Review,' January 1872, "Our Scottish Reformation: Its Distinctive Characteristics and Present-Day Lessons," pp. 87-128; October 1875, "Dr Merle D'Aubigné on the Reformation in Scotland," pp. 736-760; October 1876, "Killen's Ecclesiastical History of Ireland," pp. 713-741: in the 'Catholic Presbyterian,' March 1879, "Calvin and the Psalmody of the Reformed Churches": in the 'Scottish Church,' November 1886, "St Andrews in Covenanting Times": in the 'Year-Book of the Church of Scotland,' 1886, "Brief Sketch of the History of the Reformed Church of Scotland": in 'St Giles' Lectures,' First Series, 1880-81, "Pre-Reformation Scotland"; and in Fourth Series, 1883-84, "The Primitive or Apostolic and Sub-Apostolic Church," being the first of the lectures entitled, "The Churches of Christendom." To Dr Schaff's Encyclopædia he contributed separate articles on "St Columba," "The Culdees," "Patrick Hamilton," "Iona," and "The Keltic Church"; and to the 'Presbyterian and Reformed Review,' published at Philadelphia, he contributed a review of Dr Hume Brown's 'John Knox.' Besides many Reports on various matters presented to the General Assembly, he issued for special purposes a "Statement regarding the Eldership," and a "List of Acts of the Scottish Parliament, and of Acts, Overtures, and Resolutions of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, adopted at various times for the Acknowledgment of the True Reformed Protestant Religion, the Maintenance of Sound Doctrine, and the Subscription of the Confessions of Faith of 1560 and 1647." When at Geneva, on one of his visits to the Continent, he prepared for private circulation,[Pg xxviii] from the original, which is still preserved among the historical treasures in the Hotel de Ville, "Livre Des Anglois, or Register of the English Church at Geneva under the pastoral care of Knox and Goodman, 1555-1559," with a Prefatory Notice and a Facsimile of pp. 49, 50. To this list of his minor works may be added a sermon on "The Unsearchable Riches of Christ," published in 1879.

The Professor accorded a generous and helpful sympathy to those who were workers in the field in which he laboured himself with so great assiduity and success; and he was not only a member both of the Scottish History Society and of the Scottish Text Society, but took an active interest in their affairs. He was also one of the representatives of the Church of Scotland in the General Presbyterian Alliance from the date of its formation, and took part in the business of all its General Councils, at the first of which, held at Edinburgh in 1877, he laid on the table a paper which he had drawn up on "The Harmony between the Bibliology of the Westminster Confession and that of the earlier Reformed Confessions, exhibited in parallel columns." He was appointed Convener of the Committee on the Desiderata of the History of the Presbyterian Churches; and at the following General Council, held at Philadelphia in 1880, it fell to him, in consequence of the death of Principal Lorimer, who was Convener of the British section of the Committee on Creeds and Formulas of Subscription, to give in the report containing "Answers to Queries regarding Creeds and Confessions." The Answers as regards the Church of Scotland, which had been prepared by himself, are to be found in the Report of the Proceedings of the Council, pp. 969-984. When in America he also delivered a course of lectures at Alleghany. His connection with the Alliance brought him into close contact with some of the leading Presbyterian divines of Britain and America, with whom his opinions on the history of the doctrine, worship, and government of the Church carried great weight; and Dr Schaff has acknowledged his obligations to him, among others, in his well-known work entitled 'The Creeds of Christendom.'

In 1885 the Church showed her appreciation of the Professor's character and work by electing him to the Moderatorship of the General Assembly, an office which he filled with a union of dignity and authority which reflected honour upon the Church. If there are parties in the Church of Scotland, he never identified himself with any of them, and had learned to call no man master but Christ. He knew his own mind, and could give forcible expression to his convictions when occasion required. Naturally of an unassuming disposition and unobtrusive manners, he never courted popularity nor sought to thrust his opinions upon others; and it was for this reason, perhaps, that he was deferred to even by those whose views were in some respects widely divergent from his. It was doubtless for this reason also, as well as for others, that he wielded so great an influence in the counsels of the Church, and probably few men had more to do than he with the shaping of her policy in recent years. In paying a tribute to his memory at a meeting of the Presbytery of Edinburgh a few days after his decease, the Very Rev. Dr Scott of St George's said that "by Professor Mitchell's death the Church had lost a laborious, faithful, successful, and honoured minister and professor, and perhaps one of the soundest and wisest counsellors that the Church ever had. He was a man who had friends in all the Churches. He knew how powerfully his influence had told in the Church—always for conciliation, not only so far as those without their own Church were concerned, but those within the Church also. Had it not been for Dr Mitchell's influence the relaxation of the formula regarding the subscription of elders would never have been carried through."

A man of a very catholic spirit, and a lover of peace and concord, the Professor, like many others who longed for a comprehensive union of the Scottish Churches, would willingly have made all reasonable concessions for the attainment of so desirable an object. But he was too loyal a son of the Church of Scotland to consent to any unworthy compromise, and in the hour of danger no one was more ready than he to exert all the influence at his command in her defence. Readers of Dr Boyd's 'Twenty-five Years of St Andrews' may remember the account there given of the impression made by the Professor's sermon in the Town Church in the height of the contest in 1885, when the question of Disestablishment was brought so prominently before the electors of the St Andrews Burghs. Dr Boyd says: "It had been intimated at the services during the day that Dr Mitchell, our Professor of Church History, would lecture in the parish church in the evening on 'Some aspects of the Church Question deserving of consideration in the present crisis.' Dr Mitchell was that year Moderator of the Kirk: and he very seldom preaches. The church was filled by a great congregation. I should not in the least degree have been surprised to hear Dr Mitchell preach wisely and devoutly: that is his usual way. But it did surprise me to find that man of calm and well-balanced mind fire up into a pathos and vehemence which I have rarely seen equalled and never surpassed. The question of disestablishment had been raised: and one was made to realise how it stirs the blood of good men here. And not merely were there this evening a fire, a keenness, a power of stirring a multitude to the depth of their nature, which are rare indeed, but an incisive severity of denunciation which few had expected from that calm, cautious man. And if the preacher was at white-heat, so was the congregation long before he was done. Several times there would have been loud applause, had it not been hushed."

The attitude which the Professor maintained in regard to the doctrine and worship of the Church was a strictly conservative one, and may be best described in his own words, taken from an article included in the list of his minor works. In that article,