Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/189

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Milligan
175
Mills

thanked him for it. Although in his earlier days his humanitarian feelings, and his enthusiasm for liberty and progress, had allied him with those who were then called broad churchmen, Milligan did not have at any period of his career the slightest sympathy with the disregard for doctrine which has sometimes marked the members of that school. Ultimately he ranged himself with high churchmen, being, he declared, impelled to join them by increased study of the New Testament. His doctrine of the church he gathered for himself from the Epistle to the Ephesians, on which he had contributed an important article to the ninth edition of the 'Encyclopædia Britannica.' His views on the importance of dogma and on the sacraments he learned, as he believed, from St. John, of whose writings he was a lifelong student and diligent expositor. This development of his opinions in no way limited his width of sympathy, nor did it interfere with the friendly intercourse, ecclesiastical as well as social, that he had been wont to hold with nonconformists with Wesleyans like Dr. W. F. Moulton [q. v. Suppl.], or with independents like Principal Fairbairn. He had been a member for years of the Church Service Society. In 1892, when the Scottish Church Society was constituted 'to defend and advance catholic doctrine as set forth in the ancient creeds, and embodied in the standards of the church of Scotland, &c.,' he took an important part in its formation, and accepted office as its first president. The last letter he wrote from his death-bed was to the first conference of this society, then being held in Glasgow. A few days previously he had said that the greatest need of the church of Scotland was the restoration of a weekly celebration of the eucharist.

Milligan was keenly interested in social and especially in educational questions. In 1888 he went to Germany to inquire about technical education and continuation schools in that country; and the next year he visited Sweden to see the working of the Gottenburg licensing system. In Aberdeen he was an active philanthropist; and all over Scotland his services as a preacher were in much request.

When on the eve of retiring from his chair at Aberdeen owing mainly to failing eyesight, Milligan was suddenly seized with illness which soon proved fatal. He died at Edinburgh on 11 Dec. 1893. His wife, by whom he left issue, survived him. He left unfinished a work on the Epistle to the Hebrews, and forbade the publication of the parts he had written; some of his notes, however, have been used in a work on the same subject, since published by his eldest son, the Rev. George Milligan.

There is a portrait of Milligan by Sir George Reid, P.R.S.A., at King's College, Old Aberdeen (one of the artist's happiest likenesses). In 1898 an altar-table, bearing an inscription from the pen of his friend and colleague, Principal Sir William Geddes [q. v. Suppl.], was erected to his memory in the College Chapel, Old Aberdeen.

Milligan's literary productiveness began in 1855, when he contributed the first of a series of papers to Kitto's 'Journal of Sacred Literature.' In 1857 he addressed a 'Letter to the Duke of Argyll on the Education Question.' 'The Decalogue and the Lord's Day' (1866) was evoked by the controversy stirred in Scotland by a speech of Dr. Norman MacLeod's (1812-1872) [q. v.], as his 'Words of the New Testament' (1873)—written in conjunction with Dr. Roberts—belonged to the literature of New Testament revision. In 1878 appeared a volume on the 'Higher Education of Women;' and the next year he contributed to the 'Encyclopædia Britannica' his important article on the 'Epistle to the Ephesians.' 'The Resurrection of our Lord' and his 'Commentary on St. John' (in conjunction with Dr. Moulton) (1882), his 'Commentary on the Revelation' (1883), his 'Discussions on the Apocalypse' (1883), his 'Baird Lectures on the Revelation of St. John' (1886), 'Elijah' (1887), 'The Resurrection of the Dead' (1890), 'The Ascension and Heavenly Priesthood of our Lord,' and his presidential address on the 'Aims of the Scottish Church Society' (1892), were all productions of his ripened powers. Besides these he contributed many articles to periodicals. His last article was a notice 'In Memoriam' of Dr. Hort, which appeared in the 'Expository Times' (1893).

[In Memoriam, a memoir drawn up for his family by his Wife, Aberdeen, 1894; Auroræ Boreales, Aberdeen, 1899; private information; personal recollections.]

J. C.

MILLS, Sir CHARLES (1825–1895), first agent-general for the Cape Colony, was born in 1825 at Ischl, Hungary, and educated chiefly at Bonn. On 1 Feb. 1843 he enlisted as a private in the 98th regiment, and went to China, where he very soon attracted some notice, was made staff clerk in the adjutant-general's office, and excused ordinary duty. He seems to have readily mixed and become well known in the general society of the station, though nominally only 'Corporal Mills.' When his regiment was ordered to India in 1848, he was offered a clerkship in the consular service, but pre-