Candlish

Candlish, ROBERT SMITH, a great Scottish ecclesiastic, was born in Edinburgh in 1806, but was brought up and educated at Glasgow. Entering the university at twelve, he graduated five years later, and after the usual studies in divinity, and living two years at Eton as private tutor to a Scotch pupil there, was licensed as a preacher in 1828. In 1834 he became minister of St George's, Edinburgh, and at once became famous for the fervid eloquence and intellectual force of his sermons. Ere long also he plunged into the thick of the fight then raging within the church, and became one of the boldest and most vigorous leaders of the popular or 'non-intrusion' party. After the Disruption he co-operated with Dr Chalmers in organising, consolidating, and extending the newly-formed Free Church of Scotland, and from the time of Chalmers's death down to his own, was its virtual leader. In 1847 he was chosen to succeed Chalmers in the chair of Divinity in the New College, Edinburgh, but did not assume the functions of this office. He was Moderator of the Assembly in 1861, was made in 1862 Principal of the New College, and in 1865 D.D. by Edinburgh University. Candlish took a foremost part in all the questions discussed within the first thirty years of the life of the Free Church, but his name was most permanently associated with public education, and the movement for union with the other dissenting Presbyterian bodies. He died at Edinburgh, October 19, 1873. Candlish's works were Contributions towards the Exposition of the Book of Genesis (1842); The Atonement, its Reality and Extent (1845); An Examination of Mr Maurice's Theological Essays (1854); The Fatherhood of God (1865); and an Exposition of the First Epistle of St John (1874). See his Life by Dr W. Wilson (1880).