Three generations

354 MEN AND WOMEN MET BY THE WAY
Caird and Wallace were close friends from the time
when they came as lads in succession to Oxford,
furnished with the Snell Scholarship, the Scotch key
to Oxford even in the time when Lockhart could write
of the Fellows' rooms that there should have been
written above the doors " No Scotchmen admitted
here." Times had changed, and both Caird and
Wallace were afterwards Fellows of Merton. Their
friendship continued unbroken till middle-age, when
death severed it here. It was well said of them
in connection with John Caird, the elder brother of
Edward, the Principal of Glasgow University and
one of the finest preachers in Scotland, that while John
Caird had philosophized religion Edward Caird and
William Wallace had spiritualized philosophy.
Andrew Fairbairn, Doctor of Divinity and Principal
of Mansfield College — the college of the Free
Churches — Wesleyan Methodist, Congregational, and
Presbyterian (the Unitarians have a college to them-
selves — Manchester College). Mansfield College affords
its students — mostly candidates for the ministry — a
religious curriculum in accordance with Free Church
principles, while the young men are under an obliga-
tion to attend one or other of the more mundane
colleges in order to acquire a liberal education. Dr.
Fairbairn rose by sheer ability and merit from a small
Dissenting charge in Scotland to this important posi-
tion. He is generally admitted by all open-minded
authorities in the churches to be one of the first theo-
logians of the generation, liberal, learned, reverent, and
devout. As a preacher he is eloquent and earnest.
His influence over his students has been great and
abiding. A volume of essays written by some of the
most distinguished men among them, now scattered in