THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 
 'yV 
 ^^^
 
 LATER LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 MARCUS DODS, D.D.
 
 ^^ 

 
 LATER LETTERS 
 
 OF 
 
 MARCUS DODS, D.D, 
 
 (LATE PRINCIPAL OF NEW COLLEGE. EDINBURGH) 
 
 (1895-1909) 
 
 Selected and Edited by his Son 
 MARCUS DODS, M.A. 
 
 ADVOCATE 
 
 COMPANION VOLUME TO 
 
 EARLY LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON 
 
 ST. PAUL'S HOUSE, WARWICK SQUARE 
 LONDON, E.G. MGMXI
 
 
 PREFACE 
 
 In the preface to the collection of early letters 
 of Dr. Marcus Dods which was published last 
 autumn, it was suggested that another volume 
 might follow, containing letters of later date, 
 which should complete a kind of autobiography 
 of the writer. That scheme has turned out to 
 be impracticable. From 1864 to 1889 Dr. 
 Dods was the busy minister of a large and 
 growing congregation in Glasgow, and of those 
 twenty-five years as a whole it can be said that 
 he wrote fewer and shorter letters during than 
 he did before and after them. For several 
 of the earlier years of his ministry at Renfield 
 Free Church his chief correspondent, his sister 
 Marcia, was living with him. In 1871 he 
 married. His letters to and from his wife were, 
 with a few casual exceptions, destroyed by 
 himself after her death. The references to his 
 work in the correspondence of this period are 
 
 13048 S8
 
 CVlfvJ^ 
 
 vi PREFACE 
 
 comparatively few and slight, consisting mainly 
 of what might almost be called statistics, of 
 the progress of various departments of Church 
 work or of the subjects on which he was writing. 
 The idea of presenting an autobiography 
 having been abandoned on these grounds, it 
 has been thought best to omit the whole 
 Glasgow period, and to offer a selection from 
 the large number of letters which have survived 
 from the closing and practically contemporary 
 period of Dr. Dods's life. 
 
 It will be found that many of the letters in 
 this volume consist wholly or in part of brief 
 discussions of matters of faith or religious 
 experience. The editor is very sensible of the 
 responsibility involved in the pubhcation of a 
 miscellaneous collection of such passages, and 
 of the risk of misinterpretation by readers who 
 
 . may happen to fix upon isolated expressions of 
 ■VsJ^ opinion which may not represent the deliberate 
 
 \ and customary mind of the writer as elsewhere 
 recorded. The letters were %vritten in various 
 moods, in various states of bodily health, and, 
 by no means least important, to various
 
 PREFACE vii 
 
 people ; and they reflect those varying con- 
 ditions with a perhaps unusual degree of 
 candour. 
 
 The editor's very cordial thanks are rendered 
 to Miss Crum of Danefield, Largs, who has 
 spared no trouble in adjusting the letters written 
 to herself and to various members of her family ; 
 to Mr. Andrew Marshall, whose advice and 
 co-operation have again, as in last autumn, 
 been of the greatest help ; to the Rev. Dr. 
 W. M. Macgregor ; and to Mr. George C. 
 Maclean, who has been good enough to read 
 the final proof-sheets. 
 
 Edinburgh, October 1911.
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 The date of the beginning of the present selec- 
 tion of letters is quite an arbitrary one, and 
 marks no event or change in the life of the 
 writer. Dr. Dods was minister of Renfield 
 Free Church, Glasgow, from 1864 to 1889. In 
 the summer of that year his congregation gave 
 him, in recognition of his twenty-five years' 
 service, a six months' holiday and a cheque for 
 £1000. While he was on the Continent enjoy- 
 ing the rest which his people had so generously 
 provided for him, he was elected to the Chair 
 of New Testament Exegesis in New College, 
 Edinburgh. In August he took up his residence 
 at 23 Great King Street, Edinburgh, where he 
 lived for the rest of his life ; and he began his 
 professorial work in October of the same year. 
 In May 1907 he succeeded Principal Rainy as 
 Principal of the College, retaining his own 
 Chair ; but the illness which ultimately proved
 
 2 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 fatal had already begun, and he hardly per- 
 formed any of the duties incidental to the post. 
 During the winter of 1907-8 his lectures were 
 read, and his work at the College done for him 
 by Professors Martin and MacEwen. In 1908 
 he resigned his Chair, but was persuaded to 
 retain the Principalship. He died on 26th April 
 1909, at the age of seventy-five. 
 
 On 6th September 1871 Dr. Dods married 
 Catherine Swanston, eldest daughter of James 
 Swanston of Marshall Meadows, Berwick-on- 
 Tweed. Mrs. Dods died on 17th January 1901, 
 leaving one daughter, Mary Christian (' Mamie ' 
 in the letters), who in 1897 became the wife of 
 the Rev. A. H. Gray, and three sons, Marcus, 
 John Henry, and Francis Palliser. The last 
 mentioned died in Canada on 29th June 1910. 
 
 ' Doodle ' was a wire-haired fox-terrier of birth 
 and beauty and of nearly human sagacity, who 
 was the devoted companion of the last dozen 
 years of Dr. Dods's life.
 
 To Professor Henry Drummond 
 
 Edinbuegh, 1st June 1895. 
 I suppose you have already both seen The 
 Scotsman and received accounts from friends 
 here of the discussion^ on Thursday. It was 
 not satisfactory. It came on later than was 
 right. Rainy' s was a fine manifesto in the 
 direction of showing the unwisdom of taking 
 to do with scientific questions. All the 
 other speeches proved Rainy's position by 
 themselves illustrating how utterly incom- 
 petent the Ghurch is to enter on such matters. 
 The things that were said made one shiver 
 and faint with hopelessness. I was fully 
 charged, and had I been permitted would have 
 explained some things that seemed much in 
 need of explanation. But probably it was 
 well I could not speak, although it was irritat- 
 ing to hear men speaking so patronisingly of 
 the book. Several voted on the other side 
 whom one would not have expected to find 
 
 ^ In the General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland, 
 relative to Professor Drummond's book, The Descent of Man.
 
 4 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 there ; but a good many people are staggered, 
 and will not read and enquire. 
 
 Assemblies are dreadful — at least they dis- 
 agree with me in a high degree. 
 
 The reports about your health are not as 
 satisfactory as could be wished. Do you not 
 yourself think you would derive benefit from 
 electricity ? Walter Taylor tells me nothing 
 touched his sciatica till he tried it. Another 
 friend owes the use of his hand to it ; and if it 
 is * neurasthenia ' that affects you, as they say 
 it is, is not electricity the thing ? I wish you 
 were in London among the experts. In 
 obscure or chronic disease I think it is one's 
 duty to go to ' many physicians.' 
 
 The weather has been superb since the 
 Assembly began. We hope to leave, / must 
 leave, on Friday for Cambridge, thence on 
 the 11th for Interlaken. 
 
 What a holiday it would be if you were well 
 enough to join us. 
 
 With much affection from all here . . , 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll 
 
 Edinbukgh, 6th October 1895. 
 Pharaoh might have taken lessons from you ;
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 5 
 
 of the possibilities of sweating he had after all 
 the faintest conception. And appealing to me 
 in your weakness (which I sincerely hope is 
 rapidly disappearing — ' take a little wine,' etc.), 
 that is the cutest cut of all. But is it not too 
 bad of you frightening me about John in the 
 beginning of the week, and in the end of it 
 asking for more work ? I assure you John is 
 a heavier handful than you seem to think. 
 
 However, as usual I am putty, and if you 
 wish to turn me into a young men's counsellor 
 — so be it. I see my way to one thing, perhaps 
 to two ; the third must invent itself. I suppose 
 if I send you the first in six weeks, or before 
 Christmas, it will do — but I '11 try to do it soon. 
 
 I am working for Hastings' Bible Dictionary — 
 although I think it a mistake — and I have to 
 supply Harper of Chicago and Lyman Abbott 
 of New York {Outlook) with papers. However, 
 I am seeing the end of these, and will be clear 
 for John and you immediately. 
 
 Do take care of yourself. I suppose you will 
 be sending me Hort's book for The Expositor. 
 
 PS. You would not care for a somewhat 
 stupid paper on the Bible and other sacred
 
 6 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 books, I suppose ? No, it 's a stupid subject, 
 and I have sunk under it to an even unusual 
 depth. 
 
 To the Same 
 (Postcard) 
 
 EDmBURGH, 29fA October 1895. 
 I am very sorry to disappoint you, but it 
 is out of my power to provide you with an 
 article. I am very busy with College work. I 
 can't do more than ten hours a day, and I 
 need that. 
 
 To Professor Henry Drummond 
 
 Edinbubgh, 2Uli December 1895. 
 
 This is to wish you all good this Christmas and 
 during the coming year. May it be your best 
 in every way. Our Christmas here would be 
 ' merrier ' were we assured you were well. 
 On Sunday Andrew Marshall came in as of 
 old about eight, and stayed till past eleven. 
 He was sorry to hear no better news of you. 
 
 Just a little ago I have heard that Dr. Duns 
 is dangerously ill — bronchitis and pneumonia. 
 He is wandering and in quite a critical condition. 
 
 I hope Dr. Barbour is with you by this time.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 7 
 
 He told me he was going during the hoUdays. 
 I suppose you won't be able to flit to sunnier 
 climes for a bit yet. It is most lamentable to 
 think of you needing to go. 
 
 Your friends the Yanks are having a high 
 ' stars and stripes ' time. We are having a 
 lot of them, together with all the Parthians, 
 Medes and Elamites, to dinner to-morrow. 
 There are too many of them at College this year ; 
 I wonder if they learn anything. 
 
 I hope to write again soon. Meanwhile I 
 am interrupted. 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll 
 
 Edinburgh, 31st December 1895. 
 
 I suppose you were joking when you asked 
 me to produce fifteen sermons to young men. 
 In any case, of course you recognise the 
 impracticability of the request. I cannot 
 write sermons to order, and I have given you 
 all I have. I could give you perhaps another 
 little book, but not a big one, to young men. 
 Your other request is reasonable, and I must 
 try and keep it in view. 
 
 Drummond is, I fear, going slowly from 
 bad to worse. He has had recently some bad
 
 8 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 symptoms. But I shall be better informed 
 when Dr. Barbour, who is now with him, 
 returns. Drummond never says anything 
 about himself. It is terribly sad. Last New 
 Year he spent here, and was often in much 
 pain and looked ill, but then we thought it 
 lumbago. 
 
 With best wishes for the New Year, and 
 success to all your enterprises . . . 
 
 To the Same 
 
 [Edinburgh, n.d.] 
 
 I wish you would find a man who would 
 undertake the Old Testament literature for The 
 Expositor. I am quite unfit to undertake it, 
 having neither knowledge nor time enough. 
 Dr. Driver's Deuteronomy should be put in 
 competent hands, and I will gladly forward 
 the copy you sent to any person you name. 
 I feel too much of a sham when writing on 
 Old Testament subjects. 
 
 Did you see Drummond before he left 
 London ? He is at Tunbridge Wells now, and 
 rather despondent. His is a truly frightful lot. 
 
 Poor Rainy is in great trouble — one son 
 dead, another not strong, and a daughter
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 9 
 
 ordered abroad. This with the care of the 
 churches — 
 
 To Professor Henry Driimmond 
 
 Edestbubgh, 25th October 1896. 
 
 I hope it is not so long since I wrote as it 
 looks, and that however long it is, you forgive, 
 and believe we are always thinking and speak- 
 ing of you here. The truth is, I have been 
 much down for three months, doing my work 
 with difficulty, pain, and anxiety, and I am 
 still bad. But it is a great joy to us all to hear 
 of even a slight improvement in your condition. 
 Barbour, George Smith, Robert Gray, all re- 
 port favourably ; and could we only believe 
 you had taken the turn and were now to go 
 up the hill, however slowly, it would be the 
 best news we could hear. Poor Candlish seems 
 in a very bad way. 
 
 Whyte is greatly delighted with his colleague, 
 and says if the church was twice the size, they 
 could let every sitting. 
 
 NicoU continues to tyrannise, and I have 
 just sent off 100,000 words on the Greek Text 
 of John, and a two-months work condensed 
 into about 200 remarks which no one will read.
 
 10 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 This Kate Carnegie of Watson's is a fall- 
 ing off from his earlier performance. Short 
 sketches are his forte. Whyte preaches for 
 him next Sunday, and is shrinking from it, 
 feeling he cannot give them anything in the 
 same latitude as Watson. 
 
 Mrs. Simpson asked a lot of people to meet 
 Marie Corelli last week. She came in with a 
 toy-terrier under her arm. I was introduced, 
 but had almost immediately to make way for 
 Dr. Matheson, who knew her, and carried her 
 off, and we heard his guffaws pealing along 
 the lobbies. 
 
 Your appointment of Arthur Thomson was 
 highly approved of by the College Committee. 
 
 With much love. . . . 
 
 PS. Have you read The Heart of Princess 
 Osra — Anthony Hope ? 
 
 To Miss {A) 1 
 
 Edinbtjrgh, 4:th December 1896. 
 Why do you tantalize me ? It would give 
 me the greatest pleasure to be with you, but 
 
 ^ Several of Dr. Dods's correspondents have preferred to remain 
 anonymous. The letters to each of these are all marked with the 
 same index-letter.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 11 
 
 it is quite out of my power. I cannot keep 
 pace with my class even with the time I have, 
 and I never go out even here except one night 
 a week. To preach away from home during 
 session is also beyond my power. But could 
 you not come through for a night or two and 
 stay with us ? 
 
 I had a most enchanting hour with Prof. 
 Jones a month ago. His address to our students 
 was most characteristic, as he discoursed really 
 just on his own profoundest convictions. But 
 he was kind enough to stay for an hour's talk 
 after his address, which is about the best thing 
 I have had this autumn. 
 
 Tiele has been lecturing here, and I have met 
 him twice or thrice, and like him. He is not 
 so grimly earnest and combative as Pfleiderer, 
 nor perhaps so incisive, but he is decidedly 
 interesting, and has with him a charming 
 Frau, who has won all our hearts. 
 
 But I am falling asleep philosophically and 
 am greatly in need of a talk with you to wake 
 me up. Where are you now ? and what are 
 you working at ? What millstone are you seeing 
 through ? To me it seems all millstone, and 
 as the millstones increase, the milestones (alas !)
 
 12 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 decrease. It's a queer, topsy-turvy, incom- 
 prehensible, interesting life. Now do come 
 and have some talks. 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll 
 
 Edinburgh, 24^A December 1896. 
 
 Your Christmas cards are of so sumptuous a 
 kind that I am quite put to the blush. I can 
 do no more than thank you, and this I do very 
 cordially. I am always interested in Napoleon, 
 and had a vague idea I would buy Baring-Gould. 
 But your kindness has anticipated me. It is 
 a sumptuous book indeed, and I shall always 
 be proud of having it from you. 
 
 This week I have been busy with a * Survey ' ^ 
 in obedience to the chiding of The Scotsman, 
 and I hope to send it you in three or four days ; 
 but there is not a great deal of importance, 
 although some interesting things. 
 
 I hope you are feeling yourself the better of 
 j^our American trip. I have not been well, and 
 still defy the doctors. 
 
 That was a most capable review of Kipling's 
 
 ^ A Survey of Literature on the New Testament, which Dr. Dods 
 wrote for The Expositor for some years.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 13 
 
 Seven Seas by your friend Wise. Who is he ? 
 And why does he not do something big ? 
 With best wishes for you and yours . . . 
 
 To Professor Henry Drummond 
 
 Edestbhrgh, 4th January 1897. 
 
 I am not so much ashamed as you might 
 suppose for sending you no Christmas or New 
 Year's greeting, because I knew you had 
 friends with you, and as I have been, as usual, 
 thinking of you most of the time and wishing 
 you all manner of good in 1897, I have not 
 felt the need of writing. Jim Simpson told 
 me he was going to see you. His article in 
 Blackwood ^ is a great success — one of the kind 
 that appears once in two or three years, breaking 
 into a new world and distancing all the little 
 story-tellers and vampers up of pot-boilers. 
 
 How do you feel ? Hopeful at any rate, 
 I trust. There is a general impression abroad, 
 originating presumably with yoiu'self, that you 
 are to get well this summer. May it be true. 
 That you have at any rate not gone back for 
 so long now is surely a good sign. 
 
 With much love and best wishes . . . 
 
 1 Vol. clxi., ' The Great Siberian Iron Road.'
 
 14 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 To the Same 
 
 [Edinburgh, 28fA February 1897.] 
 
 I have been too long in writing to you. 
 From time to time we have been hearing of 
 you, sometimes good tidings, sometimes not 
 so good. I hope when spring fairly comes 
 in that the better will prevail and that you will 
 go steadily on. Our last news of you was 
 through J. A. W., who had seen your brother. 
 
 My spouse has been very bad. She went to 
 Bath, but that as yet seems only to have made 
 her worse, and some days she has been unable 
 to move without considerable pain. I have 
 been enjoying a nice little attack of sciatica 
 for the last four weeks, which, I suppose, is my 
 share in the general seediness which this change- 
 able winter has induced. 
 
 I am sorry to hear Candlish is worse — very 
 ill indeed. 
 
 I have been reading Nansen — not such a 
 fine book as Kane, nor so fine a man, but a 
 good Viking. There was a fineness about 
 Kane, and also a pathetic strain in all that 
 happened to him, which one misses in Nansen. 
 But he had a tremendous reception here.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 15 
 
 I am working away at the inexhaustible Paul, 
 and correcting the proof of John for Nicoll's 
 Greek Testament, which is worrying work. 
 
 We mean to take Frank and a companion 
 over to Bonn in April, and if I may I will come 
 and see you — probably the first week of May. 
 Marcus is resolved to get Frank to Cambridge — 
 he is so enchanted with it himself. 
 
 Somerville is giving his Cunningham Lectures 
 — very good and very well put. It is impossible 
 to predict what will be done by the Assembly. 
 It will almost certainly legitimise union with 
 the U.P. Church. 
 
 With much love and best wishes . . . 
 
 To his sister Marcia 
 
 Edinburgh, \2th March 1897. 
 I suppose the news of Drummond's death 
 has reached you. Just as Candlish was being 
 carried to his grave, the news came. It is a 
 sore blow to everybody who knew him, and no 
 one had more numerous friends. I have to 
 go to Stirling to-morrow to preach his funeral 
 sermon. The two men whom I used to think
 
 16 LATER LETTERS OF I\1ARCUS DODS 
 
 of as life personified, Elmslie and Drummond, 
 are both gone, and I am left — at least for a bit. 
 
 To John M. Grant 
 
 [Edinbtirgh, ? April 1897.] 
 
 A poor dissenting teacher of theology is 
 naturally elated at being asked by a West- 
 minster J. P. to dine with a Bishop — a Lord 
 Bishop — and in all seriousness I should like 
 to meet the man Creighton, however much I 
 may think apron and gaiters a shade out of 
 date outside a lunatic asylum. But the truth 
 is, since writing you last my plans have been 
 all upset. Something has gone wrong in my 
 interior, and the doctor doubts whether I shall 
 be able to leave home. I am under observation 
 at present, and cannot know for some days 
 what they are to make of me. I fear this will 
 prevent my going to Germany, but I will let you 
 know as soon as possible. Meanwhile you had 
 better fill up my place at your hospitable 
 board with some more satisfactory person. 
 Even if I do not go to Germany I should like 
 to have some days with you, as I nowhere get
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 17 
 
 a truer holiday. But as I say, I will write 
 again soon. 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll 
 
 Edinbubgh, 21th April 1897. 
 
 Your most kind letter was very welcome. 
 I did not reply yesterday, because I have no 
 gumption for journalistic matters and thought 
 it much safer to let you decide as to printing 
 Martin's testimonial. ^ I devoutly trust the 
 matter will go right. It will make a world of 
 difference to me. 
 
 I am downstairs again, and although ' feeble 
 and sore broken,' I hope a week or two in the 
 country will put me right. I hope to be 
 allowed to go to-morrow to Marshall Meadows, 
 and while there I could do a little reading for 
 Expositor ' Survey ' if you have any nice books 
 lying for it. 
 
 You are perfectly right to express yourself 
 only in The British Weekly. Indeed the charm 
 of the paper is that it is so individual. As to 
 giving it up, it is not to be thought of. It is 
 the one thing in the week I wait for. You can 
 
 ^ The reference is to Dr. Martin's nomination for the Chair of 
 Apologetics in New College, Edinburgh. 
 
 B
 
 18 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 put your whole self into it, and obviously it 
 is your life-work, and an immensely important 
 one. Have you read Jowett's Life carefully? 
 There are some very fine bits about work, and 
 about approaching age. More than most men 
 he controlled and formed and guided himself. 
 Of course the constant reference to Greek 
 literature gives the book an interest to me. 
 Speaking of which, you would find a deal of 
 sparkle and a deal of new truth in Murray's 
 Oreeh Literature. I did not know he had so 
 much knowledge or such a style. I must stop, 
 but remain . . . 
 
 To Ms son Frank 
 
 [Edinburgh, ? Maij 1897.] 
 We are very glad to hear you have a prospect 
 of some teaching and some pay. You will 
 find the teaching excellent for yourself. Like 
 Mercy it is twice blessed, blessing both him 
 that gives and him that receives. Also the 
 pay will no doubt be useful to you. Be sure 
 you let us know if it comes off, and generally 
 how you are getting on at the 'Varsity and 
 elsewhere. Does Lewis like the place ? I do
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 19 
 
 wish I could come and get heated through, and 
 see the dear old Rhine and hear the night- 
 ingales and wander through the Bonn book- 
 shops. (Some day get a catalogue or two for 
 me.) There is one in the Poppelsdorfer AUee, 
 and another away down opposite the other 
 end of the University building, near where 
 Coblenzer Strasse begins. 
 
 To the Same 
 
 Marshall Meadows, 
 Berwick-on-Tweed, lUh May 1897. 
 
 You say in your last you are rather swinging 
 
 towards publishing. The main thing is to 
 
 choose some line of life which you can heartily 
 
 go in for, because as you go on in life you will 
 
 find that your daily work is what you must 
 
 mainly depend upon for enjoyment as well as 
 
 for telling on your fellows. Also, the more 
 
 good you can do in any profession, the longer 
 
 you can be satisfied with it. 
 
 To the Same 
 
 Edinburgh, \Uh June 1897. 
 I do not by any means wish to discourage 
 you from looking forward to publishing, which
 
 20 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 I believe to be an eminently useful and also 
 pleasant life-work. But I would like you to 
 choose what you choose with clear recognition 
 of the facts. And I think that one difference 
 between being an accountant and a publisher 
 is that the one business is sure, the other 
 speculative. I mean that an accountant is 
 sure of work, and plenty of it, whereas a 
 publisher nowadays has to push tremendously, 
 both to get books to publish and also to get 
 people to buy them. In other words, it is not 
 so much a profession as a trade, and as in other 
 trades so in publishing you have to push and 
 bargain. 
 
 To the Same 
 
 Edinburgh, \Wi July 1897. 
 Mr. Duthie called here yesterday, and he and 
 I had a long talk about your affairs. He hopes 
 also to spend a week at Bonn immediately after 
 the Academy breaks up, so that he will be able 
 to explain to you all his views and discuss the 
 whole matter with you. He is pretty strongly 
 of opinion that you should stick to actuarial 
 work, as it opens good prospect of profitable
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 21 
 
 work. He has no doubt you could pass the 
 exam, if you worked hard this winter. 
 
 But you must not commit yourself to Duthie 
 unless you feel pretty sure that you could find 
 some pleasure in actuarial or insurance work. 
 Because of course a man's life is largely his 
 daily work, and if he is not happy in it, life 
 becomes a bondage. It is no doubt to be also 
 considered that human nature is so adaptable 
 that whatever we work at and put our heart 
 into becomes interesting. But if you think 
 anything else would suit you better, do not 
 hesitate to say so. The main thing is, as I 
 said before, to be hearty about something. 
 
 To his sister Marcia 
 
 Marshall Meadows, 
 Berwick-on-Tweed, nth August 1897. 
 
 Just a line to let you know that yesterday 
 Kate and I went to Belford by train and drove 
 to Bamburgh. At Belford we went into the 
 Churchyard and found our father's grave in 
 very good order. Marcus had told the sexton 
 to look after it, and apparently he had done 
 so to purpose, according to his lights. We also 
 went to the old house and found it looking
 
 22 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 beautiful, inhabited by the Vicar. I felt quite 
 enamoured of my birth-place, and Kate could 
 scarcely be dragged away. 
 
 Bamburgh is great ; a more magnificent 
 castle I never saw — the situation superb. Alto- 
 gether we had quite a notable day, and I am 
 the better of it. 
 
 To Miss (A) 
 
 Edinburgh, 1th September 1897. 
 Your wail moves me much — it expresses so 
 entirely my own chronic condition. To be 
 baffled in one's endeavours to know is only 
 what may be expected, and I am becoming 
 more and more convinced that although the 
 craving for truth is unquenchable and in- 
 eradicable, the attainment of truth is beyond 
 us ; and moreover we cannot be culpable for 
 the failure of honest and heart-breaking 
 endeavours to find the truth. Failures in con- 
 duct are the puzzle ; but is it not the case that 
 all that failure is necessary, as the child can 
 only learn to walk through many falls and 
 stumbles ? And I believe the result of all 
 the constantly renewed striving will suddenly 
 appear, as in many physical processes the
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 23 
 
 result is sudden, and up to the very point at 
 which the result appears all seems chaotic and 
 useless. In any case there is nothing for it 
 but renewal of strife ; for certainly, however 
 beaten and indisposed to strive longer, there 
 is a force compelling us onwards. It is some- 
 times a blessing not to know when we are beaten. 
 
 Besides, if you will allow me to say so, it is 
 the very earnestness of your striving, and the 
 sense of reality imparted to your character by 
 the strife and failure, that make you so helpful 
 to others. 
 
 I greatly relished the way in which you 
 turned the tables on materialism by the help 
 of your true materialism. Your theory of 
 ' nerves ' is, I think, true ; and however little 
 an individual may be inclined to exculpate 
 himself on that ground for any slackness or 
 insensibility, his neighbours are bound to take 
 account of the whole man, including his 
 ' nerves.' 
 
 To the Same 
 EDmBUBGH, 31si December 1897. 
 Thank you much for The Pain of the Worlds 
 
 ^ A paper by Mary Clifford, read to the National Union of 
 Wonaen Workers, and published by the Church Army, 1897.
 
 24 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 You are one of the people who are Hable to be 
 torn by it ; and the corrective of excessive 
 sympathy, or perhaps one should say fruitless 
 and morbid sympathy, is to be found in right 
 explanations of suffering and in activities for 
 relieving it. But it is difficult to be optimistic 
 and to believe that in every case the result is 
 for the greater good. 
 
 I meant to write to-day and thank you again 
 for Dr. Moberly's book.^ This is my last 
 holiday, and although I have not found time 
 to finish Moberly, I know I shall not be able to 
 find time to write to you after work at College 
 begins again. 
 
 The book is a good one. It has that mellow 
 richness which one finds only in the writing of 
 cultured Englishmen. I think he is wrong in 
 several of his contentions, but I would need 
 more time to criticise him with any confidence. 
 His chapter on Outward and Inward is most 
 instructive. Where I find him least satisfactory 
 is in his notes of difference between clergy and 
 laity. He seems to take for granted that all 
 those who perform some organic function of 
 the Body of Christ must be ordained men. 
 
 ^ Ministerial Priesthood, by R. C. Moberly, D.D.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 25 
 
 This certainly is not Paul's view ; and the 
 whole of Moberly's structure depends on the 
 differentiation of laity and clergy. 
 
 But I mean to read the whole again carefully, 
 and I hope we may some day have a good talk 
 about it. 
 
 With best wishes for your New Year ... 
 
 To his son-in-law, the Rev. A. H. Gray 
 
 [Edinburgh, n.d.] 
 
 I send you per parcels post what should suffice 
 for your Interesting Men of the Early Church. 
 Nowadays, of course, the best accounts of all 
 of them are to be had in the Dictionary of 
 Christian Biography, which you could see in 
 the Free Library. (This is disgusting paper, 
 and I can't write on it.) 
 
 For the Bible Lectures, if you add Myers' 
 Catholic Thoughts on the Bible and Theology, 
 and Reuss's History of the Canon, you should do. 
 If you cannot easily get these I can send them, 
 but Myers is a man to make a friend of and 
 keep by you. 
 
 I think you will find they take more interest 
 in the Canon if you take it up as v. Romanists.
 
 26 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 That allows you to emphasise Luther's position, 
 which was grand, also Calvin's, also the West- 
 minster Confession's. 
 
 On the general subject there are two cheap 
 books, 1/- each or so, Paterson Smyth's How 
 God inspired the Bible, and Dr. Clifford's The 
 Inspiration and Authority of the Bible. 
 
 These should be enough. 
 
 I could bring you some more books when I 
 come, or I could send them if you wish, but I 
 positively cannot write more with this pen. 
 
 Macgregor is preaching magnificently, but 
 the church is far from full. What a public ! 
 
 PS. I have been writing a brief set of 
 lectures on Paul's idea of the Church, and also 
 on the officers of the Church. Now I must try 
 and get Hebrews begun for Nicoll. 
 
 To his daughter, Mrs. Gray 
 
 Edinburgh, 14th July [1898]. 
 I should have written yesterday to thank 
 you for your kind treatment, but I had so many 
 letters to write and such a mountain of books 
 to sort and smell that I could find no time. 
 I wish you were near enough for me to come
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 27 
 
 often, and then I would show you how I can 
 empty a church. Your house is as pretty and 
 comfortable as Mother said it was, and it was 
 an immense pleasure to see you so happy in it. 
 I hope you may have many happy days in it. 
 
 To his son Marcus 
 
 Aberfoyle, 21171 September 1898. 
 
 Your letter, this morning received, has been 
 eagerly and repeatedly read. I have been 
 almost ceaselessly thinking of you this last 
 week, and am not by any means astonished to 
 hear that you do not find great attraction in 
 your work. That you do not actively dislike 
 it, I am glad to hear. The prospect of spending 
 your life in such work is certainly damping, 
 but it is a prospect you ought not to view. 
 Your present employment should only be a 
 stepping stone to something more to your 
 taste and more important (although Arnold 
 used to set his best men to the lowest forms 
 that their influence might be most felt and 
 might put the boys at once on good lines). 
 I have no doubt that in a short time you will 
 find something more to your mind, but every
 
 28 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 one must begin at the bottom rung of the 
 ladder. Besides, you will get interested in 
 the boys ; working with persons is always more 
 interesting than working with things, and I 
 fancy that before Christmas you will find that a 
 pretty close tie has been formed between you 
 and some of the small men. 
 
 At the same time I should grieve to think 
 that all your mental energies were to be 
 absorbed in teaching small boys. Read the 
 best books, and opportunities of influencing 
 men will necessarily arise, and if you know 
 whero men are intellectually and spiritually, 
 yo ^vUi, whatever your position be, find ways 
 of being of use to them. I think it is very 
 often in the extras of life, not in one's main 
 employment, that the best work is done. At 
 the same time I believe strongly that a man 
 should have as his main work something he 
 finds pleasure in. 
 
 To the Same 
 
 Edinburgh, 14^A October 1898. 
 I sent you to-day the most educating book ^ 
 I know, a boolc you can read 500 times in fair 
 
 ^ The English Humourists.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 29 
 
 weather and foul, sickness and health, by day 
 and by night, on Sundays and Saturdays. But 
 probably you will not find in Thackeray all I 
 found in him. However, try. 
 
 To John M. Grant 
 
 [Edinburgh, 2'^rd December 1898.] 
 
 I admire your enterprise,^ and may help you, 
 but I doubt whether I can. I am a backslider. 
 I used to enjoy prayer, but for years I have 
 found myself dumb. Of course one can always 
 make a prayer, as I do every morning for my 
 class, but prayer in the sense of asking for 
 things has not been in my case a proved fo? e. 
 The things I have chiefly prayed for all my 
 life I have not got. Communion with the 
 highest and consideration of Christ are of 
 course efficacious to some extent; but I pray 
 now not because my own experience gives me 
 any encouragement, but only because of Christ's 
 example and command. Ask K. S. Simpson 
 of the Free High here. Stalker, W. M. Macgregor 
 of Free St. Andrew's, Edinburgh. 
 
 We begin our holiday to-day. The College 
 is in better trim this year than I have ever 
 
 ^ The compilation of a volume entitled Family Prayers for 
 Morning Use.
 
 30 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 seen it. Some dozen Americans from Yale, 
 Princeton, etc., excellent, hardworking and 
 handsome men. Our own students get fewer 
 and fewer. The entrance examination to the 
 University is too severe for the Highlanders. 
 
 With best Christmas wishes for yourself and 
 Mrs. Grant . . . 
 
 To his son Marcus 
 
 [Edinbukgh, January 1899.] 
 
 I hope 3'^ou are not very low going from 
 Cambridge and its cultured leisure to Liverpool 
 and its grimy grind. Don't consider yourself 
 booked through at Greenbank. There is a 
 regular law in life, a law of progress and of 
 gradually attaining what you are best fit for. 
 By doing well the first tasks set you, you 
 inevitably take a step, purchase a degree higher, 
 and you are fortunate to have at your age 
 remunerative work of any kind. 
 
 Frank solaced himself for your departure 
 by staying at his office till 1-30 on Friday 
 morning, thereby winning the plaudits of his 
 two bosses. Last night (Friday) Leonard came 
 in and comforted him with billiards. Doodle
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 31 
 
 is, I think, very low ; cats alone would arouse 
 him. 
 
 To Mrs. Stothert ^ 
 
 Edinburgh, 18th March 1899. 
 You have greatly gratified me by your letter 
 and its accompaniments. It is an intense 
 satisfaction to have your minute account of 
 the closing days of my life-long friend. It is 
 sixty years ago since I first made his acquaint- 
 ance, and even then learned to admire his burn- 
 ing energy and zeal and conscientiousness. The 
 point in his career that most impressed me, 
 and has always been first to rise in my memory, 
 is the time when he began to study for the 
 ministry. I had a correspondence with him 
 at that time that fixed my own future, and that 
 gave me insight into the purity of his motives 
 and the depth of his religious conviction. His 
 attainments, too, far surpassed those of any 
 of our contemporaries, both in language (where 
 he was an easy first) and in philosophy. His 
 goodness was always a rebuke to me, and I 
 should have been surprised had there been any - 
 long clouding of his faith at the close. That 
 
 ^ Widow of the writer's old college friend, the Rev. R. Stothert.
 
 32 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 there should have been any is a great encourage- 
 ment to me. 
 
 I have read with great interest your little 
 memoir of your daughter, and Mrs. Dods is very 
 glad to have it and grateful to you for sending 
 it. The face at the beginning is singularly 
 taking. 
 
 Well, they are two beautiful characters you 
 have helped to train, and now nothing can bring 
 them into hazard again, and it must be an 
 undying satisfaction to you to have been con- 
 nected so intimately with two such characters. 
 Let me again assure you that I am very grate- 
 ful for your kind thought in sending me these 
 memorials. 
 
 To his son Marcus 
 
 Edinburgh, 21^1 March 1899. 
 I am not very sure how I would answer your 
 boy. Those stories in Genesis are of course 
 merely pictures of the growth of the race, and 
 of its connection with God, true as pictures in 
 a general way, but not true as historical fact. 
 The fall is a picturesque account of the point 
 in man's career at which from being innocent, 
 because without developed conscience, he
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 33 
 
 became conscious of a moral law. In the 
 growth of every child the same transition must 
 be made from ignorant innocence to a sense of 
 moral responsibility, and this stage or transition 
 is generally, perhaps always, accompanied by 
 or contemporaneous with wrong-doing. It is 
 by breaking the law that the child first becomes 
 conscious of the law. It is a fall which is at 
 the same time a rise. So in the development 
 of man there came a time when he became 
 aware of God and of God's law, a law which 
 he found himself unable to keep ; he became 
 conscious of sin, of which he had known nothing 
 before ; he had done the same things, but 
 done them in ignorance that they were wrong, 
 but now in doing them he consciously trans- 
 gresses a law. 
 
 But how you are to explain this to a small 
 boy, or whether you ought, I am scarcely 
 prepared to say. His parents may not wish 
 him to know the truth about those Genesis 
 stories, and it would be difficult to get him to 
 hold the truth they contain while rejecting the 
 fiction. 
 
 On the whole I think I would say to a boy 
 asking such a question, ' There are some things 
 

 
 34 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 you Ccannot understand till you grow up, and 
 this is one of them.' 
 
 I send Genesis, and two others for padding. 
 
 To his daughter, Mrs. Gray 
 
 Edestbttrgh, 22nd December 1899. 
 
 Your mother insists on my sending you the 
 enclosed as a Christmas gift. I know it 's only 
 to give her a little more confidence that she 
 will see that atom of yours who has become 
 the real centre of her life. She has been enjoy- 
 ing herself greatly making up parcels with her 
 photo for various people. I did not count how 
 often she kissed the image. Some of the photos 
 may, I fear, be blurred like the toe of St. Peter 
 in Rome. Copy-line : — Extravagant adulation 
 obliterates the finer lines of character. 
 
 I hope you still like your dog. I wish you 
 liked it so much that you would take also his 
 brother, who resides in the kitchen and whom 
 Frank finds it difficult to palm off on any of his 
 friends. 
 
 Frank has a bad cold, but hopes to play it 
 out of him to-morrow. Did you observe that 
 they beat Cambridge University on Monday
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 35 
 
 last ? I never saw the Academicals play better. 
 They would be invincible if they always played 
 so. We are having some foreigners on Christmas 
 day to early dinner. One ends his acceptance 
 with ' Je suis tres touche de votre affectueuse 
 pensee.' 
 
 Good-bye, with best Christmas wishes. 
 
 To Mrs. Watson ^ 
 
 Edinburgh, 2Uh December 1899. 
 
 I have just read Dr. Watson's sermon which 
 you so kindly sent me, and I cannot tell you 
 how I rejoice to recognise the old precision, 
 insight, and vigour, which show that he is him- 
 self again. Long may he continue to help young 
 and old by such words. The sermon sends me 
 back once again to \st John — the book. 
 
 I have also been reading, as no doubt you 
 too have been reading. Principal Caird's Gifford 
 Lectures, and am pleased to see how orthodox 
 he is. The style is wonderful, in every clause 
 classically pure. 
 
 It is very pleasant to think of being with 
 
 you. You will so delight in one another, and I 
 
 ^ Wife of the Rev. Charles Watson, D.D., Largs.
 
 36 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 am sure there is on earth no better tonic for her 
 than the Largs household. Most sincerely do 
 I hope that this will soon appear in her restored 
 health. No doubt her brother's captivity is a 
 strong pull in the other direction — still there is 
 also a safety in being off the field, though one 
 is almost ashamed to say so. All the youths 
 here are dying to go out. But what a miser- 
 able, anachronistic barbarity war is, after all. 
 I console myself, to that small extent to which 
 consolation is possible, by reading again the 
 wars of the early years of the century, when 
 so many thousands of lives and hundreds of 
 millions of treasure were expended. 
 
 With love and best wishes for the incoming 
 year to yourself and Dr. Watson . . . 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll 
 
 Edinburgh, 5th February 1900. 
 May I take the liberty of playing jackal to 
 your lionship and putting you on the scent of 
 very big game to be found in Free St. Andrew's 
 in the shape of W. M. Macgregor ? All his 
 sermons would go into print as they are de- 
 livered, but he is preaching a set on John the
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 37 
 
 Baptist which would interest readers of The 
 Expositor, and he is also delivering a set of 
 lectures to a training school here on the Creed. 
 I have not heard them, but I have heard much 
 in their praise, and I am sure if you could get 
 them for The Expositor you would do your 
 readers a benefit. 
 
 I am glad you are back to your post. The 
 South African column was the only bit of life 
 in The British Weekly while you were away. 
 You were wise to evade the very worst January 
 on record, and I hope you are strong and 
 hearty. 
 
 To his niece, Mrs. Young 
 
 Edinburgh, 5ih April 1900. 
 Here I am again at the old bit, but with a 
 very pleasant time to look back upon. Your 
 views, your walks, your books, your ways — 
 and in some measure also yourselves — are 
 delightful, and have been a true haven, a little 
 heaven below without a jarring note. It will 
 last me a long time. Your sandwiches did not, 
 for I devoured them before I got to Bellingham 
 with an appetite determined to abolish the re- 
 proach you cast upon it.
 
 38 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 Frank and Doodle welcomed me with effusion, 
 Frank with his arm in a sling. He has come 
 through a year's football and a month's rough- 
 riding without injury, and slipped a sinew play- 
 ing at billiards ! — the folly of trying to escape 
 fate. 
 
 I hope Mr. Young has already lived down, or 
 I should say slept down, the evil effects of 
 breakfasting at 9 on a Monday, and that no 
 permanently serious consequences have ensued. 
 
 It was most delightful to see your Mother 
 looking so well. 
 
 To Miss {B) 
 
 Edinburgh, April 1900. 
 I think that by this time we might have got 
 over the panic we were in at the Reformation. 
 Each Easter I feel ashamed of my Church 
 separating itself from Christendom. But we 
 are improving, and ' Go slow go far ' is not a 
 bad motto in ecclesiastical matters. 
 
 To the Rev. Ernest F. H. Capey 
 
 Edinburgh, Uh May 1900. 
 My dear Sir, — I have now read Miss Craw-
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DOBS 39 
 
 ford's Studies,'^ but they are in a region of which 
 I know so little that I do not feel qualified to 
 pronounce a judgment on them. Any one can 
 see that they are written out of full knowledge 
 and with great critical faculty. Unfortunately 
 the writers she admires I find myself quite 
 unable to read. Tolstoi's War and Peace, for 
 example, I have again and again tried to plough 
 through, but have failed. It does not lay hold 
 of me and carry me on. That of course may be 
 my fault. Russian novelists seem to prefer 
 handling the pathological aspects of life, and 
 one wearies of that. To set Ibsen where 
 Miss Crawford does seems to me monstrous. 
 Life as he depicts it is not only exceptional, 
 but impossible. 
 
 In fact I believe in the future made for us by 
 our own best writers, starting from their pure 
 and healthy and hopeful view of things — 
 Tennyson, Browning, Miss Fowler, Stanley 
 Weyman — the objective writers, not the ana- 
 lysts and introspectionists. This I know is not 
 the approved view. I have all the critics 
 against me, but I can't cordially admire their 
 deities. 
 
 ^ Studies in Foreign Literature, by Virginia M. Crawford.
 
 40 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 To Miss [A] 
 
 Edinburgh, \^th September 1900. 
 
 The looming questions are those that hang 
 round the central theme of our Lord's know- 
 ledge. If He was not perfectly informed on 
 every matter which in any way touched His 
 Kingdom, how far did this ignorance extend ? 
 Must we be content with a revelation in char- 
 acter ? I know that many of the best men among 
 us have already reconciled their minds to this, 
 but I dread the turbulent panic which shallower 
 natures will occasion when we can no longer 
 avoid the open discussion of such themes. 
 
 To the Rev, D. M. Ross 
 
 Edinbubgh, 18^^ December 1900. 
 
 My Dearly Beloved, — This is not business. 
 I yesterday sent my valuable approbation of 
 Sherwell & Co. to another of their agents, 
 Mr. Gardner. My recommendation can do no 
 man much good, but I have the very highest 
 opinion of the book ; in fact it is by far the 
 most cautious, sane, and informative book 
 I ever read on the Temperance question, and 
 their proposals are more worth considering than
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 41 
 
 any others I am acquainted with. The second 
 of their proposals I have for thirty years con- 
 sidered the only effectual counter-pull to the 
 public house. 
 
 PS. Please ask George Smith if it was one of 
 his students who gave the answer ' Lupercalia 
 is the name given to the she-wolf that suckled 
 Romeo and Juliet.' 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll 
 
 Edinburgh, 2ith February 190L 
 How you find time to write so fully to me I 
 cannot understand, but I can assure you your 
 words could not be sent to any quarter where 
 they could be more valued. Your letters 
 give me one of the best fillips I ever get. Thank 
 you very much. 
 
 Pretty regularly I walk with Innes and 
 Whyte on Saturdays. Whyte is looking very 
 old — though he says he is only sixty-four— but he 
 is very hale and doing a lot of work. His class 
 of 800 men and almost as many women is his 
 great joy, and without it he would go down — or 
 retire. His interest in literature is as great as 
 ever — keen about all new books in theology
 
 42 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 or criticism, and always looking to you for 
 information about journals and journalists. 
 Coleridge is at present his subject for his class, 
 and he has unearthed what you probably know, 
 but I had not seen, a very powerful essay by 
 Martineau on Coleridge, Newman and Carlyle. 
 
 Moffatt's book is a stupendous piece of work 
 for a young man, but I wish there were more 
 help in it. He leaves us just where Jiilicher 
 and the rest leave us — and that, to my mind, 
 is a most insecure position. It 's rather striking 
 how this type of literature should always spring 
 from our Church ? 
 
 I am glad to hear The British Weekly gains 
 ground. Campbell's column is a good and 
 interesting addition, but it is your own pen that 
 sells the paper. 
 
 To his daughter, Mrs. Gray 
 
 S.S. 'Cymric,' 
 Begun Monday, 15th April [1901]. 
 
 It seems several centuries since we left you 
 kind people in the cold wind, and during these 
 centuries we have had varieties of weather and 
 of experience.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 43 
 
 Tuesday Evening. — This has been a day of 
 glorious weather, and the ship and the sea 
 continue to be the great wonder to me. The 
 people are of all the kinds that are fairly common 
 everywhere. But the amount of water astounds 
 me, and the steadiness of the ship, and its 
 roominess and contrivances for everything. 
 
 Wednesday. — I think we are all enjoying our 
 trip. The boys never seem to find time heavy 
 on their hands. For myself, I confess to be 
 
 more in sympathy with Mr. 's refrain 
 
 on our Italian trip, ' It all comes too late 
 for me.' So constantly I find myself asking 
 ' But what 's the use of enjoying with none to 
 share ? What 's the use of succeeding if no 
 one shares your success ? ' It 's weak, of course, 
 but it 's there. Now there 's the dinner bugle, 
 so I must go. 
 
 Thursday. — I have chummed up with the 
 chief engineer, of course a Clyde man, a U.P., 
 and full of information, who delights to speak 
 about his ship, and is very proud of it; and 
 indeed for steadiness she beats even her own 
 reputation. 
 
 Friday. — To-day has been very hot — sultry, 
 with a quiet sea and a beautiful sky. We
 
 44 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 never meet a ship, and never see a bird, and 
 Columbus was certainly a great man. 
 
 Saturday Night. — I expect to receive some 
 notice from you at Montclair. It 's an awful 
 way for a letter to come. 
 
 To his sister Marcia 
 
 13 W. 57th Street, 
 New York, 30th April [1901]. 
 
 Please excuse pencil, as there is evidently 
 one thing they can't make in New York, that 
 is ink. I go off to Chicago this afternoon, 1000 
 miles to deliver one address, and return here 
 on Saturday, to preach on Sunday in a swell 
 church here, which things — both of them — 
 I hate. But the people are so effusively 
 hospitable it is difficult to say ' No ' to their 
 requests. Yesterday I lectured in Union 
 Seminary to a very good audience, many 
 ministers and students, and last night I dined 
 in much the grandest house I ever was in — 
 the decorations quite unspeakable — kind of 
 Arabian Nights business altogether. Frank 
 and Jack were included, and I was glad they 
 had the opportunity of seeing the inside of a 
 swell house here. Of such houses there is no
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 45 
 
 end, street after street of mansions or palaces ; 
 indeed the superabundant wealth of this city 
 is something I never conceived to be possible. 
 
 It has come very hot, but only for a spell, 
 I suppose. In this house I am cared for with 
 a thoughtful hospitality which makes me feel 
 ashamed, and which would, if anything could, 
 mitigate the sense of desolation that often comes 
 over me ; it is so abrupt and sore a blow I get 
 when I wish to go and speak to Kate about 
 anything that pleases me ; and all enjoyment 
 and profit seems so useless without her to 
 share it. 
 
 To the Same 
 
 Bible Teachers' College, 
 MoNTCLAER, N.J., Qtli May 1901. 
 
 Here I am at last at Montclair, and I 
 ought to be eminently well satisfied with 
 my surroundings. It seems a very pretty 
 place, villas with unfenced gardens round 
 them and unfenced roads running through 
 their democratic purlieus, everything open and 
 unashamed. I have just unpacked my bags 
 and read my lectures for to-morrow, and sit 
 down to write with the sun shining through a 
 pellucid air, and dazzling white blossom looking
 
 46 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 in at my window. Nor is it too hot as yet, 
 comfortable but not excessive. I found your 
 letter of 26th April, for which ten thousand 
 thanks. 
 
 I have had a delightful time with Coffin,^ 
 who is one of the most charming of human 
 beings and one of the best. I have had under 
 his roof a taste, or rather a prolonged draught, 
 of American hospitality, and nothing could sur- 
 pass the comfort in which I have been living, 
 or the friendliness of Coffin and his household. 
 It has made all the difference to me, and I 
 hope I shall ever be grateful for it, and learn 
 friendliness to strangers. 
 
 It 's so strange to hear English from many 
 persons who are quite Continental or Jewish 
 in appearance, but often one hears German 
 or Swedish, and I understand there are whole 
 towns of Hungarians, and ditto of Bohemians. 
 
 I would vastly enjoy it all were it not for the 
 constant feeling that it 's no use, that there is 
 no one to share it, and that to enjoy anything 
 I have to forget what it formerly was a joy 
 
 1 Now minister of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, and 
 Associate Professor of Homilotics at Union Theological Seminary, 
 New York. Mr. Coffin studied for two winters under Dr, Dods 
 at New College, Edinburgh.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 47 
 
 to remember. But I am not down or dulL 
 The people are extraordinarily frank, polite, 
 and kind. Of course I have moments of 
 utter blank desolation, but they are only 
 moments. 
 
 To his son Harry 
 
 65 FULLERTON A VENUE N., 
 
 MONTCLAIR, N.J., ISth May 190L 
 I begin this on the 18th, but there is no mail 
 till the 22nd, so I may keep it open till then — 
 only I wish to thank you for your letter, and to 
 ask another, also to thank you for the photo 
 of mother and child, although the mother 
 might with advantage have shown more of her 
 face. The babe has a look both of you and of 
 Clarence, although stouter than either of you. 
 She is evidently thriving physically, whatever 
 her moral development is. I congratulate you 
 on getting them home again. 
 
 I wish you could have so good a holiday as I 
 am having. I lecture every day, and three 
 days a week I lecture twice, but it 's an easy 
 kind of thing, and they pay liberally, and I am 
 most comfortably housed with a good and 
 pleasant family. Frank and Jack Bell are in
 
 48 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 the next house. They took us a drive yesterday, 
 that is, the three girls from this house and me — 
 two horses and one of the Ught buggies they 
 use here. Frank drove, and we had a very 
 lovely drive. This is an exquisitely pretty 
 town — long, endless avenues of trees, at present 
 all freshly green and completely shutting out 
 the scorching sun ; but as yet there has not been 
 much scorch. Frank and Jack have only three 
 more days, and will go home with this letter in 
 the Oceanic. Partly I wish I were going with 
 them, but I am not sorry to stay on among 
 people so very hospitable, kind, and frank as 
 the Americans I have met are. 
 
 To-day Mr. Merritt, the owner of this house, 
 is to entertain his typewriters and other busi- 
 ness girls from New York, nine or ten of them ; 
 one of them gets 30 dollars a week — £6. Think 
 of that. Another 20, and another 15, which 
 is the common wage of a young girl. But 
 living in New York is about twice the cost of 
 living with us. I heard the other day of a 
 man who pays £4000 a year for a flat ! They 
 live largely in flats or apartments like the 
 London flats, and in fashionable quarters the 
 rent is monstrous.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 49 
 
 Frank and Jack are off to-day to Princeton 
 to see a baseball game, and to view the Uni- 
 versity buildings, which are very fine. 
 
 You should see the horses here, small, fine, 
 swift, and active — a capital breed — also the auto- 
 mobiles, which are as common as mosquitoes in 
 New York. 
 
 By the way, please let me know if you had 
 anything to pay on a book I sent you. I was 
 told you would not, but one never fathoms a 
 Custom-house officer. I got such a fright 
 coming into this country that I am afraid to 
 make any purchases lest the Liverpool men 
 take as much more out of me. 
 
 To his brother-in-law J. A. Wilson 
 
 65 N. FULLERTON AVENUE, 
 
 MoNTCLAiR, N.J., 2Srd May 1901. 
 
 Although I have nothing special to say, your 
 letter has put me so much en rapport with 
 things at home that I cannot but write. 
 
 I am very well, although they work me hard 
 and I am rather afraid of the heat, especially 
 when I go to Chicago, but the novelty of every- 
 thing is worth sacrificing something to see. 
 They are a grand people, however, and if they
 
 50 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 can settle they will command the globe yet. 
 I never cease wishing you and Carrie were here. 
 I don't know any one who would enjoy the 
 whole thing more than you would. 
 
 I am glad to think there is even a chance for 
 Dr. MacEwen. To-day you will be meeting, 
 and I do pray with all my heart that that Chair 
 may be worthily filled. As I see how amply 
 some of the Colleges here are equipped, I cannot 
 but envy them their niulti-millionaires. 
 
 I fancy I am seeing but the fringe of American 
 society, and only one little bit of the fringe ; 
 but there is a great deal of genuine goodness in 
 the people I am seeing — a little inclined to 
 sensation and gush, but their native humour 
 keeps that in place. I have shaken hands 
 with many thousands of people here, been asked 
 for my signature, and had the funniest questions 
 put to me in writing about the King, etc. 
 
 To his sister Marcia 
 
 [MoNTCLAiR, N.J., 2Uh May 190L] 
 
 I am beginning this on Friday, 24th May, 
 on which day I posted a card to you, and this 
 begun letter is evidence that my shame for
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 51 
 
 that is sincere. I am sitting in my shirt- 
 sleeves, thermometer at 86° or 90°, but 
 here in my airy and delightful room with 
 a delicious breeze rustling among the trees 
 outside, it is by no means bad. Then the sky 
 is so intensely blue and the trees so freshly 
 green, though they say that in the heat of 
 summer everything is brown. 
 
 Our mode of life here is very healthy, bath at 
 6-15 ; breakfast at 7 (at least prayers at 7) ; 
 breakfast — strawberries, porridge, fish, coffee, 
 hot muffins; lectures at 10 and 11; lunch at 
 12-20 — soup, some light dish, rice or macaroni, 
 prunes or such ; then Browning, if I am not in 
 New York; at 3-30 or 4 an hour's walk with the 
 girls here, or a drive or a call ; dine at 6-30 ; 
 and generally an evening lecture of some kind, 
 either by myself or somebody else ; and so the 
 day is done. Time passes swiftly, and the men 
 who come to lecture are excellent, and most 
 friendly. The people in the house are delightful. 
 I could not have been more congenially set down, 
 though there are many nice people here. Andie 
 would rejoice in the roses and blossom here, and 
 any lover of his fellow-creatures would rejoice 
 in the variety of birds — gold-finches, orioles.
 
 52 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 cardinals, kingfishers, woodpeckers, and lots of 
 others. I think the tradespeople and casuals 
 are civiller than with us, more self-respecting 
 and more respectful. Everywhere there is an 
 air of happiness and youth, although in New 
 York the energy is too energetic and bustling, 
 and the youthfulness too self-asserting and 
 material. 
 
 We here are all in tears that our stay in 
 Montclair is ending. We have been so happy 
 together. And I cannot get up much interest 
 in going back to that dreary old house and 
 recommencing a different kind of life. This is 
 the 32nd anniversary of the marriage of the 
 couple who own this house — a good man and 
 a good woman. 
 
 To Mrs. Merritt 
 
 13 W. 57th Street, 
 New York, ^.nd June 190L 
 
 When the inexorable train drew me out of 
 Montclair yesterday and away from the three 
 Graces who so graciously saw me off, and from 
 the kind (though I fear arm-sore) boy who 
 carried my bag, I felt quite homeless, and have 
 not yet overcome a feeling of desolation. I
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 53 
 
 can truly say I never lived in so congenial a 
 family, where I was made to feel so much at 
 home. I went to you somewhat down in 
 spirits, and had I been during this last month 
 in uncongenial surroundings I should have 
 sunk deeper and deeper. Instead of this I 
 have enjoyed my work in Montclair immensely, 
 and I shall never forget the kindness you have 
 shown me. I owe a great deal also to your 
 dear daughter and her friends, who have not 
 only given me a month's unalloyed pleasure, 
 but have permanently raised my conception of 
 the American women who devote themselves 
 to religious work. 
 
 Please tell Mr. Merritt I count upon a visit 
 from him next summer, and if he brings you 
 with him he will be doubly welcome to yours 
 very gratefully . . . 
 
 To John M. Grant 
 
 Buffalo, 6th June 190L 
 
 I have lectured and preached about forty 
 
 times during the month of May, and as the 
 
 weather has been atrocious, pouring rain most 
 
 of the time, I have not been comfortable. It
 
 54 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 is rather an ordeal going through all this in 
 which I expected to have Kate with me, and 
 sometimes I am desolate enough. But people 
 are very kind, and the family I stayed with in 
 Montclair quite congenial. I think I must have 
 been introduced to two- thirds of the total 
 50,000 ministers of the country. 
 
 I hope Mrs. Grant and you are both well, 
 and that you are looking forward to a good 
 holiday. I often think with longing of that 
 hammock in your back garden. This is a 
 great country, and will, I think, soon show 
 us a clean pair of heels in many things, but I 
 doubt if they will ever breed as fine a race of 
 men and women. The mixture of races is not 
 all for good. But I have been greatly impressed 
 by the energy and vitality everywhere apparent. 
 But you don't want impressions of one who has 
 just skipped across and skipped back again, 
 so I may just sign myself . . . 
 
 To his sister-in-law y Mrs. Wilson 
 
 Chicago, 15th June 190L 
 
 Together with your own most welcome letter 
 came one from Mamie, so I feel as much up to
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 55 
 
 date in my news as can be expected in this 
 remote and magnificent city. 
 
 Yesterday I had a long hot journey from 
 Delaware, where I had to address an audience 
 of 2500 with the thermometer at 96° in 
 the shade, all the women and most of the 
 men using fans. In this weather both men 
 and women go about with their pocket hand- 
 kerchiefs stuffed round their neck to save their 
 collar, but one is damp before he is dry from 
 his bath. In the evening there was a reception 
 of about 250 people in rooms calculated to 
 reach the stuffy point at 50. After standing for 
 two hours shaking hands with people I shall 
 never see again, and of whom I could not even 
 catch the names, I was limp as a wet rag, and 
 like Alice's Cheshire cat, nothing left of me 
 but the fixed grin. A humorous girl with 
 whom I had struck up an acquaintance came 
 up about six times during the evening, each 
 time with the formula ' I have read all your 
 books with such pleasure.' I was staying with 
 the President, who has a handsome house, in 
 every respect comfortable, and in some respects 
 beautiful, but the only servant who ever 
 appeared was a little nigger boy of ten with bare
 
 56 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 legs and feet, who waited at table with much 
 judgment. When we went in to dinner we 
 found him reclining in a deep arm-chair with 
 a salver on his lap, and far from being abashed 
 he lay as he was till the blessing was asked, 
 and then adapted himself to the situation. At 
 the railway station and on the main street 
 one of the Professor's sons was selling papers, 
 a witty brat of eight or so who has been brought 
 up speaking German, but when asked to talk 
 with one of the Professors declined, saying it 
 would spoil his Hebrew accent. 
 
 I am getting tired of the long railway journeys 
 and constant meeting of new people, and you 
 dear people at home are more and more dear — 
 ' At each remove I drag a lengthening chain,' 
 and at times I feel pretty lonely, mainly because 
 no one I meet knows anything about you and 
 I have felt sometimes as if I must speak about 
 you all, and especially about Kate ; and while 
 every one is kind to the point of overdoing, 
 yet I never was so shut up in myself before. 
 
 I must be off to a function with the great 
 Rockefeller, so good-bye, with love to Jack 
 and the boys, to whom perhaps you might 
 show this and save me writing to them.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 57 
 
 To his daughter, Mrs. Gray 
 
 Hotel Del Prado, 
 Chicago, 18iA June 190L 
 
 It seems a long time since I wrote ' Mrs. 
 Gray ' on an envelope, and I fear I have been 
 trusting too much to some of the others sending 
 on their letters to you. And now I am writing 
 not because I have anything to say, but because 
 I want company. The University here is doing 
 its Decennial Celebration, and the days are 
 crammed with functions and festivities (they 
 gave me a Degree to-day to fill up the time). 
 As one speaker said, ' The idea seems to be, 
 When in doubt lay a foundation stone.' Actu- 
 ally six have been laid for various new build- 
 ings. The consequence is no one has any time 
 to speak to me, and the President cannot take 
 me into his house, and I am in a hotel 
 close by. And it is maddeningly lonely to see 
 crowds of people and hear them laughing and 
 talking and have not a soul that Avould know 
 what I meant if I said * I wonder what Kitty ^ 
 is doing.' This, however, will end to-morrow, 
 when all this nonsense stops and a new Session 
 
 ^ His eldest grandchild.
 
 58 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 begins and my lectures proceed — no more 
 speechifying or trying to make four thousand 
 people in a tent hear you, or to eat your lunch 
 in comfort with a gale blowing through it as 
 if the poles would give. 
 
 This is a great place, and a great people, 
 and there are all sorts, godless and godly, 
 pretty and plain, rich and poor (though the 
 latter don't appear). 
 
 To his sister Marcia 
 
 The University, 
 Chicago, 2\st June 1901. 
 
 I hope it does not seem quite as long to you 
 as it does to me since I wrote to you, but my 
 days and weeks have got all mixed with this 
 perpetual moving and being introduced to the 
 teeming myriads of this vast country. I am 
 now, I trust, settled for at least ten days here 
 in the President's lovely home, in which there 
 is allotted to me a bedroom as large as my 
 own at home, with four windows on one side 
 looking out to greenery and letting in the 
 continual sound of frogs and students — a 
 delightful bathroom (with the softest water.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 59 
 
 that tempts me in these hot days to stay there 
 all day). Grand as the room is I feel it some- 
 thing of a prison, as I get my breakfast alone 
 in it and have no actual call to see any of my 
 fellow-creatures till lunch at one, at which 
 hour the President (who is as strong as a young 
 bull) comes in from his four hours' teaching. 
 
 Some of the professors whom I have met are 
 very attractive men, and their wives of course 
 charming — of the best class of American women. 
 I dined with one of them last night, and felt 
 much at home. My lecture is daily at 3-30 
 or 4-30, and the audience is almost wholly com- 
 posed of ministers. This University is open 
 all the time, and new courses are announced 
 every quarter. Though only ten years old 
 they have a magnificent staff, over 200 pro- 
 fessors and lecturers. Crowds of young women 
 are studying here, and though the buildings 
 are not nearly completed, it will be a very 
 great affair before it calls a halt. Indeed this 
 University is one of the most characteristic 
 things I have seen, and gives me a profound 
 impression of the inexhaustible vigour of this 
 country. (Here enters the President's secretary 
 telUng me I am expected to address a meet-
 
 60 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 ing at ten, and as it is now past nine I must 
 stop.) 
 
 11 o'clock. Well, I have had my meeting — 
 about 250 present ; one sweet-faced girl from 
 Texas and two or three men thanked me. They 
 always shake hands after a meeting here. It 
 seems I am to take their devotional meeting 
 every morning, which I did not bargain for ; 
 neither did I bargain for the constant speech- 
 making which has fallen to my lot during the 
 past four days of their Decennial Celebration. 
 However, that is over. The students, men and 
 women, performed As you like it, and it was 
 most entertaining, excellently done. 
 
 I would not have missed living and working 
 in this University. The wide-awakeness and 
 activity and ready adaptability to the wants 
 of the students are most admirable. 
 
 The crowds here oppress me; the classes are 
 huge ; 4000 were in the tent on Sunday, and I 
 am to preach on Sunday to another bumper. 
 It makes you feel that you are in a city of 
 2,000,000 and a country of limitless population, 
 all thirsting for knowledge, but it makes me 
 feel old and solitary, and your letters and 
 Andie's all the more refreshing.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 61 
 
 To the Same 
 
 The University, 
 Chicago, 3rd July 190L 
 
 It is 20 minutes to 8 a.m., and I have just 
 finished my breakfast, a large saucer of brambles 
 and cream, also toast and coffee ; don't you 
 wish you had been with me ? Perhaps, however, 
 you will give up the brambles, when I tell you 
 that the heat has been such that on Monday 
 there were ninety-six deaths in New York alone, 
 and hundreds of cases of sunstroke which were 
 not at once fatal. On Tuesday, yesterday, from 
 midnight to noon there were sixty-two deaths, 
 and countless horses fell in the streets dead. 
 Here one lightning flash killed eleven people, and 
 the noise was such that I could scarcely make my- 
 self heard while lecturing, for of course the storm 
 began just as I began to lecture. In fact I have 
 struck an unprecedentedly hot wave, and just as 
 at Montclair they said I was the Jonah who 
 had brought the torrents of rain and the cold, so 
 now they blame me for the heat. They seem 
 to feel it more than I do, although I don't like 
 being sticky all day and soaking all night. 
 
 To-morrow is Independence Day, and I wait
 
 62 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 to hear the Eagle scream, although my last 
 lecture is to-day. I have found some very nice 
 people here, whom I am sorry to leave ; some 
 of the men are as good as anything we turn out ; 
 the average is perhaps not so good, but they are 
 extraordinarily appreciative. I am sorry to 
 leave so busy and congenial a place ; even the 
 * nigs ' at the hotel where I go to get my boots 
 ' shined ' are pleasant, intelligent, friendly men, 
 with beautiful eyes, affectionate and pathetic. 
 
 To his son Harry 
 
 Edinburgh, 22nd August 190L 
 
 To get a letter from you is not quite as 
 refreshing as having you here, but as a second 
 best it is a fairly good substitute, and worthy 
 of being ' highly commended.' I enjoy hearing 
 of all your doings, and of the growth and dental 
 acquisitions of Dorothy Elizabeth. That is 
 rather long ' to run about the doors wi',' but I 
 don't see any tolerable abbreviation. Perhaps 
 she will invent one for herself that will stick. 
 
 This evening I got an invitation to go back 
 to America in spring. Would you go with me 
 for a month if I paid your way ? Could you
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 63 
 
 get away for any decent length of time ? Let 
 me know. I believe I would go if you would 
 come. 
 
 To the Same 
 Edinburgh, \^th November 190L 
 
 Your letter as usual was most welcome as a 
 relish to breakfast and an aid to digestion. I 
 do pity you having to make speeches. I think 
 you should have something extra for that. 
 But you will get hardened in time — though 
 indeed I never have, and hate it as much 
 to-day as when I was your age. I congratulate 
 you on getting the puppies off your hands. 
 I think, were I you, I should claim all you 
 realise by them, as I am sure their keep, adver- 
 tisement and travelling expenses, not to speak 
 of mental worry, must amount to quite as 
 much as you will get. 
 
 Frank is at Oxford to-day. Here enters a 
 telegram, ' Oxford four tries. Academicals one 
 goal.' I fear the long reign of the ' Accies ' 
 is over and they are on the down grade. 
 
 I think it is a great sign of prudence in Beth 
 not to walk soon. She is fairly heavy and 
 might bend her ankles if she tried too soon.
 
 64 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 I am sorry you are not to be with us at 
 Christmas. It would have done us all good to 
 have had Clarence and you, not to speak of 
 Beth. We must try and do something in 
 common in summer, if all 's well. 
 
 To the Same 
 
 Edinburgh, 25^A November 190L 
 
 Your letter as usual gave us a good start 
 for the week. Thanks, I won't need the 
 knickers, as I don't intend to accept the chair ^ 
 — not solely on account of the objectionable 
 dress. I am being abused all round for not doing 
 so, but I am not in fault, as I was never told 
 that my name was to be put up, else I should 
 have stopped it. 
 
 Yes, I '11 send you in a day or two some 
 magazines and readable matter. 
 
 It 's delightful to hear of Beth's attainments. 
 She must be a great treat to you and a continual 
 joy. Tell me fully of all her doings. 
 
 I have a good deal to write to-night yet, so I 
 must stop. 
 
 1 The Moderatorship of the United Free Church. 
 
 1
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 65 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll 
 
 Edinbtjbgh, 24:th December 190L 
 I have just been reading your column in The 
 British Monthly, and must thank you for your 
 generous words. The hyperboles of friendship 
 are more pleasant to read, even if as wide of the 
 mark, than the misrepresentations of enemies. 
 At this season painfullest memories crowd in 
 and benumb me with irresistible frost, and your 
 words do much to warm and cheer yours with 
 best wishes . . . 
 
 To his son Harry 
 
 Edinbttegh, 2ith December 190L 
 Beth has just arrived, and brightens up my 
 study and my heart. It 's one of the prettiest 
 photos I have ever seen, and I prize it highly. 
 What a comical little phiz she has, and what 
 a strong independent little woman she looks. 
 Take care of her. Thank Clarence most 
 cordially. I could not have got anything I 
 would have had more pleasure in. 
 
 To Mrs. Watson 
 
 Edinburgh, 1st January 1902. 
 There is no question that one of my first 
 duties this new year is to thank you for the 
 
 E
 
 66 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 delightful break my days at Largs have made in 
 the monotony of my life. You partly know what 
 a very great pleasure it is to sit at Dr. Watson's 
 feet and to live in the atmosphere of your 
 considerate and reviving kindness, but I think 
 you cannot quite understand how much it is 
 to me. I am greatly set up by my visit, which 
 in every part of it was thoroughly enjoyable. 
 
 On Sunday I preached twice in the ' Temple.' ^ 
 I do not remember that I ever had the privi- 
 lege (?) of saying my say out of an alabaster 
 pulpit before, and certainly I never accompanied 
 so large and gorgeously surpliced a choir nor 
 so loud and aggressive an organ. But by some 
 strange influence which pervades Baptist 
 churches I was not put out by the grandeur, 
 but rather enjoyed the services — and had 
 abundant congregations. 
 
 To John M. Grant 
 
 Edinburgh, ^th January 1902. 
 How are you and Mrs. Grant getting through 
 the winter ? Well, I hope, and verifying the 
 rash statement that ' health is in the dwellings 
 of the righteous.' 
 
 1 Coats Memorial Church, Paisley.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 67 
 
 Good pens are not a speciality of the houses 
 of the righteous. Hence this writing, or is it 
 the paper ? I think the paper. 
 
 We have got to work again after a busy 
 hoHday, and things are running at their usual 
 pell-mell speed, leaving no time for quiet think- 
 ing — perhaps as well, for quiet thinking leads 
 to nothing generally, only to indolence and self- 
 satisfaction and severance from the world. 
 I wish I could live as a spectator through the 
 next generation to see what they are going to 
 make of things. There will be a grand turn up 
 in matters theological, and the churches won't 
 know themselves fifty years hence. It is to 
 be hoped some little rag of faith may be left 
 when all 's done. For my own part I am some- 
 times entirely under water and see no sky at 
 all. 
 
 Kindest regards and best New Year wishes 
 to yourself and Mrs. Grant. 
 
 To a Granddaughter^ aged 3J 
 
 Edinburgh [March 1902]. 
 Darling Kitty, — Not for a long time have 
 I seen anything I was so glad to see as your
 
 68 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 letter which came this morning. We are all 
 so glad to hear you are getting well again, and 
 very glad to hear too that you have been so 
 good taking your medicine and not making a 
 fuss about your poultices. You know I once 
 knew a nice little boy who when he was ill 
 would not take his medicine, and so he never 
 got better at all. Tell ' Miss Pussy Cat ' that 
 we are all deeply in her debt for taking such 
 good care of you and being so kind to you and 
 making you well again. Jessie wants to know 
 when you wish some more of her jelly, so tell 
 Mother to let us know. 
 
 And what do you think ? Uncle Frank is 
 in bed to-day with a bad cough, and Uncle 
 Marcus is coughing too and has a sore throat, 
 and he has to go out to-night to sing, at least 
 to croak, to 300 or 400 young women who work 
 for Nelsons the publishers. Tattie is coming 
 to take tea with me to-day, and Aunt Marcia 
 and Miss Stewart, and they will all ask me, 
 first thing. How is Kitty ? So do keep well 
 that I may be able to say ' Oh, Kitty is just 
 the same " protoplasmic primordial globule " 
 as ever, and as merry as a grig.' 
 
 Good-bye, my little duck, and take great care
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 69 
 
 of yourself so as to be soon and soundly well ; 
 and pick off the hundred dozen of kisses hidden 
 in this letter from your loving grandfather . . . 
 
 To his daughter, Mrs. Gray 
 
 Edinburgh, 4^/i Afril 1902. 
 
 This is most distressing. I can do nothing 
 but sit and think of you and the dear little 
 patient. I hope you have got the nurse back ; 
 it 's far too much for you, as the anxiety will 
 be more wearing than the watching ; and the 
 bitter pain of seeing her suffer will be worse 
 than either. How empty everything seems 
 when sickness like that comes in. If your 
 Mother had only been with us what a comfort 
 she would have been. But I hope the Doctor's 
 confidence that she will get safely through will 
 be justified by the event. Certainly these 
 relapses look as if there were some evil he had 
 not yet got at. We can but hope and pray. 
 
 To the Rev. Henry Sloane Coffin 
 
 Edinburgh, 1th April 1902. 
 I have delayed writing to you partly through
 
 70 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 lack of time, partly because I wished to give 
 you time to make up your mind to spend your 
 holiday here this summer, and partly because I 
 wished to see Macaskill in his manse before 
 writing. Yesterday I preached for him, and 
 in the evening we had a walk and a good talk 
 about you, and the personality of God, and 
 some other matters. He is doing very well, as 
 of course you know, and I greatly enjoyed 
 being with him. The people are already quite 
 in love with him. 
 
 I hope you see your way to come over here. 
 I have kept August free from entanglements 
 with greedy, sermon-requesting ministers, and 
 would be overjoyed to spend some of it or all 
 of it with you. It would make for me quite a 
 good holiday. I am still living in the memory 
 of the enjoyment you gave me last year ; and 
 oftener than you know I am in 13 W. 57th 
 Street, although alas ! only in spirit. Do say 
 you will come, and when. 
 
 We have had a pleasant enough session — 
 though College is a different place with 
 Davidson gone and Rainy only occasionally 
 appearing. I hate all changes, and the world 
 is all change.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 71 
 
 I was much ashamed of the Lectures on Paul 
 I gave at Chicago, and have been re- writing 
 some of them. But I find it very hard to get 
 to his standpoint and see with his eyes. I must 
 now set to, and finish Hebrews, and then I 
 wish to write on ImmortaHty and the Eg3rptian 
 Papyri, two subjects (please), not one. 
 
 I have an invitation to Holland House ^ 
 to dinner with the President of the Bible 
 Teachers' College next week, but I think it 's 
 rather far to go in a dress coat. 
 
 To the Same 
 
 Edinburgh, 20th May 1902. 
 
 No letter I have received this century has 
 given me greater pleasure than that which 
 yesterday reached me and conveyed the infor- 
 mation that you will be here on the 26th July. 
 The calf is not very fat in comparison with 
 those of New York production, but such as 
 he is, he shall be killed. Edinburgh will be 
 empty, I fear, by that time, but we shall hope 
 to find means of helping your holiday. By 
 that time surely we shall have some warm 
 
 ^ Hotel in New York.
 
 72 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 weather ; at present we are held by the most 
 persistent cold I ever remember ; sleet, showers 
 and bitter wind prevail. 
 
 I am interested in your discovery of the 
 exalted Christ, and there is much to talk over 
 in that direction. I doubt if we can make much 
 of a personal Spirit interposed between Christ 
 and us ; you notice how Paul oscillates between 
 Christ and the Spirit, and scarcely relieves the 
 difficulty by ultimately saying ' The Lord is 
 the Spirit.' 
 
 I am going to Oxford to-morrow, to read a 
 paper on the Trustworthiness of the Gospels, 
 and to preach on Sunday at Mansfield College. 
 Have you read Contentio Veritatis by six Oxford 
 tutors ? I think you would find a good deal 
 in it. 
 
 To his daughter, Mrs. Gray 
 
 [Edinburgh, May 1902.] 
 I have had a great time at Oxford ; met 
 everybody I ever heard of. Dined in Lincoln, 
 Exeter, John's and Mansfield. Read a paper 
 to the Society of Historical Theology. Saw 
 the College eights race two nights, the 
 Australian match another day, and had some
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 73 
 
 of the best talks I ever had with some of the 
 dons I was introduced to, besides seeing more 
 pretty and prettily dressed girls than ever I 
 saw at one time before ; and got eight guineas 
 for enjoying myself. I fear I have only brought 
 home about three of them, and a fearful cough. 
 I was staying partly with A. J. Carlyle, who 
 goes to Manchester to lecture on political 
 economy. Herbert should seek him out ; he 
 would find great spoil in him. 
 
 To Mrs. {G) 
 
 Edinbtirgh, Ylth July 1902. 
 
 I should sooner have thanked you for your 
 ' consolatory ' letter, but I have done little but 
 groan since I got it — not because of it, for it 
 was consolatory in so far as it was interesting, 
 and the whole three sheets were that. But I 
 have really been having what the boys call a 
 very ' thin ' time, doing little else but groan 
 and try new devices for sitting, lying, or stand- 
 ing at ease. I have not yet found any posture 
 which can cheat the devil which men call 
 sciatica. 
 
 I agree that people often pride themselves
 
 74 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 on the quality they are deficient in. What 
 has interested me more is another form of the 
 same thing, that they desire to excel and are 
 proud of excelling in trivial and alien pursuits. 
 Samuel Johnson was far prouder of being able to 
 ride to hounds than of writing the Dictionary 
 and leading the literature of England. The 
 reason is the craving to be complete. 
 
 But I am not going to moralise, though I 
 delight in your moralisings, and gape like three 
 nestfuls of callow birds for more. 
 
 To the Same 
 
 Edinburgh, 16fA August 1902. 
 
 Can you take me in on Wednesday the 20th 
 for a few days ? You promised to be frank if 
 it was not convenient, so I trust to your telling 
 me if it is not. Please say also what train and 
 what station would best suit you. 
 
 I have not answered your letter, not because, 
 as your highly educated daughters might in- 
 sinuate, I have not yet been able to read it all, 
 but because I wished to see my way ahead a 
 little in arranging my movements. I ought to 
 go now to a Hydropathic to be ' finished,' but
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 75 
 
 to my secret joy I find the Peebles place is full, 
 and I conclude without further enquiry that all 
 the others are also full. But I am almost quite 
 well. I think a day or two with you will be 
 delightful, as I am strong enough to stand the 
 longest conversation, and even to bear up 
 against the gibes of the younger generation, or 
 the treacherous attacks of the kitten. Hoping 
 to see you soon . . . 
 
 To Miss {C) 
 
 Edinburgh, \Wi August 1902. 
 
 Your letter, received this morning, has given 
 me so much pleasure that I must write at once 
 to thank you for it. It is delightful to picture 
 you having so good a time in your country 
 home with all the glow of Northfield in your 
 heart. I wish very much I could have been 
 there, and I think with regret of the fine talks 
 I might have had with you ; but I am sure 
 John Kelman would be better for you, and I 
 have heard from other quarters how valuable 
 his services on your side of the ocean have been. 
 The atmosphere generated by such a gathering 
 as Northfield is of real value for the kindling
 
 76 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 of feelings and resolutions which do not flourish 
 
 readily in colder temperatures. 
 
 ' We cannot kindle when we will 
 
 The fire which in the heart resides ; 
 The spirit bloweth and is still ; 
 In mystery our soul abides. 
 But tasks in hours of insight will'd 
 Can be through hours of gloom fulfill'd.' 
 
 It is the carrying out and expression of the 
 great life God gives us in the heart which is 
 the difficulty and the test. For you, I like to 
 picture a beautiful and happy life, full of love 
 and growing strength of character, and yet the 
 reality will likely be quite different. The 
 comfort is to know that out of a life quite 
 different from that which fancy sketches, the 
 greatest results can be won ; and I am glad 
 to see that opposite your birthday in my text- 
 book are the words ' All things are yours.' My 
 good wishes for your birthday come rather 
 late, as I did not know when it was, but they 
 are none the less sincere, and my sons join 
 in wishing you the utmost of your desires. We 
 very often talk of you, and as this summer 
 
 came on, ' How I wish Miss was to be 
 
 here again ' was frequently heard from one 
 or other of us.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 77 
 
 Frank is with me, and goes off this week. I 
 am going away too for a bit. Frank takes 
 great care of me, mothers me in fact — especially 
 at present, as I have not been quite well. 
 
 Thank you very much for the photos. They 
 give a most attractive idea of your home. I 
 hope this will find you there. Please give my 
 very kind remembrances to your Father and 
 Sister, and accept for yourself a great deal of 
 love ; and please write very soon again, telling 
 all about yourself and your doings, which are 
 always of great interest to your affectionate 
 friend . . . 
 
 To Mrs. [G) 
 
 Edinburgh, 2&th August 1902. 
 
 I was very sorry to bring my visit to a close 
 and return to my dreary habitation. The 
 welcome given me by my extravagantly affec- 
 tionate dog was touching, but seems only to 
 accentuate the absence of what made four 
 walls a home. This house often seems to me 
 the very ' abomination of desolation,' and I 
 am proportionately grateful to those kind 
 friends who take me out of it for a space. I 
 enjoyed my time with you very much indeed.
 
 78 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 You should be a very thankful woman, and I 
 
 suppose you are. 's suffering face rather 
 
 haunts me, and must pain you continually, but 
 surely she will light upon some wise man who 
 can give her relief. Meanwhile she is in a 
 greatly educating school — the highest form. 
 
 You told me to let you know how my garden 
 looked to an eye carrying in it still the images 
 of sweet peas and begonias. Well, I can only 
 say that I am thinking of throwing it open to 
 the public these fine days, for I feel sure that 
 if I don't, florists will find their way in, and the 
 temptation to purloin would be too great. I 
 have not yet visited my vinery, as a kind friend 
 has given me more grapes than I know what to 
 do with. 
 
 I think summer has really come at last, and 
 I hope you may all fully enjoy it. With grate- 
 ful regards to Mr. and yourself, and all 
 
 the others who gave me so happy a time , . . 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll 
 
 Edinburgh, 1st November 1902. 
 I am sorry to bother you when you have so 
 heavy a handful already, but I have made up
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 79 
 
 my mind that my connection with The Expositor, 
 so far as regards looking after the literature, 
 must cease. So please send me no more of the 
 books sent for review in The Expositor. Of 
 course you will find it easy to get some one to 
 do it better than I have done. 
 
 Since I was ill in summer I seem to have 
 dropped into old age, at least I cannot rejoice 
 in work as I once did. I have great pleasure in 
 my College work, but when I am through with 
 it I seem to have no pith left. 
 
 To the Rev. Henry Sloane Coffin 
 
 [Edinburgh, ? December 1902.] 
 Just a line to thank you for Prof. Brown's 
 book. It is full of meat. I have read two 
 chapters, not the first two, with admiration and 
 profit. The students at Union are to be envied. 
 Jim Simpson has come home on fire with 
 enthusiasm for all things and persons American, 
 wishing to go back at once, and to make his 
 home among you. He has seen every one, and 
 is full of matter. 
 
 Things wag on with us as of yore. We have 
 no geniuses in College, but a lot of steady
 
 80 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 workers. Sometimes I am greatly depressed 
 about the whole state of things in this country. 
 What all the changes will end in, who can tell ? 
 
 I have just had two days in the country with 
 Whyte. He is so busy with his class work — 
 this year the Stoics and chiefly Cicero (!) — that 
 he has no thought for things in general ; but it 
 is most inspiring to be with him. He is so en- 
 tirely alive. 
 
 I hear that your fate is decided, that you are 
 to go deeper into New York. I think that is 
 the place for you, and oh ! to have your powers 
 and your opportunities. Every week I feel 
 increasingly my narrow limits, and look with 
 despair at the mass of work to be done and that 
 is scarcely touched. 
 
 Remember you will always do a good action 
 by writing to me. I know how busy you are, 
 but quarter of an hour will be well bestowed on 
 yours ever . . . 
 
 To Miss Crum^ 
 
 Edinburgh, 2nd January 1903. 
 Your lovely book has come. Did you know 
 
 ^ Miss J. G. Crum of Danefield, Largs, sister of Mis. Watson.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 81 
 
 that I am as fond of pictures as if I were four 
 years old, and as fond of animals as St. Francis ? 
 The book is very much like Seton-Thompson's, 
 and I am charmed with it ; and as I have 
 stopped shivering and sneezing I can enjoy it 
 thoroughly. Thank you very much. 
 
 I hope you had a pleasant New Year's Day, 
 with something to give you fresh courage and 
 hope, so that you may continue to diffuse these, 
 and that in your diffusing you will remember 
 your most sincere appreciator and friend . . . 
 
 To his niece, Mrs. Young 
 
 Edinburgh, 2nd March 1903. 
 You and your mother are very Httle out of 
 my thoughts these days, and Marcia and Andie 
 both send on any news they get, but I am none 
 the less grateful to you and Mr. Young for find- 
 ing time to write. The deafness is a great 
 aggravation, as you say, and your Mother will 
 need all her placidity and patience and gentle- 
 ness to bear up. But she has compensations, 
 her every wish anticipated and everything done 
 that love can. Then she is so sure that she 
 is in the loving hand of her Father, and that
 
 82 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 all is well. One really envies her her faith and 
 patience. 
 
 Your last note is the most hopeful of all, and 
 I quite understand how changed a world it 
 would be to you without her, and we cannot 
 but desire her presence even though enfeebled. 
 And yet if it is to be a burden to herself, and if 
 she should have to go through all this again, 
 and perhaps worse, we must be content that 
 she should enter into rest. 
 
 Please give her my fond love and try to let 
 her understand, what I daresay she already 
 knows, how much she has been to us all and 
 how much happiness she has often given. 
 
 To his S071 Harry 
 
 EDmBURGH, 1th March 1903. 
 
 This small sheet means that this is only a 
 card of enquiry for the mother and babe. Tell 
 Clarence how highly I appreciate her holograph 
 note. I hope it did not tire her to write it. 
 She and Mamie will be wishing to compare 
 infants, and I hope they may grow up knowing 
 one another, although both you and Mamie 
 are likely enough to shift in course of time.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 83 
 
 Frank is anxious to come and inspect his 
 nephew, and so am I, but we must let your 
 home get shaken down into normal ways first. 
 
 Your boy will be Marcus vii., and long may 
 he reign. How curious it is that we should 
 so little be able to prognosticate his future. 
 But he is well off having you for his father. 
 Above all make him obedient. 
 
 To his son-in-laiv, the Rev. A. H. Gray 
 
 Edinburgh, lOth March 1903. 
 
 I don't see why I should not baptize your 
 babe on the second Sabbath of April, not the 
 first, although I am a very poor hand at 
 baptisms — even worse than Paul, who evidently 
 kept no register. 
 
 I am very tired. Have been re-writing 
 Paul, and trying to put a little more life into 
 my lectures. All I have succeeded in doing, I 
 fear, is to take a good deal of life out of myself. 
 
 To a Grandson, aged nearly 3 
 
 [Edinburgh, March 1903.] 
 My dear Arthur Alexander Gray, — I am 
 very sorry to hear that you all, both Arthur, 
 Alexander, and Gray, have been ill, but I hope
 
 84 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 Arthur is now well, Alexander better, and Gray 
 best. You made a great mistake in finding out 
 you had a liver. Boys should he livers, and 
 should not have them. No one under fifty years 
 of age should know anything about them, so 
 just send a P. P.O. card to yours (Mother will 
 tell you what that is) and say * Good-bye, my 
 dear liver, for iver and iver.' 
 
 I would have sent you a box of chocolates, 
 but you would not have been allowed to eat 
 them, and your mouth would have watered 
 so that your pillow would have been quite 
 wet, which would have bothered your kind 
 nurse. 
 
 I am sure, dear boy, your Mother and nurse 
 are giving you a fine time in bed, and I would 
 like to look in and see that grand train I hear 
 you have got. But I '11 tell you what will be 
 still better ; if you get well soon, and you and 
 Mother come in the real TRAIN to Edinburgh, 
 and stay for a long time with your affectionate 
 Grandfather. 
 
 To his sister Andrea 
 
 Edinburgh, 23rd June 1903. 
 It was a great joy to see your hand- writing
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 85 
 
 again, but I hope you won't at once plunge 
 into activities, weeding, etc. Remember you 
 are over thirty. A delightful soft rain has at 
 last come, and I suppose your garden is giving 
 thanks. All the time I was at Kepplestone, I 
 was longing that you could step out on to the 
 wide lawn, shut off from all town association 
 by high trees and lovely flowers and the singing 
 of myriads of birds. It is a most charming 
 residence, and just a hundred yards beyond the 
 car line. Thirteen acres of ground well kept, 
 the purest of air, a carriage and pair always 
 awaiting you, and kind, hearty, intelligent 
 people inside. Mr. Ogilvie gave me two hats, 
 a silk hat and a clerical felt, and I got two 
 guineas for each lecture, so I had some material 
 return for my week of poison — the air was 
 inexpressibly bad. 
 
 . I went round the links twice. It 's a great 
 course. Just on the blue, blue sea, and with 
 a hot sun and a keen air ; it was altogether 
 delightful — medicine in the pleasantest form. 
 
 The School was a great success, over 200 
 enrolled, but you will hear all this from Kathie. 
 
 I praught in the University on Sunday, and 
 enjoyed it. The place was full, and a lot of
 
 86 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 Professors in their finery and girl students in 
 their summer adornments. 
 
 To the Rev. Henry Shane Coffin 
 
 [Marshall Meadows, 
 Berwick-on-Tweed], 2Qth July 1903. 
 
 I am truly grieved to hear of your illness, 
 and hope that by this time you have found 
 deliverance from both its cause and its conse- 
 quences. Pneumonia is not a thing to trifle 
 with, nor to get too soon well from. Don't 
 hurry back to your work, and obey your 
 doctor. The one result of your illness I am 
 in doubt about is your retiring from the Church 
 Extension charge ; but I think you are right, 
 and it is really so difficult to measure the good 
 one may do in various places and conditions 
 that I am inclined to yield to providential 
 leadings more passively than perhaps is wise. 
 But where an illness like yours intervenes the 
 decision is made easier. 
 
 Turning from the bad news of your letter to 
 its good news, it is a great joy to me to think 
 you may come back with me next year. I 
 certainly accept your invitation to stay with
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 87 
 
 you. It is a main reason for coming to 
 America ; but probably I shall be obliged to 
 go straight through to Lake Forest as soon as 
 I arrive. But all this can be spoken of nearer 
 the time. I am not going to take any engage- 
 ments beyond the beginning of June, but if this 
 were too early for you to leave, I could stay 
 on doing nothing. 
 
 Sometimes I feel as if it were rash in me to 
 engage to go at all, for I have been feeling very 
 old this summer, and very tired. 
 
 We had excellent meetings at Aberdeen. 
 Both Denney and Garvie are, I see, publishing 
 their lectures in The Expositor. 
 
 Since coming to the country ten days ago, 
 I have been reading with much enjoyment 
 Seeberg's Grundwahrheiten, which probably you 
 have read long ago. It 's a great relief from 
 the worrying at the details of the Gospels which 
 I need to read but of which I am sick and which 
 only does me harm. I wish somebody would 
 stop the stream of criticism and say something 
 convincing about the existence of a personal 
 God. For really, if that is made sure, other 
 things run of themselves ; and for aU other 
 knowledge I for my part am content to wait till 
 
 -HMJ"
 
 88 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 we get a higher point of view and glorified 
 eyes. 
 
 Don't you admire a man like Sanday, who is 
 immersed in critical enquiry and yet keeps 
 his eye steadily on the great things and pre- 
 serves the fineness of his feeling and devoutness ? 
 
 I am so glad to hear you are reading 
 Shakespeare. He never disappoints. He is 
 like an elemental force in nature. Could you 
 not get a set of sermons out of his plays ? 
 Our man at Madras, Wm. Miller, is fond of 
 doing this. 
 
 Write again as soon as you can. I am sure 
 no one prizes your letters more than . . . 
 
 To Mrs. Lowe 
 
 The Great Lone Land, 
 [Edinburgh], St. Grouse Day [1903]. 
 
 Your invitation makes me think better of 
 the race, and would make me think better of 
 you in particular were that possible, and the 
 mere thought of exchanging this wilderness for 
 the wilderness of Loch Voil, where at any rate 
 the voice of a cock can be heard, is inspiring ; 
 and no words could express the pleasure I would 
 have in spending some days in your society,
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 89 
 
 for honestly it is one of the joys of a somewhat 
 grey life ; but I don't see how I can get away. 
 I get entangled somehow in such heaps of little 
 things, each of which seems nothing when I 
 engage to do it, but when it comes to perform- 
 ance the molehill becomes a mountain which 
 won't budge however loudly I shriek Be thou 
 removed. At present I see no prospect of 
 getting my head above water before College 
 opens. Of course it is work I like, but I am 
 very conscious of being in my 70th year, and 
 unfit for the toil a younger man can easily 
 undertake. 
 
 We worshipped in Palmerston Place on Sun- 
 day and heard Caiaphas. I don't mean to 
 compare our high priest to the Jewish rascal, 
 but the subject was ' Caiaphas ' — an old one 
 already printed, but, as I need not say, very 
 good. 
 
 With gratitude for your heart- warming invita- 
 tion and love to Dorothy I remain . . . 
 
 To Mrs. {G) 
 
 EDmBHRGH, 1th September [? 1903]. 
 This delay in answering does not look as if
 
 90 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 I appreciated your letter, does it ? But things 
 are not as they seem. I have found much cheer 
 in your letter, and hope for a repetition of it 
 soon. 
 
 We have been having the pick of the weather 
 this August, and while floods are reported 
 from London, from Perthshire, and everywhere 
 else, we have been a Gideon's fleece, dry while 
 all around is sop. I hope you have had some 
 sunshine, and that you are all the better 
 for it. 
 
 I have been at home all August trying to 
 prepare for our winter session, without signal 
 success. I think I am getting mouldy. 
 
 I hope you are liking Glentirran, and that 
 you are accumulating ideas for a permanent 
 mansion. A well-planned and pleasantly 
 situated house is an excellent investment. 
 When your garden is made I shall be glad to 
 give you some valuable shoots from my well- 
 known horticultural plots, and if you care to 
 examine my methods you are very welcome 
 to do so, and cannot fail to derive hints of a 
 serviceable kind. 
 
 How is Miss finding scope for her 
 
 energies ? I fancy there is no golfing. If
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 91 
 
 she rides, I hope she has a horse that enters 
 sympathetically into modern scientific progress 
 as manifested in motors. 
 
 How long are you to be in banishment ? 
 Are you never in town ? Do your dresses 
 never wear out ? or do you never long for the 
 sunshine of the East ? I mean the Scottish 
 East. Please remember me when four o'clock 
 comes round, if you should be in Edinburgh. 
 
 To Miss Crum 
 
 Edinburgh, 6th October 1903. 
 
 I am sure you will enjoy Moberly.^ For even 
 if you do not agree with him he is an excellent 
 talker, and of so high and fine a disposition that 
 he is most profitable company. 
 
 I have been spending too much time going 
 from place to place lecturing, and must try to 
 settle again, as I have much to do for College. 
 One can get so very little done. What a 
 baffling, thwarting world it is — things always so 
 contrary to expectation and hope, and so little 
 fitted to satisfy innocent desires. If it does 
 not prove to be a training for some better and 
 
 ^ Atonement and Personality, by R, C. Moberly, D.D.
 
 92 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 more lasting condition, the whole thing is a 
 freak. 
 
 Write me again soon. Your letters do me 
 good, and nothing is more needed by . . . 
 
 To the Rev. Henry Shane Coffin 
 
 Edinburgh, 5th December 1903. 
 
 If you knew how my ' heart leaps up ' when 
 I behold your handwriting, I am sure you would 
 never grudge the time you spend in sending 
 me some account of yourself. 
 
 I cordially agree with you about the essentials, 
 and I never cease to mourn that the Church had 
 not left everything else open, to be determined 
 by individual predilection or opinion. But I 
 think we are getting on towards better times. 
 I to-day posted to you a book which I think 
 will suit you. The Larger Faiths It derives all 
 theology from the idea of God's immanence, 
 and it is, in my opinion, very well done, except 
 that it does not seem to recognise the speciality 
 of Scripture. (By the way, I hope you have 
 nothing extra to pay for postage at your end ; 
 it always seems to me so small a charge for 
 
 ^ By the Rev. K. C. Anderson.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 93 
 
 carrying a book so far.) I have been giving 
 the men more theology than usual this year, 
 and have been enjoying my work. 
 
 Your friend Armstrong is a very winsome 
 character, and we have four other Americans — 
 all of them creditable men. A movement for 
 reform of our College has been initiated, but I 
 fear the only thing our Reformers will be able 
 to suggest is the lengthening of our Session. 
 I rather think the six months' freedom from 
 professors and text books is the most valuable 
 part of the curriculum. It lets the men grow, 
 gives them time to pursue their own lines of 
 work, and affords opportunities for preach- 
 ing. 
 
 I am very glad to hear you are into your 
 enlarged church ; as to the men not coming, 
 how would it do to invite them to a talk on the 
 subject, and put it straight to them ? You 
 could do this, though other men could not; 
 and I believe many might be won. It is strange, 
 the drift away from Church that has set in 
 lately. No doubt it is but a passing phase, 
 and a reaction will some time be felt. It is 
 very good news to hear that your brother is 
 so successful. I don't suppose there has ever
 
 94 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 been an age in which the laity have taken such 
 a lift of things. 
 
 I would like your views on The Larger Faith. 
 You can't imagine how few men there are here 
 with whom it is any good talking theology, — to 
 whom one can say without preface, apology, 
 or explanation, exactly what one thinks. So 
 you may know how I value talk with you, 
 and even letters. Certainly I am a little sur- 
 prised you should be asked to University- 
 preach at Princeton. But this shows how 
 things are moving, and I believe you personally 
 will have a great, and I hope quiet, part in a 
 great advance of thought and of religion in 
 America. I think the most valuable thing 
 Paul gave us was his idea of the freedom of the 
 sons of God. You can feel how his soul danced 
 and exulted in that — ' All things are yours.' 
 
 But if you have got thus far I am sure you 
 are saying ' (^t/Aw^T^rt,' so I subscribe myself 
 with much affection for yourself and all your 
 family . . . 
 
 To Miss {B) 
 
 Edinburgh, December 1903. 
 In this age the main task of a teacher is not
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 95 
 
 to feed the open mind with ascertained truths 
 (whose number is infinitesimal), but to open the 
 mind and stir enquiry ; and natural growth 
 does this with the best minds. However, I 
 am not going to viHfy my office, for I hke it, 
 and at any rate the hard work of College keeps 
 our men from idleness and yet gives them 
 leisure to grow, and possibly furnishes them 
 with a few supports on which they may lean 
 and by which their growth may be directed. 
 
 To Miss {A) 
 
 [Edinburgh, 2Uh December 1903.] 
 
 I wish to send you a Christmas greeting, and a 
 very cordial one. I am sure, I know, that what 
 lies deepest in your being contains the germ 
 of all true and lasting happiness, and that 
 whatever you expect in the coming year and 
 whatever it brings, happiness in the best sense 
 is your destiny. Seeking to know the truth 
 and to live in it, as you do, is the straight road 
 to the best that man can attain. 
 
 I very often find myself wishing you were 
 near enough to have a good talk with. You 
 may fancy that in Edinburgh there should be 
 no lack of men and women who wish to know —
 
 96 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 but I have not the knack of unearthing them. 
 From books one does not always get what one 
 seeks, although lately I have fallen in with 
 one or two which gave me new life for a time, 
 especially Wallace's Man's Place in the Universe 
 and Anderson's Larger Faith. I have also 
 been reading parts of MacTaggart's Studies in 
 Hegelian Cosmology ; and for my classes a good 
 deal on Sacrifice, some old books (very full and 
 good) as well as some new ones, and among 
 them Miss Harrison's Prolegomena to the Study 
 of Greek Religion, a most instructive book. I 
 suppose your sister knows her well. There is 
 an immense amount of knowledge in the book. 
 But alas ! I have only got a chapter of Moberly 
 read, though I am still looking at him on my 
 desk. There is always so much to do to bring 
 to-morrow's lecture into shape that my time 
 flies and leaves little accomplished. 
 
 When you have half an hour to spare, please 
 spend it in writing to one who will very highly 
 appreciate it. 
 
 To his niece, Mrs. Young 
 
 [Edinburgh, 2Uh December 1903.] 
 Thanks from here to Wark. It 's delightful 
 
 1
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 97 
 
 to have you brought so near. At first look I 
 thought I saw you all on the lawn, but I find 
 you are inside, where it 's best to be at present, 
 and where I have been for three of my holidays 
 nursing my voice and trying to get rid of a 
 bronchial cold. I think I have succeeded, and 
 as I have two services in Glasgow on Sunday 
 I must do my best to get a voice. I fear I have 
 been preaching too much, and yet I seem to be 
 always refusing. 
 
 I hope your Mother is well, and that you and 
 Mr. Young are also enjoying Christmas. To- 
 morrow (Christmas) I am turkeyfying two 
 nurses from the Sick Children's Hospital and 
 a young American minister who attends College. 
 
 This is the 113th letter, I think (not positive), 
 I have written to-day, which beats Paul for 
 quantity at any rate. (By the way, speaking 
 of goat's hair tents, if you read from a library, 
 insist on getting Sven Hedin's book on Thibet. 
 It will keep you warm all winter by con- 
 trast, and you will be able to dispense with 
 fires.) 
 
 Much love (for I must go to the 114th) from 
 yours ever . . .
 
 98 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 To Mrs. {G) 
 
 {Postcard) 
 
 {2Uh December 1903.] 
 My dear and only Benefactress, who alone 
 understandest that dogs have a Christmas and 
 love gifts, and who alone makest appeal to my 
 deepest sensibilities by offering not a bone but 
 a plaything, I may even say a playmate, you 
 have my most sincere and canine thanks. 
 My master indeed withholds your gift, and will 
 not let me enjoy it till you can give it me with 
 your own hand. But being a dog of virtue 
 I can wait for that happy time. Counting on 
 a visit from you soon, although I cannot expect 
 you till next week, I remain your most happy 
 and grateful Doodle. 
 
 To the Same 
 [Postcard) 
 
 [26fA December 1903.] 
 It has occurred to me that in your charity 
 you might propose to call on Doodle on Monday 
 or Tuesday. I don't think he has any engage- 
 ments on these days, but I have, so I would 
 certainly prefer if you could come on Wednesday.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 99 
 
 To a Granddaughter, aged 5 
 
 [Edinburgh, ? December 1903,] 
 Dearest Kitty, — Very many thanks and 
 kisses for your lovely envelope holder. It will 
 be most useful, and will keep my envelopes 
 clean and fresh. Can you invent anything that 
 will keep me clean and fresh ? I fear not. 
 Much love and many many thanks. 
 
 Grandfather. 
 
 To the Rev, Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll 
 
 [Edinburgh, ? early in 1904.] 
 
 I cannot promise you anything definitely, 
 but I think I may pledge myself to two papers. 
 Recently I have been writing half a dozen 
 lectures for America, and they offer me a sum 
 I am almost or quite ashamed to take for them. 
 I have prepared also one or two others as 
 occasional lectures which I may give while 
 over there — for I am not allowed to give the 
 ' Bross ' Lectures before I deliver them at 
 Lake Forest, and they are to be published 
 immediately after. 
 
 Our college is in very good working order 
 at present, the men quite keen and alive, and
 
 100 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 the discipline perfect. Long may it be so. 
 We have twenty-seven from various outland 
 places, but only seventy of our own — which, 
 however, is plenty. 
 
 To his daughter, Mrs. Gray 
 
 [Edinburgh], Uh March [1904]. 
 
 There is distress here as well as with you, 
 but there must be distress as long as the 
 nation's drink bill is over 170 millions. Isn't 
 it awful ? Where does the money come from ? 
 
 There was a very sensible contributed article 
 in The Scotsman on agriculture, giving as a 
 reason for men going into the towns that in 
 the country there is no hope of rising. But 
 there is. A ploughman has two grades ahead 
 of him, ploughman's steward and steward. 
 A steward has a comfortable house, the best 
 in the row and often extremely pretty, a garden, 
 pig, and grass for two cows, etc., etc., and a 
 man may bring up a healthy family in the 
 greatest comfort. It 's the monotony of 
 country life, I think, that carries men into 
 town. They want excitement. 
 
 But the whole situation is desperate.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 101 
 
 To Miss {B) 
 
 Edinburgh, March 1904. 
 
 ' May we offer one another make-shifts for 
 truth ? ' I would say ' Certainly yes,' if we 
 are to follow God's method. For He has dealt 
 so with our race from the beginning, allowing 
 men to believe just as much as they had grown 
 up to. In fact we have no choice. Had you 
 told your less experienced friend how far off 
 we are from the very truth, and had you at- 
 tempted to state any doctrine in a final form, 
 you would only have scared her and made her 
 despair. She must grope her own way with 
 the aid you give her, and must grow to the 
 perception that in this present life we cannot 
 see things in their final verity. The truth given 
 us by the Apostles in the New Testament is 
 merely, as Matthew Arnold said, ' thrown out 
 towards the object,' and does not completely 
 express it. But it helps rather than hinders, it 
 keeps us in touch with reality till we outgrow 
 it, and for those who never outgrow it it is 
 the very truth. 
 
 One who can believe in God should be very 
 thankful. Very often, I may say commonly.
 
 102 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 I cannot get further than the conviction that 
 in Christ we see the best that our nature is 
 capable of, and must make that our own. 
 And I am doubtful whether in this life much 
 more is needed. We are here not to know, 
 but to grow in character, to be and to do. 
 It is impossible to penetrate into the things 
 we most desire to know, but conscience with 
 absolute assurance says this or that is the life 
 to live. If any one believes in God, I never 
 can see what more he wants. He must feel sure 
 that he will be dealt with in the most loving 
 possible manner, and is being so dealt with; 
 in short, 
 
 * God 's in his heaven, 
 All 's right with the world.' 
 
 I think I 'd be absolutely and jubilantly joyful 
 if I clearly, firmly and unquestioningly believed 
 in God — I won't say and in immortality, be- 
 cause the one carries the other. 
 
 To Mrs. Watson 
 
 [Edinbubgh], 2Qth March 1904. 
 I wish to say Good-bye to you and Dr. 
 Watson before sailing for New York as I hope 
 to do next week. I ought to have answered
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 103 
 
 your most welcome letter, but the last week or 
 two of the Session has been a most distracting 
 and busy time. At last we are free, Rainy 
 winding up with an address as full of life and 
 careful wording as anything he ever did. We 
 see too little of him at College now, and the 
 little we do see makes us long for more. 
 
 I hope Dr. Watson shows a proper meekness 
 and submits to being read to. To me it would 
 be a considerable trial, even though the reading 
 voice were no more jarring than — as welcome 
 as — your own ; and I fancy any man who has 
 read as much as Dr. Watson and understands 
 the saving art of ' skipping ' would not readily 
 submit to listen to everything a man has to say. r 
 I find a growing desire to go back on old 
 friends, Shakespeare and Thackeray and so 
 on ; I suppose it is a sign of old age. The new 
 books that appear contain so little that is new, 
 that one begins to distrust present-day writers, 
 though this is, I fear, a fatal mistake, and 
 proves that one has himself degenerated. 
 
 How about John ? ^ Is it really to come ? 
 I do hope so. 
 
 * Dr. Watson's First Epistle of St. John, published shortly after 
 this date.
 
 104 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 Even our little flower border is showing some 
 yellow and purple through the smoke, and your 
 garden must be lovely. In America I fear I 
 may light upon the rainy month ; and I see 
 that my host, the President of Chicago Uni- 
 versity, is down with appendicitis. 
 
 I trust both you and Dr. Watson will have a 
 reviving summer ; and it would be a very happy 
 one if you had all that is desired for you by 
 your most affectionate . . . 
 
 To A. W. McClympnt 
 
 Edinburgh, 2Qth March [1904]. 
 
 It is very good of you to write in the terms 
 you do, and the reaction at the close and retro- 
 spective survey of a session makes one painfully 
 sensible of short-comings and open to any en- 
 couragement. I increasingly see how much 
 a class depends on one or two of its best men ; 
 and your presence and that of Oldham and 
 two or three others has been of the greatest 
 service during the past session ; and for this 
 you have the sincere gratitude of yours most 
 truly . . .
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 105 
 
 To John M. Grant 
 
 [Edinburgh, 2^th March 1904.] 
 
 Your wail has caught me just on the wing. 
 I leave to-morrow, spend two nights with the 
 Formans, and sail on Friday. 
 
 I am sincerely grieved that at your age you 
 should find yourself in business straits, as if a 
 life-time's hard work had been thrown away ; 
 but of course, as you well know, it is the 
 results of life in our own selves that tell, and 
 not the results in our condition. 
 
 Don't you wish you were a Professor ? I 
 should think so — to have £600 a year with no 
 possibility of a rise, and the possibility of 
 finding that your Church has not the where- 
 withal to pay you, and the certainty that she 
 has not any provision for your retiring allow- 
 ance, so that when you are worn out and old 
 and bronchitic, you must all the same turn 
 out all through winter at 8-15 and grind your 
 soul away on teaching. I like it, but you ? 
 No, I don't think happiness lies in that direc- 
 tion for you. 
 
 Marcus enters now on his period of waiting 
 and probation. For though one of his cousins
 
 106 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 hopes that ' Brief Hfe ' may be his ' portion,' 
 I fear all advocates must be waiters for several 
 years. 
 
 He and Harry go with me to America, as I 
 am being specially well paid and can afford to 
 give them an outing, as in the natural order 
 of things I shall not be able to do again. For 
 I also am just attaining my three score years 
 and ten. 
 
 I have a good deal to do, so you will not pull 
 a long face over this short letter, but convey 
 my most hearty regards to Mrs. Grant, and 
 believe me. . . . 
 
 To Mrs. Lowe 
 (Postcard) 
 [New York, Uth Ap-il 1904.] 
 This is written in a hot New York hotel with 
 a snow-storm going on outside which has ter- 
 minated three days of perfect weather since we 
 arrived. As we were launched by your sweet 
 smiles and ministries, which lived with us all 
 the voyage, so we were welcomed on the quay 
 by that sweet affectionate girl Kate Sands, who 
 had left her house in Montclair at 6 a.m. to be 
 in time to greet us on the ship's arrival. Even
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 107 
 
 this truly American welcome did not satisfy 
 her, for she would have us all to spend the 
 night in her house, which we did, much to our 
 enjoyment. Next day the beloved Coffin took 
 us up, and showed us a like hospitality. I told 
 him that if he really wished to do his students 
 good he must take a course with you, from 
 whom he would learn what the pulpit truly 
 needs. All you dear and kind people at home 
 seem doubly, were it possible, trebly dear at 
 this distance, and this fragile card now setting 
 out on its 3000 mile travel carries with it the 
 warm and grateful affection of your much 
 attached friend. . . . 
 
 PS. Here comes Coffin, and says I am to tell 
 you he has quite lost his Edinburgh accent. 
 
 To Miss Emily G. Kemp, F.R.G.S. 
 
 Fredonia, N.Y., 2Qtli April 1904. 
 The Forerunner'^ helped to beguile a voyage 
 which was not wholly sunshine. In fact we 
 struck the equinoctial gales, and although our 
 big ship scarcely acknowledged the heavy 
 seas, yet there were fogs and rain, when one 
 was glad to stay under cover and read instead 
 
 ^ By Dmitri Merejkowaki.
 
 108 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 of indulging in ' shuffle-board ' or deck quoits. 
 My sons enjoyed the voyage greatly, and so 
 did I. They have now left me and faced home- 
 wards, and I am in a place you are never likely 
 to hear from again — a small town on Lake 
 Erie. To-morrow I move on to Chicago. The 
 cold here is intense and they are having snow- 
 storms, an unheard of experience in mid- April. 
 But their winter has been exceptionally severe 
 and long, and as they keep their houses exces- 
 sively hot, every one has cold. 
 
 The Forerunner, if not a supremely artistic 
 book, is full of remarkable things. I should 
 say the unpronounceable author was rather 
 a supremely learned scholar than a supreme 
 artist. If he had taken a little more pains 
 and thrown his work into a symmetrical whole, 
 it would have taken rank among the immortals. 
 But the Russians with all their realism and 
 power fail architectonically (what a word !). 
 They are like their own individual figures, 
 powerful and effective, but somewhat clumsy. 
 I felt inclined to treat The Forerunner not as a 
 novel but as a historical treatise, keeping a 
 note-book by me and setting down the striking 
 things. I hope to read it again.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 109 
 
 Whenever I come to America I wonder our 
 people don't come more frequently. You, I 
 think, have been here. But so few understand 
 what a surprising country it is, and how much 
 there is in it to quicken thought. 
 
 If I began about your experience of ' cutting 
 off the right hand ' I would become tedious. 
 Besides, these matters are better talked of 
 than written about. But I may say that this 
 world is unintelligible except on the hypothesis 
 that it is for our schooling, and that he that 
 sows in tears is the likeliest to have sheaves 
 worth gathering. It is truly a death we must 
 pass through, a quitting of our hold on all that 
 once seemed life to us. And it comes to each 
 in turn as so hard and impossible a thing that 
 we naturally think no one could have so hard 
 a lot as ours. But it is impertinent in me to 
 suggest what you already know and practise 
 so much better than your affectionate friend . . . 
 
 To Ms daughter, Mrs. Gray 
 
 Chicago University, 2^th April 1904. 
 I have now had a week of Chicago, and I 
 am quite in love with my work. Chapel 10.30,
 
 no LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 address of ten to fifteen minutes ; an hour for 
 men or women to consult; lecture at 4. The 
 chapel gives an audience of about 500, the 
 lecture about 200 or 180. On Sunday I preach 
 to the University, and then hurry up to town 
 by train and preach at the Y.M.C.A. to about 
 1000. On Monday I have two addresses to 
 give besides my usual ones, but every one is 
 going full speed, and some of their steam gets 
 into one and helps. The weather is now 
 very bright, though still cold. 
 
 asked me to dine with herself, her 
 
 father and mother and brother, at the great 
 settlement here. Miss Addams', I suppose con- 
 siderably the greatest in the world. After 
 dinner we spent the whole evening in going 
 over it ; they have plenty room, large haUs for 
 music and dancing and theatricals, rooms for 
 weaving, cooking, pottery, carpentery, fencing, 
 music, etc. etc., the whole place humming with 
 life. 
 
 I get some most interesting talks with men 
 after my addresses at chapel. No women as 
 yet have come, but the men are good fellows, 
 some of them, and the usual difficulties abound. 
 I had to talk to forty or fifty women at their
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 1 1 1 
 
 ' Twilight Hour ' on Tuesday. The women 
 are as many as the men. They are not all 
 models of female beauty, but some of them 
 seem nice and good girls. You can't move 
 in the University precincts without running 
 up against them going at full speed, as every- 
 thing does here. 
 
 I wish you could see it all, it 's so utterly 
 different from home ; but every one says 
 Chicago is by itself, and not to be taken as 
 representing other American cities. 
 
 To his son Harry 
 
 [Chicago, May 1904.] 
 
 It was a great delight to me to get your letter 
 the day before you sailed, and to learn that 
 your visit to Washington had been a success. 
 I felt sure it would be so. And it was great 
 luck seeing Roosevelt, who is a really strong 
 man. I am glad he recognised in you that 
 there is some grit in the old country yet. 
 
 You must not consider yourself my debtor 
 for the trip, for your company and Marcus' 
 on the voyage and after far more than repaid 
 the outlay ; and the pleasure I have in thinking 
 that you have enjoyed it is beyond price. The
 
 112 LATER LETTERS OF ]\L^RCUS DODS 
 
 dollars you may have over you can put to your 
 bank account or to Beth's. I have no ex- 
 penses here except car fares, or rather railway 
 fares, for every time I wish to go into town, that 
 is, into the shopping and business part, I have 
 to take an express on the Illinois Central, which 
 covers the distance in twelve or fifteen minutes. 
 The distances are enormous, and I had twice 
 to go yesterday right into town to meetings. 
 I wish you could have seen Chicago. It is 
 quite different from New York, and more 
 cosmopolitan. There are newspapers in thirty 
 languages issued. Last night I was at a Settle- 
 ment close to which are 100,000 Bohemians, 
 as many Greeks, and as many R/Ussians. The 
 Greeks have their signs in the dear old language. 
 
 This University is a marvel. The gymnasium 
 is enormous, 100 yards long and filled with 
 every kind of apparatus — a swimming bath that 
 invites you in. 
 
 This morning I took chapel, and had a 
 great audience, women on one side, men on the 
 other. I am to take it every morning while 
 here, and it 's a grand opportunity, though a 
 good deal of work is required even for a ten 
 minutes' address.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 113 
 
 I hope you have had a good passage, though 
 the Majestic is not the Celtic, and perhaps you 
 have learned what a ' roll ' is. 
 
 I had a grand letter from Frank, for which 
 thank him heartily. It had messages to you, 
 but I got it too late to forward them to you — 
 at least you could not have answered them 
 sooner than by word of mouth. I will try to 
 write to him before long. But they keep me 
 fairly busy here. 
 
 To Miss {D) 
 
 In Bed [Chicago], 
 Qth May [1904]. 
 
 Chicago has given me a new friend and a new 
 illness. On Monday I felt I was doing a dis- 
 courteous, as I was certainly doing a self- 
 denying thing, in not walking with you and your 
 mother to the station ; but I was felled with 
 fever and could scarcely drag myself home. I 
 struggled through Tuesday, and through chapel 
 on Wednesday, and was promptly put to bed 
 by the University doctor, and there I have 
 been ever since, my chief company being a 
 temperature, but diversified by your letter and 
 some others. At night I have been seeing 
 
 H
 
 114 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 visions, and dreaming dreams, and wondering 
 what a queerly constituted world this is. I have 
 had to miss three lectures, which is hard, but 
 to-day, though you could almost hear me cough 
 at Washington, I think I have at last got round 
 the corner ; but there may be several corners, 
 and I won't be too sure. 
 
 Let us see some good in this evil. Had you 
 been here, I could not have seen anything more 
 of you. Point 2, it has enabled me to see the 
 excellent qualities of Mrs. Harper, who has 
 puffed away difficulties, and treated me as if 
 I were a father or a son or a brother. Then 
 there is the universal lesson for which so much 
 in this life seems intended, to humble us, to 
 make us feel how little our work is missed 
 (our persons, yes, but not our work), and also 
 to elicit a spark of heroism. 
 
 Well, well, the friendship more than balances 
 the illness, and I wish before you leave your 
 country to thank you for your most frank and 
 
 kindly reception of 's friend, and for the 
 
 hope that our friendship may not only afford 
 me these few very pleasant hours of intercourse, 
 but may become in the future a many-ramified 
 and very fruitful plant.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 115 
 
 It 's delightful to think that there are such 
 people as you in the world. Kindest remem- 
 brances to your mother and yourself, and with 
 cordial * Bon voyage ' I remain . . . 
 
 To his sister Marcia 
 
 c/o President Harlan, 
 Lake Forest, Illinois, \2th May 1904. 
 
 This place is a dream. Conceive three or 
 four miles square of lawn with a good deal of 
 wood upon it, squirrels, blue jays, mocking 
 birds, catbirds, etc. etc., dancing and singing 
 all round, with the lake's constant roar or moan 
 intermingling. In this lawn set down 100 frame 
 houses of more or less beauty at 400 yards apart. 
 Especially remember to build a handsome school 
 to contain 200 girls from fifteen to eighteen 
 years of age, or twenty, with chapel and school- 
 house ; and a corresponding boys' school and 
 college a mile off. Picture me in one of the 
 prettiest houses it was ever my lot to live in, 
 close to the water, with verandahs all round, 
 and all the ground floor made up of rooms 
 opening into one another, all pretty, all clean 
 and glittering. My bedroom is a joy, full of 
 light, looking on to the Lake, the daintiest
 
 116 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 of beds, and most seductive of couches and 
 easy chairs, pohshed oak floors, and rugs, and 
 a bath-room attached. 
 
 I have been very well received here, first- 
 rate audiences and very attentive ; two nice 
 looking damsels to-day stopped me as I was 
 walking and thanked me, and invited me to 
 come and see their quarters in the College. 
 Wasn't it nice of them ? 
 
 I must say I immensely enjoy being here. 
 I meet so many people who show me their best 
 side, and I see so much that is new and so much 
 that is interesting. Now just at present the 
 sun is setting, making all the lake shine, and 
 the wind is raising quite a sea that washes over 
 the little pier below me. The trees are just 
 beginning to come into leaf, but the buds look 
 like gold in the sun. 
 
 To his daughter, Mrs. Gray 
 
 c/o President Harlan, 
 Lake Forest, IWi May 1904. 
 
 I was yesterday agreeably surprised by 
 receiving your letter, which I thought would 
 not appear till to-day. I am quite in love 
 with this place. All that is needed is to have
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 1 1 7 
 
 Kitty, Arthur and Stumpy on the sands below 
 my window, and your dear self in any one of the 
 twenty-six comfortable easy chairs that adorn 
 this lovely house. The change from the rush 
 and dirt and wickedness of Chicago to this ideal 
 home in the country is amazingly refreshing. 
 I can prowl for miles and not see a soul, or 
 hear any harsher noise than a cat-bird's song. 
 The weather has become warmer, and although 
 still the trees are so many sticks, there is a 
 promise on some of them, and a shimmer of 
 green. 
 
 My host is the very best type of American, 
 well-born, well-bred, acquainted with some 
 of our best English lawyers and statesmen, 
 a most kindly loveable gentleman. His wife 
 is delicate, but plays Wagner and Beethoven 
 by the mile. The Professors are mostly Scotch 
 and entertain me to the risk of my digestion. 
 However, I am gaining strength daily, and my 
 cough is very much better. I feel disposed 
 to ask President Harlan to let me stay some 
 days beyond my term of lecturing, but I suppose 
 when the time comes cheek will fail me. At 
 this present moment he is entertaining a little 
 party of children, small mites, playing musical
 
 118 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 chairs and feeding them with ices ; himself the 
 happiest of the crowd. He is the kind of man 
 who makes me wish I were younger, to enjoy 
 the prospect of some years of his friendship. 
 He has just let his house for the summer, as 
 most of the people here seem to do. I only 
 wish I had a place like it for summer or winter. 
 Everything is open, not a fence or a gate in the 
 whole place, only miles and miles of winding 
 roads and lovely lawns, and jonquils and tulips 
 and daffies no end. 
 
 Saturday 14th. — To-day the wind has gone 
 back into the north, and it 's chilly and gray. 
 But after spending the whole forenoon on my 
 lectures and dictating abstracts to a steno- 
 grapher, I went for a walk. It is so delightful 
 to be so near wild nature as one is here — 
 squirrels flirting with you round trees, and 
 strange birds trying their songs on a foreigner. 
 You never know whether you are walking in 
 public or private grounds. Yesterday I lunched 
 with one of the Professors and dined with an- 
 other, both Scots, and I must have eaten about 
 IJ lbs. of ice-cream, but as I had to lecture 
 immediately after dinner, it seems to have 
 done me no harm. The meals in this house
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 119 
 
 are served very daintily. When I was sitting 
 a little ago in the drawing-room (40 feet by 25) 
 the cook came in to change her volume of 
 Sir Walter's novels. 
 
 I feel rather a fraud receiving £600 for enjoy- 
 ing a charming holiday in a lovely spot and 
 with most desirable people. I must make an 
 offering to appease the gods. Would it do to 
 give an impecunious daughter a little peck at 
 my pile ? What I fear is that when the pay 
 day comes the President will just button his 
 pockets and say ' This is quite too ridiculous. 
 I '11 make it £6 without the nothings.' 
 
 I preach twice to-morrow, once in the 
 Presbyterian church, small but full, and at 
 j&ve vespers in the College chapel. A week 
 ago the very thought of preaching was over- 
 whelming. I should be a very thankful man, 
 and not least for being able to sign myself 
 your loving father . . . 
 
 To his sister Marcia 
 Lake Forest, Illinois, 20th May [1904]. 
 
 I finished my lectures last night. The 
 audiences have been most sympathetic, and
 
 120 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 have increased, the hall being well fiUed every 
 night. To-day I am merely staying on with 
 my busy and capable host and delicate, clever 
 and musical hostess for my own enjojmient; 
 and happily the iced winds have gone and 
 summer, at any rate spring, has at last come. 
 A fine rain fell yesterday, and the trees will 
 now soon respond. I have told you what a 
 lovely place this is, but it would be difficult 
 to convey to you any idea of the hospitality of 
 the people, or of their refinement, and beautiful 
 libraries. I have dined out every night and 
 lunched out often, and the amount of ice I 
 have eaten is appalling to think of, but some- 
 how it seems to agree with me, as I am now 
 very well, save for a slight delicacy of wind- 
 pipe, which the warm weather and the sea will 
 quite cure. 
 
 I go back to Chicago to-morrow to preach 
 for an old New College man, and then on 
 Monday I hope to take the Twentieth Century 
 Limited, which does the 1000 miles to New 
 York in twenty hours. I sail on 1st June. I 
 wish I could see more of America, but it is to 
 me dreary in the extreme to go about alone, so 
 I think I shall skip Boston. I am very sorry to
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 121 
 
 leave this place. The house is so comfortable 
 and beautiful, and the great Lake so good an 
 imitation of the Ocean. I find I must go : 
 this will be my last greeting, I fancy, from this 
 side. 
 
 To his daughter, Mrs. Gray 
 
 R.M.S. ' Oceanic,' Uh June 1904. 
 I hope you have got over all your Synod 
 fatigues, and have nothing now but pleasant 
 memories of it. Where did you get courage 
 enough to take the chair at a meeting ? Not 
 from me, and not from your mother. Coffin 
 spoke so lovingly of her, and said how much 
 all the students liked her frank and friendly 
 ways. I have sometimes felt an awful longing 
 for her during this lonely trip, though nothing 
 could be friendlier than ' those delightful 
 Americans.' 
 
 To Miss [B) 
 
 Edinburgh, June 1904. 
 
 If evolution has done nothing else for us it 
 has at least taught us that we are not at the 
 end and final stage, but slowly and painfully
 
 122 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 finding our way to something better — that is, 
 it teaches us patience and hope. Besides, 
 our own experience is quite definite in affirming 
 that it is only through tribulation our kingdom 
 can be entered on, or in plainer language, our 
 trials are certainly the measure of our oppor- 
 tunity of becoming better. James was justified 
 in saying ' Count it all Jo?/,' etc., for undeniably 
 that is the only path for such as we are to any- 
 thing like perfect attainment. The difficulty 
 of conquering temptation, the distress and 
 agony of life, are in point of fact necessary. 
 I know how hard it is to say this to the people 
 who are day by day torn by heart-rending 
 misery. But it must be said. It is to add 
 misery to misery to neglect the consolation 
 that really exists. 
 
 For those who suffer by the wrong-doing 
 of others there is the reward that they are 
 following Christ. His atonement was nothing 
 more than His quietly and lovingly accepting 
 all that sin could do against Him. It is this 
 that overcomes evil and at last breaks the 
 heart of the sinner. 
 
 Temptation is our only opportunity of growth 
 — a very commonplace truth, but lying at
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 123 
 
 the root of our whole condition in this ^vo^ld. 
 That some people are tempted beyond their 
 moral strength is obvious every hour of every 
 day, but that any one is tempted beyond his 
 strength really (or using the word strictly, 
 ' physically '), is impossible ; no one is com- 
 pelled to be evil, else it ceases to be moral 
 evil. This, which is so easy to put upon paper, 
 is the whole of life's stress and difficulty, and 
 the measure of our trial must always be the 
 measure of our opportunity. It is not that one 
 person needs discipline more than another, 
 but that life presents to each person a special 
 trial which forms his individual opportunity, 
 of conquest or of defeat. Life's crown, its 
 sole resulting gain, is to be found there. It 's 
 often the people who least need discipline who 
 have the heaviest burdens to bear. 
 
 To Miss (D) 
 
 Edinburgh, Uh July 1904. 
 
 I write to you to-day not because I wish to 
 celebrate Independence Day, although I seem 
 to hear the explosions that have been going on
 
 124 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 all morning in and elsewhere, but because 
 
 your most welcome letter seems to bring you 
 almost within speaking distance. How I wish 
 it really were so. 
 
 ' They also serve who only stand and wait ' 
 is suggested by what you say of yourself. It 
 is strange how seldom our circumstances exactly 
 fit our capabilities ; and to a spirit like yours 
 I fancy standing and waiting is just the difficult 
 thing to do. But the difficulties of life are the 
 measiu'e of its value, for nothing is so valuable 
 an attainment as complete self-mastery ; the 
 ability to submit and to do precisely as duty 
 calls. One of our greatest thinkers, Butler, 
 says very truly ' Submission is the whole of 
 religion.' I remember what a new view I 
 got of life when I first clearly understood that 
 temptation is opportunity ; that is to say, 
 that our one only path to perfectness of char- 
 acter is by conquering temptation. With- 
 out enemies to conquer we cannot have any 
 victory. 
 
 But in my desire to prolong talk with you, 
 I become prosy, so I stop, not because I am 
 weary of writing, but because I am afraid to 
 put you to sleep.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 125 
 
 To John Colville 
 
 Edinburgh, llth July 1904. 
 
 I have not sooner replied to your note, be- 
 cause the question raised is so very difficult. It 
 is in short the question, What is the function 
 of the Church ? Perhaps the simplest answer 
 would be, The Church is intended to maintain 
 in the world the spirit of Christ, and to continue 
 His work. But when the further question is 
 put, How is the Church to do this, is she to 
 fulfil the charitable purposes of her Lord by 
 leavening the minds of her members, or by 
 herself forming organisations for the relief of all 
 kinds of distress, difficulties crowd in. 
 
 I rather incline to think with you that the 
 latter course is impracticable. The State leaves 
 to private enterprise a very large proportion of 
 the work that brings prosperity and increases 
 the welfare of the State. And the Church, as 
 you point out, cannot undertake the manage- 
 ment of all charitable work. No doubt, as 
 Mrs. Colville says, the Church would be a more 
 conspicuous institution if she were the organis- 
 ing centre of all charities ; but for my part I 
 think the Church as a vast institution is too
 
 126 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 conspicuous already, and that she would in 
 many respects be in a healthier condition if 
 she were less conspicuous. 
 
 At the same time, the Church is a company 
 of good men, and if they see some charitable 
 work that needs doing I don't see why they 
 should be hindered from doing it, but they 
 ought not to do it as belonging to any particular 
 sect. 
 
 This, you will say, is to leave the problem 
 unsolved ; it is to refrain from drawing a sharp 
 line beyond which the Church ought not to 
 pass ; it does not reduce the question to a 
 principle which applies in every case. Well, 
 no, it does not, but I cannot find any principle 
 that applies. 
 
 To Miss {A) 
 
 Edinburgh, 19th July [1904]. 
 I have just finished a lecture on the Greek 
 Mysteries, which has led me into some curious 
 reading. But on the whole I have received a 
 higher idea of the religious earnestness of the 
 Greeks than I had — although with Sophocles 
 and Euripides before one's eyes their religious- 
 ness is fairly obvious. It takes a long time to
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 127 
 
 fathom the richness of the Greek genius, how- 
 ever, and new ' pockets ' of gold are always 
 turning up. 
 
 To Miss {B) 
 
 [Edinburgh, Uh August 1904.] 
 You put the whole matter in a nutshell when 
 you say ' It is a question now of life as opposed 
 to ancestor worship.' Put so, surely no wise 
 or good man can hesitate which line he should 
 choose, and which has a future. And I fancy 
 not one of our ministers in a hundred will have 
 any hesitation in choosing, or in refusing to 
 hold his church on condition of preaching in 
 accordance with the dictates of the House of 
 Lords. What the Court of Session may do is 
 doubtful, but I fear they will not try anything 
 heroic. 
 
 We professors are less to be pitied than the 
 ministers. We can easily find a house where 
 for the present we can hold our classes. And 
 we in Edinburgh are in no worse case than the 
 Glasgow and Aberdeen professors, who can 
 only hold their buildings and libraries on con- 
 ditions which they will not accept. 
 
 The mess is intolerable, and of the most
 
 128 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 complicated kind, and only time can show all 
 the miserable consequences of having Scottish 
 Ecclesiastical causes tried in England. 
 
 To Miss (D) 
 
 Edinburgh, Qth August 1904. 
 
 When your letter came in I was just sitting 
 down to copy out for you the enclosed, which I 
 thought ' fine ' when I first read it, impressive 
 on my second reading, magnificent when I 
 copied it into my book, worthy of the man and 
 of the people when I wrote it for you. You 
 may be proud that you belong to a country 
 which could produce a man who could kindle 
 so great an elegiac. My reward in writing it 
 out has been the vision of your face aglow as 
 you read it. Don't resent the few false or 
 rather slightly erroneous words that occur. 
 I don't point these out, for there are few greater 
 pleasures in life than to have to do with intel- 
 ligent people who don't need everything ex- 
 plained. 
 
 I am glad to hear that both you and your 
 mother are finding the Continent restful. Here 
 in Scotland we have had unusually dry and
 
 LATER LETTERS OF IVLVRCUS DODS 129 
 
 warm weather. But as for the peace and 
 repose of which you speak, we have instead the 
 most turbulent and bewildering state of affairs. 
 By a decision of the House of Lords all our 
 Church property and funds are taken from us 
 and given to about two dozen of our most ob- 
 scurantist congregations, that refused to go into 
 a Union we lately consummated with another 
 Church in Scotland. The decision is so monstrous 
 and so unworkable that Parliament will probably 
 interpose. But at present the whole country is 
 in a ferment of excitement. 
 
 Write soon that long letter you hint at. At 
 present I find my time gone. 
 
 Kindest regards to your father and mother, 
 and all the best for yourself. The world I am 
 sure has in store for you what will make you 
 ashamed of ever thinking it dreary. 
 
 LINCOLN, THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE 
 
 ' When the Norn-Mother saw the whirlwind hour, 
 Greatening and darkening as it hurried on, 
 She bent the strenuous heavens and came down, 
 To make a man to meet the mortal need. 
 She took the tried clay of the common road, 
 Clay warm yet with the genial heat of earth. 
 Dashed through it all the strain of prophecy ; 
 
 I
 
 130 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 Then mixed a laughter with the serious stuff. 
 
 It was a stuff to wear for centuries, 
 
 A man that matched the mountains, and compelled 
 
 The stars to look our way and honour us. 
 
 The colour of the ground was in him, the red earth ; 
 
 The tang and odour of the primal things — 
 
 The rectitude and patience of the rocks ; 
 
 The gladness of the wind that shakes the corn ; 
 
 The courage of the bird that dares the sea ; 
 
 The justice of the rain that loves all leaves ; 
 
 The pity of the snow that hides all scars ; 
 
 The loving-kindness of the wayside well ; 
 
 The tolerance and equity of light, 
 
 That gives as freely to the shrinking weed 
 
 As to the great oak flaring to the wind. 
 
 To the grave's low hill as to the Matterhorn 
 
 That shoulders out the sky. 
 
 And so he came. 
 From prairie cabin up to Capitol 
 One fair ideal led our chieftain on. 
 For evermore he burned to do his deed 
 With the fine stroke and gesture of a King. 
 He built the rail-pile as he built the state, 
 Pouring his splendid strength through every blow, 
 The conscience of him testing every stroke. 
 To make his deed the measure of a man. 
 
 So came the Captain with the mighty heart ; 
 And when the step of earthquake shook the house, 
 Wrenching the rafters from their ancient hold, 
 He held the ridge-pole up, and spiked again 
 The rafters of the home. He held his place — 
 Held the long purpose like a growing tree — 
 Held on through blame and faltered not at praise. 
 And when he fell in whirlwind, he went down
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 1 3 1 
 
 As when a kingly cedar green with boughs 
 Goes down with a great shout upon the hills, 
 And leaves a lonesome place against the sky.' 
 
 Malcolm. 
 
 To Mrs. Watson 
 
 The Dell, 
 AviBMOBE, 20^A August 1904. 
 
 This is a lovely spot, but without the wide 
 outlook of Boat of Garten. I regret leaving 
 the place, but especially the company, and 
 really if I put on paper all my feelings about 
 your kindness and tried to express the kind 
 of lift I get from being with you, you would not 
 believe me. Dr. Watson when I first knew 
 him seemed the incarnation of wisdom, but 
 ever since he has been growing, and I have 
 never felt more invigorated than now by coming 
 in contact with so utterly sane and charitable 
 a spirit. Very many thanks for having me. 
 
 To the Same 
 
 The Dell, 
 AviEMORE, 2'ird August 1904. 
 
 You surely mean to break down my modesty 
 altogether. In one sense it is a very great
 
 132 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 pleasure to read Dr. Watson's eulogy,^ for to 
 
 ^ The reference is to the following character-sketch of Dr. Dods, 
 which, as it has not been printed elsewhere, it is perhaps permis- 
 sible to quote here : — 
 
 ' A very strong and very safe man, strong in intellect, in moral 
 force and in religious conviction, safe as a devoted servant of 
 truth, rejecting no opinion because it was old and formidable, 
 accepting none because it was novel and interesting, calm and 
 deliberate in judgment, accurate and diligent in investigation, 
 clear and reliable in statement, open to receive all sufficient evi- 
 dence, quick to detect all fallacy in reasoning, impatient of all that 
 is trifling or irrelevant, rejoicing in certainty where it can be found, 
 indifferent to the specious or remotely possible. No gladiator who 
 fights for fighting's sake, but afraid of no adversary and of no 
 conflict, capable of stern and dangerous wrath against aU im- 
 morality, falsehood or trickery, but incapable of rancour, or 
 bitterness, or revenge. A man who does not wear his heart upon 
 his sleeve, but is full of a really exquisite tenderness of feeling. 
 Faithful, or even more than faithful, to his friends, he often sees 
 in them excellences which others cannot perceive, and of which 
 they themselves are unconscious ; and to opponents giving credit 
 for qualities which distinguish only himself. He has a real dis- 
 taste for matters merely ecclesiastical, and indeed for all contro- 
 versy which does not lead to a distinctly moral or reUgious issue. 
 In ordinary intercourse of life not a great talker, hating mere 
 gossip and caring little for what are called " good stories," yet 
 possessing a sense of real humour when by an anecdote char- 
 acter is revealed as by a flash. He speaks little about himself, 
 for he never was a man who could flaunt in the market-place his 
 deeper feelings or, above all, the facts of his intercourse with 
 God ; yet few can spend an hour with him who do not go away 
 stimulated and enriched ; with one voice his students acknowledge 
 this ; with them he is far more than a real lecturer. 
 
 ' The father of Dr. Dods, whose name was also Marcus, was 
 minister of the Presbyterian Church at Belford, in Northumber- 
 land; he might weU have occupied a far more prominent and
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 133 
 
 stand so in his eyes, even though with no true 
 right to do so, is gratifying ; but chiefly it 
 makes me ashamed, as it holds close to the 
 reality an ideal which brings out all the actual 
 flaws and blots by contrast. I take it as an 
 evidence of his goodness of heart, but rather 
 as a rebuke to myself. Thank you very much, 
 however, for sending it. As a piece of literature 
 it is of the highest class. 
 
 I still look with longing towards Boat of 
 Garten, but every one will be going south 
 next week, I suppose ; or at least a large 
 proportion of people will be leaving Speyside. 
 
 To-morrow I go home. With much affection 
 for you and yours . . . 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll 
 
 [Edestbukgh, ? Autumn of 1904.] 
 
 I believe that Scribner has arranged with 
 Clark to publish my book here. Scribner did 
 not call for me while in town. He was living 
 with Sir John Clark somewhere in the country, 
 and Sir John told me a day or two ago that 
 
 influential position, for he was an accomplished scholar, an excel- 
 lent mathematician, a thoroughly furnished theologian, and a very 
 able and good man.'
 
 134 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 such an arrangement had been made. I left 
 a typed copy of my lectures with Harlan in 
 the middle of May, and I do not believe one 
 page has been set up yet. Indeed I know it 
 has not, so that its appearance before Christmas 
 is very doubtful. But considering the heated 
 condition of our present atmosphere it is per- 
 haps as well that no additional inflammatory 
 be thrown into the blaze. 
 
 You deserve well of the U.F. Church for 
 your articles, and I think your paper is finding 
 access — indeed I know it is finding access — 
 where it has hitherto been excluded. I am 
 glad you think of a pamphlet. It will do a 
 world of good, for a mass of people lies open to 
 instruction. 
 
 I am truly sorry to hear you have been ill, 
 and hope you will be all right soon. You have 
 fought a good fight, but you are needed more 
 than ever. 
 
 I send you all the reviews I have. I have 
 only one more book, and have not yet had time 
 to read it, as I have been writing one or two 
 new lectures — one on the relation of Church to 
 Creed (by the way. Rainy is to open our session 
 with an address on Creeds and Creed-making),
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 135 
 
 and one on Denney's proposed alterations of 
 qualifications for ministry. 
 
 I am going for a fortnight to England to 
 preach in Bristol and Rochdale, and expect to 
 be back home on 4th October. 
 
 I am not very well — tired and down. 
 
 To Miss {A) 
 
 Edinburgh, &,h September 1904. 
 
 I am always the richer for your letters. Last 
 night's budget was most acceptable. 
 
 It was delightful to see you even for that 
 moment at Callander ; but I do wish you lived 
 nearer, so that I might drop in for a talk or 
 some music. 
 
 I admire and love Dr. and Mrs. Watson 
 more every time I see them. How well one 
 understands the meaning of ' the salt of the 
 earth ' when one knows them, and sees how 
 evil is quenched and put an end to in them, 
 and how good flows from them as from a pure 
 and inexhaustible fountain. His prayers are 
 as helpful as ever they were — so reasonable 
 and wise and devout. One ought to be much 
 the better for knowing them ; and for the time
 
 136 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DOBS 
 
 I am. Certainly their friendship is a vast 
 addition to life, and it is pitiful to think how 
 many have no such friends. 
 
 I am trying to write an opening address for 
 our Theological Society on the Relation of a 
 Church to her Creed, and I find it not wholly 
 plain sailing. I am clear that from our members 
 we have no right to ask any confession save 
 that they accept Christ as their living King. 
 But it seems reasonable that from those who 
 teach some guarantee should be taken that 
 they will not teach deleterious nonsense. The 
 question is, How much can you ask ? Must you 
 not largely trust men in this as in all other 
 departments ? I remember that many, many 
 years ago a banker said to me ' You may have 
 what system of checks and tests you like in 
 a bank, but you cannot exclude trust in the 
 men you employ. No mechanical checks are 
 sufficient.' 
 
 But I don't want to bore you with my lecture. 
 
 To Miss Crum 
 
 Edinburgh, 9th September 1904. 
 It is waesome to think of Dr. Watson growing 
 older, but I was greatly struck, this visit, with
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 137 
 
 his calm and wisdom. He seems to have got 
 into an upper air altogether and to be above, 
 as indeed he always in great measure was, all 
 the fightings of lesser men. But amid all that 
 must be hard for him to bear, he has not only 
 this entrance into a higher region of life and 
 this eternal gain in character, which is the main 
 thing, but he has Mrs. Watson and yourself, 
 being eyes and everything else to him. 
 
 To Miss {A) 
 
 [Edinburgh], \Qth September [1904]. 
 
 I greatly enjoyed my day yesterday, although 
 I had not enough talk with yourself. Com- 
 pensation in part was made by your brother 
 
 and Mr. , whose views on various matters, 
 
 and especially on unity and union, I was greatly 
 interested to hear. I wish I could see more of 
 your brother ; there is much in him that attracts 
 and stimulates. He is alive and real. 
 
 How thankful you should be to have known 
 your father and mother all your life. I wish I 
 had. It is pleasant to think of you in your pre- 
 sent lovely home, and with so many of your own 
 family about you. These happy times cannot
 
 138 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 be made too much of ; times come when the 
 best of our Ufe is matter of memory, and it is 
 well to have that well filled. 
 
 Do write when you find time and inclination, 
 and help to keep alive yours affectionately . . . 
 
 To Miss Emily G. Kemp, F.R.G.8. 
 
 Edinburgh, 5^/^ October 1904. 
 
 It was a subdued and sad person, filled with 
 rather gloomy thoughts, that journeyed north 
 in my compartment yesterday ; but I found 
 the best remedy for depression was going back 
 in spirit to the last few days and living them 
 over again. I cannot be too grateful to yourself 
 and your sisters for giving me so good and pro- 
 fitable a time. I am beginning to look upon 
 Rochdale as a home of rest where everything 
 tends to resuscitate what is good in one. I am 
 also grateful to you for bringing me into ac- 
 quaintance with your guests. If medals are 
 given for saving life, should not medals also 
 be given to those who renew the best life in us ? 
 
 On the way north I also saw how I could have 
 made quite a decent sermon to children out of 
 my text. That is always the way with me ;
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 139 
 
 I see clearly how to do a thing after I have done 
 it, and not before. 
 
 A pile of letters, etc., a foot and a half high 
 awaits attention, so I must not talk on as 
 I should wish, but again thanking you for my 
 delightful visit I remain . . . 
 
 To Miss {A) 
 
 Edinburgh, \^th October 1904, 
 It is unpardonable of me not to have acknow- 
 ledged your delightful note pencilled in the 
 train, but the delay is due partly to the con- 
 viction that you must be aware that all your 
 letters are valued by me, and that I don't need 
 to say so. I was particularly pleased to get 
 my own thoughts about Dr. Watson put in 
 your own always perfect language. I have 
 always been struck, and never more than this 
 summer, with the wealth of ideas for prayer 
 which he finds in any and every passage which 
 may be read. I will never forget one morning 
 when after reading the 2nd Psalm he made me 
 feel, as the Psalm did not, God's indignation 
 at sin. What a wealth of ideas and of ex- 
 perience lies in his mind, and how simply and 
 unconsciously he pours it out. Say an encour-
 
 140 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 aging word to him in my behalf ; but your pre- 
 sence and affection must help him greatly to 
 bear the very great privation of semi-blindness. 
 On Sunday last I was encouraged to find 
 1200 men, a solid bareheaded mass, waiting to 
 hear about the Resurrection of Christ. So 
 there are still a few who seek truth. I was 
 greatly encouraged also by some words of 
 Cuthbert Hall's, ' I believe in the human need 
 of God, and the psychological necessity of 
 worship as a part of life. The East would 
 have taught me this, if the West already had 
 not done so. The souls of men must speak to 
 God, for they are of Him.' 
 
 To the Same 
 
 Edinburgh, 19^7^ October 1904. 
 
 Jones is most characteristic. His optimism 
 and high spirit communicate themselves for 
 a time at least ; and that is well. What a 
 picturesque style he has, too. He must do 
 immense good as a professor, inspiring his 
 students and lifting even the sluggish and 
 indifferent. Many thanks for letting me see 
 his letter.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 141 
 
 You will see that we are still to be allowed, 
 at least for four days, to continue in our College. 
 Why they cannot allow us joint occupancy I 
 cannot see. We could easily meet at different 
 hours. But the University is most kindly tak- 
 ing pity on us and offering us shelter in their 
 buildings — an arrangement which with some dis- 
 advantages has also very obvious advantages. 
 
 Our jaunty Principal opens to-day, and he 
 will have some racy remarks on our position. 
 What a blessing it is to have a man for our head 
 who has the saving grace of humour, and who 
 never loses heart and hope. 
 
 But this wretched case usurps everything — 
 time, thought, and letters. It is not easy in the 
 midst of it all to maintain the shining morning 
 face, which according to R. L. S. is our first duty. 
 But people like yourself who dwell in higher 
 regions are an incitement and a help ; and keep 
 meaner people from sinliing quite too low, as is 
 the temptation of your ever affectionate . . . 
 
 To the Same 
 Edinbuegh, %ih November 1904. 
 This time last Sunday you were brightening 
 
 '■""■•
 
 142 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 this room and its inhabitants by your presence 
 and talk ; and missing you now as I do, I wish, 
 so far as inadequate pen and ink may, to con- 
 tinue our talk. But first let me thank you for 
 your letters, always so welcome and never 
 
 disappointing. I return Miss 's, and the 
 
 sonnet.* I am taking the liberty too of sending 
 you the volume in which it occurs. I have not 
 many more years to read my books, and it is a 
 pleasure to leave them in sympathetic hands. 
 These translations of Symonds' are, I suppose, 
 as well done as any can be, yet there is a loss in 
 all translation — a loss of atmosphere and colour. 
 I quite agree with you in thinking that furious 
 assertion of the arguments against God's ex- 
 istence are one manifestation of the thirst for 
 Him. But if one could only be absolutely 
 sure, convinced beyond all questioning or 
 possibility of questioning, how changed every- 
 thing would be — how easy to see all things 
 in God and to live in Him. I have sometimes 
 found light in Christ's reference of His holiness 
 to God — ' There is none good but One ' — He 
 Himself spotless, unconscious of the slightest 
 departure from the Supreme Will, and yet as 
 
 * Michael Angelo's Heart-Coldness.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 143 
 
 conscious that this was not of Himself but 
 maintained by God. Is it possible He can have 
 misinterpreted His own consciousness, and not 
 known where His character came from ? Could 
 it have been built upon any other foundation 
 than belief in God ? But I know how weak 
 and ineffective argument is, and how each soul 
 has to fight its own battle and find its own 
 way to its own resting place and its proper 
 nutriment. How impossible, however much 
 you love a person, to lift them to your own 
 standing-ground, still less to a desirable height 
 above it. 
 
 To Miss Emily O. Kemp, F.R.G.S. 
 
 [Edinbuegh, November 1904.] 
 
 I cannot refrain from letting you know 
 how truly I sympathise with you in the 
 most unfortunate illness of your Mother. I 
 do hope she is by this time past the worst ; 
 but bronchitis, even with no touch of pneu- 
 monia, is no trifle in one at all weakened by 
 previous illness or by years. How you must 
 wish you had either not left Rochdale, or reached 
 Bordighera, but isn't this life finely contrived 
 
 ^^
 
 144 LATER LETTERS OF JMARCUS DODS 
 
 for distressing us acutely ? Well, I suppose — 
 nay, I know — there is some good reason for it, 
 or things would not be as they are. And what 
 I chiefly hope for you is that you may construct, 
 out of untoward circumstances to which ordinary 
 people would succumb, the rich and influential 
 character Christ destines for you. Is it not a 
 better preparation for India, after all, than 
 the sunshine of Bordighera ? 
 
 But you need no admonitions of mine, and I 
 feel it presumption in me to hint at counsel — 
 only I wish to express my sympathy, of which 
 I trust you are already assured, and that you 
 are followed by the best wishes of . . . 
 
 To his daughter, Mrs. Gray 
 
 [Edinburgh, 2Qth November 1904.] 
 
 Here is Saturday night again. The weeks 
 fly, and soon wiU all have run out. I half 
 thought Doodle's weeks were all run out yester- 
 day. He ate no food aU day, and looked very 
 doleful, though he would not tell us where 
 he was sore. To-day he was the same till 
 5-30, when he cheered up and said the anguish 
 had abated.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 145 
 
 Last evening, what do you think, I was at 
 a concert, a very small, semi-private one, the 
 
 Bach Society's. played, two sonatas of 
 
 Bach's, and sang two bits of a Mass, both 
 
 very fine. 
 
 To Miss {B) 
 
 Edinburgh, Uk December 1904. 
 
 Paul's view [of the atonement] is quite clear 
 — man is a guilty individual at God's bar, he 
 is condemned to die, and Christ suffers in his 
 room ; and considering that Paul always re- 
 cognised his union with Christ (as few others 
 have ever recognised it), I don't think there 
 is much that is repulsive in that. The writer 
 to the Hebrews finds that men are excluded 
 by unholiness from God's presence, and that 
 Christ by His holiness and sacrifice opens a 
 way for them into God's presence and favour. 
 A great deal in the Epistle seems to be written 
 from the point of view that it is His personal 
 worth (especially His obedience, see ch. v.), 
 that constitutes Him priest, but that tenth 
 chapter still rather seems to me to demand the 
 supposition that the writer believed that 
 Christ's death was a sacrifice in the then 
 
 K
 
 146 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 ordinarily accepted meaning of the word. 
 In verses 10, 11 and 12, the words 'through 
 the offering of the body of Christ ' and ' one 
 sacrifice for sins ' fill up the ' I am come to do 
 Thy will ' (of v. 9) with sacrificial contents. I 
 would like to think he only meant that Christ 
 offered His body obediently to the law of death, 
 but it is difficult to believe that. I go over the 
 Epistle every year, and every year I try to find 
 that meaning in that tenth chapter, and every 
 year I fail. 
 
 To Miss {D) 
 
 Edinburgh, lOth December 1904. 
 
 If you are susceptible and sensitive to wireless 
 telegraphy you must have been day by day 
 recognising my desire to write to you, and even 
 almost whole letters written in my mind, but 
 to get them to paper with deliberation in a 
 hurried life such as I have to put up with in 
 winter is not so easy. Still, I thank you for 
 the pleasure I have had in writing you imaginary 
 letters — some of them containing things that 
 your modesty forbids me to put in black and 
 white ; which reminds me to rebuke you for 
 the terms with which you put my modesty to
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 147 
 
 the blush in your last letter. If only you knew 
 what I really am — but please don't ever find 
 out, for it is half the joy and more than half the 
 strength of life to be well thought of by those 
 one admires and respects. And this again 
 reminds me that we make too little of our 
 friends. Persons are of course the only thing 
 worth while in human life, but I have persistently 
 believed this for years and as persistently failed 
 to make the most of my friends. And this again 
 
 brings me to say that has just left me 
 
 after a most delightful visit of a few hours. 
 Friendship with her is a late possession of mine, 
 though I have known and admired her for many 
 years, but I have only lately come to that point 
 of intimacy when one can speak of the things 
 that most concern and burden one. She is a 
 wonderful help to me, and I am always the 
 better of a ' two-handed crack ' with her. She 
 is silent in company, and really the companies 
 are rare in which one can speak of the deepest 
 things, but when alone she throws out so many 
 just and elevating ideas that I cannot but count 
 her friendship one of the best things in life. 
 Her faith is so true, and yet so free and reason- 
 able, that she invariably gives me brighter and
 
 148 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 more hopeful thoughts. But you know her, 
 and I need not further sing the praises of . 
 
 I quite sympathise with your admiration for 
 the vital Greek figure — beauty of form appeals 
 with a power all its own — but in Rome you will 
 find that the things you most admire, or some 
 of them, are associated with suffering and weak- 
 ness and decay, with the spirit that conquers 
 the squalor and disease and death of physical 
 nature. It is a good instinct to crave for 
 health and vitality — else why did Christ groan 
 at the grave of Lazarus ? Slight defects in 
 physical structure account for much of the 
 peevishness, the cowardice, the sensuality, the 
 cruelty of men, and improvement in vitality 
 ought to be equivalent to improvement in 
 morals; but it isn't — often the contrary — and 
 what we have to learn in this life is to conquer 
 material and physical things by that faith that 
 overcomes the world. But I, who have never 
 been successful in this line of things, am not to 
 preach to you who have begun, by your nature, 
 miles ahead of me. 
 
 When you can spare time from gazing at the 
 Djdng Gladiator, or at the Coliseum, or at your 
 Italian orphans, and when you wish to gush a
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 149 
 
 little either about them or about yourself, you 
 will find a very appreciative and grateful listener 
 in . . . 
 
 To Miss {A) 
 
 [Edinbuegh, \2th December 1904.] 
 
 I never expected I should be obliged to rebuke 
 you, but you must not say such things about 
 trespassing on my time, and so forth. I have 
 no more profitable way of spending my time 
 than in talk with you. Your talk always seems 
 to be just what I need. 
 
 It is not good to reflect too much on friend- 
 ship ; it is better to take it as one takes the sun 
 and the air ; so let me say once for all that your 
 friendship is one of the best things in my life, 
 and helps me more than I can say. So your 
 generosity will give me as much of your company 
 as you can. 
 
 This is Monday morning, with the week press- 
 ing, so good-bye. 
 
 To his son Harry 
 
 Edinburgh, I4:th December 1904. 
 
 I hope your theatricals will be a success, 
 and that you will raise a good deal of money
 
 150 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 thereby. I think the theatre of our day has a 
 decidedly lowering influence, making the people 
 vulgar and lowering the moral tone. I know 
 it chiefly through The AthencBum, which gives a 
 weekly criticism of the new plays ; and they seem 
 to me almost always to circle round the supposed 
 miseries of marriage, giving people an entirely 
 false view of married life and gradually teaching 
 them to laugh at the best of human institutions. 
 
 To the Rev. Henry Sloane Coffin 
 
 Edinbitrgh, I5th December 1904. 
 
 I hope this may reach you in time to serve 
 as a Christmas greeting to you and yours. But 
 in your republican and revolutionary and radical 
 country one day is perhaps very like another 
 — saving always Independence Day — and my 
 greetings will not, I hope, turn sour, even 
 though they do come late. It 's a comfort to 
 wish well to those who you know must come to 
 good, whate'er befalls. You have been born 
 under a good star, and when Providence was 
 tired of turning out failures and rotters and 
 resolved for once to do its best and show what 
 was possible in the line of American men. I
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 151 
 
 knew you would be fascinated by your work at 
 Union if you gave it a chance, and I am per- 
 suaded every hour you spend there will have 
 its abundant fruit. Don't give it up unless 
 your health threatens. Next year it will be 
 easier, as you will have more material to fall 
 back upon and clearer conceptions of what tells. 
 If this scribble does no more, it will at least 
 let you see that notwithstanding eviction from 
 our College, and abuse generally, I am still 
 alive — at least partially. You may have noticed 
 that a Royal Commission has been appointed 
 to enquire into the whole property question and 
 recommend to Parliament. Meanwhile we so 
 on at the University. To me this is an advan- 
 tage, for as no class-rooms were available for 
 me until the afternoon, I get the whole forenoon 
 at home, and life is a new thing to me. I have 
 found time to re-write some lectures that were 
 sadly in want of such interposition, and I have 
 also been writing some articles for Hastings' 
 new Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels. We 
 dine in the Pleasance Settlement and use one 
 of the rooms there as a common room, so 
 our men are being taught contentment and 
 patience.
 
 ] 52 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 President Harlan wanted me to go out again 
 to Lake Forest, but I think I have convinced 
 him that that would never do. But there is a 
 fascination in your country, and I would not 
 wholly object to yet another visit, though I am 
 now three score years and ten. One gets so 
 much miscellaneous work at home in summer 
 that the months pass and leave little behind 
 them — but that is so with life as a whole. 
 
 I hope M^Giffert is well again. I come 
 across his name in my lectures day by day — 
 frequently, I am sorry to say, to contradict 
 him ; but then he is worth contradicting. Are 
 none of your men over here this winter ? 
 
 Certainly after so severe a session you will 
 need a long rest here. Be sure you come and 
 make a good long stay. It would make us all 
 very happy, and I long for some good talks. 
 
 To Miss {B) 
 
 Edinburgh, 2\st December 1904. 
 
 You are quite right, I think, in supposing that 
 Christ has permanently lifted the world's thought 
 of God, and has in some mysterious fashion 
 found entrance for His thought into many minds
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 153 
 
 that know little or nothing of Himself. That 
 we have got far beyond Aristotle is due to both 
 the causes you mention, is it not ? both to the 
 slowly growing thought of the world and to the 
 revelation of Christ. Happily one cannot 
 separate the one from the other. But what a 
 force Aristotle has been all through the medi- 
 aeval times ; and still there is no text book 
 like the Ethics, used in more colleges than any 
 other book. And may we not suppose that 
 now he knows, and that as Sir Thomas More 
 said ' Sancte Socrates, ora pro nobis,' believing 
 that Socrates was now rejoicing in the light, 
 so may we say of Aristotle ? 
 
 Across the whole of my life I see Failure 
 written — failure in all the best things, failure 
 especially in the one clear fight I have always 
 recognised I had to gird myself to. My own 
 failure I can explain ; I have not striven hard 
 enough or long enough. Resolute earnestness, 
 that must conquer, has been spasmodic. But 
 I know other people of whom I would not like 
 to say this, and don't know if I should be 
 justified in saying it. One sometimes feels as 
 if one were very near attainment ; it is only 
 an act of will that stands between one and
 
 154 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 one's desire. One seems just to have to make 
 one plunge, just to turn a bad corner, and all 
 would be well. Still it is the problem of life. 
 Why does Christianity do so little for men ? 
 Prof. James mentions several cases like Colonel 
 Gardiner's, in which men never felt any tempta- 
 tion to old sins after conversion. That I cannot 
 understand. The only way out that I ever see 
 is that all the penitences and disappointments 
 and prayers must have had some effect, and 
 that possibly, as in some manufactures and in 
 all fresh evolutionary epochs, we may be ripen- 
 ing for a catastrophic, sudden change which 
 shall give us purity and peace — like a kettle 
 coming to the boil but for long giving off no 
 steam, or a reservoir filling till quite suddenly 
 it overflows and does the work required. Still 
 it is a trying, unintelligible world, and there is 
 nothing for it but to go on fighting ; that at 
 any rate is right. 
 
 To the Same 
 
 Edinbtjhgh, 2^ih December 1904. 
 I don't know why it is we are left drowning, 
 with but our lips above water, and sometimes
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 155 
 
 not that. It is some encouragement to come 
 upon this in stout old Samuel Johnson's pray- 
 ers : — ' When I look back upon resolutions of 
 improvement and amendment which have 
 year after year been made and broken either by 
 negligence, forgetfulness, vicious idleness, casual 
 interruption, or morbid infirmity ; when I find 
 that so much of my life has stolen unprofitably 
 away [he was sixty- five when writing this], and 
 that I can descry by retrospection scarcely a few 
 single days properly and vigorously employed ; 
 why do I yet try to resolve again ? I try because 
 reformation is necessary, and despair is criminal. 
 I try in humble hope of the help of God.' But 
 I am down, and should not have begun to write 
 — ' Taedet valde sic cotidie vivere in lite,' which 
 might be rendered ' No words can express the 
 irksome weariness of living all our days in pre- 
 carious, undetermined strife.' I have come upon 
 some words of Brother Palemon to Brother 
 Paphnutius: 'Brother Paphnutius, I am but a 
 miserable sinner, but I have found in my long 
 life that the cenobite has no foe worse than 
 sadness. I mean by that the obstinate melan- 
 choly which envelopes the soul as in a mist, 
 and hides from us the light of God. Nothing
 
 156 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 is more contrary to salvation, and the devil's 
 greatest triumph is to sow black and bitter 
 thoughts in the heart of a good man. If he 
 sent us only pleasurable temptations he would 
 not be half so much to be feared. Alas ! he 
 excels in making us sad.' The difficulty is to 
 escape sad and bitter thoughts when one's 
 eyes are opened to see the real motive of his 
 past and to recognise therein the hollowness 
 and vileness of his character. To look back 
 and see that as you have made things, so they 
 must now ever be ; that in large and significant 
 parts of your life you have uttered a character 
 thoroughly detestable and low is ' the crown 
 of sorrow.' May you be saved from it ! But 
 I have no right to write thus. Macgregor was 
 preaching this morning on ' Keep yourselves 
 in the love of God,' and his first words were 
 I ' Walk in the sunshine.' But really that is 
 impossible. It is not impossible to carry one's 
 self sunnily and to act as if nothing but peace 
 and happiness reigned within ; but to have no 
 thoughts but sunny thoughts is impossible. 
 One may believe in forgiveness, but that does 
 not obliterate the past ; one may believe in the 
 future, but the past is as solid and actual as
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 157 
 
 the future. Do you know the lines of Marceline 
 
 Desbordes-Valmore : — 
 
 ' Mais si de la m^moire on ne doit pas guerir, 
 A quoi sert, o mon ame, k quoi sert de mourir ? ' 
 
 But I don't know why I write you this doleful 
 stuff, unless it is that for me this time of year is 
 always doleful. 
 
 My holiday has as usual whisked past, and 
 left little behind but a life of Barnabas ! of all 
 people in the world ; but a request for it came 
 from Chicago and I could not refuse. I was 
 two days in the country. 
 
 I must finish off Barnabas. I think he must 
 have been a very pleasant companion for Paul 
 — handsome, generous, ' easily entreated,' but 
 bold and loyal. 
 
 To Miss Crum 
 
 Edinburgh, 2Wi December 1904. 
 You make me quite ashamed by your kind- 
 ness. All I can say is that you could scarcely 
 have sent Professor Bradley's book ^ to any one 
 who would value it more highly. The very 
 look of it is so fascinating that last night when 
 it came I put aside for a while my examina- 
 
 ^ Shakespearian Tragedy.
 
 158 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 tion papers and took a good dip into the 
 most delightful and charming pages. I see it 
 is full of light, and one does crave an intelli- 
 gent interpreter of Shakespeare — especially if 
 theatres are not frequented, and even in theatres 
 there must in the nature of things be much 
 that is unintelligent and theatrical. 
 
 Isn't this war becoming quite too terrible ? 
 Have you seen The Heart of a Nation, reprinted 
 from The Times ^ showing the secret of the Jap's 
 power ? I am trying to get a few copies to 
 distribute. It is a very remarkable production, 
 even though taken with some reductions. 
 
 To Miss [A) 
 
 Edinburgh, 1,9/ January 1905. 
 
 I am glad to have several pretexts for writing 
 to you as the dawn of another year breaks. 
 First and foremost to thank you for your letter, 
 which somehow I was expecting last night, 
 although more reasonably you might have 
 expected me to write and thank you for the 
 
 bright and happy two days I spent at . 
 
 They are my holiday, and I return to my work 
 refreshed though reluctant. I trust this year
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 159 
 
 may be a happy one to all of you, and especially 
 that you yourself may grow steadily stronger. 
 It is good to know that my most fervent desires 
 for your good and the wisest wishes of all who 
 love you are far surpassed by the Wisdom that 
 rules yom' life and the life of us all. 
 
 I sent the Little Book of Life and Death 
 
 with the neat words of Thomas a Kempis, 
 * Prudens amator non tam donum amantis 
 considerat quam dantis amorem.' Latin is 
 certainly neat. One is tempted to be even 
 mean in gifts if such words in justification can 
 be cited. 
 
 Your note on Idealism is true. I have often 
 thought that one great use of death is just what 
 you say, that absence idealises, but I had never 
 extended the idea to ' the present.' Obviously, 
 when stated as you state it, it is true. Thank 
 you for this, as for so many other ideas. Why 
 don't you live round the corner, where I could 
 come when empty ? That, I fear, would mean 
 every day. But among the many true things 
 John Foster said, he never said a truer than 
 that this is a world which dissociates friends. 
 You say that the weakness of the flesh seems 
 to separate us from one another ; and that in
 
 160 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 a sense is true ; and yet one is grateful for 
 the many associations that gather round the 
 appearance and looks and words of friends, 
 for if the flesh is a veil, it is also a very power- 
 ful and vivid medium for the spirit. 
 
 To the Rev. Henry Sloane Coffin 
 
 Edinburgh, 18^/i January 1905. 
 
 I have delayed replying to your letters and 
 thanking you for your gifts under the impres- 
 sion — which has proved delusive — that I might 
 find a good unoccupied hour to spend with you. 
 As you know, mioccupied hours don't occur 
 every day, or every week. At any rate I 
 cannot wait for them any longer, but must 
 thank you for your photo, which is much 
 admired, though for my taste it is not suffi- 
 ciently alive. It is as you may be seen listening 
 to a deadly dull outline of a sermon from one 
 of your men. 
 
 Professor Wood's book^ I prize highly. I 
 had two days in the country during the 
 Christmas recess, and got some hours at it, 
 but have not had time to finish it. But I like 
 
 * The Spirit of Qod in Biblical Literature, by Irving F. Wood, 
 Ph.D. 
 
 I
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS IGl 
 
 it greatly. It is a fine specimen of scientific 
 method, and I have already learned much from 
 it. For all purposes except rigidly scientific 
 ones he might have spared some of his sub- 
 divisions in his classifications. I am re-writing 
 my lectures on Paul, and will get great help, 
 I expect, from him. Thank you very much. 
 
 If a book on Shakespeare by Professor Bradley 
 is within your reach, you should read it. It is 
 very well written, and there are in it some 
 fine studies of character. You would, it seems 
 to me, find a few sermons in it. By the way, 
 do you use the Characters of Theophrastus ? 
 or of Bruyere ? They tempt one to imitate 
 them, and illustrate from concrete instances 
 the foibles, weaknesses and vices of human 
 nature, Dante filling in the more general outline. 
 
 This scrap must serve as a hail from this 
 side, and carries the assurance that you are 
 always in the heart and thoughts of yours ever 
 affectionately . . . 
 
 To Miss {E) 
 
 Edlnburgh, 20th January 1905. 
 You will, however, of course come to Scotland. 
 Be sure you let me know your dates, and don't 
 
 L
 
 162 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 again mix up your moons. Of course you will 
 at once rush to Paris, or perhaps to Rome. 
 Easter is the best time for Rome, but if once 
 you get into Italy there will be no getting you 
 out of it, and Scotland is much healthier. Also 
 any one will tell you that of all cities on earth 
 ours is the most beautiful. 
 
 I am plodding along, very thankful to have 
 got so far through our session without missing 
 a lecture and without very serious cold or 
 trouble. It is no doubt inconvenient not to 
 be in our College, and not to have access to our 
 own books, many of which I have myself given 
 to our Library ; but after all we have the 
 students, and it is they who make the College. 
 A Royal Commission of three men. Lord Elgin, 
 Lord Kinnear, and Sir Ralph Anstruther, is now 
 sitting to collect facts about us and to report to 
 Parhament, and I hope some justice wiU be done. 
 
 I must stop. It is a great pleasure to write 
 to you, a greater to hear from you, greatest to 
 see you. In hope of this last I remain . . . 
 
 To his son Frank 
 
 Edinburgh, 2Zrd January 1905. 
 I hope your barometer has not been sinking
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 163 
 
 as much as mine has. The house seems very 
 empty without you, and I am inclined to wonder 
 why it should be that the necessities of life 
 break up famiUes to so lamentable an extent. 
 However, I am hopeful that this may be for 
 you the first rung of the ladder which leads to 
 a satisfactory settlement somewhere, and I hope 
 in Scotland. You may possibly have a good 
 deal to put up with, though I am hopeful it 
 may not be so. In any case it is a great happi- 
 ness to me that I have never the smallest doubt 
 that you will do what is right in all circum- 
 stances, and help also to keep others straight. 
 If you have not your mother's gaiety, you 
 have her conscientiousness, which is better, 
 and I can't tell you how glad I am that you 
 do not discredit her. 
 
 To Miss (D) 
 
 Edinburoh, January 1905. 
 
 ' Moments there are in life — alas ! how few, 
 When, casting cold prudential doubts aside. 
 We take a generous impulse for our guide 
 And, following promptly what the heart thinks best, 
 Commit to Providence the rest, 
 Sure that no after-reckoning will arise 
 Of shame or sorrow, for the heart is wise.'
 
 164 LATER LETTERS OF IVIARCUS DODS 
 
 I should fancy that naturally you are impul- 
 sive, but I think I see evidence that your 
 impulses are those of a pure and true nature, 
 and are controlled by reason. And this answers 
 your question about love, does it not ? For 
 love in one person is different from love in 
 another, or in every other. The so-called 
 ' love ' of a selfish or sensual nature is of course 
 not to be trusted, and is pretty sure to come 
 to grief. But love springing out of a nature 
 that really attaches itself only to what is good, 
 and that has had some training in discriminating 
 in life between what is worldly and unworldly, 
 selfish and generous, low and high, is not, I 
 think, likely to fix itself upon an object which 
 will disappoint. It is quite true that the 
 manner in which the finest of women often 
 give themselves to shallow-hearted, evil men 
 is astounding and perplexing. But it stands 
 to reason that a pure nature will choose and 
 cling to what has affinity to it. The best 
 writer on marriage that I ever came across 
 says, ' If there can be little that is genial or 
 cordial in our life, married or unmarried, unless 
 the taste be indulged, for that very reason it 
 behoves us so to raise and purify the taste as
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 165 
 
 to be enabled to give way to it in safety and 
 innocence.' It always seems to me that people 
 forget that a man or woman's love must be 
 coloured and determined by their nature ; 
 some can't love at all, others only in a poor 
 and unworthy way. But any one who has a 
 sound heart may risk all that love leads to. 
 My own married life has taught me that love 
 at first sight may be trusted ; that love grows 
 after marriage, and that even passion remains ; 
 and that earth has no richer boon to bestow 
 than the relationship formed by marriage. 
 I could not wish you anything better than the 
 happiness I had, and that I do wish you with 
 all my heart, and no doubt the right man will 
 come along if he has not already come ; but oh ! 
 let him be a man you can respect as well as love. 
 
 How delightful it must be to be in sunshine 
 instead of as here in fog, frost, snow, slush, and 
 all that is untoward. But we must not com- 
 plain ; for this winter has really not been bad. 
 
 You say nothing of my pets, the Dying 
 Gladiator, the sitting Agrippina, and the rest. 
 What would I not give for a day with you 
 among all the beauties, and see you glow, and 
 hear you rave — for I hope you would rave.
 
 166 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 I shall never forget one Italian word I learned 
 in Rome, and which should be in every voca- 
 bulary. Going to the Coliseum at dusk and 
 asking the caretaker if we might go up to 
 the galleries, we were answered ' Impossibilis- 
 simo.' Don't bother with the people you meet 
 in Rome ; you '11 find as good at home, but 
 fill your mind with the monuments, the old, 
 not the new Roman world. Perhaps this is 
 heresy. If it is, forgive. Apparently then I, 
 as a person, and not even in Rome, have no 
 claim on your time, so I must stop. 
 
 I still hope that the fates will allow me to 
 see you before you go back. Remember, 
 Scotland has beauties not found elsewhere. 
 It also contains your very sincere friend and 
 well-wisher . . . 
 
 To his daughter, Mrs. Gray 
 
 University of Edinburgh, 
 
 1st February [1905], 3.15 p.m. 
 
 My lecture is so bad that it is hopeless to 
 spend half an hour patching it up, so I choose 
 the alternative of scribbling to you, partly to 
 thank you for your letter, which was so nice
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 167 
 
 that I sent it on to Aunt Marcia, and so want 
 another for myself. 
 
 As you see from the heading of this paper 
 (which I have never before used) we are still 
 in the national buildings. But ' time and the 
 hour run through the roughest day,' as friend 
 William observes, and sometimes I am hope- 
 ful, generally the reverse. If it is the Christian 
 religion that is being exhibited in the High- 
 lands, that religion is very little worth. Has 
 it done more for us ? 
 
 To his son Harry 
 
 Edinbukgh, 5th February 1905. 
 
 You will see that the Principality put the 
 leek above the thistle yesterday on the foot- 
 ball field. I fancy it was a pretty even match. 
 
 Speaking of Wales, a dozen of our students 
 have taken this week-end to go and see what 
 can be seen of the Revival. It seems to be 
 extending ever3rwhere and to be in large part 
 genuine. I wish the same kind of influence 
 would come here. As I came home on Friday 
 a well-dressed man pitched headlong into the 
 gutter on the South Bridge, and before I had
 
 168 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 gone many yards further I had to go off the 
 pavement to clear another fellow taking its 
 whole breadth. It 's a disgusting state of 
 things. But it 's amazing how long a nuisance 
 is suffered. People grow up used to it, and 
 it 's nobody 's business to put a stop to it. 
 
 To Ms daughter, Mrs. Gray 
 
 Edinburgh [February 1905]. 
 
 Very many thanks for your extracts from 
 the Life and Works of Kitty and Edith M., 
 (who must be a very amusing little person). I 
 fear I have no very interesting books at present. 
 It 's not the season ; ' Book shooting ends 1st 
 Jan.' by my calendar, and only begins again 
 about 31st March. I am looking forward 
 greatly to being with you in April. When do 
 you begin your painting, etc. ? Won't you 
 need to shut the church for some weeks ? and 
 take a hoHday ? The climate of Edinburgh is 
 distinctly superior to any in the British Isles. 
 Rainfall for January this year 1-35 inches ; 
 lovely spring weather all the time just now, 
 not clammy, but fresh, breezy, sharp, lovely 
 weather. I wish Kit could be here, I am sure
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 169 
 
 it would set her up. And we do so need a 
 woman in the house, and she would exactly 
 suit requirements. 
 
 I write to-day because I am to be all Sunday 
 at Lasswade, preaching twice. It 's wicked of 
 men to ask me, perhaps wickeder of me to agree, 
 but I have dangerous lapses into a state of putty 
 when I just say ' Yes ' to anything I am asked. 
 
 Have you read The Circle by Mrs. Thurston ? 
 I have not read The Garden of Allah. Indeed 
 lately I have been devoting myself after dinner 
 to Horace and Shakespeare, who really stand 
 the fiftieth reading quite as well as the first. 
 
 Now I must say Good-bye, with every good 
 wish and prayer for you during the coming days. 
 
 To the son Harry 
 
 Edinburgh, \Qth February 1905. 
 Doodle would long since have written to 
 Clarence to thank her for the tennis-balls, 
 which are far too good for him, but he has been 
 so occupied playing with one of them and 
 carrying it about in his mouth, as a cat her 
 kitten, that he has found no time. But he is 
 supremely happy, and goes and sniffs at the 
 drawer in the lobby where they lie.
 
 170 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 To his daughter, Mrs. Gray 
 
 Edinburgh [17th February 1905]. 
 
 It was very satisfactory to see your own 
 handwriting again. 
 
 As to the new man's name, I think the 
 parents must begin their discharge of their 
 responsibiUties by fixing that themselves. I 
 have no such firm convictions on the point as 
 Zacharias had, and if you call him Maher- 
 shalal-hash-baz, I will silently endure. 
 
 There is no copyright in names, and I would 
 suggest Joseph Chamberlain Gray, or Fothergill 
 Parmiter Gray, as very high-sounding and 
 impressive. Dods seems to me a name not 
 worth propagating without compulsion. 
 
 To Miss {B) 
 
 Edestburgh, February 1905. 
 
 I posted to you yesterday a copy of my book 
 on the Bible. 1 I feel sure there is some truth in 
 it, though it will be abused both by the advanced 
 critics and by the traditional orthodox. But 
 
 ^ The Bible : Its Origin and Nature.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 171 
 
 at my age one is fairly independent of criticism. 
 Society at present is broken up into so many 
 different sections as regards belief, that one 
 must endeavour to speak his own mind, sure 
 that though the majority sees nothing at all 
 in what he says, the two or three who are at his 
 stage will respond. 
 
 People are more to me than the loveliest 
 things, and living interpreters more than dead 
 poets. . . . There are biographies I am always 
 reading, Jowett, Thackeray, Hort, How, Napo- 
 leon, etc. 
 
 To his daughter, Mrs. Gray 
 
 [Edinburgh, 6th March 1905.] 
 
 I am possessed to-night with a very demon 
 of desolation, and to relieve or expel him a 
 little I write to you. But, oh ! my dear, I 
 wish you were here to see and to talk to. To 
 look into some loved and loving face seems 
 sometimes the one thing needful and the one 
 thing not easily to be had. But it 's too late 
 to begin to grumble when one is nearly seventy- 
 one. Only it makes me very thirsty for my 
 visit to you.
 
 172 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 To Miss Crum 
 
 Edinburgh, 18th March 1905. 
 
 Your flowers bring a tantalizing whiff of 
 Largs, tantalizing but most acceptable ; and 
 your kind and generous letter brings as welcome 
 a whiff of your own spirit. I am grateful for 
 your propagandism of my book. The first 
 thousand was sold out a fortnight ago, and I 
 can't get any to give to my students, but I 
 hope in a week or two another supply will be 
 ready. 
 
 Your own appreciation of my book gives me 
 great satisfaction. You have your prejudices, 
 like all the rest of us, but your judgment has 
 insight and thought behind it. You do not 
 read as the ordinary reviewer reads. Already I 
 have seen one or two reviews, quite favourable, 
 but not seeing the points, because the reviewer 
 has never himself been exercised about these 
 things. 
 
 I am up to the eyes in examination papers, 
 and must deny myself the pleasure of talking 
 at large, and content myself with remaining 
 your grateful and affectionate . . .
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 173 
 
 To the Rev. Henry Sloane Coffin 
 
 Edinbtirgh, 24^A March 1905. 
 
 Our session closed yesterday, so I am com- 
 paratively a free man ; at least I have time 
 to nurse a headache or a cold. The Principal 
 gave us his usual admonitions in bidding us 
 good-bye, and I only wish he would appear 
 more frequently and let us enjoy the atmosphere 
 he carries with him. He did not indulge in any 
 predictions regarding our quarters next year. 
 
 I have finished Wood's book on the Spirit, 
 and although perhaps there is little which is 
 not in Glol, Gunkel and Weinel, yet I got a 
 clearer hold of the whole matter and was 
 impelled to re- write my lecture on Paul's 
 doctrine of the Spirit. Thank you very much 
 for putting me in touch with it. 
 
 Another book from your side interests me 
 much — Bacon's Paul. He is not so wild as 
 sometimes ; I think his admiration for Paul 
 keeps him right. He is very lucid, and puts a 
 great amount of reading and thinking in small 
 compass. 
 
 Burton of Chicago sent me a publication of 
 his on the Synoptists, but I have not found
 
 174 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 time to read it, and I cannot say I am greatly 
 interested in the question. 
 
 I hope you got my book. The first thousand 
 went off here immediately, and we have to wait 
 for some more from New York. I am giving it to 
 my classes, with the help of my sons and sisters. 
 
 We have a very good set in College just now 
 — not any geniuses, but an excellent average, 
 and although we thought our circumstances 
 would tell against our numbers next year, 
 singularly enough we are to have considerably 
 more than usual entering. 
 
 To Miss {B) 
 
 Edinbubgh, April 1905. 
 
 When you first asked my opinion about 
 When it was Dark I could not give it, because 
 I am one of those scrupulous reviewers who 
 read the books sent to them, and only after 
 doing so express an opinion on them, and I 
 had not read When it was Dark. Now I have 
 remedied that slight defect, and can say that 
 while I think the book clever, I think it a mere 
 extravaganza. Why write a story which could 
 not possiblj^ happen ? The supposed fraud
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 175 
 
 could never have gained currency for an hour 
 among experts. Why should Joseph record 
 his own fraud, and if he wished to do so why 
 should he use Greek and not Aramaic ? The 
 best bit of the book is the old Cornish woman's 
 deliverance in the railway carriage. That is 
 fine. But were I wise I would not say anything 
 about the book, but leave you to suppose that 
 the ideas and opinions you ascribe to me are 
 correct. One thing the book shows — not that 
 a discovery of the body of Jesus would destroy 
 Christianity, though it would go far to alter it, 
 but that an intense interest in the Resurrection 
 at present prevails. But this also must be 
 referred to that higher court which is to sit, or 
 walk, in the Botanic Gardens. 
 
 Later. — I see I have not expressed myself 
 strongly enough regarding When it was Dark. 
 I would now call it worse names. 
 
 In some cases, as the well known Henry 
 Venn's, the eagerness to enter the perfect life 
 actually has kept people alive here and pre- 
 vented them for a bit from ridding themselves 
 of the rather insufficient bodily equipment we 
 now have. It is the inconceivability of the 
 whole future that hinders faith. If people
 
 176 LATER LETTERS OF ?vIARCUS DODS 
 
 believed in immortality, as they say they do, 
 the whole world would be altered. 
 
 To Miss {A) 
 
 Manchester, lUli April 1905. 
 
 I have allowed myself to run deeply into 
 your debt, but while I was lecturing from day 
 to day here I could not settle to have a chat 
 with you or to thank you for your very welcome 
 birthday greeting. Most people have now for- 
 gotten, if they ever knew, that I had a birth- 
 day, and this makes your loving words all the 
 more valuable. 
 
 I cannot tell you how glad I am to see from 
 
 Miss 's letter that you have better prospect 
 
 of quite regaining health; I pray that your 
 hopes may be realised. How you can think 
 yourself ' empty and unalive ' even in your 
 present unfit physical condition, I don't know ; 
 certainly you always have some help and cheer 
 to send to me. I don't grudge you your 
 Hegelianism while it affords you an optimistic 
 view of life, for though I cannot myself directly 
 find in Hegel the same comfort and encourage- 
 ment, I find myself lifted by your optimism
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 177 
 
 based on Hegel, and content myself with this 
 second-hand cheer. 
 
 I have not had very large audiences here. 
 The Committee who arranged the lectures un- 
 fortunately chose the very week when it was 
 impossible for students to attend. However, 
 I have met a number of nice people. That is 
 one of the rewards of wandering as I am at 
 present doing — you always get alongside of 
 good people and see their best side. You will 
 be finding the same as you go from place to 
 place at present. 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. Charles Watson 
 
 KiLBRANNAN, AUDLEY PaRK RoAD, 
 
 Bath, 2\st April [1905]. 
 I am moving from place to place, preaching 
 and lecturing and meeting good people every- 
 where, but I turn gratefully in thought to 
 Largs, and must snatch time at least to tell you 
 how very much gratified I am to receive your 
 commendation of my book. Your letter^ be- 
 
 ^ A copy of Dr. Watson's letter has been provided by Miss 
 Crum. It was in the following terms : — 
 
 NORTHFIELD, 
 
 Laegs, April 1905. 
 My dear Marcus Dods, — It has been with a sense of perfect 
 contentment that I have heard your book read to me slowly and 
 
 M
 
 178 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 comes at once a precious archive. Of course 
 I knew you would approve, because I have 
 so largely learned from yourself ; still it is 
 very pleasant to me to have your approval 
 in uttered form. I do not know any greater 
 blessing that could come to our Church than 
 that it should accept your tone and stand in your 
 point of view. This of course is meanwhile 
 hopeless, but some day surely men will open 
 their eyes and recognise facts. 
 
 You will have read the Commissioners' Report. 
 It is curious to see the English papers on it ; 
 
 deliberately day after day. It is no common experience, at least 
 it has not been mine, to be thoroughly content with a book. 
 Very few books do content me. Many are hke yours interesting, 
 fuU of scholarship, power, ingenuity, eloquence, goodness, and yet 
 they say that which had better not have been said, or fail to say 
 that which ought to have been said. But with your book I am 
 quite content. I could add nothing to it, and as little cut out 
 anything from it. It is in all respects admirable ; in nothing 
 more than in its wide restraint. 
 
 But I will not pursue the easy pleasant path of unimpeded 
 praise. I would only say that you may well thank God for 
 enabhng you to write a book which will go far, and ever further, 
 to give spiritual liberty to the men who doubted and yet hated 
 to doubt. To them you will be like Christian when in the dungeon 
 of Giant Despair he pulled out the key which opened every gate 
 that shut them in. It is well that you have given us some new 
 keys, for since Bunyan's time the Giant has got some new locks, 
 some of which dear old Christian's keys don't fit. — Yours ever, 
 gratefully and afiEectionately, Chaeles Watson
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 179 
 
 some intelligent and interested, others quite at 
 sea. The Daily News is interested, intelligent 
 and bold ; going to the root of the matter 
 and denouncing the judgment — even finding 
 fault with the Commission because it does not 
 directly ask for the overturning of the judgment. 
 I am glad to see your improved handwriting, 
 and I trust the summer, long delaying, may 
 bring you health and comfort. 
 
 To Miss {A) 
 
 Bath, 22rid April 1905. 
 
 I have been skipping from place to place 
 lately, and am now for a couple of days in this 
 ancient city. The country round is lovely, 
 and the city itself most interesting. I suppose 
 Walter Watson has been here, as he has been 
 ever5rvvhere ; but if not it would be worth his 
 while to c4me to see the house and street archi- 
 tecture of the eighteenth century, but especially 
 to see the Abbey Church. On either side of 
 the door is a Jacob's ladder stretching right 
 up each tower, the angels scrambling up, and 
 some of them descending — head first ! There 
 are also some interesting houses. Lord Nelson's,
 
 180 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 Lord Olive's, Chatham's, Gainsborough's, etc. 
 Speaking of those buried days, have you read 
 Gertrude Atherton's The Conqueror ? It is 
 really a life of Alexander Hamilton, the maker 
 of the American Constitution, and in my 
 opinion a very remarkable book — romance 
 running through it, and a charming domestic 
 life. There is something very fascinating in 
 those heroic times when men scorned death and 
 discomfort and danger, and lived for their 
 country, and the future. 
 
 To Miss {E) 
 
 Edinburgh, Uh May 1905. 
 
 I have been touring for a month, lecturing 
 and preaching, but I managed to work in visits 
 to my three English residents. I wonder very 
 much what you will think of London. Its 
 vastness is overwhelming, and the distances are 
 most baffling. You spend all your time reach- 
 ing your friends and have no time with them. 
 But there is a grandeur about the whole thing, 
 as well as a depth and dismalness of squalor, 
 that will astonish you. For a holiday it is 
 excellent, but I should not like to live there,
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 181 
 
 though it fascinates all who do dwell in it, and 
 ties them to it forever. 
 
 To Miss {B) 
 
 Edinbitrgh, May 1905. 
 
 Why does one vary so much in estimating 
 one's fellows ? sometimes cordially endorsing 
 Carlyle's verdict, at other times wondering 
 where the Fall comes in at all. I fancy it is 
 that like Tennyson's poor, in the lump they 
 are bad, but taken individually and one by one 
 they are good. Yet why should good people 
 when conglomerated turn out bad ? Well, in 
 any case I had a very pleasant time with my 
 fellow country-men south of Tweed. 
 
 To Miss (.4) 
 
 Edinburgh, 2\st May 1905. 
 
 Have you in the whirl of last week forgotten 
 that we this week are in the whirl of the 
 Assembly ? I have no heart for it ; which 
 perhaps is wrong — we ought to hope ; but I am 
 not a member, and things in Parliament are so 
 threatening that I would like to go to the
 
 182 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 North Pole for two years and cool my temper, 
 and break all communications with Churches. 
 Even The Scotsman is blaming the Government 
 for slumping our practical matter with gener- 
 alities regarding Church and State applicable 
 to all Churches. And when The Scotsman can 
 find fault with the Government, things are 
 indeed serious. As I cannot conveniently find 
 lodgings at the North Pole, I have been try- 
 ing mental detachment by reading Euripides, 
 whose ideas about women are interesting and 
 in a way Shakespearian. His nurse in the 
 Hippolytus is quite as unprincipled as the 
 nurse in Bomeo and Juliet, while his Phaedra 
 is in the highest degree tragic. There is a 
 wonderfully healing air in Greek literature, 
 partly owing to its carrying you so entirely 
 beyond the ' flammantia moenia ' of our little 
 world, and partly owing to the perfect art of 
 their best writers. Beauty of form, what an 
 enchantment it is ! I suppose it is a sensuous 
 delight, and yet how it bars out our worst 
 tempers, our discontent, our sullenness, and 
 gives us back some of the joy which should 
 ever be ours.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 183 
 
 To Miss {E) 
 
 Edinburgh, 31si May 1905. 
 
 I write to you not because I have anything to 
 say, for I have not, and you must not expect 
 either wit or news, but merely because I want 
 to be talking to you. Only I wish it was real 
 talk and not this odious post system. If only 
 you were sitting here beside me, how nice it 
 would be to hear you pouring out — observe, I 
 don't say ' gushing ' — about all you are seeing 
 and experiencing. Switzerland the first time 
 of seeing is marvellously fascinating, and the 
 second and the third time likewise. And to see 
 it in good company, with a person that can 
 enthuse and does enthuse over snow peaks and 
 pine woods, and brisk air, and boisterous brooks, 
 is truly heavenly. I wish a better thing than 
 that you were here with me, namely, that I 
 were with you ; to hear it all lauded in an 
 American accent — which I love — would be quite 
 too delicious. 
 
 The one thing I have to ask in every letter 
 is ' When are you coming ? ' I know you can't 
 say, but that does not prevent my asking, for 
 it seems to bring me a little nearer the time.
 
 184 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 and I do want to see you gush a little over this 
 old city of ours, which has lived through 
 fightings, and mobs, and banquetings, and 
 treacheries, and plots, and revelries, and page- 
 ants, and processions, and dirt unspeakable, 
 and still shines amidst her hills like a gem in 
 a still richer setting. And here too ' American 
 is understood,' and what is more, Americans 
 are understood and loved. 
 
 The Assembly of our Church has been holding 
 its annual meeting, and my house is full of 
 guests, ministerial and lay. I have not been at 
 any of the meetings, as I am not a member, 
 and am shy, and hate crowds and exhausted air 
 and listening to other men's talk. 
 
 Next week Parliament is to say its say 
 about us, and probably the whole ecclesiastical 
 situation in Scotland will be altered by the 
 decision of men of whom a very small proportion 
 are Scotch, and who really know nothing about 
 us and, I fear, care less. Such is the beauty 
 of British Law and the glorious British Con- 
 stitution. We have really (that is, the English 
 have really) made almost no advance since the 
 Mayflower times. There is as deep an intoler- 
 ance — as true an inability to see and admit
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 185 
 
 that the Church has a legislation of her own, 
 and that in their religious convictions men 
 should be free from State control. Now this 
 is too much, to go and plunge you headlong 
 into our disturbed waters. 
 
 Forgive, love, and write to . . . 
 
 To Miss {A) 
 
 Edlnbukgh, 22nd June 1905. 
 I am not cruel enough to yield to the tempta- 
 tion of putting you immediately in my debt for 
 a letter, but I really must express my sympathy 
 with you, for you have most effectually roused 
 it. It is truly painful to think of your being 
 tortured with apparently so little benefit. It 
 is easy to bear a little pain, which you know 
 to be remedial ; but to have a great deal of 
 pain, and that prolonged and with no apparent 
 good result, is very hard. Surely all the long 
 hammering to which you have been subjected 
 means that you are intended for exceptional 
 uses — ^which perhaps is greater comfort to your 
 friends than to yourself. I would fain believe, 
 however, that you are on your way even to 
 sound bodily health, although your many dis- 
 appointments must be ver}^ hard to bear.
 
 186 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 How you can have diffused so much happi- 
 ness and Hght while yourself so crippled 
 and hampered, is a triumph of spirit. 
 
 In my Shakespeare Calendar I have within 
 the month three times over come upon the same 
 lines — 
 
 ' I have not that alacrity of spirit 
 Or cheer of mind that I was wont to have,' 
 
 which certainly is true of me. I like his trans- 
 position of ' alacrity ' and ' cheer,' or rather I 
 should say of ' spirit ' and ' mind.' 
 
 Our Church case seems going from bad to 
 worse, and you are well out of the most heart- 
 breaking muddle and most sickening exhibition 
 of Scottish Christianity that has ever come 
 about in the history of our country. But I 
 am not going to add to your own burden, and 
 I know you are only too ready to take other 
 people's upon you. 
 
 Yesterday I was in Glasgow at the Summer 
 School of Theology, lecturing on Christianity 
 and Evolution. I dined with the Smiths 
 (George and Lilian), and met there Jack Geddes 
 and his wife, who were all anxious to know how 
 you were. What nice people there are in the 
 world — so hearty, kindly, true, and good.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 187 
 
 To Miss {D) 
 
 Edinburgh, The Ever-glorious Ath July, 1905. 
 Though still prone — or rather supine — I 
 cannot forbear sending you one whoop of 
 sympathetic triumph on Independence Day. 
 You will be surprised that a date which in 
 America is celebrated by such tornadoes of 
 jubilation from sunrise to sunset should here 
 pass unnoticed. But after all I do think we here 
 have as cordial feelings towards you as to any 
 of our Colonies that have not been so rudely 
 compelled to sever connection. There seems 
 more real affinity in culture, in aims in life and 
 so forth, between America and this country 
 than between any other countries in the world 
 — and long may it be so. Blood is stronger 
 than all political or oceanic water, and when 
 people like you and yours arise beyond British 
 frontiers it compels one to see that all good- 
 ness is one. 
 
 To Miss {A) 
 
 Edinburgh, 9iA July [1905]. 
 It is a real distress to me to think of you seek- 
 ing health and not finding it. Really the only
 
 188 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 account of such experience is that of Paul — 
 a messenger of Satan sent to buffet, with every 
 device of cruelty and devilry to make the thing 
 as painful and bewildering and faith-under- 
 mining as possible, a trouble against which no 
 prayer for removal has any result, but which 
 leads to strength made perfect in weakness. 
 Far-reaching, far beyond our vision, must the 
 results of endurance be. Sometimes the world 
 seems so full of suffering that it seems the 
 dominant note and significance of the whole; 
 and only to those who endure is ' the crown of 
 life ' promised. 
 
 To the Same 
 
 Edinburgh, V,th July 1905. 
 
 Coffin preached in the U.F. High yesterday 
 on Abraham and Isaac — ' they went both of 
 them together ' up the hill of sacrifice. He used 
 it to illustrate how God the Father suffers more 
 in all our sufferings, and how He went with 
 Christ foreseeing all that was to come upon 
 Him and suffering all the way. It was a very 
 beautiful and impressive sermon. I wish you 
 could have heard it, but your own thoughts 
 anticipate all the good things one can say.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 189 
 
 I do hope you are getting a little better. 
 My prayer for you — and I know it will be 
 answered — is ' Make her glad according to the 
 days wherein Thou hast afflicted her, and the 
 years wherein she has seen evil.' What is our 
 love and good wishing for you compared to the 
 brooding, all- wise and all -penetrating love of 
 the Eternal Father ? 
 
 To the Same 
 
 Balig, 
 Ballantrae, \Wi August 1905. 
 
 Yes, as you say, ' Geduld ' is a difficult virtue ; 
 to yield wholly to another, even though that 
 other be so intimate as God, must always be 
 difficult. The triumph of Christ was that 
 He ' learned obedience ' — and learned it in the 
 only way possible, by suffering. To leave our- 
 selves wholly in another's hand is the victory 
 of faith. It is so obvious, and yet so hard to 
 practise. But as you have suffered so much 
 you cannot fail to be more conformed to Christ 
 than the rest of us ; and after all, what else 
 in life is worth acquiring ? For enjoyment of 
 results we have Eternity; the urgent thing is
 
 190 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 now to sow the right seed, to lay the lasting 
 foundation. 
 
 How idle words seem — how little we can enter 
 into one another's suffering ; but if I could 
 do more than speak, how gladly would I, and 
 many others, do it for you. It is a great joy 
 to me to find in your letter a tone of content 
 and hope, for assuredly we do well always to 
 hope. 
 
 I find I must stop, but I do not stop loving 
 you and wishing you well and believing that 
 though weeping may endure for a night, joy 
 Cometh in the morning. Life, joy, strength, 
 these are the ultimate things; and of this no 
 one more than yourself has taught . . . 
 
 To Miss {E) 
 
 Ballyoukan Lodge, 
 Pitlochry, 5^7; September 1905. 
 
 I reproached myself all the way north and 
 all the way south for not compelling you to go 
 to Inverness. The country never seemed to 
 me more enchantingly lovely — mile after mile, 
 hundreds of miles, of heather in rich bloom, 
 pinky, purply red, and the mountains with the
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 191 
 
 most marvellous lights upon them, and you 
 going away and fancying you have seen 
 Scotland. 
 
 I hope you have had no return of megrim or 
 measles or whatever laid you low in my diocese 
 on Friday, and that you enjoyed St. Boswells 
 and all Sir Walter's places — which are all very 
 well in their way. 
 
 Give my ' Bon voyage ' to Dr. and Mrs. T , 
 
 also to the captain and officers, engineers, 
 stokers, A.B.'s, stewards, boys, stewardesses 
 and all the rest who are to have a hand in 
 carrying you across what I trust you may find 
 but a pond. 
 
 To Miss [A) 
 
 Edinburgh, ^th October 1905. 
 I admire with my whole heart and soul the 
 manner in which you find good in your present 
 disorder, and I suppose no price is too great 
 to pay for a complete and perfect reconcilement 
 of our spirit with the order of things in which 
 we are — that is, with God. This must often 
 seem a hard saying to one who, like you, has 
 to pay so heavy a price, but sufferers are the 
 saviours of the world, and you instruct, edify
 
 192 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 and help us all by the way you face and fight 
 distress. 
 
 To Mrs. {G) 
 
 Edinburgh, \2th October 1905. 
 
 Your letter, though most welcome, is rather 
 waesome, and I do sympathise with you. 
 For years I knew what it was to get acids put 
 into one's eye with the assurance that it did not 
 hurt. But I wish the great man could give you 
 some assurance that his painful treatment will 
 have compensating results. How long are you 
 to remain at Wiesbaden, and where do you 
 go to forget about it ? I don't believe there 
 are any much better places than Scotland. 
 At present we are having St. Luke's summer, 
 lovely, warm, sunny days. Why St. Luke's ? 
 
 I was seized with compunction on receiving 
 so long a letter from you written in pain, but 
 a short note would give only pleasure ; and 
 give me more details about yourself, please. 
 
 I had some nice books to tell you about, 
 but I won't tantalize you. Time enough when 
 your eyes are better. 
 
 Doodle is very thankful for your kind remem- 
 
 1
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 193 
 
 brance of him. He is decidedly showing marks 
 of age, and although he has hours when he 
 remembers his youth and thinks of cats with a 
 ferocious joy, he is in the main placid and sleepy. 
 
 I am glad you get some entertainment out 
 of your companions in affliction and in the 
 Hotel. They will get more than entertainment 
 out of you. So long as you have your tongue 
 left in health, you don't need your eyes so 
 much, for already you have wisdom and 
 goodness enough both for yourseK and others. 
 I don't mean flattery, but rather to remind you 
 how much you have to be thankful for, and 
 how much means of being that most useful 
 member of society, a good and upright woman. 
 
 This is a poor return for your letter, but I 
 am rather fussed at present ; but I wished to 
 express my sympathy and to beg you to let 
 me know how you get on. 
 
 With kindest regards to all your family who 
 may be with you . . . 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll 
 
 Edinbuegh, 23rd October 1905. 
 Your interesting letter from Paris illustrates 
 your energy, as usual. It is absurd of you to
 
 194 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 ask advice or suggestions from any one. If 
 you do not see the appropriate improvements 
 on The Expositor, or any other of your under- 
 takings, no one else is at all likely to see them. 
 And in point of fact I do not think of anything 
 beyond what you suggest which could tend to 
 prolong the life of The Expositor. It seems to 
 me to fill a niche as it is, and of course I find 
 more in my own line in it than in The Hibbert or 
 Journal of Theological Studies or Zeitschrift fur 
 neutestamentliche Wissenschaft. 
 
 As to contributions from myself, the only 
 things I can think of are a paper on the Papyri 
 — a general survey of the topics illustrated by 
 them — or the paper I gave to the Summer 
 School in Glasgow on Evolution and Christian 
 Theology. 
 
 We have got our session begun. I am in 
 the Heriot Watt College, which is a modern 
 structure with excellent class-rooms, though 
 the noise on the street is sometimes annoying. 
 I hear the Established Hall has a very small 
 first year — eight men ; we have nineteen in the 
 first year. The quality of the men is excel- 
 lent, and their conduct in class perfect — silent, 
 attentive, diligent.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 195 
 
 All kinds of rumours fly round regarding the 
 Commission, but the most striking thing is the 
 small interest people are taking in it. 
 
 To Miss {A) 
 
 Edinbukgh, 6th November 1905, 
 Last week was for me a red-letter week, or as 
 Baedeker would put it, a double-asterisk week, 
 
 as I had a letter from you and also one from . 
 
 But oh ! how I long to hear that you are Avell, 
 or at any rate rid of some of your ailments. 
 I think I would give my classes a holiday, or 
 at any rate have a display of fireworks, if only 
 you would mend a bit. But I suppose you 
 are one of the ' blessed ' few who must endure 
 and let patience have her perfect work, that 
 you may be perfect and complete, lacking 
 nothing. Do you remember in Lucas Malet's 
 Wages of Sin when Polly asks ' What does one 
 end by doing when all the best is taken away 
 from one, when life has grown trivial, stunted 
 and narrow ? ' her uncle says : ' After a time, 
 my dear, one lights a candle called Patience, 
 and guides one's footsteps by that.' God 
 grant, my dear Miss , that your patience
 
 196 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 may carry you through. You remember St. 
 John's quaint wish, ' I pray that in all things 
 thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as 
 thy soul prospereth.' Don't allow yourself to 
 think that your soul is not prospering. Christ's 
 darkest times were His most prosperous and 
 fruitful. 
 
 Forgive my preaching to one who might so 
 infinitely rather counsel me ; but take all I say 
 as the expression, awkward as it may be, of 
 my longing to see you healthy and hearty 
 again. 
 
 Liberalism is booming. Haldane was yester- 
 day elected to the Lord Rectorship of Edin- 
 burgh University, and Glasgow has elected 
 Asquith. But the next Government, to what- 
 ever party it belongs, will have great difficulty 
 in governing. 
 
 Why do you worry about the future of other 
 people ? Have we not sufficient security in 
 ' Shall not the Judge of all the earth do 
 right ? ' If we cannot leave things in His 
 hand and feel assured that much better things 
 will happen to all than anything we can plan 
 or hope, then indeed
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 197 
 
 ' The pillar'd firmament is rottenness, 
 And earth's base built on stubble.' 
 
 But you raise questions that can only be 
 answered in a long talk such as I have had the 
 happiness to enjoy with you in this room, or 
 
 on the lawn at , with your sister painting 
 
 poppies at the border. 
 
 I like very much your description of the 
 Crum Browns ; they are ' lovely ' people. 
 
 Write soon, and do say you are better. 
 
 To Miss [B) 
 
 Edinburgh, November 1905. 
 I am rapidly advancing to the Socratic 
 condition of being convinced I know nothing. 
 Really knowledge is a bog — the more you strive, 
 the deeper and more inextricably you sink ; 
 a tussock of faith is all one can reach. In 
 winter my students help me to keep up the 
 delusion that we are learning something, and 
 one can always fall back upon Grammar and 
 Geography ; and as long as we are in the 
 Heriot Watt and hear the rumble of dynamos, 
 we feel that there is reality somewhere about, 
 or a very good imitation of it.
 
 198 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 I wish you had some teaching to do ; it 's 
 great, if you have even an infinitesimal amount 
 to teach. 
 
 To the same 
 
 Edinburgh, December 1905. 
 
 The problem of man's folly in leaving such 
 charming women unmarried has often been in 
 my thoughts. It is partly looks, and partly on 
 account of some ' affaire,' and partly that men 
 do not want very superior women, but loving 
 and happy women. You will say, But these 
 are left. Yes, that is so, but very often they 
 have had their chance and declined it. Still, 
 after all that can be said, a friend of mine is 
 justified in what he said years and years ago 
 of the girls of our acquaintance, ' They always 
 disappoint you.' He meant by declining on 
 men not fit to button their boots. But my 
 best friend in Glasgow, and a truly perfect 
 woman, with just the weaknesses that made 
 her perfect, and a heart overflowing with love, 
 told me she used to pray when a girl that she 
 might never be married. So there are wheels 
 within wheels, and woman remains a mystery.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 199 
 
 To his son Harry 
 
 {December 1905.] 
 
 My dear Shaw Household, ^ — You are too 
 many for me to address individually, though I 
 must thank Clarence by name for the most 
 useful tablets of memory she has sent me, and 
 assure her of my gratitude for her kindly 
 thought. Also I must specify the beloved little 
 Beth, and hope she is now quite well. 
 
 Doodle has got a present of an India rubber 
 
 doll with a squeak from Mrs. , and he 
 
 won't let me rest, but is at me from morning 
 to night to get it, and I know if I gave it him 
 its head would be off in a twinkling. 
 
 Now there are things I want to say to each 
 of you, but cannot possibly say to all, so there 
 is nothing for it but to stop and sign myself 
 one who is happy to be related to you all, 
 indeed one whose happiness very much consists 
 in being related to you all. . . . 
 
 To Mrs. Watson 
 
 Edinbuegh, Christmas, 1905. 
 Your note with its refreshing friendliness 
 
 * His son Harry's address at the time was Shaw House, Tarporley.
 
 200 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 marks this Christmas morning with a bright- 
 ness that quite scatters the gloom of the skies. 
 Thank you very much ; but it is too tantaHzing 
 to think I might be with you and your guests 
 and cannot. 
 
 I have articles to write for Bible Dictionaries 
 and Magazines on 
 
 1. The Fatherhood of God. 
 
 2. Why did Jesus enjoin secrecy on the 
 
 healed ? 
 
 3. The Johannine writings, as well as on 
 
 Peter's Epistles and Jude. 
 
 4. Reviews of two German books — each 
 
 containing 500 pages and not yet read. 
 
 5. Address for New Year's Day. 
 
 Now, had I courage and could I depend on 
 myself, I would gaily postpone part of this, but 
 I get so anxious about work promised and not 
 finished that I camiot take a holiday with 
 comfort. If I find I can, I will avail myself of 
 your most kind invitation, which itself, whether 
 accepted or not, I appreciate and enjoy. 
 
 I was amazed at Dr. Watson's appearance. 
 He looks five years younger than he did a year 
 ago.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 201 
 
 To Miss Crum 
 
 Edinburgh, 1st January 1906. 
 
 How did you divine my intention to purchase 
 Conversations with Christ to-morrow ? I had 
 put it down with another which must be had 
 at once. Very many thanks ; it is so much 
 pleasanter to read it with a suggestion of you 
 holding it up to me than to buy it over a 
 counter. As to disagreement, I don't much 
 mind that, if the writer gives me something to 
 think about. 
 
 I am sorry my few notes of this morning's 
 address are too fragmentary to send you. I 
 told them that for progress two things were 
 needed — a goal and driving power. The first 
 they must choose — illustrated by Portia's three 
 caskets in The Merchant of Venice. The second, 
 the driving power, the only sufficient driving 
 power, is love to Christ — not approval of Him 
 or faith in Him, but love — illustrated by 
 Saint-Simon's deathbed saying, ' Souvenez-vous 
 que pour faire quelque chose du grand il faut 
 etre passionne,' and Ecce Homo^s ' No heart is 
 pure that is not passionate.' I only lately
 
 202 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 realised that love alone can overcome all baser 
 passions — personal attachment and devoted- 
 ness. ' Hitch your wagon to a star,' says 
 Emerson ; yes, but how to do so ? Only by 
 strong attachment to Christ. 
 
 You will find much good matter in Robinson's 
 Studies, and in Anderson Scott's Revelation. I 
 sent eight copies of Jones' lecture to American 
 friends. As you say, it does carry Jones ' very 
 high,' and yet Hegelians have such a way of 
 slipping back from the plain meaning of their 
 words that his very last sentences give me a 
 little shiver. Still, that the universe is reason- 
 able is a good deal to go upon. But immortality 
 is a complicated and elusive theme. 
 
 To Miss {A) 
 
 Edinbuegit, bth January 1906. 
 
 You know, don't you, that I have been writing 
 letters to you every day during the last fortnight. 
 You also know perhaps with even greater cer- 
 titude that they have never been transferred 
 from my mind to paper. Really I should long 
 since have thanked you for your always welcome 
 and always inspiring letters, and also for your
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 203 
 
 diary, which I regularly use. It is a great 
 pleasure to know that every day I am thinking 
 the same thought as you — only it makes me 
 wish I could continue all day to think your 
 thoughts. 
 
 I had a kind of uplifting call from Prof, and 
 Mrs. Crum Brown the other day, on New Year's 
 Day. 
 
 I have done nothing distinguished during 
 my holiday. I had a good deal of work waiting 
 to get done, and I have pushed through some 
 part of it. Most of it is for America. They 
 tempt one to write by offering a circulation of 
 several millions through their magazines. I 
 wrote one paper for their Sunday School Times 
 on Why did Jesus enjoin secrecy ? and I have 
 also got a paper on Jude and another on 2nd 
 Peter finished for an American Bible Dictionary. 
 But there is no call for you to be interested in 
 such matters. 
 
 I opened the year by breakfasting with the 
 Y.M.C.A. and afterwards addressing them. 
 There were about 150, and I took for my text 
 ' No heart is pure that is not passionate ' — a 
 saying which I awoke to only recently, though 
 I have always believed it. Isn't it sad, the way
 
 204 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 great truths should he in the mind hke lumber, 
 no one thinking of casting them out, but just 
 as little feeling any living influence from them ? 
 Of course Ecce Homo^s saying is just the re- 
 petition of our Lord's ' Except your love be 
 greater than of father and mother,' etc. — and 
 I have preached with elaboration on the fact 
 that it is our likings that determine our char- 
 acter ; not our opinions, nor in a sense our faith, 
 but our love, what we cleave to more than aught 
 besides ; but it came upon me lately with new 
 force. The difficulty is to get such a dominant 
 love for Christ ; but it is comforting to know 
 that we are here to grow, to see what is right 
 and to strive after it, and set our faces at any 
 rate in the right direction. 
 
 Can you not get Mr. Bradley to give us four 
 comedies — TJie Merchant of Venice, As you like 
 it. Twelfth Night and Measure for Measure, or 
 The Tempest ? He could preach some fine 
 sermons to us out of these. 
 
 To the Rev. Henry Shane Coffin 
 
 Edinburgh, Wth January 1906. 
 As to summer, I wish I could say Yes to your
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 205 
 
 kind invitation. But if we are to meet this 
 year, it must be by your coming over again. 
 For I have four days ago received an invitation 
 to lecture at Oberhn on a new foundation 
 (Haskell). The remuneration is not great, but 
 the subject is a good one — the Influence of 
 Jewish Theology on Paul, and they ask for 
 only five lectures in spring 1907. It looks like 
 folly for a man who if alive in 1907 will then 
 be seventy-three to undertake the engagement, 
 but every one says I ought to, and though I have 
 not yet closed with the offer, I have a kind of 
 feeling that it will end so. 
 
 Thank you very much for the novel, ^ and for 
 Bowne's Theisin. The novel I read at once, 
 with admiration but much sadness. If that is 
 the kind of thing you have to cope with in 
 New York, I am sorry for you. How little 
 Christianity seems to be within these people's 
 horizon, and yet I suppose they have their 
 moments too. 
 
 Wellesley, Harvard, Princeton and Yale will 
 give you grand opportunities. I envy you 
 both the opportunities and the power to use 
 them. I had a chance at young men (Y.M.C.A.) 
 
 ^ Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth.
 
 206 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 on New Year's Day, and spoke of Ecce Homo^a 
 ' No heart is pure that is not passionate,' which 
 has taken hold of me lately, as the whole 
 secret of regeneration. It is contentment with 
 duty which makes Christianity a failure. We 
 i \ ? have never got past the law, and no one under- 
 stands Paul or believes him — or for that matter 
 understands Christ, for He said that if a man 
 did not love Him more than any one else, he \ 
 was no disciple of His. Very commonplace on 
 paper, and verbally proclaimed from thousands 
 of pulpits every Sunday, but oh ! dear me, how 
 few accepted truths are really believed. 
 
 It is fine of you to write your sermons twice 
 over. It is hard, but it will certainly pay. 
 Also, or perhaps even more, your prayers. 
 
 So Harper has passed away at last. It will 
 be a very serious loss to Chicago, as his work 
 was not half done there. I wonder whom they 
 will get to take it up. I do trust the right man 
 will be appointed. 
 
 We are in the thick of elections here. 
 
 I must send you The Expositor for January, 
 as it has an article of mine on Evolution in 
 it, which I hope you Avill agree with, or at least 
 care to see.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 207 
 
 To Miss {A) 
 
 Edinburgh, 2Us/ January 1906. 
 
 I fear this will be too late for your birthday, 
 and quite inadequate to let you understand how 
 glad I am you had a birthday, and how sub- 
 stantial a part of my life and of others you 
 have been. Many happier returns of it, and 
 may each return find you more able to thank 
 God for life and for all it has brought you. I 
 would not have tried to write even to-day, for 
 I am very much hurried, but I wished to return 
 the enclosed letters. I fancy that what Miss 
 means is that the solution of what is in- 
 explicable otherwise is given us once for all in 
 Christ; while you add, 'Yes, but it will take the 
 whole life of all the generations to understand 
 fully the solution itself.' As to what she says 
 about time and eternity I quite agree with her. 
 To me it is utterly puzzling — that is to say, 
 we rightly conceive of eternity as an absence of 
 time, but time being a necessary form of thought, 
 and apparently of existence, with us, we cannot 
 form any idea of eternal existence. 
 
 And in her statement that each person must 
 find the solution for himself, I see the expression
 
 208 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 of her true and healthy nature. Certainly one 
 thing is true, that anxiety does no good, and 
 there is no call for it. The Stoic attitude was 
 in this respect right : ' Here I am, do with me 
 what is good and just.' The peace that comes 
 upon one who commits himself to a long sea 
 voyage results from the feeling that the whole 
 responsibility for getting to the desired haven 
 rests with another person and is wholly out of 
 the passenger's hand. So with life. I think 
 we worry too much, as if we were each to be 
 a Providence to himself. 
 
 God will do more for us than our most loving 
 friends, and if you knew even my wishes for 
 your coming year, I think you would expect 
 great things from God ; but this is irrelevant, 
 for nothing stril^es me more about your letters 
 than their happiness — of which most precious 
 quality please communicate soon a portion to 
 your ever affectionate . . . 
 
 To Miss (C) 
 
 Edinburgh, 6th February 1906. 
 I wish at once to send you my heartiest 
 congratulations and best wishes. I cannot 
 imagine anything more likely to secure the
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 209 
 
 happiness of a lifetime than the closest pos- 
 sible connection with yourself, and I de- 
 voutly hope you may both have a long, long 
 time together. There is nothing greater or 
 better than to love and be loved. Were you 
 another sort of girl I would remind you that 
 you will have daily, almost hourly, opportunity 
 of filling to the brim another's cup of happiness, 
 but of this you do not need to be reminded, 
 as you belong to that beautiful type of woman- 
 hood whose nature it is to give themselves 
 away wholly and live in another's happiness. 
 It is to me delightful to imagine your future, 
 and if you have all the blessings I wish you 
 and think you deserve, you will be the happiest 
 of women. I take it very kind of you to 
 write me so soon. 
 
 To Miss {E) 
 
 Edinbtirgh, 24ih February 1906. 
 
 I have filled your blank sheet with extracts 
 from The Lamentations of Jeremiah, and have 
 severely underlined his poor attempts at pathos, 
 and by this exercise have brought myself into 
 some kind of sympathy with you. . . .
 
 210 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 Well, as we say here, a man must ' dree his 
 weird ' — in other words ' accomplish his destiny,' 
 but that is often sad enough, and he draws so 
 many with him who are dependent and sym- 
 pathetic. 
 
 To Miss {A) 
 
 Edinburgh, Uh March 1906. 
 
 I am very busy preparing for the end of the 
 session, trying to fit in lectures into rapidly 
 contracting days, and preparing examination 
 papers. The end is always a little sad — men 
 whose faces have been your most familiar 
 objects of sight for four years passing away 
 from your ken, and new men to make acquaint- 
 ance with. 
 
 To Miss (B) 
 
 Edinburgh, March 1906. 
 
 Galatians in six lines is impossible. But I 
 should say that the key to Paul is his con- 
 ception of sonship to which the spirit of Christ 
 raises. The son is free, does not require to 
 make good his claim to favour or provision, 
 needs no external compulsion, but lives from
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 211 
 
 within, from the spirit ; it is this spirit of son- 
 ship which is man's true ' inheritance,' the 
 ' promise ' for which he waited, and for which 
 he learned to long during all the preceding 
 years. But what amazed and overjoyed him 
 day by day was this sense of sonship — of the 
 overflowing and fatherly love of God. 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll 
 
 Edinburgh, 30th March 1906. 
 
 I was sorry to decline your request to furnish 
 you with a leader for The British Weekly f but I 
 really am unfit. The day after the session 
 closed I collapsed, and I am pretty miserable 
 still — ^bronchitis, weak heart, etc. I have had 
 to cancel engagements for April, and can only 
 do ' light jobs ' in the meantime. 
 
 I am glad to hear there is a prospect of seeing 
 you. I should have been in London to-day, 
 to preach on Sunday in Westbourne Grove, 
 but I have had to cancel that. I expected to 
 see you and some other old friends when up 
 there, but I think I shall not go at all now. 
 
 Our ecclesiastical affairs here are in a dis- 
 gusting mess — no one satisfied with any-
 
 212 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS BODS 
 
 thing. What is to come of it all I know not. 
 Happily I enjoy my own work, and have 
 good times with the students. I fear some 
 of my moroseness and pessimism is due to 
 age. I hope so, and that this generation is 
 better and not worse than the last ; but 
 I do not envy those who have to fight the 
 battle of Christianity in the twentieth century. 
 Yes, perhaps I do, but it will be a stiff fight, 
 and will require great concessions to be made. 
 
 To his niece, Mrs. Young 
 {Postcard) 
 [Edinburgh, 20th April 1906.] 
 
 9000000 ad infinitum thanks for Chesterton's 
 Watts. It is amazing — especially the bit on 
 allegory. It is really that greatest desider- 
 atum — a book. 
 
 Glad to hear your Mother is holding her own. 
 Aunt Marcia is with me for a few days. I am still 
 spending hours every day in that delightful chair 
 with foot rest, looking, regardless of the tenth 
 commandment, on the most literary of manse 
 libraries. I hope you feel me there some- 
 times.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 213 
 
 To Miss {E) 
 
 Edinburgh, 2Uh April 1906. 
 
 Will you excuse pencil, as I am in a run down 
 condition and my doctor bids me ' recumb ' 
 as much as I can — my heart needing all the 
 rest it can get, poor thing. In fact, since the 
 session closed five weeks ago I have had a 
 cough that shakes me to pieces. I get a cer- 
 tain amount of work done each day, but what 
 vexes me most is that I have had to cancel 
 my engagement to lecture in Oberlin and in 
 Rochester. I am now 72 — yes, seventy-two — 
 three score ten and two — and that means that 
 I must not trust that next year will be better 
 than this in bringing me health. 
 
 To the Rev. Prof. H. R. Mackintosh i 
 
 Tarporley, %th May 1906. 
 
 I have been reading in scraps of time 
 Bousset's Jesus over again. There are some 
 noble passages — though he falls into the usual 
 vice of writing a gospel for himself, and of 
 oscillating between a pedantically and pro- 
 saically literal interpretation and an interpre- 
 
 ^ Of New College, Edinburgh.
 
 214 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 tation which does not even find a foot-hold to 
 spring from in the text. You have in your 
 Christology a tremendous piece of work if you 
 are to convince these men that your faith is the 
 truth. 
 
 To the Same 
 
 Edinburgh, llth May 1906. 
 
 It was very good of you to write amid all 
 the distractions of your German tour, and 
 though I have little news, or none, I must at 
 any rate acknowledge your card. 
 
 I envy you seeing and interviewing these men, 
 Loofs and Herrmann and the rest, and I am 
 sure it must both quicken your interest in 
 theology and bring you into the main stream 
 of thought, and I hope you find that we here 
 have still some defensible positions, however 
 battered. 
 
 Have you noticed or heard that has 
 
 at last shuffled off this mortal coil ? I am 
 rather in the mood to see nothing in life but 
 baffled expectations and impenetrable gloom — 
 the result, I suppose, of my not being well. 
 
 The best book I have lately read is one I 
 have read more than once before — Mrs.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 215 
 
 Gertrude Atherton's The Conqueror, which is 
 merely a garnished life of Alexander Hamilton, 
 the creator of the American Constitution, an 
 amazing and most interesting life, terminated 
 by Burr's bullet at the age of forty-seven. 
 
 If I write more I fear my gloom may soil 
 your sunshine — to which I trust Strachan is 
 adding day by day — to whom commend . . . 
 
 ' Me thinks we do as fretful children do, 
 Leaning their faces on the window pane, 
 To sigh the glass dim with their own breath's stain, 
 And shut the sky and landscape from their view.' 
 
 To Mrs. Lowe 
 
 Shaw House, 
 Tarporley, 25th May 1906. 
 
 Please excuse pencil, as the two nurses are 
 taking a very leisurely breakfast, and I can't 
 get the table to honour you with ink, and to 
 thank you in permanent characters for your 
 kind letter. I never felt more dependent on 
 letters, not even when I was first abroad at the 
 age of twenty, and I am quite prepared to face 
 the day with yours just received. Harry has 
 had a fairly good night. . . . 
 
 I have not seen Harry yet. The doctor
 
 216 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 wishes him to be kept absolutely quiet, so I 
 take the dogs out a walk (for which they are 
 very grateful), and read and dream. The weather 
 is bad — extraordinarily bad. 
 
 Yesterday I met an old man with a shovel 
 over his shoulder who stopped me with ' How 
 is Maister Dod this marning ? ' and after I had 
 explained to him his condition, he said ' Well, 
 1 hope the Lord will enlarge him. That I do.' 
 I was stopped twice besides on my walk with 
 enquiries. 
 
 I hope the Wilsons got home all right, and 
 with refreshed minds and bodies (one each). 
 We expect Frank to-morrow. I hope Billy has 
 not eaten Doodle, or Doodle Billy. 
 
 To Miss {B) 
 
 Edinburgh {1June\ 1906. 
 
 Gibbon ! have you Gibbon ? Do you know 
 the joy of plunging into that vitalising ocean 
 just at any point ? Oh ! every man, woman 
 and child ought to have Gibbon, and take any 
 volume, open at any page, in any mood, at any 
 hour, in any place — and then you are happy, 
 away from all care in a wide, new world.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 217 
 
 Gibbon, Shakespeare, and the Bible, if you have 
 these and use them you '11 forget there was ever 
 such a person as Dante ^ — but I had better 
 stop. Is anything more futile than to recom- 
 mend books ? It 's only one stage better than 
 recommending friends. 
 
 To the Rev. Henry Shane Coffin 
 
 Edinburgh, \5th June 1906. 
 
 I don't think there 's much to read at present. 
 Du Bose's The Gospel in the Gospels and Clark's 
 Philosophy of Christian Experience are fresh 
 and stimulating. But my most serious reading 
 lately has been Herrmann's Communion with 
 God. I read it years ago and was not greatly 
 impressed. Now it seems to me to say exactly 
 what needs at present to be said. There are 
 extravagancies, no doubt, but taking his 
 intention and essential meaning, I think it 
 one of the profoundest books we have. His 
 attitude towards doctrine and towards Scrip- 
 ture, though sometimes too rashly put, strikes 
 me as being nearer the right and just position 
 than anything I have seen elsewhere. 
 
 * The letter waa addressed to a devoted student of Dante.
 
 218 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 Weinel's Paul is fresh, but not so final as one 
 could wish. 
 
 Mackintosh has spent May in Germany, and 
 is more and more impressed by Loofs and 
 Kahler. I must say that so far as I know them, 
 I agree with him. I never consult Loofs without 
 getting what I want, and Kahler seems to me 
 the most rational German I ever read. 
 
 My friends in 'Frisco (Balfour, Williamson 
 & Co.) have lost all their books and papers. 
 But of course their business goes on, and goes 
 on with even increased volume, as so much will 
 be needed to build up the city and its homes 
 once more. When you go, you will not leave 
 the Decalogue and the Christian Law at 
 Chicago, but even in the far west will remember 
 that to do good as you have opportunity is 
 still binding, and that no one is in greater need 
 of your affection and quickening than . . . 
 
 To the Rev. Prof. H. R. Mackintosh 
 
 Edinburgh, llth J^ily 1906. 
 
 A man who can write such interesting letters 
 as yours should have every opportunity given 
 him of exercising his gift ; so I at once put you
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 219 
 
 in my debt. A letter like yours is to me a 
 great treat, for I am somewhat solitary, although 
 I have two American ladies with me for this 
 week who keep me sufficiently lively and more 
 than sufficiently idle. But as I am not yet 
 fit for much work, perhaps it is as well to be 
 idle under the guise of hospitality. I got 
 Schweitzer's Von Eeimarus zu Wrede, and find 
 much supplementary matter for my lectures, 
 although of course his criticism seems to me 
 somewhat wide of the mark. Still it is a very 
 useful book, and he lifts one or two men into 
 a position which I had not recognised as theirs. 
 
 Last Sunday morning, Macgregor being away 
 from home, I went to St. Bernard's and heard 
 a most enriching exposition from Steven ; 
 moreover, the right kind of people were there, 
 not one person there drawn by fashion, but 
 lots of decent working men who attended 
 keenly throughout — one of the most reviving 
 spectacles I have seen lately ; to hold the 
 decent working lad is at present the chief task, 
 or one of the chief tasks, of our Church. I felt 
 hope for Scotland springing again, at least 
 in a small jet, and felt disposed to say ' May 
 my due feet never stray ' from Henderson Row.
 
 220 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 To the Rev. Henry Shane Coffin 
 
 Edinburgh, 2^th July 1906. 
 
 As soon as I received your great news I wrote 
 to Miss Eells, but I feel that so important an 
 occasion demands some further whooping, and 
 so I again send you my most cordial con- 
 gratulations. . . . You will take my good 
 wishes for granted, but it is pleasant to look 
 forward and picture all the good days you will 
 have with her. You have some idea of the 
 happiness I had in my married life, but I see 
 now how much higher and purer and happier 
 I might have made it, and I would give you 
 the benefit of my experience did I not know 
 that the very faults which betrayed me do not 
 exist in you. But I think all married men must 
 learn that to happiness reverence or respect 
 is as necessary as love. A kind of sacredness 
 should attach to the object of one's adoration. 
 You may laugh, but it is true. 
 
 Mrs. Lowe and all your friends here are 
 immensely interested, and were the ceremony 
 to be performed at some smaller distance than 
 6000 miles you would see a lot of Edinburgh 
 faces.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 221 
 
 I have had some very pleasant Americans 
 staying with me, and several calling in their 
 kind way. 
 
 Now I know that all time spent on letters is 
 to you at present time lost, but when you return 
 to ordinary levels, if not before that, I hope 
 you will remember that you have a warmly 
 attached friend and well-wisher in . . . 
 
 To Miss ■ {D) 
 
 Edinburgh, 2nd Aug^ist 1906. 
 Your letters are always a refreshment, though 
 as your last is actually written from beyond the 
 narrow limits of our little island it brings a 
 pang. The Stars and Stripes are floating 
 gaily above the N.B.R. Hotel, inviting many 
 delightful Americans, but only reminding me 
 of your visit, and that it is not to be repeated. 
 I am very sorry. I think it most unlikely that I 
 shall ever cross the Atlantic again, but no greater 
 inducement could be offered me than your in- 
 vitation. I shall expect to hear from you, from 
 all kinds of queer places ; and please be as 
 exclamatory as you feel. I know you will 
 be hustled and hurried with so much to see.
 
 222 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 and may forget that you have friends here who 
 would like to share your pleasure, or to know 
 of your enjoyment. 
 
 I possess The House of Mirth ; it was given 
 me by Coffin — who by the way has just become 
 engaged to a charming Californian whom he 
 has known since she was a child. I greatly 
 admire The House of Mirth as a book, but the 
 condition of things it reveals is very sad. I 
 wonder if books of that kind do any good. 
 I suppose the society people know they are 
 fools, just as the drunkard does, but they are 
 in the net and cannot free themselves. I think 
 the love of pleasure in our own country has 
 become far more general in my own time. 
 Of course the means of enjoyment now lie to 
 every one's hand, there is so much more money 
 circulating. Sometimes it seems as if the 
 whole motive of life was altering, and yet I 
 am sure that there are more in our own time 
 than in any other who are seeking to advance 
 the common good, and who see that that is the 
 only life worth living — the only life that really 
 leaves results. You in America are a young 
 people, and have the making of your future, 
 but we are step by step following in the road
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 223 
 
 to decline and fall that was taken by the Roman 
 Empire. Never in the world's history has 
 there been a nation made as yours has been. 
 None has lived under the same conditions, and 
 it seems as if new methods were to be intro- 
 duced, new tasks attempted, and a truly 
 ' new world ' created. Thank you very much 
 for offering me your ' homeless ' copy of The 
 House of Mirth, which must go to some more 
 needy person. 
 
 Even in Holland you can't have time to read 
 more, though it is very pleasant for me to talk 
 to you. I won't say how greatly I have enjoyed 
 your friendship and how grateful I am for it. 
 May all good go with you, and may you find 
 happiness and profit all round the world and 
 still remember your affectionate . . . 
 
 To Miss (A) 
 
 EDmBUKGH, Qth August 1906. 
 
 I need not tell you how delightful it was to 
 see your hand again and to hear rather better 
 accounts of your health. Surely you will now 
 go steadily forward and renew joy in the hearts 
 of all your friends. You certainly are being
 
 224 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 schooled in patience. And really one is tempted 
 to think St. James was right in giving patience 
 so high a place. The despair so many of us 
 feel because we cannot already understand 
 things and solve this ' unintelligible world ' 
 would disappear could we only muster patience 
 to wait, submission to leave things in those 
 hands which have made the world and presum- 
 ably can rule it. 
 
 I hope to go to Boat of Garten on Monday, 
 and sit at the feet of Dr. Watson's mature 
 wisdom and enjoy the affection of Mrs. Watson 
 and Miss Crum. A world that holds such 
 people is no despicable place, and how much 
 they have helped to make it better. 
 
 My son Harry seems now to be fairly on the 
 road to health. He has had a terrible illness. 
 
 May all good presences be with you, my dear 
 Miss , now and ever. 
 
 To Mrs. Lowe 
 
 Edinburgh, Z\st August 1906. 
 Here I am once more after a delightful time, 
 but home-coming even with a welcome from 
 Doodle is a bit dreary, and I hope you have 
 been in sympathy and been decently dull.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 225 
 
 The weather here is blazing and blue, and I 
 sigh for the river or the hill, and find it difficult 
 to settle to any work. I think to sit down and 
 write on abstract subjects is about the most 
 difficult thing man can do. If you have those 
 surprising trees to hew down or to turn into 
 logs, or if you have deeds of conveyance to 
 draw up, you have concrete things to go upon, 
 but when you don't know where to begin and 
 have only a vague universe before your mind, 
 it 's just ' fair awfie.' 
 
 I don't know how to thank you for your 
 kindness to me. It has really done me good, 
 and I am very glad to have these days to help 
 me through days which may not be so bright. 
 For it must always be remembered that ' The 
 boast of heraldry,' etc. 
 
 PS. ' Take yonder oak-tree. What an au- 
 gust being it is. How it beggars the imagina- 
 tion to conceive the silent tenacity of purpose 
 which, working through century after century, 
 has drawn together " the stuff of life to knit 
 it," to robe it in its yearly marvel of leafage, 
 and sweU its girth by ring on ring. Had I, as 
 a boy, been taken to that tree, and judiciously
 
 226 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 helped to study it and realise it in its majestic 
 individuality — I should to-day have been a 
 wiser and, I doubt not, a happier man.' 
 
 To Miss {E) 
 
 Edinburgh, 1th October 1906. 
 
 We have not got our college back yet, and my 
 voice is away somewhere — I don't know where, 
 but how I am to lecture two hours a day I 
 cannot yet see. However if I can't, I can't, 
 and there is no use grumbling. 
 
 Don't become a Buddhist, though the kind of 
 Buddhism which faddists are making for them- 
 selves out of scraps of the genuine Buddhism 
 and scraps of Christianity is not the worst kind 
 of ethics — but of religion ! ! Buddha was pure 
 Atheist, but quite morally decent. 
 
 To his daughter, Mrs. Gray 
 
 [Edinburgh, ? 1906.] 
 Was it this month last year, or December, that 
 I last heard from you ? It is so long ago that 
 I forget, and if you asked me any questions 
 
 I cannot answer them. But happily I met 
 
 and his wife the other day here, who told me
 
 LATER LETTERS OF I^URCUS DODS 227 
 
 you were still flowing and fresh. They had a 
 glorious little boy with them, presumably of 
 their own manufacture. He does them credit. 
 I wonder on what principle it is that some 
 children are worse than either of their parents, 
 and others better than both combined. I 
 believe all the bad in you is due to X. Y. 
 Turnbull, who lived in the year 1245. He was 
 a real bad lot. Have you no visions of him in 
 your dreams ? 
 
 To-day being students' day, four came by 
 invitation and five uninvited. The uninvited 
 were the best, but we had a very good talk 
 about open-air preaching. Christian Science, 
 turkeys and cranberry sauce, John Kelman, 
 Doodle, victory of U.F. College Rugby football 
 team v. Established Church football team, 
 slums, drunks. North Dakota. Princeton, etc. 
 (see last edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 
 vols. 3-15). 
 
 The usual grumble about College dinner has 
 set in with its usual severity, but the forecast 
 is favourable for the disturbance passing away 
 soon. ' Stodge ' is the one word that char- 
 acterises the dinner. That boa-constrictor that 
 swallowed its blanket, or the shark in whose
 
 228 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 ' Little Mary ' there was found a bag of nails, 
 a set of false teeth, a New Testament (Revised 
 Version), a wooden leg, two babies' bottles 
 (babies not still attached), a gold watch, and a 
 shaving brush — these creatures might digest 
 the clods of dumpling and slabs of beef we get, 
 but the delicate and feeble gastric juices of the 
 pallid divinity man can make nothing useful 
 out of them. 
 
 Now it 's nearly 11 on Friday night, and why 
 I 'm sitting here blethering to you when I ought 
 to be in bed I don't know, unless it be that you 
 are such a dear ; but at 7 to-morrow morning 
 I '11 repent of not going to bed in time to get 
 my eight full hours. 
 
 So good-night, and all blessings attend you, 
 with the love of . . . 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll 
 
 Edinbuegh, lO^A November 1906. 
 
 Thank you very much for your kindness in 
 sending me The Lamp of Sacrifice,^ which I 
 highly prize and am sure to enjoy. 
 
 Speaking of sacrifice, Macaulay's memory 
 ^ Dr. Nicoll'a own book.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 229 
 
 played him false regarding human sacrifice 
 among the Romans. No doubt the Senate tried 
 to put an end to it about a century B.C., but 
 both Julius and Augustus continued it in certain 
 cases recorded by Dio Cassius and Suetonius 
 and Seneca and Pliny — a quite sufficient amount 
 of testimony. 
 
 I hope you have got through the stormy 
 weather with some comfort. 
 
 To Miss {D) 
 
 Edinburgh, \lth November 1906. 
 
 Your letter dated Smj'^rna, 2nd Nov., has 
 given me very great pleasure. I really thought 
 you would for a time at least ' cut the cable ' 
 between the enthralling scenes of the East and 
 bleak, bare Scotland, but I see that to your 
 other virtues which I have recognised I must 
 add an abounding generosity. I assure you I 
 greatly value your remembrance of me and your 
 wish that I should so far share your enjoyment. 
 It has been a dream of mine since boyhood — 
 say for 250 years — to visit Greece and Egypt, 
 and still I must see these richly educative lands 
 by proxy. Well, sometimes I think there is
 
 230 LATER LETTERS OF ]\L\RCUS DODS 
 
 some consolation in being able to sit by the 
 fire and read of torrid heat, or feel the shiver 
 of ' frosty Caucasus ' through the printed page 
 of one who has suffered from it. Thank you 
 again and again for your vivid descriptions, 
 which have let me see the Sultan's pallid face 
 and smell his filthy capital and enjoy the 
 colours of Smyrna. Be sure you keep a journal 
 — for in after years when you are a great-grand- 
 mother, or even sooner, you will be able to see 
 again in memory and enjoy to a great extent 
 all that you are now enjoying. Beware of the 
 Eastern climates and foods and drinks. It 
 would be disastrous if any of your party took 
 any, even slight, ailment. 
 
 I wish I could say anything that would help 
 you about marriage, but it almost stands by 
 itself as inaccessible to advice from a second or 
 third party. I quite understand that women 
 of your type must shrink from what is involved 
 in marriage, and it would be a pity if such 
 feelings died out of the world ; but Nature has 
 planned her arrangements not only for the 
 commonplace, but for the finest spirits, and 
 what seems from the outside impossible sac- 
 rifice is transmuted by love into desirable.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 231 
 
 inevitable, delightful surrender. It is the most 
 commonplace thing to say that love alone 
 justifies marriage, and that love alone makes 
 all the difference ; yet though commonplace 
 it is the solvent of all matrimonial problems. 
 That the crown of human happiness lies in 
 the marriage of two mutually devoted and 
 pure hearts, is beyond contradiction. Whether 
 there is not also a duty lying on some people to 
 marry, is perhaps more questionable. Roose- 
 velt would say it is not questionable. And I 
 have often felt about men of my acquaintance 
 that they ought to continue their type. On 
 the other hand, some of the finest women I 
 have known have never married. 
 
 But marriage is not an abstract affair which 
 in itself is good or bad. It is the people who 
 enter it that make it so, and you will forgive 
 me if I say that you might bring to a man, if 
 you loved him, an ecstasy of happiness, and lift 
 his whole life to a level from which everything 
 would seem different. 
 
 But I am speaking much in the dark, and 
 may be entirely missing the point you wish 
 explained, so I stop. Please write again. I 
 send this to Bombay as it seems too late to
 
 232 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 catch you elsewhere. Remember me to your 
 father and mother, and with affectionate regards 
 and best wishes for your enjoyment during your 
 trip and your happiness in Europe, Asia, Africa 
 and America, and for ever and ever beyond, I 
 remain . . . 
 
 To his son Harry 
 [Edinburgh], llth November 1906. 
 Sixty of our men are to leave their manses in 
 a week, although the ' Legals ' have no men to 
 put into them ; and they are all coming down 
 here to confer and see what arrangements can 
 be made. It 's a sad business, and would never 
 have happened had Scotland had a supreme 
 court of its own. 
 
 To-day Scotland beat So. Africa, 6 to 0, 
 Academy „ Fettes 21 to 5, 
 which fills me with content. 
 
 To Miss {F) 
 
 Edinburgh, l^th November 1906. 
 You would be greatly mistaken were you to 
 suppose that it was indifference which kept me 
 from answering your former letter from Devon- 
 shire. It has lain before me ever since it came.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 233 
 
 casting reproachful eyes at me and assuring 
 me that I should not have the pleasure of 
 receiving another until I answered it ; and 
 lo ! your abounding generosity has proved it 
 false. Thank you very kindly for your for- 
 giveness and for your most welcome letter. 
 I have been very busy, as I always am at the 
 beginning of a new session, and I have besides 
 had people staying with me — two of them from 
 America, a doctor and his son. 
 
 I am extremely glad to hear that you are 
 enjoying London. There are some fine musical 
 services, and some very good men in quiet 
 corners whom you won't have time to find out. 
 Have you seen the Tate Gallery and the Wallace 
 Collection, and how often have you gone to the 
 British Museum ? If you have only been once, 
 please don't tell me, as I don't want to lower 
 in any degree my opinion of you. To tell you 
 the truth, the things I like in London are the 
 streets, and Rotten Row, and the Museum, and 
 occasionally the Abbey and the House of Com- 
 mons — and the ZOO ! ! 
 
 Don't you think Edinburgh would really be 
 as enjoyable as Algiers — and much cheaper ? 
 I really thought you had some fine scheme for
 
 234 LATER LETTERS OF MARC5US DODS 
 
 returning here. I need not tell you it would 
 be a great joy to me. I always feel that you 
 stimulate me and do me good, because you are 
 far more responsive than most people. I will 
 still hope to see you again sometime, somehow, 
 somewhere ; if not, it will be a great and 
 melancholy blank in the few remaining days 
 of your affectionate . . . 
 
 To Miss [B) 
 
 Edinburgh, November 1906. 
 
 My class takes all my time except the tired 
 scraps I give to reviewing, but I am pleased 
 with my class. They are not geniuses, but 
 they are fine fellows, quite the kind to make 
 good ministers of, and several of them ministers' 
 sons . . . and very good looking, the best look- 
 ing year I have ever had ; and that is pleasing : 
 if we admire flowers ought we not also to admire 
 God's finest physical work, the human form ? 
 
 To the Same 
 {Postcard) 
 
 Edinburgh, November 1906. 
 Chrysostom dreamt your dream before you 
 
 ^
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 235 
 
 when he said ' Think of it, that Abraham and 
 Paul are waiting till you are perfected that they 
 may receive their reward ! ' Primasius also, 
 when he said that the * stola alba ' of the saints 
 was the endowment of love waiting for the rest 
 and gladly accepting the postponement of their 
 own consummation ; and best of all Herveus, 
 who says ' It is one body which waits to be 
 justified ; one body which is said to rise to 
 judgment.' Who put it precisely in your form 
 I don't know, but it is a common thought of 
 the mediaeval and patristic men. 
 
 To the Rev. Henry Sloane Coffin 
 
 Edinburgh, 3rd December 1906. 
 
 I have suffered a good many pangs for not 
 writing you sooner, although I know that your 
 home resources make you now independent of 
 all extraneous greetings. First let me thank 
 you for your account of your household, and 
 of the prosperity of your congregation — in 
 both of which I rejoice with you. Then let 
 me also thank you — for it was you, was it not ? 
 — for sending me Adams Brown's lecture, 
 which is excellent. I lent it at once to our
 
 236 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 Dogmatiker Mackintosh, and I am sure if it 
 had been in German he would have chuckled 
 and crowed over it. I think sometimes that if 
 we wanted to make a stir we should write in 
 German under some jaw-breaking name, for 
 in theology it is true that ' Far birds have fine 
 feathers.' This proverb does not account for 
 the manner in which our whole College, and 
 especially myself and Mrs. Lowe, have fallen 
 in love with your protege M'Clure. He is an 
 excellent sample of Yale's product, not that 
 he is a scholar or gifted with a superabundance 
 of theological faculty, but he would win the 
 heart of the most indifferent, and has worked 
 his way, or gently slid, into the affections of all 
 of us. His face is an introduction that opens 
 all hearts to him. He has gone to live in our 
 Settlement, and will see much there to interest 
 him. He is in earnest, and has a thousand 
 insoluble problems to pour out upon any willing 
 hearer. 
 
 We hope to get back to our own quarters on 
 1st January, and it will be a blessing to have an 
 end of this fiasco. 
 
 I hope you have got through the first term 
 of your session happily, and are finding that if
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 237 
 
 matrimony takes away some of your time, it 
 so enriches your remaining hours that you are 
 even professionally incalculably the gainer. 
 I am so glad that I have seen Mrs. Coffin, and 
 can picture your home. I suppose she is not 
 allowed to attend your lectures. By the way, 
 how is Black getting on ? Well, I hope. Give 
 him my kind remembrances, and tell him I 
 hear every Saturday the moans and groans of 
 his late colleague striving to find a successor. 
 
 There is nothing very interesting here. The 
 Highlands are in a deplorable state, and not 
 likely to be better soon. Bad blood which will 
 be there for two generations at least. We are 
 by no means through the wood yet, even with 
 the loss of about half a million sterling, which 
 will clean us out and leave all our funds 
 bankrupt. 
 
 The usual autumn floods of books have 
 prevailed, but so far as I am concerned have 
 produced nothing of great moment — though 
 Burkitt's Gospel History is well written and at 
 points suggestive. There are also some good 
 articles in Hastings' new Dictionary, alongside 
 of some fairly poor ones. But as all my opinions 
 of books go into The British Weekly, which I
 
 238 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 suppose you still see, I need not bore you with 
 them. 
 
 This year I am taking the first and second 
 years together, as the first year is the smallest 
 in the history of the College ; and I have no 
 senior class at all. They will come to me next 
 session, if all's well. So I am working away 
 at the Gospels and Teaching of Jesus. I have 
 a fine class — more up to the ideal standard of 
 character than almost any I have had — and 
 certainly the best looking set of men we have 
 had for long. 
 
 I hope you and Mrs. Coffin are seriously 
 meditating a visit to this side next summer. 
 You know what a joy it would be to me. I fear 
 my crossings are over — for though I get along 
 without colds or sickness, I do not feel that I can 
 stand so much as I could even a few years ago. 
 
 Macgregor has been giving us four very fine 
 lectures on Daniel. 
 
 To Miss {F) 
 
 Edinburgh, 21th January 1907. 
 I am taking advantage, you see, of your 
 kindness in giving me an address which will
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 239 
 
 reach you; and I am grateful that you have 
 not just flown off into space and left us doubtful 
 whether you are on this planet at all. 
 
 I should like to see you flitting about Paris 
 and enjoying the beauty and the stir. It 's 
 one of the best places for a holiday, and one of 
 the worst for a permanent residence, I should 
 think, although I greatly enjoyed three months 
 of it in the year 1854 ! ! Have you read The 
 Scarlet Pimpernel ? or 7 Will Repay ? They are 
 both by Baroness Orczy, and both about Paris, 
 and both delightful. But oh ! to be hanging 
 round those fascinating book trays and stalls 
 on the Quai Voltaire, where I used to prowl and 
 pick up odd and unknown things that called 
 themselves books. Paris is quite worth doing 
 thoroughly, and I suppose you have friends who 
 know it well. Much has been wiped out and 
 is no more, but much remains ; and what ideal 
 and never to be forgotten days one can spend 
 at Versailles and Fontainebleau and St. Cloud. 
 Oh ! would that one's youth could return ; 
 but the next best thing is to know that young 
 people are enjoying it all as much as we used 
 to do. 
 
 You can't imagine how pleased I am to hear
 
 240 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 that you will really come back here. Be sure 
 you let me know with some exactness what 
 time you expect to visit us. I will very gladly 
 keep any fortnight you name, or any month, 
 free from engagements, and be free to enjoy 
 your company fully. 
 
 You will not take very well to a settled life 
 after all this globe-trotting, but to settle will 
 itself be a change, and after a while one gets 
 tired of packing and re-packing, and changing 
 hotels and countries and languages. I hope 
 your brother is doing a ' roaring trade ' though 
 he is not a dentist, and that his wife has accepted 
 an American accent. 
 
 Now I need not write more, for no amount 
 of added words could carry more sincere affec- 
 tion than these already written, and I hope 
 you are already impressed with a sense of the 
 imperative necessity of writing soon and often 
 to your sincere friend . . . 
 
 To his son Harry 
 
 Edinburgh, 2nd February 1907. 
 
 I wrote half a letter to you at College two 
 days ago, and have left it there, which won't
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 241 
 
 do you much good. It is so pleasant to have a 
 snug little retiring room once more that I have 
 been using it a good deal, but I see it has its 
 disadvantages, and I won't write you again 
 there. 
 
 I am longing for Monday to hear if you have 
 any tidings, though I am naturally not a very 
 hopeful person, I fear. Things have come to 
 myself always in a remarkable way — not always 
 the things I wanted, but still, I suppose, the 
 right things, and in the main things that have 
 suited me — so I am inclined to trust, perhaps 
 a little too much, to Providence managing things 
 for me. 
 
 To the Rev. Henry Shane Coffin 
 
 Edinbukgh, \%th Februury 1907. 
 
 I hope that by this time your neuritis is 
 deep buried in the past — but I am distressed 
 to think of you doing three men's work with 
 this ailment in the background. I can't ask 
 you to slack ; both because I know you would 
 not do it though you were asked, and also 
 because I know your work would be so much 
 missed. But were there any feasible way of 
 
 Q
 
 242 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 lightening it I hope Mrs. Coffin will compel 
 you to adopt such a way. 
 
 I doubt if I ever thanked you for Adams 
 Brown's Theology, although I have been en- 
 joying it much. It suits me. Perhaps that is 
 not high praise, but I find it interesting and 
 helpful. I like its up-to-dateness and its 
 lucidity, and its bringing everything to book, 
 by bringing it into touch with what is real and 
 human. I have been finding much in Shailer 
 Mathew's The Messianic Hope in the New Testa- 
 ment, and gleaning once more Baur's great Neu- 
 testamentliche Theologie. He is bigger than his 
 children. I see Hilgenfeld is gone at last — main- 
 taining his flag to the end ; an able warrior. 
 
 If you indulge in the luxury of having Mrs. 
 Coffin read to you in the evenings, ask her to 
 read Gilbert Murray's translations of Euripides. 
 Four of the plays are out, and are the finest 
 translations of any kind I have ever read. They 
 have driven me to the originals, and I have read 
 several plays this winter — not of Euripides, but 
 of Sophocles. Of course I have the excuse of 
 being obliged to maintain a Greek atmosphere, 
 though the pickings for the illustration of the 
 New Testament are few and far between.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 243 
 
 I greatly fear I must give up all expectation 
 of crossing the Atlantic again. I live a great 
 deal in 13 W. 57th Street, and had you spiritual 
 vision you would see me prowling about in the 
 charming library, and I know a week or two 
 with you and Mrs. Coffin would be worth a 
 year's ordinary life, and I don't dread the 
 voyage at all, but I have a feeling that at my 
 age it would be rash, and if I did take ill on 
 your hands I could only blame myself. So 
 you will come over, won't you ? I '11 try and 
 entertain you, though now-a-days of course 
 you carry your entertainment with you. But 
 it would be a great delight to me and to many 
 others. 
 
 I lectured the other day on the Limitations 
 of Christ's Knowledge ; it took me two lectures ; 
 the men were grave and earnest, and I think 
 perhaps convinced. 
 
 It 's a shame to ask you to write when you 
 have so much to do, but I think if you knew 
 how very greatly I enjoy your letters you would 
 continue to be kind to your ever affectionate . . . 
 
 PS. Have you read Kaftan's Jesws undPaulus ? 
 — very good criticism of Bousset and Weinel.
 
 244 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 To a Granddaughter, aged 6 
 
 Edinburgh [early in 1907]. 
 
 My dear Beth, — I could not imagine what 
 the fat little letter that came for me this morn- 
 ing was, and you may guess I was pleased when 
 I saw your kettle-holder. It is beautiful, and 
 I am astonished that you could make it. 
 
 Uncle Marcus and Uncle Frank are very much 
 pleased to have your love, but the kisses they 
 won't have from me, but wait till you can give 
 them yourself, and these will of course be much 
 sweeter. 
 
 Do you know that Bobbin has been so unwell 
 that Uncle Frank has had to leave her at the 
 Veterinary College to see if the Professors 
 there can cure her. Doodle, our little dog, 
 ran all over the house this morning and could 
 not make out what had become of her. 
 
 Now I must run off to my classes, but again 
 thank you for your kind gift. 
 
 Much love and kisses to you and Marcus from 
 
 Your Grandfather. 
 
 To Miss {A) 
 
 Edinburgh, Zrd March 1907. 
 I fear you are yourself not quite in the
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 245 
 
 condition your friends would wish. There must 
 be a meaning, and a good one, for your long 
 suffering, and we know that the dearest of all 
 God's children had but a sorry time of it, and 
 yet- 
 To be sympathised with is sometimes distaste- 
 ful, and yet I cannot help saying how con- 
 stantly I think of you and how keenly I long 
 for your deliverance from all darkness and 
 trouble. Light is sown for the upright, and 
 though long in appearing must appear. And 
 I often think that after all and with all, you are 
 you, one in whom we all delight, rejoicing to 
 know that such natures are possible. Nothing 
 can alter that. And as we feel with and for 
 you day by day, God must be doing so with 
 His infinitely wiser and more penetrating love. 
 
 To Miss (E) 
 
 Edinburgh [Sth March 1907]. 
 To-day we have buried the Principal of our 
 College, Dr. Rainy, the greatest Scotsman we 
 have had for a while. It is quite on the cards 
 that I succeed him, as the big men are all gone. 
 I am sorry it comes to me, for I don't wish any
 
 246 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 more responsibility than I have. It will be 
 settled by the Assembly in May. If I am 
 appointed you will need to look up to me more 
 than you have ever before dreamt of doing ! 
 
 To a Granddaughter, aged 4 
 
 [Edinburgh, March 1907.] 
 
 My very dear Grand-daughter Edith 
 Marcia Gray, — I, Marcus Dods, of 23 Great 
 King Street, Edinburgh, humbly apologise for 
 not sending you any present on your birthday. 
 It was indeed bad of me, for I am very very 
 glad you were born (where would you be if you 
 had not been born ? Ask Jessie to tell you, for 
 I can't), and I am sure a great many people 
 will be glad, for you are going to make a lot 
 of people happy, are you not ? And do you 
 know the best way to make people happy ? It 
 is to be happy yourself. And do you know 
 the best way to be happy yourself ? It is to 
 try to make other people happy. Isn't that 
 funny, and doesn't it make your head spin ? 
 
 But what would you like for a birthday 
 present ? Will you wait till you come to 
 Edinburgh ? Then we can go out together and
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 247 
 
 buy something. But if you wish it now you 
 must write a nice letter and let me know. 
 Indeed, you must write me a nice letter at any 
 rate, for I have never had a letter from you 
 since you were four years old — think of Edie 
 being four years old. Why, you will soon 
 make up to Kitty if you go fast enough. 
 
 I am longing very much to have you here, 
 but perhaps I may come to Manchester before 
 you come, and I '11 see both you and B'lig and 
 the canary, and also Marcus, who. Mother tells 
 me, is a dear little boy, but how could he help 
 being good, having such a well-behaved sister 
 to play with ? 
 
 When did you see ' Quelland ' ? or does he 
 never come to see you now that he has a little 
 baby of his own ? 
 
 Please thank your Mother for her letter and 
 ask her if I could come to see her on my way 
 to London, where I must be on the 13th April. 
 
 Now good-bye, my dear little girl. Don't 
 grow too fast, because I like you very much as 
 you are. Do you think you can be better and 
 nicer when you are five ? You can try. 
 
 In any case I am no doubt ever your loving 
 grandfather . . .
 
 248 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 PS. 100,000,000,000, that is, a hundred 
 thousand million kisses, which it will take all 
 the rest of my life to give you. 
 
 To Miss {A) 
 
 Edinbtjrgh, 29f/i March 1907. 
 
 Please remember me to your cousin. I 
 admire the ' grammarians ' who are content to 
 add one solid stone to the permanent temple of 
 knowledge instead of twittering round it like 
 so many swallows and only attracting attention 
 to themselves. That you should honour me by 
 sending one of your three copies ^ to me and 
 one to him, is more than I deserve — but lean 
 admire where I cannot rival. 
 
 To Mrs, Watson 
 
 Edinbukgh, 29^^ March 1907. 
 
 Thank you very heartily for flowers and 
 letters. I am not surprised Dr. Watson feels 
 the burden of his eighty-five years. I hope he 
 also has some consciousness of the aroma of 
 goodness and wisdom he has diffused during 
 these years, inspiring and gladdening so many. 
 
 1 Of a translation by the recipient of the letter.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 249 
 
 The impulse he has given to the most receptive 
 and capable men, like Mackintosh and Athol 
 Gordon, is quite unique, as you know. 
 
 To Miss (D) 
 
 Edinburgh, ZOth March 1907. 
 
 In your flight across the Continents I tried 
 to catch you with a letter at Calcutta, but from 
 what I have since heard of your movements 
 I fear it must have fallen far short of you. 
 If it has overtaken you my admiration of 
 Thomas Cook & Sons will be multiplied four- 
 fold. This goes to Hong Kong (where it is 
 said the English have caught their French 
 accent), but as you may be at Tokio or 
 Vancouver before it gets halfway I am not going 
 to expatiate, but merely to ask you to be kind 
 enough to write when you get home. This 
 whirling round everywhere must make you 
 dizzy, not to say giddy; that I suppose you 
 never are. But what a gallery of pictures and 
 memories you must have acquired. You could 
 sit quietly all your life now and brood on what 
 you have seen and experienced. 
 
 Do you keep a diary ? If not, you must settle
 
 250 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 somewhere and write down your reminiscences. 
 You can't imagine what a pleasure it would be 
 to read it afterwards. 
 
 Good-bye. I am glad to think that Good- 
 ness and Mercy follow you, and can travel as 
 fast as you and catch you up in the queerest 
 places. That I could do the same is the con- 
 stant wish of yours ever . . . 
 
 To Miss {F) 
 
 Edinburgh, Zrd April 1907. 
 
 It makes me very glad to think you are having 
 so gorgeous a time, and the photos and word or 
 two you found time to send help me to realise 
 your enjoyment still more. How I wish I could 
 have been with you to share it, and to enjoy 
 your enjoyment. I have quite stopped going 
 abroad, not solely because I am too old to knock 
 about, but because a solitary with no one to 
 gush to might as well stay at home. 
 
 I should have written to you long ago, but 
 winter is pretty busy with me, and after writing 
 all day one is glad to lay down the pen. We 
 have now finished our session, and I go to 
 England for two or three weeks. Then my
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 251 
 
 daughter and her children come to me, then my 
 son and his children and wife, and then a dear 
 
 girl from at present rambling in Italy. 
 
 Remember, you promised to come and see me 
 before you return to shine on . 
 
 Do you ever feel ashamed of having so much 
 enjoyment while others are slaving in squalid, 
 dark, lonely places scarcely able to get bread and 
 tea by working eighteen hours a day ? Well, 
 you need not be ashamed. On the contrary, 
 by enjoying to the utmost and seeing and 
 knowing all you can, you bring back an enriched 
 self, (though you were always good enough 
 for me), and resume your place in your society, 
 and necessarily enrich it. You can't keep it 
 all to yourself even though you would. You 
 are growing a larger-minded, more thoughtful 
 woman, and that is your best preparation for 
 being helpful wherever your lot may be cast. 
 Only I hope you won't take root in France or 
 Italy — America needs you. 
 
 I fancy you will now be trying to get the 
 Pope's blessing, or at any rate a sight of him, 
 in Rome. But there are so many things there 
 more worth seeing that if you miss him you 
 won't be much the poorer. Give my love to
 
 252 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 the dear old statues, the Dying Gladiator, and 
 the sitting Agrippina, and Sophocles and all 
 the rest. But don't give it all to the marble, 
 but keep a great deal to yourself, and try and 
 write again to your very affectionate . . . 
 
 To Miss {B) 
 
 Manchester, April 1907. 
 The disease, which is a masterpiece of the Pit, 
 goes on tearing me to bits with cough, filling 
 my limbs with lead and jumps, and running up 
 a nice temperature with the accompaniment of 
 headache, and yet you ' only half pity me.' 
 Oh ! you hard hearts, ye cruel women of Foun- 
 tainbridge. Last night I had 343 different 
 sleeps, each of them with a dream for which 
 see Job 'passim. My doctor spent his forenoon 
 church with me, reading bits of Du Bose, JEs 
 Triplex and Whittier. 
 
 To a Granddaughter, aged 4 
 {Postcard) 
 [Manchester, 2nd May 1907.] 
 Ten Commandments for Edith M. Gray. 
 
 1. Obey Jessie. 
 
 2. Take your snuff.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 253 
 
 3. Be kind to Doodle. 
 
 4. Lend or give your toys to Arthur and 
 
 Marcus. 
 
 5. Please your hostesses, Jessie, Margaret, 
 
 and Jane. 
 
 6. Love and kiss your Uncle Frank. 
 
 7. Be grateful to Tattie, Aunt Marcia, and 
 
 all who ask you to tea and make you 
 happy. 
 
 8. Pray for all who love you. 
 
 9. Especially for Mother, Daddy, and Jessie. 
 10. Love and write to 
 
 Your Grandfather. 
 
 To the Rev. Prof. H. R. Mackintosh 
 
 26 Haeley House, 
 Regent's Pabk, London [15/A May 1907]. 
 
 It is most kind of you to send me so long and 
 interesting a letter, and I am grateful. Such 
 letters are at present the most acceptable form 
 of literature ; though I am getting better able 
 to read what may feed my work. I am go- 
 ing over 2nd Corinthians with some care to 
 pick out suggestions regarding Paul's character 
 and methods, and I find it most interesting. 
 Raleigh's Shakespeare is the book of the spring.
 
 254 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 In this lovely and well-equipped flat I have 
 found the Report for 1905-6 of the Egyptian 
 Exploration Fund, and there are some valuable 
 pickings in it. 
 
 Your Oxford adventure is most entertaining, 
 and really it was worth missing your train to 
 elicit so substantial a kindness. I am glad 
 you saw Rashdall and the others you name. 
 Few things brace one mentally with so true a 
 tonic. Fairbairn is most kind and suits his 
 post to perfection, and Bartlet is a dear fellow. 
 You will have opportunities for the next thirty 
 years of cultivating Oxford, and you will find 
 it as profitable as Germany. 
 
 I have been warned by my doctor against 
 going back to Edinburgh too soon, and I mean 
 to take a week at Wark-on-Tyne with my niece, 
 Mrs. Young. But Frank sails for Canada on 
 the 31st, leaving Edinburgh on the 30th, so I 
 must be home before he goes. He is going 
 out with good letters of commendation, and 
 he has made some excellent friends — quite 
 notably good fellows, who will do what they 
 can for him — so I hope he will find some- 
 thing which may attract him and be worth 
 while doing.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 255 
 
 Thomson is indeed a great loss. Even in his 
 crippled state he was fuller of practical wisdom 
 and affection than most other men, and we shall 
 feel our little circle sadly broken. Then my 
 oldest college friend, the one man who called me 
 by my first name, is gone — John Cunningham, 
 one of the best of men, humble, hard-work- 
 ing, devoted, and a thoroughly good scholar. 
 William Miller too is much disabled, and others 
 illustrate the rapidity with which one generation 
 gives place to another. But the new men are 
 in many respects better than the old ; and in 
 our own Church I think we may look forward 
 with good heart and hope. 
 
 To Miss {D) 
 
 [Wark-on-Tyne], l^th May 1907. 
 Your very kind, full and interesting letter 
 from Hong Kong of the 14th April reached me 
 the day before yesterday, which seems quick. 
 I wrote to Hong Kong on the 29th March, so 
 I am in hopes that the Bank to which it was 
 addressed may still be able to find you. Since 
 then I have been chiefly employed in fighting
 
 256 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 influenza, from which I am only now slowly- 
 emerging. It is a fiendish disease, and I was 
 run down when it attacked me. Happily I 
 was with my daughter in Manchester and so was 
 well looked after, and now I am on my way back 
 to 23 Great King Street. 
 
 I am much interested in what you say about 
 the different types of Buddhas you see ; gods 
 made in man's image. But even in Christianity 
 this continues, for though we have God in 
 Christ, each of us tends to see in Him only what 
 we wish to see. It is amazing on the one hand 
 to see how little Christians understand Christ ; 
 and on the other hand to see how instinctively 
 men of all religions adore what is good, and how 
 often they seek to possess it. It's a strange, 
 unintelligible world, and the one fixed point on 
 which hope can rest is that God is Father of 
 all. If it is not so, then the solid firmament 
 truly is rottenness, and ' earth's base built on 
 stubble ' — but if it is so, then what may not 
 human existence become ? And the grand 
 element, or one grand element, in God's Father- 
 hood is what Christ shows us, that we not only 
 are like Him but may hour by hour draw our 
 life from Him.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 257 
 
 Now I need not write more, as this may fall 
 into the hands of the Mikado or one of his 
 post-office clerks. I am very grateful to you 
 for finding leisure to write so fully amidst your 
 quickly changing scenes and much engagement. 
 
 To Mrs. Watson 
 
 Wark-on-Tyne, 2Uh May 1907. 
 
 This is hateful paper and I cannot write 
 much on it, but I must at any rate thank you 
 for your long, kind, and interesting letter. It 
 was very good of you to use a portion of your 
 newly recovered strength to write to me. 
 
 Since I came here the weather has been 
 severe — cold east wind and a good deal of 
 rain, but it is so beautiful a country, and so 
 remote and quiet, that I have greatly enjoyed 
 it, and hope to go home to-morrow feeling 
 almost well, if not quite well. I have really 
 resumed work in a kind of way, for I have 
 just this morning finished a paper on Henry 
 Drummond for The Boston Congregationalist, 
 which is to publish a special number in his 
 memory. It has been very pleasant to live 
 with him again for a day or two.
 
 258 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 This spring has deprived me of some of my 
 oldest friends — last of all, Robert Cochran of 
 Glasgow, who died suddenly on Monday, one 
 of the very best of men, unostentatious, but full 
 of kindness and Christian feeling, and ceaselessly 
 doing good. 
 
 I am sorry to hear of Dr. Watson being still 
 tormented, and hope he may soon get rid of 
 his trouble. Has Hutton's Pilgrims in the 
 Region of Faith been read to him ? I think 
 he would relish it. The second half of Mrs. 
 Bosanquet's The Family is also interesting and 
 profitable. Does he ever give time to a novel ? 
 If so, Framley Parsonage will stand a second 
 reading. 
 
 To R. R. Simpson ^ 
 
 Edinbtjrgh, 27th May 1907. 
 I am in receipt of your note asking me when 
 I can come and intimate my acceptance of the 
 Principalship of New College. As I am still 
 weak and shaken by recent illness, I trust it 
 will not be considered discourteous if I signify 
 my acceptance thus by letter rather than in 
 
 ^ Depute-Clerk to the General Assembly of the United Free 
 Church,
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 259 
 
 person. The Assembly will, I am sure, under- 
 stand that I am grateful, and that I have a 
 very keen sense of the trust reposed in me. I 
 can only say that I hope, by God's help and 
 through the support of my Colleagues and of 
 the Students of New College, to be in some 
 degree instrumental in maintaining it in its 
 present high state of efficiency. As regards the 
 association of my name with that of those great 
 men who have made the office illustrious, prob- 
 ably the less said the better. 
 
 To Mrs. {G) 
 
 Edinburgh, 2Qth May 1907. 
 I am accustomed to think you the wisest 
 of women, and therefore incomparably wiser 
 than any man, but when I find you congratu- 
 lating the Church on the appointment of a 
 broken down man of seventy-three, I begin to 
 * hae ma doots.' However, you are saved by 
 abstaining from congratulating me. Why I 
 should be congratulated I fail to see. 
 
 Everything in life has come to me too late. ] 1 
 
 I hope you are all flourishing, and hope also 
 that the fresh east wind we are pretending to
 
 260 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 enjoy and really shivering over, may draw 
 you in soon to have a good talk with your 
 ever affectionate but at present burdened with 
 sixty letters to answer ... 
 
 To his daughter, Mrs. Gray 
 
 Edinbitrgh, \st June [1907]. 
 
 Your telegram was very welcome. I was glad 
 to hear that Frank had not missed the boat, 
 or anything. He would tell you what a great 
 send-off he had from the Battery. I am rather 
 low. He makes a great difference in the house, 
 but I suppose he was right to follow his instincts. 
 I am sure there 's gipsy blood in us somewhere, 
 or Irish or French through Pallisers, and his 
 worry and impatience with settled ways must 
 be forgiven. It 's a bit of this big, unintelligible 
 world. 
 
 I am at my seventy-ninth letter of thanks for 
 congratulations, and feel pretty sick of pen and 
 very tired, so you will excuse this scrawl. 
 
 Here comes in your delightful long letter. I 
 can't tell you how glad I am that you saw Frank 
 off. I am sure it would cheer him immensely. 
 
 I am always going back to those truly de-
 
 LATER LETTERS OF IVMRCUS DODS 261 
 
 lightful days I had with you, for which influ- 
 enza was a small price to pay. 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. James Colder Macphail 
 
 Edinbtteqh, 5th June 1907. 
 
 No congratulations are more valuable to me 
 than yours, not only because you are now almost, 
 if not altogether, my oldest friend, but because 
 your sincerity and courage and wisdom have 
 shone before me all my life, and helped me to 
 whatever fragments of right purpose can be 
 found in me by diligent search. 
 
 I am glad to hear you are improving in health, 
 and that summer (if it ever comes) may be 
 expected to let you out once more into the 
 open air — which is the true atmosphere for old 
 and young. 
 
 With kindest remembrances to you all, I 
 remain ever your affectionate . . . 
 
 To his son Frank 
 
 Edinbubgh, 5th July 1907. 
 
 This is my fifth letter to you. I cannot think 
 what has become of the other four, but I am
 
 262 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 very glad that you are yourself writing so con- 
 stantly, and that you have already secured a 
 berth. I wrote a very nice grateful letter to 
 you in one of my recent wakeful nights, but so 
 long as I employ my present amanuensis I am 
 quite unable to expose my feelings, which I 
 know would meet with ridicule and contempt. 
 My employment of any amanuensis, good, bad, 
 or indifferent, sympathetic or contemptuous, 
 literal-minded or imaginative, is due to the fact 
 that for nine days now my own paws have 
 been chained up by a pleurisy which makes the 
 least motion rather a torture. I think, however, 
 I have now got to the windward side of it, and 
 hope shortly to see it go entirely under. All 
 your letters have been immensely interesting, 
 and I hope you have been as interested in seeing 
 the things that you describe in so interesting 
 a way, but your most interesting communication 
 is of course your cable of yesterday that tells 
 us that you have got work. I do hope that the 
 post is one that has an outlook, and which 
 already is remunerative enough to support you. 
 My scribe is so ribald and weary that I hasten 
 to close, but hope to write soon again with my 
 own hand.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 263 
 
 To the Same » 
 
 Edinburgh, 2Uh July 1907. 
 
 The last news I have had of you is from your 
 letter to Mamie giving the details of your 
 expenditure on food. Please don't carry your 
 economy too far. You have your first severe 
 winter to face, and you should be in good 
 condition. Some of our students permanently 
 injure their health by underfeeding. So be 
 cautious. In order to be successful it is not 
 absolutely necessary that you begin in starva- 
 tion and rags. Have you made any friends you 
 can spend your evenings with ? Be sure you 
 say. I sent you The Academy Chronicle for 
 this month, in which the Battery wails over 
 your departure. 
 
 I am now allowed to sit up with my clothes 
 on, but I am very weak still, and see no im- 
 mediate prospect of getting away for a change. 
 
 Mrs. Lowe has been extraordinarily kind 
 while I have been ill, coming almost every day 
 to write my letters and to talk. 
 
 I hope you don't find the office work too 
 irksome in the heat. Please give as much 
 detail as you can about yourself, and whether
 
 264 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 you have any games or relaxation in the 
 evenings. 
 
 I must not write more, but this carries much 
 love and constant good wishes from . . . 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. Alexander Whyte 
 
 Edinburgh, 2nd August 1907. 
 
 My Augustine apparatus is a little out of date, 
 and mostly French and German — the French 
 books are very good, especially Poujoulat. I 
 send you Farrar, though I presume you have 
 it. He is really very good. The other two, 
 M'Cabe and Cunningham, will at any rate give 
 you something to contradict. My copy of 
 Mozley's Augustinianism has mysteriously dis- 
 appeared — some unscrupulous student has no 
 doubt taken a fancy to it ! There is nothing 
 better or so good on the Confessions as John 
 Gibb's preface to his edition. He will send you 
 it in proof if you ask him. Macaulay too 
 could write you a suggestive letter. 
 
 Augustine with all his faults had three merits 
 which almost compensate for his hard logical 
 theology. 
 
 1. He loved God — for all that out-pouring
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 265 
 
 in the Confessions and elsewhere was not mere 
 rhetoric nor undiluted sentiment. He really 
 had God always before him, and loved Him. 
 
 2. He re-discovered Paul, who had been so 
 mysteriously shelved for three centuries. 
 
 3. He had literary genius — no one could put 
 into more final form whatever thoughts he 
 had. 
 
 I wonder if Mrs. Whyte has all Father Tyrrell's 
 books ? I wonder also if you and she have 
 read Inge's Truth and Falsehood in Religion. 
 
 This illness has robbed me of what little germ 
 of religion I had. But perhaps it is foolish to 
 estimate the amount of religion by the value 
 of the thoughts one has about it. I think 
 Thackeray knew more of God's grace than 
 Augustine, when he says, when he was thought 
 to be dying, ' I was as easy in mind, and as 
 trustful of God and as confident in His wisdom 
 and mercy, as St. Augustine, or St. Teresa, or 
 Lady Huntingdon, or the Rev. Caesar Malan. 
 ... As you and I send for our children, mean- 
 ing them only love and kindness, how much 
 more Pater Noster.' That seems to me just the 
 whole matter. But I am low and down, and 
 can't see anything truly.
 
 266 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 To the Same 
 Edinburgh, 2Qth August [1907]. 
 
 Thank you very much for the Matthew 
 Arnold, which I found awaiting me last night on 
 my return home. It is a good shilling's worth. 
 
 My fortnight in Northumberland has been 
 much broken by weather — wind and rain — but 
 no day have I been kept in the house. There 
 have always been bright bits, and often whole 
 days fine. 
 
 I mean to go away to some place near for 
 another week or ten days, as I am by no means 
 strong yet, and not up to work. 
 
 I hope you are having as good a time as you 
 usually have, and that all your household 
 enjoys good health. You should be a very 
 thankful man to have so many of your own 
 about you. Last night when I came home I 
 had no one but my faithful dog to greet me. 
 His joy was boundless, but I miss more and 
 more human companionship. I am far from 
 complaining — on the contrary I am most 
 thankful that Mamie and Harry are so satis- 
 factorily settled, and that I get from Frank 
 letters full of affection and hope.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 267 
 
 I have been living in one of the finest Manse 
 libraries I ever saw — all the right editions of the 
 best English literature, in excellent preservation, 
 clean and shining in fine calf — a delightful place 
 to browse, as I have been doing. Of profes- 
 sional reading I have just finished an admirable 
 survey of Hellenism in its relation to Judaism 
 by Wendland. How those Germans work — it 
 is amazing — the amount and the accuracy of 
 what they do. 
 
 To Thomas Ogilvie 
 
 Edinburgh, 21st Augiist 1907. 
 
 Your kindness is unfailing, and I am quite 
 humbled by it. Very many thanks for all. 
 I came home on Monday somewhat stronger, 
 but I am not yet fit for work. I fear I must 
 give up the idea of coming to Kepplestone. 
 My Doctor says I must avoid the east coast. 
 So I mean to go to Harry's to-day for a few 
 days, and then if I am fit, which is doubtful, 
 I will go to Pitlochry. 
 
 I am more vexed than you believe to give 
 up the idea of visiting you ; but the session 
 is coming near, and I dare not run any risk. 
 
 I hope you will enjoy your trip in the
 
 268 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 Lusitania. I am very glad to hear that Mrs. 
 Ogilvie is making progress, and I trust it may 
 continue, and that you may never know the 
 desolation of yours gratefully . . . 
 
 To the Rev. Henry Shane Coffin 
 
 Edinburgh, 30///, August 1907. 
 
 I have been ill this whole spring and summer 
 — last five months, six weeks in bed — first with 
 influenza, then with pleurisy, but as your festal 
 day, the 6th September, draws near, I must 
 stir myself to wish you increasing happiness 
 every year of your married life. I very often 
 think of you and your wife, and always with 
 pleasure and hopefulness. To celebrate the 
 day in a very small way I send you (at least I 
 asked Macniven & Wallace to send you) Inge's 
 Truth and Falsehood in Religion, which I hope 
 you have not already got. There are some 
 striking things in it. Have you read any of 
 Father Tyrrell's books ? He is writing too 
 much, but he is representative and has some- 
 thing to say. 
 
 The little reading I have done this summer has 
 been in the relation of Hellenism to Christianity, 
 especially Wendland's introductory chapters in
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 269 
 
 J. Weiss' Neues Testament. For a survey of the 
 whole field nothing could be better. But more 
 inspiring is the volume published by Williams & 
 Norgate and containing addresses or papers by 
 Harnack and Herrmann. I am greatly helped by 
 them. 
 
 My introductory address will be a dull affair 
 on the desirable changes in our College cur- 
 riculum, and I know it will be breath wasted, 
 as no change will be made. 
 
 Frank is now in Winnipeg, and very anxious 
 that I should come out and see him next spring. 
 I think it unlikely that I shall be able to go so 
 far, but if I do I will look in upon you on the 
 way. 
 
 I hope you are standing your work well. 
 Don't try too much. Put yourself wholly into 
 Mrs. Coffin's hands. Give her my love and 
 tell her that if I could write her a letter half or 
 a tenth as pleasant as the one she wrote me, I 
 would write to her. 
 
 To Miss Emily G. Kemp, F.R.G.S. 
 
 [Ballyoukan Lodge, 
 Pitlochry], 3]st August 1907. 
 
 I hope by this time you have become hardened
 
 270 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 to the sea and to the German ship, and are 
 beginning to enjoy your experiences. I often 
 wonder how you and Miss Macdougall are 
 employed — mainly, I fancy, in examining maps 
 and determining routes. You may be thankful 
 even for such heat as that of the Red Sea ; 
 for more persistent cold I never felt than what 
 we have had here for months now. 
 
 I am trying to write an inaugural address, but 
 it gets very slowly on to paper, and looks very 
 dry when it gets there. However, people are 
 kind, and don't expect much. 
 
 I suppose Shanghai is one of the busiest 
 cities of China, and I try to think of you there 
 surrounded by yellow faces and invaded by 
 incredible and unconquerable odours ; but I 
 hope you are not too uncomfortable, and that 
 your companion's equable and cheery temper is 
 not too severely tried. Be sure you write up 
 your diary day by day, and don't disappoint 
 your publisher and the public who wait to get 
 some experience of unknown China at second- 
 hand. Any tit-bits that you can spare for so 
 hungry a mortal as I am will be highly prized, 
 if you can find time to select what you think 
 will specially suit a taste you know. I have an
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 271 
 
 impression your travels are going to be note- 
 worthy and will afford an opportmiity for the 
 utilisation of your gift of drawing and painting. 
 And what fun you two will have. It is so 
 useless going to even the funniest scenes if 
 you have no one to wink to, or to the most 
 beautiful if you can't see your admiration 
 reflected in another face. 
 
 Hoping to hear from you, and commending 
 my spirit to you as a frequent third in your 
 small party, I remain . . . 
 
 To Mrs. Lowe 
 
 [Edestburgh], Qth iSeptember [1907]. 
 
 My old bones were safely transferred to the 
 mouldy study yesterday. I comforted myself 
 for the pangs of leaving BaUyoukan by going 
 to tea at Lennox Street. Coming home through 
 India Place I could not but reflect how much 
 richer and more feeding are city smells than the 
 thin air of the heather-clad hills ; the views 
 too, how different — the bare, unpeopled, dead 
 expanse of moor, and the closely walled streets 
 with faces of your kind looking from every 
 window. But I must own to missing the cheery
 
 272 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 hostess, always down to greet me in the morning, 
 and the beloved daughters. Doodle is faithful 
 and happy, but — 
 
 Seriously I must thank you from the bottom 
 
 \ of my heart, also from the top, for your great 
 
 kindness in having me, and in putting up with 
 
 so inconvenient and uninteresting a guest. I 
 
 should never go from home nowadays. 
 
 To his son Frank 
 
 Edinburgh, 25th October 1907. 
 
 Until a few weeks back my first thought in 
 the morning always was that God would keep 
 in you a clean spirit and enable you to help 
 your fellows. Now my first thought is one of 
 thankfulness that God has prospered you so 
 liberally ; for to have the love of such a girl 
 is surely a greater possession than if you held 
 all Manitoba. Cherish her as God's gift to 
 you. 
 
 Unfortunately I am again down with pleurisy ; 
 high temperature and consequent sleeplessness 
 and loss of appetite for more than a fortnight 
 have pulled me down terribly. 
 
 I hope to write more soon.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 273 
 
 To Miss Crum 
 
 Edinburgh, 11th January 1908. 
 
 It is only with great difficulty I can as yet 
 write at all, but I must, however briefly, express 
 my profound sympathy with you in your pre- 
 sent distress and anxiety.^ I know that your 
 sorrow will all be interlaced with joy that that 
 singularly noble spirit has entered upon an 
 existence in which he will find perfect satisfac- 
 tion, freed from the limitations of which he 
 was so conscious, and living a full and perfect 
 life. And yet how much impoverished is this 
 world of ours by his removal. I never met 
 any one whose mind was so congenial, who so 
 understood difficulties and had the wisest way 
 of disposing of them. It was one of the great 
 experiences of life to sit and hear him talk, 
 however discursively, always with charity, width 
 of soul, and width and prof imdity of perception. 
 
 It has always been a great joy to me to see 
 how the younger men fell under his spell, Hugh 
 Mackintosh, Douglas Miller, James Paterson, 
 Athol Gordon, Carnegie Simpson, very unlike 
 one another, but equally owning his supremacy, 
 
 1 The Rev. Dr. Watson died at Northfield, Largs, on 14Lli 
 January. Mrs. Watson was seriously ill at the time. 
 
 S
 
 274 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 and counting it the great honour and experience 
 of their lives to have known him. No one so 
 surely lifted one into the right atmosphere ; 
 his finished courtesy, his knowledge, his wisdom, 
 his sheer and constant goodness, were for many 
 others a kind of new birth. 
 
 But of course you know and rejoice in all this, 
 and yet the blank now — well, well, you have 
 had grace for many a trial, and doubtless the 
 bitterness of this loss will be somehow sweetened 
 to you. May the spirit of our Forerunner be 
 with you and dear Mrs. Watson. I do trust 
 she may not be thrown back by this terrible 
 blow, but go on to perfect recovery. Please 
 convey to her, with whom and with yourself 
 my thoughts constantly are, my deepest sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 To the Rev. Prof. H. R. Mackintosh 
 {Postcard) 
 Manchester, 2^th February 1908. 
 Very many thanks for your refreshing letter. 
 I am not making much way. 
 
 Multa senem circumveniunt incommoda. 
 
 Multa ferunt anni venientes commoda secum, 
 Multa recedentes adimunt.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 276 
 
 I am not recuperating as a man of thirty would. 
 But the doctor here has a definite opinion as 
 to what is keeping me weak, and is treating me 
 accordingly. He gives me great hopes of good 
 from Devonshire air. 
 
 I hope you and yours keep clear of influenza 
 and all other ills. I hope to be in Redcliffe 
 Hotel, Paignton, Devon, by Friday afternoon, 
 where a letter will be most acceptable to . . . 
 
 To the Same 
 
 Hotel Redcliffe, 
 Paignton, 2nd March [1908]. 
 
 Your proposed 'pact' illustrates your char- 
 acteristic generosity, but I could not bear to 
 think of you as in any way tied to write me. 
 Meanwhile many thanks for the letter already 
 received. Your fears about your sermon in 
 
 St. Andrew's were quite unfounded. Mrs. 
 
 spoke in such terms of the service that I fear 
 to afflict you with swelled head by repeating it. 
 
 We are most comfortably housed here — 
 every one most attentive and the weather 
 moderating. To-day I sat out in the sun for 
 more than an hour, but the wind is still sharp
 
 276 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 and nippy. We are close to the sea. I could 
 even in my present enfeebled condition throw 
 a stone into the water from where I now sit, 
 supposing windows were removed. 
 
 I can't say that as yet I feel much stronger. 
 In fact I have to-day felt most disappointingly 
 weak, but of course I need not expect to be well 
 in a day, and I have not suffered from the long 
 and wearisome journey. 
 
 It 's an immense boon having Mamie with me 
 — indeed to be here alone would look towards 
 madness. The only theology I have with me is 
 Paradise Lost and Scott's Apologetic of the New 
 Testament, but as yet I can't read anything but 
 the most frivolous. There are lots of novels 
 lying about, but I 'm ashamed to say I have 
 read them all years ago. 
 
 Write soon and convey to our colleagues my 
 very sincere regard. 
 
 To the Rev. Henry Sloane Coffin 
 
 Hotel Redcliffe, 
 Paignton, Sth March 1908. 
 
 The above address will possibly indicate to 
 you the stage at which my recovery has arrived.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 277 
 
 I came south in three instalments, and took a 
 fortnight to the process. Here we are on the 
 sea just two miles south of Torquay in a most 
 comfortable hotel, and as I have my nurse and my 
 daughter with me I am weU looked after. I am 
 still extremely weak — a kind of humbling weak- 
 ness. I can't put on my own clothes yet, and 
 I can't walk a hundred yards without panting. 
 
 But why am I delaying to say what great 
 pleasure your letter gave me, conveying as it 
 did the glad news that you and Mrs. Coffin are 
 likely to be my guests this summer ? That will 
 indeed be a very great joy, and I trust that 
 nothing will intervene to prevent you coming. 
 
 All your other news is ecHpsed by this, but 
 I am much interested in the prospect of seeing 
 your assistant among us next winter. Whether 
 I shall be able to teach any more is doubtful, 
 but at all events I can see and talk with him. 
 
 Martin has been reading my lectures this 
 winter, and MacEwen takes my class two days 
 a week, and has got so enamoured of the work 
 that it would almost seem as if he would stand 
 for my Chair when it 's vacant. 
 
 Now I must not write more, as a very little 
 fatigues me stiU, but with love for yourself and
 
 278 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 Mrs. Coffin, and always kindest memories of the 
 57th Street household, I remain . . . 
 
 To the Rev. Prof. H. R. Mackintosh 
 
 Redcliffe Hotel, 
 Paignton, llth March 1908. 
 
 Your letters are as grateful as sunshine to 
 this coughing invalid pinned to his chair. Very 
 many thanks. May your reward come in forms 
 you relish — as come it certainly will in one form 
 or other. 
 
 I have sat out baking in a very hot sun for 
 three or four hours to-day, and I sleep with my 
 window wide open, and I eat like anybody else, 
 and yet I cough and remain weak. On the 
 whole I am more hopeful. This is a lovely spot, 
 and a most friendly and comfortable hotel, and 
 Mamie and Nurse are with me always. 
 
 Things, I suppose, must take their own way 
 and their own time. You have heard of the 
 minister who was praying for fine weather 
 when he was interrupted by a furious blast of 
 rain against the window. ' Weel, weel, hae your 
 own way o't, rain awa' and spoil a' the puir folk's 
 crops.' I feel rather like him. 
 
 I have been refreshed to-day by a visit from
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 279 
 
 that good man, Peter Purves. His son resides 
 in Exeter, and he comes frequently to this 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 What bothers me now is the thousand and 
 one minor ailments which ' do either accompany 
 or flow from ' the major disease and keep me 
 back from soundness of health. 
 
 The Findlaters in Torquay are very kind in 
 lending books, James' Pragmatism^ The Awaken- 
 ing of Helena Richie (very good), etc. I read 
 before I get up a little of Plutarch's Pericles, 
 and note things I missed before or have for- 
 gotten. It is full of good things, as when 
 Pericles is praised for his rw SwacrOac ^dpeiv 
 hrfixoiv Kol avvap^ovTOiv ayvcojxocrvvas (stupidities ? 
 cross-grained humours ?). 
 
 I hope you mean to take a complete holiday, 
 however short, after the session. It will pay 
 you to do so, and it will give you leisure to 
 write to me without feeling it a burden. 
 
 To Miss (B) 
 
 Paignton, 3Iarch 1908. 
 I am at no time a religious person, and I 
 seem during the last six months to have been 
 even unusually irreligious. At first I prayed a
 
 280 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 little for better health, but I soon stopped that 
 and fell back on my text, which seems to me to 
 contain the whole of religion, ' Who . . . though 
 He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by 
 the things which He suffered.' To obey, that is 
 to accept the spirit of Christ in the only form 
 I have any consciousness or knowledge of a 
 spirit of Christ. But I see no use in always 
 fussing about one's condition. God is kind, 
 and will do the best for us, and I am prepared 
 to respond as well as I know how by patience 
 when patience is called for. 
 
 As to joy, that depends largely on tempera- 
 ment and circumstances, and even where spirit 
 seems to triumph over physical illness and out- 
 ward distresses, it is still largely temperament. 
 At the same time our ideal, I know, should be a 
 life of joy, because of our belief that through 
 all muddle and wrong and sorrow God is working 
 out an eternal joy for us. 
 
 To the Convener of the College Committee 
 of the United Free Church 
 
 Hotel Redcliffe, 
 Paignton, 2\st March 1908. 
 
 Dear Sir, — In consequence of the state of
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 281 
 
 my health I find myself compelled, though 
 with the utmost reluctance and extreme regret, 
 to resign my Chair in New College. It seems 
 advisable that I should retain the Principalship, 
 and this, accordingly, I am willing to do. I 
 should also like to put on record my most 
 grateful sense of the generous and efficient 
 aid afforded me by my Colleagues, and of the 
 loyalty and affection of the Students. 
 
 To the Rev. Prof. H. R. Mackintosh 
 
 Hotel Redcliffe, 
 Paignton, 21st March 1908. 
 
 The die is cast, and I send in by this post 
 my resignation of my Chair, but your words 
 this morning clinching Martin's and MacEwen's 
 have prevailed, and I have not resigned the 
 Principalship. And so I am once again in the 
 position into which life has so often brought 
 me of being obliged to part with the thing I 
 like and cleave to the thing I do not care for. 
 I would rather not have the Principalship, much 
 rather not, and I greatly like teaching, and to 
 give up the one and keep the other is a real 
 grief to me, and strong evidence of your great 
 powers of persuasion.
 
 282 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 Another galling thing in this business is that 
 I now think it quite likely I may be fit for work 
 in October, but I cannot in the interests of the 
 College risk it. To fail again would be doubly 
 disastrous. But I feel pretty sure that, in 
 keeping with the usual contrariness of events, 
 I shall now gain strength rapidly, and possibly 
 see a man less (physicaUy) fit for the work 
 occupying my chair. 
 
 However, let me be thankful that I have held 
 it so long, and have had so many opportunities 
 of instilling truth into eager minds. Certainly 
 I have had the satisfaction of seeing our College 
 improve to an amazing extent. 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. Alexander Wliyte 
 
 Redcliffe Hotel, 
 Paignton, 22nd March 1908. 
 
 I hope you will be sorry to hear that I have 
 felt compelled to resign my Chair. Owing to 
 the urgent representations of my Colleagues, 
 I retain the Principalship — at least meanwhile; 
 that is, I retain what I dislike and abandon 
 what I love. Such are the ways of Providence, 
 which I do not pretend either to judge or to 
 explain.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 283 
 
 I am better in every way except my breath- 
 ing. I sit out many hours every day, and enjoy 
 it, but when I walk a few yards I begin to cough 
 and pant. 
 
 When Beveridge's book ^ begins to come 
 through the press you might tell them to send 
 me the proof, or send it yourself after correct- 
 ing it. 
 
 I get long and interesting letters from Mackin- 
 tosh and Martin. 
 
 I trust the closing of the College will come off 
 all right. 
 
 To the Rev. Adam C. Welch 
 
 Hotel Redcliffe, 
 Paignton, Is^ April 1908. 
 
 I have, as you suggested, written to Mr. 
 Dalmahoy falling in with the very kind sug- 
 gestion of the College Committee that I should 
 not at present press my resignation. It is an 
 act of extreme kindness on the part of the 
 Committee, and I very highly appreciate it. 
 I wish especially to thank you for the trouble 
 
 1 Makers of the Scottish Church, in the series of Handbooks for 
 Bible Classes (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh), of which Dr. Dods and 
 Dr. Whyte were joint editors.
 
 284 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 you have taken in the matter, and T most 
 ardently hope that the event will prove we are 
 not all mistaken. My medical advisers all 
 urged me not to resign and assured me that the 
 probabiUty was that I should be fit for work 
 in October, but my progress has been so 
 amazingly slow, and my present feeling is so 
 entirely a feeling of unfitness and weakness, 
 that I found it very difficult to accept their 
 opinion. I hope that as the months go by, 
 strength will come. 
 
 Believe me yours gratefully . . . 
 
 To his sister Andrea 
 
 Redcliffe Hotel, 
 Paignton, 5th April 1908. 
 
 I am very sorry to hear you have not been 
 so well since returning to your own house, but 
 I hope you may mend as the year processes. 
 Here I very often think of you, as my bed-room 
 window looks out on a lovely border overflowing 
 with primroses and another with six long rows 
 of tulips, brilliant red, but with no stalks at all, 
 just sitting on the ground. In the front of the 
 house, where I mostly sit frying in the sun,
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 285 
 
 there are no flowers, as the sea frequently comes 
 over the sea-wall and salts everything. 
 
 The Findlaters have been very kind in calling. 
 One or two other people have called, and I have 
 access to lots of books, and Kathie has been here 
 while Mamie has been away, so the days go past 
 very quickly. I have still my delightful Nurse 
 Innes. 
 
 Frank is now counting the days till he gets 
 married. He is so very happy that I sometimes 
 fear lest something may happen, but that is a 
 pagan feeling, as why should not he and every- 
 body else be happy ? I am sure we are meant 
 to be so. 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. Alexander Whyte 
 
 Redcliffe Hotel, 
 Paignton, 14th April 1908. 
 
 Aren't Macgregor's pubHshed sermons extra- 
 ordinary ? 
 
 I am glad you are getting away for a bit, 
 and hope you may go back strong and eager 
 for work. I was getting on so very slowly that 
 my nurse persuaded me to consult a lung 
 specialist in Torquay. He examined me, and
 
 286 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 says that the breathlessness and weakness will 
 go away, and that I shall be quite fit for work 
 again. Tliis is cheering, but meanwhile I have 
 to live in hope. 
 
 There are some cultured and right-minded 
 people here, and one can always have company ; 
 and there is a fairly good circulating library, 
 and I have a few books of my own, Harnack's 
 Sayings of Jesus, and Scott's Apologetic of the 
 New Testament. Then I have suddenly been 
 summoned by NicoU to send him my con- 
 tribution on Hebrews to his Greek Testament. 
 This takes all the strength I am able to spend 
 on serious subjects. 
 
 I read Gosse's Father and Son last week, and 
 greatly admire the simplicity of the style. It 's 
 a remarkable account of a remarkable childhood. 
 
 Write when you have time. 
 
 To the Same 
 
 Redcliffe Hotel, 
 Paignton, I8th April [1908]. 
 
 As to Origen, etc., of course you will read 
 the ordinary things, Smith's Biographical Dic- 
 tionary ; Cruttwell's Early Christianity ; Farrar's
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 287 
 
 Fathers, and especially the book of another 
 English Dean whose name I can't recall, though 
 I can direct you to the place in my shelves 
 where his book lies. Of monographs, on 
 Origen, Fairweather will give you all that you 
 need. 
 
 On Athanasius, Gibbon's celebrated chapter 
 and Bright' s introduction to his edition of the 
 Treatises against the Arians. 
 
 On Chrysostom, Chase. 
 
 Dill's books will give you a good deal which 
 will serve by way of background to your 
 lectures. But as you say. Rainy outweighs 
 all for getting close to the men, their work 
 and their worth. 
 
 I am working away at Hebrews for Nicoll, 
 though still very breathless and weak. 
 
 Frank is to be married on Wednesday, and 
 I hope to see him ten days after. 
 
 Thank you for sending the Westminster on 
 Arnold. I quite agree that his day is not 
 spent — is not even at noon yet. I know I 
 learned much from him, and find many of his 
 poems utter for me what I would like to 
 say. 
 
 Write again soon.
 
 288 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 To the Rev. Prof. H. R. Mackintosh 
 
 Redcliffe Hotel, 
 Paignton, 22nd April 1908. 
 
 I write this on the principle of ' f anging the 
 pump,' as I have no news or reflections, but can 
 scarcely expect to hear copiously from you 
 unless I at least show that I appreciate your 
 letters. I hope you do not need to be told 
 that I do. Indeed the day your hand-writing 
 appears is marked with white. Nurse has 
 attained the power of discerning your writing, 
 and beams when she sees it, as she knows I '11 
 be good for the whole day after reading. 
 
 I have been reading Henry James' Partial 
 Portraits with much enjoyment, also Peake 
 on Hebrews with the greatest admiration. But 
 I don't get much read here. I can't read with 
 much comfort sitting in the sun. 
 
 I hear from Whjrte pretty often. He and 
 his are near Guildford. His present loves 
 are Lightfoot on Supernatural Religion and 
 Stanley's Eastern Church. A letter from Harry 
 Kennedy tells me what I knew already and 
 greatly regret, that he has declined the re- 
 quest from Chicago to take the New Testament
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 289 
 
 department for the summer term. Burton tells 
 me that Moffatt also has declmed. Oh that I 
 could go ! 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. Alexander Whyte 
 
 Redcliffe Hotel, 
 Paignton, 2Zrd April 1908. 
 
 A queer thing happened this morning. I had 
 ordered Gilbert's History of Interpretation ^ from 
 Thin, and opened a parcel from them in which 
 I found not the book I ordered but another 
 of Gilbert's books which I have had for years. 
 But on opening the parcel addressed by you, 
 in which I expected to find Stanley, I found the 
 very book I wanted, so that your generosity 
 has compensated for Thin's mistake. 
 
 Stanley has not yet arrived, but the posts 
 here are most irregular at present, and I am 
 still hopeful. 
 
 It is very gratifying to me to think that you 
 believe in my sympathy with your reading and 
 mental occupations, and I feel touched by it 
 away in this corner of the comitry. 
 
 As to taking Gilbert for an opening address, 
 I can't weU do that, as I myself have a course 
 on the History of Interpretation. 
 
 ^ The First Interpreters of Jesus. 
 T
 
 290 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 I am often very doubtful still whether I shall 
 be fit for an opening or any other lecture. I 
 seem to have got a crushing blow, and cannot 
 get back my strength. 
 
 I am getting on slowly with Hebrews, and am 
 reading Peake with the greatest admiration. 
 He has an extraordinary faculty for exposition, 
 and for a man so over-worked to produce work 
 so finished reflects great credit on his working 
 power. He seems to be obliged to do all kinds 
 of work. 
 
 I came across a clause in Henry James this 
 morning which would please you : ' Effort, 
 effort, always effort, is the only key to success.' 
 He has some excellent papers (Partial Portraits) 
 on George Eliot, Emerson, Daudet, Maupassant, 
 etc. 
 
 Kindest regards to all with you. 
 
 To Miss Crum 
 
 Hotel Redcliffe, 
 Paignton, 2Qt1i April 1908. 
 
 I would have written to you ere this had I 
 not been passing through a time of great weak- 
 ness, and had I thought I could say anything 
 which would be of the slightest help to you. I
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 291 
 
 do not write now because I think I can say 
 anything helpful, but because I cannot refrain 
 from saying how very deeply grieved I am that 
 you should have been called to suffer this very 
 great sorrow. It must seem as if your life 
 were emptied of all that is most vital in it. 
 I am sure that when the first poignancy of your 
 grief is past you will find endless satisfaction 
 in thinking of Northfield, so long the home of 
 all that is best in human nature and human 
 life ; where so many of us learned the courtesies 
 and kindnesses and hospitalities and intellec- 
 tual intercourse and spiritual tone which make 
 this world fit to live in. Your sister has had a 
 long, happy and fruitful life, making many 
 happy with the best kind of happiness, that 
 purifies and softens ; and that she should not 
 have been suffered to know any senile decay 
 is certainly a thing to be devoutly thankful 
 for. And must we not believe that husband 
 and wife, after so short a separation, are now 
 re-united in that unimaginable bliss for which 
 they were here prepared ? 
 
 God means that we should be glad, and the 
 extreme difficulty of being so is the test of our 
 loyalty to Him.
 
 292 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 May all good influences now and ever attend 
 you. 
 
 To the Rev. Prof, H, R. Mackintosh 
 
 Redcliffe Hotel, 
 Paignton, lOth May 1908. 
 
 I hope you are not setting me down as a 
 monster of ingratitude ; I really have the 
 usual wretched excuse that I have had still 
 another bad turn, temperature up night after 
 night, and a quite appalling weakness. Yester- 
 day and to-day I am feeling better, and have 
 been out in the sun most of the time. 
 
 I have got the whole MS. of Hebrews sent to 
 the printer now, and hope to get proofs imme- 
 diately. I am a good deal ashamed of it. 
 
 Nicoll has sent me for review my old and 
 dear friend John Gibb's edition of the Con- 
 fessions of Augustine in the original Latin. It 
 seems to me very admirably done. Evidently 
 Gibb has carefully studied Plotinus, and can 
 trace Augustine's Neo-Platonic phases better 
 than I have seen it done elsewhere. 
 
 But our great sensation here is the arrival of 
 Frank and his bride. They have been here for 
 a week. . . .
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 293 
 
 A letter from MacEwen tells me he is home 
 from a three weeks' cruise which he seems to 
 have greatly enjoyed and benefited by. I wish 
 I could have been with him. Here I am con- 
 tinually reminded of the woman in the Gospel 
 that spent all her living on many physicians 
 and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse. 
 Nurse says she wishes you were here as my 
 best tonic, for she thinks nobody cheered me up 
 or did me so much good as you. She is right. 
 
 . . . but we are all limited. That book of 
 Gibb's makes me feel entirely superficial, and 
 Peake in a few pages has said, and said per- 
 fectly, all that need be said about Hebrews, 
 However one must just ' fush awa'.' 
 
 To the portentous death-roll of this last 
 year another of my college friends is added, 
 Archibald Charteris — a good man. 
 
 When you have occasion you might thank 
 the ' Muftis ' ^ for their touching little greeting 
 to me from Moffat. 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. Alexander Whyte 
 
 Paignton, I2th May 1908. 
 I think it is quite heroic of Harry Miller to 
 
 ^ A clerical club of old New College men.
 
 294 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 think of the Wardenship,^ but several of our 
 young men are enthused by the hope of a 
 reconstructed society. It is not always easy 
 for my antiquated brain to keep pace with 
 Herbert Gray, but I am more and more per- 
 suaded he is in the main right, and that socialism 
 wisely directed has the future in its power, and 
 if it does not accomplish all it expects, it will 
 still cleanse society as it has never before been 
 cleansed. It would repay you to read Wells' 
 New Worlds for Old. No doubt Fred has a 
 copy. 
 
 Last week I was nearly despairing of getting 
 well ; but I am much better again, and hope I 
 may be able to come north in June. I am still 
 unaccountably weak. 
 
 Kindest regards to you all. 
 
 To the Rev. Prof. H. R. Mackintosh 
 
 Paignton, llth May 1908. 
 It is really disgraceful that I have not yet 
 sent congratulations to you and the Frau 
 Professorinn, and a word of welcome to the 
 new Professorinnchen. 
 
 ^ Of the New College Settlement, Edinburgh.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 295 
 
 I am very glad you are going to Oxford. 
 Sanday is a very lovable man, and you will 
 meet RaslidaU, Percy Gardner, and all the rest 
 of the royal family. If you don't already 
 know Carlyle, get to know him well ; there 
 is much good stuff in him. Have you seen the 
 volume these men have issued just now, 
 Anglican Liberalism ? If you read it you will 
 be en rapport with the line they are taking. 
 Carlyle' s pronounced socialism is interesting, 
 and I think a hopeful sign. How I wish I were 
 going with you. 
 
 To the Same 
 
 Edinburgh, 22nd July [1908]. 
 
 Your letter was most welcome and refresh- 
 ing, and it does me good to think of your 
 rides with Gossip, and especially of your stimu- 
 lating and strengthening 500 souls per diet. 
 Really ours is a grand profession, and recently 
 when I have been able to preach I have been 
 much more disposed to thank the minister for 
 giving me a chance of addressing people than 
 to expect thanks from him. 
 
 I am sitting up this afternoon, clothed and 
 I hope in my right mind, though of that I am
 
 296 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 not so sure, as my brain waggles a good deal, 
 and my voice is a ' childish treble,' but I suppose 
 time will bring that back. But now I have to 
 face those dreary weeks of convalescence, as 
 trying as those of sickness. 
 
 I am quite as anxious to have a talk with 
 you about the Christology of Hebrews. The 
 remarkable thing is that with so extraordinarily 
 free a handling of the humanity of Christ and 
 so pronounced a statement of His divinity, the 
 author should yet show no anxiety about recon- 
 ciling the two, or have any theory of incarnation. 
 His statement of Christ's divinity seems rather to 
 lean upon the Old Testament quotations of the 
 first chapter. Does that seem to you the origin of 
 his belief, and if so, is it not some precarious ? 
 
 I forget whether you take Kennedy's view of 
 the Philippian passage ? I satisfy myself about 
 it once in six months and fall into bewilderment 
 the other half of the year. 
 
 The passage from 2nd Corinthians which I 
 wanted you to translate is Chapter iv., verses 8 
 and 9. Some fanciful persons, like Hausrath (who 
 at any rate never fails to be interesting), think 
 the words anopovixevoL, Stw/co/xei'ot, KaTa/BaWofievoif 
 fit very well to the idea that Paul is recalling
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 297 
 
 how he was chased through the narrow streets 
 of Ephesus by an infuriated mob, at a loss to 
 find a way of escape, yet always finding one, 
 knocked down, yet not made an end of. Of 
 course the eV TravTl of V. 8 shows Paul did not 
 mean this, and yet it adds life and reality to the 
 passage. But what a time he must have had 
 in that city — 'so great a death,' 'always bearing 
 about the dying of the Lord Jesus,' etc. 
 
 I expect to be here for ten days yet, as I can't 
 move till I am a bit stronger, but I hope if this 
 weather continues, I shall get on faster now. 
 
 To compensate for the meagreness of this 
 I enclose one received from Martin this morn- 
 ing. He is having an excellent time, and no 
 man better deserves it. 
 
 Affectionate regards to yourself and Mrs. 
 Mackintosh. 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll 
 
 WiLLOWBANK, 
 
 Newtonmore, Ith August [1908]. 
 
 I have to thank you for your very kind letter 
 and for the parcel of books etc. which has just 
 come in. It is very gratifying to read what
 
 298 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 you say about my work in New College, though 
 I am aware much of what you say is due to 
 friendship — which after all is more than personal 
 success. 
 
 I think you are wise to propose to yourself a 
 period of comparative leisure. The strain of 
 your past years must have been tremendous, 
 and would tell heavily upon you if carried into 
 old age. 
 
 I don't know that I have much that would 
 do to publish. At least it would need to be 
 re-written. What has done for my classes was 
 often very hastily put together, and lacks vitality 
 and individuality. 
 
 Tired again. 
 
 To Miss Crum 
 
 Newtonmore, 26th August 1908. 
 
 Very many thanks for the lovely honey, 
 which I have already been sampling with enjoy- 
 ment. 
 
 I am sure Mackintosh's visit would be a great 
 delight ; he is so enthusiastic an admirer both 
 of Dr. and Mrs. Watson. I myself feel often 
 that such spirits cannot die. It may be an idle 
 fancy, but it is comforting and helpful.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 299 
 
 I cannot say I am getting rid of my cough, 
 but otherwise this place is doing me good. 
 Excuse weariness. 
 
 To Miss [D) 
 
 Newtonmore, 4//i September 1908. 
 
 Your good news has given me great pleasure, 
 and I very truly rejoice in your happiness. I 
 long for some one who knows you, to talk it 
 
 over with. A letter from this morning is 
 
 the nearest approach I can make to that, for 
 I am here in exile trying, vainly as yet, to throw 
 off an illness I have had for a year now. 
 
 You know what I think of married life, and 
 though it is difficult for me to look at it from the 
 woman's point of view, I have seen nothing on I 
 earth more beautiful, more worthy of admira- \ 
 tion, or more fitted to give one hope for our 
 race, than the manner in which good women 1 
 are able to give themselves away and find their i 
 fullest life and happiness in the life and happiness \ 
 of others. j 
 
 I can't write much, for I am sick and ill, but 
 I am sure you will believe me when I say that 
 I do most earnestly pray that your married life 
 may be a long ever-increasing joy.
 
 300 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 To the Rev. Henry Shane Coffin 
 
 Edinburgh, 1st October 1908. 
 I feel constrained to celebrate the inaugura- 
 tion of the penny post by writing to you. Of 
 course I should have done so long ago, but after 
 you left, a good deal of light and life went out 
 of my existence, and I have been having an 
 extra poor time lately. Whether to accentuate 
 the joy of the two days you gave us — and 
 there was little need to accentuate it, for its 
 intrinsic value was quite apparent — at any rate 
 the weather broke, and until this week we have 
 had nothing but storm and rain and fog. But 
 your two days shine through it all, vital and 
 unforgettable. Many thanks for the book you 
 sent me, but uncountable thanks for your visit. 
 I don't get out so much now, as my cough is 
 worse, and the doctors are going to try some 
 new thing as a last resort. If it fails, I fear 
 I must be content gradually to fade away. 
 , Funnily enough I do not remember to have ever 
 j been so irreligious, so little inclined to pray, 
 so cold on the spiritual side, so content to let 
 things slide. I wonder if that is a common 
 experience in sickness. I can't quite under- 
 stand it.
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 301 
 
 Nurse and I very often recall your visit, and 
 if you heard her praises of Mrs. Coffin,. I am 
 sure you would think Nurse a charming person. 
 But all the friends here and in Newtonmore 
 feel equally indebted to you for bringing among 
 us not only yourself — a boon with which we 
 used to be wholly satisfied — but also so gracious 
 and lovable a personality as your wife. Please 
 give her my very affectionate remembrances, 
 and assure yourself once again of the sincere 
 and grateful affection of . . . 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll 
 
 Edinburgh, [October 1908]. 
 
 Just a line from bed to say I have finished 
 Ian Maclaren, not only with admiration but 
 with a profound impression of his goodness. 
 No book I ever read has made me so ashamed 
 of my own ministry. The book cannot fail 
 to do much good, especially among ministers. 
 
 To his daughter-in-law^ Mrs. F. P. Dods 
 Edinburgh, 1th February 1909. 
 
 Your vivid and entertaining picture of your 
 domestic life has made me feel as if I had lived
 
 302 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 
 
 in your house for a week, and I am sure the fit 
 of indigestion I had last week was the result of 
 your description of the ' sinkers.' One who 
 has such a gift for letter-writing as you have 
 should not let it lie idle, and I expect to have 
 many more equally welcome accounts of what 
 you two are up to. For myself, I am too weak 
 to write. I have been in bed for five months 
 now, but the doctors seem to be still hopeful 
 of my recovery. 
 
 I am not forgetting Frank's birthday, but I 
 have nothing to send him but best wishes for 
 his future years. It 's a great comfort to know 
 that he has you to go home to after his work. 
 
 To the Rev. Dr. W. Robertson Nicoll 
 
 Edinburgh, 1th March 1909. 
 
 I have to thank you very warmly for speaking 
 to Hodder & Stoughton, who have sent me a 
 very liberal cheque. 
 
 On looking back over the last twenty-five 
 years I see how very much I am indebted to 
 you for giving me opportunities and encourage- 
 ment without which I should have addressed 
 a very much smaller audience. Believe me that
 
 LATER LETTERS OF MARCUS DODS 303 
 
 I am grateful, and that though I can write no 
 more for you, my connection with you has been 
 a very large part of my life. 
 
 I thank you very much for the bundle of 
 books you sent me. 
 
 Printed by T. and A. Constablk, Printeri to His Majesty 
 at the Edinburgh University Pres^
 
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 Los Angeles 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
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 1911