While there were some things about the Order that did not appeal to him, such as the ritual, the “regalia,” and the various grades of membership and of office, with their mysterious initials, he looked upon these things as non-essentials, and was in hearty sympathy with its general principles and work.  But, although he was often urged to do so, he never would accept office nor advance beyond the initiatory stage of membership represented by the simple white “bib” of infancy.  On coming to Edinburgh, he looked about for a Lodge to connect himself with, and ultimately chose one of the smallest and most obscure in the city.  The members consisted chiefly of men and women who had to work so late that the hour of meeting could not be fixed earlier than 9 p.m.  He was present at these meetings as often as he could, and only lamented that he could not attend more frequently.

While fully recognising the right of others to come to a different conclusion from his own, and while uniformly basing his total abstinence on the ground of Christian expediency and not on that of absolute Divine law, his view of it as a Christian duty grew clearer every year.  And he carried his principles out rigidly wherever he went.  He perplexed German waiters by his elaborate explanations as to why he drank no beer; and once, as he came down the Rhine, he had a characteristically sanguine vision of the time when the vineyards on its banks would only be used for the production of raisins.  At the same time his interest in Temperance work, alike in its religious, social, and political aspects, was always becoming keener.  He was frequently to be found on Temperance platforms, and was in constant request for the preaching of Temperance sermons.  Some of his speeches and sermons on the question have been reprinted and widely read, and one New Year’s tract which he wrote has had a circulation of one hundred and eighty thousand.

The other question in which he took a special interest was that of Disestablishment.  To those who adopted the “short and easy method” of accounting for the Disestablishment movement in Scotland by saying that it was all due to jealousy and spite on the part of its promoters, his adhesion to that movement presented a serious difficulty.  For no one could accuse him of jealousy or spite.  Hence it was a favourite expedient to represent him as the tool of more designing men—­as one whose simplicity had been imposed upon, and who had been thrust forward against his better judgment to do work in which he had no heart.  This theory is not only entirely groundless, but entirely unnecessary; because the action which he took on this question can readily be explained by a reference to convictions he had held all his life, and to circumstances which seemed to him to call for their assertion.