Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 3.djvu/49

Rh successor, into his new charge, one of the oldest and wealthiest in the Secession church, on the 21st May, 1801. Previously to the doctor's induction, a large portion of the members of the congregation had withdrawn to a party who termed themselves the Old Light; but the diligence, zeal, and talents of its ministers speedily restored the church to its original prosperity.

From this period nothing more remarkable occurred in Dr Dick's life than what is comprised in the following brief summary of events. In 1810, he succeeded, by the death of Dr Pirie, to the sole charge of the Greyfriars. In 1815, he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from the college of Princetown, New Jersey, and in the following year he published a volume of sermons. In 1820, he was chosen to the chair of theological professor to the Associate Synod in room of Dr Lawson of Selkirk, who died in 1819 ; an appointment which involved a flattering testimony to his merits, being the most honourable place in the gift of his communion. Yet his modesty would have declined it, had not his friends insisted on his accepting it. For six years subsequent to his taking the theological chair, Dr Dick continued sole professor, but at the end of that period, viz., in 1825, a new professorship, intended to embrace biblical literature, was established, and the Rev. Dr John Mitchell was appointed to the situation. From this period Dr Dick's labours were united with those of the learned gentleman just named.

On the retirement of the earl of Glasgow from the presidentship of the Auxiliary Bible Society of Glasgow, in consequence of the controversy raised regarding the circulation of the Apocrypha, Dr Dick was chosen to that office, and in March, 1832, he was elected .president also of the Glasgow Voluntary Church Association, to the furtherance of whose objects he lent all his influence and talents. But his active and valuable life was now drawing to a close, and its last public act was at hand. This was his attending a meeting on the 23rd January, 1833, in which the lord provost of the city presided, for the purpose of petitioning the legislature regarding the sanctification of the sabbath. On this occasion Dr Dick was intrusted with one of the resolutions, and delivered a very animated address to the large and respectable assemblage which the object alluded to had brought together; thus showing that, consistently with the opinions he maintained as to the power of the civil magistrate in matters of religion, he could join in an application to Parliament for the protection of the sacred day against the encroachments of worldly and ungodly men.

On the same evening Dr Dick attended a meeting of the session of Greyfriars, to make arrangements for the celebration of the Lord's Supper, but on going home he was attacked with the complaint, a disease in the interior of the ear, which brought on his death, after an illness of only two days' duration. This excellent man died on the 25th January, 1833, in the sixty-ninth year of his age, the forty-seventh of his ministry, and the thirteenth of his professorship. His remains were interred in the High churchyard of Glasgow on the 1st of February following, amidst- expressions of regret which unequivocally indicated the high estimation in which he was held. About a year after his death, his theological lectures were published in four volumes, 8vo, with a memoir prefixed.

It only remains to be added, that Dr Dick, during the period of his ministry in Glasgow, attracted much notice by the delivery of a series of monthly Sabbath evening lectures on the Acts of the Apostles, which were afterwards published at intervals in two volumes; and, on a second edition being called for, were collected in one volume. These lectures, which were followed up by a series of discourses on the divine attributes, are reckoned models for the exposition of the Holy Scriptures.