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doubt determined, to make ample amends for the
neglect that the army had suffered from in the earlier
period of the war. It may be, as it has been
alleged, that he showed himself too lenient to the
officers whom his own commissioners had proved
incompetent or faithless, and too little respectful to
the commissioners themselves; yet the highest credit
must be given him for the self-sacrificing energy with
which he acted his part in this war, and in the man-
agement of Indian affairs during the mutiny that fol-
lowed close on the heels of the Russian campaign.
"In fact," says a writer in the Times, "Lord Pan-
mure found his office no sinecure. As long as that
war lasted Lord Panmure, who always enjoyed a
strong frame of body and a sound constitution,
literally 'turned night into day,' and was constantly
up long before sunrise, busying himself with his
correspondence, very little of which he threw upon
his subordinates."
The period of his connection with the war depart-
ment is most important in the military history of our
country. It was then, and chiefly through his efforts,
that the commission on military education, so
fruitful of good results, was appointed; and to him
are due many military reforms,�the establishment
of a system of competitive examinations for commis-
sions, the successful initiation of a movement for the
disuse of the lash, the reduction of the period of
enlistment, the provision of better accommodation
for married soldiers, and other benefits which have
conduced much towards the moral and physical
amelioration of the British army. Losing his official
position in 1858, on the resignation of the Palmer-
ston cabinet, he never again entered on the list of
ministers; but up to the last he continued to take an
interest, and to take his own part, in the debates
of the Lords, battling always with animation for
those liberal principles which lay so near his heart.
Lord Dalhousie died at Brechin Castle on the 6th
of July, 1874.
Among the honours and titles which fell by heri-
tage or election to the earl were these: privy coun-
cillor in 1841; lord rector of Glasgow University in
1842; vice-president of the board of trade, for a
short time in 1841; Knight of the Thistle in 1853,
and Knight Grand Cross of the Bath in 1855 ; and
Earl of Dalhousie�hence his change of name to
Ramsay�in 1860, on the death of his cousin the
Marquis of Dalhousie, governor-general of India.
His lordship had an hereditary interest in free-
masonry, and was himself connected with the associ-
ation for fifty years, attaining in 1867 the honour of
grand master mason of Scotland.
The earl was a ready, fluent, pointed speaker,
though never rising into lofty flights of eloquence.
"Chief among his valuable qualities," says a jour-
nal not to be suspected of bias in his favour, "were
energy and strong common sense. Chief among
his defects were a narrowness and accompanying
obstinacy of opinion, and a tendency towards an
overbearing demeanour and policy. . . . His
ecclesiastical position somewhat deducted latterly
from his political power and usefulness, our political
and ecclesiastical demarkations to a large extent
running across each other. But, by his talents,
his energy, and his great territorial and social
position, he remained, even to the last, a tower
of strength to the Scotch Liberal party. Politically,
'Fox Maule' used to be a greater name to conjure
with than 'Lord Dalhousie' ever was; but both
were names of power; and the historian of our
generation will have to record that the man who
bore them was not only much of a patriot, but
something of a statesman."
FAIRBAIRN, PATRICK, D.D., an eminent theo-
logian and writer on biblical subjects, was born 28th
January, 1805, at Hallyburton, in the parish of
Greenlaw, Berwickshire. His father died while he
was yet a youth, but his mother was spared to him
till he was well up in life; and his devoted attention
to her is a circumstance in complete harmony with
others which indicate how much he felt himself
indebted to her training for the formation of his
character�a character which was singularly free
from faults. There is every reason to believe that
this outward character owed its excellence to a
decided work of grace within him at a very early
period of his life, though his habitual reticence
on all subjects which touched his deepest feelings
leaves us very much in ignorance of any details.
He showed a great love for knowledge while yet
a boy; and seems at an early age to have had in view
the office of the ministry in the Church of Scotland.
His academic studies were all pursued at the Uni-
versity of Edinburgh, which he entered in Novem-
ber, 1818, being then not quite fourteen years of
age; and having passed through the course of
theological training, he was licensed to preach the
gospel by the Presbytery of Dunse in 1826. Un-
willing to hang on for years without employment,
as many in his position were forced to do, he went
to labour in the island of North Ronaldshay, the
most northern of the Orkney islands, which was
constituted into an ecclesiastical parish in 1831, and
over which he was ordained the first minister. The
island is only about 3� miles long and I mile broad,
and with a population of about 500 souls. With
very many men the risk would have been great that
in such a situation they would have gone to sleep, or
that they would have done worse. But in addition
to most diligent pastoral work, by which he left his
mark upon the spiritual and intellectual condition
of the island, he devoted himself to regular study,
especially, though not exclusively, in the line of his
profession, and more particularly in the departments
of criticism and interpretation of Scripture, as culti-
vated in Germany for half a century. In later years
he was accustomed to call the attention of his students
to this part of his life and its lessons to young men
more than to anything else in his own experience.
After six years of labour in this secluded parish,
he was appointed the first minister of a new charge,
which had been formed by the church extension
movement, at Bridget on, in the east end of Glasgow;
and there anew he gave himself with much energy
to pastoral work in circumstances which contrasted
remarkably with those of his previous sphere of
labour. In the year 1841 he was translated to his
third charge, the parish of Salton in East Lothian,
with a population not much larger than that of his
first parish, where he kept up what were now his
confirmed habits of ministerial work combined with
earnest study. The well-known Dr. Gilbert Burnet,
Bishop of Salisbury, had at one time been minister
of Salton, and a considerable sum of money had been
left by him for the good of that parish, part of it
being for a library intended for the use of the minister:
this library was much used and diligently cared for
by Mr. Fairbairn. Though not by nature disposed to
take much active part in public business, he made
conscience of discharging his duties in church courts;
and in those exciting times he took a deep interest
in the struggle maintained by the Evangelical or
non-intrusion party for the removal of abuses which,
as they believed, had gathered around the working of
the church polity for a century, and above all in their
struggle for the emancipation of the church in spir-
itual matters from the control of the state. Acting