292 Proceedings of the Itoyal Society 
for two years, Mr Bamsay was appointed incumbent and pastor 
of the interesting old chapel and genuine Scottish Episcopalian 
congregation of St Paul’s, Carru'bber’s Close, in the Old Town. 
The chapel was largely attended during his ministry, and the 
value of the living while he held it was L 400 per annum. 
In 1827 he was appointed assistant minister of St John’s, and, 
on the death of the late Bishop Sandford in 1 830, was elected 
to the incumbency of that charge, which he continued to hold 
until his long and honoured life reached its close on the 27th 
December 1872. The more strictly professional details and charac- 
teristics of Mr Bamsay’s career are not subjects of comment or 
notice in this place. It will suffice to mention that in the faithful 
and assiduous discharge of his duties he secured to himself appre- 
ciation, confidence, and esteem, which, as years rolled on and in 
proportion as he became better known, grew and ripened into 
genuine and universal regard and love. 
In 1838 he proposed and carried through the General Synod of 
the Scottish Episcopal Church a canon for establishing a society, 
the main object of which was to supplement the very inadequate 
stipends of the clergy, to provide teachers for the poor, and gene- 
rally to improve the financial condition of the Communion to which 
he belonged. He was specially useful as a catechist among the 
young of his flock, and compiled a manual of catechetical instruction 
for their use, which has passed through more than twelve editions. 
He published a volume of Advent Sermons, also pastoral letters 
addressed to his congregation on various subjects, occasional ser- 
mons and pamphlets on matters connected with his own com- 
munion, and a series of Lectures on Diversities of Character, and 
another series on Faults in Christian Believers, which were subse- 
quently combined and expanded into a Treatise on the Christian 
Life. In 1841 Mr Bamsay was appointed by Bishop Terrot, on 
his own elevation to the Episcopate, Dean of the Diocese of Edin- 
burgh. In 1845 he was offered by Sir Bobert Peel, on behalf of 
the Crown, the Bishopric of New Brunswick in Nova Scotia, and in 
1848, and again in 1862, he was elected by the clergy of two Scot- 
tish dioceses to be their Bishop. But he saw fit to decline on each 
of these occasions the offer of a mitre, much to the satisfaction 
of his own congregation, who viewed with little favour these 
