Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 8.djvu/293

Rh problem to a poem: instead of being contented to see an idea looming in the distance and through the mist, and taking it upon such doubtful security, he must needs gauge it in all its length, breadth, and thickness, before he could be satisfied. It was no wonder, therefore, that he was so impassive to transcendentalism, and that in after years he characterized one of Coleridge's marvellous monologues, to which he had listened with a countenance of mathematical severity, as "all buff." This intellectual tendency had made him a close and accurate meteorological observer; had enabled him to discharge successfully the duties of a factor as well as tutor to one of his employers, and had pointed him out as the fittest person to write the articles, "Geography," "Euclid," and "Meteorology," in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia. It was also these powers of calculation, combined with capacity for the multifarious details of business, that procured for him the tempting offer of an important situation in the East India House. But all these capacities he devoted exclusively to the service of the church, and they were manifested not only in his mode of teaching as an investigator and expounder of the lessons of Divine truth, but the efficiency with which he managed those financial operations connected with the church's welfare that were committed to his care.

The first public situation which Robert Gordon held was that of master in the Academy of Perth; but not long after, he was appointed minister to the parish of Kinfauns, Perthshire. In this rural charge he remained only four years, having been called in 1820 to the old chapel of ease in Buccleuch Street, Edinburgh; and soon after to the quoad sacra church of Hope Park, which was built for him. His arrival in Edinburgh produced an unwonted stir, and he was soon one of the most popular and highly-valued preachers of the day. At this no one was so astonished as himself: his innate modesty could not perceive wherefore he was so followed after; and while he shrunk from such popularity as a misplaced and uncertain liking, it only clung to him the more pertinaciously on that account. His preaching, indeed, was in a style that was all his own—it was religious truth in its own native simplicity and distinctness, enforced with all the impassioned earnestness of one pleading upon a life-and-death question—theological speculation without its coldness and abstraction, and oratory without its meretricious ornaments. Few could refuse to listen, or listening, fail to comprehend such preaching, although it so much transcended, both in expansiveness and depth, the usual standard of pulpit ministrations. A volume of these sermons, which he published, attested its true character, so that the work went through several editions, and is still prized as a standard production, while the most intellectual of the inhabitants of Edinburgh became part of his regular congregation. As might be expected, also, the diploma of doctor in divinity was speedily conferred upon him. In 1825 he was translated from Hope Park to the new North Church, and in 1830, to the High Church of Edinburgh.

During the whole course of Dr. Gordon's ministry, he was seldom to be found engaged in the controversies of church courts; but when it was necessary in any important question to express his sentiments, they bore the stamp of his reflective conscientious character, and were received with respect. Such was the case in 1829, when the great question of Catholic emancipation would not permit him to be silent, and when he also found himself compelled to dissent from most of his brethren. In spite of all the warnings of history to the contrary, the majority had persuaded themselves into the fond belief that Popery, V.