f him that he combined in himself the
labours and the graces of Luke the beloved physician and Philip the
evangelist. When occasion offered, he would not only diagnose and
prescribe but pray at the bedsides of his patients, and his influence
was exerted in behalf of everything that was pure and lovely and of
good report in the town of Berwick. His delicately chiselled features
and fine expression were the true index of a devout and beautiful soul
within. Dr. Cairns and he were warmly attached to one another, and he
was his minister's right-hand man in everything that concerned the
good of the congregation.

It will readily be believed that Dr. Cairns had not been suffered to
remain in Berwick during all these years without strong efforts being
made to induce him to remove to larger spheres of labour. As a matter
of fact, he received in all some half-dozen calls during the course of
his ministry from congregations in Edinburgh and Glasgow; while at one
period of his life scarcely a year passed without private overtures
being made to him which, if he had given any encouragement to them,
would have issued in calls. These overtures he in every case declined
at once; but when congregations, in spite of him or without having
previously consulted him, took the responsibility of proceeding
to a formal call, he never intervened to arrest their action.
He had a curious respect for the somewhat cumbrous and slow-moving
Presbyterian procedure, and when it had been set in motion he felt
that it was his duty to let it take its course.

Once when a call to him was in process which he had in its initial
stages discouraged, and which he knew that he could not accept, his
sister, who had set her heart on furnishing an empty bedroom in the
manse at Berwick, was peremptorily bidden to stay her hand lest he
might thereby seem to be prejudging that which was not yet before him.
Two of the calls he received deserve separate mention. One was in 1855
from Greyfriars Church, Glasgow, at that time the principal United
Presbyterian congregation in the city. All sorts of influences were
brought to bear upon him to accept it, and for a time he was in
grave doubt as to whether it might not be his duty to do so. But two
considerations especially decided him to remain in Berwick. One was
the state of his health, which was not at that time very good; and the
other was the pathetic one, that he wanted to write that book which
was never to be written.