22 President's Address. 



neglect the fine arts, for he took great delight in music 

 and, when other engagements permitted, he devoted con- 

 siderable attention to it. He had a particularly fine and 

 accurate ear, and was able to note down from memory any 

 piece which struck him, on having merely once heard it 

 played. 



As a man of business he was prompt in action, but also 

 most kindly and generous. He was a very liberal landlord, 

 who made the interests of the tenants his own, and was 

 always most unwilling to part with them. When the 

 rights of the people were acknowledged by the abolition 

 of Patronage a few years ago Mr Forbes asked for no com- 

 pensation from the parishioners. He took a deep interest 

 in education and was the chief agent in securing its highly 

 satisfactory condition in that district, and he most gene- 

 rously presented to the School Board the handsome building 

 which he had erected at his own expense. But did I 

 make no allusion to his religious character I should be 

 ignoring the very foundation on which all his excellences 

 rested, and the source from which those most estimable 

 features of his daily life sprang. The gentleness, amiability, 

 shrinking modesty, and warm-hearted philanthropy were 

 no signs of weakness in the case of Mr Forbes, but were 

 conjoined with a firm grasp and unflinching maintenance 

 of the truth of God ; and, while many in our day regard 

 the attitude of doubting as the one befitting the student of 

 nature and of God's Word, to the well-regulated mind of 

 Arthur Forbes such an attitude indicated only weakness 

 and imperfect enlightenment, while he himself rose far 

 above those pestilential swamps, and soared in the clear, 

 bright, and healthy region into which a living and assured 

 faith in God's Word had introduced him. I conclude this 

 sketch in the language of the friend above referred to : 

 " It may truly be said of him that in all relations of life 

 he was loved and esteemed, and few have been more 

 sincerely mourned. He died suddenly at Aldershot on the 

 16th of March of this year, trusting alone in that Saviour 

 whom he had all his life long loved and sought to serve." 



Alexander James A die was the son of the late Mr 

 Adie of Edinburgh, a well-known optician, and was born 



