Caird, JOHN

Caird, JOHN, a great Scottish preacher, was born at Greenock in 1820. He studied at the university of Glasgow, and held in succession pastoral charges at Newton-pon-Ayr (1845), Lady Yester's parish, Edinburgh (1847), Errol, in Perthshire (1849), and Park Church, Glasgow (1857). A sermon preached before the Queen at Crathie in 1855, and published under the title of The Religion of Common Life, quickly carried the fame of the author into all parts of the Protestant world. Dean Stanley said it was the greatest single sermon of the century. In 1858 Caird published a volume of sermons, marked by beauty of language, strong thought, and intense sympathy with the spiritual aspirations of mankind. He received the degree of D.D. in 1860, was appointed professor of Divinity in 1862, and in 1873 Principal of Glasgow University. In 1880 he published a (Neo-Hegelian) Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion, and in 1888 a small work on Spinoza. He died 30th July 1898.—His brother, EDWARD, born 22d March 1835, from Glasgow passed as a Snell exhibitioner to Balliol College, Oxford, and became in 1864 fellow and tutor at Merton. In 1866 he was appointed professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University, where he exercised a quite unusual personal influence over his students; and in 1893 he was made LL.D. and elected Master of Balliol. Among his works are a Critical Account of the Philosophy of Kant (1877), an excellent little book on Hegel, an examination of The Social Philosophy and Religion of Comte (1885), and the St Andrews Gifford Lectures on The Evolution of Religion (1893). He contributed the article HEGEL to this work.