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 the despatch, Dr. Duff led the party in the senate.’ Dr. Banerjea has written thus of his leadership: ‘The successive vice-chancellors paid due deference to his gigantic mind, and he was the virtual governor of the university. The examining system still in force was mainly of his creation. … He was the first person that insisted on education in the physical sciences.’ In 1863 the office of vice-chancellor was pressed upon him by Sir Charles Trevelyan, to whose recommendation the viceroy would probably have acceded, but the state of things at home was such that the church recalled him to preside over its missions committee. It was thought to be time that Duff should leave India, his health being so impaired as to make a permanent change a necessity.

The memorials devised in his honour on his leaving were very numerous. In the centre of the educational buildings of Calcutta a marble hall was erected as a memorial of him. Four Duff scholarships were instituted in the university. A portrait was placed in one college, a bust in another. A few Scotchmen in India and adjacent countries offered him a gift of 11,000l., the capital of which he destined for the invalided missionaries of his own church. Conspicuous among those who gave utterance to their esteem for him as he was leaving them was Sir Henry Maine, who had succeeded to the post of vice-chancellor of the university. Maine expressed his admiration for Duff's thorough self-sacrifice, and for his faith in the harmony of truth, remarking that it was very rare to see such a combination of the enthusiasm of religious conviction with fearlessness in encouraging the spread of knowledge.

On his way home in 1864 Duff, in order to become practically acquainted with other missions of his church, visited South Africa, and traversed the country in a wagon, inspecting the mission stations. In 1865 he learned that his Calcutta school had for the first time been visited by a governor-general, Sir John Lawrence, who wrote to him that it was calculated to do much good among the upper classes of Bengal society. Installed as convener of the foreign missions committee, Duff set himself to promote the work in every available way. To endow a missionary chair in New College, Edinburgh, he raised a sum of 10,000l. He had never thought of occupying the chair, but circumstances altered his purpose and he became first missionary professor. He superintended all the arrangements for carrying into effect the scheme so dear to Dr. Livingstone, of a Free church mission on the banks of Lake Nyassa. He travelled to Syria to inspect a mission in the Lebanon. He co-operated with his noble friends, Lady Aberdeen and Lord Polwarth, in the establishment of a mission in Natal, the ‘Gordon Memorial Mission,’ designed to commemorate the two sons of Lady Aberdeen, whose career had terminated so tragically, the sixth earl of Aberdeen and the Hon. J. H. H. Gordon. In 1873, when the state of the Free church was critical, on account of a threatened schism, Duff was a second time called to the chair. This danger, strange to say, arose from a proposal for union between the Free church and the United Presbyterian, which Duff greatly encouraged. Among his latest acts was to take an active part in the formation of the ‘Alliance of Reformed Churches holding the Presbyterian System.’ Before the first meeting of this body, in 1877, Duff's health broke, and he died on 12 Feb. 1878. His personal property he bequeathed for a lectureship on missions on the model of the Bampton.

Duff's principal publications were as follows: 1. ‘The Church of Scotland's India Mission,’ 1835. 2. ‘Vindication of the Church of Scotland's India Missions,’ 1837. 3. ‘New Era of English Language and Literature in India,’ 1837. 4. ‘Missions the end of the Christian Church,’ 1839. 5. ‘Farewell Address,’ 1839. 6. ‘India and India Missions,’ 1840. 7. ‘The Headship of the Lord Jesus Christ,’ 1844. 8. ‘Lectures on the Church of Scotland,’ delivered at Calcutta, 1844. 9. ‘The Jesuits,’ 1845. 10. ‘Missionary Addresses,’ 1850. 11. ‘Farewell Address to the Free Church of Scotland,’ 1855. 12. Several sermons and pamphlets. 13. ‘The World-wide Crisis,’ 1873. 14. ‘The True Nobility—Sketches of Lord Haddo and the Hon. J. H. Hamilton Gordon.’ 15. Various articles in the ‘Calcutta Review.’

[Letter to Dr. Inglis respecting the wreck of the Lady Holland, 1830; Missionary Record of Church of Scotland and of Free Church of Scotland; Disruption Worthies; Life of Alexander Duff, D.D., LL.D., by George Smith, C.I.E., LL.D., 2 vols.; Men worth remembering, Alexander Duff, by Thomas Smith, D.D.; Daily Review, 13 Feb. 1878; Proceedings of General Assembly of Free Church, 1878.] 

DUFF, JAMES, second (1729–1809), was second son of William Duff, Lord Braco of Kilbryde. His father, son of William Duff of Dipple, co. Banff, was M.P. for Banffshire 1727–34, was created Lord Braco in the peerage of Ireland 28 July 1735, and was advanced to the dignity of Earl of Fife and Viscount Macduff, also in the peerage of Ireland, by patent dated 26 April 1759,