om the North off the ferry-boat at Newport,
he walked all the way to St Andrews--a distance of eleven miles--along
with the carrier's son by the side of the cart which conveyed his
luggage to its destination. Widely different as were the future careers
of those two youths, there were various interesting points of contact in
their lives, the one becoming an eminent doctor in the University, and
the other filling the honourable position of a magistrate in the ancient
city, while both were associated as members of the kirk-session of the
Town Church.

At the very outset of his career at St Andrews the young student from
Brechin gained the highest distinction, having won the first bursary
open to students entering the University, as the result of a competitive
examination in classical scholarship. Throughout his course, both in
Arts and Divinity, he maintained a highly honourable place in all the
classes, distinguishing himself particularly by proficiency in Hebrew
and other Oriental languages; while he won the commendation of his
professors and the esteem of his fellow-students not more by his
attainments in learning than by the sterling integrity of his character
and the example of his consistent Christian life. Among his
contemporaries at College were not a few who in after-life rose to
prominent positions in the Church, one of these being his future
colleague, the late Principal Tulloch, with whom he continued to have
most cordial relations during a lifelong friendship.

On completing the usual curriculum of study at the University, Mr
Mitchell was in 1844 licensed to preach the Gospel, and after acting for
some time as an assistant, first to the minister of the parish of Meigle
and then to the minister of the parish of Dundee, he was in 1847
ordained by the Presbytery of Meigle to the pastoral charge of the
parish of Dunnichen in his native county.

The Professor had been no passive spectator of the exciting and
momentous events which were taking place in the Church of Scotland in
the years which immediately preceded and followed his entrance on the
work of the ministry; and in his address as Moderator of the General
Assembly, four decades afterwards, he gives a graphic account of the
impressions made upon him by his visits to the Supreme Court of the
Church during that period of acrimonious controversy and painful
separation. He says: "My first view of the General Assembly was gained
in 1840, where from the public