Lorimer, who was Convener of the British section of the
Committee on Creeds and Formulas of Subscription, to give in the report
containing "Answers to Queries regarding Creeds and Confessions." The
Answers as regards the Church of Scotland, which had been prepared by
himself, are to be found in the Report of the Proceedings of the
Council, pp. 969-984. When in America he also delivered a course of
lectures at Alleghany. His connection with the Alliance brought him into
close contact with some of the leading Presbyterian divines of Britain
and America, with whom his opinions on the history of the doctrine,
worship, and government of the Church carried great weight; and Dr
Schaff has acknowledged his obligations to him, among others, in his
well-known work entitled 'The Creeds of Christendom.'

In 1885 the Church showed her appreciation of the Professor's character
and work by electing him to the Moderatorship of the General Assembly,
an office which he filled with a union of dignity and authority which
reflected honour upon the Church. If there are parties in the Church of
Scotland, he never identified himself with any of them, and had learned
to call no man master but Christ. He knew his own mind, and could give
forcible expression to his convictions when occasion required. Naturally
of an unassuming disposition and unobtrusive manners, he never courted
popularity nor sought to thrust his opinions upon others; and it was for
this reason, perhaps, that he was deferred to even by those whose views
were in some respects widely divergent from his. It was doubtless for
this reason also, as well as for others, that he wielded so great an
influence in the counsels of the Church, and probably few men had more
to do than he with the shaping of her policy in recent years. In paying
a tribute to his memory at a meeting of the Presbytery of Edinburgh a
few days after his decease, the Very Rev. Dr Scott of St George's said
that "by Professor Mitchell's death the Church had lost a laborious,
faithful, successful, and honoured minister and professor, and perhaps
one of the soundest and wisest counsellors that the Church ever had. He
was a man who had friends in all the Churches. He knew how powerfully
his influence had told in the Church--always for conciliation, not only
so far as those without their own Church were concerned, but those
within the Church also. Had it not been for Dr Mitchell's influence the
relaxation of the formula