At the outset, something must be allowed for the special character of the influence exerted on Cairns by Sir William Hamilton.  That influence was profound and far-reaching.  In the letter to Hamilton which was quoted at the end of the preceding chapter, Cairns tells his master that he must “bear, by the will of the Almighty, the impress of his hand through any further stage of existence,” and, strong as the expression is, it can scarcely be said to be an exaggeration.  But Hamilton’s influence, while it called out and stimulated his pupil’s powers to a remarkable degree, was not one which made for literary productiveness.  He was a great upholder of the doctrine that truth is to be sought for its own sake and without reference to any ulterior end, and he had strong ideas about the discredit—­the shamefulness, as it seemed to him—­of speaking or writing on any subject until it had been mastered down to its last detail.  This attitude prevented Hamilton himself from doing full justice to his powers and learning, and its influence could be seen in Cairns also—­in his delight in studies the relevancy of which was not always apparent, and in a certain fastidiousness which often delayed, and sometimes even prevented, his putting pen to paper.

But another and a much more important factor in the problem is to be found in the old Seceder ideal of the ministry in which he was trained and which he never lost.  It has been truly said of him that “he never all his life got away from David Inglis and Stockbridge any more than Carlyle got away from John Johnston and Ecclefechan.”  According to the Seceder view, there is no more sublime calling on earth than that of the Christian ministry, and that calling is one which concerns itself first and chiefly with the conversion of sinners and the edifying of saints.  This work is so awful in its importance, and so beneficent in its results, that it must take the chief place in a minister’s thoughts and in the disposition of his time; and if it requires the sole place, that too must be accorded to it.  “To me,” wrote Cairns to George Gilfillan in 1849, “love seems infinitely higher than knowledge and the noblest distinction of humanity—­the humble minister who wears himself out in labours of Christian love in an obscure retreat as a more exalted person than the mere literary champion of Christianity, or the recondite professor who is great at Fathers and Schoolmen.  I really cannot share those longings for intellectual giants to confront the Goliath of scepticism—­not that I do not think such persons useful in their way, but because I think Christianity far more impressive as a life than as a speculation, and the West Port evangelism of Dr. Chalmers far more effective than his Astronomical Discourses."[11]

[Footnote 11:  Life and Letters, p. 307.]

It was to the ministry, as thus understood, that Cairns had devoted himself at the close of his University course and again just before he took license as a probationer, when for a short time, as we have seen, he had been drawn aside by the attractions of “sacred literature.”  He never thought of becoming a minister and was putting his main strength into philosophy and theology.  Not that he now forswore all interest in either, but from the moment of his final decision, he had determined that the mid-current of his life should run in a different direction.