Thomas Leishman, Min. of Linton

The Book of Common Order of the Church of Scotland : commonly known as John Knox's liturgy, and the Directory for the public worship of God, agreed upon by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster / with historical introductions & illustrative notes by the Rev. George W. Sprott and Rev. Thomas Leishman

by Church of Scotland

Edinburgh : W. Blackwood, 1868

Description: lxvii, 368 p.

From the Dictionary of National Biography

LEISHMAN Thomas (1825 – 1904)

Scottish Divine and Liturgiologist born at his father’s manse on the 7th May 1825 was the eldest son in a family of thirteen children of Matthew Leishman D. D., Minister of Govan who was leader of the middle party in the secession controversy of 1834 and whose portrait was painted by John Graham-Gilbert [q. V.].

His mother was Jane Elizabeth Boog. A brother William was professor of midwifery in the University of Glasgow from 1868 to 1894. Ancestors on both sides led distinguished clerical careers and family tradition claims collateral connections with Principal William Leishman of the University of Glasgow. After education at Govan, Thomas passed to Glasgow High School and Glasgow University, where graduating M. A, in 1843, he distinguished himself in classics and acquired a love of books and sense of style. After the usual course at the Divinity Hall he was licensed as a probationer by the presbytery of Glasgow on February 7th 1847, and became assistant at Greenock. From 1852 to 1855 he served the Parish of Collace, near Perth, and from 1855 till 1895 that of Linton, Teviotdale in the presbytery of Kelso. Leishman, while effectively ministering to a rural district soon became a leader in presbytery and synod. With a view to reviving old order of public worship which had deteriorated (he thought) through borrowings from English dissent, he was the first to join the Church Service Society (formed in 1865) and in 1866 he became a member of its editorial committee where he worked hard in collaboration with George Washington Sprott [q. V. Suppl. II]. In 1868 Sprott and Leishman published an annotated edition of ‘The Book of Common Order’, commonly called Knox’s liturgy, and ‘The Directory of the Public Worship of God agreed upon by the Assembly of the Divines of Westminster’, which became a standard authority.

He proceeded D. D. From Glasgow University with a thesis on ‘A Critical Account on the Various Theories on the Sacrament of Baptism (Edinburgh 1871). In 1875 he published a plea for the observance by the Church of Scotland of the five Great Christian Festivals entitled “May the Kirk keep Pasche and Yule?” ‘And why not?’ he answered in the words of Knox ‘where superstition is removed’. Owing to broken health the winter of 1876-7 was spent in Spain and Egypt, and Leishman added to earlier studies in the continental reformed liturgies and investigation of the Mozarabic and Coptic service books. A warm defender of the validity of the Presbyterian ordination he joined Sprott and others in a formal protest against the admission by the general assembly of 1882 of two Congregational ministers to the status of ordained ministers. The president of 1882 was not acted on again.

In 1892 Leishman helped William Milligan (q. V. Suppl I) to found the Scottish Church Society in the interest of the catholic doctrine as set forth in the ancient creeds and embodied in the standards of the Church of Scotland. He took an active part in the work of this Society, contributing papers to its conferences and three times ( 1895-6, 1902-3, 1905,06) acting as its president. To a work in four volumes, ‘The Church in Scotland Past and Present’ edited by Robert Herbert and primarily intended as a contribution to Church defence (1891), he contributed a valuable section on ‘The Ritual of the Church of Scotland’. Leishman defined his ecclesiastical position in ‘The Moulding of the Scottish Reformation’ (Lee Lecture for 1897).

Other References

• Fasti ecclesiae scoticanae: the succession of ministers in the Church of Scotland from the reformation, Vol. II, page 77
• Wikipedia contributors. "Thomas Leishman." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.