His influence prevailed, and the second alternative was adopted.  A “Declaratory Statement” was drawn up of the sense in which, while retaining the Standards, the Church understood them.  This Statement dealt with the points above referred to in a way that would, it was thought, give sufficient relief to consciences that had shrunk from the naked rigour of the words of the Confession, It also contained a paragraph which secured liberty of opinion on matters “not entering into the substance of the faith,” the right of the Church to guard against abuse of this liberty being expressly reserved.  Dr. Cairns submitted this “Declaratory Statement” to the Synods of 1878 and 1879, in speeches of notable power and wealth of historic illustration, and, in the latter year, it was unanimously adopted and became a “Declaratory Act.”  The precedent thus set has been followed by nearly all the Presbyterian Churches which have since then had occasion to deal with the same problem.

Except when he had to expound and recommend some scheme for which he had become responsible, or when he had been laid hold of by others to speak in behalf of a “Report” or a proposal in which they were interested, Dr. Cairns did not intervene often in the debates of the United Presbyterian Synod.  He preferred, to the disappointment of many of his friends, to listen rather than to speak, and shrank from putting himself in any way forward.  He had been Moderator of the Synod in 1872, and as an ex-Moderator he had the privilege, accorded by custom, of sitting on the platform of the Synod Hall on the benches to the right and left of the chair.  But he never seemed comfortable up there.  He would sit with his hands pressed together, and in a stooping posture, as if he wanted to make his big body as small and inconspicuous as possible; and, as often as he could, he would go down and take his place among the rank and file of the members far back in the hall.  But he had all a true United Presbyterian’s loyal affection for the Synod, and a peculiar delight in those reunions of old friends which its meetings afforded.  Amongst his oldest friends was William Graham, who although, since the English Union, no longer a United Presbyterian, simply could not keep away from the haunts of his youth when the month of May came round.  On such occasions he was always Dr. Cairns’s guest at Spence Street.  He kept things lively there with his nimble wit, and in particular subjected his host to a perpetual and merciless fire of “chaff.”  No one else ventured to assail him as Graham thus did; for, with all his geniality and unaffected humility, there was a certain personal dignity about him which few ventured to invade.  But he took all his friend’s banter with a smile of quiet enjoyment, and sometimes a more than usually outrageous sally would send him into convulsions of laughter, whose resounding peals filled the house with their echoes.