Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 9.djvu/147

Rh door work that would beset him in the discharge of his duty, and he was aware of its tendency to mar the occupations of the study, and arrest or throw back the mind of the minister, and shut him up within the narrow circle of his early acquirements. But he knew, withal, that the duty of intellectual self-improvement was equally urgent with that of active everyday usefulness. On this account, he proposed to his brethren of the presbytery the plan of a literary and theological association for mutual instruction, by the reading of essays, and oral discussions; and the proposal was so acceptable, that in 1800 a society for the purpose was formed, whose meetings were held once a-month. The important subjects which it kept in view, and its plan of action, were admirably fitted for the clergy of a large city, who, of all men, must keep abreast of the learning and intelligence of the age. While he was a member of this literary and theological association, Dr. Macgill read, in his turn, a series of essays which he had written on the pastoral office and it duties, and the best ways of discharging them with effect. These essays, which were afterwards published in the form of letters, entitled, "Considerations addressed to a Young Clergyman," gave ample proof of his high appreciation of the ministerial office, and sound views of an appropriate clerical training. The work, also, as well as the consistent manner in which he had always acted upon its principles, pointed him out as the fittest person to occupy a most important office in the church. This was the chair of theology in the university of Glasgow, which became vacant in 1814, by the death of Dr. Robert Findlay, who had held it for more than thirty years.

On his election to the professorship of divinity, Dr 4 Macgill addressed himself in earnest to the discharge of its onerous duties. And that these were neither few nor trivial, may be surmised from the fact, that the general number of the students in the Divinity Hall was above two hundred, while their exclusive instruction in theology, instead of being divided among several professors, devolved entirely upon himself. The mode, also, of teaching that most complex, as well as most important of sciences, was still to seek; for as yet the training to the ministerial office was in a transition state, that hovered strangely between the scholastic pedantry and minuteness of former years, and the headlong career of innovation and improvement that characterized the commencement of the 19th century. And in what fashion, and how far, was it necessary to eschew the one and adopt the other? It is in these great periodic outbursts of the human mind that universities stand still in astonishment, while their learned professors gaze upon the ancient moth-eaten formulas, and know not what to do. To teach theology now was a very different task from the inculcation of Latin and Greek, which has continued the same since the days of Alfred. The first years, therefore, of Dr. Macgill's labours as a professor, consisted of a series of experimenting; and it was fortunate that the duty had devolved upon one so patient to undergo the trial, and so observant of what was fittest and best. At length the whole plan of theological instruction was methodized into a system that worked harmoniously and effectively under the control of a single mind. It was felt to be truly so by the students who passed under its training; so that each fell into his own proper place, and the daily work of the Divinity Hall went on with the regularity of a well-adjusted machine. It was sometimes objected to the course of lecturing, that it attempted to comprise too much; that it descended to too many minutiæ; and that the fit proportion which each subject should bear to the whole, was thus lost