Of both it might most truly be said that 'being made perfect, in a short time they fulfilled a long time.' Like others of my classfellows, Mr. Bruce, our first Bursar, now minister of Banff, W. L. Davidson, LL.D., minister of Bourtie, and our mutual friend John Smith, of Broughton Place Church here, and many more, I watched your son's career with the deepest interest, and as I have said, took quite a pride in the career of usefulness and honour which by his ability and hard work he shaped for himself in London. We really felt as if he were our own somehow, and as if we had a share in all the honours he was gaining, both as a literary and as a public man." The Rev. W. A. Gray, of Elgin, who was brought up in a neighbouring Free Church manse, says, "What characterised him then was his intense sense of fun, his perception of the comic side of things, especially in regard to people, and his never-failing stock of anecdotes, almost always humorous, never malicious." Coming several years after Elmslie to the University of Aberdeen, I only knew him from a distance. To an outsider his prominent quality was winsomeness. There was no jealousy in Aberdeen of fairly won success; if there had been, Elmslie would have disarmed it. Then, as always, he took his victories with the utmost simplicity. He was always humble, with the humility which is very consistent with strenuous effort and even great ambition. The sons of Free Church ministers in those days, however great their University successes might have been, generally desired no higher position than that of their fathers. It was, no doubt, the wish of his parents that Elmslie should be a minister, and his inclination fell in with that. At the same time there were counter-inducements; for one, many Aberdeen students had been winning high distinction at Cambridge, the senior wranglership having fallen to some of them, and his teacher and some of his relatives were anxious that he should try his fortunes there. He had himself a strong bent to the medical profession. Whatever line he had taken in life he would have been successful. A well-known revivalist preacher, also a professional man, is understood to have counselled him to go in for a business life. One who knew him well has remarked to me, since his death, that his true pre-eminence would have been shown in a scientific career. But his life, and especially its closing years, made it plain that his own choice was wise.