For the standard of Christian life was to be strained to a higher pitch; more fasting was required, and more careful separation from the manners and enjoyments of the world; celibacy and martyrdom had great value set upon them, and second marriages were prohibited.

After the strain of the fight with the so-called "Wee Frees" in 1904-5 his health broke down and he went to Australia for recovery but died at Melbourne on 22 December 1906. To this day the dining Hall in New College is called the Rainy Hall. He had come to the front as a champion of the liberal party in the Union controversy within the Free Church and in combating Dean Stanley's Broad Church views in the interests of Scotch evangelicism; and about 1875 he became the undisputed leader of the Free Church.

Robert Rainy (1 January 1826 – 22 December 1906) was a Scottish Presbyterian divine; his father Dr Harry Rainy Professor of Forensic Medicine in the University of Glasgow was the son of a Sutherland minister.