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156 Immortality, as we have seen, meant to him that there is a permanent and abiding element beyond the merely particular and individual which must pass away, and so far it was a reality in his mind. God was a real presence in the world, and not a far away divinity in whom men believed but whom they could not know; but as to the creeds and doctrines of the Church, they seemed far removed from the Essential, from true Reality. Professor (afterwards Principal) Shairp writes: 'In the visits which I made to his bedroom from time to time, when I found him sometimes on chair or sofa, sometimes in bed, I never heard one peevish or complaining word escape him, nothing but what was calm and cheerful, though to himself as to others it was evident that the outward man was fast perishing. The last time but one that I saw him was on a Sunday in April. He was sitting up in bed. The conversation fell on serious subjects, on the craving the soul feels for some strength and support out from and above itself, on the certainty that all men feel that need, and on the testimony left by those who have tried it most, that they had found that need met by Him of whose earthly life the gospel histories bear witness. This, or something like this, was the subject on which our conversation turned. He paused and dwelt on the thought of the soul's hunger. "Hunger is the great weaver in moral things as in physical. The hunger that is in the new­born child sits weaving the whole bodily frame, bones and sinews, out of nothing. And so I suppose in moral and spiritual things it is hunger that builds up the being."'

Professor Veitch, a later colleague at St. Andrews, adds: 'We miss the finely­cut decisive face, the erect manly presence, the measured meditative step, the