The Established Church of Scotland, and indeed Scotland her- self,
ha saffered a severe loss in the death of Dr. Service, the author of the volume of sermons on "Salvation Here and Hereafter," which was noticed in these columns some years ago. Dr. Service belonged to that undogmatic school of theology which is in danger of losing some of the exact significance of Christ's teach- ing, in the ardour of its zeal to lose nothing of its breadth ; but his life, both in Scotland and in Australia, and most of all in its closing years at Inch, and at Hyndland in Glasgow, was -the life of a true Christian, and of a true Christian endowed with that distinctness of intellectual grasp and that keen and genial humour which gain for religion wide-spread love and re- spect, instead of merely conventional homage. He was the author of a story of some power, which contained a good deal of his Australian experience, and which appeared in Good Words under the title of " Novantia," having been afterwards repub- lished as "Lady Hetty." His intimate friends speak of -" rambles made vivid by flashes of pathos and.wit that never failed and will never fade." His was a humour, says another friend, "which, springing from a keen sense of the littleness of things great, and the greatness of things little in human life," was as much in place in his sermons as in his conversa- tion, and added to their impressiveness, instead of appearing inappropriate to the pulpit. He died at the comparatively early age of fifty-one.
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