REV.
THOMAS M. LINDSAYPRINCIPAL LINDSAY was born in 1843. His father, the Rev. Alexander Lindsay, was a minister of the Relief Church, but joined the Free Church shortly after the Disruption.
Principal Lindsay was educated at the University of Edinburgh. There he specially distinguished himself in Philosophy, gaining the highest honours in his classes, and afterwards winning both the Ferguson Scholarship and the Shaw Fellowship, open to graduates of all Scottish Universities. He was assistant to the Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, and later on Examiner in Philosophy to the University. In connection with his Shaw Fellowship he delivered to the University a series of lectures on "William of Occam."
After passing through the Theological course at the New College, Edinburgh, he was appointed to conduct the classes in the Glasgow Free Church, vacant by the death of Professor Gibson. In 1872 he was appointed Professor of Church History and Christian Ethics, and taught these subjects till 1900. Since then he has taught Church History alone.
Apart from his professional work Dr. Lindsay was for fifteen years Convener of the Foreign Missions Committee of the Free Church of Scotland, and in this connection spent twelve months in India visiting the various mission stations of his own and other churches. He also visited Greece, Asia Minor, and Lebanon. He has always been a strenuous advocate of reform in almost all spheres of human activity, and has done much work in connection with the education of girls and women, with the movement which led to the Crofters' Act, with defence of the right of historical criticism, and with many other political and social questions.
In 1902 Dr. Lindsay was appointed Principal of the Glasgow United Free Church College. His writings include a "Translation of Ueberweg's Logic," with original appendices; hand-books on the "Reformation," "Mark," "Luke," and the "Acts of the Apostles," in the series edited by Drs. Dods and Whyte; a "Life of Luther" in Smeaton's series of "Epoch Makers;" the Cunningham Lectures on "The Church and the Ministry in the Early Centuries;" contributions to the Cambridge Modern History, and a "History of the Reformation" in two volumes. Principal Lindsay was also a contributor to the ninth edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," and many articles from his pen have appeared from time to time in the greater magazines, such as the British Quarterly, the Contemporary, and the Scottish Historical Review. At the Buchanan Quater-Centenary Celebrations in Glasgow University, in 1906, Dr. Lindsay delivered the "Oration" which has been published in the Buchanan Memorial Volume issued in the same connection. He has also undertaken the editorship of a new Church History.
In 1872 Principal Lindsay married Anna, daughter of Mr. Murray Dunlop of Corsock, formerly M.P. for Greenock. She died in 1903.