"One of the last things I read of Elmslie saying was that what people needed most was _comfort_. Probably he never knew how much his mission, personally, was to give it. I presume he often preached it, but I think he must always have _been_ it. For all who knew him will testify that to be in his presence was to leave care, and live where skies were blue. "Yours very sincerely, "HENRY DRUMMOND. "BRINDISI, _March 17th, 1890_." III. FROM THE REV. JOHN SMITH, M.A. "BROUGHTON PLACE UNITED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, EDINBURGH. "It is very difficult, in a few sentences, to convey to another the impression which gradually grows up from frequent contact with a nature so sympathetic, clear-sighted, active, and many-sided in its activities as that of a fellow-student and friend like Elmslie. Acquaintance with him was mainly confined to two widely sundered periods, both of them anterior to the last, crowded, brilliant years. "It was during the session of 1866-67, at King's College, Aberdeen, that I first met him. As every one who knew the Aberdeen of that time is aware, the third year was to most students peculiarly severe. Bain—a consummate teacher—made distinction in his class appear the blue ribbon of the college course, for which the best men earnestly contended. Fuller was merciless in his demands upon his senior mathematical class, who found, as the months went on, that it was less and less possible to keep him in sight. And with 'Davy' Thomson there was no trifling,—fear of his sarcasm greatly helping our thirst for natural philosophy. As the session advanced the chariots of most of us drave heavily. Elmslie, however, who studied everything, seemed to do his work with a masterful ease which impressed us all. He came up smiling to an examination as if it were a thing of nought. Study could not blanch the fresh bloom on his cheek, or damp the lively play of spirit which characterized him then as much as in after years. I have just been looking at his portrait in our class group, and at his clear bold signature in the lithographed autographs which accompanied it. To a singular extent his personal character was formed, and his peculiar excellencies were developed, at that early date. He was, when little more than a boy, a man whose words clung to you, whose ways lingered in your memory. Even then, too, he had something of that sweet hopeful Christian spirit which was to make his preaching so helpful. One student, whose opportunities had been few, whose struggle had been painful in the extreme, used to speak to me with enthusiasm of Elmslie's kindly notice and assistance. While other natures were but emerging from chaos, barely conscious to themselves, giving but the faintest indication to others what they were to be, he whose course was to be so soon run, was already girt up and disciplined for life's way.