. Robertson Smith the Doctor will not judge as guilty of worse than thoughtlessness, and as “an old friend of his own — of his father and mother, ay, and of his grandmother,” apostrophises him thus: — “Oh, laddie! it were better for you that a millstone were hanged about your neck, and that you were drowned in the depth of the sea, than that you should offend one of Christ’s little ones. There is a terrible tide of passion on just now; and, simply because am his personal friend, I have had odium to bear for his sake. As if, forsooth, I weren’t classicus classicorum, one the most orthodox of the orthodox, and subjected every now and than to odium on that account, too! I again say that have not studied the critical questions at issue, and may very probably never study them now. But anybody thinks that that disqualifies from seeing that Dr Wilson’s movement has been not only right but inevitable, I can only say they must be very ‘thick the head.’” ...
For more, see Hugh Martin and the William Robertson Smith case.
Prof. Robertson Smith the Doctor will not judge as guilty of worse than thoughtlessness, and as “an old friend of his own — of his father and mother, ay, and of his grandmother,” apostrophises him thus: — “Oh, laddie! it were better for you that a millstone were hanged about your neck, and that you were drowned in the depth of the sea, than that you should offend one of Christ’s little ones. There is a terrible tide of passion on just now; and, simply because am his personal friend, I have had odium to bear for his sake. As if, forsooth, I weren’t classicus classicorum, one the most orthodox of the orthodox, and subjected every now and than to odium on that account, too! I again say that have not studied the critical questions at issue, and may very probably never study them now. But anybody thinks that that disqualifies from seeing that Dr Wilson’s movement has been not only right but inevitable, I can only say they must be very ‘thick the head.’” ...
For more, see Hugh Martin and the William Robertson Smith case.
