In a hotel at Athens one evening, Principal Tulloch, lying in bed, was startled by the bursting in of Norman Macleod, ‘as large as life, and bluff and sunburnt from a tour in Syria.’ To this meeting, at which the two leaders discussed theology and ecclesiastical affairs till midnight, were doubtless due in part certain events which make 1865 the most memorable year in the history of the Church since the Disruption.
By this time it was evident that the Secession had in a manner failed. As a voluntary institution, indeed, the Free Church was flourishing in the eye of Europe, but it was not for this that the Candlishes and the Cunninghams had taken off their coats. The ‘bond’ Establishment was to perish, and they, on their own terms, were to get possession of the National Zion. Behold, the Church of Scotland was risen again! For ten years its destiny had hung in the scales; but in the middle of the fifties, the most popular preacher in Glasgow was the minister of the Barony, and the minister of Lady Yester’s, Edinburgh, was the first pulpit orator in the land. Norman Macleod and John Caird had convinced the astonished people that within the old walls also the real gospel ring was to be heard. To these might be added one who, in a less conspicuous position, by the beauty of his character and the devotedness of his life, rendered as noble service,--the elder Story of Roseneath. The rising generation of parish ministers could not fail to catch the new tone, and if they were spurred on as well by the example of their dissenting brethren, not a few were giving points to their instructors. To set the Church upon its feet, once it had shown signs of recovery, no one did more than Professor James Robertson, who was of a wonderful zeal and courage, strong in intellect and will, in spirit, if not in doctrine, liberal,--a man singularly forgotten. He took up the work of church extension begun by Chalmers, only where the master had looked to the State the pupil was for nothing but subscriptions. In a dozen years he had raised more than half a million of money, with which about a hundred and fifty parishes were erected. But nothing so much showed that the Church was alive as its activity in the foreign field. By the old Moderates (although it was a Moderate who founded the India Mission) the project of converting the heathen had been scouted as a vagary of fanaticism. That the Church could now bear the test of interest in dark continents was chiefly due to Macleod. So everywhere but in the Highlands the word went,--’There’s life in the Auld Kirk yet.’