but without effect: it carries its character full in its face, and holds up a most important lesson to all clergymen, to beware of intermeddling in political intrigues of any kind.
In 1787 Mr Hill was honoured by the university with the title of D.D., and in 1788 was appointed to succeed Dr Spens as professor of divinity in St Mary's college. He had been the previous year appointed dean to the order of the thistle, a place that had been first created to gratify Dr Jardine for his services in support of Dr Robertson, but with no stated salary; the dean only claiming a perquisite of fifty guineas on the installation of every new knight. During Dr Hill's incumbency, no instalment took place, and he of course derived no pecuniary benefit from the situation. He had been little more than three years in the divinity chair, when the situation of principal became vacant by the death of Dr Gillespie, and it was by lord Melville bestowed on Dr Hill. This appointment in his letter of thanks he considered as peculiarly valuable, as being the best proof that lord Melville approved the mode in which he had discharged the duties of the divinity professorship. "I will not attempt, he continues, to express by words the gratitude which I feel; but it shall be the study of my life to persevere as a clergyman in that line of conduct upon which you have generously conferred repeated marks of your approbation." This was the termination of his university preferment ; but he was shortly afterwards nominated one of his majesty's chaplains for Scotland, with a salary annexed; and, on the death of his uncle Dr M'Cormick, he succeeded him as one of the deans of the chapel royal. The deanery of the thistle already noticed was unproductive; but the above two situations, while they added nothing to his labours, increased his income in a material degree. In his management of the General Assembly Dr Hill copied closely after Dr Robertson ; except that the entire satisfaction of himself and his party with the law of patronage as it then stood, was marked by withdrawing from the yearly instructions to the commission, the accustomed order to embrace every opportunity of having it removed, and by still bolder attempts to do away with the form of moderating calls for presentees and to induct them solely upon the footing of presentations. In his progress Dr Hill certainly encountered a more formidable opposition than Dr Robertson latterly had to contend with. In one case, and in one only, he was completely defeated. This was an overture from the presbytery of Jedburgh concerning the imposition of the Test upon members of the established church of Scotland, which it was contended was an infringement of the rights of Scotsmen, and a gross violation of the privileges and independence of the Scottish church. In opposition to the overture it was maintained by the moderates of the assembly that the Test Act was a fundamental article of the treaty of union; and Dr Hill, in particular, remarked that there were no complaints on the subject except from one single presbytery, nor was there any ground to complain; for, to a liberal and enlightened mind it could be no hardship to partake of the Lord's Supper according to the mode sanctioned by a church whose views of the nature and design of that ordinance were the same with his own. For once the popular party gained a triumph, and the accomplished and ingenious leader was left in a minority. A series of resolutions moved by Sir Henry Moncrieff were adopted, and by the unanimous voice of the assembly a committee was appointed to follow out the spirit and purpose of these resolutions. Care, however, was taken to render the committee of no avail, and nearly thirty years elapsed without any thing further being done. We cannot enlarge on Dr Hill's administration of the affairs of the church, and it is the less necessary that no particular change was effected under him. Matters generally went on as usual, and the influence of political men in biasing her decisions were, perhaps, fully
