1. Rev. John M. Sutherland, North Taieri.

In reply to your note saying that you purposed being a candidate for the vacant Chair of Mental and Moral Philosophy—Otago University, I know that I render myself liable to the charge of presumption when I speak of your eminent fitness for the position. I first made acquaintance with your remarkable teaching gifts when I joined the New College, Edinburgh, shortly after your appointment to the Professorship by the General Assembly. Reviewing generally one's old impressions of the character of your work, and looking at it in the light of an extensive experience in teaching, I cannot but see on every hand your distinguished ability in organising, in managing, in teaching, and in exciting interest and enthusiasm among the students in their work per se.

Your manner and bearing were such as secured the esteem and affection of your students. You were ever courteous and easy of access, and your deep and kindly sympathy with the feelings and aspirations of the students awakened in them a thrill of filial regard. Your elegant scholarship and varied page 5 erudition lent a charm to the high themes which wore the subjects of your prelections, while your examinations, oral and written, both on the lectures and text-books, testified to the thorough character of the work done in the class of Systematic Theology.

There are many who like myself are under special obligations for the warm encouragement and judicious advice given by you during our student career. While at Home lately I met" not a few who notably came under your influence and were imbued by your spirit and are continuing the high tradition of the lofty teaching of their Master in Theology. I bear thus very imperfectly the tribute of a friend and pupil to your keen interest in and devotion to education both on its practical and professional side.

2. Rev. Alex. M. Fixlayson, Blueskin.

Understanding that the Rev. Dr. Macgregor, of Oamaru, is a candidate for the Professorship of Mental and Moral Science in the University of Otago, I take the liberty of expressing my utmost confidence that Dr. Macgreger is eminently well qualified to occupy that important position, and that his appointment would prove a great advantage to the cause of higher education in the colony. Dr. Macgregor possesses most extensive information, of which his published writings on various subjects afford ample evidence. He is also a man of wide and varied experience which could he turned to good account in a University Chair. A characteristic excellence of Dr. Macgregor's mind is that of dear and sharp discrimination, with corresponding accuracy of expression, a quality which is of the highest value in the discussion of those psychological and metaphysical questions which lie at the basis of Mental and Moral Science. Having been a student of Theology under Dr. Macgregor, I can testify to the great benefit I derived from his instructions, particularly in respect to the habit of discrimination, and the stimulus to accurate thought and study, which his method of teaching were fitted to create and foster.

I trust the Board of Property, with whom the appointment rests, will take the high qualifications of Dr. Macgregor into their most favourable consideration, together with the circum- page 6 stance that there is one among us, and known to us, who is at least as well qualified to occupy this Chair as any one likely to be obtained by a Commission in Great Britain.

3. Rev. R. R. M. Sutherland, Kaikorai.

As one who sat at your feet during two sessions in the Free Church College, Edinburgh, I have great pleasure in bearing testimony to the very remarkable power you exercise over the minds of your students, leading them up to the high things, down to the deep things, and far afield among the great things of Theological truth and speculation. I have no hesitation in saying that none of my teachers either in the University or in the New College showed your power for making crooked things straight, difficult things easy, and dark things luminous. This I know was also the opinion of many of my fellow students.