All these qualities found expression in a speech he delivered on the occasion of the presentation of his portrait to the United Presbyterian Synod in May 1888. This portrait had been subscribed for by the ministers and laymen of the Church, and painted by Mr. W.E. Lockhart, R.S.A. The presentation took place in a crowded house, and amid a scene of enthusiasm which no one who witnessed it can ever forget. Principal Cairns concluded a brief address thus: "I have now preached for forty-three years and have been a Professor of Theology for more than twenty, and I find every year how much grander the gospel of the grace of God becomes, and how much deeper, vaster, and more unsearchable the riches of Christ, which it is the function of theology to explore. I have had in this and in other churches a band of ministerial brethren, older and younger, with whom it has been a life-long privilege to be associated; and in the professors a body of colleagues so generous and loving that greater harmony could not be conceived. The congregations to which I have preached have far overpaid my labours; and the students whom I have taught have given me more lessons than many books. I have been allowed many opportunities of mingling with Christians of other lands, and have learned, I trust, something more of the unity in diversity of the creed, 'I believe in the Holy Catholic Church.' In that true Church, founded on Christ's sacrifice and washed in His blood, cheered by its glorious memories and filled with its immortal hopes, I desire to live and die. Life and labour cannot last long with me; but I would seek to work to the end for Christian truth, for Christian missions, and for Christian union. Amidst so many undeserved favours, I would still thank God and take courage, and under the weight of all anxieties and failures, and the shadows of separation from loved friends, I would repeat the confession, which, by the grace of God, time only confirms: '_In Te, Domine, speravi; non confundar in aeternum_.'" CHAPTER XI THE END OF THE DAY In May 1891 the report of an inquiry which had been instituted in the previous year into the working of the United Presbyterian College was submitted to the Synod. The portion of it which referred to Principal Cairns's department, and which was enthusiastically approved, concluded as follows: "The Committee would only add that the whole present inquiry has deepened its sense of the immense value of the services of Dr. Cairns to the College, both as Professor and as Principal, and expresses the hope that he may be long spared to adorn the institution of which he is the honoured head, and the Church of which he is so distinguished a representative." The hope thus expressed was not to be fulfilled.