Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 7.djvu/141

Rh euill companie, and nocht to send thair berns to dangerus paries. And, finalie, Mr Andro and he marvelouslie conspyring in purposes and judgments, war the first niotioners of an anti-seminarie to be erected in St Andros to the jesuist seminaries, for the course of theologie, and cessit never at assemblies and court, till that wark was begun and sett fordwart."

There perhaps never was a period more calculated to bring forth the talents of our countrymen, than that of the Reformation. Accordingly, Mr Smeton was soon required by his brethren to take an active part in the more public transactions of the church. In October, 1578, he was nominated one of the assessors to the moderator of the General Assembly; an appointment conferred at that time upon the most learned and judicious of the members. But his talents were considered as fitting him for the performance of functions still more important He was chosen moderator of the next Assembly, which met in July, 1579, and which was called to the consideration of many important questions. Among these may be mentioned, the finishing of the first Scottish edition of the Bible. In 1580, he became the opponent of Nicol Burn, a professor of philosophy in the university of St Andrews, who had turned papist. Of this controversy, Ur Mackenzie promised an account in his Life of Burn, but his biographical work never reached that point.

James Melville has alluded in the passage we have quoted from his Diary, to the anxiety of his uncle and Smeton that the young noblemen and gentlemen of Scotland should be educated at home, and to the measures which they proposed for the attainment of that object. They had at length the satisfaction of seeing their new constitution of the university of St Andrews approved by the church, and ratified by parliament Melville was chosen principal of St Mary's, or the New college, and, after much opposition, arising, however, from no other motive than a conviction of his usefulness as minister of Paisley, Smeton was appointed his successor by letters under the Privy Seal, dated the 3rd of January, 1580. Most unfortunately the records of the university of Glasgow are almost wholly lost for the period during which this excellent man presided over it His duties, however, are known to have been of no light description; he was the sole professor of divinity, and had also the charge of the religious instruction of the parish of Govan. Besides the mere literary department, as it may be termed, of his duties, he had the general superintendence of the university, in which was included the by no means pleasant office of inflicting corporal punishment on unruly boys. Almost equally little has been preserved respecting Smeton's share in the ecclesiastical transactions during the remainder of his life. He was chosen moderator of the General Assembly held in April, 1583. We have already alluded in the life of Mr Robert Pont to the removal of that learned man for a short period to St Andrews, and to the reasons which obliged him to relinquish that charge. Andrew Melville was anxious that his place should be supplied by Smeton, and, it is not improbable, intended to adopt some measures for bringing the state of that town under the notice of this Assembly. But it was the policy of the Prior and his dependants to frustrate the settlement, whatever might be the merits of the intended minister, that they might spend in extravagance or debauchery the funds which were destined for his support The king, therefore, probably instigated by that ecclesiastic (the earl of March) but under the specious pretext of a fatherly care over the university of Glasgow, forbade the Assembly to "meddle with the removing of any of the members thereof, and especially of the Principal." Smeton's old schoolfellow, Arbuthnot, now principal of King's